The Prophet's Mantle

He gave a yell of triumph as he saw a grey figure struggling up the incline before him.

'Aha, Mr Secretary,' he cried, and, raising his carbine, fired; the grey figure stumbled forward into the snow. 'You're done for, at any rate!'

The Cossack's triumph was a short one. As he dashed forward to secure his fallen quarry, another figure sprang from the snowy brushwood a little ahead of him, walked calmly towards him, raised a revolver, and shot him through the heart.

A week or two later one of those short and inaccurate paragraphs which date from St Petersburg appeared in several European papers. It was to the effect that Count Michael Litvinoff had been captured, after a desperate struggle, near the frontier, and that his private secretary, a young Englishman, had been shot in the fray.

But the French papers knew better, and that report was promptly contradicted.

The Débats, while confirming the news of the secretary's death, asserted that Count Michael Litvinoff was at that moment at the Hôtel du Louvre, and his bankers would have confirmed the statement.

And in the rooms of the Count at the Hôtel du Louvre a haggard, weary-faced man, almost worn out by the desperate excitement and the horrors of the last few weeks, was pacing up and down, unable to get away from the picture, that was ever before his eyes, of his friend's dead face, bloodstained and upturned from the snow, in the cold, grey morning light; unable to escape from that triumphant shout, 'Aha, Mr Secretary, you're done for, at any rate,' which seemed as if it would ring for ever in his ears.

'I would give ten years of my life to undo that night's work. I shall never meet another man quite like him. I wish the brute had shot me,' he said to himself over and over again.

CHAPTER I.

FATHER AND SONS

THE light was fading among the Derbyshire hills. The trees, now almost bare, were stirred by the fretful wind into what seemed like a passionate wail for their own lost loveliness, and on the wide bare stretch of moorland behind the house the strange weird cry of the plovers sounded like a dirge over the dead summer. The sharp, intermittent rain had beaten all the beauty out of the few late autumn flowers in the garden, and it was tender of the twilight to hasten to deepen into a darkness heavy enough to hide such a grey desolate picture.

Inside Thornsett Edge another and a deeper darkness was falling. Old Richard Ferrier was sick unto death, and he alone of all the household knew it. He knew it, and he was not sorry. Yet he sighed.

'What is it, Richard? Can I get you anything?'

A woman sitting behind his bed-curtain leaned forward to put the question—a faded woman, with grey curls and a face marked with deep care lines. It was his sister.

'Where are the boys?'

'Gone to Aspinshaw.'

'Both of them?'

'Yes; I asked Dick to take a note for me, and Roland said he'd go too.'

The old man looked pleased.

'Did you want either of them?' she asked.

'I want them both when they come in.'

'Suppose you are asleep?'

'I shall not sleep until I have seen my sons.'

'Art thee better to-night, Richard?' she asked in a tone of tender solicitude, dropping back, as people so often do in moments of anxiety, into the soft sing-song accent that had once been habitual to her.

'Ay, I'm better, lass,' he said, returning the pressure of the hand she laid on his.

'Wilt have a light?'

'Not yet a-bit,' he answered. 'I like to lie so, and watch the day right out,' and he turned his face towards the square of grey sky framed by the window.

There was hardly more pleasantness left in his life than in the dreary rain-washed garden outside. And yet his life had not been without its triumphs—as the world counts success. He had, when still young, married the woman he passionately loved, and work for her sake had seemed so easy that he had risen from poverty to competence, and from competence to wealth. Born in the poorest ranks of the workers in a crowded Stockport alley, he had started in life as a mill 'hand,' and he was ending it now a millowner, and master of many hands.

He had himself been taught in no school but that of life; but he did not attribute his own success to his education any more than he did the fatuous failure of some University men to their peculiar training; so he had sent his sons to Cambridge, and had lived to see them leave their college well-grown and handsome, with not more than the average stock of prejudices and follies, and fit to be compared, not unfavourably, with any young men in the county.

