The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson – Swanston Edition. Volume 7

There were the remains of Jimson’s lunch. “He likes rather nice things to eat,” she thought. “O, I am sure he is quite a delightful man. I wonder if he is as good-looking as Mr. Forsyth. Mrs. Jimson – I don’t believe it sounds as nice as Mrs. Forsyth; but then ‘Gideon’ is so really odious! And here is some of his music too; this is delightful. Orange Pekoe– O, that’s what he meant by some kind of tea.” And she trilled with laughter. “Adagio molto espressivo, sempre legato,” she read next. (For the literary part of a composer’s business Gideon was well equipped.) “How very strange to have all these directions, and only three or four notes! O, here’s another with some more. Andante patetico.” And she began to glance over the music. “O dear me,” she thought, “he must be terribly modern! It all seems discords to me. Let’s try the air. It is very strange, it seems familiar.” She began to sing it, and suddenly broke off with laughter. “Why, it’s ‘Tommy make room for your Uncle!’” she cried aloud, so that the soul of Gideon was filled with bitterness. “Andante patetico, indeed! The man must be a mere impostor.”

And just at this moment there came a confused, scuffling sound from underneath the table; a strange note, like that of a barn-door fowl, ushered in a most explosive sneeze; the head of the sufferer was at the same time brought smartly in contact with the boards above; and the sneeze was followed by a hollow groan.

Julia fled to the door, and there, with the salutary instinct of the brave, turned and faced the danger. There was no pursuit. The sounds continued; below the table a crouching figure was indistinctly to be seen jostled by the throes of a sneezing-fit; and that was all.

“Surely,” thought Julia, “this is most unusual behaviour. He cannot be a man of the world!”

Meanwhile the dust of years had been disturbed by the young barrister’s convulsions; and the sneezing-fit was succeeded by a passionate access of coughing.

Julia began to feel a certain interest. “I am afraid you are really quite ill,” she said, drawing a little nearer. “Please don’t let me put you out, and do not stay under that table, Mr. Jimson. Indeed it cannot be good for you.”

Mr. Jimson only answered by a distressing cough; and the next moment the girl was on her knees, and their faces had almost knocked together under the table.

“O, my gracious goodness!” exclaimed Miss Hazeltine, and sprang to her feet. “Mr. Forsyth gone mad!”

“I am not mad,” said the gentleman ruefully, extricating himself from his position. “Dearest Miss Hazeltine, I vow to you upon my knees I am not mad!”

“You are not!” she cried, panting.

“I know,” he said, “that to a superficial eye my conduct may appear unconventional.”

“If you are not mad, it was no conduct at all,” cried the girl, with a flash of colour, “and showed you did not care one penny for my feelings!”

“This is the very devil and all. I know – I admit that,” cried Gideon, with a great effort of manly candour.

“It was abominable conduct!” said Julia, with energy.

“I know it must have shaken your esteem,” said the barrister. “But, dearest Miss Hazeltine, I beg of you to hear me out; my behaviour, strange as it may seem, is not unsusceptible of explanation; and I positively cannot and will not consent to continue to try to exist without – without the esteem of one whom I admire – the moment is ill chosen, I am well aware of that; but I repeat the expression – one whom I admire.”

A touch of amusement appeared on Miss Hazeltine’s face. “Very well,” said she, “come out of this dreadfully cold place, and let us sit down on deck.” The barrister dolefully followed her. “Now,” said she, making herself comfortable against the end of the house, “go on. I will hear you out.” And then, seeing him stand before her with so much obvious disrelish to the task, she was suddenly overcome with laughter. Julia’s laugh was a thing to ravish lovers; she rolled her mirthful descant with the freedom and the melody of a blackbird’s song upon the river, and repeated by the echoes of the farther bank. It seemed a thing in its own place and a sound native to the open air. There was only one creature who heard it without joy, and that was her unfortunate admirer.

“Miss Hazeltine,” he said, in a voice that tottered with annoyance, “I speak as your sincere well-wisher, but this can only be called levity.”

Julia made great eyes at him.

“I can’t withdraw the word,” he said: “already the freedom with which I heard you hobnobbing with a boatman gave me exquisite pain. Then there was a want of reserve about Jimson – ”

“But Jimson appears to be yourself,” objected Julia.

“I am far from denying that,” cried the barrister, “but you did not know it at the time. What could Jimson be to you? Who was Jimson? Miss Hazeltine, it cut me to the heart.”

