The Unknown Ajax

Chapter 18

Lord Darracott’s bleak mood lasted throughout the day, but since Richmond appeared to have accepted his harsh decree with perfect serenity, and neither repulsive looks nor snubbing replies produced any change whatsoever in Hugo’s demeanour, he had become so far mollified, by the time he sat down to dinner on the following evening, as to be able to bring himself to address several remarks to Hugo, and even, once, to agree with what he said, besides demanding of Lady Aurelia, with a near approach to geniality, whether they were to enjoy their usual rubber or two of whist. This was generally felt to be a sign that the storm (provided that no one offered him any provocation) was over; and although Anthea could have thought of a more agreeable way of passing the evening, and Vincent considered that playing whist for chicken-stakes was a dead bore, neither hesitated to acquiesce in this scheme for his lordship’s entertainment, though both wished heartily that it had not developed into a ritual. Lord Darracott had been a hardened gamester in his day, but, unlike Vincent, he cared as much for the play as for the stake, and all that was needed for his enjoyment was a reasonable degree of luck, and three other players who could be relied on not to provoke him by stupidity, inattention, slowness of wit, or, in fact, any of the faults that characterized such indifferent card players as Mrs. Darracott, and Hugo.

Any apprehension that Richmond’s unmistakeable air of elation would make his lordship suspicious the Major was soon able to banish from his mind. His lordship’s egotism was of too sublime an order to allow of his having the smallest perception; and since a long and unquestioned reign over his family had convinced him that submission to his commands and prohibitions was inevitable, he saw nothing remarkable in a docility that anyone else must have deemed so unnatural as to give rise to serious alarm. If he thought at all of the warning Vincent had tried to convey to him, it was with contempt. No doubt of his infallibility troubled him; no misgiving that the high courage in which he gloried was incompatible with docility ever so much as occurred to him: Richmond was the product of his own, untrammelled training; he had perceived at the outset he was worthy of attention; so it would have seemed to him very extraordinary had the boy not grown up to be as near perfection as made no odds.

Vincent, perceiving more clearly than anyone the absolute nature of his lordship’s belief, remarked to Hugo, with something of a snap: “It is devoutly to be hoped there’s no truth in your suspicion, coz, for I shudder to think of what the consequences might be if Richmond were to tumble off the pedestal our misguided progenitor built for him to sit on!”

Hugo nodded.

“I tried to give him a hint, you know. I might as well have spared my breath.”

“Eh, you shouldn’t have done that!” Hugo said.

“Oh, have no fear! I seem to have made a slip-slop of the whole affair, but I am not quite chuckleheaded! I gave him no hint of the particular mischief I had in mind,” replied Vincent, with a short laugh. “I collect, by the way, that you’ve promised Richmond that cornetcy. I trust it may give him something other to think of than smuggling—if he does think of smuggling!”

“That’s what I trust, too,” said Hugo. “I told him he should have it if he kept out of mischief, and I’m hopeful we’ll have no more need to fatch ourselves, for there’s no question at all about it: he was thrown into such transports he could hardly speak!”

“I am aware. You have certainly become his beau ideal!”

“Nay, there’s no hope of that,” said Hugo despondently. “I’ll never be able to take the shine out of you, for I’m no top-sawyer, and I’m sick every time I go to sea.”

Vincent laughed, but a faint flush stained his cheeks, and he said sharply: “Good God, do you think I care? Not the snap of my fingers!”

Having had ample time to become acquainted with his demon of jealousy, Hugo heaved a profound sigh of relief, and said: “Eh, I’m glad to hear you say that! The way you’re never happy but what you have the lad at your heels, let alone the pleasure it is to you to listen to his chatter, I thought you’d be reet miserable!”

This response succeeded as well as any could; but although Vincent smiled in genuine amusement, he was still furious with himself for that instant’s self-betrayal, and his temper, already exacerbated, was not improved. He had never felt more than tolerance for Richmond, and the boy’s admiration had amused rather than gratified him. Had he arrived at Darracott Place to find that Richmond had outgrown his youthful hero-worship it would not have troubled him in the least; but when he saw Richmond’s eyes turn away from his towards Hugo, and realized that, instead of following his lead, Richmond had drawn a little aloof from him, he fell a prey to a jealousy which none knew better than he to be irrational. Between this bitter envy of his brother and cousin whose financial circumstances rendered them independent of Lord Darracott; resentment that his own, very different, circumstances made it necessary for him to serve his grandfather’s caprice; and dislike of the usurper whose arrival on the scene had led to a great many disagreeable results, he was so much chafed that to keep his temper under control imposed a severe strain upon him. Pride, quite as much as prudence, demanded that he should preserve an attitude of languid indifference, but so coldly civil was his manner to Hugo that that usually immovable giant was considerably surprised when, two evenings later, he came quickly into the billiard room, and said, in a voice from which all affectation had vanished: “Hugo, where’s Richmond? Have you seen him?”

Claud, startled into miscueing, exclaimed indignantly: “Damn you, Vincent, what the devil do you mean by bursting in here when you know dashed well we’re playing? Anyone would take you for a cawker instead of the Go you think you are! Look what you’ve made me do!”

Vincent paid not the smallest heed to him; his frowning eyes remained fixed on the Major’s face; he said: “He’s not in his room.”

