CHAPTER V.
Rees Pennant reached Amos Goodhare’s lodgings just as the latter, having finished his tea, was about to start on his usual evening walk.
He saw the young man coming up the street, and waited on the threshold for him, noting, with hawk-like keenness, the signs of unusual and strong emotion in his ingenuous face.
“Come in, come in, my dear young friend,” he said with soothing deference, which poured balm into poor Rees’s wounded soul. “I am fortunate, indeed, to have delayed starting just long enough to see you.”
And he stood aside, inviting the young man to enter with a welcoming gesture.
Rees hurried in, threw himself on the little, hard, chintz-covered sofa in the cottage sitting-room, and tried to bury his face in the one brick-like cushion. Goodhare followed him into the room, and, without worrying him by persistent inquiries into the cause of his evident distress, stood beside the couch and placed a firm hand, the very touch of which seemed to the unhappy lad instinct with friendship and support, on the young fellow’s shoulder.
The room faced the east, and the light from the window was, moreover, obscured by a screen of long-legged geranium plants. When, therefore, Rees suddenly turned and looked up at the librarian, he did not notice the hungry impatience in the elder man’s eyes, like the expression of a vulture hovering over the body of a dying traveller. He saw only the tall figure bending over him, felt only the pressure of a long, lean hand on his, and believed that here at last was some one who understood him, who loved him, not with the blind, unreasoning love of his mother and Deborah, but with affection and admiration which were a just tribute to his own high qualities. Here he should find true sympathy, unmixed with blame.
“Something is troubling you, my dear boy, if you will allow me to call you so,” said Amos, at last, in a voice the very tones of which were consolation. “Tell me if you like, or be silent if you like. You can take your own time with—if I may presume to call myself so—an old friend like me.”
“Thanks, Goodhare, thanks a thousand times,” said Rees; and wringing the librarian’s hand with a strong, warm pressure, he sprang up, tossed back his curly hair, and held up a frank, young face, convulsed with a dozen emotions which he in vain tried to hide, to the shrewd gaze of the elder man.
“The fact is, you must know—or perhaps you do know—that I’ve been making an arrant fool of myself. I don’t know how it was that I didn’t see it before, but I see it now with a clearness that’s positively appalling.”
He sat down, and leaned forward on his elbows with clasped hands and an expression of utter hopelessness. Amos waited in respectful silence, and presently Rees continued—
“First of all, my poor father’s dead. He died of heart disease this afternoon, and that was the news that greeted me when I returned home this evening, after receiving the greatest blow to my feelings—to my vanity, if you like—that I’ve ever had to put up with.”
“Poor boy!” murmured Amos compassionately.
“Secondly, we are ‘broke,’ absolutely without the pounds, shillings, and pence necessary to pay for bread and butter, coals and candles, let alone such extras as rent and clothing. That’s pretty bad, isn’t it? But worse remains behind.” He was trying to recover his old bright manner, and to face his difficulties with some appearance of courage. “For I have the satisfaction of knowing that it’s my own fault that I am not to-day in possession of prospects of supporting my family in a much more comfortable manner than before. That’s not exactly a comfortable frame of mind, is it?”
“Why, no, I’m afraid it is not. But surely you exaggerate——”
“Not a bit of it. And you’ve only heard about half. The last and worst point is that I’ve quarrelled with my best friend, and in such a manner that even the most grovelling apology would scarcely put me right with him again.”
Goodhare had listened with his head half turned away, in the attitude of deep attention, to his young friend’s recital; the glow of satisfaction in his eyes as each misfortune was named thus escaped his hearer’s observation. But when he heard the last, the crowning source of distress, Amos, old as he was, could only conceal the passionate, evil joy he felt by an abrupt change of position. Rising hastily, as if overcome by the sad intelligence, he went to the window and looked out into the little stony street, while visions of ill-gotten gold floated before his eyes, and sounds of the boisterous revelry, for which his corrupt soul hankered in age as it had hankered in youth, made hideous but welcome music in his ears. It was with a start he turned, as his companion’s voice broke in upon his reverie.
“Well, what do you think of my position now?”
Amos had to think a moment before he spoke. For in the glowing picture he had conjured up, the poor tool had been forgotten. Then, with measured steps, he crossed the little room, and sat down by Rees.
“Tell me,” he said sympathetically, “if you will so far honor me with your confidence, how this disastrous state of things came about.”
Rees told him the whole story faithfully, not withholding the record of his own shame and astonishment, and the mortifying derision with which the earl had received his proposals. He had expected sympathy, he had expected a kindly palliation of his own fault. But he was not prepared for the torrent of outraged amazement with which Goodhare heard the account of Lord St. Austell’s behavior.
The librarian walked to and fro on the hearth-rug, which was the longest promenade his tiny sitting-room afforded.
“To think that he, of all men, after the admiration he always expressed for you, the hints which he has frequently given about the handsome manner in which he intended to provide for you”—here Rees looked up in surprise,—“that he should treat you in this manner, as if you were his inferior! I cannot understand it! I always imagined him to be a man of right feeling and noble instincts, incapable of outraging the feelings of a man poorer than himself.”
