 | CHAPTER VI.
TELLING WHAT HAD BECOME OF GEORDIE. Haunted hearts |  |
6. CHAPTER VI.
TELLING WHAT HAD BECOME OF GEORDIE.
When George Rawle lifted his head from his knees,
in which posture he had been crouching, he knew not
how long, Nicholas Bly, the coarse man who had been
with him on the tavern platform, stood at the entrance
of the stall, and the light from a lantern, which he carried
in his hand, shone directly in George's face. He
had watched young Rawle, and followed him. George
had heard some one enter the stable, and move about
among the horses, ostensibly looking after their comfort,
but in reality doing little but kick and growl at
them. He thought he recognized Nick's voice, but did
not consider his presence an intrusion so long as he kept
at a distance from his retreat. He now looked up
angrily on finding himself discovered.
“Hollo, you young dog in the manger!” cried Nick,
with feigned surprise, and speaking in the hail-fellow-well-met
tone of a familiar comrade; “you've made
yer bed here, have you? Wal, sence you don't seem to
be enjoyin' it much, be gen'rous now, an' invite a friend
Nicholas threw himself heavily down beside
George, propped his lantern up in the straw, filled a pipe
with tobacco, and, having lit it by aid of the lantern,
commenced smoking. George, meanwhile, remained
obstinately silent, his attitude and face expressing a
dogged resolution to ignore Nicholas's presence altogether.
But the latter was not easily discouraged; assurance
was his forte. “I say, Mr. George,” said he, slyly
keeping watch upon his companion's face, “things has
gone agin you like thunder, hasn't they?”
“Get out!” said George, with sullen vehemence.
“What do you want to come here taunting a fellow
for?” and, with a jerk of his shoulders, he half turned
his back upon Nicholas, and rolling over on the straw,
withdrew a little from his vicinity.
“Tauntin', old boy,” responded Nicholas; “not I. I
leave that for my betters. What should I be tauntin'
fur? Let them crow that stands a-top o' the fence. Nick
Bly's too low to be feared on that score. It's cause
you're down in the mouth, Mr. George, that I feels as if
you an' I was kind o' mates; misery loves company,
yer know” — and Nicholas, leaning over the young man,
who was resting on his elbow, with his face hid from
sight, laid his rough hand upon him coaxingly.
George shrank from his touch. A companionship
founded on the basis of mutual and acknowledged degradation
had nothing very consolatory in it.
Nicholas took several whiffs at his pipe.
“Look ye here, youngster,” he said at length, in the
tone of one about to open an argument, “what's the use
o' sulkin'? People an' things is dead set agin you, ain't
they?” George groaned. “You don't like to own up
to 't; that's nat'ral; but lookers-on see most o' the game,
an' I should say you was pooty well cornered, leastways
will be, if you give up to 't this 'ere fashion.”
“What can a fellow do?” exclaimed George, bitterly.
“Once down, every body's ready to give you a kick.”
“Why, up an' at 'em 's my motter,” said Nicholas.
“Fight it out, man, an' come by your rights, one way
or t'other.”
“I don't see as I have any rights in this world,” muttered
George. “Plenty of wrongs I've got o' late; if
there's any thing belonging to me yet, that's worth having,
I should like to know it.”
“Natur' owes you a right for every wrong, man; an'
if you take my advice, you'll have it out of her.”
“Whip up Natur', as you call her, and drive to the
devil, eh?” said George, with a cheerless laugh. “That's
a race I've been running pretty fast lately, and a nag
that 'll soon land me in the bottomless pit, I'm thinking,
if I don't come to a stop.”
“Don't you never pull up till you win the stakes, Mr.
George. If you do, you ain't the boy I take you fur.”
“I don't know about there being any stakes to win;
but one thing 's certain, I haven't any thing left to lose.”
“That's jest it,” cried Nick, triumphantly. “That's
where fortin's on your side now.”
“That's a new way of looking at fortune,” murmured
George.
“The only true way, I tell yer,” replied Nick. “Why,
I owe all the luck I've had in life to takin' that 'ere view
o' the case.”
