It was scarce a score of lazy steps to Murrell’s cottage, in the little black row that stood almost by the side of the inn garden. Mr. Fossett’s lusty rap brought a high-pitched call of “Come yow in!” and with that he clicked the latch and met Cunning Murrell.
The little old man sat at a little table, and the whole room about him was hung and stacked with dried herbs in bundles. Murrell’s eyes, sharp and quick as a weasel’s, ran the length of Mr. Fossett top to toe.
“Shut the door and sit,” said Murrel sharply, pointing to a chair, “and tell me your business.”
Mr. Fossett, in no way abashed by this abruptness, dropped into the chair, spread his legs and rolled his head waggishly.
“No, no, Master Murrell,” he answered. “I come here to larn from you an’ first you ask me a question. Now I count so lamed an’ cunnin’ a man as you be should know me an’ my business afore I tell it.”
“As to who you be,” the old man replied, “that I know well enough. Mr. Peter Fossett, o’ Gatpoles farm, Kelvedon. A man o’ money, if ’tis said true, an’ Gatpoles farm be five hundred acres. Am I right?”
“Ay, ’tis true enough.”
“But ’tis no claim o’ my art to know that,” the old man went on. “You’re the only stranger in the place, an’ folks talk. Your man talks, an’ arl Hadleigh knows as much as I’ve told ’ee by this. But as to your business with me, ’tis no such plain matter. D’ye wish me to tell it?”
“Ay, Master Murr’ll, I do.”
“Then ’tis proper I work it by geomancy. ’Tis a cur’ous art, an’ known to few. I take a paper, thus, an’ I write your name, so. There be twelve letters in that name, and I divide them into fower threes. I putt down they fower threes one above another, so. Now take you the pen an’ make a row o’ plain strokes opposite each three. Stop when you please, and don’t count as you do’t, or arl will spile.”
Mr. Peter Fossett, willing to give his victim plenty of rope, took the paper and obeyed. With a blot and a smudge here and there, four heavily fisted rows of strokes presently appeared on the paper opposite the letters, and then Murrell took the paper and considered it with anxious care.
“You hey wrote these strokes in order opposite the letters in fower rows, without countin’ any row,” he said. “Good. Now I work this geomantic figure.”
The old man’s pen hovered a moment over the letters and strokes, and then descended to describe a group of ciphers at the end of each row. This done, he began another group of ciphers below the whole muddle, dotting his pen here and there among the letters, strokes, and ciphers above, and deriving his lower group, by some mysterious mathematic, from his upper.
“Right witness; left witness; judge,” he said thoughtfully, carrying his pen from one cipher to another. “Here I read much that would surprise you. Your reason for coming here now; you ask me to tell you that?”
“Ay, I’d mighty like you to guess it!”
“Guess it I will not, for there’s no need. By my cur’ous arts I can know for sarten. Master Fossett, you be most desperate in love!”
Mr. Fossett’s first impulse was to guffaw aloud. Cunning Murrell’s guess was the farthest thing from his mind, and one he had never dreamed of. But he held in his mirth by a choking effort, and dissembled, for he began to scheme vaguely at last. More rope, he thought, more rope for this amazing old fool to hang himself high as Haman.
“Master Murrell!” he exclaimed, “that be the most surprisin’ ’zact guess that ever I hey heard! Wonnerful!”
“’Tais no guess, I tell ’ee, Master Fossett. ’Tis no guess, but sarten knowledge by my lawful arts.”
“Then if it be no guess,” answered Fossett, following his opportunity, “maybe you can just as easy tell me the lady’s name?”
Cunning Murrell shook his head sadly. “You be mighty hard o’ belief, Master Fossett,” he said, “but if you want more proof, more you shall have, plensheous more. Can I tell ’ee the lady’s name? for sarten truth I can an’ will, an’ that without another word.”
He returned to his geomantic formula and studied it afresh. “You hey put your hand to this unknowin’,” he said, “and all your thoughts lie bare to him who hey the art to read the figure. Her name—her name—let me see now; her given name be Ann!”
If Mr. Fossett had not been a stranger, he would have begun to feel uneasy. But, confident in ignorance, he chuckled inwardly, for the old man was adding blunder to blunder. The sole human creature called Ann whom Fossett could remember was his own grandmother. This should come out, that very night, in the Castle parlor to Murrell’s face, if but he could be brought there among his neighbors. Meanwhile, let the old humbug be drawn farther into the net.
