Elster's Folly. Henry Wood
put off from the Morning Star, when she was sinking, in one of her best boats; he and some of his lawless helpmates, with a bag of biscuit, a cask of water, and a few bottles that probably contained rum. Whether they succeeded in reaching a port or in getting picked up, was a question; but it was assumed they had done so.
The owners of the Morning Star, half paralyzed at the news of so daring and unusual an outrage, offered the large reward of five hundred pounds for the capture of George Gordon; and Government increased the offer by two hundred, making it seven in all.
Overwhelming tidings for Clerk Gum and his wife! A brief season of agonized suspense ensued for the poor mother; of hopes and fears as to whether Willy was amongst the remnant saved; and then hope died away, for he did not come.
Once more, for the last time, Clerk Gum took a journey, not to London, but to Liverpool. He succeeded in seeing the officer who had been saved; but he could give him no information. He knew the names of the first-class passengers, but only a few of the second-class; and in that class Willy had most likely sailed.
The clerk described his son; and the officer thought he remembered him: he had a good deal of gold on board, he said. One of the passengers spoke more positively. Yes, by Clerk Gum's description, he was sure Willy Gum had been his fellow-passenger in the second cabin, though he did not recollect whether he had heard his name. It seemed, looking back, that the passengers had hardly had time to become acquainted with each other's names, he added. He was sure it was the young man; of very light complexion, ready and rather loose (if Mr. Gum would excuse his saying so) in speech. He had made thoroughly good hauls of gold at the last, and was going home to spend it. He was the second killed, poor fellow; had risen up with a volley of oaths (excuses begged again) to defend the captain, and was struck down and killed.
Poor Jabez Gum gasped. Killed? was the gentleman sure? Quite sure; and, moreover, he saw his body thrown overboard with the rest of the dead. And the money—the gold? Jabez asked, when he had somewhat recovered himself. The passenger laughed—not at the poor father, but at the worse than useless question; gold and everything else on board the Morning Star had gone down with her to the bottom of the sea.
A species of savage impulse rose in the clerk's mind, replacing his first emotion of grief; an impulse that might almost have led him to murder the villain Gordon, could he have come across him. Was there a chance that the man would be taken? he asked. Every chance, if he dared show his face in England, the passenger answered. A reward of seven hundred pounds was an inducement to the survivors to keep their eyes open; and they'd do it, besides, without any reward. Moreover—if Gordon had escaped, his comrades in the boat had escaped with him. They were lawless men like himself, every one of them, and they would be sure to betray him when they found what a price was set upon his capture.
Clerk Gum returned home, bearing to his wife and Calne the final tidings which crushed out all hope. Mrs. Gum sank into a state of wild despair. At first it almost seemed to threaten loss of reason. Her son had been her sole idol, and the idol was shattered. But to witness unreasonably violent grief in others always has a counteracting effect on our own, and Mr. Gum soothed his sorrow and brought philosophy to his aid.
"Look you," said he, one day, sharply to his wife, when she was crying and moaning, "there's two sides to every calamity,—a bright and a dark 'un;" for Mr. Gum was not in the habit of treating his wife, in the privacy of their domestic circle, to the quality-speech kept for the world. "He is gone, and we can't help it; we'd have welcomed him home if we could, and killed the fatted calf, but it was God's will that it shouldn't be. There may be a blessing in it, after all. Who knows but he might have broke out again, and brought upon us what he did before, or worse? For my part, I should never have been without the fear; night and morning it would always have stood before me; not to be driven away. As it is, I am at rest."
She—the wife—took her apron from her eyes and looked at him with a sort of amazed anger.
"Gum! do you forget that he had left off his evil ways, and was coming home to be a comfort to us?"
"No, I don't forget it," returned Mr. Gum. "But who was to say that the mood would last? He might have got through his gold, however much it was, and then—. As it is, Nance Gum, we can sleep quiet in our beds, free from that fear."
Clerk Gum was not, on the whole, a model of suavity in the domestic fold. The first blow that had fallen upon him seemed to have affected his temper; and his helpmate knew from experience that whenever he called her "Nance" his mood was at its worst.
Suppressing a sob, she spoke reproachfully.
"It's my firm belief, Gum, and has been all along, that you cared more for your good name among men than you did for the boy."
"Perhaps I did," he answered, by way of retort. "At any rate, it might have been better for him in the long-run if we—both you and me—hadn't cared for him quite so foolishly in his childhood; we spared the rod and we spoiled the child. That's over, and—"
"It's all over," interrupted Mrs. Gum; "over for ever in this world. Gum, you are very hard-hearted."
"And," he continued, with composure, "we may hope now to live down in time the blow he brought upon us, and hold up our heads again in the face of Calne. We couldn't have done that while he lived."
"We couldn't?"
"No. Just dry up your useless tears, Nancy; and try to think that all's for the best."
But, metaphorically speaking, Mrs. Gum could not dry her tears. Nearly two years had elapsed since the fatal event; and though she no longer openly lamented, filling Calne with her cries and her faint but heartfelt prayers for vengeance on the head of the cruel monster, George Gordon, as she used to do at first, she had sunk into a despairing state of mind that was by no means desirable: a startled, timid, superstitious woman, frightened at every shadow.
CHAPTER III.
ANNE ASHTON
Jabez Gum came out of his house in the bright summer morning, missing Mr. Elster by one minute only. He went round to a small shed at the back of the house and brought forth sundry garden-tools. The whole garden was kept in order by himself, and no one had finer fruit and vegetables than Clerk Gum. Hartledon might have been proud of them, and Dr. Ashton sometimes accepted a dish with pleasure.
In his present attire: dark trousers, and a short close jacket buttoned up round him and generally worn when gardening, the worthy man might decidedly have been taken for an animated lamp-post by any stranger who happened to come that way. He was applying himself this morning, first to the nailing of sundry choice fruit-trees against the wall that ran down one side of his garden—a wall that had been built by the clerk himself in happier days; and next, to plucking some green walnuts for his wife to pickle. As he stood on tip-toe, his long thin body and long thin arms stretched up to the walnut-tree, he might have made the fortune of any travelling caravan that could have hired him. The few people who passed him greeted him with a "Good morning," but he rarely turned his head in answering them. Clerk Gum had grown somewhat taciturn of late years.
The time went on. The clock struck a quarter-past seven, and Jabez Gum, as he heard it, left the walnut-tree, walked to the gate, and leaned over it; his face turned in the direction of the village. It was not the wooden gate generally attached to smaller houses in rustic localities, but a very pretty iron one; everything about the clerk's house being of a superior order. Apparently, he was looking out for some one in displeasure; and, indeed, he had not stood there a minute, when a girl came flying down the road, and pushed the gate and the clerk back together.
Mr. Gum directed her attention to the church clock. "Do you see the time, Rebecca Jones?"
Had the pages of the church-register been visible as well as the clock, Miss Rebecca Jones's age might have been seen to be fifteen; but, in knowledge of the world and in impudence, she was considerably older.
"Just gone seven and a quarter," answered she, making a feint of shading her eyes with her hands, though the sun was behind her.
"And what business have you to come at seven and a quarter? Half-past six is your time; and, if you can't keep it, your missis shall get those that can."
"Why