"But we might find him," said Jerry, looking piteous once more.

"Ay, you might find him, my lad. There's no knowing."

"But you think we should not?"

"Sure of it!"

Jerry turned away without a word, leaving the miller staring blankly at the spot where the old place had stood, and hurried back toward the town.

"Past seven!" he muttered, "and all those boots and shoes waiting. Breakfast'll have to be late."

It sounded strange, but it was quite natural for him to mix up his daily work with this business; and upon reaching the house, as if feeling satisfied that there was no more to be done, he hurried about over his valeting, beginning with Mr Draycott, but found that he was not in his room.

The tutor came, though, five minutes later, and, meeting his man, exclaimed with animation:

"Better news, Brigley."

"No, sir," said Jerry, shaking his head. "Worse—much worse!"

"How dare you, sir?" cried the tutor, irritable from a sleepless night. "I tell you the news is better, and we have hopes."

"And I tell you, sir, that the news is worse."

Mr Draycott stared at his man, and began to frown. Strange suspicions attacked him as he saw that Jerry looked rough and unkempt. His hair was not brushed; he had evidently not washed that morning, and his Oxford mixture coat was marked by flour.

"By the way, sir," said the tutor, angrily, "where have you been? I rang twice, to send you to the doctor's, but the bell was not answered. Were you not up?"

"Not up, sir? Oh, yes; I was up and out long enough ago!"

"Out?"

"Yes, sir," said Jerry, speaking very sturdily and solemnly; and he related all that he had seen, with the result that the tutor sank into the nearest chair, looking ghastly, and with his lips moving, but not uttering a sound.

Jerry stood looking down at him sadly, and at the end of a few minutes he filled a glass from a waterbottle and handed the water to his master, who swallowed it hurriedly.

"This is too dreadful," said the latter, huskily; "too dreadful! But are you sure, my man—are you sure?"

"Yes, sir, sure enough!" replied Jerry, with a hoarse sob. "The miller saw him just before."

"A terrible business—a terrible business! I thought we were beginning to see daylight again; but—poor weak rash boy!—this is ten times worse!"

"Yes, sir—a hundred times!" said Jerry, with a groan; and master and man gazed in each other's eyes for some time in silence, till Mr Draycott gave a start.

"I am so stunned and helpless with this trouble upon trouble," he cried huskily, "that I can hardly think—I can hardly believe it true. Tell me what you have done. You gave notice to the police, of course?"

"The police, sir?" said Jerry, with a vacant look. "No; I never thought of that!"

"And you have not given the alarm—sent people down the river in boats?"

Jerry shook his head in a weary, helpless way.

"Quick, then; do something, man!" cried Mr Draycott, wildly. "Run to the station and tell the inspector; they will take steps at once."

"I—I thought you would want to hush it up, sir."

"Hush it up, man!" cried the tutor, angrily. "You are crazy!"

"Yes, sir, pretty nigh," said Jerry, pitifully. "My head feels as if it won't go; and I don't know what I'm saying half my time."

"I beg your pardon, Brigley," cried the tutor. "I spoke too hastily. I quite understand your feelings; but steps must be taken instantly. The truth must be known—the cruel truth!" he added, with a groan. "Yes; what is it?"

There was a tap at the chamber door, and Jerry went to open it.

"Please tell master that the London doctor has come in from the hotel and wants to see him directly."

"Ah, yes," said the tutor, who had heard every word; "I thought he would come early. Go on to the station, Brigley; tell them poor Sir Richard must be found. I'll go down to see the doctor."

Each departed upon his mission, and half an hour after the London surgeon took his departure, confirming his colleague's opinion that a great change for the better had taken place in Mark Frayne.

"Youth, my dear sir—youth! He has rallied wonderfully, and I feel that we may hope."

"But you will stop for the day?" said Mr Draycott, anxiously.

"There is not the slightest need, my dear sir. My colleague yonder will, unless something very unforeseen happens, pull him through."

"But if anything unforeseen does happen?" said Mr Draycott, nervously.

"Then telegraph to me, and I will come down at once. But I don't think you need fear, Mr Draycott, and I congratulate you upon the happy turn things have taken. Good-morning. I shall hurry off to catch an early train."

"Congratulate me upon the happy turn things have taken!" groaned the tutor, wiping his moist face. "Poor boy! poor boy! I ought to have seen him again. It was more than the high-spirited lad could bear."

"Yes, sir; that's it."

"You back, Brigley? Was I thinking aloud?"

"Yes, sir; and I heard every word."

"But the police?"

"They were off at once, sir. They're going to hire a big boat and try and find him; but the inspector shook his head. He says he thinks it means being washed away to sea."

That was a sad day at the tutor's, Richard Frayne's yellow-pupils going to and fro in the silent house talking of the cousins, and canvassing Richard Frayne's act from different points of view.

The news soon spread, too, in the town; for the setting-off of the police with a couple of stout boatmen and the drags was enough to set the place in a ferment.

There were plenty there, too, ready to talk of the position, as everything leaked out by degrees, and formed an exciting topic to add to that of the previous day, during which some hundreds had flocked down to the ruins to see the spot where the two pupils had fought and one had been killed—so it was firmly believed. Now the journeys were in the other direction—down the flooded river—but here the remains of the bridge and the spot where the mill had stood were the only things which rewarded their enterprise; for the police-boat had been swept down for miles, and it was not till dark that the men returned by rail to report that they could do nothing in the fierce, rushing waters till the flood was at an end.

That evening, to Jerry's great disgust, a crowd of idlers gathered on the opposite side of the road to stare at the tutor's house, where the blinds were drawn down, as if they secured great satisfaction in gaping and whispering one to the other.

"Oh!" he muttered, "if I could only have my way!"

Mr Shrubsole, the second doctor, undertook to stay at the house that night, in case of any relapse on the part of Mark, and to the tutor's great satisfaction, for he had fallen into a nervous state, wandering about the place and giving the pupils a fresh theme of conversation to occupy the dreary, slow-dragging time.

Jerry caught the inspector as he came out of Mr Draycott's study, and signalled him into the pantry.

"Then you did nothing?" he said.

"Yes, we did," said the inspector, grimly; "we saved our lives, which was about all we could do. I only went for the name of the thing, Mr Brigley—thankye, I'll say port. Of course, I went—ah! very nice full glass or wine. People's so ready to say, 'Where are the police?' that, if we hadn't gone, they'd ha' been ready to think the poor young gent was hanging on by the branch of a tree and we wouldn't go and save him. But I put it to you—well, thankye, Mr Brigley, I won't say no; didn't know you kept such a port as that."

"It won't be long before the water goes down?"

"No. Not it. Goes down, you know, as quickly as it goes up; but don't you expect too much, sir."

"You think you won't find him?"

"Yes; that's it," said the inspector. "Why, look at the way the water was rushing along! Of course, he may be picked up right away down where the tide rises—Limesmouth or Dunkney—or about there; but I say it's very doubtful."

"Ah!" sighed Jerry.

"Poor young chap! The times I've stopped outside listening to him on the flute, or blowing that cornet, or scraping away at the fiddle. Wonderful power of music in those fingers of his and lips."

"And now all still, and stiff, and cold!" groaned Jerry.

"Hold up, man—hold up!" said the inspector, kindly. "Life is short, you know; but we never expected this—did we?"

Jerry shook his head.

"And so the other young gent's getting better, is he?"

Jerry nodded.

"Yes, the doctor told me. I thought we'd got a big interesting case on there. Sensible?"

Jerry shook his head.

"Ah! That's what the doctor said, and that he might not be really sensible for weeks. Narrow squeak for him, eh?"

"Yes."

"Fancy! That poor young chap nearly killing him!"

"And serve him right!" shouted out Jerry, angrily. "Mr Frayne must have made him so mad he couldn't bear himself, and he hit out hard. It was only an accident, after all."

"But we should have been in it, Mr Brigley, even if he got off; and there would have been the inquest, too. Things have been a bit quiet here lately."

"Well, you'll have your inquest, after all," said Jerry, bitterly.

"Humph! Not so sure, sir. But it's a very, very sad business, Mr Brigley, and I must be going now. Thank you. Quite refreshing, sir! Good-night; and wish you well out of the trouble."

"Wish us well out of the trouble!" growled Jerry, bitterly. "As if there ever would be any way out of it. On'y to think—him upstairs getting better, and his people telegraphing to say they'll come over at once, and his cousin lying there out in the cold river, who knows how deep? It only wanted this to make me wish—"

Jerry did not finish his sentence, but took a letter out of his pocket, read it through, and uttered a derisive laugh.

