Читать книгу The Prophet's Mantle - Hubert Bland - Страница 3

PROLOGUE.

O be the son of a noble of high position, to be the heir to vast estates in a western province, and to a palace in the capital, to have large sums safely invested in foreign banks, to be surrounded by every luxury that to most men makes life worth living, to be carefully inoculated with all the most cherished beliefs of the territorial aristocracy, and as carefully guarded from all liberal influences; to be all this does not generally lead a man to be a social reformer as well. Such causes, as a rule, do not produce a very revolutionary effect. But in Russia, tyranny, officialism, and the supreme sway of ignorance and brutality, seem to have reversed all ordinary rules, and upset all ordinary calculations. There the 'gentlemen of the pavement' are nobles, with a longer lineage than the Romanoffs, and progressive views find some of their most doughty champions in the ranks of the old nobility. So Count Michael Litvinoff was not such a startling phenomenon, nor such a glaring anomaly, as he would have been in any other country. His parents died when he was about eighteen, and after their death he spent most of his time in close study of physics, philosophy, and of the 'dismal science,' as expounded by its most advanced apostles. He wrote, too, extensively, though most of his works were published in countries where the censorship was not quite so strict as in his own. When he was about twenty-five, and was deep in the heart of his great work, 'The Social Enigma,' he woke up one morning with a conviction that all his last chapters were utter nonsense, and, what was worse, he couldn't for the life of him make out what they meant even when he read them over. Bewildered and anxious, he hastened to refer the matter to a personal friend and political ally, whose answer was brief and to the point.

'Nonsense? Why, the book's as clear as daylight, and as convincing as Euclid. You've been working too hard—overdoing it altogether. Go to the South of France for a month, and lose a few roubles at Monte Carlo. It will do you good.'

Michael Litvinoff took the first part of this advice; and though he did not take the second part, he did sometimes spend an hour in watching others lose their money.

One night he noticed a young man on whom fortune appeared to be frowning with more than her usual persistence and bitterness. Again and again he staked, and again and again he lost. At last he collected the few coins that remained of the good-sized heap with which he had begun, and staked them all. He lost again. He got up and walked out. Struck by the wild look in his eyes, Litvinoff followed him into the gardens of the Casino. At the end of a dark alley he stopped, pulled something from his breast, which might have been a cigar-case, opened it, and took out something which Litvinoff saw was not a cigar. The Count sprang forward, and knocked the other's hand up just in time to send a tiny bullet whizzing through the orange trees.

'Damn you!' cried the other, in English, turning furiously on Litvinoff. 'What the devil do you mean?'

'Come to my rooms,' said the Count simply; and the other, after a moment's hesitation and a glance of sullen defiance, actually obeyed, and in silence the two walked side by side out of the gardens.

When the door of his sitting-room was closed upon them, Count Litvinoff waved his new acquaintance to an easy-chair, and, taking one himself, remarked—

'You're a nice sort of sportsman, aren't you? Suppose you have some tea and a cigar.'

'The cigar with pleasure; but tea is not much in my line.'

'Ah, I forgot; you English don't worship tea as we Russians do. By-the-way, as there's no one else to perform the ceremony, I may as well introduce myself. My name is Michael Litvinoff.'

The other looked up.

'Let me withdraw my refusal of your offer just now. I must confess that it would be pleasant to me to drink tea, or anything else in reason, in the company of the man who has written "Hopes and Fears for Liberty."'

The tea was made, and before the cigar was finished Litvinoff had learned not only that his new friend was a political sympathiser, but also the main facts in the young man's personal history.

His name was Armand Percival; his father English, his mother French. He had been brought up in Paris, and had been left an orphan with a small but sufficient property, which, with an energy and application worthy of a better cause, he had managed to scatter to the winds before a year was over. It was the last remnant of this little possession that he had brought to Monte Carlo in the desperate hope of retrieving his fallen fortunes, and with the fixed determination of accepting the ruling of fate and of ending his life, should that hope be unfulfilled.

'And really,' he ended, 'you would have done better to have been judiciously blind in the gardens just now, and have let the farce be played out. As it is, affairs are just as desperate as they were an hour ago, and I, perhaps thanks to your good tea, am not so desperate. When I leave you I must go and grovel under the orange trees till I find that pistol, for I haven't even the money to buy another.'

