The Adventures of Harry Revel

S >> Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller Couch >> The Adventures of Harry Revel

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"Papa!" called Isabel.

I heard a movement in the summer-house, and her father appeared in
the doorway. He was old, but held himself so erect that his head
almost touched the lintel of the summer-house door, the posts of
which he gripped and so stood framed--a giant of close upon six and a
half feet in stature. He wore a brown holland suit, with grey
stockings and square-toed shoes; and at first I mistook him for a
Quaker. His snow-white hair was gathered back from his temples,
giving salience to a face of ineffable simplicity and goodness--the
face of a man at peace with God and all the world, yet touched with
the scars of bygone passions.

"Papa, this is Harry Revel."

He bowed with ceremony, a little wide of me. I saw then that his
eyes were sightless.

"I am happy to make your acquaintance, young sir. My daughter
informs me that you are in trouble."

"He has promised to tell me all about it," Isabel put in. "We need
not bother him with questions just now."

"Assuredly not," he agreed. "Well, if you will, my lad, tell it to
Isabel. What is your age? Barely fourteen? Troubles at that age
are not often incurable. Only whatever you do--and you will pardon
an old man for suggesting it--tell the whole truth. When a man,
though he be much older than you and his case more serious than yours
can possibly be--when a man once brings himself to make a clean
breast of it, the odds are on his salvation. Take my word for that,
and a wiser man's--By the way, do you understand Latin?"

"No, sir."

"I am sorry to hear it. But perhaps you play the drum?"

"I--I have never tried, sir."

"Dear, dear, this is unfortunate: but at least you can serve me by
leading me round the garden and telling me where the several flowers
grow, and how they come on. That will be something."

"I will try, sir: but indeed I can hardly tell one flower from
another."

At this his face fell again. "Do you, by chance, know a bee when you
see one?"

"A bee? Oh yes, sir."

"Come, we have touched bottom at length! Do you understand bees?
Can you handle them?"

Here Isabel, seeing my chapfallen face, interposed.

"And if he does not, papa, you will have the pleasure of teaching
him."

"Very true, my dear. You must excuse me"--here Major Brooks turned
as if seeing me with his sightless eyes. "But understand that I like
you far better for owning up. There are men--there is a clergyman in
our neighbourhood for one--capable of pretending a knowledge of Latin
which they don't possess."

"Doesn't Mr. Whitmore know Latin?" I asked.

"Hey? Who told you I was speaking of Whitmore?"

I glanced at Isabel, for her eyes drew me. They were fixed on me
almost in terror.

"I have heard him talk it, sir."

"Excuse me: you may have heard him pretending."

"But, papa--" Isabel put forth a hand as if in protest, and I noted
that it trembled and that the ring was missing which she had worn
overnight. "You never told me that he--that Mr. Whitmore--"

"Was an impostor? My dear, had you any occasion to seek my opinion
of him, or had I any occasion to give it? None, I think: and but
for Master Revel's incomprehensible guess you had not discovered it
now. I have been betrayed into gossip."

He turned abruptly and, feeling with his hand over the surface of the
summer-house table, picked up a small volume lying there. It struck
me that his temper for the moment was not under perfect control.

Isabel cast at me a look which I could not interpret, and went slowly
back to the house.

"The meaning of my catechism just now," said her father, addressing
me after listening for awhile to her retreating footsteps, "may be
the plainer when I tell you that I am translating the works of the
Roman poet Virgil, line for line, into English verse, and have just
reached the beginning of the Fourth Georgic. He is, I may tell you,
a poet, and the most marvellous that ever lived; so marvellous, that
the middle ages mistook him for a magician. That any age is likely
to mistake me--his translator--for a conjuror I think improbable.
Nevertheless I do my best. And while translating I hold this book in
my hand, not that I can see to read a line of it, but because the
mere touch of it, my companion on many campaigns, seems to unloose my
memory. Except in handling this small volume, I have none of the
delicate gift of touch with which blind men are usually credited.
But this is page 106, is it not?" He held out the open book towards
me, and added, with sudden apprehension, "You can read, I trust?"

I assured him that I could.

"And write? Good again! Come in--you will find pen, ink, and paper
on the side-drum in the corner. Bring them over to the table and
seat yourself. Ready? Now begin, and let me know when you cannot
spell a word."

I seated myself, silently wondering what might be the use of the
side-drum in the corner.

"Let me see--let me see--" He thumbed the book for a while,
murmuring words which I could not catch; then thrust it behind his
back with a finger between its pages, straightened himself up, and
declaimed:

"Next of aerial honey, gift divine,
I sing. Maecenas, be once more benign!"

