WIDENER
HN POLIP



EMIAE
ACADEN
ARDIANA
BOLSOS
ECC)
TALIN
BS-581
WA11
N NOV
V AN
Harvard College Library
Bought with
Money received from
Library Fines.
3 May, 1901
1901


-





-
-
-
-
- --
-





THE ROGUE'S MARCH





THE ROGUE'S MARCH
A ROMANCE
BY
E. W. HORNUNG
AUTHOR OF "IRRALIE'S BUSHRANGER," "A BRIDE FROM
THE BUSH," ETC.
"As for the chain-gangs, you oft-times hear them jingling half-a-mile
away, and 'tis nigh all the music we get, a kind of Rogue's MARCH, to
remind us where we are, and why we came."
Extract from Convict's Letter.
NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
1896


2/4 86.47,8
!
¿
.
.
COPYRIGHT, 1896, BY
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
Norwood Press
J. S. Cushing & Co. - Berwick & Smith
Norwood Mass. U.S.A.


RICHARD DOWLING





PREFACE
A FEW friends, who were kind enough to follow
“ The Rogue's March ” from week to week in its
serial course, would have me add foot-notes on the
ground that this story, though by no means founded
upon facts, is nevertheless largely built up of them.
I have, however, my own prejudice against foot-notes
to fiction — and I understand that Notes at the end
are never read. I may therefore state at the outset
that the Newgate scenes are as near the truth as
I have been able to make them, with the aid of
sundry Parliamentary papers, supplemented by the
very kindly assistance of (I believe) the first living
authority on the subject. And a certain “ broad-
sheet” is still in existence as described and quoted,
with its vile verses, and its illiterate but circumstan-
tial account of the execution of a man who was not
executed.
As to the Transportation details, they have been
gleaned partly from the Blue-book published in
1837, partly from the New South Wales Calendar
vii


viii
PREFACE
and the Sydney newspapers of those days, and partly
from an admirable work by Mr. Charles White, of
Bathurst, N.S.W. To this gentleman's “ Convict
Life” (which should be published in the old country
too) I owe the experiences of the First Fleeter, with
other items which I think must bear the stamp of
flagrant fact.
E. W. H.
AUGUST, 1896.


CONTENTS
PART 1. — THE OLD COUNTRY
CHAPTER I
PAGE
“SUDDEN DEATH”
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
1
·
9
CHAPTER II
The Other LIVES · · · ·
CHAPTER III
The New Lover . . .
.
.
.
.
CHAPTER IV
. . . .
THE OLD Love .
.
.
.
.
CHAPTER V
A BLOODLESS Victory
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
34
CHAPTER VI
A KIND WORLD
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
42
CHAPTER VII
A Guilty INNOCENT
.
.
ix
.
.
.
.
.
50


CONTENTS
CHAPTER VIII
HUE AND CRY .
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
56
CHAPTER IX.
A Good SAMARITAN .
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
63
CHAPTER X
AT AVENUE LODGE .
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
73
CHAPTER XI
COALS OF FIRE .
.
.
.
.
.
.
82
CHAPTER XII
WHEEL WITHIN WHEEL .
.
.
.
.
.
.
90
CHAPTER XIII
A FORLORN HOPE
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
97
CHAPTER XIV
Old Newgate .
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
CHAPTER XV
INTERIM
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
117
CHAPTER XVI
The Trial OPENS . . . . .
.
.
. 131


CONTENTS
CHAPTER XVII
PAGE
END OF THE TRIAL .
.
.
.
.
.
.
. 143
CHAPTER XVIII
THE RECORDER'S REPORT . . .
.
.
.
155
CHAPTER XIX
THE ROYAL Mercy . . . .
.
.
.
. 160
CHAPTER XX
SEALED LIPS
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
: 171
PART II. - THE LAND OF BONDAGE
CHAPTER XXI
AN ASSIGNED SERVANT .
.
.
.
.
.
.
184
WE
CHAPTER XXII
. . . . .
CASTLE SULLIVAN
.
.
. 201
CHAPTER XXIII
THE LAST STRAW
.
.
.
.
.
. 215
CHAPTER XXIV
THE COURT-HOUSE .
.
.
.
.
.
.
. 224


CONTENTS
CHAPTER XXV
PAGE
The LOCK-UP .
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
. 236
CHAPTER XXVI
Tue LITTLE Grey Man . . . .
.
.
. 247
CHAPTER XXVII
ADVENTURES OF A SUBSTITUTE
.
.
.
.
. 263
CHAPTER XXVIII
THE OUTER DARKNESS.
.
.
.
.
.
. 277
CHAPTER XXIX
LIGHT AT LAST.
.
.
.
.
.
.
. 292
PART III. – MASTER AND MAN
CHAPTER XXX
“ THE NOBLE UNKNOWN”
.
.
.
.
.
. 307
CHAPTER XXXI
THE COURSE OF THE “ROSAMUND"
.
.
.
. 317
CHAPTER XXXII
A MARRIAGE Market . . . .
.
.
. 326


CONTENTS
xiii
CHAPTER XXXIII
PAGE
THE SHIP Comes In.
.
.
.
.
. 335
CHAPTER XXXIV
THE BRIDE-ELECT . . . . .
.
.
. 342
CHAPTER XXXV
A MEDDLER
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
. 348
CHAPTER XXXVI
SIDE-LIGHTS
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
. 354
CHAPTER XXXVII
Farm Cove
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
. 361
CHAPTER XXXVIII
Two Farewells
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
. 366
CHAPTER XXXIX
THE MAN IN THE MASK . . . .
.
.
. 373
CHAPTER XL
MADNESS AND CRIME
.
.
.
.
.
.
. 385
CHAPTER XLI
“ For London Direct”. .
.
. 396





THE ROGUE'S MARCH
PART I
THE OLD COUNTRY
CHAPTER I
“SUDDEN DEATH”
In the year 1837, and on a warm, moist April morning,
there knocked at a modest lodging-house in Rolls Build-
ings, Fetter Lane, a recent lodger who could no longer
afford even the attic's trifling rent. So now he made his
bed in the parks of the metropolis, or in the damp green
fields outside. And for all he professed to care, the
damp was welcome to kill him, if only it would kill out-
right.
The man was very fair and spare, but of a medium
height. His hands and feet were notably small, the
wrists and arms a little deceptive. These looked lean,
but were made of muscle, and quickened with hot, keen
blood.
He was very young; but though, as a fact, not five-and-
twenty, the thin, sardonic, reckless face looked half as
old again. An abiding bitterness had curled the full
nostrils, deepening the lines thence to the sensitive red
lips, and drawing the latter too habitually apart upon


THE ROGUE'S MARCH
set teeth or a sneer. Nor was the bitterness of the kind
sown in proud hearts by capricious circumstance and
crushing but not dishonourable defeat. It was rather
the Dead Sea fruit of wilful riot and a contemptible, im-
penitent remorse. And yet in the full brown eye and
lifted chin, as in the ill-clad, well-carried figure, there
was a lingering something that was gallant and fine and
debonair; as if the makings of angel or of devil still
lurked beneath that crumpled kerseymere waistcoat and
those faded blue swallow-tails.
To this lost youth the door in Rolls Buildings was
opened by a grey-haired woman who nodded knowingly
in response to an inquiry for letters, and handed one
over with an invitation to enter and read it within. But
the kindly words fell on inattentive ears. Looking
fondly and yet fearfully at the superscription — to
Thomas Erichsen, Esquire, and the rest — the needy
owner of that name suddenly pocketed his letter with
unbroken seals. He was turning as abruptly away
when the blank face of his former landlady led him
to pause a moment.
“No; bless you, no! it's not from him,” said Erich-
sen, grimly. “This is from a friend I met yesterday,
who would insist on having my address. What was I to
do? I thought you wouldn't mind, so I gave my last.”
“Mind! It is your address, and might be your 'ome
if you wasn't that 'igh and 'aughty. Dear, dear, dear!
so you've not heard from that villain yet?”
“Not a line."
“Nor of him?"
“Not a word. Give me time. If I don't root him out
by this day month — well, then he's fled the country —
like a sensible man."


"SUDDEN DEATH”
“But what if you do ?” demanded the landlady, who
was herself directly interested in the event.
“What if I do, Mrs. Adcock? Well, I shall probably
half murder him, to begin with ; he has wholly ruined
me. Yes, it will be my money -- and your money — or
his life! He knows it, too, if he's got my letters. Feel
the weight of that !”
And he put in her hands a heavy ash stick, green and
sinewy, with the knob still creamy from the knife.
“ Lord save us !” cried the woman. “Is this the rod
in pickle for him ?”
“ That's the rod in pickle. Nice and heavy, isn't it?"
“ Too 'eavy, Mr. Erichsen! Too 'eavy by 'alf. I'd
show no mercy to thieves and swindlers, but I should be
very careful what I did with that. I wouldn't take the
law into my own hands, if I were you!”
“ You wouldn't?” cried he. “Not if you'd been
cleaned out as I have, by as blackguardly a dodge ? By
the Lord that made him, I'd break every bone in his in-
fernal body; and will, too, if I find him and he won't pay
up. I'll pay him! I grant you it was my own cursed
fault in the beginning; but what about that last thirty
pounds ? Who got that? Why am I rotting and starv-
ing here? Who threw me on the mercy of kind good
folks like you — yes, and made a sponge of me in my
turn? Whose doing is it that I've got to pawn the
clothes off my back, or beg my meals; to tramp the
streets all day, to lie all night in the fields —"
“ Your own!” exclaimed the woman, coming hastily
down from the step upon which she had been standing
all this time. “It's your own fault, is that, however!
You know well it isn't mine. Our attic has been empty
ever since you went; you're welcome to it until it's


THE ROGUE'S MARCH
wanted again, if only you'll come back. Nay, sir, I do
assure you I'd rather have you for nothing than most of
them that pays. Come back to-night, or I'm sure I
sha'n't sleep a wink for thinking of you; come in now,
and I'll get you some nice 'ot breakfast. You look as if
you hadn't ’ad any yet, I'm sure you do. So in you
come!”
Erichsen held out his hand.
“No, no,” said he. “I owe you quite enough already,
Mrs. Adcock; besides, I'm as strong as a horse, and do-
ing much better than you think. But the world is full
of kindness, after all ! and God bless you for yours!”
And his dark eyes, that but now had flashed and burnt
with bitter fires — that were the more striking always
for a shock of almost flaxen hair — stood full of tears.
He could say no more, but only wring the dry, chapped
hand in his. Then he was gone; and might have been
seen, a little later, hurrying with bent head towards
Temple Bar; or, later yet, spread at full length in that
green asylum of his homeless days, the southwest corner
of St. James's Park.
And here he read the letter from his friend. It began
on one side of the large white paper, and ended on the
next. The girlish handwriting was pitifully tremulous,
but yet instinct with a self-reliance then uncommon in
young English ladies. The letter ran :-
" AVENUE LODGE,
“REGENT's Park.
" April 26th.
" DARLING, — What does it mean? I was picturing you in
Calcutta when I saw you this afternoon in Piccadilly! I had been
thinking about you just then - I always am -- and there you were !
Oh, my darling, what can it mean? Tell me quickly, or I shall go


“ SUDDEN DEATH”
mad with anxiety, as I nearly did on the spot this afternoon.
Come here, as you love me, and tell me all !
“Darling, what can it be that has kept you here, and so silent
all this time; or did you go out and come straight back ? No,
there has not been time. The Jumna sailed on the last day of
September, and I have prayed for her safety all these months. I
was so sure my love was on board !
"Oh, if only I dare have stopped to speak to you a few more
seconds. The groom was so close behind. But, Tom, you seemed
not to want to give me your address ? I would not have left you
without it; and now I shall come to you there unless you come to
me. You looked so sad and ill, my sweetheart! I can see his
poor face still !
"Come and tell me all, and let me help you, or my heart will
break. You are in trouble. I know it, and must help you - it is
my right. We are in the new Avenue Road; you will easily find
it. The house is far the largest on the right-hand side as you
come from town. There are fields behind, and our garden goes
the farthest back; that is, we have a field of our own walled in
with it, and there is a green gate in the wall. It is kept locked,
but I will be there at nine o'clock to-morrow (Thursday) night;
and so must you. Be there for my sake, and tell me all
"I have written the moment I got in. I will post it myself.
Dear Tom, do not be hard on this girl if you think her over-bold;
for she loves you ! she loves you ! and would give her life to make
yours happy.
"Your own true
" CLAIRE.
“ Twenty-eight mortal hours to wait. I shall hear my heart
beating – as I hear it now — as I have heard it ever since I saw
that sad, sad face- until I see it again !"
When Thomas Erichsen came to the end of this pas-
sionate, pure love-letter, he buried his face in the sweet
spring grass, and lay immovable with a grief too great
for tears. The sounds of London (louder then than now)
boomed and rattled in his ears; the racket of unmuffled


THE ROGUE'S MARCH
wheels upon street beyond street of cobbles; a coach-
man's horn in Whitehall; a roll of drums from the bar-
racks across Birdcage Walk ; elsewhere a hurdy-gurdy;
near at hand an altercation between two other hiveless
drones; and in the middle-distance an errand-boy whist-
ling “ All Round My Hat.” Such were the sounds heard
that April morning by Tom Erichsen's outward ears; to
those of his soul, a brave soft voice was whispering the
last God-speed, while his own, the more broken of the
two, was vowing not only eternal constancy, but eternal
goodness and an honest life for her sake.
He could see the steady grey eyes filled with tears that
never fell, and shining into his with the love that knew
no shame; he must never look in them again, nor ever
more defile with his the brave lips that had trembled,
truly, but yet spoken comfortable words up to the end.
And here he lay, in culpable poverty and dishonourable
rags; fallen already to an ultimate deep. So now, too
late, as through the gates of hell, must come this message
of angelic love!
He read it again, tore off the clean half-sheet, and, sit-
ting cross-legged, wrote as follows in pencil upon his
knee:-
" It means that I a... a blackguard, and no longer worthy to be
even your friend.
“ The Jumna was ten days behind her advertised time of sail-
ing, and I was miserable. You might have pitied me then ; I
neither ask nor deserve any pity now. I had vile thoughts. Even
if I made my fortune your father would hate my father's son for
ever — and I him-so it could never be. You would marry in due
course. How could you help yourself? Those were my thoughts.
And then I made a friend !
“He showed me the town. He helped me to forget. He won
inost of my money, and took the rest by fraud. I never even


“ SUDDEN DEATH”
booked my passage. And now I only live to spill the fellow's
blood.
"But that's all he did. He didn't disgrace me. I disgraced
myself, and broke all my promises to the noble girl of whom I never
was worthy; and must therefore see her no more. It would be no
good. Why should I insult you too? I have done so enough in
coming to this. Simply forget me, for I am not worth your scorn.
Forget me utterly. I am too ashamed to sign my name."
This he folded up, addressed with his pencil, and sealed
(in a fashion) with the wafers which had been used al-
ready: her lips had touched them before his! Then he
sat where he was, and noted the other moral corpses
stretched upon that daily battle-field, and wondered if
any of them had wrecked their lives as wilfully as he his.
And then he thought of his father's white hairs, and
thanked God they had won to the grave without this to
bring them there.
Then he lay down again, and wrestled with hunger and
anguish alternately and both together. It was evening
when he left the park, heavy-laden with a fact remem-
bered on the way. He lacked the price of a two-penny
stamp! Not a farthing had he left, nor a thing to pawn,
save his long silk purse so ignobly emptied, and that had
been his father's before him. It should not go, even for
this; yet the letter must; then how
He sat down again on a bench; for he was weak for
want of food; and in his weakness came a temptation,
that was indeed more like an inspiration, so luminous was
its flash. He might take his letter and leave it himself
in the key-hole of the garden-gate. Why not? Then
she would get it at once — that evening.
Why not? He had already given the reasons in the
letter itself. And see her he would — he must - if once


THE ROGUE'S MARCH
he got as far as that garden-gate. So the reasons in the
letter held very good indeed; and how weak to be him-
self the first to fly in their face! But then weakness was
his present portion, whereas the temptation grew stronger
and stronger: only to see her face once more; only to
hear her voice, although it lashed him with the reproaches
he so richly deserved! Yet he did not give in without a
kind of struggle. He had become a gambler, and a gam-
bler's compromise occurred to him now.
This was when the yellow London sun was setting, a
little after seven o'clock; about twenty minutes past,
several of the better-favoured pedestrians in Pall Mall
were accosted by a timid ragamuffin with a ghastly face,
who begged the loan of a penny, and was rightly treated
to deaf ears. But at length a dapper young man, in a
long bottle-green coat, wheeled round with an oath and
a twinkling eye.
“Lend you one !” cried he. “I like that! What d'ye
mean by it, eh?”
“What I say. I ask the loan of the smallest coin
you've got — and your pardon for the liberty.”
“Pray when shall I see it again ?"
“ In half a minute.”
“Half a what? Well, you're a rum 'un, you are;
here's your brown.”
“Thank you,” said Erichsen, and balanced it on his right
thumbnail. “Now you stand by and see fair play. Heads
I go and tails I don't; sudden death; let it fall clear!”
His beggar's manners (such as these were) had been for-
gotten on the instant. The coin rang upon the paving-
stone with his words.
“ Heads it is !” cried the owner, on his haunches, with
his fine long coat in the dust.


THE OTHER LIVES
“Then I'm unspeakably obliged to you," replied the
fervent beggar, returning the penny. “I wish you good-
night, sir, with a thousand thanks !”
“No, no; hang it all! I'm a sportsman myself; you're
a man of my kidney, and you hadn't even a brown to toss
with! Oblige me by taking this yellow-boy; no, curse
it, I beg your pardon — I might have seen! At least, sir,
you will join me at the tavern, to show there's no ill-feel-
ing? A cut off the joint, I think, and a tankard of
stout; what say you? I feel peckish myself. Come,
come, or you'll offend me!”
But the eyes which his miseries had left dry were dim
again at the kindness of the world; and Tom Erichsen
had not spoken because he could not. “May I live to
repay this !” he muttered now. “It will be my first bite
since yesterday.”
And in another hour it was a new man who was push-
ing forward, with such brisk steps, upon the high road
to Avenue Lodge and his appointed fate.
Moreover, the currents of other lives than his had been
deflected, for good or evil, by the spin of that borrowed
coin.
CHAPTER II
THE OTHER LIVES
THE household at Avenue Lodge consisted at this
period of Nicholas Harding, M. P., J. P. (also of Fish
Street Hill, E. C., and Winwood Hall, Suffolk); his five
daughters; his men-servants and maid-servants, and a
certain stranger within his gates.


10
TAE ROGUE'S MARCH
Nicholas Harding was fifty years of age, and a widower
for the second time. He was a big, blond, jovial, loud,
overbearing man, without a grey hair in his massive,
reddish head, or a sign of sorrow upon his healthy, pink,
domineering face. Yet private bereavement was not the
only misfortune that had fallen to a lot otherwise envia-
ble enough: since the last General Election, a little charge
of flagrant bribery had found its way even to an assize
court, where it had indeed broken down, but not in a
fashion wholly satisfactory to the accused.
An important witness had refused to open his mouth,
as some said because he was well paid by Mr. Harding to
keep it shut and endure the penalty; in any event, the
charge was not permitted to be withdrawn, but the action
merely dismissed, to allow of a new trial of which noth-
ing had been heard up to the present time. But a naked
sword thus dangled over Nicholas Harding's ruddy, hard
head, whose true temper the situation served to prove.
So far from resigning his seat, he returned to the House
with a shrug and a half-smile; and in the whole matter
continued to bear himself with such modest gallantry as
to remove the prejudices of many who had at first sided
with the enemy.
Among his own Suffolk constituents the popular sym-
pathy had been his from the beginning; and in London
itself the feeling gained ground that a judgment which
neither convicted nor exonerated was a judgment to be
repudiated by all fair-minded persons. Ex-Ministers
said or wrote as much to Mr. Harding (who belonged to
the fashionable Opposition) in as many words. Cockaded
coach men were once more directed to drive to his house.
Invitations were received which were worth receiving;
and thus encouraged, Mr. Harding sent out invitations in


THE OTHER LIVES
return. He had deemed it inexpedient to entertain much
of late; and even now it was a very judicious selection
of his friends that was bidden to quite a small dinner-
party on the last Wednesday in April; while his sister,
Lady Starkie, was called up from Bath to play hostess
for the occasion.
“On any other," wrote her brother, “ Claire would do
very well. But the enemy may blaspheme the less if you
are here. I want you to see Claire. She is greatly im-
proved since you were with us last.”
“ It is the enemy that hath done this thing,” replied
Lady Starkie; “those wicked Radicals, how I should
like to transport the whole crew! Of course I will come.
Why isn't Claire married? She must be getting on in
years.”
She was not yet twenty-one. The only child of his
first wife, Claire had never occupied the place of the
younger ones in her father's affections; had been con-
sistently repressed in childhood; but had since contrived
to please that critic by her clever management of an en-
larged establishment. Indeed, the girl had come home
from school very capable and shrewd and self-possessed,
with an admirable drawing-room manner, and even better
qualities of which Mr. Harding would have thought less;
so they were carefully hidden from his view ; for Claire
had also her faults, and was both secretive and politic in
the home circle, as a result of that early repression and
injustice. Given that cause and this effect, and some
clandestine folly may be counted upon in nine cases out
of ten, and Claire's was not the tenth.
It came about at Winwood Hall, the Suffolk shooting-
box where the family had spent the last three autumns.
Nicholas Harding had begun there in characteristic


12
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
fashion by quarrelling with the gentle, white-haired par-
son (who would yet be neither domineered nor overborne
by an interloping Londoner), and by forbidding his
daughters the church, glebe, rectory, or any communica-
tion with its inmates from that day forth. A week or
two later he came full upon Claire and the rector's idle
son comparing notes in the lane; and a pretty scene
ensued. Mr. Harding shook his stick at the lad, who
snatched it from him and snapped it across his knee.
Claire was imprisoned under lock and key for four-and-
twenty hours, and young Erichsen shinned up the water-
spout and sat on her window-sill while the rest were at
dinner. But this and succeeding incidents never came
to the ears of Nicholas Harding. And partly in revenge
for the indignity to which she had been subjected, and
partly by reason of those adventitious traits already
touched upon, the motherless and then all but friendless
Claire disobeyed and intrigued thenceforward without a
qualm.
The callow pair had enough in common: the girl had
suffered from a step-mother, the lad was suffering from
one then. In his old age Mr. Erichsen had married a
managing woman thirty years his junior; and the black-
ness by her embedded in Tom Erichsen's heart had
known no relief till Claire Harding lit up his life.
Claire understood; she sympathised, she soothed, she
softened. And though so stealthily employed, her in-
fluence was all for good. Tom put his soul in her keep-
ing, and made a great effort to run straight at college for
her sake; but was nevertheless rusticated in the spring;
and was absent, penitently reading, all the autumn follow-
ing, when they never met. A year later the rector was in
his own churchyard, and Tom a broken-hearted lodger


THE OTHER LIVES
13
in the village. Mrs. Erichsen had gone her way; and
Tom was going his, to India, where through her unlooked-
for interest a berth had been obtained for him in a Cal-
cutta counting-house. A hundred guineas for outfit and
passage-money was his only picking from the good old
man's estate; and it was a loan.
Tom said his long good-bye to Winwood just three
days after the Hardings arrived. But in those three days
Claire and he made many noble vows, and parted in a
storm of tears. And there ended the first chapter of
their secret history.
The single page known to Nicholas Harding was a
thing of the past in his mind. He never thought of it
now, and for the best of reasons. He firmly believed
that Claire intended to marry an entirely different person,
of whom he himself most cordially approved; and it
made him for the first time as cordially approve of
Claire.
And Claire on a sudden divined it all, and saw (also
for the first time) the false position in which she had
placed herself; and yet never regretted it, but rather
gloried in having the least little thing to suffer for Tom's
sake.
Now, the other man in her mind, and in Nicholas Hard-
ing's too, was the Stranger within their Gates.
James Edward William, Sir Emilius Daintree's son,
and heir to the baronetcy and entailed estates, was a
melancholy, brooding bachelor little worse than thirty
years of age. Unlike Mr. Harding, however, he looked
much older, with his swarthy, saturnine countenance,
and the white threads in the coal-black whiskers that
curled beneath his deep-set chin. His lines had fallen


1+
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
in very different places from those of Mr. Harding; he
had spent most of his restless life abroad. His soul had
been burdened with a very different temperament; he
had that of a poet; and his manhood had been poisoned
at the fount by one of those wretched family quarrels
which redound to nobody's credit, and of which the out-
side world never get the rights. It was only known that
Sir Emilius and his son had not been on speaking terms
for years.
Such sympathy as is felt in these matters was entirely
on the side of the son. The present baronet was not
a popular man. His character was eccentric, and his
morals so notorious that in many quarters the quarrel
was from the first considered creditable to young Dain-
tree. When, however, after an absence of eight years,
the latter came home on leave from New South Wales,
where he was a magistrate and a man of some importance
and more promise in the young colony; and when the
old savage, his father, not only still refused a reconcilia-
tion, but publicly cut his son on every possible occasion,
then — well, the indignation might have been greater
had James Daintree been himself a more popular man.
But the truth was, he had come home a morbid, sensitive
misanthropist; and this treatment made him ten times
worse. He was seldom seen by his old friends anywhere;
but he happened to make a stanch new one in the person
of Nicholas Harding, whose house, indeed, became the
wanderer's home.
Claire's attitude will be readily apprehended. Dain-
tree opened his bruised heart to her, and she considered
his father the most abominable old man alive. It was
at Avenue Lodge that a parcel of faded flowers arrived
for Daintree, and drove him almost crazy with rage and


THE OTHER LIVES
15
grief. He had placed them a day or two before upon
his mother's grave. He burst into a storm of oaths and
tears before the girl, who thought the worse of him for
neither. Lady Daintree had died the year before; in
fact it was her death that had brought the outcast home,
for the reconciliation for which he pleaded in vain.
He had the sympathy of all who knew him; that of
Claire was spontaneous and heartfelt and frank; but it
never blinded her to Daintree's faults, which were those
of a warped, egotistical, but yet an ardent nature. She
cured him of one or two. But he was a man with a
weight upon his soul, and she could not cure him of that.
She was not told enough. After all, too, her head and
her heart were full of another. And thus she was slower
to detect the new lover in the new friend than would ér
could have been the case in normal circunstances.
Indeed it might never have dawned upon her until he
spoke, but for the calling in of Lady Starkie to lend her
distinguished countenance to the first dinner-party given
by Nicholas Harding after his late ordeal. Lady Starkie
was a lieutenant-general's widow, and at all events a
shrewd woman of the world.
“ My dear,” said she, after luncheon, “ that young man
never took his eyes off you once, and you never once
looked him in the face. You are in love at last!-you
both are !”
“ Aunt Emily !” cried Claire, aghast but scarlet.
“ Hoity-toity!” exclaimed the old lady; “nothing es-
capes me. My dear, you will do very well; a very inter-
esting face and an admirable family, malgré that atrocious
Sir Emilius, who won't live for ever. No, no, he can't
keep that pace up much longer at his age; and then every
mortal thing will be this young man's and yours !”


16
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
“ But — aunt! indeed you are mistaken. 1-I don't
love him one atom! Such a thing has never entered my
head.”
“ Then may I ask what kept you awake all night ? "
was the bland inquiry. “My dear, you have a tell-tale
face! I remarked it instantly: you cannot have slept
a wink till morning!”
It was true; she had not; but then she had seen Tom
Erichsen near Hyde Park Corner when she pictured him
in Calcutta. And that was not all. She had pressed
him for his address, and then written him a letter which
had made her feel hot or cold ever since. The glow was
from conscious pride in her own full, free, selfless love;
the shiver from a new-born doubt of his, begotten by
haunting memories of his face. And the more Claire
thought of it the less could she fathom his still being in
London, and so shabby. And she had thought of it all
night long.
“I had things on my mind," she now confessed; “but
Mr. Daintree wasn't one of them.”.
“Then it's somebody else," reflected Lady Starkie,
with half-shut eyes upon the girl's dry lips and burning
cheeks. “Who is this Captain Blaydes I hear so much
about ?" she asked aloud.
“Another friend of papa's.”
“ Another new friend?”
“ Newer than Mr. Daintree. He comes to see papa
on business. But I have had him a good deal on my
hands; too much, for my taste."
“ You don't like him, then ?"
“ Hate him!” said the girl, with sudden vehemence,
her mind for once detaching itself from Tom. “There,
it's out: I never said it to any body else, but it's what I


THE OTHER LIVES
feel. Last week when Mr. Daintree wasn't with us,
Captain Blaydes was, and had his room. Aunt Emily,
I want you to know about him ; he was a horrid guest –
insolent to the servants — forward with me — and more
presuming with papa than any man I have ever seen.
Yet papa vowed he was the best of fellows — and looked
miserable all the week! And I was told to be civil to
him or to leave the house myself. I want to know
what it all means: no good, I'll be bound. What should
you say, Aunt Emily? We have had trouble enough
lately; heaven knows, we want no more. And yet I had
the strongest instinct about this man — that he was here
for no good!”
“He is not coming to-night, I hope ?”
“ Yes, he is; but luckily not until after dinner. He
could not get here in time. The Bury St. Edmunds
coach - "
“He is coming from there!” cried Lady Starkie.
“Then, my dear, you may be sure he has had some hand
in that wretched election business! It is not over yet,
Claire; you must endure such people until it is. But
why have him to-night?”
“ You may well ask! Papa expects him.”
“Well, it is a pity. Indeed, in my opinion, this
dinner-party is, a little premature — considering every-
thing. However, let us only make it a success!”


THE ROGUE'S MARCH
CHAPTER III
THE NEW LOVER
A success it proved to be — the dinner-party — but it
was neither Claire nor yet Lady Starkie who made it
one. It was Nicholas Harding himself. His laugh was
louder and more infectious than ever, his face an even
healthier pink, and his little jokes were both felicitous
and incessant, even when he was busy carving the
haunch. He cracked several at the expense of Ministers,
and two or three at his own.
“I only hope one thing,” said he, pausing in those ob-
solete labours. “I only hope they send me to Botany
Bay! My friend Daintree has promised to give me an-
other chance there as chief butler in his establishment.
And so I may hope — ha! ha! — to carve my way back
to decent society - ha! ha! ha!”
The spirit of such jests made up for the letter. The
party had been so carefully chosen that nothing of-
fended or fell flat, and the general good-humour never
flagged. Even Claire had light-hearted moments during
dinner. Daintree had taken her in, and he talked to her
so much about his lovely, lonely home on Port Jackson's
shores (once the subject was started) that he quite forgot
to carve the fowls which had been placed in front of him,
and a reprimand from the head of the table set every-
body laughing. Daintree joined in with what grace he
might; he was too self-conscious to enter into the spirit
of such chaff, and very soon he was once more edifying
Claire by talking entirely about himself in his deep, con-
fidential, serious voice. The girl struck him as less sym-
.


THE NEW LOVER
19
pathetic than he had ever known her. Of course, her
wits were all at nine o'clock and the meadow gate. But
Daintree put his own construction upon her altered man-
ner, and tore his nails beneath the table-cloth, and made
up his sombre mind to a bold, immediate course.
So when Claire had left a drawing-roomful of ladies
under her aunt's providential wing, and had set a first
trembling foot upon the lawn behind the house, a
long swift stride overtook her, and there was Daintree
at her side — with the night's wine-bibbing but just
begun.
“ Mr. Daintree !” she exclaimed aghast.
“ Yes! I also have escaped,” he said. “I made my
excuses. The room was hot, but your father understood.
I wanted to talk to you."
“ To me? Why, you have been talking to me for the
last two hours !”
And, emboldened by very nervousness, she looked up
at him with a shake of her ringlets unwittingly coquet-
tish; and he down on her with all the devouring desire
of his gloomy, passionate soul. Upon the lawn there was
no light save that from a dozen of brilliant windows;
and Claire's face was to it, and Daintree's back. Yet it
might have been the other way about, for her emotion he
never saw, while his was but too apparent to her keener
woman's eye.
“ You came out for a breath of air,” said he. “Let me
come with you.”
“I was going to the arbour,” she replied. “I left a
book there this afternoon.”
It was true enough; but the arbour was on the way to
the paddock gate; she had left her book there for a cun-
ning excuse against some such need as this. And now


THE ROGUE'S MARCH
he was coming with her; she could not prevent it; and
Tom already at the gate!
They walked in silence across the smooth damp grass.
It was a summer night come a month too soon, and with
the greater fragrance from the porous earth. The stars
were white and bright, and the air so mild and sweet
that the Southern Cross might have twinkled with the
rest. Daintree stood aside at the arbour steps, then
followed Claire and filled the doorway with his powerful
frame.
“I wanted to speak to you," he repeated pointedly,
as she found her book. “I say your father understood.
I had spoken to him already. Claire – Claire — will
you be my wife?”
The book dropped.
“Mr. Daintree !” she gasped, and took a terrified step
towards the obstructed doorway.
“I beg your pardon,” he said, entering immediately.-
“ There, you are free to run away. Yet I think you will
hear me out. Your attention, at all events, I may claim
without presumption!”
“Oh, yes,” said Claire. “I will listen — I will listen."
She knew that touchy tone of his so well; but it was
dropped now in a moment.
“God bless you for that,” he broke out, hoarsely -
“ even for that! Only listen to me; that is all I ask.
I know I am not a likely sort of man for a young girl
like you. I am years older than you are. I look older
still — I'm a hundred at heart — but you would make a
new man of me. I should be born again. Oh, listen, for
pity's sake, and let me speak my heart! It has been
bursting with love of you so long! Whatever your an-
swer, you must hear me out. Claire, I am not a bad man my


THE NEW LOVER
21
- I really am not; but I have never been myself all
these years. My life has been all bitterness, my very
soul is steeped in it. Everything has been disappoint-
ment, disillusion, disgust, and distrust! You know the
sort of life I have led — a wanderer, an exile like Byron,
an outcast from my own home. It has spoiled me.
I know that well enough. I have never had a chance;
but you would give me one. You would make the
man I might have been before this. I have talent-
perhaps something more — I may say so freely to you. I
spoke of Byron. I am nearer him than any man alive.
There are those who do not put me second. But all my
powers have been wasted, like my life; how that had
been wasted I never knew until I met you. Claire -
my darling! — you have made a new man of me as it is.
I am no longer the bitter fellow I was when first God
brought you into my life. You have changed me; you
have changed all life and all the world. You are the
one thing left in either that is all good, all pure, all
noble; and I want you, I want you, I want you with all
my heart and soul and being! Come to me, and by your
help I may still leave the world the better and the richer
for my presence; leave me lonely, and I am lost and
ruined both here and in the world to come!”
He ceased; and Claire heard him shaking all over in
a palsy of passionate desire. His passion frightened her,
and yet won somewhat of her respect without for a
moment blinding her to its glaring egotism. It was none
the less genuine on that account; on the contrary, there
was a convincing honesty in the utter absence of altruis-
tic pretensions; and, for the rest, Claire did feel herself
the possessor of a certain power for good over this man.
But that power could only go out from her with her love.


22
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
And that love belonged already to a spirit as wild as
Daintree's, but lighter, brighter, and if not incomparably
braver and manlier, then changed indeed.
She rose and laid a hand upon the trembling arm,
and very gently said: “You have paid me the great-
est compliment, Mr. Daintree, which they say a man
can pay a woman. You know that I like you. In-
deed there is no one for whom I feel a heartier sym-
pathy. But love you I do not - it is best to be perfectly
frank."
“ You do not !” he only said.
“And I never can."
“Why never ?” he cried irritably. “What do you
mean by saying that? Is my family not good enough
for you? Am I not clever enough ?” In the midst of
his love-making he had lost his temper, but Claire was
at once too proud and too kind to rebuke this ebullition;
and presently he continued in a merely injured tone, “ It
isn't as if I was obliged to go back to New South Wales.
Why should I? It would be a wretched place for you,
and I am sick of it. I thought I could never bear this
cruel old country again; but I could — I can — with
you!” He would not see that he had got his an-
swer. An overweening vanity was among his salient
faults.
“It can never be," repeated Claire, decidedly.
“But why never ? That's what I can't fathom. There
is no one else, is there?”
“There-is.”
In an instant he dropped the hand which he had just
taken, and which she had not the heart to withdraw.
His trembling ceased. She heard him breathing hard
and through his teeth.


THE NEW LOVER
23
"I might have known it !” he said bitterly at length;
and that was all.
“You could not — " she was beginning penitently,
but he cut her short.
“I could !” he cried. “It has been so all my life;
disappointment has been my daily bread. No doubt it
was ordained and is all for the best! Anything else
might turn my brain !”
“I am very sorry," murmured poor Claire. “I am
more sorry than I can ever say.”
“ You may be,” was the quick retort. “You had this
and that to gain."
The girl's blood was up at last; her lips parted and
her eyes flashed; but she could not condescend to his
weapons. “I am going back to the house," was all she
said, as she caught up her rustling skirts. “Excuse me,
Mr. Daintree.”
“No, I shall not excuse you!” he answered, barring
her way. “It is you who must excuse me first. God
forgive me, I never meant to say such things! I hardly
know what I am saying. I am wild and mad for love
of you, Claire. And I shall win you yet - I shall win
you yet — even if I have to wait a lifetime! You were
made for me. I refuse to do without you. He shall
not have you, whoever he is! And you must forgive
me for that, too,” he added, with sudden humility, and
he stood aside. “But it is none the less a fact!” he
hissed as suddenly through his teeth.
They were his last words; she did not heed them,
but gave him her warm soft hand in the kindest manner
imaginable.
“We will forgive each other,” she said gently, “as we
pray to be forgiven ourselves!”


24
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
And so she left him on the arbour steps — a pillar of
vain and gloomy passion — indistinct in the starlight, but
quivering again — all six feet and fifteen stone of him —
with the grievous burden of his stubborn love.
CHAPTER IV
THE OLD LOVE
The garden was the ordinary narrow one, but with top-
heavy additions beyond and behind its neighbour on
either side. And the arbour was (so to speak) in the
bottle's neck: there was no getting to the meadow with-
out passing within a yard or two of its rustic portal.
There was, however, a shallow shrubbery down either
wall of the original garden; and when Daintree had been
alone about a minute, the laurels on his left began a risky
rustle in the still evening air. Luckily, he was already
in too deep a contemplation of his last and angriest wound
to hear aught but the girl's voice and his own still ring-
ing through the arbour. But as for Claire, one moment
she held her breath in horrid certainty that he had heard;
in another she was satisfied that he had not; and had
forgotten his existence the next. Indeed, by the time
she looked upon the neadow, asleep beneath its soft grey
coverlet of dew, the wide world contained but one live
man, and he was at the gate upon the farther side.
Yet was he? Round the meadow ran a gravel path,
upon which she thought her feet pattered loud enough
for all the world to hear. Then she dropped the key in
reaching it from its accustomed crevice and it rang upon


THE OLD LOVE
25
the gravel, and in her nervousness she was an age fum-
bling at the lock. Yet no sound of hers brought a word
of greeting from the other side. He had not come! As
she pulled the gate open she felt certain of it; and then be-
held and heard him, advancing shyly through the sibilant
grass, with some white thing in his hand, and a young
moon just risen over Primrose Hill.
“ Tom !” she cried softly. “You are come! Oh,
thank God! I have kept you — "
The words failed upon her parted lips. He stood
askance before her, shamefaced and never noticing her
tremulous, outstretched hands. His own held out to
her a folded note.
“Read that,” he said hoarsely. “I am only here be-
cause I had not money for the stamp!”
A great chill struck to the girl's loyal heart. It was
the doubt that had kept her awake; now a doubt no
more. Her trembling ceased; she turned her back on
Erichsen, and read by the moonlight the candid words
that he had written in St. James's Park.
He watched her with scarce a breath. His eyes lived
upon her while they might. Her face had been turned
away before he had the courage to raise his; but there
was the white neck tapering to the nut-brown hair, the
little ears half-hidden by ringlets, the thoughtful poise of
the lithe, light body, all just as he had them by heart.
The white arms struck him as a little thin, but then he
had never before seen her in full evening dress. She was
wearing pink crépe over white satin, high Venetian sleeves,
and feathery fringes of pink and white satin rouleau ; it
was one more picture of her, and he thought the sweetest
of all, to hang with the many already in his mind.
Meanwhile she had never turned her head; but now it


26
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
drooped a little; and those snowy shoulders were heav-
ing with suppressed sobs.
In an instant he was at her side; the next, she had
turned to him with shining eyes and yearning arms.
“My own poor boy!” she whispered through her tears.
“Oh, thank heaven you had no money for those stamps!”
“Claire !” he gasped, falling back; “ do not speak to
me like that. I am not worthy — you don't understand.
You should go your way and never think of me again."
“ There is somebody else,” said the girl, calmly.
“ That I love ? No, indeed!”
" You are not married ?"
“God forbid.”
“ Then you have changed your mind. Well, if it makes
you happier, dear, I can bear that too. I love you well
enough — "
“Hush!” he said hoarsely, “it is not that. I love
you, too, my darling - ah! God knows how truly now!
Yet I have come to contemptible grief; I have been
everything that's bad. What value can there be in
such a love ?"
"I don't know — still less care! It is all the love I
want—it's good enough for me!” she whispered; and
with a deep, sweet sigh she hid her face against his
shabby shoulder. He touched the dainty head with his
hand, but not his lips. His eyes were fixed upon the
moon, that was like a golden curl astray in night's tresses;
and his handsome, haggard face was discoloured and de-
formed with this the quintessence of his discreditable
woes.
“Good enough for you — of all women!” he bitterly
repeated. “My love for you! Didn't I tell you I was no
longer worthy of even your friendship? That was the


THE OLD LOVE
truth; every word in my letter is the literal truth. I
have never looked at anybody else — to love them — but
oh! oh! my love for you has been a poor thing. It
didn't prevent me from going to the bad. You loved
me; and yet I came to this!”
He groaned again. She said nothing, but caught his
hand and pressed it. The pressure he returned.
“Oh, Claire,” he cried, “it was madness, I think! I
was mad at leaving you and Old England, perhaps for
ever. And the ship wouldn't sail, Claire, the ship
wouldn't sail! When I went to the office, thinking I
had about three days, they told me she would be three
weeks. I walked out of that office swearing I'd find
some other; but all I found was the road to the bad.
Drink and dice and cards! You asked me to tell you all.
I tell you all I can. I tell it you to set you against me
and make you hate me for ever. That is the kindest
thing. ... Claire, Claire, why don't you strike me ?
Why don't you scorn me and leave me to my fate? Oh,
oh, I could bear it better than this!”
Her warm arms were about him. They clasped him
tight. He could hear her heart and his own beating
close together.
Suddenly she stood apart from him, with small clenched
fists glittering with rings. He held his breath.
“ The man who is at the bottom of all this,” said she:
" who is he? How was it? You speak of him in your
letter: tell me more.”
Tom shrugged his shoulders.
“ What is the use? The thing is done; it's past mend-
ing; and it was my own miserable fault. Most of my
money went in fair play and — riot! He only relieved
me of the residue. Yet I tell you, Claire ”(with sudden


28
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
fury), “ I'd go contentedly to my account if I could only
kick him along in front of me the whole way! Yes, I'd
hang for the hound, and think the satisfaction cheap at
the price!”
“What is his name?” demanded Claire.
“Blaydes!” said Tom; “B-l-a-y-d-e-s. Captain Blaydes,
forsooth, on half-pay! Blaydes of the Guards, who dis-
graced themselves for all time by not-"
He broke off and stood looking at the girl.
“By not what?" whispered Claire, who had glanced
involuntarily through the gate towards the distant lighted
windows, and who was now trembling again, with a new
and dreadful agitation.
“ By not cashiering your friend Captain Blaydes !”
“ He is no friend of mine."
“But I see you know him.”
“Yes — I just know him."
“He is at your house to-night!” cried Erichsen, with
uncontrolled excitement.
“No – he is not. We have had a dinner-party, but
he was not there. I slipped out afterwards – I dare not
stay long." This to explain that incriminating backward
glance.
“ Then give me his address !”
“ Tom — I cannot.”
“You cannot? You who said you would do anything
in your power to help me? And this is all I ask — this
villain's address! Oh, Claire, he is not fit for you to
speak to! Tell me where you met him — what you think
of him — and then I will tell you what I know. Oh, if
I had him here!"
Claire answered with deliberate reservations. Her duty
was clear as the stars. Tom and Blaydes must be kept


THE OLD LOVE
29
apart — that night at all events. Then many things
must be done, but quietly, and with due forethought.
Above all, no fresh fuel must be added to the vindictive
fires now smouldering in her lover's speaking eyes. So
Claire decided to keep to herself her own opinion of Cap-
tain Blaydes.
She had noticed without comment the heavy stick
lying in the grass; she turned faint at the thought of
her fiery Tom encountering the Captain so armed and
so aggrieved. But she insisted on his telling her of his
wrong; at first he refused.
“Very well,” he said at last, “I'll tell you, so that
you may see how I have been cheated; then I think
you won't refuse to help me lay hands upon the cheat.
It's a long story, but I'll cut it as short as I can. He
had rooked me down to the last five-pound note. With
that I had a little luck. I had won back five-and-thirty
before we stopped playing, and Blaydes had lost more
to the others than to me. He paid them in ready money.
He said they were only acquaintances — his confederates !
— while I was his friend. So we went back to our
lodgings, and he wrote me a cheque for thirty-five pounds,
with which I could have gone out to India after all, quite
as comfortably as I deserved. But in the morning he
had bad news, and had to go into the country, and
he begged me not to cash the cheque till the end of the
month; he was hard up himself. And I was loyal to
the blackguard; and I needn't tell you what happened
when time was up. His cheque was a dummy; he had
never had a penny in the bank it was drawn on! So I
wrote to his club again and again, and used to go there
and watch for him, till the porters had me moved on by
the police. The month was last October. I have heard


30
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
and seen nothing of him from that day to this. And to
think he is in London, and you know both him and his
address! You'll give it to me now, Claire, I know!”
She steadfastly refused, and gave her reasons; then
he promised not to seek an interview with Blaydes for
two clear days, and not to harm him then; and on this
understanding she at last confessed that the Captain
had taken rooms for the summer in the village of West
End — a bare mile from where they stood.
But first she wanted him to give her the flash cheque,
and let her fight his battle with Blaydes; and this she
still intended to do— that very night.
They had finished with Blaydes, however, and were
beginning to say good-bye, when Claire started, and
vowed she heard a rustle at the gate. At that instant
there came a breath of wind; the gate shut with a clean
metallic click; she was locked out, for on this side there
was only the key-hole, and the key was within.
“What shall I do?" she cried. “Oh, what shall I do?”
“ Have courage,” he answered, “and a little patience.”
He was over the wall and back at her side within the
minute. She was trembling terribly. All her nerve
seemed gone. She must fly — she must fly — but he
would come again the next eveningi? And again she
was looking up divinely in his eyes, his right hand
clasped in both of hers; and again the burden of past
weakness bowed him down; but this time there was a
counterpoise of hope and high resolve, a vision of atone-
ment and self-respect regained, that gave to his yoice a
clearer, manlier note, and to Claire, in the thin moon-
light, a first and last glimpse of the Tom Erichsen of
Winwood uplands and red autumn afternoons. But it
was now her turn to be refused.


THE OLD LOVE
31
“No, Claire,” he said, “I am coming back no more.
You have put it in my power not only to have my
little own again, but to redeem the past, and I must
set to work at once. If I don't get that thirty-five
pounds now, you may hear of me next in Horsemonger
Lane! If I do, there's an Indiaman — the Jean— sail-
ing on Monday; and I sail in her if there's a steerage
berth still going. At all events my debts here will be
paid and done with; there may even be a few pounds
over to make me decent when I land; and if that firm
won't have me now, some other may. You shall hear
of me from there. There are not going to be two false
starts. And one day, Claire, I am coming back a better
man than I go away; and it will all be thanks to you !
Oh, thank you for your noble letter! It has saved me
on the brink, little as I deserved it. I shall never stoop
or sink - like this — again. That I promise you. But
you should think no more of me! I was never worthy
of you, I never can be that! It is best to forget me,
dear; you must not spoil your life by waiting for a
man — "
Her palm sealed his lips.
“For the only man I want,” she whispered through
her tears. “Darling, I could wait for ever!”.
“I will write and tell you about the thirty-five pounds,"
he continued, regaining control of his voice. “It will
be all your doing, my own brave Claire. No! no! not
my own! never that any more !”
“For ever, darling! For ever, and ever, and ever!”
“No! no! Only be happy yourself, and forgive me
for all I made you suffer. I shall never forgive myself.
Good-bye, beloved. Oh, good-bye, good-bye!”
He strained her to his breast, but left no kiss upon


32
THE BOGUE'S MARCH
those pleading, praring, upturned lips. He was not
worthy to touch then with his. He remembered this
up to the end.
She leaned against the cold wall as he darted from
her. The last thing she saw him do was to pick up
the thick stick she had noticed lying in the grass; and
that sinister final act struck a chill to her heart that
was felt at the time, not afterwards imagined. That he
could think of such a thing in such an hour! And she
locked the gate and hurried down the gravel walks with
eyes suddenly dried and a heart already at war with its
own warmth. But when she came in sight of the arbour,
and had to skulk once more behind the leaves, all in a
moment she sounded the depth of her lore and found it
fathomless; for since the last like maneuvre the thought
of Daintree had never once crossed her mind. Indeed
he was recalled now chiefly by the smell of a particular
cheroot which he smoked incessantly. He was smoking
one at this moment in the arbour, where he had remained
ever since she left him.
The other gentlemen were still at their wine – in
those days they would sit over it till midnight — and
Claire went first to her own room, which she gained
unobserved. Here she changed her slippers for a pre-
cisely similar pair; also her stockings, which were wet
to the ankles. Then she rang for her maid.
A pallid young woman, with black eyes set close to-
gether beneath a stunted brow, knocked promptly at
the door, and entered with a downcast glance which
swept straight to her mistress's feet.
“Has Captain Blaydes arrived ?”
The black eyes gleamed. “I haven't heard, miss;
shall I see ? "


THE OLD LOVE
“Be so good, Hannah."
In a minute Hannah returned.
“No, miss, he has not.”
“ Thank you, Hannah, that will do.”
And Claire returned to the drawing-room after a truant
hour, which, however, Daintree's simultaneous absence
from the dining-table explained satisfactorily enough to
Lady Starkie and Mr. Harding. On her way Claire met
the latter face to face in the hall. He was stark sober;
indeed, his fresh face had lost colour, which was never
the case in his cups.
“ Seen anything of Blaydes ?” he cried out to Claire,
who started at the question, and then at her father's
face.
“Nothing, papa: indeed, I hear he has not come.”
“So do I. That's just it; that's just it!" repeated
Mr. Harding, looking at his watch; and his hand was
as unsteady as his voice was clear.
“I think he cannot be coming at all,” remarked Claire,
innocently; and she never knew why her father turned
so abruptly upon his heel; but his face was still ghastly
when he rejoined his gentlemen, and the bumper of port
which he tossed off left it ghastlier yet.
It was twenty minutes past ten by the ormolu clock
upon the chimney-piece when Claire Harding re-entered
the drawing-room.
It was twenty minutes past ten by Captain Blaydes's
gold repeater when through the window of a hackney-
coach, creeping all too slowly along the Finchley Road,
the Captain recognised a wayfarer who also recognised
him, and thrust his iron-grey head through the opposite
window to curse the coachman and bid him drive faster.


34
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
As he pulled it in again Tom Erichsen scrambled into
the coach upon the other side, an unpleasant smile upon
his set face and his thick stick in his hand. He had
not promised to avoid Blaydes if chance threw them
together, and chance had done so, for Tom was on his
way to make his bed once more in the fields.
“ You infernal ruffian," roared the Captain. “Hi!
coachman, the police !”
“You miserable swindler,” retorted Tom, “if you
don't stop the coach at once and step outside with me
you're a ruined man. I'll go on to the Hardings with
you and expose you — "
“ The Hardings !”
“Yes; you see, I know all your little plans.”
“Little plans!!”
The Captain gasped and stopped the coach.
CHAPTER V
A BLOODLESS VICTORY
The half-pay officer was a thick-set, youngish man,
with a smooth, sly, yellow face, and hair like spun steel.
He walked with a chronic limp and a stout, gold-headed
cane, and was seldom without the genial, flattering smile
that had tempted Toin Erichsen, and other young flies
before him, into a parlour from which no pocket returned
intact.
But since then Tom fancied Blaydes had found a
richer dupe; he looked a much more prosperous scamp.
The coach-lamps struck sparks from a very brilliant pin


A BLOODLESS VICTORY
35
in his high satin stock. The coachman must have been
handsomely paid off, to depart as he did, with benedic-
tions. And the Captain himself had evidently recovered
a temper notoriously serene; for a soft hand fell like a
feather upon Tom's square shoulder; and he heard once
more the soothing accents of the gentlest rascal of his
time.
“Come now, my good fellow," said his normal voice,
( what the deuce is all this? You have treated me very
cavalierly, and I you very obligingly, I think, for the
elder man. What is it you want, Mr. — Mr. — upon my
soul I've forgotten your name!”
“You're a liar, Blaydes," replied Tom, as quietly.
“ You always were one; but it won't do you much good
to-night!”
“You trade upon our different stations,” murmured
the other. “I have shot a man for less than that; but
you are only a boy. Have the goodness to say what you
want.”
“My thirty-five pounds!”
“ Your thirty-five pounds ? Yours? Look here, I be-
gin to remember you. Your name is Eric — Eric some-
thing or other. And I was fool enough to play with
you, Eric. I remember that too. You were going off
to the Cape, or somewhere; you begin to take shape in
my mind; but thirty-five pounds! I recall nothing of
the kind. My impression was that we settled up and
parted friends."
“We did," said Tom. He had allowed the other to
lead him along the turnpike road, back towards the city.
The moon sailed high on their left, and the sky was full
of stars. On either hand the hedgerows were dusted
with pale, bursting buds, like spray; and no figure but


THE DOGTE'S MARCH
ties te txte ite la panne's, or bosted the
e vesi bet
to Yoaisit it?" cred Earies. sing in his walk.
* T.. . on earth come to be?"
599 k n ! You settled th a cheque not
och tie paper it was written on. Your name was
uzk3679 at tie back! It was a cheque for thirty-five
pounds, and I want the reober."
“ Have you got that cheque ?"
* It is in my pocket."
“ I should like to see it."
“No doubt you would!"
“ You distrust me," observed Blades, calmly. “I see
now that you have some reason to do so. At least you
won't mind telling me whether it was drawn on Stuckey's
Bank?"
" It was."
“ Exactly!” cried the Captain. “It's as plain as a
pikestaff now. My dear young fellow, I apologise from
the very bottom of my heart, for it has been my mistake
after all. What do you think I did ? Wrote out my
cheque in Dick Vale's cheque-book — you recollect Dick
Vale? He banks at Stuckey's. That's it, of course;
and no wonder you thought me a thundering rogue !
Now I'll be frank with you, Erichsen. Of course I knew
you well enough; but I wasn't over-anxious to renew
acquaintance with the man who had written threatening
letters to my club. Especially as I couldn't understand
'em! But I do now, and ’pon ny soul I'm sorry; here's
my hand!”
“I prefer your money.”
“What! you dare to doubt my word ? "
“Until I see your money — most certainly."


A BLOODLESS VICTORY
37
“Well, you shall see it to-morrow. I don't carry
thirty-five pounds about in my evening clothes."
“ Then suppose we turn back to your rooms, and you
pay me there and now!”
“And where are my rooms, pray ? ”
“In the village of West End.”
Blaydes swore a puzzled oath, and thumped his cane
upon the ground. “You know a lot !” he snarled.
" What you don't know is when to leave well alone. I
have told you I am sorry about that mistake. I have
told you I can let you have the money tomorrow; yet
you have the insolence to doubt my word! Very well —
have your way; I shall waste no more time upon you.
I am going. You know where to find me when you come
to your senses !”
“ Better still, I know where you're going, and I'm com-
ing too. I don't lose sight of you to-night!”
“ We shall see about that.”
“We shall !”
And they stepped out with no more words, though
Blaydes ground his teeth and gripped his cane and tried
his best to drop a foot or two behind. But Tom's eye
was on him. So he stopped at a stile; whereupon Tom
stopped too; and, as they stood, there passed a labourer
who stared and wished them good-night.
“See here, Erichsen!” exclaimed the Captain. “I
object to discussing private matters on a turnpike road.
Here's a path that's a short cut back into town; suppose
I come a part of the way with you, and talk this thing
over without fear of being heard ? What do you say?"
“As you like; your way is mine."
Blaydes shrugged his broad shoulders, tucked his cane
under one arm, and laboriously crossed the stile. Tom


38
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
then followed him into a sloping field, with a beaten
right-of-way running uphill through the dewy grass.
They climbed this path with the young moon in their
eyes, but not a word upon their lips, and Tom's thick
stick grasped tight by the knob. The ascent brought
them to a second hedge, backed by a row of horse-
chestnuts all hazy with tiny leaves, and to a hollow
beech beside the second stile. Here the Captain dropped
his cane in the grass, and limping pitiably, begged the
other to pick it up. But Tom merely shifted it with his
foot, keeping a strange eye on Blaydes as he did so.
The cane in the grass had no gold knob, and the Cap-
tain's right hand was tucked inside his cloak.
“Very prettily planned,” said Tom, with a sneer; “but
I should like to see the rest of that sword-stick!"
The other laughed.
“ I only drew it in case of need — you are such a vio
lent young blood! Ah! you will have it, will you ?
There, then — and there — and there!”
The yard of thin, tempered steel had been casually
produced, and Tom had instantly struck at it with his stick.
Next moment the point was within an inch of his body,
but Tom retreated nimbly, hitting high up the blade with
all his might. It snapped at the third blow, whizzed in
the air, and came down sticking in the grass. Only the
gold head and three inches of blade were left in the
Captain's tingling hand.
“Chuck it away," said Tom, “and I drop my stick.
That's better; now about that money. You didn't bring
me up here to run me through the body, of course!
What was your object?”.
“ To settle with you — fairly,” said Blaydes, with a
lurch in his low voice. “I am overdue elsewhere, as you


A BLOODLESS VICTORY
39
have found out — the Lord knows how! If I had the
money on me, it should be yours this minute. As I
haven't it, I propose this compromise: wait till to-mor-
row and I'll make it fifty — and give you an IO U on
the spot !”
“ No, no, Blaydes. Once bit — once bit! Very sorry,
but it can't be done."
Blaydes muttered an oath as he took out his watch,
pressed the spring, and it struck ten, and then the three-
quarters, like fairy bells. He did not put the watch away
again, but stood with it in his hands and presently de-
tached the chain from his waistcoat. He had already
turned his face to the moon, and he now glanced over
his shoulder and beckoned to Tom.
“Just have a look at this,” said he. “No, take it in
your hands and examine it properly.”
The watch was a repeater of a type even then old-
fashioned. It was very handsome and heavy and fat,
with a yellow dial and a back like a golden saucer. Tom
turned it over, and the moon shone on the Captain's
monogram.
“ Well, but what have I got to do with this?"
“Pawn it!"
“Pawn your watch ? "
“And send me the ticket, and never pester me again!
It won't be the first time it's been in. I've had forty
pounds for it before to-day, and never less than thirty.
You may get what you can; all I want is the pawn-
ticket, and your undertaking to leave me alone from
this day on!”
“ Leave you alone! I shall get a berth of some sort
aboard an Indiaman that sails on Monday. Do you mean
it, Blaydes? Do you mean what you say?"


