________________________________________________
_ My uncle was humanely anxious to get Harrison to bed as soon as
possible, for the smith, although he laughed at his own injuries,
had none the less been severely punished.
"Don't you dare ever to ask my leave to fight again, Jack Harrison,"
said his wife, as she looked ruefully at his battered face. "Why,
it's worse than when you beat Black Baruk; and if it weren't for
your topcoat, I couldn't swear you were the man who led me to the
altar! If the King of England ask you, I'll never let you do it
more."
"Well, old lass, I give my davy that I never will. It's best that I
leave fightin' before fightin' leaves me." He screwed up his face
as he took a sup from Sir Charles's brandy flask. "It's fine
liquor, sir, but it gets into my cut lips most cruel. Why, here's
John Cummings of the Friars' Oak Inn, as I'm a sinner, and seekin'
for a mad doctor, to judge by the look of him!"
It was certainly a most singular figure who was approaching us over
the moor. With the flushed, dazed face of a man who is just
recovering from recent intoxication, the landlord was tearing madly
about, his hat gone, and his hair and beard flying in the wind. He
ran in little zigzags from one knot of people to another, whilst his
peculiar appearance drew a running fire of witticisms as he went, so
that he reminded me irresistibly of a snipe skimming along through a
line of guns. We saw him stop for an instant by the yellow
barouche, and hand something to Sir Lothian Hume. Then on he came
again, until at last, catching sight of us, he gave a cry of joy,
and ran for us full speed with a note held out at arm's length.
"You're a nice cove, too, John Cummings," said Harrison,
reproachfully. "Didn't I tell you not to let a drop pass your lips
until you had given your message to Sir Charles?"
"I ought to be pole-axed, I ought," he cried in bitter repentance.
"I asked for you, Sir Charles, as I'm a livin' man, I did, but you
weren't there, and what with bein' so pleased at gettin' such odds
when I knew Harrison was goin' to fight, an' what with the landlord
at the George wantin' me to try his own specials, I let my senses go
clean away from me. And now it's only after the fight is over that
I see you, Sir Charles, an' if you lay that whip over my back, it's
only what I deserve."
But my uncle was paying no attention whatever to the voluble self-
reproaches of the landlord. He had opened the note, and was reading
it with a slight raising of the eyebrows, which was almost the very
highest note in his limited emotional gamut.
"What make you of this, nephew?" he asked, handing it to me.
This was what I read -
"SIR CHARLES TREGELLIS,
"For God's sake, come at once, when this reaches you, to Cliffe
Royal, and tarry as little as possible upon the way. You will see
me there, and you will hear much which concerns you deeply. I pray
you to come as soon as may be; and until then I remain him whom you
knew as
"JAMES HARRISON."
"Well, nephew?" asked my uncle.
"Why, sir, I cannot tell what it may mean."
"Who gave it to you, sirrah?"
"It was young Jim Harrison himself, sir," said the landlord, "though
indeed I scarce knew him at first, for he looked like his own ghost.
He was so eager that it should reach you that he would not leave me
until the horse was harnessed and I started upon my way. There was
one note for you and one for Sir Lothian Hume, and I wish to God he
had chosen a better messenger!"
"This is a mystery indeed," said my uncle, bending his brows over
the note. "What should he be doing at that house of ill-omen? And
why does he sign himself 'him whom you knew as Jim Harrison?' By
what other style should I know him? Harrison, you can throw a light
upon this. You, Mrs. Harrison; I see by your face that you
understand it."
"Maybe we do, Sir Charles; but we are plain folk, my Jack and I, and
we go as far as we see our way, and when we don't see our way any
longer, we just stop. We've been goin' this twenty year, but now
we'll draw aside and let our betters get to the front; so if you
wish to find what that note means, I can only advise you to do what
you are asked, and to drive over to Cliffe Royal, where you will
find out."
My uncle put the note into his pocket.
"I don't move until I have seen you safely in the hands of the
surgeon, Harrison."
"Never mind for me, sir. The missus and me can drive down to
Crawley in the gig, and a yard of stickin' plaster and a raw steak
will soon set me to rights."
But my uncle was by no means to be persuaded, and he drove the pair
into Crawley, where the smith was left under the charge of his wife
in the very best quarters which money could procure. Then, after a
hasty luncheon, we turned the mares' heads for the south.
"This ends my connection with the ring, nephew," said my uncle. "I
perceive that there is no possible means by which it can be kept
pure from roguery. I have been cheated and befooled; but a man
learns wisdom at last, and never again do I give countenance to a
prize-fight."
