At Large

by E. W. Hornung

  X

  AN OLD FRIEND AND AN OLD MEMORY

  When Dick Edmonstone opened the garden gate of Iris Lodge he was nolonger excited. The storm that had so lately shaken his frame and lashedhis spirit had spent its frenzy; no such traces as heaving breast orquickened pulse remained to tell of it. The man was calm--despair hadcalmed him; the stillness of settled gloom had entered his soul. Hisstep was firm but heavy; the eye was vacant; lips like blanched iron;the whole face pale and rigid.

  These are hall-marks graven by misery on the face of man; they areuniversal and obvious enough, though not always at the first glance. Forinstance, if prepared with a pleasant surprise for another, one isnaturally slow to detect his dismal mood. Thus, no sooner had Dick setfoot upon the garden path than the front door was flung open, and therestood Fanny, beaming with good-humour, good news on the tip of hertongue. It was like sunrise facing a leaden bank of western clouds.

  "Oh, Dick, there is someone waiting to see you! You will never guess; itis a bush friend of yours. Such an amusing creature!" she added sottovoce.

  Dick stood still on the path and groaned. "Biggs!" he muttered indespair.

  Nothing directs attention to the face so surely as the voice. There wassuch utter weariness in this one word that Fanny glanced keenly at herbrother, saw the dulness of his eyes, read for apathy agony, and knewthat instant that there had been a cruel crisis in his affair with AliceBristo.

  Instead of betraying her insight, she went quickly to him with a brightsmile, laid her hand on his arm, and said:

  "His name is not Biggs, Dick dear. It is--but you will be very glad tosee him! Come in at once."

  A flash of interest lit up Dick's clouded face; he followed Fanny intothe hall, and there, darkening the nearest doorway, stood a burlyfigure. The light of the room being behind this man, Dick could not atonce distinguish his features. While he hesitated, a well-rememberedfalsetto asked if he had forgotten his old mate. Then Dick sprangforward with outstretched hand.

  "Dear old Jack, as I live!"

  "Dear old humbug! Let me tell you you've done your level best to missme. An hour and a half have I been here, a nuisance to these ladies--"

  "No, no, Dick; Mr. Flint has done nothing but entertain us," put in Mrs.Edmonstone.

  "A charitable version," said Flint, bowing clumsily. "But I tell you, myboy, in half-an-hour my train goes."

  "Don't delude yourself," said Dick; "you won't get off so easilyto-night, let alone half-an-hour."

  "Must, sir," Jack Flint replied. "Leave Dover by to-night'sboat--holiday. If you'd only come in sooner! I wonder now where he'sbeen?" Flint added, with a comic expression on his good-natured face.

  "No place that I wouldn't have left for an hour or two with you, oldchap," said Dick in a strange tone; "nowhere very pleasant."

  Nothing better could have happened to Dick just then than seeing thechum from whom he had parted nearly three years ago. It was as thoughhis good angel had stored up for him a sovereign simple, andadministered it at the moment it was most needed. In the presence ofFlint he had escaped for a few minutes from the full sense of hisanguish. But now, by an unlucky remark, Jack had undone his good work asunconsciously as he had effected it. Dick remembered bitterly that longago he had told his friend all about his love--as it then stood.

  "Mr. Flint has been telling us some of your adventures, which it seemswe should never have heard from you," observed Fanny, reproachfully.

  This was quite true. Once snubbed at Graysbrooke, his system of silenceon that subject had been extended to Iris Lodge. One set of people hadvoted his experiences tiresome; that was enough for him. This wasdoubtless unfair to his family, but it was not unnatural in Dick. He wasalmost morbid on the point.

  "Indeed!" he replied; "but suppose he gives us some of his Irishadventures instead? How many times have they tried to pot you, my unjustlandlord? You must know, mother, that this is not only my ex-partner inan honourable commercial enterprise--not only 'our Mr. Flint' that usedto be--but John Flint, Esq., J.P., of Castle Flint, county Kerry;certainly a landholder, and of course--it goes without saying--atyrant."

  "Really?" said Mrs. Edmonstone. "He did not tell us that."

  "It's the unhappy fact," said Flint, gloomily. "A few hundred acres ofhills and heather, and a barn called by courtesy 'Castle'; those are myfeudal possessions. The scenery is gorgeous, but the land--is acaution!"

  "Barren?" asked Dick.

  "As Riverina in a drought."

  "And the tenants?"

