Trevlyn Hold Part 41

"He didn't give his name, ma'am."

"Will you go, James?" hoa.r.s.ely cried Mr. Chattaway. "Go and get rid of the man."

"But he shall not get rid of him," interrupted Miss Diana. "I shall see the man. It is the strangest message I ever heard in my life. What are you thinking of, Squire?"

"Stop where you are!" returned Mr. Chattaway, arresting Miss Diana's progress. "Do you hear, James? Go and get rid of this man. Turn him out, at any cost."

Did Mr. Chattaway fear the visitor had come to take possession of the house in Rupert's name? Miss Diana could only look at him in astonishment. His face wore the hue of death; he was evidently almost beside himself with terror. For once in her life she did not a.s.sert her will, but suffered James to leave the room and "get rid" of the visitor in obedience to Mr. Chattaway.

He appeared to have no trouble in accomplishing it. A moment, and the hall-door was heard to close. Chattaway opened that of the dining-room.

"What did he say?"

"He said nothing, sir, except that he'd call again."

"James, does he--does he look like a madman?" cried Mr. Chattaway, his tone changing to what might almost be called entreaty. "Is he insane, do you think? I could not let a madman enter the house, you know."

"I don't know, sir, I'm sure. His words were odd, but he didn't seem mad."

Mr. Chattaway closed the door and turned to his sister-in-law, who was more puzzled than she had ever been in her life.

"I think it is you who are mad, Chattaway."

"Hush, Diana! I have heard of this man before. Sit down, and I will tell you about him."

He had come to a rapid conclusion that it would be better to confide to her the terrible news come to light. Not his own fears, or the dread which had lain deep in his heart: only this that he had heard.

We have seen how the words of the stranger had been exaggerated by Hatch to Mr. Chattaway, and perhaps he now unconsciously exaggerated Hatch's report. Miss Diana listened in consternation. A lawyer!--come down to depose them from Trevlyn Hold, and inst.i.tute Rupert in it! "I never heard of such a thing!" she exclaimed. "He can't do it, you know, Chattaway."

Chattaway coughed ruefully. "Of course he can't. At least I don't see how he can, or how any one else can. My opinion is that the man must be mad."

Miss Diana was falling into thought. "A friend of Joe's?" she mused aloud. "Chattaway, could Joe have left a will?"

"Nonsense!" said Chattaway. "If Joe Trevlyn did leave a will, it would be null and void. He died in his father's lifetime, and the property was not his to leave."

"True. There can be no possibility of danger," she added, after a pause.

"We may dismiss all fear as the idle wind."

"I wonder whether Rupert knows anything about this?"

"Rupert! What should he know about it?"

"I can't say," returned Mr. Chattaway, significantly. "I think I'll go up and ask him," he added, in a sort of feverish impulse.

Without a moment's pause he hastened upstairs to Rupert's room. But the room was empty!

Mr. Chattaway stood transfixed. He had fully believed Rupert to be in bed, and the silent bed, impressed, seemed to mock him. A wild fear came over him that Rupert's pretence of going to bed had been a _ruse_--he had gone out to meet that dangerous stranger.

He flew down the stairs as one possessed; shouting "Rupert! Rupert!" The household stole forth to look at him, and the walls echoed the name. But from Rupert himself there came no answer. He was not in the Hold.

CHAPTER XXIV

A MEETING AT MARK CANHAM'S

Rupert's leaving the Hold, however, had been a very innocent matter. The evening sun was setting gloriously, and he thought he would stroll out for a few minutes before going to his room. When he reached the lodge he went in and flung himself down on the settle, opposite old Canham and his pipe.

"How's Madam?" asked the old man. "What an accident it might have been!"

"So it might," a.s.sented Rupert, "Madam will be better after a night's rest. Cris might have killed her. I wonder how he'd have felt then?"

When Rupert came to an anchor, no matter where, he was somewhat unwilling to move from it. The settle was not a comfortable seat; rather the contrary; but Rupert kept to it, talking and laughing with old Canham. Ann was at the window, catching what remained of the fading light for her sewing.

"Here's that strange gentleman again, father!" she suddenly exclaimed in a whisper.

Old Canham turned his head, and Rupert turned his. The gentleman with the beard was going by in the direction of Trevlyn Hold as if about to make a call there.

"Ay, that's him," cried old Canham.

"What a queer-looking chap!" exclaimed Rupert. "Who is he?"

"I can't make out," was old Canham's reply. "Me and Ann have been talking about him. He came strolling inside the gates this afternoon with a red umberellar, looking here and looking there, and at last he see us, and come up and asked what place this was; and when I told him it was Trevlyn Hold, he said Trevlyn Hold was what he had been seeking for, and he stood there talking a matter o' twenty minutes, leaning his arms on the window-sill. He thought you was the Squire, Master Rupert.

He had a red umberellar," repeated old Canham, as if the fact were remarkable.

Rupert glanced up in surprise. "Thought I was the Squire?"

"He came into this neighbourhood, he said, believing nothing less but that you were the rightful Squire, and couldn't make out why you were not: he had been away from England a many years, and had believed it all the while. He said you were the true Squire, and you should be helped to your right."

"Why! who can he be?" exclaimed Rupert, in excitement.

"Ah, that's it--who can he be?" returned old Canham. "Me and Ann have been marvelling. He said that he used to be a friend of the dead heir, Mr. Joe. Master Rupert, who knows but he may be somebody come to place you in the Hold?"

Rupert was leaning forward on the settle, his elbow on his knee, his eye fixed on old Canham.

"How could he do that?" he asked after a pause. "How could any one do it?"

"It's not for us to say how, Master Rupert. If anybody in these parts could have said, maybe you'd have been in it long before this. That there stranger is a cute 'un, I know. White beards always is a sign of wisdom."

Rupert laughed. "Look here, Mark. It is no good going over that ground again. I have heard about my 'rights' until I am tired. The subject vexes me; it makes me cross from its very hopelessness. I wish I had been born without rights."

"This stranger, when he called you the heir of Trevlyn Hold, and I told him you were not the heir, said I was right; you were not the heir, but the owner," persisted old Canham.

"Then he knew nothing about it," returned Rupert. "It's _impossible_ that Chattaway can be put out of Trevlyn Hold."

"Master Rupert, there has always been a feeling upon me that he will be put out of it," resumed old Canham. "He came to it by wrong, and wrong never lasts to the end without being righted. Who knows that the same feeling ain't on Chattaway? He turned the colour o' my Sunday smock when I told him of this stranger's having been here and what he'd said."