The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1887-09-17 00:00:00

THE STOURBRIDGE OBSERVER.

ne didn't like it, and said ne couldn't stay there—in a
queer, dazed sort of way. I thought perhaps he knew
Mr. Gayford, and I told him how ill he had been, and
he asked me a lot of questions about the murder, and
said he had read about it; he had heard of Mr. Gay-
ford, but that was all.'
'And what's his name ?' was the next question.
'But I suppose he didn't tell you that.'

Oh, yes he did; he left his card with me, and he is
going to call on me again. Here it is,' and Mrs. liretwu
fished a card from the depths of a capidlous
"Mr. Rupert Stone "—not a bad name, Is it.' -
'No, and he isn't a bad-looking-man,' Mrs. Burton
said. She had carefully reconnoitered from her
window while the stranger was standing on her
neighbour's door-step, and had pronounced the quiet,
elder:y man eligible to the last degree. He looked like
a man who would give no trouble, and never ask
after anything when it had once disappeared from his
table. It was altogether too bad that Fairbrother's
should have a lodger like that, and the good woman
sighed as she thought of the seven little obstacles to
good letting that were at once the plague and the
pride of her busy life.
Mr. Stone, utterly unconscious that he was the
object of so much inquisitive attention, made his way
to the house to which he had been directed, and asked
if he could be accommodated there—not as a visitor
for a night or two, he informed the hostess, but as a
permanent lodger; he wished to take up his quarters
in Hillford for some time. The place was dearer, if
anything, than Mrs. Brown's house would have been,
but he made no objections on that score. He took
the room that was shown him, and established him-
self there at once, with very little luggage, but paying
a fortnight's rent in advance, and giving Mr. Jarvis's
name as a reference. The lawyer was well known at
the hotel, and his name made the mistress thereof
forget the scanty luggage and the somewhat nervous
manner of the stranger, which she had been at first
somewhat inclined to doubt.

Mr. Stone settled himself into his apartments with
a sense of relief,and produced a pipe. Hisportmanteau
might have been the specimen box of a travelling
tobacconist from the extent and variety of his collec-
tion of pipes and his supply of cigars and tobacco.
He hardly seemed at ease till he had lit up and was
puffing away at a very black-looking meerchaum,
and watching the smoke ourl away in lazy rings over
his head.

'I could not have lived in those rooms,' he said to
himself, 'and yet they would have suited me. I
ought to have taken them. This will do—this is a
capital window. If I were a private detective, now,
with a mission to watch the good people of Hillford,
what glorious opportunities I should have here. I
can see all down the street I have just come out of
—everyone that comes out of the house where I looked
at the rooms and on the other side the market place—
the gossiping arena at Hillford; I can see that already.
I don't think I can do better on the whole than stay
here.'
The name of the quiet gentleman at The Pheasant,
as the hotel was called, told the Hillford people
nothing. They saw him about occasionally, and came
to know him as the bachelor gentleman '—why or
where no one could tell; he had never let drop a word
that could show whether he was married or single,
though it was argued that if he had a wife she would
hardy allow him to live alone as he did.
Barney Grubb, out at the ferry, heard of him now
and then from other people, but was some time before
he saw him, and by that time all the curiosity about
him had died a natural death. Milford imagined it
knew all about him, and rested content.

