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 THE KING^S YARD
 
 NEW NOVELS 
 
 By tlie most Popular Authors. 
 
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 A SON OF MARS. 
 
 By Major Arthur Griffiths. 
 
 THE GENTLEMEN FROM GOODWOOD. 
 
 By E. H. Cooper. 
 
 A SPORTSWOMAN'S LOVE LETTERS. 
 
 By Fox Russell. 
 
 THE STRANGE ADVENTURES OF A 
 MAGISTRATE. 
 By T. R. Threlfall. 
 
 THE EXTRAORDINARY ISLANDERS. 
 
 By Aston Forrest. 
 
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 THE GHOST. 
 
 By Mrs. Campbell Praed. 
 
 MY JAPANESE WIFE. 
 
 By Clive Holland. 
 
 A SPORTING ADVENTURER. 
 
 By Fox Russell. 
 
 IN ROYAL COLOURS. 
 
 By Nat Gould. 
 
 THE KING'S YARD. 
 
 By Walter Jeffery. 
 
 THE MAN WHO DIED. 
 
 By G. B. BuRGiN. 
 
 A ROUMANIAN VENDETTA. 
 
 By "Carmen Svlva." 
 
 THE STORY OF STORIES FOR CHILDREN. 
 
 Edited by A. H. Miles. 
 
 A SCOURGE OF THE SEA. 
 
 By Herbert Compton. 
 
 BARCALI, THE MUTINEER. 
 
 By Dudley Lampen.
 
 THE KING'S YARD 
 
 ®. ^torg of ©f^ (pottemout? 
 
 BY 
 
 WALTER JEFFERY 
 
 AUTHOK OF "a CENTURY OF OUR SEA STORY," ETC., ETC. 
 
 LONDON 
 R. A. EVERETT & CO., LTD. 
 
 42 ESSEX STREET, STRAND, W.C. 
 1903 
 
 [AU Rights Reserved,']
 
 FK 
 
 u^ 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 I. MRS. MILDWATER LETS HER ROOM - - - 7 
 II. HOW AN AMERICAN WAS WELCOMED TO PORTS- 
 MOUTH 19 
 
 III. AT PORTCHESTER 29 
 
 IV. MR. HILL IS INTRODUCED TO THE KING'S 
 
 DOCKYARD 40 
 
 V. SURGEON BRAND 52 
 
 VI. MR. WARNER MAKES THE MOST OF HIS 
 
 PRIVILEGES 64 
 
 VII. A PEDLAR AT PORTCHESTER .... 79 
 
 VIII. REMARKABLE BEHAVIOUR OF JOHN HILL - - 94 
 
 IX. BAD MATCHES I03 
 
 X. WHAT HAPPENED TO DOLLY - - - - 112 
 
 XI. WHAT HAPPENED ON THE LONDON ROAD . - 1 24 
 
 XII. WHAT THE PORT ADMIRAL THOUGHT OF IT - 135 
 
 XIII. FLIGHT 149 
 
 XIV. FIRE 165 
 
 XV. "TAKEN OUT OF ORDINARY" - - - - 1 79 
 
 XVI. DR. BRAND SETS TO WORK I92 
 
 XVH. DR. BRAND SOLVES THE MYSTERY - - - 209 
 
 5 
 
 i 66201 8
 
 6 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 XVIII. DR. BRAND INTERVIEWS A GREAT MAN - - 222 
 
 XIX. WHAT CAME OF THE INTERVIEW • - - 234 
 
 XX. SCARS 244 
 
 XXI. THE TRIAL OF JACK THE PAINTER - - - 256 
 
 XXII. TWO ENDINGS 274
 
 THE KING'S YARD 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 MRS. MILDWATER LETS HER ROOM 
 
 The landlord of the " Help the Lame Dog over the 
 Stile, by George Powditch," leant against the door- 
 post of the little tavern, which in those days stood 
 at the corner of Havant Street, on Portsmouth 
 Common. The oil lamp on the counter and the 
 four dips in the windows made quite a brave show 
 of light, and the tavern was the only place of public 
 entertainment anywhere near the Dockyard gate ; 
 but, notwithstanding these attractions, the bar was 
 empty. All the Dockyard men were gone home to 
 their suppers, and the inn lay not in the way of 
 chance customers. 
 
 Mr. Powditch, lost in thought, calculating the 
 amount of his brewer's bill, suddenly pricked up his 
 ears, for the sound of footsteps on the cobble stones 
 told him that someone was walking fast along the 
 
 7
 
 8 THE king's yard 
 
 Portsmouth Road. Anyone coming this road so late 
 must either have important business in the Yard, or 
 else must be one of the officers living there; such 
 persons were generally ready to gossip, and gossiping 
 is dry work unless moistened with pots of ale. 
 
 Presently the owner of the footsteps, guided by 
 the lights, steered a course straight for the inn, and 
 stopped in front of its door. 
 
 "Good evening," said the landlord, making way 
 for the stranger to enter, who took no notice of the 
 movement, and only half turned towards Powditch 
 as he answered : 
 
 " Good evening. Can you tell me where I can get 
 a lodging hereabouts ? " 
 " I can let you a bed." 
 
 " No doubt ; but I want a room somewhere in a 
 private house. Perhaps one or other of the Dockyard 
 men would be glad of a respectable lodger." 
 
 Mr. Powditch looked at the man for a moment 
 in some doubt as to his rank in life, for his dress 
 and appearance were curiously contradictory. The 
 stranger's long, snufF-coloured cloak of fine cloth, 
 coming down almost to his ankles, was a garment 
 such as the humbler classes seldom possessed. But 
 then he carried no sword and wore a shocking bad 
 hat. The soft black felt drooped over his eyes and 
 half concealed his face, while a bundle hung over
 
 MRS. MILDWATER LETS HER ROQM 9 
 
 his shoulder at the end of a stick. His plain stuff 
 breeches and woollen stockings, when for a moment 
 the cloak blew aside, and the landlord caught sight 
 of them, his shoe buckles, big and shining in the 
 tavern lights with the sheen of silver, were puzzling 
 contradictions to Mr. Powditch, who replied with 
 hesitation : 
 
 " Maybe — perhaps — if a body could pay, and be- 
 longed to the Service or the Yard — or was — " 
 
 " I can pay beforehand if required. Come, do 
 you know of a small room ? " 
 
 The landlord decided : a man with such an im- 
 perative manner must be answered. 
 
 "There is William Mildwater's in Chapel Row, 
 sir. They are poor, and the place is small, but he 
 is a leading ropemaker, and they are respectable." 
 
 "Where is Chapel Row? Where is Mildwater's 
 house ? Is it near the Dockyard ? " 
 
 " Straight ahead. Do you see that wall ? That 
 is the Dock wall. Follow it, turn to the left, you 
 come to Chapel Row. Mildwater's is the third 
 house ; it faces the wall." 
 
 " Thank you ; good-night." 
 
 " Well," said the landlord to himself, as the stranger 
 walked off at a brisk rate, very unusual in customers 
 of the Lame Dog, " he's a rum 'un ; never so much as 
 a pot, carries a bundle over his shoulder like a tramp,
 
 10 THE king's yard 
 
 and puts on the airs of a post captain. Who the 
 devil is he?" 
 
 Queen Street, Prince George's Street, Chapel Row 
 and Havant Street were at this period the principal 
 streets on Portsmouth Common, still containing 
 much unoccupied land, and not grown into enough 
 importance to call itself the town of Portsea, though 
 no longer a common, for the houses erected by the 
 workmen belonging to the Yard had already made an 
 important place of it. 
 
 Some seventy years before this time, in the reign 
 of good Queen Anne, when Sir John Gibson 
 was Governor of Portsmouth, the Dockyard men 
 had asserted their right to build upon this ground, 
 erecting for themselves houses upon the Common 
 field so close to the line of fortifications as to mask 
 the guns, and so Sir John Gibson ordered the artisans 
 to stop their building. 
 
 " No, no," replied the Dockyard men to the 
 Governor's demand, " we will build houses near to 
 our work, and if need be, we will go to the extremest 
 lengths to assert our right to do so." 
 
 Now Governor Gibson was not the man to stand 
 talk of this sort — he was the Governor who, for 
 punishment, rode soldiers upon a wooden horse 
 in front of his own house in High Street, and who 
 kept his prisoners in that horrible dungeon that a
 
 MRS. MILDWATER LETS HER ROOM II 
 
 generation ago could be seen at Portsmouth near St. 
 James's Gate. 
 
 "Well," answered the Governor, "you go ahead 
 and build houses, and I promise you that when you 
 get 'em completed I'll turn the guns of the ramparts 
 on 'em and blow 'em to pieces." 
 
 Fortunately, just about this time Queen Anne and 
 Prince George came to Portsmouth to visit the Yard, 
 and while at the Commissioner's house the ship- 
 wrights humbly petitioned Her Majesty to settle the 
 dispute. 
 
 Governor Gibson was called upon to give his 
 statement of the case, and the Queen, having heard 
 him explain that it wouldn't do at all to have a lot 
 of workmen living right under the guns of the 
 fortifications, was on the point of declaring against 
 the men, when Prince George spoke up for them in 
 these words : 
 
 " Why, who so fitting to live close to their work as 
 these shipwrights ? They are good, loyal men. We 
 owe to them those very ships riding in the harbour 
 within sight — the Royal William and the Royal Anne 
 — and I think we can settle this dispute if Her 
 Majesty pleases." 
 
 So the matter was arranged, and, as related, the 
 Common was half a century later fast growing into 
 another town — that is, as fast as things went in those
 
 12 THE KING'S YARD 
 
 times. The Jews were not far behind the Dockyard 
 men in finding dwellings close to their work, and 
 soon they began to run over from Portsmouth proper 
 on to the Common. Soon little shops opened in all 
 directions, in which sailors could spend their prize 
 money in gold watches and such-like follies, and the 
 older established tradespeople along the Hard before 
 long found serious opponents in the rival dealers of 
 the new town. 
 
 But all this is a digression, introduced that you 
 may understand how the town ran over into the 
 fortifications, so that strangers who came into it, 
 until they learned the topography of the place, never 
 knew whether they were inside or outside of the 
 lines. 
 
 The Portsmouth Road, then, ran along by the Yard, 
 and at one end of it was the Dockyard gate. A high 
 wall separated the Common from the Yard, and 
 under the shadows of it there still remain a few 
 streets keeping the names they bore a century and 
 a quarter ago, some of the houses in them yet 
 standing, and as habitable as they then were. But 
 for these features, all else is changed. What were 
 then neat rows of houses, occupied by well-to-do 
 officials of the Royal Dockyard, or married pursers, 
 masters and men of similar ranks in the Service, are 
 now lost in a maze of more pretentious thoroughfares,
 
 MRS. MILD WATER LETS HER ROOM 1 3 
 
 and by comparison have become mean streets of an 
 " ungenteel " part of the town. 
 
 Such a street as this was Chapel Row. The houses 
 in it, as men living to-day can remember them, were 
 much as they were a hundred years earlier. On its 
 right side, as one walked from the direction of the 
 Yard, a row of small houses ; on its left side, the 
 Dockyard wall. If one kept to the right and con- 
 tinued walking, he would reach the open country, 
 and crossing unfrequented waste land, would arrive 
 at the Halway houses on the London Road. If one 
 followed the wall, he would come to the mud flats on 
 the harbour shore, now altered out of recognition. 
 
 For a whole month Mrs. Mildwater, wife of 
 William Mildwater, a leading ropemaker in the 
 Yard, had been without a lodger. The Mildwaters 
 were the owners of the little house, or rather, Mrs. 
 Mildwater was the owner, for " her Mildwas," as she 
 called him, owned nothing, not even his own soul, 
 those who knew Mrs. Mildwater said. 
 
 The man in the long cloak, having groped his way 
 through the dark street, presently knocked with the 
 brass head on the brass knob of the green door of 
 the little two-storey house, and all the neighbours 
 along the Row ran to their front parlour windows to 
 see and criticise their neighbour's visitor. 
 
 Mr. Mildwater was sitting in his kitchen, smoking
 
 14 THE king's yard 
 
 his long clay, his first pipe after the evening meal, 
 and'|Mrs. Mildwater was washing up the dishes. 
 She allowed her husband three pipes and one pot 
 during the evening, and this indulgence kept him out 
 of the Help the Lame Dog over the Stile, a sign 
 which was at considerable variance with the reputa- 
 tion of the pot-house, for the unhelpful influence it 
 exercised upon the jolly dogs who frequented it. It 
 was early winter, and the Mildwaters, although they 
 had no children, and were not so poor as their 
 neighbours in consequence, would have had a better 
 fire in the kitchen and a second farthing candle if 
 the spare bedroom had been let. 
 
 Mr, Mildwater opened the door and looked 
 inquiringly at the stranger. 
 
 " Are you William Mildwater?" asked the man. 
 
 " So I was baptised," replied the other, as if during 
 his sixty years of life he had changed his name at 
 frequent intervals, which he had not. 
 
 " I came down from yonder," said the stranger, 
 indicating with his head some place which might be 
 anywhere, " came down this evening, and went to the 
 Lame Dog. I want a lodging ; the landlord said 
 you had one," 
 
 " Ah ! considering that I don't run much of a score 
 at the Lame Dog, I take it kindly that he should 
 send you here. Wait till I get a light."
 
 MRS. MILDWATER LETS HER ROOM 1$ 
 
 Mr. Mildwater went along the narrow passage to 
 
 the kitchen. 
 
 "A lodger, missus," he said, "come along," and 
 returning with the candle, invited the man to step 
 inside to the best room. Not without hesitation, the 
 master of the house ventured to point to one of the 
 rush-bottomed chairs — the one with the coloured 
 rushes only kept for company. 
 
 "The missus will talk to you, friend; she knows 
 what she wants, and this is her," he said. 
 
 Mrs. Mildwater looked at the prospective lodger, 
 who had not accepted the seat, but stood erect, his 
 bundle resting on the sacred chair, his hat upon the 
 bundle, his long cloak thrown open. 
 
 He was not a pleasant fellow to look upon, for 
 though tall and broad-shouldered, carrying his body 
 like a soldier, as the Mildwaters, brought up in a 
 garrison town, quickly saw and noted, yet he looked 
 them not in the face frankly as an honest man should, 
 and he hung his head as if he were ashamed of the 
 scar upon his yellow cheek, rather than as one who 
 had been wounded in the service of his country. No 
 soldier wore his hair cropped close to his head, 
 unpowdered and unwigged, as this man did, nor did 
 common soldiers speak English in the way this man 
 spoke it (neither with the broad accent of the north, 
 nor the familiar south and west country twang), but
 
 l6 THE king's yard 
 
 he clipped his words, opening his mouth just long 
 enough to fire them out, and closing it again with a 
 snap that irritated Mrs. Mildwater. His yellow skin, 
 his black hair and beetling eyebrows, and the scowl 
 upon his face, made more repulsive by the scar, gave 
 the woman an uncomfortable feeling as to his honesty, 
 and puzzled her husband, who, still holding the candle 
 with great steadiness lest a spot of grease should fall 
 upon the white scrubbed floor and upset his peace 
 for a week, looked anxiously at his wife to see what 
 she could make of the stranger. 
 
 Mrs. Mildwater, speaking slowly and solemnly, and 
 eyeing the would-be lodger severely, said : 
 
 " I have a room to let, ten shillings a week and all 
 found. But you ain't a matey." 
 
 " No, I'm not a matey, but my father was. He 
 belonged to the ropemakers' guild, and once worked 
 in the Yard. Then he went to America, where I was 
 brought up. Perhaps your husband might have heard 
 of my people. Hill was the name," 
 
 " Afore my time, I believe,'' remarked Mr. 
 Mildwater. 
 
 " Yes ; my relations have been dead many years — 
 they died in the colonies." 
 
 " Ah ! That's it, is it ? " said Mrs. Mildwater, " and 
 what might you be now ? Mildwater is in the Yard. 
 He is a leading ropemaker, and my room has always
 
 MRS. MILDWATER LETS HER ROOM 1 7 
 
 been let to a Dockyard matey. I never took strangers 
 afore." 
 
 " I am a painter by trade, and have been working 
 at different places in America, till the troubles began. 
 Then I made my way home, thinking I might get 
 something to do here." 
 
 It was plain that Mrs. Mildwater did not like the 
 look of this wandering stranger, and she did not 
 hesitate to speak her mind to him. 
 
 " Rolling stones gather no moss," she said. " We 
 are very poor folks, and we let our room for the sake 
 of the bit money it brings." 
 
 " Oh, I have money," answered the other. " Though 
 I've been a rolling stone, I have saved a bit on the 
 plantations, and you can have your week's rent 
 beforehand." 
 
 "You must have someone still alive in the town 
 who could vouch for you?" suggested Mrs. Mildwater, 
 still curious and doubtful. 
 
 " No, we were only a small family, and they are all 
 dead or gone away. You don't seem to want me for 
 a lodger. If because I'm a stranger you don't care to 
 have me, say so, and I'll go elsewhere." 
 
 " I don't see that it is anything against the young 
 man because he is out of work, and is looking for a 
 job, so long as he pays his rent," said Mr. Mildwater. 
 
 '* Very well. Mild was, you always would have your
 
 1 8 THE king's yard 
 
 own way, and so I suppose I must take him in. 
 Have you got anything beside the bundle, young 
 man ? " 
 
 " Yes, ma'am, but first I'll pay you my rent for a 
 week. Then I'll step out for half an hour, and you 
 can talk it over with your husband." 
 
 Accordingly Mr. Hill paid down ten shillings and 
 left the house. Mrs. Mildwater, from the moment 
 her lodger's back was turned until he came in at bed- 
 time, spent the interval soundly rating her Mildwas 
 for being so ready to take in a young man from 
 America, where the people were all rebels and savage 
 Indians.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 HOW AN AMERICAN WAS WELCOMED TO 
 PORTSMOUTH 
 
 The old town, after a long spell of dull times, was 
 
 waking up again, for the American rebellion had 
 
 grown into a war, and even the townsfolk saw plainly 
 
 that the peace with France could not last much 
 
 longer, and were cheerful at the prospect. The war 
 
 to them meant plenty of work in the Yard, and 
 
 fleets of ships off the Motherbank or in Portsmouth 
 
 Harbour, and it was by these things that the people 
 
 grew prosperous. 
 
 The harbour was already alive with the bustle of 
 
 preparation. Ships that had been lying up in 
 
 ordinary since the last war, were being rapidly got 
 
 ready for sea, and at Spithead a squadron was 
 
 embarking stores for Lord Howe's fleet, then off 
 
 the American coast. Lighters from the Dockyard, 
 
 bumboats and watermen's wherries were continually 
 
 going to and from the ships, and able-bodied young 
 
 men with little to do but idle their time away in the 
 
 pot-houses, did their idlings in inns on country roads, 
 
 19
 
 20 THE king's YARD 
 
 where press-gangs were not likely to fall in w^ith 
 them. 
 
 During the peace fewer than a thousand men were 
 employed in the Yard, but at this time, from 
 Southampton, from Bristol, and like places, men 
 were flocking into Portsmouth, and were being taken 
 on every day at the Commissioner's office. Yet, 
 notwithstanding these signs of what was coming, 
 French coasting vessels crossed the Channel just as 
 regularly for Portsmouth, and so there was nothing 
 strange in the coming into port of a little Havre 
 lugger loaded with onions. This vessel at ten 
 o'clock one morning ran round the Point into the 
 small branch of the harbour, where merchant ships 
 lie, then presentl}'', by the aid of a light leading wind, 
 and with much shouting and caper-cutting on the 
 part of her crew of two men and a boy, got herself 
 made fast to the Town Quay. 
 
 But there was something unusual in His Majesty's 
 cutter Ferrety tender to the Port Admiral, which had 
 been following the lugger from the moment that she 
 rounded Gilkicker, running into this part of the 
 harbour, and without any noise or cutting of capers, 
 dropping the lieutenant who commanded her and a 
 couple of marines upon the quay, just as the 
 Frenchmen were recovering from the excitement 
 of making fast their lines.
 
 HOW AN AMERICAN WAS WELCOMED 21 
 
 Then this is what happened : The lieutenant 
 walked along the wharf till he came to the French 
 vessel, the two marines following a little way in the 
 rear. The officer stepped on board, the people on 
 the wharf closing up to see what was going on, until 
 the marines pushed them away and took up a 
 position on either side of the little vessel's gangway. 
 
 On the deck of the Frenchman was a passenger. 
 There was no doubt he was a passenger, for his dress 
 was that of a gentleman, and he wore a sword and 
 looped hat, and lace frills and all sorts of fal-lals. 
 And was tall and upright and handsome and refined 
 in appearance, being altogether in striking contrast 
 to the French sailors in their striped petticoats, 
 stocking caps, wooden shoes, and tarry pigtails. 
 
 At sight of him the English lieutenant said: " Ah ! 
 and here we are." 
 
 The young man — for he was not more than thirty 
 — had a pair of fine brown eyes, and they looked at 
 the lieutenant, and over the lieutenant's shoulders at 
 the two marines. Then the passenger's pale cheeks 
 reddened just a little, and his lips twitched very 
 slightly, the clean-shaved regular features showing 
 the movement quite plainly to the lieutenant, who 
 smiled and made a conciliatory gesture as he noticed 
 the white hand of the stranger slip half unconsciously 
 round to his sword hilt, as one who is making ready.
 
 22 THE king's YARD 
 
 "You are the man I want," said the lieutenant. 
 
 "And for what, sir, do you want me?'' asked the 
 passenger. 
 
 " You are a passenger by this vessel just arrived 
 from Havre, and you are an American." 
 
 " Yes ; what then ? " 
 
 "Why, then," and the English officer turned to- 
 wards the marines and made a signal with his hand 
 — " why, then, you are my prisoner." 
 
 " And why > " 
 
 " I arrest you, sir, as a deserter." 
 
 " What ! " 
 
 The American stepped back, and this time half 
 drew his sword. 
 
 The master of the vessel, a dapper little French- 
 man, who had been often enough across the Channel 
 to understand English, and with the crowd had been 
 an excited listener to what was going on, here broke in : 
 
 " But, monsieur, there is some mistake ; our 
 nations are not at war. My passenger has zee pass- 
 port of zee king." 
 
 The interruption gave the passenger time to 
 recover himself, and he said quietly : 
 
 " Yes, sir, you are certainly mistaken. I have a 
 passport, and — " 
 
 The officer shrugged his shoulders. " Will you be 
 so good as to produce the passport ? "
 
 HOW AN AMERICAN WAS WELCOMED 23 
 
 The lieutenant smiled. " Here it is ; can you read 
 French ? " 
 
 " I was chosen for this service on that account," he 
 answered. 
 
 And taking the document, in proof of his assertion 
 read it aloud, translating as he read : 
 
 " * Exhibited at the Office of Marine at Havre. 
 " ' By the King. 
 " ' To all Governors and our lieutenant-generals of 
 our provinces and armies, governors particular and 
 commanders of our towns, places and troops, and to 
 all other of our officers, justiciary and subjects to 
 whom it shall belong Health : — 
 
 "'We will and command you very expressly to 
 let pass safely and freely Mr. Henry Warner, going 
 to England, without giving him or suffering him to 
 have any hindrance, but on the contrary, every aid 
 and assistance that he shall want or have occasion 
 for. This present passport to be valid for one month 
 only is our pleasure. 
 
 " ' Given at Fontainebleau the first day of 
 Oct., 1776. LOUIS. 
 
 " * By the King De Vergenes.' " 
 
 " Well," said the American. 
 " Well," said the lieutenant.
 
 24 THE king's yard 
 
 " Are you satisfied of your mistake ? " 
 
 " You must discuss that later on with my superiors. 
 Meanwhile, sir, I must trouble you to come with me." 
 
 " But, monsieur, I beg — " began the master of the 
 vessel. 
 
 " Oh ! go to the devil," interrupted the lieutenant. 
 "Now, sir, if you please. Marines, take charge of 
 this gentleman." 
 
 " Oh ! Of course, if it pleases monsieur, but — " 
 
 " It does please monsieur ; there is no mistake. 
 My Government will answer yours later on if you 
 don't like it. One of you men get any baggage 
 belonging to the prisoner, and bring it along with you." 
 
 "The Frenchman is quite right in protesting 
 against such an outrage, sir, and you will have cause 
 to regret this arrest of my person, for although an 
 American by birth, my passport ought to show you 
 that I am under the protection of the King of France, 
 and you know very well I am not a deserter from 
 your service." 
 
 " All this you can say to my superiors, but mean- 
 while you must come with me." 
 
 The American preserved his temper with the 
 greatest difficulty, but he replied with dignity : 
 
 " Look you, sir, I cannot resist force of this kind, 
 but I warn you that the French Minister will make 
 some of you pay for this insult. I am under the
 
 HOW AN AMERICAN WAS WELCOMED 2$ 
 
 protection of France, and the very manner of your 
 treatment convinces me that you are acting a part. 
 This charge of desertion is a mere trick." 
 
 The Engh'shman pointed to the gangway. 
 
 " My dear sir/' he said, " we will not argue this 
 matter now. I have my duty to do, and if I have 
 acted civilly to you, don't throw my civility in my 
 teeth, for, by the Lord Harry, if you don't like the 
 gentlemanly way I have managed the affair, you shall 
 presently have a taste of my other quality." 
 
 " Very well, sir, your threat is unnecessary. I am 
 compelled to go with you, but I warn you again 
 someone will pay for this insult." 
 
 " Marines, right about face ; march ! " was the 
 lieutenant's reply ; and then through a gaping crowd 
 of watermen and sailors, the American walking 
 between the two redcoats, followed by the lieutenant, 
 went off along the quay to the cutter. 
 
 As soon as the party got on board, a sharp order 
 was given, the main-sail and jib were hoisted, and the 
 Ferret stood away up the harbour. As they ran past 
 the Dockyard, the American leaned moodily over 
 the side of the vessel ; but the lieutenant, apparently 
 willing to make up for his brusqueness, presently 
 tapped him on the shoulder. The American stepped 
 back, not liking the familiarity. 
 
 " Pardon me," said the officer, " but being a sort
 
 26 THE king's yard 
 
 of countryman of mine, I wanted to be civil to you. 
 Don't worry over this affair." 
 
 " I don't worry over it, sir, but it is an infamous 
 thing to believe that I am a deserter." 
 
 " I don't believe it." 
 
 "Then what do you mean by calling me one? 
 You saw my passport." 
 
 " That's just it," said the other, with a laugh. " I 
 had a description of your vessel and of your person, 
 and I knew of the passport, but I wanted to see it. 
 I knew if I accused you of being a deserter that you 
 would lug it out at once." 
 
 " Then why have you taken me ? " 
 
 " Ah ! that's beyond me ; but I was to make sure 
 of you by the passport — and I have." 
 
 " Where are you taking me ? " 
 
 "To Portchester; but you'll know all about it 
 presently. Meanwhile, what do you think of the 
 harbour ? Look at the ships fitting out to bring the 
 colonists to their senses." 
 
 The American laughed. "Do you think that 
 interests me?" 
 
 " I know that interests you. Perhaps it may occur 
 to you that your arrest, and the fleet, and the Dock- 
 yard, and the doings in France are not altogether 
 unconnected, eh ? " 
 
 "As you said just now, sir, that is a matter for
 
 HOW AN AMERICAN WAS WELCOMED 2/ 
 
 your superiors ; but I begin to see daylight from these 
 hints." 
 
 "Well, never mind, we'll drop the subject. See 
 that old line-of-battleship, that's the Monarque, lying 
 in the same place where she was moored ten years 
 ago, when Byng was shot upon her quarter-deck. 
 Beyond her is the Britannia, that vessel sending up 
 her top-masts, and beyond her again is the Royal 
 George, the loftiest and squarest ship in the Service. 
 Those hulks lying off the opposite shore are nearly 
 all prizes taken in the last war. I fancy if you 
 remain long enough with us you'll presently see a 
 few more new ones." 
 
 And so, as the Ferret passed between the lines of 
 ships, her commander entertained his prisoner with 
 descriptions of them, until presently they came to 
 the arm called Portchester Lake, where the cutter 
 was brought up. Then her dinghy was launched, 
 and the lieutenant, the two marines and the prisoner 
 got into the boat, which, rowed by a couple of 
 sailors, soon neared the old castle at the head of 
 the harbour. 
 
 " Is this tumbledown old place the headquarters of 
 your Governor or Port Admiral, or whoever rules 
 this part of England?" asked the American. 
 
 " No, sir, but my orders are to land you there, and 
 then we will explain further."
 
 28 THE king's yard 
 
 *' This — if it were not such an old ruin — looks very 
 much as if King George had made a State prisoner 
 of me, and was about to lodge me in the bottom 
 dungeon of the Tower of London, or some such 
 musty hole." 
 
 " Oh, you'll be safe enough here, never fear. But 
 I'll be hanged if I know why they have chosen this 
 place, unless because it's so far away from London." 
 
 " I feel mighty curious about the matter, and not 
 altogether pleased at the situation, I assure you ; but 
 here we are at the beach." 
 
 " Way enough ! " cried the lieutenant to his men, 
 and the little boat ran up alongside a rough wooden 
 landing-place. 
 
 Then the naval officer jumped out of the boat, and 
 a sentry on the pier saluted him. The two marines 
 fell in on either side of the American, and the 
 lieutenant led the way to the sea gate of the castle.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 AT PORTCHESTER 
 
 PORTCHESTER Castle which in our later French 
 
 wars was to become famous as a prison, was in 
 
 this year, 1776, a place of little importance. In the 
 
 last war the castle had been used as a war prison, 
 
 and people still told how, in '66, one Valerie Coffre, 
 
 a young French officer, had stabbed a fellow-prisoner 
 
 in its grounds. There had been a good deal of 
 
 quarrelling among the foreigners, and the authorities, 
 
 by way of giving them a lesson, marched all the 
 
 Portchester prisoners to Winchester, to witness the 
 
 execution of Coffre. Many similar stories are still 
 
 told of the prisoners during the Buonaparte war, 
 
 when some five thousand Frenchmen were quartered 
 
 within the walls, and to find room for them the 
 
 authorities built rows of rough wooden huts. A ie^^ 
 
 such disfigurements there was at this period, remnants 
 
 of prisoners' quarters in the last war, and these 
 
 buildings, besides the castle's venerable towers and 
 
 29
 
 30 THE KING'S YARD 
 
 ivy-covered walls, made a hideous blot upon its 
 meadow-like grounds. 
 
 Everyone ought to know that Portchester was 
 once the principal station of the Roman navy in 
 Britain, and an old author relates that the place was 
 of great importance very long before the Romans 
 landed. However that may be, it is certain that the 
 ancient Britons had a fortress there, and Roman, 
 Saxon, Norman styles of building are all yet 
 discernible in the castle's towers. 
 
 The castle is on a point of land upon the northern 
 shore of Portsmouth Harbour ; it stands in a square 
 of about nine acres of land, of which the fortress 
 proper occupies nearly an acre in the north-west 
 corner. The walls are from eight to twelve feet 
 thick, and about eighteen high, having in many 
 places a passage round them, covered by a parapet. 
 In all there are eighteen towers of various shapes and 
 dimensions, and moats surround the walls. The 
 main entrance to the castle on the west side is thirty 
 feet deep and fourteen wide, under a square tower, 
 and there are likewise two sally ports. 
 
 At this time there was no Frenchman in the castle, 
 and it was in fact doing duty as a kind of hulk, for 
 the floating hulks were all crowded with convicts, who, 
 thanks to the Revolution, had escaped a passage to 
 the American plantations. In such wooden buildings.
 
 AT PORTCHESTER 3 1 
 
 erected for the Frenchmen, as were still habitable 
 were quartered the pressed men, and marines and 
 sailors sentenced for slight offences, who could not 
 be accommodated on the receiving ships and floating 
 hulks in the harbour. The preparations for war had 
 brought a hot press in the neighbourhood, and men 
 taken by force to serve the King had to be kept 
 under lock and key until drafted off" to sea-going 
 vessels. A hundred of these prisoners roamed at 
 will in an enclosed part of the grounds, and a guard 
 of some five-and-twenty militia veterans served to 
 keep them inside the walls. 
 
 In this year, then, when the Ferret came in from a 
 cruise, it was nothing uncommon for her to sail right 
 up the harbour to the mouth of Portchester Creek. 
 Then there would be disembarked on the mud flats 
 outside the castle walls, a wretched crowd of men 
 belonging to every class of the poorer sort, who had 
 been pressed at places on the coast anywhere between 
 the ports of London and Southampton. But for her 
 to make such a trip as this, carrying one prisoner, 
 evidently a man of some importance, was the cause 
 of considerable wonderment to the little garrison at 
 the castle. 
 
 The Governor at this time was Captain Bagshott, 
 a naval officer on half-pay, nearly seventy years of 
 age, fifty of whose years had been spent doing those
 
 32 THE king's yard 
 
 deeds that made it no idle boast for Englishmen to 
 sing "Britannia Rules the Waves." The captain 
 was a poor man, without a friend at Court, grievously 
 wounded, and a widower with a young daughter — 
 this is how the end of the war left him, and it never 
 occurred to Bagshott for one moment, even when the 
 situation puzzled him most, that there was any human 
 remedy for his troubles, or that his country owed him 
 anything but such prize money and pay as in his last 
 commission had become his due. But the Port 
 Admiral had by chance come across him in the new 
 hospital at Haslar, and the great man remembered 
 that Bagshott had once saved his life, and so, very 
 much to the old fellow's astonishment, he found 
 himself appointed Governor of Portchester. 
 
 Captain Bagshott lived within the castle in a little 
 modern cottage erected close to the church, which 
 stands upon the site of the Sacellum, towards the 
 eastern side of the grounds. This cottage was the 
 Governor's official quarters, and the place was so 
 deftly hidden by thick trees and clinging ivy that it 
 in no wise seemed obtrusive. 
 
 When the sentry saw the arrival of the Ferrefs 
 boat, and passed the word along, an orderly appeared 
 at the garden gate of the Governor's house, and 
 solemnly reported : " Boat coming alongside, sir." 
 
 This was a regulation laid down by Captain
 
 AT PORTCHESTER 33 
 
 Bagshott. When strangers came by road, then the 
 soldier officer in charge of the veterans might 
 announce arrivals in his way. But the approach of 
 a person who came by water must be notified to the 
 Governor in such proper manner as this, and the old 
 man would suffer no pipe-clay words of command or 
 landlubber methods of reception when boats from 
 the fleet or naval officers visited his command. 
 
 The Governor was seated in his porch, inhaling, to 
 keep himself fresh, as he said, the keen salt wind, 
 which, tempered by the ooze of the harbour, blew 
 briskly on this October morning over the castle walls, 
 though their height shut out the sea view. 
 
 " Dolly, Dolly, my girl, bring me my coat ! " cried 
 the captain. " Ah, is that you, Stockleigh ? " (this to 
 the lieutenant of the garrison, a subaltern of nearly 
 thirty years' service); "go you and meet the party, 
 and escort 'em here." 
 
 Then came Dolly with the coat, holding it for her 
 father to struggle into. 
 
 " Thank you, my dear. How's that, am I all square ? 
 And have you brushed it thoroughly ? " 
 
 " Of course I have," said the girl, as she smoothed 
 down the collar of the coat and kissed him as the 
 old man stooped to wriggle into it, " and you are all 
 square, sir, but so woefully shabby. Do buy a new 
 coat ; the lace is quite green."
 
 34 THE king's yard 
 
 " No, no, my dear, the coat's smart enough for an 
 old fellow, and as to the lace, why, there's no prize 
 money nowadays, and it's quite good enough for a 
 gaoler. Be off to your cookery, and don't come near 
 me again till this business is all settled." 
 
 She was pretty, the simple beauty of an English 
 country girl, with a graceful figure and easy carriage, 
 that notwithstanding her big cooking apron and plain 
 dress and healthy glow of colour, made it plain to 
 anyone that she was the little lady of the castle. 
 When she went back to the kitchen and ordered the 
 serving woman to bring her this, that, and the other 
 for the making of the pie for dinner, despite her 
 eighteen years and plain dress, it seemed fitting that 
 she should have command. 
 
 Presently appeared Lieutenant Stockleigh, leading 
 a procession of the naval ofificer, his prisoner and the 
 two marines, one of them carrying a valise belonging 
 to the American. Captain Bagshott bowed, then led 
 them into the front room of his cottage, which was at 
 once his state apartment and his daughter's best parlour. 
 " Here, sir," said the naval lieutenant, " is the 
 prisoner whose arrival the Admiral says you 
 expected. I will take a receipt for his body, and 
 get away, if you please." 
 
 • ' Gentlemen, be seated. You may order your 
 marines back to their boat, sir."
 
 AT PORTCHESTER 35 
 
 *Is it usual to invite deserters to be seated, for 
 according to this officer I am arrested as a deserter ? " 
 asked the American tartly, and taking no notice of 
 the offered chair. 
 
 The Governor frowned, as he answered : 
 
 " No, sir, it is not ; and you can make very sure 
 that you shall have no further cause to complain of 
 being treated with too much civility." 
 
 " I beg your pardon, but it is irritating to be 
 accused of such a crime." 
 
 '* No doubt, no doubt, sir, but you must 
 excuse me; this officer is waiting for my formal 
 receipt." 
 
 The American looked curiously about him while 
 Bagshott was fumbling with the writing materials to 
 fill in the official documents, then before the old man 
 began to write, he said : 
 
 " This seems to be a lettre de cachet kind of pro- 
 ceeding. One might fancy oneself in the Bastille, 
 but your castle is a little out of repair, I am anxious 
 to know, sir, if you will give me the explanation I 
 have been refused by this gentleman ? " 
 
 " Presently, sir, presently I will make all clear to 
 you," the Governor replied. " We have no Frenchified 
 methods of proceeding in this country,and you will find 
 yourself rather a — a — a — guest in some sort than a 
 prisoner."
 
 36 THE king's yard 
 
 " But why ? What in the name of all that's 
 wonderful do you — " 
 
 " Patience for a moment, sir, if you please. 
 The lieutenant is anxious to get back to his boat." 
 
