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World's End: A Story in Three Books

by Richard Jefferies · English · Gutenberg #37079 · 730,323 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: World's End: A Story in Three Books

Author: Richard Jefferies


        
Release date: August 14, 2011 [eBook #37079]
                Most recently updated: August 6, 2021

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/37079

Credits: Nick Hodson


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WORLD'S END: A STORY IN THREE BOOKS ***




World’s End

by Richard Jefferies

A Story in Three Books


Contents

 Book I. Facts
 Chapter 1
 Chapter 2
 Chapter 3
 Chapter 4
 Chapter 5
 Chapter 6
 Chapter 7
 Chapter 8
 Chapter 9
 Chapter 10
 Chapter 11
 Chapter 12
 Chapter 13
 Chapter 14
 Chapter 15

 Book II. Persons
 Chapter 1
 Chapter 2
 Chapter 3
 Chapter 4
 Chapter 5
 Chapter 6
 Chapter 7
 Chapter 8
 Chapter 9
 Chapter 10
 Chapter 11
 Chapter 12
 Chapter 13
 Chapter 14
 Chapter 15

 Book III. Results
 Chapter 1
 Chapter 2
 Chapter 3
 Chapter 4
 Chapter 5
 Chapter 6
 Chapter 7
 Chapter 8
 Chapter 9
 Chapter 10
 Chapter 11
 Chapter 12
 Chapter 13
 Chapter 14




Book I. Facts.




Chapter One.


It is not generally known that the mighty city of Stirmingham owes its
existence to a water-rat. Stirmingham has a population of half a
million, and is the workshop of the earth. It is a proud city, and its
press-men have traced its origin back into the dim vista of the past,
far before Alfred the Great’s time, somewhere in the days of those
monarchs who came from Troy, and whose deeds Holinshed so minutely
chronicles.

But this is all trash and nonsense, and is a cunning device of the able
editors aforesaid, who confound—for their own purposes—the city proper
with the tiny hamlet of Wolf’s Glow. This little village or cluster of
houses, which now forms a part, and the dirtiest part, of the city, can
indeed be traced through Hundred Rolls, Domesday Book, and Saxon
Charters, almost down to the time of the Romans. But Stirmingham, the
prosperous and proud Stirmingham, which thinks that the world could not
exist without its watches and guns, its plated goods, its monster
factories and mills, which sends cargoes to Timbuctoo, and supplies
Java and Malabar with idols—this vast place, whose nickname is a
by-word for cheating, for fair outward show and no real solidity, owes
its existence to a water-rat. This is a fact. And it happened in this
way.

Once upon a time there was a wide expanse of utterly useless land, flat
as this sheet of paper, without a trace of subsoil or any kind of earth
in which so much as a blade of grass could grow. It was utterly dry and
sterile—not a tree nor a shrub to shelter a cow or a horse, and all men
avoided it as a waste and desolate place. It was the very abomination
of desolation, and no one would have been surprised to have seen satyrs
and other strange creatures diverting themselves thereon. Around one
edge of this plain there flowed a brook, so small that one could hardly
call it by that name. A dainty lady from Belgravia could have easily
stepped across it without soiling the sole of her boot.

At one spot beside this brook there grew a willow tree. This tree was a
picture in itself, and would have made the fortune of any artist who
would have condescended to make a loving study of it. The trunk had
been of very large size, but now resembled a canoe standing upon end,
for nearly one half had decayed, and the crumbling wood had
disappeared, leaving a hollow stem. The stem was itself dead and
decaying, except one thin streak of green, up which the golden sap of
life still ran, and invigorated the ancient head of the tree to send
forth yellow buds and pointed leaves. Up one side of the hollow trunk
an ivy creeper had climbed to the top, and was fast hanging festoons
from bough to bough.

In the vast mass of decaying wood at the top or head of the tree a
briar had taken root—its seed no doubt dropped by some thrush—and its
prickly shoots hung over and drooped to the ground in luxuriance of
growth. The hardy fern had also found a lodging here, and its dull
green leaves, which they say grow most by moonlight, formed a species
of crown to the dying tree.

This willow was the paradise of such birds as live upon insects, for
they abounded in the decaying wood; and at the top a wild pigeon had
built its nest. As years went by, the willow bent more and more over
the brook. The water washing the soil out from between its roots formed
a hollow space, where a slight eddy scooped out a deeper hole, in which
the vermillion—throated stickleback or minnow disported and watched the
mouth of its nest. This eddy also weakened the tree by undermining it
at its foundation. The ivy grew thicker till it formed a perfect bush
upon the top, and this in the winter afforded a hold for the wind to
shake the tree by. The wind would have passed harmlessly through the
slender branches, but the ivy, even in winter, the season of storms,
left something against which it could rage with effect. Finally came
the water-rat.

