At Large

"Jem Pound," said Sundown, in tones of capitulation, "there is no getting over you! I throw up my hand, for the game's up. I thought I could get the best of you, Jem, but, Lord! I didn't know my man, and that's the fact. But listen to sense: you don't suppose I've got that money here, do you? It's in London; you shall have five hundred of it in hard cash, if you swear to stand by me, next week. I go up next week; you go before me and wait. You refuse? Stay, then; hear me out: you shall have fifty down, on this very spot, at this very hour, to-morrow night!"

"Do you mean it?" asked Pound, suspiciously, his breath coming quick and rapid with the excitement of the moment – his moment of victory.

"Every word of it."

"Fifty pounds – to-morrow night?"

"Every penny of it. Oh, there's no use in disguising it; you've got the better of me, Jem, and I must stump up."

Pound looked at him doubtfully, wishing to believe, yet finding it difficult.

"You gave us the slip before," he said; "how do we know you won't do it again?"

"Watch me – watch me," he said.

"Ay, we must and we will!"

"You need not remind me of – of her!" cried Ryan, fiercely, all in a moment.

"Ah, poor thing, poor thing!" said Pound.

"Why, has anything happened?"

"Poor soul!"

"Speak, man, for God's sake! Is she – is she – "

Ryan could not get out the word, trembling as he was with intense excitement. Pound broke into a brutal laugh.

"No, Ned Ryan, she isn't dead, if that's what you want. I am sorry for you. Now that you're going to behave handsome, I should have liked to bring you good news. Yet, though she hangs on still, she's going down the hill pretty quick – her own way. But she's waiting for us three fields off; we'd better go to her before she comes to us. Come this way."

Pound led the way to the hay-field. Miles followed him, filled with foreboding. What had happened to Elizabeth? Was the woman ill? Was she dying? Bad as he was – bad as she was – could he go coldly on his way and let her die? He thought of her as he had seen her last, two months ago; and then strangely enough, he figured her as he had first seen her, many, many years ago. Poor thing! poor Liz!

"She is not here," said Pound, when he came to the gate that Elizabeth Ryan had clung to. "Now I wonder – stay! what is that over there? Come, let's look. It may be – by Heaven, it is your wife!"

He had pointed to a dark object among the mounds of hay. Now the two men stood looking down on the insensible form of Elizabeth Ryan.

"No, not death," said Pound; "only brandy!"

The husband looked down upon his wretched wife without speaking or moving. Oh, that it were death! His muscles were rigid – repugnance and loathing froze him to the bone. How white her face was in the faint moonshine! how white that hand under the white cheek! and the other hand stretched helplessly out – good God! the wedding-ring he had placed there, she dared to wear it still! Oh, that this were death!

And a minute ago he had thought of her – for some seconds together – not unkindly!

At last Ryan spoke.

"I dare swear," he murmured, as though speaking to himself, "that she has not got our certificate! A ring is no proof."

Pound knelt down and shook some sense into the woman's head.

"Eh? What is it? Where am I?"

He whispered hurriedly in her ear: "He is here – your husband. He says something about your having no proof that you are his wife. Give me the certificate!"

Without grasping the meaning of any but the last word, Elizabeth Ryan mechanically drew forth from her bosom a folded square of paper. Pound took it from her, and unfolded it with his back to Ryan. When he faced about, Pound held the certificate in his left hand and a revolver in his right.

Ryan paid no heed to the pistol, beyond recognising it as one of his own – the fellow, in fact, to the one he at that moment carried in his own pocket; Pound's last transaction, as a member of Sundown's gang, having been to help himself to this and other trifles as keepsakes. The production of the weapon Ryan treated, or affected to treat, with contempt. The certificate took up his whole attention. Yet one glance, even in the moonlight, was sufficient to show him that the certificate was genuine.

"You may put them both away," was all he said. "But remember: to-morrow night, same spot and hour. Or let us say here, at this gate: it is farther from the house."

He turned to go, but suddenly recoiled, being face to face with his wife, who had struggled to her feet. With a strange wild cry the woman flung herself into his arms. Ryan caught her, held her one instant, then dashed her heavily to the ground, and fled like a murderer from the place.

