The Channings Part 12

Mr. Galloway brought his words to a standstill, apparently too absorbed in the railway guide to conclude them. Roland Yorke, who had a free tongue, even with his master, filled up the pause.

"Were you going out, sir?"

"Is that any business of yours, Mr. Roland? Talking won't fill in that lease, sir."

"The lease is not in a hurry, sir," returned incorrigible Roland. But he held his tongue then, and bent his head over his work.

Mr. Galloway dipped his pen in the ink, and copied something from "Bradshaw" into the closely-written letter, standing at Jenkins's desk to do it; then he pa.s.sed the blotting-paper quickly over the words, and folded the letter.

"Channing," he said, speaking very hastily, "you will see a twenty-pound bank-note on my desk, and the directed envelope of this letter; bring them here."

Arthur went, and brought forth the envelope and bank-note. Mr. Galloway doubled the note in four and slipped it between the folds of the letter, putting both into the envelope. He had fastened it down, when a loud noise and commotion was heard in the street. Curious as are said to be antiquated maidens, Mr. Galloway rushed to the window and threw it up, his two clerks attending in his wake.

Something very fine, in a white dress, and pink and scarlet flowers on her bonnetless head, as if attired for an evening party, was whirling round the middle of the road in circles: a tall woman, who must once have been beautiful. She appeared to be whirling someone else with her, amid laughter and shrieks, and cries and groans, from the gathering mob.

"It is Mad Nance!" uttered Mr. Galloway. "Poor thing! she really ought to be in confinement."

So every one had said for a long time, but no one bestirred themselves to place her in it. This unfortunate creature, Mad Nance, as she was called, was sufficiently harmless to be at large on sufferance, and sufficiently mad at times to put a street in an uproar. In her least sane moments she would appear, as now, in an old dimity white dress, scrupulously washed and ironed, and decorated with innumerable frills; some natural flowers, generally wild ones, in her hair. Dandelions were her favourites; she would make them into a wreath, and fasten it on, letting her entangled hair hang beneath. To-day she had contrived to pick up some geranium blossoms, scarlet and pink.

"Who has she got hold of there?" exclaimed Mr. Galloway. "He does not seem to like it."

Arthur burst into laughter when he discovered that it was Harper, the lay-clerk. This unlucky gentleman, who had been quietly and inoffensively proceeding up Close Street on his way to service in the cathedral, was seized upon by Mad Nance by the hands. He was a thin, weak little man, a very reed in her strong grasp. She shrieked, she laughed, she danced, she flew with him round and round. He shrieked also; his hat was off, his wig was gone; and it was half the business of Mr. Harper's life to make that wig appear as his own hair. He talked, he raved, he remonstrated; I am very much afraid that he swore. Mr. Galloway laughed till the tears ran down his cheeks.

The crowd was parted by an authoritative hand, and the same hand, gentle now, laid its firmness upon the woman and released the prisoner. It was Hamish Channing who had come to the rescue, suppressing his mirth as he best could while he effected it.

"I'll have the law of her!" panted Harper, as he picked up his hat and wig. "If there's justice to be got in Helstonleigh, she shall suffer for this! It's a town's shame to let her go about, molesting peaceable wayfarers, and shaking the life out of them!"

Something at a distance appeared to attract the attention of the unhappy woman, and she flew away. Hamish and Mr. Harper were left alone in the streets, the latter still exploding with wrath, and vowing all sorts of revenge.

"Put up with it quietly, Harper," advised Hamish. "She is like a little child, not accountable for her actions."

"That's just like you, Mr. Hamish Channing. If they took your head off, you'd put up with it! How would you like your wig flung away in the sight of a whole street?"

"I don't wear one," answered Hamish, laughing. "Here's your hat; not much damaged, apparently."

Mr. Harper, settling his wig on his head, and composing himself as he best could, continued his way to the cathedral, turning his hat about in his hand, and closely looking at it. Hamish stepped across to Mr. Galloway's, meeting that gentleman at the door.

"A good thing you came up as you did, Mr. Hamish. Harper will remember Mad Nance for a year to come."

"I expect he will," replied Hamish, laughing still. Mr. Galloway laughed also, and walked hastily down the street.

