CHAPTER XXXI

ON MISCHIEF BENT

When Pasco returned from Newton, he drew up his tax-cart close to the door of the storehouse, took the horse out, but did not unharness him; he merely removed the bridle and gave the brute a feed.

Then he entered the dwelling-house and seated himself at the kitchen table without a word to his wife, and emptied his pocket on the board. A couple of sovereigns and a few shillings clinked together. With his forefinger he separated the gold from the silver coins.

“What! money come in, in place of going out?” asked Zerah. Then, looking over his shoulder, she said, “And precious little it is.”

“Little is better than nothing,” growled Pasco. “I got this from Cole, the baker. I’d somehow forgot he owed me a trifle, and he stopped me and paid his account. I owe something to the miller, so I’m no better off than I was. In at one pocket, out at the other.”

“Now look here, Pasco,” said his wife. “For first and last I say this. I have laid by a trifle that I have earned by cockles and winkles, whilst you have been chucking away in coals and wool. If you will pass me your word not to run into extravagance, and not to listen to any more of Jason’s schemes, I will let you have this. No”—she corrected her intent; “you are not to be trusted with the money. It shall not leave my hand to go into yours. And your word ain’t of any strength, it is as weak as your resolutions. I’ll settle the matter of the coals with the merchant at Teignmouth; that is the great call at this moment. I don’t do it for you, but to avoid the scandal of having bailiffs in the house—a house where I’ve kept myself respectable so many years, and where my Wilmot was born and died. I wouldn’t have the brokers sell the bed she laid on when dead, not for all my savings. So I’ll over to Teignmouth and see what I can manage about the coal merchant’s bill; and you, just take that money and pay Ash the miller, and have done with him.”

Again the thought rose up in the mind of Pasco that the Evil One was making sport of him. At one time he was in a condition of hopelessness, in another moment there was a lightening in the sky before him. The means of striking fire had been put into his hands at the same time that he was shown that his difficulties were not insurmountable. But the heart which has once resolved on a crime very speedily comes to regard this object as a goal at which it must necessarily aim, and to look with impatience upon all suggestions of relief, upon all dissuasives, and stubbornly, with shut eyes, to pursue the course determined on. The struggle to form the determination once overpassed, the mind shrinks from entering into struggle again, and allows itself to be swept along as though impelled by fatality, as though launched on a stream it is powerless to oppose.

Now his wife’s suggestion that she should go to Teignmouth and settle with the merchant for the coals opened up to him a prospect, not of relief from his pecuniary difficulty, but of getting rid of her to enable him the more easily to carry out his intention unobserved. He put his shaking hand into his breast-pocket for his handkerchief, and in pulling this forth drew out also the lucifer match-box, that in falling rattled on the table.

“What have you there, Pasco?” asked Zerah.

“Nothing,” he answered, and hastily replaced the box.

“Don’t tell me that was nothing which I saw and heard,” said his wife testily.

“Well—it’s lozenges.”

“Didn’t know you had a cough.”

“Never mind about that, Zerah,” said Pasco. “If you go to Teignmouth it must be at once, or the tide will be out, and I don’t see how you can get back to-night.”

“I’ve my cousin, Dorothy Bray, there. I’ll go to her. I’ve not seen her some months, and she has a room. I’ll leave Kitty at home now, to attend to the house, and you won’t need me to the morning flow. I suppose, between you, you can manage to light a fire?”

Pasco started and looked at his wife with alarm, thinking that she had read his thoughts; but he was reassured by her changing the topic. “There—I’ll give you three pounds towards the miller’s bill.”

Pepperill was now all anxiety to hurry his wife off. He urged precipitancy on account of the falling tide. He bade her row herself across, and leave the boat on the farther shore till the next morning.

His impatience in a measure woke her suspicion.

“You seem mighty eager to get rid of me,” she said querulously.

“’Tain’t that, Zerah,” he answered; “but I want myself to be off to Brimpts.”

“To Brimpts?—and leave Kitty alone in the house?”

“No; I shall take her with me.”

“What!—leave the house to take care of itself?”

“What can harm it? No one will break in. They know pretty well there is nothing to be got but bills that ain’t paid.”

“I don’t half like it—and the stores?”

“There is no moving wool or coals without waggons, and I shall lock up.”

Zerah stood in uncertainty.

“I wish you’d not go, Pasco.”

“I may or may not—but be off, or you’ll get stuck in the mud, as did Kitty.”

In ten minutes Pasco was alone. He stood on the platform where were the tea-tables and benches, and watched till his wife was half-way across. Then he drew a long breath, and passed through the house, went out at the main door, and hastened to the cart. Again he stood still, and looked searchingly in every direction; then he let down the flap behind, drew out first the sack of shavings and carried it within, and then he cleared out all that remained. He was not satisfied till with a broom he had swept every particle of chip within, leaving not a tell-tale white atom without. Then he tacked some scraps of sacking over the window that no one might look within, and he proceeded to place bundles of the shavings among the coals, not in one great heap, but dispersed in handfuls here and there, and he broke up some pieces of board into splinters and thrust them among the shavings.

He was startled by a voice calling in the door, “Uncle, are you here?”

Hot, agitated, and alarmed, Pasco hastened to the entrance, and saw Kate.

“What do you want? Why are you shouting?”

“Where is aunt? I want to see her. I cannot find her in the house. I have something to tell her.”

“You are not like to find her,” said Pepperill, coming outside and locking the door behind him. “She is gone over the water, and will stay at Cousin Bray’s; and I’m off to Brimpts again, and mean to take you.”

“Why, uncle! we have but just returned from there.”

“Well, that’s no concern of yours, where you are, so long as you have your eatin’ and drinkin’. I must go, and your aunt thinks I mustn’t leave you alone. So be sharp; run and put what things you require together, and I will harness the cob.”