The day after Mr. Stone had settled himself at The
Pheasant a lad wandered up the bank of the river,
and came to the Ferry House; arrived there he
stopped suddenly and rubbed his eyes as if he were
not quite sure that he saw rightly. It is,' he said to
himself, it is the house. There's the rabbits and
there's the one-legged magpie and the baskets. But,
my eye! a garden I and a curtain at the window.
Barney's gone mad, and turned tidy when he lost
his wits; and a new boat, and—oh, Lord! it's too
much!' and the urchin executed a dance of nonde-
script order to relieve his feelings, and finished up
with a whoop that brought an old woman out to see
what was the matter. It was Barney's mother, knit-
ting in hand, and she stared at the boy in amazement
and alarm for he had betaken himself to a new vent
for his excitement, and was standing on his head,
with only his heels visible above the fence which had
been put up to protect the new garden from dogs and
prowlers.
Who are you?' she asked, keeping the gate care-
1/411y closed. What do you want?'
Barney. Does he live here now? Where is ho?'
'He is not far off; he will be in directly. What do
you want him for?'
To see him, that's all,' and the boy who had brought
himself right side uppermost to talk to the old lady,
tossed himself over and flung up his heels again, to her
manifest discomfiture.
Don't do that,' she said; you'll addle your brains.'
'Haven't got any,' replied the boy, with his voice
very near the ground. Never had any except in my
heels, and this is the way to shake them into their
proper ph ice.'
Keep your head uppermost, youngster, and tel
us what you want,' said someone comin up behind
the boy, and interrupting his acrobatic performance
with a dexterous twist that set him on his legs again
very red in the face and proportionately indignant.
'Don't be playing monkey tricks here. Why, bless
my soul, Jack!'
That's me,' replied the lad, with the utmost imper-
turbability, looking Barney straight in the face with a
delighted grin on his own features. 'Have you come
into a fortune, or turned Methodist, or got married, or
what?'

Perhaps all three, you young imp,' Barney replied,
catching the boy by the shoulder and drawing him
into the house. 'No, you don't get away again till I
know what you have been doing and where you have
been. Do yea know you nearly got me hanged?'
'No, I didn't,. You shouldn't have been hanged,
Barney; we would have stopped short of that. some-
how. Got anything to eat?'
Just the same as ever.' Barney said, with a Is ugh
*always nungry; en r uet turn something, mother, or
he'll be making a raid on the cupboard else.'
I'm hungry now,' Jack said, looking in wonder at
the tidy fashion in which everything was set out,
'but I've had no call to go hungry since I have been
away. I've had a good place, I have.'
You look like it,' Barney said, staring at thelad's
neat dross and clean face and hands. Wherever Jack
had been he had been taught civilisation. 'You look
as if you had taken a situation as a tailor's shop
dummy. Who rigged you out like that r
My master.'
And who's he?'
'Mr. Stone. You don't 'mow him. I was nigh
upon starving when he took me on and—'
And what made you run away from Hillford just
when you were wanted? You could have cleared up
a lot.'
I couldn't have cleared up any more than I did,'
the boy said, regarding Barney's mother somewhat
suspiciously, as he ate the bread and cheese she had set
before him; and I did not want any of their
nonsense at home; Dad was very nasty, I can tell
you, and things wouldn't have been comfortable. I
made out of London, for a bit, and I was most minded
to go into the workhouse, or do something to get a
month, so that I might have something to eat now
and then, when Mr. Stone found me. He wanted a
boy, and I wanted a master, and I've been with him
ever since.'
All lies, Jack, every bit of it.'
It's true, every word of it,' Jack replied, un-
dauntedly. Ask him yourself.'
'Ask who?'
Mr. Stone.'
I Where is he?'
Here, in Hillford. He's going to stop here a bit.
You'll see him, I daresay. He's sure to come to see
the ferry and the wood. Everybody does that comes
here.'
Jack spoke unconcernedly, and went on with his
meal, looking at Barney the while with a grin like a
malicious imp. Barney was very glad to see him.
lie had a real liking for the boy who had been the
companion of so many of his otherwise solitary hours.
But he was puzzled—he could not make him out.
His disappearance might have been from fear of his
father, as ho said. But he had never known Jack
afraid of his father before. When he had done any-
thing to provoke the paternal wrath, he had always
found ways and means of eluding a beating. 'You
needn't look at me like that,' Jack said, presently,
aware that Barney was regarding him with suspicion.
'lt's all right ;you ask Mr. Jarvis if it isn't.'
_ _

'Mr. Jarvis I'-
' Yes: replied Jack, nodding with his mouth full
'He's Mr. Stone's friend, he is.'
'And are you going to be Mr. Stone's boy here, in
Hillford?'

