A QUIET RAILWAY-STATION. ONE PASSENGER, AND A SHAKEDOWN AT MOORE'S. THE CONVICT DAVERILL'S SEARCH FOR HIS MOTHER. GRANNY MARRABLE'S READING OF "PILGRIM'S PROGRESS." A MAN ON A STILE. SOME MEMORIES OF NORFOLK ISLAND. A FINGER-JOINT. AN OATH ADMINISTERED BY AN AMATEUR, WITHOUT A TESTAMENT. HOW DAVERILL SPOKE HIS NAME TWICE, AND THE FIRST TIME UNDID THE SECOND. OFF THROUGH A HEDGE, FOLLOWED BY A RESPECTABLE MAN. HOW OLD PHOEBE FOUND AN ENIGMA IN HER POCKET

In those days the great main lines of railway were liable to long silences in the night. At the smaller stations particularly, after the last train up and the last train down had passed without killing somebody at a level crossing, or leaving you behind because you thought it was sure to be late, and presumed upon that certainty, an almost holy calm would reign for hours, and those really ill-used things, the sleepers, seemed to have a chance at last. For after being baffled all day by intermittent rushing fiends, and unwarrantable shuntings to and fro, and droppings of sudden red-hot clinkers on their counterpanes, an inexplicable click or two—apparently due to fidgety bull's-eyes desirous of change—could scarcely be accounted a disturbance.

No station in the world was more primevally still than Grantley Thorpe, after the down three-thirty express—the train that crossed the three-fifteen that carried Gwen to London—had stopped, that the word of Bradshaw should be fulfilled; had deposited the smallest conceivable number of passengers, and wondered, perhaps, why remaindermen in the carriages always put their heads out to ask what station this was. On this particular occasion, Bradshaw scored, for the down train entered the station three minutes after the up train departed, twelve minutes behind. Then the little station turned off lights, locked up doors of offices and lids of boxes, and went to bed. All but a signalman, in a box on a pole.

There was one passenger, not a prepossessing one, who seemed morose. His only luggage was a small handbag, and that was against him. It is not an indictable offence to have no luggage, but if a referendum were taken from railway-porters, it would be. However, this man was, after all, a third-class passenger, so perhaps he was excusable for carrying that bag.

"I suppose," said he, surrendering his ticket, "it's no part of your duty to tell a cove where he can get a sleep for half a night. You ain't paid for it." Whether this was churlishness, or a sort of humour, was not clear, from the tone.

Sandys, the station-master, one of the most good-humoured of mortals, preferred the latter interpretation. "It don't add to our salary, but it ought to. Very obliging we are, in these parts! How much do you look to pay?"

The man drew from his pocket, presumably, the fund he had to rely upon, and appeared to count it, with dissatisfaction. "Two and a kick!" said he. "I'll go to the tizzy, for sheets." This meant he would lay out the tizzy, or kick, provided that his bed was furnished with sheets. He added, with a growl, that he was not going to be put off with a horserug, this time. The adjective he used to qualify the previous rug showed that his experiences had been peculiar, and disagreeable.

"You might ask at Moore's, along on your left where you see yonder light. Show your money first, and offer to pay in advance. Cash first, sleep afterwards. There's someone sitting up, or they wouldn't show a light.... Here, Tommy, you're going that way. You p'int him out Moore's." Thus the station-master, who then departed along a gravel path, through a wicket-gate. It led to his private residence, which was keeping up its spirits behind a small grove of sunflowers which were not keeping up theirs. They had been once the admiration of passing trains, with a bank of greensward below them with "Grantley Thorpe" on it in flints, in very large caps. and now they were on the brink of their graves in the earth so chilly, and didn't seem resigned.

Tommy the porter did not relish his companion, evidently, as he walked on, a pace ahead, along the road that led to the village. He never said a word, and seemed justified in outstripping that slow, lurching, indescribable pace, which was not lameness, in order to stimulate it by example.

"Yarnder's Mower's," said Tommy, nodding towards a small pothouse down a blind alley. "You wo'ant find nowat to steal there, at Mower's."

"What the Hell do you mean by that?"

"What do I me'an—is that what you're asking?" Raised voice.

"Ah—what do you mean by 'steal'?"

"Just what a sa'ay! What do they me'an in London?"