“Great luck ever you've had!” exclaimed George,
glancing with ill-concealed disgust at the greasy clothes
and bloated face of his companion. George had not got
used to low society yet.
“Why, not so bad nuther, considerin' my beginnin's,”
said Nicholas, meditatively, and pausing long enough to
spit and knock the ashes out of his pipe, “not but what
I might ha' done better,” he added, “if I'd had your
chances.”
“My chances?”
“Yes, yourn.”
“Name 'em.”
“Wal, respectable relations, an' education, an' friends
as had money. Natur' owes more to folks that were
born to expect somethin'. Now, I come up out o' the
gutter, an' couldn't look beyond scratchin' in the mud all
my days. But if I'd been you, I'd ha' aimed arter
higher game.”
George winced. Reproach from this quarter was unexpected,
but it struck home.
“You're right, Nick,” said he, at length, “I've had
opportunities; it's my own fault, I suppose, that I've
lost 'em.”
“Lost 'em? Not by a jug full,” retorted Nick, in a
of George's contrition. “By Jolly, if I was in your place,
now, yer'd soon see Nick Bly goin' it with flyin' colors.”
“I only wish you were in my place!” exclaimed
George, impatiently. “And that I was” — he could not
add “in yours” — so after pausing a second or two, he finished
with “no where.”
Nick laughed, — not heartily, as good men laugh at a
good joke, but fiendishly, — as devils laugh at their own
wicked thoughts. After a while, seeing that George had
buried his face in the straw, trying perhaps to imagine
himself the nonentity he craved to become, Nicholas
began, as the serpent of old did, by trying to excite curiosity;
and, putting himself, as it were, in George's place,
commenced throwing out mysterious hints of what he
should propose to accomplish under his new conditions.
“Fust an' foremost,” said he, “I wouldn't groan an'
take on 'bout what was past and couldn't be cured.
Then, I wouldn't lie down and clutch at a straw when I
might stand up with my hands full o' — well, we won't
say what, but somethin' better worth havin' — an' I
wouldn't let another feller come atween me an' my gal
when good looks an' smiles was easy bought; an' I
wouldn't go afoot when I might jest as well ride, nor be
shoved one side by wusser men, nor stand snubbin', no
how.”
“What do you mean?” cried George, raising himself up
suddenly, and speaking half in curiosity and half in anger.
“Law, nothin' oncivil, Mr. George; I was only a
know best how to manage. I was only tryin' on your
old shoes, an' thinkin' how easy I could cobble 'em up an'
polish 'em like new.”
“It's easy enough talking. I'd like to see you do
it.”
“Wal,” said Nick, who, now that he had secured
George's attention, was ready to state his proposition,
“it's money that makes the mare go, ain't it?”
“Seems so,” replied George. “I know some folks that
are pretty well stuck for the want of it.”
“Money's a long-handled whip,” suggested Nick.
“Give me money an' I'll drive every thing afore me.
Git your pockets well lined like the capn's yonder, an'
yer'll ride inter favor on the gallop. Why, he couldn't hold
a candle to you, Mr. George, except that he's got the
shiners. It gives him a kind of a glitter, 'specially in
the eyes o' the gals.”
Unflattering as this latter comment might be to the
female sex, it made George acutely alive to the degradation
of being a beggar.
“The thing's to get it!” he murmured, despairingly.
“That's it!” replied Nick, in an encouraging tone.
“Once got, it's a nest-egg that's allers doublin'.”
“Yes, but twice nought 's nought,” answered George,
“and that's the beginning and end of my reckoning.”
“'Twouldn't be if I was in your place,” replied Nick.
“Now, as I was tellin' yer, I never had much of a
chance, an' what I did have is pretty well dreened out.
start a big figur' an' keep the ball a rollin'.”
“Speak out!” cried George, who was at once suspicious
and impatient of his comrade. “What are you driving
at?”
“A fortin', man, a fortin' ready made to yer hand.
It's been keepin' fur yer this many a year, snug as meat
in a nut. Take my advice now, an' crack it.”
“Where's the tree it grows on, I should like to
know?”
“Up in the mountain, as I've hearn tell. Hain't yer
got a rich uncle there that's been savin' up money fur yer
like a careful old nuss?”
