Yr)©r9(as • (s/ipt^dr • j0r)es. 
 
 What is a man 
 If his chief good and market of his time 
 Be but to sleep and feed ? A beast, no more.
 
 LI E) R.AFLY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UN IVLRSITY 
 
 Of ILLINOIS 
 
 823 
 
 V.I
 
 AN ISLE OF SURREY,
 
 MR. DOWLING'S NOVELS. 
 
 MIRACLE GOLD. 3 vols. 31/6. 
 THE MYSTERY OF KILLARD. 3/6. 
 FATAL BONDS. 3 vols. 31/6. 
 THE DUKE'S SWEETHEART 2s. 
 UNDER ST. PAUL'S. 2s. 
 THE SKELETON KEY. Is. 
 
 MR. DOWLING'S ESSAYS. 
 
 INDOLENT ESSAYS. 6s. 
 IGNORANT ESSAYS. 5s. 
 
 WARD & DOWNEY, PUBLISHERS, LONDON.
 
 AN ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 H ^otjcl. 
 
 EICHARD BOWLING, 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 THE MYSTERY OF KILLAUD," "THE DUKE's SWEETHEART, 
 " UNDER ST, PAUL'S," " MIRACLE GOLD," ETC. 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES. 
 VOL. I. 
 
 WAED AND DOWNEY, 
 
 12, YORK STREET, CO VENT GARDEN, LONDON, W.C. 
 1889.
 
 PRINTED BY 
 
 KELLY AND CO., MIDDLE MILL, KINGSTON-OK-THAMES 
 
 AND GATE STREET, LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS, W,C.
 
 8£3 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAP, PAGE 
 
 I. — "Welpord Bkidgk ..... 1 
 
 II. — Crawford's House ... 14 
 
 III. — The Pine Gtuoves op Leeham . .42 
 
 ^ IV.— The Missing Man .... 64 
 
 v^ V. — A Second Apparition . . . ' .82 
 
 VI. — Crawford's Investigations . . . 103 
 
 VII. — A Visitor at Boland's Ait . . 121 
 
 ^ VIII. -Father and Son .... 138 
 
 ! 
 
 ji* IX. — Crawford's Home .... 160 
 
 ^ X.— Father and Son .... 184 
 
 XI. — "Can I Play with that Little Boy?" . 205 
 
 XII. — Philip Ray at Richmond . . . 228 
 
 ^;
 
 AN ISLE OF SURREY
 
 AN ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 WELFORD BRIDGE. 
 
 There was not a cloud in the heavens. 
 The sun lay low in the west. The eastern 
 sky of a May evening was growing from 
 blue to a violet dusk. Not a breath of 
 wind stirred. It was long past the end of 
 the workman's day. 
 
 A group of miserably clad men lounged 
 on Welford Bridge, some gazing vacantly 
 into the empty sky, and some gazing 
 vacantly into the turbid water of the South 
 London Canal, crawling beneath the bridge 
 at the rate of a foot a minute towards its 
 
 VOL. I. 1
 
 AN ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 outlet in the Mercantile Docks, on the 
 Surrey shore between Greenwich and the 
 Pool. 
 
 The men were all on the southern side of 
 the bridge: they were loafers and long- 
 shoremen. Most of them had pipes in their 
 mouths. They were a disreputable-looking 
 group, belonging to that section of the 
 residuum which is the despair of philanthro- 
 pists — the man who has nothing before him 
 but work or crime, and can hardly be got 
 to work. 
 
 One of them was leaning against the 
 parapet with his face turned in mere idle- 
 ness up the canal. He was not looking at 
 anything : his full, prominent, meaningless 
 blue eyes were fixed on nothing. Directly 
 in the line of his vision, and between him 
 and Camberwell, were Crawford's Bay and 
 Boland's Ait. The ait, so called by some 
 derisive humourist, lay in the mouth of the
 
 WELFORD BRIDGE. 
 
 bay, the outer side of it forming one bank of 
 the canal, and the inner side corresponding 
 with the sweep of Crawford's Bay, formed 
 forty feet of canal water. 
 
 The man looking south was low-sized, 
 red-bearded, red-whiskered, red-haired, with 
 a battered brown felt hat, a neckerchief of 
 no determinable colour, a torn check shirt, 
 a dark blue ragged pea-jacket of pilot cloth, 
 no waistcoat, a pair of brown stained 
 trousers, and boots several sizes too large 
 for him, turned up at the toes, and so 
 bagged and battered and worn that they 
 looked as though they could not be moved 
 another step without falUng asunder. This 
 man would have told a mere acquaintance 
 that his name was Jim Ford, but he was 
 called by those who knew him Eed Jim. 
 
 All at once he uttered a strong excla- 
 mation of surprise without shifting his 
 position.
 
 AN ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 " What is it, Jim ? " asked a tall, lank, 
 dark man by his side. 
 
 The others of the group turned and 
 looked in the direction in which Jim's eyes 
 were fixed. 
 
 " Why," said Eed Jim, in a tone of in- 
 credulity and indignation, " there's some one 
 in Crawford's House ! " 
 
 " Of course there is, you fool ! Why, 
 where have you been ? Haven t you heard ? 
 Have you been with the (Salvation Army, 
 or only doing a stretch ? " 
 
 " Fool yourself! " said Eed Jim. " Mind 
 what you're saying, or perhaps I'll stretch 
 you a bit, long as you are already." The 
 other men laughed at this personal sally. 
 It reduced long Ned Bayliss to sullen 
 silence, and restored Eed Jim to his con- 
 dition of objectless vacuity. 
 
 " I hear," said a man who had not yet 
 spoken, " that Crawford's House is let."
 
 WELFORD BRIDGE. 
 
 " Let ! " cried another, as though any one 
 who mentioned the matter as news must be 
 ages behind the times. "Let! I should 
 think it is!" 
 
 " And yet it isn't so much let, after all,'* 
 said Ned Bayliss, turning round in a cap- 
 tious manner. " You can't exactly say a 
 place is let when a man goes to live in his 
 own house." 
 
 " Why, Crawford's dead this long and 
 merry," objected a voice. ♦ 
 
 " Well," said Ned Bayliss, " and if he is, 
 and if he left all to his wife for as long as 
 she kept his name, and if she married a 
 second time and got her new husband to 
 change his name instead of her changing 
 hers — how is that, do you think, Matt 
 Jordan ? " 
 
 It was plain by Ned Bayliss's manner and 
 by the way in which this speech was re- 
 ceived by the listeners that he was looked
 
 AN ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 up to as a being of extraordinary mental 
 endowment, and possessed preeminently of 
 the power of lucid exposition. 
 
 *• True enough, "said Matt Jordan humbly, 
 as he hitched up his trousers and shifted 
 his pipe from one side of his mouth to the 
 other, and coughed a self-deprecatory cough. 
 " And a snug property he has come into, I 
 say. I only wish I was in his place." 
 
 Jordan was a squat, ill-favoured man of 
 forty. 
 
 " Why," said Bayliss derisively, " a man 
 with your points wouldn't throw himself 
 away on a sickly widow with only a matter 
 of a thousand a-year or thereabouts out of 
 a lot of ramshackle tenement-houses and 
 canal wharfs. You'd look higher. Matt. 
 Why, you'd want a titled lady, any way. 
 With your face and figure, you ought to be 
 able to do a great deal better than an 
 elderly sickly widow, even if she is rich."
 
 WELFORD BRIDGE, 
 
 Jordan shifted his felt hat, made no reply, 
 and for a while there was silence. 
 
 Crawford's House, of which the loungers 
 on Welford Bridge were speaking, stood a 
 few feet back from the inner edge of Craw- 
 ford's Bay, about three hundred yards from 
 the bridge. Jim Ford, the first speaker, had 
 concluded, from seeing all the sashes of 
 the house open, and a woman cleaning 
 a window, and a strip of carpet hanging 
 out of another, that a tenant had been 
 found for this lonely and isolated dwell- 
 ing, which had been standing idle for 
 years. 
 
 " Have you seen this turncoat Crawford?" 
 asked a man after a pause. 
 
 No one had seen him. 
 
 " He must have a spirit no better than a 
 dog's to change his name for her money," 
 said Eed Jim, without abandoning his study 
 of Crawford's House, on which his vacant
 
 AN ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 eyes now rested with as mucli curiosity as 
 the expressionless blue orbs were capable 
 of. 
 
 " It would be very handy for some people 
 to change their names like that, or in any 
 other way that wouldn't bring a trifle of 
 canvas and a few copper bolts to the mind 
 of any one in the neighbourhood of the East 
 India Docks," said Bayliss, looking at that 
 point of the sky directly above him, lest 
 any one might fancy his words had a per- 
 sonal application. 
 
 With an oath, Eed Jim turned round, 
 and, keeping his side close to the parapet, 
 slouched slowly away towards the King 
 William public-house, which stood at the 
 bottom of the short approach to the steep 
 humpbacked bridge. 
 
 " Nice chap he is to talk of changing a 
 name for money being disgraceful !" said 
 Bayliss, when the other was out of hearing.
 
 WELFORD BRIDGE. 
 
 " He was as near as ninepence to doing 
 time over them canvas and bolts at the 
 East India. Look at him now, going to 
 the WilHam as if he had money ! He isn't 
 the man that could stand here if he had a 
 penny in his rags." The speaker jingled 
 some coins in his own pocket to show how 
 he, being a man of intellectual resources 
 and strong will, could resist temptation be- 
 fore which common clay, such as Eed Jim 
 was made of, must succumb. • 
 
 Eed Jim did not enter the William. As 
 he reached the door he stopped and looked 
 along the road. A man coming from the 
 western end drew up in front of him and 
 said: 
 
 " Is that Welford Bridge ? " pointing to 
 where the^ group of loungers stood, with the 
 upper portions of their bodies illumined 
 by the western glow against the darkening 
 eastern sky.
 
 lo AN ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 "Yes," said Jim sullenly, " that's Welford 
 Bridge." 
 
 " Do you know where Crawford's Bay is, 
 here on the South London Canal ? Is that 
 the canal bridge?" 
 
 " I know where Crawford's Bay is right 
 enough," said the other doggedly. He was 
 not disposed to volunteer any information. 
 "Do you want to go to Crawford's Bay? 
 If you do, I can show you the way. I'm 
 out of work, gov'nor, and stone broke." 
 
 " Very good. Come along and show me 
 Crawford's House. I'll pay you for your 
 trouble." 
 
 Eed Jim led the way back to the bridge. 
 
 " Who has he picked up ?" asked Bayliss 
 jealously, as the two men passed the group. 
 
 l!^one of the loungers answered. 
 
 " He's turning down Crawford Street," 
 said Bayliss, when the two men had gone a 
 hundred yards beyond the bridge.
 
 WELFORD BRIDGE, ii 
 
 " So he is," said another. Bayliss was 
 the most ready of speech, and monopohsed 
 the conversation. His mates regarded him 
 as one rarely gifted in the matter of lan- 
 guage ; as one who would, without doubt, 
 have made an orator if ambition had led 
 the way. 
 
 " I wonder what Eed Jim is bringing that 
 man down Crawford street for ? No good, 
 I'm sure." 
 
 " Seems a stranger," suggested the other 
 man. "Maybe he wants Jim to show him 
 the way." 
 
 " Ay," said Bayliss in a discontented tone. 
 " There's a great deal to be seen down 
 Crawford Street ! Lovely views ; plenty of 
 rotting doors. Now, if they only got in on 
 the wharf, Jim could show him the old 
 empty ice-house there. Do you know, if 
 any one was missing hereabouts, and a good 
 reward was offered, I'd get the drags and
 
 12 AN ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 have a try in the ice-house. There's ten 
 feet of water in it if there's an inch, so I'm 
 told." 
 
 " It is a lonesome place. I wonder they 
 don't pump the water out." 
 
 " Pump it out, you fool ! How could 
 they? Why, 'twould fill as fast as any 
 dozen fire-engines could pump it out. The 
 water from the canal soaks into it as if the 
 wall was a sieve." 
 
 Nothing more was said for a while. Then 
 suddenly, Bayliss, whose eyes were turned 
 towards the bay, uttered an oath, and ex- 
 claimed, "We're a heap of fools, that's 
 what we are, not to guess. Why, it must be 
 Crawford, the new Crawford — not the Craw- 
 ford that's dead and buried, but the one 
 that's alive and had the gumption to marry 
 the sickl}^ widow for her money! There 
 he is at the window with that girl I saw 
 going into the house to-day."
 
 WELFORD BRIDGE. 13 
 
 Bayliss stretched out his long lean arm, 
 and pointed with his thin grimy hand over 
 the canal towards Crawford's House, at one 
 of the windows of which a man and woman 
 could be seen looking out into the dark 
 turbid waters of Crawford's Bay.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Crawford's house. 
 
 Crawford Street, into which the stranger 
 and his uncouth conductor had turned, 
 was a narrow, dingy, neglected blind lane. 
 The end of it was formed of a brick wall, 
 moss-grown and ragged. On the right- 
 hand side were gates and doors of idle 
 wharves, whose rears abutted on the bay ; 
 on the left, a long low unbroken wall 
 separating the roadway from a desolate 
 waste, where rubbish might be shot, 
 according to a dilapidated and half-illegible 
 notice-board ; but on the plot were only 
 two small mounds of that dreary material, 
 crowned with a few battered rusty iron 
 and tin utensils of undeterminable use.
 
 CRAWFORD'S HOUSE. 15 
 
 In the street, which was a couple of 
 hundred yards long, stood the only dwell- 
 ing. Opposite the door Eed Jim drew up, 
 and, pointing, said, "That's Crawford's 
 House. I belong to this neighbourhood. 
 I'm called after the place. My name is 
 James Ford. I'm called after the place, 
 same as a lord is called after a place. 
 They found me twenty- nine years ago on 
 the tow-path. Nobody wanted me much 
 then or since. Maybe you're the neV 
 Mr. Crawford, and, like me, called after 
 the place too?" He spoke in a tone of 
 curiosity. 
 
 At the question, his companion started, 
 looking at Eed Jim out of a pair of keen, 
 quick, furtive eyes. " I told you I would 
 pay you for showing me the place. Here's 
 sixpence. If you want any information of 
 me, you'll have to pay me for it. If you 
 really care to know my name, I'll tell it
 
 AN ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 to you for that sixpence." The stranger 
 laughed a short sharp laugh, handed Eed 
 Jim the coin, and kept his hand out- 
 stretched as if to take it back. 
 
 Jim turned on his heel, and slunk away 
 muttering. 
 
 The stranger knocked with his fist on 
 the door, from which the knocker was 
 missing. The panels had originally been 
 painted a grass-green, now faded down to 
 the sober hue of the sea. 
 
 The door was opened by a tall slender 
 girl, whose golden-brown hair was flying 
 in wild confusion over her white forehead 
 and red cheeks, and across her blue eyes, 
 in which, as in the hair, flashed a glint of 
 gold. She smiled and laughed apologeti- 
 cally, and thrust her floating hair back 
 from her face with both her hands. 
 
 " Miss Layard ? " said the stranger, 
 raising his hat and bowing. He thought,
 
 CRAWFORD'S HOUSE. 17 
 
 " What beauty, what heahh, what spirits, 
 what grace, what youth, what clelicious- 
 ness ! " 
 
 "Yes," she answered, stepping back for • 
 him to enter. " Mr. Crawford ? " she asked 
 in her turn. 
 
 " My name is Crawford," he said going 
 in. " I — I was not quite prepared to find you 
 what you are. Miss Layard — I mean so — 
 so young. When your brother spoke to 
 me of his sister, I fancied he meant some 
 one much older than himself." 
 
 She smiled, and laughed again as she led 
 him into the front room, now in a state 
 of chaotic confusion. 
 
 "We did not expect you till later. My 
 brother has not come home yet. We have 
 only moved in to-day, and we are, ! in 
 such dreadful confusion." 
 
 On the centre of the floor was spread 
 a square of very old threadbare carpet, 
 
 VOL. I. -
 
 1 8 AN ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 leaving a frame of worn old boards around 
 it. In the centre of the carpet stood a 
 small dining-table. Nothing else in the 
 room was in its place. The half-dozen 
 poor chairs, the chiffonnier, the one easy- 
 chair, the couch, were all higgledy-piggledy. 
 The furniture was of the cheapest kind, 
 made to catch the inexperienced eye. 
 Although evidently not old, it was showing 
 signs of decrepitude. It had once, no 
 doubt, looked bright and pleasant enough, 
 but now the spring seats of the chairs 
 were bulged, and the green plush expanse 
 of the couch rose and fell like miniature 
 grazing-land of rolling hillocks. 
 
 The young girl placed a seat for her 
 visitor, and took one herself with another 
 of those bright cheerful laughs which were 
 delicious music, and seemed to make light 
 and perfume in the darkening cheerless 
 room.
 
 CRAWFORD'S HOUSE. 
 
 " My brother told me you were not likely 
 to be here until ten ; but 3-0 ur rooms are 
 all ready, if you wish to see them." 
 
 She leant back in her chair and clasped 
 her hands in her lap, a picture of beautiful, 
 joyous girlhood. 
 
 He regarded her with undisguised ad- 
 miration. She returned his looks with 
 smiling, unruffled tranquillity. 
 
 " So," he said in a low voice, as though 
 he did not wish the noise of his own words 
 to distract his sense of seeing, concentrated 
 on her face and lithe graceful figure, " you 
 got my rooms ready, while you left your 
 own in chaos ? " 
 
 "You are too soon," she answered, 
 
 nodding her head playfully. " If you had 
 
 not come until ten, we should have had 
 
 this room in order. As you see, it was well 
 
 we arranged the other rooms first. Would 
 
 you like to see them ? " 
 
 2—2
 
 AN ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 "Not just now. I am quite content 
 here for the present," he said, with a 
 gallant gesture towards her. 
 
 " I don't think my brother will be very 
 long. In fact, when you knocked I felt 
 quite sure it was Alfred. ! here he is. 
 Pardon me," she cried, springing up, and 
 hurrying to the door. 
 
 In a few minutes Alfred Layard was 
 shaking hands with the other man, saying 
 pleasantly and easily, "I do not know, 
 Mr. Crawford, whether it is I ought to 
 welcome you, or you ought to welcome 
 me. You are at once my landlord and 
 my tenant." 
 
 " And you, on your side, necessarily are 
 my landlord and my tenant also. Let us 
 welcome one another, and hope we may be 
 good friends." 
 
 With a wave of his hand he included the 
 girl in this proposal.
 
 CRA WFORD'S HOUSE. 
 
 *' Agreed ! " cried Layard clieerfully, as 
 he again shook the short plump hand of 
 the elder man. 
 
 " You see," said Crawford, explaining 
 the matter with a humorous toss of the 
 head and a chuckle, " your brother is my 
 tenant, since he has taken this house, and 
 I am his tenant, since I have taken two 
 rooms in this house. I have just been 
 saying to Miss Layard," turning from the 
 sister to the brother, "that when yo*u 
 spoke to me of your sister who looked 
 after your little boy, I imagined she must 
 be much older than you." 
 
 "Instead of which you find her a whole 
 ten years younger," said Layard, putting 
 his arm round the girl's slim waist lightly 
 and affectionately ; " and yet, although she 
 is only a child, she is as wise with her little 
 motherless nephew as if she were Methu- 
 selah's sister."
 
 AN ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 The girl blushed and escaped from her 
 brother's arm. 
 
 "You would thmk," she said, "that 
 there was some credit in taking care of 
 Freddie. Why, he's big enough and good 
 enough to take care of himself, and me 
 into the bargain. I asked Mr. Crawford, 
 Alfred, if he would like to look at his 
 rooms, but he seemed to wish to see you.'* 
 
 "And I am here at last," said Layard. 
 " Well, shall we go and look at them now ? 
 You observe the confusion we are in here. 
 We cannot, I fear, offer you even a cup of 
 tea to drink to our better acquaintance." 
 
 Crawford rose, and the three left the 
 room and began ascending the narrow 
 massive and firm old stairs. 
 
 To look at brother and sister, no one 
 would fancy they were related. He was 
 tall and lank, with dark swarthy face, 
 deep-sunken small grey eyes, not remark-
 
 CRA WFORUS HOUSE. 23 
 
 able for their light, dark brown hair, and 
 snub nose. The most remarkable feature 
 of his face was his beard — dark dull brown 
 which looked almost dun, and hung down 
 from each side of his chin in two enormous 
 thin streamers. His face in repose was the 
 embodiment of invincible melancholy ; but 
 by some unascertainable means it was able 
 to light up under the influence of humour, 
 or affection, or joy, in a way all the more 
 enchanting because so wholly unexpected. 
 
 Alfred Layard was thirty years of age, 
 and had been a widower two years, his 
 young wife dying a twelve-month after the 
 birth of her only child Freddie, now three. 
 
 William Crawford was a man of very 
 different mould : thick-set, good-looking, 
 with bold brow^n eyes, clean-shaven face, 
 close thick hair which curled all over a 
 massive head, full lips that had few move- 
 ments, and handsome well-cut forehead too
 
 24 AN ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 hollow for beauty in the upper central 
 region. The face was singularly immobile, 
 but it had a look of energy and resolution 
 about it that caught the eye and held the 
 attention, and ended in arousing something 
 between curiosity and fear in the beholder. 
 Plainly, a man with a will of his own, and 
 plenty of energy to carry that will out. 
 In all his movements, even those of courtesy, 
 there w^as a suggestion of irrepressible 
 vigour. His age was about five or six 
 and thirty. 
 
 It was an odd procession. In front, the 
 gay fair girl with azure eyes, golden-brown 
 hair, and lithe form, ascending with elastic 
 step. Behind her, the thick-set, firm, 
 resolute figure of the elder man, with dark, 
 impassive, immobile features, bold dark 
 e3^es, and firm lips, moving as though pre- 
 pared to meet opposition and ready to 
 overcome it. Last, the tall, lank, angular
 
 CRAWFORD'S HOUSE. 25 
 
 form of the young widower, with plain, 
 ahnost ugly, face, deep-set eyes, snub nose, 
 dull complexion, and long melancholy dun 
 beard, flowing like a widow^'s streamers in 
 two thin scarves behind him. Here were 
 three faces, one of which was always alight, 
 a second which could never light, and a 
 third usually dull and dead, but which 
 could liojit at will. 
 
 " This is the sitting-room," said Hetty, 
 standing at the threshold. " You said yoiu 
 would prefer having the back room fur- 
 nished as the sitting room, Alfred told 
 me." 
 
 " Yes, certainly, the back for the sitting- 
 room," said Crawford, as they entered. 
 He looked round sharply wdth somewhat 
 the same surprising quickness of glance 
 which had greeted Eed Jim's question at 
 the door. It conveyed the idea of a man 
 at once curious and on his Ruard.
 
 26 AN ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 His survey seemed to satisfy him, for he 
 ceased to occupy himself with the room, 
 and said, turning to the brother and sister, 
 with a short laugh, " This, as you know, 
 is my first visit to Crawford Street. I had 
 no notion what kind of a place it was ; 
 and when I am here, two or three days in 
 the month, and a week additional each 
 quarter, I should like to be quiet and 
 much to myself. I don't, of course, my 
 dear Mr. Layard, mean with regard to 
 your sister and you," he bowed, " but the 
 people all round. They are not a very 
 nice class of people, are they ? " with a 
 shrug of his shoulders at people who were 
 not very nice. 
 
 "There are no people at all near us," 
 answered Layard cheerfully. " No one 
 else lives in the street, and we have the 
 canal, or rather the Bay, at the back." 
 
 " Capital ! capital ! " cried Crawford in
 
 CRAWFORD'S HOUSE. 27 
 
 a spiritless voice, though he rubbed his 
 hands as if enjoying himself immensely. 
 "You, saving for the presence of Miss 
 Layard and your little boy, whose ac- 
 quaintance, by the way, I have not yet 
 made, are a kind of Kobinson Crusoe 
 here." 
 
 " ! " cried Hetty, running to the win- 
 dow and pointing out, "the real Eobin- 
 son Crusoe is here." * 
 
 " Where ? I hope he has Man Friday, 
 parrot, and all;" walking to the window, 
 where they stood looking out, the girl, 
 with her round arm, pointing into the 
 gathering dusk. In the window-place, 
 they were almost face to face. Instead of 
 instantly following the direction of Hetty's 
 arm, he followed the direction of his 
 thoughts, and while her eyes were gazing 
 out of the window, his were fixed upon 
 her face.
 
 28 AN ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 " There," she said, upon finding his eyes 
 Avere not in the direction of her hand. 
 
 " I beg your pardon," he said, " but I can 
 see no one." 
 
 He was now looking out of the window. 
 
 "But you can see his island." 
 
 " Again I beg your pardon, but I can see 
 no island," 
 
 " What you see there is an island. That 
 is not the tow-path right opposite : that is 
 Boland's Ait." 
 
 " Boland's Ait ! Yes, I have heard of 
 Boland's Ait. I have nothing to do with 
 it, I believe ? " he turned to Layard. 
 
 " I think not." 
 
 " 0, no ! " said the girl laughing ; " the 
 whole island is the property of Mr. Francis 
 Bramwell, a most mysterious man, who is 
 either an astrologer, or an author, or a 
 pirate, or something wonderful and ro- 
 mantic."
 
 CRAWFORD'S HOUSE. 29 
 
 " Why/' cried her brother in amused sur- 
 prise, " where on earth did you get this in- 
 formation ? " 
 
 " From Mrs. Grainger, whom you sent to 
 help me to-day. Mrs. Grainger knows the 
 history of the whole neighbourhood from 
 the time of Adam." 
 
