George Manville Fenn

"The Queen's Scarlet"

Chapter One.

Head First.

Two rooks flew over the Cathedral Close, and as they neared the old square Norman tower they cawed in a sneering way.

That was enough. Out like magic came the jackdaws from hole and corner—snapping, snarling, and barking birdily—to join in a hue and cry as they formed a pack to drive away the bucolic intruders who dared to invade the precincts sacred to daws from the beginning of architectural time; and this task over, they returned to sit on corbel, leaden spout, crevice, and ledge, to erect the feathers of their powdered heads and make remarks to one another, till the chimes rang out and the big bell boomed the hour.

“Bother Mark!” said Richard Frayne, Baronet. “If he had ten thousand a year, he’d spend twenty. I can’t do it, and I won’t.”

Richard Frayne puckered up his brow and began reading away at Lord Wolseley’s Red Book—after being interrupted by the jackdaws—trying to master the puzzling military details, but finding it impossible while his brain was full of his cousin’s money troubles; and at last, in despair, he pitched the little leather-covered book aside, walked to the side-table, took his handsome flute from its case, set up a piece of music on a stand, and began to run through a few preliminary flourishes that were peculiarly bird-like in their trilling, when there was a tap at the door and Jerry Brigley thrust in his head.

“Wants to see you, sir.”

“Who does?” said Richard, hurriedly putting aside his flute.

Jerry held out a card.

“‘Isaac Simpson, clerical and military tailor,’” read the young man. “What does he want with me?” Then, quickly: “Oh! of course! I know. Show him in.”

A little, stoutish, smooth man, in shiny broadcloth and a profuse perspiration, entered directly after, carrying a brown leather handbag and his hat, which he took from his left finger and thumb and used to make a most deferential bow. There he stood, smiling and sleek, dabbing his face with a red silk handkerchief.

“Very hot morning, sir, and your room’s a bit ’igh.”

“You wanted to see me?” said Richard rather distantly.

“Well, yes, sir—begging your pardon, sir. By Mr Mark Frayne’s introduction, sir. Said business was business, and I might venture to call, sir. Been Mr Mark Frayne’s tailor, sir, three years come next quarter, sir; and I’ve ventured to bring my new patterns with me, sir.”

“My cousin should have spoken to me first, Mr Simpson,” said Richard, “and I could have saved you this trouble.”

“Trouble, sir? Oh! dear me, no, sir! It’s a pleasure to me to have the honour. You see, I almost knew you personally though before, sir: Mr Mark Frayne was always talking about you and your country place. Now, I have here, sir,” said the visitor, rattling open his patterns like a card-trick, “some fashions that only come down by post this morning, sir; and I said to myself, ‘Here’s your opportunity. You can’t expect a gentleman as has his garments from Servile Row to care about goods as every counter-jumper in Primchilsea has seen. Go and let him have the first selection.’”

“Thank you, Mr Simpson,” said Richard, coldly, as he thought of his cousin and the money; “I have no reason for exchanging my tailor. Greatly obliged to you for calling.”

“No trouble, sir; no trouble—a pleasure, as one may say. I thought I’d bring all the patterns as I was coming. Then shall we settle that other little bit of business, sir, at once? Some other time, p’raps, you may be able to give me a line.”

“What other business?” said Richard, flushing a little.

“That little affair of the money, sir.”

“I have nothing to do with Mr Mark Frayne’s affairs,” said Richard, warmly.

“Oh, sir, don’t say that to a poor tradesman, sir!” said the tailor, shaking his head reproachfully, as he reopened the little handbag and drew a flat bill-case of large size from among the cards of patterns. “Mr Mark said if I would make it a bit easy, and drew at three, six, and nine, you would put your name to the paper, and there would be no more trouble.”

“My cousin had no right to say such a thing to you!” cried Richard.

“Oh, sir, don’t say that; it’s such a little amount to a gentleman! I have drawn it in three bills, a heighty and two fifties—hundred and heighty! Why, it ain’t worth thinking about twice for a gentleman like you! Ha, ha, ha! it’s like making three bites of a cherry!”

“How much?” said Richard.

“Total, hundred and eighty-three—five—six, with the stamps, sir,” said the tailor, producing three slips of blue paper.

“My cousin said he owed you only about eighty pounds!” cried Richard.

“For clothes, sir,” said the tailor, with a deprecating smile. “The hundred was the cash advanced to oblige you, sir, as a gentleman.”

“What!”

“The hundred I advanced for you two, Sir Richard.”

“For us two? My good fellow, I had none of the money.”

“Oh, sir, don’t say that!” cried the tailor, reproachfully. “Of course, I know that gents wants a little money extry sometimes, and that it’s a tradesman’s dooty to help and oblige a customer if he can; and I did.”

“But—but—”

“Don’t, sir; please don’t—you hurt me! I respect Mr Mark Frayne very much; but you can’t know him without seeing as he’s a bit too free with his money, and I should never have dreamed of letting him have it if it hadn’t been for you, sir.”

“It was not for me!” cried Richard, who was regularly roused and indignant now. “I have nothing whatever to do with my cousin’s debts.”

“Oh, sir, please don’t! I have not come for the money now, though it would be very convenient, for wholesale houses objects to waiting. There you are, you see! You have only to sign the three bits of paper, and there’ll be no more trouble for you at all.”

“But, look here,” cried Richard, angrily, “you are insinuating that I received part of this money!”

“Wouldn’t it be better, Sir Richard, to say no more about it?” said the tailor. “Money is money, sir; gold’s gold; and, as for silver, why it’s quicksilver, ain’t it, now? Of course, I know what young gents is, as I said before; and I don’t want to make any trouble about it.”

“But listen,” said Richard, trying to be quite calm and cool. “Do I understand you aright?”

“Oh, yes, sir; I’m right about money.”

“That I shared the borrowed money?”

“Why, sir,” said the man with a smile, “you don’t suppose I should have lent it to Mr Mark Frayne, whose father’s only a poor parson? Not me!”

“Then you lent it to him because you believed I was to have part?”

“I lent it to you, sir, because I knew you was a barrynet, and would come in for your money in three or four years’ time, and, of course, to oblige you—being short.”

“But—”

“For I says to myself, ‘There’s the money a-doing nothing in the bank, and it’s obliging a gent who won’t be above orderin’ a few garments to make up for you obliging him, and—’”

“Confound you! will you let me speak?” cried Richard angrily.

“Of course, sir. Glad to hear you speak, and sorry I come at an inconvenient time, when you were busy with your music; and—let me see—didn’t Mr Mark say something about your wanting the cash to buy a new pianner? Or was it an old fiddle? I quite forget, sir; that I do.”

“Will you be silent a minute? Did my cousin say that money was for me?”

“Oh, yes, sir; or I shouldn’t have—”

“Then it was a lie—an abominable lie!” cried Richard, in a rage. “Sign those papers and acknowledge that I had the money? No! So you can be off, and tell him so.”

Mr Isaac Simpson screwed up his face, bent over the table, and carefully spread the three oblongs of blue paper out, one above the other, holding the ends down, and smoothing them out slowly.

“Well,” cried Richard, hotly, “do you hear what I say?”

“Oh, yes, Sir Richard Frayne, Baronet, I hear what you say,” replied the tailor: “but I was a-thinking, sir.”

“Then go and think somewhere else.”

“No, sir; I can’t do that, because, you see, I’m thinking about you. Here’s ’undred and eighty-odd pound of a poor man’s hard-earned money, most part of which you owe me.”

“It is false! I don’t owe you a penny.”

The tailor shook his head.

“I can’t afford to lose it, Sir Richard; and you can’t say but what I want to make it easy for you with them bills.”

“I do not want anything made easy for me,” cried the young man; “I can pay my just debts.”

“And, don’t you see, sir, it wouldn’t be pleasant for you if I was to write to your parents and guardians—leastwise, as you have no parents, your guardians—and ask them?”

“Write to them, and so will I.”

“But I don’t want to do such a shabby thing about a gent as I’ve tried to oblige.”

“I tell you I never authorised anyone to borrow money for me, sir.”

“Well, Sir Richard Frayne, Baronet, there’s the transaction down in a neat handwriting in my book, and I give a cheque for it, and there’s the cheque as come back from the bank with your name on the back, as well as Mr Mark Frayne’s on the receipt.”

“What?”

“As afore said, sir; and people—I mean your lawyers and guardians—’ll believe it. They won’t be so shabby as to say you were under age when they have lots of your money in trust.”

Richard stared at the man, half-stunned.

“There, Sir Richard, don’t let’s make a fuss and a lot of unpleasantry about a trumpery little amount like that, when it is all so easy for you.”

“I say I’ve never had the money. Go to Mr Mark Frayne.”

“But don’t you see as that’s as good as saying he’s been a-swindlin’ of me? And if I goes to my lawyer and lays it all before him, he’ll be for putting it in court, or p’raps worse; and it would go very hard on Mr Mark. I’m afraid they wouldn’t treat it as if it were a debt; they might say—”

“Silence!”

“That’s what I says, sir. His father a parson, too; and it wouldn’t do Mr Draycott no good. Hadn’t you better sign?”

“Without seeing my cousin first and making him explain? No. Take away your papers at once.”

“To my lawyers, sir?”

Richard hesitated.

“No,” he said at last. “I’ll see my cousin, and bring him on to you.”

“Ah! Now that’s talking sensible, sir. We can settle it, of course. Why, it would be such a mad thing to go to lawyers and make expenses, and have a reg’lar trouble, when your name on three bits of paper would save both of you from unpleasantry.”

“Both of us?” cried Richard.

“Well, yes, sir, perhaps; for there’s no knowing what people might say. They can be tidy hard on anyone as won’t pay when he can.”

“That will do!” cried Richard angrily. “I have told you that I will see my cousin.”

“Ve—ry good, Sir Richard,” said the tailor, carefully doubling up his slips of paper. “But hadn’t you better sign now, and see him after?”

“No.”

“Well, sir, you know best; but if it was my case, and I hadn’t had the cash, I should sign, and then go and give my cousin the howdaciousest hiding he ever had. That’s better than sending him to prison and before a judge. I wish you good-morning, sir—I suppose I ought to have said Sir Richard Frayne. I shall be at home all day to-morrow, sir, a-waiting on you.”

Chapter Two.

In Hot Blood.

“Yes, and you’ll have to wait,” cried Richard Frayne, as the door closed on the man, and he listened to the departing steps as he involuntarily crossed to the stand, picked up his flute, and rearranged the music, but only to throw it down angrily and replace his instrument.

“The scoundrel!” he cried. “Here, I must have this out at once.”

He was no longer the quiet, dreamy-looking musician, but full of angry energy; and in this spirit he went straight to his cousin’s room, knocked, and went in; but the place was empty.

“Seen my cousin?” he cried, as he encountered Jerry, the house servant, valet, and factotum.

“See him smoking in the garden ’arf a hour ago, S’Richard.”

Richard hurried down into the extensive grounds, and came plump upon Mr Draycott, the well-known military tutor and coach, tramping laboriously up and down one of the gravel paths, with his hands behind, giving a loud puff at every second step, for he was an enormously fat man, to whom walking was a severe trial, but a trial he persevered in from a wholesome dread that, if he neglected proper exercise, he would grow worse.

“Hullo, Frayne!” he cried, “I want to see you—” puff.

“Yes, sir?”

“Look here, I’m very much put out about you, Frayne—I am, indeed!”—puff.

“What about, sir?”

“Oh, you know”—puff. “Of course, I never object to my pupils having their own hobbies; but you have been carrying your musical”—puff—“whims to excess”—puff.

Richard coloured.

“I do not see why a soldier”—puff—“should not be a good musician, though the trumpet”—puff—“seems more in the way than the piano”—puff. “But you ought not to have gone in debt over such a matter”—puff.

“In debt, sir?”

“Yes. Don’t repeat my words!”—puff. “Now, I have warned you against it!”—puff.

“You did, sir; but I don’t understand your allusions,” said Richard, though he suspected that he did.

“Then you ought to, sir!”—puff. “Hasn’t that money-lending tailor”—puff—“just come from dunning you?”

“Yes, sir; but—”

“There, I know all about it. Pay him off, and never get into such a hobble again”—puff. “Coming, my dear!”—puff.

Mrs Draycott, an exceedingly thin lady, was calling from the French window of the drawing-room, and the “Heavy Coach,” as his pupils nicknamed him, went puffing off up to the house.

“Oh, I can’t stand this!” said Richard to himself. “I must have a thorough explanation. Mark shall speak out. Why, Draycott believes it, too! That scoundrelly little tailor must have told him. Hi! Dillon, seen my cousin?”

This was to a fellow-pupil, who was coming down the garden.

“Five minutes—ten minutes—ago, going across the Close. Gone to see the river; it’s getting flooded. What’s the row?”

“Oh, nothing—nothing.”

“But you look as if you were going to knock his head off.”

“I am,” cried Richard, over his shoulder, as he hurried off.

“That’s right. Hit hard! Save me a lock of his hair!” shouted the youth; and then to himself: “Serve the beast right! What’s he been doing now?”

Richard Frayne met a couple more of the “Heavy Coach’s” pupils as he crossed the Cathedral Close, where the calm silence of the old place ought to have quelled the angry throbbing in his veins; but it had an opposite effect, and the cries of the jackdaws which clung about the mouldering tower sounded like impish derisive laughter.

“Anything the matter?” said one of the pair.

“Yes; seen my cousin?”

“Yes; he’s down in the ruins, seated, like Patience on a broken monument, smoking and smiling at the river. Don’t pitch him in. I say: is there a row on?”

Richard Frayne did not answer, but walked away, crossed the creek bridge, beneath which the water ran thundering as it hurried toward the river, giving indications that there must have been a heavy rainstorm in the hills twenty miles away, though all was sunshine there.

He hurried on along the lane, turned out of it, crossed a couple of fields, and made his way toward a pile of ivy-clad ruins, whose base was washed by the river, now brimful, and here and there making patches and pools in the lower meadows further on.

These ruins were the remains of one of the great ecclesiastical buildings dismantled in the days of Bluff King Hal, and still showed the importance of the edifice, with its lancet windows and high walls surrounding a green patch that was at one time an inner garden surrounded by cloisters, of which only a few columns were left, and was now as secluded and lonely a spot as could be found for miles.

A visitor would have paused directly to admire the beauty of the old place, which raised up thoughts of the past, but Richard did not stay, for to him it only raised up secular thoughts of the present, with tailors’ bills, borrowed money, forgery, and lies.

But there was no sign of Mark Frayne; and, growing moment by moment more excited and angry, Richard hurried here and there, looking sharply round, coming to the conclusion that either he had been misinformed or his cousin had gone, when he caught sight of a yellow and black fragment of flannel projecting from behind a pile of stones at the corner farthest away from the swollen river.

“The cur!” he muttered, as he hurried forward, leaping over fallen blocks and fragments which showed still the groinings of the old cloisters.

“That’s like you!” he cried, as he came suddenly upon Mark leaning back in a niche, and who looked first white, then scarlet. “What do you mean? Hiding, like the sneaking coward you are.”

“You’re an idiot! I came here to see the flood rising.”

“At this end?” cried Richard, contemptuously. “No, you didn’t. You hid here because you saw me coming.”

“What! Hide from you!” cried Mark, defiantly. “I like that! Why should I hide from you, fiddler?”

“Because you felt what was coming out, and that I knew the miserable cheating act of which you have been guilty.”

“Here! what do you mean?” cried Mark, in a bullying tone, as he edged up, scowling, towards him, and looked down upon the meek musician, whom he felt he could at any moment pretty well crush.

“I mean that if poor sick Uncle James knew what I have just heard it would break his heart.”

“I don’t want to hear any cant about my father,” cried Mark, changing colour a little. “Tell me what you mean, or—”

He made a menacing gesture; but, to his surprise, Richard did not shrink.

“I mean that that wretched man has been to me about your debts.”

“About my debts? Oh, you mean Simpson about his bill. Well, I don’t want your help now. I can pay him. He must wait.”

“But he will not wait. He threatens to expose you if the matter is not settled at once.”

“Pooh! what is there to expose? Every fellow gets in debt more or less. Tailors have to wait. Every fellow gets behind for his togs.”

“Yes; but he does not forge his cousin’s name when he wants money.”

“What?” roared Mark, shaken for the moment. “Here,” he cried, seizing Richard by the arm, after a glance round to see if they were alone, “what does this mean?”

“It means this,” cried Richard passionately, “that your creditor has been to me this morning, and has just left me, after showing me how you have disgraced the good old name of Frayne.”

“I? How?”

“How?” cried Richard, whose voice was husky from emotion; “by writing my name to the cheque for the money you borrowed, telling the man it was for me.”

“Well, so it was!” cried Mark, seizing him by the other shoulder and shaking him. “No backing out now!”

“What?”

“You had it nearly all. And, if it has come to this, we’ll have it all out now. What do you mean about the cheque?”

