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TREASON-FELONY 
 
KEW BOYELS AT JILL LIBRARIES. 
 
 THE MARQUIS OF CARABAS. By Aaron Watson and 
 LiLLiAS Wassekmann. 3 vols. 
 
 BOB MARTIN'S LITTLE GIRL. By D. Christie Murray. 
 3 vols. 
 
 VERBENA CAMELLIA STEPHANOTIS. By Walter 
 Besant. I vol. 
 
 A SOLDIER'S CHILDREN. By John Strange Winter. 
 I vol. 
 
 THE OLD MAID'S SWEETHEART. By Alan St. Aubyn. 
 I vol. 
 
 MAID MARIAN AND ROBIN HOOD. By J. E. Muddock. 
 I vol. 
 
 London : CHATTO & WINDUS, Piccadilly, W. 
 
TREASON-FELONY 
 
 ^ "gloi^cl 
 
 BY 
 
 . JOHN HILL 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 SALLY,' 'the CORSARS," ' AN UNFORTUNATE ARRANGEMENT,' ETC. 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES 
 VOL. L 
 
 UonUon 
 
 CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY 
 1892 
 
8^^ 
 
 H55St 
 
 CONTENTS OF VOL. I. 
 
 CHAPTER- PAGE 
 
 I. THKEE GENTLEMEN ADVENTURERS - - 1 
 
 II. HOW MR. HARRY LONG TRIED A LITTLE 
 POACHING, AND CAUGHT A LITTLE 
 POACHER - - - - - 95 
 
 III. HARRY RECEIVES SHOCKS, AND BECOMES 
 ^ FOR AWHILE A GRAND SEIGNEUR - 153 
 
 ^ IV. STEVENS ON CRYPTOGRAPHY AND OTHER 
 
 MATTERS ----- 202 
 
 i 
 
 k 
 
 A 
 
 r 
 
TREASON-FELONY 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THEEE GENTLEMEN ADVENTURERS. 
 
 The Eepiiblic known as the Estados TJnicTos 
 d'Eldoraclo has for its hnmediate neighbour the 
 Republic known as the Confederated Guano Free 
 States. The two countries have a continuous sea- 
 board on the ocean, which may be called the 
 Atlific or Pacantic, Eldorado being north of Guano 
 on the South American coast, and their neighbour- 
 ing and surrounding States on the landward side 
 are Porquezuela, Piguador, Papagay, the Coprolite 
 
 VOL. I. 1 
 
2 TREASON-FELONY 
 
 Pispublfc, and Balliragua. Having for some time 
 past obtained loans from confiding European 
 investors, on the strength of beautifully-fashioned, 
 persuasive statistics, in which their inexhaustible 
 natural wealth in wool, hides, meat, bones, maize, 
 horses, copperas, manure, linseed -oil, silver, and 
 other sundry matters, was set glowingly forth, as 
 well as the immense future possibility of fertile 
 tracts of great extent, which as yet lay inviting 
 the emigrant to cultivate them, which would grow 
 everything in the world by being merely looked at, 
 both countries expended the money obtained in 
 "useful and productive public works, as they had 
 r.ndertaken to do, viz., on the latest things in the 
 cruiser and gunboat line, on ammunition, uniforms, 
 and Winchester repeaters. A further sum was 
 i.sefully employed in building quintas for local 
 contractors, and enlarging the salaries of all the 
 
THREE GENTLEMEN ADVENTURERS 3 
 
 Government officials from the respective Presidents, 
 Oeneral Nitre and Dr. Solomon Ladron, down- 
 wards and laterally. If anything was left after 
 that, it was used, as long as it lasted, for paying 
 the interest on the debt. 
 
 Having got all these things, the next obvious 
 thing to do was to go to war, if only from a child- 
 like desire to let off their new guns ; and to war 
 they went, something near ten j^ears ago. 
 
 The world at large was not deeply interested in 
 this fell collision, nor was the course of history 
 expected to be gravely altered by it ; but at the 
 same time there was some very pretty fighting 
 occasionally, and a good deal of miscellaneous 
 plunder picked up by bold and ingenious persons 
 .belonging to the not yet wholly extinct order of 
 ^soldiers of fortune. 
 
 We are to give our more immediate attention, 
 
4- TREASON-FELONY 
 
 for a little while, to the cruiser Infierno y Tomasito^ 
 of the Eldorado navy, which was pursuing its way 
 southward one fine morning, just within sight of 
 the coast, on the look-out, primarily, for the 
 Almimnte McCarthy, of the hostile navy, and,, 
 secondarily, for any mischief which might turn up. 
 
 The weather was warm, the sea calm, and the 
 air clear, so that the remote outlines of rising 
 ground behind the shore-line were more distinctly 
 visible than they would have been at that distance' 
 in the hazier atmosphere of an English summer 
 morning. 
 
 On the bridge stood three officers— two in naval,. 
 and the third in a military uniform ; the uniform, in 
 fact, of a colonel of the Estada Mayor of Eldorado.. 
 The taller and older of the two naval officers was 
 scanning the horizon with a telescope, being no- 
 less a man than the Senor Capitan Don Miguel 
 
THREE GENTLEMEN ADVENTURERS 5 
 
 Doherty, whose rich CastiHan accents might have 
 heen heard to say.: 
 
 ' Xow, where in the wide sea is that old hooker 
 trying to Kinsale herself ?' 
 
 ' She's generally handy when there's a row to be 
 had for the asking, too,' replied the Sefior 'Teniente 
 Patrick Yane. 
 
 MYhy are we not taking advantage of her 
 absence,' inquired the Seiior Coronel Comandante 
 Eonald Macgregor, * to take San Jose ?' 
 
 San Jose del Estercolero was the first town on 
 the Guano coast which would be passed by anyone 
 going from the north southwards. 
 
 * That's what I'm asking myself,' replied Captain 
 Doherty ; ' and if we get so far without interrup- 
 tion, we'll have a look at the place. I think we 
 ought to get a pretty steep ransom out of them 
 by merely showing ourselves, but if not, we'll land 
 
6 TREA SON-FELONY 
 
 and take it. And that'll be a job for your boys^ 
 Macgregor.' 
 
 *]\Iy boys are just the choicest collection of 
 picturesque picaroons and marauding murderers. 
 I ever had the honour of commanding, which is 
 no small thing for me to say. But I've an idea, 
 that they'll fight. I've drilled them, in close and. 
 extended order, till they're fit to parade before 
 Moltke, and I've told them tliat I will shoot then 
 and there any man who skulks in the attack, so. 
 that it will be mohr creditable to let the enemy do 
 it if they're to be shot at all. I found that pay 
 with the Serbs.' 
 
 ' Well, I guess we'll go below and have break- 
 fast,' said Captain Doherty. * It's 'Teniente^ 
 Enrique Santos' turn to navigate and keep a look 
 out, and it'll be some time before we see Sar:j 
 Jose.' 
 
THREE GENTLEMEN ADVENTURERS 7 
 
 And they went down to a very comfortably- 
 appointed cabin, which was all paid for, down to 
 the varnished maple panelling and gildmg and 
 white paint, by Em'opean investors, now daily 
 engaged in anxious study of the sinking quotations 
 of the Eldorado Unified Eight per Cent. External 
 Loan. During the meal, it may be well to give 
 a general impression of the aspect of the three, 
 as there was no conversation to report till the 
 eating and drmking was over — the eating, at any 
 rate. 
 
 Doherty was about forty, looking as strong, tall, 
 hard, and bright as a lighthouse, as Vane said. 
 He had a round, closely -cropped head, strong 
 square jaws, a prominent chin, a thick, close brown 
 moustache, a rather snub nose, small keen blue 
 eyes, and a sun-and- wind-tanned skin. When he 
 was not eating or drinking, he was always screwing 
 
8 TREASON-FELONY 
 
 half a cigar about in the corner of his month, and 
 you would have taken him immediately for an 
 American, if you had chanced to meet him any- 
 where, until he opened his mouth and spoke. 
 Even then he would occasionally use an American 
 form of words or simile, though in the imperish- 
 able accent of the land he was born in. 
 
 Yane was about the same age, or, maybe, a year 
 or two younger, was rather below the middle 
 height, had a handsome aquiline face, big well-set 
 blue eyes, with a laugh in them, reddish-brown 
 hair, and a long red sweeping moustache. His 
 skm was burnt a bricky red, as is usual in fair men 
 exposed to sun and wind. 
 
 Macgregor was taller than Vane, and less heavily 
 built than Doherty. Of the three Celtic gentle- 
 men, he was of the darkest type. He had a lean 
 frame and a sombre face, with somewhat bony 
 
THREE GENTLEMEN ADVENTURERS 9 
 
 features, including a high thin nose, long jaw, 
 high cheekbones, and gray eyes, set in deep orbits, 
 under arched black brows. He had black hair, 
 a slender black wisp of moustache, all length and 
 no thickness, and a tawny brown skin, which had 
 been sallow before the sun gilded it and exposure 
 darkened it. His age was about thirty-five. 
 
 After breakfast had been eaten, each poured 
 himself out a glass of aguardiente, the substitute 
 for whisky in that part of the world, and lit his 
 pipe, cigar, or cigarette. Doherty smoked a cigar, 
 Macgregor a blackened wooden pipe, and Yane, 
 who was dandified and fond of the society of ladies, 
 a cigarette. 
 
 'Here is fortune to us all, gentlemen,' said 
 Captain Doherty, lifting his glass. ' Pat, can't you 
 give us a bit of a song ?' 
 
 ' Later on. 1 want to get into the right frame of 
 
lo TREA SON-FELONY 
 
 mind first. Queer thing, isn't it, us three finding 
 ourselves together again in a concern of this kind?' 
 
 * We've been in some steep places together before 
 now, anyway,' replied Doherty, ' haven't we, Mac?' 
 
 ' Ay ; together — and separately.' 
 
 * Mike, have you told Mac what we're going to 
 do if we get well out of this ?' 
 
 ' I have not.' 
 
 ' Then, why are you not doing it now ? Sure 
 we know him.' 
 
 * Some insane treason, I suppose,' observed 
 Macgregor calmly ; ' seize the ship, and run away 
 with her, bombard London, or do something equally 
 practical with the harp without the crown, and 
 the wolf-dog lying down in it somewhere.' 
 
 Macgregor had a cool, deliberate manner, and 
 something of a Western Scotch accent, which gave 
 character and emphasis to his irony. 
 
THREE GENTLEMEN ADVENTURERS ii 
 
 * Some insane treason, you may take your oath/ 
 said Yane, ' though not quite such a fool's trick as 
 you're after describing. My boy, we'll have 
 Ireland in a blaze one of these fine days ! There, 
 it's making me drop into powutry. Will I tell 
 him, Mike ?' 
 
 ' You're after telling so much already that you'd 
 better make it complete. Of course, Mac's all 
 right, but he'll only think us a couple of fools old 
 enough to know better.' 
 
 * Listen now, Mac, while I tell you. You know 
 Mike's been home ?' 
 
 ' I did not know it ; but it's like his infernal 
 cheek.' 
 
 * Isn't it •? when there's an unpaid debt to the 
 British Empire of twenty years' penal servitude 
 still owing from him!' 
 
 ' Pat, it takes more intellect than I possess to 
 
12 TREASON-FELONY 
 
 grasp how a person can owe a debt that is other- 
 wise than unpaid,' observed Macgregor dryly and 
 dehberately. 
 
 Doherty chuckled grimly and chewed his cigar. 
 
 ' Ah now, don't trifle with me, you great long 
 Scotch skeleton at a banquet ! If it comes to a 
 contest of wits, I can give you away any day. 
 You're only pedantic. Well, as I was saying, 
 Mike's been back to old Ireland, God save her ! and 
 organizing and arranging for corres23ondence, and 
 the like of that, and devil a peeler knew him, and 
 no wonder ! He hasn't been there since '66, or 
 thereabouts, and a new generation of peelers has 
 risen since then. Of course, the boj^s are all drill- 
 ing in the glens of a summer night as usual, and 
 there's all the usual conspiracies, with passwords 
 and signs and informers, and single-barrelled slug- 
 slingers, and the rest of it ; and what Mike has had 
 
THREE GENTLEMEN ADVENTURERS 13 
 
 to do to begin with, is to devise some game that 
 will not have the weak points about it which spoilt 
 things in the old days. Now, what were those 
 weak points ?' 
 
 Pat Yane had only paused oratorically, and in- 
 tended to reply to his own question, but Macgregor 
 answered without hesitation : 
 
 ' Hopeless incapacity on the part of your leaders, 
 as a rule !' 
 
 ' Now, I traverse that. The world has not made 
 better leaders of men than some who came from 
 Ireland, or better followers of leaders, either. 
 Look at the English army. Mostly Irish — God 
 forgive them all ! Look at Uncle Sam's army. 
 Irish, when not German or nigger. Your money- 
 making, selfish, prosaic, common- sense, constitu- 
 tional, unemotional prig of a Sassenach has a 
 wonderful talent for getting the Celts to do all the 
 
14 TREASON-FELONY 
 
 iigliting for him, and then g^o^Yhng over the ex- 
 pense. All that good material and energy wasted 
 •on England and America ! My boy, if it was 
 properly applied and directed, Ireland would not 
 only be free and independent, but would be a 
 first-class European Power, which Continental 
 nations would respect and appreciate, instead of 
 hating and ridiculing, as they do old Pounds and 
 Pence and Piety, which would then assume its 
 proper and suitable position, which is about that 
 of Holland.' 
 
 ' This is very entertaining, Pat, but a bit 
 parenthetic. If there is a point whatever, 
 wouldn't it be well to come to it ?' 
 
 * Dry up, Pat,' said Captain Doherty, removing 
 his cigar and spitting cleverly into the brass cus^^idor. 
 ' Mac doesn't want to hear you rave about Ireland's 
 potential splendour, but how we're to start getting 
 
THREE GENTLEMEN ADVENTURERS 15 
 
 instalments of it. It is the fact that I've been to 
 Ireland certainly, and got away again without any 
 particular trouble. As Pat Yane says, the usual 
 things were going on, and likely to lead to the 
 usual arrests, trials, jury-packings. Coercion Acts, 
 and rewards for peelers, spies and informers, pay- 
 able in the form of rates and taxes by the popula- 
 tion, or the de-population. What I want to get 
 up is something that won't end in a fizzle. You 
 know me, Mac : when we first met among Garibaldi's 
 red shirts, I was just on the skip from my first 
 go-in at the British Empire, and had acquired 
 some elementary ideas of military matters on the 
 Potomac, and in the neighbourhood of Ptichmond. 
 But I've learned a lot since then. I've seen modern 
 European tactics, with long-range weapons around 
 Orleans, under Aurelle de Paladine, and, later, with 
 the Carlistas, as well as over here, as you know, 
 
i6 TREA SON-FELOXY 
 
 and I'm not likely to believe in casual " risings " of 
 dunderlieaded mobs. You will allow that I know 
 what I'm talking about. And I don't undervalue 
 English troops. I saw' too much of them -not so 
 long ago, on the trail for Candahar, to do that. 
 Though, to be sure, their leader was Irish, and 
 the best of the' troops Scotch and Irish, in that 
 particular crowd.' 
 
 * Were you there, too, ye daft old ruffian ?' 
 
 ' Only came from there a few months ago. I 
 was corresponding for the Chicago Sunhursf, if any- 
 body happened to spot me, and had credentials to 
 that effect on my person.' 
 
 ' You've the cheek of Niel O'Hea,' observed 
 Yane. 
 
 * ^^^3at did he do, Pat ?' asked Macgregor. 
 
 * When they let him out, after he'd done his time 
 for T. F., he offered to bet the governor that hell 
 
THREE GENTLEMEN ADVENTURERS 17 
 
 was pleasanter than Portland, and proposed to toss 
 up which should go and see.' 
 
 * Well, Doherty, man, proceed with your plan.' 
 ' To begin with, Ireland's the wrong place to 
 work in. Too many peelers and uniforms about, 
 making a living out of second-hand two-cent plots, 
 and explosions in drainpipes and canned-meat tins, 
 I want a headquarters in a quiet place which will 
 be quite free from suspicion, and, at the same time, 
 within easy reach of Ireland. I want a lonely 
 country house, standing in its own grounds, 
 haunted for choice, with access to the sea, and 
 some miles from a railway-station. I rather calcu- 
 late a yacht would come in handy, too. Some- 
 where in the South-west of England, where no one 
 but tourists, invalids, and artists would want to 
 come, either in the Bristol Channel or the other. 
 Vane's got the place in his eye. I know little or 
 
 VOL. I. 2 
 
jS TREASON-FELONY 
 
 nothing psrsonally about England as a placa 
 to live in, having never lived there. Now, the 
 strategical advantages of this are, privacy; acsas- 
 sibility in one way, viz., by water ; inaccessibility 
 by rail — I mean that there would be plenty of time 
 to dig out if necessary, in case of alarm — and 
 above all, absence of suspicion. Then we would 
 have over small batches of suitable and proper 
 young men, each to spend a certain time in being 
 taught his duties properly — for instance, we could 
 do skeleton drill, extended order, and attack forma- 
 tion in the grounds — and when they were done 
 with, we'd send 'em home, and get over another 
 lot. They should have lectures on tactics, with 
 illustrations from the lecturer's experiences, from 
 recent history, and from a Kricg-spiel we'd get 
 up with a sand-relief map. You can vary the 
 country as much as you like with a sand model, 
 
THREE GEXTLEMEN ADVENTURERS 19 
 
 and a drop or two of water to bind it. Then we'd 
 hold examinations, and qualify them accordingly, 
 as non - commissioned officers or as company 
 <)fficers, as the case might be. It would be a 
 regular Staff College. Might even let the neigh- 
 bours know we took pupils, but perhaps better 
 not. We'd have departments — one to be com- 
 mandant, one to take field and permanent w^orks, 
 .one tactics, another drill and manoeuvre, and 
 .30 on.' 
 
 ' This will cost many shekels, my friend.' 
 ' There's lots of funds collecting in the United 
 States which are being forwarded to Hefiernan in 
 Paris. If he finds Paris too full of wasps to hold 
 him, he'll go to Amsterdam. And I've placed the 
 right men in different parts of Ireland to select the 
 boys, and send them over to the Staff College to be 
 ground into something more useful than faction- 
 
20 TREA SOX-FELONY 
 
 leaders and football-players. Besides, Yane and I 
 stand to win a fair lot of loot in tliis business we're 
 in now, and we'll devote that to it, of course.' 
 
 ' Oh, it's great ! Mac, 3'ou ought to be in it, 
 for the sake of old times. Besides, we'll make 
 you a General of Division when the great sunburst 
 comes.' 
 
 ' Easy now. Mac is no Englishman or informer, 
 but, at the same time, we have no right to ask 
 him to put his head in the lion's mouth, for that's 
 what it comes to (referring, of course, to the lion 
 usually found in association with a unicorn). Still, 
 he knows how welcome he would be if he saw his 
 way to give his services to Ireland.' 
 
 Macgregor replied : 
 
 ' I'm in the habit of selling my sword to anyone 
 with whom I can honourably sympathize, provided 
 I am properly paid for it. Being by family and 
 
THREE GENTLEMEN ADVENTURERS 21 
 
 hj conviction of Legitimist views, I fought for Don 
 Carlos at a reduction, and hold from his Majesty, 
 the lawful King of France and Spain, the rank of 
 €aptain-General in consequence. Being descended 
 from outlawed, murdered, and persecuted Jacobite 
 ancestors, I have no special prejudice in favour of 
 the Hanoverian monarchy. Moreover, I am suffi- 
 ciently acquainted with the history of the relations 
 between England and Ireland to have no con- 
 scientious objection to the latter levying w^ar on 
 the former, though I may perceive practical diffi- 
 culties in the way of bringing such war to a 
 successful issue. Finally, and very briefly, as the 
 Presbyterian ministers say, is a salary attached 
 to your Staff College ? And, in conclusion, what 
 might it be expected to amount to in law^ful 
 currency ?' 
 
 Doherty rose silently, and held out his hand to 
 
^T TREASON-FELOXY 
 
 Macgregor, and shook it with the hearty and 
 solemn wrench of an American deputation. 
 
 Then Yane said : 
 
 'You're a long-winded old fraud, Mac, with a 
 bonnet full of bees and a head full of maggots, 
 but you've got the sand. I knew you wouldn't 
 leave us two to do any fun alone by ourselves. Us. 
 three against creation.' 
 
 And Yane drained his glass. 
 
 'Anyway,' said Doherty, 'it's us three against 
 the British Empire, and that's something to work 
 our teeth on. 'We can give our attention to cor- 
 recting the flaws of creation afterwards, if we have 
 sufficient leisure.' 
 
 ' Now I'll give 3'ou a song,' said Yane. 
 
 I. 
 
 ' " There is a land across the sea 
 
 That dreams of days when it was free,, 
 
THREE GENTLEMEN ADVENTURERS 
 
 "Where mighty heroes wei^e of old, 
 And mmstrels sang to harps of gold ; 
 "Where maidens grew, all pure and fair — 
 One day we'll raise a kingdom there." 
 
 Chorus, boys : 
 
 ' " Then think again of Ireland, 
 
 And drink again to Ireland ; 
 One day we'll stand, with sword in hand, 
 
 To die for dear old Ireland ! 
 
 An end wiU come of om^ long night, 
 
 The dark will make om- dawn more bright, 
 
 And we will gather back the best 
 
 Of om' sons scattered through the West ; 
 
 In our fair island in the sea 
 
 A Nation shall the nations see. 
 
 ' " Then think again of Ireland, 
 And drink again to Ireland, 
 Until the Green again is seen 
 Above the Red in Ireland." ' 
 
24 TREASON-FELONY 
 
 * Bully for you, Vane,' said Doherty. ' Have 
 you anything to say, Mac, by way of criticism 
 on my Staff College ? Your opinion is invited.' 
 
 Macgregor drew close to the table, and put his 
 elbows on it, and leaned forwards towards the two, 
 who also approached their faces with serious 
 attention, for they knew that Macgregor, though 
 given to j)edantic sarcasm, was a soldier whose 
 experience W'as great, and valour and skill un- 
 doubted. "While he is delivering his views, which 
 are perhaps a little too lengthy and too technical 
 to entertam the reader, it may be desirable to give 
 a brief outline of the career of Eonald Macgregor, 
 at present colonel on the Eldorado Staff, and com- 
 manding the military force of that State despatched 
 on board the Infierno y Tomasito. 
 
 He was born in Scotland in 1845 of a family of 
 small means and long pedigree, several members 
 
THREE GENTLEMEN ADVENTURERS 25 
 
 of which had suffered about a century before at 
 Hambee, while others, at the same time, had lost 
 their estates, and gone into exile and foreign 
 service. In 1864, while a student at Glasgow, he 
 got into trouble with the law, and had to fly the 
 country. The nature of the trouble was more 
 discreditable to his temper and respect for the 
 Queen's peace than to his honour, for it involved 
 homicide, committed on a man who had insulted 
 a girl to whom Macgregor was at the time attached. 
 So he took refuge wdth members of his family, 
 settled for a generation or two past in Austria, and 
 obtained a commission as second-lieutenant in a 
 regiment of foot, in wiiich capacity he was honour- 
 ably defeated with Benedek in 1866. After that 
 he w^ent to Italy, and joined Garibaldi, where he 
 met Captain Mike Doherty, who not only had the 
 recent laurels of the 51st Massachusetts clinging 
 
26 TREASON-FELOXY 
 
 to liis brow, but had just been trying to organize 
 a ' good healthy rising ' in Ireland, of Avhich the 
 issue was a skirmish or two with police and 
 dragoons, a few trials and sentences and hangings, 
 and the flight over sea of Captain Doherty, after 
 hiding in the hills for a week. Yane came with 
 Doherty, but got into difficulties with his con- 
 science, as it occurred to him that he would be 
 fighting to all intents and purposes against the 
 Holy Father, so he went away and offered his 
 sword to the Pontifical Zouaves, or some such 
 body, and was not seen again by the other two till 
 they all met again (happily on the same side), a 
 few years later, fighting in white hcrets for Don 
 Carlos. In that war Macgregor was wounded for 
 the first time, at Cartagena. Afterwards he went 
 on the stafi' of General Tchernayeff in the Servian 
 War, while Doherty and Yane were engaged in 
 
THREE GENTLEMEN ADVENTURERS 27 
 
 different South American ' shindies,' where they 
 picked up some nautical experience, both having 
 teen at all times fairly at home on the sea, and 
 made themselves useful sometimes on land and 
 sometimes on ^Yater. 
 
 This brings us down to the time where our story 
 opens, when the three world-wandering adventurers 
 found themselves once more together for a common 
 purpose, and able to talk over old times with 
 tobacco and grog in the quiet intervals. 
 
 Before they had done conferring in the cabin, 
 information was brought that the town of San 
 Jose del Estercolero was in sight, but no ship of 
 war. Wherefore the three officers ran up on deck, 
 and orders were given to prepare for action, while 
 Colonel Macgregor paraded and inspected his 
 soldiers, saw^ forty rounds served out to each, and 
 looked after the water-bottles. The sailors were 
 
28 TREA SON-FELONY 
 
 in the meantime told off to the two long 4*7-inch 
 quick-firers and the machine -gmis. Oh yes! 
 Eldorado liked to have everything modern, scien- 
 tific, and expensive, you may be sure. 
 
