Part 4

At last, when I was almost inclined to give up the chase, who should I come upon, outside the Aldgate Station, but my gentleman himself, leaning—as free and easy as you like—against the wall, not a bit blown, but quietly striking a match on the heel of his boot to light his cigar with, whilst Nick and Nan, who seemed to have been to the theayter too, was standing by, talking and laughing with him. I grasped him pretty roughly by the shoulder.

“So I’ve caught you at last!” I said, as I give him a shake. “Now! just hand over that watch, will you, and come along to the station with me.”

“What watch?” he says, looking as innocent as a child.

“The watch I see you take from the gentleman’s pocket,” I answered.

“It’s no good shirking it! I seed you with my own eyes, and you don’t get off this time, I can tell you, my beauty.”

“All right!” he says. “Search my pockets and take the watch for yourself, copper! I can’t say fairer than that, can I!”

Looseley, who had joined in the chase, had come up with us by that time, and together we rummaged the whole of Rummles’ clothes. But not a sign of the watch could we find anywhere. And yet I knew I had not been mistaken, but had seen the glimmer of the gold chain in his hand.

“Go on!” exclaimed Rummles, sarcastically; “why don’t yer take the ticker out? What’s the trouble? P’r’aps it’s in my boots or up the sleeve of my coat! You’re a fine copper, you are, not to be able to shake it out.”

But though we did look in his boots and up his sleeves and all over him, we couldn’t find the watch. I began to think my eyes had deceived me, but Looseley, who was a much older hand than myself, was not a bit put out.

“He’s got accomplices,” he said; “they all have, and he’s passed it on to one of his pals. Don’t you let go of him, Challice, and I’ll search this young man and woman,” pointing to Nick and Nan, who were standing by, open-mouthed with horror at the accusation we had made against Rummles.

“No, no, Looseley, it ain’t either of them. I know these young people,” I says quickly, “and they’re quite respectable.”

“All the same I’ll search them,” replied Looseley, and as he was my senior I had no power to stop him. But, as he approached Nan (who was shrinking back against the wall), Nick sprang at him like a young lion.

“Don’t you dare to lay a finger on that young woman,” he cried, “or I’ll fell you to the ground.”

We should have laughed at such a threat from a stripling to Looseley, who was one of the strongest men in the Force, only as the lad sprang forward, we could all hear distinctly the rattle of some metal in his coat-pocket.

“Well, suppose I take you first, my young cockerel,” said Looseley, as he thrust his hand into the pocket, and drew forth a gold watch and chain.

“I think we’ve got hold of the right thing and the right man this time,” he continued, as he clapped the darbies on Nick’s wrists. For a moment we was all taken so much by surprise, that we hadn’t a word to say, but Rummles was the first to speak.

“Well! what’s all yer blooming row come to?” he exclaimed. “What price for my stealing watches now, eh, copper? My friend here’s been to the theatre as well as me, but I ain’t responsible for his actions, and yer can’t make me so.”

“They was together, and you mistook one for t’other,” said Looseley to me, in a low voice.

“They was _not_ together,” I answered firmly, “I haven’t seen Nick before, to-night. This chap, Rummles, was the only one near the hansom, and I see him rob the gentleman.”

“Anyway, I took this fellow red-handed,” he said.

“Oh! no, no!” cried Nan, who had found her tongue at last. “Officer, you know Nick and you know me! We wouldn’t do such a thing. We’ve been sitting quietly in the gallery all the evening, and walked straight down here. Oh, Mr. Challice, speak for Nick. Don’t let them think he could do such an awful thing. Don’t let them take him away. Oh, Mr. Challice! do be our friend and speak for us!”

She sobbed, as if her heart would break, and I wished to the bottom of mine, that I’d never been on the look-out to catch Rummles. But there it was, you see. The watch wasn’t in _his_ pocket and it was in Nick’s, and the Law goes by facts and not by fancies.

“What are we to do?” I asks of Looseley aside.

“_Do?_” he answers. “There’s only one thing to do! March ’em both off to the station and have ’em up before the beaks to-morrow morning.”

Nan give such a scream at that, that my heart felt like water within me.