“I mean that you forged my name. I knew nothing of it till just now.”

“I—I—did what?” cried Mark, as if astounded.

“I have told you. Take your dirty hands off me! It is disgrace enough, without—”

“I—I put your name to a cheque!” roared Mark. “Why, you infamous, lying cad: unsay every word! You know the money was borrowed for you, and that you spent it on your miserable music! Confess it before I break every bone in your skin!”

Staggered, mentally and bodily, by his cousin’s retort, Richard Frayne gave way, and was borne back against the ruined wall of the old sanctuary; for Mark had, by a quick action, seized him hard by the throat and held him fast.

“Why, you must be mad! You dare to say I did that, you infamous—lying—”

He had gone too far, and there was a moment’s pause; for, before he could utter the next word, Richard Frayne had given himself a violent wrench sidewise, freed himself and struck out at his assailant.

But it was a feeble blow, consequent upon his crippled position, and, with a savage laugh, Mark turned at him again.

“I’ll teach you to talk like that! Down on your knees and swear that it was all a hatched-up lie, or—”

Mark Frayne’s words were checked again, for he had never really seen of what his cousin was capable till now. He knew that he took part in athletic exercises, and he had had the gloves on with him often enough before, and knocked him about to his heart’s content. But he had now to learn that Richard Frayne, the white-handed lover of music, fought better without gloves than with, while the soft-palmed hands had knuckles as bony as his own.

“Liar!” muttered Richard between his teeth as he struck out with his left full at Mark’s mouth, sending him staggering back, but only to recover directly and come on furiously again.

There was only another round, and it was very short.

Richard Frayne, with every nerve twitching with rage and indignation, followed up his second blow with others, planted so truly, and with such effect, that within a minute he was driving his adversary back step by step, till, blind now with fury, he put all his strength and weight into a blow which sent Mark down like a piece of wood, to lie, inert, with his head resting against the broken, lichen-covered fragment of an arch.

“Steady! Hold hard!” shouted a couple of voices, and the two young fellow-pupils, who had followed, leaped down through a broken window, from whence, hidden by the ivy, they had watched the fray.

“You second Dick Frayne,” cried the first, “and I’ll see to Mark.”

Richard hardly heard what was said, for there was a sound as of surging waters in his ears, followed by a roar of words that seemed to thunder.

For, as the last speaker went down on one knee to raise up the fallen lad, he uttered a cry of horror, and then let the young man’s head hurriedly down, to shrink away with his hands fouled by blood.

“What is it?” cried the other, running forward; while Richard’s hands clutched at the air. “What is it?—cut?”

“Cut!” sobbed out the other. “A doctor!—quick! Dick Frayne, what have you done? He’s dead!”

Chapter Three.

Two Paces to the Rear.

After plunging as we did head first into the great trouble of Sir Richard Frayne’s life, I must ask my readers to let me go back, in military parlance, “two paces to the rear,” so as to enter into a few explanations as to the position of the cousins, promising that the interpolation shall be neither tedious nor long.

Only a short time before Richard Frayne struck that unlucky blow, general-valet Jerry entered the room with—

“Here you are, Sir Richard, two pairs; and your shoes is getting thin in the sole.”

“Then I must have a new pair, Jerry.”

“Why don’t you have ’arf dozen pairs in on account, sir, like Mr Mark do?”

“Look here, Jerry, if you worry me now, I shall throw something at you.”

Jeremiah Brigley, who had just put down two pairs of newly-polished shoes, rubbed his nose meditatively with the cuff of his striped morning jacket, and then tapped an itching place on his head with the clothes-brush he held in his hand, as he stared down at the owner of the shoes—a good-looking, fair, intent lad of nearly eighteen, busy over a contrivance which rested upon a pile of mathematical and military books on the table of the well-furnished room overlooking the Cathedral Close of Primchilsea busy city.

The place was fitted up as a study, and a curtain shut off a smaller room suggestive of a bed within; while over the chimney-piece were foils opposite single-sticks; boxing-gloves hung in pairs, bruised and swollen, as if suffering from their last knocking about; a cavalry sabre and a dragoon officer’s helmet were on the wall opposite the window. Books, pictures, and a statuette or two made the place attractive, and here and there were objects which told of the occupant of that room’s particular aim.

For beneath the helmet and sabre stood a piano open, and with a piece of music on the stand—a movement by Chopin; a violoncello leaned in its case in one corner, a cornet-à-piston showed itself, like an arrangement in brass macaroni packed in red velvet upon a side-table; and in front of it lay open a small, flat flute-case, wherein were the two halves of a silver-keyed instrument side by side, in company with what seemed to be its young one—so exact in resemblance was the silver-mounted piccolo made to fit into the case.

There were other signs about of the occupant’s love of the sweet science; for there were a tuning-fork, a pitch-pipe, and a metronome on the chimney-piece, a large musical-box on the front of the book-case, some nondescript pipes, reeds, and objects of percussion; and, to show that other tastes were cultivated to some extent, there were, besides, several golf-clubs, fishing-rods, a cricket-bat, and a gun-case.

But the owner of all sat intent upon the contrivance before him upon the table, and Jerry scratched his nose now with the edge of the clothes-brush.

“Beg pardon, S’Richard—”

“What the dickens do you want now?” cried the young man, impatiently.

“On’y wanted to ’mind you of what I said lars week, S’Richard.”

“Didn’t I tell you to talk to me when I wasn’t busy?”

“Yes, S’Richard; but, you see, you never ain’t not busy. When you ain’t at your books, getting ready for the gov’nor, you’re out with Mr Mark Frayne, sir, or some of the other gents; and when you are at home here, sir, you’re always tunin’ up, an’ windin’ up, or ’venting something.”

“Well, there, I am, Jerry,” said the young man smoothing his perplexed-looking brow. “Now, then, what is it?”

“Only this, S’Richard,” said the man, eagerly, and he now had laced up the shoes he had brought in and thrust them beneath the curtain. “You see, my father he used to say as it was a chap’s dooty to try and rise in the world.”

“Yes, of course,” said Richard Frayne, thoughtfully taking up a piece of the contrivance upon which he had been at work.

“And he said, S’Richard, as you ought to be on the look-out.”

“Yes. Well?”

“Well, S’Richard, that’s it; I’m on the look-out.”

“What for, Jerry?”

“To better myself, S’Richard. You see, it’s all very well being here valetin’ for the young gents and you, S’Richard; and I s’pose, as far as character goes, there ain’t a better coach nowhere than master, as they says passes more young gents than anyone.”

“No; Mr Draycott is a very clever scholar, Jerry,” said the young man, looking as if he wished the servant would go. “Well?”

“Well, sir, that’s all very well for a character for a noo place, but a chap don’t want to be cleanin’ boots all his life when they ain’t shoes.”

“No, Jerry; that would be rather a monotonous career. But what do you want me to do?”

“Well, S’Richard, it’s making very bold like; but I can’t help liking you, sir, and ’fore long you’ll be passing and getting appointed to your regiment; and as I’ve got a great taste for soljering myself, I thought I’d ask you to take me with you.”

“You—you want to be a soldier, Jerry?”

“Yes, sir. Why not?” said the man, drawing himself up, and brushing the tuft of hair over the top of his forehead, so that it stood up fiercely, and gave his whole head some resemblance to the conventional naming shell of military ornamentation. “Of course, I couldn’t think of a military eddication and going to a coach, S’Richard, and passing; but lots of chaps have risen from the ranks.”

“Yes, I suppose so,” said the young man, who looked more bored and fidgety; “but I don’t think I ought to promise to take you, Jerry. I don’t know that I shall pass and get my commission.”

“Oh, yes, you will, sir.”

“Of course, I should like to have you with me, Jerry, because you understand me so well.”

“I do, S’Richard; and I allus feel proud o’ doin’ for you. I often watches you when you goes out, and I says to myself, ‘Look at him! I cut him, and brushed him, and shaved him’—not as there’s much to shave yet, sir.”

“No, Jerry,” said the young man, passing his hand over his upper lip and chin; “it’s rather a work of supererogation at present.”

“A what, sir?”

“Work of supererogation, Jerry.”

“Exactly, S’Richard; that’s just what it is. But don’t you get out of heart, sir. I was smooth as you once, and now if I goes two days you might grate ginger with me!”

“Well, we will see,” said the young man; “but if you want to—to—”

“Better myself, S’Richard; that’s it!”

“Don’t let another opportunity go.”

“Oh, yes, I shall, S’Richard! You said you’d like to have me, and that’s enough for me! I’d wait for you, sir, if I had to stop till you was a hundred! But, beg pardon, S’Richard, is that there to make a patent mouse-trap?”

“Which?” said the young man angrily.

“That there thing as you’re making, S’Richard.”

“Pooh! what nonsense! Jerry, you are not musical.”

“Well, sir, I ain’t a moosician, as you may say, but I was a dab at the Jew’s-harp once, and I’ve got a very tidy flootina ’cordion now; only I ain’t no time to practise.”

“No, Jerry,” said the young man, thoughtfully, as he laid out his little pieces of mechanism on the table; “this is an attempt to invent a means of producing musical sounds by percussion.”

“With p’cussion-caps, sir?”

“No, no! by blows.”

“Oh, I see, S’Richard.”

“I have often thought that more might be done, Jerry, in the way of obtaining musical notes.”

“Of course, S’Richard.”

“You see,” said the young man, dreamily, “we produce them by vibration.”

“Yes, S’Richard, and whistling, and fiddling, and blowing trombones.”

“Exactly; that is all connected with vibration.”

“Oh, is it, sir? I s’pose you’re right; but then there’s pyanners, sir, and orgins, sir, street and otherwise!”

“Exactly, Jerry,” said the young student drily. “There, I’m busy now; I’ll remember what you said, and, if I can have you with me, I will.”

“Thank you kindly, S’Richard. Don’t you be afraid as I won’t do my dooty by you!”

“I won’t, Jerry. Then that’s all, isn’t it?”

“Well, S’Richard, not quite all; there’s your cousin, sir—Mr Mark, sir.”

“Well, what about him?”

“Only this, S’Richard: if you’d speak to him, and tell him as servants ain’t doormats, I should be greatly obliged.”

“What do you mean?”

“Only this, S’Richard, as it’s getting beyond bearing! I don’t want to go complaining to Mr Draycott, sir, but there is bounds to everything! Havin’ all kinds of hard words chucked at you—‘fools’ and ‘idgits’ and ‘jackasses’—and when it comes to boots and hair-brushes, I says as it’s rough enough; but when it’s a soda-water bottle and a plate, I can’t stand it, and I won’t!”

“What had you been doing to annoy my cousin?”

“Nothin’, S’Richard. I just work for him same as I do for my other gentlemen, or for you, sir; and you never threw a bad word at me in your life—let alone boots!”

“Did the things hit you, Jerry?”

“No, S’Richard, I can’t say as they hit me; but they hurt me, all the same. Servants has feelings same as gents has.”

“I’m very sorry, Jerry. Mr Frayne is a little irritable sometimes.”

“If you made it often, S’Richard, you wouldn’t be very far out.”

“Well, often then. His studies worry him, I suppose.”

Jerry made a peculiar grimace.

“And he has had a little trouble once or twice with Mr Draycott.”

“Yes, S’Richard, he ayve.”

“There, I’ll speak to him, Jerry. He doesn’t mean anything by it, for he’s a good fellow at heart; and when he feels that he has hurt your feelings I daresay it will mean an apology, and—perhaps something else.”

“Thankye, S’Richard, thankye,” said the man. “I know’d you’d say something o’ that sort, but don’t you speak to him. It wouldn’t do no good. He wouldn’t ’pologise to such as me; and as to a tip—not him! There, S’Richard, it’s all right now. It did me good to say all that out to a real gentleman, and—pst!—Any more orders, S’Richard?”

“Eh?” said Richard, wondering at the man’s manner. “No, thank you; that’s all. What’s the matter?”

“Pst! S’Richard,” whispered the man hurriedly. “Talk of the No-we-never-mentions-him, and you see his—”

The door opened with a crash, and made the pictures swing upon the wall, while Jerry drew on one side to let the fresh-comer enter the room.

Chapter Four.

Mark in a Hole.

“Hullo, thick-head! loafing again.”

It was a dark, olive-complexioned young fellow, of Sir Richard’s age, who swung into the opening noisily, cigarette in mouth.

“Not loafing, Mr Frayne, sir,” said the man in an injured tone, as he fixed his eyes on the rather handsome student who had entered the room, and took in at a glance his white flannels and yellow-striped blazer, from the breast-pocket of which a thick gold chain was hanging. “Beg pardon, sir; you’ll be losing your watch-chain’s out o’ buttonhole.”

“Well, what business is it of yours, idiot? If I lose it, you might find it. Perquisites—eh, Jerry?”

“There, S’Richard,” said the man, flushing. “Now, ain’t that as good as sayin’ I’d steal a watch? I’d take my oath I never—”

“That will do, Jerry,” said Sir Richard, sternly. “You needn’t wait.—Why can’t you leave the fellow alone, Mark?”

“Why can’t you act like a gentleman, and not be always making friends with the servants?” retorted the young fellow addressed. “So that’s it, is it? The confounded sneak comes tattling to you, does he?”

“No!” cried Sir Richard, rather gruffly; “but he did complain of your forgetting yourself and throwing things at him.”

“Oh, did he?” cried Mark Frayne, catching up the nearest thing, which was the model his cousin had been making, and hurling it at the offender, but without effect, for Jeremiah Brigley already had the door open and darted out; the panel receiving the model instead of his head.

Sir Richard Frayne sprang to his feet to save his model, but too late; it fell, shivered, to the carpet, and the new-comer burst into a roar of laughter.

“I don’t see anything to grin at,” said his cousin, indignantly.

“Not you!” said the other, letting himself down on to the keyboard of the piano with a loud musical crash, and laughing heartily all the time. “Why don’t you get on with your work? Anyone would think you were in training for a cat-gut scraper at a low theatre instead of for an officer and a gentleman.”

“Mark, old chap,” said Sir Richard, good-humouredly, as, with rather a rueful look, he picked up his broken model, “every man to his taste. I like music; you like dogs.”

“Yes; and they make a precious sight better music than ever you do. Soldier! Pooh! You haven’t the heart of a cockroach in you. Thank goodness, you’ll soon have to do your exam. That’ll open your eyes, and I shall be glad of it. If I were you, I’d try for an engagement in a band somewhere, for you’ll never get a commission.”

“Perhaps not,” said Sir Richard, quietly. “But what’s the matter with you, old chap? Been having a row with Draycott?”

“Draycott’s a bumptious, pedantic old fool. Fancies he knows everything. A brute!”

“Take a couple of pills, Mark; your liver’s out of order.”

“Put an angel’s liver out of order to be here! I won’t put up with much more of it, and so I’ll tell him. I shall dress as I like, and do as I like, even if I haven’t got a handle to my name. Sir Richard, indeed!—a pattern for me to follow! Next time the fat old idiot say’s that to me, I’ll throw the books at his head.”

“Oh, that’s it, is it?”

“Yes; that’s it, is it!” cried Mark Frayne in an angry tone. “I tell you I’m sick of it!”

“Nonsense! What had you been doing?” said Richard, fighting down a feeling of resentment, and looking smilingly at his cousin.

“What’s that to you?” growled Mark.

“Not much; but I wanted to help the lame dog over the stile.”

“Look here,” cried Mark, fiercely; “none of that. If you want to insult me, say so right out, and then I shall know what you mean. None of your covert allusions.”

Richard Frayne laughed outright, and his cousin took a step forward menacingly.

“Why, what has come to you?” cried the former. “Don’t be so peppery. I want to help you, if I can.”

“Do you?” cried Mark, eagerly. “There, I’m sorry I spoke so sharply. That brute Simpson has been writing to Draycott.”

“Simpson, the tailor? What has he got to write about?”

Mark Frayne scowled, and gave a kick out with his leg, but did not answer.

“Have you been running a bill with him?”

Mark nodded.

“Then why don’t you pay it?”

“Why don’t I pay it?” snarled Mark. “Am I a baronet with plenty of money?”

“No; but you have as good an allowance as I. You ought to be able to pay your tailor’s bill.”

“’Tisn’t a bill for clothes,” said Mark, sulkily, and he picked up a book, opened it, and threw it impatiently across the room, making his cousin wince a little.

“What then? Surely you haven’t been such a fool as to borrow money of him?”

“Yes, I have been such a fool as to borrow money of him,” cried Mark, savagely. “I couldn’t help being short; he offered it to me, and, of course, I took it. So would you.”

“No, I shouldn’t,” said Richard, quietly. “He did write to offer me money once—when I first came, and I refused it, and haven’t been in his shop since.”

“But then we’re not all such good young men as you are, Dick,” sneered Mark. “I did take it, and the brute has been running up interest and renewing, as he calls it, and gammoning me into ordering fresh clothes. He made this beastly jacket, and all sorts of things that don’t fit; and now, because I’m not ready to pay his swindling bill and the wretched paper, he has been threatening, and ended by writing to old Draycott.”

