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Chapter Nineteen.
While Time was on the Wing

“Have you got ’em, Sir Hilton?” said Molly, going close up to his side.

“Round and round and round,” said Sir Hilton, “and now zig-zag, zig-zag, zigger, zagger, zag.”

He described the imaginary bees’ flight with the point of his whip, and seemed not to have heard the words addressed to him.

But all of a sudden he caught sight of the bright colours of the girl’s dress, and it took his attention at once.

“Hullo!” he cried, “what colour – what jock’s this? Why, it’s – what’s the matter with my eyes? It’s a pretty girl – it’s – why it’s Syd’s little flame.”

“Yes, Sir Hilton,” said the girl, smiling. “Yes, uncle.”

“Quite right, my dear. I’m Syd’s uncle. My mouth’s horribly dry, my dear, but don’t ask me to drink, because I’m going to ride for the cup, and it might attract the bees. But they’re gone now. I say, I don’t wonder at Syd. There, it’s nature, I suppose. Boys will be boys; and you’re the beautiful La Sylphide, so full of go. La Sylphide – yes, La Sylphide,” he repeated excitedly, and he gave a sudden lurch.

“Oh, mind, Sir Hilton!” cried the girl, catching at and supporting him. “He isn’t fit to ride. I’ll fetch father.”

She made an effort to get free, but Sir Hilton clung to her tightly, to rebalance himself in the chair, the name of the mare, the bright colour, and his attitude now combining to switch his mind off from the buzzing bees to the race, which now became dominant in his brain.

“Wo-ho! Holdup, little one,” he cried. “Want to break your knees?”

“Of course I don’t, Sir Hilton,” cried the girl, indignantly. “You shouldn’t talk like that.”

“Those girths don’t seem quite tight enough, my beauty,” muttered Sir Hilton. “Never mind; I can keep my balance. Give you more room to breathe. Wo-ho! – How she pulls! Steady! Come, don’t show your temper with me.”

“Of course not, Sir Hilton. Oh! I do wish Syd would come.”

She made an effort to free herself, but as she did so, Sir Hilton snatched at the little figure gliding through his hands, but only caught a couple of long ribbon streamers depending from the back of a flowing robe.

“Oh, my frock – you’ll tear it!” cried the girl, half in tears; and she tried to drag herself away, but not vigorously, for fear of damaging the diaphanous fabric to which the ribbons were attached.

“Father! Father!” cried the girl, faintly; but the trainer did not stir, and the maids who looked on only glanced at one another as if saying: “It isn’t my place.”

All passed very rapidly, as Sir Hilton, in imagination, rode away, talking rapidly the while.

“Steady, my beauty – steady – that’s good – bravo, starter – a capital line – now then, flag down – no false start – that black beast Jim Crow – yes, I’ll make him jump to another tune. Now then, once more – good – flag down – now – go – well over! Bravo, my darling!” he cried, making play with the ribbons, just as Lady Lisle returned, consequent upon, as the police say, “information received,” and stopped short, literally stunned, at the picture before her, while Molly caught sight of her, and tried to get away, but in vain.

“Steady, darling, steady!” cried Sir Hilton, who felt the tugging at the reins. “Don’t get in a flurry. We shall win in a canter. Bravo, pet! Easy – easy, beauty! – Don’t tug like that – I don’t want to hurt your dear, tender mouth. That’s better. We’re going now like the – Bravo – bravo – that’s the way!”

“Oh! Sir Hilton,” cried the girl, “don’t, pray, don’t! Look; can’t you see? Please, ma’am – my lady, it ain’t my fault.”

“That’s right,” shouted Sir Hilton, through his teeth. “Good – good – splendid – now then – we’re nearly level – that’s it – level – half a length ahead – now then – we’re clear – bravo, little one! There, I’ve done with you – splendid – cheer away! Oh, if my wife were only here to see!”

It was as if the excitement under which he had laboured were now all discharged, and he dropped the imaginary reins, leaving Molly to rush away up the stairs, just as Lady Lisle, speechless with rage and shame, made a rush at her husband.