“Nan,” says Nick, very white, but very quiet like, “for _my_ sake don’t make a disturbance! It can’t do any good! I _didn’t_ take the watch, _you_ know that, and the truth must win. Let me go quietly, dear, and you go home as fast as you can, and I’ll come and tell you all about it as soon as the matter is settled! God bless you, Nan!”

And he held his white face to hers, and she clung round him and kissed him in a way that brought the water into my eyes; and I couldn’t help speaking to her.

“Cheer up, my dear!” I says, “depend upon it, it will be all set right, and we shall find an explanation for the mystery.”

“Oh, let me go with him,” she cried, “dear Mr. Challice! He will be so lonely and unhappy by himself. Let me come too, and sit by him till the morning.” But at that I had to shake my head, and Nick reminded her she had to give an explanation of his absence to them at home.

“Keep up your heart, dear,” he said bravely, “a couple of words will set this right! Go home, like a good girl, and wait for me.”

And so we watched her go sobbing down the street, with her shawl held up to her eyes.

“Now, what are yer holding _me_ for?” said Mr. Rummles impudently. “You’ve got the right chap, and I’ll thank yer to let me go!”

“Yes! I know I _have_ got the right chap,” I answered him, with a good shake, “and I mean to tell the magistrate so, first thing to-morrow morning.”

So we hauled them both off to the station-house, and locked them up for the night, though I never believed for a moment, but that I was right, and that Rummles, finding himself pursued, had dropped the watch into the other’s pocket.

It was a very handsome watch, with a heavy chain, and a gold locket containing hair. On one side of the case was a monogram, but so twisted and turned that Looseley and I could make nothing of the initials; and on the other a crest of a dragon and a spear, and some words in Latin that were spelled thus—“Vivit post funera virtus.”

We couldn’t make nothing of the matter, naterally, but Looseley locked up the watch safely, and the next morning by ten o’clock we were all before the beaks.

Well! the upshot of that was, everything went against poor Nick. I felt sure in my mind it was Rummles as I had seen take the watch; but when my evidence came to be sifted it was only a supposition after all, for I couldn’t say I had seen the watch, only the glitter—and supposition don’t go for much in court. And then the watch had actually been found on Nick.

There was no supposition about that, and the fact that he was known as a companion of Rummles went against him. And so the examination ended by Nick being committed for trial, and that scoundrel, Rummles, let go free.

When I see his grinning face as he left the court I could have struck him across the mouth. But I was powerless in the matter, and Nick was sent to prison to wait his trial for theft. When that poor gal, Nan, who had been in court at the time, heard the beak’s decision, she dropped straight down as if she had been shot. Rummles was going to take charge of her.

“I’ll take the young lady home in a cab,” he says; “I’m a great friend of hers, and she would rather I would take charge of her.”

“No! you don’t!” I says to him, with a look as black as thunder. “You don’t lay a finger on that gal or I’ll smash you! You’ve got the best of it this time, my beauty, but I’ll convict you before I’ve done with you, or my name’s not Charles Challice.” (And I kept my word, too, for not three months after I had the good luck to get him seven years’ penal servitude, for breaking into the house of an unprotected old lady and stealing all her plate.)

Well, I had Nan carried into one of the court rooms, and when she had had a glass of cold water and could tell me her address, I took her home. She didn’t speak one word to me all the way, but when I had put her down at her place (and a poor place it was), “Officer,” she says, crying, “shall I ever see him again?”

“See him again?” I replied, trying to speak cheerful, “in course you will! What’s to prevent it?”

“But how long will they keep him in that horrid place and when he’s as innocent as I am? My poor, poor Nick!”

“Oh! the gaol ain’t a horrid place by no means, my dear. It’s as comfortable as it can be, and Nick will have everything he can want whilst there.”

“But the disgrace, the shame,” she murmured, “it will kill him! And when will the trial take place?”

“Very soon. P’r’aps in a few days,” I answered her, for the autumn sessions was on, and I knew we had very few cases. “And now you must give up work for a bit, my dear, and wait patiently here till you know the verdict.”

“_Give up work!_” she repeated. “Oh, no! how can I? It is all I have to depend upon now Nick is away.”

So day after day I used to watch the poor darling, dragging her way up to the baker’s shop, and it seemed to me as if she grew thinner and darker, and her eyes more hollow each time I saw her.

