CHAPTER III.

A TIGER.

The late spring flowers were blooming; the air was soft and balmy. Easter was rather late; in fact, April was passing; and when Easter comes at that period, it generally brings sunshine with it.

Eagles' Nest, amidst other favoured spots, seemed to be as bright as the day was long. Once more Major Raynor had all his children about him; also Frank and Daisy. For anything that could be seen on the surface, merry hearts reigned; none of them seemed to have a care in the world.

Frank decidedly had not. Sanguine and light-hearted, he was content as ever to let the future take care of itself. Yielding to persuasion, he still stayed on at Eagles' Nest. His wife looked forward to being laid up in the course of a month or two: and where, asked the major, could she be better attended to than at Eagles' Nest? Daisy, of course, wished to remain; she should feel safe, she said, in the care of Mrs. Raynor: and who would wish to run away from so pleasant a home? Twenty times at least had Frank gone up to town to see if he could pick up any news, or hear of anything to suit him. Delusive dreams often presented themselves to his mental vision, of some doctor, rich in years and philanthropy, who might be willing to take him in for nothing, to share his first-rate practice. As yet the benevolent old gentleman had not been discovered, but Frank quite believed he existed somewhere.

Another thing had not been discovered: the missing money. But Major Raynor, sanguine as ever was his nephew, did not lose faith in its existence. It would come to light some time he felt certain; and of this he never ceased to assure Frank. Embarrassments decidedly increased upon the major, chiefly arising from the want of ready cash; for the greater portion of _that_ was sure to be forestalled before it came in. Still, a man who enjoys from two to three thousand a-year cannot be so very badly off: money comes to the fore somehow: and on the whole Major Raynor led an easy, indolent, and self-satisfied life. Had they decreased their home expenses, it would have been all the better: and they might have done that very materially, and yet not touched on home comforts. But neither Major nor Mrs. Raynor knew how to set about retrenchment: and so the senseless profusion went on.

"What is there to see, Charley?"

The questioner was Frank. In crossing the grounds, some little distance from home, he came upon Charles Raynor. Charles was craning his neck over a stile, by which the high hedge was divided that bordered the large, enclosed, three-cornered tract of land known as the common. On one side of the common were those miserable dwellings, the neglected cottages: in a line with them ran the row of skeletons, summarily stopped in process of erection. On the other side stood some pretty detached cottages, inhabited by a somewhat better class of people; whilst this high hedge--now budding into summer bloom, and flanked with a sloping bank, rich in moss and weeds and wild flowers--bordered the third side. In one corner, between the hedge and the better houses, flourished a small grove of trees. It all belonged to Major Raynor.

"Nothing particular," said Charley, in answer to the question. "I was only looking at a fellow."

Frank sent his eyes over the green space before him. Three or four paths traversed it in different directions. A portion of it was railed off by wooden fencing, and on this some cattle grazed; but on most of it grass was growing, intended for the mower in a month or two's time. Frank could not see a soul; and said so. Some children, indeed, were playing before the huts; but Charles had evidently not alluded to them: his gaze had been directed to the opposite side, near the grove.

"He has disappeared amongst those trees," said Charles.

"Who was it?" pursued Frank: for there was something in his young cousin's tone and manner suggestive of uneasiness; and it awoke his own curiosity.

Charles turned and put his back against the stile. He had plucked a small twig from the hedge, and was twirling it about between his lips.

"Frank, I am in a mess. Keep a look-out yonder, and if you see a stranger, tell me."

"Over-run the constable at Oxford this term, as before?" questioned Frank, leaping to the truth by instinct.

Charles nodded. "And I assure you, Frank," he added, attempting to excuse himself, "that I no more intended to get into debt this last term than I intended to hang myself. When I went down after Christmas, I had formed the best resolutions in the world. I told the mother she might trust me. No one could have wished to keep straighter than I wished: and somehow----"

"You didn't," put in Frank at the pause.