George's response was a laugh and an oath; the laugh
against Nick, for jumping so wide of the mark; the curse
against his uncle, perhaps, or himself, or both.
“No! Devil take me then if I hain't been gummed!”
exclaimed Nick, in genuine surprise. “So the old cove
hain't got the ready arter all?”
“What if he has?” said George, bitterly, “that's
nothing to me.”
“By Jove, 'tis though!” retorted Nick, with as much
zeal as if he himself were the heir expectant. “What's
the reason tain't?”
“Do you suppose Baultie Rawle's going to throw his
hard dollars away on a poor devil like me? Not he.
He'd bury 'em first.”
“Bury 'em? Bury him! I say,” growled Nick, brutally.
“What does an old hulk like that want o' money?”
“Likes to look at it, and handle it, and count it, I suppose.”
“The darned old miser! I'd soon make his reck'nin'
come short if I was you, Mr. George.”
“What do you mean? Tain't so easy spending other
folks' money, especially when they've turned you out of
doors, and warned you that you shall never see a shilling
of it.”
George spoke this last phrase in the suppressed tone
of one still writhing under the remembrance of past threats
and abuse. Nick's quick apprehension, however, caught
both the words and the spirit in which they were uttered.
“Turned yer off, has he? the vicious old skeleton.
Then there's an end o' good manners atween yer. Perliteness
has stood in many a man's way, so hang me if I
don't think yer well rid on't. If yer elders don't set
you no better example than that, why, they can't blame
yer if you takes liberties as well.”
“I take liberties with my uncle Baultie!” exclaimed
George. “You don't know the man, Nick. His words
are harder than most men's blows. Unless I've a mind to
take liberties I should be sorry for, it stands me in hand
to keep a safe distance from his iron tongue.”
“Keep yer distance? Wal, so yer may. Old blood
an' young 's apt to run contrairy, but if I was you now,
devil catch me if I'd be the hindermost. Ef I couldn't
come up with him one way I would 'tother. You understand
writin' pooty well, don't yer, Mr. George?”
“You wouldn't have me write and ask for his pardon
“Not I. I may be a mark for bad luck, and as poor as
a beggar, but I won't be a slave nor a jackass.”
“Bully for you! You've got spunk, I see,” cried Nick,
slapping him on the back and chuckling. “I say as you
do — no cringin'. But I'd make old Rawle shell out fur
all that. I wouldn't talk to him, nor write to him nuther,
but if I'd had eddication, and could handle a pen, I wouldn't
mind writin' a word fur him, do you see? jest by way of
obligin' folks all round.”
George looked mystified.
Nick proceeded to enlighten him. Putting his mouth
close to George's ear, and giving his elbow an expressive
nudge, he whispered, —
“You can't take liberties with old Rawle hisself, but
you might make free with his name.”
Nick's meaning began to dawn upon George, who,
shocked but still incredulous, had such an expression on
his face, that Nick made haste to reply to it in the words,—
“Why, Mr. George, what a tarnation chicken you are!
A reg'lar green un! You look, fur all the world, as ef I'd
spoke o' boilin' up the old man and sellin' his bones. I
tell yer borrerin' names is the commonest thing I know
on. Fellers that's hard up don't make nothin' on't. Ef
I was you now, and had an unnateral uncle, I'd scratch
his name on a check an' hand it in to the bank he had
dealin's with, an' pocket the cash, an' walk off a gentleman
in no time.”
“No you wouldn't neither, you rascal!” cried George,
Nick, who having gone through with the pantomimic
action of signing the note, presenting it and receiving
the money, had now plunged his hands into his pockets,
and was complacently jingling a few copper coins.
“Why not, youngster?” asked Nick, cooly indifferent
to George's threatening attitude.
“Because,” answered George, secretly triumphing in
his own superior knowledge of his uncle's habits, “because
my uncle Baultie has nothing to do with banks.
So you couldn't come it over him that way. The only
bank Baultie Rawle ever trusts in is his own strong
box.”
Nick's countenance fell at first as George threw a damper
on his scheme, but glowed with exultant eagerness
as he caught the young man's last words.
