Chapter 34
"Then just thoo leave other folks's business to theirselves, and come thy ways in with thee. Thoo wert allus thrang a-meddlin'."
The innkeeper had gone indoors and drawn himself a draught of ale.
"I allus like to see the ins and oots o' things," he observed, with a twinkle in his eye, and the pot to his mouth.
"Mind as you're not ower keen at seein' the ins and oots o' that pewter."
"I'll be keerful, auld la.s.s."
Hugh Ritson's horse went clattering over the stones of the streets until it came to the house of Mr. Bonnithorne. Then Hugh drew up sharply, jumped from the saddle, tied the reins to the loop in the gate-pier, and rang the bell. In another minute he was standing in the breakfast-room, which was made comfortable by a glowing fire. Mr. Bonnithorne, in dressing-gown and slippers, rose from his easy-chair with a look of surprise.
"Did you hear of the fire at the mill on Sat.u.r.day night?" asked Hugh in a faltering voice.
Mr. Bonnithorne nodded his head.
"Very unlucky, very," said the lawyer. "The man will want recompense, and the law will support him."
"Tut!--a bagatelle!" said Hugh, with a gesture of impatience.
"Of course, if you say so--"
"You've heard nothing about Paul?"
Mr. Bonnithorne answered with a shake of his yellow head, and a look of inquiry.
Then Hugh told him of the man at the fire, and of Natt's story when he drove up in the trap. He spoke with visible embarra.s.sment, and in a voice that could scarcely support itself. But the deep fear that had come over him had not yet taken hold of the lawyer. Mr. Bonnithorne listened with a bland smile of amused incredulity. Hugh stopped with a shudder.
"What are you thinking?" he asked, nervously.
"That Natt lied."
"As well say that the people at the fire
"No; you yourself saw Paul there."
"Bonnithorne, like all keen-eyed men, you are short-sighted. I have something more to tell you. The people at the Pack Horse say that Paul slept at their house last Wednesday night. Now I know that he slept at home."
Mr. Bonnithorne smiled again.
"A mistake as to the night," he said; "what can be plainer?"
"Don't wriggle; look the facts in the face."
"Facts?--a coincidence in evidence--a common error."
"Would to G.o.d it were!" Hugh strode about the room in obvious perturbation, his eyes bent on the ground. "Bonnithorne, what is the place where the girl Mercy lives?"
"An inn at Hendon."
"Do they call it the Hawk and Heron?"
"They do. The old woman Drayton keeps it."
Hugh Ritson's step faltered. He listened with a look of stupid consternation.
"Did I never tell you that the peddler, Oglethorpe, said he saw Paul at the Hawk and Heron in Hendon?"
Mr. Bonnithorne dropped back into his seat without a word. Conviction was taking hold of him.
"What do the folks say?" he asked at length.
"Say? That it was a ghost, a wraith, twenty things--the idiots!"
"What do you say, Mr. Ritson?"
"That it was another man."
The lawyer remained sitting, his eyes fixed and vacant.
"What then? What if it is another man? Resemblances are common. We are all brothers. For example, there are numbers of persons like myself in the world. Odd, isn't it?"
"Very," said Hugh, with a hard laugh.
"And what if there exists a man resembling your half-brother, Paul, so closely that on three several occasions he has been mistaken for him by competent witnesses--what does it come to?"
Hugh paused.
"Come to. G.o.d knows! I want to find out. Who is this man? What is he?
Where does he come from? What is his business here? Why, of all places on this wide earth, does he, of all men alive, haunt my house like a shadow?"
Hugh Ritson was still visibly perturbed.
"There's more in this matter than either of us knows," he said.
Mr. Bonnithorne watched him for a moment in silence.
"I think you draw a painful inference--what is it?" he asked.
"What?" repeated Hugh, and added, absently, "who can tell?"
Up and down the room he walked restlessly, his eyes bent on the floor, his face drawn down into lines. At length he stood and picked up the hat he had thrown on the couch.
"Bonnithorne," he said, "you and I thought we saw into the heart of a mystery. Heaven pity us for blind moles! I fear we saw nothing."
"Why--what--how so--when--" Mr. Bonnithorne stammered, and then stopped short.
Hugh had walked out of the room and out of the house. He leaped into the saddle and rode away.