40
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
“ Mean it? Of course I mean it; put the watch in
your pocket, and give me a pencil.”
“ And the chain ?”
" And the chain.”
It was made of long gold links and short silver ones,
with a huge bunch of seals at one end. Tom pocketed
the lot without compunction, and then produced his
stump of lead-pencil.
“Here you are."
“Got any paper ?”
“Not a scrap.”
“ Well, well, then we must make this do;” and Blaydes
produced a small sheaf of blue paper tied with pink tape,
leant upon the stile, and, without untying the tape, wrote
for a little on the outside sheet, moistening the pencil
with his tongue.
“Sign that,” said he, and handed the packet to Tom,
who held it to the light and read as follows:-
“ Received from J. Montgomery Blaydes (late Captain
Coldstream Guards), his watch and chain, etc., in settle-
ment of all claims, and in consideration of which I
undertake to return pawn-ticket for same to said J. M.
Blaydes, Ivy Cottage, West End, within three days from
this date. — (Signed), - , April 27th, 1837.”
Tom read this terse deed twice through; looked again
at the watch and chain; weighed them in his hand;
took a third look at the paper, and signed his name in
the blank space without a word.
“Good!” said Blaydes, pocketing the roll. “Now I
think you'll have no objection to giving me back that
worthless cheque? Come, perhaps it wasn't such a pure
accident after all. But I was cursedly hard up at the
time. And I honestly regret it— I do indeed."


A BLOODLESS VICTORY
41
Still without a word, Tom handed him the cheque,
whereupon Blaydes twisted it up, struck a lucifer, and
ignited the paper at one end. And as it burnt he picked
off and powdered the charred bits between finger and
thumb, while the yellow flame made his smooth face
yellower than ever. When the last particle was demol-
ished, he snapped his burnt fingers and turned to Tom.
“You will now, I think, allow me to proceed on my
way alone? If you stick to this right-of-way, it will
take you to Haverstock Hill, which is the straightest
way back to the City from this. Good-bye, Erichsen. I
have been a bad friend to you— I know it. Yet I have
always liked you, and never better than for your grit
and nerve to-night. Get all you can for the old warm-
ing-pan. I needn't remind you to send on the ticket, for
you were always as straight as a die. So was I once,
Erichsen! Even now I'm not as bad as you think me;
and upon my soul, it was only your infernal bludgeon
that made me draw cold steel. Give me your hand,
boy; we may never meet again; but if we do— I'm
thinking of marrying - and you shall find me another
man, so help me God!”
Refusal was impossible. Their hands met across the
stile. And as Tom saw it last, by clean moonlight,
there was a certain wistfulness in the yellow, sapless
face, drained and stained though it was by a hateful life;
a sort of pathos in the glistening white head, from which
the low-crowned hat was lifted, as if the creature's
prayer had been indeed sincere.


THE ROGUE'S MARCH
CHAPTER VI
A KIND WORLD
The other pushed on with a light step and a swimming
brain. The sudden change in his poor little fortunes
seemed too good to be true. Thirty-five pounds is not a
mint of money, but to Erichsen it was something like
one; at least it was his all, for he had no right to another
penny in the world. The sum represented his full cap-
ital, as well as his last chance in life. And he had it
safe in his pocket in the shape of Blaydes's watch and
chain.
And then — and then — Claire loved him still! The
tears started to his eyes; tears of hot shame and bitter
self-reproach. Yet at least he had been punished. He
was thankful for that. Nor could his punishment be
over yet. But what remained he would bear like a man,
ay, and glory in every pang. And he would write and
tell her so, and of his immediate but accidental meeting
with Blaydes; and of the interview which flesh and
blood could not then resist.
He would tell her, too, that Blaydes was not after all
as bad as he had seemed. Yet was he not? Tom
thought of the sword-stick, and was torn between duty
and magnanimity. It was right that the Hardings
should have intimate warning as to the manner of man
who went to their house. On the other hand, even
Blaydes was entitled to fair play. And for some reason,
Tom now chiefly pictured him in his last and best mo-
ment, with the dawn of remorse in his eyes, and the light
of the moon upon that grey, uncovered head.
.


A KIND WORLD
The moon was hidden now. Tom had difficulty in
seeing and following the beaten path; and was unduly
startled by a fellow-waif, who suddenly stood before
him in the darkness.
“Got the time about yer, guv'nor?” said a high,
hoarse voice.
“No, I–I don't possess a watch,” stammered Tom,
taken as much aback by the question as by the ques-
tioner. And he grasped the repeater in one pocket, and
doubled the other fist.
“Ha! I see you don't,” rejoined the other, as the
moon shone forth at that moment. “No 'arm done, I
'ope. We can't all be real swells, can we?”
And Tom was left shuddering from a single moon-
light glimpse of a horrible face horribly disfigured : dis-
ease had razed the nose to the level of the stubbly,
shrunken cheeks; the very eyes were more prominent,
but wolfish, unsteady, and little better to see. His own
required the lotion of long star-gazing when the man
had gone his way. But the sight would have remained
longer in an emptier mind; that of the youth was full of
the final kindness of the world, of the instinct for better
things in even a Blaydes, and the divine possibilities of
human nature as exemplified by the deep, full, true and
tender love of a girl like Claire for a scapegrace like
himself. And so he came back to his own unworthi-
ness, and made as many honest resolutions as there
were stars in the sky, and felt strength and virtue leap-
ing in his warm and humble heart. Yet all this time
was but twenty minutes at most; and he was still in
the fields between the Finchley Road and Haverstock
Hill, though descending now and in sight of the latter
thoroughfare.


THE ROGUE'S MARCH
His plans for the night were as yet unmade. He
thought of his old lodgings off Fetter Lane; but only
for a moment. He could not be there before one o'clock
in the morning; they were early people, and he had
traded enough upon their good-nature. One more night
in the open would not hurt him; and could there be a
better place than in these very fields ? Tom looked
about him and espied a promising thicket not thirty
paces from the path. And here, being tired out, he did
actually lie down, after first kneeling, as he had not
knelt for months, and thanking the Maker of All
Good Things for having made the world so kind, and
his love so true and so forgiving.
But he never quite fell asleep; he was near it when
a sound of slipshod feet, running downhill through the
grass, passed close by the thicket, and left him wide
awake and wondering. It was hopeless after that. And
two o'clock struck upon his ears with the sound of his
own footsteps trudging down Haverstock Hill to no
immediate goal.
Yet still the world was kind. A waggon came creak-
ing at his heels, slowly overhauling him, and unexpect-
edly stopping when it did so. It was green mountains
high with country vegetables, smelling notably in the
clean night air; and with this sweet whiff of home and
the past there came a hearty, elderly voice evidently
hailing Tom.
“Now then, young man! If you want a lift, joomp
oop!” .
Tom was not sure what he wanted; but his feet were
sore, the voice liked him, and up he jumped. And
between darkness and dawn— the quiet foot of the
sleeping hill and the half-awakened but already noisy


A KIND WORLD
45
purlieus of Tottenham Court Road — the lucky, attractive
fellow made another friend.
The waggoner was a red-faced, red-whiskered, freckle-
handed fellow, with a genial, broad, communicative
tongue. Jonathan Butterfield was his name, and he
was a Yorkshireman only recently come south, as he
said with a sigh which left him silent. Whereupon
Tom became communicative in his turn, and remarked
that he too meditated a move — to India.
“There's the good ship Jean advertised to sail on
Monday and I'm on my way to the office to see if they've
a bunk left. If there isn't, I shall go on to the docks
and try my luck on the ship herself. I might work my
passage out; if not, I'll stow away.”
“ You’re that anxious to leave old England!”
“I am anxious to make my way.”
“Ah, well!" sighed the waggoner. “I've got a lad
o' my own as far away as you are going; he writes us
canny letters, but dear knows what we'd give to see him
back!”
Tom said no more; he was wondering who but Claire
would give a thank-you to see him back. But to Claire
he must only return as a successful man of substance;
and had he it in him so to succeed? The practical issue
presented itself with dawn; and Tom's little night of
romance and exaltation was at an end long ere they got
to Bow Street, raucous with wheels and oaths, and
blocked with costermongers’ shallows, among which the
waggon stood wedged till broad daylight.
But there was no end to the good-will of the York-
shireman, who not only insisted on paying for hot coffee
at an early stall, but flatly refused to go about his busi-
ness until Tom promised to accompany him to breakfast


THE ZOGTE'S MARCH
at its cose Tee use as wide vh some
r **/. rta
a test of an
L'I'I CT T9 Barbati a
e ideiers in the
12.a:ket was in a
n-imeo von
tu boce was LET. T ITETTA Le stee: swell
of the early, ty pas, ite riesce aps of
market-*0901.6. buy siz tiesinite stade, the real-
baise p»tt'es of prezatne strawberries, or the thou-
Band flower-pots gay and oivrons wih the flowers of
spring, which occupied Lis attention in the waggoner's
albence. Nor was his interest greater than his personal
satisfaction in the scene; it made a wonierfus happy
enring to an unworthy phase of his existence, a wonder-
fully stimulating prelude to the new life begun with
this day. Indeed, his heart rose steals with the sun,
and was singing with brave resolve when at length the
wazroner returned.
"I doubt I've been a long time," said Butterfield.
" It'll be very near six o'clock.”
“Ten past," said Ton, whipping out the golden nu-
cleus of his future fortunes, which he had even then
been hugging in his pocket.
“Mercy on us!” cried the other.
“ You thought it earlier ?”
“Ay, I did; by gum, though, that's a fine watch you've
And Torn felt a new light beating on his shabby
elutboss, and himself flushing painfully under a scru-
tiny which brogan with round-eyed wonder and ended
in a wrios of approving nods.
"I *** I see," added simple Butterfield, in quite a
reverent voice; “ you'd rather starve than part with
yon, I'm jealous it belonged some one else before you;


A KIND WORLD
47
but there's not many would ha' gone hungry with a
watch like that about them. However, ťwaggon's
ready, an’ we'll take good care you don't go hungry
to-day.”
Tom's only answer was a sudden attempt to back out
of the breakfast, and it failed. He tried again as they
drove past Fetter Lane – he could pay his way in Rolls
Buildings now — but this time the waggoner whipped up
his horse and refused to listen.
“No, no,” said he; “a promise is a promise, and I
warrant they'll be proud to see you."
“ You mean your wife and family?" said Tom.
“Nay,” said Butterfield, “I doubt you'll not see them
there."
“Not at your house?” cried Tom.
“It isn't mine,” confessed the other; “it's my wife's
brother's. He drives a hackney-coach, and I use his
stable every other morning. Me an' my missus live
out at Hendon, and I come in three nights a week.”
“ But you mustn't saddle these people with me. Let
me get down at once!”
“ Mustn't I ?” chuckled the waggoner. “I'll take the
blame then. We're very near there; and dashed if that
isn't Jim on his way home to breakfast. Jim! Jim!”
And a hackney-coach, crawling leisurely along in front,
was pulled up as the coachman turned round and recog-
nised Butterfield.
“ Well, Jonathan, how are you?”
“How's yourself, Jim ? Early and late, as usual,
eh? This is a young gent who has ridden in with me.
He's waiting till ť offices open, and I thought you'd give
us both a bit of breakfast.”
“Always glad to oblige a gen'leman,” said the coach-


48
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
man, looking hard but nodding genially at Tom; nor
would he either listen to a single protest or apology
from the youth, who found himself at breakfast, scarce
ten minutes later, in a cosy kitchen close to Blackfriars
Bridge.
The hackney-coachman was a burly old soldier, a jolly
ruffian with a good brown eye; his wife was small and
spruce, watchful and quiet, and perhaps Tom liked her
less. She was kind enough, however; indeed, the sym-
"pathetic interest shown by all in an unknown vagabond
was a circumstance that touched Tom deeply, though
of a piece with all his most recent experiences, and
but another proof of the world's kindness.
The old soldier had served in India himself. He was
full of practical advice for Tom, who listened gratefully,
but yawned twice, when it came out he had not slept for
some thirty hours. Instantly the household was on its
feet. It appeared that Jonathan Butterfield had a snooze
there each morning after his night journey with the vege-
tables, and Tom must and should lie down beside him.
Tom consented — for an hour — and fell asleep won-
dering where he had seen the good Jim before. When
he awoke, the waggoner was gone and the light different.
He went downstairs in his socks and asked Jim's wife
the time.
“ Time ? ” said she. “Haven't you a watch ? "
« Not I."
“ Jonathan told me you'd a gold repeater!”
Tom remembered the repeater, for the first time since
awaking; but the woman was looking at him queerly,
and he had no intention of entering into explanations
with her. So he simply asked whether Jonathan had
gone.


A KIND WORLD
“Many an hour ago; it's five o clock."
“ Five!”
66 And after."
Tom burst into apologies, in the midst of which the
woman put on a shawl and went out. He was still stand-
ing irresolute in his socks, dazed by his long sleep, when
there came a rattle of wheels outside, and in rushed Jim
with his whip and an evening newspaper.
“Glad to find you still here, sir!” cried he. “I want
somebody as can read to read me a slice out of this 'ere
Globe. It's awful, sır — awful! The wery gen'leman I
drove last night! I've come straight from Scotland
Yard!”
Tom suddenly remembered when and where he had
seen the other before ; it was overnight on the box of
Blaydes's hackney-coach.
“ Who is the gentleman ?”
“ Blaydes it seems his name is; or rather was !”
66 Was?"
“He's dead -"
“ Dead!”
“Stone dead — murdered — by a man I saw as close
as I see you now, but never looked twice at! It's all
in the Globe, they tell me; read it out, sir, read it
out.”


THE ROGUE'S MARCH
CHAPTER VII
A GUILTY INNOCENT
Tom ERICHSEN held out a steady hand for the Globe.
His blood ran too cold for present tremors. The hack-
ney-coachman had drawn a chair to the table, planted his
elbows in the middle of the printed cotton cloth, and his
hot, flushed face between his coarse, strong hands. Tom
sat down at the other end. He found the paragraph, ran
his eye from head-line to finish, and then read it slowly
aloud :-
SHOCKING MURDER AT HAMPSTEAD
An atrocious murder was committed late last night, or early this
morning, in the neighbourhood of Hampstead Heath. A mechanic,
on his way to work at an early hour this morning, and having occa-
sion to traverse the right-of-way connecting the Finchley Road
with the upper portion of Haverstock Hill, noticed a stout staff
upon the grass, near the second stile from the former thorough-
fare. On picking it up, the staff, or rather cudgel, was found to
be crusted with blood, and near it was discovered a drawn sword-
stick, broken near the hilt. Continuing his alarming investiga-
tions, the mechanic made his crowning and most horrible discovery
in a hollow tree close beside the stile, in which lay the body of a
gentleman in full evening dress. He was quite dead ; indeed, life
had probably been extinct some hours. The corpse was covered
with blood, and the head terribly disfigured, as if by repeated
blows from some blunt instrument. There can be no doubt that
the crime was committed with the cudgel above mentioned (at
present the only clue to the assassin), nor that the sword-stick
was vainly used in self-defence by the unfortunate gentleman.
The police were summoned with commendable despatch, and the
body removed to the Marylebone mortuary to await inquest.
Meanwhile, in the course of the morning, much information has


A GUILTY INNOCENT
been forthcoming, and we are sorry to state that the victim has
been identified as Captain J. Montgomery Blaydes, late of his
Majesty's Coldstream Guards, but for some years past on the half-
pay list. No letters or papers of any sort were discovered upon
his person –
Here Tom stopped reading.
“ Go on, sir."
“ I will. But that's extraordinary!”
“ Not it. He's been robbed as well. That's what I
want to get at. That there stick's no clue; we want the
things he took."
Tom moistened his lips and harked back :-
No letters or papers of any sort were discovered upon his per-
son, and it is only through the marking of his linen that the iden-
tity of the deceased has been so promptly established. It now
transpires that the hapless Captain had been lately residing in the
village of West End (not a mile from the scene of the murder),
and that he left his lodgings shortly after ten o'clock last night, in
order to attend an evening party, in a hackney-coach. The police
hope that the coachman will come forward —
“ He has !” said Jim. “You may leave out that bit.”
“ And you couldn't describe the man ?”
“ Not too well. I could only swear he was neither
short nor tall, and looked to be wearing a pair of nan-
keen trousers.” (Tom's legs were underneath the table.)
“ No,” continued Jim, “I'm afraid they won't lay hands
on him through me. But they may through the things
he took. Go on to that!”
“ There was a diamond pin.”
“I seen it! What else ?"
“All his money."
“Ah! he paid like a genʼleman. Anything else?”
“A — gold — watch.”


52
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
The words would hardly come. Jim thumped the
table with heavy fist.
« That'll do!” he cried. “That'll hang him, you
mark my words! What sort of a watch ? "
But this time the words would not come at all, for
Jim's wife stood in the doorway behind Jim's chair, and
her eyes and Tom's — the terrified and the guilty -
were locked together in a long, dread stare.
“What's that about a watch ?" she said in a sort of
whisper, advancing unsteadily, and leaning a hand upon
her husband's shoulder. “Whose watch ?”
“One belonging a murdered man,” replied Jim. "I'm
asking what kind of a one. I say it ought to hang the
chap what did it.”
“It will,” said she hoarsely in his ear. “It's a re-
peater, and him that has it sits in front of you in that
chair!”
There followed a silence so profound that Tom could
hear the watch itself ticking in his pocket. The coach-
man then rose, and slowly leaned across the table, rest-
ing one hand upon it; the other was half-way to Tom's
throat when he started to his feet, and in so doing
pressed his thigh against the table's edge. Instantly
there rang from his pocket a sweet and tiny ting! ting!
ting! ting! ting!
It was the saving of him from Jim the coachman and
his wife.
Both shrank back as Tom darted to an inner door,
and so up the stairs which he had descended half-
asleep.
Ere he reached the top there was a crash below; for
an instant he thought the man had fallen in a fit; but a
volley of oaths proved it only a slip, as Tom slammed


A GUILTY INNOCENT
53
and locked the door of the room in which he had slept
away the day if not his life. His shoes were still where
he had kicked them off. He slipped into them, and,
exerting all his strength, pulled the large iron bedstead
from its place and wedged it between wall and door.
Then he crouched and listened. The man was for tak-
ing him single-handed; the woman evidently restraining
him by main force.
“Let me go! Let me go, damn ye!” Tom heard
him cry.
“Never till I drop! Police! police! He sha’n’t
murder my Jim too."
“So help me, but I'll strike ye if ye don't let go!"
“Strike away. Police! police! police! If you go, I
go too."
Her cries were not loud; they were smothered in the
struggle, which was still continued — now at the foot of
the stairs, now on the stairs themselves, and at last on
the landing outside the barricaded door. Meanwhile the
bird had flown.
No sooner had Tom realised what was taking place
below than he threw up the bedroom window. It over-
looked a small and filthy backyard, into which Tom
quietly dropped while the pair were still struggling on
the stairs. To find his way through the house, through
the kitchen itself, and out into the narrow street, was the
work of very few moments. The last Tom heard was
the belabouring of the locked, blocked door by hon-
est Jim. Nor did his presence of mind desert him yet.
He walked out of the narrow side-street, only running
when he came to the main thoroughfare, and after a
perilous hesitation as to whether he should strike into
the City or over Blackfriars Bridge.


54
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
He chose the City, and having chosen, lost his head
and ran for his life.
He darted across the street and plunged into the busy
alleys filling the delta between the bridge and St. Paul's.
Here he slackened a little, for the stony, many-windowed
ravines were so narrow and so crowded that it was im-
possible to continue running. But he threw up his heels
skelter in the middle of the road. He was nearly run
over by a van coming out of Paternoster Row, and cursed
to the skies by the driver. Faces stopped and turned
upon the pavements. He knew the folly of it, and yet
ran on with a fiend in either heel.
“Ba-nk — ba — nk — 'ere you are, sir, 'ere you are!”
Tom was almost up to the omnibus before he realised
that this was meant for him; instinctively he waved and
nodded, and his mad pace was explained. The omnibus
stopped; he jumped in gasping.
“Thought you was after me," said the cad, with a
grin.
Tom had no breath to reply. A rubicund old gentle-
man made a well-meant remark upon the eagerness of
youth, and was favoured with a glassy stare. The new-
comer sat panting in a corner, the perspiration trickling
from his nose.
But his head was cooler; he saw the needlessness as
well as the indiscretion of conspicuous flight. He had
slipped through the only hands that were as yet against
him; he had eluded the only eyes he need avoid that
night. For the hackney-coachman might take his new
tale straight to Scotland Yard, but it could hardly be
given to the world before morning.
Tom's heart leapt as he discovered the temporary


A GUILTY INNOCENT
55
strength of his position; next moment it sank, for the
cad was collecting the fares, and his single asset was the
watch. His bankrupt state had occurred to Tom as he
ran for the omnibus, but not again; it was so small a
thing compared with the charge now lying at his door.
Yet he had just thought of it- his little fraud was so
far deliberate — but he had neither the face nor the fool-
hardiness to sit there and confess his fault. And -
situated like the wanted felon he now felt himself to be
- it was wonderful and horrible how a felon's resources
came unbidden to his fingers' ends. He began feeling in
pocket after pocket, with a face that lengthened under
the frown of the cad, the raised eyebrows of the rubicund
gentleman, and the fixed attention of all.
“I'm afraid I—I don't seem to have a coin in my
pocket!”
“Oh, you ’aven't, ’aven't you?”
“No-I have not! I'm very sorry -1-".
“ You may be! Never mind no tales; you can keep
them for the beak, as'll ’ave a word to say to you to-
morrer mornin'!” And the cad winked at the other
passengers, stopped the omnibus, and called a policeman
from the curb.
Tom could have burst into tears. To be wrongly
wanted for a crime so terrible, and justly taken for a
thing so small! He looked forlornly at his fellow-pas-
sengers, with a wild idea that one might come to his
rescue; the sole response was a withering frown from the
ruddy old gentleman, who also commended the cad, and
loudly trusted an example would be made of the case.
The desperate Tom began ransacking his pockets in
earnest for some overlooked coin, but he had done this
so often of late that he felt the futility now. The per-


56
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
spiration froze upon his face; yet even with the police-
man's tall hat poked inside the omnibus, his twitching
fingers continued their spasmodic, hopeless search.
“The flash young spark!” whispered the cad. “Just
you frighten 'im, Sir Robert.”
“Now then, come along!” said the officer.
“Good God!” cried Tom.
“You'll get all the more for swearing; now, out you
come afore you're made."
“Not just yet,” returned the culprit, and handed the
conductor one of two halfcrowns found that very moment
in a scrap of crumpled paper. “I'm sorry I couldn't find
it before. Kindly give me change.”
“Where to?" growled the cad, as the constable stepped
down.
Tom did not hear.
“Can't you answer? Where to ?”
“Oh, as far as you go!”
Tom's eyes were on the crumpled scrap, and filled to
overflowing by half-a-dozen ill-written words.
CHAPTER VIII
HUE AND CRY
“Wishin good luk, yours respeckfull, J. Butterfield.”
Those were the words that made full the warm heart
and speaking eyes of Thomas Erichsen. He pictured the
furtive waggoner slipping the halfcrowns into the waist-
coat pocket where he had found them, while he himself
lay serenely prone, with the long arm of the law already


HUE AND CRY
feeling for him, and nimble pressmen even then indicting
paragraphs that should hound him to the gibbet. His
new extremity made him the more appreciate this touch-
ing tribute. He could not understand why so many
persons were so strangely kind to him. He was not
aware that there was a something generous in himself
which excited the generosity of others possessing that
quality. He only knew that of all his like experiences
he ranked this first. And then he began wondering what
the waggoner would give to recall his crown and his
kindness when he came to know the apparent truth.
It was so apparent that from the first he despaired of
ever disproving it, and felt his only chance to lie in
flight. To fly and hide was not only his first instinct,
but his comparatively mature judgment in the matter.
His stick had been used. He had told people that he in-
tended so to use it himself. He would never be believed
about the watch; the paper that alone could prove his
word had been stolen with everything else from the dead
man's pocket. Even supposing he had started with a
case, he must have spoilt it by his incriminating conduct
at the hackney-coachman's. Yet flight had been and was
still his only chance. Innocent as the dead in the grave,
as the child in the womb, he was still compelled to choose
between a guilty hiding and a surrender tantamount to
certain death.
These thoughts did not all come together, nor in this
order. They were interspersed with white-hot memories
of poor Blaydes as last seen in the moonlight; of that
touch of dignity and of regret that read now as a pre-
monition of his immediate end; and these in their turn
were interrupted by visions of a repulsive face, and by
the unseen flight of headlong, shambling feet. Perhaps


58
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
there was no connection between any of these things; it
was more than likely there was not. But the fugitive's
heated brain, susceptible enough to sharp and deep im-
pressions, was as yet quite incapable of consecutive
thought; besides, he was always wondering whether the
footstep behind him conveyed a hand that would close
next instant upon his collar; and every minute there
were many such in the crowded City streets.
Towards dusk his eye was taken by a common barber's
pole. Hitherto the desired sign had been that of the
three gilt globes, and he had paused at one or two, peer-
ing through the windows without daring to enter. The
barber was a new idea. Tom felt his chin, looked at it in
the window, and found it thinly yellowed over to the
depth of half an inch; his fair hair was also very long.
He entered, and asked to have it cut and his face shaved.
It was quite a small shop, near Finsbury Circus, whither
Tom had drifted from the Bank.
“ Another nice murder!” remarked the barber, reluc-
tantly throwing aside the Courier for his scissors.
“ Whereabouts ?" said Tom, who had guessed from his
face what the man was reading.
“ London again! -'Am'sted 'Eath way this time."
“Ah, that! Yes, I've heard of it. I'll have my hair
quite short, please.”
But the man would talk.
“ Worse than Greenacre, I say.”
“ How so?”
“ Done for robbery; that there watch and diamond
pin!”
" Ah!"
“On the other ’and, Greenacre, ’e cut 'er up. You
don't ’appen to be goin' to the 'anging on Tuesday ?


HUE AND CRY
59
That ought to be prime. I mean to be there if I stand
all night for my place! Not fond of an execootion, sir?”
“I never saw one."
“Never saw one! Well, that's funny; and I 'aven't
missed one these fifteen years !”
Toni looked from his own ghastly visage in the mirror
to the low, gloating face puckered with sly smiles at
ghoulish memories. He went elsewhere for his shave.
And slowly but at last the grateful night closed in; the
busy City streets became empty, echoing chasms; and
Tom, feeling more than ever the guilty cynosure, drifted
westward with the ebbing tide of innocent, free men.
His great dread was of the hackney-coachman. His
friend Jim was perhaps the one man in the streets of
London who could at present identify him at sight. He
squandered fivepence on the latest Globe. It contained
no fresh particulars. His name had not yet transpired,
so Jim was still his chiefest terror. He tarried in nar-
row alleys where four wheels could not follow him. In
one of these a second-hand bookseller, smoking a church-
warden on his doorstep, stared at Tom critically. There-
upon he slunk into the nearest street. It was Newgate
Street. He stood before the sombre walls of the prison
itself, and continued so to stand, impersonally fascinated,
with a sudden end to all sense of danger, as though a
nerve were killed.
There was no moon, but the wide clear space above
the prison walls was pricked with the brightest stars
Tom had ever seen. He wondered whether it was in
mercy or in mockery that the stars shone their best over
that monument of gloom and horror; then his specula-
tions took a more practical direction. How thick were
those grimy walls ? Where was Greenacre? What was


60
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
he doing? Where would he be hanged? But this he
thought he knew, and turning into the Old Bailey, he
stood opposite the place.
The Old Bailey was all but deserted. Tom stood un-
seen, and peopled it with the vile crowd he had often
read of in those newspaper descriptions which it was
easy to condemn but more difficult to skip. He found
himself mentally in the midst of that ruthless ritual,
just as he was bodily upon its scene. He heard the
lewd cheering of throats athirst for blood, the scream-
ing of bruised and trampled women, the clink of wine-
glasses in the twenty-guinea windows behind and above
him. On every face he found the bestial relish that the
mirror had shown him at the barber's shop. And as
then he saw his own sickly mask as well, but a long way
off now — above the felon's gate — with the rope round
his neck and dangling from the beam. And with that
final vision returned the sense of deadly danger, in ten-
fold force and with sickening poignancy, as the vivid-
ness leapt from the inner to the outward eye, and he
saw and realised what was then and there taking place.
A police-officer had emerged from a narrow door in
the great grimy walls; his white trousers shone across
the street; so did the fluttering paper in his hand. He
carried a paste-pot and a brush, and stopping at a point
where a black board clung to the black stones, he pasted
his paper upon it. Before he began there was a little
crowd about him; when he finished it stretched half
across the street. And there was Tom still cowering
under the windows opposite.
The first word he heard was his own name bandied
from mouth to mouth.
“Herichsen," said one. “It's as good a name as
-
-


HUE AND CRY
Greenacre. They allus do have good names. Look at
Fauntleroy and — "
“A hundred pounds reward!”
“Long, fair hair - slight growth on chin – ”
“Medium height - dark brown eyes — ”
Tom heard no more; sidling warily to the left, he
squeezed round the corner into Fleet Lane, while every
eye was turned the other way. Out of Fleet Lane there
ran another to the right; as Tom dived into it, his shak-
ing hand went to his smooth-shaven chin and short-cut
hair; and his quivering lips muttered a new blessing on
Jonathan Butterfield and his seed for ever.
He had spent sixteen pence, which left exactly three-
and-eight. Further disguise he must have, and though he
tried more than once to pawn the watch, his nerve always
failed him on the threshold of the shop. The aimless-
ness of his proceedings now came home to him, and yet
what was he to do? He had heard that London was
the best hiding-place in the world, and indeed it had
never struck him to break for the country. Nor did it
now. But he would try some other end of the town;
not the docks, however; he had told everybody he was
going there, and could not, therefore, go too far in the
opposite direction.
The Paddington omnibus was passing as he emerged
from Skinner Street. Tom got in, and paid his sixpence,
leaving three-and-two.
So his name had come out already. He had time to
think of things in the omnibus, which was half empty,
and he soon saw that Jim the coachman could not have
supplied the police with the name; he did not know it
himself. Other witnesses must have stepped forward
already. Who were they? But it mattered very little


62
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
after all. Not Claire, at any rate; and yet the thought
of her brought with it the keenest torture he had suffered
yet.
She would think him guilty; after what had passed
between them she could not do otherwise; then guilty
let him be, in every earthly eye, and the sooner it was
all over the better for him and for her. He had no
wish to live if the one sweet judge whose judgment he
respected held him worthy of death. And she would —
she could not help herself; then what must she think
of his love for her ? And the thought of her thoughts
was worse than that of shameful death before a howling
mob.
He tore up her letter that he had meant to treasure
till his death, so that when he was taken no slur should
rest upon his beloved; and he distributed the minute frag-
ments at long intervals that night before looking for a
place to lay his head. In the end he hit upon an empty
house overlooking the then green enclosure of Westbourne
Park; an unfastened window caught his eye; he waited
till the road was clear, and then entered like an expert,
fastening the window behind him.
Here he destroyed and hid away his hat, a battered
beaver bought in the days of poor Blaydes. In its stead
he had obtained from a pawn-shop, and for eighteen
pence, an old-fashioned peak-and-tassel cap. But he
had not dared to offer the watch in pledge, although he
had entered that shop for the purpose.
It ticked so loud in the empty house that in the dead
of night he leapt up in a frenzy and smashed in the
works with his heel.
Before he could lie down again there came a deafening
double-knock at the street-door.


A GOOD SAMARITAN
CHAPTER IX
A GOOD SAMARITAN
To run no risk of observation through the dirty, bare
windows, as well as to secure equi-distance from all
possible points of approach or escape, the hunted youth
had lain him down in the hall, with the bottom stair for
his pillow. He was rewarded with the full shock of this
ear-splitting tattoo. Yet it shook him less than the
insolent, maddening solo of the dead man's watch ; and
the hollow house was still resounding like a drum as
Tom groped his way on tip-toe to the garden door, and
stealthily withdrew the bolts. The door was one-half
coloured glass, showing a pink moon in a purple sky,
and a neglected garden which by daylight would have
been sky-blue with a ruby margin; but now it merely
gave another coat to night; and Tom was outside and
half-way down the flight of stone steps before he saw
that which made the iron balustrade grow colder in his
hand. The chimney-pot hat, white trousers and drawn
staff of one of the new police awaited him at the bottom.
“Come along,” said this officer; “it's no use turning
back — hear that!”
As he spoke the noise of breaking glass came through
the open door; and Tom's mind was made up. Suddenly
crouching, with knees and elbows at acute angles, he
sprang clean on top of the police officer, who collapsed
beneath him like a house of cards. The fall was bad
enough for Tom; his nose was bleeding when he picked
himself up; but the other lay motionless on his back,
and Tom bent over him in horror. His eyes opened that


64
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
instant, and he made a grab at Tom, who turned and
darted down the garden just as there was a clatter of
fresh feet upon the stone stairs behind.
The garden wall was mercifully low. Tom vaulted it,
and all but landed in a cucumber-frame upon the other
side. He found himself in a nursery-garden, with ave-
nues of crystal roofs shining to the moon in long low
parallels. Down one such causeway sped Tom at top
speed, getting into another by turning left and right at
the first gap. Just then he heard a welcome crash at
the cucumber-frame fifty yards back. But now the
frontage wall loomed ahead, cutting the stars at an
uncomfortable height; and on dashing up to it Tom saw
the mistake he had make by changing avenues. He had
to turn back to the right to make the gate; and the
officers, who had run straight ahead, and thus gained a
score of yards, were upon him in full cry.
The gate was a high wooden one, luckily without
spikes; the runaway straddled the top just as the pur-
suers reached the bottom, and left a shoe in their hands,
ere he threw himself down upon the other side, and
kicked its fellow to the winds.
A stretch of fair road ran right and left between tem-
porary fences and open ground laid out for building.
Tom headed to the left, scampering like a mouse in
his stocking-soles, with the constables again clattering at
his heels. One of the latter seemed to be running lame;
and both breathed the music of short wind to Tom's ears.
He was himself lean and hard from little food and much
fresh air. With a clear course, he had perfect confidence
in his pace and staying powers; and this was then com-
paratively open country; and the time was between
three and four in the morning.


A GOOD SAMARITAN
65
Lightly and rhythmically fell his feet upon the road-
side; those of his pursuers rang fainter by degrees; but
when at length he glanced over his shoulder, it cost him
yards from sheer admiration. Of the four white legs
flying after him in the moonlight, one was as if dipped
in red from thigh to ankle; yet the limping man led;
and Tom, remembering the crash at the cucumber-frame,
felt a parenthetic pang at being pitted by fate against
this hero.
But now a broad road crossed and ended this one,
and Tom tore round to the right. Hardly had he done
so when he became aware that the pursuit had suffered a
sudden interruption. He heard the blowing of a whistle
farther and farther behind him, and guessed that the
wounded man had dropped from loss of blood, and was
in too bad a case to be left. His heart smote him; he
seemed cast for blood-guiltiness after all; still, here was
his chance, and he must make the most of it or surely
die.
He ran swiftly on, and presently overhauled a cart
lumbering westward along the middle of the road. He
was passing it at a less suspicious pace when he made a ·
discovery. The driver was bent double and fast asleep.
Tom dropped behind again and peeped in over the back.
It was a hay-cart, and the load had been left in town;
all that remained was the tarpaulin lying in a crumpled
heap. He looked back along the road, but saw nobody.
Then he boarded the cart — silently enough in his
ragged socks - and curled himself up beneath the
tarpaulin.
He had not been there many minutes when the
double patter of two pairs of boots came to his ears
above the creaking of the cart-wheels and the horse's


66
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
sober stride. Louder it grew and louder yet, until once
more Tom heard the laboured breath of untrained run-
ners : he heard them pass the cart, one each side; and
then, just as he himself had stopped on overhauling it,
so did they.
“I see nothing of your man,” said one. “Let's ask
this chap if he has.”
“We might do worse. Hey, driver! Wake up there,
will you?”
“What's the row?"
“You're asleep!”
“What's that to you?”
“Everything — when you're in charge of a horse and
cart.”
The man promptly denied having been asleep at all;
was asked if he had seen the fugitive ; and wanted to
know what he was like.
Tom heard himself most inaccurately described. “And
I ought to know, because I've chased him for a mile
already; and only lost him because my comrade was
wounded and couldn't run," added the ingenious officer.
“Well, what if I did see him?"
“We're just at the fork; you must have seen which
way he went, and you've got to tell us.”
" And what if I refuse?”.
“Refuse! Why, he's a desperate burglar, who's about
done for two of us already! Refuse away — but you
come along with us.”
“Oh, all right, I did see him,” declared the carter, to
Tom's momentary horror; “but I call it wery’ard, makin'
one pore chap split on another.”
“And which way did he go when he came to the fork
just ahead here?"


A GOOD SAMARITAN
67
“Which way? Why, he kep’ on straight along the
Uxbridge Road, and that's the truth.”
The carter was cautioned, threatened, but finally
allowed to proceed upon his way. In a minute or two
Tom heard him burst into a laugh, and whip up the
draught-horse to an elephantine trot. Meanwhile the
police-officers had run out of ear-shot along the Uxbridge
Road; and the hay-cart was well upon its way to Turn-
ham Green and Kew.
At the latter place the carter stopped for his break-
fast, and Thomas Erichsen made good his escape, not
a little encouraged by the fact that his late pursuers
had manifestly not known who it was they were pur-
suing.
Tom had his breakfast in the beautiful early sunshine
beside the river's brim.
Overnight he had avoided the tavern, but not the pas-
try-cook's shop; so he had made his supper in the empty
house, and was provisioned still; moreover, his pocket
was still weighted by poor Blaydes's broken watch, nor
could he make up his mind to pitch into the river his
only asset, and one to which he was so justly entitled.
He was clear of London now; the early sun gave him
confidence and pluck. He would pawn the watch in one
of these Thames Valley towns, and then get back to Lon-
don and the docks by river and in new habiliments. It
was Saturday morning; he would wait until that best
of times, Saturday night; but first he must find a place
to hide his head in during the day.
He found one in the boat-house of a small, new, white-
brick villa, with a narrow garden leading down to the
river's edge. The boat-house had an open window.
Hardened by his extremity into incredible alacrity in


68
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
such enterprises, Tom was through it in a twinkling, and
well pleased with his discovery. The boat was still
hibernating keel upwards on trestles. It would be a
very strange thing if that day, of all others, were chosen
for launching her for the summer. Determined, at any
rate, to risk it, the runaway climbed into a little loft
which might have been made for him, and settled down
for the day; he rolled himself up in several folds of
strawberry-netting, and made another quaint pillow of
the box of a mowing-machine, whereon he slept soundly
for several hours.
So the morning went; but the livelong afternoon he
lay awake beneath the strawberry-nets; and these were
his worst hours yet. They gave him pause for thought,
of this wild-goose flight — that was one. The quite in-
evitable fate of one standing his ground in circumstances
so damning — that was another. The two together led
him in circles, so that his brain reeled. The upshot was
that he had taken the wrong, and yet the only course.
Nor was that the worst, for brooding over all there was
the thought of Claire, believing him guilty till her dying
day, and never forgiving her own warm heart that had
gone out in fearless loving-kindness to the bloody and
deceitful man. To have loved one who ended on the
gallows! What a memory to take through life! And
the poor fellow's love so quickened his insight that he
shed tears for her, but regarded his own case with a
growing stoicism.
Yet all the time the changed face of Blaydes at the
moonlit stile, and that other foul one seen so shortly
after, looked down on him side by side from the boat-
house roof; and now he knew them for the faces of


A GOOD SAMARITAN
murdered man and murderer; but anon he gave it up,
and shrugged his cramped shoulders, and left all that on
the knees of the gods.
So these black hours wore slowly on, and they were
the blacker in that they contained no new alarm to lift
his mind from the ultimate. On the contrary, he felt
safe enough for the day, for a steady rain had started
while he slept, and never a footstep had mingled with
its music on the garden paths; a relief, perhaps, but one
that brought its own depression.
However, the rain ceased with the day, and when Tom
deemed it dark enough for a judicious exit, the wet earth
was as fragrant as a flower. He sniffed it joyously
through the open window by which he had entered.
The garden path was washed very yellow, and bordered
by twin canals. There was more light than he had
thought when in the loft; still, not a soul was in view,
and it had been lighter yet when he arrived. It was
necessary, however, to get out of the window legs first,
and backwards, and when Tom had done so and turned
round, he beheld, standing on the yellow path between the
two canals, and quizzically regarding him, the quaintest
and the tiniest old gentleman he had ever encountered.
He was certainly not more than five feet high, but he
carried himself superbly, and fixed the intruder with a
steady, jocular, light-blue eye which inspired respect
before fear. He seemed, indeed, the essence of contem-
plative geniality; but it was his powdered hair, black
knee-breeches, and white silk stockings that gave him
the picture-book appearance at which even Tom found
time to marvel. But he marvelled more when the old
gentleman made him a courtly bow, and said in high,
chirping tones :-


THE ROGUE'S MARCH
“I am delighted to see you, sir! I fear my boat-house
will have afforded you but indifferent shelter on so vile
a day; such as it has been, however, you are welcome to
it indeed."
“Welcome !” exclaimed Tom.
“And why not?” chirruped the other. “Surely we
who have must give to you who have not, be it roof or
boot ? I am sorry, however, to see you bare-footed, for
you will permit me to observe that such stockings as you
have on are worse than none. If you will have the good-se
ness to come with me, you shall be shod afresh, and join
me in a glass of negus before you go."
“But, sir — "
“ Tut! I know what you would say: you have tres-
passed already, and have no wish to trespass further.
Very well, sir, so be it; you shall have your way, and
pay the penalty. I condemn you to a glass of negus and
a new pair of shoes.”
And with the utmost bonhomie the tiny gentleman
drove Tom before him to the house, and through
open French windows to a basement room where a
lamp and a fire were burning, and a kettle singing on
the hob.
“Hungry?” he chirped, giving Tom a playful push
in the ribs.
“I had provisions in my pocket,” stammered the youth,
in deep embarrassment; “I shall do very well. Indeed,
your kindness — "
“ Tut, sir, tut! You will please me best by saying no
more about that. You are hungry, and I shall order you
something upstairs. But here's the sherry and there's
the boiling water; you can brew your own negus while
I am gone; and this is to-day's Advertiser. Make your-


THE ROGUE'S MARCH
some of his portion upon the floor, but his kind host
never noticed it. He was next invited to take a pinch
from a silver-mounted horn snuff-box. This he refused
as politely as his state of mind would permit. He
trembled to know whether the old gentleman had really
eschewed all accounts of the murder. To make certain
he hazarded a leading question.
“It seems to be a queer affair, sir. Do you think
they'll ever catch him ?”
“My good fellow, I haven't read the case.”
Tom drew a deep breath and tossed off his negus at a
gulp. At that moment there came a knock at the door,
and a small maid entered.
“Ready, Mary?"
“ Yes, sir.”
“Then come this way, my dear young gentleman,"
the old one said, with his most benevolent smile. “Up-
stairs — follow the maid — I will follow you.”
Tom hesitated, but gave in without a word. He was,
indeed, as hungry as he was grateful, and he followed
the servant upstairs, with the jolly old fellow chatting
pleasantly at his heels.
“The shoes you shall have immediately. What, would
you shake my hand ? Ah, my good fellow, I fear it's
but meagre entertainment that I can offer you. Well,
well, if you insist! But that's the door; pray walk in.
He! he! he! he!”
And ere the chirruping laugh had ended, Tom's flight
was over, and he was in the hands of two policemen,
who had securely pinned him by either arm. Resistance
was useless. But from the officers' faces a last hope
flickered in his breast.
“What do you want me for ? ” he cried.


AT AVENUE LODGE
73
“What is the charge, sir ? ” asked one of the con-
stables, sotto voce, of the master of the house.
“Can't you see ? ” piped that triumphant humourist.
" It's the Hampstead murderer! I knew the fellow
with half an eye!"
CHAPTER X
AT AVENUE LODGE
On the night of the dinner-party, and when the last
guest was gone, Lady Starkie took her brother by both
hands, and openly congratulated him in front of Dain-
tree and Claire.
“A perfect triumph!” she warmly declared. “I only
wish the enemy had been here to see; but there, Nich-
olas, you need bother your head no more about them !
You know now the feeling of your friends; rest assured
that it is the feeling also of all sensible persons through-
out the community. Everybody knows that the charge
against you was neither more nor less than an odious
Radical conspiracy; they know it themselves, and have
let it drop like a hot coal, you mark my words! Think
no more of it, my dear Nicholas. It has done you more
good than harm. They know that too, and will never be
such fools as to rake it up again.”
Mr. Harding received these well-meant assurances with
forced laughter and a twitching face; they were supple-
mented by a duly florid little speech from Daintree,
who had rejoined the gentlemen after all, and was now
à brighter man. But his eyes still followed Claire, and
his soul was in his eyes, as always when she was by.


74
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
She was now shutting her piano, and putting away music
with a white face which she feared to show.
"I ought to return thanks to you both, upon my word
I ought,” cried Mr. Harding, with the falsest note yet in
his noisy laugh. “But the fact is” — with a sudden pal-
lid candour — "I've been waiting all the evening for that
fellow Blaydes. I can't conceive what has happened to
him!”
Claire let the open top of the grand piano slip through
her fingers with a resounding bang. Daintree watched
her with a new expression, lost, however, upon the other
two, who had glanced towards her themselves. Claire
apologised for her clumsiness without turning round.
"Was it on — business — that you wished to see Cap-
tain Blaydes?" inquired Lady Starkie, with eyebrows
a little raised.
“Partly; a rather important matter."
“A very awkward time!”
“That couldn't be helped; the point is, what has hap-
pened to him? The coach was due in hours ago; we
have had excellent weather; the roads must be excellent
too. Then what has kept him away? I cannot think!
I cannot think !” cried Mr. Harding, as at last his alarm
broke bounds, and rattled in his voice as plainly as it
twitched upon his face. “Not for the life of me," he
added; “but, upon my word, I've a good mind to walk
straight over to his rooms —"
“Oh, do! do! for pity's sake — now, at once!" And
there was Claire, trembling before them, with lifted
hands and broken voice; her pale face luminous with
the white light of a breathless anxiety, an excruciating
fear. So for an instant stood father and daughter,
dumbly regarding each other, and half in surprise; for


AT AVENUE LODGE
75
the emotion of each was expressed in the look of the
other.
Then Claire broke down and fled, sobbing, from the
room.
Lady Starkie followed her.
“Now I know,” said Daintree. “Now I know!”
Mr. Harding shut the door. “I'm glad to hear it,”
said he, sardonically. “I confess myself puzzled. What
is your interpretation ? "
“She is in love with Blaydes!”
“Blaydes ? Nonsense; you mean yourself; it's you if
anybody.”
Daintree told the story of his declaration in the
arbour. He told it in gasps, with sudden beads upon
his face. “But I'll have her yet!” he finished through
his teeth.
Mr. Harding's indignation scarcely met the case. The
match would have been of his making. He had given
much more than his consent to Daintree's suit, and for
some time past had regarded him as a certain son-in-law.
Indignant he was, but more puzzled, and most distrait.
After a little wild speaking in his daughter's name, he
suddenly said —
“But, look here, if your notion is correct, that's all
the more reason why I should see this fellow Blaydes
at once. I couldn't think why the beggar migrated to
West End; now I can; and I shall forbid him my house
this very night. There's a little transaction between us
that shall be settled, and then I wash my hands of him.
Will you come? It's only about a mile along the road.
And I must know whether the fellow got back to town
to-night, and if so, why on earth I haven't seen him. I
must know that before I sleep!”


76
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
Daintree got his hat with alacrity, and together the
gentlemen let themselves quietly out by the front door;
nevertheless Claire heard them in her room, though her
aunt, who was still with her, did not.
They walked between the same budding hedgerows
and moonlit fields which Tom Erichsen and the wretched
Blaydes had looked on earlier in the night. They
passed within two hundred paces of the spot where the
Captain's body was even then lying dead and undis-
covered. They woke a sleeping hamlet, and were
sharply informed through an angrily opened win-
dow that Captain Blaydes had come home, but had
dressed and left again in a hackney-coach, shortly
after ten.
“Did he say where he was going ?”
“No; but I heard him tell the coachman it was only
a mile."
· The window was shut down. The pair returned.
They had spoken little on their way to West End; not
one word did they exchange on the way back; but
Nicholas Harding shook a little at the knees, and his
companion watched him shrewdly.
As they pushed open the gate, a light vanished from
an upper window, to reappear in the hall. Daintree
took the other by the arm, and whispered, “That's Miss
Harding! Now you will see if I was wrong."
And, indeed, the door was open before they reached
it, and Claire on the step, candle in hand, the tallow
streaming in the draught, and dashing unheeded against
the pink crape and the white satin which she had never
taken off. Her face looked grey and old, with young
eyes burning out of place.
“Well ? "


AT AVENUE LODGE
77
Even the monosyllable was scarcely articulate.
“He is not there,” said Mr. Harding.
“He never came back to London!”
“ Yes — he did. That's just the point. He started to
come to us about ten o'clock, and has never been heard
of since."
Claire stood mute before them, her face pale as ashes
in the light of the candle, which she carried quite stead-
ily now. She had trembled in her fear; she stood like
a statue in its realisation; then, with a single moan,
she turned away, and her candle passed steadily through
the hall, and slowly and steadily up the stairs.
Mr. Harding seemed lost in his own reflections, when
Daintree clutched him by the arm.
“What did I tell you as we came up to the house?”
Harding thought a little. “You said it was Blaydes.
Well, if so, she shall never have him. But I only wish
I knew where he was !"
“So do I,” said Daintree, viciously; and he held out
his hand as they entered the hall; but Mr. Harding would
not hear of his going to bed.
“For pity's sake don't desert me yet! There is no
sleep for me this night. What can have happened to
the fellow — between West End and this? What can
have happened?"
“I neither know nor care."
“Nor I- nor I— but a man can't help his fore-
bodings!”
And Harding shuddered as he shut the library door,
and lit the fire with his own hands, though the night
was so warm; and cowered over it till daylight, a
ghostly satire on the loud, flamboyant, cocksure head of
last night's dinner-table.


78
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
The eye of the guest was on him till it dropped with
weariness; and at sunrise they both retired.
Claire in her room had never closed an eye. She did
not come down to breakfast, and her aunt presided in
her stead.
Lady Starkie thought her brother and his guest a pair
of wrecks, and did not wonder at it when they told her
to what hour they had sat up. But that was all they
did tell her; and the lieutenant-general's widow departed
for Bath in the forenoon, little dreaming what a storm
was to burst within the hour.
When she was gone Mr. Harding ordered his coach
for another expedition to West End. Daintree again
accompanied him, and looking back as they drove away,
saw a white face vanish from the window whence the
light had disappeared on their return from the earlier
pilgrimage overnight. He gnashed his teeth, but said
nothing; and they drove on in a common preoccupation.
The fields were dazzling green in the sweet, hot sun-
shine; the hedgerows sparkled with a million emeralds;
and up the hill to the right, beneath a row of horse-
chestnuts clouded over with young leaves, the white
trousers and shiny hats of a body of police caught with-
out riveting Mr. Harding's roving eye. The sun shone
brilliantly upon the cool green spot where they stood;
but yet another constable, with a tall companion in plain
clothes, was descending the right-of-way, and reached the
road-side stile as the coach passed.
“ There seems to be something astir there,” observed
Daintree, pointing to the group up above.
Mr. Harding glanced in the direction indicated, and
then sat looking straight in front of him until the red
roofs of West End rose above the hedge to the left.


AT AVENUE LODGE
79
At the cottage where Blaydes had lodged nothing had
been heard as yet. The good wife was strenuously civil,
as if to make up for any asperity in the night; but the
gentlemen learned no more now than then. As they
turned away, however, the wicket clicked, and they
stood face to face with a police-officer and a dingy, tall
civilian.
“The men we saw just now!” cried Daintree, as
Nicholas Harding clutched his arm. “Do you know
anything of Captain Blaydes, my man?”
“ Was you looking for him ?”
“Yes, we were; or, rather, this gentleman was.”
“Then you'll never find him, sir, in this world.”
“What ? ” shrieked Harding; and he was more shaken
by the truth than even the dead man's landlady, who
brought a chair from the kitchen, upon which Mr. Hard-
ing sat shaking in the sun, with his full-blooded face
turned to purple, and the great jaw sunk upon his stock.
“He was a friend of my friend,” explained Daintree,
below his breath; but Harding heard.
“ A friend ?” said he. “Heaven knows about that;
but I expected him at my house last night — expected
him every hour!”
The personage in plain clothes declared himself a de-
tective from Scotland Yard, and told the landlady that
he should require a few words with her alone. The
pair then withdrew into the house; but the policeman
remained outside, and sold his tongue for half a guinea.
The two gentlemen thus learnt before mid-day all that
appeared in that evening's papers, with one addition and
one exception. The addition was a confident assurance
that the police were on the perpetrator's track already.
The exception was merely a description of the dead


80
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
man's stolen property, which was then being obtained
within.
“Now, in such cases,” said Mr. Harding, feeling for
another coin, “what is done with the dead man's
papers ? "
“Well, first you've got to find 'em,” replied the con-
stable, with a grin.
“But in this case you have obviously found some-
thing; or how would you know who he was ? "
“We found no papers, however.”
“No papers !”
“Not a scrap; but his linen was marked; and then we
knew all about our gentleman. I'm sorry to say we've
known all about him for some time. It was only the
shocking state his head — ".
“That will do," said Daintree, bending over Mr. Hard-
ing's chair. “You are ill, sir,” he whispered. “Let me
take you home at once.”
Harding yielded, and tottered to his carriage, mutter-
ing, “I waited for him hour after hour; and this was
why; and this was why!”
Claire was still upstairs on their return, and Mr. Hard-
ing nerved himself with a glass of brandy before going
to her with the news. But it shook her less than it had
shaken him. Her first question was the last to be ex-
pected by one as completely in the dark as Nicholas
Harding. She wanted to know with what kind of
weapon the crime had been committed. He told her.
(what the constable had told him) with a heavy ash
stick, whereupon she nodded singularly, as much as to
say that was what she expected. In fact she had
divined the worst from the very beginning. But her
apathy blinded him to everything else: he asked her


AT AVENUE LODGE
how she could faint at a vague fear, and yet hear the
terrible truth unmoved.
“You will know soon enough,” was Claire's reply.
“But you seemed in such a state about poor Blaydes ?”
"I was."
“I made sure he must be the one you cared for."
“ He ? Poor fellow! Never for an instant."
“ Then who is it, Claire ? Daintree has told me the
answer you were foolish enough to give him; and now I
insist on knowing who it is !”
“You must not insist now; you will know soon
enough,” said she again. And not another word.
Mr. Harding was nonplussed; there was some new
mystery here, and until he should find its key he de-
cided to discuss Claire no further with the suitor on
whose success his heart was still set. Indeed, he saw
little more of Daintree that day, but drove into the City
after luncheon, and was not back for dinner. Hearing
this, Claire dressed hastily, and braved the guest across a
solemn board, protected from familiar converse by the
continual presence of a man-servant behind either chair.
Yet Daintree could not avoid the tragic topic.
“I fancy that Mr. Harding must be making inquiries
at headquarters,” said he. “Have you seen an evening
paper ? "
“No."
“I have the Globe. It gives a pretty full account.”
“Do they know who did it?"
“Not yet.”
“ Not his name?"
“No."
“Nor his appearance ? Nor anything at all about
him?"


82
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
“No, absolutely nothing as yet; but it is only a ques-
tion of time."
Claire sat without eating a bite, while her fixed eyes
slowly filled. “Poor fellow — poor fellow — poor fel-
low!” she suddenly cried out. “I cannot believe —”
and as suddenly she curbed her tongue.
“Well, what?” said her companion.
“That— he - is dead!"
Daintree darkened.
“ So you were thinking of Blaydes!” he said bitterly.
“I might have known - I might have known!"
CHAPTER XI
COALS OF FIRE
ALL this time there came no word from the master of
the house, nor had the coach returned; but between nine -
and ten it did, and Mr. Harding was out and up the steps
before it stopped.
In the hall he inquired for his daughter; she had gone
upstairs; he rushed up instantly. Claire was waiting
for him at her bedroom door. He thundered in and shut
it behind him.
“ They have got him!” cried Claire, with both hands
to her heart.
“Got whom ?” said her father, sharply. “Got whom,
eh ? "
Her face fell beneath the angry glitter in his eyes.
· “The man — they want — for this frightful business,"
said she lamely, and sank down upon a chair.


