“oh liberty!” says the bulgarian poet machinchose in a fine apostrophe, too little known in this country. “oh liberty,” etc.
never had george mulross demaine known the sweets of that word in the days when he enjoyed its privilege to the full. now, as the brilliant dawn of that wednesday awakened him upon the deep he learned the beauty of freedom.
its meaning saturated his very being as he woke in his miserable cell, refreshed but very weak, and saw shafts of the happy morning sun coming level with the dancing of the sea, and making a rhythmic change of unreal network in the oval patch of light that was cast by the porthole against the filthy rust of the walls.
he felt mechanically for his watch and found nothing but bare skin; then (such a teacher is adversity!) he to whom induction was grossly unfamiliar, began to induce away like any child of nature.
the sunlight was level, for the image of the porthole upon the wall was but little lower than the[201] porthole itself:—therefore the sun had but just risen.
it was june, therefore if the sun had but just risen the hour was very early: how early he certainly could not have answered if you had asked him a week ago, but adversity, that admirable schoolmistress, was developing the mind of george mulross as the blossom of a narcissus develops under the first airs of spring, and he was capable of remembering a sunrise after the ball at the buteleys’, and another after a big supper at granges’. he was in bed before half-past five on each occasion. it must therefore be between four and five o’clock.
the term “solstice” was unfamiliar to this expectant member of the british executive, but he seemed to remember that somewhere about this time of year the nights were at their shortest.
he was full of a new pride as he made these discoveries. then two things struck him at once: the first that he was ravenously hungry, the second that all motion of the ship had ceased. he heard no sound of any kind except the gentle lapping of the tiny waves alongside, for it was calm except for the little breeze of morning.
he attempted with his new-found powers to pass the time in further induction, to guess by the position of the light how the ship lay, but as he had forgotten at which end of a ship the anchor is let go, and as he had no notion of the tide in the[202] english channel, nor even whether tides ran for six hours or twelve (he was sure it was one of the two), and as, in general, he was grossly ignorant of the data upon which such an induction should proceed, the effort soon fatigued him. he was content to prop himself up against the wall and crave for food.
he heard a step outside, he struck the door with his fist. to his delight a key turned in it, and the doubtful visage of the boy once more appeared. early as was the hour, and divine the weather, the boy was still gloomy.
“gettin’ us inter more trouble, orl on us, yer dirty skunk!” was his greeting.
“i’m sure i’m very sorry,” said george. “i only knocked because i’m so terribly hungry. can’t you get me something to eat?”
“yus,” said the boy thoughtfully, “i dahn’t think! yer’d myke me chuck it. yer’s particler as a orspital nuss,” he added, with a recollection of a brazen woman in gaudy uniform whom a kind lady had thrust upon his mother’s humble home just before he had gone aboard.
demaine was in acute necessity. “look here,” he said, “get me some bread.”
“whaffor?” asked the boy.
demaine nodded mysteriously, and once again was his gaoler torn between a desire for some ultimate gain and the certitude that no present gain was obtainable.
[203]he was a london lad, with all the advantages that london birth implies, and it had already occurred to him that demaine’s accent, manner and cuticle differed in a strange way from those of your stock stowaway. he had been impressed in the matter of the food; he was more impressed by certain little turns of language which he associated with those hateful, but, as he had been told, wealthy people, who came down and did good amid his mother’s neighbours in the east end; and when he had thought it well over and tamed his prisoner further by one more well-chosen epithet, he went off and came back with a hunk of bread.
“yer lucky,” he said as he returned, “thet yer on a short trip. otherwyes t’d uv been biscuit....” then he added, “and gryte wurms in ut!”
george did not reply. he bit into the bread in ecstasy, and his eyes, which his acquaintances in london commonly discovered to be lifeless, positively gleamed upon this summer morning.
“they gotter communicyte wiv the orfferities fust,” said the boy pompously.
“yes?” said george with his mouth full.
“ho! yus, it is!” sneered the boy, who thought there was something of the toff in this use of the simply affirmative. “an’ after that they’ll land yer, and yer’ll ave the darbies on afore breakfast-toime.” he added nothing this time about hanging. the details of the moment were too absorbing.
[204]“how do you mean ‘communicate’?” asked george carelessly and all ears.
“woy, wiv a flag, that’s ow,” said the boy.
demaine had often been told of the long and complicated messages which little pieces of bunting could convey, and he had himself presented to a country school a whole series of flags which, in a certain order, signified that england expected every man to do his duty. but he could not conceive how so complete a message as the presence and desired arrest of an unfortunate stowaway could be conveyed to the authorities ashore by any such simple means, unless indeed the presence of stowaways was so common an occurrence that a code signal was used for the purpose of disembarking that cargo.
the boy illumined him.
“they got th’ flag up,” he said, “syin’ ‘send a baht,’ and when they sees it they’ll run up one theirselves—then’s yer toime.”
but the boy’s information, as is common with the official statements of inferiors, was grossly erroneous.
a voice came bawling down from above, ordering him to tumble up with the prisoner.
tumble up george did; that is, he crawled up the steep and noisome ladder, and as he put his head out into the glorious air, thought that never was such contrast between heaven and hell. he drank the air and put his shoulders back to it, to the risk of the green-black coat.