 " The place cannot have existed so long," 
 said Crawford, with another of his short 
 laughs ; " for it shows no sign of having 
 been washed even as far back as the Flood. 
 Is your Crusoe old or young?" 
 
 " Young, I am told, and handsome. I 
 assure you the story is quite romantic." 
 
 " And is there much more of the story of 
 this Man Friday, or whatever he is ? " asked 
 Crawford carelessly, as he moved away from 
 the window towards the door. 
 
 " Well," said she, " that is a good deal to 
 begin with ; and then it is said he has 
 been ruined by some one or other, or some-
 
 AN ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 thing or other, either betting on horses or 
 buying shares in railways to the moon, and 
 that he did these foolish things because his 
 wife ran away from him ; and now he lives 
 all alone on his island, and leaves it ver^^ 
 seldom, and never has any visitors, or hardly 
 any, and is supposed to be writing a book 
 proving that woman is a mistake and ought 
 to be abolished." 
 
 " The brute ! " interpolated Crawford, 
 bowing to Hetty, as though in protest against 
 any one who could say an unkind thing of 
 the sex to which she belonged. 
 
 " Isn't it dreadful ? " cried the girl in a 
 tone of comic distress. She was still standing 
 by the window, one cheek and side of her 
 golden-brown hair illumined by the fading 
 light, and her blue eyes dancing with mis- 
 chievous excitement. " And they say that, 
 much as he hates women, he hates men 
 
 more."
 
 CRA WFORD'S HOUSE. 
 
 " All ! that is a redeeming feature," said 
 Crawford. " A misantliropist is intelligible, 
 but a misogynist is a thing beyond reason, 
 and hateful." 
 
 " But, Hetty," said Layard, " if the man 
 lives so very much to himself and does not 
 leave his house, how is all tJiis known ? " 
 
 " Why, because all the women have not 
 been abolished yet. Do you fancy there 
 ever was a mystery a woman could not find 
 out ? It is the business of women to fathom ■ 
 mysteries. I'll engage that before we are 
 a week here I shall know twice as much as 
 I do now of our romantic neighbour." 
 
 " And then," said Crawford, showing 
 signs of flagging interest, and directing his 
 attention once more to the arrangement of 
 the room, " perhaps Miss Layard will follow 
 this Crusoe's example, and write a book 
 against men." 
 
 " No, no. I like men."
 
 AN ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 He turned round and looked fully at her. 
 "And upon my word, Miss Layard," said 
 lie warmly, " I think you would find a vast 
 majority of men very willing to reciprocate 
 the feeling." 
 
 Hetty laughed, and so did her brother. 
 
 " As I explained," said Crawford, " I 
 shall want these rooms only once a month. 
 I shall have to look after the property in 
 this neighbourhood. I think I shall take 
 a leaf out of our friend Crusoe's book, 
 and keep very quiet and retired. I care to 
 be known in this neighbourhood as little 
 as possible. There is property of another 
 kind in town. It, too, requires my personal 
 supervision. I shall make this place my 
 head-quarters, and keep what changes of 
 clothes I require here. It is extremely un- 
 likely I shall have any visitors. By the 
 way, in what direction does Camberwell lie ?" 
 He asked the question with an elaborate
 
 CRA WFORD'S HOUSE. zi 
 
 carelessness which did not escape Alfred 
 Layard. 
 
 " Up there," said Layard, waving his left 
 hand in a southerly direction. 
 
 Once more Crawford approached the win- 
 dow. This time he leaned out, resting his 
 hand on the sill. 
 
 In front of him lay Boland's Ait, a little 
 island about a hundred yards long and forty 
 yards wide in the middle, tapering off to 
 a point at either end. Beyond the head oi 
 the island, pointing south, the tow-path was 
 visible, and beyond the tail of the island the 
 tow-path again, and further off Welford 
 Bridge, lying north. 
 
 Hetty was leaning against the wainscot of 
 the old-fashioned deep embrasure. 
 
 " Does that tow-path lead to Camber- 
 well ? " asked Crawford. 
 
 " Yes," answered the girl, making a 
 gesture to the left. 
 
 VOL. I. 3
 
 34 AN ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 " Is it much frequented ? " asked he in a 
 voice he tried to make commonplace, but 
 from which he could not banish the hint of 
 anxiety. 
 
 "■' 0, no, very few people go along it." 
 "But now, I suppose, people sometimes 
 come from that direction," waving his left 
 hand, " for a walk ? " 
 
 " Well," said the girl demurely, " the 
 scenery isn't very attractive ; but there is 
 nothing to prevent people coming, if they 
 pay the toll." 
 
 " 0, there is a toll ? " he said in a tone of 
 relief, as if the knowledge of such a barrier 
 between him and Camberwell were a source 
 of satisfaction to him. 
 
 " Yes ; a halfpenny on weekdays and a 
 penny on Sundays." 
 
 He leaned further out. The frame of the 
 window shook slightly. "We must have 
 this woodwork fixed," he said a little
 
 CRAWFORD'S HOUSE. 35 
 
 peevishly. " What building is this here 
 on your left? — a store of some kind with 
 the gates off." 
 
 " That's the empty ice-house. It belongs 
 to you, I believe." 
 
 " Ah ! the empty ice-house. So it is. I 
 never saw an ice-house before." 
 
 *' It is full of water," said the girl, again 
 drawing on the charwoman's store of local 
 information. " It makes me quite uncom- 
 fortable to think of it." « 
 
 The man, bending out of the window, 
 shuddered, and shook the window- frame 
 sharply. " There seems to be a great deal 
 of water about here, and it doesn't look 
 very ornamental." 
 
 "No," said Hetty; "but it's very use- 
 ful." 
 
 Crawford's eyes were still directed to the 
 
 left, but not at so sharp an angle as to 
 
 command a view of the vacant ice-house. 
 
 3—2
 
 36 AN ISLE OF SURRF.Y. 
 
 He was gazing across the head of the island 
 at the tow-path. 
 
 Suddenly he drew in with a muttered 
 imprecation ; the window- frame shook vio- 
 lently, and a large piece of mortar fell and 
 struck him on the nape of the neck. He 
 sprang back with a second half-uttered 
 malediction, and stood bolt upright a pace 
 from the window, but did not cease to gaze 
 across the head of the island. 
 
 Alonof the tow-Dath a tall man was ad- 
 vancing rapidly, swinging his arms in a 
 remarkable manner as he walked. 
 
 " No, no, not hurt to speak of," he 
 answered, with a hollow laugh, in reply to 
 a question of Layard's, still keeping his 
 e3^es fixed on the tow-path visible beyond 
 Boland's Ait. " The mortar has got down 
 my back. I shall change my coat and get 
 rid of the mortar. My portmanteau has 
 come, I perceive. Thank you, I am not
 
 CRAWFORD'S HOUSE. 37 
 
 liurt. Good evening for the present," he 
 added, as brother and sister moved towards 
 the door. 
 
 Although he did not stir further from 
 the window, they saw he was in haste they 
 should be gone, so thfiy hurried away, shut- 
 ting the door behind them. 
 
 When they had disappeared he went back 
 to the window, and muttered in a hoarse 
 voice : " I could have sworn it was Philip 
 Eay — Philip Eay, her brother, who regis- 
 tered an oath he would shoot me whenever 
 or wherever he met me, and he is the man 
 to keep his word. He lives at Camberwell. 
 It must have been he. If it was he, in a 
 few minutes he will come out on tiie tow- 
 path at the other end of the island ; in two 
 minutes — in three minutes at the very out- 
 side — he must come round the tail of the 
 island, and then I can make sure whether 
 it is Philip Ray or not. He will be only
 
 AN ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 half the distance from me that he was 
 before, and there will be light enough to 
 make sure." 
 
 He waited two, three, four, five minutes 
 — quarter of an hour, but from behind 
 neither end of the island did the man 
 emerge on the tow-path. There could be 
 no doubt of this, for from where he stood a 
 long stretch of the path was visible north 
 and south beyond the island, and William 
 Crawford's eyes swung from one end of the 
 line to the other as frequently as the pendu- 
 lum of a clock. 
 
 At length, when half-an-hour had passed, 
 and it was almost dark, he became restless, 
 excited, and in the end went down-stairs. 
 In the front room he found Layard on 
 the top of a step-ladder. He said : 
 
 " I was looking out of my window, and a 
 man, coming from the northern end of the 
 tow-path, disappeared behind the island.
 
 CRA W FORD'S HOUSE. 39 
 
 behind Boland's Ait. He has not come 
 back and he has not come out at the other 
 end. Where can he have gone ? Is there 
 some way of getting off the tow-path be- 
 tween the two points?" The speaker's 
 manner was forced into a form of pleasant 
 wonder ; but there were strange white lines, 
 like lines of fear, about his mouth and the 
 corners of his eyes. "Is there a gate or 
 w^ay off the tow-path ? " 
 
 " No. The man must have come off th'e 
 tow-path or gone into the water and been 
 drowned," said Layard, not noticing any- 
 thing peculiar in the other, and answering 
 half-playfully. 
 
 " That would be too good," cried Craw- 
 ford with a start, apparently taken off his 
 guard. 
 
 " Eh ? " cried Layard, facing round sud- 
 denly. He was in the act of driving in 
 a brass-headed nail. The fervour in Craw-
 
 40 AN ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 ford's tone caught his ear and made him 
 suspend the blow he was about to dehver. 
 
 " 0, nothing," said the other, with one of 
 his short laughs. " A bad-natured joke. I 
 meant it would be too much of a joke to 
 think a man could be drowned in such a 
 simple way. But this man hid himself 
 behind the island and did not come forth at 
 either end for half-an-hour, and I thouorht 
 I'd ask you what you thought, as the cir- 
 cumstance piqued me. Good-night." 
 
 When he found himself in his own room 
 he closed the window, pulled down the 
 blind, hasped the shutters, and drew the 
 curtains. lie looked round on the simple 
 unpretending furniture suspiciously, and 
 muttered : 
 
 " He here — if it were he, and I think it 
 was, appearing and disappearing in such 
 a way ! He cannot have found me out ? 
 Curse him, curse her ; ay, curse her ! Is
 
 CRAWFORD'S HOUSE. 41 
 
 not that all over now ? She was to blame, 
 too." 
 
 He walked up and down the room for 
 an hour. 
 
 "If that was Philip Eay, where did he 
 go to ? He seems to have vanished. 
 Layard knows every foot of this place. It 
 was Philip Eay, and he did vanish ! Could 
 he have seen me and recognised me ? or 
 could he have tracked me, and is he now 
 out on that little quay or wharf under my 
 window, waiting for me ? Ugh ! "
 
 CHAPTEE III. • 
 
 THE PINE GROVES OF LEEHAM. 
 
 Below London Bridge, and just at the end 
 of the Pool, the Thames makes a sharp 
 bend north, and keeps this course for 
 close on a mile. Then it sweeps in a 
 gentle curve eastward for half a mile ; 
 after this it suddenly turns south, and keeps 
 on in a straight line for upwards of a 
 mile. The part of London bounded on 
 three sides by these sections of the river 
 is not very densely populated if the 
 acreage is considered. Much of it is 
 taken up with the vast system of the 
 Mercantile Docks ; large spaces are wholly 
 unbuilt on ; the South London Canal, its 
 tow-path, and double row of wharves and
 
 THE PINE GROVES OF LEEHAM. 43 
 
 yards, cover a large area ; and one of the 
 most extensive gasworks in the metropolis 
 and a convergence of railway lines take 
 up space to the exclusion of people. 
 There are stretches of this district as lonely 
 by night as the top of Snowdon. 
 • Little life stirs by day on the canal ; 
 after dark the waters and the tow-path 
 are as deserted as a village graveyard. 
 Along the railroad by day no human foot 
 travels but the milesman's, and at niglit 
 the traffic falls off to a mere echo of its 
 incessant mighty roar by day. The gas- 
 works are busy, and glowing and flaming 
 and throbbing all through the hours of 
 gloom and darkness, but people cannot 
 get near them. They are enclosed by 
 high w^alls on all sides except one, and 
 on that side lies the South London Canal, 
 which crawls and crawls unhastened and 
 unrefreshed by the waters of any lock.
 
 44 AN ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 The solitude of the tow-path after dark is 
 enhanced at the point where it passes 
 opposite the gasworks by the appearance 
 of life across the water, and the impossi- 
 bility of reaching that life, touching the 
 human hands that labour there, receiving 
 aid from kindly men if aid were needed. 
 The tow-path at this point is narrow and 
 full of fathomless shadows, in which out- 
 casts, thieves, and murderers might lurk ; 
 deep doorways, pilasters, and ruined ware- 
 houses, where misery or crime could hide 
 or crouch. 
 
 But of all the loneliness by night in this 
 region which is vaguely styled the Mer- 
 cantile Docks, the deepest, the most affect- 
 ing, the most chilling is that which dwells 
 in the tortuous uninhabited approaches 
 leading from the docks to the river north 
 and south, and east and west from Deptford 
 to Eotherhithe.
 
 THE PINE GROVES OF LEE HAM. 45 
 
 Out of the same spirit of mocking 
 humour which gave the name of Boland's 
 Ait to the little island in the canal, 
 these solitary ways are called the Pine 
 Groves. The pine-wood which gives them 
 their name has ceased to be a landscape 
 ornament man}^ years, and now stands 
 upright about ten feet high on either side 
 of the roads, in the form of tarred planks. 
 
 There are miles of this monotonous 
 black fencing, with no house or gate 
 to break the depressing sameness. By 
 day the Pine Groves are busy witli the 
 rumble of heavy traffic from the docks 
 and wharves ; by night they are as deserted 
 as the crypt of St. Paul's. 
 
 Between the great gasworks and the 
 docks, and at a point upon which the canal, 
 the main railwa}^, and tliree of these Pine 
 Groves converge, there is an oasis of houses, 
 a colony of men, a village, as it were, in
 
 46 AX ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 this desert made by man in the interest 
 of trade and commerce. This patch of 
 inhabited ground supports at most two 
 hundred houses. The houses are humble, 
 but not squalid. The inhabitants are not 
 longshore-men, nor are they mostly con- 
 nected with the sea or things maritime. 
 They seem to be apart and distinct from 
 the people found within a rifle-shot of the 
 place. Although they are no farther than 
 a thousand yards from Welford Bridge, to 
 judge by their manners and speech, they 
 are so much better mannered, civihsed, 
 and refined, that a thousand years and a 
 thousand miles might lie between them 
 and the long-shoremen and loafers from 
 whom William Crawford had been supplied 
 with a guide in Eed Jim. This oasis in the 
 desert of unbuilt space, this refuge from 
 the odious solitude bv niofht of the Pine 
 Groves, this haunt of Arcadian respectability
 
 THE PINE GROVES OF LEE HAM. 47 
 
 ill the midst of squalid and vicious sur- 
 roundings, is honoured in the neighbour- 
 hood by the name of Leeham, and is almost 
 wholly unknown in any other part of 
 London. It will not do to say it has 
 been forgotten, for it has never been borne 
 in memory. The taxman and the gasman 
 and the waterman, and the people who 
 own houses there, know Leeham ; but no 
 other general outsiders. It is almost as 
 much isolated from the rest of London as 
 the Channel Islands. 
 
 It has not grown or diminished since 
 the railway was built. No one ever 
 thinks of pulling down an old house or 
 building up a new one. Time-worn brass 
 knockers are still to be found on the 
 doors, and old-fashioned brass fenders and 
 fireirons on the hearths within. Families 
 never seem to move out of the district, 
 and it never recruits its population from
 
 48 AN ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 the outer world. Now and then, indeed, 
 a young man of Leeham may bring 
 home a bride from one of the neighbour- 
 ing tribes ; but this is not often. A whole 
 family is imported never. It is the most 
 unprogressive spot in all her Majesty's 
 dominions. 
 
 At first it seems impossible to account 
 for so respectable a settlement in so squalid 
 and savage a district. Who are the people 
 of Leeham ? And how do they live ? 
 When first put, the question staggers one. 
 Most of the houses are not used for trade. 
 Indeed, except at the point where the 
 three Pine Groves meet, there is hardly a 
 shop in the place. Where the East and 
 West and Eiver Pine Groves meet, there 
 stands a cluster of shops, not more than 
 a dozen, and the one public-house of 
 Leeham, the Neptune. But the name of 
 this house is the only thing in the business
 
 THE PINE GROVES OF LEE HAM. 49 
 
 district telling of tlie sea. Here is no 
 maker of nautical instruments, no marine- 
 store dealer, no curiosity shop for the 
 purchase of the spoil of other climes 
 brought home by Jack Tar, no music-hall 
 or singing saloon, no slop-shop, no cheap 
 photographer. 
 
 Here are a couple of eating-houses, notice- 
 able for low prices and wholesome food ; a 
 butcher's, and two beef-and-ham shops, two 
 grocers', and a greengrocer's, two bakers', 
 and an oil-and-colour man's. These, with 
 the Neptune, or nucleus, form by night the 
 brightly lighted business region of the settle- 
 ment. This point is called the Cross. 
 
 Leeham repudiated the sea, and would 
 have nothing to do with it at any price. 
 Down by the docks the sea may be profit- 
 able, but it has not a good reputation. It 
 is inclined to be rowdy, disreputable. Jack 
 Tar ashore may not be worse than other 
 
 VOL. I. 4
 
 50 AN ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 men, but he is more noisy and less observant 
 of convention. He is too mucli given to 
 frolic. He is not what any solid man would 
 call respectable. 
 
 No one ever thought of impugning the 
 respectability, as a class, of gasmen or rail- 
 way officials. In fact, both are bound to be 
 respectable. Leeham had, no doubt, some 
 mysterious internal resources, but its chief 
 external dependence was on the enormous 
 gasworks and the railway hard by. Hun- 
 dreds of men were employed in the gas- 
 house and on the railway, and Leeham 
 found a roof and food for three-fourths of 
 the number. There were quiet houses for 
 those whose means enabled them to keep up 
 a separate establishment, and cheap lodg- 
 ings for those who could afford only a single 
 room. No man living in a dwelling-house 
 of Leeham was of good repute unless he had 
 private means, or was employed at either
 
 THE PINE GROVES OF LEE HAM. 51 
 
 the railway-yard or tlie gasworks — called, 
 for the sake of brevity, the yard and the 
 works. But it was a place in which many 
 widows and spinsters had their homes, and 
 sought to eke out an income from the 
 savings of their dead husbands, fathers, or 
 brothers, by some of the obscure forms of 
 industry open to women of small needs and 
 very small means. 
 
 The greengrocer's shop at Leeham Cross, 
 opposite the Neptune, was owned by Mrs. 
 Pemberton, an enormously fat, very florid 
 widow of fifty. She almost invariably wore 
 a smile on her expansive countenance, and 
 was well known in the neighbourhood for 
 her good nature and good temper. In fact, 
 she was generally spoken of as " Mrs. Pem- 
 berton, that good-natured soul." The chil- 
 dren all idolised her ; for when they came 
 of errands to buy, or for exercise and safety 
 and a sight of the world with their mothers, 

 
 52 AN ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 Mrs. Pembertoii never let them go away 
 empty-handed as long as there was a small 
 apple, or a bunch of currants, or a couple 
 of nuts m the shop. 
 
 On that evening late in May when Eed 
 Jim showed Crawford the way to Crawford's 
 House, Mrs. Pemberton stood at her shop 
 door. She held her arms a-kimbo, and 
 looked up and down the Cross with the ex- 
 pression of one who does not notice what 
 she sees, and who is not expecting anything 
 from the direction in which she is looking. 
 The stout florid woman standing at the door 
 of the greengrocer's was as unlike the ordin- 
 ary Mrs. Pemberton as it was in the power 
 of a troubled mind to make her. At this 
 hour very few people passed Leeham Cross, 
 and for a good five minutes no one had 
 gone by her door. 
 
 Mrs. Pemberton had not remained con 
 stantly at the door. Once or twice she
 
 THE PINE GROVES OF LEE HAM. 53 
 
 stepped back for a moment, and threw her 
 head on one side, and held her ear up as if 
 listening intently ; then, with a sigh, she 
 came back to her post at the threshold. 
 There must have been something very 
 unusual in the conditions of her life to 
 agitate this placid sympathetic widow so 
 much. 
 
 Presently a woman of fine presence came 
 in view, hastening towards the greengrocery. 
 This was Mrs. Pearse, a widow like Mrs. 
 Pemberton, and that good lady's very good 
 friend. 
 
 " I needn't ask you ; I can see by your 
 face," said Mrs. Pearse, as she came up. 
 "She is no better." 
 
 " She is much worse," said Mrs. Pember- 
 ton in a half-frightened, half-tearful way ; 
 " she is dying." 
 
 " Dying ! " said the other woman. " I 
 didn't think it would come to that."
 
 54 AN ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 " Well, it hurts me sore to say it, but I 
 don't think she'll live to see the morning." 
 
 " So bad as that ? Well, Mrs. Pemberton, 
 I am sorry. Along with everything else, I 
 am sorry for the trouble it will give you." 
 
 " ! don't say anything about that ; I 
 am only thinking of the poor lady herself. 
 She's going fast, as far as I am a judge. 
 And then, what's to become of the child ? 
 Poor innocent little fellow ! he has no notion 
 of what is happening. How could he ? he's 
 little more than a baby of three or four." 
 
 " Poor little fellow ! I do pity him. Has 
 she said anything to you ? " 
 
 "Not a word." 
 
 " Not even told you her name ? " 
 
 "No." 
 
 " Does she know, Mrs. Pemberton, how 
 bad she is ? Surely, if she knew the truth 
 of her state of health, she'd say a word to 
 you, if it was only for the child's sake. She
 
 THE PINE GROVES OF LEEHAM. 55 
 
 would not die, if she knew slie was dying, 
 and say nothing that could be of use to her 
 little boy." 
 
 " You see, when the doctor was here this 
 morning, he told her she was dangerously 
 ill, but he did not tell her there was no 
 hope. So I did my best to put a good face 
 on the matter, and tried to persuade the 
 poor thing that she'd be on the mending 
 hand before nightfall. But she has got 
 worse and worse all day, and I am sure 
 when the doctor comes (I'm expecting him 
 every minute) he'll tell her she's not long 
 for this world. It's my opinion she won't 
 last the night." 
 
 " Dear, dear, dear ! — but I'm sorry." 
 " Here he is. Here's the doctor ! " 
 "I'll run home now, Mrs. Pemberton, and 
 give the children their supper. I'll come 
 back in an hour to hear what the doctor 
 says, and to do anything for you I can."
 
 56 AN ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 " Thank you ! Thank you, Mrs. Pearse ! 
 I shall be very glad to see you, for I am 
 grieved and half-terrified." 
 
 " I'll be sure to come. Try to bear up, 
 Mrs. Pemberton," said kind-hearted Mrs. 
 Pearse, hurrying off just as the doctor came 
 up to the door. 
 
 True to her promise, Mrs. Pearse was 
 back at the Cross. By this time the shutters 
 of Mrs. Pemberton's shop were up ; but the 
 door stood ajar. Mrs. Pearse pushed it open 
 and entered. 
 
 Mrs. Pemberton was sitting on a chair, 
 surrounded by hampers and baskets of fruit 
 and vegetables, in the middle of the shop. 
 She was weeping silently, unconsciously, 
 the larore tears rollini? down her round florid 
 face. Her hands were crossed in her lap. 
 Her eyes were wide open, and her whole 
 appearance that of one in helpless despair. 
 
 When she saw her visitor come in, she
 
 THE PINE GROVES OF LEE HAM. 57 
 
 rose with a start, brushed the tears out of 
 her eyes, and cried, seizing the hand of the 
 other woman and pressing her down on a 
 chair : 
 
 " I am so glad to see you, Mrs. Pearse ! 
 It is so good of you to come ! I am in sore 
 distress and trouble ! " 
 
 "There, dear!" said the visitor in sooth- 
 ing tones. "Don't take on like that. All 
 may yet be well. What does the doctor 
 say about the poor soul P " 
 
 "All will never be w^ell again for her. 
 The doctor says she is not likely to see 
 another day, short as these nights are. 
 my — my heart ! but it grieves me to 
 think of her going, and she so young. And 
 to think of what a pretty girl she must have 
 been ; to think of how handsome she must 
 have been before the trouble, whatever it 
 is, came upon her and wore her to a 
 shadow."
 
 58 AN ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 '* And I suppose slie has not opened 
 her mind to you even yet about this 
 trouble ? " 
 
 The question was not asked out of idle 
 curiosity, but from deep-seated interest in 
 the subject of the conversation. For this 
 was not the first or the tenth talk these two 
 kindly friends had about the sick woman 
 upstairs. 
 
 " She has said no more to me than the 
 dead. My reading of it is, that she made a 
 bad match against the will of her people, 
 and that her husband deserted her and her 
 child." 
 
 " And what about the boy ? Does the 
 poor sufferer know how bad she is ? " 
 
 " Yes ; she knows that there's not any 
 hope, and the doctor told me to be pre- 
 pared for the worst, and that she might die 
 in a couple of hours. Poor soul! I shall 
 be sorry ! "
 
 THE PINE GROVES OF LEE HAM. 59 
 
 Mrs. Pemberton threw her apron over 
 her head, and wept and sobbed; Mrs. 
 Pearse weeping the while for company. 
 