COALS OF FIRE
83
“And pray who is he? You seem to know!"
No answer, save twitching fingers, rocked body, low-
ered lids.
“If you were to hear it was that young Erichsen -
would it surprise you very much ? No, it would not !”
It had only stilled her. “And now I intend to know
why not! You have thrown sand enough in my eyes;
but your manner this morning told me something, and I
am determined to know all there is to know — before -
I-leave — this — room.”
strode to the door, locked it and pocketed the key; but
was met on his return with such wild eyes and suppliant
hands that even his harsh heart melted at the sight.
“ Only tell me whether they have captured him," she
said, " and I faithfully promise to tell you all."
“Well, then, they have not; but they precious soon
will. Now keep your promise.”
It was kept to the letter. She had been very wicked,
she had deceived and disobeyed her father for months
and years; but now she had her reward. She had been
lonely at Winwood, so had Tom. They had just made
friends when the fathers quarrelled; it was too hard for
them to have to quarrel too; and Claire confessed that
rough treatment had always stirred up rebellion within
her, though never before to such purpose as then. So
the friendship had continued, but had never been any-
thing more until two years later, when Tom Erichsen was
on the eve of sailing; and then — and then
“I understand," said Mr. Harding, sarcastically; "that's
quite enough. But why didn't he sail ? How did you
know he hadn't ? And what was his connection with
Blaydes ? "


84
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
Claire told him of the chance meeting near the Park;
of her letter, and the secret interview that was all her
doing; of Blaydes's perfidy to Tom, and of the latter's
quick discovery that his enemy was their friend; of her
first refusal to give him the address, but her ultimate and
fatal surrender of the same. All this she told without
fear or further hesitation, extenuating nothing in her own
defence, but as much as she could in defence of Tom. A
true woman, she had her theory of the crime already, and
was quite convinced it was correct. Tom had indeed
killed his man — of that even she had never a moment's
doubt; but he had not killed him intentionally, or struck
a blow until Blaydes had drawn his deadlier weapon.
She simply did not believe that Tom had touched either
his watch or his pin; somebody else had done that —
very likely the man who found the body.
Mr. Harding quietly disabused her on these points.
He had spent some time at Scotland Yard, as a friend of
the deceased who could give information; but he had con-
trived to gain more. He had thus kept his lead of the
town regarding the facts of the case; and Claire was
struck dumb with horror when she heard of the guilty
flight from the coachman's house, and of the undoubted
possession by Tom of the dead man's watch and chain.
The father put it plainly, but without unnecessary bru-
tality; nor did he belabour her with reproaches now that
he knew all. On the contrary, he spoke of the suspected
murderer with none of the vituperative bitterness which
she had often heard him lavish on the detested parson's
good-for-nothing son.
“But you see,” said he, “what has come of your
folly! You have entangled yourself with a young fel-
low whose fate, if he be caught, one would rather not


COALS COALS OF 85
FIRE
FIRE
OF contemplate; you may even be called as a witness against
him!”
“ Against him!”
“You certainly would be if last night's interview
leaked out.”
“ It never shall.”
“And if you told a jury all you have told me, about
the address and all that, I am afraid it would hang him
if nothing else did.”
“Hang Tom!"
“Well, Claire, it looks to me very like a hanging mat-
costly defence, to give him the ghost of a chance of hav-
ing it brought in anything less."
“ Then he must have it!” cried Claire. “Oh, he
never could have done it — wilfully! He must have the
very best defence that can be got; but, oh! who will pay
for it?"
“I am thinking of doing so myself,” replied Mr.
Harding, quietly. “I don't say I will, but I may.”
“ You!”
And the girl was sobbing upon his breast, with her
arms about his thick red neck, as they had not been for
many a year now. He removed them, but almost gently,
and told her not to jump at conclusions, as he had by
no means made up his mind : indeed, let them first catch
their man. But as the lad's father had been his constit-
uent as well as his enemy, on whom he had perhaps been a
little hard, he thought that on the whole it might prove
the right and proper thing to do. Claire was over-
whelmed, not only with gratitude for a first gleam of
comfort, but also with shame. All these years she had
misjudged that magnanimous man, her own father; and


86
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
what coals of fire was he heaping on her undutiful head !
She cried herself to sleep with shame and hope; and that
was when Tom Erichsen was flying south from West-
bourne Park, with the police in full cry at his heels.
Next day was the Saturday, and Claire was almost
herself again, to the outward eye. She was early afoot,
and met the newspaper boy in the road; she had thus
first sight of the Times; but it told her little that she
had not learnt from Mr. Harding overnight. Tom was
still at large, that was the chief thing; but to-day there
was a full description of him, and its accuracy sickened
the brave heart which beat and trembled for him every
minute of every hour.
This day was complicated by the return from school
of the elder children of the second family. Two were
still in the nursery; but two were weekly boarders at a
luxurious seminary at Gunnersbury, and the tragic fate
of Captain Blaydes was ordered to be kept from their
young ears. This was difficult. The children were in
evidence from the Saturday afternoon until the Monday
morning. Then they were very fond of Claire, in whom
they discerned a difference, and she would not tell them
what it was. But on the Sunday morning, when they were
all ready for church, and only waiting for Mr. Harding,
in he came at the gate with a newspaper in his hand;
and Claire ran forward to meet him; and she did not go
to church with them after all.
Thomas Erichsen had been apprehended at Kew on
the Saturday evening, and lodged for that night in the
local lock-up. The bare fact was read by Mr. Harding
in next day's Dispatch, and by Claire in her father's
face, before she heard it from his lips at twenty minutes


COALS OF FIRE
87
to eleven in the morning. The girl created no scene
before the children, and thus made a still firmer friend
of her father for the time being; but her mental torture
admitted of no further surprise at his amazing attitude;
she was grateful to him, but that was all. On the Sun-
day night he came to tell her that he had made inquiries,
and that the prisoner had been removed to the cells
at the Marylebone police-office, where he would come
before the magistrate next day. On the Monday morn-
ing she gave him his breakfast early and alone; and he
then assured her that he was going to see what could be
done.
“But not a word of this to anybody," he added, as the
coach came around. “If I do anything, it may be best
to do it secretly after all. But I shall first consult my
lawyer. I don't want Daintree, for instance, to know
anything at all about it; he might misconstrue our in-
terest in so near a neighbour; and I have already told
him that we hardly ever saw and never spoke to young
Erichsen in our lives. Do you hear me, Claire ? You
are to back me up in this, or I wash my hands of the
whole affair. I have forgiven you freely for what is
past; you must promise me to keep it rigorously to
yourself, not only now, but hereafter always!” Claire
promised.
Mr. Harding did not consult his own lawyer at all.
But he went on foot to the purlieus of the Old Bailey,
and there mounted to a noisome den, with his shoulders
up and his hat well over his eyes. He departed as fur-
tively some minutes later; and was followed down the
breakneck stairs by an unclean vulture of a man, with
snuffy beak and grimy talons, who skipped into a cabrio-
let and was driven at speed to the Marylebone office.


88
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
There was a dense crowd outside, but with the free
use of his own elbows and Mr. Harding's money, the
Old Bailey lawyer fought and bought his way in. He
was in time to witness the formal remand of Thomas
Erichsen, and to draw his own conclusion from the bold
fixed eyes and tremulously scornful lips behind the iron
railing of the dock. That look was less for the magis-
trate than for the opera-glasses of the noble lord whom
the magistrate had allowed upon the bench. But the
Old Bailey lawyer read it his own way: here was a
glaringly guilty man putting a face of brass upon a heart
of putty: the very type with which he was best accus-
tomed and most competent to deal. So the vulture took
a pinch of snuff that resounded through the court, and,
on the prisoner's removal, squeezed out himself to make
inquiries. It was as he expected. The prisoner would
be conveyed immediately to the new prison at Clerken-
well. But the attorney managed to get away first
through the swelling crowd now on tip-toe for the prison
van; and in a neighbouring tavern he had his heartiest
meal that year, also with Mr. Harding's money.
Between three and four he presented himself, well
primed, at Clerkenwell, and sent in a greasy card to the
prisoner.
“He is much obliged, but he doesn't want to see you,”.
said the turnkey, on his reappearance.
“Tell him I am commissioned by his friends to get
up his defence. No expense to be spared. Tell him
that."
The turnkey was gone longer, but came back shaking
his head.
“He says it is impossible. He has no friends. And
you mention no name."


COALS OF FIRE
89
“That is true; but my client's name is the one thing
my client will not give."
This did it; the ambassador returned beckoning, and
conducted the visitor to a narrow dark cell, at the end
of which glowered the prisoner on his bed. Two more
turnkeys joined them at the door.
“Do you want to be alone with him ?" said they.
“It is absolutely necessary."
“ Very well. We wait outside.”
And the three officials withdrew across the corridor,
and chatted a little, but kept an eye on the open door.
They saw the lawyer seat himself upon the chair, at a
gesture from the prisoner, who restrained him with an-
other as he edged it nearer and nearer the bed. They
heard the lawyer's whisper, low and rapid, and saw his
dirty gesticulating fingers; but not his face; only that
of the prisoner, very calm and cold. Suddenly it flared
up; and next instant the visitor was hurled through the
open door, and Thomas Erichsen stood with the empty
chair poised a moment, before dashing it after him with
a yell of rage.
Two of the turnkeys rushed in and secured this caged
tiger, while the third knelt over the Old Bailey lawyer,
who lay moaning outside.
“It'll be a strait-waistcoat for you, my beauty, after
this."
“ You've half killed him!”
“Half killed him ?” roared Tom. “Only let in an-
other of them, to insult and threaten me, and I'll kill
him quite, and deserve all I get!”
And he tore away from them, and flung himself,
unstrung and sobbing, upon the bed.


WHEEL WITHIN WHEEL
91
“That message was delivered ?"
“It was."
“Something more must have been said !”
“Hardly a word; my man was proceeding to business,
when this maniac sprang upon him and flung him out
of the cell.”
Claire shook her head.
“I cannot think that's all that passed,” said she.
“It was, though; you ask the warders. There were
three of them outside the open door, and they've put
him in a strait-waistcoat for it, at any rate! So you see
how he has made use of the chance I gave him. Don't
ask me to give him another, that's all.”
“No, no,” said Claire, sadly; “it was only too noble
of you to give him one at all, and I shall never, never,
never forget all this — your forgiveness — everything!
Papa, dear, you may not have me with you very long;
how can one go on living after such a thing? I loved
him, and I long to die. But until I do, I promise one
thing. I may deceive others, but never again will I
deceive or disobey my own dear father!”
She spoke with the sad fortitude of sheer despair; and
she left Nicholas Harding in an icy exhalation, with one
tingling spot, where she had stooped and kissed his face.
Claire had hardly reached her room, when there was
a knock at the door, and in came Hannah with a neat
sealed packet.
“Oh, please, miss, Mr. Daintree said I was to give you
this."
“Mr. Daintree !"
She had seen him during the day; then what could
he have to say to her which would not bear plain verbal


92
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
utterance ? Claire opened the packet when the maid
was gone, and found a smaller packet and a letter inside.
The letter ran, —
“ DEAR Miss HARDING,- Think what you will of me for slan-
dering the dead; I can bear it better than to see you mourning
one who was never worthy to touch the hem of your garment.
The enclosed will give you a true insight into the character of the
late Captain Blaydes ; but I make a separate packet of it, so that
you may destroy it unread, if you prefer not to know, and to think
me the liar.
“You may remember telling me that Captain Blaydes had the
room that I have now, when he was here and I was not. That
was the week before last. The weather has been so warm, the fire
has not been alight since my return; and to-day, quite by chance,
I discovered, torn up in the grate, the fragments which I have put
together and now enclose. I will not tell you the word that caught
my eye and irresistibly impelled me to put the letter together and
read it through. Nor will I seek to defend an action that will no
doubt condemn me in your eyes for ever. It was dishonourable.
I admit it. But I am a believer in instinct. My instinct always
told me that that man was a bad man; and my instinct told me
then that I was within reach of proving its own unerring truth,
and the measure of a villain's villainy. I have done both, as you
will soon see, if you can nerve yourself to know the truth; if not,
condemn me with a glance, or with words as bitter as you please,
and I leave this house to-night and for ever. I shall never regret
what I have done. You mourn a traitor ; and I had rather forfeit
your respect - nay, and my own honour to boot — than let one so
divine waste another sigh on one so devilish !
“But if you forgive me, oh, let me hear it from your own sweet
lips; and I will move heaven and earth to atone for what present
misery this may inflict. One day you will thank me: meanwhile,
if you do not spurn, command me, and your lightest word shall be
my law. If only I could do something for you! My one remain-
ing chance of happiness is in serving her I may not love.
“ Humbly and sincerely always,
“James E. W. DAINTREE."


WHEEL WITHIN WHEEL
93
Claire arrived at the last paragraph with a mind made
up. She perceived with amazement the writer's theory
regarding the wretched Blaydes and herself; it had
never struck her that her every agitation might be
thus misconstrued; and her first impulse was to set
Daintree right upon the point. She would then return
the incriminating enclosure unopened: that would be a
sufficient rebuke for an action as it were so honestly dis-
honourable; and at these decisions her nimble mind had
arrived before she came to the last paragraph.
This she read over more than once, with a puckered
forehead and a changeful eye, as eagerness, reluctance,
hesitation and decision, shame and pride, whipped across
her face like shadows and sunbeams on a gusty day.
And suddenly she tore open the enclosure, and felt as
mean as Daintree from that moment, though she barely
glanced at what she found.
It was an obviously genuine letter, addressed to Blaydes
by some poor woman, but that was all Claire allowed her-
self to discover. A feeling of incredible meanness made
her hot all over, and she turned the letter upside down
to examine the method of reconstruction. With abomi-
nable ingenuity Daintree had pasted the scraps upon a
sheet; a few were missing; many were black from the
coals. Claire shuddered, and glanced at her own fire-
place; it was laid and all ready for lighting. A moment
later it was lit, and the dead man's letter was blazing in
its midst. Then Claire breathed again, and took another
look at Daintree's warning before burning it too.
“An interesting revelation of character,” said she,
when this was done. “I shall never think the same of
him again; nor of myself either; but what does that
matter, since I can never think the same of Tom ?


94
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
Nothing matters, except saving his life! And here is
a man who says he'll do anything for me. Will he ?
We shall see!”
She had a word with Daintree before dinner. “For-
give you? I thank you with all my heart !” said she.
And great was the change in her this evening. It was
no time for gaiety, but Claire was animated; her eyes
sparkled; she conversed freely on the topic of the hour;
and when Mr. Harding was moved after all to give
Daintree a judicious version of his attempt to provide
fair play for a dastardly constitutent, with the result,
the girl took her father's breath away by looking hard at
their guest, and declaring that she would finance the de-
fence herself if she had the money.
“What on earth did you mean by saying that?" asked
Mr. Harding afterwards. “Have you forgotten your
word of honour, that nobody should ever suspect what
had existed between you and Erichsen ? "
This was when the girl had said good-night. Mr.
Harding followed her upstairs. It was his first chance
of speaking to her, for Claire and Daintree had been
together in the garden all the evening.
“No, papa,” she replied; “I have forgotten nothing
that I said to you. Mr. Daintree, at any rate, suspects
nothing at all.”
“ You said enough to make him!”
“I don't think I did.”
“Not when you said you'd pay for a defence if you
had the money? Are you aware that he thinks you were
in love with the murdered man ?”
“He thinks I was, but that something has since caused
a complete revulsion of feeling — as to which I may as
well explain everything." And she told the incident


WHEEL WITHIN WHEEL
95
of the letters without hiding a thing. “So he thinks it
quite natural that I should fly to the other extreme, and
want no human creature to hang for one so base. You
see,” said Claire shrewdly, “he is a man of extremes
himself.”
“Then, instead of undeceiving him, you have literally
fooled him to the top of his bent?”
Claire blushed hotly. “I cannot help that. I may
make up for it some day. Any woman would do the
same.”
Mr. Harding was slow to understand.
“That he should never know what I know,” said he,
“is right enough; but why carry the thing so far? Why
pretend this revulsion?"
Claire hung her head.
“ Come, come!” he cried. “You promised to hide
nothing more from me. You are hiding your chief
motive. What is it?”
“I would rather not say.”
“ And I insist on knowing.”
“Very well, then; it is to give Tom Erichsen another
chance."
Harding turned livid.
“That young —"
“Oh, don't be angry! You know you thought of it your-
self. And I loved him; could I leave a stone unturned ?"
“But what can Daintree do?”
“ What you thought of doing yourself.”
“He has never consented ?”
“Eagerly. He is going to have a solicitor at Maryle-
bone to-morrow morning.”
Mr. Harding glared at the girl, who flung back her
ringlets and met his look, unafraid and unashamed.


96
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
“ And suppose I put my oar in ? " said he, savagely.
“Then you would have to tell him the truth.”
“Oh, curse your infernal woman's wit!” cried he.
“ Are you not ashamed of yourself, that you can stand
there looking me in the face ?"
“No, I am not ashamed to try to save this life by hook
or crook. It is the life of the man I loved.”
“Loved! So you don't love him now? Like every-
body else, you believe him guilty ? Well, well, that's
something !"
“Not of murder," she said. “That I'll never believe.
The other struck first; that is what we want the best
man at the Bar to prove !"
He supplemented his cruel irony by laughing aloud at
her notions of criminal law. She reminded him it was
himself who had put them into her head; her view to-
night was only his of the night before.
Harding changed his ground. “If you get him off
with his neck — what then?"
“I shall be grateful to Mr. Daintree all my life.”
“I daresay, but I want more than that. You said
. something about making up to him for this. Will you
marry him if he asks you when it's all over ? "
Claire turned very pale. “I pray God he never may,"
she whispered.
Mr. Harding looked her through and through. “Well!
I may or may not interfere," said he. “I make no
promise either way." And at last she was left in
peace.
She fell upon her knees, and prayed more fervently
than ever in her life before.
“Oh, God,” cried this loving heart, “ forgive me,
and save poor Tom! Thou knowest these sins I have


A FORLORN HOPE
99
Bassett turned and ran a keen eye over the crowded
court. At the same moment a slip of paper was passed
across the sea of heads, and put into his hand. “ Ah!
Here it is, I make no doubt,” said he. It was not, how-
ever, and his eyebrows showed it; but he handed the
paper to the accused without comment.
And Tom read —
“Solicitor instructed by one who believes you inno-
cent, and will save you if he can. For God's sake let
us try.”
The words danced beneath his eyes, and these were
swimming when he raised them behind the iron railing
of the dock.
“I accept with gratitude !” said he, searching pitifully
among the faces for that of his unknown ally; and he
placed the slip of paper in an inside pocket, with expres-
sive deliberation and a touching smile.
“ Then if your worship will grant us a few minutes ? "
And as the magistrate bowed, the dead silence, which
had prevailed ever since the prisoner opened his lips,
ended as suddenly; it was like the upsetting of a slum-
bering hive.
“They've been telling you about yesterday,” said Tom,
nervously, through the rails. “The fellow took it for
granted I was guilty — among other things. Do you ?"
The smart solicitor shook his head, and said they had
no time to waste. What he wished to hear was the pris-
oner's version of his last interview with Blaydes, from
its origin to its end, and the prisoner would please be
brief, and speak in a whisper.
Tom was brevity itself; indeed, he had his story
almost suspiciously pat, for he had already made up
his mind as to the one fact which he intended to sup-


100
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
press. This was the source of his information as to
Blaydes's latest whereabouts. He owned to no such
information at all. The meeting was a chance meet-
ing, that was to be his solitary lie.
He told it and it passed unchallenged; but when he
came to the transaction of the watch, the solicitor's eye-
brows shot to such an involuntary height, that the glib
flow froze that instant.
“Go on, go on.”
“ You don't believe a word I say !”
“Nonsense, my good fellow. I believe every word.
Come, come, they're getting impatient. You gave him
a receipt — and then ?”
Tom finished with a leaden heart and tongue. To his
surprise, however, Mr. Bassett was all smiles when he
had done; then he put a few questions; and the lamer
the answer, the sprightlier the solicitor's nod. The lat-
ter, in fact, foresaw a defence about as weak as one could
be, but a case even more sensational than he had sup-
posed. And sensation happened to be this brisk practi-
tioner's professional loadstar.
Proceedings were resumed at two minutes past eleven,
when the witness Adcock, recalled, identified a pair of
dilapidated shoes, and the mutilated elements of a beaver,
as having belonged to the accused. Bassett had no idea
what point the prosecution designed to make, but at once
he gave a taste of his quality. He pressed the wit-
ness, and shook her as to the hat; but to the shoes she
stood firm ; she had cleaned them oft enough, so she
ought to know. Then she cleaned the lodgers' boots her-
self? Well, not all; and an adroit question or two re-
vealed the fact that Erichsen had been her pet, and
“one it was a pleasure to do for," against whom she had


A FORLORN HOPE
101
appeared with profound reluctance. Indeed, she left the
box, and rejoined the husband who had brought her there,
in tears; and so the defence made a first meretricious
point.
Nor was it the last. Jonathan Butterfield, unlike his
relatives, had not been called at the previous examina-
tion; but he was now; and his feelings were worked
upon in the same deft fashion. As, however, there was
no jury to be simultaneously touched, all this was wasted
dexterity; but it looked neat in the newspapers; and
(what was better, but unintentional) imposed upon poor
Tom, and gave him momentary heart.
Meanwhile the shoes and hat had done real damage;
and this evidence was the more deleterious from being
new to all. Guilty flight and ultimate capture had been
fully dealt with on the previous occasion ; but the equally
incriminating interim was only now filled in, by the offi-
cers who had chased and lost a desperate housebreaker
in the small hours of Saturday, but only afterwards con-
nected him with the Hampstead murderer. The connec-
tion was established by the beaver hidden but discovered
in the empty house, and by the shoes left on either side
of the nursery-garden gate. Only two officers appeared;
the third was in hospital, and one of the two had a
bandaged head.
The medical evidence had been taken on the Monday
morning; so had that of the crafty householder of Kew;
yet his powdered head was again in court, and his humor-
ous, sly smile looked as benevolent as ever, only broader
and more subtly droll. Tom heard this public benefactor
taking snuff in every pause.
The other new witness was one Richard Vale, who.
brought a whiff of cognac into the crowded court. His


102
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
words ran into one another, but his evidence was all too
clear. Witness described himself as a very old friend
of the deceased. He swore that deceased had frequently
told him he went in fear of the prisoner, who had repeat-
edly threatened him by letter, and to whom, in fact, the
deceased owed a sum of money. The letters were now
put in. They all related to a worthless cheque for £35
- the sum in question — and without a blush witness
explained about the cheque. The cheque-book was an
old one of his own; he remembered the deceased telling
him he had made use of it in the manner alleged in the
letters; but he could not himself describe the incident,
as, to the best of his belief, he was intoxicated on that
occasion. And the witness stood down, having supplied
the motive of revenge to a case strong enough, in all
conscience, as it was.
Bassett hurried to the dock.
“I suppose you lost that cheque ? " he whispered.
“No; I gave it him back with the receipt."
Bassett turned abruptly and stated that the prisoner
reserved his defence; a minute later he stood formally
committed for trial at the next sessions of the Central
Criminal Court.
“I'll see you down below,” said Bassett, nodding airily
to trembling Tom; but the latter pulled himself together
on his blessed release from the public gaze; and the sub-
sequent interview, in the bowels of the police-office, was
business-like on both sides.
“When are the sessions ?” asked Tom.
“They begin next Monday. No time to be lost!”
“Five days more. Well, it's better than waiting. So
you won't give me my benefactor's name?”
“I am pledged not to reveal it to a soul.”'


A FORLORN HOPE
103
“ Do I know him ? "
“No."
“ Does he know me?”
"No."
“Yet he thinks me innocent! God bless him!-- God
bless him! He must be an eccentric man, though, to help
the helpless like that ? ”
“Somewhat,” said the solicitor, so dryly that Tom
winced.
“ You think I haven't the ghost of a chance ?"
“I never said so. Nor do I think it. But you made
a mistake in destroying that cheque.”
“ He destroyed it when I gave it him back.”
“ There would have been less possible motive with the
cheque in your possession; you could have taken pro-
ceedings on that alone."
“Ay, but I meant to take them with my own hands!”
Tom would have recalled the words next instant.
He saw even the hardened and alert police-court attor-
ney shrink away as he said them. Bassett took a hand-
ful of silver from his pocket, counted a sovereign's-worth,
and handed it to Tom.
“ There,” said he coldly, "I had that for you with my
instructions, and you will need it at Newgate if you want
to be comfortable. Use it freely. See you there to-mor-
row.” And he was gone with repulsion ill-concealed.
Half-way to his office in Clipstone Street, he overhauled
Daintree crossing Portland Place.
“Well ? well?” cried Daintree. “I didn't want to be
seen waiting for you; but what do you make of it?”
“ You'll be throwing your money away — that's a guilty
man.”
“ You think so ?”


104
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
“Think ? ” said Bassett. “Why, he's as good as con-
fessed to me already! But that doesn't matter; if you
still wish it I'll do my best."
"I do wish it, sir,” replied Daintree, sternly. “Either
the best you ever did in your life, or nothing more.
Which do you say, sir ? "
“Oh, I'll do all I know; that I promise you,” said the
solicitor. “I was thinking of you entirely. Why, the
case fits me like a coat of paint!"
CHAPTER XIV
OLD NEWGATE
Tom ERICHSEN was committed for trial about four in
the afternoon, by which hour the High Street of Maryle-
bone was thronged by would-be witnesses of his removal
in the prison van. But a recent experience, when a posse
of police had to accompany the van with drawn staves,
had taught the officers a lesson ; and their prisoner was
spirited away by the side entrance and a hackney coach,
while the crowd were watching the gateway for that live
man's hearse. The coach started westward down Pad-
dington Street, but was on its course in a couple of min-
utes, without a solitary follower.
The two police-officers congratulated themselves and
each other, but never took an eye off Tom, though they
had him handcuffed and held by one arm. Tom, how-
ever, paid no heed to them. It was the third of May.
The sun was as high as at a winter's noon; it blazed in
the bright shop-windows; it rimmed the cobble-stones


OLD NEWGATE
105
with tiny bands of gold; for there had been a heavy
shower during the day, that had purged the London air,
and cleansed and sweetened the whole of London town.
Tom looked out wistfully, and inhaled all he could, but
it was not to be borne beyond a minute. The beautiful
streets, full of happy people, were as a knife twisted
round in his heart; he buried his face in his manacled
hands, and could look no more.
By half-past four they were at Newgate.
Tom stepped through the sunlight into a forbidding
vestibule — a very porch of despair — where a dimly
burning lamp avowed eternal gloom. Here the new-
comer was entered in a book, relieved of his handcuffs,
and forthwith led through humid passages and nail-stud-
ded doors into the black heart of this horrible place.
In one corridor a large cell was being swabbed out as
they passed. A horrid intuition chilled Toin's blood.
“ Whose cell is that?”
“Nobody's now.”
" It was Greenacre's! I had forgotten him; did he -
die game ?"
“Game ? Not he; like a cur.”
Tom set his chattering teeth; but suddenly his eyes
blinked: they were out again in the sun, in a yard some
fifteen paces long, and half as broad as its length. A
parallelogram of brilliant blue sky smiled cruelly over-
head, cut on all sides by the high dark walls, and show-
ing from the wet flags as the mouth of a well seen from
its base.
“ You're consigned to Chapel Yard,” said Tom's guide,
" and this is it. I'm just looking for a wardsman, and
then I'm done with 'ee. Ah, here he comes!”
A great, gross being, with an irregular walk and a face


106
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
of solidified beer, tacked towards them as the turnkey
spoke.
“Now, wot's all this?" inquired a voice to scale.
“Wot for are you a-bringin' noo boys here for? Recepshun
ward's the place for them; they've got no business ’ere."
“Well, them's the orders, and this is a special case.
It's Erichsen!”
The wardsman opened his half-shut eyes, and blinked
incredulity.
“Gerrout!" said he. “That kid ? Pitch us another.”
“It's right," said the turnkey. “Committed this
afternoon."
“Well, I'm darned: you wouldn't think it of 'im, now
would yer ?" asked the fuddled connoisseur, half-sobered
by surprise. A slow, dim admiration glimmered in the
clouded face like a rush-light in a yellow fog. “Why,
Master Erichsen,” he continued, “ I'm proud to have ye
in my ward. We know all about you 'ere, and this is a
proud day for Number Twelve. I'll do my best to make
ye at home.”
“An' it all rests with he,” whispered the turnkey, tak-
ing his leave. “Pay you his dues, and you'll do well.”
Tom had already glanced down the yard, and noted
two prisoners playing pitch-and-toss at the far end;
another sitting on a wet flag, back to wall, knees up,
chin down, an abject picture; and a third, in tatters,
drawing near, open-mouthed. He now turned abruptly
to the wardsman.
“ What's this about dues ?”
“On'y a little weekly trifle for the pore wardsman;
nothing to hurt, Master Erichsen - "
“I double it if I don't hear that name again!"
The man stared. “You are a noo boy, no error!”


OLD NEWGATE
107
cried he. “It's very clear you don't know Noogit, let
alone Chapel Yard, where all the best men comes to, like
yourself. Why, they'll give you the 'artiest welcome
ever you ’ad; you've done it big, sir, that you ’ave; and
you that young! Come away to Number Ten, I'll introduce
ye, and ye'll see. Number Ten's where they've all got to,
as you can 'ear for yourself.” Along the yard were, in-
deed, three open doors, and through the farthest of these
came oaths and laughter, snatches of song, the ring of
money and the rattle of dice.
Tom clutched the wardsman's sleeve..
“ Didn't you understand ? I don't want them to know
who I am — I double your dues if they don't.”
“ But know they must; they'll soon find it out.”
“It's half-a-crown a day until they do! Here's the
first shilling, and the rest to-night.”
“ Well, as you like. It'll be 'alf-a-crown a week for
use of knives, forks, kittles an’ saucep’ns.”
“ Here it is.”
“Thank’ee, master. I never forgit the blokes wot
pays in advance. I sha’n't forgit Thomas Erichsen!”
Tom was blazing. The man with the open mouth was
within three yards of them. He rolled his light-blue
eyes, and laughed high up in his head as Tom pointed to
him in his rage.
“Oh, ’e don't count,” said the wardsman. “ 'E's stark
starin' mad."
“What! you keep madmen here as well ? "
“ All sorts — mad— bad — glad an' sad. See that
poor devil against the wall! Now come and I'll show
you Number Twelve.”
The ward was a fair-sized room, with mats hung round
the walls, for the prisoners' beds at night. One such


108
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
mat was in use thus early, whereon a human lump lay
snorting in a drunken sleep beneath a couple of rugs;
otherwise the ward was empty. Tom noticed the vestiges
of a gaming-board chalked upon the deal table, and at
the other end a pile of newspapers, in which, no doubt,
his fortunes had been daily followed. After Clerkenwell,
where the separate system even then obtained, Newgate
was a revelation, or rather a succession of them, with
the most amazing yet to come.
The wardsman opened a cupboard, invited Tom to
have a glass of beer, and drank three glasses with him.
The whole place stank of beer; its stains were on every-
thing; there seemed to be an unlimited supply. Tom
took his glass, and soon saw that he was being treated
with a view to business. He was offered a flock-bed,
instead of the mat, at an extra half-crown a week. This
he declined; whereupon the wardsman, now fast return-
ing to intoxication, offered to draw up his brief for a
pound. He professed an unrivalled experience; was the
recognised brief-drawer for the yard, under sanction of the
governor himself; and had drawn up twenty-three last
sessions, of which more than half led to acquittals. The
boys reckoned him worth a waggon-load of lawyers any
day in the week; he would do his very best for a pound.
Tom looked at the great sot sprawling over the table,
and shook his head with a civil word.
“Fifteen bob, then."
“Thank you, no."
“Well, I don't want to be 'ard on a gent on trial for
his life. Say 'alf a couter!”
“No, thanks; the fact is --"
“Oh, if you're that ’ard up, let's make it five and be
done with it."


OLD NEWGATE
109
Five shillings happened to be his regulation price.
“ No," said Tom. “The fact is a solicitor is engaging
counsel-"
“ Then why the hell couldn't you say so at first ? "
roared the other, in a drunken fury. “But lemme tell
you five couters wouldn't draw the brief as'd save your
neck; no, nor yet five ’underd; nor all the lousy lawyers
in the country. An' I'll trouble you for twopence for
that glass obeer!”
Tom threw the coppers on the table and went out,
followed by his own name hurled after him in loud
derision; but the wardsman's articulation was no longer
intelligible, and the brute himself stopped where he was,
and lay down upon the one bed in the room, which was
his own.
This man was himself a prisoner, under sentence of
two years for criminal conspiracy. Newgate contained
no wretch more mercenary or more debauched. Yet the
regulations of the time set such a one in authority, coun-
tenanced his iniquitous emoluments, and allowed him to
spend them upon unlimited beer!
The madman was still wandering in the yard, croon-
ing to himself in a high falsetto. His blue eye, happy
and vacant as the clear evening sky, fixed Tom as he
emerged, and set him envying the man who came to
Newgate but left his wits outside. The pitch-and-toss
pair had disappeared; in Number Ten the sounds of
revelry were louder and more continuous than before ;
but that dejected figure, with the bent knees and the
fallen chin, still sat outside in the damp. Tom's com-
passion was aroused. He approached, and found a
stripling with a white, damp skin, bony wrists, and
fleshless knees.


110
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
“ You oughtn't to be sitting out here,” said Tom.
“Why not get up and go inside ?”
“Why should I?” rejoined the youth, raising eyes
deep-sunken in a mass of skin and bone.
“ Because if you don't you may catch your death.”
“All the better! That's my lay. I'm cold an’ wet,
but it's no use goin' in there, there ain't no fire when
you do. I want to go straight to hell.”
Tom shuddered, but stooped down.
“ Come, come,” said he; “I'll give you an arm.”
" You're a rum cove," replied the other, looking care-
lessly up; “but I bet you ain't kissed this 'ere clink
afore, or you wouldn't say that! Nice spot, ain't it?
But this is a sight better than the Middle Yard. I've
bin 'ere afore, you see; this makes the fourth time;
thank Gawd it'll be the larst!”
He suffered Tom to help him to his feet, the shrunken
shadow of a man, dressed, however, very respectably, in
black clothes eloquently loose. On Tom's arm he was
promptly seized with a fit of coughing that sounded as
if his bag of bones must split asunder; but he mastered
it, wiped his hollow eyes with prominent knuckles, and
said: “That's better! One or two more like that'll do
my business.” Tom's gorge rose to hear him; yet he
understood the feeling. It had come to himself in the
soaking, inhospitable fields; only now, with the shadow
of death lengthening hourly towards him, he knew how
little he had ever wished to die.
“You ought to be in the infirmary,” he said ; “it's a
scandal to find you here."
“No it ain't!" coughed the youth. “It's my own
doings; Macmurdo ain't to blame. I on'y come in larst
night, and dodged 'im on 'is round this mornin', 'cause I


OLD NEWGATE
111
wanted to be with my old pals; and roast me if they
'aven't served me out by winnin' my last chinker!”
Tom wanted to lend hiin a little. The other refused,
but with a gleaming eye. Presently he said he felt
stronger, and would take Tom's advice. So he quitted
his arm and went into Number Ten.
Deterred by the din of oaths and laughter, Tom lin-
gered without; but curiosity at length conquered aver-
sion, and he entered a den of gamblers who never
looked at him, so intent were they upon their petty
play. Crowded round the table, upon which lighted
candles had now been stuck in their own grease, were
some thirty men of every age and type, save that the
latter was in most cases one of obvious criminality.
Lust of gain was on every face, the scum of every soul
had risen to the surface. And in the forefront facing
Tom, lean elbows like tent-poles in their sleeves, wet
white hands, and the face of the consumptive like a
painted corpse. A little heap of silver lay before him
on the board; each minute left it less; and this was he
who had declared to Tom that his friends had won his
last coin.
Instinctively Tom's hand felt in the pocket in which
he had carried his pound of silver loose. Not a sixpence
remained.
His fist doubled, but relaxed at sight of the hectic
pickpocket and his pale, perspiring hands; the hair
clung rank to his low forehead; the eyeballs burnt in
their receding sockets; and even as Tom watched, his
own last sixpence was lost before his eyes.
“So it ain't done you that much good, arter all,” said
the man who won it.
“Stop a bit !” cried the pickpocket. “I forked the


112
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
flat's wipe as well. I'll put it on for a brown!” And
he spat blood on it for luck.
“My handkerchief,” said Tom, calmly, from the rear.
“Is that the flat?"
“That's him," said the pickpocket, laughing hysteri-
cally; but Tom's grudge was not against the thief. ·
“Shame on you,” said he, “to rook that dying man
and bring him to this! Are you Englishmen or what?
You ought to be nursing him among you, instead of
exciting him to his death.”
A roar of laughter greeted these words; at an instruc-
tive interval, however; and eight or ten eyes looked
down.
“A proper flat!” cried one.
“Parson come to rake in the churchyard deserter!”
“ The Ordinary'll give him a job. What the blazes
did he do to get here?”
Suggestions followed, beast capping beast with bestial
humour. Tom's eyes, filled with pity, never travelled
from the pickpocket's poor face. Suddenly a new voice
chimed in, “ You're all wrong, boys; it's Erichsen him-
self !”
The handkerchief was marked, and one had read the
name.
The effect of its announcement was something incred-
ible: all rose, save the pickpocket, who was unable. A
hushed awe fell, but it was the awe inspired by sudden
contact with a master hand. Tom shrank before their
vile, admiring looks; they admired him all the more;
the tainted air hummed with compliments, condolences,
criticisms and cross-questions. One or two said he
deserved to die for a clumsy workman. A thick-set
young fellow, with a sleek face and his hair in his


OLD NEWGATE
113
eyes, elbowed his way to the front and wanted to shake
hands because they were in the same boat.
“Sling us your mauley, old cock!” cried he.
Tom declined the honour.
“ Then double them, you cuckoo!”
Tom declined again; a ring was formed, but he refused
to enter it, and turned a deaf ear to their taunts. It was
notable, however, that only the tongues interfered with
him; not a single hand; and the shrewder men saw it
was not cowardice. Tom's sad eyes would not leave the
dying thief, who was now sprawling across the table,
with his death's head on one skinny arm, fast asleep.
To keep an eye on this poor fellow, Tom remained in
Number Ten Ward, arranging the matter with the new
wardsman, who seemed a well-disposed, weak vessel. At
supper-time there came the turnkey who had conducted
him to the yard, to whisper that a hot meal had been
sent in from outside by his friends, and he might have
it in the Bread Room if he liked to make it worth a
man's while. “Friends !” thought Tom. “It is my one
true friend, who doesn't disbelieve in me, and whose very
name I don't know.”
He noted the impression that he was one who could
pay for things, and its effect upon the small official fry.
But he said he would take his supper where he was.
When it came he put it before the sleeping consumptive,
gently woke him, saw him finish every morsel, and him-
self supped on gruel from a pail. He was directly an-
noyed no more that evening, but his challenger talked at
him after locking-up time, when they were all upon their
mats. And this was in other ways an odious interval.
Tom had never been too particular among his own
associates in the little matter of his conversation. At


114
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
school, at college, in the stable-yard at home, his lan-
guage had been more than free at times, and never
studiously considered. This is stated as a fact, not a
merit. Tom was not without refinement, but his spirit-
ual armour was full of joints, or this his ruin had never
come about. To-night, however, he first tossed on his
mat — then clenched his fists and sprang up in the dark
- but lay down again, recollecting his own footing in
that foul place -- and finally dug his thumbs in his ears
and remained supine and ashamed. Hitherto he had
held that he knew everything and could stand much.
He altered his opinion in Number Ten Ward of the
Chapel Yard at Newgate.
At last they tired of their talk and began to snore.
Tom was himself dropping off when the poor fellow at
his side woke up groaning.
“The sweat! — the sweat!” he whimpered. “Now
I'll have to lie in it, cold, till morning."
“That you won't,” said Tom, cheerily. He had taken
the next mat to the pick pocket's from no unmixed sense
of duty. The tragedy of this poor ebbing life had come
with incredibly grateful effect between his own mind and
his own woes. Besides, there was a fellow-feeling: they
were both unquestionably cast for death; the only ques-
tion was as to which would go first. So Tom was glad
to have this comrade in hopeless case; he was thankful
for the very glow it gave him to do what he could.
He stripped his companion, he stripped himself, and,
by a moon-ray breaking obliquely through grimy glass
and iron bars, he got the sufferer into his own dry things.
Tom then lay down, half-naked, between the rugs sup-
plied with each mat; having first tucked up his charge
with all the care and gentleness he could command.


OLD NEWGATE
115
And the pickpocket said hardly a word; but in the suc-
ceeding stillness Tom felt the feeble clasp of a clammy
hand; and that was all.
He went to sleep with tears in his eyes, and dreamt
of Claire at Winwood, on a bluff October day, with the
wind in her ringlets, its glow on her cheek, but her little
hand so white and innocent that he wasted all the time
in longing to take it in his, but not daring for very
shame. And from this sweet delusion he woke with a
howl of pain. One had tied a cord to his toe, and was
pulling it so hard that his very body had budged some
inches. He had the cord between his fingers next instant,
when it was at once let go at the other end.
But Tom was implacable when his blood was up, and
· it was boiling now. Trembling with rage, he found and
struck a lucifer, and espied a rug shaking across the floor.
He sprang up and dealt the carcase beneath as heavy
a kick as naked foot could give; then snatched off the
rug and caught one glimpse, as the match burnt his
fingers, of the sleek, low, infuriate face of his fellow-
prisoner on a capital charge.
“You little beast!” said Tom. “Yes, I'll fight you
now !”
The fellow had him by the legs that instant, and head
over heels they went, upon men lying so close together
they trod upon two at once. These started up, screaming
blasphemies, while on the pair went struggling, the
brute's teeth in Tom's leg, and Tom's thumbs at his
windpipe: until the place was in an uproar, lights struck,
and the belligerents at last torn asunder.
Every man was awake and cursing — some in a pas-
sion, some with glee.
“ Bedad, boys,” yelled the wildest voice of all, “it's


116
THE ROGCE'S MARCH
. the Kilkhinny cats; let 'em chaw each other up, for the
love av God!"
6 That's it. A ring — a ring!"
“They'll save Jack Ketch his trouble."
“ A bonny brace!”
And that they were — Tom stripped to the waist, his
nankeen trousers flecked with blood — his enemy foam-
ing at the mouth, and struggling still in half-a-dozen
brawny hands. Dips were lighted, the ring formed.
Silence was then called, and something like it obtained,
save for the innocent laughter of the lunatic in his cor-
ner, and the plaintive voice of the consumptive shut out
on his mat.
“Let me see,” it quavered. “That's no flat. That's
the best man above earth. Lend a mauley, old pals, and
let a beggar see!”
So they dragged him out upon his mat, and made roor
for it and him, because he was too weak to rise. Ant
in what ensued, his recumbent figure was the one that
ought to have been watched, with eyeballs starting from
their sunken sockets, and livid lips that tried so hard to
cheer — when Tom spilt his man in the first round — and
that failed so pitiably. But only Tom kept an eye on
him; and so had it blacked through dropping his hands
and darting to the pickpocket, who had fallen forward
with the blood gushing from his mouth.
Tom got him in his arms, and pillowed the deat?
head upon his naked chest. “Stand aside, lads,"
cried. “The excitement — he's going! Let the war
man fetch help of some kind.”
The wardsman had been a weakly protesting part
all that had happened; he was glad to get away.
The shrieking pandemonium was now silent a:


INTERIM
117
church. The worst man there looked on in awe at
Tom with his closing eye and tender hands, and the
gasping white face upon his bosom. Unheeded in his
corner, the lunatic still chuckled at intervals; there was
but one other sound. ...
A brief rally preceded the end; and a thing happened
that might have chilled the coldest heart. Five nerveless
white fingers, all skin and knuckles, were seen to steal
into the pocket of him in whose arms the poor soul lay
dying; and the member, but not the mind, following
its vile trade to the end, so he died in the unconscious
act.
The grey May morning came creeping through the
prison bars. One in the background broke down in
sudden sobs. The bell of St. Sepulchre's tolled four;
and as Tom laid his burden gently down, he awoke to his
i own bitter case, and longed for even that hideous night
to begin again.
CHAPTER XV
INTERIM
CLAIRE HARDING had now adventured upon a narrow
ledge. On the one hand she was bound to show a proper
ppreciation of Daintree's exertions, which she herself
iad inspired ; on the other, to feign a purely impersonal
5r benevolent interest in the unhappy youth on whose
ehalf those exertions were being made. So all day long
We must be ready with a smile as false as any other
ummer's, even though she spent the night in prayer
ror Tom and for her own forgiveness. Yet praying did


118
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
not bring her peace of mind. She could not convince
herself that she was in the right, that even her great
end justified means of downright hypocrisy and deceit.
There were two ways of looking at her conduct, and
Claire, with a breadth of view which was her bane, saw
it both ways from the beginning. She was acting a lie
to save a life: that was one side of the matter. She was
screening the guilty at the expense of the innocent: that
was the other side. And if Claire was in any respect
singular among women, it was in this inherent and not
invariably convenient faculty of seeing the other side
whether she would or no.
All her love could not blind her to the terrible strength
of the case against Tom, and all her prayers could not
unsay what Tom had said to her about the murdered
man on the very night of the murder. “I'd hang for
the hound, and think the satisfaction cheap at the price!”
Those had been his actual words; they were for ever toll-
ing, tolling in her ears; and strong though the case was,
would they not have strengthened it still more? And
good reason as all the world had to think him guilty,
had not she, God help her, better reason than any living
man or woman? But oh! she could not and she never
would believe it of him; not murder; and even with
that cry in her heart she did believe it, but fought to
deceive herself a little longer. Her first theory, how-
ever, that of self-defence, was virtually shattered by his
reported wholesale denials. Then what more was to be
said for the desperate hero of a guilty flight, taken at
last with the dead man's possessions upon his person?
Claire could not imagine, but a clever barrister might;
nay, would; and she set her teeth, and vowed that Tom
should have the finest brain at the Bar to defend him,


INTERIM
119
guilty or not guilty, and though she perjured her soul
for the price. But this was not necessary; it was only
necessary to act the lie; and Claire scorned herself for
the slight comfort that mean distinction gave her against
her will. The honest lie was unnecessary because she
was dealing with a man of extremes, who neglected many
things but did nothing by halves, and whom every pass-
ing breath left cold or burning. A breath from Claire
could have but one effect, and Daintree was already
white-hot for the defence. He had caught fire at a word,
and from that moment made it the business of his life
to rescue that of an obscure homicide. He could talk of
nothing else; his passionate zeal chilled Claire with the
thought of what it might turn to should he learn the
truth.
Within twenty-four hours of the committal he came
in brimful of news and self-importance. Claire was
discovered in the garden, and informed who had been
retained for the defence in a meaning voice which con-
veyed no special meaning to her; the name was a big
one, but the girl was not a great reader of the newspaper,
and she had never heard it before. She looked grate-
ful therefore, but not grateful enough for Daintree,
whose greed for her admiration was such that in the
next breath he must needs tell her with what figure the
big man's brief had been marked. And then he beamed,
for the girl stood thunder-struck at his words.
“Five hundred guineas !” she repeated, slowly. “You
are never going to find five — hundred - guineas ?”
“And why not ? ” said he, with ready pique. “Do you
think that that colossal sum is beyond my means ?”
“For a man of whom you know nothing — who has no
clain upon you ? Yes, I do!”


120
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
“Pardon me,” replied Daintree in his most elaborate
manner. “I know at least as much of the young man
as does Miss Harding; his case has already excited her
sympathy; he has therefore the very strongest claim
upon mine."
“Oh, but you must not do it!" cried Claire, impul-
sively. “It is too much for you to dream of doing! I
am sorry I ever said a word about it! You are too noble,
too generous, too good !”
He hung his head a moment, and then exclaimed, with
the extraordinary passion of the man, that there was
nothing he would not do to win such words from her
lips; that she had repaid him already a hundred-fold.
“And remember, it is all for you,” he added, suddenly,
as though he had caught her candour. “Let there be no
mistake about that between you and me. Whatever I
may do is not done for yonder prisoner, but for you and
you alone !”
“For me!” whispered Claire; and she could say no
more, thinking her voice had already bewrayed her.
“Yes; every bit for you!”
. “But how can that be? He is nothing to us either.
We did not know the family — you heard of the quarrel ?
And the young man was very seldom there, never once
in our house.” So she still swerved instinctively at the
lie direct, and despised herself more than if she had told
a dozen The situation was intolerable to her. She was
on the brink of a rash confession, and such an appeal
to Daintree's magnanimity as should move a stone, when
he took the last word and left her time to think.
“Miss Harding," said he, earnestly, “I care not a jot
what you may think of this case on mature consideration.
I know how it appealed to you the other night, before


INTERIM
121
your great heart pulled you two ways, as it is doing now.
But that's not the point. No, the point is that you asked
something of me, and I mean you to know that what you
ask of me that you shall receive, if it is in the power of
mortal man to give. If I do not rescue this young fellow
from the rope, then it is not in the power of mortal man
to do so. But I shall, never fear; and then you will
perhaps see that your lightest whim is more to me than
the commands of God or man! And that's all the re-
ward I ask.”
She knew his flowery speeches, and what to allow for
his habitual rhetoric; on this occasion, however, he rang
only too true. Yet as she looked at him pensively, his
eyes fell, as they had sometimes fallen before; it was as
though, with all his passion for her, there was a something
sinister and dishonest underneath, and he felt it when
he looked long enough in her eyes. Claire did not con-
nect honesty with herself at present, nor did she view
the question at all from this point; but she found her-
self speculating upon the origin of the quarrel between
Daintree and his people; and she thought of the flowers
that had come back to him from his mother's grave. +
Later in the evening she worked out her own position,
shuddered at the passing impulse to confess (which had
long since passed), put Tom's life before her self-respect
and determined to act better from that hour. So the
play went on before an audience of one, who had been
taken behind the scenes, but who now looked on with eyes
that saw not, so absorbing were his own affairs. In very
truth, however, there was an audience of two; and but
little was lost upon the unseen onlooker.
Daintree meanwhile spent hours every day with Mr.
Bassett, the solicitor, or in waiting for him at his office;


ޗަދަ
TEL EGIS XLI E
po
s teriscon:
**LE 2014 T2 733 2372:
T
i be
27 12:53
- Iscer, o
tas s
to
L i ne: Si Vz. Bassen bzi a sirezi
sa tre c e 72 as to 30
21,3cm 21.
H4,4561 tai te, te was doing T ve in
the hart; *as said to be depressei tu Isable
us wat or biben. Daintree remi dei Caire that the
$7.
961 **a laring a kis nea's seat in fra a neigh-
turig chupkom, azd who it was that tai ordered
tia. It was himself.
Erichsen was in indated with letters. Most were from
religious strangers, who took his guilt for granted, and
indicated sveral only ways to that merey in another
world which was neither to be expected nor desired in
11.1%. But the one that had given him the greatest annoy-
ance was thought to have come from a near relative, for
it was very long and he had torn it in many pieces, and
then retorted in three lines and given it to the surgeon
to post.
Claire knew who the relative was. She had gone the
length of calling at Avenue Lodge, on her flight through
town to the Continent, and her chief lament was not that
murder had been committed, presumably by Tom, but
that her name had been disgraced, her trust abused, her
money spent in riot, and her life rendered unendurable
in her native land. The lady was Tom's step-mother.


INTERIM
123
There was another letter which he seemed to expect
every day, and yet not to expect, and it never came, but
they thought he must be in love. Claire considered it un-
likely; how could a lover have done such a thing? And
had he ever written to any girl ? Daintree said he would
inquire.
No friends had been to see him, no relations; but a
noble lord, the same who had encumbered the bench at
the Marylebone office, brought a party of friends, and
received payment in kind for his insolent questions.
The prisoner was reported to have asked him if there
were no hospitals where his lordship could see the legs
and arms cut off and listen to the screams; to have
recommended bodily tortures, as likely to provide better
sport than a poor dull devil like himself, and suggested
the nearest slaughter-house if all else failed. His lord-
ship had raised his cane and been cuttingly invited to
lay it on, as he might not have such a chance every day.
Whereupon the party retreated, highly amused, all but
their leader, who was said to have marched straight
across the street to book a window for the execution. '
When Claire heard this story, she showed her feelings
in a rather perilous manner. “Well done!" she cried,
and clapped her hands. “So they have not taken all the
spirit out of him yet! Let us be thankful, Mr. Dain-
tree,” she added in an instant, “that it is at least a man
of spirit whose cause you have espoused. Next to an
innocent man, a spirited man has the best claim on one's
sympathy. It would be dreadful if he were neither the
the one nor the other !”
“ But you know that I believe him to be both."
“I have heard you say so. Yet you never go near
him yourself.”


124
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
Daintree admitted his repugnance to personal contact
with the prisoner. “I certainly prefer to draw the line
at that,” said he, “especially as it could do no good.
No, it was bad enough seeing him at Marylebone. I
would give something to forget his face.”
“And why ? " cried Claire. “Because in your heart,
like all the rest of the world, you know him to be guilty !
You may be sensitive, but you wouldn't be as sensitive
as all that if you honestly believed in his innocence.
You do not. Yet you go on spending your money, throw-
ing it away to gratify a passing impulse of mine! It's
madness, Mr. Daintree, it is indeed.”
The tears stood in her eyes as she spoke. But he had
turned away as if unable to deny his latent unbelief;
otherwise her face might have betrayed her even then.
She felt that it must do so in the end; it was but another
question of time. Such interviews left her spirit pros-
trate, her heart worn out with beating, and yet she
sought them herself. The craving for news of Tom only
deepened with the sense of his guilt. When Daintree
was absent, the girl counted the hours till his return;
when he returned, if she was not there to meet him, it
was in order that he might think her less eager to hear
than he to tell. And once when he not only thought so,
but told her what he thought in his touchiest manner,
it was a great moment for the actress, who was ceasing
to feel ashamed of her part, what with custom and the
dire necessity of it.
For now, more than ever, did Claire trust to the genius
of the great magician retained for the defence; that
vague power was the one hope left for her to cling to,
and cling she did with all the might of aching heart and
tortured mind. Claire's notions of a trial were exceed-


INTERIM
125
ingly simple, although her father had stood his within
the year. On the other hand, her belief in the efficacy
of counsel was unbounded, because Mr. Harding had been
defended by a former officer of the Crown, and the charge
had fallen to the ground, and everybody vowed it was
the fine defence (combined with innocence); at least,
everybody whose opinion Claire was in the way of hear-
ing. Mr. Serjeant Culliford had not been Solicitor-Gen-
eral, but Claire was told that in a criminal case his rival
did not exist. One night she heard that Culliford had
accepted the brief; the next that he had probably
earned his fee already, though Bassett would admit
nothing of the kind, but complained instead of his own
treatment at the barrister's hands.
The fact was that Tom ought to have made a state-
ment before the magistrate; then the defence would
have had something to work upon at the trial. As it
was they had nothing, until the learned serjeant devised
a means of obtaining a statement at the eleventh hour.
He went to Newgate, made Tom give him his version
of the interview with Blaydes and of his subsequent
proceedings; disbelieved every word, but kept nodding
so encouragingly with his ugly, inscrutable, attentive
face that Tom received the very opposite impression,
and told his tale with some spirit and a gleam of hope.
The great man heard him out, then glared at Bassett
(who had given him a certain look), and addressed the
prisoner in a kindly undertone.
“ That's all very well,” said he; "the only pity is that
we didn't have it at Marylebone; for you see your tongue
will be tied at the Old Bailey. No, no, you couldn't
know. You may thank your solicitor. It was his duty
to advise —”


128
TEL ROGIE'S MUZCE
Ezrade me si: ruote ha ren-lemia. - but
I eng mit gereetI ever succesel ve soci de
nacie to caii a ngle these ir ne tetence. I
not the try-
Tank." casred Cur so o 12:3 you to
think? T ee 2 of man, siz, as mos dun-
per c3 when it tasks: you agrear to be az t0 :1. Be
good enorza not to internet ne aza: We must Eate
that statemen: 59 book or crock to work on and there
is only one way not of getting it as evidence. Tel a
turkey or a wargman what you have to ze. Eriksen,
and the other side are pretty safe to put him in the bor.
Then I shall coc93-etanire him, and have something to
talk to the jury abort. Do I think we have a leg to
stand upon? Two, sir, two, and better ones than they
stipposen; only tell the turnkeys exut's what you have
told me; and good day to you. Come, Mr. Bassett; I've
something more to say to you."
And so Tom had his eyes opened to the little ways of
great lawyers, but his impression of his champion was
by no means an unfavourable one; for the glib, spruce
Bassett he disliked; but this rough tongue and rugged
face filled him with confidence, and so redoubled his
gratitude towards his unknown ally, who heard that he
bad spoken of him with tears in his eyes, and who did
not fail to let Claire hear it too.
Upon her, meanwhile, the strain was beginning to tell;
more than once she was within an ace of breaking down
at a tell-tale moment. And just when her nerves were
at their highest pitch, and the situation hardly to be
borne, there came the new development which well-nigh
turned her brain.
It began with a comparatively small matter, the un-


. INTERIM
127
provoked insolence of Claire's maid ; but this was the
growth of days, not a sudden thing; though it was only
when her jangled nerves could endure it no longer that
Claire whipped out her purse, put a month's wages on
the dressing-table, and bade the woman begone.
Hannah the maid put her thin, strong arms akimbo,
and burst out laughing in her mistress's face.
“ This instant, eh? And you think you'll get rid of
me for two-pound-five? That you won't then— nor yet
for twenty guineas. So now you know.”
“We shall see,” said Claire, moving over to the bell.
“I wouldn't ring, miss, if I were you."
“Then will you go? You have been insolent beyond
words; force me to do it, and I shall send for a police-
man to turn you out.”
“I wouldn't do that, miss, either; or I may tell the
policeman something you won't like.”
“What do you mean?”
“ What I say; but I don't mind saying it plainer to
oblige. I shall tell him who you were with on the night
of a certain murder, and what he said to you, and what
you could tell against him in the witness-box if they
like to put you there! That's all, Miss Harding. You
look faint. I wouldn't ring just yet if I were you; here's
a glass of water in the meanwhile."
Claire had indeed turned white as paper. Instinctively
she took the glass, but it slipped through her fingers and
fell into the fender with a crash. The room seemed full
of pale faces, low brows and venomous black eyes set
close together, all spinning round her in nauseous whirli-
gig like demons dancing. She sank into a chair and hid
her face; but started and recoiled from the touch of cool
fingers, wet with rose-water, upon her temples.


