Art thou a magistrate? Then be severe.--GEORGE HERBERT.
Early in the day General Mohun received a note from Clement Underwood,begging him to look in at St. Andrew's Rock as soon as might beconvenient.
"Ah," said his sister, "I strongly suspect something wrong about theboys. Fergus was very odd and silent last night when I asked him aboutJem Horner's picnic, and he said something about that Harewood cousinbeing an unmitigated brute."
"I hope Fergus was not in a scrape."
"Oh no, it is not his way. His geology is a great safeguard. If it hadbeen Wilfred I might have been afraid."
"His head is full--at least as much room as the lost aralia leaves--ofthe examination for the Winchester College election."
"Yes, you know Jasper has actually promised Gillian that if eitherof her brothers gets a scholarship, she may be allowed a year at LadyMargaret Hall."
"Yes, it incited her to worry Wilfred beyond sufferance in his holidays.I know if you or Lily had been always at me I should have kicked as hardas he does."
"Lily herself can hardly cram him with his holiday task; but Fergus is agood little fellow."
"You have kept him at it in a more judgmatical way. But won't Armytagecome in between the damsel and her college?"
"Poor Mr. Armytage--Captain, I believe, for he has got hiscommandership. Gill snubs him desperately. I believe she is afraid ofherself and her heart."
"I hope she won't be a goose. Jasper told me that he is an excellentfellow, and it will be an absolute misfortune if the girl is besottedenough to refuse him."
"Girls have set up a foolish prejudice against matrimony."
"Well, I am off. Clement Underwood is a reasonable man, and would notsend for me without cause."
General Mohun came to that opinion when he heard of the scene on thebeach, and of the absolute certainty that the contraband goods had beenprocured at Mrs. Schnetterling's. Before his visit was over, a note camedown on gold-edged, cyphered pink paper, informing the Reverend E. C.Underwood that Mrs. Campbell was much obliged to him for his attentionto her son, who was very unwell, entirely from the effects of clottedcream. And while they were still laughing over the scored words, Annaknocked at the door with a message from her aunt, to ask whether theycould come and speak to poor Mrs. Edgar, who was in a dreadful state.
"It is not about Adrian, I hope?" said she.
"Oh no, no, my dear; Adrian is all right, thanks to Fergus again," saidher uncle. "He is the boy's great protector; I only wish they could bealways together."
Poor Mrs. Edgar! Rumours had not been slow in reaching her of thecondition in which her scholars had been found, very odd rumours too.One that James Campbell had been brought home insensible, and the twosailors carried on board in the like state; and an opposite report, thatthe poor dear boys had only made themselves sick with dainties out ofMrs. Schnetterling's, and it was all a cruel notion of that teetotalritualist clergyman. Some boys would not speak, others were vague andcontradictory, and many knew nothing, Horner and Campbell were absent.Clement much relieved her by giving an account of the matter, anddeclaring that he feared his own elder nephew was the cause of all thescandal, though he believed that some of her bigger pupils were guiltyof obtaining a smaller quantity, knowingly, of the Schnetterling'sillicit wares, chiefly so far for the fun of doing somethingforbidden--"Stolen waters are sweet."
"A wicked woman! Surely she should not be allowed to go on."
"I am going, on the spot, to see what can be done," said General Mohun;"but indeed I should have thought young Campbell rather too old for yourprecincts."
"Ah! yes. He is troublesome, but he is so backward, and is so delicate,that his mother has implored me to keep him on, that he may havesea-bathing. But this shall be the final stroke!"
"It will be the ruin of your school otherwise," said the General.
"Ah! it might. And yet Mrs. Campbell will never be persuaded of thefact! And she is a person of much influence! However, I cannot have mypoor dear little fellows led astray."
Then, with some decided praises of dear little Sir Adrian, and regretsat losing Fergus Merrifield, whom she declared, on the authority of hergentleman assistant, to be certain of success, she departed; and Clementresumed his task of writing letters, which he believed to be useless,but which he felt to be right--one a grave warning to Edward Harewood,and one to his father, whose indulgence he could not but holdaccountable.