"London's a large place—too large for this time o' night. You come along there one o' these days, and you'll find out what they mean." He sketched the behaviour of Londoners towards rustic visitors untruthfully—if our experience can be relied on—and in terms open to censure; ending up:—"You'll find what they'll do, fast enough! Just you show up there, one o' these fine days." He had only warped the subject thus in order to introduce the idea of a humiliating and degrading chastisement, as an insult to his hearer.

He vanishes from the story at this point, in a discharge of Parthian shafts by Tommy the young railwayman, not very energetically returned, as if he thought the contest not worth prolonging. Vanishes, that is to say, unless he was the same man who spoke with Mrs. Keziah Solmes at about eleven o'clock the next morning, in the road close by the Ranger's Cottage, close to where the grey mare started on her forty-first mile, yesterday. If this person spoke truth when he said he had come from a station much farther off than Grantley Thorpe, he was not the same man. Otherwise, the witnesses agreed in their description of him.

Mrs. Solmes's testimony was that a man in rough grey suit—frieze or homespun—addressed her while she was looking out for the mail-cart, with possible letters, and asked to be directed to Ancester Towers; which is, at this point, invisible from the road. She suspected him at first of being a vagrant of some new sort—then of mere eccentricity. For plenty of eccentrics came to get a sight of the Towers. She had surmised that his object was to do so, and had told him, that as the family were away, strangers could be admitted by orders obtainable of Kiffin and Clewby, his lordship the Earl's agents at Grantley. He then told her that he had walked over from Bridgport, where the Earl had no agent. He did not wish to go over the Towers, but to inquire for a party he was anxious to see; an old party by the name of Prichard. That was, he said, his own name, and she was a relation of his—in fact, his mother. He had not seen her for many a long year, and his coming would be a bit of a surprise. He had been away in the Colonies, and had not been able to play the part of a dutiful son, but by no choice of his own. Coming back to England, his first thought had been to seek out the old lady, "at the old address." But there he found the house had fallen down, and she was gone away temporary, only she could be heard of at Ancester Towers in Rocestershire.

Mrs. Keziah was so touched by this tale of filial affection, that she nipped in the bud a sprouting conviction that the man was no better than he—and others—should be. She interested herself at once. "You wo'ant need to ask at the Towers, master," said she. "I can tell you all they can, up there. And very like a bit more. The old dame she's gone away with my cousin, maybe an hour ago—may be more. She'll ta'ak she to her mother's at Chorlton, and if ye keep along the straight road for Grantley till ye come to sign-po'ast, sayun' 'To Dessington and Chorlton,' then another three-qua'arters of an 'oor 'll ta'ak ye there, easy."

The dutiful son looked disappointed, but did not lose his equable and not unpleasant manner. "I thought I was nigher my journey's end than that, marm," said he. "I was looking forward to the old lady giving me a snack of breakfast.... But don't you mind me! I'll do all right. I got a bit of bread coming along from Gridgport.... Ah!—Bridgport I should have said." For he had begun to say Grantley.

Even if Mrs. Solmes had not been on the point of offering rest and refreshment, this disclaimer of the need of it would have suggested that she should do so. After all, was he not the son of that nice old soul her cousin Ruth Thrale had taken such a fancy to? If she came across the old lady herself, how should she look her in the face, after letting her toil-worn son add five miles to seven, on an all but empty stomach. Of course, she immediately asked him in, going on ahead of him to explain him to her husband, who looked rather narrowly at the newcomer, but could not interpose upon a slice of cold beef and a glass of ale, especially as it seemed to be unasked for, however welcome.

"'Tis a tidy step afoot from Bridgport Ra'aby, afower breakfast," said old Stephen, keeping his eye, nevertheless, on the man's face, with only a half-welcome on his own. "But come ye in, and the missus 'll cast an eye round the larder for ye. You be a stra-anger in these parts, I take it."

The beef and ale seemed very welcome, and the man was talkative. Did his hosts know Mrs. Prichard personally? Only just seen her—was that it? She must be gone very grey by now; why—she was going that way when he saw her last, years ago. He never said how many years. He couldn't say her age to a nicety, but she must be well on towards eighty. However did she come to be at the country seat of the great Earl of Ancester?—that was what puzzled him.

Mrs. Solmes could not tell him everything, but she had a good deal to tell. The old lady she had seen was very grey certainly, but had seemed to her cousin Ruth Thrale, who had tea with her yesterday, quite in possession of her faculties, and—oh dear yes!—able to get about, but suffering from rheumatism. But then just think—nearly eighty! As for how she came to be at the Towers, all that Mrs. Solmes knew was that it was through a sort of fancy of her young ladyship, Lady Gwen Rivers, reputed one of the most beautiful young ladies in England, who had brought her from London after the accident already referred to, and who had gone away by the night-train, leaving a request to her cousin Ruth to take charge of her till her return. She could have repeated all she had heard from Mrs. Thrale, but scarcely felt authorised to do so.