"I have managed to fall into a fast set, and that's the truth," confessed Charles. "And I think the very deuce is in the money. It runs away without your knowing it."

"Well, the tradespeople must wait," said Frank, cheerfully; for he was just as genial over this trouble as he would have been over pleasure. "They have to wait pretty stiffly for others.

"The worst of it is, I have accepted a bill or two," cried Charley, ruefully. "And--I had a writ served upon me the last day of term."

"Whew!" whistled Frank. "A writ?"

"One. And I expect another. Those horrid bills--there are two of them--were drawn at only a month's date. Of course the time's out; and the fellow wouldn't renew; and I expect there'll be the dickens to pay. The amount is not much; each fifty pounds; but I have not the ghost of a shilling to meet it with."

"What do you owe besides?"

"As if I knew! There's the tailor, and the bootmaker, and the livery stables, and the wine---- Oh, I can't recollect."

Had Frank possessed the money, in pocket or prospective, he would have handed out help to Charles there and then. But he did not possess it. He was at a nonplus.

"When once a writ's served, they can take you, can't they?" asked Charles, stooping to pluck a pink blossom from the bank, the twig being bitten away to nothing.

"I think so," replied Frank, who had himself contrived to steer clear of these unpleasant shoals, and knew no more of their power than Charles did. "By the way, though, I don't know. Have they got judgment?"

"Judgment? What's that? Sure to have got it if it's anything bad. And I think I am going to be arrested," continued Charles, dropping his voice, and turning to face the common again. "It's rather a blue look-out. I should not so _much_ mind it for myself, I think: better men than I have had to go through the same: but it's the fuss there'll be at home."

"The idea of calling yourself a man, Charley! You are only a boy yet."

"By the way, talking of that, Jones of Corpus told me a writ could not be legally served upon me as I was not of age. Jones said he was sure of it. What do you think, Frank?"

"I don't know. To tell you the truth, Charley, I am not at home in these things. But I should suppose that the very fact of the writ having been served upon you is a proof that it can be done, and that Jones of Corpus is wrong. William Stane could tell you: he must have all points of law at his fingers' ends."

"But I don't care to ask William Stane. It may be they take it for granted that I am of age. Any way, I was served with the writ at Oxford: and, unless I am mistaken," added Charles, gloomily, "a fellow has followed me here, and is dodging my heels to arrest me."

"What are your grounds for thinking so, Charley? Have you seen any suspicious person about?"

"Yes, I have. Before you came up just now, I----"

The words were broken off suddenly. Charles leaped from the corner of the stile to hide behind the hedge. Some individual was emerging from the grove of trees; and he, it was evident, had caused the movement.

"If he turns his steps this way, tell me, Frank, and I'll make a dash homewards through the oak-coppice," came the hurried whisper.

"All right. No. He is making off across the common."

"That may be only a ruse to throw me off my guard," cried Charley, from the hedge. "Watch. He will come over here full pelt in a minute. He looks just like a tiger, with that great mass of brown beard. He is a tiger."

Frank, leaning his arms on the stile, scanned the movements of the "Tiger." The Tiger was at some distance, and he could not see him clearly. A thin tiger of middle height, and apparently approaching middle age, dressed in a suit of grey, with a slouching hat on his brows and a fine brown beard. But the Tiger, whosoever he might be, appeared to entertain no hostile intentions for the present moment, and was strolling leisurely in the direction of the huts. Presently Frank spoke.

"He is well away now, Charley: too far to distinguish you, even should he turn round. There's no danger."

Charley came out from the hedge, and took up his former position at the extreme corner of the stile, where he was partly hidden. Every vestige of colour had forsaken his face. He was very young still: not much more than a boy, as Frank had said: and unfamiliar with these things.

