Untitled

Bruce Herald, Volume III, Issue 78, 5 October 1865, Page 9

' Oh, yes,' he. said, 'I've money enough — I am all right.' ' But where are you going ? ' she asked eagerly. The horse was tearing up the wet gravel, and making furions champing" noises in his impatience of all this delay. * I don't know,' Joseph Wilmot answered, ' that will depend upon — -I don't know. Goodnight, Margaret. God bless you! I don'r. suppose He listens to "the prayers of such as me. If He did, it might have been all different long ago — when I tried to be honest ! ' Yes, this was true; the murderer of Henry Dnnbar had once tried to.be honest, and had prayed toi God to prosper his honesty ;. but then he only tried to do right in a spasmodic, fitful kind of a way, and. expected his prayers to be granted as soon as they were asked, and was indignant with a Providence that seemed to be deaf to his entreaties. He had. always lacked that sublime quality, of patience, which endußes the evil day, and calmly breasts the storm. * Let me go with you, father,' Margaret said, in an entreating voice, ' let me go with you. There is nothing in the world for me, except the hope of God's forgiveness for you. I want to be with you. I don't want, you to be amongst bad men, who will harden your heart. I want to be with you — far away where — ' ' You with me ? ' . said Joseph Wilmot, slowly ; ' you wish it V * With all my heart ! ' '« And you're true,' he cried, bending down to grasp his daughter's shoulder and look into her lace, ' you're true, Margaret, eh ? — true, as steel ; ready for anything, no flnching, no quailing or trembling when the danger comes. You've, stood a great deal, and stood it nobly. Can you stand still more, eh 1 ' ' For your sake, father, for your sake ! yes, yes, I will brave anything in the world, do anything to save you from—' She shuddered as she remembered what the danger was that assailed him. No, no, no ! that could never be endured at any cost; at any sacrifice he must be saved from tliat. No strength of Womanly fortitude, no trust in the mercy, of God, could \ever make her resigned to that. \ ' I'll trust you, Margaret/ said Joseph Wilmot, loosening his grasp upon the girl's shoulder ; ' I'll trust you. Haven't I reason %> trust you ? Didn't I see your mother^ on the day when she found out what^^ny history was; didn't I see her colorf fade out of her face till she was wlrit<k than the linen collar round her neck, arid her^lmn est eye<* looking up in my face as she erie&, ' I shall never love you less, dear; thepe's nothing in this world can make menove you less ! ' He paused for a moment. His voice had grown thick and husky ; but he broke out violently in the next instant. ' Great Heaven ! why do I stop talking like tkril 1 Listen to me Margaret; if you want to seethe last of me, you must find your \|ay somehow or 5 other, to Woodbine Cottage, near Lisfordv^— on the Lisford Road, I thinks Find your Way there — I going there now* and shall;: be there ' long before you — you understand ? ' /'Yes, Woodbine Cottage, Lisford— l shan't forget K God speed you, father !— God help you ! ' 'He is the God of sinners,' thought the wretched girl. 'He gave Cain a long lifetime in which to repent of his sins.' \ Margaret' thought this as" she stood at t|e gate listening to the horse's hoofs upon tie gravel road that wound through the grounds away into the park; iShe was very, very tired, but had little senW of her fatigue, and her journey was by fm%neans finished yet. She did not once look back at Maudesley Abbey — that stately; and splendid mansion, in which a miserable* wretch- had acted his part, and endured the penalty .of his guilt, for many Wearisome months. She went awayhurrying along the lonely pathways, with the night breezes blowing her loose hair across her eyes, and half blinding her as she went—to find the^gate Uy which she j had entered the park. ■-. . ■ ; J., \ She went out at this gateway because Jt %s the only point bf egress by which she eo^Ml^a-ve: the park without being seen by theTaeper of the lodge-. .. The dim morning lightwas gray in tbe sky before she met atty^pe;wnom she could ask to direct her to W^^dDine Cottag©; but at last a man camel put of ya farm-yard with a tfmple of ,ij^k-pails, and" directed Iter to Lisford RtaajlJMy ,/;--;; It was broad daylight when she reached