Had I been older or he less formidable, I might have said what was
in my heart, and begged him to give up other things also--to come
out from those shallow circles in which he lived, and to find some
work that was worthy of his strong brain and his good heart. But
the thought had hardly formed itself in my mind before he had
dropped his serious vein, and was chatting away about some new
silver-mounted harness which he intended to spring upon the Mall,
and about the match for a thousand guineas which he meant to make
between his filly Ethelberta and Lord Doncaster's famous three-year-
old Aurelius.
We had got as far as Whiteman's Green, which is rather more than
midway between Crawley Down and Friars' Oak, when, looking
backwards, I saw far down the road the gleam of the sun upon a high
yellow carriage. Sir Lothian Hume was following us.
"He has had the same summons as we, and is bound for the same
destination," said my uncle, glancing over his shoulder at the
distant barouche. "We are both wanted at Cliffe Royal--we, the two
survivors of that black business. And it is Jim Harrison of all
people who calls us there. Nephew, I have had an eventful life, but
I feel as if the very strangest scene of it were waiting for me
among those trees."
He whipped up the mares, and now from the curve of the road we could
see the high dark pinnacles of the old Manor-house shooting up above
the ancient oaks which ring it round. The sight of it, with its
bloodstained and ghost-blasted reputation, would in itself have been
enough to send a thrill through my nerves; but when the words of my
uncle made me suddenly realize that this strange summons was indeed
for the two men who were concerned in that old-world tragedy, and
that it was the playmate of my youth who had sent it, I caught my
breath as I seemed vaguely to catch a glimpse of some portentous
thing forming itself in front of us. The rusted gates between the
crumbling heraldic pillars were folded back, and my uncle flicked
the mares impatiently as we flew up the weed-grown avenue, until he
pulled them on their haunches before the time-blotched steps. The
front door was open, and Boy Jim was waiting there to meet us.
But it was a different Boy Jim from him whom I had known and loved.
There was a change in him somewhere, a change so marked that it was
the first thing that I noticed, and yet so subtle that I could not
put words to it. He was not better dressed than of old, for I well
knew the old brown suit that he wore.
He was not less comely, for his training had left him the very model
of what a man should be. And yet there was a change, a touch of
dignity in the expression, a suggestion of confidence in the bearing
which seemed, now that it was supplied, to be the one thing which
had been needed to give him harmony and finish.
Somehow, in spite of his prowess, his old school name of "Boy" had
clung very naturally to him, until that instant when I saw him
standing in his self-contained and magnificent manhood in the
doorway of the ancient house. A woman stood beside him, her hand
resting upon his shoulder, and I saw that it was Miss Hinton of
Anstey Cross.
"You remember me, Sir Charles Tregellis," said she, coming forward,
as we sprang down from the curricle.
My uncle looked hard at her with a puzzled face.
"I do not think that I have the privilege, madame. And yet--"
"Polly Hinton, of the Haymarket. You surely cannot have forgotten
Polly Hinton."
"Forgotten! Why, we have mourned for you in Fops' Alley for more
years than I care to think of. But what in the name of wonder--"
"I was privately married, and I retired from the stage. I want you
to forgive me for taking Jim away from you last night."
"It was you, then?"
"I had a stronger claim even than you could have. You were his
patron; I was his mother." She drew his head down to hers as she
spoke, and there, with their cheeks together, were the two faces,
the one stamped with the waning beauty of womanhood, the other with
the waxing strength of man, and yet so alike in the dark eyes, the
blue-black hair and the broad white brow, that I marvelled that I
had never read her secret on the first days that I had seen them
together. "Yes," she cried, "he is my own boy, and he saved me from
what is worse than death, as your nephew Rodney could tell you. Yet
my lips were sealed, and it was only last night that I could tell
him that it was his mother whom he had brought back by his
gentleness and his patience into the sweetness of life."
"Hush, mother!" said Jim, turning his lips to her cheek. "There are
some things which are between ourselves. But tell me, Sir Charles,
how went the fight?"
"Your uncle would have won it, but the roughs broke the ring."
"He is no uncle of mine, Sir Charles, but he has been the best and
truest friend, both to me and to my father, that ever the world
could offer. I only know one as true," he continued, taking me by
the hand, "and dear old Rodney Stone is his name. But I trust he
was not much hurt?"
"A week or two will set him right. But I cannot pretend to
understand how this matter stands, and you must allow me to say that
I have not heard you advance anything yet which seems to me to
justify you in abandoning your engagements at a moment's notice."