The poor thing lay groaning, yet sobered.

"Ah, I remember," she moaned at last, gathering up her bruised and aching limbs. "I was drugged – by you!"

The look of terrible hatred which she darted at Jem Pound was ineffable but calm. He answered her with a stout denial:

"I gave you nothing but brandy, and that I gave you for the best. I didn't mean it to knock you over, but I'm not sorry it did. Bad as it was, it would have been worse if you had seen much more of him."

"Why? What did he say?"

"He said he wouldn't give us a farthing. No, not if you were starving. He said you were less than nothing to him now. He said we might do our worst, and the sooner hell swallowed both of us the better he'd like it."

Mrs. Ryan gave a little cry of pain and anger. She staggered across the dewy grass, and confronted Pound at arm's length. She was shaking and shivering like a withered leaf.

"Jem Pound," said she, "I will tell you what I have known for many weeks, but hidden from you. I will tell you where he has that money, or some of it."

"Where?" cried Pound.

She tapped him lightly on the chest.

"There!" said Mrs. Ryan.

"How the devil do you know?"

"By woman's wit. On that night, when my hand rested there on his breast for one moment, he pushed me from him. I remembered afterwards that he started from my hand as though I touched a wound. I did the same thing to-night, only on purpose, and you know how he took it: he flung me to the ground this time. Mark my words, there is that which he values more than anything else hung round his neck and resting there! Whatever it is, take it, Jem Pound! Do you hear? You are bad enough for anything: then take it – even if you have to take his life with it!"

Her voice was hoarse and horrible, yet so low that it could scarcely be heard. Without waiting for an answer, she turned swiftly away and disappeared in the darkness.

Jem Pound drew a long deep breath.

"This," said he, "is the best night's work I've done since I came back to the Old Country. This morning I didn't dream of anything so good. Now I see a better night's work not far ahead!"

He proceeded to carve a cake of black tobacco slowly and deliberately, then filled his pipe. As he did this, leaning with his broad back against the gate, a sound came to his ears across the silent sleeping meadows – a strange sound to him – the sound, in fact, of a woman's song. His pipe was by this time loaded, and the mouthpiece between his teeth. Moreover, the match-box was in his left hand and a match in his right. Yet Jem Pound actually did not strike that match until the strange sound had died away!

I know not what spirit was abroad that night to invest a simple, well-known drawing-room song with the sinews of Fate; yet not only in the fields, but far up the road, where Colonel Bristo was wandering alone in the faint light of the sickle moon, the low clear notes were borne out on the wings of the evening. The Colonel faced about at the first note, and walked back quite quickly. His solitary wanderings at all times of the day were a great weakness of the old fellow, but his daughter's singing was a greater; and she sang so seldom now. He walked on the wet grass at the roadside rather than lose a note through the noise of his own footsteps; and lo! when he came near the house, he descried a tall figure standing motionless in the very middle of the road.

Surely some spirit was abroad that night, that all the waking world drew near and listened to that song of Alice's! It should have been a greater song – noble poetry wedded to music such as the angels make in heaven and have sometimes – in golden ages gone by – breathed into the souls of men, who have found the secret too wondrous sweet and terrible to keep. To touch the sensibilities of the different unknown listeners, it should have been a mighty song indeed! But, you see, Alice herself knew nothing of what was happening; she was aware of only one listener, who was humbly standing by her side; and out of the pitiful fulness of her heart she sang the sad and simple words that you have heard often enough, no doubt:

Falling leaf and fading tree,Lines of white in a sullen sea,Shadows rising on you and me;The swallows are making them ready to fly,Wheeling out on a windy sky.Good-bye, summer! good-bye, good-bye!

A thin film floated over the eyes of Colonel Bristo. The same thing had occasionally happened before when his daughter sang. But lately she had been singing so little, and the song was so sad, and the voice more plaintive than it had ever been formerly.

As for Miles, the other listener in the road, he stood like one entranced. Her singing had haunted his soul now many weeks; it was many weeks since he had heard it last – save in his dreams; besides, the words put the match to a desperate train of thought.

The last bars of the song, then, came as a shock to the audience of two outside in the road, who had not realised that the song would ever stop:

"What are we waiting for, you and I?"A pleading look, a stifled cry;"Good-bye for ever! good-bye, good-bye!"

