King of the Castle Part 86

"You've got safely back. Mr Wimble came by just now, and though I wouldn't listen to him, he said the police were going to take you over to Toxeter and lock you up for committing murder."

"They will if that man don't mind, Mrs Sarson," cried Chris, as he hurried into his room. "Curse him! I feel as if I could go at once, get hold of him, and wring his neck."

"Mr Christopher!" cried the poor woman, bursting into a fit of sobbing; "don't--don't do anything rash."

"Look here, old lady," he cried, catching her by the arm; "you are not going to join this wretched crew, are you, and to believe I could be such a wretch?"

"Oh, no, my dear! Oh, no."

"That's right. But think twice. If you have the least thought of the kind, I'll go at once."

"Indeed, no, my dear," she sobbed; "and even if you had done it, I couldn't be such a cruel wretch as to tell against you, for you must have been mad."

"Hang it, woman! if you talk like that, you'll make me mad."

"I've done, my dear. There, I won't say another word, only to defend you. But tell me, my dear, what are you going to do?"

"What an honest man should do, Mrs Sarson," said Chris, excitedly.

"Mind I'm not wild with you, only with the wretched fools out yonder,"

he said more gently, as he took his landlady's hands. "There, my good old soul, it'll all come right some day, here or hereafter."

"But you'll go and tell the magistrate, won't you, that it's all false?"

"No," said Chris, sternly, and with his face growing hard and old. "I'm not going to deny anything. I'm an Englishman, Mrs Sarson, a strong-willed, stubborn Englishman, let them say what they like--do what they like, I'm here, and here I stay till they drag me away, and I do not care whether they do or do not now."

"But one thing, my dear, one word, and I won't ask you another question.

Were you at the Fort that night, and did Reuben Brime find you?"

"Yes, Mrs Sarson."

"Oh!--But why were you there, my dear, like that?"

"You asked one question, but I'll answer the other. Because I am a weak young fool--in love with somebody who seemed to have cared little for me, and I wanted to get one word with her. Yes, I was a weak young fool. That seems years ago now," he continued, half-talking to himself, "and I seem to have grown much older. Old enough to be firm and strong."

"But you didn't tell me, my dear, what you mean to do."

"Mean to do?" cried Chris, with a bitter laugh. "I'm going to live it down."

Volume Three, Chapter X.

COMING BACK ON FRIDAY.

Chris found it a harder task than he had antic.i.p.ated. "Give a dog a bad name, and then hang him," says the old saw; and in his case Chris used to say bitterly to himself that he might as well have been hung out of his misery.

For Wimble's shop had always been the fertile manure heap from which, fungus-like, scandals sprung, and their spores were carried away in all directions, to start into growth again and again in all directions.

Often enough one scandal would grow, flourish, and then seem to die right away, but that was only the belief of the parties concerned. Just as they were hugging themselves upon the fact there had been a nine days' wonder, and it had come to an end, a little round toadstool-like head would spring up in quite a different direction, and grow, and seed and spread itself more strongly than ever.

Even minor scandals died hard, if they died at all, in Danmouth; but, for the most part, they proved evergreen, and lived on long after the authors had been gathered to their fathers and forgotten.

This being the case with the lesser, it was not likely that one of the greatest ever known should drop away; and though weeks and months glided on, the story of the bottle found under the library window of the Fort was as fresh as ever, and people, after an easy shave, would ask quietly to see it, to have it taken with great show of secrecy from the drawer where it reposed, shaken so as to form globules of solution of chloral, and, if favoured customers, the cork might be removed and the contents smelt.

Wimble was quite right. That bottle proved to be the finest curiosity he possessed, and bade fair to become worth quite a hundred pounds to him, if not more.

As time went on, the ingenious idea occurred to him that it would be advisable to add to its attractions by giving the contents a perceptible odour, and this he did by introducing one single drop of patchouli, a scent not familiar to the lower orders of the little fishing port, and whose inhalation was thoroughly enjoyed by many a gaping idiot, who shook his Solon-like head, and said "Hah!" softly and mysteriously, before handing back the bottle and whispering, "'nuff to kill any man."

