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It is evident, from the manner in which he presented his report of the case to his readers, that 'the editor of this paper' was in advance of his times; he would have made an admirable descriptive reporter in these days. Mr. Vinnicombe also, as is apparent from the style of the narrative, was an advanced detective; but the qualities which are necessary for the making of a good detective, and the spirit which animates the class, do not differ, whatever the year.--Author.]
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'The first thing Mr. Pardon wanted me to do,' said Mr. Vinnicombe, was to trace the notes; but I said, No; the thief first, the property afterwards. If I could trace him by the property, all right; but there was no time to lose in ascertaining what road he had taken, and where he was bound to. In a very short time I discovered by what means and by what road Anthony Bullpit had left the town. That road did not lead to Liverpool, and immediately I learnt this, I decided that Liverpool was the port which he intended to reach. Why port? you ask. Well, it wasn't likely that a cunning card like this Bullpit was going to remain in England. I picked up a bit of gossip concerning him, and I found out that he had had a love affair with a young lady--I mention no names, and I only mention it professionally--and that her family, not liking his sneaking ways, had shut their doors on him; I found out also that this young lady was soon to be married to a gentleman who was more worthy of her. That was one reason why it wasn't likely he was going to remain in England; having filled his pockets with another man's money was another reason. But there were stronger reasons than these. He had peculiar marks about him, and if he wasn't found out to-day by these marks, he would be to-morrow; and he knew it. So what he had to do was to get out of the country as quick as he could. Now, there's only two ports in England from where a man as wants to go can go to all parts of the world, civilised and uncivilised. These ports are London and Liverpool.
'Bullpit wouldn't go to London. Why? Mr. Pardon was there. He'd go naturally to Liverpool, because Mr. Pardon was not there. Now, I'll tell you about these peculiar marks of his. First, he had--a knob on the top of his head. But the knob couldn't be seen, you'll say, because he had a bushy head of hair. That's right enough, but it don't do away with the knob; he had it, and that was enough for me. I don't know as ever I had any business in connection with a man as had a knob on his head, and that circumstance made the case interesting to me. I like to do with all sorts. Second, he had a peculiarity with his teeth. The two middle ones in the top jaw--I hope you don't think I'm going to swear or use bad language; but jaw's a word, and when a word's got to be used, I use it--the two middle teeth in his top jaw had a slit between 'em, a slit as you could see daylight through, if there was such a thing in his mouth. That slit ain't much, you'll say. All right. Third, he had a habit of biting his nails. Well, now, that ain't a crime, you say. I don't say it is, but he had it, and that was enough for me. These peculiarities and a general description of Bullpit--as to how tall he was (a man can't alter that), how stout (nor that), what kind of complexion, and other personal details--were all I had to go upon. I tracked him, without ever making a miss, in the contrary direction of Liverpool, and then back again by another road in the direction of Liverpool, and there I lost sight of him completely. But I knew he must be there, and that was enough for me. I had travelled faster than he had, and I reckoned I had gained a day and a half on him. According to my calculation, he hadn't had time to get away yet; he could only have been in Liverpool two days, and as Mr. Pardon wasn't expected home for a week after he left, there was no need for him to put on any show of hurry; it might look suspicious. Now, what should I do? Bullpit would be sure to disguise himself--clap on a pair of false whiskers and coloured spectacles perhaps, cut his hair short, wear a wig; he would certainly not walk about in the clothes he run away in. Thinking of these things I felt that Bullpit might prove more than a match for me. There was the knob on his head certainly; but I couldn't go up to every suspicious-looking stranger, pull off his hat, and feel for the knob; people might resent it as a liberty, and treat it accordingly. There was his habit of biting his nails; but he would be sure to restrain himself, though it is about the most difficult thing in the world for a man to keep from, when he's been accustomed to it all his life. I don't see what there is in nails except dirt to make people fond of 'em. They ain't sweet and they ain't tasty. Well, but Bullpit. He'd be cunning enough to restrain himself from biting his nails, knowing it was a mark to go by; still nails don't grow in a day, and they'd be short on his fingers naturally. But he'd wear gloves. Then the slit between his teeth. Well, that couldn't be altered; but he could keep his mouth shut. Now if I was to tell you everything I did in the first two days I was in Liverpool, it would fill a book, and that's what you don't want; what you do want is for me to come to the point, and that I'll do in a jiffy. I went down to the docks, and took up my lodgings near there; I didn't stop in any particular place, but shifted from one eating-house to another, and mixed with the customers, and talked to the waiters; no ship sailed out of the Mersey without my being on it at the last minute, with my eyes wide open; I communicated with the captains and the ship-agents; I watched every new arrival at the eating-houses, and drank with them, and did a hundred other things--and at the end of the fourth day I was as far off as ever; I hadn't picked up a link. Now, that nettled me; it did--it nettled me. I had set my heart on catching this Bullpit; he was worth catching, he was such a sly cunning customer; I looked upon it as a match between us, and I wanted to win, and here was I four days in Liverpool, with never a link in my hands for my pains. On the fifth day I met--quite by accident--a professional friend, who had come down to Liverpool to say good-bye to a relative of his who was going to America. The ship was to sail that afternoon; it was called The Prairie Bird. We had a bit of dinner together in the coffee-room, where other men were dining. Over dinner I told my friend what had brought me to Liverpool; I spoke in a low tone, so as not to be overheard, and I was not sorry when the man who was eating at the next table to ours went away in the middle of my story; he was a little too close to us. Well, we finished dinner; my friend insisted on paying the reckoning, and I moved a step or two towards the next table, where the man who went away in the middle of my story had been dining. The waiter was clearing the table, when I saw something that set me on fire. Now, what do you think it was? You can't guess. I should think you couldn't, if you tried for a week. What do you say to a piece of bread? You laugh! Well, but that piece of bread was enough for me. It wasn't a link. It was the chain itself. In what way? I'll tell you. You see, that piece of bread was partly eaten, and the man who had been dining had put it down after taking his last bite at it. The marks of his teeth were in it, but the only mark I saw was a little ridge in the centre of the bite--just such a ridge as would be left by a man who had a slit between two of his upper teeth, as Anthony Bullpit had. Would that little mark have been enough for you?