One untoward incident happened. The infant Seth, summoned to show himself, stood in a corner and pouted, turned red, and became intransigeant; finally, when peremptorily told to go and speak to the gentleman, shrank from and glared at him; only allowed his hand to be taken under compulsion, and rushed away when released, roaring with anger or terror, or both, and wiping the touch of the stranger off his offended hand. This was entirely unlike Seth, whose defects of character, disobedience to Law and Order, and love of destruction for its own sake, were qualified by an impassioned affection for the human race, causing him to attach himself to that race, as a sort of rock-limpet, and even to supersede kisses by licks. His aversion to this man was a new departure.

He, for his part, expressed his surprise at Seth's attitude. He was noted in his part of the world for his tenderness towards young children. His circle of acquaintances suffered the little ones to come unto him contrary to what you might have thought, he being but an ugly customer to look at. But his heart was good—a rough diamond! When he had expressed his gratitude and tramped away down the road, after carefully writing down the address "Strides Cottage, Chorlton" and the names of its occupants, old Stephen and Keziah looked each at the other, as though seeking help towards a good opinion of this man, and seemed to get none.

Old Granny Marrable always found a difficulty in getting away from her granddaughter Maisie's, because her presence there was so very much appreciated. Her great-grandson also, whose charms were developing more rapidly than is ever the case in after-life, was becoming a strong attraction to her. Moreover, a very old friend of hers, Mrs. Naunton, residing a short mile away, at Dessington, had just pulled through rheumatic fever, and was getting well enough to be read to out of "Pilgrim's Progress."

This afternoon, however, Mrs. Naunton did not prove well enough to keep awake when read to, even for Mr. Greatheart to slay Giant Despair. In fact, Mrs. Marrable caught her snoring, and read the rest to herself. It was too good to lose. When the Giant was disposed of past all recrudescence, she departed for her return journey instead of waiting for her granddaughter's brother-in-law, a schoolboy with a holiday, to come and see her home. She knew he would come by the short cut, across the fields, so she took that way to intercept him, in spite of the stiles. As a rule she preferred the highroad.

The fields were very lonely, but what did that matter? How little one feels the loneliness of an old familiar pathway! No one ever had been murdered in these fields, and no one ever would be. Granny Marrable walked on with confidence. Nevertheless, had she had her choice, she would have preferred the loneliness unalloyed by the presence of the man on the stile, at the end of Farmer Naunton's twelve-acre pasture, if only because she anticipated having to ask him to let her pass. For he seemed to have made up his mind to wait to be asked; if approached from behind, at any rate. She could not see his face or hands, only his outline against the cold, purple distance, with a red ball that had been the sun all day. "Might I trouble you, master?" she said.

The man turned his head just as far as was necessary for his eyes, under tension, to see the speaker; then got down, more deliberately than courteously, on his own side of the stile. "Come along, missus," he said. "Never mind legs. Yours ain't my sort. Over you go!"

Safe in the next field, Granny Marrable turned to thank him. But not before she had put three or four yards between them. Not that she anticipated violence, but from mere dislike of what she would have called sauciness in a boy, but which was, in a man of his time of life, sheer brutal rudeness. "Thank you very kindly, master!" said she. "Sorry to disturb you!"

He ought to have said that she was kindly welcome, or that he was very happy, but he said neither, only looking steadily at her. So she simply turned to go away.

She walked as far as the middle of the next field, not sorry to be out of this man's reach; and rather glad that, when she was within it, she was not a young girl, unprotected. That shows the impression he had given her. Also that his steady look was concentrating to a glare as she lost sight of his face, and that she would be glad when she was sure she had seen the last of it. She walked a little quicker as soon as she thought her doing so would attract no notice.

"Hi—missus!" She quickened her pace as the words—a hoarse call—caught her up. She even hoped she might be mistaken—had made a false interpretation of some entirely different sound; not the cawing of one of those rooks—that was against reason. But it might have been a dog's bark at a distance, warped by imagination. She had known that to happen. If so, it would come again. She stood and waited quietly.

It came again, distinctly. "Hi—missus!" No dog's bark that, but that man's voice, to a certainty, nearer. Then again "Hi—missus!" nearer still—almost close—and the sound of his feet. A halting, dot-and-go-one pace; not lame, but irregular.