"Yes; it only wanted this to help make me happy. Well, it wasn't so very much, but it's gone; and serve me right for being such a fool!"

Just then a bell rang, and he went to answer it.

"The doctor says we need not sit up, Brigley," said his master, sadly. "You are tired. I shall want you no more to-night. The nurse will get anything the doctor requires."

"Beg pardon, sir," said Jerry. "Mr Frayne, sir?—now?"

"Sleeping, I believe, Brigley. Good-night!"

"No; a bad night!" said Jerry. "Poor S'Richard! I'd give anything to see him again!"



CHAPTER NINE.

DEAD—AND BURIED.

By the next morning the flood was subsiding rapidly, and at night the muddy meadows began to show that the river was sinking back into its bed.

All that evening boats were out, and people watched in expectation of that which they felt would soon be found.

Twenty-four hours more elapsed, and sheep, caught in hedgerows by the wool, were dragged through the mud and slime.

Lower down the river an ox or two were found, while news came of other carcases, miles away, stranded in bends where gravel and mud had half-buried them.

But there was a good deal of water still in the river, and a threatening of another rise.

At Mr Draycott's Mark Frayne still lay insensible, but he seemed to sleep calmly enough, and was beginning to take the food given to him, while the doctors both agreed that there was no fear of a relapse; the only trouble was—What would the young man's mental state be when he recovered from his long stupor?

Day after day glided by. Mr and Mrs Frayne reached the house, Mark's father evidently painfully ill of the complaint which had taken him from his bleak Devonshire vicarage to the warmer climate and change of the South of France and the Riviera.

The news had been a very great shock, and the doctor looked at him anxiously as he went to his son's room, so weak that he had to be assisted by Jerry and the weeping mother.

They accepted Mr Draycott's hospitality and stayed, eager to be near their son, while longing to hear tidings of the discovery of their nephew—tidings that did not come.

Jerry stole away more than once to try and make out the exact place where he had seen Richard plunge in, and returned, shaking his head, for it was impossible.

Day by day he grew more morose, for fragments of the chatter reached him—petty talk, which blackened the young baronet's fame; while, worst stab of all, he read in the little local paper, where, in a long article concerning the trouble of "our respected townsman, Mr Draycott," it was said that the principal in the terrible tragedy had been guilty of that rash act to avoid the punishment likely to befall him consequent upon the assault he had committed and his connection with a monetary scandal.

"And if I go and punch the head of him as wrote that, they'll have me up before the magistrates," said Jerry; "and they call this a free land!"

Three weeks had passed, and Mark Frayne was beginning to show signs of returning consciousness, when, towards evening, the police inspector came to the house to ask to see Mr Draycott.

"He's in, I s'pose, Mr Brigley?" said the official, looking very serious and important.

"Oh, yes; he's in," said Jerry, excitedly; "but—tell me—have you found him?"

"Just got a wire, Mr Brigley, from Chedleigh, fifty mile away, sir!"

Jerry caught at one of the hall chairs, and made it scroop on the stone floor.

The news was correct enough, and the next day an inquest was held upon the cruelly disfigured body which had been discovered, stripped by the action of the flood, and buried in sand and stones.

Jerry was there to give his evidence, along with that of others; and, looking haggard and suffering from mental anxiety, Mr Draycott was there to give his. The medical man who had been called told of his examination, and, as there seemed to be no doubt as to the identity, a verdict was readily returned. Two days later there was a funeral at Richard Frayne's native place, and the unfortunate lad was laid to his rest—aged eighteen, people read upon his breastplate—just about the same time that Mark Frayne was lying upon his back, gazing at the open window, through which there came the pleasant odour of new-made hay, and wondering why he was there in bed, while a woman in white cap and apron was sitting reading.

"I say," he whispered at last; and the nurse started up, smiling.

"Yes?" she said, coming to his bedside.

"Who are you?"

"The nurse. Don't speak, please. You have been ill."

"Oh!" said Mark, "have I? Don't go away!"

"Only for a minute, to send word for somebody to come."

She stepped softly out into the corridor, just as the two pupils who had witnessed the encounter were coming upstairs.

"Would you mind telling Mrs Frayne that he is quite sensible now?"

"What! Mark Frayne?" cried Sinjohn. "Yes; all right."

The two young men turned and went together to deliver the news.

"Then he is really getting well," said Andrews, in a whisper. "Why, Sin, if he does, he'll be Sir Mark Frayne!"

"Not while his father lives," said the other. "But only think!—poor old Dick buried to-day! I wish we could have gone."

"Yes," said Andrews, bitterly. "Poor old Dick!"

"We shall never hear his flute agin!"



CHAPTER TEN.

INTO THE SWIFT WATERS.

"Oh! I wouldn't have done that!"

Of course you would not. No sane lad would ever be led away by his imagination to be guilty of any folly whatever. No one with a well-balanced brain would, for a moment, ever dream of being guilty of an act that would cause him repentance for years. In other words, we are all of us so thoroughly perfect that we go straight on through life, laughing at temptations, triumphing over our weakness, and so manly and confident in our own strength of mind that we continue our life's journey, never slipping, never stumbling, but bounding along to its highest point, where we pitch our caps in the air, flap our arms for want of wings, stretch out our throats, open our beaks, and cry "Cock-a-doodle-doo!" which, being translated from the gallinaceous tongue into plain English, means—"Look at me! Here I am! Did you ever see such a fine fellow in your life? I don't believe there was ever my equal born into the world!"

There was a comic philosopher born in the West, and his name was Artemus Ward; and every now and then, after a verbal flourish of this kind, he used to conclude by saying—

"This is wrote sarcastic."

So are these remarks concerning Richard Frayne's act, when, agonised by the horror of his position, and rankling mentally at being believed contemptible enough to have obtained the money, monkey-fashion, by using his cousin as catspaw, he had gradually become so out of balance that he was ready for any reckless act.

A few words from the proper quarter would have set him right; a kindly bit or two of sympathy from his fellow-students would have helped him; but everyone but the servant held rigidly aloof, and when the dark, blank night-time came, and the long hours of agony culminated in a feeling of utter, hopeless despair, he sat alone there in his room, ready to dash at anything which would, even if temporarily, relieve him from the terrible strain.

At last he forced himself into thinking as calmly as he could, setting himself to consider all that he had to face.

Mark was dying fast. The doctors had said it, and in a few hours he would stand in the eyes of the world as, if not his murderer, the cause of his death. Next there must be that terrible public examination and the verdict—manslaughter; it could be no other, he told himself. Then there would be a magisterial examination, ending in his being committed for trial. After this, a long, weary waiting—possibly on bail—and then the trial.

He arranged all of it in his own mind, perfectly satisfied that his view was too correct, and never once stopping to think that people would calmly investigate every circumstance of the trouble, and, while making every allowance, sift out the pearl truth from the sand and bitter ashes in which it was hidden. In his then frame of mind, he could only think the very worst of everything; for always before him was that terrible scene in which he was bound to take part. He felt that he could nerve himself to stand before coroner, magistrate, even judge, if matters went so far; but he could not face the sweet-faced, sorrowing mother and the weak invalid father, who must be now hastening back to their dying son as fast as trains could bear them.

Condemn, pity, ridicule, which you will; but the fact remains. A kind of panic had attacked Richard Frayne, and he prepared for the folly he was about to commit. There were the two courses open—a frank, manly meeting of the consequences, whatever they might be, or the act of a coward.

The hours passed, and his mind was fully made up. And now everything he did was in a quiet, decisive fashion, with as much method in his madness as ever the great poet endowed his Danish hero.

He changed his clothes, putting on the quiet dark tweed suit Jerry missed, and went back into his room, to stand there in the gloom, looking round and vainly trying to make out the various objects there, every one being loved like some old friend.

But he could not look the farewell, and began slowly to go round the room, laying his hand upon each in turn—his favourite books and pictures, his piano, the violin, the cornet, and the big 'cello in its case where it stood in the corner—all such dear old friends, and it was good-bye for ever!

And as he went on, his hand at last touched the little, long morocco case lying upon the side-table.

He clutched it hard, and something like a sob struggled to his lips; for that case contained, in company with the little piccolo, the flute that was once the property of the brave old soldier whose helmet hung dented there with its drooping black horse-hair plume.

Richard's thoughts went back into the past, and he recalled the evenings when he as a little child was enraptured listening to some operatic selection brilliantly played, while his mother sat accompanying upon the piano. Then he recollected the first lessons given him by his father upon that very flute, and years after the plaudits he listened to with burning cheeks after he had played one of his father's favourite pieces with such skill and execution that these words followed:

"Keep the flute, Dick, my boy, for my sake; it is yours."

