m. I L^ DDO Af^ and before Mr. Pecker had recovered his surprise, crossed the hall and made direct for the stair- case, at the top of which was the chamber wherein Darrell Markham lay. Terror of the vengeance of the ponderous Sarah seized upon the soul of the landlord, and with an unwonted activity he ran forward, and intercepted the woman at the bottom of the stairs. " You musn't, ma'am," he said, " you musn't ; excuse me, ma'am, but it's as much as my life, or even the parson — yes, ma'am, Sarah ! " thus vaguely the terrified Samuel. The woman threw back the large grey hood which had muffled her face. Millicent. 4$ " Don't yoa know me, Mr. Pecker ? " slie asked. " 'Tis I, Millicent, Millicent— Duke." " You, Miss Millicent ! You, ]\Irs. Duke ! miss, ma'am, your poor dear cousin !" " Mr. Peckci', for the love of mercy, don't keep me from him. Stand out of the way, stand out of the way," she said passionately ; " ho may die while you're talking to me here.", "But, ma'am, you musn't go to him; the doctor, ma'am, and Sarah, Miss Millicent. Sarah, she was quite awful about it, ma'am !" " Stand aside," cried Mrs. Duke; " I tell you a raging fire shouldn't stop me. Stand aside !" " No, ma'am— but Sarah !" Millicent Duke stretched out two slender white hands, and pushed the landlord from her way with a strength that sent him sliding round the polished oak banister of the lowest stair. She flew up the flight of steps, which brought her to the door of the blue room, and on the threshold found herself face to face with Mrs. Sarah Pecker. The girl fell on her kness, with her hair falling loose about her shoulders, and her long grey cloak trailing round her on the poli«hed oaken floor. " Sarah, Sarah, darling — Sarah, dear, let me see hid." " N'ot you, not you, nor any one," said the landlady sternly — "you the last of all persons, 'hlxs. George Duke." The name struck her like a blow, and she shivered under the cruelty of the thrust. "Let me see him! — let me see him!" she said; " his father's brother's only child — his first cousin — hia 44 The Captain of the Vulture. playfellow — his friend — his dear and loving friend— his " " His wife that was to have been, Mrs, Duke," in- terrupted the landlady. " His wife that was to have been ; and never, never should have been another's. His loving, true, and happy wife that would have been. Let me see him ! " cried Millicent piteously, holding up her clasped hands to Mrs. Pecker. " The doctor's in there ; do you want him to hear you, Mrs. Duke ? " " If all the world heard me, I wouldn't stop from dsking you : Sarah, let me see my cousin, DaiTell Markhani!" The landlady — holding a candle in her hand, and looking down at the piteous face and the tearful eyes that were almost blinded by the loose pale golden hair — softened a little as she said, — "Miss Millicent, the doctor has forbidden a mortal creature to come a-nigh him — the doctor has forbidden a mortal soul to say one word to him that could disturb or agitate him — and do you think the sight of your face wouldn't agitate him ? " " But he asked to see me, Sarah ; he spoke of me !" " When, Miss Millicent ? " Softening towards this pitiful pale face looking up into hers, the landlady no longer called her dead mas- ter's daughter by the new, hard, cruel name of Mrs. Duke. " When, ]\[iss Millicent ? " " To-night— to-night, Sarah." " blaster Darrell asked to see you ! Who told jon that?" "Captain Duke." MilUcent. 45 "]V1 aster Darrell hasn't said better than a dozen K^ords this night, Miss Milliccnt ; and those words were mad words, and never once spoke your name." " But my husband said " "The Captain sent you here, then?" " No, no ; he didn't send me here. He told me — at least, he gave me to understand — that Darrell had spoken of me — had asked to see me." "Your husband's a strange gentleman, Miss Milli- eent." " Let me see him, Sarah, only let me see him. I won't speak one word, or breathe one sigh ; only let me see him." Mrs. Pecker withdrew for a few moments into the blue room, and whispered something to the doctor. Millicent Duke, still on her knees on the threshold of the half-opened door, strained her eyes as if she would have pierced through the thick oak that separated her from her prostrate kinsman. The landlady returned to the door, accompanied by the doctor, who went downstairs to fetch some potion he had ordered for his patient. " If you want to look at a corpse, Miss Millicent, you may come in and look at him, for he lies as still aa one," said Mrs. Pecker. She took the kneeling girl in her stout arms, and half lifted her into the room, where, opposite a blazing fire, Darrell Markham lay unconscious on a great draperied four-post bed. His head was thrown back upon the pillow, the fair hair dabbled with a lotion with which Mrs. Pecker had been bathing the scalp- wound spoken of by the doctor. Millicent tottered to the bedside, and seating: herself in an arm-chair which 46 The Captain of the Vulture. had been occupied by Sarah Pecker, took Darrel Markham's hand in hers, and pressed it to her tremtt lous lips. It seemed as if there was something magical in this gentle pressure, for the young man's eyes opened for the first time since the scene in the hall, and he looked at his cousin. "Millicent," he said, without any sign of sui^rise " dear Millicent, it is so good of you to watch me." She had nursed him three years before through a dangerous illness, and it was scarcely strange if in his delirium he confused the present with the past, fancying that he was in his old room at Compton Hall, and that his cousin had been watching by his bedside. "Call my nncle," he said, "call the squire; I want to see him!" and then after a pause he muttered, looking about him, " surely this is not the old room — surely some one has altered the room." "Master Darrell, dear," cried the landlady, " don't you know where you are ? With friends. Master Darrell, true and faithful friends. Don't you know, dear?" "Yes, yes," he said, "I know, I know. I've been lying out in the cold, and my arm is hurt. I remember, Sally, I remember ; but my head feels strange, and I can scarce tell where I am." " See here. Master Darrell, here's Mistress Duke has come all the way from the other end of Compton on this bitter black night on purpose to see you." The good woman said this to comfort the patient, but the utterance of that one name, Duke, recalled his cousin's man-iage, and the young man exclaimed bitterly, — *' Mistress Duke ! yes, I remember ' and then, turn* Millicent. 47 ing his weary head upon the pillow, he cried with a Budden energy, "Millicent Duke, Millicent Duke, why do you come here to torture me with the sight of you?" At this moment there arose the sound of some alter- cation in the hall below, and then the noise of two voices in dispute, and hurried footsteps upon the stair- case. Mrs. Pecker ran to the door, but before she could reach it, it was burst violently open, and the Captain of the Vulture strode into the room. He was closely followed by the doctor, who walked straight to the bedside, exclaiming with suppressed passion, "I protest against this, Captain Duke ; and if any ill consequences come of it, I hold you answerable for the mischief" The Captain took no notice of this speech, but, tm-ning to his wife, said savagely, " Will it please you to go home with me. Mistress ]\Iillicent ? It is near upon four o'clock, and a sick gentleman's room is scarce a fit place for a lady at such a time." Darrell Markham lifted himself up in bed, and cried with an hysterical laugh, " I tell you that's the man, Millicent ; Sarah, look at him. That is the man who stopped me upon Compton Moox' — the man who shot me in the arm, and rifled me of my purse." " Darrell ! Darrell ! " cried j\Iillicent ; " you do not, know what you are saying. That man is my husband." " Tour husband ! A highwayman ! — a " Whatever word was on Mr. Markham's lips remained unspoken, for he fell back insensible upon the pillow." " Captain George Duke," said the surgeon, laying his hand upon his patient's wrist, " if this man dies, you have committed a mui-der !" The Captain of the Vulture. CHAPTER III. LOOKING BACK. John Homerton, tlie blacksmith, only spoke advisedly when he said that the young squire, Ringwood Mark- ham, was ruining himself up in London. The simple inhabitants of villages are apt to exaggei'ate the dangers and the vices of that unknown metropolis of which they hear such strange stories ; but in this case honest Master Homerton did not exaggerate, for the young squire was hurrying at a good rattling pace along that smooth and easy highway known as the road to ruin. Ringwood Markham was three years older than his sister Millicent, and six years younger than his cousin Darrell ; for old Squire Markham had married late in life, and had, shortly after his marriage, adopted little Darrell, the only child of a younger brother, who had died early, leaving a small fortune to his orphan boy. Ringwood Markham in person closely resembled his sister. He had the same pale golden hair, the deep limpid blue eyes, the small features, and delicate pink- and-white complexion. But that style of beauty which was charminof in a e'irl of nineteen was far too effemi- nate to be pleasing in a man of two-and-twenty, and the old squire had been sorely vexed to see his beloved Bon grow up into nothing better than a pretty boy — a fair-faced dolhsh young coxcomb, the admiration of simpering school-girls and middle-aged women, and the type of the Strephons and Damons who at that time overran our English poetry. . Ringwood had always been his father's favourite, to the exclusion even of pretty, lovable, and loving Milli- LooTiinq Back 49 cent ; and as Darrell grew to manliood, it vexed tlie old squire to see tlie elder cousin high-spirited and stalwart, broad-chested and athletic, accomplished in all manly exercises, a good shot, an expei^t swoi'dsman, a bold horseman, and reckless, daredevil, generous, thought- less, open-hearted lad ; while Ringwood only thought of his pretty face and his embroidered waistcoat, and loved the glittering steel ornaments of his sword-hilt far better than the blade of the weapon. It was hard for the squire to have to confess the humiliating truth, even to himself; but it was not the less a fact that Ringwood Markham was a milksop. The old man concealed his mortification in the most secret recesses of his heart, and, with a spii'it of injustice which is one of the weaknesses of pj»csionate love, hated Darrell for being so superior to his son. This was how the pale face of sori'ow first peeped in upon the little family group at Compton Hall. Darrell and Millicent had loved each other from tha^ early childish but unforgotten day on which the orphan boy peeped into his baby cousin's cradle, and gazed with admiring wonder at her pretty face and tiny rosy hands, so ready to twine themselves with a warm caressing touch around the boy's coarser fingers. I am not perhaps justified in saying that love on her side began so soon as this, but I know that it did on his ; and I know too that the first syllables cousin Milly ever lisped were those two simple sounds that shaped the name of Darrell. They loved each other from such an early age, and they loved each other so honestly and truly, that perhaps they were never, in the legitimate sense of the word, lovei"**. 50 Tlie Captain of tJie Vulture. They had no pretty coquettisli jealousies ; no charm'. irig quarreLs and more charming reconciliations ; n« stolen meetings by moonlit nights ; no intei'position of bribed waiting-maids charged with dainty perfumed notes. No; they loved each other honestly and openly, with a calm unchauging affection which had so little need of words, that few lookers-on would perhaps have suspected the depth and strength of so tranquil a passion. If the squire saw this groAving attachment between the young people, he neither favoured nor discouraged it. He had never cared very much for Millicent. She and her brother were the children of a woman whom he had man-ied for the sake of a handsome fortune, and who died unnoticed and umx-gretted — some people said, of a broken heart- — before Idillicent was a twelvemonth old. So things went on pretty smoothly. Millicent and Darrell rode together through the shady green lanes, and over the stunted grass and heather on Compton Moor, while the squire read his Postboys and Gazeteers and smoked his pipe in the oak-panelled parlour or the Dutch garden, and while Ringwood idled about the village or lounged at the bar of the Black Bear : and life seemed altogether very easy and pleasant at Compton Hall, until a catastrophe occurred which changed the whole current of events. Darrell and Ringwood Markham had a desperate quarrel ; a quarrel in which blows were struck and hard words spoken upon both sides, and which abruptly ended Darrell's residence at Compton Hall. It has been said that Rins^wood Markham was a cox- comb and an idler. There were not wanting those in Ziookhig Back. 61 Compton who called him something worse than either of these. There were some who called him a heartless coward and a liar, but who never so spoke of him in the presence of his stalwart cousin Darrell. The day came when Darrell himself called the uire's idolized son by these cruel names. He had iscovered a flirtation between Ringwood and a girl of seventeen, the daughter of a small farmer ; a flirtation which, but for this timely discovery, might have ended in shame and despair. Scarlet with passion, the young man had taken his foppish cousin by the collar of his velvet coat and dragged him safe into the presence of the father of the girl, saying, with an oath, such as was unhappily only too common a hundred years ago, — "You'd better keep an eye on this young man, Farmer Morrison, if you want to save your daughter from a scoundrel." Ringwood turned very white — he was one of those who grow pale and not red with passion — and springing at his cousin like a cat, caught at his throat as if he would have strangled him ; but one swinging blow from Darrell's fist laid the young man on Farmer Morrison's sanded floor, with a general illumination glittering before his dazzled eyes. Darrell strode back to the Hall, where he packed some clothes in his saddle-bags, and wrote two letters, one to his uncle, telling him, abruptly enough, that he had knocked Ringwood down, because he had found biTTi acting like a rascal, and that he felt, as there was now bad blood between them, they had better part. His second letter was addressed to Millicent, and was almost as brief as the first. He simply told her of the quarrel, adding that he was going to London to seek 52 The Captain of the Vulture. his fortune, and that he should return to claim her aa his wife. He left the letters on the high chinmey-pieoe in his bedroom, and went down to the stables, where he found his own nag Balmerino, fastened his few possessions to the saddle, mounted the horse in the yard, and rode slowly away from the house in which his boyhood and youth had been spent. He went away very sad at heart, but possessed and sustained by that hopeful spirit common to generous youth. It seemed such an easy thing to make a fortune to carryback to his cousin Millicent. That great oyster, the world, was waiting to be opened by the bold thrust of an adventurous sword, and who could doubt what rare and priceless jDearls were lurking within the shell, ready to fall into the open hands of the valiant adven- turer ? Ringwood Markham Avent home late at night with a pale face and a blood-stained handkerchief bound about his forehead. He found his father sitting over a spark of fire in the oak parlour on one side of the hall. The door of this parloui* was ajar, and as the young man tried to creep past on his way upsiairs, the squii'e called to him sharply, "Ringwood, come here!" He went sulkily into the room, hanging his dilapi- dated head, and looking at the floor ; altogether an abject creature to behold. " What's the matter with your head, Ringwood ? " asked the squire. " The pony shied at some sheep on the moor, and threw me against a stone," muttered the young man. "You're telling a lie, Ringwood Markham 1" cried LooTcing BaeJc. 68 his father fiercely. " I've a letter from yonr cousin Darrell in my pocket. Bah, man ! you're the first of the Markhams who ever took a blow without papng it back with interest. You've your mother's milk-and- water disposition, as well as your mother's pink-and- wbite face." " You needn't talk about her," said Fi'-igwood ; " you didn't treat lier too well, if folks that I know speak the truth." " Ringwood Markham, don't provoke me. It's hard enough for a Markham of Compton to have a son that can't take his own part. Go to bed." The young man left the room with the same slouch- ing step with which he bad entered it. He stole cautiously upstairs, for he thought his cousin Darrell was still in the house, and he had no wish to arouse that gentleman. So Millicent was left alone at Compton Hall ; utterlj alone, for she had now no one to love her. Perhaps modern physiologists would have discovered in the nature of Millicent Markham much to wonder at and to explain. It was a delicate and fragile piece of mechanism — very exquisite if you could only keep it in order, but terribly liable to be injured or destroyed. The squire's daughter was not a clever girl ; her intel- lectual amusements were of the simplest order. An old romance would make her happy for days, and she would cry over the mildest verses ever written by starveling poets in garrets east of Temple Bar. With her the heart took the place of the mind. Appeal to her affection, and you might make her what you pleased. If Darrell had asked her to learn Greek for his Bake, she would have toiled valiantly through dreary 54 The Capfain of the Vulture. obscnrities of grammar, she would have dug patiently at the dryest roots, and would have seated herself meekly by his side to construe the hardest page in Homer. Love her, and her whole nature expanded like some beautiful flower that spreads itself out beneath the morning sun. Withdraw this benign influence, and the same nature contracted into something smaller and meaner than itself — someihing easily ci-ushed into any shape whatever by a little rough handling. Darrell, therefore, being gone, and dear old Sally Masterson having left the Hall to become mistress of the Black Bear, poor Millicent was abandoend to the tender mercies of her father and brother, neither of whom cared much more for her than they did for the meek white and liver-coloured spaniel that followed her about the house. So the delicate piece of mechanism got out of order, and Millicent's days were devoted to novel reading and to poring over an embroidered waistcoat-piece that was destined for Darrell, and the colours of which were dull and faded from the tears that had dropped upon the stitches as the patient worker bent over her labour of love, and thought of the absent lover for whose adornment the fjarment was intended. She kept Dan'ell's letter in her bosom. In all the ways of the world she was as unlearned as on that day when Darrell had peeped in upon her as she lay asleep m her cradle, and she had no more doubt that her cousin would make a fortune and return in a few years fco claim her as his wife than she had of her own exist- ence. But in spite of this hope, the days were long and dreary, her father neglectful, her brother supercilious and disagreeable, and her home altogether very miser- able. Loohing Bach. 65 The bitterest misery was yet to come. It came 111 the person of a certain Captain Gcorq-e Duke, who dropped into Compton on his way from ]\Iar- ley Water to the metropolis, and who contrived to scrape acquaintance with Squire Markham in the best parlour at the Black Bear. Captain George and Master Rino-wood became sworn friends in a day or two, and the hearty sailor promised to stop at Compton again on bis return to bis ship the Vulture. The simple villagers readily accepted Captain Duke as that which be had represented himself — an officer of his majesty's navy ; but there were people in the seaport of Marley V/"ater who said that the good ship whose name was written down as the Vulture in the Admiralty books was quite a different class of vessel from the trim little craft which lay sometimes in a quiet corner of the obscure barjbour of Marley. There were malicious people who whispered such words as ' privateer — pirate — slaver ; ' but the boldest of the slanderers took good care to whisper these things out of the Captain's hearing, for George Duke's sword was as often out of his scabbard as in it, dui-ing his brief visits to the little seaport. However this might be, handsome, rollicking, light- hearted, free-handed George Duke became a great favourite Avith Squire Markham and his son Ringwood. His animal spirits enlivened the dreary old mansion, and stii-red the stagnation of the quiet village life very pleasantly for the Squire and his son. The sailor's roystering stories of sea-going adventures pleased the two landsmen : and the sailor himself, who was a man of the world, and knew how to flatter a profitable 56 The Captain of the Vulttire. acquaintance, seemed the most agreeable of men, and the heartiest of good fellows. So Compton Hall rang night after night with the gay peals of his cheery laughter ; corks flew, and glasses jingled, as the three men sat up till midnight (a terrible hour at Compton) over their Burgundy and claret. It was in one of these half-drunken bouts that Squire Mai-kham promised the hand of his daughter Millicent to Captain George Duke. " You're in love with her, George, and you shall have her," the old man said. " I can give her a couple of thousand pounds at my death, and if anything should happen to Ringwood, she'll be sole heiress to the Compton property. You shall have her, my boy. I know there's some sneaking courtship been going on between Milly and a broad-shouldered fair-haired nephew of mine, but that shan't stand in your way, for the lad is no favourite with me ; and if I choose to say it, my fine lack-a-daisical miss shall marry ycu in a week's time." Captain Duke sprang from his chair, and wringing the Squire's hand in his, cried out with a lover's rapture,— " She's the pi*efctiest girl in England ! and I'd sooner have her for my wife than any duchess at St. James's." " She's pretty enough, as for that," said Ringwood superciliously, " and she'd be a deal prettier if she was not always whimpering." Farmer Morrison could have told how Master Ring- wood himself had gone whimpering out of the sanded kitchen on the day that Darrell Markham knocked him down. The plain-spoken farmer had felt no little con- tempt for the heir of Compton Hall, whose wounded Looking Bach. 67 head he had dressed for charity's sake, before dis- missing the young man with an emphatic assurance that if he ever came ahout those premises again, it would be to get such a thrashing as he would easily be able to remember. Both the children inherited something of the nervous weakness of that poor delicate and neglected mother who had died seventeen years before in Sally Master- son's arms ; but timid and sensitive as Millicent was, I think that the higher nature had been given to her, and that beneath that childish timidity and that nervous excitability which would bring tears into her eyes at the sound of a harsh word, there Avas a latent and quiet courage that had no existence in Ringwood'a selfish and frivolous character. Having promised to bestow his daughter's hand on his new favourite, the Captain, Squire Markham lost no time in carrying out his intention. He summoned Millicent to the oak parlour early on the morning after the drunken carouse, and acquainted her with the manner in which he had disposed of her destiny. Harsh words on this occasion, as on every other, did their work with Millicent Markham. She heard her father's determination that she should marry George Duke, at first with a stupid apathetic stare, as if the calamity were too great for her to realize its misery at one grasp ; then, as he repeated his command, her clear blue eyes brimmed over with big tears, and she fell on her knees at the Squire's feet. "You don't mean it, sir?" she said piteously, clasping her poor little feeble hands and lifting them towards her father in passionate supplication. " You know that I love my cousin Darrell ; that we have loved each 68 The Captain of the Vulture. other dearly and truly ever since we were little chil- dren ; and that Ave are to be man and wife when you are pleased to give your consent. You must have known it all along, sir, though we had not the courage to tell you. I will be your obedient child in everything but this ; but I never, never can marry any one but Darrein " What need to tell the old story of a stupid, obstinate, narrow-minded country squire's fury and tyranny? Did not poor Sophia Western suffer all these torments, though in the dear old romance all is so happily settled in the last chapter ? But in this case it was different — Squire Markham would hear of no delay ; and before Darrell could get the letter which Millicent addressed to a coffee-house near Covent Garden, and bribed one ol the servants to give to the Compton postmaster — before the eyes of the bride had recovered from long nights of weeping — before the village had half discussed the matter — before Mrs. Sarah Pecker could finish the petticoat she was quilting very sorrowfully for the wedding clothes — the bells of Compton church were ringing a cheery peal in the morning sunshine, and Millicent Markham and George Duke were standing side by side at the altar. When Darrell Markham received the poor little tear- Btained letter, telling him of this ill-omened marriage, ae fell into an outburst of rage; an outburst of blind fury which swept alike upon the Squire, young Ring- wood, Captain George Duke, and even poor unhappj Millicent herself. It is so difficult for a man to under- stand the influence brought so bear upon a weak lielp- less woman by the tyranny of a brutal father. Darrell eried out passionately that Millicent ought to have been Looking Bach. 69 true to him in spite of the whole world, as ho would have been to her through every trial. He hurried down to Compton to creep stealthily about the village after dusk, lest his presence should bring evil upon the woman he loved, and to discover that he was indeed too late — that the piteous blotted letter had told him no more than the cruel truth, and that the Squire had kept his word. Made desperate by the shipwi^eck of his happi- ness, the young man went back to London with angry feelings burning in his breast. He rushed for a brief pei'iod into the dissipations of the town, and tried to drown Millicent's fair face in tavern mea- sures and long draughts of Burgundy, and to forget his troubles among the patched and painted beauties of Spring Gardens, A marriage contracted under such circumstances was not likely to be a very happy one. Light-hearted, rollicking George Duke was by no means a delightfal person by the domestic hearth. The man whose lively spirits are the delight of his tavern acquaintances is apt to be rather a dull companion in the family circle. At home the Captain was moody and ill-tempered, always ready to grumble at Millicent's pale face and tear- swollen eyes. For the best part of the year he was away with his ship, on some of those mysterious voyages of which the Admiralty knew so little ; and in these long absences, Millicent, if not happy, was at least at rest. Three months after the wedding the old Squire was found dead in his arm-chair, a victim to apoplexy engendered of sedentary habits and high living; and Ringwood, succeeding to the estate, shut up the Hall, and rushed away to London, where he was soon lost to BO The Captain of tJie Vulture, the honest folks of Compton in a wliirlpool of vice and dissipation. This was how matters stood when George and Mil- licent had been married fifteen months, and Darrell Markham well-nigh lost his life at the hands of a high- way robber upon the dreary moorland road to Marley "Water. CHAPTER IV. CAPTAIN DUKE PROVES AN ALIBI. Darrell Markham did not die from the effects of that excitement which the doctor said might be so fatal. The surgeon fought bravely with the fever, and the bone-setter from Marley Water did his work well, though not without agony to the patient; for there were no blessed anesthetics in those days, whereby a man might be lulled into peaceful repose while the operator's knife hacked his flesh, or the surgeon's re- lentless hand dragged his unwilling muscles and dis- torted bones back to their proper places. Darrell was very slow to recover, so slow that the snow lay white upon the moorland beneath the windows of the Black Bear before the shattered arm was firmly knit together, or the enfeebled frame restored to its native vigour. It was a dreary and a tedious illness. Honest Sarah Pecker was nearly worn out with nursing her sick boy, as she insisted on calling Darrell. The woak-eyed and weak-minded Samuel was made to wear list shoes and to creep like a thief about his roomy hos- telry. The evening visitors were sent into a dark tap- Captain BuJce proves an Alibi. %l toom at the back of the house, in order that the sound of their revehy might not disturb the sick man. Gloom and sadness reigned in the Black Bear until that happy day upon which Dr. Jordan pronounced his patient tc be out of danger. Sarah Pecker gave away a barrel ol the strongest ale upon that joyous afternoon, pouring the generous liquor freely out for every loiterer who stopped at the door to ask after poor Maister Darrell. Captain George Duke was away on a brief voyage on the Spanish coast when Darrell began to mend ; but by the time the young man had completely recovered, the sailor returned to Compton. The snow Avas thick in the narrow street when the Captain came back. He came without warning, and walked quietly into the little parloui", where he found Millicent sitting in her old attitude by the fire, reading a novel. But he was in a better temper than usual on this pai'ticular occasion, and looked wonderfully handsome and dashing in his weather-beaten uniform. It waa not quite the king's uniform, as some people said ; very like it ; but yet with slight technical differences that told against the Captain. George Duke caught Millicent in his arms and gave her a hearty kiss upon each cheek before he had time to notice her faint repellent shudder. " I've come home to you laden with good things, Mistress Milly," he said, as he seated himself opposite to her, Avhile the stout servant-maid piled fresh logs upon the blazing fire. " A chest of oranges, and a cask of Avine from Cadiz — liquid gold, my girl, and almost as precious as the sterling metal ; and I've a heap of pretty barbarous trumpery for you to fasten on 62 The Captain of the Vulture. your white neck and arms, and hang in your rosy little ears." The Captain took an old-fashioned, queerly-shaped leather case from his pocket, and opened it on the little table where he spread out a quantity of foreign jewellry that glittered and twinkled in the firelight. Ai-abesqued gold of wonderful workmanship glimmered in that rosy firelight, and strange outlandish many-coloured gems sparkled upon the dark oak table and reflected them- selves deep down in the polished wood, like stars ia a river. Millicent blushed as she bent over the trinkets, and stammered out some gentle grateful phrases. She waa blushing to think how little she cared for all these gew- gaws, and how her soul was set on another treasure which never could be hers — the forbidden treasure ol Darrell's deep and honest love. As she was thinking this, the Captain looked up at her, carelessly as it seemed, but in reahty with a very searcliing glance in his flashing brown eyes. "0, by the bye," he said, "how is that pretty fair- haired cousin of yours ? Has he recovered from that affau'? or was it his death ? " There was a malicious sparkle in his eyes, as he watched his wife shiver at the sound of that cruel word " death." " That's another figure in the long score between you and me, my lady," he thought. " He is much better. Indeed, he is nearly well," Milliceut said quietly. "Have you seen him?" " Never since the night on which you found me at his bedside." She looked up at him calmly, almost proudly, as she Captain Buhe proves an Alibi. 03 spoke. It was a look that seemed to say, " I have a clear conscience, and, do what you will, you cannot make me blush or falter," She had indeed a clear conscience. Many times Sarah Pecker had come to her, and said, " Your cousin is very low to-night, Miss Millicent ; come and sit beside him, if it's only for half an hour ; to cheer him up a bit. Poor old Sally will be with you, and where she is, the hardest can't say there's harm." But Millicent had always steadily refused, saying, "It would only make us both unhappy, Sally, dear. I'd rather not come." None knew how, sometimes late at night, when the maid- servant had gone to bed, and the lights in the upper windows of Compton High Street had been one by one extinguished, this same inflexible Millicent would steal out, muffled in a long cloak of shadowy grey, and creep to the roadway under the Black Bear, to stand for ten minutes in the snow or rain, watching the faint light that shone from the window of the room where Darrell Markham lay. Once, standing ankle-deep in snow, she saw Sarah Pecker o^^cn the window to look out at the night, and heard her cousin's voice asking if it were snowing. She burst into tears at the sound of this feeble voice. it seemed so long since she had heard it, she half fancied that she might never hear it again. One of the Vulture's men brought the case of oranges and the cask of sherry from Marley to Compton upon the very night of the Captain's return, and George Duke drank half a bottle of the liquid gold before he went to bed. He tried in vain to induce Millicent to taste the topaz- coloured liquor. She liked Sarah Pecker's 64 The Cu]^tain of the Vulture. cowslip wine better than the finest sherry ever grown in the Peninsula. Early the next morning the Comjoton constable came to the cottage armed with a warrant for the apprehension of Captain George Duke on a charge of assault and robbery on the king's highway. Pale with suppressed fuiy, the Captain strode into the little parlour where Millicent was seated at breakfast. *' Pray, Mistress Millicent," he said, "who has set on your pretty cousin to try and hang an innocent man, with the intent to make a hempen widow of you, as I suppose ? What is the meaning of this ?" "Of what, George?" she asked, bewildered by his manner. ' "e told her the whole story of the warrant. " Of course," he said, " you remember this Master Darrell's crying out that it was I who shot him ? " " I do, George ; I thought then that it was some strange feverish fancy, and I think so now." " I scarcely expected so much of your courtesy, Mis- tress Duke," answered her husband. " Luckily for me, I can pretty easily clear myself from this mad-brained charge ; but I am not the less grateful to Darrell Mai'k- ham for his kind intent." The constable took Captain Duke at once to the magistrate's parlour, where he found Darrell Markham seated, pale from his long illness, and with his arm still in a sling. " Thank you, Mr. Markham, for this good turn," Baid the Captain, folding his arms and placing himself against the doorway of the magistrate's room ; " we shall find an opportunity of squaring our accounts some of these days, I daresay." Captain Duke proves an Alibi. 65 The worthy magistrate was not a little puzzled as to how to deal with the case before him. Little as was known in Compton of Captain George Duke, it seemed incredible that so fine a gentleman and the husband of Squire Markham's daughter could be guilty of high- way robbery. But in those days highway robbery was a very common offence, and the public had been astonished by more than one strange discovery. Finer gentlemen than Captain Duke had tried to mend their desperate fortunes on the king's highway. Darrell stated his charge in the simplest and most straightforward fashion. He had ridden away from the Black Bear to go to Marley Water. Three miles from Compton, a man whom he swore to have been no other than the accused, rode up to him and demanded his purse and watch. He drew his pistol from his belt, but while he was cocking it, the man. Captain Duke, fired, shot him in the arm, dragged him oflF his horse, and threw him into the mud. He remembei-ed nothing more until he awoke in the hall at the Black Bear, and recognized the accused amongst the bystanders. The magistrate coughed dubiously. " Cases of mistaken identity have not been uncom- mon in the judicial history of this country," he said, sententiously. " Can you swear, Mr. Markham, that the man who attacked you was Captain George Duke?" " If that man standing against the door is Captain Duke, I can solemnly swear that he is the man who robbed me." " When you were found by the persons who picked you up, was your horse found also ?" "No, the horse was gone." 66 The Captain of the Vulture, " Would you know him again ? " " Know him again ? What, honest Balmerino ? I should know him amongst a thousand." " Hum !" said the magistrate, " that is a great point; I consider the horse a great point." He pondered so long over his very important part of the case, that his clerk had occasion to nudge him respectfully and to whisper something in his ear before he went on again. " 0, ah, yes, to be sure, of course," he muttered helplessly ; then clearing his throat, he said in his magistei-ial voice, " Pray, Captain Duke, what have you to say to this charge?" "Very little," said the Captain quietly; "but before I speak at all, I should be glad if you would send for Mr. Samuel Pecker, of the Black Bear." The magistrate whispered to the clerk, and the clerk nodded, on which the magistrate said, " Go, one of you, and fetch the aforesaid Samuel Pecker." While one of the hangers-on was gone upon this errand, the worthy magistrate nodded over his Flying Post, the clerk mended the fire, and Mr. Darrell Mark- ham and the Captain stared fiercely at each other — an ominous red glimmer burning in the sailor's bi'own ©yes. Mr. Pecker came, with a white face and limp disor- dered hair, to attend the magisterial summons. He had some vague idea that hanging by the neck till he was dead might be the result of this morning's work ; or that, happily escaping that last penalty of the law, he would suffer a hundred moral deaths at the hands of Sarah, his wife. He could not for a moment imagine that he could possibly be wanted in the magistrate*? Captain DuJce proves an Ahht. 67 parlour unless accused of some monstrous though un- consciously committed crime. He gave a faint gasp of relief when some one in the room whisjjcred to him that he was required as a witness. "Now, Captain Duke," said the magistrate, "what have you to say to this ? " " Will you be good enough to ask Mr. Darrell Mark- ham two or three questions ? " The magistrate looked at the clerk, the clerk nodded to the magistrate, and the magistrate nodded an assent to Captain Duke's request. " Will you ask if he knows at what time the assault was committed ? " Before the magistrate could interpose, Darrell Mark- ham spoke. " I happen to be able to answer that question with certainty," he said. " The wind was blowing straight across the moor, and I distinctly heard Compton church clock chime the three-quarters after seven as the man rode up to me." "As I rode up to you?" asked George Duke. "As 1/ou rode up to me," answered Darrell. "Mr. Samuel Pecker, will you be so good as to tell the magistrate where I was at a quarter to eight o'clock upon the night of the 27th of Octo- ber?" " You were in the parlour of the Bear, Captain," answered Samuel, in short gasps ; " and you came in and asked the time, which I went out to look at our eight-day on the stairs, and it were ten minutes to eight exact by father's eight-day, as is never a minute wrong." 68 The Captain of the Vulttire. " There were other people in the parlour that night who saw me and who heard me ask the question, were there not, Mr. Pecker?'" " There were a many of 'em," replied Samuel ; " which they saw you wind your watch by father's eight-day ; for it weren't you. Captain Duke, as robbed Master Darrell, but I know who it were." There was stupefaction in the court at this extraor- dinary assertion. " You know ! " cried the magistrate ; "then, pray, why have you withheld the knowledge from those entitled to hear it ? This is very bad, Mr. Pecker ; very bad indeed!" The unhappy Samuel felt that he was in for it. " It were no more Captain Duke than it were me," he gasped ; " it were the other." " The other ! What other ? " "Him as stopped his horse at the door of the Black Bear, and asked the way to Marley Water." Nothing could remove Samuel Pecker from his posi- tion. Questioned and cross-questioned by the magis- trate, the clerk, and Darrell Markham, he steadfastly declared that a man so closely resembling Captain Duke as to deceive both himself and John Homerton the blacksmith had stopped at the Black Bear and asked the way to Marley. He gasped and stuttered and choked and bewildered himself, but he neither prevaricated nor broke down in his assertions, and he begged that John Homerton might be summoned to confirm his statement. John Homerton was summoned, and declared that, to the best of his belief, it was Captain Duke who stopped ?* the Black Bear, while he, Master Darrell Captain DuJce proves aiv Alihi. GO Markham, and the landlord were standing at the door. But this assertion was shivered in a nioracnt by an alibi. A quarter of an hour after the traveller had ridden off towards Marley, Captain Duke walked up to the inn from the direction of the High Street. Neither the magistrate nor the clerk had anything to say to this. The affair seemed altogether a mystery, for which the legal expeinence of the Compton worthies could furnish no parallel. If James Dobbs assaulted Farmer Hobbs, upon some question of wheat or turnips, it was easy to deal witk him according to the precedent afforded by the cele- brated case of Jones v. Smith; but the affair of to-day stood alone in the judicial records of Compton. While the magistrate and his factotum consulted together in whispers, without getting any B-varer to a decision, George Duke himself came to their rescue. " I suppose, after the charge having broken down in this manner, I need not stop here any longer, sir ? " he said. The magistrate caught at this chance of extrica- tion. *' The charge has broken down," he replied, with solemn importance, " and as you observe. Captain Duke, and as indeed I was about to observe myself, we need not detain you any longer. You leave this room with as good a character as that with which you entered it," he added, while a slight titter circulated amongst some of the bystanders at this rather ambi- guous compliment. " 1 am sorry, Mr. Markham, that this aflliir is so involved in mystery. It is evidently a case of mistaken identity, one of the most diflBcult cla&J 70 The Captain of the Vulture. of cases that the law ever has to deal with ; but, as 1 said before, I consider the missing horse a great point — a very strong point." The Captain and Darrell Markham left the room at the same time. " I have an account to settle with you, Mr. Markham, tor this morning's work," Captain Duke whispered to his accuser, " I do not fight with highwaymen," Darrell answered proudly. " What, you still dare to insinuate " " I dare to say that I don't believe in this story of George Duke and his double. I believe that you proved an alibi by some juggling with the clock at the Black Bear, and I most firmly believe that you are the man who shot me !" "You shall pay for this," hissed the Captain through his set teeth; "you shall pay double for every insolent word, Darrell Markham, before you and I have done with each other." He strode away, after flinging one dark wicked look at his wife's cousin, and returned to the cottage, where Millicent, pale and anxious, was awaiting the result of the morning. Darrell Markham left Compton by the mail coach that very night ; and, poorer by the loss of his horse, his watch, and purse, set forth once more to seek his fortunes in cruel stony-hearted London. Millicenf meets Iter Husband's Shadow. 