[205]george mulross was one of those few men who have never written verse, but he was capable that moment if not of the execution at least of the sentiment which the more classical of my readers are weary of in prom. vinc. chor. a. 1-19, oh the god-like air! the depth and the expanse of sky!
the fatherly sky was all light, the sun was climbing, and a vivid belt of england lay, still asleep, green and in repose under that beneficence; and in the midst of it, set all round with fields, lay a lovely little town. it was parham.
demaine had once or twice noted how strangely glad the houses of men seem from off the sea, but as he was familiar rather with calais and dover, with ostend, folkestone and boulogne than with other ports, and as he had more often approached them in winter weather than in the london season, there was something miraculously new to him in this vision which had been the delight of his forefathers: england from the summer sea.
the clear spirit bubbling within him encountered another and muddier but forceful current as his eyes fell upon the first officer.
that individual surveyed him with hatred but did not deign to throw him a word. he bade the lad stand by george in a particular place upon the deck till he should be sent for; he next threatened several of the boy’s vital organs if his prisoner were not properly kept in view, and having pronounced these threats, lurched away.
[206]“th’ old man’ll want yer soon, ter fill in ’is sheet,” said the lad by way of making conversation. “myebe ee’ll ave ye larrupped, myebe ee wahn’t. ee didn’t the larst un,” he put in as an afterthought, as though it were the custom to larrup some seven stowaways out of eight by way of parting, and to make capricious exception of certain favourites.
“yer’ll ave to tyke thut sheet wivyer; leastwyes whoever’s in charge of the baht’ll ave ter, an thye gives ut to th’ cops, and th’ cops shahs ut to the beak. as to do ut, to ave everyin roight and reglar. otherwyes they cudden put yer awye—and they’re bahnd ter do that: not arf!”
but demaine was not heeding the discomforting comment of his warder. he was balancing in his mind the poor chances of the morning, and as he balanced them they seemed blacker with every moment.
the shore was perhaps half a mile away: the hour say five, perhaps half-past. by six, or half-past six at the latest, the earliest people in parham would be astir.
the fixed inveterate hope of the governing class that a gentleman can always get out of a hole, had dwindled within him to that dying spark to which it dwindles during invasions and at the hour of death.
he did not trust his accent, he did not trust his skin, he did not trust his parentage, he did not trust his wealth—alas, his former wealth!—to speak[207] more accurately, his wife’s former wealth,—to speak still more accurately, the former wealth of his wife’s father.
he trusted nothing but blind chance, his muscles and flight.
he hated the vision which was in immediate prospect of the little weasel-faced captain with his pointed red beard, reciting by rote yet another string of idiotic sentences from a manual; he hated the vision of the next step, the men in blue, with their violence and their closing of his mouth by brutal means. whether he could convince a magistrate he did not pause to inquire. the way was too long—it was a dark corridor leading to doom.
he heard a second voice calling the boy to the accompaniment of oaths quite novel and individual and in a high voice that he had not yet heard, and he thought that his hour had come.
but the boy’s reply undeceived him.
“oi dursn’t!” he yelled down the decks, “oi gotter look arter th’ skunk.”
apparently, thought george bitterly, he already had a fixed traditional name aboard the lily, like blacky and the old man.
the cook, for it was he, emerged from the galley aft, stood in the brilliant sunlight and delivered rapid blasphemy with tremendous velocity and unerring aim.
the boy whimpered and was irresolute.
[208]if the threats of the mate had been less practical, those of the cook might have had less effect, but between the prospect of the excision of his liver and of a series of hearty buffets and mighty kicks endways, what reasonable youth would hesitate in a civilisation such as ours?
the boy faltered visibly, and turning upon the skunk informed him once again that he was always gettin’ people inter trouble. nay, more, he threatened to pay out the innocent cause of his despair for the divided duty in which he found himself.
the cook re-emerged; he had fixed on a new belt of ammunition and began firing in a manner if possible more direct and devastating and quite as rapid, as that which had distinguished the first volley. and the boy, who was, after all, more directly the servant of the cook than of any one else on board, wavered and broke. with a clear statement of the consequences should demaine move an inch from the spot, and a promise to return before a man could spit to leeward, the boy dashed off to the galley, and for perhaps five seconds, perhaps ten, the prospective warden of the court of dowry was free.
the movement of the human mind, says marcus aurelius (imitative in this sentence, as in most of his egregious writings), resembles that of a serpent.
there are serpents and serpents. minds of demaine’s type move commonly with the motion of a gorged python but just roused from sleep; but[209] even the python will, under compulsion, dart,—and, in those five seconds, not reason but an animal instinct drove the politician’s soul.
he was up, on to the bale, over the bulwark and down ten feet into the sea, before he had even had time to formulate a plan. he could swim, and that was enough for him.
the splash made by demaine’s considerable form as it displaced in an amount equal to his weight the waters of the english channel, came to the ears of the watch, who was leaning comfortably over the farther railing at the other end of the vessel, looking out to seaward and ruminating upon a small debt which he had left behind him in the parish of wapping. with no loss of dignity the watch shuffled forward to see whether aught was displaced. the splash had been a loud one, but it might have been something thrown from the galley.