And now he was bidding it farewell for ever—there in the darkness of that lonely night, whose silence was broken from time to time by the chiming and booming of the great Cathedral clock, which once more, to his disordered imagination, seemed associated with a solemn procession to the tomb.

Richard Frayne's breast swelled and his hands trembled as his fingers clung round that little morocco case. Then, as a weak sob once more struggled for utterance, his breast swelled suddenly more and more, till there was a long, hard lump down the left side beneath the closely-buttoned jacket.

For, quick as lightning, the little case had been transferred to his breast-pocket. It was his father's. He could not part from that.

The rest of the favourite objects lying around were quickly touched; and then, there, in the middle of the room, the lad stood, feeling old and careworn, opposite two relics which he felt would be honourably removed from where they hung and sent away.

He could not see them—and yet he could, inwardly, in his mind's eye— the gilded metal helmet and the sabre.

Then, as if performing some solemn act, the lad took a couple of steps towards the wall, gently and reverently lifted down the helmet, pressed his lips to the front, and put it back, to take down the sword and hold the blade and scabbard to his breast as he kissed the hilt.

Saddened visions came trooping before his closed eyes in that darkness— of himself: a man, a soldier, as his father had been, an officer leading men against the enemies of his country; and at that, in his despair, he uttered a low, piteous sigh, and hung the sword in its place.

He drew back then, uttering a sound like a moan, and opened his eyes with a start; for a pale, bluish light was slowly filling the room—a light that seemed ghastly to him and unreal.

But it was the dawn of another day, the most eventful of his life, and he knew it was time to act.

There was one more thing to be done, and his action in this was accompanied by a shudder.

But he was quite firm and determined now, for his mind was fully made up. He had that to do first, and he would do it.

He was already at the door, hat in hand, when he recalled another little thing, and, turning quickly back to the table, he sat down and wrote the few lines to Jerry, folded them, and laid them near the loaf, from which earlier in the night he had broken off a few fragments to allay the gnawing hunger he had felt.

Now that was all, and, turning to the door once more, he paused for a final look round at the shadowy room, where the only thing which stood out clearly was the helmet, and this, seen in profile, seemed to assume a stern and threatening aspect.

The next minute he was outside in the dark passage, listening; and then, as all was still, he walked, firmly and quietly, to the other end of the mansion, to stop by his cousin's door.

Here the chill of death seemed to strike upon him. No light stole through crack or keyhole—all was darkness and silence—and he sank upon his knees, to remain motionless for a few minutes, and then rise firmer of purpose than ever.

It was later than he thought, for his various preparations had taken time; and the soft glow of morning lit up the east staircase window as he slowly raised it, stepped out on to the leads, closed it again, and then, climbing over the balcony rails, lowered himself down till he could hang for a moment or two from the bottom of one of the iron bars, swing himself to and fro by his wrists, and then, with a backward spring, drop lightly on to the turf beneath.

In another minute—unseen, unheard—he had passed out of the gate and was walking through the town, making for the lower road and the swollen river.

Here he rapidly awoke to the fact that the waters were out far more widely than he had ever seen them before; and again and again, as he made for the path that ran along by the river toward the bridge, he was driven back, the flood turning the different lanes he tried into huge ditches or canals.

He tried every turning so as to reach the bridge as soon as possible, but it was always the same; and finally, after consuming a good deal of time, he made his way round by the road, following it on till it bore away to his right, crossing the river by the old two-spanned wooden bridge and then winding onward among the sunny vales and hills of Kent.

As he walked on swiftly, now in the bright sunshine, it was with his head lowered and a curious feeling of guilt troubling him. He told himself that he ought to have left the place sooner, and he shivered at the thought of being seen by someone who, knowing all the circumstances, would catch him by the arm and insist upon his going back.

But, at heart, he knew that the words would be in vain. Back he would never go, and, strong and active, he felt that he could easily free himself from the detaining clutch, and then—there was the river.

Richard had some recollection of passing or being passed by a man with sheep; but he was coming in the opposite direction, and this did not seem an enemy to fear, as he shouted from beyond the flock, and above the patter of their hoofs, a cheery "Good-morning."

Richard smiled bitterly to himself as he hurried on. Good-morning! If that happy, careless fellow had known!

At last, with his heart beating fast, and with the rushing sound of the river ever on the increase, he turned the curve which led to the wooden bridge, and, with his eyes fixed upon the dusty road, increased his pace, till he was suddenly brought up short, just as he was about to step down into the foaming, roaring flood.

Richard Frayne stood there aghast, staring at the gulf before him, and then at the ragged piles on the other side, from which the hard light-coloured road ran on and on between hedges, rising higher and higher above unflooded meadows—the road leading to safety and rest, away from the terrible troubles which had driven him to this wildly reckless act.

For Jerry Brigley was as wrong as he was right—right in his surmise that Richard would seek the bridge, which crossed the river at its deepest part, but wrong in imagining that it was for so horrible a deed.

No: it was the way to safety—to places where he was unknown. There was an idea fixed in his mind, and it was to carry out this idea that he had sought the bridge—to find it gone, and escape in that direction gone as well!

Still, he could swim vigorously as a young seal; but he shrank from so desperate a venture, for the swirling flood told him too plainly that it would be extremely doubtful whether the strongest swimmer who ventured there would ever reach the other side. If he did, it would be miles below. And as he looked, it was to see the carcase of a horse, a great willow-tree (torn out by the roots), and a broken gate float by.

What should he do?

There was a ferry two miles beyond the mill, but he felt that no boat would take him across.

There was the old stone bridge, too, at Raynes Corner, six miles down the road. Well, he must cross there, for it was not likely that the sturdy piers could have suffered even from such a flood as this.

That would do. He would get over the river there; but he must avoid the road, where he might meet the police or people going into the town, who knew him by sight as one of Mr Draycott's pupils.

Fortunately he knew the country well, and he could go along the high bank below the bridge as far as the mill, get into the field path at the back, and pass through the woods, and on and on as near the river as he could wherever the waters were not out.

Climbing over the rails by the side of the raised road, he dropped down and hurried down to the mill, to find to his dismay that beyond it the fields were covered and that a great deal of the woodland was under water, too. As for the path at the side of the mill, it was only dry for some twenty yards, and then ended in a dark-looking lake.

It was impossible to go by there, and he turned back toward the bridge, glancing up at the back of the mill as he reached it to see if he was observed.

But not a soul was stirring, for the simple reason that it had been closed just before; and he sighed as he thought of the pleasant days he had spent there, seated upon the weir, gazing down at the bar-sided perch playing about and shrimp-seeking in the weeds of the piles, and at the great fat barbel wallowing in the gravelly holes where the stream ran swiftest.

Happy days gone for ever, he thought, as he stepped out once more on the bank path, towards whose surface the tide was rapidly climbing up. He was making for the bridge once more, when his ears were thrilled by a faint, hoarse cry; and, as he looked in its direction, it was to see a white face, level with the muddy water, gliding rapidly down behind the saturated fleecy coat of a drowned sheep, which was evidently keeping the unfortunate up.

It was a boy, by the smooth face—probably a shepherd lad, swept in while endeavouring to preserve his charge—only Richard did not think of that. His own troubles were forgotten, his best instincts aroused, in the desire to save the drowning lad.

He saw at a glance how short a distance the helpless boy was from the bank, and that an eddy was setting him in so near that, if he went close down to the rushing water, he might be able to reach out and seize the fleece of the sheep as they passed.

In a few seconds Richard was down, knee-deep in water, holding on with his left hand to the reedy growth of the bank and reaching out to snatch at the sheep.

Vain attempt.

The dead animal did not come within five yards, but, after curving in, literally shot out again towards the middle of the river and was borne down, the boy uttering a despairing wail as he saw his help fade away.

At the same moment Richard Frayne felt the mud giving beneath his feet, and he had hard work to struggle out on to firm land. And then there was another despairing cry for help, so faint and yet so penetrating to the cowardly fugitive's heart that he turned, forgot everything but the fact that a brother was dying before his eyes, and took one brave plunge into the swollen river, to pass under into the thunderous darkness, feeling as if he had suddenly been grasped by a giant who was bearing him down.



CHAPTER ELEVEN.

A GOOD SERVANT AND BAD MASTER.

It was a good thirty yards from where Richard Frayne dived in, and when a strange bewildering sense of suffocation was beginning to make itself his master. He had tried again and again to rise, but the water pressed him down and forced him to the bottom. At last, with one desperate kick, he drove himself upward and saw the daylight once again as he struck out vigorously, following the natural instinct to reach the bank.