128
THE ROGTE'S MARCH
“ Keep away from me!" she cried faintly. “Do not
dare to touch me a zin. So it was you at the gate that
night? I remember now!"
* It was me, misz."
" You shut it?"
* I did."
* And pray how do you know who he was?" and her
voice was stronger. - You never were at Winwood in
your life!"
“ Perhaps not; but I can put two and two together as
well as most: besides, I'm not that hard of hearing!
Come, let's be plain; you're confessed to the master,
miss, and you've confessed to me."
There was a pause for proper comprehension: then said
the young lady, with ineffable scorn, - And to how many
more — through your lips ? "
* Vever a soul! That was too good a one not to keep.
No, I just seen him first, and then set to work to find out
who he was. But I never said I seen him to a soul.”
“ And why not to me until to-day?"
“ Why, because I wanted to know your game. And it
wasn't that easy to find out; you see, miss, you're a
pretty deep one yourself!"
Claire sat still in her chair. She was now perfectly
calm, and even experiencing an odd sense of relief in
facing an overt crisis after so many secret tremors and
hidden shocks. “And what is your object, Hannah ? "
said she at last. “ Suppose they put me in the witness-
box, what would you gain by it? You probably think
I would do anything to avoid the exposure; on the
contrary, I would tell everything to the whole world
if I thought it could do any good. But the case is so
black already that, on the other hand, it could do very


INTERD
129
little hart. Your threat is less terrible than you
imagine."
- Is that so?” with an evil smile. - Hey-day! but
it's an artful one. Suppose I told that there Daintre,
instead of the police? What then?"
Claire had suspected this. Yet it took her breath
away when it came. - So you are a professional spy!"
she gasped. “I might have known it all along, you
vile woman, from your face!” To be sure she might
have known it then; for the sallow face turned a deeper
yellow; the black eyes came as close together as the
nozzles of a double-barrelled gun, to blaze as though both
triggers had been pulled at once.
“ Ah, yes! We don't all show it in our faces, do we?"
hissed the woman. “And which is the worst, I wonder
- them that does or them that doesn't? Is it worse to
cheat the man that's fond of you, like you've done, or to
tell him, as I mean to do, that he's being cheated : You
think you've found me out; he shall find you out!
To make one lover pay for the other lover's defence - a
pretty game- and five hundred golden guineas — a pretty
price! But he hasn't paid them yet; no, and he never
shall; you may take your oath to that!”
“He must,” said Claire, in a whisper. “The trial be-
gins the day after tomorrow. He has gone too far to
draw back now.”
“Not he, when I tell him all I know. He'd pay
another five hundred to get your fellow hung! You
know him, and you know that, too, as well as I do.”
“I don't know it,” said Claire, with a last brave effort.
“I know that I have been more than once on the verge
of telling him myself. But if you tell him — now --
after all these dreadful days, well” — with a sob — "it


130
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
will kill me, and there's an end of it! Oh, I am no
mateh for a woman like you. Tell me what you want,
and it is yours if I have it. Money? You shall have
ail I've got!"
" Which don't amount to much." laughed the other.
“ No, but I'm glad to see you come to reason. Both-
ereil if I don't admire your game too much not to
want to see it out now it's got so far. Maybe I can
lend a hand; but not for money. Here's your jewel-
box; you've got to make your faithful maid a few
small presents."
“ Oh, take your choice; only hold your tongue.”
So trinkets rang like sovereigns in their tray, as this
vulture picked and chose ainong them, and clawed first
a sapphire ring.
“ I've had my eye on this ever since I came!”
“ Then take it."
“ This coral brooch is another of my favourites."
“ Take it, too."
“ These here earrings that you never wear; you'll
never miss them."
“ Take anything you like.”
“ All right, then. Just to finish up, I'll have the
diamond pendant"
“No! That you must leave."
“ You said I was to take anything I liked.”
“Well, it's true I hope never to have to wear it again.
I shall not want it in my grave, and that's where I hope
to go. Oh! oh! the sooner the better!” And the poor
girl broke down completely.
“Stuff and nonsense, miss! And see here,” gener-
ously; "all you've got to do when you want to wear
them is to ask me, and I'll lend you any one of 'em you


THE TRIAL OPENS
131
like, and welcome! Now, then; what do you think of
me now?”
And Claire, looking up through her tears, saw the
woman decked out already, rings in her ears and on
her finger, the brooch and pendant gleaming and glitter-
ing on her black stuff dress, and a quiet smile upon her
wicked face. Claire could almost have smiled herself.
“And for these you'll hold your tongue until after the
trial ? "
“ Till all's blue, you mean! I should think I would
and do anything you like, miss, to lend a hand.”
Her mistress leapt to her feet, a living flame.
“ Then put those things in your pocket and be out of
my sight! Now — now - before I sacrifice him for a
fiend like you!”
And this was how Claire was followed along her nar-
row ledge, by one who might push her from it at any
moment: so that she had now not only her own feet to
watch, but the treacherous hand behind her back as well.
CHAPTER XVI
THE TRIAL OPENS
A day or two before the trial, when Bassett called at
the prison, Tom handed him a little, broken-backed card;
and the speaking eye, that had been dull and dumb for
six long days, was once more eloquent with light and
life. Bassett took the card gingerly between an effemi-
nate finger and thumb, and examined it with a critical
brow. It was a pawn-ticket for a suit of clothes.


132
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
“Well, my good fellow, and what have I to do with
this ? "
“Show it to my friend, and pray him, in pity's name,
to add to all his other noble kindnesses by redeeming me
those things. It will be the greatest kindness of all!"
“ What! To find you a change of clothes?”
“No; to help me look a gentleman at my trial. For
months and months I haven't cared a rush what I looked.
But once I did; and I do now. It came back to me last
night, when I found that pawn-ticket in this old waist-
coat-pocket. I could hardly sleep for thinking what a
sight I should be in court as I am. Oh, sir, you despair
of saving me; I have seen it in your face all along; then
save my self-respect, and I shall be as grateful as if it
were my life.” It was his self-respect that had come
back to him in the night.
The clothes arrived next morning: a brown frock-coat
with three-inch lapels, velvet waistcoat, and Cossack
trousers with straps. Tom spread them out with unfore-
seen misgivings.
“They are smarter than I thought,” said he, dubiously.
"I wanted to look a gentleman, but not a dandy. I had
rather remain a sight than come out jaunty in the dock."
But he wore them after all; and round his neck a new
black stock from the unknown open hand that he so
longed to clasp in his; and in his eyes (though one was
still discoloured) a spirited light that filled some hearts,
and silenced every tongue, when the prisoner was brought
into court. And so much for Thomas Erichsen's desire
to look a gentleman at his trial; it had made a man of
him, which was better still. His appearance excited an
almost palpable thrill of pity for one so gallant, so guilty,
and so young. But we may pity and still condemn; and


THE TRIAL OPENS
133
in all that crowded court there were but two persons who
had not condemned Tom Erichsen before the trial began.
His own impressions may be noted. They were very in-
tense, and very irrelevant. The court was much smaller
than he had supposed; the judge and he were scarce
twenty feet apart; that was Culliford's wig almost under
his nose; and there was a certain homeliness in such
proximity, as also in the easy conversational tone with
which the barristers presently got to work. The judge
was a depressing old gentleman with a permanently
pained expression; one of the first things Tom noticed
about him was that the scarlet of his robes and that of
the judgment seat were a violently bad match. As for
the jury, their twelve hats were piled on the window-sill
behind their heads; and Tom found himself more inter-
ested in the different sizes, shapes and qualities than in
the faces of the men who were to decide his fate. Then
the jury-box reminded him of the church wardens' pew in
his father's church, and he saw with dim eyes until a
strident formula made him start, whereupon he pleaded
“Not guilty” with a catch in his voice which so vexed
him that he repeated his plea with emphasis, and glanced
defiantly right and left. On his right were spectators
and reporters in descending rows as at a theatre; but
because the court was so much smaller than he had pict-
ured it, there were also fewer spectators than he had
been prepared to face. He was some hours in discover-
ing that as many more were gloating upon the hair of his
head and the tips of his ears from the public galleries
behind his back.
The swearing-in of the jury again reminded him of
Winwood days; the functionary employed had just such
an intonation as a neighbouring curate there, and was


131
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
equally indistinct; for though he repeated his formula
twelve times, “well and truly try” were the only words
Tom ever caught. Then at the further end of the front
row of wigs and gowns, there arose a somewhat diffident
gentleman, who proceeded to open the case in a somewhat
hesitating manner, which set Tom's heart beating, for
this was the senior counsel for the Crown. He did not
seem at all a formidable person; his sentences had occa-
sionally no middle, quite frequently no end; and his
gentlemanly, mild face was in striking contrast to the
powerful, rude visage of Mr. Serjeant Culliford, who sat
trimming a quill, with half a smile upon his long, thin
lips, the personification of confident superiority. Tom
looked from the one to the other, and his beating heart
leapt: it was a weak man with a strong case against a
strong man with a weak case; there was a chance for
him yet.
The first witness was the mechanic who had discov-
ered the body. His testimony was very short. He had
run straight for the police, leaving the blood-stained cud-
gel precisely where he had found it in the grass. This
witness was not cross-examined, and the police officer
whom he had summoned soon replaced him in the box.
Matters here became a little technical. The position
of the body was elaborately gone into, judge and jury
examining a prepared plan of the scene which seemed to
demand a deal of explanation. Either the witness was
obscure or the jury dense; the dejected judge stood up
himself to make things plain to them; and for several
minutes the chief sounds in court were the judicial
undertones and a continuous crinkling of tracing-paper.
Tom wondered at the waste of time upon an infini-
tesimal point; he had never been at a trial before; and


THE TRIAL OPENS
135
the extreme deliberation of the whole tribunal was
another revelation to a lay mind thus mercifully dis-
tracted from the vital issues at stake. It must be re-
membered, however, that this was not a guilty man; he
had the open mind of innocence, the outside point of view;
there were whole moments when he almost forgot who it
was that was being tried. And, perhaps, in the ceaseless
self-consciousness of guilt, Tom Erichsen was spared a
keener heart-ache than any that even he had yet endured.
When the finding of the body and its exact position
when found had been duly demonstrated to the satis-
faction of the court, and counsel for the defence had put
a couple of questions, counsel for the Crown informed
his lordship that he proposed to take the medical evi-
dence later; he would now trace the prisoner's connection
with the crime, adducing in the first place what he con-
ceived to be an adequate motive for its commission.
Mr. Richard Vale was thereupon called, but added little
to the evidence which he had given at Marylebone as
already described. The only difference was a cross-
examination more rough than telling, in which disgrace-
ful admissions were accompanied with a dissipated smirk,
but which elicited no essential point in the prisoner's
favour.
On the other hand, this witness was again the peg
upon which were hung the threatening letters; the letters
were once more undisputed; and a passage in one of
them caused the first “sensation" of the trial. “I warn
you," ran the text, “ that I would rather hang than starve.
Unless you pay me I shall do one or the other; and don't
you rely on dodging me much longer, for I am hunting
you day and night, and will do till I drop.” The dead
man's landlady and a club porter gave supplementary


136
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
evidence; the latter had forwarded the letters to deceased,
and had caused the police to put a stop to prisoner's
loitering near the club.
Now came a working man whose face Tom had quite
forgotten; but he swore to the prisoner as one of the two
men to whom he had said good-night as he passed them
at the stile in the Finchley Road, on the night of Thurs-
day, the 27th ult., about half-past ten; and it seemed
that at the inquest he had sworn to deceased as the
other. Prosecuting counsel had hardly resumed his seat
when Culliford was on his legs.
“You say it was about half-past ten. Do you carry
a watch ? "
“ No, sir."
“ Then how could you tell the hour?”.
“Well, sir, no sooner had I left them two gents than
I was sorry I hadn't arst 'em the time; but next mo-
ment I met another, and arst him; and he told me it
had just gone the 'alf-hour."
“And could you identify that gentleman, too?”
Dead silence and a puzzled grin.
“Come, come, my man,” cried Culliford. “Could you
identify the gentleman who told you the time if you
were to see him again ? Can you tell me anything at all
about him ? Could you pick him out if he were in this
court at the present moment ?”
Witness caused a thrill by taking the question literally
and scanning several faces before he would reply; then
he shook his head; his recollection of the third gentle-
man was confessedly indistinct.
“ And yet you could swear to the other two!” said
Culliford significantly. And he sat down with his first
real point ably made.


THE TRIAL OPENS
137
A similar admission was obtained from Tom's old
friend and enemy, the hackney-coachman, who first swore
to the prisoner as the man who had stopped his coach
overnight, and was then examined as to the entertain-
ment of prisoner in his house next morning, and his
ultimate flight therefrom. Tom saw his counsel's eye-
lids twitching before he rose, and he anticipated one at
least of the three successive points now scored in his
favour.
“When the prisoner sat at your breakfast-table,” began
Culliford,“ did you then, or at any subsequent moment,
notice anything in the nature of a blood-stain upon his
clothes or person ?"
“No, sir, I can't say that I did."
“ Can you say that you did not ?"
Witness hesitated but told the truth.
“No," said he, “I saw no signs of blood upon him,
either then or afterwards."
“You saw no signs of blood upon the prisoner either
then or afterwards. You are quite positive, however,
that the man who waylaid your fare in the Finchley
Road was the prisoner in the dock ?”
“Quite positive.”
“ Then didn't you recognise him in the morning when
your brother-in-law brought him to your house ?"
“No, sir, I did not."
“ What! Not when he was sitting at your own break-
fast-table ?"
“I did not."
“Nor yet when you gave him the newspaper, and he
read you an account of the very crime with which he
stands indicted ? You suspected nothing, saw nothing
suspicious in his manner, nothing familiar in his face ?"


138
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
"No - not then I didn't.”
“ You suspected nothing and did not recognise him
then; yet at a word from your wife you identified the
prisoner with the man who stopped your coach, and you
have so identified him ever since ? "
Witness made the necessary admission, but attempted
to explain matters, whereupon Culliford cut him short,
and having gained the advantage which Tom had fore-
seen, passed on to one that was less apparent.
“ To return to your fare,” said counsel; “ did you
notice any valuables upon his outer person? A watch-
chain ? Rings ? A breast-pin in the stock ?”
“I did," was the rather sullen reply.
“Oh, you did; all three?”
“No; a watch-chain and a pin.”
“A watch-chain and a pin. What kind of a pin, now,
should you say that it was?”
“A diamond pin."
“A diamond pin; you can swear it was a diamond,
can you ? "
“ Yes, I can, for I seen it glittering in the light of my
near coach-lamp."
“You saw the diamond glittering in the light of your
lamp," repeated Mr. Serjeant Culliford in his cool, ring-
ing voice; and he sat down unexpectedly, but with an
expression so satisfied that Tom lost much of the next
evidence (that of the coachman's wife) in endeavouring
to account for it. He had not succeeded when the court
adjourned for luncheon, for the hour of acute percep-
tions was over and had left him dazed, so that the
venerable turnkey who had charge of him in the dock
had to take him by the arm to make him leave it. Then
it was that Tom discovered the public galleries behind


THE TRIAL OPENS
139
the dock, and faced a firmament of eyes gleaming and
straining for a first glimpse of his countenance. It
flushed and fell -- he was so taken aback -- and he went
down the stairs with a sob in his throat.
“Come, come!” said his custodian; “you're doing
much better than I expected. You've got the best of
it in counsel, anyway; he's made three or four good
points already." .
Tom brightened a little. “But I didn't quite see the
force of that last one,” said he; “what was he driving
at there ? "
“Why, have you forgotten the only two questions he
put the officer who described the position of the body?”
asked the other; and he answered his own question while
Tom was trying to remember. “The body was lying
face down; he wanted to know whether they could see
the stock as it lay, and whether there was a pin in the
stock when they turned him over. Now don't you see?
That pin's still missing, and they may prove it was bet-
ter worth taking than the watch itself !”
Under the turnkey's supervision, the prisoner was sit-
ting down to eat in a cell beneath the court; but at these
words he dropped knife and fork and looked up with
hope's fitful fever on his cheeks and in his eyes.
"I see! I see!” he cried. “Oh, what a magnificent
man to defend a poor fellow like me! He'll save me
yet – he'll save me, I do believe!”
“We'll hope for the best,” said the turnkey; “but
there's no denying that's a goodish point. You see,"
confidentially, “we know what you done with the watch,
but there's none on us knows what you done with the
pin!”
Tom started, stricken to the quick.


140
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
“So you think —”
But words failed him, and he said no more.
That hour of respite was the longest of the day.
Tom was thankful to be back in court.
The principal witnesses of the afternoon were Mrs.
Adcock, Jonathan Butterfield and the diminutive house-
holder of Kew. Thus the trio who had made the world
seem so kind a fortnight before, now typified its cruelty;
for the evidence of the first two was reluctant but damn-
ing, and that of the last was supplementary in matter,
but given with the officious venom and the transparent
exultation of a personal foe.
But his old landlady shed tears as she described her
last interview with the prisoner at the bar. It was with
difficulty that things which Tom had said on that occa-
sion, and to which she had already sworn at Marylebone,
could be wrung a second time from her unwilling lips.
“I'll pay him” and “I'll break every bone in his in-
fernal body" were not the worst of the words which were
extracted by degrees. Then the stick was produced in
court; and the knob that had been so clean and creamy
was now clotted over with a scaly, russet skin, like a
coat of glue, at sight of which the witness turned as
white as her hair and was given a glass of water in the
box. The stick was then duly identified; the jury in-
formed that the prisoner had described it to witness as
“ a rod in pickle” for the deceased; and the witness
allowed to stand down, after a brief but painful cross-
examination, in which the good soul's fondness for Tom
was betrayed by signs that touched him as deeply as
anything could just then. His brain was reeling under
the dread weight of her evidence against him; he felt its


THE TRIAL OPENS
141
influence upon judge and jury as a palpable force; its
very reluctance only heightened its mortal effect.
Jonathan Butterfield exhibited a like demeanour with
a like result: it only showed that the prisoner had not
lacked those common attributes of the worst rascals, an
engaging manner and the power of imposing on the sim-
ple-minded. This witness, however, swore very positively
that there were no marks of blood upon the prisoner
when they were together. And though his sly successor
as positively swore that such a stain upon the kerseymere
waistcoat had first aroused his suspicions in the garden
at Kew, and though this was afterwards proved in the
medical evidence to be a blood-stain, it was eventually
established that the blood was not that of the murdered
man. The point was finally gained in cross-examination
of the police-officer upon whom Tom had jumped bodily
in his escape from the empty house. Witness admitted
having opened his eyes to find the prisoner leaning
over him with a bloody 'nose. And the defence had
scored once more, but this after an interval so prolific of
incriminating matter that Mr. Serjeant Culliford sat
down with a sigh instead of a smile, and the prisoner
at the bar longed incontinently for the end.
About this time Tom recognised a forgotten face. The
sporting youth who had lent him a copper to toss with,
and afterwards treated his starving body to a generous
meal, was seated immediately above the clock in the cen-
tral gallery at the back of the court. Turning in very
weariness to see the time, Tom had a glimpse of bottle-
green shoulders and a pair of twinkling eyes, set now,
however, in a very solemn face, which it took him some
seconds to remember. He looked round no more when
he had done so, but fell to thinking bitterly of all that


142
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
had befallen him through the spin of that borrowed
penny. It had brought him here. It would bring him
to the gallows in due time. And here in the gallery
sat the last of those who had been kind to him in
his extremity; since he could not bear witness against
him, he had come to gloat over his trial, and would
doubtless attend his execution next! Thus did injus-
tice make a normally fair mind unfair and unjust; but
the stolid expression of the man above the clock had
rubbed salt in his wounds; especially as the same glance
had shown him quite a ragged man, who buried his face
in a dirty handkerchief as Tom looked up.
The long, tense day wore slowly to a close, but the
prisoner's interest was at an end before it: he had lost
all hope. No more points were scored in his favour; his
very counsel never glanced his way; he was fighting a
losing battle with tenacity, but without conviction, and
Tom scoured the court for a single face that should look
to believe in him. There was none. The plain old judge
looked more and more worried and depressed; his raised
eyebrows meeting his wig as he leant forward to make a
note of some peculiarly damning circumstance. The last
witness of the day was the medical man who had certi-
fied death and conducted the autopsy. This was a stout
gentleman with white whiskers and a benevolent voice,
but Tom could only see the light shining on his bald
head, as evening fell through the tall windows on that
side of the court. Tom had counted the panes, still filled
with a soiled, bluish sky, and was beginning to count
the sparrows upon a smoke-charred wall without, when
he was once more taken by the arm: the court had
adjourned in the middle of the medical evidence, of
which he had not listened to one word.


144
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
at a change so marked. And Nicholas Harding was
among the number, for, once satisfied that it was he,
Tom had not deigned to look a second time in his
direction.
The cross-examination of the medical man was longer
and more persistent than that of any preceding witness.
But nothing came of it. The object was also unusually
patent and direct: it was to prove that death must have
been all but instantaneous, and that it could not have
occurred before the small hours of the fatal night. But
this stepping-stone to an alibi was one whereon the wit-
ness could be neither led nor driven to set a foot. The
upshot of much questioning and some ghastly details
was merely to show the impossibility of fixing the time
of death to an hour. The later period was not inconceiv-
able, but more than that the witness would not say;
whereupon Culliford was rude to him, and Tom sighed,
for he felt instinctively that the doctor would have
helped him if he could.
“One moment, Dr. Westmacott,” said the opposing
leader, rising to re-examine as Culliford sat down.
“You have told the jury that it is not absolutely im-
possible for this murder to have taken place as late as
two o'clock in the morning; will you kindly tell them
whether such a fact would be at variance with your
experience as a medical man?”
“ It would.”
Culliford shifted angrily in his place.
“ May we not take it,” pursued the other, “that in
your professional — "
Culliford sprang to his feet.
“You may not!” cried he. “My lord, I must protest
against this form of question. My friend is leading.


END OF THE TRIAL
145
He shall not lead! This is a matter of life or death —
I say life or death, for my friend's instruction. He need
not think that he is going to make it the latter by fair
means or by foul !” .
This righteous outburst was justified by the incidental
letter, but certainly not by the essential spirit of the
prosecution, which had struck the very prisoner as a
miracle of restraint and moderation. The case against
him had never been unduly pressed; all the pressing and
browbeating had been upon his own side; and again Tom
deplored what struck him as almost prejudicial ungra-
ciousness on his counsel's part. And it did no good;
the question was put afresh, with a blush, but in an
admissible form; and Dr. Westmacott stood down, having
given it as his professional opinion that there was every
probability of the crime having been committed before
midnight rather than after.
Counsel for the prosecution, with the colour still in his
face, then called his last witness, a Newgate wardsman,
with the pointed observation that the jury were at length
in possession of the facts; they should pow hear the
incredible story with which the prisoner sought to ex-
plain those facts away.
Up came Culliford on the instant, to object to the word
“ incredible,” which his own asperity had provoked.
“Is my friend going to make two speeches ?” said he,
sarcastically. “Let him keep his comments until he
addresses the jury once and for all; it is for them to say
what is incredible and what is not."
Tom's heart sank, for he had a depressing intuition
that all this rancour was the sign of a losing side. But
he was not in a position to gauge its effect upon the open
mind of the average hearer.


146
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
“That fellow will save him yet,” said one to another
in the sloping seats to the right. “He is fighting splen-
didly — taking every chance."
“Yes, yes; he has earned his money; may he succeed!”
The other made no reply.
“ Have you no sympathy with him— you, of all men ?”
asked the last speaker in an indignant whisper.
Nicholas Harding lowered his head. “Hush! hush!
He is looking this way. I don't think he has seen me
yet; he mustn't know that I am here."
And now the full, true, but improbable particulars of
the prisoner's last interview with the murdered man
were laid before the jury by a hostile witness; and the
great Culliford smiled again. Bassett had furnished
him with a circumstantial statement of what the prisoner
had said, whereby those of the witness were checked,
amended and supplemented in cross-examination. The
great man's artifice: had been entirely unforeseen; his
"friend” sat aghast, while the infirmary wardsman per-
spired for twenty minutes under Culliford's fire. Here
he had exaggerated; there forgotten and filled in with
a fancy detail; and “On your oath, sir !” thundered
through the court with thrilling iteration. With the
release of this varlet, the case for the prosecution closed
upon an anti-climax. Culliford then stated that he
should call no witnesses for the defence, in the tone of
a man who could call twenty if he chose; and sat down
with the most confident air, having thus secured the last
word.
Counsel for the Crown proceeded to address the jury
upon the whole case, beginning nervously but warming
to his work. Stung by Culliford's tactics and irritated


END OF THE TRIAL
147
by his manner, this mild gentleman abandoned for the
nonce that becoming restraint which is still the accepted
note of a criminal prosecution, and described murder and
murderer in no measured terms. If the former had been
brought home to the prisoner at the bar— if the prisoner
were held to stand duly and fairly identified with the
latter - then the heaviest punishment known to the law
would be light in comparison with his crime. The de-
fence he characterised as “indubitably brilliant”; yet
he was afraid that the fireworks of his learned friend
but served to illuminate the weakness of his case. For
he had browbeaten witnesses as to minutiæ of time
and place; but what had he disproved ? The grievance?
The threats? The fact that the prisoner and the de-
ceased were seen together near the spot where the mur-
der was committed, about the time of its commission ?
No, there had been a gallant attempt to disprove that,
but it remained as much a certainty as the ownership of
the lethal weapon, the black facts of the prisoner's flight,
and that possession of the dead man's watch and chain
which even counsel's learned friend had not attempted
to explain away. To be sure, he had elicited to the full,
instead of attempting to disallow, the extraordinary story
with which the accused had sought since his incarcera-
tion to account for those stubborn facts. The prisoner
said he had given a receipt for the watch and chain !
Then where was the receipt ? And was that a credible
or an incredible tale ? Counsel had been reminded that
this was for gentlemen of the jury to decide. Then
let them do so; and if they found that story credible,
then their duty was clear, and they would unhesitatingly
acquit the prisoner at the bar; but if incredible, then
their duty was no less clear, and they would discharge


END OF THE TRIAL
149
miserable life! And counsel drew a true and vivid pict-
ure of the last encounter and the last parting between
Blaydes and Erichsen; but here assumed his most mat-
ter-of-fact tone and air, because the matter really sounded
less like a fact than any with which he had to deal. The
receipt ? Nothing more natural; the watch was to be
pawned, not kept, and the ticket returned to the owner.
Its disappearance ? Nothing simpler; had not every-
thing disappeared from the dead man's pockets? The
receipt had found its way into that of the real murderer;
so had the diamond pin.
That diamond pin was the one strong point of the
defence, and Culliford treated it beautifully; he treated
it from every possible point of view. It was of greater
value than the watch; a minor witness, the dead man's
landlady, had told them what the dead man had told her,
that he had accepted the pin as payment for a debt of
seventy guineas; and that statement bore a double sig-
nificance now. On the one hand, it showed a partiality
in the deceased for such transactions as he had after-
wards entered into with the prisoner; on the other
hand, it proved that if the prisoner had robbed and
murdered the deceased, then either he had omitted rob-
bing him of his most valuable possession, or else he had
concealed it so skilfully that it had never since been seen
or heard of. Surely the one explanation was as unlikely
as the other! But the pin was not only the more valu-
able article, it was the more negotiable; and this capital
point was driven home with an irresistible force that
lightened every heart in court, that of the prisoner at the
bar included. Here was the best argument yet. It left
its mark upon every face. Even the judge looked less
despondent; but the jury glanced towards the dock as


150
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
ona man; and there was a visible glow upon their cheeks,
a visible gladness in their eyes, as though they could look
a fellow-creature in the face once more. Then came the
defence of the guilty flight, and in a moment there were
twelve averted faces in the jury-box, and a very pale one
in the dock. Culliford, however, was of all men the man
for such a moment; he did not allow an unnecessary
second for dwelling upon the great weakness of his case,
but plunged therefrom into that final appeal for justice
and the benefit of the doubt, in which the youth, posi-
tion and gallantry of the prisoner were effective allu-
sions, but no part of the plea.
“Do not mistake me, gentlemen,” cried Culliford in
conclusion. “I am not craving mercy for a gentleman.
I am demanding justice for a man. A young man, gen-
tlemen — perhaps a younger man than any one of us here
present — with all his faults and follies thick upon him
— with all his life of serious effort and sober work and
honest enterprise — ay, and of human happiness, too! -
still shining and still smiling in front of him, but so
smiling and so shining, gentlemen, across a gulf that you
alone can bridge! And yet you must not bridge it on
account of the fact of his youth, but simply and singly
on account of the possibility of his innocence. Gentle-
men, I pray you to remember that the possibility is
enough. If a reasonable doubt remains in your mind,
if the shadow of a doubt darkens your vision, remember
that the benefit of that doubt is the prisoner's by right;
and may God in His mercy direct you to a right and just
and generous finding!”.
Culliford looked around him grandly, glanced at the
clock, and sat down.


END OF THE TRIAL
151
Tom wrote “God bless you!” in unsteady characters
on a slip of paper, and had it handed down to him by
Bassett.
Culliford read it without moving a muscle of his face.
The judge then summed up. Of that depressed and
depressing, but perfectly able discourse, there is but one
word to be said. It was against the prisoner; and the
jury retired to consider their verdict at 5.15.
As Tom turned to leave the dock he noticed a ragged
creature with a dirty pocket-handkerchief before his face
in the forefront of the central gallery. He remembered
the same man similarly affected (as he supposed) the
day before. It put him in mind of the one who had lent
the coin, but he was not there to-day; and Tom thought
of neither any more, nor yet of Nicholas Harding him-
self, as he went below to await his fate.
Refreshments were offered him, but he could neither
eat nor sit down. He could only walk to and fro in the
torture-chamber while the turnkeys talked of Culliford's
speech. One vowed it was enough to save any man; but
Tom saw the look he gave his companion with the words.
It was a relief when Bassett appeared, fresh and dapper
as ever, and in the best possible spirits.
“ You know," said he to Tom, “if the worst comes to
the worst, we can always get up a petition. There's
nothing like being prepared, and my plans are already
laid. My good fellow, you shall make such a stir as no
man in your shoes ever made before! All London shall
have a chance of signing, for I mean to work it on the
house-to-house system. I shall engage a special staff for
the purpose! My word, yes, our petition will be the
talk of the town — if things go wrong."


152
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
“So you want them to," said Tom, bluntly.
“I — want them to ?” cried Bassett, blushing.
Tom had no heart to push the punishment. “No, no,"
said he, with a wan smile, “ I was only joking. Good
time for a joke, eh? Ha, ha, ha! Look at those turn-
keys; they thought I hadn't a laugh left in me. How
goes the time? Six already? I say, do you think that
Serjeant Culliford would come down and let me shake
his hand ? I would like to do that — especially before
I know."
“Culliford! He'll have nothing to do with the peti-
tion, you know.”
"Hang the petition ! I want to thank him for his
speech.”
Bassett said he would see. He was away but a min-
ute, and he came back alone.
“ Culliford is rather tired,” said he. “He asks you to
excuse him, but he sincerely wishes you good luck.”
Tom nodded. He could not speak.
So the hero of that noble, touching, magnificent speech
drew the line at shaking him by the hand !
It was the worst thing yet; nothing else compared
with it; but it had this merit, that it anticipated the
great sting to come, and made the poor wretch smart so
terribly in semi-private that his capacity for present an-
guish was exhausted before his reappearance in the dock.
And, besides, it finally prepared him for the worst; for
if his very advocate found him guilty in his heart, and
for all his beautiful words, what other verdict could he
look for from the jury?
Nevertheless, they deliberated until 6.50. Then a sud-
den hush upstairs emphasised the returning tramp of
four-and-twenty feet. And, in a hushed and twilit court,


END OF THE TRIAL
153
Tom heard the fate which was now no surprise to him,
and bore it accordingly as such verdicts are seldom borne.
His fine eyes and fresh young face were radiant and
serene with the divine light of innocence and valour;
consequently the judge felt called upon publicly to
lament "a demeanour both callous and defiant”; and
so sincere was the lamentation that his voice broke, his
lips trembled, and the concluding remarks of his lord-
ship were perfectly unintelligible from emotion. But
here ended the judge's duty in those days, and the court
adjourned for yet another night.
In the morning Thomas Erichsen was brought up for
the last time, and condemned to death in thoroughly cold
blood by the Recorder of the City of London.
Meanwhile one noteworthy circumstance had occurred.
Mr. Harding and his companion, Daintree, had been
among the first to leave the court. They thus escaped
a scene of some confusion in one of the public galleries,
the occupants of which were called to order and made to
go out row by row. But so great was the crowd already
in the street that to get out at all was a difficulty ; to
reach one's coach another and a worse. Mr. Harding
eventually found his waiting on Ludgate Hill, and
directed the coachman to go by Chancery Lane before
getting in after Daintree. Just then a man emerged
from the seething crowd in the Old Bailey, and waited
an instant at the corner; then the carriage drove down
Fleet Street with the man after it at a discreet distance.
Harding and Daintree scarcely spoke a word; they
were followed up Chancery Lane and across Holborn by
the man, a dilapidated creature with a dreadfully dis-
figured face.


154
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
It was now nearly eight o'clock, and in the dusk the
man grew bold. The old-fashioned coach had a foot-
board, seldom used, and the runner coolly sat himself
upon it in the region of Russell Square. And he actu-
ally kept his seat until, on the outskirts of Regent's
Park, a street Arab shrilly informed the coachman; where-
upon the man jumped off, and rushed at the boy with
lean arms whirling like windmills, and ragged tails flying
in the breeze.
The boy shinned up a lamp-post, and the man stood
cursing him from below, with one eye upon the receding
coach.
“If I'd the time to waste upon you, I'd break you in
two, you blessed little nose!” cried the man, meaning
an informer.
“Don't you talk about noses," retorted the boy, mean-
ing the literal organ. “You wait till you've got one
yourself, you blessed old nightmare!”
At this taunt the man's mutilated face flared diaboli-
cally in the dusk, and with a sudden leap he caught the
boy by an ankle and brought him headlong to the pave-
ment; then knelt over him, and dashed his head re-
peatedly upon the flags, with the insensate fury of a
criminal lunatic. When the boy lay still, he sprang to
his feet, gnashing his teeth, and looking in vain for the
coach. He was instantly seized by a gentleman who
had seen this dastardly assault from the balcony of his
house.
The gentleman was accompanied by his son, and be-
tween them they secured the monster, while servants
flew in different directions for the police and a doctor.
The boy had a broken head and broken bones; but
he escaped with his life, thus saving that of the man,


THE RECORDER'S REPORT
155
who was duly committed, and became an ornament of
Chapel Yard while Tom Erichsen lay under sentence of
death in another part of Newgate.
And neither occupant of the coach ever heard or read
a word about the matter.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE RECORDER'S REPORT
Tom was thrust into a condemned cell measuring but
nine-and-a-half by six feet, and in height a foot less
than its length. Yet even this.hole he was to share
with a comrade in like calamity. And in a dribble of
summer twilight, as the massive door clanged behind
him, he found himself shut up with none other than his
tigerish young antagonist of the ward in Chapel Yard.
The recognition was mutual, and Tom held out his
hand.
“I refused yours once before," said he. “Come, I
apologise. We can afford to forgive each other now.”
His hand was taken with an evil grace; in a little,
however, the other loosened a not unfriendly tongue,
but one so blasphemous and so foul that Tom half re-
gretted his advance. He could not regret it altogether.
The vilest conversation was better just then than none
at all; that of Tom's whilom enemy was vile enough,
with its horrid levity, its coarse swagger and a forced but
bloodcurdling contempt of death. Still it was something
to listen to; something new to think about and shudder
over; and the creature (having been alone at nir***


156
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
since his conviction on the opening day of the sessions)
hardly paused till the small hours of the morning.
His name was Creasey. He had been convicted of
stabbing his wife (he was twenty years of age), but had
never done it; 'twas a pack of lies. But he boasted to
Tom of many a thing he had done in his short life; and
they were such things as Tom never forgot in his. He
lay listening and shuddering upon his bed. Yet when
the other seemed to have talked himself out, his own
torments only began, and he was grateful when the brute
broke out afresh. So the night wore on until one or
two in the morning. Then there was a long, unbroken
silence; then a sobbing and a shaking, and a burst of
frantic prayer from Creasey's bed; then quiet, then
snoring, and the bello of St. Sepulchre's marking the
weary mile-stones of the night.
Tom never slept a wink.
Next morning, in the bottom day-room, which the
condemned prisoners had the use of during the day, he
rubbed shoulders with a third convict under recent sen-
tence of death; but this was a heavy, sullen, middle-
aged man of the name of Carter, who sat all day with
his huge head between his cruel hands, and spoke to
nobody; nor did either youth venture to speak to him.
Overhead there was another day-room, and eleven more
prisoners under sentence nominally capital; but these
were morally certain of reprieve; and could be heard
playing leap-frog and larking and singing from morning
till night.
“I wish we were up there,” said Creasey, mournfully.
“But wait a bit: the yard's for us the same as for them,
when it's exercise time, and then there'll be a bit o' fun
he eals all!”


THE RECORDER'S REPORT
157
The bit of fun essayed by Creasey was openly to incite
the eleven jovial spirits from upstairs to badger Tom and
put him in a rage. But by this time Erichsen's reputa-
tion in Newgate was such that the plot fell through for
want of supporters. Tom shrugged his shoulders at the
petty treachery, and was treated by Creasey with a sly ser-
vility when they were locked up together once more.
Meanwhile the burden of the day had been lightened by
several visitors and as many private interviews.
Mr. Macmurdo, the surgeon, and Mr. Cotton, the
Ordinary of Newgate, had both shown Tom the kind-
est attentions; he could see, however, that each re-
garded him as a man only too justly sentenced to death.
The surgeon offered to use his influence in the matter
of a separate cell at nights. Tom would not hear
of it.
“No, no,” said he; "it would be a poor kindness,
though I thank you with all my heart for the thought.
The greatest ruffian in the gaol would be a better friend
to me than my own reflections. Ah! I see what you
think!” cried Tom, as a queer light glimmered in the
surgeon's eyes. “Well, I have done protesting my
innocence; but don't let them leave me by myself, that's
all I ask.”
Mr. Cotton entered into spiritual matters, to which
Tom listened courteously, though chiefly out of loving
respect for his dear father's memory: for where was the
God who would permit an innocent man to suffer death
for another's crime? When, however, the good chaplain
closed his books, he referred discreetly, as he rose, to
certain efforts already being made to obtain a reprieve,
adding that he would himself do what he could to further
them, as a matter of course


158
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
“Why should you, sir,” asked Tom, deferentially,
“when you are quite convinced of my guilt?"
The chaplain coloured.
“I never said I was convinced,” he cried. “It is no
part of my duty to be convinced in such matters either
way. No, my poor fellow, your guilt or your innocence
is a matter between your own heart and God Almighty.
I, His servant, am only concerned with your immortal
soul, and the longer you live the more time will be yours
for repentance - of all your sins — and the greater your
chances of immortal life. But build upon nothing of
the kind.” And with a parting exhortation the Ordinary
went his way.
Bassett was the last visitor. He was in a tremendous
hurry. The petition was already receiving support and
signatures on every hand; the newspapers were full of
it. And he who had furnished the sinews of defence
was now working heart and soul for the respite, for
which there was still every reason to hope; so said Bas-
sett in a breath, and was gone next minute.
It was the last piece of news that heartened Tom most:
the news that the Noble Unknown believed in him still,
against judge and jury, and was still heroically striving
to save his miserable life. Who could he be? Some
friend of Claire's? The thought came for the first time;
it never came again. Claire was with the judge, the
jury, and the world: she had not written him one word.
Tom was now in prison dress, a gaunt, dread figure;
but they had let him keep a slip of paper that he had
often taken out of a pocket in his own clothes, to pore
over and to dream upon. He produced it now. It was
the slip of paper Daintree had handed down to him
during the proceedings at Marylebone, and he had never


THE RECORDER'S REPORT
159
seen the writer's face. But he had made a face unto
himself; had built up a character from those few scrib-
bled words; and both face and character were the sweet-
est, the kindest and the best that had existed upon earth
during the last eighteen hundred years.
So, when his last visitor had departed, the condemned
man was not ashamed to kiss that flạrried scrawl with
his lips, nor afterwards to find it smudged with his
tears.
Those were the days when the capital convict was first
found guilty, next brought up for sentence, and next
“reported to the King.” The two latter functions rested
with the Recorder of London; the last having its origin
in the number of offences for which a man might be con-
demned to death without the least risk of being executed.
The Recorder would wait upon his Majesty in Council,
and make his report of the prisoners lying in Newgate
under sentence of death; whereupon the King would be
graciously pleased to respite (say) all but the wilful
murderers. The amended report was straightway de-
spatched to the prison, and his final fate broken to each
man without a moment's unnecessary delay.
It was the 18th of May and a Thursday night near
the stroke of twelve. All was silent in the condemned
cells, for even Creasey's voluble tongue had ceased to
wag, and Tom lay thinking on his bed. His companion
was a trashy hound, ever cursing God or entreating Him
with shrieks and tears: unburdening his sordid soul to
Tom half the night, venting covert spite and enmity
upon him day after day. To-night he had been alter-
nately protesting his innocence, abusing his dead wife,
and mocking heaven and hell by the hour together.


160
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
Tom lay awaiting the reaction which would follow as
surely as the morning, and to-night it was before its
time. The silence had been dead indeed, but not long
so, when the creature leapt from his pallet with a scream.
Next instant he was kneeling by its neighbour, fawning
over Tom with trembling arms and twitching fingers.
“I done it! I done it!” he whispered hoarsely.
“There — I had to tell somebody, and I have! I'd got
to tell or burst. I feel better now. ... No, no!” he .
was yelling next moment. “What have I said? I was
joking, you flat — joking, I tell yer! Ha, ha, ha! It's
you that done yours; I never done mine at all!”
And he was strutting up and down the cell, trembling
from head to foot, and laughing horribly through his
chattering teeth.
But a worse sound yet cut his laughter short: it was
the sound of voices and the rattling of keys.
* Creasey inclined his bullet head one moment, then
stumbled to the door, and fell heavily upon his knees.
“The Report!” he quavered. “Erichsen — the Re-
port! It's come — it's come!”
CHAPTER XIX
THE ROYAL MERCY
The condemned youths heard the next cell entered,
and their comrade Carter roused from his bed. A key
then grated in their own door, it was flung open, and
there were Mr. Cope, the Governor, and a bevy of turn--
keys in the passage.


THE ROYAL MERCY
161
your thing you to." You
“Out with it!” gasped Creasey, on his knees. “I'm
respited, ain't I? I never done it, sir. I never did!
The King wouldn't hang an innocent man?”
“Get up and dress yourself,” was the reply. “You
will hear the Report upstairs, all of you together.
You, too, Erichsen! Slip on your things.”
Tom obeyed, and then lent a hand to Creasey, who
hardly knew his small-clothes from his jacket, and clung
to Tom as a child to its nurse.
“I'm innocent,” he kept mumbling. “They'll be the
murderers if they let me swing. Didn't I tell you I
was innocent, Erichsen? Haven't I said so all along?
Oh, my Gawd, if they let me swing!”
“They won't,” whispered Tom; “but if they did,
why, we've got to die some time; it's an easy death,
and there's an end of it."
“But I don't want to die! — I dursn't die! I don't de-
serve to die — don't I keep telling yer I never done it?”
And the abject thing clung blubbering to Tom's arm,
as the turnkey who was waiting at the door conducted
the pair upstairs. .
The upper day-room, or Cell Ward, as it was indiffer-
ently termed, was but poorly lighted with candles, whose
sepulchral rays added a pallor even to the white faces of
those dragged from their beds to hear their doom. The
number of the latter being now complete, all fourteen
were ordered to kneel, and Tom found himself between
Creasey and Carter, at one end of the line. Creasey
still clung to his arm. Carter knelt like a rock, with
his great fingers clutched in front of him, and heavy
drops falling on them from his bended brow. This was
all Tom saw before the Ordinary entered in his gown
and halted before himn first.


162
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
“Mr. Erichsen,” said he, with a compassionate tremor,
“the Recorder has this evening made his report to the
King. I am very sorry to have to inform you that it is
unfavourable.”
Tom inclined his head. He had cherished no hopes.
The Ordinary approached Carter.
“I am sorry to tell you it is all against you also,” he
continued. “As for you, Creasey,” and the latter tight-
ened his grip on Tom's arm, “I am happy to inform you
that your life is spared; and I am very happy to inform all
the others that by the Royal mercy their lives are spared.”
Creasey withdrew his hand from Tom's arm, and edged
further away on his knees. A deep sigh rose from a
dozen breasts; then, as the chaplain was about to offer
up a prayer, there came a sudden crash at Tom's side,
and the wretched Carter was floundering on the floor in
convulsions. The rest were hurried back to their cells,
and Creasey executed a breakdown while Tom quietly
undressed.
“But that's all right!” cried the former, stopping
suddenly. “It's no more’n I expected, 'cause, you see,
I'm an innocent man, an' allus was; that's why you
never caught me showing the white, Erichsen, though
once or twice you thought you did. Jiggered if you
wouldn't believe anythink, a mug like you! Why, I
used to bilk you every blooming night for fun! Not but
what I'm sorry it's all up with you, old man; though
it's a nice an' comfy death, you told me so yourself, and
you know we've all got to die some day! Besides, you
done yours - no denying it - but I never done mine at
all; so it's fair an’ square enough, you must admit!”
The little cur was snoring in ten minutes. He was
removed to the Transport side next morning. And


THE ROYAL MERCY
163
Tom, left in solitude, would have given some days of
the twelve remaining to have had him back.
The execution was fixed for the thirtieth. He would
never see another June.
Bassett came from day to day with news of the peti-
tion; it was being signed, but not as freely as at first.
Bassett’s disappointment was patent to the condemned
man. The smart young fellow was in fact beginning to
weary of his up-hill work, and to think about the bill.
So next day Tom asked Bassett whether the Noble
Unknown had also abandoned hope and effort.
“Not he,” said Bassett in a half-disgusted tone. “He
is moving heaven and earth; seeking private interviews
with the Home Secretary, if not with the King himself.
He's quite capable of it. A wonderful man when he
gets an idea into his head!”
“But what put this idea into his head?”
“Heaven knows!”
Tom looked the attorney through and through, and
asked another question. “Did you tell him how much
I should like to see him before I die — to thank him?"
“I did; but he is too busy working for you; he said
that would do you more good.”
“I see," said Tom, sadly; "another Culliford! Then
why is he doing it? Culliford was paid; he paid him;
but why, again? See here, you Bassett; both you and
he disbelieve in me — I know it now — but you are tired
of your job, and he is not. Why not? I believe you
know! Then tell me, and let us part friends once and
for all; you need bother your head no more about me,
only tell me what you must know."
“I know nothing."
"Then what you suspect.”


166
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
He was done before dark, and ate his supper as he
had eaten nothing for days. He seemed a happier man
— that was only natural to the turnkey mind. And yet
the sealed packet set in front of him on the table was
not yet addressed, and when the Governor, paying him
a visit in the evening, said slyly, “Is this for me?"
Tom answered with quite a laugh that it was not. It
was for a friend, and the last act of his unpinioned hands
should be to add the address.
Later in the evening a packet was brought to Tom.
It was addressed “Mr. Thos. Errixon, eskwire, Con-
demmed sells.” Tom was for tearing it up unread, when
the turnkey acting postman interposed.
"Don't do that,” said he. “It's from the chap who
shared this cell with you, and he was very partic’lar
that you should get it safe. He says he owes you an
apology or summut, and here it is, with his last parting
love."
“All right,” said Tom; "you may thank him, and
wish him luck, and say I've nothing to forgive, but I'll
read what he says with pleasure.” And he thought he
would do so towards midnight, for they had mercifully
left him his candle.
To his surprise, however, there was no letter at all,
but one huge printed sheet, whence (when it was unfolded
and spread out upon the table) his own name in a gigan-
tic headline seemed to leap up and lash Erichsen across
the face. The headlines ran -
LIFE, TRIAL AND AWFUL
EXECUTION
OF THOMAS ERICHSEN,
THE HAMPSTEAD MURDERER.


THE ROYAL MERCY
167
Below, there was a grotesque block, in which a colos-
sal figure, white-capped and ready noosed, surmounted a
miniature Felon's Gate, with a Liliputian crowd in the
foreground. Left and right of the picture figured a set
of verses; the letterpress beneath was prose.
The former began -
VERSES
My deeds to you I now will mention,
Overcome with grief and shame;
Pray one moment give attention —
Thomas Erichsen is my name.
Reared and trained by reverend parents,
Who checked me if I done amiss;
Educated in their religion,
They little thought I'd come to this.
There were eight such stanzas, with a chorus to match,
but Tom got no further than the above. He had seen
such“ broadsides” before. So they were ready printed
for next morning's use! He cast his eye below and read
the headings: "The Murder and the Trial,” “The Ver-
dict,” “The Judge's Address,” “The Execution” -
The Execution! He had not realised the meaning of
the word in the first staring headlines. Now he did.
So they wrote of the execution before it was accom-
plished, did they? What if it never were accomplished?
Yet here was a circumstantial account ready-made in
advance. “Long before daylight this morning crowds
assembled in front of the gaol at Newgate, to witness
the awful yet just extreamities of the law carried out
on the poor unfortunate young man — " and so forth.
Printing, spelling and facts were on a par. “His
behaviour in prison has been that of a gentleman and
christian, and when the shirriff arrived at six o'clock


168
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
this morning, they found him in earnest prayer, with
the rev, chaplain, and as the time drew nearer, he was
observed to weep a little - "
* Was he, by God!" cried Tom, through his teeth.
He crished the paper into a ball and tossed it across the
cell; then looked well at door and window before putting
out his candle and sitting down on his bed to think.
A full May moon shot a vivid beam through the sunken
eye of the cell, and it struck the wall in a chequered
square that hung like a picture low down over Tom's
pallet. He jumped into bed and lay very still as steps
approached and a head was thrust in to see how he was
passing the time. He had to thank his excellent be-
haviour ever since his first night in Newgate for so much
privacy on this his last. He meant to take advantage
of it now, for a cold, hard rage possessed him, with a
fixed determination to cheat the gallows yet. As good
as executed, was he? So accounts of the execution were
in type already before the event? He could falsify
these, at least; and, so far from cursing the creature
that had put them in his way, Tom was grateful to him
for an idea which would never have occurred to him
otherwise. Prostration had left him indifferent, if not
resigned, and he had Creasey to thank for the heating
of every drop of blood and for the stiffening of every
nerve and muscle in his body. And yet he was cool; by
coolness only could he achieve his end; even so, the way
was not obvious. Suicide? That was his first idea.
He had the means — his braces — his prison bars. But
no! If hang he must, better to step out and die as a
man than as a rat in its hole. Escape? It was not
possible; if only it were!
IIe sprang up, thrust his head and shoulders in the


THE ROYAL MERCY
169
window-socket, and hung there, face to face with the
moon. The window was open, for the night was warm.
What was it that he heard? The lowing and bleating
of frightened animals — at Smithfield, doubtless — being
penned for the killing like himself! But that was not
all. There was something more insistent, something
nearer at hand and unceasing; nay, increasing too. The
pulse of a multitude — the murmur of a mob. A street
song at dead of night - to while away the hours — his
last hours on earth. Street cries! “Life and trial of
Thomas Erichsen," as like as not; but they should not
add "execution.” Not yet at all events. He would do
something to die for first!
A tug at the bars — they yielded nothing. Another,
with all his might, and his knees drawn up against the
sill; not an inch, not the sixteenth part of one! The
bars were hopeless. He sprang back into the cell, and
stood there with the full moon laughing in his white
face and blazing eyes. Very well! He would brain
the next turnkey who came near him, and so at least
deserve his death, even if he could not slip into the dead
man's clothes and thus away. So the hot fit had fol-
lowed the cool; so madness trod upon the heels of
rational thought.
The murmur of the crowd had done it; it had left
him a wounded lion, and his maddened eyes were now
roving round the cell in search of that with which to
shed blood for blood. They lit upon the metal wash-
stand fixed (like the iron candlestick) to the wall. In
an instant the washstand was torn out by the roots, and
poised over the cropped yellow head, while the loose tin
things rang like cymbals on the floor. The clatter was
slow to cease. It was followed inevitably by hurried


170
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
footsteps in the corridor. So much the better. The
time was come.
Tom raised the washstand on high in both hands, and
himself on tip-toes to give the greater force to his blow
as the door was flung hurriedly open; he was bringing
it down upon grey hairs, when he saw their colour, and
swerving, swung the apparatus with a crash against the
wall.
“Lucky for you it was you!” he cried as the chaplain
threw up his hands. “Unlucky for me: I'd have killed
any other man in the place. Now you see what they've
made of me! Better send them to tie me up; it's no
good your wasting your breath.”
The Ordinary wrung his hands, and gazed in the
frenzied face with unspeakable anguish in his own;
while louder and louder through the cell window came
the clamour of the growing mob.
“Have you so utterly forgotten your God?” began
the poor man, with the tears in his eyes. “He has
never forgotten you!”
“He has,” said Tom, doggedly, “or He wouldn't let
me suffer for another man's crime."
“He has not!” shouted the chaplain, flourishing a
paper from his pocket. “He has moved the hearts of
those in authority over us! On your knees, sir, and
give Him thanks; for your life has been spared at the
eleventh hour!”


SEALED LIPS
171
CHAPTER XX
SEALED LIPS
The good news was broken to Claire by her father in
the dead of night; she had thus some hours in which to
prepare for what she was resolved should be her last
conversation with Daintree on the subject of Tom. And
she anticipated not only the last, but the riskiest of so
many risky interviews. She felt that ineffable relief
might prove harder to conceal than intolerable anxiety;
and so no sooner were her worse fears dissipated than
new fears took their place.
For days and weeks her one absorbing anxiety had
been the preservation of poor Tom's life by hook or
crook. Now that at the very last this miracle had been
performed, her heart did indeed teem with praise and
thanksgiving; but it also sank beneath the burden of a
new solicitude, never to let Daintree dream what she had
done, never to spoil his ideal of her, but to repay his dis-
interested generosity by all the unremitting kindness of
heart, sympathy of brain, and pith and marrow of faith-
ful friendship in her woman's power. Claire did not now
carry the last aspiration to its logical conclusion; but
her gratitude to Daintree was such that it rose in great
waves which drowned even the thought of Tom; and
of the two men, if her heart was still with her first
love, her admiration and gratitude were all for his pre-
server. Such was her feeling when she espied Daintree
in the garden next morning early, and joined him on an
impulse, without havinrg decided upon a word to say.
“I think you are the best of men,” was what she heard


172
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
herself saying; “and you have proved it on behalf of
one of the worst!”
It was not quite sincere; it was not quite insincere.
The unconsidered words themselves were a self-revelation
to Claire. She would not have unsaid them; yet to feel
them less she would have given her moral and material
all.
Daintree, as usual, stood to his guns regarding Erich-
sen, whose innocence he had lately maintained with
unreasonable fervour. Culliford's speech, he declared,
had convinced him; it should have convinced the jury
too, he vowed, had he been one of them. But he took
with greedy eyes all the good things the girl now said to
him. And in his account of final matters his conceit and
his pomposity bubbled out as heretofore.
“I saw Lord John," said he. “Lord John was obliged
to see me. Our name is one he cannot afford to despise;
and then he knows my position in New South Wales. I
told him (in confidence) how this case had interested me,
and how I had spent my money upon it. Lord John was
very much impressed. I argued for innocence, and (for
argument's sake) for manslaughter too. But cold blooded
murder I said it could not be. And there is not the
slightest doubt that my arguments converted Lord John."
“ You still think it may have been manslaughter ?”
“You know what I think,” was the reply. “As sure
as I stand here, Miss Harding, we have saved an inno
cent man!”
Mr. Harding was coming towards them across the
spangled grass. Claire held out her hand.
“At any rate,” said she, “there is some one of whom I
shall always think all the more — oh! a hundredfold the
more!— for what has happened. There are two others


SEALED LIPS
173
whose very names I want you to promise never to men-
tion again: the one who died, and” – in a voice both
wistful and bitter — "your innocent man!”
Daintree promised.
And he kept his word.
Meanwhile, a minor result of the reprieve was the
speedy departure of Claire's wicked maid. She watched
a day or two, and then decided that her hold upon her
mistress was gone.
The fact was that, though Claire was resolved to atone
to Daintree for her long duplicity, the atonement itself
came less easily than she had hoped. His mission
accomplished, the man of action was sunk once more in
the invertebrate poet; and the latter took such advan-
tage of the kind ear now lent him, that Claire was
wearied to distraction, and soon forgot the philanthro-
pist in the bore. The poetry got upon her slackened
nerves, and an afternoon of the poet would leave her
utterly tired out. This Hannah saw: also that her
lady's heart was still in Newgate, whether she knew it
or not: therefore that to open Daintree's eyes would be
to do her no very bad turn, however she might feel it at
the time. In a word, this clever woman read her mis-
tress better than her mistress read herself. She gave
notice on the spot.
“And I'll forfeit my month's wages, miss, and go this
morning - in case you change your mind about them
presents !”
“I am not likely to do that,” replied Claire, dispas-
sionately. “You held your tongue when I wanted it
held: his life is saved, and that's all I care about in
this world.”