 Captain Bagshott then handed over his receipt, the 
 naval officer wished his late prisoner a cordial good- 
 bye, which was gracefully returned, and Lieutenant 
 Stockleigh and the sailor walked off, leaving the 
 American alone with the old Governor, who assumed 
 his best quarter-deck manner, and said : 
 
 " Now, sir, if you will allow me, I will explain the 
 situation to you as far as my instructions permit me 
 to do so. The authorities here are better informed 
 than you suppose, and they, having certain informa- 
 tion regarding the proceedings of the American rebels 
 in France, gave instructions to arrest you on your 
 arrival in this port. My orders are that you are to 
 be treated with every consideration consistent with 
 your safe keeping. You are not to be confined with 
 the rabble we have here, but are to have a separate 
 apartment and the liberty of the castle grounds in 
 charge of a guard, but you are not to be allowed to 
 communicate with anyone." 
 
 " But what the devil do they really charge me 
 with ? and by what infamous rascally trickery do 
 they pretend that I am a deserter ? You must know 
 that I am not one."
 
 AT PORTCHESTER 37 
 
 "Don't attach importance to the charge of 
 desertion, sir. It is very natural that such an 
 accusation should annoy you, but I suspect it was 
 merely a trick of the lieutenant's to hide the true 
 reason for your detention." 
 
 " Well, what, in Heaven's name, is the true 
 reason ? " 
 
 "That, sir, is best known to yourself— I don't know 
 — but," and the old man's voice softened, " I am 
 instructed that you were a person of distinction in 
 the colonies before the rebellion broke out, but now I 
 am afraid (I tell you frankly this much) that you are 
 classed as a rebel. You are a young man, and I 
 think, a gentleman, so just hand me your sword as a 
 matter of form, and I daresay we shall manage to 
 get along comfortably together." Then catching 
 sight of Stockleigh through the parlour window, he 
 called him, and formally introduced them. " Mr. 
 Warner, I am informed, sir." 
 
 " Yes, Captain Henry Warner. I was an officer in 
 the Philadelphia Militia, and have fought on your 
 side before the quarrel," replied the American. 
 
 " Well, Mr. Warner, I am glad to hear it. Stock- 
 leigh and myself will do what we can for you, 
 consistent with our duty to the King." 
 
 The old man said the words " duty '' and " King " 
 in a " put that in your pipe and smoke it " tone of
 
 38 THE KING'S YARD 
 
 voice that brought a merry twinkle in the brown 
 eyes of the rebel. 
 
 " I thank you, sir," he replied. " Perhaps the 
 example of two such loyal veterans will not be lost 
 upon me. Meanwhile, where do you propose to 
 quarter me? You must have some underground 
 dungeon, I imagine, for a regiment wouldn't keep a 
 dangerous fellow like myself inside of this tumble- 
 down place if you lodge me above the ground." 
 
 " Never fear, sir, never fear. Stockleigh and my- 
 self have thought of a secure enough place for you, 
 but it is not so bad as quarters below water-mark." 
 
 Then the three men, Captain Bagshott leading the 
 way, walked out across the grounds towards the old 
 castle keep, and Dolly, who had been an interested, 
 but concealed listener through the half-open kitchen 
 door, went back to her pie-making. 
 
 The girl, like the good housewife that she was — the 
 piano curse had not then come upon the land — knew 
 how to make a pie, yet instead of her usual light and 
 quick handling of the rolling-pin, now she rolled her 
 paste in a heavy, half-hearted way, ruinous to the 
 making of good crust, and very trying to the patience 
 of her kitchen-maid, an elderly spinster of much 
 experience. Then, as she turned the dough about 
 upon the board, a big tear trickled down her 
 cheek into the pastry, and got amalgamated with the
 
 AT PORTCHESTER 39 
 
 pie crust. And the maid, watching her sympathetic- 
 ally, rubbed her eyes with the corner of her apron 
 and said : 
 
 " Oh, such a fine young handsome fellow, none of 
 your low sailors or marines, an American, too. A 
 State prisoner, they say ; he may be shot by-and-by. 
 Fancy his poor mother's feelings ! I wonder if he 
 has got a sweetheart ? " 
 
 This speech set Dolly thinking as she watched 
 the poor prisoner marched off to his quarters, and 
 she greatly pitied him, his mother, and his sweetheart 
 — if he had one.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 MR. HILL IS INTRODUCED TO THE KING'S 
 DOCKYARD 
 
 Mrs. Mildwater's lodger on the evening of his 
 
 arrival went out for half an hour, and spent the 
 
 time at the Help the Lame Dog, where he treated 
 
 the landlord to a pot of ale, and held some talk with 
 
 him. But, as Mr. Powditch said afterwards, he was 
 
 not a sociable kind of man, and he seemed to have 
 
 something on his mind. He drank his ale, too, in a 
 
 way that the landlord did not like, making one pot 
 
 last him much longer than an honest man should, 
 
 having nothing to say the while of himself and his 
 
 business, and putting so many questions about the 
 
 town and the townsfolk that Mr. Powditch was 
 
 heartily glad to be rid of him. 
 
 As he was leaving the tavern. Hill mentioned that 
 
 he thought a stranger would be asking for him in a 
 
 day or two, and when this person came, would Mr. 
 
 Powditch be good enough to direct the man to the 
 
 Mildwater's ? 
 
 40
 
 THE KING'S DOCKYARD 4 1 
 
 " Yes ; I'll send the gentleman there to the name 
 of John Hill, as you said. Was you expecting to get 
 work at the Yard ? " 
 
 " Yes, yes, I think so ; and the man whom I am 
 expecting will, I hope, help me to a job." 
 
 Then John Hill walked off to Chapel Row, and 
 took up his quarters in the little room at the 
 Mildwater's. These good people in the course of a 
 few days got over their prejudices against the lodger, 
 whose only apparent fault was the silent trait in his 
 character, and even in this respect, before a week 
 was past, there was much improvement. 
 
 Hill told them plainly that he had come from 
 Dover, where he had been employed as a painter, 
 having landed there a few months before from a ship 
 in which he had worked his passage from Virginia. 
 Painting was his trade, and he hoped that, owing to 
 the war, he would be able to get taken on in the 
 Yard, or if not, then perhaps in time, when better 
 known men than himself had got employment under 
 Government, he might fill some vacancy outside the 
 Dock walls or obtain odd jobs. 
 
 They noticed that he seemed educated above his 
 station, and he hinted that in America he had been 
 brought up for better things, but bad times had 
 driven him to seek this kind of work. So, though at 
 first they had thought he was too far above them to
 
 42 THE king's yard 
 
 be anything but Mr. Hill, Mrs. Mildwater was not 
 the woman to stand on ceremony, and as the lodger 
 unbent, and seemed anxious to be friendly with our 
 Mild was, she took to calling him John, and from 
 that to Jack. Then, anxious that he should obtain 
 work, and so remain with them, she went about 
 telling the neighbours that if they heard of anything 
 in the painter way, they might bear in mind that 
 John Hill, painter, lodged with her. So that every- 
 one in Chapel Row soon drifted into calling him 
 Jack the Painter. 
 
 Jack got occasional work now and again, but 
 although once or twice he visited the Dockyard in 
 company with Mildwater, he seemed to lack energy 
 enough to worry for work from the foreman painter, 
 to whom Mildwater had introduced him. But he 
 liked to visit the Yard, showing some interest in the 
 sights, and Mildwater was pleased to exhibit all its 
 wonders, and there was much to see, for even in 
 those days it was quite a little town, though unlike 
 enough to its present-day appearance. 
 
 The town of Portsmouth, too, was not without 
 interest for him, and he was greatly taken with the 
 ramparts, and the manner in which the place was 
 surrounded by them. So enclosed was it, as he said 
 to Mildwater, that supposing a man wished to escape 
 the press, now beginning to grow hot, and they shut
 
 THE king's dockyard 43 
 
 all the town gates, there was but a sorry chance for 
 any poor devil who wanted to run from serving the 
 King. 
 
 It is true the sea fortifications were not of the 
 strongest, considering that the Yard at this time 
 contained, with the adjacent gun wharf, naval and 
 military stores to the value of more than a couple of 
 million pounds. On the sea side this great naval 
 arsenal was chiefly defended by Southsea Castle, 
 then garrisoned by an old sergeant and three or four 
 veterans, who drove a thriving trade with the towns- 
 folk by selling them cakes and ale when on holidays 
 they made up picnics on Southsea beach. On the 
 opposite side of the harbour there was the Blockhouse, 
 but four or five invalids formed the garrison there, 
 and they spent most of their time in much the same 
 fashion as their comrades at Southsea. But then, as 
 Mr. Mildwater said, Portsmouth was waking up now, 
 and the lines of fortifications were very strong 
 should an enemy attempt the place by land, and as 
 to an attack by sea — why, the fleet would provide 
 for that, and besides, new guns and a detachment of 
 artillery were presently to be sent to the town. 
 
 In those days, Englishmen had nothing to hide, 
 and were far too brave to trouble themselves as to 
 whether or not foreigners came prying about their 
 dockyards or arsenals, watching how our shipwrights
 
 44 THE king's yard 
 
 built ships, and copying our plans. What need we 
 care ? Foreigners could not build ships, and even if 
 they could, we should certainly sooner or later go to 
 war and make prizes of the other nation's vessels. 
 
 And so, because we were indifferent as to who 
 came into the Dockyard, when you entered at the 
 gate just beyond the Ordnance wharf at the end of 
 the Yard, there was just a porter's lodge instead of a 
 police office. 
 
 The porter who sat in the lodge, provided the 
 person did not look like a thief, or was not well 
 known to him as one of the town rogues, would not 
 dream of stopping anyone from walking in — that is, 
 of course, during working hours, for at night there 
 were sentries from the garrison posted all round the 
 Dock wall. The master porter, in those days, was a 
 person of importance, and when, as sometimes was 
 the case, he held the tap as well, he made something 
 like ;^8oo a year out of it, employing, you may 
 be sure, many subordinate porters, who did all the 
 opening and shutting of gates. 
 
 When you entered the Yard, and got fairly inside 
 the gate, there, in front of you, were the mast-houses 
 and ponds, while on the right were neat rows of red 
 brick dwellings, where lived the master builder, the 
 clerk of the cheque, the clerk of the survey, the 
 master attendants, the master rigger, the master
 
 THE king's dockyard 45 
 
 shipwright, the master ropemaker, the master sail- 
 maker, and all the rest of them. Then there were 
 the fine new buildings of the Royal Academy, and 
 that great man's house with the lawn in front, the 
 residence of Mr. Commissioner Gambier (whose 
 acquaintance Mr. Hill made later on at an eventful 
 period of his life). Away to the left were the building 
 slips and docks, and beyond them the waters of the 
 harbour, where lay, dismasted hulks, whole rows of 
 prizes taken in the late French war, and beyond 
 them again the Gosport shore. 
 
 Mildwater showed his lodger all these things, but 
 Hill at his first visit seemed not much interested. 
 Even Anchor Row, with the blacksmiths' shops, where 
 they forged great thirty hundredweight anchors, and 
 blew the fires of the blacksmiths with a marvellous 
 pair of bellows, so big that the apparatus was worked 
 by a windlass, which was driven by a man, who, slung 
 by the armpits, trod a tread-mill, which in its turn 
 revolved the windlass, even such a wonderment as 
 this did not greatly excite the painter. But the 
 hemp and rope houses caught his attention, and our 
 Mildwas, who had begun to experience that keen dis- 
 appointment which comes to those who exhibit the 
 lions of a town to unsympathetic visitors, was amply 
 repaid for showing Hill the place by the painter's 
 enthusiasm over the marvels of rope-making.
 
 46 THE KING'S YARD 
 
 The long, low buildings stretched east and west 
 across the Yard from the great wall on the town side 
 to the water's edge, almost on the other. More than 
 a thousand feet they ran, the rope walks looking, from 
 a bird's-eye view of the Yard, like a parallel ruler laid 
 upon it, and beside them, running half their length, 
 was the hemp house. All over the Yard the clang 
 of the anchor forgers in the blacksmiths' shops, and 
 the dull strokes of the shipwrights' mallets at the 
 building slips, drowned all noises, except when you 
 came to the rope walks. Then the clatter of the 
 whirls or spinning wheels shut out every other sound, 
 and when a stranger entered the building a gun might 
 have been fired alongside of him, and the chances 
 are he would not have heard it. 
 
 On the ground floor of the rope walk, when the 
 painter first saw it, they were twisting a cable for a 
 seventy-four gun ship, and it took eighty men to 
 work the job, while on the floor above, groups of men 
 were spinning light ratline stuff, one man in each 
 group turning the wheel, and a couple of men walking 
 to and fro the twisting line, tending the strands as 
 they revolved with the whirls, each rope and line 
 having for its heart the white thread that marked it 
 as the King's. 
 
 " Truly this is a wonderful place," said the painter ; 
 "there be many men working here, Mr. Mildwater.
 
 THE KING'S DOCKYARD 47 
 
 I should be well pleased to get a job at this, for 
 painting is not to my taste." 
 
 Mildwater laughed : 
 
 " A job here ! Why, John Hill, men must 
 serve their time to this trade as apprentices, 
 then as journeymen, and then, if they become 
 good workers, they are admitted to the guild. 
 Now, I'll be bound that you don't know even the 
 difference betwixt a cable laid and a shroud laid 
 rope." 
 
 « Indeed, I do not." 
 
 "Well," said Mr. Mildwater impressively, "your 
 schoolen's been neglected, and in this building you 
 will learn what every boy ought to know afore he's 
 set adrift on the world. First they send us over from 
 the hemp house, all ready for making up into strands, 
 the hemp yarn, then we spin the strands into rope. 
 Three strands laid up together make a hawser laid 
 rope, and three hawsers laid together make a cable. 
 But with a shroud laid rope you twist four strands 
 round a core." 
 
 " How very interesting ! '' said the painter, yawning 
 at the description, though he watched with keen 
 attention a pot of hot tar, and wondered at the care- 
 less manner the men attending it handled the stuff. 
 But Mr. Mildwater, intent upon his subject, took 
 no heed of the other, and went on with his lesson.
 
 48 THE KING'S YARD 
 
 " You must remember, too, that in the hemp house 
 they twist up the hemp right-handed, then we twist 
 the yarns into strands left-handed, then three strands 
 to the right, and you have a hawser, and three 
 hawsers to the left and you have a cable." 
 
 " What a lot to have to learn ; the ropemakers 
 must be greatly thought of in this town." 
 
 The painter tried hard to look interested as he 
 said it. 
 
 " Don't you know the ropemakers of the Yard are 
 reckoned the best men in it, and come before even 
 the shipwrights, though they are better paid ? You 
 ought to know something about the Yard, for you 
 told me your father worked in it." 
 
 " Very true, sir ; I spoke without thinking at first. 
 I thank you for telling me. For my father died when 
 I was very young." 
 
 "Then, Mr. Hill, the shipwrights, though they do 
 get the privilege of carrying home chips in the 
 dinner hour, and making fancy boxes and such- 
 like nonsense to sell to visitors, follow us in all 
 ceremonies on State occasions. It was not so many 
 years ago when the King paid us a visit, then the 
 ropemakers, in their clean white duck suits, each 
 carrying a wand, led the procession ; why, the King's 
 carriage was drawn by leading ropemakers, myself 
 among them ! "
 
 THE king's dockyard 49 
 
 " What a wonderful privilege," remarked the 
 painter. 
 
 There was something in the tone of the man's 
 voice and the curl of his lips that troubled Mild- 
 water. 
 
 " We are simple folks here," he said, " easily 
 pleased, and though we twist rope in the King's 
 Yard, are no better than other people. There is 
 nothing to brag about because we make rope with a 
 white heart yarn, I know, but all the same we are 
 loyal men, and we like to keep up our old 
 customs." 
 
 The painter altered his tone as he answered : 
 
 "Yes, yes, of course ; it is important work. If it 
 stopped, how the country would be affected ; for the 
 ships could not be got ready for sea. It is well that 
 loyal men should be given it to do." 
 
 " Yes, that is why the officers will only employ 
 those who have served their time and belong to the 
 guild. But now that we are busy fitting out so many 
 ships, new hands are taken on here who serve as 
 labourers to the ropemakers, and perhaps before 
 long the master might give you something in that 
 way to do at the hemp house." 
 
 " Oh ! a man could get work in that building, 
 then ? " 
 
 Mildwater hesitated a moment before he replied : 
 
 D
 
 50 THE KINGS YARD 
 
 " Perhaps, if he were well spoken of by one of us, 
 just to move the hemp about and such-like jobs." 
 
 Then they went back to look at the hemp house. 
 Inside it was almost dark, for along either wall, to 
 the height of a tall man's head, bales of hemp were 
 piled up and stowed so deeply that the wall of hemp 
 was of such a width on either side as to leave only a 
 narrow central passage down the store-house. The 
 pleasant, wholesome, ship-like smell of the tarred 
 rope was too strong for the stranger, and he com- 
 plained of it, asking were there no passages for air to 
 enter the building. 
 
 Mildwater again looked doubtfully at the man. He 
 could see nothing wrong about the place, and he said 
 so, pointing out that, of course, there were alleyways 
 for the air to run along. Behind the hemp walls was a 
 narrow passage right round the building, and the 
 ropemaker showed the painter how the bales were 
 packed upon dunnage, made of old rope and wood, 
 so that all round, under, and above the hemp was a 
 beautiful current of air. 
 
 Hill was shown all these wonderful things in the 
 dinner hour, and the bell now ringing for the men to 
 return to work, the painter left Mildwater to his duty, 
 and went home to the little house in Chapel Row. 
 As he walked past a shed near the gate. Hill looked 
 curiously upon the little hand fire-pump all in readiness
 
 THE king's dockyard 5 1 
 
 in case of an outbreak of fire, capable, if smartly 
 handled and the hose was long enough to reach the 
 water, and if the men who understood its working 
 were handy, and provided the blaze was not too big, 
 of putting out a child's Guy Fawkes' bonfire.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 SURGEON BRAND 
 
 Mr. Warner was quartered in the great tower of 
 the keep of Portchester Castle, the only one of its 
 many towers considered secure enough for such a 
 prisoner. Even its eight feet thick walls were in such 
 a state of decay that in places they crumbled beneath 
 the touch of a man's hand, and each time a salute 
 was fired from the King's Bastion at Portsmouth, the 
 green ivy clinging to every wall was sprinkled white 
 with showers of dust shed by the venerable stones. 
 
 The American's room was on the second storey of 
 the tower, and some fifty feet from the ground. His 
 windows were mere narrow loopholes, and when 
 locked in at night he felt that he had no more chance 
 of getting out of the castle, old as it was, than if he 
 had been prisoner in a dungeon of the Bastille. 
 
 The lodging was not luxurious — the great bare- 
 floored room was only furnished with a pallet bed, a 
 small deal table and a couple of rush-bottomed chairs. 
 
 At night two wretched candles just enabled the 
 
 52
 
 SURGEON BRAND 53 
 
 prisoner to find his mattress, and though Bagshott, 
 by way of supplying the young man with wholesome 
 reading, had provided a " Pilgrim's Progress " and a 
 Bible, the rebel, with this limited library, felt no 
 great temptation to injure his sight by trying to read 
 at nights. 
 
 A narrow staircase led through the room to the 
 top of the tower, and the prisoner could by its means 
 get a fine view of the harbour, where lay the ships 
 fitting out to help subdue his rebellious countrymen, 
 and beyond that the sea, the highway to his home. 
 In another direction he could look out across the 
 little village of Portchester, behind it Portsdown Hill, 
 its chalk pits glistening patches of white against the 
 green-coloured slopes, and then the yellow road 
 winding past them to London. 
 
 But up here Mr. Warner was reminded too forcibly 
 that he was a prisoner, while beneath his feet, when 
 he essayed to climb the stairs, the crumbling mortar 
 fell at every step, rendering him so nervous that most 
 of his time he preferred to spend in wandering about 
 the castle grounds, where, though the high walls shut 
 out the view, and the escort following at his heels 
 was at first a little trying to his patience, he managed 
 to get through the day not altogether unpleasantly. 
 
 In the daytime he had full liberty of the grounds, 
 though always followed at a short distance by a
 
 54 THE KING'S YARD 
 
 couple of soldiers, and this privilege of taking the 
 air, the Governor warned him, would be withdrawn 
 if he spoke to other prisoners. But he had no 
 inclination to transgress in this way. The others 
 were kept at a remote part of the grounds, and 
 entertained themselves in their own way, gambling 
 with pebbles for their food allowance, and looking in 
 their dirt and raggedness such a cut-throat lot of 
 rascals that even the man in the iron mask would 
 have shunned their company. 
 
 And besides, the American had made other ac- 
 quaintances. With the Governor and Lieutenant 
 Stockleigh he could make no headway, and after 
 the first few days of his confinement nothing but 
 the barest civilities passed between Mr. Warner and 
 Captain Bagshott. 
 
 The Governor, the morning after Warner's arrival, 
 visited his quarters and held some talk with him on 
 the sin of rebellion. 
 
 " I am sorry," said the old man, " that I am com- 
 pelled to give you such poor comfort, but then, you 
 know, Mr. Warner, the consequences of resistance to 
 lawful authority are always — " 
 
 " Don't trouble yourself in the least on my account, 
 Captain Bagshott. Do your duty ; I shall not com- 
 plain — in fact, I am very comfortable, but for the 
 thought that I am lying useless here when my
 
 SURGEON BRAND 55 
 
 countrymen need every sword they can get to repel 
 your troops." 
 
 The speech was an unfortunate one, and the 
 American's sense of politeness made him sorry 
 that, on the impulse of the moment, he had 
 uttered it. 
 
 The Governor answered angrily : 
 
 "We hold very different opinions on that score, 
 young man, and I hope before long, when a few 
 ringleaders are hanged, you will see fit to change 
 yours." 
 
 Mr. Warner smiled deprecatingly. 
 
 " My dear sir, I was wrong, of course. Your senti- 
 ments are what should be expected from a British 
 officer, and mine are out of place here." 
 
 The old man was mollified, and putting his hand 
 on Warner's shoulder, he said : 
 
 "Young man, your father or his father was pro- 
 bably an Englishman, and you are a gentleman. I 
 don't ask why you have been sent to me in this way, 
 but I am sure it must be for no trifling crime against 
 the State. As a man old enough to be your father, 
 let me urge you, if it be not too late, to put yourself 
 right with my superiors and your lawful rulers." 
 
 "You are very kind. Captain Bagshott, and I 
 heartily appreciate your goodness. By the very act 
 of my arrest the British Government has put it out
 
 56 THE king's yard 
 
 of my power to clear myself, and before long I think 
 they will have excellent reasons for regretting their 
 blunder." 
 
 This settled the old Governor, who bowed stiffly, 
 and without another word left the room. 
 
 Lieutenant Stockleigh was still less companionable. 
 Every night and morning he himself locked and 
 unlocked the prisoner's room, and every night and 
 morning he bade him good-night and good-day, and 
 never by any chance uttered any other word, merely 
 answering yes and no to all attempts of the American 
 to start a conversation. 
 
 But with the coming of the surgeon the American's 
 solitude was ended. Surgeon Brand's duty required 
 him to visit all the castle inmates once each day, and 
 enter their condition in a report for the Governor. 
 On his first visit to the American, the surgeon entered 
 the room, extended his hand, and said : 
 
 " I fancy, sir, there is nothing wrong with you, 
 except, of course, the wicked condition of your mind, 
 but as I am not the parson, but the doctor, I can't 
 help that, and what is more, it's none of my business." 
 
 Warner saw the twinkle in the other's eye, and 
 laughed pleasantly in response. 
 
 " You are right," he said. " I am well enough, 
 except for the irritation of being laid by the heels 
 in this musty old castle of yours."
 
 SURGEON BRAND 57 
 
 "Faith, I cannot remove irritation arising from 
 that cause, but I can lend you some books, and give 
 you half an hour of my poor company before you 
 are locked up for the night, if you will accept the 
 offer." 
 
 " You are very kind, and I shall be grateful if you 
 will come and talk with me sometimes ; but I make 
 a condition, if you'll forgive me for bargaining over 
 such a generous offer." 
 
 " I think I can guess what your condition is ; but 
 by all means name it." 
 
 " Don't lecture me on the wickedness of rebellion." 
 
 The doctor laughed heartily as he answered : 
 
 " Pooh ! from what Captain Bagshott let fall I 
 thought that was your fear. My dear sir, I don't 
 care a straw about your politics. The dear old 
 gentleman who is in charge of us is as fine an old 
 fellow as ever lived, but his confounded loyalty tires 
 me sometimes. Don't fear that I shall trouble you 
 on that score. I've been treated too scurvily in 
 England and too well in America not to wish the 
 Colonies a happy issue out of their quarrel." 
 
 " What ! Are you with us > " 
 
 The American lowered his voice and stepped 
 forward eagerly, with outstretched hands. 
 
 Brand stepped back and put his hands behind him, 
 as he replied :
 
 58 THE king's yard 
 
 " Gently, young man ; don't jump at conclusions so 
 hastily. I am in the service of King George, and 
 draw his pay, which I assure you is small enough, yet 
 very important to me. But make no mistake, I'm on 
 the side I serve, so give me no confidence, and count 
 me as a friendly enemy." 
 
 "Alas, sir, I thought that you said you were an 
 American and — " 
 
 " No, only that I had been in America, and I like 
 the Colonies and the Colonists. Believe me, there 
 are many Englishmen of the same way of thinking 
 who have not been in America — many who are 
 heartily ashamed of and regret the war, but who are 
 perhaps a trifle less ready than I am to acknowledge 
 their opinions." 
 
 " Never mind, we can still be friends — friendly 
 enemies, as you say." 
 
 This was the beginning of an agreeable intercourse 
 between the two, and every day the surgeon spent an 
 hour or more in the American's company. 
 
 The Governor, finding that the spirit of rebellion 
 was still in his prisoner, came to the conclusion that 
 he was a very dangerous fellow, and gave a general 
 order that when the American took his walks in the 
 grounds he was to be prevented from having 
 intercourse with any other inmates of the castle, 
 Lieutenant Stockleigh, Dr. Brand, and Parson
 
 SURGEON BRAND 59 
 
 Bramber being the only persons exempted from 
 this regulation. 
 
 " Dolly, my dear," the old man said to his daughter, 
 a day or two after the American's arrival, " I need 
 scarcely tell you that you must take no notice of that 
 rebel if you should chance to meet him ; the man is 
 a very dangerous fellow, and while I don't mind you 
 going about among the other poor ignorant rascals if 
 it pleases you, of course you will not even speak to 
 this Warner." 
 
 " No, of course not, father, though really I cannot 
 see what the poor young man can have done to be 
 looked upon as such a monster." 
 
 Of course Bagshott lost his temper, and soundly 
 rated Dolly — the idea of a child of her age questioning 
 his ruling ; she had had too much liberty, and needed 
 sadly a mother to keep her in order. 
 
 And this was true enough, for Dolly, it must be 
 confessed, was somewhat wilful and inclined to act 
 upon impulse, more even than the average of her youth 
 and sex. Her father, knowing little of the world and 
 still less of the ways of women, had married a fine 
 lady, who had somewhat looked down upon his 
 homeliness, and Dolly often found him lacking in 
 sympathy, and wrong in judgment, in matters 
 concerning the sex from whom his fifty years of 
 sea-going had still further divorced him, and so she,
 
 60 THE king's yard 
 
 loving him none the less, soon in most things 
 governed him. 
 
 But she was a lovable little woman, and all the 
 castle's inmates cheerfully submitted to her rule, and 
 the greatest proof of her power to win men's hearts 
 lay in her influence over the castle surgeon. 
 
 Brand was forty years of age, tall and lean and 
 ugly, and what was worse, poor and friendless. In 
 his younger days he had been a dreamer, and had 
 gone abroad and studied medicine on the Continent 
 in the hope of attaining eminence in his profession. 
 Abroad he had picked up some real science, and 
 with a strong brain and a light heart for all his 
 capital, set up a practice in London. He was a 
 century too early. Rival practitioners found that 
 occasionally, and by means contrary to the practice 
 and etiquette laid down by the faculty, he had saved 
 the lives of patients they had nearly killed, and so 
 they dubbed him quack, and soon he became a 
 bankrupt. 
 
 Again Brand went abroad — to America, some said 
 — but he never talked of his affairs, then he turned 
 army surgeon, and somehow, for no one in the castle 
 knew by whose influence he obtained the appointment, 
 a few years later became surgeon to the garrison of 
 Portchester, responsible for the health of the prisoners 
 and their veteran guard at forty pounds a year.
 
 SURGEON BRAND 6l 
 
 Brand seldom spoke to any man or woman, except 
 Dolly, unless it was to level some biting sarcasm at 
 their heads, and he, who nearly always looked upon 
 those who sought his aid as only shamming sick to 
 avoid work, was ever ready to attend to Dolly's 
 lightest complaints, and even pretended to believe in, 
 and prescribed for her sick headaches. 
 
 On fine afternoons it was Miss Bagshott's habit to 
 take a stroll about the castle grounds, sometimes even 
 having a word with the rascals in the prisoners' part ; 
 for she had grown used to their unwholesome appear- 
 ance, and the veriest devil among them all was always 
 saint-like in his demeanour when the Governor's 
 daughter was anywhere near him. 
 
 So that it came to pass that, in spite, or perhaps in 
 consequence of Captain Bagshott's prohibition, Miss 
 Dolly within a fortnight had twice encountered the 
 American. Each time the rebel had bowed to her 
 with great dignity and passed on ; but there came 
 a third meeting, when Mr. Warner stopped, and 
 said : 
 
 " Good morning. Miss Bagshott." 
 
 Dolly, taken by surprise, curtseyed deeply, and 
 replied : " Good day, sir," then hurried on her way. 
 
 For a day or two after this Miss Dolly did not 
 go near the American's exercise ground, but kept 
 to a part where he was never seen, and there one
 
 62 THE KING'S YARD 
 
 afternoon, while leaning over a parapet watching the 
 autumn tints of the declining sun upon the waters of 
 Portchester Lake, she was startled by a footstep close 
 beside her. 
 
 It was the rebel. He touched her lightly upon the 
 arm, and said : 
 
 " Forgive me if I startled you, but you have nothing 
 to fear; see, my guard is within call. I could not 
 help speaking to you, you remind me so much of my 
 sister at home, and it is very lonely here." 
 
 Dolly looked quickly about her, conscious that her 
 father's anger was sometimes of a kind not to be 
 encountered in the presence of a stranger, then she 
 answered : 
 
 " You did startle me for a moment, sir ; but I am 
 not allowed to talk to you, though, of course, I am 
 very sorry." 
 
 " And so am I. It is most unjust that I should be 
 treated in such fashion." 
 
 The girl looked at him and smiled, as she 
 answered : 
 
 " Why ever don't you put yourself right ? Don't be 
 a rebel, and then they won't keep you here." 
 
 " You don't understand, Miss Bagshott. I assure 
 you that they have made a mistake, which I hope will 
 be explained, and we shall become friends." 
 
 " Perhaps so ; but at present you know I must, like
 
 SURGEON BRAND 63 
 
 a dutiful daughter, take my father's view of your case, 
 and so wish you good afternoon." 
 
 Then Dolly, with a demure droop of her eyelids, 
 made a very dignified curtsey, and ran down the 
 slope of the parapet, and was out of sight before 
 the American had had time to more than raise his 
 hat.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 MR. WARNER MAKES THE MOST OF HIS 
 PRIVILEGES 
 
 A FORTNIGHT later Dolly Bagshott came in from 
 
 her afternoon's walk, and pleading to her father that 
 
 she had a sick headache, went straight to her little 
 
 bedroom and locked herself in. 
 
 The looking-glass on the dressing-table, as the girl 
 
 sat in front of it, reflected a colour on her cheeks and 
 
 a glitter in her eyes that all the world, she thought, 
 
 could detect came not from walking exercise. She 
 
 saw the tell-tale symptoms, and remembering what 
 
 caused them, for the first time in her butterfly 
 
 existence she was frightened at the prospect of 
 
 meeting face to face her father — so terrified at the 
 
 prospect that, after a moment's endeavour to calm 
 
 herself by clenching her little hands and setting her 
 
 teeth tightly together, she gave it up, and dropping 
 
 upon the bed, muffled her face in the counterpane 
 
 and burst into violent crying. 
 
 64
 
 MR. WARNER'S PRIVILEGES 6$ 
 
 Every day the American had contrived to meet 
 her in his walks abroad, and every day she had made 
 a firm resolve to avoid him ; but every day had ended 
 as the day before. She had met him, had talked and 
 walked with him, and gradually the meeting of these 
 two had become to them the event of each day, the 
 talk between them less and less of the commonplace, 
 and more and more of the personal, until upon this 
 afternoon there came the crisis. 
 
 " I have told you it is a mistake," he had said. " I 
 have assured you that we shall meet again in happier 
 circumstances, but you are right, Miss Bagshott ; 
 while I am a prisoner, we must not see each other, 
 and — yes, it is a beautiful view." 
 
 The last remark was for the benefit of the two 
 soldiers who had come within hearing. But they 
 understood. " Keep well in the rear, Dick. 'Tis a 
 dull old place, and the bit of love-making won't do 
 any harm." This is what one said to the other, and 
 the state of affairs had become known to half the 
 guard as, day after day, the men whose turn 
 it was for duty saw for themselves how the land lay. 
 
 " But surely you can clear yourself ; truth will 
 prevail, and — and you know you confessed to me 
 that you are a rebel. I don't understand. Go to 
 my father, tell him the whole truth, and he will make 
 them look for the right man,"
 
 66 THE KING'S YARD 
 
 "If I were only free for twenty-four hours 
 I could explain it all. Many days have been lost 
 now, but I cannot explain. Only trust me, Miss 
 Dolly." 
 
 As he spoke, he took her hand, and she, unresisting 
 for a moment, stood still, the two of them unheedful 
 of the low, warning whistle and cough from the 
 soldiers, until a stern voice said : 
 
 " Upon my word, sir, you make a fine use of your 
 exercise ground ! " 
 
 It was Dr. Brand who, with his most vinegar-like 
 smile, stood watching them. 
 
 " And you, young lady, you seem to have made 
 friends with this gentleman. The thing is surprising, 
 even to such a citizen of the world as myself." 
 
 The American stepped in front of the girl and 
 answered sharply : 
 
 " There is nothing for you to be surprised at, sir. 
 Do not go away, Miss Bagshott ; I know our friend, 
 and I am quite sure that I shall presently satisfy him 
 perfectly." 
 
 "You know very little of him, sir, if you think that 
 he will not want a very clear explanation immedi- 
 ately. Meanwhile, Miss Dolly, I advise you to go 
 back to the house." 
 
 "You are very kind. Dr. Brand, but I am quite 
 able to decide what is fitting for me to do. This
 
 MR. WARNER'S PRIVILEGES 6^ 
 
 gentleman and I were conversing together when you 
 saw fit to interrupt us. Why, pray ? " 
 
 " My dear Miss Bagshott, we will not discuss that ; 
 go back to your father, who has the right to assert 
 his authority over you, and this gentleman — Mr. 
 Warner and I — will talk over this — this — this breach 
 of the regulations." 
 
 Then Dolly's lips began to quiver, but she braced 
 herself up for a moment, and said, so huskily that 
 her words could scarce be understood : 
 
 " Go away, Mr. Warner, please ; Mr. Brand will 
 talk with you later. Meanwhile, I must see him 
 alone." 
 
 " But, Miss Bagshott, I must—" 
 
 " No, no ; go away, please, for my sake." 
 
 " Very well. Mr. Brand, I am going to my 
 quarters. I should be glad to see you there when it 
 pleases Miss Bagshott." 
 
 " Never fear, sir ; I will be with you shortly," said 
 the doctor. 
 
 The American bowed and walked away, followed 
 by his escort, who had watched the whole scene from 
 the foot of the parapet, where they had been standing 
 just close enough to overhear an occasional word from 
 the three principal actors grouped above them. 
 
 " Now, Miss Dolly, what have you to say to me? " 
 
 Brand spoke harshly.
 
 68 THE KING'S YARD 
 
 " Simply this, sir." She was quite calm now — 
 much cooler than the surgeon, who kept moving to 
 and fro half-a-dozen paces, and who hung his head as 
 if unable to face the girl. " Simply this, sir. You 
 are, of course, about to tell my father that you have 
 caught his daughter and a gentleman, whose mis- 
 fortune it is to be unjustly kept prisoner, talking 
 together in such manner as to suggest — to suggest — 
 in short — " Then her firmness suddenly leaving 
 her, she burst out crying. 
 
 Brand's severity melted to a wonderful softness. 
 
 " Don't cry ; don't cry, Dolly," he said. " Tell me 
 all about it ; trust me. Your father be hang — no, I 
 mean I won't tell — that is, explain this wretched 
 business, and — and — " 
 
 " That is more like yourself. Come, sir, we shall 
 get along now. Of course I will explain." 
 
 Dolly was all smiles through her tears. 
 
 " But how far has it gone ? " 
 
 " How far has what gone ? You know, Mr. Brand, 
 he is a very honourable young gentleman, and quite 
 innocent of any crime." 
 
 " Oh, indeed ! " 
 
 "Yes, indeed. And I assure you that when he 
 took my hand we were parting never to speak to 
 each other again until he came back a free man." 
 
 *' I am glad to hear it. And when will that be ? "
 
 MR. WARNER'S PRIVILEGES 69 
 
 "That is just what we were talking about when 
 you came up in that suspicious way. He must be 
 helped to clear himself; he can do nothing shut up 
 in that horrid old keep all day." 
 
 " He seems to have been given too much freedom as 
 it is, and to have got deeper involved in consequence." 
 
 " No ; we must help him to prove his innocence." 
 
 " We must, eh ? Well, I should be very glad to 
 clear him, since you seem so concerned about it." 
 
 *' I am concerned. You have always been good to 
 me ; will you help him for my sake ? " 
 
 " Listen, Dolly ; answer me truthfully. What does 
 this holding of hands mean ? Why was he standing 
 with his head bending over you, as only someone very 
 near or dear should be permitted to stand ? Tell me 
 plainly, Dolly, how far has this gone ? " 
 
 Brand spoke earnestly, looking very straight into 
 Dolly's eyes, and she looked back as honestly at him, 
 and answered : 
 
 " Dear sir, I swear no words have passed between 
 us — nothing but what you saw and heard ! — but," and 
 now Dolly's eyes sought the ground again, and her 
 voice was but a murmur, " I know — he knows — we 
 understand one another." 
 
