Читать книгу The Watchman of Orsden Moss - J. Monk Foster - Страница 10

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It was evening, a few hours after Aaron Shelvocke told his nephew to arrange for moving his quarters to Orsden Hall, and the "New Squire"—as some of the miners, half in earnest and half in jest, were minded to call the successor of the Vanshaws—was leisurely strolling in the direction of the village.

It was a warm, misty eventide. A luminous, leaden-coloured haze covered the whole of the visible heavens, save in the occidental quarter, where the slowly sinking sun could be perceived behind the vapourous bank of cloud. The distant range of hills on the Bispham side of the village rose up clearly in dark-green masses, and the colliery, the clusters of rambling houses, the adjacent fields, and the white highway, seemed steeped in an odorous calm.

Shelvocke was nearing the entrance to the carriage drive, with his mind dwelling upon the Black Boar, where he was thinking of passing an hour or so on the bowling green, when he noticed the figure of a man standing at the iron gate near the high road. The man was a gentleman evidently from his dress and bearing, and scarcely a villager or one who lived near, or Aaron would have known him, he reflected.

Beside the half-opened gate the stranger remained, still-standing in an expectant attitude, and presently Shelvocke joined him.

"Good evening," the gentleman said affably. "You are Mr. Shelvocke, I believe, of Orsden Hall?"

"Quite right, sir," Aaron answered easily. "Was I right in thinking that you wished to speak to me?"

"You were; but permit me to introduce myself."

He handed to Aaron a card he had drawn from his pocket as he was speaking, and upon the oblong slip of white pasteboard Shelvocke read as under—

MR. LINDON PATTINGHAM, Gathurst House, Gathurst Bridge.

"I am very pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr. Pattingham," our friend remarked, suavely, as he twirled the card in his brown fingers and looked the tall, well-dressed, good-looking man of forty-five in the face. "And what is it you wish to see me about?"

"Oh, nothing particular, Mr. Shelvocke," the other answered; "at least it is nothing of a very pressing nature. I chanced to be strolling past, enjoying the fine evening very much, when I happened to see you coming along the drive; then it struck me that I might as well stop and speak to you."

"Of course; but what about?"

"Well, if you are at liberty for half an hour or so I can tell you as we walk along the lane here; but if you are engaged I can wait and call again."

Shelvocke hastened to assure Mr. Lindon Pattingham that he was absolutely at liberty for any reasonable time that gentleman might care to claim; and as he said so they turned along the lane with their backs towards the village, strolling leisurely in the direction of Gathurst Bridge. Mr. Pattingham had drawn a cigar-case from his pocket, and insisted upon the master of Orsden Hall helping himself to a weed; and as they both lit up and paced along Pattingham remarked in a quiet, matter-of-fact manner—

"You'll pardon me for saying, Mr. Shelvocke, that although you didn't know me, and had never met me before this evening, I have lived in these parts for some tens of years. My place, Gathurst House, is a rather comfortable sort of shanty, and as I have resided there for a dozen years you will understand that I don't half like leaving it."

"Are you thinking of leaving Gathurst House, Mr. Pattingham?" Shelvocke enquired with a faint show of interest.

"I am, worse luck, and unwillingly, as you may gather," was the answer made in a tone of gentle chagrin. "The fact is, Mr. Shelvocke," Pattingham went on with an airy movement of the two forefingers between which his smoking cigar was held, "that my lease will terminate in the course of a very short time, and my landlord has expressed his unwillingness to renew it. I imagine he wants the house for his own residence. He is a well-to-do tradesman in Coleclough, and is thinking of retiring from business at an early date, you understand?"

"Yes; I understand, Mr. Pattingham," Aaron responded readily, and yet wondering as to the nature of his companion's business with himself. "And in what way, may I ask, does the determination of your tenancy of Gathurst House affect me?"

"That is exactly what I am going to tell you, Mr. Shelvocke. You know Mr. Bryham, of Orsden Mount?"

"I have met him several times; and we have had some little conversation together," Aaron answered.

"Well, Mr. Bryham was telling me a week or two ago that you were not at all enamoured of your purchase of the Orsden Hall estate," Mr. Pattingham remarked, as his eyes met Shelvocke's.

"That is quite true. I imagine that I paid a fairly big price for the few cottages in the village there, the farm or two about it, the mile or so of useless moss and an old colliery which is almost worked out," Aaron cried.

"I understood Bryham to say that you half repented of your bargain. Is that so?" Pattingham queried, as he flipped the ash from his weed.