'It won't do to let the world lose a friend of liberty in this fashion. They are scarce enough. We can talk this over to-morrow. Stay here to-night. We'll hunt for your little toy by daylight if you like.'

They did find the pistol the next day. By that time they had had a good deal of talk together, and Armand Percival had become the private secretary of Count Michael Litvinoff.

Life on the ancestral estate of the Litvinoffs was utterly different from anything Percival had ever known before, but he had conceived an unbounded admiration and affection for his friend and employer, and he threw himself into his new duties with an ardour which made boredom simply impossible, and with a perseverance almost equalling that which he had displayed in the dissipation of his little fortune.

He helped Litvinoff in all his literary work, and was soon admitted to his fullest confidence. His new life was wrapped in an atmosphere of romance, and it contained a spice of danger which was perfectly congenial to his nature. The most commonplace action ceases to be commonplace when one knows that one risks one's life in doing it. He soon made rapid progress in the Russian language—Swinburne was given up for Pouchkine, Tchernychewsky displaced Victor Hugo, and Percival revelled in the trenchant muscular style of Bakounin as he had once delighted in the voluptuous sweetness of Théophile Gautier. He had always had a leaning towards Democracy, and a fitful kind of enthusiasm for popular liberty. The strong personal influence, the much bigger enthusiasm, and the intense reality of Michael Litvinoff's convictions served to swell what had been a little stream into a flood with a tolerably strong current.

Both men worked hard, and at the end of some twenty months 'The Social Enigma' was published in London and Paris. In this, Litvinoff's great work, he managed to keep just on the right side of the hedge, but he indemnified himself for this self-denial by writing a little pamphlet, called 'A Prophetic Vision,' which was published by the Revolutionary Secret Press, and circulated among the peasants, for whom it was specially written; and all those concerned in its publication flattered themselves that this time, at any rate, the chief of the secret police and his creatures, in spite of their having obtained a copy twenty-four hours after it was printed, were thoroughly off the track.

One night in winter the secretary sat at his old-fashioned desk in the oak-panelled room in the east wing of the mansion. Big logs glowed on the immense open hearth, in front of which a great hound stretched its lazy length. The secretary was correcting manuscripts in a somewhat desultory way, and varying the monotony of the penwork with frequent puffs of cigarette smoke. Some wine stood at his elbow.

Count Litvinoff had been away ten days, and would be away as long again. He had gone to a meeting of friends of the cause at Odessa, and Percival felt the strength of his enthusiasm beginning to give way before the appalling deadly dulness of his perfectly solitary life. There was not a creature to speak to within miles except the servants, and Russian servants, as a class, are not much of a resource against ennui.

He flung down his pen at last, leaned back in his chair, and poured himself out some more wine. He held it up to the light to admire its ruby colour, and then tasted it appreciatively.

'H'm! not bad. About the best thing in the place now its master's away. Heigho!—heigho! this is very slow, which, by-the-way, is rhyme.'

He spoke the words aloud, and the hound on the bearskin by the fire rose, stretched itself, and came slowly to lay its great head on his knee.

'Well, old girl, I daresay you'd like a little hunting for a change. Upon my soul it's almost a pity we're so very clever in keeping our literary achievements dark. We should have something exciting then at anyrate, and I'd give anything for a little excitement.'

'You're likely to have as much as you care about, then,' said another voice, which made Percival leap to his feet as the purple curtains that hung across the arched entrance to the sleeping-room were flung back, and a tall figure, muffled in furs, strode forward. The dog sprang at it.

'Down, Olga! Quiet, quiet, old lady!'

The coat was thrown off, and fell with a flop to the ground; and Litvinoff held out his hand to his secretary, who had started back and caught up the manuscripts, and was holding them behind him.

'Good heavens!' said Percival. 'Litvinoff, what is it? Are they after you? How did you come in?'

'I came in the way we must go out before another half-hour. They've found out the distinguished author of the "Vision," and they're anxious to secure the wonder. Lock that door; we don't want the servants.'

'It is locked. I don't do work of this sort with unlocked doors.'

Litvinoff glanced at the manuscript on the oak writing-table.

'We must collect all this and burn it, though I don't think we could be deeper damned than we are, even if we left it alone.'