174
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
She went for a ride with Daintree that morning, and
he wearied her more than ever. It was a heavenly June
day, but luscious fields and a gorgeous sky were nothing
to the poetaster; his own rhymes thereon at once usurped
and exhausted the subject. A volume of his verse was
in the press: every sight, sound or word suggested a
quotation. Claire tried hard to think of all that he had
done. She found herself thinking of Tom instead; and,
in sheer depression, turned early homeward, where an
unforeseen temptation awaited her.
A hackney-coach stood at the door; and the entire
household was discovered in the hall. Servants in a
cluster at the green-baize door; Hannah in her bonnet
calmly seated on her box; and Mr. Harding and a police-
man in conversation in the foreground. The arrival of
Claire and her companion on this animated scene was
hailed with evident satisfaction, whereupon silence was
enjoined by the master of the house.
“This woman," said he to Claire, pointing to the
complacent Hannah — “this woman, your maid, sud-
denly announces her intention of leaving my house.
She declares that you knew she was going; but the
first her fellow-servants hear of it is the intrusion of a
hackney-coachman to bring her box downstairs. They
demand to have her box examined — it would seem
with excellent reason! An officer is sent for, and this
is what he finds !”
Mr. Harding held up a ring, a brooch, a pair of ear-
rings, and a diamond pendant, the former possessions of
Claire.
“She says you gave them to her,” he proceeded.
“What have you to say to that?”.
Claire met the culprit’s glittering eyes, and read in


SEALED LIPS
175
them an inflexible intent; she glanced at Daintree, and
her great temptation was to tell everything before them
all, and so secure her future from she knew not what,
but something worse than she had ever foreseen. Now
was the moment - here the chance — there would never
be such another. The best course — the bold course —
sang in her ears as a whisper from her guardian angel's
lips. It was not shrinking from the immediate scene,
but rather the dread of righteous wrath to come and be
her curse for ever, that decided Claire and made her say,
with but a second's pause, “ It is perfectly true! I did
give the things to Hannah, and they are hers.”
“You gave your maid your diamond pendant ?”
“If you come into the library, papa, I will tell you all
about it."
They were but a minute closeted; then the constable
was dismissed with something for himself, the hackney-
coachman called in again to take the woman's box, and
the other servants sent about their business through the
green-baize door. Claire watched her spy's departure
with as much curiosity as relief. Unwonted colour
tinged those pallid cheeks, and some unfathomable mean-
ing softened the jet-black eyes as they gazed into hers
for the last time. There was not only gratitude in the
look, but (as it seemed to Claire) both the will and the
power to show it, given the chance. As it was, she was
edging near to speak, when Mr. Harding came between
them, and himself hustled the woman out of the house.
He then sought out Daintree and took him by the arm.
“This will show you the kind of girl Claire is,” said
Nicholas Harding. “Of course, she had never given
the woman a thing; but rather than have her put in
prison - you see? Isn't it incredible ?"


176
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
“Not in her!” cried Daintree, devoutly.
And he posted to the City that afternoon, returning
with a beautiful brooch, which he presented to Claire
with humility unalloyed.
“A diamond pendant you would not accept from me;
alas, nor yet a ring !” he sighed. “But this trifle I
think you will — in memory of this morning.".
For though he bored her with his poetry, he was very
careful not to inflict upon her a second declaration of his
love, until his cunning told him that the favourable time
was ripe.
So Claire lost her chance, and sank deeper and deeper
yet into the toils.
One salve her conscience demanded and obtained.
She knew now what was coming better than he did.
And she tried day and night to forget poor Tom, and to
love the man she needs must marry in the end.
But the end was not yet; for the man had made up
his mind to a long, deliberate siege; and he now set
about it with all the tenacity and all the ingenuity which
were central traits in his complex nature.
Those were the days of Almack's, and of a hard-and-
fast Society whose pale Nicholas Harding had never
quite scaled. To give him, so to speak, a leg up, Dain-
tree went once more among old family friends, and was
actually intriguing with one of the six terrible ladies who
guarded the doors of Almack's, in order to secure tickets
for one of those historic assemblies at Willis's Rooms,
when the King's death, on June 20th, put an end to all
festivities. Daintree ground his teeth at having to
abandon what he had deemed a potent engine of assault.
Claire had shown pleasure at the prospect; its destruc-
tion seemed a real blow to her, but was actually a relief.


SEALED LIPS
177
Genuine sorrow she felt, but it was all for the dead King
who had spared Tom's life while under sentence of death
himself.
Daintree took a place in Scotland for the autumn.
Mr. Harding had made other plans, but at Daintree's nod
he threw them to the winds. Only one thing was more re-
markable than the sudden ascendency which the younger
man had now obtained over the elder: this was the latter's
changed regard for his would-be son-in-law. Not that
Mr. Harding had ceased to desire the marriage. His
wishes in that matter were made disagreeably plain to
Claire, who was only puzzled to hear him speak of Dain-
tree with an oath in her presence, while appearing all
smiles to his face. The girl was at a loss to understand
this, and yet too absorbed in her own troubles to give
her mind to anything else. Only she could not think
when the change had come about; she had first noticed
it after the trial. It was less remarkable in Scotland,
where Daintree was their host; there were seldom any
other guests.
“ Hours of Exile” was the Byronic title of his book
of verse, which was published during this visit. It was
dedicated to Clarinda, which confessedly stood for Claire,
and the dedicatory lines were the best in the book. The
girl felt committed before the world when she read them.
Clarinda's name occurred again and again in the volume.
Yet all that year he never spoke. He had done so before
somewhat prematurely, to own the least, and the man
of extremes must needs make trebly and quadruply sure
before his lips reiterated the love which had raged in his
eyes every day and every hour of all these months.
But with the New Year came ill tidings from Aus-
tralia : an investment had turned out badly; his interests


178
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
in general were suffering from his absence. The very
next day James Daintree led Claire Harding into her
father's library, and, even with his face in happy flames,
struck an attitude before the writing-table.
“She is mine!” he cried. “She has consented to share
the poet's bays — to divide with Esau his inheritance in
the wilderness !"
It was notable that no consent was asked of Nicho-
las Harding. He sat back in his chair with a stifled
sigh of unspeakable relief. Claire never forgot how
his hand felt as he took both of hers and drew her
towards him.
“But you spoke of sailing at once," said he, cloaking
eagerness with an air of extreme deprecation. “It would
have to be a very hurried affair!”
The first cloud crossed Daintree's face.
“Ah, no!” said he. “I could not take her at a mo-
ment’s notice to a house unfit for her reception. I must
go and prepare it for her; that is a stern necessity. But
you must bring her out to me yourself in six months'
time."
Mr. Harding shook his head. He was a public man.
“ Then Lady Starkie must.”
Mr. Harding spoke warmly and unselfishly in favour
of an immediate marriage. To no purpose, however;
they had indeed made up their minds, though the reason
was not that which Daintree had given. Vanity forbade
him to disclose the real reason. It was her solitary but
firm stipulation; and so much for his brave desire to get
first to Sydney on Claire's account.
He was to sail in seven days.
Meanwhile the engagement was announced in the
Morning Post of January 15th.


SEALED LIPS
179
On the 16th Mr. Harding found a note from Sir
Emilius at his office :-
“Sir, — My · Morning Post’ informs me that a marriage has
been arranged between your daughter and my son. If you care
for the young lady's happiness you will put a stop to this at once.
“ Yours faithfully,
“ Emilius DaintREE.
"N.B. - I send this word of warning in duplicate, both to your
City and to your private address; as I think it hardly likely that
you will receive both copies if my son is still with you."
Mr. Harding started to his feet. He had not received
the copy posted to his house. Was the father a liar or
the son something worse? The father's reputation -
stay!
It was the son.
He had been down before Mr. Harding that morning;
the latter had found him in the dining-room when he
entered, and on his own plate were such letters as he had
received. Harding seized his hat; then reflected, changed
colour and took a pen himself. The note which he subse-
quently despatched by hand was a model of firmness,
tempered by tact. He demanded, however, an immediate
explanation of Sir Emilius Daintree's words, and the mes-
senger was to wait for an answer. The messenger re-
turned without one.
Then Mr. Harding called in person.
Sir Emilius was not at home.
But next morning there was another brief note at the
office :-
"Dear Sir, — I have been thinking the matter over. You have
my sympathy; but I cannot enter into details. I absolutely decline


180
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
to do so. You know the proverb, and a word should be enough
for the wise; or you may go for your explanation to my son, who
will tell you it is all my spite. It is for you, as a man of the
world, to believe or to disbelieve him on that point.
“I will say, however, that so far as I know, my son is not
insane.
“I would to Heaven he were !
“Yours, etc.,
“Exilits DAINTREE."
Mr. Harding was now a miserable man. The very
sight of the betrothed pair became an hourly agony.
Yet he lacked either the courage or the will to interfere.
Only four days remained — he called again on Sir Emilius
Daintree. But again the baronet was invisible.
This time Harding left an urgent note; and yet an-
other perfectly civil one awaited him in the City next
morning. It was to be the last, however, and said so
plainly in the following terms :-
“My Dear Sir, – You must excuse my unwillingness to see
you, or to correspond further, upon the little matter of my son
and your daughter. You will apprehend that the subject is prob-
ably more painful to me than to you - who have your remedy. I
have none. My son need never become your son-in-law; but
unhappily he will always be my son.
“ Your last question is, however, a fair one, and I will answer it
frankly on condition it is the last. So far as I am aware, then, my
son has not already, nor to my knowledge) has he ever had, a
wife.. I should say he is quite capable of having half-a-dozen.
However, this is not 'it'at all. And I must beg you as a gentle-
man not to question me any further upon what is in fact a family
matter, and one only named to you in confidence for your own
guidance.
“Upon this understanding I have the honour to remain, sir,
your obedient servant,
“ Emilius DAINTREE."


SEALED LIPS
181
What could it be? What had he done? Something
terrible in his youth — but what?
Mr. Harding tried to smooth his troubled conscience.
The feelings of a parent were tossing and tormenting his
spirit as they had never done before. Yet the feelings
of a parent were apt to lead one to extremes — to a ten-
der over-anxiety in his own case — to a bitter and relent-
less requital in that of the elder Daintree. Was the
latter the first father who had deemed his son's folly a
crime, and never forgiven it? “A handful of wild
oats,” thought Mr. Harding; it could be nothing worse.
But he did not think so in his heart, for Sir Emilius
was notoriously no squeamish moralist himself; and
then there were those flowers that had not been allowed
to lie a single day on Lady Daintree's grave.
Moreover, Mr. Harding had been granted lately some
gleams of independent insight into the character of the
younger Daintree; and these to his cost; yet he held his
tongue.
He held his tongue to the last, and James Daintree
sailed away the betrothed of Claire Harding, who was to
follow him to Sydney in six months.
A year earlier Mr. Harding might have been tempted
to keep silence for worldly reasons, for the sake of the
connection — “my daughter, Lady Daintree” — and so
forth. He was not himself a man of noble blood, but
he loved the nobility, and had of late very nearly cut
himself off from their smile for ever. The temptation, on
worldly grounds alone, would have been strong enough
the year before. Yet the father's heart would have
resisted it: he would have spoken out then, and acted,
too, like an honest man. Now he did neither, because
his mouth was stopped and his hands were tied by


182
THE ROGCE'S MARCH
a stronger thing than social considerations. He was
gagged and bound by abject fear.
And this was why Daintree the younger was allowed
to sail away betrothed to Claire, towards the latter end
of January, 1838.
He arrived in Sydney some four or five months later.
It was a mild, pellucid, winter's day. Sky and har-
bour wore their ancient tint of magic blue; and as the
luxuriant shores unfolded before the incoming vessel,
headland and inlet, inlet and headland, each with its
sash of golden sand, its cord of silver foam, the hom-
ing wanderer swept the water's edge for his own bunga-
low, and found it with a real thrill. He had chosen
well in his adopted land; it was one of milk and honey
and perpetual sunshine. But even as they dropped
anchor in Sydney Cove, there came through the clear
air the clank of men at work in heavy irons near the
quay; and the first person to greet Daintree in the
streets was a magnate who stopped his carriage and
alighted with the peculiar shuffle of one who had him-
self worn those heavy irons in his day. Daintree shook
the gnarled, bedizened hand with an inward shiver; he
had forgotten that his Canaan was an Egypt-a Land
of Promise and of Bondage too.
He was on his way to the club; he went instead to the
council-chamber in Macquarie Street, and obtained an
interview with the Principal Superintendent of Convicts.
“There was a man called Erichsen sent out last year,"
said Daintree. “Transported for life; have you ever
come across his name?” And he was spelling it when
the other gave a whistle.
“So you're interested in him, are you?” cried the


SEALED LIPS
183
Superintendent. “My dear sir, that's one of the pret-
tiest young villains in the Colony. If we all had our
rights he'd have swung long ago."
“I believe him to be an innocent man,” said Daintree,
warmly. “I am positive he never committed the crime
he was transported for.”
“I know nothing about that,” replied the Superin-
tendent. “He's made up for it out here, if that's so.
But you shall see his record for yourself.”
And in perhaps the ghastliest ledger ever kept, wherein
every entry was a human tragedy, and that of Erichsen
but one among thousands, his single champion now read
the curt official version of the following facts.


AN ASSIGNED SERVANT
185
vately during a great part of the passage. This officer
was in absolute command of the convicts, and to Tom he
was very kind indeed. So much so that at the very end
of the voyage Tom asked the other to take his word
between themselves that he was innocent. He never
asked this of any man again. And the lovely harbour
with the vernal shores said no more to his stinging soul
than to that of the most hardened felon in the ship.
The exiles were landed and marched to Hyde Park
Barracks, two hundred strong. It was quite early in
the forenoon, yet the heat of the ground struck through
their shoes, and the hot land-smell scorched their nos-
trils, as the ungainly detachment proceeded along the
streets, all roving eyes and lurching sea-legs. Suddenly
the air filled with a jingle as of inharmonious bells; and
round a corner came a team of twenty men in grey and
yellow patchwork, yoked to a waggon filled with stone
and gravel; they had their chains to drag as well, and
these made the mournful music wherever they went.
One of the soldiers in charge of the newly landed draft
chanced to catch Tom's eye flashing misery and defiance.
“Don't you trouble your head about them,” cried he;
“it'll be your own fault, young fellow, if ever you come
to that; there's none on you need.”
Tom said nothing, but a convict near him called out,
“I believe you, general! We've come out here to enjoy
ourselves, and that's what we mean to do.”
“And will, too!” said the soldier. “There's plenty
of us chaps would change shoes with you if we could,"
he added below his breath; "assigned servants is more
in demand than ever, and a good ’un gets wages just the
same as a free man. You'll all be snapped up before
you've been in barracks a day. No, this ain't them;


188
THE BOGLE'S MARCH
urgent quest of a “special,” or “gentleman convict,” as
such as Tom were termed. The applicant was a genial
greybeard, with a philosophie eye, which looked Tom
well up and down at their interview.
“What I want,” said he, “ is a tutor for my son. I
hear you are a Cniversity man. May I ask what makes
you stare?"
“I a tutor!"
“Well?"
“You can't know what I was transported for."
“Oh, yes, I do. I could wish it had been for some-
thing else, certainly; but that doesn't make you any the
less a University man. And the other specials seem to
be a poor lot, and I mean to give you a trial. But we'll
drop that name of yours, which I'm afraid may be known
in my house, and you shall start fair. In half an hour
then, Jones, I shall call for you in my chaise.”
And Tom actually found himself quite a privileged
member of a decent household before he had time to
realise his good fortune. The other servants were
ordered to treat him with respect. His pupil was put
entirely in his charge. He had his meals with the
family, and had revelled for one night in a deliciously
clean bed and bedroom, when the master of the house
came to him in the morning with a very wry face.
“It's all up, Jones," said that philosopher, with the
blunt intimacy which had made Tom like him from the
first. “My good wife has discovered who you are, and
she refuses to leave her bed while you remain in the
house. She has read of you in the English papers, con-
found them, and she simply won't have you on the
premises! It seems unreasonable when you consider that
our cook was a bloodthirsty baby-farmer, our coachman


AN ASSIGNED SERVANT
189
a professional burglar, and so on right through the staff
- habitual criminals every one — which I don't think
you are. Still there's another side to it: there's the
boy to be considered, and though I think you're the very
man for him, a mother's feelings must be studied in such
matters. You see I like you well enough to be perfectly
frank about the matter; but the fact is, the chaise is
waiting for us outside.”
So ended that chapter, and Tom was back at barracks
in time to hear the clank of the chain-gangs shuffling
painfully out to work, and the swish and whistle of the
morning lash. Those two instruments supplied the
street-music of the convict city; there were few days
and few hours when you might not hear their melan-
choly duet. To Tom the sound of it was still physical
torture, the more unbearable after this cruel taste of
better things. Nearly all his shipmates had been
assigned and taken away in his absence. Only one
other “special” was left, a London clerk transported
for fraud. Tom's late master (a friend of the Super-
intendent) was allowed to carry him off in Tom's stead,
and long afterwards the latter heard the curious sequel
of his own misfortune: so thoroughly did his successor
teach what he knew that both tutor and pupil were pres-
ently transported to Van Diemen’s Land for life.
The incident was sufficiently disheartening at the
time, and yet it had its hopeful side. It revealed the
possibilities of the assignment system, or rather its
better possibilities, from the convict's point of view.
As a punishment it must needs prove a farce in a com-
munity which preferred to estimate convicts by their
capacity as colonists, rather than by their crimes as
felons. Such was Tom's comforting reflection; for not


190
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
yet did he realise how entirely the condition of the con-
vict was dependent upon the character of the master;
but having had one good master, though for so brief a
period, he looked cheerfully for another.
The other, however, was slow to come. His false
start seemed to tell against Tom with the authorities.
They were in no hurry to assign him again, and pres-
ently he found himself the last man of his draft in the
barracks, with his hammock the only one a-swing be-
tween the stanchions of the great dormitory upstairs.
Then one morning he heard a row in the yard, and there
was a very over-dressed, thick-set and thick-spoken
young man abusing the officers because there were no
convicts left.
"I tell you we applied for three, and I've come down
expressly for them," he spluttered out. “Over a hun-
dred blessed miles I've come, from Castle Sullivan near
the Hunter River, for two farm labourers and a groom,
all properly applied for in lots of time. And just
because I get a touch of the sun, and can't come on the
right day, I'm to go back empty-handed, am I? We'll
sco about that. I'll complain to the Board !”
“That won't do no good. We've only one man left,
and the Board can't split ’im into three.”
"Oh, you have one, have you? Haul him out and
let's have a look at the lubber.”
So Tom was produced to receive the unsteady scru-
tiny of a swimming blue eye that told a tale; and
was informed with an oath that he was a “special,"
and they wanted none of that kidney at Castle Sul-
livan.
Great was Tom's relief, for a coarser face he had
seldom seen ; but at this the officials remarked that it


AN ASSIGNED SERVANT
191
was a “special” or nothing; and the bleared eyes were
on him once more.
“Come from the country?”
“ Yes."
“Saddle a horse?”
“ Yes.”
“And ride him after?”
“Better try me.”
“Well, so I will! You be ready in an hour and a
horse'll be ready for you. I'll go back with a groom if
with nothing else!”
“Wait!” said Tom.
“What's up now?"
“I'm supposed to have committed a murder," said
Tom through his teeth. “In one family they wouldn't
keep me — "
The other drowned his words with a bellowing laugh.
“You wont be the only one at Castle Sullivan!” cried
he. “We don't mind what you've done, bless you, so
long as you don't try it on again up there! If you
do —” and he jerked a great close-cropped head in
the direction of the barrack triangles, while a bloated
lower lip stuck out like a tongue between his short fair
beard and moustache. “There never yet was the lag
that bested Nat Sullivan,” he added with another of his
oaths; "and you don't look the fool to try it on. So be
ready in an hour sharp, or you look out!”.
“Is he Nat Sullivan?” said Tom to the officers as the
stout young man staggered off.
“Ay, ay,” said they; "that's the celebrated Mr. Nat!”
“Celebrated?”
“They're all that, you'll find, are the Sullivans of
Castle Sullivan. You wait and see. I sha'n't say


192
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
nothing to set you agen 'em. But I wish you joy of
each other; don't you, Bill?”
Bill laughed, and Tom troubled them with no more
questions.
Mr. Nat did not come in an hour; he came in three,
swaying in his saddle, but still managing to lead a pack-
horse and a horse for Tom. His blue eyes were now
half-closed, and Tom understood him to curse the sun
and to mutter something about a fresh touch that morn-
ing. They rode off, however, and were near the outskirts
of Sydney when Mr. Nat rolled quietly out of his saddle
and lay insensible in the middle of Brickfield Hill.
Tom was at his side in an instant. No bones were
broken; he was simply fast asleep. Tom shook him up,
and managed to get him to the nearest inn, where he
again fell asleep, anathematising the sun, and so never
stirred for hours.
And the convict-servant stood over the grunting car-
cass of his free master, and now he marvelled at the
system which sought to accomplish the amelioration of
the felon by trusting him in such hands as these. The
thing had not even the excuse of an irregularity. There
was a brand-new Government document sticking out of
a pocket of the loud check coat, within a few inches of
the bloated face, and Tom guessed rightly that it re-
ferred to himself. Then there had been more prelimi-
naries than he had thought; but that only made matters
worse, since what was a scandal in itself was immeasur-
ably more scandalous as part and parcel of a System.
Evening came, and Mr. Nat still lay snoring with his
swollen lips wide apart. Tom had not left him yet,
being partly occupied with his own thoughts and partly
taken up with the various sounds of the inn. Some of


AN ASSIGNED SERVANT
193
these sounds were sinister, as when stealthy steps came
along the passage, and an unseen hand tried the bed-
room door, which Tom had locked. He did not care to
leave the room, not knowing what the other might have
in his pockets; but at last he did so, after turning the
key behind him and putting it in his pocket.
He went first to the stables, where he was surprised
to find the horses saddled and bridled in their stalls.
He had unsaddled them himself after engaging the room
for Mr. Nat. There was nobody about, however, to
afford an explanation, and it occurred to Tom that
the sooner they did get away the better. So he left the
horses as they were, but looked into the tap-room on his
way upstairs, when all he heard and saw confirmed
his impression not only of that particular inn but of the
widespread corruption of the convict town. A cattle-
stealer was drinking with a constable, and openly boast-
ing before the latter of his exploits; as Tom listened,
however, he heard something else that interested him
more. It was the sound of hoofs in the yard behind the
inn. He darted out and met a man riding his master's
horse and coolly leading the other two.
“What are you doing with those horses?”
“What's that to you? Hands off, or I'll brain
ye!”
“They're my master's. Come out of that saddle.
Ah! you would, would you?"
And Tom, receiving the loaded whip on his forearm,
sprang at the rider's neck and brought him heavily to
earth among a dozen hoofs. Then he caught and tethered
all three animals, and returned to his man as the latter
was sitting up and rubbing his eyes in the moonlight.
He was a little horsy bowlegs, and Tom dragged him all


AN ASSIGNED SERVANT
195
"give me change out of that, and don't you force me to
give you any out of this!”
He presented a sovereign in his left hand, a pistol in
his right; but it was the great besotted face at which
Tom stood gazing. Besotted it still was, and brutal and
low, but one virtue shone out of it in the candle-light.
There was plenty of cool courage in the bloodshot blue
eyes, and an indomitable determination about the pendu-
lous lower lip.
“Sir!” whispered the landlord, falling back. “There's
a constable in the house. I shall fetch him up. Such
an outrage upon a law-abiding citizen —”.
"Law-abiding grandmother!” cried Mr. Nat. “I
know all about you and your inn; who doesn't? I
never would have set foot inside such a den if it hadn't
been your infernal Sydney sun that bowled me over.
You may know my name. I'm Nat Sullivan, of Castle
Sullivan, near the Hunter River, and I never was bested
by a convict yet, no, nor an emancipist either, my fine
fellow! There, keep the rest; but you lead the way
straight downstairs and out to my horses, or you may
have something else to keep besides."
In another minute they were in their saddles, and as
they rode away Tom put a skeleton key in his master's
hand, saying he had picked it up outside the bedroom
door.
“And you give it to me!” cried Mr. Nat. “You don't
keep it to use yourself? Well, well, you've not made a
bad beginning, Erichsen. You looked after me when
I was bowled over, and you saved my horses when most
of you chaps would have been the first to take 'em.
That landlord's an old lag himself. I know how to
treat the breed. I never was bested by one of you yet,


AN ASSIGNED SERVANT
197
“They call it a factory. It is for the women what
Hyde Park Barracks are to you fellows. They go there
till they're assigned, and afterwards when they're turned
into Government. Cut in and take your choice! I'm
not joking. I've chosen 'em for our men before to-day,
and you're the sort that deserves one. Get a light-
weight, and we'll take her up on the pack-horse!”
Tom shook his head, and thought of Claire until they
stopped at an inn where a new surprise awaited him.
The resplendent landlord started when he saw Tom, and
tilted a white top-hat over his eyes, but not before the
latter had recognised a fellow-convict per Seahorse.
They had parted in the barrack-yard, where Tom had
seen the other carried off by a gorgeous female in a
nankeen pelisse and bright green veil, to whom he had
been assigned. Tom now caught a glimpse of the nan-
keen pelisse in the bar-parlour, and as they rode away
he asked Mr. Nat whether convicts were ever assigned
to their wives.
“They have been, often enough,” was the reply; "but
it's being put a stop to now. Why, some of the best
shops in Sydney are carried on by convicts assigned to
their wives, and on capital which was originally the
proceeds of the robbery the husband was lagged for!
The wife brings it out and is here to meet him when he
lands! At least that used to be the dodge; but Bourke
tried hard to put his foot on it, and if you hear of a case
just let me know."
So Tom said no more.
But the most interesting roadside character was en-
countered at a contractor's store much farther on the
way, where Mr. Sullivan nudged Tom and made him
take note of a portly man in a magnificent waistcoat,


198
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
who sang a song in the most charming baritone while
the travellers were having their supper.
“Do you know who that was?” said Tom's master
when they were once more on their way. “That was
Hunt, the accomplice of Thurtell, who murdered a man
called Weare. You remember it, do you? Well, that's
the man, and he just bears out what I say: we don't care
a kick what a convict has done in the old country so long
as he don't go doing it again out here. But there, I
keep forgetting you're one yourself; somehow or other
you're not like the rest; and you take my advice, and
go on like you've begun.” As he paused, the voice of
Hunt was wafted to their ears in a new song, that died
very sweetly on the soft night air,
The latter stages of the journey were marked by looks
of recognition wherever young Sullivan baited his horses,
but by never a single look of welcome; and an ominous
climax was reached when the little cavalcade passed a
stockade and a chain-gang within twenty miles of their
destination.
Here was a long line of heavily ironed men, some
eighty in all, strung together like beads on a rosary,
and at work with pick and shovel beneath the burning
sun and the eyes and muskets of the military. As the
riders approached word seemed to go along the line, and
face after face was raised with a curse and a howl as the
horses passed. Such faces as they were! Tom had not
seen the like in Newgate, nor aboard the Seahorse, nor
yet, in such a number, in Sydney itself. Those, on the
whole, were only on the lower slopes of degradation;
but these had reached its lowest depths, and Tom rode
by them with an aching heart and averted eyes.
His attention, indeed, became concentrated upon his


AN ASSIGNED SERVANT
199
companion, who had checked his horse instead of urging
it forward, and was walking instead of galloping this
horrible gauntlet. Tom could see but one sunburnt
cheek and one cold blue eye; but the first kept its
colour, the second never flinched, and the gross lip, that
jutted out between beard and moustache, never quivered
once all the way. Nor until he was well past the gang
did Mr. Nat put spurs to his horse; but when he did, it
was not to draw rein until they reached the next road-
side inn; and there he vanished, to reappear next day
with running eyes and shaking hands.
"I wouldn't be assigned to him for something!” said
the barman, with whom Tom made friends. “You
might as well go to Norfolk Island straight as to Castle
Sullivan. Tell you what, mate, I'd give him the go-by
to-night, for you'll never have a better chance. And see
here, I'll come with you, for I'm dead-sick of my job!”
Tom shook his head.
“No, no, my friend; he may be all you say, but he's
treated me well enough so far, and I mean to stick to
him.”
“Oh, the young cove's not the worst. It's the old
cove I was thinking of.”
“What old cove?"
“Dr. Sullivan, this one's father."
He had a father, then? Mr. Nat had never mentioned
him. And the old man was worse to do with than the
son?
Tom put these questions to himself, and then another
to his friend the barman, after shortly telling the latter
about the behaviour of the iron-gang. “Why was all
that?” said Tom.
“Why? Because half them crawlers have worked for


200
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
the Sullivans in their time. They get you flogged, and
flogged, and flogged, till all the work's flogged out of
you: then they get you six months in the crawlers, and
like as not that's the end of you."
“Why doesn't somebody put a bullet through them
both?”
“Because the coves have got the pluck. That's their
secret. They don't know what fear is. So there's
seventy strong men up there, and over a hundred in
harvest-time, and the whole boiling afraid of them two!”
Tom said no more, neither did he have much to say
to Mr. Nat next day in their saddles; neither did Mr.
Nat have anything at all to say to him before nightfall,
so severe had been his latest “ touch of the sun." But
towards evening they left the road; and as the moon
was rising in a velvet sky, lights also broke upon them
through some trees. Dogs innumerable began to bark.
And as young Sullivan stooped to open a gate, he pointed
across it to the lights, and said that there was Castle
Sullivan at last.
“And hark you here,” he added, savagely, seizing
Tom's bridle on the other side, as though every redeem-
ing trait was now left behind upon the neutral ground
that they had traversed together; “hark you to this,
and recollect it well! You've been right enough on the
way, and you’ve the makings of a decent groom. But
you won't find me as easy up here as I could afford
to be down the road; and one word about that sun-
stroke -"
He glared at Erichsen, then let the bridle go without
finishing his threat; and without another syllable they
rode through the trees towards the lights.


202
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
of the three were hopeless cases, in the last stages of —
of — "
“Phthisis?” cried Dr. Sullivan, who was an old army
surgeon, and the bugbear of sick convict and malingerers
alike. “Not phthisis, eh?”
- "That was it, sir! The very word the doctor used
when I made him overhaul them. He said it was no
use my taking them, as they'd certainly die on our
hands.”
“Humph! he may have been right; but I'd trust a
convict to sham death itself — with anybody but me!”
said the old gentleman, looking hard at Tom. “I wish
I'd seen them myself; however, I'll take his word and
yours, and complain to the Assignment Board —”.
“I've done all that, sir,” hurriedly interrupted the
son. “I stayed the week out doing nothing but com-
plain. They'll remember me, I promise you! It'll
never happen again to us. Then at the end of the week
I couldn't resist another Sunday, and you wouldn't
grudge it me, father, if you'd heard the sermons I heard
in St. Philip's Church, morning and evening! I must
tell you about it later on.”
“You must — you must. No; I don't grudge you
that, my boy, heaven knows!” said the old man, molli-
fied in a moment. He took a bamboo cane from under
his arm, and rapped Tom smartly across the shoulders.
“And what of this rascal?” he added. “What's he good
for?”
“Groom."
“Can the ruffian ride?”.
"Not so badly.”
“Understands horses, does he, and has behaved him-
self on the way?”


CASTLE SULLIVAN
203
“Yes, on the whole, very well.”
“Then let him take them round to the stables, and
come back here for his supper. He may have it in the
kitchen to-night; only recollect, you convict, that if you
misbehave either there or anywhere else on Castle Sulli-
van, you'll smart for it pretty quick and pretty heavy.
Recollect that. You're here as a convicted felon, not a
free man, and I don't care what you've done to get here;
whatever it was, the punishment for it is scandalously
light; but the punishment for anything you do amiss on
my estate shall be all the heavier on that account. So
now you know. And don't you say you hadn't a fair
warning at the start."
With this Dr. Sullivan shook his cane in the new
groom's face, and called his overseer, for whom he had
directions to which Tom did not listen; he was more
interested in a lighted door on the right, where stood a
female on the threshold of what he conceived to be the
kitchen, and whither Mr. Nat himself had thrown furtive
glances. But now father and son went indoors arm-in-
arm; the overseer came up, a gruff man with flaming
whiskers; and Tom caught him also looking wistfully
towards the lighted door, before he was bidden to “come
this way.”
So he followed the fiery whiskers to the stables,
a long log building some little distance beyond the
house; and here Tom was so smart in unsaddling, and
so quick to find chaff-bin and oat-sack and saddle-
room, that his surly companion was moved to rude
advances.
“You're pretty handy,” he growled. “Been a groom
before?”
“Only since we left Sydney."


204
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
“Well, you're in luck, too; the groom here has a room
to himself, next the saddle-room; come and I'll show it
you."
The room in question was very small and squalid,
with a fixed bunk and a foul paillasse; but Tom thought
it would be delightful with nice clean straw; and to be
alone at nights was to compass an unexpected and
unspeakable luxury. Ginger-whiskers pointed out the
other convicts' quarters on their way back to the house.
They were the slab-huts opposite the palisade. Two
were large, the others all small; that was the overseer's
hut with the big chimney and the little verandah.
“And who's the overseer?” inquired Tom. “Mr.
Nat?”
“No, I am; and hark'ee, my beauty, here we are at
the kitchen, and you're a well-set-up youngster, ain't
you? But no games with the girl, or there'll be trouble!
In you go; you'll thank me for the warning when you've
seen a bit."
Tom thanked him then and there, and was in the
kitchen next moment. It was empty, but from the
adjoining scullery there came a sound of scuffling, fol-
lowed by a crash which arrested Tom's steps. Spurs
then jingled out of the scullery by an outer door; and
in the inner one stood a fine young woman, with black
hair dishevelled, and a broken piece of crockery in
either hand.
“An' me to pay for it!” Tom had heard her mutter;
but in the doorway she stood without a word, her steel-
grey eyes upon him till he coloured, when she flung the
broken pieces on the dresser and clapped her hands.
“The first blush iver seen at Castle Sullivan!” cried
she. “An' is it the new groom ye are? Shake hands,


CASTLE SULLIVAN
205
then, and make frinds wid the cook. It's Peggy O'Brine
me name is; so now tell me yours, and all yer histh’ry,
while I get ye as good a male as ye can hould.”
So he told her his name, but nothing more, and she
looked at him closely as she laid the cloth. “Sure, it's
a special he is!” she murmured. “Poor man, I might
have seen it wid half an eye." And she sighed and
clicked her tongue as she put meat and bread upon the
board; then looked at him wistfully and long with her
clear, bright eyes; for he had rested his elbows on the
table, and had hidden his face, touched to the heart by
the womanly kindness of her voice. He had heard
nothing like it since that fatal night in April, now
eight long months ago; nor, when he looked up, had he
seen anything, from that night to this, like the womanly
compassion in those Irish eyes.
She cut him some mutton and a slice of bread; she
put the knife and fork in his hands; but he made no use
of them.
"Ah, now, pluck up!” she coaxed. “Pluck up an'
ate."
He made an effort, but could not finish what was on
his plate.
“Your kindness has taken away my appetite, Peggy,"
he said with a smile, as he pushed back his chair. “It's
the first I've had, from a woman at all events, for many's
the long month!”
With that he rose to go, but she got between him and
the door.
“Glory be to God an' it sha’n’t be the last!” said
she, her bosom heaving and a tear in her eye. “Peggy's
your frind, remimber that, sorr; an' it's the cook can be
the usefullest frind to the assigned servants. If ye'd


206
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
only say out what it is that's throublin' ye so this
minute!”
“Coming up here as a convict; that's all, Peggy."
“There's hundhreds more in thim huts forninst us!”
“That's no comfort, I'm afraid. You see I am very
selfish, I think only of myself.”
“But they're all convicts here. Ivery mother's son
but the ould cove and Mr. Nat!”
“What, the overseer too?”
“Ginger? It's Ginger we call ’m, an'a dacent man
at most times is Ginger, tho' you needn't be tellin' 'm
I said so. But faith! he's no betther than the rest
of us; if he isn't a convict now he's a tickut-of-lave,
an' it's ivery wan of us’ll be that, sorr, if we live long
enough."
“Yes? Don't ‘sir' me, Peggy. Call me Tom. I'm
not even like Ginger, you know. I'm a convict of the
deepest and the newest dye!”
“An' what am I?”
“Not you, too, Peggy?”.
"Me, too, Tom; an' it's siven year I'm here for. So
don't you make such a song of it, me dear, or it's me
ye'll be puttin' to the blush!”
Indeed he had done so already. And, to believe
Peggy, the second blush ever seen at Castle Sullivan
was still mantling her pleasant face when spurs jingled
again in the scullery, and Mr. Nat stood on the inner
threshold. Some moments he stood there without a
word, a furious glitter in his cold blue eye - his lewd
mouth showing through his beard like a gash. Peggy
shrank back. Tom was wondering if the brute had ever
struck her, when he was addressed in a voice that shook
with ill-governed ferocity.


CASTLE SULLIVAN
207
“What are you doing here, Erichsen?” were the words.
“I have just had my supper. I was told to have it
here."
"Oh, you've had it, have you? Then why the devil
haven't you cleared out?” roared young Sullivan, losing
all control. “I tell you what, Peggy, this man's a cold-
blooded murderer. That's what he is, and that's what
he's here for. Why they didn't hang him, God knows;
but they didn't, so we've got the benefit instead. Let
me never catch him in here again. He'd cut your throat
as soon as look at you. Clear out, you gallows-bird, and
show your nose inside the palisade again if you dare!”
Tom replied only with his eye, and only scorn was in
its steady gaze. When the other ceased, he waited a
little to ascertain if that were all; then he turned upon
his heel, opened the door, walked out and shut it very
quietly behind him.
There were high voices in the kitchen as he went his
way. And Tom himself was less cool when he reached
his room, where, indeed, he lay awake half the night
still wondering whether Nat Sullivan had ever struck
Peggy O'Brien, and whether Peggy would admit it if
he had. But in the end he slept soundly on the clean
straw with which he first took care to line his bunk.
Soundly but not long: for in the middle of the night,
as it seemed to Tom, the clanging of a great bell brought
him to his feet in a state of high alarm. He slid into
his trousers and rushed out. It was that black hour
before dawn, and at first in the failing starlight he could
see nobody; then he descried a figure in a long coat
parading to and fro before the huts; but the bell was
silent, though still swaying from the twisted arm of a
gigantic gum-tree, when Tom ran up and inquired of


208
THE POGTE'S MARCH
this man what it meant. He found he was speaking to
the night-wateninan, who said his business wa to ring
the bull, first an hour before sunrise, then half an hour
later, and lastly when the sun appeared.
- So you're to be grooin?” added the watchman. "I
wouldn't swop my job for yours.”
"No?" said Tom.
“Not me! 'Cause why? I'm on all night, but off all
day, so I see less of the coves than any other blessed
man on the place. Now you'll see more of 'em; and
Lord help you if you trot out a lame nag or a piece of
harness the old cove can't see his ugly mug in! I
wouldn't be in your shirt for something; it'll be stickin'
to your back by this day week!”
Tom was returning to his room, when a sash was
softly raised in the main building, and there was Peggy
at an outer window, in an inky shower-bath of pitch-
black hair. She beckoned him with her finger, but
transferred it swiftly to her lips.
“You did well! you did well!” she whispered. “I
was in the holy terror lest you answered Mr. Nat; if
you'd done that "
She shuddered and shut her lips.
“Well, what if I had?” said Tom, beginning to feel
sorry he had not.
“Niver ask me!” she returned. “Only bear in mind
that what they'll call “insolence' is a crime out here.
Give 'em cheek, an' it's twenty-five or fifty — an’ now
I've tould ye! 'Tis well ye should know. There's
some poor feller from here gets it ivery Monday as iver
is. But you mustn't; so niver cheek 'em, me dear, and
niver come near me kitchen anny more. Sure it'd be
the dith of a young gintleman like you!"


CASTLE SULLIVAN
209
“Would it?" said Tom. “Well, never you fear,
Peggy! "I'm not such a fool as all that, and I'll give
them no reason, you may depend.”
“They may be afther makin' one, Tom dear; faith
an' they'd have one ready-made if they cot ye here!
There's the second bell. For God's sake be off — an'
remimber Peggy's words."
“I'll go when I'm ready, Peggy; not until; and don't
shut down that window, or you'll take off my fingers.
Your hand again! It's to you I shall owe my whole
skin!”
He gave her his hand; she took it between both of
hers, and pressed it with a fervour that should have given
him another warning on the spot. But her kind voice
only put him in mind of Claire so far away: nor did he
hear it again for some few days. Now and then she
would wave to him from the kitchen window; but it
was always to wave him back. More often he waved to
her from the stable door; but she invariably shook her
black head at him with the greatest vigour.
Meanwhile her words came true.
Mr. Nat had conceived a palpable spite against the new
groom; and from things the latter heard in the convicts'
hut, where he went for his meals, he might have under-
stood the reason; these same things making him the less
eager to see very much more of Peggy the cook. Still
he gave her a wave whenever he espied her in the dis-
tance, for he owed the girl much already: he was daily
profiting by her good advice, since no day passed with-
out its measure of wilful provocation from the ruffianly
Nat. But Tom was not to be provoked by sneer or taunt
or oath; moreover, he made an excellent groom, and
being seen no more about the house, gave no further


THE KOGTES MARCH
014bit to the PIPILT, who around us otert perseru-
tille, but ariesith TJIL tie mure lur his uetertionable
thu
Ti farog wus intus fi-c lor the event of that con-
cu il a vertail quarter. Ton Deramt guite a favorrie
with the deputie 0 artış burgeul; and Mr. Nat Welt
il bastant crea of 116 * SEASITJIES * in Stones and am
the road coming to Lis father's ears. It was this areai
tiat derided kun to let To alone, and to be his own
time for revenge: for besides being print to the sun's
irrumariiks, and dangerous y establishell in the father's
farour, the new grobai indeed done Mr. Satan injury
of with be kiti was al unconscious. Dass FTET
into weeks meanwhile; the old rear burnt into the new;
and Ole werk-lay was stil och like another on this
primitive Australian farm. When the third bell rang
at sunrise, every but disgorged its surrharge of couriets,
and Ginger ca. ud then orer like so haar schoolbors in
front of the palisatie. Then the shepherds to their
pastures, the plougł men to tie arabe land, the balioek-
drivers to their tealls, and Tom to his stabies for the
liveiong day, Such as could come were summoned to
breakfast at eigist, and to dinner at one, by the great
b»]] claying in its eucalyptian belfry; and all hands
worp reard by it between eight and nine at night.
Ehiay was a nominal day of rest which included
two long compulsory services in the courtyard beneath
a navaye sun Dr. Sullivan read the pracers with the
vojie of an executioner, his bamboo cane on the desk in
front of him, for use as a baton or as an instrument of
correction for the man who dared to sinile or to whisper
within his reach. The terrible old man would also take
this werkly opportunity of animadverting on the lost


CASTLE SULLIVAN
211
souls and abandoned character of his convicts in general,
with particular allusions to those whose enormities had
earned them the lash during the preceding week. He
never failed to assure future offenders that they would
be punished without mercy in their turn, and would
slash the desk with his cane to emphasise his words.
So religion and ferocity ran hand in hand at Castle
Sullivan; nor was hypocrisy very far behind. Mr. Nat
led the hymns in a devout, sustained, stentorian bellow,
while a maiden sister, the only lady of the establishment,
whose voice the convicts never heard, and whose face they
seldom saw but on these occasions, supplied a perfunctory
accompaniment on the pianoforte.
Amid the branches of the red gums without, flocks of
parrots would chatter mockingly, their vivid reds and
yellows lighting up the sombre hues of those perennial
leaves, that whispered none the less enticingly of cool
siestas in the shade. Yet Sunday after Sunday these
tyrannical observances were maintained and enforced ;
and the evangelical doctor loved to boast of the device
whereby he had enforced them in the beginning. On the
first Sunday nine-tenths of his men had announced them-
selves Roman Catholics. So he had drawn up these
gentry in line outside the palisade, and there kept them
standing out of earshot, but in the full glare of the sun,
during the entire service. And on the Sunday following
there was not a Roman Catholic among them.
What remained of their ruined day the convicts spent
in breaking as many as possible of those Commandments
which Dr. Sullivan had been dinning in their ears.
Larceny, however, was the crime most in favour at the
farm, whose boundaries were seldom exempt from that
foul parasite of the convict, the squatter of the early


212
THE ROSCE'S MARCH
days. Hemost nem besoede rib the setter of
* "bogatematica. The former as asas a ticket-
61-6276 1.ail, te, baitaéf a hat is an naoccapied
spot, with a perfeziore for the Lear Deborhood of a
pentil I oct.nzent of assigned coasicts. Tie squatter
world suppy the convicts with rain. The convict would
pay the squatter with the only currenry within his reach,
nalniy that of stoica property. The squatter was sly
publican and sly pawnbroker in one, and a pretty speci-
106 of his class had his wigwam and his black gin on a
crock not a hundred miles from Castle Sullivan.
Hither wan Tom taken by one of his fellows on an
early Sunday evening; half-a-dozen others were there
before them; not one of these were sober when they
arrived. And the strong fumes tempted Tom; smoulder-
ing mixery was in flames at this chance of quenching it
for the nonce. He might have followed suit had not his
companion produced a screw-hammer in payment for the
liquor. Tom glanced at the implement, and then at his
Inate.
“ You're never going to pay with that, Mac ?”
“ An' what for no?”
“ There's the farm brand staring you in the face! It
isn't yours.”
“What’s aboot it? If a man mayn't bilk the coves,
wha may he bilk? They gie us nae wages for our worrk,
80 we maun help oursels!”
And as this was the principle of all present, and indeed
of the average convict throughout the Colony, honest
Tom had no choice but to turn on his heel and walk
away amid the execrations of his fellows. But not a
hand was raised against him; he had still the eye and the
bearing that discourage a blow. Even the elder Sullivan


CASTLE SULLIVAN
213
had given up tapping and rapping him with that bamboo
wand which was for ever quickening felon fingers and
sowing black murder in felon hearts.
But the incident of the screw-hammer made an un-
popular man of Tom among his fellows; and worse was
to come of it. The theft was brought home to the man
Macbeth, and the very next night Tom met him with a
white, pinched face, and his coat on back to front.
“ Why, Mac!” cried Tom. “What now?"
The foulest maledictions were his only answer: a white
lip quivering with the words.
“ What on earth have I done?”
“ You ken weel. This, then!”
He turned his back, and Tom started back with horror.
The shirt beneath the open coat was sopping red.
In vain Tom protested that he had never told a soul
about the hammer. Nobody would believe him. His
indignation and his sympathy were treated with scorn
as so much hypocrisy. His name was execrated in the
convict huts; and so much of the convict spirit survived
in Ginger that he was with the men in this, and never
spoke to Tom now. The overseer besides shared Nat
Sullivan's grievance against Tom: a furtive admiration
for the girl O'Brien was one of his softer traits; and she
was the same to neither of them now.
At the end of a month the groom's truest friend was
the terrific old doctor himself. Peggy was his friend
indeed; but though her grey eyes watched him wistfully
enough from the window, he seldom heard her full, rich
brogue. Nor was it consideration for the girl that made
Tom deny himself that small consolation; young Sulli-
van had forbidden him the house, and was sufficiently
his enemy as it was. Indeed, the groom discovered


214
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
he was becoming a bone of contention between father
and son.
The son wanted to have him turned out of the stables
and put to felling timber; the father would not hear
of it.
The father granted him the usual good-conduct in-
dulgences of tea, sugar and tobacco, in addition to the
regulation rations; the son laid himself out to catch Tom
smoking at night, and at once put a stop to the tobacco.
Then came the very hottest day of the summer, for
which the son had waited. He had brought from Sydney
on the pack-horse a quantity of new harness, saddles,
bridles and the like, and he made the groom devote the
very hottest day to seasoning the brand-new leather with
castor-oil, to be rubbed into every inch of it, in the stilling
heat of the little saddle-room. When Tom was finishing,
nauseated with the smell, swollen with mosquito-bites,
and in streams of perspiration from head to foot, Mr.
Nat came in and patiently nagged at him. But even this
did not compass the destruction of Tom's skin: he per-
ceived the design and defeated it with imperturbable
civility.
Mr. Nat was driven into deeper plots: he had never
been bested by a convict yet. And now at last Tom
read revenge in the jaundiced blue eyes; but revenge
for what? He felt more mystified than afraid. All he
had to do was to keep his temper; but what had he
done? To nobody on the farm had he breathed a word
about aught that happened in Sydney or on the road.
He never ventured within the palisade. What then was
his offence?
One night as he lay puzzling his head about it, and
yet half asleep, a sound startled him.


THE LAST STRAW
215
It came from the saddle-room next door. Tom sat up
in his bunk.
The sound was very thin and wholly metallic, as the
scraping of a dinner-knife between the prongs of a fork;
suddenly a bolt shot back with a little slain.
CHAPTER XXII
THE LAST STRAW
Tom sat still in his bunk.
“A licht! A licht!” whispered a voice that he knew.
“He'll hear ye, Mac; he's only next door."
“ What's about it? I'll slit his juggler if he daurs to
interfere. Heard ye that?”
“I did. That's better!”
The crafty groom was snoring where he sat, with one
eye at a cranny in the rude partition between his lair.
and the saddle-room. In the latter there was as yet no
light.
“An' that's better still,” muttered Macbeth, as one was
struck. “Slit his juggler ?” he repeated with a chuckle.
“I wadna think twice o't, the mosing blackguard! Now
whaur's thae saddles, for my hands is free?" And his
teeth snapped on something that gleamed between them
in the light.
“Wait a bit. I smell the oil. Aha! here's one."
“ An' here's the ither. Dinna heed the bridles. Awa'
we go afore Jarman turns in."
Jarman was the squatter on the creek; the hour was
still short of midnight; and Tom, who had bounded


216
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
lightly to the floor, now stood irresolute. In the end he
let the rascals go. Their footsteps had already left the
saddle-room; the groom listened and lost them in the
night; then he felt about for his clothes.
He was thankful he had not waylaid the thieves at the
saddle-room door; the field would have been too unequal,
the consequences perhaps too serious for one and all.
And he foresaw the neatest triumph now. Jarman's
name had given him a foregone victory, for now he knew
the way to Jarman's ramshackle hut, and the saddles
should be back upon their pegs before morning: so full
was Tom of confidence as he dressed himself in the dark.
But the thought of betraying his comrades in captivity
was as far from his heart as that of allowing his master's
saddles to be quietly stolen before his eyes. Stolen they
might be, but only for the moment; he would call in
Macbeth and his mate to see how nice they looked in the
morning.
In a few minutes he was fully dressed, and dodging
Roberts (the night-watchman) behind the convict huts.
No other man among them would have found this precau-
tion necessary; but the groom was an unpopular charac-
ter, whom Roberts would have reported none the less
readily after winking (as he must have done) at the theft
of the saddles. With luck and ingenuity Tom managed
to elude him, however, and was soon racing down the
wooded slope where the timber was being felled; leaping
the stumps as he ran, and steering by the Southern Cross
for the southern boundary of the farm, which was, in
fact, the creek on whose further bank the squatter was
now encamped.
It was a perilously clear night. A white moon grizzled
the peeling bark of a small forest of red gums; and the


THE LAST STRAW
219
So it was not a theft, but a conspiracy; and the arch-
conspirator was the beast that Tom had cared for in his
cups; the petty tyrant whose property he was even
now risking his life to rescue — from his own confeder-
ates! Tom ground his teeth. He would rescue it still.
And not only Macbeth and Brummy, but Mr. Nat
himself, should see the saddles on their pegs in the
morning.
The villains went on drinking as they talked. Another
cork popped ; yet the moon was still high in the lucid
heavens when the two convicts staggered off. Jarman
at once put out his light; and, in a little, all was still
but the leaves, the locusts, and the tiny tributary of the
Hunter in which Tom had laved his feet. .
He came from behind his tree. The saddles were
still outside.
He stole near: nearer yet: near enough to hear Jar-
man and his gin already breathing heavily in their
sleep.
But they might not be sleeping heavily; and what
if they awoke? The stirrup-irons might ring together.
Tom knelt down and crossed the leathers over the top
of each saddle. The new pigskin might creak, for all
the oil it had absorbed; in fact, it did, as Tom lifted the
saddles; and he stood there with one on each arm, ready
to fling them down and to fight for them still. But
nothing happened. So he crept away.
This time he crossed the creek without dallying,
and only halted within a few hundred yards of the farın
buildings. Here he sat on a stump, mopped his forehead,
and wondered whether he should take the trouble to
elude the night-watchman a second time; and as he sat
the moon twinkled in the four stirrup-irons, which shone


220
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
like silver, they were so beautifully clean; and as he was
admiring them it suddenly came home to Tom the groom
that he had cleaned those stirrup-irons himself.
Yes! in spite of all, he had taken a sort of involuntary
pride in his work. And that was another thing for which
his fellow-convicts had cursed and hated him. But to-
night he scorned and cursed himself for it, with twice
their bitterness, and an oath broke into a sob as he
caught up the saddles and started to his feet.
In a word, the sight of his own honest handiwork, so
cruelly thrown away, drew blood from a heart that had
remained adamant under studied provocation, and cool,
but a minute since, in the face of monstrous treachery.
To have done a hand's-turn for such wretches! That was
the intolerable thought. It awoke the reckless rebel
that had slept so long in this tortured bosom. Not an-
other stroke of willing work would he do; he would be
as his fellows from that moment; only, beginning there
and then, he would condescend to hide and dodge no more.
So the groom marched boldly upon the gate across which
Mr. Nat had pointed with his whip to the lights of Castle
Sullivan, and would have slammed the gate behind him,
but for one circumstance. Mr. Nat was leaning against
it now.
Nor was he alone. The girl O'Brien was at his side.
Tom was upon them before he could check his steps;
but he did not try. He strode up to his enemy and stood
before him without a word, but with a saddle speaking
for itself on either arm.
“Well — well ? " cried Mr. Nat. “What are you doing
out of your room ? And what — what - what have you
got there ? "
“ The new saddles."


THE LAST STRAW
221
“So I see. My saddles. What have you been doing
with them? Where did you find them, eh?”
The tone was loud and blustering, but uncertain and
surprised. In the moonlight Tom looked his enemy
coolly and steadily in the face. And the girl drew away
from her companion and gazed at Tom, who never so
much as glanced at her as he replied:-
“ They were stolen. Thieves broke into the saddle-
room and stole your saddles. I heard them and followed
them, but I never saw their faces close to, and I wouldn't
swear to a voice. I followed them to Jarman's hut;
and, you see, I've brought you your saddles back."
Mr. Nat never said a word. His blue eyes glared fix-
edly at Tom, out of a white face, from which the girl
O'Brien edged further and further away.
“No; I can't tell you who the men were," continued
Tom. “But I can tell you who put them up to it. It
was not a convict, Mr. Sullivan, but a meaner hound than
any convict on your farm. One who has a special spite
against me — the Lord knows why! So he bribed these
men to take the saddles, simply in order to get me into
trouble. What do you think of that? I overheard all
about it out at Jarman's hut. I heard his name, too.
Would you like to know what it is ?”
“Sure it's himself — the dhirty divil!”
And Peggy O'Brien was at Tom's side, with one hand
clutching his arm, and the other pointing scornfully at
the baleful blue eye and the vile, quivering lips of the
younger Sullivan.
What followed was the affair of a moment. It was as
if a mad bull had made a rush, though whether at the
girl, or Tom, or both, it was impossible to say. Tom
thought the first, dropped the saddles, and his right arm


222
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
flew out from the shoulder. A sharp smack, a heavy
thud, and Nat Sullivan lay in a heap on the ground,
with a livid mark between the ear and the eye that lay
upturned to the moon.
“Ye've kilt’m — ye’ve kilt’m!” cried the girl, clinging
in terror to Tom's arm.
“I hope I have,” he answered. “It will be a good
thing done for all concerned.”
“Whisht! They'll be afther hearin’ye-look behind!”
Even as he turned, the gate swung open, and there was
Dr. Sullivan himself, with his frogged coat flying, and
his night-shirt flapping outside his nankeen breeches.
The watchman Roberts was at his master's naked heels,
closely followed by Ginger the overseer, in similar disha-
bille. These two seized Tom, who showed no semblance
of resistance, while the doctor knelt over the fallen man,
and felt his heart.
“Only stunned,” said he, looking up. “But you shall
smart for this, you miscreant, if you don't hang yet!
The very man he warned me against — the very man
whose part I took against him! What have you to say
for yourself, you ruffian, before I have you put in irons
and locked up?"
“You saw the blow, Dr. Sullivan ?”
“ You dare to ask me ? With my own eyes, you
villain!”
“Then you also saw the cause."
“ Cause? What cause? As if there could be any!”
“ He would have struck a woman if I hadn't struck him
first."
“It's a lie,” said a hollow voice from the ground. And
a bloodthirsty eye covered Tom.
“Ha, my boy! Thank God you are no worse; but sit


THE LAST STRAW
223
still and leave this dog to me. A woman, do you say?
An impudent slut who's at the bottom of the whole mis-
chief, and shall go back to Government to-morrow! Be
off, you hussy! Be off to your bed before I have you
taken there by force!”
Peggy glanced at Tom, and only went at his nod; the
tacit interchange brought Nat to a sitting posture with
doubled fists.
“I was ordering her there myself,” he vowed. “I
had found her prowling about.”
“A brazen baggage!" cried Dr. Sullivan. “Not another
female will I ever apply for; they are ten times worse
than the men. So you thought he was going to strike
her, did you ? Anything else, I wonder ?”.
“Nothing that you will believe. But he was at the
bottom of a plot to get me flogged for nothing: he had
bribed two of the men to steal those saddles that you see,
and put it on me; but I followed them and had got your
property back, when at the gate here—"
“I'll stop his lies!” said Nat, and staggered to his
feet, but the doctor pinned him by the arm.
“You will not! You will leave him to me," said the
father, sternly. He was the stronger man; the son stood
quelled. “We know they're lies,” the doctor added; "all
convicts are liars. Have any two men been out of the
huts to-night, Roberts ?”
“Not one, sir — out of the huts. I can swear to that.
How this one escaped me"
“It makes no matter,” said Dr. Sullivan, gripping his
son's arm still. “The saddles are not the point. I saw
the blow, and shall inquire into nothing else. The blow,
you ruffian, you shall answer for to-morrow before the
nearest magistrate. Now take him away. Clap him in


224
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
the heaviest irons we've got. Come, make haste: let me
see him in front of me!”
So Tom was led off, unresisting still, but scornfully
silent now, between watchman and overseer; and the
father stalked, and the son slouched, behind.
CHAPTER XXIII
THE COURT-HOUSE
The nearest magistrate was an Anglo-Indian of the
name of Strachan, another employer of convict labour
on a large scale, and a disciplinarian second only to Dr.
Sullivan himself. The two were close friends, and in-
dispensable to each other in certain ways. Both, in fact,
were magistrates; but no magistrate was competent to
deal judicially with his own offending convicts, and thus
an interchange of mutual favours was kept up between
the pair.
They would meet on Mondays at the court-house
situated midway between their respective strongholds,
and at this court-house Dr. Sullivan would oblige Mr.
Strachan by sentencing any servant of the latter to as
many lashes as his master liked, while Mr. Strachan was
only too glad to do the same for Dr. Sullivan. So great
was the mutual convenience, that either potentate was de-
lighted to hold a special inquiry, in any exceptional case,
to oblige the other; and one was held accordingly in the
forenoon following Tom's assault upon his master's son.
A mounted messenger was despatched to Mr. Strachan,
who sent back word that he would be at the court-house


THE COURT-HOUSE
225
as soon after twelve o'clock as possible. And he arrived
within a few minutes of Dr. Sullivan, his red-bearded
overseer, and the culprit, who had spent the night in
heavy irons, which he still wore.
The doctor led his brother-magistrate aside, and Tom,
raising his lack-lustre eyes for once, watched them walk-
ing arm-in-arm in the sunlight for several minutes before
entering the court-house. Ginger stood by and told the
constables the kind of man Tom was. Tom heard him
without a word or a look. The constables agreed that,
whatever else he was, he was evidently a sulky brute.
Tom heard them too, but sat doggedly in the strong sun-
light, with sullen eyes upon the two magistrates, whom
he instinctively knew to be deciding his fate before the
case began. Not a word had he spoken since the irons
had been clamped upon his limbs, and clasped about his
soul.
Not a word did he speak in the justice-room within.
His attention, however, was engaged at the outset by the ex-
tremely moderate tone in which the charge was preferred
against him. Dr. Sullivan, put on his oath, gave a per-
fectly true account of what he had himself seen and heard
in the small hours of that morning. He even admitted,
in response to a question from the Bench, his impression
that his son was the first to raise a hand; and added, of
his own accord, a hope that that circumstance would be
taken into due consideration on his servant's behalf.
Tom could hardly believe his ears. He was still lost
in wonder at this extraordinary intercession, on the part
of Dr. Sullivan of all men, when Mr. Strachan addressed
him in a tone no less clement and benign.
“You are charged,” said he, “with a very grave offence,
which you do not attempt to deny. In the ordinary course


226
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
I should feel compelled to commit you to another Court,
and your lightest punishment would be a term in the
chain-gang, even if you were not sent straight away to
Norfolk Island. It is your good fortune, however, to
have been assigned to a humane and merciful master,
who has spoken for you as I am bound to say I should
not have done in his place. He has magnanimously
made the most of the one slender point that might be
urged in your favour. He has begged me to deal with
you here and now. He is generously anxious to give
you another chance, of which, for your own good, I
would exhort you to take grateful advantage. Mean-
while, you have not me to thank, but Dr. Sullivan en-
tirely, for the ridiculously inadequate punishment which
I am about to order you. You will be taken into the
yard, and you will receive fifty lashes with the cat-o'-
nine-tails.”
At these words Tom turned very white, and opened
his lips as if to speak, but shut them tight without a
syllable. His dogged eyes gleamed, his handcuffs rattled,
and his leg-irons clanked together as the constables took
him by either arm and led him, without a murmur, from
the room.
“ Did I say too much?” asked Mr. Strachan, biting
at a cheroot, when the magistrates were left alone.
“Not one word,” replied the doctor, cordially. “I am
infinitely obliged to you for saying what you did — for
the constables' benefit, particularly. They seemed to see
nothing wrong.”
Mr. Strachan shook his head
“It was distinctly irregular, doctor. A clearer case
for quarter sessions I have never heard."