 " Very well, Dolly ; I like the man for his own sake, 
 but I like not his meeting you thus — this secret 
 business is not what I would have thougot of him —
 
 70 THE KING'S YARD 
 
 but," he in his turn faltered—" but I love you, Dolly, 
 I love you very dearly — as another father or an elder 
 brother might." 
 
 The girl looked shyly at him for a moment, some 
 instinct brought a stronger tint into her blushing 
 cheeks, but the half-formed thought passed away, and 
 she felt that in the two years she had known him, she 
 had learned to love him as a daughter or a younger 
 sister loves. 
 
 Then recovering his natural manner. Brand said : 
 
 " No more talk of this matter, Miss Dolly, and no 
 more breaches of regulations until I see you again. 
 I will have some talk with this — this gentleman. 
 Meanwhile, we will keep the affair to ourselves. Go 
 away now." 
 
 " Thank you, doctor ; believe me that I am grate- 
 ful for your goodness. I know that all will come 
 well. You are indeed like a brother." 
 
 Then, feeling that tears were coming, Dolly made a 
 bolt for it, and ran into the house to have a good cry 
 in her bedroom, as we have said. 
 
 Dr. Brand, when Dolly left him, went straight to 
 the American's quarters. He had made up his mind, 
 and as soon as the door was closed behind him, 
 said : 
 
 " I will come to the point at once, sir. Miss 
 Bagshott's happiness is a matter of great concern to
 
 MR. Warner's privileges 71 
 
 me, and if her father knew of the intimacy between 
 you, the consequences would be serious ; therefore I 
 ask you to be frank with me." 
 
 Warner looked the other straight in the eyes, as 
 one who had no cause to be ashamed. Then he 
 replied : 
 
 " Nothing would give me greater pleasure, doctor, 
 than to convince you that I consider Miss Bagshott's 
 happiness before all things else, and in proof of it, 
 when you came upon us we had parted not to meet 
 again until I was a free man." 
 
 " When is that likely to be ? Do you think that 
 Captain Bagshott would ever consent to part with 
 his daughter to an American ? " 
 
 " As to that last question, the old man's scruples 
 could perhaps be got over when the quarrel is ended, 
 It won't last much longer, I am sure of that. But as 
 to the first question, I confess I am puzzled. Has 
 Miss Dolly told you all that passed between us ? 
 Has she confided in you the reason why I am held 
 here, and why I am compelled to be silent when I 
 might open your old castle gates by a word ? " 
 
 The doctor hesitated. Dolly had concealed some- 
 thing. Perhaps, after all, the American was playing a 
 dishonourable game, in which case, thought Brand, he 
 has made a mistake in his man. 
 
 " Miss Dolly has told me several things, and hinted
 
 72 THE KING'S YARD 
 
 at Others, but I prefer a straightforward statement 
 from yourself. I should like to decide between two 
 versions of the same story," he replied, smiling in a 
 pleasant, sympathetic way, which invited Mr. Warner's 
 confidence. 
 
 " In a few words, then, doctor, here is my story. I 
 came over from France with certain instructions and 
 some money from two American citizens, whose names 
 I won't mention, but whom you know well enough. 
 My business was to see and pay a man who is — a — 
 who is, in short, a spy in our service. The English 
 Government has its agents watching every movement 
 of our agents in France, and of course they were 
 ready for my coming. But the point is this : they 
 have taken me in mistake for the spy. They had 
 certain very particular reasons for taking that spy, but 
 they had not the least evidence which would justify 
 my arrest. Evidently their information has not been 
 altogether clear, and so they are keeping me tied up 
 here until they can prove something against me, or 
 until they come to blows with France, when my 
 French protection will be worse than useless." 
 
 Brand frowned. 
 
 "A very pretty muddle. But what is the word 
 that you might speak, and won't, and why don't you 
 utter it ? " he answered. 
 
 " Don't you understand ? I have only to say to
 
 MR. WARNER'S PRIVILEGES 73 
 
 the Governor, ' Captain Bagshott, your Government 
 has got the wrong man ; so and so is his name. He 
 is to be found at such and such a place. You can 
 identify him by this, that, and the other ; take him, 
 and let me go.'" 
 
 " And you won't betray the other man, because he 
 is a spy, and you are — an agent ; I suppose that is the 
 distinction ? " 
 
 " Would you purchase freedom at the price ? And, 
 besides, what you don't know and won't believe is, 
 that my visit to the man would not have injured your 
 Government, but, on the contrary, would have pre- 
 vented a disaster. By my arrest they have injured 
 their own cause. It serves them right. Their muddle 
 will bring about a catastrophe. As I have said, it 
 serves 'em right. I don't care now ; they have made 
 a devil of a mess of it, for all their cleverness, and in 
 the interests of America I am glad of it." 
 
 The doctor turned sharply upon Warner and 
 answered : 
 
 " But since I happen to be in the English service, 
 it is my duty to take care they get the right man, and 
 so, suppose I re-tell your story, what then ? " 
 
 " First, you won't, because I have told you this in 
 confidence — a confidence I was forced into giving you 
 on account of a lady. Second, if you were dishonour- 
 able enough to repeat what I have said, you would
 
 / 
 
 74 THE king's yard 
 
 gain nothing. You can't find the other man, and 
 your superiors would not thank you for interfering." 
 
 The doctor took a couple of turns across the room 
 and thought for a moment. Presently he said : 
 
 " Is there no middle course ; is there nothing can 
 be done by writing to — " 
 
 " Yes, that's just it ; as I was telling Miss Bagshott 
 yesterday, if I could get a letter to — " 
 
 The doctor whistled softly. " Yes," he said, " yes, 
 a letter to the authorities ? " 
 
 " The authorities be hanged ! A letter to our man, 
 of course." 
 
 " The devil. This is what you suggested to Miss 
 Bagshott, is it ? And what did she say ? " 
 
 " Say ? Why, of course, nothing could be easier." 
 
 " And you propose to let her do this for you ? " 
 
 " Now, there you do me an injustice, doctor. I 
 proposed nothing of the kind. She offered to do it, 
 and I wouldn't hear of it. Then she suggested you." 
 
 " Me ! " 
 
 " Yes, of course ; I thought she had explained." 
 
 "Something, but not all." 
 
 " Well, then I thought it over, and I saw there was 
 only one course, and — and well, look here, I have 
 told you so much, and I might as well out with it all. 
 The long and the short of it is I won't give this man 
 up, but what I must do is this: I want to communi-
 
 MR. WARNER'S PRIVILEGES 75 
 
 cate with him, and I want to get out of this place for 
 three or four days. At the end of that time I will 
 return and give myself up, or the French Minister in 
 London will satisfy your Government, and clear me, 
 and no one in the castle shall suffer for my temporary 
 absence from it." 
 
 *' And what part was Miss Dolly to play in all this 
 beautiful plan for your escape — for that is the name 
 to call it by ? " 
 
 " Nothing, beyond inducing you to arrange it — 
 nothing, I swear," said the American, and he said it 
 quite coolly, and enjoying the doctor's astonishment, 
 his brown eyes twinkling with fun. 
 
 Brand, however, saw nothing amusing in the plan, 
 and he shook his head very emphatically. 
 
 " Miss Bagshott has overrated her powers of 
 persuasion," he said. " I will not assist you to 
 escape, but I will help you to a certain extent, and 
 if you attempt anything beyond that, I myself will be 
 the first man to take every care that you don't leave 
 here." 
 
 The good humour of the American was gone. He 
 answered : 
 
 " Very well, sir ; you are perfectly justified in 
 making me such an answer, and I was a fool to 
 expect any other. Let us forget the incident." 
 
 "Wait a moment. Frankly, I suspect that the
 
 76 THE king's yard 
 
 mere delivery of a letter means something vastly 
 more important to you than you make it appear, and 
 he who helps you to do this thing may be placing 
 himself in a mighty awkward position — mind I only 
 suspect, I don't want to know. Very well, knowing 
 so much, I will undertake to deliver the letter. Don't 
 involve me more than you can help, and above all, 
 Miss Bagshott must have nothing whatever to do 
 with it." 
 
 The American's good-humour came back again. - 
 
 "Thank you heartily, doctor," he said, "you are 
 behaving very generously ; how can I thank you 
 enough ? " 
 
 " Simply by not asking me to depart more than is 
 absolutely necessary from what is my strict line of 
 duty, and by asking nothing from Miss Bagshott." 
 
 " To be honest, doctor, I confess that in asking you 
 to convey a letter to a certain person I shall be asking 
 more than I have a right to expect from an officer in 
 the service of King George." 
 
 " Well, well, ask away. First, I am only a poor 
 devil of a surgeon, who is not supposed to have such 
 a keen sense of honour as is expected from the 
 fighting men — as from Captain Bagshott, for instance; 
 second, as I told you before, I have a sneaking regard 
 for Americans, so go ahead." 
 
 Warner smiled pleasantly.
 
 MR. WARNER'S PRIVILEGES TJ 
 
 " Very well," he said. " To begin, I must write a 
 letter, and when it is written, I can intrust it to no 
 one but yourself, and you must deliver it to a man 
 living at Portsmouth." 
 
 " There are a great many men in Portsmouth, 
 Mr. Warner. I shall want a plain direction 
 for this pleasant mission. There must be no asking 
 people questions as to where he lives, and so 
 on." 
 
 " I will explain — and this is where I ask you to 
 promise, upon your honour as a gentleman, not to 
 divulge what is a secret belonging to my Government 
 — I do not care what you may feel to be your duty 
 with regard to myself, but I tell you candidly I am 
 putting this man's life in your hands." 
 
 " You want me, then, to put myself in communica- 
 tion with an American spy ? " 
 
 •' As bad or worse." 
 
 " Can there be anything worse ? " 
 
 "Yes, but I can explain no further, except as I 
 have said, your people suspect me to be this very 
 man — I am sure they do, and this is a great injustice 
 to me." Warner stopped a moment. Then he 
 added : " I would not be such an infernal rascal as 
 he is if the freedom of all America depended upon it." 
 
 " And you want me to communicate with this man, 
 notwithstanding your opinion of him ? "
 
 78 THE king's yard 
 
 " To convey a letter to him. I swear that such 
 letter will be of the greatest advantage to the English 
 Government, and while it may be the means of 
 forwarding my release, it will also, I hope, prevent 
 disaster." 
 
 " Very well ; write your letter, give it to me, and I 
 will deliver it." 
 
 " One thing more, doctor. Suppose, as a conse- 
 quence of this letter, I get out of the castle and in a 
 day or two return, or you receive indisputable proof 
 that I am what I represent myself — an American of 
 good family, a gentleman whose only fault is that he 
 belongs to the party of freedom — will you be my 
 advocate with Captain Bagshott ? Will you help me 
 in my suit ? " 
 
 The doctor put his hands behind him, took a walk 
 across the room, and his back was turned to the 
 American when he answered, which was perhaps the 
 reason his voice sounded strange in the other's ears. 
 
 " Time enough, sir, when you come back in good 
 odour with the authorities to talk of this. But be 
 assured that no consideration — that no influence that 
 I can bring to bear, nothing that I can do, shall be 
 wanting to secure Miss Bagshott's happiness."
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 A PEDLAR AT PORTCHESTER 
 
 Two or three times a week John Hill, painter, called 
 at the Help the Lame Dog over the Stile, and asked 
 for letters; but so far Mr. Powditch had received none 
 for him. 
 
 "Ah, here's the job he's looking for," said the 
 landlord, when one day a person entered the tavern 
 and asked for one John Hill, who he believed was 
 lodging there. 
 
 The person was thereupon directed to Mrs. 
 Mildwater's house, and having found the place, was 
 informed that John Hill was her lodger, but he was 
 not at home at present. 
 
 " How long will he be ? Is it any use my waiting?'' 
 
 " Well, sir, he has gone into the Yard with my 
 
 husband. Mildwas is trying to get him took on 
 
 there, and he won't be back afore the evening. Is 
 
 there any message or name ? " 
 
 " Gone to the Yard, is he ? No, no name ; but a 
 
 79
 
 80 THE king's yard 
 
 message — a letter. I think, perhaps, if you will be 
 sure to give it to him, I'll leave it with you." 
 
 The speaker's doubtful tone, and the carefully 
 sealed letter, impressed Mrs. Mildwater with a due 
 sense of its importance. 
 
 " As you please, sir ; but if you leave it with me, 
 I'll be sure to give it to Hill, or you could take it into 
 the Yard. I daresay you'll find him somewhere about 
 the rope house — he has a great fancy for stopping 
 about there with Mildwas — and if it's work he'll be 
 glad to hear of it." 
 
 " No, I think you had better give it to him. Yes, 
 it is work ; he'll know where it comes from. Good 
 day to you." 
 
 Dr. Brand was, of course, the bearer of the letter. 
 He had left the castle in the morning by a Ports- 
 mouth bound wagon, executed his mission, and was 
 back at Portchester early in the afternoon, making 
 straight for the prisoner's quarters, intending to tell 
 him that the thing was done. Mr. Warner was not 
 in his room, and Brand made for that favourite walk 
 of the American, where Miss Bagshott sometimes 
 rambled. He found the American there, and caught 
 sight of Dolly walking rapidly away as he came on 
 the spot. 
 
 " This is scarcely what we bargained for," said the 
 surgeon sharply.
 
 A PEDLAR AT PORTCHESTER 8l 
 
 " I admit it ; but this is the last interview. Have 
 you delivered my letter ? " 
 
 " Yes, though not into the man's hands. He was 
 not at the inn, but in a private lodging near by. I 
 gave it to his landlady, and there's no doubt he will 
 get it." 
 
 " I hope that he will, but I should have preferred 
 you to have given it into his own hands, doctor." 
 
 " Quite so, but I did the best I could with safety, 
 and I should have preferred you to have kept apart 
 from Miss Bagshott. I have a strong suspicion that 
 you are dragging her into some mess, and by heaven, 
 if you do, sir, I'll — " 
 
 " Now, doctor, do be reasonable. I have told you 
 that I will not run off with Miss Bagshott, but will 
 before long honourably tell her father all that has 
 happened." 
 
 The doctor shrugged his shoulders and walked 
 away. Later, when he joined Captain Bagshott in 
 the evening game of backgammon, and Dolly, as was 
 her usual custom, sat at her embroidery beside them, 
 Brand was so silent and so little inclined to reply 
 to her attempts at conversation, that even the old 
 Governor noticed it, and asked if he was poorly. 
 
 On the forenoon of the following day, when 
 Captain Bagshott was busy in his little office, exam- 
 ining his accounts, there arrived at the main gate of
 
 82 THE king's yard 
 
 the castle a pedlar, who was promptly told by the 
 sentry to " Be off out of that ; none of your tribe's 
 allowed inside here." 
 
 But the pedlar laughed as he answered : 
 
 " That rule is all very well with strangers. Send 
 one of the guard up to the house, the young lady 
 expects me. And, corporal, tell Miss Bagshott the 
 pedlar's come with the ribbons, and if you are not a 
 fool you won't mention it before the old man. Fathers 
 have no liking for poor folk who bring pretty things 
 to sell to women. Here's something for yourself for 
 the trouble." 
 
 " All right, I'll tell her, but I don't believe your 
 yarn, and she will only send a message to you to 
 make yourself scarce." 
 
 But Dolly came back with the corporal. 
 
 " Good day, miss," said the pedlar, " I was sure you 
 would come ; I have all sorts of beautiful things here, 
 if you will take me to some place where I can show 
 them." 
 
 " You may come in," answered Dolly, and led the 
 way, taking the man across the green in the direction 
 of the Governor's house, but turning aside to another 
 part of the grounds as soon as they were out of sight 
 of the soldiers. 
 
 " What do you bring ? quick, I have not a moment 
 to spare," said Dolly.
 
 A PEDLAR AT PQRTCHESTER 83 
 
 " Certain things for the right person," replied the 
 pedlar. "First, here is a note not addressed, but I 
 know you will deliver it rightly. Second, here are 
 two coloured kerchiefs for yourself, young lady, which 
 is all you will find in my pack worth having. Then 
 show me a place where I can leave some things for a 
 friend of mine where he and no other will by-and-by 
 discover them." 
 
 " Follow me, and be ready to empty your pack 
 quickly, for we must not be seen together near this 
 place," answered Dolly. 
 
 Then she led the way to an old circular stone 
 tower near the keep, which, in the days of the 
 castle's youth, had been a guard - room, but was 
 now little else than a circle of crumbling stones, 
 almost hidden by an oak that grew beside it, and 
 held together only by the clinging ivy. 
 
 " Go in quickly, and bury the things under the 
 fallen leaves." 
 
 The pedlar did as he was told, and in a moment 
 reappeared, his pack visibly reduced in size. 
 
 Then Dolly handed him a purse. 
 
 " He sends you this. Now follow me to the gate," 
 she said. 
 
 " Be sure to give him the note, young woman. He 
 knows I will make good use of the money, but if you 
 betray us there will be — "
 
 84 THE KING'S YARD 
 
 "That will do. I should not have so lowered 
 myself as to practise this deceit if I had not reason 
 enough to keep secret." 
 
 "Very true," muttered the pedlar, but not loud 
 enough for the girl to hear. " It is wise to employ a 
 woman in the business, provided he gives her no 
 cause for jealousy." 
 
 They were at the gate, and Dolly, turning to the 
 corporal, said : 
 
 " See the pedlar clear of the place. I won't have 
 any more dealings with him ; he has persuaded me 
 almost to empty his pack, and he is much too dear in 
 his charges." 
 
 " Be off at once," ordered the corporal, " and don't 
 show your face here again." 
 
 " Gad, but she's a clever little woman, and she's 
 got full value for her money," said the pedlar, as he 
 went away, walking quickly out of sight along the 
 Portchester road. 
 
 After dinner Dolly strolled about the grounds as 
 usual, and soon the American came sauntering 
 towards her. The soldiers prepared to drop to the 
 rear, having come to regard this meeting as part of 
 the day's routine. 
 
 " Good afternoon, Miss Bagshott," he said, loud 
 enough for the men to hear. " I have been profiting 
 by your lessons in the castle's architecture, and have
 
 A PEDLAR AT PORTCHESTER 85 
 
 discovered traces of very ancient building in all sorts 
 of places. Now this round tower, small as it is, has 
 three distinct styles." 
 
 " Yes, Mr. Warner," the girl answered demurely, 
 " this is the very oldest part of the old place ; have 
 you examined the inside ? " 
 
 " No, not yet. I came this afternoon to do so. 
 I find this poking about into the history of the old 
 place passes my time admirably." 
 
 " Here, sir, is a plan of an ancient Roman fortress, 
 copied from an old book, and you will see how much 
 it resembles Portchester." Then Miss Bagshott 
 handed Mr. Warner a piece of paper, and added : 
 " The weather is too cold for me to wander about 
 to-day. Good afternoon, sir." 
 
 The American bowed. 
 
 "Good afternoon. Miss Bagshott," he replied. "I 
 shall make a sketch of this part of the castle, and 
 compare it with your plan." 
 
 The Governor's daughter went on her way, and 
 Mr. Warner, turning towards the soldiers, remarked 
 carelessly : 
 
 " I suppose it is not against the regulations for me 
 to explore this old guard-room, or whatever it is ? " 
 
 " No, sir," replied one of them ; " go where you 
 please, so long as you don't try to get outside." 
 
 The American laughed.
 
 86 THE king's yard 
 
 " There is no fear of that, with you two fellows 
 always at my heels," he answered, and entered the 
 ruin. 
 
 " There's some game on," said one of the soldiers 
 to the other ; " the girl handed him a note, and he's 
 gone into the old tower to read it." 
 
 " Well, he is a good-hearted young fellow, and the 
 guard-room has had more money out of his purse in 
 the time he has been here than we have drawn from 
 the paymaster, so let him alone." 
 
 "Faith, I don't care what he does so long as he 
 don't make a bolt of it," replied the other. 
 
 Inside the tower, the American looked through one 
 of its loopholes to make sure the soldiers were not 
 watching him ; then he kicked about among the heap 
 of fallen leaves upon the earthen floor, and presently 
 struck something. It was a coil of fine strong rope, 
 of the kind used to make ratlines. He carefully 
 covered it up again with the leaves, and carelessly 
 strolled round the tower and out again to the open. 
 Then, after talking a while with his escort, and giving 
 them his opinion that the American Militia would 
 never stand five minutes before regular British troops, 
 he handed them a coin to drink his health, and saying 
 it was too chilly to remain out, walked back to the 
 keep through the guard-room, where his escort left 
 him, and rejoined their comrades.
 
 A PEDLAR AT PORTCHESTER 87 
 
 At six o'clock the man who waited on him brought 
 his supper ; two hours later Lieutenant Stockleigh 
 visited the guard, and then, as usual, locked the 
 prisoner in his room for the night. The American 
 heard the guard relieved, and the sentries posted 
 round the walls, and all was quiet. Then he went to 
 a corner of the room and opened his valise. From 
 it he took out several articles, among them a heavy 
 leather bag of money, and rolling them into a cloak, 
 he arranged it like a knapsack, strapping it to his 
 shoulders with the straps of his valise, which he cut 
 off for the purpose. He did these things handily and 
 quickly, as men who have learnt soldiering do them. 
 
 Then he stepped across the great room to a recess, 
 where was situated the little spiral stairway leading 
 to the top of the tower. He went up the stairs, and 
 at the top of it pushed aside a small hatchway, and 
 came out upon the roof. Then in a stooping posture, 
 so that the shadow of his figure could not be seen 
 from below, he looked through the apertures in the 
 castellated top. 
 
 It was quite dark, except for the lights of 
 Portsmouth town, which could be seen down the 
 harbour. Still crouching, he felt about the floor with 
 his hands, and presently touched a ringbolt. He 
 pulled on this, and by its aid opened a small 
 hatchway, which disclosed a flight of steps.
 
 88 THE KING'S YARD 
 
 This was the main stairway to the keep, and the 
 bottom of it was in the guard-room below. He care- 
 fully descended this, feeling every step as he went 
 down, and treading as lightly as possible ; but with 
 all his care loose mortar would every now and then 
 fall away, and rattle with a noise that to him sounded 
 like a volley of musketry. The blank darkness of the 
 place, and the ruined state of the staircase, would 
 have shaken the nerves of a stronger-minded man ; 
 and once or twice he stopped, and half turned back, 
 fearful that at his next step downwards he would go 
 headlong to the bottom. But he had gone over the 
 ground often before in the daytime, and knew the 
 stones would give way beneath him, though not 
 dangerously, and presently a few rays of light pene- 
 trated through the loopholes and from the hatchway 
 above, and this gave him courage to go on. 
 
 Thirty steps down he came to a kind of landing. 
 The stairway continued from this to the guard-room, 
 but to his right the landing branched off a few feet, 
 and then descended a dozen more steps to a narrow 
 passage, at the end of which was a small oak door, so 
 decayed that the wood-work was only held together 
 by the big iron hinges. This door was half open. 
 He passed through, and came upon the roof of a small 
 tower, which overlooked the main road upon the 
 landward side of the castle's walls.
 
 A PEDLAR AT PORTCHESTER 89 
 
 Round this part of the castle ran a dry moat, some 
 eight feet deep, and from the bottom of this moat to 
 the top of the tower was about twenty feet. Looking 
 cautiously over the parapet, on the roadway outside 
 the moat, Warner saw two sentries — one to the right 
 and one to the left of him — the two men, as they 
 paced to and fro, meeting just beneath the 
 tower. 
 
 Inside the castle wall, on the other side of the 
 tower, and adjoining it, was the old ruined guard- 
 room, where his rope lay hidden beneath a heap of 
 fallen leaves. The branches of the tree from which 
 the leaves had fallen, and which formed a roof to the 
 ruin, stretched above his head, the small twigs brushing 
 against his face as the light air swayed them. 
 
 The American unfastened his knapsack and 
 laid it down. Then he took off his coat and hat, 
 caught a branch of the tree in his hand, and swung 
 himself into it, taking all the care he could to make 
 as little rustling as possible. It seemed to him as if 
 the sentries on the other side of the wall must hear 
 the crackling twigs and the groaning branches. But 
 they gave no sign, and after a few moments' waiting, 
 he slowly crept along until he came to the trunk of 
 the tree, slid down it, and landed in the old room. 
 Through its arches he could see all sides of the 
 grounds. Nothing was stirring, and the only signs
 
 90 THE king's yard 
 
 of life were the lights twinkling in the windows of 
 the Governor's cottage, many yards away, and the 
 dismal lantern gleam in the keep guard-room, as far 
 off in another direction. 
 
 Warner pushed aside the heap of leaves, and drew 
 his coil of rope out. Then he rolled the coil to the 
 foot of the tree, tied one end of the rope about his 
 waist, and started to climb the tree to the tower again, 
 towing the rope behind him. As he ascended, the 
 weight of the rope and its constant entanglement in 
 the tree branches became such a strain that, strong as 
 he was, the task was almost too much for him. But 
 he succeeded, and after recovering his breath, pulled 
 up what remained of the rope, and coiled it away on 
 the roof of the tower. 
 
 Then he dressed himself, strapped his knapsack on 
 again, and took another look at the sentries. Satisfied 
 that at any rate they were unconscious of his move- 
 ments, he returned to his task. Taking one end of 
 the rope, he passed it through a loophole in the 
 parapet of the tower, leant over the edge and brought 
 the end inside again, thus getting a safe method of 
 fastening it. Then he turned the coil over, and very 
 slowly and carefully he passed the other end through 
 another loophole, and waiting till each sentry was at 
 the extreme end of his post, lowered the rope into 
 the ditch beneath. Now and again, as it went down th^
 
 A PEDLAR AT PORTCHESTER 9 I 
 
 side of the tower, it hung for a moment among the ivy, 
 and then he had to play it, ever so gently, lest the rustle 
 should attract the sentries. But presently it was 
 safely all paid out, and looking over the edge, he saw 
 with satisfaction that it reached the bottom of the 
 ditch, with plenty of rope to spare. 
 
 Then he sat and waited. The work had taken 
 him nearly two hours, but to him, when every moment 
 of the night was precious, the two hours had flown, 
 and the few minutes that he had yet to wait before 
 the ten o'clock relief came to the sentries seemed a 
 week of time. 
 
 It came at last, relieving the men as he had 
 reckoned upon, each at his corner of the long wall. 
 As soon as the tramp of the guard was heard by the 
 sentries, both men halted, each at the points farthest 
 from the tower. Then Warner, choosing the moment 
 when they were standing at attention, and least likely 
 to look upwards, took his most dangerous chance, 
 climbed boldly over the parapet, and slid down the 
 rope into the dry ditch beneath. There he lay still 
 and waited. Presently he heard the sharp word of 
 command from the sergeant relieving the sentries, 
 and again he breathed freely : 
 
 " Shoulder arms ! support arms ! " 
 
 He recognised it was the usual ceremony. They 
 had not seen him,
 
 92 THE king's yard 
 
 Meanwhile, the weather, which so far had favoured 
 his escape, for the night was very dark and squally, 
 now grew worse, and heavy squalls of wind and rain 
 followed each other in quick succession, making such 
 a rustle in the leaves of the trees that no sound else 
 could be heard. Keeping close to the side of the 
 moat nearest the road, crawling on all fours, he fol- 
 lowed its windings until he came to the main gate of 
 the castle, where there was another guard-room in the 
 gateway, and a sentry standing in his box in front of 
 the main entrance. The wood-work and the rest of 
 the gear for raising the drawbridge over the moat 
 were all that remained here of that old defence, and 
 the moat was quite dry. Very cautiously he climbed 
 the sloping side, coming out of it close behind the 
 sentry-box. Bracing his nerve, and waiting for the 
 puff of the squall, he stepped boldly into the road- 
 way, and in another moment was far enough away 
 from the castle wall to be sure that the darkness and 
 the blinding rain hid him from the view of the guard. 
 Then he took to his heels and ran rapidly along the 
 road till he came to a bend in it. From the hedge in 
 the road at this place a man stepped out of the dark- 
 ness. The man touched him on the shoulder, and 
 whispered something, then the two went silently and 
 rapidly away together along the road to Portsdown. 
 
 And Doll)', who knew that on this night something
 
 A PEDLAR AT PORTCHESTER 93 
 
 was to happen that would startle all the castle's 
 inmates, lay awake in her little room, every moment 
 expecting to hear an outcry, dreading the stern voice 
 of her father giving commands to pursue the fugitive. 
 But the hours passed along until, at some time before 
 daybreak, she fell asleep, believing that nothing could 
 have happened, or sure that, if something had, then 
 the American had got away so far without discovery.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 REMARKABLE BEHAVIOUR OF JOHN HILL 
 
 When John Hill came home and found a letter 
 waiting for him, his behaviour was a great disap- 
 pointment to Mrs. Mildwater. He took the document 
 to his little room, read it there, and had nothing to 
 say to her about its contents. Examined as to 
 whether it was an offer of work, he replied, " Yes, 
 perhaps ; but at present I am not sure," an answer 
 which Mrs. Mildwater naturally regarded as "more 
 fitting to give a stranger than a woman who'd been 
 as a mother to him, and 'ad druv her Mildwas nearly 
 to death a-worrying him to get the man took on at 
 the Yard." 
 
 Early the next morning Hill was up and away to 
 see about the job, as he said, and he left the house to 
 see about it before eight o'clock, returning, looking 
 very tired, after the mid-day meal was over. 
 
 " No luck," he said. " I have to go to Fareham to 
 
 see a man, and shall not be back to-night." 
 
 94
 
 REMARKABLE BEHAVIOUR OF JOHN HILL 95 
 
 "What, going to Fareham to see a man at this 
 hour, Mr. Hill ? " 
 
 "People who want work must not choose their hours, 
 Mrs. Mildwater. I'll go upstairs and pack a bundle." 
 
 " What about your dinner ? " 
 
 " I want no dinner, thank you. I've had a bite of 
 bread and cheese, and will go to my room, then be 
 off again." 
 
 Mrs. Mildwater, going about her household work, 
 as she scrubbed the kitchen floor, pondered long over 
 the ill appearance and strange manner of her lodger, 
 working herself into a nervous frame of mind, in 
 which pictures of him dangling from his bed-post, 
 and a "Crowner's quest verdict of suicide from despair 
 at not getting work," persistently appeared in her 
 mind's eye. 
 
 But presently the woman had such thoughts driven 
 out of her head by something more alarming. There 
 was a strong smell of burning. Mrs. Mildwater stopped 
 her floor scrubbing and sniffed the air. Outside 
 the door the landing was full of smoke, so thick and 
 so strong with the fumes of sulphur that the woman 
 went off into a violent fit of coughing. 
 
 "Oh, Mr. Hill, your room is on fire! Are you 
 there ? " she cried, and rattled the handle of the locked 
 door violently. 
 
 " What is the matter with you, woman ? "
 
 96 THE KING'S YARD 
 
 The painter opened the door and stood upon its 
 threshold, apparently quite indifferent to the cloud 
 of suffocating smoke enveloping him, 
 
 " Matter enough, indeed ! What do you mean by 
 setting fire to the house of a poor lone woman, for 
 that is what I am ? Mildwas can't be counted as a 
 man. What do you mean by it ? Woman, indeed ! " 
 
 "I don't understand you. I have only been destroy- 
 ing papers in the grate. See," and he pointed to a 
 heap of ashes ; " you have no cause to be frightened." 
 
 " Indeed, I think I have great cause to be afraid, 
 making all this smell, and you might burn the house 
 down." 
 
 " Have you ever suffered by fire ? " 
 
 "God forbid, Master Hill. But what are you 
 doing ? What is that there ? " 
 
 " Only a lantern." 
 
 " What do you want with a lantern in broad day ? " 
 
 He stepped to the hob of the grate and picked up 
 something, inside of which was a candle. The article 
 was not a lantern, but a canister bored with holes to 
 admit of the candle burning, but so made that it gave 
 no light. 
 
 " This," he said, smiling, and looking his landlady 
 squarely in the face — " this is a little experiment of 
 mine in chemistry — nothing that you need be 
 frightened of."
 
 REMARKABLE BEHAVIOUR OF JOHN HILL 97 
 
 " Very fine, Mr. Hill, but if you want to do such 
 things you must go elsewhere ; ! won't have my 
 house turned into a powder factory.'' 
 
 Then she went out of the room and slammed the 
 door behind her. 
 
 Dockyardmen then had dinner at noon, and at one 
 the Yard bell rang for the mateys to go back to work. 
 There were then no trains, nor trams, nor 'buses to 
 whirl men away to snug suburban cottages or barrack- 
 like rows of genteel terrace houses, each house with a 
 tinkling piano, a green velvet plush drawing-room 
 suite, and in each front parlour window a glass shade 
 of wax flowers, elevated on a Family Bible on a 
 three-legged table. Men lived close to their work 
 and went home to mid-day dinner. But Mild- 
 water on this occasion had not come home, for 
 it was a special cleaning day with Mrs. Mildwater, 
 and her husband was forced to eat a bite of bread 
 and cheese in the Yard, and have a hot supper when 
 he returned from work in the evening. 
 
 This is what Hill was told when, coming down 
 from his room, and making his peace with his land- 
 lady by apologising for the fright he had given her, 
 he asked for Mr. Mildwater. 
 
 , " I'll take a walk to the Yard and say good-bye to 
 your husband, in case I get that job at Fareham. If 
 I get it, I will be over on Sunday for my things, and
 
 98 THE KING'S YARD 
 
 say good-bye to you, Mrs. Mildwater. But, anyhow, 
 I don't suppose they'll want me to start till Monday." 
 
 " Oh, you do expect a job, then. I thought that 
 letter meant something. Good-bye for the present, 
 Mr. Hill." 
 
 Hill reached the gate just as the one o'clock bell 
 stopped clanging, and walked in with the crowd of 
 mateys, more than one of them looking curiously at 
 his long cloak, as indicating that he was a man who 
 put on airs, wondering what was his trade, and in 
 what part of the Yard he worked, or whether he was 
 a visitor. 
 
 But as the men filed off to their different occupa- 
 tions they soon lost sight of and forgot him, for he 
 went on his way, not stopping at any of the work- 
 shops. As he passed the Naval Academy a squad of 
 youngsters were being exercised with the firelock 
 upon the lawn in front. He stopped to look at them 
 for a moment, and a marine sentry seeing him stand 
 still, came to the attention, thinking he was one of 
 the superior officers of the Yard, since he could thus 
 idle away the working hours. He noticed the sentry's 
 action, and smiled to himself, acknowledging the 
 salute by touching his hat ; then he walked on, as if 
 having business elsewhere. The Yard covered ninety 
 acres even then, and he meant to make a survey of it 
 that day.
 
 REMARKABLE BEHAVIOUR OF JOHN HILL 99 
 
 He turned towards the water side, where at 
 intervals along the wharves ships were lying, or 
 boats were getting in stores, and the boats' crews 
 and the riggers working on the ships, when he 
 stopped now and again to look at them, took no 
 heed of him, except to bustle a little, thinking, as the 
 sentry had thought, that he was an officer of some 
 sort, for officers then were not got up in extravagant 
 gold-laced uniforms. A long cloak, such as Hill 
 wore, might have covered anyone belonging to the 
 Yard, from the Commissioner himself to a quarterman, 
 or a master boat-builder, or a master caulker. 
 
 They did not build ships under cover in those days, 
 but on slips that were open to the sky, and he stood 
 and watched the men climbing about by hundreds on 
 a dozen vessels in all stages of the shipwrights' work, 
 from the cygnet sloop, just laid upon the stocks, 
 whose name was not even thought of, to the Princess 
 Royal, a ninety-eight gun ship, then almost ready for 
 launching. 
 
 All about where the ships were building lay heaps 
 and heaps of chips thrown off from the adzes of the 
 shipwrights, and there were cauldrons of tar boiling 
 close to these heaps, and not far off oakum in bales, 
 many hundredweights of it. So it had been for years, 
 and Mr. Hill wondered at such carelessness, for he was 
 thinking of the two great fires of 1760 and 1770,
 
 lOO THE king's yard 
 
 when the Yard had been nearly burned down — but 
 apparently he was the only person who thought of 
 such a thing as the possibility of fire. 
 
 Presently he came to a spot where floating in the 
 water were hundreds and hundreds of logs chained 
 together, pickling for the shipwrights. One of these 
 logs was being hoisted by means of a sheer hulk out 
 of the mast pond, as this place was called, on to a 
 lighter. A leading shipwright standing beside Hill 
 on the wharf called to the men who were at this job 
 to bear a hand with that spar, or the Arethusa would 
 have to go to sea without her mizzen-mast. 
 
 " The riggers shouldn't have been in such a hurry 
 to take the old one out," came back the answer from 
 the sheer hulk ; " it will be long enough afore we get 
 this one shaped." 
 
 "That fellow's always got a saucy answer," re- 
 marked the man on the wharf to Hill; "some of 
 these days he'll be getting hanged." 
 
 And Hill answered, the scar on his face opening 
 and his lips curled in a smile that gave him a very 
 grim look : 
 
 " There's timber enough for his gallows lying 
 
 here." 
 
 " Oh, the Arethusa! s old mizzen-mast would do very 
 well for the job," replied the other, and went on about 
 his business.
 
 REMARKABLE BEHAVIOUR OF JOHN HILL lOI 
 
 Close to the logs was fastened the old hulk of the 
 Royal William, and on board of her a number of 
 men were stretching a brand new cable, just freshly 
 shining with tar from the rope house. The cable 
 ran out over the vessel's bows with a heavy anchor 
 hanging to it, and riggers were heaving upon a 
 capstan, putting a great strain upon the rope, which 
 led round a timber head with half a turn, thus testing 
 every yarn, from the heart to the outermost one, and 
 squeezing the tar out of it in a running stream. 
 
 The painter watched this operation for a few 
 seconds with great interest, then he turned sharply, 
 as if seized suddenly by an idea, and walked rapidly 
 away towards the rope and hemp houses. At the 
 door of the hemp house he stopped and looked in, 
 and seeing the few men employed upon this floor 
 looking inquiringly at his shadow darkening the 
 light in the doorway, he sauntered in towards a 
 group of them who were moving a bale of hemp 
 about. 
 
 Presently a man touched him on the shoulder. 
 
 " Who are you, and what do you want here ? " the 
 man asked. 
 
 Hill started, and replied hurriedly : 
 
 " I am Mildwater's lodger ; you know Mildwater. 
 He works in the rope house. I am just taking a 
 look round."
 