If Stirmingham objects to owe its origin to a water-rat, it may at
least congratulate itself upon the fact that it was a good old English
rat—none of your modern parvenu, grey Hanoverian rascals. It was, in
fact, before the Norwegian rat, which had been imported in the holds of
vessels, had obtained undisputed sway over the country. It had,
however, already driven the darker aboriginal inhabitants away from the
cultivated places to take refuge in the woods and streams. It is odd
that in the animal kingdom also, even in the rat economy, the darker
hued race should give way to the lighter. However, as in Stirmingham
the smoke is so great that the ladies when they walk abroad carry
parasols up to keep the blacks from falling on and disfiguring their
complexion, there can after all be no disgrace in the water-rat
ancestry.

This dark coloured water-rat, finding his position less and less secure
at the adjacent barn on account of the attacks of the grey invaders,
one fine day migrated, with Mrs Rat and all the Master and Missy rats,
down to the stream. Peeping and sniffing about for a pleasant retreat,
he chose the neighbourhood of the willow tree. I cannot stay here to
discuss whether or no he was led to the tree by some mystic beckoning
hand—some supernatural presentiment; but to the tree he went, and
Stirmingham was founded. Two or three burrows—small round
holes—sufficed to house Mr Rat and his family, but these ran right
under the willow, and of course still further weakened it.

In course of time the family flourished exceedingly, and Mr Rat became
a great-great-great-grandpapa to ever so many minor Frisky Tails. These
Frisky Tails finding the ancient quarter too much straightened for
comfort, began to scratch further tunnels, and succeeded pretty well in
opening additional honeycombs, till presently progress was stayed by a
root of the tree. Now they had gnawed through and scratched away half a
dozen other roots, and never paused to sniff more particularly at this
than the others. But it so happened that this root was the one which
supplied the green streak up the trunk of the tree with the golden sap
of life drawn by mysterious chemical processes from the earth. Frisky
Tails gnawed this root asunder, and cut off the supply of sap. The
green streak up the trunk withered and died, and the last stay of the
willow was gone. It only remained for the first savage south-wester of
winter to finish the mischief.

The south-wester came, and over went the trunk, crash across the brook.
At first this was very awkward for the rats, as thereby most of their
subterranean dwellings became torn up and exposed. But very soon a
geological change occurred.

The tree had fallen obliquely across the stream, and its ponderous
head, or top, choked up the bed, or very nearly. The sand and small
sticks, leaves, and so on, brought down by the current, filled up the
crevices left by the tree, and a perfect dam was formed.

Now, as stated before, the ground thereabout was nearly level, and so
worthless in character that no man ever troubled his head about it. No
one came to see the dam or remove it. The result was the brook
overflowed, and then finding this level plateau, instead of eating out
a new channel, it spread abroad, and formed first a good-sized puddle,
then a pond, then something like a flood, and, as time went by, a
marsh. This marsh extended over a space of ground fully a mile long,
and altogether covered some nine hundred acres.

The rats, sagacious creatures, instead of deserting their colony,
showed that they possessed that species of wisdom which the Greek sage
said was superior to all other knowledge—namely, the knowledge how to
turn an evil to a good. Exploring this shallow lake which their
carelessness had caused, they found several places still
unsubmerged—islands, in fact. To one of these they swam, dug out new
catacombs, and being now quite safe from interruption, and protected
upon all sides, the Malthusian laws of population had full play, and
soon proved its force, for the whole place swarmed with them. The
axiom, however, that at the very point when empires are apparently most
prosperous, their destruction is near at hand, to some extent applied
even to the dominion of the water-rat. They were no longer to be the
sole undisturbed possessors.

Arguing _à priori_, one would have concluded that if this waste land
was worthless before, now it was a marsh, and miasmatic vapours arose
from it, it would be still more avoided. But the facts were exactly
opposite. So soon as ever the water had spread over the level plain,
and had well soaked into the sterile soil, there began to spring up
tough aquatic grasses, commonly called bull-polls, from a supposed
resemblance between their tangled appearance and the rough hair that
hangs over the poll of a bull.

These grasses are gregarious—that is to say, they prefer to grow in
huge bunches. Each bunch increasing year after year, forms in time a
small hillock or tuft, and, the roots spreading and spreading, these
hillocks of grass almost covered the lake, leaving only narrow channels
of water between. Upon these innumerable frogs and toads crawled up out
of the water, and they were the chosen resorts of newts.