the little garden-gate before Major Vernon's abode. It was broad daylight and the door leading into the prim little hall was ajar. The girl pushed it open and fell into the arms of a' man who caught her as she fainted. 'Poor girl, poor child ! ' said Joseph Wilmot; 'to think what she has suffered. And I thought that she would profit, by that crime ; I thought that she would take the money and be content to leave the mystery unravelled. My poor child !my poor, unhappy child ! ' The man who had murdered Henry Dunbar wept aloud over the white face of his unconscious daughter, ' Don't let's have any; of that fooling/ cried a harsh voice from the little parlour, ' we've no time to waste on snivelling.' CHAPTER XXXXIX. At Maudesley Abbey. . Mr Carter the detective lost no time about his work ; but he did not employ the telegraph, by which means he might perhaps have expedited the arrest of Henry Dunbar's murderer. He did riot avail himself of the facilities offered by that wonderful electric telegraph, which was facetiously called the rope that hung Tawell the Quaker, because in so doiqg he must have taken the local police Vinto his confidence, and- he wished to do his work quietly, aided only by a companion and humble follower, whom he was in the habit of employing. He went up- to London by the mail train after parting with Clement Austin ; took a cab at the Waterloo station, and drove off to the habitation of his humble assistant, whom he most unceremoniously roused from his bed. But there was no train for Warwickshire before the six o'clock parliamentary, and there was a seven o'clock express, which would reach Rugby ten minutes after that miserably slow conveyance ; so Mr Carter naturally elected, to sacrifice the ten minutes, and travel by the express. Meanwhile he took a hearty breakfast, which had been hastily prepared by the wife of his friend and follower, and explained the nature of the business before them. It must be confessed that, in making these explanations to his humble friend, Mr Carter employed a tone that implied no little superiority, and that the friendliness of his manner was tempered by condescension. The friend was a middle-aged and most respectable -looking individual, with a turnip-hued skin, relieved by freckles, dark-red eyes, and pale-red hair. He was not a very prepossessing person, and bad a habit of working about his lips and jaws, when he was neither eating nor talking, which was far from pleasant to behold. He. was very much esteemed by Mr Carter, nevertheless ; not so much because he was clever, as because he looked so eminently stupid. This characteristic had won for him the sobriquet of Sawney Tom, and he was considered worth his weight in so ver- I eigns on certain occasions, when a simple country lad or verdant-looking linen draper's apprentice was required to enact some little part in the detective drama. ' You'll bring some of your traps with you, Sawney,' said Mr Carter. 'I'll take another, ma'am, if you please. Three minutes and a half this time, and let the white set tolerably firm.' This last remark was addressed to Mrs Sawney Tom, or rather Mrs Thomas Tibbies — Sawney Tom's name was Tibblse— who was standing by the 'fire; boiling eggs and toasting bread for her husband's patron. ' You'll bring ybur traps Sawney/ continued the detective, witbhis mquth full of buttered toast; 'there's no knowing how much trouble this^ cliijSp may give us,; because you 1 see a'cnapltbat^canVplay the bold game as he has j played/v anclt k eep it up for nigh upon a\twelyembrith, (could play any game. nothing out that he need? look upon as beyond him. So though I've every reason to think we shall take my friend at Maudesley as quiet as ever a child in arms was took out of its cradle, we ! may as well be prepared for the worst. Mr Tibbies, who was of a taciturn disposition, and. who had been busy chewing nothing while listening to his superior, merely gave a jerk of acquiescence inanwer to the detective's speech.

- We start as solicitor and clerk/ said Mr Carter. ' You'll carry a blue bag. You'd better go and dress r the time's getting on. Respectable black and a clean shave, you know, Sawney. We're going to an old gentleman in the neighborhood of Shorncliffe, that wants his will altered all of a hurry, having quarrelled with his three daughters ; that's what we're goin' to do if any body's curious about our business.' Mr Tibbies nodded, and retired to an inner apartment, whence he emerged by and by dressed in a shabby-genteel costume of somewhat funeral aspect, and with the lower part of his face rasped like a French roll, and somewhat resembling" that edible in color. He brought a small portmanteau, with him, and then departed to fetch a cab, in which vehicle the two gentlemen drove away to the Eustoh-Square station. It was one o'clock in the day when they reached the great iron gates of Maudesley Abbey in a fly which they had dharteredat Shorncliffe. It was a bright sunshiny day and the heart of Mr Carter the detective beat high with expectationfip^ a great triumph. "*? ' He descended from the fly himself, in order to question the woman at the lodge. * You'd better get out, Sawney/ he said, 'putting his head in at the window in order to speak to his companion ; ' I shan't take the vehicle into the park. It'll be- quieter and safer for us to walk up to the house.' Mr Tibbies, with his blue bag on his arm, got out of the fly, prepared to attend his superior whithersoever that luminary chose to lead him. ' The woman at the lodge was not alone, a little group of gossips were gathered in the primly-furnished parlour, and the talk was loud and animated. ' Which I was that took aback like, you might have knocked me down with a feather/ said the proprietress of the little parlour, as she went out of the rustic porch to open the gate for Mr Carter and his companion. ' I want to see Mr Dunbar/ he said, 'on particular business. You can tell him I come from the banking-house 'in St. Gundolph Lane. I've got a letter from the junior partner there, and I'm to deliver it to Mr Dunbar himself.' The keeper- of the lodge threw up her hands and eyes in token of bewilderment. ' Beggingyyou pardon, sir/ -she said, 'but I have (been that? upset, I don't know scarcely whatjf'm a-aoing of. Mr Dunbar have gone, sir, and nobody in that house don't know why he went, or when he went, or where he's gone. .The man-servant as waited on him found the rooms all empty the first thing this morning"; and the groom as had charge of MrODun bar's horse, and slep'at the back of the liouse, not far from the stables, fancied as how lie heard a trampling last night where the horse was kep', but put it* down to the animal bein' restless on account of the change in the weather; and this morning the horse was gone, and the gravel all trampled up, and Mr Dunbar's gold-headed cane (which the poor old gentleman was still so lame it was as much as he could do to walk from one room to another) was lying by the garden gate ; and how he ever managed to get out and about and saddle his horse and ride away like that without bein ever heard by a creetur, nobody hasn't the slightest notion; and every body this morning was distracted like, searchin' 'igh and low ; but no sign of Mr Dunbar were found nowhere.' Mr Carter turned pale, and stamped his foot upon the gravel drive. Two hundred pounds is a large stake to a poor man ; and Mr Carter's reputation was also trembling in the balance; The very man he wanted gone — gone faway in the dead of night, while all the household was sleeping ! ' But he was lame/ he cried. ' How about that? — the railway accident — the broken leg — ' *Yes, sir/ the woman answered ej^d,^ 'that's tbe very thing, jsjr.,^-w3--_-? ? fney re all talkin'v about it at the house, sir, and how a poor invalid gentleman, what could scarce stir hand or fooV should, get up in the middle of the night arid saddle his '■■ own horse, and ride away at a rampageous rate ; which the groom says he have rode rampageous, or the gravel wouldn't be tore up as it is. And they do say, sir, as Mr ■Dunbar's' been took mad all of a sudden, and the doctor was in an awful way when he .heard it; and there's been people riding i right and left lookin' for him sir. And [Miss Dunbar— leastways Lady Joceiyn— --j

