Beauchamp; or, The Error.

by G. P. R. James

"No," answered Stephen Gimlet, drily, "I know already. Well, Bill, good bye, I must go about my work," and so they parted.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

I beg Captain Moreton's pardon, I left him running across a field in not the brightest possible night that ever shone. I should, at least, have taken him safely home before now wherever that home might be, which would be indeed difficult to say, for the home of Captain Moreton was what people who pore over long lines of figures call a variable quantity. However, there was once, at least there is reported to have been once, for I do not take upon myself to answer for the fact, a certain young person called Galanthis. She was a maid of-all-work in a very reputable Greek family, and was called as a witness in the famous crim. con. case of Amphitryon versus Jupiter. She proved herself very skilful in puzzling an examining counsel, and there is an old nonsensical story of her having been changed into a weasel to commemorate the various turnings and windings of her prevarications. Nevertheless, not this convenient Abigail, nor any of her pliant race, ever took more turnings and windings than did Captain Moreton on the night after his escape from his prison in the vestry. Every step of the country round he knew well, and up one narrow lane, through this small field, along that wood path, by another short cut, he went, sometimes walking and sometimes running, till at length he came to a common of no very great extent, lying half-way, or nearly so, between the town of Tarningham and the house called Burton's Inn. The common was called Chandleigh Heath; and on the side next to the inn was the village of Chandleigh, while between the heath and Tarningham lay about two miles of well-cultivated but not very populous fields and meadows. At an angle of the common a retired hosier of Chandleigh had built himself a cottage--a cottage suited to himself and his state--consisting of six rooms, all of minute size, and he had, moreover, planted himself a garden, in which roses strove with apple-trees and cherries. The hosier--as retired hosiers will very often do--died one day, and left the cottage to his nephew, a minor. The guardians strove to let the cottage furnished, but for upwards of a year they strove in vain; its extremely retired situation was against it, till one day it was suddenly tenanted, and right glad were they to get a guinea a week and ask no questions. It was to this retired cottage, then of the retired hosier, that Captain Moreton's steps were ultimately bent, and as it had windows down to the ground on the garden side, he chose that side, and went in at the window, where, I forgot to remark, there were lights shining.

At a table in the room, with her foot upon a footstool, and a pillow behind her back, sat a lady whom we have before described; and certainly, to look at her face, handsome as it was, no one would have fancied there was a fierce and fiery spirit beneath, so weak and, I mar venture to call it, lackadaisical was the expression.

"Heaven, Moreton, how you startled me!" cried the lady: "where have you been such a long time? You know I want society at night. It is only at night I am half alive."

"Well," said Captain Moreton, with a laugh, "I have been half dead and half buried; for I have been down into a vault and shut up in a vestry as a close prisoner. I only got out by wrenching off the bars. Nobody could see my face, however, so that is lucky; for they can but say I was looking at a register by candlelight, and the old sexton will not peach for his own sake."

"Still at those rash tricks, Moreton," said the lady, "it will end in your getting hanged, depend upon it. I have been writing a poem called 'The Rash Man,' and I was just hanging him when you came in and startled me."

"My rash tricks, as you call them, got you a thousand a year once," answered Moreton, sharply, "so, in pity, leave your stupid poetry, Charlotte, and listen to what I have to say."

"Stupid poetry!" exclaimed the lady, angrily. "There was a time when you did not call it so; and as for the thousand a year, it was more to save yourself than to serve me that you fancied that scheme. You know that I hated the pedantic boy, as virtuous as a young kid, and as pious as his grandmother's prayer-book. Nothing would have induced me to marry him if you had not represented--"

"Well, never mind all that," answered Captain Moreton, interrupting her. "We have something else to think of now, Charlotte. I don't know that it would not be better for me to be off, after all."