He paused and instructed me how to spell "aerial" and "Maecenas."
The orthography of these having been settled, I asked his advice upon
"benign," which, as written down by me (I forget how) did not seem
convincing.

"You are indisputably an honest boy," said he; "but I have yet to
acquire that degree of patience which, by all accounts, consorts with
my affliction. Continue, pray:

"Prepare the pomp of trifles to behold:
Proud peers--a nation's polity unrolled--
Customs, pursuits--its clans, and how they fight,
Slight things I labour; not for glory slight,
If Heaven attend and Phoebus hearken me.
First, then, for site. Seek and instal your Bee--"

--"With a capital B, if you please. The poet says 'bees': but the
singular, especially if written with a capital, adds in my opinion
that mock-heroic touch which, as the translator must frequently miss
it for all his pains, he had better insert where he can. By the way,
how have you spelt 'Phoebus'?"

"F.e.b.u.s," I answered.

"I feared so," he sighed. "And 'site'?"

"S.i.g.h.t." I felt pretty sure about this. He smote his forehead.

"That is how Miss Plinlimmon taught me," I urged almost defiantly.

"I beg your pardon--'Plinlimmon,' did you say? An unusual name.
Do you indeed know a Miss Plinlimmon?"

"It is the name of my dearest friend, sir."

"Most singular! You cannot tell me, I dare say, if she happens to be
related to my old friend Arthur Plinlimmon?"

"She is his sister."

"This is most interesting. I remember her, then, as a girl.
You must know that Arthur Plinlimmon and I were comrades in the old
Fourth Regiment, and dear friends--are dear friends yet, I trust,
although time and circumstances have separated us. His sister used
to keep house for him before his marriage. A most estimable person!
And pray where did you make her acquaintance?"

"In the hospital, sir."

"The hospital? Not an eleemosynary institution for the diseased, I
hope?"

I did not know what this meant. "It's a place for foundlings, sir,"
I answered.

"But--excuse me--Miss Plinlimmon--Agatha? Arabella? I forget for
the moment her Christian name--"

"Amelia, sir."

"To be sure; Amelia. Well, she could not be a foundling, nor--as I
remember her--did she in the least resemble one."

"Oh no, sir: she is the matron there."

"I see. And where is this hospital?"

"At Plymouth Dock."

"Hey?"

"At Plymouth Dock. A Mr. Scougall keeps it--a sort of clergyman."

"This is most strange. My friend Arthur's son, young Archibald
Plinlimmon, is quartered with his regiment there, and often pays us a
visit, poor lad."

"Indeed, sir?"

"His circumstances are not prosperous. Family troubles--money
losses, you understand: and then his father made an imprudent
marriage. Not that anything can be said against the Leicesters--
there are few better families. But the lady, I imagine, did not take
kindly to poverty: never learnt to cut her coat according to the
cloth. Her uncle might have helped her--Sir Charles, that is--the
head of the family--a childless man with plenty of money. For some
reason, however, he had opposed her match with Arthur. A sad story!
And now, when their lad is grown and the time come for him to be a
soldier, he must start in the ranks. But why in the world, if she
lives at Plymouth Dock, has Archibald never mentioned his aunt to
us?"

This was more than I could tell him. And you may be sure that the
name Leicester made me want to ask questions, not to answer them.
But just now Isabel came across the lawn, bearing a tray with a
plateful of biscuits, a decanter of claret, and a glass.

"My dear," asked her father, "has our friend Archibald ever spoken to
you of an aunt of his--a Miss Plinlimmon--residing at Plymouth Dock?"

"No, papa." She turned on me, again with that fear and appeal in her
eyes, as if in some way I was persecuting her; and the decanter shook
and tinkled on the rim of the glass as she poured out the claret.

The old man lifted the wine and held it between his sightless eyes
and the sunshine.

"A sad story," he mused: "but, after all, the lad is young and the
world young for him! Rejoice in your youth, Mr. Revel, and honour
your Creator in the days of it. For me, I enjoyed it by God's grace,
and it has not forsaken me: no, not when darkness overtook and shut
me out of the profession I loved. I cannot see the colour of this
wine, nor the face of this my daughter, nor my garden, yonder, full
of flowers."