“Pay him then, and have done with him.”

“Will you help me?”

“Of course, if I can.”

“If you can! Why, you can, if you like.”

“I don’t know about that,” said the other, good-humouredly; “I’ve been spending a good deal of money in music things lately.”

“Bosh! you can get me out of the hole, if you like.”

“How much do you owe him?”

Mark threw the end of his cigarette with all his force into the fireplace, and ground his teeth for a few moments before muttering between them—

“Eighty-four pounds, or so!”

“What?”

“Eighty-four pounds,” snarled Mark. “Do you want me to shout it for everyone to know?”

“But how could you get into his debt to that extent?”

“Didn’t I tell you, stupid? Half of it was lent, and I gave him an I.O.U., and he has been piling it up somehow. I don’t know what he has done. He was civil and smooth as butter till he had me tight, and now he’s showing his teeth.”

“But he would not have written to Draycott unless you had been disagreeable to him.”

“Oh! wouldn’t he? He threatened to a year ago, when it wasn’t so much. It was when he found out I’d been getting some togs from London. I expect he pumped it out of that idiot Jerry Brigley. But I’m not going to sit here exposing my affairs. Will you help me to get out of the hole?”

Richard Frayne was silent for a time, and then he said quietly—

“I can’t, Mark.”

“What? Why, you said you would.”

“Yes, but I thought it meant lending you four or five pounds. I have no more till my quarter comes round.”

“Till your quarter comes round,” sneered Mark; “anyone would think he had his wages then. Here, no nonsense, Dick; you said you would help me.”

“I did, but I can’t.”

Mark made an angry gesture, but he mastered himself and turned to his cousin.

“Look here, it doesn’t mean money. Simpson knows that you’ll have Quailmere some day, and he said he wouldn’t mind waiting if he had good security. It only means putting your name to a bit of paper.”

“Did Simpson suggest that?” said Richard.

“Of course he did, and it means making an end to the trouble. I shall only have to go on paying the interest.”

“Till Mr Simpson chooses to come down upon me and make me pay,” said Richard, with a laugh full of annoyance.

“No, he won’t; he said he wouldn’t. It’s such a little sum, too—nothing to you! Here, come on with me at once, and let’s settle it.”

Richard Frayne sat back in his chair, looking straight before him, unconscious of the fact that his cousin was watching him narrowly, and who now went on with forced gaiety—

“Wish I hadn’t been such a fool as to keep it to myself. Here it has been worrying my very life out for months, and made me as irritable as a wasp. You are a good fellow, Dick! But, honour bright, I didn’t like to ask you.”

Richard remained silent.

“There, don’t think about it any more. Come on.”

“But it wants thinking about, Mark.”

“What nonsense! You don’t know how easy these things are.”

“I’ve often heard,” said Richard, drily.

“Yes, of course you have,” said Mark, with a feeble laugh. “There, put me out of my misery, old chap. Sudden death, you know. Come on.”

“No,” said Richard, quietly. “I promised my poor father that I would never put my name to paper in that way, and I never will.”

“What?”

“You heard, Mark.”

“Do you mean to tell me that, after what you have said, you will not help me out of this bit of trouble?”

“No, I do not mean to tell you that. I want to help you.”

“Then, come on.”

“Yes, come on to Mr Draycott, and let’s ask him what is to be done.”

Mark Frayne leaped up from where he had rested in a sitting position upon the keyboard of the piano, giving his hands a bang down on either side, and producing fresh jangling discords, which seemed to fit with the harsh, mocking laugh he uttered.

“Good boy!” he cried. “What an excellent son! That old cock-o’-wax, the Admirable Crichton, was nowhere. You’d have beaten him into fits, Dick. Go on, say something else; it does me good; only be gentle. I couldn’t bear to be made such a saint as you are all at once.”

“Of course, I know it will be very painful for you,” continued Richard, gravely; “but it is the only thing you can do, and Draycott has over and over again said to me, ‘If ever you find yourself in any trouble, Frayne, forget that we are tutor and pupil, and come to me as a friend.’”

“You miserable sneak!” growled Mark, in a hard, husky voice.

“No, I’m not; I’m your cousin, and I want to help you, Mark,” said Richard. “I spend so much time at the music that I know very little about these money matters; but I do know that this fellow Simpson has been working to get you under his thumb, and running up an account twice as much as you justly owe him.”

“Go on,” said Mark, “preach away! I won’t quarrel with you; because, prig as you are, Dick, I don’t believe you will refuse to help me. Look here, it’s only signing your name. Will you do it?”

“I’ll give you all I’ve got, and undertake to let you have three-quarters of my next allowance from the lawyers. I can’t do any more than that.”

“Once more,” said Mark, huskily, “will you help me?”

“I have told you,” was the reply, “I’ll lend you all I can scrape together, or go with you straight to Mr Draycott.”

“Once more,” said Mark, with an ugly, vicious look in his eyes, “will you come in to old Simpson’s and sign?”

Richard Frayne sat looking firmly at his cousin, but made no reply.

“All right,” said Mark, with a laugh; “then the game’s up! I shall make a bolt of it, and go to sea. No: every cad does that. I’ll take my dearly beloved, sanctified cousin for a model, and be very good and saving. I won’t waste all old Draycott’s military teaching; it would be a pity!”

“What do you mean?” cried Richard.

“To go over to Ratcham and take the shilling. Perhaps I shall rise from the ranks.”

“Go and think about what I’ve said, and come back when you get cool. I won’t go out all day, and—”

Bang, rattle, and a crash!

Mark Frayne had gone out and closed the door with so much violence that the dragoon officer’s helmet was shaken from the peg upon which it hung, and fell, bringing with it the cavalry sabre.

Richard sprang from his chair to pick them up, a frown gathering upon his face as he saw that an ugly dint had been made in the helmet which resisted all his efforts to force it out.

Then he stood gazing down at it and the sabre, which he had raised and carefully laid upon the table beneath where it had hung.

It was a fancy, he knew. He told himself that it was a silly piece of superstition; but, all the same, a strange feeling troubled him; and it seemed as if the fall of these old mementoes of the gallant officer, his dead father, was a kind of portent of trouble to come—trouble and disaster that would be brought about by his cousin.

Chapter Five.

Right Forward.

The dreamy sensation of unreality passed away for the moment, and Richard Frayne flung himself upon his knees beside his cousin, to raise his head, after hurriedly taking out and folding a handkerchief to form a bandage; while, after eagerly watching him for a few moments, one of the two pupils turned and dashed off as hard as he could run in the direction of the town.

But the bandage was too short; and, after looking wildly up at his companion, Richard tore off his necktie, made a pad of the handkerchief, and bound it firmly to the back of his cousin’s head, conscious, as he did so, of the fact that the bone was dented in by its contact with the stone.

“Go for help!” cried Richard, huskily.

“No, no; I can’t leave you now,” said the other, who stood there, white and trembling. “Andrews has gone for a doctor. Somebody else is sure to come. Oh, Frayne! what have you done?”

The lad looked up at him wildly, but he could not speak. The strange sensation of everything being unreal came over him again, and, in a dreamy way, he saw the coming of his aunt and uncle to ask him the same question; while Mark was lying, pale and cold, lifeless in his room. There was the rushing, murmuring sound of the river from close at hand, and the deep tones of the great Cathedral bell striking the hour; but to Richard’s excited imagination it was tolling for his cousin’s death, and thought succeeded thought now in horrible sequence.

He had in his passion killed Mark Frayne. It was in fair fight; but would people believe all this? They had quarrelled, and about that money trouble. Would people believe his version, or take the side of the dead?

Then a black cloud of misery and despair seemed to close him in, and he knelt there as it stunned—unable to think, unable to move. He could only gaze down at the pale, rigid features before him, drawing back involuntarily at last as he awoke to the fact that his companion had been down to the river to fill his hat with water, with which he began to bathe Mark Frayne’s face.

Then came a buzz of voices as boys and men approached. Two or three people began at once to ask questions, which Richard Frayne could not answer, while his companion’s replies were confused and wild.

“Yes, he’s dead enough,” said someone, coarsely, and the words seemed to echo through Richard’s brain.

Then there was hurried talk about carrying him back to the town, calls for a gate or a shutter, and the little crowd constantly on the increase, till the pressure grew suffocating.

At last someone shouted—

“Here he is!” and Richard was conscious of a tall figure in black forcing its way through the crowd, scolding and ordering the people to keep back.

“How did this happen?” someone said, sharply; and Richard gazed up at the speaker, but made no reply, only stared with dilated eyes as a rapid examination was made and the rough bandage replaced.

Then, in a dreamy way, Richard Frayne saw that his cousin was lifted on to a gate, and a ragged kind of procession was formed, as the men who had raised the bars on to their shoulders stepped off together under the doctor’s direction; while he seemed to be, as the nearest relative, playing the part of chief mourner.

That march back appeared endless. People joined in, others stood in front of house and shop; and the buzzing of voices increased till, panting and flurried, the great heavy figure of Mr Draycott was seen approaching without his hat.

“Much hurt?”

“Can’t say yet, for certain,” rang ominously in Richard’s ears. “Fear the worst! I want Mr Shrubsole to be fetched!”

“I’ll go, sir; I’ll go!” came from a couple of boys; and then Richard felt Mr Draycott’s heavy hand upon his shoulder as they still went on.

“A terrible business, Frayne; a terrible business!” he said; and for the rest of the distance to the gate of the carriage drive these words kept on repeating themselves to the beat of feet and the buzz and angry excitement, as one of the policemen who had hurried up refused to let the crowd follow to the hall-door.

Then, still in the dreamy, confused way as of one half-stunned, Richard Frayne paced up and down the dining-room, hearing from time to time what was going on, for he had been sent out of his cousin’s room by the doctor. Here he was conscious of the fact that his fellow-pupils all kept aloof, grouping together and talking in low tones. They were discussing the affray, he knew, and a word here and there told him that the causes of the encounter were well to the fore.

Twice over he heard something which made him draw near, but his approach was followed by a dead silence, and the blood flushed to his temples; but that was no time for angry remonstrance, and he shrank away.

“They don’t know!” he muttered, as he resumed his weary walk up and down till Andrews, who acted the part of scout, entered the room to communicate what he had gathered on the stairs.

Richard went to him, but the lad avoided his eyes and turned to his companions, to whom he whispered a few words, and then went out again to get more news.

This went on over and over again, with the feeling growing on Richard that he was to be “sent to Coventry,” the two who had witnessed the encounter having evidently heard a great deal that passed between the cousins and communicated the words that had fallen at the time.

All this was maddening, but it was overborne by the one dread thought—Suppose Mark really were dead, what should he do?

The leaden minutes went slowly on, and somehow he gathered that the two doctors had been performing a crucial operation and one of them had gone; and, unable to bear the suspense longer, Richard turned to go and ask for himself, when the door was opened and Jerry appeared, to raise his hand and beckon to him to come out.

Richard obeyed the sign, and hurried into the hall in the midst of a profound silence.

“How is he?” whispered the lad, excitedly; and the man shook his head.

“Don’t ask me, sir,” he cried. “Master wants to see you in the study.”

Richard uttered a low, piteous sigh, and everything seemed to swing round him, while an intense desire came to rash wildly out of the house and hurry away anywhere—to woods, or out on some vast plain, where he would be alone to think, if it were possible, and get rid of the violent throbbing in his brain.

“Oh, I shall go mad!” he muttered.

At that moment Jerry threw open the study door, and, trying to nerve himself for the encounter, Richard entered, to find the great tutor standing, with his hands behind him, before the fireless grate.

“How is he, Mr Draycott? Pray, pray speak!” cried Richard.

“I sent for you to tell you, Frayne,” said the tutor, in a low, deep voice. “Sinking fast!”

“Dying?” cried Richard, wildly. “No, no, sir; don’t say that!”

“The doctors have done all they can, Frayne. He is perfectly insensible, and they say he will pass away before many hours are gone.”

Richard groaned, and clapped his hands to his head, pressing them there as if to clear his brain.

“More help!” he said suddenly.

“I have telegraphed for our greatest specialist.”

“Ah!”

“And to the poor fellow’s father at Cannes. A terrible business, Frayne—a terrible business!”

“Yes; but he must not die—he must not die!”

Mr Draycott was silent for a few minutes. There was much he wanted to say, but the words seemed loth to come.

“We must be prepared for the worst, Frayne,” he said at last. “This is a dreadful shock.”

“Yes—yes!” groaned Richard.

“And I have something very hard to say to you.”

“You cannot say anything, sir, that will make me feel worse than I do.”

Mr Draycott shook his head.

“It must come, Frayne,” he said at last; “so we may as well get the matter over. Things look very black against you.”

“Black, sir?”

“Yes. Sinjohn and Andrews both saw how strange you looked when you passed them, and they followed, being agreed that something was wrong. It was observed too, by others.”

“I was angry, sir—in a rage.”

“Yes,” said the tutor sternly. “They saw you encounter your cousin, and they heard nearly every word he said.”

“And what I said, sir?”

“No. They tell me you spoke to him in a low voice, as if you were begging him not to do something, and they gathered that it was about keeping a trouble quiet.”

“No, no, sir!” cried Richard wildly.

“That is how it impressed them, and they say that, when your cousin refused what you wanted, you attacked him.”

“No, sir! We fought; but I acted in self-defence.”

“Indeed!” said his tutor, coldly. “They heard words, too, about debt—a heavy sum—and forging—matters that should not be even known amongst the gentlemen studying here. I find, too, Frayne, that you have been mixed up with money matters.”

“It is not true, sir.”

“Your cousin declared you were. He was heard to say so, and if the worst comes to the worst, Frayne, his words will be believed.”

“Do you mean if he dies, sir?” gasped Richard.

“I do, Frayne. I have had a letter from that Mr Simpson, and I find that he came to you this morning to be paid, and that sharp words passed between you in your room. This is all very bad, Frayne, and, confused though it is, it goes against you. The police—”

“What?” cried Richard.

“Were for arresting you at once.”

“Arresting me? What for?” cried the young man, indignantly.

“For a murderous assault upon your cousin; but I would not hear of it now. I said that you would be here if it was found necessary to proceed against you.”

“Oh, but this is madness, sir!” cried Richard, excitedly. “They could not do that!”

The tutor shook his head.

“We must look troubles in the face, Frayne,” he said. “If matters come to the worst, there must be an inquest, and, whatever you may say, your fellow-pupils’ words will have weight.”

Richard literally staggered, and gazed wildly at the heavy face of his tutor, who went on slowly—

“It is a terrible business, Frayne, and a fearful blow for me. I cannot blame myself. I always treat those who study with me as gentlemen, and if the poor fellow upstairs does sink, the consequences must be crushing for you.”

“Never mind me, sir; let’s think of my cousin. He must get better! There, I can think more clearly now. It is as if my head does not feel so shut up and strange. I won’t try to defend myself, sir; but Andrews and Sinjohn are wrong. I am innocent.”

“But you struck your cousin down.”

“Yes, sir; I was nearly mad with passion.”

“Ah!” sighed the tutor.

“But it was in fair fighting, sir!”

“I am afraid, Frayne, it is manslaughter; and now let us bring this painful interview to a close. You will have the goodness to go up to your room, and to stay there until I ask you to come down. Stop! I think it would be better for you to have legal advice. This is all so new to me!”

“I’m going to my room—to stay there, sir—but don’t do anything about me till we hear what the great doctor says; it may not be so bad. Can I see my cousin now?”

“No. The doctor’s orders are that no one but the nurse is to enter his room. There, let us end this painful interview.”

“I am innocent, sir, indeed!” it was upon Richard’s lips to say; but the stern, doubting look on the tutor’s face checked him, and he went slowly up to his room, utterly crushed as he sank into a chair, conscious the next moment that the curtain which separated it from his bedchamber was pushed aside, and Jerry appeared.

“Been a-waiting, sir. They’re a-saying, sir, that you tried to kill Mr Mark Frayne because he was going to tell on you about some money troubles. It ain’t true, is it, sir?”

“True!” cried Richard, flushing indignantly.

“I knowed it wasn’t!” said Jerry, triumphantly. “You couldn’t ha’ done such a thing, S’Richard; but I wouldn’t ha’ believed as you could hit so hard.”

“Go now, please.”

“Yes, sir, just a-going; but don’t you take on, sir. P’raps he’ll get better; but, if he don’t—well, sir, he’s your cousin, but—”

“That will do; now go.”

Jerry gave his mouth a slap, and hurried from the room.

Chapter Six.

Down in the Depths.

Half-mad with despair and misery, one thought constantly returned with terrible persistence to Richard Frayne as he tramped up and down his prison—for so it now seemed, though neither locks nor bars stayed his way to freedom. The pleasant, handsomely-furnished room was the same as it had been only a few hours before, with musical instruments and treasured hobbies that he had collected together; and yet not the same, for it was the cell in which he was confined by the order of the man whose word had always been to him as a law, and in which he felt as firmly shut in as if he had given his parole of honour not to leave it until told to descend.

