A Son of Hagar: A Romance of Our Time

Remarking that it was easy to repeat an old woman's gossip, Mr. Drayton took out of his pocket a goat-skin tobacco-pouch, and proceeded to charge a discolored meerschaum pipe.

"Thirty years ago," said Hugh Ritson, "a young lady tried to drown herself and her child. She was rescued and committed to an asylum. Her child, a son, was given into the care of the good woman with whom she had lodged."

Mr. Drayton interrupted. "Thankee; but, as the wice-chairman says, 'we'll take it as read,' so we will."

Hugh Ritson nodded his head, and continued, while Mr. Drayton smoked vigorously: "You have never heard of your mother from that hour to this; but one day you were told by the young girl whom circumstances had cast on your foster-mother's care, that among the mountains of Cumberland there lived another man who bore you the most extraordinary resemblance. That excited your curiosity. You had reasons for thinking that if your mother were alive she might be rich. Now, you yourself had the misfortune to be poor."

"And I'm not afraid for anybody to know it," interrupted Mr. Drayton. "Come to the point honest. Look here, we are like two hyenas I saw one day at the Zoo. One got a bone in his tooth at feeding time, and blest if the other didn't fight for that bone I don't know how long and all."

"Well," continued Hugh Ritson, with a dubious smile that the cloud of smoke might have hidden from a closer observer, "being a man of spirit, and not without knowledge of the world, having inherited brains, in short, from the parents who bequeathed you nothing else – "

Mr. Drayton puffed volumes, then poured himself half a tumbler of the raw spirit and tossed it off.

– "You determined on seeing if, after all, this were only a fortuitous resemblance."

Mr. Drayton raised his hand. "I am a licensed victualer, that's what I am, and I ain't flowery," he said, in an apologetic tone; "I hain't had the chance of it, being as I'd no schooling – but, deng me, you've just hit it!" And the gentleman who could not be flowery shook hands effusively with the gentleman who could.

"Precisely, Mr. Drayton, precisely," said Hugh Ritson. He paused and watched Drayton closely. That worthy had removed his pipe, and was staring, with stupid eyes and open mouth, into the fire.

"But you found nothing."

"How d'ye know?"

"Your face at this moment says so."

"Pooh! Don't you go along trusting this here time-piece for the time o' day. It ain't been brought up in habits o' truthfulness same as yours."

Hugh Ritson laughed.

"You and I are meant to be friends, Mr. Drayton," he said. "But let us first understand each other. Your idea that you could find your parents in Cumberland was a pure fallacy."

"Eh! Why?"

"Because your mother is dead."

Drayton shook off the stupor of liquor, and betrayed a keen if momentary interest.

"The book of the asylum in which she was confined, after the attempted suicide, contains the record – "

"But she escaped," interrupted Drayton.

"Contains the record of her escape and subsequent recovery – dead. The body was picked out of the river, recognized by the authorities as that of the unknown woman, and buried in the name she gave."

"What name?" said Drayton.

Hugh Ritson's face underwent a momentary change.

"That is indifferent," he said; "I forget."

"Sure you forget?" said Drayton. "Couldn't be Ritson, eh?"

Hugh struck the table.

"Assuredly not – the name was not Ritson."

The tone irritated Mr. Drayton. He glanced down with a look that seemed to say that Hugh Ritson had his Maker to thank for giving him the benefit of an infirm foot.

Hugh Ritson mollified him by explaining that if he had any curiosity as to the name, he could discover it for himself. "Besides," said Hugh, "what matter about the name if your mother is dead?"

"That's true," said Drayton, who, being now appeased, began to see that his anger had been puerile.

"Depend upon it, your father, wherever he is, is a cipher," said Hugh Ritson.

Drayton got on to his feet and trudged the floor uneasily. An idea had occurred to him. "The person picked out of the river may have been another woman. I've heard of such."

"Possibly; but the chance of error is worth little to you." Hugh looked uncomfortable as he said this, but Drayton saw nothing.

"Bah! What matter?" said Drayton, and, determined to cudgel his brains no longer, he reached for the brandy and drank another half glass. There was then an interchange of deep amity.

"Tell me," said Hugh, "what passed at the Ghyll on Monday night?"

"The Ghyll? Monday? That was the night of the snow. What passed? Nothing."