 When Mrs. Pemberton was able to con- 
 trol herself, she drew down her apron and 
 said : 
 
 " I never took to any other lodger I had 
 so much as I took to this poor woman. Her 
 loneliness and her sorrow made me feel to 
 her as if she had been my own child. Then 
 I know she must be very poor, although she 
 always paid me to the minute. But bit by 
 bit I have missed whatever little jewellery 
 she had, and now I think all is gone. But 
 she is not w^ithout money ; for, when I was 
 talking to her just now, she told me that 
 she had enough in her work box to pay all 
 expenses. 0, Mrs. Pearse, it is hard to hear 
 the poor young thing talking in that way of 
 going, and I, who must be twice her age, 
 well and hearty ! "
 
 6o AN ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 Again the good woman broke down and 
 liad to pause in her story. 
 
 " She told me no one should be at any 
 expense on her account ; and as for the boy, 
 she said she knew a gentleman, one who 
 had been a friend of hers years ago, and 
 that he would surely take charge of the 
 child, and that she had sent word to a 
 trusty messenger to come and fetch the boy 
 to this friend, and that she would not see or 
 hear from any one who knew her in her 
 better days. I can't make it out at all. 
 There is something hidden, some mystery 
 in the matter." 
 
 " Mystery, Mrs. Pemberton ? Of course 
 there is. But, as you say, most likely she 
 made a bad match, and is afraid to meet 
 her people, and has been left to loneliness 
 and sorrow and poverty by a villain of a 
 husband. She hasn't made away with her 
 wedding-ring, has she ? "
 
 THE PINE GROVES OF LEE HAM. 6i 
 
 " No ; nor with the keeper. But I think 
 all else is gone in the way of jewellery. I 
 left Susan, the servant, wdth her just now. 
 She said she wished to be quiet for a while, 
 as she wanted to write a letter. Now that 
 the shop is shut I can't bear to be away 
 from her, and when I am in the room I can't 
 bear to see her with her poor swollen red 
 face, and I don't think she is always quite 
 right in her mind, for the disease has 
 spread, and the doctor says she can liardly 
 last the night. Poor, poor young creature ! " 
 
 Here for the third time, kind sympathetic 
 Mrs. Pemberton broke down, and for some 
 minutes neither of the women spoke. 
 
 At length Mrs. Pemberton started and 
 rose from her chair, saying hastily : 
 
 " She must have finished the letter. I 
 hear Susan coming down the stairs." 
 
 The girl entered the shop quickly and 
 with an alarmed face.
 
 62 AN ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 " The lady wants to see you at once, 
 ma'am. She seems in a terrible hurry, and 
 looks much worse." 
 
 Mrs. Pemberton hastened out of the shop, 
 asking Mrs. Pearse to wait. 
 
 In a few minutes she returned, carrying 
 a letter in her hand, and wearing a look of 
 intense trouble and perplexity on her honest 
 face. 
 
 " I am sure," she said, throwing herself 
 on a chair, "I do not know whether I am 
 asleep or awake, or whether I am to believe 
 my eyes and my ears. Do you know where 
 she told me she is sending the child now — 
 to-night — for she cannot die easy until 'tis 
 done." 
 
 "I cannot tell. Where?" 
 
 " I heard her say the words quite plainly, 
 but I could not believe my ears. The words 
 are quite plain on this letter, though they 
 are written in pencil, but I cannot believe
 
 THE PINE GROVES OF LEE HAM. 63 
 
 my eyes. Eead what is on this envelope, 
 and I shall know whether I have lost my 
 reason or not. That's where she says the 
 child is to go. This is the old friend 
 she says will look after the little boy! " 
 
 She handed the letter she held in her hand 
 to her friend. Mrs. Pearse read : 
 
 " Francis Bramwell, Esq., 
 Boland's Ait, 
 
 South London Canal." 

 
 CHAPTEE IV 
 
 THE MISSING MAN. 
 
 It was near ten o'clock that night before 
 Alfred Layard and his sister gave up trying 
 to get their new home into order. Even 
 then much remained to be done, but Mrs. 
 Grainger, the charwoman who had been 
 assisting Hetty all day, had to go home to 
 prepare supper for her husband, and when 
 she was gone the brother and sister sat 
 down to their own. 
 
 Alfred Layard was employed in the gas- 
 works. His duties did not oblige him to be 
 at business early ; but they kept him there 
 until late in the evening. He had a very 
 small salary, just no more than enough to 
 live on in strict economy. He had rented
 
 THE MISSING MAN. 65 
 
 a little cottage during his brief married life, 
 and the modest furniture in the room where 
 the brother and sister now sat at supper had 
 been bought for his bride's home out of his 
 savings. Just as his lease of the cottage 
 expired he heard of this house, and that 
 the owner or agent would be glad to let it 
 at a rent almost nominal on the condition 
 of two rooms being reserved and kept in 
 order for him. 
 
 The place just suited Layard. It was* 
 within a short distance of the gas-house, and 
 he calculated that the arrangement would 
 save him twenty pounds a-year. 
 
 " Well, Hetty," said he, with one of his 
 surprisingly pleasant smiles, as the supper 
 went on, " how do you like the life of a 
 lodging-house keeper ? " 
 
 " So far I like it very much indeed, al- 
 though I have had no chance of pillage yet." 
 
 " Never mind the pillage for a while. I 
 
 VOL. I. 5
 
 66 AN ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 must see If there is any handbook published 
 on the subject of the ' Lodger Pigeon.' I 
 am not quite sure there is a book of the 
 kind. I have a notion the art is traditional, 
 handed down by word of mouth, and that 
 you have to be sworn of the guild or some- 
 thing of that kind. Before we had our 
 knockdown in the world, in father's time, 
 when I lived in lodgings in Bloomsbury, I 
 knew a little of the craft — as a victim, mind 
 you ; but now I have forgotten all about it, 
 except that neither corks nor stoppers had 
 appreciable effect in retarding the evapora- 
 tion of wine or spirits, and that fowl or game 
 or meat always went too bad twelve hours 
 after it was cooked to be of further use 
 to me. Tea also would not keep in the 
 insalubrious air of Bloomsbury." 
 
 " Well," said the girl with a smile, " I 
 suppose I must only live in hope. I canno: 
 expect to be inspired. It would, perhaps.
 
 THE MISSING MAN. 67 
 
 be unreasonable to expect that the sight of 
 our first lodger for half-an-hour would make 
 me perfect m the art of turning him to good 
 account. It is a distressing thing to feel 
 one is losing one's opportunity ; but then, 
 what is one to do ? " she asked pathetically, 
 spreading out her hands to her brother in 
 comic appeal. 
 
 " It is hard," said he with anxiety ; then 
 brightening he added, "Let us pray for 
 better times, better luck, more light. By 
 the way, Hetty, now that we have fully ar- 
 ranged our method of fleecing the stranger, 
 what do you think of him ? How do you 
 find him ? Do you like him ? " 
 
 " I find him very good-looking and agree- 
 able." 
 
 " I hope there is no danger of your fall- 
 ing in love with him. Eemember, he is a 
 married man," said the brother, shaking a 
 minatory finger at the girl opposite him;
 
 68 AN ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 " and bear in mind bigamy is a seven years' 
 affair." 
 
 ^ " It's very good of you to remind me, 
 Alfred," she said gravely. " But as I have, 
 not been married, I don't see how I could 
 commit bigamy." 
 
 "• You are not qualified yet to commit 
 it yourself, but you might become an 
 accessory." 
 
 '* By the way, Alfred, now that I think of 
 it," said she, dropping her playful manner 
 and looking abstracted and thoughtful, with 
 a white finger on her pink cheek, " I did 
 notice a remarkable circumstance about our 
 new lodger. Did you ? " 
 
 " No," said the brother, throwing himself 
 back in his chair and looking at the ceiling, 
 " except that he has a habit of winking both 
 his eyes when he is in thought, which always 
 indicates a man fond of double-dealing. 
 Don't you see, Hetty? — one eye winked.
 
 THE MISSING MAN. 69 
 
 single-dealing ; two eyes, double-dealing. 
 Wliat can be more natural ? There is one 
 thing about trade I can never make out. 
 Book-keeping by double-entry is an interest- 
 ing, respectable, and laudable affair, and yet 
 double-dealing is little short of infamous." 
 
 " I don't understand what you are saying, 
 Alfred," said the girl in a voice of reproach 
 and despair. " I don't think you know 
 yourself, and I am sure it's nonsense." 
 
 "Yes, dear." * 
 
 "No; I'm not joking," she cried im- 
 patiently. " I did observe something very 
 remarkable about Mr. Crawford under the 
 circumstances. Did you not notice he never 
 spoke of his wife, or even referred to her, 
 although he got all this property through 
 her or from her ? " 
 
 Layard looked down from the dingy ceil- 
 iiig. " Of course, you are right, child. I 
 did not notice it at the time ; but now I
 
 70 AN ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 recollect he neither spoke of his wife nor 
 made any reference to her. It was strange. 
 And now that I think of it, he did not upon 
 our previous meeting. It is strange. I 
 suppose he is ashamed to own he owes 
 everything to his wife." 
 
 " Well," said the girl hotly, " if he had 
 the courage to take her money he might 
 have the courage to own it, particularly as 
 he is aware we know all about him." 
 
 " All about him ? " said the brother in 
 surprise. " Indeed, we don't know all about 
 him ; we know very little about him — that 
 is, unless this wonde-rful wife of Grainger 
 told you." 
 
 "No ; she told me nothing about him. 
 But we know that the money belonged to 
 Mrs. Crawford and not to him, and that he 
 changed his name to marry the widow, as 
 otherwise her property would go some- 
 where else."
 
 THE MISSING MAN. 71 
 
 " To Guy's Hospital. But it would not 
 go to the hospital if she remained un- 
 married. The fact of the matter is, I believe, 
 that this Crawford — I mean the orif^inal one 
 — was a self-made man, and very proud of 
 his own achievements, and wished to keep 
 his name associated with his money as long 
 as possible. You see, when he married he 
 was an elderly, if not an old man, and his 
 wife was a young and very handsome woman. 
 Now she is middle-aged and an invalid." 
 
 " Then," cried Hetty with sprightly wrath, 
 " I think it the more shameful for him to 
 make no allusion to her. But you have not 
 told me all the story. Tell it to me now, 
 there's a good, kind dear Alfred. But first 
 I'll clear away, and run up for a moment 
 to see how Freddie is in his new quarters. 
 He was so tired after the day that he fell 
 asleep before his head touched the pillow." 
 
 She found the boy sleeping deeply in his
 
 AN ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 cot beside her own bed. She tucked him 
 in, although the clothes had not been dis- 
 arranged, and then bent down over him, 
 laying her forearm all along his little body, 
 and, drawing him to her side, kissed him 
 first on the curls and then on the cheek and 
 then smoothed with her hand the curl she 
 had kissed, as though her tender lips had 
 disturbed it. After this she ran down 
 quickly, and, entering the sitting-room, said, 
 as she took her chair, " He hasn't stirred 
 since I put him to bed, poor chap. I hope he 
 won't find this place very lonely. He will 
 not even see another child here. And now, 
 Alfred," she added, taking up some work, 
 " tell me all you know about our lodger, for 
 I have heard little or nothing yet." 
 
 " Well, what I know is soon told. His old 
 name was Goddard, William Goddard. He 
 came to hve at Eichmond some time ago, 
 and lodged next door to Mrs. Crawford's
 
 THE MISSING MAN. 7^ 
 
 liouse. She was then an invahd, suffering 
 from some affection which almost deprived 
 her of the use of her hmbs. She went out 
 only in a carriage or Bath-chair. He met 
 her frequently, and became acquainted with 
 her, often walking beside her in her Bath- 
 chair. Her bedroom was on the first floor 
 of her house ; his was on the first floor of 
 the next house. One night the lower part 
 of her house caught fire. He crept on a 
 stone ledge running along both houses at 
 the level of the first floor window. He had 
 a rope, and by it lowered her down into the 
 garden and saved her life, every one said. 
 The shock, strange to say, had a beneficial 
 effect upon her health. She recovered 
 enough strength to be able to walk about, 
 and — she married him." 
 
 The girl paused in her work, dropping 
 her hands and her sewing, and falling into 
 a little reverie, with her head on one side.
 
 74 AN ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 " So that he is a kind of hero," she said 
 softly. 
 
 " Yes ; a kind of hero. I don't think his 
 risk was very great, for he could have 
 juinped at any time, and got off with a 
 broken leg or so." 
 
 "A broken leg or so!" cried she 
 indignantly. " Upon my word, Alfred, 
 you do take other people's risks coolly. 
 I don't wonder at her marrying him, and 
 I am very sorry I said anything against 
 him awhile ago. The age of chivalry 
 is not gone. Now, if she was young 
 and good-looking — but forty and an 
 invalid " 
 
 " And very rich," interrupted the brother, 
 stretching himself out on the infirm couch 
 and blowing a great cloud of smoke from 
 his briar-root pipe. 
 
 " Your cynicism is intolerable, Alfred. 
 It is most unmanly and ungenerous, and I
 
 THE MISSING MAN. 
 
 for one have made up my mind to like, to 
 admire Mr. " 
 
 A knock at the door prevented her finish- 
 ing the sentence. 
 
 <' Come in," cried Layard, springing up 
 and moving tovrards the door. 
 
 '• I am afraid it is a most unreasonable 
 hour to disturb you." 
 
 "Not at all," said Layard, setting a chair 
 for the lodger. "My sister and I were 
 merely chatting. We are not early people, 
 you must know. I haven't to be at the 
 works until late, so we generally have our 
 little talks nearer to midnight than most 
 people. Pray sit down." 
 
 Crawford sat down somewhat awkwardly, 
 winking both his eyes rapidly as he did so. 
 He gave one of his short sharp laughs. 
 
 " You will think me very foolish, no 
 doubt," he said, looking from one to the 
 other and winking rapidly, " but, do you
 
 76 AN ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 know, what you said about that man going 
 into the canal has had a most unaccount- 
 able and unpleasant effect upon me. I 
 feel quite unnerved. As you are aware, I 
 am not acquainted with the neighbourhood. 
 Would it be asking too much of you, Mr. 
 Layard, to go out with me for a few 
 minutes and ascertain for certain that no 
 accident has befallen this man — that is, if 
 Miss Layard would not be afraid of being 
 left alone for a little while ? If my mind 
 is not set at rest I know I shall not sleep 
 a wink to-night." 
 
 "Afraid? Afraid of what, Mr. Craw- 
 ford ? Good gracious, I am not afraid of 
 anything in the world," cried the girl, 
 rising. " Of course Alfred will go with 
 you." 
 
 Layard expressed his willingness, and in 
 a short time the two men were out of the 
 house in the dark lane, where burned only
 
 THE MISSING MAN. jy 
 
 one lamp at the end furthest from the 
 main road. 
 
 " I do not know how we are to fmd out 
 about this man," said Layard, as they 
 turned from the blind street into Welford 
 Eoad ; " could you describe him ? " 
 
 Layard thought Crawford must be a very 
 excitable and somewhat eccentric man to 
 allow himself to be troubled by a purely 
 playful speech as to the pedestrian on the 
 tow-path ; but he felt he had been almost 
 unjust to Crawford when talking to his 
 sister, and he was anxious for this reason, 
 and because of a desire to conciliate his 
 lodger, to gratify him by joining in this 
 expedition, which he looked on as absurd. 
 
 " Yes ; I can describe him. He wore a 
 black tail-coat, a round black hat, a black 
 tie, and dark tweed trousers. He was 
 nearer your height and build than mine. 
 The chief thins^s in his face are a lonef
 
 78 AN ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 straight nose, dark and very straight brows, 
 and dark eyes. He has no colour in his 
 cheeks." 
 
 Layard drew up in amazement. 
 
 "Do you mean to say," he asked with 
 emphasis, " that you could see all this at 
 such a distance ? " 
 
 " I," the other answered with a second's 
 hesitation — " I used a glass." 
 
 " ! " said Layard ; and they resumed 
 their walk, and nothing further was said 
 until they came to the bridge, on which 
 they stood looking up the tow-path, along 
 which the pedestrian ought to have come. 
 
 Layard broke the silence. 
 
 "Unless we are to make a commotion, 
 I don't see what we can do beyond ask- 
 ing the toll-man. The gate is shut now. 
 It must be eleven o'clock, and this place 
 owns an early-to-bed population." 
 
 He was now beginning to regret his too
 
 THE MISSING MAN. 79 
 
 easy participation in his lodger's absurd 
 quest. 
 
 " Do not let us make any commotion, 
 but just ask the toll- man quietly if such 
 a man went through his gate," said Craw- 
 ford hastily. " I know- my uneasiness is 
 foolish, but I cannot help it." 
 
 They turned from the parapet over 
 which they had been looking, and Layard 
 led the way a little down the road, and, 
 then turning sharp to the right, entered 
 the approach to the toll-house. 
 
 As they emerged from the darkness of 
 the approach, the toll-taker was crossing 
 the wharf or quay towards the gate. 
 He passed directly under a lamp, and 
 opened the gate which closed the path at 
 the bridge. 
 
 Crawford caught Layard by the arm, 
 and held him back, whispering : 
 
 " Wait ! "
 
 8o AN ISLE OF SURREY, 
 
 From the gloom of the arch a young 
 man stepped out into the light of the lamp. 
 He wore a black tailed-coat, a black tie, 
 a black round hat, and dark tweed trousers. 
 His nose was straight, and his brows re- 
 markably dark and straight. Upon the 
 whole, a young man of rather gloomy 
 appearance. 
 
 " It's all right," whispered Crawford 
 quickly into Layard's ear ; " that's the 
 man. Come away." 
 
 He drew his companion forcibly along 
 the approach back to the road. 
 
 " It's well I didn't make a fool of myself," 
 he whispered. " Come on quickly. I am 
 ashamed even to meet this man after my 
 childish fears." 
 
 They were clear of the approach, and 
 retracing their steps over the bridge, before 
 the pedestrian emerged from the darkness 
 of the approach. When he gained Wei-
 
 THE MISSING MAN. 8i 
 
 ford Eoad he went on straight — that is, 
 in a direction opposite to that taken by 
 the two. 
 
 " I am greatly relieved," said Crawford, 
 rubbing his perspiring forehead with his 
 handkerchief. 
 
 " I am not," thought Layard. " I am 
 afraid there is something wrong with 
 Crawford's upper storey." 
 
 ->3iGle-<- 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 CHAPTER Y. 
 
 A SECOND APPARITION. 
 
 When Alfred Layard got back to the house 
 he was far from easy in his mind about 
 his lodger. In appearance Crawford was 
 the least imaginative man in the world. 
 His face, figure, and manner indicated ex- 
 treme practicalness. 'No man could have 
 less of the visionary or the seer about him. 
 One would think he treated all things in 
 life as a civil engineer treats things en- 
 countered in his profession. And yet here 
 was this man giving way to absurd and 
 sentimental timidity about nothing at all. 
 Of course, Layard himself would have 
 been greatly shocked if he thought any 
 harm had come to that solitary pedestrian
 
 A SECOND APPARITION. 83 
 
 on the tow-path ; but not one man in a 
 thousand would have allowed the circum- 
 stance of the man's non-appearance and 
 the jesting words he himself had used 
 to occupy mind ^yq minutes, to say 
 nothing of suffering anxiety because of the 
 circumstance, and sallying out to make 
 inquiries and clear it up. 
 
 He did not bargain for such eccentricity 
 as this when he agreed to live for a few 
 days a month under the same roof with 
 William Crawford. He would say nothing 
 to Hetty of his fears, or rather uneasi- 
 ness ; but it would be necessary for him 
 to suggest precautions. 
 
 When Crawford had bidden the brother 
 and sister good-night finally, and the two 
 were again alone in the front sitting-room, 
 and Alfred had told Hetty, with no alarm- 
 ing comment, what had occurred since 
 
 they left the house, she cried, " Now, 
 
 6—2
 
 84 AN ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 sceptic, what have you to say? Could 
 anything be more humane or kind-hearted 
 than the interest he took in that unknown 
 man, a man he could absolutely have neyer 
 seen once in all his life ? You were in the 
 act of implying that he saved the widow 
 because she was rich, and married her 
 because she was rich, when, lo ! Sir Oracle, 
 down comes Mr. Crawford to see what had 
 happened to that man, the unknown man ! 
 Tell me, was he rich ? Is he going to 
 marry him ? " 
 
 " I confess things look very black for my 
 theory," said the brother from the couch, 
 where he lay smoking placidly. 
 
 " I do believe," she cried with animation, 
 " that you are rather sorry he turned out 
 so nobly. I do believe you would rather 
 he showed no interest in that man on the 
 tow-path." 
 
 "Candidly, Hetty, I would."
 
 A SECOND APPARITIGN. 85 
 
 " It is all jealousy on your part, and you 
 ought to be ashamed of yourself. Are you ? " 
 
 " No — o — o," he said slowly, " I can t 
 say I am much ashamed of myself on that 
 account." 
 
 '* Then," she said, " it is worse not to 
 repent than to sin, and your condition is 
 something dreadful. Now, my impression 
 is that Mr. Crawford never thought of 
 money at all when he married his wife. I 
 believe he married her for pure love, and 
 the fact of her being an invalid was a 
 reason for his loving her all the more. To 
 me he is a Bayard," cried this enthusiastic 
 young person with flushing cheek, and eyes 
 in which the gold glinted more than ever. 
 
 " He's too stout, my dear," said the 
 brother placidly from his couch. 
 
 " What ! " cried she indignantly. " Too 
 stout to marry for love ! You are out- 
 rageous ! "
 
 86 AN ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 " No ; not to many for love, but to be a 
 Bayard. You know as well as I do our 
 lodger would not cut a good figure on 
 horseback," said the brother with calm 
 decision. 
 
 " You are intolerable, Alfred, and I will 
 not speak to you again on the subject. 
 Nothing could be in worse taste than what 
 you have been saying," said the girl, gather- 
 ing herself daintily together and looking 
 away from him. 
 
 " Besides, you do an injustice to our 
 lodger." 
 
 " I wish, Alfred, if you find it necessary 
 to refer to Mr. Crawford, that you would 
 do so in some other way than by calling 
 him our lodger. It is not respectful." 
 
 " Not respectful to whom ? " 
 
 " To me," with a very stately inclination 
 of the gallant little head. 
 
 " I see. Well, I will call him Mr.
 
 A SECOND APPARITION. Sj 
 
 Bayard," said the brother with provoking 
 amiability. 
 
 " I am sure, Alfred, I do not know how 
 you can be so silly." 
 
 "Evil communications, my dear." 
 
 " The gentleman's name is Crawford, and 
 why should you not call him Crawford ? " 
 
 " Just to avoid the monotony." 
 
 " And, I think, Alfred, to annoy me." 
 
 " Perhaps." 
 
 " Well, I must say that is very good- 
 natured of you." 
 
 "But I aim at an identical result." 
 
 " I don't understand you." 
 
 " To avoid monotony, too. You are 
 always so good-humoured and soft-tempered 
 it is a treat to see you ruffled and on your 
 dignity. But there, Hetty dear, let us 
 drop this light-comedy sparring " 
 
 " I'm sure I don't think it's light comedy 
 at all, but downright disagreeableness ; and
 
 AN ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 I didn't begin it, and I don't want to keep 
 it up, and I am sure you have a very 
 clumsy and unkind notion of humour, if 
 talking in that way is your idea of it." 
 
 " Eemember, Hetty," he said, holding up 
 his hand in warning, " you are much too 
 big a girl to cry. You are a great deal too 
 old to cry." 
 
 " A woman is never too old to cry — if 
 she likes." 
 
 " She is, and you are, too old to cry for 
 anything a brother may say to you. Ac- 
 cording to the usage of the best society you 
 are too old to cry because of anything I 
 may say to you. It will be your duty to 
 repress your tears for your lover. Accord- 
 ing to good manners you ought not to shed 
 a tear now until you have your first 
 quarrel with your lover ; and then, mind 
 you, I am to hear nothing about it, or it 
 would be my duty to call the scoundrel
 
 A SECOND APPARITION. 89 
 
 out, Avlien there is no knowing but lie 
 might injure or even kill me, and then you 
 couldn't marry him, for he would be your 
 brother's murderer ; and if I killed him 
 you couldn't marry him, because I should 
 be his murderer ; and I don't see of what 
 use we could be to any one, except to write 
 a tragedy about, and that is about as bad a 
 use as you can put respectable people to." 
 
 The girl's face had been gradually clear- 
 ing while Layard spoke, and by the time 
 he had finished, all trace of annoyance had 
 vanished from it, and she was bright and 
 smiling once more. 
 
 " You are a queer old Alfred, and I 
 am a fool to allow myself to grow angry 
 with you or your nonsense. I of course 
 said too much. I did not mean quite that 
 I thought him a Bayard." 
 
 " He's much better-looking than the only 
 portrait of the Chevalier I ever saw. 1
 
 90 AN ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 must say the knight, by his portrait, is 
 a most repulsive and unchivalrous brute, 
 more fit for the Chamber of Horrors than 
 the Hall of Kings. I assure you, Hetty, 
 Mr. Crawford is a much better-looking 
 man." 
 
 How was he to warn his sister without 
 alarming her ? To say he thought the man 
 was not quite right in his mind would 
 terrify Hetty, and it would not do to leave 
 her without any caution. At last he could 
 think of nothing but a most simple and 
 most matter-of-course caution — that of 
 locking the door of the room in wdiich 
 she and the child slept. ''For," thought 
 Layard, " if there is anything wrong with 
 his head, although it may now be in the 
 direction of excessive humanity, later it 
 may change to be dangerously homicidal." 
 
 As they were saying "good-night," he 
 remarked, as carelessly as he could :
 
 A SECOND APPARITION. 91 
 
 " Eemember, Hetty, although we are in 
 our own house, still it is not all our own." 
 
 " Of course, I know that, Alfred." 
 
 " And if Fred cries, you must quiet him 
 as quickly as possible." 
 