“Well,” said Rees, who, now that his own cause was espoused so hotly, could afford to be magnanimous, “money makes the one great difference now, you know, as Lord St. Austell has said himself a dozen times.”
Amos stopped suddenly in the centre of the hearth-rug.
“If you could only, some day, get rich, make a fortune, and come back and see him anxious for you to renew your proposal! What a revenge that would be for you!”
The young man looked at him dubiously. Even to the excitable brain of twenty-three, that seemed a fantastic and melodramatic idea.
“Yes,” he answered, rather drily, “but fortunes are not picked up in the roads.”
“Not often,” assented Amos, watching him. “Yet still I have heard of money being picked up in strange ways.”
“It isn’t likely to come much in my way, though, unless indeed I eat humble pie, and beg his lordship to give me the—the place, I suppose you call it, which I refused to-day so contemptuously.”
“And are you really ready to do that?” asked Amos, in a tone so full of scorn that the weak and sensitive lad writhed under it.
“As ready as I am to starve, perhaps,” answered he, reddening.
“But why do either?” asked the librarian, in a low, soft tone of gentle persuasion. “Providence does sometimes favor the deserving, and though I am not superstitious, I am inclined to think that, having preserved you from a life of unworthy drudgery, such as your own family seem to have been quite willing for you to adopt, Providence has some better destiny in store for you than you fancy.”
“Providence had better make haste about it then, or she may find that she has missed her chance.”
“Shall we take a walk together?” asked Amos, who began to see in the lad’s eyes the look of desperation he had been hoping for. “The fresh air sometimes cools the brain, and gives one fresher and brighter thoughts. It is my sovereign remedy for all the ills of my dull life. Come.”
Rees let himself be led out by the librarian; but when the latter wished to direct his steps towards the ruins of Carstow Castle, he drew back and protested.
“Not to the castle. I don’t want to go to any place which reminds me of that man and the humiliation he put me to to-day.”
“Try to get over that feeling,” insisted Amos, gently drawing him forward in the direction of the old walls. “Take my word for it, the humiliation will some day be on the other side. Besides, the old castle can hardly be called his property. Any treasure found buried in the ruins would not be his; it would belong to that vague thing, ‘the Crown.’ ”
“Treasure!” echoed Rees, astonished. “Why, surely you don’t believe that cock-and-bull story Lady Marion told me! Lord St. Austell himself said that every ruin in the three kingdoms had some such story attached to it, as surely as the ivy.”
“That doesn’t prove that it may not sometimes be well authenticated. As a matter of fact, in this case I believe it to be so.”
“Have you told the earl?”
“When I hinted my belief it was received with derision. So I have kept it to myself till now.”
“With derision, do you say? But Lady Marion thought there was something in the story. And she thought you had kept back part of the story.”
“So I had. It would have been of no use to Lady Marion; so far, indeed, it has been none to me. But with your help——”
“You don’t count on my help for a robbery, surely!” interrupted Rees with much haughtiness.
“No. Of what use would it be for anybody to count upon your help in a dishonorable action? I am not so stupid. But I do think that you will not refuse your assistance in discovering the treasure, if indeed it should exist, which is, as you say, by no means certain. The search will be an arduous one, and will require the exercise of qualities of no common order. But if something should come of it, think what a splendid opportunity you would have of heaping coals of fire on the head of the man who insulted you so lightly to-day. That, indeed, would be a noble revenge, and his lordship could hardly, in common gratitude, do less than accept you for a son-in-law if you put in his hands such a handsome supply of ready money.”
“But if this apocryphal treasure really existed, and were discovered by us, how do you know what its amount would be? And what good would it do to Lord St. Austell if buried treasure goes, as you say, to the Crown?”
“The treasure, if it exists, consists either in the jewels—royal jewels, mind, which Henrietta Maria sent to the Netherlands to be sold—or in the proceeds of that sale, which, it was expected, would be sufficient to wipe off long arrears of debt to a whole army and to pay for the levying of fresh troops. Now only two-thirds of a buried treasure are claimed by the Crown. Wouldn’t the remaining third of such a sum as that be a comfortable little windfall?”
“I dare say it would,” answered Rees hastily. For he was anxious to get rid of a subject which he felt to contain a temptation to his honor. “But as you have conceived the idea of this find being possible, I don’t think I ought to step in at the last moment and rob you of part of the honor of it.”
“But it is not the last moment; it is, on the contrary, only the first step that we have reached—that of recognising the fact that there may be treasure there, and that, if there is, it can only be reached from the inside of the castle walls.”
“From the inside?” echoed Rees in spite of himself, interested in the ever-fascinating suggestion, and impressed by the growl of passionate, hungry earnestness in the elder man’s hawk eyes.
“Yes. And as only the members of your family are allowed to ramble over the ruins without a guide nobody but you can pursue the search. Do you see?”
“That is unfortunate,” said Rees, with the irascible decision of the weak, who never feel that they have sufficiently emphasised the determination which they doubt their power to keep.
“For nothing would induce me to take advantage of a favor shown to me. Besides,” he added, after a lame pause, which Amos did not attempt to break, “after this afternoon’s work, of course Lord St. Austell will retract his special permission to my family.”