CHAPTER XIV.

KEEPING OFFICE.

Hamish entered the office. Arthur and Roland Yorke had their heads stretched out of the window, and did not hear his footsteps. He advanced quietly and brought his hands down hastily upon the shoulder of each. Roland started, and knocked his head against the window-frame.

"How you startle a fellow! I thought it was Mad Nance come in to lay hands upon me."

"She has laid hands upon enough for one day," said Hamish. "Harper will dream of her to-night."

"I thought Galloway would have gone into a fit, he laughed so," cried Arthur. "As for my sides, they'll ache for an hour."

Roland Yorke's lip curled with an angry expression. "My opinion agrees with Harper's," he said. "I think Mad Nance ought to be punished. We are none of us safe from her, if this is to be her game."

"If you punish her to-day, she would do the same again to-morrow, were the fit to come over her," rejoined Hamish. "It is not often she breaks out like this. The only thing is to steer clear of her."

"Hamish has a fellow-feeling for Mad Nance," mockingly spoke Roland Yorke.

"Yes, poor thing! for her story is a sad one. If the same grievous wrong were worked upon some of us, perhaps we might take to dancing for the benefit of the public. Talking of the public, Arthur," continued Hamish, turning to his brother, "what became of you at dinner-time? The mother was for setting the town-crier to work."

"I could not get home to-day. We have had double work to do, as Jenkins is away."

Hamish tilted himself on to the edge of Mr. Jenkins's desk, and took up the letter, apparently in absence of mind, which Mr. Galloway had left there, ready for the post. "Mr. Robert Galloway, Sea View Terrace, Ventnor, Isle of Wight," he read aloud. "That must be Mr. Galloway's cousin," he remarked: "the one who has run through so much money."

"Of course it is," answered Roland Yorke. "Galloway pretty near keeps him: I know there's a twenty-pound bank-note going to him in that letter. Catch me doing it if I were Galloway."

"I wish it was going into my pocket instead," said Hamish, balancing the letter on his fingers, as if wishing to test its weight.

"I wish the clouds would drop sovereigns! But they don't," said Roland Yorke.

Hamish put the letter back from whence he had taken it, and jumped off the desk. "I must be walking," said he. "Stopping here will not do my work. If we--"

"By Jove! there's Knivett!" uttered Roland Yorke. "Where's he off to, so fast? I have something that I must tell him."

s.n.a.t.c.hing up his hat, Roland darted at full speed out of the office, in search of one who was running at full speed also down the street. Hamish looked out, amused, at the chase; Arthur, who had called after Roland in vain, seemed vexed. "Knivett is one of the fleetest runners in Helstonleigh," said Hamish. "Yorke will scarcely catch him up."

"I wish Yorke would allow himself a little thought, and not act upon impulse," exclaimed Arthur. "I cannot stop three minutes longer: and he knows that! I shall be late for college."

He was already preparing to go there. Putting some papers in order upon his desk, and locking up others, he carried the letter for Ventnor into Mr. Galloway's private room and placed it in the letter rack. Two others, ready for the post, were lying there. Then he went to the front door to look out for Yorke. Yorke was not to be seen.

"What a thoughtless fellow he is!" exclaimed Arthur, in his vexation. "What is to be done? Hamish, you will have to stop here."

"Thank you! what else?" asked Hamish.

"I must be at the college, whatever betide." This was true: yet neither might the office be left vacant. Arthur grew a little flurried. "Do stay, Hamish: it will not hinder you five minutes, I dare say. Yorke is sure to be in."

Hamish came to the door, halting on its first step, and looking out over Arthur's shoulder. He drew his head in again with a sudden movement.

"Is not that old Hopper down there?" he asked, in a whisper, the tone sounding as one of fear.

Arthur turned his eyes on a shabby old man who was crossing the end of the street, and saw Hopper, the sheriff's officer. "Yes, why?"

"It is that old fellow who holds the writ. He may be on the watch for me now. I can't go out just yet, Arthur; I'll stay here till Yorke comes back again."

