"Well, for instance, one day he was expecting company. There was a fountain in the middle of the lawn at Blowinghouse, and a statue of Hercules that his old father had brought home from Italy and planted in the middle of it. Josh couldn"t bear that statue--said the muscles were all wrong. So, if you please, he takes it down, dresses himself in nothing at all--same as you might be, bare as my palm--and a Justice of the Peace, mind you--and stands himself in the middle of the fountain, with all the guests arriving. Not an easy thing to pa.s.s off, and it caused a scandal: but folks didn"t seem to mind.
"It was Truscott"s way," they said: "after all, he comes of a clever family, and we hope his son will be better." A man wants character to carry off a thing like that."
I agreed that character must have been Mr. Truscott"s secret.
"Now _I_ couldn"t do that for the life of me," Mr. Rogers sighed, and chuckled over another reminiscence. "Josh had a shindy once with a groom. The fellow asked for a rise in wages. "You couldn"t have said anything more hurtful to my feelings," Josh told him, and knocked him down. There was a hole in one of his orchards where they"d been rooting up an old apple-tree. He put the fellow in that, tilled him up to his neck in earth, and kept him there till he apologised. Not at all an easy thing for a Justice of the Peace to pa.s.s off: but, bless you, folks said that he came of a clever county family, and hoped his son would be better. The fellow didn"t even bring an action." Mr. Rogers broke off suddenly, and seemed to meditate a new train of thought. "Hang it!" he exclaimed. "I believe "tis a hundred pounds. I must look it up when I get back."
"What is a hundred pounds, sir?" I asked.
"Penalty for showing a coast-light without authority. Lydia laid me ten pounds I hadn"t the pluck, though; and that"ll bring it down to ninety at the worst. She"d a small fortune in this trip, too, which she stood to lose: but, as it turns out, I"ve saved that for her.
Oh, she"s a treasure!"
"Did you light the flare?" I began to see that I had fallen in with an original, and that he might be humoured.
"Eh?--to be sure I did! "Slocked away the man in charge by mimicking Pascoe"s voice--he"s the freighter, and talks like a man with no roof to his mouth. I"m a pretty good mimic, though I say it. Nothing easier, after that. You see, Lydia had laid me ten pounds that as a Justice of the Peace I hadn"t wit nor pluck to spoil her next run; honestly, that is. She knows I wouldn"t blow on her for worlds.
Oh, we understand one another! Now you and I"ll go off and call on her, and hear what she says about it. For in a way I"ve won, and in a way I"ve not. I stopped the run, but also I"ve saved the cargo for her: for the devil a notion had I that the soldiers had wind of it; and, but for the flare, the boats would have run in and lost every tub. Here we are, my lad!"
We had climbed the cliff and were crossing a field of stubble gra.s.s, very painful to my feet. I saw the shadow of a low hedge in front, but these words of Mr. Rogers conveyed nothing to me. "Soh, soh, my girl!" he called softly, advancing towards the shadow: and at first I supposed him to be addressing the mysterious Lydia. But following I saw him smoothing the neck of a small mare tethered beside the hedge, and the next moment had almost blundered against a light two-wheeled carriage resting on its shafts a few yards away.
Mr. Rogers whispered to me to lift the shafts. "And be quiet about it: there"s a road t"other side of the hedge. Soh, my girl--sweetly, sweetly!" He backed the mare between the shafts, harnessed her, and led her along to a gate opening on the road.
"Jump up, my lad," he commanded, as he steered the tilbury through; and up I jumped. "There"s a rug somewhere by your feet, and Lydia"ll do the rest for you. Cl"k, my darling!"
Away we bowled.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE MAN IN THE VERANDAH.
The mare settled down to a beautiful stride and we spun along smoothly over a road which, for a coast road, must have been well laid, or Mr. Rogers"s tilbury was hung on exceptionally good springs.
We were travelling inland, for the wind blew in our faces, and I huddled myself up from it in the rug--on which a dew had fallen, making it damp and sticky. For two miles or so we must have held on at this pace without exchanging a word, meeting neither vehicle nor pedestrian in all that distance, nor pa.s.sing any; and so came to a sign-post and swerved by it into a broader road, which ran level for maybe half a mile and then began to climb. Here Mr. Rogers eased down the mare and handed me the reins, bidding me hold them while he lit a cigar.
