A Son of Hagar: A Romance of Our Time

"Came this morning, you say? It was written last Tuesday – nearly a week ago."

Hugh nodded his head over his shoulder, and continued to play. He swayed to and fro with an easy grace to the long sweeps of the music until the door opened sharply, and Paul entered with a firm step. Then he rose, picked a pen from the inkstand, and dipped it in the ink.

Paul wore a suit of rough, light cloth, with leggins, and a fur cap, which he did not remove. His face was pale; decision sat on every line of it.

"Excuse me, Mr. Bonnithorne, if I don't shake hands," he said in his deep voice; "I'm at work, and none too clean."

"This," said Hugh Ritson, twiddling the pen in his fingers, "this is the deed I spoke of yesterday. You sign there," pointing to a blank space in front of a little wafer.

Then he placed one hand firmly on the upper part of the parchment, as if to steady it, and held out the pen.

Paul made no approach to accepting it. He stretched forward, took hold of the document, and lifted it, casting Hugh's hand aside.

Hugh watched him closely.

"The usual formality," he said, lightly; "nothing more."

Paul passed his eye rapidly over the deed. Then he turned to the lawyer.

"Is this the fourth or fifth mortgage that has been drawn?" he inquired, still holding the parchment before him.

"Really, I can't say – I presume it is the – really, I hardly remember – "

Mr. Bonnithorne's suavity of tone and customary smile broke down into silence and a look of lowering anxiety.

Paul glanced steadfastly into his face.

"But I remember," he said, with composure more embarrassing than violence. "It is the fifth. The Holme farm was first, and then came Goldscope. Hindscarth was mortgaged to the last ear of corn, and then it was the turn for Coledale. Now, it's the Ghyll itself, I see, house and buildings."

Hugh Ritson's face underwent a change, but his tone was unruffled as he said:

"If you please, we will come to business." Then with a sinister smile, "You resemble the French counsel – you begin every speech at the Creation. 'Let us go on to the Deluge,' said the judge."

"To the Deluge!" said Paul; and he turned his head slowly to where Hugh stood, holding the pen in one hand and rapping the table with the knuckles of the other. "Rather unnecessary. We're already under water."

The passion in Hugh Ritson's face dropped to a look of sullen anger. But he mastered his voice, and said quietly:

"The engineer from Crewe is waiting for me at the pit. I have wasted the whole morning over these formalities. Come, come, let us have done. Mr. Bonnithorne will witness the signature."

Paul had not shifted his steadfast gaze from his brother's face. Hugh dodged his glance at first, and then met it with an expression of audacity.

Still holding the parchment before him, Paul said quietly:

"To-night I leave home for London, and shall be absent four days. Can this business wait until my return?"

"No, it can't," said Hugh with emphasis.

Paul dropped his voice.

"Don't take that tone with me, I warn you. Can this business wait?"

"I mean what I say – it can not."

"On my return I may have something to tell you that will affect this and the other deeds. Once more, can it wait?"

"Will you sign – yes or no?" said Hugh.

Paul looked steady and straight into his brother's eyes.

"You are draining away my inheritance – you are – "

At this word Hugh's smoldering temper was afire.

"Your inheritance?" he broke out in his bitterest tones. "It is late in the day to talk of that. Your inheritance – "

But he stopped. The expression of audacity gave place to a look of blank bewilderment. Paul had torn the parchment from top to bottom, and flung it on the table, and in an instant was walking out of the room.

CHAPTER IV

Paul Ritson returned to the stack-yard, and worked vigorously three hours longer. A stack had been stripped by a recent storm, and he thatched it afresh with the help of a laborer and a boy. Then he stepped indoors, changed his clothes, and filled a traveling-bag. When this was done he went in search of the stableman. Natt was in his stable, whistling as he polished his harness.

"Bring the trap round to the front at seven," he said, "and put my bag in at the back; you'll find it in the hall."

By this time the night had closed in, and the young moon showed faintly over the head of Hindscarth. The wind was rising.

Paul returned to the house, ate, drank, and smoked. Then he rose and walked upstairs and knocked at the door of his mother's room.

Mrs. Ritson was alone. A lamp burned on the table and cast a sharp white light on her face. The face was worn and very pale. Lines were plowed deep on it. She was kneeling, but she rose as Paul entered. He bent his head and kissed her forehead. There was a book before her; a rosary was in her hand. The room was without fire. It was chill and cheerless, and only sparsely furnished – sheep-skin rugs on the floor, texts on the walls, a carved oak clothes-chest in one corner, two square high-backed chairs and a small table, a bed, and no more.

