THE BLACK MAN’S WAY

Told by Polly, the Parrot

YOU will observe that I was left in the dining-room with the Guv’nor. Those insignificant quadrupeds, Dan and Tib, thought that I was out of the fun. They always do think that, until they come smirking to me for news; then they go off and backbite me behind my tail feathers. That impudent whelp, Dan, sidled up this morning to ask me what a mongoose was. When I was weak enough, at the mention of grapes, to tell him it was an ichneumon, he had the cheek to call me some outlandish name that no decent bird would dream of using. I’ll make it hot for him, see if I don’t. And that yellow-eyed Tibbie, for all her dainty ways and quiet talk, is not much better. Sometimes, when I have a bath, I flick a few drops of water over her, and she looks at me as much as to say: “Oh, if only I could lay a paw on you!” Yet, mark my word, she’ll be trotting in here for a chat as soon as I say a word about the discussion between Schwartz and the Old Man.

I have been keeping an eye on the Guv’nor recently. Between you and me, it was he who taught me all the funny bits I know. There is nothing he enjoys more than to hear Mam exclaim: “Dear me! How in the world does the bird learn those vulgar songs?” It’s as easy as sitting on a rail. Some Italian ragamuffins come to Dale End occasionally with a Handel piano—eh, what? not that sort of handle; well, you know the thing I mean—and I pick up the tunes. When the Guv’nor hears me whistling them he sings the words, and at the next chance I get I amaze Mam with “My Irish Molly O” or “Why do they call me the Gibson Girl?” The Guv’nor finds out all about these things in London. Once Minkie asked him how he did it, and he told her he learnt them from the office-boy. I wish I knew that boy.

Now, it’s a solemn fact that I have not added a line to my collection during the past month. I know several new airs, and I have whistled them regularly, but the Old Man remains silent. At first I imagined that perhaps the office-boy had a swollen face, but soon I felt sure my teacher had lost his spirits. Minkie noticed it, but I found it out long before her. You see, we parrots are very wise birds, quick to observe, and able to examine any new notion from all points of view; my habit of looking at Dan upside down riles him far more than the silly things I shout at him.

Minkie, I gathered, guessed that her father was in trouble over some Stock Exchange business, and the mention of Kwantu by Captain Stanhope brought back to her mind the name of the mining company whose affairs, as discussed in a newspaper, seemed to be the cause of the worry. But it was I, the “giddy acrobat,” as Dan calls me, who hit on the real mystery, and I made even stolid Bob wild before I told him all about it next day.

While Schwartz was interviewing Minkie in the morning-room, the Guv’nor sat and stared at the fire. He was smoking, but he didn’t seem to enjoy his cigar, and he had that queer look in his face which men call despair. ’Pon my honor, I would rather be a bird than a man any day. We feathered folk don’t sigh and abandon hope when things go wrong. Why, the commonest little sparrow in the garden would chirp his contempt if anybody suggested to him that he should lie down and die just because he couldn’t find an insect under the first leaf he turned over. Die, indeed! Not he! He works all the harder, and is very likely to be rewarded by a fine fat grub under the next bush.

It was quite evident that the Guv’nor had not realized the length of Schwartz’s absence when that gentleman reappeared. He looked up, rather miserably, and said:

“I am sorry to have troubled you in the matter, Schwartz. And I fear you are having a poor time of it, what between the recital of my difficulties and the unfortunate incident which took place last night.”

“Last night’s affair will adjust itself in a day or two,” answered Schwartz, grimly, thinking, no doubt, of the £50 note he had just tossed to Minkie. “The really important item now is this absurd predicament of yours, Grosvenor—”

“Don’t forget that the suggestion came from you in the first instance.”

“I am well aware you asked me to let you know if there was anything good going,” said Schwartz, rather stiffly. “My friends usually follow my judgment with satisfactory results, and I was quite certain that this Kwantu mine was a swindle, but how was I to ascertain that this special flotation was to be made use of for a squeeze? And you are not the only fish struggling in the net.”

“Then the others have my sympathy. Yet it was a piece of lunacy on my part to indulge in a heavy bear speculation in interests of which I was utterly ignorant. I don’t mind losing a hundred or two in a fair gamble, and I have usually come out on the right side of the ledger, but it was the worst sort of madness to sell a thousand shares in a West African Company. Good heavens! What right has a man who is almost a sleeping partner in a city warehouse to dabble in concerns like that!”