“Strong box, eh?” he murmured, drawing his hands
slowly from his pockets. “Did ever you see that 'ere
box, Mr. George?”
“Should think I had,” said George, who, having as
he thought checkmated his braggart comrade, observed
with satisfaction how crestfallen he looked at the veto
put upon his scheme, but failed to catch the covetous
after-glow, and so was thrown off his guard.
“And where does he keep it? Not up on the mountain?”
“Yes, to be sure.”
“I want ter know! Now that's very onsafe, ain't
it?”
“Unsafe? Why, no; he has it under his own eye by
day, and stowed under his own head by night. I don't
know what better keeping he could trust it to.”
“Did ever you get a peep into the inside on't?”
“Now and then, but not often. He keeps it pretty
snug. I've seen it with the cover up when he was looking
over his papers by the kitchen table, and once he
gave me a gold guinea out of it to buy me a new hat
just after father died.”
“Gold guineas, eh! Think there's many on em?”
queried Nick, eagerly, and catching George by the
sleeve.
The look and action were unmistakable. George
glanced at him suspiciously, and evaded a direct answer,
by saying, “How should I know?”
“You ought ter know, an I'll ventur' to say yer do,
Mr. George; only you've caught his miserly tricks an'
mean to keep dark. I'll warrant you've had yer hand
inter his pile many a time an' helped yerself, hain't yer
now?” and Nick gave the young man an interrogatory
shove.
“What do you mean by that?” cried George, repulsing
Nick with an unceremonious force that was almost
a blow. “You know well enough the old man is tight
as a drum. Do you suppose I've been in the habit of
stealing?”
“Stealin' yer call it, do yer? Now, I don't, though
I know there's some fools as does. I call it nothin'
more 'n fair play. It 'll all be yourn one o' these days,
help yerself when it come handy, why, then it shows
you ain't up to snuff, — that's all.”
“Mine!” cried George, angrily. “Haven't I told
you already that my uncle had turned me off? Once,
when I was a little shaver, he trusted me, and had
reason to, — now, when I'm a scapegrace (for that's
about what I suppose I am), he's disgraced me, twitted
me, and called me a thief. I never deserved that last, —
no, I never deserved that he should search my face, and
all but search my pockets, for his gold. God knows
there was little enough there! I never wronged him
of a cent, but I call Heaven to witness how that old
man has wronged me!”
George grew excited as he thus spoke. The deep
sense of injury which had long been rankling in his
bosom, now, for the first time, found vent in words.
Bring a hidden sore to the light, and how astonishing
is its spread and growth! Thought followed quick on
thought, while the young man's unloosed tongue summed
up the features of his case. Suddenly, as if stung by an
adder in the straw, he sprang to his feet. Passion had
given a new interpretation to the hint thrown out at
random by Nicholas Bly.
“I knew he suspected me of being a robber and a
liar!” exclaimed George, flinging back his head defiantly
and clinching his fist, but I never believed until this
minute that he'd taken away my good name. Who put
it into your head, Nick Bly, that George Rawle was used
to playing the thief?”
Nick hesitated. He was not a skilled diplomatist,
and his first impuise was to soothe George's wrath by
the assurance that he had merely been throwing out a
feeler; but a second thought suggested to his depraved
mind that the heat and rage which lit up George's eye
and paled his lip might be made useful tools, and must
be sharpened rather than dulled. So he answered evasively,
— “Don't get mad, Mr. George. I never more'n
half believed it, or, if I did, I didn't think none the wuss
on yer.”
“Then that's the story that's been going round!” cried
George, stamping his foot upon the straw as if to crush
the stinging instruments of pain that now seemed to torture
him in every member. “My character's gone, then,
— has been these many months for what I know. Every
body has turned the cold shoulder on me of late, and
its my uncle Rawle that's at the bottom of it. I see it
all now. Talk of thieves! It's he that's a thief. Yes,
a gray old villain of a thief, robbing me of my good
name!”
