Mr. Fortescue - William Westall (i read a book .txt) 📗

by the fields, then, or we should have met," I said; and pocketing my paper, I set off with the intention of overtaking him.

As I have already observed, the field way was little frequented, most people preferring the high-road as being equally direct and, except in the height of summer, both dryer and less lonesome.

After traversing two or three fields the foot-path ran through a thick wood, once part of the great forest of Essex, then descending into a deep hollow, it made a sudden bend and crossed a rambling old brook by a dilapidated bridge.

As I reached the bend I heard a shout, and looking down I saw what at first sight (the day being on the wane and the wood gloomy) I took to be three men amusing themselves with a little cudgel-play. But a second glance showed me that something much more like murder than cudgel-play was going on; and shortening my Irish blackthorn, I rushed at breakneck speed down the hollow.

I was just in time. Mr. Fortescue, with his back against the tree, was defending himself with his sword-stick against the two Italians, each of whom, armed with a long dagger, was doing his best to get at him without falling foul of the sword.

The rascals were so intent on their murderous business that they neither heard nor saw me, and, taking them in the rear, I fetched the guitar-player a crack on his skull that stretched him senseless on the ground, whereupon the other villain, without more ado, took to his heels.

"Thank you," said Mr. Fortescue, quietly, as he put up his weapon. "I don't think I could have kept the brigands at bay much longer. A sword-stick is no match for a pair of Corsican daggers. The next time I take a walk I must have a revolver. Is that fellow dead, do you think? If he is, I shall be still more in your debt."

I looked at the prostrate man's face, then at his head. "No," I said, "there is no fracture. He is only stunned." My diagnosis was verified almost as soon as it was spoken. The next moment the Italian opened his eyes and sat up, and had I not threatened him with my blackthorn would have sprung to his feet.

"You have to thank this gentleman for saving your life," said Mr. Fortescue, in French.

"How?" asked the fellow in the same language.

"If you had killed me you would have been hanged. If I hand you over to the police you will get twenty years at the hulks for attempted murder, and unless you answer my questions truly I shall hand you over to the police. You are a Griscelli."

"Yes, sir."

"Which of them?"

"I am Giuseppe, the son of Giuseppe."

"In that case you are _his_ grandson. How did you find me out?"

"You were at Paris last summer."

"But you did not see me there."

"No, but Giacomo did; and from your name and appearance we felt sure you were the same."

"Who is Giacomo--your brother?"

"No, my cousin, the son of Luigi."

"What is he?"

"He belongs to the secret police."

"So Giacomo put you on the scent?"

"Yes, sir. He ascertained that you were living in England. The rest was easy."

"Oh, it was, was it? You don't find yourself very much at ease just now, I fancy. And now, my young friend, I am going to treat you better than you deserve. I can afford to do so, for, as you see, and, as your grandfather and your father discovered to their cost, I bear a charmed life. You cannot kill me. You may go. And I advise you to return to France or Corsica, or wherever may be your home, with all speed, for to-morrow I shall denounce you to the police, and if you are caught you know what to expect. Who is your accomplice--a kinsman?"

"No, only compatriot, whose acquaintance I made in London. He is a coward."

"Evidently. One more question and I have done. Have you any brothers?"

"Yes, sir; two."

"And about a dozen cousins, I suppose, all of whom would be delighted to murder me--if they could. Now, give that gentleman your dagger, and march, _au pas gymnastique_."

With a very ill grace, Giuseppe Griscelli did as he was bid, and then, rising to his feet, he marched, not, however, at the _pas gymnastique_, but slowly and deliberately; and as he reached a bend in the path a few yards farther on, he turned round and cast at Mr. Fortescue the most diabolically ferocious glance I ever saw on a human countenance.


CHAPTER V.

THEREBY HANGS A TALE.

"You believe now, I hope," said Mr. Fortescue, as we walked homeward.

"Believe what, sir?"

"That I have relentless enemies who seek my life. When I first told you of this you did not believe me. You thought I was the victim of an hallucination, else had I been more frank with you."

"I am really very sorry."

"Don't protest! I cannot blame you. It is hard for people who have led uneventful lives and seen little of the seamy side of human nature to believe that under the veneer of civilization and the mask of convention, hatreds are still as fierce, men still as revengeful as ever they were in olden times.... I hope I did not make a mistake in sparing young Griscelli's life."

"Sparing his life! How?"

"He sought my life, and I had a perfect right to take his."

"That is not a very Christian sentiment, Mr. Fortescue."