TEE ETEES MARIE
t anlal -
TL ver
Tartu '* itt priest Good beareas:
Lrt bert."
Tu tad
r e te Dana Coerstood
htl 26 PILLE I E T .SE 25 201 a
ibt et aon & ILETE ma teatteri hots,
Litt 10-Ja Tas 03€ the jactarter
من
باز کنه
العقد
سنة
ن
ة
س
السنة
علاقة
a uri zen Te Taras tres ras kriter-
Li
g a Tirrenare between
the giant : -51112-04 Tiere diere was a gate
ikatai D E TET 2tre dos per space, b.ot-
1.72 the size ore CHE SIT. Di sorg te dazz.ing
earth wil.
545, 500itst worse than gal-
lowe. W LA were tratta into liries, and brutes
iru derit, week after ret terughout the sear.
A brant and two ensales forced the garrison
of this issize of law and order in ize wierness. The
sergeant was an eralcisti aad of the trio, only
one hand come to the country on his own account. The
third was atay a convict at this rers time, and a
qaring riffin into the bargain. Originally a butcher-
busy 'who had robled lis Ihaster in the City Road), he
still sina kod of the saighter-house, with his raw red
124 and cruel eye; and on this young felon devolved the
castiganial tark of arininistering the lash.
In such hands was Tom led to the triangles, with
white face, but quickened eyes. The ticket-of-leave
oversver was also of the party, filling his pipe and
grinning to himself between his flaming whiskers, like
a man prepared to enjoy the thing thoroughly. The
sergeant, however, made him stand back a little, though
with a wink, as he touched the culprit on the shoulder.


THE COURT-HOUSE
229
“Come, my lad," said the sergeant, confidentially, “it
needn't hurt you, when all's said and done!”
Tom looked at him in faint astonishment.
“We ain't obliged to lay it on that thick,” pursued the
sergeant, in the same confidential tone. “It's all left to
us. It needn't hurt him, need it, mates?”
“Not if he comes up to the mark; but he won't - no
fear!” said the ex-butcher, who had got the cat, and was
practising with it upon the woodwork of the whipping-
frame.
“ We'll ask him," said the sergeant. “We'll give him
the chance. Will you come up to the mark, my son, or
will you take it hot?”
Tom looked at his inquisitors with a sullen, puz-
zled expression, and chanced to see the overseer, at
a little distance, shaking his head and touching his
pockets.
“ Not got any ?” cried the sergeant.
“You ask him," returned Ginger.
“Got no money ?” said the sergeant. “ That's what
we mean by coming up to the mark, you know.”
“ A pound apiece," suggested the free constable.
“ That'd soften the job.”
He stared at them in dogged defiance.
“I told you so," said the butcher, throwing down the
cat. “Let's truss him up."
“Even a pound between us — " the sergeant had said,
when the butcher began to grumble, and Tom's lip to
curl; and this settled it.
"Up with him!” cried the sergeant. “We'll teach
you to sneer at us, my game-cock! Stop a bit, though.
His legs won't stretch in these here irons. Who the
blazes put them on?” And the zealous officer knelt


230
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
himself to unfasten a pair of anklets, coupled by a short
but massive chain, and employed quite illegally by Dr.
Sullivan on his farm.
A pair of figure-eight handcuffs had been locked upon
Tom's wrists at the same time; but both his wrists and
his hands were small, and during the night he had found
that he could slip out of these at any moment. He was
out of them now before a soul dreamt of it — so slyly did
he stand to have the shackles off his feet.
The heavy-handled scourge lay on the ground; its raw-
faced wielder was half-way out of his coat; the other
constable was talking to Ginger in the shade; the ser-
geant had undone the second anklet, and was just rising
from his knees with the pair.
Next moment he was on his back in the dust: and
Tom was planted before the triangles, with the scourge
caught up by the thongs in his two hands, and the heavy
handle whirling round his head.
The butcher rushed at him with one sleeve still in his
coat; and received the butt-end of his pet instrument full
upon the forehead, where a great green wart sprang out
as if by magic, even as he reeled away. It was at this
there arose the outcry which brought Dr. Sullivan to the
justice-room door; and the sight that staggered even him
was the sight of his groom, with the blood all flown from
his face to his eyes, gnashing his white teeth, and whirl-
ing that thick oak handle round a head of wavy yellow
hair. Tom had not improved in looks since his arrival
in New South Wales. But at that moment there was a
fineness in his ferocity, a sublimity in his despair, which
were not lost upon both the gentlemen now watching
from the door. Mr. Strachan, for one, beheld a fellow-
man fighting for a manhood that was more to him than


THE COURT-HOUSE
231
life, against a degradation worse than death; and he
wished himself back at his farm.
Not so Dr. Sullivan, whose consternation lasted but a
moment. The next, he was in the thick of it, rallying
the constables, flourishing his cane, and leading a rush
which made the rebel slip beneath the triangles and take
to his heels. The pack followed, all but Dr. Sullivan,
who now fell back, with the sun glistening on his white
hair, and a gnarled hand shading his eyes.
Tom plunged between the lock-up and the store, and
ran round the fence to the left, like a rat in a ring, but
it was too high for him at every point. The pack
doubled, and had hemmed him in, when he swerved and
was through them, leaving Ginger on the ground with
redder whiskers than before. The Anglo-Indian, at the
justice-room door, was irresistibly reminded of his youth
at Rugby, and had an old cry in his throat, when he
recollected himself and gulped it down in time. The
convict was rushing straight for the outlet between sta-
bles and justice-room. The pack were at his heels; in
front of him the gaunt old doctor stood his ground like
a grenadier, with his bamboo cane, and the open gate
and a tethered horse beyond.
Mr. Strachan stood petrified by sheer curiosity as to
what would happen next; it never occurred to him to
interfere.
He thought the doctor must give way. The doctor did
no such thing; he stood fast with his cane as though it
had been a sabre; and Tom, whirling his weapon still,
whirled it high into the sky, and bowed to the doctor
because he could not strike him down. As he bowed,
the bamboo slashed his shoulder, and would have cloven
him to the ribs had it been steel; next instant he was


232
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
overpowered; and they dragged him back to the trian-
gles, as Dr. Sullivan turned to his brother-magistrate with
a heightened colour and sparkling eyes.
"A hundred !” cried the doctor, in his most dictatorial
voice.
“A hundred what ? " asked Mr. Strachan.
“ Lashes !” said the doctor, wiping his forehead with a
red silk handkerchief. “You can't give him less after
this. I'd like to make it two! But we needn't haul him
in again to hear it. Just give the order out here."
“I beg your pardon,” said Strachan, nervously. “I
decline to give it at all."
“Decline to order him another fifty for a bloodthirsty
outrage like this ? "
“ Yes, I do.”
“ You must have taken leave of your senses !” cried
the domineering doctor. “Or is it that you sympathise
with the man who felled my son ?”.
Mr. Strachan turned a deeper yellow.
“ You know me better than that, Dr. Sullivan!” he
cried hotly. “Sympathise with a convict! It's not that
at all. It's because it's irregular. I doubted whether it
was a case for summary jurisdiction in the beginning.
I know it isn't now. And I'll have no more to do with it.”
“You won't? Then I will!” said Dr. Sullivan. “I'll
take the responsibility upon myself !”.
“I won't be a party to any further irregularity,” said
Strachan, “and it's a clear case for quarter sessions, if
ever there was one. That's my only point. The man
deserves it, of course.”
Yet he retired into the justice-room and shut the door,
but failed to shut out the rasping sound of Dr. Sullivan's
voice, exultantly doubling the sentence, and crying to the


· THE COURT-HOUSE
233
ex-butcher to lay on the whip-cord as he had never laid
it on before.
“ Trust me!” came the reply through the open window.
" Look at my forehead, sir. I'll cut his bowels out for
that!”
Mr. Strachan sprang up and shut the window with a
bang. He was strangely shaken. Many were the flog-
gings he had ordered, or inspired, and even witnessed,
without a qualm. There was a something in this man's
face that had appealed to him and troubled him from the
first. As he shut the window there was a something else
in the white sheen of the doomed nude back over yonder
that made him feel instinctively there was the remnant
of a gentleman, tied up for whipping like a cur. And
this conviction made the Anglo-Indian, who was the rem-
nant of a gentleman himself, more uncomfortable than
he had felt for years.
He turned his back on the window and sat down, listen-
ing against his will, in the very chair from which he had
delivered pre-arranged judgment. He heard it once, and
winced and twitched his shoulders, as though the stroke
had fallen on them. He heard it again. He began mum-
bling the end of a new cheroot and listening to the flies
on the window-pane, whose buzzing had suddenly become
very loud. But louder yet were those horrible sounds
outside; and even more horrible was the exultant croak
of the old doctor at regular intervals between the sounds.
“Comb your lashes, my good man!” his rasping voice
kept crying. “Comb those lashes — comb those lashes !”
Strachan found himself counting them, with that strik-
ing face still before him, and those desperate eyes waiting
upon his as they had waited here while he was delivering
his mealy-mouthed address; and looking at him as they


234
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
had looked for one moment when he was done. A white
stare of incredulity, a flash of reproach, another of con-
tempt, and a back turned disdainfully with a shrug.
That was all — but it had burnt the magistrate at the
time - it would burn him in the retrospect ever after.
To stop counting he put his thumbs in his ears (always
with an eye on the door so that none should surprise him
in that position), but“ Comb those lashes !” came to them
still, and then he began listening for another voice and
a different cry. He listened for these in positive terror,
with the perspiration dripping from his nose, and his
ears moaning like the sea beneath both thumbs. How-
ever, no voice reached them but that of the savage old
doctor, crying out about the lashes up to the end. Then
came a pause. Mr. Strachan made sure it was a pause,
dried his face, put his thumbs in his arm-holes, and tilted
back his chair. His features were sufficiently composed
when Dr. Sullivan strode into the room with a deeply
dissatisfied air.
“Well ? ” drawled Mr. Strachan.
“Not a sound !” growled the doctor. “Not a moan;
but I'll break his spirit yet! I'll break him, or I'll
know the reason why!” And he ground what teeth he
had, and wiped his wrinkled forehead with the red silk
handkerchief.
“Bravo!” cried Mr. Strachan.
Dr. Sullivan looked up sharply, but took this expression
of enthusiasm to himself, as a tribute to that indomitable
and ferocious will which was his pride.
“You know me, Strachan," said he. “What I say I
mean; and if you'd backed me up just now, and stopped
outside, you'd know why I say it. Not — one — solitary
-groan! But I'll break him yet; upon my soul I believe


THE COURT-HOUSE
235
I could have done it with this cane! The fool of a fellow
didn't half lay on. He said he'd give it him all the
harder for that nice thing on his forehead, but it's my
opinion – "
The sergeant rushed into the room.
“He's gone, sir! He's gone!”
The doctor whipped a leather case from his pocket,
and went out hurriedly. In five minutes he was back.
His colleague was sitting like a yellow ghost.
“Gone ?” chuckled the doctor. “A little faint, nothing
more, and as stubborn as a mule the moment I brought
him to. But I'll break him yet, Strachan, I'll break him
yet!”
“ He had his full hundred ?"
“ Every lash.”
“ His - his skin "
“Like tissue paper! Drew at the fourth — but not a
sound — not a syllable all through.”
“ And he's fit to go back to the farm ?”
“ Fit enough, if I let him," the doctor declared. “But
I prefer to keep him where he is till to-morrow. Here
in the lock-up he can do no mischief — and they know
how to look after them here. But what's the matter with
you, Strachan ? You look used up. The heat, eh?”.
“The climate altogether!” cried the other, rising. “I'm
sick of this country, Sullivan. India was a fool to it.
I'd give all I've got to be going back there to-morrow!”


236
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
CHAPTER XXIV
THE LOCK-UP
THE sergeant had looked into the lock-up for the last
time that night. He had made his last overture to the
prisoner, had cursed and cuffed him for a sulky dog,
and so taken leave of him for the night. Not a word
had Erichsen uttered in all these hours. He had answered
no question, replied to no taunt, nor yet once raised his
eyes from the ground: there he sat, with a damp blanket
about his torn body, and his rough yellow head between
his hands. Food had been put before him, and remained
there still. A pannikin of tea stood cold, and sour, and
black with drowned flies, upon the ground. The flies
were the worst of all his outward ills. But the shocking
torments of a brain cruelly cleared by pain and weakness
were worse than the flies.
And now he was alone for the night; the key had been
turned in the padlock, and put in its place on the beam
above; the sergeant's bluster had died away, and the
sergeant's footsteps followed suit. Across the yard there
came a laugh, an oath, a good-night ironically shouted,
then a throwing-off of boots that jingled, and a shutting
of doors. Now all was still, and in the lock-up the still-
ness was as unbroken as elsewhere. He never stirred
but to shrug away a fly. The moon shone in through
holes in the tin-lid roof, through crevices in the match-
wood walls; and in the soft, sifted light he sat immovable.
It was such a prison as a man of spirit could have broken
with preposterous ease. But this one had no spirit left;
he was no longer a man. His precious manhood had


THE LOCK-UP
237
been beaten out of him like dust from a carpet. And
the sense of that irrevocable loss bit deeper than the
glutted flies.
Was it a horse outside against the brushwood fence ?
The sound was the first Tom seemed to have heard for
many years. In his blackened brain it struck a first in-
appreciable spark of interest. He listened. Then came
another and a nearer sound, as of something torn. He
listened eagerly. What could it be? Minutes passed;
there were no more sounds until the padlock was tried,
and a hand went feeling for the key. Tom raised his
head for the first time as the moon streamed in through
the open door, when he perceived that it was Peggy's
bare feet, which had made no noise. With that he lowered
his head again, for there was no place in it even for sur-
prise. But unconsciously he gave a moan.
She went upon her knees beside him, and flung out
her arms, but drew them back with a shiver from that
loose-spread blanket. “Tom !” she whispered. “ Speak
to me, darlin'. It's Peggy come to see how y'are."
He never spoke, never looked up, nor gave any sign
that he heard her words — unless it was that his bowed
head hung more heavily than before.
“It's Peggy O'Brine,” the girl pursued, with a sob in
her throat. “Sure an’ye've not forgotten Peggy the
cook? It's to comfort ye I've come, dearie, an' haven't
I the right? Ah then, an’ wasn't it all through me it
was ?"
The sob got loose, and she was wringing her hands and
gazing at Tom through her tears as though her heart
would break for him. In return he stared heavily at her,
but shook his head as her meaning came home to him.
“ Indeed an' it was," persisted Peggy. “Only for me


238
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
you niver would have struck 'm at all. An' to think it
was meself that warned ye in the beginning, an’ went
an’ drove ye to it in the ind! If only you had let 'm
strike me dead at his feet! It'd have been betther than
that — an' this !”.
Still he looked at her without a word; and still there
was no light, no life, no feeling in the look; but only
dumb and dead despair.
“You thought I liked 'm !” exclaimed Peggy wildly.
“ They've been tellin' ye their black lies in the huts. It's
little they know how it's been between us from the shtart.
I'll tell ye this, Tom, betther a hundhred times be the
man he's a spite agin than the girrl he's his wicked eye
upon. That's Mr. Nat for ye; an' I hate ’m - I loathe
'm— 'tis God's truth I'm tellin' ye. Tom, dear, he cot
me out there last night-I niver wint out wid 'm. He
cot me prowlin' about, as he said, an' that's the truth, too,
though he tould it. I couldn't sleep for thinkin' o' the
two o’yez. It's well I knew he was up to some divil's
work at last. I'd seen 'm talkin' — an’ what do you sup-
pose he's up to now?" asked Peggy, going off at a tangent.
“What do you suppose he's do'n' at this moment ? Lyin'
dhrunk on his bed - lyin' ded dhrunk for the shame of
't! You knocked 'm down. You knocked 'm down.
He won't get over 't till his dyin' day. Nobody ilse iver
so much as lifted a han’agin ’m on the farm. But glory
be to God! you knocked 'm down ! "
There was more than unthinking exultation in her tone;
there was a very singular sort of pride also, and this as
unthinking as the other, it was so ingenuous and plain.
But Tom saw nothing with those dreadful eyes, and heard
but little beyond her soothing brogue. And then she did
think, and saw a mark on the blanket in a rod of moon-


THE LOCK-UP
239
light (for she had shut the door), and cried out to God to
forgive the most selfish woman in all the world.
She had thought of herself, and not of Tom. She had
talked about herself, and not about Tom. In her selfish-
ness she had forgotten what she had brought him; and
a medicine-bottle of pilfered milk and rum was at his
parched lips in an instant. She made him drink of it,
and drink deep; and mutton sandwiches, deliciously cut
and salted, she put between his teeth with her own fingers,
bite after bite, as though he had been her infant. And all
the time she was railing at herself for forgetting this
and being the most selfish woman in the world; while
he ate and drank from her tender hand and never said
a word.
But when this was over he took that hand in his; and
so they sat, as it seemed for hours, in a thin rain of
filtered moonshine. Still his eyes were steadily down-
cast the whole time — thus they missed the happy tears
in hers.
At last he spoke, and it was terrible, for she could not
understand a word; then he coughed and tried again, and
said, “God bless you, Peggy — only there isn't one in
New South Wales !” And that left them both silent,
and the girl grieving openly, for almost as long again.
Then he said quite quietly: -
“You know I've been in the condemned cell, Peggy.
But it was nothing to this. My God, it was nothing
to this!"
Peggy pressed his hand.
“The condemned cell at Newgate,” he went on. “I
was there up to the very last night, and heard the people
taking their places to see me swing. Well, that night
was nothing to this. And if they had hanged me in the


240
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
morning it would have been nothing — nothing - it would
have been nothing — "
The hoarse voice broke, sob after sob shook the tort-
ured body, and the girl glowed with shame to find her-
self the useless witness of an agony so supreme. But
his tears dried hers and bound their fount; it froze her
heart to hear and see him. She was afraid to speak to
him, to touch his hand. She withdrew a little, and her
bare foot pressed a cold oasis on the warm ground; she
stooped and picked up a coin.
“Ha!” cried Tom.
His voice was very bitter now, but under control in a
moment.
“Where did it come from?” asked Peggy with the
coin to a shining crevice.
“I am ashamed to tell you;” and he ground his teeth;
“but you will never guess. From a greater brute than
either of the Sullivans. He came to look at me just
afterwards. I was steaming like a horse in this blanket,
and he came and gloated over me, and flung me a far-
thing — a farthing! — the very beast who ordered me
the lashes and pretended to be so kind."
“A farth’n’!”
“Yes. God help him if ever I get his yellow throat
between these ten fingers!” and they were clutching
murderously in the air, and there was murder in every
vibration of the husky voice.
“Sure, an’ it isn't a farth'n' it is at all."
“What is it, then?”
“A sov'rin!”
And the soft Irish brogue was rich with honest satis-
faction. She showed him the coin in triumph. He
regarded it with a leaden eye.


THE LOCK-UP
241
“A sov'rin!” repeated Peggy, with enthusiasm.
“Stick it in your pockut, an' be grateful iver afther to
Peggy's bare fut!”
He shook his head.
“You won't ?"
Another shake.
“ 'Tis sinful pride I call it,” remonstrated the girl.
“The kind man meant well — ".
“ The kind man!”
“An' isn't he?"
“I owe him a bit already,” replied Tom. “Let me
settle that first."
“But this he meant well, man; this is no farth'n'_"
“So much the worse. He thought to heal the wounds
I owe him with a sovereign, did he? His conscience
and my wounds! May they lie open, and sting and
throb and tickle all at once, as they're doing now, till
I have my fingers at his throat!” The girl looked so
frightened that he gulped at his passion, and said, “You
keep it yourself, Peggy, like a good girl; you deserve a
purse of them for all you've done for me this night.
Why, what now?"
He sat alone in the lock-up; the girl had stolen
swiftly out. In the unconscious egotism of his grief
and shame, this simply puzzled him. So he sat in the
moonbeams, blinking at the moon, until she returned
and once more closed the door.
“All's safe,” she told him cheerfully. “I heard the
thraps snorin' in their slape.”
“Had you heard something else?"
“I had not.”
“Then what was wrong?”
“Is it why I went out?” said Peggy, fixing him with


242
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
an eye that was cheerful too. “To dhrop that sov'rin
to the very bottom of their well; an' it's we will dhrop
it, too, if you plase.”
Tom held out his hand.
“I've offended you, Peggy. God knows I didn't mean
to; but I'm capable of all that's brutal to-night; you see
what they've made of me already! Forgive me, Peggy.
I'll never forgive them. I'll be even with every one of
them, curse them! curse them! and then I'll swing as I
should have done a year ago. I'm sorry I didn't keep
that pound — to give it him back for his coffin!”.
It was terrible to hear him; his voice was very low,
and full of fresh tears that made it all sound worse.
Peggy asked him what he meant to do.
He meant to die, but not of the lash — the rope; he
meant to hang as he should have hung the year before.
If only he had! If only he had! But at last he recog-
nised the fate reserved for him by a Providence he
blasphemed, so now he would meet it half-way. He
was sorry he had not done so long ago. He was sorry
he had not driven a knife through Nat in the very
beginning; but it was never too late to kill and die; it
was only too late to die with a whole skin; and again
his sobs and blasphemies were horrible to hear. Yet
Peggy listened patiently, and gradually soothed him
with a tender, tolerant, womanly word here and there;
so that at last he looked at her through his tears (for he
was utterly unmanned) and asked her, out of pure curi-
osity, what he had done to make such an enemy of
Mr. Nat.
Peggy resumed her cheerful manner.
“An' don't ye know?” said she, masking a trembling
lip with a smile. “Is it no notion ye have at all?"


244
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
no God to hear it; and was retracing his steps in this
blind alley of despair, when Peggy took his hand and
flashed a suggestion before his mind.
Why should he go back to the farm at all — to be
bullied and beaten to death or desperation in a cruel
and unequal war? He told her in reply what he calmly
proposed to do, and her blood ran cold to hear him;
then common-sense came to her aid, and she showed
him the folly (rather than the wickedness) of his dia-
bolical plans. He listened sullenly, but said he could not
answer for himself after this, and pretended to take less
than he really did to the suggestion that he should run
away there and then; according to Peggy, there was not
another minute to lose.
Tom wanted to know where he was to run to, but he
began feeling about for his shirt. Peggy found it for
him, and noticed, with a pang of instinctive jealousy,
as the blanket fell apart in his movements, a mysterious
something that he wore next his breast like a scapula.
It was sewn up in oiled silk, which glistened in the
feeble light; and in the bitter intuition that this pre-
cious possession was a packet of true love's letters, she
made him ask his questions twice.
Peggy then told him he must run due east for the sea,
for it was but thirty miles from there; and she had a
good mind to run with him, since they were going to
turn her into Government without fail. This she said
with a laugh, but he made no answer. His face was
drawn with pain at every movement; it reminded Peggy
of some scraps of cotton-wool that she had brought for
him to put next his lacerated skin; and a grateful look
he gave her was her comfort and her hope, as she left
him to fight his own battle with his shirt, and set her-


THE LOCK-UP
245
self to pulling down the brushwood fence. A breach
was easily and not noisily made; and both moon and
stars were still crisp in the sky when Tom painfully
followed the girl's lead, and the two plunged together
into the open bush.
“Djue east,” repeated Peggy, stopping in the first
thicket. “D'ye know the Southren Cross now? I'm
afther misrememberin' it meself.”
“Up yonder, Peggy. Those five.”
“An'as like a cross as a han’-saw! But as ye know
't ye can steer djue east by 't, an' djue east lies the say.
If you're wantin’ wather on the way, let the Southren
Cross shine in your face an’ that'll bring ye to the river.
I heard 'em say so as I waited table.".
"I know, Peggy, I know. And when I get to the sea
- if ever I do — well, at least my bones can sleep in it,
instead of in this pestilent land!”
He stood eying her, eager to be gone, and yet reluc-
tant to show ungrateful haste.
“An' why would they?” cried Peggy. “It's manny
a convict has escaped on raf's before ye, so why wouldn't
you? Only fetch up wid the say an' there's hope!”
“Then, Peggy, there's no time to lose.” And his
hand was out in an instant.
“Ah then, Tom, an' must I be lavin' ye?”
Her voice was altered.
“This is not the way to Castle Sullivan, Peggy; it's
the very opposite direction; and I've got you into trouble
enough, goodness knows.”
Her lips parted as though more arguments were on
her tongue; but it was upon his white face the moon
was shining, and his eagerness to go, and go alone, was
now transparent.


246
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
“They have made you crule, Tom,” said Peggy, with
a sudden sad dignity. “Good-bye. Go your ways.
God bless you!”
“Cruel to you?” he said densely.
“Yes, crule to me! To me that brought ye mate and
dhrink; to me that 'd—”
“But what can I do?” he asked her in the same dull
tone. “I am grateful to you with all the heart they've
left me; but they tried their best to cut it out, and I
believe they have. Make allowances for me, Peggy,
and only tell me what I can do!”.
“Take me wid ye, Tom,” she whispered.
“To the sea?”
“An' further!”
“My dear, how can I? If they follow me alone I can
fight them alone until I drop and die. With you I
couldn't.”
“An' wouldn't we dhrop and die together?”
And now there were tears in her voice that held his
own tongue bound; and now a light in her eyes that shot
a ray through his brain at last. He understood, and
waited for his heart to bleed for her. When it would
not, a great groan came from his soul.
“I can't help it, Peggy,” he mumbled, in his shame;
“it's as you say! They've cut my heart out — cut it
clean out, they have! — and a cruel brute is all I can
ever be now. Forgive me, my girl — and let me go.
Never think twice about me. I'm not worth it - a
brute like me! Peggy — Peggy — ”.
He had tried, in his weakness, to put his arms about
her, upon an impulse of pure sorrow and gratitude, that
flickered within him like the last ember in a fire. And
the convict girl had turned so fiercely that her black hair


THE LITTLE GREY MAN
247
swept and stung. his face, as she broke away from him
once and for all. He saw her bare feet flashing in the
moonlight; they fell too softly for his ears. But he
heard her sobbing as she ran. And he pitied himself
the more passionately for the little he found it in him
to pity her.
CHAPTER XXVI
THE LITTLE GREY MAN
To abscond from assigned service was to break yet
another law of the land of bondage. And though he
little knew it (but cared less), Tom Erichsen was now
liable to further transportation - even to Norfolk Island
- and that for life.
Six months in a chain-gang was, however, a likelier
term; he might even get off with another fifty lashes,
and doubtless would, if he fell alive into the ruthless
hands through which he had slipped at last. He set
his teeth at the thought. It should never be. They
might take his body – there would be one or two more
to go with it when they did.
The stars were still sharp in the sky. They remained
so for some hours longer, when a breath of wind blew
them out like candles, and day broke, or rather burst
like a shell.
Meanwhile Tom had struck a creek, waded a mile in
it to destroy the scent - waded within a stone's-throw
of Jarman's hut— turned tail in a panic — and waded
back, and miles further, in the opposite direction. In


248
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
the creek also he slaked his thirst and laved his wounds.
He had turned his back on it when the sun rose. And
towards the rising sun he ran and ran until there was a
great belt of blue beneath it in the sky; then hid for the
day in a tiny clump of trees in the midst of an open
plain.
Here he slept for hours, yet dreamt but one dream —
of baying dogs and cantering hoofs. When he awoke
the first sound was actually audible, but far away and
growing fainter. It passed altogether, and he fell
asleep again. Awaking a second time, he found the
stars back in the sky, but as yet no moon. And Tom
was deadly faint for lack of food.
Also, his wounds were so stiff that he could scarcely
stir, every movement caused him pain; yet he struggled
up, and tottered east, with those five fixed stars shining
feebly upon his wan right cheek and haggard profile.
How long this continued Tom could never tell. It
might have been hours later, or only minutes that
seemed like hours, when the climax came. All he ever
knew was that his head was by this time very light;
and that the moon was no higher than the trees when it
shone upon the stray wether bleating piteously in his
path, which was to stand out terribly in his mind ever
after. Yet up to that moment a forty hours' fast had
been broken but once — with sandwiches. It was either
this or lingering death.
The moon won clear of the trees; it shone into the
glutted eyes and on the blood-caked mouth and fingers
of as desperate and abandoned a young convict as the
settlement contained.
He pushed on now with a new and dreadful energy,
He thought he smelt the sea. The country, however,


THE LITTLE GREY MAN
249
was still well timbered; and instinctively, rather than
with conscious precaution, the fugitive made his line
where the trees were thickest. He was now steering
jealously by the moon, with his head thrown further
back the higher it sailed; thus it was that a little later
he tripped and staggered without seeing what it was
that had caught his foot; but it felt peculiar, and after
a moment he turned round, stood still, and went back.
It was the dead body of a man.
The body had not a rag upon it.
Tom knelt to examine it by the moonlight, and a cold
thrill ran down him which he resented when he had
time to think; it showed there was something human in
him yet.
The body was that of a very swarthy man, with won-
derful white teeth upon which the moon shone and
glistened in the ghastliest manner; and pierced ears
from which the ear-rings had been brutally torn; and
a chapfallen blue chin. Tom thought the man had not
been many hours dead; what puzzled him was the
apparent absence of a mortal wound where the other
evidences of foul play were so glaring. When found,
however, the wound itself puzzled him much more; it
was at the back of the sunburnt neck, and might have
been a bullet-wound, but Tom had never seen one be-
fore; nor would he have expected a bullet to drill a hole
so clean and round.
He now behaved as though he had been tripping over
murdered men all his life. He had not only recovered
his composure, he was able to glory in it as a sign that
his heart was dead after all, and so past bleeding for any-
thing or anybody any more. At this moment he raised
his eyes, and his new-found composure was at an end.


250
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
A light flashed through the trees into his eyes: a
tongue of flame from some camp-fire.
Tom listened. No voices reached his ears save those
of the nocturnal bush. The fire was farther off than he
had thought.
He got up, and first walked, then crept, towards the
light. The colony was infested with bands of bush-
rangers. What if here were one, and this corpse their
handiwork? Now Tom thought of it, one particular
and most notorious band had been depredating this very
part of the country ever since the New Year. He had
heard envious reports of the villains in the convicts'
huts at Castle Sullivan, and especially had he heard of
their terrible Italian chief, said to be an outlawed brig-
and come to seek fresh fortunes in New South Wales.
Of the merciless ferocity of this free alien the most
horrifying stories were afloat. Yet the worst of these
but feebly expressed one who shot men from behind,
stripped their corpses, and tore the very rings from
their ears.
Tom crept near the fire in a personal fright curiously
exhilarating in its intensity. He might almost have
been a free man once more — worth robbing — worth
murdering for his money. The novel sensation brought
back a momentary whiff of unconscious self-respect. It
was just the little thought of having a life worth taking
once more; of being anything to anybody but a beaten
dog; and it came and went and was forgotten in the
same moment.
The next, he was gazing on a curious scene; and his
fears were also at an end.
In the light of the camp-fire four men were sitting
solemnly at whist; and three faces more innocently


THE LITTLE GREY MAN
251
intent (for the fourth was turned the other way) Tom
had never seen in his life. On his left sat a long-
limbed stripling whom the others addressed as Slipper
while they shuffled and cut and criticised his play; it
was clear that Slipper was a novice, though an anxious
student of the game. His partner was a wall-eyed man
without a smile; neither did Tom hear a word from the
one whose black hair and sullen shoulders were towards
him, but opposite whom (facing Tom) sat the visible
life and soul of the party.
This was a little elderly man, with grey tufts upon
his bloodless cheeks, and horn spectacles pushed half-
way up a singularly benevolent brow. He sat tailor-
wise, like the rest, but played his cards in a way of his
own. He had only one hand for the job; his right arm
terminated in a polished hook with a cork at the end of
it; but there knelt at his side a gigantic aboriginal, who
threw down each card as the player touched it with the
cork. Such was the party. At the first glance Tom had
looked anxiously for the bloodthirsty Italian brigand;
but he soon forgot his existence in the presence of this
innocent group, who were not even playing for money.
Tom heard their horses champing hard by beyond the
firelight; set them down as a party of drovers; and
stepped fearlessly among them the instant the rubber
came to an end. The wall-eyed one immediately drew
a pistol, while Slipper leapt to his long legs with a
knife. But the man with the spectacles ordered them
both to put away their weapons and sit quiet; and they
both obeyed.
"I saw him some time ago,” said he, lowering his
glasses (as he had done once before while Tom was
looking on), “and I am very much obliged to him. He


252
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
didn't interrupt our rub, as a more thoughtless person
most certainly would have done. He is a well-bred
young man, and I like the looks of him. Do you hear,
sir? I like the looks of you; but what on earth's the
matter with your mouth?”
Tom hung his head and told his story. At its conclu-
sion the little grey man insisted on shaking left hands
with him.
“You're the kind of young fellow I like to meet,"
said he. “A runaway convict, of course?”
The question was terribly abrupt, but Tom told the
truth.
“There, there, never mind!” cried the little grey
man. “You're not so singular in that respect as your
sensitive imagination would appear to suggest. In fact,
you are not the.only one in the present circle; so you
see that you may hold up your head again, and even
trust us with further particulars. May I ask from whose
service you have fled?"
Tom hesitated: if they should carry him back!
“You would rather not say!” exclaimed the little
man. “Very natural, very natural; but what if I can
guess? What if I said his name began with S, and
considered that of his homestead hardly justified by the
facts, save insomuch as every man's dwelling is his
Castle?"
Tom's face convicted him. It was transfigured
with amazement. The travellers exchanged significant
glances, and proceeded to regard him with an interest
obviously redoubled.
"How did you know?” he cried.
“I knew nothing. I only guessed."
“But how?"


254
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
tative fashion while he ate. It was he who became
communicative when he had finished. Suddenly think-
ing of it, he told them of the ghastly discovery he had
made among those very trees, about an hour before.
The effect was curious. Neither Hookey Simpson nor
Wall-eye nor Slipper seemed in the least surprised or
perturbed; but De Gruchy showed teeth as white as
those of the corpse, and ground them horribly; and
Hookey Simpson fixed his spectacles upon De Gruchy,
leaning forward with the tip of his hook between finger
and thumb.
“The fact is,” said Tom, “I thought it must be the
work of that Italian brigand-fellow.”
All but De Gruchy burst out laughing.
“And when I first saw your fire,” he added, “I
thought you must be his band!”
All but De Gruchy laughed louder than before. De
Gruchy hid his sullen, foreign face in his hands. And
the little grey man held up his hook for silence.
“ We are!” said he.
“What? Bushrangers after all?"
“The band you speak of.”
“Then where's the Italian?”
“You saw him for yourself about an hour ago!"
And the little man's eyes were twinkling through
their horn-rimmed lenses as if he had made a joke.
But there was no more laughing outright, though Tom
heard Slipper chuckle and De Gruchy snarl. As for
himself, he was shuddering in the most mortifying
fashion under the fascinating spectacles of the little
grey man.
“That was your leader!” he stammered out.
“So he flattered himself."
non


256
THE POGCE'S MARCH
“ Are they?" cried Tom.
“Maybe within fifteen miles," replied Hookey Simp-
son; “maybe within five. An ensign, two sergeants
and eighteen troopers, as I understand; but never mind
them. We two had words; they had been coming on
for weeks. Well, there were three on my side and only
two on his; so we made it up, but lay and watched each
other with one eye open all night. This afternoon, at
his suggestion, we rode behind together, to come to some
understanding. But I saw him looking at me queerly,"
said the little grey man, “and that was enough for me.
When I galloped after these good fellows our number
was reduced by one, but the little question of leadership
was at an end."
“A good job too!” cried Slipper; and Wall-eye
nodded a grave assent.
“You see, the change is not unpopular,” .continued
Hookey modestly; "though I'm bound to add that I
don't see how it could be — among Englishmen. What
was he before they kicked him out of his own country?
The word that described our friend Barabbas was already
applicable to the late lamented. But what was I be-
fore circumstances compelled me to leave mine? What
do you suppose? Come, give a guess,” said Hookey
Simpson.
“You talk like a parson,” suggested Tom, to compli-
ment the wretch.
“And I was next door to one!” cried the little man,
beaming benevolently. “A schoolmaster!. A peda-
gogue! A pattern to the village, and its model church-
warden, until an accursed organ-fund brought trouble in
its train. So here I am, and here I was while our late
friend was cutting throats in Italy; yet he thinks I'm


THE LITTLE GREY MAN
257
going to knuckle under to him for ever! Likely, wasn't
it? No, no; he was a bold-enough man, but he'd met
another. And I venture to say that to-night — my first
in command — we're on a bigger job than we ever should
have tackled under friend Francisco!”
“Hear, hear!” cried Slipper, while Wall-eye nodded
again, and Tom caught an evil gleam between De
Gruchy's fingers. There followed a pause, for the
mellifluous grey man had taken off his spectacles and
was breathing on the lenses with as tranquil a delibera-
tion as though he were still in the village school-room,
ruling innocent children, instead of grown men as
infamous as himself.
Tom watched him still; indeed, his eyes had scarcely
left this venerable villain from the moment it appeared
he was one; and now his fascination was complete.
He glanced at his own legs, crossed in unconscious
imitation of the little bushranger; and his trousers were
all stained, and his boots still stiff, from the blood that
had run down and into them, drawn by the lash. Then
he looked at Hookey, so wicked and strong and sly, and
his heart leapt as he had never thought to feel it leap
again. Here was the man for a whipped dog to follow!
He leant eagerly forward, and begged and craved admis-
sion to the band, as another might have pleaded for his
life.
Hookey Simpson surveyed him strangely. “Well,
well,” said he, “I was thinking it would never do to
leave you here.”
“Why not?”
“You were probably heading for the sea."
“I was.”
“Well, the ensign and his men are, without a doubt,
S


258
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
between the sea and ourselves. You might have fallen
in with them."
“That would have been my look-out.”
“Mine too, perhaps.”
“What do you mean?”.
“You might have put them on my scent."
Tom had seen it coming, yet he lost his temper when
it came.
"So you think that of me?” he cried. “You see how
I've been treated, and yet you think that!”
"I did think it,” was the reply. “I don't say I do
now. No; it never occurred to me to trust you on the
grounds you suggest.” .
“Then what did it occur to you to do?”
Hookey Simpson shrugged his shoulders, as one who
would rather not say.
“To tie me to a tree, perhaps, and leave me there to
starve?”
Hookey Simpson bit his thin lips to avoid smiling,
but bent his grey head when that was impossible; and
Tom, bending his, saw that the cork was off the polished
steel hook, and its point as sharp as a needle. The
little grey man was feeling it with his thumb, as he
still tried to swallow his smiles.
“I see!” said Tom in a low voice. “Yes, now I see!”
“We never do things by halves," observed Hookey,
sucking a bead of blood, not without ostentation, from
the end of his thumb. “We do them with all our
might."
“So I see,” repeated Tom. “Well, and so do I!
You stick at nothing – I'll stick at less. I'll be with
you in what you please — from whist to wholesale mur-
der — only give me the chance! Man alive, can't you


THE LITTLE GREY MAN
259
see for yourself I'm as desperate as any of you? Haven't
you told me the mounted police are between me and the
sea? Then what do you suppose I want with my life,
except to sell it as dear as possible, and be done with it
as quick? I tell you,” cried Tom, “I'm the very man
for you! See here: you're one short. Take me in his
place, and serve me the same if I turn out worse than
my word!”
His sudden vehemence, his impassioned manner, his
fevered and infuriated eyes, all had their effect upon
the bushrangers, who now (with the exception of Peter
Pindar and De Gruchy) got up and held a whispered
consultation some few paces from the fire. Tom
watched them eagerly, and each time the wall-eyes or
the fire-lit spectacles were turned upon him, he made
ready to rise. But now and then they glanced at De
Gruchy instead, who was still nursing a sullen face, and
at such times their whispers fell lower still, so that
Tom was at once startled and interested when a new
voice gobbled in his ear:-
“Yabber-yabber 'longa him— him bael budgerie -
him no dam' use!”.
It was Peter Pindar, whose oily locks and curling
beard nodded disgustedly in De Gruchy's direction.
“Why not?” said Tom. “What has he done?”
“Him good-fellow belonging ? Francisco,” replied the
black. “Me leave 'm alonga Francisco, me Hookey
Simp’on. Bael budgerie; me leave 'm alonga good-
fellow, my word!”
And the simian face grinned from ear to ear, in each
of which Tom now beheld a gold ear-ring smeared with
blood. But he was determined to be horrified no more;
1 Friend of.


260
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
and, the trio beckoning him, he joined them with what
alacrity he could, in the strait-waistcoat of stiff wounds
which now imprisoned him.
“Well,” began the little grey man, "we're going to
give you a trial!”
Tom broke out with impious thanks which the other
instantly cut short.
"Stop till you hear what that means," said Hookey.
“It means that we saddle up straight away - and stick
up Castle Sullivan before morning. It means that
you've got to make yourself extra useful there, since
you know the place. So what do you say to it now?"
For the moment Tom could say nothing at all. He
was too surprised; and, in his surprise, he was thinking
of the Sullivans and sweet revenge, of the detested spot
he meant never to see again, and of Peggy who must be
protected — all at once.
“Well?” said Hookey. “You know the place. What
do you say?"
“I'm known there, too!”
“What of that?”
“They'd make a mark of me. The Sullivans would
have me back alive or dead. Then I have enemies
among the men — they'd side against me out of spite."
“Well, we shall all wear masks.”
Tom glanced down at his regulation jacket, shoes and
trousers; took off his regulation cap, and shook his head.
•“It would never be enough. There are too many of
them wearing the very same as these."
“Then you'll just have to take your chance," said
Hookey sharply. “Or you may kneel down and say
your prayers!”
“Stop!” said Slipper.


THE LITTLE GREY MAN
261
“Well, what now?"
“Francisco's rig!”
Hookey considered the suggestion, and finally accepted
it, though with an evil grace.
"All right-out with them,” said he. “And you
slip into them, young fellow, without more of your jaw.
We sha'n't wait for you. Saddle up there, saddle up,
or we'll never get off to-night!”
The little grey man was altogether changed. The
long mellifluous word gave way to the monosyllable of
short and sharp command; the horn spectacles seemed
to kindle and flash to right, left and centre all at once;
and yet, in three or four minutes, they were bent as
benignly as ever upon Tom, who was now, however,
another man himself.
Long spurs, longer boots and a bright blue jacket
with enormous buttons, though some sizes too large,
became him wonderfully upon the whole; and a straw
hat, such as Dr. Sullivan wore and the convicts plaited,
but wreathed with leaves and berries in a foreign fash-
ion, crowned a disguise which only required the mask
to render it complete.
“Be good enough to turn round," said Hookey Simp-
son, with his former urbanity, and some perceptible
amusement.
Tom did so; and there was De Gruchy still sitting in
the moonlight, with his head between his hands; and
the others as busy as bees.
“Now turn back again — and many thanks! That
was an admirable idea of Slipper's; they'll take you for
Francisco himself, and on the whole it's just as well
they should. Yet, mind you, he was a pretty hard nut!
You mustn't disgrace his cloth!”


262
THE ROGUE'S MARCA
Tom was shaking his head when there was a loud cry
of “Francisco! Francisco!” behind him; and he turned
in time to catch De Gruchy on his knees, with his
clasped hands raised, and a face of ashes that broke into
flames as the apparition of the dead man resolved itself
into the newcomer in the dead man's clothes. With a
single bound the Frenchman was upon him; the hat was
torn off; and a gasping, glaring figure crouched with it in
both hands, as the others rushed up and closed about him.
“Calm yourself, calm yourself,” said Hookey Simp-
son, stepping forward. He laid an arm upon the
Frenchman's shoulder. It was the arm that ended in
a hook, but the cork still guarded its terrible point.
Nevertheless, the man's face went white again; he
started forward, but Hookey Simpson pushed him back.
In a moment they were on the ground together.
This was all Tom had seen; all he now saw was
Hookey Simpson getting to his feet, with the burst cork
forced high up the hook, which gleamed in the moon-
light as bright and cleanly as before.
“So that's all right!” said the little grey man, adjust-
ing his spectacles, which had become crooked in the
fray. "Half a heart is worse than no man, and as he
couldn't get on without the other heathen, why, it was
the kindest thing to do. What's more, gentlemen, I
rather think that our young recruit here is going to
prove himself worth the two of them put together!”
And Tom got a playful prod with the round part of
that murderous hook; and yet stood his ground, though
De Gruchy lay flat on his face, with the moon beating
down on his neck, and on a dark blob there in much the
same place as that other mortal wound, which now puz-
zled Tom no more.


ADVENTURES OF A SUBSTITUTE
263
CHAPTER XXVII
ADVENTURES OF A SUBSTITUTE
It presently appeared that Tom had not travelled
above a dozen miles towards the sea he fancied he had
smelt at eighteen; but this he declined to believe until
the grey man produced a tattered map and pricked out
the positions with his hook. Tom then gave in, but
climbed into De Gruchy's saddle with incomplete con-
victions upon the point. The delirium of his famished
flight still magnified both the time and the space which
it had covered. Thinking of the murder done before
his eyes, and looking on these villains whom he had
joined, he could half believe he was delirious still. The
incredible thing was that in two more hours he would be
back upon that hated spot whither he had sworn never
to return alive.
But a man's fate was stronger than his will, as it
seemed to Tom during that midnight ride, when not care,
but a very merciful sort of fatalism, sat behind the reck-
less horseman. Fatalistic he had felt before, but never
with this result; hitherto the feeling had only deepened
his despair, whereas now it was his single solace. It
consoled him for the horrors he had countenanced that
night; it even nerved him for what deeds he must him-
self commit before the night was out.
In the law's eye he was a branded murderer as it was.
He seemed destined to deserve that brand. He would
kick no more against a fate so plain and so persistent.
So he decided as he rode, too slowly for his spirit, to
deliberate crime. For (despite philosophy) his one


264
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
immediate longing was for a gallop to rekindle blood
which the murder of De Gruchy had turned from fire to
ice; and a greater comfort than he would have owned to
himself came of his resolve to save and protect Peggy
and Miss Sullivan from this ruthless crew. Otherwise
he was one of them, and would play his part. But he
was not yet the villain he had hoped.
Objective details impressed him little at the time.
And yet he was left with the very sharpest memories of
floating gum-trees and a drooping moon; of the masks
they all put on, and the battered top-hat that Hookey
wore above his; the pistols that they loaded, and the
brace of horse-pistols handed to himself; the little con-
versation on the way; the startling of an old-man
kangaroo, that shone an instant grey and glossy in the
moonlight, then boomed and bounded into silence and
the shades; of all such things, in fact, to the final plan
of attack and division of villainy, made almost within
sight of the devoted homestead.
At the time, however, though Tom listened (as he
thought) attentively, and was much consulted on the
strength of his present knowledge of the place, he
grasped very little beyond his own instructions. He was
to show them the overseer's hut (the night-watchman
would already be on their side or dead), then he was to
station himself beneath the great bell, and to ring it
furiously so soon as Ginger was hauled out and his hut
set well on fire. Tom was also to answer to the name
of Francisco, and to affect a foreign accent, because the
Italian's terrible reputation had been the best part of
him.
The bell and the fire were calculated to tempt both
Sullivans forth unarmed. At all costs those two were


ADVENTURES OF A SUBSTITUTE
265
to be taken alive. “And then!” said the little man,
poking Wall-eye in the ribs with his hook.
“What then?” inquired Tom.
“We shall do unto them as we've all been done by.”
“But you were never here yourself?”
“Next door to it,” returned Hookey Simpson. "I
was at Strachan's, and this old tyrant ordered me my
fifties. We'll see how he likes them himself — just for
a start!”
“I wish it was Strachan's we were coming to!” mut-
tered Tom, with a flash of his former passion.
“It'll be his turn next."
“But when?”
“To-morrow - if all goes well."
“Then you don't mean to stop at Castle Sullivan?”
cried Tom, amazed.
“You'll see,” rejoined Hookey, “and so shall I.
There's no saying where I may stop with seventy con-
victs at my back!”
Seventy convicts! That was the rough number at
Castle Sullivan. Then what was this to which the little
man was leading them? No petty robbery, after all?
A grand rebellion instead? Tom's heart lightened at
the thought. He gazed at the confident little man —
looking more like a monkey dressed up as a highway-
man and perched upon a horse — and he felt that he
could have followed so spirited a leader with all the
spirit he himself had left but for the thing that had
been done before his eyes that night. There was no
more, however, to be said; they were at the farm.
At the gate (not the gate of former scenes; this one lay
east beyond the stables) all dismounted but the little
general, who was to keep his saddle as generals do. The


266
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
others led their horses to the stables, and while Wall-eye
stalled them, Tom showed Slipper and the black his old
lair. Another convict had succeeded him as groom, and
in a few moments young Brummy was dragged forth by
Peter Pindar. So far from offering any resistance, how-
ever, the obliging youth at once put himself at the bush-
rangers' disposal. His zeal and enthusiasm augured
well for the other seventy in the huts. Under his eager
guidance the watchman, Roberts, was immediately capt-
ured in his sleep beneath the bell; whereupon that
official joined the enemy with no more demur than
Brummy; indeed he went the length of shaking hands
with the supposed Italian, and personally thanking him
for having come at last.
Hookey on his horse cut this profession short and
drove both prisoners before him towards the overseer's
hut, which Tom had already pointed out. The latter
was now left in charge of the bell-rope, with a last order
not to ring until the hut was well ablaze.
“I thought he was gov'nor?” Tom heard Roberts re-
mark.
“The less you think the better,” retorted Hookey.
“But about this overseer of yours: a ticket-of-leave, I
understand? A true man, eh?” By which term Hookey
meant its opposite.
“I doubt it,” said Roberts.
“Then all the worse for him!”
Ginger's hut was but a few yards from the bell. Tom
heard them enter and held his breath. The door was
shut, and then he heard no more.
In the main building all was dark and still. He
watched it keenly, with his ears, as it were, upon the
hut behind. At last the door re-opened, and he heard


ADVENTURES OF A SUBSTITUTE
267
the striking of lucifers accompanied by another sound,
as of something being dragged from the hut. He looked
round, and it was Ginger's bed. The overseer lay upon
it, bound and gagged.
Tom drew a deep breath. He had expected worse.
Brummy and Roberts were now despatched to the con-
victs' huts, to tell the rest, at the right moment, what
was happening, and how they would all be free men
within an hour if they abstained from interference, but
dead men if they did not. Then the black crept up close
to the palisade, while Hookey rode to one side and the
other two hid behind trees. Meanwhile the overseer's
hut was beginning to crackle, and all at once Tom saw
the shadow of his tree leap out towards the palisade upon
a ground of glaring red.
“Ring! Ring!” cried Hookey from his horse.
Almost with his words a terrific clang, clang, clang,
burst out from amid the red-gum's leaves. And almost
with the alarum, a couple of white figures leapt out into
the red glare behind the palisade.
Tom stood and watched like an actor who has for-
gotten he is on the stage himself.
He saw the white figures dash through the gate, and
a black one glide in front of it next moment. He saw
Nat Sullivan stop running, seize his father's arm and
point excitedly towards the burning hut. He saw them
both about to turn, when the son was lifted off his legs
as though he had been an infant; and there were coal-
black arms entwined about his night-shirt, and snow-
white teeth grinning over his shoulder. Hookey Simp-
son galloped up; Slipper and Wall-eye darted from
behind their trees. All had pistols in their hands and
masks upon their faces. And the masks reminded Tom


268
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
that he was looking on through one himself, and had no
business to be a looker-on at all.
He had vaguely wondered why the bell was still ring-
ing; now he let go the rope, and ran a step or two for-
ward. But they were four to two without him, and the
four were armed, and watch he must.
The Sullivans were being dragged or driven backward
upon the palisade. Tom could make little of the sway-
ing, struggling group, for Hookey Simpson brought up
the rear on his horse; but through the animal's legs he
had glimpses of fluttering calico and sparkling spurs, as
the glare grew more and more intense. It was now as
light as day. Every board of the main building stood
out, in abnormal detail, against a blackened sky, while
the shadows of the palisade made a glowing gridiron of
the yard within.
The scuffle was over; something was happening that
Tom could not see, when a flake of red-hot bark lit upon
his ear. He was face-about in time to see the roof of
the burning hut tumble in, and a column of clean flame
spout high into the night. And there was the wretched
Ginger, writhing in his bonds within reach of the burn-
ing walls, and with the flame of a fallen brand licking
the very camp-bed on which he lay.
This time Tom did not forget his part; he ignored it,
and had the overseer out of harm's way in a few seconds;
in two more his mask was among the rest, and his pistol
pointed with the others at the two white figures that now
stood side by side against the palisade - with torn night-
shirts and clenched fists — defenceless, but still defiant.
“Now look you here, my fine gentlemen!” exclaimed
Hookey from his saddle. “If you've got any sense
between you, let's see you show it. You'll only cut


ADVENTURES OF A SUBSTITUTE
269
things shorter if you don't. What chance do you think
you've got? Ah! — it's too late to look that way now,
you old fool!”
The doctor's eyes were on his convict huts; the men
were pouring out of them pell-mell. Hookey Simpson
wheeled his horse, and rode up to them with a mag-
nificent air; dropping his reins to wave his battered
chimney-pot, as if it were a general's cocked hat.
“My lads,” cried he, "your kind master would call
upon you to stand by him in his hour of need. Now's
the time to show him your gratitude. Stop! stop! — not
all of you at once!” And with his horse he stemmed
a rush of zealous spirits who explained themselves in
chorus as they unwillingly fell back.
“Stand by him?” cried one. “Get at him, you mean!
Only give us the word, and we'll take him off your
hands — "
“And cut his throat —”
“An' slit his juggler --"
“And Nat's after — "
“The bluidy tyrants !”
Hookey waved them back.
“Is there a single man who'll take the coves' side in
the time of need? Let him speak now or for ever after
hold his mouth!”
Not a convict stirred.
“Then,” said Hookey, "you leave the rest to us, and
don't you interfere. You're dead men if you do, but
free men if you stop where you are. Your blood be on
your own heads!”
And he cantered back to the palisade, with his chimney-
pot hat on the side of his head, and the hook stuck rak-
ishly against his ribs.


ADVENTURES OF A SUBSTITUTE
271
outer doors at which the store-drays could unload with-
out entering the yard; in another moment Tom had both
women out in the open, with the front west angle of
house between them and the palisade. Even the burn-
ing hut was thus hidden from their view. Yet the voice
of Hookey Simpson sounded dreadfully close.
“You shall lay it on yourselves,” he was shouting out.
“Let the man who had the last fifty come forward and
lay on the first."
“ That's me,” said Macbeth's voice. “Gi’e us the cat !”
There was none.
" Then the auld cove's cane."
Tom had seized Miss Sullivan by the arm.
“I don't stir!” she declared. “Not one step!”
“Then worse will come of it.”
“But my father!”
“It's idle threats — they don't mean a word of it.”
“Ah, miss, come on!” urged Peggy in an agony for
Tom.
“She shall!” he muttered, with the nozzle of one
pistol against the lady's neck; and so between them
they got her to the back of the house, and thence across
the open space to the stables. As they ran Tom turned
his head, and just saw one end of a chain of ruddy con-
vict faces, all horribly intent upon some unseen spectacle
before the palisade.
The stable proper faced the open gate through which
the bushrangers had ridden. Their saddled horses stood
two in a stall, and Tom was backing out a couple when
he discovered Peggy meddling with a third. He told
her three would not be wanted.
“An’ what about you?”
“I stay with my mates."