I used to say a few words of comfort to her as she passed, but I knew it wasn’t the time to tell her of my love, for all her mind was wrapped up in Nick.

Only I determined that whichever way the trial went, I would speak straight out to Nan, as soon as ever it was over, and ask her to be my wife, and let me protect and provide for her to my life’s end.

It come off sooner than even I had expected, but I purposely didn’t tell Nan of the exact date, for I didn’t want to have no scenes in court, and thought it far better that she shouldn’t be there.

Besides, I was very doubtful how the case would go, and feared the worst for poor Nick.

When the time came, and he was brought into court, I thought I had never seen six weeks make such a change in a strong young man.

He was white and thin and haggard. His cheeks was sunken, so was his eyes, but he bore a defiant look with it all, as though he _dared_ the jury to call him guilty. However, right don’t always win in this world, and everything went against him.

The court made very short work of the case. Looseley’s evidence and mine was taken before everybody, and Nick hadn’t nothing to say for himself, except that he didn’t know how the watch got in his pocket, which nobody believed. _I_ thought _I_ knew, but I was not allowed to say so. You can’t give evidence of what you _think_, only of what you _know_. And all I knew for certain was that I saw Looseley take the watch out of Nick’s pocket.

The watch was in court, of course. It had never been owned, and the judge ordered it to be locked up again until claimed. But the jury found Nick guilty, and he was sentenced to seven years’ transportation. I was standing next the dock, and he turned an agonized face towards me, as his sentence was pronounced.

“Nan!” he gasped.

“I will see after her,” I answered, and I could read the thanks in his poor face.

As soon as I was off duty that night I made a run for her lodgings, and found her sitting up, pale and mournful.

“You’ve come to tell me when my dear Nick’s trial comes off,” she said; “I am sure of it, for he has never been out of my thoughts all day. Oh, Mr. Challice, surely they can never have the heart to pronounce him guilty!”

“My dear,” I says very softly, and laying my hand on hers (Lord, how the touch did make me tremble!), “there’s many an innercent man has had to suffer in this world for the wrong-doing of others, and Nick ain’t no exception to the rule. He had a bad friend in Rummles, and he has ruined his life. Be prepared for the worst, my poor gal. The trial came off this morning, and Nick’s got seven years!”

“_Seven years!_” she repeated slowly. “Not seven years’ transportation?”

“Yes, my dear. I’m sorry to say it, but that’s the truth. He was found guilty and sentenced to seven years’ transportation.”

“Seven years,” she said again in a dazed manner, “seven years, and I am only twenty-one. Oh! what shall I do?—what _shall_ I do?”

She didn’t cry loud, but seemed to be asking the question of herself in right earnest.

“Nan,” I says, emboldened by her despair, “I’ll tell you what to do. Come home to me and I’ll take care of you! Only say the word and let me put up the banns. ‘Twouldn’t be a grand home, my dear, but it would be a clean and comfortable one, and Nick’s home, too, as soon as he’s out of his time. And I’ll love you, my dear gal, faithful and true!

“I’ve loved you ever since I knowed you, Nan, and if love can make them seven years go quicker, why, they’ll have all the help in my power, and I can’t say no more.”

“_You_, Mr. Challice?” she says in surprise. “You? Oh, no! Oh, no!”

“And why not, Nan? My wages is pretty good and rising regularly. And you shall never do a stroke of work again if I can help it. And I’ll be a friend to your brother, my dear! I did my best to stand his friend to-day, but the evidence was too strong for me.”

“_My brother!_ Oh, no, you don’t understand, Mr. Challice! _That_ is the reason. Nick is _not_ my brother!

“He is my dear, dear friend and my lover, and we were to have been married in a little while. Oh, my Nick, my darling Nick! I shall never be the wife of any man but you.” And with that she laid her pretty head down on the table and sobbed fit to kill herself.

There was nothing for me to say after that! I felt terribly cut up over it, you may be sure, but ’tweren’t her fault and ’tweren’t mine. It was a misfortune, and I had to bear it as best I could. But all my thoughts ran, as how I could best comfort her, and that brought me to think of my sister Margaret.