"Seasons return, but not to me returns
Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn,
Or sight of vernal bloom, or Summer's rose,
Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine--"

"Yet memory returns and consoles my blindness. The colour of the
wine is there, the flowers are about me, and Isabel--I am told--
resembles her mother. Yes, and away on the edge of Spain, the army I
served is planting fresh laurels--my old regiment too, the King's
Own, though James Brooks is by this time scarcely a name to it.
Here I sit, hale in wind and limb, and old age creeps on me kindly,
telling me that no man is necessary. And yet, if God should come and
lay a command on me--some task that a blind man might undertake--I am
at God's service. I sit with my loins girt and my soul, I hope,
shriven. That is my sermon to you, young sir: a clean breast and no
baggage. I bid you welcome to Minden Cottage!" He drank to me.

"Is it named from the battle of Minden, sir?" I asked.

"It is, my lad."

"Were you there?"

He laughed. "My father won his captaincy there, in a regiment that
mistook orders, charged three lines of cavalry, and broke them one
after another. It also broke a sound maxim of war by charging
between flanking batteries. The British Army has made half its
reputation by mistaking orders--you will understand why, if ever you
have the honour to belong to it. Isabel, get me my drum!"

She fetched it from its corner, with the drumsticks; hitched the
sling over her beautiful neck; tightened the straps carefully; and
began to play a soft tattoo.

The old man leaned back in his chair; felt in his pocket; and having
found a silk bandanna handkerchief, unfolded it deliberately, cast it
over his head and composed himself to slumber.

The tattoo ran on, peaceful as a brook. Isabel's arms hung lax and
motionless: only her hands stirred, from the wrists, and so slightly,
or else so rapidly without effort, that they too scarcely seemed to
move. Her eyes were averted.

My ear could not separate the short taps. They ran on and on
in a murmur as of bees or of leaves rustling together in a wood;
grew imperceptibly gentler; and almost imperceptibly ceased.
Isabel glanced at her father, and set the drum back in its corner.
We stole out of the summer-house together, and across to the orchard.

But under the shade of the apple-boughs she turned and faced me.

"Boy, what do you know?"

CHAPTER XVI.

MR. JACK ROGERS AS A MAN OF AFFAIRS.

"I know," said I, meeting her gaze sturdily, "that you are in
danger."

"How should I be in danger?"

"That I cannot tell you, Miss Isabel, unless you first tell me
something."

She waited, her eyes searching mine.

"Last night," I went on, "in the road--you were expecting someone."

Her chin went up proudly; but a tide of red rose with it, flushing
her throat and so creeping up and colouring her face.

"Was it Archibald Plinlimmon?"

She put up a hand as if to push me aside: but on a sudden turned and
hastened from me, with bowed head, towards the cottage.

"Miss Isabel!" I cried, following her close. "I meant no harm--how
could I mean you harm? Miss Isabel!"

I would not let her go, but followed her to the door, entreating;
even pushed after her into the small kitchen, where at last she faced
on me.

"Why cannot you let me alone, boy? Into what have you come
here to pry? You are odious--yes, odious!" She stamped her foot.
"And I thought last night, that you were in trouble. Was I not
kind to you for that, and that only?" She broke off pitifully.
"Oh, Harry, I am dreadfully unhappy!"

She sank into a chair beside the table, across which she flung an arm
and so leaned her brow and let the sobs shake her.

"And I am here to help you, Miss Isabel: only so much is puzzling me!
Last night you said you had a secret, and that it was a happy one.
To-day you are crying, and it is miserable to see."

"And why should I not be happy?" She lifted a hand to the bosom of
her bodice, and slipped over her third finger the ring she had worn
over-night.

"Why should I not be expecting him?" she murmured.

For the moment I was slow in understanding. But I suppose that at
length she saw that in my eyes which satisfied her: for she drew down
my head to her lap, and sat laughing and weeping softly.

A kettle hanging from a crook in the chimney-place boiled over,
hissing down upon the hot wood-ashes. She sprang up and lifted it
down to the hearth.

"Oh, and I forgot!" Her hand went back to her bodice again.
"Mr. Jack Rogers was here this morning inquiring for you. He drove
up in his tilbury, and said he was on his way to Plymouth. But he
left this note."

I took it and deciphered these words, scrawled in an abominable hand:

"Meet me to-night, nine o'clock, at the place where we parted.
J. R."

"Was Mr. Rogers going to Plymouth?" I asked.

"Yes, and in a hurry, by the pace he was driving."

As you may guess, this news discomposed me. Could Mr. Rogers be
preparing a trap? No: certainly not for me. Whitmore, if anyone, was
his quarry. But I mistrusted that, if he once started this game, it
would lead him on to another scent. That Archibald Plinlimmon was
innocent of the Jew's murder I felt sure. Still--what had he been
seeking on the roofs by the Jew's house? It would be an ugly
question, if Mr. Rogers blundered on it; and in the way of honest
blundering I felt Mr. Rogers to be infinitely capable. Would that,
trusting in his good nature, I had made a clean breast to him!