'Now I had seen this man a dozen times; a most respectable-looking man he was, with leg-of-mutton whiskers, and most respectably dressed, something like a clergyman; and I knew he was a passenger by The Prairie Bird. I had never for one moment suspected him. Anthony. Bullpit was a pale-faced man; this man had a high colour. There was nothing particular in Anthony Bullpit's walk; this man dragged one leg behind the other slightly. Anthony Bullpit's hair was black; this man's hair was sandy. Anthony Bullpit had good eyebrows; this man had no eyebrows at all to speak of. Ah, he's a cunning rascal is Anthony Bullpit, and was worth catching. I put things together very quickly in my mind, and I settled it--if it wanted settling after the first sight of that piece of bread--that this man, and no other, was the man I wanted. There was only one thing that puzzled me, and that was his nails; they were long. However, I wasn't going to let that stop me, so I laid a little plot with my professional friend, and we went aboard The Prairie Bird--not in company, because of the little plot I laid, but one a minute after the other. There was my respectable customer, standing by himself; I was puzzled even then as I looked at him, he was so well disguised; but his height was there, and his bulk was there, with a little added to it, which might be padding. Well, while I stood a little distance away, with my eye on him, but not in an open way, my professional friend walks up to him from behind, until he gets close, and this is what my professional friend whispers to him: "Don't start," whispers my professional friend, most confidentially; "don't turn your head, or it might attract notice. My name's Simpson, and I cashed the cheque for seven hundred pound for you in the Hertford Bank. I was in the bank for six years, and I've done a little bit of business on my own account, and have got clear away. Twelve hundred pounds I've got about me, and I'm a fellow passenger of yours; when The Prairie Bird gets to America, what's to hinder you and me going partners and making our fortunes? Two such heads as ours'll be sure to make a big one. I sha'n't speak another word to you till we're safely off, but I'm glad I've got a friend on board." With that, my professional friend slips quietly away. Now, if my respectable-looking customer hadn't been the man I wanted, he would have turned round on my professional friend, and hit him in the eye perhaps; at all events, he would have kicked up a row. But he listened to every word, with his eyes looking down on the deck, and the only movement he made was a kind of twitching with his fingers, and a rising of them to his lips, as if he wanted to set to work on his nails. He didn't get so far as his mouth with them; he had himself too well in hand; but I was sure of my man--his own cunning was the trap in which he was caught. I waited until the last minute, until those who weren't going to the other side of the Atlantic in The Prairie Bird were scrambling away lest they should be taken by mistake; and I saw my respectable friend give one triumphant look around, being sure then he was safe. At the same moment, as if he couldn't stand it any longer, up went his fingers to his lips; his longing to get at those nails of his must have been something dreadful. Then I stepped up to him suddenly, and before he knew where he was I had the handcuffs on him. "It's no use making a noise about it," I said; "I want you, Anthony Bullpit. Here's the warrant." And quick as lightning I passed my hand over his head, and felt the knob. He saw it was all over with him, and I could see that he turned deadly white, for all his false colour. "You sha'n't be done out of a voyage across the sea," I said; "but it'll be a longer voyage than the one to America. Botany Bay'll be the place as'll suit you best, I should think." He never spoke a word; I got his trunk, and found the money in it--all changed into gold it was, the cunning one. Well, everything was comfortably arranged, and I was about to guide him down the ladder to the boat, when he whispered to me, "There's another man on board as you'd like to have. He's a better prize than I am. If you'll make it easier for me, I'll tell you who it is." "What man?" I asked, with a quiet chuckle. "A man as has robbed the bank of twelve hundred pound." Just then my professional friend came to my side. "That's him," said Anthony Bullpit "And you and him's going partners when you get safe across," I said, with a wink at my professional friend; "he cashed that cheque for you, didn't he? Lord! you're not half as clever as I took you to be!" He was clever enough to understand it all without another word, for he only gave a scowl; and when me and him and my professional friend was in the boat, he fell-to on his nails without restraint, and before the day was out he had eaten them down to the quick. He only asked one question, and that was how I had discovered him. I pulled the piece of bread from my pocket, and pointed to the marks of his teeth in it, and to the ridge the slit in his teeth had left. I brought my man safely back, and you know what has become of him. If I live till I'm a hundred--which isn't likely--I shall never forget the feeling that came over me when I saw that piece of bread with the ridge in it that brought Anthony Bullpit to justice.'