Reginald Mohun meanwhile went his way to the officer of Inland Revenue,who already had his suspicions as to Mrs. Schnetterling, and was gladof positive evidence. He returned with the General to hear from Mr.Underwood the condition in which he had found the boys, and the cause hehad for attributing it to the supplies from Mother Butterfly, and thiswas thought sufficient evidence to authorize the sending a constablewith a search-warrant to the shop. The two gentlemen were glad that thedetection should be possible without either sending a spy, or forcingevidence from the boys, who had much better be kept out of the matteraltogether. No lack of illicit stores was found when the policemen madetheir descent, and a summons was accordingly served on its mistress toappear at the next Petty Sessions.
Reginald Mohun, used to the justice of county magistrates, and theunflinching dealings of courts-martial, was determined to see the affairthrough, so he went to the magistrates' meeting, and returned with thetidings that the possession of smuggled tobacco ready for sale had beenproved against Mrs. Schnetterling, and she had been fined twenty-fivepounds, to be paid at the next Petty Sessions. Otherwise goods would beseized to that value, or she would have a short term of imprisonment.There was no doubt that contraband spirits were also found, but it wasnot thought expedient to press this charge.
He said the poor woman had been in a great passion of despair, wringingher hands and weeping demonstratively.
"Quite theatrical," he said. "I am sure she has been an actress."
"It did not prejudice your hard-headed town-councillors in her favour,"said Gerald.
"Far from it! In fact old Simmonds observed that she was a paintedforeign Jezebel."
"Not to her face!" said Gerald.
"We are not quite brutes, whatever you may think us, my boy," said theGeneral good-humouredly.
"Well," said Gerald, in the same tone, "how could I tell how it might bewhen the Philistines conspired to hunt down a poor foreign widow tryingto pick up a scanty livelihood?"
"If the poor foreign widow had been content without corrupting theboys," said Clement, "she would have been let alone."
"It was not for corrupting the boys. That was done--or not done--by myamiable cousin Ted. What harm did her 'baccy do to living soul?"
"It is a risky thing, to say the least of it, for a living soul todefraud the revenue," said Clement.
"Of which probably she never heard."
"She must have seen the terms of her licence," said the General.
"Aye, a way of increasing the revenue by burthens on the chief solace ofpoverty," said Gerald hotly.
"You'll come to your senses by and by, young man," imperturbablyanswered the General.
"Is she likely to be able to pay?" asked Gerald in return.
"Oh yes, the policeman said she drove a very thriving trade, both withthe boys and with the sailors, and that there was no doubt that shecould pay."
Clement was very glad to hear it, for it not only obviated any senseof harshness in his mind, but he thought Gerald, in his present moodof compassion--or opposition, whichever it was--capable of offering toundertake to pay the fine for her.
Poor little Ludmilla was found the next day by Mrs. Henderson, cryingsoftly over her work at the mosaic department--work which was onlythe mechanical arrangement from patterns provided, for she had nooriginality, and would never attain to any promotion in the profession.
Mrs. Henderson took the poor girl to her own little office, to try tocomfort her, and bring her into condition for the rehearsal of the scenewith Ferdinand, which she was to go through in Mr. Flight's parlourcha
peroned by his mother. She was so choked with sobs that it did notseem probable that she would have any voice; for she had been strugglingwith her tears all day, and now, in the presence of her friend, shegave them a free course. She thought it so cruel--so very cruel of thegentlemen; how could they do such a thing to a poor helpless stranger?And that tall one--to be a clergyman--how could he?
Mrs. Henderson tried to represent that, having accepted the licence oncertain terms, it was wrong to break them; and that the gentlemen mustbe right to hinder harm to their nephews.
It seemed all past the poor girl's understanding, since the nephews hadtaken no harm; and indeed the other boys had only touched the spiritsby way of joke and doing something forbidden: it had all come of thosehorrid young midshipmen, who had come down and worried and bothered hermother into giving them the bottles of spirits which had not been mixed.It was very hard.
