The Unknown Ajax

Chapter 14

Any fears lurking in Anthea’s mind that the Major’s premature declaration might be productive of some awkwardness between them were very swiftly put to rout. Except for a certain warmth in his eyes, when they rested on her, she could detect no change in his demeanour. She was devoutly thankful, for she knew that her grandfather was closely watching the progress of a courtship he had instigated.

It was perhaps fortunate that his lordship’s attention should have been diverted by the repercussions of quite another sort of courtship. The blacksmith, a brawny individual, imbued with what his lordship considered revolutionary notions, had not only taken exception to Claud’s elegant trifling with his daughter, but had seized the opportunity afforded by that rather too accommodating damsel to pay off an old score against his lordship. To Claud’s startled dismay, the elder Ackleton waylaid my lord when he was riding home through the village, and lodged an accusation against his least favourite grandson, referring to him darkly as a serpent, who had stung his daughter, and hinting (without, however, much conviction) at reprisals of an obscure but dreadful nature. My lord, whose native shrewdness had earned for him the reputation in the neighbourhood of being a deep old file, was neither credulous of the story, nor alarmed by the threats. He might be eighty years of age, and considered by his family to be verging on senility, but he was perfectly capable of dealing with far more determined efforts at blackmail, and he disposed of the blacksmith in a few forceful and well-chosen words, which included a recommendation to that disconcerted gentleman to take care the fair Eliza did not end her adventurous career in the nearest Magdelen. Since this interview took place in the middle of the village street it very soon became common property, and was the occasion of much merriment, and many exchanges, when neither the elder Ackleton nor his even more formidable son was damaging rumours about Eliza’s way of life. His lordship was not popular, but the Ackletons were cordially disliked by all but their few cronies, Eliza being thought by the respectable to be a disgrace to the community, and the two male members of the family not only scandalizing decent folk with their hazy but seditious political opinions, but alienating all sorts by their invariable pugnacity when they had had a cup too much. No one was hardy enough to betray the least knowledge of the encounter outside the forge, but the sudden silence that fell on the company in the taproom of the Blue Lion, when the father and son walked in that evening left neither of them in any doubt of what the subject of the interrupted discussion had been. The elder Ackleton, after vainly trying to pick out a quarrel with anyone willing to oblige him, was bowled out by a toothless and decrepit Ancient, who took infuriating advantage of his years and infirmity, and asked the raging blacksmith, with a shrill cackle of mirth, if he had had comely speech with his lordship that morning. Encouraged by a smothered guffaw, he wagged his hoary head and stated his readiness to back the old lord to make the smith and a dozen like him look lamentable blue.

The smith, realizing that the weight of public opinion was against him, stayed only to inform the Ancient what his fate would have been had he been some seventy years younger before slamming his tankard down and departing. It would have been as well if he had taken his son with him, instead of leaving him to drink himself into a potvaliant condition, in the company of a like-minded young man, whose reckless statements of what he would do if he stood in Ned’s shoes strengthened his resolve to draw Mr. Claud Darracott’s cork at the earliest opportunity. By the time an astonishing quantity of heavy wet and several glasses of jackey had been drunk, the propensity of the entire aristocracy and gentry for grinding the faces of the poor under their heels discussed, and the date of a revolution modelled after the French pattern settled, Ned Ackleton was determined to seek out Mr. Claud Darracott immediately, and Jim Booley, applauding this bold decision, announced his intention of accompanying him. The landlord, contemptuously watching the manner of their departure, gave it as his opinion that the courage of neither would be sufficient to carry him beyond the gates of Darracott Place. In uttering this prophecy, however, he failed to make allowance for the invigorating effect of companionship. The harbingers of the revolution reached the house itself before Booley realized that it would be improper for him to take any active part in a quarrel which was no concern of his. He began to feel that it might, perhaps, be wiser if Ned were to postpone drawing Mr. Claud Darracott’s cork until such time as he should meet him in some rather more suitable locality. But Ned was made of sterner stuff, and although the effects of liquor had to some extent worn off he had ranted himself into a state of mental intoxication which made him even more belligerent. Rejecting with scorn his friend’s uneasy suggestion that it might be wiser to seek an entrance at the scullery-door, he tugged violently at the bell hanging beside the main door, and followed this up by hammering the great iron knocker in a ferocious style that caused Mr. Booley to retreat several paces, urgently advising him to adone-do!