“Let me see,” said Schwartz, giving his friend a quick side look as he took a letter from his pocket, “you sold at something over par?”

“Yes,” answered the Guv’nor, still gazing at the fire.

“And they are now at 6-1/4?”

“Yes. Over £5,000 gone already, and the special settlement due on the 10th of next month.”

“Can you buy at that price?”

“I suppose so. Unhappily, I am a child in these matters. I honestly believe that my little Millicent would have avoided this trap which I blundered into so easily.”

“Um-m,” said Schwartz.

“But surely your inquiries have not led you to expect the price to go higher?” demanded the Guv’nor, growing almost white with misery.

“My dear fellow,” cried the other man blandly, “when you are in the hands of unscrupulous rascals you never know when they will be satisfied. The thing is beautifully simple. You and others have sold a bear. You are called on to deliver your shares, which you cannot do, for the very good reason that the market is controlled by the people who bought all the shares offered. You have fallen among thieves. There is no telling what price they may force things up to before they let go.”

“Then the issue is quite plain,” said the Guv’nor, rising with the air of a man who has no more to say. “It will cripple, indeed, almost ruin me to raise five thousand pounds. Any material advance on that amount means bankruptcy, with goodness knows what evil results to my wife and daughters. If there is any law in the land it should not be possible for men to crush others in this barefaced way.”

“The law cannot help you. But sit down, Grosvenor. Let us hammer this thing out. I have tried to ascertain the identity of the promoters, and I have failed. Here is the letter my brokers wrote me yesterday. You see they say that the company is registered in Jersey, and the nominal directors are mere figure-heads. The real manipulators of the stock do not appear on the surface—”

“Surely you, who are so well acquainted with West Africa, can make a tolerably accurate guess as to the people behind the scenes?”

“If I had the slightest grounds for naming any one I should not only tell you, Grosvenor, but I would gladly lend my personal assistance in arranging matters.”

The Old Man read the typewritten letter which Schwartz gave him. Of course, I did not know then what was in it, but it seemed to substantiate Schwartz’s statements.

“Amazing thing!” he murmured. “And that I should be such a fool! I only wanted to earn an extra hundred or so, for the sake of the girls, to give them some little luxuries which diminishing dividends hardly permit of, and this is the result—I find myself on the very brink of ruin. Ah, well! Let me apologize again for—”

“Have you any objection, then, to a full and frank discussion of the matter with me?”

“Great Scott, no! Why do you put such a question?”

“Please sit down, then. The ladies can spare us from the drawing-room a little longer. Dorothy is singing, and Millicent is—er—engaged with her new pet, while Mrs. Grosvenor will not object, I am sure, if we smoke another cigar. Now, to come to the point. I have been thinking matters over during the day, and I have a proposition to make which may commend itself to you. It is no secret to you that I admire your elder daughter very much. Were I your prospective son-in-law, Grosvenor, I would be prepared to take your liabilities on to my own shoulders. And let me say at once that I am not bargaining with you for Dorothy’s hand. You know that I was anxious to pay her my addresses in Ostend, and this Kwantu business was not in existence at that time. You gave a conditional assent to my suit then. Now I am only asking you to exercise a little judicious parental pressure on a charming girl who hardly knows her own mind. I am sure you will not think the less of me because I endeavor to gain my own ends whilst coming to your assistance.”

I whistled loudly in my surprise. I couldn’t help it, but it seemed to annoy Schwartz, who glared at me quite vindictively. The Guv’nor, of course, paid no heed, being accustomed to my interruptions.

“It is awfully good of you,” he said slowly, “and I admit the justice of your contention that your wish to marry Dorothy is nothing new. But I have always held it a fixed principle, which my wife shares with me, that parents should neither force their children to marry for money nor withhold their consent to marriages based on love, unless the drawbacks are out of all reason. As I understand the position, Dorothy did not exactly refuse you at Ostend, but simply declared that she had no wish to leave her home for some years to come?”

“Yes. That is so.”