 102 THE king's YARD 
 
 " Very well, there's no harm in that," said the man. 
 " But you ought to come in the forenoon, and along 
 with Mildwater. The foreman don't like strangers 
 about the place. Don't take a fancy to any of the 
 stuff. If you were caught taking any of it — well, 
 they might give you a longer stretch of hemp than 
 you wanted." 
 
 " Damn you ! you all talk nothing but hanging in 
 the Yard. What do you mean ? " 
 
 Hill, as he uttered the words, turned upon the man 
 with such fierceness that the fellow stepped back 
 quickly, thinking he was about to be struck, and the 
 ugly look that came over the painter's scowling face 
 fully justified the other's fright. 
 
 " I ask your pardon, but you've no need to take 
 offence. I meant no harm," muttered the man. 
 
 " Well, well, but it is poor joking to remind a man 
 how easy it is to be hanged. Time enough when 
 you're sentenced for that," and the painter laughed 
 grimly. " Can I take a look round before going 
 across to the rope house for Mildwater?" 
 
 " You can go where you like, for me ; no one will 
 interfere with you so long as you don't interfere 
 with them," and the man went back to his labour of 
 stowing hemp bales.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 BAD MATCHES 
 
 Left to himself, Hill strolled in a leisurely way 
 through the building. He had been all over the rope 
 house, and knew that place well, but he had not 
 before had an opportunity of thoroughly examining 
 the hemp house, and he determined that afternoon to 
 strike the blow that for days he had been so carefully 
 preparing. 
 
 He was afraid it was a little premature — he could 
 not help that — the message brought to him at Mrs. 
 Mildwater's had forced his hand, and he could wait 
 no longer now. But after all, he thought, the whole 
 thing was simple ; the bales of dry hemp were in 
 front of him, and in half an hour the business would 
 be done. 
 
 Along the whole length of the building on this 
 
 ground floor he only saw some half dozen men, and 
 
 these were working together in the narrow centre 
 
 passage between the walls of hemp, laying a dunnage 
 
 of old worn rope and of oakum to make a flooring 
 
 103
 
 104 1'HE king's yard 
 
 for the bales. He passed these men without speaking 
 to them, and they, supposing him to be a clerk in one 
 of the offices of the Yard, took no notice of him. 
 
 He had now walked half way the length of the 
 building, where there was a ladder leading to the 
 upper floor. He looked behind, and saw in the dim 
 afternoon light, as one sees through a tunnel, that the 
 building, but for the men in the centre passage, was 
 deserted and silent. 
 
 He ascended the ladder, until hearing voices near 
 the top of the hatchway, he stopped, his head just 
 level with the floor, and there saw many moving 
 shadows of men, and so hastily retreated and con- 
 tinued his walk through the building until he came to 
 a recess. Then he quickly glanced about, and making 
 sure no one saw him, darted into the narrow passage. 
 
 Shut in between the walls of hemp, it was quite 
 dark, and for fully a minute he stood perfectly still 
 and listened, but no sound of men could be heard in 
 the building. The rattle of the whirls or spinning 
 wheels in the adjacent rope house, and the strokes 
 of the shipwrights' adzes and caulkers' mallets — the 
 noises of the Yard — deadened by distance, were 
 almost imperceptible through the heavy hemp walls. 
 
 Groping his way, he reached at last the side of the 
 building, and saw then that the hemp bales were laid 
 about two feet from the walls, so that the damp should
 
 BAD MATCHES 10$ 
 
 not penetrate to them, thus leaving a long, narrow 
 passage down each, as well as in the centre of the 
 building. There were irregularities in this wall of 
 hemp, cavities out of which bales had been taken to 
 be spun into rope by the ropemakers, and interstices 
 where the packers had not fitted the bales close 
 together. Presently, by edging himself along the 
 narrow gangway, he came to quite a big gap in the 
 hemp wall. He squeezed himself into this, and unless 
 someone entered and walked intentionally to this 
 particular spot, he was as effectively hidden as would 
 be a rat in a shipload of cotton bales. 
 
 Inside the cavity he stopped and listened again. 
 Above him, in the natural wall of the building, were 
 at intervals rows of venetianed ventilators, admitting 
 air and a little light from the exterior, but ten feet 
 from the ground, affording no one from outside a view 
 of the dark interior ; and so, but for these ventilators, 
 he was entirely cut off from light, from sound, from 
 everything. 
 
 " This is about the right place," he muttered, half 
 aloud, and then repeated the words louder, noting 
 with satisfaction how the sound of his voice was thrown 
 back muffled by the hemp bales. Then he went over 
 in his mind all that he had learned in the days spent 
 in spying about the Yard, and from Mildwater's 
 discourses with him upon the art of ropemaking.
 
 I06 THE king's yard 
 
 First, upon the floor where he was, were hundreds 
 of tons of dry hemp fibre, so packed that a fine 
 current of air ran all round the bales and over and 
 under them, yet so closely stowed was the hemp that, 
 suppose a fire were lit where he was standing, it 
 might burn for an hour and no one would discover 
 it, when such a blaze would follow that the floor 
 above would by that time have caught. 
 
 Now on that floor above worked the hecklers, the 
 men who heckled, that is, cleaned or combed out the 
 fibre, and on the same floor worked the men who 
 spun that fibre into yarns. The hecklers used oil 
 when working their fibre, and the yarn spinners used 
 hot tar upon their yarns, and there was plenty of 
 both these things upon the floor above ; besides that, 
 everywhere the floor was strewn with combed fibre 
 and spun 3^arn. 
 
 Then, suppose the hemp house got well alight, the 
 rope house running across the Yard alongside it 
 would certainly catch, and once it did so, there was 
 plenty for the fire to feed upon. Hill remembered 
 Mildwater's description, and what he himself had 
 seen of the tons of cordage, all tarred, from spun yarn 
 to cables. Close to the rope house there were sail 
 lofts, paint stores, blockmaking shops, with heaps of 
 chips. 
 
 Suddenly Hill stopped thinking, and threw off" that
 
 BAD MATCHES 10/ 
 
 great coat of his. Then the reason for it appeared, 
 for underneath he carried a canvas bag suspended by 
 a belt to his waist. 
 
 Jack the Painter unfastened the belt and opened 
 the bag, taking from it a box, which in its turn 
 contained that tin canister which had so excited 
 Mrs. Mildwater's indignation. He removed the lid 
 of the canister and stuck in it a candle which he took 
 out of the box. Then he made a kind of soft nest 
 by loosening and tearing out the stuff in the wall of 
 hemp, and taking from the box a bottle, he saturated 
 the space all round the nest with turpentine. Then 
 he drew out a piece of hemp, and rolling it between 
 his hands, made a long loose tail of it. He passed 
 one end of this fuse into the canister, so that it hung 
 over where the flame of the candle would ignite it. 
 Then he took a tinder-box, a flint and steel, and a 
 bundle of the matches of those days — splints of 
 wood, some four or five inches long, tipped with 
 sulphur. 
 
 But though he managed successfully to strike fire, 
 and blow his tinder to a glowing mass, the matches 
 failed him. One after another of them he put to the 
 red tinder, but he tried all, and no flame came. Then 
 he paused from his work and cursed aloud, his 
 generally sallow face growing purple with the 
 exertion of blowing and the fury he was in, and
 
 I08 THE KING'S YARD 
 
 he muttered the most fearful imprecations upon the 
 person who had sold him these matches. 
 
 By-and-bye, recovering himself, he noticed that 
 everything was very still, and darkness had set in. 
 There was little enough light when he entered the 
 building, but shut in by the walls of hemp, the few 
 rays of the declining daylight through the latticed 
 ventilators made the recess lighter than the other 
 parts of the stores, and so he was deceived in the 
 hour. 
 
 There had been much time consumed in getting to 
 the spot, and he had wasted half an hour in trying 
 to make the bad matches light. The ropemakers 
 and the storemen in the hemp house, he knew, 
 knocked off early on these dark winter days, and he 
 began to suspect what had in truth come to pass — 
 the men had gone home, and he was a prisoner in the 
 building. 
 
 He turned hurriedly about, and groped in the 
 darkness for his coat, and finding it, spent more time 
 in picking off the pieces of hemp clinging to it. He 
 realised that it would be difficult now to get out of 
 the building, and it would not do to be discovered 
 with his infernal paraphernalia upon him, and so 
 leaving it in the recess, he felt his way out between 
 the walls of hemp to the middle gangway. 
 
 His eyes, now accustomed to the darkness, enabled
 
 BAD MATCHES IO9 
 
 him to make out that the place was closed from end to 
 end. He tried door after door, walking from one end 
 of the long building to the other upon each of its 
 floors; but it was of no use, he could not get out. 
 He was becoming nervous and frightened, and 
 presently coming to the door at the eastern end, he 
 seized it by the handle, and in his excitement rattled 
 it loudly. 
 
 The next moment he repented his rashness, for a 
 voice outside cried : 
 
 " Who's that : what are you doing there ? " 
 
 Alarmed as he was at being discovered, he managed 
 to answer quietly : 
 
 " It's all right ; open the door. I've been shut in 
 by mistake." 
 
 " I cannot open the door ; the keys have gone up 
 to the office long ago. Who are you, and what are 
 you doing there at this hour?" replied the man outside. 
 
 Hill was quite cool now. He had made up his mind 
 how to act, and answered : 
 
 " Who am I ? You know very well who I am. 
 What nonsense is this * Who are you ? ' Open the 
 door at once, or find me some way out." 
 
 The man outside, from the tone of voice and the 
 imperative manner of its owner, began to think that 
 perhaps he ought to know the stranger, and so 
 replied :
 
 no THE KING'S YARD 
 
 " I beg your pardon, sir ; I am the watchman, and 
 there must be some mistake." 
 
 "There is some mistake, and the Commissioner shall 
 know about this when I get out. Open the door at 
 once." 
 
 " Very well, sir. I will go and fetch the keys — " 
 
 The watchman was now convinced of this person's 
 importance. 
 
 " Confound the keys ! " continued Hill. " Am I to 
 be kept waiting while you are getting them ? Is there 
 no other way ? " 
 
 The watchman thought a moment, then replied : 
 
 " Well, yes, sir; if you could go upstairs, and open 
 the middle door from the inside, you could lower 
 yourself out by the block and tackle that is used for 
 hoisting in the hemp." 
 
 " Oh, I could manage that very well," answered 
 the other, and in three minutes was on the next floor, 
 had unfastened the door, and being an active fellow, 
 had swung himself easily to the ground about twelve 
 feet below. 
 
 There the watchman waited for him, not exactly 
 suspicious, but anxious as to the true importance of 
 the offended stranger. 
 
 " I don't know who's to blame, sir — " he began. 
 
 " It's all right now, my man, there's no harm done. 
 There is a shilling for you for your trouble. I came
 
 BAD MATCHES III 
 
 in With a friend to see the place, and lagging behind, 
 was shut in before I knew what happened. My friend 
 must have thought I had gone before, so I will hurry 
 after him. Good evening. I know my way to the 
 gate." 
 
 The watchman looked at the shilling, said " Thank 
 you, sir," was satisfied, and walked away. Outside 
 the hemp house the Yard was very quiet, for the 
 clock in the tower was striking five, and the mateys 
 had gone home. 
 
 The painter went rapidly towards the gate, slackening 
 his pace, though, when he came to the Yard porter's 
 lodge, and bidding the man in charge an affable good- 
 night, he walked out unsuspected.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 WHAT HAPPENED TO DOLLY 
 
 At ten o'clock one morning, Parson Bramber and 
 Lieutenant Stockleigh were with the Governor of 
 Portchester in the little porch of his cottage. The 
 parson was talking over church matters — the parish 
 church of Portchester standing within the castle 
 domains, which was in Henry I.'s time the Priory 
 of Black Canons, and had been a church for goodness 
 knows how long before then. 
 
 The parson lived in a bachelor's home, presided 
 over by his sister, and the parsonage was some little 
 distance along the Fareham road. Miss Bramber was 
 very much the senior of her brother, and ruled him 
 in most things. She had heard that an important 
 prisoner had come to the castle — one who had 
 actually committed the great sin of rebellion — and 
 the parson's orders from her were that this young 
 man, who had never attended church once since he 
 
 112
 
 WHAT HAPPENED TO DOLLY II3 
 
 had been confined in the castle, should be got 
 there somehow, and when caught should be well 
 preached at. 
 
 " I have never been near the fellow since," Captain 
 Bagshott was saying, " and I can't make anything of 
 the business. He's likely enough a very dangerous 
 character, and the sooner he's out of my charge the 
 better I shall — Eh, and what do you want breaking 
 in like that ? " 
 
 The sergeant of the keep guard had hastily thrown 
 open the wicket of the little cottage garden, and 
 looking very frightened, stood before the Governor. 
 
 " If you please, sir, Mr. Warner is missing," the 
 man stuttered. 
 
 The Governor and his lieutenant stopped, and 
 together turned upon the soldier. 
 
 " What the devil do you mean, sir ? What does he 
 mean, Stockleigh ? " thundered Captain Bagshott. 
 
 '• The prisoner has escaped," replied the trembling 
 sergeant. "We have searched everywhere for him, 
 but he has got clear away." 
 
 " Then someone has neglected his duty," said 
 Stockleigh. "There is a sentry night and day at 
 the door of the keep, besides sentries at every gate 
 
 H
 
 114 THE king's yard 
 
 of the castle, and Warner was always accompanied 
 by an escort when he walked in the grounds. Get a 
 file of men, and search for him at once. He cannot 
 have gone far, and is likely enough in the castle 
 grounds somewhere." 
 
 '* He has had several hours' start, yer honour," 
 answered the sergeant. 
 
 " How can that be ? " yelled the Governor, in a great 
 fury. " Go, Stockleigh, and find him ; send men on 
 horseback along the Portsmouth road, and warn the 
 Port Admiral that he may have him looked for. 
 What do you mean, you fool ? How can he have 
 had several hours' start ? " 
 
 " Please, sir, I will tell you what we have found 
 out, but I would like to see you alone," said the 
 soldier, looking first at the parson, then at the 
 Governor. 
 
 Bramber, greatly interested, now moved as if to 
 leave, and Stockleigh had already hurried away to 
 find out from the guard what had happened, and take 
 steps to pursue the American. 
 
 Captain Bagshott put out a detaining hand. 
 
 " Don't leave, Bramber," he said ; " there can be no 
 secret about the man's escape. Tell us what you
 
 WHAT HAPPENED TO DOLLY 1 15 
 
 know of this matter, and have done with it, 
 sergeant." 
 
 The man, with hesitation and repeatedly inter- 
 rupting himself to " beg his honour's pardon," told 
 how that morning Lieutenant Stockleigh had 
 himself, as usual, unlocked the prisoner's door from 
 the outside, and the lock was then all right. The 
 attendant, half an hour later, went into the room 
 with the American's breakfast, and noticed the 
 prisoner's absence. On his way out through the 
 guard-room the servant mentioned the matter to 
 the guard, who, knowing that Mr. Warner was not 
 allowed to go out without his escort, yet the escort 
 was still in the guard-room, suspected that something 
 was wrong. Then the sergeant ran upstairs to see 
 what had happened, and there found Warner's bed 
 unslept in, and his valise lying open and half emptied 
 in the middle of the floor. 
 
 " But how did he get out ? Come to the point, 
 you fool ! How could he get out if the guard 
 had been doing its duty ? Were you all 
 asleep ? " 
 
 The Governor shook the man by the shoulder as 
 
 he asked the questions.
 
 tl6 THE king's yard 
 
 Stockleigh at that moment returned, and answered 
 for his subordinate. 
 
 " He escaped by the help of a rope provided by a 
 friend inside, and by this time he is half-way to the 
 coast of France — that is, if he is wise — and the devil 
 himself would not catch him." Stockleigh spoke 
 very quietly, and with the decision of one who 
 knew. 
 
 " What do you mean, Lieutenant Stockleigh ? " 
 demanded Captain Bagshott ; " what friends had he, 
 and how was the rope provided ? " 
 
 " Wait and you shall hear," replied Stockleigh, and 
 turning to the sergeant, added : " Go and bring those 
 two men here." 
 
 The sergeant left to execute the order. Then 
 Stockleigh turned to the Governor, and said : 
 
 " I don't want to shock you, and it would be as 
 well that you should hear what more I have to tell 
 in private." 
 
 "What in thunder do you mean, sir?" Bagshott 
 roared at him. " Do you think I care who knows by 
 what infernal neglect or treachery on the part of your 
 men this fellow has got away ? Mr. Bramber," he 
 added, as the parson moved away, "you shall not
 
 WHAT HAPPENED TO DOLLY 11/ 
 
 leave us. Have I anything to be ashamed of, except 
 for trusting confounded redcoats to do their duty 
 properly? Why should I care who hears how the 
 rebel fooled the lubbers ? " 
 
 " Very good, sir," said Stockleigh quietly. " Here 
 are the men, and they will tell you how Warner 
 escaped." 
 
 The sergeant had come back, bringing with him 
 two soldiers, and Stockleigh, turning to his men, 
 said : 
 
 " Tell the Governor your story." 
 
 The sergeant spoke up : 
 
 " Please, yer honour, it was this way. The prisoner 
 got away by means of a rope. He lowered himself 
 into the moat from one of the towers, and the rope 
 was brought to him by a friend of his ; it was 
 planted in the old guard- room, where the big tree 
 grows." 
 
 Bagshott stamped his foot and angrily demanded : 
 
 " What do you mean by a friend ? Who is he, and 
 who planted a rope? What is the meaning of all 
 this backing and filling?" 
 
 " The man was a pedlar ; he brought the 
 rope,"
 
 Il8 THE KING'S YARD 
 
 " How do you come to find this out now ? What 
 was this pedlar doing inside the castle ? " 
 
 "Please, sir, ask Miss Dolly, who managed the 
 whole thing." 
 
 For a moment the Governor was speechless ; then 
 he turned upon the sergeant. 
 
 " You are a lying scoundrel," he muttered. " What 
 does this mean, Stockleigh ? " 
 
 The lieutenant nodded towards his men, " Let the 
 others tell all they know ; I cannot help it." 
 
 Then one of the men with much hesitation said : 
 
 *' We have been doing escort duty over the prisoner 
 when he took exercise, and we have seen your 
 daughter talking a great deal to the man. They 
 were often together. Tuesday a pedlar came, and 
 the sentry refused him entrance, but Miss Dolly let 
 him in. He brought the rope and planted it in 
 the old guard-room. We didn't interfere with your 
 daughter, because we thought they were only 
 sweethearting." 
 
 " You dastards ! " cried the Governor, his face 
 white with rage, " there is some treachery in this. 
 The rebel bribed you all, and you would hide your 
 rascality under a woman's petticoat"
 
 WHAT HAPPENED TO DOLLY II9 
 
 '• ril swear it is true," said the soldier. " Ask the 
 surgeon ; he caught 'em together." 
 
 At this the Captain fairly lost all control of him- 
 self, and made a rush for the man ; but he was 
 restrained by the parson, although he was almost as 
 angry. 
 
 *' Hear the fellow out," said Bramber, " and flog 
 him after for the lies he has told." 
 
 " What does he mean by saying that the surgeon 
 caught them? I don't understand," muttered poor 
 old Bagshott. 
 
 Then replied the soldier : 
 
 *' I was in charge of him in the grounds, and saw 
 him making love to your daughter. He was holding 
 her hands when the doctor came up and caught 'em 
 at it, and my comrade here saw the two the next 
 day, when he was on duty." 
 
 " Lies ! all lies ! you blackguards ! " cried the 
 Captain. " You saw nothing of the kind. Here, 
 Dolly, come here. Where are you ? Come here and 
 deny this." 
 
 Dolly was there. She had come out from the 
 house, and was on her knees beside him ; and before 
 in his blind rage he could see her, came to his ears
 
 120 THE KING'S YARD 
 
 the sound of her voice, so low, so pitiful, so full of 
 terror, that her accusers felt ashamed of what they 
 had done, as the words came from her lips : 
 
 " Oh, father, it is true ; forgive me ! " 
 
 At the first sound of her voice he turned towards 
 her, expecting an indignant denial of the accusation, 
 but instead saw his daughter upon her knees begging 
 for forgiveness ; and as he realised the purport of her 
 words the violence of his rage gave way to something 
 more dreadful still. 
 
 For a moment or two he gazed at her grief- 
 stricken, and when she would have seized his hand, 
 rudely pushed her from him. 
 
 " Speak to me, father dear." 
 
 " Go away," he hoarsely answered. " Go away ; 
 never let me see your face again. Go to your rebel 
 lover." 
 
 " Oh, you are wrong ! You misjudge me. I 
 helped him to escape, but not for that." 
 
 " Go to him ! I don't want to see your face 
 again." 
 
 *' Not that, father, not that ! I swear that you are 
 wrong." 
 
 The old man looked at his daughter,
 
 WHAT HAPPENED TO DOLLY 121 
 
 " What does it all mean ? " he said sternly. " Get 
 up from the ground, if it is not true, and tell me what 
 it all means. What is this rebel to you ? " 
 
 " Nothing yet, father ; wait, and all will come well. 
 I helped him to escape, but he will come back." 
 
 " Come back ? What do you mean ? Helped him 
 to escape. Send for Brand ; those rascals said he 
 knew something of this." 
 
 " He knows nothing, father ; he saw us talking 
 together, and ordered Mr. Warner to his quarters. 
 That is all." 
 
 Parson Bramber laid his hand upon the old man's 
 arm, as he said : 
 
 " The girl is only a country-bred wench, and had 
 no idea of the harm she was doing. Come, Dolly, 
 explain to your father how this rascal managed to 
 persuade you to help him." 
 
 " How dare you speak of Mr. Warner as a rascal ? 
 He is a gentleman, and will yet return to prove it ! " 
 exclaimed Dolly, jumping to her feet. 
 
 "If my girl is a country wench, parson, let me tell 
 you she is the daughter of an officer and a gentleman, 
 and by Heaven, I'll teach her to remember it. Listen, 
 Dolly. I will presently talk to the surgeon, and see
 
 12i THE king's yard 
 
 what he has to say about this. Meantime, go to your 
 room ; I will join you there directly, and if you cannot 
 give me a better explanation of your conduct, or if 
 you cannot clear yourself of this, I swear that I 
 myself will bring you to justice — will myself carry 
 you to Portsmouth gaol, and lodge you there among 
 the common women of the Point." 
 
 Then the hard old man, his grizzled face drawn 
 with the pain of the blow, strode out of the house 
 towards the keep. 
 
 Dolly's heart hardened at this speech, and she 
 smiled bitterly, brushing aside the trembling parson's 
 hand as she walked past him to her bedroom. 
 
 At that moment Brand came hurrying in. The 
 parson was beginning to explain the state of affairs 
 to him, when Dolly re-opened her door. 
 
 " Come here, doctor, I want you at once." 
 
 The doctor followed her to her room, and Dolly 
 banged the door in Bramber's face, who, finding that 
 he was alone, and was unable to help matters, went 
 off to his church. 
 
 " Mr. Warner escaped last night, and I aided him. 
 The soldiers have told my father about our meetings, 
 and he is waiting to see you. They know nothing
 
 WHAT HAPPENED TO DOLLY 1 23 
 
 beyond that I helped the prisoner to escape. What 
 will you say to my father ? " 
 
 " A nice mess you've made," replied Brand ; " but 
 I shall take the whole blame. I carried the letter, 
 and no doubt it was arranged through that. I 
 suspected as much." 
 
 The girl stood upright as an arrow, looking Brand 
 straight in the face as she spoke : 
 
 " You will do nothing of the kind. You will merely 
 tell the truth, which is that you saw us together, and 
 as I have told my father, ordered Warner to his 
 quarters, and me to the house. I have no time to 
 argue, my father will be here directly to see you ; 
 but listen, I swear that if you utter a word more, no 
 matter what my father may say or do, I swear that I, 
 who know where Warner has gone, will follow and 
 join him, and never return to my home again." 
 
 " But, Dolly, think—" 
 
 " That will do, go away ; my father will be here 
 directly." 
 
 " How can I keep — " 
 
 "Go!" 
 
 She pushed him out of her room and locked the door, 
 just as her father came hurriedly across the garden.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 WHAT HAPPENED ON THE LONDON ROAD 
 
 Warner and the man who had joined him outside 
 the walls of Portchester exchanged a few words in 
 a whisper, then broke into a run, and kept up this 
 pace until the ascent of Portsdown Hill compelled 
 them to ease their pace. 
 
 Portchester's only street ran due north to the foot 
 of the hill, and along it there were only two or 
 three cottages standing well back from the road, 
 their inmates long since in bed and asleep. 
 
 But from the foot of the hill along its crest to the 
 
 descent on the London Road past the then new and 
 
 now old George Inn there were no houses. At this 
 
 spot, as the towers of the castle were shut out by the 
 
 hill which the two men had just descended, and 
 
 having regained their wind, they conversed in low 
 
 tones together. 
 
 " You have managed it all capitally, and I thank 
 
 124
 
 WHAT HAPPENED ON THE LONDON ROAD 12$ 
 
 you," said Warner, speaking coldly, as to an inferior. 
 " As soon as we get to the inn I will arrange 
 everything, and come to a full explanation." 
 
 "We shall enter no inn to-night," replied his 
 companion ; " we must push on until we reach 
 Catherington, when I shall go back, and you must 
 make the best of your way alone." 
 
 " But the horse. Why have you not arranged for 
 that ? " 
 
 Hill — Warner's companion was the Mildwaters' 
 lodger — appeared not to notice the tone of the 
 question as he replied : 
 
 " Because I had to consider my own safety, and it 
 would have been scarcely prudent to have gone 
 among these gaping yokels hiring horses in advance 
 — a pretty bit of gossip they would have had. 
 Horses wanted in the middle of the night for a 
 stranger : and besides, I was by no means satisfied 
 that the whole affair was not a trap." 
 
 " My note explained everything plainly, I thought." 
 
 " Yes, it appears very clear to you, but I was 
 mighty dubious at first, and didn't half like walking 
 into that old castle. Then I thought it unlikely 
 they would go such a roundabout way of taking me,
 
 126 THE king's yard 
 
 and the mention of Silas Dean, the passport, and the 
 words, ' Do nothing until we meet,' convinced me." 
 
 " But you had reason to expect me ? " 
 
 '* Quite true. I had reason to expect a gentleman 
 named Warner, a messenger from France. No 
 messenger turns up, but instead a message." 
 
 " But the passport made it clear ? " 
 
 Warner's tone grew more and more impatient. 
 
 " Well, the passport might have been taken from 
 the messenger, and used to entrap me. Even now I 
 am waiting to hear what you have to say that I may 
 make sure of you. But postpone your explanations 
 until we are farther away. I want all my breath," 
 said Hill. 
 
 *' I will prove my identity presently. But surely 
 you understand that they arrested me in mistake for 
 yourself — that their agents must have suspected 
 there was some unusual design afoot, and having no 
 evidence they could openly use, when my departure 
 from France was known, seized me on landing." 
 
 Hill laughed, " Did not the Government know of 
 my landing at Dover days before ? " he asked. 
 
 " Evidently not ; their spies are active and well 
 paid, but they don't know everything."
 
 WHAT HAPPENED ON THE LONDON ROAD 127 
 
 They had now almost reached the northern border 
 of the Forest of Bere, and were drawing near to the 
 village of Catherington, but although the forest trees 
 were being fast thinned in the need for supplying the 
 Navy with timber, yet their way still lay through a 
 wood of beeches, elms, poplars, and firs, so close as to 
 leave but a narrow cart track in the coppice. A 
 bitter wind was blowing, and heavy rain was falling, 
 and the blackness of the night, the loneliness of the 
 forest, the rustling of the trees, the patter of the 
 rain upon the leaves, made it difficult for the men 
 to make their way ahead, and talking was almost 
 impossible. But still Warner's companion pushed 
 on at such a pace that the American could hardly 
 keep up with him. What few words they had 
 exchanged had been uttered at such breathing 
 intervals when Hill had stopped to pick out the 
 muddy track. 
 
 " For Heaven's sake, tell me how muchjj farther 
 we are to go without coming to shelter ! " Warner 
 exclaimed. 
 
 Presently Hill stopped, and turning sharply upon 
 the other, ignored the question, answering : 
 
 " Your letter says : ' Do nothing until we meet.
 
 128 THE king's yard 
 
 What does that mean ? When I left Paris, I left it 
 with a certain purpose, known to Silas Dean, and to 
 no other. Do you know what that purpose is ? Has 
 Dean told everyone ? Is it the talk of the ale-houses ? 
 Or do your words refer to something I do not 
 understand ? " 
 
 " Listen to me for a moment, John Hill, and I will 
 make very clear to you the meaning of my letter. I 
 know you propose to make war on your own account, 
 by a method of your own. I am to tell you that my 
 Government does not approve of that method." 
 
 '* Who told you our or your Government does not 
 approve of my doing it this service ? " 
 •' Men who occupy high positions in it." 
 " And did they order you to stop me ? " 
 " Well, not exactly, but they—" 
 " Listen to me." Hill, as he spoke, seized Warner 
 by the arm, and looking him straight in the face, 
 said : " You are a young man, and consequently a 
 fool, and know not what you are talking about. 
 Your Government wants me to do this thing, and 
 wants you officially to disavow it. You may be sure 
 that every Government cheerfully accepts any aid 
 that will injure its enemy, but it is convenient some-
 
 WHAT HAPPENED ON THE LONDON ROAD l2g 
 
 times to disavow the means — the end is just as 
 acceptable even when accomplished by such tools 
 as I am." 
 
 Warner stepped back from the other's touch as he: 
 replied : 
 
 " Perhaps you are right ; but I am sure that the 
 men of honour in the American Government will 
 have no share in this work, and will pay you nothing 
 for doing it. My business in this country was to 
 hand you your money for work as our agent in 
 supplying information, but I was also to tell you 
 distinctly that neither France nor the representatives 
 of America in France will thank you or pay you for 
 acting as a criminal. We make war as becomes a 
 nation struggling for freedom and — " 
 
 Hill laughed bitterly. 
 
 " Pooh ! keep your lectures on the art of war for 
 men who only read about it," he said. "Whether 
 your superiors approve or not is no concern of mine. 
 I shall act, and as to payment — listen. You may 
 not believe that I am a patriot. Well, I'll not argue 
 with you, but I tell you plainly I have a personal 
 motive in this, and nothing shall prevent me from 
 going on with it."
 
 1 30 THE king's yard 
 
 " Very well. I reply that, since you admit personal 
 reasons are at the bottom of your design, I have a 
 personal reason why you shall not carry it out, and I 
 ask you to stop." 
 
 " What personal motive can you have ? And, 
 besides, I have already arranged everything, and 
 it is only by chance that the affair has not come off 
 already." 
 
 " Thank God it has not, for I have pledged my 
 word to the man who carried the letter to you that 
 I would interfere — " 
 
 Hill made a sudden step towards the other, and 
 exclaimed : 
 
 " What ! Did you dare to—" 
 
 " No, no ; he knows nothing. I merely told him 
 that the carrying of the letter would prevent a 
 disaster." 
 
 " What the devil did you do that for ? " 
 
 Warner turned sharply on the other as he 
 answered : 
 
 " Come, sir, I have borne your tone quietly, because 
 you accomplished my release, but I will have no 
 more of your bullying." 
 
 " Very well ; but do you realise my life is at stake
 
 WHAT HAPPENED ON THE LONDON ROAD 13I 
 
 in this matter? What did your friend understand 
 by your talk ? " 
 
 " Simply that I might by my interference prevent 
 a raid on the town, or something of the kind." 
 
 "What?" Hill laughed out loud. "Why, the 
 man must be a fool if he believed such nonsense ; 
 but, of course, he knew better," 
 
 " Further than this, I have pledged my word to 
 return to the castle within a few days." 
 
 " Well, your pledge will be broken." 
 
 " No, it will not." 
 
 "Do you mean to say that you will betray me — 
 for if you go back that must be your object ? " 
 
 " Certainly not ; I might have been free long ago 
 if I had chosen that way. But I must return, and I 
 will not allow you to risk my neck or your own by 
 committing this crime while I am in England." 
 
 Again Hill laughed as he sneeringly said : 
 
 " I understand now ; that woman has something 
 to do with this. Governors' daughters do not help 
 prisoners to escape without — " 
 
 It was all that Warner could do to preserve his 
 temper. But he spoke quietly as he replied : 
 . " That will do, sir ; I will hear no more. We have
 
 132 THE king's yard 
 
 stood arguing long enough. Let us push on to 
 London, and by the aid of the French Minister I will 
 get you a safe passage out of the country, and my 
 passport will clear me." 
 
 Hill stopped and waved his hand. 
 
 "Goyour way to London," he said. "I will not accom- 
 pany you farther. My preparations are complete, and 
 therefore I warn you not to return, or you will certainly 
 be made to suffer for my act. As to your passport, 
 I must have that, and I intend to use it for escaping." 
 
 " And I warn you that you will be hanged if you 
 persist. If you dare to use a passport with my name 
 upon it, I myself will expose you," said Warner. 
 
 Hill drew himself up and replied : 
 
 " Look you, the consequence of my act has no terror 
 for me. As you entered the harbour of Portsmouth, 
 you might have seen the very gibbet upon which 
 Felton's body hung. I have stood underneath it, and 
 envied him his chance, and when I have finished my 
 work the people of England will have better cause to 
 keep me in their memory than they have even for 
 remembering the man who rid them of Buckingham." 
 
 " You are a vain, fanatical fool. Take this money, 
 which will repay you for what you have expended io
 
 WHAT HAPPENED ON THE LONDON ROAD 1 33 
 
 getting me free, and go your way. I will go mine. 
 But understand, I shall warn the authorities as soon 
 as I reach London, and you had better not be found 
 in Portsmouth to-morrow." 
 
 " To-morrow will be too late, and you will not warn 
 the authorities." 
 
 " Very well, madman, I see there is no help for it ; 
 you will drag me into this against my will. I have 
 sworn to return to Portchester, and by Heaven, since 
 you are bent on putting it out of my power to do 
 so unless as a prisoner, you shall go back with me 
 
 now." 
 
 All this time the wind and rain had been increas- 
 ing, and the violence of the storm drowned the voices 
 of the angry men, who were now unheedful of all else 
 but themselves. Warner had lost his temper ; the long 
 tramp without food on such a night in this man's 
 company had irritated him to boiling-over point, but 
 he was only honestly indignant with the other. No 
 thought of serious mischief occurred to him, and he 
 was blind and saw no danger when Hill took a step 
 towards him, and said very quietly : 
 
 ** What do you mean by saying I shall go with 
 you ? "
 
 134 THE KING'S YARD 
 
 *' Mean ? I mean what I say, that you shan't drag 
 us both to the gallows ; either you go to London with 
 me, or I go back to Portchester with you," replied 
 Warner. 
 
 " I warn you to be careful. Go your way and 
 leave me to go mine," answered the other. 
 
 Warner advanced close to Hill. 
 
 " Come," he said, " I have done with this talk ; 
 come freely, or I shall take you by force." 
 
 " Once more, will you go your own way alone ? " 
 
 Hill was nervously fingering the fastenings of his 
 cloak as he said the last words. 
 
 Warner in his rage took no heed of the action, and 
 losing control of himself, replied by advancing in a 
 threatening manner. 
 
 Then the other drew a pistol and fired. An in- 
 articulate cry for an instant rang out above the 
 howling wind, and Warner fell face forward upon the 
 muddy track.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 WHAT THE PORT ADMIRAL THOUGHT OF IT 
 
 Dolly Bagshott, having delivered her ultimatum 
 
 to Dr. Brand, had only just time to shut herself in 
 
 her room when her father burst into his garden, 
 
 almost banging the wicket off its hinges. In three 
 
 strides he was in his office, and glaring at the 
 
 surgeon, thundered : 
 
 " Now, sir, what do you know of this business ? " 
 
 Dr. Brand stood up coolly before him and answered : 
 
 " No more than your daughter has told you." 
 
 " And that, sir, is too much. Is it true that you 
 
 saw this scoundrel talking to my daughter ? " 
 
 " Perfectly true that I saw the American gentleman 
 
 who was a prisoner here talking to your daughter. 
 
 I know no reason for calling him a scoundrel." 
 
 " I did not ask for your opinion, Mr. Brand, but I 
 
 do ask you whether it did not occur to you to put a 
 
 stop to these meetings ? " 
 
 '35
 
 136 THE KING'S YARD 
 
 " A moment, Captain Bagshott. I did all that I 
 conceived it to be any part of my duty to do. I beg 
 you will make your report to the Port Admiral, and 
 if there is any blame to be attached ^to me I am 
 prepared to take the responsibility." 
 
 Bagshott was pacing furiously up and down the 
 little room. He stopped. 
 
 " Very well, sir, I will go to the Admiral, and 
 we will thrash the whole business out through him. 
 Dolly, come here." 
 
 The girl came out from her bedroom and quietly 
 stood before him, her face deadly pale, her head erect, 
 her demeanour altogether defiant. 
 
 "What have you to say? I am quite cool now, 
 and ready to judge you fairly." 
 
 The old man was at boiling heat, and Brand was 
 almost inclined to smile at his claim to self-possession. 
 
 " I have nothing to say, father. Nothing can be 
 said," she replied. 
 
 '* Do you mean to tell me that the yarn pitched by 
 these soldiers is true — that you and that American 
 were love-making, and that you helped him to 
 escape ? " 
 
 "That, sir, is the vulgar aspect that the matter
 
 WHAT THE PORT ADMIRAL THOUGHT 1 37 
 
 assumes when men of that class talk of it — and you, 
 of course, are ready to believe them." 
 
 The well-bred airs of her mother always came to 
 Dolly's aid in these encounters with the rough old 
 sailor. 
 
 " Just like her dead mother," thought old Bagshott. 
 " Now, I wonder whether there is something in this I 
 don't understand." 
 
 " But you actually admitted that what the men 
 said was true. You went on your knees to me not 
 a quarter of an hour ago and said so, and begged for 
 forgiveness." 
 
 " Father, it is true that I talked with Mr. Warner ; 
 it is true that I agreed with him to have the pedlar 
 admitted by the guard ; it is true that he — that we 
 talked together of the possibility that in happier 
 circumstances — that — that — in a word, sir, Mr. Warner 
 behaved as a gentleman, and nothing passed between 
 us of which I am ashamed." 
 
 " How dare you admit this to me, Dolly ? How 
 dare you tell me to my face that this man made love 
 to you ? " 
 
 " Mr. Warner loves me, father, and I have nothing 
 to be ashamed of in that," said Dolly quite simply.
 