"Ah, Lydia, one sin leads no one knows where! Those little boys, thinkof their first learning the taste for alcohol in secret!"
Lydia did see this, but after all, she said, it was not the spirits, butthe tobacco, which the Dutch and American sailors were glad enough toexchange for her mother's commodities. She had never perceived any harmin the arrangement, and hardly comprehended when the saying, "Custom towhom custom," was pointed out to her.
Kalliope asked whether the fine would fall heavily on her mother.
"Oh, that is worst of all. Mother is gone to Avoncester to raise themoney. She won't tell me how. And I do believe O'Leary's circus isthere."
Then came another sobbing fit.
"But how--what do you mean, my dear?"
"O'Leary was our clown when my father--my dear father--was alive. He wasa coarse horrid man, as cruel to the poor dear horses as he dared. Andnow he has set up for himself, and has been going about all over thecounty. Mother has been quite different ever since she met him one dayin Avoncester, and I fear--oh, I fear he will advance her this money,and make her give me up to him; and my dear father made her promise thatI would never be on the boards."
This was in an agony of crying, and it appeared that Schnetterling hadreally been a very decent, amiable person, who had been passionatelyfond of his little daughter. Her recollection dated from the time whenthe family had come from America, and he had become partner in a circus,intending to collect means enough to retire to a home in Germany, but hehad died five years ago, at Avoncester, of fever, and his wife had usedhis savings to set up this little shop at Rockquay, choosing that placebecause it was the resort of foreign trading-vessels, with whom herknowledge of languages would be available. She had suffered from thesame illness, and her voice had been affected at the time, and she wasaltogether subdued and altered, and had allowed her daughter to receivea good National school training; but with the recovery of health,activity, and voice, a new temper, or rather the old one renewed,had seized her, and since she had met her former companion, Ludmillaforeboded that the impulse of wandering had come upon her, and that ifthe interference of the authorities pressed upon her and endangered hertraffic, she would throw it up altogether, and drag her daughter intothe profession so dreadful to all the poor child's feelings.
No wonder that the girl cried till she had no voice, and took butpartial comfort from repeated assurances that her friends would do theirutmost on her behalf. Mrs. Henderson tried to compose and cheer her,walking with her herself to St. Kenelm's Parsonage, and trying to keepup her earnest desire to please Mr. Flight, the special object of herveneration. But wishes were ineffectual to prevent her from breakingdown in the first line of her first song, and when Mr. Flightblamed, and Lady Flight turned round on the music-stool to sayseverely--"Command yourself, Lydia," she became almost hysterical.
"Wait a minute," said Gerald. "Give her a glass of wine, and she will bebetter."
"Oh no, no; please, I'm temp--" and a sob.
The five o'clock tea was still standing on a little table, and Geraldpoured out a cup and took it to her, then set her down in an arm-chair,and said--
"I'll go through Angus' part, and she will be better," and as she triedto say "Thank you," and "So kind," he held up his hand, and told her tobe silent. In fact, his encouragement, and the little delay he had made,enabled her to recover herself enough to get through her part, thoughnothing like as well as would have been expected of her.
"Never mind," said Gerald, "she will be all right when my uncle comes.Won't you, Mona?"
"I should have expected--" began Lady Flight.
Gerald held up his hand in entreaty.
"People's voices can't be always the same," he said cheerily. "I knowour Mona will do us credit yet! Won't you, Mona? You know how to pity mewith my logs!"
"You had better go and have some tea in the kitchen, Lydia," said LadyFlight repressively; and Ludmilla curtsied herself off, with a look ofgratitude out of her swollen eyelids at Gerald.
"Poor little mortal," he said, as she went. "I am afraid that in hercase summum jus was summa injuria."
"It was quite right to prosecute that mischievous woman," said Mr.Flight.
"Maybe," said Gerald; "but wheat will grow alongside of tares."
"I hope the girl is wheat," half ironically and severely said the lady.
Gerald shrugged his shoulders and took his leave.
CHAPTER XVI. -- "SEE, THE CONQUERING HERO COMES"