University of Virginia Library

29. CHAPTER XXIX.
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 coupè,” said Talbot. “I will take you
home.”

Mr. Belcher got into the coupè 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 coupè 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 coupè. 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 Seven-oaks
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 birdle. 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.