"Why did you go?"

"Wanted to see your mother. Saw your brother one night late at the door of the parson's house. Saw you at the fire. At the fire? – certainly. Stood a matter of a dozen yards away when that young buck of a stableman drove up with the trap. What excuse for going? Blest if I remember – summat or other; knocked, and no one came. I don't know how long and all I stood cooling my heels at the door. Then I saw a light coming from a room on the first floor, and up I went and knocked. 'Come in,' says somebody. I went in. Withered old party got up. Black crape and beads, you know. But, afore I could speak, she reeled like a top and fell all of a heap. Blest if the old girl didn't take me for a ghost!" Mr. Drayton elevated his eyebrows, and added with emphasis, "I got out."

"And on the way back you frightened a young lady in the lane, who, like my mother, mistook you for the ghost of my brother Paul. Well, that young lady was married to my brother this morning. They are now on their way to London. They intend to leave England on Wednesday next, and they mean to pass to-night in your house."

Mr. Drayton's eyebrows went up again.

"It is certainly hard to understand – but look," and Hugh Ritson handed to Drayton the telegram he had received from Bonnithorne. That worthy examined it minutely, back and front, with bleared and bewildered eyes, and then looked to his visitor for explanation.

"The lady must not leave England," said Hugh.

Drayton steadied himself, and tried hard to look appalled.

"Upon my soul, you make my flesh creep!" he said. "What do you want for your twenty pounds? Speak out plain. I'm not flowery, I'm not. I'm a licensed victualer and a gentleman – "

"What do I want? Only that you should send the lady home again by the first train."

Drayton began to laugh.

"You see, there was no cause for alarm," said Hugh, with an innocent smile.

Drayton's laughter became boisterous.

"I am to decoy the young thing away by making her believe as I'm her husband, eh?"

"Mr. Drayton, you are a shrewd fellow."

"And what about the husband – ain't he another shrewd fellow?"

"Leave him to me. When the time comes, make no delay. Don't expose yourself unnecessarily. Wear that ulster you have on at present. Say as little as possible – nothing if practicable. Get the lady into the fly that shall be waiting at the door; drive to the station; book her to Keswick; put her into the carriage at the last moment; then clear away with all expedition. The midnight train never stops this side of Bedford."

Drayton was shuffling across the room, chuckling audibly. "He, he, he! haw! haw! – so I'm to leave her at the station, eh? Poor young thing; I hain't got the heart – I hain't got it in me to be so cruel. No, no, I couldn't be such a vagabond of a husband – he, he! haw, haw! – and on the poor thing's wedding day, too."

Hugh Ritson rose to his feet.

"If you go an inch further than the station, you'll repent it to your dying day!" he said, once more bringing down his fist heavily on the table.

At this Drayton chuckled and crowed yet louder, and declared that it would be necessary to have another half glass in order to take the taste of the observation out of his mouth.

Then his laughter ceased.

"Look here: you want me to do a job as can only be done by one man alive. And what do you offer me – twenty pounds? Keep it," he said; "it won't pass, sir!"

The fire had burned very low, the cheerless room was dense with smoke and noisome with the smell of dead tobacco. Drayton buttoned up to the throat the long coat he wore.

"I've summat on," he said; "good-night."

The sound of children's voices came from the bar. The little ones were going home.

"Good-night, missy, and thank you." It was a woman's voice.

"Good-night, Mercy," cried the children.

Drayton was opening the door.

"Think again," said Hugh Ritson. "You run no risk. Eleven forty-five prompt will do."

CHAPTER IV

When Drayton went out, Hugh Ritson walked into the bar. The gossips had gone. Only the landlady was there. The door to the room opposite now stood open.

"Mrs. Drayton," said Hugh, "have you ever seen this face before?"

He took a medallion from his pocket and held it out to her.

"Lor's a mercy me!" cried the landlady; "why, it's her herself as plain as plain – except for the nun's bonnet."

"Is that the lady who lodged with you at Pimlico – the mother of Paul?"

"As sure as sure! Lor's, yes; and to think the poor young dear is dead and gone! It's thirty years since, but it do make me cry, and my husband – he's gone, too – my husband he said to me, 'Martha,' he said, 'Martha – '"

The landlady's garrulity was interrupted by a light scream: "Hugh, Hugh!"

