Mr. Brabazon did not make the most patient or sweet-tempered of invalids, if a man may be termed an invalid who is laid up with nothing more serious than a sprained ankle. As it happened, he had no one but himself and his landlady to vent his ill-humour on, and as the latter was in the habit of bursting into tears on the slightest provocation, he kept her at arm\'s length as much as possible. What made him especially savage was that his accident should have happened at a time when every hour was, or seemed to him, of infinite consequence. What might not be happening at Garion Keep--to what straits might not his uncle be reduced--while he, Burgo, was lying on his back, a helpless log, unable to walk across the floor without exquisite pain? A score times a day he ground out maledictions between his teeth at the untoward fate which had thus scurvily laid him by the heels.
Nor was his amiability increased when he one day read in the Times an announcement of the marriage of Miss Leslie to Lord Penwhistle. That Mrs. Mordaunt would hurry on the match he knew full well, and for some time he had never opened a newspaper without half expecting to see the announcement, yet for all that, now it had come, it was like a sudden stab. That Clara was fickle, mercenary, and altogether lacking in stability of character, he had long ago made up his mind; indeed, there had not been wanting times when he had told himself he ought to thank his stars that, at whatever cost to himself, he had been hindered from uniting his fate with hers. Still, despite all this, it was inevitable that he should feel a lingering tendresse for one around whom, only such a little while before, his imagination had woven the golden tissues of the fairest day-dreams his life had yet known.
Sadly and bitterly sped the next few days for Burgo. There was nothing for him to do, there was nothing he could do, save lie on his back and think--think--think. And what a pleasant and profitable occupation that is when we are possessed at once with a sense of our helplessness and a burning anxiety to be up and doing, some of us may unfortunately have learnt to our cost.
Still, despite his anxiety to follow up with the least possible delay the clue which Benny Hines\'s niece had furnished him with, he recognised how useless and foolish it would be to do so till he should be able to move about with some measure of activity. Consequently it was not till upwards of a fortnight from the date of his accident that he finally found himself en route for Oakbarrow station, and even then he was not able to walk more than a few yards without the help of a stout malacca.
Oakbarrow station is between two and three miles inland. On reaching there Burgo hired a fly to convey himself and his portmanteau to Crag End, an insignificant fishing hamlet about a mile and a half from the Keep, which lived in his memory as a spot where he and his uncle had been caught in a thunder-storm on the occasion of their visit six years before. There was only one tolerable inn in the place, and there Burgo alighted. Yes, they would be glad to accommodate him in their humble way, said the landlord. He could have a bedroom, and also the use of the upstairs sitting-room, except on market days, when the country folk and their wives looked to have the run of the house. Burgo, who was never exacting in minor matters, professed himself as being quite satisfied; and as things turned out he had every reason for being so.
Knowing how curious people in little country places are with regard to the names and business of strangers, Burgo wisely determined to supply the needful information about himself before curiosity had time to be hatched. His name was Lumsden, he told Tyson, the landlord; he was from London, and was by profession an artist. He had journeyed all the way to Cumberland partly in the hope of benefiting his health, and partly with the view of taking a series of sketches of the scenery and objects of interest in the neighbourhood for one of the illustrated papers. As it happened, he could sketch fairly well for an amateur, and he had been careful that his luggage should include the needful drawing materials, together with a portfolio containing sundry studies in chalks and pencil several years old.
His intention had been to take a quiet stroll with the help of his malacca in the dusk of evening in the direction of the Keep and reconnoitre it from a distance.
He wanted to familiarise himself with the features of the old place, with regard to some of which his memory was rather uncertain. But towards four o\'clock the weather changed and it began to rain heavily, nor did it cease till night had fairly set in. It was undeniably annoying, but there was no help for it. "Mr. Lumsden" must perforce remain indoors till the morrow.
But it seemed to him that if he could not make use of his time in the way he had designed, he might perhaps be able to do so in another way. There were many things he was still ignorant of, many things which, figuratively speaking, he was dying to know, and he thought it not unlikely that his landlord might be able to enlighten him with regard to some of them. Tyson, if not a man of much education, was intelligent and well-mannered, and had nothing of the provincial boor about him. In his younger days he had been a gentleman\'s servant and had travelled--a fact which he was careful to impress upon all who were brought into contact with him. In that simple little community it gave him a certain cachet, and enabled him to speak with an air of authority on many subjects about which in reality he knew next to nothing. His trained eye had at once detected that "Mr. Lumsden" was not quite what he professed to be--that there was far less of the wandering artist than of the West End flaneur about him. Dress, voice, manner, and that elusive something which makes its presence felt but defies definition, all betrayed him.
"Don\'t tell me!" said Mr. Tyson to his wife, who had not spoken for the last five minutes; "he\'s a swell to his finger-tips, and I think I ought to know one when I see him. He\'s doing the artist dodge for a lark, or because he\'s quarrelled with his governor, or because his young woman\'s given him the go-bye. Anyhow, it\'s no business of ours, and if Mr. Lumsden thinks he has thrown dust in my eyes he\'s quite welcome to his opinion. Only, as I said before, I know a real swell when I see one."
It is not, therefore, to be wondered at that when Mr. Lumsden, after the candles had been lighted, complained of feeling a little lonely, and requested as a favour that the landlord would keep him company over a bottle of "John Jameson" (what wine there was in the house he had found wholly unthinkable), and some of Burgo\'s own cigars, that worthy should have complied with alacrity.
Burgo had the knack, when he chose to exercise it, which was not always by any means, of putting those who, in no offensive sense, might be termed his inferiors, at their ease, and in five minutes Mr. Tyson felt himself quite at home, while at the same time perfectly aware that there was an invisible line drawn between himself and the man seated opposite him which he must on no account attempt to overpass. But the landlord was one of the last men to have attempted anything of the kind.
A turf fire had been lighted which, if it did not throw out much heat, imparted an air of cheerfulness to the homely sitting-room, for in September on the Cumberland seaboard the nights often strike sojourners from the South as being unpleasantly chilly. On this particular evening a cold rain was falling outside, and the incoming tide had brought with it a wind which tore in fitful gusts down the village street and smote each diamond-paned window with a watery lash in passing. A couple of wax candles, reserved by Mrs. Tyson for very special occasions, in brass candlesticks of amazing brilliancy, stood on the oaken three-legged table, together with all the appliance............