"Thanks! When will you be out?"
"Ye gods. Ha! Ha! Ha! Good old Carstairs. The northern air is simply wonderful for the nerves. Ha! Ha! Ha! I tell you what. I'll go out this evening, just to oblige you. I'll go to the theatre. I haven't seen the new thing at Daly's yet."
"Thanks!" Carstairs turned and went away. He made his way to the address in South Kensington that Darwen had given him. It was a boarding-house; he asked for Mrs Darwen and sent in his card. The German page-waiter sort of chap showed him up to their private sitting-room.
She entered almost immediately, looking older and whiter, her eyes more bleared and her cheeks deeply furrowed. She looked him sadly in the face.
"I knew you'd quarrel," she said.
"I'm sorry," he answered. "It couldn't be helped; we didn't really quarrel, I called on him to-day."
"Ah!" There was a gleam of pleasure in her eyes. "Why didn't you call on me before you left Southville?"
"I couldn't—then, he'd just broken me—chucked me aside like a broken chisel. I sent you my best respects."
"Yes, so he said: I wondered if he lied. You're—so—I thought you would have called—about the girl."
"I couldn't, I was broke, that was why."
"You don't usually shirk."
"No, I try not to. It didn't occur to me in that light."
"Ah!" She gave a deep sigh. "You're the best man, I think, I've ever met. You want to know where she is?"
"Yes."
"Then you have a good appointment?"
"Well, a firm is manufacturing my engine. We think it's bound to go."
"Charlie's got an engine, too." She was watching him very closely.
"Has he?" Carstairs was rather interested.
"The drawings are in his room. I'll go and get them."
He put out a hand to stop her. "I don't expect he'd like me to see them," he said.
"Oh! but I want you to. I can trust you."
"You think I mightn't be tempted to get revenge by cribbing his ideas?"
"No. I know you. Besides yours is finished."
He was very serious. "That's so, but I'm full of ideas for improvements and other things, and it is most difficult, when one sees a thing that is appropriate, not to assimilate it consciously or unconsciously into one's own ideas."
"Still, I'll get them," she answered. She went out and came back in a minute or two with a drawing board and a roll of tracings.
Carstairs glanced over the drawing, and allowed just a slight smile to pucker up the corners of his eyes.
"Ah! I knew," she said, "that's your engine."
"Oh, no!" he answered. "It's not my engine."
She looked at him and saw he was speaking the truth. She spread out the tracing. "That girl from your lodgings in Southville brought that round one day when he was out; he never gets angry, but I know he was annoyed because she'd left it."
Carstairs bent down and examined it. "It's done rather well," he said; "girls are good tracers. I left that for her to copy."
"Oh! I didn't think you—I didn't know you knew. I wanted to warn you."
"Thanks very much, but it wasn't necessary."
She heaved a very deep sigh of relief. "That's been on my mind like a ton weight. I was afraid my boy was a thief. Very often I was on the point of writing to you, but—you hadn't called."
Carstairs was bent low over the drawing examining some fine work very closely, he was so deeply interested he did not look up as she spoke. "That's excellent work! Darwen was always an artist, in everything," he said.
"Yes," she answered, proudly, "he's very clever. I'm so sorry you quarrelled. I knew that girl would come between you."
He looked up, impassive as usual.
"Yes," she repeated, "but you're the one she really likes, I know." Mrs Darwen seemed to have grown visibly younger.
Carstairs straightened himself and stood looking down at her with his calm steady grey eyes. "Ye-es," he said, he was thinking rapidly. "Yes, I hope that's true. Will you give me her address; has she—er—got a situation?"
"Oh, no! she's been in London, having her voice trained. She's got a magnificent voice."
"Where did she get the money from?" he asked, he was quite pale, and his grey eyes glittered like newly fractured steel.
She looked at him aghast, frightened; she put an imploring hand on his arm. "The girl's honest. I know she is. I'm sure of it; she was saving. I know she was saving. Perhaps Lady Cleeve——"
"Perhaps Charlie——"
"No, no! I know she wouldn't take anything from him, because—because that was why she left."
Carstair's face lightened. "Will you give me her address?" he asked.
"She's gone down to her people again, she came to me yesterday. They're encamped down at the old place near Southville; it suits her father down there, he's getting old and Scotland was too cold for him."
The words brought back a luminous vision to Carstairs; his eyes took on a far-away look. "My word! she was full of pluck," he said, aloud, but really to himself.
Mrs Darwen smiled with great pleasure. "If—when you've married her, you'll be friends with Charlie again——?"
He came to earth suddenly and considered. "We shall be friends," he said, "from now onwards, but I'm afraid we can never again be chums. I'll call and see him before I go to the station."
"Thank you," she said. "Thank you, I'm so glad."
He shook hands and left her, and half an hour later he called at her son's office. The office boy showed him in and he held out his hand. Darwen grasped it with a warm friendly smile.
"In the presence of other people," Carstairs said, as the door closed behind the office boy, "we are friends, because your mother is one of the best women on this earth. How she came to have such a whelp as you, Lord only knows. Do you agree?"
"My dear chap, I am honoured and delighted. It is not often one gets an opportunity of shaking an honest man by the hand, even though the excuse for doing so is a lie." He smiled his most charming smile. "You're putting on weight, Carstairs."
"Yes, but I'm in the pink of condition."
"So am I."
"That's good. Your mother isn't looking so well."
"No, I've noticed it myself." A shade of real anxiety passed across Darwen's face.
Carstairs noted it, and his opinion of Darwen went up; he stepped up close. "Look here," he said, "she was worried because she thought her son was a damned rogue. I've told her—at least given her to understand, that he is not, and you'll find her looking a different woman. Do you see?" He turned and went out.
Darwen sat back in his chair lost in thought. "That man always makes me think. Wonderful man, wonderful man. Damn him!" He sat up suddenly and went on with his work.
That night Carstairs reached Southville; he got out and put up at a hotel for the night. Before going to bed he went out and strolled round the town in the silence of the late evening. Old memories crowded back on him, and although they were not always of pleasant happenings, the taste of them was sweet; he had progressed since then, and he felt, in the bones of him, he knew, that he was going forward. His steps turned mechanically towards the electric lighting works, and before he quite realized where he was going, he found himself facing the old familiar big gates with the little wicket at the side. He looked at his watch. "Eleven o'clock! Wonder who's on." He paused a minute, then opened the wicket and went in. "Probably some of the men who knew me are still here," he thought.
The engine room was just the same. The hum of the alternators and the steady beat of the engines thrilled his blood. He stood in the doorway for some minutes in silence. The sight of running machinery was meat and drink to him. A little square-shouldered man wandered up to ask him what he wanted. Carstairs held out his hand. "Hullo, Bounce, have you forgotten me?"
