The Bramleighs of Bishop's Folly

“Ay, and her companion, too. I tell you, Gusty, there’s the same comrade spirit amongst girls that there is in a ship’s company; and where good ones come together they make each other better. But tell me now of yourself. What’s your news?”

“Not good; far from it. I believe, indeed, our cause is ‘up.’ He – Pracontal, I mean – intends to behave handsomely by us. There will be no severity used. Indeed, he means to go further; but I ‘ll have time enough for all this later on. I ‘m so glad to see you again, my poor dear fellow, that I have no mind to think of anything else.”

“How did you get rid of Cutbill?”

“I have n’t got rid of him; he is on board there. I don’t think he means to land. I suspect he ‘ll go on with the steamer to-night; and he is so ashamed to show, that he is snug in his berth all this time.”

“But what does he mean by that?”

“He ‘s in a scrape, Jack, and had to get away from England to save himself from a jail; but I ‘ll tell you the story this evening, – or, better still, I ‘ll make him tell you, if you can manage to persuade him to come on shore.”

“That he shall do,” said Jack. “He behaved like a trump to me once when I was in trouble; and I don’t forget it.” And so saying, he hastened on board the packet, and hurried below, to re-appear in a few minutes, holding Cutbill by the collar, as though he were his prisoner.

“Here’s the culprit,” cried Jack; “and if he won’t land his luggage, he must take to a Montenegro rig like mine; and he ‘ll become it well.”

“There, don’t collar me that fashion. See how the fellows are all staring at us. Have you no decency?”

“Will you come quietly, then?”

“Yes; let them hand up my two trunks and my violin case. What a droll place this is.”

“There ‘s many a worse, I can tell you, than our villa yonder. If it were my own, I ‘d never ask to leave it.”

“Nor need you, Jack,” whispered Augustus. “I’ve brought back money to buy it; and I hope it will be our home this many a day.”

“What’s this scrape of yours, Cutty?” said Jack, as they made their way homewards. “Whom have you been robbing this time, or was it forgery?”

“Let him tell you,” said Cutbill, doggedly, as he motioned with his hand towards Gusty.

“It’s a mixed case of robbery with housebreaking,” said Augustus. “Pracontal had taken it into his head that certain papers of great value to himself were concealed in some secret press in our house at Castello; and Cutbill was just as convinced that there were no papers and no press, and that the whole was a dream or a delusion. They argued the case so often that they got to quarrel about it.”

“No, we did n’t quarrel,” broke in Cutbill, sulkily; “we betted.”

“Yes, that is more correct Pracontal was so firmly persuaded that the papers existed that he offered three to one on it, and Cutbill, who likes a good thing, took it in hundreds.”

“No. I wish I had. It was in fifties.”

“As they had no permission to make the search, which required to break down the wall, and damage a valuable fresco – ”

“No. It was under the fresco, in a pedestal. I ‘d engage to make it good for thirty shillings,” broke in Cutbill.

“Well, we ‘ll not dispute that The essential point is that Pracontal’s scruples would not permit him to proceed to an act of depredation, but that Cutbill had more resolution. He wanted to determine the fact.”

“Say that he wanted to win his money, and you ‘ll be nearer the mark,” interposed Cutbill.

“Whichever way we take it, it amounts to this: Pracontal would not be a housebreaker, and Cutbill had no objection to become one. I cannot give you the details of the infraction – perhaps he will.”

Cutbill only grunted, and the other went on – “However he obtained entrance, he made his way to the place indicated, smashed the wall, and dragged forth a box with four or five thick volumes, which turned out to be the parish registries of Portshandon for a very eventful period, at least a very critical one for us; for, if the discovery loses Mr. Cutbill his fifty pounds, it places the whole estate in jeopardy.”

“That’s the worst of it,” cried Cutbill. “My confounded meddling has done it all.”

“When my lawyer came to hear what had occurred, and how, he lost no time in taking measures to proceed against Cutbill for a felony; but Master C. had got away, and was already hiding in Germany, and our meeting on the steamboat here was a mere hazard. He was bound for – where was it, Cutbill?”