But by some fatality he had never tasted the full sweetness of any of the fruit his life-tree had borne him. His parents had died in want and misery at a time when he himself was too poor to help them. His wife, who had bravely shared his earlier struggles, did not live to share their reward. She patiently bore the trials of their early married life, but in the comfort that was to follow she had no part. She died, and left him almost broken-hearted. Her memory would always be the dearest thing in the world to him; but a man's warm, living, beating heart needs something more than a memory to lavish its love upon. This something more he found in her children. In them all his hopes had been centred; for them all his efforts had been made. They were, individually, all that he had dreamed they might be, and they were both devoted to him; and yet, as he lay on his deathbed, his mind was ill at ease about them. Did he exaggerate? Was it weakness and illness, the beginning of the end, that had made him think, through these last few weeks, that there was growing up between these two beloved sons a coolness—a want of sympathy, an indisposition to run well in harness together—which might lead to sore trouble?

There certainly had been one or two slight quarrels between them which had been made up through his own intervention. How would it be, he wondered, when he was not there any more to smooth things over? Somehow he did not feel that he cared to live any longer, even to keep peace between his boys. That must be done some other way. Truth to say, he was very tired of being alive.

The October day faded, and presently the sick-room was lighted only by the red flickering glow of the fire, which threw strange fantastic shadows from the handsome commonplace furniture, and made the portraits on the walls seem to look out of their frames with quite new expressions.

Old Ferrier lay looking at the pictures in a tremor of expectation that made the time seem very long indeed. At last his strained sense caught the faint click of the Brahma lock as it was opened by a key from without, and the bang of the front door as it was closed somewhat hurriedly from within.

'There they are,' he said at once. 'Send them up, Letitia.'

As she laid her hand on the door to open it, another hand grasped the handle on the other side, and a tall, broad-shouldered young fellow came in, with the glisten of rain still on his brown moustache, and on his great-coat, seeming to bring with him a breath of freshness and the night air.

'Ah, Dick! I was just coming down for you. Where is Roland?'

'He stayed awhile at Aspinshaw. How's father?'

'Awake, and asking for you,' said his aunt, and went away, closing the door softly.

'Well, dad, how goes it?' said the new-comer, stepping forward into the glow of the firelight.

'Light the candles,' said his father, without answering the question, and the young man lighted two in heavy silver candlesticks which stood on the dressing-table.

As their pale light fell on the white face lying against the hardly whiter pillow, Dick's eyes scrutinised it anxiously.

'You don't look any better,' he said, sitting down by the bed, and taking his father's hand. 'I wish I'd been at home when that doctor came yesterday.'

'I'm glad you weren't Dick; I'd rather tell you myself. I wish your brother were here.'

'I daresay he won't be long,' said the other, frowning a little, while the lines about his mouth grew hard and set; 'but what did the doctor say? Aunt Letitia didn't seem to know anything about it.'

'He told me I shouldn't live to see another birthday,' said the old man. He had rehearsed in his own mind over and over again how he should break this news to his boys, and now he was telling it in a way quite other than any that had been in his rehearsals.

'Not see another birthday!' echoed his son. 'Nonsense! Why, father,' he added, with a sudden start, 'your birthday's on Wednesday. How could he? I'll write to him.'

'My dear boy, I felt it before he told me. He only put into words what I've known ever since I've been lying here. There's no getting over it. I'm going.'

Dick did not speak. He pressed his father's hand hard, and then, letting it fall, he walked over to the hearthrug, and stood with his hands behind him, looking into the fire.

'Come back; come here!' said the wavering voice from the bed. 'I want you, Dick.'

'Can't I do something for you, dad?' he said, in very much lower tones than usual, as he sat down again by the bed. He kept his face in the shadow of the curtain.

'We've always got on very well together, Dick.'

'Yes—we've been very good friends.'

'I wish you were as good friends with your brother as you are with your old father.'

'I'm not bad friends with him; and, after all, your father's your father, and that makes all the difference.'

'Your brother will soon be the nearest thing in the world to you. Oh, my boy,' said old Ferrier, suddenly raising himself on his elbow, and clasping Dick's strong right hand in both his, 'for God's sake, don't quarrel with him! If you ever cared for me, keep friends with him. If you and he weren't friends, I couldn't lie easy in my grave. And it's been a long life—I should like to lie easy at last!'

