Run to Earth by Mary Elizabeth Braddon (top books to read .TXT) 📕

and yet she could not tell where she had seen it before.

The countryman went straight to the blue parlour, opened the door, and went in. The door closed behind him, and then Jane Payland heard the faint sound of voices within the apartment.

It was evident that this countryman was Lady Eversleigh's expected guest.

Jane's wonderment was redoubled by this extraordinary proceeding.

"What does it all mean?" she asked herself. "Is this man some humble relation of my lady's? Everyone knows that her birth was obscure; but no one can tell where she came from. Perhaps this is her native place, and it is to see her own people she comes here."

Jane was obliged to be satisfied with this explanation, for no other was within her reach; but it did not altogether allay her curiosity. The interview between Lady Eversleigh and her visitor was a long one. It was half-past ten o'clock before the strange-looking countryman quitted the blue parlour.

This occurred three days before Christmas-day. On the following evening another stranger arrived at Frimley by the mail-coach, which passed through the quiet town at about seven o'clock.

This traveller did not patronise the "Rose and Crown" inn, though the coach changed horses at that hostelry. He alighted from the outside of the coach while it stood before the door of the "Rose and Crown," waited until his small valise had been fished out of the boot, and then departed through the falling snow, carrying this valise, which was his only luggage.

He walked at a rapid pace to the other end of the long, straggling street, where there was a humbler inn, called the "Cross Keys." Here he entered, and asked for a bed-room, with a good fire, and something or other in the way of supper.

It was not till he had entered the room that the traveller took off the rough outer coat, the collar of which had almost entirely concealed his face. When he did so, he revealed the sallow countenance of Victor Carrington, and the flashing black eyes, which to-night shone with a peculiar brightness.

After he had eaten a hasty meal, he went out into the inn-yard, despite the fast-falling snow, to smoke a cigar, he said, to one of the servants whom he encountered on his way.

He had not been long in the yard, when a man emerged from one of the adjacent buildings, and approached him in a slow and stealthy manner.

"All right, guv'nor," said the man, in a low voice; "I've been on the look-out for you for the last two days."

The man was Jim Hawkins, Mr. Spavin's groom.

"Is 'Wild Buffalo' here?" asked Victor.

"Yes, sir; as safe and as comfortable as if he'd been foaled here."

"And none the worse for his journey?"

"Not a bit of it, sir. I brought him down by easy stages, knowing you wanted him kept fresh. And fresh he is--oncommon. P'raps you'd like to have a look at him."

"I should."

The groom led Mr. Carrington to a loose box, and the surgeon had the pleasure of beholding the bay horse by the uncertain light of a stable lantern.

The animal was, indeed, a noble specimen of his race.

It was only in the projecting eye-ball, the dilated nostril, the defiant carriage of the head, that his evil temper exhibited itself. Victor Carrington stood at a little distance from him, contemplating him in silence for some minutes.

"Have you ever noticed that spot?" asked Victor, presently, pointing to the white patch inside the animal's hock.

"Well, sir, one can't help noticing it when one knows where to look for it, though p'raps a stranger mightn't see it. That there spot's a kind of a blemish, you see, to my mind; for, if it wasn't for that, the brute wouldn't have a white hair about him."

"That's just what I've been thinking," answered Victor. "Now, my friend is just the sort of man to turn up his nose at a horse with anything in the way of a blemish about him, especially if he sees it before he has tried the animal, and found out his merits. But I've hit upon a plan for getting the better of him, and I want you to carry it out for me."

"I'm your man, guv'nor, whatever it is."

The surgeon produced a phial from his pocket, and with the phial a small painters' brush.

"In this bottle there's a brown dye," he said; "and I want you to paint the white spot with that brown dye after you've groomed the 'Buffalo,' so that whenever my friend comes to claim the horse the brute may be ready for him. You must apply the dye three or four times, at short intervals. It's a pretty fast one, and it'll take a good many pails of water to wash it out."

Jim Hawkins laughed heartily at the idea of this manoeuvre.

"Why you are a rare deep one, guv'nor," he exclaimed; "that there game is just like the canary dodge, what they do so well down Seven Dials way. You ketches yer sparrer, and you paints him a lively yeller, and then you sells him to your innocent customer for the finest canary as ever wabbled in the grove--a little apt to be mopish at first, but warranted to sing beautiful as soon as ever he gets used to his new master and missus. And, oh! don't he just sing beautiful--not at all neither."

"There's the bottle, Hawkins, and there's the brush. You know what you've got to do."

"All right, guv'nor."

"Good night, then," said Victor, as he left the stable.

He did not stay to finish his cigar under the fast-falling snow; but walked back to his own room, where he slept soundly.

