CHAPTER XLIX.—AT MIDNIGHT.
Coutts Hadleigh relished good wine; but he was cautious in his cups, as in everything else. On this evening, however, he ‘drank fair,’ as it is called, with his comrades; and those who were acquainted with his habits noted the fact with increasing curiosity as the evening advanced. This was the fifth annual dinner he had given to ‘his men’ since the captain’s commission had been thrust upon him, and he had on no previous occasion displayed so much hilarity or provided so many cynical anecdotes for the entertainment of the company. His lieutenant and sub.—both proprietors of the land they farmed—concluded that the captain must have made some exceptionally lucky stroke in business recently. Coutts believed he had.
The members of the Kingshope Volunteer corps were mostly young farmers and the sons of farmers, who should have possessed the physical proportions which would have specially qualified them for the soldier’s career. But it was surprising to observe how few of them presented these qualifications. When Dick Crawshay first saw them mustered, he exclaimed in loud indignation, his huge form towering over the whole troop: ‘What! is that all our county can show in the way of Volunteers? Why, half a dozen of our old yeomen would scare them into the middle of next week without a tussle! They are more like a set of town scarecrows than country-bred lads.... Ah, this comes ov givin’ the land to people that have money and no muscle, and meddle with things they know nothing about.’
He was right in a certain degree, for these youths were the sons of wealthy merchants who take up farming as a hobby, and leaving the work to hired labourers, are indifferent to losses, and therefore able to pay rents which the working farmer has struggled for a time to compete with, and given up in despair, or emigrated. This was a sore subject with yeoman Dick, and although regularly invited by Coutts to this annual feast, he regularly refused to go—and even kept within his own bounds whenever he knew there was a parade. The prejudice prevented him from learning that a goodly number of these young fellows made up for physical deficiencies by skill as marksmen and efficiency in drill; so that the Kingshope Volunteer corps formed a by no means unsatisfactory body of men for home defence. But had any one dared to hint that even in some respects they might be favourably compared with the old yeomanry, he would have made Dick his foe.
On the present occasion, Captain Hadleigh’s company showed that they had improved slightly on one of the yeomanry practices by keeping up their revels to a late hour without all getting drunk. The lieutenant having to pass Ringsford on his way home, and having his gig with him, drove the captain to the gates of the Manor. The snow had only ceased falling a little while before the company at the King’s Head broke up, and now it lay deep on the roads, houses, and fields. The old church looked like a huge snow-house; and the meadows in the dim moonlight presented a white surface, apparently on a level with the hedgerows.
The lieutenant’s powerful cob had its work to do, for at every step its hoofs sank deep in the snow-covered road. But the travellers were merry, and did not mind the slowness of their progress. Their chief trouble was to keep the road and avoid the open ditches. They succeeded in this, and also succeeded in distinguishing the point where the Manor gates broke the white wall.
Coutts made his way through the side-gate, which shook large pancakes of snow down upon him as he opened it.
The avenue being guarded by its long arch of tree-branches, the path was comparatively easy to traverse, and Coutts was soon in front of the house, which, like the church, was a shapeless white mass, broken by a few points of light. Underneath these few lights was dark shadow. As Coutts ascended the steps of the portico, a man stepped out from the shadow.
‘I want to speak to you a minute, Mr Coutts Hadleigh; I’ve been waiting all evening for you.’
Coutts was no coward, although his brain was somewhat muddy with wine; but this sudden apparition made him spring to the top of the steps and ring the bell, as he exclaimed fiercely:
‘Who are you, and what do you want with me at this hour?’
‘I want to know where is Pansy Culver?’ said the man with enforced calmness, which contrasted to his advantage with the blustering ire of the other.
‘Confound your impudence—how should I know?’
‘I saw you with her at the London station. Where has she gone to? Where did you send her to?’
‘She didn’t tell me where she was going to, and I didn’t send her anywhere.’
Caleb Kersey’s calmness broke bounds, and he next spoke with savage determination:
‘You are lying, and you shall tell me the truth.’
‘You’re an insolent fool.’
As Caleb swiftly ascended the steps, he received a vigorous buffet on the breast, which tumbled him backward on the snow. The door was open; Coutts entered; the door was instantly closed, bolted, chained, and locked.
‘Tell that fellow Kersey to go about his business,’ said Coutts to the attendant who had been waiting up for him; ‘he is drunk or mad. If he has any business with me, he knows where to find me at proper hours.’