We have only to add to Mr. Vinnicombe's statement that Anthony Bullpit, when placed in the dock, pleaded guilty, and was sentenced to twenty-one years' transportation. The sentence would have been for life, but for Mr. Pardon's intercession, who pleaded for mercy for the infamous scoundrel who had abused his trust. We have occupied more space than we otherwise should have done with the details of this case, for the purpose of pointing out how often the most trivial circumstance will lead to the detection and punishment of the most cunning criminals.
Apart from the circumstance of this Anthony Bullpit being one of my grandmother's lovers, the narrative was interesting to me from the really remarkable manner in which the forger was discovered. I refolded the printed paper carefully, and replaced it in the interior of the stone figure; and in the course of a couple of days I made a drawing of Anthony Bullpit, as I imagined him to be, a sneaking hang-dog figure of a man, with a hypocritical face, gnawing his finger-nails.
CHAPTER XVIII.
UNCLE BRYAN COMMENCES THE STORY OF HIS LIFE.
'Chris is growing quite a man,' observed my mother one evening to uncle Bryan.
Her words attracted uncle Bryan's attention, and he regarded me with more interest than he usually evinced. We three were alone. Jessie was spending the evening with some neighbours, and was not expected home before ten o'clock. The family she visited was named West. I did not know them personally, but I was curious about them, not only because Jessie's visits to their house had lately grown very frequent, but because they were a theatrical family. They were, in a certain sense, famous in the neighbourhood because of their vocation, which lifted them out of the humdrum ordinary course of common affairs. During the whole time we had lived in Paradise-row, I had made no friends among our neighbours. It was different with Jessie: before she had been with us six months, she knew and was known by nearly every person in the locality. She informed me that she was fond of company, and she accepted invitations to tea from one and another. But lately she had confined her intimacy to the Wests, and whenever I came home, and she was absent, I was told she was spending an hour at their house. Many weeks before the observation which commences this chapter was made, Jessie and I had had a conversation about the Wests. She introduced their name, and after informing me that she was going to have tea with them on the following evening, asked me if I would come for her at nine o'clock and bring her home. But I demurred to this, as being likely to be considered an intrusion.
'What nonsense you talk!' she exclaimed. They are the most delightful persons in the world.'
'Your friendships are quickly made, Jessie,' I said, with a jealous pang.
'Directly I see persons I know whether I like them or not. Don't you?'
'I can't say,' I replied sententiously; 'I have never considered it.'
'Well, consider it now. Don't be disagreeable. Directly you saw me, didn't you like me?'
'Oh, yes.'
'Very well, then; that shows you do make up your mind properly about these things, as a man ought to do.'
I thrilled with pleasure at this cunning compliment.
'But you are different, Jessie, from any one else.' (What I really wanted to say was, 'You are different in my eyes from any one else;' but the most important words oozed away, from my want of courage.)
'Am I?' she cried softly and complacently, as was her way when she felt she was about to be flattered. How different? In what way? Tell me.'
'You are prettier and nicer. There's no one in the world like you.'
'That's what you think.'
'That's what everybody must think.'
'Why, Chris!' she exclaimed, making a telescope with her two hands, and peeping at me through them, I declare your moustachois are coming.'
I blushed scarlet. 'Are they?' I inquired, with an effort at unconsciousness, notwithstanding that I had already many times secretly contemplated in my looking-glass, with the most intense interest, these coming signs of manliness. 'But never mind them, Jessie; tell me about the Wests.'
'They are the most wonderful people, and the most delightful. I'm in love with all of them.'
My blushes died away; jealous pangs assailed me again.
'Are there many of them?' I asked gloomily.
'Ever so many; but you must see for yourself. You will come for me, then? You mustn't knock at the door and say, "Tell Miss Trim I am waiting for her;" you must come right into the house.'
