The Unbidden Guest. Hornung Ernest William
nor on his last but one, that the watch had been set by the post-office clock, yet it was still right to the minute; and before the eighth clang from above had been swallowed in the city’s hum, David had got his idea. He closed the gold case with a decisive snap, and next moment went in feverish quest of the nearest pawnbroker.
It was with a face strangely drawn between joy and regret, between guilt and triumph, that Mr. Teesdale at length returned to his inn. Here, in the writing-room, now with the scared frown of a forger, and now with a senile giggle, he cowered over a blotting-pad for some minutes; and thereafter returned to the post-office with a sealed envelope, which he shot into safety with his own hands. It was well after nine before the horse was put to, and David seated once more in the buggy, with the collar of his dust-coat turned up about his ears and the apron over his long lean legs.
“Never knew you so late before, old man,” said his former servant, who was smoking a cigar in the yard, and perhaps still thinking of his first snub from David Teesdale.
“No, I don’t think you ever did,” replied David, blandly.
“Second time in to-day, too.”
“Second time in,” repeated Mr. Teesdale, drawing the reins through his fingers.
“And it’ll take you a good hour to get home. I say, you’ll be getting into trouble. You won’t be there before – What time is it now, old man?”
“Look at the post-office,” said David, as he took up his whip.
“I can’t see it without going out into the street; besides, I always thought they took their time from that wonderful watch of yours?”
“You’re a clever fellow!” cried David, as the other had never heard him speak in the whole course of their previous acquaintance; and he was gone without another word.
He drove away with a troubled face; but the Melbourne street-lamps showed deeper furrows under the old tall hat than David carried with him into the darkness beyond the city, for the more he thought of it, the surer did he become that his late action was not only defensible, but rather praiseworthy into the bargain. There was about it, moreover, a dramatic fitness which charmed him no less because he did not know the name for it. Throughout his unsuccessful manhood he had treasured a watch, which was as absurd in his pocket as a gold-headed cane in a beggarman’s hand, because Oliver had given it to him. For years it must have mocked him whenever he took it from his shabby pocket, but in the narrowest straits he had never parted with it, nor had his gold watch ever ceased to be David Teesdale’s most precious possession. And now, after two-and-thirty years, he had calmly pawned it, on the spur of the moment, and, as it seemed to himself, for the most extraordinary and beautiful reason in the world; for what he could never bring himself to do in his own need he had done in a moment for the extravagant behoof of his friend’s daughter; and his heart beat higher than for many a year in the joy of his deed. So puffed up was he, indeed, that he forgot the fear of Mrs. Teesdale, and some other things besides; for at the foot of the last hill, within a mile of the farm, the horse shied so suddenly that David, taken off his guard, found his near wheels in the ditch before he could haul in the slack of the reins; and when another plunge might have overturned the buggy, a man ran out of the darkness to the horse’s head, and before David could realise what had happened his ship had righted itself and was at anchor in the middle of the road.
“My fault, as I’m a sinner!” cried a rich voice from near the horse’s ears.
“Nay, I’m very much obliged to you,” said Mr. Teesdale, with a laugh, for he made no work of a bit of danger, much less when past.
“But it was me your horse shied at,” returned the other, and fell to petting the frightened animal with soft words and a soothing hand. “I was going to take the liberty of stopping you for a moment.”
“I never saw you,” said David; “it was that dark, and I was that busy thinking. What is it I can do for you? The horse ‘ll stand steady now, thank you, if you’ll come this way.”
The wayfarer came round to the buggy wheels and stood still, feeling in all his pockets before answering questions. The near lamp shot its rays upon a broad, deep chest, and showed a pair of hairy hands searching one pocket after another. The rays reached as high as a scarlet neckcloth, but no higher, so that the man’s face was not very easily visible; and David was only beginning to pick out of the night a heavy moustache, and a still heavier jaw, when from between the two there came the gleam of teeth, and the fellow was laughing a little and swearing more. He had given up his search, and stood empty-handed under the lamp.
“I’m not a bushranger,” said he, “but you might easily think me one.”
“Why so?” asked David.
“Because I stopped you to ask for a match to light my pipe, and now I’m hanged if I can find my pipe in any of my pockets; and it was the best one ever I smoked,” said the man, with more of his oaths.
“That’s a bad job,” said David, sympathetically, in spite of a personal horror of bad language, which was one of his better peculiarities.
“A bad job?” cried the man. “It would be that if I’d lost my pipe, but it’s a damned sight worse when it’s a girl that goes and shakes it from you, and she the biggest little innocent you ever clapped eyes on. Yet she must have shook it. Confound her face!”
He was feeling in his pockets again, but as unsuccessfully as before. The farmer inquired whether he was on his way back to Melbourne, and suggested it was a long walk.
“It is so,” said the man; “but it’s a gay little town when you get there, is Melbourne – what?”
“Very,” said Mr. Teesdale, to be civil; but he was beginning to find this difficult.
“You prefer the country – what?” continued the other, who was now leaning on the wheel, and showing a face which the old man liked even less than the rest of him, it was so handsome and yet so coarse. “Well, so do I, for a change. And talk of the girls!” The fellow winked. “Old Country or Colonies, it’s all the same – you give me a country lass for a lark that’s worth having. But damn their souls when they lose your favourite pipe!”
“What sort of a pipe was it?” asked David, to change a conversation which he disliked. “If I come across it I’ll send it to you, if you tell me where to.”
“Good, old man!” cried the stranger. “It was a meerschaum, with a lady’s hand holding of the bowl, and coloured better than any pipe ever you saw in your life. If you do find it, you leave it with the boss of the ‘Bushman’s Rest’. then I’ll get it again when next I come this way – to see my girl. For I can’t quite think she’s the one to have touched it, when all’s skid and done.”
“Very good,” said David, coldly, because both look and word of this roadside acquaintance were equally undesirable in his eyes. “Very good, if I find it. And now, if you’ll allow me, I’ll push on home.”
The other showed himself as ready with a sneer as with an oath. “You are in a desperate hurry!” said he.
“I am,” said David; “nevertheless, I’m much obliged to you for being so clever with the horse just now, and I wish you a very good night.” And with that, showing for once some little decision, because this kind of man repelled him, old Tees-dale cracked his whip and drove on without more ado.
Nor is it likely he would have thought any more about so trifling an incident, but for another which occurred before he finally reached home. It was at his own slip-rails, not many minutes later; he had got down and taken them out, and was in the act of leading through, when his foot kicked something hard and small, so that it rattled against one of the rails, and shone in the light of the buggy lamp at the same instant. The farmer stopped to pick it up, found it a meerschaum pipe, and pulled a grave face over it for several moments. Then he slipped it into his pocket, and after putting up the rails behind him, was in his own yard in three minutes. Here one of the men took charge of horse and buggy, and the master went round to the front of the house, but must needs stand in the verandah to spy on Arabella, who was sitting with her Family Cherub under the lamp and