'I don't quarrel with him, father.'

'Well, lad—well, I've thought you did; perhaps I'm wrong. Anyway, don't quarrel—if it's only for your old dad's sake. I've loved you both so dearly.'

'I will try to do everything you wish.'

'I know you will, Dick. You always have done that. Was that Roland just came in? If it is, send him to me.'

The young man stood silently for a few moments. Then he bent down over his father and kissed his forehead twice. When he left the room he met a servant on the landing.

'Is Mr Roland at home yet?'

'Yes, sir; he's just come in.'

'Tell him Mr Ferrier wishes to see him at once.'

'Miss Ferrier told him, sir, directly he came in.'

He turned and went to his own room.

A quarter of an hour later Roland stood outside his father's door. He opened it gently, and entered, his slippered feet treading the floor of the sick-room as silently as a nurse's.

As he stood a moment in the dim light, eyes less keen and less expectant than those looking at him from the bed might have easily mistaken him for his brother. The slight difference in breadth of shoulder and depth of chest was concealed by the loose indoor jacket he wore. There was no trace about him of his wet and muddy walk, and he looked altogether a much fitter occupant for the easy-chair that stood at the sick man's bedside than the stalwart, weather-stained, and unsympathetic-looking figure that had last sat in it.

'Rowley, why didn't you come before?' began the old man.

'Oh, I couldn't, father. It is a beastly night. I was awfully wet and muddy. I only waited to change my things, and make myself presentable. How are you to-night?'

'Your brother came up wet enough,' was all the answer.

'Did he? What a careless fellow he is. He never seems to think of that sort of thing.'

'Oh, well, I suppose you didn't know.'

'Know what, father?'

'How much I wanted to see you.'

'Why, no, of course I didn't,' said Roland in an altered tone, and with a look of new anxiety in his face. 'What is it, father? I thought you were better to-day.'

'I shall never be better, lad. Doctor Gibson told me so, and I know he's right. You and Dick will soon be masters here. But don't worry, Rowley,' he added, catching both his son's arms; 'it was bound to come some day.'

For a moment the young man had hardly seemed to realise what the words meant; but now a long, anxious, eager look at his father's face made the truth clear to him. An intense anguish came into his face, and throwing his arms round the other's neck, he fell on his knees in a burst of passionate tears.

'Oh, father, father, no, no—not yet—don't say that—I can't do without you. Oh, why have I left you since you have been ill?'

The old man caressed him silently. There was a sort of pleasure in feeling oneself regretted with this passion of sorrow and longing. After a while.

'Rowley,' said he, as the sobs grew less frequent and less violent, 'I'm going to ask you to do something for me.'

'Anything you like, father—the harder the better.'

'It ought not to be very hard to you, my son. Promise me that you will always keep good friends with Dick.'

'Yes—yes—I will, indeed.'

But little more was said. Roland seemed unable to utter anything save incoherent protestations of love and sorrow.

At last, warned by the weariness that was creeping into his father's face, he bade him a very tender and lingering good-night.

'Have me called at once if you are worse—or if I can do anything,' were his last words as he left the room.

The watchful woman's face was by the bed again in an instant.

'I want—' the old man began.

'You want your beef tea, Richard, and here it is.'

As he took it he asked,—

'Is it too late to send for Gates?'

'Oh, no; and it's such a little way for him to come.'

Mr Gates was a member of a firm of Stockport solicitors, and his country house was but a stone's-throw from Thornsett Edge. It was not long before he in his turn occupied that chair by the bed. He bore with him an atmosphere of jollity which even the hush of that sick-room was powerless to dispel. He was not unsympathetic either, by any means, but he seemed made up of equal parts of kindheartedness and high spirits, and looked much more like an ideal country squire than like the ordinary legal adviser. As a matter of fact, he was more at home on the moor side or in the stubble than among dusty documents and leather-bound Acts of Parliament. It was his boast that he only had eight clients, and that he lived on them, and, judging by his appearance, they furnished uncommonly good living. He had a genial, hearty way with him which made him a favourite with every man, woman and child he came across, and he knew quite enough law to fully justify the confidence of the eight above mentioned.