272
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
“ Wid thim murtherin' vill'ns ?”
“I'm one myself!”.
“Already?” she cried. “Tom — Tom — "
It was his turn to hold up a warning hand.
Miss Sullivan stood listening at the door; but not to
them.
Tom listened too.
For some instants all was still.
Then a thwack, thwack, thwack was greeted with a
yell of savage joy; and Miss Sullivan was gone from
the door.
"Let her go," cried Tom, seizing Peggy's wrist. “I
did my best for her. You at all events shall be saved!”
“Not without you, Tom.”
“Nonsense, Peggy; I must see this through.”
“An' so must I, then!”
With these words she set her back to the open door;
but there stood Tom, looking past and beyond her, as
though he had not heard one of them. Presently a soft
laugh came from his lips.
“All right, Peggy! You are safer than I thought.
Look behind you!”
The girl obeyed; and there, trotting two abreast
through the open gate, were a score of troopers, with the
glare from the still blazing hut reddening their whiskered
faces, jewelling their spurs, and gilding from hilt to point
the waving sword of the lad who rode at their head.
Peggy stood aghast with an amazement that left no
room for thought; it was only when the cavalcade had
swept close by, and so out of sight, at a gallop, that she
heard Tom speaking to her from a height. He had him-
self mounted one of the horses, and was entreating her
to stand aside and let him out.


ADVENTURES OF A SUBSTITUTE
273
And then she realised how the situation had reversed
itself, and how he was now the one to fly and gallop for
his life. Without a word she sprang out of his way.
He clattered under the lintel and was gone. She came
out to see him gallop through the open gate. He had
already vanished, but not that way; he had dashed to
the assistance of his rascally mates.
But a dozen shots had been fired already, and blue
wreaths were curling in the glare like clouds at sunset.
Wall-eye lay stretched upon his face. Slipper and the
aboriginal were fighting desperately back to back, but
both were wounded, and their moments numbered.
Troopers surrounded them; others were already en-
deavouring to restore order among the convicts; while
one — a sergeant - was being dragged and bumped
about, with one foot twisted in his stirrup, and his
dead face smothered with blood.
Tom looked about for Hookey Simpson, and found
him on the verge of shaking off four troopers and the
ensign. One saddle he had emptied with his pistol; as
Tom came near he hooked the ensign out of his, but was
within an ace of being dragged to the ground in doing
so. The ensign's stock gave way and saved him. Ere
he could recover himself, a trooper took deliberate aim
at the little man. Tom saw him, however, and fired
point-blank at the outstretched arm; it fell; and the
next Tom knew was that he and Hookey were galloping
neck and neck for the gate, with but one pursuer close
upon them.
Hookey had apparently received no hurt. The bat-
tered hat was off and his benevolent forehead rose high
and white above his mask; it was to be Tom's last
memory of the little grey man. He had thrown away


274
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
one pistol, drawn another, and turned to fire it with
every furrow of that fine brow showing in the glare.
But Tom heard the man behind fire first, and saw those
furrows leap into space like snapped fiddle-strings; and
he galloped through the gate alone.
Whether the slayer came to grief over the slain, or
how else to account for it, Tom never knew; but he now
got a start which he was destined to keep and to increase.
Now also he began for the first time to appreciate the
piece of hard-bitten horse-flesh between his knees. He
had taken the dead Italian's roan, which had been led
riderless to the farm, and was thus comparatively fresh.
It was a great gaunt brute, with a mouth like leather,
as Tom had discovered to his cost in the skirmish. Once
through the gate, however, he felt that no more: the
beast had run away without his knowing it.
Indeed he knew very little for the first few minutes
except that the moon was setting at his back, and he
was once more heading for the sea. This he gathered
from the grotesque shadow leaping along between the
roan's ears; his first conscious effort was to keep that
shadow dead ahead. Now he lost it where the tim-
ber thickened, now he found it in an open glade. At
length the shadow failed and vanished, and it was very
dark indeed. But on went the roan with Tom on its
withers to avoid invisible boughs; and when the sky
lightened he could have shouted for joy, for the roan's
ears took shape against its lightest point.
He did not shout because his pursuers would have
heard him; for all this time he had heard them at inter-
vals; and whenever the ground changed from hard to
soft, their hoofs rang out the instant the roan's were
muffled.


ADVENTURES OF A SUBSTITUTE
275
The joy of that wild ride through the gum-trees to the
sea! He forgot the little value he had set upon his life,
and rode for it now as men ride for nothing else. Yet
he recked but little of the result. He knew no fears
and no regrets, but instead an exhilaration such as he
had never known before. It might be his last hour.
He revelled in it the more — was the more grateful for
it-on that account. To have tasted such life as this
at life's end! To die after this with no more pain! To
reach the sweet sea, and swim out to rest!
And now he smelt it; the rushing air was spiced with
salt; even in the pungent forest he detected it through
all the odours, and was mistaken in that no more. Only
one question remained in his mind. Would the roan
hold out? Would the roan hold out?
Long ago the pace had slackened. Long ago Tom had
stooped and ripped his big boots down to the ankles,
and cast them from him with all else that had been the
Italian's. He was now riding a light ten stone in his
shirt and trousers. His bare feet were numb from
standing in his stirrups to ease the roan. But the trees
had been rushing past in myriads half the night; and
still they stood against the morning sky-line, like blots
of ink upon a slate, in myriads more.
On the other hand, he had heard nothing of his pur-
suers for some time, and was beginning to wonder
whether they had given up the chase. Their horses
might well have started less fresh than his. Had they
given it up or had they not?
Tom had asked himself the question for the twentieth
time when something happened and he had his answer
sitting stupidly on the ground. The roan was disap-
pearing amid the trees with the saddle beneath its belly;


276
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
its startled gallop died away like the roll of a drum; but
heavier hoofs were coming up behind.
Tom sprang up, but sat down again with a yelp of
pain. His ankle was badly sprained. He felt for a
weapon, but he had thrown them all away; even his
knife he seemed to have hurled after the long boots, or
left in a pocket of the blue jacket, which had been
jettisoned in its turn.
He sat still and groaned. To have to surrender sit-
ting still! What an end to his ride! What a beginning
of the end of all!
The heavy hoofs came nearer, nearer. Three troopers
laboured into view, gave a yell and put spurs to their
tired horses, but ceased to spur them when they saw
their man.
“Why, who are you?” cried they.
“The man you want."
“I wish you were! You're all we shall get with these
horses. But you must have heard him pass?”
A light broke over Tom; he said he had heard it, but
some time since, when it was darker and he was half-
asleep.
“And what made you think you were our man?” asked
another trooper suspiciously.
“I-I—I'm a runaway convict.”
“Then you're better than nothing,” cried the former
speaker. “You'll come with us; but the man we've lost
is an Italian, and there's precious little of the Italian
about you!”
There was less than little: he had thrown everything
away, but without a thought of saving his neck by so
doing. Nor indeed had he saved it yet.


THE OUTER DARKNESS
279
Lastly they showed him his eighteen inches, where he
passed the intolerable night in wondering why he had
not given himself up as the Italian's understudy; and
in wondering, even more, why he still would not do so
if it were all to come over again — for he knew he would
not. Indeed, one of the most dreadful features of this
present phase was the tenacity with which the poor
wretch found himself clinging to life in each emergency,
despite all his cooler longings for the end. He longed
for that more than ever, but he saw now that death must
come to him. He might sink to murder; to self-murder
he could never stoop.
Or so he thought at the beginning of this term of
broiling days and fetid nights, with foul company and
heavy irons common to both. The combined effect of
all these things will presently be seen. Meanwhile such
feelings as were left him were still tolerably keen; and
it was with a real thrill that, towards the end of the first
week, he woke up at his work to hear the others hooting,
and turned round to see Nat Sullivan once more riding
down the line.
The thrill became a shiver: the blue eyes were fixed
on Tom, the great lip was thrust out at him, and before
Tom the rider reined up.
“You villain!” said Mr. Nat, with inexpressible
malignancy of voice and look. “You villain — I've
found you out!”
A line of red eyes blinked and watered in the sun,
then fell with a glimmer of interest from the scowling
horseman to the prisoner accosted. Tom had already
piqued such attention as his new companions were in
the habit of bestowing upon any fellow-creature: for
few there were who joined that morose and fierce crew


280
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
with the stamp of such moroseness and ferocity already
on them. Those few were crabbed old hands, but here
was raw youth, and yet in three long days they had not
heard his voice. Nor did they now. Tom moistened
his palms, and took a new grip of his pick — but that
was not all. He was seen to tremble, and he nearly
pinned his own foot to the ground. What was it he
had done and been found out in, this cub whose teeth
were always showing, but whose voice was never heard?
A perspiring sentry strolled up, his once red swallow-
tail coat hanging open upon his naked chest, and his
white trousers sticking to his legs; he was the only one
whose curiosity went the length of a word.
“What’s he been doing of?” said the sentry, wetting
his hand on his chest to cool his musket-stock. “We've
only ’ad ’im 'ere these three days."
“You won't have him many more,” said Sullivan.
“ The hangman will have him."
“Yes ? "
“Yes. Look at him trembling!”
“I see.”
“He'll tremble in the air before long!”
Tom bent over his pick. There was more hooting
here, but whether at himself or at his enemy Tom
neither knew nor cared. He wished to appear very
busy and regardless; he was really intent upon Nat's
shadow under his pick; wondering whether he could
possibly spring so far forward in his chains and get such
a swing as to bury the pick in the substance instead.
But this was never known. When the hooting subsided,
the noise of light wheels approaching took its place, and
Nat Sullivan turned round in his saddle.
The military man who debased himself by the charge


THE OUTER DARKNESS
281
of this iron-gang was a major of gunners, too fat for
service, and too gouty to sustain his distended body on
his legs; he therefore superintended operations from a
bath-chair, in which a blue-jacketed mess-man had to
trail him about the works. Major Honey bone had
recognised Nat, and had ordered the mess-man to hurry
to the spot, but not to seem in a hurry. The major was
himself a sufficiently hard and cantankerous man, but
some sense of justice he had, and he considered Castle
Sullivan one of the angriest plague-spots in a plague-
spotted land. The present occasion filled him, there-
fore, with the greatest glee. He had long desired an
opportunity of giving one or other of the Sullivans a
piece of his mind, and here was young Sullivan tres-
passing on the works.
“Go slower,” said the major, making up his mind
what to say, and not to say it all at once, as Mr. Nat
turned in his saddle. Their greeting was in consequence
not uncivil, though the major blandly ignored the coarse,
ringed hand obtruded by the other.
“You heard of the outrage the other night at Castle
Sullivan?” began Mr. Nat.
“By bushrangers?” observed Major Honeybone.
“By bushrangers; only one of them escaped; and
there he is!” roared Nat, pointing savagely at Tom.
“Really?” remarked the major, wilfully unmoved.
“Dear me! It was from you he came here— like half
my gang – for absconding, I understood?”
“We didn't know it then.”
“That he was one of the bushrangers?”
“ Yes."
“But you know it now?"
“ We do so!”


282
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
“Dear me!” again remarked the major, whose expres-
sion was rendered inscrutable by the rich shade of the
gigantic umbrella without which he rarely ventured
abroad. His small, shrewd eyes glanced from the vis-
itor to Tom, who was still looking down, and fidgeting
with his pick, the speaking image of sullen guilt. More
repulsive to the major was the gloating ruffian in the
saddle; but he signed to the sentry to take away Tom's
pick, and then favoured the other with a slow, con-
templative stare.
“A very singular thing, I'm sure,” he resumed, with
a sarcastic intonation that punctured even Nat's thick
skull. “Very singular indeed. Upon my word, Mr.
Sullivan,” exclaimed the major, “I find it difficult to
believe what you say!”
“Sir!”
“Or, if you like, to understand it."
“If you will allow me to say the rest, and to say it
elsewhere —”
“No, sir. Here!” cried Major Honeybone. “Here
or nowhere, which you please. This man absconds one
night — so I gather — and the next night you are at-
tacked by bushrangers. This man is found the morning
after that, and I understand you to suggest he was one
of the band that attacked you. Yet you never recog-
nised him at the time! Come now, did none of you?”
“Not then; but he threatened my sister and a female
whom we have since returned, and Miss Sullivan remem-
bers hearing him call the female by her name. Now
this man and that woman kept company,” snarled Nat,
in a perfect fame of rage and spite; "and Miss Sullivan
will swear he called the woman by her name. He fell
in with the thieves when he absconded, it's perfectly


THE OUTER DARKNESS
285
to do with the highest hand; but he had his chain-gang
in such an exemplary state of broken-spirited subjection
that the iron will within that flabby body was growing
rusty from disuse. The impudence of young Sullivan
was consequently a godsend to this born martinet. It
gave him an appetite, and it made him sleep. Further-
more, it fixed his eye on Erichsen, and to some extent
his thoughts also. The major was harsh by habit but
impartial to the core. He did not believe a syllable of
Nat Sullivan's story; but why had Erichsen so taken it
to heart? He alone had neither cursed nor cheered; the
major was puzzled, but kept watch.
"Fancy he's a gentleman,” said Honey bone, in a day
or two; and he made inquiries.
The result of the inquiries was the information that
Erichsen usually sulked; but when he was in a bad
temper, he was more blasphemous than any man in the
gang; when in a good one he was more foul.
"He is a gentleman — hem ! — was," said the cocksure
major. “Only it's the old story: the further they have
to fall, the lower they sink. Poor devil — poor devil!”
And old Honeybone sighed, for he had sunk a little too;
and if his conscience was clear of crime, it was more or
less saturated with sin, of which the perfume was not a
little stale and sickly. Whether from that cause or
another, the fat major found himself taking a more
human interest in this prisoner than in most. “So
that's the most profane tongue in the stockade!” he
would think whenever he looked at Tom. “So that's
the foulest mouth!”
It was not; but Tom was educated, and had an edu-
cated man's sense of emphasis and of selection. His
bad things stuck — that was all.


286
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
But if those superlatives were not literally justified,
others were, and before Tom had been six weeks in
chains he had shown a temper as insubordinate, an
audacity as brazen, and a callousness as shocking as
anything of the sort which the major had yet encoun-
tered in his present capacity. It was the reaction from
the sulky spirit in which the convict had begun his
term. For two whole weeks he broke no rules, but in
the next four he was three times flogged.
On the first occasion he knocked down the scourger
when it was all over, and so brought it all over again;
on the last, the major addressed him from his chair, as
the convict positively swaggered from the triangles,
with his fetters clanking and his shoes squelching at
every step.
“You want to try Norfolk Island,” said the major,
“but you sha’n’t.”.
Tom shook his head with an ugly sneer.
“The gallows, then,” said the major, “is your game;
but you're not going to get there either. I can show
you as good sport as you'll show me, and we'll see who
wins the game!”
It was nothing else to the combative major. He was
growing younger for the exercise; he began to get about
again on his legs. His only regret was for a palpably
fine young fellow gone so utterly to the bad; for the rest,
he found poor Tom as stimulating for some weeks as Nat
Sullivan had proved on the occasion described. Nat,
by the way, had returned to Castle Sullivan, ignobly
crestfallen, but not so intoxicated as to ride by the
stockade again in daylight. The major's superiors had
confirmed that officer's opinion, and Peggy O'Brien,
examined on her oath in Parramatta factory, had per-


THE OUTER DARKNESS
287
jured herself for Tom in the most illusive and convinc-
ing manner. The Principal Superintendent had made
a note of the affair; but there was no case, as Nat was
pretty plainly told, and Major Honeybone heard no more
of him for some time.
As a matter of fact, the bones of the Italian had also
been discovered; but, as there were no clothes upon
them, and the native dogs had left little else, they were
never identified. So Tom was safer, for the moment,
than he supposed. Meanwhile he had become a sort of
hero among his degraded fellows; not the most popular
sort, however, for enthusiasm is difficult in heavy fet-
ters. Besides, he never tried to be popular,
He might have been, after knocking down the scourger.
The inan was a convict himself, who received 1s. 9d. a
day for his unnatural services. It was the butcher over
again, only this caitiff had eighty others always there to
loathe him, and every hand could have shaken Tom's
for that well-aimed blow. But the very next day they
discovered he would as soon turn on them as on their
common enemy.
The incident brought to light an interesting fact, and
it happened on Tom's third Sunday in the stockade.
About half the gang were incarcerated in the common
mess-shed, idling, yarning, cursing and proceeding as
fast as possible with that mutual corruption which was
the chief fruit of this particular branch of secondary
punishment. Tom was of the number, a conspicuous
unit. It was the dawn of his prominence. He was in
one of those good tempers alluded to already. Every-
body was listening; those who could laugh still laughed
now; and if he had a guardian angel, surely, surely, she
must have been weeping then, more bitterly than when


288
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
he fought for the bushrangers at Castle Sullivan and put
a bullet through a trooper's arm.
Suddenly something, an association, a reminiscence,
a forgotten picture, made him want to weep himself; he
was past that, however, and went back into the sulks
instead. A new diversion being required, one was pro-
vided by the discovery of a young convict, a mere lad,
writing a letter in a dark corner on the floor. On being
detected, the lad first blushed, and then offered to read
them what he had written; whereupon he opened his lips
and a ribald stream poured forth, but meandered, slack-
ened, faltered and was soon cut short.
“He's making it up as he goes along," cried several.
“He never wrote that at all.”
“We'll see what he did write,” said one who was at
hand, cuffing the lad, and snatching the unfinished letter.
With a cry and an uncouth chime from his irons, the
young convict attempted to retain his property. It tore
in his hand, and a dozen more held him down while the
possessor dragged his chains on to one of the long, rude
tables, and stood up to read the letter in a silence broken
only by the protests of the wretched writer.
“My ever dear mother and father,'" the brute brawled
out, “I received your kind and welcome letter on the
31st of January, and happy was I to read the delightful
letter which I received from you that day.' Ahem!
can't he pitch it in? 'O, how ’appy I am to 'ear that
you are so comfortable and well. O, my dear mother
and father, I 'ope my brothers and sisters will mind
what you say to them better than ever I done, for you
see what it is to be 'eadstrong.' 'Eadstrong, eh? Stop
a bit; now we're coming to it! "O, my dears, I 'ope
you will make yourselves as comfortable as you can, for


THE OUTER DARKNESS
289
perhaps I never may see you again in this world; but I
'ope I shall in the next, where I 'ope to be a comfort to
you all, so God bless you all, my dears, for ever — ""
He got no further; nor had many attended to the last
sentences. The lad's unavailing protests had ended in
veritable wailing and gnashing of teeth; it was this that
had aroused Tom from his lethargy, and he also was now
upon the table, clanking down the length of it to where
the reader stood.
One or two mistook his intentions. “That's it -- you
read it," said they; but the most of them read Tom's face.
“Give me that letter,” he said sternly, halting before
the man.
“Give who it?” roared the other. “Oh, it's you, eh?”
he added, and seemed in doubt.
"Lads,” cried Tom, seizing his opportunity, "this is
going a step too far, don't you think? We all of us had
friends once — in another world as it seems to me — but
if any of us like to remember we had them, surely it's
that man's business and not ours? He's a better man
than most of us, and his letter's the last thing that we
should meddle with. We wouldn't have done it once,
and we won't now.” His temperate tone surprised him-
self; but it merely showed how every sensibility had
lost its edge. Two months ago he would have argued
such a point with his ready hands.
Meanwhile the reader had decided not to fight, being
an insufficient number of inches bigger and broader than
Tom, and having still in his ears the thud with which
the scourger fell. But neither was he going to give in
like a man, because men were scarce in those heavy
irons. Accordingly he retained the letter a little longer,
before handing it to Tom with a mocking bow.


THE OUTER DARKNESS
291
jumble . . . "and I inform you that snaiks is very bad
in this country. We ofttimes see from 14 to 15 feet
long. Parrots is as thick as crows in your country, kan-
garoos too, and it is night here when it is day there, but
Arthur Smith, I do not know where he is. Mutton is
4d. 16., beef —” But he had written no further, and Tom
said, “Thank you, Butter; it should make them happy,"
as he returned the letter. He felt that he ought to be
touched, and he was not. His heart seemed turned to
stone, when suddenly he felt it quicken.
The lad had simply said, “My name isn't Butter; it's
Butterfield.”
"A Yorkshireman? You talk like one!” cried Tom,
with a most painful flash of memory. Once more he
was a lucky, hopeful, penitent sinner, in a sweet-smell-
ing waggon, on a night in spring; with Blaydes's watch
ticking no warning in his pocket, and with a vivid men-
tal picture of Blaydes himself smiling wistfully across
the stile, beside which he was even then lying dead.
“Ay,” said young Butterfield, “poor old Yarkshire! I
doubt I'll never see it again. My folks have left there
an’ all."
Tom had more flashes. He was getting used to them
now.
“Where did they move to?"
“A little place they call Hendon; an' it was me that
drove 'em there by getting into trouble! Oh, it was me
disgraced them all, and drove them away!”
Tom let him talk, but said little more in return. It
was Jonathan Butterfield's son. How it brought all
that back to him! True, it was not a year ago, but it
seemed a lifetime. It was terrible to think of the little
time and the stupendous change. Tom Erichsen saw


292
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
himself as he had been and as he was, and the mental
vision hurt him more than the material one which the
stockade barber had shown him in a glass. He could
not tell Butterfield that he had known his father.
Nothing was to be gained by telling him; it would lead
to his telling more, and how could he speak of things of
which the mere thought was become torture so refined
and so exquisite?
His eighteen inches were a very rack that night. He
was thinking of Claire for the first time in many weeks.
She would hold him guilty still. How could she do
otherwise? His sweet friend held him guilty when he
was innocent, and his enemy the major held him inno-
cent when guilty. Oh, the irony, the biting irony, that
had made a worse man of him when he was bad enough
already! All the foul night he lay tossing in his noisy
chains; his wild eyes were never closed. Yet once the
thought stole over him, had he been worthy of Claire
when she loved him, would all this ever have been?
And after that he lay quieter — his heart knew why.
CHAPTER XXIX
LIGHT AT LAST
The red-hot summer cooled gradually into lukewarm
winter, with chilly nights, but the same fierce glare all
day; and several men had had their chains struck off,
and four had died in them, since Tom first felt the weight
of his. But the vacant spaces on the shelves were never


294
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
million wrinkles which, like his mumbling gums, were
never still. Yet it was better to hear his wicked laughter
than the clanking irons of men who neither slept nor
spoke; and the evils endured by the major's iron-gang,
which the First Fleeter pooh-poohed with a quaint supe-
riority, did seem less intolerable after one of his yarns.
“Bad rations?” he would croak, when the salt meat
was rancid or the fresh meat strong. “Tell 'ee, there's
none on you knows what bad rations is. You should
ha' been at Toongabbie forty year ago; we never had
no rations at all, except when a ship come into harbour.
Toongabbie would ha' learned ye! Many's the time
I've dragged timber all day, twenty or thirty on us
yoked to the one tree like bullocks, and dined off of
pounded grass and soup from a native dog. And glad
to get it, tell 'ee; we wasn't pampered and spoilt like
you blokes — not at Toongabbie!”
Or perhaps some wretch was groaning from the
scourger's lash. The First Fleeter waxed especially
eloquent on all such occasions.
“Call that a flogging?” he would quaver from his
ledge. “One little fifty? If we'd had you at Toon-
gabbie you'd know what flogging was. Five, six, an'
even eight bloomin' hundred I've given an' took. What
do you think of that? There was no flies about them
floggings, I tell 'ee; no, an' there was no flies about the
hangings either. I've seen a man took an' strung up
on the spot for prigging a handful of weevilly biscuits,
I have. An' all the time we was dyin' by dozens of the
bad food an’the 'ard graft in the 'ot sun. Lord, how
we did die! There was a big hole dug; we collected
'em every day an' pitched 'em in. I mind seeing one
man pitched in before the breath was out of 'im. 'I


LIGHT AT LAST
295
ain't dead,' he says. “You will be by sundown,' says
the overseer, 'an' do you think we want you about the
place till to-morrow, you selfish man?' There wasn't
no flies about that overseer, either; it was him as killed
three men in a fortnight, by overwork at the saw.
They just dropped dead at their work. 'Take it away,'
is all he says, “put it in the ground”; an' you never
heard nothing more. No, no," the old monster would
conclude, with his senile chuckle; "there wasn't no flies
about them old days in Toongabbie, I can tell 'ee. I'd
give a bit to have 'ad some o' this feather-bed gang
· there; them as thinks they know what ’ardship is ! ”
The First Fleeter became less loquacious after a time,
however, and much less severe upon the luxury of the
major's iron-gang. Honeybone's shrewd eye was on
him, and that of the First Fleeter began to droop and
ruminate with a cunning preoccupation that made him
quite silent on his ledge. At length, however, he took
to leaning over and mumbling to Tom in the stillest
hours. And when Tom listened, the old wretch mumbled
to others, including Macbeth, who had soon followed his
enemy from Castle Sullivan, and been well-nigh as
refractory in the stockade. The Scot was in another
den at nights, but the First Fleeter made and used his
opportunities with characteristic craft. So now there
was a new poison in the air, and the virus had come all
the way from Toongabbie in the early days.
One of the last to be inoculated, and yet the one who
perhaps took most kindly to the process, was a certain
sleek, bullet-headed youth, who came to the stockade on
a day in mid-winter. In the evening, as Tom was sit-
ting at the mess-table, with bloodshot eyes downcast as
usual, he heard his name in a voice he seemed to know.


296
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
“Well, Erichsen," it said, “it's a small world, ain't
it?"
Tom looked up, and saw the bullet-head nodding at
him across the table; but so bloated and debauched was
the low face that he was some moments in recognising
his old companion of the condemned cell in Newgate.
"Don't look at a pal like that,” continued Creasey,
with a smirk; “you've altered worse nor me. No ill-
feeling, I say? I was that glad — ".
“Silence!” cried the non-commissioned officer on
duty. “No talking at your meals, young man, unless
you want what-for!”
As for Tom, he had nothing for the newcomer but a
surly contempt which he took no trouble to conceal.
Creasey, on the other hand, was studiously civil to him
on grasping Tom's reputation in the stockade; and
secret circumstances threw them not a little together.
“That's a biter,” young Butterfield contrived to
say to Tom, in a day or two; “where did he know you
before?”
“Newgate.”
“He hates you."
“Let him."
“I'm jealous he'll squeak!”
“He might if he dare.”.
“How do you know he dursn't?”
“Too many in it; he'd be torn to little bits. See
here, Butter!"
“Yes, Erichsen?”
“You're to keep out of it."
“Not unless you do," said the lad firmly.
“Me! I'm in it up to the neck — and all the better
- but you're different. You’re younger, your time's


LIGHT AT LAST
297
all but up, you've never had the lash, there's a chance
for you; so give me your word.”
The lad hesitated.
“For my sake!”
The lad gave in, but consoled himself by making up
to Creasey, who slept in his hut, and was already deeply
implicated in that which the other thus forswore.
All was in readiness; the excitement throughout the
gang was intense though invisible; and Erichsen, Mac-
beth, and Creasey were even readier than their fellows
(as behoved good ringleaders), when the unforeseen hap-
pened at the critical moment. The general failed them
on the field of battle. The First Fleeter fell ill and was
removed.
It had been coming on for weeks: the old man, who
had made light of the iron-gang, was the first to suc-
cumb to its hourly hardships. He was older than he had
thought; he had it still in him to blacken and corrode
every heart in the gang with his own abundant poison,
and that he did, but that was all. His irons became
very silent all night long. One morning he tumbled at
his work; the next, he was sent over to Maitland, unfet-
tered and in a cart. The gang were at work at the time,
and the last Tom saw of the First Fleeter, as he waved
his cap in the cart, was his bald bad head and his uncon-
querable smile. Tom wondered whether the last had
not in some degree balanced the first, and been doing a
little good for a long time in a land that needed light
hearts almost as much as pure ones. Still more he won-
dered how they would manage without him now.
Before nightfall, however, this departure was suc-
ceeded by an arrival as unforeseen. It was that of a
curricle containing a solitary individual, who drove both


298
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
up and down the line of ironed men, with the sunset-
light first on one side of his swarthy, black-whiskered
face, and then on the other. He was obviously and
openly searching for some one among the eighty pris-
oners, and his failure to find his man was announced by
a frown that had in it more of pain and apprehension
than of mere annoyance. Meanwhile the major, who
was still a comparatively active man, was bearing down
upon the intruder with the help of his furled umbrella;
and the gentleman in the curricle was very soon asked
what the mischief he wanted there.
“Mischief, my good man?” replied a rich deep voice,
a little overladen with superior scorn. “Nothing more
mischievous, I take it, than a few words with the super-
intendent of this gang. Perhaps you will be so extremely
condescending as to give him my card."
“I am he,” said the major. “What can I do for you?”
“The honour of glancing at my card,” said the stranger,
with a bow as elaborate as his scorn.
“Well, sir?"
“My name may be familiar to you."
"Never heard it in my life,” replied the major bluntly.
“However,” he added, as the other coloured terribly, “I
live out of the world, Mr. Daintree, as you perceive.”
Tom was at work quite near, and he heard the name
distinctly. He, too, had never heard it before. And yet
he had some dim recollection of the face, so that he was
watching it intently, and saw the flush with which Dain-
tree very fussily produced a letter.
“That is your misfortune, sir,” Tom heard him retort;
and the rap put the major in a good temper on the spot.
He sang out for a wardsman to come and take charge of
the gentleman's horses.


300
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
Sir Richard Bourke, sir, would sooner have died than
give!”
Daintree pursed up his eyes. As it was only by
patient exercise of two characteristic qualities that he
had got the letter at all, so he now saw that he must
trust to those two qualities to overcome this other mas-
terful man. He must be diplomatic; he must have
patience; he must pick his way where he could not
force it; and it was very clear that there would be no
forcing this Major Honeybone.
The letter authorised and begged the major to deliver
and hand over Thomas Erichsen, Seahorse, then under-
going sentence in the major's iron-gang, to the bearer,
who particularly wished to have him for his assigned
body-servant, and undertook to make himself thencefor-
ward responsible for the said convict's good behaviour.
It was an irregular letter; no reason was given for
granting such a favour at all. It did say, however, that
Mr. Daintree would give his reasons; and with the letter
in both hands, as though on the point of tearing it up,
the major leant back in his chair and regarded the other
with a prolonged and curious stare.
“What are your reasons?” he asked at length.
“He is an innocent man,” replied Daintree impres-
sively.
“A convicted murderer, I understood.”
“Wrongly convicted. I followed his case. Did you?”
“No, sir,” said the major; “they give me quite enough
work out here."
“Well, I did follow it,” the visitor went on. “Be-
tween ourselves, Major Honeybone, I did a great deal
more than that. The case interested me from the first.
I knew something about this poor lad. That knowledge,


LIGHT AT LAST
301
together with the circumstances of the case, convinced
me at the time that he was an innocent man."
“He isn't one now,” remarked Major Honey bone.
“I-I am not a pauper, sir,” proceeded Daintree with
embarrassment. “I don't want this to go any further;
but you see, I knew something about the boy; and, in
short, I found the money for his defence!”
“The dickens you did!” exclaimed the major. “Then
you were a friend of his?”
“I am his friend, sir, though he has never seen me.”
"It was a noble thing to do— 'pon my soul it was,"
observed the major, very much impressed. “Quite
quixotic, upon my soul!”.
This open admiration hit Daintree in his weakest
spot; he leant forward and quoted the irresistible figures
in a sudden blaze of self-satisfaction.
“Lor'!” said the major. “You don't say so. Gad-
zooks!”
“When I do a thing at all,” remarked Daintree with
perfect truth, “I do it with all my heart. Either that
or I leave it alone. So I need hardly tell you I didn't
stop short at Serjeant Culliford. No, sir, I went to
Lord John Russell himself; it would be an affectation
were I to conceal my impression that his lordship’s final
decision was not uninfluenced by what I said.”
Major Honeybone was too used to lies not to know
the truth when he chanced to hear it. He filled up both
glasses and sucked thoughtfully at his cigar. Daintree
watched him with an eager eye.
“So he owes his life to you?” said the major at last.
“Well, sir, then it is my duty to tell you that he owes
you the greatest conceivable grudge!"
Daintree sighed.


302
THE BOGTE'S MARCH
-I Wt at Foran." said he. “I have heard
moeitos de Primera Saperintendent of convicts. I
an ons as I have more to hear from you."
- Vot a great deal." said the major, shrugging his
skoallers. "He has had four flaggings here, and one
before he came here: but that's wars the way. I have
koo* corriets who have never had the lash, but very
fer wo're only had it once. It has a bad effect; but
what can you do? I may tell you, sir, now that I think
We understand each other, you are not the only man
interested in Eriases. I take an interest in him my-
seif; bat there's no doing anything with him; and there
would be no doing anything with any of 'em if I didn't
come down on him as he will insist on deserving. I am
sorry for him, I am sorry for you as his friend; but he's
the most dangerous man in my ganz, and it would be a
piece of madness to set him free. It would amount to
that, you know; but Gipus can't possibly push the mat-
ter any further after wilät I shall tell him; and no more
inust you, Mr. Daintree - you mustn't indeed. Come,
sir, I can't say more. I am almost as sorry as you are.
He's a good sportsman!” cried old Honeybone, who was
one himself. “I only wish he was hunting with the
hounds instead of running with these confounded foxes
of convicts!”
Daintree took all this meekly. The major was not a
little softened; that was something, but he might be
made softer yet. It seemed to Daintree that a suffi-
ciently affecting interview between himself and Erich-
sen, with Major Honeybone looking on, might have that
effect. He pictured the convict in tears upon his knees,
he heard his grateful broken utterances. He foresaw
moisture even in the major's shrewd orbs; and he was


304
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
“The one that saved my life. My worst friend!”
The hoarse and surly voice stabbed Daintree to the
heart. He saw Honeybone look at him, and recalled
the major's very similar words. He started up and
offered Erichsen his hand.
“Take it away," growled Tom. “Say what you want
with me, for God's sake!”
· No; it was not Daintree's ideal interview. As little
did it resemble the meeting with his benefactor which
Tom had once pictured, and even vainly solicited, but all
so long ago — in that other life — that upon him the con-
trast was lost. All he still remembered was that he had
once imagined himself indebted to this person for the
blessed gift of life; all he now perceived was his mis-
take, and what a malignant curse that blessed gift had
proved. Not that he resented it any more. He no
longer resented anything in the world. Even this per-
son's kind, well-meant, emotional remarks moved him to
no stronger feeling than one of slight impatience: nor
was he listening when a look, an intonation, a pause,
informed him that he had been asked a question.
“Say it again,” said Tom.
“I want you for my assigned servant,” repeated Dain-
tree, disregarding both the decision and the presence of
Major Honeybone, who sat there quite enjoying the pros-
pect of further opposition. “I want to be your friend —
to take you away from this ghastly place – to sponge the
very memory of it out of your mind. The Governor
agrees to it - I have his written leave. Will you come
with me, Erichsen? Will you come? Will you come?"
“You’re very good," said Tom. “I prefer to stop
where I am."
“What?” cried both gentlemen at once. The major
looked personally aggrieved.


LIGHT AT LAST
305
“I prefer the iron-gang."
“To my house — my protection — my friendship?”
Horror and mortification were in the rich, strong
tones, and in the flushed and swarthy face.
“I prefer the iron-gang,” repeated Tom; but his voice
was weaker — he noticed it himself — and with the next
breath was crying savagely that he would not go, that
he would stop where he was, and who was Daintree to
come interfering there? A lot he minded what the
Governor or what fifty Governors said; there he was,
and there he meant to stick; no power on earth should
shift him out of that.
“Oh!” said the major. “No power, eh?”
“Short of a file of red-coats, which you can't spare."
“Sentry, remove that man!”
The rest of the gang were at supper. Tom clanked in
and sat down with a rattle. He nodded to one or two
desperate kindred spirits, half proudly, as much as to
say, “All right, my lads; I'm not the man to desert his
pals; I'm true game to those that are true game to me
- I'm that if I'm nothing else.” Those indeed were
the words in his heart; but nobody answered his nod,
only some irons jingled, where Creasey had reached out
under the table, and given Macbeth a kick.
As they were all shuffling out of the mess-shed, Butter
took a pill of paper from his mouth and pressed it into
Tom's hand. Tom unrolled it on his ledge, and furtively
read it while the sentry still stood with his lantern on
the threshold.
These eleven words:-
"All up since fleater went Mac and Cresy mean to squeek.”


306
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
Hardly had he deciphered them when a wardsman
thrust in his head and summoned Erichsen to the
major's quarters.
"They've been quick about it,” thought Tom, as
another wardsman joined them on the way.
The major looked very stern and strong. Daintree
was drawing on his gloves. Tom thought he recognised
the little heap of clothes upon the floor; the trousers
were blood-stained still.
“Now, sir!” cried the major with a glittering eye.
“I think you said that no power on earth would shift
you out of this? Off with those irons, men, and he
shall see!”
Through the black window glowed the curricle lamps.


PART III
MASTER AND MAN
CHAPTER XXX
“THE NOBLE UNKNOWN"
Tom crawled into the vehicle as though those heavy
chains still dangled about his legs. Nothing was so
strange as the sudden cessation of the horrid jingle
which had marked and mocked every movement of his
body for four whole months. He felt quite lost without
it, and he clambered into the curricle without a word.
Daintree cracked his whip, and that was the sole sound
from either of them in the first half-hour of keen and
starlit freedom.
“Feel cold, Erichsen?"
"No."
“Because you can have my coat if you do. My things
are thicker. Only say the word.”
He said nothing; such gratitude as he felt in his
degraded heart was not yet so poignant as to need
expression; it was a very vague, dull sense at present.
But Daintree understood: he had simply to sit next that
silent, aged, callous figure to understand all.
They drove on to Maitland, where they supped hand-
somely and lay all night. In the morning Tom was well
307


308
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
and warmly clothed at the best store in the township.
And that day the difference was that he kept turning to
look over his shoulder, and this at shorter intervals as
the day wore on.
“Is anything following us?” said Daintree once.
“Not yet,” said Tom.
“Not yet! Why, what do you expect?”.
“What I deserve," said Tom; and Daintree had the
wisdom not to press him upon this or any other point.
He knew what was alleged against Erichsen at Castle
Sullivan. He had heard the story from the Principal
Superintendent. He began to think there might be
some truth in it after all.
Next morning he was sure. They had put up at an
unusually comfortable roadside inn, where Tom had a
very excellent room, yet he came down with wild,
unrested eyes and twitching fingers.
“It's no use!” he bitterly exclaimed.
“Haven't you slept?”.
“Not a wink. I heard them coming all-night long -
heard them coming with the chains. Oh, take me back!
They have made me the guilty man they said I was when
I wasn't. I deserve everything now!”
And a second day of terror he spent in the curricle,
looking backward hour after hour; but when that also
passed over, and still nothing happened, he began to
think that either Butter was mistaken, or the major
incredulous, or his enemies of another mind now that he
was gone. At all events he took heart of grace, and at
last thanked Daintree for what he was doing: without
asking, however, why he was doing it.
On the third forenoon the spires and windmills of
Sydney fringed the sky; then they mounted a hill, and


"THE NOBLE UNKNOWN"
309
there was the harbour sparkling above the roofs of the
convict city.
“We had better drop the ' Erichsen' now,” said Dain-
tree, as they drove up to the turnpike gate. “I suggest
that. Thomas' will suffice both for Christian name and
surname. I think it would be preferable for the present.
What say you?” Tom consented with perfect readiness
and indifference; and he looked behind him for the last
time, as much as to say what was the only thing on
earth about which he was not as indifferent as the dead.
They drove down Brickfield Hill, over the spot where
Nat Sullivan had tumbled off his horse, and past the
notorious inn where he had lain; it flourished still.
And still the doleful felon music filled the air, striking
more staccato in this crisp weather than six months
since in the heavy heat; but it struck to Tom's heart
no more. On the quay there was a crowd, and a fresh
shipload of convicts disembarking, but Tom felt no pity
for them either. And now, when his indignation was
aroused, it was by the lounging laziness of a road-gang,
whose overseers were smoking and chatting with the
convicts, while the latter moved neither hand nor foot,
and the sentries yawned at their posts.
“They want the major there,” said Tom grimly.
“He'd have that peck of stones about their ears if they
stood looking at it much longer!”
Daintree turned and regarded him with a particularly
pleased and kindly smile; then Tom knew that he had
just volunteered his first remark since leaving the stock-
ade; and he thought he knew with what sympathetic
patience his first voluntary remark had been waited for,
though he only now suspected this from Daintree's
smile. His heart swelled a little. They put up at an


" THE NOBLE UNKNOWN"
311
“I suppose you are,” said poor Tom in reply; he could
believe and feel but little even yet.
“You suppose I am?” cried Daintree, looking rather
queerly at Tom. “You shall dine at my table,” he then
exclaimed. “You shall have all your meals with me!
Mrs. Fawcett, lay a place for Thomas — and show him
his room.”
It was a little room, certainly, but an incredibly
pleasant one; the window almost overhung the bay;
and the bed was a white feast for bloodshot eyes.
“Dinner's ready; don't you spoil it, young man, by
keeping master waiting,” said Mrs. Fawcett; and then
over her shoulder as she went, “My word, but you're a
lucky one!”
Perhaps he required telling so; it was all so difficult
to believe, so impossible to understand. But bewilder-
ment had not yet given place to curiosity.
He was, however, beginning to realise that he had
fallen from the cruellest into the kindest hands on
earth, when, returning to the verandah, he encountered
the kind man, with a gleaming eye and a set face quite
inconsistent with that impression. A fox-terrier, in-
differently bred, with one ear up and one down, but the
most eager eyes, had wildly welcomed Daintree while
Daintree was welcoming Tom; this little dog he was
now dragging savagely along by its collar.
“Won't come into my study!” explained Daintree, in
a voice of amazing fury. “Once I thrashed him in
there, so now he thinks he won't come in; but he shall
- he shall — he shall!” Dr. Sullivan himself, in deal-
ing with a recalcitrant convict, could have employed no
more ferocious tone.
The dog was dragged within a yard of the door it would


312
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
not enter, then released, and it did not run away. Dain-
tree now went within, and called and whistled to the
dog; but there it stood, bristling all over, and yet wag-
ging its tail with immense energy, as if to proclaim its
anxiety to please in any other way, but enter that room
it could not. Nor was it until Daintree rushed out in
his rage that the little dog turned tail and ran away.
And again he caught it, and again and again the same
thing happened, the man vowing the dog should give
in, the dog still wagging his tail and still disobeying;
the dinner growing cold on the table; and Tom viewing
the whole petty, pitiable exhibition with the most irritat-
ing pain and disenchantment. It made his heart sick to
see this man of all men in such a passion about so small
a thing; in a little he was all but foaming at the mouth;
and at last, when he caught up a heavy ivory paper-knife
and belaboured his dog with that, the spectacle hurt
Tom more than any flogging he had witnessed in the
iron-gang. It was not only that his feeling for men was
numbed while his feeling for animals remained quick:
here was the one man living whom he wished to honour
and to admire, and the honour and the admiration were
sickening at their birth.
The beating did no good whatever; then Daintree
turned on his heel with such a face that Tom took the
dog in his arms. He heard a drawer unlocked in the
room. When his master reappeared the paper-knife
was no longer in his hand; a pistol was there instead.
“Where's the dog?” he cried.
“Here,” said Tom, showing him.
“Put it down. I'm going to shoot him. I'll have no
stubborn beasts here!”
“Have you had this one long, sir?"


" THE NOBLE UNKNOWN"
313
“From a puppy,” said Daintree, cocking his pistol.
“Come, put him down, or we'll never get any dinner
to-night.”
“No," said Tom firmly. “You'll be sorry for it after-
wards; you will be vexed with me for standing by and
letting you do such a thing in your heat."
The other gasped, but never said a word.
“If the dog is no good to you, give him to me,” con-
tinued Tom. “Don't shoot him, sir. Not that I believe
you meant it!” And to show his belief he dropped the
terrier; whereupon Daintree hesitated, but presently
retreated to his room without a word.
The dog was spared. They sat down at last to cool
dishes that should have been hot, and their mutual ardour
had suffered with the viands. Daintree was very solemn
and very stiff, his hapless companion quite certain that
he had given mortal and everlasting offence. But the
incident was never referred to again. And Tom soon
forgot the solitary occasion upon which his champion
displayed himself in so sinister a light.
Not that the other lights were all rose-coloured. The
man had foibles innumerable, and in their way as ex-
traordinary as his inexplicable kindness to Tom. This
continued and increased, and yet there was a something
ostentatious, vainglorious, egotistical, even in his kind-
est acts. Tom hated himself for seeing it, but there it
was. It became the more noticeable as Tom himself grew
more regenerate, and so made fewer demands upon the
other's consideration. And then the gloomy vanity of
the man! His literary pretensions! His solemn belief
in himself and all he did!
“Heaven knows he has done enough for me!” sighed
Tom, quite ashamed. “I must try to see nothing else;


314
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
but what I can't help seeing shall never, never, never
make any difference to my regard for him.”
Tom wanted to get to work at once, in the house, in
the garden, anywhere and at anything, but the other
would not hear of it for days. He was to rest and for-
get, and to enjoy his life. They made excursions together
in the curricle or in Daintree's boat. Tom would have
been almost happy if he only could have given his kind
companion the heart-whole admiration which the latter
took for granted. And his inability in that respect was
so real a grief to him, he could have wept at it and at
the other's kindness put together; but there was still
not a tear in his heart; he often wondered, was there
any heart left in his body? What he deemed his ingrati-
tude seemed sometimes to prove that there was not.
There were qualities he could honestly admire in Dain-
tree, but they were not those qualities upon whose pos-
session Daintree most prided himself. He was a man
of iron nerve and will. That was undoubted. One day,
in a squall near the Heads, he handled the boat with
magnificent coolness and skill, when Tom thought they
must both have gone to the sharks: when they landed
safe and sound, he inflicted so many of his poems upon
Tom, whom the salt breezes had overcome with drowsi-
ness, that the pantry and the knives to clean seemed
preferable to such nightly ordeals. Tom asked to be
put into livery and to work at once. He insisted upon
it; and gained his point through the accidental touch of
“livery.”
They drove into Sydney next day with specimens of
the family crest, which Tom was to bear on every but-
ton. Daintree being a magistrate, a cockade was duly
included in the order; and for a time the master was in


"THE NOBLE UNKNOWN"
315
high feather at the prospective display. But it recalled
family troubles ere long; and all the way home he talked
dismally of himself as an “exile like Byron — my liter-
ary second-self.” Somebody had once called him “own
brother to Byron ”; he never tired of quoting the phrase;
he was destitute of humour, and made Tom blush for
him, where he would have shaken with laughter at
another.
His contrariety was unique. Not only was he a good
magistrate spoilt, through neglecting the Bench for his
desk, but an old athlete who bragged about the poetry he
could not write instead of about the races he had really
won. On the top of his bookshelf stood the row of tar-
nished silver cups, and his proud eye climbed no higher
than the volume or two of mediocre verse underneath.
He made little enough of his genuine triumphs, his real
abilities; but he would talk with bated breath of a few
stanzas which often rhymed as false as they rang. Once
Tom cleaned the cups when Daintree was out, and he
flew into something very like a rage when he came in
and saw them; he was the most unaccountable of men.
“Still he is the kindest,” was Tom's reflection on the
top of that conclusion; and the same night he not only
made another of his poor attempts at thanking Daintree
for all that he was doing and had done; he at last put
the question which seemed to mark a stride in his slow
and up-hill return from brute to man. And yet, even
now, it was no very sincere curiosity, but rather an
uncomfortable feeling that he ought to seem curious,
which prompted him to say:-
“I can't understand your kindness to me! Why did
you begin it; why do you go on? I wonder what made
you take an interest in me at the start!"


316
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
Wonder was the word, for wonder he did, but keenly
inquisitive he was not; and the stride was shorter than
it had looked.
“I believed in your innocence,” replied Daintree with
deliberation. “That was all.”
"I can't think why! You were the only one. Yet
you knew nothing about me, it seems?” And still his
tone was that of purely impersonal speculation.
Daintree took the cheroot from between his teeth.
“I knew something about Blaydes,” said he.
« Ah!”
“Not much; very little, in fact; but that little was
pretty bad. I knew what an infernal blackguard he was,
and I felt sure there must be more ruined men than one
upon his track. You remember that point in the de-
fence?"
Tom jumped up. “Don't remind me of it,” he cried.
“The very barrister disbelieved in me! And it doesn't
interest me now, it only hurts; don't speak of it, if you
please.”
“Oh, very well,” said Daintree; "only that point was
suggested by me."
“You?” exclaimed Tom in an altered voice. “Ah,
but what don't I owe to you? More than I can ever
realise or believe; everything - everything — and yet I
refuse to speak of it to you of all men! You see how
ungrateful I am; you see what they've made of me among
them! Oh, sir, forgive me; have patience with me, and
I may be grateful yet. Give me time, and I shall thank
you as I cannot now!”
“You shall not,” rejoined Daintree firmly; "you were
quite right, and we'll speak of all this no more. Good
heavens!” he cried out, “how do you know my motives


THE COURSE OF THE “ROSAMUND”
317
were so pure? What if it was a mere whim — and not
altogether my own? At all events, I take no credit for
it; and never you thank me again, do you hear ? You'll
offend me if you do. You will indeed!”
He spoke earnestly, nervously, and without a trace of
affectation or egotism. Nor did Tom remember a single
foible, as he looked in the handsome, dark, inscrutable
face, and took his benefactor by both hands.
“God bless you!” he whispered. “Do you know what
I used to call you in my heart when I had one? My
Noble Unknown! Well, you are nobler even than I
thought; do you know what you are doing? You're
giving me my heart back, little by little! I shall be
grateful yet!”
He went to the door, but would stand there gazing at
his friend. So long he stood, with burning eyes that
seemed to ache for tears; but at length he was gone,
and Daintree sat alone with a cold cheroot between his
fingers.
CHAPTER XXXI
THE COURSE OF THE “ROSAMUND"
ONCE in livery, Tom sat no more at his master's table;
he had, however, to insist on waiting at it, instead, and
to make himself the servant he had been hitherto in
name only. Daintree would have let the old arrange-
ment continue, but the new one was a boon to Tom. It
gave him freedom and independence and occupation, and
so helped him wonderfully upon the upward road.
One evening, when a ship had come in and Daintree


THE COURSE OF THE “ROSAMUND”
319
“A Sydney lady?” Tom ventured to inquire.
“Good heavens, no! If she only were as near as that!
She is on her way out to marry me; this letter was
written a month before she sailed.”
“From England?"
“ Yes.”
“You will see her in another month!”
“Perhaps before. You never know how long or how
short the voyage will be. Mine was a hundred and
thirty-six days, and that was long. I kept a chart of it
– stop, I'm going to fetch it! Clear away, I've had
dinner enough.”
He rushed from the table to return presently with a
mariner's chart of the world, upon which he had neatly
marked out the daily courses of his recent voyage. It
was a chain of many links from England to the Cape,
and a chain of longer links from the Cape to Australia.
“Now then!” cried Daintree, arranging the chart
under the lamp, and seating himself delightedly at the
table. “Now we'll see where they've got to. Halloa!
Where's my letter?”
It was on the floor, and Tom picked it up, averting
his eyes so that he should see nothing while Daintree
referred to the contents.
“Ha! Here we have it," and the letter was thrust
into his pocket. “They were to sail on the twenty-third
of June. How many days ago is that? This is Septem-
ber the twelfth. Seven — thirty-one — thirty-one and
twelve. How much is that?”
“Eighty-one,” said Tom.
“Only eighty-one! Then you're right,” sighed Dain-
tree, “and they won't be here for another month. I was
fifty-five days more.”


320
THE ROGCE'S MARCH
“ They may make a quicker voyage."
“They may, but I never have. The one before was a
hundred and forty days. They were both above the
average, but not so very much.”
“Then all the more time to prepare in," said Tom,
entering thoroughly into the situation. “We must get
the place to rights, you know, sir!”
“That's true. It will help to pass the time."
“ Then we might pin up this chart.”
“What, and follow the course?"
"Suppose they came no quicker than you did, and put
a drawing-pin in the place every day!”
Daintree was delighted; he shook Tom's hand, and up
went the chart, and in went the drawing-pin.
“You see,” he said, “ they've not got to the Cape yet;
they're only just beginning to turn the corner and run
their easting down.”
“That's assuming they came no quicker than you,"
said his consoler.
“Well, we will assume it. Still, when they're a hun-
dred days out we'll have a flag ready, and you shall begin
going every morning to the point to see whether there's
a ball at the south yard-arm. And after that will be the
longest time of all!”
Meanwhile there was much to do, and Tom did most
of it with enormous zest; he had never thought to be so
happy again. His enthusiasm was the one return that he
could make to Daintree, and he permitted it no bounds.
It was Tom who stuck the drawing-pin through a cork
ship of cunning build, full-rigged with needles for masts
and paper sails. When Daintree saw it they christened
her the Rosamund, after her real namesake, with a fit-
ting libation; and from that day forth the cork vessel


THE COURSE OF THE “ROSAMUND”
321
ploughed the white ocean of the chart, and was a good
half-inch nearer Sydney every morning when the master
of the house entered the breakfast-room.
“You sympathetic fellow!” he would say to Tom,
and sympathy bred sympathy as it always will. “You
must marry yourself, Thomas,” he would add. “And
you and your wife must live with me and mine; and
we'll go into partnership together, up the country some-
where, and all four live happy ever after!”
To all of which the servant would shake his head, but
continue to enter into the master's happiness with una-
bated sympathy and enthusiasm. Nor was this a con-
scious merit in Tom; it made him think no better of
himself. He knew how much was inspired by gratitude,
and how much more by the selfish relief of sinking his
own woes in the hopes and fears and raptures of his
friend. He was not even aware of the essential fineness
of a nature capable of this kind of comfort. Eternal
dissatisfaction with his own feelings kept his opinion
of himself at zero still. And if the new bond between
Tom and his benefactor had done no more than provide
them with common ground, on which they might meet
and be at one in all sincerity, even so it would have
done much for Tom's peace of mind.
When Daintree spoke of his beloved, his dark face
shone, the darker eyes softened, and the rich voice quiv-
ered with no common passion. It was possible to agree
and to applaud without hypocrisy, which was not pos-
sible when the puny poet stood in the strong man's shoes.
Of his poetry enough has been said, but about his pas-
sion there was no mistake. The one was genuine; the
other was not. It was a man's passion, a selfish pas-
sion, but the sheer masterful strength of it was patent


322
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
. to Tom from the first. Sometimes it made him fear for
the girl — and despair of himself. Gratitude apart, it
was as though his spoilt and petty spirit was incapable
of an honest, whole-hearted, ungrudging admiration and
regard.
In all their talks the only name Tom heard was
Clarinda: it was characteristic of his state that he never
inquired the other. His sympathy and his interest were
confined to his friend; real curiosity he had none. He
asked no questions, but a crooked answer was ready for
him if he had.
“You must let me tell her all I owe to you," Tom said
once. “It will be a pleasure to her and a relief to me.”
“Perhaps you owe as much to herself!”
It had slipped out, but Tom was not at all excited.
“You mean that she believed in me too?” he asked
with a mild sort of incredulity; and he saw from the
other's face that she had not. “Upon my soul,” he
thought, “I begin to disbelieve in myself; especially
since I've done as bad out here — and perhaps not heard
the last of it yet!”
Daintree wondered why he shuddered in the sun. It
was because his one true and fierce emotion was the base
fear of further tortures. He despised himself for that
most of all.
Meanwhile the cork ship with the paper sails was
creeping slowly but surely across the great white South
Atlantic of the chart; and the wall on which it hung
had been re-papered; and the whole bungalow smelt of
paint. It was a fair-sized house of two stories, with a
verandah encircling the one and a balcony the other.
Very pretty it looked in its new coat of paint for the
summer, a white coat with yellow trimmings, which


THE COURSE OF THE “ROSAMUND”
323
stood out delightfully on the blue water's edge. The
garden lawn merged into a narrow strand that slid
straight under the wavelets themselves. As summer
set in the trees behind the house broke out in every gay
and gorgeous colour; it was the plumage of the parrots,
that now came and perched in flocks among the branches.
Tom gave up his room, as two ladies and a maid were
expected. It was re-papered for the maid. A room was
found for Tom in the pretty little stables amid the trees,
where he helped Fawcett with the horses and the cur-
ricle, which was in Sydney on some errand every day.
Generally the master went alone; once he took Tom with
him; it was on the occasion of his cashing a cheque to
meet the running expenses of these elaborate prepara-
tions.
They were on their way home at dusk, when Daintree
pulled up on the outskirts of the town and hailed a dis-
consolate, soldierly figure with one arm in a sling.
“Why, Harry?” cried Daintree. “That's never you?”
“I wish it wasn't, sir.”
“You've left the force?"
“These six months; it was my arm; look there, sir!"
An emaciated hand came through the sling; the thumb
and forefinger were un'injured; but half the middle fin-
ger, and both the other two, were like dead, distorted
branches on a living tree.
“What did it?”
"A bullet; caught me on the funny-bone and paralysed
half my hand. My right hand, too. It's set me on the
shelf at thirty-three!”
“An accident, Harry?”.
Tom held his breath.
“Quite,” said Harry bitterly; "it was meant for my


THE COURSE OF THE “ROSAMUND”
325
one. I could have stood it if you'd left me what I was!
Oh, what am I to do?-I in luxury, and that man shat-
tered and ruined by my hand! I can't bear it. I must
confess. And I an innocent man in the beginning! Oh,
that was bad enough, to be condemned for what you
never did; but it's as bad to know you're guilty and to
go scot-free!”
The other said nothing, but listened attentively as Tom
now unbosomed himself of the whole truth of his adven-
ture with the bushrangers; whereupon Daintree justified
his offence with such warmth of conviction that Tom was
a little soothed. But his lavish friend went further: he
undertook that the disabled man should want for noth-
ing; but first they must find out what his circumstances
really were.
They found out within an hour, and from the man
himself. He had followed them on foot to render
thanks; he even wanted to return the money. Not
only was the department treating him handsomely; the
surgeons had hopes of his arm; and he was ashamed of
the way in which he must have exaggerated matters in
the street. So Tom was assured when the man was
gone; be kept out of the way while he was there.
The assurance consoled him — a little. He never for-
got that half-withered hand. He dreamt of it at night,
it haunted him by day; and all the while that withered
hand was surely though invisibly restoring the shattered
temple of this soul. It did for Tom what mere kindness
had failed to do: for now a horror of his acts replaced
the dread of their consequences. Those ignoble terrors
passed quite away. It never even occurred to Tom that
he had lightly confessed what no living witness could
have proved.