Matters in those moments were almost simultaneous.

Lady Lisle advanced, Syd appeared from the bar with a glass of soda-water, and dashed back, regardless of his aunt, who fainted dead away.

Sir Hilton sank forward with his chest over the chair-back, and his arms hanging full length down, and a general aspect of trying to imitate a gaily-dressed Punch in the front of the show.

Then Lady Tilborough rushed in wildly.

“Where is this man?” she cried, in a passion. “Hilt! Hilt!” Then as she saw her gentleman-rider’s state of utter collapse she uttered a wild, despairing cry which brought the trainer to his office-door softly rubbing his hands. “All, all is lost!” cried Lady Tilborough, tragically.

“Here, stand aside!” shouted the doctor, dashing in with a medical glass in one hand, and a bottle from the nearest chemist’s in the other, the cork giving forth a squeak as he drew it out with his teeth.

“Now then,” he cried, “hold him up. Eh, what?” he added, as Lady Tilborough caught him by the arm crying —

“Jack Granton, you’re a doctor; do something to pick him up, or the game’s all over for us all.”

Chapter Twenty.
Where the Moonbeams Played

The lately risen moon, in its third quarter, shone across the well-kept lawn at the Denes between two great banks of trees, and through the wide French window in a way that left half the drawing-room in darkness, the conservatory full of lights and shadows of grotesque-looking giant plants in pots, and the other half of the handsome salon fairly illuminated. The shutters had not been closed, and the room door was wide open, seeming apparently untenanted, or as if the occupants of Sir Hilton Lisle’s residence were all retired to rest.

Everything was still as a rule; but every rule has exceptions, and it was the case here. For, as if coming faintly from a distance, there was a continuous, pleasant chirp, such as might have suggested the early bird about to go in search of the worm; but it was a cricket by the still warm hearth of the kitchen.

There was, too, the distant barking of a dog, varied by a remarkably dismal howl such as a dog will utter on moonlight nights if he has not been fed and furnished with a pleasant padding to dull the points of his ribs when he indulges in his customary curl and sleep.

But there was another sound which broke the silence at rare intervals – a strange, bewildering sound in that drawing-room, such as might have been made by water in a gas pipe. But that was impossible, for there was no illuminant of the nature nearer than Tilborough, the Denes being lit up by crystal oil.

To be brief, in spite of these exceptions, all was very still at the Denes. The horse patrol had gone by, with the horse making noise enough on the hard road to warn any burglarious person of his propinquity, and he had passed three shabby-looking individuals, very drunk, and walking right in the middle of the road as far as two were concerned, talking together about what they had made on Tilborough racecourse the previous day, while the third, being very tired and very tipsy, was – probably from a most virtuous intention of walking off the superabundant spirit he had imbibed – more than doubling the distance between Tilborough and the next town, where there was a fair next day, by carefully walking in zig-zags.

The patrol looked at him, and his horse avoided him, and all went on their way, leaving the tree-bordered country road to its moonlit solitude.

But there was another personage on his way from Tilborough races, having a rest in a mossy piece of woodland half a mile from the Denes. He had his coat very tightly buttoned up over his chest, and over two packets of unsold race-cards, a packet over each breast, where with the fire of a pipe of tobacco they helped to keep the traveller taking his al fresco rest nice and warm.

“Bit damp, though,” he said, after the horse patrol’s movements had died out, and he got up, shook himself, and went his way, to reappear in the form of a silhouette against one of the big panes of glass in the French window of the Denes drawing-room.

Faint moonlight is not good for observing colour. Pink looks black by this illumination, whether it is on a man’s nose or forms the tinting of his old hunting-coat. But even faint moonlight delineates well the shape of an old round-topped black velvet cap, and makes it look far blacker than it does by day.

Such a cap is admirable for riding purposes, and must be of a most convenient shape for anyone operating in a very tradesmanlike way upon the drawing-room window by which the figure stood, with a putty-knife, though an observer would probably have thought the hour unseasonable.