Mercy Fisher stood in the door-way, with wonder-stricken eyes and heaving breast.

In an instant the poor little soul had rushed into Hugh Ritson's arms with the flutter of a frightened bird.

"Oh, I knew you would come – I was sure you would come!" she said, and dried her eyes, and then cried again, and then dried them afresh, and lifted her pouting lips to be kissed.

Hugh Ritson made no display. A shade of impatience crossed his face at first, but it was soon gone. He tried to look pleased, and bent his head and touched the pale lips slightly.

"You look wan, you poor little thing," he said, quietly. "What ails you?"

"Nothing – nothing, now that you have come. Only you were so long in coming, so very long."

He called up a brave word to answer her.

"But you see I keep my word, little woman," he said, and smiled down at her and nodded his head cheerfully.

"And you have come to see me at last! All this way to see poor little me!"

The mute weariness that had marked her face fled at that moment before a radiant smile.

"One must do something for those who risk so much for one," he said, and laughed a little.

"Ah!"

The first surprise over, the joy of that moment was beyond the gift of speech. Her arms encircled his neck, and she looked up at his face in silence and with brightening eyes.

"And so you found the time long and tedious?" he said.

"I had no one to talk to," she said, with a blank expression.

"Why, you ungrateful little thing! you had good Mrs. Drayton here, and her son, and all the smart young fellows of Hendon who came to drink at the bar and say pretty things to the little bar-maid, and – "

"It's not that – I had no one who knew you," she said, and dropped her voice to a whisper.

"But you go out sometimes – into the village – to London?" he said.

"No, I never go out – never now."

"Then your eyes are really worse?"

"It's not my eyes. But, never mind. Oh, I knew you would not forget me. Only sometimes of an evening, when the dusk fell in, and I sat by the fire all alone, something would say, 'He doesn't want me,' 'He won't come for me.' But that was not true, was it?"

"Why, no; of course not."

"And then when the children came – the neighbor's children, – and I put the little darlings to bed, and they said their prayers to me, and I tried to pray, too – sometimes I was afraid to pray – and then, and then," (she glanced round watchfully and dropped her voice) "something would say, 'Why didn't he leave me alone? I was so happy!'"

"You morbid little woman! You shall be happy again – you are happy now, are you not?" he said.

Her eyes, bleared and red, but bright with the shafts of love, looked up at him in the dumb joy that is perfect happiness.

"Ah!" she said, and dropped her comely head on his breast.

"But you should have taken walks – long, healthy, happy walks," he said.

"I did – while the roses bloomed and the dahlias and things, and I saved so many of them against you would come, moss roses and wild white roses; but you were so long coming and they withered. And then I couldn't throw them away, because, you know, they were yours; so I pressed them in the book you gave me. See, let me show you."

She stepped aside eagerly to pick up a little gilt-edged book from the table in the inner room. He followed her mechanically, hardly heeding her happy prattle.

"And was there no young fellow in all Hendon to make those lonely walks of yours more cheerful?"

She was opening her book with nervous fingers, and stopped to look up with blank eyes.

"Eh? No handsome young fellow who whispered that you were a pretty little thing, and had no right to go moping about by yourself? None? Eh?"

Her old look of weariness was creeping back.

"Come, Mercy, tell the truth, you sly little thing – eh?"

She was fumbling his withered roses with nervous fingers. Her throat felt parched.

He looked down at her saddening face, and then muttered, as if speaking to himself: "I told that Bonnithorne this hole and corner was no place for the girl. He should have taken her to London."

The girl's heart grew sick. The book was closed and dropped back on to the table.

"And now, Mercy," said Hugh Ritson, "I want you to be a good little woman, and do as I bid you, and not speak a word. Will you?"

The child-face brightened, and Mercy nodded her head, a little tear rolling out of one gleaming eye. At the same moment she put her hand in the pocket of her muslin apron, and took out a pair of knitted mittens, and tried to draw them on to Hugh's wrists.

He looked at the gift, and smiled, and said: "I won't need these – not to-day, I mean. See, I wear long gloves, with fur wristbands – there, I'll store your mittens away in my pocket. What a sad little soul – crying again?"