She was a courageous old woman, was old Granny Marrable. But the place was a very lonely one, and.... Well—she did not mind about her money! It was her treasured old gold watch, that her first husband gave her, that she was thinking of....

There!—what a fool she was, to get into such a taking when, ten to one, she had only dropped something, and he was running after her to restore it. She faced about, and looked full at him.

"Ah!" said he. "Take a good look! You've seen me afore. No hurry—easy does it!" His voice showed such entire conviction, and at the same time such a complete freedom from anything threatening or aggressive, that all her fear left her at once. It was a mistake—nothing worse!

But was she absolutely sure, without her glasses? All she could see was that the face was that of a hard man, close-cropped and close-shaved, square and firm in the jaw. Not an ugly face, but certainly not an attractive one. "I think, sir," she said conciliatorily, "you have mistook me for someone else. I am sure."

"Maybe, mother," said he, "you'll know me through your glasses. Got 'em on you?... Ah—that's right! Fish 'em out of your pocket! Now!" As the old lady fitted on her spectacles, which she only used for near objects and reading, the man removed his hat and stood facing her, and repeated the word "Now!"

So absolutely convinced was she that he was merely under a misconception, that she was really only putting on her glasses to humour him, and give him time to find out his mistake. The fact that he had addressed her as "mother" counted for absolutely nothing. Any man in the village would address her as "mother," as often as not. It was affectionate, respectful, conciliatory, but by no means a claim of kinship. The word, moreover, had a distinct tendency to remove her dislike of the speaker, which had not vanished with her fear of him, now quite in abeyance.

"Indeed, sir," said she, after looking carefully at his face, "I cannot call you to mind. I cannot doubt but you have taken me for some other person." Then she fancied that something the man said, half to himself, was:—"That cock won't fight."

But he seemed, she thought, to waver a little, too. And his voice had not its first confidence, as it said:—"Do you mean to say, mother, that you've forgotten my face? My face!"

The familiar word "mother" still meant nothing to her—a mere epithet! Just consider the discrepancies whose reconciliation alone would have made it applicable! When she answered, some renewal of trepidation in her voice was due to the man's earnestness, not to any apprehension of his claim. "I am telling God's own truth, master," she said. "I have never set eyes upon ye in my life, and if I had, I would have known it. There be some mistake, indeed." Then timorously:—"Whom—whom—might ye take me for?"

The man raised his voice, more excitably than angrily. "What did I say just now?—mother!—that's English, ain't it?" But his words had no meaning to her; there was nothing in their structure to change her acceptation of the word "mother," as an apostrophe. Then, in response to the blank unrecognition of her face, he continued:—"What—still? I'm not kidding myself, by God, am I?... No—don't you try it on! I ain't going to have you running away. Not yet a while.... Ah—would you!"

He caught her by the wrist to check her half-shown tendency to turn and run; not, as she thought, from a malefactor, but a madman. A cry for help was stopped by a change in his tone—possibly even by the way his hand caught her wrist; for, though strong, it was not rough or ungentle. Little enough force was needed to detain her, and no more was used. He was mad, clearly, but not ferocious. "I'm not going to hurt ye, mother," said he. "But you leave your eyes on me a minute, and see if I'm a liar." He remained with his own fixed on hers, as one who waits impatiently for what he knows must come.

But no recognition followed. In vain did the old lady attempt—and perfectly honestly—to detect some reminder of some face seen and hitherto forgotten, in the hard cold eyes and thick-set jaw, the mouth-disfiguring twist which flawed features, which, handsome enough in themselves, would have otherwise gone near to compensate a repellent countenance. The effort was the more hopeless from the fact that it was a face that, once seen, might have been hard to forget. After complying to the full with his suggestion of a thorough examination, she was forced to acknowledge failure. "Indeed and indeed, sir," she said, "my memory is all at fault. If ever I saw ye in my life, 'tis so long ago I've forgotten it."