71 CHAPTER V. MILLICENT MEETS HER HUSBAND'S SHADOW. A FORTNIGHT after DaiTell's departure the good ship Vulture was nearly ready for another cruise, and Captain Duke rode off to Marley Water to superintend the final jireparations. " I shall sail on the thirtieth, Milly," he said, the day \ie left Compton ; " and as I shan't have time to ride over here and say good-bye to you, I should like you to come to Marley, and see me before I start." " I will come, if you wish me to come, George," she answered quietly. She was always gentle and obedient, something as a child might have been to a hard task- master, but in no way like a wife who loved her husband. "Very good. There's a branch coach passes through here three times a week from York to CaHisle ; it stops at Marley Water. You can come by that, Millicent." "Yes,' George." The snow never melted upon Compton Moor throughout the dark January days, Millicent felt a strange dull aching pain at her heart as she stood before the door of the Black Bear, waiting for the Carlisle coach, and watching the dreary expanse of glistening white that stretched far away to the chiU leaden-hued horizon, darkening already in the early winter afternoon. She had seen it often under the tremulous moonlight when Darrell Markham was lying on his sick bed. Dismal as that sad time had been, she looked back to i|; with a sigh. He was near her then, she thought, and now he was lost in the wild vortex of 72 The Captain of the Vulture. terrible London — sucked into that great Maelstrom of wliich slie \vas so ignorant — far away from her and all thoughts of her — happy, it might be, amongst pleasant friends and companions, beau.tiful women and light- hearted men — lost to her perhaps for ever. Mrs. Sarah Pecker cried out indignantly at this wintry journey, "What does the Captain mean by it," she said, " sending of a poor delicate lamb like you fom--and- twenty mile in an old fusty stage-coach upon such s afternoon as this ? If he wants you to catch your death, Miss Milly, he's a-going the right way to bring about his wicked wishes." The great heavy lumbering broad-shouldered coach drove up while Mrs. Pecker was still holding forth upon this subject. One or two of the inside passengers looked out and asked for brandy- and- water while the horses were being changed. Some of the outsidea clambered down from the roof of the vehicle, and went into the Black Bear to warm themselves at the blazing fire in the parlour, and drink glasses of raw spirits. One man seated upon the box refused to alight, when asked to do so by another passenger. He sat with his face turned away from the inn, looking straight out upon the snowy moorland, while his fellow-travellers refreshed themselves ; and he preserved the same atti- tude so long as the coach stopped. Even if this man's face had been turned towards the little group at the door of the Black Bear, they would have had considerable difficiilty in distinguishing his features, for he wore his three-cornered hat slouched over his eyes, and the collar of his thick horseman's coat drawn close up to his ears. Millicent meets her Sushand's Shadow. 7S "He's a grim customer up yonder," said the man who had spoken to this outside passenger, designating him by a jerk of the head — " a regular grim customer. I wonder what he is, and where he's going to." Mistress Pecker assisted Millicent into the coach, settled her in a warm corner, and wrapped hor camlet cloak about her. " You'd better have one of Samuel's comforters for your throat, Miss Milly," she said, " and one of his coats to wrap about your feet. It's bitter weather for such a journey.'' Millicent declined the coat and the comforter ; but she kissed her old nurse as the coachman drew his horses together for the start. " God bless you, Sally," she said ; " I wish the journey was over and done with, and that I was back again with you." The coach drove off before Mrs. Pecker could reply. "Poor dear child," said the innkeeper's wife, "to think of her going out alone and friendless on such a day as this. She wishes she was back with us, she says. I sometimes think there's a look in her pool mournful blue eyes, as if she wished she was lying quiet and calm in Compton churchyard." The high road from Compton to Marley Water wound its way across bleak and sterile moors, passing now and then a long straggling village or a lonely farm-house. The journey was longer by this road than by the moorland bridle-path, and it had been dark some time when the stage-coach drove over the uneven pave« ment of the High Street of Marley Water. Millicent found her husband waiting for her at the inn where the coach stopped. 74 The Captain of the Vulture. " You're just in time, Milly," he said ; " the Vulture sails to-niglit." Captain Duke was stopping at a tavern on the quay. He put Millicent's arm in his, and led her through the narrow High Street. This principal street of Marley Water was lighted here and there by feeble oil-lamps, which shed a wan light upon the figures of the foot-passengers. Glancing behind her once, bewildered by the strange bustle of the busy little sea-port towu, Millicent was surprised to see the outside passenger whom she had observed at Compton following close upon their heels. Captain Duke felt the little hand tighten upon hia arm with a nervous shiver. "What made you start ? " he asked. " The— the man ! " " What man ? " " A man who travelled outside the coach, and whose face was quite hidden by his hat and cloak. I heard the other passengers talking of the man. He was so rude and silent that people took a dislike to him. He is just behind us." George Duke looked back, but the outside passengei was no longer to be seen. "What a silly child you are, Millicent!" he said. "What is there so wonderful in your seeing one of your fellow-passengers in the High Street ten minutes after the coach has stopped ? " " But he seemed to be following us," " Why, my country wench, people walk close behind one another in busy towns without any such thought aa following their neighbours. Millicent, Millicent, when will you learn to be wise ? " IlUlicent meets Tier Husband's Shadow. 75 The Captain of the Vulture seemed in unusually good epirits upon this bitter January night. " I shall be far away upon the blue water in twenty- four hours, Milly," he said. " No one but a saiJDr can tell a sailor's weariness of the land. I heard of your brother Ringwood last night." " Bad news ? " asked Millicent anxiously. " No good news for you, who will come in for his money if he dies unmari'ied. He's leading a wild life, and wasting his substance in taverns, and worse places than taverns. Luckily for you, the Compton property is safely secured, so that he can neither sell nor mort- gage it." The little inn at which George Duke was stopping faced the water, and Millicent could see the liglits on board the Vulture gleaming far aAvay through the winter night, from the window of the little parlour where supper was laid out ready for the traveller. " At what o'clock do you sail, George ? " she asked. " A little before midnight. You can go down to the pier with me, and see the last of me, and you can get back to Compton by the return coach to-morrow morn- ing." "I will do exactly as you please. Will this voyage be a long one, George ?" " Not long. I shall be back in three months at the latest." Her heart sank at his ready answer. She was always so much happier in her husband's absence than fvhen he honoured her with his company — happy in her trim little cottage, her stout good-tempered servant, the friends who had known her from childhood, her 76 The Captain of the Vulture. favourite romances, her old companion the faifcbful brown and white spaniel — happy in all these — happy too in her undisturbed memories of Darrell Markham. While George and his wife were seated at the little supper-table, one of the servants of the inn came to say that Captain Duke was wanted. " Who wants me ? " he asked impatiently. " A man wrapped in a horseman's coat, and with his hat over his eyes. Captain." " Did you tell liim that I was busy ; that I was just going to sail ? " " I did, Captain ; but he says that he must see you. He has travelled above two hundred miles on purpose.'' An angry darkness spread itself over the Captain's handsome face. " Curse all such unseasonable visitors ! " he exclaimed savagely. " Let him come up-stairs. Here, Millicent," he added, when the waitei- had left the room, " take one of those candles, and go into the opposite chamber, it is my sleeping-room. It will be best for me to see thif man alone. Quick, girl, quick." Captain Duke thrust the candlestick iuto his wife's hand with an impatient gesture, and almost pushed her out of the room in his flurry and agitation. She hurried across the landing-place into the opposite chamber, but not before she had recognized in the man ascending the stairs the outside passenger who had followed the Captain and herself in the High Street ; not before she had heard her husband say, as he shut the parlour door upon himself and his visitor, — "You here ! By heaven, I guessed as much." Some logs bui-ned upon the open hearth in the Millicent meets Tier Hiisl)a?id's Shadow. 77 Captain's bed-chamber, and Millicent seated herself on a low stool before the warm blaze. She sat for upwards of an hour wondering at this stranger's lengthened interview with her husband. Once she went on to th« landing to ascertain if the visitor had left. He waa still with the Captain. She heard the voices of the two men raised as if in anger, but she could not hear their words. The clock was striking eleven as the parlour door opened and the stranger descended the stairs. Captain Duke crossed the landing-place and looked into the bedroom where Millicent sat brooding over the fire. "Come," he said; "I have little better than half an hour to get ofi*; put on your cloak and come with me. It was a bitter cold night. The moon was nearly at the full, and shone upon the long stone pier and the white quays with a steely light that gave a ghostly brightness to every object upon which it fell. The outlines of the old-fashioned houses along the quay were 3ut black and sharp against this blue light ; every coil pf rope and idle anchor, every bag of ballast lying upon the edge of the parapet, every chain and post, and ii'on ring attached to the solid masonry, was distinctly visible in this winter moonlight. The last bi'awlers had left the tavern on the quay, the last stragglers had deserted the narrow streets, the last dim lights had been extin- guished in the upper Avindows, and Marley Water, at a little after eleven o'clock, was as tranquil as the quiet churchyard at Compton-on-the-Moor. Millicent shivered as she walked by her husband's side along the quay. He had not spoken to her since he had bade her accompany him to ''he pier, Onco or 78 The Captain of the Vulture. twice she glanced at Mm furtively. She could see the sharp lines of his profile clearly defined against the luminous atmosphere, and she could see by his face that he had some trouble on his mind. They turned off the quay on to the pier, which stretched far out into the water. " The boat is to wait for me at the other end," said Captain Duke. '' The tide has turned and the wind is in our favour." He walked for some time in silence, Millicent watch- ing him timidly all the while ; presently he turned to her and said, abruptly, — " Mistress George Duke, have you a ring or any such foolish trinket about you ?" " A ring, George ?" she said, bewildered by the sud- denness of the question. " A ring, a brooch, a locket, a ribbon, anything which you could swear to twenty years hence if need were ? " She had a locket hanging about her throat which had been given to her by Darrell on her sixteenth birth- day ; a locket containing one soft ring of her cousin's auburn hair, than which she would have sooner parted with her life. " A locket !" she said, hesitating. " Anything ! Haven't I said before, anything ? " " I have the Httle diamond earrings in my ears,George, the earrings you brought me from Spain." " Give me one of them, then ; I have a fancy to take some token of you with me on my voyage. The ear- ring will do." She took the jewel from her ear and handed it to him. She was too indifferent tc him and to all thinga MiUiccnt meets her Hiisland^s Shadow. 79 in her weary life even to wonder at his motive in asking for the trinket, "This is better than anything," he said, slipping the jewel into his waistcoat pocket ; " the earrings are of Indian workmanship and of a rare pattera. Remember, Millicent, the man who comes to you and calls himself your husband, yet cannot give you this diamond earring, will not be George Duke." " What do you mean, George ? " "When I return to Compton, ask me for the fellow jewel to that in your ear. If I cannot show it to you — " "Whattheu, George?" "Driie me from your door as an impostor." " But I should know you, George ; what need should I have of any token to tell me who you were P " " You might have need of it. Strange things happen to men who lead such a life as mine. I might be taken prisoner abroad, and kept away from you for years. But whether I come back three months hence, or ten years hence, ask me for the earring, and if I cannot produce it, do not believe in me." " But you may lose it." " I shall not lose it." " But I can't understand, George " " I don't ask you to understand," replied the Cap- tain impatiently ; " I only ask you to remember what I say, and to obey me." He relapsed into silence. They walked on towards the farther end of the long pier, the moon sailing high in the cloudless sky before them, their shadows stretch- ing out behind them black upon the moonlit stones. They were half a roile from the quay, and they were alone upon the pier, with no sound to wake the silence '^O The Captain of fke Vulture but the echoes of their own footsteps and the noise of the waves dashing against the stone bulwarks. The Vnltru-e's boat was waiting at the end of the pier. Captain George Dnke took his wife in his arma and pressed his lips to her cold forehead. "Ton will have a lonely walk back to the inn, Millicent," he said; "but I have told ' jem to make von comfortable, and to see yon safely oft' bv the retom coach to-morrow morning. Good-bye, and God bless von. Remember what I have told yon to-night." Something in his manner — a tenderness that was strans'e to him — tonched her gentle heart. She stopped him as he was about to descend the steps. "It has been my unhappiness that I have never been a good wife to you, George Duke. I will pray for yonr safety while you are far away upon the cruel sea." The Captain pressed her trembling little hand. " Good-bye, ^Millicent," he said, " and remember." Before she could answer him he was gone. She saw the men push the boat off from the steps ; she heard the regular strokes of the oars splashing through the water, the little craft skimming lightly over the surface of the waves. He was gone ; she could return to her quiet cottage at Compton, her novel reading, her old friends, her un- disturbed recollections of Darrell Markham. She stood watching the boat till it grew into a black speck upon the moonlit waters ; then she slowly turned and walked towards the quay. A long lonely walk at that dead hour of the night for such a delicately nurtured woman as Millicent Milliceni m^efs her Hiishand's Shadow. 81 Duke ! She was not a courageous woman either ; rather over-sensitive and nervous, as the reader knows ; fond of reading silly romances such as people wrote a century at^o, full of mvsteries and horrors, of haunted chambers, secret passages, midnight encounters, and masked a.s- sassins. The clocks of Marley "Water began to strike twelve as she approached the centre of the desolate pier. One by one the different iron voices slowly rang out the hour ; smaller voices in the distance taking up the sound, until all Marley and all the sea, seemed to Milli- cent's fancy, tremulous with the sonorous vibration. As the last stir>ke from the last clock died away and the sleeping town relapsed into silence, she heard the steady ♦j-amp of a man's footsteps slowly approach- ing her. She must meet him and pass by him in order to reach the quay. She had a strange vague fear of this encounter. He mio^ht he a hisrhwavman ; he might attack and attempt to rob her. The poor girl was prepared to throw her purse and all her little .trinkets at his feet: — all but Darrell's locket. Still the footsteps slowly approached. The stranger came nearer and nearer in the ghastly moonlight — nearer, until he came face to face \Nath Millicent Duke, and stood looking at her with the moonlight shining full upon him. Then she stopped. She meant to have hurried by the man, to have avoided even being seen by him, if possible. But she stood face to face with him, rooted to the groimd, a heavy languor paralyzing her linibs. 82 The Captain of the Vulture, an unearthly chill creeping to the very roots of her hair. Her hands fell powerless at her sides. She could only stand white and immovable, with dilated eyea staring blankly into the man's face. He wore a blue coat, and a three-cornered hat, thrown jauntily upon his head, so as in nowise to overshadow his face. She was alone, half a mile from a human habitation or human help — alone at the stroke of midnight with her husband's ghost. It was no illusion of the brain ; no self-deception born of a fevered imagination. There, line for line, shade for shade, stood a shadow that wore the outwari seeming of George Duke. She reeled away from the phantom figure, tottered feebly forward for a few paces, and then summoning a desperate courage, rushed blindly on towards the quay, her garments fluttering in the sharp winter air. She was breathless and well-nigh exhausted when she reached the inn. A servant had wailed up to receive her; the fire burned brightly in the wainscoted littlf sitting-room ; all within was cheerful and pleasant. Millicent fell into the girl's arms and sobbed aloud. " Don't leave me," she said ; " don't leave me alone this terrible night. I have often heard that such things were, but never knew before how truly people spoke who told of them. This will be a bad voyage for the ship that sails to-night. I have seen mj husband's ghost." Sallij Pecker lifts the Curtain of the Past. 83 CHAPTER VI. SALLY PECKER LIFTS THE CURTAIN OF THE PAST, The best part of a year had dragged out its slow mo- notonous course since that moonlit January night on which Millicent Duke had stood face to face with the shadow of her husband upon the long stone pier at Marley "Water, The story of Captain GTeorge Duke's ghost was pretty well known in the quiet village of Compton-on-the-Moor, though Millicent had only told it under the seal of secresy to honest Sally Pecker. The wisest of womankind is not without some touch of human frailty. Mrs. Sally had tried to keep this solemn secret, but her very reticence was overstrained. There was something moi'e suggestive than words in her pursed-up lips, and the solemn shake of her head, to say nothing of many a hint and insinuation dropped in the hearing of her intimates. So in three days all Compton knew that the hostess at the Black Bear had something wonderful on her mind which she " could, an' if she would," reveal to her especial friends and customers. Again, though Millicent might be sole proprietress , of that midnight encounter at Marley, had not Samuel Pecker himself a prior claim upon the Captain's ghost ? Had he not seen and conversed with the apparition ? " I see him as plain, Sarah, as I see the oven and the Bpit as I'm sitting before at this present time," Samuel protested. It was scarcely strange, then, if little by little, dark hints of the mystery oozed oat until the story became common talk in every village household. 84 The Captain of the Vidfure. The simple country people were very willing to believe in Captain Duke's doiible, and had no idea of attempt- ing to find some commonplace rational explanation of the apparition which had startled Mr. Pecker and Mrs. Duke. Everybody agreed in the conviction that the appearance of the shadow boded evil to the substance ; and when the three months appointed for the voyage of the Yulture expired, and Captain Duke did not return to Compton, the honest Cumbrians began to look solemnly at one another, and to mutter ominously that they had never looked to see George Duke touch British ground alive. But Millicent heard none of these whispers. Shut up in her cottage, she read her well-thumbed romances, sitting in the high-backed arm-chair, with the white and brown spaniel at her feet and Darrcll Markham's locket in her bosom. The stout servant-girl went out in the evenings now and then, and heard the Compton gossip ; but if ever she thought of repeating it to her mistress, she felt the words die away upon her lips as she looked at Millicent's pale face and moui'nful blue eyes. "Madam has trouble enough," she thought, "with- out hearing their talk." So she held her peace; and Mrs. Duke waited patiently for her husband's return, tormented by none of those anxieties which besiege the heart of a loving wife, and content to wait his coming' patiently to the end of her life if need were. She waited a long time. Month after month passed away ; the long gTass grew deep in the meadows round Compton, and fell in rich waves of dewy green under the mower's scythe; the stackers spread their smooth BtrftW thatch over groops of noble hayricks clustering Sally Fecker lifts the Curtain of the Fast. S5 about the farm-liouses ; the com beg-an to change colour, and undulating seas of wheat and rye faded from green to sickly yellow, which deepened slowly into gold ; the ponderous waggons staggered homeward through the perfumed evening air, groaning under their rich burdens of golden grain ; the flat stubble-fields were laid bare to the autumn breezes, and the ripening berries grew black in the hedges ; the bright foliage in the woods slowly faded out, and the withered leaves fell rustling to the ground; the early frost began to sparkle upon the whitened moors in the chilly sunrise ; the pale Novem- ber fog came stealing over the wide open country, and creeping into Compton High Street in the early twi- light; as Time, the inexorable, with every changing sign by which he marks his course upon the face of nature, pursued that one journey which knows no halt- ing-place ; and still no tidings of Captain George Duke and the good ship Vulture were heard in Compton. It seemed as n the honest villagers had indeed been strangely near the truth when they said that the Cap- tain would never touch British ground again. In all Compton, Millicent Duke was perhaps the only person who thought differently. " It is but ten months that he has been away," she said, when Mrs. Safly Pecker hinted to her that the chances seemed to be against the Captain's return, and that it might be only correct where she to think of putting on moux^ning ; " it is not ten months, and George Duke was never an over-anxious husband. If it seemed pleasant or profitable to liim to stay away, no thought of me would bring him back any the sooner. If it was three years, Sally, I should think little of it, and expect any day to see him walk into the cottage." 88 The Captain of the Vulture. " Him as you saw upon the pier at Marley, perhaps Miss Milly," answered Sally solemnly, "but not Cap tain Duke ! Sucli things as you and Samuel see last winter aren't shown to folks for nothing ; and it seem* a'most like doubting Providence to doubt that the Cap- tain's been drowned. I dreamt three times that I see my first husband, Thomas Masterson, lying dead upon a bit of rock in the middle of a stormy sea ; and I put on widow's weeds after the third time." " But you had news of your husband's death, Sally, hadn't you?" "No more news than his staying away seventeen year and more without sending letter or message to tell that he was living in all those years, Miss Milly ; and if that ain't news enough to make a woman a widow, I don't know what is !" Millicent was sitting on a low stool at Mrs. Sally Pecker's feet before a cheerful sea-coal fire in the land- lady's own snug little parlour at the Black Bear. It was a comfort for the poor girl to spend these long wintry evenings with honest Sally, listening to the wind roaring in the wide chimneys, counting the drops of rain beating against the window-panes, and talking of the dear old times that were past and gone. The ordinary customers at th© Black Bear were a very steady set of people, who came and went at the game hours, and ordered the same things from year's end to year's end ; so when Sally had her dear young mistress to visit her, she left the feeble Samuel to enter- tain and wait upon his patrons, and, turning her back to business and the bar, took gentle Milliccnt's pale golden head upon her knee, and smoothed the soft curls with loving hands, and comforted the forlorn heart with Sally PecJcer lifts the Curtain of the Past. 87 that talk of the days gone by wliicli was so mournfully Bweet to Mistress George Duke. Long as Sarah Masterson had been housekeeper at the Hall, Millicent never remembered having heard any mention whatever of the name of Thomas Mas- terson, mariner, nor had she ever questioned honest Sally about that departed individual ; but on this dark November evening some chance word brought Sarah's first husband into Mrs. Duke's thoughts, and she felt a strange curiosity about the dead seaman. " AYas he good to you, Sally?" she asked ; " jvnd did you love him?" Sally looked gloomily at the fire for some moments before she answered this question. " It's a long while ago, Miss Millicent," she said , *' and it seems hard, looking back so far, to remember what was and what Avasn't. I was but a poor stupid lass when Masterson first came to Compton." She paused for a moment, still staring thoughtfully at the fire, and then said with a suddenness that was almost spasmodic, " I did love him. Miss Mill}^, and he warn't good to me." " Not good to you, Sally ?" " He was bitter bad, and cruel to me," answered Sally in a suppressed voice, her eyes kindling with the angry recollection. " I had a bit of money left me by poor old grandfather, and it was that the hard- hearted villain wanted, and not me. I had a few bits of silver spoons and a tea-pot as had been grandm.other's, and he cared more for them than for me. I had my savings that I'd been keeping ever since I first went to se -vice, and he wrung every guinea from me, and every crown-piece, and shilling, and copper, tUl he left 88 The Captain of the Vulkire. me witliout clotlies to cover me, aud almost without bread to eat. You see me here, miss, with Samuel, having of my own way in everything, and managing of him like ; and perhaps it's my recollection of having been ill-used myself, and the thought of what a man can be if once he gets the upper hand, that makes me rather sharp with Pecker. You wouldn't believe I was the same woman if you'd seen me with Masterson. I was afraid of him, Miss Millicent — I was afraid of him!" The very recollection of her dead husband seemed to strike terror to the stout heart of the ponderous Sarah. She cowered down over the fire, clinging to MiUicent as if she Avould have turned for protection even to that slender reed, and, glancing across her shoulder, looked towards the window behind her, as if she expected to see it shaken by some more terrible touch than that of the wind and the rain. " Sally ! Sally !" exclaimed Millicent soothingly — for it was now her turn to be the comforter — '* why were you afraid of him?" " Because he was 1 haven't told you all the truth about him yet. Miss Millicent, and I've never told it to mortal ears, and never will except to yours. I've called him a mariner, miss, for this seventeen years and past. It's not a hard. word, and it means almost anything in the way of sailoring ; but he was one of the naost desperate smugglers as ever robbed his king and country ; and I found it out three months after we was married." * It was some little time before Millicent uttered a word in reply to this. She sat with her slender hands clasped round one of Sarah's plump wrists, with her Sally Pecker lifts the Curtain of the Past. 89 large blue eyes fixed upon the red blaze, witli the thoughti'ully-earnest gaze peculiar to her. Perhaps she was thhaking how little she knew of the Captain of the Vulture, or the nature of the service in which that vessel was engaged. "My poor, poor Sally! it was very hard for you," she said at last. " Compton seems so far away from the world, and we so ignorant, that it was little wonder you were deceived. Others have been deceived, Sally, since then." Mrs. Savah Pecker nodded her head. She had heard the dark reports curi^ent among the Compton people about the good ship Vultui-e and her Captain. She only sighed thoughtfully as she murmured, — " Ah, Miss Milly, if that had been the worst, I might have borne it uncomplaining, for I was milder-tempered in those days than I am now. We didn't live at Compton, but in a little village on the coast, as was handy for my husband's unlawful trade. We'd lived together five years, me never daring to complain of any hardships, nor of the wickedness of cheating the king as Thomas Masterson cheated him every day of his life. I seemed not much to care what he did, or where he went, for I had my comfort and my happiness. I had my boy, who was born a year after we left Compton — such a beautiful boy, with great black eyes and dark curly hair — and I was as happy as the day was long while all went well with him, "But the bitterest was to come. Miss Milly; for when the child came to be four years old, I saw that the father was teaching him his own bad ways, and putting his own bad words into the baby's innocent mouth, and bringing him up in a fair way to be a curse 90 The Captain of the Vulture. to himself and them that loved him. I conldn't bear this ; I could have borne to have been trampled on myself, but I couldn't bear to see my child going to ruin before his mother's eyes. I told Masterson so one night. I was violent, perhaps ; for I was almost wild like, and my passion carried me away. I told him that I meant to take the child away with me out of his reach, and go into service and work for him, and bring him up to be an honest man. He laughed, and said I was welcome to the brat ; and I took him at his word, thinking he didn't care. I went to sleejj that night with the boy in my arms, meaning to set out early the next morning, and come back to Compton, where I had friends, and where I fancied I could get a living for myself and my darling ; and I thought we might be so happy together. 0, Miss Millicent, Miss Millicent, may you never know such a bitter trial as mine ! When I woke from pleasant dreams about that new life which never was to be, my child was gone. His cruel father had taken him away, and I never saw either Masterson or my boy again." "You waited in the village where he left you?" asked Millicent. " For a year and over. Miss Milly, hopin' that he'd come back, bringing the boy with him ; but jio tidings ever came of him or of the child. At the end of tliat time I left word with the neighbours to say I was gone back to Compton ; and I came straight here. I'd been housemaid at the Hall when I was a slip of a girl, and your father took me as his housekeeper, and I lived hap])y in the dear old house for many years, and I loved you and Master Darrell as if you'd been my own children ; but I've never forgotten ray boy, Miss Milli- Sally PecTcer lifts the Curtain of tlie Fast. 91 cent, and it's very seldom that I go to sleep witlioui seeing his beautiful black eyes shining upon me in mj dreams." " Sally, Sally, how bitterly you have suffered, and what reason you have to hate this man's memory!" " We've no call to talk harsh of them that's dead and gone, Miss Milly. Let 'em rest with their sins upon their own heads, and let us look to happier times. When Thomas Masterson went away and left me with- out a sixpence to buy a loaf of bread, I never thought to be mistress of the Black Bear. Pecker has been a good friend to me, miss, and a true, and I bless the providence that sent him courting to the Hall. I fancy I can see him now, poor creature," said Mrs. Pecker, meditatively, " sitting of evenings in the housekeeper's room, never talking much, but always looking melan- cholic like, and dropping sudden on his knees one night, saying, ' Sarah, will you have me?' " Mr. Samuel Pecker here venturing to put his head into the room, and furthermore presuming to ask some question connected with the business of the establish- ment, was answered so sharply by his beloved wife that he retreated in confusion without obtaining what he wanted. For the worthy Sarah, in common with many other wives, made a point of scrupulously concealing from her weaker helpmate any tender or grateful feeling that she might entertain for him ; being possessed with an ever-present fear that if treated with ordinary civility, he might, to use her own words, try to get the better of her. So the dreary winter time set in, and, except for this honest-hearted Sally Pecker, and the pale curate's busy 92 The Captain of the Vultv/rB. little wife, who had much ado to keep seven children fed and clothed upon sixty pounds a year, Millicent Duke was almost friendless. She was so gentle and retiring, of so reserved and diffident a nature, that she had never made many acquaintances. In the happy old time at the Hall, Darrell had been her friend, con- fidant, and playfellow ; and she had neither needed nor wished to have any other. So now she shut herself up in her little cottage, with its quaint old mirrors and spindle-legged tables, and little casement windows looking out upon a patch of old-fashioned garden — she shut herself up in her prim orderly little abode, and the Compton people seldom saw her except at church, or on her way to the Black Bear. Millicent received no news of Darrell from his own hand ; but the young man wrote about once in six weeks to Mrs. Sarah Pecker, who was sorely put to it to scrawl a few lines in reply, telling him how Miss Millicent was but weakly, and how Captain Duke was still away with his ship the Vulture. Through Sally, therefore, Mrs. Duke had tidings of this dear cousin. He had found friends in London, and had been engaged as secretary by a noble Scottish lord, suspected of no very strong attachment to the Hanoverian cause. It was not so long since other noble Scottish lords had paid the terrible price of their loyalty. There were ghastly and hideous warnings for those who went under Temple Bar. So whatever was done for the exiled family was done in secret — for the failures of the past had made the bravest men cautious. Bow Darrell Mwrhham found his TTorgp. 08 CHAPTER YII, HOW DARRELL MARKHAM FOUND HIS HORSE. While MilHcent sat in the little oaken parlour at the Black Bear, with her head on Sarah Pecker's knee, and her melancholy blue eyes fixed upon the red recesses in the hollow fire, Darrell Markham rode westward through the dim November fog, charged with letters and messages from his patron, Lord C , to some noble Somersetshire gentlemen, whose country seats lay very near Bristol. On the first night of his journey, Darrell was to put up at Reading. It was dark when he entered the town, and rode between the two dim rows of flickering oil- lamps straight to the door of the inn to which he had been recommended. The upper windows of the hos- telry were brilliantly illuminated, and the traveller could hear the jingling of glasses, and the noise of loud and riotous talk within. Though dark, it was but early, and the lower part of the house was crowded with stalwart farmers, who had ridden over to Reading market, and the townspeople who had congregated about the bar to discuss the day's business. Darrell flung the reins to the ostler, to whom he gave particular directions about the treatment of hia torse. " I will come round to the stable after I've dined," said Mr. Markham, in conclusion, " and see how the animal looks ; for he has a hard day's work before him to-morrow, and he must start in good condition." The ostler touched his hat, and led the horse away. 94 The Captain of the Vulture. The animal was a tall bony grej, not over handsome to look at, but strong enough to make light of the stiffest work. The landlord ushered Darrell up the broad staircase, and into a long corridor, in which he heard the same loud voices that had attracted his attention outside the inn. "You have rather a riotous party," he said to the landlord, who was carrying a pair of wax lights, and leading the way for his visitor. " The gentlemen are merry, sir," answered the man, "They have been a long time over their wine. Sir Level Mortimer seems a rare one to keep the bottle moving amongst his ft'iends." " Sir Level Mortimer ? " " Yes, sir. A rich baronet from Devonshire, travel- ling to London with some of his friends." " Sir Level Mortimer," said Darrell thoughtfully ; **I know of no Devonshire man of that name." "He seems a gentleman used to great luxury;" answered the landlord ; " he has kept every servant in the house busy waiting upon him ever since he stopped here to dine." Darrell felt very little interest in the customs of this Devonshire baronet. He ate a simple dinner, washed down with half a bottle of claret, and then went down stairs to ask the way to the stables. The ostler came to him with a lantern, and after leading him through a back-door and acoss a yard, ushered him into a roomy six-stalled stable. The stalls were all full, and as Dar- rell's grey horse was at the further extremity of the stable, he had to pick his way through wet straw and clover, past the other animals. How Darrell MarTcham found his Horse. 95 " Them there bay horses belongs to Sir Lovel Mor- timer and his friends," said the man ; " and very hand- some beasts they be. Sir Lovel himself looks a pictur' mounted on this here bay." He slapped his hand upon the haunch of a horse as he spoke. The animal turned round as he did so, and tossing up his head, looked at the two men. " A tidy bit of horse-flesh, sir," said the ostler ; " a hundred guineas' worth in any market, I should say." Darrell nodded, and striding up to the animal's head, threw one strong arm round the arched neck, and catching the ears with the other hand, dragged the horse's face to a level with his own. " I'd have you be careful, sir, how you handle him," cried the ostler, with a tone of considerable alarm ; " the beast has a temper of his own ; he tried to bite one of our boys not half an hour ago." " He won't bite me," said Darrell quietly. " Give me the lantern here, will you?" " You'd better let go of his head, sir ; he's a stiflBsh temper," remonstrated the ostler, drawing back. " Give me the lantern, man ; I know all about his temper." The ostler obeyed very unwillingly ; and handed Darrell the lantern. "I thought so," said the young man, holding the glimmering light before the horse's face. " And you knew your old master, Balmerino, eh, boy ? " The horse whinnied joyously, and snuffed at Darrell' s coat- sleeve. " The animal seems to know you, sii'," exclaimed the ostler. "We know each other as well as over brothers did," 96 The Captain of the Vulture. said Darrell, stroking tlie horse's neck. " I lia-ve ridden him for seven years and more, and I only lost him a twelvemonth ago. Do you know anything of this Sir Lovel Mortimer who owns him?" "Not over mnch, sir, except that he's a fine high- spoken gentleman. He always nses our house whcm he's travelling between London and the west." " And is that often ? " asked Darrell. " Maybe six or eight times in a year," answered the ostler. " The gentleman is fonder of the road than I am," muttered the young man. " Has he ever ridden this horse before to-day ? " The ostler hesitated and scratched his head thought- fully. " I see a many bay horses," he answered, after a pause ; " I can't swear to this here animal ; he may have been here before, you see, sir ; but then lookin' at it the other way, you see, sir, he mayn't." "Anyhow, you don't remember him?" said Darrell. "Not to swear to," repeated the man. " I wouldn't mind giving a hundred pounds for this meeting of to-night, Balmerino, old friend," murmured Darrell, " though it was the last handful of guineas I had in the Avorld ! " He returned to the house, and went straight to the bar, where he called the landlord aside. " I must speak to one of yoixr guests upstairs, my woi'thy host," he said. " Sir Lovel Mortimer must answer me two or three questions before I leave this house." The landlord looked alarmed at the vei^ thought of an intrusion upon his important customer. Sow Darrell MarMam found Ms Morse. 97 " Sir Lovel is not one to see over mucli company," he said ; " but if you're a friend of his " "I never heard his name till to-night," answered Darrell ; "but when a man rides another man's horse, he ought to be prepared to answer a few questions." "Sir Lovel Mortimer riding another man's horse ?" cried the landlord aghast. "You must be mistaken, Bir!" " I have just left a horse in your stable that I could swear to as my own before any court in England." " A gentleman has often been mistaken in a horse," muttered the landlord. " Not after he has ridden him seven yeai's," answered DaiTcll. "Be so good as to take my name to Sir Lovel, and tell him I should be glad of five minutes' conversation at his convenience." The landlord obeyed very reluctantly. Sir Lovel was tired with his journey, and would take it ill being disturbed, he muttered ; but as Darrell insisted, he went upstairs with the young man's message, and re- turned presently to say that Sir Lovel would see the gentleman. Darrell lost no time in following the landlord, who ushered him very ceremoniously into Sir Level's apart- ment. The room occupied by the West-country baronet was a long wainscoted chamber, lighted by wax candles set in sconces between the three windows and the panels in the opposite walls. It was used on grand occasions as a ball-room, and had all the stiff old- fashioned grandeur of a state apartment. The flames from a pile of blazing logs went roaring up the wide chimney, and in an easy-chair before the open hearth lolled an effeminate-looking young man, in a brocade Q 93 The Captain of tlw Vulture. dressing-gown, silk stockings with embroidered clocks, and shoes adorned with red heels and glittering dia- mond buckles that emitted purple and rainbow sparks in the firelight. He wore a flaxen wig, curled and friz- zed to such a degree that ^'t stood away from his face, round which it formed a pale-yellow frame, contrasting strongly with a pair of large restless black eyes and the blue stubble upon his slender chin. He was quite alone, and in spite of the two empty punchbowls and the re- giment of bottles upon, the table before him, he seemed perfectly sober. " Sit ye down, Mr. Markliam," he said, waving a hand as small as a woman's, and all of a glitter with diamonds and emeralds, " sit ye down ; and hark ye, Mr. William Byers, bring me another bottle of claret, and see that it's a little better than the last. My two worthy friends have staggered off to bed, Mr. Markham, a little the worse for this evening's bout, but you see I've contrived to keep my brains pretty clear of cob- "wel:^', and am your humble servant to command." Sir Lovel Mortimer was as effeminate in manners as in person. He had a clear treble voice, and spoke in the languid drawling manner peculiar to the maccaronis of Ranelagh and the Ring. He was the sort of fopling one reads about in the Spectator, and would have been a spectacle alike miraculous and disgusting to good country-bred Sir Roger de Coverley. Darrell Markham told the story of his recognition of the horse in a few words. " And you lost the beast " drawled Sir Lovel. ** A year ago last month." •* Strange ! " lisped the baronet. " I gave fifty gui- neas for the animal at a fair at Barnstaple last July." How Darrell MarJcJiam found his Horse. 