Complete Works of Robert Louis Stevenson (Illustrated) (335 page)

It was no use to try and see her now, but I promised myself early that evening to return to Swanston.  In the meantime I had to make all my preparations, and look the coming journey in the face.  Here in Edinburgh I was within four miles of the sea, yet the business of approaching random fishermen with my hat in the one hand and a knife in the other, appeared so desperate, that I saw nothing for it but to retrace my steps over the northern counties, and knock a second time at the doors of Birchell Fenn.  To do this, money would be necessary; and after leaving my paper in the hands of Flora I had still a balance of about fifteen hundred pounds.  Or rather I may say I had them and I had them not; for after my luncheon with Mr. Robbie I had placed the amount, all but thirty pounds of change, in a bank in George Street, on a deposit receipt in the name of Mr. Rowley.  This I had designed to be my gift to him, in case I must suddenly depart.  But now, thinking better of the arrangement, I despatched my little man, cockade and all, to lift the fifteen hundred.

He was not long gone, and returned with a flushed face, and the deposit receipt still in his hand.

‘No go, Mr. Anne,’ says he.

‘How’s that?’ I inquired,

‘Well, sir, I found the place all right, and no mistake,’ said he.  ‘But I tell you what gave me a blue fright!  There was a customer standing by the door, and I reckonised him!  Who do you think it was, Mr. Anne?  W’y, that same Red-Breast — him I had breakfast with near Aylesbury.’

‘You are sure you are not mistaken?’ I asked.

‘Certain sure,’ he replied.  ‘Not Mr. Lavender, I don’t mean, sir; I mean the other party.  “Wot’s he doing here?’ says I.  It don’t look right.”‘

‘Not by any means,’ I agreed.

I walked to and fro in the apartment reflecting.  This particular Bow Street runner might be here by accident; but it was to imagine a singular play of coincidence that he, who had met Rowley and spoken with him in the ‘Green Dragon,’ hard by Aylesbury, should be now in Scotland, where he could have no legitimate business, and by the doors of the bank where Rowley kept his account.

‘Rowley,’ said I, ‘he didn’t see you, did he?’

‘Never a fear,’ quoth Rowley.  ‘W’y Mr. Anne, sir, if he ‘ad, you wouldn’t have seen
me
any more!  I ain’t a hass, sir!’

‘Well, my boy, you can put that receipt in your pocket.  You’ll have no more use for it till you’re quite clear of me.  Don’t lose it, though; it’s your share of the Christmas-box: fifteen hundred pounds all for yourself.’

‘Begging your pardon, Mr. Anne, sir, but wot for!’ said Rowley.

‘To set up a public-house upon,’ said I.

‘If you’ll excuse me, sir, I ain’t got any call to set up a public-house, sir,’ he replied stoutly.  ‘And I tell you wot, sir, it seems to me I’m reether young for the billet.  I’m your body servant, Mr. Anne, or else I’m nothink.’

‘Well, Rowley,’ I said, ‘I’ll tell you what it’s for.  It’s for the good service you have done me, of which I don’t care — and don’t dare — to speak.  It’s for your loyalty and cheerfulness, my dear boy.  I had meant it for you; but to tell you the truth, it’s past mending now — it has to be yours.  Since that man is waiting by the bank, the money can’t be touched until I’m gone.’

‘Until you’re gone, sir?’ re-echoed Rowley.  ‘You don’t go anywheres without me, I can tell you that, Mr. Anne, sir!’

‘Yes, my boy,’ said I, ‘we are going to part very soon now; probably to-morrow.  And it’s for my sake, Rowley!  Depend upon it, if there was any reason at all for that Bow Street man being at the bank, he was not there to look out for you.  How they could have found out about the account so early is more than I can fathom; some strange coincidence must have played me false!  But there the fact is; and Rowley, I’ll not only have to say farewell to you presently, I’ll have to ask you to stay indoors until I can say it.  Remember, my boy, it’s only so that you can serve me now.’

‘W’y, sir, you say the word, and of course I’ll do it!’ he cried.  ‘“Nothink by ‘alves,” is my motto!  I’m your man, through thick and thin, live or die, I am!’

In the meantime there was nothing to be done till towards sunset.  My only chance now was to come again as quickly as possible to speech of Flora, who was my only practicable banker; and not before evening was it worth while to think of that.  I might compose myself as well as I was able over the
Caledonian Mercury
, with its ill news of the campaign of France and belated documents about the retreat from Russia; and, as I sat there by the fire, I was sometimes all awake with anger and mortification at what I was reading, and sometimes again I would be three parts asleep as I dozed over the barren items of home intelligence.  ‘Lately arrived’ — this is what I suddenly stumbled on — ’at Dumbreck’s Hotel, the Viscount of Saint-Yves.’