He returned to the office, sat down and leaned his brow upon his hand. A strange brow of care it was just then, according ill with the gay face of Hamish Channing. Arthur, waiting for no second permission, flew towards the cathedral as fast as his long legs would carry him. The dean and chapter were preparing to leave the chapter-house as he tore past it, through the cloisters. Three o'clock was striking. Arthur's heart and breath were alike panting when he gained the dark stairs. At that moment, to his excessive astonishment, the organ began to peal forth.

Seated at it was Mr. Williams; and a few words of explanation ensued. The organist said he should remain for the service, which rendered Arthur at liberty to go back again.

He was retracing his steps underneath the elm-trees in the Boundaries at a slower pace than he had recently pa.s.sed them, when, in turning a corner, he came face to face with the sheriff's officer. Arthur, whose thoughts were at that moment fixed upon Hamish and his difficulties, started away from the man, with an impulse for which he could not have accounted.

"No need for you to be frightened of me, Mr. Arthur," said the man, who, in his more palmy days, before he had learnt to take more than was good for him, had been a clerk in Mr. Channing's office. "I have nothing about me that will bite you."

He laid a stress upon the "you" in both cases. Arthur understood only too well what was meant, though he would not appear to do so.

"Nor any one else, either, I hope, Hopper. A warm day, is it not!"

Hopper drew close to Arthur, not looking at him, apparently examining with hands and eyes the trunk of the elm-tree underneath which they had halted. "You tell your brother not to put himself in my way," said he, in a low tone, his lips scarcely moving. "He is in a bit of trouble, as I suppose you know."

"Yes," breathed Arthur.

"Well, I don't want to serve the writ upon him; I won't serve it unless he makes me, by throwing himself within length of my arm. If he sees me coming up one street, let him cut down another; into a shop; anywhere; I have eyes that only see when I want them to. I come prowling about here once or twice a day for show, but I come at a time when I am pretty sure he can't be seen; just gone out, or just gone in. I'd rather not harm him."

"You are not so considerate to all," said Arthur, after a pause given to revolving the words, and to wondering whether they were spoken in good faith, or with some concealed purpose. He could not decide which.

"No, I am not," pointedly returned Hopper, in answer. "There are some that I look after, sharp as a ferret looks after a rat, but I'll never do that by any son of Mr. Channing's. I can't forget the old days, sir, when your father was kind to me. He stood by me longer than my own friends did. But for him, I should have starved in that long illness I had, when the office would have me no longer. Why doesn't Mr. Hamish settle this?" he abruptly added.

"I suppose he cannot," answered Arthur.

"It is only a bagatelle at the worst, and our folks would not have gone to extremities if he had shown only a disposition to settle. I am sure that if he would go to them now, and pay down a ten-pound note, and say, 'You shall have the rest as I can get it,' they'd withdraw proceedings; ay, even for five pounds I believe they would. Tell him to do it, Mr. Arthur; tell him I always know which way the wind blows with our people."

"I will tell him, but I fear he is very short of money just now. Five or ten pounds may be as impossible to find, sometimes, as five or ten thousand."

"Better find it than be locked up," said Hopper. "How would the office get on? Deprive him of the power of management, and it might cost Mr. Channing his place. What use is a man when he is in prison? I was in Mr. Channing's office for ten years, Mr. Arthur, and I know every trick and turn in it, though I have left it a good while. And now that I have just said this, I'll go on my way. Mind you tell him."

"Thank you," warmly replied Arthur.

"And when you have told him, please to forget that you have heard it. There's somebody's eyes peering at me over the deanery blinds. They may peer! I don't mind them; deaneries don't trouble themselves with sheriff's officers."

He glided away, and Arthur went straight to the office. Hamish was alone; he was seated at Jenkins's desk, writing a note.

"You here still, Hamish! Where's Yorke?"

"Echo answers where," replied Hamish, who appeared to have recovered his full flow of spirits. "I have seen nothing of him."

"That's Yorke all over! it is too bad."

"It would be, were this a busy afternoon with me. But what brings you back, Mr. Arthur? Have you left the organ to play itself?"

"Williams is taking it; he heard of Jenkins's accident, and thought I might not be able to get away from the office twice today, so he attended himself."