I told her all the story, just as if she’d been my mother instead of my sister, and I brought her to see Nan, and when she took my poor gal in her arms and kissed her, I knew she’d do by her as she would have done by me.

Well, it was getting on for Christmas by that time, and, as ill luck would have it, Christmas Eve was the very day fixed for Nick to sail from England in the convict ship.

That was a nice Christmas Eve for all of us. My heart was well nigh broken by the thought that Nan would never be more to me than a friend, and hers was the same at parting with Nick.

She had been allowed to see him more than once, whilst he was in gaol, and she had been terribly upset on each occasion, but it was nothing to the day when she had to say good-bye to him for the last time. Margaret got leave to accompany her to the prison, for she thought she ought to have a friend with her at such a trying moment, and she was right.

“Good-bye, my darling!” cried Nick, straining Nan tight in his arms. “Remember! I am _innocent_. And when I have served my time I will send for you, and we will begin a happier life in the Colonies as man and wife.

“Be brave, Nan, as you have always been. This is a terrible trial, but we did not bring it on ourselves. And it is such a comfort for me to think I leave you in the care of this dear, good woman, and that you will have a good home and protection during my absence.”

“Yes,” said my sister Margaret, “you need have no fear on that score, Nick. Nan will remain in the Children’s Hospital working under me, until she has gained sufficient experience to take a higher position. But you may rest assured she will never want for food or clothes or occupation so long as she behaves herself. And that I’ll warrant she means to do.”

“Indeed, indeed, I will,” sobbed Nan, “if only that I may feel your heart is at ease about me, Nick.”

“My Nan! my Nan!” he cried brokenly. “Oh! take her away, Miss Challice, whilst I am master of myself, and may God bless you for all your goodness to her.”

And so my sister Margaret took the poor girl home to the hospital, where she was well provided for and guarded against all temptation. And Nick sailed for the Colonies, clad in his convict dress.

Poor Nan! poor Nick! I felt for them both so much, that I wouldn’t have stolen her heart from him, not if I had been able. But I’ve never forgot her, nor my love for her, you see, to this very day. Only may all the Fates keep this here confession out of my wife Deborah’s hands.

CHARLES CHALLICE.

EVE THE FOURTH.

STATEMENT OF ARTHUR ROWAN, WARDER ON BOARD THE CONVICT SHIP “IRONS,” CONCERNING A PRISONER WHO QUELLED A MUTINY AND WAS AFTERWARDS RELEASED.

_By GEORGE MANVILLE FENN._

“GAMMON!” I said to him. “I’m too old a bird to be caught with that kind of chaff, my fine fellow. Try it on with the chaplain.”

He gave a kind of wince, just as if I’d pricked him with a pin; and as his eyes puckered up, he ran his thin hand over his damp, white forehead, and made believe to pass his fingers through his hair.

But he didn’t, for it was cut as short as a Frenchman’s, and then he gave a bit of a sigh.

“Hah!” I said, “that’s very well done, Number Ninety-seven. Neat bit of play-acting. Pity you didn’t take to the stage; but it won’t do for me, so don’t try it on again. I’ve met too many of your kidney, since I’ve had to do with this sort of work.”

“I beg your pardon. I’m sorry I asked you, Mr. Rowan.”

“Then hold your tongue,” I said sourly. “Don’t make worse of it. I know you, my lad. You’re perfectly innocent, of course; the jury were a set of lunatics; and the judge who sentenced you to seven years was an old fool. You’re one of the good sort of young men, who wants to improve himself, and likes reading and writing and chucking texts about.”

He stood there before me with his face working, and that made me worse than ever; for I believe I hated that young fellow then for being so patient and good-looking, and for never giving me a bit of trouble since he’d been on board.

Perhaps it was temper, too, consequent on my liver being out of order, for the heat down south was terrible, and I’d wished myself back in England over and over again.

It was an unlucky time for him to ask me to be breaking the rules and supplying him with books and paper, and I flew out at him and let him have a bit of my mind, as a lesson to keep him quiet and to check some more of the gang, for we had about as ugly a lot taking out there to Sydney, as ever left England—for the benefit of their country, and to be inflicted upon the colonists of New South Wales.