“Really this seems to me to be very silly,” returned Julia, with severe decision. “You have behaved in the most extraordinary manner; you pretend you are able to explain your conduct, and instead of doing so you begin to attack me.”

“I am well aware of that,” replied Gideon. “I – I will make a clean breast of it. When you know all the circumstances you will be able to excuse me.”

And sitting down beside her on the deck, he poured forth his miserable history.

“O, Mr. Forsyth,” she cried, when he had done, “I am – so – sorry! I wish I hadn’t laughed at you – only you know you really were so exceedingly funny. But I wish I hadn’t, and I wouldn’t either if I had only known.” And she gave him her hand.

Gideon kept it in his own. “You do not think the worse of me for this?” he asked tenderly.

“Because you have been so silly and got into such dreadful trouble? you poor boy, no!” cried Julia; and, in the warmth of the moment, reached him her other hand; “you may count on me,” she added.

“Really?” said Gideon.

“Really and really!” replied the girl.

“I do then, and I will,” cried the young man. “I admit the moment is not well chosen; but I have no friends – to speak of.”

“No more have I,” said Julia. “But don’t you think it’s perhaps time you gave me back my hands?”

“La ci darem la mano,” said the barrister, “the merest moment more! I have so few friends,” he added.

“I thought it was considered such a bad account of a young man to have no friends,” observed Julia.

“O, but I have crowds of friends!” cried Gideon. “That’s not what I mean. I feel the moment is ill chosen; but O, Julia, if you could only see yourself!”

“Mr. Forsyth – ”

“Don’t call me by that beastly name!” cried the youth. “Call me Gideon!”

“O, never that!” from Julia. “Besides, we have known each other such a short time.”

“Not at all!” protested Gideon. “We met at Bournemouth ever so long ago. I never forgot you since. Say you never forgot me. Say you never forgot me, and call me Gideon!”

“Isn’t this rather – a want of reserve about Jimson?” inquired the girl.

“O, I know I am an ass,” cried the barrister, “and I don’t care a halfpenny! I know I’m an ass, and you may laugh at me to your heart’s delight.” And as Julia’s lips opened with a smile, he once more dropped into music. “There’s the Land of Cherry Isle!” he sang, courting her with his eyes.

“It’s like an opera,” said Julia, rather faintly.

“What should it be?” said Gideon. “Am I not Jimson? It would be strange if I did not serenade my love. O yes, I mean the word, my Julia; and I mean to win you. I am in dreadful trouble, and I have not a penny of my own, and I have cut the silliest figure; and yet I mean to win you, Julia. Look at me, if you can, and tell me no!”

She looked at him; and whatever her eyes may have told him, it is to be supposed he took a pleasure in the message, for he read it a long while.

“And Uncle Ned will give us some money to go on upon in the meanwhile,” he said at last.

“Well, I call that cool!” said a cheerful voice at his elbow.

Gideon and Julia sprang apart with wonderful alacrity; the latter annoyed to observe that although they had never moved since they sat down, they were now quite close together; both presenting faces of a very heightened colour to the eyes of Mr. Edward Hugh Bloomfield. That gentleman, coming up the river in his boat, had captured the truant canoe, and divining what had happened, had thought to steal a march upon Miss Hazeltine at her sketch. He had unexpectedly brought down two birds with one stone; and as he looked upon the pair of flushed and breathless culprits, the pleasant human instinct of the matchmaker softened his heart.

“Well, I call that cool,” he repeated; “you seem to count very securely upon Uncle Ned. But look here, Gid, I thought I had told you to keep away?”

“To keep away from Maidenhead,” replied Gid. “But how should I expect to find you here?”

“There is something in that,” Mr. Bloomfield admitted. “You see I thought it better that even you should be ignorant of my address; those rascals, the Finsburys, would have wormed it out of you. And just to put them off the scent I hoisted these abominable colours. But that is not all, Gid; you promised me to work, and here I find you playing the fool at Padwick.”

“Please, Mr. Bloomfield, you must not be hard on Mr. Forsyth,” said Julia. “Poor boy, he is in dreadful straits.”

“What’s this, Gid?” inquired the uncle. “Have you been fighting? or is it a bill?”