 And the ship drew nearer to the shore, and the 
 town of San Jose lay before them in the clear 
 summer air, white and glittering like a towai 
 made of lump sugar, with an ornate tow^er or two 
 rising here and there above the general level. 
 Behind the town rose sloping hills, on the sides of 
 which white quasi-classical quiiitas began to be 
 visible, scattered among orange and lemon trees, 
 aloes, and prickly pear. On getting near enough, 
 there were distinguishable, not far from the shore, 
 in front of the white, flat-roofed town, with its 
 towers of the cathedral, Bolsa de Comercio, and 
 pillar of La Libertad, and all the rest of it, some 
 low, brown heaped-up lines of extemporized earth- 
 
THREE GEXTLEMEX ADVENTURERS 29 
 
 works, on which was flying the glorious standard 
 of the Guano Free States, whose device was a 
 brown triangular mixen i^oper, with a setting 
 sun behind it, on a field, striped, vert and argent. 
 Doherty, looking through his glass, said : 
 
 ' They'll be hurting somebody, if they don't take 
 care. They've got some guns mounted there. 
 They've got a bit of railroad embankment and 
 erected platforms behind it, I take it. Luckily it's 
 easy landing here, and no particular surf to speak 
 of, I find. Yane, signal to 'em to haul down that 
 old rag, or we'll come and do it for them.' 
 
 At that moment there came from the brown line 
 of earthwork on the land a sudden orange flame, a 
 puff of dense white smoke, a noise like a distant 
 train snorting in the air, a loud bang, and then 
 arose a white fountain or two in the water. 
 
 ' Short ! Xow half-speed astern a bit, to puzzle 
 
30 TREASON-FELONY 
 
 tlieir range-finder. Get La Santissima Madre 
 loaded with a contact-shell and trained on that 
 work.' 
 
 The crew had given this name to one of the 
 two guns the ship carried, without any intention of 
 profanity, rather of affection and respect. The 
 battery on shore repeated its performance, result- 
 ing in more fountains in the blue waters of the 
 wide Bay of Estercolero. 
 
 Then the gun known among the men as the 
 Santissima Madre was let off with a deafening 
 bang, followed by a lesser bang on shore, and a 
 disintegration of the earthwork was visible w^hen 
 the smoke cleared. The crew yelled at this and 
 leaped about. Meanwhile, the Infierno y Tomasito 
 went ahead again, approaching the shore more 
 closely, so that the machine-guns could be used 
 with effect, to the great delight of the crowd of 
 
THREE GEXTLEMEN ADVENTURERS 31 
 
 frolicsome desperadoes flattered by the name of 
 ship's company, ^Yho looked on machine-gmis as 
 new and diverting toys, and very soon there was a 
 continuous ' H — r — r — ong ! H — r — r — ong!' from 
 the Nordenfeldts, and ' Ft ! Spat — spat — spat !' 
 from the Gardners, punctuated at intervals by the 
 thundering explosion of the Santissima Madre and 
 her fellow the San Miguel (so called in compliment 
 to Captain Doherty) ; in short, as 'Teniente Pat 
 Yane said, ' There was as noisy an old Donnybrook 
 as a gentleman could wish for.' 
 
 In the meantime, the two field-pieces on shore 
 had begun to get a little more ' on the target,' and 
 a shell arrived on board which sent a Nordenfeldt 
 into smithereens, exploded the hopper, and killed 
 or wounded half a dozen men. 
 
 * Ah now,' said Captain Doherty, ' we'll go and 
 give 'em hell for that ! Give 'em Mary and 
 
32 TREASON-FELONY 
 
 Mike till you dismount one of their guns, and then 
 we'll land !' 
 
 It was done. Boats approached the shore, 
 covered by the ship's fire, crammed with seamen 
 and soldiers ; the former commanded by Vane, 
 the latter by Macgregor. When they landed, the 
 ship had to cease firing, for fear of hitting her own 
 men, as they advanced in extended order across the 
 flat ground between the beach and the ruinous 
 mounds which had been earthworks, and the de- 
 fenders concentrated the fire of their small arms 
 on the invaders. The latter, in spite of losses, 
 advanced slowly, and fired, certainly not in orderly 
 section volleys, but in a continuous rattling ScJineU- 
 feucr, which perhaps did not do much execution, 
 but established an encouraging shield of smoke 
 between them and their adversaries. Whenever 
 they lapsed or faltered, the high trumpeting voice 
 
THREE GENTLEMEN ADVENTURERS 33 
 
 of Macgregor was heard by those near him calling 
 in Caledonian Spanish : ' Sobre el enemigo ! . 
 Yolver a la carga !' Then, when they got near 
 enough for the final rush, Macgregor went in front, 
 as calmly as if on a field-day, drew his sword, and 
 commanded : 
 
 'Bayonetas encaladas !' 
 
 Vane did likewise, but with greater excitement, 
 adding : 
 
 * And go m and kill the beggars ! God save 
 Ireland (I mean Eldorado) ! Hurroo !' 
 
 And a wild noise arose, in which the different 
 yells and shouts peculiar to Spaniard, negro, 
 mestizo. Irishman, Italian, and Scotchman com- 
 bined in one infernal crescendo, as they * rushed ' 
 the position ; and after a bayonet engagement of a 
 few mmutes, the troops on the other side were bolt- 
 ing for life, while a reserve boat-load of men had 
 
 VOL. I. 3 
 
34 TREASON-FELONY 
 
 doubled up, dragging a Nordenfeklt with them, 
 which they ran round for ' action front,' and 
 pumped frantically at the retreating foe at the 
 rate of 500 rounds a minute, most of which went 
 over the enemy's head and broke windows and 
 knocked spots out of walls. 
 
 Yane and Macgregor met on the inside of the 
 captured entrenchment, the former wiping the 
 sweat from his face with his fingers, so as to pro- 
 duce pleasing striations of red and black on his 
 skin, the red being where he smeared off the gun- 
 powder and the black where he left it. Being 
 qoiite unaware of this, he remarked : 
 
 ' Well, Mac, you only want a pair of bones to set 
 you up as a nigger.' 
 
 ' 'M,' grunted Macgregor, ' uoii only want to be 
 in the place you've escaped as yet, to qualify as a 
 first-class copper-sheathed devil. Here's Sergeant 
 
THREE GENTLEMEN ADVENTURERS 35 
 
 Lse telling me just now that you made him think 
 of Pooro Beng.' 
 
 * Oh, get away out of that ! Who's got a drink 
 about him ?' 
 
 ' Where's your water-bottle ?' 
 
 * Here's the bottom of it, hanging upside down 
 to the sling. One of those swine put a bullet 
 through the rest of it.' 
 
 . 'Hurt you?' 
 
 'No.' 
 
 ' Well, here's my bottle.' 
 
 Vane came near Macgregor and got into the 
 rather awkward position required for drinking out 
 of another man's slung water-bottle, sucked greedily 
 at it for awhile, choked, s^^at, and said : 
 
 * What pig- wash have you got in it at all ?' 
 
 * Well, I couldn't get any oatmeal, so I put in 
 some crushed maize and water, with just a handful 
 
36 TREASON-FELONY 
 
 of tea-leaves. I don't fight on whisky in a cHmate 
 the like of this.' 
 
 ' And you a Scotchman, too ! Ought to be 
 ashamed of yourself ! What's the next move ?' 
 
 ' Seize the telegraph and Banco Nacional. I've 
 sent on Captain Urquiza to do it, also to get what 
 vehicles they require, and transport the — er — 
 ransom and so forth down to the boats.' 
 
 *My boys are gone to restore order in the 
 town.' 
 
 'Ay? Just that. To restore order in the town. 
 Yes ; they would do that.' 
 
 * Maybe they'll be collecting a few subscriptions 
 for charitable purposes, and havin' a little rest and 
 refreshments. They're tired, poor boys ! and 
 they've done very well.' 
 
 ' And a good many knocked over, too, God rest 
 their souls 1 Well, they've done well, as you say.' 
 
THREE GENTLEMEN ADVENTURERS 37 
 
 * Oh, they're the boys that fear no noise ! And 
 they're makmg it, too,' he added meditatively, as 
 sounds reached them from the town suggesting 
 something between a Cork election and escaped 
 pigs at a fair, interspersed with a shot or two at 
 intervals. 
 
 ' Come along, Yane !' said Macgregor ; ' we must 
 take a walk through the town. They'll be setting 
 something on fire, or getting into some mischief, 
 if we don't look after them. Hullo !' 
 
 A gun was fired from the ship, and Captain 
 X)oherty signalled : 
 
 ' Good boys ! Make them hurry down with the 
 stuff, and tell them not to get too drunk.' 
 
 * Just that,' said Macgregor; 'come away. 
 Sergeant Lee, have you any ammunition ?' 
 
 Uvekker, Kya.'* 
 
 * Gipsy = ' No, sir.' 
 
38 TREA SOX-FELONY 
 
 * Then collect thirty rounds or so out of these 
 dead fellows' pouches, and take 3'Our rifle and come- 
 along with us.' 
 
 Sergeant Lee was a tall, miy, rather handsome 
 man of about forty, an obvious gipsy, though 
 garbed in the uniform of Eldorado^ and disguised 
 in gunpowder like the rest. 
 
 The two officers walked away, the buttons of 
 their revolver-cases ready undone, in case of need, 
 and Sergeant Lee followed them, with his bayonet 
 fixed and arm sloped. After crossing some dusty 
 waste ground, over which were scattered cut blocks 
 of stone, pieces of decayed boiler sheeting, casks, 
 one or two railway wheels and a pile of sleepers, 
 and the miscellaneous debris usually found in the 
 neighbourhood of wharves, as well as a few corpses, 
 they got into a street which led into a larger 
 street, the Calle 26 Julio; in fact, a boulevard. 
 
THREE GENTLEMEN ADVENTURERS 39 
 
 ^Yitll wide sidewalks shaded by rows of bitter- 
 orange trees, on which on ordinary occasions the 
 inhabitants used to loiter and flaner, and examine 
 the shop-windows under their gaily-coloured awn- 
 ings. The Calle 26 Julio, like most modern streets 
 in South American towns (and elsewhere), was 
 straight as a lesson in perspective, and its straight- 
 ness emphasized by a double tram-line along the 
 middle. And here the trams, a few hours before, 
 had jingled merrily up and down, while the butter- 
 carriers and Basque milk-vendors rode about de- 
 livering their produce with melodious calls ; and 
 the voice was heard of those who haw^ked white 
 and glittering tinw^are, also, of course, on horse- 
 back, to the time of ' Tach-uelas !' Everything here 
 is done on horseback : the newspaper is delivered 
 by a man on a horse, the priest goes on a horse to 
 Mass and to take the Yiaticum to the dying. Even 
 
40 TREASON-FELONY 
 
 the dead are sometimes carried on their last journey 
 on a horse. 
 
 Later in the day, about sunset, the citizens 
 under ordinary circumstances would bring chairs 
 and sit outside theii* front doors reading newspapers, 
 smoking ci(jarillos, and discussing excitedly the state 
 of the lolsa, the price of gold money, and the war. 
 
 But to-day had brought the war itself rather too 
 close to them, with those accompaniments legiti- 
 mately attached to it, as well as those irregularities 
 and extravagances of conduct and discipline which 
 are occasionally met with in Central and South 
 America, where the peaceful citizen, placed by 
 fortune between the fell mcensed points of mighty 
 opposites, is likely to find himself in a singularly 
 disagreeable position. Wherefore the street was 
 empty, save for occasional bands of armed ruffians 
 who called themselves patrols, and were busy break- 
 
THREE GENTLEMEN ADVENTURERS 41 
 
 ing open the shops and pkmdermg them of any 
 portable objects of value. As these men (portions 
 of the naval and military forces of Eldorado) never 
 hesitated to put a bayonet into anyone who resisted 
 their ' collecting subscriptions,' the inhabitants shut 
 them-selves into their ixitios, or lay on the flat roof 
 out of the way of bullets, consoling themselves with 
 the reflection that they would probably hear of the 
 same thing happening before long in one of the 
 invaders' towns. 
 
 Now and then straggling groups of Guano soldiers 
 appeared and fired at the Eldorado forces, who 
 fired back ; but as no one took any particular aim, 
 and no one was particularly sober, and the ammu- 
 nition in the pouches of both parties had been 
 nearly exhausted in the attack on the works, very 
 little harm was done, except to imprudent non- 
 combatants who looked out of windows. 
 
42 TREASON-FELONY 
 
 The conduct of the Eldorado forces, both naval 
 and military, was such as would have procured 
 their incontinent suspension to trees under the 
 rules governing war as understood in Europe, at 
 any rate in these days ; but as most of the com- 
 batants were simply a horde of banditti, containing 
 the picked blackguards and riff-raff of Europe and 
 America, the native liberated criminal, the exotic 
 man who had ' done something ' which made his 
 native land uncomfortable for him, and the Indian 
 half-breed and negro, to whom a war unaccompanied 
 by barbarity and plunder was an incomprehensible 
 abstraction, it was out of the question to adopt a 
 system of humane disci^^line. You might as well 
 try to teach them the logic of Hegel, or the tonic 
 sol-fa system. Fatigue parties occasionally passed 
 bearing their wounded comrades, either on doors 
 they had pulled down or in requisitioned carts. 
 
THREE GENTLEMEN ADVENTURERS 43 
 
 ' They seem to be enjoying themselves fah^ly 
 well/ observed Colonel Macgregor ; ' but there'll 
 just be the devil's own job getting them all on 
 board again.' 
 
 ' Indeed there will ; but Mike Doherty's not the 
 boy to spoil their diversions unless he's obliged. 
 For instance, if the Almininte McCartJii/ turned 
 up on the horizon, there'd be a tidy old scatter 
 down to the boats. But failing any reason for the 
 contrar}^ he'll let 'em stay ashore for a reasonable 
 time — long enough to sleep themselves sober, any 
 way. There's a pump, glory be to God ! Mac, I'll 
 toss you for first.' 
 
 And he span a ten-cent nickel of the United 
 States of Eldorado. 
 
 'Eagle.' 
 
 ' Then it's stars.' 
 
 And Yane took off his sword and revolver and 
 
44 TREA SON -FELONY 
 
 his green naval coat with brass buttons, displayed 
 himself in a gray flannel shirt, with a linen collar 
 and front, which he also removed and placed on 
 the pavement beside Sergeant Lee, and proceeded 
 to put his head and neck under the spout of the 
 pump, while Macgregor worked the handle. 
 
 *Lord, that's good!' at last he exclaimed, stand- 
 ing up and wringing the water off his arms and 
 head. 
 
 ' Go on, Mac ; it'll dry me to pump on you.' 
 
 Macgregor doffed his martial array, and went 
 through a similar performance. 
 
 When they were dry and dressed again, they 
 looked quite gentlemanly. 
 
 ' Now,' said Macgregor, ' let's go and find a 
 fonda, or somewhere w^here w^e can have about two 
 quarts of wine. Here's a big square — Plaza della 
 Independencia. Of course it would be ! There 
 
THREE GENTLEMEN ADVENTURERS 45 
 
 ought to be a good place here, even if Lee has to 
 break open the cellar. We might fish out some- 
 one, and make him show us where the things 
 are.' 
 
 * Mac, there's a big church, and the doors are 
 open.' 
 
 * Pat, we'll go in. It's a long while since you 
 and I heard Mass last, and drinks will taste better 
 after it.' 
 
 * They will. Come along.' 
 
 And these two reckless adventurers, who hoped 
 to pocket a large amount of what they euphemisti- 
 cally called the ' ransom ' of San Jose — these two 
 leaders of a band of unscrupulous pirates, in the 
 garb of an 'army' and 'navy,' whose ships, arms, 
 and coals were paid for with stolen money — these 
 two disciplinarians, who calmly strolled, and 
 smoked, and washed while the ruffians under their 
 
46 TREA SON-FELONY 
 
 command were plmidering the town and spilling 
 wine in the gutters, walked into the cathedral of 
 San Jose, bent the knee duly towards the altar, 
 and then knelt, with bent heads, and their caps in 
 their hands, their swords trailing behind them, on 
 the hard, dirty stone floor, among a crowd of rock- 
 ing, sobbing, terrified women, while the priests 
 and choir went through their office with as much 
 calmness and concentration as if an enemy were 
 not in possession of the town. It is true that the 
 cathedral was a safe refuge. There v/ere but very 
 . few of the invaders who would dare commit 
 sacrilege, and if they had wished to do so, their 
 comrades would have restrained them. Inconsis- 
 tency at times takes curious forms. 
 
 The dim light, the scented air, the cool tempera- 
 ture, and the resonant melodious voices, all com- 
 bined to produce a wonderful contrast to the scenes 
 
THREE GEXTLEMEN ADVENTURERS 47 
 
 of heat, noise, violence, dirt, bloodshed, and blazing 
 sunshine they had lately been figuring in; and 
 Macgregor and Vane felt subdued and soothed, 
 and remembered the days when they had studied 
 humane letters, and were almost shaping resolu- 
 tions to become decent and peaceable members of 
 society, when the service came to an end, and they 
 were allowed to pass out first by the shuddering 
 crowd, who drew back from them as from 
 dangerous animals, and muttered to one another, 
 and pointed at los cnemigos. They dipped their 
 fingers duly in the holy, but very dirty, water, 
 crossed themselves, and walked again into the 
 sunlit square, whei"e they found Sergeant Lee (who 
 was a heretic) doing sentry outside the porch of 
 the cathedral. The Plaza della Independencia is a 
 large square, with an elaborate marble fountain in 
 the middle, three tiers high, marble benches at 
 
48 TREA SON -FELON Y 
 
 intervals under the trees, large stately houses 
 with ornate balustrades round their flat roofs, and 
 an air of some prosperity and taste, though, of 
 course, the real wealth or beauty of such dwellings 
 could only be judged by a visit to the inside. 
 These houses are usually plain flat blocks outside, 
 but when you have penetrated to the ^^af/o un- 
 expected visions of comfort, elegance, even opulence, 
 often meet your eye. In this square some of the 
 richest inhabitants of San Jose have dwellings 
 (though the country quintet on the hillside beyond 
 the town is preferred by most), and in this 
 square was an institution known as the English 
 Club, where a few unmistakable Britons were 
 grouped in basket-chairs under an awning, takmg 
 brandy-and-soda with their usual indifference to 
 the climate or habits of a foreign land, and, it may 
 be added, their usual indifference to whether the 
 
THREE GENTLEMEN ADJ'ENTURERS 49 
 
 €01111117 was at war or not, or, if so, with whom. 
 If their houses or property were molested, they 
 intimated that an appHcation to the British Consul 
 would ensue, resulting in gunboats and un- 
 pleasantness. They had nothing to do with Guano 
 politics; all they wanted was to make money, 
 wear flannel trousers, drink brandy-and-soda, and 
 go to the Anglican service at eleven on Sundays, 
 tind the affairs of the natives (who were, after all, 
 in their own country, where they must be conceded 
 a right to exist) were wholly irrelevant. 
 
 Some of the English omitted to make the money, 
 •and some omitted to frequent the Anglican service, 
 but they were unanimous about the brandy- and- 
 •soda. When one of them had ' landed a good thing,' 
 he made it champagne, and invited the rest. 
 
 ' What a lot of infernal thieves and sweeps they 
 all are!' observed Mullins, referring generally to 
 
 VOL. I. tt 
 
50 TREA SON-FELONY 
 
 the statesmen, financiers, and citizens at large of 
 the Guano Free States. Mullins had bribed a. 
 Cabinet Minister a httle higher than Porter had,, 
 and so got a contract for dock, harbour, and 
 granary "works, from "\;\-hich pretty pickings were 
 pickable, so much so that Mulhns was building 
 a quinia, and owned the most expensive china in. 
 San Jose. 
 
 'You ought to know,' said Porter, spitting lazily 
 out on the pavement. 
 
 ' Look at those two bedizened apes !' observed 
 Jack Newbury, the pet failure of the Club, wha 
 was guaranteed to waste any fortune, however 
 large, to fail in any financial undertaking, however 
 l)romising, to lose in any game of chance, to get 
 robbed in any bargain, and to come home without, 
 his watch whenever he went on the spree. ' They 're- 
 specimens of the enemy, I suppose. The tall one's 
 
THREE GENTLEMEN ADVENTURERS 51 
 
 got a lot of decorations, too. Wonder where he 
 got 'em •?' 
 
 This referred to our two friends, of whom 
 Macgregor was the one who wore some medals 
 and orders. 
 
 ' Order of the Black Beetle of Mesopotamia, 
 second class,' murmured Porter. 
 
 ' Order of the Boot,' said Newbury. 
 
 ' Stole 'em off a pawnshop, I should think,' 
 suggested Mullins, ' or a theatrical costumier's.' 
 
 At this moment a loud scream was heard from 
 the house at the adjacent corner, and a shout of 
 laughter, w^hile a piano descended from the first- 
 floor window with a terrific clang and crash on to 
 the pavement, and a middle-aged man without a 
 hat ran out at the door in the direction of the Club, 
 shouting in English : 
 
 ' Hi ! help ! These beggars are sacking my house !' 
 
 u^SlTY OR 
 iOIS LIBRARYJ 
 
52 
 
 TKEASON-FELONY 
 
 The three members of the Ckib ran out, saymg, 
 *'Why, it's Shindler !' and found themselves con- 
 fronted at the outset by Sergeant Lee with his 
 bayonet at the charge, and the two officers with 
 drawn revolvers. Shindler began an indignant 
 protest in halting Spanish, in which the words 
 'British Consul,' 'Consul Inglez,' frequently oc- 
 curred, while the other Englishmen backed him 
 np with threats of the awful vengeance which 
 must ensue to those who insulted the divinity that 
 doth hedge a British subject. 
 
 Colonel Macgregor said calmly in English : ' Now, 
 can't you tell me quietly what's the matter m 
 some language which you know how to talk ?' — 
 to the considerable astonishment of the members 
 of the Club. 
 
 Mr. Shindler explained that some men — soldiers, 
 he presumed, of the Eldorado party — had broken 
 
THREE GENTLEMEN ADVENTURERS 53 
 
 into his house and were phnidering it, and that 
 his wife and daughter were in peril and alarm — 
 both British subjects, he added, falling back again 
 into threats about the Consul. 
 Macgregor said : 
 
 * Very well, we'll clear them out. You had better 
 suggest to these friends of jovlys that the best thing 
 they can do is to go back to their brandy-and-soda 
 and not interfere. They will only make matters 
 worse by making a row.' 
 
 * That's so,' said Vane, unable to resist having a 
 dig at Great Britain; 'and mind that we don't 
 care a paper cent for the British Consul, or any 
 other potentate with a lion and unicorn stamped 
 on his ' 
 
 ' That'll do. Vane ; I'm sure these gentlemen will 
 take a hint so delicately put. Now, sir, I am 
 Colonel Macgregor, of the Staff of the United 
 
54 TREASON-FELONY 
 
 States of Eldorado, commanding the military 
 force in occupation of this town. Who are 
 you?' 
 
 * My name is Shindler — John Shindler — and I 
 have been in business here a matter of twenty 
 years, and am well known to be a ' 
 
 ' British subject, of course. Well, there's not 
 much mistake about that. Sergeant Lee, go and 
 tell the men to leave Mr. Shindler's house alone, 
 and that I say so. If they won't go, just pitch- 
 fork 'em out of window. If they will go, tell them 
 the English gentlemen at the Club will stand them 
 grog and a dollar apiece all round.' 
 
 Lee departed at the double. 
 
 ' Do you come from England, then ?' asked 
 Newbury patronizingly of Yane, who happened to 
 be next him, as they stood on the pavement out- 
 side Mr. Shindler's house. 
 
THREE GENTLEMEN ADVENTURERS 55 
 
 * Indeed I do not ! I come from a far better 
 place,' was the discouraging reply. 
 
 Shortly the three or four men who had invaded 
 the sanctity of a British subject's domicile came 
 clattering out at the front-door, fearful ruffians, 
 with faces covered with powder and blood, and dust 
 and sweat — one or two wounded, and all in a state 
 bordering on sobriety, and carrying Winchester 
 rifles. On seeing Macgregor, they came to atten- 
 tion and ordered their arms. The three English- 
 men, whom Mr. Shindler insisted joining in the 
 expense, sent the Club nigger out to them with 
 drinks and dollars on a tray, and the men bowed 
 and smiled with theatrical grace to the sullen and 
 awkward-looking Mullins, Porter, and Newbury, 
 and the scared but relieved Shindler, and amity 
 w^as restored. 
 
 Mr. Shindler thanked Colonel Macgregor pro- 
 
56 TREASON-FELONY 
 
 fusely for coming so readily to his relief, and 
 asked if he and his brother-officer would come ini 
 and take breakfast, which they were about to have 
 when the unseemly interruption of marauding, 
 soldiery occurred. Macgregor and Yane accepted 
 with a politeness in which distant courtesy was- 
 intended to hide the famished eagerness of their 
 acceptance. Macgregor, however, was too old a 
 soldier to walk into a possible trap with his eyes- 
 shut, so said privily to Sergeant Lee :. 
 
 ' Is it all right inside there ?' 
 
 * Auvo, Eya ;* there's only some black chavvies ■^ 
 and a j^ooro chovilianil whooping on her knees, 
 before a silver idol, and a handsome c/r/§ cryin' oil 
 the sofy.' 
 
 ' Oh, is there ? Well, shoonta tu,\\ Lee : you take-- 
 
 '■'• ' Yes, sir.' f Children. % Old witch.. 
 
 § Girl. II Attend. 
 
THREE GENTLEMEN ADVENTURERS 57 
 
 these sons of a haulo* with jou to Captain Urquiza 
 and tell him 'Teniente Yane and myself are at this 
 house, if required.' 
 
 Lee smote his rifle with his left hand, and 
 marched off the four soldiers at a quick pace down 
 towards the Calle 26 Julio. 
 
 * Well, gentlemen, if 3'ou are ready, perhaps you 
 will come along with me,' said Mr. Shindler, lead- 
 ing the way into his j;or?e coclierc, which had a 
 marble pavement, pillars, and steps on each side, 
 and led into a wide square jx^f^'o, wholly roofed in 
 with iron trellis-work, on which were trained vines, 
 whose green leaves made a pleasant shade from 
 the sun, which grew hotter every minute as the 
 day went on. In the middle of the 2^af?o was a 
 well with a white marble mouth and iron lids 
 opening up back to back from a central hinge, and 
 '•'■ Swine. 
 