  "Oh, as to the tenants, we hit it off pretty well. It's in North Kerrythey're lively. I'm in the south, you see, and there they're peaceableenough. Laziness is their worst crime. I do all I can for 'em, but Idon't see how I can hold on much longer."

  "Evict?"

  "No," said Flint, warmly; "I'd rather emigrate, and take the wholeboiling of them with me; take up new country, and let them select on it.Dick, you savage, don't laugh; I'm not joking. I've thought about itoften."

  "Would you really like to go back to Australia, Mr. Flint?" Mrs.Edmonstone asked, glancing at the same time rather anxiously at her son.

  "Shouldn't mind, madam," returned Flint.

  "No more should I!" broke in Dick, in a harsh voice.

  Flint looked anxiously at his friend, and made a mental note that Dickhad not found all things quite as he expected. For a minute no onespoke; then Fanny took the opportunity of returning to her formercharge.

  "We have heard some of your adventures which you seemed determined tokeep to yourself. I think it was very mean of you, and so does mamma.Oh, Dick, why--why did you never tell us about the bush-ranger?"

  Mrs. Edmonstone gazed fondly at her son--and shivered.

  "Has he told you that?" Dick asked quickly. "Jack, old chap"--ratherreproachfully--"it was a thing I never spoke of."

  "Nonsense, my dear fellow!"

  "No, it's a fact. I never cared to talk about it, I felt it sostrongly."

  "Too strongly," said Flint; "I said so at the time."

  For a little while Dick was silent; then he said:

  "Since he has told you, it doesn't matter. I can only say it nearlydrove me out of my mind; it was the bitterest hour of my life!"

  A little earlier that day this would have been true.

  His mother's eyes filled with tears. "I can understand your feeling,dear Dick," she murmured; "yet I wish you had told us--though, indeed,it would have made me miserable if you had written it. But now Mr. Flinthas given us a graphic account of the whole incident. Thank Heaven youwere spared, my boy!"

  "Thank Sundown," said Dick dryly.

  "Oh, yes!" cried Fanny. "Noble fellow! Poor, wicked, generous man! Ididn't think such robbers existed; I thought they went out with wigs andpatches, a hundred years ago."

  "So they did," muttered Flint. "They're extinct as the dodo. I nevercould make this one out--a deep dog."

  "Oh, sir," exclaimed Mrs. Edmonstone, "do you think there is no spark ofgoodness in the worst natures? of truth in the falsest? of generosity inthe most selfish?"

  Jack Flint looked quaintly solemn; his face was in shadow, luckily.

  "Yes," said Dick, gravely, "my mother is right; there was a good impulseleft in that poor fellow, and if you find gold in an outlaw and a thief,you may look for it anywhere. But in my opinion there was more than aremnant of good in that man. Think of it. He saved me from being knifed,to begin with; well, it was to his own interest to do that. But afterthat he took pity, and left us our money. That needed more than a goodimpulse; it needed a force of character which few honest men have. Tryand realise his position--a price upon him, his hand against the worldand the world's hand against him, a villain by profession, not creditedwith a single virtue except courage, not bound by a single law of God orman; a man you would have thought incapable of compassion; andyet--well, you know what he did."

  There was a manly fervour in his voice which went straight to the heartsof his mother and sist
er. They could not speak. Even Flint forgot tolook sceptical.

  "If it had not meant so much to me, that hundred pounds," Dickcontinued, as though arguing with himself, "it is possible that I mightthink less of the fellow. I don't know, but I doubt it, for we had nonotion then what that hundred would turn to. As it is, I have thought ofit very often. You remember, Jack, how much more that hundred seemed tome at that time than it really was, and how much less to you?"

  "It was a hundred and thirty," said Flint; "I remember that you didn'tforget the odd thirty then."

  "Dick," Fanny presently exclaimed, out of a brown study, "what do youthink you would do if--you ever met that bushranger again. I mean, if hewas at your mercy, you know?"

  Flint sighed, and prepared his spirit for heroics.

  "No use thinking," Dick answered. "By this time he's a life--if theydidn't hang him."

  Flint became suddenly animated.

  "What?" he cried, sharply.

  "Why, the last I heard of him--the day I sailed from Melbourne--was,that he was captured somewhere up in Queensland."

  "If you had sailed a day later you would have heard more."

  "What?" asked Dick, in his turn.

  "He escaped."

  "Escaped?"

  "The same night. He got clean away from the police-barracks at MountClarence--that was the little Queensland township. They never caughthim. They believe he managed to clear out of the country--to America,probably."

