Young Blood

by E. W. Hornung

  CHAPTER XIX.

  ASSAULT AND BATTERY.

  Harry was left alone in the hall. The boys were in the basement,putting on their boots. There were high words in the study, and yetScrafton seemed to be speaking much below his normal pitch. Harrysauntered into the deserted schoolroom to avoid eavesdropping. And asif in spite of him, the voices rose, and this much reached his ears:

  "I tell you it will ruin the school!"

  "Then let me tell you, Mr. Scrafton, that the school is mine, and Ihave done it with my eyes open."

  "The son of a common swindler! I know it to my cost----"

  To his cost! How could he know it to his cost, this suburbanschoolmaster? Harry had shut the door; he stood against it in a tormentof rage and shame, his fingers on the handle, only listening, onlywaiting, for that other door to open. So in the end the two doorsopened as one, and the two masters met in the hall and glared in eachother's faces without a word.

  "Mr. Ringrose!" cried Mrs. Bickersteth hastily.

  Harry turned from the baleful yellow face in a paroxysm of contempt andloathing, and was next moment closeted with a trembling old woman whosepitiable agitation was another tribute to the terrible Scrafton.

  Mrs. Bickersteth's observations were both brief and broken. She hadjust heard from Mr. Scrafton what indeed was not exactly new to her.The name was uncommon. Her sons had recalled the case on the arrival ofHarry's application for the junior mastership. They had not painted thecase quite so black as Mr. Scrafton had done, and they had all agreedthat the--the sin of the father--should not disqualify the son. She hadnot meant to let Mr. Ringrose know that she knew (Harry thanked her ina heartfelt voice), but she had hoped that nobody else would know: andMr. Scrafton knew for one.

  "Do you want to get rid of me?" asked Harry bluntly.

  The lady winced.

  "Not unless you want to go. No--no--I have neither the inclination northe right to take such a course. But if, after this, you would rathernot stay, I--I would not stand in your way, Mr. Ringrose."

  Harry saw how it was with Mrs. Bickersteth. She did not want to beunjust, she did not want to give in to Scrafton, but oh! if Mr.Ringrose would save the situation by going of his own accord!

  "Will you give me the afternoon to think it over?" said he.

  "Certainly," said Mrs. Bickersteth. "I wish you to consult your ownfeelings only. I wish to be just, Mr. Ringrose, and--and to meet yourideas. If you are going to town, any time before ten o'clock will betime enough for your return."

  Harry expressed his gratitude, and said that in that case it would beunnecessary for him to absent himself before the close of afternoonschool; nor did he do so; for he was not going to town at all.

  He was going straight to Richmond Hill, to put the whole matter beforeGordon Lowndes, and to beg the explanation he felt certain the othercould give. Why should Scrafton have lost his colour and his temper atthe bare mention of the name of Ringrose? Was it true that he knew thatname already "to his cost"? Then how did he know it to his cost, andsince when, and what was the subtle connection between Mr. Ringrose andthis same Scrafton? Was Lowndes aware of any?

  Yes, there was something that Lowndes knew, something that he had knownon the Saturday afternoon, something to account for his surprise onlearning to what school Harry had gone as master. He had indignantlydenied all knowledge of Scrafton, but Harry could no longer accept thatgratuitous and inexplicable repudiation. It was the very fact that hedid know something about Scrafton, something which he wished to keep tohimself, that had made him angrily disclaim such knowledge.

  Harry was coming back to his old idea that Lowndes had been more deeplyimplicated in his father's flight than anybody supposed. He no longersuspected foul play--that was impossible in the face of the letter fromDieppe--but he did suspect complicity on the part of Lowndes. What ifLowndes had swindled wholesale in the ironmaster's name, and what ifScrafton were one of his victims?

  What if Lowndes could tell him where his father lay in hiding abroad!

  The thought brought a happy moment and an hour of bitterness; no, itwere better they should never know; better still if he were dead. Andthe bitter hour that followed was the last and the loveliest of a warmSeptember day; and Harry Ringrose spent it in walking across Ham Commonand through Richmond Park, in the mellow sunset, on his way to RichmondHill.

  When he got there it was dusk, and two men were pacing up and down thelittle garden in front of Lowndes's house. Harry paused at the gate.The men had their heads close together, and were conversing soearnestly that they never saw him. They were Lowndes and Scrafton.

  Harry stepped back without a sound. All his suppositions had been builtupon the hypothesis that these two were enemies; it had never enteredhis head that they might be friends. To find them together was the lastthing he had expected, and the discovery chilled him in a way for whichhe could not instantly account. He knew there was good reason for it,but in his first discomfiture he could not find the reason.

  He stole back along the road, a shower of new suspicions sticking likearrows in his soul. The very vagueness of his sensations added to theirsickening effect. His brain heaved as though with wine, and when heclapped a hand to his head it came back dripping. He was at the cornerof the road before he knew what he was going to do, and there he spentminutes hesitating and considering. Unable to make up his mind, hecrossed over and returned to reconnoitre from the other side. To andfro walked Lowndes and Scrafton, on the gravel path in front of thelighted window opposite; and faster than their feet, but lower thantheir footfalls, went their tongues.