"I saw him yesterday for the first time," said he to Frank. "I chanced to be standing here, as we are now, and he was walking towards me across the common. Whilst wondering, in a lazy kind of way, who he was and what he wanted here, a rush of fear came over me. It occurred to me that he might be a sheriff's officer. Why the idea should flash on me in that sudden manner--and the fear--I cannot tell; but it did so. I made the best of my way indoors, and did not stir out again. This morning I said to myself what a simpleton I had been--that I had no grounds for fearing the man, except that he was a stranger, and that my own mind was full of bother; and I came out, all bravery. The first person I saw, upon crossing this stile, was he; just in the same spot, near the trees, in which I saw him yesterday; and the rush of fear came over me again. It's of no good your laughing, Frank: I can't help it: I never was a coward before."

"I was not laughing. Did he see you?"

"Not to-day, I think. Yesterday he did, looked at me keenly; and here he is again in the same spot! I am sure he is looking for me. If I were up in funds, I'd be off somewhere and stay away."

"What about home--and Oxford?"

"There's the worst of it."

"And you could not stay away for ever."

"For ever, no. But, you see, that money may turn up any day, and put all things straight."

"Well, you may be mistaken in the man, Charley: and I hope you are."

William Stane was at home for these Easter holidays, and still the shadow of Alice Raynor. It chanced that this same afternoon he and Alice encountered the Tiger--as, from that day, Charles and Frank both called him in private. Strolling side by side under the brilliant afternoon sun, in that silence which is most eloquent of love, with the birds singing above them, and the very murmur of the trees speaking a sweet language to their hearts, they came upon this stranger in grey, sitting on the stump of a tree. The trees, mostly beeches, were thick about there; the path branched off sharply at a right angle, and they did not see him until they were close up: in fact, William Stene had to make a hasty stop or two to pass without touching him. Perhaps it was his unexpected appearance in that spot, or that it was not usual to see strangers there, or else his peculiar look, with the slouching hat and the bushy beard; but certain it was that he especially attracted their attention; somewhat of their curiosity.

"What a strange-looking man!" exclaimed Alice, when they had gone on some distance. "Did you not think so, William?"

"Queerish. Does he live here? I wonder if he is aware that he is trespassing?"

"Papa lets any one come on the grounds who likes to," replied Alice. "He is a stranger. I never saw him before."

"Oh, it must be one of the Easter excursionists. Escaped from smoky London to enjoy a day or two of pure air in the Kentish Wolds."

"As you have done," said she.

"As I have done. I only wish, Alice, I could enjoy it oftener."

Words and the tone alike bore a precious meaning to her ear. His eyes met hers, and lingered there.

"I am getting on excellently," he continued. "By the end of this year, I have no doubt I shall be justified in--in quitting my chambers and taking a house. Perhaps before that."

"Look at that hawthorn!" exclaimed Alice, darting to a hedge they were now passing, for she knew too well what the words implied. "Has it not come out early! It is in full bloom."

"Shall I gather some for you?"

"No. It would be a pity. It looks so well there, and every one who passes can enjoy it. Do you know, I never see the flowering hawthorn but I think of that good old Scotch song, 'Ye banks and braes.' I don't know why."

"Let us sit down here," said he, as they came to a rustic seat under the trees. "And now, Alice, if you would sing that good old song, the charm would be perfect."

She laughed. "What charm?"

"The charm of--everything. The day and hour, the white and pink may budding in the hedges, the wild flowers we crush with our feet, the blue sky and the green trees, the sunshine and the shade, the singing birds and the whispering leaves, and--yourself."

Not another word from either of them just yet. William Stane had allowed his hand to fall on hers. Her head was slightly turned from him, her cheeks were glowing, her heart was beating: it was again another interval of that most sweet and eloquent silence.

"Won't you begin, Alice? The birds 'warbling through the flowering thorn' are waiting to hear you. So am I."

And as if she had no power to resist his will, she began at once, without a dissenting murmur, and sang the song to the end. Excepting the birds above them, there were no listeners: no rover was likely to be near that solitary spot. Her voice was sweet, but not loud; every syllable was spoken distinctly. To sit there for ever, side by side, and not be disturbed, would be a very Eden.