But as the water cleared from his eyes, his mental vision cleared as well, and, looking sharply over his shoulder, he caught sight of the white face once more, glistening on a level with the water not five yards away, and a hand rose above the surface and fell with a splash.

Recollecting now why he had plunged in, Richard made a quick stroke or two, turned on his side, and swam with all his strength after the drowning boy, about whom the water was swirling round in giddy whirlpools, each of which seemed to be animated by the desire to drag him beneath.

The mill was already far behind, and they were gliding rapidly downward and round one of the curves of the winding river, the stream bearing them so closely in towards the left that Richard had but to raise a hand to snatch at the boughs of a submerged tree and drag himself out to temporary safety; and as in a misty way he realised this, but made no effort to catch the bough, he saw the sheep whirled round and then shot off almost at right angles from the tree towards the opposite bank, while the boy's face had disappeared.

The next moment the fierce current caused by the flood striking upon the clump of trees firmly rooted in the bank caught Richard Frayne in turn, and he felt himself swept right off in the same direction, and so swiftly that it was as if in a few minutes he would be swept high and dry up among the bushes visible on the other side.

Nerved by this, he swam on vigorously in pursuit of the carcase of the sheep, in the faint hope that the boy might be still retaining his hold; but though he kept himself in the right direction and was gliding rapidly on, he did not lessen the distance between him and the patch of wool in the slightest degree. Once he fancied that he saw the surface stir between them, as if a struggle was going on; but he could not be sure, and then the distance increased, but only for a few moments. Then, to his surprise, that distance was lessened; for the fierce stream swirled round again as if rebounding from the riverside, and the current set back to that from which he had come.

Not four yards between them now; and, making a few frantic efforts, the lad forced himself through the water in his effort to lessen the distance and grasp the sheep, when suddenly the surface was parted; a bare arm and hand appeared clutching at the air, then another just level with the surface, and before he could avoid it, he was clutched in the death-grip of the drowning boy and borne under, the current seeming to roll them over, down into the darkness of the thick water which roared and thundered in his ears.

Richard's first impulse was to struggle free, his next to force himself to the surface; but both efforts were in vain. He was as firmly bound as if he had been chained, and a horrible feeling of despair attacked him as he felt that he was losing consciousness fast, that all was over, and the end at hand. Then, as his senses were leaving him, there was a gleam of daylight for an instant as he and his companion were rolled over by the current. The darkness deepened, and there was a violent shock, the tearing and rending of boughs, and light once more.

For a few minutes Richard could do nothing but cling instinctively to the twiggy bough up which he had struggled till his face was a little above the surface, his hands a few inches higher still, and his body dragged out level with the water; while it seemed to him that the unfortunate boy he had tried to save was tugging violently at his waist to drag him from his hold, bending and shaking the bough till it swayed to and fro like a spring.

For some little time his clinging was instinctive, every fibre in his body naturally resisting the savage jerks to tear him from his hold; but by degrees he recovered sufficiently to realise his position, and his heart gave a great leap as he found for certain that, though something which felt like a ragged garment was wound about his legs, he was once more free, and that his drowning companion's grasp had been torn away when the furious current swept them into the tree.

Of its force he kept on gaining fresh consciousness as the tugging continued and the tree yielded and sprung back, and with this consciousness something of the horror of his position passed away. It was the strong current he had to deal with alone.

And now, as he drew his breath freely, but one thought filled him—the natural desire of self-preservation. What could he do? for it would be impossible to hang on long like that.

He looked up stream, but he could see naught but water, and the flood was out widely on both sides. But the regular bank of the river must be beneath him, and the only chance seemed to be to climb up into the ragged top of the willow to whose pendent boughs he clung: a poor kind of refuge, but safety till the water sank.

The bough was of no great size, but about a couple of yards away there was one far larger, and, waiting for a few minutes longer, till the heavy beating of his heart subsided and he could breathe more easily, he gradually lowered himself toward the greater bough by relinquishing his hold upon its fellow to which he clung.

It was a horrible sensation, though, for it seemed to give the water greater power to drag and snatch at him, and for some little time he dared not quit his hold. But at last he ventured with one hand, got a firm grip of a moderate bough, and before he could loosen his grasp with the other he felt a violent shock: it was torn away, and he was swept over the submerged twigs, having hard work to get a fresh hold.

Then the water passed over him, for quite a wave had descended the river at that moment, whose impetus, and the jerk given to the tree, was too much for its stability. Already undermined by the furious rush of the flood, that new leverage at the end of the longest bough was enough, and its top came slowly down overhead, while the bough to which the lad clung slowly sank.

Once more the instinct of self-preservation helped, and, quitting his hold, he allowed himself to be carried downward by the current as the top boughs splashed up the water not a yard behind.

How long his new struggle lasted he could not tell; all he knew was that he was being borne along the furious river at racing speed, having hard work to keep his head above water and avoid the various objects which cumbered the stream. But he swam bravely from time to time, gazing wildly at the trees he passed standing deeply in the tide as he was borne from side to side, till at last, with his senses beginning to fail, and the water rising higher and higher above his chin, a dim sensation of its being time to relax his efforts dawned upon him, in company with a strange drowsiness, just as he felt a heavy, sickening shock, which had the effect of making coruscations of light flash before his eyes; then he flung out his arms wildly, roused to renewed action for a few moments by the blow, and lastly all was blank.



CHAPTER TWELVE.

A HARD FIGHT.

Richard Frayne opened his eyes, to gaze about him dreamily for some little time before he could grasp what had happened and where he was. Then a throbbing in his head and a sensation of smarting assailed him, but he did not stir, for his legs were cramped; and wash, wash, wash, the waters were sweeping along nearly to his chest.

At last, with a bound, full consciousness returned, and he realised that he was lying wedged in amongst a pile of broken woodwork, evidently a great shed or barn which had been swept down the river till its progress had been checked by a clump of elm-trees, and the force of the water had rent it up and piled the broken posts and rafters, driving them, and pressing them by its weight into a chaotic mass, over and through which the torrent rushed.

The drowning lad had been driven heavily by the force of the stream right upon this wreck, head and shoulders above the surface, and, though the water had torn and dragged at him afterwards, it was only to wedge him in more firmly, so that it was some time before he could free his legs from where they were, fast between two beams, the heavy pressure of the water forcing them ever down toward where it rushed furiously through the timbers. But at last he managed to climb higher and rest, panting, upon the sloping mass of woodwork, with the water streaming from him and the hot sunshine beginning to send a glow into his benumbed limbs.

He was so far down the river now that the country round beyond the flooded meadows looked strange; but he soon grasped the fact that he was on the far side of the river at the edge of a wood, among whose trees the stream was hissing as it ran, and that about a hundred yards away the land rose in a sunny coppice, edged by tall timber trees, whose continuity was suggestive of a road.

It was pleasant and warm there, and he lay for some time without feeling the slightest disposition to stir, till a creaking and cracking sound startled him into action, suggestive as it was of the breaking up of the pile of timber. And now, in an agony of fear, Richard rose to his knees and looked wildly round for a way of escape.

On three sides there was the rushing flood; on the fourth the water, broken into hundreds of little torrents, tearing among the trees.

What should he do?

His brain was active enough now, and, to a great extent, his strength had returned; but he hesitated to move, till another sharp crack told him that the wreck was really breaking up; and, with the wood quivering beneath his feet, he sprang from rafter to beam till he reached one of the trees which held the barn anchored, and was beginning to climb up, when the wood before him tempted him to try if he could not pass from tree to tree, clinging to them in turn till he could reach the slope, where he would be safe.

The risk was terrible, for, as he held on to a tree-trunk and lowered himself down into the water, it bore him off his feet; and, had he not clung with all his might, he would have been whirled away and dashed against the one beyond.

But, working himself round, he stood, with his breath catching, pressed hard against the tree, and tried to think of what to do next and whether he had not better climb back upon the pile of wood.

That question was soon decided, for a loud crackling sound came from the place he had so lately left, and, to his horror, he saw the wreck crumble away and begin to sink steadily beneath the surface, long rafters raising their ends in the air and then diving down out of sight, while several shot by him, one of which he seized and held on to, in spite of the heavy drag of the water seeming to try and snatch it away.

