Chapter 59

WHEREIN MR. BELCHER, HAVING EXHIBITED HIS DIRTY RECORD, SHOWS A CLEAN PAIR OF HEELS.

The first face that Mr. Belcher met upon leaving the Court-House was that of Mr. Talbot.

"Get into my coupe," said Talbot. "I will take you home."

Mr. Belcher got into the coupe quickly, as if he were hiding from some pursuing danger. "Home!" said he, huskily, and in a whimpering voice. "Home! Good God! I wish I knew where it was."

"What's the matter, General? How has the case gone?"

"Gone? Haven't you been in the house?"

"No; how has it gone?"

"Gone to hell," said Mr. Belcher, leaning over heavily upon Talbot, and whispering it in his ear.

"Not so bad as that, I hope," said Talbot, pushing him off.

"Toll," said the suffering man, "haven't I always used you well? You are not going to turn against the General? You've made a good thing out of him, Toll."

"What's happened, General? Tell me."

"Toll, you'll be shut up to-morrow. Play your cards right. Make friends with the mammon of unrighteousness."

Talbot sat and thought very fast. He saw that there was serious trouble, and questioned whether he were not compromising himself. Still, the fact that the General had enriched him, determined him to stand by his old principal as far as he could, consistently with his own safety.

"What can I do for you, General?" he said.

"Get me out of the city. Get me off to Europe. You know I have funds there."

"I'll do what I can, General."

"You're a jewel, Toll."

"By the way," said Talbot, "the Crooked Valley corporation held its annual meeting to-day. You are out, and they have a new deal."

"They'll find out something to-morrow, Toll. It all comes together."

When the coupe drove up at Palgrave's Folly, and the General alighted, he found one of his brokers on the steps, with a pale face. "What's the matter?" said Mr. Belcher.

"The devil's to pay."

"I'm glad of it," said he. "I hope you'll get it all out of him."

"It's too late for joking," responded the man seriously. "We want to see you at once. You've been over-reached in this matter of the Air Line, and you've got some very ugly accounts to settle."

"I'll be down to-morrow early," said the General.

"We want to see you to-night," said the broker.

"Very well, come here at nine o'clock."

Then the broker went away, and Mr. Belcher and Mr. Talbot went in. They ascended to the library, and there, in a few minutes, arranged their plans. Mrs. Belcher was not to be informed of them, but was to be left to get the news of her husband's overthrow after his departure. "Sarah's been a good wife, Toll," he said, "but she was unequally yoked with an unbeliever and hasn't been happy for a good many years. I hope you'll look after her a little, Toll. Save something for her, if you can. Of course, she'll have to leave here, and it won't trouble her much."

At this moment the merry voices of his children came through an opening door.

The General gave a great gulp in the endeavor to swallow his emotion. After all, there was a tender spot in him.

"Toll, shut the door; I can't stand that. Poor little devils! What's going to become of them?"

The General was busy with his packing. In half an hour his arrangements were completed. Then Talbot went to one of the front rooms of the house, and, looking from the window, saw a man talking with the driver of his coupe. It was an officer. Mr. Belcher peeped through the curtain, and knew him. What was to be done? A plan of escape was immediately made and executed. There was a covered passage into the stable from the rear of the house, and through that both the proprietor and Talbot made their way. Now that Phipps had left him, Mr. Belcher had but a single servant who could drive. He was told to prepare the horses at once, and to make himself ready for service. After everything was done, but the opening of the doors, Talbot went back through the house, and, on appearing at the front door of the mansion, was met by the officer, who inquired for Mr. Belcher. Mr. Talbot let him in, calling for a servant at the same time, and went out and closed the door behind him.

Simultaneously with this movement, the stable-doors flew open, and the horses sprang out upon the street, and were half a mile on their way to one of the upper ferries, leading to Jersey City, before the officer could get an answer to his inquiries for Mr. Belcher. Mr. Belcher had been there only five minutes before, but he had evidently gone out. He would certainly be back to dinner. So the officer waited until convinced that his bird had flown, and until the proprietor was across the river in search of a comfortable bed among the obscure hotels of the town.