This craven attitude, far from damping Ned’s ardour, whipped up his courage, which had faltered a little for a moment, and gave him an added incentive to force his way into the house. Booley should see that he was a man of his word, and Booley was not going to be given a chance to undermine his friend’s prestige by spreading through the village a story of flight at the last moment.

Charles, the footman, opened the door. Startled by so thunderous a demand for admittance, he did so rather cautiously, which incensed Ned. Commanding him to get out of the way, he barged his way into the house, demanding, in stentorian accents, to be led immediately to Claud, whose character, appearance, and licentious villainy he described in terms which made Charles’ eyes start from their sockets. Charles was of unheroic stature, but he knew his duty, and he was no coward. He did his best to hustle Ned out of the house, and was sent reeling backwards, bringing down a chair in his fall. All this commotion brought Chollacombe and James hurrying to the scene. Ned, his appetite whetted, invited them to come on, promising them some home-brewed as a reward, but before either could accept the invitation three more persons entered on the stage. The first was Lord Darracott, who came stalking out of the library, demanding to know what the devil was going on; the second was Major Darracott, in his shirtsleeves; and the third, also in his shirtsleeves, and still holding a billiard-cue in his hand, was the hapless cause of the whole affair.

Ned put up his fists menacingly as Lord Darracott advanced towards him, but there was something about that tall, gaunt figure which made him give ground, even though he uttered a blustering threat to mill his lordship down if he tried to interfere with him.

“You drunken scum!” said his lordship, with awful deliberation. “How dare you bring your filthy carcase into my house? Outside!”

Ned spat a foul epithet at him.

“That’s enough! You’ve had your marching orders! I’ll give you precisely fifteen seconds to get yourself through that door.”

Ned jumped, and looked round, but he was hardly more startled than the rest of the company. No one at Darracott Place had heard the Major speak in that voice before. It brought a gleam into Lord Darracott’s eyes, and a grim smile to his lips, and it made Ned drop his fists instinctively. But just as he was about to retreat he caught sight of Claud, and he threw caution to the winds. Before he could wreak his vengeance on Claud’s willowy person, Major Darracott must be swept from his path. The Major was large, but large men were notoriously slow, and could be bustled. Ned, himself a big man, and with thews of iron, went in with a rush to mill him down before he could get upon his guard, and was sent crashing to the floor by a nicely delivered punch from something more nearly resembling a sledge-hammer than a human fist. The Major, standing over him, waited with unruffled calm for him to recover sufficiently from the stupefying effect of this punch to struggle to his feet again. When Ned got upon his hands and knees he apparently judged it to be necessary to assist him to leave the premises, which he did in an expeditious fashion that struck terror into the heart of Mr. Booley, faithfully awaiting the return of his friend from his punitive expedition.

The Major, having hurled the unbidden guest forth, turned and came back into the hall, nodding to James, who was holding open the door, and saying with his customary amiability: “That’s all: shut the door now!”

Lord Darracott, surveying him with something approaching approval, said: “I’m obliged to you!” and went back into the library.

He was better pleased than he chose to betray, for without supposing that there was anything very remarkable in the Major’s ability to floor Ned Ackleton he liked the neatness with which he had done it, and was agreeably surprised to see that for all his great size Hugo could move with unexpected swiftness. When Vincent presently came in he described the episode—to him, saying: “Well, he’s not such a clumsy oaf as I’d thought: I’ll say that for him. Showed to advantage. Good footwork, too.”

Vincent was not much impressed, but he congratulated Hugo on his exploit with an air of exaggerated admiration. “I wish I had been privileged to witness the encounter,” he said. “I hear you rattled in, game as a pebble, coz; stopped your opponent’s plunge in first-rate style; and ended by throwing in a classic hit.”

“Wonderful, it was!” replied Hugo, shaking his head. “Ay, you missed a high treat! He was no more than half-sprung, mind you, and not very much more than a couple of stone lighter than I am, so I did well, didn’t I?”

That drew a reluctant laugh from Vincent. “My grandfather seems to think so. I’m told the fellow is much fancied as a fighter in these parts, but I collect you’re not yourself a novice?”

“I can box,” Hugo admitted, “but it’s not often I do. I’m too big.”