99 " Do you remember the person of whom you bought him?" "Yes, perfectly. He was an elderly man, with white hair ; he represented himself as a farmer from Dorsetshire." ^ " Then the trace of the villain who robbed me is lost," said Darrell. " I would have given much had you got the horse straight from the scoundrel who robbed me of my purse and watch, and some docu- ments of value to others besides myself, upon Compton Moor, last October." Sir Lovel Mortimer's restless black eyes flashed with an eager light as he looked at the speaker. Those ever-restless eyes were strangely at variance with tho young baronet's drawling treble voice and languid manner. It was as if the man's effeminate languor were only an assumption, the falsehood of which the eager burning eyes betrayed in spite of himself. " Will you tell me the story of your encounter with the knight of the road ?" he asked. Darrell gave a brief description of his meeting with the highwayman, omitting all that bore any relation to either Millicent or Captain George Duke. " I scarcely expect you to believe all this," said Darrell, in conclusion, "or to acknowledge any claim of mine to the horse ; but if you like to come down to the stable, you will see at least that the faithful creature remembers his old master." *' I have no need to go to the stable for confirmation of your words, Mr. Markham," answered the young baronet ; " I should be the last to doubt tho truth of a gentleman's assertion." The landlord brought the claret and a couple of 100 The Captain of the Vulture. clean glasses, while tlie two men were talking, and Sir Lovel pledged his visitor in a bumper. The West-country baronet seemed delighted to secure Darrell's society. He talked of the metropolis, boasted of his conquests among the fair sex as freely as if he had been a second Beau Fielding, and, slipping from one object to another, began presently to speak of politics. Darrell, who had listened patiently to his companion's silly prattle, grew grave immediately. " You seem to take but little interest in either party, Mr. Markham," Sir Lovel said at last, after vainly trying to discover the bent of Darrell's mind. "Not over much," answered the young man. "I was bred in the country, where all the share we had in public aifairs was to set the bells ringing on the king's birthday, and pray for his majesty in church «n Sundays and holidays. We got our political opin- ions as we got the fashion of our waistcoats and wigs, a twelvemonth after they were out of date in London." Su" Lovel shrugged his shoulders. " I see you don't care to trust strangers with your real sentiments, Mr. Markham, and I make no doubt you are wise," he said, with perfect good temper. •* What say you to our eating a broiled capon toge- ther ? " he asked presently. " My friends were too f?j gone to hold out for supper, and I shall be very glad of your company over a bowl of punch." Darrell begged to be excused. He had to be on the road early the next morning he said, and sadly wanted a good night's rest. But the baronet would take no refusal. He rang the bell, summoned Mr. William Bjers, the landlord, who waited in person upon How Darrell 3farMam found Ms ShrM. 101 his important guest, and ordered the capon and the punch. " We can come to a friendly understanding about the horse while we sup, Mr. Markham," said Sir Lovel. Darrell bowed. The friendly understanding the two men came to was to the effect that Markham should pay the baronet twenty guineas and give him the grey horse in exchange for Balmerino — the grey being worth about twenty pounds, and Sir Lovel being willing to lose ten by his bargain. So Darrell and the baronet parted excellent friends, and early the next morning Balmerino was brought round to the front door of the inn, saddled and bridled for his old master. The animal was in splendid condition, and Darrell felt a thrill of pleasure as he sprang into the saddle. It seemed as if the horse recognized the light hand of his familiar rider. The pavement of the Reading street clattered under his hoofs, and in ten minutes the traveller was out upon the Bath road with the town melting into the distance behind him. Darrell dined at Marlborough, where he gave Bal- merino two or three hours' rest. It was dusk when he left the inn door, and a thick white fog shut out the landscape on either side of the high road. This fog had grown dark and dense when Darrell found himself in. the loneliest part of the road between Marlborough and Bath. He had a well-filled purse, heavy enough to tempt the marauding hands of highway robbers ; but he had a good pair of pistols, and felt safely armed against all attack. But, for the second time in his life, he had reason to repent of his rashness, for in the very loneliest turn of the road he heard the clattering of many hoofs close behind him, and by the time he had W2 The Captain of the Vulture. his pistols ready lie Avas surrounded by three men, one of whom, coming behind him, threw up his arm as he was about to fire at the first of his assailants, while the thii-d struck the same kind of swino-insr blow upon his head that had laid him prostrate a year before upon the moorland road between Compton and Marley. When Darrell Markham recovered his senses he found himself lying on his back in a shallow dry ditch ; the fog had cleared away, and the stars shone with a pale and chilly glimmer in the wintry sky. The young man's pockets had been rifled and his pistols taken from him ; but tied to the hedge above him stood the grey horse which he had left in the custody of Sir Lovel Mortimer. Stupefied by the blow that had prostrated him, and with every bone in his body stiff from lying for four or five hours in the cold and damp, Darrell was just able to get into the saddle and ride about a mile and a half to the nearest roadside inn. The country people who kept this hostelry were almost frightened when they saw the traveller's white face and blood-stained forehead ; but any story of outrage upon the high road found ready listeners and hearty sympathy. The landlord stood open-mouthed as Darrell told of his adventure of the night before, and the exchange of the horses. " Was the West-country baronet a fine ladyfied little chap, with black eyes and small white hands?" he asked eagerly. "Yes." The man looked trium])liantly round at the by* A Change in the Mind of Sally Peclcer. 103 standers. " I'm blest if I didn't guess as much," he said. " It's Captain Fanny." " Captain Fanny ? " "Yes; one of the most daring villains in all theWcsi of England, and one that is like an eel for giving folks the slip when they fancy they've caught him. He has been christened Captain Fanny on account of his small hands and feet and his lackadaisical ways," The ostler came in as the landlord was speaking. " I don't know whether you knew of this, sir," he said, handing Darrell a slip of paper ; " I found it tied to the horse's bridle." The young man unfolded the paper and read these words : " With Sir Lovel Mortimer's compliments to Mr. Markham, and in strict accordance with the old adage which teaches us that exchange is no robbery." CHAPTER VIII. now A STRANGE PEDLAR WORKED A GREAT CHANQB DT THE MIND AND MANNERS OF SALLY PECKER. Darrell Markham Avaited at the roadside inn till the tedious post of those days brought him a packet con- taining money from his friend and patron. Lord C— — . He was vexed and humiliated by his encounter with Captain Fanny. For the second time in his life he had been worsted, and for the second time he found himself baulked of his revenge. The rural constable to whom he told the story of the robbery only shrugged his shoul- 104 The Captain of tlie Vulture. ders, and offered to tell Iiim of a dozen more such ad- ventures which had occurred within the last week or two ; so Darrell had nothing to do but to submit quietly to the loss of his money and his horse, and ride on to execute his commissions in Somersetshire — commissions from which little good ever came, as the reader knows ; for it seemed as if that kingly house on which misfor- tune had so long set her seal, was never more to be elevated from the degradation to which it had sunk. All this time, while Darrell turned his horse's head from the west and journeyed by easy stages slowly back to town ; while Sally Pecker at the Black Bear, and everybody in Compton, from the curate, the lawyer, and the doctor, to the lowliest cottager in the village, was busy with preparations for the approaching Christ- mas, Millicent Duke wr,.i?A^!l and watched day after day for the return of her husband. All Compton might think the Captain dead, but Millicent could not think so. She seemed possessed by some settled conviction that all the storms which ever rent the skies or shook the ocean would never cause the death of George Duke. She watched for his coming with a sick dread that every day might bring him. She rose in the morning with the thought that ere the early winter's night closed in he would be seated by the hearth. She never heard a latch lifted without trembling lest his hand should be upon it, nor listened to a masculine footfall in the village High Street without dreading lest she should recognize his familiar step. Her meeting with George Duke's shadow upon tlie moonlit pier at Marley had added a superstitious terror to her old dread and dislike of her husband. She thought of him now as a being pos,sessed of unholy privileges. He might be near A Change in the Mind of Sally Pecker. 105 her, bat unseen and impalpable ; he might be hiding in the shadowy corners of the dark wainscot, or crouching in the snow outside the latticed window. He might be a spy upon her inmost thoughts, and knowing her dis- trust and aversion, might stay away for long years, only to torment her the more by returning when she had forgotten to expect him, and had even learned to be happy. You see there is much allowance to be made for her lonely life, her limited education, and the shade of super- stition inseparable from a poetic temperament, and a mind whose sole aliment had been such novels as people wrote and read a hundred years ago. She never heard from her brother Ringwood, and the few reports of him that came to her from other sourcee only told of riot and dissipation, of tavern brawls and midnight squabbles in the streets about Covent Garden. She knew that he was wasting his substance amongst bad men, but she never once thought of her own interest in his fortune, or of the possibility that her brother's death might make her mistress of the stately old man- sion in which she had been born. Sally Pecker was in the full flood-tide of her Christ- mas preparations. Fat geese dangled from the hooks in the larder, with their long necks hanging within a little distance of the ground ; brave turkeys and big capons hung cheek by jowl with the weighty sirloin of beef which was to be the principal feature of the Chi'istmas dinner. Everywhere, fi'om the larder to the scullery, from the cellars to the sink, there were the tokens of plenty and the abundant promise of good cheer. Samuel was allowed to employ himself in the decoration of the old hostelry ; he was permitted to get on rickety ladders 106 Tlie Captain of the Vulture. and endanger his neck in the process of hanging up holly and mistletoe ; but all the more serious and sub- stantial preparations devolved upon Sarah. In the kitchen, as in the pantry, Sally was the presiding deity. Betty the cookmaid plucked the geese, while her mis- tress made the Christmas pies and prepared the ingre- dients for the pudding, which was to be carried into tho oak parlour on the ensuing day, garnished with holly and all ablaze with burnt brandy. So important were these prepai-ations, that as late as nine o'clock on the night of the twenty-fourth of December, the maid and her mistress were still hard at work in the great kit- chen at the Black Bear. This kitchen lay at the back of the house, and was divided from the principal rooms and the entrance-hall and bar by a long passage, which kept the clatter of plates and dishes, the smell of cook- ing, and all the other tokens of preparation, from tho ears and noses of Mrs. Pecker's customers, who knew nothing of the dinner they had ordered until they saw it smoking upon the table before them. Sally Pecker and her maid were quite alone in the kitchen, for Samuel was busy with his duties in the bar, and the two chambermaids were waiting upon the visitors who had been dropped at the Bear by the Car- lisle coach. The pteasant seasonable frost, in which all Compton had rejoiced, had broken up with that perti- nacious spirit of contradiction with which a hard frost generally does break up just before Christmas, and a drizzling rain fell silently without the closely barred window-shutters. " I never see such weather," said Mrs. Pecker, slamming the back door with an air of vexation after having taken a survey of the night ; " nothing but rain, A Change in tlie Mind of Salli/ PecJcer. 107 rail), rain, coming down as straight as one of Samuel's pencil streaks between the figures in a score. Chi'ist- mas scarcely seems Christmas in such weather as this. We might as well have clucks and green peas and cherry pie to-morrow, for all I can see, for it's so close and muggy that I can scarcely bear to come nigh the fire." The servants at the Black Bear knew the value of a good place and a peaceful life far too well ever to con- tradict their mistress, so Betty the cookmaid coincided immediately with Mrs. Pecker, and declared that the weather certainly was uncomfortably warm ; very much in the same spirit as that of the Danish courtier who was so eager to agree with Prince Hamlet. The back door communicating with this kitchen at the Black Bear was the entrance generally used by any of the village tradesmen who brought Mrs. Pecker their goods ; as well as by tramps and beggars and such idle ne'er-do-weels, who were apt to hang about the premises with an eye to broken victuals or silver spoons, and who were generally sent off with a sharp answer from Sarah or her handmaidens. On this Chinstmas-eve Mrs. Pecker was expecting a parcel of groceries from the nearest market town — a parcel which was to be brought to her by the Compton carrier. " Pm'vis is late, Betty," she said, as the clock struck nine, " and I shall want the plums for my next batch of pies. Drat the man ! he's gossiping and drinking at every house he calls at, I'll be bound." Betty murmured something about Chi'istmas, and taking a friendly glass like, for the sake of the season ; but Mrs. Pecker cut short her maid's apology for thp delinquent carrier, and said sharply, — 108 The Captain of the Vulture. " Christmas or no Christmas, folks should attend to the business they live by ; and as for friendly glasses out of compliment to the season, it's a rare season that isn't a good season for drink with the men ; for every wind that blows is an excuse for a fresh glass with them. I haven't kept the head inn in Compton without Ending out what they are." It seemed as if the carrier had been aware of the contumely showered on his guilty head, for at this very moment a sharp rap at the window-shutters arrested Mi's. Pecker in the full torrent of her scorn. " That's Purvis, I'll lay my life," she exclaimed ; "the fool don't know the door from the window, because it's Christmas time, I suppose. Run, Betty, and fetch the parcel. You'U have to feel in my pocket for the six pence that's to pay him, for I can't take my hands out of the flour." The girl hurried to open the door, and went out into the yard ; but she presently returned to say that it was not Purvis, but a pedlar who wanted to show IMrs. Pecker some silks and laces. " Silks and laces !" cried Sally; " I want no such fur- belows. Tell the man to go about his business directly. I won't have any such vagabonds prowling about the premises." The girl went back to the door and remonstrated with the man, who said very little, and spoke in an indistinct mumbling voice that scarcely reached Mrs. Pecker's ears; but whatever he did say, it was to the efiect that he would not leave the place until he had Been the mistress of the Black Bear. Betty came back to tell Mrs. Pecker this. "Won't he?" exclaimed the redoubtable Sarah, A Change in the Mind of Eally Pecker. 109 raising her voice for the edification of the pedlar; "we'll soon see about that. Tell him that we're not without constables in Compton, and that our magistrates are pretty hard against tramps and vaga- bonds." " But you won't be hard upon me, will you, Mrs. Pecker ? I don't think you'll find it in your heart to be hard upon me," said the man, putting his head into the kitchen. He was a stalwart broad-shouldered fellow, with a big hook-nose, twinkling black eyes, and a complexion that had grown almost copper-coloured by exposure to all kinds of weather. He wore a three-cornered hat, which was trimmed with tarnished lace, and perched carelessly on one side of his head. His sleek hair was of a purplish black ; and he wore a stiff black beard upon his fat double chin. Gold earrings twinkled in his ears, and something very much like a diamond glittered amongst the dingy lace of his ragged cravat. The bronzed dirty hand with which he held open the box while he addressed Mrs. Pecker was bedizened by rings which might have been either copper or rich barbaric p^old. " You'll not refuse to look at the silks, Mrs. Sally," he said, in an insinuating tone ; " or to give a poor tired wayfarer a glass of something good on this merry Christmas night ? " Mrs. Pecker took her hands out of the flour ; but white as they were, they were not a shade whiter than her usually rubicund face. For once in a way the landlady of the Black Bear seemed utterly at a loss for a sharp answer. Tou may come in," she gasped in a hoarse whisper, ({ 110 Tlie Captain of tlie Vulture. dropping into the nearest chair as she spoke. " Betty, go upstairs, girh I'll just hear what the man wants." But the cook was by no means inclined to lose the conversation between her mistress and the pedlar, whatever it might be ; and accustomed as she was to obey Sarah Pecker, for once in a way she ventured to hesitate. " If it's silk or laces you're going to look at, ma'am,' she said, " I learnt a deal about 'em in my last place, for missus was always buying of Jews and pedlars; and I can tell you if they're worth what he asks for 'em." " You're very wise, my lass, I make no doubt," answered the pedlar; "but I dare say your mistress can choose a silk gown for herself without the help of your advice. Get out of the kitr^hen ! do you hear girl?" "Well, I'm sure!" exclaimed Betty, tossing her head, and not stirring from her post beside Mrs. Pecker. "Do you hear, gM?" said the pedlar, savagely — "go!" " Not for your tellin' " answered Betty. " I don't like leavin' you alone with such as him, ma'am," she said to her mistress. And then added in a whisper, intended for Sally's ears alone, " There's your silver watch hanging beside the chimney piece, and three tea- spoons on the dresser." " Go, Betty," said Mrs. Pecker, in almost the same hoarse whisper with which she had spoken before. * Go, girl; I shan't be above ten minutes choosin' a gown ; and if the man wants to speak to m.e, he muat have leave to speak." Slie rose with an effort from tlie chair into which A ClianrjP in tlie Mind of Sally PecTcer. Ill she had fallen wlien the pedlar first put his head in at the kitchen door. She followed Betty down the passage, saw her safely into the hall, and then locked the door which separated the kitchen fi-om the body of the honse. The pedlar was standing before the fire smoking a pipe -when Mrs. Pecker returned to the kitchen. He had taken off his hat, and his long sleek black hair fell in greasy cui'ls about his neck. He wore a claret- coloured coat, shabby and weather-stained, and high jack-boots, from which there issued a steam as he wai-med his wet legs before the fire. " Have you made 9,11 safe?" he asked, as Mrs. Pecker re-entered the kitchen. "Yes." " No chance of listeners creeping about ? No eyes nor ears at keyholes?" "No." " That's comfortable. Now then, Sarah Pecker, listen to me." Whatever the pedlar had to say, or however long he was saying it, no one but the mistress of the Black Bear could have told. Betty, the cookmaid, with her eye and her ear alternately applied to the keyhole of the door at the end of the passage, could only perceive, by the aid of the first organ, the faint glimmer of the firelight in the kitchen ; while by the help of the second, strain it how she might, she heard nothing but the gruff murmur of the pedlar's voice. By-and-by that gruff murmur ceased altogether, and Betty began to think that the man had gone ; but still Mrs, Pecker did not come to unlock the door and announce the departure of her visitor. 112 The Captain of the VuUme. Por upwards of a quarter of an hour Betty listened, growing every moment more puzzled by this strange silence. "The man must have gone," she thought; "and missus has forgotten to call me back to the kitchen." She shook and rattled at the lock of the door. "Please bring the key, ma'am," she cried through the keyhole. " The last batch of pies will be spoiled ii they're not turned !" But still there was no answer, "Missus! missus !" screamed the girl at the top of her voice. Not a sound came from the kitchen in reply to her appeal. The girl stood still for a few minutes, with her heairt beating loud and fast, wondering what this ominous silence could mean. Then a sudden terror seized her : she gave one sharp shrill scream, and hurried off as fast as her legs would carry her to look for Mr. Samuel Pecker. Her fear was that this strange pedlar, with the barbarous rings in his ears, had made away with the ponderous Sarah, for the sake of the big watch and the silver spoons. Samuel was seated in the wainscoted parlour, con« versing with some of the Compton tradesmen, who were a little the worse for steaming punch and the influence of the season. "Master! master!" cried the girl, thi-usting her pale face in at the door, and troubling the festivity by her sudden and alarming appearance. " What is it, Betty ? " asked Samuel. Perhaps he, koo, had taken some slight advantage of the season, and ftiade himself merry, or, let us leather say, a shade lesa dismal than usual. A Change in tie Mind of Sally FecTcer. 113 "Betty, wliat is it?" lie repeated, drawing himself into an erect position and looking defiantly at the girl, as much as to say, — "Who says I have been drinking ?" The cookmaid stood in the doorway silently staring at the assembly, and breathing hard. "What is the matter, Betty?" "Missus, sir." Something — surely it was not a ray of joy? — some pale flicker of that feeble spirit-lamp, which the parson of the parish told Samuel was his soul — illuminated the innkeeper's countenance as he said interrogatively, — "Taken bad, Betty?" "No, sir; but a pedlar, sir — a strange man, dark and fierce-like — asked to see missus, and was told to go about his business, for there was constables, '^but wouldn't, and offered missus silk gowns; and she turned me out of the kitchen — likewise locked the passage-door — which that's an hour ago and more, and — please, sir, I think he must have — run away ■with missus." Another ray, scarcely so feeble as the first, lit up the landlord's face as Betty gasped out the last of these semi-detached sentences. " Your missus is rather heavy, Betty," he murmured thoughtfully ; " is the pedlar a big man ?" " He'd have made two, of you, sir," answered the girl. " So he might, Betty ; but two of me wouldn't be much agen Sarah." He seemed so very much inclined to sit down and discuss the matter philosophically, that the girl almost lost patience with him. H 114 Tlie Captain of tTie VuUure. " The passage-door is locked, sir, and I can't burst it open: hadn't we better take a lantern and go round to the kitchen t'other way?" Samuel nodded. "You're right, Betty," he said; "get the lantern and I'll come round with you. But if the man lias run away with your missus, Betty," he added argumenta- tively, " there's such a many roads and by-roads round Compton, that it wouldn't be over much good going after them." Betty did not wait to consider this important point. She lighted a bit of candle in an old horn lantern, and led the way into the yard. They found Purvis the carrier standing at the back door. " I've knocked nigh upon six times," he said, " and can't get no answer." Betty opened the door and ran into the kitchen, followed by Samuel and the carrier. There was no sign of the foreign pedlar ; and stretched upon the hearth in a dead swoon lay Mrs. Sarah Pecker. They lifted her up, and dashed vinegar and cold water over her face and head. There were soma feathers lying at one end of the dresser, which Betty had plucked from a fat goose only an hour before. Some of these, burned under Sarah's nostrils, restored her to consciousness. " I'll lay a crown-piece," said Betty, " that the watch and silver spoons ai'e gone !" Mrs. Pecker revived very slowly ; but when at last she did open her eyes, and saw the meek Samuel patiently awaiting her recovery, she burst into a sudden A Change in the Mind of Sally Teclcer. 115 flood of tears, and flinging lier stout arms about his neck, indifferent to the presence of either Bettj or the cai'rier, cried out passionately, — " You've been a good husband to me, Samuel Pecker, and I haven't been an indulgent wife to you ; but folks are punished for their sins in this world as well as in the next, and I'll try and make you more comfortable for the future; for I love you truly, my dear — indeed I do ! " This unwonted show of emotion almost frightened Samuel. His weak blue eyes opened to their widest extent in a wateiy stare, as he looked at his tearful wife " Sarah ! " he said ; " good gracious, don't ! I don't want you to be better to me : I'm quite happy as we are. You may be a little sharp- spoken like now and then, but I'm used to it now, Sally, and I should feel half lost with a wife that didn't contradict me." "The spoons and tne watch is gone," exclaimed Betty, who had been inspecting the premises ; " and missus's purse, I daresay. I knew that pedlar came here with a bad meaning." " He did ! he did ! " cried Sarah Pecker. It was thought a very strange thing by-and-by, in the village of Compton-on-the-Moor, that the mere fact of having been robbed of ten or fifteen pounds' worth of property by a dishonest pedlar should have worked a reformation in the temper and manners of Mrs. Sarah pecker as regarded Samuel her husband ; but so it was, nevertheless. Christmas passed away. Hard fi'osts succeeded drizzling rains, and the fitful Feb- ruary sunshine melted January's snows, releasing 116 The Captain of the Vulture. tender young snowdrops and crocuses from their winter bondage. Milder breezes, as the winter months f'^U back into the past, blew across Compton Moor; spiing blossoms burst into bloom in sheltered nooks beneath the black hedges, and the hedges themselves grew green in the fickle April weather ; and still Sarah was mild of speech and pleasant of manner to her astonished husband. The meek landlord of the Black Bear walked about as one in a strange but delicious dream. He had the key of his cellars in his own possession, and was allowed to drink such portions of his own liquors as he thought fit ; and Samuel did not abuse the unwonted privilege, for he was naturally a sober man. He was no longer snubbed and humiliated before the face of his best customers. His tastes were consulted, his wishes were deferred to, Nice little dinners were prepared for him by Sarah's own hands, and the same hands would even deign to raix for him a nightcap of steaming rum- punch, fragrant as the perfumed groves of Araby the blest, Mr, Pecker was almost master in his own house. Sometimes this new state of things seemed well nigh too much for him. Once he went to his wife, and said to her, imploringly, — " Sarah, speak sharp to me, will you, please ; for I feel as if I wasn't quite right in my head," Sir Lovel Mortimer's Drunken Servant. 117 CHAPTER IX. SIR LOVEL Mortimer's drunken servant. It has been said that Ring-wood Markham wa« a milk- Bop. In days -when men's swords were oftener out of the scabbard than in, the young F(]riire had little chance of winning much respect from the braggarts and roysterers who were his boon companions in the gam- ing-houses and taverns that he loved to frequent, ex- . cept by the expenditure of those golden guineas which his father had hoarded in the quiet economical life the Markham family had led at Compton Hall before the death of the old squire. The Hall property, which was by no means inconsiderable, was so tightly tied up that Ringwood was powerless either to sell or mortgage it ; and as he saw his father's savings melting away, he felt that the time was not far distant when he must either go back to Compton, turn country gentleman, and live upon his estate, or else sink to the position of a pen- niless adventurer, hanging about the purlieus of the scenes in which be had once lorded it pleasantly over half-a-dozen shabby toad-eaters, and the obsequious waiters of twenty different taverns. Ringwood Markham had never been in love. He was one of those men who, unassailed by the tempests of passion that wreck sterner souls, sink in some pitiful quicksand of folly. With no taint of profligacy in his own lymphatic nature, he was led by his vanity to ape the vices of the most profligate among his vicious com- panions. With an utter distaste for drinking, he had learned to become a drunkard ; without any real pas- sion for play, he had half ruined himself at the gaming- 118 The Captain of the Vulture, table ; bnt, do what he would, he was still a girlish coxcomb, and men laughed at his pretty face, his silky golden hair, and small waist. Darrell Markham and his consin Ringwood had met once or twice in London, but the old quarrel still ran- kled in the heart of the young squire ; and the coolness between the two men had ucver been abated. Darrell felt a contempt for Millicent's brother which he took little pains to conceal ; and it was only Ringwood's terror of his cousin that kept him from showing the hatred which had been engendered on the day of the one brief encounter between the kinsmen. Darrell's sphere of action lay far away from the taverns and coffee- houses in which the young squire wasted his useless life. He had, indeed, sought to drown his regrets in the whirlpool of fashionable dissipation ; but had discovered very speedily that his wounds were too deep to be healed by any such treatment, and that it was a vain waste of time and substance to seek consolation in the temples of modish folly, inasmuch as his sorrow accompanied him wherever he went, and was not to be drowned by the noise of any tea-garden orchestra or the rattle of tavern dice. So, finding that memory was not to be drowned in a punch-bowl, and that the image of Milli- cent Duke was too deeply engraven on his heart to be put to flight by the factitious charms of any painted madam in London, Darrell reconciled himself to Sor- row, and accepted Memory as his friend and compa- nion, and was all the better man, perhaps, for that sad companionship. True to the memory of the past, he was true also to the duties of the present. He had ambitious dreams that coEsoled him in those lonely hours in which his Sir Lovel Mortimer's BrunJcen Servant. 119 cousin Milliccnt's mournful face stole between him and the pngt>s of some political pamplilet. lie had high hopes for a future, which miglit be brilliant, even if it could never be happy. And perhaps even when ho fancied himself most hopeless, there lurked in some secret corner of his mind a dim foreshadowing of a day on Avhich the good ship V^ulture should go down under a tattered and crime-stained flag, and he and ]\Iillicent be left high and dry upon the shore of life. In the summer succeeding that Christmas upon the eve of which the foreign-looking pedlar had robbed Mrs. Sally Pecker of three silver spoons, a Tompion watch, seven pounds twelve shillings and fourpence in money, and her senses ; while the mowers were busy about Compton in the warm June weather, Ringwood Markham was occupying a shabby lodging in the ueighbom-hood of Bedford Street, Covent Garden. The young squii-e's purse was getting hourly lower ; but though he had been obliged to leave his handsome lodg- ings and dismiss the man who had served him as valet for a couple of years, flattering his weaknesses, wearing his waistcoats, and approjDriating casual handfuls of hia loose silver ; though he could no longer afford to spend a twenty-pound note upon a tavern supper, or to shattei his wine-glass upon the wall behind him after proposing a toast, Ringwood Markham still contrived to wear a peach-blossom coat with glittering silver lace, and to show his elegant person and pretty girlish face at hia favourite haunts. He spent half the day in bed, and rose an hour or two after noon, to lounge till dusk in a dirty satia dressiug-gown, which was variegated as much with wine-stains as with the embroidered flowers that had 120 Tlie Captain of the Vulture. been worked by Millicent's patient fingers years before. His dinner was brought from a neighbouring tavern, together with a beer-stained copy of the Flying Post, in which Ring wood patiently spelt out the news, in order that be might be enabled to swagger and display his stale information to the companions of the evening. It was while the young idler was poring over this very joursal, with the June sunlight streaming into his shabby chamber, where the finery worn the pre- vious night lay side by side with the relics of the morning's breakfast in the shape of an empty cho- colate-cup and the remains of a roll — it was during Ringwood's dinner-hour that he was disturbed by the slipshod servant maid of the lodging-house, who came to tell him that a gentleman, one calling himself Mr. Darrell Markham, was below, and wished to speak with him. Ringwood glanced instinctively to the space above the mantelshelf, upon which there was a great display of pistols, rapiers, and other implements of warfare, and then, in rather a nervous tone of voice, told the servant girl to show the visitor upstairs. Darrell's rapid step was heard upon the landing before the girl could leave the room. " It is no time for ceremony, Ringwood," he said, dashing into the apartment, " nor for any old feeling of ill-will: I have come to talk to you about your Bister." " About Millicent ? " Mr. Ringwood Markham's countenance betrayed a powerful sense of relief as Darrell declared the object of his visit. "Yes, about Mrs. George Duke. If your sister Sir Lovel Mortimer's DrxinTcen Servant. 121 were dead and buried, Ringwood Markham, I doubl if you would Lave heard the news." " Millicent was always a poor correspondent," pleaded the squire, who wasted the best part of a day in scrawl- ing a few ill-shaped characters and ill-spelt words over half a page of letter-paper ; "but what's wrong? " " I scarce know if that which has happened may be well or ill for my poor cousin," answered Darrell. " Captain Duke has been away a year and a half, and no word of tidings of either him or his ship has reached Compton." Mr. Ringwood Markham opened his eyes and breathed hard by way of expressing strong emotion. He was so essentially selfish that he was a bad hypocrite. He was so utterly indifferent to his fellow-men that he had never taught himself to afiect an interest in other people's affairs. Darrell Markham was walking rapidly up and do^vn the room, his spurs clattering upon the worm-eaten boards. " I only got the news to-day," he replied, " in a letter from Sally Pecker. I had not heard from Comp- ton for upwards of eight months, nor had I sought for any news, for it does me little good to have the old place brought to my mind ; and to-day I got this letter from Sally, who says that the Captain's return has long ceased to be looked for in Compton, except by Millicent, who still seems to expect him." " And what do you think of all this ? " asked Ring- wood. " What do I think ? Why, that Captain George Duke, and his ship the Yulture, have met the fate that all who sail under false colours deserve. I know of those 122 The Captain of the Vulture. who can tell of a vessel, with the word 'Vulture* painted on her figurehead, that has been seen off the coast of Morocco, with the black flag flying at the fore, and a crew of Afiricans chained doAvn in the hold. I know of those who can tell of a wicked traffic between the Moorish coast and the West India Islands, and who speak of places where the coming of George Duke is more dreaded than the yellow fever. Good heavens ! can it be that this man has met his fate, and that Millicent is free ? " " Free ? " *' Yes, free to marry an honest man," cried Darrell» his face flushing crimson with agitation. Ringwood Markham had just intellect enough to be spiteful. He remembered the encounter in Farmer Morrison's kitchen, and said maliciously, — " Millicent will never be free till she hears certain news of her husband's death ; and who knows that the news would reach her if he were dead ? If George Duke is such a roving customer as you make him out to be, his carcass may rot upon some foreign shore and she be none the wiser." " He has been away a year and a half," answered Dari^ell ; " if he does not return within seven years from the time of his first sailing, Millicent may marry again." "Is that the law?" " As I've heard it, from a boy. A year and a half gone ; five years and a half to wait. My little Milli- cent, my poor Millicent, the time will seem but a day, an hour, with such a star of hope to beckon me on tc the end." Darrell turned from his cousin, ashamed of hia Sir Lovel Mortimer's Drunken Servant. 123 emotion. He seated himself in a chair against the open window, and buried his face in his hands. Ringwood Markham could not resist the pleasure of inflicting another wound. *' I shouldn't wonder if the Captain is back before the summer is out," he said : " from what I know of George Duke, I think him no likely fellow to lose his life lightly either on sea or land." Darrell took no notice of this speech. It is doubtful if he even heard it. His thoughts had wandered far away from the shabby lodging near Covent Garden, and the commonplace present, to lose themselves in the mystic regions of the Future. "Hark ye, Ringwood," he said presently, rising and walking towards the door, " I did not come here to talk J'jvers' talk. If George Duke does not return, Milli- cent will be a lonely and helpless womaa for nearly six years to come, with nothing to live upon but the interest of the two thousand pounds the squire gave her on her marriage. I am a poor man, but I claim a cousin's right t6 help her. Even you will easily understand that I must keep from her all knowledge of the quarter whence that help will come. You, as her brother, are bound to protect her. See that she wants for no com- fort that can cheer her lonely life." If Rinffwood had not been afraid of his stalwart cousin, he would have whimpered out some petty ex- cuse about his own poverty ; but as it was, he said, with rather a long face, — "I will do all I can, Darrell." Darrell shook hands with him for the first time since their quarrel, and left him to his toilette and his even- ing's dissipation. 124 The Captain of the Vulture. Ringwood dressed himself in tlie peach-blossom, and silver suit, and cocked his hat jauntily upon his flowing locks. In an age when wigs and powdered hair were all the fashion, the young squire prided himself much ipon the luxuriant natural curls which clustered about lis narrow forehead. This particular evening he was especially careful of his toilette, for he had appointed to meet a gay party at Ranelagh, the chief member of which was to be a certain "West-country baronet, called Sir Lovel Mortimer, and better known in two or three taverns of rather doubtful reputation than in the houses of the aristocracy. The West-country baronet outshone Ringwood Mark- ham both in the elegance of his costume and the languid affectation of his manners. Titled ladies glanced approvingly at Sir Level's slim figure as he glided tlo'ough the stately contortions of a minuet, and many a bright eye responded with a friendly scintillation to the flaming glances of the young baro- net's great restless orbs. This extreme restlessness of Sir Level's black eyes, which Darrell had perceived even in the apartment at the Reading inn, was of course a great deal more marked in a crowded assem- bly such as that which was gathered in the brilliant dancing-room at Ranelagh. The West-country baronet seemed ubiquitous. His white velvet coat, upon which frosted rosebuds glit- tered in silk embroidery and tiny foil stones ; his diamond-hilted court sword and shoebuckles; his flaxen periwig and burning black eyes, were to be seen in every direction. This incessant moving from place to place rendered it almost impossible for any but the most acute observer to discover that Sir Lovel Sir Lovel Mortimer^s Drunken Servant. 125 Mortimer had very few acquaintances amongst the aristocratic throng, and that the only persons whom he addressed familiarly were the four or five young men who had accompanied him, Ringwood Markham included. The young squire was delighted with his good for- tune in having made so distinguished an acquaintance. It was difficult for the village-bred Cumbrian to detect the difference between the foil stones upon Sir Level's embroidered coat and the diamonds in his shoebuckles ; how impossible, then, for him to discover the nice shades and delicate distinctions wherein the West- country baronet's manners differed from those of the aristocratic fops and loungers who lifted their eye- glasses to look at him with the last fashionable stare of supercilious wonder. Ringwood followed Sir Lovel with a wide open-eyed gaze of respect and admiration ; and when the place began to grow less crowded, and the baronet proposed adjourning to his lodgings in Cheyne Walk, where he could give the party a broiled bone and a few throws of the dice, the squire was the first to assent to the proposition. The young man walked to the house where the baronet lodged. It was not in Cheyne Walk, though Sir Lovel had been pleased to say as much, but in an obscure street leading away from the river — a street in which the houses were small and gloomy. Sir Lovel Mortimer stopped before a house the win- dows of which were all dark, and knocked softly with his cane upon the panel of the door. Ringwood, who had been already drinking a great deal, caught hold of the brazen knocker and sounded a tremendoiis peal. 126 The Captain of tfie Vulture. " You have no need to arouse the neighbours, Mr. Markham," said the baronet, with some vexation; "1 make no doubt my servant is on the watch for us." But it seemed as if Sir Level was mistaken, for the young men waited some time before the door was opened ; and when at last the bolts were undone, and the party admitted into the house, they found them- selves in darkness. " Why, how's this, you lazy hound ? " cried Sir Lovel ; " have you been asleep ? " " Yesh," answered a thick unsteady voice; "sh'pose —I've been — 'shleep." " Why, you're drunk, you rascal ! " exclaimed the baronet : " here, fetch a light, will you ?" "I'm feshin' a light," the voice answered; "I'm feelin' for tind' box." A scrambling of hands upon a shelf, the dropping of a flint and steel, and the rattling of candlesticks, succeeded this assertion ; and in a few moments a light was struck, a wax candle lighted, and the speaker's face illuminated by a feeble flicker. Sir Lovel Mortimer's servant was drunk ; his face was dirty ; his wig pushed over his eyebrows, and singed by the candle in his hand : his cravat was twisted awry, and hung about his neck like a halter; his eyes were dim and watery from the effect of strong liquors ; and it was with difficulty he kept himself erect by swaying slowly to and fro as he stood staring vacantly at his master and his master's guests. But it was not the mere drunkenness of the man's aspect which startled Ringwood ]\larkham. Sir Lovel Mortimer's servant was Captain George Duke! The House at Chelsea. 