CHAPTER XVI.

MR. JACK ROGERS AS A MAN OF AFFAIRS.

"I know," said I, meeting her gaze st.u.r.dily, "that you are in danger."

"How should I be in danger?"

"That I cannot tell you, Miss Isabel, unless you first tell me something."

She waited, her eyes searching mine.

"Last night," I went on, "in the road--you were expecting someone."

Her chin went up proudly; but a tide of red rose with it, flushing her throat and so creeping up and colouring her face.

"Was it Archibald Plinlimmon?"

She put up a hand as if to push me aside: but on a sudden turned and hastened from me, with bowed head, towards the cottage.

"Miss Isabel!" I cried, following her close. "I meant no harm--how could I mean you harm? Miss Isabel!"

I would not let her go, but followed her to the door, entreating; even pushed after her into the small kitchen, where at last she faced on me.

"Why cannot you let me alone, boy? Into what have you come here to pry? You are odious--yes, odious!" She stamped her foot.

"And I thought last night, that you were in trouble. Was I not kind to you for that, and that only?" She broke off pitifully.

"Oh, Harry, I am dreadfully unhappy!"

She sank into a chair beside the table, across which she flung an arm and so leaned her brow and let the sobs shake her.

"And I am here to help you, Miss Isabel: only so much is puzzling me!

Last night you said you had a secret, and that it was a happy one.

To-day you are crying, and it is miserable to see."

"And why should I not be happy?" She lifted a hand to the bosom of her bodice, and slipped over her third finger the ring she had worn over-night.

"Why should I not be expecting him?" she murmured.

For the moment I was slow in understanding. But I suppose that at length she saw that in my eyes which satisfied her: for she drew down my head to her lap, and sat laughing and weeping softly.

A kettle hanging from a crook in the chimney-place boiled over, hissing down upon the hot wood-ashes. She sprang up and lifted it down to the hearth.

"Oh, and I forgot!" Her hand went back to her bodice again.

"Mr. Jack Rogers was here this morning inquiring for you. He drove up in his tilbury, and said he was on his way to Plymouth. But he left this note."

I took it and deciphered these words, scrawled in an abominable hand:

"Meet me to-night, nine o'clock, at the place where we parted.

J. R."

"Was Mr. Rogers going to Plymouth?" I asked.

"Yes, and in a hurry, by the pace he was driving."

As you may guess, this news discomposed me. Could Mr. Rogers be preparing a trap? No: certainly not for me. Whitmore, if anyone, was his quarry. But I mistrusted that, if he once started this game, it would lead him on to another scent. That Archibald Plinlimmon was innocent of the Jew's murder I felt sure. Still--what had he been seeking on the roofs by the Jew's house? It would be an ugly question, if Mr. Rogers blundered on it; and in the way of honest blundering I felt Mr. Rogers to be infinitely capable. Would that, trusting in his good nature, I had made a clean breast to him!

A clean breast? Isabel too, poor girl, was aching to make confession to her father. For weeks her secret had been a sword within her, wearing the flesh, and it eased her somewhat (as I saw) even to have made confession to me. But she would not speak to her father without first consulting Archibald. It was he, I gathered, who had enjoined silence. Major Brooks (and small blame to him) would a.s.suredly have imposed a probation: old men with lovely daughters do not surrender them at call to penniless youths, even when the penniless youth happens to be the son of an old friend. I wished Master Archibald to perdition for a selfish fool.

I talked long with Isabel: first in the kitchen, and again on our way back to the summer-house, where her father sat awake and expecting me, book in hand.

There she left me, and he began to dictate at once as I settled myself to write.

"First, then, for site. Seek, and instal your Bee Where nor may winds invade (for winds forbid His homeward load); nor sheep, nor heady kid Trample the flowers; nor blundering heifer pa.s.s, Brush off the dew and bruise the tender gra.s.s; Nor lizard foe in painted armour prowl Round the rich hives. Ban him, ban every fowl-- Bee-bird with Procne of the bloodied breast: These rifle all--our Hero with the rest, Snapped on the wing and haled, a t.i.t-bit, to the nest.

--But seek a green moss'd pool, with well-spring nigh; And through the turf a streamlet fleeting by."

So much, with interminably slow pauses, we accomplished before the light waned in the summer-house and Isabel called us in to supper, which we ate together in a low-ceiled parlour overlooking the garden.

At a quarter to nine, on pretence that I had still to make up arrears of sleep, she signed to me to wish her father good-night and escorted me out into the pa.s.sage. A slip of the bolt, and I was free of the night.

I found the spot where I had dropped into the road, and cautiously mounted the hedge, putting the brambles aside and peering through them into the fast falling twilight. A low whistle sounded, and Mr.

Rogers stepped into view on the footbridge. But he left a companion behind him in the shadow of the alders, and who this might be I could neither see nor guess.

"Is that you, Master Revel?"

There was no help for it now; so over the hedge I climbed and met him.

"How did you find out--"

--"Your name? Miss Brooks told me, this morning. But, for that matter, it's placarded all over Plymouth and at every public and forge and signpost along the road. You're a notorious character, my son."

I began to quake.

"Parson," he went on, turning and addressing the figure in the shadow, "here's the boy. Better make haste, if you have any questions to ask him before we get to business."

There stepped forward, not Mr. Whitmore (as I was fearfully expecting), but a figure unknown to me; an old shovel-hatted man leaning on a stick and b.u.t.toned to the chin in a black Inverness cape. I felt his eyes peering at me through the dusk.

"He seems very young to be a trustworthy witness," croaked this old gentleman in a voice which seemed to be affected by the night air.

"He's right enough," Mr. Rogers answered cheerfully.

"He shall tell his tale, then, in Mr. Whitmore's presence. I will not yet believe that a minister of Christ's religion, whose papers-- as I have proved to you--are in order, whose testimonials are unexceptionable, who has the Bishop's licence--"

"The Bishop's fiddlestick! The Bishop didn't license him to carry marked guineas in his pocket, and I don't wait for a licence to carry a warrant in mine."

"You will at least afford him an opportunity of explaining before you execute it. To be plain with you, Mr. Rogers, this business is like to be scandalous, however you look at it."

"The constables shall remain outside, and the warrant I'll keep in my pocket until your reverence's doubts are at rest." Mr. Rogers gave another low whistle and two men, hitherto concealed at a little distance in the trees' shadow, stepped silently forward and joined us. "Ready, lads? Quick march, then!"

We took the path up the valley bottom, and across a gra.s.sy shoulder of the park to a small gate in the ring-fence. Beyond this gate a lane, or cart-road, dipped steeply downhill to the right; and following it, we came on a high stone wall overtopped by trees.