"And my fake lover stole my rose, But ah! he left the thorn wi' me."

Scarcely had the echoing melody died away, when the unexpected sound of footsteps was heard approaching, and there advanced into view a woman well known to Alice; one Sarah Croft, the wife of a man employed on the estate. They lived in one of the most miserable dwellings on the common, but were civil and quiet; somewhat independent in manner, but never joining in the semi-rebellion that reigned. She looked miserably poor. Her blue cotton gown, though clean, was in rags, her old shawl would hardly hang together, the black bonnet on her head might have been used for frightening the crows. She dropped a curtsy and was passing onwards, when Alice inquired after her sick children.

"They be no better, Miss Raynor, thank you," she answered, halting in front of the bench. "The little one, she be took sick now, as well as the two boys. I've a fine time o't.

"Why don't you have a doctor to them?" said Alice.

"More nor a week agone I went up to the parish and telled them I must have a doctor to my children: but he never come till yesterday."

"What did he say?"

"I'll tell ye what he said, Miss Raynor, if ye like. He said doctors and doctors' stuff was o' no good, so long as the houses remained what they was--pes-ti-fe-rus. I should not have remembered the word, though, but for Jetty's lodger repeating of the very self-same word to me a minute or two agone. I've just passed him, a-sitting down under yonder beeches."

Alice, as well as William Stane, instantly recalled the man in grey they had seen there. "Jetty's lodger!" repeated Alice. "Who is he?"

"Some stranger staying in the place, Miss Raynor. He come into it one morning, a week agone, and took Jetty's rooms which was to let."

"What is he staying here for?"

"To pry into people's business, I think," replied the woman. "He's always about, here, there, and everywhere; one can't stir out many yards but one meets him. Saturday last, he walks right into our place without as much as knocking; and there he turns hisself round and about, looking at the rotten floor and the dripping walls, and sniffing at the bad smell that's always there, just as if he had as much right inside as a king. 'Who is your landlord?' says he, 'and does he know what a den this is?' So I told him that our landlord was Major Raynor at Eagles' Nest, and that he did know, but that nothing was done for us. He have gone, I hear, into some o' the other houses as well."

The woman's tone was quite civil, but there could be no doubt that, in her independence, she was talking at Alice as the daughter of Major Raynor.

"As I passed him now he asked me whether my sick children was better--just as you have, Miss Raynor. I told him they was worse. 'And worse they will be, and never better, and all the rest of you too,' says he, 'as long as you inhabit them pes-ti-fe-rus dens!'"

Alice drew up her head in cold disdain, vouchsafing no further word, and feeling very angry at the implied reproach. The woman dropped a slight curtsy again, and went on her way.

"How insolent they all are!" exclaimed Alice to Mr. Stane. "That Sarah Croft would have been abusive in another moment."

"Their cottages are bad," returned the young man, after a pause. "Could nothing be done, I wonder, to make them a little better?"

"It is papa's business, not mine," remarked Alice, in slight resentment. "And the idea of that stranger presuming to interfere! wonder what he means by it?"

"I do not suppose he intends it as interference: he is looking about him by way of filling up his time: it must hang rather monotonously on his hands down here, I presume, away from his books and ledgers," remarked Mr. Stane. "It is the way of the world, Alice; people must be busy-bodies and look into what does not concern them, for curiosity's sake. Nay, just a few moments longer," he said, for she had risen to depart. "To-morrow I shall have no such pleasant and peaceful seat to linger in; I shall not have you. How delightful it all is!"

And so, the disturbing element forgotten, they sat on in the balmy air, under the blue of the sky, the green foliage about them springing into life and beauty, type of another Life that must succeed our own winter, and listening to the little birds overhead warbling their joyous songs. Can none of us, grey now with care and work and years, remember just such an hour spent in our own sweet spring-time?--when all things around spoke to our hearts in one unmixed love-strain of harmony, and the future looked like a charmed scroll that could only bring intense happiness in the unrolling thereof?