he first of all looked carefully over the starboard bow to seaward. there was no foam upon the water: everything was still. it occurred to him to cross the deck; he did so in a leisurely manner and thought he noted far down the side, and already drifting astern with the tide, a rapidly disappearing ring of foam. he was a stupid man (though i say it that shouldn’t, for he came from bosham, noble and fateful mistress of the sea), and he looked at the ring of foam in a fascinated manner, considering what could have caused it, until he was roused to life and to his duties by the thunder of the first[210] officer who from the bridge demanded of him in perfectly unmistakable language what he had done to the skunk.
the sense of innocence was so strong in the honest seafaring soul that he replied by a simple stare which almost gave the first officer a fit, and in the midst of the language that followed, the boy, positively pale with fear, came tearing from the galley and found, not his charge, but the bosham man gazing like a stuck pig at his superior above, and at the world in general.
the reappearance of the boy was a welcome relief to the chief officer’s lungs and intelligence; it added fuel to his flame. he very nearly leapt down from the bridge in his paroxysms of wrath, and heaven only knows what he would have done to the wretched lad whom he would render responsible for the misadventure had he not at that moment caught sight of a little speck upon the sunlit water far astern: it was the head of george mulross demaine, battling with fate.
the prospective warden of the court of dowry could swim fairly well. it had been his practice to swim in a tank. he had swum now and then near shore, but he had no conception of the amount of salt water that can get into a man’s mouth in a really long push over a sea however slightly broken, especially if one enters that sea in a sort of bundle, without taking a proper header. moreover, the phenomenon of the tide astonished him; he had[211] imagined in his innocence that the sea also was a kind of tank and that he had a dead course of it for the shore, the nearest point of which lay just eastward of the harbour mouth.
as it was, england seemed to be flitting by at a terrible rate, and the lily, when he turned upon his back and floated for a moment to observe her, had all the appearance of a ship proceeding at full speed up channel, so rapidly did he drift away.
he swam too hurriedly and he exhausted himself, for his mind was full of terrors: they might fire upon him—he did not know what dreadful arsenal the lily might not contain!
he remembered having noticed upon the cross-channel steamers exceedingly bright little brass guns, the purpose and use of which had often troubled him. now he knew!—and he hoped against hope that no such instrument of death swivelled upon the poop of the lily.
he dreaded every moment to catch the sharp spit of flame against the sunlight, a curl of smoke, the scream of the light shell, the ricochet, the boom that would come later sullenly upon the air, and all the rest that he had read of:—the first shot to find the range: the dreadful second that would sink him.
he was relieved, as minute after minute passed, and no such experiment in marine ballistics was tried. there was faintly borne to his ears as he was swept down the ceaseless stream of ocean, a[212] little clamour which, on the spot itself, was a roaring babel; he saw a group of men wrestling with the davits, but the davits were stiff, and boat-drill was not in the programme of the lily. indeed of all the crew but two had ever handled such a contrivance as a davit before, and of these one was an italian.
another man than captain higgins would have been profoundly grateful to see the stowaway drown; not so that conscientious servant of the firm. the stowaway received such food and lodging as had kept him living until such time as he could be handed over to the sheriff or his officers or any other servants or justices of our lord the king, who were competent to deal with breach of contract, tort, replevin and demurrer. the stowaway was responsible to the law, and captain higgins was responsible for the stowaway; therefore must a boat be lowered. and because there was something grander in swinging out the davits in full view of a british town and harbour than in chucking the dinghy into the water, swing out the davits he would,—and he lost ten minutes over it—ten precious minutes during which the tide had carried the little speck that was the head of george mulross demaine almost beyond the power of his spyglass.
captain higgins capitulated; he left the davits as they were—one stuck fast, the other painfully screwed half round, a deplorable spectacle for the town of parham, and one shameful to the reputation[213] of the sailor-men aboard the lily, and he ordered the little dinghy out over the side.
they unlashed her and let her down. two men tumbled into her, the second officer took command, and they rowed away down tide with all the vigour that captain higgins’ awful discipline could inspire, directed in their course by his repeated injunctions and proceeding at a pace that must surely at last overhaul the fugitive.
when demaine heard the beat of the oars and again floated to look backwards, he estimated the distance between himself and the shore and gave himself up for lost. now indeed there could be no doubt of the rope’s end! he could not disappear like a whale for any appreciable time beneath the surface; the tales he had read (and believed) of heroes in the napoleonic and other wars, who themselves, single-handed and in the water, had fought a whole ship’s crew with success, he now dismissed as idle fables. there was nothing left for him but, somewhat doggedly, to continue the overhand stroke, for now that he was discovered there was no point in the slower breast stroke that had helped to conceal him. they were making (as they said in the days of the clippers) perhaps three feet to his one, but freedom is dear to the human heart, and he pegged away.
the shining goddesses of the sea loved him more than they loved the odious denizens of the lily; they set the tide in shore, and the sea lady, the[214] silver-footed one, led the little waves along in his favour.
he had come to a belt of water where the tide set inward very rapidly, along a gulley or deep of the shore water. it was a godsend to him, for his pursuers were still in the outer tide. he was now not a quarter of a mile from the water-mark, and still going strong, with perhaps two hundred yards between the boat and him; he could not feel their hot breath upon his neck, but he could hear the rhythmic yell of the officer astern, criticising the moral characters of his crew with a regular emphatic cadence that followed the stroke of the oars ... when his cold, numbed right foot struck something; then his left struck sand: ... it was england! and the english statesman, like ant?us, was glad and was refreshed.