“How long shall we be away, uncle?”

“We shall be back to-morrow evening, or the day after. I can’t say. Come, be quick. I can’t wait talking with you; it is late already.”

Kate obeyed, a little surprised. She speedily returned, with her little bundle tied up in a scarlet kerchief.

Pasco was ready and waiting. He was looking up at the drift of the clouds. The wind was from the east and blowing strongly.

Pepperill drove through the village. He halted at the public-house to call out the taverner, ask for a glass of ale, and tell him he was bound for Dartmoor. At the mill he again drew up, and shouted for the miller, who, on emerging from his door, saluted Pasco with the remark, “Why, you are on the road to-day a great deal. I thought you had gone this way already.”

“So I had—to Newton; but there I learned something. The Government has come round to a reasonable mind, and will buy my timber. Not at Devonport, but at Portsmouth; and I am going to measure up. I ran home to tell my old woman. And now, by the way, I will settle that little account between us, if agreeable to you.”

“Always right with me to receive,” said the miller.

Pasco drew out a handful of money and discharged his debt. “Just receipt it, will you, with the date, and say what o’clock in the afternoon also—that there may be no mistake.”

“You are not going to Brimpts to-night?”

“Yes, I am. Business must be attended to.”

“Rather late for the little maid by the time you get there.”

“That can’t be helped—she is strong now.”

Then Pepperill drove on. He continued his course without interruption, as the country he passed through was sparsely populated.

Kate’s heart was full. She was in doubt whether to tell her uncle that which had taken place between herself and Walter Bramber. She would greatly have preferred to have made the communication to her aunt and let her inform Mr. Pepperill. She was afraid of Pasco. He was violent and brutal. Her aunt was merely harsh. Pasco had been very angry with her for refusing Jan Pooke, and she did not believe that he would receive with favour the communication she had to make relative to the schoolmaster. She dreaded another outburst. Yet her strong sense of duty pressed her to communicate to him what he must learn within a short time, from other lips if not from her own. Then ensued a painful struggle in her breast, and she was constrained to free herself at length, and to say—

“Uncle, you know I refused Jan Pooke, but since then, what I could not say to him I have said to Walter Bramber, the schoolmaster.”

“Oh, ah! Jan Pooke—yes, to be sure.”

“No, not Jan, but the schoolmaster.”

“Drat it!” exclaimed Pasco, stroking his head; “I’ve forgotten to lock up the house. I let the door stand as it was when you came out. Now anyone can go in and take what they like, break into my bureau and steal my money, get hold of Zerah’s silver spoons. I say, Kitty, jump out and open that field-gate. There is a linhay there. I’ll put up the trap and horse, and you shall wait by ’em whilst I run back to Coombe Cellars and lock the house.”

“But how is aunt to get in when she returns?”

“You be easy. I’ll put the key in the little hole over the lintel. She knows where to find it. Look alive, jump and open the gate. Drat it! what a way I shall have to run!”

“Why not drive back, uncle?”

“Why not?—Because the cob must be spared. I’ve been into Newton already to-day, and the distance he has to go is just about enough to rub his hoofs down.”

Pepperill drove the cart into the field indicated, whilst Kate held wide the gate. Then he took the cob out and ran the cart under cover.

“You keep in shelter, and mind you do not show yourself. If anyone pass along the road, be still as a mouse. Never mind who it may be. I shall be gone perhaps an hour, perhaps a little more. It will be dark before I am back. You keep close. There is some straw in the corner, lie on that and go to sleep. We have still a long journey to take, and get on we must, through the night, and this is a darned matter detaining me. Hush!”

They heard something like a cart rattling along.

“Git along, Neddy! ‘If I had a donkey ’wot wouldn’t go’—you know the rest, Neddy.”

“It is my father, I believe,” said Kate.

“I don’t believe it is. Anyhow, be still,” whispered Pasco. “Your father is at Brimpts. He can’t be returned here. It’s some other chap with a donkey.”

The sound of the wheels was lost, as at the point where they had turned in at the gate there was a sweep in the road between high hedges and overarching trees.

“I think it was father,” said Kate.

“And I say it was not. However, whoever it was, he’s gone now. You bide here. I’m off—mind don’t be seen or heard by nobody till my return.”

Then Pasco departed.

He did not take the way by the road. He crossed the field, scrambled over a hedge, and directed his course towards the river. This was not the shortest way, and it was certainly the most arduous, for it entailed the breaking through of several hedges, and the scrambling over many banks.

The evening was rapidly closing in.

He saw—or heard—the keeper, and crouched under a hedge, holding his breath. Happily for him, the man passed at some distance. His dog barked, but was called to heel, and Pasco did not venture from his lurking-place till ten minutes after the man had gone his way. Then he sprang up and ran, and did not relax his pace till he had reached the river bank, having first floundered through a backwater deep in mire. On the bank was a foot-path, somewhat frequented by lovers at dusk, and Pasco advanced along it stealthily, listening and peering before him at intervals, to make certain that no one approached.

The tide was out, the mud exhaled its peculiar and not pleasant odour. Something flopped into it near at hand—whether a bird had dropped, or a stone had been flung, or a flounder had been left by the tide, and beat the mud with his tail, Pasco could not tell. The sound sent the blood with a rush to his heart and turned him sick and giddy.

Looking at him over a rail was a white horse. He did not see it until close upon the bank, and then the apparition of the great head turning to him and rubbing its chin on the rail gave him another start, and he almost slipped into the mud beside the path.

At length he reached the field adjoining the spit of land on which stood Coombe Cellars; here the path turned towards the village, but there was a way through the hedge to his own house. Pasco took this track, emerged in front of the Cellars, and found the door open, a light shining through the window of his kitchen and Jason Quarm inside.