“Master Murrell, you surprise me more and more. ’Tis prophecy, nothin’ else. Though ’tis true Ann be a name christened to more’n one. D’ye get her other name too?”
“Her other name,” Murrell answered deliberately, dropping his eyes and his pen once more to the paper, “her other name—yes; her—her other name is p’inted out by the figure in letters of your own name—the first two an’ the last two. Her other name I read is Pett—Pett with two is—Ann Pett is the whole name!”
Fossett the stranger, apprehending nothing, gazed upward at the herbs depending from the ceiling, and whistled to keep his mouth from a grin. This was magnificent. Possibly there were people in the world of the name of Pett, but quite certainly he had never heard that name till this moment. The old simpleton was floundering worse at every step. What a show-up for him in the evening at the Castle! What an unadulterated lark! More rope for the self-strangulation of Cunning Murrell!
“Whew! That do beat arl!” cried Mr. Fossett. “Ann Pett, sarten to say! That there blessed name as hey been what’s-a-naming itself on my heart like a thingumbob! ’Tis outrageous wonnerful! Master Murrell, you be the most scientific oad pusson in Essex; the hull world be knowed to ye like a book. An’ what will ye do next, Master Murrell?”
“Next?” repeated Cunning Murrell, plainly gratified by his client’s enthusiasm. “Next I do what most you wish. ’Tis plain you den’t come here onny to be told what you know. You come here to ask my help, an’ my help you shall hey. I will give ’ee your heart’s wish; her stubborn heart shall be overcome, and Ann Pett shall be drawed toward ’ee, an’ marry her you shall. ’Tis what you’re longing, ben’t it?”
“Ay, Master Murrell, what else?” the visitor assured him, shaking with interior mirth. “’Tis what I’m longin’ most hainish powerful.”
“Good then. Here is more paper. Write on the one piece your own name and Ann Pett’s on the other.”
This feat Mr. Fossett accomplished, with a great squaring of elbows. Murrell took the two papers, and filled a glass with water. Then, twisting the papers together, he lighted them with a match and let the black ashes drop into the water till no paper was left.
“So it must stand for two hours, and then I shall deal further,” observed Murrell, putting the glass on a shelf and covering it with a saucer. “Those words, that seem to be gone, shall be carried to the mind of Ann Pett by cur’ous an’ subtile arts. An’ more shall follow. Take you a paper more, and write as I shall tell. Write plain: ’Tis Jain Pett is my heart’s love. Have ’ee got that?”
“Ay, that’s down,” Fossett replied, winking genially at the paper.
“’Tis Jinn Pelt is my heart’s love. ’Tis my wish she be my wife, and thereto I give pledge. Is’t arl down?”
“Give pledge,” repeated Fossett, with his tongue curled at the side of his mouth as he looped the ‘g.’ “Ay, ’tis there.”
“Now sign.”
“Sign?”
“Yes, full name. ’Tis naught without your own written name.”
“There ’t be, then. But don’t you burn that too?”
“Not till the right time. T’other must stand two hours, as I told ’
ee, an’ I do nothen’ with this till then. How far or how near Ann Pett be at this moment I don’t know, though to find that would be easy enough for me. But far or near, north, south, east or west, these words will go to her by ways you don’t dream of an’ draw her an’ draw her, Master Fossett. ’Tis enough. I hey other work.”
There was a timid rap of knuckles on the front door. Mr. Fossett rose reluctantly, for there was no moderation in his triumph, and he wished to draw Murrell still more.
“Ben’t there nothin’ else you’ll tell me, Master Murrell?” he asked. “I fare that monsus bad in love, that ’twould be a mussy to tell me any-thin’.”
“Ay, I make no doubt. But wait—till tonight, at any rate.”
“Tonight, Master Murrell? D’ye think she can be drawed to me as soon as that?”
“I make no promise, Master Fossett, but ’tis arl a possibility.”
“Master Murrell, will ’ee come to me tonight at the Castle parlor? Come to me there, an’ I’ll pay ’ee handsome.”
“’Tis no habit o’ mine, the Castle parlor,” the old man replied; “but come I will, since you ask. At eight o’clock.”