It had been arranged that Talbot should secure a state-room on the Aladdin to sail on the following day, and make an arrangement with the steward to admit Mr. Belcher to it on his arrival, and assist in keeping him from sight.

Mr. Belcher sent back his carriage by the uppermost ferry, ate a wretched dinner, and threw himself upon his bed, where he tossed his feverish limbs until day-break. It was a night thronged with nervous fears. He knew that New York would resound with his name on the following day. Could he reach his state-room on the Aladdin without being discovered? He resolved to try it early the next morning, though he knew the steamer would not sail until noon. Accordingly, as the day began to break, he rose and looked out of his dingy window. The milk-men only were stirring. At the lower end of the street he could see masts, and the pipes of the great steamers, and a ferry-boat crossing to get its first batch of passengers for an early train. Then a wretched man walked under his window, looking for something,--hoping, after the accidents of the evening, to find money for his breakfast. Mr. Belcher dropped him a dollar, and the man looked up and said feebly: "May God bless you, sir!"

This little benediction was received gratefully. It would do to start on. He felt his way down stairs, called for his reckoning, and when, after an uncomfortable and vexatious delay, he had found a sleepy, half-dressed man to receive his money, he went out upon the street, satchel in hand, and walked rapidly toward the slip where the Aladdin lay asleep.

Talbot's money had done its work well, and the fugitive had only to make himself known to the officer in charge to secure an immediate entrance into the state-room that had been purchased for him. He shut to the door and locked it; then he took off his clothes and went to bed.

Mr. Belcher's entrance upon the vessel had been observed by a policeman, but, though it was an unusual occurrence, the fact that he was received showed that he had been expected. As the policeman was soon relieved from duty, he gave the matter no farther thought, so that Mr. Belcher had practically made the passage from his library to his state-room unobserved.

After the terrible excitements of the two preceding days, and the sleeplessness of the night, Mr. Belcher with the first sense of security fell into a heavy slumber. All through the morning there were officers on the vessel who knew that he was wanted, but his state-room had been engaged for an invalid lady, and the steward assured the officers that she was in the room, and was not to be disturbed.

The first consciousness that came to the sleeper was with the first motion of the vessel as she pushed out from her dock. He rose and dressed, and found himself exceedingly hungry. There was nothing to do, however, but to wait. The steamer would go down so as to pass the bar at high tide, and lay to for the mails and the latest passengers, to be brought down the bay by a tug. He knew that he could not step from his hiding until the last policeman had left the vessel, with the casting off of its tender, and so sat and watched from the little port-hole which illuminated his room the panorama of the Jersey and the Staten Island shores.

His hard, exciting life was retiring. He was leaving his foul reputation, his wife and children, his old pursuits and his fondly cherished idol behind him. He was leaving danger behind. He was leaving Sing Sing behind! He had all Europe, with plenty of money, before him. His spirits began to rise. He even took a look into his mirror, to be a witness of his own triumph.

At four o'clock, after the steamer had lain at anchor for two or three hours, the tug arrived, and as his was the leeward side of the vessel, she unloaded her passengers upon the steamer where he could see them. There were no faces that he knew, and he was relieved. He heard a great deal of tramping about the decks, and through the cabin. Once, two men came into the little passage into which his door opened. He heard his name spoken, and the whispered assurance that his room was occupied by a sick woman; and then they went away.

At last, the orders were given to cast off the tug. He saw the anxious looks of officers as they slid by his port-hole, and then he realized that he was free.

The anchor was hoisted, the great engine lifted itself to its mighty task, and the voyage was begun. They had gone down a mile, perhaps, when Mr. Belcher came out of his state-room. Supper was not ready--would not be ready for an hour. He took a hurried survey of the passengers, none of whom he knew. They were evidently gentle-folk, mostly from inland cities, who were going to Europe for pleasure. He was glad to see that he attracted little attention. He sat down on deck, and took up a newspaper which a passenger had left behind him.