"Ah—you may say long ago!" The madman—for to her he was one; some lunatic at large—seemed to choke a moment over what he had to say, and then it came. "Twenty years and more—ay!—twenty years, and five over—and most of the time in Hell! Ah—run away, if you like—run away from your own son!" He released her arm; but though the terror had come back twofold, she would not run; for the most terrible maniac is pitiful as well as terrible, and her pity for him put her thoughts on calming and conciliating him. He went on, his speech breaking through something that choked it back and made it half a cry in the end. "Fourteen years of quod—fourteen years of prison-food—fourteen years of such a life that * * * prayers, Sundays, and the * * * parson that read 'em was as good as a holiday! Why—I tell you! It was so bad the lifers would try it on again and again, to kill themselves, and were only kept off of doing it by the cat, if they missed their tip." This was all the jargon of delirium to the terror-stricken old woman; it may be clear enough to the ordinary reader, with what followed. "I tell you I saw the man that got away over the cliff, and shattered every bone in his body. I saw him carried out o' hospital and tied up and flogged, for a caution, till the blood run down and the doctor gave the word stop." He went on in a voluble and disjointed way to tell how this man was "still there! There where your son, mother, spent fourteen out of these twenty-five long years past!"

But the more he said, the more clear was it to Granny Marrable that he was an escaped lunatic. There was, however, in all this sheer raving—as she counted it—an entire absence of any note of personal danger to herself. Her horror of him, and the condition of mind that his words made plain, remained; her apprehension of violence, or intimidation to make her surrender valuables, had given place to pity for his miserable condition. His repeated use of the word "mother" had a reassuring effect almost, while she accounted that of the word "son" as sheer distemperature of the brain. But why should she not make use of it to divert his mind from the terrible current of thought, whether delusion or memory, into which he had fallen? "I never had but one son, sir," she said, "and he has been dead twenty-three years this Christmas, and lies buried beside his father in Chorlton church."

The fugitive convict—for the story need not see him any longer from old Phoebe's point of view only—face to face with such a quiet and forcible disclaimer of identity, could not but be staggered, for all that this old woman's face was his mother's; or rather, was the face he had imaged to himself as hers, all due allowance being made—so he thought—for change from sixty-five to eighty. Probably, had he seen the two old sisters side by side, he would have chosen this one as his mother. Her eighty was much nearer to her sixty than old Maisie's. She was no beautiful old shadow, with that strange plenty of perfectly white hair. Time's hand had left hers merely grey, as a set off against the lesser quantity he had spared her. As Dave Wardle had noticed, her teeth had suffered much less than his London Granny's. Altogether, she was marvellously close to what the convict's preconception of "Mrs. Prichard" had been.

It is easy to see how this meeting came about. After he left the hospitable cottage of the Solmes's, he had walked on in a leisurely way, stopping at "The Old Truepenny, J. Hancock," to add another half-pint to the rather short allowance he had consumed at the cottage. This was a long half-pint, and took an hour; so that it was well on towards the early November sunset before he started again for Chorlton. J. Hancock had warned him not to go rowund by t' roo'ad, but to avail himself of the cross-cut over the fields to Dessington. When old Phoebe overtook him, he was beginning to wonder, as he sat on the stile, how he should introduce himself at Strides Cottage. There might be men there. Then, of a sudden, he had seen that the old woman who had disturbed his cogitations, must be his mother! How could there be another old woman so like her, so close at hand?

Her placid, resolute, convincing denial checkmated his powers of thought. As is often the case, details achieved what mere bald asseveration of fact would have failed in. The circumstantial statement that her son lay buried beside his father in Chorlton Churchyard corroborated the denial past reasonable dispute. But nothing could convince his eyesight, while his reason stood aghast at the way it was deceiving him.

"Give me hold of your fin, missus," he said. "I won't call you 'mother.' Left-hand.... No—I'm not going for to hurt you. Don't you be frightened!" He took the hand that, not without renewed trepidation and misgiving, was stretched out to him, and did not do with it what its owner expected. For her mind, following his action, was assigning it to some craze of Cheiromancy—what she would have called Fortune-telling. It was no such thing.

He did not take his eyes from her face, but holding her hand in his, without roughness, felt over the fingers one by one, resting chiefly on the middle finger. He took his time, saying nothing. At last he relinquished the hand abruptly, and spoke. "No—missus—you're about right. You're not my mother." Then he said:—"You'll excuse me—half a minute more! Same hand, please!" Then went again through the same operation of feeling, and dropped it. He seemed bewildered, and saner in bewilderment than in assurance.

Old Phoebe was greatly relieved at his recognition of his mistake. "Was it something in the hand ye knew by, master?" she said timidly. For she did not feel quite safe yet. She began walking on, tentatively.

He followed, but a pace behind—not close at her side. "Something in the hand," said he. "That was it. Belike you may have seen, one time or other, a finger cut through to the bone?"

"Yes, indeed," said she, "and the more's the pity for it! My young grandson shut his finger into his new knife. But he's in the Crimea now."