The brain acts rapidly sometimes in moments of emergency, and Richard Frayne had seen in that rafter which he seized the life-rail which would help him to safety; for to have attempted to wade from place to place he found would be madness, and his only chance would have been to let himself go with the current—driven from tree to tree—while he strove to move diagonally, getting farther towards dry land and safety at each attempt. But he had no faith in this; and, feeling that a third battle with the river must be fatal, he clung to the great rafter which was to be his narrow road to safety.

He glanced once at the spot where the pile of wood had been, and shuddered; then, calling up all the energy which remained—feeling, as he did, that at any time the tree against which he was held might give way—he wound his legs round it, gripping hard, and tried to pass the rafter along till its end rested against the next stem, about nine feet away.

But every time he tried the piece was dragged down by the rushing water foaming between the trunks, and twice over he nearly lost it, while once he was within an ace of going with it through the wood.

He saved it, though, and held on, panting, beaten as he was by the enormous power of the water, which acted on the end as if it were the lever with which the poor puny human being was to be dislodged.

For a few minutes he was in despair, for he felt that it was impossible to get the square piece of quartering resting from tree to tree, and that he might as well give it up and try to climb.

Then the way to succeed came like a flash, and he wondered that he had not thought of it before. It was to hold the rafter as firmly as he could, and, instead of thrusting it sideways across the stream, to push it straight upwards, guiding it so that the water only pressed upon its end.

This he tried, and passed it backwards—holding it tightly beneath his arm—farther and farther, till there was only another yard. Then, he felt the long end begin to move: the stream had caught it, and in a few seconds it was swept down, he forcing it outward the while and feeling it checked by the tree he wished to reach. Then there was a short struggle, and he had fixed his end between his chest and the tree to which his legs clung, and there was a rail for him to cling to as he tried to pass on.

He did not pause now. The rafter was pressed tightly against the trees, but it looked terribly unsafe, bending ominously in the middle. But it seemed to be his only chance, and, seizing it firmly, he began to work himself along, his legs being swept away directly, and the force of the current so great that he could hardly stir.

He succeeded, though, for the distance was short, and in a couple of minutes was pressed against the second tree, holding on again with his legs, and working the other end of the rafter free for it to be swept downward, and once more nearly snatched from his grasp.

This time he managed better, working it under his left arm, end to the current, keeping it as straight as possible, and guiding it so that he had less difficulty when the point began to sway round and, in turn, was swept against the next tree, while he passed the near end over his head and dropped it between him and the trunk.

The passing along it, too, he managed more easily, though he shuddered as he felt how it bent when he reached the middle, and hurried so as to get to the next tree to rest.

The third stage was easier still, and he crept on in this way from tree to tree, six, eight, and ten feet at a time, till, to his great delight, he found the water waist instead of breast-high. Ten minutes later it was not more than half-way up this height, and in another five he left the rafter still pressed against two trunks, and waded through the rushing stream, holding on by bough after bough, till he stood triumphantly upon dry land. Then after walking a few yards to an open patch by a pit where the sun shone warmly, he dropped upon his knees in hot, loose, yellow sand, and crouched there till his breath came regularly and he could look more calmly round.

The place was in the wood, shut in by a few trees and great patches of golden-blossomed furze. The sun came down warmly, birds twittered in the boughs, and a couple of rabbits showed their white cottony tails for a moment or two as they plunged down into their burrows, while above all, in a low, deep, roaring bass, there was the heavy thunder of the river as it swept sand, gravel, trees, and everything it could tear from its flooded banks, toward the sea.

Richard Frayne felt that he must be miles away from Primchilsea, and that he was in as lonely a country place as he could have selected; and now for the first time the discomforts of his personal condition began to make themselves felt, as there was no more serious call upon his brain.

His hat had gone when he first plunged into the river, but he did not seem to have lost anything else, for his jacket was buttoned tightly over the little case; but the hot sunshine now, paradoxical as it may sound, began to make him feel chilly—of course, from the great evaporation going on.

Taking off his garments, then, one by one, he wrung and spread them on the hot sand, emptying his boots and serving them the same, when, after wringing out his socks and placing them to dry, a good idea occurred to him, and he filled his boots with the hottest, dryest sand he could find.

His next course was to roll in the same, which felt grateful indeed to his benumbed and chilled limbs, the skin being blue with the cold; and the next minute he was lying down in a sunny hollow and dragging the sand over him till he was covered to the neck, a little loosening of the dry fluent stuff making it trickle down over his free arm. There he was, luxuriating in the sunny warmth, with a feeling of drowsiness gradually creeping over him, till all was blank once more, exhausted nature bearing him into a pleasant, restful oblivion, from which he did not awaken till all overhead was starlight. The consequence was that he dropped asleep again—a heavy, dreamless rest of so reposeful a nature that the troubles of the last forty-eight hours died away, and he did nothing but sleep—sleep on with all his might.



CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

THE GOAL.

"Chare! chare! chare!"

A harsh, ear-piercing note, sounding as if a scythe-blade were being held against a rapidly-revolving grindstone, and then the sound died away.

Then, again, from a distance, then from farther off, and once more from close at hand.

The next minute there was a fluttering amongst the dense clumps of hazel, a glint of velvety black, and another of pure white, and directly after a goodsized bird hopped into sight, showing a big, closely-feathered warm grey, speckly head, a pair of keen, inquiring blue eyes, below which were two boldly-marked jetty moustaches.

There was a repetition of the harsh cries, as if the bird-scout were shouting to companions what he had found. These cries were answered from different directions, and another bird flew out of the wood and clung to a stout, upright hazel: one leg full-stretch, the other doubled close, and the claws hidden in the warm grey fluffy breast feathers; and as it closed its pinions and hung peering about there, it revealed, in addition to its beautiful patches of white and black, the turquoise barred blue markings upon its wings.

Then another came, and another; all noisy, and eager to investigate the novel phenomenon newly discovered by the sand-pit in the wood.

The sun shone brightly upon millions of glittering gems, most of which adorned the leaves of the hazels, the ferns, and the spines and blossoms of the gold and tawny furze; but others had formed upon certain peculiar patches of cloth, a singularly-shaped piece of checked flannel, and a square of something white. But these passed as nothing to the lively party of jays, seeing that there were two wonderful objects standing alone, side by side, full of sand, while an oval whitish something lay half-buried close by.

Then one of the jays uttered a shriek of terror, for the oval whitish something was suddenly lit up by the opening of a couple of lids which lay bare a pair of dazzled eyes, and these winked, and the lids quivered before they were closed again.

"Chare! chare! chare!" in a wild chorus of scare dying rapidly away made Richard Frayne spring up, realise his position, and, after shaking off the sand, rapidly scramble on his things, which—save a little dewy moisture still left unimbibed by the sun—were dry and warm.

As he dressed he felt his pockets, where everything was right, even to his pocket comb, and in a few minutes he was dressed all but his boots, which, after they had been emptied of the sand, were as dry as the rest; and there he stood, all but his hat, ready for a fresh start.

Not quite; for he thought of the absent bath, and then shuddered and listened for the roar of the river, now softened down into a murmur.

The idea of going to some muddy pool to wash was too repellent, and, making his way, rested and refreshed, out of the sand-pit, he stood thinking, not hesitating, for his mind had been made up before he left Mr Draycott's.

And as he stood there in the glorious morning sunshine, anyone who knew him would have noted that a change had come during these last days. His face looked old and thin, and there was an air of determination about his compressed lips which had not been there before.

The next minute, after marking the direction of the sun, he was tramping through the wood in search of the first lane. This would, sooner or later, lead him into others, and they, perhaps, into the main road, the one which he could follow east to the goal he sought.

How far he was from Primchilsea he could not tell, and he did not feel as if he wished to know. All that belonged to the past: his life now was in the future—a future which he meant to carve out for himself, forgetful of Burns's aphorism about the best-laid plans of mice and men. He forced himself now, with more or less success, as he tramped on, to forget the past and think only of the present; but another shudder ran through him as there rose before him the face of the drowning lad, with its wild, appealing stare, and his brow wrinkled as he asked himself whether he had really done everything possible to save another's life.

There could be only one answer to this, and he walked on, feeling saddened, as he knew only too well that the poor fellow, in his helpless state, must have sunk to rise no more.

Then, in spite of his efforts, the thoughts of the past would obtrude themselves—of his cousin, of the scene at Mr Draycott's when it was found that he was missing. Lastly he thought of Jerry, and a faint, saddened kind of smile crossed his face as he knew how troubled the man would be; for he felt that Jerry liked him, and he was sad as he told himself that he would never see him more.

By this time he had tramped a couple of miles, having reached a shady lane, and now a gleam of sunshine on ahead showed him that for which he was looking—a little stream.