Still, when a window has been broken upon the ground floor, people in the country are only too glad to get the repairing done at any time that the glazier thinks proper to work, so that the weak spot in the domestic defences may as soon as possible be repaired.

But in this case the stout plate glass window was not broken, and the peculiarly handy knife being used was not called upon to spread putty, but was being inserted cleverly away from the glass and causing a clicking noise, thus showing, in connection with a wonderful degree of elasticity, that it was dealing with metal.

While its owner was at his busiest another noise arose, something between a whine and a squeak, the effect of which was to make the operator leave off his task, take two or three steps, and kneel down beneath a bush, to whisper words to something alive connected with its liver – words which produced silence – and return to the window.

The faint clicking began again, and the extremely thin putty-knife did its work in the skilled hands so well that in a very short time the doorlike window yielded and uttered a ghost of a groan as it turned upon its hinges.

“Poor thing, then! Did ’um disturb it in the middle of the night?” said the tradesman to himself, stepping softly in. “Just like ’em! Plenty to eat, plenty to drink, plenty o’ soft beds to sleep in, and too lazy to hyle a hinge. When I keep servants I’ll – Here, let’s just shut you.”

He carefully closed the window, before standing listening for a few moments and looking about till his eyes rested upon a softly-quilted couch, half-covered with a satin-lined Polar bearskin, bathed, as a poet would say, in the lambent rays of the moon, which in this instance came through the conservatory.

Towards this the man stepped in the dark, and, to his intense disgust, kicked heavily against a hassock.

The words he uttered were unprintable, save the latter portion, which were something about the tradesman’s “wussest corn.” The next minute it appeared as if he was about to examine the damage done, for his figure blotted out a portion of the sofa’s shape, and it, too, was bathed in the lambent light, as he busily unlaced and drew off, not only one, but two extremely big, ugly hunting boots, with star-like cuts in them, evidently to ease the “wussest” and other corns.

But, oddly enough, the night bird did not examine his injury, but placed the boots as if ready for cleaning – of which they were very much in need – in the very lightest spot he could find; that is to say, full in the aforesaid lambent light.

Then he began to muse.

“Soft as a hair cushin in a horsepittle,” he muttered. “Now, I could jest lie down, kiver myself with this here soft counterpin, and do my doss like a prince. Nobody at home but the servants and them gals. The two ladies gone off with the doctor in one kerridge, t’other one waiting at the Talbot, and the boss and the young squire sleepin’ it off at Sam Simpkins’s. The on’y one I’m in doubt about is Marky Willers, and that there black-looking crockydile in the white choker.

“Ha!” he sighed, taking out a steel tobacco-box and knife, and cutting off a bit of pigtail. “Mustn’t smoke,” he mused, “and I mustn’t sleep, for it’s ten to one I shouldn’t wake till someun found me, and there’d be a squawk and a ‘Dear me! I on’y come in by mistake, thinking it was my own room.’ Well, that’s the beauty o’ a bit o’ pigtail. Now then, I s’pose I’d better get to work. That’s the beauty o’ my profession. Down to a race here and a race there, and a call or two on the way to do a bit o’ trade with a dawg, and a look round for any bit or two o’ rubbish that wants clearing away. Don’t want anything heavier than a silver inkstand, say. Clocks is so gallus cornery, and a racing cup or anything o’ that sort won’t lie flat without you hammer one side in, and that’s a pity, and it’s half-round even then. Presentation inkstand’s my fav’rite, for one can button it up in front or behind, while you can leave the bottles in case the people wants to write.

“Nice bit o’ plate here, I’ll bet,” said the man, with a yawn, his jaws grinding slowly away at the quid, “but I’m not on plate, thank ye. Now then, where’s that there flat, old-fashioned inkstand? Let’s see; but if that there blessed dawg howls there won’t be no dawg when I gets out.”

The man rose in the moonlight, fumbled for and drew out a matchbox, opened it, and was in the act of striking a match when a clock in the hall performed a musical chime loudly four times, with every bell sounding silvery and clear, and then paused.

