Kitabı oku: «Miser Farebrother: A Novel (vol. 3 of 3)», sayfa 10
CHAPTER XVIII
A LIFE-AND-DEATH STRUGGLE
It was an hour past midnight, and the fog had deepened so that a man could scarcely see a yard before him. On the North Finchley Road it lay particularly thick, and the sky and surrounding space seemed to be blotted out – as they certainly were from two wayfarers who plodded their way slowly onward through the darkness. They were a man and a woman, who, although they were wrapped in gloom, cast apprehensive glances on all sides, and frequently stopped to listen for sounds of footsteps.
"Jeremiah, my love," said the woman, shivering, "why did you insist upon our leaving our nice warm quarters on such a night? It will be the death of me."
"I'll be the death of you," growled the man, "if you call me by my name! Mind that, you old fool!"
"Don't speak to me so hard!" implored the woman; "no one can hear us. The night ain't fit for a dog to be out in it."
"That's the reason we're out in it," said Jeremiah, with a curse. "Hold your row, if you don't want me to do you a mischief!"
"Oh!" murmured Mrs. Pamflett, "that you should say such things to me after all I've done for you!"
"After all you've done for me! Yes, you have done for me! If it hadn't been for you dragging at my heels I should have been out of this infernal scrape weeks ago. You're a nice mother, you are! What's the use of such as you, I'd like to know?"
They were so well disguised that it would have been difficult even for those best acquainted with them to identify them; hence Jeremiah's caution to his mother as to being careful with her speech was not unnecessary. Nevertheless, he presently spoke again, either because he deemed that the darkness by which they were surrounded afforded them sufficient security or because he dreaded the terrors of silence.
"Why did I insist upon our leaving our nice warm quarters? You want me to tell you that, do you?"
"Yes," she whined. "We were safe there – we were safe there!"
"We were not! Had we remained we should have been nabbed by this time, and then what chance would have been left for us? The landlord warned me; he told me we were being hunted down, and that there was danger in our keeping in our hiding-place another night."
"Who has hunted us down – who, my love?"
"Yah! keep your love to yourself; I'm sick of it. Who? Ah, I should like to know, and have him here! There'd be no more hunting down for him, I promise!"
"The landlord was frightened; he wanted to get rid of us."
"Frightened? Perhaps he was; but he would not have been in a hurry to get rid of such good customers without good cause. He's had a matter of a hundred pounds already out of me, and he knew I had enough left to go on with a pretty long time yet. But I kept the diamond bracelet from him, with all his cunning. He wormed and wormed, but he never got out of me that I had it safe about me. I was his match there. Let's have a look at it, mother. It does one's heart good. It's the only thing that keeps me up."
He crouched down by the side of the hedge and drew forth a dark lantern, which he lighted. Then he rose, and looked about him, projecting the light into dark spaces around to make sure that no person was near. He saw nothing, heard nothing. Down he crouched again, and from an inner pocket pulled out a jewel-case, which he opened.
"Look at them, mother – how they glitter and shine! Ah, you beauties, there's nothing false about you! If we were safe in a foreign country, or in America – I prefer America, mother; looking for us there would be like looking for a needle in a bottle of hay – if we were safe there, with this in our pockets, we could live a long life of pleasure and comfort. I should know how to dispose of the stones one by one, secretly, secretly! It's the land for diamonds. Then I could have my fling."
Neither of the pair saw or had any suspicion of the shadow that was creeping through thicker shadows than itself, closer, closer, closer. Neither of them saw, or had any suspicion of, the hand of doom coming nearer, nearer, nearer, to strike terror to their guilty souls.
"Here, take a pull at this, mother," said Jeremiah, handing her a bottle.
"It warms me, it warms me!" murmured Mrs. Pamflett.
"Don't empty the bottle," cried Jeremiah, snatching it from her. "You're a selfish cat!"
"What did the landlord tell you, Jeremiah, about our being hunted down?"
"There's been a man making inquiries about the lodgers, and offering money to find out things. He didn't know who he was, but it looked suspicious, and we were safer out of the house than in it. Take another look at the beauties, mother, before I put them away."