Everyone was pleased with Hugo’s conduct except the Ackletons, both of whom were popularly held to be planning a hideous revenge, and Claud, who had no doubt on whom such a revenge would be wreaked, and considered that Hugo would have done better to have detained Ned at Darracott Place until he could have been induced to have listened to reason. Claud knew himself to be innocent of the charge brought against him, and great was his indignation when he discovered that his grandfather not only believed in his innocence on no grounds at all, but thought the worse of him for it. In high dudgeon he declared his intention of leaving Darracott Place immediately, and might actually have done so had not his lordship said, crashing his fist down on the table before him, that, by God, he should do no such thing!

“No grandson of mine shall turn tail while I’m in the saddle!” he announced. “I wouldn’t let you shab off, you pudding-headed fribble, if you had given that light-skirt a slip on the shoulder!”

What Lady Aurelia thought about it no one knew, for she never mentioned the matter, and nothing could be learned from her countenance or her demeanour. One or two jibes addressed to her by Lord Darracott were met with such blank stares of incomprehension that even he seemed to be daunted, and Mrs. Darracott confessed to her daughter that she for one doubted whether her ladyship knew anything at all about the affair.

Several days passed before Hugo paid his second nocturnal visit to the Dower House, wet weather making the sky too cloudy for observation. But on the first clear evening he strolled up the path to the wicket-gate into the shrubbery shortly before midnight, a cigar between his teeth. The gate shrieked on its rusty hinges; the beaten track that led to the house was sodden; and the leaves of the bushes were very wet, damping the Major’s coat as he brushed past them.

A slight reconnaissance showed him that the shrubbery was intersected by several paths, once, no doubt, when the hedges were clipped, and gravel strewn underfoot, furnishing the inhabitants of the Dower House with an agreeable promenade on windy days. The hedges had not been trimmed for years, however, and the place had become a wilderness, the various paths so overgrown as sometimes to be difficult to follow. The Major, making his way out of it to the path at the side of the house, thought it would afford an excellent retreat for any ghost finding itself hard-pressed.

The moon was not yet half-full, and its light was a little fitful, clouds occasionally obscuring its face; but it was possible to make out the way, and even to discern objects at some distance. The house showed no light at any window, so it was to be inferred that Spurstow was either in bed and asleep or had put up the shutters in the kitchen-quarters as well as everywhere else in the house. Having walked round the building, Hugo trod across the rank grass that had once been a shaven lawn and took up his position in the shadow of a tree standing on the edge of the carriage-drive.

He had not very long to wait. The wind that fretted the tree-tops was hardly more than a whisper, but the stillness was broken after a short time by the screech of an owl in the woods, followed almost immediately by a long drawn-out wail that rose to a shriek, and died away in a sobbing moan, eerie in the night-silence. The next instant a vague, misty figure appeared round the angle of the house, and flitted into the shrubbery.

The Major, unperturbed by these manifestations, threw away the butt of his cigar, and strode towards the shrubbery. A hasty movement behind him made him check, and turn quickly, searching with narrowed eyes the deep shadows cast by the bushes by the gates. Someone, who had been concealed by these, started forward. The Major saw the moonlight gleam on the barrel of a pistol, and, a moment later, recognized Lieutenant Ottershaw. Ottershaw, paying no heed to him, began to run across the grass, with the obvious intention of plunging into the shrubbery, but two long strides brought the Major between him and his goal, and obliged him to check.

“Nay, lad, I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Hugo said placidly.

“Did you see?” Ottershaw shot at him. “After that ghastly—that damned scream—someone in a sheet! Well, I’m going to discover who it is!”

“I saw,” Hugo said. “But happen you’d best take care what you’re about. You can’t go ghost-hunting in a private garden, you know.”

“That was no ghost!” Ottershaw said violently. ‘“You know that, sir! I watched you: you never so much as jumped when that scream sounded! If you’d believed it was a ghost—”

“Oh, no! I didn’t, of course.”

“No! And why did you come here if it wasn’t to discover who’s playing tricks to keep people away from this place? I don’t believe you’re in it, but—”

“In what?” interposed Hugo.

The Lieutenant hesitated. “In what I know to be an attempt to drive me off!” he answered rather defiantly. “I’ve had my suspicions of this house ever since I came here, and I’m as sure as any man may be that it’s one of the smugglers’ chief storehouses!”

“No I’m not in anything like that,” said Hugo.