 138 THE king's yard 
 
 " 'Tis true I was frightened of your anger at first, and 
 went upon my knees to you ; but I did wrong. I had 
 nothing to be ashamed of Mr. Warner has promised 
 to return and say what more he has to say to you, 
 and before a week has passed he will have kept his 
 word." 
 
 " How dare you say this to my face ? Never let 
 me hear the name of this fellow again. How dare a 
 child like you talk of love-making ? " and the old 
 man shook his finger at Dolly. "But, above all, I 
 swear I would turn you out of your home to-morrow 
 if I thought you would permit a traitor to his country 
 — one of my prisoners — to make love to you. Bah ! 
 I don't believe it. I believe you incapable of anything 
 worse than the infernal vanity that belongs to all 
 women — the man has turned your head with silly 
 speeches." 
 
 "And I am sure you are right," interrupted the 
 doctor artfully, very glad to see the old man taking 
 such a view of Dolly's case. 
 
 But no, the girl would not have it settled thus, and 
 must needs answer sharply : 
 
 " You are quite wrong, father, and presently you 
 will be sorry to have spoken so harshly of Mr. Warner,"
 
 WHAT THE PORT ADMIRAL THOUGHT 139 
 
 " I will not lose my temper, but I'll not have you 
 argue with me.' 
 
 " Very well, father ; but I insist that you wait for 
 Mr. Warner's explanation." 
 
 The Governor shook his head, saying : 
 
 " I cannot understand all this. The man has told 
 you some trumpery story, such as only a foolish 
 girl could believe, and you will have to suffer the 
 consequences of your folly." 
 
 " If you will permit me, sir, I ask you to let your 
 daughter go to her room," said Brand. " I am sure 
 that this unfortunate affair will presently clear itself. 
 I have reason to believe that the man will return, as 
 Miss Dolly says." 
 
 Bagshott turned quickly upon him : 
 
 " What the devil do you mean, doctor ? have you, 
 too, been bewitched by this fellow's cunning ? " 
 
 " No. But Mr. Warner, there is no doubt in my 
 mind, is not the man they meant to arrest, and from 
 what he told me, I believe he will, once free, prove 
 his innocence," replied Brand. 
 
 " Tush ! The fellow has fooled the pair of you. I 
 might have foreseen that this motherless girl, with no 
 one to watch over her but a blind old man, would fall
 
 140 THE KING'S YARD 
 
 a prey to the first trap that was set for her ; but you 
 — I had better say no more. Go to your room, 
 Dolly. I must tell the whole truth to the Admiral, 
 and a pretty figure I shall cut before him when I 
 confess that my own daughter has been the cause of 
 my getting into this mess. And you, doctor, might 
 at least have warned me of what was going on." 
 
 The tears came into Dolly's eyes, and she was 
 about to speak, but the doctor anticipated her, and 
 replied with peculiar emphasis upon his words : 
 
 " Captain Bagshott, Miss Dolly has already told 
 you all I have to say. If matters had not taken this 
 turn, you would not have seen for yourself how silly 
 Miss Dolly had been, and if she had not explained so 
 clearly her share in this unfortunate business, I could 
 only have told you that I saw the rebel take her 
 hand — that was all, nothing more." 
 
 "It seems to me, sir," answered the old man, 
 " that a gentleman would have considered it his duty 
 to have reported Miss Dolly's conduct to her father. 
 However, my daughter will have very good reason to 
 regret her imprudence, and we shall see what the 
 Admiral has to say before the day is over." 
 
 " Good-bye, Miss Dolly," said the doctor, holding
 
 WHAT THE PORT ADMIRAL THOUGHT I4I 
 
 outhis hand to the girl ; " cheer up, young lady. I am 
 sorry for what has happened, but it will come right 
 by-and-by." 
 
 Dolly went up to her father. 
 
 " I will go now," she said. " Good-bye, father, and 
 forgive me for being too soft-hearted for a gaoler's 
 daughter." 
 
 " Dolly, go to your room. For the sake of your 
 dead mother I will keep my temper with you. But 
 I warn you that when this fellow is caught, I'll make 
 an example of him ; and for yourself, I'll take such 
 care of you in the future as will prevent you shaming 
 me a second time." 
 
 Then the old man bounced out of the room, and 
 Dolly returned to her work quite cheerfully, sure that 
 the worst of her father's anger had blown over. The 
 Governor, who had indeed considerably cooled down, 
 went out by the water gate of the castle, and 
 embarked in a Portchester wherry to report in person 
 what had happened to the Admiral. 
 
 The old man, as he sat in the stern sheets of his 
 boat, trembled at the prospect of the interview. He 
 had already sent a messenger post haste to warn 
 them to look out for the fugitive, who he was quite
 
 142 THE king's yard 
 
 sure was now well on his way to the coast of France, 
 and not at all likely to be recaptured. 
 
 It was noon when he arrived before the door of the 
 great man's house, then situated in the old High 
 Street of Portsmouth, close to that of the Lieutenant 
 Governor's. A marine sentry presented arms to him, 
 and he was so nervous that he neglected to acknow- 
 ledge the salute — the only instance when he was 
 known to depart from any service regulations. 
 
 There was a little waiting-room just inside the hall, 
 and this was filled with captains of ships lying in 
 the harbour, or with lieutenants bringing despatches, 
 and between this room and the Admiral's office the 
 great man's coxswain, doing duty as orderly, passed 
 continually to and fro. 
 
 The captains for the most part knew Bagshott, and 
 asked him chaffingly how his new command was 
 getting along, and when she would sail, and such-like 
 foolish question. They irritated him, and he answered 
 them sharply ; and they whispered to themselves that 
 it was ever the way with the old fellows : they liked 
 not to be laid up in ordinary, and envied the younger 
 men, whose prospects owing to the war were of the 
 best.
 
 WHAT THE PORT ADMIRAL THOUGHT I43 
 
 Presently the grizzled old coxswain came for him, 
 and shaking in every limb the old man tottered into 
 the Admiral's office. 
 
 " Sit down, sit down, Bagshott," said the great man. 
 " How are you ? I know what you have come about ; 
 my secretary's busy in his room writing despatches, 
 and the Lord knows what not," 
 
 " Have they done anything — found any boats 
 missing, sir, or got any clue — or — or — " 
 
 " Oh, that's all right ; don't worry yourself. We 
 are up to our necks in it ; tell me all about it." 
 
 Bagshott felt that this manner of treating the 
 business was all very well, but perhaps it hid some- 
 thing behind it. The Admiral was taking it too 
 quietly altogether ; an explosion of wrath would 
 perhaps have been safer. 
 
 " It was entirely my fault, sir," he replied. " Un- 
 fortunately this man has escaped through the indis- 
 cretion of my own child, and I stand before you 
 disgraced by the conduct of my own daughter, 
 and—" 
 
 "My dear fellow, what on earth are you talking 
 about? What has Miss Dolly to do with the escape 
 of this fellow ? "
 
 144 THE king's yard 
 
 Then Bagshott told the whole story — told it in 
 such fashion that Dolly's indiscretion was lost sight 
 of in the telling, and only the carelessness of her 
 father in not keeping a more watchful eye upon her 
 was brought prominently forward. 
 
 The Admiral listened to the old man without 
 interrupting him, and when he had finished, answered 
 in the most off-hand manner imaginable : 
 
 " Is this all the trouble ? Well, present my com- 
 pliments to the young lady, and tell her that she has 
 saved us a lot of trouble, and we are infinitely obliged 
 to her." 
 
 " I don't quite understand you, sir." 
 
 " Look here, Bagshott, I don't suppose you do. 
 The long and the short of it all is this : We are not 
 politicians, and we have made a mess of it, and your 
 daughter has got us out of the mess." 
 
 " I am still all at sea, sir." 
 
 " So am I, but I can tell you this much : we 
 received orders to take some fellow who was sent 
 over by the rebels from France to act as a spy 
 on the Dockyard. It appears that the people in 
 London were informed by some infernal rascal of a 
 spy that a man had left Havre or Calais or Dieppe or
 
 WHAT THE PORT ADMIRAL THOUGHT 14S 
 
 somewhere who would claim to be a French subject 
 protected by a passport, and that as we are busy 
 getting ready to fight the French, we didn't want 
 this fellow loose about Portsmouth. The man was 
 a deserter from our Army, and we had a right to 
 make him prisoner. Well, I gave orders to the 
 Ferret to look out for him, and the Ferret took a 
 man who answered the description, but who happened 
 to be the wrong man." 
 
 " But this Warner is an American, and he rejoices 
 in being a rebel," said Bagshott doubtfully. 
 
 " Yes, yes ; that's all very well," replied the 
 Admiral, "but he is the wrong man, and what's 
 more, he is under the protection of the French 
 flag." 
 
 " But what has that to do with it, sir ? " 
 
 " My dear Bagshott, you are so used to looking 
 at the Frenchmen as enemies that you forget we are 
 not at war yet." 
 
 " He certainly is a rebel," persisted the Governor 
 of Portchester. 
 
 " Of course he is, but anyhow he is not the man, 
 and we didn't know what to do with him. If the 
 French Minister in London knew of this arrest, there 
 
 K
 
 146 THE KING'S YARD 
 
 would be the devil to pay, so we just kept him till we 
 came to blows, intending to avoid explanations." 
 
 "But you will have to explain now, for he has 
 gone." 
 
 The Admiral laughed and answered : 
 
 " Oh, by the time the diplomatists have finished 
 writing letters to one another about it we shall have 
 fought half-a-dozen naval battles, and a prisoner here 
 or there will be of no consequence." 
 
 " But how am I to answer for his escape ? what am 
 I to do with my daughter ? " asked the old Captain, 
 bewildered by these political complications. 
 
 " Go home and thank her for getting her father's 
 friend out of a most infernal mess," replied the 
 Admiral, clapping Bagshott heartily on the back as 
 he spoke. 
 
 " How, sir ? What has her ill behaviour done 
 that—" 
 
 " Don't you see, you stupid old fellow, that if the 
 American has really fallen a victim to your daughter's 
 charms, he will be glad enough to hold his tongue. 
 As soon as we hear of him protesting, we shall 
 have our diplomatists explaining to him that 
 he ought to keep quiet, and be thankful for the
 
 WHAT THE PORT ADMIRAL THOUGHT I47 
 
 opportunity they gave him of making Miss 
 Bagshott's acquaintance, and that all he has to 
 do is to go back to Portchester and make his peace 
 with her father." 
 
 The old man rose hastily from his chair and 
 answered with great dignity : 
 
 " Certainly not, sir. My daughter, I will take 
 very good care, shall not meet him again, and all 
 the infernal politicians and diplomatists in London 
 will not induce me to allow him inside the castle 
 gates again, unless you return him as a prisoner." 
 
 The Admiral also rose as he said : 
 
 " As you please, my dear sir ; that is your private 
 affair. But I ask you, Captain Bagshott, in the 
 public interest, to keep your own counsel in this 
 matter, and in my interest please go back to Port- 
 chester, and for the sake of our old friendship, say 
 no more about it to anyone." 
 
 " Very well, sir. I shall punish my daughter, but 
 this matter shall in no way become public." 
 
 "That's right, Bagshott. Oh, by the way, who's 
 that surgeon — Brand is his name, I think you said ? 
 He seemed to believe the American's yarn about the 
 mistake, eh ? "
 
 148 THE king's yard 
 
 " Yes, sir. As I told you, I am not satisfied with 
 his conduct in this matter. He has American lean- 
 ings, I fear. He is a good man enough in his way, 
 but he comes badly out of this affair," 
 
 "Oh, you think so. Very well, just take my 
 advice and leave him alone." The Admiral looked at 
 the door to see if it was closed, lowered his voice and 
 said : " He was appointed to Portchester by a greater 
 man than you or I ; if you are wise you will try to 
 get along with him. Good-bye."
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 FLIGHT 
 
 Mrs. Mildwater was not altogether easy in her 
 
 mind about her lodger. The man, she feared, must 
 
 have taken to drinking. Beer-houses of the lowest 
 
 type existed in plenty in Portsmouth town, and the 
 
 appearance of Hill, and his goings and comings at 
 
 irregular hours, his strange experiment in chemistry 
 
 and seeming indifference over the job that the 
 
 messenger had come about, all pointed to but one 
 
 explanation in Mrs. Mildwater's opinion — drinking, 
 
 and perhaps gambling, was at the root of the evil. 
 
 The painter had just come home, after being out 
 
 all night, and he had returned at two o'clock, when 
 
 Mildwater was away at his work. Hill's appearance 
 
 justified Mrs, Mildwater's misgivings. He had 
 
 sneaked into the house covered with mud, wet to the 
 
 skin, and altogether so haggard and dishevelled that 
 
 the woman scarcely recognised him. 
 
 149
 
 ISO THE king's yard 
 
 "Why, whatever has happened, John Hill?" she 
 asked. 
 
 He did not answer at once, but steadied himself 
 against the kitchen table. Then said slowly: 
 
 " I have had a bad night, Mrs. Mildwater. Got 
 caught in the storm coming home from Fareham." 
 
 " But how did you manage to get in that mess ; 
 the storm was all over before daylight, and surely 
 you have not been out all night ? " 
 
 The woman looked curiously at him as she asked 
 the question. 
 
 " Yes ; all night, ma'am I If you please, I'll have 
 a wash and go out again. I have some business 
 to do." He made towards the door as he spoke. 
 
 Mrs. Mildwater shook her head at him, and said : 
 
 " Look here, John Hill, it's my belief you've been 
 drinking. Don't give way to that, for if you do, I 
 tell you plainly, you must leave my house." 
 
 The painter seemed not a whit abashed at the 
 charge. On the contrary, he replied quite eagerly : 
 
 " Yes, that's it. I've been drinking." 
 
 " More shame for you to own it, then, in that bare- 
 faced way. Out of my house you must go if you 
 have taken to that habit. You are not a young man,
 
 FLIGHt 151 
 
 and I shouldn't wonder but what it has been your 
 trouble before." 
 
 "Yes, Mrs. Mildwater, I know it. The truth is, 
 I've been worried a great deal of late about work, and 
 the time has come for me to try somewhere else, for 
 I have had no luck here." 
 
 "Very well, Mr. Hill. I think it is time you went 
 elsewhere, for Mildwas will not, with my leave, do 
 anything for you since you have come to this state, 
 so go your way afore we quarrel." 
 
 " Be it so, Mrs. Mildwater. I must leave your 
 house, and to - night I'll be off. I will try 
 Southampton." 
 
 " I don't want to turn you out at once, my man. 
 Go and put on dry clothes, take a meal and a night's 
 rest, then leave here, and make a fresh start." 
 
 " I will change my clothes, and see about getting 
 a lift to-night in the wagon. There's one leaves 
 for Southampton from the Three Tuns. I can sleep 
 in the straw, and arrive fresh in the morning. I'll go 
 and see about the passage directly, and then come 
 back and get my clothes, and say good-bye to you 
 and your husband. You've both been very good to 
 me.
 
 152 THE KING'S YARD 
 
 " Very well, Hill, and I hope you will try to keep 
 away from pot-houses and evil companions." And 
 with this parting shot Mrs. Mildwater returned to 
 her domestic duties. 
 
 Hill went out to the little back garden and washed 
 under the pump, as was the custom in well-regulated 
 households, such as Mrs. Mildwater's, and when he 
 was quite clean and in fit condition to go to his 
 bedroom, he changed his clothes for a working suit, 
 packing his wet and muddy garments with other 
 things away in a bundle. 
 
 Then he came downstairs, and telling Mrs, 
 Mildwater he would be back in the afternoon, by 
 the time the men came out of the Yard, and would 
 then call for his belongings, he left the house. 
 
 Outside he walked briskly down the street to the 
 Yard. There he went into a little huckster's shop, 
 and when, in answer to the ringing of the bell over 
 the shop door, the widow woman who kept it asked 
 what he wanted, he answered sharply : 
 
 " Some matches ; not such rubbish as you gave me 
 yesterday, but good ones." 
 
 The woman looked at him, and recollected she had 
 sold him a halfpenny worth of brimstone matches on
 
 FLIGHT 153 
 
 the previous day, when he was clothed like one of the 
 better class, apologised for their bad quality, wonder- 
 ing who this man was, who came to her in such 
 different dress on two succeeding days. 
 
 At the Yard gate the porter watched him enter, 
 as one who has important business on hand, and the 
 man, who remembered his face, thought to himself 
 that Mildwater had got his friend a job, by the way 
 the painter was hurrying. 
 
 Hill walked straight towards the hemp house, 
 but when he had arrived at its entrance he saw that 
 a number of men were working near the doorway, 
 removing yarn and conveying it to the adjacent 
 rope house to be spun, while at another door other 
 men were rolling in fresh bales of hemp just unloaded 
 from a vessel lying at one of the wharves. 
 
 He stood a little while watching them, then moved 
 away to the rope house. The whirls upstairs were 
 in full swing, but on the ground floor only a few 
 workmen, all at one end, could be seen along the 
 whole of its thousand feet of length. He entered the 
 building unnoticed, and walked towards its western 
 end, where there were no men. Upon this ground 
 floor alone were then stored ten three-inch cables.
 
 154 THE king's yard 
 
 each cable a hundred fathoms long, and the great 
 coils, like the bales of hemp in the adjacent building, 
 made high walls of rope along each side; six tons 
 weight of smaller cordage lay about in smaller coils, 
 and twenty tons weight of hemp spun into yarn, 
 and reeking of tar, in readiness for the spinners on 
 the floor above, lay in loose heaps near by. 
 
 Getting behind one of the great cable coils, he took a 
 survey of his position. He could see pretty well the 
 length of the building, down its centre passage, 
 between the coils of rope. 
 
 At intervals the long vista was broken by long 
 ladders leading to the loft above, and on either side, 
 opposite the ladders, were doorways through which 
 the workmen were continually passing. On the floor 
 where he stood, a lieutenant from one of the ships was 
 talking to a storekeeper, while his boat's crew were 
 rolling coils of rope down to their boat. A few 
 riggers were elsewhere picking out the rigging required 
 for their following day's work, and at the extreme end, 
 men were preparing for an important job for the next 
 morning, when a big cable was to be spun for a 
 line-of-battle-ship. 
 
 Presently Hill heard the Dockyard clock strike
 
 FLIGHT 155 
 
 half-past three, and he knew that if he did not want 
 to be shut in again, he would have to be quick in his 
 movements. This attempt he was determined should 
 not fail ; he had dispensed with his elaborate 
 apparatus, and this time a bottle of turpentine, 
 matches and tinder-box, and a fuse of hemp yarn, 
 were all the things he had brought. Behind him was 
 a bale of tar-soaked yarn, in front the long fakes of 
 the cable coil stood two feet higher than his head, 
 but the rope was so thick that the fakes did not lie 
 closely together, and this gave him an idea. He got 
 quantities of loose yarn, and jammed it between the 
 interstices. Then he laid a train of hemp from them 
 to the great pile behind him, and having done these 
 things, he stood and waited for the Yard clock to 
 strike four. 
 
 The failure of his last attempt kept occurring to 
 him. As he thought of it he grew angry with him- 
 self for delaying so long, and taking such elaborate 
 measures to disguise his movements. What did 
 these fools know? They left the Yard open for 
 anyone to come and go, and in their absurd self- 
 confidence, cared not whether friend or foe visited 
 the place. Why, even when a stranger was locked
 
 156 THE king's yard 
 
 in after working hours, by his superior intelligence, 
 his calm bearing, he had made them open a way out 
 for him ; and so he laughed to himself and determined 
 to be very bold this time, and make sure of the fire 
 before leaving. 
 
 Four o'clock struck, and he laid his turpentine 
 bottle upon the heap of yarn, and stood ready with 
 his matches. Then, as he did this, the clatter of the 
 whirls overhead ceased, and the men began to flock 
 downstairs on their way home. Hill struck a spark 
 with his tinder-box, and this time the brimstone 
 matches caught readily. He lit the fuse at the end 
 of the turpentine bottle, a train of fire ran swiftly 
 along the ground, and coming out from his hiding- 
 place, the creator of it walked into the middle of the 
 rope house and joined the stream of men hastening 
 homewards, mingling with them as they passed 
 through the Dock gate. He left unnoticed, and 
 walked rapidly away towards his lodgings, intending, 
 as he had told Mrs. Mildwater, to call for his bundle. 
 But just as he had turned from the Dock wall towards 
 the Row, he heard sounds of a commotion, and 
 looking back, saw a crowd of men running in the 
 direction of the gate.
 
 FLIGHT 1 57 
 
 The alarm had come quicker than he had bargained 
 for, and its suddenness dismayed him. He paused 
 and thought of what would be his safest course. 
 His preparations had this time been a little too crude, 
 the fire had spread too fast, and to-day there was a 
 chance of failure in quite another direction. 
 
 The commotion, he knew, would put the sentries 
 on the alert all round the town walls, the guard at 
 St. James's and St. Thomas's gates would learn of 
 the fire before a few minutes had elapsed, and it 
 would not be safe to attempt to escape by way of 
 Portsmouth. To pass the King's Redoubt, and get 
 upon the London Road by St. Thomas's gate was to 
 court danger, for a whole garrison was quartered 
 close by. But to the north-east the extended line 
 of fortifications, begun half-a-dozen years earlier, 
 were even more awkward to pass, by reason that the 
 town was not in this direction, and strangers passing 
 that way in time of excitement would be justly 
 regarded with suspicion. 
 
 Once more he rapidly reviewed in his mind the 
 town as he had frequently studied it, and once more 
 the idea that he was caught like a rat in a hole forced 
 itself upon his mind. He could attempt to reach the
 
 158 THE KING'S YARD 
 
 London Road by way of the Hard to the King's Mill 
 Redoubt, and so to St. Thomas's gate (not then 
 Landport gate, for Landport was still the Halfway 
 Houses), or he could pass through into Portsmouth 
 by the Quay gate, and make his way through the 
 town to St James's gate on to the sea beach, or 
 through the Spur Redoubt to the swamps of Southsea 
 Common. By these roads he must pass guard houses, 
 sentries, and excited town folk. 
 
 Then his strong nerve came to his help, and he 
 decided upon the straight road, and so, taking to his 
 heels, he ran towards the new ramparts to the way 
 out upon Halfway Houses. As soon as he got close 
 to the sentry he called loudly : 
 
 " Fire, fire ; there is a fire in the Yard ! " 
 
 " Guard turn out ! " cried the sentry, and half-a- 
 dozen soldiers and a sergeant hastily picked up their 
 firelocks and fell in on either side of the gate. 
 
 " What's up ? " asked the sergeant, presenting his 
 pike. " Halt ; what do you mean ? " 
 
 Hill, out of breath, stood among them, the sentry, 
 with his musket ported, blocking the gate. 
 
 " Fire, fire ; in the Yard ! Send every workman 
 you can find to help," cried Hill.
 
 FLIGHT 1 59 
 
 "Where? When? What are you talking about? 
 Speak up, man ; don't lose your head," replied the 
 sergeant of the guard. 
 
 " There's a fire broke out in the Yard — it's all 
 ablaze — we want all the help we can get," said Hill, 
 wringing his hands. 
 
 " Well, well, my man ; it's no use coming to us. 
 We can't leave here without orders ; we can only pass 
 the word along," answered the soldier. 
 
 " Yes, yes ; that's what I'm here for, to rouse the 
 townsfolk," and Hill attempted to pass on. 
 
 " Very well, you had better go by the other gate ; 
 the people at the Halfway Houses won't do much 
 good." 
 
 The sergeant and the sentry still blocked the way. 
 
 " Man, man, that's it ! others have gone that way. 
 You take it easily enough ; don't you understand the 
 Yard's afire, and every hand is wanted?" 
 
 " What do you want us to do, you noisy fool ? 
 We don't guard the engines." 
 
 " No, no ; but I've been sent this way, the Com- 
 missioner sent me to rouse the folks, others have 
 gone by the other gates." 
 
 This mention of the Commissioner satisfied the
 
 l6o THE KING'S YARD 
 
 sergeant at once, and he promptly waved the sentry 
 out of the way, saying : 
 
 " Well, why didn't you say so at first ? Go ahead, 
 and I'll send one of my men to the barracks, but by 
 the time he gets there the whole garrison will be out, 
 I'll swear. Go on, but you won't find anyone much 
 use to you this way." 
 
 Hill waited no longer, but passed through the gate, 
 running desperately until he was lost to the view of 
 the soldiers in the darkness of the winter evening. 
 
 When he got well upon the London Road, he once 
 more slackened his pace to a quick walk, and so kept 
 on his way along the quiet country road until he 
 passed the Flying Bull, the last inn on the Halfway 
 Houses road, where presently he heard the sound of 
 cartwheels behind. He stepped aside, and waited for 
 the vehicle to overtake him, and presently saw that it 
 was driven by a woman. He went into the roadway. 
 
 " Will you give me a lift ? " he asked. 
 
 " I am only going a little way — to Cosham," 
 answered the driver of the cart. 
 
 " And I am bound to Petersfield, and shall be 
 benighted unless I can get a lift." 
 
 " Very well, my man, jump up. But what is the
 
 FLIGHT l6l 
 
 matter ? You seem in a great hurry to get out of the 
 town," and the old woman looked doubtfully at 
 him. 
 
 " The town is very dull," he said. " I can't get 
 work, although there are so many ships fitting, and 
 they are so busy with the new ramparts." 
 
 He looked at her carefully as he spoke, wondering 
 if she knew how little dulness there was in the town 
 that evening. 
 
 The old woman sighed : 
 
 " I know it is very quiet for poor folks. At the 
 market to-day I made little money for my 
 vegetables." 
 
 " Yet they are busy at the Dockyard," said 
 Hill. 
 
 " We country people do not trade with the sailors 
 or the mateys ; the bumboats be the only folks as 
 makes money in war times, master." 
 
 It was evident that this woman knew nothing of the 
 fire, and so Hill again bade her hasten her pace. 
 
 " The mare is very tired, but I will drive her as fast 
 as possible for you," she said. 
 
 They were nearly up to the Battle of Minden at 
 Hilsea, and the old woman began telling him how, ten
 
 t62 THE king's yard 
 
 years before, the landlord had been cruelly murdered 
 by a sergeant of marines, when she interrupted herself 
 by pointing to a great redness in the sky. 
 
 " Look ; there must be a fire in the town ! " she 
 exclaimed. 
 
 " Yes, yes, woman ; what do I care ? Drive on, 
 drive on," he answered impatiently. 
 
 " What do you mean ? Have you murdered some- 
 one that you should be in such haste ? " 
 
 The old woman pulled up her horse and looked at 
 him fearfully. 
 
 "No, no; I beg your pardon, but I want to get 
 past the sentries on the lines. I will tell you the 
 truth. I was pressed two days ago, and have escaped 
 from the receiving ship. I have a widowed mother 
 living on the other side of Portsdown, and I am 
 escaping to her." 
 
 " Oh, that's it, is it ? " she laughed. " Well, why 
 didn't you say so at first ? I'll get you past the 
 sentries safe enough ; there's none of us here have 
 any love for the press-gang, I can tell you." 
 
 They were at Hilsea Lines, the landward boundary 
 on the London Road of the Portsmouth line of 
 fortifications.
 
 PLIGHT 163 
 
 " Lie down in the bottom of the cart, and keep 
 your tongue still,'' said the old woman. 
 
 Then, as they drove through the archway and over 
 the bridge crossing the moat, the sentry stepped from 
 his box, and said : 
 
 " Good-night, mother. Where's the fire, do you 
 know ? " 
 
 " No ; there was no fire when I left town," answered 
 the old woman carelessly. 
 
 " It's a big one, anyhow," said the man. " Good- 
 night." 
 
 The whole guard was out on the rampart, looking 
 at the red sky, and black pillars of smoke rising 
 towards it, and they all asked questions, but the 
 old woman drove on, and Jack the Painter, lying at 
 the bottom of the cart, remained undiscovered. 
 
 When they came to the village of Cosham the 
 old woman pointed out her little cottage, with its 
 market garden, the London Road running past it 
 over Portsdown. 
 
 Hill looked at the hill and shuddered. Then he 
 wished her hurriedly good-night, and handing her a 
 coin, began to ascend the hill. When he reached its 
 summit, four hundred feet below him stretched the
 
 164 THE king's yard 
 
 scattered houses of the little villages which lie at the 
 foot of Portsdown, and north, east, and west, the dark 
 shadows of the Hampshire and Sussex woods stood 
 out in the starlight, reminding him of what lay hidden 
 in Catherington Forest. 
 
 But to the south there was a great light, subduing 
 altogether the twinkling lights of Portsmouth town. 
 This great blaze and the thick column of smoke rising 
 beside it was the fire. His fire ! He looked at it 
 for several minutes, then laughed aloud, and rubbed 
 his hands, and threw his arms about, pacing to and 
 fro the road on the crest of the hill the while to get a 
 better view of it. When the flames now and again 
 seemed to go down, his spirits fell with them, and he 
 stopped and muttered curses. But the fire kept its 
 strength for longer than he thought prudent to look 
 upon it, and after gloating over his work for half an 
 hour, he went on his way down the hill, taking care 
 to choose the Fareham road, which lies far to the 
 west of Catherington Forest.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 FIRE 
 
 The bulk of the workmen had filed out through the 
 main entrance, and the warden and his porters were 
 about to close the great gates, and shut the Yard for 
 the night, when stragglers, if they came along, or 
 officials who wanted egress or ingress, would have to 
 pass through the little doorway, which, after nightfall, 
 was guarded by a marine sentry and a night watch- 
 man. The latter was seventy years of age, wooden- 
 legged, one-armed, and by no means lynx-eyed. 
 One of these great doors was swinging upon its 
 hinges when the alarm went up from someone. 
 
 None knew who first uttered the word, but in a 
 moment it flew from mouth to mouth, and the cry of 
 " Fire ! " became a chorus. Outside the gates the 
 homeward bound men caught it, and it flew along 
 the crowd as the fire itself was flying through the 
 doomed rope house. Halting suddenly for an 
 
 instant of time, the men stood still, then grasping 
 
 165
 
 l66 THE king's yard 
 
 the meaning of the cry, a frantic body, a thousand 
 strong, turned about and rushed headlong back to 
 the Yard. The half-shut doors were hurled open ; 
 the gatekeepers, losing their heads with the rest, and 
 throwing themselves into the returning tide, were 
 swept inwards towards the fire. 
 
 Across almost the whole width of the Yard they 
 saw a low, red glow, not high in the air yet — for it 
 was still confined by the thick central floor of the 
 building, and cloaked by the heavy pall of smoke 
 that poured out of the rows of ventilators, but its 
 fierceness was so intensified by this, that the man of 
 least imagination among them all saw and took in at 
 once what a raging furnace was imprisoned there. 
 
 As the mob poured in through the gate and on 
 toward the fire, only checked in their approach to it 
 by the scorching heat, its choking, blinding fumes and 
 smoke — the vapour of burning hemp and boiling tar 
 — the marines and sailors from the ships alongside 
 the dock, and the officials of the Yard, heard the 
 rush of the crowd, and saw for themselves what had 
 happened, and so from inside the dock wall, and from 
 the ships in the harbour, more excited people came 
 to swell the crowd,
 
 FIRE 167 
 
 Meaningless cries and useless directions in plenty 
 came from individuals, but no intelligible orders were 
 given by these people, and in no man among them 
 was the master mind to collect these atoms of human 
 force and concentrate them upon the one thing 
 needful then. You cannot, unless you have a rare 
 man, make an army of a mob, and excited dockyard 
 mateys cannot be converted in a moment — the 
 moment of danger — into a fire brigade. Meantime, 
 the precious minutes flew, and the red glow was 
 beginning to be crowned with yellow as the flames 
 burst through upper storey windows and loft door- 
 ways. The flames were creeping outside up the 
 wood-work, feeding upon it, and gaining strength, 
 until they met across the roof, where the wind, 
 blowing gently upon them, fanned them into 
 vigour, and they began to stretch towards the hemp 
 house. 
 
 " Bring water. Pass buckets. Where's the 
 engines ? Why don't they come ? Does the 
 Commissioner know ? Where is he ? " 
 
 Such questions the crowd yelled to one another, 
 doing little else but yelling for the first few minutes 
 softer the outbreak. Then Mr. Commissioner
 
 i68 THE king's yard 
 
 Gambler came upon the scene, and he proved 
 himself upon that night the man among them all 
 best fitted to control the King's Dockyard — a 
 charge no less important to England's Navy than 
 her Navy was to England. The yelling crowd had 
 not heard the beat of drums in the marine guard- 
 house, and the ringing of bells ; had not seen the 
 Commissioner from the steps of his house five 
 minutes before quietly give orders that set these 
 alarms going, that sent messengers for the engines 
 and for help to the ships, to the garrison, to the 
 whole town. And now, while the excited mob was 
 making noise and doing nothing useful, the engines 
 arrived and the clank of the pump began, worked by 
 men too flurried to know by what means they had 
 got there. 
 
 But only the inside rows of the crowd knew this, 
 for the paltry streams of water fell upon the flames 
 with no more effect upon them than a shower would 
 have from the rose of the Commissioner's garden 
 watering-pot ; and Mr. Gambier, seeing this, was 
 steadily organising little parties, not to fight the fire 
 in its stronghold, but to resist its advances. 
 
 The rope house was lost, the hemp house in grave
 
 FIRE 169 
 
 danger, but carpenters' shops, tar and pitch stores, 
 sail lofts, rigging house, were still safe, although 
 perilously near to the flames. So Gambler, with the 
 judgment that one has no right to expect from a 
 man of his time, and only looks for in a Shaw or his 
 successors, gave to the fire all the ground it had won. 
 Gradually, by quietly issuing his orders in person and 
 appointing lieutenants to see them carried out, he 
 increased his force of men, and employed them 
 profitably passing buckets of water from the sea to 
 the fire or working pump handles. 
 
 By this time two big detachments of the military 
 had been marched into the Yard, marines and 
 soldiers from the garrison ; and the troops supplied 
 what even the sailors lacked, the machine-like 
 discipline that comes only from the work of the 
 drill sergeant and the parade ground. But what the 
 sailors wanted in discipline they made up for in 
 energy, and one sailor to a pump handle set a pace 
 to work it by that even the Yard blacksmiths could 
 not stand for long. And besides this, while the 
 soldier officers only gave dignified orders to their 
 men to " right face " here, or to " left turn " there, the 
 naval officers, followed by their men, climbed into all
 
 I70 THE king's yard 
 
 sorts of impossible places, carrying buckets of water 
 in each hand, where landsmen would have needed 
 both hands to hold on by. 
 
 The skill and pluck of the sailors was now of 
 great advantage, for they scrambled about the roofs 
 of the buildings, dowsing the red-hot lumps of hemp 
 that were being showered upon the adjacent stores, 
 blown thither by the breeze as it caught them up 
 from the mass of fire now open to the sky, for by 
 now the roof had fallen in. Then the flames thus 
 released, shot aloft to such a height that the whole 
 harbour was lit up, and the rigging and the yards 
 of the ships could be seen crowded with men, and 
 the water with boats full of people gazing upon the 
 blaze. 
 
 The sharp words of command, and the rattle 
 of the soldiers' firelocks on the cobble stones, 
 as they were halted and dressed in sections until 
 they made a circle round the fire, acted as a tonic 
 upon the nerves of the Dockyardmen, and soon the 
 mateys were steady enough to hear the quiet voice 
 of the Commissioner issuing orders or giving words 
 of encouragement. 
 
 "Now, my lads," he would say, "move that pump
 
 FIRE 171 
 
 farther along here. A fresh party of men for this 
 engine." Or else it would be, " Come, pass along 
 the buckets. You are very slow, my men, and if 
 you're not quicker, the whole Yard will be burned, 
 and there'll be no Christmas dinner for some of 
 you." 
 
 That question of bread and butter was, outside 
 the Yard walls, what was most agitating the towns- 
 folk, who, in the something less than an hour 
 that had passed, had gathered in thousands, no 
 one among them an unmoved or unconcerned 
 spectator — for the opening of the Yard gates 
 every morning, and the regular recurrence of the 
 clerk of the cheques' pay day, was as needful to 
 their existence as sunrise. 
 
 As soon as the alarm gained the town, the 
 people flocked from everywhere to Portsmouth 
 Common and along the Hard. But the Lieutenant 
 Governor had promptly closed all the town gates, 
 shutting in upon the Common all those who had 
 reached it, and keeping out others. Every regiment 
 was under arms, and a cordon of soldiers was 
 drawn round the dock wall outside, cutting off the 
 crowd from approach to the gates. By this means
 
 172 THE KING'S YARD 
 
 the people were divided, those who were in the 
 Yard fighting the flames, those, mostly the families 
 of the mateys, shut inside upon the Common, 
 and the townsfolk of Portsmouth. The spectators 
 thus covered ground inside the fortifications from 
 the Sluice Bastion, near where Holy Trinity Church 
 now stands, to the King's Mill Redoubt, and out- 
 side the ramparts from Halfway Houses to Southsea 
 Beach, taking possession of every high point from 
 whence they could obtain a glimpse of the flames ; 
 and Blockhouse Point, Gosport Hard, and Ports- 
 mouth Point were black with people, while 
 watermen's wherries, loaded till gunwales were 
 awash, were driving a roaring trade by carrying 
 folks at a penny a head to view the blaze from 
 the water. 
 
 All these people were the men and women of 
 old Portsmouth, and no matter what manner of 
 fire breaks out nowadays, no crowd in the least 
 resembling them will assemble to look upon it. 
 They have departed with the old three-deckers, 
 their canvas, their hemp, their prize money ; and 
 the earthen walls of the town have gone the way 
 of the wooden walls in the harbour. The ship-
 
 FIRE 173 
 
 breakers* yard for the old hulks ; earth to earth 
 with the ramparts, levelled to a people's park, the 
 cannon that once frowned through their embrasures, 
 now grotesquely stuck on end to make chain posts 
 for macadamised pathways, half in, half out the 
 ground, not even decently buried. 
 
 The coming of the steam-driven floating iron 
 fort and its very respectable bluejacket garrison 
 meant the going of the old seaport population, 
 and Mr. Advance-note Isaacs has disappeared, 
 and with him Poll and Bet and Sue, who have 
 given way perhaps to much less objectionable 
 people. 
 