The Major met that hard, anxious stare without any sign of emotion. He returned it, in fact, with a blankness that might well have led Vincent to suppose that he was wholly lacking in comprehension. After a moment, he said calmly: “Nay, it’s too early.”

“It’s eleven o’clock.”

“As late as that?” Hugo seemed to consider this, but shook his head. “No, I don’t think it. Not while everyone’s still up.”

“Then where is he?”

Claud, who had been listening to this exchange with gathering wrath, demanded, in the voice of one goaded beyond endurance: “Who the devil cares where he is? Dash it, have you got a drop in the eye? Bouncing in when I’m in the middle of a break, just to ask Hugo where young Richmond is! If you want him, rub off, and find him for yourself! I don’t want him, and Hugo don’t want him either, and, what’s more, we don’t want you!”

“Oh, be quiet!” snapped Vincent impatiently.

“Well, if that don’t beat the Dutch!” gasped Claud.

“Nay, keep your tongue, lad, will you?” Hugo interposed. “I’ve not seen Richmond since we left the dining-room. I thought he went up to the drawing-room with you.”

“Yes, he did. He took up a book, when we began to play whist, but went off to bed very early, I don’t know what the time may have been: it was considerably before Chollacombe brought in the tea-tray—possibly half-past nine, or thereabouts. I thought nothing of it: he’d been yawning his head off, and my aunt kept on urging him to go to bed. I can’t say I paid much heed, beyond wishing that he would go, instead of insisting that he wasn’t tired, for I found the pair of them extremely distracting. In fact, I was on the point of suggesting that he should either stop yawning or do what he was told, when my grandfather took the words out of my mouth, and ordered him off to bed.”

He paused, knitting his brows. His incensed brother exclaimed: “No! Ordered him off to bed, did he? Never heard such an interesting story in my life—wouldn’t have missed it for a fortune! Well, if I were you, I’d go off to bed too, because if you’re not top-heavy you’re in pretty queer stirrups, take my word for it! Very likely you’ll have thrown out a rash by tomorrow.”

“Damn the young dry-boots!” Vincent said suddenly, ignoring the interruption. “I’ll teach him to make a bleater of me!”

“You think it was a hoax?”

“Not at the time, but I do now. Rather more up to snuff than I knew, my little cousin Richmond! If he’d made an excuse to retire, I should have been suspicious, and he knew that I asked him yesterday if he was in mischief—it’s wonderful, the harm I do every time I try to do good!”

Hugo was slightly frowning. “It doesn’t fit,” he said. “Not at that hour! He couldn’t be as crazy! Eh, Vincent, think of the risk he’d be running! Are you sure he wasn’t in his room when you went to find him?”

“I am very sure he wasn’t. His door was locked, and I must have wakened him, had he been asleep, but there wasn’t a sound to be heard within the room. Why should Richmond hesitate to answer me?”

“Well, I can tell you that!” said Claud. “What’s more, I wish I’d locked this door!”

Hugo laid down his cue, and strode over to one of the windows, and flung back the heavy curtain. “Cloudy. Looks like rain,” he said. “He told me that he sometimes takes his boat out at night, fishing. You know more than I do about sea-fishing: would he be likely to do so tonight?”

“God knows!” replied Vincent, shrugging. “I shouldn’t myself, because it doesn’t amuse me to get soaked to the skin. Nor should I choose to go sailing when the light is uncertain. But I’m not Richmond. Does he sail at night? I wonder why he never told me?”

“He might have been afraid you’d put a stop to it.”

“I should have supposed there was more fear that you would, but that didn’t prevent his telling you.”

“He told me when I asked him why he always locked his door. I didn’t believe him, but it might have been true.”

“It might, but—Hugo, I don’t like the sound of it! What the devil is the confounded brat up to?”

“I’m damned if I know!” said Hugo.

“Well, if ever I met a more bufflehead pair of silly gudgeons—!” exclaimed Claud disgustedly. “Dash it, if young Richmond’s gone out, it’s as plain as a pikestaff what he’s up to! And I must say it’s coming to something if he can’t slip off for a bit of fun and gig without you two trying to nose out what game he’s flying at, and raising all this dust! Anyone would think, to listen to you, that he’d gone off to rob the Mail!” He found that he was being stared at by both his auditors, and added with considerable asperity: “And don’t stand there goggling at me as if you’d never heard of a young club having a petticoat-affair, because that’s doing it a dashed sight too brown!”

“Good God, I wonder if you could be right?” said Vincent. He looked at Hugo. “I didn’t think—but it might be so, I suppose.”

Hugo shook his head. “No. There’s not a sign of it. He’s not that road yet. You’d know it, if he’d started in the petticoat-line.”

“Dashed if I can make out what’s the matter with you both!” said Claud. “Why can’t you leave the wretched boy alone? He won’t come to any harm! Why should he?”

“Hugo thinks he’s in a string with a gang of smugglers,” said Vincent curtly.

“What?”gasped Claud. “Thinks Richmond—No, dash it! Of all the crack-brained notions I ever heard—! You don’t believe that, Vincent!”

“I don’t know what I believe!” said Vincent, jerking the curtain across the window again, in a way that betrayed his disquiet. “I do know one thing, and that’s that I’ll have the truth out of Richmond when he comes in!”