‘Rowley,’ said I.

‘If you please, Mr. Anne, sir,’ answered the obsequious, lowering his pipe.

‘Come and look at this, my boy,’ said I, holding out the paper.

‘My crikey!’ said he.  ‘That’s ‘im, sir, sure enough!’

‘Sure enough, Rowley,’ said I.  ‘He’s on the trail.  He has fairly caught up with us.  He and this Bow Street man have come together, I would swear.  And now here is the whole field, quarry, hounds and hunters, all together in this city of Edinburgh.’

‘And wot are you goin’ to do now, sir?  Tell you wot, let me take it in ‘and, please!  Gimme a minute, and I’ll disguise myself, and go out to this Dum — - to this hotel, leastways, sir — and see wot he’s up to.  You put your trust in me, Mr. Anne: I’m fly, don’t you make no mistake about it.  I’m all a-growing and a-blowing, I am.’

‘Not one foot of you,’ said I.  ‘You are a prisoner, Rowley, and make up your mind to that.  So am I, or next door to it.  I showed it you for a caution; if you go on the streets, it spells death to me, Rowley.’

‘If you please, sir,’ says Rowley.

‘Come to think of it,’ I continued, ‘you must take a cold, or something.  No good of awakening Mrs. McRankine’s suspicions.’

‘A cold?’ he cried, recovering immediately from his depression.  ‘I can do it, Mr. Anne.’

And he proceeded to sneeze and cough and blow his nose, till I could not restrain myself from smiling.

‘Oh, I tell you, I know a lot of them dodges,’ he observed proudly.

‘Well, they come in very handy,’ said I.

‘I’d better go at once and show it to the old gal, ‘adn’t I?’ he asked.

I told him, by all means; and he was gone upon the instant, gleeful as though to a game of football.

I took up the paper and read carelessly on, my thoughts engaged with my immediate danger, till I struck on the next paragraph: —

‘In connection with the recent horrid murder in the Castle, we are desired to make public the following intelligence.  The soldier, Champdivers, is supposed to be in the neighbourhood of this city.  He is about the middle height or rather under, of a pleasing appearance and highly genteel address.  When last heard of he wore a fashionable suit of pearl-grey, and boots with fawn-coloured tops.  He is accompanied by a servant about sixteen years of age, speaks English without any accent, and passed under the
alias
of Ramornie.  A reward is offered for his apprehension.’

In a moment I was in the next room, stripping from me the pearl-coloured suit!

I confess I was now a good deal agitated.  It is difficult to watch the toils closing slowly and surely about you, and to retain your composure; and I was glad that Rowley was not present to spy on my confusion.  I was flushed, my breath came thick; I cannot remember a time when I was more put out.

And yet I must wait and do nothing, and partake of my meals, and entertain the ever-garrulous Rowley, as though I were entirely my own man.  And if I did not require to entertain Mrs. McRankine also, that was but another drop of bitterness in my cup!  For what ailed my landlady, that she should hold herself so severely aloof, that she should refuse conversation, that her eyes should be reddened, that I should so continually hear the voice of her private supplications sounding through the house?  I was much deceived, or she had read the insidious paragraph and recognised the comminated pearl-grey suit.  I remember now a certain air with which she had laid the paper on my table, and a certain sniff, between sympathy and defiance, with which she had announced it: ‘There’s your
Mercury
for ye!’

In this direction, at least, I saw no pressing danger; her tragic countenance betokened agitation; it was plain she was wrestling with her conscience, and the battle still hung dubious.  The question of what to do troubled me extremely.  I could not venture to touch such an intricate and mysterious piece of machinery as my landlady’s spiritual nature: it might go off at a word, and in any direction, like a badly-made firework.  And while I praised myself extremely for my wisdom in the past, that I had made so much a friend of her, I was all abroad as to my conduct in the present.  There seemed an equal danger in pressing and in neglecting the accustomed marks of familiarity.  The one extreme looked like impudence, and might annoy, the other was a practical confession of guilt.  Altogether, it was a good hour for me when the dusk began to fall in earnest on the streets of Edinburgh, and the voice of an early watchman bade me set forth.