127 .About four o'clock the next afternoon, when Ring- wood awoke from his prolonged drunken sleep, the first thing he did was to find a sheet of paper, scrawl half-a- dozen words upon it, fold it, and direct it thus : " Darrell MarTcham, Esq., " At the Earl of G '*, " St. James's Square." The few words Ringwood scrawled were these : " Dear Darrell, — George Duke is not ded. I saw him last nite at a hous in Chelsey. — Tours to comand, "R. Markiiam." CHAPTER X. THE HOUSE AT CHELSEA. Darrell Markham had left London on some business for his patron when Ringwood's messenger delivered the brief lines telling of the young man's encounter with Captain George Duke. It was a week before Darrell returned to St. James's Square, where he found the young squire's letter waiting for him. One rapid glance at the contents of Ring- wood's iU-spelled epistle was enough. He crumpled the letter into his pocket, snatched up his hat, and without a moment's delay ran straight to the squire's lodging by Bedford Street. He found Ringwood lying in bed, spelling out the grease- stained pages of one of Mr. Fielding's novels. Tavern tankards and broken glasses were scattered on the table, empty bottles lay upon the ground, and the bones of a fowl and the remnants of a loaf of bread 128 The Captain of the Vulture. adorned the soiled tablecloth. Master Ringv^'ood had entertained a couple of friends to supper on the previous evening. '* Ringwood Markham," said his cousin, holding out the young man's missive, "what is the meaning of this? " '* Of which ? " asked the squire, with a stupid stare. The fumes of last night's wine and punch had not quite cleared away from his intellect, somewhat obscure at the best of times, " Of this letter, in which, as I think, you tell me the biggest lie that ever one man told another. George Duke in England — George Duke at Chelsea — what does it mean, man ? speak ! " " Don't you be in a hurry," said Ringwood, throwing his book into a corner of the room. The young man rubbed his eyes, propped himself up on his pillow, took a pinch of snuff from a box under the bolster, and looked at Darrell with a species of half-tipsy gravity most ludicrous to behold. " Split me, if you give a fellow time to collect his ideas," he cried. "As to big Hes, you'd better be careful how you use such expressions to a man of my reputation. Ask 'em round in Covent Garden whether I didn't ofier to thi'ow a spittoon at the sea captain who insulted me ; and would have done it, too, if the bully hadn't knocked me down first. As to my letter, I'm prepared to stand to what I said in it. And now what did I say in it ? " " Look at it in your own hand," answered Darrell, giving him the letter. Ringwood spelt out his own epistle as carefully as if it had been some peculiar and mystic communication written in Greek or Hebrew ; and then returning it to his cousin, he said, with a toss of his pale golden The House at Chelsta. 129 Jocks that flung his silk nightcap rakishly askew on his forehead, — "As to that letter, cousin DaiTell Markham, the letter's nothing. What do you say to my finding George Duke, of the Vulture, acting as servant to my distinguished friend from Devonshire, Sir Lovel Mor- timer, Baronet ? What do you say to his taking Sir Lovel' s orders like any low knave that ever was ? What do you say to his being in so drunken a state a8 to be sent away to bed, with a sharp reprimand from his master, before I had the chance to speak a word to him?" " What do I say to this ? " cried Darrell, walking up and down the room in his agitation ; " wh}--, that it can't be true. It's some stupid mistake of yours." " It can't be true, can't it ? It's some stupid mistake of mine, is it ? Upon my word, Mr. Darrell Markham, you're a very mannerly person to come into a gentleman's room and take advantage of his not having his sword at his side to tell him he's a fool and a liar. I tell you I saw George Duke drunk, and acting as servant to my friend Sir Lovel Mortimer." " Did George Duke recognize you ? " asked Darrell. " Don't I tell you that he was blind drunk ! " cried the young squire, very much exasperated : " how should he recognize me when he could scarcely see out of Ida eyes for drunkenness ? I might have spoken to him ; but before I could think whether 'twas best to speak or not, Sir Lovel bad given him a kick and sent him about his business ; and on second thoughts I reflected that it would be no great gain to expose family matters to the baronet by letting him know that my brother-in-law was serving him as a lacquey." I 230 The Captain of the Vulture. "But did you make no inquiries about this Bcoundrel ?" " I did. I told Sir Lovel I had a fancy that I knew tlie man's face, and asked who he was. But it seems the baronet knows nothing of him, except that he has served him for a twelvemonth, and is as faithful a fellow as ever breathed. Sir Lovel says, though over-fond of drink," Darrell did not make any reply to Ms cousin's speech for some little time, during which pause he walked up and down the room absorbed in thought. " Ringwood Markham," he said at last, stopping short by the side of the bed, " there's some mystery in all this that neither you nor I can penetrate. I know this Lovel Mortimer, this West-country baronet." " Then you know my very good friend," answered Ringwood with a consequential smirk. " I know one of the most audacious highwaymen who ever contrived to escape the Old Bailey." "A highwayman! The Baronet — the moiild of fashion and the glass of form, as Lawless the attorney called him ; the most elegant beau that ever danced at Ranelagh ; the owner of one of the finest estates in Devonshire ! Have a care, Darrell, how you speak of my friends." " It would be better if you hpxl moi-e care in choos- ing them," answered Darrell quietly. "My poor foolish Ringwood, I hope you have not been letting this maE clean out your pockets at hazard." "I have lost a few guineas to him at odd times,*' muttered Ringwood, with a very long face. The young squire had paid dearly enough for hia .eve of fasliionable company, and he had borne his The Souse at Chelsea. 131 losses without a murmur ; but to find that he had been made a fool of all the time was a bitter blow to his self-conceit: still more bitter, since Darrell, of all others, was tlie person to undeceive him. " You mean to tell me, then," he said x^uefully, " that this Sir Level " " Is no more Sir Lovel than you are," answered Dar- rell : " all the fashionable breeding he can pretend to is what he has picked up on the king's highway ; and the only estate he will ever be master of in Devonshire or elsewhere will be enough stout timber to build him a gallows when his course comes to an abrupt termination. He is known to the knights of the road and the con- stables by the nickname of Captain Fanny, and there is little doubt the house in Chelsea tp which he took you was a nest of highwaymen." Ringwood had not a word to say ; he sat with his nightcap in his hand and one foot out of bed, staring helplessly at his cousin, and scratching his head du- biously. "But that is not all," continued Darrell: "there is some mystery in the connection between this man and George Duke. They might prove a dozen alibis, and they might swear me out of countenance, but prove what they maj', and swear all they may, I can still de- clare that George Duke was the man who robbed me between Compton-on-the-Moor and Marley Water — George Duke was the man who stole my horse ; and only seven months back I found that very horse, stolen from me by that very George Duke, in the custody of this man, your friend the bavunet, alias Captain Funny. The upshot of it is, that wbilc we have thought George Duke was away upon the high seas, he has beta hiding 132 The Captain of the Vulture. in London and going about the country robbing honest men. The ship Vulture is a fiction ; and instead of being a merchant, a privateer, a pirate, or a slaver, George Duke is neither more nor less than a highway- man and a thief." " I only know that I saw him one night last week at a house in Chelsea," muttered Ringwood feebly. His •weak intellect could scarcely keep pace with Darrell's excitement. " Get up and dress yourself, Ringwood, while I run to the nearest magistrate. This fellow, Captain Fanny, stole my horse and emptied my pockets on the Bath road. We'll get a warrant out, take a couple of con- stables with us, and you shall lead the way to the house in which you saw George Duke. Don't waste time staring at me, man, but get yourself ready against I come back to fetch you. We'll unearth the scoundrels and find a clue to this mystery before night." " Two constables is not much," murmured Ring- wood doubtfully. " Sir Lovel always had his friends about him, and there may be a small regiment ia that house." Darrell looked at his cousin with undisguised con- tempt. " We don't want you to face the gang," he said ; "we shall only ask you to show us the way and point out the house : you can run away and hide round the comer when youVe done that, while I go in with the constables." " As to pointing out the house," answered the crest- fallen squire, " I'll give you my help and welcome ; but a man may be as brave as a lion, and yet not have any great fancy for being shot from behind a door." TJie House at Chelsea. 133 ** I'll take the risks of any stray bullets, man," cried Darrell, laugliing ; " only get up and dress yourself without loss of time, while I go and fetch the con- stables." The getting of a warrant was rather a long business, and sorely tried Darrell's patience. It was dusk when the matter was accomplished, and the young man re- turned to Ringwood's lodging with the two constables and the official document which was to secure the elegant person of Captain Fanny. Darrell found his cousin speciaUy equipped for the expedition, and armed to the teeth with a complicated collection of pistols, of the power to manage which he was as innocent as a baby. A formidable naval sword swung at his side, and got between his legs at every turn, while the muzzles of a tremendous pair of horse- pistols peeped out of his coat-pockets in such a manner that had they by any chance exploded, their charge must inevitably have been lodged in the elbows of the squire. Darrell set his cousin's warlike toilette a little in order, Ringwood reluctantly consenting to content himself with one pair of pistols, and to substitute a small rapier for the tremendous cutlass he had placed BO much faith in, *' It isn't the size of your weapon, but whether you're able to use it, that makes the difference, Ringwood," said Darrell. " Come along, my lad. We won't leave you in the thick of the fight, depend upon it." Ringwood looked anxiously into the faces of the two constables, as if to see whether there were any symp- toms of a disposition to run away in either of their stolid countenances; and being apparently satisfied 134 The Cajjtain of iJie Vulture. with tlie inspection, consented to step into the hackney coach with his three companions. Ringwood Markham was by no means the best of guides. The coachman who drove the party had rather a bad time of it. First Ringwood was for going to Chelsea through Tyburn turnpike, and coukl scarcely be persuaded that Ranelagh and Cheyne Walk did not lie somewhere in that direction. Then the young squiro harassed and persecuted his unfortunate charioteer by suddenly commanding him to take abrupt turnings to ihe left, and to follow intricate windings to the right^ and to keep scrupulously out of the high road which would have taken him straight to his direction. Ho grew fidgetty the moment they passed Hyde Park Corner, and was for driving direct to the Marshes about Westminster, assuring his companions that it was necessary to pass the Abbey in order to get to Chelsea, for he had passed it on the night in question ; and at last, when Darrell fairly lost patience with him, and bade the coachman to go his owti way to Cheyne Walk without further waste of time, Millicent's brother threw himself back in a fit of the sulks, declaring that they had made a fool of him by bringing him. as their guide ^ and then forbidding him to speak. When they reached Cheyne Walk, where they left the coach against Don Saltero's tavern, and set out on foot to find the house occupied by Captain Fanny, Ringwood Markham was of very little more use than before. In the first place, he had never known the name of the street to which his friend had taken him ; in tlie second place, he had gone to it from Ranelagh, and not from London, and that made all the difference in the finding of it, as he urged, when PaiTell grew The House at Chelsea. ' 135 Impatieht of his stupidity ; and then again, he had been with a merry party on that particular night, and had therefore taken little notice of the way. At last Darrell hit upon the plan of leading his cousin quietly through all the small streets at the back of Cheyne Walk, in hopes by that means of arriving at the desired end. Nor was he disappointed ; for, after twenty false alarms, and just as he was beginning to give up the matter for a bad job, Ringwood suddenly came to a dead stop before the door of a substantial looking house, and cried triumphantly, — "That's the knocker!" But the young squire had given Darrell and the constable so much trouble for the last hour and a half by stopping every now and then, under the impression that he recognized a door-step or a shutter, a lion's head in stone over the doorway, a brass bell-handle, a scraper, a peculiarly shaped paving-stone, or som-e other object, and then, after a few moments' deliberation} confessing himself to be mistaken, that, in spite of his triumphant tone, his cousin felt rather doubtful about the matter. " You're sure it is the house, Ringwood ?" he said. " Sure ! Don't I tell you I know the knocker? Am I likely to be mistaken, do you think?" asked the squire indignantly^, quite forgetting that he had con- fessed himself mistaken about twenty times in the last hour. *' Don't I tell you that I know the knocker ? I now it because I gave a sturdy knock with it, and Sir Lov— — he the Captain, said I was a fool for rousing the neighboiirs. It's a dragon's-head knockor in brass. I remember it welJ." 136 The Coftain of the Vulture. '* A dragon's head is a common enough pattern for a knocker," said Darrell, rather hopelessly. "Yes; but all dragon's heads are not beaten flat on one side, as this is, are they ? " cried Ringwood. " I remember taking notice how the brass had been battei'ed by some constable's cudgel or roysterer's loaded cane. I tell you this is the house, cousin; and if you want to see George Duke, you'd, better knock at the door. As I was a friend of Sir Lovel's, and have received civilities from him, I'd rather not be seen in the matter ; go I'll just step round the corner. With which expression of gentlemanly feeling, Mr. Ringwood Markham retired, leaving his cousin and the constables upon the door-step. It had long been dark, and the night was dull and moonless, with a heavy fog rising from the river. Darrell Markham directed the two men to conceal themselves behind a projecting doorway a few paces down the street, while he knocked and reconnoitred the place. His summons was answered by a servant girl, who carried a candle in her hand, and who told him that the West-country baronet, Sir Lovel Mortimer, ha^d indeed occupied a part of the house, with his ser- vant and two or three of his friends ; but that he had left three days before, and the lodgings were now to be let. Did the girl know where Sir Lovel had gone? Darrell asked. She believed he had gone back to Devonshire ; but she would ask her mistress if the gentleman wished. But the gentleman did not wish to trouble her mis- tress, he said. The girl's manner convinced him that Tlie House at Chelsea. 137 she was telling the truth, and that Captain Fanny had indeed quitted the Chelsea lodging-house. He was so disappointed at the result of his expedition that ha scarcely cared even to make an attempt at putting it to some trifling use. But, as he was turning to leave the door-step, he stopped to ask the girl one more question. "This servant of Sir Level's," he said, "what sort of a person was he ? " " A nasty grumpy disagreeable creature," the girl answered decisively. " Did you know his name ? " " His master always called him Jeremiah, sir ; and some of the other gentlemen called him sulky Jeremiah, because he was always grumbling and growling, except when he was tipsy." " Can you tell me what he was like ? " asked Darrell. " Was he a good-looking fellow ? " "0, as for that," answered the servant girl, "he was well enough to look at, but too surly for the com- pany of decent folks." Darrell dropped a piece of silver into the girl's hand, and wished her good night. The constables emerged from their lurking-place as the young man left the door-step. " Is it the right house, sir ? " asked one of them. '*Yes," replied Darrell; "we've found the nest, sure enough, but the birds have flown. We must even make the best of it, my friends, and go home, for our warrant is but waste paper to-night." They found Ringwood Markham waiting patiently enough round the corner. He chuckled rather mali- ciously when he heard of his cousin's disappointment. 138 The Captain of {he Vultv/re. " You'll believe me, tliough, anyhow," he said, "since you found that it was the i-ight house." "Yes, it was the right house," answered Darrell, moodily ; " but there's little satisfaction in that. How do I know that this sulky servant of the highwayman's was really George Duke, and that you were not de- ceived by some fancied likeness ? " CHAPTER XL AFTER SEVEN TEARS. The star of the young squire, Ringwood Markham, shone for a very little longer in the metropolitan hemi- sphere. His purse was empty, his credit exhausted, his health impaired, his spirits gone, and himself altogether so much the worse for his few brief years of London life, that there was nothing better for him to do than to go quietly back to Compton-on-the-Moor and take up his abode at the Hall, with an old woman as his house- keeper, and a couple of farm labourers for the rest of his establishment. This old woman had lived at Comp- ton Hall while the shutters were closed before the prin- cipal windows, the heavy bolts remained undrawn on the chief doors, and the dust gathering fast and thick upon the portraits of those dead-and-gone Markhama whose poor painted images looked out with wan and ghastly simpers from the oaken Avainscoting. The old housekeeper had led a very easy life in the dreary dark- ened house while Ringwood, its master, was roystering in the taverns about Covent Garden; and she was by no means too well pleased when, in the dusk of a misty After Seven Years. 1^9 October evening, tlie young squire rode quietly np "tlio deserted avenue, dismounted from liis horse in the stable-yard, walked in at the back door leading into i\\a servants' regions, and, standing upon the broad hearth in the raftered kitchen, told her rather sulkily that he had come to live there. His coming made very little change in the domestic arrangements of the Hall. He established himself iu. the oak parlour, in which his father had smoked and drunk and sworn himself into his coffin ; and after gi\ang strict orders that only the shutters of those rooms used by himself should be opened, he detei-rai- nedly set his face against the outraged inhabitants of Compton. l^Tow these simple people, not being aware that Ringwood Markham had spent every guinea that he was free to spend, took great umbrage at his eccentric and sohtary manner of living, and forthwith solved the enigma of his existence by setting him down a miser. Sometimes in the dusfc of the evening the squire crept out of the Hall gates, and strolled up the village street to honest Sally Pecker's hospitable mansion, where he took his glass of punch in the best parlour, and made himself tolerably agreeable to the company assembled there. The honest Compton folks were glad to welcome the returned prodigal, and paid their hom- age to him as they had done to his father, when that obstinate-tempered and violent old gentleman had been pleased to hold his court at the Bear. Ringwood felt that, simple as the Cumbrian villagers were, they were wiser then the Londoners who had emptied his purse for him while they laughed in their sleeves at his dignity. Yes, on the whole, he was certainly happier at Compton than in his Bedford Street lodgings, or with 140 The Captain of the Vulture his old tavern companions, in whose society he had been tormented sometimes by a vague idea that he was only a dupe and a fool. He had been used to lead a very narrow life at the best, and the dull monotony of this new existence gave him no pain. Millicent saw very little of her brother. He would sometimes drop into the cottage at dusk on his way to the Black Bear, and sit with her for a few minutes, talking of the village, or the farm, or some other of the everyday matters of life ; but his sister's simple society only wearied him ; and after about a quarter of an hour he would begin to yawn drearily behind his hand, and then, after kissing her upon the forehead as he bade her good night, he would stroll away to Sarah Pecker's, switching his light riding-whip as he walked, and pleased by the sensation his embroidered coat created amongst the urchins and the idle women gossiping at their doors. It had been agreed between Darrell and Ringwood that Millicent was to know nothing of the house in Chelsea and the young squire's mysterious rencontre with George Duke or his double. People in Compton — who knew of Darrell's encoun- ter with the highwayman upon the moor, and of Mrs. Duke's meeting with the ghost upon Marley Pier — said that the Captain of the Vulture was cursed with the attendance of a shadow which appeared sometimes to those belonging to him, and whose appearance was no doubt a sign of trouble and calamity to the Cap- tain himself. Such things had been before, they whispered, let the parson of the parish say what he would ; and there were some ghosts that all the Latin that worthy gentleman knew would never lay in the Red Sea. After Seven Tears. 141 . ^^ quiet years rolled slowly by, unmarked by change zither at the Hall, the Black Beai*, or the little cottage in which Millicent spent her tranquil days. No tidinga came to Compton of the Vulture or its captain ; and though. Millicent refused to wear a widow's dress, the feeling gradually crept upon her that she was indeed a widow, and that the tie knotted for her by others, and BO bitter to bear, was broken by the mighty hand which severs so many tender links, and seems so slow some- times to loosen the chains of a cruel bondage. For the first year or two after Ringwood Markham's return, it was thought that he would most likely marry and take his place in the village as his father had done before him. The Hall estate was considered to be a very comfortable fortune in the neighbourhood of Comp- ton-on-the-Moor, and many a rich farmer's daughter sported her finest ribbons, and pinned her jauntily trimmed hat coqu.ettishly aslant upon her roll of glossy hair, in hopes of charming the young squire. But Ringwood's heart was a fortress by no means easy to be stormed. Selfishness held her court therein, and a complete indifference to all simple pleasures, and a certain weariness of life, had succeeded the young man's brief career of dissipation. As his foiiiune mended with the first few years of his new and steady life, something of the miser's feeling took possession of his cold nature. He had spent his money upon ungrateful boon companions, who had laughed at him for his pains, and refused him the loan of a guinea when his purse was low. He would be warned by the past, he thought, and would learn to be wiser in the future. Small tenants on the Compton Hall estate began to murmur to each other that Master 142 The Captain of the Vulture Rinofwood Markham was a hard landlord, and that times were even worse now for poor folks than in the old squire's day. These poor people spoke nothing but the truth. As Ringwood's empty purse filled once more, the yoimg man felt a greedy eagerness to save money ; for what purpose he scarcely gave himself the trouble to think. Perhaps when he did think very seriously, a shuddering fear came over him that his impaired consti- tution was not to be easily mended — that even the fine north-country air sweeping across broad expanses of orown moorland, and blowing in at the open windows of the oak parlour, could never bring a healthy glow back to his flushed cheeks ; and that it might be that he inherited with his mother's fair face something of his mother's feebleness of constitution. But it was rarely that he suffered his mind to dwell upon these things. He found plenty of employment for himself in protecting his own interests. He was his own steward, and rode a grey pony about the farm, watching the men at their work, and gloating over the progress of the crops as the changing seasons did their bounteous work, and the bright face of Plenty met him in his way. Northeiv harvests are late, and that harvest was especially late which was garnered in the seventh autumn succeeding the last sailing of the good ship Vulture from the harbour at Marley Water. Septem- ber had been wet and cold, and October set in with a gloomy aspect, as of an unwelcome winter come before lis due time. In the early days of this chill and cheer- less October they Aveie still stacking the corn u])on the Compton Hall farm, while Ringwood, on his grey puny, rode from field to field to watch the men at tlieii After Seven Years. Xi^ labours, and to grumble at their laziness. The young squii-e was cautious and suspicious, and rarely thought that work Avas well done unless he was at the heels of those who did it. He paid dearly enough for this want of faith in those who served him, for it was in one of these rides that he caught a chill wdiich settled on his lungs, and threw him on a bed of sickness. At the first hint of his illness Millicent was by his side, patient and loving, eager to soothe and comfort, to tend and to restore. Like all creatures of his class, weak alike in physical and mental qualities, the young man peculiarly felt the helplessness of his state. He clung to his sister as if he had been a sick child and she his mother. In the dead of the night he would awake, Avith the cold drops standing on his brow, and cry aloud to her to come to him. Then, comforted and reassured on finding her watching by his side, he would fall into a peaceful slumber with her hand clasped in his, and his fair head pilloAved upon her shoulder. The Compton doctor shook his head ominously when he looked at the young squire's hectic cheeks a.nd sounded his narrow chest. Not satisfied wnth the village surgeon's decision, ]\Iillicent sent to Marley Water for a physician to look at her sinking brother ; but the phy- sician only confirmed what his colleague had already said. There was no hope for Ringwood. Little matter whether they called it a violent cold, or a spasmodic cough, inflammation of the lungs, or low fever. All that need be told about him would have been better told in one word— consumption. His mother had died of the same disease before him, fading quietly away as he «yas fading now. 144 The Captain of the Vulture, In the dismal silences of those long winter nights in which the sick man awoke so often — always to see Millicent's fair face, lighted by the faint glimmer of the night-lamp or the glow of the embers in the grate — Ringwood began to think of his past life — a brief life, which had been spent to no useful end whatever ; a selfish life, which had been passed in stolid indifference to the good of others — perhaps, from this terrible use- lessnesSj almost a wicked life. A few nights before that upon which the young squire died, he lay awake a long time counting the chiming of the quarters from the turret of Compton church, listening to the embers falling on the broad stone hearth, and the ivy-leaves flapping and scraping against the window- panes, with something like the sound of skeleton fingers tapping for admittance. And from this he fell to watching his sister's face as she sat in a low chair by the hearth, Avith her large thoughtful blue eyes fixed upon the hollow fire, and the unread volume half dropping from her loose hand. How pretty she was, he thought ; but what a pensive beauty ! How little of the light of joy had ever beamed from those melanclioly eyes since the old days when Darrell and she had been friends and playfellows, before Captain George Duke had ever shown his hand- some face at the Hall ! Thinking thus, it was only natural for the sick man to remember his own share in forcing on this unhappy marriage ; how he had per- suaded his father to hear no girlish prayers, and to heed neither tears nor lamentations, liemembering tliis, he could but remember also the mean motive which had urged him to this course ; the contemptible spite against his cousin Darrell, which had made him eager even fox After Seven Year*. 145 the shipwreck of his sister's happiness, so that her lover might suffer. He was dying now, and the world,_ with all that was in it, was of so little use to him that he was ready enough to forgive his cousin all the old grudges between them, and to wish him well for the future. "Millicent!" he said by-and-by. " Yes, dear," answered his sister, creeping to his side. "I thought you were asleep. Have you been awake long, Ringwood ? " " Yes, a long time." " A long time ! my poor boy ! " " Perhaps it's better to be awake, sometimes," mur- mured the sick man. " I don't want to slip ocit of life in one long sleep. I've been thinking, Millicent." " Thinking, dear ? " "Yes, thinking what a bad brother I've been to you." " A bad brother, Ringwood ? No, no, no ! " She feli on her knees by the bedside as she spoke, and wound her loving arms about his wasted frame. " Yes, Millicent, a bad brother. I helped to urge on your marriage with a man you hated. I helped to part you from the man you loved, and to make your young life miserable. You know that, and yet you're here, night after night, nursing me as tenderly as if I'd never thought but of your happiness." " The past is all forgiven long ago, dear Ringwood,'* said his sister earnestly ; " it would be ill for brother and sister if the love between them could not outlive old injuries, and be the brighter and the truer for old sorrows. You did not know what a cruel wrong you were doing me when you advised that wi'etchod mar- riage. I have outlived the memory of my misery long 1.4G ^ The Captain of the Vulture ago. Ringwood, dear, I have led a tranquil life for years past, and it seems as if it had pleased God to set me free from the ties that seemed so heavy to bear." " You will be almost a rich woman after my death, Milly," said her brother, with a more cheerful tone. " I have done a good deal in these last five years to improve the property, and you will find a bag full of guineas in the brass-handled bui-eau, where I keep all my papers and accounts. I think you may trust John Martin, the bailiff, and Lawson, and Thomas, and they will keep an eye upon the farm for your interest. Yoi^'ll have to grow a woman of biisiness when I am gone, Milly, and it will be a fine change for you from yonder cottage in Oompton High Street to this big house." " Ringwood, Ringwood, don't speak of this ! " "But I mvist, Milly, It's time to speak of these things when a man feels he has not an hour upon this side of the grave that he can call his own. I want you to promise me something, Millicent, before I die ; for a pi'omise made to a dying man is alwa^'s binding." " Ringwood, dear, what is there I would not do fop you?" *' I knew you wouldn't refuse. ISTow listen. How long has Captain Duke been away ? " She thought by this sudden mention of her husband's name that Ringwood's mind was wandering. " Seven years, dear, next January." "I thought so. Now, Milly, listen to me. When the month of January is nearly out, I want you to take a journey to London, and carry a letter from me to Darrcll Markhani." " I'll do it, dear Ringwood, and would do more thaq After Seven Years. 147 that, if you wisli. But why in January? Why not sooner?" " Because it's a fancy I have ; a sick man's fancy, perhaps. The letter is not written yet, but I'll write it before I fall asleep again. Get me the pen and ink, Milly." "To-morrow, dearest, not to-night," she pleaded; " you've been fatiguing yourself ah-eady with talking so much : write the letter to-morrow." "No, to-night," he said impatiently; "this very night, this very hovir. I shall fall into a fever of anxiety if I don't write without a moment's delay. It is but a few lines." His loving nurse thought it better to comply vnth his wishes than to irritate him by a refusal. She brought paper, pens, ink, sealing-wax, and seals, and a lighted candle, and arranged them on tlie little table by his bedside. She propped him up with pillows, so as to make his task as easy to him as possible, and then quietly withdrew to her seat by the hearth. The reader knows how diflicult penmanship was to Eingwood Markham even when in good health. It was a very hard task to him to-night. He laboured long and painfully with the spluttering qvull pen, and wrote but a few lines after all. These he read and re-read with evident satisfaction ; and then folding the big sheet of foolscap very carefully, he sealed it with a great splash of red wax and a w^-ak impression of the Markham arms, and addressed i^i, in a feeble sprawling hand, with many blots, to •' DarreU Markham, Esq. to he delivered to Mm ly MiUicent Buke at the close of January, 17 — ." " I have done Darrcll many a wrong," he said, as lie 148 The Captain of the Vulture. handed the letter to his sister ; " but I think that this may repair all. It is my last will and testament, Milly; I shall make no other, for there is none to claim the property but you." "And you have left Darrell something, then?" she asked. " Nothing but that letter. I trust to you to deliver it faithfpJly, and I know that Darrell will be content." * * * * * Mrs. Sarah Pecker came to the Hall whenever she had a spai^e moment, to help Millicent in her task of nursing the dying man. She was with her at that last trying moment when the faint straws of life to which the young squire had clung floated one by one out of his feeble hands, and he sank into the unknown depths of Death's pitiless ocean. Friendly and loving faces were the last to fade away from the dying man's eyes ; soothing voices were the last to grow faint and strange upon his dull ears ; gentle hands supported the fainting frame ; cool fingers laid their touch upon the burning brow. It was better to die thus than to spill his blood on a sanded floor in a tavern brawl, though he had been the most distin- guished buck, duellist, bully, and swaggerer between Covent Garden and Pall Mall. CHAPTER Xn. CAPTAIN FANNY. Six years had passed since that Christmns-eve upon which the foreign-looking pedlar had robbed Mrs. Sarah Captain Fanny. 149 Pecker, and -worked such a wonderful change for the better in the fortunes and social status of her husband Samuel. Six years had passed away, and it was Christ- mas time once more. Again Betty the cookmaid was busy plucking geese and turkeys ; and again Mrs. Sarah stood at her ample dresser rolling out the paste for Chi'istmas pies ; again the mighty coal fire roared half- way up the chimney, and the capacious oven was like a furnace, and only to be approached with due precau- tion, — a raysterioiis cavern out of which good things seemed for ever issuing — big sprawling crusty golden- brown loaves, steaming batches of pies, small regiments of flat cakes of so little account as to be flung without ceremony upon the bare hearth to grow cool at their leisure, and other cates and confections too numerous to mention. Again was the loitering carrier expected with groceries from the market town ; again did rich streams of a certain spicy perfume unknown to court perfumers, and commonly known as the odour of rum- punch, issue from the half-open doors of the parlour and the innermost sanctuary of the bar. But although these Christmas preparations differed in no manner from those of a Christmas six years before, there were changes at the Bear — changes which the reader has already been told of. Mrs. Pecker had grown wondrously subdued in voice and manner. Something almost of timidity mingled with this new manner of the portly Sarah's — something of a per- petual uneasiness, a continual dread, no one knew of what. So changed, indeed, was she in this respect, that Samuel had sometimes need to cheer her and console her when she was what he called " low," and was faia to administer modest glasses of punch or 150 The Captain of the Vulture. comfortable hot suppers as restoratives to her sinking spirits. While things were thus with Sarah, her worthy husband had very much improved under his better- half's new manner of treatment. He was no longer afraid of his own customers nor of his own voice. He no longer trembled or blushed when suddenly addressed in conversation. He could venture to draw himself a mug of his own ale without looking nervously across his shoulder all the while, after the manner of a dishonest waiter who tampers mth his master's tap. Samuel Pecker was a new man ; still a little given to believe in ghosts, perhaps, and to shake his head and groan ominously when coffin-shaped cinders flew out of the fire ; still a little doubtful as to going anywhere alone in the dark ; but for all that a very lion of courage and audacity compared to what he had been before the foreign-looking pedlar threw Mrs. Pecker into a swoon. The Bear was especially gay this Christmas-eve, for a party of gentlemen had ridden over from York, and were dining in the white parlour, a state apartment on the first floor. They were to sleep that night and Spend their Christmas- day at the inn, and the turkey lying limp and helpless iu Betty's lap was intended for them. "And isn't one of 'em a handsome one too?" said the cook, pulling vigorously at the biggest feathers. "You should go in and have a look at un, missus, — such black eyes, that pierce you through and through like a streak of lightning! and little white hands, just for all the world like Mrs. Duke's, and all covered with diamonds and such likes. And ain't he a saucy one, too ? Captain Fanny. 151 and ain't tlie others afraid of him ? The other two were for leaving here after dinner ; and when he said ho should stay, one of 'em asked if the place was — some- thing, I couldn't catch the word ; but the dark-eyed gentleman burst out laughing, and told him he was a lily-livered rascal, and not fit company for gentlemen ; and the other rattled his glass on the table, and said the Captain was right— only he swore awful ! " added Betty, with solemn horror. While the cook was amusing her mistress with these details, Samuel put liis head in at the kitchen door, "Them bloods in the white parlour are rare noisy anes," he said ; " they want half-a-dozen of the old port, and there's only three of 'em, and they've tad Madeira and claret already. I wish you'd go up to 'em, Sarah, and give 'em a hint that they might be a little quieter. I'll go down for the wine, if you'll put your- self straight while I'm getting it." Sarah complied, wiped the flour from her hands, smoothed her cap-ribbons, drew on her mittens, and adjusted her ample stomacher, by the time Samuel emerged from the cellar with two cobweb-shrouded black bottles under each arm. " I've brought four, Sally," he said, as he landed th(? precious burden on the kitchen table. " I'll cany them Up for you, and you can bring a few glasses." The trio in the white parlour was certainly rather a riotous one. A pair of massive wax candles burned in solid silver candlesticks upon the polished oaken table, which was strewed with nut-shells, raisin- stalks, orange- peel, and nut-crackers, and amply garnished with empty bottles and glittei-ing diamond-cut wine glasses. One of the party had flung himself back on his chair, and had 152 The Captain of the Vulture. planted his spurred heels upon this very dessert table, while he amused himself by peeling an orange and throwing the rind at his opposite neighbour, who, more than half tipsy, sat with his elbows on the table and his chin in his hands, staring vacantly at his tormentor The thii-d member of the little party, and he who seemed far the most sober of the three, lounged with his back to the fire and his elbow leaning on the mantelpieces and paused in the midst of some anecdote which he had been telling as Mrs. Pecker entered the room. His flashing black eyes, and his small white teeth, which glittered as he spoke, lit up his face, which, in spite of his evident youth, was wan and haggard — the face of a man prematurely old from excitement and dissipation ; for the hand of Time during the last six years had drawn many a wrinkle about the restless eyes and determined mouth of Sir Lovel Mortimer, Baronet, alias Captain Fanny, highwayman, and, on occasion, housebreaker. Heaven knows what there was in the appearance of any one of the party in the white parlour to overawe or agitate the worthy mistress of the Black Bear, but it is a sure thing that a faint and dusky pallor crept over Sarah Pecker's face as she set the wine and glasses upon the table. She seemed nervous and uneasy under the strange dazzle of Captain Fanny's black eyes. It has been said that they were not ordinary eyes ; indeed, there was something in them which the physiognomists of to-day would no doubt have set themselves indus- triously at work to define and explain. They were not restless only. There was a look in them almost of terror — not of a terror of to-day or yesterday, but of some dim far-away time too remote for memory — Captain Fanny. 