The case of "Benedict _vs._ Belcher" absorbed three or four columns, besides a column of editorial comment, in which the General's character and his crime were painted with a free hand and in startling colors. Then, in the financial column, he found a record of the meeting of the Crooked Valley Corporation, to which was added the statement that suspicions were abroad that the retiring President had been guilty of criminal irregularities in connection with the bonds of the Company--irregularities which would immediately become a matter of official investigation. There was also an account of his operations in Muscogee Air Line, and a rumor that he had fled from the city, by some of the numerous out-going lines of steamers, and that steps had already been taken to head him off at every possible point of landing in this country and Europe.

This last rumor was not calculated to increase his appetite, or restore his self-complacency and self-assurance. He looked all these accounts over a second time, in a cursory way, and was about to fold the paper, so as to hide or destroy it, when his eye fell upon a column of foreign despatches. He had never been greatly interested in this department of his newspaper, but now that he was on his way to Europe, they assumed a new significance; and, beginning at the top, he read them through. At the foot of the column, he read the words: "Heavy Failure of a Banking House;" and his attention was absorbed at once by the item which followed:

"The House of Tempin Brothers, of Berlin, has gone down. The failure is said to be utterly disastrous, even the special deposits in the hands of the house having been used. The House was a favorite with Americans, and the failure will inevitably produce great distress among those who are traveling for pleasure. The house is said to have no assets, and the members are not to be found."

Mr. Belcher's "Anchor to windward" had snapped its cable, and he was wildly afloat, with ruin behind him, and starvation or immediate arrest before. With curses on his white lips, and with a trembling hand, he cut out the item, walked to his state-room, and threw the record of his crime and shame out of the port-hole. Then, placing the little excerpt in the pocket of his waistcoat, he went on deck.

There sat the happy passengers, wrapped in shawls, watching the setting sun, thinking of the friends and scenes they had left behind them, and dreaming of the unknown world that lay before. Three or four elderly gentlemen were gathered in a group, discussing Mr. Belcher himself; but none of them knew him. He had no part in the world of honor and of innocence in which all these lived. He was an outlaw. He groaned when the overwhelming consciousness of his disgrace came upon him--groaned to think that not one of all the pleasant people around could know him without shrinking from him as a monster.

He was looking for some one. A sailor engaged in service passed near him. Stepping to his side, Mr. Belcher asked him to show him the captain. The man pointed to the bridge. "There's the Cap'n, sir--the man in the blue coat and brass buttons." Then he went along.

Mr. Belcher immediately made his way to the bridge. He touched his hat to the gruff old officer, and begged his pardon for obtruding himself upon him, but he was in trouble, and wanted advice.

"Very well, out with it: what's the matter?" said the Captain.

Mr. Belcher drew out the little item he had saved, and said: "Captain, I have seen this bit of news for the first time since I started. This firm held all the money I have in the world. Is there any possible way for me to get back to my home?"

"I don't know of any," said the captain.

"But I must go back."

"You'll have to swim for it, then."

Mr. Belcher was just turning away in despair, with a thought of suicide in his mind, when the captain said: "There's Pilot-boat Number 10. She's coming round to get some papers. Perhaps I can get you aboard of her, but you are rather heavy for a jump."

The wind was blowing briskly off shore, and the beautiful pilot-boat, with her wonderful spread of canvass, was cutting the water as a bird cleaves the air. She had been beating toward land, but, as she saw the steamer, she rounded to, gave way before the wind, worked toward the steamer's track on the windward side, and would soon run keel to keel with her.

"Fetch your traps," said the captain. "I can get you on board, if you are in time."