This crossed the road, but the water was muddy and foul, for it communicated with the river, and the flood had ascended it like a tide; but a quarter of a mile farther on he came across the stream again, trickling now among watercress by the side of the road, and here it was bright, pure, and sparkling, offering him, in one spot, a splendid basin in which to bathe face and hands, from which task he rose up refreshed, and trudged on, thinking of trying at the first village he reached for a hat or cap.

An hour had passed before the opportunity offered, and then, next door to a little inn, he found a regular village shop, where pretty well everything could be purchased.

A woman served him, and looked at him curiously; for it did not happen every morning for a good-looking, quiet youth in tweeds to enter, as soon as she was down, to buy himself a flannel cricketing cap, because he had lost his own, and then, upon paying for it and reaching the doorway, turn round and buy a small yesterday's cottage loaf and a piece of cheese, which he tied up in his handkerchief, said "Good-morning," and walked off, well watched by the inquisitive shopkeeper till he was out of sight.

"Now I never made a bet in my life," she said, as she turned away to prepare her breakfast, "and I don't know how it's done; but I'd lay a penny that that young man met robbers on the road who stole his hat, and that he is going to seek his fortune just as we read about in books."

She never knew how nearly she was right, and Richard did not give her a second thought as he walked steadily on till well out of sight of the village, when he began to relieve the painful gnawing sensation of hunger, from which he suffered, by breaking off pieces of his loaf.

Then came a little bit of satisfaction; for, passing a farmhouse in a lonely spot, he saw a big heavy-looking woman carrying a couple of pails full of frothy new milk to the door, and, following her, he soon had his desire for a pint of the warm sweet fluid satisfied.

Nerved now for his task, he started off afresh, walking vigorously and well, keeping as near as he could due east, and passing village after village, and then a town, and at last seating himself among the ferns upon a shady bank to dine on bread and cheese and a draught of water from a trickling spring.

There was no pleasure in the eating; it was from stern necessity, and he ate with a determination to carry out the plan he had in view—to give himself support for the task which lay ahead and kept him with rugged brow, dreamy and thoughtful, as he tramped along till night, when he entered a large village, and, after a search, found a tiny inn, where he was accommodated with supper and a bed.

The next day passed in much the same way, with the past seeming to belong to a far-off time, and the future looming up cold and cheerless, but more and more real as the hours went by. He had calculated that he would reach his destination that evening; but, journeying as he did, asking guidance of none, he missed his way, and walked back many miles along a lower lane which ran parallel to the one by which he had come. Consequently, he had to sleep another night upon the road.

"It does not matter," he said to himself in a stern, hopeless way; and, with the past farther back than ever, he started early the next morning, tramping through the chalky dust slowly now, for he did not want to get to his destination yet; and, as he walked, he noted the farms and cherry orchards he passed upon the road, but in a dull, uninterested manner, and, bending his head low, he tramped on again.

The fear of being followed and taken back had quite gone. No one knew him, and his aspect was not one which would take the notice of the police whom he met from time to time.

"They don't know that I killed my cousin," he said bitterly; but he pulled himself up short—That belonged to the past!

It was early in the afternoon that he crossed the stone bridge and went steadily on through the streets of the dingy town, with signs here and there of the maritime character of the place, and others which interested him more, though in a saddened way. From time to time he caught sight of specks of the Queen's scarlet, which resolved themselves into military jackets, cut across by pipe-clayed belts. Then there was the blue of an artilleryman, with its yellow braid; more scarlet, that of an engineer; and soon after the blackish-green of a rifleman.

For Richard Frayne, son of a distinguished officer, was tramping through a garrison town towards the great dingy barracks, and his future was rapidly taking form and shape.



CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

THE LADS IN RED.

If Richard Frayne had stopped to look back, his career would have been very different; but he had fully and stubbornly made up his mind, and he looked forward as he walked on and on through the apparently endless streets of what he found to be a trio of towns; and as he approached the great barracks he was conscious of the shrieking of fifes and the roll of drums, which suddenly ceased as a crowd of rough-looking boys and people came along a side-lane, down which, and rapidly approaching, was the shining and glittering of a long line of bayonets, while in front came the gleam of brass instruments.

As the head of the regiment marching into the town reached the main street, boom—boom—boom—came the heavy thunder of the big drum; and then, in full burst of the brass instruments, the first bars of the grand March from Tannhauser, sending the first thrill of pleasure he had felt for days through Richard's breast, as he naturally fell into step and marched along side by side with the men.

But the thrill soon passed off, and as he tramped on he could not help thinking, in a low-spirited way, that the men looked dusty and fagged. The chalky white powder clung to their blue trousers and scarlet coatees; their shakoes, too, were whitened, and their hot faces were grimed and coated with perspiration and dust.

In spite of the music, there was something wanting; and in a few minutes Richard Frayne slackened his pace, so that the regiment went on past him, and he followed more slowly, for there was nothing attractive about the men.

But he had not come down there spurred on by any boyish admiration for the army. His was a set purpose, and, after letting the marching regiment disappear, with a peculiar sensation of sadness affecting him as he stole a glance—he could hardly bear to look—at the officers, he turned off along one of the side-streets and passed through the great gates of one of the barracks. Here he could see a round-faced, fat man, whose clothes looked ridiculously tight, hurrying to and fro before a double line of men in flannel jackets, and at whom he seemed to be barking loudly.

He was a peculiar-looking man for a soldier, suggesting, as he did at a distance, an animated pincushion, one huge pin being apparently stuck right through his chest, though a second glance revealed the fact that it was only a cane with a gilt head passed, skewer fashion, in front of his elbows and behind his back.

Then a few evolutions were gone through, and Richard Frayne thought the men looked a melancholy set of dummies, more like plasterers than soldiers, till at the loudly-shouted word "Dis—miss!" they trotted off readily enough.

Just then a couple of sergeants marched a squad of twelve or fourteen shabby-looking young fellows into the barrack yard, the whole party wearing the ribbons of the recruit, and toward this group, as it they were an attraction, the fat drill-sergeant and some half-dozen more from different parts of the yard walked slowly up.

Richard's pulses beat fast as he stood looking on, conscious the while that a tall, keen-looking non-commissioned officer who passed him was watching him curiously.

Then followed a little loud talking and laughing, and the party of recruits were marched across the yard and disappeared, leaving the group of sergeants chatting together, till one of them seemed to have said something to his companions, who, as if by one consent, turned to stare at Richard Frayne.

"Now for it," muttered the lad, and, drawing a deep breath, he pulled himself together, feeling as if he were going to execution, and walked straight toward them, feeling the blood come and go from his cheeks.

The men stood fast, looking at him in a half-amused, good-tempered way, as if he was not the first by many a one who had approached them in that fashion, and the keen-faced man said in quick, decisive tones the words which ended one of the boy's difficulties—

"Well, my lad, want to 'list?"

Only those few hours ago and people touched their hats to him and said, "Sir Richard;" now it was, "Well, my lad, want to 'list?" But he answered promptly—

"Yes; I want to enlist."

"Hah!" ejaculated the sergeant, looking him over keenly, and grasping him by the arm as if he were a horse for sale. "How old are you?"

"Turned seventeen."

"Hah! Yes," said the sergeant, with a keen look; "old story, eh? Run away from home?"

Richard's face turned scarlet.

"That'll do, my lad; don't tell any crackers about it. See these chaps just brought in?"

"Yes."

"Well, there isn't one who doesn't stand two or three inches higher than you, and is as many more round the chest. Men are plentiful now of the right sort. Why, you'd look as thin as a rake in our clothes."

"But I'm young, and I shall grow," said Richard, hurriedly.

"Then go home and grow bigger and wiser, my lad; and if you still want to join the service, come and ask for me, Sergeant Price, 205th Fusiliers, and I'll talk to you."

"Only he might be at the Cape," said another of the sergeants, smiling.

"Or in India," said another; and there was a general laugh, which irritated the would-be recruit, and, feeling completely stunned by his reception, after taking it for granted that all he had to do was to hold out his hand when a shilling would be placed therein: after that he was a soldier.

Giving a sharp, comprehensive glance round, he turned upon his heels and walked away towards the entrance, feeling ready to go back indignantly, for there was a roar of laughter apparently at his expense.

"Am I such a contemptible-looking boy?" he thought; and then he felt better: for there was evidently someone following him, and the laughter was not at his expense, but at that of the man coming in his direction, for someone cried—

"Wait a bit, Lambert!"

"Yes; steady there, Dan'l!"

"Hi! you sir, don't you stand anything. He eats and drinks more than is good for him already."