“Well, if you mean to ask him if he’s joined a gang of smugglers, I hope he draws your cork! I call it a dashed insult! You can’t go about saying things like that just because he’s gone out on the spree!”

“There’s more to it than that,” Hugo said. “Ottershaw’s watching him like a cat at a mouse-hole, and he’d not do that if he hadn’t good reason to suspect him. He’s got no proof yet, or we’d know it, but—eh, I wish the lad would come in!”

Claud’s eyes started almost from their sockets. “Are you talking about that Riding-officer I found you gabbing to at Rye? Suspects Richmond? You can’t mean that!”

“Ay, but I do mean it,” replied Hugo grimly. “There’s little would suit him better than to catch the lad red-handed—make no mistake about that!”

“He wouldn’t dare! No, no! Dash it, Hugo—a Darracott of Darracott?”

“That won’t weigh with him, if Richmond walks into a trap he’s set. Plague take the lad! I warned him that Ottershaw’s not the clodhead he thinks him, but he’s as pot-sure as he’s meedless!” He checked himself, and said, after a moment. “Well, talking will pay no toll!”

“Just so!” said Vincent. “Perhaps you’ll tell me what will pay toll!”

“Ask me that when I know where the lad is! There’s only one thing I can think of to do at this present: I’ll walk up to the Dower House—ghost-catching! Happen I might get some kind of a keening—and if I find the place is being watched, at the least we’ll know they’ve not got wind of the lad yet, for it’s there that they look for him!” He glanced at Vincent. “If I’m asked for here, you’ll have to cut some kind of a wheedle for me: we don’t want to raise a breeze! What are they doing, upstairs? Have my aunts gone to bed yet?”

“They hadn’t, when I left the room, though my Aunt Elvira was about to go. She said something about a sore throat, and feeling a cold coming on, so no doubt she’ll have retired by now. Anthea went off to find Mrs. Flitwick—something about a posset she knows how to brew!—so it’s more than likely she’s in the kitchen-quarters. Does she know?”

“No, and I don’t mean she shall! Fob her off, if she should come in here! I take it his lordship’s still up?”

“Since he and my mother were engaged in playing over again every hand about which they had—er—disagreed, you may take it that they will both be up for some time to come,” replied Vincent sardonically.

“Well, if that’s what they’re doing, they won’t be heeding aught else. I’ll be off,” Hugo said, turning to pick up his coat.

Even as he spoke, the door opened, and Anthea came hurriedly into the room, her face as white as paper. “Hugo!” she uttered breathlessly. “Please come—please come quickly! I—I need you!”

Two strides brought him to her. He saw that she was trembling, and grasped her shoulders. “Steady, lass! What is it? Nay, there’s no need to tear your cousins! Out with it, now! Is it Richmond?”

She nodded, and said, trying to command her voice: “He’s hurt—bleeding dreadfully! John Joseph says—not fatally, but I don’t know! They were cutting his coat, when I came running to find you—”

“Who were?” he interrupted.

“John Joseph, and Polyphant. Chollacombe is there too, and Mrs. Flitwick. We—she and I—went to the pantry, you see, and that’s how—John Joseph had carried him there. He w-wasn’t conscious, and his face—his face was black, Hugo! At first, I—I couldn’t think who it was! He had on a smock—”

“Oh, my God—!” exclaimed Vincent. “It’s true, then! Now what do you propose we should do, cousin?”

“Find out how badly the lad’s hurt!” Hugo answered. “Come, love! No vapours! We’re not grassed yet!”

“No—oh, no!” she said, Following him from the room. “I won’t fail! It was only the shock of—Hugo, he—he must have been smuggling! I c-can’t believe it! Richmond!”

“Keep mum for that just now, love!” he replied. “Happen we’ll bring him about.”

He was striding down the broad corridor that led from the hall to the kitchen-quarters, and she had almost to run to keep up with him. “We must, Hugo, we must! John Joseph says you’ll know how to do it. He’s washed the soot from Richmond’s face, and Mrs. Flitwick bundled that dreadful smock up, and took it away under her apron, to burn it immediately. They were so good, Hugo! They did everything—even Polyphant!”

They had reached the door leading to the kitchen-wing, and as Hugo thrust it open, Vincent, hard on his heels, demanded: “How many of the servants know about this? Is the entire household attending to Richmond?”

“No, only those three—and Chollacombe, I think,”

He uttered an impatient exclamation under his breath, but by this time Hugo had entered the pantry, and Anthea, squeezing her way in, between his massive form and the door-post, paid no heed.

Richmond, who was lying on the flagged floor, had come round. He was being supported by John Joseph, kneeling behind him, while Polyphant was waving some burnt feathers under his nose, and Chollacombe, looking very much shaken, stood rather helplessly behind Polyphant, holding a glass of brandy in his hand. Richmond’s coat had been cut off, and his shirt ripped away from his left arm and shoulder. Claud, managing to obtain a glimpse into the room over Vincent’s shoulder, recoiled, shuddering, from a scene which did, indeed, resemble a shambles. There seemed to be blood everywhere he looked, even on his valet’s immaculate raiment, and as he invariably felt queasy if he only cut his finger, he could scarcely be blamed for his hasty retreat.