"We"re safe enough now," said he, pulling out a pocket tinder-box: "and while I"m about it we"d better light the lamps." He slipped them from their sockets and lit the pair cleverly from the same brimstone match. "The _Highflier_"s due about this time," he explained; "and Russell"s Wagon "s another nasty thing to hit in the dark. We"re on the main road, you know." Before refixing the lamp beside him, he held it up for a good stare at me, and grinned.
"Well, you"re a nice guest for a spinster at this hour, I must say!
But there"s no shyness about Lydia."
"Is she--is this Miss Lydia unmarried?" I made bold to ask.
"Lydia Belcher "s a woman in a thousand. There"s no better fellow living, and I"ve known worse ladies. Yes, she"s unmarried."
He took the reins from me and the mare quickened her pace. After sucking at his cigar for a while he chuckled aloud. "She"s to be seen to be believed: past forty and wears top-boots. But she was a beauty in her day. Her mother"s looks were famous--she was daughter to one of the Earl"s cottagers, on the edge of the moors"--here Mr.
Rogers jerked his thumb significantly, but in what direction the night hid from me: "married old Sam Belcher, one of his lordship"s keepers, a fellow not fit to black her boots; and had this one child, Lydia. This was just about the time of the Earl"s own marriage.
Folks talked, of course: and sure enough, when the Earl came to die, "twas found he"d left Lydia a thousand a year in the funds.
That"s the story: and Lydia--well she"s Lydia. Couldn"t marry where she would, I suppose, and wouldn"t where she could; though they do say Whitmore "s tr.i.m.m.i.n.g sail for her."
"Whitmore?" I echoed.
"Ay, the curate: monstrous clever fellow, and a sportsman too: Trinity College Dublin man. Don"t happen to know him, do you?"
"Is he a thin-faced gentleman, very neatly dressed? Oh, but it can"t be the gentleman I mean, sir! The one I mean has a slow way of speaking, and the hair seems gone on each side of his forehead--"
"That"s Whitmore, to a T. So you know him? Well, you"ll meet him at Lydia"s, I shouldn"t wonder. He"s there most nights."
"If you please, sir, will you set me down? I can shift for myself somehow--indeed I can! I promised--that is, I mean, Mr. Whitmore won"t like it if--if--"
While I stammered on, Mr. Rogers pulled up the mare, quartering at the same time to make room for the mail-coach as it thundered up the road from westward and swept by at the gallop, with lamps flashing and bits and swingles shaken in chorus.
"Look here, what"s the matter?" he demanded. "Why don"t you want to meet Whitmore?" Then as I would not answer but continued to entreat him, "There"s something deuced fishy about you. Here I find you, stark naked, hiding from the soldiers: yet you can"t be one of the "trade," for you don"t know the country or the folks living hereabouts--only Whitmore: and Whitmore you won"t meet, and your name you won"t tell, nor where you come from--only that you"ve been swimming. "Swimming," good Lord! You didn"t swim from France, I take it." He flicked his whip and fell into a muse. "And I"m a Justice of the Peace, and the Lord knows what I"m compounding with."
He mused again. "Tell you what I"ll do," he exclaimed; "I"ll take you up to Lydia"s as I promised. If Whitmore"s there, you shan"t meet him if you don"t want to: and if the house is full, I"ll drop you in the shrubbery with the rug, and get them to break up early.
Only I must have your solemn davey that you"ll stay there and not quit until I give you leave. Eh?"
I gave that promise.
"Very well. I"ll tip the wink to Lydia, and when we"ve cleared the company, we"ll have you in and get the rights of this. Oh, you may trust Lydia!"
As he said this we were pa.s.sing a house the long whitewashed front of which ab.u.t.ted glimmering on the road. A light shone behind the blind of one lower window and showed through a c.h.i.n.k under the door.
"The Major "s sitting up late," observed Mr. Rogers, and again flicked up the mare.