was sent for early this morning, and she's at the house now, sir, with her husband Sir Philip y and if you business is so very important, perhaps you'd like to see her — ' ' I should/ answered the detective,, briskly. < You stop here, Sawney/ headded, aside to his attendant ; ' you stop here and pick up what you can. I'll go up to the house and see the lady/ Mr Carter found the door open and a group of servants clustered in the 'gothic porch: Lady Jocelyn was in Mr Dunbar's rooms, a footman told him. The detective sent this man to ask if Mr Dunbar's daughter would receive a stranger from London on most important business. The man came back in five minutes to say yes, Lady Jocelyn would see the strange gentleman. The detective was ushered through thetwo outer rooms leading to the tapestried apartment in which the missing man had spent so many miserable days, so many dismal nights. He found Laura standing in one of the windows looking out across the smooth lawn, looking anxiously out towards the winding gravel-drive that led from the principal lodge to the house; She turned away from the window as Mr Carter approached her, and passed her hand across her forehead. Her eyelids trembled, and she had the look of a- person whose senses had been dazed' by excitement and confusion. ' Have you come to bring me- any news of my father V. she said; 'I am distracted by this mysterious calamity.' Laura looked imploringly at the detective. • Something in his grave face- frightened her.'You have come to- tell me ot* some newtrouble/ she cried'; ' No, Miss Dunbar — no, Lady Jocelyn, I have no new trouble to announce to you. I have come to this house in search ot — of the gentleman who went aWay last night. I must find him. at any cost. All I want is a little help from you. You may trust to me that he shall be found, and speedily, if he lives.' ' If he lives !' cried Laura, with a^ sudden terror in her face. ' Surely you do not imagine — you- do not fear that — ' ' I imagine nothing, Lady Jocelyn. My duty is very simple, and lies straight before me. I must find the missing man.' ' You will find my father/ said Laura, : with a puzzled expression. 'Yes; lam most anxious that he should be found; and it — if you will accept any reward for your efforts, I shall be only too glad tc give all you can ask. But how is it that you happen to come here, and to take this interest in my father ? You come from the banking-house, I suppose V ' Yes, the detective answered, after a pause, ' yes, Lady Jacelyn, I; come from the office in St. Gundolph Lane/ Mr Carter was silent for some few moments, during which his eyes wanderei about th 3 apartment in that professional survey which took in every detail, from the colour of the curtains and the pattern, of the carpets, to the tiniest porcelain toy in an antique cabinet on one side of the fireplace. The only thing upon which the detective's glance lingered; was the lamp, which, Margaret had extinguished. 'I'm going to ask jour ladyship a question/ said Mr Carter,, presently, lookicg gravely, and almost compassionately, at the beautiful face before him ; ' you ? ll think me impertinent, perhaps, but I hope you'll believe that I'm only a straightforward business man, anxious to do my duty in my own line of life, and to do it with consideration for all parties* You seem, very anxious about tb is missing gentleman;, may I. ask if ycu are very fond of him V It's a strange question, I know my lady — or it seems a strange question — but there's more in the answer than you can guess, and- 1 shall be very grateful, to you if you'll answer it candidly.' : A faint flush crept over Laura's face,, and the tears started suddenly toiler eyes. She turned away from the detective,, and .brushed her handkerchief hastily a_ross those : tearful eyes; She : walked^ to' the window, ana stood there for a minute dtsoj, looking "out. t - - i • (To' be conthil/ed:X --■■*''•-•- -