John Joseph looked up under his brows at the Major, saying dourly: “Tha’ll do well to bestir thysen, Mester Hugo, if we bahn to bring t’lad out of this scuddle! Happen t’gadgers will be banging on t’door in a piece, so, if tha wants to be any hand afore, think quick!”

“How badly is he hit?” Hugo asked, putting Polyphant out of his way, and bending over Richmond.

“Nay, it’s noan so bad, but seemingly t’bullet’s lodged.” He shifted Richmond slightly, and raised the folded dishcloth he was holding over an ugly wound high up on Richmond’s shoulder. It began to bleed again, but sluggishly. Hugo saw that the blood was coming mostly from the torn flesh; and a brief scrutiny satisfied him that the bullet, which seemed to have ripped its way at an oblique angle into the shoulder, had not penetrated deeply enough to touch any vital parts. He said cheerfully: “Well, that’s the first thing to be dealt with. But we’ll have him where I can get to work on him. Nay, Anthea, a little blood-letting won’t kill him! One of you bring lights in the morning-room—you, Polyphant! I’ll want a bowl of hot water, plenty of lint, if you have it, and the brandy: take it along there, Chollacombe! Now then, you young good-like-naught!” He stooped, as he spoke, and, without apparent effort, lifted Richmond up in his arms.

Richmond, still dazed and faint, muttered: “Dragoons, I think. Two of them. Couldn’t see clearly—light bad. In the Home Wood. Must have rumbled me.”

“Out of the way, Vincent!” Hugo said, bearing his burden to the door.

“Wait, you fool!” Vincent said. “The boy’s got to be hidden! You can’t take him into the morning-room! If there were dragoons in our grounds they must have a warrant to search: we may have them upon us at any moment! They mustn’t find him here, like this!”

“Nay, we’ll have him in better shape to be looked at. Don’t be a dafthead, man! If it’s Richmond they want, the lad must be here, where he should be! There’s no hiding him: you had as well hand him over to Ottershaw without more ado! We must think of a better way out of the mess than that. Nay, sneck up, Vincent! you’re wasting time, and it may be we’ve very little of it at our disposal.”

Vincent fell back, but said angrily: “What can we possibly do but hide him? He’s led them straight to this house, dripping blood all the way, I don’t doubt, the damned little idiot, and what can we do but get him away?—out of the country, if we can!”

“I’m sorry—they were guarding the Dower House,” Richmond said, very faint still, but in a rather stronger voice. “No light in the window. That’s Spurstow’s signal. Hugo said come to him—in a tight squeeze. I was nearly caught, not far from Peasmarsh. Very tight squeeze!”

Hugo lowered him into a chair by the table in the middle of the morning-room, but kept a supporting arm round him, stretching out a hand for the brandy Chollacombe was still holding. He put the glass to Richmond’s lips, and made him swallow the draught. His face was quite calm, but a little graver than usual; he glanced round, taking note of the bowl of water Anthea had set down on the table, of the lint, and the torn sheets Mrs. Flitwick was assembling; and said, his eyes coming to rest on his groom: “How do you come into this, John Joseph? Were you seen with Mr. Richmond?”

“Nay, I was nobbut taking a stroll, and smoking my pipe, I heard t’shot, but I never saw hair nor hide of any dragoon, nor gadger neither.”

“I shook them off. Only got a glimpse of me,” Richmond said, wincing under Hugo’s hands. “Thought I could reach the house, but I suppose I was losing blood all the way. Found I couldn’t see—began to feel too giddy—” He broke off, settling his teeth, as Hugo began to swab the wound.

“That’s reet enough, Mester Hugo. I saw him come stackering round t’corner of t’ould barn up yonder, and I brung him in nighest-about, and washed t’soot off his face first thing.”

“That’s good; they’ll search through the woods before they come here,” said Hugo, not lifting his eyes from his task. “Get back to your own quarters now, John Joseph: I don’t want you mixed up in this. Tell me, Richmond: why did they shoot at you?”

“I didn’t halt, when one of them shouted out. Couldn’t, because—no time to get rid of—the smock,” Richmond gasped jerkily. “Blacked my face, too—Hugo!”

“I’m sorry, lad, but I’ve got to pack this wound as tight as I can, or we’ll fall all-abits. There was no coming to cuffs?”

“No. I didn’t know they were there, till I heard them shout. Then I ran for it, dodging—this way and that. Know the wood better than they do—didn’t need much light.”

“Ottershaw wasn’t there,” Hugo decided. “He’d have given no order for shooting, and he won’t be suited when he knows you were shot at.”

Vincent, who was holding Richmond’s arm in a firm grip, glanced up at the Major, saying: “If they didn’t catch the boy with smuggled goods, they’ve no case against him. As for shooting at him—in his own grounds, too!—we might use that to scotch the whole business, if it weren’t for the smock, and the black face. You damned young fool, what possessed you to put on that rig?”

“Had to put myself out of twig—didn’t want to be recognized. Before, I’ve always put off my disguise at the Dower House. Tonight, couldn’t. I think—Ottershaw guessed it—some time ago. I knew he was on a hot scent. That’s why I took the risk of getting the goods away as soon as it was dark. It seemed the only chance—hoped there’d be no watch so early. I didn’t want to fall back on—my other plan—but—had to—because—”

“Hold him, Hugo! he’s going off again!” Vincent said quickly, releasing Richmond’s arm to snatch up the decanter of brandy.