Mr. Belcher ran to his state-room, seized his valise, and was soon again on deck. The pilot-boat was within ten rods of the steamer, curving in gracefully toward the monster, and running like a race-horse. The Captain had a bundle of papers in his hand. He held them while Mr. Belcher went over the side of the vessel, down the ladder, and turned himself for his jump. There was peril in the venture, but desperation had strung his nerves. The captain shouted, and asked the bluff fellows on the little craft to do him the personal favor to take his passenger on shore, at their convenience. Then a sailor tossed them the valise, and the captain tossed them the papers. Close in came the little boat. It was almost under Mr. Belcher. "Jump!" shouted half a dozen voices together, and the heavy man lay sprawling upon the deck among the laughing crew. A shout and a clapping of hands was heard from the steamer, "Number 10" sheered off, and continued her cruise, and, stunned and bruised, the General crawled into the little cabin, where it took only ten minutes of the new motion to make him so sick that his hunger departed, and he was glad to lie where, during the week that he tossed about in the cruise for in-coming vessels, he would have been glad to die.

One, two, three, four steamers were supplied with pilots, and an opportunity was given him on each occasion to go into port, but he would wait. He had told the story of his bankers, given a fictitious name to himself, and managed to win the good will of the simple men around him. His bottle of brandy and his box of cigars were at their service, and his dress was that of a gentleman. His natural drollery took on a very amusing form during his sickness, and the men found him a source of pleasure rather than an incumbrance.

At length the last pilot was disposed of, and "Number 10" made for home; and on a dark midnight she ran in among the shipping above the Battery, on the North River, and was still.

Mr. Belcher was not without ready money. He was in the habit of carrying a considerable sum, and, before leaving Talbot, he had drained that gentleman's purse. He gave a handsome fee to the men, and, taking his satchel in his hand, went on shore. He was weak and wretched with long seasickness and loss of sleep, and staggered as he walked along the wharf like a drunken man. He tried to get one of the men to go with him, and carry his burden, but each wanted the time with his family, and declined to serve him at any price. So he followed up the line of shipping for a few blocks, went by the dens where drunken sailors and river-thieves were carousing, and then turned up Fulton Street toward Broadway. He knew that the city cars ran all night, but he did not dare to enter one of them. Reaching the Astor, he crossed over, and, seeing an up-town car starting off without a passenger, he stepped upon the front platform, where he deposited his satchel, and sat down upon it. People came into the car and stepped off, but they could not see him. He was oppressed with drowsiness, yet he was painfully wide awake.

At length he reached the vicinity of his old splendors. The car was stopped, and, resuming his burden, he crossed over to Fifth Avenue, and stood in front of the palace which had been his home. It was dark at every window. Where were his wife and children? Who had the house in keeping? He was tired, and sat down on the curb-stone, under the very window where Mr. Balfour was at that moment sleeping. He put his dizzy head between his hands, and whimpered like a sick boy. "Played out!" said he; "played out!"

He heard a measured step in the distance. He must not be seen by the watch; so he rose and bent his steps toward Mrs. Dillingham's. Opposite to her house, he sat down upon the curb-stone again, and recalled his old passion for her. The thought of her treachery and of his own fatuitous vanity--the reflection that he had been so blind in his self-conceit that she had led him to his ruin, stung him to the quick. He saw a stone at his feet. He picked it up, and, taking his satchel in one hand, went half across the street, and hurled the little missile at her window. He heard the crash of glass and a shrill scream, and then walked rapidly off. Then he heard a watchman running from a distance; for the noise was peculiar, and resounded along the street. The watchman met him and made an inquiry, but passed on without suspecting the fugitive's connection with the alarm.

As soon as he was out of the street, he quickened his pace, and went directly to Talbot's. Then he rang the door-bell, once, twice, thrice. Mr. Talbot put his head out of the window, looked down, and, in the light of a street lamp, discovered the familiar figure of his old principal. "I'll come down," he said, "and let you in."

The conference was a long one, and it ended in both going into the street, and making their way to Talbot's stable, two or three blocks distant. There the coachman was roused, and there Talbot gave Mr. Belcher the privilege of sleeping until he was wanted.