Closer, closer, closer crept the shadow. Closer, closer, closer came the hand of doom.
"Do you think we shall get safe away?" whispered Mrs. Pamflett, as Jeremiah crouched, gloating over the diamonds.
"Do I think it? – I'm sure of it! The police have been too long off the scent for them to get on to it again. All we've got to do is to be cunning, cunning – "
"Jeremiah!" screamed Mrs. Pamflett.
The shadow loomed over them, fell upon them, and seized them and the diamond bracelet. In a moment Jeremiah had wrested it back again, and three human beings were engaged in a deadly struggle.
"I arrest you," cried Tom Barley, "for the murder of Miser Farebrother and Maria Baily!"
The contest was unequal. Strong as Tom Barley was, Jeremiah and his mother had the strength of desperation, and they succeeded in flinging him off. But he fell on them again, and his cries for help rang loud through the night.
"It's you, Tom Barley, is it?" muttered Jeremiah, as the struggle was proceeding. "It's you that's been hunting us down, is it?"
"Yes, it's me," said Tom Barley, getting his mouth free – Mrs. Pamflett was endeavouring to stifle his cries with her hand – "and as God is your judge you're as good as dead!"
"Hold on to him, mother, a moment," said Jeremiah; "fix your teeth in him! Say your prayers, Tom Barley; it's you that's as good as dead!"
"Ah!" screamed Tom, and he dropped.
Jeremiah had succeeded in plucking a knife from his pocket, and, opening it, had plunged it into Tom. He had aimed at the honest fellow's heart, but he had missed, and the knife had gone through the upper part of the right arm, cutting it cruelly to the bone. It was this that had caused Tom to let go his hold upon them. They took advantage of the release, and fled through the darkness. But in a moment Tom was on his feet again, and pursuing them, the blood flowing fast from the wound. He did not feel the pain of it; all that he bemoaned was that his arm was useless and that his voice was growing weak. Before fifty yards were traversed he had seized them again.
"Curse it!" cried Jeremiah, "I have lost my knife."
"That's my luck," muttered Tom, clinging to them.
"Help! help!"
They beat him frightfully about the head, and he flung it feebly this way and that in the endeavour to escape the cruel blows; but he did not loose his hold of them again. In the blind and dreadful struggle they stumbled wildly about, and suddenly they fell crashing down over an embankment. And still Tom Barley, feeling now that life was ebbing from him, held desperately on to them, and still his cries floated on the air. To the frightful sounds of this contest another was added the moment they reached the bottom of the embankment. They had fallen upon a railway track, and a train was approaching. Two huge fierce eyes glared luridly in the fog. Tom's voice grew fainter and fainter, but he never relaxed his hold of the murderers.
"Help! help! help! I have caught the murderers! Help! help! help!"
The clatter of the approaching train almost, but not quite, drowned his appeals. They fell vaguely upon the ears of the engine-driver, and he instantly slackened steam. But the huge lurid eyes were now very close upon the struggling forms.
"Damn you!" screamed Jeremiah, "will you let go?"
"No," said Tom, through his clenched teeth, "not till I'm dead! And then I won't!"
"Then there's an end of you!" cried Jeremiah, and by a determined and powerful effort he succeeded in throwing the lower portion of Tom's body across the rails. Fortunately Tom's head was off the line, and his left arm was wound tightly round Jeremiah's neck. The train passed over Tom's foot, and cut it clean away, but Tom, although he had swooned, held on like grim death, and did not even feel Jeremiah's teeth fixed in his arm. In this position they were found a moment or two afterward, when the train was stopped, and it was with great difficulty that the engine-driver and passengers could part him who lived from him who looked like dead.