58 TREASON-FELONY 
 
 a wheel, rope and bucket. All round were orange- 
 trees in green tubs. On the right was a door, 
 through which Mr. Shindler led his guests into a 
 room, where they saw the Senora Shindler (a San 
 Jose lady, the ' old witch ' of Sergeant Lee's 
 description, whom he had seen on her knees howl- 
 ing and imprecating to a hideous little silver saint 
 in a shrine), in a white cotton jacket and petticoat, 
 now engaged in scolding at the top of her voice 
 three or four young half-breed servants of both 
 sexes, who were endeavouring to restore order from 
 chaos, and remove the traces of their late visitors. 
 A young lady was standing in the background, 
 with her hair loose and no frock on, of whom 
 our friends had but a glimpse, for both the 
 senora and her daughter fled, banging the door 
 behind them, on the appearance of the gentle- 
 men. 
 
THREE GENTLEMEN ADVENTURERS 59 
 
 'We're not frightening them, I hope?' said 
 Yane. 
 
 ' Oh dear no !' said Mr. Shindler ; ' it's only that 
 they ain't dressed. I suppose you know that ladies 
 in San Jose are never dressed till sometime near 
 sunset as a rule. And ilien, Lor' !' 
 
 Mr. Shindler was an iron-gray man, with a 
 shaven, rather crumpled-looking face, small dark 
 eyes, twinkling with something that was partly 
 shrewdness and partly good-nature. He wore a 
 pair of white calico trousers and a black cloth 
 frock-coat, and his manner and speech, though 
 civil, were a trifle vulgar. 
 
 'Well,' said he, 'let's go into the dining-room; 
 we'll hurry up the boys and girls a bit — they're 
 shocking lazy; it's something cruel!' And they 
 passed through a door opposite to that by which 
 the ladies had vanished. (All the rooms in these 
 
6o TREA SON-FELONY 
 
 houses open in and out of one another en suite.) 
 * Now, then, Carlos, Manuela ! Concepcion ! all 
 you lazy young idolaters, come and make desai/uno, 
 comida, and give me and the seiiores aguardiente, 
 tres, look alive !' 
 
 A grinning half-breed girl of fourteen brought 
 the afjuavdicntc, and Mr. Shindler said: 
 
 ' Well, here's your health, gentlemen, and you're 
 welcome ; and I'm sure we're all much obliged to 
 you for clearing out those — er — valiant warriors of 
 yours.' 
 
 * Not at all,' replied Macgregor, with a pleasant 
 smile, dropping completely the solemn and pompous 
 manner he had adopted before the English Club, 
 with their flannel trousers and brandy-and-soda 
 and ' side,' which were all red rags both to him and 
 Yane ; ' I only wish we had arrived sooner, before 
 the dirty brutes had done any damage. Here's 
 
THREE GENTLEMEN ADVENTURERS 6i 
 
 to ye, sir!' And he threw clown the glassful of 
 ardent water at a gulp, and observed : ' That's 
 good.' 
 
 ' Yerra, I wanted that !' said Yane ; ' it's made 
 another man of me.' 
 
 ' P'raps the other man '11 have another,' said Mr. 
 Shindler, twinkling benevolently, and pleased with 
 his rather ancient joke. 
 
 ' Sir,' said Yane, ' I'll answer for him — he will. 
 He is proud to make your acquaintance,' he added, 
 draining a second glass of spirits, ' and to drink 
 your health. You're not an Irishman, sir?' 
 
 ' No, I ain't. I was born in 'Olloway. And 
 some'ow, I'm out here in South America now, with 
 a tidy bit of money and a sefiora, 'n a 'ouse, in the 
 midst of the pomp and circumstance of glorious 
 war, with shells a-bustin' and shootin' and 
 plunderin' and drmmnin' and a-trumpetin', and 
 
62 TREASON-FELONY 
 
 everything to make yer feel 'appy as a bank- 
 ' olid ay.' 
 
 The two officers put their swords and caps in a 
 corner and sat down at their host's invitation, 
 Avhile the servants brought in the breakfast. 
 
 ' Been in this country long ?' asked Mr. Shindler 
 of Macgregor. * I mean, in any of 'em ? I count 
 Eldorado and Guano and Piguador and the rest as 
 all the same sort of thing, with no offence to you.' 
 
 ' Mercy, no ! We would be as happy to lend our 
 swords to one State as to the other, but w^e are 
 bound in honour to the one with which we have 
 contracted. In answer to your question, both Yane, 
 m^^self, and Captain Doherty, of our ship, entered 
 the service of the Estados Unidos of Eldorado at 
 the outbreak of the present war. We were all 
 acquainted with Spanish, and had some previous 
 experience of soldiering, in various ways ; and we 
 
THREE GENTLEMEN ADVENTURERS 63 
 
 all started with the treasure-chest nearly empty, 
 but we are reformmg that indifferently now — aren't 
 we, Pat ?' 
 
 ' We are indeed. Ah, sir, you ought to ask 
 Colonel Macgregor to tell you some of his adven- 
 tures ! He's been through more in fifteen years 
 than many a British Field-Marshal has in fifty.' 
 
 ' Oh, we'll get him to talk after breakfast, I 
 hope !' 
 
 *I shall be glad to give an account of myself,' 
 said Macgregor. ' Not that I've anything to boast 
 of, but because I think a Highland gentleman 
 ought to say who he is and where he comes from, 
 so that any society he may be in may know that 
 
 they are not entertaining a d d snob or thief, 
 
 or person of no kin.' 
 
 * So you're a Scotchman, are you ? I thought 
 so.' 
 
64 TREA SON-FELONY 
 
 ' SiTiT ! I am a Highlander, who is not the same 
 thmg as what you call a Scotchman. Glasgow 
 tradesmen and EdmUirgh writers are Scotchmen, 
 and there are Scotch gentlemen in the Lothians 
 and towards the Border, no doubt. I would not 
 say that there are not.' 
 
 'But,' said Yane, 'the old original inhabitants 
 of Scotland, who were there before the Piomans or 
 the English, or anyone else excepli the hills and 
 the water, came from Ireland. And that's the 
 crowd Colonel Macgregor belongs to. I'm a Sligo 
 man meself.' 
 
 ' I see,' said Mr. Shindler, thinking to himself : 
 ' Touchy beggars, gassing about their blessed an- 
 cestry and all ! Mustn't offend them, especially as 
 they're in command of two or three hundred thieves 
 with repeating rifles.' 
 
 ' Ah !' he said aloud, ' here are the ladies.' 
 
THREE GENTLEMEN ADVENTURERS 6; 
 
 ' The two officers sprang to their feet, as the 
 Seiiora Shmdler (born of the distinguished family 
 of Ximio y Pelagatos) and her daughter entered. 
 The ladies curtseyed, and the gentlemen bowed 
 deeply. 
 
 Mrs. Shmdler (to be more prosaic) was a fat 
 woman whose beauty had left her some ten or 
 fifteen years ago, though she was not old as far as 
 actual time reckons age, and she was firmly per- 
 suaded that she was quite beautiful still, and did 
 everything in her power to propagate that illusion. 
 But she required much preparation before en- 
 countering publicity, and little Concepcion and 
 Carlos had far from agreeable quarters and halves 
 of hours ministering to the necessities of her toilet, 
 as Mrs. Shindler had a habit of flying into shriek- 
 ing tempers and whacking her attendants on the 
 head with a hair-brush or boot or anything con- 
 
 VOL. I. 5 
 
66 TREA SON-FELONY 
 
 venient when the face she watched in the mh-ror 
 failed to produce the perfect iUusion, even on her- 
 self, which she expected others to find in it. 
 Nevertheless, though usually unkempt and in un- 
 tidy wrappers all day, until after the afternoon 
 sleej), the presence of two gentlemen — two officers 
 (it did not the least matter whether they were 
 the enemy or not ; they were in any case men, and 
 would admire her) — on this particular day, had 
 actually stimulated her into getting dressed by 
 about twelve, when the breakfast was served, nearly 
 an hour later than its usual time. Her waist was 
 compressed (' squashed in,' old John Shindler 
 called it ; but he was not a refined stylist) as much 
 as anything short of hydraulic pressure could com- 
 press it ; her face and hands had been washed — ■ 
 really washed — with soap and water, and beauti- 
 fully coloured; her hair was done with all the 
 
THREE GENTLEMEN ADVENTURERS 67 
 
 elaboration the fashion allowed, and was of a 
 glossy black like the surface of hard coal, and had 
 a yellow rose in it on one side ; her nails were 
 highly polished, and dyed deep pink; her dress 
 was in the latest European fashion, though more 
 gay in colouring, as is usual in this warm land, 
 where the very birds dress in gorgeous colours. 
 She was not ridiculously fat or ugly, not at all. 
 She was an originally charmmg woman on whom 
 time had rapidly told, as is usual with her race 
 and climate. It need hardly be added that she 
 was ignorant as dirt, superstitious, lazy, passionate- 
 tempered, and deadly jealous of her daughter, who 
 was in all the mature beauty of nineteen. 
 
 Miss Shindler was a slender girl of about five 
 feet one, with a perfect figure — a kind of dark- 
 haired beauty, which in some manner suggested 
 a feline element — eyes half shy, half sly, hands 
 
68 TREASON-FELONY 
 
 and feet which were a perpetual clehght (and she 
 kne^Y it), and a lithe facility of movement which 
 again shadowed forth the cat-idea. Her eyes were 
 a fine amber brown, and there was just the faintest 
 black shadowing of down at the corners of her 
 mouth, fading towards the middle of the upper lip. 
 She was dressed in black and yellow lace, and wore 
 little scarlet flowers in each ear instead of earrings. 
 Her complexion was rich and delicate, rose and 
 tawny, and her whole seductive person was michinfi 
 mallccho — it meant mischief. 
 
 There are grades as well as styles of beauty in 
 womankind, which may be classified as rising from 
 the woman who is said to sometimes look ' rather 
 pretty ' in a favourable costume and light, and at 
 a certain distance, the lower limit, to the indis- 
 putable, victorious loveliness which compels ac- 
 knowledgment, in any costume, in any light, in 
 
THREE GENTLEMEN ADVENTURERS 69 
 
 any attitude, or under any external variation what- 
 ever, the higher hmit. Miss or Senorita Mary 
 Carmen Juanita Josefina Shindler belonged, if not 
 to that last supreme class, to one approximate to 
 it. Cressida was not Helen, though Troilus, the 
 guileless young gentleman, as well as Agamemnon, 
 the experienced man -leader and war-lord, and 
 Diomedes, the bold wooer, found much to admire 
 in her, as well as Menelaus (who, by the way, was 
 in the best position to make comparisons between 
 her and Helen), - 
 
 The worst thing that Miss Shindler' s mother in 
 her worst temper could say of her daughter was 
 that she had a face fit to put on the lid of a 
 chocolate-box. 
 
 And they sat down to puchero. 
 
 A peculiarity of Miss Shindler was that, though 
 .-speaking Spanish like her mother — that is, in the 
 
70- TREA SOX-FELOXY 
 
 way those who may be called the upper classes 
 spoke it — she spoke English like her father, pro- 
 nouncing it with a curious foreign caricature of his 
 Cockney accent, arbitrary grammar, and sometimes 
 unrefined expressions. She had very few English- 
 men to speak to in San Jose society, and they, too, 
 were often slangy and vulgar, so that she had no 
 steady and permanent standard to compare with 
 and regulate by except her father. She soon 
 noticed, of course, that Macgregor and Yane spoke 
 differently, but put it down to variety in dialect ^ 
 such as usually obtains in the different ethno- 
 graphical divisions of any large State, in which she 
 was, of course, partially right. The Senora spoke 
 broken English only. 
 
 ' Sehor Coronel,' said the young lady, * you 
 keeked up an 'orrible row this morning. It put 
 me off my sleep, something c — r — uel.' 
 
THREE GENTLEMEN ADVENTURERS yi 
 
 ' I am sure I regret it, sefiorita, but I am afraid 
 you began. All we required was a contribution, 
 which we would willingly have just accepted peace- 
 ably, when your brave forces opened fire on us.' 
 
 ' Oh, don't mix me op with that lot ; I'm Eng- 
 lish!'" 
 
 ' Ye look it,' said Yane ; ' and if we'd known it 
 would prolong one of your beautiful dreams, 
 senorita, we'd have used noiseless powder.' 
 
 ' My gel don't talk English so bad for one who's 
 never been in England in her life,' said Mr. 
 Shindler ; ' but she'll have an opportunity of 
 pickin' up a bit more exper'ence soon. I've made 
 my pile, as the Yankees say, in this bloomin' coun- 
 try, and I can see it's going into bankruptcy as 
 fast as it knows how, and I'm off. We're all off, 
 mar and Mary and me, next boat. When I see 
 this war was comin' off, I reelized all my s'curities 
 
72 TREASON-FELONY 
 
 and put 'em in the bank here, so I've only got to 
 draw a cheque for the lot and post it to a London 
 bank. I shall 'ave a nice little 'ouse out 'Ampstead 
 way, and keep a trap for Mary and mar, and we'll 
 all drive over of a Sunday to the Welsh 'Arp.' 
 
 ' Aha !' said Seiiora Shindler, with an eager 
 gesture, and a sort of high nasal voice, easily 
 developing into a scolding scream or a tearful 
 whoop. * Nobeel'ty, dey go dere ? No. Aha ! 
 Yere nobeel'ty go, I go. I am daughter of 
 President of Guano ; I religious, I aristocratic. I 
 g — — — — od !' (working up to a scream). * You 
 not know how good I am. An' I marree dat mahn. 
 Ah ! bah !' and she pointed a derisive, malevolent 
 finger at the unfortunate Shindler, who, however, 
 only grinned indifferently and winked. It had in 
 the course of years vaguely dawned on his wife 
 that John Shindler was not a member of the 
 
THREE GENTLEMEN ADVENTURERS 73 
 
 highest English aristocracy, and she was not one 
 to veil her disappointments, or wrongs, or merits, 
 real or imaginary, where she thought sympathy 
 might be obtained by unveiling them. 
 
 Macgregor interposed with something approach- 
 ing tact, by saying : 
 
 * May I ask which bank you placed your pro- 
 perty in, Mr. Shindler ? Was it by any chance 
 the Banco Nacional ?' 
 
 * Yes, that's it?' 
 
 * Then it's extremely probable that it is on board 
 the lujicino at the present moment,' replied 
 Macgregor grimly, ' as every kind of available 
 security, coupon payable to bearer, convairtible 
 or inconvairtible paper, bill of exchange, cash, 
 gold or silver plate, or other valuable, found in 
 that bank was going in carts under escort down to 
 the boats from an early hour this f'r'noon.' 
 
74 TREASON-FELONY 
 
 ' No, I say, are you sure of that ?' 
 
 ' I gave the orders to have it done.' 
 
 ' Then the bank's no good ?' 
 
 ' As ?i bank, it is ineffectual by this time. But 
 it will be very useful to quarter some of the 
 men in.' 
 
 ' My prop'ty was the amount to the credit of my 
 account. The bank was bound to pay that amount 
 to my cheque on due notice, and I'd given the 
 notice. Now all the bank's assets is on board 
 your infernal gunboat, what am I to do? What 
 might 3^ou be going to do with the swag, as, in a 
 manner of speaking, you might call it now you've 
 landed it, or rather shipped it ?' 
 
 * Speaking only as an instrument under the 
 orders of higher powers, and not as one in their 
 secrets, but rather as one with a pretty consider- 
 able experience of their interesting peculiarities, I 
 
THREE GENTLEMEN ADVENTURERS 75 
 
 ^Yould deem it probable that a lai'ge proportion will 
 be divided according to rank and seniority among 
 the ship's company. That Captain Doherty will 
 hand over the balance (if any) to the Government 
 at Eldorado, and to avoid mistakes or forgetful- 
 ness on the part of that Government, will effect 
 the division of prize-mone}' furrst, and transmit 
 to the Government later.' 
 
 Mr. Shindler arose from his seat and quickly sat 
 down again, swallowed a glass of wine, and said : 
 
 ' Do 3^011 mean to tell me that yom* beastly 
 
 Government is going to quietly pocket my Oh, 
 
 I say, look here. Colonel, jou're a gentleman, you 
 are, and a good feller ! Yere am 1 with a wife and 
 child, and nothing but the 'ome we live in, and our 
 close and a few nicknacks, if I can't get my money. 
 'Go's goin' to buy my 'ouse either, times like these? 
 What am I to do ? Tell me that.' 
 
76 TREA SON-FELONY 
 
 ' Ye ask hard questions, Mr. Sliindler.' 
 
 Yane had been exchanging amiable triviaHties 
 with the mother and daughter, the former of 
 wliom hardly understood, while the latter paid no 
 attention to her father's conversation, until the 
 last sentence or two, which caught both her ear 
 and Yane's. Miss Shindler asked Yane what it 
 all meant, and he told her in English. She 
 replied to him in a low voice in the same language, 
 that they had better conceal it as long as possible 
 from her mother, who would probably have a fit 
 and 3^ell and break things. In the meantime she 
 looked at Yane, who sat alongside her, and 
 said : 
 
 ' You will make it all right, Senor 'Teniente. 
 Yes ?' 
 
 Yane looked at her, surrendered at discretion, 
 and said : 
 
THREE GENTLEMEN ADVENTURERS 77 
 
 * All right, my dear ; I'll see what I can do, you 
 may be sure. We'll work it.' 
 
 Mary Carmen Juanita Josefina pressed his hand 
 gently under the table, and looked at him ^again, 
 and poor Pat Yane felt he could sell his soul for 
 her — only, he meditated, no one would take his 
 soul at prairie value, or any other price. Well, 
 well, Mary Carmen had known pretty well how to 
 make love since she was eleven, and now she was 
 in her twentieth year, so there was not much 
 chance for a comparative neophyte like Yane, who, 
 although, of course, much older than Miss Shindler, 
 had a naturally boyish temperament, was very 
 susceptible to the seductiveness of fair femininity in 
 general, but had, among passing experiences, not 
 yet had the one experience which divides a man's 
 life into before and after he loved such an one. 
 
 But now Mary Shindler was such an one. Pat 
 
78 TREASON-FELOXY 
 
 Yane drank a mouthful of wine (he had had a 
 good many mouthfuls), and said to his comrade : 
 
 ' Mac, why shouldn't Mr. Shindler and the 
 seiiora and senorita come on board, and be taken 
 to Eldorado? They would find a ship there for 
 Europe soon, and make a claim on the Govern- 
 ment for their property. We can't say their 
 passage isn't paid, any way.' 
 
 ' I see no objection to that course, but I would 
 obsairve that making a claim on the Government 
 of Eldorado is one thing, and obtaining what you 
 claim from them is another. I am thinking that 
 it would not be an easy matter. It is not logical 
 to bribe a man with a hundred pounds to give you 
 back a thousand which he has control over. And 
 without bribes the wheels of justice grind slowly 
 in Eldorado. And if you make use of the British 
 Consul and gunboat machinery, they have to be 
 
THREE GENTLEMEN ADVENTURERS 79 
 
 convinced, in the furrst instance, that the Eldorado 
 Government reelly have possession of your pro- 
 perty, of which it would be difficult to obtain proof. 
 Oh, it would be a fairly uphill chob ! It would 
 that.' And Colonel Macgregor placidly swallowed 
 some wine, and added : ' That's good stuff, sir.' 
 
 'Then, w^hat the devil am I to do?' said Mr. 
 Shindler, driven desperate by the long, grim, 
 swarthy Highlander's deliberate observations and 
 apparent absolute indifference to what became of 
 his — John Shindler' s — property. 
 
 ' We might sacrifice the Government's share,' 
 suggested Yane, ' and hand it over to Mr. Shindler. 
 What do you say, Mac ?' 
 
 * We might. Or w^e might deduct from the 
 Government's share an amount equal to the 
 amount entrusted by Mr. Shindler to the Banco 
 Nacional. There would be a kind of equity in that.' 
 
So TREA SON-FELONY 
 
 ' Mike Dolierty's not specially disposed to go out 
 of his way to do favours for the English, it is true ; 
 but it is the State, rather than the individual, he's 
 opposed to.' 
 
 *Ay. Moreover, Mr. Shindler has suffered by 
 no fault of his own, and has been most polite 
 to us.' 
 
 *"Well, look 'ere now, gentlemen,' said Mr. 
 Shindler, with eager hope reviving ; ' I'm a man 
 who understands business, y' know, and I'll only 
 say this, that I 'ope you and the gentlemen on 
 board the Infierno won't let any reasonable little 
 commission stand in your way — say five or six — 
 or well, there, I'd go as far as seven and a 'arf on 
 the total recovered.' 
 
 ' Surr !' said Macgregor sternly, * we may take 
 our share of the spoil of war fairly won by the 
 sword ; we may keep it or, if it pleases us, we may 
 
THREE GENTLEMEN ADVENTURERS 8t 
 
 fling it into the ocean in ducks and drakes; but 
 we're not mere tradesmen.' 
 
 ' Well, I beg pardon, I'm sure ; but I thought,' 
 Shindler added with a plausible and disarming 
 grin — 'thought perhaps you might look on it as 
 ransom for turning your chaps out of this house — 
 spoil of war, as you say. Only just by way of a 
 joke, y' know.' 
 
 'That,' replied Macgregor, appeased, 'alters the 
 matter, and places it on a footing on which a 
 soldier and a gentleman can treat. Surr, in that 
 sense, I accept your tairms, and we will call it ten 
 per centum on the tottal recovered. Here's your 
 health. Beso los manos sehora y sehorita.' 
 
 And as he glanced a la derohce at Yane, some- 
 thing resembling a wink floated or flashed across 
 the dry gravity of Colonel Macgregor's counten- 
 ance. 
 
 VOL. I, 6 
 
82 TREASON-FELONY 
 
 By this time the seiiora, by eager cross-exrrmina- 
 ticn of her daughter, had arrived at a conception 
 of her own of the matter under discussion, and 
 broke out mto loud lamentation and scolding, in 
 which, as usual, her husband's shortcomings, and 
 lier own merits and ancestry, formed the theme. 
 
 * Ah ! We ruined ! Dat mahn ! Look at eem ! 
 Euh-h ! Ee bizniss mahn ? No ! Ee gentle- 
 niahn? No! Ah, vy I leaf my fammillee ? My 
 fammillee, firstest in Guano. Ximio y Pelagatos 
 cc gentlemahn ! An' you, vy you come 'ere ? 
 You say you caballeros y officiales del Eldorado. 
 No! Youtief! English tief ! Ah!' 
 Mi . Shindler said : 
 
 'Will you hold your silly jabbering tongue? 
 You know nothing at all about the matter. These 
 rcntlemen are domg their best to arrange for the 
 recovery of my property, and if it 'adn't a-bin for 
 
THREE GENTLEMEN ADVENTURERS S^ 
 
 tliem, this 'oiise we're sitting in ^vonlcl have been 
 gutted as clean as burglary, and most likely set 
 afire as well. They are kind enough to take us off 
 in their ship, too, to Eldorado, where we can get a 
 steamer to England, and leave this beastly country 
 •be'ind us for good.' 
 
 ' I go to Eldorado ? No ; nevare ! I stay wid 
 my fammillee.' 
 
 ' Then you bloomin' well can stay, that's all ! 
 Mary, tell your mother to pack her things up, and 
 see that she does it, and not to make more fool of 
 herself than she can help.' And Miss Shindler, 
 ^ith a last glance at Yane and a bow to Macgregor, 
 persuaded her mother to leave the room. Mr. 
 'Shindler gave a sigh of relief, and said : ' Don't 
 •either of you chaps ever marry a full-bred lady of 
 "the firstest family in San Jose. 'Elp 3'ourself to 
 ^irjuarcUente, Colonel, and shove the bottle round. 
 
84 TREASON-FELONY 
 
 "What'd 3'ou and me give for a good Scotch cold 
 now, eh, at the Pahiierston or Wmchester 'Ouse ?' 
 
 *I say, Mac, do you know Whelan's m Lower 
 Abbey Street? That was the place for whisky. 
 I've not been in it now for fifteen years.' 
 
 * Man, there's only one kind of whisky. Hullo I 
 what's that ?' 
 
 * That ' was the distinct sound of a cannon shot^ 
 and not very far off. 
 
 The two officers jumped up and buckled on their 
 swords. In a minute or two Sergeant Lee arrived^ 
 announcing that he wished to see Colonel Macgregor 
 privately. The Colonel went out to see him, and 
 when he returned said : 
 
 'Pat, it seems we did not seize the telegraph 
 soon enough. There's a force with artillery been 
 sent up by rail from Perique to attack us. They 
 were seen by Doherty some miles off, and a party 
 
THREE GENTLEMEN ADVENTURERS 85 
 
 was sent to pull up the rails as far outside as they 
 had time to go. Lieutenant von Kries drove an 
 engine himself out to meet them, and halted, put 
 dynamite under the rails ^Yith a time fuse, reversed 
 and came back on the engine into the town. 
 Dohei'ty fired that gun at their train as it halted, 
 but the range was bad. They are advancing by 
 way of the hills on the south side of the town. As 
 soon as they've got their guns into position they'll 
 probably shell the town to drive us out. Most of 
 the men are on board, and we've to be away now. 
 Lee has a small escort, because the scattered 
 Guano men we defeated this morning are taking 
 up courage again, and beginning to show in groups 
 in the town.' 
 
 ' Can't we hold the place ?' 
 
 ' Not the shadow of a chance. We shall be com- 
 manded by their artillery, and they will be almost 
 
86 TREA SON-FELONY 
 
 out of range of the ship. Besides, the AlmiranU 
 McCarthy may be coming too. She may have been 
 withm reach of Perique, and got signalled some- 
 where along the shore. — Now, Mr. Shindler, fetch 
 your womenkind. Never mind luggage. There's, 
 not a moment to lose. The house will be tumbling 
 about your ears soon.' 
 
