Whatever good Mr. Raffles Haw’s
wealth did to the world, there could be no doubt that
there were cases where it did harm. The very contemplation
and thought of it had upon many a disturbing and mischievous
effect. Especially was this the case with the
old gunmaker. From being merely a querulous and
grasping man, he had now become bitter, brooding, and
dangerous. Week by week, as he saw the tide of
wealth flow as it were through his very house without
being able to divert the smallest rill to nourish
his own fortunes, he became more wolfish and more hungry-eyed.
He spoke less of his own wrongs, but he brooded more,
and would stand for hours on Tamfield Hill looking
down at the great palace beneath, as a thirst-stricken
man might gaze at the desert mirage.
He had worked, and peeped, and pried,
too, until there were points upon which he knew more
than either his son or his daughter.
“I suppose that you still don’t
know where your friend gets his money?” he remarked
to Robert one morning, as they walked together through
the village.
“No, father, I do not.
I only know that he spends it very well.”
“Well!” snarled the old
man. “Yes, very well! He has helped
every tramp and slut and worthless vagabond over the
countryside, but he will not advance a pound, even
on the best security, to help a respectable business
man to fight against misfortune.”
“My dear father, I really cannot
argue with you about it,” said Robert.
“I have already told you more than once what
I think. Mr. Haw’s object is to help those
who are destitute. He looks upon us as his equals,
and would not presume to patronise us, or to act as
if we could not help ourselves. It would be a
humiliation to us to take his money.”
“Pshaw! Besides, it is
only a question of an advance, and advances are made
every day among business men. How can you talk
such nonsense, Robert?”
Early as it was, his son could see
from his excited, quarrelsome manner that the old
man had been drinking. The habit had grown upon
him of late, and it was seldom now that he was entirely
sober.
“Mr. Raffles Haw is the best
judge,” said Robert coldly. “If he
earns the money, he has a right to spend it as he
likes.”
“And how does he earn it?
You don’t know, Robert. You don’t
know that you aren’t aiding and abetting a felony
when you help him to fritter it away. Was ever
so much money earned in an honest fashion? I tell
you there never was. I tell you, also, that lumps
of gold are no more to that man than chunks of coal
to the miners over yonder. He could build his
house of them and think nothing of it.”
“I know that he is very rich,
father. I think, however, that he has an extravagant
way of talking sometimes, and that his imagination
carries him away. I have heard him talk of plans
which the richest man upon earth could not possibly
hope to carry through.”
“Don’t you make any mistake,
my son. Your poor old father isn’t quite
a fool, though he is only an honest broken merchant.”
He looked up sideways at his son with a wink and a
most unpleasant leer. “Where there’s
money I can smell it. There’s money there,
and heaps of it. It’s my belief that he
is the richest man in the world, though how he came
to be so I should not like to guarantee. I’m
not quite blind yet, Robert. Have you seen the
weekly waggon?”
“The weekly waggon!”
“Yes, Robert. You see I
can find some news for you yet. It is due this
morning. Every Saturday morning you will see the
waggon come in. Why, here it is now, as I am
a living man, coming round the curve.”
Robert glanced back and saw a great
heavy waggon drawn by two strong horses lumbering
slowly along the road which led to the New Hall.
From the efforts of the animals and its slow pace
the contents seemed to be of great weight.
“Just you wait here,”
old McIntyre cried, plucking at his son’s sleeve
with his thin bony hand. “Wait here and
see it pass. Then we will watch what becomes
of it.”
They stood by the side of the road
until it came abreast of them. The waggon was
covered with tarpaulin sheetings in front and at the
sides, but behind some glimpse could be caught of
the contents. They consisted, as far as Robert
could see, of a number of packets of the same shape,
each about two feet long and six inches high, arranged
symmetrically upon the top of each other. Each
packet was surrounded by a covering of coarse sacking.
“What do you think of that?”
asked old McIntyre triumphantly as the load creaked
past.
“Why, father? What do you make of it?”
“I have watched it, Robert I
have watched it every Saturday, and I had my chance
of looking a little deeper into it. You remember
the day when the elm blew down, and the road was blocked
until they could saw it in two. That was on a
Saturday, and the waggon came to a stand until they
could clear a way for it. I was there, Robert,
and I saw my chance. I strolled behind the waggon,
and I placed my hands upon one of those packets.