"I say, Brummy, take him to the King's Head, and we'll join you."

"Dan'l and Lambert," thought Richard. "Why, it's the fat sergeant coming after me; they're laughing at him!"

But he did not turn his head to see, only went steadily on towards the gate, with his pulses beating rapidly once more, for the hope rose now that this man had repented and was, perhaps, going to enlist him, after all. Telling himself that it would be better to seem careless and independent, he kept on to the gate, passed out, and heard the steps still behind him, but so close now that he noticed a rather thick breathing. Then he started as if thrilled by an electric touch, for there came in sharp tones—

"Hold hard, my lad!" and then, in military fashion, "Halt! Right about face!"

Richard obeyed the order on the instant, and in such thorough soldierly style that the fat sergeant stared.

"Humph! Volunteers!" he muttered: and then, coming close up, he looked pleasantly in the lad's face, and clapped him on the shoulder. "So you wanted to 'list, did you?" he said.

"Yes. Will you have me?"

"No, my lad," said the sergeant, smiling. "I only wanted a word with you before you go into the town. I don't want to pump you. We can see plain enough. We often get young customers like you."

"I didn't know I was too young," said Richard, hoarsely.

"Nobody said you were, my lad; but you're not our sort. We want a rougher breed than you."

"Very well," said Richard.

"No, it isn't, my lad. You take a bit of good advice: be off back home—sharp! Don't stop in the town here, or you'll get picked up. There's a lot outside ready to be down upon you, and they'll humbug and promise everything till they've sucked every shilling you've got out of you and made you sell your watch."

Richard's hand went sharply to his chain, and the sergeant laughed.

"I know what it is: bit of a row at home, and you've cut off to 'list; and, if you could have had your way, you'd have done what you'd have given anything to undo in a month."

There was something so frank and honest in the plump, good-humoured face before him that Richard's hand went out directly.

"Shake hands? Of course," said the sergeant, grasping the lad's. "White hand!—Ring on it!" he cried, laughing, "There! go back home."

Richard snatched his hand back, colouring deeply, like a girl.

"Thank you!" he said. "You mean well, sergeant; but you don't know all."

"And don't want to. There, don't stop in the town; get off at once."

"I'm going to have some dinner," said Richard. "Come and have something with me."

"Had mine, my lad," said the sergeant, laughing. "What's the use of me giving you good advice if you don't take it. There, good-bye, my lad. Banks was quite right."

He nodded, faced round, and marched away, leaving Richard Frayne gazing at the black future before him as he muttered—

"Beaten! Why did I fight my way out of the flood?"

His next thought made him shudder: for a river was below there in the town, and he had crossed a bridge, beneath which the deep water flowed fast to where there was oblivion and rest.

He spoke mentally once more:

"Why not?"

As Richard Frayne gazed after the fat sergeant he failed to see the ridiculously fat back in the tight jacket for somehow he was looking inside at the man's heart.

"But he does not know—he does not know," muttered the lad, as he turned now and walked back toward the town street, down which he hurried with the intention of finding a quiet place where he could have a meal, and turned at last into a coffee-house, where he ordered tea and bread-and-butter, drinking the former with avidity, for he was feverishly thirsty, but the first mouthful of food seemed as if it would choke him, and he took no more.

Half an hour later he had another cup of tea, for his thirst seemed greater, and after that he went and wandered about the town, finding most rest in the shade of the great ruined Castle Keep, where the jackdaws sailed round, and cawed at him as if they were old friends from Primchilsea who recognised him and called out to their companions that he was below.

"What should he do," he thought; "what should he do?" For his plan had been completely checked, and in the most unexpected way.

He was sick at heart and faint in body, but his spirit was not crushed. He had laid his hand to the plough, and if a hundred good-tempered well-meaning fat sergeants came or gave their advice he could not look back. No; he must sleep at Ratcham that night, and make for Quitnesbury in the morning. There was a cavalry depot there; and if he failed again, he could go on to Ranstone.

"There must be regiments where they would take me," he muttered, as he walked back toward the town in the pleasant sunny evening; and, as if attracted by the place, he made his way again towards the barracks, thinking of the fat sergeant, and in his utter loneliness feeling a yearning to meet him again for a friendly chat, if it were possible.

"What did they call him—Lambert?" thought Richard. "Absurd! That was only banter on the part of his companions. I wonder whether I shall ever see him again!"



CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

IN PIPE-CLAYDOM.

There was still none of the pageant and display of a military life visible to Richard as he re-entered the great gateway, before which a sentry in white flannel jacket and forage cap was marching to and fro with a bayonet in his hand, ready to give a glance at the lad and then turn upon his heels and march away.

The lad walked forward as if he had business there, and went on, wondering what the stout sergeant's name was, but not liking to stop and ask. Then on straight across the great dreary barrack yard, surrounded on all sides by bare-looking buildings, full of open windows, at one of which he saw a pair of folded arms and the top of a closely-cropped head, the owner thereof being evidently asleep. At another window there was a pair of boot-soles, and at another a man, in shirt and trousers, seated sidewise upon the sill, with his knees drawn up so as to form a reading-desk, upon which a paper was spread, which the man, with his hands behind his head, was perusing.

A little farther on there was a cat asleep, and just above it a canary in a cage twittering away as if in friendly discourse with the animal below. But for the most part the windows of the great barracks were unoccupied, and the place looked deserted and desolate in the extreme.

Richard walked on, thinking of what he was not long before, and of his present position through one turn of fortune's wheel. What was to happen next, now that he had been disappointed and his project had come to naught?

Right on before him there was another gateway, across which, in the soft summer evening light, a second sentry in white flannel jacket passed, with the light gleaming upon his triangular bayonet.

One moment he thought of turning back; the next he had rejected this, and advanced. He had taken his course, and he must go on.

The second sentry looked harder at him as he passed an open doorway from out of which came a puff of hot bad tobacco smoke; but the man seemed to pay no further heed as he went on and now found himself at what was evidently the front of the barracks, and directly afterward a burst of music fell upon his ears.

It sounded very welcome, and, walking in the direction, he passed a couple of large open windows, from whence came the clatter of silver upon china and the buzz of voices accompanied by sundry odours of an agreeable nature, which reminded him of the fact that he had eaten nothing since his hurried breakfast.

"The mess-room," he said to himself.

The officers were dining; and the band was playing selections during that function.

Richard passed on, thinking, and with his spirits going down like the mercury in a weather-glass before a storm.

In a short time he, in all probability, would have been an officer attached to some regiment, while now he was a fugitive and a vagabond on the face of the earth.

"Not even fit to be a private," he said to himself; and then, attracted by the music, he turned and walked back, to stop between the two windows, listening, and with the smell of the dinner making him forget his troubles in baser thoughts as his mouth began to water.

Then the chink of glasses began to mingle with the buzz of voices.

"Taking wine," muttered the listener; and he wondered whether it was Hock.

Pop!

"Champagne or Moselle," he muttered; and the report of a second cork taking flight from the bottle followed, and then a third, while the music went on.

There was a row of iron railings in front of the windows, and Richard turned his back and rested it against them; for he was tired, and it was pleasant to listen to the music and feel himself close to a party of gentlemen just for a few minutes before he went back into the town to find out some place where he could get a meal and bed.

All at once, after a loud passage, the band wound up with a series of chords, leaving the principal flute-player sustaining one long note and then dropping to the octave below, from which he started upon a series of runs, paused, and commenced a solo full of florid passages introductory to a delicious melody—one of those plaintive airs which, once heard, cling evermore to the memory.

Dick was weary, faint, and in low spirits. The events of the past days seemed to fit themselves to the strain, till his brow wrinkled up, then grew full of knots, and he angrily muttered the word "Muff!" A few moments later he ejaculated "Duffer!" and then twisted himself suddenly round to look up at the open window from which, mingled with the loud conversation and rattle of plates, the music came.

"Oh, it's murder!" muttered the lad. "The fellow ought to be kicked!" and, as he listened, his hand went involuntarily into his breast-pocket, pressed the button in the side of the morocco flute-case, and extracted the little silver-keyed piccolo from where it reposed in purple velvet beside the two pieces of his flute.

And all the while the solo was continued, the player slurring over passages, omitting a whole bar, and seeming to be increasing his pace so as to take the final roulades at a break-neck gallop, and get through, somehow, without further accident.