 " So that Mr. Crawford may not be 
 disturbed?" 
 
 " Yes ; and you may as well lock your 
 door?" 
 
 "I will." 
 
 And thus they parted, and he felt at 
 rest ; for even if a paroxysm seized Craw- 
 ford in the night, he could do no serious 
 hurt without makino^ noise enouorli to wake 
 the others. 
 
 At the time that Layard was providing 
 against a possible manaic in William Craw- 
 ford, there was not a saner man within the 
 four corners of London. 
 
 That night passed in perfect peace under 
 the roof of Alfred Layard. So far as Lay-
 
 92 AN ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 ard knew, Crawford had slept the sleep oi 
 mental and bodily health, and little Freddie 
 had not awakened once, as his aunt certified 
 when she came down to breakfast. 
 
 Mrs. Grainger, the charwoman whose 
 services were to be enlisted all the time 
 Mr. Crawford was in the house, brought 
 up his breakfast, and carried down news 
 that the gentleman was arranging his 
 papers and the rooms generally, as was 
 only natural and to be expected upon a 
 gentleman taking up his residence in a 
 new lodging. Mr. Crawford she found very 
 civil, but not inclined at all for conversa- 
 tion. He told Mrs. Grainger he should 
 ring for her when he wanted her, and she 
 took the liberty of explaining to the gentle- 
 man that he could not ring for her, be- 
 cause there was no bell. Upon this the 
 gentleman said he should put his head over 
 the balustrade and call to her, if she would
 
 A SECOND APPARITION. 93 
 
 be good enough to favour him with her 
 name ; which she accordingly did, giving 
 her Christian name and married name, 
 and adding, with a view to defying fraud 
 or personation, her maiden name (Wan- 
 tage) also. The only piece of information 
 he had volunteered to Mrs. Grainger, nee 
 Wantage, was that he had no intention 
 of stirring out that day. 
 
 Layard did not renew the conversation 
 of the night before. He was extraordina- 
 rily fond of his beautiful, sprightly, gentle- 
 hearted sister, and he knew that his badi- 
 nage had reduced her almost to tears. He 
 was grave and tender, and devoted himself 
 through most of breakfast to his lusty, 
 restless, yellow-haired boy of three, little 
 Freddie. 
 
 Alfred Layard's duties lay at the works, 
 not the office, of the great Welford Gas 
 Company. Hence, although his functions
 
 94 AN ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 were those of a clerk, he had not the hours 
 of a clerk. Years ago the Layards had 
 been in a position very different from 
 that occupied by them now. Then their 
 father had been a prosperous merchant 
 in Newcastle, but a series of disasters 
 had come upon him : a partner failed in 
 another business, a bank broke, and the 
 father's health gave way utterly, and he 
 died leaving absolutely nothing behind 
 him. Alfred was at Cambridge at the 
 time of the crash. He left the University 
 at once, and for some time failed to get 
 anything to do. At length an old friend 
 of his father's found him a situation worth 
 a hundred and twenty pounds a year in 
 the great Welford Gasworks. In a couple 
 of years his salary was increased ten 
 pounds a year, upon which joyful en- 
 couragement he married Lucy Aldridge, 
 the penniless girl he had, before the
 
 A SECOND APPARITION. 95 
 
 downfall of his father's house, resolved to 
 make his wife. 
 
 For a little while he and his wife and 
 sister lived very happily and contentedly 
 on his modest hundred and thirty pounds 
 a year. Then came little Freddie, and al- 
 though it was an additional mouth to feed, 
 any one of the three would have been 
 without meat and butter from year's end 
 to year's end rather than without baby 
 Freddie. And when Freddie was a ye'ar 
 old and could just syllable his mother's 
 name, the ears of the poor young well- 
 beloved mother were closed for ever in 
 this life to the voice of her only sweet- 
 heart, Alfred, and her only child. 
 
 The brother and sister put her to rest 
 with other dead in a great cemetery, and 
 never once mentioned her name after that, 
 although often when their loss was fresh 
 upon them they would sit hand in hand
 
 96 AN ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 by the widowed hearth, weeping silently 
 for the ease of their full and weary hearts. 
 
 The day following that on which the 
 brother and sister took possession of Craw- 
 ford's House, Layard felt less anxious about 
 their lodger's condition of mind than he 
 had the evening before. In the darkness of 
 night and the strangeness of a new house 
 and the loneliness of this deserted neigh- 
 bourhood it had seemed as though Craw- 
 ford was insane — might, in fact, at any 
 moment develop into a dangerous maniac. 
 In the sweet sunlight of a bright May 
 morning the fears of the night before 
 looked preposterous, and at very worsjb 
 the lodger appeared to be no more than 
 a fidgety, nervous, excitable man, with 
 whom it would be a bore to live all one's 
 life. 
 
 When his usual time came, Layard kissed 
 his little son and his sister, and went off
 
 A SECOND APPARITION. 97 
 
 to his business at the great gasworks with 
 no fear or misgiving in his heart. 
 
 Mr. Crawford gave no indication of being 
 a troublesome lodger. He had a simple 
 breakfast, consisting of eggs and bacon 
 and coffee, and in the middle of the day 
 a simple dinner, consisting of a chop and 
 potatoes, with bread-and-cheese and a 
 bottle of stout. At tea he hadn't tea, 
 but coffee again, and a lettuce and bread- 
 and-butter. For a man with his income 
 he was easily pleased, thought Hetty. He 
 had found fault with nothing. In fact, 
 he had said no word beyond the briefest 
 ones that would convey his wishes, and 
 when Mrs. Grainger asked if the food had 
 been to his liking he had said simply, "It 
 was all right, thank you." To that good 
 lady he had imparted the impression that 
 he was too much occupied with matters 
 
 of the mind to give much heed to matters 
 VOL. I. 7
 
 98 AN ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 of the body, and he had answered all her 
 questions in a preoccupied and absent- 
 minded manner. 
 
 After tea Mr. Crawford showed no sign 
 of going out. He drew an easy-chair to 
 the window, and sat down at the right- 
 hand side of the embrasure, so as to com- 
 mand a view of the head of the island 
 across which he had seen the man pass 
 the evening before. 
 
 He heard Layard's knock and his voice 
 below-stairs, but still he did not stir. 
 From the place where he sat, any man 
 coming along the tow-path at a walking 
 pace would be in view a minute or a 
 minute and a half before passing out of 
 sight behind Boland's Ait. Crawford did 
 not remove his eyes from that tow-path 
 for any thirty consecutive seconds. 
 
 " I knew him at once," he whispered ; 
 " I knew him the minute I saw him. I
 
 A SECOND APPARITION. 99 
 
 knew his build, his figure, his walk, the 
 way he swings his hands — ay, his face, far 
 off as he was — ay, his face, his accursed 
 vengeful face." 
 
 He leaned forward. He judged, by the 
 dying of the light and the shrouded rose- 
 tint on the cliimneys and upper walls of 
 the houses in view, that it was growing 
 near the hour at which the solitary man 
 
 had appeared on the tow-path last evening. 
 
 • 
 
 "I wonder, if he saw me, would he 
 recognise me ? He thinks I am not in 
 this country. He is not on the look-out 
 for me. I am much changed since I saw 
 him last." He passed his hand over his 
 close-shaven face. "I had a beard and 
 moustache then, and taking them off* makes 
 a great difference in a man's appearance — 
 puts him almost beyond recognition. Then 
 I have grown stouter — much stouter. I 
 daresay my voice would betray me, and
 
 loo AN ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 then there is that St. Vitus's dance in my 
 eyelids. That is an awful drawback. I 
 am horribly handicapped ; it isn't a fair 
 race. And the worst of that jumping of 
 my eyelids is that it always comes on me 
 when I am most excited and least want 
 it, and, moreover, when I am mostly un- 
 conscious of it until the excitement is over. 
 Confound it ! 1 am heavily handicapped." 
 
 He rested his elbow on the arm 
 of the chair, and dropped his chin into 
 his palm, keeping his eyes all the while 
 fixed on that section of the tow-path visible 
 beyond the head of the island. 
 
 " I," he went on in a voice so low as 
 to be almost inaudible to himself, "was 
 on the look-out for him when I recognised 
 him. I knew he lived in Camberwell, and 
 that Camberwell was in the neighbour- 
 hood ; and when I knew that this tow-path 
 goes to that place, I had a presentiment
 
 A SECOND APPARITION. loi 
 
 he would come along that tow-path into 
 my view. It might be called a super- 
 stition, I know, but I had the feeling, and 
 it came true. He did come along that 
 tow-path — he the man of all others on 
 this earth I dread. But where did he 
 delay ? Where did he linger ? Where 
 did he hide himself.^ Layard said there 
 was no place but in the canal, and I can 
 see that the fence is too high for any 
 man to scale without the aid of a ladder.^ 
 
 He rose and stood at the window, to 
 command a better view of the scene. 
 
 " It seems unnatural, monstrous, that I 
 should fear this Philip Eay more than 
 Mellor. If I ought to be afraid of any 
 one, it is Mellor ; and yet I stand in no 
 dread of him, because, no doubt " 
 
 He paused with his mouth open. He 
 was staring at the tow-path. 
 
 A tall slender man had come into view
 
 I02 AN ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 beyond the head of Boland's Ait. He was 
 walking rapidly north, and swinging his 
 arms as he moved. 
 
 " It is he ! " whispered Crawford in a tone 
 of fear. 
 
 He stood motionless by the window for 
 a while — five, ten, fifteen minutes. The 
 man did not reappear. 
 
 Crawford wiped his forehead, which had 
 grown suddenly damp. 
 
 "At any cost I must find out the ex- 
 planation of this unaccountable disap- 
 pearance." 
 
 He went from the house and into the 
 blind lane at the front of the house.
 
 CHAPTEE VI. 
 
 crawtokd's investigations. 
 
 William Crawford ascended the lane 
 until he reached the high-road ; then, 
 turning sharply to the left, he went at a 
 more leisurely pace towards the Welford 
 Bridge. 
 
 He kept his eyes fixed ahead, and in 
 every action of his body there was that 
 vital alertness which characterised him in 
 motion and even in repose. This alertness 
 was more noticeable now than it had been 
 before. Frequently, when he put down his 
 foot in walking, he seemed dissatisfied with 
 the ground upon which it had alighted, and 
 shifted the foot slightly, but briskly and 
 decisively while resting on it, and stepping
 
 I04 AN ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 out with the other leg. He touched one 
 thigh sharply with one hand, then the 
 other thigh with the other hand, as though 
 to assure himself that his hands and legs 
 were within call, should he need their ser- 
 vices for some purpose besides that upon 
 which they were now employed. He rapped 
 his chest with his fist, and thrust his thumb 
 and forefinger into his waistcoat pocket 
 and brought forth nothing. In another 
 man this would be called nervous excite- 
 ment, but in William Crawford it did not 
 arise from any unusual perturbation, but 
 was the result of unutiUsed energy. 
 
 As he approached the bridge his pace 
 fell to a saunter. He subdued his restless- 
 ness or manifestations of repressed activity. 
 Nothing but his eyes showed extraordinary 
 alertness, and they were fixed dead ahead. 
 The houses on his left prevented his seeing 
 the tow-path, and the hump-backed bridge
 
 CRA WFORD'S INVESTIGA TIONS. 105 
 
 prevented his seeing where the approach 
 from the toll-house joined the main 
 road. 
 
 On the bridge lounged a group of 
 loungers similar to that of the evening be- 
 fore. When Crawford had got over the 
 middle of the bridge, and the road began to 
 dip westward, he approached the parapet 
 and looked up the canal. The long 
 straight line ran off in the distance to a 
 vanishing point, seeming to rise as it re- 
 ceded, but not a soul was visible from the 
 spot at which he stood to the point at 
 which the path disappeared. 
 
 Eed Jim sidled up to where the stranger 
 had paused, and after drawing the back of 
 his hand across his mouth, by way of puri- 
 fying himself before speaking to a man of 
 property, said deferentially, 
 
 " Good-evening, guv'nor." 
 
 " Good-evening," said Crawford brisklv,
 
 io6 AN ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 sharply, in a tone which implied he would 
 stand no familiarity or nonsense. 
 
 Eed Jim pushed his hat over his eyes in 
 token of acknowledging a rebuff; but he 
 remained where he was in token of cherish- 
 ing hope of a job, or anyway of money. 
 
 Crawford took a few paces farther down 
 the slope of the bridge. He did not care to 
 speak in the hearing of all these men. 
 Then he beckoned to Eed Jim. The man 
 came to him with alacrity. 
 
 " How long have you been here this 
 evening ? " 
 
 "Most of the evening. I'm out of 
 work." 
 
 " You have been here half-an-hour ? " 
 
 " Yes. A good bit more." 
 
 " Have you seen any one pass along the 
 tow-path this way " (pointing) " in the last 
 half-an-hour?" 
 
 " No."
 
 CRAWFORD'S INVESTIGATIONS. 107 
 
 " Did you see any one come along the 
 path in that time ? " 
 
 " Ay, I did." 
 
 Crawford paused a moment in thought. 
 He laughed and said, " I have a little bet 
 on. I betted that a man did come along 
 the tow-path, but did not come off it at the 
 bridge here. I was looking out of a win- 
 dow and saw him. My friend said it was 
 impossible, as the man otherwise must go 
 into the canah" 
 
 It was plain Crawford did not appear 
 anxious about the man himself. It was 
 jnly about a wager he cared. 
 
 " The man went across the canal." 
 
 " Across the canal ! " cried Crawford in 
 astonishment. " Do you mean over the 
 bridge?" 
 
 " No." 
 
 "Then how did he get across the 
 canal?"
 
 io8 AN ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 " How much have you on it ? " asked 
 Eed Jim. He was afraid his own interests 
 might suffer if he gave all the information 
 he possessed before making terms. 
 
 " Confound you ! what is that to you ? " 
 cried Crawford angrily. 
 
 "Well, then, I'll tell you how he went 
 across," said Eed Jim, looking up straight 
 over his head at the sky. 
 
 " How did he get over ? " cried the other 
 impatiently, as Jim showed no sign of 
 speaking. 
 
 " He flew," said Jim, suddenly dropping 
 his full prominent blue eyes on Crawford. 
 " He flew, that's the way he got across the 
 canal." And, thrusting his hands deep 
 into his wipe-open trousers pockets, he 
 began moving slowly away. 
 
 For a moment Crawford looked as if he 
 could kill Ford. Then, with a sudden quick 
 laugli. he said :
 
 CRA WFORD 'S INVES TIG A TJONS. 109 
 
 " 0, I understand ; I will make it worth 
 a tanner for you." 
 
 Eed Jim was back by liis side in a 
 moment. He stretched out his arm, and, 
 pointing towards the tail of the island, said : 
 
 " Do you see that floating stage ? " 
 
 " Floating stage ? No. What is a float- 
 inor sta^e ? " 
 
 " Two long pieces of timber with planks 
 across. Don't you see it at the tail of 
 Boland's Ait ? " • 
 
 " Yes, I do." 
 
 " Well, that's the way he got over. 
 That was drawn by a chain across the canal 
 to the tow-path. He got on it, and then 
 drew it back to the Ait, do you see ? So 
 you've won your money, guv'nor." 
 
 Crawford's face grew darker and darker, 
 as the explanation proceeded. He handed 
 Jim the promised coin in silence, turned 
 back upon the way he had come, and began
 
 no AN ISLE OF SURRE Y. 
 
 retracing his steps at a quick rate. His 
 eyes winked rapidly, and he muttered curses 
 as he walked. 
 
 " Can it be — can it possibly be that 
 Philip Eay is my next-door neighbour? 
 Incredible ! And yet that was Philip Eay, 
 as sure as I am alive, and he went to this 
 island ! Can this Eobinson Crusoe be Philip 
 Eay? If so, I cannot keep on here. I 
 must find some other place for my — busi- 
 ness. This is not exactly Camber well, and 
 I heard Eay lives in Camberwell ; but 
 this is very near it. Very near Camber- 
 well ! " 
 
 When he reached Crawford Street he 
 diminished his speed. It was plain he did 
 not want to seem in a hurry. As soon as 
 he gained the house he ascended the stairs 
 at once to his own room. He closed the 
 door, and began walking up and down, 
 hastily muttering unconnected words.
 
 CRAWFORD'S INVESTIGATIONS. iii 
 
 After a while he went to the window and 
 looked out on Boland's Ait with an expres- 
 sion in which hatred and fear were blended. 
 The buildings on the island consisted of 
 an old sawmill, from which the machinery 
 had been removed, now falling into ruin ; 
 a couple of dilapidated sheds, with tarred 
 wooden roofs ; a yard in which once the 
 timber had been piled in stacks higher 
 than the engine-house itself; and a small 
 four-roomed house, formerly used as the 
 dwelling-place of the foreman. These 
 buildings and the wall of the yard rose 
 between Crawford and the tow-path. The 
 island itself was on a level with the ground 
 on which Crawford's House stood ; and 
 William Crawford's sitting-room, being on 
 the first floor, did not overpeer even the 
 wall of the yard : hence the view of the 
 tow-path was cut off except at the head 
 and the tail of Boland's Ait.
 
 112 AN ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 William Crawford bit liis under lip and 
 gnawed the knuckle of his left forefinger, 
 and plucked at his shaven cheek and upper 
 lip as though at whiskers and moustache. 
 At last he dropped his hand, and re- 
 mained motionless, as though an idea had 
 struck him and he was considering it. 
 Suddenly he raised his head like one who 
 has made up his mind, and walked with 
 a quick step to the door, and, opening it, 
 went out on the landing. He leaned over 
 the balustrade and called out : 
 
 " Mrs. Grainger, will you come up, 
 please? I want to speak to you for a 
 minute." 
 
 Mrs. Grainger hastened from the kitchen. 
 She had the sleeves of her washed-out lilac 
 cotton dress rolled up above her arms, 
 and an enormous apron, once white, now 
 mottled and piebald with innumerable 
 marks and stains.
 
 CRAWFORD'S INVESTIGATIONS. 113 
 
 " Will you sit down a moment ? " Craw- 
 lord said, pointing to a chair. He walked 
 up and down the room during the inter- 
 view. 
 
 Mrs. Grainger sat down and threw her 
 apron over to her left side, by way of 
 qualifying herself for the honour of a seat 
 in Mr. Crawford's room and in Mr. Craw- 
 ford's presence. 
 
 " Miss Layard told me last evening some 
 interesting facts you mentioned to her 
 about a — gentleman who lives on this 
 island here in the canal." 
 
 " Yes, sir. A Mr. Bramwell, who lives 
 all alone on Boland's Ait." 
 
 " Exactly. Do you know anything about 
 him? The case is so remarkable, I am 
 interested in it merely out of curiosity." 
 
 " I know, sir ; and he is a curiosity, cer- 
 tainly," said Mrs. Grainger, setthng herself 
 firmly on her chair, and arranging her 
 
 VOL. I. 8
 
 114 AN ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 mind as well as her body for a good long 
 chat, for every minute devoted to which 
 she would be receiving her pay. 
 
 Crawford caught the import of her ges- 
 ture, and said sharply : 
 
 " I do not wish to keep you long, Mrs. 
 Grainger ; I have only a few questions to 
 ask, and then you may leave me." 
 
 " Yes, sir," said the charwoman, instantly 
 sitting upright and on her dignity. 
 
 "Have you ever seen this strange man? " 
 
 "Only twice." 
 
 " Would you know him again if you 
 saw him ? " 
 
 " 0, yes, sir, I should know him any- 
 where." 
 
 " Tell me what he is like." 
 
 " Quite the gentleman, sir, he looks, but 
 seems to be poor, or he wouldn't live ir^ 
 such a place all by himself and wear such 
 poor clothes."
 
 CRA WFORD '5 INVES TIG A TIONS, 1 1 5 
 
 " His clothes are poor, then ? " 
 
 " Very. But not so much poor as worn 
 shabby, sir." 
 
 "Ah," said Crawford thoughtfully. He 
 had not been near enouGfh to that man on 
 the tow-path to tell whether his clothes 
 were greatly the worse of wear or not. 
 "Is he dark or light?" 
 
 " Dark. Very dark. His hair is jet* 
 black, sir. I was as close to him on Wel- 
 ford Eoad as I am to you now." 
 
 Philip Eay was dark. " Did you notice 
 anything remarkable about him?" 
 
 "Well, as I said, he is yery dark, and 
 he has no colour in his cheek." 
 
 " H'm ! " said Crawford in a dissatisfied 
 
 tone. Eay had no colour in his cheek. 
 
 "Did you remark anything peculiar in his 
 
 walk ? " No one could fail to observe the 
 
 way in which Eay swung his hands. 
 
 "No, I did not." 
 
 8—2
 
 ii6 AN ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 Crawford drew up in front of the woman, 
 and stood gnawing his knuckle for a few 
 seconds. Then he resumed his pacing up 
 and down. 
 
 "Was the gentleman walking fast at 
 the time?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 Philip Eay, when alone, always went at 
 an unusually rapid pace. He was a man 
 quick in everything : quick in speech, in 
 the movements of his limbs, quickest of all 
 and most enduring also in his love and 
 — anger. 
 
 " Is he a tall man ? " 
 
 "No." 
 
 " What ! " cried he in astonishment, draw- 
 ing up again in front of the charwoman, now 
 somewhat cowed by Crawford's abrupt, and 
 vigorous, and abstracted manner. "Don't 
 you call six feet a tall man? Have you 
 lived among Patagonians all your life ? "
 
 CRA WFORD S JNVESTIGA TIOXS, 1 17 
 
 " No, sir ; I can't say I ever lived with 
 any people of that name," she said, bridling 
 a little. She did not understand being 
 spoken to by any one in that peremptory 
 and belittling way, and if all came to all it 
 wasn't the rich Mr. Crawford who paid her 
 and supplied the food she had eaten, but 
 poor Mr. Layard, who gave himself no airs, 
 but was always a pleasant gentleman, 
 though he was not in the counting-house of 
 the great Welford Gas Company, but in the 
 works, where her own husband was em- 
 ployed. 
 
 " Why, don't you consider a man four 
 inches taller than I a tall man ? " cried 
 Crawford, drawing brows down over his 
 :^uick furtive eyes, and looking at the 
 woman as if he was reproaching her with 
 having committed a heinous crime. 
 
 " Four inches taller than you ! " said the 
 woman with scornful asperity. " I never
 
 Ii8 AN ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 said he was four inches taller than you, sir. 
 He isn't four inches taller than you, Mr. 
 Crawford." 
 
 " He is." 
 
 " Excuse me, sir ; if you tell me so, of 
 course I have nothing more to say," said 
 Mrs. Grainger, rising with severity and 
 dignity. " The gentleman that lives on 
 Boland's Ait is a shorter man than you, sir." 
 
 " Are you sure ? " said Crawford, stand- 
 ing for the third time in front of the woman. 
 
 " Quite certain." 
 
 " Shorter than I ? " said he, in a tone of 
 abstraction, as he gnawed his knuckles, un- 
 conscious of her presence — ''shorter than 
 I ? " he repeated, lost in thought. " Then 
 he can't be Philip Eay," he cried in a tone 
 of relief. The words were uttered, not for 
 Mrs. Grainger's hearing, but for his own. 
 He wanted to have this pleasant assurance 
 in his ear as well as in his mind.
 
 CRAWFORD'S INVESTIGATIONS. 119 
 
 "I never said he was, sir ; I said he was 
 Mr. Bramwell — Mr. Francis Bramwell," said 
 Mrs. Grainger, making a mock courtesy and 
 moving towards the door. 
 
 With a start Crawford awoke from his 
 abstraction to the fact of her presence. 
 " Bless my soul ! but of course you didn't ! 
 Of course you didn't ! You never said any- 
 thing of the kind! You never said any- 
 thing of any kind ! Ha, ha, ha, ha ! " He 
 laughed his short and not pleasant laugh, 
 and held the door open for Mrs. Grainger. 
 
 When she was gone he walked up and 
 down the room for some time in deep 
 cogitation. Then he went to the window 
 and looked out on the scene, now darken- 
 ing for the short night. His eyes rested on 
 Boland's Ait, and he muttered below his 
 breath : 
 
 " Whoever my next-door neighbour may 
 be, it is not Philip Eay, and I am not afraid
 
 I20 AN ISLE OF SURREY, 
 
 of any one else on earth. But who is this 
 Francis Brarawell that Philip Eay visits ? 
 Who can he be ? " Crawford paused awhile, 
 and then said impatiently as he turned away 
 from the window, " Bah, what do I care 
 who it is ? I fear no one but Philip Eay."
 
 CHAPTEE VII. 
 
 A VISITOR AT BOLAND's AIT. 
 
 On" the evening that Crawford arrived for 
 the first time at the house called after his 
 name, and saw the man he recognised as 
 Philip Kay hastening along the tow-path, 
 the man of whom he expressed such fear 
 was almost breathless when, having passed 
 the head of the Ait, he was hidden from 
 view. As soon as he got near the tail of 
 the island he suddenly stopped, bent down, 
 and seizing a small chain made fast to an 
 iron ring below the level of the tow-path 
 and close to the water, drew heavily upon 
 it, hand over hand. Gradually a long low 
 black floating mass began to detach itself 
 from the island, and, like some huge snake
 
 122 AN ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 or saurian, stretch itself out across the 
 turbid waters, now darkening in the 
 shadows of eve. This was the floating 
 stage of which Eed Jim had told Crawford. 
 
 When the stage touched the bank Philip 
 Eay stepped on it, walked to the other end, 
 stooped down to the water, and, catching 
 another chain, drew the stage back. Then 
 he stepped ashore on Boland's Ait. 
 