"Did the finger heal up linable, or a crotch in it?"

"It's a bit crooked still. Only they say it won't last on to old age, being so young a boy at the time."

"Ah!—that's where it was. My mother was well on to fifty when I gave her that chop, and she got her hooky finger for life. All the ten years I knew it, it never gave out." Old Phoebe said nothing. Why the man should be so satisfied with this finger evidence she did not see. But she was not going to revive his doubts. She kept moving on, gradually to reach the road, but not to run from him. He kept near her, but always hanging in the rear; so that she could not go quick without seeming to do so.

If she showed willingness to talk with him, he might follow quicker, and they would reach the road sooner. "I'm rarely puzzled, master," she said, "to think how you should take me for another person. But I would not be prying to know...."

"You would like to know who I mistook ye for, mayhap? Well—I'll tell you as soon as not. I took you for my mother—just what I told you! She's somewhere down in these parts—goes by the name of Prichard." Old Phoebe wanted to know why she "went by" the name—was it not hers?—but she checked a mere curiosity. "Maybe you can tell me where 'Strides Cottage' is? That's where she got took in. So I understand."

"Oh no!—you have the name wrong, for certain. My house where I live is called Strides Cottage. There be no Mrs. Prichard there, to my knowledge."

"That's the name told to me, anyhow. Mrs. Prichard, of Sapps Court, London."

"Now who ever told ye such a tale as that? I know now who ye mean, master. But she's not at Strides Cottage. She's up at the Towers"—rather a hushed voice here—"by the wish and permission of her young ladyship, Lady Gwendolen, and well cared for. Ye will only be losing your time, master, to be looking for her at Strides."

The convict looked at her fixedly. "Now which on ye is telling the truth?—you or t'other old goody? That's the point." He spoke half to himself, but then raised his voice, speaking direct to her. "I was there a few hours back, nigh midday, afore I come on here. She ain't there—so they told me."

"At the Towers—the Castle?"

"I saw no Castle. My sort ain't welcome in Castles. The party at the house off the road—name of Keziah—she said Mrs. Prichard had been took off to Chorlton by her cousin, Widow—Widow Thrale."

"Yes, that is my daughter. Then Keziah Solmes knew?"

"She talked like it. She said her cousin and Mrs. Prichard had gone away better than two hours, in the carrier's cart. So it was no use me inquiring for her at the Towers." He then produced the scrap of paper on which he had scribbled the address. A little more talk showed Granny Marrable all the story knows—that this sudden translation of her old rival in the affections of Dave Wardle, from the Towers to her own home, had been prompted by the sudden departure of her young ladyship for London. The fact that the whole thing had come about at the bidding of "Gwen o' the Towers" was absolute, final, decisive as to its entire rectitude and expediency. But she could see that this strange son who had not seen his mother for so long had identified her in the first plausible octogenarian whom he chanced upon as soon as he was sure he was getting close to the object of his search, and that he was not known to her ladyship at all, while his proximity was probably unsuspected by "old Mrs. Picture" herself. Besides, her faith in her daughter's judgment was all-sufficient. She was quite satisfied about what she would find on her return home. Nevertheless, this man was of unsound mind. But he might be harmless. They often were, in spite of a terrifying manner.

His manner, however, had ceased to be terrifying by the time a short interchange of explanations and inquiries had made Granny Marrable cognisant of the facts. She was not the least alarmed that she should have that curious rolling gait alongside of her. She was uneasy, for all that, as to how a sudden visit of this man to Strides Cottage would work, and cast about in her mind how she should best dissuade him from making his presence known to his mother before she herself had had an opportunity of sounding a note of preparation. She had not intended to go home for a day or two, but she could get her son-in-law to drive her over, and return the same day. His insanity, or what she had taken for insanity, had given her such a shock that she was anxious to spare her daughter a like experience.

"I think, sir," she began diffidently, "that if I might make so bold as to say so...."

"Cut along, missis! If you was to make so bold as to say what?"

"It did come across my mind that your good mother—not being hearty like myself, but a bit frail and delicate—might easy feel your coming as an upset. Now a word beforehand...."

"What sort of a word?" said he, taking her meaning at once. "What'll you say? No palavering won't make it any better. She'll do best to see me first, and square me up after. What'll you make of the job?"

Now the fact was that the offer to prepare the way for his proposed visit which she had been on the point of making had been quite as much in her daughter's interest as in his mother's. She found his question difficult. All she could answer was:—"I could try."

