A Rich Man's Relatives Volume III Part 6

"Let him slide. Put him back whar you brought 'n from. I wants no stranger wi 's this night."

"We cud not leave him here for the sheriff to find. They'd say we did for him. He has a gunshot in's body as it is, and I hain't a rag to cover him wi' when we leave him. You'd not be for givin' him your own coat, I reckon, and I know of nowt else, for I need my blanket to keep my own old bones warm o' nights. The lads have his pants, and boots, and things among them, the gals have the shirt and the towels, and I have the gold ticker for yourself, Reuben, and you wouldn't be for hanging it round's neck, I reckon, to show we didn't rob him, if we tote him to Belmore's place afore we start."

Reuben took the watch, opened it, held it to his ear, bit the chain with his teeth, tested it in such ways as occurred to him, and finally, satisfied of its value, slipped it into his pocket.

"We'll have to take him, I s'pose. Keep him quiet, and keep the duds away from him. He'll be bound to stay then, cuddn't make off ye know wi' nothin' but's own pelt on's back. He'll kin pay for's liberty and new duds afore long. And willin' too. But you'll have to keep dark."

There was no light in the gypsy camp that night. The fires had smouldered out, and the shadows of the trees excluded every glance of the moonlight. There was no sound either; no yelp of cur or cry of wakeful infant; only the hooting of a solitary owl overhead, blinking at the moon through the leaves, or the rustle of a fox stealing away through the underbush, making off with a half-picked bone. A mile away a creaking of wheels labouring through deep enc.u.mbered ruts, and the cracking of branches might have been heard in the stillness, while dusky figures shone momentarily in the moonlight as they pa.s.sed from one obscurity of shadow to the next.

Ere morning the gang was encamped again in another quiet corner, twenty miles distant from Belmore's bush, and next day they resumed their retreat to the Vermont Line, journeying calmly through a neighbourhood which knew nothing of the misdoings of Sall's husband.

Old Jess rode in the waggon with her charge, nursing and caring for him with much skill, but unable to extract the bullet from his wound.

That was now growing fevered and inflamed, the jolting must have caused him pain, and might have elicited a groan liable to be overheard at an inconvenient moment; but she contrived to keep him in a drowse with strange drinks of her own devising, which she administered to him, and it was a whole day from the time of his rescue before he was able to take note of his situation. Even then his head was dizzy, his shoulder ached; his body was so wretched, and his mind so confused, that he was glad to turn round and court sleep and unconsciousness again.

CHAPTER VIII.

IT WAS ALL WEBB'S FAULT.

It was a day or two before Ralph's nerves recovered their tone. It mortified him to discover that such things formed part of his internal economy, for he had supposed himself to resemble the strong and successful men of history and finance, who march straight forward to their purpose, looking neither behind nor to either side, careless alike of the downtrodden and the overthrown who mark their onward path, conquering and to conquer. It was a day or two before he calmed down, or, as his wife expressed it, "got over that little turn, which, now it was over, she was free to confess, had made her feel real anxious." The cares of business had been too much, she thought, and she was sure he wanted a change. "Why would he not take her for a few weeks to the sea; or to the White Mountains she was so fond of? Why keep a dog and be always barking himself? Had he not made Gerald a partner? Then why not leave him in charge of the business? She was sure her boy, with his inherited smartness and fine education, could manage very well for a week or two; and at the worst there was always the telegraph, and he could recall his father if he found the responsibility too much for him. Is he not a fine young man, Ralph?

Own up for once, though he is your own son."

"Yes, my dear, certainly!--Very fine indeed, and very nice--and a good lad to boot; but he knows no more of my business than you do, and I do not wish that he ever should."