I reached the neighbourhood of the cottage before seven; and as I breasted the steep ascent which leads to the garden wall, I was struck with surprise to hear a dog.  Dogs I had heard before, but only from the hamlet on the hillside above.  Now, this dog was in the garden itself, where it roared aloud in paroxysms of fury, and I could hear it leaping and straining on the chain.  I waited some while, until the brute’s fit of passion had roared itself out.  Then, with the utmost precaution, I drew near again; and finally approached the garden wall.  So soon as I had clapped my head above the level, however, the barking broke forth again with redoubled energy.  Almost at the same time, the door of the cottage opened, and Ronald and the Major appeared upon the threshold with a lantern.  As they so stood, they were almost immediately below me, strongly illuminated, and within easy earshot.  The Major pacified the dog, who took instead to low, uneasy growling intermingled with occasional yelps.

‘Good thing I brought Towzer!’ said Chevenix.

‘Damn him, I wonder where he is!’ said Ronald; and he moved the lantern up and down, and turned the night into a shifting puzzle-work of gleam and shadow.  ‘I think I’ll make a sally.’

‘I don’t think you will,’ replied Chevenix.  ‘When I agreed to come out here and do sentry-go, it was on one condition, Master Ronald: don’t you forget that!  Military discipline, my boy!  Our beat is this path close about the house.  Down, Towzer! good boy, good boy — gently, then!’ he went on, caressing his confounded monster.

‘To think!  The beggar may be hearing us this minute!’ cried Ronald.

‘Nothing more probable,’ said the Major.  ‘You there, St. Ives?’ he added, in a distinct but guarded voice.  ‘I only want to tell you, you had better go home.  Mr. Gilchrist and I take watch and watch.’

The game was up.  ‘
Beaucoup de plaisir
!’ I replied, in the same tones.  ‘
Il fait un peu froid pour veiller
;
gardez-vous des engelures
!’

I suppose it was done in a moment of ungovernable rage; but in spite of the excellent advice he had given to Ronald the moment before, Chevenix slipped the chain, and the dog sprang, straight as an arrow, up the bank.  I stepped back, picked up a stone of about twelve pounds weight, and stood ready.  With a bound the beast landed on the cope-stone of the wall; and, almost in the same instant, my missile caught him fair in the face.  He gave a stifled cry, went tumbling back where he had come from, and I could hear the twelve-pounder accompany him in his fall.  Chevenix, at the same moment, broke out in a roaring voice: ‘The hell-hound!  If he’s killed my dog!’ and I judged, upon all grounds, it was as well to be off.

CHAPTER XXX — EVENTS OF WEDNESDAY; THE UNIVERSITY OF CRAMOND

I awoke to much diffidence, even to a feeling that might be called the beginnings of panic, and lay for hours in my bed considering the situation.  Seek where I pleased, there was nothing to encourage me and plenty to appal.  They kept a close watch about the cottage; they had a beast of a watch-dog — at least, unless I had settled it; and if I had, I knew its bereaved master would only watch the more indefatigably for the loss.  In the pardonable ostentation of love I had given all the money I could spare to Flora; I had thought it glorious that the hunted exile should come down, like Jupiter, in a shower of gold, and pour thousands in the lap of the beloved.  Then I had in an hour of arrant folly buried what remained to me in a bank in George Street.  And now I must get back the one or the other; and which? and how?

As I tossed in my bed, I could see three possible courses, all extremely perilous.  First, Rowley might have been mistaken; the bank might not be watched; it might still be possible for him to draw the money on the deposit receipt.  Second, I might apply again to Robbie.  Or, third, I might dare everything, go to the Assembly Ball, and speak with Flora under the eyes of all Edinburgh.  This last alternative, involving as it did the most horrid risks, and the delay of forty-eight hours, I did but glance at with an averted head, and turned again to the consideration of the others.  It was the likeliest thing in the world that Robbie had been warned to have no more to do with me. The whole policy of the Gilchrists was in the hands of Chevenix; and I thought this was a precaution so elementary that he was certain to have taken it.  If he had not, of course I was all right: Robbie would manage to communicate with Flora; and by four o’clock I might be on the south road and, I was going to say, a free man.  Lastly, I must assure myself with my own eyes whether the bank in George Street were beleaguered.

I called to Rowley and questioned him tightly as to the appearance of the Bow Street officer.

‘What sort of looking man is he, Rowley?’ I asked, as I began to dress.

‘Wot sort of a looking man he is?’ repeated Rowley.  ‘Well, I don’t very well know wot you would say, Mr. Anne.  He ain’t a beauty, any’ow.’