153 the trace of some shock to the nervous system received long before the mind had power to note its force, but which had left its lasting seal upon one feature of the face. Sarah Pecker dropped and broke one of her best wine glasses under the strange influence of these rest- less eyes. They fixed her gaze as if they had possessed some magnetic power. She followed every motion ot them earnestly, almost inquiringly, till the highwayman addressed her. " We have the extreme honour of being waited upon by the landlady of the Bear in her own gracious person, have we not?" he said gallantly, admiring his small jewelled hand as he spoke. He was but a puny wasted stripling this dashing captain, and it was only the extreme vitality in himself that preserved him from insignificance. Now, at any other time, Sarah Pecker would have dropped a curtsey, smoothed her muslin apron, and asked the guests whether their dinner had been to their liking ; if their rooms were comfortable ; the wine agreeable to their taste, and some other such hos- pitable questions ; but to-night she seemed tongue-tied, as if the restless light in the Captain's eyes had almost magnetized her into silence. "Yes," she murmured, "I am Sarah Pecker." ■** " And a very comfortable and friendly creature you look, Mrs. Pecker," answered Captain Fanny, with a subhme air of patronage. " A recommendation ia your own person to the hospitable shelter of the Bear. And, egad, madam ! Compton-on-the-Moor has need of some pleasant place of entertainment for the un- lucky traveller who finds himself by mischance in its 154 The Captain of the Vulture. dreary neighbourliood. Was there ever such a place, lads ? " he added, turning to hia two companions. But Mrs. Sarah Pecker had been born in the village of Compfcon, and was by no means disposed to stand by and hear her native place so contemptuously spoken of. Turning her face a little away from the dashing knight of the road, as if it were easier to her to speak when out of the radius of those unquiet eyes, she said with some dignity, — " Compton-on-the-Moor may be a retired place, gen- tlemen, being nigh upon a week's journey from London, but it is a pleasant village in summer time, and there are a great many noble families about." *« Ah! by the bye," replied Captain Fanny, "we took notice of a big redbrick square-built house, standing amongst some fine timber upon a bit of rising ground half a mile on the other side of the village. A dull old dungeon enough it looked, with half the windows shut Up. Who does that belong to ?" "It is called Compton Hall, sir," answered Sarah, "and it did belong to young Squire Ring wood Mark- ham." " Ringwood Markham ! A fair-faced lad with blue eyes and a small waist ? " " The same, sir." " T knew him six years ago in London." "Very likely, sir. Poor Master Ringwood had his fling of London life, and very little he got by. it, poor boy. He's gone now, sir. He was only buried three weeks ago." "Dead!" murmured Captain Fanny. "Poor Markham! I didn't think to hear such news as that of him. But he and a good many of us have had a fancy for burning Captain Fanny, l6S tte candle at both ends, and I suppose we've no right to grumble if it burns out quickly." The young man said this in a musing tone that was not without a touch of melancholy. But he roused him- self from this meditative mood in the next moment, and addi-essed Mrs. Pecker with his accustomed vivacity. " And Compton Hall belonged to Ringwood Markham?" he said. "Yes, sir; and Compton Hall estate, which brings in an income of six or seven hundred a year." "And who does the Hall belong to now, then?" asked Captain Fanny. " To his sister, sir, Mistress Millicent that was. ]\Irs. Duke." " Mrs. Duke ! The wife of a sailor — one George Duke?" " The widow of Captain George Duke, sh-." " The widow ! What, is George Duke dead ?" " Little doubt of that, sir. The Captain sailed from Marley Water seven years ago come January, and neither he nor his ship, the Vulture, have ever been heard of since." " And the v/idow of George Duke has come into a property worth six or seven hundred a year?" " Yes, sir ; the Hall estate must be worth that, if it's worth a farthing." "And the only proof she has ever had of George Duke's death is his seven years' absence from Compton- on-the-Moor?" "She could scarcely need a stronger proof, I should think, sir." " Couldn't she ! " exclaimed the young man with a iaugh, " Why, Mrs. Sarah Pecker, I have seen so much 156 Tlie Captain of the Vulture. of the strange chaiices and changes of tliis world, that I seldom believe a man is dead unless I see him put into his coffin, the lid screwed down upon him, and the earth shovelled into his grave : and even then there are some folks such slippery customers that I should scarcely be surprised to meet them at the gate of the churchyard. The world is wide enough outside Compton-on-the- Moor ; and your sailor is a roving blade, who is apt to take his own pleasure abroad, forgetful of any one who may be waiting for him at home. Who knows that Captain Duke may not come back to-morrow to claim his wife and her fortune ?" "The Lord forbid!" said Mrs. Pecker earnestly; "I would rather not be wishing ill to any one : but sooner than poor Miss Millicent should see him come back to break her heart and waste her money, I would pray that the Captain of the Vulture may lie drowned and dead under the foreign seas." "A pious wish!" cried Captain Fanny, laughing. " However, as I don't know the gentleman, Mrs. Pecker, I don't mind saying, Amen. But as to seven years' absence being proof enough to make a woman a widow, that's a common mistake and a vulgar one, Mrs. Sarah, which I scarcely expected to hear of from a woman of your sense. Seven years — why, husbands have come back after seventeen ! " Mrs. Pecker made no answer to this. If her face was paler even than it had been before, it was concealed from observation as she bent over the dessert table collecting the used glasses upon her tray. When she had left the room, and the three young men were once more alone. Captain Fanny burst into a peal of ringing laughter. The End oj January. 167 " Here's news ! " he cried : " split me, lads, here's a joke ! George Duke dead and gone, and George Duke's widow with an estate that produces seven hundred a year. If that fool. Sulky Jeremiah, hadn't quarrelled with his best friends, and given us the slip in that cursed ungrateful raanner, here would have been a chance for him ! " CHAPTER XIII. THE END OF JANUARY. Captain Fanny, otherwise Sir Level Mortimer, did not leave the Black Bear until the morning after Christ- mas-day, when he and his two companions rode blithely off through the frosty December sunlight, after ex- pressing much content with the festive fare provided by Mrs. Pecker ; after paying the bill without so much as casting a glance at the items ; after remembering the ostler, the chambermaid, the boots, and every other member of the comfortable establishment who had any claim to advance upon the generosity of the West- country baronet. A noble gentleman, they said, in the kitchen at the Black Bear, handsome and free-spoken, reckless as a prince with his golden guineas and broad crown pieces — comfortable and substantial coins, sadly out of fashion now, but much affected in those homely days. A per- fect gentleman, with charmingly lackadaisical, and no doubt high-bred manners, such as were of course com- mon to the nobility alone. And then his eyes — those 15S The Captain of the Vulture. large shining black restless eyes, tinquiet as midnight stars reflected on a storm-tossed ocean, and almost as wonderful. I do not mean that they said exactly these words in the kitchen at the Bear, but they said a great deal more or less to this effect about Captain Fanny's lustrous orbs. Betty the cook made one remark, the titter inanity of which drew upon her the reprobation and ridicule of her fellow- servants. This foolish woman declared that Sir Lovel Mortimer's eyes reminded her of the night on which the strange pedlar stole the spoons. She grew alarmingly obscure and unintelli- gible when asked if the baronet's eyes reminded her of the spoons or the pedlar ; and could only vaguely protest that they brought it all back to her mind somehow. So entirely occupied were the domestics of the Black Bear in discussing their late distinguished visitor, that the news of a desperate highway robbery, accompanied by much violence, that had taken place near Carlisle on the night of December the twenty-third, made scarcely any impression upon them. Nor were tliey even very seriously affected by an attack upon the York mail, the tidings of which reached them two days after the departure of Sir Lovel and his com- panions. The sojourn of a handsome young baronet at the Black Bear was a rare event, to be remembered and talked of for a twelvemonth at least ; while violence, outrage, robbery, and murder upon the king's highway were of everyday occun'ence. London kept holiday every Monday morning, and went gipsying and sight- seeing Tyburnwards. Thieves, retired from business, •«iade goodly fortunes by hunting down old comrades. The End of January. 159 Children were hung without mercy for the stealing of three halfpence on that via sacra, the king's highway; because the law — poor well-intentioned blundering monster as it was — could frame a statute, but could not make a distinction, and could only hang by the letter, where it might have pardoned according to the Bpii'it. So, in the kitchen at the Black Bear Mrs. Pecker's retainers spent the few remaining December evenings in talking of the gay young visitors who had lately en- livened the hostelry by their presence ; while ]\Ii]licent Duke, looking fairer and paler than ever in her mourn- ing gown, sat alone in the oak parlour at Oompton Hall, with the brass-handled bureau open before her, trying to understand some farming accounts rendei'ed by her bailiff, Mrs. George Duke found faithful Sarah Pecker an inestimable comfort to her in her bereavement and accession to fortune. I think but for the help of that sturdy creature poor Millicent would have made Corapton Hall and Compton farm a present to the stalwart Cumbrian bailiff, and would have gone quietly back to her cottage in the High Street, to wait for the coming of death or Captain George Duke, or any other calamity which was the predestined close of her joyless life. But Sarah Pecker was worth a dozen lawyers and half-a-dozen stewards. She attended at the read- ing of the will, in which her own name was recorded with a bequest of " fifty golden guineas, and a mourn- ing ring containing my hair, in remembrance of much love and kindness, to cost ten guineas and no less." She mastered all the bearings of that intricate docu- paent, in spite of the " aforesaids," and " hereinafter 160 The Captain of tJie Vulture. mentioneds," and all the dreary teclmicalities which obscured its meaning, and knew more of it after one reading than even the lawyer who had drawn it up. She talked to MilHcent about quarters of wheat, and hay, and turnips, till poor Mrs. Duke's brain reeled, and she could only meditate with admiration on Sarah's pro- digious learning. The stalwart bailiff trembled before the mistress of the Black Bear, and went into long stammeriug explanations to account for a missing truss of hay that had been twisted into bands, lest he should be suspected of dishonesty in the transaction. When all was duly settled and adjusted, Millicent Duke found herself almost a rich woman. She was rich enough, at any rate, to be considered a very wealthy person by the simple inhabitants of Compton- on-the-Moor. The Hall was hers — the stout red-brick edifice, with its handsome heavy-framed windows, dating from the days of the Tudors, lighted by small diamond- shaped panes of glass, and bordered by flapping wreaths of ivy — ivy so old that its stems had grown gnarled and massive as the tininks of trees ; the noble building, with its square stone-flagged entrance-hall and broad oaken staircase, up which you might have driven your coach and pair, had you been so foolishly inclined ; the faded pictures and mouldering tapestry; the oak-panelled rooms, with their low ceilings, black oak like the wainscot, and their wide hearths and square open chimneys, built surely for traitors to hide in ; the roomy rickety tumble - down, ivy - covered stables, crowned with weathercocks and dovecotes; the gardens and the shrubberies, with damp walks half choked with rank overgrowth, and tenanted by The End of January. 161 bold rabbits, who stai'ed at you as an intruder if you ventured within their domain; the broad acres of meadow and arable land, not over rich, it is true, but sufficiently profitable withal— all these were the pro- perty of Millicent Duke, to have and to hold for herself alone ; unless, indeed, the long missing husband, Captain George Duke, of the good ship Vulture, should return to claim a share in his wife's newly acquired fortune. The thought that there was a remote possibility, a shadowy chance of this, would send a cold chill to ^illicent's heart, and seem almost to stop its beating. If he should come home ! If, after all these years of fearful watching and waiting, these years of terror and suspense, in which she had trembled at the sound of every manly footstep, and shuddered at the sound of every voice which bore the faintest resemblance to that one voice which she dreaded to hear ; if, after all, now that she had completely given him up — now that she was rich, and might perhaps by-and-by be happy — if, at this time of all others, the man who had been the scourge of her young life should return and claim her once more as his, to hold and to torture by the laws of God and man! A kind of distraction would take possession of her at the thought. She would deliver herself up to the horrible fancy until she could call up the image of the Captain of the Vulture standing on the threshold of the door, with the wicked vengeful light in his brown eyes, and the faint far-ofi" breezy perfume of the ooean hovering about his chestnut hair. Then casting herself upon her knees, she would call upon Heaven to spare her from this terrible anguish— 162 TJie Captain of the Vulture. to strike her dead before tliat dreaded husband conld return to claim her. The diamond earring, the fellow of which Captain Duke had taken from his wife on the night of their parting at Marley Water, had been religiously kept by her in a little red morocco-covered jewel-box. She was too simple and conscientious a creature to dream of disobeying her husband's commands. She looked sometimes at the solitary trinket, and seldom looked at it without praying that she might never see ita fellow. She wished George Duke no barm. Her only wish was that she and he might never meet again. ^ She would willingly have sold the Compton property, and would have sent him every fartbing yielded by its sale, had she known him to be living, so that he had but remained away from her. Millicent was the only person in Compton who en- tertained any doubt of Cnptain Duke's decease. The seven years which had elapsed since his departure — years of absence, unbroken by a single line from himself, or by the smallest news of him from any acci- dental source ; the common occurrence of wreck and disaster upon the seas ; the suspicions entertained [by many as to the Captain's unlawful mode of life, all pointed to one conclusion — he was dead. He had gone to the bottom of the sea with his own vessel, or had been hewn down by the cutlass of a Frenchman or the scimitar of a Moorish pirate. The story of ]\Iilliccnt's meeting with her husband's shadow upon the pier at Marley Water had never been forgotten, and the re- collection of that story confirmed the inhabitants of Compton in their opinion as to the fate of George Duke. The End of January. 1G3 Of course Millicent told her faithful friend Sarah Pecker of the letter "written by Ringwood a few nights before his death, ^,nd to be delivered by her to Darrell Markham. The two women looked long and inquisitively at the folded sheet of foolscap, with its sprawling red seal, wondering what mysterious lines were written on the paper : but the wishes of Millicent's dead brother were Bacred ; and early in January Mrs. Duke began to think of her formidable journey to London. She had never been farther away from home than on the occasion of a brief visit to the city of York, and the thought of finding her way to the great metropolis filled her with something almost approaching terror. I doubt if an Englishwoman of this present year of grace would think as much of a voyage to Calcutta as poor Millicent thought of this southward journey ; but her staunch friend Sarah was ready to stand by her in this as in every other crisis of life. " You don't suppose you're going to find Mr, Dan'ell Markham all by yourself, do you. Miss Millicent?" asked Sarah, when the business was discussed. " Why, who should go with me, Sally dear?" "Ah, who indeed?" answered Sarah, rather sarcas- tically; " who but Sally Pecker, of the Black Bear, that nursed you when you was a baby ; who else, I should like to know ?" " You, Sally ? " " Yes, me. I'd send Samuel with you. Miss Millicent dear — for there's something respectable ui the looks of H man, and we could put him into one of the old Markham liveries, and call him your servant ; but, Lord have mercy on us ! what a lost baby that poor husband 164 The Captain of the Vulture. of mine would be in the city of London ! I cannot send him to the market town for a few groceries with- out knowing before the time comes that he'll bring raisins instead of sugar, or have his pocket picked while he stands staring at some merry-andrew. No, Miss Millicent ; Samuel Pecker's the best of men, but the best of men may be a blessed baby in the way of business ; and you don't want a helpless infant to put you in the right way for finding Mr. Darrell. So you must take me with you, my dear, and make the best of a bad bargain." "My dear good kind faithful Sally! But what will they do without you at the Bear ? It will be near upon a fortnight's journey to London and back, allowing for some loss of time in town. What will they do without you, Sally?" " Why, do their best, Miss Millicent, to be sure ; and a pretty muddle I shall find the place in when I come back, I dare say. But don't let the thought of that worry you, Miss Milly ; I shan't mind it a bit. I some- times fancy things go too smooth at the Bear, and I think the servants do their work well for sheer provo- cation." Sarah Pecker was so thoroughly determined upon accompanying Millicent, that Mrs. George Duke yielded with a good grace, thanked her stout protectress, and set to work to trim a mourning hat with ruches and streamers of black crape. It was Sarah who devised the trimmings for this coquettish Httle hat, and it was Sarah who found some jet ornaments amongst a chest- ful of clothes which had belonged to Millicent's mother, r\- herewith to adorn Mrs. Duke's fair neck and arms. "There is no need for Mr. Darrell to find you The End of January. 165 changed for the worse in these seven years, Misg Milly," Sarah remarked, as she fastened the jet neck- lace round Millicent's slender throat. "These black clothes are vastly becoming to your fair skin ; and I scarce think that our Darrell will be ashamed of his country cousin, for all the fine London madams he may have seen since he left Compton." Mrs. Sarah Pecker had a natural and almost religious horror of the fair inhabitants of the metropolis, whom she dignified with the generic appellation of " London madams." She firmly believed the feminine portion of the population of that unknown city to be, without exception, frivolous, dissipated, faro-playing, pug-dog worshipping, play-going, masquerade-haunting, painted, patched, and bedizened creatures, whose sole end and aim was to lure honest young country squires from legitimate attachments to rosy-cheeked kinswomen at home. It was a cheerless and foggy morning that welcomed Millicent and her sturdy protectress to the great metro- polis. Mrs. Pecker, putting her head out of the coach window at the village of Islington, saw a thick mass of blackness and cloud looming in a valley before her, and was told by a travelled passenger that it (the blackness and the cloud) was London. It was at a ponderous roomy rambling old inn, in the heart of the City, that Millicent Duke and Sarah were deposited, with the one small trunk that formed all their luggage. Mrs. Pecker entered into conversation with a smart-looking chamber- maid, who brought the travellers a very indifferent breakfast. She asked a few questions about the town, while Millicent, worn out with the fatigue of the night journey, fell asleep on a hard uncomfortable-looking 166 The Ca^'tdm of the Vulture. sofa, and in the course of conversation took care to inform the chambermaid that the pretty fair-faced lady in mourning, who looked so girlish and innocent as she lay asleep, was one of the richest women in all Cum- berland, and might have travelled post all the way from Compton to Snow Hill, had she been pleased so to spend her money. Mrs. Pecker, who had at first rather inclined towards the chambermaid, as a simple plain-spoken young person, took offence at the cool way in which she received this information, and classed her forthwith amongst the " London madams." " Cumbrian gentry count for little with you, I make no doubt," Sai^ah remarked, with ironical humility ; " but there are many in Cumberland who could buy up your fine town folks, and leave enough for themselves after they'd made the bargain." After having administered this dignified reproof to the chambermaid, who (no doubt penetrated and abashed) seemed in a great hurry to get out of the room, Sarah condescended to ask the way to St. James's Square, which she evidently expected to find somewhere in the immediate neighboui-hood. She was told that a coach or a chair would take her to the desired locality, which was at the Court end of London, and much too far for her to walk, more espe- cially as she was a stranger, and not likely to find her way thither. Mrs. Pecker stared hard at the chambermaid, as if she would very much have liked to convict her of giving a false direction ; but being unable to do so, submitted to be advised, and ordered a coach to be ready in an hour. The Und of January. 167 The "London madams" Mrs. Pecker saw from tlio coach window, as she and her fair charge were driven from the City to St. James's, looked rather pinched and blue-nosed in the bitter January morning. The snow upon the pavement was a black compound unknown at Compton, and the darkness of the foggy atmosphere rendered the worthy Sarah rather uneasy as to the possible speedy advent of au earthquake. The hostess of the Black Bear had neither read Mr. Creech's translation from Horace, nor Mr. Alexander Pope's quotation fro-m the same, but she had resolutely determined on this her visit to London to preserve her dignity by a stolid and unmoved demeanour. Not to admire was all the art she knew ! She resolved that, from the whispering gallery of St. Paul's Cathedral to the merry-andrews in Bartholomew Fair, from the wax- works in Westminster Abbey to the wild beasts in the Tower, nothing she beheld should wring an exclamation of surprise from her tightly compressed lips. Although the distance between Eastcheap and Pall Mall appeai-cd to her almost illimitable, she scrupulously preserved her equanimity, and looked from the coach window at the crowded London streets with as calm and critical an eye as that with which she would have examined a field of wheat in her native Cumberland. All the busy panorama of the metropolis passed before the eyes of Millicent Duke as a dim and cloudy . picture, in which no figure was distinct or palpable. She might have been driven close beside a raging fire, and yet have never beheld the flames ; or across a cata- ract, without hearing the roar of the boisterous waters. One thought and one image filled her heart and brain, and she had neither eyes nor ears for the busy world 168 The Captain of the Vulture. outside the coach windows, or for Sarah Pecker on the seat opposite to her. She was going to see Darrell Markham. For the first time after seven years — for the first time since she stood beside the bed upon which he lay insensible, with blood-bedabbed hair and pale lips that only littered wandering words— she was to see him again — to see him — and perhaps to find him changed ! So changed in that long lapse of time, that it would seem as if the old Darrell was dead and gone, and only a stranger, with some trick of his face, left in his stead. And amongst all the other changes time had worked in this dear cousin, it might be that the old hopeless love had faded out, and that a newer and brighter image had replaced Millicent's own pale face in Darrell Markham's heart. He was still unmarried. She knew as much as that by his letters to Sarah Pecker, which always came at intervals of about three months to tell of his own whereabouts, and to ask for tidings of Compton. Perhaps it was' his poverty that had kept him so long a bachelor ! A sudden crimson rushed to Mrs. Duke's face as she thought of this. If this were indeed so, would it be more than cousinly — would it be more than her duty to share her own ample fortune with her dearest friend and nearest of kin, and to bid him marry the woman of his choice and be happy ? She made a picture of herself, with her pale face and mourning gown, bestowing her blessing and half of her estate upon Darrell and some defiant brunette beauty, with glowing cheeks and lustrous eyes altogether unlike her own. She acted over the imaginary scene, and composed a pretty self-abnegating, appropriate littla The End of January. 169 speech with which to address the happy bride and bridegroom. It was so affecting a picture that Mrs, Duke wept quietly for five minutes with her face turned towards the opposite window to that out of which Mrs. Pecker was looking. The tears were still in her eyes when the coach stopped before the big town mansion of Darrell Mark- ham's Scottish patron. That old feeling at her heart seemed to stop its beating, as the coachman's loud rap resounded from the massive brazen knocker. The blinds were all down, and wisps of loose straw lay about the doorsteps. " My lord is out of town, perhaps," said Mrs. Pecker, "jsnd Mr. Darrell with him. 0,Miss Milly, if we have had our journey for nothing ! " Millicent Duke had no power to reply. The doubt suggested by Mrs. Pecker was unspeakably painful to her. She was prepared for sudden death, but not for slow torture. For seven years she had lived in com- parative contentment without seeing Darrell Markham ; she felt now that she could scarcely exist seven minutes without looking at that familiar face. An old woman opened the door. My lord was evi- dently out of town. Mrs. Pecker directed the coach- man to inquire for Mr. Darrell Markham. The great carved doorway, the iron extinguishers upon the rail- ings, the attenuated iron lamp-frame, the figure of the old woman standing on the threshold, all reeled before Millicent's eyes, and she did not hear a word that was eaid. She only knew that the coach door was opened, and that Sarah Pecker told her to alight; that she tottered up the steps, across the threshold of the door, and into a noble stone-flagged hall, at the end of which 170 The Captain of the Vulture. a feeble handful of burning coals struggled for life in a grate wide enough to have held well nigh half a ton. A stout gentleman, wrapped to the chin in a furred coat, and wearing high leather boots bespattered with mud and snow, was standing against this fire, with hij back to Millicent, reading a letter. His hat, gloves, riding-whip, and half-a-dozen unopened letters lay on a table near him. Millicent Duke only saw a blurred and indistinct figure of a man, who seemed one wavy mass of coat and boats ; and a fire that resolved itself into a circle of lurid brightness, like the red eye of a demon. Sarah Pecker had not alighted from the coach ; the old woman stood cm-tsying to Mrs. Duke, and pointing to the gentleman by the fireplace. MilHcent had a con- fused idea that she was to ask this gentleman to con- duct her to Darrell Markham. His head was bent over a letter, the contents of which he could scarcely decipher in the dim light from the dirty window-panes and the struggling fire. Millicent was almost afraid to interrupt him in the midst of this occupation. While she stood for a moment deliberating how she might best address him, he crumpled the letter into his pocket, and, turning suddenly, stood face to face with her. The Btout gentleman was Darrell Markham. liingwood's Legacy. 171 CHAPTER XIV. eingwood's legacy. Of all the changes Millicent had ever dreamed of, none had come about. But this one change, of which she had never dreamed, had certainly come to pass. Bar- rel Markham had grown stouter within the past seven years ; not unbecomingly so, of course. He had only changed from a stripling into a stalwart broad-chested, and soldierly-looking fellow, whose very presence in- spired poor helpless Millicent with a feeling of safety. He clasped his poor little shivering cousin to his breast, and covered her cold forehead with kisses. Yet I doubt, if even George Duke's handsome sinister face could have peeped in at the half- open hall-door at that very moment, whether the Captain of the Vulture would have had just cause for either anger or alarm. It was a brotherly embrace which drew Millicent'a slender form to that manly heart — it was a brother's protecting affection that showered kisses thick and fast upon her blushing face; and a brother's sheltering arm that crushed the pretty mourning hat which Mrs. Pecker had been at so much pains to trim. Poor Sally Pecker ! if she could only have known how little Darrell Markham saw of the crape ruches and streamers, the jet necklace and bracelets, and all the little coquetries she had prepared for his admii-ation ! He only saw the soft blue eyes, with the old pleading look he remembered long ago, when Ringwood and he were apt to fall to quarrel Ung with each other at Comp- 172 The Captain of tie Vulture. ton Hall, and the anxious trembling girl would creep between thetn to make peace. Millicent's eyes were tearless now, and such a mist was before Darrell's sight that he could scarcely distinguish the happy face look- ing up at him from under the crushed mourning hat. " Bless you, my darling ! bless you !" he said again and again, seeming indeed to have little more to say than this ; but a great deal of inarticulate language in the way of kisses to supply his want of words. " Bless you, bless you, my own precious Mdly !*' 'Not did Mrs. George Duke do very much on this occasion to establish a character for eloquence, for, after a great deal of blushing and trembling, she could only look shyly up at her cousin, and say, — " Why, Darrell, how stout you have grown ! " Only a moment before Mr. Markham had felt a very great inclination to cry, but as these simple falter- ing words dropped from his cousin's lips, he laughed aloud, and opening a door near at hand led her into my Lord 's library, where the dust lay thick upon furniture and books, and the oaken window-shutters were only half open. " My Millicent," he said, "my dearest girl! what a happy chance that I should have ridden into town on this snowy morrdng to fetch some letters of too great importance to be trusted to an ordinary messenger ! I have spent Christmas with my lord in Buckingham- ■shire, and it was but an accident my coming here to-day." He took the mourning hat from Millicent's head, and cast it ignominiously on the floor. Then smoothing his cousin's pale golden ringlets with gentle caressing hands, he looked long and earnestly at her face. Ringwood's Legacy. 173 " My darling," he said, " all these weary years have not made an hour's change in you ! " " And in you, Darrell " " In me ! why, I am stouter, you say, Milly.** " Yes, yes, a little stouter ; but I don't mean that ! " She hesitated, and stood twisting one of the buttons of his furred coat round and round with her slender fingers, her head bent, and the dim light from the half- opened shutters slanting upon her golden-tinted hair. Innocent and confiding, a pale saint crowned with a pale aureole, she looked too celestial a creature for foggy London and St. James's Square. " What then, Millicent?" said Darrell. " I mean that you must be changed in other things — changed in yourself. I have dawdled away my quiet life at Compton, with no event to break these seven years but the death of my poor brother ; but you have lived in the world, Darrell, the gay and great world, where, as I have always read, all is action, and the suf- ferings or pleasures of a lifetime are often crowded into a few brief months. You must have seen so many changes that you must needs be changed yourself. I fancy that we country people fall into the fashion of imitating the nature about us. Our souls copy the slow growth of the trees that shelter us, and our hearts are changeless as the quiet rivers that flow past our villages. That must be the reason why we change so little. But you, in this busy turbulent London — you, who must have made so many acquaintances, so many friends — noble and brilliant men — amiable and beau- tiful women " As in a lady's letter a few brief words in the post- script generally contain the whole gist of the epistle, so, 1.74 The Captain of the Vulture. perhaps, in this long speech of Mrs. George Duke's the drift of the exordium lay in the very last sentence. At any rate it was to this sentence that Darrell Markham replied : " The loveliest woman in all London has had little charm for me, Millicent ; there is but one beautiful face in all the world that Darrell !Markham ever cared to look upon, and that he sees to-day for the first time after seven years." "Darrell, DarreU!" The joy welling up to her Leart shone out from under the shelter of her drooping lashes. He was unchanged, then, and there was no dark town-bred beauty to claim her old lover. She was a married woman herself, and George Duke might return to- morrow ; but it seemed happiness enough to know that she was not to hear Darrell Markham's wedding bells yet awhile. " I was coming to Compton at the beginning of next month to see you, Milly." "To see me?" " Yes ; to remind you of an old promise, broken once but not forgotten. To claim you as my wife." " Me, Darrell — a married woman ? " "A married woman ! " he cried passionately; "no, Millicent, a widow by every evidence of common sense. Free to marry by the law of the land. But tell me, dearest, what brought you to town?" " This, Darrell." She took her dead brother's letter from her pocket, and gave it to him. "Three nights before his death, my poor brother Ringwood wrote this," she said, " and at the same time JRinc/woocrs Legacy. 176 bade me put it witli my own hand into yours. I hope, Darrell, it contains some legacy, even though it "were to set aside Ringwood's ■svill, and leave you the best part of the fortune. It is more fitting that you should be the owner of it than I," Darrell Markham stood with the letter in his hand, looking thoughtfully at the superscription. Yes, there it was, the sprawling straggling penman- ship which he had so often laughed at ; the ill-shaped letters and the ill-spelt words, all were there ; but the hand was cold that had held the pen, and the Banctity of death was about poor Ringwood's letter, and changed the scrawl into a holy relic. "He wrote to me before he died, Millicent? He forgot all our old quarrels, then?" "Yes, he spoke of you most tenderly. You will find loving Avords in the poor boy's letter, I know, Darrell, and I hope some mention of a legacy." " I have neither need nor wish for that, Milly ; but I am happy that Ringwood remembered me kindly upon his death-bed." Darrell Markham broke the seal, and read the brief epistle. As he did so a joyous light broke suddenly out upon his handsome face. " Millicent, Millicent !" he said; "do you know the contents of this letter ? " "Not one word, Darrell." " It was noble and generous of my cousin Ringwood to write this to me. O, Milly, Milly ! he has left me the most precious legacy that ever mortal man received from the will of another." "I am so glad of that, Darrell. Glad, ay, more than glad, if he has left you every acre of the Compton 176 The Captain of the Vuliiire. estate. My little cottage is big enough for me ; and I should be so happy to see you master of the old Hall." " But it is not the Compton estate, Milly darling. The legacy is something dearer and more valuable than all the lands and houses in merry England." " Not the Compton estate ? " ** No : the legacy is — you." He caught her in his arms, and clasped her once more to his heart. This time it was scarcely so brotherly an embrace with which he encircled the slender form, and this time, had the Captain of the Vulture been peeping in at the library door, he might have felt himself called upon to interfere. " Darrell, Darrell, what do you mean ? " cried Mil- licent, as soon as she could extricate herself, with flushed cheeks and tangled curls, from her cousin's arms. " What do I mean ? Read poor Ringwood's letter, Milly." Mrs. George Duke opened her blue eyes in an inno- cent stare of wonder as she took the foolscap sheet from her cousin's hand. In sober earnest she began very much to fear that Dan-ell Markham had become suddenly distracted. "Read, Milly, read!" Bespattered with unsightly blots, smudges, erasures, and feeble half-formed characters, this poor scrawl, written by the weak hand of the sick man, was no such easy matter to decipher ; bat to the eye of Millicent Duke every syllable seemed bui-nt upon the paper in letters of fire. It was thus that poor Ringwood had written : Ringwood's Legacy. 177 "CousEN Barrel, "When you gett this, Capten Duk will hav bin away sevin years. I cauot lieve you a legasy, but I lieve you my sister Mily, who after my deth will be a pitch woman, for your tru and. lovyng wife. Forgett all past ill blud betwixt us, and cherish her for tho sake of "RiNGWOOD MaRKHAM." With her pale face dyed unnaturally red with crimson blushes, and her blue eyes bent upon the Turkey carpet in my lord's library, Mrs. Duke stood, holding her brother's letter in her trembling hands. Darrell Markliam dropped on his knees at her leec. "You cannot refuse me now, my own dear love," he said, with unutterable fondness ; " for even if you could find the heart to be so cruel, I would not take the harsh word No from those beloved lips. You are mine, JMi-s. Duke — mine to have and to hold. You are the legacy left me by my poor cousin." "Am I free to wed, Darrell?" she faltered; "am I free?" "As free as you were, Millicent, before ever the shadow of George Duke darkened your father's door." While Darrell Markham was still upon his knees on my lord's Turkey carpet, and while Millicent Duke was still looking down at him with a glance in which love, terror, and perplexity had equal share, the library door was burst open, and Mrs. Sarah Pecker dashed in upon the unconscious pair. " So, Mrs. George Duke and Mr. Darrell Markham,'' she said, "this is mighty pretty treatment upon my first visit to London ! Here have I been sitting in that 178 The Captain of the Vulture. blessed coach for the space of an hour bj your town clocks, and neither of you have had so much civility as to ask me to come in and warm my fingers' ends at your wretched fires." Darrell Markham had risen from his knees on the advent of Mrs. Pecker; and it is to be recorded to her credit that the discreet Sally had evinced no sui'prise whatever at the abnormal attitude in which she had discovered Millicent's cousin ; and furthermore that, although expressing much indignation at the treatment she had i-eceived, Sarah appeared altogether in very high spirits and amazing good humour. " You've been rather a long time giving Master Darrell the letter, Miss Milly," she said slyly. " That won't surprise you, Sally, when you hear the contents of the letter," answered Darrell ; and then he planted Mrs. Pecker in a high-backed leather-covered chair by the fireplace, and told her the whole story of E-ingwood's epistle. It is doubtful if Millicent Duke would ever have freely given her consent to the step which appeared to her such a desperate one ; but between Darrell Mark- ham and Sarah Pecker she was utterly powerless ; and when her cousin handed her back to the coach that had been so long in waiting, she had promised to become his wedded wife without an hour's unnecessary delay. " I will make all arrangements for the ceremony, dearest," Darrell said, as he lingered at the coach door, loth to bid his cousin good-bye. " That done, I must ride into Buckinghamshire with my lord's letters, and wish him farewell for a time. I will breakfast with you to-morrow morning at your inn, and escort you and Bin^ivood's Legacy. 179 Sally to see some of the lions of this big (jity. Good, bye, darling ; God bless ycu ! " The blue-nosed coachman smacked his whip, and the coach drove away, leaving Dai'rell Markham stand- ing on the doorsteps looking after his cousin. " 0, Sally, Sally, what have I done ? " ci'ied Millicent as soon as the coach had left St. James's Square. " What have you done. Miss Milly ! " exclaimed Mrs. Pecker ; " why, only what was right and proper, and according to your poor brothel's wishes. You wouldn't have gone against them, miss, would you, knowing what a wickedness it is to thwart those that are dead and gone ?" ejaculated Sarah, with pious horror. For the rest of that day Millicent Duke was as one in a dream. She seemed to lose all power of volition, and to submit quietly to be carried hither and thither at the behest of stout Sarah Pecker. As for the worthy mistress of the Black Bear, this suddenly devised wed- ding between the two young people, whom she had known as little children, was so deep a delight to her, that she could scarcely contain herself and her impor- tance within the limits of a hired coach. " Shall I bid the man stop at a silk mercer's. Miss Milly ? " she asked, as the vehicle drove citywards. "What for, Sally?" " For you to choose a wedding-dress, miss. You'll never be married in mourning ? " " Why not, Sally ? Do you think I mom'n less for my brother because I am going to marry Darrell Mark- ham ? It would be paying ill respect to his memory to cast off my black clothes before he has been three months in his grave." " But only for your wedding-day, Miss Millicent I 180 The Captain of th« Vulture. Think what a bad omen it would be to wear black on your wedding-day." Mrs. Duke smiled gravely. " If it please Heaven to bless my marriage, Sally," she said, "I do not think the colour of my dress would come between me and Providence." Sarah Pecker shook her head ominously. "There's such things as tempting Providence, and flying in the face of good fortune, Miss Milly," she said; and with- out waiting for leave from ]\Iillicent, she ordered the coachman to stop at a mercer's on Ludgate hill, a very shabby dingy little shop compared to the splendid emporiums of to-day, but grander than anything Mrs. Pecker had ever seen at Carlisle. Mrs. Duke did not oppose her protectress ; but when the shopman brought his rolls of glistening silks and brocade, and cast them in voluminous folds upon the narrow counter, Millicent took care to choose a pale lavender-coloured fabric, arabesqued with flowers worked in black floss silk. " You seem determined to bring bad luck upon your wedding, Mrs. Duke," Sarah said shai'ply, as Millicent made this sombre choice. " Who ever heard of black roses and lilies ? " But Millicent was determined ; and they drove back to the big gloomy hostelry in the heart of the City, where Mrs. Pecker seated herself at once to her task of making the wedding dress. The fortnight that must needs elapse before the marriage could take place seemed only one long bewil- dering dream to Millicent Duke. She gave herself up into the hands of Sarah and Darrell, and let them do as tbey pleased with her. It was Darrell's delight to make MilUcent^s Wedding. 