he stumbled along out of it—the water on the shelving sand was here not three feet deep. he stumbled and raced along through the splashing water. it fell to his knees, to his shins, to his ankles, and he was on dry land!
a very pretty problem for the amateur tactician learned in the matter of landing-parties, was here presented. the dinghy must ground far out: she could not be abandoned; it was an even race, and his pursuers would be one man short from the necessity of leaving some one in a boat which had grounded too far out for beaching.
some such combination occurred in a confused[215] way to demaine, but he had no time for following it up. he did what he had done more than once in the last unhappy days—he ran. his numbed feet suffered agonies upon the shingle above the sand, but he ran straight inland, he crossed a rough road, went stumbling over a salted field, and made for a wind-driven and scraggy spinney that lay some half a mile inland, defying the sea winds. as he approached that spinney he saw two men from the boat just coming full tilt over the ridge of the sea road; as he plunged into it they were in the midst of the field beyond.
the undergrowth in the spinney was thick, but demaine had the sense to double, and he crept cautiously but rapidly along, separating the thick branches as noiselessly as he could, and bearing heroically with the innumerable brambles that tore his flesh. he halted a moment to look through a somewhat thinner place towards the field, and there, to his considerable astonishment, he perceived the two sailor-men dawdling along in amicable converse and apparently taking their time, as though they were out upon a holiday rather than in the pursuit of a criminal.
it dawned upon george that there was a reason for this: the second officer could not leave the boat. the boat and the sea were hidden by the ridge of the sea road, and the longer the time the hearty fellows could spend ashore, the greater their relief from labour and their enjoyment of a pleasant day.[216] he saw them sauntering towards the spinney; they took sticks and beat it in a sort of aimless, perfunctory manner, poking into the brushwood half-heartedly here and there, as though demaine had been a hare whom they desired to start from its form. they wandered off along the edge of the wood in a direction opposite to his own, and paused a moment to light their pipes upon their way.
it was a peaceful scene: but a moment would come when that scene could not be prolonged, and when their activity must be renewed. demaine, therefore, pushed through the brushwood, still going as noiselessly as he could, and came out to the landward side of it upon a disused lawn.
the grass was brown and rank and trampled. it had not been mown that season. an old sun-dial stood in the midst of it; a wall bounded it upon two sides, and there was the beginning of a gravel path. he followed that path between two rows of rusty laurels, and round a sharp turn came upon the house to which this derelict domain belonged. he came upon it suddenly.
it stood low and had been masked from him by a belt of trees. he saw a little back door, and,—fatal as had such reasoning been in his immediate past,—he reasoned once more: that where there was a house with servants’ offices, there would be a difference of social rank, there would be education, there would be understanding, and he must certainly come into his own.
[217]his bleeding feet, the soaked rags that clung upon him, his hair hanging in absurd straight lines clogged with salt, would, could he have seen them in a looking-glass, have given him pause. but the exhaustion of these terrible hours was now upon him; the heat of the sun was increasing,—he was under an absolute necessity for food and repose.
he boldly opened the door and went in.
he found himself in a little room of which this door was evidently the private communication with the garden; it was a room that lifted his heart.
to begin with, it was lined everywhere with books, and though he himself had read perhaps but eighteen volumes in the whole course of his early manhood, yet a room lined with books justly suggested to him cultivation, leisure, and a certain amount of wealth. a volume was lying with its flyleaf open upon the table. he saw pasted in it a book-plate in the modern style, made out in the name of carolus merry armiger. mr. armiger, it seemed, was his unsuspecting host. mr. armiger’s literary occupations did not interest george mulross; such as they were he gathered them to have some connection with the ten lost tribes.
manuscripts were lying upon the table, manuscripts consisting of long double lists of names with a date between them. the jewish encyclopedia was ranged in awful solemnity before these manuscripts; the court guides, reference books and almanacs of london, berlin, new york, frankfort,[218] paris, rome and vienna, were laid ready to hand, and sundry slips detailing the family origins and marital connections of most european statesmen, including of course our own, completed the work upon which the chief resident of the house appeared to be engaged.
forgetting the deplorable condition in which he was, a big scarecrow reeking and dripping salt water from sodden black rags that clung to his nakedness, george mulross sank into a large easy-chair and breathed a sigh of profound content.
they might look as long as they chose, he thought they would look for him in vain! his pursuers did not know who he was nor that he had come back into his own rank of life again and had certainly found, though they were as yet unknown to him, equals who would as certainly befriend and protect him.
he pictured the scene to himself:—the owner of the house enters—he is wearing spectacles, he is a busy literary man, a professor perhaps—who could tell?—a learned rabbi! the papers and the books upon the table seemed to concern the hebrew race. at any rate, a literary man—a solid literary man. he would come in, preoccupied, as is the manner of his tribe, he would look fussily for something that he had mislaid upon the table, his eyes would light upon the form of george mulross demaine. at first sight he would be surprised. a man partially naked, glistening in the salt of the sea, his hair falling in[219] absurd straight wisps clotted with damp, his face a mixture of grime and white patches where the water had washed it, his nails a dense black, his bare feet bleeding, would stand before him. but this strange figure would speak a word, and all would be well. he would say:
“sir, my name is demaine. you are perhaps acquainted with that name. i beg you to listen to me and i will briefly tell you,” etc. etc.