Why shouldn't I be, if he wants one?'
I thought it mightn't be pleasant, so close to your
home and your father.'
'No, it wouldn't be pleasant, and rm not going te
be,' Jack responded, grinning. He was enjoying
Barney's mystification to the utmost. I'm going to
school, I am. Think of that, at my time of life. I'm
going to be a parlour boarder at an establishment for
young gentlemen of the very highest fashion—a select
school, where none but the nobility are received.'
For answer to this speech, Barney took Master Jack
by the shoulders and shook him.

If you donit-h-aVe-cri;eTell-i4 lies, and say some-
thing that a fellow can believe, throw you into the
river, you aggravating young demon,' he said, laugh-
ing in spite of himself at the notion of Jack going to
school.
There was a foundation of truth in the lad's
assertion. Ja3k was really going to school, or rather
a place had been found for him away from the evil
influences of his own wretched home, till Mr. Stone,
to whom he bad been very useful, should want him
again, fie was to be educated, as far as was necessary
for his station in life, in whatever branches he showed
most ability for. But Barney did not believe this till
the tale was confirmed by no less a person than Mr.
Jarvis himself, and also by Mr. Stone, who had scraped
acquaintance with the boatman, as Jack bad predicted
he would.
What sort of a man is Mr. Stone ?' Berney asked,
presently, after a spell of staring at Jack and think-
ino hg,iaslml sorts
o Il
of
the p
wildrpears
eashanvceingopfrtebsr
boy. d 7 themselvesol( or
t
young?' •
Oldish,' replied Jack, unhesitatingly. 'Fifty? ey
thereabouts, I should think ; to's quite ry

_
g And rich?'
;Sot vory. 114 got enough to lire upouf 404 ht 4,
Owitvg raid bin rfloilli%,

Nothing more was to be got out of Jack relative to
his master. But Barney felt he was being humbugged,
as he called it, and resolved to get at the bottom of
the mystery if he could. Jack asked questions, in his
turn, about Hillford people in general, and especially
about Mr. Gayford. Barney told how the clergyman
had gone abroad, but declared that he had seen him,
as he told Mr. Jarvis.

'He's the devil, that's what he is,' Jack said, apropos
of this infcrmation. 'I always had a feeling that he
was at my elbow. I didn't like the parson.'
'There's more than you don't much like him, Jack,'
Barney said. 'Mother here took a dislike to him
when she saw him at the trial. This is my mother,
Jack, that I went to see that time, when '
Yes, I know,' Jack said, scrutinising the old lady,
who was a very nice old woman to look at, and
returned his smile with a motherly interest. I
thought you'd got married, perhaps, when I came
and .saw all the finery about. There's no room for
badgers and things here now. Eh! Barney?'
'No ; we keep them outside,' Barney replied,
smiling, as he remembered his mother's horror at the
zoological collection that had to be routed out of the
ferry house when she came to take up her quarters
there. Donovan had religiously respected Barney's
menagerie, moved thereto, perhaps, by the recollec•
tion that he had been partly the means of his arrest,
and the animals had thriven under his charge, as if
their owner had been to the fore.
The house was like a wild beast show,' as Mrs.
Mordaunt remarked. I wonder you two didn't have
a fever, living with them in the place.'
'lt would take a good deal more than that to give
Jack a fever,' Barney said laughing. 6 You don't
know what his home is like; and, besides, we didn't
often shut the door. I wasn't a suspicious man in
those days. I'm always on the watch now.'
What for?' asked Jack. ' Thieves ?'
Worse than that,' Barney replied, as his mother
moved out of hearing. 'I might be murdered some
time. I've sworn to find out who did that thing in
the wood yonder; and there might be someone who
would like to shut my mouth. That's all.'
(7e be continued.)