"Yes, I did half repent, but not wholly. I am settled down here now, and I imagine that, with ordinary care, I need not lose very much over the transaction."

"Still, if you were thinking of getting it off your hands at a fair price, Mr. Shelvocke, I feel inclined to help you in that way," Pattingham suavely responded.

"I hardly follow you, Mr. Pattingham," the master of Orsden Hall ejaculated, with a little start of surprise. "Do you mean to say that you are prepared to take my doubtful bargain off my hands—or that you know some one else who would do so?"

"That is it exactly! For certain reasons, which I need not trouble you by stating at this moment, I do not desire to quit the neighbourhood, and Orsden Hall would suit me exactly if I could arrange terms with you on a fair and equitable basis."

"I am rather attached to the Hall now, and should be somewhat loth to leave it. If the house is all you require——"

"Oh, I would take everything as you found it," Pattingham broke in eagerly; "that is, at a fair price."

"And your notion of a fair price is what, Mr. Pattingham?"

"The sum you paid."

"Humph!" Aaron Shelvocke murmured reflectively, and his brown fingers were run over the sheaf of grizzled hair on his chin. "That seems fair enough, I must admit," he added. "But you see, my dear sir, I didn't purchase this estate as a sort of speculative concern, out of which I hoped to make money. I merely wanted a comfortable home in my native place; and now that I am planted here I dislike the idea of moving."

"Quite natural! Quite natural!" Pattingham rejoined. "But perhaps we might overcome that difficulty. You might retain possession of the Hall if you were prepared to dispose of the other property you acquired—the moss, the farms, and the colliery."

"And if I decided to retain the Hall alone, Mr. Pattingham, what sum might you offer me?" Aaron queried.

"A round sum of fourteen thousand!"

"Thank you. I will think about your offer."

"And let me know your decision when?"

"Before the end of the week—that will be early enough, I suppose?"

"I should prefer an answer to-morrow, if you could contrive to let me have it then."

"Perhaps I might," Shelvocke said slowly; then he added in a more sprightly manner, and his keen, grey-blue eyes scanned his companion's features closely, "But I thought, Mr. Pattingham, that you only desired a new residence, as you had to leave Gathurst House?"

"My words may have given you that impression, Mr. Shelvocke," the gentleman answered, with a half-smile.

"And my impression was not the right one?" Aaron questioned, his face grave now, and his whole manner one of suspicion.

"Frankly, my friend, you have hit it," the man from Gathurst Bridge exclaimed with an air of great frankness. "I think I can trust you, and I will do so. All I desire to purchase from you is Orsden Moss, and——"

"Orsden Moss! That barren bog!"

"Which I think I can make some thousands of pounds out of. To tell you the whole truth that is my secret. For years I have been hard at work upon an invention, and at length have succeeded in perfecting and patenting it. This invention is one that is designed to convert the huge tracts of peat and turf scattered about the kingdom into a valuable substitute for coal; and that my discovery, or invention, whichever you care to call it, is of the utmost commercial value I am so thoroughly satisfied that I wish to purchase Orsden Moss from you in order to commence operations at once. Now you understand me, Mr. Shelvocke?"

"Completely! And I congratulate you heartily on your invention, which I hope may prove equal to your expectations," the master of Orsden Hall cried warmly.

"Thank you; and you will let me have an answer as soon as possible, Mr. Shelvocke? I am quite eager to get to work at once, right here in the heart of Lancashire."

"You shall have my answer to-morrow, Mr. Pattingham."

"Again I thank you; and I sincerely trust that your answer may be a favourable one," the man of inventive mind murmured in tones of unconcealed concern.

"I think you may hope for the best, sir," Aaron made answer. "The Moss is neither of use to me nor anybody else, so far as I can see; and if you are able to turn it into use, I don't see why you should not do so."

"Of course not. Well, I will trouble you no further at present, Mr. Shelvocke," Pattingham said pleasantly as he drew up in the gathering dusk. "I cannot say how pleased I am to have met you. Of course, you will keep what I have told you to yourself for the present. And you will not omit to send me that answer to-morrow?"

"Without fail you shall have it."

"You needn't post your message. Any of your servants can find my place; and I will repay your messenger for the trouble of walking over to Gathurst House. Now, you will excuse me. Good evening."

"Good evening."

They shook hands vigorously, parted in the best of spirits, and as Mr. Lindon Pattingham disappeared in the dusky shadows of the green-hedged lane, Aaron Shelvocke struck a match and relit the cigar he had permitted to expire. Then as the white volumes of fragrant smoke were curling upward from his mouth, and he set his face homewards he heard a familiar voice call his name.