“Then, if I go to her now, and tell her you stipulate for her hand as a condition for extricating me from—”

“Forgive me,” broke in Schwartz, with a certain prompt candor which did him credit as an actor. “I don’t ask that. I only want your permission to approach her myself.”

“But you had that six months ago.”

“Yes, and I am exceedingly grateful to you. What I seek to-day is your promise to further my request by varying your attitude from passive approval to active support.”

He was artful, that Schwartz. The Old Man wriggled a bit, but he hardly knew what to say. He was a thoroughbred, you see, and he hated the idea of bartering one of his girls for five thousand pounds. Yet Schwartz was what ladies who come to tea call “a good catch,” and it was quite true that he was after Dorothy months before anybody at Holly Lodge so much as heard the word “Kwantu.” And the Guv’nor was a proud man, too. It was Schwartz himself who had led him to believe that it would be an easy thing to make money by selling shares in this mine, yet Minkie told me afterwards that he seemed to be quite surprised when her father informed him that he had taken the “tip” and sold heavily. That was in November, when the mine was floated, and Schwartz had been absent in Paris until the third week in December. Now, as the German was a millionaire, and had landed a friend in a hole by his advice, it was reasonable enough to expect him to lend a helping hand, yet there could be no doubt he meant to take advantage of the difficulty and compel Dorothy to marry him to save her father.

I saw the bearings of the game far more clearly than the Guv’nor. My own opinion was that Schwartz was a regular scamp, and my experience of scamps is fairly wide, as I hail from South America. You would hardly credit the ups and downs of my life—no wonder I can take a man’s measure with fair accuracy. I began my education in an Indian village, after discovering that a baited trap is not exactly what it looks like. Then I went by train to Montevideo, and the things I learnt there would make you weep if I told you even the half which the Spanish language permits. A nigger fireman knifed my owner, a saloon-keeper, and was one of a crowd which cleared out the bar before the patrol came. He brought me to New York, and pawned me to an East-side crimp. I was stolen from there, and hung outside a sixth-floor tenement until I was sold to a bird-fancier in Eighth Avenue. He was a Dago, so I need say no more about him. If Mam understood the least little bit of Italian she wouldn’t keep me in the house five minutes, but you bet I take a rise out of those organ-grinders when they come touting for coppers. Giovanni traded me for five dollars to a patriotic American named O’Reilly, and he gave me a university course which ended suddenly by his going to Sing-Sing, while I was seized, with the remainder of the furniture, by another American citizen named Rosenbaum. During the annual fire at his place I was rescued by a ship’s steward, who liked the way I talked. On the way to England he died from want of proper liquid nourishment, and the crew would have kept me in the forecastle if some old girl had not complained to the captain of the dreadful language used by one of the men whenever she leaned over the forward rail. How was I to know she could speak the tongues of the Sunny South?

Believe me, even after I arrived at Liverpool, my adventures would fill a book, but I have said enough to show that I was ready to appreciate a good home when the Guv’nor found me in Leadenhall Market, and took me to Dale End as a present to Minkie. More than that, you never really appreciate a good home until you have had a few bad ones, and it is in the latter that you obtain any genuine schooling in the darker side of human nature.

So it is obvious that I watched Schwartz with my eyes skinned. I sized up the situation this way. Schwartz meant to press the Old Man just a little short of breaking point, and was far more anxious to bring about an agreement than he permitted to be seen. I was aching to give the Guv’nor a pointer, but I couldn’t, as my acquaintance with English is peculiar, and he is not able to catch on my meaning like Minkie. If only he had raised Schwartz before the draw, as they say in poker, his adversary would not have been so sure of his cards. As it was, he tried to evade the final struggle.

“After all,” he said, with a brave attempt at a smile, “this is a poor way to spend Christmas night. Suppose we adjourn to the drawing-room now, and try to forget for a while that mines may be bottomless pits.”

Schwartz was well content to leave it at that.

“May I have my letter?” he said.

The Guv’nor handed it to him, but it was not yet refolded when Minkie burst into the room.

“Please come, dad!” she cried. “And you, too, Mr. Schwartz! Jim says that the house is simply surrounded by black men.”