“Thankee, Master Murrell, thankee. An’ if you can show then, fair and clear, you’ve done all ye say, if you’ll draw her to me, I’ll pay a fi’-pun’ note and glad! I’ll hey it ready!”
Mr. Fossett passed the little girl who had come for ointment, and turned into the quiet Castle Lane to explode. Truly this was a most magnificent go! He could scarcely have imagined anybody so utterly giving himself into the hands of the enemy as this misnamed Cunning Murrell had done. That evening in the Castle parlor there should be fun. Hadleigh should witness the confounding of Murrell by the revelation that there was no Ann Pett in existence, and that consequently the triumphant Fossett could not have fallen in love with her, even if that weakness had been at all in his way, which it wasn’t. Therewith and therefore that Murrell was but a feeble humbug, captive to the bow and spear of that same unconquerable Fossett.
He did his business that day with interruptions of ecstatic chuckling. He spread hints abroad that the total extinction of Murrell was appointed for eight that evening in the parlor of the Castle; and he was there, with an uncommonly full company, long before the hour. To all inquiries he opposed a wink, a grin, and a shake of the head. Not a word would he say to spoil the show; he would merely promise—and that he did a hundred times—that the fun should be well worth the waiting.
The cunning man was punctual. The hour was at its seventh stroke when he appeared, small, sharp, shiny-hatted and calm. “Goodevenin’, neighbors,” he piped in his thin voice. “Good to ye arl. I den’t expect to find so many here.”
“Ah, ’tis business o’ mine, but never mind that,” said the eager Fossett, with a wink at the expectant company. “This most as-tonishin’ scientific neighbor o’ yourn, genelmen, hey done sich as-tonishin’ things today, that I’ll hey no secrets from ye arl, so surprisin’ it be. I went to see Master Murrell this mornin’, genelmen, an’ he knowed what I came for afore I told him! He told me, slap out, that I was most desperate in love! In love! Me!”
Mr. Fossett looked about him and grinned, with a second wink.
“He told me I was in love,” he proceeded, “an’ he made count to tell me the gal’s name. He did a little game of naughts and crosses, an’ he counted it out o’ that. He counted out the name, genelmen, and he told me it. It were Ann Pett! Genelmen! you’ll be mighty interested to know I’m most desperate in love with Ann Pett!”
“Ann Pett!” gasped Prentice and Jobson together. And others on every side repeated “Ann Pett!” staring like crabs. Dan Fisk set up a fit of laughter that lasted, with intervals, for the rest of the evening.
“Ah, Ann Pett! Ye well may laugh! An’ here’s a fi’-pun’ note I’m to pay if he draws her an’ draws her so artful an’ cunning to me this very evenin’! This Ann Pett what I love so true, genelmen!”
Prentice and Jobson began laughing now, and Dan Fisk took a corner of the note and pushed it toward Murrell. “Go on,” he cried, in a gasp, “he’ll do it—he’ll do it!”
There was something in the faces about him that Mr. Fossett had not expected. He checked his grin and stared about him. With that Cunning Murrell spoke.
“’Tis true enough, neighbors,” he said, with simple composure. “This very suitable an’ well-to-do young man hey cone to me an’ confessed himself most hopeless in love with Ann Pett. He hey further give me a document, signed all regular, pledgin’ to marry her; the kind of document there’s no answering to in a promise-breach case, such as might occur with other couples, where the young man ain’t smitten so deadly deep as Master Fossett be.”
Fossett, slow of apprehension, but stricken with a vague fear, gasped: “What? That paper? Den’t you burn it?”
“Burn it? Why no, sarten to say. ’Twould be poor respect to such a document as that, an’ foolish, to burn it. Well, neighbors, as I were sayin’, considerin’ arl things, an’ seein’ how desperate this young man implored me to draw Ann Pett to him—”
“Ann Pett!” burst out Fossett. “There ben’t no Ann Pett!”
“That’s an unreasonable remark for a man so fond of her by witness of his own handwritin’,” the old man went on gently. “Well, neighbors, to make short, I hey drawed her to him. Mr. Fossett be a very good match for a darter o’ mine, as things go, especially a widder darter, with few chances at her age. You’ll find I’ve earned your fi’-pun’ note, Mr. Fossett. Ann! Ann Pett!”
