Erema - My Father's Sin, Richard Doddridge Blackmore [read me a book TXT] 📗

Major Hockin, if you please."

"I have considered you, and that makes me do it. Every body knows what I am. Did I ever exaggerate in all my life? Did I ever say any thing without just grounds? Did I ever take any distorted views? Did I ever draw upon my imagination? Erema, answer me this instant!"

"I do not remember a single instance of your drawing upon your imagination," I answered, gravely, and did not add, "because there is none to draw upon."

"Very well. I was sure of your concurrence. Then just come with me. Take my arm, if you please, and have the thief's card ready. Now keep your temper and your self-command."

With this good advice, the Major, whose arm and whole body were jerking with wrath, led me rapidly down the long passage and through a door, and my eyes met the eyes of the very man who had tried to bribe Uncle Sam of me. He never saw me then, and he did not know me now; but his insolent eyes fell under mine. I looked at him quietly, and said nothing.

"Now, Mr. Goad, you still assert that you never were in California--never even crossed the Atlantic. This young lady under my protection--don't you be afraid, my dear--is the Honorable Erema Castlewood, whom you, in the pay of a murderer, went to fetch, and perhaps to murder. Now, do you acknowledge it? You wrote her description, and ought to know her. You double-dyed villain, out with it!"

"Major Hockin," said Mr. Goad, trying to look altogether at his ease, but failing, and with his bull-dog forehead purple, "if indeed you are an officer--which I doubt for the credit of her Majesty's service--if the lady were not present, I should knock you down." And the big man got up as if to do it.

"Never mind her," my companion answered, in a magnanimous manner; "she has seen worse than that, poor thing. Here I am--just come and do it."

The Major was scarcely more than half the size of Mr. Goad in mere bodily bulk, and yet he defied him in this way. He carefully took his blue lights off, then drew up the crest of his hair, like his wife's most warlike cock a-crowing, and laid down his rattan upon a desk, and doubled his fists, and waited. Then he gave a blink from the corner of his gables, clearly meaning, "Please to stop and see it out." It was a distressing thing to see, and the Major's courage was so grand that I could not help smiling. Mr. Goad, however, did not advance, but assumed a superior manner.

"Major," he said, "we are not young men; we must not be so hasty. You carry things with too high a hand, as veteran officers are apt to do. Sir, I make allowance for you; I retract my menace, and apologize. We move in different spheres of life, Sir, or I would offer you my hand."

"No, thank you!" the Major exclaimed, and then looked sorry for his arrogance. "When a man has threatened me, and that man sees the mistake of doing so, I am pacified, Sir, in a moment; but it takes me some time to get over it. I have served his Gracious Majesty, and now hers, in every quarter of the civilized globe, with distinction, Sir--with distinction, and thanks, and no profit to taint the transaction, Sir. In many battles I have been menaced with personal violence, and have received it, as in such positions is equitable. I am capable, Sir, of receiving it still, and repaying it, not without interest."

"Hang it, Major, if a man is sorry, a soldier forgives him frankly. You abused me, and I rashly threatened you. I beg your pardon, as a man should do, and that should be an end to it."

"Very well, very well; say no more about it. But am I to understand that you still deny in that barefaced manner, with my witness here, the fact of your having been at Colonel Gundry's--my cousin, Sir, and a man not to be denied, without an insult to myself--a man who possesses ingots of gold, ingots of gold, enough to break the Bank of England, and a man whose integrity doubles them all. Have you not heard of the monster nugget, transcending the whole of creation, discovered by this young lady looking at you, in the bed of the saw-mill river, and valued at more than half a million?"

"You don't mean to say so? When was it? Sylvester never said a word about it--the papers, I mean, never mentioned it."

"Try no more--well, I won't say lies, though they are confounded lies--what I mean is, no further evasion, Mr. Goad. Sylvester's name is enough, Sir. Here is the card of your firm, with your own note of delivery on the back, handed by you to my cousin, the Colonel. And here stands the lady who saw you do it."

"Major, I will do my very best to remember. I am here, there, every where--China one day, Peru the next, Siberia the day after. And this young lady found the nugget, did she? How wonderfully lucky she must be!"

"I am lucky; I find out every thing; and I shall find out you, Mr. Goad." Thus I spoke on the spur of the moment, and I could not have spoken better after a month of consultation. Rogues are generally superstitious. Mr. Goad glanced at me with a shudder, as I had gazed at him some three years back; and then he dropped his bad, oily-looking eyes.