 He paused a moment to gather breath 
 and wipe his forehead, for in his wild haste 
 he had run half the way from Camberwell. 
 With rapid steps and arms swinging he 
 strode to the door of what had once been 
 the foreman's cottage, and knocked hastily. 
 Then he made a great effort, and forced 
 himself into an appearance of calm. 
 
 There was the sound of some one rising 
 inside. The door swung open, and a man 
 of thirty slightly under the middle height 
 stood facing the failing light of day.
 
 A VISITOR AT BO LAND'S AIT. 123 
 
 " Philip," he said. " PhiHp, I did not 
 expect to see you so soon again. Come 
 in." 
 
 On a table littered with papers a reading- 
 lamp was already burning, for even at the 
 brightest hour the light in the small oblong 
 room was not good. By the table stood a 
 Windsor armchair ; another stood against 
 the wall furthest from the door. There 
 was a tier of plain bookshelves full of books 
 against one of the walls, a few heavy boxes 
 against another, and absolutely nothing else 
 in the place. The cottage stood at the head 
 of the island, and the one window of the 
 occupant's study looked up the canal in the 
 direction of Camberwell. 
 
 " At work, as usual," said Eay, pointing 
 to the papers on the table as he shut the 
 door. 
 
 " My work is both my work and my play, 
 my meat and my rest. Sit down, Philip.
 
 124 AN ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 Has anytliing unusual happened? I did 
 not expect to see you until Sunday,'* said 
 the solitary man, dropping into his chair, 
 resting his elbows on the arms of it and 
 leaning forward. 
 
 " I am out of breath. I ran most of the 
 way," said Eay, avoiding the question. 
 
 " Ean ! " cried the other in faint surprise. 
 " Your walking is like another man's run- 
 ninsf. Your runninof must be terrific. I 
 never saw you run. What made you run 
 this evening ? " He smiled very slightly as 
 he spoke of Eay's walking and running. 
 
 "I am out of breath," said the other, 
 again shirking the question. " Give me a 
 minute." 
 
 It was not to gain breath Philip Eay 
 paused, but to put in shape what he had to 
 say. He had come from Camberwell at the 
 top of his speed because he was burning 
 with intelligence which had just reached
 
 A VISITOR AT BOLAND'S AIT. 125 
 
 him. He had been so excited by the news 
 that he had never paused to think of the 
 form in which he should communicate it, 
 and now he was in great perplexity and 
 doubt. 
 
 Francis Bramwell threw himself back in 
 his chair in token of giving the required 
 respite. He was a pale broad-browed 
 man, with large, grave, unfathomable, hazel 
 
 eyes. His hair and moustache were dark 
 brown ; his cheeks and chin, clean-shaveil. 
 Eay fidgeted a good deal in his chair, and 
 
 acted very badly the man who was out of 
 
 breath. 
 
 '• You must have run desperately hard," 
 
 said Bramwell, at length, in a tone half 
 
 sympathy, half banter. 
 
 " Never harder in all my life," said the 
 
 other, placing his hand on his side, as though 
 
 still suffering from the effects of his unusual 
 
 speed.
 
 126 AN JSLE OF SURREY. 
 
 After a while he sat up and said, " I was 
 pretty tired to begin with. I had been 
 wandering about all the afternoon, and when 
 I found myself near home I made up my 
 mind not to budge again for the night. I 
 found a letter waiting for me, and I have 
 come over about that letter." He ceased 
 to speak, and suppressed the excitement 
 which was shaking him. 
 
 " A letter ! " said Bramwell, observing for 
 the first time that something very unusual 
 lay behind the manner of the other. " It 
 must have been a letter of great importance 
 to bring you out again, and at such a rate, 
 too." He looked half apprehensively at his 
 visitor. 
 
 " It was a letter of importance." 
 
 A spasm of pain shot over the face of 
 Bramwell, and his brows fell. " A letter of 
 importance that concerned me?" he asked 
 in a faint voice.
 
 A VISITOR AT BOLAND'S AIT. 127 
 
 '' Well," after a pause, " partly." 
 
 Bramwell's lips grew white, and opened. 
 He scarcely breathed his next question : 
 "From lierV 
 
 " 0, no ! " answered Eay quickly. 
 
 " About her ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 Bramwell fell back in his chair with a 
 sigh of relief. " I thought the letter was 
 about her. I thought you were preparing 
 me to hear of her death," said he tremu- 
 lously, huskily. 
 
 " I am sorry to say you were wrong. 
 That would be the best news we could hear 
 of her," said Eay bitterly. 
 
 "Yes, the very best. Wliat does the 
 letter tell you that affects me ? ' 
 
 " It is about Az?72," answered Eay, with 
 fierce and angry emphasis on the pronoun. 
 
 "What does the letter say?" 
 
 "That he is in England."
 
 ^.V ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 "Ah! Where?" 
 
 " In Eichmond." 
 
 " So near ! " 
 
 "Who saw him?" 
 
 " Lambton." 
 
 " Beyond all chance of mistake ? " 
 
 "Beyond all chance of mistake, although 
 he has shaved off his whiskers and mous- 
 tache. Lambton saw him on the railway 
 platform, and recognised him at once. 
 Lambton had no time to make any in- 
 quiries, as his train was just about to move 
 when he reco^^nised the villain standinir 
 alone. But / have plenty of time for in- 
 quiries, and shall not miss one. I'll shoot 
 him as I would a rabid dog." 
 
 " The atrocious scoundrel ! " 
 " When I read the letter I only waited to 
 put this in my pocket." 
 
 He took out a revolver and laid it on the 
 table.
 
 A VISITOR AT BOLAND'S AIT. 129 
 
 Then for a while both men sat staring at 
 one another across the table, on which lay 
 the weapon. At length Bramwell rose and 
 began pacing up and down the room with 
 quick, feverish steps. Eay had not seen 
 him so excited for years — not since his own 
 sister Kate, the solitary man's wife, had run 
 away, taking her baby, with that villain 
 John Ainsworth, whom Edward Lambton 
 had seen at Eichmond. After the first 
 fierce agony of the wound, the husband had 
 declined to speak of her flight or of her to 
 his brother-in-law. He plunged headlong 
 into gambling for a time until all his ample 
 means were dissipated, unless Boland's Ait 
 are enough to keep body and soul together. 
 Then his grief took another turn. He was 
 lost to all his former friends for months, and 
 at last took up his residence, under an as- 
 sumed name — Francis Bramwell instead of 
 Frank Mellor — on Boland's Ait, in the South 
 
 VOL. I. 9
 
 I30 AN ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 London Canal. To not a living soul did he 
 disclose his real name or his place of habita- 
 tion but to Philip Eay, the brother of his 
 guilty wife, and the sworn avenger of her 
 shame and his dishonour. 
 
 Eay watched Bramwell with flashing, 
 uneasy eyes. By a desperate effort he was 
 calming his own tumultuous passions. 
 
 At last Bramwell wound his arms round 
 his head, as though to shut out some intoler- 
 able sight, to close his ears to some madden- 
 ing sounds, to shield his head from deadly, 
 infamous blows. 
 
 " Bear with me, Philip ! " he cried 
 huskily, at length. "Bear with me, my 
 dear friend. I am half mad — whole mad 
 for the moment. Bear with me! God 
 knows, I have cause to be mad." 
 
 He was staggering and stumbling about 
 the room, avoiding by instinct the table 
 on which the lamp burned.
 
 A VISITOR AT BOLAND'S AIT. 131 
 
 Eay said nothing, but set his teeth and 
 breathed hard between them. 
 
 " I did not think,'' went on Bramwell, 
 unwinding his arms and placing his hands 
 before his face, as he went on unsteadily 
 to and fro, " that anything could break 
 me down as this has done. I thought I 
 had conquered all weakness in the 1 matter. 
 I cannot talk quite steadily yet. Bear 
 with me awhile, Philip ! " 
 
 The younger man hissed an imprecatio'h 
 between his set teeth. 
 
 Bramwell took down his hands from 
 his face and tore the collar of his shirt 
 open. 
 
 "What you told me," he resumed in a 
 
 gentler voice, a voice still shaken by his 
 
 former passion of wrath, as the sea 
 
 trembles after the wind has died away, 
 
 "brought it all back upon me again. 
 
 How I worshipped her! How I did all 
 
 9—2
 
 132 AN ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 in my power to make her love me ! 
 How I hoped in time she would forget 
 her young fancy for him! I thought if 
 she married me I could not fail to win 
 her love, and then when the child was 
 born I felt secure. But the spell of his 
 evil fascination was too strong for her 
 feeble will, and — and— and he had only 
 to appear and beckon to her to make her 
 leave me for ever ; and to go with liim 
 — with such a man as John Ainsworth! 
 God ! " 
 
 Eay drew a long breath, brought his 
 lips firmly together, but uttered no word. 
 His eyes were blazing, and his hands 
 clutched with powerful strenuousness the 
 elbows of his chair. 
 
 "I am calmer now," resumed Bram- 
 well. 
 
 " I am not," breathed Eay, in a whisper 
 of such fierceness and significance that
 
 A VISITOR AT BOLAND'S AIT. 133 
 
 the other man arrested his steps and re- 
 garded the speaker in a dazed way, like 
 one awakening from sleep in unfamiliar 
 surroundings. 
 
 " I am not calmer now," went on Eay, 
 in the same whisper of awful menace, 
 " unless it is calmer to be more than 
 ever resolved upon revenge." 
 
 « Philip " 
 
 " Stop ! I must have my say. You 
 have had yours. Have I no wrongs or 
 sorrow ? Am I not a partner in this shame 
 thrust upon us ? " 
 
 « But " 
 
 " Frank, I will speak. You said a while 
 ago, 'Bear with me.' Bear you now with 
 me." 
 
 Bramwell made a gesture that he would 
 hear him out. 
 
 " In the first wild burst of your anger 
 vou would have strano^led this miscreant
 
 134 AN ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 if you could have reached his throat with 
 your thumbs — would you not ? " 
 
 He was now speaking in his full voice, 
 in tones charged with intense passion. 
 
 "I was mad then." 
 
 "No doubt; and I am mad still — now. 
 I have never ceased to be mad, if fidelity 
 to my oath of vengeance is madness. You 
 know I loved her as the apple of my eye, 
 and guarded her as the priceless treasure of 
 my life ; for we were alone — she was alone 
 in the world only for me. Him I knew 
 and loathed. I knew of his gambling, his 
 dishonourableness, his profligacy. I knew 
 she was weak and flighty, vain and head- 
 long, open to the wiles of a flatterer, and I 
 shuddered when I found she had even met 
 him once, and I forbade her ever to meet 
 him again. She promised, and although 
 my mind was not at rest, it was quieted 
 somewhat. Then you came. I knew you
 
 A VISITOR AT BOLAND'S AIT. 135 
 
 were the best and loyalest and finest-souled 
 man of them all. Let me speak. Bear 
 with me a little while." 
 
 " My life is over. Let me be in such 
 peace as I may find." Bramwell walked 
 slowly up and down the room with his head 
 bowed and his eyes cast on the floor. 
 
 "And why is your life over — at thirty? 
 Because of him and his ways of devilish 
 malice ; he cared for her really nothing 
 at all. When he came the second time,' a 
 year after the marriage, he set his soul upon 
 ruining you and her. He thought of 
 nothing else. Do not stop me. I will go 
 on. I will have it out for once. You 
 would never listen to me before. Now you 
 shall — you shall ! " 
 
 He was speaking in a loud and vehement 
 voice, and swinging his arms wildly round 
 him as he sat forward on his chair. 
 
 " Go on."
 
 136 AN ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 " Well, I liked you best of all ; you had 
 everything in your favour : position, money, 
 abilities, even years. You were younger 
 than the scoundrel, and quite as good-look- 
 ing. You had not his lying smooth tongue 
 for women, or his fine sentiment for their 
 silly ears. I thought all would be well if 
 she married you. She did, and all went 
 well for a year, until he came back, and 
 then all went wrong, and she stole away 
 out of your house, taking your child with 
 her." 
 
 " I know — I know ; but spare me. I 
 have only just said most of this myself." 
 
 " No doubt ; but I must say what is in 
 my heart — what has been in my heart for 
 years. Well, we know he deserted her after 
 a few months. He left her and her child 
 to starve in America, the cowardlv ruffian ! 
 What I have had in my mind to say for 
 years, Frank, is that of all the men in this
 
 A VISITOR AT BOLAND'S AIT. 137 
 
 world, I love and esteem you most ; that I 
 love and esteem you more than all the other 
 men in this world put together, and that it 
 drives me mad to think shame and sorrow 
 should have come upon you through my 
 blood." 
 
 " Do not speak of her, Philip. What 
 has been done cannot be undone." 
 
 "No; but the shame which has come 
 upon you through my blood can be washed 
 
 out in his, and by , it shall ! and here 
 
 I swear it afresh." 
 
 With a sudden movement forward he 
 flung himself on his knees and threw his 
 open right hand up, calling Heaven to 
 witness his oath. 
 
 Bramwell paused in his walk. The two 
 men remained motionless for a moment. 
 Suddenly Bramwell started. There was a 
 loud knocking at the door.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 FATHEK AND SOX. 
 
 Eay rose to his feet and bent forward. 
 
 " I did not know you expected any 
 visitor," said he in a tone of strong irrita- 
 tion. 
 
 "I do not expect any visitor. I never 
 have any visitor but you," said Bramwell, 
 looking round him in perplexity, as though 
 in search of an explanation of the sound. 
 He was beginning to think that his ears 
 must have deceived him, and that the 
 knock had not been at the door. " Did 
 you," he asked, " draw back the stage 
 when you got here ? " 
 
 " Yes, but I did not fasten it. Any one 
 on the tow-path might have pulled it across
 
 FATHER AND SON. 139 
 
 again. I hope no one has been eaves- 
 dropping." 
 
 " Eavesdropping ! No. Who would care 
 to eavesdrop at my door ? " 
 
 " He ! " 
 
 " Philip, you are mad ? If you trifle with 
 your reason in this Avay you will hurt it 
 permanently. I do not believe there was 
 any knock at all. It may have been a 
 stone thrown by some boy from the tow- 
 path." 
 
 " Well, open the door and see. There 
 can be no harm in doing that." 
 
 Eay stretched out his hand to recover 
 the revolver which he had placed on the 
 table. Bramwell snatched it up, saying : 
 
 "What folly, Philip! I will have no 
 nonsense with such tools as this. We are 
 in Enofland — not the West of America." 
 He dropped the revolver into the pocket of 
 his jacket.
 
 I40 AN ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 The minds of both men had been so con- 
 centrated on the idea of John Ainsworth 
 during this interview that neither would 
 have felt much surprise to find him on the 
 threshold. Bramwell had repudiated Eay's 
 suggestion that Ainsworth was there, but 
 in his heart he was not sure of his own 
 assertion. Nothing on earth could be more 
 monstrously improbable than that Ains- 
 worth would come and knock at that door ; 
 but then neither of the men in the room 
 was in full possession of his reasoning 
 powers. While Bramwell had lived on 
 Boland's Ait no caller but Philip Eay had 
 ever knocked at that door before, and now 
 — now there came a knock while Philip 
 Kay was sitting in the room, and as they 
 had heard of Ainsworth's presence in Eng- 
 land, and at the very moment Philip Eay 
 was swearing to take that reprobate's life. 
 Eeason said it was absurd to suppose Ains-
 
 FATHER AND SON. 141 
 
 worth could be there. Imagination said he 
 might ; and if he were found there while 
 Philip was in this fury, what direful things 
 might not happen? Now that Bramwell 
 had the revolver in his possession he felt 
 more assured. 
 
 He moved to the door, opened it, and 
 looked out. 
 
 No figure rose between him and the deep 
 dusk of night. The light from the lamp on 
 the table passed out through the doorway, 
 and shone upon the wall of the old 
 engine-house opposite. 
 
 "There is no one. It must have been 
 a stone," said Bramwell, relieved, and 
 drawing back. 
 
 " A stone cannot hit twice. There were 
 two knocks. I heard two quite distinctly. 
 Go out and look around. Or stay, I'll go. 
 Give me back my revolver.'* 
 
 " No, no. Stay where you are. I will see."
 
 142 AN ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 He was in the act of stepping forth, 
 when, looking down, he suddenly perceived 
 the figure of a little child in the doorway. 
 With a cry, "What is this?" he sprang 
 back into the middle of the room. 
 
 Eay shouted, " Is the villain there ? I 
 told you it was Ainsworth ! " 
 
 Eay was about to pass Bramwell at a 
 bound, when the latter seized him and held 
 him back, and, pointing to the child in the 
 doorway, whispered, " Look ! " 
 
 Eay peered into the gloom, and then 
 came forward a pace warily, as though 
 suspecting danger. " A child ! " he cried 
 in a whisper. " A little child ! How did 
 he come here ? Do you know anything of 
 him?" 
 
 " No." Bramwell shuddered and drew 
 back until he could reach the support of 
 the table, on which he rested his hand. 
 
 Eay advanced still further, and, bending
 
 FATHER AND SON. 143 
 
 his tall thin figure, asked in a mufiled 
 voice, " Who are you, my little man ? and 
 what have you got in your hand ? " The 
 child held something white in a hand which 
 he extended to Eay. 
 
 The child did not answer, but crossed 
 the threshold into the full light of the 
 lamp, still offering the white object, which 
 now could be seen to be a letter. 
 
 " What is you name, my little man ? " 
 repeated Eay, with a look of something 
 like awe on his face. 
 
 " Don't ! " whispered Bramwell, backing 
 until he reached his chair. " Don't ! Can't 
 you see his name .^ " 
 
 " No. I am not able to make out what 
 is on the paper at the distance. Give me 
 the paper, my little lad." 
 
 Bramwell knew what the name of the 
 child was, and Kay had a tumultuous and 
 superstitious feeling that the coming of
 
 144 AN JSLE OF SURREY. 
 
 this child across the water in the night 
 to the lonely islet and this solitary man 
 had some portentous significance. 
 
 Eay took the letter from the child, and 
 read the superscription with dull sight. 
 Then he said, turning to Bramwell, " This 
 does not explain how you know his name. 
 There is nothing on this but, 
 
 'Francis Bramwell, Esq. 
 Boland's Ait, 
 
 South London Canal.' 
 
 What is your name ? Tell me your name, 
 my little man." 
 
 " Frank," said the child in a frightened 
 voice. 
 
 " Yes. What else ? " 
 
 " Mellor." 
 
 " What ! " shouted Eay, catching up the 
 boy from the floor and holding the little 
 face close to the lamp.
 
 ■FA J HER AND SON. 145 
 
 "Did not you see his name on his face ? 
 Look! Is it not her face? Philip, I am 
 suffocating ! " 
 
 Eay gazed at the child long and eagerly. 
 Bramwell, swaying to and fro by his chair, 
 kept his eyes on the rosy face of the boy. 
 The boy blinked at the light, and looked 
 from one man to the other with wide- 
 open, unconcerned eyes. At length Eay 
 put the little fellow on the floor. The 
 boy went to the table and began lookihg 
 at the papers spread upon it. From his 
 self-possessed, unabashed manner, it was 
 plain he was well accustomed to strangers. 
 
 " Who brought you here ? " asked Eay 
 again. The other man seemed bereft of 
 voice and motion, save the long swaying 
 motion, which he mechanically tried to 
 steady by laying hold of the arm of the 
 chair. 
 
 " A man," answered the child, running 
 
 VOL. I. 10
 
 146 AN ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 his chubby young fingers though some 
 papers. 
 
 " Where did you come from ? " 
 
 " Mother," answered the child. 
 
 " Who is mother ? " 
 
 The boy looked round in smiling sur- 
 prise. 
 
 "Mother is mother," and he laughed at 
 the notion of grown-up people not knowing 
 so simple a thing as that his mother was 
 mother. He was thoroughly at his ease — 
 quite a person of the world. 
 
 " You had better open the letter," said 
 Eay, holding it out to Bramwell. " I did 
 not recognise the writing. It is not like 
 what I remember, and it is in pencil." 
 
 Bramwell took the letter. His face 
 worked convulsively as he examined it. 
 " I should not recognise the writing either, 
 and yet it could be no other than hers, 
 once you think of her and look at it." He
 
 FATHER AND SON. 147 
 
 turned the unopened envelope round and 
 round in his hand. " What is the good of 
 opening this, Philip? It will make no 
 difference in me. I shall never look at her 
 of my own free-will again." 
 
 "How can you judge the good of open- 
 ing it unless you know what it contains ? 
 You cannot send it back by this messenger. 
 My little lad," he said, turning to the 
 child, who was still moving his dimpled 
 fingers through the confused mass of pap5rs 
 on the table, " where is the man that 
 brought you here ? " 
 
 " Gone away," answered the child, with- 
 out suspending his occupation. 
 
 " He left you at the door and knocked 
 and went away ? " 
 
 The boy nodded. 
 
 "He brought you across the water and 
 
 set you down and knocked, and went back 
 
 across the water ? " 
 
 10—2
 
 148 AN ISLE OF SURREY, 
 
 " Went back across the water," repeated 
 the boy. 
 
 "What did he do then?" 
 
 "EanofF." 
 
 " You see, Frank," said Ray to the other 
 man, " you cannot send back the letter by 
 the inessenofer who brought it." 
 
 " Shall I throw it into the canal ? I 
 made up my mind never to know anything 
 about her again in this life," said Bram- 
 well. 
 
 Bay put his hand on the child's head 
 and said, "Where did you leave your 
 mother ? " 
 
 " At home." 
 
 " Where ? " 
 
 " A long way." 
 
 " Do you know where ? " 
 
 "Yes; in bed." 
 
 Bramwell tore open the envelope, read 
 the letter, handed it to Ray, and flung him-
 
 FATHER AND SON. 149 
 
 self into his chair. The note, written iu 
 pencil Hke the address on the cover, ran : 
 
 " May 28. 
 "Prank, — I have found out where 
 you are after long search. I ask nothing 
 for myself — not even forgiveness. But our 
 child, your little son, will be alone and 
 penniless when I die, which the doctor 
 tells me must be before morning. I have 
 enough money to pay all expenses. If is 
 not his money, but money made by myself 
 — by my singiiig. You may remember my 
 voice was good. I shall be dead before 
 morning, the doctor tells me. There will 
 be money enough for my funeral, but none 
 for my child. He is very young — I forget 
 exactly how old, for my head is burning 
 hot, and my brain on fire. He is called 
 after you, for you used to be kind to me 
 when I was at Beechley before I was
 
 ISO AN ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 married to Frank Mellor. You remember 
 him? This is a question you can never 
 answer, because I hear in my ears that I 
 shall die before morning. The money for 
 my funeral is in my box. I am writing 
 this bit by bit, for my head is on fire, and 
 now and then I cannot even see the paper, 
 but only a pool of flame, with little Frank 
 — my baby Frank — on the brim, just falling 
 in, and I cannot save him. I am writing 
 my will. This is my will. 1 think I have 
 nothing more to say. I wish I could re- 
 member all I have said, but I am not able ; 
 and I cannot read, for when I try, the 
 paper fills with fire. It is easier to write 
 than to read .... I am better now. My 
 head is cooler. It may not be cool again 
 between this and morning, and then it will 
 be cold for ever. [I have money enough 
 for myself when I am dead.] Take my 
 boy, take our child. Take my only little
 
 FATHER AND SON. 151 
 
 one — all that is left to me. I do not ask 
 you to forgive me. Curse me in my grave, 
 but take the child. You are a good man, 
 and fear and love God. My child is grow- 
 ing dim before my dying eyes. I could not 
 leave him behind when I fled your house. 
 I cannot leave him behind now, and yet I 
 must go without him. I know you are 
 bound in law to provide for him. That is 
 not what I mean. Take him to your heart 
 as you took .me once. I love him* ten 
 thousand times more than I ever loved 
 myself, or ever loved you. I can give you 
 nothing more, for I am not fit to bless you. 
 The pool of flame again ! But I have said 
 
 all. 
 
 " Kate." 
 
 Bay had read the letter standing by the 
 table, and with his back to the chair into 
 which Bramwell had sunk. When' he 
 finished he turned slowly round and -fixed
 
 152 AN ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 his gaze on the .child. A feeling of delicacy 
 and profound sympathy made him avoid the 
 eyes of the other man. The dying woman 
 was his sister, but she was this man's wife. 
 A little while ago he had said that death 
 would well befit her ; and yet now, when, 
 as in answer to his words, he read her own 
 account of the death sentence passed upon 
 her, he felt a pang of pity for her and re- 
 morse for his words. For a moment his 
 mind went back to their orphaned child- 
 hood, and his love and admiration of his 
 sister Kate's beauty. He had to banish the 
 pictures ruthlessly from his mind, or he 
 would have broken down. Silence any 
 longer preserved would only afford a gate- 
 way to such thoughts ; so he said, as he 
 placed his hand once more on the head of 
 the boy ; 
 
 " She was delirious, or half-delirious, when 
 she wrote this."
 
 FATHER AND SON. 153 
 
 " Philip, she was dying." 
 
 "Yes. What do you propose to do? * . 
 
 *' Nothing. The boy said he came a long 
 way, and that whoever brought him ran 
 away. It is plain she has taken precautions 
 to conceal her hiding-place. Let things be 
 as they are. They are best so." 
 
 He spoke like a man in a dream. He 
 was half stunned. It seemed to him that 
 all this had passed in some dreary long ago, 
 and that he was only faintly recalling old 
 experiences, not living among w^ords and 
 facts and surroundings subsisting to-day. 
 
 " And what about ? " Eay finished 
 
 the sentence by pointing with his free hand 
 at the boy. 
 