"I'm going off, mother," said Paul; "the train leaves in an hour."

"When do you return?" said Mrs. Ritson.

"Let me see – this is Saturday; I shall be back on Wednesday evening."

"God be with you!" she said in a fervent voice.

"Mother, I spoke to Greta last night, and she promised. We shall soon be free of this tyranny. Already the first link of the chain is broken. He called me into his room this morning to sign a mortgage on the Ghyll, and I refused."

"And yet you are about to go away and leave everything in his hands!"

Mrs. Ritson sat down and Paul put his hand tenderly on her head.

"Better that than to have it wrested from me inch by inch – to hold the shadow of an inheritance while he grasps the substance. He knows all. His dark hints are not needed to tell me that."

"Yet he is silent," said Mrs. Ritson, and her eyes fell on to her book. "And surely it is for my sake that he is so – if in truth he knows all. Is he not my son? And is not my honor his honor?"

Paul shook his head.

"If the honor of twenty mothers, as true and dear as you, were the stepping-stones to his interest, over those stones he would go. No, no; it is not honor, whether yours or his, that keeps him silent."

Mrs. Ritson glanced up.

"Are you not too hard on him? He is guiltless in the eye of the world, and that at least should plead for him. Forgive him. Do not leave your brother in anger!"

"I have nothing to forgive," said Paul. "Even if he knew nothing, I should still go away and leave everything. I could not live any longer under the shadow of this secret, bound by an oath. I would go, as I go now, with sealed lips, but a free heart. He should have his own before man – and I mine, before God."

Mrs. Ritson sat in silence; her lips trembled perceptibly, and her eyelids quivered.

"I shall soon leave you, my dear son," she said in a tremulous voice.

"Nay, nay, you shall not," he answered in an altered tone, half of raillery, half of tenderness; "you are coming with us – with Greta and me – and over there the roses will bloom again in your white cheeks."

Mrs. Ritson shook her head.

"I shall soon leave you, dearest," she repeated, and told her beads.

He tried to dispel her sadness; he laughed, and she smiled feebly; he patted her head playfully. But she came back to the same words: "I shall soon leave you."

The moon was shining at the full when he lifted his hat to go. It was sailing through a sky of fibrous cloud. The wind was high, and rattled the empty boughs of the tree against the window. Keen frost was in the air.

"I shall see my father's old friend in London on Monday, and be back on Wednesday. Good-bye. Keep a good heart. Good-bye."

She wept on his breast and clung to him.

"Good-bye, good-bye!" he repeated, and triad to disengage himself from her embrace.

But she clung closer. It was as if she was to see him no more.

"Good-bye!" she sobbed, and with the tears in his own eyes he laughed at her idle fears.

"Ha! ha! ha! one would think I was going for life – ha! ha – "

There was a scream on the frosty air without. His laugh died on his lips.

"What was that?" he said, and drew a sharp breath.

She lifted her face, whiter now than ever, and with tearless eyes.

"It was the cry of the bird that foretells death," she said in a whisper.

He laughed a little – boisterously.

"Nay, nay; you will be well and happy yet." Then he broke away.

Natt was sitting in the trap, and it was drawn up in the court-yard to the door. He was looking through the darkness at some object in the distance, and when Paul came up he was not at first conscious of his master's presence.

"What were you looking at, Natt?" said Paul, pulling on his gloves.

"I war wond'rin' whether lang Dick o' the Syke had kindled a fire to-night, or whether yon lowe on the side of the Causey were frae the new smelting-house."

Paul glanced over the horse's head. A deep glow stood out against the fell. All around was darkness.

"The smelting-house, I should say," said Paul, and jumped to his seat beside Natt.

By one of the lamps that the trap carried, he looked at his watch.

"A quarter past seven. It will be smart driving, but you can give the mare her own time coming back."

Then he took the reins, and in another moment they were gone.