The thirst for news was again rising. Mark, they had informed him, was lying insensible, slowly sinking into eternity, and he could not go to his side, fall upon his knees, and tell him that he would sooner have suffered death than this should have happened. And there, crushing him down, as his eyes were constantly turned upon that helmet, while he tramped the room or sank upon one of the chairs, was the thought, with its maddening persistency, that it was better that his parents had not lived to see their son’s position—the shame and despair which were now his lot—always that thought; for he recalled the days of sorrow, a couple of years back, when the gallant officer, whose name had been a power in India, was snatched away, and the loving wife and mother followed him within a month.

Light-hearted, of an affectionate nature, and always on the warmest terms of intimacy with his fellow-pupils, his position now seemed to him doubly hard in his loneliness, for not one had come near him to take him by the hand. The words raved out in the quarrel had run through them and hardened all against him. They could have sympathised with him in the terrible result of the encounter; but the dishonourable, criminal act which his cousin’s charge had fixed upon him soured all, and they readily obeyed the principal’s wish that he should be left to himself.

There were times when it seemed impossible to him that the charge he had made should so have recoiled and fixed itself upon him; but, by a strange perverseness, thus it was, and, saving by the servant, hardly a friendly word had been spoken.

“Am I going mad?” he muttered, as he tramped up and down, holding his throbbing head. “It seems more than I can bear!”

It was evening now, a glorious summer evening; with the mellow sunshine lighting up the lake-like meadows, for the river was far out of bounds and spreading still; but Richard Frayne saw nothing through the black cloud which seemed to shut him in. Then all at once, sending an electric thrill through him, there was a sharp tap at the door, and he turned to meet the visitor.

Only Jerry, who came in bearing a napkin-covered tray, holding it resting upon the edge as he cleared a space upon the table.

“Well?” cried Richard, hoarsely.

“Your dinner, sir, that I was to bring up.”

“How is he? How is he?” panted Richard.

The man looked at him sadly, shook his head, and went on clearing a place for the tray.

“Why don’t you speak?” cried Richard, fiercely. “Not—not—?”

He could not finish.

“No, sir; and the big doctor hasn’t got here yet. There you are, sir. Now do sit down and eat a bit; you must want something!”

“Take it away!”

“No, no, sir; do, please, try!”

“Take it away, I tell you!”

Jerry stood looking at him piteously, rubbing his hands one over the other as if he were washing them.

“I know it goes agin’ you, sir, of course; but you ought, sir; indeed, you ought!”

“Tell me,” cried Richard, “who is with him?”

“The doctor, sir, and the nurse; and master’s always going up and down. I met him only just now that upset and white it gave me quite a turn. He shook his head at me. ‘A terrible business, Brigley, very!’ he says; ‘a terrible business! I wouldn’t have had it happen for a thousand pounds!’”

“There, go away now, Jerry! Pray, pray, don’t stop! Take all that down!”

“No, sir; I can’t do that!” said the man. “It was master’s orders, and you must really try to eat.”

Richard sank into a chair and covered his face with his hands, but only sprang up the next minute upon feeling his shoulder touched, and saw the man leaning over him.

“Can’t I do nothing for you, S’Richard?” whispered Jerry. “I’d do anything for you, sir; indeed, I would.”

“Go to my cousin’s room and wait till you can get some news. Jerry, if it comes to the worst, I shall go mad.”

The man looked at him compassionately, and then went out on tiptoe, to return after an interval to thrust in his head, which he gave a mournful shake, and then withdrew.

The evening passed and the night was gliding on, with Richard still pacing the room from time to time, when Jerry once more came to the door, glided in, closed it, and hurriedly whispered—

“The doctor’s down from London, sir, and he’s still in Mr Mark’s room.”

“What does he say?” cried Richard, wildly.

“Can’t tell yet, sir; but as soon as ever I hear I’ll come back.”

Jerry crept away, and the prisoner sat down once more to think. He felt that he would soon know now—that he would shortly have to face the awful truth—and a chilling feeling of despair came upon him with redoubled violence; while, as he sat there, he gave up all hope. There was the future to face, and now a great change seemed to come over him, as if it were the energy begotten of despair.

There was the worst to face, with the inquest, the examination, and the possibility of the wrong construction still being placed upon his acts. Everything had gone against him, everything would continue to go against him, and he told himself that it was impossible to face it. His word seemed to go for nothing; and, yielding to the horror of his position, he sat there in the darkest part of his room, wishing earnestly that he could exchange places with the unhappy lad lying yonder between life and death.

Suddenly he started, for, sounding solemn and strange in the midnight air, the bell of the Cathedral boomed out the hour, the long-drawn strokes of the hammer seeming as if they would never come to an end; while, when the last stroke fell, it was succeeded in the silence of the night by a dull, quivering vibration that slowly died away.

And there, with overstrained nerves, Richard Frayne sat, waiting still for the coming of the news. He must have that, he told himself, before he could act; but still it did not come.

Twice over he went to the door, with the intention of opening it to listen, but he shrank away.

No. He felt that he was a prisoner, and he could not lay a hand upon the lock. He would wait until the man came.

But it was half-past one before the door was opened and Jerry stole in on tiptoe.

“Think I wasn’t a-coming, sir?” he said, sadly.

“The news!—the news!” gasped Richard.

Jerry was silent, as he stood gazing wistfully at the inquirer.

“Can’t you see that I am dying to hear?” cried the lad imploringly.

“Yes, sir,” came in a broken voice; “but I’ve got that to tell you that’ll break your ’art as well, sir.”

“Then it is the worst?” groaned Richard.

“Yes, sir: master told me. He rang for me to tell me as soon as the doctor had gone to the hotel. I let him out, sir. Yes, sir, master rung for me to tell me; and, of course, he meant it so that I might come up and tell you. ‘Brigley,’ he says, ‘the doctor gives us no hope at all. There was a piece of bone pressing on the brain, he says, and this the doctors removed; but the shock was too much for the poor fellow, and he won’t last the night.’”

Richard sat back in his chair, rigid, as if cut in stone, and Jerry went on—

“Don’t look like that, sir; don’t, please! You wanted me to tell you. It was my dooty, sir; and now, sir, you know the worst, do take a bit of advice, sir. Even if you don’t undress, go and lie down, and have a good sleep till morning. There, sir, I must, too. I’ll bring you a cup of tea about six, sir. Good-night, sir.”

“Good-night,” said Richard, quietly.

“Ah, that’s better,” said Jerry to himself. “Now he knows the worst, he’s easier like. What’s o’clock?”

He drew a big-faced watch from his pocket by its steel chain.

“Harpus one; not much time for my snooze. I’ll just go and make up cook’s fire, put the kettle over, and have a nap there. It’s no use to go to bed now.”

Jerry did as he had promised to himself, and finally sank back in a kind of Windsor chair, dropping off to sleep the next instant, and, by force of habit, waking just at the time he had arranged in his mind.

“Ten minutes to six,” he muttered, smiling. “I’ve got a head like a ’larum. Just upon the boil, too,” he added, addressing the kettle, as he changed it from the trivet on to the glowing coals.

The clocks were striking six as he went softly upstairs with a little tray, and, turning the handle, entered Richard Frayne’s room, where one of the windows was open; and all looked bright and cheery in the early morning sunshine as he set the tray down upon the table beside the larger one, which showed that some bread had been broken off, but the rest of the contents were untouched.

“It’s a shame to wake him,” thought Jerry; “cup o’ tea’s a fine thing when you’re tired out, but a good long sleep’s a deal better. Poor chap, I won’t disturb him, but I’ll take the tea in and put it on a chair by his bedside. He shall see as I didn’t forget him in trouble. On’y to think him a real gent with a handle to his name and lots of money to come in for when he’s one-and-twenty. Right as a trivet yes’day morning and now in such a hobble as this, just like any common chap as goes and kills his mate. They can’t hang him, but I s’pose they’ll give it to him pretty hot, poor chap! Juries is such beasts, they’d take ’n give it to him hard because he’s a real gent, and make as though keeping up the glorious constitootion and freedom and liberty of the subject to everybody alike. Well, I s’pose it’s right, but I’d let him off in a minute if I was the judge.—Come on!”

This was to the tea, whose fragrance he sniffed as he neared the waiter, and went softly to the archway where the curtain shut off the bedroom.

“Poor boy!—for he is nothing but a boy—I am sorry for him, and no mistake. Well, ups and downs in life we see, and you can’t escape troubles, even if you’re a Prince o’ Wales.”

Jerry softly drew the curtain aside and peered through without a sound; and as he let the heavy drapery fall, he uttered an ejaculation, put the tray on the washstand, and swung the heavy curtains right along the brass pole, making the rings give quite a clash, as the morning sun shone through, showing that the bed had not been disturbed.

In an instant the man’s eyes were searching about the room, and he saw that a suit of clothes lay where they had been tossed upon a chair, while a wardrobe door was open.

He darted to that, made a hasty examination, and muttered—

“Brown velveteens! No, it ain’t. Here they are. It’s his dark tweeds, and—no—yes: dark stockings.”

He continued his examination in the bedroom, but could make out nothing else.

“Only gone for a walk before anyone’s up, poor chap! Hadn’t the heart to go to bed. More hadn’t I at the time. He ain’t taken nothing. He can’t have—he wouldn’t have—I don’t know though—I—oh, he couldn’t have—Let’s see—”

He hurried downstairs and went to the front door, then to the dining-room, drawing-room, and study, as well as the room set apart for the pupils; but the windows were closed, and he went slowly upstairs again to pause by the staircase window.

“A man might step out here on to the balcony and shut it down again, and easily drop. But no: he can’t have done that.”

With his mind bent upon getting some clue as to the young man’s actions, Jerry turned back to his room and once more looked round.

“No,” he said thoughtfully, “he couldn’t do that; it would be cowardly, and he’s got too much pluck. He’d have taken some things, too and he hasn’t done that.”

As Jerry spoke his eyes were turning everywhere in search of a clue; but he saw nothing till they fell upon the tray, toward which he sprang with a cry, for he had now caught sight of a piece of paper folded like a note and bearing his name.

He tore it open, and read only these words:—

“Good-bye, Jerry. You were the only one to stand by me to the last. Take my gold fox-head pin for yourself. I cannot face it all. I feel half-mad.”

Chapter Seven.

Jerry sees the worst.

“Off his nut!” gasped Jerry, excitedly. “Who wants his fox-pin? I wants him. Couldn’t stand it!—half-dotty!”

He looked wildly round, and then his eyes lit upon the glittering waters of the swollen river spreading far and near, and he once more uttered a cry.

“The river!” he exclaimed. “It’s that!” and, rushing out of the room, he leaped headlong down the stairs, making for the pantry, where he caught up his hat.

The next minute he was running along the main road, instinctively feeling that this was the way anyone would take who wished to reach the river.

He did not meet a soul for the first few hundred yards, and then came suddenly, at a turn, upon a farmer’s man, in long smock-frock, driving a flock of sheep, and looking as if he had come far along the dusty road, perhaps travelling since daylight.

“Meet a young gent in dark-grey soot and brown billycock hat?” panted Jerry.

“Ay! Two mile along the road.”

“Which way was he going?”

“Simmed to be making for lower lane; but it’s all under water, and he’ll have to go round.”

“All under water!” muttered Jerry, as he ran on rapidly. “Two miles—and me sitting sleeping there like a pig. That’s it—that’s what he meant! What did he say?—‘Couldn’t face it?’ If I could only get there in time! He must have been cracked! He must have been mad! He’s gone to drown hisself and get out of his misery, just like the high-sperretted gent he is. I know: gents don’t think like we do. It’s the Latin and Greek makes ’em classic and honourable, and they’d sooner die than get a bad name. It’s all right, I suppose; but it seems stoopid to me, when you know you ain’t done nothing wrong.”

“Now, let me see,” thought Jerry. “I say he’s come this road, because he wouldn’t go and chuck hisself in the river up by the ruins, because he’d have had enough o’ them; so he’s come down here this way, and he’s found it ain’t so easy as he thought; for you can’t get to the water for far enough, if you want a good deep place. Chap can’t go and drown hisself in fields where it’s only six inches deep, without he goes and lies down in a ditch. Gent couldn’t do that. Be like dying dog-fashion! I know what he’s gone to do: he’s made for Brailey Bridge, where he could go over into a deep hole at once. Only wish I was alongside of him; I’d say something as would bring him to his senses.”

And as Jerry trotted on, he passed turning after turning leading to fords or down by the river, for the simple reason that, during the night, the waters had come swirling down at such a rate that the whole of the river meadows were widely flooded; but it meant his getting more rapidly to Brailey Bridge, a couple of miles from the town, for he was forced into avoiding the winding low road, which followed the curves and doublings back of the river, and making short cuts, which brought him at last, breathless and panting, in sight of something which made him stare and, for the moment, forget his mission.

For, as he trotted on, he obtained a glimpse of the rushing, foaming river tearing away, pretty well now beneath its banks, which were high at the spot where the bridge, an antique wooden structure, had spanned it with its clumsy piles. The great double wedge-shaped pier of oak timbers, rotten and blackened with age, and which had supported the roadway as it divided the river in two, was gone, and the remains of the bridge were gradually being torn away.

Jerry drew his breath hard, and his throat felt dry, as he ran nearer, descending the slope towards where the road ended suddenly, and thinking of how the spot he approached was exactly such an one as would tempt a half-maddened person to run right on, make one desperate plunge into the muddy flood, and then and there be swept away.

He paused at last, standing in a dangerous place, at the very edge of the broken bridge, gazing down into the hurrying waters, which hissed and gurgled beneath him, lapping at the slimy piles which remained; and, hot and dripping with perspiration as he was, he shivered, and felt as if icy hands were touching him as he wiped his brow.

“It’s too horrid! too horrid!” he groaned, in the full belief that he was standing right on the place from which Richard Frayne had taken a desperate plunge. “Why, a score of his chums had better have died than him! I didn’t ought never to ha’ left him last night, seeing what a state he was in. You might ha’ saved his life, Jerry, and done more good than you’ll ever do blacking boots and brushing clothes, if yer lives to a hundred and ten.”

He looked wildly to the right, and saw that the pollard willows were rising just out of the water, like heads with the hair standing on end. There were great patches of fresh hay floating swiftly down, and, closer at hand, something white rolling over and over, and he shuddered; but it was only the carcase of a drowned sheep, one of several more which had probably been surrounded in some meadow and swept away. Directly after, lowing dismally, and swimming hard to save itself, a bullock came down rapidly, with its muzzle and a narrow line of backbone alone showing above the surface.

But Jerry knew well enough that no boat could live in the rushing water which swirled along; and, unless the poor beast could swim into some eddy and manage to get ashore, its fate was sealed.

The man’s eyes followed the animal as it passed by the broken bridge and was swept on more rapidly downward as soon as it was below.

“I came too late—I came too late!” groaned Jerry, as he still watched the bullock, his eyes at the same time noting how the river had passed over the bank on the other side and spread along meadows, and how it was threatening to lap over the road which ran upon his side away down to the mill, where the weir crossed the river and the eel-bucks stood in a row between the piles.

“Yes, I’ve come too late, and I shall see that poor brute sink directly. Shall I go on down by the mill?”

He shook his head. The bullock was going faster than he could have walked, and, if anyone had plunged into the river from where he stood, he must have been swept miles away in his journey onward to the sea.

“And we shall never find him!” he muttered. “Gone! gone!”

He was going to say “Gone!” again—for the third time—but a hoarse utterance escaped his lips instead, and he made a sudden movement to climb over the rail and let himself down into the narrow cross-road which ran to the mill.

But, as he grasped the open fence, all power of action left him, and he stood, as if paralysed, staring at that which had caught his eye.

There, far away toward the mill, dwarfed by distance, but clearly seen in the bright morning air, a figure had started up, run for a few yards along the bank, and suddenly plunged in the flooded river. Jerry saw the splashed water glitter in the sunshine and then, indistinctly, a head reappear and remain in sight for some few minutes as its owner floated or swam. Then a curve of the river hid it from his sight, and he recovered his power of action again. Climbing the rail, he scrambled down the side of the raised roadway, reached the bank, and started running.

It was a mile to the mill, and in how many minutes Jerry covered the distance he never knew, but he pulled up short in the mill-yard, to find that he could go no farther; for the waters were well out beyond, and went swinging round a curve at a terrific rate, the river being narrowed here by the piers, buttresses, and piles upon which the mill-buildings had been reared. The tops of the pier-piles showed in two places, but that was all, and, though he climbed up the ladder leading to a whitened door in the side of the building, he could see nothing but the waste of hurrying water gleaming in the sunshine, and felt that the building was quivering from the pressure of the flood.