The last notes of all were low, and the singer's best. They were charged with wild grief; they seemed to end in a half-sob of anguish. But the voice had caught all the passion of the words, and something more besides. For whom was this passion?

It all died away. The world outside was tamer than before; the sickle moon dipped down to rest below the hill beyond the village, and those lanes and meadows knew no such singing any more.

The tall listener in the road still gazed at the holland blind that flapped against the sash of the open window. It was all the sound that came from the room now. He was repeating the last words of the song, and weighing them.

"No, no," he was thinking, "if I may not live for her, what else is there to live for? God, let me die for her!"

A glowing red spot approached him through the darkness that had fallen upon the land; it was the Colonel's cigarette. It brought him back to the world as it was – his world, and a vile one.

"I was taking a little stroll," said Colonel Bristo. "Will you join me? I think Alice will sing no more to-night."

Meanwhile, in the room, the singer had risen. She meant to quietly put away the music, but it slipped from her fingers. She turned with wet gentle eyes to one who was speaking to her, then fled at his words from the room.

Yet Dick had only asked her: "Will you never, never forgive me?"

XXV

MELMERBRIDGE CHURCH

Dick was in the passage, brushing a week's dust from his hard felt hat; he was going to church this Sunday morning; half the party were going. From the gun-room came the sound of a pen gliding swiftly over foolscap, and the perfume of Mr. Pinckney's pipe; from the open air a low conversational murmur, kept up by Mrs. Parish and Mr. Miles on the steps. Dick, though not unconscious of these sounds, was listening for another – a certain footstep on the stairs. It came at last. Alice came slowly down; Alice, prayer-book in hand, in the daintiest of white dresses and the prettiest, simplest straw hat; Alice for whom Mrs. Parish and Miles and Dick were all three waiting.

Her step was less light than it should have been. The slim little figure positively drooped. Her eyes, too, seemed large and bright, and dark beyond nature, though that may have been partly from the contrast with a face so pale. The girl's altered looks had caused anxiety at Teddington, but the change to Yorkshire had not visibly improved them. This morning, after a night made even more restless than others by a sudden influx of hopes and fears, this was painfully apparent.

The Colonel, coming in from outside at this moment, gazed earnestly at his daughter. It was easily seen that he was already worried about something; but the annoyance in his expression changed quickly to pain.

"You are not going to walk to Melmerbridge Church?" he said to her.

"Oh, yes, I am," she answered.

Her tone and look were saucy, in spite of her pallor; one of the old smiles flickered for a moment upon her lips.

"My child," said her father, more in surprise than disapproval, "it is eight miles there and back!"

"With a nice long rest in between," Alice reminded him. "I thought it would do one good, the walk; otherwise, papa, I am not in the least eager; so if you think – "

"Go, my dear, of course – go, by all means," put in Colonel Bristo hastily; "unwonted energy like this must on no account be discouraged. Yes, yes, you are quite right; it will do you all the good in the world."

As he spoke, he caught sight of Miles in the strong light outside the door. The worried look returned to the Colonel's eyes. Anxiety for his daughter seemed to fade before a feeling that for the time was uppermost. He watched his daughter cross over to the door, and Dick put on his hat to follow her. Then the Colonel stepped forward and plucked the young man by the arm.

"Dick, I want you to stop at home with me. I want to speak with you particularly, about something very important indeed."

Dick experienced a slight shock of disappointment, succeeded by a sense of foreboding. He fell back at once, and replaced his hat on the stand.

As for Alice, she felt a sudden inclination to draw back, herself. But that was not to be thought of. Mrs. Parish and Mr. Miles were waiting now at the gate. Alice went out and told them that Dick was, after all, staying behind with the Colonel.

"Not coming?" cried Mrs. Parish. "Why, I had promised myself a long chat with him!" which, as it happened, though Dick was no favourite of hers, was strictly true. "Where is Mr. Pinckney?"

"Busy writing to catch the post."

"And Dr. Robson?"

"Cousin Philip has gone to read the lessons for the Gateby schoolmaster, his new friend. Had we not better start?"