“So he is,” chimed in Nick. “That's jest what I
say. I never had no 'pinion on him. A mean old
scamp that goes to prayer-meetin's an' sings psalms with
the saints below, an' longs to be jined with them above,
as I've hearn tell, an' yet plays the miser himself, an'
accuses his own brother's son o' lyin' an' larceny.”
“Don't talk to me!” cried George, authoritatively.
“I can't bear it. Let me alone. I'm in a state o' mind
when I might do an injury to somebody or other;” and
his hands to his temples, and leaned his forehead against
the rough planks.
“I don't blame you nuther,” muttered Nick, who
seemed to think it his business to personate justice and
acquit George at every point. Then, in obedience to the
youth's injunction, he maintained a short silence, but a
deep groan from George having broken the spell, Nick
again interposed. “Look ye here, Mr. Geordie, I tell
yer now as I told yer in the beginnin', you've got to
take a new tack, or founder altogether. You're down,
yes, down as low as I be. It's that old man on the
mountain that's tripped yer up, an it's him that's bound
to set yer on yer legs agin. You an' me are, both on
us, at a discount in these parts, but the world's wide, an'
there's plenty of roads open to a feller. I'll show yer
a way out of all yer difficulties, an' git yer a passport to
fortin', only;” — and here Nick approached George's ear,
and whispered meaningly, “that uncle o' yourn owes
you somethin' hansome, an' it's him that ought ter pay
yer travellin' expenses.”
How much of this advice George heard or comprehended
it is impossible to say, for he neither moved nor
answered. A considerable period of silence ensued between
the two men. George still leaned against the
planks, his face hid from sight. Nicholas stooped down,
gathered a handful of straw, and stood gnawing at it.
At length he might have been heard to say, in a sort of
muttered soliloquy, “I wouldn't be tried an' convicted
I'd get the valler of it, too, I would! Might as well
have a thing as not if yer have the name on't!” These
and other such innuendoes he indulged in without interruption,
coupling them with many an invective against
George's maligners, and profane hints of their merited
fate in this world and the next. He had indulged in
this sort of monologue so long without interference, that
he started and shrank back frightened when George
suddenly faced about and ejaculated fiercely, “Hold
your infernal tongue, you scoundrel! Must a man go
to the devil because he's been bid? or put up with
Satan when he comes to him in human shape?”
“Satan's yer best friend, if yer mean me,” suggested
Nick, humbly.
George looked hard and searchingly at Nick, then said,
in a softened tone, “You're not quite a devil, Nick, for
he is wholly false, and some things you've said to-night
are true. I shan't forget 'em.”
“Wal,” said Nick, “I b'lieve you know yer man,
an' if you want me to help yer any time, I'm on hand —
that's all.”
“I may want you, Nick,” said George, in the tone of
one who had half-resolved on something desperate. If
I do I'll let you know.”
“Where yer goin' now?” questioned Nick in surprise,
for George was buttoning up his coat and looking
round for his hat and whip, which he had dropped in
the straw.
“Into the house. I'm going to face 'em all.”
“What, jest as yer are?” and Nick, shabby as he
was himself, glanced disparagingly at George's muddy
oiding boots and rough, homespun clothes.
“Yes, just as I am,” replied George, surveying his
own disordered appearance with a stern complacency
quite unlike his ordinary demeanor. “What do I care
for any of 'em? — any of 'em, I say? Let 'em see me
at my worst, and own up to what they think of me. I'll
have it out fair and square before 'em all. I'm bound to
know how far that old hypocrite has blasted an honest
man's fame.”
“Take a drop o' sumthin' fust,” said Nick; and
stooping down, he produced a common junk bottle from
a hiding-place of his own in a corner of the stall. The
offer was made in kindness, or what Nick meant for
such, for George looked deadly pale, and his tightly
set lips, glaring eyes, and expression of intense determination
were in strange contrast to the genial, smiling
features which were usually the credentials of his easy
good temper.
The offer was well-meant; but it was any thing but
a friendly offer, especially under circumstances like the
present.
George stared at the rum-bottle an instant in an
absent way, then grasped it, and drained a deep
draught.
| CHAPTER VI.
TELLING WHAT HAD BECOME OF GEORDIE. Haunted hearts | |