“What a ghastly row!” muttered the man; and then he raised the match again, when —

Boom! boom! boom! three heavy strokes deliberately given upon a deep-toned spring, produced a wonderful effect.

There was a sharp ejaculation, a loud rustling sound, and a bump as of someone springing to his feet, while in the moonlight something like a hugely thick short serpent crawled over the couch and turned on reaching the floor into a quadruped, which crept silently into the conservatory and disappeared.

“Well!” exclaimed a voice. “Think o’ me sleeping like that! Three o’clock – lamp gone out – nobody come home even now. What a shame! This is going to the races, this is, and leaving us poor, unprotected women all alone in this big place, and not a man near but the gardeners, and them so far off that you might squeal the house down before they’d hear. Well, I shall go to bed. Ugh! I feel quite shivery, and the place looks horrid in the dark. I don’t like to go into the pantry for a light. I know; her ladyship’s writing-table.”

Jane Gee stepped quickly into the moonlight, caught sight of something on the carpet, and uttered a fearful shriek, just as a figure passed the French window, turned back, stopped short, and began to tap.

Chapter Twenty One.
The Coming Home

“Oh, oh, oh!” cried the girl; “it’s Mark – it’s Mark! Oh, oh, oh!” she kept on in a peculiar sob. But she tottered to the window and undid the brass latch with trembling hands, when Mark pressed the glass door open, sprang in, closed the leaf, fastened it, and, flinging one arm round the sobbing girl, clapped a hand over her mouth.

“Hold your row, you silly fool! Couldn’t you see it was me?”

“Ye-ye-yes, Mark. Oh, I’m so glad you’ve come.”

“Seems like it – squealing everybody else out of bed to come and ketch me.”

“Oh, oh, oh, Mark dear!” sobbed the girl. “Take care,” and she clung to him.

“Why, of course I will,” whispered the groom. “My word! I didn’t know you could come hysterics like that,” and as he spoke he tried to comfort the trembling girl, succeeding to some extent, while another singular thing took place in that certainly unhaunted room.

For the big ugly pair of boots began, not to walk according to their nature when set in motion, but to glide in a singular way in the moonlight, following their tightened strings, passing round the head of the quilted couch and into the conservatory, but without a sound.

“Oh, oh, Mark!” sobbed the girl, with a shudder.

“What, beginning again? What a little silly it is!”

“But come away.”

“Well, I’m coming away. Come on.”

“No, no; not that way. Oh!”

“Be quiet, or you’ll be waking someone,” whispered Mark.

“I can’t help it,” sobbed Jane. “It wasn’t you that frightened me, Mark dear, it was the burglars.”

“The what? Where?”

“Oh, I’d dropped asleep, Mark, and the lamp burnt out, and the clock woke me up, and then I saw it. Oh, horrid!”

“Be quiet, I tell you. What did you see?”

“That great big pair of boots in the moonlight there.”

“Where?” cried Mark, doubtingly.

“Down there by the blue couch.”

“Stuff! There ain’t no boots – old boots nor any other boots.”

“Ain’t there, Mark? Oh, there was, there was.”

“Bosh! You’ve been dreaming.”

“Have I?” said the girl, after a long stare about the moonlit carpet. “I thought I saw them.” Then, with a quick change: “Wherever have you been?”

“Oh, only to the races with the guv’nor.”

“But you ain’t been racing till this time o’ night?” cried the girl, suspiciously.

“Well, not quite. Some on ’em – bookies and jocks – got up a bit o’ dinner.”

“I don’t believe it. What for?”

“All along o’ settling up, and that sort of thing.”

“Settling up? What’s that – paying up?”

“Yes, my gal.”

“I know what that means. Now then, out with it.”

“Wait till the morning,” said Mark, grinning.

“How much was it? No keeping it back. If you do, it’s all off, and I’ll never speak to you again. Now then, let this be a lesson to you. I will know. How much have you lost?”