'But where have you come from?' asked Percival, laying his hand on the other's shoulder. 'You're wet through. Have a drink,' and he poured out a tumbler of the Burgundy.

Litvinoff took it, and as he set down the glass replied, 'I fell into some water. There was snow enough to hide the ice.'

'Well, then, the very first thing is to change your clothes. Shall I get you dry ones, or will you go?'

'No, no; neither of us must leave this room. There may be a traitor in the house for aught I know. No one saw me come in. I shall do well enough.'

'You may as well be executed at once as be frozen to death in the course of the night. You must make shift with some of my things. You change while I see to the papers. We can talk while you're changing.'

Each went deftly and swiftly about what he had to do, and neither seemed to be in the least thrown off his balance. There was much less fuss than there is in some families every morning when the 'City man' is hurrying to catch his train. Drawer after drawer was emptied out on the wide hearthstones, and as stern denunciations of tyranny and eloquent appeals to the spirit of freedom vanished in smoke and sparks up the great chimney, Percival, a little puffed by his exertions, asked, 'How soon must we go? What's the exact state of things?'

'Our friends at Odessa were warned. There's an order for my arrest. I was to have been taken at Odessa, and long before this they'll have found out that I'm not there, and will have started after me here.'

'But how are we to go? Are we to walk, and fall into a succession of pools? Can't we get some horses from the stable?'

'I have a sleigh not a quarter of a mile off. Zabrousky is with it, waiting. We can reach Kilsen to-night, and get horses for the frontier. There is a revolver in the desk. The one in my belt is full of water. I've got two passports that will carry us over. You are Monsieur Mericourt of Paris, and I am Herr Baum of Düsseldorf, friends travelling.'

It was lucky that this room, the ordinary work-room of the friends, contained all their secrets and most of their 'portable property.'

'How about money?' asked the secretary.

'There are three hundred Napoleons in the cash-box. Those will be best to take. By-the-way, stick a French novel into your portmanteau, and throw in anything you can to fill it up. We have the frontier to pass. You know I am all right at Paris or Vienna.'

'Oh, yes,' rejoined Percival. 'If we get there we're all right. But these clothes of yours; we must hide them, or they'll tell tales.'

'Oh, bring them with you, and leave the room in order.'

'Yes, and I must take a revolver myself. We'll give a good account of a few of those brutes if they come too close.'

'Are we ready? I'll take the portmanteau, you carry those clothes. Now then, lights out. Give me your hand.'

The candles were blown out, and Litvinoff led the way through the bedroom and through a tiny door in the panelled wall, of whose existence Percival had been up to this moment ignorant. They passed down a narrow staircase, in a niche of whose wall they left the wet garments, and, passing through a stone passage or two, suddenly came out into the ice-cold air at an angle of the house quite other than that at which Percival had expected to find himself.

Litvinoff shivered. 'I miss my cloak,' he said. 'However, there are plenty of skins in the sleigh.'

The snow fell lightly on them as they hurried quietly away; it did its best with its cold feathery veil to hide the footsteps of the fugitives.

'Is this exciting enough for you?' asked the Count as they strode along under cover of the trees.

'Quite, thanks—I think I should be able to submit to a little less excitement with equanimity. It won't be actually unpleasant to be out of the dominions of his sacred majesty.'

'This excitement is nothing to what we shall have in getting over the frontier,' said Litvinoff; 'that's where the tug of war will come. Percival,' he went on after a pause, 'I shall never forgive myself if you suffer in this business through me.'

'My dear fellow,' Percival answered cheerfully, 'if it had not been for you I should have been out of it all long ago, and if the worst comes to the worst, there's still a way out of it. As long as I have my trusty little friend here,' tapping the revolver in his breast pocket, 'I don't intend to see the inside of St. Peter and St. Paul.'

As he spoke they heard the sound of horses' restless hoofs.

'What's that?'

'All right!' returned Litvinoff. 'They're our horses.'

Behind a clump of fir trees the sleigh was waiting, and beside it a man on a horse.

The two friends entered the sleigh, and adjusted the furs about them, and Litvinoff took the reins.

'Good speed,' said Zabrousky; 'a safe journey, and a good deliverance.'

'Good-bye,' Litvinoff said. 'Don't stay here a moment. It may cost you your life.'