But he did not; for, as he reached the beginning of a brilliant arpeggio, at the top of which there was a trill and a leap down of an octave and a half, the wind in the bellows of this human organ suddenly gave out, a few wildly chaotic notes elicited a roar of laughter from the table accompanied by derisive applause. This stopped as if by magic; for, suddenly, from out there by the railing, a few long thrilling shakes were heard, deliciously sweet and pure, followed by the arpeggio. The effect was as if liquid music was falling from the summer sky; and then the player ran back to the earlier part of the air, and, amidst perfect silence from within, on and on it ran, thrilling its hearers with appealing, impassioned tones, breathed by one who had forgotten where he was—everything but the fact that the glorious theme he loved had been cruelly murdered, and that he was bringing it back to life; for it was one of his favourite airs.

In the utter silence a window was softly opened somewhere higher up, then another and another, towards which the liquid, bird-like notes rose in plaintive, long-drawn appeals, to come trickling down again in runs— rising, falling, rising, falling, with a purity and strength which seemed impossible as coming from that tiny instrument. Finally this softened, grew lower and lower, till the last notes regularly died away in the distance. And then, and then only, in the midst of a roar of applause, Dick stood, piccolo in hand, as if he had been just woke up from a musical dream by a flannel-jacketed private, bearing a drawn bayonet, who said, savagely—

"Come out! You've no business here!"

"No, no, sentry; leave him alone!" said a loud voice; and Richard looked up, to see that the windows were full of officers, whose scarlet mess-vests, with their rows of tiny buttons, shone in the evening light. Higher up there were ladies looking down; and then the musician glanced sharply round and began to thrust his piccolo back into his breast-pocket.

"Hold hard, there!" cried the same voice, and Richard looked quickly up, to meet the dark eyes of a big, handsome, youngish man, who, napkin in hand, towered above the others, but turned sharply round, and Richard heard him say—

"May we have him in, sir?"

"Oh, yes!" came back in a quick, commanding voice, and the officer looked out again.

"Here!" he cried, "we want you to come in and play."

"I—I beg your pardon—I—I—"

Dick got no further, for an officer's servant was at his elbow, looking at him rather superciliously as he said—

"This way!"



CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

"YOU MEANT IT, THEN?"

For one moment Richard flinched, and thought of making a run for it; the next he was following the man.

"Why not?" he muttered. "I may as well, if they want me to. Why not play for my living now?"

The next minute, with the feeling of shrinking gone, he was standing in the mess-room, in one corner of which, partially hidden by a screen and some palms, was the band, while close to him, leaning back in his chair, was a fine, florid-looking, grey officer, evidently the colonel or major of the regiment, while the rest of the officers had resumed their places, and the dinner was going on.

"Well, sir," said the elderly, florid officer, with assumed sternness, as he fixed the lad with his keen grey eyes, "what have you to say for yourself? How are you come here and interrupt the most brilliant player in my band?"

There was a roar of laughter from all present, and Richard was conscious of a sharp face belonging to a bandsman peering between the palm-leaves.

"I beg your pardon, sir," said the lad, frankly, "but I stopped to hear the music; the air was very familiar, and I had my instrument in my pocket, and—well, sir, that's all."

"Oh!" said the old officer, scanning him sharply; "then you are not a street musician?"

"I, sir? Oh, no," cried Richard—"that is, I don't know; I suppose I shall be."

"Humph! Well, you played that piece from the Trovatore capitally. The gentlemen here would like to hear something else—er—I should, too. Know any other airs?"

"A few, sir."

"Mind playing?"

"Not to so appreciative an audience," came to the lad's lips; but he only said, "Oh, no, sir."

"Go on, then. Here, Johnson, give the musician a glass of wine. By the way, Lacey, you were going to tell us a story about something."

The big, good-looking officer smiled, shook his head, and wrinkled up his forehead in a perplexed way as he looked up at the ceiling.

"The flute-player blew it all out of his head, sir," said a rather fierce-looking man who took the foot of the table, and there was another laugh.

At that moment the band at the end of the great mess-room recommenced playing, but there were cries of "No! no!" headed by the officer at the head.

But the band heard nothing but their own instruments, and Richard stood looking on, feeling faint and more weary than ever, and paying no heed to the glass of champagne the servant had placed upon a side-table near him, for he had been busy fitting together his flute.

"Go and tell them to leave off," said the old officer, and one of the servants hurried to the corner and checked the players, who could now be seen whispering together.

"Now, Mr Wandering Minstrel," said the officer at the foot, "we are all attention."

Dick's brow knit a little. "Mr Wandering Minstrel," in such a tone, jarred upon him, and a peculiar trembling came over him as he felt that he had forgotten everything. The table, with its plate and glass, looked misty, too, and there was a singing in his ears as his fingers played nervously with the keys of the instrument.

"Now, sir, if you please," said the old officer, and Richard gave a start, raised the flute to his lips, and blew a few feeble notes as he vainly tried to collect himself—conscious, too, now that the bandsmen were craning forward to listen.

Then he dimly saw that bent heads were being turned at the table, and that he was being eyed curiously, till, in a fit of desperation, he pressed the flute to his lips and blew again, if anything, more feebly; but the sound of the notes seemed to send a thrill through his nerves, and the next came deep, rich-toned, and pure, as he ran through a prelude, from which he imperceptibly glided into a sweet old Irish melody. He played it with such earnestness and feeling that his hearers were electrified, and the applause came again loudly, amidst which he dashed off into a series of variations, bright, sad, martial, and wailing, till, as he played, the room swam round him, the terrible scene in the river rose, followed by that with his cousin, and then he seemed to be hearing the thundering of the water once more in his ears—

He was on the floor, gazing up in the face of a stranger, who was upon his knee, while other faces kept on appearing, as it were, out of a mist.

"Faintness, I should say," said the officer who knelt by him. "Give me that glass of wine. Here, my lad, try and drink some of this."

As if in a dream, the lad involuntarily swallowed the wine, and then, in a sharp, snatchy way, cried—

"What is it? What is the matter? What are you doing?"

"Have you been ill?" said the gentleman by him.

"Ill? No!" said Richard, huskily. "I don't understand."

"What have you eaten to-day?"

"Nothing—yes: a bit of bread."

"And yesterday?"

Richard was silent for a few moments, trying to collect himself. Then he recalled the past. "I don't know," he said.

"Well, Doctor?"

"Faint from excitement and want of food, sir," said the doctor. "Shall I prescribe here?"

"Do I ever fight against your wishes?" said the old officer.

"Then come and sit down over here, my lad," said the doctor, quietly; and he helped his wondering patient to a table close to where the bandsmen were seated.

"Here, one of you," he said, sharply, "fetch a plate of that soup, and some bread;" and, as the dinner went on, the doctor stayed and saw that the patient took the medicine, which he followed with half a glass more wine.

"You will not feel it now," he said, kindly. "Here, Wilkins, keep an eye upon him, will you, while I go back to the table? He is not to leave until I have seen him again."

"Very good, sir," said a pale little man in spectacles, who was evidently the leader of the band; and when the doctor went to his place, leaving his patient seated at the side-table, feeling as if he were in a dream, Wilkins carried out his orders with military precision; for, every time a piece was played, he conducted in regular musical fashion, flourishing a little ebony baton, and turning over the leaves of the book before him on the stand, but never once glancing at the notes, his eyes, glimmering through his glasses, being fixed upon the lad, to whom the scene appeared more dreamlike than ever, and his head grew confused, with familiar airs buzzing in one ear and the loud conversation in the other.

And this went on till the last piece upon the band programme of the evening had been finished amid thin clouds of smoke. Then the men began to place their instruments in their cases and green baize bags, after the different brass crooks had been drained and blown through, while a boy gathered together the music; and Richard started out of his dream, feeling better, and knowing that he must go.

At that moment he became conscious that the bandmaster was standing stiffly close by, still keeping an eye upon him, and removing his military cap, revealing a shiny billiard-ball-like head, which he began to polish softly with a silk handkerchief.

Richard, in his nervous state, felt worried and annoyed by this persistent gaze; but he bore it till he could bear it no longer, for the man stared as if he were some street beggar he had to watch for fear of his meddling with the plate.

"I beg your pardon—" began the lad; but he was interrupted by steps behind him, and the doctor cried—

"Well, sir—better?"

Richard started up and faced round, to find that the keen eyes of the colonel were also fixed upon him, looking as if their owner was waiting to hear what he said.

"Yes, sir; I'm better now," said the lad, hurriedly. "I am sorry to have been so much trouble."

"Who are you?—what's your name?" said the colonel, sharply.

"Smithson—Dick Smithson, sir," said the lad, feeling the blood come hotly into his cheeks as he spoke; and his face grew hotter, for he could see at a glance that he was not believed.