I lowered the candle till it was level with the lowest rim of the picture-frames on either side of the s.p.a.ce. Yes, there was a dimming of the oak, like breath upon a window-pane, where the edge of a picture had rubbed and rested against it. I rose upright, blew the candle out, and stood in the dark, thinking. "Mr. Jervas Rookley's portrait should have hung there," he had said. It _had_ hung there--not a doubt of it. Was it destroyed, I wondered? Was it in some lumber-room, hidden away? And I remembered a room in the upper part of the house which I had found locked, and was told the key was lost. Why had the picture been removed? Was it so that I might not recognize it?

Well, it did not matter so long as I never stumbled across it. I groped my way up the staircase, repeating to myself one sentence from the will, "I must not knowingly support Mr. Jervas Rookley." I did not _know_, I said to myself. I might suspect, I might believe, but I had no proof; I did not know. I clutched the phrase to my very heart. I could keep my trust--the estate need not enrich the Hanoverian--Jervas Rookley should come to his own, if G.o.d willed it, in his own time. For I did not know. My steward was my steward--no more. What if he was ever out of sight when a visitor reined in his horse at the door? He might be busy in his office. What if another wrote his letters? There was work enough for the steward, and who should blame him for that he lightened his labours, so long as his work was done? I did not know.

Yet how the man must hate me, I thought, as I recalled that hour on the ridge of Coldbarrow Fell.

CHAPTER VI.

MR. HERBERT.

It was eleven of the forenoon when I stopped at Mr. Herbert's door, and the long incline of the street was empty. At the bottom of the hill, beyond the little bridge, there was a shimmer of green trees, and beyond the trees a flashing corner of the lake. Through a gap in the houses on my left, I caught a glimpse of the woods of Brandelaw, and the brown slope of Catbells rising from the midst of them. A shadowless August morning bent over the country, cradling it to sleep with all its drowsy murmurings, so that contentment was like a perfume in the air. And it was with a contentment untroubled by any presage that I tied up my horse and knocked at the door.

Mr. Herbert's lodging was on the first floor, and as I mounted the stairs the noise of an altercation came to me from behind the closed door. The woman who led me up shrugged her shoulders and stopped.

"One of the April showers," I thought, recalling Lord Derwent.w.a.ter's words.

"Will you go up?" she asked doubtfully.

"Yes," said I. "For I take it that if I deferred the visit till to-morrow, to-morrow might be own brother of to-day."

She knocked at the door twice and got no answer. I heard a man's voice exclaim acrimoniously:

"It was the worst mistake man ever made," and a woman cry in a pa.s.sion--

"Or woman either. Deary me, I wish I were dead!"

And "Deary me, I wish it too," said my attendant, and impatiently she turned the handle and opened the door. A man sprang forwards. He was young, I noticed, of a delicate face, with a dark, bilious complexion.

"Mr. Anthony Herbert, I suppose," I said, taking off my hat, and I stepped into the room. The next moment I regretted nothing so much as that I had not taken the landlady's advice, for a woman sat at the table, with her face couched upon her arms, crying.

"Your business?" asked Mr. Herbert, abruptly, getting between myself and the table.

I turned my back to the room and looked out of the window, making as though I had not seen his wife.

"Lord Derwent.w.a.ter showed me yesterday a picture of his wife painted by you," I said; and I unfolded the purport of my visit slowly. In the midst of my speech I heard the rustle of a dress and a door cautiously open and shut. A second or two later I turned back into the room; it was empty. The artist accepted the commission, and I arranged with him that he should set to work next day.

"I am afraid," he said awkwardly, as he bowed me from the room, "that you caught me at an inopportune moment."

"Did I?" I returned, playing surprise. "Ah yes, you are not dressed,"

for he was wearing a dressing-gown. "But it is my fault in that I came too early."

And he closed the door.

"Thank you!"

The words were breathed in a whisper from the landing above that on which I stood. I looked up; the staircase was ill-lighted and panelled with a dark mahogany, so that I saw nothing but the outline of a head bent over the bal.u.s.trade; and even as I looked that outline was withdrawn.

"Not at all," I replied to the empty air.

The door behind me was thrown open.

"What is it, Mr. Clavering?" asked Herbert, and he glanced suspiciously up the stairs.

I, on the contrary, stared down them.

"It is," I answered, "that your staircase is cursedly dark."

"True," says he, and steps to my side. "One cannot see an inch further than is needful;" and he looked down them too.

"One cannot even see so far," says I, and I peered upwards.

"One might break one's neck if one were careless," he continued in a musing tone.

"Oh, I did not stretch it out enough for that," I replied, thinking of something totally different.

Herbert looked at me with a puzzled expression.

"It occurs to me, Mr. Clavering," he resumed, "that if it would please you better I could fetch my easel over to Blackladies."

"There is no manner of occasion for that," I replied hastily, and I got me into the street with as little difficulty as if there had been a window to every step of the stairs.

Thus, then, I had my excuse. I rode back to Blackladies that afternoon, and bade Luke Blacket carry such clothes as I required to Mr. Herbert's lodging.