Mercy's pretty dreams were dying one by one. She lifted now a timid hand until it rested lightly on his breast.

"Listen. I'm going out, but I'll soon be back. I must talk with Mrs. Drayton, and I've something to pay her, you know."

The timid hand fell to the girl's side.

"When I return there may be some friends with me – a lady and a gentleman – but I want to see them alone, quite alone, and I don't want them to see you – do you understand?"

A great dumb sadness was closing in on Mercy's heart.

"But they will soon be gone, and then to-morrow you and I must talk again, and try to arrange matters so that you won't be quite so lonely, but will stir about, and see the doctor for your eyes, and get well again, and try to forget – "

"Forget!" said the girl, faintly. Her parched throat took away her voice.

"I mean – that is to say – I was hoping – of course, I mean forget all the trouble in Cumberland. And now get away to bed like a good little girl. I must be off. Ah, how late! – see, a quarter to eleven, and my watch is slow."

He walked into the bar, buttoning up his coat to his ears. The girl followed him listlessly. Mrs. Drayton was washing glasses behind the counter.

"Mind you send this little friend of mine to bed very soon," said Hugh to the landlady. "Look how red her eyes are! And keep a good fire in this cozy parlor on the left – you are to have visitors – you need not trouble about a bedroom – they won't stay long. Let me see, what do they say is the time of your last up-train?"

"To London? The last one starts away at half past twelve," said the landlady.

"Very good. I'll see you again, Mrs. Drayton. Good-night, Mercy, and do keep a brighter face. There – kiss me. Now, good-night – what a silly, affectionate little goose – and mind you are in bed and asleep before I return, or I shall be that angry – yes, I shall. You never saw me angry. Well, never mind. Good-night."

The door opened and closed. Mercy went back into the room. It was cheerless and empty, and the children's happy voices lived in it no more. The girl's heart ached with a dull pain that had never a pang at all, but was dumb and dead and cold; and Mercy was all alone.

"Perhaps he was only in fun when he said that about walking out with somebody and trying to forget, and not being seen," she thought. "Yes; he must have been only in fun," she thought, "because he knew how I waited and waited."

Then she took up again the book that he had hardly glanced at. It fell open at a yellow, dried-up rose that had left the stain of its heart's juice on the white leaf.

"Yes, he was only in fun," she said, and then laughed a little; and then a big drop fell on to the open page and on to the dead flower.

Then she tried to be very brave.

"I must not cry; it makes my eyes, oh! so sore. I must get them well and strong – oh, yes! I must be well and strong against – against – then."

She lifted her head slowly where she stood alone, and a smile, like a summer breeze on still water, rippled over her mouth.

"He kissed me," she thought, "and he came to see me – all this long, long way."

A lovely dream shone in her face now.

"And if he does not come again until – until then – he will be glad – oh, he will be very glad!"

The thought of a future hour when the poor little soul should be rich with something of her own that would be dearest of all because not all her own, shone like a sleeping child's vision in her face. She went out into the bar and lighted a candle.

"So that's your sweetheart – not the lawyer man, eh?" said Mrs. Drayton, bustling about.

"I've no call to hide my face now – not now that he has come – have I?" said Mercy.

"Well, he is free of his money, and I'se just been hoping you get some of it, for, as I says, you want things bad, and them as has the looking to it should find 'em, as is only reasonable."

Mercy did as she had been bidden: she went off to her bedroom. But her head was too full of thoughts for sleep. She examined her face in the glass, and smiled and blushed at it because he called it pretty. It was prettier than ever to her own eyes now. After half an hour she remembered that she had left the book on the table in the parlor, and crept down-stairs to recover it. When she was on the landing at the bottom, she heard a hurried knock at the outer door.

Thereafter all her dreams died in an instant.

CHAPTER V

When Hugh Ritson stepped out into the road, the night was dark. Fresh from the yellow light of the inn, his eyes could barely descry the footpath or see the dim black line of the hedge. The atmosphere was damp. The moisture in the air gathered in great beads on his eyebrows and beard, stiffening them with frost. It was bitterly cold. The mist that rose from the river spread itself over the cold, open wastes of marshy ground that lay to the right and to the left. The gloomy road was thick with half-frozen mud.

Hugh Ritson buttoned his coat yet closer and started at a brisk pace.

