The Yarn of Old Harbour Town

by William Clark Russell

Some thought whilst eating with his father had occurred to him, and he felt in his pocket for the copy of the letter which he had drawn out with his pocket-handkerchief and which Mr Greyquill had got possession of. The handkerchief was there, but the letter was not. When he had drawn out his handkerchief and felt and found the lining of his pocket bare, when, in short, he completely understood that the letter was not where it ought to be and where he knew it should be, he turned as pale as the muslin curtain that partly veiled his window, started with an abrupt swagger of motion as though he had been struck violently behind, then with the energy of madness felt in all his pockets, pulling out everything, meanwhile gazing around the room with eyes which seemed on fire with their vigour of scrutiny and passion of fear.

He endeavoured to recollect himself that, by calming his terrors his memory might better serve him. Urgent alarms often induce vain hopes which we should laugh at in the cool mood. He believed he might have put that letter down in his bedroom, and perfectly well knowing that he had not done so, and yet coaxed by a will-o'-the-wisp hope, he ransacked the room as though he knew that in it was to be found a gold piece of value whose discovery demanded a careful search only. What was certain in his mind was that that letter was in his pocket when he walked that morning to visit the Minorca. He remembered withdrawing it from his pocket, but in what part of the walk he knew not, and re-perusing a portion of it to refresh his memory. He tried to find comfort in the recollection that the letter bore no address and no signature. But a thundercloud of horror came down on this feeble streak of sunshine when he recalled the damning, incriminating contents of that sheet which he had scrawled in pencil at "The Swan Inn." Whoever found it would know that Mr Lawrence, and Mr Lawrence alone, had written it, and this, too, irrespective of the handwriting.

But here he found another little hope; some squalls of wet, one very heavy, had set the kennels running shortly after he had met Mr Greyquill, and if that letter had lain exposed to those three or four deluges, it not only stood to be changed into a mere rag to the eye which none would dream of even glancing at, but the writing must have been washed out to a degree to render the sense of the letter unintelligible. He considered that it was not above two or three hours when that letter was in his pocket, and that it must have fallen somewhere betwixt his father's house and the Minorca in that time, for he had taken the same road to and fro. He reflected that that road was but little used compared with the lane that led to the bridge where the Actons' carriage had stopped. Understanding as a sailor the preciousness of time, and conceiving that if the letter had by some strange mischance fallen during his walk unobserved by him it might still rest in the spot where it had dropped, insomuch that chance—for the fellow was a gambler at heart—might concede him yet an hour, even two hours, in which to find it, he put on his hat and marched out of the house, just saying to his father in the window that he had an appointment and should miss it if he didn't hasten, and then stepped out, casting as he went to right and left of his path eyes as piercingly scrutinising as those which the madman darts when he seeks for the philosopher's stone.

It is needless, of course, to say that this searching walk was in vain. Whatever lay white in his road he rushed at, and in his gizzard he cursed the vast number of pieces of white paper which did somehow, as though distributed by innumerable malicious Greyquills, attract his eye and retard his progress whilst he turned them over.

On his way this side the bridge he met an old man with a stick who stopped in his lame walk to turn about any little heap his eye met. This old man was attended by a dog, who smelt at what the man touched.

"Have you seen a letter," cried Mr Lawrence, "a broad piece of paper folded into four lying in the road?"

"Seen a what, your Anner?"

"Where are you from?"

"From Oozles."

Mr Lawrence repeated his first question.