Of course, Schwartz had no grit in him: his type of man never has. He went pale, shook a bit, and leaned back against the table, and I noticed that the letter fell from his fingers to the floor. After a breathless question or two from the men as to what Jim meant by his extraordinary statement, they all rushed out. I turned a couple of summersaults, and was about to sing “Tell me, pretty maiden,” when I saw a sharp snout thrust inquiringly round the jamb of the door. It was the mongoose.

“Welcome, little stranger,” I said, but he didn’t seem to grasp idioms quickly, so I gave him the only chunk of Hindustani I possess.

“Jao! you soor-ka-butcha,” I shouted. One of my sailor friends says that is a polite way of asking after another gentleman’s health, but the mongoose looked up at me and wanted to know (in proper animalese) why I was calling him names.

“I didn’t,” I said.

“But you did,” he retorted.

“Well, I didn’t mean to. I thought that when the first mate said that to a lascar he meant ‘Wot oh, ’ow’s yer pore feet?’”

“You shouldn’t use words you don’t understand,” said Rikki, quite sharp.

“Keep your wool on; you’ll need it before the frost breaks. What’s this I hear about niggers outside? Are they after the fowls?”

“Dan says they want to kidnap Schwartz.”

“Look here, young fuzzy-wuzzy, not so free with your ‘Dan’ and ‘Schwartz.’ You haven’t joined the Gang until I pass you. Just try to remember that. Nice thing! You’ll be addressing me as ‘Poll’ next, I suppose? Now, if you want to make yourself useful, pick up that piece of paper on the carpet near the leg of the table, and carry it into your cage. Mind you don’t eat it. Miss Millicent may want it.”

“Is that Minkie?”

“There you go again. ‘Minkie,’ indeed, and you not two hours in the house!”

“Sorry.”

“Well, if you behave yourself properly I’ll forgive you this time. Before you go, kindly pass those nuts from the sideboard.”

“What kind of nuts are they?” said Rikki, thoughtfully.

“Brazil. They’re rank poison for mongooses.”

“Oh.” He leaped up and gazed at the dish. “ShabÀsh!” he said, cracking one. “They’re good eating.”

“I’ll shabÀsh you,” I screamed. “Help! Thieves! Hi, hi, hi! Oh, mother, look at Dick!”

“What’s the row now?” demanded Tib, trotting in from the hall.

“Tib, if you love me, chase that red-haired vagabond away from my nuts,” I implored her.

“Oh, it’s always the same old song with you,” she grinned. “Any one would think you were being murdered. Rikki is really doing you a good turn, Poll. Too many nuts are bad for you. Evangeline said so.”

Ingratitood, thy name is cat! I fairly boiled over. I even called Evangeline such things that she came running in with a stick. And, of course, she never saw that cunning fox, Rikki. He sneaked out while she was beating me, but he took the letter with him, and I wouldn’t be the least bit astonished if he told Minkie he had done it off his own bat.

Exactly why Minkie brought the Guv’nor and Schwartz out of the dining-room in such a whirl I never discovered. She would have told me in a minute if I had thought of asking her, but things happened at such a rate during the next few days that I had plenty to do to keep track of current events without bothering my head over ancient history. I fancy she disturbed their conversation purposely. She knew Schwartz was in a desperate mood, and would endeavor to force her father to serve his ends. Mam’s statement, too, backed up by Dorothy’s hints and the plain tale she had read in the newspaper, gave her an all-round glimpse of the facts concerning Kwantus, and Dan was quite right when he said that Minkie had invoked the ju-ju’s aid in a plan for the undoing of Schwartz. She told us what it was when we all met in the stable on Boxing Day, but, of course, you will excuse me for not mentioning it yet. To be candid, I daren’t. We renewed the vow of the Gang in solemn state, and Rikki was sworn in as a new member at the same time. He was admitted thus promptly on account of his services with regard to that letter, which was a jolly sight more important than it sounded, and I must say he behaved rather handsomely, because he not only gave me full credit for the suggestion that he should nab it, but he told me privately he was sorry about those nuts.

Our vow is a jolly serious affair. We bind ourselves to be loyal to the Gang “by hoof and claw, by beak and tooth, in air, on earth, and in water.” Each member pledges himself or herself to “sink all private feud the instant any other member is threatened by an external enemy, whether with two, three, or four legs.” We also promise to be loyal to our leader Minkie, and to protect and help all inmates of Holly Lodge, and, in token of fealty and allegiance, each of us has to hold up a foot or claw.