These, in the opinion of the Squirradical, were the two misfortunes incident to gentlemen; and indeed both were culled from his own career. He had once put his name (as a matter of form) on a friend’s paper; it had cost him a cool thousand; and the friend had gone about with the fear of death upon him ever since, and never turned a corner without scouting in front of him for Mr. Bloomfield and the oaken staff. As for fighting, the Squirradical was always on the brink of it; and once, when (in the character of president of a Radical club) he had cleared out the hall of his opponents, things had gone even further. Mr. Holtum, the Conservative candidate, who lay so long on the bed of sickness, was prepared to swear to Mr. Bloomfield. “I will swear to it in any court – it was the hand of that brute that struck me down,” he was reported to have said; and when he was thought to be sinking, it was known that he had made an ante-mortem statement in that sense. It was a cheerful day for the Squirradical when Holtum was restored to his brewery.

“It’s much worse than that,” said Gideon; “a combination of circumstances really providentially unjust – a – in fact, a syndicate of murderers seem to have perceived my latent ability to rid them of the traces of their crime. It’s a legal study after all, you see!” And with these words, Gideon, for the second time that day, began to describe the adventures of the Broadwood Grand.

“I must write to the Times,” cried Mr. Bloomfield.

“Do you want to get me disbarred?” asked Gideon.

“Disbarred! Come, it can’t be as bad as that,” said his uncle. “It’s a good, honest, Liberal Government that’s in, and they would certainly move at my request. Thank God, the days of Tory jobbery are at an end.”

“It wouldn’t do, Uncle Ned,” said Gideon.

“But you’re not mad enough,” cried Mr. Bloomfield, “to persist in trying to dispose of it yourself?”

“There is no other path open to me,” said Gideon.

“It’s not common-sense, and I will not hear of it,” cried Mr. Bloomfield. “I command you, positively, Gid, to desist from this criminal interference.”

“Very well, then, I hand it over to you,” said Gideon, “and you can do what you like with the dead body.”

“God forbid!” ejaculated the president of the Radical Club, “I’ll have nothing to do with it.”

“Then you must allow me to do the best I can,” returned his nephew. “Believe me, I have a distinct talent for this sort of difficulty.”

“We might forward it to that pest-house, the Conservative Club,” observed Mr. Bloomfield. “It might damage them in the eyes of their constituents; and it could be profitably worked up in the local journal.”

“If you see any political capital in the thing,” said Gideon, “you may have it for me.”

“No, no, Gid – no, no, I thought you might. I will have no hand in the thing. On reflection, it’s highly undesirable that either I or Miss Hazeltine should linger here. We might be observed,” said the president, looking up and down the river; “and in my public position the consequences would be painful for the party. And, at any rate, it’s dinner-time.”

“What?” cried Gideon, plunging for his watch. “And so it is! Great heaven, the piano should have been here hours ago!”

Mr. Bloomfield was clambering back into his boat; but at these words he paused.

“I saw it arrive myself at the station; I hired a carrier man; he had a round to make, but he was to be here by four at the latest,” cried the barrister. “No doubt the piano is open, and the body found.”

“You must fly at once,” cried Mr. Bloomfield, “it’s the only manly step.”

“But suppose it’s all right?” wailed Gideon. “Suppose the piano comes, and I am not here to receive it? I shall have hanged myself by my cowardice. No, Uncle Ned, inquiries must be made in Padwick; I dare not go, of course; but you may – you could hang about the police office, don’t you see?”

“No, Gid – no, my dear nephew,” said Mr. Bloomfield, with the voice of one on the rack. “I regard you with the most sacred affection; and I thank God I am an Englishman – and all that. But not – not the police, Gid.”

“Then you desert me?” said Gideon. “Say it plainly.”

“Far from it! far from it!” protested Mr. Bloomfield. “I only propose caution. Common-sense, Gid, should always be an Englishman’s guide.”

“Will you let me speak?” said Julia. “I think Gideon had better leave this dreadful houseboat, and wait among the willows over there. If the piano comes, then he could step out and take it in; and if the police come, he could slip into our houseboat, and there needn’t be any more Jimson at all. He could go to bed, and we could burn his clothes (couldn’t we?) in the steam-launch; and then really it seems as if it would be all right. Mr. Bloomfield is so respectable, you know, and such a leading character, it would be quite impossible even to fancy that he could be mixed up with it.”

“This young lady has strong common-sense,” said the Squirradical.

“O, I don’t think I’m at all a fool,” said Julia, with conviction.

“But what if neither of them come?” asked Gideon; “what shall I do then?”

“Why then,” said she, “you had better go down to the village after dark; and I can go with you, and then I am sure you could never be suspected; and even if you were, I could tell them it was altogether a mistake.”

“I will not permit that – I will not suffer Miss Hazeltine to go,” cried Mr. Bloomfield.

“Why?” asked Julia.

