The Cock and Anchor

"That's the bird?" said the fellow, interrogatively, and pointing with his pipe carelessly at Ashwoode. "You're my prisoner," he added, gruffly addressing the unfortunate young man, and at the same time planting his ponderous hand heavily upon his shoulder, he in the other exhibited a crumpled warrant.

"Grimes, go call a coach," said Blarden, "and don't be a brace of shakes about it, do you mind."

Grimes departed, and Blarden, after a long pause, suddenly addressing himself to Ashwoode, resumed, in a somewhat altered tone, but with intenser sternness still, —

"Now, I tell you what it is, my young cove, I have a sort of half a notion not to send you to gaol at all, do you hear?"

"Pshaw, pshaw!" said Ashwoode, turning bitterly away.

"I tell you I'm speaking what I mean," rejoined Blarden; "I'll not send you there now at any rate. I want to have a bit of chat with you this evening, and it shall rest with you whether you go there at all or not; I'll give you the choice fairly. We'll meet, then, at Morley Court this evening, at eight o'clock; and for fear of accidents in the meantime, you'll have no objection to our mutual friend, Mr. Chancey, and our common acquaintance, Mr. Grimes, accompanying you home in the coach, and just keeping an eye on you till I come, for fear you might be out walking when I call – you understand me? But here's Grimes. Mr. Grimes, my particular friend Sir Henry Ashwoode has taken an extraordinary remarkable fancy to you, and wishes to know whether you'll do him the favour to take a jaunt with him in a carriage to see his house at Morley Court, and to spend the day with him and Mr. Chancey, for he finds that his health requires him to keep at home, and he has a particular objection to be left alone, even for a minute. Sir Henry, the coach is at the door. You'd better bundle up your bank-notes, they may be useful to you. Chancey, tell Sir Henry's groom, as you pass, that he'll not want his horse any more to-day."

The party went out; Sir Henry, pale as death, and scarcely able to support himself on his limbs, walking between Chancey and the herculean constable. Blarden saw them safely shut up in the vehicle, and giving the coachman his orders, gazed after them as they drove away in the direction of Morley Court, with a flushed face and a bounding heart.

CHAPTER XXXVIII

STRANGE GUESTS AT THE MANOR

The coach jingled, jolted, and rumbled on, and Ashwoode lay back in the crazy conveyance in a kind of stupefied apathy. The scene which had just closed was, in his mind, a chaos of horrible confusion – a hideous, stunning dream, whose incidents, as they floated through his passive memory, seemed like unreal and terrific exaggerations, into whose reality he wanted energy and power to inquire. Still before him sate a breathing evidence of the truth of all these confused and horrible recollections – the stalwart, ruffianly figure of the constable – with his great red horny hands, and greasy cuffs, and the heavy coat buttoned up to his unshorn chin – and the short, discoloured pipe, protruding from the corner of his mouth – lounging back with half-closed eyes, and the air of a man who had passed the night in wearisome vigils among strife and riot, and who has acquired the compensating power of dividing his faculties at all times pretty nearly between sleep and waking – a kind of sottish, semi-existence – something between that of a swine and a sloth. Over this figure the eyes of the young man vacantly wandered, and thence to the cheerful fields and trees visible from the window, and back again to the burly constable, until every seam and button in his coat grew familiar to his mind as the oldest tenants of his memory. Beside him, too, sate Chancey – his artful, cowardly betrayer. Yet even against him he could not feel anger; all energy of thought and feeling seemed lost to him; and nothing but a dull ambiguous incredulity and a scared stupor were there in their stead. On – on they rolled and rumbled, among pleasant fields and stately hedge-rows, toward the ancestral dwelling of the miserable prisoner, who sate like a lifeless effigy, yielding passively to every jolt and movement of the carriage.

"I say, Grimes, were you ever out here before?" inquired Mr. Chancey. "We'll soon be in the manor, driving up to Morley Court. It's a fine place, I'm given to understand. I never was here but once before, long as I know Sir Henry; but better late than never. Do you know this place, Mr. Grimes?"

A negative grunt and a short nod relieved Mr. Grimes from the painful necessity of removing his pipe for the purpose of uttering an articulate answer.

"Oh, dear me, dear me," resumed Mr. Chancey, "but I'm uncommon hungry and dry. I wish to God we were safe and sound in Sir Henry's house. Grimes, are you dry?"

Mr. Grimes removed his pipe, and spat upon the coach floor.

"Am I dhry?" said he. "About as dhry as a sprat in a tindher-box, that's all. Is there much more to go?"

Chancey stretched his head out of the coach window.

"I see the old piers of the avenue," said he; "and God knows but it's I that's glad we're near our journey's end. Now we're passing in – we're in the avenue."

Mr. Grimes hereupon uttered a grunt of approbation; and pressing down the ashes of his pipe with his thumb, he deposited that instrument in his waistcoat pocket – whence, at the same time, he drew a small plug of tobacco, which he inserted in his mouth, and rolled it about with his tongue from time to time during the remainder of their progress.