the literary man would be profoundly and increasingly interested as the narrative proceeded, and at its close a warm bath and refreshment of the best would be provided, a certain deference even would appear in his host’s manner when he had fully gathered that he was speaking to a cabinet minister, and from that moment the unhappy business would be no more than an exciting memory.
as george mulross so mused he rose from his chair and was horrified to note that there stood in the hollow of it little pools of salt water, that the back was dripping wet, and that where his feet had reposed upon the axminster carpet damp patches recalling the discovery of the man friday, the marks of human feet, were clearly apparent.
even as he noted these things and appreciated that they would constitute some handicap to his explanation, he heard voices outside the door.
alas, they were not the voices of the governing classes, they were not the voices of refinement and leisured ease. oh! no. they were the voices of two[220] domestics engaged in altercation, the one male, the other female; and the latter, after affirming that it was none of her partner’s business, evidently approached the door of the room in which he was.
for a moment his heart stopped beating. he heard her hand upon the outer handle of the door; by what form of address could he melt that uncultivated heart? those bitter hours of his just passed had filled him with a mixture of terror and hatred for such english men and women as work for their living. he had always regarded them as of another species: he beheld them now in the aspect of unreasoning wolves.
by the grace of heaven the door was locked. he heard a female expletive, extreme in tone though mild in phrase, directed towards the domestic habits of her master, especially with regard to the privacy of his study, and he next heard her steps moving away. she was coming round by the garden; there was not a moment to lose ... and there was not a cranny in which to hide.
i have expatiated on the effect of misery and of terror upon george’s brain: i have but here to add that for two seconds he was a veritable napoleon in his survey of terrain. he grasped in a flash that if he retreated by the garden door he was full in the line of the enemy’s advance without an alternative route towards any base; and with such an inspiration as decided jena, he made for the chimney.
the eccentricities of the master of the house (for[221] he was obviously eccentric) appeared to include a passion for old-fashioned fireplaces; at any rate there was no register nor any other devilish device for impeding the progress of the human form, and george, with a dexterity remarkable in one of his bulk, hoisted himself into the space immediately above the grate. there the chimney narrowed rapidly to a small flue, and he must perforce support himself by the really painful method of pressing with his feet against the one wall, and with his cramped shoulders against the other, lying in the attitude of a man curled up in bed upon his right side,—but in no such comfort, for where the bed should be was air.
he had not gained his lair a moment too soon. he could discover from it the hearth-rug, a small strip of the carpet, and the legs of sundry tables and chairs, when he heard the garden door open, and other legs,—human legs—natty, and their extremities alone visible, passed among the legs of the inanimate things. the head which owned them far above continued, as the legs and feet bore it round the room, to criticise the habits of its master. it dusted, it went to the farther side of the apartment, the feet disappeared. they reappeared suddenly within his line of vision and stopped dead, while the invisible head remarked in a tone of curiosity:
“whatever’s that!”
she was looking at the imprint of the feet. next he heard her patting the damp arm-chair, and exclaiming that she never!
[222]the strain upon george mulross demaine was increasing, but had it been tenfold as severe he dared not descend. a slight involuntary movement due to an effort to ease his shoulder off a point of brick produced a fall of soot which most unpleasantly covered his face.
he could hear a startled exclamation from the wench, her decision that she didn’t understand the house at all, and her sudden exit.
hardly had she shut the garden door behind her when a key was heard turning in the lock in the other door opening into the house, and the expected stranger, the unknown host, entered. the moment of george’s salvation was at hand.
two very large flat boots slowly tramped into the narrow region he could survey: above each nine inches of creased grey trouser leg could be seen; the boots, the trouser legs, did not approach the arm-chair; they took little notice apparently of things about them. their owner grunted his satisfaction that none of his papers had been removed by the maid to whom he applied a most indiscreet epithet; he grunted further satisfaction that she had laid his fire and not lit it. apparently it was among his other eccentricities to have a fire upon a june morning simply because the room was cold, and to let it die down before noon.
the unknown came close to the grate. george heard large hands fumbling upon the mantelpiece, the unmistakable rattle of a match-box; next an[223] arm midway to the shoulder, and at its extremity a hand bearing a lighted match appeared, and the stranger host thoughtfully lit the newspaper upon which the fire was laid.
the dense and acrid smoke produced by our great organs of opinion when they are put to this domestic purpose rose up and enveloped the unhappy george. it was the limit! and with one cry and with one roar, as macaulay finely says of another crisis, the prospective warden of the court of dowry slid down into the grate, ruining the careful structure of coal and wood, and stood in the presence of—he could scarcely believe his eyes—william bailey!
that tall, bewhiskered, genial oligarch expressed no marked astonishment. it is, alas! a characteristic of the eccentric that, just as he sees the world all wrong where it is normal, so, before the abnormal he is incapable of expressing reasonable emotion. all he said was, in a mild tone of voice:
“well! well! well!”
to which demaine answered, with the solemnity the occasion demanded:
“william, don’t you know me?”