In another instant the horseman had turned and left them, and the jingling of the harness and the noise of the fleet hoofs were the only sounds that broke the dense night silence as the sleigh sped forward.

'Have you any idea what the time is?' said Litvinoff, when they had travelled smoothly over three or four miles of snow. 'It's too cold to get watches out, and too dark to see them if we did.'

'It must be past two,' said Percival. 'It must have been past midnight when you came in. I wonder what time those devils will reach the empty nest.'

'The later the better for us, and the servants will mix things a bit by telling them that I've not been home. At this rate we shall reach Eckovitch's place about four. We can stretch our legs there while he rubs the horses down a bit.'

'Will that be safe? Is he to be trusted?'

'My dear Percival, this line of retreat has been marked out a long time. Eckovitch has been ready for me any time these three years.'

Nothing more was said. The situation was too grave for mere chatter, and there was nothing of importance that needed saying just then. Percival leaned back among the furs, which were by this time covered with snow, and Litvinoff seemed to be concentrating all his attention on his driving, using the horses as gently as possible, and continually leaning forward and peering into the darkness to make out the track, which was becoming no easy task, as the steady falling snow was fast obliterating the landmarks.

The secretary, overcome by that drowsiness which results from swift movement through bitterly cold air, was almost asleep, when the horses slackened speed, and the change in the motion roused him.

'What's up? What's wrong?' he asked.

'All right. Here's Eckovitch!' and as he spoke the sleigh drew up in front of a long, low wooden building. He handed the reins to Percival, sprang to the ground, and battered at the door. After a short pause a light could be seen within, and a voice asked—

'Who's there?'

The Count answered with one word which had a Russian sound, but which Percival had never heard before.

The door was opened at once, and after a few low-spoken words between Litvinoff and someone within, a man came out and took the reins, and Percival left the sleigh and followed his friend into the house.

A woman was already busy in fanning into new life the red ashes that had been covered over on the hearth. She flung on some chips and fir cones, and soon the crackling wood blazed up and showed the homely but not uncomfortable interior. As the two travellers shook the snow off their furs, Percival asked in English who this man was.

'A friend,' Litvinoff answered. 'He's supposed to be an innkeeper, but there aren't many travellers on this road. We make up deficiencies in his income.'

They drew seats up to the fire, and the woman brought them some glasses and a flask of vodka.

'You shall have some tea in a minute.'

'I hate this liquid fire,' said Percival, 'and I like tea better than I did at Monte Carlo. I'll wait for that.'

'Drink this, and don't be too particular. It'll help to keep us going, and we'll take the fag end of the flask with us,' Litvinoff answered.

When the tea was ready, and some sausage and bread were set before the strangers, the woman sat down on the other side of the hearth and looked at them as they ate, which they did with fairly good appetites.

Presently a low wailing cry arose from the further corner of the room, and the woman went and took up a funny old-fashioned looking little baby, and, returning to her seat by the fire, sat hushing it with low whispers of endearment. It was a strangely peaceful little scene, between two acts of a sufficiently exciting drama, which, for aught any of the actors knew, might end as a tragedy.

The spell of silence which had been over them in the sleigh was broken now, and they chatted lightly over their hasty meal. The Count's demeanour in the face of danger was a thing after Percival's own heart, and he had never admired his friend so much as he did, when, the meal being over, Litvinoff leaned back nonchalantly, stroking his long fair moustache and stirring his final cup of tea.

The secretary's own calmness was really more remarkable, however, since he was in the position of a young soldier under fire for the first time, whereas Litvinoff had known for eight years that at any moment he might be arrested, or might have to fly.

'Your horses will do to get to Kilsen now,' said the man, opening the door; 'you were wise to give them this rest. They'd not have done without it.'

'Poor brutes,' said the Count, 'I wish we could give them longer, but every minute's of consequence.'

'You'll cross the frontier at Ergratz, I suppose,' said the innkeeper, as they came out into the air. The weather had changed in the little time they had been in shelter. The snow was no longer falling; through a break in the clouds one or two stars twinkled frostily, and the wind was blowing the snow off the road in drifts.

As the sleigh glided away the man re-entered his house and bolted the door, and in five minutes the fire was raked together and covered over, the light was extinguished, and no sign left to show that wayfarers had been entertained there that night.

'We'll take the horses easily a bit now,' said Litvinoff; 'there'll be some stiffish hills by-and-by.'