He shook his head doubtfully, walking beside her in silence. Then an idea seemed to occur to him, and he said:—"Hold hard a minute!" causing her to stop, as she took him literally. He also paused. "Strike a bargain!" said he. "You do me a good turn, and I'll say yes. You give me your word—your word afore God and the Bible—not to split upon me to one other soul but the old woman herself, and I'll give you a free ticket to say whatever you please to her when no one else is eavesdropping. Afore God and the Bible!"

Granny Marrable's fear of him began to revive. He might be mad after all, with that manner on him, although his tale about Mrs. Prichard might be correct. But there could be no reason for withholding a promise to keep silence about things said to her under a false impression that she was his mother. Her doubt would rather have been as to whether she had any right to repeat them under any circumstances. "I will promise you, sir, as you wish it, to say nothing of this only to Mrs. Prichard herself. I promise."

"Afore God and the Bible? The same as if there was a Bible handy?"

"Surely, indeed! I would not tell a falsehood."

"Atop of a Testament, like enough! But how when there's none, and no Parson?" He looked at her with ugly suspicion on his face. And then an idea seemed to strike him. "Look ye here, missus!" said he. "You say Jesus Christ!"

"Say what?—Oh why?" For blind obedience seemed to her irreverent.

"No—you don't get out that way, by God! I hold you to that. You say Jesus Christ!" He seemed to congratulate himself on his idea.

Old Phoebe could not refuse. "Before Jesus Christ," she said reverently, at the same time bending slightly, as she would have done in Chorlton Church.

The convict seemed gratified. He had got his security. "That warn't bad!" said he. "The bob in partic'lar. Now I reckon you're made safe."

"Indeed, you may rely on me. But would you kindly do one thing—just this one! Give me your name and address, and wait to hear from me before you come to the Cottage. 'Tis only for a short time—a day or two at most."

"Supposin' you don't write—how then?... Ah, well!—you look sharp about it, and I'll be good for a day or two. Give you three days, if you want 'em."

"I want your mother's leave...."

"Leave for me to come? If she don't send it, it'll be took. Just you tell her that! Now here's my name di-rected on this envelope. You can tell me of a quiet pub where I can find a gaff, and you send me word there. See? Quiet pub, a bit outside the village! Or stop a bit!—I'll go to J. Hancock—the Old Truepenny, on the road I come here by. Rather better than a mile along." Of course the old lady knew the Old Truepenny. Everyone did, in those parts. She took the envelope with the name, and as the twilight was now closing in to darkness, made no attempt to read it, but slipped it carefully in her pocket. Then a thought occurred to her, and she hesitated visibly on an inquiry. He anticipated it, saying:—"Hay?—what's that?"

"If Mrs. Prichard should seem not to know—not to recognise...." She meant, suppose that Mrs. Prichard denies your claim to be her son, what proof shall I produce? For any man could assume any name.

The convict probably saw the need for some clear token of his identity. "If the old woman kicks," said he, "just you remember this one or two little things from me to tell her, to fetch her round. Tell her, I'm her son Ralph, got away from Australia, where he's been on a visit these twenty-five years past. Tell her.... Yes, you may tell her the girl's name was Drax—Emma Drax. Got it?"

"I can remember Emma Drax."

"She'll remember Emma Drax, and something to spare. She was a little devil we had some words about. She'll remember her, and she'll know me by her. Then you can tell her, just to top up—only she won't want any more—that her name ain't Prichard at all, but Daverill.... What!—Well, of course I meant making allowance for marrying again. Right you are, missus! How the Hell should I have known, out there?" For he had mistaken Granny Marrable's natural start at the too well-remembered name she had scarcely heard for fifty years, for a prompt recognition of his own rashness in assuming it had been intentionally discarded.

She, for her part, although her hearing was good considering her age, could not have been sure she had heard the name right, and was on the edge of asking him to repeat it when his unfortunate allusion to Hell—the merest colloquialism with him—struck her recovered equanimity amidships, and made her hesitate. Only, however, for a moment, for her curiosity about that name was uncontrollable. She found voice against a beating heart to say:—"Would you, sir, say the name again for me? My hearing is a bit old."

"Her name, same as mine, Daver-hill." He made the mistake, fatal to clear speech, of overdoing articulation. All the more that it caused a false aspirate; not a frequent error with him, in spite of his long association with defective speakers. It relieved her mind. Clearly a surname and a prefix. She had not got it right yet, though. She forgot she had it written down, already.