He was astir very early the next morning. He went down stairs, after breakfasting in his own room, saw the landlord, and hired a good strong horse, commonly used by the proprietor of the "Cross Keys" on all his journeys to and from the market-town and outlying villages.

Victor Carrington mounted this horse, and rode across the Common to the village of Hallgrove.

He stopped to give his horse a drink of water before a village inn, and while stopping to do this he asked a few questions of the ostler.

"Whereabouts is Hallgrove Rectory?" he asked.

"About a quarter of a mile farther on, sir," answered the man; "you can't miss it if you keep along that road. A big red house, by the side of a river."

"Thanks. This is a great place for hunting, isn't it?"

"Yes, that it be, sir. The Horsley foxhounds are a'most allus meeting somewheres about here."

"When do they meet next?"

"The day arter to-morrow--Boxing-day, sir. They're to meet in the field by Hallgrove Ferry, a mile and a quarter beyond the rectory, at ten o'clock in the morning. It's to be a reg'lar grand day's sport, I've heard say. Our rector is to ride a new horse, wot's been given to him by his brother."

"Indeed!"

"Yes, sir; I war down at the rectory stables yesterday arternoon, and see the animal--a splendid bay, rising sixteen hands."

Carrington turned his horse's head in the direction of Hallgrove Rectory. He knew enough of the character of Lionel Dale to be aware that no opposition would be made to his loitering about the premises. He rode boldly up to the door, and asked for the rector. He was out, the servant said, but would the gentleman walk in and wait, or would he leave his name. Mr. Dale would be in soon; he had gone out with Captain and Miss Graham. Victor Carrington smiled involuntarily as he heard mention made of Lydia. "So you are here, too," he thought; "it is just as well you should not see me on this occasion, as I am not helping your game now, as I did in the case of Sir Oswald, but spoiling it."

No, the stranger gentleman thanked the man; he would not wait to see Mr. Dale (he had carefully ascertained that he was out before riding up to the house); but if the servant would show him the way, he would be glad, to get out on the lower road; he understood the rectory grounds opened upon it, at a little distance from the house. Certainly the man could show him--nothing easier, if the gentleman would take the path to the left, and the turn by the shrubbery, he would pass by the stables, and the lower road lay straight before him. Victor Carrington complied with these directions, but his after-conduct did not bear out the impression of his being in a hurry, which his words and manner had conveyed to the footman. It was at least an hour after he had held the above-mentioned colloquy, when Victor Carrington, having made himself thoroughly acquainted with the topography of the rector's premises, issued from a side-gate, and took the lower road, leading back to Frimley.

Then he went straight to the stable-yard, saw Mr. Spavin's groom, and dismissed him.

"I shall take the 'Buffalo' down to my friend's place this afternoon," he said to Hawkins. "Here's your money, and you can get back to London as soon as you like. I think my friend will be very well pleased with his bargain."

"Ay, ay," said Mr. Hawkins, whose repeated potations of execrable brandy had rendered him tolerably indifferent to all that passed around him, and who was actuated by no other feeling than a lively desire to obtain, the future favours of a liberal employer; "he's got to take care of hisself, and we've got to take care of ourselves, and that's all about it."

And then Mr. Hawkins, with something additional to the stipulated reward in his pocket, and a pint bottle of his favourite stimulant to refresh him on the way, took himself off, and Carrington saw no more of him. The people about the inn saw very little of Carrington, but it was with some surprise that the ostler received his directions to saddle the horse which stood in the stable, just when the last gleam of the short winter's daylight was dying out on Christmas-day. Carrington had not stirred beyond the precincts of the inn all the morning and afternoon. The strange visitor was all uninfluenced either by the devotional or the festive aspects of the season. He was quite alone, and as he sat in his cheerless little bedroom at the small country inn, and brooded, now over a pocket volume, thickly noted in his small, neat handwriting, now over the plans which were so near their accomplishment, he exulted in that solitude--he gave loose to the cynicism which was the chief characteristic of his mind. He cursed the folly of the idiots for whom Christmas-time had any special meaning, and secretly worshipped his own idols--money and power.

The horse was brought to him, and Carrington mounted him without any difficulty, and rode away in the gathering gloom. "Wild Buffalo" gave him no trouble, and he began to feel some misgivings as to the truth of the exceedingly bad character he had received with the animal. Supposing he should not be the unmanageable devil he was represented,--supposing all his schemes came to grief, what then? Why, then, there were other ways of getting rid of Lionel Dale, and he should only be the poorer by the purchase of a horse. On the other hand, "Wild Buffalo," plodding along a heavy country road, almost in the dark, and after the probably not too honestly dispensed feeding of a