“No wish to be troublesome,” said Claud, in an ominously faint voice, “but I think I’ll take a drop myself! Can’t stand the sight of blood: never could! Willing to do any thing in my power, but I can’t and I won’t come near the table till you take that bowl away, so I’ll be obliged to you if you’ll bring a glass over to me, Vincent. Not you, Polyphant! There’s blood all over your coat!”

Vincent glanced towards him, where he sat limply on the sofa, his handkerchief pressed to his month, and exclaiming contemptuously: “For God’s sake, don’t be so lily-livered, you miserable man-milliner! Anyone would think, to look at you, that you’d been wounded! Hell and the devil, he is going faint!” He relinquished the glass he had just filled into Hugo’s hand, and swiftly crossed the room to render rough and ready treatment to his younger brother, thrusting his head down between his knees, and holding it there despite protests from his victim, who tried feebly to free himself, but was only rescued by Anthea’s intervention. She begged Vincent to let him go, so that he could lie flat on the sofa, and recover at leisure. “Take the smelling-salts, Claud, and shut your eyes! You mustn’t faint!” she told him urgently. “Chollacombe, pray fetch another glass directly!”

Richmond, meanwhile, was recovering his colour a little. He swallowed some of the brandy, and murmured: “Not going to go off again. Better now. Give me a moment! It was only—hurts like the devil—what you’re doing!”

“It’s got to be done, lad, if I’m to bring you off. I’ve no time to do more than stop the bleeding the best way I can, and it’s bound to hurt like the devil, for I’m packing it tightly, and you’ve a bullet lodged there, you know. Come, now, swallow another mouthful, and you’ll be champion!”

Richmond obeyed. He was lying relaxed against Hugo’s arm, and he looked up at him, saying: “I lied to you. I had to. It was my responsibility: I couldn’t leave them in the lurch! I had to see all safe. I was in command, you see, because it was my scheme.”

The Major looked down at him, slightly smiling. “Happen you’ll shape to be a good officer, after all,” he said. “Lean forward again now: I’ve nearly done.”

“Go on! I’ve got him,” Vincent said. “I’m damned if I know what we do next, though! You’re not going to try to convince the Excisemen he’s been with us all the evening, are you? If we could get rid of the bloodstains here, in the house, which we’ve no hope of doing, the tracks will lead them to the side-door, as soon as there’s light enough for them to be followed.” He felt Richmond writhe, and his hold on him tightened. “Keep still! You’re very well served if it does hurt: I’ve no sympathy to waste on you! How you can have been such a crass fool as to have gone out on the damned disreputable business tonight, after all that Hugo said to you, after assuring me you weren’t in mischief, inspires me with only one desire, and that’s to wring your worthless neck!”

“I had to! The casks were still here!”

“Still where?”Vincent said sharply.

“Here. In the passage. Ever since the last run.”

“What passage?” Vincent demanded, looking down at him in sudden, astonished suspicion. He could not see his face, however, for a pang of exquisite anguish had made Richmond gasp, and lean his forehead against his supporting arm. Vincent stared down at the top of his dark head. “Are you trying to tell me you’ve found the secret passage?”

Richmond managed to utter: “Yes. This end. Spurstow found—the other—ages ago.”

He stopped, quite unable to continue speaking for several moments. Vincent glanced quickly up at Hugo, but Hugo’s attention seemed to be fixed wholly on what he was doing. Vincent, violently irritated, was obliged to choke back an impatient demand to know whether he was listening.

He was certainly the only one of those present to remain unmoved. Mrs. Flitwick, letting the scissors fall from her fingers, ejaculated: “Lawk-a-mussy on us, whatever do you mean, Master Richmond?”

“Richmond, you didn’t?” Anthea said, quite incredulous.

“The boy’s raving! Doesn’t know what he’s saying!” pronounced Claud, who had sat up with a jerk.

“Yes, I do. Not difficult—once we’d cleared—the blockage,” Richmond said thickly. “Roof had fallen in—not far from the other entrance. Think it must be—where there’s that dip—in the ground—”

“Never mind that!” interrupted Vincent.

“No. Well—Spurstow only used it—to store—the run cargoes—till I found out—and knew—must be the passage—and made him—help to clear the blockage. Devil of a task, but managed to do it. Easy, after that. Only had to work out—where the other entrance must have been. In the old part of the house, of course. Cellars. Bricked up. Only fear was—might be heard when we broke through. Servants’ quarters—too close to the old wing. But bad thunderstorm one night—did it then!”

“Well, I’ll be damned!” said Claud, who had been listening, open-mouthed, to these revelations. “You know, there’s no getting away from it!—Young Richmond’s a hell-born babe, all right and tight, but, by Jupiter, he’s a bit of a dab!”

“A bit of a dab to use this house as a smuggler’s store?” said Vincent, in a voice of scathing contempt.

“I’m not a hell-born babe!” Richmond lifted his head. “It’s no worse than letting them use the barn by the Five Acre—which they’re always done! Grandpapa wouldn’t say so!”