The treasure might have had additional piquancy if Chris Lisle had been tried for murder and hanged; but as he was not, Wimble said he must make the best of things, and went on profiting by his possession; but as he felt that his declaration to the widow that night had not advanced his suit, he spent his spare time watching her house, and wondering how long it would be ere Chris Lisle realised the fact that, as public opinion let him exist, it was his duty to live somewhere else.

But Chris was as stubborn as public opinion, and, regardless of side-long glances, and the fact that he was regularly avoided, he went on just as of old, apparently living his old life, and waging war upon the salmon, trout, and fish that visited the mouth of the river; but they had an easy time.

Claude had left Danmouth, but she made no sign before she went away, and Chris was too stubbornly proud to make any advance.

"If she believes so ill of me, she may," he used to say to himself. "A woman who can love like that is not worth a second thought from any man."

He used to say that often, and tell himself that he could never tire.

He could live it all down, and that some day he would enjoy a keen revenge on those who had doubted him. He was happy enough, he said, and the fools might think what they liked so long as they did not molest him.

The little mob of Danmouth had gone near this though once, when, soon after the news was spread, they found that no steps were taken to bring the crime home to the murderer. For Trevithick, though terribly exercised in spirit about that missing sum of money, felt himself bound to agree with the Doctor that no steps could be taken, and consequently Gartram was left in peace beneath the handsome granite obelisk cut from his own quarry.

So the wrath of those who would have liked to take the law in their own hands cooled down, and their enmity found its vent in scowls and avoidance, at which Chris laughed scornfully, or resented with looks as fierce in public; but there was a hard set of lines growing more marked about the corners of his mouth and his eyes, and there were times when he broke down in secret far up the glen, and told himself that life was not worth living. He would be better dead.

Claude went to recover her strength in the south of France, and Sarah Woodham was left in charge of the house, about which Reuben Brime sighed as he mowed the gra.s.s, and groaned as he drove in his spade; but Sarah did not heed, and he too used to think to himself that he might as well put out his pipe some night by taking a plunge off the end of the pier.

Glyddyr stayed on in the harbour till the day after Claude and Mary left, when the yacht glided slowly out, and Chris watched it till it disappeared beyond one of the headlands far away; and then the time seemed like years as he went on setting public opinion at defiance, wrestling with it still.

There were those in the place who would have met him on friendly terms, notably Asher; but Chris met all advances curtly, and went his way.

"They shall not tolerate me," he said bitterly. "I will live in the full sunshine. Till I do, I can be content with the shade."

There was one, though, whom he encountered from time to time when wandering listlessly whipping the streams, not very often, but on the rare occasions when she sought some solitary spot far away out on the rocky moorland to dream over the past.

The first time they met, Chris's heart hounded, and his eyes flashed as he was about to speak.

"No," he said, checking himself; "I shall not stoop. The advance shall come from her."

A month pa.s.sed, and again on a cold, windy day of winter he was aware of a dark-looking, thickly-wrapped figure going along the track, and his heart whispered to him, "You have only to go back a few dozen yards to speak to her, and hear the news for which, in spite of all you say, you are hungering."

Chris nearly yielded, but the will was too stubborn yet, and he stood firm.

Then came a day in spring when the promise of the coming time of beauty was being given by swelling bud, green arum, and the tender blades of gra.s.s which peeped from among last year's drab dry strands. It had been a cruel, stormy time for weeks, cruelly stormy, too, in Chris's heart, for the load was more heavy than ever, and the young man's heart was very sore.

He was going up the glen near where he had first told Claude of his love, and the time of year seemed to bring with it hope and a longing for human intercourse and sympathy; and though he would not own it, he would have given anything for news of the one who filled his thoughts.

She came upon him suddenly this time, and they were within half-a-dozen yards of each other before either was aware of the other's presence.

"Ah, Sarah Woodham!" he said; and she stopped short to stand looking at him, with her fierce dark eyes softening, and the vestige of a smile about her thin parched lips. "Well," he continued carelessly, though his heart beat fast, "hadn't you better go on? You'll lose caste if any one sees you talking to me."

"Mr Lisle," she said reproachfully.

"Well, am I not a murderer?"