Dan, naturally, tried to be clever, and suggested that the words “or itself” should be inserted after the word “herself,” on the ground that no one knew the sex of a zygodactyl; he could not meet my eye, and pretended to snigger, but Minkie told him not to be rude. It may surprise some people to hear that we made common cause against three-legged adversaries, but that is easily explained. One day last summer, while Jim was washing Bob in the yard, and Dan was routing among some plant pots for a rat, a travelling menagerie passed our house, and a kangaroo leaped over the garden wall and landed in the midst of us. My cage was slung to the walnut tree, and I was so scared that I fell from my perch. Dan, with all his faults, is certainly a courageous beast, because he sprang at the stranger, and received a kick that knocked him clean over the cucumber frame. Jim fell into the pail, but Bob whisked round and gave the kangaroo a postman’s double tap on the ribs that sent him flying back to his caravan. Dan, who was furious, alleged that the beast used his tail as a leg, and never touched the ground with his fore-legs at all. Jim bore out his statement, so the vow brought in the three-legged variety, to make sure.

I asked if Evangeline were included in the word “inmates,” and Minkie said it was a frivolous question. I quite agree with her. Holly Lodge isn’t a lunatic asylum.

Yet any outsider might be pardoned the mistake if he heard our light-headed housemaid telling Cookie the things she saw when she went to the post, just before she beat me with a cane. I know that post. It is a gate-post, and it has a young man leaning against it.

“Fust one nigger kem past, an’ his eyes rolled something ’orrible,” she said. “Then two kem from the hoppo-site direction, an’ their eyes rolled wuss nor the other’s. ‘Tell you wot, Lena,’ Bill said to me, ‘I don’t like this. I’m for ’ome,’ and he left me standin’ there, with all those orful blacks prowlin’ round like lions. Did you ever ’ear of such a thing? I’m finished with Bill; I wouldn’t look at him again not if he had twenty milk-walks. I ran for my life, an’ found Jim. He whistled Dan, an’ it did me good to see the way that dorg began to clear the road, but Jim called him orf, ’cause he says a nigger has as much right to live as any other sort of man, and those fellows were a-behavin’ of themselves. That’s as may be; if there’s much more of these goin’s on ’ere I give my month’s notice.”

What do you think of that for a School Board education? If I couldn’t talk better than Evangeline I’d borrow some black-lead and set up as a jack daw.

It seems that the Old Man and Schwartz did not come across any negroes. Probably Dan had frightened them, if Prince John had told his friends what sort of a Rugger tackle Dan could put up. But Minkie is sharp, dreadful sharp. The moment I mentioned Jim’s remark to Evangeline, she fastened on to it instantly. Jim was washing the victoria in the coach-house, and she went straight to him.

“When did you last meet Prince John?” she inquired, planting her feet well apart, and holding her hands behind her back. She wore her blue serge that morning, and had a beaver hat set well clear of her forehead. As the weather was cold, though fine, she had tight-fitting brown gaiters over her strong boots, and she looked fit for any game that might present itself.

Jim shuffled from one foot to the other, and scratched the tip of his ear.

“I don’t exactly remember, miss,” he said.

“Take time, James. There is no hurry. Just think.”

“Well, it might ha’ bin at the Marquis o’ Granby; yesterday after tea.”

“And what did he say?”

“He said it was a powerful shame a furriner should come to a British colony an’ steal a thing which a lot o’ pore blacks thought more of than anybody could imagine.”

“And then he paid for another round of beer?”

“Well, miss, if you put it that way—”

“And he asked you to search for his black bag, and particularly for a little ivory doll which was inside it?”

“Why, you must ha’ bin talkin’ to him, too, miss!”

“No, James. I’m just guessing. What did you say to him?”

“I didn’t see any harm in tellin’ him that there was no sich thing anywheres in our grounds, an’ Evangeline is sure it isn’t in Mr. Schwartz’s bedroom.”

“Do you think it quite right, James, to go to the Marquis o’ Granby and discuss our affairs with a negro in a public bar?”

