“Galt’s bullet—by God!” Sir Gavin cried, rushing towards him, whilst I stood trembling and aghast, and Mistress Barwise cowered by the fire, and Thrale shuddered by the wall.
Chapter XXXVIII. Last Will and Testament
My uncle’s lips had smiled before he died, lying upon the black flag, by the death’s head, among the scattered gems. It was a bitter piece of irony—well might his lips have smiled for it—that he laid hands upon the treasure only the morning of his death. For the lust of the treasure all his gifts of mind and body had been spent in vain; surely this treasure—this ill-gotten treasure—had corrupted his whole life, worked as a disorder in his blood; turned his mind to infamy and black plots against his kin, and steeled his heart to desperate purpose. He had wit as he had courage; he might have served well his King and country, and won fame and riches honourably. He had but attained his forty-fifth year; he lay there dead—his lifeblood spilt among the gems, staining the fell design in silver upon his father’s flag.
We rode from the Stone House—my father, Mr. Bradbury, and I—leaving Sir Gavin and his folk to bring away my uncle’s body, and to march the rogues—Martin and Bart and big Nick Barwise—off to the county gaol. But though Sir Gavin stormed and blustered, Mr. Bradbury had his way with him, that Thrale and Mistress Barwise and her man should be left free to go whither they would—so long as never again they came nigh Craike House. Mr. Bradbury would have none of these old rogues laid by the heels, and the scandal of Rogues’ Haven, its master and its old servitors, noised through the kingdom. So these three were left to go their way with Mother Mag, when she should come tottering home; what chanced to them I know not to this day; for I was never to set eyes upon them more. Long ere I pen these words all those old rogues, who served my grandfather afloat and ashore, must surely have followed him underground.
As we rode from the Stone House, I had the black box securely in the saddle before me; Roger Galt rode ahead of us, lest we should yet fall in with any of Blunt’s men on our way back to Craike. Let me say here and now that Blunt’s brig, the Black Wasp, slipped from the coast under cover of the storm and the darkness, eluding the revenue cutter despatched against her at the instance of Sir Gavin Masters; no trace was found of Blunt’s body and Blunt’s men; we assumed that the seamen who had come ashore with him must have gone safely aboard. What was the truth of this, or what the end of the Black Wasp, I may not tell, for Blunt’s brig and Blunt’s men never again sailed back to the coast nigh Craike House, to my knowledge.
We rode in silence, Mr. Bradbury jaded and weary; I, for all the perils of my sleepless night, and all the rigours of our ride to the Stone House, borne up for the joy of my father’s safe return, and for the thoughts of happiness awaiting mine and me. He rode beside me—bent and broken, seeming an old man though he was not yet in his forty-eighth year, sorrowful lines about his mouth, his eyes haunted surely by the memories of his sufferings overseas. From time to time I saw him watching me intently; his lips smiled at me when my eyes met his; he said no word through all our ride across the sunlit moors and by the woodlands back to Craike House. Ay, the sun burned on the house that morn, lighting the sombre ivy, and flowing in through the shattered window of the dining-hall, where Evelyn Milne had spread a meal in readiness for our return.
It fell to Mr. Bradbury to draw Oliver apart, and tell him of his father’s death; my cousin said no word, but, brushing past us, left the house, and was not seen by me again that day. My father sat down with us to our meal, remaining silent and dejected still. I watched him with increasing apprehension, dreading the result upon him of his long sufferings; though Mr. Bradbury—now almost dropping from his chair for very weariness—sought to assure me all would yet be well.
I must have fallen asleep in my chair, and so been carried off by Sir Gavin’s fellows left to guard the house; certainly I woke to find the candles burning in my room, and the fire blazing, and to observe a figure seated in my chair—him for a moment I thought my uncle, and cried out in terror. My father rose up from his chair, and came toward me swiftly, his hands outstretched, his eyes alight now with intelligence and joy; and his voice cried to the very heart strings of me, “John! My lad! My son!”
And ere we parted that night, I had from him the story: how by my uncle’s plotting he was taken out of England—seized in London, borne away to Portsmouth, and shipped aboard the Sirius of Captain Phillip’s Fleet on the very eve of its departure for the distant clime of New South Wales. Now this Adam Baynes, in whose place he was shipped out of England, had been laid by the heels for highway-robbery and sentenced at Assizes to be transported overseas for life. Taken out of the county gaol for conveyance to Portsmouth, he had been rescued on the road by his associates of Rogues’ Haven from his bribed guards; another man had been given, bound and stunned from blows, into their keeping; this man had been borne to Portsmouth, and put aboard the prison-ship. Rogues of Rogues’ Haven had carried out my uncle’s plot; my uncle’s guineas had surely paid; bribes and the dread of punishment had kept the mouths of the Bow Street runners shut. For many days my father had lain nigh to death aboard the Sirius; when his senses were restored to him, and he declared himself not Adam Baynes but Richard Craike, the master and his officers pronounced him rogue or madman, and, indeed, for his agony of thought and from the blow upon his head, he believed now that he was indeed bereft of reason for many months of the voyage out to Botany Bay. Not Captain Phillip or any of his officers believed his tale, or would send off a letter to his folk in England. He was held in bondage; toiling as any slave about the Settlement at Sydney, for the torment of his mind and body, he told me sadly now, he was no better than a madman much of his time. But so at last he won the interest of Captain Hunter, Governor of the Colony, that slowly and by degrees he convinced him that there might be truth in his story, so that, though hesitating, the Governor took upon himself to send him back to England, penning and forwarding to the Secretary of State a letter setting forth this case and desiring his investigation. My father had landed in London a week since; reference to the East India office, in Mr. Bradbury’s absence from Town, had proved to the Secretary that he was indeed Richard Craike; he had been set instantly at liberty. And failing to find my mother at the lodging where we had dwelt in London, or to learn aught of her or me, he had come hurrying down to Craike, to fall in with Martin Baynes and Blunt’s men near his home, and to be borne off a prisoner to the Stone House. He had been nigh beside himself with rage and terror, that again he should have fallen into the hands of his enemies, and be again at his brother’s mercy. “Surely,” he said quietly, as he wound up his tale, “my wits were wandering again this morn, that seeing my son I should not have known him my son, or Bradbury for Bradbury!”
Now, though our thoughts were only for my mother—to hurry away to Chelton and bring joy and peace to her heart, Mr. Bradbury would have us remain at Craike House, till my grandfather and my uncle were laid in their graves, and the old man’s last will and testament read to us. Indeed, Mr. Bradbury took proper credit to himself at breakfast next morning, that he had so far anticipated our wishes, that his coachboy and his coach and pair were already travelling apace for Chelton to bring my mother across country to Craike House. I found myself wondering whether my mother would credit the news conveyed in Mr. Bradbury’s letter; and whether she was not likely to suspect the hand of Charles Craike in it, and refuse to come to Craike House, whose doors she had vowed to me never again to enter. But four days thence she came.