CHAPTER V

At eight o'clock that night the sky was brilliantly lighted up, and the sound of many voices was borne on the night wind. The red flare came from the Syke; the mill was afire. Showers of sparks and sheets of flame were leaping and streaming into the sky. Men and women were hurrying to and fro, and the women's shrill cries mingled with the men's shouts. At intervals the brightness of the glare faded, and then a column of choking smoke poured out and was borne away on the wind. Dick, the miller, was there, with the scorching heat reddening his wrathful face. John Proudfoot had raised a ladder against the mill, and, hatchet in hand, was going to cut away the cross-trees; but the heat drove him back. The sharp snap of the flames told of timbers being ripped away.

"No use – it's gone," said the blacksmith, dragging the ladder behind him.

"I telt them afore what their damned smelting-house would do for me!" said the miller, striding about in his impotent rage.

Parson Christian was standing by the gate on the windward side of the mill-yard, with Laird Fisher beside him, looking on in silence at the leaping flames.

"The wind is from the south," he said, "and a spark of the hot refuse shot down the bank has been blown into the mill."

The mill was a wooden structure, and the fire held it like a serpent in its grip. People were coming and going from the darkness into the red glare, and out of the glare into the darkness. Among them was one stalwart figure that none noticed in the general confusion.

"Have you a tarpaulin?" said this man, addressing those about him.

"There's a big one on the stack at Coledale," answered another.

"Run for it!"

"It's of no use."

"Damme, run for it!"

The tone of authority was not to be ignored. In three minutes a huge tarpaulin was being dragged behind a dozen men.

"Lay hold of the ropes and let us dip it into the river," shouted the same voice above the prevailing clangor. It was done. Dripping wet, the tarpaulin was pulled into the mill-yard.

"Where's your ladder? Quick!"

The ladder was raised against the scorching wooden walls.

"Be ready to throw me the ropes," shouted the deep voice.

A firm step was set on the lowest rung. There was a crackle of glass, and then a cloud of smoke streamed out of a broken window. For an instant the bright glare was obscured. But it burst forth afresh, and leaped with great white tongues into the sky.

"The sheets are caught!" shouted the miller.

They were flying around with the wind. A line of flame seemed to be pursuing them.

"Who's the man on the ladder – dusta know?" cried John Proudfoot.

"I dunnot," answered the miller.

At that instant Hugh Ritson came up. The smoke was gone, and now a dark figure could be dimly seen high up on the mill-side. He seized the cross-trees with both hands and swung himself on to the raking roof.

"Now for the ropes!" he shouted.

The flames burst out again and illumined the whole sky; the dark mass of the fells could be seen far overhead, and the waters of the river in the bed of the valley glowed like amber. The stalwart figure stood out in the white light against the red glare, holding on to the cross-trees on the top of the mill, and with a wheel of crackling fire careering beside him.

There could be no doubt of his identity, with the light on his strong face and tawny hair.

"It's Paul Ritson!" shouted many a voice.

"Damme, the ropes – quick!"

The ropes were thrown and caught, and thrown again to the other side. Then the dripping tarpaulin was drawn over the mill until it covered the top and half the sides. The wheel burned out, and the iron axle came to the ground with a plunge.

The fire was conquered; the night sky grew black; the night wind became voiceless. Then the busy throng had time for talk.

"Where's Paul?" asked Parson Christian.

"Ay, where is he?" said the miller.

"He's a stunner, for sure – where is he?" said the blacksmith.

None knew. When the flames began to fade he was missed. He had gone – none knew where.

"Nine o'clock," said Parson Christian, turning his face toward home. "Sharp work, while it lasted, my lads!"

Then there was the sound of wheels, and Natt drove his trap to the gate of the mill-yard.

"You've just missed it, Natt," said John Proudfoot; "where have you been?"

"Driving the master to the train."

Hugh Ritson was standing by. Every one glanced from him to Natt.

"The train? – master? What do you mean? Who?"

"Who? Why, Master Paul," said Natt, with a curl of the lip. "I reckon it could scarce be Master Hugh."

"When? What train?" said Parson Christian.

"The eight o'clock to London."

"Eight o'clock? London?"

"Don't I speak plain?"

"And has he gone?"

"I's warrant he's gone."

Consternation sat on every face but Natt's.

CHAPTER VI

Next day was Sunday, and after morning service a group of men gathered about the church porch to discuss the events of the night before. In the evening the parlor of the Flying Horse was full of dalespeople, and many a sapient theory was then and there put forth to account for the extraordinary coincidence of the presence of Paul Ritson at the fire and his alleged departure by the London train.

Hugh Ritson was not seen abroad that day. But early on Monday morning he hastened to the stable, called on Natt to saddle a horse, sprung on its back and galloped away toward the town.