"I did not hear the first name clear, sir. Would you mind saying it again?"

He did not answer at once. He was looking fixedly ahead, as though something had caught his attention in the coppice they were approaching. A moment later, without looking round, he answered rapidly:—"Same name as mine—you've got it written down, on the paper I gave you." And then, without another word, he turned and ran. He was so quick afoot, in spite of the halting gait he had shown in walking, that he was through the hedge he made for, across the grassland, and half-way over the stubble-field that lay between it and a plantation, before she knew the cause of his sudden scare. Then voices came from the coppice ahead—a godsend to the poor old lady, whose courage had been sorely tried by the interview—and she quickened her pace to meet them. She did not see the fugitive vanish, but pressed on.

Yes—just as she thought! One of the voices was that of Harry Costrell, her grandson-in-law; another that of a stranger to her, a respectable-looking man she was too upset to receive any other impression of, at the moment; and the third that of her granddaughter. Such a relief it was, to hear the cheerful ring of her greeting.

"Why, Granny, we thought you strayed and we would have to look for ye in Chorlton Pound.... Why, Granny darling, whatever is the matter? There—I declare you're shaking all over!"

Old Phoebe showed splendid discipline. It was impossible to conceal her agitation, but she could make light of it. She had a motive. Remember that that great grandchild of hers had been born over a twelvemonth ago! "My dear," she said, "I've been just fritted out of my five wits by a man with a limp, that took me for his mother and I never saw him in my life." It did not seem to her that this was "splitting upon" the man. After all, she would have to account for him somehow, and it was safest to ascribe insanity to him.

But the respectable-looking man had suddenly become an energy with a purpose. "Which way's the man with the limp gone?" said he; adding to himself, in the moment required for indicating accurately the fugitive's vanishing-point in the plantation:—"He's my man!" Granny Marrable's pointing finger sent him off in pursuit before either of the others could ask a question or say a word. Harry, the grandson, wavered a moment between grandfilial duty and the pleasures of the chase, and chose the latter, utilising public spirit as an excuse for doing so.

Maisie junior was not going to allow her grandmother to stay to see the matter out, nor indeed did the old lady feel that her own strength could bear any further trial. On the way home to the cottage at Dessington she gave a reserved version of her strange interview, always laying stress on the insanity she confidently ascribed to her terrifying companion. As soon as he had died out of the immediate present, she began to find commiseration for him.

But then, how about the mission of the respectable man, who had, it appeared, represented himself as a police-officer on the track of an atrocious criminal, about the charges against whom he had almost kept silence, merely saying that he was a returned convict, and liable to arrest on that ground alone, but that he was "wanted" on several accounts? He had followed his quarry to Grantley Thorpe, arriving by an early train, to find that a man answering to his description had started on foot a couple of hours previously, having asked his way to Ancester Towers. He had followed him there in a hired gig; and, of course, found the connecting clue at Solmes's cottage, and followed him on to Dessington, calling at "T. Hancock's Old Truepenny" by the way, and being guided by T. Hancock's information to run the gig round by the road and intercept his man at the end of the short cut. The younger Maisie and her young brother-in-law, coming by in search of her overdue grandmother, had entered into conversation with him; and he had accompanied them as far as the other side of the coppice wood, and given them the particulars of his errand above stated.

It was all very exciting, and rather horrible. But old Phoebe kept back all her horrors, and even the man's claim to be the son of an old person who had gone to Strides Cottage. Mrs. Prichard she said never a word of, much as she longed to tell the whole story. But she was greatly consoled for this by the succulence of her year-old great-grandson, whose grip, even during sleep, was so powerful as to elicit a forecast of a distinguished future for him, as a thieftaker.

She never got that envelope out of her pocket, conceiving it to be included in her pledge of secrecy. She would look at it before she went to bed. But was it any wonder that she did not, and that her granddaughter had to undress her and put her to bed like a tired child? The last sound of which she was conscious was the voice of Harry Costrell, returning after a long and futile chase, immensely excited and pleased, and quite ready to submit to any sort of fragmentary supper.

Then deep, deep sleep. Then an awakening to daylight, and all the memories of yestereven crowding in upon her—among them an address and a name in the pocket of the gown by the bedside. She could reach it easily.

There it was. She lay back in bed uncrumpling it, expecting nothing....

This was the fag-end of a dream, surely! But no—there the words were, staring her in the face:—"Ralph Thornton Daverill!" And her mind staggered back fifty years.