Jerry clung to the handle of the door at the top of the steps, and the flour came off white upon his Oxford mixture coat as he turned dizzy and sick in his hurry and despair, for he knew that the figure he had seen must be that of Richard Frayne, and he had come too late!

“He must have seen me,” groaned Jerry; “and just as he was a-hesitating he thought I’d come to drag him back, and he went in. Nothing couldn’t save him, and I seem to have drove him to his end.”

In his own mind he wanted no endorsement of the correctness of his idea. He had been sure that Richard had taken this route when he started from the house; he had seen him; and it was all over.

But the endorsement came, for just then, heard above the rushing of the river along the back-water and beneath the mill, where the huge revolving wheel worked, came a loud “Ahoy!”

Turning quickly, Jerry saw, from his coign of vantage, the white figure of the miller coming quickly down the road, waving his arms as if he had once owned a wind-mill instead of a water-mill, and was imitating the action of the sails.

“Hoi! come down from there,” bawled the big, bluff fellow, as he came within hearing. “’Tain’t safe! I made all my people clear out last night, and ’spected to see it gone by mornin’. Oh, it’s you, Mister Brigley. Looking for your young gent?”

“Yes! Seen him?” cried Jerry wildly.

“Ay, bit ago, when I were down before. He’d come down to see if the mill was safe, I s’pose.”

“But—it was—our young gent?”

“I say, don’t look so scared,” cried the miller, good-humouredly. “I didn’t mean to frighten you; but I shouldn’t be a bit surprised if the old place comes toppling down; and it will, if the water rises much more. You’re safe enough here.”

“But, tell me,” panted Jerry, who did not want telling, “it was our young gent?”

“Ay, him as come fishing with the others, and sat out on the weir yonder, tootling on that little pipe of his? Here! what’s the matter with you, man?”

“A boat! a boat!” gasped Jerry.

“A boat! what for? Mine’s got a plank out of it, and, if it hadn’t, you couldn’t use it now.”

“But he’s gone down! I see him jump in!”

“What!” yelled the miller, seizing Jerry excitedly by the collar. “Nonsense! He’s gone back by now.”

“I—I was on the bridge.”

“There ain’t no bridge!” growled the miller: “swep’ away.”

“But I was over yonder—saw him jump in.”

“You did?”

“Yes, and came here fast as I could.”

The miller turned to look down the rushing river, and took off his white felt hat, drew out a red cotton handkerchief, and began to mop his wet brow.

“Then Heaven have mercy on him, poor lad! for he’ll never get to shore alive.”

“But he could swim,” said Jerry, feebly.

“Swim? Who’s to swim in water like that? Never! I saw a whole drove of sheep go down this morning, and a half a dozen bullocks. The river’s too much for them as can swim.”

“But—but—”

“But—but, man. Ah! what was he doing to jump in?”

“Haven’t you heard?” groaned Jerry, speaking to the miller, and staring wildly down stream the while. “He got into dreadful trouble yesterday. Killed his cousin!”

“What?”

“Come down here to end hisself, I s’pose!”

“Then he’s done it, poor lad!” said the miller, solemnly.

“But couldn’t we do nothing? Couldn’t we try and help him?” whined Jerry, piteously.

“No, my lad, not with the water rooshing down like this; it’s beyond human work, and—Hi! run—run!”

He caught at Jerry again, and the two men started to run for a few yards, then turned to look back, as, after several warning cracks, the whole of the great white timber-built mill literally crumbled down over its undermined foundations and disappeared in the surging waters.

“I knowed it!” panted the miller. “Poor old place! I’ve spent many a happy year there. Well, I come in time to save your life, squire.”

“And I come to try and save his, but not in time,” groaned Jerry. “Oh, my poor dear lad!” he continued, as he leaned his arm against a tree and bent his head upon it to weep aloud, “you were the master, and I’m only a servant, but I’d ha’ most give my life to ha’ saved yours, that I would. Yes!” he cried, fiercely, now in a wild, hysterical voice; “it would ha’ been better if you, too, hadn’t come in time!”

Chapter Eight.

Another Turn of the Wheel.

As if heartily ashamed of his weakness, Jerry suddenly straightened himself up, and turned angrily upon the miller.

“Don’t you never go and say you saw me making such a fool of myself!” he cried.

The man shook his head.

“Think it’s any good to go up to the town for a boat?”

“If you want to drown yourself,” was the reply. “I wouldn’t trust myself in no boat till the water goes down. I shouldn’t mind the rowing down; but you’d never know where you’d got to, and be capsized on a willow stump, or against some hedge, before you had gone a mile.”

“But we might find him,” said Jerry, looking piteous once more.

“Ay, you might find him, my lad. There’s no knowing.”

“But you think we should not?”

“Sure of it!”

Jerry turned away without a word, leaving the miller staring blankly at the spot where the old place had stood, and hurried back toward the town.

“Past seven!” he muttered, “and all those boots and shoes waiting. Breakfast’ll have to be late.”

It sounded strange, but it was quite natural for him to mix up his daily work with this business; and upon reaching the house, as if feeling satisfied that there was no more to be done, he hurried about over his valeting, beginning with Mr Draycott, but found that he was not in his room.

The tutor came, though, five minutes later, and, meeting his man, exclaimed with animation:

“Better news, Brigley.”

“No, sir,” said Jerry, shaking his head. “Worse—much worse!”

“How dare you, sir?” cried the tutor, irritable from a sleepless night. “I tell you the news is better, and we have hopes.”

“And I tell you, sir, that the news is worse.”

Mr Draycott stared at his man, and began to frown. Strange suspicions attacked him as he saw that Jerry looked rough and unkempt. His hair was not brushed; he had evidently not washed that morning, and his Oxford mixture coat was marked by flour.

“By the way, sir,” said the tutor, angrily, “where have you been? I rang twice, to send you to the doctor’s, but the bell was not answered. Were you not up?”

“Not up, sir? Oh, yes; I was up and out long enough ago!”

“Out?”

“Yes, sir,” said Jerry, speaking very sturdily and solemnly; and he related all that he had seen, with the result that the tutor sank into the nearest chair, looking ghastly, and with his lips moving, but not uttering a sound.

Jerry stood looking down at him sadly, and at the end of a few minutes he filled a glass from a waterbottle and handed the water to his master, who swallowed it hurriedly.

“This is too dreadful,” said the latter, huskily; “too dreadful! But are you sure, my man—are you sure?”

“Yes, sir, sure enough!” replied Jerry, with a hoarse sob. “The miller saw him just before.”

“A terrible business—a terrible business! I thought we were beginning to see daylight again; but—poor weak rash boy!—this is ten times worse!”

“Yes, sir—a hundred times!” said Jerry, with a groan; and master and man gazed in each other’s eyes for some time in silence, till Mr Draycott gave a start.

“I am so stunned and helpless with this trouble upon trouble,” he cried huskily, “that I can hardly think—I can hardly believe it true. Tell me what you have done. You gave notice to the police, of course?”

“The police, sir?” said Jerry, with a vacant look. “No; I never thought of that!”

“And you have not given the alarm—sent people down the river in boats?”

Jerry shook his head in a weary, helpless way.

“Quick, then; do something, man!” cried Mr Draycott, wildly. “Run to the station and tell the inspector; they will take steps at once.”

“I—I thought you would want to hush it up, sir.”

“Hush it up, man!” cried the tutor, angrily. “You are crazy!”

“Yes, sir, pretty nigh,” said Jerry, pitifully. “My head feels as if it won’t go; and I don’t know what I’m saying half my time.”

“I beg your pardon, Brigley,” cried the tutor. “I spoke too hastily. I quite understand your feelings; but steps must be taken instantly. The truth must be known—the cruel truth!” he added, with a groan. “Yes; what is it?”

There was a tap at the chamber door, and Jerry went to open it.

“Please tell master that the London doctor has come in from the hotel and wants to see him directly.”

“Ah, yes,” said the tutor, who had heard every word; “I thought he would come early. Go on to the station, Brigley; tell them poor Sir Richard must be found. I’ll go down to see the doctor.”

Each departed upon his mission, and half an hour after the London surgeon took his departure, confirming his colleague’s opinion that a great change for the better had taken place in Mark Frayne.

“Youth, my dear sir—youth! He has rallied wonderfully, and I feel that we may hope.”

“But you will stop for the day?” said Mr Draycott, anxiously.

“There is not the slightest need, my dear sir. My colleague yonder will, unless something very unforeseen happens, pull him through.”

“But if anything unforeseen does happen?” said Mr Draycott, nervously.

“Then telegraph to me, and I will come down at once. But I don’t think you need fear, Mr Draycott, and I congratulate you upon the happy turn things have taken. Good-morning. I shall hurry off to catch an early train.”

“Congratulate me upon the happy turn things have taken!” groaned the tutor, wiping his moist face. “Poor boy! poor boy! I ought to have seen him again. It was more than the high-spirited lad could bear.”

“Yes, sir; that’s it.”

“You back, Brigley? Was I thinking aloud?”

“Yes, sir; and I heard every word.”

“But the police?”

“They were off at once, sir. They’re going to hire a big boat and try and find him; but the inspector shook his head. He says he thinks it means being washed away to sea.”

That was a sad day at the tutor’s, Richard Frayne’s yellow-pupils going to and fro in the silent house talking of the cousins, and canvassing Richard Frayne’s act from different points of view.

The news soon spread, too, in the town; for the setting-off of the police with a couple of stout boatmen and the drags was enough to set the place in a ferment.

There were plenty there, too, ready to talk of the position, as everything leaked out by degrees, and formed an exciting topic to add to that of the previous day, during which some hundreds had flocked down to the ruins to see the spot where the two pupils had fought and one had been killed—so it was firmly believed. Now the journeys were in the other direction—down the flooded river—but here the remains of the bridge and the spot where the mill had stood were the only things which rewarded their enterprise; for the police-boat had been swept down for miles, and it was not till dark that the men returned by rail to report that they could do nothing in the fierce, rushing waters till the flood was at an end.

That evening, to Jerry’s great disgust, a crowd of idlers gathered on the opposite side of the road to stare at the tutor’s house, where the blinds were drawn down, as if they secured great satisfaction in gaping and whispering one to the other.

“Oh!” he muttered, “if I could only have my way!”

Mr Shrubsole, the second doctor, undertook to stay at the house that night, in case of any relapse on the part of Mark, and to the tutor’s great satisfaction, for he had fallen into a nervous state, wandering about the place and giving the pupils a fresh theme of conversation to occupy the dreary, slow-dragging time.

Jerry caught the inspector as he came out of Mr Draycott’s study, and signalled him into the pantry.

“Then you did nothing?” he said.

“Yes, we did,” said the inspector, grimly; “we saved our lives, which was about all we could do. I only went for the name of the thing, Mr Brigley—thankye, I’ll say port. Of course, I went—ah! very nice full glass or wine. People’s so ready to say, ‘Where are the police?’ that, if we hadn’t gone, they’d ha’ been ready to think the poor young gent was hanging on by the branch of a tree and we wouldn’t go and save him. But I put it to you—well, thankye, Mr Brigley, I won’t say no; didn’t know you kept such a port as that.”

“It won’t be long before the water goes down?”

“No. Not it. Goes down, you know, as quickly as it goes up; but don’t you expect too much, sir.”

“You think you won’t find him?”

“Yes; that’s it,” said the inspector. “Why, look at the way the water was rushing along! Of course, he may be picked up right away down where the tide rises—Limesmouth or Dunkney—or about there; but I say it’s very doubtful.”

“Ah!” sighed Jerry.

“Poor young chap! The times I’ve stopped outside listening to him on the flute, or blowing that cornet, or scraping away at the fiddle. Wonderful power of music in those fingers of his and lips.”

“And now all still, and stiff, and cold!” groaned Jerry.

“Hold up, man—hold up!” said the inspector, kindly. “Life is short, you know; but we never expected this—did we?”

Jerry shook his head.

“And so the other young gent’s getting better, is he?”

Jerry nodded.

“Yes, the doctor told me. I thought we’d got a big interesting case on there. Sensible?”

Jerry shook his head.

“Ah! That’s what the doctor said, and that he might not be really sensible for weeks. Narrow squeak for him, eh?”

“Yes.”

“Fancy! That poor young chap nearly killing him!”

“And serve him right!” shouted out Jerry, angrily. “Mr Frayne must have made him so mad he couldn’t bear himself, and he hit out hard. It was only an accident, after all.”

“But we should have been in it, Mr Brigley, even if he got off; and there would have been the inquest, too. Things have been a bit quiet here lately.”

“Well, you’ll have your inquest, after all,” said Jerry, bitterly.

“Humph! Not so sure, sir. But it’s a very, very sad business, Mr Brigley, and I must be going now. Thank you. Quite refreshing, sir! Good-night; and wish you well out of the trouble.”

“Wish us well out of the trouble!” growled Jerry, bitterly. “As if there ever would be any way out of it. On’y to think—him upstairs getting better, and his people telegraphing to say they’ll come over at once, and his cousin lying there out in the cold river, who knows how deep? It only wanted this to make me wish—”

Jerry did not finish his sentence, but took a letter out of his pocket, read it through, and uttered a derisive laugh.

“Yes; it only wanted this to help make me happy. Well, it wasn’t so very much, but it’s gone; and serve me right for being such a fool!”

Just then a bell rang, and he went to answer it.

“The doctor says we need not sit up, Brigley,” said his master, sadly. “You are tired. I shall want you no more to-night. The nurse will get anything the doctor requires.”

“Beg pardon, sir,” said Jerry. “Mr Frayne, sir?—now?”

“Sleeping, I believe, Brigley. Good-night!”

“No; a bad night!” said Jerry. “Poor S’Richard! I’d give anything to see him again!”

Chapter Nine.

Dead—and Buried.

By the next morning the flood was subsiding rapidly, and at night the muddy meadows began to show that the river was sinking back into its bed.

All that evening boats were out, and people watched in expectation of that which they felt would soon be found.

Twenty-four hours more elapsed, and sheep, caught in hedgerows by the wool, were dragged through the mud and slime.

Lower down the river an ox or two were found, while news came of other carcases, miles away, stranded in bends where gravel and mud had half-buried them.

But there was a good deal of water still in the river, and a threatening of another rise.

At Mr Draycott’s Mark Frayne still lay insensible, but he seemed to sleep calmly enough, and was beginning to take the food given to him, while the doctors both agreed that there was no fear of a relapse; the only trouble was—What would the young man’s mental state be when he recovered from his long stupor?

Day after day glided by. Mr and Mrs Frayne reached the house, Mark’s father evidently painfully ill of the complaint which had taken him from his bleak Devonshire vicarage to the warmer climate and change of the South of France and the Riviera.

The news had been a very great shock, and the doctor looked at him anxiously as he went to his son’s room, so weak that he had to be assisted by Jerry and the weeping mother.

They accepted Mr Draycott’s hospitality and stayed, eager to be near their son, while longing to hear tidings of the discovery of their nephew—tidings that did not come.

Jerry stole away more than once to try and make out the exact place where he had seen Richard plunge in, and returned, shaking his head, for it was impossible.

Day by day he grew more morose, for fragments of the chatter reached him—petty talk, which blackened the young baronet’s fame; while, worst stab of all, he read in the little local paper, where, in a long article concerning the trouble of “our respected townsman, Mr Draycott,” it was said that the principal in the terrible tragedy had been guilty of that rash act to avoid the punishment likely to befall him consequent upon the assault he had committed and his connection with a monetary scandal.

“And if I go and punch the head of him as wrote that, they’ll have me up before the magistrates,” said Jerry; “and they call this a free land!”

Three weeks had passed, and Mark Frayne was beginning to show signs of returning consciousness, when, towards evening, the police inspector came to the house to ask to see Mr Draycott.

“He’s in, I s’pose, Mr Brigley?” said the official, looking very serious and important.

“Oh, yes; he’s in,” said Jerry, excitedly; “but—tell me—have you found him?”

“Just got a wire, Mr Brigley, from Chedleigh, fifty mile away, sir!”

Jerry caught at one of the hall chairs, and made it scroop on the stone floor.

The news was correct enough, and the next day an inquest was held upon the cruelly disfigured body which had been discovered, stripped by the action of the flood, and buried in sand and stones.

Jerry was there to give his evidence, along with that of others; and, looking haggard and suffering from mental anxiety, Mr Draycott was there to give his. The medical man who had been called told of his examination, and, as there seemed to be no doubt as to the identity, a verdict was readily returned. Two days later there was a funeral at Richard Frayne’s native place, and the unfortunate lad was laid to his rest—aged eighteen, people read upon his breastplate—just about the same time that Mark Frayne was lying upon his back, gazing at the open window, through which there came the pleasant odour of new-made hay, and wondering why he was there in bed, while a woman in white cap and apron was sitting reading.

“I say,” he whispered at last; and the nurse started up, smiling.

“Yes?” she said, coming to his bedside.

“Who are you?”

“The nurse. Don’t speak, please. You have been ill.”

“Oh!” said Mark, “have I? Don’t go away!”