"Take my arm, Alice," he half whispered, when they at length rose to return.

She did take it, her face and heart glowing. Took it timidly and with much self-consciousness, never having been in the habit of taking it, or he of offering it. Her hand trembled as it lay gently upon his arm; each might have heard the other's heart beating. And so in the bliss of this, their first love-dream, they sauntered home through the grounds, choosing pleasant glades and mossy by-ways; and arrived to find Eagles' Nest in a commotion.

Mrs. Frank Raynor had been taken seriously and unexpectedly ill. Doctors were sent for; servants ran about. And William Stane said farewell, and went home from an afternoon that would ever remain as a green spot on his memory. It was his last day of holiday.

With the morning, Daisy lay in great danger. The illness, not anticipated for a month or two, had come on suddenly. In one sense of the word the event was over, but not the danger; and the baby, not destined to see the light, was gone.

It was perhaps unfortunate that on this same morning Frank should receive an urgent summons to Trennach. Edina wrote. Her father was very ill; ill, it was feared, unto death; and he most earnestly begged Frank to travel to him with all speed, for he had urgent need of seeing him. Edina said that, unless her father should rally, three or four days were the utmost limits of life accorded to him by the doctors: she therefore begged of Frank to lose no time in obeying the summons; and she added that her father desired her to say the journey should be no cost to him.

"What a distressing thing!" cried Frank, in blank dismay, showing the letter to the major. "I cannot go. It is impossible that I can go whilst Daisy lies in this state."

"Good gracious!" said the major, rubbing his head, as he always did in any emergency. "Well, I suppose you can't, my boy. Poor Hugh!"

"How can I! Suppose I were to go, and--and she died?"

"Yes, to be sure. You must wait until she is in less danger. I hope with all my heart Hugh will rally. And Daisy too."

Frank sat down and wrote a few words to his uncle, telling him why he could not start that day, but that he would do so the moment his wife's state allowed it. He wrote more fully, but to the same effect, to Edina. Perhaps on the morrow, he added. The morrow might bring better things.

But on the morrow Daisy was even worse. A high fever had set in. Frank wrote again to Trennach, but he could not leave Eagles' Nest. Some days went on; days of peril: Daisy was hovering between life and death. And on the first day that a very faint indication of improvement was perceptible and the medical men said she might now live, that there was a bare chance of it, but no certainty; that same day the final news came from Trennach, and it was too late for Frank to take the journey. Dr. Raynor was dead.

The tidings came by letter from Edina: written to Frank. It was only a short note, giving a few particulars. Within this note, however, was a thicker letter, sealed and marked "Private." Frank chanced to be alone at the moment, and opened it with some curiosity. On a single sheet of enveloping paper, enclosing a letter from Dr. Raynor, were the following lines from Edina.

"My poor father was so anxious to see you, dear Frank, at the last, that it disturbed his peace. Of course you could not come, under the circumstances; he saw that; but he said over and over again that your not coming was most unfortunate, and to you might be disastrous. At the hours of the day and night when a train was due, nothing could exceed the eagerness with which he looked for you, his restlessness when it grew too late to admit of hope that you had come. The day before he died, when he knew the end was approaching and he should not live to see you, he caused himself to be propped up in bed, and had pen-and-ink brought that he might write to you. He watched me seal up the letter when it was finished, and charged me to send it to you when all was over, but to be sure to enclose it privately, and to tell you to open and read it when you were alone.--E. R."

Sending Edina's short note announcing the death of her father to Major Raynor by a servant, Frank carried these lines and the doctor's letter to his chamber: thereby obeying injunctions, but nevertheless wondering at them very much. What could his uncle have to say to him necessitating secrecy? Breaking the seal, he ran his eyes over the almost illegible lines that the dying hand had traced.

"MY DEAR NEPHEW FRANK,

"I wanted to see you; I ought not to have put it off so long. But this closing scene has come upon me somewhat suddenly: and now I cannot write all I ought to, and should wish: and I must, of necessity, write abruptly.

