"Well, then, the least you can do is to make out what a splendid rescue it was, and that I'm a first-class hero, and that you're going to recognize the fact by making over to me a big slice of your fortune. D'you see? If I'm not a hero there can be no point in your solid admiration and gratitude. So rub it well in."
"All right," Peckover promised.
"You may as well," Gage proceeded, "send for the lawyer chap from Bunbury and have a deed drawn up, settling, say, a couple of hundred thousand on me, it won't mean much as between you and me, but it will impress the local public; and I tell you I mean to have a good bit of glory to pay for this beastly cold. Now, do it at once and do it with a snap, or I shall find a better use for five thousand a year than a cold-catching title."
Thus admonished, Peckover carried out his instructions with a will, and in a very few hours the soi-disant Lord Quorn's heroic act promised fair to be an undying tradition for the country-side. In fact, Peckover, in his anxiety to retain his desirable income, rather overdid the business, and so much so that one or two cynical spirits were goaded into making question whether the life so saved was really, apart from the income it might have left behind, quite worth the value its owner evidently set upon it. Still, that mattered nothing to Peckover, who was not thin-skinned, at least on dry land.
The Bunbury Bulletin devoted a column and three quarters to the "Romantic and Heroic Incident at Staplewick Park," and told its breathless readers in unusually and adjectively gorgeous language how a distinguished young Colonial of immense wealth was the guest with the newly succeeded Lord Quorn at Staplewick Towers, temporarily in the occupation of Colonel and Lady Agatha Hemyock; how he had, while fishing in the justly celebrated and admired lake in the beautiful park, overbalanced himself in making a cast, had fallen into deep water, and he being in imminent risk of drowning, how the gallant young nobleman, worthy descendant of a line of heroes and otherwise distinguished ancestors, had plunged in and with great difficulty and after unheard-of exertions rescued his friend. The writer having fully described the occurrence, with a minuteness of detail only possible from the pen of one who was not there, proceeded to give the respective lineage and achievements of rescued and rescuer, while the interstices in the thrilling narrative were filled up with topographical, historical and picturesque notes by way of local colour; items which were kept ready for use in the event of anything worthy of description happening at Staplewick, from a chimney on fire to a royal visit.
Great as was the sensation which the highly coloured account created, it may be safely asserted that by none was it read with more consuming interest than by Mr. Purvis, the farmer, and Mr. Fanning, the butcher. Their traditional and rooted belief in the infallibility of the newspaper press received a shock from which it never recovered. But when their astonished perusal reached the last and most sensational paragraph, in which it was stated "on the best authority" that the grateful millionaire had, as a mark of his esteem, admiration and gratitude, settled a considerable fortune, "a sum which, it was an open secret, might be represented by a two and five noughts," on his deliverer, their sensations became of a complicated character that defied analysis. Anyhow, the result was that they met to discuss the matter, and the outcome of the meeting was that next morning they proceeded to the Towers and sought an interview with the supposititious millionaire.
Peckover felt somewhat uncomfortable when the visitors were announced. In his exuberance in making the most of a sham rescue he had overlooked the spectators, or at least had regarded them as negligible factors in the episode.
After a few words of disingenuous congratulation, Mr. Fanning came to the point. He and Mr. Purvis had seen it stated, doubtless correctly, in the local paper that Mr. Gage had in his gratitude, etc., rewarded his purported rescuer in more than princely fashion. And Mr. Fanning and Mr. Purvis, whilst not withholding their meed of admiration from his lordship, whose illness they deplored, and who had, they generously admitted, done the best he could, were anxious to know where they came in, and could only say that it was hard for them to express in words their joint and several disappointment at being mentioned in connexion with the affair only in the roles of casual spectators. Whereas, Mr. Fanning urged with a suggestion of latent heat, it was they who brought the accident to its comparatively happy termination; but for them and the parts they played, he, Mr. Fanning, did not think they would that day be having the pleasure of addressing Mr. Gage, or at any rate he, Mr. Gage, the advantage of being in a position to listen to them; the depressing inference being obvious.
As Peckover had by this time come to take a more comfortable and even jocular view of the affair, he was not inclined to give more notice to the claim than seeing in it evidence that the bogus rescue had deceived its witnesses. Moreover, as a Cockney, he had not much opinion of or consideration for the feelings of a farmer and a country butcher.
"Oh, I don't think you did much," he replied off-handedly.