Elster's Folly Part 82

"It ought not," said Val rather warmly. "Black sheep have more need of help than white ones, when it comes to the last. I suppose it's a poacher wanting to clear his conscience."

"It's Pike," said Hillary.

"Pike! What can he want with me? Is he no better?"

"He'll never be better in this world; and to speak the truth, I think it's time he left it. He'll be happier, poor fellow, let's hope, in another than he has been in this. Has it ever struck you, Lord Hartledon, that there was something strange about Pike, and his manner of coming here?"

"Very strange indeed."

"Well, Pike is not Pike, but another man--which I suppose you will say is Irish. But that he is so ill, and it would not be worth while for the law to take him, he might be in mortal fear of your seeing him, lest you betrayed him. He wanted you not to be informed until the last hour. I told him there was no fear."

"I would not betray any living man, whatever his crime, for the whole world," returned Lord Hartledon; his voice so earnest as to amount to pain. And the surgeon looked at him; but there rose up in his remembrance how _he_ had been avoiding betrayal for years. "Who is he?"

"w.i.l.l.y Gum."

Lord Hartledon turned his head sharply under cover of the surgeon's umbrella, for they were walking along together. A thought crossed him that the words might be a jest.

"Yes, Pike is w.i.l.l.y Gum," continued Mr. Hillary. "And there you have the explanation of the poor mother's nervous terrors. I do pity her. The clerk has taken it more philosophically, and seemed only to care lest the fact should become known. Ah, poor thing! what a life hers has been! Her fears of the wild neighbour, her basins for cats, are all explained now.

She dreaded lest Calne should suspect that she occasionally stole into the shed under cover of the night with the basins containing food for its inmate. There the man has lived--if you can call such an existence living; w.i.l.l.y Gum, concealed by his borrowed black hair and whiskers. But that he was only a boy when he went away, Calne would have recognized him in spite of them."

"And he is not a poacher and a snarer, and I don't know what all, leading a lawless life, and thieving for his living?" exclaimed Lord Hartledon, the first question that rose to the surface, amidst the many that were struggling in his mind.

"I don't believe the man has touched the worth of a pin belonging to any one since he came here, even on your preserves. People took up the notion from his wild appearance, and because he had no ostensible means of living. It would not have done to let them know that he had his supplies--sometimes money, sometimes food--from respectable clerk Gum's."

"But why should he be in concealment at all? That bank affair was made all right at the time."

"There are other things he feared, it seems. I've not time to enter into details now; you'll know them later. There he is--Pike: and there he'll die--Pike always."

"How long have you known it?"

"Since that fever he caught from the Rectory some years ago. I recollect your telling me not to let him want for anything;" and Lord Hartledon winced at the remembrance brought before him, as he always did wince at the unhappy past. "I never shall forget it. I went in, thinking Pike was ill, and that he, wild and disreputable though he had the character of being, might want physic as well as his neighbours. Instead of the black-haired bear I expected to see, there lay a young, light, delicate fellow, with a white brow, and cheeks pink with fever. The features seemed familiar to me; little by little recognition came to me, and I saw it was w.i.l.l.y Gum, whom every one had been mourning as dead. He said a pleading word or two, that I would keep his secret, and not give him up to justice. I did not understand what there was to give him up for then.

However, I promised. He was too ill to say much; and I went to the next door, and put it to Gum's wife that she should go and nurse Pike for humanity's sake. Of course it was what she wanted to do. Poor thing! she fell on her knees later, beseeching me not to betray him."

"And you have kept counsel all this time?"

"Yes," said the surgeon, laconically. "Would your lordship have done otherwise, even though it had been a question of hanging?"

"_I!_ I wouldn't give a man a month at the treadmill if I could help it.

One gets into offences so easily," he dreamily added.

They crossed over the waste land, and Mr. Hillary opened the door of the shed with a pa.s.s-key. A lock had been put on when Pike was lying in rheumatic fever, lest intruders might enter unawares, and see him without his disguise.

"Pike, I have brought you my lord. He won't betray you."

CHAPTER x.x.xV.

THE SHED RAZED.

Closing the door upon them, the surgeon went off on other business, and Lord Hartledon entered and bent over the bed; a more comfortable bed than it once had been. It was the w.i.l.l.y Gum of other days; the boy he had played with when they were boys together. White, wan, wasted, with the dying hectic on his cheek, the glitter already in his eye, he lay there; and Val's eyelashes shone as he took the worn hand.

"I am so sorry, w.i.l.l.y. I had no suspicion it was you. Why did you not confide in me?"

The invalid shook his head. "There might have been danger in it."

"Never from me," was the emphatic answer.

"Ah, my lord, you don't know. I haven't dared to make myself known to a soul. Mr. Hillary found it out, and I couldn't help myself."

Lord Hartledon glanced round at the strange place: the rafters, the rude walls. A fire was burning on the hearth, and the appliances brought to bear were more comfortable than might have been imagined; but still--

"Surely you will allow yourself to be removed to a better place, w.i.l.l.y?"

he said.

"Call me Pike," came the feverish interruption. "Never that other name again, my lord; I've done with it for ever. As to a better place--I shall have that soon enough."

"You wanted to say something to me, Mr. Hillary said."

"I've wanted to say it some time now, and to beg your lordship's pardon.

It's about the late earl's death."

"My brother's?"

"Yes. I was on the wrong scent a long time. And I can tell you what n.o.body else will."

Lord Hartledon lifted his head quickly; thoughts were crowding impulsively into his mind, and he spoke in the moment's haste.

"Surely you had not anything to do with that!"

"No; but I thought your lordship had."

"What do you mean?" asked Lord Hartledon, quietly.

"It's for my foolish and wicked and mistaken thought that I would crave pardon before I go. I thought your lordship had killed the late lord, either by accident or maliciously."

"You must be dreaming, Pike!"

"No; but I was no better than dreaming then. I had been living amidst lawless scenes, over the seas and on the seas, where a life's not of much account, and the fancy was easy enough. I happened to overhear a quarrel between you and the earl just before his death; I saw you going towards the spot at the time the accident happened, as you may remember--"

"I did not go so far," interrupted Hartledon, wondering still whether this might not be the wanderings of a dying man. "I turned back into the trees at once, and walked slowly home. Many a time have I wished I had gone on!"

"Yes, yes; I was on the wrong scent. And there was that blow on his temple to keep up the error, which I know now must have been done against the estrade. I did suspect at the time, and your lordship will perhaps not forgive me for it. I let drop a word that I suspected something before that man Gorton, and he asked me what I meant; and I explained it away, and said I was chaffing him. And I have been all this time, up to a few weeks ago, learning the true particulars of how his lordship died."

Lord Hartledon decided that the man's mind was undoubtedly wandering.

But Pike was not wandering. And he told the story of the boy Ripper having been locked up in the mill. Mr. Ripper was almost a match for Pike himself in deceit; and Pike had only learned the facts by dint of long patience and perseverance and many threats. The boy had seen the whole accident; had watched it from the window where he was enclosed, unable to get out, unless he had torn away the grating. Lord Hartledon had lost all command of the little skiff, his arm being utterly disabled; and it came drifting down towards the mill, and struck against the estrade. The skiff righted itself at once, but not its owner: there was a slight struggle, a few cries, and he lay motionless, drifting later to the place where he was found. Mr. Ripper's opinion was that he had lost his senses with the blow on the temple, and fell an easy prey to death. Had that gentleman only sacrificed the grating and his own reputation, he might have saved him easily; and that fact had since been upon his conscience, making him fear all sorts of things, not the least of which was that he might be hanged as a murderer.