In summer time the blue dragon-fly wheeled in mazes over them, or,
while settled on the stiff blades of grass, looked like a species of
blossom. The current of the brook brought down seeds, and soon the tall
reed began to rear its slender stem, and rustle its feathery head in
the breeze. The sedges came also, and fringed the marsh with a border
of green.

Meantime, the root which the rats had gnawed asunder beneath the
ancient willow tree, felt the power of spring, and made one more
effort. Freed from the incubus of the dead trunk, it threw out a shoot
of its own. From this shoot there proceeded other shoots; and, in
short, after a while the islands in the marsh became covered with
willow trees and osier-beds. The reeds grew apace, and by the time the
islands were clothed with willow, the rest of the marsh was occupied by
them, saving only the fringe of sedge, and the almost immortal
bull-polls, which were as tough as leather, and which nothing could
kill.

Now, also, animal life began to people the once-deserted waste. With
the sedges came the sedge-warblers; with the willows came the
brook-sparrows; and above all, came the wild-fowl. The heron stalked to
and fro between the bull-polls; the ducks swam in and out; the
moor-hens took up their residence; and in winter the widgeons and
snipes visited the place in myriads.

It was now time for man. And man came. He came first in the person of
here and there a cotter, who cut himself a huge bundle of reeds for
fuel, to mend his thatch, or litter his pig; then in the person of the
poacher—if it could be called poaching to hunt where no one
preserved—who, with long-barrelled gun, brass-fitted and flint-locked,
brought down half a dozen ducks at once, and then waded in after them.

One day a travelling gipsy tribe came by, and encamped for the night
close to the marsh. In this tribe there was a man who, in his way,
possessed the genius of Alexander the Great. Alexander chancing to pass
a landlocked harbour utterly neglected, saw at a glance its
capabilities, and built a city which is renowned to this day.

This gipsy fellow, who was only a gipsy by marriage, saw this
unoccupied marsh, with its wild-fowl, its fish, and, above all, its
willows, and at once fixed upon it as a promising spot.

He was a basket-maker by trade.

He waded in to one of the islets, carrying his infant in his arms, and
followed by his wife, who carried his tools. He set up his tent-pole,
and in time superseded it with a cottage of sod, roofed with reeds. All
day he made baskets of willow and flags, in the evening he shot ducks
and widgeon. The baskets he sold in the towns, the ducks he ate. One or
two others followed his example.

The gipsy tribe made it a rule to come that way twice a year to
purchase the baskets and retail them all over the country. The original
settlers had sons, and the sons took possession of other islets, built
sod cottages, of wattle-and-daub, and married wives, till there were
ten or twelve settlements upon the islands; and these ten or twelve,
all in a rude sort of way, gave the chieftainship to the original
basket-maker, whose name happened to be Baskette.

These people, in the heart of a midland county, lived almost exactly
the life that was led at the same period by the dwellers in the fen
countries to the eastward. It was a rude existence, but it was free and
independent, and not without a charm to those who had been born and
bred in it. Even this unenviable life was, however, to be disturbed.
Two mighty giants were preparing, like the ogres in the fairy tales, to
eat up the defenceless population. The lid of a certain tea-kettle had
puffed up and down, and Steam had been born. The other ogre was called
Legal Rights, and began to bite first.




Chapter Two.


So long as this waste land was tenanted only by the “owl and the
bittern,” Legal Rights slumbered. The moment man put his foot upon it
the ogre woke up, for it is not permitted to that miserable two-legged
creature to rest in peace anywhere in this realm.

The village of Wolf’s Glow was distant about a mile and a quarter from
the old willow tree whose fall had dammed up the brook and caused the
marsh. The brook, in fact, ran past the village, and supplied more than
one farmhouse with water. These farms were of the poorest class—mere
stretches of pasture-land, and such pasture which a well-fed donkey
would despise!

The poorest farm, in appearance at all events, was Wick—a large but
tumbledown place, roofed with grey slates, which, stood apart from the
village. It was the largest house in the place, and yet seemed the most
poverty-stricken. The grey slates were falling off. The roof-tree had
cracked and bent, the lattice windows were broken, and the holes
stuffed up with bundles of hay and straw. The garden was choked with
weeds, and the very apple trees in the orchard were withering away.

Old Sibbold, the owner and occupier, was detested by the entire
village, and by no one more than his two sons. He was a miser, and yet
nothing seemed to prosper with him; and pare and save as much as he
would he could make no accumulation. His sons were the only labourers
he employed, though his farm was the largest thereabouts, and he paid
them only in lodging and food, and not much of the latter.

