Читать книгу The White Gipsy - J. Monk Foster - Страница 7

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Midnight had passed an hour or more, and the earth was enveloped in the soft darkness and dreamy silence of an autumn night. A warm mist floated over the country side, hiding the stars from mundane eyes, and making things below vague and indistinct, and not a breath of wind stirred the trees in Hough Wood.

The wood lay about three miles to the west of Carsland Hall, away beyond the great sweep of the swelling upland previously mentioned; and here it was that Sydney elected to hide himself for the night after his successful plundering of the safe.

He was lying now in the heart of the wood, his couch a thick bed of tall bracken, his pillow the stout handbag of leather which contained the stolen jewels.

The spot he had chosen was an open space surrounded by a thick growth of trees and bushes, and the wide patch of fern among which he lay was so dense and luxuriant that no one could see him half-a-dozen yards away.

As he lay there he pondered on many things. His chief thoughts were connected, of course, with his own theft. When the safe was forced open, the jewels, bank notes, and cash, and himself missing, what course would his father pursue?

Would Sir Nicholas set the hounds of the law upon his track? He had no doubt his brother would urge his father to place the matter in the hands of detectives, but he felt almost certain that the baronet would decline to take that course. He calculated that his father would neither attempt to follow nor arrest him. Rather than face the terrible scandal the publication of his theft would create, he would prefer to lose the jewels and permit him to get clear away.

And assuming that he was to be permitted to escape scot free, what line of life and action was he to follow in the future? Was he to drift back to his old haunts, old acquaintances, old pleasures, and old vices?

His blood pulsed through his veins at that thought, and pleasant visions arose before his mental gaze. It would be worth much to go back to the old Bohemians and the old reckless Bohemian existence, a new man with thousands of pounds at his command. He would be able to repay with interest those who had stood by him in the days of his adversity—would be able also to give back scorn for scorn, insult for insult, stones in lieu of bread to those curs who had refused to cheer and aid him when his soul was torn and his spirit broken in the blackest days of his degradation and poverty.

It was a pleasant picture, and he dwelt upon it for a space with keen feelings of enjoyment. But he was not a fool; whatever else he might be. Full well he knew what it would mean—what it would cost him—to gratify his desires in that respect.

Once back in the old channel the current would prove strong enough to carry him along with it as before, and escape would be possible only when he was stranded high and dry—penniless, hopeless, irretrievably wrecked.

No! He must prove strong enough to resist that. The old past was dead and buried. The future must be something different.

Where should he go—America or Australia? In either continent the fates might prove kind and bless him with success. What he already possessed might prove the making of a great fortune, and some day he might come back to his birthland a rich and powerful—even an honoured—member of society.

Now that he forced himself to think calmly and dispassionately, he considered that the offence of which he had been guilty was of a venial kind. Who had a stronger claim, morally, to his dead mother's jewellery than he had? No one, he cried. He had felt for years that Frederic had resented his father's second marriage, and had hated himself. It would have been little less than sacrilege, therefore, to have permitted his half-brother's wife to wear the buried woman's trinketry.

He was glad now that he had taken them away. They were his, and he had got them. How terribly disappointed Mr. Frederic Carsland and Miss Adelaide Woodcock would be when they learned that the precious stones had disappeared, and divined who had appropriated them. He felt sorry that he could not be present to witness their chagrin and pain. How furious his ugly-faced half-brother would be! How strenuously he would urge Sir Nicholas to place the matter in the hands of the police, and how utterly crushed and disconcerted would be his condition when he discovered that the baronet loved his missing son more than the missing gems.

What was that?

Sydney Carsland's heart gave a great bound, and he sprang to his knees with his hands on his bag. He had heard the breaking of twigs under foot, as if someone were about in the wood and near at hand. Had imagined also that he had caught the faintest echo of human voices.

His eyes swept the open space about him, and his auditive powers were strained to their utmost. The mist had cleared away somewhat, and now that his sight had accustomed itself to the semi-darkness he could see fairly well.

He watched and listened and soon his fears were verified. Here and there, among the trees and bushes, the forms of men could be discerned, and now and again a word was wafted to his ears.

Who were they? he asked himself with a sinking heart. Had the theft been discovered already, and were these men running him to earth? It looked as if it were so, for whichever way he turned, the shadowy figures were to be seen. There must be a dozen men at least, and on all sides his hiding-place was guarded.

Throwing himself breast downward among the bracken, with the precious portmanteau gripped in one hand, he burrowed a path snake-like through the sheltering fern, working his way towards the edge of the clearing stealthily, and almost as noiselessly, as some frightened animal of the wood might have done.

Nearer and nearer the edge of the bracken he crept, and soon he was lying within the shadow of the trees. The men were roving about still as he could see and hear. Not a dozen paces from him a pair of dark forms were squatting on the sparse grass.

What was he to do? Creep forward still, or rise to his feet and make a burst for safety.

He decided on the former plan; stole forward on all fours, went sprawling in a rabbit-hole, heard a cry of alarm from several throats, jumped to his feet to make a rush for it, and found himself in the arms of a pair of brawny men. There was an outcry, a chorus of oaths, a short desperate struggle, and then a heavy stick crashed down on Sydney Carsland's head, and he fell senseless and bleeding on the grass.

In a moment a dozen men were around him, all excited and curious.

"Who is he? A lob or the keeper? Shine a light, Zack, let's see who he is?"

A pair of bull's eye lamps were flashed on the unconscious man's face, and then exclamations of wonder fell from the throats of all present,

"It's a gentleman not a lob!" "A regular swell too!" "What's he bin doin' here?" "Wonder who he is!"

These queries were cut short by the ringleader of a gang of poachers, a powerfully-built fellow, with a black beard. He had knocked Sydney down, and was now on his knees with his fingers in the senseless man's pocket.

"Shut up that row or you'll have all the lobs on top o' us. Shine that light this way, and let's see what he's getten in his pockets."

"I know him!" cried one of the younger men of the gang, bending over the prostrate form. "Don't rob him, Hullick. It's the young son of Sir Nicholas Carsland, o' Carsland Ha'. Leave him alone, Hullick. Ah dunno' mahnd a bit o' poachin', but we owt to stop at that."

"Thee shut up, Dick Miller, or I'll shut thy mouth for thee!" the leader growled. "In for a penny in for a pound's my motty. Hello, look here, lads! Bank notes, yellow boys, and silver. Collar that bag of his, and some on yo' gather the baggage. We're in for summat better nor game this neet, my hearties."

Five minutes later the poachers had departed, and the robbed thief was lying prone and unconscious on the sward where Mike Hullick had felled him.