"Well, I never. Mister Carstairs! I ain't forgotten you, sir, but you was in the dark."
"Any one I know left on the staff? Who's in charge?"
"A new engineer, sir. They be all new since your time."
"All new! Ye gods, how fellows do shift about."
"They do, sir. I've seen hundreds come and go since I've been here."
So they stood talking for some time. "I suppose you're off at twelve, Bounce?"
"Yes, sir."
"It's nearly that now. I'll wait. You can come round to my hotel and get a drink."
"Thank you, sir. I'll go and wash and change. Would you like to see the engineer?"
"No, thanks, I'll just sit on this box and watch the wheels going round: same old box, same old wheels. How many hours of the night have I spent sitting on this box listening to your damn lies, Bounce?"
"God only knows, sir."
Carstairs sat and waited, and all sorts of fresh fancies and ideas thronged through his brain as the wheels went round and the alternators hummed and the corliss gear clicked. A distinct and complete idea for a valuable improvement shaped itself in his mind as he watched and listened. He stood up and stretched himself with a sigh of great content. "By Jove, if old Wagner composed music like that, he'd have done a damn sight more for humanity," he said to himself, with a smile at the sacrilege of the thought. To Carstairs, Wagner was a drawing-room conjurer, not to be thought of at the same instant as men who designed engines. Bounce came down the engine-room towards him with his wide-legged sailor's roll. He was attired in a blue-serge suit, spotlessly clean and neat. His strong, clean-cut features and steady, piercing eyes showed to great advantage in the artificial light and against the dark background of his clothes.
"By Jove, Bounce, I can't understand why it is you're not Prime Minister of England."
The little man's bright eyes twinkled, but his features never relaxed. "I can't understand it myself," he said.
They went off together to the hotel, where Carstairs drank whisky and Bounce rum. The waiter looked at him somewhat superciliously, till he met Bounce's eye fair and square, then he seemed impressed.
"Dr Jameson is dead. Mr Jenkins is chairman of the committee now."
"Yes, I know."
They were silent for some minutes.
"Do you know this county well, Bounce?"
"Pretty well, sir."
"Ah—do you remember my telling you about a gipsy girl?"
"Yes, sir."
"I want to find her; she's round here somewhere, near the new water-works."
"I know, sir."
"Good man. Can you drive—a horse I mean?"
"Yes, sir."
Carstairs stood up. "Now, look here, Bounce, I really cannot understand—what the devil is there you can't do?"
"I dunno, sir."
"Can you drive a perambulator?"
"Yes—an' nurse the baby."
"Go on. Tot up what you can do. Honest. No lies, mind."
"Alright. Here goes. I can walk and run and swim; box and wrestle and fence; shoot a revolver, rifle, or big gun; push a perambulator, hand cart, or wheel barrow; drive a steam engine, horse, or a motor car; stroke a boiler, feed a baby, the missus, an' the kids; scrub a floor, table, or furniture; make and mend and wash my own clothes; light a fire, make tea, coffee, or cocoa; make the beds and clean the rooms; wash up dishes, lay the table and wait at same; clean the windows, paint a house, and walk along the roof." Here he started to digress. "I remember once in Hong Kong——"
"That'll do, I've heard all about Hong Kong. Let's hear about Bounce."
"There ain't much more that I can do," he said.
"Nonsense! you sing."
"Oh, yes! Sing a song, play the mouth organ. Catch fish (when they bite), dance the waltz, polka, hornpipe, quadrilles, lancers, and schottische." He paused.
"Go on."
"There ain't no more. Oh, yes! read an' write an' do sums." He scratched his head. "Sometimes," he added.
"I said no lies."
"Alright, cross out sums."
"What about ropes?"
"Oh, yes! I can splice, reave, whip, knot, bend, an' gen'rally handle ropes."
"Can you shave yourself and cut your own hair?"
"Yes an' no, but mind, I have 'ad a try at that. I come aboard drunk once in——"
"Shut up. What else can you do?"
"Drink a bottle of rum, brandy, whisky, gin, port, sherry, champagne, beer, or any alcoholic liquors, with anybody; and spin a yarn with the best."
"Very good. I give you a first-class character. Will you come out for a drive with me in the morning and look after the horse while I—while I'm engaged?"
"Yes, sir, I will. I knows all about it. I courted my missus between the spells of three-year cruises."
"Alright. Half-past eight, here."
"Yes, sir."
Carstairs tossed him his tobacco pouch. "You can take all that's in that."
"Thank you, sir. I forgot as to mention as I could smoke and chew any baccy on the market. This yer—this yer," he reflected, thoughtfully, as he emptied the pouch, "is what we calls boys' terbaccer."
"Go on home, Bounce."
"Yes, sir." He doubled up with violent mirth.
"You should have added that you could laugh like a baby elephant."
"Yes, sir." He doubled up again, then, suddenly straightening himself, saluted in all solemnity. "To-morrow morning at half-past eight, sir." He turned and made his way out.
Next morning punctually at half-past eight Carstairs and Bounce set off in a hired dog-cart for the gipsy camp. They drove along the beautiful country side chatting lightly till they came (over the top of a hill) into sudden view of a torn and trampled valley, teeming with men; little locomotives steamed fussily in all directions; gantry cranes wheeled and pivoted and travelled with large blocks of stone from one place to another.
"That's the new water-works," Bounce said.
"Alright, let's go down, some of the men will be sure to know where the camp is." They drove down to the deeply rutted, slushy, entrance, a five-barred gate was kept permanently open by the furrows of rick brown earth turned up by the heavy cart wheels. A strongly built, healthy looking individual dressed in a tweed suit and yellow leggings and a cloth cap, was picking his way carefully through the deep mud of the gateway: he was the resident engineer. Carstairs pulled up and shouted to him across the hedge, "I say, is there a gipsy camp near here?"
The young man carefully balanced himself on a flat stone in the middle of the sea of mud, then he looked up and pointed with his hand. "Yes, over there! Go down to the bottom of the hill and turn to your left, there's a bit of a common there. Light green common, they call it."
"Thanks!" Carstairs whipped up and drove away. "Healthy chaps those 'civils' always are," he remarked.
"'Civils'?" Bounce asked.
"Civil Engineers."
"Oh!"
They drove in silence till they reached the bottom of the hill and turned to the right.
"Ah, there it is. Fancy that girl walking out here by night."
"That's one thing I don't like—walking," Bounce answered.
"No? Here! Catch hold! while I get out and go over there."
The common was a triangular piece of land between the forks of two roads; in one place it was fairly flat most of the rest of it was composed of miniature hills and dales, with steep sloping sides and flat bottoms, inclined in places to be marshy. It was on the flat portion, under the shelter of one of these miniature hills, that the caravans were drawn up in a scattered group.