Mr. Talbot had assured Mr. Belcher that he would not be safe in his house, that the whole town was alive with rumors about him, and that while some believed he had escaped and was on his way to Europe, others felt certain that he had not left the city.

Mr. Belcher had been a railroad man, and Mr. Talbot was sure that the railroad men would help him. He would secure a special car at his own cost, on a train that would leave on the following night. He would see that the train should stop before crossing Harlem Bridge. At that moment the General must be there. Mr. Talbot would send him up, to sit in his cab until the train should stop, and then to take the last car, which should be locked after him; and he could go through in it without observation.

A breakfast was smuggled into the stable early, where Mr. Belcher lay concealed, of which he ate greedily. Then he was locked into the room, where he slept all day. At eight o'clock in the evening, a cab stood in the stable, ready to issue forth on the opening of the doors. Mr. Belcher took his seat in it, in the darkness, and then the vehicle was rapidly driven to Harlem. After ten minutes of waiting, the dazzling head-light of a great train, crawling out of the city, showed down the Avenue. He unlatched the door of his cab, took his satchel in his hand, and, as the last car on the train came up to him, he leaped out, mounted the platform, and vanished in the car, closing the door behind him. "All right!" was shouted from the rear; the conductor swung his lantern, and the train thundered over the bridge and went roaring off into the night.

The General had escaped. All night he traveled on, and, some time during the forenoon, his car was shunted from the Trunk line upon the branch that led toward Sevenoaks. It was nearly sunset when he reached the terminus. The railroad sympathy had helped and shielded him thus far, but the railroad ended there, and its sympathy and help were cut off short with the last rail.

Mr. Belcher sent for the keeper of a public stable whom he knew, and with whom he had always been in sympathy, through the love of horse-flesh which they entertained in common. As he had no personal friendship to rely on in his hour of need, he resorted to that which had grown up between men who had done their best to cheat each other by systematic lying in the trading of horses.

"Old Man Coates," for that was the name by which the stable keeper was known, found his way to the car where Mr. Belcher still remained hidden. The two men met as old cronies, and Mr. Belcher said: "Coates, I'm in trouble, and am bound for Canada. How is Old Calamity?"

Now in all old and well regulated stables there is one horse of exceptional renown for endurance. "Old Calamity" was a roan, with one wicked white eye, that in his best days had done a hundred miles in ten hours. A great deal of money had been won and lost on him, first and last, but he had grown old, and had degenerated into a raw-boned, tough beast, that was resorted to in great emergencies, and relied upon for long stretches of travel that involved extraordinary hardship.

"Well, he's good yet," replied Old Man Coates.

"You must sell him to me, with a light wagon," said Mr. Belcher.

"I could make more money by telling a man who is looking for you in the hotel that you are here," said the old man, with a wicked leer.

"But you won't do it," responded the General. "You can't turn on a man who has loved the same horse with you, old man; you know you can't."

"Well, I can, but in course I won't;" and the stable-keeper went into a calculation of the value of the horse and harness, with a wagon "that couldn't be broke down."

Old Man Coates had Belcher at a disadvantage, and, of course, availed himself of it, and had no difficulty in making a bargain which reduced the fugitive's stock of ready money in a fearful degree.

At half-past nine, that night, "Old Calamity" was driven down to the side of the car by Coates' own hands, and in a moment the old man was out of the wagon and the new owner was in it. The horse, the moment Mr. Belcher took the reins, had a telegraphic communication concerning the kind of man who was behind him, and the nature of the task that lay before him, and struck off up the road toward Sevenoaks with a long, swinging trot that gave the driver a sense of being lifted at every stride.

It was a curious incident in the history of Mr. Belcher's flight to Canada, which practically began when he leaped upon the deck of Pilot-Boat Number 10, that he desired to see every spot that had been connected with his previous life. A more sensitive man would have shunned the scenes which had been associated with his prosperous and nominally respectable career, but he seemed possessed with a morbid desire to look once more upon the localities in which he had moved as king.