Murrell opened the door and called into the outer passage. And at his call came Ann Pett, wizen as her father, thin and sharp and worn, with her wisp of mouse-grey hair straggling from under a shawl. She stood in the doorway and stared, at first all vacant incomprehension, and then with some irritation at the storm of guffaws that raged unaccountably before her.
Mr. Peter Fossett gurgled, gulped, blinked and shrank. He looked wildly about him, but in the only door stood Ann Pett, now beginning to bridle and snarl at the mirth she could not comprehend. Then with a despairing snatch at his wits Mr. Fossett caught Murrell by the arm and gasped in his ear: “Hey she seen that paper?”
Murrell, unruffled, regarded his victim.
“That I don’t answer,” he said. “But what if she hey not?”
“I’m done—I’ll buy it. Come outside.” Next week Cunning Murrell was observed in a new blue coat, with brass buttons.
WICKS’S WATERLOO
I find that in the mental perspective of most people, the days of the Kent and Essex smugglers lie very far back, while in my own they stand surprisingly near. It is habit of mind, and nothing more. Those days were gone before mine began; though not only have I seen and talked with grey old smugglers on the Essex coast, but I have even tasted the white brandy of such astonishing strength, which they brought over in the light “tubs” of three or four gallons’ capacity. I tasted it on my twenty-first birthday, forty years and more after it had been smuggled; and it came from an unsuspected secret store of Roboshobery Dove’s, who thus designed to honor my majority. The treat was accompanied with much sage advice on my entry on manhood, as was proper from this old man of ninety and rather more, who had fought the french afloat as a boy; but a lecture twice as long, from one in no such way endeared to me as was he, could not have marred the memory of that amazing drink, so mild and mellow and soft, albeit a dilution of four times as much water was needed to tame its strength. If one is asked for dates by haters of foggy arithmetic, then it is enough to say that the last isolated attempt to run a cargo of brandy on the Essex coast failed in the year 1854; and that the trade was falling out of use a decade earlier.
So it happened that my majority was celebrated from what was probably the very last tub of “run” spirits remaining in Essex—perhaps in all England; and the tale which never failed to season Roboshobery’s moral discourse was on this occasion the tale of th
e run—one of the last successful ventures—which brought over this very tub and about four score more.
“If I’d ha’ been a man o’ money, sir,” the old man said, “I might ha’ given you a birthday compliment of greater cost; but I count it might ha’ been easier forgotten. An’ if you want still more to remember it by, why, I’ll tell ’ee this: the bringing over o’ that very brandy was the cause of the very first teetotal meetin’ in Essex. Nothin’ to be proud of p’r’aps, but a curiosity; an’ ’tis my belief that if such stuff as this could ha’ come over with no hindrance all along, there’d never ha’ been a teetotal meetin’ in Essex to this very day.”
Here I solemnly apologize for my old friend. His was an earlier age, before many of our modern morals had been invented, and before we had discovered how much more respectable we are than our fathers. At the same time, with the taste and scent of that ineffable white brandy present to my senses, I was mightily disposed to agree with his conjecture.
“It was after the new coastguard was formed as that came over,” the old man went on, “and it was mostly the new coastguard as helped to kill smuggling. It went on pretty well though, hereabout, for some years; we’d got a sleepy oad chief officer, a good deal too fat for his business, and Leigh windows were cleaned with Dutch gin right up to forty years ago. But just about this time there came a mighty smart an’ knowin’ chief-boatman this way, promoted from somewhere right off—Poole, I think they said. His name were Wicks—Archibald Wicks, to be complete—and he were so very mighty smart as to be very near as smart as he thought hisself, and that were saying a deal. He hadn’t done with promotion either, had Master Archie Wicks, chief-boatman as he were. You see it were a time of changes in the sarvice, an’ ’twas thought promotions might be made higher still for some men; they might be chief-officers, ’twas rumored, or anything; an’ if such promotions were to come to pass Master Archie made up his mind to have one o’ the first. If the chief-officer liked to go to sleep an’ wait for his pension, Master Archie Wicks was the last to object; but he kept himself mighty jumpy up an’ down the station, an’ he tried a number of new dodges that sad upset a lot o’ people hereabout, an’ sent a good few tubs of this sort the wrong way. For one thing, he had a most astonishin’ takin’ way with the women. He was smart out an’ in, an’ he’d go any lengths to pump information.
The Arthur Morrison Mystery Page 166