Carstairs walked up to the one he recognised, with the little brass handled stairway, the bright paint and fancy leather work; a little crowd of ragged urchins and mongrel curs trailed after him. He mounted the steps and rapped at the little door. It was promptly opened and a woman looked out; although she was much more haggard and worn looking he recognised her at once, and he saw that she recognised him.
"She's not here, she's gone into the town to buy things for father."
"Which town? Not Southville?"
"No,——." She mentioned a little country town about four miles away. "She'll be back this evening."
He stood on the step and stroked his chin in thought. "I've driven over from Southville, but my man can go back with the horse. Where do you think I could get lodgings near here?"
"There's a public house in the village."
"Where's that?"
"Back along the road you came, only turn to the left."
"Thanks. I'll call again to-morrow. You're sure she'll be here?"
"Yes, father's ill."
"I'm sorry to hear that. What's the matter?"
"He's dying."
"Dying! Don't say that."
The woman shook her head. "Would you like to see him, sir?"
"Ah! Er—" Carstairs stood still a moment. "Yes, I should. Can I talk to him? Something important?"
"Oh, yes. He knows he's going, and it would do him good to hear what you've got to say."
He stared at her in quick surprise for a moment, and then stepped after her into the caravan. It was scrupulously clean and expensively upholstered; the sides were partitioned off horizontally into little bunks with neat brass rods and curtains to shut them in; there were windows along the front and back and sides with snowy white lace curtains to them; it was not at all dingy, but very light and bright. The woman drew aside a curtain and showed the silver-haired old man supported in a half-sitting position in the bunk.
Carstairs could see at once that he was very weak, and also that he was very well attended to.
The old man looked him steadily in the eyes. "I've seen you before. How are you?" he said. The voice was very low.
"I'm first class, thank you. I'm sorry to see you're not so well."
"Yes, I'm dying. We've all got to die some time. You want to marry my daughter?"
"Yes," Carstairs answered, in some surprise, nevertheless.
"Oh! She told me," the old man nodded feebly towards the gipsy woman. "She knows everything."
Carstairs was silent.
"Who are you?" the old man asked, after a pause, during which he had closed his eyes and remained quite still.
"My name is Carstairs—Jack Carstairs. I'm the son of the Reverend Hugh Carstairs, Vicar of Chilcombe in Gloucestershire."
There was a short silence, then the old man spoke again. "Who was your grandfather?"
"He was a captain in the navy." Carstairs was rather surprised.
"That's alright. I suppose we can't expect anything better. Get those papers!" His last remark was addressed to the woman.
Carstairs stood silently wondering—mystified. He heard the woman unlocking something at the back of the caravan, then she came up and held out some parchment-looking papers. The old man took them in a feeble thin hand and laid them on the bed clothes in front of him.
"I am Sir Thomas D'Arcy," he said.
Carstairs was astonished beyond measure, but his countenance showed very little of it.
"Yes," the old man continued, slowly, "I am Sir Thomas D'Arcy, one time plain Thomas D'Arcy, Professor of Music at Oxford, profligate and drunkard. This gipsy woman is my legally married wife, and that girl is my daughter; there is no estate, and the money is all spent. You can marry the girl when you are getting £400 a year."
"Well, I'm damned." Carstairs thought it so fervently that for a moment he feared it must be visible on his face, but the old man was resting with closed eyes.
"Are you satisfied?" he asked, at length.
"Quite," Carstairs answered.
"What are you getting now?"
"£150 a year."
"Ah—that's not much."
"No—but I expect in the next six months to receive royalties on patents to the extent at least of the other £250."
"Very good—expectations do not always materialize. However, those are the conditions. You can go now."
He was moving away when the old man held up a feeble, detaining hand. Carstairs stayed in silence.
"There are other D'Arcys, but no relation to us. I am the last. We were really French, a French noble family—with a strain of Italian running in us too——" He rested again.
Carstairs pondered deeply while the old man paused. Something of the outlines of the features in their deathly pallor seemed familiar to him. He gazed hard at the face as it lay with closed eyes on the pillows, then he asked, speaking slowly. "Do you know a Mrs Darwen?" The resemblance he had traced to the portrait in Mrs Darwen's album.
"Miss Darwen!"
"No; Mrs Darwen, she has one son."
"Exactly. My son. She's Miss Darwen. Do you know him?"
"I've met him." Carstairs' face was like a carven stone.
"Ah! She was the daughter of a yeoman farmer in Oxfordshire, rather well to do, but of course I couldn't marry her—then; the boy—is he any good?"
"He's very clever."
"He would be that, of course."
"Your daughter knows him."
"Does she? I don't know who she knows. You must marry her. She mustn't—mustn't know."
The old man sank back on his pillows and closed his eyes. Carstairs watched him for a minute or so, then turned and looked interrogatively at the woman. "Asleep?" he asked, quietly.
She nodded. "Resting," she answered, and Carstairs made his way very quietly out of the caravan.
"I'll come again to-morrow," he said.
CHAPTER XIX
Lost in thought, Carstairs made his way back to the dogcart and Bounce. He climbed in. "Let's go to the village, Bounce, over there."
"Yes, sir." Bounce was all attention to business; he asked no questions, and looked no questions, but his mind was active in a very great wonder.
They drove in absolute silence till the village was reached, then Carstairs spoke.
"I'm staying here the night. Will you take the horse back and come over again in the morning?" He took out his purse and handed Bounce some money. "I haven't seen the girl, I shall see her to-morrow. I've seen her father and her mother. Her father is dying."
"I'm sorry to hear that, sir."
"So am I. Good-bye." Carstairs went into the village inn, arranged for a room, got something to eat, and set off to walk to the little town where the girl had gone.
It was a beautiful day and the country was lovely, but Carstairs had no spare thoughts to give to it; he strode on and at a fast pace, observing nothing, till long before he had disentangled the complicated skein of his thoughts he found himself in the little town.
"What the devil am I to do now?" he asked himself. "I'll walk right through the bally show till I come out on the other side, then I'll turn round and come back a different way," So he walked on again and spent the whole afternoon to no purpose except as far as exercise was concerned. It was quite late when he returned to the inn. He got something to eat and then sat in the little private bar smoking and sipping a whisky and soda. Through the thin partition, from the tap room, he heard a huge uproar of gruff voices. It was pay night, and a great concourse of navvies from the water-works were taking their evening beer. Carstairs caught scraps of conversation, and occasionally references to a "toff" who had been "standing" them beer.
He got up and wandered along the country lanes in the dark, then he turned in and went to bed.