Mr. Bloomfield had not the least desire to tell her why, for it was simply a craven fear of being drawn himself into the imbroglio; but with the usual tactics of a man who is ashamed of himself, he took the high hand. “God forbid, my dear Miss Hazeltine, that I should dictate to a lady on the question of propriety – ” he began.

“O, is that all?” interrupted Julia. “Then we must go all three.”

“Caught!” thought the Squirradical.

CHAPTER XII
POSITIVELY THE LAST APPEARANCE OF THE BROADWOOD GRAND

England is supposed to be unmusical; but without dwelling on the patronage extended to the organ-grinder, without seeking to found any argument on the prevalence of the jew’s trump, there is surely one instrument that may be said to be national in the fullest acceptance of the word. The herdboy in the broom, already musical in the days of Father Chaucer, startles (and perhaps pains) the lark with this exiguous pipe; and in the hands of the skilled brick-layer,

“The thing becomes a trumpet, whence he blows”

(as a general rule) either “The British Grenadiers” or “Cherry Ripe.” The latter air is indeed the shibboleth and diploma piece of the penny whistler; I hazard a guess it was originally composed for this instrument. It is singular enough that a man should be able to gain a livelihood, or even to tide over a period of unemployment, by the display of his proficiency upon the penny whistle; still more so, that the professional should almost invariably confine himself to “Cherry Ripe.” But indeed, singularities surround the subject, thick like blackberries. Why, for instance, should the pipe be called a penny whistle? I think no one ever bought it for a penny. Why should the alternative name be tin whistle? I am grossly deceived if it be made of tin. Lastly, in what deaf catacomb, in what earless desert, does the beginner pass the excruciating interval of his apprenticeship? We have all heard people learning the piano, the fiddle, and the cornet; but the young of the penny whistler (like that of the salmon) is occult from observation; he is never heard until proficient; and providence (perhaps alarmed by the works of Mr. Mallock) defends human hearing from his first attempts upon the upper octave.

A really noteworthy thing was taking place in a green lane, not far from Padwick. On the bench of a carrier’s cart there sat a tow-headed, lanky, modest-looking youth; the reins were on his lap; the whip lay behind him in the interior of the cart; the horse proceeded without guidance or encouragement; the carrier (or the carrier’s man), rapt into a higher sphere than that of his daily occupations, his looks dwelling on the skies, devoted himself wholly to a brand-new D penny whistle, whence he diffidently endeavoured to elicit that pleasing melody “The Ploughboy.” To any observant person who should have chanced to saunter in that lane, the hour would have been thrilling. “Here at last,” he would have said, “is the beginner.”

The tow-headed youth (whose name was Harker) had just encored himself for the nineteenth time, when he was struck into the extreme of confusion by the discovery that he was not alone.

“There you have it!” cried a manly voice from the side of the road. “That’s as good as I want to hear. Perhaps a leetle oilier in the run,” the voice suggested, with meditative gusto. “Give it us again.”

Harker glanced, from the depths of his humiliation, at the speaker. He beheld a powerful, sun-brown, clean-shaven fellow, about forty years of age, striding beside the cart with a non-commissioned military bearing, and (as he strode) spinning in the air a cane. The fellow’s clothes were very bad, but he looked clean and self-reliant.

“I’m only a beginner,” gasped the blushing Harker, “I didn’t think anybody could hear me.”

“Well, I like that!” returned the other. “You’re a pretty old beginner. Come, I’ll give you a lead myself. Give us a seat here beside you.”

The next moment the military gentleman was perched on the cart, pipe in hand. He gave the instrument a knowing rattle on the shaft, mouthed it, appeared to commune for a moment with the muse, and dashed into “The girl I left behind me.” He was a great, rather than a fine, performer; he lacked the bird-like richness; he could scarce have extracted all the honey out of “Cherry Ripe“; he did not fear – he even ostentatiously displayed and seemed to revel in – the shrillness of the instrument; but in fire, speed, precision, evenness, and fluency; in linked agility of jimmy– a technical expression, by your leave, answering to warblers on the bagpipe; and perhaps, above all, in that inspiring side-glance of the eye, with which he followed the effect and (as by a human appeal) eked out the insufficiency of his performance: in these, the fellow stood without a rival. Harker listened: “The girl I left behind me” filled him with despair; “The Soldier’s Joy” carried him beyond jealousy into generous enthusiasm.

“Turn about,” said the military gentleman, offering the pipe.

“O, not after you!” cried Harker; “you’re a professional.”