181 that first visit to London a pleasant holiday for hia beloved cousin. He removed the two women from tho busy City hostelry to a quiet lodging near Covent Gar- den; and here he spent much of his time with them^ taking tliem to see all the grandest sights in London - — to Westminster Abbey and St. Paul's, to the Tower, and to Kensington Gardens, where the;- bad the honour of beholding their Majesties King George and Queen Charlotte, to say nothing of a whole bevy of Court beauties, whose costumes Mrs. Pecker contemplated with unbounded curiosity and admiration, but whom she condemned en masse a,s " London madams." Dar- rell conducted his cousin and her faithful companion to Ranelagh, and to the two great theatres, where Mrs. Duke was delighted with Artarerxes, and was moved to pity for hapless Mistress Shore. It would have been altogether a most delightful period for Millicent if she had not been tormented by vague doubts and shadowy- fears, which she tried in vain to banish from her mind, but which grew and multiplied as the day appointed for her marriage drew nigh. CHAPTER XV. millicent's wedding. Very little breakfast was eaten upon the wedding morning by any one of the trio assembled in the cheer- ful little sitting-room in Soho. The weather had been cold and rainy during the past fortnight; but to-day there was neither rain nor sleet falling from the leaden 182 The Captain of the Vulture. sky. There was that blackness in the air and in the heavens which predicts the coming of a tremendous fall of snow. The mud of the day before had frozen in the gutters, and the pavements were hard and dry in the bitter frosty morning— so bitter a morning that Mrs. Pecker's numbed fingers could scarcely adjust the bro- cade wedding-da-ess, and all the feminine furbelows which it had been her delight to prepare. A cheerless, black, and hopeless frost — black alike upon the broad moors around Compton and in the dark London streets, where the breath of half-frozen foot-passengers and shivering horses made a perpetual mist. A dismal wedding morning this, for the second nuptials of Squire Markham's dausrhter. Sally Pecker was the only member of the little party who took any especial notice of the weather. Darrell'a cheeks glowed with the crimson flush of pleasant excite- ment, his eyes shone ^vith the light of hope and love ; and if Millicent trembled and grew pale, she knew not whether it was from the bitter cold without, or that icy shuddering terror which filled her heart, and over which she had no control. The coach was waiting before the door of the lodging- house, and Mrs. Pecker was putting the last finishing touches to the festooned bunches of Millicent's brocaded gown, and the soft folds of the quilted petticoat beneath, when this feeling broke forth into words; and ilrs. George Duke, falling on her knees at Darrell's feet, lifted up her clasped hands and appealed to him thus : — " 0, Darrell, Darrell, I feel as if this was a wicked thing that we are going to do ! What evidence have I that George Duke is dead ? and what right have I to gire my hand to you, not knowing whether it may not MillicenVs Wedding. 183 still belong to another ? Delay this marriage. "Wait, wait, and more certain news may reach us ; for some* thing tells me that we have no justification for the vowa we are going to take to-day." She spoke with such a solemn fervour, with such an earnestness in every word, with a light that seemed almost the radiance of inspiration shining in Iter blue eyes, that Darrell Markham would have been led to listen to her almost as seriously as she had spoken, but for the interference of Mrs. Sarah Pecker. That ag- grieved matron, however, showered forth a whole volley of indignant exclamations, such as " Stuff and nonsense, child!" and "Who ever heard such a pother about nothing ? " and " I call it a'most ingratitude to me, after my sitting at work at the wedding dress till my fingers froze upon my hands," and a great deal more to the same effect. And then having talked herself breathless, the excited Sarah hustled Millicent and Darrell down the staircase, and into the coach, before either of them had time to remonstrate. St. Mary's church in the Strand — called at this time the new church in the Strand — had been selected by Darrell for the performance of the ceremony ; and on the way thither Mrs. Pecker devoted herself to lamen- tations on the performance of this London wedding. "Not so much as a bell ringing," she said; "and if it had been at Compton, they'd have made the old steeple rock again, to do honour to the squire's daughter." It was a brief drive from the lodging near Covent Garden to St. Mary's church in the Strand. The broad stone flags before the sacred edifice were slippery with frozen sleet and mud, and Darrell had to support 184 The Captam of the Vulture. his cousin's steps, half cairying her from the coach to the door. The church was dark in the wintry morn- ing ; and Romeo, breaking into the tomb of the Capulets, could scarcely have fqund himself in a gloomier build- ing than that which Darrell entered with his shivering bride. Mrs. Sarah Pecker lingered behind to give some directions to the coachman ; having done which, she was about to follow the young people, when she was violently jostled by a stout porter, laden with parcels, who ran against her, and nearly knocked her down. Indeed, the pavement being shppery, it is a question whether the dignified hostess of the Black Bear would not have entirely lost her footing but for the friendly interposition of a muscular though slender arm in a claret-coloured velvet coat-sleeve, which was thrust out to save her, while a foppish voice drawled a reproof to the porter. Poor Sally Pecker, saved from the collision, was once more like to fall at the sound of this effeminate voice, for it was the very same which she had heard a month before in her best room at the Black Bear, and the arm which had saved her from falling was that of Sir Level Mortimer, the West-country baronet. Mrs. Sarah would scarcely have recognized him had ehe not heard his voice, for he was wrapped in great woollen mufflers, which half buried the lower part of his face, and, instead of the flowing flaxen wig he usually affected, he wore to-day a brown George, which was by no means so becoming. But under his slouched beaver hat, and above the many folds of his woollen mufflers, shone the restless black eyes which, once seen, were not easily to be forgotten. Milliceni's Wedding. 185 " Sir Lovel Mortimer ! " exclaimed Jfrs, Pecker, clasping her broad hands about the young man's arm, and staring at him as one aghast. " Hush, my good soul ; you've no need to be so ready with my name," he said, looking round him suspiciously as he spoke. " Why, what ails the woman?" he cried presently, as Sarah still stood staring at her deliverer's face with the same uneasy bewildered won- dering expression with which she had regarded him on his visit to Compton. " 0, sir, forgive a poor childless woman for looking over-hard at you. I've never been able to get your honour's face out of my head since last Christmas night." Captain Fanny laughed gaily. " I'm pi'etty well used to making an impression upon the fair sex," he said ; " and there are many who have taken care to get the pattern of my face by heart before this. Why, strike me blind, if it is not our worthy hostess of the Cumbrian village, where we ate such a glorious Christmas dinner. Now, what in the name of all that's wonderful has brought you to London, ma am r " A wedding, your honour." " A wedding ! — your own, of course ? Then I'm just in time to salute the bride." " The wedding of Mrs. George Duke with her first cousin, Mr. Darrell Markham." " Mrs. Greorge Duke, the widow, whose husband is away at sea ? " " The same, sir." Captain Fanny pursed up his lips and gave a low but prolonged whistle. " So, so, ]\Irs. Pecker, that is the 186 The Captain of the Vulture. business which has brought you all the way froir Cumberland to the Strand. A strange business, Mrs Pecker, a very strange business — but no affair of mine as you'll say, perhaps. Pray present my best compli- ments to the bride and bridegroom, and good- day to you." He bowed gallantly to the innkeeper's wife, and hurried off. Sarah Pecker stood looking after him with an eager yearning gaze ; but his slender figure was soon lost amidst the crowd of pedestrians. A shivering parson in a tumbled surplice read the marriage service, and a grim beadle gave Millicent to " this man," in consideration of a crown-piece which Darrell gave him for his trouble. The trembling girl could not but glance behind her as the clergyman read that preliminary passage which called on anyone know- ing any just cause or impediment why these two persons should not be joined together, to come forward and declare the same. She looked back with a foolish fear that she might see George Duke advance with his hand raised to arrest the ceremony. One of the pondei'ous doors of the church was ajar, and a biting frozen wind blew in from the open street ; but there was no Captain George Duke lurk- ing in the shadow of the doorway, or hiding behind a pillar, ready to come forth and protest against the marriage. Had the Captain of the Vulture been in waiting for this purpose, he must have lost no time in carrying it into effect ; for the shivering parson gave brief opportunity for interference, and rattled thi'ough the solemn service at such a rate that Darrell and Millicent were man and wife before Mrs. Pecker had recovered Mill icon fs Wedding. .187 from the surprise of her unexpected encounter vnth Captain ^ann3^ The snow was falling in real earnest when Millicent, Darrell, and Sarah took their seats that night in the comfortable interior of the York mail, and the chilly winter dawn broke next morning upon whitened fields and hedges, and far-off distances and hill-tops that shone out white against the blackness of the sky. All the air seemed thick with snow-flakes thronghout that long liomcward journey ; but Darrell and Millicent might have been travelling through an atmosphere of melted sapphires and under a cloudless Italian heaven for aught they knew to the contrary; for the sometime wife and widow of George Duke had forgotten all old sorrows in the absorbing thought, that she and DaiTell were to go henceforth and for ever side by side in life's journey. This being so, it mattered little whether they went northward through the bleak January weather, or travelled some rose-bestrewn path under the impos- sible azure of the brightest skies that were ever painted on a fire-screen or a tea-board. So Millicent abandoned herself to the delight of Darrell's presence, and had well-nigh forgotten that she had ever lived away from him. She was with him, Bheltered and protected by his love, and all the vague doubts and terrors of the wedding morning had vanished out of her mind. It seemed as if she had left her fears in the stony London Church from which she had emerged as Darrell Markham's wife. She had felt a shadowy apprehension of some shapeless trouble hovering near at hand, some unknown sorrow ready to fall upon her and crush her ; but she felt this appre- hension nD longer. Toothing had occurred to interrupt 188 The Captain of the Vulture the marriage. It seemed to her, therefore, as if the marriage, being permitted by Providence, must needs be happy. The travellers reached York on the third day from that of the wedding ; and here it was decided that they should finish the journey in a postchaise, instead of waiting for the lumbering branch coach that travelled between York and Compton. It was twilight when the four horses of the last relay swept across the Avhite moorland and dashed into the naiTOw Compton High Street. Past the forge and the little cottage Millicent had lived in so long — past the village shop, the one great emporium where all the requirements of Compton civilization were to be pur- chased — past groups of idle children, who whooped and hallooed at the postchaise for no special reason, but from a vague conviction that any persons travelling in, such a vehicle must be necessarily magnates of the land, and bent upon some errand of festivity and re- joicing — past every familiar object in the old place, until the horses drew up, with a suddenness that sent the lumbering chaise rocking from side to side, before the door of the Black Bear, and under the windows of that very room in which DarreU Markham had lain so long a weary invalid, pining for one glance of the beloved eyes, one tender touch from the beloved hand. The reason of this arrangement was that Mrs. Pecker, knowing the scanty accommodation to be ob- tained at Compton Hall, had sent on an express from York to bid Samuel prepare the best dinner that had ever been eaten within the walls of the Black Bear, to do honour to Mr. and Mrs Darrell Markhanj. Millicenfs Wedding. 189 In her eagerness to ascertain if this message had been duly acted upon, Sarah was the first to spring from the postchaise, leaving Darrell and Millicent to alight at their leisure. She found Samuel upon the door-step ; not the easy self-assured, brisk and cheerful Samuel of late years, but the pale-faced vacillating feeble-minded being of the old dispensation ; an unhappy creature, who looked at his ponderous better-half with a depre- cating glance, which seemed to say, " Don't be violent, Sarah ; it is not my fault." But Mrs. Pecker was in too great a hurry to notice these changes. She dashed past her husband into the spacious hall, and glanced with considerable satisfaction towards an open door, through which was to be seen the oak parlour, where, on a snowy table-cloth, glittered the well-polished plate of the Pecker family, under the light of half-a-dozcn wax candles. " The dinner's ready, Samuel ? " she said. "Done to a turn, Sarah," he replied dolefully. **A turkey, bigger than the one we cooked at Christmas ; a sirloin ; a pair of capons, boiled ; a plum pudding, and a dish of Christmas pies. I hope, poor things, they may enjoy it! " added Mr. Pecker, in a tone that was positively funereal. ]Mrs. Sarah Pecker turned sharply round upon her husband, and stared with something of her old glance of contempt at his pale scared face. " Enjoy it ! " she said ; " I should think they would enjoy it, indeed, after the cold journey they've had since breakfast-time this morning. Why, Samuel Pecker," she added, looking at her dismal spouse mora earnestly than before, "what ou earth is the matter 190 The Captaifi of the Vulture. with you? Wlicn I want yovi to be most brisk and cheerful, and to have everything bright and joyful about the place to do honour to Miss Milly and her loving husband, my own handsome Master Darrell, here you are quaking and quavering, and seemingly took with one of your old fits of the doldrums. What's the matter with you, man? and why don't you go out and bring Mrs. Markham and her husband in, and offer your congratulations ? " Samuel shook his head mournfully. " Wait a bit, Sarah," he said, in a voice scarcely above a whisper, " wait a bit ! It will all come in good time, and I dare say it's all for the best ; but I was took aback at first by it, and it threw me a little backward ■with the cooking, for it seemed as if neither me nor Betty could put any heart into the basting or the gravies afterwards. It seemed hard, you know, Sarah, when it first came upon me all of a sudden ; and the more I think of it the harder it seems." " What seems hard ?— What ! what ! " cried Sarah, some indistinct terror chilling her very blood ; " what is it, Samuel ? — have you lost your speech ? " It seemed indeed for a moment as if Mr. Pecker had been suddenly dejmved of the use of that faculty. He shook his head from side to side, swallowed and gasped alternately, and then grasping Sarah by the arm, pointed with his disengaged hand to another half-open dooi' exactly opposite to that of the room in which the dinner-table was laid. " Look there ! " he ejaculated in a hoarse whisper close to Sarah's ear. Following the direction of Samuel's extended hand, Mrs. Pecker looked into a room which was generally 'Hard Appearance of the Captain's Doulle. 191 devoted to tlie ordinary customers at the Bear, but which on tliis winter's evening had but one occupant. This solitary individual was a man wearing a dark- blue travel-stained coat, jack-boots, and loose brown curling hair tied with a ribbon. His back was tiu-ned to Sarah and her husband, and he was bending over the sea-coal fire with his elbows on his knees and his chin resting in his hands. "While Mrs. Sarah Pecker stood as if transfixed, staring silently at this traveller, Darrell followed Millicent into the hall, and thence into the oak parlour, closing the door behind him. " 0, Samuel, Samuel ! how shall I ever tell her ? " exclaimed Mrs. Pecker. She turned towards the oak parlour, as if she would have gone straight to ]\Iillicent ; but Samuel caught her by the arm. "Let 'em have their dinner first, Sarah," he said pleadingly. " It'll seem hard enough whenever it comes ; but it niifylit seem harder if it came upon an empty stomach." CHAPTER XYI. THE THIRD APPEARANCE OF THE CAPTAIN's DOUBLE. "While the wedding-dinner was being eaten in the oak parlour, !Mrs. Sarah Pecker and her husband sat looking at each other with pale anxious faces within the sacred precincts of the bar. In vain had Millicent and Darrell implored their old and faithful friend to sit down and partake of the good cheer which had been prepared at her expense. "No, Miss Milly dear," she said, "it isn't for me to 192 The Captain of the Vulture. sit at the same table with Squire Markbam's daughter and — and — her — cousin. In trouble and sorrow, dear — and surely trouble and sorrow seem to be the lot of all of us — I'll be true to you to the end of life ; and if I could save your young life from one grief, dear, I think I'd throw away my own to do it." She took Millicent in her stout arms as she spoke, and covered the fair head with passionate tears and kisses. " 0, Mi;^3 Milly, Miss Milly," she cried, " it seems as if I was strong enough to save you from anything ; but I'm not, my dear — I'm not ! " It was Millicent's turn to chide and comfort the stout- hearted Sarah. She had completely forgotten all her own doubts and fears, and was so happy in this return to Compton with the devoted lover of her youth, the fond protector of her childhood. The past, with all its sorrow, seemed to have faded from her like a forgotten dream, and the fair horizon of the future shone upon her bright and cloudless as a summer morning. She looked at Sarah with wondering eyes, astonished at the honest creature's unwonted emotion. " Why, Sally dear," she said, "you seem quite out of spirits this evening." " I a»i a little worn and harassed, Miss Milly ; but never you mind that — never you think of me, dear; only remember that if I could save you from grief and trouble, I'd give my life to do it." Mrs. Pecker hurried from the room before Millicent could question her further ; but her ominous words had left a vague sense of apprehension in the breast of Dar- reU's loving wife. The bright look of perfect happiness had faded from her face when she seated herself opposite Third Appearance of the Captain's Double. 193 her husband, at the table which Samuel had caused to be loaded with such substantial fare as might have served to regale a party of stalwart farmers at an audit dinner. The traveller sitting over the fire in the common parlour was still alone. He had been served with a bowl of rum-punch ; but Mr. Samuel Pecker had not waited upon him in person. " You haven't spoke to him, then, Samuel ? " asked Mrs. Pecker. " No, Sarah, no ; nor he to me. I saw him a-comin' in at the door like a evil spirit, as I've half a mind he is ; but I hadn't the courage to face him, so I crept into the passage quietly and listened agen the door, while he was askin' all sorts of questions about Compton Hall, and poor Miss Milly, and one thing and another. And at first I was in hopes it was my brain as was unsettled, and that it was me as was in a dream like, and not him as was come back ; and then he ordered a bowl of rum- punch, and then I knew it was him, for you know, Sarah, rum-punch was always his liquor." " How long was it before we got home, Samuel ? " " When he came ? " "Yes." " Nigh upon an hour." " Only an hour — only an hour," groaned Sarah : " if it had pleased Providence to have taken his life before that hour, what a happy release for them two poor innocent creatures in yonder room ! " "Ah, what a release indeed ! " echoed Samuel. "He's Bittin* with his back to the door : if somebody could go behind him siidden with a kitchen poker," added the innkeeper, looking thoughtfully at Sarah's stout arm ; X X94i The Captain of tlie Vulture. •'but then," lie continued, reflectively, "there'd be the body ; and that would be against it. If you come to tbink of it, the leading inconvenience of a murder is that there's generally a body. But I suppose it's only right it should be so ; for if it wasn't for bodies, murders would be uncommon easy." Sarah did not appear particularly struck by the brilliancy of her husband's discourse ; she sat in her own particular ai'm-chair before the old-fashioned fire- place, with her hands clasped upon her knees, rocking herself to and fro, and repeating mournfully, — " O, if it had but pleased Providence to take him before that hour ! — if it had but pleased Providence ! " She remembered afterwards that as she said these words there was a feeling in her heart tantamount to an inarticulate prayer that some species of sudden death might overtake the traveller in the common parlour. Neither Sarah nor her husband waited upon the newly-married pair. The chambermaid took in the dishes, and brought them out again almost untouched. Mr. and Mrs. Pecker sat in the bar, and the few cus- tomers who came to the Black Bear that night were sent into a little sitting-room next to the oak parlour, and on the opposite side of the hall to that chamber in which the solitary traveller drank his rum-punch. It was striking eight by Compton church, and by the celebrated eight-day oaken clock that had belonged to Samuel Pecker's mother, when this traveller came out of the common parlour, and after paying his score and wrapping a thick cashmere shawl about his neck, strode out into the snowy night. He paid his score to the gii-l who had taken him the punch, and he did not approach the bar, in the inner- Third Appearance of the Captabi's Double. 105 most recesses of which Sarah Pecker sat with her knitting-needles lying idle in her lap, and her husband staring hopelessly at her from the other side of the fire- place. " He's gone to the Hall, Samuel," said Mrs. Pecker, as the inn-door closed with a sonorous bang, and shut the traveller out into the night. " Who's to tell her, poor dear ? — who's to tell her ?" Samuel shook his head vaguely. *' How pleasant it would be if he could lose himself in the snow any way between this and Compton Hall ! " he said thoughtfully. " I've read somewheres in a book of somewheres in foreign parts, where there's travellers and dogs, and where they're always a-doin' it, only the dosfs save 'em : besides which there was the old woman hat left Winstell market late on a Christmas night, that year as we had so many snowstorms, and was never heard of again." Mrs. Pecker not appearing to take any special comfort from these rather obscure remarks, Samuel I'elapsed into melancholy silence. Sarah sat in her old position, rocking herself to and fro, only murmuring now and then, — " Who's to tell her ? Poor innocent child ! she was against marrying Moster Darrell from the first to the last ; and it was me that helped to drive her to it." Half an hour after the departure of the traveller, Darrell Markham opened the door of the oak parlour, and Millicent came out into the hall equipped for walking. Her new husband's loving hands had adjusted the wrappers that were to protect hor from the piercing cold ; her husband's strong arm was to support her in 196 The Captain of tlie Vulture. the homeward walk, and guide her footsteps through the snow. To walk home through the winter night with him was better than to ride in the grandest can'iage that ever was built for a queen. No more loneliness — no more patient endurance of a dull and joyless life. A happy future stretched before her, as fair to look upon as a long flower-begemmed vista in the wood she had played in when she was a child. Sarah took up her knitting-needles, and made a show .of being busy, as Millicent and Darrell came out into the hall, but sbe was not to escape so easily. " Sally dear, you'll bid me good night, won't you?" Millicent said tenderly. Mrs. Pecker came out of her retreat in the bar, and once more took her old master's daughter in her arms. " O, Miss Milly, Miss Milly," she cried, " I'm a Kttle dull and a little cast down like to-night, and I'm all of a tremble, dear. I haven't strength to talk to you : only remember in any trouble, my darling, always re- member to send for Sally Pecker, and she'll stand by you to the last." " Sally, Sally, what is it?" asked Millicent tenderly; " I know something is wrong. Is it anything that has happened to you, Sally?" " No, no, no, dear." " Or to any one connected with you?" " No, no." " Then what is it, Sally?" " O, don't ask me ; don't, for pity's sake, ask me, Miss Millicent;" and, without another word, Sarah Pecker broke from the embrace of the soft arms which were locked lo\angly about her neck, and ran back into the bar for shelter. Third Appearance of the Captain's Bouhle. 197 "I couldn't tell her, Samuel," she whispered in her husband's ear — " I couldn't tell her though I tried. The words was on my lips, but something rose in my throat and choked all the voice I had to say 'em with, Now, look you here, Samuel, and mind you do what I tell you faitliful, without making any stupid mistakes." " I will, Sarah ; I'll do it faithful, if it's to walk through fire and water ; though that aia't likely, fire and water not often coming together, as I can see." " You'll get the lantern, Samuel, and you'll go with Mr. Darrell and Miss Millicent to light them to the Hall ; and when you get there you won't come away immediately, but you'U wait and see what happens, and bring me back word, especially " " Especially what, Sarah ? " " If they find Jii7n there." " I'U do it faithful, Sarah. I often bring you the wrong groceries from market, and I know I'm trying to the mildest temper ; but I'll do this faithful, for my heart's in it." So Millicent and Darrell went out into the snowy night, as the traveller had gone before them. Samuel Pecker attended with the lantera, always dexterously contriving to throw a patch of light exactly on that one spot in the road where it was most unlikely for Darrell and Millicent to tread. A very will-o'-the- wisp was the light fi'om Samuel's lantern ; now shining on the topmost twig of a leafless hedge, now glimmer- ing at the bottom of a ditch, now far ahead, now shoot- ing off to the left, now darting suddenly to the extreme right, but never shedding one ray upon the way that he and his companions had to go. The feathery snow- 198 The Captain of the Vulture. flakes drifting on the moors shut out the Avinter sky till all the atmosphere seemed blind and thick with woolly cloud. The snow lay deep on every object in the land- scape — house-top and window-ledge, chimney and porch, hedge and ditch, tree and gate-post, village street and country road, all melted and blotted away in one mass of unsullied whiteness ; so that each familiar spot seemed changed, and a new world just sprung out of chaos could hardly have been more strange to the inhabitants of the old one. Compton Hall was situated about half a mile from the village street, and lay back from the high road, with a waste of neglected shrubbery and garden before it. The winding carriage-way, leading from the great wooden entrance-gates to the house, was half choked by the straggling and unshorn branches of the shrubs that grew on either side of it. There were few carriage folks about Compton-on-the-Moor, and the road had been little used save by foot-passengers. At the gate Darrell Markham stopped and took the lantern from Mr. Pecker's hand. "The path is rather troublesome here," he said; ** perhaps I'd better light the way myself, Samuel." It was thus that the light of the lantern being cast upon the pathway straight before them, Millicent hap- pened to perceive footsteps upon the snow. These footsteps were those of a man, and led from the gates towards the house : the feet could but just have trodden the path, for the falling snow was fast filling in the traces of them. " Who can have come to the Hall so late ? " exclaimed Millicent. She happened to look at Samuel Pecker as she spoke. Third Appearance of the CajJtain's Double. 199 The innkeeper stood staring helplessly at her, his teeth audibly chattering in the quiet night, Darrell Markham laughed at his wife's alarm, "Why, Milly," he said, "the poor little hand rest, ing on my arm trembles as if you were looking at the footmarks of a ghost — thongh I suppose, by the bye, that ghostly feet scarce leave any impression behind them. Come, Milly, come, I see the light of a fii'C in your father's favourite parlour. Come, dearest, this cold night is chilling you to the heart." Something had indeed chilled her to the heart, but it was no external influence of the January weather. Some indefinable instinctive terror had taken possession of her on seeing those footmarks in the snow. Darrell led her to the house, A terrace built of honest red brick, and surmounted by grim stone vases of hideous shape, ran along the fa9ade of the mansion in front of the windows on the ground floor, Darrell and Millicent ascended some side steps leading to this terrace, followed by Mr, Pecker, To reach the front door they had to pass several windows ; amongst others that window from which the fire-light shone. Passing this it was but natural they should look for a moment at the chamber within. The light from a newly kindled fire was flickering upon the sombre oaken panelling ; and close beside the hearth, with his back to the window, sat the same traveller whom Samuel Pecker had last seen beneath his own roof. The uncertain flame of the fire, shoot- ing up for a moment in a vivid blaze, only to sink back and leave all in shadow, revealed nothing but ths mere outline of this man's figure, and revealed even that but dimly, yet at the very first glance through 200 The Captain of the Vulture. the tincurtained window Millicent Duke uttered a great cry, and falling on her knees in tlie snow, sobbed aloud, — " My husband ! My husband, returned alive to make me the guiltiest and most miserable of women ! " She grovelled on the snowy ground, hiding her face in her hands and wailing piteously. Darrell lifted her in his arms and carried her into the house. The traveller had heard the cry, and stood upon the hearth, with his back to the fire, facing the open door ; and the traveller was in sorry ti^uth • the Captaia of the Vulture — that person of all others upon earth whose presence was most terrible to Parrell and Millicent. In the dusky shadow of that fire -lit room there was little change to be seen in the face or person of George Duke. The same curls of reddish auburn fell about his shoulders, escaped from the careless ribbon that had knotted them behind ; the same steady light burned in the hazel-brown eyes, and menaced mischief as of old. Seen by this half-light, seven years seemed to have made no change whatever in the Captain of the Vul- ture. "What's this, what's the meaning of all this?" he exclaimed, as Darrell Markh am carried his helpless bur- den into the oak parlour. " What does it mean ? " Darrell laid his cousin on a couch beside the hearth on which the Captaia stood, before he answered this question. " It me'ans this, George Duke," he said at last ; " it means, that if ever you were pitiful in your life, you should be pitiful to this poor girl to-night." The Captain of the Vulture laughed aloud. " Pitiful," Third Appearance of the Captain's Double. 201 he cried ; " I never yet heard that a woman needed any great pity on ha\ang her husband restored to her after upwards of seven years' separation." Darrell looked at him half contemptuously, half com- passionately. " Can you guess nothing ? " he said. "No." " Can you imagine no fatal result of your long absence from tliis place ; many people — every one — thinking you dead?" " No." " Can you think of nothing likely to have happened — remembering, as you must, that this poor girl married you in obedience to her father's commands, and against her own wishes ? " "No." " Can you guess nothing ? '* *' How if I don't choose to guess, Master Darrell Markham ? How if I say that whatever you want me to know you must speak out word for word, however much cause you and my lady there may have to be ashamed to tell it. I'll help you by no guesses, I can tell you. Speak out ! what is it ? " He stirred the fire with the toe of his boot, striking the coals into a blaze, in order that the light might shine upon his rival's face, and that whatever trouble or humiliation Darrell !Mai'kham might have to ' undergo might not be lost to him. "What is it?" he repeated savagely. " It is this, George Duke : — but before I speak another word, remember that whatever has been done was done in opposition to — your wife." The acute nain he sufiered in calling the woman he 202 The Capain of the Vulture. loved by this name was not lost on Captain Duke. Dar- rell could see liis anguish reflected iu the malicious sparkle of those cruel brown eyes, and nerved himself against affording another triumph to liis rival. "Remember," he said, "through all, that she is blameless." " Suppose we leave her and her blamelessness out of the question, and drop sentiment, Mr. Markham," answered the Captain, " until you've told me what has been done." " Millicent Duke, being persuaded by her brother in a letter written on his dying bed, being further per- suaded by every creature in this place, all believing you to be dead, being persuaded by her old nurse and by me, who used every prayer I knew to win her consent, against her own wish and in opposition to her own better judgment, \ras married to me three days ago in London." " 0, that's what you wanted me to guesS, id it ? *' exclaimed the Captain ; " by the heaven above me, I thought as much ! Now you come here and listen to me, Mistress Millicent Markham, Mrs. George Duke, Mrs. Darrell Markham, or whatever you may please to call yourself. Come here, I say." She had been lying on the sofa, never blest by one moment's unconsciousness, but acutely sensible of every word that had been said. Her husband caught hold of her wrist with a rough jerk, and lifted her from the Bofa. " Listen to me, will you," he said, " my very duti- ful and blameless wife ! I am going to ask yoU a few questions. Do you hear ? " " Yes." Third Appearance of the Captain's Double. 203 She neitlier addressed him by his name nor looked at him as he spoke. Gentle as she was, tender and loving as she was to every animate thing, she made no show of gentleness to him, nor any effort to conceal her shuddering abhorrence of him. " When your brother died he left you this property, did he not ? " " He did." " And he left nothing to your cousin, Mr. Darrell, yonder ? " " Nothing — but his dear love." *' Never mind his dear love. He didn't leave an aero of land or a golden guinea, eh ? " " He did not." " Good ! Now, as I don't choose to hold any com- munication with a gentleman who persuades another man's wife to marry him in her husband's absence^ against her own wish, and in opposition to her better judgment, I use his own words, mark you — you will be so good as to tell your fine cousin, Mr. Darrell Markham, this : Tell him that, as your husband, I claim a share in your fortune, whatever it may be ; and that as to this little matter of a marriage, in which you have been so blameless, I shall know how to settle accounts with you upon that point, without any interference from him. Tall him this, and tell him also that the sooner he takes himself out of this house the pleasanter it will be for all parties." Millicent stood with her hands clasped tightly toge- ther, and her fixed eyes staring into vacancy, while he spoke, and it seemed as if she neither heard nor com- prehended him. When he had done speaking, she turned round, and, looking him full in the face, cried out, '^04 The Captaitt of the Vulture. " George Duke, did you stay away these seven years on purpose to destroy me, body and soul ? " " I stayed away seven years, because ten months after I sailed from Marley "Water I was cast away upon a desert island in the Pacific," he answered doggedly. " Captain Duke," said Darrell, " since my presence here can only cause pain to your unhappy wife, I leave this house. I shall call upon you to-morrow to ac- count for your words ; but in the mean time, remember that I am yonder poor girl's sole surviving kinsman, and, by the heaven above me, if you hurt but a hair of her head, you had better have left your bones to rot on one of the islands of the Pacific, than have come back here to account to Darrell Mai'kham ! " '* I'm not afraid of you, Mr. Markham. I know how to treat that innocent lady there, without taking a lesson from you or any one else. Good night to you." He nodded with an insolent gestm^e in the direction of the door. " To-morrow," said Darrell. " To-morrow, at youi- service," answered the Cap- tain, " Stop ! " cried Millicent, as her cousin was leaving the room ; " my husband took an earring from me when we parted at Marley, and bade me ask him for it on his return. Have you that trinket ? " she asked the Captain. She looked him in the face with an earnest, half- terrified gaze. She remembci'ed the double of George Duke, seen by her upon Marley pier, in the winter moonlight. Tliird Appearance of tlie Captain^s Doiihle. 205 The sailor took a small canvas bag from his waist- coat pocket. The bag contained a few pieces of gold and silver money, and the diamond eamng which Millicent had given George Duke on the night of their parting. "Will that satisfy you, my lady?" he asked, hand- ing her the gem. "Yes," she answered, with a long heavy sigh; and then going straight to her cousin, she put her two icy hands into his, and addressed him thus : " Farewell, Darrell Markham, we must never, never meet again. Heaven forgive us both for our sin ; for Heaven knows we were innocent of evil intent. I will obey this man in all reasonable things, and will share my fortune with him and do my duty to him to my dying day ; but I can never again be what I was to him before he left this place seven years ago ; I can never be his wife again. Good night." She put her cousin from her with a solemn gesture, which, with the simple words that she had spoken, seemed to him like a dissolution of their marriage. He took her in his arms, and pressed his lips with a despairing fondness to her forehead. And then he led her back to George Duke, and said, — " Be merciful to her, as you hope for God's mercy." In the hall without Darrell Markham found Mr. Samuel Pecker, who had been crouching against the half-open door, listening patiently to the foregoing scene. "It was according to the directions of Sarah," he said, apologetically, as Darrell emeuged from the parlour and surprised the delinquent. " I was to bo 206 The CajJtain of the Vulture. sure and take her word of all that happened. Poor young thing, poor young thing ! It seems such a pity that when Providence casts folks on desert islands, it don't leave 'em there snug and comfortable, and no inconvenience to themselves or anybody else." Upon this particular night Mr. Pecker was doomed to meet with inattentive listeners, Darrell Markham strode past him on to the terrace, and from the terrace to the pathway leading to the high road, without being conscious of his existence. The young man walked so fast that Samuel had some difficulty in trotting after him. "Excuse the liberty, Mr. Markham, but where might you be going ? " he said, when at last he over- took Darrell, just as the latter dashed out on to the high road, and halted for a moment, as if uncertain which way to turn ; " humbly begging your pardon, sir, where might you be going ? " " Ky, where indeed ? " said Darrell, looking back at the lighted window. " I don't like to leave the neigh- bourhood of this house to-night. I want to be near her. My poor, poor girl i " '* But, you see, Mr. Darrell," urged Samuel, inter- rupting himself every now and then to shift the lantern from his right hand to his left, and to blow upon his disengaged fingers, " as it don't happen to be particular mild weather, I don't see how you can spend the night hereabout very well : so I hope, sir, you'll kindly make the Black Bear your home for such time as you may please to stay in Compton ; only adding that, the longer the better for me and Sarah." There was an aifoctionate eai-nestness in Samuel's address which could not fail to touch Darrell, even Third Appearance of the Captain'' s Double. 207 in the midst of his utter misery and distraction of mind. "You're a good fellow, Pecker," he said, "and I'll follow your advice. I'll stay at the Bear to-night, and I'll stay there till I see how that man means to treat my unfortunate cousin." Samuel led the way, lantern in hand. It was close upon eleven o'clock, and- scarcely a lighted window glimmered upon the deserted village street ; but half- way between the Hall and the Black Bear, the two pedestrians met a man wearing a horseman's cloak, and muffled to the chin, with the snow-flakes lying white hpon his hat and shoulders. Samuel Pecker gave this man a friendly though feeble good-night, but the man seemed a surly fellow, and made no answer. The snow lay so deep upon the ground that the three men passed one another as noise* lessly as shadows. " Have you ever taken notice, Mr. Dari'ell," said Samuel, some time afterwards, " that folks in snowy weather looks very much like ghosts ; quiet, and white, and solemn ? " Left alone in the solitude of the bar, Mrs. Pecker, lost in dreamy reflection, suffered the tire to bui-n low and the candles to remain unsnufl'ed, until the long wicks grew red and topheavy, smouldering rather than burning, and giving scarcely any light. The half-hour after ten struck from the eight-day clock on the stairs. It was half an hour before Darrell Markham and Samuel Pecker left the Hall, and the Black Bear gave signs of shutting up for the night. The few customers, who had been drinking and 208 The Captain of the Vulture. talking together since six or seven o'clock, strolled oui into the snow, leaving the house together for the sake of one another's company, and the business of the inn was done. The one waitei', or Jack-of-all-trades of the establishment, prepared to shut up the house ; and, as the first step towards doing so, opened the front door and peered out into the darkness to see what sort of uight it was. As he did so, the biting winter bi'eeze blew in upon liim, extiwguisliiug the candle in his hand, and also putting out the two lights in the bar. " What are you doing there, Joseph ? " Mrs. Pecker exclaimed sharply. " Come in, and shut up the place." Joseph was about to obey, when a horseman galloped up to the door, and springing from his horse, looked into the dimly lighted hall. " Why, you're all in the dark here, good people," he said, stamping his feet and shaking the snow from his shoulders. " What's the matter ? " Mrs. Sarah Pecker was stooping over the red embers, trying to relight one of the candles. " Can you tell me the way to Compton Hall, my good friend ? " said the traveller to Joseph the waiter. " Squire Markham's that was ?" " Ay, Squire Mai'kham's that was." " The waiter gave the necessary directions, which were simple enough. " Good," said the stranger ; " I shall go on foot ; so do you fetch the ostler and give him charge of my horse. The animal's dead beat, and wants rest and a good feed of corn." The waiter hurried off to find the ostler, who was asleep in a loft over the stables. The stranger strode Third Appearance of the Captains Double. 