Coming Back on Friday.
Chris found it a harder task than he had anticipated. “Give a dog a bad name, and then hang him,” says the old saw; and in his case Chris used to say bitterly to himself that he might as well have been hung out of his misery.
For Wimble’s shop had always been the fertile manure heap from which, fungus-like, scandals sprung, and their spores were carried away in all directions, to start into growth again and again in all directions. Often enough one scandal would grow, flourish, and then seem to die right away, but that was only the belief of the parties concerned. Just as they were hugging themselves upon the fact there had been a nine days’ wonder, and it had come to an end, a little round toadstool-like head would spring up in quite a different direction, and grow, and seed and spread itself more strongly than ever.
Even minor scandals died hard, if they died at all, in Danmouth; but, for the most part, they proved evergreen, and lived on long after the authors had been gathered to their fathers and forgotten.
This being the case with the lesser, it was not likely that one of the greatest ever known should drop away; and though weeks and months glided on, the story of the bottle found under the library window of the Fort was as fresh as ever, and people, after an easy shave, would ask quietly to see it, to have it taken with great show of secrecy from the drawer where it reposed, shaken so as to form globules of solution of chloral, and, if favoured customers, the cork might be removed and the contents smelt.
Wimble was quite right. That bottle proved to be the finest curiosity he possessed, and bade fair to become worth quite a hundred pounds to him, if not more.
As time went on, the ingenious idea occurred to him that it would be advisable to add to its attractions by giving the contents a perceptible odour, and this he did by introducing one single drop of patchouli, a scent not familiar to the lower orders of the little fishing port, and whose inhalation was thoroughly enjoyed by many a gaping idiot, who shook his Solon-like head, and said “Hah!” softly and mysteriously, before handing back the bottle and whispering, “’nuff to kill any man.”
The treasure might have had additional piquancy if Chris Lisle had been tried for murder and hanged; but as he was not, Wimble said he must make the best of things, and went on profiting by his possession; but as he felt that his declaration to the widow that night had not advanced his suit, he spent his spare time watching her house, and wondering how long it would be ere Chris Lisle realised the fact that, as public opinion let him exist, it was his duty to live somewhere else.
But Chris was as stubborn as public opinion, and, regardless of side-long glances, and the fact that he was regularly avoided, he went on just as of old, apparently living his old life, and waging war upon the salmon, trout, and fish that visited the mouth of the river; but they had an easy time.
Claude had left Danmouth, but she made no sign before she went away, and Chris was too stubbornly proud to make any advance.