“No,” said his companion; “an amatyure like yourself. That’s one style of play, yours is the other, and I like it best. But I began when I was a boy, you see, before my taste was formed. When you’re my age you’ll play that thing like a cornet-à-piston. Give us that air again; how does it go?” and he affected to endeavour to recall “The Ploughboy.”

A timid, insane hope sprang in the breast of Harker. Was it possible? Was there something in his playing? It had, indeed, seemed to him at times as if he got a kind of a richness out of it. Was he a genius? Meantime the military gentleman stumbled over the air.

“No,” said the unhappy Harker, “that’s not quite it. It goes this way – just to show you.” And, taking the pipe between his lips, he sealed his doom. When he had played the air, and then a second time, and a third; when the military gentleman had tried it once more, and once more failed; when it became clear to Harker that he, the blushing débutant, was actually giving a lesson to this full-grown flutist – and the flutist under his care was not very brilliantly progressing – how am I to tell what floods of glory brightened the autumnal countryside; how, unless the reader were an amateur himself, describe the heights of idiotic vanity to which the carrier climbed? One significant fact shall paint the situation: thenceforth it was Harker who played, and the military gentleman listened and approved.

As he listened, however, he did not forget the habit of soldierly precaution, looking both behind and before. He looked behind and computed the value of the carrier’s load, divining the contents of the brown-paper parcels and the portly hamper, and briefly setting down the grand piano in the brand-new piano-case as “difficult to get rid of.” He looked before, and spied at the corner of the green lane a little country public-house embowered in roses. “I’ll have a shy at it,” concluded the military gentleman, and roundly proposed a glass.

“Well, I’m not a drinking man,” said Harker.

“Look here, now,” cut in the other, “I’ll tell you who I am: I’m Colour-Sergeant Brand of the Blankth. That’ll tell you if I’m a drinking man or not.” It might and it might not, thus a Greek chorus would have intervened, and gone on to point out how very far it fell short of telling why the sergeant was tramping a country lane in tatters; or even to argue that he must have pretermitted some while ago his labours for the general defence, and (in the interval) possibly turned his attention to oakum. But there was no Greek chorus present; and the man of war went on to contend that drinking was one thing and a friendly glass another.

In the Blue Lion, which was the name of the country public-house, Colour-Sergeant Brand introduced his new friend, Mr. Harker, to a number of ingenious mixtures, calculated to prevent the approaches of intoxication. These he explained to be “rekisite” in the service, so that a self-respecting officer should always appear upon parade in a condition honourable to his corps. The most efficacious of these devices was to lace a pint of mild ale with twopence-worth of London gin. I am pleased to hand in this recipe to the discerning reader, who may find it useful even in civil station; for its effect upon Mr. Harker was revolutionary. He must be helped on board his own waggon, where he proceeded to display a spirit entirely given over to mirth and music, alternately hooting with laughter, to which the sergeant hastened to bear chorus, and incoherently tootling on the pipe. The man of war, meantime, unostentatiously possessed himself of the reins. It was plain he had a taste for the secluded beauties of an English landscape; for the cart, although it wandered under his guidance for some time, was never observed to issue on the dusty highway, journeying between hedge and ditch, and for the most part under overhanging boughs. It was plain, besides, he had an eye to the true interests of Mr. Harker; for though the cart drew up more than once at the doors of public-houses, it was only the sergeant who set foot to ground, and, being equipped himself with a quart bottle, once more proceeded on his rural drive.

To give any idea of the complexity of the sergeant’s course, a map of that part of Middlesex would be required, and my publisher is averse from the expense. Suffice it, that a little after the night had closed, the cart was brought to a standstill in a woody road; where the sergeant lifted from among the parcels, and tenderly deposited upon the wayside, the inanimate form of Harker.

“If you come-to before daylight,” thought the sergeant, “I shall be surprised for one.”

From the various pockets of the slumbering carrier he gently collected the sum of seventeen shillings and eightpence sterling; and, getting once more into the cart, drove thoughtfully away.

“If I was exactly sure of where I was, it would be a good job,” he reflected. “Anyway, here’s a corner.”

He turned it, and found himself upon the river-side. A little above him the lights of a houseboat shone cheerfully; and already close at hand, so close that it was impossible to avoid their notice, three persons, a lady and two gentlemen, were deliberately drawing near. The sergeant put his trust in the convenient darkness of the night, and drove on to meet them. One of the gentlemen, who was of a portly figure, walked in the midst of the fairway, and presently held up a staff by way of signal.

“My man, have you seen anything of a carrier’s cart?” he cried.

