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Read Ebook: Stand Fast Craig-Royston! (Volume III) by Black William
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CHAPTER
STAND FAST, CRAIG-ROYSTON!
IN VAIN--IN VAIN.
"Show the gentleman up," said he to the boy.
A couple of seconds thereafter Vincent Harris made his appearance.
"Mr. Fox?" said he, inquiringly.
The heavy-built journalist did not rise to receive his visitor; he merely said--
"Take a chair. What can I do for you?"
"No, thanks," said Vincent, "I don't wish to detain you more than a moment. I only wanted to see if you could give me any information about Mr. George Bethune."
"Well, that would be only fair," said the big, ungainly man, with the small, keen blue eyes glinting behind spectacles; "that would be only a fair exchange, considering I remember how Mr. Bethune came down here one night and asked for information about you."
Vincent looked astonished.
"And I was able," continued Mr. Fox, "to give him all the information he cared for--namely, that you were the son of a very rich man. I presume that was all he wanted to know."
There was something in the tone of this speech--a familiarity bordering on insolence--that Vincent angrily resented; but he was wise enough to show nothing: his sole anxiety was to have news of Maisrie and her grandfather; this man's manner did not concern him much.
"I do not ask for information about Mr. Bethune himself; I dare say I know him as well as most do," said he with perfect calmness. "I only wish to know where he is."
"I don't know where he is," said the burly correspondent, examining the stranger with his small shrewd eyes, "but I guarantee that, wherever he is, he is living on the best. Shooting stags in Scotland most likely--"
"They don't shoot stags in December," said Vincent, briefly.
"Or careering down the Mediterranean in a yacht--gad, an auxiliary screw would come in handy for the old man," continued Mr. Fox, grinning at his own gay facetiousness; "anyhow, wherever he is, I'll bet he's enjoying himself and living on the fat of the land. Merry as a cricket--bawling away at his Scotch songs: I suppose that was how he amused himself when he was in Sing Sing--perhaps he learnt it there--"
"I thought you would probably know where he is," said Vincent, not paying much heed to these little jocosities, "if he happened to be sending in to you those articles on the Scotch ballads--"
"Articles on Scotch ballads!" said Mr. Fox, with a bit of a derisive laugh. "Yes, I know. A collation of the various versions: a cold collation, I should say, by the time he has got done with them. Why, my dear sir, have you never heard of Professor Childs, of Harvard College?"
"I have heard of Professor Child," said Vincent.
"I am sorry to have troubled you," said Vincent, with his hand on the door.
"George Morris!" said Vincent.
"Perhaps you know him personally?" Mr. Fox said, and he went on in the most easy and affable fashion: "I may say without boasting that I am acquainted with most people--most people of any consequence: it is part of my business. But George Morris, somehow, I had never met. You may imagine, then, that when he came down here, to ask a few questions, I was precious glad to be of such service as I could; for I said to myself that here was just the man for me. Take a great scandal, for example--they do happen sometimes, don't they?--even in this virtuous land of England: very well--I go to George Morris--a hint from him--and there I am first in the field: before the old mummies of the London press have had time to open their eyes and stare."
Vincent had brought a chair from the side of the room, and was now seated: there was only the table, littered with telegrams and proofs, between those two.
"Did I understand you to say," he asked, with his eyes fixed on this man, "that George Morris had come to you to make inquiries about Mr. Bethune?"
"You understood aright."
"Who sent him?" demanded Vincent, abruptly--for there were strange fancies and still darker suspicions flying through his head.
But Courtnay Fox smiled.
"George Morris, you may have heard, was not born yesterday. His business is to get out of you what he can, and to take care you get nothing out of him. It was not likely he would tell me why he came making these inquiries--even if I had cared to ask, which I did not."
"You told him all you knew, of course, about Mr. Bethune?" Vincent went on, with a certain cold austerity.
"I did."
"And how much more?"
"Ah, very good--very neat," the spacious-waisted journalist exclaimed with a noisy laugh. "Very good indeed. But look here, Mr. Harris, if the great solicitor was not born yesterday, you were--in a way; and so I venture to ask you why you should take such an interest in Mr. Bethune's affairs?"
Vincent answered him without flinching.
"Because, amongst other things, certain lies have been put in circulation about Mr. Bethune, and I wished to know where they arose. Now I am beginning to guess."
For an instant Mr. Courtnay Fox seemed somewhat disconcerted; but he betrayed no anger.
Vincent paid but small heed to all this farrago: he was busily thinking how certain undoubted features and circumstances of old George Bethune's life might appear when viewed through the belittling and sardonic scepticism of this man's mind; and then again, having had that hue and shape conferred upon them, how would they look when presented to the professional judgment of such a person as Mr. George Morris?
"MacGillicuddy's Reeks are in Ireland," said Vincent.
"Well, MacGillicuddy's Breeks--no, that won't do; they don't wear such things in the north. Any unpronounceable place--any kind of puddle or barren rock: to be born within sight of that means that you own everything of honesty, and manliness, and worth that's going--yes, worth--worth is a sweet word--manly worth--it is the prerogative of persons who have secured the greatest blessing on earth, that of being born north of the Tweed. Now, why doesn't old George Bethune go away back there; and wave his tartan plaid, and stamp, and howl balderdash, and have monuments put up to him as the White-haired Bard of Glen-Toddy? That surely would be better than hawking bogus books about London and getting subscriptions for things that never appear; though he manages to do pretty well. Oh, yes, he does pretty well, one way and another. The cunning old cockroach--to take that girl around with him, and get her to make eyes at tradesmen, so as to swindle them out of pounds of tea!"
But at this a sudden flame seemed to go through the young man's brain--and unhappily he had his stick quite close by. In an instant he was on his feet, his right hand grasping the cane, his left fixed in the coat-collar of the luckless journalist, whose inert bulk he was attempting to drag from the chair.
Down came the stick; but by a fortunate accident it caught on the back of the chair, and the force of the blow sent it flying in two.
"For God's sake--stop!" the other cried--but in a terrified whisper--and his face was as white as death. "What are you doing!--are you mad!--I beg your pardon--can I do more? I beg your pardon--for God's sake, have a little common sense!"
Vincent looked at the man: more abject cowardice he had never beheld than was displayed in every trembling limb of his huge carcase, in every feature of the blanched face. He flung him from him--in disdain.
Vincent was still standing there, with louring brow.
"And an elegant way you have of making them," said Vincent, scornfully.
It was a most creditable effort to escape from a humiliating position with some semblance of dignity.
"Apologise for what?" said Vincent, staring.
"Why, for your monstrous and outrageous conduct of this evening!"
--"I am to apologise?" said Vincent, with his brows growing dark again. "You introduce into your scurrilous talk the name of a young lady who is known to me--you speak of her in the most insulting and gratuitous fashion--and--and I am to apologise! Yes, I do apologise: I apologise for having brought such a fool of a stick with me: I hope it will be a heavier one if I hear you make use of such language again."
"Come, come, threats will not serve," said Mr. Fox--but he was clearly nervous and apprehensive. "Wouldn't it be better for you, now, to be a little civil--and--and I could promise to send you Mr. Bethune's address if I hear of it? Wouldn't that be better--and more reasonable? Yes, I will--I promise to send you his address if it comes in any way to this office--isn't that more reasonable?"
"I thank you," said Vincent, with formal politeness; and with an equally formal 'Good night' the young man took his leave. Mr. Courtnay Fox instantly hid the broken portions of the cane , and, ringing the bell, called in a loud and manly voice for the latest telegrams.
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