 Mr. Shindler ran away, and soon loud expostula^ 
 tions and screamings betokened the sehora's un- 
 willingness to leave before she had made up her 
 mind to the proper head-dress, or something 
 equally important. In the meantime Macgregor 
 and Yane went out to the Plaza, where Sergeant 
 Lee had got about ten files of men extended at four 
 paces, with the house in their rear, with loaded 
 rifles. On the other side of the Plaza, from the 
 Calle 26 Julio, debouched a number of Guano 
 natives, reunited stragglers from the military fore© 
 
THREE GENTLEMEN ADVENTURERS Sy 
 
 and miscellaneous unmilitary loafers with rifles, 
 and these promptly opened fire, taking cover behind 
 the orange-trees and marble benches. Lee's men 
 lay down and fired rapid volleys by Colonel Mac- 
 gregor's orders, and then charged the opposite 
 force with the bayonet, sending them down the 
 Calle 26 Julio helter-skelter. 
 
 'This is a good beginning,' remarked Colonel 
 Macgregor. 
 
 * There's dozens of those haulos to get through 
 betwixt us and the liui-imwni ,' "^ observed Lee, 
 shoving in fresh cartridges with his thumb. 
 ' They're picking up a bit now.' 
 
 'We'll sort them to rights,' observed Macgregor, 
 placidly getting out his revolver and loosening his 
 sword. 
 * We can go through them as easy as lyin',' said 
 
 ■^ Salt-water. 
 
88 TREASON-FELONY 
 
 Vane ; * but it will be the least bit awkward getting 
 two ladies down there.' 
 
 * They'll just have to kilt up their coats and do a 
 steady double, taking advantage of the trees in the 
 calle. They can have the rifles and pouches of the 
 first two men dropped on either side.' 
 
 ' My bonnie boy, when did ye ever see a Spanish 
 woman who could double fifty yards ? And as to 
 cover, you'd have to tell off a man to each to tell 
 'em what cover is, and get 'em to leave it when 
 they've found out.' 
 
 'Well, they may just do what they blame 
 please. I am doing the best I can for them, and I 
 can't stay here until those sons of Shaitan get 
 seeing us, and drop shells in. It would be wasting 
 the men's lives (not that they're worth much) for 
 nothing, and risk not getting away with the loot, 
 which is worth much.' 
 
THREE GENTLEMEN ADVENTURERS 89 
 
 Here Mr. Shindler and the two ladies appeared, 
 carrying as much jeAvellery as could be packed into 
 hand-bags. 
 
 ' Now, sir,' said Macgregor, 'you and the ladies 
 must conform to our movements, and had better 
 keejD in the immediate rear. No — not in a clump, 
 clinging to one another like that ! Extend, ye daft 
 \Yomen, extend ! Ye don't want to make a target 
 of yourselves ! Miss Shindler, go in the rear of 
 Mr. Yane on the right. Mr. Shindler, go in rear 
 of Sergeant Lee on the left. The seiiora can keep 
 behind me, in the centre. Now conform to the 
 movement of the section. Section, advance ! Half- 
 left-turn ! Eight shoulders up ! Double ! Halt ! 
 Lie down ! Fire volleys by alternate half-sections 
 beginning from the right !' 
 
 The movement had brought them across the top 
 of the Calle 26 Julio, in which some opposition 
 
90 - TREASON-FELOXY 
 
 was found. The feelings of the unhappy Shmdler 
 family may be imagined. Miss Shindler lay down 
 beside Yane in the white dust, regardless of her 
 really expensive and becoming costume, and dis- 
 played much more courage than might have been 
 expected, though she winced every time she heard 
 the shrill little ' feee-ew !' of a bullet not far off, 
 followed perhaps by the smash of a window-pane 
 in the rear. When one of the men was hit, 
 the sight of blood made her turn rather sick, and 
 Yane, observing her face, said : 
 
 * Now for the sake of our Blessed Lady, my dear, 
 don't faint ! You'll have to double again in half a 
 minute. Here, take a drop of this !' 
 
 And he handed her a glass flask with which he 
 had replaced his smashed water-bottle, and she 
 drank. It was arjuardiente. Then she said : 
 
 ' I am better now. I am not afraid.' 
 
THREE GENTLEMEN ADVENTURERS 91 
 
 ' And I don't believe you are, then !' 
 
 *Eise ! Advance ! Double !' sang out Macgregor. 
 
 When they halted and lay down agam, this time 
 half-way down the street, wiiere another street 
 crossed it at right angles, the girl said breathlessly 
 to Yane : 
 
 ' Do you think we shall ever get to your 
 ship ?' 
 
 ' Oh, divil doubt us ! That is, if the enemy are 
 not reinforced. They know we gave 'em a good 
 hammering this morning, and all the prestige is 
 on our side. But they're obstinate young men, 
 too.' 
 
 ' Ah, listen ! What is that, Senor Yane ?' she 
 exclaimed, getting up on her knees in her excite- 
 ment to point. ' Those men, they are cotting off, 
 they are ronning away ! Ah, los cliancJios /'* 
 
 ''- I fear Miss Shindler really used another expression. 
 
92 TREA SON-FELONY 
 
 Yane jumped to his feet. 
 
 * Great Csesar, you are right ! Mike Doherty's 
 landed himself with a party and taken 'em in 
 flank.' And he gave an Irish yell of triumph and 
 defiance. Colonel Macgregor, with his usual cool- 
 ness, and a streaming ^YOund on the side of the 
 face, said : 
 
 * Eise ! Fix bayonets ! On the centre close ! 
 Quick march ! Double ! Prepare to charge ! 
 Charge ! ' And he and Vane went running on in 
 front, and leaping over the obstacles encumbering 
 the street, which the enemy had lugged out of the 
 houses for cover, with the men shouting behind, 
 until, for the second time, their enemy had been 
 cleared out of their position, while Doherty's men 
 were ' giving them pei3per ' from the flank as they 
 fled. 
 
 ' There, senorita,' said Yane, 'you've been in an 
 
THREE GENTLEMEN ADVENTURERS 93 
 
 action in the ranks. And it's not many young 
 ladies can say that.' 
 
 Here Captain Doherty came up and said : 
 ' What in the world have you boys been doing ? 
 Do you know there's not a minute to lose ? There, 
 look at that now !' he added, as a shell burst with 
 a bright dazzling flame and a loud report in the 
 Plaza della Independencia. Colonel Macgregor 
 went to Doherty, and reported briefly all that had 
 occurred ; and Doherty, after bowing to the Shind- 
 lers, said : _ 
 
 ' Well, just come on board, all of you, and let's 
 get under way, or the ladies will have to figure in 
 a naval action as well as a land one. We can dis- 
 cuss all the rest later on. Form up now, never 
 mind numbering — look alive ! Fours ! Eight ! 
 Left wheel ! Double — march !' 
 
 The seiiora had never had so much * doubling ' 
 
94 TREA SON-FELOXY 
 
 in her life. She had no breath to talk about her 
 * fammillee,' and was dragged along by Mr. 
 Shindler on one side, and Sergeant Lee on the 
 other. She didn't mind the bloodshed a bit, she 
 had seen too many bull-fights for that, but she 
 hated runnino:. 
 
 Meanwhile, the enemy approaching on the hills 
 began to drop shells more frequently, in a casual 
 way, in hopes of swamping the boats, which were 
 barely in range. Then the ship began to fire 
 shells at the hill-top battery, but they fell short. 
 
 The upshot was that A^ane and Macgregor and 
 the Shindler family all got safely on board, and 
 the Infierno y Tomasito started for Eldorado with 
 a quantity of valuables and money on board which 
 would have been no despicable prize even to good 
 Sir Francis Drake. 
 
CHAPTEE II. 
 
 HOW MR. HARRY LOXG TRIED A LITTLE POACHING, AND 
 CAUGHT A LITTLE POACHER. 
 
 One summer afternoon five or six years after tlie 
 events of the first chapter, a yoimg man came 
 clovn to Shervil, a station somewhere between 
 Salisbur}^ and Exeter, where a groom and a dog- 
 cart awaited him. He was a fine, tall fellow, about 
 two -and -twenty, not as heavy and robust yet as 
 
 he v;ould be in a few years' time, yet active and 
 iicalthy, with a handsome fair face and blue eyes, 
 
 and a rather more refined expression than is usual 
 
 among young gentlemen of England, whose gods 
 
 are athletes and their devils examiners. He 
 
96 TREA SON-FELONY 
 
 bestowed a donation on the porter who carried his 
 portmanteau, bag, ulster, and tennis -racquet in 
 brown canvas case to the dogcart with a good- 
 natured greeting, as if he had come back to old 
 friends, as, indeed, he had ; and as he got up and 
 drove away from the station, there were several 
 who touched their caps to him, from the station- 
 master downwards. 
 
 This young man had come ' down ' for his 
 second Long Vacation from Cambridge, a period 
 at which undergraduate life may be said to be at 
 the summit of its glory, having left ' freshness ' 
 well behind, and having as yet the Tripos a good 
 long way ahead. He was a tolerably ha^^py 3^oung 
 man, having a comfortable allowance, good rooms 
 in the Old Court, furnished and decorated accord- 
 ing to his tastes, a pleasant temper, plenty of 
 friends, no embarrassing entanglements either in 
 
A LITTLE POACHING 9.7 
 
 connection with money or the other sex, and an 
 opinion of himself and his attainments which was 
 .generally highly favourable, and had not yet been 
 at all seriously upset by events. There is usually 
 a tide in the affairs of moderately conceited, rather 
 clever 3"0ung men which sooner or later over- 
 whelms them with the awful conviction that they 
 have been making fools of themselves, but young 
 Mr. Harry Long had not yet been overtaken by it. 
 
 He was full of all the modern ideas, books, and 
 modes of thought, had interested himself in 
 aesthetics, politics, philanthropy, misanthropy, 
 23oetry, pessimism, peacocks' feathers, and Parisian 
 2iovels ; spoke at the Union ; talked with great 
 earnestness and eloquence to sympathetic friends, 
 as they tramped together in the afternoon along 
 the Trumpington Eoad to do the ' Granch ester 
 Grind,' about everything in the world ; and in a 
 
 VOL. I. .7 
 
98- TREA SON-FELOXY 
 
 general way was ready to send in tenders and 
 specifications for com^^letely recasting the universe 
 on a new and iraproved plan. He was impatient 
 of old formalities, of proverbial sayings, of all 
 obvious and commonplace things. Being the only 
 son of an old country squire, Sir William Long of 
 Lowcliff, of iron-fast Tory principles, it is only 
 natural that his political views, as they came out 
 at the Union, Magpie and Stump, and elsewhere,, 
 should vary from advanced Eadicalism to Home- 
 Eule. 
 
 The drive from Shervil Station to Lowcliff wa&: 
 some five miles along a road which skirted a 
 beautiful winding wooded valley, in the bottom of 
 which a river ran, which enlarged to a creek 
 navigable for small boats further down, forming 
 an inner portion of Starmouth Bay. The whole- 
 Gountry hereabouts is hilly, and the little gray 
 
A LITTLE POACHING 99 
 
 slatey town of Starmouth itself looks as if it had 
 been piled up the side of a hill from the shore, or 
 been arrested in the act of tumbling down into the 
 sea, many centuries ago. And everywhere you 
 walk or drive, steep lanes and green valleys are 
 your' portion. You are also in perpetual doubt as 
 to whether you are in Dorset or Devon, as the 
 counties overlap, or intersect in irregular jags, in 
 a surprising way. 
 
 But from where young Harry Long and his 
 groom were driving homewards, there w^ere only 
 far-off gray glimpses of the Channel and projecting 
 reddish headlands, and the town of Starmouth was 
 not visible at all. They passed through the village 
 of Eedmore, an assemblage of white stone cottages 
 with thatched roofs, standing beside the steep 
 slope of a narrow curving road, where children and 
 fowls ran and tumbled and shrieked and crowed. 
 
JOD TREA SON-FELONY 
 
 doing their best to get entangled in the wheels of 
 the dogcart, and women stood at the doors in sun- 
 bonnets, and gazed vaguely at the smart convey- 
 ance, some i)erhaps curtseying. After passing 
 the Dog Inn, at the extreme end of Eedmore, and 
 the bottom of the dip of the road, they drove 
 uphill again, and passed a lonely small thatched 
 cottage, not m particularly good repair, giving 
 somehow the impression that the inside would be 
 dirty, though the outside was charming, and had 
 ivy and a yellow-flowered creeper growing in the 
 little garden in front, between it and the road. 
 In the open doorway of this cottage sat, on a low 
 stool, an ancient woman with sharp, dark eyes, 
 and a bright red -and -yellow kerchief round her 
 neck. It may be added that she was smoking a 
 short clay pipe of a dark polished mouse-colour. 
 Near her stood a girl of twenty or so, who had 
 
A LITTLE POACHING lot 
 
 risen from picking some flowers in order to look at 
 Harry Long, who was certainly worth looking at, 
 especially by a girl who had never seen him before. 
 And this girl was wonderfully pretty. She had 
 the dark, keen eyes of the old woman, a smiburnt, 
 sallow complexion, black hair, arranged more or 
 less in the prevailing fashion, but rather untid}^ 
 a perfectly proportioned body, rather above the 
 average height, clad in an old brown frock, such 
 as might once have belonged to some lady w^ho 
 had given it to her maid, who had handed it on 
 in course of time to this young person. As the 
 road was uphill, Harry drove slowly, and had a 
 good look at her. And she had a good look at 
 him. When they were out of sight and hearing, 
 Harry said to the groom : 
 
 ' I don't remember ever seeing those people there 
 before. Are they Irish, or what ?' 
 
I02 TREA SON-FELONY 
 
 *No, sir, gipsy. Family of the name of Lee. 
 The man Lee, the old woman's son, was brought 
 here by way of a manservant by the gentleman 
 who's taken Crowbill.' 
 
 ' Crowbill taken too, eh ? Well ?' 
 
 'Yes, sir. And this man Lee, he brought his 
 old witch of a mother and daughter here, and 
 found that place empty and put 'em in. Used to 
 trampin' the roads, and sleepin' in 'edges, they 
 are, I expecs. Eegular poachers, all the lot. 
 Shouldn't wonder if that was some of our game we 
 smelt there cooking.' 
 
 'Ah, well, I don't suppose we shall miss it 
 much!' 
 
 ' Sir William's terrible put out about it. None 
 of the keepers can't catch this chap at it. Sharp 
 hands, they gipsies, at takin' what ain't theirn.' 
 
 * So are kings and capitalists, Rogers ; but no 
 
A LITTLE POACHING 103 
 
 matter. Don't let me corrupt a good Conservative 
 like yon. Who is it, then, that has taken Crow- 
 hill? I thought that it \Yas going to be handed 
 over to ghosts in perpetuity,' 
 
 Cro"whill was a tall old brick house with tiled 
 gables, attic windows, and ivy-clad chimneys, on a 
 windy eminence on the other side of the valley, 
 lonely-looking, with one or two tall weather-beaten 
 fir-trees standing close to it, black against the 
 western sky, and farther away, in the field near 
 the house, a group of high elms with graceful green 
 cascades of foliage, in whose dizziest heights rooks 
 built and circled cawing. 
 
 Below the house, down the slope of the valley, an 
 oak and hazel copse descended to the river, where 
 was a private wooden landing-place for boats, 
 hidden by trees, unless one were actually standing 
 on it. The old house had a fair amount of land, 
 
J04 TREA SON-FELOXY 
 
 partly fields, and partl}^ wood and copse, ^Ylle^e' 
 hares and rabbits had their abode, to say nothing' 
 of hedgehogs and wood-pigeons, and was roomy,, 
 picturesque, and cosy, though exposed to south- 
 westerly weather when ' depressions ' arrived in the 
 Channel. Still, it had been vacant for 3'ears, and 
 was to be had at a price far below its apparent 
 value, simply and solely because the last occupant, 
 an elderly clergyman of peculiar habits — a bachelor- 
 possessing considerable private means — had elected 
 to leave this world in an original instead of a 
 commonplace manner. Not content with dying in 
 bed of natural decay, accelerated by chill, like a 
 respectable ordinary old gentleman, he had hung 
 himself with strong twine to a hook in the larder 
 between a spare-rib of pork and a fillet of veal ; and 
 in consequence of this tenants were very shy of the 
 place, and no servants belonging to the neighbour^ 
 
A LITTLE POACHING 105 
 
 hood would have taken situations there, had the 
 house been occupied, as will be readily under- 
 stood. 
 
 ' It's a gentleman and lady of the name of Yane,' 
 replied Eogers. 'He's quite a stranger in these 
 parts^come from America, they tell me ; but quite 
 the gentleman. Seems to have a middlin' lot of 
 money, and the lady is foreign, but a very 'ansome 
 lady. Mr. Yane 'e looks like an arm}^ gentleman ; 
 'e 'as a little cutter yacht, but 'e don't keep no 
 'esses nor no family.' 
 
 * Does anybody kno^Y them ?' 
 
 ' Well, sir, we've called on 'em, and so 'as some 
 of the other gentry, and 'aven't no fault to find, 
 except that they're both Eoman Catholics. But 
 they're strong Kinservatives, and that's the great 
 thing.' 
 
 * Of course it is.' 
 
io6 TREA SON-FELONY 
 
 ' We're givin' a garden-party to-morrow, sir, it 
 being only put off till you come back, and you'll 
 see 'em there, I expect.' 
 
 'I see. All right.' 
 
 And they drove on till Lowcliff, the residence of 
 Sir William Long, was reached, an old country 
 house nestling in the side of the wooded valley, 
 with gables and a tiled roof, and delightful varia- 
 tions in the levels of the different rooms, but 
 covered externally with gray plaster by some taste- 
 less improver of a generation or two gone by. 
 
 Here Harry received a good old English welcome, 
 which grated a little on his new refinement as a 
 little too hrinjant, from his father, an iron-gray old 
 man, a J. P. of course, and a pillar of the constitu- 
 tion, a loyal, stern, narrow-minded, honourable 
 gentleman, a little inconsistent at times, and 
 possessing much kindness of heart. He was at an 
 
A LITTLE POACHING 107 
 
 early stage of his life in the army, when by the 
 unexpected death of a brother he suddenly came in 
 for the baronetcy and the estate of Lowcliff. He 
 had all the views on life of a country gentleman of 
 the old school, and looked on hunting and shooting 
 as serious things, and on poachers and persons who 
 shot foxes as inferior only in criminality to Socialists. 
 Lady Long was an excellent old lady, stout, without 
 form and very void. There was one other child — 
 a girl, a year younger than Harry, with fair light- 
 brown crisp hair, light-blue eyes, large in the iris 
 and small in the pupil, a pointed chin, a rather 
 aquiline nose — altogether of a charming appearance 
 which no map-like analysis can convey, over w^hose 
 birth a star had danced, as in the case of Beatrice, 
 and they called her Elizabeth, a name in which Sir 
 William's historic tastes and Lady Long's fondness 
 for Jane Austen's novels happily concurred. They 
 
io8 TREASON-FELONY 
 
 both agreed in disliking new-fangled ' pretty ' names 
 of the Ethel, Olga, Gladys, Muriel class, so they 
 christened her Elizabeth, which she thought bad, 
 and called her Bessie, which she thought worse. 
 Nevertheless she bore up, consoling herself with 
 the reflection that she had not been called Louisa, 
 Harriet, or Ann, as she might easily have been — 
 'what with English history and Jane Austen,' as 
 she said, ' hovering like malignant fairies over one's 
 cradle. I should like Jane Austen very much if 
 mother did not point out her merits so forcibh', 
 and I could tolerate history if father didn't look on 
 it as a kind of trumpet to announce the greatness 
 of England with and proclaim the Protestant 
 Succession.' 
 
 At dinner that evening they asked Harry ques- 
 tions about Cambridge — the questions a young 
 man's relations always do ask. Sir William asked 
 
A LITTLE POACHING 109 
 
 how many undergraduates there were now at 
 Trmity, what time he had left m the mornmg, 
 and how the connection of trains had been made 
 (thereby involving his son quite needlessly in an 
 obligatory series of fictions to cover the fact that 
 he left' Cambridge the day before and spent the 
 night in town), and proceeded to make a few 
 remarks about sliding-seats, which betrayed an 
 imperfect grasp of the subject, though Harry, 
 whose rowing was mainly confined to paddling up 
 the Freshman's river in a pair, and taking shandy- 
 gaff at the Eed Lion of Granchester, could for- 
 give him that. Harry rather sniffed at the earnest 
 rowing man, and classified him (quite unfairly) 
 with vulgar dissipation, paltry ambitions, a 
 ' General ' postponed to the utmost limits of 
 University tolerance, and an ccgrotat in the Botany 
 Special. (The latter is the typical destiny scorn- 
 
no TREASON-FELONY 
 
 fully predicted for Cambridge men of low in- 
 tellectual attainment by their more gifted com- 
 panions.) 
 
 Lady Long asked him how long his holidays 
 would last, on which Sir William jocularly in- 
 terposed : 
 
 ' Mustn't call them holidays now, y' know.' 
 
 While Harry replied : 
 
 ' Oh, till October, as usual ! I don't the least 
 mind your calling the Long the holidays, or the 
 tomatoes, if j^ou like. I think we have gone 
 through that delectable little joke, in this family, 
 every time I have come down, with regularity 
 and precision. Don't you think you could get 
 up a new set of facctice against the Christmas 
 Yac?' 
 
 ' Well, I don't know, my boy, we'll try,' replied 
 Sir William good-humouredly ; ' but our wits are 
 
A LITTLE POACHING in 
 
 not kept in such a high state of pohsh as all that. 
 You must put up with us as you find us.' 
 
 This had the exasperating effect of making 
 Harry feel that he was looked on as pert and 
 conceited, and yet too well liked and too young to 
 be thoroughly snubbed. He was convinced that in 
 any mental capacity or attainment he was far 
 superior to his parents, and yet, just because they 
 were his parents and some trivial thirty years or 
 so older than he was, they failed to recognise his 
 claim to any such superiority, and continued to 
 give him advice and information on matters most 
 of which he felt he understood far better than they 
 did. This kind of treatment is liable to make a 
 gifted youth impatient at times. 
 
 Bessie asked if there had been many people and 
 much going on that May term, and Harry gave 
 suitable descriptions. 
 
r 1 2 TREA SON-FELONY 
 
 Then Sir William said : 
 
 'Have they told you what that fellow Herrick 
 has been doing ?' 
 
 ' That fellow Herrick ' was the vicar of the 
 jmrish. 
 
 'No, I don't think so. What has he been 
 doing?' 
 
 ' Why, he's put up a crucifix on the Communion- 
 table, and two candles.' 
 
 ' Not a crucifix, dear — a cross,' corrected Lady 
 Long. 
 
 ' Oh !' replied Harry, with carefully marked in- 
 difference. 
 
 ' I told him pretty plainly it was a direct 
 encouragement to idolatry.' 
 
 ' But if people feel '' so dispoged," why shouldn't 
 they worship idols ? I know a man who has col- 
 lected some lovely idols from some of the Pacific 
 
A LITTLE POACHING 113 
 
 islands, or somewhere, and has arranged them in 
 his keeping-room, and burns a pastille to the most 
 a,ppalling of them occasional^, when he feels an 
 access of devotion coming over him. He says it is 
 more original than chapel, and less irreverent.' 
 
 ' Harry ! How can you say such things ?' said 
 his mother. 
 
 Bessie smiled quietly to herself. She knew who 
 the idolater was, and was rather fond of him. 
 
 ' Surely,' continued Lady Long, ' we are distinctly 
 forbidden to worship idols ?' 
 
 ' Of course,' said Harry ; ' but there is the charm. 
 That is the only reason probably why the primi- 
 tive Hebrew^ tribes were so fond of lapsing into 
 different forms of it. What would otherwise have 
 been an uninteresting, and occasionally uncomfort- 
 able, waste of time, destined to become obsolete 
 with advancing intelligence and civilization, was 
 
 VOL. I. 8 
 
ri4 TREASON-FELONY 
 
 peqDetuated into a fascinating sin, traces of which 
 last even to this day, as has just been pointed out, 
 simply because of a tactless prohibition accom- 
 panied by threats. Instead of saying, "You mustn't, 
 because it's wicked," you should say, * Well, if I 
 were you, I'd drop it, because it's rather feeble and 
 cramps your ideas," if you want people to leave 
 off doing a thing/ 
 
 ' I must say you do pick up extraordinary ideas 
 at Cambridge !' said Lady Long. 
 
 * Well, isn't that what I'm there for? If I was 
 only required and expected to accumulate ordinary 
 ideas, it would have been simpler for me to have 
 stopped here, wouldn't it ?' 
 
 ' Oh, don't argue, dear ! it makes my head 
 ache.' 
 
 'No, don't let us argue, especially at dinner. 
 But tell me, you remember J. R. Shaw, that I 
 
A LITTLE POACHING 115 
 
 coach with sometimes ? You saw him, you know.; 
 when you were up at the Lent races.' 
 
 ' Oh yes ! I remember him quite well. Very 
 nice, isn't he ?' 
 
 ' Well, he's not considered nasty as a rule.' 
 
 'A' gentlemanly, civil young fellow,' said Sir 
 William ; * gave us doosid good claret, too.' 
 
 Bessie said nothing, but searched for crumbs, 
 which she made into pills. 
 
 ' Well, do you mind my asking him down here 
 for a week or two ?' _ 
 
 * Certainly not, my boy,' said Sir William ; * ask 
 him by all means. Tell him not to coach you into 
 a prig.' 
 
 * We shall be very glad to see him, I'm sure,' 
 said Lady Long. 
 
 ' Are you going to do some work, then ?' said 
 Bessie. 
 
3i6 TREASON-FELONY 
 
 * Oh, I shall read a little — not very much — just 
 enough to chasten one's style. I gather from 
 Kogers that you have some new neighbours at 
 Crowhill?' 
 
 'Oh 3'es!' replied Lady Long, delighted to 
 escape from the uphill effort of talking about things 
 and principles to the easy level of talking about 
 people ; ' and they seem very nice indeed. I think 
 Mr. Vane has been at one time in some foreign 
 service, and he has that a2:)pearance, rather. He 
 is very civil and agreeable, and she is rather 
 p/etty, with something a little foreign and rather 
 taking about her.' 
 