"_Are you conscious of being in any danger?_ Have you committed any act that could bring you under the arm of the law? If so, take care of yourself. A terrible rumour was whispered in my ears by Andrew Float, connecting you with the hitherto unexplained fate of Bell the miner. I charged Float to be silent--and I think he will be, for he is a kind and good man, and only spoke to me that I might put you on your guard--and I questioned Blase Pellet, from whom Float had heard it. Pellet was sullen, obstinate, would not say much; but he did say that he could hang you, and _would_ do it if you offended him or put yourself in his way. I could not get anything more from him, and it was not a subject that I cared to inquire into minutely, or could pursue openly.

"My boy, you best know what grounds there may be for this half-breathed accusation; whether any or none. I have scarcely had a minute's peace since it reached me, now three weeks ago: in fact, it has, I believe, brought on the crisis with me somewhat before it would otherwise have come. At one moment I say to myself, It is a malicious invention, an infamous lie; I know my boy Frank too well to believe this, or anything else against him: the next moment I shudder at the tale and at the possibility of what may have been enacted. Perhaps through passion--or accident--or--I grow confused: I know not what I would say.

"Oh, my boy, my nephew, my dear brother Henry's only child! my heart is aching with dismay and doubt. I do believe you are innocent of all intention to do harm; but--My sight is growing dim. _Take care of yourself_. Hide yourself if need be (and you best know whether there be need, or not) from Blase Pellet. It is he who would be your enemy. I see it; and Andrew Float sees it; though we know not why or wherefore. In any obscure nook of this wide world, shelter yourself from him. Don't let him know where you are. If he does indeed hold power in his hand, it may be your only chance of safety: _he said it was so_. I can write no more. God bless and help you! Farewell.

"Your loving and anxious

"UNCLE HUGH."

Frank Raynor may have drawn many a deep breath in his life, but never so deep a one as he drew now. Mechanically he folded the letter and placed it in an inner pocket.

"Are you there, sir?"

The question came from outside the door, in the voice of one of the servants. Frank unbolted it.

"Lunch is on the table, sir."

"Is it?" returned Frank, half bewildered. "I don't want any to-day, James. Just say so. I am going out for a stroll."

The letters from Cornwall were never delivered at Eagles' Nest until the midday post. Frank took his hat, and went out; bending his steps whithersoever they chose to take him, so that he might be alone. Strolling on mechanically, in deep thought, he plunged into a dark coppice, and asked himself what he was to do. The letter had disturbed him in no ordinary degree. It had taken all his spirit, all his elasticity out of him: and that was saying a great deal for Frank Raynor.

"I wish I could hang Blase Pellet!" he broke forth in his torment and perplexity. "He deserves it richly. To disturb my poor uncle with his malicious tongue! Villain!"

But Frank was unconsciously unjust. It was not Blase Pellet who had disturbed Dr. Raynor. At least, he had not done it intentionally. To do Blase justice, he was vexed that the doctor should have heard it, for he held him in great respect and would not willingly have grieved him. In an evil moment, when Blase had taken rather more than was quite necessary--an almost unprecedented occurrence with him--he had dropped the dangerous words to Andrew Float.

"Yes, I must hide from him, as my uncle says," resumed Frank, referring to the advice in the letter. "There's no help for it. He could be a dangerous enemy. For my own sake; for--every one's sake, I must keep myself in some shelter where he cannot find me."

Emerging on to the open ground, Frank lifted his eyes, and saw, standing near him, the man in grey, whom they had christened the Tiger. He was leaning against the tree with bent head and folded arms, apparently in deep thought. All in a moment, just as a personal fear of him had rushed over Charles, so did it now rush over Frank. His brain grew dizzy.

For the idea somehow struck him that the man was not wanting Charles at all. But that he might be an emissary of Blase Pellet's, come hither to look after himself and his movements.