Early in the morning, just after he had finished breakfast, Bounce arrived with the dogcart. Carstairs saw him, through the little lattice window, walking the horse up and down the village street. He went out to him.
"Good-morning, Bounce. You're early."
"Yes, sir."
Carstairs got into the cart. "Drive over to the camp," he said.
So they drove away, Bounce enlivening the journey with little anecdotes of his travels.
"I picked up a 'bob' yesterday, sir."
"You're lucky."
"Yes, awful lucky chap I am; always picking up something. Picked up a barrel of beer once, me and a mate."
"Yes, a hogshead, I suppose; been lying on the pavement for hours and nobody happened to notice it till you came along."
Bounce laughed. "Well, there was some other blokes as reckoned they saw it first, but we didn't take no notice of them, furriners, they was, see?"
"I see, didn't you give them a drink?"
"We offered to share out, but they wasn't satisfied with that, so we took the lot. Mind, there was a row about it afterwards."
"I suppose there would be."
"Yes. 'Asty blokes, them furriners. We 'ad to flatten 'em all out before we 'ad any peace. Stiff blokes they was too, some on 'em, but very soft about the ribs, like punching a bladder of lard it was, sort of unsatisfactory like."
"Ah."
"Yes. An' another time we picked up an old toff with a bullet in 'im, that was in Rio. Fine harbour, Rio. Give us ten dollars each 'e did, three on us."
"How did he get the bullet in him, Bounce?"
"Oh, 'aving a bit of a spree, I s'pose, 'e never told us. 'Nother time I picked up a bloke's 'and, cut off at the wrist. In Port Said, that were."
"Nothing in it, I suppose?"
"No, there wasn't, worse luck. It weren't an English 'and, you could see that."
By this time they had reached the camp, and Bounce stopped the recital of his "lucky" incidents. Carstairs got down. "If I'm long, you can drive by yourself to Southville. I don't want to make you late."
"That's alright, sir. I changed-over with my mate to-day. I don't go on till midnight."
"That's very kind of you, Bounce."
"Don't mention it, sir."
Carstairs went across to the caravan. The gipsy woman saw him coming and opened the door to greet him. "She came back and went away again first thing this morning. She'll be back this afternoon."
Carstairs frowned and stared at the woman very severely. He thought she was not telling the truth, but he saw by the light of genuine anger that sprang to her eyes at his frown, that he had misjudged her.
"I'm sorry," he said. "How is your husband?"
She smiled again at once. "About the same. Will you wait?" she asked.
"No thanks, I'll explore the country a bit, and call back again." He was going away when the woman stopped him. "Will you come in just a minute? I'd like to try you with the cards!"
He looked at her enquiringly. "Do you really believe your cards?"
She did not answer, but stepped inside the caravan and produced a pack of cards, quite new and clean. "Shuffle and cut," she said, handing them to him.
He did so, and cut the ace of hearts.
"You're thinking of her."
"That's true. I was thinking of her prophesying in Scotland that I should be a winner."
She looked into his eyes. "So you will," she answered.
Carstairs felt his pulse tingle with an added determination as she spoke.
Taking hold of him by the right wrist, she turned the palm upwards and looked at it intently for a few seconds. "My word! you are a strong man," she said.
"That's piffle," he answered, "those lines are accentuated by gripping a hammer shaft."
She smiled. "Oh no! Cut again, please."
He cut twelve times, and cut hearts every time.
The old woman positively laughed. "Now do you believe?" she asked.
"It's certainly rather a curious coincidence. Hearts infer love, I suppose, and I'm in love, that's true."
"Yes, that's true, but you have a rival, I know. A dark man, perhaps—if he——"
Carstairs frowned. "Good God, that's impossible. Didn't you hear what the old man said? he's her brother."
The old woman looked steadily into his eyes. "You don't know. That's only what you think."
"Lord! Perhaps you're right. By Jove——"
"Cut the cards," she interrupted. "Again and again."
He cut six times, spades every time, the knave four times.
The gipsy was very serious. "There!" she said.
"It's certainly rather curious," he admitted.
"That dark man's very close, closer than you think. Watch him! Watch him!" she repeated, and retreated into her caravan in a strangely perturbed state.
Carstairs returned to Bounce. "No luck," he said.
"Well, Patience is a virtue, sir, so they says. An' you've got to 'ave it with the women, though they ain't got none theirselves."
"You're a man of experience, Bounce."
"Well, I ain't got no more than one missus, an' that's enough for any man, too much for some on 'em."
"You're very virtuous, I'm sure, I hope you get your reward."
"That's true. I do, sir. Not but what I 'ave a' done a bit o' courting now an' then in other parts—before I was married, o' course."
"Of course."
"Yes. An' now my missus gets the benefit of all that experience. I come to 'er efficient, thoroughly efficient, as I sez to 'er on the day that we was married."
"You are a thorough believer in efficiency, Bounce."
"Yes, sir. Do it now, an' do it proper. That's the motto of the navy. Only 'steady,' too. 'Steady does it,' is another motto. The man as ain't never done no courting before 'e gets married, ought to be buried an' not married at all."
"I've just had my fortune told by that gipsy woman."
"That ain't nothing, sir. I've 'ad it done 'undreds of times, an' all different," the little sailor remarked, cheerfully. "When I was in Calcutta——"
So listening to Bounce's wonderful adventures, Carstairs had a very pleasant morning drive. They stopped at a little country public house and got some bread and cheese and beer; Bounce, meanwhile, enlarging on the virtue of beer in general, and that beer in particular.
Then they got into the trap again and completed a circuit of the locality, bringing up finally at the far side of the little common.
"Hullo!" said Bounce. "What's up there?"
They could see a dense crowd of navvies from the water-works moving in the direction of the gipsy camp.
Carstairs looked, anxiously. "Hope there's no row on with the gipsies," he said. They could hear much shouting and singing, but could not distinguish the words. A turn in the road brought the camp full into view: there was much commotion going on, the gipsies were pulling their caravans up together as if to withstand an assault.
"We must stop those chaps, Bounce," Carstairs said, as he whipped up the horse and tore along the road at a furious gallop. They cut across the level strip of green at the acute angle of the common, and raced along the other road. They reached the navvies some three hundred yards from the camp. As they got within earshot they could distinguish what the men were shouting. Carstairs flushed an angry red and set his big jaw tight. "And this is England," he said. "England, in the year of grace 1896, 'England, the eye, the soul of Europe,' as Darwen used to quote."
"What's started them on this devil's game, Bounce?"
"Drink, I expects! Men gets like that sometimes."
Carstairs pulled the horse up dead in front of the advance guard of the men.
"I say, where are all you chaps going?" he asked.
"Women," they shouted. "Bring out the gipsy women."