"No time to lose," he thought, "if I've to be at the station when the north train goes through. Would have dearly liked to keep an eye on my gentleman. Should have done it, but for the girl. 'Summat on,' eh? What is it, I wonder? It might be useful to know."

With a cutting wind at his back he walked faster as his eyes grew familiar with the darkness. He was thinking that Bonnithorne's telegram might be an error. Perhaps it had even been tampered with. It was barely conceivable that Paul and Greta had ever so much as heard of the Hawk and Heron. And what possible inducement could they have to sleep in Hendon when they would be so near to London?

His mind went back to Mercy Fisher. At that moment she was dreaming beautiful dreams of how happy she was very soon to make him. He was thinking, with vexation, that the girl was a connecting link with the people in Cumberland. Yes – and the only link, too. Could it be that Mercy – No; the idea of Mercy's disloyalty to him was really too ridiculous. If he could get to the station before the train from the north was due to stop there, he would see for himself whether Paul and Greta alighted. If they did not, as they must be in that train, he would get into it also, and go on with them to London. Bonnithorne might have blundered.

The journey was long, and the roads were heavy for walking. It seemed a far greater distance than he had thought. At the angle of a gate and a thick brier hedge he struck a match and read the time by his watch. Eleven o'clock. Too late, if the watch were not more than a minute slow.

At that moment he heard the whistle of a train, and between the whirs of the wind he heard the tinkle of the signal bell. Too late, indeed. He was still a quarter of a mile from the station.

Still he held on his way, without hope for his purpose, yet quickening his pace to a sharp run.

He had come within three hundred yards of the station when he heard an unearthly scream, followed in an instant by a great clamor and tumult of human voices. Shrieks, shouts, groans, sobs, wails – all were mingled together in one agonized cry that rent the thick night air asunder.

Hugh Ritson ran faster.

Then he saw haggard men and women appearing and disappearing before him in the light of a fire that panted on the ground like an overthrown horse.

The north train had been wrecked.

Within a dozen yards from the station the engine and three of the front carriages had broken from their couplings and plunged on to the bank. The last four carriages, free of the fatal chain, had kept the rails and were standing unharmed above.

Women who had been dragged through the tops of the overturned carriages fled away with white faces into the darkness of the fields. Men, too, with panic-stricken eyes, sat down on the grass, helpless and useless. Some resolute souls, roused to activity, were pulling at the carriages to set them right. Men from the station came with lanterns, and rescued the injured, and put them to lie out of harm's way.

The scene was harrowing, and only two of its incidents are material to this history. Over all the rest, the clamor, the tumult, the agony, the abject fear, and the noble courage, let a veil be drawn.

Fate had brought together, in that hour of disaster, three men whose lives, hitherto apart, were henceforth to be bound up as one life for good or ill.

Hugh Ritson rushed here and there like a man distraught. He peered into every face. He caught up a lantern that some one had set down, and ran to and fro in the darkness, stooping to let the light fall on those on the ground, holding up the red glare to the windows of the uninjured carriages.

At that moment all his frozen soul seemed to melt. Face to face with the pitiless work of destiny, his own heartless schemes disappeared. At last he saw the face he looked for. Then he dropped the lantern to his side, and turned the glass of it from him.

"Stay here, Greta," said a voice he knew. "I shall be back with you presently. Let me lend them a hand over yonder." The man went by him in the darkness.

Hark!

Hugh Ritson heard a cry from the field beyond the bank. It was there that they had placed the injured.

"Help! help! I am robbed – help!" came out of the darkness.

"Where are you?" asked another voice.

"Here! Help! help!"

Hugh Ritson ran toward the place whence the first voice came, and saw the figure of a man stooping over something that lay on the ground. At the same moment another man rushed up and laid strong hold of the stooping figure. There was a short, sharp struggle. The two men were of one stature, one strength. There was a sound as of cloth ripped asunder.

At the next moment one of the men went by like the wind and was lost in the blackness of the fields. But Hugh Ritson had held up the lantern as the man passed, and caught one swift glimpse of his face. He knew him.

A group had gathered about the injured person on the ground and about the other man who had struggled to defend him.

"Could you not hold the scoundrel?" said one.

"I held him till his coat came to pieces in my hand. See here," said the other.