A clean breast? Isabel too, poor girl, was aching to make confession
to her father. For weeks her secret had been a sword within her,
wearing the flesh, and it eased her somewhat (as I saw) even to have
made confession to me. But she would not speak to her father without
first consulting Archibald. It was he, I gathered, who had enjoined
silence. Major Brooks (and small blame to him) would assuredly
have imposed a probation: old men with lovely daughters do not
surrender them at call to penniless youths, even when the penniless
youth happens to be the son of an old friend. I wished Master
Archibald to perdition for a selfish fool.

I talked long with Isabel: first in the kitchen, and again on our way
back to the summer-house, where her father sat awake and expecting
me, book in hand.

There she left me, and he began to dictate at once as I settled
myself to write.

"First, then, for site. Seek, and instal your Bee
Where nor may winds invade (for winds forbid
His homeward load); nor sheep, nor heady kid
Trample the flowers; nor blundering heifer pass,
Brush off the dew and bruise the tender grass;
Nor lizard foe in painted armour prowl
Round the rich hives. Ban him, ban every fowl--
Bee-bird with Procne of the bloodied breast:
These rifle all--our Hero with the rest,
Snapped on the wing and haled, a tit-bit, to the nest.
--But seek a green moss'd pool, with well-spring nigh;
And through the turf a streamlet fleeting by."

So much, with interminably slow pauses, we accomplished before the
light waned in the summer-house and Isabel called us in to supper,
which we ate together in a low-ceiled parlour overlooking the garden.
At a quarter to nine, on pretence that I had still to make up arrears
of sleep, she signed to me to wish her father good-night and escorted
me out into the passage. A slip of the bolt, and I was free of the
night.

I found the spot where I had dropped into the road, and cautiously
mounted the hedge, putting the brambles aside and peering through
them into the fast falling twilight. A low whistle sounded, and Mr.
Rogers stepped into view on the footbridge. But he left a companion
behind him in the shadow of the alders, and who this might be I could
neither see nor guess.

"Is that you, Master Revel?"

There was no help for it now; so over the hedge I climbed and met
him.

"How did you find out--"

--"Your name? Miss Brooks told me, this morning. But, for that
matter, it's placarded all over Plymouth and at every public and
forge and signpost along the road. You're a notorious character, my
son."

I began to quake.

"Parson," he went on, turning and addressing the figure in the
shadow, "here's the boy. Better make haste, if you have any
questions to ask him before we get to business."

There stepped forward, not Mr. Whitmore (as I was fearfully
expecting), but a figure unknown to me; an old shovel-hatted man
leaning on a stick and buttoned to the chin in a black Inverness
cape. I felt his eyes peering at me through the dusk.

"He seems very young to be a trustworthy witness," croaked this old
gentleman in a voice which seemed to be affected by the night air.

"He's right enough," Mr. Rogers answered cheerfully.

"He shall tell his tale, then, in Mr. Whitmore's presence. I will
not yet believe that a minister of Christ's religion, whose papers--
as I have proved to you--are in order, whose testimonials are
unexceptionable, who has the Bishop's licence--"

"The Bishop's fiddlestick! The Bishop didn't license him to carry
marked guineas in his pocket, and I don't wait for a licence to carry
a warrant in mine."

"You will at least afford him an opportunity of explaining before you
execute it. To be plain with you, Mr. Rogers, this business is like
to be scandalous, however you look at it."

"The constables shall remain outside, and the warrant I'll keep in my
pocket until your reverence's doubts are at rest." Mr. Rogers gave
another low whistle and two men, hitherto concealed at a little
distance in the trees' shadow, stepped silently forward and joined
us. "Ready, lads? Quick march, then!"

We took the path up the valley bottom, and across a grassy shoulder
of the park to a small gate in the ring-fence. Beyond this gate a
lane, or cart-road, dipped steeply downhill to the right; and
following it, we came on a high stone wall overtopped by trees.

"Here's your post, Hodgson," whispered Mr. Rogers, after waiting for
the constables to come up. "Jim will take the back of the house: and
understand that no one is to enter or leave. If anyone attempts it,
signal to me: one whistle from you, Hodgson, and two from Jim.
Off you go, my lad! The signal's the same if I want you--one whistle
or two, as the case may be."

The constable he called Jim crept away in the darkness, while Mr.
Rogers found and cautiously opened a wicket-gate leading to a
courtlage, across which a solitary window shone on the ground-floor
of a house lifting its gables and heavy chimneys against a sky only
less black than itself.