“He won’t think of it,” said Amos quietly. “And if he did, he wouldn’t condescend to do so.”
“And I shall certainly not show myself less magnanimous than he,” said Rees.
Again Goodhare said nothing; and again it was Rees who had to break the silence. It was rather awkward to do so, but curiosity concerning this project of the librarian’s began to burn within him.
“What makes you so strong in this belief, Goodhare? It isn’t like you to take an infatuation without good reason to back it.”
“There were nearly always, at the period when Carstow Castle was last rebuilt, subterranean passages built through which the occupants could escape in case of a surprise.”
“But, if there had been, would not the garrison have used these passages to escape by, when they were hard pressed, during the siege?”
“The surmise is that these passages, not having been used for many years, were believed to be impracticable. If they existed at all, this was probably the case, as I have searched the neighborhood thoroughly for nearly a mile in every direction round the castle, and I can find no trace of any opening.”
“And don’t you think what that proves is that there never was either passage or opening?”
“I do not. I believe that this unlucky Lord Hugh, knowing the heavy responsibility which lay on his shoulders, may have tried this means of escape, and been buried in the attempt with whatever he carried, whether jewels or money. How else—in what more reasonable manner can you account for his utter disappearance? For that neither he, nor the money he had been sent to fetch, ever reached the king, is certain.”
“I should think any manner of accounting for his disappearance likelier than that one,” said Rees. “And even if that were the true explanation, nothing would induce me to prowl about Lord St. Austell’s property to find out the truth of it.”
He said this haughtily, yet he waited when he had finished speaking, to hear Goodhare’s further arguments.
But the elder man had apparently decided that to argue against such flinty determination would be waste of breath. He turned away from the young man with a sigh.
“Well, Mr. Pennant, it is no use for me to try to persuade you into any course which you do not think strictly honorable, I know. I will, therefore, say no more about this, but only ask you to believe that I would never have breathed a word on the matter to you, if I had not myself believed it to be a suggestion which you might follow up to your own honor and Lord St. Austell’s profit.”
“I don’t wish to do anything to his profit,” said Rees passionately. “But, of course, I know you meant well, and—and thank you, and—and good-night.”
He gave Goodhare’s hand a grateful squeeze, and then lingered as if expecting a little more argument or a little more persuasion from him.
But none came. Goodhare simply wished him good-night, and left him to return home by himself with slow steps and an unusually reflective manner.
When he got home he found that his practical brother, Godwin, and his harassed mother, had had time to make a more thorough examination of such of his father’s papers as were within their reach, and that the result, even of this cursory search, was worse than they had feared. Nothing but debts, debts; bills unpaid, liabilities unmet. It was ruin, absolutely ruin, without a hope. Rees had to learn the truth, from their haggard eyes first, and their lips afterwards. Poor, kind-hearted old Captain Pennant had not been of so much account in the world or in his own household but that this discovery of the penniless state in which he had left his family over-shadowed their grief at his death.
Rees listened to the recital at first in dumb dismay. Then came a feeling of bitterness, of injury. Lastly, the idea of the gold which might lie hidden among those old ruins within half a mile of his own wrecked home rushed into his brain, not as the chimerical vision it had appeared when Amos first mentioned it to him that evening, but as a vivid, saving truth. So fast had the welcome fancy grown unconsciously in his mind.
At ten o’clock that night, when the quiet little town lay already asleep, and the bats were flying in the moonlight about the ragged walls of Carstow Castle, Rees crept out of his home like a guilty creature, and ran along the quiet roads and lanes with a fast-beating heart, until he stopped under the old portcullis, and leaned, panting for breath, against the massive oak door, which, studded with huge nails, and held together by thick bars of rusty iron, had stood the test of centuries of hard usage, and still kept intruders out of the ruin as it had kept them out of the castle in the time of its strength and its prime.
What were the secrets it held within its keeping? Was there indeed gold, in handfuls, in sackfuls, buried behind its jealous barrier?
Rees Pennant’s brain was growing heated under the spell which the glittering fancy cast upon him. With stealthy feet he soon was pacing underneath the walls, as Amos Goodhare had done the winter and the summer long, now caressing the rugged old stones, now tearing away the ivy which covered them, maddened by that idea of hidden treasure to be had for the finding, which has played havoc with the reason of stronger men.
He saw no one on his stealthy walk. But he was not unseen.
At the angle of the ancient wall, Amos Goodhare, to whom this nightly prowling was now an accustomed thing, suddenly caught sight of this new searcher in the darkness. He drew back hastily into the shadow of the trees, where his eyes seemed to blaze luridly out of the surrounding blackness as he laughed to himself silently.
“Caught, caught, my little fly,” he thought, with the nod of a triumphant fiend. “There we are—a step nearer to my gold, my gold!”
Rees came on, and passed him, feeling the old walls with feverish hands, and unluckily not seeing Amos, nor the expression with which his friend and mentor gloated over his boyish eagerness.
So, turning his back reluctantly to the castle and its grim grey towers, Rees crept, in a fever of longing and high excitement, back to his home.