"That won't do," he said, sharply. "Go on back about your business."
"Ho, ho, 'ere's Lord Muck," a cockney voice shouted in derision.
"The Earl o' Hell," another one corrected.
They swarmed round the dogcart, and the others coming up stopped to listen.
"How is it you are not at work?" Carstairs asked.
"Saturday afternoon, mister," a gruff, but civil voice replied.
"Well, you'll all get the sack, you know, besides imprisonment, if you go on with this game."
"The sack! Ha! Ha! 'Ere's a bloke going to give us the sack, mates."
"That'll be nine 'undred and ninety-nine times wot I've 'ad the sack, then."
"S'pose we'll 'ave to starve, that's all."
"Same as we did afore, eh, mates? Ha! Ha!"
A man climbed up on to the step. "What say we goes for a drive?" he asked.
The words were hardly out of his mouth when Carstairs' fist took him in the face and knocked him backwards among his fellows.
"Hurray!" they shouted. "Hip, hip, hurray!" Five hundred of them roared it out in chorus.
"That's one for Charlie."
"You ain't going to take it lying down, Charlie?"
"'E's 'ad enough. I allus said Charlie ain't got no guts in 'im."
"'Old the 'orse while I gets at 'im," the man answered.
Two navvies promptly seized the horse, one on each side of his head.
"Up you get Charlie."
Carstairs stood up. "Wait a minute," he said. "I'll come down. Will you give me fair play?"
"That's honest, 'e couldn't say no fairer than that."
"Make a ring, mates."
"I'll 'old yer coat, Charlie."
"'Go's going to second the toff?"
Bounce stood up. "Is there any blokes 'ere wot bin in the navy?" he asked, with great dignity.
"'Blue Marines,' mate," a big, burly man on the outskirts of the crowd answered.
Bounce looked at him closely. "Is that you, Scrapper Hiscocks?"
"That's me, mate."
"Don't you remember Jack Bounce, of the 'Mediterranean'?"
The big man pushed his way up to the trap and held out his hand. "How do! old chum. I thought you was still in the Service."
"So I ought a bin if I 'adn't bin a bleeding fool. This 'ere gentleman is Mister Carstairs, 'e's good, I trained 'im myself. 'E's nephew of Lootenant Carstairs wot was on the 'Mediterranean' with us."
The man promptly saluted, and Carstairs nodded to him. "I shall get a fair show?" he asked.
The ex-marine nodded towards Bounce. "Me an' Bull-dog'll see to that, sir."
"Thanks!" He stood up and addressed the crowd with a smiling countenance. "Look here, you chaps, I'm going to take on your mate here for as many rounds as you like, or to a finish."
"To a finish," they shouted in chorus.
"Alright; to a finish, then, but we may as well have a gamble on it."
"'Ear! 'Ear! That's sporting."
"Well, look here. I'll put my purse containing five pounds in the hands of this gentleman. (He pointed to the marine, who blushed.)
"Mister Hiscocks," some one remarked.
There was a general titter, the navvy is unaccustomed to any sort of a handle to his name.
"That's it. If I lose, that five pounds will be yours to buy drinks with. If I win, will you promise to go back and leave those women alone?"
"That's fair, mates. 'E couldn't say no fairer than that," the marine remarked.
"Ay. 'O's going to watch you an' the five pounds, Bill?"
There was a general laugh.
"What do you say?" Carstairs asked.
"What does Charlie think on it?" a voice asked.
"Yes, let Charlie decide," they chorused.
"Well, mates," Charlie spoke up, "I thinks wot the bloke sez is fair. I'll do my best for you, mates."
Carstairs climbed out of the trap. "That's settled then," he said.
Bounce led the horse on to the green, and tied him up to a little tree. "Let's have a proper ring, and half a dozen stewards to see there ain't no crowding."
They selected a level spot in a little dell surrounded by miniature mountains. "'Cos then everybody can see without shoving," a navvy observed. The six stewards, with an air of very great seriousness, took off their coats and rolled up their shirt sleeves, exposing brawny, sunburnt arms to the daylight. They formed a circle and roughly measured with their eyes. "How's that, Charlie? How'll that do, sir?"
"Alright, mates," Charlie said.
"Very nicely, thanks," Carstairs replied.
They stepped inside the circle, and Bounce and Hiscocks assisted Carstairs to disrobe, while five hundred statuesque navvies crowded round the tiers of the natural theatre, five hundred hard, strong faces; high cheek-boned, square-jawed, steady-eyed. Many of them were exceedingly handsome, in a massive, rough-hewn sort of way; mahogany browned, ear-ringed, coarse skinned. They were gathered there for a brutal, coarse purpose, perhaps, but the dawning of a great truth was uppermost, resolute and steadfast, in the minds of most. They were going to see fair play, "fair play" with all it meant when all the passions of envy, hatred, fierce anger, and the lust of gain were aroused. They were sportsmen, these men, and the term always seems to me synonymous with gentlemen as understood in England. The germ of a desire to do right was firmly fixed in their hearts, and this absorbed through many generations from the force of the precept and example of their leaders, the aristocrats of England. They had no religion, these men, and no politics, but the spirit of the prize ring and the Queensberry rules was deeply implanted in their souls. Their fathers before them had imbibed these rules from constant practical demonstration. Those drunken, dissolute, Georgian noblemen had given these men a code of morals that they could understand, and firmly rooted it in their breasts by consistent example. And every day England reaps the fruit of that seed. Truly it seems to me that England owes more to the sportsman than to the statesman: and although the middle class swamp, by a vast majority, all other classes in the number of great men they have produced: yet the aristocracy, like the head boys of a school, are responsible for the "tone" of the nation, and the "tone" of England is surpassing good. What these men had started out to do that day was due to their mental limitation, not to their wilful vice. Woman, particularly that type of woman, was to them an inferior animal, as she is to most working men; yet the majority treat their female relations, and the women they consider worthy of it (and the working man is not easily deceived by fine clothes and fine manners), with astonishing respect, real and true respect, not superficial mannerisms. The big majority of English working men, in my experience, are sportsmen, and possessed of the instincts of gentlemen, ineradicably stamped into their hard, true natures. And you young men, the budding engineers, who are lost in the intricacies of elementary algebra, or unravelling those painful problems in strength of material; the Tensile stresses in the rims of flywheels, and the elastic limit of steel plates, etc.: it is yours to see that you also understand the elastic limit of human nature, the inherent instincts of the working man, and the durability of your own emotions; this is what you learn in the "shops": it is yours to solve the unemployed problem and see that the English workman gets a chance to develop the fine qualities that are in him; for this (unemployment) is an engineering problem; the reduction of a sine curve to a straight line, the modification of a wave, the control of a tide: it is yours to know that the working man does not want a mouth in Parliament, but a fair show at his work. Watch what he does, and not what he says, as he will watch what you do, and not what you say; then you will see that he is (mostly) a sportsman, and you will learn to understand that it is better that the accent should be on the "man" than on the "gentle"—yet do not forget that a clean mind is the basis of all true force of character, and is inherently respected by every Englishman, foul-mouthed though he be. And you, fond Mammas, who desire your dear boys to be engineers, see to it that their biceps are good, for this is the underlying principle of all work; and when dear Willie comes home from the "shops" with his face punched into a many-hued polyhedron, be not alarmed, this is no doubt the result of scientific research into the specific resistance of the fitter's mate; it is also conceivable that occasions may arise when it is good that Willie should stand in the police court dock, charged with breaking a man's head with a hammer. All these things must come to pass before the steel enters thoroughly into Willie's soul; then he will take a very high polish and be very reliable, yet he will be very flexible and very keen; for this is the age of steel—hard, keen, true steel.