 But on this night, a hundred and thirty years 
 ago, the great crowd, barring the wives of the 
 mateys, had mighty few " respectable " elements 
 in it, and when the people hustled one another 
 and quarrelled or jested, they talked in a language 
 not understood by Board School scholars — at least, 
 it is supposed not. 
 
 Mrs. Mildwater and other poor but honest folk 
 stood and watched the blaze, and talked of the 
 fires of '60 and '70, when the Yard was each time 
 almost entirely burned to the ground, and people
 
 174 THE KING'S YARD 
 
 all well knew " 'twas the French had done it, 
 although the Government did try to make out 
 that 'twas the hot weather and the lightning." 
 
 " But we ain't at war now with the French, and 
 it's cold enough, the Lord knows ! It's jest some 
 good - for - nothing journeyman rope - maker bin 
 smoking." 
 
 This was the general opinion of the crowd, not 
 hasty and suspicious in its judgment — where the 
 French were not concerned, though it was true 
 that most of them agreed that war or no war, 
 the French were likely enough at the bottom of it. 
 
 But it was comforting to think that ships must be 
 built and repaired. In the previous fires the Govern- 
 ment had actually taken on more men, and after all, 
 perhaps they would get it under before long, for it 
 was not so bright, the smoke was getting thicker, and 
 there was less flame. 
 
 Thus talked the honest women in the crowd — the 
 women in the plain stuff dresses, decent white 
 aprons, and home- knitted shawls over their heads, 
 the women whose arms pressed tighter to their hearts 
 an infant, or whose hands trembled as they held 
 those of their little ones and thought of what father
 
 FIRE 175 
 
 was doing inside the Yard — whether the supper 
 growing cold upon the kitchen hob might ever now 
 be eaten, for it is dangerous work for men to climb 
 about on burning buildings. 
 
 It was hard for these mothers to listen to the jibes 
 of Poll and Bet and Sue, who chaffed each other, and 
 talked at honest women, asking such questions as, 
 " I wonder now how these landlubbers' wives like 
 their men to be under fire? No matey's ever bin so 
 close to a blaze afore. There'll be no pay for 'em 
 now." 
 
 Such talk from husseys in all manner of fine 
 colours and fal-lals is hard to bear, and there were 
 many quarrels, when women with their arms akimbo 
 exchanged compliments in lower deck language, now 
 not understood if printed. 
 
 There were men of all conditions, too. Rascals of 
 all sorts, and men who had been in hiding in fear of 
 the press, turned out that night and mingled freely 
 with the crowd, knowing well that the sailors had 
 something else to do besides searching the beer-shops 
 for them, while in the town itself, sneak thieves 
 and ruffians of all kinds made a glorious harvest 
 from the unprotected houses.
 
 176 THE KING'S YARD 
 
 But when the blaze was at its fiercest, and the 
 kindler of it standing upon Portsdown looked across 
 and saw how well he had done his work, he had not 
 counted upon Mr. Commissioner Gambler; and the 
 Commissioner was at that very time proving himself 
 a match for Mr. John Hill. 
 
 The Yard workmen had every man of them by 
 this time been set properly to work, each to do his 
 part under his particular foreman in fighting the fire. 
 The doomed rope house was left to its fate, and 
 the fire burned merrily its own way inside, making 
 a tremendous blaze, of course, and sending forth 
 showers of fire flakes, which fell in all directions 
 upon the other Yard buildings, to be disposed of 
 very quickly by the active sailors. 
 
 The Commissioner, with the Port Admiral and 
 the Lieutenant-Governor, stood calmly watching all 
 that was going on, and quietly giving his orders ; and 
 his words could be heard quite easily, for the rattle 
 of the pump handles and the roar of the fire were all 
 there was to drown them, so well had he got his men 
 in hand — they were quiet. 
 
 The soldiers had been extended all round the 
 Yard on its water side to guard against the water
 
 FIRE 177 
 
 thieves, who, Mr. Gambler knew very well, would 
 not neglect such an opportunity, and from this line 
 of redcoats there were regular rows of men passing 
 water to the sailors on the roofs. In a couple of 
 hours all danger to the rest of the Yard was over, 
 and the fire now appeared — through the open sides 
 and unroofed building — as one long, dull red bar 
 across the Yard, with a fringe of lighter red flame at 
 the top, and above that again spurts of yellow and 
 fountains of sparks continually burst forth. Inside, 
 the roaring furnace was curiously varied at places 
 where big ropes still had life enough in them to 
 hold together, and they hung in burning festoons 
 until one after another they were burnt out and fell 
 into the glowing furnace below. But by ten o'clock 
 that night it was practically all over, and the mateys 
 were sent to their homes with orders to be back at 
 daybreak to clear away the ruins, while the sailors 
 and soldiers continued through the night at the work 
 of pouring water on the embers. 
 
 At Portchester they had seen the fire ; the sentry 
 duly reported it to Lieutenant Stockleigh when the 
 flames first shot skywards, and that officer, seeing 
 what a big blaze it was, called the Governor, who 
 
 M
 
 178 THE KING'S YARD 
 
 agreed that it must be in the Dockyard or mighty 
 near thereto, and Captain Bagshott considered that 
 he ought to do something. So he gave the order 
 to beat to quarters. Then, dividing his garrison, he 
 sent half of it under Stockleigh, and accompanied by 
 the surgeon, in boats to the Dockyard, keeping the 
 other half under arms in the keep guard-room. 
 
 He himself walked about on the top of the high 
 tower until midnight, when the veterans returned, 
 and Stockleigh reported that the Port Admiral, when 
 they arrived, told them to go home again and go to 
 bed, but he was much obliged all the same. 
 
 Dolly, too, watched the fire from the castle 
 ramparts, and the Governor's daughter on the whole 
 was glad of its happening, for she thought it might 
 divert her father from that other more personal 
 trouble.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 "TAKEN OUT OF ORDINARY" 
 
 Thanks to Commissioner Gambier, nothing had 
 
 come of it all ; the Dockyard was at work again, 
 
 and this, the third great fire within twenty years, 
 
 was the least destructive. True, the rope walk and 
 
 many tons weight and pounds worth of rope had 
 
 been destroyed, but this was all the damage done, 
 
 and this time the French — if the French were 
 
 responsible — were farther off than ever from 
 
 damaging the British Navy. 
 
 The men were all busy again the very 
 
 morning after the fire, and in less than a week 
 
 the ropemakers had made themselves temporary 
 
 rope walks, and the work of rigging and fitting 
 
 out the ships was not seriously impeded by the 
 
 disaster. The nine days had come to an end, 
 
 and the wonder and talk and speculation had 
 
 died out, when something happened to revive it 
 
 179
 
 l8o THE KING'S YARD 
 
 all, and one of the first persons to be concerned 
 in this revival was the Governor of Portchester 
 Castle. 
 
 Matters were not going pleasantly in Captain 
 Bagshott's small family. For three or four days 
 after Mr. Henry Warner's disappearance Dolly 
 went cheerfully enough about her household 
 duties, holding her head high, her demeanour as 
 became one who was about by incontestable 
 evidence to prove her superior wisdom. But 
 when a fifth — a sixth day — a week, passed, and 
 no Mr. Warner appeared, free to come or to go, 
 and to claim the hand of a trusting girl, triumphant 
 over the unjust suspicions of a well-intentioned, 
 but very prejudiced, though dearly-loved old father 
 — when Mr. Warner neither appeared or even sent 
 a message, then Dolly's fortitude, after passing 
 through all the stages from absolute certainty to 
 slight misgivings on to grave doubts and fears, 
 and then to utter despair, gave way altogether. 
 
 Of course her heart was broken — or she thought 
 it was. First, she had comforted herself with the 
 belief that Warner had met with obstacles to 
 clearing his good name ; that a day one way or the
 
 ^" TAKEN OUT OF ORDINARY" l8r 
 
 Other was not much, and London was about eighty 
 miles from Portchester— but then, why did he not 
 send a message? But when the eighth day had 
 passed, and no word came, the girl's Spanish castle, 
 never anything but a shaky structure from the time 
 when its foundation was first laid, tottering for a 
 week, fell to pieces, and with it Dolly's pride and 
 confidence in herself 
 
 Her father no longer treated her as a spoilt child. 
 He had dropped the subject of their dispute from 
 the day of his visit to the Admiral, and although 
 he kissed Dolly good-night and good-morning, and 
 was always quite gentle and kind to her, yet that 
 something had come between them was plain to 
 everyone, and the official sternness of the old man 
 now never relaxed in Dolly's presence. 
 
 Dr. Brand was having a particularly bad time 
 of it. The Governor treated him with the most 
 distant politeness, intimating immediately after the 
 American's escape that the backgammon evenings 
 were at an end, and in future their intercourse 
 must be confined to official matters. The surgeon 
 in consequence found himself thrown upon his 
 own resources — his books — in the dismal little
 
 1 82 THE king's yard 
 
 room that formed his quarters. Once or twice 
 Brand had endeavoured to talk to Dolly, but the 
 girl's pride was strong enough to resent his 
 sympathy, and she, cut off from her father, 
 wrapped her sorrow within her breast, and grew 
 gradually to imagine that her heart was broken. 
 
 Hour after hour Dolly lay awake at night and 
 thought of it all, alternately reviling herself for 
 having so readily given her love to a man so base 
 as to use her in such fashion, or finding reasons for 
 the American's silence, and endeavouring to persuade 
 herself that all would yet come well. Christmas was 
 coming, and the thought of former Christmas days, 
 before Mr. Warner had upset the peace of the castle, 
 was beginning to make Dolly feel like ending it all. 
 When a week had gone the girl, after a whole night 
 of mental torture, made up her mind to give in, to 
 go to her father and beg him to forgive her, for what 
 remained of her heart was his entirely now, and he 
 must take her back to him, or she would die of 
 grief. 
 
 And so, full of this idea, despite her broken heart, 
 she had rehearsed a little scene before coming to 
 breakfast, and unconsciously was looking forward
 
 "TAKEN OUT OF ORDINARY'* I {^3 
 
 to playing a very affecting part in a touching 
 domestic drama. 
 
 She entered the room, to find her father was busy 
 getting into his best uniform coat ; the Admiral had 
 sent a messenger, desiring his immediate attendance, 
 and a boat was waiting for him. Captain Bagshott 
 was not a man for even his daughter to become 
 sentimental with when the Admiral's boat was 
 waiting for him, and so Dolly wistfully kissed him 
 good-bye, and postponed that affecting scene between 
 them until he should return. 
 
 The old man got into the boat without any 
 misgivings this time. The Port Admiral had pro- 
 bably sent for him to thank him for despatching that 
 half company of veterans to the fire ; or else, perhaps, 
 that infernal American had cleared his character 
 and himself out of the country, and the whole of that 
 bother was ended. 
 
 The Admiral's secretary was waiting for him in 
 the ante-room. 
 
 "Ah, Captain Bagshott," he said, "the Admiral 
 is anxiously expecting you ; there's something in 
 the wind, sir, and I was ordered to show you in 
 at once."
 
 184 THE king's yard 
 
 The Governor was accordingly ushered into the 
 Admiral's office, and the Admiral, the moment he 
 saw him, said : 
 
 "Take a seat, Captain Bagshott. I want to see 
 you particularly." Then he nodded to the secretary, 
 who went out and closed the door behind 
 him. 
 
 The Admiral faced about in his chair, and looking 
 old Bagshott squarely in the face, said : 
 
 " I want to know, sir, if you have heard anything 
 more of that prisoner who escaped from your 
 command ? " 
 
 The Governor of Portchester attached no impor- 
 tance to the sharp tone of the question, but thought 
 it was some pleasant humour of the Admiral's. 
 
 " No, sir, of course not. I have made no attempt 
 to discover the man ; you will remember we had 
 some conversation in which you attributed no 
 importance to — " 
 
 " Never mind that now. Captain Bagshott. I ask 
 you, has the man returned, or communicated with 
 the castle since he left it ? " 
 
 The Admiral was very much in earnest, there 
 could be no doubt of it, and Bagshott rose from his
 
 "TAKEN OUT OF ORDINARY" 1 85 
 
 chair, his grey old head bowed meekly before his 
 superior, and answered : 
 
 " No, sir, certainly not." 
 
 "Was there not some love affair between your 
 daughter and this man ? You told me some yarn of 
 that kind." 
 
 The Admiral put the question as if he were a 
 cross-examining counsel, and Bagshott had some 
 difficulty in preserving his self-control as he replied : 
 
 " I told you, sir, that unfortunately my daughter 
 had so far forgotten herself as to have aided in some 
 way this man's escape ; he has taken advantage of 
 her youth and inexperience, and my stupidity thus 
 far, but—" 
 
 "Quite so; but has there been no communication 
 between them since — nothing by which we could 
 trace him ? " 
 
 " I am quite certain there has not, sir," said the 
 old man eagerly, " My daughter has now dis- 
 covered her folly, I am sure, and — " 
 
 The Admiral impatiently interrupted him : 
 
 " Yes, yes, no doubt ; but this man must be found, 
 do you hear? Your daughter must at once tell us 
 everything. Go back and get to work with her ;
 
 l86 THE king's yard 
 
 drag out of her everything that passed between 
 them. Don't let her make a fool of you again ; a 
 girl like that ought to be kept a tight hand over." 
 
 Captain Bagshott grew very red in the face, and 
 his old shoulders stiffened. 
 
 " Nothing passed between them, sir, but what I 
 have told you. My daughter is incapable of — " 
 
 " Of course, of course," returned the Admiral 
 hastily. " But all the same the man must be found, 
 and I hold you responsible for finding him." 
 
 " Be it so, sir ; but I venture to remind you that 
 I took the full responsibility for his escape when a 
 week ago I came here and told you what had 
 happened, and you then answered me with a laugh — 
 that the matter was of no moment — that it was a 
 good thing — that, politically, it was the best thing 
 that could have happened — that — " 
 
 There was a passionate pleading in the old 
 man's voice. He was fighting for his honour and 
 his name, and his fifty years of unsullied service. 
 
 ** Quite true. Captain Bagshott, quite true ; but 
 Portsmouth Dockyard had not then been set on 
 fire." 
 
 " No, sir, it had not ; and what has my neglect
 
 "TAKEN OUT OF ORDINARY" 1 87 
 
 of my prisoner to do with the burning of the rope 
 house ? " 
 
 "This, Captain Bagshott. Your prisoner, your 
 daughter's lover is — there is very little doubt — 
 the man who set fire to it." 
 
 The old man stood very quietly for a moment, 
 and his wrinkled face twitched as he muttered : 
 
 " Of course, sir, there is evidence of this, and of 
 course I am held indirectly responsible ? " 
 
 The Admiral softened his tone a little. 
 
 " Look here, Bagshott, I cannot explain to you 
 everything relating to this business, but the fire 
 occurred the night after this man's escape, and we 
 have made discoveries, and have received reports 
 which make it practically certain that he was the 
 infernal villain." 
 
 "And my responsibility is of course admitted, 
 sir," the brave voice faltered. " Do with me 
 whatever is right ; I acknowledge that fully." 
 
 "Well, you know, Captain Bagshott," said the 
 Admiral, "that circumstances alter cases. Now, 
 don't for a moment imagine that I am angry with 
 you, but something must be done ; the man must 
 be found. Your daughter, you know — "
 
 1 88 THE KING'S YARD 
 
 " My daughter, sir, will suffer anything that 
 should be suffered by any other woman who has 
 acted in like manner to her," said the old man 
 proudly. " But for myself — for myself — you will be 
 pleased to report to the Government of me — for 
 my neglect, of my utter unfitness for such a 
 charge. I have no answer to make. Whatever 
 may be decided upon will be accepted without 
 question by me. I have been in ordinary too long, 
 and an old hulk like me is only fit for breaking 
 up." 
 
 " Oh, something will have to be done, of course, 
 but I won't make it hotter for you than I can 
 help, for old acquaintance' sake, you know. Look 
 here, Bagshott, go back now, and see if your 
 daughter can help us in any way, and come and 
 see me again to-morrow." 
 
 The old man bowed, and taking up his hat, 
 turned towards the door. It was early morning, 
 the sun was shining, and his eyesight was that of 
 a sailor's, wanting no spectacles ; yet, as he went 
 out, he groped his way along. His wrinkled old 
 hands, trembling, touched the wall of the passage 
 as he made towards the door, his feet stumbling
 
 "TAKEN OUT OF ORDINARY" 189 
 
 Upon the steps of the house. So he passed out, 
 brushing by the secretary, the callers in the waiting- 
 room, the sentry, seeing none of them. 
 
 Fifty years of getting in and out of boats made 
 the work an instinct with him, so that he made his 
 way to the stern sheets of the waterman's wherry 
 without accident. Sitting bolt upright, grasping 
 the yoke lines firmly, steering perfectly, he took 
 the boat up the harbour. 
 
 The boat landed him on the beach at Portchester. 
 With the touch of his feet upon the land his 
 steadiness left him again, and he staggered into the 
 castle to his room, saying only to the servant as he 
 passed her : 
 
 " Send my daughter to me." 
 
 The old serving-woman looked at him, and was 
 frightened. She ran hurriedly for her young 
 mistress, saying : 
 
 "The Governor is upset. Mistress Dolly, and he 
 wants you ; go quickly ! " 
 
 Dolly ran in from the kitchen, and found him 
 sitting very upright, his hands crossed upon his 
 walking-stick, staring straight before him, with a
 
 IpO THE king's yard 
 
 Strange, stern look, his face showing curious shadows 
 upon it. 
 
 "Father, father, what is it?" she cried. "What 
 is the matter? you are ill. Oh, my dear, my 
 dear ! What has happened ? '' 
 
 " Yes ; it is you." 
 
 His voice was stranger than his look, and Dolly 
 had no conception of its meaning. Knowing as 
 yet nothing of the tragedies of life, she did not 
 comprehend, having only a vague fear. 
 
 " Yes, yes, my dearest father ; what is it ? Oh, 
 forgive me ; I was coming to you before you 
 went away this morning. Tell me that you 
 forgive me ! I was wrong." 
 
 " My fault," he murmured, " my fault — no 
 mother — you are not to blame." 
 
 "Father, you are ill — tell me what has hap- 
 pened ? " 
 
 She was at his knees, and moved away the 
 stick his hands were resting upon, so that the 
 whole weight of his body was borne upon her 
 slender shoulders. But she, holding him thus in 
 her arms, felt not that in the greater weight that 
 had come upon her heart.
 
 "TAKEN OUT OF ORDINARY" 191 
 
 "All well, Dolly — don't cry — good girl— ended 
 now — shock too much for an old hulk like me." 
 
 They came running in, in answer to the girl's 
 cries for help— the servant, Stockleigh, Brand- 
 but the only help they could give was to lighten 
 the burden on Dolly's shoulders. The weight on 
 her heart grew heavier when, as they lay the old 
 man on the floor, the sunlight from the cottage 
 window showed still darkening and darker shadows 
 on his face. 
 
 "My number's hoisted, and I'll slip my cable 
 soon. Keep an eye on Dolly. Con her steering; 
 it's a little wild, like mine is now. Do you hear 
 me. Brand ? " 
 
 Thus the old man, so long laid up in ordinary, 
 
 cut adrift, not to toss again upon life's stormy 
 sea. 
 
 And Brand made solemn answer to Dolly's 
 
 mute appeal : 
 
 " It is death, my girl ; it is death."
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 DR. BRAND SETS TO WORK 
 
 For Dolly playtime was over. Dispelled were the 
 sweet fancies of her girlhood ; dreamland was now 
 to give place to the earnestness of life — to woman- 
 hood. And the new epoch began in Parson 
 Bramber's home, the last place a week earlier that 
 Dolly would have sought for consolation in time of 
 trouble. 
 
 Miss Bramber and Miss Bagshott used to love 
 one another as Christians sometimes do, because it 
 is their duty, and for no other reason, for Parson 
 Bramber's sister was a spinster, old and very prim. 
 The week after her father's burial, Dolly, from 
 beneath her swollen eyelids, began to look out 
 upon the world again. She found herself an 
 inmate of the vicarage, and this old lady whisper- 
 ing words of comfort in her ears, and altogether 
 
 behaving in such a fashion that the girl no longer 
 
 192
 
 DR. BRAND SETS TO WORK 193 
 
 recognised the grim old maid, but found in her a 
 second mother. 
 
 Sitting in the parson's best parlour, the old 
 lady in an arm-chair by the fire, Dolly on a foot- 
 stool by her side, her head on Miss Bramber's lap, 
 the wrinkled old hand smoothing Dolly's pale 
 cheek— this was how Dr. Brand found them when 
 he was shown in. 
 
 The old lady liked the surgeon, she having no 
 suspicion of his radical sympathies, he having no 
 wish to thrust them upon her, conceiving (incredible 
 as it may appear in this age of advertisement) 
 that other people had no longing to know his 
 sentiments. Therefore, Dr. Brand was welcomed, 
 and the old lady, taking the opportunity of his 
 coming to go about some household business, left 
 him to talk to Dolly. 
 
 " Miss Bagshott," said the doctor, " I am glad to 
 see you alone, and well enough, I hope, to have 
 some little talk with me upon a painful subject." 
 
 " I am quite ready to talk if it is necessary, 
 doctor. Owing to your kind thoughtfulness, and 
 to all you have done for me, I am here now. I 
 had always misjudged dear Miss Bramber, and 
 
 N
 
 194 THE king's yard 
 
 you, knowing her, brought me here. That I am 
 able to speak of my dear father without entirely 
 break — breaking down — is owing to this dear 
 old lady." 
 
 Then Dolly did break down, and cried a little, 
 but soon looked up again cheerfully in the doctor's 
 face, waiting for him to speak. 
 
 "Well, the fact is, Miss Bagshott— " 
 
 "Dolly, doctor; why not Dolly.?" 
 
 Brand hesitated a great deal, evidently finding it 
 difficult to put into words what he had to say. 
 
 "The fact is, Miss Dolly, I don't want to talk 
 of your poor father, but of other and more painful 
 matters." 
 
 " Surely not, doctor ; there is, I hope, no need — 
 no fresh trouble to be talked about?" 
 
 " Your future must be considered. I must tell 
 you that your father has left a little money — 
 enough for you to remain quite comfortably here, 
 and the vicar will accept through me some small 
 payment out of your estate for your lodging. I 
 have arranged all that, and if you will leave the 
 business in my hands, I will invest your little 
 fortune, so that you need have no trouble."
 
 DR. BRAND SETS TO WORK I95 
 
 "Yes, yes, doctor; it is very good of you. I 
 cannot thank you enough." 
 
 "No need for that. Of course a lawyer might 
 be employed, but unless you wish this to be done, 
 I think it is not worth while to deliver yourself 
 into the hands of any rascal of that kind. I am 
 quoting your father now, and believe me, he was 
 right on the subject of lawyers." 
 
 It seemed then that it would be half the battle 
 if Dolly could do without a lawyer, and Brand 
 sighed in relief when she answered : 
 
 " My father was always right ; but the 
 trouble—" 
 
 " Never mind that. And now I come to a more 
 painful subject, on which your father was, perhaps, 
 not quite right ; there is very likely some mistake. 
 Forgive me for touching upon this, but I must tell 
 you — don't be annoyed with me — I must refer to 
 Mr. Warner." 
 
 The doctor looked straight at Dolly as he 
 pronounced the American's name. 
 
 " Very well, doctor ; I would rather not talk of 
 that- — that — the discovery, the — the — " 
 
 Although Dolly hesitated in her speech, she was
 
 196 THE KING'S YARD 
 
 not half so confused as Brand expected her to be 
 at the mention of Warner. 
 
 " Yes, Dolly, forgive me, but it is all very doubtful. 
 Your father was, I think, misled by the Admiral. I 
 am quite sure in my own mind that Warner did not 
 set fire to the Yard." 
 
 " I try to believe that, doctor ; but almost the last 
 words of my father were a warning to me, and — 
 and — besides, where is he ? Why has he not come 
 back?" 
 
 " There is some mistake, and I am determined to 
 clear it up. If — if it should turn out that your 
 father was right — try to bear the news ; but I have 
 hopes to bring you good tidings when I come 
 back." 
 
 " No, doctor, don't talk of it. It is all ended 
 now. Believe me, I desire never more to hear or 
 speak of the — the — of this Warner." 
 
 Brand looked hard at the girl. He thought her 
 a little hasty in believing the worst of the young 
 man. 
 
 " Very well. Miss Dolly," he said, " but I must tell 
 you I have had an interview with the Admiral, and 
 I have obtained a month's leave, In that time you
 
 DR. BRAND SETS TO WORK 1 97 
 
 will see I shall have cleared up the mystery, and I 
 am sure you will welcome me if I bring you good 
 news." 
 
 " Come back yourself, doctor, and bring me no 
 news. I am sure you can do nothing; my father's 
 words and Mr. Warner's long absence, and besides — 
 and besides — I don't want — want — to hear anyone — 
 and it is very cruel of you to remind me — and — 
 and — " Bursting into tears, Dolly held out her hand 
 to the doctor. " Forgive me, I don't mean to be 
 cross ; but don't let us talk of this." 
 
 " Forgive me, Miss Bagshott, and we will not talk 
 of it. I am going now, and we will say no more 
 until I come back. I will see the parson and Miss 
 Bramber, and say good-bye to her ; she won't mind 
 me going to her kitchen. Stay you here, and I beg 
 you will not mention to Miss Bramber the last 
 subject of our interview." 
 
 Then the doctor shook hands with Dolly and 
 went away. At the back of the house he found 
 Miss Bramber. 
 
 " My dear madam," he said, " I am going away 
 now. Miss Bagshott seems quite recovered, and I 
 hope soon to set everything to rights."
 
 198 THE king's yard 
 
 "Did you arrange with her about her money — 
 her so-called estate ? " the old lady asked, " I do 
 wish it had not been necessary to resort to even 
 a partial untruth." 
 
 "Yes, yes, Miss Bramber; she understands that 
 her father left her something, and I have merely 
 avoided telling her how much. I hope you will 
 believe that I am incapable of more than just the 
 very least departure from fact." 
 
 " I believe, Dr. Brand, that you are a gentleman," 
 said the old lady. " I hope you took my advice, 
 and did not return to that very unfortunate affair 
 between her and the rebel." 
 
 The doctor smiled : 
 
 " Madam, I would not dream of referring to it 
 after my conversation with you a day or two ago. 
 That is to say, I just mentioned the matter 
 incidentally, in connection with something else." 
 
 The old lady shook her curls as she answered : 
 
 " You know very well. Dr. Brand, that this painful 
 incident is the one objection I had to having the 
 poor girl here ; and if I were not perfectly certain 
 that this dreadful villain had not taken advantage 
 of the girl's youth, and that we shall not hear of the
 
 DR. BRAND SETS TO WORK 1 99 
 
 rebel again, unless as a prisoner, I should never be 
 able to get the better of my objection.'' 
 
 *' Quite so, madam, but perhaps we shall presently 
 find that the rebel who escaped from the castle is 
 not the man who set fire to the Yard, though I hope 
 that you will understand that I do not justify Mr. 
 Warner's rebellious conduct." 
 
 " It would be impossible to justify it, sir. One 
 form of rebellion is as bad as another." 
 
 Then Miss Bramber said good-bye to the doctor 
 and went back to Dolly, and called her a poor 
 dear motherless girl, patted her cheek, and cried 
 with her, and became altogether a very different 
 old lady. 
 
 The surgeon was by no means so sanguine as 
 he had pretended to be about Mr. Warner's 
 innocence ; but those keen eyes of his had pene- 
 trated deeper into Dolly's mind than she herself 
 suspected, and he knew well that the death of her 
 father and the absence of Warner were sorrows 
 that Dolly's tears fell freely for, and while a woman 
 weeps there is no danger. But that the handsome 
 young American was nothing but a hired incendiary 
 was a hideous thought for Dolly to brood over,
 
 200 THE KING'S YARD . 
 
 which Brand determined must be driven away at 
 any cost. But could he clear the man ? If not — 
 the doctor looked very grim indeed at the thought. 
 
 Warner, Brand imagined, was either returned to 
 France, or in hiding in London. On the night of 
 his escape from the castle it was more than likely 
 a boat had been waiting for him, and taken him 
 across at once ; but then the fire ? 
 
 Brand had seen the Admiral, as he had told 
 Dolly, but he had not told her what the Admiral 
 had shown him. 
 
 Very much shocked to hear of Bagshott's death, 
 the Admiral had been quite confidential with the 
 surgeon. 
 
 " I spoke sharply to him," said the great man, 
 " but I had no idea that he took it so much to 
 heart. Dear me ! Dear me ! Yes, he was a very 
 old man, of course, and apoplectic. Dr. Brand, 
 you say? Well, of course that would account for 
 it." 
 
 " Are we convinced that Warner set fire to the 
 Yard ? " he went on, in reply to Brand's suggestion 
 that there was a doubt. "Well, I don't mind 
 telling you what we have discovered since. I, pf
 
 DR. BRAND SETS TO WORK 201 
 
 course, know his lordship is a distant connection 
 of yours, and that you are asking me for leave 
 that you may visit him." Then the Admiral went 
 to a cupboard, where he kept important papers, 
 and took out of it a tin canister, with a piece of 
 candle in it. " Do you see that ? That was dis- 
 covered in the hemp house, hidden in a ball of 
 hemp, a few days ago, when they were clearing 
 up the wet hemp. What do you make of it ? " 
 
 The doctor took the tin in his hand and examined 
 it, and understood its meaning; but Mrs. Mildwater, 
 if it had been shown to her, would have understood 
 better. 
 
 " Yes, I see, sir," he said ; " this is part of some 
 apparatus for setting fire to the building." 
 
 " Quite so. Before they found this, we thought 
 the French were at the bottom of the business, 
 but we have persistently pretended that it was an 
 accident, to gull the rascals into the idea that we 
 did not suspect them. However, the people in 
 London know all about it, and presently we have 
 hopes of getting the man." 
 
 "What man, sir? Are you sure of him ?" 
 
 " \Vhat man ! " the Admiral spoke sharply.
 
 202 THE KING'S YARD 
 
 " Why, as I said before, the fellow who escaped 
 from Portchester, of course. There is no doubt of 
 it. First we had information of his coming, then 
 a watchman remembered a man being locked up 
 in the hemp house on some night which was just 
 about the time of his escape, then the fire breaks 
 out. The whole thing is plain." 
 
 "Very plain, as you say, sir," assented Brand, 
 and then bowed his way out from the Admiral's 
 room, saying that he would hire a horse and depart 
 on his way to London to see that distinguished 
 patron of his. 
 
 " Remember me to his lordship," said the Admiral, 
 following him to the door, "and tell him that we 
 are leaving no stone unturned here to discover the 
 villain. You are fortunate, Dr. Brand, in having 
 such a powerful friend at court." 
 
 "Oh, very," replied the doctor, as he walked to 
 the door. " As you know, I owe my present 
 valuable appointment to his good offices." 
 
 But the doctor did not go off in the direction of 
 the London Road. Instead, he made his way to 
 Chapel Row, and knocked at Mrs, Mildwater's 
 door,
 
 DR. BRAND SETS TO WORK 203 
 
 "Do you remember me, ma'am?" he asked that 
 good woman. 
 
 " No, sir ; but Mildwas is at work, and perhaps 
 it was him you was wanting?" 
 
 " If you have no objection I will come inside ; I 
 should like to have some talk with you privately." 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 Mrs. Mildwater seemed very frightened, as she 
 dusted the best chairs with her apron. She had a 
 subdued air, and her state of nervous expectancy 
 was noticed by the surgeon, who smiled a little 
 grimly at her, and she was sure that at last the 
 blow was about to fall. 
 
 For days her Mildwas and herself had been in fear 
 and trembling. It began with certain rumours after 
 the fire broke out. At first everyone said it was the 
 French; then the Commissioner set that yarn at rest. 
 He spoke to several people about the fire, and was 
 very affable, telling them how he had made a 
 discovery. It was not the French this time, but 
 one of the men, who had been seen smoking, and 
 as they were unable to discover the smoker, there 
 was no more to be said, except that people ought 
 to be thankful that it was no worse. But it would
 
 204 THE king's YARD 
 
 be a bad thing for anyone he caught smoking in 
 the Yard. 
 
 Everyone was glad the matter was settled, and 
 particularly glad were Mr. and Mrs. Mildwater, who, 
 two or three days after the fire, began to wonder if 
 Jack the Painter was not coming back for his bundle. 
 Soon, unconfessed to each other, they felt misgivings. 
 Mildwater remembered that the painter had been 
 lurking about the Yard a great deal, also that he 
 sometimes expressed very strange sentiments, and 
 that he had been among the rebels. Recollecting 
 these things, the ropemaker feared that poeple would 
 also bear in mind that he had introduced the painter 
 to the Yard. 
 
 Mrs. Mildwater thought on her late lodger's 
 irregular hours, his unusually sullen demeanour, 
 and on that experiment in chemistry which had so 
 nearly set her house on fire ; and thinking of these 
 things, she had told her Mildwas that for their own 
 safety it would be very wise for him to keep a still 
 tongue in his head. But for a while the Com- 
 missioner's easy way of taking the business had 
 reassured them both, and as the neighbours did not 
 bother their heads as to what had beconie of the
 
 DR. BRAND SETS TO WORK 205 
 
 painter, whose bundle still waited for him in the 
 little room, the Mildwaters' misgivings were dying 
 out 
 
 But a day or two before Brand's visit a rumour 
 was afloat ; something had been discovered by one 
 of the men in the hemp house. The Commissioner 
 was sent for, and he had told the men present if any 
 word of their discovery got known before he made 
 it public, he would dismiss them all. But such a 
 discovery could not be kept entirely secret; vague 
 stories floated about, and Mildwater and his wife 
 did not sleep at nights. 
 
 Mrs. Mildwater then, showing the doctor into her 
 best parlour, concluded that he was a Bow Street 
 officer; for Bow Street officers from London, it was 
 known, were in the town looking for the incendiary — 
 and that there had been an incendiary was beginning 
 to be believed. 
 
 "Ah, you don't remember me? Well, so much 
 the better," remarked the visitor mysteriously. 
 
 Mrs. Mildwater only shook her head. She was 
 too frightened to trust herself to speak, but in- 
 wardly determined to make a clean breast of it, 
 for after all, she reasoned, it was not intentional.
 
 206 THE king's YARD 
 
 She had not knowingly harboured the enemy, and 
 perhaps Mildwater's foolishness in taking him 
 about the Yard was not known. 
 
 " I want to ask you who that man was who was 
 lodging here three weeks ago. Of course he is 
 not here now ; where is he, and what do you 
 know of him ? " 
 
 The doctor looked very stern as he put the 
 questions. 
 
 Her worst fears were confirmed, and the visitor 
 was a Bow Street officer she thought. 
 
 " He has gone away, sir ; I don't know where," 
 she managed to utter. 
 
 " Yes, of course ; the night of the fire." Brand 
 looked serious. 
 
 " Indeed, sir, we know nothing of the man. He 
 came to us a stranger, wanting work, and said he 
 was a painter, and — and — " But Mrs. Mildwater 
 broke down, and the rest of her words were 
 muffled in her apron, as she held it to her eyes 
 and burst out weeping. 
 
 The doctor assumed that air which has so much 
 to do with successful practice in his profession. 
 
 " Look here, my good woman," he said, " there
 
 DR. BRAND SETS TO WORK 20/ 
 
 IS no need to be frightened. All I want is for 
 you to tell me the whole truth. No harm will 
 come to you or your husband if you do that. 
 When did the man leave your house on that 
 night ? " 
 
 Then Mrs. Mild water, with many protestations 
 of the innocence of herself and her husband, 
 told all she knew, and in proof of the painter's 
 disappearance, mentioned that his bundle was still 
 hidden away under the bed in the room he had 
 occupied, the character of her last lodger having 
 frightened her out of attempting to relet the room. 
 
 *' A bundle, eh ? " said the visitor. " I must see 
 that ; bring it here.'' 
 
 It was brought, and the doctor very thoroughly 
 overhauled its contents. Then he made a bargain 
 with Mrs. Mildvvater. She was to take care that 
 neither her husband or herself disclosed to any- 
 one their suspicions, and no one must know of the 
 bundle's existence. 
 
 " If you keep your own counsel in the 
 matter," said Brand, " no harm will come to you, 
 I am going to London now to see the authorities, 
 and will clear you ; but if you open your mouths
 
 2o8 THE king's YARD 
 
 about the business we shall probably miss our 
 man, and, by George, I'll lodge the pair of you 
 in gaol if I find that you have been the cause of 
 it!"
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 DR. BRAND SOLVES THE MYSTERY 
 
 Dr. Brand set out on horseback for London. 
 
 He was well mounted, but his horse carried a 
 
 valise of clothing, and in the doctor's pockets 
 
 were a case of instruments, without which he 
 
 never travelled, and a heavy horse pistol, so that 
 
 although he proceeded at a good pace, it was 
 
 late in the afternoon when he rode into the town 
 
 of Petersfield. Being poor in purse — all the 
 
 poorer since Dolly had come into that small 
 
 estate of hers — he chose the old White Hart to 
 
 sleep in for the night, passing by the Castle Inn, 
 
 where Pepys used to stay when he made his 
 
 journeys from London to inspect Portsmouth 
 
 Yard, and where he tells us "we were very 
 
 merry and played with our wives at bovvles." 
 
 The little town used to wake up once a fort- 
 
 209 o
 
 210 THE king's YARD 
 
 night, on market day, and it was the surgeon's 
 chance to arrive upon that day to find the 
 tavern crowded with noisy farmers, and most of 
 the bedrooms engaged The landlord apologised 
 for offering such poor accommodation to a gentle- 
 man travelling, and went on to explain that the 
 only room available was close to that occupied by 
 a sick man (in case the gentleman should dis- 
 cover by the doctor's visits that he was such close 
 neighbours with a sick person). The landlord hoped 
 he would not be nervous ; it was not a disease 
 of any kind, but a man who had been wounded. 
 
 " I am scarcely likely to be nervous of sickness 
 in any shape, good sir, for I am a surgeon by 
 profession; and further, I only want the room for 
 a night, as I am on my way to London," said 
 Brand, in reply to all these excuses. 
 
 The host lost interest in his guest at once — 
 anything was good enough for a traveller who 
 only wanted to stay one night ; and so Brand was 
 handed over to a chambermaid to be shown his 
 room. 
 