With that he went up-stairs in a furious temper with the man who had insulted him, and had evidently intended to offer violence to his person. Before he had reached the first landing, there was an impatient but not a very loud knock at the door. The servant repeated his young master’s message, put out the hall lights, and gladly enough went off to bed.
Caleb stood in the portico hesitating as to what he should do. He had been waiting there for hours; he had been told that Mr Coutts Hadleigh was not at home—the servant declined to say where he might be found. The snow and the cold did not appear to affect him. He waited, and at last the man had come, but had not given the watcher any satisfaction. Caleb was aware that his application was untimely: but that was not his fault: the circumstances were exceptional. He must know from this villain what he had done with Pansy, and then he would seek her father, whose authority would rescue her from the evil influence under which she had fallen.
The poor fellow never thought that his first step ought to have been to consult Pansy’s father. A natural delicacy, rude and earnest, made him shrink from the idea, because he felt sure it would cause him pain. He learned from his friends in the village that Pansy had gone away somewhere; and as the gardener had no special need or liking to speak of her grandfather, he had not mentioned to any of his gossips whither she had gone. So Caleb, sitting in a train which was just starting, having caught sight of Pansy and Coutts Hadleigh talking together on the platform at Liverpool Street Station, instantly concluded that there was something wrong. He would have jumped out of the carriage; but the other passengers prevented him, and he had to endure cruel torments of speculation and rage until he reached his destination.
He had no hope of winning Pansy; but he might save her from the fate to which she seemed to be hasting. He had no doubt she had been taught to repeat some falsehood to her father, which kept him quiet about her absence, and he had no doubt of her danger. Then with a sullen resolution, in which the anxiety of a lover was combined with the suppressed fury of a maniac, he sought Coutts Hadleigh, determined to force the truth from him.
In those cold weary hours when he was hanging about the Manor waiting, the words of Philip frequently recurred to him: ‘Trust her, man; trust her.’ He imagined that he did trust her; he was sure that she did not mean to do wrong. But at the same time the wicked comment of Wrentham also presented itself, reminding him that trust gave the woman opportunity to deceive. He did not like the man who spoke or the words he uttered; but the remembrance made him uneasy.
‘Ah, if Master Philip had not been in such a pickle with his own affairs, I’d have gone to him now, and he would have told me what was best to do, even though the villain be his own brother. But it would be a mortal shame to put more trouble on him when he’s down enough already. I’ll go my own way.’
All these things were careering through his mind, as he stood under the portico wondering how he should act. He heard a casement open above—it seemed to be directly over his head—and Captain Hadleigh shouted:
‘You’d better move off quietly, Kersey, or I’ll call our fellows and send for the police.’
The casement was closed violently, the two sides banging together, the principal windows of the Manor opening on hinges like doors, in the French fashion.
Caleb stepped out from beneath the portico and looked up. There was a ruddy glow—the effect of the light shining through deep maroon-coloured curtains—in two windows on the first floor. One of these windows opened on to the top of the portico which formed part of a balcony. That was the one from which Hadleigh must have spoken, thought Caleb; and was immediately satisfied on the point by seeing the shadow of a man who was passing slowly between the light and the curtains.
‘The stable ain’t far off, and I can find a ladder there,’ muttered Caleb, moving away from the front of the house.
Mr Hadleigh, sen., was seated at his writing-table, his back towards the windows. Before him lay those sheets of manuscript which he had written at intervals during the past year. The broad shade on the lamp cast the soft light down on the table, and had it not been for the bright glow of a huge fire, the rest of the room—and especially the upper part—would have been in comparative darkness. As it was, the flickering flame of the fire made the shadows above and around him flutter and change like living things.
He was not writing. He was carefully separating certain pages from the others; having done so, he fastened them together neatly, and with his hand covering them, as if to hide the words from himself, he leaned back on his chair. Suddenly he rose and paced the floor slowly in melancholy reflection.
When he resumed his seat, there was a placid expression on his face, like that of one who, after a long mental struggle, has come to a final decision and found peace.
With as much sad deliberation as if he were committing a dear one to the grave, he placed the separate packets of manuscript in different envelopes. The first and largest he addressed in a bold clear hand, ‘To Mrs Philip Hadleigh. To be opened after my death.’
Over the second packet his pen was poised for some moments, and his hand was not so steady as before when he began to write.
‘To my son, Philip Hadleigh. To be opened after my death and read by him alone. When he has read, he shall decide whether to burn at once or first to show it to his wife. The secret of my life is here.’