Carstairs stripped to the waist and tied his trousers round with a scarf that Bounce lent him. He stepped into the middle of the ring and looked at his opponent: slightly shorter, but more massive than himself, his face was remarkably hard looking, with a short, clipped moustache, and light china blue eyes with a roving, happy-go-lucky look in them; even now, as Carstairs faced him, there was an element of a grin on his face. (It is written somewhere in the Book of Fate that the British navvy shall fear no man on this earth.) His neck was like the trunk of an oak tree and sloped grandly on to his massive shoulders; in his hands, Carstairs observed, Nature had endowed him with a pair of very formidable weapons, the knuckles were enormous. Altogether Jack Carstairs recognised that he was up against one of the stiffest propositions he had ever tackled in his life.
"Are you ready, sir?" he asked, with quite a genial smile.
"Yes," Carstairs answered.
"Three minute rounds," Bounce said, taking out the fine, half-hunter watch that had been presented to him for rescuing a drowning man.
The two combatants agreed.
"Shake hands, then." They reached out and gripped each other with a strong, hearty grip, and five hundred heads nodded grave approval.
"Now! Time!"
As soon as the word was out of Bounce's mouth, the navvy sprang at Carstairs like a tiger. The royal light of battle was in his eyes, there was positive joy written large and bold over all his countenance.
Carstairs was serious, very serious, and quite calm; he ducked the man's furious left and right straight drives, and got in a useful stop hit with his left in the face, then broke ground. But the navvy was on him again like a whirlwind, while five hundred gruff voices shouted.
"One for the toff. First blood for the toff. 'Is nose is bleeding. Don't forget that five pound, Charlie. Mind, your mates is watching you."
Carstairs felt the huge, bony fists whistle past his ears, and he ducked and ducked again to the furious straight drives. He began to smile, too; the pleasure of it was entering into him, the important issue was slipping away from his mind. He hit the navvy heavily about the face, and received one or two glancing blows himself.
When time was called, they stood and looked at each other for a second or so like two newly found friends.
"That was good, wasn't it, sir?" the navvy said.
"You do make the pace," Carstairs answered, with genuine admiration.
The man stroked his nose tenderly. "Same to you, sir," he said, with a grin.
Their seconds came and took them away to their corners and sat them down on one man's knees while another fanned them with big, red pocket handkerchiefs.
"'It 'im in the body," Bounce whispered. "You could 'it 'im in the clock all day, an' 'e'd on'y think you was tickling of 'im."
"Time" was called, and the navvy held out his hand again just to show that they were still on the best of good terms. Carstairs grasped it warmly, and again the five hundred heads nodded strong approval. They stepped back a pace and the navvy said: "Are you ready?"
Carstairs said "Yes," and promptly the man sprang in, letting drive furiously right and left. There was a sameness about his methods, and he swung his shoulders freely and openly before each hit, so that Carstairs knew exactly where and when they were coming, and dodged them easily; he ducked low to the left, and got in a swinging right on the short ribs. The man grunted, his breath had been short before. He stopped and took a deep breath, Carstairs magnanimously standing clear of him; then he rushed again, and Carstairs got him in the same place; again he took a deep breath and rushed, exhaustion was making him slower. Carstairs ducked to the right this time, and got in a beautiful left, fairly and squarely on the solar plexus. The man dropped like a log, and lay gasping.
There was a wild uproar, several of the men tried to break into the ring to pick him up, but the stewards thrust them roughly back. "Don't break the ring," they said. Bounce stood over him, watch in hand, and counted out the seconds. "He's beat," he said at the end of the tenth, as the man lay there helpless.
Carstairs picked him up. "Never mind," he said. "That five pounds is yours, anyway."
The navvies shouted uproariously, and crowded round Carstairs congratulating him in their rough but sincere fashion. In the midst of it all he heard an old familiar voice that drove the smile from his face.
"That really was damn good, old chap."
He turned and beheld Darwen, smiling, genial, standing at his elbow.
"How the devil did you get here?" he asked, frowning severely.
The navvies near listened in open curiosity and wonder.
"'E bin down 'ere weeks, off an' on, standing us beer down at the village," a navvy explained.
"So this was some of your devil's work, eh? You were going to resort to force when fair means failed, you damned skunk."
The navvies listened in silent wonder.
Darwen shrugged his shoulders with easy unconcern. "The forces of Nature, dear boy," he answered. He turned to the navvies. "I came down to see the fun," he said. "The gipsies are going to put up a scrap, I see, they're out with sticks and guns and God knows what."
"That's off, Mister," a navvy answered.
"Off? Ha! Ha! You've let this chap with his little fight divert you?"
"That was part of the stakes," Carstairs said, shortly. "And these men will stick to their bargain."
They gave a low murmur of assent.
Darwen laughed. "Well, you are mugs, you've let this chap diddle you. This skilled fighter against poor old plucky, but unskilled Charlie."
They began to cast suspicious glances at Carstairs.
"Charlie didn't get one good one on him. You could see that for yourselves."
"It was a fair fight," they said, gruffly. "An' a bet's a bet."
"That's right; fair is fair all the world over," he was talking to them in their own language, "but it isn't fair for a trained man, practising every day, to take advantage of a plucky sort of chap like Charlie, now is it?"
There was silence.
"A bet is a bet," he repeated, "but it's not sporting to bet on a cert. 'All bets off' in that case is the rule," he said.
Carstairs was slowly dressing; he stopped with his collar in his hand. "That man is a rogue and a liar," he said, "he doesn't know the meaning of the term sport."
"Ha! Ha! Hear that. Ask him if he'd take me on the same terms that he took Charlie on?"
"Yes, here and now," Carstairs answered, starting to undress again. "And glad of the chance."