"I did not say it was. Do you always repay good for evil and turn your check to the smiter, Mr. Bacon?"

"If you put it in that way, I fear I don't."

"Do you know anybody who does?"

After a moment's reflection I was again compelled to answer in the negative. I could not call to mind a single individual of my acquaintance who acted on the principle of returning good for evil.

"Well, then, if I am no better than other people, I am no worse. Yet, after all, I think I did well to let him go. Had I killed the brigand, there would have been a coroner's inquest, and questions asked which might have been troublesome to answer, and he has brothers and cousins. If I could destroy the entire brood! Did you see the look he gave me as he went away? It meant murder. We have not seen the last of Giuseppe Griscelli, Mr. Bacon."

"I am afraid we have not. I never saw such an expression of intense hatred in my life! Has he cause for it?"

"I dare say he thinks so. I killed his father and his grand-father."

This, uttered as indifferently as if it were a question of killing hares and foxes, was more than I could stand. I am not strait-laced, but I draw the line at murder.

"You did what?" I exclaimed, as, horror-struck and indignant, I stopped in the path and looked him full in the face.

I thought I had never seen him so Mephistopheles-like. A sinister smile parted his lips, showing his small white teeth gleaming under his gray mustache, and he regarded me with a look of cynical amusement, in which there was perhaps a slight touch of contempt.

"You are a young man, Mr. Bacon," he observed, gently, "and, like most young men, and a great many old men, you make false deductions. Killing is not always murder. If it were, we should consign our conquerors to everlasting infamy, instead of crowning them with laurels and erecting statues to their memory. I am no murderer, Mr. Bacon. At the same time I do not cherish illusions. Unpremeditated murder is by no means the worst of crimes. Taking a life is only anticipating the inevitable; and of all murderers, Nature is the greatest and the cruellest. I have--if I could only tell you--make you see what I have seen--Even now, O God! though half a century has run its course--"

Here Mr. Fortescue's voice failed him; he turned deadly pale, and his countenance took an expression of the keenest anguish. But the signs of emotion passed away as quickly as they had appeared. Another moment and he had fully regained his composure, and he added, in his usual self-possessed manner:

"All this must seem very strange to you, Mr. Bacon. I suppose you consider me somewhat of a mystery."

"Not somewhat, but very much."

Mr. Fortescue smiled (he never laughed) and reflected a moment.

"I am thinking," he said, "how strangely things come about, and, so to speak, hang together. The greatest of all mysteries is fate. If that horse had not run away with you, these rascals would almost certainly have made away with me; and the incident of to-day is one of the consequences of that which I mentioned at our first interview."

"When we had that good run from Latton. I remember it very well. You said you had been hunted yourself."

"Yes."

"How was it, Mr. Fortescue?"

"Ah! Thereby hangs a tale."

"Tell it me, Mr. Fortescue," I said, eagerly.

"And a very long tale."

"So much the better; it is sure to be interesting."

"Ah, yes, I dare say you would find it interesting. My life has been stirring and stormy enough, in all conscience--except for the ten years I spent in heaven," said Mr. Fortescue, in a voice and with a look of intense sadness.

"Ten years in heaven!" I exclaimed, as much astonished as I had just been horrified. Was the man mad, after all, or did he speak in paradoxes? "Ten years in heaven!"

Mr. Fortescue smiled again, and then it occurred to me that his ten years of heaven might have some connection with the veiled portrait and the shrine in his room up-stairs.

"You take me too literally," he said. "I spoke metaphorically. I did not mean that, like Swedenborg and Mohammed, I have made excursions to Paradise. I merely meant that I once spent ten years of such serene happiness as it seldom falls to the lot of man to enjoy. But to return to our subject. You would like to know more of my past; but as it would not be satisfactory to tell you an incomplete history, and to tell you all--Yet why not? I have done nothing that I am ashamed of; and it is well you should know something of the man whose life you have saved once, and may possibly save again. You are trustworthy, straightforward, and vigilant, and albeit you are not overburdened with intelligence--"

Here Mr. Fortescue paused, as if to reflect; and, though the observation was not very flattering--hardly civil, indeed--I was so anxious to hear this story that I took it in good part, and waited patiently for his decision.

"To relate it _viva voce_" he went on, thoughtfully, "would be troublesome to both of us."

"I am sure I should find it anything but troublesome."

"Well, I should. It would take too much time, and I hate travelling over old ground. But that is a difficulty which I think we can get over. For many years I have made a record of the principal events of my life, in the form of a personal narrative; and though I have sometimes let it run behind for a while, I have always written it up."

"That is