But being angry with the Wests, and beginning to hate them because Jessie was so fond of them, I insisted that it would not be proper, because I had never been invited; and after a little quarrel, in which I deemed it necessary, as an assertion of manliness, to become more and more obstinate in my refusal, Jessie said with a pout, 'Oh, very well; if you're determined to stand upon your dignity, you'll see that other people can do so as well as you.' Thus it fell about that it became a point almost of honour with me not to go to the Wests, nor to express any desire to go; but I suffered agonies in consequence, and was tempted many times to humble myself. Jessie knew as well as possible what was going on in my mind; but she was offended with me on the subject, and would not assist me--would not even give me an opportunity of humbling myself.
But all this while I have left uncle Bryan regarding me, as I have said, with more than usual interest. From me he turned his attention to the wall, upon which hung the picture of Jessie, in crayons, which I had finished. I said nothing, but proceeded with my work.
'What are you drawing now, Chris?' asked my uncle.
Of course it was a sketch of Jessie. I murmured some words to the effect that it was nothing particular, and was about to put it in my desk, when uncle Bryan expressed a wish to see it. I could not refuse, and I handed it to him. It happened to be one of my happiest efforts; it would have been difficult to find a more winsome face than that which uncle Bryan gazed upon. He contemplated it for a long time without speaking--for so long a time that I asked him if he liked it, so as to break the awkward silence. He did not answer me. With the sketch still in his hand he said to my mother,
'Emma, I have not treated you fairly.'
My mother looked up from her work in surprise. Uncle Bryan continued:
'What I am about to tell you ought to have been told before; but probably no better time than this could be chosen. By the time I have finished, you will perhaps understand my motive for saying so; but whether you do or not, it is due to you that I should clear away some part of the mystery which hangs around Jessie.'
Although I was burning with curiosity, I rose to leave the room, thinking from his manner that what he was about to say was intended only for my mother's ears.
'Nay, Chris,' he said, you can stay. 'You are almost a man, as your mother says, and you may learn something from my words. I am about to read some pages in my life.'
He turned from us, so that we could not see his face; and full five minutes elapsed before he spoke. I was awaiting to hear with so much eagerness what he had to tell, that the five minutes seemed an hour. With his face still averted, he addressed my mother.
'Emma, you know the house in which I was born?'
'Yes, Bryan.'
'And you knew my family--my father and mother?'
'Yes.'
'They are not alive?'
I could scarcely restrain an exclamation of surprise at such a question from the lips of a son concerning his parents. My mother's tone was soft and pitiful as she replied,
'They have been dead many years, Bryan. They died within a year of my marriage with your brother.'
'During the time you and my brother courted, and afterwards indeed, my name must have been occasionally mentioned.'
'It was, Bryan.'
'In what terms?'
He paused for a reply, but my mother held her tongue.
'Be frank and candid with me, Emma; it will not hurt me. What you heard was not to my credit?'
He was determined that the subject should not be evaded; and my mother was wise enough not to thwart him.
'It was said that you had a violent temper.'
'It was doubtless true; but,' said uncle Bryan somewhat grimly, 'time must have softened it. No one now can accuse me justly--if there is such a thing as justice in the world--of showing violence, in the ordinary meaning of the word.'
'I can bear witness to that, Bryan.'
'Go on; there was more.'
'And that it was impossible to agree with you, or your opinions.'
'My opinions! That is one of the things I wanted to arrive at. Remember, Emma, that after I left home, I held no communication with my parents; that I was as one dead to them. What was said of my opinions? Nay, nay; you hurt me more by your silence than you can possibly do by anything you can say.'
'I heard that, as a boy, you associated yourself with a society of Freethinkers, who openly boasted of their infidelity.'
'I can guess the rest; I was wanting in respect to my elders, and in obedience and duty. They did not spare me, evidently. When I left home I was seventeen years of age; I ran away--no, I walked away, in fact, for they did not care to stop me--as much displeased with the narrow-minded views of those who were nearest to me in blood, as they were doubtless with my violent temper and my independent expression of opinion. A free exercise of the reasoning powers with which we are endowed was, in their eyes, a sacrilege. Still, when I was fairly gone, they might have let me rest. Of my after career they had no knowledge.'
These last words he did not put as a question, but as a satisfactory reflection. The simplest assent from my mother would have contented him; but she was too truthful to give utterance to it, and all his suspicions were aroused by her silence.
'I repeat--of my after career, they had no knowledge.'
She would have spared him, but he would not allow her to do so.
'They had!' he exclaimed, his rapid breathing showing how deeply he was moved.' What did they know?'
'The rumour was very vague, Bryan----'
'But discreditable. To what effect?'
'I really cannot explain, nor could they have done so, I believe.' My mother was much distressed. 'If Chris were not here----'
'Say no more.' I could not see his face, but his tone indicated that he had recovered his composure. 'I can fill up the blanks. Chris is older than I was when I threw myself upon the world, and it will be best for him to hear the story I shall relate.'