The navvies cheered. "'Ear. 'Ear. That's a toff, that's sport. Clear the ring, mates. Let the two toffs set to."
The stewards cleared the ring again, the navvies stepped back in expectant silence, they expected something exceptional this time. Charlie stepped up to Carstairs. "I'll be your second, mister. Let this yer bloke (pointing to Bounce) be referee." He was as brisk and lively as ever again.
"Thanks," Carstairs said. "You and I must have a drink together before I go back."
Charlie grinned with real pleasure. "Thank ye, sir," he said.
Darwen stripped with alacrity, his big brown eyes gleamed with abnormal joy: there was sufficient of the Gaul in him to make him "More than man before the fight. Less than woman afterwards." He was attended to by two navvies; a tall red-headed man and a slender dark man with rather a thoughtful, melancholy cast of countenance. A young gipsy youth, slouch-hatted, slovenly, wandered up to the group, and stood beside Darwen for a minute or two; his piercing eyes moved with a quick alert expression under the wide drooping brim of his hat; his face was very dirty and his hands thrust deep into his trousers' pockets. The navvies took no notice of him, and he wandered nonchalantly across the ring and took up a position near Carstairs.
"How many rounds?" he asked.
"To a finish," Bounce answered.
"I'll put a bob on this 'un, he's got the look of a winner," he growled out in a surly, gruff voice.
Carstairs glanced up at him quickly, but he turned round and sauntered off.
"Get ready."
They stepped out into the ring, two splendid specimens of English manhood. Darwen six feet in his socks, and Carstairs half an inch shorter. They were in the pink of condition, and both of them full of steam. Somewhere near at hand was the girl they both wanted, and they had this in mind. Darwen, for the first time in his life, was in love, really in love, with all the ardour of his passionate nature.
"Shake hands," Darwen's seconds called, but Carstairs took no notice, and the five hundred spectators settled themselves to witness a battle of real hatred.
"Time," Bounce called.
Promptly Darwen sprang in with a realistic feint, then, smiling, broke ground and worked round his antagonist. Carstairs watched him, keeping the centre of the ring, pivoting slowly on his own axis. Darwen sprang in again with another feint, but still Carstairs gave no opening, then quick as a flash Darwen gave a left lead and followed up with a heavy right swing; both got home, though not with their full effect.
Darwen was at the zenith of a strong man's powers; his head was singularly clear, and his speed almost supernatural. There was a sort of feline fascination about him, his eyes, too, were something catlike, or snakey; there was an undulating ease in his movements that was beautiful, fascinating; he had risen to the sort of hysterical height which the Latins seem capable of, and still the English blood in him kept him cool. As he stood, that day, he was almost the perfect, scientific fighter. He feinted with wonderful expression, he "drew" Carstairs' leads with extremely skilful acting, and timed his counters marvellously. At the end of the round, Carstairs was battered and bruised, but Darwen was as fresh as a daisy.
The navvies maintained a glum silence; this feinting and drawing savoured, to them, of deceit, and the way Carstairs took his punishment, melted their hearts. The ex-marine whispered in his ear: "steady does it, stick to 'im."
The young gipsy reappeared from the crowd. "My money's still on this 'un," he said.
Next round, Carstairs attacked, persistently, all the time; his wind was good and he knew it; from his earliest infancy he had led a spotlessly clean and wholesome life, and he was sound as a bell from the crown of his head to the sole of his foot; he was alert and quick too, but it was the staccato briskness of the terrier, and his eyes were the eyes of an Englishman, an engineer. With a fine disregard of punishment, he hustled Darwen through the whole of the round.
The navvies buzzed with excitement, and the young gipsy had to be turned out of the ring by the stewards.
Darwen's seconds performed their office enthusiastically, but their sympathies were really with the other man.
For four rounds Carstairs took all the punishment steadily. He bored in all the time, attacking persistently, never once had he feinted or tried to keep away. Darwen's smile began to fade, he was getting angry. This man was such a fool that apparently he could not see that he was beaten. There was a devilish gleam of temper in his eyes as they faced each other for the fifth round.
Carstairs' left foot and left fist moved in the old, old way. Instead of steadily countering as he had been doing, Darwen dashed in to hustle matters to a close. Next minute Bounce was standing over him counting out the seconds. For the first time in the fight Carstairs had feinted—and successfully.
The navvies cheered fervidly.
At the seventh second, Darwen jumped up furiously and sprang at Carstairs like a fiend incarnate. "You devil," he screamed, "I'll kill you."
But he didn't. Carstairs knocked him down again, and he lay like a log. Still he was up again before the last second was counted. It was astonishing where he got the power from, but he rushed in again like a whirlwind.
Carstairs, cool and precise, but very quick, his grey eyes hard as steel, jabbed him off, and off, and off, till he saw what he wanted, then his wide shoulders swept a half circle in the air, swinging cleanly from the hips; his great, strong, right leg, trailing to the rear like a stay, braced itself suddenly rigid; and the right fist, tightly clenched at the moment of impact, shot out clean and true in a perfectly straight line to the point of Darwen's eagerly extended jaw: it was a perfect blow, showing a beautiful, smooth ripple as one muscle after the other took up its task; then remaining rigid like a statue for one second, with lips firmly closed, and the eyes—the entire expression of the face, full of definite, resolute purpose; Carstairs for that second seemed more than a man. None but a man with his long record of clean living and strict training could have risen to such a blow after receiving such a pounding as he had.
Darwen dropped for the last time.
There was a tense silence as Bounce stood over him, the tenth second was called and still he lay there; his seconds picked him up and dabbed his face with a wet handkerchief; slowly the light of intelligence returned to his eyes. He sat up and looked round. There was a subdued cheer; the navvies were unusually moved, they felt, somehow, that this was more than an ordinary fight, every one was still for fully a minute, the silence was oppressive. God knows what was passing in those five hundred rugged minds. Carstairs himself was strangely impressed; in after life he never forgot it. He felt, he said, as though he had come suddenly to the last peak of a majestic mountain, and saw a wondrous valley spread out below him.
Darwen's seconds stood behind him holding up his shoulders. They were quite still, they said no word as he looked slowly and vacantly round; then, without warning, he bent his head forward into his hands and wept like a child.
A beaten man is the most pathetic sight in all Nature: these men were used to death, they had seen their bosom chums killed, squashed flat by falling rocks, buried alive in the earth, mangled by machinery; but when Darwen wept they turned their heads.
The young gipsy moved up to Carstairs, as he stood alone, and whispered in his ear: "I knew you'd win. You'll always win, win whatever you want." A small hand reached out and dropped an emerald ring on to the little heap of his clothes over which he was bending; as he put out his hand to pick it up, he felt the pressure of warm, soft lips on his cheek. He started up in amazement, but the gipsy had melted into the crowd like a shadow. One or two of the navvies who had seen it grinned from ear to ear, and Carstairs blushed from his forehead to his neck.