“Guess.”

“I won’t guess. It’s too serious a matter.”

“So it is, my lass; so it is, and I’ll make a clean breast of it, Jenny.”

“Yes, you’d better.”

“I’ve won!” he cried, catching the girl in his arms.

“What! I don’t believe it.”

“I have, and enough, with what the brewers would advance, to take a nice little country pub – one we can make into a hotel.”

“Ah, well,” said Jane, primly, “it ain’t no time to be talking about no hotels nor publics in the middle o’ the night like this.”

“Why not?”

“Because it ain’t proper. Look here; is Mr Trimmer coming home?”

“What, ain’t he at home neither?”

“No, nobody’s come back but you. What about master? Is he along with her ladyship?”

“No; he was took bad just afore the race, but Dr Granton give him a pick-me-up that kep’ him going till he’d won the race.”

“Her ladyship had give him a talking-to, I suppose?”

Mark grinned, winked, and lifted his elbow in a peculiar way, suggestive of drinking.

“Oh-h-h!” exclaimed Jane, in a half-whisper. “What a shame!”

“Sh!” whispered the groom. “Not a word. Don’t say a word to a soul. I wouldn’t have trusted anyone else with it, Jenny. I believe it was on’y a glass or two of fizz on the top of a bucketful of excitement because he was going to ride.”

“But there it is, you see, Mark! horses and racing leads to drinking, and I mean to think twice before I tie myself to anyone who drinks and gambles. Is master with her ladyship now?”

“No, I tell you; he’s badly, and stopping at Simpkins’s, with Master Syd taking care of him; and her ladyship was took bad too, after a rumpus at the hotel.”

“Oh, how disgraceful!” interrupted Jane. “Her ladyship stooping to do that, and master getting tipsy and running races. I shall give notice, Mark. I’ve got a character to lose.”

“You’d better! You don’t leave here till – you know.”

“Oh, no, I don’t; and now I’m going to bed. But tell me, where did you say her ladyship was?”

“How many more times?” cried the groom, impatiently. “I’ve told you five or six times.”

“You haven’t, Mark.”

“I have. Her ladyship was took bad at the hotel when she found the guv’nor looking quite tight afore he went off to win the race, and only just in time to get up to the scratch. Then as soon as it was over the doctor has to physic him and see to her ladyship, and the doctor and Lady Tilborough takes her to Oakleigh.”

“Why didn’t they bring her home?” said Jane, sharply.

“How should I know? Because Lady Tilborough thought perhaps that master would join ’em there and make it up. But I dunno. Had too much business of my own to ’tend to.”

“What business?” said Jane, suspiciously. “Getting along with a bad set of touts, drinking, I suppose.”

“Get out! I was making sure of the money I’d won while I could. That’s right; hang away from a fellow! Just like a woman! Think you’re going to ketch something?”

“That will do,” said the girl, coldly. “You smell horrid of beer and smoke. Oh, Mark!” she whispered; and he had no room for complaints of a want of warmth, for the girl flung her arms about him, clinging tightly, and placed her lips closely to his ear. “There,” she cried, in an agitated way; “hark! Is that fancy? There are burglars in the house.”

Mark drew the girl more into the shade near the fireplace, and softly picked up the brightly-polished poker from where it lay. For he had distinctly heard a soft rattle as if of a latchkey, the opening and closing of the hall door, and then as he stood listening there was the scratch of a match which faintly lit up the hall as far as they could see through the drawing-room door.

Directly after there was a click, as of a candlestick being removed, an augmentation of the light which approached, and in the full intention of – to use the groom’s own words – “letting ’em have it,” Mark thrust the girl behind him, and made ready to bring the poker down heavily upon the burglar’s head.

But he did not, for the head and face, looking yellow and ghastly by the light of a chamber candle, were those of Lady Lisle’s agent and confidential man.

Possibly from weariness, there was no spasmodic start, Trimmer staring glassy-eyed and strange, and with his black felt hat looking battered and soiled, while in their revulsion of feeling Jane and Mark found no words to say.