 ' She dresses like an American,' said Bessie. 
 
 'Then she must dress very well,' replied her 
 Brother. 
 
 * They are Eoman Catholics,' said Sir William ; 
 ^but they hcem to be decent sort of people.' 
 
A LITTLE POACHING 117 
 
 * I suppose that means they have subscribed to 
 the Conservative Association ?' 
 
 ' That's just what it does mean, my boy,' repHed 
 Su* WilHam, chuckling ; ' and come down pretty 
 handsome, too.' 
 
 ' Aiid Mrs. Yane sang and played the guitar at 
 a Primrose League entertainment,' added Bessie. 
 
 ' I see. Well, of course, the Conservatives are 
 the elect — if not always the elected.' 
 
 * But I do wish to goodness,' pursued Sir 
 William, Hhat they wouldn't keep a gipsy man 
 about the place, or, if they did, that they would 
 give him something more to do. The way he 
 poaches is something awful. Nothing is safe from 
 him. I gather that he keeps a family entirely on 
 it, and he is more than a match for any keepers 
 about here. He seems to know all their tricks, 
 and a good many more besides. I used to think 
 
ii8 TREASON-FELONY 
 
 that Nobbs must connive, but I am sure now that 
 such is not the case. Once we put up one or two 
 alarm spring-guns — ^you know, the ones you screw 
 on a tree, and have a wire stretched across the 
 pathway tightly from the trigger; and then the 
 beggar runs agamst it in the dark, and off it goes, 
 bang !' 
 
 'But isn't that rather dangerous?' interposed 
 Lady Long. 
 
 * No, no ; dangerous, no ! It's only an explosion 
 of a charge of powder, for the noise to attract 
 Nobbs's attention, and tell him there's someone in 
 the copse. The law, bless its old grandmotherly 
 heart ! doesn't allow it, or we'd put a charge of 
 slugs in the spring-guns, and perhaps some of 
 these beggars would get what they didn't bargain 
 for some night. That was Nobbs's notion, to 
 pepper 'em up a bit ; but I'm afraid we mustn't. 
 
A LITTLE POACHING 119 
 
 It wouldn't do nowadays, Avhen every ploughboy 
 has got a vote, and spells out a beastly Eadical 
 X)aper every Saturday.' 
 
 'Wouldn't it be a little feudal,' asked Harry, 
 * to shoot a man because he stole a wild bird for 
 his supper ?' 
 
 * I dare say it would, and a jolly good thing if we 
 had a few more feudal institutions about to keep 
 people in their proper places. Well, as I was 
 telling you, we arranged a couple of these con- 
 trivances, and next day, when we took a look 
 round, both the charges had been drawn, and a 
 big hare was laid across the path carefully under 
 each wire, on a little bed of bracken leaves. I 
 suppose he'd been content to take the pheasants 
 home. Well, that wasn't all. Nobbs was as 
 angry as I was, I think, because the poacher had 
 dared to make fun of liim and his little dodges, 
 
izo TREA SOX-FELOXY 
 
 and I gave Xobbs one of the hares to take home 
 and cook. If you please, when the hare was. 
 hangmg before the fire, it blew up ! This led to 
 examination of the second, which we were going 
 to use in the kitchen, and it was found that the 
 charge drawn from the spring-gun had been neatly 
 packed inside the hare.' 
 
 ' Quite a humorist, that poacher ! But how do 
 you know who it is ?' 
 
 ' No one else here has the sense to do it so 
 cleverly. Beside, he's been seen about at all sorts 
 of odd times, sort of reconnoitring the country. 
 And if 3^ou go past the cottage, where his mother 
 and daughter live, about dinner-time, and use your 
 nose, you'll find they've always got something 
 pretty savoury in the pot. Oh, they know what 
 they're about, those Romanys ! I remember 'em 
 when I was a boy, when they were far more 
 
A LITTLE POACHING 121 
 
 numerous out here and right into the West-Country 
 than the}^ are now, along all the roads from Lyme 
 and Crewkerne and Colyton and hereabouts till 
 you get to Cornwall. But they're all dying out or 
 emigrating now. All your new-fangled scientific 
 sanitary laws and your local authorities are killing 
 'em off between 'em.' 
 
 It has been remarked that Sir William Long was 
 a trifle inconsistent. Though a sturdy supporter 
 of the State Church, he persistently quarrelled 
 with the parson. Though he hated Free Trade 
 ]ike the devil, he countenanced smuggling. Though 
 he complained of not being allowed to fire slugs 
 into gipsies, he blamed new-fangled laws for inter- 
 fering with their ease and comfort. 
 
 I suppose the fact was that he objected to all 
 laws which did not allow him to have his own way. 
 If a man begged of him on the road, he would 
 
122 TREASON-FELONY 
 
 damn him up hill and down dale for being a lazy, 
 lying, thriftless vagabond, so that the man nearly 
 shook out of his skin, and was sorry he spoke. 
 When the tall, grim, thin, powerful old squire had 
 got through his discourse, shaking a thick stick 
 at the unhappy tramp, he would suddenly say : 
 * There, there's half a crown for you. Much more 
 than you deserve. Now be off. And don't make a 
 beast of yourself with it, or you'll be brought before 
 me, and I'll see you provided with bread and water 
 and stone-breaking for a month.' And the tramp 
 would go straightway and make a whole zoological 
 garden of himself, but in the next county. Sir 
 William was very like his son in this respect, that, 
 if everything were put in his hands, he thought it 
 would be a great deal better managed than it is at 
 present, only he confined himself to the govern- 
 ment of the British realm, in his criticisms, and 
 
A LITTLE POACHING 123 
 
 mentioned how lie would ' give 'em what for ' if he 
 were in authority over trades-unionists, pickets, 
 demonstrators in parks. Social Democrats, Home 
 Rulers, teetotalers, and Radicals generally. He 
 usually wore shabby old clothes, had his pockets 
 full of' string, rope-yarn, and shreds of cloth for 
 nailing fruit-trees, with a few loose gun-caps and a 
 good-sized clasp-knife, and carried a thick stick. 
 He drank good claret and port at dinner, like 
 a gentleman — drank plenty of them, and was 
 never the worse. At breakfast he drank, as often 
 as not, a cup of cider. At lunch he merely took 
 some bread and cheese, often taking it out with 
 him associated with the rope-yarn and gun-caps, 
 and eating it with the clasp-knife. 
 
 In the administration of justice he was particu- 
 larly happy. Once a foolish woman of the village 
 of Eedmore summoned the schoolmaster for caning 
 
124 TREASOX-FELONY 
 
 her son. Sir William, having elicited that the boy 
 had first stolen another boy's book and then lied 
 about it, said that the master was quite right, and, 
 ' AYhat do you pay him for, if not to teach the boy 
 what you don't seem to be able to teach him your- 
 self ? If the boy's to grow up a thief and a liar, 
 what's the use of his learning to write and to 
 cipher? He'll only cipher some pounds, shillings, 
 and pence on a bit of paper, and write somebody 
 else's name under it some day, and then it'll be 
 worse than caning. The case is dismissed, and the 
 schoolmaster did his duty. And, mind you !' (this 
 is the gem of the judgment) 'if your husband goes 
 and votes wrong on account of this, I'll be hanged 
 if I don't raise his rent.' 
 
 Such was the sturdy old baronet, of a race now 
 passing away — a race which cannot understand 
 how noblemen can be partners in tea-firms ; how 
 
A LITTLE POACHING 125 
 
 anybody who does not hunt or shoot, or know how 
 many sacks of barley ought to go to an acre, can 
 possibly find an interest in life ; why they should 
 give up their own land to be allotted to improvident 
 and incapable Calvinistic boors, and, above all, 
 cannot understand how the country is going to get 
 on without them. 
 
 He was a good friend and a formidable foe ; he 
 had some quaint opinions, and he expressed them 
 before anybody. There was no kind of affectation 
 or respect of persons about him, and, like old Noll's 
 troopers, he had ' so learned to fear the Lord that 
 he knew no other fear.' 
 
 Later in the evening Harry sat in his own room, 
 having unpacked, to smoke a pipe and read a little 
 before going to bed. Lowcliff was a house where 
 people went to bed early and got up early. At ten 
 o'clock the servants filed into the dinin<?-room, 
 
126 TREA SON-FELONY 
 
 and a lamp and book were placed on the table, and 
 Sir William read a portion of the Scripture and a 
 collect or two from the Liturgy, and the blessing, 
 in a stentorian and denunciatory tone. After that 
 a tray was put on the table with brandy, whisky, 
 rum, glasses, water and biscuits. Sir William took 
 rum, because the general practitioner had advised 
 him not to, and because he thought the doctor was 
 a fool. Then he went round the premises with a 
 large horn lantern and saw that all the locks and 
 bolts were shut, and the alarm-bells on curved 
 springs of thin iron placed in their sockets on the 
 doors and shutters. Then everyone said good- 
 night, and Sir William went to bed with a loaded 
 double-barrelled muzzle-loading gun standing in a 
 corner of his dressing-room, and a long old cavalry 
 sabre slung over the bedroom mantelpiece, with an 
 illuminated text underneath it. And there he was 
 
A LITTLE POACHING 127 
 
 at peace till a big bell over the stable began to 
 jangle at six a.m. 
 
 Harry had a large bedroom looking out over an 
 undulating wooded country, with an occasional 
 cottage peeping, with a thatched roof and a little 
 stream of blue smoke, from amid the green and 
 purple bloom of the receding woodland, and this 
 bedroom he also used as a private library and 
 sitting-room, having a table in the window with 
 writing materials, a comfortable armchair, and 
 a book -case. He also kept a lamp of his own 
 there, in case, as at present, he did not feel 
 immediately disposed for sleep. The room was 
 decorated with a few tolerable water-colours, some 
 photographs of his family, some flowers his sister 
 had put there the day of his arrival, and a text 
 his mother had hung in an Oxford frame over the 
 mantelpiece. He had added one or two photos of 
 
1 28 TREA SON-FELONY 
 
 public characters he admh-ed, but there were no 
 girls. If he had any photos of girls at all they 
 Avere probably at his rooms at Trinity. 
 
 And he sat in his shirtsleeves (for it ^Yas hot 
 weather) reading a nice modern French book, 
 because he liked the French prose style, the happy 
 phrasification, and the freedom from the trammels 
 of conventional ethics and the melodramatic 
 optimism which made the English novel of the 
 period less completely satisfactory than it might 
 be. x\nd it was all so fresh and new to him, too ! 
 
 He was in that delightful condition of the clever 
 youth on whom the beauties of things are break- 
 ing for the first time, and constitute what is usually 
 called a revelation, and he was still under that 
 absurd but most natural impression that few people 
 in the world could know it all, because he had just 
 discovered it. There in his bookcase were De 
 
A LITTLE POACHING 129 
 
 Musset, Gautier, Baudelaire, De Banville — think 
 of the young man of taste to whom the * Nuit de 
 Mai ' and the ' Nuit d'Octobre,' ' Mademoiselle de 
 Maupin ' and ' Les Fleurs du Mai,' are revealed 
 for the first time ! There also (on a lower shelf, 
 to be sure) were the joys and sorrows of Rodolphe, 
 Schaunard, Colline and Co. There was also Yillon 
 (whom he did not know French enough to under- 
 stand much of), Daudet, Bourget, and 'Atalanta 
 in Calydon,' the ' Songs before Sunrise,' 'Dolores"' 
 and the ' Garden of Proserpme ' — well, there was 
 much more. They know who have once, a long 
 golden age ago, been clever, imaginative, self-con- 
 scious boys themselves. And there was Heine, 
 but Harry would have to be badly in love before 
 he could thoroughly appreciate Jiim. Wherefore 
 we had better proceed at once to show how he got 
 into that condition. 
 
 VOL. I. 9 
 
IV50 TREASON-FELONY 
 
 It ^yas at Lady Long's garden-party the follow- 
 ing day. ('At Home four to seven. Tennis. 
 E.S.Y.P.') He was standing on the lawn with his 
 sister watching the people arrive, reposing for a 
 moment from the social duties of handshaking, 
 and saying, 'How very hot !' to the worthy neigh- 
 bours who were driving up in dozens, attracted 
 (like the wasps and bluebottles) by the renown of 
 Sir "William's fruit. The lawn was freely dotted 
 over with different- coloured sunshades, with stand- 
 ing and slowly moving small groups, stout old 
 ladies in black, tall thhi old ladies in black, 
 young ladies in white and in pink and in 
 electric blue, clergy in long coats and tall hats, 
 clergy in short coats and straw hats, and affable 
 young men in indiarubber shoes carrying rackets. 
 And every minute the numbers increased. Sud- 
 denly Harry said to his sister (who, by the 
 
A LITTLE POACHING 131 
 
 way, was very prettily attired in colours which 
 harmonized with the amethystine pale blue of her 
 eyes) : 
 
 ' I say, who's that girl ?' 
 
 Let us describe that girl as Harry saw her. She 
 was iiot tall, perhaps an inch shorter than his 
 sister. She was slender, stately, and graceful in 
 her movements, and wore her dress as if it grew 
 on her, and she had never worn another, though 
 this were new to-day. She had black hair, brown- 
 yellow eyes, large, eloquent, and innocent, and the 
 tropical pallor, with a tawny flame in it, which often 
 accompanies such hair and eyes, and a mouth of 
 the ' wistful ' order — a mouth whose smile has an 
 undercurrent of sorrow, whose kiss has the power 
 •of haunting the memory of the receiver, so that 
 he becomes presently mad. There is a picture in 
 the National Gallery where you can see that 
 
1-33 TREA SON-FELONY 
 
 mouth, as Harry knew. I need not say that he 
 quoted to himself : 
 
 ' Pale comme uii beau soir d'automne.' 
 She was dressed m sulphur colour, and ^Yore a 
 large black hat with feathers. 
 
 ' That girl,' replied Miss Long, ' is Mrs. Yane. 
 Come and talk to her.' 
 
 It was indeed Mrs. Yane, and, what is more,. 
 Mrs. Yane was our old friend Mary Carmen Juanita. 
 Josefina, a few years older, but girlish and felinC' 
 as ever, preserving her youth though she was- 
 twenty-five, thanks, perhaps, to the fact that she- 
 was half English, and had never gone back to 
 South America since the rather trying days of the 
 Guano War. Her father was dead, and she had 
 got all his money, except a portion which was her 
 mother's for life, and as John Shindler had been 
 a rich man, and recovered his effects from the; 
 
A LITTLE POACHING 133 
 
 plunder of San Jose, and as Pat Yane, late of the 
 Eldorado navy, had had a good share of that 
 plunder himself, Mrs. Yane lived very comfortably, 
 and enjoyed herself lazily, like a cat in a nice soft 
 silk -lined basket, her only fears being that she 
 might- some day get fat, and that hev mother might 
 come and want to stay with her. 
 
 She had been rather fond of that kindly, vulgar 
 old father of hers ; but still it was a good thing 
 that he was permanently out of the way, as he 
 would not have been a credit to her, and, of course, 
 she would have Masses said for him, and could tell 
 strangers any picturesque or pathetic fiction about 
 his personality which might occur to her. Her 
 mother, on the other hand, she hated, almost as 
 much as her mother hated her. She had lived now 
 long enough in Europe to find out that her mother 
 was even more of a ridiculous savage than had 
 
1 34 TREA SON-FELONY 
 
 been apparent in San Jose, and had had to suffer 
 shame on her account more than once. The 
 senora hved now in Paris, where both she and 
 Patrick fervently trusted she would stay. Mary 
 Carmen had now quite lost her Cockney phrase- 
 ology, and had become a little Irish instead, though 
 never losing, of course, the foreign accent, which 
 she found a powerful auxiliary to her personal 
 charms in England. 
 
 Harry Long was introduced to her, and she was« 
 pleased to approve of his appearance and manners, 
 and thought that he would make a man some day 
 — a real man — perhaps in ten years' time. In the- 
 meantime she could teach him a little of the 
 science of life. It would amuse her — she was a, 
 little hard up for amusement — and it would do him 
 good. Harry walked her about under the trees- 
 and among flower-beds, and sat with her on rustic 
 
A LITTLE POACHING 135 
 
 benches, and gave her ices and champagne-cup, 
 and unfolded the treasures of his intellect for her 
 entertainment, and she knew all about him very 
 soon. 
 
 He was in that state of adolescence in which 
 a youth is full of the fine things he might say, if 
 he were not too diffident to say them, or if they 
 did not wholly go out of his head at the critical 
 moment ; while any good-lookmg woman who tried 
 could get the complete mastery of his affections 
 for the time being by the mere compliment of 
 taking, or pretending to take, an interest in him. 
 
 And this lady did take some interest in him, and 
 pretended more. She was not especially well 
 educated, but she was clever, knew life better than 
 he did in many respects, and could appreciate, or 
 seem to understand, an unfamiliar subject without 
 much effort. In fact, she was like a stream which 
 
1 36 TREA SON-FELONY 
 
 is quick and sparkling, but of doubtful and variable 
 depth. And she was the prettiest woman present, 
 and her dress was made at least a hundred miles 
 from Starmouth, and a hundred years in advance 
 of Starmouth taste, and the sun shone warm, and 
 the boy was good-looking, and evidently admired 
 her, so she was pleased. He, of course, totally 
 misconceived her character. 
 
 She said to Harry that he must come and see 
 her, and explained that her husband was not pre- 
 sent on this particular day, because he had a friend 
 staying with him. But she added : 
 
 ' You will come and see us, and if my husband 
 is out, or busy with his friend, as he sometimes is, 
 you will come and see me, will you not ? I have 
 so few really intellectual people to talk to, 
 though everyone is most kind, and the country is 
 lovely.' 
 
A LITTLE POACHING 137 
 
 This was laying it on with a trowel perhaps ; but 
 Harry liked it. He said : 
 
 ' I can quite understand. I, too, find it a privi- 
 lege to converse with anyone who can talk about 
 anything outside local gossip, and church, and 
 politics.' 
 
 ' You are not fond of politics ? No ?' 
 
 ' Not the kind they grow hereabouts. I go in 
 rather for ideas which would be considered in- 
 flammatory and subversive here. Ah, but I forgot ; 
 you played the guitar to a Primrose meeting, I am 
 told, so I'd better hold my peace.' 
 
 ' Bah ! What do I know or care what a Prim- 
 rose meeting is ? It is something about Beacons- 
 field, yes ? And he died when I was a little girl ' 
 (Oh, Mary !) 'in South America. I do not know 
 whether he was an archbishop or a general. If 
 you like, I will play the guitar to a meeting to 
 
138 TREASON-FELOXY 
 
 encourage your political jDrinciples, whatever they 
 are, just as readily. I only wished to be amiable.' 
 
 'What a shame to rush you into a thing like 
 that ! But I hope you will some day play to a 
 meeting of my supporters. There will be only one 
 present at it, though.' 
 
 ' Of course I will. Come and see me to- 
 morrow.' 
 
 ' Thanks, awfully. What time ?' 
 
 ' In the afternoon, and I will give you some tea, 
 or mate, if you prefer. Now go and attend to some 
 other of your guests. If you w^ait any longer with 
 me it will be remarked.' 
 
 - ' If 3^ou don't wish me to go, I don't care whether 
 it's remarked or not. I don't set a high value on 
 public opinion.' 
 
 ' Don't you ? I suppose not. When you are as 
 old as I am you will. An rcvoir.' And she looked 
 
A LITTLE POACHING 139 
 
 at him with the shy sly amber eyes, and nodded, 
 and he went away, with a hot flush, and a feehng 
 that he had been exceptionally stupid, to offer 
 grapes and cup to other people, to whom he was 
 brilliant and sarcastic and superior. 
 
 And that is how it all began. 
 
 By aid of strong doses of poetry, sunsets, pale 
 auroral afterglows, lilies, roses, stars, the countless 
 smile of the ocean, dreams and wakeful nights, 
 Harry managed to work himself into a perfectly 
 wdld state, and grew almost visibly thinner. He 
 became more superior and satirical at home than 
 ever, and occasionally indulged in hollow mirth. 
 He looked on the hours that passed between one 
 meeting with Mrs. Yane and another as wasted 
 fragments of his life. He was highly pleased with 
 himself, in reality, because the whole intrigue was 
 constructed exactly on the model of some of his 
 
I40 TREA SON-FELONY 
 
 favourite ^Yorks. Mrs. Yane was a married woman, 
 that was the first distinct point in its favour, and 
 he chose to consider her ' mated to a clown '; 
 albeit perhaps, if he had known a little more 
 about poor Pat Vane, he might have withdrawn 
 that aspersion, though it is true Patrick had grown 
 a good deal fatter and redder, and had got a little 
 too fond of John Jamieson. Then there was the 
 delightful personality of his idol, and he thought 
 he knew what cCdincne meant now. To do the 
 lady justice, she was only playing, while Harry 
 was in high-toned anapaestic frenzy. She did not 
 permit him any except the most trivial and 
 tantalizing freedom of behaviour. She liked 
 him, but was not at all disturbed in her sleep or 
 appetite on his account. 
 
 The fortunate part, too, was that Harry's parents 
 never found out the foolishness which he was 
 
A LITTLE POACHING 141 
 
 proudly carrying on. It never entered into their 
 heads to conceive such a thing. She was a married 
 lady, and he was a j^oung gentleman of England, 
 and their son, w^herefore it was unimaginable that 
 there should be ' anything between them.' Kespect- 
 able young gentlemen did not make love to married 
 ladies in a country which enjoys the blessings of 
 a Protestant Succession, an Established Church, 
 and a virtuous Royal Family. Sir William and 
 Lady Long had been well ' brought up ' after the 
 fashion of their time, so that no great violence 
 of sexual passion had ever come within their ken. 
 She had been the daughter of a ' gentleman of 
 property ' m Hampshire, and he had ' formed an 
 attachment ' to her (she having been thrown into 
 his society to that end), after which he had 
 ' expressed his admiration,' to her parents, of her 
 ' person and manners,' which were ' agreeable,' if 
 
142 TREA SON-FELONY 
 
 a trifle silly, and obtained their permission (which 
 they were overjoyed to grant) to ' make his pro- 
 posals ' or ' pay his addresses ' to the lady. I am 
 not certain that he did not make or pay them in 
 writing, with his crest at the top, and ' your 
 most obt. and devotd. admirer ' at the bottom, 
 and beginning ' Madam,' so that it was all done 
 most properly and genteelly, and never went much 
 above the recognised degree of tepidity. 
 
 Consequently, they were far from likely to 
 suppose their son capable of ' carrying on an 
 intrigue ' founded on romances they had never 
 read or heard of, and pursued in a spirit unknown 
 to them. Bessie had some inkling of the matter, 
 and smiled to herself, and waited what the end 
 would be. 
 
 So for a little while Harry had a delight- 
 ful excursion into that frequently- explored, but 
 
A LITTLE POACHING 143 
 
 always new and attractive region called Fools' 
 Paradise. 
 
 And then Shaw came, who will be further 
 treated of. 
 
 But before Shaw came Harry's horn was exalted, 
 and he patted himself on the back and told himself 
 he was no end of a dog, and that he really had 
 better look out ; he was going rather far, but it was 
 fate after all, and ' come what may, there was one 
 thing worth,' etc. (only it is doubtful whether he 
 ever got it). It is usual on these occasions to 
 blame fate. 
 
 One evening, after dinner, Harry set forth with 
 a cigarette, in the time of sunset, for a stroll in 
 the grounds. He liked to wander out by himself 
 to think. He thought about Mrs. Yane, and about 
 himself, and planned what he would say to her, 
 and what he would do when they met again, as 
 
144 TKEASON-FELOXY 
 
 he hoped would be the case to-morrow. There 
 was a landing-place, I mentioned, on the river, at 
 the bottom of the sloping wood belonging to 
 Crowhill, and just in shore, hidden among the 
 oak-trees, an old summer-house. Here Mrs. Yane 
 had provided some comfortable basket-chairs, and 
 here she was in the habit, on fine warm afternoons, 
 of sitting, reading novels, eating sweets, and rolling 
 cir/arillos with little orange-dyed finger and thumb 
 tips. And if Harry Long paddled down in a canoe 
 so far, she would nod to him lazily and smile, and 
 perhaps throw a chocolate cream at him, as if he 
 were a waterfowl come to be fed. Then he vv'ould 
 come ashore, and she would point to a chair, and 
 say : ' Sit down, and make yourself comfortable. 
 Now amuse me.' Then Harry would become 
 dumb with self-torture to extract that flow of 
 airy epigram which came to him so easily 
 
A LITTLE POACHING 14^ 
 
 when he was by himself imagining conversa- 
 tions. 
 
 Very well, he was alone in the evening, taking a 
 stroll in the grounds of Lowcliff. In the course of 
 time he got into a shady copse with grassy paths, 
 called Joan's Grove, from some story connected with 
 it, where a fair amount of game was usually to be 
 found, and where some coops were, in pheasant- 
 breeding time, under the jealous care of Pentony 
 Nobbs, the keeper. The path was covered with 
 rich, thick mossy grass, which made his footsteps 
 silent, and he walked slowly on, inhaling the 
 fragrance of the summer evening. The path he 
 followed would lead him to a gate — an ordinary 
 five-barred gate, fastened with a hurdle rmg ; and 
 beyond the gate was a barley-field, slopmg down 
 towards the Lowcliff side of the river. 
 
 Crowbill was a mile or so lower down, and on 
 
 VOL. I. 10 
 
J46 TREA SON-FELONY 
 
 the opposite side. The river at Lowcliff was narrow 
 and shallow, and only navigable in summer by a 
 canoe. 
 