Dark as it was, it seemed to the sergeant as though the slimmer of the two gentlemen had made a motion to prevent the other speaking, and (finding himself too late) had skipped aside with some alacrity. At another season, Sergeant Brand would have paid more attention to the fact; but he was then immersed in the perils of his own predicament.

“A carrier’s cart?” said he, with a perceptible uncertainty of voice. “No, sir.”

“Ah!” said the portly gentleman, and stood aside to let the sergeant pass. The lady appeared to bend forward and study the cart with every mark of sharpened curiosity, the slimmer gentleman still keeping in the rear.

“I wonder what the devil they would be at,” thought Sergeant Brand; and, looking fearfully back, he saw the trio standing together in the midst of the way, like folk consulting. The bravest of military heroes are not always equal to themselves as to their reputation; and fear, on some singular provocation, will find a lodgment in the most unfamiliar bosom. The word “detective” might have been heard to gurgle in the sergeant’s throat; and vigorously applying the whip, he fled up the river-side road to Great Haverham, at the gallop of the carrier’s horse. The lights of the houseboat flashed upon the flying waggon as it passed; the beat of hoofs and the rattle of the vehicle gradually coalesced and died away; and presently, to the trio on the river-side, silence had redescended.

“It’s the most extraordinary thing,” cried the slimmer of the two gentlemen, “but that’s the cart!”

“And I know I saw a piano,” said the girl.

“O, it’s the cart, certainly; and the extraordinary thing is, it’s not the man,” added the first.

“It must be the man, Gid, it must be,” said the portly one.

“Well, then, why is he running away?” asked Gideon.

“His horse bolted, I suppose,” said the Squirradical.

“Nonsense! I heard the whip going like a flail,” said Gideon. “It simply defies the human reason.”

“I’ll tell you,” broke in the girl, “he came round that corner. Suppose we went and – what do you call it in books? – followed his trail? There may be a house there, or somebody who saw him, or something.”

“Well, suppose we did, for the fun of the thing,” said Gideon.

The fun of the thing (it would appear) consisted in the extremely close juxtaposition of himself and Miss Hazeltine. To Uncle Ned, who was excluded from these simple pleasures, the excursion appeared hopeless from the first; and when a fresh perspective of darkness opened up, dimly contained between park palings on the one side and a hedge and ditch upon the other, the whole without the smallest signal of human habitation, the Squirradical drew up.

“This is a wild-goose chase,” said he.

With the cessation of the footfalls, another sound smote upon their ears.

“O, what’s that?” cried Julia.

“I can’t think,” said Gideon.

The Squirradical had his stick presented like a sword. “Gid,” he began, “Gid, I – ”

“O Mr. Forsyth!” cried the girl. “O don’t go forward, you don’t know what it might be – it might be something perfectly horrid.”

“It may be the devil itself,” said Gideon, disengaging himself, “but I am going to see it.”

“Don’t be rash, Gid,” cried his uncle.

The barrister drew near to the sound, which was certainly of a portentous character. In quality it appeared to blend the strains of the cow, the fog-horn, and the mosquito; and the startling manner of its enunciation added incalculably to its terrors. A dark object, not unlike the human form divine, appeared on the brink of the ditch.

“It’s a man,” said Gideon, “it’s only a man; he seems to be asleep and snoring. – Hullo,” he added, a moment after, “there must be something wrong with him, he won’t waken.”

Gideon produced his vestas, struck one, and by its light recognised the tow head of Harker.

“This is the man,” said he, “as drunk as Belial. I see the whole story“; and to his two companions, who had now ventured to rejoin him, he set forth a theory of the divorce between the carrier and his cart, which was not unlike the truth.

“Drunken brute!” said Uncle Ned, “let’s get him to a pump and give him what he deserves.”

“Not at all!” said Gideon. “It is highly undesirable he should see us together; and really, do you know, I am very much obliged to him, for this is about the luckiest thing that could have possibly occurred. It seems to me – Uncle Ned, I declare to heaven it seems to me – I’m clear of it!”

“Clear of what?” asked the Squirradical.

“The whole affair!” cried Gideon. “That man has been ass enough to steal the cart and the dead body; what he hopes to do with it I neither know nor care. My hands are free, Jimson ceases; down with Jimson. Shake hands with me, Uncle Ned – Julia, darling girl, Julia, I – ”

“Gideon, Gideon!” said his uncle.

“O, it’s all right, uncle, when we’re going to be married so soon,” said Gideon. “You know you said so yourself in the houseboat.”