“Only for a minute, to send word for somebody to come.”

She stepped softly out into the corridor, just as the two pupils who had witnessed the encounter were coming upstairs.

“Would you mind telling Mrs Frayne that he is quite sensible now?”

“What! Mark Frayne?” cried Sinjohn. “Yes; all right.”

The two young men turned and went together to deliver the news.

“Then he is really getting well,” said Andrews, in a whisper. “Why, Sin, if he does, he’ll be Sir Mark Frayne!”

“Not while his father lives,” said the other. “But only think!—poor old Dick buried to-day! I wish we could have gone.”

“Yes,” said Andrews, bitterly. “Poor old Dick!”

“We shall never hear his flute agin!”

Chapter Ten.

Into the Swift Waters.

“Oh! I wouldn’t have done that!”

Of course you would not. No sane lad would ever be led away by his imagination to be guilty of any folly whatever. No one with a well-balanced brain would, for a moment, ever dream of being guilty of an act that would cause him repentance for years. In other words, we are all of us so thoroughly perfect that we go straight on through life, laughing at temptations, triumphing over our weakness, and so manly and confident in our own strength of mind that we continue our life’s journey, never slipping, never stumbling, but bounding along to its highest point, where we pitch our caps in the air, flap our arms for want of wings, stretch out our throats, open our beaks, and cry “Cock-a-doodle-doo!” which, being translated from the gallinaceous tongue into plain English, means—“Look at me! Here I am! Did you ever see such a fine fellow in your life? I don’t believe there was ever my equal born into the world!”

There was a comic philosopher born in the West, and his name was Artemus Ward; and every now and then, after a verbal flourish of this kind, he used to conclude by saying—

“This is wrote sarcastic.”

So are these remarks concerning Richard Frayne’s act, when, agonised by the horror of his position, and rankling mentally at being believed contemptible enough to have obtained the money, monkey-fashion, by using his cousin as catspaw, he had gradually become so out of balance that he was ready for any reckless act.

A few words from the proper quarter would have set him right; a kindly bit or two of sympathy from his fellow-students would have helped him; but everyone but the servant held rigidly aloof, and when the dark, blank night-time came, and the long hours of agony culminated in a feeling of utter, hopeless despair, he sat alone there in his room, ready to dash at anything which would, even if temporarily, relieve him from the terrible strain.

At last he forced himself into thinking as calmly as he could, setting himself to consider all that he had to face.

Mark was dying fast. The doctors had said it, and in a few hours he would stand in the eyes of the world as, if not his murderer, the cause of his death. Next there must be that terrible public examination and the verdict—manslaughter; it could be no other, he told himself. Then there would be a magisterial examination, ending in his being committed for trial. After this, a long, weary waiting—possibly on bail—and then the trial.

He arranged all of it in his own mind, perfectly satisfied that his view was too correct, and never once stopping to think that people would calmly investigate every circumstance of the trouble, and, while making every allowance, sift out the pearl truth from the sand and bitter ashes in which it was hidden. In his then frame of mind, he could only think the very worst of everything; for always before him was that terrible scene in which he was bound to take part. He felt that he could nerve himself to stand before coroner, magistrate, even judge, if matters went so far; but he could not face the sweet-faced, sorrowing mother and the weak invalid father, who must be now hastening back to their dying son as fast as trains could bear them.

Condemn, pity, ridicule, which you will; but the fact remains. A kind of panic had attacked Richard Frayne, and he prepared for the folly he was about to commit. There were the two courses open—a frank, manly meeting of the consequences, whatever they might be, or the act of a coward.

The hours passed, and his mind was fully made up. And now everything he did was in a quiet, decisive fashion, with as much method in his madness as ever the great poet endowed his Danish hero.

He changed his clothes, putting on the quiet dark tweed suit Jerry missed, and went back into his room, to stand there in the gloom, looking round and vainly trying to make out the various objects there, every one being loved like some old friend.

But he could not look the farewell, and began slowly to go round the room, laying his hand upon each in turn—his favourite books and pictures, his piano, the violin, the cornet, and the big ’cello in its case where it stood in the corner—all such dear old friends, and it was good-bye for ever!

And as he went on, his hand at last touched the little, long morocco case lying upon the side-table.

He clutched it hard, and something like a sob struggled to his lips; for that case contained, in company with the little piccolo, the flute that was once the property of the brave old soldier whose helmet hung dented there with its drooping black horse-hair plume.

Richard’s thoughts went back into the past, and he recalled the evenings when he as a little child was enraptured listening to some operatic selection brilliantly played, while his mother sat accompanying upon the piano. Then he recollected the first lessons given him by his father upon that very flute, and years after the plaudits he listened to with burning cheeks after he had played one of his father’s favourite pieces with such skill and execution that these words followed:

“Keep the flute, Dick, my boy, for my sake; it is yours.”

And now he was bidding it farewell for ever—there in the darkness of that lonely night, whose silence was broken from time to time by the chiming and booming of the great Cathedral clock, which once more, to his disordered imagination, seemed associated with a solemn procession to the tomb.

Richard Frayne’s breast swelled and his hands trembled as his fingers clung round that little morocco case. Then, as a weak sob once more struggled for utterance, his breast swelled suddenly more and more, till there was a long, hard lump down the left side beneath the closely-buttoned jacket.

For, quick as lightning, the little case had been transferred to his breast-pocket. It was his father’s. He could not part from that.

The rest of the favourite objects lying around were quickly touched; and then, there, in the middle of the room, the lad stood, feeling old and careworn, opposite two relics which he felt would be honourably removed from where they hung and sent away.

He could not see them—and yet he could, inwardly, in his mind’s eye—the gilded metal helmet and the sabre.

Then, as if performing some solemn act, the lad took a couple of steps towards the wall, gently and reverently lifted down the helmet, pressed his lips to the front, and put it back, to take down the sword and hold the blade and scabbard to his breast as he kissed the hilt.

Saddened visions came trooping before his closed eyes in that darkness—of himself: a man, a soldier, as his father had been, an officer leading men against the enemies of his country; and at that, in his despair, he uttered a low, piteous sigh, and hung the sword in its place.

He drew back then, uttering a sound like a moan, and opened his eyes with a start; for a pale, bluish light was slowly filling the room—a light that seemed ghastly to him and unreal.

But it was the dawn of another day, the most eventful of his life, and he knew it was time to act.

There was one more thing to be done, and his action in this was accompanied by a shudder.

But he was quite firm and determined now, for his mind was fully made up. He had that to do first, and he would do it.

He was already at the door, hat in hand, when he recalled another little thing, and, turning quickly back to the table, he sat down and wrote the few lines to Jerry, folded them, and laid them near the loaf, from which earlier in the night he had broken off a few fragments to allay the gnawing hunger he had felt.

Now that was all, and, turning to the door once more, he paused for a final look round at the shadowy room, where the only thing which stood out clearly was the helmet, and this, seen in profile, seemed to assume a stern and threatening aspect.

The next minute he was outside in the dark passage, listening; and then, as all was still, he walked, firmly and quietly, to the other end of the mansion, to stop by his cousin’s door.

Here the chill of death seemed to strike upon him. No light stole through crack or keyhole—all was darkness and silence—and he sank upon his knees, to remain motionless for a few minutes, and then rise firmer of purpose than ever.

It was later than he thought, for his various preparations had taken time; and the soft glow of morning lit up the east staircase window as he slowly raised it, stepped out on to the leads, closed it again, and then, climbing over the balcony rails, lowered himself down till he could hang for a moment or two from the bottom of one of the iron bars, swing himself to and fro by his wrists, and then, with a backward spring, drop lightly on to the turf beneath.

In another minute—unseen, unheard—he had passed out of the gate and was walking through the town, making for the lower road and the swollen river.

Here he rapidly awoke to the fact that the waters were out far more widely than he had ever seen them before; and again and again, as he made for the path that ran along by the river toward the bridge, he was driven back, the flood turning the different lanes he tried into huge ditches or canals.

He tried every turning so as to reach the bridge as soon as possible, but it was always the same; and finally, after consuming a good deal of time, he made his way round by the road, following it on till it bore away to his right, crossing the river by the old two-spanned wooden bridge and then winding onward among the sunny vales and hills of Kent.

As he walked on swiftly, now in the bright sunshine, it was with his head lowered and a curious feeling of guilt troubling him. He told himself that he ought to have left the place sooner, and he shivered at the thought of being seen by someone who, knowing all the circumstances, would catch him by the arm and insist upon his going back.

But, at heart, he knew that the words would be in vain. Back he would never go, and, strong and active, he felt that he could easily free himself from the detaining clutch, and then—there was the river.

Richard had some recollection of passing or being passed by a man with sheep; but he was coming in the opposite direction, and this did not seem an enemy to fear, as he shouted from beyond the flock, and above the patter of their hoofs, a cheery “Good-morning.”

Richard smiled bitterly to himself as he hurried on. Good-morning! If that happy, careless fellow had known!

At last, with his heart beating fast, and with the rushing sound of the river ever on the increase, he turned the curve which led to the wooden bridge, and, with his eyes fixed upon the dusty road, increased his pace, till he was suddenly brought up short, just as he was about to step down into the foaming, roaring flood.

Richard Frayne stood there aghast, staring at the gulf before him, and then at the ragged piles on the other side, from which the hard light-coloured road ran on and on between hedges, rising higher and higher above unflooded meadows—the road leading to safety and rest, away from the terrible troubles which had driven him to this wildly reckless act.

For Jerry Brigley was as wrong as he was right—right in his surmise that Richard would seek the bridge, which crossed the river at its deepest part, but wrong in imagining that it was for so horrible a deed.

No: it was the way to safety—to places where he was unknown. There was an idea fixed in his mind, and it was to carry out this idea that he had sought the bridge—to find it gone, and escape in that direction gone as well!

Still, he could swim vigorously as a young seal; but he shrank from so desperate a venture, for the swirling flood told him too plainly that it would be extremely doubtful whether the strongest swimmer who ventured there would ever reach the other side. If he did, it would be miles below. And as he looked, it was to see the carcase of a horse, a great willow-tree (torn out by the roots), and a broken gate float by.

What should he do?

There was a ferry two miles beyond the mill, but he felt that no boat would take him across.

There was the old stone bridge, too, at Raynes Corner, six miles down the road. Well, he must cross there, for it was not likely that the sturdy piers could have suffered even from such a flood as this.

That would do. He would get over the river there; but he must avoid the road, where he might meet the police or people going into the town, who knew him by sight as one of Mr Draycott’s pupils.

Fortunately he knew the country well, and he could go along the high bank below the bridge as far as the mill, get into the field path at the back, and pass through the woods, and on and on as near the river as he could wherever the waters were not out.

Climbing over the rails by the side of the raised road, he dropped down and hurried down to the mill, to find to his dismay that beyond it the fields were covered and that a great deal of the woodland was under water, too. As for the path at the side of the mill, it was only dry for some twenty yards, and then ended in a dark-looking lake.

It was impossible to go by there, and he turned back toward the bridge, glancing up at the back of the mill as he reached it to see if he was observed.

But not a soul was stirring, for the simple reason that it had been closed just before; and he sighed as he thought of the pleasant days he had spent there, seated upon the weir, gazing down at the bar-sided perch playing about and shrimp-seeking in the weeds of the piles, and at the great fat barbel wallowing in the gravelly holes where the stream ran swiftest.

Happy days gone for ever, he thought, as he stepped out once more on the bank path, towards whose surface the tide was rapidly climbing up. He was making for the bridge once more, when his ears were thrilled by a faint, hoarse cry; and, as he looked in its direction, it was to see a white face, level with the muddy water, gliding rapidly down behind the saturated fleecy coat of a drowned sheep, which was evidently keeping the unfortunate up.

It was a boy, by the smooth face—probably a shepherd lad, swept in while endeavouring to preserve his charge—only Richard did not think of that. His own troubles were forgotten, his best instincts aroused, in the desire to save the drowning lad.

He saw at a glance how short a distance the helpless boy was from the bank, and that an eddy was setting him in so near that, if he went close down to the rushing water, he might be able to reach out and seize the fleece of the sheep as they passed.

In a few seconds Richard was down, knee-deep in water, holding on with his left hand to the reedy growth of the bank and reaching out to snatch at the sheep.

Vain attempt.

The dead animal did not come within five yards, but, after curving in, literally shot out again towards the middle of the river and was borne down, the boy uttering a despairing wail as he saw his help fade away.

At the same moment Richard Frayne felt the mud giving beneath his feet, and he had hard work to struggle out on to firm land. And then there was another despairing cry for help, so faint and yet so penetrating to the cowardly fugitive’s heart that he turned, forgot everything but the fact that a brother was dying before his eyes, and took one brave plunge into the swollen river, to pass under into the thunderous darkness, feeling as if he had suddenly been grasped by a giant who was bearing him down.

Chapter Eleven.

A Good Servant and Bad Master.

It was a good thirty yards from where Richard Frayne dived in, and when a strange bewildering sense of suffocation was beginning to make itself his master. He had tried again and again to rise, but the water pressed him down and forced him to the bottom. At last, with one desperate kick, he drove himself upward and saw the daylight once again as he struck out vigorously, following the natural instinct to reach the bank.

But as the water cleared from his eyes, his mental vision cleared as well, and, looking sharply over his shoulder, he caught sight of the white face once more, glistening on a level with the water not five yards away, and a hand rose above the surface and fell with a splash.

Recollecting now why he had plunged in, Richard made a quick stroke or two, turned on his side, and swam with all his strength after the drowning boy, about whom the water was swirling round in giddy whirlpools, each of which seemed to be animated by the desire to drag him beneath.

The mill was already far behind, and they were gliding rapidly downward and round one of the curves of the winding river, the stream bearing them so closely in towards the left that Richard had but to raise a hand to snatch at the boughs of a submerged tree and drag himself out to temporary safety; and as in a misty way he realised this, but made no effort to catch the bough, he saw the sheep whirled round and then shot off almost at right angles from the tree towards the opposite bank, while the boy’s face had disappeared.

The next moment the fierce current caused by the flood striking upon the clump of trees firmly rooted in the bank caught Richard Frayne in turn, and he felt himself swept right off in the same direction, and so swiftly that it was as if in a few minutes he would be swept high and dry up among the bushes visible on the other side.

Nerved by this, he swam on vigorously in pursuit of the carcase of the sheep, in the faint hope that the boy might be still retaining his hold; but though he kept himself in the right direction and was gliding rapidly on, he did not lessen the distance between him and the patch of wool in the slightest degree. Once he fancied that he saw the surface stir between them, as if a struggle was going on; but he could not be sure, and then the distance increased, but only for a few moments. Then, to his surprise, that distance was lessened; for the fierce stream swirled round again as if rebounding from the riverside, and the current set back to that from which he had come.

Not four yards between them now; and, making a few frantic efforts, the lad forced himself through the water in his effort to lessen the distance and grasp the sheep, when suddenly the surface was parted; a bare arm and hand appeared clutching at the air, then another just level with the surface, and before he could avoid it, he was clutched in the death-grip of the drowning boy and borne under, the current seeming to roll them over, down into the darkness of the thick water which roared and thundered in his ears.

Richard’s first impulse was to struggle free, his next to force himself to the surface; but both efforts were in vain. He was as firmly bound as if he had been chained, and a horrible feeling of despair attacked him as he felt that he was losing consciousness fast, that all was over, and the end at hand. Then, as his senses were leaving him, there was a gleam of daylight for an instant as he and his companion were rolled over by the current. The darkness deepened, and there was a violent shock, the tearing and rending of boughs, and light once more.

For a few minutes Richard could do nothing but cling instinctively to the twiggy bough up which he had struggled till his face was a little above the surface, his hands a few inches higher still, and his body dragged out level with the water; while it seemed to him that the unfortunate boy he had tried to save was tugging violently at his waist to drag him from his hold, bending and shaking the bough till it swayed to and fro like a spring.

For some little time his clinging was instinctive, every fibre in his body naturally resisting the savage jerks to tear him from his hold; but by degrees he recovered sufficiently to realise his position, and his heart gave a great leap as he found for certain that, though something which felt like a ragged garment was wound about his legs, he was once more free, and that his drowning companion’s grasp had been torn away when the furious current swept them into the tree.

Of its force he kept on gaining fresh consciousness as the tugging continued and the tree yielded and sprung back, and with this consciousness something of the horror of his position passed away. It was the strong current he had to deal with alone.

And now, as he drew his breath freely, but one thought filled him—the natural desire of self-preservation. What could he do? for it would be impossible to hang on long like that.

He looked up stream, but he could see naught but water, and the flood was out widely on both sides. But the regular bank of the river must be beneath him, and the only chance seemed to be to climb up into the ragged top of the willow to whose pendent boughs he clung: a poor kind of refuge, but safety till the water sank.