 Before the path reached the gate it bent a good 
 deal to the left, and as Harry was in the act of 
 rounding the bend, he met and nearly came in 
 collision with a girl — the girl Lee whom he had 
 seen in the cottage garden, with her grandmother, 
 the day he came home. So she was trespassing ; 
 and, what was worse, she was carr3'ing an animal, 
 to wit, a rabbit, in one hand, and a very obvious 
 wire in the other. She stood still, and stared 
 defiantly out of dark eyes at Harry, and he looked 
 curiously at her. If she ran away, the gate would 
 stop her long enough for him to catch her. If 
 she tried to dodge past him, he would probably 
 trip her up. Besides, even if she escaped success- 
 fully, she could easily be identified and found at 
 
A LITTLE POACHING 147 
 
 lioine. Distinctly a tight place — what the burglar 
 calls ' a fair cop.' So she stared defiantly at 
 Harry, and breathed a little quickly. Besides, 
 she liked looking at Harry, and felt, if she were to 
 be ' run in ' at all, she would rather he did it than 
 the keeper or the constable. She had the vaguest 
 ideas of the penalty attached to her crime. It 
 might be six months, and it might be two years ; 
 there might or might not be arduous mechanical 
 exertion attached to it. And only for having a 
 lark, after all, she reflected, and taking a rabbit 
 worth fourpence no one would ever miss. 
 
 •' "Well, Miss Lee, this is rather cool, isn't it ?' 
 
 Miss Lee offered no remark. 
 
 * May I ask icliy you take other people's 
 rabbits ?' 
 
 ' Because we've got none of our own, and want 
 .some.' 
 
148 TREASON-FELONY 
 
 Eva Lee did not know that she had put Socialism 
 in a nutshell. Harry said : 
 
 *Well, it's lucky for you, under the circum- 
 stances, that I'm not my father.' 
 
 * It's lucky for you, sir, I ^Yasn't mine. I say, 
 are you going to take me to the keepers, and the 
 police, and Starmouth lock-up, and all that ? : I'll 
 go with you quietly, if you want.' 
 
 And there was a sad animal submission in the 
 dark eyes, visible, though the]twilight grew. Harry 
 smiled, and replied : 
 
 ' Look here, you can take the bunn}^ home with 
 you, and I'll keep it dark ! Don't let old Nobbs 
 spot you, though, or there'll be the deuce to pay.' 
 
 The dark eyes lighted up with a splendid smile, 
 and the girl said in a low voice : 
 
 ' God bless you, sir ! And I'll never take a bird 
 or beast of yours again — strike me blind V 
 
A LITTLE POACHING 149 
 
 * I say,' added Harry hesitatingly, ' if it isn't a 
 rude question, you're a gipsy by birth, aren't you?' 
 
 'Yes, sir.' 
 
 'Well, do you know anything about fortune- 
 telling — hand-reading, you know ?' 
 
 ' Oh yes, grandmother taught me something of 
 dukkerin, but it's all nonsense ! She used to get a 
 little money out of rjorgios at race-meetings by it. 
 It's mostly nonsense. I've been to school, and I 
 know better.' 
 
 ' Well, I don't doubt there's a good deal of noii' 
 .sense in it — sometimes ; but I should take it as a 
 favour if you would read mine, to the best of your 
 .ability.' 
 
 ' Not for money ?' 
 
 ' No. For— for a lark.' 
 
 Eva Lee hesitated, then suddenly seemed to 
 anake up her mind. 
 
ISO TREASON-FELOXY 
 
 ' Give me your left hand.' 
 
 And he stood, as a patient having his pulse felfc 
 stands, while she bent closely over his hand in the 
 fading light. A very pretty picture. 
 
 * You must come nearer the gate. I can't see 
 under these trees.' 
 
 And they ^yent. Eva Lee again took his hand, 
 leaning her own elbow on the gate, and inspected 
 Harry's ' lines.' 
 
 ' Awfully pretty girl !' reflected he, as he waited 
 for the verdict. 'If I was a bounder I should 
 take advantage of the position to try and kiss- 
 her.' 
 
 The girl stood up, relinquished his hand, and 
 said : 
 
 ' You want what you can't get. If you do get it^ 
 you will be sorry, till something else makes you 
 glad you lost it..' 
 
A LITTLE POACH I KG 15=1 
 
 * That's rather oracular, isn't it '?' 
 
 * How do YOU mean ?' 
 
 * Couldn't you put it a little plainer '?' 
 
 'You love a ^yoman who doesn't love you, and 
 you don't love a woman yet who — does.' 
 Harry started. 
 ' Go on.' 
 
 * And there are two deaths — but not yours. You 
 will suffer, and then you will be happy, and wiser 
 and stronger for sorrow.' 
 
 ' Of course you can't tell me who any of these 
 people are ?' 
 
 *No. I can't tell that. There's old Nobbs's 
 voice, in the wood, talking to his dog !' 
 
 'I don't hear anything.' 
 
 ' No, sir, you're not a gipsy — and a poacher. 
 Good-night ! Thank you, always and always. 
 Kushto hah!' 
 
T52 TREA SON-FELONY 
 
 And Miss Lee was over the gate and going 
 along the dry ditch of the barley-field, hidden 
 by the hedge, in no time. Shortly Pentony Nobbs 
 api^eared with a dog and gun, and gave Harry 
 good-evening. 
 
CHAPTEK III. 
 
 HARRY RECEIVES SHOCKS, AND BECOMES FOR AAYHILE 
 A GRAND SEIGNEUR. 
 
 The next day Harry went in the afternoon in his 
 canoe down the river, under the delightful shade of 
 trees, with the sunlight falling through in spots and 
 moving spirals and aureoles on the water, alongside 
 green meadows sloping gently down, where the 
 river began to widen, and the green rushes to stand 
 in stiff Httle groups at the soft crumbling edges, 
 under bowing trees again, and so on to the old 
 wooden landing-place of Crowhill, where he paused 
 and looked in the accustomed direction. But the 
 old arbour was empty. The chairs were still 
 
154 TREASON-FELONY 
 
 there, but the charmer was gone. This was the 
 first shock. 
 
 Puzzled, he got out of his canoe, and, tying it to 
 the Httle pier, walked up the winding path through 
 the wood which led to the house, thinking of the 
 last time he had walked along it with her, and of 
 the things which had been said at the different 
 parts of it, of which the various trees, turnings, 
 and even exposed roots and casual stones, were 
 lasting landmarks. And as he walked a germ of 
 dread was born in his mind : would this whisperin g 
 wood of memories, these fragrant fragments of fair 
 summer scenes, be one day all that was left to him 
 of this first love of his ? Would the lonely old red 
 house among the fir-trees be an uninscribed monu- 
 ment to the departed joy, the tender sorrow, and 
 the eternal memory of a star-crossed passion, a 
 place he w^ould come again from far countries to 
 
HARRY RECEIVES SHOCKS 155 
 
 see, when stern matur% had replaced his romantic 
 youth, to yearn again for the far-off days, the fairy 
 tale, all- lilies and roses and running sunlit water, 
 which he had once lived ? And then he thought 
 again, in this solitary copse, of still earlier days, 
 when the old white-headed parson, now dead, used 
 to preach in a black gown, and he, a little boy, 
 sang every Sunday afternoon, in the growing winter 
 twilight, to the old tune — 
 
 ' Swift to its close ebbs out life's little day ; 
 Earth's joys grow dim, its glories pass away ;' 
 
 and then he and Bessie used to come home and 
 have jam for tea. Somehow his throat got tearful. 
 And all this because Mrs. Yane, whom he had no 
 business to love at all, was not in the arbour. He 
 went to the house, and rang at the bell. It was 
 answered by the tall, dark, soldierly servant, Lee, 
 whose functions seemed various. Harry asked, 
 
156 TREASON-FELONY 
 
 with the diffidence of youth, if Mr. Yane were at 
 home, and was told that they were all gone out 
 in the yacht. Then his spirits revived, and he 
 thought : ' Well, there's nothing particular in that, 
 though they might have given me the refusal too. 
 But perhaps Yane's jealous.' Buoyed up with that 
 soothing idea, he asked Lee how long they would 
 be away, and he replied that he was not certain, 
 but not more than a day or two, he understood. 
 So Harry withdrew, and returned to his canoe in 
 somewhat higher spirits, thinking what a very un- 
 necessary owl he had made of himself a few minutes 
 before. 
 
 And he let himself drift slowly down the creek, 
 reflecting with complacent melancholy that 
 
 ' Even the weariest river 
 Winds somewhere safe to sea.' 
 
 When he got down to Starmouth, the bay, the 
 
HARRY RECEIVES SHOCKS 157 
 
 little gray stone dock and breakwater, the black- 
 hulled fishing smacks and ketches with sails half 
 hoisted and loose to dry — sails the colour of autumn 
 leaves, the nets coloured like tobacco of different 
 strengths, from black Cavendish to tawny Turkish, 
 with bleached cork discs attached — the old stone 
 lodging cottages, the narrow esplanade supported 
 by a rough gray wall, the white and yellow shingle, 
 and the far -spread mysterious motionless blue 
 water, lay all in the shadeless radiance of the 
 southern afternoon, and ever so far away in the 
 vapour that veiled the horizon was something 
 small and white, like the white of the wings of a 
 sea-gull. And that was the main-sail and gaff- 
 topsail and spinnaker of the lerne, gliding slowl^y 
 into invisibility. It was so calm that she had been 
 hours getting those few miles away. 
 
 For the next day or two Harry haunted Star- 
 
158 TREASON-FELONY 
 
 month Bay, and I dare say the constant exposure 
 to air and water and the exercise did him a great 
 deal of good. He scanned the ' offing ' with the 
 vigilance of a coastguard, bringing a small single- 
 barrelled telescope to bear on the different craft. 
 During the second afternoon of being thus em- 
 ployed, he suddenly and remorsefully recollected 
 that Shaw was to come, and that he ought to be at 
 the station to meet him. However, it was too late 
 now, and he could only hope that they had been 
 more thoughtful up at the house, as in fact they 
 had. His sister had mentioned it after lunch, 
 when she saw Harry go towards the river in flannel 
 array, and evidently with his mind full of some- 
 thing other than Shaw, and Eogers had been sent 
 with the dogcart. 
 
 Harry's persistency was rewarded^by the sight of 
 the leruc at last, coming in almost before the wind, 
 
HARRY RECEIVES SHOCKS 159 
 
 for though still a warm fine day, a ' depression ' 
 was advancing from Spain, and the south-east 
 calm was changing into a south-south-western 
 l)reeze, and a ripple was spreading over the 
 Channel. Erelong she took up her moorings in 
 good style, the sails came down, and after a little 
 while a boat came alongside, a smart brown 
 varnished boat ; and down the little ladder, where 
 the white hand-ropes and oval fenders hung, came 
 — a lady (Mrs. Yane), a gentleman, another gentle- 
 man, and then Mr. Yane, and they were pulled 
 towards the shore. 
 
 This was the second shock. 
 
 Of course they would go up to the landing in 
 the creek, which was out of sight round the bend, 
 so Harry posted himself and canoe as if on his 
 way home, in such wise that the boat must pass 
 him. He wanted to see her face again, and he 
 
i6o TREA SON-FELONY 
 
 wanted to see the two strangers, and he wanted to 
 know what it all meant. In due course they came, 
 the sunburnt handsome young marmers in blue 
 guernseys, with lerne in white letters on the breast, 
 and blue stocking-caps, pulling in short, powerful 
 salt-water arm-strokes, so different from the river- 
 pulling Harry was accustomed to see about Grassy 
 and Ditton. Suddenly Harry had a brilliant 
 thought. Those men, of course, would go to one 
 of the Starmouth taverns, as soon as they had 
 done their work, to the Pilot-boat, the Ship, the 
 King's Arms, the London, the New Inn, the Let 
 the Bees Live, or the Eing o' Bells. What would 
 be easier than at the expense of a little refresh- 
 ment to pump one of them as to the voyage and 
 the passengers? It was a nice quiet, tricky, 
 detective sort of thing to do. Was it quite gentle- 
 manly ? Oh, that be somethinged ! all was fair 
 
; HARRY RECEIVES SHOCKS i6i 
 
 in There ! now lie was dropping into pro- 
 verbs, w^hich showed that something was getting 
 seriously w'rong with his brains. 
 
 Mrs. Vane in the boat saw him, and nodded, 
 and smiled sweetly. She had on a white cap, of 
 the kind called heret in France, and known in 
 England as a Carlist cap, and later as a Leonardo 
 da Yinci cap, and it became her. Yane, in a 
 blue serge suit, held the yoke-lines, and nodded 
 good - humouredly, and called out, ' Lovely 
 weather .! ' 
 
 The two strange gentlemen were of this appear- 
 ance. One was stalwart and broad-shouldered, 
 and had a bullet head, short hair like a soldier, 
 a^nd a square, leathery-skinned face, with a shortish 
 nose, and masterful chin under a thick moustache 
 of a grizzled brown, slightly resembling, in total 
 effect, the popular caricature of Bismarck. The 
 
 VOL. I. 11 
 
i62 TREA SON-FELO.VY 
 
 reader will perhaps recognise Seoor Don Miguel 
 Doliertj, a few years older, though, of course,. 
 Harry had no idea who he could be. That youth 
 would have been pleased to hear Captain Doherty 
 say to Yane : ' Who's that, now ?' and Yane reply r 
 *0h, he's a clever boy — a neighbour of ours here. 
 Mary knows more of him than I do, for he's a great 
 mash of hers.' 
 
 The other stranger was a small man, with 
 regular, somewhat Oriental features, a sallow 
 complexion, very black hair, straight like an 
 Indian's, a small moustache produced laterally in 
 thin spikes, a rather foreign cut of clothes, and a 
 general air of dainty neatness. He had remark- 
 ably expressive brown eyes set in black-lashed, deep 
 orbits — eyes that looked as if they were not accus- 
 tomed to miss anything there might be to see. 
 His age would be difficult to guess, but he lookedl 
 
HARRY RECEIVES SHOCKS 163 
 
 younger than Doherty or Yane, and Harry put him 
 clo^^'n as quite a young man. 
 
 Meanwhile, Miss Ehzabeth Long had decided 
 that the afternoon would be best spent in a 
 hammock she had had slung bet^Yeen two shady 
 trees in the garden, with the cat and ' Treasure 
 Island;' and there is no doubt she was more 
 sensibly occupied than her brother. And just as 
 she had got to the part where the ship is being 
 fitted out, and a crew found at the port of Bristol, 
 someone came silently over the lawn towards her, 
 making a moving obstruction to the sunlight which 
 her eyes absently saw without noticing. Not wish- 
 ing to startle her, the someone coughed, and the 
 cat got up, and fidgeted and trampled round and 
 round, and Bessie looked up with a surprised smile, 
 and saw a man in a pale-brown tweed suit, whd 
 took off his hat, and said : 
 
i64 TREASON-FELONY 
 
 ' Don't get ujD, Miss Long. I hope I didn't 
 startle you. The servant sent me out here, think- 
 mg that Long — that your brother was somewhere 
 about here. I hope you know who I am ?' 
 
 ^ Of course I know who you are ;' and she sat 
 ^p ni the hammock, ejected the cat, which 
 stretched itself regretfully and blinked, jumped 
 (Dut herself, and shook hands with the visitor, look- 
 ing welcome and some quiet merriment from those 
 eyes, which he compared mentally to pale corn- 
 flowers. 
 
 * leather and mother are out, and Harry's canoe- 
 ing, but he'll be in directly. Would you like to 
 have anythmg?' 
 
 * Oh, I think not, thanks.' 
 
 'I think you would. You have come a long 
 way, and it's a hot day. If you were in your 
 jooms in Trinity College, you would send the gyp 
 
HARRY RECEIVES SHOCKS 165 
 
 out for a tankard of college ale, on a day like this^ 
 I'm sure.' 
 
 * Well, it is rather hot, certainly, but ' 
 
 * Come along.' And Miss Long led the way in 
 at the open French window of the breakfast-room, 
 and said : ' Now, you sit down there, and wait a 
 minute, if you'll excuse me.' 
 
 And Shaw sat down and waited, and smiled 
 gently, and murmured in the depths of his soul : 
 *Very few other girls would have had so much 
 sense.' J. E. Shaw was a man of a trifle over 
 thirty, about five feet ten, sallow complexion, thick 
 brown hah', parted in the middle, and tending to 
 curl a little at the sides and back when it had not 
 just been cropped short, a longish straight nose, 
 thin face, and a brown moustache of a lighter 
 colour than his hair. He wore glasses, attached 
 to a very thin gold cord, and his gray eyes had, ia 
 
i66 TREA SON-FELONY 
 
 addition to the rather tired look pecuhar to short- 
 sighted people who read a good deal, a keenly 
 humorous expression, as if the whole world were 
 something very funny indeed, if you could only 
 see it through his glasses. Peoj)le used to say : 
 *He's not handsome, and jQi it's a face you can't 
 help liking.' 
 
 He was square-shouldered, but had the slight 
 stoop of reading men who are rather tall. He had 
 long slender brown hands, and wore no rings or 
 gloves. Some years ago he had been a scholar, 
 and then he had taken a place in the first class 
 of the Classical Tripos, upon which he became a 
 coach. Eecently he had taken his M.A., and the 
 white name on a black ground on the wall at the 
 bottom of his staircase had been duly altered from 
 * J. E. Shaw ' to ' Mr. Shaw.' He looked forward, 
 with some sadness, to a fellowship at ' some small 
 
HARRY RECEIVES SHOCKS 167 
 
 college pervaded with piety and black men,' by- 
 and-by. 
 
 And Bessie came in again with a small salver, 
 on which was a tankard of ale. 
 
 ^ There,' she said. 
 
 \Thanks, so much ! What a very fine 
 tankard !' 
 
 ' It's more than a century old. Very few people 
 ever are allowed to use it.' 
 
 ' Thanks again.' And he drank. 
 
 When he put it down, with a grateful sigh, she 
 said : 
 
 ' Now, would you like to come and walk about 
 the garden ?' 
 
 ' Yes. There is only one thing I should like 
 better than walking in the garden.' 
 
 ' What's that ?' 
 
 ' Well — sitting in the garden.' 
 
1 68 TREA SON-FELONY- 
 
 ' You are lazy.' 
 
 ' Yes, veiy.' 
 
 ' Can you ^Yalk as far as the seat under the elni^ 
 do you think ?' 
 
 ' Man might tiy.' 
 
 ' I hope you're not going to encourage Harry ta 
 be lazy.' 
 
 * Oh no ! He shall work. Oh, by all means ! 
 He shall practise sprinting, and I'll keep the time.' 
 
 ' But I mean for his Tripos.' 
 
 ' Oh ! I thought you meant tennis and that sort 
 of thing — the things men do in flannels in hot 
 weather. His Tripos is all right. At least, it ought 
 to be, if he doesn't spread out too much after fads.. 
 He's far too original.' 
 
 '■ Too original ?' 
 
 * Yes. It's getting such a common trick now 
 among undergraduates to be original.' 
 
HARRY RECEIVES SHOCKS 169 
 
 'Weren't yon?' 
 
 'No. I was abjectly commonplace. I tubbed, 
 I had a green tablecloth from Swann's, I rowed m 
 the fourth Fnst Trmity five, was bumped by Lady 
 Margaret, and photo'd m a group by Hills and 
 Saunders with our names underneath. I quoted 
 Macaulay's essays at the Union — quoted them so 
 copiously that they made me President — and always 
 voted Tory.' 
 
 ' I hope you do still.' 
 
 ' Yes ; I'm so commonplace that I do still. I 
 shot at a target, too, and attacked hedges in 
 skirmishing order. Oh, I was a very ordinary 
 man !' 
 
 ' But you got a first class? That's not 
 ordinary.' 
 
 ' No. Though attempts at it sometimes lead to 
 the Ordinary by Special permission. But lots of 
 
I70 TREASON-FELONY 
 
 men get first-classes every year. Don't press my 
 proposition too hard, or it will give way.' And 
 Shaw leaned back on the rustic seat under the big 
 old elm, and extended his legs some distance to 
 his front on the soft green lawn, and looked 
 pleased. 
 
 ' This is very nice, after four hours' joggling in 
 the South - Western, and one and a half in the 
 Great Eastern. You ought to be very happy, 
 living in a place like this. I suppose you are ?' 
 
 ' Oh yes, I think so. At least, I never think 
 about it.' 
 
 ' That is a good sign. It's a mistake to begin 
 analyzing and wondering whether you're really 
 happy. You get to doubting whether it's worth 
 while being alive at all, then you begin thinking 
 about the meaning of things in general, and so 
 work your mind into a state wherein you demand 
 
HARRY RECEIVES SHOCKS 171 
 
 passionately why effect should be the consequence 
 of cause.' 
 
 * They say it's selfish, too, to let j'Our mind be 
 taken up by things like that, that you ought to 
 find your happiness by not seeking it, in making 
 other people happy. I don't say I'm like that, 
 you know, only that they say one ought to 
 be.' 
 
 ' Yes. I've heard of that method of ethics too. 
 Perhaps it is a little weak in places. Yes. When 
 you come to think of it, it is inconsistent with 
 itself. That's where it breaks down.' 
 ' How ?' 
 
 ' Well, you can't be unselfish, and make a 
 sacrifice for another, unless another is selfish 
 enough to accept it. Without selfishness on one 
 side, unselfishness on the other doesn't come off, 
 any more than steel without flint.' 
 
172 TREASON-FELONY 
 
 ' It doesn't sound right, somehow. I don't think 
 many people would agree to that.' 
 
 * Then it's all the more likely to be true. Don't 
 you see ? Suppose you had one chocolate cream — 
 have you one ? It would make the illustration 
 more convincing.' 
 
 ' No. Wish I had. I shouldn't give it to 
 you.' 
 
 ' No ; I give you credit for that. But suppose 
 you were one of those altruistic people, and wanted 
 me to take it, though you would like it yourself, 
 wouldn't I be a beast to accept it ?' 
 
 ' Of course, because I should only offer it out 
 of politeness, and expect you to refuse it.' 
 
 * But that is an evasion of my hypothesis. And 
 if I don't take it, what becomes of your altruism ? 
 The motive remains, of course, to increase the sum 
 of your good intentions ; but what's the good of a 
 
HARRY RECEIVES SHOCKS 173 
 
 system of ethics which can't translate intention 
 into action without encouraging in one person the 
 quahty it prohibits in another ?' 
 
 'Well, what would you do if things were the 
 other way ?' 
 
 ' I? Oh, I should eat it, I suppose !' 
 
 ' I kilow what you w^ould really do — you w^ould 
 say you had a lot more, and didn't really want it, 
 and that would enable me to accept it without 
 selfishness.' 
 
 ' I think a neat essay might be written on the 
 egotism of unselfish people, who must ahvays 
 indulge their vice at the expense of the moral 
 integrity of others.' 
 
 Bessie smiled a little, and looked at the flower- 
 beds a little way off in the sunlit part of the lawn. 
 Then she looked at Shaw with a comical expression, 
 and asked : 
 
174 TREA SON-FELONY 
 
 ' Do you still worship idols ?' 
 ' Gracious ! do you remember that ? Oh, I'm 
 more advanced now. I've got a cat.' 
 ' Are you fond of cats ?' 
 
 * Yes ; I like cats very much.' 
 
 * So do I. What becomes of her in your 
 absence ?' 
 
 * The bedmaker looks after her. She's very 
 affectionate — I mean the bedmaker is — and Jezebel 
 is gone to board with her for the Long.' 
 
 * What do you call her ?' 
 
 * Jezebel; also Pasht. But the bedmaker calls 
 her Kitty.' 
 
 Here Harry came over the lawn, having learnt 
 in the house of Shaw's arrival, saying : 
 
 * Hullo, Shaw! Glad to see you! I say, I'm 
 awfully sorry I wasn't in when you came, but 
 it's rather a grind getting up here from the bay 
 
HARRY RECEIVES SHOCKS 175 
 
 against the stream. Have you been looked after 
 all right ?' 
 
 ' Very much so, thanks.' 
 
 ' Why, you're not even smoking ! What on 
 earth are 3^ou thinking about, Bessie ?' 
 
 ' I'm very sorry. It didn't occur to me.' 
 
 * And it didn't occur to me either, Miss Long. 
 It's all right.' 
 
 ' Well, would you like to sit here, Shaw, or to 
 go and loaf about a bit ?' 
 
 ' Just as you like.' 
 
 ' Well, let's go for a turn and have a pipe. W^e 
 dine at seven, and it's a quarter-past five now, so 
 there's plenty of time.' 
 
 ' All right.' 
 
 Bessie discreetly disappeared. 
 
 * Did you manage the travelling all right, Shaw ?' 
 
 * Fairly well. From Waterloo to Bishopstoke 
 
176 TREASON-FELONY 
 
 was of a bustling, express order. At Bishopstoke — 
 no, I think it was Basingstoke ; make it so — one 
 examined the scenery a good deal. Some pretty 
 leisurely skirmishing across country towards Salis- 
 bury, very rural. I had no idea England could 
 be so rural — I mean so entirely destitute of square 
 brick houses with blue slate roofs. At Salisbury 
 one ate something, and drank ale. What a very 
 charming place you have here. Long !' 
 
 'Yes, it's a jolly old place, isn't it? And it's 
 something to have the river and sea handy. If 
 this weather lasts, we'll bathe daily. Come and 
 do it now, if you like.' 
 
 ' Will there be time ?' 
 
 ' Oh yes. It isn't far to the seashore, only it's 
 uphill going home. I generally canoe, but, un- 
 fortunately, that won't do for two, and it doesn't 
 take so long to walk.' 
 
HARRY RECEIVES SHOCKS 177 
 
 * Very well. Only you are responsible for my 
 being back here in time to change.' 
 