“Perhaps you’re sorry for me,” I went on, like the idiot I was, “and would like to convert me, and feel ready to tell me, how much better it would be for me if I was a convict in irons, how it would give me time to think of my sinful ways. But it won’t do, Ninety-seven. Arthur Rowan knows your sort by heart, so no more humbug with me.”

“Serve yer right,” said one of the gang, who had been looking on—an ugly ruffian of a fellow, named Bird, who was going out for fourteen years for housebreaking. “You’re always on the pious lay. I told yer it wouldn’t do. Give it him again, sir. He’s a reg’lar snivelling humbug, that’s what he is.”

“Keep your tongue between your teeth,” I said sharply, as I fixed my gentleman with my eye. “Who spoke to you?”

He gave his lips a slap, and stared at me as hard as I stared at him, giving me a nasty ugly look which seemed to say, “Oh! if I had the chance!” But I looked him down, and his thick eyelids went slowly over his vicious eyes, as he turned away; and after an order or two I went out and along the tower deck to where the sentry stood on duty, one of the several always ready with loaded musket and fixed bayonet, and he laughed at me.

“Been giving it to ’em hot?”

“Yes,” I said, “it makes me sick when I get hold of a sanctimonious humbug pretending to be so innocent and good. That’s the worst kind of black I know.”

“They’re a nice lot.”

“Deal you know about it,” I growled.

“Don’t be huffy, mate,” he said.

“Enough to make any man huffy. It’s all very well for you swaddies just idling on sentry-go, but you’re too big to have much to do with the convicts. It would be degrading the scarlet cloth, but it isn’t too hard for us warder guards. Wish I’d taken to crossing sweeping, or some other respectable profession before I took to looking after gaol sweepings.”

“Look here, mate,” he said, “you go and get forward on deck where the wind blows, and have a quiet pipe. You’re out of sorts.”

If he had spoken sharply to me, I should have given him back as good as he gave, but this disarmed me.

“Yes, I am out of sorts,” I said. “Thank ye, I will the moment I’m off duty. Nothing like a pipe!”

You see it was like this. I was at the Foreland, and doing pretty well, when, more for the sake of the change than anything, I volunteered for Australia, so as to see a little of the world for one thing, but more especially because I’d had a sort of a quarrel with my young lady.

It was a bit of jealousy, and we parted, when a word of explanation would have set all right; but that word wasn’t spoken, till the day before we were to sail with a heavy batch of convicts. Then it was spoken when it was too late, and I couldn’t back out. However, we made it up, swore we’d be true, and broke a ring and then said good-bye.

This didn’t improve my temper, which never was one of the best, and when I tell you that we had too deal with one of the most troublesome, savage lot of scoundrels ever shipped off, rough weather, a deal of illness, and my liver—the doctor said it was going all wrong—you will not be surprised at my temper getting a bit worse.

I never was a favorite with convicts at the Foreland. I was not harsh or brutal to them, but there were certain rules, laid down by the authorities, for the men to follow out, and I never would let them scamp anything.

Then, I never made friends with any of them. If they were obedient and did their work, and kept themselves and their cells clean, they never had a word from me; and I’ll swear, that, whenever a man was really out of sorts and not bad enough to go into the infirmary, I always made it easy for him. But I was too strict an officer for the convicts to like.

Of course I pretty well knew everyone’s history, and, as I’ve told you, I took quite a dislike to young Nick.

Prejudice? Well, of course it was. “Young Nick,” I said to myself, “nice son of his father, Old Nick; and if the law hadn’t nicked him, he’d have run his course as a pickpocket, and grown into a perfect specimen of the swell-mobsman.”

That was on one of my bilious days. For I had not seemed to get over the knocking about and sea-sickness of the first week.

Then, as we got further south into the hot waters, the living on board didn’t agree with me. You see that’s a good many years ago, before the days of preserved meat and vegetables; and salt beef—or horse—and ancient pork out of a pickle-tub, with pease pudding, constituted all the delicacies of our season, except the flinty biscuit and salt butter, which never came welcome to a man, who dearly loved a hot roll and a bit of best fresh.

Of course, you know I’m talking of the days when convicts were sent out to Botany Bay, as they call it, before the Suez Canal and the great steamers made a journey to the Antipodes a pleasure trip.