The eldest, Arthur, chafed bitterly under this treatment, for he
appears, from the scanty records that remain of him, to have been a lad
of spirit and energy.

The second son, James, was of a grosser nature, and his mind was
chiefly occupied with eating and drinking. He had an implicit faith in
the wealth of his father, and submitted patiently to all these
hardships and rough treatment in the hope of ingratiating himself with
the old man, and perhaps supplanting Arthur in his will—that is, so far
as his money was concerned, for the land, as the villagers said, “went
by heirship”—i.e. was entailed—but who would care for such land?

Arthur saw the game and did nothing to prevent it; on the contrary, he
took a certain pleasure in irritating the savage and morose old man,
whom he thoroughly despised. Perhaps what happened in the future was a
punishment for this unfilial conduct, however much it was provoked.

The mother, it must be understood, had long been dead, and there was no
mediator between the stern old man and his fiery-tempered son. Old
Sibbold was descended of a good family—one that had once held a
position, not only in the county but in the country—and he dwelt much
on the past, recalling the time when a Sibbold had held a bishop a
prisoner for King John.

He pored over the deeds in his old oak chest—a press, which stood on
four carved legs, and was closed with a ponderous padlock. That chest,
if it could be found now, would be worth its weight, not in gold
merely, but in diamonds. At that time these deeds and parchments were
of little value; they related mostly to by-gone days, and Arthur
ridiculed his father’s patient study of their crabbed handwriting.

What was the use of dwelling on the past?—up and speculate on the
present!

Irritated beyond measure, old Sibbold would reply that half the county
belonged to him, and he could prove it. All that they could see from
that window was his.

“Why,” said Arthur, “all we can see is the Lea, which is as barren as
the crown of my hat, except in weeds and bulrushes!”

“Barren or not, they’re mine,” said Sibbold, closing his chest; “and I
will make those squatters pay!”

For the Lea was that piece of waste ground which the brook had
overflowed, and in a sense rendered fertile.

From that hour began a persecution of the basket-makers who had settled
on the little islets in the marsh. Sibbold had an undoubted parchment
right—whether he had a moral and true right to a place he had never
touched with spade or plough is a different matter. He claimed a rent.
The cotters refused to pay. Their chieftain, old Will Baskette, wanted
to compromise matters, and offered a small quit-rent.

Now every one knows that quit-rent and rent are very different things
in a legal point of view. A man who pays rent can be served with notice
to quit. A man who pays quit-rent has a claim upon the soil, and cannot
be ejected. Sibbold refused the quit-rent, and had the squatters served
with a notice. They went on cutting reeds, weaving baskets, and
shooting wild-fowl, just the same; till one day old Sibbold,
accompanied with a posse of constables (there were no police in those
days), walked into the marsh with his jack-boots on; and, while one of
the cotters was absent selling his baskets, began to tear the little
hut down, despite the curses of the women and the wailing of the
children. But the hut, as it happened, was stronger in reality than
appearance, and resisted the attack, till one of the constables
suggested fire.

A burning brand from the cottage hearth was applied by old Sibbold
himself to the reed thatch, and in a moment up shot a fierce blaze
which left nothing but ashes, and sod walls two feet high. One can
imagine the temper a man of gipsy blood would be in when, on returning
home, he found his children crying and the women silent, sitting among
the ruins. From that hour a spirit of revenge took possession of the
dwellers in this Dismal Swamp of hostility to the village.

Hitherto these half savage people had paid of their own free will a
kind of tribute to the regular house-folk of Wolf’s Glow. The farmers’
wives received useful presents of baskets and clothes-pegs, and every
now and then half a dozen wild ducks were found on the threshold in the
morning. The clergyman was treated in a similar manner; and being known
to have a penchant for snipes and woodcocks, his table was well
supplied in the season. Sometimes there were other things left in a
mysterious way at the door—such as a bladder full of the finest brandy
or Hollands gin, or a packet of tobacco or snuff.

This was generally after the visit of the gipsy tribe, who were
smugglers to a considerable extent. No farmer ever missed a lamb or a
horse: such property was far safer since the settlement of the Dismal
Swamp.

But now the village had attacked the Swamp, the Swamp retaliated on the
village, and a regular war commenced. The farmers’ sheep began to
disappear—none so often as old Sibbold’s. Once a valuable horse of his
was lost. This drove him to the verge of frenzy. He went down to the
Swamp, and presently returned swearing and vowing vengeance—he had been
shot at. This aroused the clergyman into action. He went to the Swamp,
and was received with respect. He talked of conciliation, and reproved
them, especially speaking of the sin of murder. They listened, but
utterly scouted the idea.

