Hard Cash

"My money! my money!" cried David fiercely: "no more words, for I shan't listen to them: I know you now for what you are--a thief! I saw you put it into that safe: a liar is always a thief. You want to steal my children's money: I'll have your life first. My money! ye pirate! or I'll strangle you." And he advanced upon him purple with rage, and shot out his long threatening arm and brown fingers working in the air. "D'ye know what I did to a French land-shark that tried to rob me of It? I throttled him with these fingers till his eyes and his tongue started out of him. He came for my children's money, and I killed him so--so--so--as I'll kill you, you thief! you liar! you scoundrel!"

His face black and convulsed with rage, and his outstretched fingers working convulsively, and hungering for a rogue's throat, made the resolute Hardie quake. He whipped out of the furious man's way, and got to the safe, pale and trembling. "Hus.h.!.+ no violence!" he gasped: "I'll give you your money this moment you ruffian."

While he unlocked the safe with trembling hands, Dodd stood like a man petrified, his arm and fingers stretched out and threatening; and Skinner saw him pull at his necktie furiously, like one choking.

Hardie got the notes and bills all in a hurry, and held them out to Dodd.

In which act, to his consternation and surprise and indignation, he received a back-handed blow on the eye that dazzled him for an instant; and there was David with his arms struggling wildly and his fists clenched, his face purple, and his eyes distorted so that little was seen but the whites the next moment his teeth gnashed loudly together, and he fell headlong on the floor with a concussion so momentous that the windows rattled and the room shook violently; the dust rose in a cloud.

A loud e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n burst from Hardie and Skinner,

And then there was an awful silence.

CHAPTER XIX

WHEN David fell senseless on the floor, Mr. Hardie was somewhat confused by the back-handed blow from his convulsed and whirling arm. But Skinner ran to him, held up his head, and whipped off his neckcloth.

Then Hardie turned to seize the bell and ring for a.s.sistance; but Skinner shook his head and said it was useless: this was no faint: old Betty could not help him.

"It is a bad day's work, sir," said he, trembling: "he is a dead man."

"Dead? Heaven forbid!"

"Apoplexy!" whispered Skinner.

"Run for a doctor then: lose no time: don't let us have his blood on our hands! Dead?"

And he repeated the word this time in a very different tone, a tone too strange and significant to escape Skinner's quick ear. However, he laid David's head gently down and rose from his knees to obey.

What did he see now, but Mr. Hardie, with his back turned, putting the notes and bills softly into the safe again out of sight. He saw, comprehended, and took his own course with equal rapidity.

"Come, run!" cried Mr. Hardie; "I'll take care of him; every moment is precious."

("Wants to get rid of me!" thought Skinner.) "No, sir," said he, "be ruled by me: let us take him to his friends: he won't live; and we shall get all the blame if we doctor him."

Already egotism had whispered Hardie, "How

and now a still guiltier thought flashed through him: he did not try to conquer it; he only trembled at himself for entertaining it.

"At least: give him air!" said he in a quavering voice, consenting to a crime, yet compromising with his conscience, feebly.

He threw the window, open with great zeal--with prodigious zeal; for, he wanted to deceive himself as well as Skinner. With equal parade he helped carry Dodd to the window; it opened, on the ground: this done, the self-deceivers put their heads together, and soon managed matters so that two porters, known to Skinner, were introduced into the garden, and informed that a gentleman had fallen down in a fit, and they were to take him home to his friends, and not talk about it: there might be an inquest, and that was so disagreeable to a gentleman like Mr. Hardie.

The men agreed at once for a sovereign apiece. It was all done in a great hurry and agitation, and while Skinner accompanied the men to see that they did not blab, Mr. Hardie went into the garden to breathe and think. But he could do neither.

He must have a look at It.

He stole back, opened the safe, and examined the notes and bills.

He fingered them.

They seemed to grow to his finger.

He l.u.s.ted after them.

He said to himself, "The matter has gone too far to stop; I _must_ go on borrowing this money of the Dodds, and make it the basis of a large fortune: it will be best for all parties in the end."

He put It into his pocket-book; that pocket-book into his breast-pocket; and pa.s.sed by his private door into the house, and to his dressing-room.

Ten minutes later he left the house with a little black bag in his band.

CHAPTER XX

"WHAT will ye give me, and I'll tell ye?" said Maxley to Alfred Hardie.

"Five pounds."

"That is too much."

"Five s.h.i.+llings, then."

"That is too little. Lookee here; your garden owes me thirty s.h.i.+llings for work: suppose you pays me, and that will save me from going to your Dad for it."

Alfred consented readily, and paid the money. Then Maxley told him it was Captain Dodd he had been talking with.

"I thought so! I thought so!" cried Alfred joyfully, "but I was afraid to believe it: it was too delightful. Maxley, you're a trump you don't know what anxiety you have relieved me of. Some fool has gone and reported the _Agia_ wrecked; look here!" and he showed him his Lloyd's.

"Luckily it has only just come, so I haven't been miserable long."

"Well, to be sure, news flies fast now-a-days. He have been wrecked for that matter." He then surprised Alfred by telling him all he had just learned from Dodd; and was going to let out about the L. 4,000, when he recollected this was the banker's son, and while he was talking to him, it suddenly struck Maxley that this young gentleman would come down in the world should the bank break, and then the Dodds, he concluded, judging others by himself, would be apt to turn their backs on him. Now he liked Alfred, and was disposed to do him a good turn, when he could without hurting James Maxley. "Mr. Alfred," said he, "I know the world better than you do: you be ruled by me, or you'll rue it. You put on your Sunday coat this minute, and off like a shot to Albyn Villee; you'll get there before the Captain; he have got a little business to do first; that is neither here nor there: besides, you are young and lissom. You be the first to tell Missus Dodd the good news; and, when the Captain comes, there sits you aside Miss Julee: and don't you be shy and shamefaced, take him when his heart is warm, and tell him why you are there: 'I love her dear,' says you. He be only a sailor and they never has no sense nor prudence; he is a'most sure to take you by the hand, at such a time: and once you get his word, he'll stand good, to his own hurt. He's one of that sort, bless his silly old heart."

A good deal of this was unintelligible to Alfred, but the advice seemed good--advice generally does when it squares with our own wishes. He thanked Maxley, left him, made a hasty toilet, and ran to Albion Villa.

Sarah opened the door to him in tears.

The news of the wreck had come to Albion Villa just half an hour ago, and in that half hour they had tasted more misery than hitherto their peaceful lot had brought them in years. Mrs. Dodd was praying and crying in her room; Julia had put on her bonnet, and was descending in deep distress and agitation, to go down to the quay and learn more if possible.

Alfred saw her on the stairs, and at sight of her pale, agitated face flew to her.

She held out both hands piteously to him: "O Alfred!"

"Good news!" he panted. "He is alive--Maxley has seen him--I have seen him--he will be here directly--my own love, dry your eyes--calm your fears--he is safe--he is well: hurrah! hurrah!"

The girl's pale face flushed red with hope, then pale again with emotion, then rosy red with transcendent joy. "Oh, bless you! bless you!" she murmured, in her sweet gurgle so full of heart: then took his head pa.s.sionately with both her hands, as if she was going to kiss him: uttered a little inarticulate cry of love and grat.i.tude over him, then turned and flew up the stairs, crying "Mamma! mamma!" and burst into her mother's room. When two such Impetuosities meet as Alfred and Julia, expect quick work.