209 ap to the bar, in the interior of which Mrs. Pecker wai still struggling with the refractory wick of the tallow candle. " You seem to have a difficult job with that light, ma'am," he said ; " but perhaps you'll make as short woi'k of it as you can, and give me a glass of brandy, for my very vitals are frozen with a twenty-mile rid© through the snow." There was something in the stranger's voice which reminded Sarah Pecker of some other voice that she knew ; only that it was deeper and gruffer than that other voice. She succeeded at last in lighting the candle, and, placing it in front of the bar between herself and the traveller, took up a wine glass for the brandy. "A tumbler, a tumbler, ma'am," remonstrated the stranger ; " this is no weather for drinking spirits out of a thimble." The man's face was so shaded by his slouched hat, and farther concealed by the thick neckerchief muffled about his throat, that it was utterly irrecognizable iu the dim light of Sai'ah Pecker's one tallow caudle ; but as he took the glasf^ of brandy from Sally's hand, he pushed his hat off his forehead, and lowered his necker- chief in order to drink. He threw back his head as he swallowed the last drop of the fiery liquor, then throwiiig Mrs. Pecker the price of the brandy, he bade her a hasty good-night, and strode out of the house. The empty glass dropped from Sarah's hand, and sliivercd into fragments on the floor. Her white and terroi-strickeu face frighfeiied the waiter when ho letumod from his errand to the stables. 210 The Captain of the Vulture, The man she had served with brandy could not surely be George Duke, for the Captain had an hour before set out for the Hall ; but if not George Duke himself, this man was most certainly some unearthly shadow or double of the Captain of the Vulture. Sarah Pecker was a woman of strong sense ; but she was human, and when questioned about her pale face and evident agitation, she told Joseph the waiter, Betty the cook, and Phoebe Price the pretty chambermaid, the whole story of Millicent's fatal marriage, Captain Duke's return, and the ghost that had followed him back to Compton-on-the-Moor. " When Miss ]\Iillicent parted from her husband seven years ago, she met the same shadow upon Marley pier, and now that he's come back the shadow has come back too. There's more than flesh and blood in all that, you may take my word for it." The household of the Black Bear had enough to talk of that night. What was the excitement of a West- country baronet, generous and handsome as he might be, to that caused by the visit of a ghost, which called for a tumbler of brandy, drank it, and paid for it like a Chi'istian ? Samuel and Sarah sat np late in the little bar talking of the apparition, but they wisely kept the secret from Darrell Markham, thinking that he had trouble enough without the knowledge. Captain Duke at Home. 211 CHAPTER XVJI. CAPTAIN DUKE AT HOME. George Duke sat by the fire, staring moodily at the burning coals, and never so much as casting a look in the direction of his wretched wife, who stood upon the spot where Darrell had left her, with her hands clasped about her heart, and her blue eyes dilated in a fixed and vacant gaze, almost terrible to look upon. The sole domestic at the Hall was the same old woman who had succeeded Sally Masterson as the squire's housekeeper, and had since kept house for Ringwood and his sister. She was half blind and hopelessly deaf, and seemed to have only a vague con- sciousness of external things. She took the return of Captain Duke as quietly as if the sailor had not been away seven weeks. liow long she stood in the same attitude, seeing nothing, thinking of nothing, in a kind of stupor which was almost too dull for despair, how long Captain George Duke sat brooding over the hearth, with the red blaze upon his cruel face, Millicent never knew. She only knew that by-and-by he addressed her, still without looking at her : " Is there anything to drink — any wine or spirits in 'his dull old hole ? " he asked. She told him that she did not know, but that she vvould go and find Mrs. Mcggis (the deaf woman), and ascertain. In the overwrought state of her brain, it was a relief to her to have to do her husband's bidding ; a relief to her to go outside into the chilly hall and breathe 212 The Captain of tJie Vulticre, another atmospliei^e than that which George Duke respired. It was a long time before she could make Mrs. Meggis understand what was wanted ; but when at last the state of the case dawned upon the old woman, she nodded several times triumphantly, took a key from a great bunch that bung over the dresser, opened a narrow door in one corner of the large stone-flagged kitchen, and, candle in hand, descended a flight of steps leading into the cellar. After a considerable period she emerged with a dusty cobweb-shrouded bottle under each arm. She held each of these bottles before the light for Millicent to see the ^quid they contained. That in one was of a bright amethyst colour, the other a golden brown. The first was claret, the second brandy. Millicent was preparing to leave the kitchen, followed by the old housekeeper carrying the bottles and a couple of glasses, when she was stai'tled by a knocldng at the hall-door. When Mrs. Meggis became aware of this summons, she put down her tray of bottles and glasses, and went once more to the bunch of keys ; for on the departure of Darrell and Samuel Pecker the door had been locked for the night. It was now past eleven. An unusual hour for visitors anywhere ; an unearthly hour at this lonely Cumbrian mansion. Mil- licent had but one thought. It must be Darrell Markham. She took the tray in her own hands, and followed Mrs. Meggis, who carried the light and the ke3'S. When they reached the hall, Millicent left the old woman to open the door, and went steiight into the parlour to carry George Duke the liquor he had asked for. Captain Duke at Home. 213 " That's right," he said, " my throat's as hot as fire. So, so ! no corkscrew ? Heaven bless these pretty novel-reading wives, theyr'e so good at looking after a man's comfort!" He took a pistol from his breast, and knocked off the necks of the two bottles with the butt-end of it, spilling the wine and spirit upon the polished parlour table. He filled a glass from each and drained them one after the other. " Good," he said ; " the claret first, and the brandy afterwards. We don't get such liquor as this in — in the Pacific. I shall leave no heel-taps to-night, Mrs. Duke. What's that?" He looked up to ask the question, after draining his glass for the third time. That which had attracted his attention was the sound of voices in the hall without — the shrill treble pipe of Mrs. Meggis, and the deep voice of a man. " What is it ? " repeated George Duke. " Go and see, can't you ? " Millicent opened the parlour door and looked out into the hall. Mrs. Meggis was standing with the heavy door in her hand, parleying with some strange man who stood in the snow upon the threshold. The same bitter winter wind which had extinguished the lights at the Black Bear had blown out the guttering tallow candle carried by Mrs. Meggis, and the hall was quite dark. " What is it ? " Millicent asked. " Why, it is merely this, ma'am," answered the man upon the threshold: "this good woman here is rather hard of hearing, and not over easy to understand ; but 21 4 The Captain of the Vulture. from what she tells me, it seem.s that Captain Duke hab come hom.e. Is that true ? " The m.an spoke from behind the thick folds of a woollen handkerchief, which muffled and disguised his voice as much as it concealed his face. Even in the obscurity he seemed jealous of being seen, for he drew himself farther back into the shadow of the doorway as he spoke to Mrs. Duke. " It is quite true," answered Millicent ; " Captain Duke has returned." The man muttered an angry oath. " Returned," he said ; " returned. Surely he must have come back very lately?" " He came back to-night." " To-night ! to-night ! Not half-a-dozen hours ago, I suppose ?" " Not three hours ago." " That's good," muttered the man with another imprecation ; " that's like my luck. Down once, down always : that's the way of the world. Good-night, ma'am !" He left the threshold without another word, and went away ; his footsteps noiseless in the depth of snow. " Who was it? " asked George Duke when Millicent had returned to the parlour. " Some man who wanted to know if you had re- turned." " Where is he ?" cried the Captain, starting from his seat, and going towards the hall. " Gone." " Gone without my seeing him ? " " He did not ask to see you." The Captain of the Vulture clenched his fist with Cajjtain Duke at Home. 215 a savage frown, looking at Millicent as if in some sudden btu'st of purposeless fury he could fain have struck her. " Gone ! gone ! " lie said ; " d him, whoever he is. On the very night of my return, too ! " He began to pace up and do^vn the room, his arms folded upon his breast, and his head bent gloomily downwards. " The garden room has been prepared for you, Cap- tain Duke," said Millicent, walking towards the door, and pausing upon the threshold to speak to him; "it is the best room in the house, and has been kept well aired, for it was poor Ring-wood's favourite chamber. Mrs. Meggis has lighted a good fire there." " Ay," said the Captain, looking up with a malicious laugh, " it would be clever to give me damp sheets to sleep upon, and give me my death of cold on the night of my return. Folks could scarcely call that murder, and it might be so easily done." She did not condescend to notice this speech. "Good-night, Captain Duke," she said. " Good-night, my kind dutiful wife, good-night. I am to have the garden room, am I ? well and good ! May I ask in what part of tlie house it may please your ladyship to rest ? " " In the room my poor mother slept in," she said. " Good-night." Left to himself, the Captain of the Vulture drew the table close to the hearth, seating himself in old Squire Markham's high-backed arm-chair, stretched out his legs before the blaze, filled his glass, and made himself thoroughly comfortable. The broad light of the fire shining full upon his face 216 The Ciiptain of the Vulfure. brought out the changes woi-ked in his seven years' absence. Wrinkles and hard lines, invisible before, seemed to grow and gather round his eyes and mouth as he sat gloating over the blaze, and the strong drink, and the comfort about him. "With his distorted shadow cast upon the panelling behind his chair, darkening all the wall with its exaggerated shape, he looked like some evil genius brooding over that solitary hearth, and plotting mischief against the roof that sheltered him. Every now and then he looked up from the blaze to the bottles upon the table, the fire-lit walls, the antique bureau, the oaken sideboard, adorned with massive tankards of tarnished silver and Indian china punch-bowls, the quaint silver candlesticks, and all other evidences of solid countrified prosperity around him, a»id rubbed his hands softly, breaking out into a low triumphant chuckle as be did so. "Better than over yonder," he said with a backward gesture of his head — " better than over yonder, anyhow. Thunder and fury ! better than that, George Duke. You've not changed your quarters for the worse, since you bade good-bye to old comrades over there." He filled his glass again, and burst into some frag- ment of a French song, with a jingling chorus of meaningless syllables. "To think," he said, "only to fancy that this Ring- wood Markham, a younger man than myself, should have died within a few months of my coming home f Egad, they've said that George Duke was one of those fellows who always fall on their feet. I've had a hard time of it for the last seven years, but I've dropped into good luck after all — dropped into my old luck — a Captain Duke at Home. 217 fortune, and a poor frightened wife that can't say bo to n, goose — a poor trembling novel-reading pale-faced baby, that '* He broke off to fill himself another glass of claret. He had nearly finished the bottle by this time, and his voice was growing thick and unsteady. Presently he fell into a half-doze, with his elbows oo his knees, and his head bent over the fire. Sitting thus, nodding forward every now and then, as if he would have fallen upon the burning coals, he woke presently with a sudden jerk. " The chain," he cried, " the chain ! D you, you French thief! bear your own share of the weight." He looked down at his feet. One of the heavy fire- irons had fallen across his ankles. Captain Duke laughed aloud, and looked round th.« »oom, this time with a drunken half-bewildered stare. " A change,", he said, " a change for the better." The bottles were both nearly empty, and the fire had burned low. Midnight had sounded some time before from the distant church-clock — the strokes dull and muffled in a snowy weather. The Captain of the Vulture rubbed his eyes drowsily. "My head is as light as a feather," he muttered indistinctly ; " I've not been over-used to a bottle of good wine lately. I'm tired and worn out, too, with three days' coach-travelling and a week's tossing about in stormy weather. So now for the garden room ; and to-morrow, Mrs. George Duke and Mr. Darrell Mark- ham, for you." He shook his fist at the low fire as if ke had seen the images of his wife and her kinsman looking at him oui 218 The Captaui of the Vulture. of the hollow coals ; then rising with an effort, he took one candle from the table, blew out the other, and staggered off to find his way to the room in -which he was to sleep. The house had been so familiar to him in the old squire's lifetime, that, drunk as he was, he had no fear of losing himself in the gloomy corridors on the upper floor. The garden room was a large chamber, which had been added to the house about a hundred years before, for the accommodation of a certain whimsical lady of fortune, who had married old Squire Markham's grand- father. It was a large apartment, with small diamond- paned windows overlooking a flower-garden, which had been laid out immediately after the accession of William the Third, and was called the Dutch garden — a stifl" un- picturesque parterre with flower-beds cut in geometrical forms, trimly cut box borders, quaintly-shaped shrubs, and a fountain that had long been dry. A half-glass door opened on to a flight of stone steps, leading down into this garden; which advantage, in conjunction with the superior size and furniture of the apartment, had loner made the o^arden room the state chamber at Compton Hall. A great square bed, with gilded framework, mouldering tapestry curtains, faced the casement windows and the half-glass door, which Avas shrouded in winter by a curtain of tapestry like the hangings of the bed. George Duke set his candle on a table near the fire and looked about him. Millicent had spoken the truth when she said that Mrs. Meggis had made a good fire, for long as it was eince the chamber had been prepared for its inhabitant, Captain Duke at Home. 219 the wood and coal burned briglitly behind the bars of the wide grate. The Captain replenished the fire, flung himself into a comfortable tapestried arm-chair near the hearth, and kicked off his damp worn boots. " There isn't a shred about me that would have held out a week longer," he said, as he looked at his patched and threadbare blue coat, the tarnished lace on which hung in frayed fragments here and there. " So it's no bad fortune that brought me back to look for Mistress Millicent." There are some men upon whose nature good wine has a softening and even elevating influence. There are Bome topers so generous in their drunkenness that they would give away kingdoms if they had them to bestow ; some so tender that they weep maudlin tears OA^er the friend of the houi", and would fain clasp all creation in one tipsy embrace ; some so exalted and inspired by rich wines that gi'and and noble sentiments and bright poetic fancies will flow like water from their feverish hps, until those who listen must needs believe that the gods have returned to earth, and that Bacchus himself discourses from the mouth of his votaries. But the finest vintages of sunny Burgundy were wasted on George Duke. For any genial influence which the wino exercised upon him, the Captain might as well have been drinking vinegar. Even in his drunkenness he took a malicious delight in the idea that he had re- turned to cheat and outwit his wife. He laughed aloud — a tipsy brutal laugh ; and the eyes that had grown dull under the influence of strong drink lighted up once more with that red glimmer which the Captain's enemies declared was like the diabolical brightness in the eyes of a fiend. 220 The Captain of the Vulture. He took off his coat and waistcoat, put a pair of pistols under tlie pillow, and threw back the counter- pane of the bed. Then, without further preparation, he flung himself down, half burying himself in the luxu- rious bed which the chatelaines of Compton had counted amongst their treasures for upwards of a century. " I wonder whether yonder glass door is bolted," he muttered, as he dropped off to sleep ; " of course it is, though — and little matter if it wasn't : I'm not much afraid of th# honest villagei's of Compton-on-the-Moor. Folks who come from the place I have just left don't often carry much to be robbed of." Mechanically his wandering right hand sought the butt-end of the pistol beneath the pillow, and so with his fingers resting on the familiar weapon, George Duke dropped off to sleep. It is doubtful if he had ever said a prayer in his life. He said none that night. CHAPTER XYin. WHAT WAS DONE IN THE GARDEN ROOM. For Millicent Duke there was no sleep that wretched hopeless night. She did not undress, but sat still and rigid, with her hands locked together, and her eyes staring straight before her, thinking. Thinking of what ? What was she ? It was that question which some weary monotonous piece of mechanism vol her brain was for ever asking, and never answering. What was she, What was done in the Garden Boom. 221 and what had she done ? What was the degree of guilt involved in this fatal marriage, and for how much of that guilt was she responsible ? She had opposed the marriage, it is true. She had striven hard against the tender pleadings of every memory of her youth and its one undying affection ; but she had yielded. She had yielded, as Darrell had but truly said, against her better judgment ; or rather against some instinctive dread, some shapeless terror, in defiance of the warning accents of a mystic voice, which had whispered to her that she was not free to wed. What was the extent of her guilt ? She had been simply and piously educated. She had been educated by people whose honest minds knew no degrees of right or wrong ; whose creed was made up of hard unassailable doctrines ; and who set up the Ten Commandments as so many stone boundaries about the Christian's feet, and left him without one gap or loop- hole by which he might escape their full significance. What would the curate of Compton say to her the next day when she went to him to fall at his feet and tell her miserable story? Strange weakness of poor human nature ! It was of the Compton cnrate she thought rather than of his Divine Master. She dreaded that the priest would be pitiless, and forgot the illimit- able tenderness, the inexhaustible compassion of Him whose example the priest was bound to follow. Her intellect was not strong enough to support her in this terrible crisis of her life. She exaggerated the enor- mity of her sin. She fancied herself the victim of some hideous fatality. Not Qildipus, in the hour when the revelation of his unconscious guilt burst fully on hia 222 The Cajjtain of the Vulture. tortured spii-it, could liave felt a deeper horror of his crime, than this poor frail fair-haired woman, who cast herself upon the ground, and lay grovelling there and tearing her pale golden hair, crying out again and again that she was a guilty and a miserable creatui'e. Then, above even the thought of her sin, more horrible even than this consciousness of guilt, arose the black shadow of ber futm-e life — her future life, which was to be spent witli him — with this hated and dreaded being, who now had a good excuse for the fall exercise of his jealous spite against her, suppressed before, but never hidden. She tried to think of what her life would be — the light of Heaven blotted out, the angry hand of offended Providence stretched forth against her, and the cruel eyes of George Duke watching and gloating upon her anguish, till her miseries wore her life away, and she dropped into her grave and went to meet the eternal punishment of her sins. The thought of these thine-s maddened her. She went to a bureau opposite the empty fireplace and opened a drawer. She was in the room which had once been occupied by her dead father and mother, and she remembered that in this drawer there were some razors that had belonged to the old squire. She found the case containing them, and taking one of them in her hand looked at the shining blade. For one desperate moment she had thought that she would put an end to her wretched life, and thus cheat George Duke of his victim ; but this gentle pious patient creature was not of the stuff' out of which suicides ai'e made. " 0, no," she cried piteously ; '* no, no, no, I cannot die with my sins unrepented of." What was done in the Garden Room. 223 In her terror of herself and eagerness to escape lemptation, she was awkward in shutting the razor ; «o awkward, that before she couki succeed in doing it, the Wade slipped between the old-foshioned handle and cut her across the inside of her hand. It was not a dangerous cut, nor yet a very deep one, but deep enough to send the blood spattering over the razor- blade and liandle, the oak flooring, the open drawer of the bureau, and the sliirt of Millicent's mourning dress. She thrust the razor back into the case, and the case into the drawer", bound up her hand with a cambric handkerchief, and sat down again by the empty hearth, "0, if Sally were hei-e — my good faithful Sally — what a comfort she would be to me ! " said Mrs. Duke. The stillness and loneliness of the house oppressed her. She opened the window and looked out at the snow-covered garden below. The feathery flakes still falling, always falling, thick and silently from the starless sky, shut out the world and closed about the old house like a vast white winding-sheet. The case- ment whence Millicent looked was at that angle of the house which was most remote from the garden room; but she could see at the further end of the terrace the reflection of the fire-ligfht shinina* throusrh one uncurtained window red upon the snow. The red reflection made a luminous patch upon the gi'ound, peculiarly blight when contrasted with the Burroundiug darkness. As Millicent looked at this illuminated spot, some dai"k object crossed it rapidly, blotting out the light tor a moment. 224 Tiie Captain of the Vulture. It was such a night of wretchedness and misery, that this circumstance, which at another time might have alarmed her, made no impression upon Mrs. Duke's bewildered mind. She closed the casement, and returned to the fireplace, where she sat down again, in the same listless attitude, and with the same sad despairing face staring blankly at the cheer- less hearth. But the silence and solitude became utterly in- tolerable to her : she took the candle in her hand, opened her chamber door, went out upon the landing- place, and listened. Listened, she knew not for what — listened, perhaps hoping for some sound to break that intolerable stillness. She could hear the ticking of the clock in the liall below. Beyond that, nothing. Not a sound, not a breath, not a murmur, not a whisper throughout the house. Suddenly — to her dying day she never knew how the idea took possession of her — she thought that she would go straight to the garden room, awake George Duke, make him an offer of every guinea she had or was likely to have in the world, and entreat him to leave her and Compton for over. She would appeal to his mercy — no, rather to his avarice and self-interest ; she knew of old how little mercy she need expect from bim. She turned into the long corridor leading to the other end of the house, and walked rapadly towards her husband's chamber. The door of the garden i^oom was shut, and Mrs. Duke's right hand being wounded, and riauffled in a handkerchief, she was some time trying to turn the handle of the luck. The blood from the cut across What was done in Oarden Room. 225 her hand had oozed through the bandage, and left red feiTiears upon the old-fashioned brass knob. Millicent Avas perhaps rather more than two minutes trying to open the door. All was still within the garden chamber. The fire- light shone in fitful flashes upon the faded tapestry and the dim pictures on the walls. Millicent crept softly round to the side of the bed upon which. Captain Duke had thrown himself. The sleeper lay with his face turned towards the fire, and his hand etill resting on the butt-end of his pistol — exactly as he had lain an hour before, when he fell asleep, Millicent remembered how her brother Ringwood had lain in this very room, dead and tranquil, but three months before. Awe-stricken by the stillness, terrified by the thought of the desperate proposition she was about to make, ^lillicent paused between the foot of the bed and the fireplace, wondering how she should awake her husband. The firelight, changeful and capricious, now played upon the sleeper's ringlets, lying in golden-brown tangles upon the pillow, now glanced upon the white fingers resting on the pistol, now flashed upon the tarnished gilding of the bed-posts, now glimmered on the ceiling, now lit op the wall; while Millicent's weary eyes, followed the light, as a traveller, astray on a dark night, follows a will-o'-the-wisp. She followed the light wherever it pleased to lead her. From the golden ringlets on the pillow to the hand upon the pistol, from the gilded bed-posts to the ceiling and the wall, lower and lower down the wall, creeping stealthily downwards, to the oaken floor beside the bed, and to a black pool p 226 The Captain of the Vulture. which lay there, slowly saturating the time-blackeued wood. The black pool was blood — a pool that grew wider every second, fed by a stream which was silently pour- ing from a hideous gash across the throat of Captain George Duke, of the good ship Vulture. With one long cry of horror, Millicent Duke turned and fled. Even in her blind ixnreasoning terror she remem- bered that it was easier to escape from that horrible house by the glass door leading to the garden than by the staircase and the hall. This half-glass door was in a recess, before which hung the tapestry curtains. Mil- licent dashed aside the drapery, opened the door, which was only fastened by one bolt, and rushed down the stone steps, across the garden, along the neglected pathways, and out on to the high road. The snow w^as knee-deep as she tottered through it onward towards the village street. She never knew how she dragged her weary limbs over the painful distance ; but she knew that the clocks w^ere strlk- inp- three when she knocked at the door of the Black Bear. The door was opened by Samuel Pecker, whose limited intellect had sustained a severe shock from the events of the day, and who was yet more terrified by this unwonted knocking, which had aroused him from a muddled dream in which innumerable Captain Dukes and roast tui-keys had gibbered at and mocked him in bewildering confusion. Pale as ashes, and with his garments flung upon him in pictiu'csque disorder, Mr. Pecker came to attend this mysterious summons. MQ- liccnt had been knocking some time when Le opened What ivas done in the Garden Room. 227 the door a few inches wide, and, candle in hand, looked out of the aperture. So had ho opened that A^ery door for the same visitor more than seven years ago, upon a certain autumn night, when Darrell ]\Iarkham lay above stairs in the blue room, prostrate and delirious. " Who is it ? " he asked, shivering in every limb. " It is I — Millicent. Let me in, let me in ; for the love of God, let me in ! " There was such terror in her voice as made the inn- keeper forgetful of any alarm of his own. He gave way before this terrified woman as all men mu? b yield to the might of such intense emotion, and opentig- the door wide, let her pass by him unquestioned. The hall was all ablaze with light. Darrell Mark- ham, Mrs. Pecker, and the servants had come down half dressed, each carrying a lighted candle. The night had been one of agitation and excitement; none had slept well, and all had been aroused by the knocking. N"o unearthly shadow of the dead, or unholy double of the living, no ghost newly arisen in the grave-clothes of the long-buried, could have struck more horror to these people's minds than did the figure of Millicent Duke, standing amidst them, her pale dishevelled hair damp with the melted snow, her disordered garments trailing about her, wet and blood-stained, her eyes di- lated in the same fixed gaze of horrified astonishment with which she had looked upon the murdered man, and her wounded hand, from which the handkerchief had dropped, dyed red with hideous smears. She stood amongst them for some moments, neither speaking to them nor looking at them, but with her . 228 The Captain of the Vulture. eyes still fixed in that horror-stricken stare, and her wounded hand wandering about her forehead till her brow and hair were disfigured with the same red smears. His own face blanched to the ghastly hue of hers, as Darrell Markham looked at his cousin. Some hor- rible dread — shapeless but unspeakably terrible — took possession of him, and for the moment he was power- less to question her. Sarah Pecker was the first to recover her presence of mind. "MissMilly," she said, trying to take the distracted girl in her arms ; '* what is it ? What has happened ? Tell me, dear." At the sound of this familiar voice the fixed eyes turned towards the speaker, and Millicent Duke burst into a long hysterical laugh. "My God," cried Darrell, " that man has driven her mad ! " *' Yes, mad ! " answered Millicent, " mad ! Who can wonder ? He is murdered. I saw it with my own eyes. His throat cut from ear to ear, and the red blood bubbling slowly from the wound to join that black pool upon the floor. 0, Darrell ! Sarah ! have pity upon me, have pity upon me, and never let me enter that dreadful house again ! " She fell on her knees at their feet and held up her clasped hands. " Be calm, dear, be calm," said Mrs. Pecker, trying to lift her from the ground. " See. darling, you are with those who love you — with Master Darrell, and vvith your faithful old Sally, and with all friends about you. Wliat is it, dear ? who is murdered ? ** George Duke." >• What was done in the Garden Boom. 229 "The Captain murdered! But wlio could Lave done it, Miss Milly ? Wlio could Lave done sucL a dreadful deed?" SLe sLook her Lead piteously, but made no reply. It was now for tLe first time tLat Darrell interfered. "Take her upstairs," Le said to Mrs. Pecker, in an undertone. " For God's sake, take her away ! Ask her no questions, but get her away from all these people, if you love her." Sarah obeyed ; and between them they carried Mil- licent to the room in which Darrell had been sleeping. A few embers still burned in the grate, and the bed was scarcely disturbed, for the young man had thrown himself dressed upon the outside of the counterpane. On this bed Sarah Pecker laid Millicent, while Darrell with his own hands relighted the fire. On entering the room Le Lad taken tLe precaution of locking tLe door, so tLat tLey were sure of being undisturbed; but tliey could Lear the voices of the agitated servants and the innkeeper loud and confused below. Mrs. Pecker occupied herself in taking off Millicent's wet shoes, and bailiiug Ler foreLead with water and some reviving essence. " Blood on her forehead !" she said, " blood on her hand, blood on her clotLes ! Poor dear, poor dear ! wLat can tLey Lave been doing to her?" Darrell Markham laid his hand upon her shoulder ftnd the innkeeper's wife could feel that the strong man trembled violently. " Listen to me, Sarah," he said ; " something hor- rible has happened at the Hall. Heaven only knows what ; for this poor distracted girl can tell but little. 230 The Captain of tlie Vulture. I must go down witli Samuel to see wliat is wroug. Rcmembei- this, that not a creature but youi^self must come into this room, while I am gone. Not a creaturo but yourself must come near Millicent Duke. You understand ? " " Yes, ves ! " "You will yourself keep watch over my unhappy cousin, and not allow another mortal to see her?" " I will not, Master Darrell." '* And you yourself will refrain from questioning her ; and should she attempt to talk, you will check her as much as possible ? " " I will — I will, poor dear," answered Sarah, bending tenderly over the prostrate figure on the bed. Darrell Mai-kham lingered for a moment to look at his cousin. It was difiicult to say whether she was conscious or not ; her eyes were half open, but they had a lustreless unseeing look which bespoke no sense of that which passed before them. Her head lay back upon the pillow, her arms had fallen powerless at her sides, and she made no attempt to stir when Darrell turned away from the bed to leave the room. " You will come back when you have found out " " What has happened yonder ? Yes, Sarah, I mil." He went downstairs, and in the hall found one of the village constables, who lived near at hand, and who had been aroused by an officious ostler, anxious to dis- tinguish himself in the emergency. " Do you know anything of this business. Master Darrell ?" asked this man. " Nothing more than what these people about here can tell you," answered Darrell. " I was just going down to the Hall to see what had happened." Wliat ivas clone in Hie Garden lioom. 231 "Then I'll go witli your honour, if it's agreeable. Fetch a lantern, somebody." The appeal to " somebody " being rather vague, everybody responded to it ; and all the lanterns to be found in the establisliment were speedily placed at the disposal of the constable. That functionary selected one for himself, and handed another to Darrell. " Now then, Master Markham," he said, " the sooner we start the better." But the officious ostler who had fetched the con- stable, and the other servants of the Black Bear, had no idea of being deprived of any further share in the business. They were forming themselves into a species of impromptu procession, armed with a couple of rusty blunderbusses and a kitchen poker, with a view to accompanying Darrell and the constable, when the latter personage turned sharply round upon them, and addressed them thus : "Now you look here," he said; "we don't want all of vou straggling through the village with your fire- arms and your nre-irons, a-going direct against the Riot Act. Whatever' s wrong down yonder, me and Mr. Markham is strong enough and big enough to see into it, without the help of any of you." With which unceremonious remarks the constable shut the door of the Black Bear upon its master and his servants, and strode forth into the snow, followed by Darrell Mark- ham. Neither of the two men spoke to each other on the way to the Hall, except once when the constable again asked Darrell if he knew anything of this business, whereupon Darrell aga\n answered, as he had answered 232 Tlie Captain of the Vulture. befoi'e, that he knew nothing of it whatever. The light shining- from the shutterless window of the gar- den room showed them the house far off. This lisrht came from Millicent's candle, which still burned where she had set it down before she discovered the murder. " We shall have difficulty enough to get in," said Darrell, as they groped their way towards the terrace ; " for the only servant I saw in the house was a deaf old woman, and I doubt if Mrs. Duke aroused her." " Then Mrs. Duke ran straight out of the house when the deed was done, and came to the Black Bear ? " " I believe so." " Strange that she did not run to nearer neighbours for assistance. The Bear is upwards of a mile and a half from here, and there are houses within a quarter of a mile." Darrell Markham made no reply. " See yonder," said the constable ; "we shall have no difficulty about getting in — there is a door open at the top of those steps." He pointed to the half-glass door of the garden room, which Millicent had left ajar when she fled. The light, streaming through the aperture, threw a zigzag streak upon the snow-covered steps. The snow still falling, perpetually falling, through that long night, blotted out all footprints almost as Boon as they were made, " Do you know in which room the murder was com- mitted. Master Darrell ?" asked the constable as they went up the steps. " I know nothing but what you know yourself.** tVhai was done in the Garden Boam. 233 The constable puslied open the half-glass door and the two men entered the room. The candle, burned down to the socket of the quaint old silver candlestick, stood where Milliceut had left it on a table near the window. The tapestry curtain, flung aside from the door as she had flung it in her terror, hung in a heap of heavy folds. That hideous pool between the bed and the fireplace had widened and spread itself ; but the hearth was cold and black, and the bed upon which George Duke had lain was empty. It was empty. The pillow on which his head had rested was there, stained a horrible red with his blood. The butt-end of the pistol, on which his fingers had lain when he fell asleep was still visible beneath the pillow. Red ragged stains and streaks of blood, and one long gory line which marked what way the stream had flowed towards the dark pool on the floor, dis- figured the bedclothes ; but beyond this there was nothing. " He must have got off the bed and dragged himself into another room after his wife left him for dead," said the constable, taking the candle fi-om his lantern and thrusting it into the candlestick left by Millicent ; " we must search the house, Mr. Markham." Before leaving the garden room, the rustic official bolted the half- glass door, and then, followed by Dan-ell, went out into the corridor. They searched every room in the great dreary house, but found no trace of Captain George Duke, of the good ship Vulture. The sharp ej^es of the constable took note of everything, and amongst other things of the lialf-open drawer in the bureau in the room 234 The Captain of tlic Vulture. which MilHccnt had last occupied. In this half-opoD drawer lie found nothing but the razor-case, which he put into his pocket, after having examined its contents. " What do you want with those ?" Darrell asked. *' There's bloodstains upon one of them, Mr. Mark- ham. They may be wanted when this business comes to be looked into," the man answered quietly. In one of the smaller rooms Darrell and the con- stable came upon the old woman, Mrs. Meggis, snoring peacefully, happily ignorant of all that had passed, and as there seemed little good to be obtained from awaken* ing her, they left her to her slumbers. The empty broken-necked bottles and the high silver candlestick stood on the oaken table in the parlour, as Captain Duke had left them when he went to bed. On the sideboard the tarnished silver tankards, ranged in a prim row, stood undisturbed as they had stood in the old squire's lifetime ; the hall door, fastened with heavy bolts, remained as it had been left by the deaf-house- keeper. Throughout the house there was no sign of plunder nor of violence, save the pool of blood in the garden chamber. "Whoever has done this business," said the con- stable, looking gravely about him and pointing to the plate upon the sideboard, " is no common burglar," " Tou mean " " I mean that it hasn't been done for gain. There's something more than plunder at the bottom of this." They went once more to the garden room, and the constable walked slowly round the chamber, looking at everything in his way. "What 's come of the Captain's clothes, I wonder ? " After the Murder. 235 ho said, nibbing bis cbin, and staring tbonglitfully at the bed. It was noticeable that no vestige of clotbing be- longing to Captain George Duke was left in the apartment. CHAPTER XIX. AFTER THE MURDER. The grey January morning dawned late and cold upon Compton-on-the-Moor. The snow still falling, for ever falling through the night, had done strange work in the darkness. It had buried the old village, and left a new one in its stead. An indistinct heap of buildings, with roof-tops and gable-ends so laden with snow, that the inhabitants of Compton scarcely knew the altered outlines of their own houses. The coach that passed through Compton, on its way northward to Marley Water, had been stopped miles away by the snow. Waggons and carriers' carts, that had been used to come blundering through the village, were weatherbound in distant market towns. Horse- men were few and far between upon the dangerous roads ; and those who were hardy enough to brave the perils of the way paid dearly for their temerity. Comp- ton was cut ofi" from the outer world, and cast upon its own resources, on the clear cold morning which suc- ceeded that night of ceaseless snow ; but Comptom had enough to talk about, and enough to think about, within its own narrow limits — so much, indeed, that 236 The Captain of the Vulture. the coach itself was hardly missed, save inasmuch as it would have afforded the inhabitants a kind of solemn and ghastly pleasure to tell the passengers of the dire event, and to watch their scared faces as they received the intelligence. A murder had been done at Compton-on-the-Moor. At that simple Cumbrian village, whose annals until now had been unstained with this the foulest of crimes, a murder had been done in the silence of the long wi^nter's night, beneath that white and shroud-like curtain of thick-falling snow — a murder so wrapped in mystery, that the wisest in Compton were baffled in their attempts to understand its meaning. With the winter dawn every creature in Compton knew of the deed that had been done. People scarcely knew how they heard of it, or who told them ; but every lip was busy with conjecture, and every face was charged with solemn import, as who should say, " I am the sole individual in the place who knows the real story, but I have my instructions from higher autho- rities, and I am dumb." Every creature in Compton, with the exception of an old woman who had been bedridden since Millicent Duke's babyhood, and the curate's wife, who couldn't leave her seven children, went to look at the Hall in the course of the morning. It seemed the prevailing impression that some great change would have taken place in the building itself, and there was considerable disappointment felt by the young and sanguine on finding the brick and mortar in its normal condition. A"-ain, everybody went with a view of exploring the interior of the house and looking for the body of Captain Duke, which they all individually conceired After the Murder. 