Two minutes later he pulled the left rein and we swung through an open gateway and were rolling over soft gravel. Tall bushes of laurel on either hand glinted back the lights of the tilbury, and presently around a sweep of the drive I saw a window shining.
Mr. Rogers pulled up once more.
"Jump out and take the path to the left. It"ll bring you out almost facing the front door. Wait among the laurels there."
I climbed down and drew my rug about me as he drove on and I heard the tilbury"s wheels come to a halt on the gravel before the house.
Then, following the path which wound about a small shrubbery, I came to the edge of the gravel sweep before the porch just as a groom took the mare and cart from him and led them around to the left, towards the stables. I saw this distinctly, for on the right of the porch, where there ran a pretty deep verandah, each window on the ground floor was lit and flung its light across the gravel to the laurel behind which I crouched. There were in all five windows; of which three seemed to belong to an empty room, and two to another filled with people. The windows of this one stood wide open, and the racket within was prodigious. Also the company seemed to consist entirely of men. But what surprised me most was to see that the tables at which these guests drank and supped--as the clatter of knives and plates told me, and the shouting of toasts--were drawn up in a semicircle about a tall bed-canopy reaching almost to the ceiling in the far right-hand corner. The bed itself was hidden from me by the broad backs of two sportsmen seated in line with it and nursing a bottle apiece under their chairs.
Now while I wondered, Mr. Jack Rogers pa.s.sed briskly through the room with the closed windows towards this chamber of revelry, preceded by an elderly woman with a smoking dish in her hands. I could not see the doorway between the two rooms; but the company announced his appearance with a shout, and several guests pushing back their chairs and rising to welcome him, in the same instant were disclosed to me, first, the pale face of the Rev. Mr. Whitmore under a sporting print by the wall opposite, and next, reclining in the bed, the most extraordinary figure of a woman.
So much of her as appeared above the bedclothes was arrayed in an orange-coloured dressing-gown and a night-cap the frills of which towered over a face remarkable in many ways, but chiefly for its broad masculine forehead and the firm outline of its jaw and chin.
Indeed, I could hardly believe that the face belonged to a woman.
A slight darkening of the upper lip even suggested a moustache, but on a second look I set this down to the shadow of the bed-canopy.
A round table stood at her elbow, with a bottle and plate upon it: and in one hand she lifted a rummer to Mr. Rogers"s health, crooking back the spoon in it with her forefinger as she drank, that it might not incommode her aquiline nose.
"Good health, Jack, and sit you down!" she hailed him, her voice ringing above the others like a bell. "Tripe and onions it is, and Plymouth gin--the usual fare: and while you"re helping yourself, tell me--do I owe you ten pounds or no?"
"That depends," Mr. Rogers answered, searching about for a clean plate and seating himself amid the hush of the company. "All the horses back?"
"Five of "em. They came in together, nigh on an hour ago, and not a tub between "em. The roan"s missing."
"Maybe the red-coats have him," said Mr. Rogers, holding out his tumbler. "Here, pa.s.s the kettle, somebody!"
"Red-coats?" she cried sharply. "You don"t tell me--" But the sentence was drowned by a new and (to me) very horrible noise--the furious barking of dogs from the stables or kennels in the rear of the house. Here was a new danger: and I liked it so little--the prospect of being bayed naked through those pitch-dark shrubberies by a pack of hounds--that I broke from my covert of laurel, hurriedly skirted the broad patch of light on the carriage sweep, and plumped down close to the windows, behind a bush of mock-orange at the end of the verandah, whence a couple of leaps would land me within it among Miss Belcher"s guests. And I felt that even Mr. Whitmore was less formidable than Miss Belcher"s dogs.
Their barking died down after a minute or so, and the company, two or three of whom had started to their feet, seemed to be rea.s.sured and began to call upon Jack Rogers for his explanation. It now turned out that, quite unintentionally, I had so posted myself as to hear every word spoken; and, I regret to say, was deep in Mr. Rogers"s story--from which he considerately omitted all mention of me--when my eye caught a movement among the shadows at the far end of the verandah.
A man was stealing along it and towards me, close by the house wall.