The bough was of no great size, but about a couple of yards away there was one far larger, and, waiting for a few minutes longer, till the heavy beating of his heart subsided and he could breathe more easily, he gradually lowered himself toward the greater bough by relinquishing his hold upon its fellow to which he clung.

It was a horrible sensation, though, for it seemed to give the water greater power to drag and snatch at him, and for some little time he dared not quit his hold. But at last he ventured with one hand, got a firm grip of a moderate bough, and before he could loosen his grasp with the other he felt a violent shock: it was torn away, and he was swept over the submerged twigs, having hard work to get a fresh hold.

Then the water passed over him, for quite a wave had descended the river at that moment, whose impetus, and the jerk given to the tree, was too much for its stability. Already undermined by the furious rush of the flood, that new leverage at the end of the longest bough was enough, and its top came slowly down overhead, while the bough to which the lad clung slowly sank.

Once more the instinct of self-preservation helped, and, quitting his hold, he allowed himself to be carried downward by the current as the top boughs splashed up the water not a yard behind.

How long his new struggle lasted he could not tell; all he knew was that he was being borne along the furious river at racing speed, having hard work to keep his head above water and avoid the various objects which cumbered the stream. But he swam bravely from time to time, gazing wildly at the trees he passed standing deeply in the tide as he was borne from side to side, till at last, with his senses beginning to fail, and the water rising higher and higher above his chin, a dim sensation of its being time to relax his efforts dawned upon him, in company with a strange drowsiness, just as he felt a heavy, sickening shock, which had the effect of making coruscations of light flash before his eyes; then he flung out his arms wildly, roused to renewed action for a few moments by the blow, and lastly all was blank.

Chapter Twelve.

A Hard Fight.

Richard Frayne opened his eyes, to gaze about him dreamily for some little time before he could grasp what had happened and where he was. Then a throbbing in his head and a sensation of smarting assailed him, but he did not stir, for his legs were cramped; and wash, wash, wash, the waters were sweeping along nearly to his chest.

At last, with a bound, full consciousness returned, and he realised that he was lying wedged in amongst a pile of broken woodwork, evidently a great shed or barn which had been swept down the river till its progress had been checked by a clump of elm-trees, and the force of the water had rent it up and piled the broken posts and rafters, driving them, and pressing them by its weight into a chaotic mass, over and through which the torrent rushed.

The drowning lad had been driven heavily by the force of the stream right upon this wreck, head and shoulders above the surface, and, though the water had torn and dragged at him afterwards, it was only to wedge him in more firmly, so that it was some time before he could free his legs from where they were, fast between two beams, the heavy pressure of the water forcing them ever down toward where it rushed furiously through the timbers. But at last he managed to climb higher and rest, panting, upon the sloping mass of woodwork, with the water streaming from him and the hot sunshine beginning to send a glow into his benumbed limbs.

He was so far down the river now that the country round beyond the flooded meadows looked strange; but he soon grasped the fact that he was on the far side of the river at the edge of a wood, among whose trees the stream was hissing as it ran, and that about a hundred yards away the land rose in a sunny coppice, edged by tall timber trees, whose continuity was suggestive of a road.

It was pleasant and warm there, and he lay for some time without feeling the slightest disposition to stir, till a creaking and cracking sound startled him into action, suggestive as it was of the breaking up of the pile of timber. And now, in an agony of fear, Richard rose to his knees and looked wildly round for a way of escape.

On three sides there was the rushing flood; on the fourth the water, broken into hundreds of little torrents, tearing among the trees.

What should he do?

His brain was active enough now, and, to a great extent, his strength had returned; but he hesitated to move, till another sharp crack told him that the wreck was really breaking up; and, with the wood quivering beneath his feet, he sprang from rafter to beam till he reached one of the trees which held the barn anchored, and was beginning to climb up, when the wood before him tempted him to try if he could not pass from tree to tree, clinging to them in turn till he could reach the slope, where he would be safe.

The risk was terrible, for, as he held on to a tree-trunk and lowered himself down into the water, it bore him off his feet; and, had he not clung with all his might, he would have been whirled away and dashed against the one beyond.

But, working himself round, he stood, with his breath catching, pressed hard against the tree, and tried to think of what to do next and whether he had not better climb back upon the pile of wood.

That question was soon decided, for a loud crackling sound came from the place he had so lately left, and, to his horror, he saw the wreck crumble away and begin to sink steadily beneath the surface, long rafters raising their ends in the air and then diving down out of sight, while several shot by him, one of which he seized and held on to, in spite of the heavy drag of the water seeming to try and snatch it away.

The brain acts rapidly sometimes in moments of emergency, and Richard Frayne had seen in that rafter which he seized the life-rail which would help him to safety; for to have attempted to wade from place to place he found would be madness, and his only chance would have been to let himself go with the current—driven from tree to tree—while he strove to move diagonally, getting farther towards dry land and safety at each attempt. But he had no faith in this; and, feeling that a third battle with the river must be fatal, he clung to the great rafter which was to be his narrow road to safety.

He glanced once at the spot where the pile of wood had been, and shuddered; then, calling up all the energy which remained—feeling, as he did, that at any time the tree against which he was held might give way—he wound his legs round it, gripping hard, and tried to pass the rafter along till its end rested against the next stem, about nine feet away.

But every time he tried the piece was dragged down by the rushing water foaming between the trunks, and twice over he nearly lost it, while once he was within an ace of going with it through the wood.

He saved it, though, and held on, panting, beaten as he was by the enormous power of the water, which acted on the end as if it were the lever with which the poor puny human being was to be dislodged.

For a few minutes he was in despair, for he felt that it was impossible to get the square piece of quartering resting from tree to tree, and that he might as well give it up and try to climb.

Then the way to succeed came like a flash, and he wondered that he had not thought of it before. It was to hold the rafter as firmly as he could, and, instead of thrusting it sideways across the stream, to push it straight upwards, guiding it so that the water only pressed upon its end.

This he tried, and passed it backwards—holding it tightly beneath his arm—farther and farther, till there was only another yard. Then, he felt the long end begin to move: the stream had caught it, and in a few seconds it was swept down, he forcing it outward the while and feeling it checked by the tree he wished to reach. Then there was a short struggle, and he had fixed his end between his chest and the tree to which his legs clung, and there was a rail for him to cling to as he tried to pass on.

He did not pause now. The rafter was pressed tightly against the trees, but it looked terribly unsafe, bending ominously in the middle. But it seemed to be his only chance, and, seizing it firmly, he began to work himself along, his legs being swept away directly, and the force of the current so great that he could hardly stir.

He succeeded, though, for the distance was short, and in a couple of minutes was pressed against the second tree, holding on again with his legs, and working the other end of the rafter free for it to be swept downward, and once more nearly snatched from his grasp.

This time he managed better, working it under his left arm, end to the current, keeping it as straight as possible, and guiding it so that he had less difficulty when the point began to sway round and, in turn, was swept against the next tree, while he passed the near end over his head and dropped it between him and the trunk.

The passing along it, too, he managed more easily, though he shuddered as he felt how it bent when he reached the middle, and hurried so as to get to the next tree to rest.

The third stage was easier still, and he crept on in this way from tree to tree, six, eight, and ten feet at a time, till, to his great delight, he found the water waist instead of breast-high. Ten minutes later it was not more than half-way up this height, and in another five he left the rafter still pressed against two trunks, and waded through the rushing stream, holding on by bough after bough, till he stood triumphantly upon dry land. Then after walking a few yards to an open patch by a pit where the sun shone warmly, he dropped upon his knees in hot, loose, yellow sand, and crouched there till his breath came regularly and he could look more calmly round.

The place was in the wood, shut in by a few trees and great patches of golden-blossomed furze. The sun came down warmly, birds twittered in the boughs, and a couple of rabbits showed their white cottony tails for a moment or two as they plunged down into their burrows, while above all, in a low, deep, roaring bass, there was the heavy thunder of the river as it swept sand, gravel, trees, and everything it could tear from its flooded banks, toward the sea.

Richard Frayne felt that he must be miles away from Primchilsea, and that he was in as lonely a country place as he could have selected; and now for the first time the discomforts of his personal condition began to make themselves felt, as there was no more serious call upon his brain.

His hat had gone when he first plunged into the river, but he did not seem to have lost anything else, for his jacket was buttoned tightly over the little case; but the hot sunshine now, paradoxical as it may sound, began to make him feel chilly—of course, from the great evaporation going on.

Taking off his garments, then, one by one, he wrung and spread them on the hot sand, emptying his boots and serving them the same, when, after wringing out his socks and placing them to dry, a good idea occurred to him, and he filled his boots with the hottest, dryest sand he could find.

His next course was to roll in the same, which felt grateful indeed to his benumbed and chilled limbs, the skin being blue with the cold; and the next minute he was lying down in a sunny hollow and dragging the sand over him till he was covered to the neck, a little loosening of the dry fluent stuff making it trickle down over his free arm. There he was, luxuriating in the sunny warmth, with a feeling of drowsiness gradually creeping over him, till all was blank once more, exhausted nature bearing him into a pleasant, restful oblivion, from which he did not awaken till all overhead was starlight. The consequence was that he dropped asleep again—a heavy, dreamless rest of so reposeful a nature that the troubles of the last forty-eight hours died away, and he did nothing but sleep—sleep on with all his might.

Chapter Thirteen.

The Goal.

“Chare! chare! chare!”

A harsh, ear-piercing note, sounding as if a scythe-blade were being held against a rapidly-revolving grindstone, and then the sound died away.

Then, again, from a distance, then from farther off, and once more from close at hand.

The next minute there was a fluttering amongst the dense clumps of hazel, a glint of velvety black, and another of pure white, and directly after a goodsized bird hopped into sight, showing a big, closely-feathered warm grey, speckly head, a pair of keen, inquiring blue eyes, below which were two boldly-marked jetty moustaches.

There was a repetition of the harsh cries, as if the bird-scout were shouting to companions what he had found. These cries were answered from different directions, and another bird flew out of the wood and clung to a stout, upright hazel: one leg full-stretch, the other doubled close, and the claws hidden in the warm grey fluffy breast feathers; and as it closed its pinions and hung peering about there, it revealed, in addition to its beautiful patches of white and black, the turquoise barred blue markings upon its wings.

Then another came, and another; all noisy, and eager to investigate the novel phenomenon newly discovered by the sand-pit in the wood.

The sun shone brightly upon millions of glittering gems, most of which adorned the leaves of the hazels, the ferns, and the spines and blossoms of the gold and tawny furze; but others had formed upon certain peculiar patches of cloth, a singularly-shaped piece of checked flannel, and a square of something white. But these passed as nothing to the lively party of jays, seeing that there were two wonderful objects standing alone, side by side, full of sand, while an oval whitish something lay half-buried close by.

Then one of the jays uttered a shriek of terror, for the oval whitish something was suddenly lit up by the opening of a couple of lids which lay bare a pair of dazzled eyes, and these winked, and the lids quivered before they were closed again.

“Chare! chare! chare!” in a wild chorus of scare dying rapidly away made Richard Frayne spring up, realise his position, and, after shaking off the sand, rapidly scramble on his things, which—save a little dewy moisture still left unimbibed by the sun—were dry and warm.

As he dressed he felt his pockets, where everything was right, even to his pocket comb, and in a few minutes he was dressed all but his boots, which, after they had been emptied of the sand, were as dry as the rest; and there he stood, all but his hat, ready for a fresh start.

Not quite; for he thought of the absent bath, and then shuddered and listened for the roar of the river, now softened down into a murmur.

The idea of going to some muddy pool to wash was too repellent, and, making his way, rested and refreshed, out of the sand-pit, he stood thinking, not hesitating, for his mind had been made up before he left Mr Draycott’s.

And as he stood there in the glorious morning sunshine, anyone who knew him would have noted that a change had come during these last days. His face looked old and thin, and there was an air of determination about his compressed lips which had not been there before.

The next minute, after marking the direction of the sun, he was tramping through the wood in search of the first lane. This would, sooner or later, lead him into others, and they, perhaps, into the main road, the one which he could follow east to the goal he sought.

How far he was from Primchilsea he could not tell, and he did not feel as if he wished to know. All that belonged to the past: his life now was in the future—a future which he meant to carve out for himself, forgetful of Burns’s aphorism about the best-laid plans of mice and men. He forced himself now, with more or less success, as he tramped on, to forget the past and think only of the present; but another shudder ran through him as there rose before him the face of the drowning lad, with its wild, appealing stare, and his brow wrinkled as he asked himself whether he had really done everything possible to save another’s life.

There could be only one answer to this, and he walked on, feeling saddened, as he knew only too well that the poor fellow, in his helpless state, must have sunk to rise no more.

Then, in spite of his efforts, the thoughts of the past would obtrude themselves—of his cousin, of the scene at Mr Draycott’s when it was found that he was missing. Lastly he thought of Jerry, and a faint, saddened kind of smile crossed his face as he knew how troubled the man would be; for he felt that Jerry liked him, and he was sad as he told himself that he would never see him more.

By this time he had tramped a couple of miles, having reached a shady lane, and now a gleam of sunshine on ahead showed him that for which he was looking—a little stream.

This crossed the road, but the water was muddy and foul, for it communicated with the river, and the flood had ascended it like a tide; but a quarter of a mile farther on he came across the stream again, trickling now among watercress by the side of the road, and here it was bright, pure, and sparkling, offering him, in one spot, a splendid basin in which to bathe face and hands, from which task he rose up refreshed, and trudged on, thinking of trying at the first village he reached for a hat or cap.

An hour had passed before the opportunity offered, and then, next door to a little inn, he found a regular village shop, where pretty well everything could be purchased.

A woman served him, and looked at him curiously; for it did not happen every morning for a good-looking, quiet youth in tweeds to enter, as soon as she was down, to buy himself a flannel cricketing cap, because he had lost his own, and then, upon paying for it and reaching the doorway, turn round and buy a small yesterday’s cottage loaf and a piece of cheese, which he tied up in his handkerchief, said “Good-morning,” and walked off, well watched by the inquisitive shopkeeper till he was out of sight.

“Now I never made a bet in my life,” she said, as she turned away to prepare her breakfast, “and I don’t know how it’s done; but I’d lay a penny that that young man met robbers on the road who stole his hat, and that he is going to seek his fortune just as we read about in books.”

She never knew how nearly she was right, and Richard did not give her a second thought as he walked steadily on till well out of sight of the village, when he began to relieve the painful gnawing sensation of hunger, from which he suffered, by breaking off pieces of his loaf.

Then came a little bit of satisfaction; for, passing a farmhouse in a lonely spot, he saw a big heavy-looking woman carrying a couple of pails full of frothy new milk to the door, and, following her, he soon had his desire for a pint of the warm sweet fluid satisfied.

Nerved now for his task, he started off afresh, walking vigorously and well, keeping as near as he could due east, and passing village after village, and then a town, and at last seating himself among the ferns upon a shady bank to dine on bread and cheese and a draught of water from a trickling spring.

There was no pleasure in the eating; it was from stern necessity, and he ate with a determination to carry out the plan he had in view—to give himself support for the task which lay ahead and kept him with rugged brow, dreamy and thoughtful, as he tramped along till night, when he entered a large village, and, after a search, found a tiny inn, where he was accommodated with supper and a bed.

The next day passed in much the same way, with the past seeming to belong to a far-off time, and the future looming up cold and cheerless, but more and more real as the hours went by. He had calculated that he would reach his destination that evening; but, journeying as he did, asking guidance of none, he missed his way, and walked back many miles along a lower lane which ran parallel to the one by which he had come. Consequently, he had to sleep another night upon the road.

“It does not matter,” he said to himself in a stern, hopeless way; and, with the past farther back than ever, he started early the next morning, tramping through the chalky dust slowly now, for he did not want to get to his destination yet; and, as he walked, he noted the farms and cherry orchards he passed upon the road, but in a dull, uninterested manner, and, bending his head low, he tramped on again.

The fear of being followed and taken back had quite gone. No one knew him, and his aspect was not one which would take the notice of the police whom he met from time to time.

“They don’t know that I killed my cousin,” he said bitterly; but he pulled himself up short— That belonged to the past!

It was early in the afternoon that he crossed the stone bridge and went steadily on through the streets of the dingy town, with signs here and there of the maritime character of the place, and others which interested him more, though in a saddened way. From time to time he caught sight of specks of the Queen’s scarlet, which resolved themselves into military jackets, cut across by pipe-clayed belts. Then there was the blue of an artilleryman, with its yellow braid; more scarlet, that of an engineer; and soon after the blackish-green of a rifleman.

For Richard Frayne, son of a distinguished officer, was tramping through a garrison town towards the great dingy barracks, and his future was rapidly taking form and shape.

Chapter Fourteen.

The Lads in Red.

If Richard Frayne had stopped to look back, his career would have been very different; but he had fully and stubbornly made up his mind, and he looked forward as he walked on and on through the apparently endless streets of what he found to be a trio of towns; and as he approached the great barracks he was conscious of the shrieking of fifes and the roll of drums, which suddenly ceased as a crowd of rough-looking boys and people came along a side-lane, down which, and rapidly approaching, was the shining and glittering of a long line of bayonets, while in front came the gleam of brass instruments.