 So they went, and admired the quaint beauty 
 of steep Starmouth town and its sunny bay, where 
 they plunged and gambolled joyously in the trans- 
 parent green and purple water, not from a bathing- 
 machine, in which case a long walk over sand and 
 stones and weedy water up to his ankles is the 
 bather's portion, but from a boat, manned by one 
 ol those lazy, brown, peaceful-eyed men in dark 
 blue guernseys, who seem to spend their time 
 standing on the shore and spitting, when not 
 visiting a lobster-pot in the early morning. Harry 
 knew this man, and asked him if he knew where 
 the lerne, now moveless at her moorings, with hull 
 a-glitter in south-western sunlight, had been to. 
 The man replied that he was told somewhere 
 about near the Isle of Wight, but added : 
 
 VOL. L 12 
 
178 TREASON-FELONY 
 
 ' But, law there ! they Irish chaps'll tell any 
 lie. Dan Bere's smack was out early s'marnin, 
 and 'e says as 'e see 'er comin' from the coast 
 o' France, and then she putt 'er 'ellum ' (some- 
 where Harry didn't understand or remember), 
 ' and shifted 'er course a matter o' fower pints ; 
 but, there, I s'pose they knows their own business 
 best.' 
 
 ' That's odd,' said Shaw. ' Who does she belong- 
 to? She's a very pretty cutter.' 
 
 'Ah, she be!' said the mariner; 'and she can 
 walk too.' 
 
 ' She belongs to Mr. Yane, of Crowbill, a neigh- 
 bour of ours,' said Harry, as he pulled off his shirt 
 over his head. 
 
 ' Oh ! There was a fellow-passenger of mine, 
 the only one who got out at what's-its-name.' 
 
 'Shervil?' 
 
HARRY RECEIVES SHOCKS 179 
 
 * Shervil, yes. And he wanted to go to CrowhilL 
 You'd think him a Scotchman — shrewd reader — at 
 sight. We conversed in the train a httle. He 
 seemed a person of wide experience of what I call 
 an out-door kind. Not exactly cultured, you know, 
 in the midnight oil sense — I should think the mid- 
 night whisky more in his line — but he had once 
 known what they call Humahnities, and added to 
 that much knowledge of urhes and gentes. Dark, 
 long party. Military exterior. Tendency to haggle 
 with local fly-driver. All of which formed a mild 
 entertainment for me. Good- day !' 
 
 And Shaw's lank person, decorated simply with 
 a pair of gold spring double-glasses, precipitated 
 itself head first over the stern. Harry saw him, 
 and went better. 
 
 As they walked home, refreshed, and enjoying 
 the warm sun, Shaw observed : 
 
fSo TREA SON-FELONY 
 
 * I met a min called Vane once.' 
 ' Did you ? Where ?' 
 
 'In Paris.' 
 
 'When?' 
 
 ' Last Easter Yac' 
 
 'What was he like?' 
 
 * Shortish, dull red as to hair and moustache, 
 with gray striations. Bulged some, as the Americans 
 say, about the waist. Placable, given to conversa- 
 tion of an autobiographic kind, and to strange 
 drinks. The latter in excess, like acids in analysis. 
 He spoke after the manner of the western member 
 of the group composing the British archipelago, 
 and, like my friend in the train to-day, seemed to 
 know all about Grand Cathay— ^he was distinctly a 
 Cataian in the Shakespearian sense — and the land 
 of Pr ester John.' 
 
 ' But that's the man !' 
 
HARRY RECEIVES SHOCKS i8'i 
 
 ' You know him, eh ? Then you know also Mary 
 Carmen Juanita IntimidacI Lairanaga, and so 
 forth?' 
 
 ' Mrs. Yane ? Yes, I know^ her.' 
 * So do I. Perhaps you — I say, is it 
 serious ?' 
 
 'Fairly serious,' replied Harry with bashful 
 pride. 
 
 ' Has she played the guitar to you ?' 
 'Yes.' 
 
 ' Has she told you you were the only person who 
 could really understand her ?' 
 'Well, yes. Why?' 
 
 ' Oh, it's what she used to tell me ! I wanted to 
 find out if she had developed any new methods 
 since. She managed to convey to me how beauti- 
 ful and clever I was, till I nearly believed it, and she 
 cost me at least a hundred francs in bangles and 
 
|i82 TREA SON-FELONY 
 
 s^veets and junketings. AYliat has she got you to 
 buy for her ?' 
 
 ' Well, you couldn't buy much here if you wanted. 
 I have given her a few sweets, perhaps, and a little 
 tobacco — and — er — a cigarette-holder.' 
 
 ' Any gloves ?' 
 
 ' Oh 3'es, a pair or two !' 
 
 * And you've known her — how long ?' 
 ' Well, ever since I came down.' 
 
 * That is nearly a fortnight. Now, you take my 
 tip, as the vulgar say, and turn it up.' 
 
 ' That's all very well, but I don't quite see it. 
 After all, it isn't any very great harm if she has had 
 a few little things. She takes a child-like delight 
 in those trifles, and probably does not know what 
 they cost — why, she is hardly more than a child.' 
 
 At the same time Harry had received the third 
 shock of this shockful day. 
 
HARRY RECEIVES SHOCKS 183 
 
 ' Cliild ? She is a South American, and has 
 been a woman for the last fomieen years, and 
 23robably had more lovers than she can comit or 
 remember. She is just as shallow, vain, and 
 selfish as they are made. Don't imagine I am 
 moralizing. I merely mean she is not good 
 enough. I regret to say, also, that she has no 
 conception of the sanctity of truth. I could give 
 instances.' 
 
 'You have evidently got a strong prejudice 
 against her.' 
 
 'AH right. Make it so. You ^Yill find out for 
 yourself. I say, do you put on evenmg-dress for 
 dinner ?' 
 
 ' No. I mean yes.' 
 
 And Harry became meditative and depressed. 
 Shaw smiled as he sat at the table later on, and 
 .encouraged Sir William in his political and social 
 
i84.' TREA SON'-FELONY 
 
 views, and talked about the General Election, 
 Slla^y was a young philosophic Tory of the modern 
 type. The orthodox modern Liberal has a kind of 
 contemptuous affection for the ' regular fossilized 
 old Tory,' of the class Sir William Long might be 
 said to belong to ; but he hates and fears the young 
 and cultivated individualist Tory, whose weapon is. 
 polished ridicule instead of pious denunciation, for 
 the orthodox modern Liberal knows that he must 
 be serious, that his supporters are nearly all serious, 
 people, of Calvinistic tendencies, and Social Demo- 
 crats whose strong point is rarely a sense of 
 humour. Consequently, he thoroughly enjoys 
 being made to wriggle on the barbed hook of polite 
 sarcasm backed by wdde culture. It is not half so 
 bad to be thought wdcked by the old school as to 
 be thought absurd by the new\ 
 
 Sir William enjoyed Shaw very much, and made 
 
HARRY RECEIVES SHOCKS 185 
 
 liim premise to help in the forthcoming election. 
 It should be said that a General Election ^vas about 
 to take place that summer, on a question which 
 was entirely new to the country, and far more 
 sensational than the old Local-Option-Deceased- 
 \yife's- Sister -Allotment kind of contests, and 
 marvellous rumours were flying about. For it was 
 the great Home Piule election, and anything, from 
 civil war downwards, was considered possible in 
 the course of the next few months. 
 
 And Harry sat very impatient through all this, 
 for his mind was otherwhere. 
 
 It was a very hot evening, and one of the longest 
 of the year, the sun not setting till about twenty 
 minutes past eight, and soon after dinner most of 
 the party went out into the garden to enjoy the 
 slightly cooler air, and to admire the sunset, far 
 away, at the wood- fringed ridge of the farther 
 
1 86 TREA SON-FELONY 
 
 slope of the valley — a sandy red and yellow sunset, 
 graduating up through greenish brown and indigo 
 to unstained blue, which clad all the distant trees 
 on the hill-top, hiding Crowbill in a golden dust of 
 light for a few fleeting moments, after which they 
 became black outlines against a saffron and peach- 
 green afterglow. 
 
 Lady Long put on a crochet shawl as a ]3re- 
 caution against the night air. It made her very 
 uncomfortable and was wholly unnecessary, but 
 she had been taught from her earliest youth to 
 take invariable precautions against some m^^sterious 
 venom lurking in that night air, which, of course, 
 she knew to be of entirely different composition and 
 properties to the day air. Bessie had made no 
 addition to her indoor costume, which was a cream- 
 coloured muslin frock with a canary-silk sash. 
 
 Mr. Shaw had put on a short black velvet coat 
 
HARRY RECEIVES SHOCKS 187 
 
 and a small cloth travelling cap of particularly 
 hideous colour and shape, with ^\hich he appeared 
 pleased, and -s^as by permission smoking a large 
 drooping briar pipe, of a glossy rich dark bro\\'n, 
 silver-gilt and amber-mouthed. Miss Long ^^■as 
 wishing she knew him well enough to ask whether 
 it was not the weight of it which caused him to 
 stoop slightly. 
 
 Sir William had changed his black coat for his 
 homely shooting-jacket, with the familiar pockets 
 full of the familiar useful articles, had put on a 
 straw hat, very faded, and bent in the brim, and 
 gone for a little walk along the side of a field or 
 two, and through the woods. Harry, in a First 
 Trinity 'blazer and straw,' had loafed with a 
 cigarette on the lawn for a minute or tw^o ; then, 
 seeing Shaw fully occupied in talking to Bessie, 
 and not wishing to have a long protracted con- 
 
1 88 TREASON-FELONY 
 
 versation with his mother about petunias and what 
 she called 'pelargon'ums,' quietly disappeared to 
 enjoy a little solitude along the towing-path, as it 
 might be called, though very little was ever towed 
 there. It was simply a narrow public road along- 
 side the river, and the estate of Lowcliff reached 
 down to this road, where it was bounded by a 
 rough stone wall of varying height. The ground 
 on the Lowcliff side was near the level of the top 
 of the wall, so that in order to get into the road 
 one simply need jump three or four feet down, 
 whereas to get into Lowcliff from the road one 
 must climb three or four feet up. Neither process 
 presenting any special difficulty to Harry, he 
 jumped down, with the intention of walking along- 
 side the river awhile in poetic melancholy and 
 meditation, and climbing up at a point which would 
 bring him back to the house by a different route. 
 
HARRY RECEIVES SHOCKS 189 
 
 But when he sprang down, he pitched, strange to 
 say, ahnost on the toes of a young woman who was 
 walking or standing in the road, who jumped and 
 said, ' Oh !' It was gradually getting dark, but not 
 so much so as to prevent his recognising the heroine 
 of the rabbit and the wire whom education had led 
 to despise duJJccriu, though not apparently to forget 
 that art. 
 
 'I beg your pardon!' said Harry. 'Oh, it's 
 you, Miss Lee ! I'm awfully sorry. Hope I didn't 
 startle you ?' 
 
 ' No, sir,' replied Eva Lee. 
 
 * Which way are you going ?' 
 
 ' I was going home, sir, to Eedmore.' 
 
 ' Where I saw you in the garden with your hands 
 full of flowers the day I came ?' 
 
 ' Yes, sir.' 
 
 ' That's up the river, and then turn up to the 
 
I90 TREA SON-FELOXY 
 
 right at the stile beyond Joan's Grove, I pre- 
 sume ?' 
 
 Tlie girl turned hot at the mention of the scene 
 of her recent exploit, and said : 
 
 'Yes, sir.' 
 
 ' Oh, don't call me " sir " ; it's ridiculous ! It 
 sounds as if I were a sort of feudal chieftain. Look 
 here, I'm going along your way ! If you'll allow 
 me, I'll go with you as far as the stile, and then 
 I must go in.' 
 
 ' Better not, Mr. Long,' said the girl. 
 
 ' Why ?' 
 
 * Someone might see you, and you wouldn't 
 like that.' 
 
 ' I don't the least care ; I'm doing nothing to 
 be ashamed of; and unless, of course, you don't 
 want me, I should be delighted.' 
 
 ' I don't mean I wouldn't like you to ' 
 
HARRY RECEIVES SHOCKS 191 
 
 * Then, if you please, what do you mean ?' 
 pursued Harry, standmg and smihng, with his 
 hat pushed back from his forehead, and his hands 
 in his pockets, his unbuttoned flannel jacket 
 showing his white evening shirt and single diamond 
 stud. It certainly was a hot evening. 
 
 The girl said : 
 
 ' I wonder you should want to talk to me, or risk 
 being seen with me. I'm a gipsy, and nothing 
 better than a tramp, except that I've been to 
 school, and we have a house to live in now ; and 
 you know I'm a thief,' she added in a low voice, 
 with a deeper tinge of colour which was hardly 
 perceptible in the dusk, ' and you a gentleman, 
 and one that will have a title some day.' 
 
 ' Some distant day, I hope. But that's all rot, 
 Miss Lee ! I wouldn't v\'orry about that if I were 
 you. I expect it was only a lark, and, anyhow, I 
 
192 TREA SON-FELONY 
 
 think the game laws are very absurd. Come 
 along.' And the girl obeyed, and they walked on, 
 she rather silent and probably shy, Harry making 
 conversation about the weather and the scenery 
 as he would have done for a girl in his own 
 ' station in life ' whose acq[uaintanc3 he had 
 recently made, and whose diffidence he wished to 
 dispel by ignoring its causes. It is true he was a 
 little self-conscious in this, and rather too de- 
 liberately gentlemanly and elaborately chivalrous, 
 but that is excusable. In conversation and on 
 paper he scorned grands se'ujneurs, but he quite 
 enjoyed being regarded as one ; and as he glanced 
 from time to time at the girl who walked beside 
 him — tall, upright, lissom, and graceful without 
 effort, with the grace of a Dryad, a daughter of the 
 Woods and the Sun, whose sisters the Wind and 
 Water were — Harry thought that, perhaps, after all, 
 
HARRY RECEIVES SHOCKS 193 
 
 there was something shallow, something artificial, 
 about Mrs. Vane. And he turned to his Dryad 
 — a Dryad in a nineteenth-century garb which 
 had seen better days — and said: *How do you 
 amuse yourself all day? Do you do work, or 
 what ?' 
 
 * I sometimes go on a message for father or 
 grandmother, and to fetch things, and I look after 
 the garden. That's the only work I do. Father 
 wants me to go and be a servant at — where 
 he is.' 
 
 * I know. Well?' 
 
 * Yes, I expect you do.' 
 
 * What do you mean ?' 
 
 * Nothing. Only you go there, calling and so 
 on, don't you ?' 
 
 ' Oh yes ! I'm there now and then. But yon 
 were saying ' 
 
 VOL. I. 13 
 
^94 TREA SON -FELONY 
 
 * I wouldn't go and be a servant there at any 
 price, or anywhere, if I could help it. Of course, 
 if I had to — to earn my living, well, I should just 
 have to, and that'd be an end. But I want to be 
 ©ut-of-dcors.' 
 
 ' Quite right, too. But you seem to have a 
 special antipathy to Crowbill '?' 
 
 ' I don't think I know what antipathy means.' 
 ' Well, dislike — the opposite of sympathy.' 
 
 * Oh, I hate the place !' 
 
 * Do you ? Would you mind telling me why ?' 
 'It's unlucky. There's what grandmother calls 
 
 31 bad diik on it.' 
 
 * Your father doesn't seem to mind that.' 
 
 * Father's been a soldier, and been all over the 
 world, and isn't afraid of anything — not of anything 
 at all.' 
 
 * That's rather like my father, in a way. He's 
 
HARRY RECEIVES SHOCKS 195 
 
 been a soldier, and he's been in several parts of 
 the world, and he certainly isn't afraid of any- 
 thing.' 
 
 ^ Then it'd be rather a bad job for them to 
 meet — way you and me did, wouldn't it ?' replied 
 the Dryad, with something approaching dry 
 humom\ 
 
 '' Well, perhaps it would. Let's hope it won't 
 scome off. By the way, did you mention that 
 a;Ccidental occurrence to any of your j^eople ?' 
 
 ' No, I didn't. It was no business of theirs, 
 and I kept it to myself. They'd have only 
 laughed at you, and I wouldn't have them do that.' 
 
 * Well, I think you were right. But is that the 
 only reason you dislike Crowbill, because your 
 grandmother says it's unlucky? I thought you 
 rather sniffed at that particular species of super- 
 stition the other day ?' 
 
196 TREASON-FELONY 
 
 ' I told you most clukkerin was nonsense, just a 
 dodge to get money out of ladies and gentlemen 
 and servant-girls, and so it is. I suppose you'd 
 be surprised to hear your servants come to grand- 
 mother to have their duks told ?' 
 
 *By Jove, that's rather good! No, I wasn't 
 aware of it. Which ones ?' 
 
 ' You won't tell, because I believe it's a police 
 business ?' 
 
 ' No, of course I won't tell.' 
 
 * Well, Mary and Eliza came first together. 
 They were in no end of a fright, and grandmother 
 burnt some salt and sulphur and spirits in a pot — 
 it was evening, you know, and they said they'd 
 leave out to go to chapel — and charged them a 
 shilling each. She gave 'em lovely duks, but they 
 went away with their teeth all of a rattle.' 
 
 ^Excellent old lady !' 
 
HARRY RECEIVES SHOCKS 197 
 
 ^ Then one day Mr. Kawlins came.' 
 * Raidins ! Good heavens ! Well ?' 
 It might be mentioned that Eawlins belonged 
 to the race of ancient and attached servants. He 
 was a butler, officially. As a human reality, he 
 was a shambling, red-nosed, useless, glassy-eyed 
 wreck, who helped himself freely to Sir William's 
 choicest liquors ; was far too dazed to pour anything 
 out with safety, and shook visibly when visitors 
 asked him if Lady Long was at home. Li his less 
 vacuous moments he was dictatorial and pious. 
 He cultivated several complaints with great pride, 
 and when his own health, or anyone else's, was 
 inquired after, gave the dismallest possible accounts, 
 introducing as much unsavoury detail as possible. 
 When Sir William (in robust health and good 
 spirits) had started off for a walk of eight miles 
 or so up and down hill, Eawlins would say.: 
 
1 98 TREA SON-FELONY 
 
 * Master, 'e seems to be lookin' up' a bit. 'E 
 don't find it quite so 'ard to get about a little- 
 Yes ; 'e's a trifle easier this afternoon, but 'e'll 
 never be the sarae man agen.' 
 Miss Eva Lee said : 
 
 * Well, we thought it funny, too.' 
 
 * And did he want his rotten old destiny un- 
 ravelled? I hope you gave it him warm.' 
 
 *He wanted physic, to begin with. He looked 
 as if he wanted it badly.. Grandmother gave him 
 some muck or other — she knows a lot about 
 medicine and diseases — and I'm afraid he paid for 
 it with a bottle of gin that came out of your 
 cellar.' 
 
 * I should think that was extremely likely. And 
 I have no doubt he lectures the slaveys on super- 
 stitioUy and honesty,, and temperance, and that sort 
 of thing.. But if you know this business is all rot. 
 
HARRY RECEIVES SHOCKS 199 
 
 how is it you don't like a particular house because 
 it's said to be unlucky? You've shirked that 
 point.' 
 
 * I don't like that house. And then — do you 
 think I'd go and be a servant to be ordered about 
 by that woman ? Not likely. There, now, I'm 
 speaking in a way I ought not, I suppose, and 
 making you think me low and ridiculous — which 
 I have a good reason to be.' 
 
 ' Why don't you like — Mrs. Yane ?' 
 
 * Because I don't.' 
 
 * All right. We won't dispute that. I say, do 
 you ever read any books ?' 
 
 * Yes. I like books when they're nice. But 
 I've only got one or two. Grandmother can't read 
 — except the future, you know — and books ain't in 
 father's line much, he says.' 
 
 * What have you read lately ?' 
 
2CO TREASON-FELONY 
 
 ' Well, I've read " Lady Audley'B Secret" ; that's 
 Tery good. And " The Crime of the Opera House." 
 There's a lot in that I don't quite understand, but 
 that's because I've never lived in a big town. And 
 it's supposed to be in France, too.' 
 
 * Quite so. "Well, here we are at your stile. If 
 you like, I'll lend you a book or two. I dare say 
 I've got some you'd Hke.' 
 
 * Oh, if you would, I'd be awfully pleased ! And 
 I'd take great care of them.' 
 
 'Very well. "Will you be here this time to- 
 morrow ? Then I'll bring 'em along.' 
 *Atthisstne?' 
 
 * Yes. It's getting towards half-past nine now — 
 say nine to-morrow.' 
 
 *A11 right; I'll come. I must say good-night 
 now.' 
 
 ' Good-night !' 
 
HARRY RECEIVES SHOCKS 201 
 
 And the girl put her strong slender hand in his 
 for a moment, and then disappeared into the dark- 
 ness of trees beyond the stile. It was still just 
 light enough for him to admire the ease and 
 rapidity with which she surmounted a stile, which 
 w^ould have been found a rather trying obstacle by 
 most ladies. And then he climbed the wall into 
 his own premises, and strolled home, whistling, 
 feeling he had rather neglected his guest, but 
 nevertheless, on the whole, rather pleased mth 
 himself, with the chivalrous grand seigneur feeling 
 as yet unevaporated. 
 
CHAPTEE lY. 
 
 STEVENS ON CRYPTOGRAPHY, AND OTHER MATTERS. 
 
 The same evening sunshine which slanted through 
 the long narrow hexagon panes of the oriel western 
 window of Sir William Long's dining-room, and 
 made crimson and golden dancing spots on the 
 cloth beyond the glasses of claret and hock, and lit 
 up the lilies and made rosier the roses with which 
 Miss Long had given grace to that loyal table, was 
 much at the same time casting a coppery radiance 
 on the countenance of Pat Vane, as he beamed at 
 the head of his own board in the dingy old white- 
 panelled refectory of Crowbill, a room miscel- 
 
STEVENS ON CRYPTOGRAPHY 203 
 
 laneously but picturesquely adorned with South 
 American mats, fans, and whistling earthen water- 
 pots, a fair quantity of outlandish weapons, and a 
 few ' ancestors by purchase ' to fill up space, and 
 t3 be described as the old Kings of Connaught, as 
 the twelve Caesars or the Nine Muses, the Seven 
 Deadly Virtues or the Sons of Scaeva the Jew, 
 according as the humour came to Patrick's mind. 
 Poor Vane was, as has been hinted, not improved 
 by the lapse of time, by prosperity, and by the fire- 
 water of the pale-faces. His body had lost its 
 activity and slimness ; his cheeks were more fleshy, 
 the carnations had a purple tinge, and the blue eyes 
 were duller, though a quenchless fire smouldered 
 somewhere behind them. His head and eyelids 
 had a v;ay of twitching sometimes, which suggested 
 a complaint called cliorea, but he was still a cheer- 
 ful soul, and still firmly believed that the wife he 
 
204 TREASON. FELONY 
 
 won in his last war was worth more than all his 
 other spoils. 
 
 She sat opposite to him now in a black-lace 
 frock, with a yellow rose in her hair, and smiled 
 and sparkled. On her right sat Eonald Macgregor, 
 lank, grim, and desiccated, unaltered by the years, 
 now a Brigadier- General and Knight of several 
 obscm*e orders. What he had been doing for the 
 last five years few people knew. Some say that 
 one of the native Eajahs had had a chief of the 
 staff who talked Hindostani with a peculiar accent, 
 and provided his Highness with a mysterious and 
 delightful drink, which he sold at a diamond or 
 ruby a bottle, the secret of the making of which 
 was in the bosom of the gods who dwelt in a part 
 of Paradise called Dan-di. 
 
 Others had heard of a Thibetan theosophist who 
 was entertained in the mansions of the great in 
 
STEVENS ON CRYPTOGRAPHY 205 
 
 several European cities, and told people at great 
 length all about everything, and what they ought 
 to do, and received messages from the bottomless 
 pit. There ^yere gipsies, too, in many places who 
 had foregathered with a strange tall lean man who 
 rokkered the old jih, and knew many charms, a 
 very valiant trencherman, and well acquainted 
 with all little games, including such as may be 
 played with horses. However these things may 
 be, here he sat in evening-dress at Crowhill, and 
 next him sat a massive, hard, thoughtful man, who 
 was Captain Doherty. They talked of old times, 
 more particularly of the sack of San Jose, and the 
 way they went down to the sea that memorable 
 afternoon, and the two bachelors assured Mrs. Vane 
 she did not look a day older since then. Captain 
 Doherty said he had been acting as a special 
 correspondent in Boerland, in Bechuanaland, and 
 
2o6 TREASON-FELONY 
 
 in Mahdiland. He was a fine rich brown, the 
 brown of coffee-berries very slightly roasted, and 
 seemed in good condition. 
 
 On the other side of the table, on Mrs. Yane's 
 left, sat the other guest, the small pale man with 
 the straight black hair, the sharp eyes, and the 
 waxed moustache, whose name was Stevens — 
 Edmund Stevens. He had been introduced to 
 Doherty in Paris, as one sent over on a high con- 
 fidential mission from certain people in America to 
 report on the organizations and to advise. He had 
 expressed a desire to come over with Doherty on 
 this occasion, and Mr. Heffernan, in Paris, had 
 said : ' You'd better take um with ye, Mike. He's 
 high up in — the thing over there, you know, and 
 quite on the inside track. And maybe he has 
 some money to give us. Kape safe, and give me 
 lov to the boys.' 
 
STEVENS ON CRYPTOGRAPHY 207 
 
 And Mr. Stevens conversed with Mrs. Vane on 
 Paris, and art, and dresses, with an accent that 
 was slightly foreign, but with a more refined selec- 
 tion of words and phrases than those used by the 
 other men. At the conclusion of the meal Mrs. 
 Vane lifted her glass of champagne, looked round 
 at all the men with her beautiful eyes full of feel- 
 ing, and lit with a smile of triumph, and said: 
 * Before I go, you will drink with me one little 
 toast — yes?' 
 
