The House by the Church-Yard Part 41

'And,' with an imprecation, Irons added, 'I never expected to be a shilling the better of him.'

'He knows it; and now you have the reason why I mentioned Charles Archer; and having placed that gold in your hand, I've done with him, and we sha'n't have occasion, I hope, to name his name for a good while to come,' said Dangerfield.

Then came a long refreshing silence, while Dangerfield whipt the stream with his flies. He was not successful; but he did not change his flies.

It did not seem to trouble him; indeed, mayhap he did not perceive it.

And after fully twenty minutes thus unprofitably employed, he suddenly said, as if in continuation of his last sentence--

'And, respecting that money you'll use caution; a hundred guineas is not always so honestly come by. Your wife drinks--suppose a relative in England had left you that gold, by will, 'twould be best not to let _her_ know; but give it to Dr. Walsingham, secretly, to keep for you, telling him the reason. He'll undertake the trust and tell no one--_that's_ your plan--mind ye.'

Then came another long silence, and Dangerfield applied himself in earnest to catch some trout, and when he had accomplished half-a-dozen, he tired altogether of the sport, and followed by Irons, he sauntered homewards, where astounding news awaited him.

CHAPTER LIII.

RELATING AFTER WHAT FASHION DR. STURK CAME HOME.

As Dangerfield, having parted company with Irons at the corner of the bridge, was walking through the town, with his rod over his shoulder and his basket of troutlings by his side, his attention was arrested by a little knot of persons in close and earnest talk at the barrack-gate, nearly opposite Sturk's house.

He distinguished at a glance the tall grim figure of Oliver Lowe, of Lucan, the sternest and shrewdest magistrate who held the commission for the county of Dublin in those days, mounted on his iron-gray hunter, and holding the crupper with his right hand, as he leaned toward a ragged, s.h.a.ggy little urchin, with naked shins, whom he was questioning, as it seemed closely. Half-a-dozen gaping villagers stood round.

There was an indescribable something about the group which indicated horror and excitement. Dangerfield quickened his pace, and arrived just as the adjutant rode out.

Saluting both as he advanced, Dangerfield asked--

'Nothing amiss, I hope, gentlemen?'

'The surgeon here's been found murdered in the park!' answered Lowe.

'Hey--_Sturk_?' said Dangerfield.

'Yes,' said the adjutant: 'this boy here says he's found him in the Butcher's Wood.'

'The Butcher's Wood!--why, what the plague brought him _there_?'

exclaimed Dangerfield.

''Tis his straight road from Dublin across the park,' observed the magistrate.

'Oh!--I thought 'twas the wood by Lord Mountjoy's,' said Dangerfield; 'and when did it happen?'

'Pooh!--some time between yesterday afternoon and half an hour ago,'

answered Mr. Lowe.

'Nothing known?' said Dangerfield. ''Twill be a sad hearing over the way;' and he glared grimly with a little side-nod at the doctor's house.

Then he fell, like the others, to questioning the boy. He could tell them but little--only the same story over and over. Coming out of town, with tea and tobacco, a pair of shoes, and a bottle of whisky, for old Mrs. Tresham--in the thick of the wood, among brambles, all at once he lighted on the body. He could not mistake Dr. Sturk; he wore his regimentals; there was blood about him; he did not touch him, nor go nearer than a musket's length to him, and being frightened at the sight in that lonely place he ran away and right down to the barrack, where he made his report.

Just then out came Sergeant Bligh, with his men--two of them carrying a bier with a mattress and cloaks thereupon. They formed, and accompanied by the adjutant, at quick step marched through the town for the park.

Mr. Lowe accompanied them, and in the park-lane they picked up the ubiquitous Doctor Toole, who joined the party.

Dangerfield walked a while beside the adjutant's horse; and, said he--

'I've had as much walking as I can well manage this morning, and you don't want for hands, so I'll turn back when I've said just a word in your ear. You know, Sir, funerals are expensive, and I happen to know that poor Sturk was rather pressed for money--in fact, 'twas only the day before yesterday I myself lent him a trifle. So will you, through whatever channel you think best, let poor Mrs. Sturk know that she may draw upon me for a hundred pounds, if she requires it?'