“My God—!” Vincent’s eyes again went to Hugo’s face, but he was still not attending. “Listen, you young sapskull!” Vincent said harshly. “Can you see no difference between that and becoming yourself a smuggler?”

“Oh! Well—yes, but I didn’t think it was so very bad. I only did it for the sport of it! I don’t benefit by it—and in any event—when Grandpapa said he would never let me be a soldier—I didn’t care about anything anymore! You wouldn’t understand. It doesn’t signify.”

“Master Richmond, Master Richmond!”said Chollacombe, tears of dismay in his eyes. “Never did I think to hear—”

“No sense in talking like that!” snapped Mrs. Flitwick. “A judgment—that’s what it is! A judgment on those as should have known better, and nothing will make me say different!”

“Sticking-plaster!” interrupted Hugo imperatively.

Polyphant, who had constituted himself his assistant, started, and said hurriedly: “Yes, sir—immediately! I beg pardon, I am sure! I allowed myself to be distracted, but it shall not occur again! And the scissors! Mrs. Flitwick, the scissors!—Good gracious me, ma’am—Ah, I have them!”

Richmond, wincing as Hugo began to cover his handiwork as tightly as he could with strips of the sticking-plaster, said: “Any way—I did it! Ottershaw was always suspicious of Spurstow. Began to watch the Dower House whenever he got word a run was expected. Made it devilish difficult—to use the place. That’s how—I came into it. Saw how I could make Ottershaw look as blue as—as megrim. I did, too. He don’t know now—how the kegs were got into the Dower House. We ran them up here, from the coast, and took them the rest of the way through the passage. But I never had them kept at this end of the passage! Or let them be taken away from here—until tonight, when—nothing else I could do. Knew I might have to, so had it all—trig and trim. Ponies in the Park. Had the kegs carried there: too dangerous to bring ’em up to the house. Only thing was—knew Ottershaw was hot on my scent—couldn’t be sure he wasn’t keeping some kind of a watch on this place too, so—had to lay a false scent. That’s why we did the thing—so early. Ottershaw’s grown too—fly to the time of day. Had to make him think it must be the real run, and we’d hoped to get away before any watch was set on the place. He did.” Richmond’s head was up, and his sister, gazing at him in horror, saw the glow in his eyes. “It was the best chase of them all—my last!” he said, an exultant little smile on his pale lips. “You don’t know—! If only I hadn’t taken it for granted I was safe on our own ground!—I ought to have known, but I’d shaken off the pursuit, and never dreamed there’d be anyone watching for my return here. I’ve never come back before except by the passage. Jem said I’d be taken at fault one day, but he’s got no stomach at all for a close-run thing. He didn’t like it even when we took up the casks in broad daylight once—pulling in mackerel-nets! Swore he’d never go out with me again, but I knew no Exciseman would think anyone would dare do that, so it wasn’t really very dangerous.” A tiny laugh broke from him. “We were hailed by a naval cutter: you should have seen Jem’s face! But the kegs were hidden under the mackerel—we’d got the Seamew spilling over with them! I offered to sell ’em to the lieutenant aboard the cutter: just joking him!—and of course we came off safe!”

Claud, who had been listening with his eyes starting from their sockets, drew a long breath. “When I think of the way we’ve been living here, never dreaming we’d be a dashed sight safer in a powder-magazine—! Well, at least there’s one good thing! No need to be afraid he’ll go to Newgate! Well, what I mean is, he’s stark, staring mad! Ought to have put him into Bedlam years ago!”

“Not mad!” Vincent said. “Rope-ripe!”

“There!” said the Major, pressing down his last strip of sticking-plaster. “Cut, Polyphant! I fancy that will do the trick.”

“Beautiful, sir!” said Polyphant, carefully snipping off the dangling end of the plaster. “A really prime piece of work, if I may be permitted to say so!”

“We’ll hope it may hold, anyhow. If it doesn’t, we shall all of us end in Newgate!”

“That,” said Vincent acidly, “is extremely likely unless we are able to think what next is to be done! If you can drag your mind away from this damned young scoundrel’s wound, perhaps you’ll apply it to that problem, for it is quite beyond my poor capabilities to solve!”

“Then happen you’ll find that Ajax shall cope the best!”retorted the Major, with a grin. “Now then! we must bustle about a little. The dragoons will have gone to report to Ottershaw, but for aught we know they may not have had to go far, so just do what I’m going to tell you, every one of you, without asking why, or arguing about it! Mrs. Flitwick, I want you out of the way until we’re rid of Excisemen: the fewer people to be mixed up in this the better. So you may stay out of sight, and don’t say a word to anyone about what’s been happening! Chollacombe, I want a couple of packs of cards, another brandy-glass, and the clothes you stripped from Mr. Richmond—yes, I mean that, so off with you! Anthea, love, slip away to the billiard-room, and fetch Claud’s and my coats, will you? Nay, pluck up, lass! We’re going to save Richmond’s groats, never you fear!”

She nodded, trying to smile, and hurried away.

“Claud,” said the Major, a twinkle in his eye, “I want every stitch of clothing you’ve got on, except your drawers! Go on, lad, don’t stand gauping at me, or we’ll have Anthea back before we’ve made you respectable again! It’s you that got fired at, not Richmond, and I want your clothes for him!”