  Harry had not heard a word before. At this distance it was impossiblefor him to catch a syllable, and he was glad of it. He would watch hismen and bide his time. It might be his best policy to do nothing, tosay nothing, for the present; but he would keep an eye on the housewhile he thought it over.

  The difficulty was for the observer himself to escape observation. Theroad was so quiet that if he strolled up and down, those othersaunterers in the garden could not fail to have their attentionattracted to him sooner or later. It was so narrow that they had onlyto look up in order to see him leaning against the paling of theopposite house. This house, however, was unoccupied, and behind thepaling, in the segment of a circle formed by the shortest of suburbancarriage drives, grew a clump of laurels which tempted Harry to do avery foolish thing. He crept into the garden of the unoccupied house,and from a point of vantage among the laurels he watched the two men inthe garden over the way.

  Up and down they walked, backward and forward, and their low voicesnever ceased; backward and forward, up and down; and now the light of alamp made oval flames of Lowndes's glasses, now the taller Scrafton'scormorant profile was stamped for an instant on the lighted blinds,while the loathsome sound of his snuff-taking came again and againacross the quiet road.

  So these men were friends: and Lowndes had carefully implied that theywere not even acquainted. Why should he have gone out of his way to dothat? He had flown into a temper when that careful implication wasinadvertently ignored; and had afterwards so feared the tell-taleeffect of this unguarded outbreak that he had gone all the way toTeddington with elaborate apologies and ingenious explanations.

  Stay: no: he had gone to Teddington with an ulterior motive, which onlythis instant dawned upon Harry Ringrose. Now he thought of it, therehad been an obvious absence of premeditation about both the apology andthe explanation; in fact, he had never before heard the fluent Lowndeshesitate so often for a word. Why? Because he had gone to Teddingtonthat morning with quite another object, and at last Harry saw what itwas.

  He remembered Mrs. Bickersteth's announcement that this term Mr.Scrafton was coming half-an-hour earlier than formerly. He rememberedhow cleverly Lowndes had contrived to discover that Scrafton wasalready in the house. He had never forgotten Scrafton's face on hearingthe new master's name. The thing was plain as daylight, and Harry onlywondered how and why he had not seen it at once. Gordon Lowndes hadgone to Teddington simply and
solely to intercept his friend Scrafton,and to warn him that he was about to meet a son of the missing HenryRingrose.

  But why warn him? What had Harry's father been to Scrafton, or Scraftonto Harry's father? The lad's blood ran hot with suspicion, ran coldwith surmise: there were the two men who could tell him the truth,there within twenty yards of him: he heard their every footfall in thegravel, heard one taking snuff, and the other talking, talking, talkingin an endless whisper. Yet he could not walk boldly across the road andchallenge them to tell him the truth! He was not sure that it would bea wise thing to do, but it galled him to feel that he could not do it.Lowndes loved a scene as much as he hated one, but Harry felt he couldhave stood up to Lowndes alone. Scrafton was a loathly being, but hewould not have daunted Harry by himself. It was the two together, thecoarse bully and the keen-witted man of the world, strong men both,whom the lad could not bring himself to challenge in cold blood. Hehad, indeed, too much sense; but, in an agony of self-upbraidingconsciousness, he kept blaming and hating himself for having too littlepluck. He thought of the motto on his bedroom wall at home. He wouldhave it down; it was not for him. It was only for those who had somepluck to lose.

  And as he cowered in the garden of the empty house, a white face amongthe leaves, impotent, bewildered, self-tormenting, the front dooropened across the road, and a supple, strong figure stood so straightin the mouth of the lighted passage, a silhouette crowned with gold bythe lamp within. For an instant Harry's heart seemed to stop, and thenext instant to rush from his keeping to that lighted door. He hadforgotten the existence of Fanny Lowndes.

  "Dinner is ready," she said. Harry heard the words distinctly: therewas no reason to lower that honest voice. But he thought that hedetected an unwonted note of fear--one of disgust he could swearto--and instantly his mind was going over every conversation he hadever had with the girl, hunting for that unwonted note which was yetnot entirely unfamiliar. He felt certain that he had heard it before.

  "One moment," replied Lowndes; and his voice sank once more, and socontinued volubly for some minutes: then the pair went in.

  But Harry lingered among his laurels, strongly impelled to goincontinently with his questions and his suspicions to the one friendof whose sympathy he felt sure, of whose truth and honour there was noquestion. Yet to that one friend he could never go, for was she notalso the only child of Gordon Lowndes?