“yes, i know you,” said william bailey thoughtfully, “dimmy, by god!... dimmy, d’you know that you present a most extraordinary spectacle?”
“you needn’t tell me that,” said dimmy bitterly, drawing his hand across his mouth and displaying two red lips which appeared in the midst of his[224] features like those of a comedy negro. “the point is what can you do for me?”
“my dear dimmy,” said william bailey, his interest increasing as the situation grew upon him, “i am delighted to hear that phrase! i haven’t heard it since i gave up politics! i haven’t heard it since they tried to make me an under secretary,—only it used to be worded a little differently. old schoolfellows of mine whom i had thrashed with a cricket stump in years gone by used to come up washing their hands and saying, ‘what can i do for you?’ now for once in my life some one has asked me what i can do for him. sweet dimmy, all i have is at your disposal. would you like to borrow some money, or would you prefer to wash?”
“i wish you’d chuck that sort of thing,” said demaine, angrily and with insufficient respect for a senior. “it isn’t london and i’m not out for jokes. i’m in trouble.”
“in trouble?” said william bailey, asking the question sympathetically. “oh don’t say that! dirty, maybe, and very funnily dressed, but not, i hope, in trouble?”
“damn it!” said the other, “what are you in this house?”
“what i am out of it,” said william bailey cheerfully, “a harmless eccentric with a small property, several bees in my bonnet (the present one an anti-semitic bee), and a great lover of my friends, dimmy,[225] especially men of my own blood. now then, what do you want?”
“do you own this house, or do you not?” demanded dimmy.
“why,” said william bailey, “it is very good of you to ask. i am what the law calls a lessor or lessee, or perhaps i am a bailee of the house. the house itself belongs to merry. you know merry, the architect who builds his father’s houses?”
“the books have got ‘armiger’ in them,” said dimmy suspiciously.
“that’s a title,” replied william bailey, “not an english title,” he continued hurriedly, “it was given him by the pope.”
“anyhow, you’re master here?” said demaine anxiously.
“oh yes,” said bailey, “i’ve been master here since the end of the first week. at first there was some doubt whether it was elise or the groom or parrett, the housekeeper, who was master. but i won, dimmy,” he said, rubbing his hands contentedly, “i brought down my servant zachary and between us we won. they’re as tame as pheasants now.”
“very well then,” said demaine, “you’ve got to do two things. you’ve got to cleanse me and to clothe me and to hide me during the next few hours if the necessity arises.”
“i don’t know why you shouldn’t cleanse yourself,” said william bailey thoughtfully. “you’ve[226] never learned a trade, dimmy, and you were never handy or quick at things, but you’re a grown man, and there’s lots of hot water and soap and stuff in the bathroom; there was a beastly thing called a loofah that merry had left there, but i’ve burned it.”
“don’t be a fool, bill!” pleaded demaine, “there isn’t time, really there isn’t. then tell me, what clothes have you?”
“mine are too narrow in the shoulders for you,” said william bailey, thinking, “zachary is altogether too thin. you’re big, dimmy, not to say fat. the trousers wouldn’t meet and the coat wouldn’t go on. but i can put you to bed and send for clothes. what d’you mean about hiding? i can see you have some reasons for privacy; in fact if you hadn’t, getting up that chimney would be a schoolboy sort of thing to do at your age. have you been bathing without a licence, and some one stolen your clothes? or have they been having a jolly rag at the buteleys’? they’re close by.”
“i’ll tell you when i’ve washed,” said demaine wearily, “only now do let me slip up to the bathroom like a good fellow. good god, i’m tired!”
william bailey opened the door and peered cautiously into the corridor, listened for footsteps and heard none, and then, after locking the door of the study behind him, as was his ridiculous habit, he popped up a narrow pair of stairs, with dimmy, whose old nature had sufficiently returned to cause him to stumble, following at his heels.
[227]they were not quite out of the range of the front door when there came a violent pull at the bell, and elise went forward to open it.
william bailey pushed his guest and cousin into the bathroom and went down to meet two policemen who stood with awful solemnity, clothed in suspicion and in power, at his threshold. from the depths of his sanctuary and through the crack of the half-open window, demaine heard a conversation that did not please him.
“very sorry to have to ask you sir,” a deep bass was saying, “we’re bound to do it.”
“we’re bound to do it,” echoed a tenor.
demaine did not hear his cousin’s reply.
“are you sure he’s been on the premises, sir?” came from the first policeman, whom i will call “basso profondo.”
“positive,” answered william bailey’s voice, cheerful and loud. “positive!”
“did you see him with your own eyes, sir?” this from the second policeman, whom i will call “tenore stridente.”
“certainly i did, or i wouldn’t be telling you this,” came again from william bailey a little testily.
“well now, sir, we’ve suspicions that he’s on the place still.”
“you’re wrong there,” said william bailey, “he ran off down the parham road when he heard my dog bark.”
[228]“we didn’t meet any one on the parham road, sir:” it was the voice of the tenore policeman who spoke, evidently a less ingenuous man than the basso.
“i can’t help that,” said william bailey. “you’re welcome to look over the house.”
they thanked him and walked in like an army.