“You’ll pardon me, miss, but that ain’t a fair way of puttin’ it. This prince chap an’ the rest of us had a rough an’ tumble on Christmas Eve, an’ I slung him out of the front gate all fair an’ square. It was a perfectly nateral thing to meet ’im afterwards an’ ’ave a friendly chat over a pint.”

“All right. The matter remains between you and me. But I want you to promise that if Prince John, or any other negro, approaches you again, and tries to get information, you will tell me everything at the first opportunity.”

“Of course, miss, I promise that. You can’t think I would go agin the people in Holly Lodge, can you?”

Applause from the stable. Even Rikki joined in with his squeak, though he could hardly make out what Jim was saying. Nevertheless, Minkie had not finished with our unhappy groom yet. I was glad to hear Jim getting it. He grumbles every time he puts fresh sand in my cage.

“Did you arrange to meet him to-day?” she demanded.

“Yes, miss,” he said.

“When and where?”

“Well, I said as ’ow the carriage might not be wanted after five, an’ I would walk to the other side of the green, when there would not be so many people about.”

“And what were you to tell him?”

“Well, just any gossip that was goin’, especially about Mr. Schwartz.”

“And how much did he promise to give you?”

Jim looked rather sheepish. His skin is the color of a brick, but I fancy he took on a beet-root tinge.

“I believe a sovereign was mentioned, miss,” he admitted.

“Here is your sovereign, James. Please oblige me by not meeting Prince John to-night.”

“Oh, I can’t take it. I really can’t; not from you, Miss Millicent. Why, I could never look you in the face again.”

“Take it, please. It is not my money. You know very well that I have no sovereigns to give away. And, when you meet the prince, I want you to tell him plainly that you must not hold any further conversation with him. If my father knew of yesterday’s talk he would be exceedingly angry.”

“I thought that already, miss. Blest if I can imagine how you found out so much.”

I laughed. I was the only member of the Gang, except Minkie, who saw how important was Evangeline’s yarn to Cookie. Dan was very sore about what he called Jim’s treachery, but Bob told him not to be a fool. “When the beer is in the wit is out,” he said, and Bob ought to know, as he soaked up gallons of it while the Guv’nor and Mam and Dorothy were in Ostend last summer.

All that day there was electricity in the atmosphere. Tibbie said she felt it in her fur. Everybody in the village could speak of nothing else but the extraordinary collection of negroes who had invaded what the guidebook calls “a peaceful retreat.” At last, even the local policeman became aware that something unusual was taking place, and he strolled majestically up our drive to make inquiries.

The Guv’nor met him, and said Mr. Schwartz’s presence accounted for the sudden access of color to the landscape.

“My friend has large interests in West Africa,” he explained, “and the mere fact that he is staying at Dale End has drawn to this neighborhood many natives who are at present residing in England.”

“From information received,” quoth Robert, “I have reason to believe, sir, that a larceny on your premises is intended by some of these blacks.”

“Nonsense! That story has arisen owing to one of them’s thrusting himself in here on Christmas Eve.”

Schwartz asked the Old Man to head off any police interference in that way. So the law marched back to the village and took off its belt. Yet every man, woman, and child in Dale End resembled so many full soda syphons: the moment you touched them they spurted bubbles, and all the gas that escaped was chat concerning our sable visitors. It soon became known that there were three negroes staying at the Manor, and four at the Marquis o’ Granby. They had plenty of money, which they spent freely; but there could not be the slightest doubt that they were hostile to us at Holly Lodge, and the maids at the Marquis o’ Granby spread the story that the blacks had some awful-looking choppers among their luggage. From the description I recognized these as machetes.

When Schwartz accompanied Dorothy to her old nurse’s cottage during the afternoon, some idiot told two negroes who were standing at the door of the inn that the millionaire was just walking across the green with Miss Grosvenor. The black men muttered something, rolled their eyes in a manner that would have given Evangeline hysterics, and dogged the couple all the way back to our place.

That started a rumor of attempted murder which set the village in an uproar, and there was some danger of an attack on the strangers until P. C. Banks gave his personal assurance that Mr. Grosvenor himself had said the negroes were perfectly harmless. Altogether, Boxing Day was lively. I began to think of old times in South America, when we had a revolution every twenty-four hours, and I used to ask the baker each morning, “Who is President to-day?”