 "Eh? About what?" 
 
 Bramwell's eyes were looking straight 
 before him far away. . 
 
 " About our young friend here ? " 
 
 "She has been careful to remind me oi
 
 154 AN ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 my legal responsibility. I have no choice. 
 Besides, putting the question of legality 
 aside, I have no desire to escape from the 
 charge, though I am ill-suited to undertake 
 it, and do not know how I shall manage. 
 He is, of course, a stranger to me. He was 
 a mere baby when last I saw him. I can- 
 not think of this matter now. I am thick- 
 blooded and stupid with memories and 
 sorrows." 
 
 Kay groaned, and began pacing up and 
 down the room. The child, always self- 
 possessed, had now gathered courage and 
 was slowly making the circuit of the table, 
 holding on by the rim, and now and then 
 turning over some of the papers. : plainly a 
 child accustomed to amuse himself. 
 
 Neither of the men spoke. Bram well sat 
 stupefied in his chair. Eay strode up and 
 down the room with hasty steps. '" 
 
 The child pursued his course round the
 
 FATHER AND SON. 155 
 
 table. On the table was nothing but papers, 
 and the lamp inaccessible in the middle, the 
 pens and an ink-bottle unattainable near 
 the lamp. Wlien the circuit of the table 
 was completed, and was found to afford 
 nothing but dull papers, with not even one 
 picture among them, the little feet ceased 
 to move. One hand laid hold of the leaf, 
 the white blue-veined temple was rested on 
 the soft pad made by the plump tiny hand, 
 and the young voice said with a weary 
 yawn, " Frank's tired. Prank wants to go 
 to mother." As the boy spoke he sank 
 down, to the floor, overcome by drowsiness 
 and fatigue. 
 
 Eay hastened to the child and raised him 
 from the ground, and held him tenderly in 
 his arms. "Poor little man! Poor 'tired 
 little motherless man ! ■" . 
 
 " Mother ! " murmured the boy, " I want 
 to go to mother! " The child smiled, and
 
 156 AN ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 nestled into the breast of the tall powerful 
 man. " Frank wants mother and wants to 
 go to bed." 
 
 " Hush, my boy ; Frank has no mother." 
 
 Then a sudden ^impulse seized Eay. He 
 crossed the room with the little lad in his 
 arms, and placed him in the arms of Brara- 
 well, saying to the child : 
 
 "You cannot go to your mother: you 
 have no mother any longer. But you have 
 a father. Take him, Frank ; he is not to 
 blame." 
 
 Bramwell caught the boy to his breast, 
 and stooped and kissed his round soft young 
 cheek, and pressed him again to his bosom, 
 and then all at once handed him back to 
 Eay, saying, in a choking voice : 
 
 "I am distracted, overwhelmed. I can- 
 not stand this. What do I want here — 
 alive?" 
 
 He rose and began stumbling about the
 
 FA THER AND S OX. 1 5 7 
 
 room as if on the point of falling. Suddenly 
 something heavy in his coat struck the 
 table and shook it. A gleam of joy shot 
 over his face, illumining it as though he 
 stood within the light of deliverance. 
 
 Swift as thought he drew the revolver 
 from his pocket and placed it against his 
 forehead. With a cry of horror, Eay struck 
 his arm up, dropped the child, and seizing 
 Bramwell's wrist, wrenched the weapon 
 from his grasp. 
 
 "It is you who are mad now ! " he cried 
 angrily. " What do you mean ? Does all 
 your fine morality vanish at the contact 
 with pain and disgrace? For shame, 
 Frank ! for shame ! You were always a 
 man. What unmans you now ? This," he 
 added, dropping the revolver into his own 
 pocket, " is safer in my keeping than in 
 yours. I intended to do only justice with 
 it"; you would commit a crime."
 
 158 AN ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 " I am calmer now," said Bramwell ; " it 
 was only the impulse of a moment. For- 
 give me, Philip ! forgive me, Heaven ! I 
 was frenzied. I hardly remember what 
 passed since — since the boy came and I read 
 that letter, and saw her ruin and death, and 
 tasted the ashes of my own life upon my 
 lips. I am calm — quite calm now. I will 
 do my duty by the child. Trust me, I will 
 not give way again ; although I am not 
 much safer without the revolver than with 
 it. I have as deadly a weapon always at 
 hand." 
 
 " What is that ? I did not know you 
 kept any weapon in the place." 
 
 "I keep no weapon in the place ; but," 
 he went to the window looking south along 
 the canal, " all round me is — the water." 
 
 Shortly after this Philip Eay. left, 
 promising to call next evening. It was 
 after this interview that Layard and Craw-
 
 FATHER AND SON. 159 
 
 ford saw him emerge from the gloom of the 
 arch of Welford Bridfre, the nisfht that 
 Crawford entered upon the tenancy of his 
 rooms in Crawford's House, on Crawford's 
 Bay, opposite Boland's Ait, and hard by the 
 flooded ice-house, Mrs. Crawford's property. 

 
 CHAPTEE IX. 
 
 Crawford's home. 
 
 The third and last day of William Craw- 
 ford's visit to Welford was devoted to the 
 business of his wife's property. The rents 
 had not been collected for a couple of 
 months, and before he returned in the even- 
 ing he had upwards of a hundred pounds 
 in his possession. Some of the tenants paid 
 quarterly ; the rents of the smaller ones 
 were due weekly, but it had been the 
 custom of the estate not to apply for the 
 latter until four weeks outstanding. The 
 neighbourhood, though poor, was for a 
 place of its class eminently solvent, owing 
 to the gas-house and the railway. Of course 
 there was no difficulty with the stores, or
 
 CRA WFORD 'S HOME. 1 6 1 
 
 wharves, or yards, or better class of houses ; 
 and even the poorer tenants could not afford 
 to get into arrears or treat a landlord un- 
 justly, for such matters might come to the 
 ears of either of the great companies, and 
 do the delinquent harm. 
 
 It was almost sundown when Crawford 
 reached his lodgings. Layard had come in 
 and gone out again, and Hetty was alone 
 in their sitting-room. She had just come 
 down from little Freddie, who, after "a 
 valiant fight against Billy Winkers, had 
 at last succumbed. Crawford saw Hetty at 
 the window, and motioned that he wished 
 to speak with her. 
 
 " Mr. Layard out ? " asked he, after 
 greetings. 
 
 " Yes," said the girl ; " the evening was 
 so lovely, he said he'd go for a walk." 
 
 " The evening is lovely, no doubt," 
 said he ; " but is there such a thing as 
 
 VOL. I. 11
 
 i62 AN ISLE OF SURREY, 
 
 a tolerable walk within reasonable dis- 
 tance ? " 
 
 Hetty had opened the sitting-room door, 
 and now stood on the threshold. 
 
 " There is no nice walk quite close, but 
 Alfred often goes for a stroll to Greenwich 
 Park. That is not far off, you know, and the 
 air there is so sweet and pure after the heat 
 and unpleasantness of the works all day." 
 
 She thought he was speaking merely out 
 of politeness, and, believing he wished to 
 be gone, drew back a little into the room. 
 
 He was in no great hurry to go upstairs. 
 He knew what her movement indicated, but 
 he construed it differently. 
 
 " Am I invited to enter ? " he asked 
 suavely, bowing slightly, and making a 
 gesture of gallant humility with his arms 
 and shoulders. 
 
 " Certainly," she said, smiling and making 
 way for him. He did look a powerful man.
 
 CRAWFORD'S HOME. 163 
 
 slie thouglit, who could dare danger, and 
 rescue and carry out of the flames an 
 invalid woman. He was not very hand- 
 some, it was true, and there was something 
 unusual about his restless eyes. But per- 
 haps that might be quite usual with heroes. 
 She had never before met a man who had 
 rescued any one from death. She had not, 
 that she could remember, ever met a man, 
 either, who had married a widow. Ac- 
 cording to plays and satirists, the man who 
 married a widow had more courage than 
 the man who would do no more than face 
 death in a burning house. 
 
 " I am sorry to have to trouble you about 
 a little business matter — no, thank you, I 
 will not sit down, I shall run away in a 
 minute — but, as your brother is out, I fear 
 I must intrude on your good nature, if you 
 will allow me." 
 
 His voice and manner were exceedingly 
 
 11—2
 
 i64 AN ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 soft and pleasant and insinuating ; not in 
 tlie least like liis voice and manner of the 
 former evening, when his manner was 
 abrupt and his voice hard, if not harsh. 
 This speech somewhat disconcerted the 
 girl. She felt sure he was going to ask her 
 to do something altogether beyond her 
 abilities. 
 
 " Anything in my power, Mr. Crawford, I 
 shall be very happy to do for you." 
 
 " Thank you extremely. It is exceed- 
 ingly kind of you to say so." He spoke as 
 though weighed down by a sense of his 
 own unworthiness. 
 
 The girl began to feel embarrassed. Such 
 profuse thanks rendered in anticipation 
 placed the obligation of gratitude on her 
 shoulders. His words and manner and 
 gestures had already thanked her more 
 than sufficiently for anything she could do 
 for him.
 
 CRAWFORD'S HOME. 165 
 
 " I am going out this evening," he said, 
 " and shall not be back until very late — ^an 
 hour too late even to mention to any well- 
 ordered person — and I do not wish to dis- 
 turb any one when I come back." 
 
 " We, Alfred and I, always sit up very 
 late." 
 
 " My dear Miss Layard, you could have 
 no conception of the time at which I may 
 return. It may be three, four, five o'clock. 
 I have to go to see an old friend in the 
 West End, and he will, in all likelihood, keep 
 me until the cocks have crowed themselves 
 hoarse in full daylight." 
 
 " Well," said she, gathering her bro'A's 
 and looking very uncomfortable as she felt 
 how helpless she was in a case of such 
 mystery and difficulty, " what can Alfred or 
 I do for you ? " 
 
 The grave aspect and manner of apology 
 left his face and gestures all at once, and he
 
 1 66 AN ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 smiled, and with a light airy, humorous 
 manner said, "If there is such a thing 
 as a latchkey, and your brother hasn't it 
 with him, will you lend it to me ? " 
 
 The girl burst out laughing, partly from 
 relief and partly from enjoyment of this 
 elaborate joke, and, going to the chimney- 
 piece, handed him from it a key. '* We 
 had to get a new latch. Alfred has one 
 key. This is for you." 
 
 " Thank you. Good-night." And he 
 went, shutting the door softly after him. 
 
 William Crawford went to his own room 
 and took off the quiet, sedate, and some- 
 what shabby clothes in which he had 
 arrived at Welford. He washed, put on a 
 fresh shirt and elegant lace boots, of much 
 finer make and more shiny than he had 
 worn all day. He substituted a coloured 
 tie for the one of sober black, a blue frock- 
 coat of exquisite make, and over this a
 
 CRAWFORD'S HOME. 167 
 
 dark summer topcoat. When he surveyed 
 himself in the glass he looked ten years 
 younger than when he came in after the 
 arduous labours of the day. 
 
 Of the money he had collected that day 
 most was in notes or gold. He dropped all 
 the notes and gold into his pocket, and, 
 having locked a few cheques in his port- 
 manteau, left the house quietly, as though 
 not wishing to attract attention. 
 
 When he reached Welford Eoad he 
 looked up and down for a minute, and 
 muttering, " Pooh ! No hope of a hansom 
 in this place, of course ! " turned his face 
 west, and began walking rapidly with his 
 quick step. Now and then he twiched his 
 shoulders with suppressed energy ; con- 
 stantly he swung his eyes from left to right, 
 as though it would not suit him to miss 
 seeing anything on either side. 
 
 After a quarter-of-an-hour's walking he
 
 i68 AN ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 came to the beginning of a tram line. He 
 got into a car about to move. He took no 
 notice of the destination of the car. The car 
 was going west — that was enough for him. 
 In half-an-hour he reached a busy cross- 
 ing where hansoms were plentifuL He 
 alighted here, hailed a cab, and was driven 
 to a quiet street off Piccadilly. He got 
 down here, and proceeded on foot to a 
 still quieter cross street, finally entering a 
 modest, unpretentious house, the home of 
 the Counter Club, a club which had nothing 
 whatever to do with the yard stick or scales 
 and weights, but where members might 
 amuse themselves at games in which no 
 money changed hands at the table, and was 
 therefore blameless. All a member had to 
 do before beginning to play was to provide 
 himself with counters, to be obtained of the 
 secretary for — a consideration. The reason 
 why these counters were used, and not
 
 CRAWFORD'S HOME. 169 
 
 money, was because the games played here 
 were games of chance, and it is illegal to 
 play games of chance for money. Very 
 elaborate precautions were taken by the 
 committee to avoid any confusion between 
 the counters whose use, after the formality 
 of paying, was sanctioned by the secretary, 
 and counters not issued by him. 
 
 It was, as Crawford had predicted, long 
 after sunrise when he opened Layard's door 
 with his latchkey. A good deal of the 
 briskness and energy of his manner a few 
 hours ago was abated. When he found 
 himself in his sittinor-room he flunor his 
 overcoat and hat on the table. " Cleaned 
 out, by Heavens ! " he cried. " Is this 
 accursed luck to last for ever ? " 
 
 Then he changed his clothes, putting on 
 those he had worn the day before, and took 
 a chair at the open window of his sitting- 
 room, overlooking the canal.
 
 I70 AN ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 Here he remained motionless, broodinsr 
 gloomily until six o'clock. Then he got up, 
 wrote a line to Layard saying he had to go 
 away early, and would be back again on 
 June 27. He left the house noiselessly, and 
 made his way partly on foot, partly by 
 tramcar (for here the tramcars run early), 
 and partly by cab to Ludgate Hill, whence 
 by train he reached Eichmond. 
 
 It was still early, about eight o'clock, 
 when Crawford gained his own home and 
 let himself in. The servants were stirring. 
 " Tell Mrs. Crawford when she rings," said 
 he to the housemaid, " that I have been up 
 all night, and have gone to lie down. Do 
 not call me for breakfast." Then he went 
 to his dressing-room, kicked off his boots 
 with a curse, threw himself on the bed, and 
 was asleep in five minutes. 
 
 Noon came and went, and still he slept 
 peacefully. Just as one o'clock struck he
 
 CRA WFORD '5 HOME. 1 7 1 
 
 awoke with a start, and sprang from the 
 bed, threw off his coat and waistcoat, rolled 
 up his shirt-sleeves, washed his face and 
 hands, brushed his hair, and, when his coat 
 and waistcoat were once more on, opened 
 the door leading to his wife's room and 
 went in. 
 
 Mrs. Crawford was sittinof in an armchair 
 by the open window. She was a pale, 
 fragile, beautiful woman of seven-and-forty. 
 Her eyes were large, luminous, violet, and 
 full of gentleness and love. Her lips were 
 remarkably beautiful and red for an invalid 
 of her 3^ears. Her smile was the softest and 
 most engaging and endearing in all the 
 world. Nothing could exceed the tender 
 loveliness of her face, or the sweet cheerful 
 resignation of her disposition. The mitiga- 
 tion of her symptoms following the shock 
 at the fire had not been permanent, and, 
 although on the day of her second marriage
 
 172 AN ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 she had been well enough to walk up the 
 whole length of the church, she was now 
 once more incapable of moving across the 
 room without help. 
 
 Upon the entrance of Crawford she 
 turned her head quickly and smiled, hold- 
 out her hands, saying : 
 
 '• 0, William, I am glad you're back ! I 
 am glad to see you once more. I have 
 been lonely. This is the longest time we 
 have been separated since our marriage." 
 
 He went to her and kissed her affection- 
 ately, first her lips and then her forehead, 
 and then her hair, now thickly shot with 
 grey, but abundant still. He drew a chair 
 beside hers, and sat down, taking one of 
 her thin transparent hands in both his, and 
 stroking it as though it was made of the 
 most fragile and precious material. 
 
 " And how has my Nellie been since ? '* 
 he asked in a low caressing voice, very
 
 CRA IVFORD '5 HOME. i -]->, 
 
 different from the one Eed Jim or Alfred 
 Layard had heard, but somewhat akin to 
 the one in which he had apologised to Hetty 
 the evening before. 
 
 " Well — very well ; but lonely. I hoped 
 you would be able to get home, dear, last 
 night," she said, lying back in her chair and 
 looking at him cut of her gentle violet eyes 
 with an expression of absolute rest and 
 
 joy. 
 
 " So did I. So, indeed, I should, only 
 for my ill luck. I am greatly put out by 
 my first visit to Welford, Nellie," he said, 
 lowering his brows and looking troubled. 
 
 " Put out, dear ! Put out by your visit 
 to Welford ! What put you out, William ? 
 I am very sorry you went. I am very sorry 
 I let you go. I am sorr}^ we ever got rid 
 of Blore, if the thing is going to be a bother 
 to you." Blore had been the agent before 
 the advent of William Crawford.
 
 174 AN ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 " 0, no ! You need not be sorry. 1 was 
 not put out on account of myself, but on 
 account of you." He said this very 
 tenderly, and with a gentle pressure on the 
 transparent wax-like fingers between his 
 hands. 
 
 " On my account, William ? " she said, 
 with a smile rich in love and satisfaction. 
 " Why on my account, dear ? " 
 
 " Well, because I have been disappointed 
 in the results of my own efforts. I could 
 get very little money. Out of over two 
 hundred pounds overdue, upwards of a 
 hundred of which is arrears, I got no more 
 than twenty pounds." He said this rue- 
 fully, keeping his gaze fixed out of the 
 window, as though ashamed to meet her 
 eyes. 
 
 His wife laughed. 
 
 " Is that all ? I thought you had met 
 some unpleasantness to yourself there. My
 
 CRA WFORD '5 HOME. 1 7 5 
 
 dear -William, don't let that trouble you. 
 They will pay next month or the month 
 after. They are excellent tenants, taking 
 them all together." 
 
 "I daresay they will pay next month. 
 But I could not help feeling disappointed 
 and depressed in having to come back to 
 you almost empty-handed. This is all I 
 succeeded in getting — twenty-seven pounds 
 ten." 
 
 He held out a little bundle to her. 
 
 With a laugh she pushed it away. 
 
 *' It is yours, William, not mine. What 
 have I to do with money now ? You know 
 more about money than I do. You take 
 care of me and of the money for us. No, 
 no ; I will not touch it ! Put it in the bank, 
 or do what you like with it. I and all that 
 was mine is yours, love." 
 
 There was a rapture of self-sacrifice and 
 devotion in the woman's voice and manner.
 
 176 AN ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 There was a prodigal richness of love and 
 faith in her eyes. She had not loved her 
 first husband when she married him, and 
 during the years they had spent together 
 no passionate love had arisen in her heart, 
 thouofh she was fond of her husband and 
 an excellent wife. She had passed not only 
 the morning, but the zenith of life when she 
 met this man ; but to him she had given 
 all that remained to her of love and hope 
 and all her faith, never shaken by any 
 shock. 
 
 Crawford winced slightly. Even he drew 
 the line somewhere. He would rather 
 battle stubbornly against odds for his way 
 than sit still and be overwhelmed with free 
 and lavish gifts. He liked to win, but he 
 also liked to contend. He was passionately 
 fond of money, and would sacrifice almost 
 anything to get it. He would not work for 
 it, but he would rather win it at cards than
 
 CRAWFORD'S HOME. 177 
 
 get it for nothing. If he had not gambled 
 away those eighty pounds last night, she 
 would have given them to him, now. He felt 
 a perverse gratitude that he was not be- 
 holden to her for the eighty pounds. He 
 ]iad, as it were, earned those eighty pounds 
 by the deceit he had practised. But this 
 money, which she had refused to receive, 
 burnt his fingers. 
 
 He took the money, however, and kissed 
 her thin fragile hand, and pressed it against 
 his broad powerful chest. 
 
 " You are the best woman in the world, 
 Nellie, and the dearest. These fellows will, 
 no doubt, pay next month. I wonder, if I 
 asked Bio re about them, would he give me 
 some information ? " 
 
 "I always found Mr. Blore the most 
 
 courteous and honest and straightforward 
 
 of men. If I were you I should see him." 
 
 " I will. And now let us drop business 
 VOL. I. 11^
 
 178 AN ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 and talk about something more interesting. 
 Tell me to begin with, all that my good 
 wife has been doing while I have been 
 aw^ay." He slipped his arm round her waist 
 and drew her head down upon his shoulder. 
 His ways with men and women were widely 
 different. With the former he was quick, or 
 abrupt, or peremptory, or combative. He 
 seemed to value his time at a price so high 
 that the speech of other men caused him 
 an intolerable loss, by reason of his having 
 to listen to it. 
 
 With women he was soft and gentle, and 
 even quietly humorous at times. He never 
 was restless or impatient. His manner was 
 that of one who had found out the condi- 
 tion of existence in which life could be most 
 delightfully passed, that of his companion's 
 society ; and if he did not absolutely make 
 love to a woman when alone with her, 
 and this was but seldom with one under
 
 CRA WFORD '5 HOME. 1 79 
 
 fifty, he invariably implied that he would 
 rather have her society than the society of 
 all the men on this earth. He varied the 
 details of his style according to the age, 
 condition, and disposition of his companion. 
 He could adopt the melancholic, the en- 
 thusiastic, the poetic manner, according as 
 circumstances and the subject demanded. 
 Without any striking physi(jal advantages, 
 he was a most fascinatincf man to women. 
 There was no false polish, no lacquer about 
 him. He had no airs and graces. He did 
 not groan or simper. He never laid aside 
 his manhood for a moment. He did not 
 beg so much as expostulate for love. His 
 love-making took the form of an irresistible 
 argument. He thought no more about 
 women than he did about hares or rabbits, 
 or flowers. He liked most women when 
 they were not a trouble to him. They 
 
 amused him. He liked their graceful ways 
 
 12 2
 
 i8o AN ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 and tlieir simple loyal hearts. He liked 
 their dainty raiment and their soft delicate 
 hands. He liked the perfumes they used 
 and the flowers they wore. He liked most 
 women, but he had a contempt for all of 
 them. 
 
 He hated all men. 
 
 He did not repudiate or despise principles, 
 but he had none himself. He nourished 
 no theories as to what a man ought or 
 oui2^ht not to do. He troubled himself 
 about no other men at all. He always did 
 exactly what he liked best, or believed to be 
 best for his own interest. He had banished 
 everything like religion from his mind long 
 ago. He did not bother himself to ask 
 whether there mi^^ht or miofht not be a 
 Hereafter. He was quite certain there was 
 a Here, and he had made up his mind to 
 make the best of it. In some senses of 
 the word, he was no coward. He would
 
 CRAWFORD'S HOME. i8i 
 
 face a danger, even a risk, so long as he 
 could see his way, and all was in the full 
 light of day and commonplace. But he 
 was afraid of the unseen : of the dagger 
 or the bullet, of ghosts and supernatural 
 manifestations. He was a gambler, and, 
 like all gamblers, superstitious. 
 
 Twenty years ago he had been placed 
 in the counting-house of a first-class Liver- 
 pool place of business. His mother was 
 then dead, his father living. John Ains- 
 worth — that was the name with which he 
 started in life — was an only child. His 
 father had saved a few thousand pounds as 
 manager of a line of steamboats. 
 
 Young Ainsworth went to the bad before 
 he was twenty-five, and was kicked out of 
 his situation. The shock killed his father, 
 who was an old man. There was no will, 
 and young Ainsworth got his father's money 
 and went betting on the turf, and when
 
 i82 AN ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 there were no races he devoted his energies 
 to cards. It was on his way back from a 
 great Sussex race-meeting that he came 
 upon the quiet little town of Beechley, and 
 first met Kate Eay. He was then past 
 thirty years of age, and had been mode- 
 rately successful on the turf and on the 
 board of green cloth. In Beechley he con- 
 cealed the nature of his occupation, stayed 
 there a month or two, and won the giddy 
 heart of the beautiful Kate Eay. But her 
 brother would not listen to him, and Kate, 
 who would have a little money when she 
 came of age, was a minor and in the hands 
 of guardians, who would have nothing to 
 do with him either. So Ainsworth, being 
 by no means insensible to the money Kate 
 would come into at twenty-one, drew off 
 for a while, promising Kate to come back 
 later. 
 
 Two whole years passed before John
 
 CRA WFORD '5 HOME. i ^-^ 
 
 Ainsworth again appeared at Beechley. By 
 this time the flighty and beautiful girl had 
 married Frank Mellor, who had just in- 
 herited a considerable fortune upon the 
 death of an old miserly bachelor grand- 
 uncle, that had lived all his life in London, 
 and made money in the Baltic trade. 
 
 Then, out of a spirit of pure revenge, 
 Ainsworth secretly pursued Kate, and 
 worked upon her fickle and weak nature 
 until she fled with him, taking her baby bo\% 
 Frank Mellor's child. 
 
 After three years that child had been re- 
 stored to his father, while the mother lay 
 djdng at good Mrs. Pemberton's, a rifle-shot 
 from Boland's Ait and the office of John 
 Ainsworth, who had assumed the name of 
 Crawford.
 
 CHATPER X. 
 
 FATHER AND SON. 
 
 Of all the men in London, there was 
 scarcely one less qualified to take charge 
 of a young child than Francis Bramwell, 
 living alone on his tiny island in the South 
 London Canal. He was not used to chil- 
 dren. He had had only one sister, and 
 no brother. His sister, twelve years older 
 than himself, had married and gone away 
 to Australia before he was eight years of 
 age. His father had been a successful 
 attorney in Shoreham, where he died ten 
 years ago, when his son was just twenty 
 years old. His mother had been dead 
 many years at that time. 
 