The three set out, walking slowly up the road, for Mrs. Parish was a really old lady, and it was only the truly marvellous proportion of sinew and bone in her composition, combined with a romantic and well-nigh fanatical desire to serve the most charming of men, that fortified her to attempt so formidable a walk.

"You men are blind," she had told her idol, among other things on the steps. "Where a word would end all, you will not speak."

"You honestly think it would end it the right way?" Miles had asked her.

"I do not think, I know," the old woman had said for the fiftieth time.

She had undertaken to give him his opportunity that morning. With four in the party, that would have been easy enough; with three, it became a problem soluble only by great ingenuity.

For some distance beyond the shooting-box the road ascended gently, then dipped deep down into a hollow, with a beck at the bottom of it, and a bridge and a farmhouse on the other side. The hill beyond was really steep, and from its crest the shooting-box – with red-roofed Gateby beyond and to the left of it – could be seen for the last time. But when they had toiled to the top of this second hill, Mrs. Parish with the kindly assistance of the attentive Miles, it occurred to none of them to look round, or they might have made out the Colonel and Dick still standing on the steps, and the arm of the former raised and pointed towards them.

"It is about that man there," the Colonel was saying, "that I want to speak to you."

Dick could scarcely suppress an exclamation. He changed colour. His face filled with apprehension. What was coming next? What was suspected? What discovered? Until these words the Colonel had not spoken since the church-goers left, and his manner was strange.

The Colonel, however, was scrutinising the young man.

"What rivals they are!" he was thinking. "The one starts at the mere name of the other! The fact is, Dick," he said aloud, "Miles has dealt with me rather queerly in some money matters, and – What on earth's the matter?"

The strong young fellow at Colonel Bristo's side was trembling like a child; his face was livid, his words low and hurried.

"I will tell you in a moment, sir. Pray go on, Colonel Bristo."

"Well, the fact is I want you to tell me if you know anything – of your own knowledge, mind – of this station of Miles's in Queensland."

"Excuse me: I can only answer by another question. Has he been raising money on his station?"

"Do you mean by borrowing from me?"

"Yes, that is what I do mean."

"Well, then, he has. At Teddington – I don't mind telling you, between ourselves – I lent him a hundred pounds when a remittance he expected by the mail did not come. After that I found out that he had an agent in town all the while, and it then struck me as rather odd that he should have borrowed of me, though even then I did not think much of it. You see, the man did me the greatest service one man can render another, and I was only too glad of the opportunity to do him a good turn of any sort. I can assure you, Dick, at the time I would have made it a thousand – on the spot – had he asked it. Besides, I have always liked Miles, though a little less, I must confess, since he came up here. But last night, as we were strolling about together outside, he suddenly asked me for another hundred; and the story with which he supported his request was rambling, if not absurd. He said that his partner evidently believed him to be on his way out again, and therefore still omitted to send him a remittance; that he was thus once more 'stuck up' for cash; that he had quarrelled with his agent (whom I suggested as the most satisfactory person to apply to), and withdrawn the agency. Well, I have written out the cheque, and given it him this morning. His gratitude was profuse, and seemed genuine. All I want you to tell me is this: Do you know anything yourself of his station, his partner, or his agent?"

Dick made his answer with a pale, set face, but in a tone free alike from tremor or hesitancy:

"The man has no station, no agent, no partner!"

"What?" cried out the Colonel. "What are you saying? You must not make statements of this sort unless you are sure beyond the shadow of a doubt. I asked what you knew, not what you suspected."

"And I am telling you only what I know."

"That Miles is a common swindler?"

"That his name is not Miles, to begin with."

"Then do you mean to say," the Colonel almost shouted, "that you have known all this, and let me be duped by the fellow before your eyes?"

"I never suspected what you have told me now," said Dick warmly. "But it is true that I have known for some weeks who and what this man is. I found him out at Graysbrooke, and got rid of him for you within a few hours. I was at fault not to give him in charge. You have good cause to blame me – and I sha'n't want for blame by and by! – but if you will listen to me, I will tell you all – yes, all; for I have protected a worse scoundrel than I thought: I owe him not another moment's silence."

"Come in here, then," said Colonel Bristo, sternly; "for I confess that I cannot understand you."