They seemed to have been on the road for about six nights instead of one, when, nearly half way up one of these same stiffish hills, Percival laid his hand on Litvinoff's shoulder. 'Stop a moment,' he said, 'I heard hoofs behind.'

They stopped, listened, and heard nothing.

'It must have been the echo of our own hoofs among these hills. If they are near enough to be heard, it's all up with us. They're sure to be well mounted. However, we'll do our best to get on to Kilsen, and get mounted ourselves before morning.'

But morning was beginning to break, and with it came fresh snow.

At the foot of the next hill the secretary spoke again.

'Litvinoff, I'm certain I hear hoofs, and a good many of them.'

'So do I. We'll whip on—they can't hear us, the wind blows from them. We'll try another chance presently. I don't think we can win by speed.' He urged on the tired horses with voice and whip, and the weary animals put forth their strength in a wilder gallop. They were now rushing very swiftly through the icy air, and every moment increased the pace.

They had to slacken a little in going up the last and highest hill, near the crown of which they turned back their heads, and saw that what they had been flying from all night was close upon them now.

Over the brow of a lower hill immediately behind them came a band of horsemen, about a dozen strong as it seemed in the pale grey of the dawn.

'We must leave the sleigh,' said Litvinoff. 'Almost in a line across country to the left, not more than two versts off, is the house of Teliaboff; there we are safe for a day or two, if we can get there unseen. It's a desperate chance, but we must try it. Prop up the portmanteau and the furs to look like our figures. We'll tie the reins here, and get out just over the brow. They'll see us as we go over. Those Cossacks have eyes like eagles. We'll lash the horses on, and they'll go some distance without us; and when those devils find we're not in the sleigh they won't know exactly where to begin to search for us. Thank God, it's snowing harder and harder. That will help to hide our traces; and over this broken ground to the left our legs will serve us better than their horses will them.'

'There's barely a chance,' said the secretary. 'Let's stay and fight it out.'

'We'll fight if the worst comes to the worst; but as it is we've a very fair chance of escape. We have our revolvers.'

As they crossed the brow of the hill a wild shout borne by the wind told them that the Count had been right. They had been seen.

Litvinoff stopped the horses, and the two men got out, leaving the counterfeit presentment of themselves, which the secretary's deft hands had invested with a very real appearance.

The Count gave two tremendous lashes, the horses sprang madly forward at three times the pace they had made hitherto, and the two fugitives plunged through the snow to the left of the road.

'Don't go too fast,' whispered Litvinoff; 'you'll need all your wind presently. We've a fair start now, and they can't follow on horseback.'

They had not gone two hundred yards before they heard the troop sweep by.

'We weren't a minute too soon,' the secretary said.

'There goes another of them,' said the Count, as again they caught the sound of a horse's snow-muffled hoofs.

On they went, struggling over rough ground, sometimes waist-deep in snowdrifts, sometimes tripping over concealed stones or broken wood.

'We shall do it now,' said Litvinoff.

'They're on us, by God!' cried the secretary at the same instant.

They turned; they had been tracked, but only by one man. One of the pursuers, who had been a little behind the others, either better trained in this sort of sport than his fellows, or guided by some sixth sense, seemed to have divined what they had done, and had dismounted just at the right place, and followed them on foot.

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.

HE 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.

HE 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.

'Well, I'm damned!' remarked the gentleman in the fur cap, who had snatched the girl out of danger; 'it's the nearest shave as ever I see.'

It had been a near shave; but the old gentleman was unhurt, though considerably flustered, and immeasurably indignant.

'Hurt? No, I'm not hurt—no thanks to that fool of a driver; such idiots ought to be hanged. But I ought to thank the gentleman who saved me.'

As he spoke the young man came forward deadly pale and without a hat.

'I do hope you're not hurt,' he said, in a singularly low, soft voice, speaking with a little catching of the breath. It was he who had leaned against the wall in the theatre. His hands were evidently good for something better than twisting tobacco. 'I hope the pole did not touch you? I am afraid I was hardly quick enough, but I couldn't get through the people before.'

'My dear sir, you were quick enough to save me from being impaled against this wall; but I really feel quite upset. I must get my daughter home. She looks rather queer.'

She was holding his arm tightly between her hands.