 AVHien his grand-uncle was buried a few
 
 FATHER AND SON. 185 
 
 years later, Bramwell became rich and left 
 Shoreham. He had been reading for the 
 Bar in a half-hearted and dilatory way. 
 
 He gave up all thought of the profession, 
 and resolved to lead a life of lettered ease 
 and contemplation, to be summed up later, 
 probably in a book of one kind or another. 
 In fact, as soon as he found himself inde- 
 pendent he determined to devote his atten- 
 tion to poetry, and, as he did not feel 
 certain of possessing a strong vein of 
 genius, he determined to confine himself 
 to translations by way of a beginning. 
 
 For quietness he moved out of Shore- 
 ham to a cottage a few miles from the dull 
 little town of Beechley, and in Beechle}^ 
 after the first visit of John Ainsworth, he 
 made the acquaintance of Philip Eay and 
 his beautiful sister Kate. 
 
 When he fell in love he threw his books 
 to the winds, and, beyond verses addressed
 
 i86 AN ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 to his mistress, had no dealings with the 
 Muse. 
 
 He was then a man to all outward 
 appearance of singularly unemotional tem- 
 perament. But under a placid demeanour 
 he concealed a sensitive and enthusiastic 
 nature, a nature of fire and spirit, subject 
 to raptures and despairs, and desiring rap- 
 ture almost as a necessity. Prose would 
 not satisfy him ; he must have the wine 
 of poetry. To love was not enough for 
 him ; he must adore. Devotion was too 
 tame ; he must immolate himself. 
 
 He had lived most of his years since 
 adolescence apart, and had never tried to 
 make himself agreeable to any girl, until 
 he told himself that life without Kate Eay 
 w^ould be simply intolerable. After mar- 
 riage he treated his wife more like the 
 goddess of a temple than the young, pretty, 
 vain, foolish, flighty mistress of a home.
 
 FATHER AND SON. 187 
 
 Kate, who loved flattery and fine clothes, 
 and trivial gaiety, could not understand 
 him. She thought him cold and formal 
 at one time ; a wild man, a lunatic at 
 another. He did not stoop to flattery, or 
 condescend to simulation. He was worship- 
 ful, not gallant. He praised her spirit 
 and her soul, possessions to which she 
 did not attach much importance. He said 
 little about her eyes, or her figure, or her 
 hair, which she knew to be beautiful, and 
 of which she was inordinately vain. 
 
 She could not comprehend him. She did 
 not try very hard. She never tried very 
 hard to do anything, except dress well 
 and look pretty. He was, no doubt, ver}^ 
 grand, but she loved John Ainsworth all 
 the while. John's ways and manner were 
 perfectly intelligible to her, and when he 
 came to her the second time secretly, and 
 threw a romantic light upon their stolen
 
 i88 AN ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 lueetino's — when she heard his flattery and 
 sighs and oaths — her weak will gave way, 
 and she fled with him, taking the boy 
 with her. 
 
 Now, after three years, and when Bram- 
 well had made up his mind he should never 
 see wife or child again, the boy had come 
 from his wife's death-bed to his door. What 
 was he to do with this helpless being? 
 
 He had decreed in his own soul, beyond 
 the reach of appeal, that he would never 
 see his wife again. It was plain she had not 
 contemplated a meeting with him. It was 
 plain she had put such a thing beyond 
 her hopes— beyond, most likely, her desires. 
 For had she not known where he lay hid- 
 den ? and had she not refrained from seek- 
 ing him, refrained even from letting him 
 know she was alive ? But when she found 
 lierself on the point of dissolution, when 
 she had been told she had only a few liours 
 
 I
 
 FATHER AND SOS. 
 
 to live, when the delirium of death was 
 upon her, she had sent the child to him. 
 She had at least the grace to feel her shame, 
 and sufficient knowledge of him to be cer- 
 tain that no consideration on earth would 
 induce him once more to look on her, the 
 woman he had loved, who had • betrayed 
 his honour and laid his life in ruin. 
 
 But the boy? What was to be done 
 with him ? 
 
 The night before he had been too stuge- 
 fied to think. When Philip left him he had 
 taken the child to his own room and put 
 him in his own bed, and the little fellow, 
 overcome by fatigue and the lateness of 
 the hour, had fallen asleep. 
 
 Now it was bright, clear, unclouded 
 morning, the morning after the boy's 
 advent. The little fellow still slept, but 
 the father was broad awake. He had 
 risen at five, and was sitting in the room
 
 igo AN ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 where Philip had found him the evening 
 before. His elbows rested on the table ; 
 his head leaned upon his hands. 
 
 What should he do with the boy ? Her 
 child? — the child of the woman who had 
 brought infamy on his name, who had taken 
 the heart out of his life, leaving nothing 
 but a harsh and battered husk behind? 
 
 The child was like her, too. He had 
 known the first moment he looked on the 
 little face that this was the baby she had 
 stolen away from his home when he thought 
 she was gradually growing to love him, 
 when he thought she had forgotten for ever 
 the villain who had induced her perfidy! 
 
 Like her ! Good Heavens ! was this child 
 to live with him always ? Was this child, 
 day after day, hour after hour, to remind 
 him by the look in his eyes of all his youth- 
 ful dreams of love and happiness, and the 
 wildering blow that for a time drove his 
 
 I 
 
 I
 
 FATHER AND SON. 191 
 
 reason from him and wrecked his life before 
 the voyage was well begun ? 
 
 That would be intolerable. No man 
 could bear that. Heaven could not expect 
 him to endure such a hell on earth. 
 
 He rose with a groan, and began pacing 
 the room up and down. 
 
 He was a man slightly below the middle 
 height, somewhat uncouth and awkward in 
 his motions. His shoulders were broad, his 
 figure thin almost to emaciation. He had 
 large and powerful hands, not handsome 
 and soft, but muscular and knotty, like 
 those of a man who had done much physical 
 labour, although he had never performed a 
 day's manual work in all his life. His 
 nose was long and blunt at the end. Hio 
 cheeks were sunken. There were odd grey 
 streaks in his long, straight hair. He 
 stooped slightly, and was slovenly in his 
 carriage and dress. The colour of his face
 
 192 AN ISLE OF SURREY, 
 
 was dark, almost dusky. His forehead was 
 high and pale. 
 
 The mere shell of the man was poor, 
 almost mean. He did not look as though 
 he could fight or work. Beyond the 
 breadth of his shoulders there was no 
 suggestion of bodily strength about him. 
 When he walked his tread lacked firmness. 
 He looked as though the push of a child 
 would knock him down. 
 
 But when you had formed a poor opinion 
 of the man, and set him down as a weed, 
 and were prepared to make short work of 
 him morally, or mentally, or physically, 
 and came close to him face to face, and he 
 looked up at you and spoke, you felt con- 
 fused, abashed. His eyes were dark hazel, 
 large, deep-set, luminous. They seldom 
 moved quickly, they seldom flashed, they 
 seldom laughed. They rarely seemed con- 
 cerned with the people or things imme-
 
 FATHER AND SON. 193 
 
 diately in front of him. They had the 
 awful sadness and far-away look of the 
 Sphinx. They saw not you, nor through 
 you, but beyond you. You became not the 
 object of their gaze, but an interruption in 
 their range. They made you feel that you 
 were in the way. You seemed to be an 
 impertinence interposing between a great 
 spirit in its commune with supernatural 
 and august mysteries. 
 
 His voice was slow, deliberate, low in 
 ordinary speech. It was not musical. It 
 had a breathlessness about it which fixed 
 the attention at once of those who heard. 
 It suggested that the words spoken were 
 read from the margin of some mighty page, 
 and that the speaker, if he chose, could 
 decipher the subject of the scroll. 
 
 If he raised his voice above this pitch it 
 became uncertain, harsh, grating, discord- 
 ant. It suggested the unwilling awakening 
 
 VOL. I. 13
 
 194 AN ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 of the man. It seemed to say that he lived 
 at peace, and would that he were left at 
 peace, and that you came unnecessarily, 
 undesired, to rouse and harass him. 
 
 But it was when excited beyond this 
 second stage, it was when not only 
 awakened but lifted into the expression of 
 enthusiasm, that the wonderful qualities of 
 his voice were displayed. Then it became 
 full and rich and flexible and organ-toned, 
 at once delicate and powerful. It sounded 
 as though not only the words, but the music 
 also, were written on the great scroll before 
 his eyes, and he was reading both with 
 authority. 
 
 It was the spirit in the eyes and the 
 spirit in the voice Philip Eay worshipped. 
 He knew the heart of this man was made 
 of gold, but in the eyes and the voice he 
 found the spirit of a seer, a hero, a 
 prophet.
 
 FATHER AND SON. 195 
 
 The spirit of this man Kate Eay never 
 
 knew, never even perceived. She was too 
 
 busy with the thought of her own physical 
 
 beauty to notice anything in the man but 
 
 his plain appearance and unusual ways. 
 
 He had more money than ever she had 
 
 hoped to share with a husband, but he 
 
 cared nothing for the things she liked or 
 
 coveted. He would not take a house in 
 
 London : he would not move into even 
 
 Beechley. The only value he set upon a 
 
 competency was because of the power it 
 
 o^ave him over books, and because of the 
 
 privilege it afforded him of living far away 
 
 from the hurly-burly of men. His union 
 
 with Kate Eay was an ill-assorted marriage, 
 
 and the greatest evil that can arise out 
 
 of an ill-assorted marriage had come 
 
 of it. 
 
 From the day Kate left his house he 
 
 never opened a volume of verse. At first 
 
 13—2
 
 iq6 an isle of surrey. 
 
 he plunged into a vortex of excitement, 
 from which he did not emerge until he had 
 lost in gambling everything but Boland's 
 Ait, which brought in no revenue, and an 
 income of about a hundred a year from 
 some property in the neighbourhood of the 
 island. 
 
 When he regained his senses, and re- 
 solved upon retiring into solitude, he 
 recognised the importance, the necessity 
 of finding some occupation for his mind. 
 He would have nothing which could re- 
 mind him of the past, nothing which could 
 recall to his mind the peaceful days at 
 Shoreham or the joy and hope that his 
 sweetheart and wife had brought into his 
 life. All that was to be forgotten for ever. 
 His life was over. It was immoral to 
 anticipate the stroke of death. Between 
 him and death there lay nothing to desire 
 but oblivion, and work was the best thing
 
 FATHER AND SON. . 197 
 
 in which to drown thought. He would 
 devote the remainder of his life to history, 
 philosophy, science. 
 
 Although he had been on the island now 
 more than two years, he had still no definite 
 idea of turning his studies to practical ac- 
 count. He read and read and made elabo- 
 rate notes and extracts from books. But 
 his designs were vague and nebulous. He 
 called it all work. It kept his mind off the 
 past : that was the only result of all his 
 labours. He had no object to work for. 
 He shuddered at the bare idea of notoriety 
 or fame, and he did not need money, for his 
 means were sufficient for his simple wants. 
 Work was with him merely a draught of 
 Lethe. He numbed his brain with read- 
 ing, and when he could read no longer he 
 copied out passages from his books or 
 forced himself to think on subjects which 
 would not have been bearable three years 
 
 t
 
 AN ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 ago. He was not no much conquering 
 himself as dulling his power to feel. 
 
 Now, in upon this life had come the boy, 
 bringing with him more potent voices from 
 the past than all the verses of all the poets ; 
 and, worst of all, bringing with him the 
 face of his disgraced, dead wife ! 
 
 What should he do ? Either madness or 
 death would be a relief, but neither would 
 come. The two things of which men ar5 
 most afraid are madness and death, and 
 here was he willing to welcome either with 
 all the joy of which his broken heart was 
 still capable. 
 
 When that baby was born he had felt 
 no affection for it on its own account. It 
 seemed inexpressibly dear to her, and there- 
 fore it was after her the most precious being 
 in all the world to him. Up to that time 
 he knew his wife's heart had not gone out 
 to him in love as his heart had gone out to
 
 FATHER AND SON. 199 
 
 her. He believed that tlie child would be 
 the means of winninsr his beautiful wife's 
 love for him. He had read in books in- 
 numerable that wives who had been indif- 
 ferent towards their husbands in the early 
 days of marriage grew affectionate when 
 children came. For this reason he wel- 
 comed with delight the little stranger. This 
 baby would be a more powerful bond be- 
 tween them than the promises made by her 
 at the altar. It would not only reconcile 
 her to the life-long relations upon which 
 they had entered, but endear him to her. 
 
 But she broke her vow, broke the bond 
 between them, and in fleeing from his house 
 took with her the child, the creature that 
 was dearer to her than he ! Here was food 
 lor hopelessness more bitter than despair. 
 
 Now, when hope was buried for ever, and 
 she was dead, the child had come back to 
 remind him every hour of the past, to neu-
 
 200 AN ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 tralise the cups of Lethe he felt bound to 
 drink, that his hfe might not be a life of 
 never-ending misery, to torture him with 
 his wife's eyes, which had closed on him for 
 ever three years ago, and which now were 
 closed for ever on all things in death. 
 
 What should he do ? Would not merci- 
 ful Providence take his reason away, or 
 stop these useless pulses in his veins ? 
 
 He threw himself once more in his chair, 
 and covered his face with his hands. 
 
 From abroad stole sounds of the awaken- 
 ing world. The heavy lumbering and 
 grating of wagons and carts came from 
 Welford Eoad, and from the tow-path the 
 dull heavy thuds of clumsy horses' feet. 
 
 The man sat an hour in thought, in 
 reverie. 
 
 A t length Bramwell took down his hands 
 and raised his large eyes, in which there 
 now blazed the fire of intense excitement.
 
 FATHER AND SON. 201 
 
 '•' Light ! " he cried aloud ; " God grant me 
 light!" 
 
 He kept his eyes raised. His lips moved, 
 but no words issued from them. An ex- 
 pression of ecstasy was on his face. His cry 
 had not been a cry for light, but a note of 
 gratitude-giving that light had been vouch- 
 safed to him. He was returning thanks. 
 
 At lengtli his lips ceased to move, the 
 look of spiritual exaltation left his face, his 
 eyes were gradually lowered, and he ro^e 
 slowly from his seat. 
 
 He stood a minute with his hand on his 
 forehead, and said slowly, " I was thinking 
 of myself only. I have been thinking of 
 myself only all my life. I have, thank God, 
 something else, some one else to think of 
 now ! Who am I, or what am I, that I 
 should have expected happiness, complete 
 happiness, bliss ? Who am I, or what am 
 I, that I should repine because I suffer ?
 
 202 AN ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 Who am I, or what am I, that I should 
 murmur ? My eyes are open at last. My 
 eyes are open, and my heart too. Let me 
 go and look." 
 
 He crept noiselessly out of the room to 
 the one in which the boy lay still sleeping. 
 
 The chamber was full of the broad full 
 even light of morning in early summer. 
 The window stood open, the noise of the 
 carts and wagons came from Welford Eoad, 
 and the dull heavy thuds of the clumsy 
 horses' hoofs from the tow-path. The spar- 
 rows were twittering and flickering about 
 the cottage on the island. Dull and grimy 
 as the place usually appeared, there was 
 now an air of health and brightness and 
 vigorous life about it which filled and ex- 
 panded the heart of the recluse. 
 
 For years he had felt that he was dead, 
 that his fellowship with man had ceased for 
 ever. His heart was now opened once more.
 
 FATHER AND SON. 203 
 
 Who should cast the first stone, the first 
 stone into an open grave, her grave, Kate's 
 grave ? His Kate's grave ! Not he ; 0, 
 not he ! His 3^oung, his beautiful, his dar- 
 ling Kate's grave ! His young Kate's grave ! 
 
 He turned to the bed on which rested 
 the child. 
 
 Yes, there lay young Kate, younger than 
 ever he had known her. The beautiful 
 boy! There was her raven hair, there the 
 sweet strange curve of the mouth, thercthe 
 little hand under the cheek, as Kate used 
 to lie when she slept. 
 
 " God give me life and reason for him 
 who is so like what I have lost ! " he cried ; 
 and circling his arm round the little head, 
 he kissed the sweet strange curve about the 
 little mouth, and burst into tears, the first 
 he had shed for a dozen long years. In 
 his great agony three years ago he had not 
 w^ept.
 
 204 
 
 AN ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 The child awoke, smiled, stretched up his 
 little arms, and caught his father round the 
 neck. 
 
 " I want to go mother," whimpered the 
 boy when he saw whom he held. 
 
 "You cannot go just now, child. But 
 you and I shall go to her one day — in 
 Heaven." 
 
 <^ 
 
 m^^^ 
 
 ^=^f«
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 " CAN I PLAY WITH THAT LITTLE BOY ? " 
 
 Hetty Layard was not sorry when, upon 
 the morning of Mr. WiUiam Crawford's 
 return from the Counters Club, she found 
 a note for her brother Alfred, explaining 
 that he had gone out for an early walk, 
 the weather was so lovely, and that Jie 
 would not be back until next month, when 
 he hoped to find her and Mr. Layard very 
 well ; and thanking her and him for the 
 entertainment afforded him. He, more- 
 over, left her a cheque — one collected 
 the previous day — for a couple of sove- 
 reigns, out of which he begged her to take 
 whatever ^is food had cost and half-a- 
 crown which she was to present from him 
 to Mrs. Grainger.
 
 2o6 AN ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 Miss Layard uttered a little sigh of relief 
 when she put down the note. Every one 
 knows that men are a nuisance about a 
 house, especially men who have no fixed 
 or regular business hours of absence. Men 
 are very well in their own way, which 
 means to the housewife when they are not 
 in her way. A man who is six, eight, or 
 ten hours away from home every day, and 
 goes to church twice on Sunday and takes 
 a good long walk between the two services, 
 may not only be tolerated, but enjoyed. 
 But a man who does not get up until ten 
 o'clock and keeps crawling or dashing 
 about the house all day long is an un- 
 mitigated and crushing evil. It does not 
 matter whether he wears heavy boots or 
 affects the costume of a sybaritic sloven, 
 and wanders about like a florid and vener- 
 able midday ghost in dressing-gown and 
 slippers.
 
 " CAN I PLA Y WITH THA T LITTLE BOY? " 207 
 
 A woman's house is not her own as lonir 
 as there is a man it. While enduring the 
 presence of male impertinence she cannot 
 do exactly as she likes. There is at least 
 one room she may not turn topsy-turvy, if 
 the fit takes her. There is no freedom, no 
 liberty. If the man remain quietly in one 
 room, there is the unpleasant feeling that he 
 must be either dead or hungry. A man has 
 very little business to be in the house during 
 day-time unless he is either dead or hungry. 
 If the man does not confine himself to one 
 room he is quite certain to go stumbling 
 over sweeping-brushes and dust-pans in 
 passages where he has no more right to be 
 than a woman behind the counter of a 
 bank or on the magisterial bench. From, 
 say, ten o'clock in the morning till four in 
 the afternoon you really can't have too 
 little of a man about a house. Very prac 
 tical housekeepers prefer not to see their
 
 2o8 AN JSLE OF SURREY. 
 
 male folk between nine and seven. Un- 
 doubtedly, strong-minded women believe 
 that two meals a day and the right to sleep 
 under his own roof of nights is as much as 
 may with advantage to comfort be allowed 
 to man. 
 
 But Hetty Layard was not strong-minded 
 at all. She was not over tender-hearted 
 either, though she was as tender-hearted as 
 becomes a young girl of healthy body and 
 mind, one not sicklied over with the pale 
 cast of sentimentalism. She was as bright 
 and cheerful as spring ; but all the same, 
 she was not sorry when she found her 
 lodger had fled, and that they were to 
 have the place to themselves for a month. 
 
 That day Hetty was to enjoy the invalu- 
 able service of Mrs. Grainger from break- 
 fast to tea-time. From that day until Mr. 
 Crawford's next visit Mrs. Grainger was to 
 come only for a couple of hours in the
 
 " CAN I PLA V WITH THA T LITTLE BOY f' 209 
 
 forenoon every day to do the rough work. 
 Mrs. Grainger was childless, and could be 
 spared from her own hearth between break- 
 fast and supper, as her husband took his 
 dinner with him to the works, and had 
 supper and tea together. 
 
 " So the unfortunate man has succeeded 
 in getting out of your clutches," said Alfred 
 Layard at his late breakfast, when Hetty 
 told him the news. 
 
 " Yes ; but he left something behind 
 him. Look." She handed her brother 
 the cheque. "I am to take the price of all 
 he has had out of this, and give half-a- 
 crown to Mrs. Grainger." 
 
 Alfred Layard shook his head very 
 gravely. " Hetty, I had, I confess to you, 
 some doubts of this man's sanity ; I 
 have no longer any doubt. The man is 
 mad!" 
 
 " Considering that we are obliged to find 
 
 VOL. I. 14
 
 2IO • AN ISLE OF SURREY, 
 
 attendance, I think he has been very 
 generous to Mrs. Grainger." 
 
 " As mad as a hatter," said the brother 
 sadly. 
 
 " If, Alfred, I tell you how much to take 
 out of this, will you send him the change, 
 or is the change to remain over until next 
 time?" 
 
 "The miserable man is as mad as a 
 March hare." 
 
 " See ! This is all I spent for him — twelve 
 and threepence, and that includes a lot of 
 things that will keep till he comes again." 
 
 "To think of this poor man trusting a 
 harpy, a lodging-house keeper, with untold 
 gold! 0, the pity of it!" 
 
 " There are candles and lamp-oil, and 
 tea and soap, and sugar, and other things 
 that will keep, Alfred. You can explain 
 this when you are sending him the change. 
 I suppose it will be best to send him the
 
 ''CAN I PLAY WITH THAT LITTLE BOY ?" 211 
 
 change . You have his Eichmond ad- 
 dress?" 
 
 " Freddie," said the father, addressing 
 his flaxen-haired, blue-eyed httle son at the 
 other side of the table, " when you grow 
 up and are a great big man, don't lodge 
 with your Aunt Hetty. She'd fleece you, 
 my boy. She'd starve you, and she 
 wouldn't leave you a rag to cover you." 
 He shook a warning finger at the boy. 
 
 " I shall live always with Aunt Hetty,** 
 said the boy stoutly, " and I want more 
 bread-and-butter, please." 
 
 " See my poor child, she is already 
 practising. If she only had her way, she 
 would reduce you to a skeleton in a 
 week." 
 
 " Alfred, I wish you'd be sensible for a 
 
 minute. This is business. I really don't 
 
 know what to do, and you ought to tell me. 
 
 Will you look at this list, and see if it is 
 
 14—2
 
 212 AN ISLE OF S URRE Y. 
 
 properly made out ? " she said pouting. 
 She had a pretty way of affecting to pout 
 and then laucfhinflf at the idea of her beinoj 
 in a bad humour. 
 
 Her brother took the slip of paper and 
 glanced at it very gravely. 
 
 " May I ask," said he, putting down the 
 slip on the breakfast cloth, " whether this 
 man has had his boots polished here ? " 
 
 " Of course he had ; twice — three times I 
 think." 
 
 " And had he free and unimpeded use of 
 condiments, such as salt, pepper, vinegar, 
 mustard ? " 
 
 "Yes. You don't think he could eat 
 without salt, do you ? " 
 
 " Perhaps — perhaps he even had 
 
 PICKLES ? " 
 
 " I think he had some pickles." 
 " Then, Hetty " — he rose, and, buttoning 
 up his coat, made signs of leaving — " I am
 
 " CAN J PLA Y WITH THA T LITTLE BOY f'' 21^ 
 
 going to find an auctioneer to sell up the 
 furniture. We are ruined." 
 
 " Ah, Alfred, like a good fellow, help 
 me ! " she pleaded, coming to him and put- 
 ting her hand on his arm. " What do you 
 mean by asking all those silly questions 
 about blacking and vinegar ? " 
 
 " Not one, Hetty, not one of the items I 
 have named is charged in the bill, and I am 
 a pauper, pauperised by your gross careless- 
 ness, by the shamefully lax way in which 
 you have kept my books. What do you 
 think would become of the great corporation 
 I serve if our accounts were kept in so 
 criminally neglectful a manner ? Why, the 
 Welford Gas Company would be in liquida- 
 tion in a month ! Suppose we treated am- 
 monia lightly ; suppose we gave all our coke 
 to the Mission to the Blacks for distribution 
 among the negroes ; suppose we made a 
 present of our tar to the Eoyal Academicians
 
 214 AN ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 to make aniline colours for pictures to be 
 seen only by night ; suppose we gave all 
 our gas to aeronauts wlio wanted to stare 
 the unfortunate man in the moon out of 
 countenance ; suppose we supplied all our 
 customers with dry meters, Hetty ; suppose, 
 I say, we supplied all our customers with 
 dry meters, where should we be? Where on 
 earth should we be ? " 
 
 " Perhaps not on earth at all, Alfred, but 
 gone up to heaven with the aeronauts. Do 
 be sensible for a moment. I want you to 
 tell me if we are to keep the change until 
 next time or send it after him ? " 
 
 " Have you given that half-a-crown to 
 Mrs. Grainger ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " 0, you prodigal simpleton ! What need 
 was there to give it ? Why did you not keep 
 it and buy a furbelow ? No doubt you were 
 afraid that when this man came back he
 
 " CAN I PLA Y WITH THA T LITTLE BOY?" 21s 
 
 would find out all about it. Nonsense I 
 Why, we could dismiss Mrs. Grainger, and 
 if she came loafing about the place, nothing 
 in the world could be easier than to push 
 her into the canal. I like her husband, 
 and it would please me to do him a good 
 turn." 
 
 There was a knock at the door, and the 
 charwoman put in her head. 
 
 "Come in, Mrs. Grainger. What is it ? " 
 said Hetty, going towards the door. 
 