'Whatever impression I might have gained,' said my mother solicitously, 'from the vague rumours I heard has been entirely obliterated since I have known you. Believe me that this is so, dear Bryan.'
'Thank you for saying so much. But I doubt whether my parents would ever have believed that I was not the blackest of black sheep. They were hard and intolerant to me from the first, and I have no pleasurable recollections of even my earliest days. I do not know if it was the same when you were first introduced into it as it is in my remembrance, but the home in which I was born and reared was ruled by cold and formal laws, and by a cold and formal master. How it came about is a mystery I have never tried to solve, but it is a plain fact that I was not a favourite with my parents. My brother--your husband--was; he was much younger than I, but I saw it clearly. His nature was a more pliable one than mine; he could be easily led, not because he was weak, but because he was sympathetic and amiable. I was neither. Perhaps I imbibed some drops of gall with my mother's milk; but I don't pretend to account for my cross grain. My parents might have loved me after their fashion, but their mode of showing their love deprived it of all tenderness. It is a blessing to a man to be able to think of his mother with affection and veneration when she has passed away from him. Such a feeling, and the roads he must have trodden to acquire it, are a counterfoil to much that may be bad in his own nature; but this feeling is not mine. My mother was a weak-minded woman, entirely dominated by the strong mind of her husband. She had no will of her own; she followed the current of his likes and dislikes, of his opinions, of his commands, without question and without inquiry, as a spaniel follows its master. Many persons would see a kind of virtue in this submission; I do not. My father was dogmatic and stern; I could have forgiven him that, if he had been honest-minded. But he was a hypocrite, and I knew it, and he knew that I knew it. With great appearance of candour, he, when conversing with acquaintances in the presence of my mother and myself, would give expression to sentiments in which he did not believe; then, when we were alone, he would take off his mask of dissimulation, and go over the ground again according to his own conviction, and justify his deceit. If my mother ever thought of these things, she must have been bewildered; I did think of him, and I was indignant. Most especially was he a hypocrite in religious matters; his prayers and his practice were utterly at variance. I could not respect one who professed to believe that charity was a good thing, and who declined to practise it. He was intolerant to a degree; his was the only right way--all others were wrong. It was my evil fortune--I suppose I must call it so--to possess a mind which led me to sift things for myself; I could not accept established doctrines, and this, in my father's eyes, was not only a great presumption but a great crime. It is not necessary for me to state how, little by little, I became estranged from such parental affection as might have been bestowed upon me had I been docile and obedient--as might have been mine if I had tried to win it. I sought for congenial companionship away from the social circle in which my parents moved; it is true that I found associates among men who, doubtless with more reason than myself, were dissatisfied with things as they were, and that I identified myself--being, as a youth, proud of the connection--with a body of so-called Freethinkers, whose chief crime was that they were groping to find truth by the light of reason. My father, hearing of this connection, sternly commanded me to relinquish it, and when I refused, threatened me. He declared he would drive the evil spirit out of me, and he tried to do so by blows; but he hurt only my body--my spirit he strengthened. About this time a circumstance occurred which for ever destroyed all chance of peace between us. We had a servant at home, a poor half-witted creature--an orphan without a friend in the world. One would have supposed that my father, being so fond of his prayers, would have been kind to this servant because of her utterly dependent condition, and because she performed her work as well and as faithfully as her dull wits allowed her. Had this been so, I think I might have been inclined to waver in my estimate of him; but the contrary was the case. My father, through his unvarying harshness towards the poor girl, made her life a torture to her. I constituted myself her champion, and stepped between her and his blows many a time. Boy as I was, he chose to place misconstruction upon my championship, and each became more embittered against the other. I fed my bitterness by contemplation of the girl's misery, and the unhappy war went on until it was terminated by a tragic circumstance. One day the servant was missing; the next, the body was found in the river. The idea fixed itself firmly in my mind that my father was accountable for her death; I even hinted as much to him when my blood was boiling with a new injustice inflicted upon myself. What passed between us after that, it will be as well not to recall; the result was that I left my home, and no hand was held out to stay me. I never saw my parents from that day, nor have I ever mentioned them until this evening. Whether I have done them injustice cannot now be decided; but I have no doubt, if the world were to judge between us, the verdict would be against me.
'I retained my name because, in my opinion, I had done nothing to disgrace it, and because I abhor deceit. I was neither elated nor depressed at the step I had taken. It is said that the springtime of life is bright with sunshine. The springtime of my life was joyless and gloomy. I had no hope in anything, no belief in anything, no faith in anything. I had no special ambition and no desire to become rich; all that I desired was to earn a decent living by the labour of my hands and the exercise of my abilities. I determined to make no friendships, and to live only in myself and by myself. Although I had no thought of it at the time, I can see now that the rules I laid down for myself were just the rules, with fair opportunities, to lead to success in life.