 When he came downstairs, the farmers were 
 noisily enjoying their supper in the great dining-
 
 DR. BRAND SOLVES THE MYSTERY 211 
 
 room of the tavern, and he made his way into 
 a small parlour, where his dinner was served 
 privately. While he was eating it, a man entered 
 the room, followed by a waiter bringing a glass 
 of hot brandy and water. 
 
 "I hope I don't disturb you, sir," said the new- 
 comer, "but the house is very full to-night, and 
 I have been shown in here, where I can drink 
 my glass of spirits in quiet comfort." 
 
 "No apologies are necessary, sir; the room is 
 a public one, and if it were not, I should be 
 pleased to share it with you. You will need the 
 hot stimulant, for the night is cold, and I pre- 
 sume you have a ride before you." 
 
 Brand, as he spoke, looked at the other's 
 riding boots, which he was flicking with his 
 whip. 
 
 "Yes, sir, a good many miles before I settle 
 for the night," replied the other. " If the waiter 
 speaks truly, you, as a practitioner, will understand 
 that. The village doctor in a big district like 
 this, as you can imagine, does a good deal of 
 riding at all hours." 
 
 "Yes, I can understand that. As the waiter
 
 212 THE KINGS YARD 
 
 told you, I am a surgeon, although not in similar 
 practice to yourself." 
 
 "Ah! from London, perhaps? more luck, or 
 brains, or money, than we poor country prac- 
 titioners. Never mind, I don't envy you, sir. 
 Life has its compensations even in the country." 
 
 "You have nothing to envy me for," answered 
 Brand, laughing ; " my practice is not a city one, 
 and I excel you in none of the three quali- 
 fications you have mentioned. I am an army 
 surgeon, although at present attached to one of 
 the naval establishments at Portsmouth." 
 
 The country doctor pricked up his ears. He 
 said : 
 
 "Well, by Jove! now, I am very glad to see 
 you if that's the case, for if you don't mind, I'll 
 take your opinion on a patient of mine." 
 
 "By all means, sir. The patient is, I pre- 
 sume, the person in this inn in the next room 
 to my own, of whom the landlord spoke to 
 me. 
 
 " Yes ; he has been very badly wounded by a 
 pistol shot, and is giving me much trouble and 
 anxiety. The fact is, the man won't recover while
 
 DR. BRAND SOLVES THE MYSTERY 21 3 
 
 his mind is in its present state, leaving out of the 
 question the seriousness of the wound." 
 
 " How was he shot ? " asked Brand, only very 
 languidly interested in the wounded man. 
 
 " There you have me, sir. He says he was shot 
 in an encounter with a footpad, but I am a great 
 deal more inclined to think either he attempted 
 to commit suicide, or else that he is hiding some 
 other mystery." 
 
 " Indeed ; and why ? " 
 
 " Well, you see, some villager picked him up a 
 month ago lying bleeding to death near Cather- 
 ington. The carter was on his way to Petersfield, so 
 brought him and unloaded him. upon our host here, 
 who at first did not half like the notion. However, 
 I was sent for, and the upshot of it is that I have 
 become in a measure responsible for the man, not 
 only for doctoring him, but for feeding and lodging 
 him." 
 
 " But I suppose he is now able to say something 
 for himself?" 
 
 " He simply says : ' Get me well, doctor, and I 
 will square all accounts and repay any trouble that 
 anyone has been put to on my account.' "
 
 214 THE king's yard 
 
 " That seems fair enough ; what more would you 
 have ? " replied Brand, yawning. 
 
 The country doctor shrugged his shoulders, and 
 answered : 
 
 " Yes, all very well ; but he tells us that his name 
 is anything I please to call him ; that he has been 
 attacked by a robber — yet he has a bag full of 
 money, and as soon as he recovered consciousness 
 he told us where to find it in his pockets, handed 
 it over to me, and told me to do as I liked 
 with it so long as I held my tongue over the 
 affair." 
 
 " Upon my soul, I don't see anything to find 
 fault with in the arrangement. He has paid you in 
 advance, and probably because there is some woman 
 concerned, asks you to hush it up." 
 
 " No, sir, that is not what's the matter. The 
 fact is, you know, the times are very unsettled, and 
 one has to be cautious." The village surgeon 
 dropped his voice to a whisper. " I tell you this, 
 therefore, in confidence ; the truth is, the man's an 
 American, and he is very anxious that no one 
 should know it." 
 
 Brand jumped from his chair.
 
 DR. BRAND SOLVfiS THE MYSTERY 21 5 
 
 "The devil he is ! Take me to him. It is possible 
 I know him." 
 
 "It is lucky I spoke, then. Come with me at once, 
 and I'll introduce you," said the other eagerly. 
 
 When the two men entered the room, the patient 
 was lying uneasily in his bed, wide-awake. The dim 
 light of the one candle was not so dim, nor the face 
 so pinched and ill, that Brand, the moment he saw 
 him, could not recognise Henry Warner. 
 
 " I have brought another surgeon to see you ; 
 allow me to introduce Dr. " 
 
 " Brand ! " said the owner of the name quietly. 
 
 " What name ? Where ? Come here, closer." 
 
 The patient, as he spoke, tried to rise from his 
 bed. 
 
 Brand stepped to the bed. 
 
 "Yes, it is I, Mr. Warner, and I am very glad 
 to have found you." 
 
 " Thank Heaven you have come. I have been 
 puzzling my brains to think how I could safely 
 communicate with you. What has happened ? 
 How did you know I was here ? Are they all 
 well, and what do they think of my absence ? " 
 
 " We will talk presently," replied Brand, " but you
 
 216 THE king's yard 
 
 are not my patient. If this gentleman, who has been 
 so good as to take care of you so well, would permit 
 us to have some conversation ? " 
 
 " Certainly, Dr. Brand ; I shall leave you two 
 together now, and will come in again to-morrow. I 
 am sure I am very glad that things have happened 
 in this way." 
 
 And the other doctor went off, quite convinced in 
 his mind that the meeting was too strange to be 
 mere chance work. 
 
 When they were alone Brand took a seat by the 
 bedside, and the American, the moment he did so, 
 said excitedly : 
 
 "The Yard was fired, I know. Have they 
 caught anyone?" 
 
 " Yes, the Yard was set on fire, and they have 
 not, as yet, caught anyone," replied Brand coldly. 
 
 " What do they think of me at Portchester ? 
 What does Miss Bagshott think? and you, how 
 did you get here?" 
 
 Brand looked the other straight in the eyes 
 for several seconds before replying. Then he 
 answered : 
 
 " We don't know what to think ; but I am
 
 DR. BRAND SOLVES THE MYSTERY 2l7 
 
 ready to hear what you have to say. Miss 
 Bagshott will be glad enough if you clear 
 yourself in her eyes and in the eyes of the 
 Governnnent. I came here by accident, and 
 found you ; but as a matter of fact, I was just 
 beginning to search for you, and I tell you 
 plainly, I intend very thoroughly to sift out the 
 whole affair." 
 
 Warner answered eagerly : 
 
 " My dear sir, I have been in a fever for days 
 waiting for the chance to clear myself with you 
 all." 
 
 "Tell your story, then, Mr. Warner. I am as 
 anxious to hear it as you can be to tell it," said 
 the doctor. 
 
 Then the American told Brand all that 
 happened on the night of his escape from the 
 castle. 
 
 "But, why," asked the surgeon — "why didn't 
 you tell this village doctor to communicate with 
 me, and not leave us all this time in suspense ? " 
 
 " You forget that I am only just beginning to 
 be able to think and speak. Then, when my 
 wits came back, the whole inn here was talking
 
 2l8 THE icing's YARD 
 
 of the fire in Portsmouth Yard, and a word from 
 me would perhaps have aroused suspicion. Besides, 
 it was not likely that I should be able to clear 
 myself while the other man was free, and if I 
 had attempted to communicate with Portchester, 
 my identity would be known in a moment, and 
 perhaps you yourself dragged into the disgraceful 
 business." 
 
 They talked together until late that night, and 
 would have talked longer, but Brand saw that 
 Warner's condition was still serious, and so left 
 the room, promising to spend an hour with him 
 before he went on his way to London. 
 
 The following morning, after some conversation 
 between them. Brand said : 
 
 " Now, Mr. Warner, you understand I am off 
 to put the authorities upon Hill's track, and 
 when the scoundrel is secured, your part in the 
 business can easily be cleared up without involv- 
 ing you in any way. I have influence enough to 
 keep you out of it." 
 
 Warner made an impatient gesture. 
 
 " But what about Miss Bagshott ? Won't you 
 go directly back to her with a message from me ?
 
 DR. BRAND SOLVES THE MYSTERY 2ig 
 
 Her father's prejudices and the fire, and the 
 suspicions he will have formed, are every day 
 influences operating against me. For Heaven's 
 sake, go back, doctor, and clear all that away." 
 
 Brand made a sign to the other to lie still. 
 
 " No," he said, " I must go on to London. I 
 did not tell you last night for fear of exciting 
 you too much, but Captain Bagshott's prejudices 
 will never operate against you again." 
 
 " Why ? what do you mean ? Has he turned 
 American ? " and Warner laughed. " Surely such a 
 reverend old hulk could not so far — " 
 
 Brand held up his hand solemnly. 
 
 " Hush, sir ; the reverend old hulk is broken 
 up. Captain Bagshott is dead and in his 
 grave." 
 
 Warner fell back on his bed, where he lay 
 silent for some moments. Then he said : 
 
 " Doctor ! doctor ! this is sad news ; tell me all 
 about it. You know I had the greatest respect 
 for the old man, although I joked about him. 
 But where, then, is Miss Bagshott? who is looking 
 after her ? She must have been left very poorly 
 off. I saw that much while I was there."
 
 220 THE king's YARD 
 
 Brand's answer was not unkind, although his 
 tone was still cold, almost unfriendly : 
 
 " She is staying at Parson Bramber's in the 
 care of his sister ; and she is not well off, but 
 has enough to live upon. Let not these things 
 trouble you, but just get well by lying quietly 
 here. I have seen the local doctor, and told 
 him you were a friend of mine, and that you are 
 to have everything you want until I return." 
 
 *' And how long am I to be here ? I don't 
 seem to make any progress. When will you 
 come back?" 
 
 " Listen ! I shall be able to return from 
 London in a couple of weeks at most. I shall 
 then run through Petersfield and see how you are. 
 If you are well enough I shall afterwards go on 
 to Portchester, and prepare Miss Bagshott to re- 
 ceive you. Then I shall come back for you, and 
 I hope to play the father to the girl this far : If 
 you can satisfy me of your position in your own 
 country, and clear yourself here, and Miss Bag- 
 shott is willing, I myself will give her away. Is 
 that fair, do you think ? " 
 
 The American's wan face lit up. He put out
 
 DR. BRAND SOLVES THE MYSTERY 221 
 
 his thin hand and grasped the doctor's as he 
 answered : 
 
 " Dr. Brand, you are very generous, and I 
 thank you from my soul. I will wait here 
 patiently for your return, and then I will take 
 all the necessary steps to prove myself worthy 
 of your confidence." 
 
 " Very well ; good-bye," the doctor replied, still 
 unresponsive to Warner's friendliness. " As you 
 say, I am very generous, and if you can satisfy 
 me, I will, as I have told you, play the part of 
 father at the altar." 
 
 Then Brand called for his horse and went on 
 
 his journey. But he was so lost in thought that 
 he had gone a couple of miles on the way to 
 
 Portsmouth before he noticed that he had taken 
 the wrong turning.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 DR. BRAND INTERVIEWS A GREAT MAN 
 
 Brand soon got his wits about him, and his horse's 
 head the right way, and in due course arrived 
 in London, where he put up at an inn suited to 
 his light purse. 
 
 Before going to sleep that night he tried to 
 persuade himself that he was pleased to prove 
 Warner an honest man, and that his self-imposed 
 task of bringing the young American back to Dolly 
 was most agreeable to him. But the effort was 
 not a success. 
 
 Sometimes he had doubts — or was it hopes? he 
 asked himself — whether Dolly would be really 
 pleased and grateful to him for restoring this lover 
 of a few weeks' acquaintance, or whether, after all, 
 she was glad in her inmost heart to be free. 
 The young people were very young, and were 
 thrown together in a romantic situation, so the 
 
 222
 
 DR. BRAND INTERVIEWS A GREAT MAN 223 
 
 doctor tried to convince himself that in the spring- 
 time of youth, in such circumstances, young people's 
 fancies lightly turn to thoughts of love, and as 
 ightly throw such thoughts aside. 
 
 But Brand would not give the rein to those 
 thoughts, mistrusting his judicial capacity in such 
 a case ; and besides, the American, at any rate, 
 seemed very much in earnest, and Dolly, alone in 
 the world, needed someone fitted to protect her. 
 He who had found for her a small estate by secretly 
 cutting in halves his own income, still thought he 
 had no right to be playing the part of father to 
 the girl. A husband was her natural protector, 
 and the American — if proper inquiry proved him 
 to be an honest man, with money enough to keep 
 a wife — was, of course, the only husband possible. 
 
 " No other way ; no other way," he muttered to 
 himself, and then tried to sleep, but instead lay 
 awake all night. The rumbling of the market 
 wagons, as they brought the vegetables into the 
 great city from the fields and market gardens 
 along the road to Kent, became in his ears an 
 echo to his thoughts, and all night they dinned it 
 into him : " No other way ; no other way."
 
 224 THE KING'S YARD 
 
 Knowing the habits of great men, he had taken 
 care to write and announce his coming, and give 
 good reason to the great man he wanted to see to 
 grant him an interview, and so, in due course, a 
 message was brought to the inn, making an 
 appointment. 
 
 He had but one suit of outer clothing, and that 
 not of the fashion of the town, faded, and seldom 
 brushed. But this troubled him not at all, and he 
 only smiled to himself at the supercilious look on 
 the footman's face when the man opened the door 
 of the big mansion. The servant had been told 
 to admit him, and when he gave his name he was 
 promptly shown into the noble lord's study. 
 
 The noble lord was a very great man. He 
 occupied a seat in the Cabinet, and an important 
 one, and had much to say in the ruling of his King 
 and country, doing his part quite as honestly as 
 most, and with less knavery than some. But of 
 his private life little was known, though much, 
 with head shakings and mysterious looks, was 
 hinted at. 
 
 He entered presently, and having shut the 
 door of the room carefully, nodded at Brand, who
 
 DR. BRAND INTERVIEWS A GREAT MAN 225- 
 
 stood quietly at his ease leaning against the 
 mantelpiece. Then he said : 
 
 " How do you do, my dear Brand ? Pleased to 
 see you ; but what's the very important matter that 
 can only be disposed of in an interview ? " 
 
 Brand refused the offered chair, and replied: 
 
 " My lord, I have come to London and to see 
 you upon the public business, and what I have to 
 say I am sure you will be glad to hear ; but I must 
 ask you not to disclose certain matters of which I 
 have gained a knowledge, provided that you find, 
 as you will, that no good will come of making them 
 public." 
 
 "Very well, Brand. Whatever else you have 
 against me, you know I am not given to 
 blabbing secrets. But I should have been more 
 pleased if you had come to ask me for some 
 better appointment than your present one. You 
 are an excellent, though most infernally inde- 
 pendent surgeon ; but I suspect that when you 
 begin to meddle with what you are pleased to 
 call the public business, you'll make a mess of it." 
 
 " I have come about that fire in Portsmouth 
 
 Dockyard. I have some information to offer you." 
 
 p
 
 ^26 THE king's yard 
 
 The noble lord whistled softly. Then he said: 
 
 " Out with it ; we know more than is sup- 
 posed, but we don't know enough." 
 
 "The night before the fire a prisoner escaped 
 from Portchester, an American, and he is — " 
 
 " The man : can you prove it ? " 
 
 "No, not the man, but — " 
 
 "The other, then? Can you prove it against 
 him ? " 
 
 " You know the other — the so-called painter ? " 
 
 " Of course ; do you think we are asleep ? " 
 
 " Well, my lord, to tell you the truth, I thought 
 the Government was mighty careless. People 
 seem to walk about the Yard at their own free 
 will to spy, to burn, to — " 
 
 "Yes, yes, quite true, my dear sir," and the 
 great man nodded impatiently. " Englishmen don't 
 understand keeping their public places guarded, 
 but that cannot be mended. Meantime, go on, 
 and we'll see if we can't lock the stable door 
 now." 
 
 Then Brand told him the whole story, even 
 to the affair between Dolly and Warner, and 
 ended by asking what was to be done to clear
 
 DR. BRAND INTERVIEWS A GREAT MAN 227 
 
 the American, or, at all events, to give him an 
 opportunity of leaving the country for France. 
 
 " Where Miss Bagshott can, later on, join him, 
 if he satisfies me of his respectability," added the 
 doctor. 
 
 His lordship smiled pleasantly. 
 
 "Good; now you have told me all you know, 
 I will be equally candid with you, and tell you 
 everything, and then you will see that we are not 
 quite such fools as some people take us for." 
 
 " I don't think you are by any means a fool, 
 my lord, but I would like to know what we can 
 do to capture this man Hill." 
 
 " I am more knave than fool, eh ? " said the 
 other, with a short laugh. " But as to Hill, why, 
 we'll arrest him. Nothing simpler." 
 
 " First catch your hare ! " 
 
 " Not always. We might have caught him 
 long ago. But, of course, you don't understand. 
 Listen ! The Bow Street officers have had both 
 these men under observation for some time. 
 Your sick man at Petersfield has been known 
 to us for a long while, and a Bow Street runner 
 has been staying in the town in the guise of a
 
 228 THE king's yard 
 
 farmer for the last week. Your other man is now 
 working at Odiham, in the north of Hampshire, 
 and is there watched by another officer, who 
 pretends to be a gamekeeper. We suspected both, 
 but didn't know which was the man, or whether 
 both together were in it. We did know they had 
 come over from France some time ago, and that 
 they were Americans, or rather one of them was. 
 The other is a deserter from one of our regiments 
 in the colonies." 
 
 Brand was surprised at the other's knowledge, 
 and showed it. 
 
 " What an escape for Warner ! But why have 
 you not made an arrest?" 
 
 " Against your wounded man we had nothing, 
 except that we traced his escape from Port- 
 chester, where we hadn't the least right to put 
 him in the first place. Against the second man 
 we had many suspicious circumstances, but no 
 facts ; and knowing that the two men had been 
 in each other's company, were waiting for Warner 
 to get well enough, and then we should have seized 
 him, and expected to get the necessary proof from 
 him to justify proceeding against his companion."
 
 DR. BRAND INTERVIEWS A GREAT MAN 229 
 
 "Not his companion, my lord, his assassin." 
 "As you please. Anyhow, what am I to do 
 now? I said arrest Hill, as you call him, but how 
 the devil am I to proceed if you want the other 
 fellow's business hushed up ? " 
 
 " I confess I don't see what can be done, unless 
 you consider the Mildwaters' evidence enough, 
 although I have promised the woman should not 
 get into trouble; but she might be called." 
 
 " It is easy to see you are no lawyer. We want 
 something more than this. What does it all 
 amount to without Warner? A man named Hill 
 takes a lodging at Portsmouth, and tries to get 
 work in the Yard. Some ignorant fool of a work- 
 man fancies he has seen the man hanging about 
 the rope house. A chattering old fool of a woman 
 says the man once lodged with her, and her 
 husband tried to get him work ; that he went 
 away on the night of the fire. He tells her he is 
 going to look for work, and there is not the least 
 evidence that he was not honestly doing so." 
 
 " But the bundle and its contents, and the fact 
 of his being a deserter?" 
 
 "The last only accounts for the man's keeping
 
 230 THE KING'S YARD 
 
 himself so quiet. The bundle contained nothing 
 that could associate him with the fire. Ovid's 
 ' Metamorphosis,' and a treatise on fireworks, 
 which you say were in the bundle, do not prove 
 anything. The passport in Warner's name only 
 proves that he stole it from Warner. Besides, we 
 traced all this. A Bow Street runner was at 
 Portsmouth, and found out from a tavern in the 
 neighbourhood about the strange man. Then 
 traced him from Mildwater's to the Raven Inn, 
 where he is now living at Hook. He found work 
 at the neighbouring village of Odiham. There the 
 runner made morally certain of him. Another man 
 discovers Warner at Petersfield, and that only 
 complicates matters." 
 
 His lordship ran over the details in a manner 
 that astonished Brand, who could only reply: 
 
 "Well, I give them credit for being sharp 
 fellows for having done that much." 
 
 "Pooh, I could have done it myself," said the 
 noble lord airily. "Petersfield is on the main road 
 from Portsmouth to London, and these fellows 
 made inquiries at every roadside inn on every 
 road out of Portsmouth, besides drinking with
 
 DR. BRAND INTERVIEWS A GREAT MAN 23 1 
 
 every Portsmouth waterman, to discover, as was 
 more likely, if any of them had given the criminal 
 a passage to France." 
 
 "Can you, my lord, suggest any way of meeting 
 my wishes with regard to Warner ? " asked the 
 doctor. 
 
 "Oh, as to that, don't worry yourself I have 
 no doubt, as you say he is all right — in fact, I 
 know he is ; and you can take my certificate as 
 to his character, and his position, as the son of a 
 well-to-do Philadelphian merchant, highly respect- 
 able, with nothing against him but the rebellion. 
 I know all this from inquiry ; so marry him to 
 whom you will, the girl will be well provided for. 
 What troubles me is the other fellow. It would 
 be a first-rate idea to arrest him for the murder 
 of Warner, and hang him for that — only we 
 couldn't produce a body. Besides, we want to 
 make an example, and frighten other people off 
 this idea of setting fire to our dockyards." 
 
 " I fancy you would find it just as difficult to 
 prove that he murdered a live man, which he did 
 not, as to prove he set fire to the Yard, which he 
 did."
 
 232 THE KING'S YARD 
 
 The noble lord laughed: 
 
 " Not at all; Bow Street runners will swear anything, 
 and they can always find plenty of people to do like- 
 wise ; but all the evidence in this case has to come 
 from the Yard, and you can't teach Portsmouth 
 dockyardmen how to give evidence in a court of 
 law." 
 
 " I have great respect for the skill of your officers, 
 but if, my lord, you will permit me, I will make a 
 bargain with you, by which I can do more than they 
 can." 
 
 " By all means give me your opinion," said the 
 minister heartily, "and I will agree to anything in 
 reason." 
 
 " Thank you. Then on a date we will presently 
 agree upon, arrest Hill, and let me have access to 
 him ; knowing what I know, and armed with the 
 knowledge I have gained from Warner, I will, unless 
 I am very much mistaken, get enough out of him to 
 furnish your Bow Street people with clues." 
 
 " Look here, Brand, if you manage this — and you 
 will manage it, for you have more brains than all 
 these people put together — you will be doing the 
 State a great service, and we ought to repay you."
 
 DR. BRAND INTERVIEWS A GREAT MAN 233 
 
 " I only want to get Warner clear of the affair, and 
 I would like to see the rascal who has caused all the 
 trouble hanged. I want no reward or payment of 
 any kind. I am well enough off." 
 
 "Before you go," began the great man, then 
 hesitated — " I know it is a sore subject with you— 
 but will you accept promotion to Haslar? I can 
 appoint you in a couple of months to the charge of 
 the hospital, with three times the income. Consider- 
 ing you are my brother-in-law, you might allow 
 me." 
 
 " My lord," replied Brand quietly, " when you 
 induced my sister to marry you, I, knowing your 
 character, was only angry. When twelve months 
 later she died of a broken heart, I would — if I had 
 been in England at the time— have run you through 
 the body. I have got over that folly now, but I want 
 no favours. Therefore, let us drop the subject. I 
 will go through with this affair, and then we will 
 keep clear of each other in the future." 
 
 "Very well, Brand, very well. Perhaps you are 
 right. I was younger then— and— and, well, there's 
 no more to be said. Good-bye.'
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 WHAT CAME OF THE INTERVIEW 
 
 Brand went back to his inn. All was going 
 famously, he told himself. Warner was cleared ; 
 and the young American — whom he had come to 
 shoot, if he had found him, and proved him a 
 rascal, or that he was false to Dolly — would pre- 
 sently, by his means, be restored to the girl, and 
 all would end happily. Oh, yes, everything was 
 going famously. But there was work to do. The 
 miscreant who had caused all the mischief was 
 still free, and Warner's safety depended upon the 
 other's conviction. Dolly's father was in his grave, 
 Dolly's lover was lying perilously close to the 
 brink of death, and the girl, he thought, breaking 
 her heart for news. The doctor, pacing his room, 
 thinking out a plan to convict the author of the 
 
 mischief, stopped as he ran over the account in 
 
 ?34
 
 WHAT CAME OF THE INTERVIEW 235 
 
 his mind ; and whatever scruples he had felt before, 
 he threw them over now, and swore he would hang 
 the man himself rather than by any trick of law 
 he should escape. He foresaw that what was 
 before him would take some time to complete. 
 Meanwhile, Dolly must not be left in suspense, 
 and so he sat down and wrote to her : 
 
 " Dear Dolly, — For as presently I shall claim 
 a father's privilege, and give you to a husband, I 
 write dear Dolly — Mr. Warner is found innocent, 
 cleared of everything that I may most unjustly 
 have in my mind imagined against him — even his 
 non-return — his silence. He is lying very ill at 
 Petersfield, but is now fairly on the way to recover, 
 since I have met him and assured him that in a 
 little while 1 shall be able to clear his good name, 
 and bring him with me to Portchester. I cannot 
 return for a week or two, because I have urgent 
 business — an account to settle with a man who 
 must be paid for what some of us owe him. Do 
 you, like a good girl, write a few lines to Mr. 
 Warner at the White Hart, Petersfield. Tell him 
 that a welcome awaits him when he returns to
 
 236 THE KING'S YARD 
 
 Portchester with me, or say something kindly of 
 that nature, which will, I am sure, complete his 
 recovery. But don't — forgive me for thinking it 
 possible you might — don't imagine him very ill 
 and needing nursing. Don't do more than write. 
 And I think you had better not mention what I 
 have written in this letter to the parson, or to 
 Miss Bramber, to whom I present my best wishes. — 
 Yours, very very happy to write good news, 
 
 "Arthur Brand." 
 
 The doctor was so happy, indeed, that once or 
 twice, as he was penning this letter, he was forced 
 to stop and bury his face in his hands to hide 
 from the room furniture his passing emotions. 
 
 On the following day he held another interview 
 with his noble relative, and then returned to his 
 inn to wait events. Two days later a man came 
 to the inn with a request that the doctor would 
 accompany him to Bow Street to Sir John 
 Fielding's office. 
 
 Brand went off in haste, and in the coach on 
 his way asked the messenger if he knew what was 
 |n the wind.
 
 WHAT CAME OF THE INTERVIEW 237 
 
 " Sir," replied the man, " you know very well 
 what's in the wind, or I am much mistaken." 
 
 " You may be mistaken. Whom have you 
 arrested ? You are an officer, I presume ? " 
 
 " Well, you may have heard of me ; my name's 
 Tomlinson, and if you don't know of me as a 
 Bow Street officer, I fancy you have never been 
 employed in this kind of work before ? " 
 
 " No, I have not ; but whom have you arrested ? " 
 
 ** That, sir, is very well known to you. We have 
 taken a man named John Hill." 
 
 " And he is charged with — ? " 
 
 "Burglary at Odiham, in Hampshire." 
 
 " Oh ! With nothing else ? " 
 
 The other looked quickly at the doctor, and 
 put his finger to his nose. 
 
 "With nothing else at present, Dr. Brand," he said. 
 
 "Ah, I see you know me, and are well posted 
 in this affair." 
 
 The other laughed. 
 
 "Well, considering that I have charge of the 
 business, I ought to be." 
 
 " What part am I to play when we get to 
 Bow Street?"
 
 238 THE KING'S YARD 
 
 "Just answer to the name we have given you, 
 take your cue from Sir John, and you'll see it 
 will turn out all right." 
 
 " You know I can't identify the man ? " said 
 Brand doubtfully. 
 
 " I know that, sir. You tell the truth, and 
 leave the rest to me." 
 
 When they got to the office it was late in the 
 afternoon. All the day's cases had been disposed 
 of, and the room was empty of the usual crowd 
 of thieves and thief catchers, and such like 
 rascals. 
 
 Tomlinson took the doctor by the arm and 
 led him to a seat at the back, where, surrounded 
 by half-a-dozen runners, he could not be seen 
 from the dock, and then the officer who had 
 brought him left the room. 
 
 Presently Sir John Fielding entered by a 
 private door, and took a seat on the bench. 
 
 " Bring in the accused," he said ; and then 
 two officers led in John Hill, and put him 
 inside a railed dock. 
 
 The man appeared ill, and clung to the rails 
 in front of him as one who was unable to stand
 
 WHAT CAME OF TPIE INTERVIEW 239 
 
 without support. His clothing was dirty and 
 ragged, as if he had been sleeping out at nights 
 upon muddy country roads. He looked round 
 the room, anxiously searching the faces of the 
 few persons present for some clue as to what 
 witnesses were to be brought against him. 
 
 " Is Tomlinson present ? " asked the magistrate. 
 
 " Yes, yer Waship, I am here." 
 
 "This accused, John Hill, what is he charged 
 with — burglary ? " 
 
 "Yes, yer Waship. We arrested him on that 
 charge, but we ask for a remand, as we have 
 reason to believe that he is concerned in a more 
 serious crime, and we want to produce the 
 necessary witnesses to secure his committal." 
 
 "You hear this, accused? What have you to 
 say ? " 
 
 " Nothing." 
 
 The prisoner, as he made the reply, stood erect 
 for a moment, looking the magistrate squarely in 
 the face, and seemed, having completed his 
 scrutiny of those in the court-room, to be quite 
 indifferent to the proceedings. 
 
 "You say nothing, prisoner? Very well, Tom-
 
 240 THE king's YARD 
 
 linson, I will remand him for a week. Is there 
 anything more to be done?" 
 
 "Yes, yer Waship," replied Tomlinson, "I have 
 an unwilling witness here, whom I have reason to 
 believe can identify the prisoner. The accused 
 calls himself John Hill, and says he is an English- 
 man, and a painter by trade. We believe he is 
 an American, who came over from France some 
 weeks ago for a certain purpose, and this witness 
 may be able to identify him." 
 
 The accused was very intent now, and once 
 more peered anxiously round the room. 
 
 "What has this to do with the burglary?" 
 
 " This, your Waship : If we can identify him, 
 we shall not proceed with the burglary charge, 
 but shall lay an information on a more serious 
 matter." 
 
 " Very well ; call your witness." 
 
 Tomlinson then beckoned to Brand. 
 
 "What am I to do?" whispered the surgeon; 
 " I don't understand." 
 
 « Tell the truth ; it's all right," answered the other, 
 in the same tone. "We don't want to give it all 
 away to the defence, you know— he may get counsel.
 
 WHAT CAME OF THE INTERVIEW 24 1 
 
 and we only want to establish confidence between 
 you. Sir John knows what he is doing." 
 
 Tomlinson grinned and winked, as he whispered 
 his advice, in a manner which made the doctor feel 
 very uncomfortable. 
 
 Then the Bow Street runner indicated Brand 
 with a nod, and said : 
 
 "This is the man Baldwin, who may be able to 
 identify the accused, yer Waship." 
 
 Brand started for the moment at his new name, 
 then stepped into the witness-box, and as he did so 
 Hill looked hard at him, and was evidently puzzled. 
 
 "Do you know the accused, sir?" asked the 
 magistrate. "You have lived in Philadelphia, I am 
 informed, and it is alleged that this man comes 
 from that part of the world," 
 
 Brand looked straight at Hill. Then he said : 
 
 " No, I have never seen this man before, although 
 I have lived in Philadelphia." 
 
 The prisoner smiled triumphantly at the magistrate. 
 
 " That will do, sir, you may step down. And you, 
 Tomlinson, keep an eye on this witness; he admits 
 having lived in Philadelphia, and we may have an 
 occasion to want him presently."
 
 242 THE king's YARD 
 
 " Yes, yer Waship ; I have had my eye on him, 
 and on one or two others of his countrymen, for 
 some time past." 
 
 Then the magistrate, saying he would remand 
 the prisoner for a week for the production of 
 evidence, left the bench, and Tomlinson beckoned 
 Brand over to him, leading him to the dock. 
 
 " Here," said the Bow Street runner to the 
 painter, "this man wants to know if he can do 
 anything for you ; he don't like to see a fellow- 
 countryman in distress. I expect he will turn out 
 to be as great a rogue as yourself, though." 
 
 "You are an honest man," said the prisoner. 
 "You might just as easily have sworn I was a 
 great rogue; it would have pleased these people 
 better. Will you come and see me, and I may 
 ask you to do something to aid me on my 
 
 trial?" 
 
 Brand began to feel a greater rogue by far than 
 the man in the dock, but he determined to go 
 through with the task he had set himself. 
 
 " Yes, I will come and see you, if I am allowed," 
 he said, looking at the officer. 
 
 The runner, answering the look, replied:
 
 WHAT CAME OF THE INTERVIEW 243 
 
 "Well, you'll have to get an order; we are 
 taking him to the new prison at Clerkenwell, and 
 I fancy that the Government won't like it. How- 
 ever, the poor devil appears to have no friends, 
 and since you're fool enough to interfere in his 
 affairs, I'll not offer an objection. Take the 
 prisoner away." 
 
 When Hill had been removed, Tomlinson 
 chuckled quietly. 
 
 "Well, Mr. Baldwin," he whispered, "the rest 
 is with you ; a little skill on your part, and you 
 can supply us with the missing links."
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 SCARS 
 
 It took Brand the whole of that night to force 
 himself to go on with the part he was playing, 
 but the thought of Bagshott's death, and of 
 Warner's narrow escape, braced him to the task, 
 and the next day, duly provided with an order 
 of admission, he went to the prison. 
 
 When he entered the cell the prisoner 
 advanced, holding out his hand, but Brand waved 
 
 him aside. 
 
 "You think I am a villain, and will not shake 
 
 hands with me?" Hill said. 
 
 "No, I won't shake hands with you," Brand replied. 
 
 " Understand, I don't want to be regarded by you 
 
 as a friend. You asked to see me here ; if I can 
 
 help you to prove your innocence I will willingly 
 
 do so ; but make no mistake, I am no friend, I 
 
 warn you." 
 
 244
 
 SCARS 245 
 
 He could not for the life of him help putting 
 the man on his guard, though he reflected how 
 poorly he was playing the spy, and how little he 
 was likely to gain by the method. But it was no 
 use, he could take no other way. 
 
 "Bah! As to the burglary— there is nothing 
 in that — these people don't want to prove that 
 against me." 
 
 " What, then, is their object ? " 
 
 The painter, who was walking backward and 
 forward, paused suddenly, and looked at Brand. 
 
 "That is my affair. You profess to be an 
 American. I can tell you this much, that what 
 I attempted to do and failed in would have done 
 more for America than all their Franklins or their 
 Deans could have done." 
 
 "Do you mean to say they have arrested you 
 like a common felon for some honourable act of 
 war?" Brand asked. 
 
 " 1 don't know what your milk-and-water 
 patriots, or the men who flog their soldiers to 
 death, call honourable war, but I am proud of 
 my work, and only wish it had been more 
 complete."
 
 246 THE king's yard 
 
 " You infernal murdering scoundrel ! Is the 
 shooting of your own countryman, is the death 
 of an innocent old man, is the cowardly act of 
 sneaking into Portsmouth Dockyard, and destroy- 
 ing the wretched labourers' daily bread, work to 
 be proud of?" 
 
 The doctor's fist was within an inch of the 
 other's face, and the sound of his voice rang out 
 loud and threatening — a pretty way, indeed, to 
 play the part of informer. Dr. Brand, ill-fitted 
 for such dirty work, in a minute had thrown off 
 the cloak, and was done with it. 
 
 Hill, astounded at the other's speech, fell 
 back before the uplifted hand, unable to under- 
 stand his visitor, or to answer him — only dimly 
 comprehending that this man knew of a deed 
 that he had thought was safely hidden in the 
 woods of Catherington. 
 
 " By Heavens ! I have a mind to throttle you 
 in your cell, and would, but for Warner's sake ! " 
 went on the doctor, still threatening with his fist. 
 
 "Who are you? What do you mean? What 
 was Warner to you ? " 
 
 " Listen, and I will tell you who I am." Brand
 
 SCARS 247 
 
 was calmer now. " I am a man who came here 
 bent on seeing you hung as high as Haman ; 
 on playing the spy upon you until I had 
 sheeted home your rascality ; but I am not 
 infernal rogue enough to follow it out. I can't 
 play your game ; I can't sneak into your prison 
 and lay traps to catch you, as you sneaked into 
 the hemp house with your matches and tinder- 
 box. I prefer to come to open blows, and I'll 
 give you, villain as you are, a better chance than 
 you gave Warner on that night in the wood." 
 
 The painter, in the corner of his cell farthest from 
 where the other stood, sank upon a wooden bench, 
 and as Brand poured the torrent of his just wrath 
 upon him, he cowered for some time unable to speak, 
 until, by an effort, he muttered : 
 
 '* Did you see it all ? Who are you } Who are 
 you? What does it mean?" 
 
 In a brilliant flash of thought an idea came to 
 Brand, now himself again, and he answered : 
 
 " Listen ! never mind who I am ; but I'll tell you 
 what I know, and what I am about to do, and by 
 the Lord, you'll see that your time has come to 
 pay the reckoning ! "
 
 248 THE KING'S YARD 
 
 "What does it mean? What does it mean ? Who 
 are you ? Who are you ? " Hill still kept muttering. 
 
 " I know you. I know you for the man who 
 aided Warner to escape, who led him to the thick 
 of Catherington Wood, who shot him in cold blood. 
 I know you for the man who planned the fire at the 
 Yard, while you were lodging with the Mildwaters ; 
 I know how you planted your infernal machine in 
 the hemp house, and how you fired the rope 
 walk. This crime the Government can prove 
 against you if I hand them the proofs ; but I'll 
 not do so. The crime in the wood at Catherington 
 is the one for which I'll have you hanged." 
 
 " I am not a murderer ; I shot him in self- 
 defence," said the other hoarsely. 
 
 " You lie. You are an assassin — a commonplace 
 murderer, and a miserable incendiary." 
 
 Hill was no longer crouching, but erect and 
 proudly defiant of the doctor. 
 
