Roger Ingleton, Minor

by Talbot Baines Reed

In such a mood he spent the morning; and about midday, shaking off his visitor, wandered out into the park for fresh air and space to think. As he paced, there returned to him memories of old half-forgotten days, of faces that once looked into his trustfully, voices that once made his heart glad, children that once ran to welcome him; visions of vanished hopes, ambitions, ideals. Where were they all now? Who believed in him to-day? Who would believe in him a week hence? What voices rejoiced him now? Into whose life did he carry strength and cheer? The park stretched bleak and desolate before him; the earth lay sullen under his feet, the very trees drooped around him, and the great restless ocean beyond moaned at his coming. It was nothing to him that the smell of spring was in the air; that the lark was carolling high overhead; that the declining sun was darting his rays through the trees.

Near at hand rose a sound of laughter. He durst not turn that way, lest he should meet his own children.

Far away, through a break in the trees, he could catch a glimpse of the old church at Yeld with the Vicarage beside it, where dwelt the one being he dreaded most—his own daughter. From behind wafted a sound of music through an open window, where sat the man who had found him out and could ruin him by a word.

Which way was he to turn? Which way shall a man turn who would escape from himself?

For two long hours he wandered on caring not which way he took, and feeling himself step by step closer beset by his dismal forebodings. Presently he found himself beyond the park boundaries on the open downs which stretched to the edge of the cliff. The touch of the salt sea-breeze on his fevered brow startled him and made him shiver. The last gleam of daylight was fading in the west, and when presently it flickered out and left him in the dark, he felt that the last ray of his own hope had vanished too. And yet, strange as it may seem, this man had never been quite as honest with himself as he was now. The game was fairly up. He had long since given up deluding himself that he was better than he seemed. Now the time was come when it hardly seemed worth while to delude other people. It was no use. Nor, to such a pass had he come, did it seem much use to be a coward. The dog whose last hope has gone will gather himself together for a final fling at his persecutors; the poltroon driven back against the wall, unable to retreat farther, will sometimes turn and make a stand such as he never deemed himself capable of before. And so Captain Oliphant, because he could do nothing else, plucked up a little courage and groped about in the dark for some new fragments of his lost manhood.

He would go back and face the worst. If he was to be ruined, he would pull the mask off himself, and not leave it to Armstrong or any one else to do it. Whatever befell, nothing could well be more wretched than the plight in which he now stood. He had no amends to make, but he could at least simplify the labours of those whose business it was to expose and punish him. With which poor spark of resolution he turned dismally to go back to Maxfield.

As he did so he became aware of footsteps close at hand on the cliff-path. Whoever the passenger might be—at such an hour and place it was not likely to be any one but a coastguard or a fisherman—Captain Oliphant was in no mood for company. He therefore stepped off the path and sat down on a seat on the edge of the cliff till the intruder had passed.

It was not so dark but that the latter perceived the movement, and halting suddenly, said—

“Who’s that?”

The voice was that of Mr Ratman. What brought him here at this moment, to extinguish, perhaps, the little gleam of courage that flickered in the breast of his wretched dupe?