Martha sighed. She had her misgivings that there were depths and recesses in her husband's thoughts and his affairs, which she had never sounded or peered into, and which might yield up skeletons and unwelcome truths to an over-inquisitive search. She had never attempted to know more than was disclosed, therein manifesting her wisdom. "Why should she, indeed?" as she asked herself. Ralph had always been kind; once upon a time, at least, he had been more, he had been really fond of her; and, for herself, she knew that she still loved him very dearly, and therefore it was wisdom to keep disturbing considerations out of sight. It is so always. There is much in life to make the moral perceptions jar. Good and evil are linked in such close relations--concurrent streams which occupy one channel amicably, and with mutual convenience, but without mingling--the wheat and tares growing up together, and both contributing to the luxuriance of the scene, however the strictly moral eye may disapprove. Still, Martha had her misgivings; or rather, if she would have heeded them, her intuitions. They started from the most trivial grounds, an inadvertent phrase, a laugh, or even a shrug of scorn, at something good or n.o.ble, which betrayed that there were things, and not so far either from the gates of speech, which, if they came forth, would raise a barrier between them which could never be pulled down; and so, as the guardian of her own happiness and peace, she resolutely turned her observation the other way, rather than see what it would cost her far too dear to know, as leading to an alienation worse than widowhood; for there could be mingled with it no tender regret, no hope, or even wish for reunion.

"Then is Gerald to have no holidays this year?" said Martha, by way of resuming the talk. "If you will not go away yourself you may surely send _him_."

"I don't think he wants to travel farther

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was finished. No, sir-ree! Not if I know it."

"But, my dear fellow, I really do not know whom you are talking about.

I a.s.sure you. I have not seen or heard of him since the other evening when we called on him together."

"Who _has_ seen him since then, I should like to know? But it is clear you know well enough what I'm driving at. Now, tell me, for we have little time to act in, have you taken any steps towards getting hold of his papers yet?"

"What steps would you wish me to take? or rather, what steps would be possible? Podevin--his host, remember, and the man has no one belonging to him, or more nearly interested in him, in this country--thinks he must have gone to New York by the early train the other morning; that he went straight from his room to the station without going into the hotel. You see the train stops for breakfast at that small station, fifty miles down the line. So he is no way disturbed at his guest's absence, who has taken his room for the season, and goes and comes as he likes."

"But the man is drowned! I saw him sink with my own eyes."

"If you will report that to the authorities, it will both simplify and hasten matters. Only the first question which they will ask is sure to be why you waited so many days before saying a word. The heat, no doubt, may be made to account for a good deal, but you had better have medical advice before committing yourself."

"But there is the boat. He undressed in the boat. That will tell the whole story. One of Podevin's boats, too."

"Ha! Yes; I think I remember, now you mention it, Randolph's telling us at dinner, yesterday, that Podevin's boat-house had been broken open and a boat carried off--yes, and the boat was picked up far down the river, and brought back all safe. And the old man has been fretting himself to make out which of his servants could have given it, for he is sure the boat-house has been opened from the inside. Not a word about clothes, though, and you see there is no anxiety whatever about his disappearance. We must wait. The body may be found."

"But I am going off--off to the White Mountains with my wife, for the rest of the warm weather, and there is no saying when I shall get back."

"No; I suppose not."

"And I want to take those securities, or whatever they are--you don't seem to know yourself? a pretty trustee!--along with me. Can I depend on you to send them after me?"

"_You_ should know. Would you do it yourself?" and Jordan, braced into self-a.s.sertion by the overbearing tone of the other, looked defiantly in his face. "In a year and ten months from now your son will have a right to dictate, if, as Considine phrased it the other evening, he shall then prove to be the heir. In the meantime, I am accountable only to my fellow-trustee, and if he does not call me to account I know of no one else in the position to do so. At the same time, your a.s.sistance in unloading my copper shares might be of vast benefit to me, and I am willing to pay for that, and pay handsomely, though it is idle to discuss at present what I may see my way to doing if ever I become sole trustee."