'What, Mr Ferrier, still in bed! Why, we thought old Gibson would have had you on your legs again in no time. I quite expected to see you driving over to the Wirksvale wakes to-morrow.'

'I shall never go behind any but the black horses again, Gates. It's no use. I'm settled, and I want you to alter my will.'

'I'll alter your will with pleasure, if you like. Though I must say it's so much more sensible than most people's wills that I wonder you want to alter it; but you mustn't talk of black horses and that sort of thing for another ten years. Don't lose heart; you'll live to alter your will a score of times yet.'

In an eager, tremulous voice Ferrier begged the other to believe that his fate was sealed, and that whatever was done must be done quickly. Then he proceeded to explain the changes he wished to have made in the will. He told the lawyer, without any of that reserve which ordinarily characterised him, all his fears about his sons, and then unfolded the scheme by which he thought to bind the two together. He wished their worldly interests to be so strongly bound up in their relations to each other that a quarrel à outrance would mean ruin to both of them; and to this end he proposed to leave the mill to them jointly, on condition that they worked it together, and both took an active part in the management of it. Should they dissolve partnership before twenty-one years, or should either retire with consent of the other, the personal property was not to be touched by either, and at end of ten years—if they were both alive and still separated—the whole was to go to the Manchester Infirmary.

Mr Gates noted this extraordinary scheme down on the back of an old letter, and when Mr Ferrier had ended, read his notes through and shook his head.

'Far better leave it alone, Mr Ferrier; they seem the best of friends, and legacies like this never help matters much, anyhow.'

'I can't leave it alone, Gates. I've very little time left. The will is in that despatch-box, and there are pen and ink somewhere about.'

'Do be advised,' began Gates, his jolly face considerably graver than usual.

'I tell you I must have it done, and done at once. I'm deadly tired, and I want it over.'

Mr Gates shrugged his shoulders, got out the will, and settled himself at the round table, on whose crimson velvet-pile cloth stood a papier-maché inkstand, a recent purchase of Miss Letitia's.

He sat there biting his pen, and making aimless little scribbles on a sheet of blank paper. After some minutes he leaned forward, and for a little time no sound was heard but the squeak of his pen. At last he flung down the quill and rose.

'It is the only way it can be done, sir,' he said, and read it out.

It carried out Ferrier's plans, but placed the personal property in the hands of trustees, who were to pay to Roland and Richard the interest thereof so long as they worked the mill together. If at the end of twenty-one years there had been no dissolution between them, the money was to pass unconditionally to them, in equal shares, or to the survivor of them, or to their heirs if they were both dead. If they quarrelled, the interest was to be allowed to accumulate for ten years, and then, if the brothers were still not on friendly terms, it should go, with the capital, to the Infirmary.

'That's right,' said old Richard, in a voice so changed as to convince the solicitor that he was right in saying he had not much more time to spend.

The codicil was signed, duly attested, and attached to the will, and Ferrier lay back exhausted, but with a light of new contentment in his eyes.

'I'm right down tired out,' he said; 'I shall sleep now.'

And sleep he did till the cold hour of the dawn, when there came a brief waking interval, before the longest, soundest sleep of all.

He opened his eyes then.

'It's nearly over,' he said; 'my boys—my boys!'

He called for them both, but it was Dick on whose broad breast the dying head rested. It was Dick who caught the last loving, whispered words, felt the last faint hand pressure, soothed the last pang, caught the last look.

For when Aunt Letitia hurried to their rooms, it was Dick who opened his door before she reached it, and, fully dressed, sprang to his father's bedside.

Roland was in the sound sleep that often follows violent emotion, and it was hard to rouse him. He came in softly just as his brother laid gently down on the pillow the worn old face, at rest at last, and closed the kindly eyes that would never meet Roland's any more. Never any more!

CHAPTER II.