“No, sir, I never supposed you could be. But—”

“If I were you, I’d put up that pistol, Mr. Ottershaw,” said Hugo. “Were you meaning to challenge the ghost with it? You’d catch cold if you did, you know. It’s no crime that I ever heard of to caper about rigged up as a boggard.”

The Lieutenant did restore the pistol to its holster, but he was angry, and said very stiffly: “Very well, sir! But I will tell you plainly that I believe that—apparition!—to have been none other than Mr. Richmond Darracott!”

“Ay, so do I,” agreed Hugo.

Ottershaw peered up at his face, trying in the uncertain light to read its expression. He sounded a little nonplussed. “You think that?”

“Why, yes!” Hugo said. “I think he’s trying to make a May-game of you, and, if you want to know, I also think there’s little he’d like better than for you to hold him up. Eh, lad, don’t be so daft! It would be all over the county before the cat could lick her ear! Your commander wouldn’t thank you for making a laughing-stock of yourself, and if you were to interfere with Richmond the dust you’d raise would be nothing to the dust his lordship would kick up!”

“Oh, I’m well aware of that!” replied Ottershaw bitterly. “I look for nothing but obstruction from that quarter! I may say—from any member of your family, sir! I’d risk being made a laughing-stock if I could catch Richmond Darracott at his tricks ,as I might have done, but for you!”

“Now, what good would that do you?” asked the Major. “I daresay you’d like to give him a sharp lesson not to get up to this kind of bobbery at your expense, but you’d regret it if you did. You’d be better advised to pay no heed to him: he’d soon tire of the sport if you laughed at him—and got your men to do the same!”

“So you think he does it for sport, do you, sir?”

“Of course I do!” said the Major. “It’s just the sort of thing a mischievous lad would do—particularly if he thought you were a trifle over-zealous.”

Ottershaw was silent for a moment. Then he said curtly: “I’ll say goodnight to you, sir. I should not have spoken so freely, perhaps, but since I have done so there can be little point in concealing what I make no doubt you have guessed: I believe Mr. Richmond Darracott to be hand-in-glove with these pernicious smugglers! I have no wish—it is not the wish of the Board of Customs—to incur the ill-will of persons of Lord Darracott’s consequence, but I shall take leave to warn you that no such consideration would deter me—or, I should add, would be expected to deter me!—in the performance of what I might consider to be my duty!”

“Very proper,” approved the Major, a note of amusement in his voice. “But, if you don’t despise a word of advice from one who’s older than you, and maybe more experienced, you’ll make very sure you’re right in your suspicions before you go tail over top into action. It’s one thing, to sympathize with smuggling, but quite another to be engaged in the trade, if that’s what you’re suggesting. You’ve been having the devil of a time of it here, and seemingly it’s made you think that everyone who don’t help you must be mixed up in the business himself. You’ll end with windmills in your head that road—if you haven’t ’em already!—let alone finding yourself in bad loaf with that Board of yours.”

“Is that a threat, sir?” demanded Ottershaw, standing very erect.

“Nay, it’s a friendly warning,” replied Hugo. “Don’t you make a pigeon of yourself! Goodnight!”

The Lieutenant clicked his heels together, bowed, and strode off. Hugo watched him go, and then began to retrace his own footsteps. When he reached the wicket-gate, he studied it thoughtfully for a moment. It would have been no difficult feat to have vaulted over it, but having satisfied himself on this head he merely opened it, and walked through, impervious to its protesting shriek.

He had left his bedroom candle and his tinder-box on a table by the side-door through which he had left the house, and after kindling a light, and bolting the door, he made his way up one of the secondary staircases with which Darracott Place was lavishly provided. This one, served the wing in which his own and Richmond’s bedchambers were situated; and when he reached the head of it he went without hesitation to Richmond’s door, and knocked on it. Eliciting no response, he turned the handle, only to find that the door was locked. He knocked again, this time imperatively, and was rewarded by hearing Richmond call out: “Who is it?”

“Hugo. I want to speak to you,” he replied.

There was the sound of an impatient exclamation, followed by the rattle of curtain-rings along a rod, and a creak which indicated that Richmond had got out of bed. The key turned in the well-oiled lock, and the door was pulled open.

“What the devil do you want?” Richmond said crossly. “I thought you knew I hate to be disturbed at night!”

“I do,” said Hugo. “It had me in a bit of a puzzle to understand why, too. Nay, don’t stand there holding the door! I’m coming in, and it’s not a bit of use scowling at me. You can get back into bed, and we’re going to have a talk, you and I.”