"That was a girl," a navvy said. "I thought he was slim like, too."
Carstairs said nothing, but dressed very quickly.
CHAPTER XX
Bounce had seen that little incident, too. He crossed the ring and helped Carstairs to dress. He said nothing, but his peculiar hazel eyes were alight.
While they were still busy, the little civil engineer from the water-works appeared on the scene. He looked round in surprise. "What the blazes are you chaps doing here?" he asked.
A navvy answered from the crowd. "A fight, sir." The whole assembly had the air of school boys caught breaking bounds.
The little man blazed with anger. "Damn it," he said, "why didn't you tell me? You know I like to see that everything is above board at these little gatherings." He stood on the top of the little hill clear to the view of all.
"Beg parding, sir. This 'ere were sort of impromptoo."
"Impromptu! By Jove—you know I don't like impromptu fights."
"Very sorry, sir," the spokesman muttered, and they all looked it. By sheer force of character and unswerving fairness of treatment, this little man had obtained, in the course of two years' constant association, a complete ascendency over these wild, strong men.
"Who's been fighting?" he asked.
"Charlie Moore an' a toff bloke, then two toff blokes."
"Oh," he said, in a completely changed tone, and made his way quickly to where Carstairs was.
"Who are you?" he asked.
Carstairs was dressed and just moving off, "My name is Carstairs. I'm an engineer too, electrical and mechanical. I'm staying at the Blue Boar in the village, I have an engagement now. If you will call there this evening, I shall be pleased to have a talk with you."
"But what's the fight about? Have my men been molesting you?"
"Oh no." Carstairs looked round, the navvies were beginning to move off hurriedly. He did not want to get them into trouble, still he was not good at lying. "I was to blame," he said. "We had a difference of opinion and settled it in the time-honoured way; they behaved like gentlemen."
The little man's eyes sparkled. He looked round, but the last of the five hundred was disappearing hurriedly, like a cart horse colt over the hillock. He laughed aloud. "They're just damn great kids! those chaps, but the very best. I shan't be able to get within earshot of one of 'em till Monday morning now. They'll shun me like the plague." He laughed again. "By George they are rum chaps. About the first week they were here there was a violent row with the old farmer on the hill there." He pointed to a farm house in the distance. "They went rabbiting with dogs and ferrets right in front of his house; when he expostulated, they were going to pull his place to pieces. He sent for me. I couldn't stop their poaching, of course, nobody could; but I objected to their threatening the man. 'Well, sir,' they said (it was that man Moore by the way), 'what beat us was the cheek o' the beggar coming an' talking to three on us.' He didn't speak to one of them afterwards, poor chap, he was frightened out of his wits; they're a mean sort of swine, farmers. Fancy grousing about a blooming rabbit."
Carstairs laughed. "How about the woods over there?" he asked.
"Oh, I don't think there's much left in 'em now. The keepers keep away when my chaps are about." The little man laughed. "They have elaborate shooting parties with plenty of beer, and about six old guns between 'em. Take it in turns for a shot. Gravely presented me with a pair of pheasants once, and got quite shirty when I wouldn't have 'em; couldn't understand that they were stolen. 'Why! the keeper seen us,' they explained. 'If he'd been a wise man he would have not seen you,' I said. 'Will 'e 'ave a trout then, mister?' 'No thanks,' I said. 'Well, I'm beggared,' they answered, and went away growling. They still think I'm a bit mad."
They laughed together and strolled on. Carstairs was obviously impatient, but the little man did not see it. He only met men with a soul above beer at very rare intervals.
"Damn funny chaps, you know, but the best, the very best, at heart. Don't care tuppence for anybody, and quite fail to see why they should. 'When my 'at's on, my roof's on, an' off I goes,' they say. They wander up and get a start, work for a day, 'sub' a 'bob,' and slope off. Sometimes a man will start one day, and next a policeman arrives, and the man is missing, two or three more with him very likely. Damn funny chaps. What for? Oh, nothing serious as a rule, pinching a pair of boots from a shop window, or something like that, you know; I had a man murdered once, though; not here—up in the midlands, had a hole knocked in his head with a pick axe, never found out who did it. There are black sheep in every flock, of course."
"Men are about the same as any other machine, I think, you get out rather less than you put in. Breed simply means efficiency and reliability."
"Yes. By Jove, that's so. Look here, come up to my digs, will you? What! an engagement. Oh, I see. Well, ta-ta for the present."
They were quite close to the caravan, and the little man looked at Carstairs curiously as he saw where he was going. He made no comment, but turned and made his way back to the village.
The camp was quite silent, the vans were all drawn up together in the form of a square. The dogs and children all seemed to have disappeared. Carstairs went up the steps of the caravan, and knocked at the little door. He began to wonder vaguely if the gipsies had all deserted the place, till he caught sight of the crown of a hat and the muzzle of a gun on the roof of a caravan.
The door was very quietly opened by the old woman (she was in ragged male attire), and her eyes gleamed like an eagle's in the sunlight as she looked at Carstairs. She put a hand on his shoulder. "Well done, well done," she said.
He put her hand gently aside. "Where is your daughter?" he asked.
"Gone to London," she answered.
Carstairs frowned like a thunder-storm. "Confound it! She gave me this ring about two minutes ago."
The woman smiled and looked at the ring. "Yes, that's her mother's. Don't lose it."
"Yours?" he said. "What's she bolted away again for?"
She positively laughed, and Carstairs turned to go away. She stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. "I'm not her mother," she said.
"What! Then who is?"
"Lady Cleeve's sister. She's dead."
"Holy God! But that man—Sir Thomas, said——"
"He didn't know and didn't care much. She's his child, but not mine; mine died, and we stole this one. God forgive me! She's been more than a daughter to me. And he—he was always drunk, always drunk when he wasn't playing the fiddle, always drunk. And now he's dead."
"Oh!" Carstairs said; it was all he could think of at the time.
The gipsy woman sat on the top step of the little ladder, her head in her hands, crooning to herself. "My God! My God! And now he's dead! He charmed me with his singing and his playing, and he was in the gutter playing for coppers and drink, while his lawful wife lay dying in her mother's home. Oh, my God! my God!"
Carstairs stood in wonder; he did not know whether to stay or go. She took no notice of him, but crooned on, rocking herself from side to side. "And now he's dead. Dead! Him that opened the gates of Heaven with his fiddle! dead and along with her, but I shall have him; he's mine, mine, and there's another. O my God! My God! but I'm going too! I shall be the first."