A NARROW ESCAPE

THE curtain had fallen on the last scene of the most popular play in London. The appreciative criticism of the pit and the tearful sympathy of the upper boxes were alike merging in one common thought, that of 'something nice for supper.' The gallery was already empty. Its occupants were thirstier and more prompt of action than the loungers in the stalls and boxes. Ladies, a little flushed by the exertion of fighting their way through the ranks of their peers, were silently disputing for precedence in front of the looking-glasses in the cloak-rooms, while their cavaliers, already invested with overcoat and wrapper, were pacing the carpeted corridor outside with a very poor show of patience. The most impatient of them all was a stout, rubicund old gentleman in a dark coat, who trotted fretfully up and down, and now and then even ventured to peep in through the door at the chaos of silks and laces, raised shawls, and suspended bonnets, in some component part of which he evidently had an interest.

His very manifest objection to being kept waiting made his fellow-sufferers glance at him with some amusement. A young man who had been going leisurely towards the outer door actually stopped and leaned against the wall while he rolled himself a cigarette, and from time to time glanced with a certain interest at him. He looked very handsome leaning there; his light overcoat was open, and showed the gleam of some rather good diamonds in his shirt front. His pose was graceful—his face had less of boredom in it than is usually worn by young men who go to theatres alone. This, with his large dark eyes, Greek nose, and long drooping blonde moustache, gave him a rather striking appearance. He might have been a foreigner but for his want of skill in making cigarettes. The white hands seemed absolutely awkward in their manipulation. Just as his persevering efforts were crowned with success, and the cigarette was placed between his lips, a white muffled figure emerged from the tossing rainbow sea, and a little hand was slipped through the old gentleman's arm.

'Desperately tired of waiting, I suppose, papa?' said a very sweet voice.

'I should think so. What a time you've been, my dear! I thought I had lost you. All the cabs will be gone.'

'Oh no, dear; the theatre isn't half empty. I was quite the first lady to come out, I'm sure.'

'You may have been the first to go in, but there have been lots of ladies come out while I've been waiting—dozens, I should say.'

'Couldn't we walk back, papa?' said the girl. 'It's a lovely night, and the streets are so interesting. It isn't far, is it?'

'No, no—the idea! Make haste, and we'll get a cab right enough. Mamma will never let us have a trip together again if I take you back with a cold.'

By this time they had passed down the stairs, and the tall cigarette-maker sauntered streetwards also.

But getting a cab was not so easy. That white chenille wrap had taken too long to arrange, and now there were so many people ready and waiting for cabs that a man not at home in this Babel had hardly a chance.

'Papa' was so intent on hailing a four-wheeler himself that he was deaf to the offers of assistance from the ragged battalions that infest the theatre doors, and seem to get their living, not by calling cabs, which they seldom if ever do, but by shutting the doors and touching their hats when people have called cabs for themselves.

He was a little short-sighted, and made several attempts to get into other people's broughams, under the impression that they were unattached 'growlers,' and was only restrained by his daughter's energetic interference.

At last, driven from the field by the crowds who knew their way about better than he did, he yielded to the girl's entreaties, and walked towards the Strand, hoping to be able to hail a passing vehicle. They advanced slowly, for the pavement was crowded.

'We really had better walk,' she was saying again, when the crowd round them was suddenly thrown into a state of disturbance and excitement, and they were pushed backwards against the wall.

'Oh, dear, what is it?' she cried.

'Look out, miss!' said a rough-looking man, in a fur cap, catching her shoulders, and pulling her back so violently that her hand was torn from her father's arm, and at the same moment the crowd separated to right and left.

Then she saw what it was. A pair of spirited carriage horses had either taken fright, or had grown tired of the commonplace routine of wood pavement and asphalte, and had decided to try a short cut home through the houses, utterly regardless of the coachman, who was straining with might and main at the reins.

Their dreadful prancing hoofs were half-way across the pavement, and the pole of the carriage was close to someone's chest—good heavens! her father's—and he, standing there bewildered, seemed not to see it. She would have sprung forward, but the rough man held her back.

'Papa! papa!' she screamed, and at the sound of her voice he started, and seemed to see for the first time what threatened him. He saw it too late—the pole was within six inches of his breast-bone. But someone else had seen it to more purpose, and at that instant the head of the off horse was caught in a grasp of iron, and the pair were dragged round, to the imminent danger of some score of lives, while the carriage was forced back on to a hansom cab, whose driver disappeared into the night in a cloud of blasphemy.