"Sir Henry, we're arrived," said Chancey, admonishing the baronet with his elbow – "we're at the hall-door at Morley Court. Sir Henry – dear me, dear me, he's very abstracted, so he is. I say, Sir Henry, we're at Morley Court."

Ashwoode looked vacantly in Chancey's face, and then upon the stately door of the old house, and suddenly recollecting himself, he said with strange alacrity, —

"Ay, ay – at Morley Court – so we are. Come, then, gentlemen, let us get down."

Accordingly the three companions descended from the conveyance, and entered the ancient dwelling-house together.

"Follow me, gentlemen," said Ashwoode, leading the way to a small, oak-wainscoted parlour. "You shall have refreshments immediately."

He called the servant to the door, and continued addressing himself to Chancey, and his no less refined companion.

"Order what you please, gentlemen – I can't think of these things just now; and, sirrah, do you hear me, bring a large vessel of water – my throat is literally scorched."

"Well, Mr. Chancey, what do you say?" said Grimes. "I'm for a couple of bottles of sack, and a good pitcher of ale, to begin with, in the way of liquor."

"Well, it wouldn't be that bad," said Chancey. "What meat have you on the spit, my good man?"

"I don't exactly know, sir," replied the wondering domestic; "but I'll inquire."

"And see, my good man," continued Chancey, "ask them whether there isn't some cold roast beef in the buttery; and if so, bring it up in a jiffy, for, I declare to G – d I'm uncommon hungry; and let the cook send up a hot joint directly; – and do you mind, my honest man, light a bit of a fire here, for it's rather chill, and put plenty of dry sticks – "

"Give us the ale and the sack this instant minute, do you see," said Mr. Grimes. "You may do the rest after."

"Yes, you may as well," resumed Chancey; "for indeed I'm lost with the drooth myself."

"Cut your stick, saucepan," said Mr. Grimes, authoritatively; and the servant departed in unfeigned astonishment to execute his various commissions.

Ashwoode threw himself into a seat, and in silence endeavoured to collect his thoughts. Faint, sick, and stunned, he nevertheless began gradually to comprehend every particular of his position more and more fully – until at length all the ghastly truth stood revealed to his mind's eye in vivid and glaring distinctness. While Ashwoode was engaged in his agreeable ruminations, Mr. Chancey and Mr. Grimes were busily employed in discussing the substantial fare which his larder had supplied, and pledging one another in copious libations of generous liquor.

CHAPTER XXXIX

THE BARGAIN, AND THE NEW CONFEDERATES

At length the evening came – darkness closed over the old place, and as the appointed hour approached, Ashwoode became more and more excited.

"I must," thought he, "keep every faculty intensely on the stretch, to detect, if possible, the nature of their schemes. Blarden and Chancey have unquestionably hatched some other d – d plot, though what worse can befall me? I am netted as completely as their worst malice can desire. It is now seven o'clock. Another hour will determine all my doubts. Hark you, sirrah!" continued he, raising his voice, and addressing a servant who had entered the chamber, "I expect a gentleman upon particular business at eight o'clock. On his arrival conduct him directly to this room."

He then relapsed into the same train of gloomy and agitated thought.

Chancey and his burly companion both sat snugly before the fire smoking their pipes in silent enjoyment, while their miserable host paced the room from wall to wall in mental torments indescribable.

At length the weary interval expired, and within a few minutes of the appointed hour, Nicholas Blarden was admitted by the servant, and ushered into the chamber in which Ashwoode expected his arrival.

"Well, Sir Henry," exclaimed Blarden, as he swaggered into the room, "you seem a little flustered still – eh? Hope you found your company pleasant. My friends' society is considered uncommon agreeable."

The visitor here threw himself into a chair, and continued —

"By the holy Saint Paul, as I rode up your cursed old dusky avenue, I began to think the chances were ten to one you had brought your throat and a razor acquainted before this. I have known men do it under your circumstances – of course I mean gentlemen, with fine friends and delicate habits, and who could not stand exposure and all that kind of thing. I say, Mr. Grimes, my sweet fellow, you may leave the room, but keep within call, do ye mind. Mr. Chancey and I want to have a little confidential conversation with my friend, Sir Henry. Bundle out, and the moment you hear me call your name, bolt in again like a shot."

Mr. Grimes, without answering, rose and lounged out of the room.

"Chancey, shut that door," continued Blarden. "Shut it tight, as tight as a drum. There, to your seat again. Now then, Sir Henry, we may as well to business; but first of all, sit down. I have no objection to your sitting. Don't be shy."

Sir Henry Ashwoode did seat himself, and the three members of this secret council drew their chairs around the table, each with very different feelings.

"I take it for granted," said Blarden, planting his elbow upon the table, and supporting his chin upon his hand, while he fixed his baleful eyes upon the young man, "I take it for granted, and as a matter of course, that you have been puzzling your brains all day to come at the reason why I allow you to be sitting in this house, instead of clapping your four bones under lock and key, in another place."

He paused here, as if to allow his exordium to impress itself upon the memory of his auditory, and then resumed, —

"And I take it for granted, moreover, that you are not quite fool enough to imagine that I care one blast if you were strung up by the hangman, and carved by the doctors, to-morrow – eh?"

He paused again.