'In my determination to sever myself entirely from my family, I wandered away from my native place until I was distant from it hundreds of miles. Then, a stranger among strangers, I applied myself to the task of obtaining a situation. I could read, I could write, and I was a fair bookkeeper; but these qualifications did not avail me, and I was driven to hard shifts. Had I been shipwrecked on a lonely land I should have fared better. I did nothing dishonest, nor would I have done it to save my life; but I shrunk from nothing to earn a few pence. I accepted employment in whatever shape it was offered; no toil was too low for me, so long as it would buy me bread. The hardships which the world dealt out to me did not dishearten me, did not humble me; I bore them with pride, and in my bitter frame of mind I found a certain pleasure even in misery. My unmerited sufferings were arguments to convince me that I was right in my estimate of things. Look where I would, I could nowhere find morality and humanity exercised in their larger sense; where charity was most due, it was least given; virtue and goodness were terms; all over the civilised world religious precepts were being preached; all over the civilised world religious precepts were being violated; what was good in the Bible was turned to bad account--its power was so used as to teach people to fear, not to love. During these days I used to creep into the churches and laugh at the moralities there laid down. It was a hard bitterly-sweet time; I did not repine; in my pride I exulted in my condition. Many a night did I walk the streets homeless and hungry, laughing at my sufferings. Life had no attractions for me, and I did not desire to live. But I was part of a scheme--I recognised that, although I could not solve the problem--and I would do nothing to myself; I would simply wait. From men and women in as miserable a position as myself I rejected all overtures of friendship; I had nothing in common with them. But on a starless night I met one to whom was drawn by humanity, if you like to call it by that name. A woman this, a girl indeed, homeless as I was, friendless as I was. Nay, you may listen, Emma. I became like a brother to her, and she like a sister to me. Neither knew how the other lived, neither asked; and when we were specially unfortunate we wandered by instinct to a certain street, and met by premeditated chance. Then we would talk together for hours, or sit in silence in the shadow of a friendly refuge. She told me her story--a pitiful story, but common: it hardened me the more. I never saw her face by daylight; a dark shadow encompassed her and her history. "I am so tired of life!" she said to me; "these stones must be happier than I, for they cannot feel. Would it be wrong to die?" I drove the thought from her mind. "Be brave, and play your part," I said aloud, and added mentally, "It will not be for long." I can hear now the faint echo of her dreary laugh at my words, and the strangely-pitiful tone in which she repeated, "Be brave, and play my part!" I knew she would not live long; a desperate cold had settled on her lungs, and her cough, as we walked the desolate streets or sat in them after midnight, was a sound to cause the stars to weep. She died in my arms during one of these wanderings. I had no special foreboding of her death, nor had she, I believe; she was seized with a violent fit of coughing, and she clung to me, as she had often done, for support, then suddenly she fell to the ground, and I saw blood coming from her mouth. "Don't leave me," she sighed, almost with her last breath; "you can do me no good. Thank God it is over!" An inquest was held, and I gave evidence. Necessarily some particulars concerning my own mode of life came out, and after the inquest a man offered me money. I rejected it; I had resolved never to accept charity. The man was surprised; questioned me; and learning that I was willing to work, offered me employment. I remained with him long enough to clothe myself decently and to save a little money, and then I turned my back upon a place which had become hateful to me. It must have been a rumour of my connection with the poor girl who died in my arms that was twisted to my discredit in my native town, and it was your mention of it that has caused me to drift into details which, when I commenced, I had no intention of relating.'
CHAPTER XIX.
STRANGE REVELATIONS IN UNCLE BRYAN'S LIFE.