They look small, do they not? It would take a
strong man to lift one. They are heavy, Robert,
heavy, and hard with the hardness of metal. I
tell you, boy, that that waggon is loaded with gold.”
“Gold!”
“With solid bars of gold, Robert.
But come into the plantation and we shall see what
becomes of it.”
They passed through the lodge gates,
behind the waggon, and then wandered off among the
fir-trees until they gained a spot where they could
command a view. The load had halted, not in front
of the house, but at the door of the out-building
with the chimney. A staff of stablemen and footmen
were in readiness, who proceeded to swiftly unload
and to carry the packages through the door. It
was the first time that Robert had ever seen any one
save the master of the house enter the laboratory.
No sign was seen of him now, however, and in half an
hour the contents had all been safely stored and the
waggon had driven briskly away.
“I cannot understand it, father,”
said Robert thoughtfully, as they resumed their walk.
“Supposing that your supposition is correct,
who would send him such quantities of gold, and where
could it come from?”
“Ha, you have to come to the
old man after all!” chuckled his companion.
“I can see the little game. It is clear
enough to me. There are two of them in it, you
understand. The other one gets the gold.
Never mind how, but we will hope that there is no
harm. Let us suppose, for example, that they
have found a marvellous mine, where you can just shovel
it out like clay from a pit. Well, then, he sends
it on to this one, and he has his furnaces and his
chemicals, and he refines and purifies it and makes
it fit to sell. That’s my explanation of
it, Robert. Eh, has the old man put his finger
on it?”
“But if that were true, father,
the gold must go back again.”
“So it does, Robert, but a little
at a time. Ha, ha! I’ve had my eyes
open, you see. Every night it goes down in a small
cart, and is sent on to London by the 7.40. Not
in bars this time, but done up in iron-bound chests.
I’ve seen them, boy, and I’ve had this
hand upon them.”
“Well,” said the young
man thoughtfully, “maybe you are right.
It is possible that you are right.”
While father and son were prying into
his secrets, Raffles Haw had found his way to Elmdene,
where Laura sat reading the Queen by the fire.
“I am so sorry,” she said,
throwing down her paper and springing to her feet.
“They are all out except me. But I am sure
that they won’t be long. I expect Robert
every moment.”
“I would rather speak with you
alone,” answered Raffles Haw quietly. “Pray
sit down, for I wanted to have a little chat with you.”
Laura resumed her seat with a flush
upon her cheeks and a quickening of the breath.
She turned her face away and gazed into the fire; but
there was a sparkle in her eyes which was not caught
from the leaping flames.
“Do you remember the first time
that we met, Miss McIntyre?” he asked, standing
on the rug and looking down at her dark hair, and the
beautifully feminine curve of her ivory neck.
“As if it were yesterday,”
she answered in her sweet mellow tones.
“Then you must also remember
the wild words that I said when we parted. It
was very foolish of me. I am sure that I am most
sorry if I frightened or disturbed you, but I have
been a very solitary man for a long time, and I have
dropped into a bad habit of thinking aloud. Your
voice, your face, your manner, were all so like my
ideal of a true woman, loving, faithful, and sympathetic,
that I could not help wondering whether, if I were
a poor man, I might ever hope to win the affection
of such a one.”
“Your good opinion, Mr. Raffles
Haw, is very dear to me,” said Laura. “I
assure you that I was not frightened, and that there
is no need to apologise for what was really a compliment.”
“Since then I have found,”
he continued, “that all that I had read upon
your face was true. That your mind is indeed that
of the true woman, full of the noblest and sweetest
qualities which human nature can aspire to. You
know that I am a man of fortune, but I wish you to
dismiss that consideration from your mind. Do
you think from what you know of my character that
you could be happy as my wife, Laura?”
She made no answer, but still sat
with her head turned away and her sparkling eyes fixed
upon the fire. One little foot from under her
skirt tapped nervously upon the rug.
“It is only right that you should
know a little more about me before you decide.
There is, however, little to know. I am an orphan,
and, as far as I know, without a relation upon earth.