He had not once returned to Sevenoaks since he left the village for the metropolis; and although he was in bitter haste, with men near him in pursuit, he was determined to take the longer road to safety, in order to revisit the scene of his early enterprise and his first successes. He knew that Old Calamity would take him to Sevenoaks in two hours, and that then the whole village would be in its first nap. The road was familiar, and the night not too dark. Dogs came out from farm-houses as he rattled by, and barked furiously. He found a cow asleep in the road, and came near being upset by her. He encountered one or two tramps, who tried to speak to him, but he flew on until the spires of the little town, where he had once held the supreme life, defined themselves against the sky, far up the river. Here he brought his horse down to a walk. The moment he was still, for he had not yet reached the roar of the falls, he became conscious that a wagon was following him in the distance. Old Man Coates had not only sold him his horse, but he had sold his secret!

Old Calamity was once more put into a trot, and in ten minutes he was by the side of his mill. Seeing the watchman in front, he pulled up, and, in a disguised voice, inquired the way to the hotel. Having received a rough answer, he inquired of the man whose mill he was watching.

"I don't know," responded the man. "It's stopped now. It was old Belcher's once, but he's gone up, they say."

Mr. Belcher started on. He crossed the bridge, and drove up the steep hill toward his mansion. Arriving at the hight, he stood still by the side of the Seven Oaks, which had once been the glory of his country home. Looking down into the town, he saw lights at the little tavern, and, by the revelations of the lantern that came to the door, a horse and wagon. At this moment, his great Newfoundland dog came bounding toward him, growling like a lion. He had alighted to stretch his limbs, and examine into the condition of his horse. The dog came toward him faster and faster, and more and more menacingly, till he reached him, and heard his own name called. Then he went down into the dust, and fawned upon his old master pitifully. Mr. Belcher caressed him. There was still one creature living that recognized him, and acknowledged him as his lord. He looked up at his house and took a final survey of the dim outlines of the village. Then he mounted his wagon, turned his horse around, and went slowly down the hill, calling to his dog to follow. The huge creature followed a few steps, then hesitated, then, almost crawling, he turned and sneaked away, and finally broke into a run and went back to the house, where he stopped and with a short, gruff bark scouted his retiring master.

Mr. Belcher looked back. His last friend had left him. "Blast the brute!" he exclaimed. "He is like the rest of 'em."

As he came down the road to turn into the main highway, a man stepped out from the bushes and seized Old Calamity by the bridle. Mr. Belcher struck his horse a heavy blow, and the angry beast, by a single leap, not only shook himself clear of the grasp upon his bit, but hurled the intercepting figure upon the ground. A second man stood ready to deal with Mr. Belcher, but the latter in passing gave him a furious cut with his whip, and Old Calamity was, in twenty seconds, as many rods away from both of them, sweeping up the long hill at a trot that none but iron sinews could long sustain.

The huge pile that constituted the Sevenoaks poor-house was left upon his right, and in half an hour he began a long descent, which so far relieved his laboring horse, that when he reached the level he could hardly hold him. The old fire of the brute was burning at its hottest. Mr. Belcher pulled him in, to listen for the pursuit. Half a mile behind, he could hear wheels tearing madly down the hill, and he laughed. The race had, for the time, banished from his mind the history of the previous week, banished the memory of his horrible losses, banished his sense of danger, banished his nervous fears. It was a stern chase, proverbially a long one, and he had the best horse, and knew that he could not be overtaken. The sound of the pursuing wheels grew fainter and fainter, until they ceased altogether.

Just as the day was breaking, he turned from the main road into the woods, and as the occupants of a cabin were rising, he drove up and asked for shelter and a breakfast.

He remained there all day, and, just before night, passed through the forest to another road, and in the early morning was driving quietly along a Canadian highway, surveying his "adopted country," and assuming the character of a loyal subject of the good Queen of England.