"Come, that's good-natured of Williams! A bargain's a bargain, and, having made the bargain, of course it is your own look-out that you fulfil it. Yes, it was considerate of Williams."

"Considerate for himself," laughed Arthur. "He did not come down to give me holiday, but in the fear that Mr. Galloway might prevent my attending. 'A pretty thing it would have been,' he said to me, 'had there been no organist this afternoon; it might have cost me my post.'"

"Moonshine!" said Hamish. "It might have cost him a word of reproof; nothing more."

"Helstonleigh's dean is a strict one, remember. I told Williams he might always depend upon me."

"What should you have done, pray, had I not been here to turn office-keeper?" laughed Hamish.

"Of the two duties I must have obeyed the more important one. I should have locked up the office and given the key to the housekeeper till college was over, or until Yorke returned. He deserves something for this move. Has any one called?"

"No. Arthur, I have been making free with a sheet of paper and an envelope," said Hamish, completing the note he was writing. "I suppose I am welcome to it?"

"To ten, if you want them," returned Arthur. "To whom are you writing?"

"As if I should put you au courant of my love-letters!" gaily answered Hamish.

How could Hamish indulge in this careless gaiety with a sword hanging over his head? It was verily a puzzle to Arthur. A light, sunny nature was Hamish Channing's. This sobering blow which had fallen on it had probably not come before it was needed. Had his bark been sailing for ever in smooth waters, he might have wasted his life, indolently basking on the calm, seductive waves. But the storm rose, the waves ran high, threatening to engulf him, and Hamish knew that his best energies must be put forth to surmount them. Never, never talk of troubles as great, unmitigated evils: to the G.o.d-fearing, the G.o.d-trusting, they are fraught with hidden love.

"Hamish, were I threatened with worry, as you are, I could not be otherwise than oppressed and serious."

"Where would be the use of that?" cried gay Hamish. "Care killed a cat. Look here, Arthur, you and your grave face! Did you ever know care do a fellow good? I never did: but a great deal of harm. I shall manage to scramble out of the pit somehow. You'll see." He put the note into his pocket, as he spoke, and took up his hat to depart.

"Stop an instant longer, Hamish. I have just met Hopper."

"He did not convert you into a writ-server, I hope. I don't think it would be legal."

"There you are, joking again! Hamish, he has the writ, but he does not wish to serve it. You are to keep out of his way, he says, and he will not seek to put himself in yours. My father was kind to him in days gone by, and he remembers it now."

"He's a regular trump! I'll send him half-a-crown in a parcel," exclaimed Hamish.

"I wish you would hear me out. He says a ten-pound note, perhaps a five-pound note, on account, would induce 'his people'--suppose you understand the phrase--to stay proceedings, and to give you time. He strongly advises it to be done. That's all."

Not only all Arthur had to say upon the point, but all he had time to say. At that moment, the barouche of Lady Augusta Yorke drove up to the door, and they both went out to it. Lady Augusta, her daughter f.a.n.n.y, and Constance Channing were in it. She was on her way to attend a missionary meeting at the Guildhall, and had called for Roland, that he might escort her into the room.

"Roland is not to be found, Lady Augusta," said Hamish, raising his hat with one of his sunny smiles. "He darted off, it is impossible to say where, thereby making me a prisoner. My brother had to attend the cathedral, and there was no one to keep office."

"Then I think I must make a prisoner of you in turn, Mr. Hamish Channing," graciously said Lady Augusta. "Will you accompany us?"

Hamish shook his head. "I wish I could; but I have already wasted more time than I ought to have done."

"It will not cost you five minutes more," urged Lady Augusta. "You shall only just take us into the hall; I will release you then, if you must be released. Three ladies never can go in alone--fancy how we should be stared at!"

Constance bent her pretty face forward. "Do, Hamish, if you can!"

He suffered himself to be persuaded, stepped into the barouche, and took his seat by Lady Augusta. As they drove away, Arthur thought the greatest ornament the carriage contained had been added to it in handsome Hamish.

A full hour Arthur worked on at his deeds and leases, and Roland Yorke never returned. Mr. Galloway came in then. "Where's Yorke?" was his first question.