So, without a friend in the world, I wandered still further away from the town in which I was born. I tarried here and tarried there, and found no rest for the sole of my foot until I reached a city where, before my means were exhausted, I obtained employment in the office of an accountant. It was by the merest chance that I obtained the situation, for there were many applicants; but I was quick at figures, and that quality served me. The position was not a distinguished one; I was not destined to occupy it long, however, for being coldly interested in my work--simply because it enabled me to live--I performed the tasks set for me to do, not only expeditiously, but with the exactitude of a machine. This was precisely what was required of me, and I rose into favour with my employer. Some of the clients who came to us for advice in their difficulties were afflicted with a kind of moral disease, which for their credits' sake it was necessary should not be exposed to the world. It was not the business of our office to be nice as to our clients' honesty and integrity, and it did not trouble me to see rogues walking about in broadcloth. It was of a piece with the rest. Many delicate matters of figures were intrusted to me; my lonely habits, my reserved manner, and the circumstance of my having no connections or friends, were high recommendations, and I heard my employer say, more than once, to his clients, 'Mr. Carey is as secret as the grave; you may confide anything to him.' No wonder, therefore, that in the course of years I became manager of the business. I began to save money, simply because I was earning more than I required for my necessities. I had no extravagances, I never went into society, and I did not see that any pleasure was to be derived from following the ordinary pursuits of men of my own age. I set down a rigid course of life for myself, and I spent my leisure in solitude; walked and read and lived entirely in myself. One fancy alone I indulged in; I loved flowers, and I made them my companions. An occupation of some kind for my leisure was forced upon me, I suppose, by natural necessity; the mind, if its balance is to be maintained, must have something to feed upon, and I tended my flowers and watched them through their various stages with much interest; I had, and have a real affection for them. Every year that passed fixed my habits more firmly, and I had no desire to change them. Apart from my mute and beautiful friends, life was tasteless for me; there was no sweetness in it that I could see. It consisted of dull plodding day after day, of growing older day after day. I reflected upon it with scornful curiosity, and made myself, as it were, a text for speculative commentary. I knew what would be the end of it: in the natural order of things I should live until I grew old, when, in the natural order of things, I should die and pass away, fading into absolute nothingness--that was all. It seemed to me a poor affair, so far as it was presented to me in the different aspects with which I had been made familiar. I often thought of the poor girl who had been the only friend I had ever had in the world, and in that remembrance was comprised all the tenderness I had ever felt towards my species.
I hope I do not distress you by my words; but it has come upon me in some odd way to give you as exact a portrait of myself, as I was at that time, as I can produce; perhaps for the reason that I wish you to understand the wonderful change that took place in me not long afterwards. Years ago I buried as in a grave all the records of my life, with the intention of never speaking of them, of never thinking of them if I could help it. But man proposes, chance disposes. Even to-night I intended to pluck out only one remembrance, but I have been overpowered.
When I was thirty years of age I was taken into partnership, and five years afterwards my partner died, and I was sole master. Before I was taken into partnership I had been a machine, paid to perform certain duties; but when I was a partner I considered myself responsible for the nature of the business we undertook, and I purified the office, sending all clients away who came with a dishonest intent. This change resulted, strangely enough, to my advantage, and the business increased. I conducted it steadily, without in any respect changing my mode of life. The money I was making was in every way valueless to me. I had no one to whom I cared to leave it, and no pet scheme which I wished to be carried out after my death. I remember thinking that it would be a fine thing to fling the money into the sea before I died.
I come now to the most eventful page in the history of my life. If I could blot out the record, and could stamp it into oblivion, I would gladly do so; but it is out of my power, and I can only look upon it with wonder, and upon myself with contempt for the part I played in it.
It was a cold day in November, and a miserable sleet was falling. I was sitting alone in my private office, looking over some papers, when my clerk announced a Mr. Richard Glaive, who had written that he wished to consult me upon his affairs. He entered--a tall sleek man, well fed, well dressed, about fifty years of age--a man, I judged, who had seen but little of the troubles of the world. But there was trouble in his face on the occasion of my first introduction to him. With the air of one who was suffering from a deep injustice, he explained to me the nature of his inheritance. I learnt that he was, as I had supposed, a man who had never worked, who had never done anything useful, and who had lived all his life upon a moderate income which he had inherited. Wishing to increase his income, for the purpose, as I understood, of being able the better to enjoy life--'surely an innocent and laudable desire,' he said--he had been tempted to take a large number of shares in a company which had been established with a great flourish of promises--had been tempted to become a director for the sake of the fees; 'nothing to do, my dear sir,' he explained to me, and so much a year for it; the very thing to suit a gentleman.' His money hitherto had yielded five per cent, invested in safe securities; the new company promised from twenty to thirty. The temptation was too great to be resisted, and, blinded by his cupidity, he had walked into the pit. As was to be expected, the company was a bubble, the crash came, and the gulls were swooped upon by the creditors. Lawyers' letters were pouring in upon him, and actions were about to be taken against him. There were other complications, also, in the shape of long-standing debts upon which he had been paying interest, but a full settlement of which was now demanded. There was a manifest sense of injury in his tone as he spoke of these debts--'youthful follies,' he called them; adding immediately, with an easy smile, 'youth must have its fling;' conveying the idea that he did not consider himself responsible for them, for the reason that they had been so long standing. Altogether the case was a common one enough, and when he had concluded the catalogue of his embarrassments, I said that the first thing to be done was to prepare a statement of his affairs from his papers, so that he might really see how he stood with the world. He thanked me effusively, as though I had suggested something which would not have occurred to an ordinary mind, and said that he had been advised to consult me, as I should most certainly be able to steer him safely through his difficulties. I replied that I would do the best I could, and on the following day he brought to the office a mass of papers, letters, and accounts. He had received other threatening letters since our first interview, and he was in a fever of perplexity. 'I depend entirely upon you, my dear sir,' he said. I suggested that I should write to his creditors to the effect that he had placed his affairs in my hands, and that in a short time he would be able to make a proposal to them, asking them to be patient in the mean while. He assented, saying, in words which sounded queerly in my ears, that all he wanted was to be relieved of his liabilities, and to be allowed to go on enjoying life in his old way; and before he left he asked me not to intrust the business to the hands of my clerks, but to undertake it personally myself. I promised that I would do so, and in a week I had the statement prepared--a statement which showed his affairs to be in the worst possible condition. He was insolvent to the extent of not being able to pay one quarter of what he owed. I was surprised at this result, for I had expected something very different from his manner and statements. On the morning of the day on which it had been arranged that Mr. Glaive should call, I received a note from him, saying that he was very unwell, and that he would regard it as a favour if I would come to his house and explain matters to him. In the ordinary course of business I should have sent a clerk with the statement; but I could not do so in this instance, as it was necessary I should tell him what course he had best pursue. At seven o'clock in the evening I was at his house, a pretty little villa in the suburbs embedded in a garden. I was shown at once into what Mr. Glaive called his study, where he sat expecting me. He glanced carelessly down the columns of figures in the statement.
