“Well, Thomas, it were the day before that. I was on the platform in the evening, waiting for the half-past five o’clock train to come in from the north. It were ten minutes or more late, as most of the trains was that day. When it stopped at our station, a gent wrapped up in a lot of things, with a fur cap on his head, a pair of blue spectacles over his eyes, and a stout red scarf round his neck, jumps out of a third-class carriage like a shot, and lays hold of my arm, and takes me on one side, and says, ‘I want you to do a job for me,’ and he puts a florin into my hand; then he says, ‘Do you know Thomas Bradly?’ ‘Ay,’ says I; ‘I know him well.’ ‘Then take this bag,’ says he, ‘and this letter to his house as soon as you’re off duty. Be sure you don’t fail. You knows the man I mean; he’s got a sister Jane as lives with him.’ ‘All right,’ says I. There weren’t no more time, so he jumps back into the carriage, and nods to me, and I nods back to him, and the train were gone. It were turned six o’clock when I left the station yard, and the hands was all turning, out from the mills, so I takes the bag—it were a small carpet-bag, very shabby-looking—and the letter in my pocket. Now, I ought, by rights, to have gone with it at once to your house, and I shouldn’t have had any more trouble about it. But as I was passing the Railway Inn, I says to myself, ‘I’ll just step in and have a pint;’ but I wouldn’t take the bag in with me, as perhaps some one or other might be axing me questions about it, and it weren’t no business of theirs, so I just sets it down on the step outside, and goes in and changes my florin and gets my pint of ale. Well, I got a-gossiping with the landlady, and had another pint, and when I came out the bag were gone. I couldn’t believe my eyes at first, for I’ve often left things on benches and steps outside the publics, and never knowed ’em touched afore this; for they’re as honest a people in Crossbourne as you’ll find anywhere. Howsomever, the bag were gone; there were no mistake about that. I went round into the yard and axed the hostler, but he hadn’t seed nobody about. I looked up and down, but never a soul could I see as had a bag in his hand, so what to do I couldn’t tell. Then I thought, ‘Maybe some one’s carried it back to the station by mistake.’ So I went back, but it weren’t there. I can tell you Thomas, I were never more mad with myself in all my life; for though I haven’t been one of your sort, I’ve always respected you, and I’d rather have lost almost any one else’s things than yours. I only hope it ain’t of much consequence, as it were a very shabby bag, and didn’t seem to have much in it, for it were scarcely any weight at all.”
“Well, James, don’t fret about it,” said the other; “you meant no harm. As to the value of the bag, I know nothing more than you’ve told me, for I haven’t been expecting anything of the sort. I only trust it’ll be a warning to you, and that you’ll stick firm to your pledge, and keep on the outside of the beer-shops and publics for the future.”
“I will, Thomas; I will. But you know I told you as that gent who put the bag in my keeping gave me a letter besides. Well, I ain’t lost the letter, but I’ve really been ashamed to bring it you, as I couldn’t bring the bag too. And the devil said to me, ‘You’d better throw the letter behind the fire, and there’ll be an end of all bother;’ but I couldn’t do that, though I’ve never had the courage yet to give it you. But here it is;” and he took from his pocket a discoloured envelope, and handed it to Bradly. It was directed in a crabbed hand, with the writing sloping down to the corner—“Miss Jane Bradly, Crossbourne.”
“Stop here a minute or two, Jim,” said his friend, “and I shall be able perhaps to set your mind at ease about the bag;” and he left the room.
“Jane,” he said, addressing his sister, who was seated in her usual place by the kitchen fire, “I’ve a letter for you, and it has come in rather an odd way;” and he then repeated to her James Barnes’s story.
Much puzzled, but with no great amount of curiosity or interest, Jane took the letter from her brother’s hand. From whom could it have come? There was of course no postmark, as it had been sent by messenger; and she knew nothing of the handwriting. When she had opened it she found only one small leaf, and but very few words on that; but these words, few though they were, seemed to take her breath away, and to overwhelm her with overpowering emotion. She sat staring at the miserable scrawl as though the letters were potent with some mighty spell, and then, throwing the paper on the table by her, gave way to a passionate outburst of weeping.
“Jane, Jane dear, what’s amiss?” cried her brother in great distress. “The Lord help us! What has happened?”
She did not look up, but pushed the letter towards him, and he read as follows:—
“Dear Jane,—I am sorry now for all as I’ve done at you. Pray forgive me. You will find a letter all about it in the bag; and I’ve put your little marked Bible, and the other br—t with it, into the bag. So no more at present from yours—JH.”
Slowly the facts of the case dawned on Thomas Bradly’s mind. John Hollands was trying to make amends for the cruel wrong he had done to poor Jane, and had sent her a written statement which would wipe off the stain he had himself cast on her character; and with this he had sent Jane’s dearly-prized Bible and the companion bracelet to the one seen by Lady Morville in Jane’s hand, and given up by her to her mistress on that unhappy morning. And what of John Hollands himself? No doubt he was making the best of his way, under fear of detection and punishment, to some foreign country; and had left the bag through a feeling of remorse, that he might clear Jane’s character. Both brother and sister saw this clearly; and that the means of relief for poor Jane had been just within their grasp, but now, by the cruel carelessness of James Barnes, had slipped away from them, and perhaps for ever. Where was the bag which had in it what would set all things straight? Who could tell?