As his pen stopped, a chill blast passed through the room, making the lamplight waver, as if it were about to be extinguished. Mr Hadleigh, surprised, raised his head slowly, and slowly looked round.
The window behind him was open, and before it stood a tall, rough-looking, muscular man. Mr Hadleigh’s sallow cheeks became more sallow, his eyes started, and his lips trembled slightly. He recovered himself instantly, and rising calmly from his seat, and at the same moment lifting the shade from the lamp, his eyes remaining fixed all the time on the intruder, burglar, intending murderer, perhaps.
When the light was uncovered, the man drew back a pace with a kind of growl of surprise. Mr Hadleigh retained perfect self-possession; but he was not much relieved from apprehension by recognising in his midnight visitor the leader of the agricultural agitators who had on various occasions openly declared antagonism to the master of Ringsford.
(To be continued.)
A LITTLE KNOWLEDGE NOT DANGEROUS.
A remarkable circumstance recently occurred which brings out strongly the fact that scientific teaching in medical and surgical matters has made giant strides of late. On the 8th of July an accident happened to a ‘marker’ at the ranges of the Civil Service Rifle regiment at Wimbledon when marking at the five hundred yards’ range. According to the report, a rifle-bullet seems ‘to have bounded off the corner of the target and to have entered the marker’s breast.’ Fortunately, the great annual meeting of the National Rifle Association was to commence in a day or two, and the Field Hospital prepared for the meeting was being got ready under the charge of Sergeant Monaghan and Corporal Melville, both of the Army Hospital Corps. Thither the wounded man was immediately carried; but there was no surgeon present or anywhere near. Seeing, however, the serious nature of the case, the two soldiers, without a moment’s hesitation, took steps to extract the bullet, which had entered the right breast just under the collar-bone. Having carefully examined his patient and found the exact locality of the bullet, Sergeant Monaghan, with the assistance of the corporal, made an incision in the back and was enabled at once to extract the bullet from the spot where it had lodged, just opposite to the point of entry in the breast. The injured man, a member of the corps of Commissionaires, expressed himself much gratified with the prompt attention he had received, as well as with the skilful operation by which, without a moment’s loss of time, the important act of removing the bullet had been accomplished. Too much praise cannot be given to the two soldiers, who by their ready and intelligent action, saved their patient not only from prolonged suffering, but perhaps even from death itself.
The well-known saying of ‘A little knowledge is a dangerous thing,’ is here singularly confuted, for it was just the ‘little knowledge’ applied with sagacity and intelligence that probably saved the life of a fellow-creature.
Many of our readers will doubtless remember a melancholy occurrence which took place last year on one of the Swiss mountains, when a valuable young life was lost for the want of a ‘little knowledge,’ and in itself, very simple knowledge too. A German engineer and two guides were ascending one of the famous Swiss mountains, when the younger of the guides appears to have had a very bad fall, by which either a bottle or a lamp-glass was broken, the fractured part entering the young man’s thigh and dividing the femoral artery. It would not, we should suppose, have required very profound surgical knowledge to know that the man would inevitably bleed to death unless this great artery could be immediately compressed; but incredible as it may appear, neither the German nor the other Swiss guide knew anything about the matter. They tried to stop the spouting blood with their handkerchiefs, which of course was of no avail. Neither thought of tying the handkerchief or other ligature round the upper part of the limb, and then twisting it tight by the application of a stick; and so the poor young fellow quickly bled to death. Now, if the bleeding could have been arrested by ligature until surgical assistance was procured, the young guide would doubtless have recovered, for the injury, as a mere flesh-wound, was in itself by no means serious. Here, then, a ‘little knowledge’ would have done a vast amount of good.
One of the best, most useful, and practical associations of the present day is the St John’s Ambulance Society, which teaches all who care to learn how to act in such emergencies as that related, and to take instant action on the spot, until surgical aid can be obtained—a ticklish and anxious time, often fraught with serious danger, when there is not a minute to spare, and where loss of time means loss of life.
Let every one, therefore, who has any real love for his fellows, and who feels that he or she has the nerve requisite for the work—for this is a sine quâ non—at once learn how to act in cases of sudden accident, illness, faintness, drowning, or any other of the many unlooked-for ills and mishaps that ‘flesh is heir to’—a species of knowledge that will improve the mind of the possessor, and may be productive of infinite good.