Wylder's Hand

by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

'How well the mountains look! I am afraid we shall have rain to-morrow.'

Larkin uttered a short groan.

'So they sent him into the small card-room, next that we were playing in. I think we were about the last in the club—it was past three o'clock—and so the old boys deliberated on their sentence. To bring the matter before the committee were utter ruin to Mark, and they let him off, on these conditions—he was to retire forthwith from the club; he was never to play any game of cards again; and, lastly, he was never more to address any one of the gentlemen who were present at his detection. Poor dear devil!—how he did jump at the conditions;—and provided they were each and all strictly observed, it was intimated that the occurrence should be kept secret. Well, you know, that was letting poor old Mark off in a coach; and I do assure you, though we had never liked one another, I really was very glad they did not move his expulsion—which would have involved his quitting the service—and I positively don't know how he could have lived if that had occurred.'

'I do solemnly assure you, Captain Lake, what you have told me has beyond expression amazed, and I will say, horrified me,' said the attorney, with a slow and melancholy vehemence. 'Better men might have suspected something of it—I do solemnly pledge my honour that nothing of the kind so much as crossed my mind—not naturally suspicious, I believe, but all the more shocked, Captain Lake, on that account'

'He was poor then, you see, and a few pounds were everything to him, and the temptation immense; but clumsy fellows ought not to try that sort of thing. There's the highway—Mark would have made a capital garrotter.'

The attorney groaned, and turned up his eyes. The band was playing 'Pop goes the weasel,' and old Jackson, very well dressed and buckled up, with a splendid smile upon his waggish, military countenance, cried, as he passed, with a wave of his hand, 'How do, Lake—how do, Mr. Larkin—beautiful day!'

'I've no wish to injure Mark; but it is better that you should know at once, than go about poking everywhere for information.'

'I do assure you——'

'And having really no wish to hurt him,' pursued the captain, 'and also making it, as I do, a point that you shall repeat this conversation as little as possible, I don't choose to appear singular, as your sole informant, and I've given you here a line to Sir James Carter—he's member, you know, for Huddlesbury. I mention, that Mark, having broken his promise, and played for heavy stakes, too, both on board his ship, and at Plymouth and Naples, which I happen to know; and also by accosting me, whom, as one of the gentlemen agreeing to impose these conditions, he was never to address, I felt myself at liberty to mention it to you, holding the relation you do to me as well as to him, in consequence of the desirableness of placing you in possession of the true cause of his absconding, which was simply my telling him that I would not permit him, slurred as he was, to marry a lady who was totally ignorant of his actual position; and, in fact, that unless he withdrew, I must acquaint the young lady's guardian of the circumstances.'

There was quite enough probability in this story to warrant Jos. Larkin in turning up his eyes and groaning. But in the intervals, his shrewd eyes searched the face of the captain, not knowing whether to believe one syllable of what he related.