"Very well, sir," he said, but did not go. For just as it was getting dusk I saw from the library window Ashlock--for so I still called him, even or perhaps more particularly to myself--ride down the drive with the package upon his saddle-bow. I was as much surprised now at this voluntary exposure of himself as I had been previously at his sedulous concealments. But I bethought me in time that it would be dark long before Ashlock reached the village of Keswick, and as to his doings--well, I deemed it wisest to busy myself as little as possible on that head. For I was never certain from one minute to the next but what I might stumble upon some proof which I could not disregard.

Consequently neither then, nor when he returned, did I utter a single word.

But on the next morning I followed my clothes to Mr. Herbert's lodging, sat to him for an hour or so, and then went about my business. And this I did day after day, visiting the gentry about, and attending the fairs and markets until I had acquired as complete a knowledge of what the district intended as would have satisfied my Lord Bolingbroke in person. That there were a great many, not merely of the gentry, but of the smallest statesmen and even peasants who favoured King James, I was rejoiced to perceive. But against this disposition I had to set a deplorable lack of arms and all munitions of war. Here and there, indeed, one came across a gentleman, like Mr.

Richard Salkeld, of Whitehall, in c.u.mberland, who had carefully collected and stored away any weapon that he could lay his hands on, and I remember that in Patterdale, one Mr. John Burtham, a man very advanced in years, led me with tottering steps down to his cellar and showed me with the greatest glee a pile of antique musketoons and a couple of barrels of gunpowder, which his grandfather had hidden there for the service of King Charles I., but had discovered no use for after Marstoon Moor. For the most part, however, such as took the field I saw would take it with no more effectual armament than scythes and sickles and beaten-out ploughshares; and, indeed, I am not sure but what I would rather have so armed myself than with the musketoons and gunpowder of Mr. Burtham. One necessary condition, however, or rather I should say, one necessary preliminary of a rising, all with whom I had speech required and in a unanimous voice--I mean that his Most Christian Majesty should land twenty thousand troops in England and with them money for their subsistence. On the other hand, I knew that the French King, howbeit disposed to the utmost friendliness, was yet anxious, before he violated the peace of Utrecht, to ascertain which way the wind blew in England, and whether it was a steady breeze or no more than a flickering gust. It was about this time, too, that news was brought to me of the Duke of Ormond's flight to Paris, and I did not need the letter of Lord Bolingbroke which conveyed the news, to a.s.sure me how great a discouragement that flight must be to our friends in France. This, then, was the posture of affairs: France waited upon the Jacobites in England, and they in their turn waited upon France.

"There is but one hope," said Lord Derwent.w.a.ter, when we were discussing the uncertainty wherein we lived--"there is but one hope of precipitating the matter to an issue, and that hope lies in the activity of the English Government. The Commons have suspended the Act of Habeas Corpus until next January, in the case of all persons suspected of conspiracy; Papists and Non-jurors are banished from the cities of Westminster and London and for ten miles round; the laws against them are to be put into the strictest execution. I do not know but what the rigour of these proceedings may goad the Jacobites to an extremity. But therein lies the one hope. And how goes it with Darby and Joan?" he broke off in a laugh. "I saw the portrait but yesterday, and it will do no discredit to the young Master of Blackladies."

But the young Master of Blackladies turned his face awkwardly to the window, and felt the blood rush to his cheeks, but never a word of answer to his lips. For, alas! what before had been the pretext and excuse was now become the real object of my journeyings. I had garnered my information--and the picture was still a-painting and little more than halfway to completion. I cannot even after this long interval of years think of that period without a lurking sense of shame--though I paid for the wrong--yes, to the uttermost farthing, and thank G.o.d in all humility that it was given me to repair it. For this, indeed, is true: the wrong went not beyond the possibility of reparation.

It was on the third occasion of my coming to the artist's apartment that I first met Mrs. Herbert face to face. She entered the room by chance, as it seemed, in the search for some embroidery. Mr. Herbert, for a wonder, was in a great good-humour that morning and presented me to her.

"This is Mr. Clavering, of Blackladies," he said with a wave of the hand, and so went on with his work. I rose from my chair and bowed to her. But with a quick impulsive movement she came forward and held out her hand to me, reddening, I must think, with some remembrance of the occasion whereon I had first seen her. And then--

"Tony," she cried reproachfully, with a glance about the room. Indeed, it had something of a slatternly appearance, which seemed to me to accord very ill with the woman who dwelled in it. The poor remains of breakfast--a dish of clammy fish, a crumbled oatmeal cake, and a plate of b.u.t.ter soft and oily--were spread upon a stained table-cloth. But the stains were only upon one side, and I chose to think it was there the man had sat.

"Well," says he, looking up in a flash of irritation, "what is it?

What is it?" And then following the direction of her gaze, "We can afford nothing better," he snapped out.

"That is no reason," she replied, "why it should drag here till midday;" and she rang a little bell upon a side-table. He shrugged his shoulders and returned to his picture. She stood looking at him for a second, as though she expected him to speak, but he did not.

"Then, Mr. Clavering," she said, turning to me with a flush of anger upon her face, "I must needs undertake my husband's duty and make you his apologies."