A Son of Hagar Part 70

"In name. You would go back, as I told you, and say: 'I, whom you have known as Paul Ritson, am really Paul Lowther, and therefore the half-brother of the woman with whom I went through the ceremony of marriage. This fact I learned immediately on reaching London. I bring the lady back as I found her, and shall ask that the marriage--which is no marriage--be annulled. I deliver up to the rightful heir, Hugh Ritson, the estates of Allan Ritson, and make claim to the legacy left me by my father, Robert Lowther.' This is what you have to say and do, and every one will praise you for an honest and upright man."

"Very conscientious, no doubt; but what about him?"

"He will then be Paul Drayton, and a felon."

Drayton chuckled. "And what about her?"

"If he is in safe keeping, she will count for nothing."

"So I'm to be Paul Lowther."

"You are to pretend to be Paul Lowther."

"I told you afore, as it won't go into my n.o.b, and no more it will,"

said Drayton, scratching his head.

"You shall have time to learn your lesson; you shall have it pat," said Hugh Ritson. "Meantime--"

At that instant Drayton's eyes were riveted on the skylight with an affrighted stare.

"Look yonder!" he whispered.

"What?"

"The face on the roof!"

Hugh Ritson plucked up the candle and thrust it over his head and against the gla.s.s. "What face?" he said, contemptuously.

Again Drayton's head fell in shame at his abject fear.

There was a shuffling footstep on the ladder outside. Drayton held his head aside, and listened. "The old woman," he mumbled. "What now?

Supper, I suppose."

CHAPTER XV.

At that moment there was a visitor in the bar down-stairs. He was an elderly man, with s.h.a.ggy eyebrows and a wizened face; a diminutive creature with a tousled head of black and gray. It was Gubblum Oglethorpe. The mountain peddler had traveled south to buy chamois leather, and had packed a great quant.i.ty of it into a bundle, like a panier, which he carried over one arm.

Since the wedding at Newlands, three days ago, Gubblum's lively intelligence had run a good deal on his recollection of the man resembling Paul Ritson, whom he had once seen in Hendon. He had always meant to settle for himself that knotty question. So here, on his first visit to London, he intended to put up at the very inn about which the mystery gathered.

"How's ta rubbun on?" he said, by way of salute on entering. When Mrs.

Drayton had gone upstairs she had left the pot-boy in charge of the bar.

He was a loutish lad of sixteen, and his name was Jabez.

Jabez slowly lifted his eyes from the pewters he was washing, and a broad smile crossed his face. Evidently the new-comer was a countryman.

"Cold neet, eh? Sharp as a step-mother's breath," said Gubblum, throwing down the panier and drawing up to the fire.

The smile on the face of Jabez broadened perceptibly, and he began to chuckle.

"What's ta snertan at, eh?" said Gubblum. "I say it's hot weather varra.

Hasta owt agenn it?"

Jabez laughed outright. Clearly the countryman must be crazy.

"What's yon daft thingamy aboot?" thought Gubblum. Then aloud, "Ay, my lad, gie us a laal sup o' summat."

Jabez found his risible faculties sorely disturbed by this manner of speech. But he proceeded to fill a pewter. The pot-boy's movements resembled those of a tortoise in celerity.

"He's a stirran lad, yon," thought Gubblum. "He's swaddering like a duck in a puddle."

"Can I sleep here to-neet?" he asked, when Jabez had brought him his beer.

Then the sapient smile on the pot-boy's face ripened into speech.

"I ain't answering for the sleeping," said Jabez, "but happen you may have a bed--he, he, he! I'll ask the missis--he, he, haw!"

"The missis? Hasta never a master, then?" said Gubblum.

Now, Jabez had been warned, with many portentous threats, that in the event of any one asking for the master he was to be as mute as the grave. So in answer to the peddler's question he merely shook his wise head and looked grave and astonishingly innocent.

"No? And how lang hasta been here?"

"Three years come Easter," said Jabez.

"And how lang dusta say 'at missis has been here?"

"Missis? I heard father say as Mistress Drayton has kep' the Hawk and Heron this five-and-twenty year."

"Five-and-twenty! Then I reckon that master would be no'but a laal wee barn when she coomt first," said Gubblum.

"Happen he were," said Jabez. Then, recovering the caution so unexpectedly disturbed, Jabez protested afresh that he had no master.

"It's slow wark suppen b.u.t.termilk wi' a pitchfork," thought Gubblum, and he proceeded to employ a spoon.

"Sista, my lad, wadsta like me to lend thee a shilling?"

Jabez grinned, and closed his fat fist on the coin thrust into his palm.

"I once knew a man as were the varra spitten picter of your master,"

said Gubblum. "In fact, his varra sel', upsett'n and doon thross'n. I thowt it were hissel', that's the fact. But when I tackled him he threept me down, and I was that vexed I could have bitten the side out of a b.u.t.ter-bowl."

"But I ain't got no master," protested Jabez.

"I were riding by on my laal pony that day, but now I'm going shank.u.m naggum," continued Gubblum, unmindful of the pot-boy's mighty innocent look. "'A canny morning to you, Master Paul,' I shouted, and on I went."