Ralph turned away with a shrug to buy his morning newspaper. "Brag is a good dog, but Hold-fast is a better," was all he said to himself as he seated himself in the railway carriage, and began to look over the news. It was a truism he had long been familiar with, but one which came pleasanter when he happened to own Hold-fast, instead of poor Brag. However, one must fight the dog he happens to have, there are chances, always, only one need not lament when what might have been expected comes to pa.s.s. It did seem to him, however, that he had very needlessly befouled himself with crime; he was going to make nothing out of it, that was pretty clear, and, as he cynically expressed it, the devil was picking him up a bargain, dirt cheap. His hide, however--his moral hide, that is--was tough and callous, and he congratulated himself on the circ.u.mstance. So long as the "untoward incident" was not known, it should not interfere with his appet.i.te or his spirits. Already he had become accustomed to that ugly word "murderer" in his mind; it was bearable he found, so long as it carried no external mark; though he regretted it, undoubtedly, now that it had turned out so utterly useless. As there was every prospect of its never being known, he would survive it well enough, he felt; but he would take precious good care next time that there should be no mistake about the _quid pro quo_, before again running the risk of so many ugly possibilities.

He reached town busied with these reflections, and hurried to his office, where he soon was deep in the correspondence of the days he had been absent, with Stinson behind his chair contributing condensed verbal information by way of commentary as he went along.

"Yes, Stinson, you'll do," he said, when he had laid down the last letter. "You've been a good clerk, and an apt pupil. You have feathered your nest nicely, I make no doubt, and when the house goes up, as it must, in three weeks at the outside--I think I can keep it standing till then--you will be in a good position, no one better, to start for yourself; and, with what I have taught you, to make your fortune right off. You will be able to start at once, I say, but if you take the advice of an old friend--who has not been a bad friend to you either, though I say it--you will wait on here and wind up the business. The creditors will be only too glad to have you. In fact, there is no one else who ever will unravel things. You will, and can, make your own terms with them, I doubt not; and the only favour I have to ask of you is that you will do what you can to let that boy Gerald down easy, and get him his discharge as soon as possible. It is well for him now, that he should have been so unfit for business--financial business, I mean, or rather, perhaps, our special application of the science of finance. He would have done well in some steady, old-fashioned, respectable concern, I make no doubt, for he is not a fool; but he wants enterprise, vim, go, and he has too many scruples for a rising man. His mother, good woman, has spoiled his prospects for life in this walk; but, as he will probably be independent, perhaps it is best so. There's nothing like high-souled honour to keep a man's head up in the world--when he can afford it, that is--I never could, not till after my road was chosen, at least, when it would have been too late; so broad views in economics and morals were the only ones for me, and I fancy some of my admirers will find them to have been even broader than they thought, after I have cleared out, and they find their money scattered past picking up again. But this is digression, Stinson; never mind _me_, only keep the boy's name clean.

It would break his spirit and kill his mother--the truest woman alive--if any reproach fell on him. Fling everything on me, I shall have so much to carry that a trifle more or less will make no matter.

And, after all, when Pikes Peak and Montana comes up to par, I shall be back again with a pocketful of money big enough to make them all keep quiet. If anybody strong enough to carry on a lawsuit for years has a colourable claim, I can settle with him out of court; and as for the small fry, I shall snap my fingers at them, and they will think me a finer fellow than ever for being able to over-ride them. They're like dogs, they reverence the man who can hide them soundly. But I talk discursively this morning. Eh, Stinson? I hope you will impress upon the lad, what, indeed, is the fact, and what the books of the firm show conclusively, and that is, that the _firm_ is solvent--almost, that is; ninety-eight cents to the dollar they show, and there would be a surplus, if the firm's funds had not been diverted to my private operations, with which he has no concern, and which it would be casting a reflection on me for him now to touch.