  And what then was his wisest course? Should he do nothing, for thepresent, but return to Teddington, continue in the school, and watchthis Scrafton from day to day? Or should he wait until Scrafton wasgone, and then confront Lowndes with an uncompromising demand forexplanations? Prudence advised one course, gallantry another; but thequestion was to receive a sufficiently sensational solution. It sohappened that the burglary season had set in early that autumn in theThames valley, and the Richmond police in particular were alreadygreatly on their mettle. A certain young constable, at once desirous ofhis stripes and yet not a little alarmed by his own enterprise, hadobtained leave to go on his beat in noiseless boots, and he came intoGreville Road about the time that Lowndes and Scrafton went indoors.Not a sound came from his muffled feet, but that only seemed to makehis heart beat the louder; for it was a very human young constable, andthe majority of the recent burglaries had taken place at this veryhour, while the families were at dinner.

  Suddenly the young policeman stood still and all but shaking in hissoundless boots: for a few feet from his nose, where he least expectedit, in the garden of an empty house, was a pale face among the laurels,with dark eyes upon the house across the road. A palpable burglarchoosing his window. A desperate fellow, judging by his face, and yetone to be taken single-handed if he were alone.

  Harry did not hear the hand feeling for the truncheon, nor yet theleather tongue leaping from the brass button; but he smelt the darklantern burning about a second before the light was flashed in hisface.

  "Wad-you-doing-there?"

  The low voice was drunken in its excitement.

  Harry recoiled among the laurels, guiltily enough, for he was horriblystartled.

  "Come-out-o'-that!" growled the young constable through his teeth toprevent their chattering, and with his words still running together."Come-out-o'-that; you've-got-to-come-along-with-me!"

  "Why?" cried Harry, frightened into self-possession on the spot.

  "You know why! Think I didn't see you watching that house? Out youcome!"

  The constable also was becoming master of his nerves. Harry, indeed,neither looked nor spoke like a very desperate person.

  "Look here, officer," said he, "you're making a mistake. Do I look aburglar?"

  "Come out and I'll tell you."

  "Well, but look here: you're not going to run me in if I do?"

  "I'm not so sure about that."

  "You can't!" cried Harry, losing his temper. "What charge have you tobring against me?"

  "Trespassing with intent! You may satisfy the sergeant, and if you dohe won't detain you. But I've got to do my dooty, and if you won't comeout I'll make you, but if you take my advice you'll come quietly."

  "Oh, I'll come quietly," said Harry, "if I've got to come."

  His tone was one of unaffected resignation. To be haled before thepolice was a new and most grotesque experience, at which he could havelaughed outright but for the dread lest his superior officers mightprove as crass as this callow constable. That he would have to go,however, appeared inevitable; and though the thought of calling Lowndesto vouch for his respectability did occur to him, it was instantlydismissed, and that of resistance never occurred to him at all. Harrywas a very peaceable person, but he was also very excitable andimpulsive, and what he now did was done without a moment's thought. Hehad opened the gate, which was wide and heavy, with the kind of latchwhich allows a gate to swing past the post on either side, and on thepavement stood a young police man with his lantern and somethingglittering in its light. It was a pair of handcuffs, and the sight ofthem was responsible for what followed. Instead of passing through thegate, as he seemed in the act of doing, Harry clapped both hands to thebar and rushed at the policeman with the gate in front of him. Everybar struck a different section of the man's body: his lantern fell witha clatter, his handcuffs with a tinkle, and he himself was hurledheavily into the road, along which Harry was scampering like a wildthing. At the corner he stopped to look back, because no footsteps werefollowing and no whistle had been blown. The lantern had not gone out,for a jet of light spouted from the pavement half-way across the road,where it ran into a dark-blue heap. Otherwise the little road was quitedeserted.

  Some minutes later, when the whistles began to blow, the man they blewfor just heard them from the heights of the hill; but he had had thepresence of mind to walk up to the park gates, and through them at apace almost leisurely; and long before ten o'clock he was sitting overlittle Woodman's fire in his room at the Hollies, Teddington, andwondering whether it was he or another who had been through theadventures of the evening.

  He had decided to remain at the school, and Mrs. Bickersteth hadaccepted his decision without comment. The schoolmistress little dreamtto whom a paragraph referred which caught her eye in the next issue ofthe _Surrey Comet_:--

  RICHMOND BURGLARS.

  ASSAULT ON THE POLICE.

  As Constable John Tinsley, Richmond division, Metropolitan Police, was on his rounds on Monday evening last, he noticed a man lurking in the garden of an empty house on the hill, and, on demanding an explanation, was savagely assaulted and left senseless in the road. There can be little doubt, from the bruises on Tinsley's body, that the ruffian felled him with some blunt instrument, and afterwards kicked him as he lay insensible. Tinsley is now on duty again, but considers he has had a lucky escape. He describes his assailant as a thick-set and powerful young fellow of the working class, and has little doubt that he was one of the brutal and impudent thieves who are at present a pest of the neighbourhood.

  Harry Ringrose wo
uld not have recognised himself had he not been on thelook-out for some such item: when he did, he breathed more freely,though not freely enough to show himself unnecessarily on RichmondHill. The paragraph he cut out and treasured for many years.