oppressive dusk was drooping as mr. tuke came in sight of the lonely tavern on the downs. the inconsistent moodiness of autumn had fallen into another humour as the day declined. the steely thrust of wind at night—a morning cold and fair and pure, such as ever seems an earnest of weeks of serene tranquillity—and then, as noon ticked into evening, a dull fall in the barometer, and gathering battalions of clouds rolling to the front, with a noise of rumbling in them like the labouring wheels of gun-carriages—such was the record of twenty-four hours.
glancing with frowning eyes, at the little forlorn building livid above him against a wall of menacing purple, the horseman pricked his nag to the slight ascent, and, clattering up to the inn door, flung himself out of the saddle and looped his reins to a ring set in the lintel-post.
straightway he crossed the threshold, and turning sharply to the left, found himself in the room of the bay-window and the tap of the “dog and duck.”
not a soul was in it—no sign of life, but, somewhere, a distant murmuring of voices.
it was a paltry little shop, with a pewtered counter, and under it, on the customer-side, a ditch or groove set in the floor and filled with sawdust for obvious purposes. a few beer-barrels; a squat flask or two of schiedam on a shelf; some common earthenware mugs, white with a blue band, and bearing the excise stamp on a tin bottom—these were the important features of the bar. above the latter, from a blackened beam, hung a great ship’s lantern, eloquent of rancid oil; and to the back was a glazed door leading into a room no larger than a cabin, in which a little fire blinked a red eye like a drowsy watch-dog.
mr. tuke—fingering in the pocket of his riding-coat the butt of a duelling pistol, loaded and primed—rapped on the counter with his riding-whip.
listening, he was conscious of a sudden cessation of the murmuring sounds—of an appreciable pause; and then a door opened gently, and somebody came into the bar-parlour. this new-comer, whoever he was—for he took stock in the dusk without showing himself—seemed to go out softly again after a moment’s scrutiny; and following his exit, the other was dimly aware of the sounds again, but more subdued, and broken with an intermittent cough that was like suppressed laughter.
he rapped again, and immediately the door was opened a second time, but now with an air of business; a heavy step shuffled across the cabin, and the landlord appeared at the glazed door.
mr. breeds was not the mr. breeds of a former experience. he was in his shirt-sleeves, and was here the master of everything but himself. in illustration of this, his puffed and heated face bore an expression of boldness that was entirely the painting of strong waters. tipsy, he was a cumbrous changeling, with just a sufficiency of humour to be insolent.
he drew the red tip of his “churchwarden” so far out of the corner of his mouth as to allow passage to a question fired awry in a spit of smoke.
“what d’ye call for?”
mr. tuke put his clinched left hand on the counter, and stared sternly in the bloated face.
“i want nothing but a word with you. it’s this. do you know who i am?”
“sure,” said mr. breeds, with a chuckle.
“that’s well. now listen. there’s winton, a city fifteen miles off, and a fast gaol in it. men lie by the heels there for lesser crimes than housebreaking, and hang, too.”
for all his liquid cargo the landlord went white.
“i dare say, sir—i dare say,” quoth he, in a jerking voice. “and how do that concern me?”
“you know best. maybe you have taken me for one of your pugmill squireens with blinkers to his head. you’d better cleanse your brain on that point. i see and i hear, mr. breeds, and i’m dangerous to meddle with. you understand me—yes, you do.”
“so help me god, sir, i know nought of any attempt on your house!”
“you see? did i say there had been one? you rogue! i’ve a mind to put a bullet in you now.”
the landlord dropped his pipe on the floor, and cried abjectly—
“sir—mr. tuke! in the lord’s name, what d’ye accuse me of?”
“of nothing, of course. i warn you—that’s enough.”
“but, sir——”
“mr. breeds, mr. breeds!”—he shook a threatening finger at him—“let me advise you to take a fair hint and meditate on it. you consort with blackguards, sir; you harbour ruffians. shall i connect this or not with signs and sounds and visits that have disturbed me of late?”
“i am an innkeeper, sir,” said the other sullenly. “i’m not to pick or choose where custom offers. let the law look after its own. i stand upon my rights.”
“aye, aye; that’s boor’s english for treading on other people’s corns.”
he turned to go, daring a retort with the tail of his eye. on the threshold he paused. a sinister little laugh had reached him from the bowels of the house. in a moment he strode back, fierce and lowering.
“you have company in the inn now. where do they sit?”
the landlord did not answer; but, in the gathering darkness of the tap, there was a sound as if his teeth chattered.
without another word, tuke stepped into the passage, and stood listening. all was silent; but somewhere to the rear of the building a thread of light broke the run of the panelling almost from ceiling to floor. for this thread he made, and coming plump against a door, burst it open and half fell into a long dimly-lighted room with a trestle-table set in the middle of it.
recovering himself, he stood at instant guard. the light of a couple of oil-lamps on the wall swam in his eyes and blinded him for a moment. then his vision cleared, and he saw his company—two men seated at the table, and one who stood by a half-closed door to his left.
the room was full of tobacco-smoke, and a reeking smell of warm hollands hung in the air like a sickly dew.