There is the Bank, the Copper Company, and the St. Lawrence and Hudson's Bay, in which he has absolutely no interest whatever. If the creditors of these come to him with representations, and claims of honour--I know how they will put it--asking him to promise a payment out of my uncle's fortune when he gets it, tell him from me, that I expect him as a good son to close his ears to every slanderous story, and to have nothing to do with those who tell it, and never to admit the possibility of such claims having a foundation, by attempting to settle them. It will not surprise me much if that inheritance of his turns out to be no great thing after all. It has not been in the most judicious keeping, and----But see, who is that at the door. Tell him, whoever he is, I am engaged, and can't see him. There are several drawers full of papers in the safe--the acc.u.mulation of years--I shall need your memory to help me, perhaps. We will tackle them to-day in case of accidents."

"Engaged most particularly," cried Stinson, unbolting the door and holding it ajar. "Can see n.o.body, Mr. Jordan. Indeed, sir--you cannot come in--no, indeed!"

"Stand back, you fool. Don't I tell you I must?" and Jordan, looking red and white in patches, hot and cold at once, his hat on his head askew, and his waistcoat torn open, struggled in, pushing Stinson aside, closing the door again, and locking it himself.

"See here! Herkimer. Have _you_ been served with this?--I have got one as solicitor, but you as president should be served also, and so should each individual director, I hold, and I mean to push the point as to their being served individually; but there can be no question about the necessity of serving the president."

"What is it? Let me see. Hm! Webb v. St. Euphrase Mining a.s.sociation.

Motion to show cause--pay dividend. Don't know, I'm sure. It may be in the outer office. Have been busy this morning--let n.o.body in but you--and that was only because Stinson failed to keep you out. Ask in the office as you go out, they will tell you--if you think it of consequence."

"Consequence? If they have not served you I can certainly get the hearing postponed, and secure time to unload."

"Time to unload? Who wants to unload? _I_ don't. I unloaded long ago."

"But _I_ do."

"And pray, Mr. Jordan, what of that? _You_ are not a director of this company--only the solicitor, its paid professional adviser. Send in your bill, it will be filed with the rest of the claims, and rank as the law prescribes when we go into liquidation."

"Good G.o.d! Ralph. It will ruin me!" Jordan had grown all white now, and beads of moisture were standing on his forehead. "We _must_ stave off this argument in court. The shares will be unsaleable at a cent in the dollar. As it is, my brokers have been able to get off none for three days back--some inkling of this, no doubt. But if I can stave off the argument in court for a fortnight, there will be time for us to circulate encouraging rumours."

"_Us?_ What have I to do with it? I will have no hand in circulating false reports. Understand that clearly, Mr. Jordan. I wonder what I can have done"--turning to Stinson, who stood by the door enjoying the comedy--"to give any one the right to approach me with such a proposal," and he blew his nose loudly, grinning the while under cover of his pocket-handkerchief.

"Do you want to ruin me, Herkimer? I have all the shares I ever took up still on my hands, not only those I subscribed for, but all Rouget's, and I was to have given him up his mortgage in payment of them; but I had already realized that, and bought more of your infernal shares with the money; and now, the fat's in the fire! If I can't unload I am a ruined and a dishonoured man. Everything I have will go, and then the Law Society will come down on me for irregularities, when I have lost the ability to square the benchers, and I shall be disbarred. Ralph!" and he clasped his hands, "I shall be ruined if you do not help me at this pinch. You must!"

"I don't seem to see it. I fear it is impossible. Unfortunate, of course; but just what happens constantly, when a man leaves the groove of his own profession, and ventures into fields of enterprise he does not understand, and has no experience in. You lawyers are so very superior to the rest of us. You go into court and talk so glibly of our affairs, and so much more knowingly than we can do ourselves, that by-and-by you persuade yourselves that you really understand them.

Then you try a hand at them yourselves, and then you cut your fingers.

It is droll, my dear fellow. Forgive my saying so, but as a man of the world you must see it yourself; and if only it had been some one else you would have appreciated the humour of the situation thoroughly."