  "By Jove, I'm not sorry!" exclaimed Dick.

  "Here are some newspaper cuttings about him," continued Flint, takingthe scraps from his pocketbook and handing them to Dick. "Read themafterwards; they will interest you. He was taken along with anotherfellow, but the other fellow was taken dead--shot through the heart.That must have been the one he called Ben; for the big brute who triedto knife you had disappeared some time before. When they were taken theywere known to have a lot of gold somewhere--I mean, Sundown was--forthey had just stuck up the Mount Clarence bank."

  "Yes, I heard that when I heard of the capture."

  "Well, it was believed that Sundown feared an attack from the police,and planted the swag, went back to it after his escape, and got clearaway with the lot. But nothing is known; for neither Sundown nor thegold was ever seen again."

  "Mamma, aren't you glad he escaped," cried Fanny, with glowing cheeks."It may be wicked, but I know I am! Now, what would you do, Dick?"

  "What's the good of talking about it?" said Dick.

  "Then I'll tell you what I'd do; I'd hide this poor Sundown fromjustice; I'd give him a chance of trying honesty, for a change--that'swhat I should do! And if I were you, I should long and long and long todo it!"

  Flint could not help smiling. Dick's sentiment on the subject wassufficiently exaggerated; but this young lady! Did this absurdromanticism run in the family? If so, was it the father, or thegrandfather, or the great-grandfather that died in a madhouse?

  But Dick gazed earnestly at his sister. Her eyes shone like living coalsin the twilight of the shaded room. She was imaginative; and the storyof Dick and the bushranger appealed at once to her sensibilities and hersympathy. She could see the night attack in the silent forest, and aface of wild, picturesque beauty--the ideal highwayman--was painted invivid colour on the canvas of her brain.

  "Fanny, I half think I might be tempted to do something like that," saidDick gently. "I have precious few maxims, but one is that he who does mea good turn gets paid with interest--though I have a parallel one forthe man who works me a mischief."

  "So it is a good turn not to rob a man whom you've already assaulted!"observed Flint ironically.

  "It is a good turn to save a man's life."

  "True; but you seem to think more of your money than your life!"

  "I believe I did four years ago," said Dick, smiling, but he checked hissmile when Flint looked at his watch and hastily rose.

  Dick expostulated, almost to the extent of bluster, but quite in vain;Flint was already shaking hands with the ladies.

  "My dear fellow," said he, "I leave these shores to-night; it's myannual holiday. I'm going to forget my peasants for a few weeks in Parisand Italy. If I lose this train I lose to-night's boat--I found out thatbefore I came; so good-bye, my--"

  "No, I'm coming to the station," said Dick; "at least I stickle for thatlast office."

  Mrs. Edmonstone hoped that Mr. Flint--her boy's best friend, as she wasassured--would see his way to calling on his way home and staying a dayor two. Mr. Flint promised; then he and Dick left the house.

  They were scarcely in the road before Flint stopped, turned, laid a handon each of Dick's shoulders, and quickly delivered his mind:

  "There's something wrong. I saw it at once. Tell me."

  Dick lowered his eyes before his friend's searching gaze.

  "Oh, Jack," he answered, sadly, "it is all wrong!"

  And before they reached the station Flint knew all that there was toknow--an abridged but unvarnished version--of the withering and dying ofDick's high hopes.

  They talked softly together until the train steamed into the station;and then it was Dick who at the last moment returned to a matter justtouched in passing:

  "As to this dance to-night--you say I must go?"

  "Of course you must go. It would never do to stay away. For one thing,your friend, the Colonel might be hurt and bothered, and he is now yourbest friend, mind. Then you must put a plucky face on it; she mustn'tsee you cave in after the first facer. I half think it isn't all up yet;you can't tell."

  Dick shook his head.

  "I would rather not go; it will be wormwood to me; you know what it willbe: the two together. And I know it's all up. You don't understandwomen, Jack."

  "Do you?" asked the other, keenly.

  "She couldn't deny that--that--I can't say it, Jack."

  "Ah, but you enraged her first! Anyway, you ought to go to-night foryour people's sake. Your sister's looking forward to it tremendously;never been to a ball with you before; she told me so. By Jove! I wishedI was going myself."

  "I wish you were, instead of me."

  "Nonsense! I say, stand clear. Good-bye!"

  Away went the train and Jack Flint. And Dick stood alone on theplatform--all the more alone because his hand still tingled from thepressure of that honest grip; because cheering tones still rang in hisears, while his heart turned sick, and very lonely.