“charge your rummers, gentlemen!” said some one in a thin nasal voice. it was such a queerly weak and ineffective voice, that despite a certain awkwardness in his situation, the intruder could not forbear fixing his eyes on the speaker with a start of wonder.
then he recognized him at once. it was the squab white-haired man, with a face like a hip, whom he had seen at lounge on the window-sill.
him he had expected to find; nor much less the gentleman like a decayed schoolmaster, whom he had happened on a-fishing, and who sat next to the other.
“mr. joseph corby should be the third,” thought he; and sure enough it was joe who stood by the door.
now, not the least embarrassing part of the business was that his entrance, with a face set to any contingency, was to all appearance accepted by the company as in the natural order of custom. no one fell awkward over it, or assumed an air as of resenting his presence.
he hesitated a moment, then sat himself down in a chair opposite the two men.
“a dull evening, gentlemen,” said he; “with promise of a dirty night.”
mr. fern—by token of his scarlet face—was the one to answer in a high manner of politeness.
“the more fortunate we, sir, for being under cover,” he said.
one would have taken the persistent strain of speech to account for his apoplectic hue. if he were a rogue, he had none of the melodramatic hall-marks. his face, possibly from its consuming colour, was as expressionless as a brick, and his eyes, under their ragged brows, gleamed like cold and passionless agates.
“fortunate, as you say,” said mr. tuke; “the more as it is like to stay midnight skulkers from disturbing the rest of peaceable folk.”
“quite so, quite so, though i don’t trace the connection—eh, brander?”
the sardonic fisherman, his arms folded, had been watching the new-comer from under covert brows. he gave a little contemptuous laugh.
“perhaps the gentleman is a sufferer from nerves,” said he.
“no,” said tuke coolly, “i don’t think i am. i have full confidence in myself and in my defences. it is my way to strike at an annoyance before i examine it, as i would at any unaccustomed beast that ran across my path.”
“an excellent principle, sir. impulse is a much-maligned factor in our system. second thoughts are second-best thoughts too often. landlord, is our supper served?”
“’tis on the table, mr. fern,” came the answer, somewhere from the darkness of the bar.
both men rose, and mr. tuke with them. he felt desperately the utter ineffectiveness of the situation. how could he, on a shadow of circumstantial evidence, throw their presumed roguery in the teeth of a couple of strangers merely because they had put up at a wayside tavern? a sort of dull fury worked in his heart. what had his impulsive visit gained him but present isolation in the midst of a dangerous company?
without, the storm had broken; the slam of thunder shook the lonely house; the lightning fought for mastery in the room with the smoking oil-lamps, and prevailed, painting all faces with a violet glaze.
“that man,” said he, pointing at the genial joseph, and wild to bring an edge to circumstance—“does he sup with you?”
“surely, sir,” said mr. fern, pausing with an expression of extreme surprise.
“ah! i recognize him as the fellow who applied to me for the post of gardener. you are well-suited for company, gentlemen.”
“he waits on us, sir—he waits on us. joseph, is this true that i hear—that, unknown to me, you seek another service?”
“yes,” said the man, with a grin. “if i could better myself i would.”
“ah!” said mr. fern, with mild severity, “this must not occur again, joseph. i sanction no such underhand proceedings. if you are dissatisfied with your position, tell me so plainly, and you are welcome to go seek a less indulgent master.”
“oh, i’m all right, mr. fern!”
the other turned benevolently to the perplexed baronet. throughout, the man brander had stood silent, his hands thrust into his pockets, his hat pulled over his eyes, a slight grin creasing his parchment jaws.
“i must call your interest in me and my affairs unaccountable, sir,” said the former gravely; “but it is no doubt to be attributed to purely friendly motives.”
he bowed cumbrously, signified to joseph to go before, and passed out with his other companion into the passage, closing the door gently to behind him.
left to himself, mr. tuke stood for a moment dumfounded and quite at a loss as to what to do next. then, with a quick, impatient exclamation, he flung himself into a chair before the hearth.
why did he wait on at all? he told himself that it was for a lull in the storm that crashed and bellowed overhead. all the same he knew that he delayed going for the reason that makes men linger out a fruitless suit—because he impotently hoped for some anti-climax to justify his action.
presently, rising from a fog of perplexity, he pulled with violence a bell-rope that hung near him. the landlord himself answered the summons, and immediately.
“bring me a bottle of port,” said the visitor; and added suggestively, “uncorked.”
mr. breeds accepted the order, with some unintelligible response; vanished, brought back the wine and a glass, and offered the bottle to the other’s inspection.
“good. open it and go.”
he sat and sipped and pondered the situation.
there was no fire in the grate before him, but a bundle of the towy stuff known as “crinoline”; and this, as the wind moaned down the chimney, heaved and pulsed like a thing that breathed very silently. after a time this stealthy, life-like action wrought a certain uneasiness in him. he filled another glass, drained it, and glanced with a growing sickness of alarm at the palpitating mass. good god! it was swelling, writhing in monstrous and unnatural motion! he tried to shriek out. his voice had left him. he could hear it very faint and agonized fifty miles away. he struggled to rise to his feet. the thing was out of the fire-place now—climbing his knees—lapping him in, overwhelming him from foot to throat.
with a liquid grunt, that rang in his own congested brain like his dying yell, he sank down in a heap and into immediate unconsciousness.