The news ran through the length and breadth of the kingdom the next morning, and telegraph wires flashed it all over the world. Tom Barley did not wake to find himself famous, for the reason that for several weeks he was in delirium, and very, very near to death. But none the less was he made famous and dubbed a hero of heroes for the wondrous battle he had fought. Newspapers and magazines sang his praises, and poets deified him. The days of Homer died not in Homer's verse. We have as glorious heroes to-day as have been handed down, immortalized from those by-gone times. We have hearts as valiant, and souls as noble, and love as sweet and pure, in this age which is dubbed commercial and prosaic; and though Tom Barley has a wooden leg, he is worthy to shake hands with Achilles. No such desire possesses him, or possessed him, when he saw Phœbe sitting by his bedside in the hospital.
"You are getting strong again, Tom?"
"Yes, Miss Phœbe; thank God! Is everybody well?"
"Everybody, Tom."
"Your aunt and uncle, and Miss Fanny and Master Robert?"
"They are all well, Tom. They send their love, and will come and see you when they are allowed."
"They are very good. And Mr. Cornwall, Miss Phœbe – he is well, I hope?"
"Quite well, Tom. He is below, waiting for me."
"I am glad to hear it, Miss Phœbe. But perhaps I am making a mistake."
"In what, Tom?"
"In calling you Miss Phœbe."
"No, Tom." She held up her left hand.
"If I dared to ask a favour?"
"You may dare to ask anything, Tom."
"That I may be allowed to come to the wedding?"
"Indeed, Tom, I think that is what we are waiting for. We could not be happy without you."
"I can't thank you now, Miss Phœbe," said Tom, tears gathering in his eyes. "I will when I'm stronger. There is another thing."
"Yes, Tom?"
"Say that you forgive me!"
"Ah, Tom!"
"It will make me happy, Miss Phœbe."
"Only because you have that foolish idea in your head – Tom, I forgive you!"
She stooped and kissed him, as she had kissed him on the morning he brought her from Parksides and gave her into the care of her good Aunt Leth.
"I am truly grateful," murmured Tom, in a choking voice, as he turned his face to the wall.
CHAPTER XIX
OFF FOR THE HONEY-MOON
"Welcome the coming, speed the parting, guest." Therefore shall our last chapter be short.
In the autumn of the following year a quiet wedding-party assembled after church in Aunt Leth's house. To be exact, it was a double wedding-party – Phœbe and Fred, Fanny and Dick. It was a gathering of friends, some of whom have played their parts in this story, and whom, I hope, we have grown to love. The Lethbridge family, of course – I cannot stop to relate the wonderful day-dream Uncle Leth had on that morning – and Mr. and Mrs. Linton and Kiss, and 'Melia Jane and Tom Barley; those were the principal ones. There were also connections of Fred Cornwall and Dick Garden, all amiable, pleasant persons, if one could judge from their faces. Tom Barley had just whispered something to 'Melia Jane, and her answer was,
"Lor', Tom; I'm ashamed to think of it!"
"Then you won't," whispered Tom.
"Yes, I will," replied 'Melia Jane, very quickly. "It was the way the fortune came out last night. But to think of it, Tom! to think of it!"
And to the surprise of all, not one of whom had heard a word of what had passed, 'Melia Jane threw her apron over her head, where it hung down like a bridal veil. She had put on the apron when she came from the church into the house, to wait upon the company. It was a smarter apron than usual, and she was proud of it; and, as you see, she put it to good use – to hide her blushes.
The two young couples will set up house-keeping on the day they return from their honey-moon tour. The houses are taken, and Aunt Leth will be very busy while they are away setting everything in order for her dear ones. Tom Barley will live with Phœbe and Fred as gardener – that is, unless he and 'Melia Jane decide to set up a separate establishment of their own. Tom is in a position to do this. He has received the five hundred pounds offered as a reward for the recovery of the diamond bracelet, and at least another five hundred subscribed by an admiring public for his gallant conduct.
"How do you do, Mrs. Cornwall?" whispered Fanny to Phœbe.
"How do you do, Mrs. Garden?" whispered Phœbe to Fanny.
Then they stepped aside and kissed and embraced, with faces like an April day – one of the brightest and most beautiful of April days.
Their last kisses, their last embraces, are for Aunt Leth. She stands at the door gazing after the carriages with sweet and wistful eyes. And so the young people commence their happy wedded life.