"Gad!" said Mr. Rogers softly, "I wonder what Whitmore's doing?
The fun would be, now, to find one of these windows unfastened, and
slip in upon him without announcing ourselves. 'Twouldn't be the
thing, though, for a Justice of the Peace, let alone Mr. Doidge here.
No: we'll have to do it in order and knock. The maid knows me.
Only you two must keep back in the shadow here while she opens the
door."

He stepped forward and knocked boldly.

To the astonishment of us all the door opened almost at once, and
without any noise of unlocking or drawing of bolts.

"For Heaven's sake, my dear--unless you want to wake the village--"
began a voice testily. It was Mr. Whitmore's, and almost on the
instant, by the light of a candle which he held, he recognised the
man on the doorstep.

"Mr. Rogers? To what do I owe--"

"Good evening, Whitmore! May I come in? Won't detain you long--
especially since you seem to be expecting company."

"It's the maid," answered Mr. Whitmore coldly, though he seemed
confused. "She has stepped down to the village for an hour, to her
mother's cottage, and I am alone."

"So you call her 'my dear'? That's a bit pastoral, eh?"

"Look here, Rogers: if you're drunk, I beg you to call at some other
time. To tell the truth, I'm busy."

"Writing your sermon? I thought Saturday was the night for that.
'Pon my honour now I wouldn't intrude, only the business is urgent."
He waited while Mr. Whitmore somewhat grudgingly set the door wide to
admit him. "By the way I've brought a couple of friends with me."

"Confound it all, Rogers--"

"Oh, you know them." Mr. Rogers, with his foot planted over the
threshold, airily waved us forward out of the darkness. "Mr. Doidge,
your Rector," he announced; "also Mr. Revel--a recent acquaintance of
yours, as I understand."

"Good evening, Whitmore," said the Rector stepping forward. "I owe
you an apology (I sincerely hope) for the circumstances of this
visit, as I certainly discommend Mr. Rogers's method of introducing
us."

Now, as we two stepped forward, Mr. Whitmore had instantly shot out
his right hand to the door--against which Mr. Rogers, however, had
planted his foot--with a gesture as if to slam it in our faces.
But the sombre apparition of the Rector seemed to freeze him where he
stood--or all of him but his left hand which, grasping the
candlestick, slowly and as if involuntarily lifted it above the level
of his eyes. Then, before the Rector had concluded, he lowered it,
turned, and walked hastily before us down the passage.

Still without speaking he passed through a door on his right, and we
followed him into a sparely furnished room lined with empty
book-shelves. A few books lay scattered on the centre table where
also, within the shaded light of a reading lamp, stood a tray with a
decanter and a couple of glasses. Beside this lamp he set down the
candle and faced us. In those few paces down the passage I had
observed that he wore riding-boots and spurs, and that they were
spotlessly bright and clean. But from this moment I had eyes only
for his face, which was ashen white and the more horrible because he
was essaying a painful smile.

"My dear Rector," he began, "this is indeed a--a surprise. You said
nothing of any such intention when I had the honour to call on you in
Plymouth, two days ago."

"Good reason for why," interrupted Mr. Rogers. "Look here,
Whitmore--with the Rector's leave we'll get this over. Do you know
this coin?"

He held forward a guinea under the lamp.

I could see the unhappy man pick up his courage to fix his gaze on
the coin and hold it fixed.

"I don't understand you, Rogers," he answered. "I have, of course,
no knowledge of that coin or what it means. To me it looks like an
ordinary guinea."

"I had it from you last night, Whitmore: and it is not an ordinary
guinea, but a marked one. What's more, I marked it myself--see, with
this small cross behind the king's head. What's more I sold it, so
marked, to Rodriguez, the Jew."

--"Who, I suppose, promptly put it into circulation in Plymouth,
where by chance it was handed to me amid the change when I paid my
hotel-bill--if indeed you are absolutely sure you were given this
coin by me."

"Come, Rogers, that's an explanation I myself suggested," put in the
Rector.

"The folks at the Royal Hotel," answered Mr. Rogers curtly, "tell me
that you paid your bill in silver."

It seemed to me that Mr. Rogers was pressing Whitmore harshly, almost
with a note of private vindictiveness in his voice. But while I
wondered at this my eyes fell on the curate's hand as it played
nervously with the base of the brass candlestick. There was a ring
on the little finger: and in an instant I knew--though I could not
have sworn to it in court--yet knew more certainly than many things
to which I could have testified on oath--that this was the hand I had
seen closing the door in the Jew's House.

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