326
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
He had been with Daintree now some eight or nine
weeks; there were deep lines in his face, but his eyes
were no longer inflamed and ferocious, and he was begin-
ning to hold them up again as of old. The debonair
glance had not come back — it was gone for ever. And
his back was still marked (the master saw it when they
bathed), and his walk was still shambling. Yet day by
day peace was creeping into his heart; day by day he
liked Daintree better; and day by day the little cork
Rosamund left the Cape farther astern and came nearer
and nearer Sydney Heads.
CHAPTER XXXII
A MARRIAGE MARKET
ONE morning, when Tom was busy in his pantry, a
tearful voice advised him that he was wanted in the
study at once. The woman vanished as he turned; the
kitchen door slammed upon her sobs; and in the study
Tom found his master in a towering rage.
“You profess some gratitude towards me, I believe?”
said Daintree, with a biting ceremony of voice and manner.
“Not more than I feel — not half as much!”
"Then you are the exception, and now's your chance
of showing what you say you feel. I'm going to ask a
favour of you, Thomas.”
“You shouldn't put it so, sir. I love to serve you."
“Then go to Parramatta factory and choose a wife!”
Tom twitched all over, and stood very still without a
word. The other covered him with an ugly eye.


A MARRIAGE MARKET
327
“So even your gratitude has its limits!” he sneered.
“Another time I should protest a little less, if I were
you!”
“You ask the one impossible thing," replied Tom, with
a groan.
“Pardon me; I did not ask it,” rejoined Daintree,
whose blacker moods inspired him with a perfect genius
for picking quarrels. “Though you have not honoured
me with your confidence, it may relieve you to hear that
I haven't the least desire to tamper with your loyalty to
some lady unknown. I ask you to choose a wife — not
to marry her.”
“I don't understand you, sir,” said Tom respectfully.
“You will if you condescend to listen. The woman
Fawcett says we shall require another servant here. I
don't believe a word of it; the ladies are bringing their
own maid with them; but this idle, impudent, ungrateful
woman holds a pistol to my head and threatens to desert
me at this juncture if I don't get her a girl. I've had
her here bullying me for the last half-hour, and this is
the hole that I'm in: either the Fawcetts leave me this
day month — when I shall want them most — or I must
apply for a convict woman, and God knows what kind
they'll send me! Now, if you applied for a wife you'd
have your pick and choose a decent one; and, as I say,
there's no earthly reason why you should ever marry
her.”
“Surely it would be unfair not to," objected Tom,
who would have used a stronger adjective to anybody
else.
“Unfair on the girl? Not at all; you simply let her
off a blind bargain, and she gains good wages and a com-
fortable home. The girl comes out of it deuced well;


328
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
the officials are none the wiser and none the worse; while
I have the advantage of your selection instead of theirs."
“I might make a bad choice "
“Oh, if you want to keep out of it," cried Daintree,
“keep out of it, and refuse me the first favour I've ever
asked you to do me. I shall know better than to ask
another; only, in future, let me hear less of your grati-
tude till you've some to show."
Tom consented without further words. He disliked
the plan as cordially as he resented the outrageous tone
adopted by Daintree; but he would submit to both sooner
than deny the man to whom he owed more than he could
even yet realise. And, after all, a certain irritability
on Daintree's part was only natural in his present anxiety
and suspense; while it was now sufficiently clear that
the little conspiracy would indeed do no harm to any-
body. On the other hand, the arch-conspirator was
himself a magistrate; and there was something startling
in the crafty and cold blooded way in which he set about
circumventing those very regulations which it was his
duty and his practice to enforce. To Tom this was yet
another of those gratuitous revelations which both hurt
and shamed him, even as he feared that they would hurt
and shame the poor bride before long.
Meanwhile the necessary letters, in which the convict
applied for a wife and the master undertook to support
her, were written, the one with secret abhorrence, the
other with a sinister gusto. Next day Tom received his
order to the matron of the factory to supply him with a
wife; and started, in the early morning following, on
an errand which his whole soul repudiated.
All the way there he had an uneasy feeling that he
was about to commit himself beyond his bargain, that


330
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
breaking stones within the walls; and in that ghastly
group were mothers as bald as their babes — their
shaven heads corresponding with fifty stripes upon a
male. Tom had writhed and sunk and hardened among
the men; whip-cord and iron stirred his blood no more,
but it ran cold enough in the factory yard at Parramatta.
“What ails you?” cried the matron, seeing him shud-
der and hang back. “Why, bless the man, does he
think he's got to choose from that lot? No, no, it's
only the first class we let marry, and that's the third.
Hi! there,” she sang out to an assistant; “turn out the
women of the first class !”
And in another minute, with shuffling shoes, flutter-
ing gowns and cackling tongues, over a hundred girls
swarmed out of the building amid the jeers of those
already in the yard. The matron and her assistant
then formed them into two long lines; and so they
stood, like competing cattle in a show. And Tom stood
by, hanging his head, and blushing for them and for
himself.
“Your turn first,” said the matron to the other appli-
cant. “Just step down the lines and take your pick.”
The fellow did so with alacrity, and Tom saw him
peering and leering at the girls, and actually shaking
his red head in their faces, until he came to one that
took his fancy. Her he beckoned from the rank — a
bold, bright hussy — and they whispered, but only for a
moment. And this time it was the woman who shook
her head.
“Too many freckles for me," she called out saucily.
“I'll hang on for the other one!”
So the convict went on; and tested another, in order
to reject her and be even with them; while in those two


332
THE BOGCE'S MARCH
his pallor, and whose hands were fists that dared not
strike. Tom would have reasoned with the man, only
the latter was now set upon by a bevy of obstreperous
Amazons not lightly to be shaken off.
There was none among them would have looked at
Tom with such a fine fellow standing by; nor was there
a man in all his senses who would take up with Peggy,
if he but knew what they could tell him. So (in effect)
cried the girls who fell upon the one man left, and
fought for him, and scratched for him, and mauled him
in their efforts to hug him to their hearts; for the spice
of excitement introduced by Tom had turned their light
heads; and it was from a pandemonium of his own
making that he had meanwhile led Peggy apart.
“You'll come with me, won't you, Peggy?”
“Yes, Tom, if you want me.” And a humid light
was in the sweet Irish eyes.
“Then come to the matron, and I'll have you out of
this hole in half a jiffy!”
But the matron was otherwise engaged; and when a
degree of order had been restored, and the competition
for the remaining male had been decided by his capitu-
lation to an Amazon of vast physique; and when the
brawlers had been banished indoors with threats of
shaved heads and solitary cells, then the good lady
would have given much to pack Tom off wifeless for his
pains. Not so much, however, as had lain between the
leaves of Daintree's letter. So by noon Peggy O'Brien
was a comparatively free woman. Alas! she was an
unutterably happy one.
Her arm stole within Tom's as he drove: he had
neither the courage nor the heart to tell her the truth
outright. It was a cruel position for them both; he


334
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
no intention of marrying her at all? Not one word of
that had passed her modest lips, yet the pressure of her
homely hand was eloquent with love and joy. What
could he do? What could he say? For miles he never
opened his lips: they were tight-shut when she glanced
at him, and his face so wretched, that at last she could
bear it no longer.
“What is it, dear?” she asked him tenderly. “Is it
how ye can make such as me your wedded wife? Be-
cause ye needn't, Tom dear, if ye think betther not.
'Twouldn't take all that to make me happy!”
Then, in a burst, he told her of his master's plan, and
how he had entered into it against his own better judg-
ment, because that master had plucked him from the
jaws of death and from the gates of hell; and how, from
the moment he saw Peggy, his only thought was to do
for her what his master had done for him.
“My one idea,” he said, “was to get you out of that
horrible place. I give you my word I never thought of
anything else. But – ”
Her sweet eyes had fallen. There were tears on her
lashes. Claire was dead to him, so what else mattered?
Better be true to the living than to the dead!
“ — but I do now!” he cried through his teeth.
“Yes, Peggy, I mean it now! I hate such trickery, I'll
have no hand in it. I applied for a wife, and by the
Lord I'll marry her too —if — why — "
She had withdrawn her arm, and was shaking her
bent black head.


338
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
Daintree looked on with a jealous scorn. That a few
stray verses in the “ Annual Register" should put fire
and water in eyes which the combined Hours of Exile
and of Idleness sometimes left in such a very different
state! It was a galling thought, and it showed itself in
such black looks that Tom was constrained to cut his
first heartfelt outburst very short indeed. So he hastily
added that the poem appealed to him particularly – he
need not explain why.
“I see,” said Daintree. “Not altogether on its merits,
eh? I'm glad to hear it; " and his face lightened a
little.
“I don't know," said Tom humbly; "it was on its
merits, I think. Surely it must appeal to every miser-
able man. Oh, it's all, all there — in such words !
Come, sir, don't you think it fine yourself?”
“Fine,” said Daintree, “is a word which the critic
does not employ unadvisedly. Your fine poem is not
spasmodic: it takes a metre and sticks to it - as I do,
for example, and as Byron did. You don't catch me —
or Byron — writing poems with no two stanzas alike in
form! No, Thomas, the verdict is not 'fine'; but that
the lines have a certain merit I don't deny."
“Who wrote them?” asked Tom after a pause.
“His name is Tennyson,” replied the poet. “You
have never heard it before, I daresay, and I shouldn't
be surprised if you were never to hear it again. There
were fair things in his last book, but, upon the whole,
I am afraid the production you so admire may be taken
as representing his high-water mark — which is a suffi-
cient commentary upon the rest. I understand, how-
ever, that he is a very young man, so we must give him
a chance. When he is my age he may do very much


THE SHIP COMES IN
339
better, if he perseveres, as I have done. Now, my
notion of treating such a theme,” said Daintree, “you
have heard before, but you shall hear it again.”
And with that he drew “Hours of Exile” from his
pocket, and read with ineffable unction one of the long-
est sets of “Stanzas to Clarinda”; while the terrier
gazed up at him with eyes of devoted sympathy and
admiration; and Tom fed his upon feathery emerald
branches and a turquoise sky, as he reluctantly decided
that the kindest of men was in some respects the most
egregious also. Suddenly - to his horror — the reading
stopped. He had been caught not attending! He low-
ered his eyes, and they fell upon the snowy wings of a
full-rigged ship just clearing the woody eastern point of
the bay, and sailing slowly and majestically on.
Both men sprang to the water's edge. Daintree's
book lay in the sand. The ship was now clear of the
point — standing to the north of Shark Island, with the
light sea-breeze upon her counter - a noble vessel of
six hundred tons, flying the red ensign at her peak.
Not a word passed at the water's edge; but it was
Tom who led the rush to the bungalow, who fetched
Daintree's immense spy-glass, with the flags of all
nations let into the leather, and who bared the lenses
before putting it in his master's shaking hands.
“How many days are they out?” asked Daintree,
aiming wildly with the glass
“Ninety-nine.”
“She could never do it!"
“It's been done before.”
“Oh, no, no; this must be some other ship. Steady
the glass for me. I can't get focus. There — now!
Yes! I can see her people, but I can't read her name!”


346
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
“You?” he said hoarsely. “I see now - I see! I
might have guessed it long ago!”.
“He wanted to do something for me," she continued
in a choking voice; “I let him do that. I deceived
him — to save your life. I am here— because I de-
ceived him!”
He thought he had seen everything; he had not, but
he was beginning to, now. Good heavens! why was his
heart beating so fast? It ought to bleed instead: here
was the girl he loved, and upstairs was the man he had
reason to love better still; and they were going to marry
- like that. He tried to forget, to think only of what
Claire had done for him.
“God bless you!” he murmured. “He has saved my
life twice over, and much more than my life. And I
owe it all to one brave girl who believed in me, and
made him believe in me, when all the world—”
“Stop!” she cried. “I never believed in you at all."
“What?"
“I was — sorry for you.”
“You believed me guilty — even when you tried to
save my life?"
“Of manslaughter - yes!”
“Let us split no hairs! You think - I did it-still?”
“I can think nothing else.”
In the dead silence following these words the servant
heard his master stamping into evening dress overhead;
he felt his own crested buttons glittering in the candle-
light that shone upon the table he had set so beautifully
for the bride; and, as she tossed back the ringlets that
he knew so well, and repeated with unflinching eyes
what she had told him in so many candid words, all
that had distracted him up to this moment ceased to do


THE BRIDE-ELECT
347
so any more. Her coming was nothing to him now.
Her errand was nothing; she was welcome to marry the
next day. But believe in his innocence she must and
should: injustice from her was the last bitterness, the
crowning wrong, the one intolerable misery which ab-
sorbed all that had gone before.
Something of this he showed her in his bitter, proud,
inexorable look; then suddenly he retreated to the open
French windows.
“You are going?” she cried. “I might have known;
you were always — generous!”
“I am not now. I hear my master on the stairs.”
“You are not going altogether?”
“Certainly not at present.”
“When, when?” she cried below her breath.
“When you do me common justice.”
Daintree had gone into the wrong room. The girl ran
recklessly to the window.
“Tom!”
“Miss Harding?"
“Will you swear — to me — that you are innocent?”
But Tom was gone. She heard him treading viciously
in the dark verandah. A moment later Daintree found
her deeply engrossed before the chart. She wanted to
know what the ship meant; he told her in a tender
whisper.
“What a beautiful idea!”
“Well, it wasn't mine."
“Whose was it?”
“My servant's; he made her, and he moved her on
each day. You would have said he was the lucky fellow
himself!"


350
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
you did! You have only to see her to know how happy
she will make me. She is a sweet, true, unselfish girl; she
has beauty and goodness and strong common-sense; she
can appreciate and admire and understand — she is
the poet's ideal! I have been longing for her all my
life. And then her manner! She will be a leader of
society when I come to my own. Yes, Thomas, you
may well congratulate me: she is going to make me the
very happiest of men! I can see her now — friend of
the wits — patroness of all the arts — gracious queen of
an ideal salon — when the exile returns to his own!”
And doubtless he could also see himself — as Tom could
see him — swelling with happiness and pride and satis-
faction. Her happiness he appeared to take for granted;
it might be unfair to say that he never thought of it at
all; but he very seldom spoke of it, even to Claire.
Tom was in and out at breakfast; he contrived to be
out as much as possible. Her face tortured him: he saw
marks like bruises beneath the lustrous eyes that never
looked his way. He noted the nervous effort of her con-
versation while he was present. But after breakfast,
when he must have met her face to face on the veran-
dah, she turned her back upon him in a manner not only
pointed but barbed. And for a while his compassion
deserted him altogether.
Claire was indeed not herself; her indisposition be-
came more and more transparent, and when she ulti-
mately confessed to a perfectly sleepless night, Daintree
put it down to her great happiness, and was the first to
insist that she should “run away and rest” till lunch-
eon. Lady Starkie, on the other hand, made herself
extremely comfortable, quite doting on the harbour and
Rose Bay, while she declared that she had seldom felt


A MEDDLER
351
better in her life. Nevertheless, when her host began
reading her his poems, a faintness overcame the lady
before he had got very far. It was quite inexplicable,
and most disappointing; but she feared that both Claire
and herself were still suffering from the effects of the
atrocious table on board that horrible ship. So Lady
Starkie followed Claire upstairs — with the poems —
which she took care to leave there when she came down
again.
It was a little hard on Daintree; but he was now much
too happy to be readily depressed or vexed. His ram-
pant spirits sought relief in activity, and he galloped off
to Sydney to secure rooms at the Pulteney Hotel.
Tom was meantime behind the scenes. So was Peggy
O'Brien. And already those keen Irish eyes had seen
more than he thought, for hopeless love had fitted them
with strong lenses, even as his triumphant suit had
blinded her master to every passion but his own. The
girl had long divined that some other woman stood
between herself and Tom. And there were more rea-
sons than might appear for her instantly pouncing upon
Miss Harding as the one.
Peggy was sure that Tom and Daintree must have
known each other in England; or why were they more
like brothers than master and man? Tom would not
tell her, and the Fawcetts could not. So Peggy set them
down as two old friends; and what if the friends had
loved the same woman? The idea occurred to her when
she saw Tom manipulating the cork ship and so zeal-
ously preparing for the bride. It was then an idea only;
it became a suspicion on the evening of the bride's
arrival; and Claire was not the only young woman who
lay awake all that night.


354
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
Peggy withdrew. In three minutes she heard the
young lady coming downstairs; in two more she was
herself outside the shed, crouching between timber and
shrubs and sand and sky.
CHAPTER XXXVI
SIDE-LIGHTS
“You won't condescend?” said a scornful voice.
“Since you have made up your mind, why should I?”
“It is only your word that I ask: your solemn word
to me that you are innocent."
“If you don't believe in me, what's the use of giving
you my solemn word? I can't prove it, and never could;
the evidence was too strong.".
“It would have been stronger still —”
The voice stopped short.
“Well?”
“If I had told them all you said to me that very
night — that very hour!”.
The voice was no longer scornful. Even to Peggy it
seemed to falter and to tremble with the pent-up agony
of years. But Tom's tone did not change.
“I know that," he said bitterly. “I have always
known that you had more reason than anybody in the
world to think me guilty. Yet I would rather you had
thought me innocent and let me die than saved my life
to show me what you still think after all these months.
My cup has been pretty full, but that's the bitterest
drop!”


SIDE-LIGHTS
355
“And still you won't deny it,” persisted the girl. “I
am ready to take your word — yet you will not give it."
“What's the use?” he asked. “What difference could
it make — even supposing you believed me?”.
"All the difference to me,” was the quick but low
reply; "it would alter everything - everything. Can't
you see that it must?”
“No; it is too late to alter anything at all.”
Yet his voice shook in its turn.
“Too late? Too late?” cried the girl wildly. “Noth-
ing is too late — if you are innocent. Speak, Tom!
Why don't you speak? Oh, Tom, it would alter all our
lives . . . yet you will not speak!”.
“Because I cannot!” he cried out. “Because I-I
am not an innocent man. I am not — I am not - I am
not! And now leave me; leave me, I say, for God's
sake! Never you pity me again!”
Almost from a shout his voice died down to a whisper;
the last words were hardly audible outside. But they
were followed by a silence so heavy that Peggy O'Brien
heard herself breathing, and thought she must be heard
within. And then came the sound of light, unsteady
steps retreating; and nothing more; not another sound
within.
The silence appalled Peggy. At last, when she could
no longer bear it, she crept over the soft sand to the
mouth of the shed, and peered round the corner. He
was standing within as the other woman had left him
- he had never stirred. His open hands were still
extended in some unfinished gesture. A glimmer of
sunshine glanced off the waters and pointed the cruel
contrast between the lined face and the yellow hair
thrown proudly back from it: the one so aged, the other


356
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
so boyish. And his eyes — they seemed still to be pour-
ing tenderness and strength upon the other woman —
they never saw this one at all.
She stole away, loving him more than ever — but must
not the other one too? She had seen the same look —
had won it — but his crime made a difference to her. To
Peggy it made none: she neither knew nor cared what
it was, and there lay her slight advantage. It was too
slight. She loved him, but so must the other. Her
love lay near to hate; she would see if she could not
push the other woman's nearer yet.
She reached the house, and nobody was in the way.
Lady Starkie was writing letters in the breakfast-room.
Peggy was soon listening at the other woman's door-
listening to her sobs. She compressed her lips and
nodded to herself with splendid confidence. At length
there fell a silence, in which Peggy knocked and entered.
"I beg pardon, miss, but was Thomas not in the boat-
shed? It's sorry I am if I sent ye on a fool's errand-
savin' your presence, miss!”
“No; he was there.”
“An' did he refuse ye?”
“No-I—changed my mind.”
“Glory be to God, miss! 'Tis meself would let 'm
know 't if he gave any of his sauce to the masther's lady. ..
· I'd have no more to do wid 'm at all!”
Claire turned pale.
“You would have no more to do with him?” said she
very slowly. “I don't understand you.”
“Sure, an' how would you? He wouldn't be afther
tellin' a lady like you."
“Telling me what, my good girl?” She was trem-
bling now.


SIDE-LIGHTS
359
“Well,” said the constable, “he's left this, anyhow.
No use our wasting any more time here, Mr. Sullivan.
Good morning, sir. I'm afraid he's given us the slip
again.”
“But not for long," cried Nat. “I mean to catch him
and to hang him yet!”
They had ridden away. Daintree had re-entered the
room, puffed up and smiling. Tom also had a kind of
smile, and Peggy was gazing at him with shining eyes,
when Claire rose from the table and swept out of the
room without a word.
Daintree looked at Lady Starkie in dismay, and hastily
ordered the servants to withdraw. Her ladyship rose also.
“Can you wonder at it?" she cried.
“At what?”
“Your bride disliking to be waited on by convicts.
And — and — did I understand that young man's name
was Erichsen?”
«Yes."
“The murderer of Captain Blaydes?”
“No.”
“Who then?"
“His reputed murderer. He is an innocent man.
You know I thought so at the time; you know, I be-
lieve, how I backed my opinion to the tune of several
hundreds? I'm backing it still, Lady Starkie, I'm
backing it still — that's all.” It was not. He went on
to tell of all that Erichsen had gone through, to his
knowledge, in the settlement; how he was trying, in
his small way, to make up to the poor fellow for the
shocking injustice of his fate; and yet how even now
the unlucky wretch went in danger of his neck, as Lady


360
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
Starkie had seen for herself, and all for siding with
some bushrangers under circumstances of extraordinary
compulsion and provocation combined. Of all this James
Daintree spoke so feelingly, and with such an obviously
earnest purpose, that Lady Starkie was quite moved, and
undertook to use her influence with Claire in the matter
of the convict servants.
But it was of no avail.
Daintree drove the ladies into Sydney, and drove back
alone late at night. Tom awaited him, and as they
walked from the stables to the house, the master's arm
ran affectionately through that of the man.
"My dear fellow,” he said, “it grieves me more than
I can say, but I cannot go against my young wife where
there is apparent right upon her side. She will have no
convicts in her house. You and I will be compelled to
part.”
"It was bound to come,” was Tom's reply. “I am
oniy thankful it didn't come before you gave me back a
little of what I have lost. I shall be grateful to you till
my dying hour!”
“Oh, but I've not done with you yet! I must have
you out of this country by hook or crook — that I'm bent
upon. That brute Sullivan is actually at the Pulteney.
It seems his overseer never meant to split on you, for
some reason; but he did so when drunk, and now the
other holds him to it. Until we spirit you out of the
country you'll never be safe.”
“That doesn't matter," said Tom. “I would rather
stay where I am and take my chance.”
He was thinking of Daintree and his wife; even
through his gratitude he was thinking of that darker
side.


362
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
haunted Tom the longer; why had he insisted on drag.
ging Daintree to the trial ?
The days were lengthened by Peggy in the kitchen
with her kind, uninjured looks, and the unfailing,
friendly, amiable word that made him feel the mean-
est of men. The girl could be an angel when she
had him, with all his coldness, to herself. He never
suspected what she had been from the Sunday night
to the Monday afternoon. And now they were both
under notice to leave.
"If only you two would make up your minds to
marry!” said Daintree to Tom. “I have you both on
my mind; but I could provide for the two of you at one
stroke as a married couple. It has long been my wish
to start a model farm up country, and you and Peggy
would certainly make model managers! Nor is my wife
likely to retain all the prejudices of Miss Harding; in
fact, I still entertain hopes of our all being stanch
friends all our lives.” But Tom shook his head even
more decidedly than he had shaken it while the little
Rosamund was pricking her way across the chart.
On the Friday — the same breeze holding good all the
week --- Daintree decided to sail round to Sydney instead
of driving. He had a solid cheque to cash for the
wedding-trip, and the Point Piper Road was no route
for a pocketful of money and a life at its very highest
value. Tom asked if Nat Sullivan was still in Sydney,
and was told that he had drunk himself prostrate at the
Pulteney, whereupon Tom volunteered for the voyage,
and so escaped Peggy for one afternoon. To make
safety doubly safe, however, they ran into Farm Cove,
and Tom and the dog were to wait in the Domain while
Daintree went to the bank and called at the hotel.


FARM COVE
363
It was then three o'clock, and Daintree was to be at
least two hours gone ; but he returned in less than one,
bringing Claire with him for a sail. Tom's surprise at
seeing her was less than that of the girl at sight of
him; the indignation was altogether on her side, and
sufficiently perceptible, in spite of all Claire's efforts to
conceal an inappropriate displeasure. Daintree did not
see it — but what they all three missed was the furtive
figure which emerged from the trees as the boat put off.
Claire was given the tiller and told simply to obey
orders, Daintree took the sheet, and Tom was put into
the bows to be out of the way. The sail made a con-
venient screen; it also prevented Tom from knowing in
the least what happened. As a matter of fact, they
were just taking the wind — which was by this time
fresher than ever — when Daintree's attention was di-
verted by an apparition at the water's edge. It was the
man who had followed him through the Domain, and so
rapt was the gaze with which Daintree beheld him that he
forgot to let the sheet go at the critical instant. Smack
came the wind against a sail like the side of a house.
“Let go! Let go!” screamed Tom. It was too late.
She was gunwale under, the sail lay a moment on the
water, drinking it like blotting-paper. Then the satu-
rated canvas sank, and the boat tossed keel upwards
within fifty yards of the shore.
Claire sank clear of the wreck, and had the presence
of mind to strike out before coming to the surface. And
even as the sun lashed her wet eyes, strong hands slid
under her arms, and she was being pushed face forward
to the shore. The trees were waving in the sun; it was
no distance; and Daintree's dog was swimming happily
on ahead. Suddenly, with a piercing yelp, the dog dis-


364
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
appeared; at the same moment Daintree began splash-
ing vigorously; and when the smooth sand came under
Claire's feet, but a few yards farther on, her knees were
too weak to support her weight.
“ The happiest moment of my life,” said a deep voice
in her ear. “I have saved—”
She turned, and there was Daintree, up to his waist in
water, with the drops raining from his face and whiskers,
and shaded eyes sweeping the blue. The boat was com-
ing in keel upwards with the tide. The dog and Tom
had vanished off the face of the waters.
Daintree dashed in again, and met the wreck as her
mast struck bottom. Tom was still struggling under-
neath her, caught fast in the cordage; his struggles
ceased as he was wrenched free; when Daintree got him
to land, his mouth and ears were in a froth, and Claire
stood by like a woman turned to stone.
A small crowd collected slowly; it did not contain the
man who had caused the mischief; the trees had swal-
lowed him once more.
The crowd surrounded Tom and Daintree, who had
stripped his servant to the waist, and was sawing the
air with the drenched white arms and the helpless, sun-
burnt hands. Claire stood on the fringe of the crowd,
without a clear thought in her head, but in her hand a
packet that had fallen at her feet when Tom's shirt and
vest were torn off and hurled aside. The packet was sewn
up in dripping oiled silk, as transparent as glass; through
it she could read a name she but dimly realised to be her
own; and the voices of those jostling her seemed a long
way off.
“He's dead — he's done for," said one.
“Give him time, you fool!"


FARM COVE
365
“ Fool yourself! His time's up."
“What'll you bet ?”
“A shilling.”
“ Done with you.”
Daintree and a boatman were working on and on and
on with the white arms that had dried already in the
wind and sun. Neither said a word; the next minute
must settle it one way or the other.
“Ah!” exclaimed the last speaker.
“ What was it ? ” faltered Claire.
“ His eyelids trembled.”
“ It was the death-shiver."
“ They're trembling still !”
“ They aren't!”
“They are; hand over that shilling."
“He is alive!” said Daintree, looking up. “Has no-
body run for brandy?"
Nobody had.
And it was wanted now for two people.
Claire Harding had swooned away.
Daintree had his hands full with the pair of them, but
in a little they were both conscious, and able to drive
away with him in a hired chaise. They drove to the hotel,
forgetting the risk. On the way Tom stretched forth a
feeble hand.
“How many more times are you going to save my
life ?” he asked.
“You saved mine too,” said Claire sadly.
“It is the happiest day of my own,” replied Dain-
tree, without noticing her tone. “Non cuivis homini
— what other bridegroom would have had such luck?"
“Or pluck!” cried Tom.


366
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
“I trust I am not lacking in that quality either,” re-
joined the other. “It was nervous work after the way
my poor wee dog went. Did you see that, Claire ? Poor
thing, it was a shark !”
“ Yes.” She shuddered.
“But if he will but splash a bit, your man of courage
is all right. Do you mind if we drive round by the
Herald office? They publish on Monday, but it's just
as well to be in time.”
So the conceit of him overlapped even his heroism.
And Claire and Tom sat shivering in their wet clothes,
while Daintree in his was several minutes inspiring and
all but dictating the paragraph which duly appeared in
the Sydney Herald. But during those minutes the pair
in the chaise never exchanged a word; and afterwards
- in the hotel — not one word.
CHAPTER XXXVIII
TWO FAREWELLS
DAINTREE was driven home before dusk, for his pocket-
book was bloated with moist bank-notes, besides which,
Lady Starkie positively refused to have him about the
hotel that evening. It was against the rules for bride-
grooms as laid down by her ladyship, who dined very
solemnly with her niece alone, and got to bed at a rea-
sonable hour for the first time that week. Claire then
had their sitting-room to herself, and she drew out the
oiled-silk packet which had fallen into her hands that
afternoon. It was thin and oblong, like the letter it


TWO FAREWELLS
367
plainly contained. Under the lamp Claire's name and
the address of her old home were still legible beneath
the silk, though they no longer stood out as when the
skin was wet. And on the reverse side was written very
small —
"For pity's sake forward this."
When? After his death? Fate had forwarded it
before — should she read it or should she not? It was
addressed to her, it was hers; should she read, or de-
stroy, or return this letter to its writer — to the criminal
who had confessed to her his crime? Some minutes after
Claire Harding asked herself this question, she turned
up the lamp, and cut the oiled silk open with a pair of
scissors. She now saw that the letter had been written
some time; yet it was with a strange thrill, a wonder-
ment beginning at the heart, that she read the heading
within. It was Newgate, and the date May 29, 1837 —
the blackest day of all her life — the eve of that on
which they would have hanged him.
Agitated as she was, however, by these dreadful mem-
ories, and touched by the mere fact of his having written
to her on that awful Monday, it was the first sentence of
his letter that ran into her heart like molten lead. He
called himself an innocent man! From the brink of the
grave came that lie, that blasphemy, which he had lived
to confess to her with his crime! She read on mechani-
cally. And all at once her pain ceased; she was lost
and absorbed in the plain, straightforward, circumstan-
tial story into which he plunged without preliminary. He
told her everything from the moment they parted at the
garden gate. Nothing was left out, nothing extenuated,
nothing enlarged or even commented upon by the writer.


TWO FAREWELLS
369
I would not leave this behind for you, I would not have
you reminded of me for a single day, but for one selfish
thing. Sweetheart, it is to make you believe in me.
You have not done so yet — why should you? Nobody
knows what you know and have so nobly hidden; but
for all I said to you, I am innocent; he was alive when I
left him; I did give him the receipt, and we shook hands
at the end. That is God's truth. I tell it you with the
last words my hand will ever write. I meant to write
to the kind fanatic who paid for my defence, and is
working still (they tell me) for a reprieve. But now I
cannot. If you could find him out, and thank him for
me, I should be grateful; but my last words in this life
must be to you. God bless you, dear, and give you
somebody much better than I ever could have been.
Only do know that I never did this thing; and when
you realise that, think no more of me, my dear love,
but pray to-morrow for the soul of your unworthy
boy ..."
His signature followed — better written than the rest
- a touching effort to “finish up a man." All the last
pages were blurred with the condemned man's tears; and
now, after seventeen months, her tears were raining, rain-
ing, on the same paper, on the same words, that bore
the blots of his.
This postscript remained —
" Reprieved at the last moment! I shall not send this now
but I hope that it may reach you when I am gone."
Claire went to the window, and the rings rattled along
the rod as she flung the curtains back. The sky swam
with stars, her heart yearned for Heaven, and to the
2 B


TWO FAREWELLS
371
cruel wrong she had done the man before her, the suffer-
ings cut so deep upon his bronzed face, and her own new
and blinding realisation of his innocence and heroism.
For a space she could but stand and gaze upon him with
burning eye-balls; then, with the noble unconsciousness
of a woman stirred to the soul, she took him by both
hands, and drew him into the room, and besought his
forgiveness upon her knees, but with his hands still
clasped in hers.
Tom released his hands, shut the door nervously, and
then almost brusquely asked her what he had to forgive.
“I thought you guilty,” she sobbed. “I said so— and
you were innocent all the time! Oh, thank God—”.
“Wait,” he interrupted. “How do you know that ?”
“What you lost I found. I have it here. Oh, Tom,
I have read every word! Oh, why did you not send it
at the time? You were innocent- innocent! Can you
ever forgive me ?”.
“Get up,” he said. “You have forgotten something."
“Nothing,” she answered. “Your marriage has no
more to do with it than mine.”
“My marriage! With whom, pray?"
“The wife you applied for — at some factory!”
She could not help her tone: it stung Tom into telling
her the facts, and so inadvertently exposing Daintree's chi-
canery. He instantly defended it as the accepted course.
“But that's not what I meant at all,” he added hur-
riedly. “You must have forgotten what I told you the
other day in the boat-shed !”.
Claire had indeed forgotten that. The great truth had
swallowed up the little lie, but true and false were now
as plain to her as day and night. Moreover, she saw the
meaning of the false.


372
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
“My hero!” she whispered. “You thought it best
that I should never know. And so you said you were
not an innocent man."
“ Nor was I,” he faltered. “You soon saw that for
yourself. They may hang me yet!”
“ And you wouldn't have me think of you any more,"
continued Claire, a spasm of pain crossing her face at his
words. “But I will — I will! I'll think of you till I
die: my own hero!”
He fidgeted horribly, looking towards the door. She
would compromise herself — she would do herself harm.
That was still his first thought; she saw it, and it floated
her to the crest of that emotional wave in whose trough
he trembled.
“I believed you guilty — may God forgive me!” she
cried. “But — shall I tell you something ?”
“Well?"
“ I loved you all the same !”.
“I won't believe it,” he said at last.
“I did — I know it now."
“ Then forget it!” he cried hoarsely. “For God's
sake, remember nobody but the man you are to marry
to-morrow morning. What? Claire ?" He started
from her; she had shaken her head. She shook it
more passionately for that; but she did not speak. So
he began — hardly knowing what he said — but plead-
ing for his best friend — pleading for her honour — plead-
ing for sacred duty as his male eye saw it. She was
going to marry a generous and brave man, to whom he
owed, not only his life twice over, but any good that was
left in him. Yet neither was the other a faultless man,
though so generous and so brave, and his one great anchor
to good sense and good living was his love for Claire.


THE MAN IN THE MASK
373
Tom spoke plainly, even eloquently, as he went on. He
would have gone on longer, but there was no need.
Claire sat meekly weeping; he bent over her -- his face
wrung with anguish now that hers was hidden — and so
took her hand in his for the last time.
“God bless you always," he whispered in a broken
voice; “and make you good to him — and make him good
to you!”
She clung passionately to his hand; she held it to her
bosom, and looked piteously up into his face. The tears
sparkled in her eyes and on her cheeks. Her sweet lips
quivered ; it was more than man could bear. He fell
upon his knees, he threw his arms about her, and for a
very little space these two torn hearts beat and sobbed
as one.
CHAPTER XXXIX
THE MAN IN THE MASK
THE master was busy at his desk, but there was no
rhyming dictionary at his elbow, and the book of syno-
nyms was suffocating under a pile of papers that were
stuffed into a drawer as Tom entered guiltily. The
clock — an athletic trophy in the form of a kettle-drum
– was then striking midnight, and Daintree wheeled
round in his chair with the eleventh stroke. The eye
nearest the lamp looked wild, but it was his wedding-
day, and plainly he was in tremendous spirits.
“Shut the window,” said he. “I have two things to
tell you which I don't want the girl to hear; if her win-
dows are open she might."


374
THE ROGUE'S MARCA
Peggy happened to be listening at the door.
“In the first place,” proceeded Daintree, “tell me
frankly and finally whether you mean to marry the girl
or not. Yes or no ?”
“No, sir; it is impossible.”
“ You shall do just exactly what you like. At the
same time, she tells me you did ask her!”
“I did. I wronged her in doing so, but she had the
sense to refuse me, and I'm not going to wrong her worse
by asking her again.”
“That settles it. I've found a captain who's willing
to smuggle you over to America for a consideration. All
details to be arranged before I leave Sydney to-morrow.
Will you go ?”
“Will I not! Thank God for the chance!"
“Then that settles that — for the present. You shall
be spirited aboard to-morrow night, and by Monday
morning you shall have seen the last of New South Wales
for ever.”
Peggy crept away from the door. Her mind was
made up.
“The other thing's a trifle,” said Daintree. “A pretty
place this New South Wales! I go to the bank and
cash a cheque, come in and shove the notes into one of
these drawers, and a man breaks into the house and all
but into my desk while I am sitting in the next room
at my dinner! Look at this —” and he pointed out
the marks of a jemmy on the polished mahogany, The
circumstance did not appear to excite him in the least.
He smiled loftily on Tom's concern, and at once exag-
gerated an attitude which had been perfectly genuine
before.
“Ah, Thomas,” he remarked, “even you don't know


THE MAN IN THE MASK
375
your Sydney yet, or you would be like me, and think
nothing of such trifles. I was eating my dinner, as I
say, when I heard him at his work; unfortunately I let
him hear me; still, I chased him out of that and some
way down the road, and could have caught him if I
hadn't preferred to come back and finish my dinner.
I played a better knife and fork for the exercise.”
“And you gave chase unarmed?" said Tom.
“To be sure, except with these arms,” responded
Daintree with equal truth and bravado, as he tapped an
enviable biceps. “Your man of muscle has no business
with any other, if he but know how to use his hands as
I do. It would have gone hard with our friend, I prom-
ise you, if I had laid hold of him!”
“I wish you had," said Tom. “The blackguard must
have dogged you from the bank, and hung about the
Pulteney both times you were there.” Tom paused.
His heart was back at the hotel, and his gratitude to
the man was once more repelling his jealousy and dis-
trust of the bridegroom, when a second thought sprang
from his words. “By Jove!” he exclaimed, “I wonder
whether it was the fellow who turned up on the beach
almost at the instant we went down!”
“What!” cried Daintree. “Did you see him?"
“Yes, I caught a glimpse of somebody as we heeled
over. Depend upon it that's our man!”
Daintree turned nasty in a moment.
“Why depend upon it?” he snapped. “Did you see
the man's face? Would you know him again? Oh, you
wouldn't; then let me recommend you not to make a fool
of yourself, my good fellow. Nobody but a fool would
connect the two men.”
His ill-temper was inexplicable; yet to treat an attempt


378
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
“Damn the house!” cried Daintree. “The girl can
look after the house; your place is at your master's side,
or else you are the foulest ingrate in New South Wales!
But you are; I have always known you were; you have
only waited for this hour to turn and rend me!”
“You are wrong," said Tom grimly. “I do not leave
your side again." For the man must be mad: and Tom
no longer shirked the ceremony, but for one instant had
a mad design himself; the next, his right hand was
warmly held.
“Thank God!” cried Daintree in a breaking voice.
“I knew you didn't mean it; no more did I mean any-
thing I said; forgive me, Thomas, and don't desert me
at the last!”
And Tom's heart sank as it once more softened to the
man who was not mad but only unstrung; and again he
longed to eschew the church; but he kept his word, and
fortune was yet to prove his friend. A mile they had
driven when a loud cry broke from Daintree. In his
agitation he had forgotten the ring. He burst into tears
at the discovery.
"Never mind — never mind!” cried Tom in his oldest
rôle. “We can turn back — what, isn't there time?
No, I know it would never do to keep her waiting!
Then look here, I'll run back and gallop in again on
your horse; I'll be there almost as soon as you; and the
ring isn't wanted till quite the end."
Daintree thanked him through his tears — the first
Tom had ever seen in those fiery eyes -- and he sped
back strangely touched, but strangely comforted too.
At least he loved her! The man might be egotistical
and vain and overbearing, all three to the verge of
lunacy, but that he was marrying for sheer love was even


THE MAN IN THE MASK
379
more palpable than it had been before. Tears in those
eyes! Tears at the thought of losing her for one more
day! Then God grant that with Claire at least he might
be unselfish, meek and gentle, though an egotist, a cox-
comb and a tyrant to all the world beside!
So praying as he ran — forgetful of his own debt to
Daintree — for the moment self-forgetting altogether -
Tom was at the bungalow gate in time that would not
have shamed the bridegroom in his athletic youth. And
in the very gateway he stopped dead. He had caught a
glimpse of ragged coat-tails disappearing through the
study windows; a crazy skiff lay hauled up on the strand.
Tom kicked off his shoes. He made no sound on the
verandah, but he wasted some seconds, and heard two
drawers burst open as he crept nearer and nearer. He
was totally unarmed; his one chance lay in taking the
thief by surprise.
The verandah on this side was in deep shadow all the
morning. In the cool dusk of the study a masked man
was rifling drawer after drawer and tossing the contents
right and left. The floor was strewn with papers as
Tom leapt across it and hurled himself upon the thief.
They crashed to the ground together: the man's head
caught the corner of the bookshelf, and he lay supine,
with a mouthful of crumbling teeth grinning horribly
below the mask.
His nerveless fingers still clutched a packet of bluish
letters half-torn from their wrapper. Tom took them
from him, and rose up panting. A moment later they
might have heard his shout at Piper's Point.
All but one letter had slipped from his trembling
hand: on the back of that letter a few lines had been
scrawled with a lead-pencil.


380
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
It was the Receipt !
Pencilled by Blaydes on the back of a letter, signed
by Tom in the moonlit Hampstead fields, and taken by
the murderer from his victim's person, it was neither
more nor less than the missing document whose produc-
tion would have acquitted Erichsen at the Old Bailey.
And now after eighteen months, and here on these out-
landish shores, it had cast up at his very feet; he held
it - held his freedom — in his own trembling hands.
The words spun like midges as the paper rustled and
shook. He had to set it on the chimney-piece to read
it through: -
6Received from J. Montgomery Blaydes (late Captain, Cold-
stream Guards) his watch and chain, etc., in settlement of all
claims, and in consideration of which I undertake to return pawn-
ticket for same to said J. M. Blaydes, Ivy Cottage, West End,
within three days from this date. — (Signed) T. Erichsen, April
27th, 1837."
Words and chirography were as familiar as though he
had studied them the night before; the very flourishes
were old friends; and the glimmer of a mild London
moon seemed still to lurk in the shiny blue paper.
He forgot the wedding-ring, forgot the wedding: he
was an innocent man: he could prove it now before all
the world, by this incomparable testimony, this inanimate
witness that could not lie. That was Tom's first reflec-
tion. His first emotion was a rush of thankfulness,
ineffable and unmixed. Curiosity succeeded: how came
the receipt here? But as he wondered, as his thoughts
flew from the broken-headed robber to his friend Dain-
tree, it was not the bridegroom that they pursued to the


THE MAN IN THE MASK
381
church, but Tom's benefactor that they followed back to
Avenue Lodge. Did Daintree know who had committed
the murder, and was that the secret of his belief in Tom ?
Inconceivable; but the document? Tom turned it over
in his hand, and the address on the missive came upper-
most. It began — Nicholas Harding, Esquire, M.P.
This name plunged Tom in a vortex of new suspicions ;
it neither recalled the bride as such, nor the marriage,
nor the ring. Yet the clock stared him in the face,
the short hand almost on the eleven, the long hand
rapidly overtaking the short. It was ticking loud enough
for dead of night; he both saw the time and heard it flying.
But he had forgotten his errand: he could prove his inno-
cence at last. Suddenly there was a groan, then a
movement behind him, and as he wheeled round the
man in the mask sat up.
“ Ha!” said Tom. “So it was you who followed my
master from the bank, and tried to break into his desk
last night! You've succeeded a bit too late. My mas-
ter's got his money in his pocket—and he isn't here!”
With these words Tom remembered where his master
was, but only for an instant: small eyes were glinting
through the mask, and the crumbling teeth showed again
in a contemptuous grin.
“ I ain't after 'is money,” said a harsh high voice.
“ What then?”
“What you've got in your 'and.”
“ This !” cried Tom. “Who are you?”
“Name's Wyeth. I'm a lag, same as you."
“Let me see your face.”
Again that grin below the mask, ere it was whipped
off, and Tom's eyes lit upon a horrible face horribly
disfigured. It was perfectly flat; disease had razed the


382
THE ROGCE'S MARCH
nose to below the level of the sunken cheeks; and the
beady eyes seemed more prominent by contrast, as they
glittered upon Tom's visible abhorrence. In an instant,
however, the abhorrence changed to recognition, and a
great light blinded Tom.
“My God!” he gasped. “ The man that did it!”
“ Did what?"
“What I'm here for — the murder of Captain Blaydes!
It was you who killed him — it was you! I saw you
close to the spot that night. Never shall I forget you
— and this is the receipt I gave him! I took it just
now from your hand!”
" An' where do yer think I took it from ?”
“The dead man's pocket.”
“ That there desk!”
In the cool dark study there followed no immediate
sound save the importunate ticking of the kettle-drum
clock — beating a roll-call to deaf ears. At last Tom
said, “Tell me — tell me!” And his voice was very
weak; he was leaning heavily on the chimney-piece,
and now his elbow hid the time.
Wyeth removed a hand from the back of his head,
looked at the blood upon it, and grimly showed it to
Tom.
“ You've been rough with me, you ’ave, when you
should ha’ taken me to your ’art; but I will tell you,
'cos I ain't that much to lose, an' it may mean my
ticket if you stand by me like a true man. Say you'll
do that an' I'll tell you every blessed thing!”
“I will stand by you through thick and thin,” said
Tom.
The other eyed him for several seconds.
“I do believe you will,” said he. “It's a bargain


THE MAN IN THE MASK
383
between true man and true man! Well, then, that
night - "
“Stop!” said Tom. “We will have another pair of
ears.” He went to the door and called loudly for Peggy.
No answer; his voice reverberated through an empty house.
He had seen the Fawcetts start for Sydney an hour ago
(even now he did not realise why); but Peggy had wil-
fully deserted; and he was alone on the premises with
this hideous ruffian.
“Go on,” said he. “What about that night? I met
you not three hundred yards from the stile where the
body was found; and you were going that way!”
“I was,” said Wyeth, “an' when I come near, what
d'ye think I heard ? A couple of swells having a row;
in ’alf a shake it come to blows, an' I counted five before
there was a bit of a thud, and the one who'd been calling
out 'My Gawd — my Gawd!''e shut up, but the other
went on saying “You devil!'— through 'is teeth — jes'
like that — until I come up. I keeps quiet and sees
one swell take a lot o'papers outer the other swell's
pocket, when in I steps. You should ha’ seen the one
as was pocketin' the papers! Up he jumps, with a
thick stick dripping at the end, and before you can say
Jack Robinson 'e 'as me on the conk, an' that's the end
o me!”
“Did you ever see him again ?" Tom's voice rang
strange with horror and weariness; he did not want his
freedom; he was sick of the life that Daintree had given
him back, of the world to which Daintree had restored
him. His benefactor! The man filled his mind in that
first light only — and in this last!
“Yes, I see him at your trial,” said Wyeth; "but I'm
coming to that. Meanwhile I'm only silly, and what do


MADNESS AND CRIME
385
examined the silver cups on the top of the bookshelf,
one by one. There were seven; all were for winning
the mile; it was his old distance from Avenue Lodge to
the hollow tree in the fields, between the Finchley Road
and Haverstock Hill. Tom remembered his master's
anger, inexplicable no longer, on the day he cleaned the
cups. He jumped down and was looking at the inscrip-
tion on the clock when it struck eleven in his face.
Tom clapped his hand to his head.
“WE SHALL BE TOO LATE!”
“Too late wot for?”.
“She will be married to a murderer. And I forgot
that. God forgive me! God forgive me!” He reeled
into the verandah. “No— no — there is one chance.
The ring - the ring! This way for your life!”
CHAPTER XL
MADNESS AND CRIME
The pair dashed to the stables: by seven minutes past
eleven the curricle cleared the gate-posts, with Tom
driving furiously and Wyeth seated grimly at his side.
At twenty past they turned into Macquarie Street, were
rattling up Hunter Street next minute, then into George
Street — the whip whistling — a wheel on the curb at
every corner — pedestrians flying and constables chal-
lenging — and so up Charlotte Place to the church. The
clock on the round castellated tower made it 11.24: time
yet if they had waited for the ring. But there were no
carriages outside, and Tom's heart stopped as he saw a
woman emerge and lock the church door behind her.
20


THE BOGTE'S MARCH
FUIT
out say the wsi sa' do by Tom as he did by
She bal not borst of it before: it is a sudden
D:235.00 of tze ait Irish brain, à suiden impulse
of the turn Iss beart. When Wat came in, with wet
Lair piastered over his thick skill, the coal-black head
ani tte fery Geard were far enorzh agart. But it had
not been so darisg every minute of his absence. And a
pretty fiasco awaited tim in the ball-room.
Led ap to Ericksen, the overseer shook his head.
"No," said be, the bashranger was inches taller. I
can't swear to him after all."
“Not swear to him?" roared Mr. Xat. “Why, you
took your oath he was the man!"
“Not swear to him?” said Daintree, stepping for-
ward. “Happily, my good fellow — ”
But Tom's eye was on him, and the police were in the
room.
“ Try the girl," said one constable.
“Ginger is right,” said Peggy promptly. “It's a
taller man he was entirely."
“But you're looking at his feet!”
Peggy raised her eyes, and calmly and coldly they
met Tom's for the last time.
“No,” said she; "this is not the man at all.”
“The — liars!” Nat Sullivan screamed. “They've
made up their minds to lie; and you two fools stand
there and listen!” He stormed and wept; grew vio-
lently abusive, and was put out by the constables before
they left themselves. In the scuffle and confusion Gin-
ger found an opportunity both to grip Tom's hand and
to whisper that one good turn deserved another. But
Peggy O'Brien turned her back without word or look.


392
THE POGTE'S MARCH
last- I hardly knew where I was or what I was doing
- I heard voices — his was one. Yours was the other,
Erichsen - I didn't know it then — and you were just
leaving. I heard him say he was thinking of being
married. I joined him when you had gone, and asked
who the happy lady might be. What do you think he
said? What do you think? What do you think?”
“Claire?” said Nicholas Harding.
“Yes — Claire!” screamed Daintree. “That incar-
nate devil — and my angel! He said he loved her -
that smooth hound - and she had hinted she did care
for somebody. God knows what more he said! You
would consent - he had you in his power. Either he
said that or I saw it. At any rate he taunted me –
maddened me--and when I looked about for something to
strike him with, there was the very thing at my feet. I
killed him! I meant to kill him! I have never for one
moment regretted killing him! What do you suppose
was the first thing I found in his pocket? No, Harding,
I'm not thinking of you, my honest friend! It was a
letter that showed the kind of cur he had been. I let
Claire see it. I thought of a way. I showed her that
dead devil in his true colours — I cured her of her folly
- and I thanked God I'd put him out of her way and
mine! Regret it? Repent it? Never for an instant-
never to this hour!”
And the man trembled no more, save with his savage
passion. His eyes flashed, his face shone, and never
had he looked finer or handsomer than now, as he drew
himself up in his wedding-garments and impiously
gloried in his crime. The deep chest swelled beneath
the pale buff kerseymere waistcoat. The stubborn chin
roso proudly above spotless Prussian collar and dazzling


MADNESS AND CRIME
393
white satin cravat. Bearing and countenance alike were
those of a conscious hero rather than of a criminal self-
convicted and self-confessed.
“You let an innocent man suffer for your crime!” said
Nicholas Harding, with a shiver.
“Did I? And do you suppose I would have let him
hang? I was under the impression that I saved his
neck. I would have saved it with my own had that
been necessary. Only yesterday I risked my life to
save his. Who took him away from the iron-gang? I
had to commit a forgery and risk my liberty to do it, by
God! Who would have treated him like a brother from
that day? It was his own doing, mark you, that made
him a menial! And he would hang me, would he, for
ridding the earth of the crying rascal who picked his
own pocket like a common thief? He shakes his head,
but I know him better. And that's his gratitude —
after all I've done! Something like yours, you Hard-
ing! I save your daughter from a poisonous scoundrel,
so I am not to marry her for my pains. A just pair —
convict bushranger and fraudulent M.P.! - a precious
pair to join forces against an honest man! Do your
worst: I shall marry her against you both — I shall — I
shall — I shall!”
Tom knew this voice: he wondered he had not heard
the madness in it from the first...
“Never!” cried Harding. “I would rather see her
in her coffin.”
“You soon will if you prevent it!”
“You would murder her too? I quite believe it - if
you got the chance!”
“You fool!” said Daintree, with a superior sneer.
“Can't you see that it would kill her not to marry me?"


398
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
three men in the gang,” the major would say; "but I
knew him for a gentleman at bottom, and I might have
known him for an innocent man. They take it worst,
gadzooks! Stockades like mine must be a living hell to
'em, though I say it! I'd like to shake his hand and
tell him I'm sorry for this and that."
But Major Honeybone was not permitted to see the
invalid; and indeed he quitted Sydney rather precipi-
tately in the end. The plucky veteran had asked a
question of Lady Starkie, as her ladyship long after-
wards confided to Claire, with an obviously pleasurable
indignation, on the Florentia's poop.
Nor was it until the long and soothing homeward
voyage was half over that the convalescent was vouch-
safed an answer to certain questions which he had tired
of asking in his illness. What had brought Nicholas
Harding to New South Wales? He must have sailed
but a few days after Claire. What had he found out in
those few days, since the discovery of Daintree's crime
still came as a surprise to him? Tom never forgot the
night when at last he was told; the trade-wind sang
steadily through the rigging; every sail was set and
drawing; the motion was an imperceptible rhythm;
and a monstrous moon made a shimmering path from
the horizon to the vessel's side.
“You never saw the woman who took Claire's jewel-
lery?” said Nicholas Harding. “It is to her we owe it
that my girl is not a madman's wife! The woman was
naturally a spy; she had spied upon her mistress, but
on Daintree also; and to Claire she had cause to be
grateful, as Claire will tell you if you ask her. The
very night after she sailed in the Rosamund this woman
came to my house. She had fallen very low; death


“FOR LONDON DIRECT ”
399
seemed to me to have set its seal upon her; but she had
information which she would only sell, until I told her
where Claire had gone, and whom she was to marry.
Then and there it all came out. I must say there was
no huckstering then! The wretched woman seemed
genuinely distressed. She told me ” — Harding wiped
his mouth, and his voice trembled — “she told me my
daughter was gone to be a murderer's wife!”
“Yet you did not know of it?"
“I did not know about Blaydes. That made the
second !”
“His second murder?" gasped Tom.
“Or manslaughter - call it what you will. The first
was the worst: it was — fratricide! There were two
brothers; James was the younger. Out shooting, one
day, when they were both mere lads, he shot a dog dead
in his passion. The brother abused him; in an instant
he also was shot through the heart. It was brought in
an accident, but the family knew what it was. They
drummed him out, they refused to see his face again;
he was as much transported as any felon in New South
Wales, with as good a cause. We never knew why his
family would have nothing to do with him: why, for
instance, the very flowers he laid upon his mother's
grave were summarily returned to him. It seemed
inhuman, but I think it was very human now! God
help me, I thought it was only the ordinary wild-oats,
made too much of. But I was at fault, grievously at
fault! Bitterly I regret it; bitterly I shall rue it till
my dying day!”
Nicholas Harding was deeply moved; he was indeed
a different man. In a hoarse voice he described the
horrors of the interminable outward voyage, the per-


402
THE ROGUE'S MARCH
mad with anxiety. Every hour I expected those letters
to be found. Daintree knew well enough what was the
matter; the letters were in his own possession; but he
obtained my confidence, wormed it out of me one night,
and from that hour my soul was not my own. He began
by dragging me to your trial — "
“He told me you dragged him there!”
“It was the other way about. I am ashamed to say
it, but it was the other way about! I want to hang
myself when I think of that time! I remember him
taunting me by saying I ought to sympathise with you,
because I deserved to stand in the dock myself. He
who had done the murder for which he saw you con-
demned! I feel sure he only kept the receipt in order,
if necessary, to use the letter that was written on the
other side.”
“No, no,” said Tom. “I prefer to believe he was
always thinking of some way of proving my innocence,
by means of the receipt, without incriminating himself.
It would have been in keeping with his character. He
had a kind heart in many things, and I wish we were
leaving him in his quiet grave instead of in an asylum.
I cannot help feeling grateful to him even now. He
gave me back my manhood and my liberty, even if it
was he who first took them away; above all, he gave
me back Claire!”
There was one addition to the homeward-bound party
who must not be forgotten: this was a man-servant with
a withered arm, who grew grey and ultimately died in
Thomas Erichsen's service. His was the second death
among those passengers of the Florentia whose fate con-
cerns this chronicle. Lady Starkie was the first to go.


“FOR LONDON DIRECT”.
403
Nicholas Harding followed in the same year as his name-
sake of All the Russias. The next and last — it seems
but the other day — was Claire, his daughter, a loving
and beloved wife, and a mother whose children miss and
mourn her daily, though most of them have children of
their own. Peace to her white hairs and true and tender
heart! It is beating somewhere for them still.
But a little while ago, this story might have left them
still together — the bent old man with the thoughtful
eye and the many wrinkles — the white-haired, sweet-
faced, motherly woman. Yet then their story had not
been told, for there is that in it which Thomas Erichsen
never would tell his wife. He never told how they tried
to cut his heart out with the lash; he never told her how
nearly they succeeded. And still, when he thinks of
that, is he grateful to the long-dead maniac to whom
he owed so various a debt.
It is the old man's pleasure to hear and read of the
noble Colony sprung miraculously from the cruel dust
and ashes of sixty years ago; he has never revisited it.
In the Old Country he has lived and he will die. Less
fortunate than Claire, his lot is that harder one of the
last to go. But his life has been always brave, and he
neither fears nor courts his death.
THE END


----
*.
--



TBD
MAR 15 192.
SEC 3 1902
022