 Mrs. Grainger, in her lilac cotton dreSs 
 and large apron, advanced a step into the 
 room. Her sleeves were rolled up above 
 the elbows of her red thick arms. She 
 was a stout, fair-faced woman of fifty. 
 She had not a single good feature in her 
 face. But her expression was wholly 
 honest and not unkindly. 
 
 Layard could not help looking from her 
 to Hetty and contrasting the joyous youth
 
 2i6 AN ISLE OF SURREY, 
 
 and grace, the fresh colour and golden- 
 brown hair of the girl, and the dull, dead, 
 unintelligent drab appearance of the woman. 
 
 " I beg your pardon, Miss Layard," said 
 the charwoman, " but you were talking to 
 me yesterday and the day before about the 
 poor lonely gentleman that lives on Boland's 
 Ait." 
 
 "Yes. Well, what about him? Have 
 you found out anything fresh ? " said Hetty 
 with interest. 
 
 " Only that he isn't alone any longer." 
 
 " You don't mean to say he has got mar- 
 ried and has just brought his wife home," 
 said Layard, affecting intense astonishment 
 and incredulity. 
 
 "No, sir," said the woman, somewhat 
 abashed by his manner. " Not a wife, sir, 
 but a child ; a little boy about the size of 
 Master Freddie there." 
 
 " Bless my soul, wonders will never cease !
 
 "■CAN I PLA V WITH THA T LITTLE BOY?" 217 
 
 Lut I say, Hetty, I must be off. If the Cham 
 of Tartary and the great sea-serpent came 
 to live on that island, and had asked me to 
 swim across and have tiffin and blubber 
 with them, I couldn't go now. I must be 
 off to the works. Hetty, we'll resume the 
 consideration of the cruet-stand when I 
 come back this evening. Let all those mat- 
 ters stand till then. The delay will give us 
 an opportunity of charging interest for the 
 money in hand." 
 
 He hastened from the room, and in a 
 minute was out of the house and hastening 
 up Crawford Street, with the long streamers 
 of his beard blowing over his shoulders. 
 
 " Where did you see the child from, Mrs. 
 Grainger ? " asked Hetty, when her brother 
 disappeared up the street. " From Mr. 
 Crawford's room? " 
 
 " No, miss ; you can't see into the timber- 
 yard on the island from Mr. Crawford's
 
 2 1 8 AN ISLE OF SURRE V. 
 
 room on account of the wall. But you can 
 see over the wall from your own room, 
 miss ; and 'twas from your own room I saw 
 the child. And he was carrying on, too, 
 with, that child, miss," said the woman, 
 coming further into the room, and busying 
 herself about clearing away the breakfast- 
 things. 
 
 She was not exactly idle or lazy ; but 
 no living woman would rather scrub and 
 scour than chat, particularly when paid 
 by time and not by piece. 
 
 " What do you mean by ' carrying on ? ' 
 What was he doing ? " 
 
 " Well, he was kissing, and cuddling, and 
 hugging the child, more like a mother with 
 her baby than a man with a child. The 
 boy is quite as big as little Master Freddie 
 there, and the poor gentleman seemed to 
 be pretending the great boy couldn't walk 
 without help, for he led him by the hand
 
 ''CAN I PLAY WITH THAT LITTLE BOY ?'' 219 
 
 up and down the yard, and when he did let 
 go of hira for a moment he kept his hand 
 over the little chap's head, like to be ready 
 to catch hold of him if he was failing or 
 stumbled. A great big boy, as big as 
 Master Freddie there ; it's plain to be seen 
 he's not used to children," said Mrs. 
 Grainger scornfully ; for, although she had 
 no children of her own, she was sympa- 
 thetic and cordial with little ones, and often 
 looked after a neighbour's roomful of babies 
 while the mother went out marketing or took 
 the washing, or mangling, or sewing home. 
 
 " Perhaps it is his own child," said Hetty, 
 as she helped to put the breakfast- things 
 on the tray. 
 
 " His own child ? Of course it isn't. How 
 could it be ? Why, if it was his own child 
 he'd be used to it. He'd know better than 
 to go on with such foolery as guiding it 
 with his hand along a level yard. He
 
 220 AN ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 doesn't know anything about children, no 
 more than the ground they are walking on." 
 
 "Perhaps he is afraid it might fall into 
 the water. I'll wash up the breakfast- 
 things myself, Mrs. Grainger." 
 
 " Very well, miss. Afraid it might fall 
 into the water ! Why, the child couldn't. 
 They're in the timber-yard, and there's a 
 wall all around it, and neither of the gates 
 is open." 
 
 " Well," said Hetty, as the woman left 
 the room carrying the tray, " maybe he is 
 looking after the child for some friend ; 
 perhaps the child has only come on a visit 
 to him." 
 
 " Look after a child for a friend ! Is he 
 the sort of man to look after a child for a 
 friend ? " Mrs. Grainorer called out from the 
 kitchen. "What friend would ask a man 
 like him to mind a child ? I'd as soon 
 ask a railway-engine or a mangle to look
 
 * CAX I PL A Y WITH THA T LITTLE BOY f' 221 
 
 after a child of mine, if I had one. Besides, 
 if the child belongs to a friend, what does 
 he mean by kissing and cuddling it ? " 
 
 *' I give it up," said the girl. " I own I 
 can make nothing of it. What do you 
 think, Mrs. Grainger ? You know more 
 about this strange man and his strange 
 ways than I do." 
 
 " I think," said Mrs. Grainger, in the 
 voice of one uttering an authoritative de- 
 cision, " the whole thing is a myster}^, and 
 I can make nothing of it. But you, miss, 
 go up and look. If you want to see him, 
 he is in the timber-yard. Go to your room, 
 miss, and have a peep. You may be able 
 to make something of it ; I can't." 
 
 " I will," said the girl ; '- 1 shall be down 
 in a few minutes." And she ran out of the 
 sitting-room, upstairs with a light springy 
 step, and the murmured burden of a song 
 on her lips.
 
 222 AN ISLE OF SURREY, 
 
 She went to the open window of her own 
 room and looked out. 
 
 It was close on noon, and the blazing 
 light of early summer filled all the place 
 beneath her. The view had no charms of 
 its own, but the fact that she was above 
 the ground and away from immediate con- 
 tact with the sordid earth had a purifying 
 effect upon the scene. Then, again, what 
 place is it that can look wholly evil when 
 shone upon by the unclouded sun of fresh 
 May? 
 
 In front and to right and left the canal 
 flamed in the sunlight. At the other side of 
 the water lay a sloping bank of lush green 
 grass, beyond that a road, and at the other 
 side of the road a large yard, in which a 
 great number of gipsy-vans, and vans be- 
 longing to cheap-Jacks and to men who 
 remove furniture, were packed. 
 
 So far, if there was nothing to delight,
 
 ''CAN I PLAY WITH THAT LITTLE BOY f' 223 
 
 there was nothing to displease the specta- 
 tor. In fact, from a scenic point of view 
 the colour was very good, for you had the 
 flaming canal, the dark green of the grassy 
 bank, and the red and yellow and blue 
 caravans of the gipsies and the cheap-Jacks 
 and the people who remove furniture. 
 
 Beyond this yard there spread a vast 
 extent of small, mean, ill-kept houses which 
 were not picturesque, and which suggested 
 painful thoughts concerning the squalor and 
 poverty of the people who lived in them. 
 
 To the right stretched the tow-path lead- 
 ing to Camberwell, to the left a row of 
 stores, and only a hundred yards off was 
 the empty ice-house. To the right lay Lee- 
 ham, invisible from where the girl stood, 
 and nearer and visible a row of stores and 
 a stone-yard. 
 
 In front of her was Boland's Ait, and in 
 the old timber-yard of the islet Francis
 
 224 AN ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 Bramwell walking up and down, holding 
 the hand of a boy of between three and four 
 in his hands, as though the child had 
 walked for the first time within this month 
 of May. 
 
 Mrs. Grainger was right. This man, 
 whose face Hetty could not see, for he bent 
 low over the child, was treating the boy as 
 though he were no more than a year or 
 fifteen months old. He was also displaying 
 towards him a degree of afiection alto- 
 gether inconsistent with the supposition 
 that the youngster was merely the son of 
 a friend. 
 
 The two were walking up and down the 
 yard, the right hand of the child in the 
 left hand of the man, the right hand of the 
 man at one time resting lightly on the boy's 
 head, at another on the boy's shoulder. 
 The man's whole mind seemed centred on 
 his charge. He never once raised his head
 
 " CAX : FLA V WITH THA T LITTLE BO Yf "225 
 
 to look around. No doubt the thought 
 that he might be observed never occurred 
 to him. For two years he had lived on 
 that island, and never until now arose 
 a chance of any one seeing him when he 
 was in the yard ; for the only windows that 
 overlooked it were those of Crawford's 
 House, and that had been unoccupied until 
 three days ago. 
 
 Suddenly it occurred to Hetty that she 
 was intruding upon this stranger's privacy. . 
 Of course she was free to look out of her 
 own window as long as she liked ; but then 
 it was obvious Bramwell thought there was 
 no spectator, or, at all events, he had not 
 bargained in his mind for a spectator. 
 
 A faint flush came into her cheek, and 
 she was on the point of drawing back when 
 a loud shrill voice sounded at her side : 
 
 " Aunt Hetty, Aunt Hetty, I want to see 
 the little boy ! " 
 
 VOL. I. 15
 
 226 AN ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 The girl started, and then stood motion- 
 less, for the recluse below had suddenly- 
 looked up, and was gazing in amazement at 
 the girl and child in the window above him. 
 
 The man and boy in the yard were both 
 bare-headed. Bramwell raised his open 
 hand above his eyes to shield them from 
 the glare of the sky, that he might see the 
 better. 
 
 Hetty drew back a pace, as though she 
 had been discovered in a shameful act. Her 
 colour deepened, but she would not go alto- 
 gether away from the window. That would 
 be to admit she had been doing something 
 wrong. 
 
 " Aunt Hetty," cried Freddie, in the same 
 shrill loud voice, " can I play with that 
 little boy down there ? I have no one to 
 play with here." 
 
 The upturned face of the man smiled, 
 and the voice of the man said, " Come down,
 
 ' CAN I PLA V WITH THA T LITTLE BOY? " 227 
 
 my little fellow, and play with this boy. 
 He is just like yourself — he has no one to 
 play with. You will let him come, please ? 
 I will take the utmost care of him." 
 
 " I — I'll see," stammered Hetty, quite 
 taken aback. 
 
 "You will let him come? 0, pray do. 
 My little fellow has no companion but me," 
 said the deep, full, rich pleading voice of 
 the man. 
 
 In her confusion Hetty said, " If it's safe^. 
 If he can get across." 
 
 " 0, it's quite safe. I will answer for 
 the child. I'll push across the stage in a 
 moment, and fetch the child. There is 
 plenty of room for them to play here, and 
 absolutely no danger." 
 
 15—2
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 PHILIP RAY AT RICHMOND. 
 
 Once Philip Eay started on any course lie 
 was not the man to let the grass grow under 
 his feet. All his time was not at his dis- 
 posal. He was in the Custom House, and 
 for several hours a day he was chained to 
 his desk. 
 
 No sooner were his duties discharged on 
 the day following the arrival of the boy at 
 Boland's Ait than he hastened to Ludgate 
 Hill railway station and took the first train 
 to Eichmond. 
 
 He had not worked out any definite plan 
 of search. His mind was not a particularly 
 orderly one. Indeed, he was largely a 
 creature of impulse, and in setting out he 
 
 I
 
 PHILIP RAY AT RICHMOND. 229 
 
 had only two ideas in his head. First, to 
 find the man who had caused all the shame 
 and misery ; and, second, to execute sum- 
 mary vengeance on that man the moment 
 he encountered him. 
 
 He did not seek to justify himself morally 
 in this course ; he did not consider the moral 
 aspect of his position at all. When his blood 
 was up he was impulsive, headlong. He 
 had made up his mind three years ago that 
 John Ainsworth deserved death at his hands 
 for the injury done, and neither during any 
 hour of these three years nor now had he 
 the slightest hesitancy or compunction. 
 
 He had sworn an oath that he would kill 
 this man if ever he could get at him, and 
 kill him he would now in spite of con- 
 sequences. People might call it a cowardly 
 murder if they pleased. What did he care ? 
 This man deserved death, and if they chose 
 to hang him afterwards, what of that ? He
 
 230 AN ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 was quite prepared to face that fate. Kate 
 was dying or dead ; the honourable name of 
 Eay had been disgraced for ever ; the hfe 
 of the man he loved best in all the world 
 had been blasted by a base, vicious scoun- 
 drel, and he would shoot that scoundrel just 
 as he would shoot a mad dog or a veno- 
 mous snake. He was inexorable. 
 
 No thought of seeking his sister entered 
 his mind. She was, doubtless, dead by this 
 time. From the moment she left her hus- 
 band's roof she had been dead to him. In 
 the presence of Frank, and with that letter 
 before him, he had held his tongue regard- 
 ing her. But his mind was completely 
 unchanged. The best thing that could 
 happen to her was that she should die. A 
 woman who could do what she had done 
 deserved no thought of pity, had no place 
 in the consideration of sane people ; a 
 woman who could leave Frank Mellor, now
 
 PHILIP RAY AT RICHMOND. 231 
 
 known as Francis Bramwell, for John Ains- 
 worth, deserved no pity, no human sym- 
 pathy. She had sinned in the most heinous 
 way against loyalty ; let him show that all 
 the blood of the family was not base and 
 traitorous. He would sin on the other side 
 to make matters even. 
 
 He knew that such forms of vengeance 
 were not usual in this time and country. 
 So much the worse for this time and 
 country. What other kind of satisfaction 
 was possible ? The law courts ? Mon- 
 strous ! How could the law courts put 
 such a case right ? By divorcing those 
 wdio had already been divorced ! By a 
 money penalty exacted from the culprit ! 
 Pooh, pooh! H a man shot a man they 
 hanged him, put him out of pain at once. 
 But if a man was the cause of a woman's 
 lingering death from shame and despair, 
 and imposed a life of living-death on an
 
 232 AN ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 innocent human being, they let the mis- 
 creant go scot-free ; unless, indeed, they 
 imposed a fine such as they would inflict 
 for breach of an ordinary commercial con- 
 tract. The idea that treatment of this 
 sort had even the semblance of justice 
 could not be entertained by a child or an 
 idiot ! 
 
 Before setting out from Ludgate Hill 
 and on the way down to Eichmond nothing 
 seemed more reasonable than that he 
 should take the train to that town, and 
 without any serious difficulty find John 
 Ainsworth. The town was not large, and 
 he could give any one of whom he asked 
 aid the man's name and a full description 
 of his appearance. He possessed, more- 
 over, the additional fact that Ainsworth 
 had shaved his face, taken off his beard, 
 whiskers, and moustache. He should be 
 on his track in an hour, and face to face
 
 PHILIP RAY AT RICHMOND. 233 
 
 with Ains worth in a couple of hours at 
 the outside. 
 
 He stepped briskly out of the train at 
 Eichmond, and waited until the platform 
 was cleared of those who had alighted. 
 Then he spoke to the most intelligent 
 porter he could find. First of all he gave 
 the man a shilling. He said he was in 
 search of a Mr. John Ainsworth, a gentle- 
 man of about thirty-five or thirty-seven 
 years of age, five feet eight or thereabouts, 
 with a quick restless manner, a clean-shaven 
 roundish face, dark hair and dark eyes, in 
 figure well made, but inclining to stoutness. 
 
 The porter knew no gentleman of the 
 name, he was sorry to say, and recalled 
 a great number of gentlemen who corre- 
 sponded in some respects with the des- 
 cription, but none that corresponded with 
 all. As far as he was aware, there was 
 no man of the name in Eichmond — that
 
 234 AN ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 is, no gentleman of the name. He knew 
 a Charles A ins worth, a cabdriver, but 
 Charles Ainsworth was five feet eleven or 
 six feet, and no more than twenty-five years 
 of age. Perhaps the stationmaster might 
 be able to help. 
 
 The stationmaster knew no one of the 
 name — that is, no one named John Ains- 
 w^orth. He knew Charles Ainsworth the 
 cabdriver. He could not identify any one 
 corresponding to Eay's description, but 
 the interrogator must remember that a 
 great number of gentlemen passed tlirougli 
 that station from week's end to week's end. 
 Why not look in a directory and find out 
 his friend's address at once? 
 
 Of course. That was an obvious course. 
 It had not occurred to Eay before. 
 
 Accordingly he left the station, and 
 turned into an hotel and asked to see the 
 local directory.
 
 PHILIP RAY AT RICHMOND. 235 
 
 No John Aiiiswortli here. 
 
 Another disappointment. But this was 
 not disheartening ; for Ainsworth in all 
 likelihood was not a householder. At the 
 hotel they suggested that the post-office 
 would be the place to learn the address 
 of his friend. 
 
 Eay smiled grimly as he noticed that the 
 three people of whom he had inquired all 
 referred to Ainsworth as his " friend." 
 
 His luck at the post-office was bad also. 
 Nothing was known there of any Ainsworth 
 but Charles, the cabdriver. 
 
 This was becoming exasperating. The 
 man he sought could not have vanished 
 into thin air. Edward Lambton, who saw 
 Ainsworth, was quite sure of his identity. 
 When a man recognises another who has 
 taken off his beard, whiskers and mous- 
 tache, there is not the slightest room for 
 doubt of the identification, particularly if
 
 236 AN ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 the identification is casual, not suggested, 
 spontaneous. 
 
 Ray felt more than exasperated now. 
 He was furious. He walked about the 
 town for an hour, asking here and there, 
 but could find no trace of John Ainsworth. 
 He was no more known in the place than 
 if he had never been born. 
 
 Suddenly he stopped with an exclama- 
 tion of surprise and anger, "I am a 
 lunatic!" he cried in a low voice, "I'm a 
 born lunatic ! Is it because Lambton saw 
 Ainsworth on the platform of this place 
 that he must live here? Might not ten 
 thousand people have seen me on the plat- 
 form of this place an hour or so ago, and 
 do I live here? Indeed I do not think 
 any human being out of Bedlam could be 
 so hopelessly idiotic as I have been to 
 feel sure he lived here." 
 
 He found his way back to the station
 
 PHILIP RAY AT RICHMOND. 237 
 
 and returned, to town. He got out at 
 Camber well, and walked from there to 
 Boland's Ait. It was upon this occasion 
 that Crawford, sallying from Layard's, 
 learnt from Eed Jim how the man who had 
 come along the tow-path had failed to 
 emerge from the cover of the island. 
 
 "And what have you been doing all 
 day ? " asked Eay, when he was seated in 
 one of the armchairs in the study or dining- 
 room of the cottaofe. 
 
 The boy was seated on the floor, turning 
 over the leaves of a book full of pictures. 
 
 " We have been busy and playing," said 
 Bramwell, nodding towards the child. " I 
 was putting the place to rights, getting in 
 order for my new lodger. I thought you 
 would have come sooner." For the first 
 time in three years Francis Bramwell spoke 
 ■in a cheerful tone and looked almost happy. 
 There had always been a great deal of re-
 
 238 AN ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 serve in this man, but now he seemed more 
 open and free than he had ever appeared 
 even before his marriage. Suffering had 
 purified, and the presence of his son, whom 
 he had taken into his heart, had soothed 
 and humanised the recluse. 
 
 Eay paused in doubt as to whether he 
 should tell the other of his visit to Eich- 
 mond. He had taken no notice of the boy 
 upon his entrance, but he was pleased and 
 grateful that Bramwell showed an awakened 
 interest in life. The child had done this, 
 and his heart softened towards the little 
 fellow. Anything that brought light to his 
 brother-in-law was an object of thankful- 
 ness. If his friend, his brother, as he called 
 him, were in better spirits, owing to the 
 coming of the child, why should he dissi- 
 pate them by telling him of his search of 
 vengeance. He answered the question of 
 the other by saying :
 
 PHILIP RAY AT RICHMOND. 239 
 
 "I was delayed. I liad to attend to 
 something." 
 
 Bram well's face darkened. Philip had 
 no secret from him. He was a man who 
 could keep nothing from a friend. Why 
 did he not say what had detained him ? 
 There could be only one explanation : the 
 delay had been caused by something in 
 connection with the letter Philip had re- 
 ceived the evening before. It was plain to 
 Bramwell what had detained Kate's brother, 
 Bramwell said very gravely : 
 
 " You have been to Eichmond ? " 
 
 Philip nodded. 
 
 " Ah," Bramwell sighed heavily, " I 
 thought so ! Did you find out anything ? " 
 
 "Nothing. Absolutely nothing. He is 
 not known there. I tried at the railway 
 station, in the directory, at the post-office, 
 in a dozen shops. No account or trace w^as 
 to be found of the scoundrel."
 
 240 AN ISLE OF SURREY, 
 
 " Thank Heaven ! " 
 
 "I do not believe he hves there. He 
 must have been only in the town a little 
 while, visiting some one, or passing through, 
 on some new devil's work, I will swear." 
 
 " It was a mercy for you that he was not 
 to be found." 
 
 " A mercy for him, you mean." 
 
 Por a few minutes Bramwell seemed 
 plunged in gloomy thought. The two men 
 were silent. At length the elder shook 
 himself, rose, and said : 
 
 " Come, see the arrangements I have 
 made for the boy. He is to sleep in my 
 room. I am going to give him my bed. 
 The stretcher will do excellently for me. I 
 have spoken to Mrs. Treleaven — you know 
 the woman who brings me what I want 
 every morning. She is to come for an hour 
 or two a day and keep matters right for us. 
 Up to this she. has never been on the Ait,
 
 PHILIP RAY AT RICHMOND. 241 
 
 but I could not myself keep the place as 
 tidy as I should like now that I am not 
 alone. Early impressions are lasting, and I 
 must do the best I can to brighten up this 
 hermitage for the sake of the new young 
 eyes. Come ! " 
 
 The two men went to the bedroom. 
 
 " See," said the father, with a sad smile ; 
 " I have laid down this bit of old carpet, 
 and hung up these prints, and put the 
 stretcher close to the bed, so that I may be 
 near him, and also that it may serve as a 
 step when he is getting in and out of his 
 own bed. Children, I have often read, 
 should sleep in beds by themselves ; and, 
 above all, it is not wholesome for them to 
 sleep with grown-up people. You don't 
 think this place is unhealthy for a child, 
 Philip?" 
 
 " 0, no ! You have enjoyed very good 
 health here." 
 
 VOL. I. 16
 
 242 AN ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 What a change — what a blessed change 
 had come over this man! He had been 
 re-born, re-created by the touch of those 
 chubby fingers and young red lips ; by the 
 soft, silky hair and the large dark eyes ; by 
 the fresh, sweet clear voice, and the com- 
 plete dependency and helplessness of the 
 boy. 
 
 " But I am a man in the vigour of life," 
 said the father anxiously ; " and am there- 
 fore able to resist influences of climate or 
 situation which might be perilous to one so 
 young and delicately formed, eh? You 
 don^t think there is any danger in the 
 place?" 
 
 " Certainly not." 
 
 " But so much water that is almost stag- 
 nant ? You are aware that there is hardly 
 any current in the canal, and that there 
 are no locks on it?" 
 
 "0, yes; but I never heard any com- 
 
 i
 
 PHILIP RAY AT RICHMOND. 243 
 
 plaints of insalubrity, and you know the 
 neighbourhood of a gas-house, although it 
 does not make the air bright or sweet, 
 purifies it." 
 
 "I know; I thought of that. I know 
 that a still more unsavoury business — that 
 of candle-making — is a preventive to pes- 
 tilence ; at least, it was in the days of the 
 Plague, and chandlers had immunities and 
 privileges on that account. But it is the 
 water I fear for him. None of your family, 
 Philip, had delicate chests ? " 
 
 " No, no ; I think you may make your 
 mind easy. I am sure the boy will thrive 
 marvellously here." 
 
 " Pm glad to hear you say so. Let us go 
 back. The poor Httle chap must not be 
 allowed to feel lonely. You did not take 
 any notice of him when you came in. 
 Philip," he put his hand on his brother's 
 arm, " you are not going to visit any anger
 
 244 AN ISLE OF SURREY. 
 
 on the desolate orphan ? Eemember, he is 
 an orphan now ; and you must not bear ill- 
 will towards the dead, or visit the — the 
 faults of the parent on the child." 
 
 " Tut, tut ! " said Philip, as they left the 
 room and returned to the study ; " I am 
 not going to do anything of the kind. I 
 took no notice of the child when I arrived 
 because my head was full of other things." 
 
 He went to the boy and raised him in his 
 arms, and pinched his cheek, and patted 
 his hair and kissed him. 
 
 "Thank you," said Bramwell. "I feel 
 new blood in my veins and new brains in 
 my head, and a new heart in my body. I 
 intend giving up dreaming for ever. I am 
 now going to try to make a little money. 
 Presently the child will have to be sent to 
 school — to a good school, of course." 
 
 "My dear Frank," cried Philip, with 
 tears in his eyes and voice, "it is better
 
 PHILIP RAY AT RICHMOND. 245 
 
 to listen to you talk in this way than to 
 hear you had been made a king." 
 
 " I am a king," cried the father in a tone 
 of exultation. " I am an absolute monarch. 
 I reign with undisputed sway over my 
 island home, and my subject is my own 
 son, whom I may mould and fashion as 
 I please, and whom no one will teach to 
 despise me." 
 
 END OF VOL I
 
 PRINTED BY 
 
 KELLY AND CO., MIDDLE MILL, KINGSTON-ON-THAMES: 
 
 AND GATE STREET, LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS, W.C.
 
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