 The men looked at her expectantly, and grasped 
 their glasses, which Lee solemnly filled for them. 
 Those two good old war-worn plotters, Doherty and 
 Macgregor, were both in an innocent, boyish way in 
 love with Pat Vane's pretty wife, and would have 
 drunk any toast at her bidding, and marched to the 
 Pit of Sheol in extended order for her sake. Vane 
 himself was very proud of her, of the admiration 
 
2o8 TREASON-FELONY 
 
 she attracted, and of the thorough way in which 
 her romantic and intriguing Httle soul seemed to 
 throw itself into his patriotic projects. The fact 
 was she liked acting. She liked to take the atten- 
 tion of all the men present by one bold yet graceful 
 stroke. And when she said, ' Ireland a nation !' 
 they applauded the fairy figure with the saucy 
 smile, the yellow rose and the sparkling wineglass 
 wildly, and she escaped from the room while Vane 
 and Doherty gave a whoop which woke the rookery. 
 Stevens smiled. Before his hostess had left, she 
 had intimated to him that if he got tired of 
 talking politics after dinner he would find her 
 in the garden. And Stevens thought that would 
 be more amusing than listening to what he was 
 pleased to call, in his mind, drivel about hillside 
 risings. 
 
 Lee then put a decanter of whisky, cigars, 
 
STEVENS ON CRYPTOGRAPHY 209 
 
 matches, ash-trays, and so forth on the table, and 
 left the room. 
 
 'Now, boys,' said Pat Yane, 'mix j^ourselves a 
 drop of drink according to your fancy, light up, 
 and let's get to business. I asked Mac to meet 
 you, because I thought we'd like to have the benefit 
 of his long cool head, as well as the pleasure of his 
 company.' 
 
 ' Delighted to meet General Macgregor, I'm sure,'' 
 remarked Mr. Stevens. 
 
 General Macgregor bowed solemnly and spake 
 no word. Doherty rolled his cigar round and 
 round in the corner of his mouth under h:s 
 moustache, and gazed apparently at a fly on the 
 wall. 
 
 Vane proceeded : 
 
 * I'll do well to read you a letter I've had from 
 Heffernan, which I found here on my return thia 
 
 VOL. I. ' 14 
 
2IO TREASON-FELONY 
 
 afternoon. It took me a big while hunting after 
 the key of the 9oipher, and when I got it, it was 
 in three separate spills, and I'd used half a one to 
 light a cigar.' 
 
 ' You're a born conspirator, Pat,' observed 
 Doherty. 
 
 ' Am I not ? Guy Fawkes, rest his soul ! wasn't 
 in it. Well, Heffernan says the order of the day is 
 to hold on now, and go slow, till the elections are 
 over. In the meantime to help at the elections, 
 and cultivate friendly relations with the English 
 political agents who may be useful — and wait for 
 the blooming cat to jump, more or less. Any un- 
 toward discover}^ now would have the worst possible 
 effect on the Constitutional Agitation. The boys 
 in Ireland have had the tip to aisy down and not 
 play the goat. An' I'm a Tory and a Primrose 
 Leaguer, and you're to chum with English Pro- 
 
STEVENS ON CRYPTOGRAPHY 211 
 
 testant teetotal Nonconformists, Mike, and the 
 Gineral's to preach peace at any price.' 
 
 And Vane passed the letter to Doherty, who 
 looked at it carefully, nodded, and remarked : 
 
 ' Written two days after we left Pahrus, I 
 see.' 
 
 Then he handed it to Macgregor, who looked at 
 Vane, who was twitching his head and blinking, as 
 he did when the least excited, and at Doherty, who 
 was chewing his cigar gravely with an expression 
 of inconceivable blankness. Macgregor said, after 
 a lengthy pause : 
 
 ' It's a verra warm evening.' 
 
 ' Will you allow me to see Mr. Heffernan's letter, 
 .sir ?' said Stevens mildly. 
 
 Macgregor handed it over the table, and Vane 
 observed : 
 
 ' Ye knov/ it's in coipher.' 
 
212 TREA SON-FELONT 
 
 * Quite so,' said Stevens, looking at the letter,, 
 and making a few marks with a small gold pencil- 
 case here and there. Then he looked up with a 
 smile, and said mildly : * You know, gentlemen* 
 this is a fool of a cipher. Do you really imagine 
 that even the English Government is so stupid as- 
 not to be able to get this read in five minutes? 
 It is simply the alphabet reversed. Z for A, Y for 
 B, and so on.' 
 
 Yane and Doherty looked at each other, and the- 
 latter nodded gravely, meaning to imply : 
 
 * Yes, he's a cute boy, is Stevens.' 
 
 Stevens continued in his mild lecturing manner :• 
 *I reckon the cardinal principle of a cipher 
 correspondence is like that of social morality, not 
 to get found out. When constructing one, it is 
 good to remember that what an ordinary mind can 
 imagine, another ordinary mind can imagine toe* 
 
STEVENS ON CRYPTOGRAPHY 213 
 
 Most of those cipher messages appearing from time 
 to time in the agony columns are constructed 
 evidently by very ordinary minds, and are generally 
 analyzed with the greatest ease by an intelligent 
 person. They nearly all have the same weak point, 
 a symmetrical distortion of the alphabet. I've 
 read them sometimes for amusement.' 
 
 *Well, what ought we to have, then?' asked 
 Doherty. 
 
 ' Noiu you're talking,' replied Stevens, apparently 
 using the slangy phrase rather out of consideration 
 for his audience than because it was natural to 
 him. ' Adopting the principles which I have had 
 the honour to lay before you, we ought to have a 
 cipher which is not explicable by a symmetrical 
 system, such as an alphabet, at all. I assume that 
 an obscure foreign language, not usually under- 
 stood by educated English officials, such as Magyar 
 
214 TREA SON-FELONY 
 
 or Basque, is impracticable. That put into a 
 good cipher w'oukl ^vork prettily, if anj^one under- 
 stood it.' 
 
 'Mac knows Thibet-talk,' said Yane. 
 
 * But Mr. Heffernan does not, in all probability. 
 Irish is objectionable, because the police can find 
 plenty of people to talk it, even among them- 
 selves.' 
 
 Observe, Edmund Stevens always avoided rhe- 
 torical descriptions. He did not call the police 
 * Castle bloodhounds ' or ' bludgeoning assassins.* 
 He liked to call things by their correct names. 
 His accurate, slightly pedantic manner attracted 
 General Macgregor's attention, and General Mac- 
 gregor thought, ' This man has more than the col- 
 lective heads of several pairsons.' 
 
 Mr. Stevens pursued his lecture : 
 
 *• Therefore let us assume English to be the 
 
STEVENS ON CRYPTOGRAPHY 2i£ 
 
 language. Now, there is the cipher in which the 
 essential words are placed in a particular pattern^ 
 and then connected up with a rigmarole of other 
 words, and revealed only when a perforated card is 
 placed over them. The objections to that are: 
 first, that my esteemed friend Yane would perhaps 
 light a cigar with the clue in an absent moment ; 
 second, that some person might find it (an objec- 
 tion applying to all portable keys) ; thhd, that 
 some word might be so conspicuous as to lead to 
 discovery of the rest. There is the system where 
 each correspondent counts pages, lines, and words 
 in a book agreed on ; but that is dilatory, cumbrous^ 
 and the book might not be at hand when wanted. 
 The best kind of all is that of which the key is 
 carried in the head, like a language which has been 
 learnt, so that one can write or read at any time 
 and place, without having recourse to consultative 
 
2i6 TREASON-FELONY 
 
 apparatus. I suggest this, that an arbitrary selec- 
 tion of words be made — short, one-syllabled words, 
 to be learnt by heart, each word to represent a 
 letter of the alphabet. If it would assist memory 
 better, take the first twenty- six words of some well- 
 known song. For instance, " The boy stood on the 
 burning deck " — here " the " is A ; " boy " is B, and 
 so on. The word '' cab " would thus be '' stood 
 the boy." This will only do for short messages. 
 For long messages have a similar arbitrary alphabet 
 made of letters or numbers, only mind you don't 
 separate the words. Eun them all together. The 
 rock these things split on is separating words. 
 Any fool, with practice, will spot your ''to" and 
 *' at " and "it." Remember there are only two 
 letters in English which are words, I and A; 
 wherefore when you see a sign alone in a letter or 
 number cipher on an alphabetic basis, it is either I 
 
STEVENS ON CRYPTOGRAPHY 217 
 
 or A, both of frequent occurrence. Then you get 
 " at " or "it," and they give away the whole bag 
 of tricks, as Captain Doherty would say. Write 
 out your words or numbers, or words and numbers 
 mixed — that's a compromise to avoid prolixity and 
 help memory — and learn them by heart ; then burn 
 the writings. Talk to each other in the cipher 
 language till you are quite at home.' 
 
 ' It'll be a blasted steep thing to learn, that 
 cipher,' commented Doherty. 
 
 ' Very likely. I'll coach you. My dear sir, you 
 have a cause at heart. What is worth doing for it, 
 is worth doing well.' 
 
 ' Sure, you're right there. Every time.' 
 
 ' Eemember a large cistern can leak through a 
 very small hole.' 
 
 ' Ye're having nothin' to drink,' said Vane. 
 * Pass your glasses.' 
 
2 1 8 TREA SON-FELONY 
 
 They did so, after which it might be observed 
 that Doherty and Macgregor consumed theirs 
 slowly and gustatively, yet sm-ely, that Vane took 
 his more frequently and in larger sips, while 
 Stevens' glass was not much lower when they were 
 all three empty than when they began. 
 
 ' Now I would like to ask,' said Stevens, ' what 
 plans you have, if any, for a demonstration in 
 force, when necessary, against the enemy.' 
 
 ' You'd better ask Mac about that,' said Doherty; 
 ' he's been in England working, while I've been in 
 Pahrus.' 
 
 *By the way, Doherty, that reminds me. Are 
 you aware that you are liable to arrest over here as 
 a convicted felon ?' 
 
 'I am. What about it?' 
 
 * I only meant to suggest that you oughtn't to 
 remain long.' 
 
STEVENS OX CRYPTOGRAPHY 219 
 
 ' Who the devil's gomg to know um ?' said Yane. 
 * He was only a shp of a lad in those days, and 
 twenty years' knocking about the world alters a 
 man a lot. I know it has me.' And he drank 
 grog again, and added with some of the old fire in 
 his rather dulled blue eyes : ' The British Govern- 
 ment could run us all in, if they knew as much as 
 we do. Each of us three is, I suppose, an outlaw 
 here. I don't know whether you owe the Queen 
 anything, Mr. Stevens, but that's your own funeral. 
 But us three — Mike, Mac, and poor old Pat Yane 
 while he lives — will hang together, if there's any 
 hanging to be done. If everybody was always so 
 blamed cautious about their own skins, nobody'd 
 ever win anything. Mike and Mac and me have 
 looked in the face of Death together laughing, 
 under nearly every flag in the wars of the world 
 except our own, and when the time comes we'll 
 
220 TREA SON-FELONY 
 
 be there, risk or no risk ! Mark you that, my 
 
 son. 
 
 ' " One day we'll stand 
 With sword in hand 
 To fight for dear old Ireland." ' 
 
 ' Pat, hold on, dry up, and go slow. Mr. Stevens 
 is only speaking common-sense, but he don't wholly 
 catch on to the fact that we don't use it,' said 
 Doherty, patting Vane gently on the shoulder with 
 a large In'own paw. 
 
 Then General Macgregor took up his parable for 
 the first time, and said : 
 
 ' May I ask, Mr. Stevens, what is the precise 
 nature of your mession here ?' 
 
 'I think Captain Doherty and Mr. Vane will 
 satisfy you as to the genuineness of my credentials, 
 General.' 
 
 ' A'm noht dispitting it. I ask, what is the 
 
STEVENS ON CRYPTOGRAPHY 221 
 
 precise purrpuse of your mession to us, just 
 now ?' 
 
 Doherty looked on and listened, silent and 
 thoughtful, as usual, with a fresh cigar. Yane 
 stared vaguely before him with both elbows on the 
 table, and his chin resting on his knuckles, and 
 twitched. 
 
 * Well, mainly to ascertain the exact stage of 
 readiness to which things have been pushed.' 
 
 ' Ay ? Just that. And having ascertained 
 that?' 
 
 ' Then I shall go back and report. That is, if I 
 am not instructed to remain and help to organize 
 on this side of the water. I shall probably get 
 instructions about that after the elections.' 
 
 * Thank you.' And General Macgregor sipped 
 his grog. ' You were going to ask me something ?' 
 he added. 
 
222 TREA SON-FELONY 
 
 ' Yes ; I was about to ask, what have you done 
 in the way of — well, arms and ammunition, for 
 example? That's important.' 
 
 * Well, ye see, Mr. Stevens, things are noht in a 
 mature state, and it appears that we are to give up 
 the idea of physical force in favour of the Constitu- 
 tional movement. Moreover, your friends have 
 noht been precizely lavish with money. Have you 
 brought any?' 
 
 ' I am intrusted with the distribution of a small 
 quantity of the fund. But I should have thought 
 that 3'ou might have stored a few stands of arms, or 
 rigged up a laboratory somewhere to turn out a 
 few cakes of soap — catch on? This old house 
 now, for instance.' 
 
 ' Surr, I am a soldier, and not a mere assassin ! 
 In any case I would not be a consenting party to 
 using the house of my friend Yane for matters 
 
STEVENS ON CRYPTOGRAPHY 223 
 
 which might bring him and his into peyr'ls of the 
 kind you suggest. Your friends ought to be satis- 
 fied by this time that they have wasted dollars 
 enough in explosions carried out in the way only 
 cowardly eediots of civilians would think of, and 
 in paying the hotel expenses of American lawyers, 
 who never opened their mouths in an English 
 Court.' 
 
 * Taking all the facts into consideration,' added 
 Doherty, ' that physical force is held over for the 
 present, that there don't seem any cash flying 
 about, and that Pat is getting too drunk for poli- 
 tical discussion, I propose that this debate be 
 adjourned, and that someone gives a song. Do 
 you sing any, Mr. Stevens ?' 
 
 ' No, sir. But I must say, gentlemen, you 
 have an offhand way of discussing serious 
 matters.' 
 
no 
 
 24 TREASON-FELONY 
 
 * We have that,' repHed Doherty coolly, and when 
 Vane began to sing, 
 
 ' 'Tis the most disgraceful country 
 That ever 3^et was seen, 
 For they put then' trust in dynamite 
 And nitro- glycerine !' 
 
 Stevens rose and said : 
 
 ' Well, look you, I'll take the liberty of strolling 
 in the grounds. I fancy the forenoon will be a 
 better time for talking.' 
 
 ' Have another drink before you go ?' 
 
 'No, thanks.' 
 
 ' All right. See you later.' 
 
 And Mr. Stevens left, inclining to the conviction 
 that the three plotters had better be conveyed to 
 the nearest asylum, to seek better entertainment. 
 
 "When he was gone the trio in the dining-room 
 drew closer together : Yane woke up from his in- 
 
STEVENS ON CRYPTOGRAPHY 225 
 
 cipient intoxication, Macgregor shut the window 
 and sat down again. 
 
 * " The boy stood on the bornin' deck," ' said 
 Doherty meditatively. 
 
 ' A large cistern can leak through a small apurr- 
 ture,' observed the General. 
 
 * We're to write exercises in blasted Volapuck, 
 and he'll coach us.' 
 
 * The lecture on the theery and prahctise f 
 cryptographic correspondence will be repeated, 
 D.V., every Friday evening.' 
 
 * The cardinal principle of everything is not to 
 get found out.' 
 
 After a few more of these versicles and responses, 
 Vane interposed: 'But he's a clever little man, 
 too. He must have taken He£fernan in.' 
 
 * He did. Heffernan believed in him when I left 
 Pahrus. He must have heard something since. 
 
 VOL. I. 15 
 
226 TREA SON-FELONY 
 
 Maybe he'd a cable. Any way, he was only just in 
 time.' 
 
 ' Are ye sure now he didn't spot the sign ?' said 
 Vane, ' for he was turning and fiddling the letter 
 about a lot.' 
 
 ' He's a whale on ciphers, but I think we can see 
 him and go a hundred better. This is a matter of 
 life and death, mind, and if he had caught on that 
 blue ink, and the alphabet backwards, constituted 
 the whole message — and what message — that little 
 man would be cutting record toward the nearest 
 railroad this minute. By the way, how near is the 
 railroad ?* 
 
 ' About six miles. Hilly road.' 
 
 'Hour and a half at least, walking with one's 
 kit?' 
 
 ' More. I should give an hour and three-quarters. 
 There's a pub on the way.' 
 
STEVENS ON CRYPTOGRAPHY 227 
 
 * Listen now, boys, while I tell you ! It is 
 allowed that I'm in supreme command of this 
 show, I think? Very good. Now, these are my 
 general orders. Pat, you will destroy that letter 
 right now, in case our little friend wants to see it 
 again. And you will please send word by a trusty 
 hand — Lee for choice — to give the yacht's crew the 
 straight tip not to let themselves be drawn. They 
 are to get the cutter under way soon after sunrise, 
 and take her anywhere out of sight — round the 
 next headland will do. I'm in her, gone back to 
 France, do you see ? having digested that warning 
 about being liable to arrest as a felon, when he 
 misses me to-morrow. Where's the time-table ?* 
 
 'Here,' said Macgregor, taking an * A B C ' from- 
 the mantelshelf. 
 
 * Thanks. Let's see, what's the name of the 
 place here ?' 
 
228 TREASON-FELONY 
 
 ' SherviL' 
 
 * Shervil. Sandringham, Tynemouth, Torquay, 
 Sidcup — passed it now — here we are. Shervil. 
 Last train for London 10.18. Great Scott ! it's 
 twenty to nine now. Can I do it, Pat ?' 
 
 * I could not. Maybe you can.' 
 
 * You can do it, Mike, if you go soon,' said Mac- 
 gregor, ' and take Lee with you. He'll know the 
 short-cuts. I've come over that line of country 
 this afternoon, and the driving road is circuitous, 
 owing to the physical conformation of the country.' 
 
 ' Then don't forget to warn the yacht now, Pat. 
 I'm gone to France, mind, as I said before, and the 
 yacht to keep out of sight for a day or two. I'll 
 go to London to Katey Hynes's, you know, and 
 take up my old quarters in the top room there, and 
 I'll meet what's his name, Dr. Bogimann — Pohl- 
 mann, I mean — and stop him in London till I hear 
 
STEVENS ON CRYPTOGRAPHY 229 
 
 the coast's clear here. And I'll warn all whom it 
 may concern. Mac, you'll go back, but not too 
 suddenly, to the place from whence you came. 
 The police can't run you in, because that little 
 swine's got no evidence against you. Got a nice 
 room for Pohlmann, Pat ?' 
 
 ' Fine big attic. I've got some of the boys to 
 knock up a long counter, and a lot of shelves, and 
 put a good lock on the door.' 
 
 * Bully for you ! That outburst of moral indigna- 
 tion of yours, Mac, was really toney. I want to 
 talk to you, but there is no time now. Come and 
 see me at Katey Hynes's in a day or two. When 
 you rejoin Mrs. Yane in the drawing-room, if I'm 
 asked for, hint delicately that I was so drunk that 
 I was sent to bed. Stevens thinks us three about 
 the juiciest assortment of prime fools he's ever 
 struck. The longer he keeps up that illusion the 
 
230 TREA SON-FELONY 
 
 better. You sing to him, Pat, and you prose to 
 him by the mile, Mac, till he wants straws and a 
 padded room. He's a great idea of himself, I can 
 see, so he'll find your society not up to his intel- 
 lectual level when there's no information to be 
 had, and then he'll go. Mind he's looked after 
 when he does. Now send for Lee, and I'll make 
 him understand everything in no time at all.' 
 Lee answered the bell. 
 
 * How are you, you old thief of the world ?' said 
 Captain Doherty ; * you're looking well. There is a 
 hit like a horse's kick left in you yet, I see.' 
 
 The tall picturesque, wiry ruffian grinned, and 
 said : 
 
 * What can I do for you. Captain ?' 
 
 * Where's Mr. Stevens at this minute ?' 
 
 * Walking about the garden with Mrs. Vane.' 
 
 * All right. Now you've to come with me for a 
 
STEVENS ON CRYPTOGRAPHY 231 
 
 little walk. - I'm going up town on the cars. I'll 
 tell you all about the trouble as we go along — and 
 I don't want to disturb Mr. Stevens by saying 
 good-bye ! Catch on ?' 
 
 * Auvo, Rya. I'm awake. I spotted him for a 
 wrong un soon as he come. Dekkimengro.'^ 
 
 'How? What's that?' 
 
 * When you thought he was dressin' hisself for 
 dinner, he was pryin' about the house, tryin' to 
 drore a plan of it in his note-book, and peepin' in 
 at doors. I never let on I saw him, you know, 
 Captain. But I can tell you what he is : he is 
 a regular black Romnichal, of the wrong sort. 
 B'longs to some foreign tribe, likely, and has 
 picked up a bit of education somewhere. Rawt- 
 felof posh-raivtX whelp of some swell, I expect.' 
 
 * Seeing-man — inspector or spy. 
 t Sanguinary. X Half-blood. 
 
232 TREASON-FELONY 
 
 ' We'll test that later, I think,' said Macgregor. 
 ' That idea also occurred to me, Lee : don't you 
 breathe a word of Komnimus in his presence till 
 farther orders. I'll sort him. Dekk' V 
 
 ' Tatcho.' 
 
 * Now, Lee, fall in,' said Doherty. 
 
 * This way. Captain.' 
 
 And the wily old gipsy led Doherty upstairs to 
 his room, where he left our honourable and gallant 
 friend, who changed evening-dress for day-time 
 attire, put on a pair of stout boots, packed his 
 limited ' kit ' in an old leather bag, and strapped a 
 South American striped blanket on it with marvel- 
 lous rapidity. By the time he had done that, Lee 
 had put on a hat, and changed his waiter's black 
 for an outdoor suit, and reappeared, saying : 
 
 * The coast's clear. Captain. He's in the drawin'- 
 room now, and the missis is goin' to play the 
 
STEVENS ON CRYPTOGRAPHY 23 
 
 jj 
 
 guitar to him. Now, sir, we'll slip it as easy as if 
 he was that silly old veshengro'* of Squire Long's.' 
 
 And Lee led the way through perfectly dark 
 passages and down staircases till, after opening a 
 door softly, they found themselves standing in the 
 summer twilight on the flat, irregularly polygonal 
 flagstones of an old stable yard. Then a short 
 silent walk under trees and downhill brought the 
 pale glimmer of the creek into view, and they 
 struck into the path which was alongside it. 
 
 * Now, then, sir, it's the 10.18 train you're after?' 
 
 ' It is.' 
 
 ' Then I'll take you over the bridge and up the 
 valley 'cross country, as straight as the crow. One 
 hand each to the straps of the bag, sir, and steady 
 double along this yere level, for we'll have a hill 
 to climb by-and-by. Break into quick time if we 
 
 * Woodman, gamekeeper. 
 
234 TREASON-FELONY 
 
 should meet anybody, though there am't no fear of 
 that yet.' 
 
 And they each seized the bag so as to carry it 
 between them, and the rapid rhythmic tread of 
 their footfalls died away in the overhanging 
 shadows as they w^ent away. 
 
 Some time afterwards, in the drawing-room at 
 Crowbill, Mrs. Vane rang the bell for the tray of 
 spirits and water to be brought in, previous to a 
 general retirement. The evening had been some- 
 w^hat prolonged, what with music and conversa- 
 tion, and Mr. Stevens found his hostess very 
 charming, although she had apparently little or 
 no interest in the details of the movement, whether 
 constitutional or physical force. She would talk 
 vague and sentimental idealism about the spirit of 
 revolution and the cause of liberty, but she declined 
 to be interested in repeaters and high explosives. 
 
STEVENS ON CRYPTOGRAPHY 235 
 
 Mrs. Vane also, with facetious modest apologies and 
 coyness, consented to take what Pat Vane called 
 the * laste taste ' in the world of whisky-and-water. 
 The bell was answered, after some delay, by Lee, 
 in proper butler's array, carrying the desired tray. 
 
 * What have you been at all this while, then ?' 
 asked Vane. 
 
 ' Very sorry, sir ; I've bin gettin' Captain 
 Doherty to bed, and he give a deal 0' trouble,' 
 solemnly replied Lee, and the company smiled, 
 with the exception of General Macgregor, who w^as 
 not of the smiling sort. 
 
 But he sucked in his cheeks, raised his eyebrows, 
 and remarked: 
 
 * A man should be able to take his whisky. Now, 
 Mr. Stevens here, I obsah've, can take a grown 
 man's dose. Here's to the success of your mission, 
 Burr.' 
 
236 TREA SON-FELONY 
 
 ' Thank you. Let us say success to our common 
 cause.' 
 
 ' Ah, you're right,' said Vane. ' One last pious 
 toast before parting — Trayson-felony, and more 
 power to ut ! Good old gallows, and Portland, and 
 all the apparatus. Trot um out ! 
 
 • " Though upon the scaffold high 
 Or the battlefield we die, 
 No matter, if for Erin dear we fall." 
 
 Give us a bit of an accompaniment, acuisle geal mo 
 croidhe, and I'll sing to ye : 
 
 " ' When the Russian's in Herat, the drums will beat for Pat, 
 And we'll give England tit for tat,' says the Shan van 
 
 Vocht ; 
 ' And how'U you all like that V adds the Shan van Vocht." 
 
 Mister Stevens, ye're havin' nothen to drink, and 
 ye're not singin' at all now. P'raps this will suit 
 ye more : 
 
STEVENS ON CRYPTOGRAPHY 237 
 
 « " We'll fight fair with the poUis, if they'll fight fair with we, 
 The redcoats ridin' horses we will fairly massa-cre ; 
 But we'll hang all informers on the sour apple-tree, 
 As we go morchin' along." ' 
 
 Pat Vane always got more marked in the brogue 
 when he was under the influence of whisky. After 
 that, Mrs. Vane drove her husband out of the room 
 with quiet decision, and he was heard in distant 
 passages chanting something about : 
 
 ' Is go d-tuidh tu amhuirnin slan.' 
 
 After that they all separated, Stevens being con- 
 ducted to his room by Lee and General Macgregor. 
 Having seen Stevens safely bestowed^ and wished 
 him good-night, Macgregor summoned Lee to his 
 own room. 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
 BILLING AND 80M8, PRINTERS, GUILDFORD. 
 
4 
 
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