“it is for your own good, sir,” said the first policeman, in his deep bass.
“besides which it’s our duty,” said the second policeman in his tenore stridente.
“of course,” said william bailey, “of course, and i hope that while one of you is doing the good, the other will look after the duty. it’s the kind of thing people like me are very fond of doing, hiding stowaways. i’ve hidden bushels of them.”
the tenor was indifferent to his sarcasm, the bass was touched.
“you know very well, sir,” he said, “what the criminal classes are, or rather you gentlemen don’t know. why, he’d cut the women’s throats in the night and make off with the valuables.”
“would he cut mine?” asked william bailey as he followed them from room to room.
“he’s capable of it,” said the bass, nodding mysteriously. “he’s not an ordinary stowaway,” he continued, lowering his voice almost to a gruff whisper, “he’s well known to the police. he’s stappy, that’s what he is, stappy the clinker! he’s done this trick before, getting aboard a vessel and pretending he’s a vagabun; the chief knows all about[229] him! he did a man in last monday night in london!”
to the unhappy man in the bathroom there returned with vivid horror the recollection of lewes gaol; but so long as william bailey’s wits did not fail him he knew that more than even chances were in his favour. his mood changed suddenly, however, when the police, who had been perambulating the small rooms near his retreat, suddenly rattled the door of his bathroom and said:
“what’s in here?”
“i do beg of you to take care, gentlemen,” said william bailey angrily, “that’s the bathroom, and if you want to know, my niece is inside.”
“oh i beg your pardon,” said the bass, “i’m sure.” he had the sense not to doubt the master of the house in a matter directly concerning his own interest. but the tenor added:
“we must make a note of it, sir.”
“by all means,” said william bailey, “by all means. her name is rebecca.”
george mulross demaine, in the delight of the very warm water, was soothed to hear them tramping heavily down the stairs once more.
they examined every room and cranny of the place until they came to the study door.
“it’s my study,” said william bailey apologetically, “i always keep it locked.”
he unlocked it and they entered. their trained eyes could see nothing unusual in the aspect of the[230] room until the tenor inadvertently putting his hand upon the back of the arm-chair discovered it to be both wet and to the taste salt. he had found a clue! in a voice of excitement unworthy of his office, the intelligent officer shouted:
“we’ve got ’im sir, we’ve got ’im! he’s been here! look—sea water. we’ve got ’im!” he looked round wildly as though expecting to see the runaway appear suddenly in mid-air between the floor and the ceiling.
“it is certainly most disconcerting,” said william bailey in evident alarm. “but wait a minute. perhaps he came in here from the garden to see what he could get, found the door locked on the outside and made out through the garden again; that would explain everything.”
“no it wouldn’t sir,” said the bass respectfully, “it wouldn’t explain that!” and his mind, which, if slower than his colleague’s, was prone to sound conclusions, pointed his hand to the wreck of the fire, to the heaps of soot that lay upon it, and the disturbance of the fender.
“he’s gone up the chimney, that’s what he’s done,” said the tenor.
“that’s what he’s done,” said the bass, putting the matter in his own way, “he’s gone up the chimney.”
william bailey put his head in and looked up the flue, the top of which was a little square of blue june sunlight above. “i don’t see him,” said he.
[231]the constables, one after the other, solemnly performed the same feat.
“a man couldn’t get up that,” said bailey stoutly.
“ah, stappy could,” said the bass in a tone of one who talks of an old acquaintance, “stappy could get out of anywhere, or through anything! he’s a wonderful man, sir!”
suddenly the tenor solved the whole business.
“he’s on the roof!” he said.
nothing would suit them but ladders must be brought, and they must climb upon the slates, while william bailey, consoling himself with the thought that the property was not his, took the opportunity of dashing up to the bathroom and banging at the door.
“dimmy, dimmy!” he whispered loudly, “dimmy, get out.”
“i’m all wet,” said dimmy.
“you’re used to that,” said bailey unfeelingly. “dry your feet. never mind the rest. quick!” he threw a dressing-gown in, and dimmy, as clean as sunday morning, emerged.
“are your feet quite dry, dimmy?”
“yes,” said that great commoner, still a trifle ruffled.
“well then, let me think.... go in there.”
he pushed demaine into a little writing-room that gave out of the corridor.
“now then, go to that little table and sit perfectly[232] tight. do as i tell you and you are saved. depart-by-but-one-iota-from-my-specific-instructions-and though you’ll ultimately be redeemed by your powerful relatives from the ignominy of incarceration, you cannot fail to become a laughing-stock before your fellow-citizens! do you take me, dimmy?”
dimmy, who like the rest of the family was never quite certain whether william bailey’s final outbreak into downright lunacy might not take place at any moment, suddenly sat where he was bid, and his cousin returned within thirty seconds bearing a woman’s walking-cloak and a respectable bonnet which, i regret to say, were those of parrett herself. bailey huddled the cloak upon the younger man, banged the bonnet upon his head, tied the ribbons under his chin, disposed his person with the back to the door, in the attitude of one writing a note, and said:
“dimmy, could you talk in a high voice?”
“no, i can’t!” said dimmy.
“try. say ‘oh don’t, i’m busy.’”