“Here, I say, no!” exclaimed Claud, appalled. “If you think I’ll put on Richmond’s clothes—dash it, even if they weren’t soaked in blood I wouldn’t like it, and—”

“Get your shoes off, and be quick about it!” interrupted Vincent, advancing upon him. “If you don’t, I’ll knock you out and strip you myself! Hurry!”

The look on his face was so alarming that Claud sat down hastily to untie his exquisitely ironed shoestrings. No sooner were his shoes and striped socks off than Vincent jerked him to his feet, ripped off his neckcloth, and began to unbutton his waistcoat, commanding him to do the same to his breeches. Over his shoulder, he said: “I make you my compliments, Hugo! But why was Claud skulking in the wood? I see that no Exciseman in his right senses could possibly think him engaged in smuggling, but we must have some reason to account for his running away when challenged!”

“Nay, lay!” said the Major reproachfully, tossing Richmond’s rent and blood-soaked shirt on to the floor. “You’ve got a short memory! He thought it was the Ackletons, lying in wait to rend him limb from limb, of course! Happen it gave him such a fright that he didn’t hear just what they were shouting—nothing about halting in the name of the King, for instance!—and when they took to firing at him, what could he do but run for his life? Let alone he’d no weapon, he was in a very ticklish situation—having been trysting with that prime article of virtue the Ackletons forbade him ever to look at again!”

“I’ll be damned if I have anything to do with a story like that!” declared Claud indignantly. “Why, I’d never be able to show my face here again!”

“Why should you want to?” said Vincent, who was shaking with laughter. “It’s magnificent, Hugo! Here, Polyphant, take these, and give me Mr. Richmond’s! Claud, there’s no need to look at Richmond’s breeches: all you have to do is to step into them: I’ll even pull ’em up for you! They’ll be a tight fit, but you won’t have to sit down in them: we’ll stretch you out on the sofa!”

Claud, bullied and hustled into his cousin’s obnoxious breeches, was so much incensed that he became quite scarlet in the face as he informed his relatives, in impassioned accents, that nothing would induce him to take part in the proposed drama. “I ain’t handy with my fists, and I don’t like turn-ups, but I ain’t a rum ’un, and I’m damned if I’ll have you two cooking up a story like that about me! Not if you were to offer me a fortune!”

“No one will offer you a fortune, brother,” said Vincent, pushing him on to the sofa, and picking up one of Richmond’s boots. “Pull this on!—all you will be offered, if you don’t do as you’re bid, is a facer heavy enough to send you to sleep while we exhibit you to the Excisemen.”

“Think, lad!” Hugo interposed. “If we’re to hoax Ottershaw, we must have a tale that’s got some likelihood to it, for he’ll not swallow it readily!”

“Likelihood?”gasped Claud. “Well, of all the—”

“Nay, how should he know whether you’re a right one, or a pudding-heart?” said Hugo hastily. “What, you may depend upon it, he does know, is what happened to Ackleton, the night he came up here, and the silly way he’s been blustering ever since about what he’ll do to you, if he gets the chance. Knowing that much for truth, he’ll find it hard to disbelieve the rest surely enough to put our tale to the test—for he knows well that if he were to make a false accusation against Richmond there’d be the devil to pay, and no pitch hot for him!” He paused, and then, as Claud still looked mutinous, added: “It’s no matter if you’re made to look foolish, Claud. If we can’t conceal the truth from Ottershaw, it’s not only Richmond who’ll be laid low, but every Darracott amongst us.”

Richmond said suddenly: “No! You can’t ask Claud to do that! I wouldn’t—I couldn’t!”

“That we believe!” retorted Vincent. “It is possible, however, that Claud cares more for our name than you have given us reason to suppose you do! Come, Claud! what odds does it make to you if a parcel of hicks laughs at you?” He added, rather unfortunately: “They’ve been laughing at you for years!”

The astonished gratification with which Claud had listened to the first part of this speech changed rapidly. A mulish look came into his face, and he was just about to deliver himself of a flat refusal to sacrifice himself for the sake of any family of which his brother was a member, when Polyphant, engaged in tieing the neckcloth round Richmond’s neck, saved the situation by saying: “If I may take the liberty, Mr. Vincent, I venture to say—with the greatest deference, sir!—that Mr. Claud is equal to anything!”

Claud wavered. Anthea came back into the room at that moment, and was not unnaturally staggered to find him sketchily attired in her brother’s blood-stained breeches, and topboots. The reason for this peculiar transformation was briefly explained to her, whereupon she instantly threw herself into the obviously necessary task of persuading Claud to immolate himself. Without allowing him an opportunity to speak, she thanked him with so much warmth as to make it extremely hard for him to disabuse her mind of its apparent conviction that he had consented. By the time she had marvelled at his nobility, prophesied the reverence with which he would for ever afterwards be regarded by them all, and declared her positive belief in his ability to carry the thing off to admiration, Claud had become so far reconciled to the scheme as to raise no further objection to it.