As the head of the regiment marching into the town reached the main street, boom—boom—boom—came the heavy thunder of the big drum; and then, in full burst of the brass instruments, the first bars of the grand March from Tannhäuser, sending the first thrill of pleasure he had felt for days through Richard’s breast, as he naturally fell into step and marched along side by side with the men.

But the thrill soon passed off, and as he tramped on he could not help thinking, in a low-spirited way, that the men looked dusty and fagged. The chalky white powder clung to their blue trousers and scarlet coatees; their shakoes, too, were whitened, and their hot faces were grimed and coated with perspiration and dust.

In spite of the music, there was something wanting; and in a few minutes Richard Frayne slackened his pace, so that the regiment went on past him, and he followed more slowly, for there was nothing attractive about the men.

But he had not come down there spurred on by any boyish admiration for the army. His was a set purpose, and, after letting the marching regiment disappear, with a peculiar sensation of sadness affecting him as he stole a glance—he could hardly bear to look—at the officers, he turned off along one of the side-streets and passed through the great gates of one of the barracks. Here he could see a round-faced, fat man, whose clothes looked ridiculously tight, hurrying to and fro before a double line of men in flannel jackets, and at whom he seemed to be barking loudly.

He was a peculiar-looking man for a soldier, suggesting, as he did at a distance, an animated pincushion, one huge pin being apparently stuck right through his chest, though a second glance revealed the fact that it was only a cane with a gilt head passed, skewer fashion, in front of his elbows and behind his back.

Then a few evolutions were gone through, and Richard Frayne thought the men looked a melancholy set of dummies, more like plasterers than soldiers, till at the loudly-shouted word “Dis—miss!” they trotted off readily enough.

Just then a couple of sergeants marched a squad of twelve or fourteen shabby-looking young fellows into the barrack yard, the whole party wearing the ribbons of the recruit, and toward this group, as it they were an attraction, the fat drill-sergeant and some half-dozen more from different parts of the yard walked slowly up.

Richard’s pulses beat fast as he stood looking on, conscious the while that a tall, keen-looking non-commissioned officer who passed him was watching him curiously.

Then followed a little loud talking and laughing, and the party of recruits were marched across the yard and disappeared, leaving the group of sergeants chatting together, till one of them seemed to have said something to his companions, who, as if by one consent, turned to stare at Richard Frayne.

“Now for it,” muttered the lad, and, drawing a deep breath, he pulled himself together, feeling as if he were going to execution, and walked straight toward them, feeling the blood come and go from his cheeks.

The men stood fast, looking at him in a half-amused, good-tempered way, as if he was not the first by many a one who had approached them in that fashion, and the keen-faced man said in quick, decisive tones the words which ended one of the boy’s difficulties—

“Well, my lad, want to ’list?”

Only those few hours ago and people touched their hats to him and said, “Sir Richard;” now it was, “Well, my lad, want to ’list?” But he answered promptly—

“Yes; I want to enlist.”

“Hah!” ejaculated the sergeant, looking him over keenly, and grasping him by the arm as if he were a horse for sale. “How old are you?”

“Turned seventeen.”

“Hah! Yes,” said the sergeant, with a keen look; “old story, eh? Run away from home?”

Richard’s face turned scarlet.

“That’ll do, my lad; don’t tell any crackers about it. See these chaps just brought in?”

“Yes.”

“Well, there isn’t one who doesn’t stand two or three inches higher than you, and is as many more round the chest. Men are plentiful now of the right sort. Why, you’d look as thin as a rake in our clothes.”

“But I’m young, and I shall grow,” said Richard, hurriedly.

“Then go home and grow bigger and wiser, my lad; and if you still want to join the service, come and ask for me, Sergeant Price, 205th Fusiliers, and I’ll talk to you.”

“Only he might be at the Cape,” said another of the sergeants, smiling.

“Or in India,” said another; and there was a general laugh, which irritated the would-be recruit, and, feeling completely stunned by his reception, after taking it for granted that all he had to do was to hold out his hand when a shilling would be placed therein: after that he was a soldier.

Giving a sharp, comprehensive glance round, he turned upon his heels and walked away towards the entrance, feeling ready to go back indignantly, for there was a roar of laughter apparently at his expense.

“Am I such a contemptible-looking boy?” he thought; and then he felt better: for there was evidently someone following him, and the laughter was not at his expense, but at that of the man coming in his direction, for someone cried—

“Wait a bit, Lambert!”

“Yes; steady there, Dan’l!”

“Hi! you sir, don’t you stand anything. He eats and drinks more than is good for him already.”

“I say, Brummy, take him to the King’s Head, and we’ll join you.”

“Dan’l and Lambert,” thought Richard. “Why, it’s the fat sergeant coming after me; they’re laughing at him!”

But he did not turn his head to see, only went steadily on towards the gate, with his pulses beating rapidly once more, for the hope rose now that this man had repented and was, perhaps, going to enlist him, after all. Telling himself that it would be better to seem careless and independent, he kept on to the gate, passed out, and heard the steps still behind him, but so close now that he noticed a rather thick breathing. Then he started as if thrilled by an electric touch, for there came in sharp tones—

“Hold hard, my lad!” and then, in military fashion, “Halt! Right about face!”

Richard obeyed the order on the instant, and in such thorough soldierly style that the fat sergeant stared.

“Humph! Volunteers!” he muttered: and then, coming close up, he looked pleasantly in the lad’s face, and clapped him on the shoulder. “So you wanted to ’list, did you?” he said.

“Yes. Will you have me?”

“No, my lad,” said the sergeant, smiling. “I only wanted a word with you before you go into the town. I don’t want to pump you. We can see plain enough. We often get young customers like you.”

“I didn’t know I was too young,” said Richard, hoarsely.

“Nobody said you were, my lad; but you’re not our sort. We want a rougher breed than you.”

“Very well,” said Richard.

“No, it isn’t, my lad. You take a bit of good advice: be off back home—sharp! Don’t stop in the town here, or you’ll get picked up. There’s a lot outside ready to be down upon you, and they’ll humbug and promise everything till they’ve sucked every shilling you’ve got out of you and made you sell your watch.”

Richard’s hand went sharply to his chain, and the sergeant laughed.

“I know what it is: bit of a row at home, and you’ve cut off to ’list; and, if you could have had your way, you’d have done what you’d have given anything to undo in a month.”

There was something so frank and honest in the plump, good-humoured face before him that Richard’s hand went out directly.

“Shake hands? Of course,” said the sergeant, grasping the lad’s. “White hand!—Ring on it!” he cried, laughing, “There! go back home.”

Richard snatched his hand back, colouring deeply, like a girl.

“Thank you!” he said. “You mean well, sergeant; but you don’t know all.”

“And don’t want to. There, don’t stop in the town; get off at once.”

“I’m going to have some dinner,” said Richard. “Come and have something with me.”

“Had mine, my lad,” said the sergeant, laughing. “What’s the use of me giving you good advice if you don’t take it. There, good-bye, my lad. Banks was quite right.”

He nodded, faced round, and marched away, leaving Richard Frayne gazing at the black future before him as he muttered—

“Beaten! Why did I fight my way out of the flood?”

His next thought made him shudder: for a river was below there in the town, and he had crossed a bridge, beneath which the deep water flowed fast to where there was oblivion and rest.

He spoke mentally once more:

“Why not?”

As Richard Frayne gazed after the fat sergeant he failed to see the ridiculously fat back in the tight jacket for somehow he was looking inside at the man’s heart.

“But he does not know—he does not know,” muttered the lad, as he turned now and walked back toward the town street, down which he hurried with the intention of finding a quiet place where he could have a meal, and turned at last into a coffee-house, where he ordered tea and bread-and-butter, drinking the former with avidity, for he was feverishly thirsty, but the first mouthful of food seemed as if it would choke him, and he took no more.

Half an hour later he had another cup of tea, for his thirst seemed greater, and after that he went and wandered about the town, finding most rest in the shade of the great ruined Castle Keep, where the jackdaws sailed round, and cawed at him as if they were old friends from Primchilsea who recognised him and called out to their companions that he was below.

“What should he do,” he thought; “what should he do?” For his plan had been completely checked, and in the most unexpected way.

He was sick at heart and faint in body, but his spirit was not crushed. He had laid his hand to the plough, and if a hundred good-tempered well-meaning fat sergeants came or gave their advice he could not look back. No; he must sleep at Ratcham that night, and make for Quitnesbury in the morning. There was a cavalry depôt there; and if he failed again, he could go on to Ranstone.

“There must be regiments where they would take me,” he muttered, as he walked back toward the town in the pleasant sunny evening; and, as if attracted by the place, he made his way again towards the barracks, thinking of the fat sergeant, and in his utter loneliness feeling a yearning to meet him again for a friendly chat, if it were possible.

“What did they call him—Lambert?” thought Richard. “Absurd! That was only banter on the part of his companions. I wonder whether I shall ever see him again!”

Chapter Fifteen.

In Pipe-Claydom.

There was still none of the pageant and display of a military life visible to Richard as he re-entered the great gateway, before which a sentry in white flannel jacket and forage cap was marching to and fro with a bayonet in his hand, ready to give a glance at the lad and then turn upon his heels and march away.

The lad walked forward as if he had business there, and went on, wondering what the stout sergeant’s name was, but not liking to stop and ask. Then on straight across the great dreary barrack yard, surrounded on all sides by bare-looking buildings, full of open windows, at one of which he saw a pair of folded arms and the top of a closely-cropped head, the owner thereof being evidently asleep. At another window there was a pair of boot-soles, and at another a man, in shirt and trousers, seated sidewise upon the sill, with his knees drawn up so as to form a reading-desk, upon which a paper was spread, which the man, with his hands behind his head, was perusing.

A little farther on there was a cat asleep, and just above it a canary in a cage twittering away as if in friendly discourse with the animal below. But for the most part the windows of the great barracks were unoccupied, and the place looked deserted and desolate in the extreme.

Richard walked on, thinking of what he was not long before, and of his present position through one turn of fortune’s wheel. What was to happen next, now that he had been disappointed and his project had come to naught?

Right on before him there was another gateway, across which, in the soft summer evening light, a second sentry in white flannel jacket passed, with the light gleaming upon his triangular bayonet.

One moment he thought of turning back; the next he had rejected this, and advanced. He had taken his course, and he must go on.

The second sentry looked harder at him as he passed an open doorway from out of which came a puff of hot bad tobacco smoke; but the man seemed to pay no further heed as he went on and now found himself at what was evidently the front of the barracks, and directly afterward a burst of music fell upon his ears.

It sounded very welcome, and, walking in the direction, he passed a couple of large open windows, from whence came the clatter of silver upon china and the buzz of voices accompanied by sundry odours of an agreeable nature, which reminded him of the fact that he had eaten nothing since his hurried breakfast.

“The mess-room,” he said to himself.

The officers were dining; and the band was playing selections during that function.

Richard passed on, thinking, and with his spirits going down like the mercury in a weather-glass before a storm.

In a short time he, in all probability, would have been an officer attached to some regiment, while now he was a fugitive and a vagabond on the face of the earth.

“Not even fit to be a private,” he said to himself; and then, attracted by the music, he turned and walked back, to stop between the two windows, listening, and with the smell of the dinner making him forget his troubles in baser thoughts as his mouth began to water.

Then the chink of glasses began to mingle with the buzz of voices.

“Taking wine,” muttered the listener; and he wondered whether it was Hock.

Pop!

“Champagne or Moselle,” he muttered; and the report of a second cork taking flight from the bottle followed, and then a third, while the music went on.

There was a row of iron railings in front of the windows, and Richard turned his back and rested it against them; for he was tired, and it was pleasant to listen to the music and feel himself close to a party of gentlemen just for a few minutes before he went back into the town to find out some place where he could get a meal and bed.

All at once, after a loud passage, the band wound up with a series of chords, leaving the principal flute-player sustaining one long note and then dropping to the octave below, from which he started upon a series of runs, paused, and commenced a solo full of florid passages introductory to a delicious melody—one of those plaintive airs which, once heard, cling evermore to the memory.

Dick was weary, faint, and in low spirits. The events of the past days seemed to fit themselves to the strain, till his brow wrinkled up, then grew full of knots, and he angrily muttered the word “Muff!” A few moments later he ejaculated “Duffer!” and then twisted himself suddenly round to look up at the open window from which, mingled with the loud conversation and rattle of plates, the music came.

“Oh, it’s murder!” muttered the lad. “The fellow ought to be kicked!” and, as he listened, his hand went involuntarily into his breast-pocket, pressed the button in the side of the morocco flute-case, and extracted the little silver-keyed piccolo from where it reposed in purple velvet beside the two pieces of his flute.

And all the while the solo was continued, the player slurring over passages, omitting a whole bar, and seeming to be increasing his pace so as to take the final roulades at a break-neck gallop, and get through, somehow, without further accident.

But he did not; for, as he reached the beginning of a brilliant arpeggio, at the top of which there was a trill and a leap down of an octave and a half, the wind in the bellows of this human organ suddenly gave out, a few wildly chaotic notes elicited a roar of laughter from the table accompanied by derisive applause. This stopped as if by magic; for, suddenly, from out there by the railing, a few long thrilling shakes were heard, deliciously sweet and pure, followed by the arpeggio. The effect was as if liquid music was falling from the summer sky; and then the player ran back to the earlier part of the air, and, amidst perfect silence from within, on and on it ran, thrilling its hearers with appealing, impassioned tones, breathed by one who had forgotten where he was—everything but the fact that the glorious theme he loved had been cruelly murdered, and that he was bringing it back to life; for it was one of his favourite airs.

In the utter silence a window was softly opened somewhere higher up, then another and another, towards which the liquid, bird-like notes rose in plaintive, long-drawn appeals, to come trickling down again in runs—rising, falling, rising, falling, with a purity and strength which seemed impossible as coming from that tiny instrument. Finally this softened, grew lower and lower, till the last notes regularly died away in the distance. And then, and then only, in the midst of a roar of applause, Dick stood, piccolo in hand, as if he had been just woke up from a musical dream by a flannel-jacketed private, bearing a drawn bayonet, who said, savagely—

“Come out! You’ve no business here!”

“No, no, sentry; leave him alone!” said a loud voice; and Richard looked up, to see that the windows were full of officers, whose scarlet mess-vests, with their rows of tiny buttons, shone in the evening light. Higher up there were ladies looking down; and then the musician glanced sharply round and began to thrust his piccolo back into his breast-pocket.

“Hold hard, there!” cried the same voice, and Richard looked quickly up, to meet the dark eyes of a big, handsome, youngish man, who, napkin in hand, towered above the others, but turned sharply round, and Richard heard him say—

“May we have him in, sir?”

“Oh, yes!” came back in a quick, commanding voice, and the officer looked out again.

“Here!” he cried, “we want you to come in and play.”

“I—I beg your pardon—I—I—”

Dick got no further, for an officer’s servant was at his elbow, looking at him rather superciliously as he said—

“This way!”

Chapter Sixteen.

“You meant it, then?”

For one moment Richard flinched, and thought of making a run for it; the next he was following the man.

“Why not?” he muttered. “I may as well, if they want me to. Why not play for my living now?”

The next minute, with the feeling of shrinking gone, he was standing in the mess-room, in one corner of which, partially hidden by a screen and some palms, was the band, while close to him, leaning back in his chair, was a fine, florid-looking, grey officer, evidently the colonel or major of the regiment, while the rest of the officers had resumed their places, and the dinner was going on.

“Well, sir,” said the elderly, florid officer, with assumed sternness, as he fixed the lad with his keen grey eyes, “what have you to say for yourself? How are you come here and interrupt the most brilliant player in my band?”

There was a roar of laughter from all present, and Richard was conscious of a sharp face belonging to a bandsman peering between the palm-leaves.

“I beg your pardon, sir,” said the lad, frankly, “but I stopped to hear the music; the air was very familiar, and I had my instrument in my pocket, and—well, sir, that’s all.”

“Oh!” said the old officer, scanning him sharply; “then you are not a street musician?”

“I, sir? Oh, no,” cried Richard—“that is, I don’t know; I suppose I shall be.”

“Humph! Well, you played that piece from the Trovatore capitally. The gentlemen here would like to hear something else—er—I should, too. Know any other airs?”

“A few, sir.”

“Mind playing?”

“Not to so appreciative an audience,” came to the lad’s lips; but he only said, “Oh, no, sir.”

“Go on, then. Here, Johnson, give the musician a glass of wine. By the way, Lacey, you were going to tell us a story about something.”

The big, good-looking officer smiled, shook his head, and wrinkled up his forehead in a perplexed way as he looked up at the ceiling.

“The flute-player blew it all out of his head, sir,” said a rather fierce-looking man who took the foot of the table, and there was another laugh.