The morning was bitterly cold, and the rider was buttoned up to the throat. The air was damp; a dense veil of vapor lay on the valley and hid half the fells; the wintery dawn, with its sunless sky, had not the strength to rend it asunder; the wind had veered to the north, and was now dank and icy. A snow-storm was coming.

The face of Hugh Ritson was wan and jaded. He leaned heavily forward in the saddle; the biting wind was in his eyes; he had a fixed look, and seemed not to see the people whom he passed on the road.

Dick o' the Syke was grubbing among the fallen wreck of the charred and dismantled mill. When Hugh rode past him he lifted his eyes and muttered an oath beneath his breath. Old Laird Fisher was trundling a wheelbarrow on the bank of the smelting-house. The headgear of the pit-shaft was working. As Hugh passed the smithy, John Proudfoot was standing, hammer in hand, by the side of a wheelless wagon upheld by poles. John was saying, "Wonder what sec a place Mister Paul slept a' Saturday neet – I reckon that wad settle all;" and a voice from inside the smithy answered: "Nowt of the sort, John; it's a fate, I tell, tha." The peddler's pony was standing by the hasp of the gate.

Never once lifting his eyes, with head bent and compressed lips, Hugh Ritson rode on in the teeth of the coming storm. There was another storm within that was uprooting every emotion of his soul. When he came to the vicarage he drew up sharply and rapped heavily on the gate. Brother Peter came shambling out at the speed of six steps a minute.

"Mr. Christian at home?" asked Hugh.

"Don't know as he is," said Peter.

"Where is he?"

"Don't know as I've heard."

"Tell him I'll call as I come back, in two hours."

"Don't know as I'll see him."

"Then go and look for him!" shouted Hugh, impatiently bringing down the whip on the flank of the horse.

Brother Peter Ward turned about sulkily.

"Don't know as I will," he grumbled, and trudged back into the house.

Then Hugh Ritson rode on. A thin sleet began to fall, and it drove hard into his face. The roads were crisp, and the horse sometimes stumbled; but the rider pressed on.

In less than half an hour he was riding into the town. The people who were standing in groups in the market-place parted and made space for him. They hailed him with respectful salutations. He responded curtly or not at all. Notwithstanding his long ride, his face was still pale, and his lips were bloodless. He stopped at the court-yard leading to the front of the Pack Horse. Old Willie Calvert, the innkeeper, stood there, and touched his cap when Hugh approached him.

"My brother Paul slept here a few nights ago, I hear?" said Hugh.

"So he did," said the innkeeper.

"What night was it?"

"What night? Let me see – it were a week come Wednesday."

"Did you see him yourself?"

"Nay; I were lang abed."

"Who did – Mistress Calvert?"

"Ey – she did for sure – Janet" (calling up the court). "She'll tell ye all the ins and oots."

A comfortable-looking elderly body in a white cap and print apron came to the door.

"You saw my brother – Paul, you know – when he slept at your house last Wednesday night?"

"Yes, surely," said Janet.

"What did he say?"

"Nay, nowt. It was verra late – maybe twelve o'clock – and I was bolting up and had the cannel in my hand to get me to bed, and a rap came, and when I opened the door who should it be but Mister Paul. He said he wanted a bed, but he seem't to be in the doldrums and noways keen for a crack, so I ax't na questions, but just took him to the little green room over the snug and bid him good-night."

"And next morning – did you see him then?" said Hugh.

"No, but a morning when he paid for his bed for he had nowther bite nor sup in the house."

"Did he look changed? – anything different about him?"

"Nay, nowt but in low feckle someways, and maybe summat different dressed."

"How different? What did he wear that night?"

Pale as Hugh Ritson's face had been before, it was now white as a face in moonlight.

"Maybe a pepper and salt tweed coat, but I can't rightly call to mind at the minute."

Hugh's great eyes stared out of his head. His tongue cleaved to his mouth, and for the moment denied him speech.

"Thank you, Mistress Calvert. Here, Willie, my man, drink my health with the missis."

So saying, he tossed a silver coin to the innkeeper, wheeled about, and rode off.

"I can not mak' nowther head nor tail o' this," said the old man.

"Of what – the brass?" said Janet.

"Nay, but that's soond enough, for sure, auld lass."

"Then just thoo leave other folks's business to theirselves, and come thy ways in with thee. Thoo wert allus thrang a-meddlin'."