“Albania. I want to see the salt mines. There ‘s something to be done there now that the Turks are not sure they ‘ll own the country this time twelvemonth.”

“At all events, it ‘s better air than Newgate,” said Jack.

“As you politely observe, sir, it’s better air than Newgate. By the way, you’ve been doing a little stroke of work as a jailbird, latterly; is it jolly?”

“No; it ain’t exactly jolly; it’s too monotonous for that. And then the diet.”

“Ah, there’s the rub! It’s the skilly, it’s the four-ounce system, I ‘m afraid of. Make it a good daily regimen, and I ‘ll not quarrel with the mere confinement, nor ask for any extension of the time allotted to exercise.”

“I must say,” said Jack, “that, for a very acute and ingenious gentleman, this same piece of burglary was about one of the stupidest performances I ever heard of.”

“Not so fast, admiral, not so fast. I stood on a double event. I had lent Pracontal a few hundreds, to be repaid by as many thousands if he established his claim. I began to repent of my investment, and my bet was a hedge. Do you see, old fellow, if there were no books, I pocketed a hundred and fifty. If the books turned up, I stood to win on the trial. You may perceive that Tom Cutbill sleeps like a weazel, and has always one eye open.”

“Was it a very friendly part, then, to lend a man money to prosecute a claim against your own friend?” asked Jack.

“Lord love ye, I’d do that against my brother. The man of business and the desk is one thing, the man of human feelings and affections is another. If a man follows any pursuit worth the name of a pursuit, the ardor to succeed in it will soon swamp his scruples; aye, and not leave him one jot the worse for it. Listen to me a minute. Did you ever practise fly-fishing? Well, can you deny it is in principle as ignoble a thing as ever was called sport? It begins in a fraud, and it finishes with a cruelty; and will you tell me that your moral nature, or any grand thing that you fancy dignifies you, was impaired or stained when you landed that eight-pound trout on the grass?”

“You forget that men are not trout, Master Cutbill.”

“There are a good number of them gudgeons, I am happy to say,” cried he. “Give me a light for my cigar, for I am sick of discussion. Strange old tumble-down place this – might all be got for a song, I ‘d swear. What a grand speck it would be to start a company to make a watering place of it: ‘The Baths of Cattaro, celebrated in the time of Diocletian’ – eh? Jack, does n’t your mouth water at the thought of ‘preliminary expenses’?”

“I can’t say it does. I’ve been living among robbers lately, and I found them very dull company.”

“The sailor is rude; his manners smack of the cockpit,” said Cutbill, nudging Augustus in the side. “Oh, dear, how I ‘d like a commission to knock this old town into a bathing machine.”

“You’ll have ample time to mature your project up at the villa. There, you see it yonder.”

“And is that the British flag I see waving there? Wait a moment till I master my emotion, and subdue the swelling feelings of my breast.”

“I ‘ll tell you what, Master Cutbill,” said Jack, sternly, “if you utter any stupid rubbish against the Union Jack, I’ll be shot if I don’t drop you over the sea-wall for a ducking; and, what’s more, I ‘ll not apologize to you when you come out.”

“Outrage the second. The naval service is not what I remember it.”

“Here come the girls,” said Augustus. “I hear Julia’s merry laugh in the wood.”

“The L’Estrange girl, isn’t it?” asked Cutbill; and though Jack started and turned almost as if to seize him, he never noticed the movement.

“Miss L’Estrange,” said Augustus Bramleigh.

“Why didn’t you say she was here, and I’d not have made any ‘bones’ about stopping? I don’t know I was ever as spooney as I was about that girl up at Albano. And did n’t I work like a negro to get back her two thousand pounds out of that precious coal mine? Aye, and succeeded too. I hope she knows it was Tom Cutbill saved the ship. Maybe she ‘ll think I ‘ve come to claim salvage.”

“She has heard of all your good-nature, and is very grateful to you,” said Gusty.

“That’s right; that’s as it ought to be. Doing good by stealth always strikes me as savoring of a secret society. It’s Thuggee, or Fenian, or any other dark association you like.”