“At this hour?” Richmond ejaculated. “I’ll be damned if I do!”

“I don’t know about that, but I do know that I’ll toss you into bed if you don’t do as you’re bid,” responded Hugo, wresting the door from his hold and shutting it. He held up the candlestick, and looked round. The room was a large one, with a four-poster bed standing out into it. A glance showed Hugo that the curtains had been thrust back from one side, and the bedclothes flung off. Not far from it, a chair stood, with a coat thrown carelessly on to it. Hugo’s gaze alighted on this, and travelled to where a pair of breeches and a shirt lay untidily on the floor. “You did undress in a hurry, didn’t you?” he said.

Richmond, climbing into bed again, linked his hands behind his head, and said, with a yawn: “I wish you will say what you want, and go away! I shan’t get a wink of sleep now: I never can, if I’m wakened.”

Hugo set his candle down on the table beside the bed, and lightly clasped the other which stood there. He said, smiling: “Nay, lad, I don’t think you were asleep: your candle’s still warm.”

“I suppose I had just dropped off. That’s worse! O God, you sit on the bed?”

Hugo paid no heed to this complaint (for which there was some justification, as his weight bore the springs down ominously), but said: “Richmond, my lad, you’ve not been to sleep at all, and those clothes you’ve just stripped off weren’t the ones you were wearing at dinner, so let’s have no more humbug! Not half an hour ago you were playing hide-and-seek over at the Dower House! And from the hasty way you got between sheets I think you’d a shrewd notion you’d be receiving a visit from me.”

Richmond’s eyes gleamed under his down-dropped lids. “Oh, have you seen the ghost, cousin?”

“No.”

Richmond chuckled. “Didn’t I hoax you? I made sure I should! What made you suspect—Oh, I suppose it was what Claud said!”

“You didn’t hoax anyone, and it wasn’t me you were trying to hoax, was it?”

“Of course it was! I saw you set out, and guessed what you meant to do, so I followed you. Didn’t you think I made a good ghost? I think I did!”

“Nay, you didn’t follow me. You were there before me,” replied Hugo. “You came round the corner of the house, and you couldn’t have crossed the path between the shrubbery and the house unbeknownst to me.”

“But I could get into the garden from the shrubbery, and keep under cover there until the house shut me from your view.”

“Ay, you could have done that,” agreed Hugo. “Did Spurstow tell you that I visited the place before, on the same errand?”

Richmond laughed. “Of course!”

“And that Ottershaw was watching the house himself?”

“No, is he?”

“Come, lad, you knew that!”

“How should I know it?” Richmond countered.

“Probably because Spurstow told you, and if it wasn’t he I’ve a notion you’ve other sources of information. Between the pair of you, you’ve scared Ottershaw’s men, but when you set out to scare him you made a back-cast, Richmond: he wasn’t scared, and he wasn’t deceived. If I hadn’t stopped him he might well have caught you.”

“Not he! Much good would it have done him if he had, too!”

“So I told him,” said Hugo. “It would have done him no good, but it would have done you no good either.”

“Why, is there a law against bamboozling Excisemen?” asked Richmond, opening his eyes wider.

Hugo looked rather gravely down at him. “For what purpose?”

“Oh, just kicking up a lark!”

“Is that why you did it?”

“Yes, of course: why else should I do it?” Richmond said impatiently.

“That’s what I don’t know, lad, but I think you’re too old to be kicking up that sort of a lark.”

The impish gleam had faded from Richmond’s dark eyes; the look he shot at Hugo was one of smouldering resentment. “Maybe! What the devil else have I to do? In any event, what concern is it of yours? I wish you will go away!”

“Happen I will, when you stop trying to stall me off, and give me a plain answer,” Hugo replied, a little sternly. “I’ve a notion you’re in dangerous mischief. If I’m right, you’re likely to find yourself floored at all points, for Ottershaw’s not the clodhead you think him. Don’t play off your cajolery on me, but tell me the truth! Have you embroiled yourself in the smuggling trade?”

Richmond sat up with a jerk. “Well, upon my word—! What next will you ask me? Just because I cut a lark with that stiff-rumped Exciseman you seem to think I’m as good as rope-ripe! Why should I take to free-trading, pray?”