The innkeeper had gone indoors and drawn himself a draught of ale.

"I allus like to see the ins and oots o' things," he observed, with a twinkle in his eye, and the pot to his mouth.

"Mind as you're not ower keen at seein' the ins and oots o' that pewter."

"I'll be keerful, auld lass."

Hugh Ritson's horse went clattering over the stones of the streets until it came to the house of Mr. Bonnithorne. Then Hugh drew up sharply, jumped from the saddle, tied the reins to the loop in the gate-pier, and rang the bell. In another minute he was standing in the breakfast-room, which was made comfortable by a glowing fire. Mr. Bonnithorne, in dressing-gown and slippers, rose from his easy-chair with a look of surprise.

"Did you hear of the fire at the mill on Saturday night?" asked Hugh in a faltering voice.

Mr. Bonnithorne nodded his head.

"Very unlucky, very," said the lawyer. "The man will want recompense, and the law will support him."

"Tut! – a bagatelle!" said Hugh, with a gesture of impatience.

"Of course, if you say so – "

"You've heard nothing about Paul?"

Mr. Bonnithorne answered with a shake of his yellow head, and a look of inquiry.

Then Hugh told him of the man at the fire, and of Natt's story when he drove up in the trap. He spoke with visible embarrassment, and in a voice that could scarcely support itself. But the deep fear that had come over him had not yet taken hold of the lawyer. Mr. Bonnithorne listened with a bland smile of amused incredulity. Hugh stopped with a shudder.

"What are you thinking?" he asked, nervously.

"That Natt lied."

"As well say that the people at the fire lied."

"No; you yourself saw Paul there."

"Bonnithorne, like all keen-eyed men, you are short-sighted. I have something more to tell you. The people at the Pack Horse say that Paul slept at their house last Wednesday night. Now I know that he slept at home."

Mr. Bonnithorne smiled again.

"A mistake as to the night," he said; "what can be plainer?"

"Don't wriggle; look the facts in the face."

"Facts? – a coincidence in evidence – a common error."

"Would to God it were!" Hugh strode about the room in obvious perturbation, his eyes bent on the ground. "Bonnithorne, what is the place where the girl Mercy lives?"

"An inn at Hendon."

"Do they call it the Hawk and Heron?"

"They do. The old woman Drayton keeps it."

Hugh Ritson's step faltered. He listened with a look of stupid consternation.

"Did I never tell you that the peddler, Oglethorpe, said he saw Paul at the Hawk and Heron in Hendon?"

Mr. Bonnithorne dropped back into his seat without a word. Conviction was taking hold of him.

"What do the folks say?" he asked at length.

"Say? That it was a ghost, a wraith, twenty things – the idiots!"

"What do you say, Mr. Ritson?"

"That it was another man."

The lawyer remained sitting, his eyes fixed and vacant.

"What then? What if it is another man? Resemblances are common. We are all brothers. For example, there are numbers of persons like myself in the world. Odd, isn't it?"

"Very," said Hugh, with a hard laugh.

"And what if there exists a man resembling your half-brother, Paul, so closely that on three several occasions he has been mistaken for him by competent witnesses – what does it come to?"

Hugh paused.

"Come to. God knows! I want to find out. Who is this man? What is he? Where does he come from? What is his business here? Why, of all places on this wide earth, does he, of all men alive, haunt my house like a shadow?"

Hugh Ritson was still visibly perturbed.

"There's more in this matter than either of us knows," he said.

Mr. Bonnithorne watched him for a moment in silence.

"I think you draw a painful inference – what is it?" he asked.

"What?" repeated Hugh, and added, absently, "who can tell?"

Up and down the room he walked restlessly, his eyes bent on the floor, his face drawn down into lines. At length he stood and picked up the hat he had thrown on the couch.

"Bonnithorne," he said, "you and I thought we saw into the heart of a mystery. Heaven pity us for blind moles! I fear we saw nothing."

"Why – what – how so – when – " Mr. Bonnithorne stammered, and then stopped short.

Hugh had walked out of the room and out of the house. He leaped into the saddle and rode away.

The wind had risen yet higher; it blew an icy blast from behind him as he cantered home. Through the hazy atmosphere a cloud of dun, vaporish red could be seen trailing over the dim fells. It poised above the ball crown of the Eel Crags like a huge supernatural bird with outstretched wings.