“i can’t!” said dimmy again.
“great heavens! is there no limit to the things you can’t do?” said william bailey testily. “try.”
at a vast sacrifice of that self-respect which was his chiefest treasure, dimmy uttered the grotesque words in a faint falsetto.
“excellent!” said william bailey. “now when you hear the word ‘rebecca’ that’s your cue. say it again.”
[233]the second step is easier than the first, and dimmy this time replied at once, the falsetto quite just: “oh don’t, i’m busy.” and william bailey was satisfied.
by this time the policemen could be heard scrambling down from the roof; they had found nothing, which, seeing that the roof was in shape exactly pyramidical, was not wonderful.
“well, he’s gone, sir,” said the bass a little relieved.
“we must see the bathroom before we leave, though,” added the tenor fixedly.
“by all means,” said william bailey, “if it’s empty,” he added with a decent reserve.
they went upstairs and on their way he opened the writing-room door, and said:
“oh, there she is. rebecca!”
“oh don’t worry me, i’m busy,” boomed in a manly voice from the seated figure.
“sorry i’m sure sir,” said the tenor, who was now sincerely apologetic. “we have no desire to disturb the lady, but it was our duty.”
“of course,” said william bailey hurriedly, “of course,” and he shut the door, mentally renewing his profound faith in the imbecility of political life.
the active and intelligent officers of the law gazed mechanically round the bathroom; they were too modest to examine a certain damp heap of black cloth that was flung huddled into a corner. they went out with every assurance that they would not[234] have disturbed mr. bailey for a moment had they not been compelled by that sense of duty to their country to which they had already so frequently alluded.
william bailey accompanied them to the gate, in the fixed desire to see them off the place, and with a heartfelt silent prayer that parrett would not go into the writing-room until he had returned.
as they reached the gate the bass, who remembered the necessity for subscriptions to local clubs, charities and balls, and especially to the policemen’s balls, charities and clubs, said once more that he hoped mr. bailey understood they had only done their duty.
“of course,” he added, “we know mr. merry very well, and we take it you’re a friend of his.”
“yes sir,” said the tenor more severely, “and we know who you are. we know everybody in the place, sir. it’s our business. we know what they do, where they come from and where they go to. they can’t escape us.”
with this cheerful assurance the bass and the tenor both slightly saluted, and the gate shut behind them.
outside the gate a little crowd consisting of the two sailor-men, a dingy officer of the mercantile marine, three young boys, a draggle-tailed village girl, and a spaniel, awaited the return of the police, and when it was known that they had drawn blank, this little crowd paradoxically enough gave cry. each was now as certain that he had seen the fugitive[235] in some one of a hundred opposing and impossible directions as he had formerly been determined that the refugee was still concealed in mr. merry’s house.
william bailey hurried back: he went straight to the writing-room. he thanked heaven that no one had disturbed rebecca. without an apology he rapidly untied the ribbons of the bonnet, hoicked off the cloak and was bearing them back to parrett’s room when he heard the voice of that admirable female raised in hot remonstrance against the misdeeds of a domestic.
in tactics as in strategy there is a disposition known as the offensive-defensive. william bailey was familiar with it. he adopted it now, and in a voice that silenced every other sort, he roared his complaint that the servants perpetually left their clothes hanging about at random right and left all over the house.
“whose is this?” he demanded, pointing to the cloak and bonnet where he had flung them sprawling on a chair.
“it’s mine, sir,” said parrett with considerable dignity.
“oh it is, is it?” said bailey a little mollified. “i’m sorry, parrett. if i’d known it was yours i’d have spoken to you privately.”
“i never left them there, sir!” said parrett all aruffle with indignation.
“i never said you did, i never said you did. it’s none of my business. i don’t care who left them[236] there; but i will have this house orderly or i will not have it at all,” with which enigmatical sentence for the further discipline of merry’s impossible household, he went back to demaine in his dressing-gown and brought him through the corridor to the study.
“now my dear fellow,” he said, “are you cold?”
“yes,” said dimmy.
“are you hungry?”
“yes,” said dimmy.
“are you thirsty?”
“i am very tired,” said dimmy.
“very well then, you shall eat and drink. i will try and light the fire.”
he did so and the room, which was already warm with the june sun, became like an oven. as he rose from his chair demaine said in some anxiety: “for heavens’ sake don’t send for the servants!”
“i’m not going to,” said william bailey simply. he went to a cupboard and brought out some ham, a loaf and a bottle of wine.
demaine ate and drank. when he had eaten and drunk he could hardly support himself for fatigue.
william bailey took him to his own room and told him to sleep there. “i’ve established,” he said, in a genial tone, “so healthy a reign of terror in this house that you certainly will not be disturbed if you sleep in my bed. i will see about the clothes.”
and thus, after so many and so great adventures, george mulross demaine slept once again between sheets, in a bed well aired, in a room with reasonable[237] pictures upon the walls, and reasonable books upon the table, with blankets, with curtains, with pillows, with mahogany tallboys, with three kinds of looking-glasses, with an eider-down quilt, with a deep carpet, with a silver reading lamp, soothed by a complete cleanliness, and, in a word, amid all that the governing classes have very properly secured for themselves during their short pilgrimage through the wilderness of this world.