Up hill and down dale was the walk to Melmerbridge; but the ascents really were a shade longer and steeper than the descents, and did not only seem so to the ladies. For when at last they reached the long grey stone wall at the edge of the moor, and passed through the gate into the midst of brown heather, dotted with heads of gay green bracken, they were greeted by a breeze – gentle and even fitful, but inexpressibly refreshing. Now below, in the deep lanes between the hedge-rows, there had been no breeze at all – for the morning was developing into hazy, sleepy, stifling heat, and the sun was dim – and the flies had been most pestilent. Accordingly they all drew breath on the moor. Mr. Miles uncovered his head, and let the feeble breeze make mild sport with his light brown locks. Then he lit a cigarette. As for the ladies, they sat down for a moment's rest; and, considering that one of them was well on in years, and the other combating with a sickness that was gradually tightening its hold upon her, they were walking uncommonly well. But conversation had flagged from the start, nor did the magic air of the moorland quicken it.

When they had threaded the soft, rutted track that girdled the heather with a reddish-brown belt, when they had climbed the very last knoll, they found themselves on the extreme edge of that range of hills. Far below them, to the right, stretched mile upon mile of table-land, studded with villages and woods, divided by the hedges into countless squares. No two neighbours, among these squares, were filled in with the same colour; some were brown, some yellow, and the rest all shades of green. Far ahead, where the squares were all lost and their colours merged in one dirty neutral tint – far ahead – at the horizon, in fact – hung a low, perpetual cloud, like a sombre pall of death. And death indeed lay under it: death to green fields, sweet flowers, and honest blue skies.

They viewed all this from a spot where the road had been carved round the rough brow of a russet cliff. This spot was the loftiest as well as the ruggedest of the whole walk. On the left the road was flanked by the ragged wall of the cliff; on the right it was provided with a low parapet, over which one might gaze forth upon the wide table-land, or drop stones upon the tops of the tallest fir-trees in the wood at the cliff's base.

Old Mrs. Parish pointed to the long black cloud on the horizon, and explained that it was formed almost entirely of the smoke of blast-furnaces, and was the constant canopy of a great town that they could not see, because the town was hidden in perennial smoke. More than this she might have said – about the mighty metals that were disgorged from under their very feet – about the rich men of yonder town (old Oliver, for one), not forgetting the poor men, beggar-men, and thieves – had the old lady not perceived that Miles was gazing furtively at Alice, and Alice gazing thoughtfully into space, and neither of them listening to a word.

They walked on, and the descending road became smoother, but tortuous; and trees arched over it, and the view was hidden until they stood at the top of straight, steep Melmerbridge Bank, and the good-sized prosperous village lay stretched at their feet.

One long row of houses and shops on the left; a long straight silvery stream for the right-hand side of the village street; a bridge across this stream, leading to a church and a public-house that stood side by side, on apparently the best of terms, and without another near neighbour on that side of the beck – such was Melmerbridge from its bank-top.

As they crossed a white wooden bridge at the foot of the bank (for the beck curved and twisted, like other becks, except where it did its duty by that straight village street), a simple, modest Sabbath peal rang out upon the sultry air.

The old church was roomy, twilit, and consequently cool. Strong light never found its way inside those old stone walls, for the narrow windows were pictorial, one and all. Dusk lingered in these aisles throughout the longest days; upon them day broke last of all; they met nightfall half-way.

After a long, hot, tiring walk there could have been no more grateful retreat than this church of All Saints at Melmerbridge. The senses were lulled in the very porch, nor were they rudely aroused when the quiet peal had ended and the quiet service began. Everything was subdued and inoffensive, even to the sermon: a vigorous discourse from the dark oak pulpit would have grated on the spirit, like loud voices in a death-chamber.

As for Mrs. Parish, she was soon sleeping as soundly and reverently as the oldest parishioner. Alice, on the other hand, gave her whole mind to the service, and her mind filled with peace. Her sweet clear voice chimed in with every response (at which the parish clerk, with the fine old crusted dialect, who enjoyed a monopoly in the responses, snorted angrily and raised his tones), while in the first hymn it rose so high and clear that the young curate peered over his book through the dusk, and afterwards lost his place in the Litany through peering again.