 " Yes," he said ; " yes, I set fire to the Yard. I 
 am proud of it, and will go cheerfully to death in 
 such a cause ! How many of you would do as much 
 for your country ? How many Americans would do 
 as much? For I am an Englishman, but I have
 
 SCARS 249 
 
 better cause to hate England than even these 
 fools of Colonists have." 
 
 " Well, then, you are only a more infernal rascal 
 than I thought you at first. What motive could 
 you have to commit such a crime ? " 
 
 "What motive? Look you." The man threw 
 open his coat and tore his shirt ofif. " Look at 
 this. These stripes are the marks of five hundred 
 lashes, my reward for fighting King George's battles 
 in America. I, a wounded man, for a hasty word, 
 was paid for years of service, for wounds received 
 in action, with these wounds from the drummer's 
 cat. Then I deserted, and swore I'd have satis- 
 faction, and you can go and tell the fools who 
 sent you here to spy on me who I am, and why 
 I burned the rope house." 
 
 Brand, looking upon the scars on the man's back, 
 was moved for a moment. But for Dolly's sake 
 he was none the less determined effectually to 
 clear Warner, and the only way to prove Warner 
 innocent was to convict Hill. 
 
 " All this is very fine," he said ; " but I am not 
 interested. Warner's murder is what concerns me, 
 and for that you shall hang."
 
 250 THE king's YARD 
 
 " I killed Warner because he would have baulked 
 me. If you must have my life, don't, for God's 
 sake, have me hanged for murder ! " 
 
 The surgeon looked upon the deluded wretch, 
 understanding well the working of his poor mind, 
 seeing clearly how to turn the pitiable dignity of 
 the man to his advantage. They had put the 
 painter in a separate cell, so that Brand should 
 carry out his plan, and a grating in the door 
 showed the warder out of hearing at the end of 
 the passage. Brand stepped to the grating and 
 beckoned to him, and as the man came to open 
 the door, the surgeon went to the painter's corner, 
 and whispered in his ear: 
 
 " Poor devil ! " he said, " I almost pity you. If I 
 could believe that you did not murder Warner, I 
 could almost forgive you. I'll come back to-morrow, 
 and we'll talk of this." 
 
 " No, no ; don't go away. Don't leave me. Did 
 they find — the — the body ? — how much is known ? 
 — send the gaoler away — tell me, do they know of 
 it?" 
 
 He was clutching Brand by the arm, and in an 
 abject posture whispering in his ear. The surgeon
 
 SCARS 251 
 
 shook him off, and turning to the gaoler, 
 said : 
 
 " Go away for a little while ; I am not ready yet." 
 
 " Have pity on me, whoever you are ; it can make 
 no difference to you. Don't accuse me of killing 
 him." 
 
 Brand pushed away the prisoner's hand, and 
 replied : 
 
 " Listen ! You have one chance, and this I will 
 give you ; if you accept it, you may save your life. 
 I tell you plainly, I don't think you will, but I'll 
 give you that chance." 
 
 " I care nothing for my life ; I would as soon 
 surrender myself to-morrow, but — " 
 
 Hill shuddered and stopped. 
 
 " No," said Brand quietly. " It would be a poor 
 ending to be hanged for murder." 
 
 " And why should you bring me to that ? What 
 was Warner to you that you should follow me here 
 to tell me of that scene in the wood ? Was it 
 to gloat over me, to play the spy, and act the 
 executioner ? " 
 
 " I have told you I'll give you a chance," Brand 
 answered.
 
 252 THE king's YARD 
 
 " What does that mean ? " asked the other. " If 
 it is to betray people whom you think are my 
 accomph'ces, I tell you plainly that I have none." 
 
 " What about Silas Dean ? Warner told you that 
 the Americans wanted none of your infernal aid. 
 And then you murdered him for telling you." 
 
 " Warner knew nothing about it. Of course, they 
 would disown my work, but for Warner I should not 
 have been here now. But what is your bargain ? 
 You have me caged, and you think that you can 
 make your own terms, but I tell you plainly that I 
 would sooner be remembered as Felton is, by a 
 gibbet on Southsea Common, than drag anyone but 
 myself into this — anything short of that I'll do, if 
 you'll hold your tongue about the — death of 
 Warner." 
 
 " Well, I'll make a bargain," Brand replied. " I 
 have reasons for not making public that Warner, 
 who was my friend, had any connection with this 
 crime. Honourable as was the part he played, I 
 don't want his name coupled with yours." 
 
 " Well, then, hold your tongue." 
 
 " No ; I tell you plainly there is plenty of 
 evidence against you ; you must be aware that
 
 SCARS 253 
 
 your visits to the Yard are known, your whole 
 life at the Mlldwaters', your attempt upon the 
 hemp house, the night you were locked in the 
 building, your flight from Portsmouth. The chain 
 is pretty complete ; you can see that ? " 
 
 " Yes ; I don't deny it, and I don't care. What 
 then ? " 
 
 " But if the officers of judgment go on search- 
 ing for clues to complete that chain, they will 
 presently come upon that night in the wood, and 
 my friend Warner's name will be dragged in." 
 
 "What then? What then? For God's sake, 
 come to the point!" 
 
 Hill was again getting excited, and the doctor 
 becoming cooler, so that he replied very de- 
 liberately : 
 
 "The authorities were told by me that I could 
 save them further trouble, and tell them all they 
 wanted to know, if I were given a free hand with 
 you." 
 
 " Well, well ; what do you want ? Why, man, 
 you have the whole story." 
 
 "I want a full statement from you of all that 
 you did from the moment of your landing in
 
 254 THE KING'S YARD 
 
 England until your arrest, leaving out all 
 reference to Warner." 
 
 " Yes, yes ; what then ? " 
 
 "I shall give this statement to the authorities, 
 and they can build up a case against you, and 
 then they may hang you or let you go free for 
 all I care." 
 
 " In other words, you want a written confession 
 from me, so that you can ensure my being 
 hanged." 
 
 "No, I don't ask even that; but I tell you, 
 there is some legal quibble in the case against 
 you, and unless they can clear up certain doubts, 
 it is possible that Warner may be suspected of 
 complicity with you." 
 
 "You know everything now. I have nothing 
 to tell you. You have the Mildwaters' evidence, 
 the men who have seen me in the Yard, my 
 apparatus discovered in the hemp house, the 
 manner of my flight, and I suppose you have 
 found the man who made the tin canister at 
 Canterbury, the woman from whom I bought the 
 matches, and — " 
 
 " Yes, yes ; and — "
 
 SCARS 255 
 
 " Oh, you know all now." 
 
 " Who made the canister ? who was the woman 
 who sold you the matches?" 
 
 " Ah ! I have told you something new, then ? " 
 
 " Come, make a clean breast of it ; tell me 
 everything, and I will keep my bargain with the 
 Government, and you can take your chance when 
 you are tried. I will say nothing of Warner's 
 death." 
 
 Then the doctor turned to go, but Hill held 
 him for a moment firmly by the shoulder, as he 
 fiercely whispered : 
 
 " I will give you all the aid I can to hang me, 
 and you can do your worst ; but I tell you 
 plainly I shall make a fight for it at the trial, 
 and if the death of Warner is mentioned, if I can 
 come within reach of you, and get my hands for 
 a moment free, I will kill you in the court-house."
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 THE TRIAL OF JACK THE PAINTER 
 
 Jack the Painter was tried at the March Assizes, 
 at Winchester, in 1777. The case was the talk of 
 England at the time, and the singular method by 
 which Hill was brought to justice is fully told in a 
 volume of the State trials, where readers can find for 
 themselves that this story is quite as true as most 
 history. 
 
 The court-house, of course, was crowded, and the 
 unhappy man in the dock had little chance against 
 the array of learned counsel the Crown had em- 
 ployed to prosecute him. There were only five of 
 these gentlemen, including Mr. Fielding, who, as the 
 learned junior, opened the case. The judge, the 
 grand jury, the petty jury, the attorneys and officers, 
 the dozen or more of witnesses, and the gallery 
 
 crowd, all seemed to Hill, as he gazed round the 
 
 256
 
 THE TRIAL OF JACK THE PAINTER 257 
 
 court, to have assembled, actuated by one motive 
 — the wish to hang him. Indeed, this was true 
 enough ; the whole country had been roused by this 
 attack upon the Dockyard, and everyone, from the 
 highest to the lowest, was convinced that France 
 and America had between them planned the 
 outrage. 
 
 The accused stood erect in the dock, answering 
 clearly to the name of John Hill, alias Jack the 
 Painter. When the jury were duly sworn, and the 
 clerk uttered the solemn words : " You shall 
 well and truly try and true deliverance make 
 between our Sovereign Lord the King and the 
 prisoner at the bar," the prisoner interrupted the 
 proceedings by saying in a loud, clear voice : " I am 
 not a subject of your King." But no notice was 
 taken of this, except by the crier, who made a 
 great noise, crying, " Order ; order ; silence ! " 
 
 The clerk read the indictment, with all its jargon 
 of legal technicalities, and the prisoner said, in 
 reply to the usual question : 
 
 " How do I plead ? Not guilty, of course." 
 
 Mr. Fielding began the attack by putting into 
 comparatively intelligible English, for the benefit of 
 
 R
 
 2S8 THE king's yard 
 
 the jury, the matter of the indictment, in which Hill 
 was charged with burning the King's Dockyard, or 
 rather, with attempting to burn the Yard. 
 
 Then Mr, Sergeant Davy, the leading counsel, 
 got upon his feet, adjusted his wig, threw the few 
 shreds remaining of his ragged gown over his left 
 arm, and pointing his right hand at the prisoner, 
 opened fire. 
 
 The caged man in the dock leant forward, his 
 hands upon the rails, apparently listening to the 
 counsel's harangue, but paying no heed to its 
 substance, interested only when once or twice the 
 name of Warner was mentioned. 
 
 Said the learned sergeant : 
 
 " May it please your lordship and you gentlemen 
 of the jury, I am counsel in this case for the King 
 in the prosecution of the prisoner at the bar, who is 
 described by the name of John Hill, otherwise 
 Henry Warner." 
 
 Two people started at the name : Dr. Brand, at 
 the back of the court, and the prisoner in the dock, 
 who trembled visibly. 
 
 But counsel evidently knew what was expected 
 of him, and so, without a pause, he went on :
 
 THE TRIAL OF JACK THE PAINTER 259 
 
 " Mr, Warner, you must know, is the name of a 
 highly respectable American, with whom this case 
 has no concern whatever, but the prisoner having 
 committed various burglaries and other crimes, 
 became possessed of a passport issued to this 
 Warner, which passport is part of the evidence I 
 shall presently adduce." 
 
 Counsel said this with emphasis, and the prisoner 
 again became quite indifferent to the proceedings, 
 while Tomlinson whispered into Dr. Brand's ear : 
 
 " I told you that it would be all right ; we always 
 play the game fairly." 
 
 Brand had been startled by the introduction of 
 Warner's name so much that he was on the point of 
 interjecting. Relieved of his fears, he shuddered as 
 he looked across at the dock and heard Mr. Sergeant 
 Davy steadily driving nails into Hill's coffin. 
 
 After dwelling upon the enormity of the crime, and 
 stating there was no suspicion that it was a crime 
 until many days later, the sergeant went on to say : 
 
 " There was then discovered in the hemp house at 
 Portsmouth Dockyard by some men, in turning over 
 the hemp, a sort of canister, which one at first sight 
 imagined to be a tea canister ; upon looking a little
 
 260 THE KING'S YARD 
 
 further, there were found combustibles of various 
 kinds. Then it struck the finders, and there could 
 be no doubt in any mind upon the subject, that who- 
 ever placed that machine there had an intention to 
 set the place on fire. The men were struck with 
 astonishment, and at once went to the Commissioner 
 of the Yard, and informed him of it, that the proper 
 evidence of this matter might be laid before Govern- 
 ment, and fit inquiry made into it. Proper inquiry 
 made, for the first time, clear and apparent to every 
 one, that the fire, which had happened on the 7th 
 of December, in the rope house, had not been by 
 accident, but by design. Now, gentlemen, let us 
 endeavour to recollect every circumstance of that 
 unhappy day. While it was thought to have been 
 accident, nobody gave themselves the trouble to 
 inquire or to recollect who they had seen, who was 
 there, or who was not there. But from the instant 
 that they resolved that this must have been the work 
 of some devil, or that this was some human con- 
 trivance, that this was an act done on purpose, then 
 it was fit to revert back to the subject, and to turn in 
 their minds all the circumstances of that day. 
 
 " Now," went on the sergeant, freshly adjusting his
 
 THE TRIAL OF JACK THE PAINTER 26 1 
 
 wig, and generally assuming an air which gave the 
 jury to understand there was something coming, 
 and no mistake — " now, my lud and gentlemen, I 
 claim your particular attention to what follows. The 
 discovery in the hemp house set lots of people think- 
 ing, and it occurred to one person that a man had 
 been seen on the day of the fire lurking very much 
 about the hemp house and about the rope house ; 
 then it happened that a man had been locked into 
 the hemp house, and with some difficulty had got 
 out again." 
 
 Counsel stopped for a moment, and his eyes 
 wandered over the court until, presently, they caught 
 sight of Dr. Brand, who visibly trembled as the 
 learned counsel touched upon his share in the 
 business. 
 
 " A very worthy, honourable gentleman, whom I 
 have in my eye, and who is a very great friend to the 
 public, and in the strict and true sense of the word, a 
 patriot, very actively bestirred himself in the business, 
 and was very much concerned in the arrest of this 
 John Hill, whom, from certain matters that had come 
 to the knowledge of the Crown, there was reason to 
 suspect.
 
 262 THE KING'S YARD 
 
 " This John Hill, or as he was known to many 
 from his occupation, this John the Painter, was 
 accordingly taken up at Odiham ; and you will 
 be pleased to mark that there was then found 
 upon him a loaded pistol, a pistol tinder-box, and 
 some matches. He was examined, but he had too 
 much sense, he was too guarded, to make any 
 considerable admission upon the examination that 
 he underwent before a magistrate, and had it not 
 been for a circumstance, which I am now going 
 to mention to you, it would be an extremely 
 difficult matter to affix the crime upon this person 
 at the bar, however satisfied one might have been 
 in one's own private judgment of his guilt. 
 
 " It happened that it became known to the 
 Crown that a gentleman who had long been in 
 Philadelphia, where it was believed Hill came 
 from, was in London, and it was thought that 
 he might know the prisoner, and, therefore, he 
 was sent for to Bow Street, in order to be shown 
 the prisoner, and to inform the magistrate whether 
 he did or did not know him. That man, being 
 asked the question, answered he did not know 
 him, and to the best of his recollection had never
 
 THE TRIAL OF JACK THE PAINTER 263 
 
 seen him in all his lifetime. There was an end, 
 therefore, of that business, as that man had worked 
 in the same place, for I think the prisoner had 
 worked at Philadelphia too. The prisoner having 
 been informed that this person, who was called 
 Baldwin, was an American, naturally enough desired 
 to know him, and the accused asked Baldwin to 
 visit him at the new prison, Clerkenwell, where 
 he was to be confined, and Baldwin accordingly, 
 having obtained permission of the authorities, did 
 visit the prisoner. 
 
 " In the course of Baldwin's visits to the prisoner, 
 the latter made the disclosures I am about to 
 relate. He said that he was an agent of Dr. 
 Franklin and Silas Dean, that he had come over 
 from France, and he had landed at Dover, and 
 so came through Canterbury. At Canterbury he 
 had engaged a man to make a tin machine, which 
 you will see by-and-by, somewhat resembling a tin 
 canister, the purpose of which was to act the part, 
 if I may so say, of a lantern ; that is, that a candle 
 might be enclosed in it, and yet the candle be 
 perfectly hid, so that no eye should see the light. 
 This canister prisoner took with him to Ports-
 
 264 THE king's yard 
 
 mouth in a wooden box. The use of the box 
 was to contain the combustibles, which were to be 
 h'ghted by a match, in order to set the place on 
 fire ; the preparation and the ingredients of this 
 you will have an account of. Prisoner told Baldwin 
 he had taken a lodging at Portsmouth, at a Mrs. 
 Mildwater's, where he had made some preparations 
 for the work of setting the place on fire. I should 
 have told you, in the conversation with regard to 
 Canterbury, he told Baldwin likewise of a quarrel 
 he had had there with a dragoon, which had led 
 to a sight of the canister under the flap of his 
 coat. He said at Mrs. Mildwater's he had made 
 preparations in order to set the storehouses on 
 fire ; and he told him there the manner of his 
 making this composition, that it was by grinding 
 charcoal with water very fine upon a colour 
 stone, such as painters use in grinding their 
 paint, and that it was then to be mixed with 
 gunpowder." 
 
 The Mildwaters, seated in the body of the 
 court, at the mention of their names looked round 
 proudly at all present. But Mildwater, as he sat 
 holding his hat between his knees, was soon
 
 THE TRIAL OF JACK THE PAINTER 265 
 
 reminded that such distinction had its drawbacks, 
 for Mrs. Mildwater whispered in his ear : 
 
 " Let this be a warnin' to you, Mildwas, agen 
 bringin' such men to a respectable woman's house 
 as lodgers." 
 
 Counsel, continuing his speech, went on to say 
 that the prisoner then told Baldwin that on the 
 afternoon of the fire, being in the rope house, 
 he got a parcel of hemp, and strewed the hemp 
 about where he intended the match to be ; that 
 he laid a bottle of turpentine on its side, with 
 hemp in the neck of the bottle instead of cork ; 
 that he laid the match upon a piece of paper in 
 which was some gunpowder, and over the powder 
 some hemp. He told him that as soon as the 
 match reached the gunpowder it would fire the 
 hemp, and he mentioned also his throwing a 
 quart of turpentine about the hemp. 
 
 " I should have told you that he said this Mrs. 
 Mildwater was frightened of this experiment in 
 her house, and almost turned him out of his 
 lodgings. She is a highly respectable woman. I 
 shall call her presently, and you can see that 
 for yourselves."
 
 266 THE king's yard 
 
 Mrs. Mildwater smoothed her shawl and ad- 
 justed her bonnet in readiness for the ordeal, and 
 counsel continued : 
 
 "The prisoner also told him a circumstance of 
 his being shut in at the hemp house the pre- 
 vious day, when he had been trying to fire it. 
 But his matches failed on that occasion ; that he 
 was so long in the place about this work that 
 the time of shutting it up had arrived, and when 
 he attempted to go out at the door he could not 
 get out ; that after having walked up and down, 
 and endeavouring to get out quietly, finding all 
 that impracticable, that he knocked, and cried out 
 'Hullo ' to a person on the outside, who showed 
 him a way out. The matches he had bought 
 from a woman on Portsmouth Hard and they 
 would not take fire, so you see, from this cause 
 only the hemp house was saved from destruc- 
 tion. He told Baldwin how he soundly rated 
 the woman who sold him these inferior matches, 
 and bought others from her, by which he suc- 
 ceeded next day in setting fire to the rope 
 house. That this fire caught quicker than he 
 expected it would, and that he had only just
 
 THE TRIAL OF JACK THE PAINTER 267 
 
 time to escape through one of the town gates 
 when the whole of Portsmouth was alarmed. 
 
 " He further told Baldwin that just after his 
 leaving the town he overtook a woman in a cart ; 
 that he got her leave to get into her cart, for 
 the sake of expediting his journe}' ; that he then 
 hastened towards London as fast as he could. 
 Another circumstance, likewise, he mentioned : 
 that of his leaving a bundle at his lodging with 
 the highly respected Mildwater. He said that he 
 had come away from Portsmouth in so great a 
 hurry that he had not time to go there for it, and 
 that bundle, he said, contained some books, the 
 titles of which he mentioned, and likewise some 
 clothing and a French passport. All these things, 
 he said, were in his bundle, which he had left 
 with the woman at his lodgings at Portsmouth 
 Common. It was impossible for Baldwin to have 
 invented this story, for Baldwin, having made a 
 discovery of these conversations, an inquiry was 
 made into these particulars, of which you shall 
 now have an account, and which will be proved 
 to you in evidence. 
 
 " Messengers were despatched by the Crown
 
 268 THE KING'S YARD 
 
 to all the places mentioned by the prisoner to 
 Baldwin, and all the people he spoke of were 
 found, and are within the precincts of this court, 
 waiting to give evidence. We shall produce the 
 person who made the tin canister ; the dragoon 
 with whom the prisoner quarrelled at Canterbury, 
 and who saw the canister in Hill's possession ; 
 Mrs. Mildwater, with whom the prisoner lodged, 
 and whose house was nearly set on fire by his 
 experiments. This witness will also swear to the 
 bundle and its contents, which will be produced 
 in court, and which, as I have told you, the 
 prisoner left at his lodging. The watchman who 
 let the prisoner out of the hemp house on the 
 night he was locked in ; the woman who sold him 
 matches ; the landlord of the inn, who noticed him 
 wearing shoe buckles and other clothing which are 
 in that bundle which we produce ; the woman 
 who drove him out of Portsmouth on the night 
 of the fire, and was alarmed at his demeanour, 
 which was that of a man flying from justice — all 
 these witnesses, my lud and gentlemen of the 
 jury, we shall produce, as well as persons from 
 the Dockyard to prove the fire, and the circum-
 
 THE TRIAL OF JACK THE PAINTER 269 
 
 stances relating to it, of which I have told 
 you. 
 
 " Now, when you have all these circumstances 
 proved to you in evidence, will not you say that 
 it was impossible for Mr. Baldwin to have invented 
 this story, for these discoveries were made in 
 consequence of Mr. Baldwin's relation ; not that 
 Baldwin's relation was after the discoveries, for it 
 was the relation of Baldwin from the mouth of 
 the prisoner that led to a discovery of all the 
 particulars which I have now mentioned to you. 
 The tenth part of these circumstances, which I 
 have opened, would serve, I should think, to decide 
 the fate of any man standing in the prisoner's 
 situation ; but it is the wish of the public, it is 
 the wish of the Government, that all the public 
 should know to whom they are indebted for the 
 sorrows they have felt, and how much they owe 
 to the providence of God that America has not 
 been able totally to destroy this country, and to 
 make it bow its neck, not only to America, but to 
 the most petty chief in Europe. For, let the 
 English Navy be destroyed — and there was a hand 
 ready to effect it — let but the English Navy be
 
 2/0 THE king's YARD 
 
 destroyed, and there is an end of all we hold dear 
 and valuable. The importance of the subject, the 
 magnitude, the extraordinary nature of the thing, 
 calls for a more particular investigation than any 
 other subject, of what kind soever, could demand ; 
 and therefore, I need, I hope, make no apology 
 for having descended so particularly into these 
 minute (if any of them can be called minute) 
 particulars of this story. We shall prove all these 
 circumstances to the full, and surely there can be 
 no doubt what shall be done with the man. I 
 shall be glad to hear what he has to say for 
 himself, and I shall be glad if he is able to lay 
 his guilt at anybody's door besides those to whom 
 he has laid it, I wish Mr. Silas Dean were here ; 
 a time may come, perhaps, when he and Dr. 
 Franklin may be here." 
 
 The prisoner looked up and spoke out clearly : 
 " They are very honest men," he said. 
 
 Counsel: "We shall see, we shall see. Call 
 the first witness." 
 
 And they called them all in turn, who swore to 
 all the things counsel had said they would, Mrs. 
 Mildwater and "her Mildwas" being much upset
 
 THE TRIAL OF JACK THE PAINTER 27 1 
 
 at having thus to appear against their former 
 lodger. After giving their evidence, they left the 
 court-room in tears, and went back to obscurity, 
 or, rather, to such notoriety as their neighbours 
 in Chapel Row could give them. 
 
 Then the judge summed up, and the jury 
 almost immediately pronounced the prisoner 
 '' Guilty." 
 
 It was late in the afternoon when the proceedings 
 reached this stage, and the trial had lasted from 
 ten o'clock in the morning, yet Hill had stood 
 unmoved all through the ordeal, leaning forward, 
 listening quietly to the evidence, offering no 
 comments upon it. When the case closed, the jury 
 never hesitated, nor appeared to think of leaving 
 the box, but pronounced their verdict immediately. 
 
 The candles shed but a poor light around the 
 court, leaving the man in the dock almost in 
 darkness ; and Brand, as he looked across to the 
 silent figure leaning upon the spikes, felt that 
 he had already entered upon the Valley of the 
 Shadows. 
 
 Then from the judge came the solemn 
 question :
 
 2/2 THE KING'S YARD 
 
 " Have you anything to say why sentence of 
 death should not be passed upon you ? " 
 
 And from out of the gloom Hill answered 
 firmly : " I have nothing to say." 
 
 The judge, in the moving manner peculiar to 
 judges on such occasions, passed sentence of 
 death, telling the prisoner he would not add to 
 the pain of his position by dwelling on the 
 enormity of the crime, and then dwelling 
 upon it for a considerable time, and in very 
 strong language. 
 
 When his lordship had finished, the prisoner 
 looked up at him and said : 
 
 " My lord, I am exceedingly well satisfied." 
 
 Before he was removed he beckoned Brand to 
 the dock. The doctor reluctantly crossed over 
 to the spiked railings, and Hill whispered to him : 
 
 " Come and see me turned off; I ask it as a 
 favour." 
 
 Brand, thinking the man had spoken thus from 
 the bitterness of his heart, shook his head. 
 
 " No," he said, " I cannot do that, but I have a 
 word of comfort for you. Listen ; bend your head 
 over the rail — I want to whisper."
 
 THE TRIAL OF JACK THE PAINTER 273 
 
 "Yes; what is it?" 
 
 *' Warner is not dead ; he is fast recovering. 
 You have not that crime upon your soul." 
 
 " Listen in turn. I suspected as much. I knew 
 from your manner lately, and I reasoned it out ; 
 but I would not baulk you at the last. In return 
 for what I have left unspoken, remember that 
 among the howling mob who come to the show 
 I shall see no friendly face. Do me one kind- 
 ness ; let me see you at the last. I want to 
 look upon a man to nerve me for the end." 
 
 "I will be there; I promise you that, though 
 I am but a poor comforter for such an hour. 
 Good-bye "
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 TWO ENDINGS 
 
 Dr. Brand's month's leave was up long before 
 his adventures in London and the trial at Win- 
 chester were over, but he got it renewed, and wrote 
 to Warner at Petersfield, and Dolly at Portchester, 
 to tell them that he would not be home for a while. 
 He did not mention that he was going to Ports- 
 mouth to see Hill hanged, and he wanted to get 
 that last horrible scene over before he undertook 
 the pleasant task of re-uniting the two. For, of 
 course, he told himself, it would be a delightful 
 meeting, and how joyful he would feel when he 
 brought Warner from Petersfield to Portchester 
 and set to work to persuade Miss Bramber into 
 receiving at her house the young American. 
 
 His noble relative had sent him in reply to his 
 
 request, a letter for young Warner, in which he 
 
 274
 
 TWO ENDINGS 275 
 
 was permitted to remain in England for three 
 months, or to leave the country sooner if 
 he wished to do so. The surgeon sent this 
 document in his letter to the American, who 
 replied, cordially thanking him for it, and saying 
 that he was rapidly getting well. 
 
 Upon the loth of March, Hill was conveyed 
 from Winchester to Portsmouth, and there lodged 
 in a dungeon in the old White House Prison in 
 High Street, replaced early in this century by the 
 Penny Street Gaol, the last named replaced in its 
 turn now by the big gaol at Milton. The old 
 White House then became the Clarence Tavern, 
 and later the Crown Inn, and was still in existence 
 up to quite recent times. 
 
 When Brand set out for the Dockyard, he found 
 a great crowd assembled on Portsmouth Common, 
 waiting to see the man hanged, and all in high 
 good-humour, having only one complaint — that 
 such a mild punishment as hanging should have 
 been awarded to one capable of such a crime. 
 
 Just inside the entrance to the Yard they had 
 rigged a gallows with the mizzenmast of the 
 Arethusa — base use, indeed, for such a spar, as the
 
 276 THE king's yard 
 
 master rigger said, who had been ordered to pre- 
 pare it. When they were getting the mast on end, 
 one of the riggers remarked : " It was strange, but 
 the very day before the rope house was burned, 
 a stranger had said to him that this same spar 
 would make a handy gallows." 
 
 Of course, in that hideous manner which was 
 not one of the good old fashions, they brought 
 the poor wretch through the public streets in an 
 open cart. All the way from the White House to 
 the dock gate, a howling, jeering mob surrounded 
 the vehicle, and the soldiers had much difficulty 
 in keeping back the crowd, who once or twice 
 made ugly rushes at the cart, and would, if they 
 could, have anticipated the end. 
 
 But Hill, seated between two marines, was quite 
 indifferent to all this, and even paid no attention 
 to the chaplain's exhortations, his eyes continually 
 wandering round in search of one man, and to 
 all appearance he thought of nothing else. 
 
 When they entered the Dockyard, and he passed 
 the gallows — the mast rigged with a yard across it, 
 and from the yardarm a whip — Hill caught sight 
 of the word Arethttsa chalked in big letters on the
 
 TWO ENDINGS 277 
 
 mast, and, like the rigger, he remembered that 
 afternoon in the Yard, when people talked of 
 hanging. Then he saw Brand, and standing up 
 in the cart, waved to him. 
 
 The grim procession did not stop, but went 
 on to the ruins of the rope house, where all the 
 mateys were assembled, and there, at the request 
 of Hill, the Commissioner came close to the cart. 
 
 •' Sir," said the prisoner, in a perfectly firm voice, 
 betraying no symptom of fear — " sir, as I am about 
 to die, I acknowledge my crime, and hope God 
 will forgive me for it." 
 
 Then casting his eyes upon the crowd, he saw 
 that Brand had accompanied the cart, and much 
 moved, was looking at him. 
 
 Outside the Yard gates they were already crying 
 halfpenny sheets of "The last dying speech and 
 confession of Jack the Painter." The cart returning 
 to the dock gate, the chaplain asked Hill if he 
 had anything more to say, and hearing the ballad- 
 mongers' cry, he smiled grimly, answering : 
 
 " If you want my speech and confession, you can 
 buy it for a halfpenny on the Hard." 
 
 Then he waved once more to Brand, and made
 
 2/8 THE KING'S YARD 
 
 a signal to the Commissioner, who waved his hand. 
 A number of sailors who had been detailed for 
 the purpose walked away with the rope, and the 
 show was over. 
 
 Mr. Commissioner Gambler afterwards remarked 
 that the man behaved with great dignity, and 
 when the chaplain reproved him for saying this 
 of a villain who was hanged, the Commissioner 
 replied : 
 
 "Sir, allow me to tell you that a man who goes 
 to death decently, without bravado, and at the 
 same time showing as little fear as this man did, 
 does die with dignity, and when my time comes, 
 may I die as bravely." 
 
 And Dr. Brand left the scene with the same 
 idea in his mind, thinking, too, upon the scars Hill 
 had shown him, and wondering whether, after all, 
 the cat was not responsible for the spoiling of a 
 brave and good man. 
 
 An hour afterwards they cut down the body, 
 and carried it to Gosport, and it was hung in 
 chains on Blockhouse Point. By that time Brand 
 was once more on the road to Petersfield. 
 
 He reached the White Hart early in the evening,
 
 TWO ENDINGS 2/9 
 
 and as he entered the inn, full of pleasant anticipa- 
 tions of the meeting, asked cheerily : 
 
 " Well, landlord, how is my friend, Mr. Warner ? 
 Where is he? No longer in bed, I hope?" 
 
 " Oh, good evening, sir ; I remember you. Your 
 friend has gone away." 
 
 " Gone ! When ? Where ? " exclaimed Brand, 
 astounded. 
 
 " That I cannot tell you ; but here is a letter 
 which will explain." 
 
 "And this," thought the surgeon, as he took the 
 letter — " this is the end of my dream. They could 
 not even wait for me to bring them together." 
 
 The letter was carefully sealed, and the doctor's 
 fingers trembled so that he had difficulty in 
 opening the wrapper. Inside he found another 
 sealed letter and a strip of paper, on which this 
 was written: 
 
 " For all that you have done for me no words 
 can express my gratitude, but this enclosure more 
 than anything else will, I think, give satisfaction 
 to you. For myself, when this reaches, you I shall 
 have returned to join my countrymen in the
 
 280 THE KING'S YARD 
 
 struggle — enemies of yours now, but remember 
 me as a friend among them." 
 
 Brand tore open the sealed envelope — it was a 
 letter addressed to Warner, and it was in Dolly's 
 handwriting. 
 
 "Sir, — You are an honourable gentleman, and 
 will forgive this lack of discretion on my part. 
 But surely a girl whose want of proper caution 
 has brought about so much mischief as I have, 
 will be excused for one more indiscretion in writing 
 these. Dr. Brand has written to me, telling me 
 you are honourably cleared of certain unjust 
 suspicions that were upon you, and that he pur- 
 poses presently to bring you back to Portchester. 
 Do not come back. If I might presume to think 
 that you have a wish to do so, conquer that desire, 
 for what passed between us must be forgotten ; 
 it was but idle nonsense, and nothing that I may 
 have said or done came from my heart, which, 
 even before your coming, although I was too young 
 to understand, was fixed upon another object — 
 upon one which is now so dear to me that I have
 
 TWO ENDINGS 28 1 
 
 no thought for any other living. If you would do 
 me a great kindness, return to America, giving 
 such explanation to Dr. Brand as will relieve his 
 mind upon your sudden departure ; but I would 
 not have you hint to him what I have said in 
 this, and be sure I should not have put the words 
 on paper but for the need to make it clear to you 
 that you must not return to Portchester. 
 
 " Sir, I wish you every happiness, and in the 
 hope that you will comply with my most earnest 
 request, remain your obliged servant, 
 
 "Dorothy Bagshott." 
 
 Dolly's handwriting was large and plain, yet 
 Brand looked at the letter for long, but dimly 
 comprehending its meaning ; then at last a joyful 
 glimmering of the truth came to his mind, and 
 calling loudly for his horse, he leapt across it and 
 rode off, in desperate haste, upon the road to 
 Portchester. The weary ride of some fifteen miles 
 upon the heavy, muddy road, by the time of his 
 arrival, not long before midnight, left his horse 
 exhausted, but its rider, although he had had 
 neither food nor rest since early morning, felt no 
 need of such comfort,
 
 282 THE KING'S YARD 
 
 Straight to the little parsonage rode Brand. 
 Then, in answer to his violent knocking, the 
 parson put his night-capped head out of the 
 window, and demanded what was wanted. 
 
 "Open the door at once, my dear sir. It is 
 I— Brand." 
 
 "Oh, doctor, I am so glad, although it is very 
 late, you know." 
 
 Inside the cottage Miss Bramber, in a wrapper, 
 forgetting even to try to look dignified, went 
 straight to him and shook his hand, unconscious 
 that her frilled night - cap was still upon her 
 head, and its frills were bobbing in unison with 
 the heartiness of her hand-shaking. 
 
 " Do you know anything of these letters ? 
 Where is Dolly — is she well? Do they mean — 
 Does her letter mean — Have you — ?" 
 
 The doctor, as he fired the questions out, danced 
 from one foot to the other in his excitement. 
 
 " Wait a moment, and I will answer you." 
 
 Miss Bramber opened the door of the little 
 parlour, and another figure in a wrapper, but 
 with her hair hanging down to her waist, for no 
 ^jlled ni^ht-cap confined it, was led in, blushing,
 
 TWO ENDINGS 283 
 
 by the spinster, who afterwards declared that she 
 never in her h'fe before had so far forgotten 
 herself or the proprieties. 
 
 " Arthur Brand has read your letter that we 
 wrote to that rebel, Dolly, and he has come to 
 us to know its meaning. I have brought you 
 here, that you may answer him," said Miss 
 Bramber. 
 
 And the parson laughing, added : 
 
 " It is half-past twelve, and I will give you, 
 Brand, a quarter of an hour to extract an answer 
 from Dolly ; then I shall turn you out, and you 
 can go over to the castle and get a bed from 
 Stockleigh, who, by the way, has been appointed 
 Governor." 
 
 Then Bramber led his sister away, and left the 
 two together. 
 
 The doctor stepped across the room to Dolly, 
 who shyly put her hand in his. A few whispered 
 words between them, and a new chapter in their 
 lives opened — a chapter that has no ending in 
 their written story. 
 
 Bramber presently came and insisted that every- 
 one should say good-night, and sleep if they could.
 
 284 THE KING'S YARD 
 
 Brand left for his old quarters at the castle, 
 when, after a greeting from Stockleigh and a few 
 minutes' chat over his adventures, he was left 
 alone. Then he went straight to his writing-case 
 and wrote to his noble brother-in-law these lines : 
 
 "My Lord, — Will you allow me to change my 
 mind ? If you will give me that appointment to 
 Haslar, I will gladly take it." 
 
 Years afterwards, when Americans were no 
 longer Colonials, but had set up in business for 
 themselves, there came on a visit to Dr. Brand and 
 his wife; at their house near Haslar Hospital, an 
 American lady and gentleman, named Mr. and 
 Mrs. Henry Warner. The American lady was 
 greatly entertained with the story of what became 
 of Jack the Painter's bones, which long had hung 
 in chains on Blockhouse Point — a constant and 
 unpleasant remembrance to Dr. Brand, who could 
 see the gibbet from Haslar windows. 
 
 At the request of Mr. Warner, Dr. Brand told 
 the story to the lady, winding up his narrative in 
 these words ;
 
 TWO ENDINGS 28$ 
 
 "Your husband, madam, has no doubt told you 
 most of this long ago, and I presume has 
 explained that the poor wretch thought posterity 
 would remember him as a man who died a great 
 American patriot. 
 
 " Americans disown him and his acts, while here- 
 about he is remembered only by this circumstance: 
 Two sailors, a few years since, climbed the 
 gibbet, that can be seen from here. They stole 
 the remains, taking them in a bag to a low 
 tavern in Gosport, there leaving them in pledge 
 for drink. This gave rise to the song now sung 
 about the streets of Portsmouth town : 
 
 "Whose corpse, by ponderous iron rung, 
 High upon Blockhouse beach was hung, 
 And long to every tempest swung ? 
 Why truly, Jack the Painter. 
 
 " Whose bones, some years since taken down, 
 Were brought in curious bag to town ; 
 And left in pledge for half-a-crown ? 
 Why truly, Jack the Painter." 
 
 THE END 
 
 Printed by Cowan b' Co, , Limited, Ptrth,
 
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