237 themselvea destined to find. It was no small nioriiti- cation, therefore, to discover that the house, and even the gates leading to the grounds, were strongly barri- caded, and that no creature, save a few happy semi- officials, in the employ of that mighty being, the con- stable, were to be admitted on any pretence whatever. The constable had taken up his abode at the Hall for the time being, and sat in the little oaken parlour in solemn state, holding conference now and again with the semi-officials in his employ, who were busy, according to the current belief of Compton, looking for the body. Under this prevailing impression, the semi-officials had rather a hard time of it, as whenever they emerged from the Hall gates they were waylaid and seized upon by some anxious Comptonian, eager to know "if they had found it." The one all-absorbing idea in the mind of every Comptonian was the idea of the missing body of Cap- tain George Duke. Busy volunteers made unauthorized search for it in every unRkely direction. In chimnej-- corners and cupboards of unoccupied houses, in out- buildings, pigsties, and stables ; in far-away fields, where they went waist-deep in snow, and were in im- minent peril of altogether disappearing in unlooked-for pitfalls ; in the churchyard ; nay, some of the most sanguine spirits went so far as to request being favoured with the keys of the church itself, in order that they might look for Captain Duke in the vestry cupboard, where a skilful assassin might have hidden him behind the curate's surplice. The all- pervading idea of the body, which was only a pleasant excitement by daylight, and in mixed com- 238 . The Captain of the Vulture. pany, grew very awful as dusky evening darkened into moonless night, and the Comptonians sat in little groups of two or three before their cottage fires. There were shadowy corners in the dimly lighted chambers, comers in which it would have seemed only a natural thing to find some special image of the murdered man lurking, blood-stained and ghastly. There were cork- screw staii'cases provided Avith niches that seemed spe- cially intended for the reception of that horrible thing which onust be hidden somewhere in the village. Perhaps the only person in Compton who was quite indifferent to the terrible event which had occurred was the deaf old housekeeper, Mrs. Meggis. The constable miade some feeble attempt to acquaint her with the catastrophe which had happened, when he awoke her at daybreak, with a view to cross-questioning her as to the events of the previous night ; hvA it was evident that the tiding-s never reached the dim obscurities of her inner consciousness, for she only replied, " That it wasn't to be wondered at at this time of the year, and that it was seasonable, sir, verj seasonable, though un- common bad for old folks as was a'most crippled by chilblains, and was subject to the rheumatics," by which the constable inferred that she had imagined him to be talking all the time of the snowy weather. "Whatever hope he might have had of obtaining information from this quarter was therefore very quickly dispelled ; so, having locked the door of that garden chamber, where the gory pool was scarcely dry, he bade Mrs. Meggis go about her daily business, and light a fire for him in the oak parlour. He had been at the Black Bear early that morning to ask for an interview with Mrs. George Duke, in order After the Murder. 238 to hear her statement about the miTrder; but Sarah kept watch and ward over Millicent, and she and Dar- rell and the village surgeon all protested against the unhappy girl being questioned until she had somewhat recovered from the mental shock which had prostrated her. So the constable was fain to withdraw, after whispering some directions to one of the semi-officials, who, red-nosed, blue-lipped, and shivering, hung about the Black Bear all that day, consuming numerous mugs of ale, and regarded with reverential cariosity by all the servants of the establishment. Millicent was indeed in no state to be questioned. She lay in the same dull stupor into which she had fallen between three and four o'clock that morniuu'. Sarah Pecker and Darrell Markham, watching her ten- derly through the day, could not tell whether she was conscious of their presence. She never spoke, but some- times tossed her head from side to side upon the pillow, moaning wearily. It was a cruel and a bitter day of trial for DaiTcll Maikham. He never stirred from his place by the bedside, only looking up eveiy now and then — when Sarah returned after having left the room to ascertain what was going on downstairs — to ask anxiously if anything had been discovered about the murder — if they had found the assassin or the body. Whatever gloomy thought was in his mind, as he sat pale and watchful by the bedside, from the first grey glimmer of dawn till the sombre shadows, gathering on the white expanse of moorland, shut out the open country before the -svindows and crept into the corners of the room — whatever thought was in his mind throughout that patient watch, he kept it to himself* and made no confidant even o( the faithful mistress of 240 The Captain of the Vulture. the Black Bear. Watcli him closely as she might, tor- mented by her own vague fears, she could not penetrate the gloom that shrouded his face, or guess the bent of his thoughts in that long revci-ie. Below stairs all was confusion and bewilderment ; for only the presence of strong-minded Sarah could have preserved order and tranquillity during a period of such excitement. But business was very brisk, and Samuel and his retainers had as much as they could do in supplying the wants of thirsty Comptonians, who were eager to discuss the event of the previous night, and greedy of information as to the mental and physical state of Mrs. Duke, whose strange conduct on the pre- vious night was by this time known to all Compton. Samuel Pecker, always of a morbid turn of mind, was in his element during this crisis. The absence of the body of the supposed murdered man was a source of never-ending wonder and bewilderment to his simple mind. He demanded over and over again how thei'e could possibly be a murder without a body, when the leading feature of a murder always was the body ? This led to much discussion of a belief very prevalent in Compton, namely, that the Captain of the Vulture had cut his own throat, and quietly walked away to a certain cross-road where the Carlisle mail was to bo met at about half-past three o'clock every morning, and had laid himself down there in the snow, ready for the unholy stake of the felo-de-se. Others contended that it was but likely that the unknown assassin had only half done his work, and that the Captain, with a great gash in his throat, and speechless from loss of blood, was hiding somewliere within call of all Compton ; and nervous people were afraid to go into solitary chambers After the Murder. 241 lest they should come suddenly upon the ghastly figuro of George Dake crouching in some dark corner. The shadows gathered black and dense upon the moorland, and Compton Hall, wrapt in snow from the basement to the gabled roof, looked like some phantom habitation glimmering dimly through the dusk. The semi-officials made their report in the oaken parlour, where the constable sat over a blazing sea-coal fire, taking pencil notes in a plethoric and greasy leathern pocket-book ; but they could bring no report which in any way tended to throw light upon the whereabouts of the Captain of the Vulture, alive or dead. It was quite dark when the constable, after locking the doors of the principal rooms in the old house, and putting the keys in his pockets, gave strict directions to Mrs. Meggis to admit no one, and to keep the place securely barricaded. By dint of considerable perseverance he contrived to make the old woman understand him to this extent, and then nodding good- naturedly to her, left her for the night, happily ignorant of what had been so lately done beneath the roof that sheltered her. From the Hall Hugh Martin, the constable, walked straight to a mansion about half-a-mile distant, which was inhabited by a certain worthy gentleman and county magistrate, called Montague Bowers. A very different man from that magistrate before whom Darrell Markham had charged Captain Duke with highway robbery seven years before. In the private sitting-room, study, or satictum sanc- torum of this Mr. Bowers, Hugh Martin, the constable, made his report, detailing every particular of his day's work. " I've done according as was agreed upou Q 242 The Captain of the Vulture. bet\\een you and me this morniDg, sir," he said. " I've waited out the day, and kept all dark, taking care to keep my eye upon 'em up yonder ; but I can't see any way out of it but one, and I don't think we've any course but to do as we said then." Hugh Martin was closeted with the justice for a con- eideiable time after this; and when he left the residence of Mr. Bowers, he hurried off at a brisk pace in the direction of the village and through the High Street to the door of the Black Bear. In the wide open space before that hostehy he came upon a man lounging in the bitter night, as if it had been some pleasant summer's evening, whose very atmosphere was a temp- tation to idleness. This man was no other than the red-nosed and blue-lipped semi-official, who had been drinking at the bar, and loitering about the neighbour- hood of the inn all that day. He was a constable himself, but so inferior in position to the worthy Mr. Hugh Martin, that he was only looked upon as an assistant or satellite of that gentleman ; useful in a fray with poachers, to be knocked down with the butt-end of a gun before the real business of the encounter began ; good enough to chase a refractory youngster who had thrown pebbles at the geese in the village pond ; to convey an erratic donkey to safe keeping in the pound ; or to induct a drunken brawler in the stocks ; but fit for nothing of a higher character. "All right, Bob? "asked Mr. Hugh Martin of this gentleman. " Quite right." "Anybody left the inn ?" *' Why Pecker himself has been in and out, up and down, and here and there, gabbling and chattering like After the Murder. 2i3 ail old magpie ; but that's all, and Le's safe enough in the bar now." " Nobody else lias left the place ? " " Nobody." " That's all right. Keep on the look-out down here and if I open one of those windows overhead and whistle, you'll know you are wanted." The appearance of the constable created intense ex- citement amongst the loungers at the bar of the Black Bear. They gathered round him, so eager for informa- tion, that amongst them they very nearly knocked him down. What had he discovered? Who had done it? What had been the motive? Had he found the weapon? Had he foLind the body? Had he found the mui-derer ? Mr. Hugh Martin pushed all these eager questioners aside without any wonderful ceremony, and Avalkcd straight to the bar, where he addressed himself to the worthy Samuel Pecker. " Mr. Markham is upstairs, is he not ? " he asked. " He is in the blue room, poor dear gentleman." " With the lady — his cousin ? " "Yes." " Then I'll just step upstairs, Pecker, for I've a few words to say to him about this business." The bystande]-s had gathered about l\Ir. i\Iartin, and had contrived to hear every sj'llable of this brief dialogue. " He has found out all about it," they said, when the constable went upstairs, " and he's gone to tell Mr. Markham — very proper, veiy right, of course." Feeling that it was not unlikely they would have a reversionary interest in the information that the con- stable had just taken up to the blue room, the excited 244 The Captain of the Vulture. Comptonians lingered patiently about the foot of tlie stairs, waiting for Hugh Marim's return. In the blue room Millicent Duke sat with her fair head resting on Sarah Pecker's ample shoulder, her frail form supported by the strong arm of that faithful friend. The two women were seated on a great roomy sofa drawn close up to the fire, against which stood a table, with a tea-tray on which Mrs. Pecker's choicest old dragon china cups and saucers were set forth. On the opposite side of the fireplace sat Darrell Markham, his eyes still fixed upon his cousin, with the same look of anxious watchfulness which had marked his face all that day. Millicent had recovered from that terrible stupor. She had recognized Darrell and Mrs. Pecker, and bad been soothed and tranquillized by their pre- sence. She had told them the brief story of the night before. How she had gone to George Duke's chamber, with the intention of makin-g an appeal to his mercy, and how she had found him with his throat cut from ea to eai- — dead ! Sarah had taken off" Mrs. Duke's blood-stained dress, and wrapped her in some garments of her own, which hung about her slender figure in thick clumsy folds. The hideous stains had been removed from her hands and forehead, and there was nothing now about her to tell of the horrors through which she had passed. Mrs. Pecker was holding a tea-cup to Millicent's lips, imploring her to drink, when Darrell Markham started from, his chair, and went to the door, where he stood with his head bent, listening to some sound without. " What's that ? " he exclaimed. It was the tramp of a man's footstep upon the stair, the footstep of Mr. Hugh Martin, the constable. Commit fed for Trial. 2VS Darrell's face grew even paler than it had been aJ.; that day ; lie drew back, holding his breath, terribly cahn and white to ;ook upon. The constable tapped at the door, and without waiting for an answer, walked in. Hugh Martin carried a certain ofRcial-looking docu- ment in his hand. Armed with this, h'^ walked straight across the room to the sofa upon which lUillicent sat. " Mrs. Millicent Duke," he said, " in the King's name I arrest you for the wilfal murder of your husband, George Duke." Darrell Markham flung himself between his cousin and the constable. " Arrest her !" he cried ; " arrest this weak girl, who was the first to bring the tidings of the murder! " " Softly, Mr. Markham, softly, sir," answered the constable, opening the nearest window, and whistling to the watcher beneath. "I am sorry this business ever fell to my lot ; but I must do my duty. My warrant obliges me to arrest you as well as Mrs. Duke." CHAPTER XX. COMMITTED FOR TRIAL. Millicent and Darrell were taken to a dreary dilapi- dated building called the lock-up, very rarely tenanted, save by some wandering vagrant, who had been found guilty of the offence of having nothing to eat and no place of shelter ; or some more troublesome delinquent, in the shape of a poacher, who had been taken in the act of appropriating the hares and pheasants on a neighbour- ing preserve. 246 The Captain of tie Vulture To tliis place Hugh Mariin the constable, and hia assistant, Bob, conducted gentle and delicately nur- tiired IVIrs. George Duke ; and the only one privilege which the entreaties of Darrell Markham and Sarah Pecker could obtain for her was the constable's permis- sion to Sally to stop all night in the cell with the female prisoner. Darrell prayed Hugh Martin to take them straight to the house of Mr. Montague Bowers, in order that any examination which had to be made might take place that very night; but the constable shook his head gravely, and said that Mr. Bowers had made up his mind to wait till morning. So, in a dilapidated cham- ber, which had been divided across the centre by a thin wooden partition, for the accommodation of an occa- sional press of prisoners, Millicent and Sarah spent that long and dismal night. A dirty casement window, secured by bars of rusty iron, was their only separation from the village street. They could see the feeble lights in cottage windows, blurred and dim through the discoloured glass ; and could hear every now and then the footsteps of a passer-by, crunching the crisp snow beneath his tread. Milhcent, lying on a truckle-bed close to this window and listening to those passing footsteps, remembered how often she had gone by that dismal building, and how utterly unmindful she had been of those v/ithin. She shuddered as she looked at the rngged stains of damp and mildew on the plaster Avails — which transformed themselves into grotesque and goblin faces in the uncer- tain flicker of a rushlight — remembering hoAV many help- less creatures must have lain there through long winter nights like this, conjuring hideous faces from the same Cuinmillcd fur Trial. 2i7 crooked lines and blotclies, and counting- tlie cobwebs hano'inii' from the roof. It was stranQ:e tliat since her arrest and removal to this dreary lock-np Millicent Duke had seemed to re- cover the quiet gentleness which was so much a part of her nature. She had been incoherent before, but she was now perfectly calm and collected. Hers was one of those natures which rise with the occasion ; and though a sin-inking timid soul at ordinary times, she might on emergency have become a heroine. Not a Joan of Arc nor a Charlotte Corday, nor any such energetic creature ; but a gentle saintly martyr of the old Roman Catholic days, quietly going forth to meet her death without a murmur. She put her arms about Mrs. Pecker's neck, and tenderly embraced the outraged matron. "All will be right in the end, dear," she said ; " they never, never, never can think me guilty of this dreadful deed. They are searching for the real murderer, perhaps this very night, while I lie here. God, who knows that I am innocent, will never permit me to suffer." " Permit you to suffer ! No, no, no, darling, no," cried Sarah, clinging about Millicent, and bursting into a passion of tears. She remembered, with a shudder, how many hapless wretches suffered in those days, and how scarcely a week went by unmarked by an execution at Carlisle ; for every Monday was black Monday a hundred years ago, and Mr. Ketch had his hands full in every part of the country. To-night Mrs. Pecker thought of these things with un- utterable horror. How did she know that all who died that ignominious death were guilty of the crimes whose penalty they paid ? She had never thought of it till nowj 248 The Captain of the Vulture. taking it always for granted that judges and juries knew best ; and that these cold-blooded judicial murders were done in the cause of morality, and for the protection of honest people. " 0, Miss Milly, Miss Milly, if I had only been with you last night ! " she said : " I had half a mind to have come down to the Hall after Mr. Darrell left you ; but I knew I was no favourite with Captain Duke, and 1 thought my coming might only make him angry against you." The last footfall died away upon the snow, the last dim light faded out in the village street ; and the two women kept silence, waiting patiently for the dawn. To those weary watchers the lon^- winter night seemed almost etei'nal : but it wore itself out at last, and the cheerless daybreak showed a wan and ghastly face at the barred casements of Coinpton gaol. A coach, hired from the lilack Bear, carried the two prisoners to the magistrate'^ house. The family was at breakfast when the little par(y arrived, and the prisoners heard the prattle of children's voices as they were ushered through the hall into the magistrate's study. A grim chamber, this hall o1 audience, lighted by two narrow windows, and furnished with stiff high-backed oaken chairs, ponderous tables, and a solemn-faced eight-day clock, which was subject to those internal snortings and groanings comnion to eight- day clocks, and altoofether calculated to strike terror to the heart of a criminal. Here Millicent and Darrell, with Hugh Martin the constable, and Sarati Pecker, wuited for Mr. Montague Bowers, justice of Uie peace, to make his appearance. Hanging about the hall and gathered roimd the door Committed for Trial. 249 of this chamber were several people who had persuaded themselves into the idea that they knew something of the disappearance of Captain Duke, and were eager to serve the State by giving evidence to that effect. The ostler who had aroused the constable ; half-a-dozen men who had helped in ihe ineffectual search for the body ; a woman who had assisted in conveying Mrs. Meggis, tlie deaf housekeeper, to the spot that morning, and many others equally unconnected with the case, were amongst these. There was therefore a general sensation of disappointment and injury when Mr. Mon- tague Bowers, coming away from his breakfast, selected Samuel Pecker from amongst this group of outsiders, and bidding the innkeeper follow him, walked into the chamber of justice, and closed the door upon the rest. " l^ow, Mr. Pecker," said the justice, seating himself at the oaken table, and dipping a pen into the ink, after having duly sworn the timid Samuel, " what have you to say about this business?" Taken at a disadvantage thus, Samuel Pecker had very little indeed to say about it. He could only breathe hard, fidget nervously -svith his plaited ruffles (he had put on his Sunday clothes in honour of the occasion), and stare at the justice's clerk, who sat, pen in hand, waiting to take down the innkeeper's deposi- tion. " Come, Mr. Pecker," said the justice, " what have you to state resjiecting the missing man ? " Samuel seratohud his head vaguely, and looked ap- pealingly at his wife Sarah, who sat by the side of Mrs. Duke, weeping audibly. "Meaning him as was murdered?" suggested Mr. Pecker 250 The Captain of tJie Vulture. "Meaning Captain George Duke," replied tlie justice. " All, but there it is," exclaimed the bewildere(i Samuel ; " that's just where it is. Ca,ptain Georga Duke. Very good ; but which of them ? Him as asked me the way to Marley Water seven years ago on horseback last October ? yon remember, Master Darrell, for you was by at the troie," said the innkeeper, ad- dressing himself to one of the accused. " Him as Miss Millicent saw on Mai'ley pier by moonlight, when the clocks was a-striking twelve ? Him as came to the Black Bear the day before yesterday at three o'clock in the afternoon ? or him as drank and paid for a glass of brandy between eight and nme the same night, and left a horse in our stables, which has never been fetched away ? " Mr. Montague Bowers stared hopelessly at the wit- ness. " What is this ? " he demanded, looking at Sarah and the two prisoners in his despaii' ; " what, in Heaven's name, does it all mean ? " Whereupon Mr. Samuel Pecker entered into a de- tailed account of all that had happened at Compton-on- the-Moor for the last seven years, not forgetting even the foreign-looking pedlar, who stole the spoons ; and, indeed, throwing out a feeble suggestion that the itinerant might be in some way connected with the murder of Captain George Duke. When urged to come to the point, after rambling over nearly three sides of foolscap, he became so bewildcinngly obscure that it was only by means of brief and direct questioning that the justice approached any nearer to the object of the examination. " Now, suppose you tell me, Mr. Pecker, at what Committed for Trial. 251 hour Captain Dnke left your house on the night before last." " Between eight and nine." " Good ; and you next saw hin " " Between nine and ten, when I went to the Hall with. Miss Millicent a7id Mr. Darrell." " Did Mrs. Duke and her husband appear to be on friendly terms?" To this question Samuel Pecker made a very dis- cursive answer, setting out by protesting that nothing could have been more affectionate than the conduct of Millicent and the Captain ; and then going on to de- clare that Mrs. Duke had fallen pi ostrate on the snow, bewailing her bitter fortune and her husband's return ; and further relating how she had never addressed a word to him, except once, when she suddenly cried out, and asked him why he had come back to ma'ke her the most guilty and miserable of women. Here the innkeeper came to an abrupt finish, in no- wise encouraged by the terrific appearance of his wife Sarah, who sat shaking her head at him fiercely from behind the shelter of her apron. It took a long time, therefore, altogether before the examination of Samuel Pecker was concluded, and that rather unmanageable witness pumped completely dry. Enough, however, had been elicited from the innkeeper to establish Darrell Markham's innocence of the charare brought against him, inasmuch as he had quitted Comjjton Hall in the company of Samuel, leaving Captain Duke alive and well at ten o'clock, and had gone straight to his chamber at the Black Bear. Be- tween that hour and the time of George Duke's dis- appearance, ]\Iillicent and the deaf liousekeeper had 252 The Captain of the Vulture. been alone in tlie great house with the missing niaiiv Montague Bowers congratulated the young man upon his having come so safely out of the business ; but Darrell neither heeded nor heard him. He stood close against the chair in which his cousin sat, watching that still and patient figure, that pale resigned face, and thinking with anguish and terror that every word which tended to exonerate him only threw a darker shadow of suspicion upon her. Darrell Markham, being acquitted of all participation in the crime, was competent to give evidence, and was the next witness examined. All was revealed in the course of that cruel interrogation, to which the witness was compelled to submit. He was on his oath, and must needs tell the truth, even though the truth might be damning for Millicent. Who shall say that he might not have been ready to perjure himself for her dear sake, if peijury could have saved her ? But in such a case as this it generally happens that the truth, how- ever fatal, is safer than falsehood ; for the man who swears to a lie can never tell how long and complicated may be the series of deceptions in which he involves himself, or how difficult it may be for him to sustain his false position. The magistrate asked his pitiless questions ; and all was told — the marriage at St. Mary's church, Ring- wood's letter, the return to Compton, the surprise and horror caused by Captain Duke's reappearance, the hard words that had been spoken between the two men, Mil- licent's despair and shuddering terror of her husband, and then the long blank interval of many hours, at the end of which Mrs. George Duke came to the Black Bear to tell of a raiirder that had been done. Committed for Tried 253 " And did she appear agitated ?" " Yes, very much agitated." " And was there blood upon her dress ? '* . "Yes." " And were her hands stained, with blood ? " Again Darrell must needs say yes. Her hands were stained with blood. She had cut her hand ; the magistrate might see the wound if he pleased. The magistrate shook his head with a sad smile. A surface-wound like that might be so easily inflicted, he thought, to account for the blood upon the wretched woman's dress. All this the clerk's busy pen recorded, and to this DaiTell Markham afterwards signed his name in witness of its truth. Hugh Martin the constable was next sworn. He described the appearance of the house. The absence of any sign of pillage or violence, the unbroken fasten- ings of the heavy oaken door, the undisturbed plate on the sideboard, and lastly, the blood-stained razor found by him in the bureau. Fi'oni Mrs. Meggis, the deaf housekeeper, very little information of any kind could be extorted. She re- membered having admitted Captain Duke on his ar- rival at the Hall, but was doubtful as to the hour ; it might have been between seven and eight, or between eight and nine ; she was quite sure that it was after dark, but she couldn't take upon herself to say how long after dark. She remembered Captain Duke strid- ing straight into the oak parlour, and bidding her light a fire : he was a noisy and insolent gentleman, and she was afraid of him, being " timersome by nature, and seventy-five years of age, your lordship, come next 254 The Captain of fJie ViiUure. Michaelmas," and lie swore at her because the kindling was green and wouldn't burn. She remembered pre- paring the garden room for him, according to Mrs. Duke's orders. She had prepared no other room for Mrs. Duke, and did not know where she meant to sleep. She remembered getting the wine and brandy, which Mrs. Duke carried to the Captain with her own hands. This must have occurred, she thought, at about eleven o'clock, and immediately after this she, Mrs. Meggis, went to bed, and remembered no more till she wa3 awakened next morning by the constable, and nigh frightened out of her poor old wits by seeing him standing at her bedside. This was all that Mrs. Meggis had to tell ; and she, like Samuel Pecker, gave a great deal of trouble to her questioners before she could be induced to part with her information. Sarah Pecker was also examined, but she could tell nothing more than her husband had told already, and she broke dowa. so often into sobs and pitying ejacula- tions about her old master's daughter, that Mr. Bowers was glad to make the examination as brief as possible. All these people duly examined, their depositions i*ead over to them, and signed by them, there was nothing more to be done but to ask the accused, Milli- cent Duke, what she had to say. She was informed that she was not obliged to speak, and Avas j^arned that whatever she might say Avould perhaps bo here- after used in evidence against her. She told her awful story with a quiet coherence, which none there assembled had expected from her. She described her horror at the Captain's return, and the distracted state of her mind, which had been nigh Committed for Trial. 255 upon madness all that dreadful night. She stated, as nearly as Avas in her power, the time at which she bade him good night, and retired to the chamber farthest from the garden room — the chamber which had been her mother's. She grew a little confused here, when asked what she had done with herself between that time — a little after eleven o'clock — and the discovery of the murder. She said that she thought she must have sat, pei-haps for hours, thinking of her troubles, and half unconscious of the lapse of time. She told how, by-and-by, in a passionate outburst of despair, she thought of her father's old razors lying in that very chamber within reach of her hands, and remem- bered how one deep gash in her throat might end all her sorrow upon this earth. But the sight of the murderous steel, and the remembrance of the sinful- ness of such a deed, had changed her purpose as sud- denly as that purpose had sprung up in her heart, and she thrust the razor away from her in a wild hurry of terror and remorse. Then — with but little questioning and with quiet self-possession — she told how that other purpose, almost as desperate as the first, had succeeded it in her mind ; and how she had determined to appeal to George Duke, imploring of him to leave her, and to suffer her to drag out her days in peace. How, eager to act upon this last hope, she had gone straight to his room, and there had found him lying murdered on his bed.* The justice asked her if she had gone close up to the bedside to convince herself that the Captain really was dead, Xo, she had lacked the courage to do that ; but she had seen the fearful gash across his throat, the blood streaming from the open wound, and she knew that he was dead. 256 The Captain of the Vulture. She spoke slowly, faltering a little sometimes, bat never embarrassed, tliougli the clerk's pen followed, her every word as unrelentingly as if he had been a record- ing angel writing the history of her sins, and too severe an angel to blot out the smallest of them with a tear. There had been a death-like silence in the room while she told her story, broken only by the scratching of the clerk's pen and the ticking of the solemn-faced clock. " I will but ask you one more question, Mrs. Duke," Baid Montague Bowers ; " and I beg you for your own sake to be careful how you answer it. Do you know of any person likely to have entertained a feeling of animosity against your husband ?" She might have replied that she knew nothing of her husband's habits, nor of his companions. He might have had a dozen enemies, whose names she had never heard, since his life had been altogether a mystery to her. But her simple and guileless mind was powerless to deal with the matter thus, and she only answered the question in its plainest meaning : " ISTo ; no one." " Think again, Mrs. Duke. This is a terrible busi- ness for you, and I would not for the world hurry you, or deprive you of the smallest opportunity of exculpat- ing yourself. Do you know of no one who had any motive for wishing your liusband's death ?" " No one," answered Millicent. "Pardon me, Mr. Bowers," interrupted Darrell ; " but my cousin forgets to tell you that the Captain of the Vulture was at the best a mysterious individual. He would never have been admitted into our family but for a whim of my poor uncle, who at the time of his Committed for Trial. 257 daugMer's marriage was scarcely accounfable for liig actions. No one in Compton knew who George Duke was, or where he came from, and no one but the late squire believed him when he declared himself to be a captain in His Majesty's navy. Six years ago I made it my business to ascertain the truth of that matter, and found that no such person as Captain George Duke had ever been heard of at the Admiralty. Whatever he Was, nothing of his past life was known to either his wife or her relatives. My cousin Millicent is not, there- fore, in a position to answer your question." " Can you answer it, Mr. Markhara ?" "No more than Mrs. Duke." "I am sorry," said Mr, Bowers gravely, "very Borry ; for under these circumstances my duty leaves me but one course. I shall be compelled to commit Millicent Duke to Carlisle gaol for the murder of her husband." A woman's shriek vibrated through the chamber as these words were said, but it came from the lips of Sarah Pecker, and not from those of the accused. Calm as if she had been but a witness of the proceed- ings, Millicent comforted her old friend, imploring her not to give way to this passion of grief; for that Provi- dence always set such things right in due time. But Sarah was not to be comforted so easily. " No, Miss Millicent, no," she said ; " Providence has suf- fered innocent people to be hung before this, and Heaven forgive us all for thinking so little about them ' Heaven forgive us for thinking so little of the poor guiltless creatures who have died a shameful death ! i), Mr. Darrell," exclaimed Sarah, with sudden energy " gpeak, speak, Mr. Darrell dear ; Samuel Pecker, speak, R 258 The Captain of the Vulture. if you're not struck dumb and stupid, and tell his wor- eliip that of all the innocent creatures in the world, my old master's daughter is the most innocent ; that of all the tender and pitiful hearts God ever made, hers is the most pitiful. Tell him that from her birth until thia day her hand was never raised to harm the lowliest thing that lives ; how much less, then, against a fellow- creature's life. Tell him this, Mr. Darrell, and he can- not have the heart to send my innocent darling to a felon's gaol." Darrell IMarkham turned his face to the wall and sobbed aloud, nor did any of those present see anything unmanly in the proceeding. Even that recording angel, the clerk, was at length moved to compassion, and something very much like a tear dropped upon the closely written page of evidence lying before him. But whatever pity Mr. Montague Bowers might feel for the helpless girl, who awaited his will in all quiet patience and resignation, he held to the course which he con- sidered his duty, and made out the warrant which was to commit !Millicent Duke to Carlisle prison, there to await the spring assizes. Millicent started when they told her that she would leave Compton for Carlisle as soon as the only post- chaise in Compton, which of course belonged to the inn and posting-house kept by Samuel Pecker, could be prepared for her ; but she evinced no other surprise whatever. The written depositions were folded and locked in the justice's desk; the clerk retired; and the prisoner was left in tlie safe keeping of Hugh Mai'tin and liis fellow-constable, to await the coming of the postchaise wldch was to carry her the first stage of her dismal journey. Darrell and Sarah remained with Commuted fur Trial. 259 her to the last, only parting from licr at the door of the cliaiso. The young man took her in his arms before he lifted her into the vehicle, and pressed his lips to her cold forehead. " Listen to mo, Millicent, my beloved and my dar- ling," he said, "and keep the memory of my words with you in yonr trouble, for trust me they are no idle promises. I dedicate my life to the solution of this mystery. Remember this, Millicent, and fear nothing, I have powerful friends, and can get all needful help in the unravelling of this dark enigma. Trust me, darling, trust me, and rest in peace. Think every day that I am working for you ; and sleep tranquilly at night, knowing that even in the night my mind will be busy planning the work of the morrow. The mys- tery shall be solved, darling, and speedily. Believe this, and have no fear. And now, God bless you, my own dear love, and farewell ! " He kissed her once more before he lifted her into the vehicle. In the last glimpse which Darrell and Sarah, had of her, she was sitting quietly, with Hugh Martin by her side, looking out at them through, the window of the chaise. The dusky afternoon closed about the horses as they galloped off; the wheels of the vehicle rolled away through the snow as noiselessly as if it had been some ghostly chariot drawn by spectral steeds ; and she was gone. It was to be ob.'^er\'ed that neither Millicent Duke nor the old woman, Mrs. Meggis, had nuido any allusion to tlie stranger who called at tlie Hall a few hours before the discovery of the murder. 'J'Jlc ti-utii was. Viv-it this circumstance, being apparently unconnected 260 The Captain of the Vulture. with the terrible event of the night, had been completely blotted out of the addled brain of the deaf housekeeper, as well as from the mind of Mrs. Duke. CHAPTER XXI. THE FOREIGN-LOOKING PEDLAE PAYS A SECOND TISIT TO THE BLACK BEAR. Three days after Millicent's removal to Carlisle, an unlooked-for visitor made his appearance at the Black Beai*. This visitor was no less a personage than the West-country baronet, whom Sarah Pecker had last seen close against the doors of St. Mary's churchy London. This distinguished guest arrived in the dusk of evening by the Marley Water coach, alone and un- attended, but wrapped in a princely travelling cloak bedizened with far, and wearing the flaxen wig and velvet coat, the glittering sword - hilt and military boots with clanking spurs, and all those braveries which had made such an impression at the Black Bear a short time before. Striding straight up to the bar, where Samuel Pecker sat in an attitude of rnelanclioly abstraction staring at the fire, the West-country baronet inquired if his friend Captain Duke had left any message for him. Samuel, overpowered by the sudden mention of this name, which since the murder seemed to carry a ghastly significance of its own, had only strength to murmur a feeble negative. The Pedlar a(jain at the Black Bear. 261 " Then," said Captain Fanny, " I consider it d d unhandsome of him ! " He looked so fiercely at Samuel Pecker, that the landlord, being, as we know, of a nervous tempera- ment, began to tliink that he might be in some way held accountable for Captain Duke's shortcomings, and felt himself called upon to apologize. "Why, the truth of the matter is, sir," he stam- mered, faltering under the light of the West-country baronet's searching black eyes, " that when people have their throats cut in their sleep — no notice being given as to its going to be done — they're apt to leave these little matters unattended to." "People have their throats cut in their sleep!" echoed the highwayman. " What people ? Whose throat has been cut? Speak, man, can't you?" " Don't be violent," said Samuel ; " please don't be violent. We've been a good deal shook by what's been going forward these last few days at Compton; for there are shocks that the strongest constitution can't stand against. My wife Sarah keeps her bed ; and my nerves, never being ovei-much, are of very little account just now. Give me time, and I'll explain everything." " Give you time, man," cried Captain Fanny ; "can't you answer a plain question without beating about the bush for an hour? Whose throat has been cut? " " Captain Duke's." " Captain Duke has had his throat cut ? '* " From ear to ear !" "Where?— when?" " At Compton Hall — on the night of his return.** 262 The Captain of the Vulture, " And that was " " Five nights ago."' "Good heavens! this is most extraordinai-y ," ex- claimed Captain Fanny. " George Duke returned five nights since, and murdered upon the very night of his return ! But by whom — by whom ? " " Ah, there it is," cried Samuel Pecker piteously ; " that's what has upset everybody at Compton, in- cluding Sarah, who took to her bed the day before yesterday, never before having been a day out of the business since she first set foot in the Black Bear, whereby there's everything at sixes and sevens, and Joseph, the waiter, always the most sober of men while Sarah kept the keys, drunk two nights running, and shedding tears about poor Mrs. Duke, as is now in Carlisle gaol." " Mrs. Dulve in Carlisle gaol ? " " Yes, for the murder of her husband, which never harmed a fly," said Samuel, with more sympathy than grammar. " Mrs. Duke accused of her husband's murder ?" *' Tes, poor dear ! how should she do it, — a poor delicate creature with scarce strength in her wrist to carve a chicken, let alone a turkey ? How should she do it, I should like to know ; and if she did do it, where's the body ? How can there be a murder without a body?" exclaimed Mr. Pecker, returning to that joart of the question which had always been too much for him ; " why, the very essence of a murder is the body. What is the worst inconvenience to the mm'derer ? Why, the body ! What leads to the discovery of the murder ? Why, the body ! What's the good of coroner's juries ? Why, to sit upon the I'he Pedlar again at the Black Bear. 2G3 body ! Then how can tliere be a murder without a body ? It's my belief that Captain Dnke is alive and well, hiding somewhere — maybe nigh at hand to this very place — and laughing in his sleeve to think of his poor wife being suspected of making away with him. He's wicked enough for it, and it would be only like him to do it." Captain Fanny was silent for a few moments, think- ing deeply. " Strange — strange — strange ! " he said, rather to liimself than to the innkeeper ; " some men are un- lucky from the first, and that man was one of 'em. Murdered on the night of his return ; on the very night on which he thought to have fallen into a good thing. Strange ! " " Don't say mui'dered," remonstrated Samuel; "say missing." " Missing or murdered — it's pretty much the same, if he never comes back, man. Then, supposing Mrs. Duke to be tried and found guilty, the Compton Hall property will go to the Crown? " " I suppose it will," answered Samuel ; " these sort of things generally falls to the Crown. The Crown must feel an uncommon interest in murders." "Now, look you here, Samuel Pecker," said the distinguished guest; "the best thing you can do is to bring a bottle of decent Madeira with you, and show me the way to a snug sitting-room, where you can tell me all about this business." The innkeeper desired nothing better than this. He had sprung into popularity in a most sudden and almost miraculous manner since the murder at Comp- ton Hall, and that examination before Justice Bowers 264 The Captain of the Vultttre. in which he had played so prominent a part. And now he found himself called upon to relate the story of Captain Duke's disappearance to no less a person than the elegant West-country baronet, whose appearance was in itself enough to set the Black Bear in a flutter of excitement. Samuel Pecker was perfectly correct in his descrip- tion of that hostelry. It was indeed at sixes and sevens. Betty the cook abandoned herself to the CuiTent of popular feeling, and was flurried and un- certain in all her movements, thinking a great deal more of the murder than of her culinary operations, and making perpetual blunders in consequence, en- couraging gossips and slovenly loitering women to hang about the kitchen of the Black Bear, wasting half an hour at a time talking to the carrier at the back door, and altogether falling into an idle slipshod way, utterly out of the ordinary course ; while the waiter Joseph added his quota to the general con- fusion, by getting up in the morning in a maudlin and reflective stage of semi-intoxicatiou, lurking about all day in strange corners, wiping dirty glasses upon a dirtier apron, breaking four or five articles of crockery- ware per diem, and going to bed early in the evening crying drunk. Sarah Pecker had been the keystone of this simple domestic arch ; and without her the whole edifice fell to ruin. The honest creature, unable to bear up against that bitter parting with her old master's daughter, had taken to her bed, and lay there, refusing to be comforted. Poor Sarah had no stronger mind on which to lean for consolation than that of her husband Samuel, for Daxrell Markham had