'Thank you, Mr. Dangerfield; I certainly shall.'

And so Dangerfield lifted his hat to the party and fell behind, and came to a stand still, watching them till they disappeared over the brow of the hill.

When he reached his little parlour in the Bra.s.s Castle, luncheon was upon the table. But he had not much of an appet.i.te, and stood at the window, looking upon the river with his hands in his pockets, and a strange pallid smile over his face, mingling with the light of the silver spectacles.

'When Irons hears of this,' he said, 'he'll come to my estimate of Charles Archer, and conclude he has had a finger in that pretty pie; 'twill frighten him.'

And somehow Dangerfield looked a little bit queer himself, and he drank off two small gla.s.ses, such as folks then used in Ireland--of Nantz; and setting down the gla.s.s, he mused--

'A queer battle life is; ha, ha! Sturk laid low--the wretched fool!

Widow--yes; children--ay. Charles! Charles! if there be a reckoning after death, your score's an ugly one. I'm tired of playing my part in this weary game of defence. Irons and I remain with the secret between us. Gla.s.sc.o.c.k had his fourth of it, and tasted death. Then we three had it; and Sturk goes next; and now I and Irons--Irons and I--which goes first?' And he fell to whistling slowly and dismally, with his hands in his breeches' pockets, looking vacantly through his spectacles on the ever-running water, an emblem of the eternal change and monotony of life.

In the meantime the party, with Tim Brian, the bare-shanked urchin, still in a pale perspiration, for guide, marched on, all looking ahead, in suspense, and talking little.

On they marched, till they got into the bosky shadow of the close old whitethorn and brambles, and there, in a lonely nook, the small birds hopping on the twigs above, sure enough, on his back, in his regimentals, lay the clay-coloured image of Sturk, some blood, nearly black now, at the corners of his mouth, and under his stern brows a streak of white eye-ball turned up to the sky.

There was a pool of blood under his pomatumed, powdered, and curled head, more under his right arm, which was slightly extended, with the open hand thrown palm upwards, as if appealing to heaven.

Toole examined him.

'No pulse, by Jove! Quiet there! don't stir!' Then he clapped his ear on Sturk's white Ma.r.s.eilles vest.

'Hush!' and a long pause. Then Toole rose erect, but still on his knees, '_Will_ you be quiet there? I think there's some little action still; only don't talk, or shift your feet; and just--just, do be quiet!'

Then Toole rose to his knees again, with a side glance fixed on the face of Sturk, with a puzzled and alarmed look. He evidently did not well know what to make of it. Then he slipped his hand within his vest, and between his shirt and his skin.

'If he's dead, he's not long so. There's warmth here. And see, get me a pinch or two of that thistle-down, d'ye see?'

And with the help of this improvised test he proceeded to try whether he was still breathing. But there was a little air stirring, and they could not manage it.

'Well!' said Toole, standing this time quite erect, 'I--I think there's life there still. And now, boys, d'ye see? lift him very carefully, d'ye mind? Gently, very gently, for I tell you, if this haemorrhage begins again, he'll not last twenty seconds.'

So on a cloak they lifted him softly and deftly to the bier, and laid covering over him; and having received Toole's last injunctions, and especially a direction to Mrs. Sturk to place him in a well-warmed bed, and introduce a few spoonfuls of warm port wine negus into his mouth, and if he swallowed, to continue to administer it from time to time, Sergeant Bligh and his men commenced their funereal march toward Sturk's house.

'And now, Mr. Adjutant,' said Lowe, 'had not we best examine the ground, and make a search for anything that may lead to a conviction?'

Well, a ticket was found trod into the b.l.o.o.d.y mud, scarcely legible, and Sturk's c.o.c.ked hat, the leaf and crown cut through with a blow of some blunt instrument. His sword they had found by his side not drawn.

'See! here's a foot-print, too,' said Lowe; 'don't move!'

It was remarkable. They pinned together the backs of two letters, and Toole, with his surgical scissors, cut the pattern to fit exactly into the impression; and he and Lowe, with great care, pencilled in the well-defined marks of the great hob-nails, and a sort of seam or scar across the heel.