"I make mistakes sometimes," he said, "as to where I have been and where I have not. If this young lady saw me there, it stands to reason that I may have been there. I have a brother extremely similar. He goes about a good deal also. Probably you saw my brother."

"I saw no brother of yours, but yourself. Yourself--your mean and cowardly self--and I shall bring you to justice."

"Well, well," he replied, with a poor attempt to turn the matter lightly; "I never contradict ladies; it is an honor to be so observed by them. Now, Major, can you give me any good reason for drawing upon a bad memory? My time is valuable. I can not refer to such by-gone matters for nothing."

"We will not bribe you, if that is what you mean," Major Hockin made answer, scornfully. "This is a criminal case, and we have evidence you little dream of. Our only offer is--your own safety, if you make a clean breast of it. We are on the track of a murderer, and your connection with him will ruin you. Unless you wish to stand in the dock at his side, you will tell us every thing."

"Sir, this is violent language."

"And violent acts will follow it: if you do not give up your principal, and every word you know about him, you will leave this room in custody. I have Cosmopolitan Jack outside, and the police at a sign from him will come."

"Is this job already in the hands of the police, then?"

"No, not yet. I resolved to try you first. If you refuse, it will be taken up at once; and away goes your last chance, Sir."

Mr. Goad's large face became like a field of conflicting passions and low calculations. Terror, fury, cupidity, and doggedness never had a larger battle-field.

"Allow me at least to consult my partners," he said, in a low voice and almost with a whine; "we may do things irregular sometimes, but we never betray a client."

"Either betray your client or yourself," the Major answered, with a downright stamp. "You shall consult no one. You have by this watch forty-five seconds to consider it."

"You need not trouble yourself to time me," the other answered, sulkily; "my duty to the firm overrides private feeling. Miss Castlewood, I call you to witness, since Major Hockin is so peppery--"

"Peppery, Sir, is the very last word that ever could be applied to me. My wife, my friends, every one that knows me, even my furthest-off correspondents, agree that I am pure patience."

"It may be so, Major; but you have not shown it. Miss Castlewood, I have done you no harm. If you had been given up to me, you would have been safer than where you were. My honor would have been enlisted. I now learn things which I never dreamed of--or, at least--at least only lately. I always believed the criminality to be on the other side. We never ally ourselves with wrong. But lately things have come to my knowledge which made me doubtful as to facts. I may have been duped--I believe I have been: I am justified, therefore, in turning the tables."

"If you turn tables," broke in the Major, who was grumbling to himself at the very idea of having any pepper in his nature--"Goad, if you turn tables, mind you, you must do it better than the mesmerists. Out of this room you do not stir; no darkness--no bamboozling! Show your papers, Sir, without sleight of hand. Surrender, or you get no quarter."

To me it was quite terrifying to see my comrade thus push his victory. Mr. Goad could have killed him at any moment, and but for me perhaps would have done so. But even in his fury he kept on casting glances of superstitious awe at me, while I stood quite still and gazed at him. Then he crossed the room to a great case of drawers, unlocked something above the Major's head, made a sullen bow, and handed him a packet.


CHAPTER XLIX


WANTED, A SAWYER

To judge Mr. Goad by his own scale of morality and honor, he certainly had behaved very well through a trying and unexpected scene. He fought for his honor a great deal harder than ever it could have deserved of him; and then he strove well to appease it with cash, the mere thought of which must have flattered it. However, it was none the worse for a little disaster of this kind. At the call of duty it coalesced with interest and fine sense of law, and the contact of these must have strengthened it to face any future production.

For the moment he laid it aside in a drawer--and the smallest he possessed would hold it--and being compelled to explain his instructions (partly in short-hand and partly in cipher), he kindly, and for the main of it truly, interpreted them as follows:

"July 31, 1858.--Received directions from M. H. to attend without fail, at whatever expense, to any matter laid before us by a tall, dark gentleman bearing his card. M. H. considerably in our debt; but his father can not last long. Understand what he means, having dealt with this matter before, and managed well with it.

"August 2.--Said gentleman called, gave no name, and was very close. Had experienced some great wrong. Said that he was true heir to the C. estates now held by Lord C. Only required a little further evidence to claim them; and some of this was to be got through us. Important papers must be among the effects of the old lord's son, lately dead in California, the same for whom a reward had been offered, and we had been employed about it. Must get possession of those papers, and of the girl, if possible. Yankees to be bribed, at whatever figure, and always stand out for a high one. Asked where funds were to come from; gave good reference, and verified it.