"Come in, Sir Charles, and I am convinced that you will acknowledge
that I could not have done otherwise. But here, if I mistake not,
is Sir Lothian Hume."
The yellow barouche had swung into the avenue, and a few moments
later the weary, panting horses had pulled up behind our curricle.
Sir Lothian sprang out, looking as black as a thunder-cloud.
"Stay where you are, Corcoran," said he; and I caught a glimpse of a
bottle-green coat which told me who was his travelling companion.
"Well," he continued, looking round him with an insolent stare, "I
should vastly like to know who has had the insolence to give me so
pressing an invitation to visit my own house, and what in the devil
you mean by daring to trespass upon my grounds?"
"I promise you that you will understand this and a good deal more
before we part, Sir Lothian," said Jim, with a curious smile playing
over his face. "If you will follow me, I will endeavour to make it
all clear to you."
With his mother's hand in his own, he led us into that ill-omened
room where the cards were still heaped upon the sideboard, and the
dark shadow lurked in the corner of the ceiling.
"Now, sirrah, your explanation!" cried Sir Lothian, standing with
his arms folded by the door.
"My first explanations I owe to you, Sir Charles," said Jim; and as
I listened to his voice and noted his manner, I could not but admire
the effect which the company of her whom he now knew to be his
mother had had upon a rude country lad. "I wish to tell you what
occurred last night."
"I will tell it for you, Jim," said his mother. "You must know, Sir
Charles, that though my son knew nothing of his parents, we were
both alive, and had never lost sight of him. For my part, I let him
have his own way in going to London and in taking up this challenge.
It was only yesterday that it came to the ears of his father, who
would have none of it. He was in the weakest health, and his wishes
were not to be gainsayed. He ordered me to go at once and to bring
his son to his side. I was at my wit's end, for I was sure that Jim
would never come unless a substitute were provided for him. I went
to the kind, good couple who had brought him up, and I told them how
matters stood. Mrs. Harrison loved Jim as if he had been her own
son, and her husband loved mine, so they came to my help, and may
God bless them for their kindness to a distracted wife and mother!
Harrison would take Jim's place if Jim would go to his father. Then
I drove to Crawley. I found out which was Jim's room, and I spoke
to him through the window, for I was sure that those who had backed
him would not let him go. I told him that I was his mother. I told
him who was his father. I said that I had my phaeton ready, and
that he might, for all I knew, be only in time to receive the dying
blessing of that parent whom he had never known. Still the boy
would not go until he had my assurance that Harrison would take his
place."
"Why did he not leave a message with Belcher?"
"My head was in a whirl, Sir Charles. To find a father and a
mother, a new name and a new rank in a few minutes might turn a
stronger brain than ever mine was. My mother begged me to come with
her, and I went. The phaeton was waiting, but we had scarcely
started when some fellow seized the horses' heads, and a couple of
ruffians attacked us. One of them I beat over the head with the
butt of the whip, so that he dropped the cudgel with which he was
about to strike me; then lashing the horse, I shook off the others
and got safely away. I cannot imagine who they were or why they
should molest us."
"Perhaps Sir Lothian Hume could tell you," said my uncle.
Our enemy said nothing; but his little grey eyes slid round with a
most murderous glance in our direction.
"After I had come here and seen my father I went down--"
My uncle stopped him with a cry of astonishment.
"What did you say, young man? You came here and you saw your
father--here at Cliffe Royal?"
"Yes, sir."
My uncle had turned very pale.
"In God's name, then, tell us who your father is!"
Jim made no answer save to point over our shoulders, and glancing
round, we became aware that two people had entered the room through
the door which led to the bedroom stair. The one I recognized in an
instant. That impassive, mask-like face and demure manner could
only belong to Ambrose, the former valet of my uncle. The other was
a very different and even more singular figure. He was a tall man,
clad in a dark dressing-gown, and leaning heavily upon a stick. His
long, bloodless countenance was so thin and so white that it gave
the strangest illusion of transparency. Only within the folds of a
shroud have I ever seen so wan a face. The brindled hair and the
rounded back gave the impression of advanced age, and it was only
the dark brows and the bright alert eyes glancing out from beneath
them which made me doubt whether it was really an old man who stood
before us.
There was an instant of silence, broken by a deep oath from Sir
Lothian Hume -
"Lord Avon, by God!" he cried.
"Very much at your service, gentlemen," answered the strange figure
in the dressing-gown. _
Read next: CHAPTER XX - LORD AVON
Read previous: CHAPTER XVIII - THE SMITH'S LAST BATTLE
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