'I don't understand figures,' he said; 'will you please explain them to me?'
I commenced an explanation of the statement, line by line, when he interrupted me, saying,
'Pray forgive me, but I can't keep these details in my head. Tell me the result.'
I told him in one word--ruin. Hitherto his manner had been so indifferent that one might have supposed we were speaking of business which did not concern him, but on mention of the word 'ruin,' a deathly paleness came into his face. Before he had time to speak the door opened, and a young man entered the room with the air of one who was privileged in the house.
'Uncle,' he said, 'Fanny told me--'
'Don't you see that I'm engaged, Ralph?' cried Mr. Glaive. 'I can't be disturbed. Go and wish Fanny good-night.'
The young man muttered a word or two of laughing apology, and retired. I saw him no more on that night, but, in the brief glance I cast at him, I saw that he was singularly handsome.
'Now tell me,' said Mr. Glaive, breathing quickly, 'what is your meaning?'
'My meaning is clear enough,' I answered. 'If these claims against you are pressed--and they will be--your entire property will not be sufficient to pay one-fourth of them.'
'But why should the claims be pressed?' he asked, with a helpless look.
I almost laughed in his face.
'You owe the money,' I said; 'that should be a sufficient explanation.'
'Do you mean to tell me,' he asked, 'that they would turn me out of house and home?' And he looked around his comfortably-furnished room.
'It is more than probable,' I replied. 'I know the lawyers with whom you have to deal. This house is your own freehold, and its value is included in the statement.'
He clasped his hands despairingly; I was silent, despising his weakness.
'Can't you advise me?' he cried. 'If ruin came to you, what would you do?'
'Bear it,' I replied. I was growing weary of him.
'Have you any children?' he asked.
'No,' I replied.
'Nor wife perhaps?' he continued.
'Nor wife, nor child, nor friend,' I said, rising.
'What are you going to do?' he cried. 'For God's sake, don't leave me! You have undertaken the conduct of my affairs, and you will surely not desert me when your services are most needed?'
The observation was a just one, and I resumed my seat. I should not have attempted to leave so abruptly had it not been that his manner of addressing me had irritated me. He had spoken to me as though our positions were not equal, almost as though I were a dependent, and it was because of this that I had answered him roughly. His manner was now changed; it became almost servile. He implored me to suggest a plan by which he could be released from his liabilities, and he revealed sufficient of his true nature to convince me that he would have shrunk from no meanness to accomplish his desire. Perhaps, however, I do him injustice; perhaps I should rather say that he convinced me he had no sense of moral responsibility in the matter. I resolved to come to the point at once, and I told him that I saw absolutely no way but one in which he could free himself from his liabilities, and that even that way, supposing his creditors were hard, would be difficult and harassing. It was by offering to give up the whole of his property on the condition of obtaining a clear release.
'But then I shall be beggared,' he exclaimed, pressing his hand to his heart. 'It is cruel--merciless!'
'It is just,' I said sternly. 'Your creditors have more right to complain than you. 'There is another plan, certainly, by which you might be enabled to keep possession of your house.'
He asked me eagerly what it was, and I said that if he had a friend who would come forward and advance the necessary sum, his creditors would almost certainly accept it; but he informed me that he had no such friend, and that he and his daughter were alone in the world. Upon mention of his daughter, as if he had conjured her up, she entered the room. I do not know how to describe the effect of her appearance upon me. It was like the breaking of the sun upon one who had lived in the dark all his life. Mr. Glaive, clutching my arm, drew me close to him, and whispered to me that that was the reason he could not contemplate the ruin before him with a calm mind.