“For sport,” replied Hugo, smiling faintly. “Because it’s a dead bore to have nothing to do but mind your book—which I’ve yet to see you do!—and dance attendance on your grandfather. I own, the life you’re made to lead would be out of cry to me, as it is to you. If you’re helping to run contraband goods, it’s because you like the adventure, not for gain.” His smile broadened as he saw Richmond glance strangely at him. “Well, has that hit the needle?”

Richmond lay down again, this time on his side, pillowing his cheek on his hand. “Lord, no! I played ghost for sport. Famous sport it was, too! You should have seen those cowhearted dragoons huddling together! I made ’em take to their heels once. However, if Ottershaw’s rumbled me there’s no sense in continuing. I won’t do it again: are you satisfied?”

Hugo shook his head. “Not quite. What makes you lock your door every night?”

“How do you know that I do?” Richmond countered quickly, up in arms.

“Eh, there’s no secret about it! Everyone in the house knows it. You take precious good care no one should come near you once you’ve gone to bed, don’t you?”

“Yes, and you’ve been told why!”

“I’ve been told that if you’re roused you don’t drop off to sleep again, and I think—not to take packthread, you young gull-catcher!—that that’s humdudgeon!”

Richmond gave a little chuckle. “Oh, no! Not wholly! But there are nights when I don’t sleep much. If you must know, when that happens I can’t lie counting the minutes: I get up, and go out, if there’s moonlight. And sometimes I go out with Jem Hordle, fishing. Well, that’s why I take care no one shall come tapping at my door! If my mother knew, or Grandpapa—Lord, what a clutter there would be! They want to keep me wrapped in lambswool: you know that! As for taking the Seamew out at night—particularly since my uncle and Oliver were drowned—if either of them so much as suspected I did that—oh, I’d be so watched and guarded I should run mad!”

Hugo said nothing for a moment or two, but sat looking down at Richmond with a slight frown in his eyes. The explanation was reasonable, but he thought the boy was on the defensive, watching him from under his lashes, a guarded look on his face, a hint of tauntness about him.

It was Richmond who broke the silence, saying sweetly: “May I try now if I can go to sleep, cousin?”

“I suppose so,” Hugo answered, getting up. He hesitated, and then said: “You’ve told me you’re not meddling in contraband, and I hope that was the truth, because if it wasn’t you won’t be the only one to fall all-a-bits. You’ve listened to a deal of loose talk about free-trading, lad, but if it were to come out that you’d had a hand in such dealings there’s no one who would be more over-powered than your grandfather.”

“Oh, go to the devil!” snapped Richmond, with a spurt of temper. “You needn’t be afraid! Do you mean to tell him that you think I’m a free-trader? I wish I may be present! No, I don’t, though: I hate brangles! As for what I choose to do when I can’t sleep, you’ve no right to scold: you’re not my guardian, or—or even head of the family—yet!”

“Nay, did I do that?” asked Hugo, mildly surprised.

There was an angry flush on Richmond’s cheek, but it faded. He muttered: “No—I beg pardon! But I can’t endure—oh, well, it’s no matter!”

Hugo picked up his candlestick saying, with his slow grin: “Can’t endure to be interfered with, eh? It’s high time you learned discipline, you meedless colt—military discipline! I’m not the head of the family, but happen I’ll help you to that pair of colours, if you don’t bring yourself to ruin before I’ve a chance to do it.”

Richmond smiled wryly. “Thank you! You can’t do it, however. When I’m of age—oh, talking pays no toll! I shall be at Oxford then, I daresay.”

“I doubt it! In the meantime, lad, tread the lineway, and never mind if it’s a bore. I mislike the cut of that Riding-officer. He’s mighty suspicious of you, and though I wouldn’t say he was down to every move on the board, he’s by no means the sapskull you think him.”

A little, confident smile curled Richmond’s mouth. “He’s been outjockeyed again and again—by what I’ve heard.”

“Ay, and he’s not the man to cry craven,” said Hugo significantly. “He don’t love you, Richmond, and if he thought he could bowl you out he’d do it.”

“But he can’t.”

“I hope he can’t, but chance it happens that you find yourself in a hobble, don’t throw your cap after it, but come to me! I’ve been in more than one tight squeeze in my time.”

“Much obliged to you!” Richmond murmured. “It’s midsummer moon with you, you know, but I’m persuaded you mean it kindly! Do go to bed, Hugo! I’m so very sleepy!”