Polyphant, who had come into his own with the necessity of arraying Richmond in his borrowed plumage, then called upon the Major to assist him in the task of getting him into Claud’s coat. It was plain that he was revelling in the affair, but only he knew the cause of his elation; and none could have guessed that while his nimble fingers coped with shoestrings, buttons, and neckcloth, his mind was filled with the vision of himself triumphant beyond his wildest dreams over the odious Crimplesham. Crimplesham might never learn just what had taken place on this fateful evening, but Crimplesham would know, like everyone else, that there had been very strange goings-on from which he had been rigorously excluded, with such insignificant persons as the footmen, while his rival had been in the thick of it, the trusted confidant of even his own master. And if Crimplesham tried to discover what had happened, Polyphant had every intention of proving himself worthy of the trust reposed in him by replying that his lips were sealed, which would undoubtedly infuriate Crimplesham very much indeed.

“Now, sir!” he said, with the authority of one who knew himself to be an expert, “if you will be so obliging as to do precisely what I shall request you to do, I trust I shall be able to manage to put Mr. Richmond into both waistcoat and coat—you will observe that I have placed one within the other—without causing him to feel too much discomfort, and without disturbing your handiwork, sir. From you, Mr. Richmond, I wish for no assistance at all. Do not attempt, I most earnestly implore you, to shrug your sound shoulder into the garment! You will please to leave it entirely to me. Fortunately, you are of slighter build than Mr. Claud: indeed, we must hope that the Riding-officer is not a person of ton (if you will pardon the jest!), and so will not think your coat sadly ill-fitting, must we not?”

Talking chattily all the time, he began to ease Richmond into the coat. Claud, watching him with a jaundiced eye, expressed his conviction that he was going about it in quite the wrong way; but the Major meekly obeyed such instructions as he was given; and by the time Chollacombe came into the room the difficult feat had been performed with a competence that drew a Well-done! from the Major. Polyphant bowed his acknowledgment, saying that he would now slip upstairs to collect one of Mr. Claud’s black silk socks. “For it occurs to me, sir, that a few snips with the scissors will make it a tolerable mask, and we must not forget, must we, that Mr. Richmond’s face was blackened? So you will pardon me if I now absent myself for a very few moments!”

He then departed, sped on his way by a bitter recommendation from his master to ruin a few more of his garments while he was about it.

The Major picked up his own coat, and had just shrugged himself into it when Anthea, whose hearing was very acute, caught the sound of hoof-beats, and said sharply: “Listen! Hugo, they’re coming!”

“Well, we could have done with another few minutes, but happen we’ll make shift without them,” he responded calmly. “Vincent, go up to the drawing-room before they start knocking on the door—or, if his lordship’s come down to the library, join him there! You’ve been writing letters—anything you choose!—and you’ve not been next or nigh the rest of us. Keep Ottershaw brangling with the old gentleman: that oughtn’t to be difficult! I must see Claud bandaged up, and the scene well set, and then I’ll part, but make me tell you why I want to speak privately to you! Quick, man! Here they are!” He fairly thrust Vincent from the room, and turned to Chollacombe. “Not in too much of a hurry to open the door to them!” he warned him. “You’re not expecting any such visitors, so you may look as surprised as you please, but take care you look affronted too! Treat them just as you would any vulgar person who came here asking impertinent questions—not that I think they’ll ask you any. All I want of you is that you shall bear it in mind that Mr. Claud has met with an accident, which is no business of any Exciseman, and that Mr. Richmond and I have been playing cards here all the evening. Don’t take them straight to his lordship: shut them into the Green Saloon, and say you’ll inform his lordship! Mr. Vincent will take care he don’t refuse to see them. Once you’ve taken them to the drawing-room, don’t show yourself again!”

“Have no fear, sir!” said Chollacombe. “I trust I know how to depress the pretensions of such persons who know no better than to hammer on the door of a gentleman’s residence in that ill-mannered fashion!”

The knocker had certainly been somewhat violently plied, and the effect of this solecism on Chollacombe was all that the Major could have desired. At one moment a very shaken old man, he stiffened at the next into the personification of outraged dignity, and, with a slow and stately tread, left the room, and proceeded down the broad passage that led through an archway into the central hall.

Hugo shut the door, and cast a swift, measuring look at Richmond, seated at the table, and resting his left arm on it. Richmond was very pale, but his eyes were alert, and he met his cousin’s searching glance with a confident smile. “I shall do!” he said.

“Ay, you’ll do, you scamp! Give him some more brandy, love!” said the Major, picking up the bowl of reddened water, and setting it down on the floor beside the sofa.

“I shall be foxed if I drink any more,” Richmond warned him.

“I want you to be foxed, lad—just about half-sprung! Not so drunk that you’ll say what you shouldn’t, but drunk enough to look as if you might be. That’ll be reason enough why you should stay sprawling in your chair.” He turned his head as the door opened, and for an instant it seemed to Anthea that he stiffened. But it was only Polyphant who entered the room, with his tripping gait, and delicately dropped a maltreated sock beside the horrid pile of Richmond’s clothing. The Major said: “I’m more obliged to you than I can say, Polyphant. The moment the coast is clear, off with you! I don’t want you to get tangled up in this business, so stand out now—and thank you!”

“Sir!” said Polyphant, exalted by the realization that his moment was upon him, “any other command you may see fit to give me I shall obey with alacrity, but never, never shall it be said that a Polyphant deserted his master in his hour of need, or flinched in the face of danger!”

“Well, if that’s how you feel, you can dashed well move that disgusting bowl out of my sight!” said his master tartly.