"Hello, uncle! That you? Been having a stroll?"

"Just a stroll and a smoke and a chat, my lad," Aaron answered genially as he turned to his nephew. "And you, Mat—where may you have been?"

"To the village of Gathurst Bridge to see an old chum of mine," the young man replied.

"Gathurst Bridge!" Aaron said thoughtfully; "I dare say you will know Gathurst House then?"

"Of course I do."

"Well, I may want you to go there to-morrow."

"I met Mr. Pattingham just this moment in the lane there," Mat exclaimed.

"You would. I had been with him. And so you know Mr. Lindon Pattingham, Mat?"

"What else? Everybody knows him for a few miles round here. If you hadn't turned up a month or two ago and restarted the Orsden Green Colliery it was my intention to go to his place and ask for a job."

"His place! What do you mean?"

"Don't you know that Mr. Pattingham is the biggest shareholder and managing Director of the Red Moss Colliery, which lies just beyond Orsden Moss?"

"Ha!" That exclamation fell from Shelvocke's lips ere he could repress it. In his usual voice he added. "I wasn't aware of the fact, Mat, although I have made that gentleman's acquaintance this very evening. That is the colliery, isn't it, where several of the mines were lost some time ago through a fault which threw them out?"

"The same. They have been boring and tunnelling ever so long in search of the lost seams."

"I hardly think now, Mat," Aaron responded, turning the conversation suddenly, "that I shall proceed with my plans for draining the Moss and putting it under cultivation."

"How's that?" the lad blurted out in amaze. "Why it was only to-day that we were over it together, and you were full of all sorts of schemes and plans for turning it into valuable land."

"Well, I find, Mat," Aaron answered with a smiling face, "that it is valuable without spending anything upon it."

"I hardly understand you, uncle," the youth rejoined with a sorely puzzled look.

"Of course not. But the fact is that I have had offered for it a sum as large—within a few hundreds—as that which I gave for the Hall and the whole of the estate."

"You have?" Mat gasped incredulously.

"I have; and this very evening."

"Then I know who made you the offer, uncle," the young fellow said earnestly; "and I can tell you as well why he wants to buy it now."

"Not so fast, my young man. Not so fast," Aaron replied half-jocularly. "It was a mistake to tell you what I have done, but I think I can trust you. And now the name of the would-be buyer, Matthew?"

"Mr. Lindon Pattingham!" was the firm and ready answer.

"Perhaps you are right—mind, I only say perhaps. And now, assuming that you have guessed the right name—and you only guessed that name because I told you that Mr. Pattingham had been with me this evening—why does he want Orsden Moss? If you can guess that, my smart youngster, I shall be ready to admit you are in Pattingham's confidence also."

"I have never spoken to Mr. Pattingham; still, I can guess why he is after Orsden Moss!" Mat affirmed, emphatically. "He wants it now because he knows or suspects there is a thick and valuable seam of cannel right under it."

"Nonsense!" and Aaron Shelvocke's hearty laugh rang out on the warm and quiet summer air. "Cannel under the Moss, Mat! What are you thinking about, my lad? Don't you know that your Uncle Luke spent scores of pounds boring for coal on the Moss, and never found anything?"

"Yes, I know that. But I know something else as well. They have found a seam of cannel to-day at the Red Moss Colliery in one of the tunnels. That is why Mr. Pattingham has been to you."

"Is this true, Mat?" Shelvocke whispered, as he paused abruptly in the lane, and stared closely into his nephew's countenance.

"It's as true as I am here."

"How did you get to know?"

"The mate I spoke of—young Dick Fleming—told me. He is working in the tunnel, and was there when the seam of cannel was laid bare this morning."

"It is strange we did not hear of this sooner, Mat," Aaron muttered.

"Not strange at all. If I hadn't happened to be an old chum of Fleming's he wouldn't have told me."

"How's that?"

"Because every man was warned under penalty of instant dismissal to say not a word of the cannel. For Dick's sake we must keep this information to ourselves."

"I understand. Where does this Fleming live?"

Mat told him.

"Will you fetch your friend to the Hall, Mat. If this is true, I will see that he never requires a place under any one but myself. Turn back at once and tell him I wish to see him. If he will answer me half a dozen questions I will give him £5."

"Right! I'll be back as quick as possible."

With that Mat Shelvocke hurried back in the direction of Gathurst Bridge, and Aaron strode thoughtfully homeward.