“What are you two doing here?” said Trimmer at last, speaking in rather a tongue-tied fashion, but as if in full possession of his faculties.

“Waiting up to let you in, sir,” said Jane, sharply.

“It is not true,” said the agent. “You must have known I could let myself in. You two are holding a disgraceful clandestine meeting; and I shall consider it my duty to report these proceedings when her ladyship sees me after breakfast. I am called away for a few hours to London, and upon my return the whole house is in disorder.”

“Thank ye, sir; then I shall speak to her ladyship myself as soon as she comes home,” said Jane, pertly.

“What! Her ladyship not returned yet?”

“No, sir; and I’ve got to sit up till she do.”

“Er – where has she gone? Someone ill?”

“Haw, haw, haw! Hark at that, Jane! He didn’t see her ladyship’s carriage at the races. Oh, no! He didn’t go and see old Sam Simpkins, the trainer, and make a bet or two; not him! And I wasn’t close behind him in the crowd when the guv’nor came in a winner, and I didn’t see him bang his hat down on the ground and stamp on it. Oh, no! You give me that hat, Mr Trimmer, sir, and I’ll brush and sponge it and iron it into shape so that it’ll look as good as new.”

The agent’s countenance went through several changes before it settled down into a ghastly smile.

“Well, well,” he said, “I must confess to being attracted to seeing the big race, but I did not know you would be there, Mark. But you surprise me. Sir Hilton and her ladyship not returned? A great surprise, though, Mark – Jane. You know, of course? Sir Hilton returning to the old evil ways.”

“Yah? Chuck it up, Mr Trimmer, sir,” said Mark, in a tone of disgust; “and when you tell her ladyship you caught me and Jane here talking after she let me in, just you tell her how much you won on the race.”

“Won – won – won, my lad?” said the agent, with loud, louder, loudest in his utterance of the word. “I’ve lost; I’m nearly ruined. Oh, it has been a horrible day. Here, I’m ill. I must have a little brandy, I’m ready to faint.”

“Sorry for you, sir,” said Mark, as the ghastly-looking man turned to go back across the hall.

“Same here, sir,” said Jane, with a grave curtsey; “but I don’t see as it’ll do you any good now you’re ruined to try and ruin us.”

“And if I was you, sir, I wouldn’t touch another drop, sir,” put in Mark. “I’ve seen chaps in your state before after a race – chaps who have lost every penny – go and fly to the drink.”

Trimmer gazed vacantly at the speaker, passed his tongue over his parched lips, and said feebly —

“Do I – do I look as if I had been drinking, Mark?”

“That’s so, sir; and as if, seeing what a stew you’re in over your losses, it hadn’t took a bit of effect upon you.”

“No, no,” said the agent, slowly. “I don’t feel as if I had had more than a glass.”

“And all the time, sir, as the conductors say, you’re ‘full up’; and if you put any more on it you’ll soon find it out, and come on with a fit of the horrors, same as some poor beggars have before there’s an inquest.”

The agent shuddered, and unconsciously began to play with the extinguisher of the plated candlestick, lifting it off the cone upon which it rested, putting it back, and ending by lifting it off quickly, and, as if to illustrate the groom’s meaning, putting out the light.

“Pst! Hark! What’s that?” cried Jane, excitedly. “Here they are!”

Trimmer started violently. “Oh,” he cried, “I can’t meet anybody now. Mark – Jane – don’t say that I have been out I shall not – tell her ladyship – a word.”

“Thank ye for nothing,” said Mark, mockingly, as the door closed upon the departing agent. “How the dickens did he do that?” he added, for a flower-pot in the conservatory fell with a crash upon the encaustic tiled floor, and Jane uttered a gasp.

But the next instant the front door-bell was rung violently.

“Come with me, Mark,” whispered the girl, and they both hurried into the hall, the groom to open the door, and Jane to busy herself with trembling hands striking matches to light a couple of the chamber candlesticks standing ready upon the slab.