But the night passed without any special incident. I had a few words with the mongoose after dinner because I chanced to call him “Mickey” instead of “Rikki,” and Dan and Tib had a spar about some cutlet bones; such breezes, however, are not uncommon in the best families, and, in distinct contrast with us, harmony reigned in the drawing-room, where Schwartz made himself agreeable to all parties, even to Minkie.

Picture to yourself, then, the terrific excitement which sprang up next day at luncheon-time when Minkie was missing! I first heard of it from Dan, who rushed in and yelped:

“Have you seen Minkie anywhere?”

“Yes,” said I, breathlessly.

“Where?”

“Here.”

“When?”

“At breakfast.”

“Goose!” he hissed, and ran out again.

Of course, I was only taking a rise out of him. I had no notion that his search was serious until I heard Mam weeping when the Guv’nor came back after driving all round the village, and calling at every house he could think of.

“Oh, Tom,” she sobbed, crying as if her heart would break, “if any harm has befallen our darling I shall not survive it.”

“Why do you take such a gloomy view of a trivial absence from home?” he asked, though his voice did not bear out the carelessness of his words. “You know well enough what an extraordinary child Millicent is. We can never tell what queer thing she may be doing.”

Mam was not to be comforted in that way.

“Millicent has always asked permission if she wished to be away at meal time, and Dandy is not with her. I would not be so frightened if the dog had gone, too. Tom, what shall we do if she is not home before it is dark? I shall go mad.”

Dorothy was weeping also, and I heard Evangeline snivel something about them there black villains as was up to no good, she was sure. That was the worst thing she could have said. Mam simply refused to remain in the house when the light failed. She was going to ask Captain Stanhope’s help, she declared. He knew a good deal about these negroes, and she was certain he would move heaven and earth to discover Minkie’s whereabouts, because he loved the child as if she were his own sister.

The Guv’nor saw that Mam was not fit to venture out, so he persuaded her to let him go to the Manor and see Jack. Schwartz, who was really beside himself with anxiety, tried hard to console Mam and Dorothy during the Guv’nor’s absence, though he personally was in a fine pickle which they knew nothing of.

He was afraid Minkie had been attacked, either on account of the ju-ju or the money he had given her, but he simply dared not say anything about his suspicions. At last, after an hour that had a thousand minutes, the Guv’nor returned. Mam saw by her first glance at his face that he brought bad news. She gave a deep sigh, and fainted clean away.

I heard Bob telling Dan something outside, but I was forced to listen to what the Guv’nor was saying to Schwartz, while Dorothy and Evangeline and Cookie were trying to revive Mam.

“It’s a bad business, I fear,” he whispered, holding on to the back of a chair like a man who thinks he may fall. “I met Stanhope and his uncle at the Manor, and even the older Stanhope was aghast when I told him my errand. It was the first they had heard of Minkie’s disappearance, and Jack is now procuring the arrest of every negro in Dale End.”

“I would like to burn them alive,” broke in Schwartz, and he meant it, too, for he was on the rack.

“But that is not all,” went on the Old Man hoarsely. “My poor little girl was seen talking to one of these devils last evening, at dusk, at the further end of the green. And to-day, the moment the Bank was open, she changed a fifty-pound note. There can be no doubt about it. The manager himself told me. Of course, he thought the money was mine. God in heaven! what does it all mean, and what has become of her?”

Schwartz sat down, and bent his head. He gave it up. He didn’t know what to do. Neither did I. I was acquainted with Minkie’s plan, but, so far as I could see, it had nothing in it which was likely to keep her away from home.

No wonder people in Dale End called that a Black Christmas. It was nearly being a fiery one also, because others in the village shared Schwartz’s idea, and it was actually proposed that the police-station should be burnt down and the negroes roasted inside it. Isn’t there a proverb about scratching a Russian and finding a Tartar? Well, to my thinking, you will not find such a world of difference between Surrey and Alabama when a black man is suspected of doing away with a white girl.

And our Minkie, too! Oh, look here, I’m off into the Latin tongues. I can’t express my feelings in pure Anglo-Saxon. Give me a torch and a bucket of tar; I’ll find the feathers! Saperlotte! What was it Giovanni used to say?

[Pg 141-143]