My father was a respectable man, a country surgeon
in Wales, and he brought me up to his own profession.
Before I had passed my examinations, however, he died
and left me a small annuity. I had conceived
a great liking for the subjects of chemistry and electricity,
and instead of going on with my medical work I devoted
myself entirely to these studies, and eventually built
myself a laboratory where I could follow out my own
researches. At about this time I came into a
very large sum of money, so large as to make me feel
that a vast responsibility rested upon me in the use
which I made of it. After some thought I determined
to build a large house in a quiet part of the country,
not too far from a great centre. There I could
be in touch with the world, and yet would have quiet
and leisure to mature the schemes which were in my
head. As it chanced, I chose Tamfield as my site.
All that remains now is to carry out the plans which
I have made, and to endeavour to lighten the earth
of some of the misery and injustice which weigh it
down. I again ask you, Laura, will you throw
in your lot with mine, and help me in the life’s
work which lies before me?”
Laura looked up at him, at his stringy
figure, his pale face, his keen, yet gentle eyes.
Somehow as she looked there seemed to form itself
beside him some shadow of Hector Spurling, the manly
features, the clear, firm mouth, the frank manner.
Now, in the very moment of her triumph, it sprang
clearly up in her mind how at the hour of their ruin
he had stood firmly by them, and had loved the penniless
girl as tenderly as the heiress to fortune. That
last embrace at the door, too, came back to her, and
she felt his lips warm upon her own.
“I am very much honoured, Mr.
Haw,” she stammered, “but this is so sudden.
I have not had time to think. I do not know what
to say.”
“Do not let me hurry you,”
he cried earnestly. “I beg that you will
think well over it. I shall come again for my
answer. When shall I come? Tonight?”
“Yes, come tonight.”
“Then, adieu. Believe me
that I think more highly of you for your hesitation.
I shall live in hope.” He raised her hand
to his lips, and left her to her own thoughts.
But what those thoughts were did not
long remain in doubt. Dimmer and dimmer grew
the vision of the distant sailor face, clearer and
clearer the image of the vast palace, of the queenly
power, of the diamonds, the gold, the ambitious future.
It all lay at her feet, waiting to be picked up.
How could she have hesitated, even for a moment?
She rose, and, walking over to her desk, she took
out a sheet of paper and an envelope. The latter
she addressed to Lieutenant Spurling, H.M.S. Active,
Gibraltar. The note cost some little trouble,
but at last she got it worded to her mind.
“Dear Hector,” she said “I
am convinced that your father has never
entirely approved of our engagement, otherwise he
would not have thrown obstacles in the way of our
marriage. I am sure, too, that since my poor
father’s misfortune it is only your own sense
of honour and feeling of duty which have kept you
true to me, and that you would have done infinitely
better had you never seen me. I cannot bear,
Hector, to allow you to imperil your future for
my sake, and I have determined, after thinking
well over the matter, to release you from our boy
and girl engagement, so that you may be entirely free
in every way. It is possible that you may
think it unkind of me to do this now, but I am
quite sure, dear Hector, that when you are an admiral
and a very distinguished man, you will look back at
this, and you will see that I have been a true friend
to you, and have prevented you from making a false
step early in your career. For myself, whether
I marry or not, I have determined to devote the
remainder of my life to trying to do good, and to
leaving the world happier than I found it.
Your father is very well, and gave us a capital
sermon last Sunday. I enclose the bank-note
which you asked me to keep for you. Good-bye,
for ever, dear Hector, and believe me when I say
that, come what may, I am ever your true friend,
“Laura S. McIntyre.”
She had hardly sealed her letter before
her father and Robert returned. She closed the
door behind them, and made them a little curtsey.
“I await my family’s congratulations,”
she said, with her head in the air. “Mr.
Raffles Haw has been here, and he has asked me to be
his wife.”
“The deuce he did!” cried the old man.
“And you said ?”
“I am to see him again.”
“And you will say ?”
“I will accept him.”
“You were always a good girl,
Laura,” said old McIntyre, standing on his tiptoes
to kiss her.
“But Laura, Laura, how about Hector?”
asked Robert in mild remonstrance.
“Oh, I have written to him,”
his sister answered carelessly. “I wish
you would be good enough to post the letter.”