“We steal,” they said, openly. “It is our revenge; but we do not
murder. Sibbold was not fired at. One of our young men was seeking
ducks—he did not know that Sibbold at the same moment was creeping
noiselessly through the reeds to fire our huts. He shot at the ducks,
and some of the pellets glanced off Sibbold’s jack-boots. That’s the
truth.”

And it was the truth. But Sibbold vowed vengeance, and was heard to say
that he would have their blood. He refused to see the clergyman who
came to mediate and explain. He accused him of complicity, and reviled
him.

James, as usual, agreed with and seconded him. Arthur sided with the
squatters, and said so openly. Sibbold cursed him. Arthur said
pointedly that when he inherited the land the squatters should be
unmolested. Sibbold struck him with an ash stick.

Arthur left the house and went to the Swamp. He called on old Will
Baskette, and expressed his hatred of his father’s tyranny. He asked to
be taught to make baskets, and to be initiated into the gipsy
mysteries. He was a quick lad, and they took an interest in teaching
him. He soon knew how to make two or three kinds of baskets, learnt the
gipsy language, and imbibed their singular traditions.

Meantime the war continued. At first the farmers and villagers put up
with patience with their thefts, considering that it was Sibbold’s
fault. But repeated losses exasperated them. If one of the Dismal Swamp
people was seen abroad he was set upon and maltreated, beaten black and
blue. Savage dogs were hounded at them. Sibbold was encouraged to eject
them. He tried to get a posse of constables to do so, but the
constables hung back. They had heard the story of the shooting at
Sibbold; they knew these men to be desperate characters; and most of
them had had presents of brandy and tobacco, and ribbons for their
wives.

They could not be got to move. That was a lawless age in outlying
places. Finding this, the village began to contemplate a raid _en
masse_ upon the Swamp. Nothing was talked of in the alehouse but
fighting. Men compared the length of their gun-barrels, and put up
marks to prove the range of their shot. The younger men were ready for
the fray, the elders hesitated. They looked at their thatched houses,
at their barns and ricks. The insurance companies had not then
penetrated into the most obscure nooks and corners.

After all, the Swamp people were not unsupported: they were a branch of
a tribe. If they were seriously injured the tribe might return, and no
one could calculate the consequences.

So the foray was put off from day to day. But the news that it was
meditated soon reached the Swamp, and made the dwellers there more
desperate than ever. Their thefts grew to such a height that nothing
was safe. The geese and turkeys disappeared; wheat was stolen from the
barns; sheep were taken by the dozen, and no trace could be found. Now
and then a horse disappeared. It came to such a pitch that the very
beer in the barrels, the cider in the cellar, was not safe, but was
taken nightly.

Old Sibbold, of course, suffered most. Tapping a cider barrel, he found
it quite empty. The old man was beside himself with rage; but he said
nothing. He studied retaliation. He watched his barns—the wheat seemed
to disappear under his very eyes. One night as he was returning from
his barn, carrying his long-barrelled flint-lock under his arm, he
fancied he saw a gleam of light in the ivy, which almost hid the cellar
window. Stealthily he peeped through. There was a man stooping down,
drawing off the cider from a barrel into a bucket.

Old Sibbold’s lips compressed; a fire came into his eyes. He grasped
his gun. Just then the thief held up the candle in his left hand, and
revealed the features of old Will Baskette, the very chief of the
Swamp. Sibbold hated him more particularly because he knew that Arthur
frequented his hut. Up went the long gun. The gleam of light from the
candle guided the aim. The muzzle was close to the lattice window. A
cruel eye glanced along the barrel, a finger was on the trigger. The
flint struck the steel with a sharp snick—a spark flew out—an
explosion—the window-glass smashed—a cloud of smoke—one groan, and all
was still.

Sibbold rushed round the house, opened the door gently, locked it
behind him, and stole upstairs. On the landing he met his youngest son
James. For a moment they looked at one another. The young man spoke
first.

“Quick, and load your gun,” he said. “Then put it in the rack and get
into bed. Give me your breeches.”

They wore breeches and gaiters in those days.

The old man did as he was bid. The gun was put in the rack; old Sibbold
got into bed. James took his breeches, poured a bucket of water on
them, and hung them up in the wide chimney—the embers still glowed on
the hearth. Then he stole upstairs.

“Arthur is out,” he whispered, as he passed the old man’s bedroom.

Ten minutes passed. Then there arose clatter of feet and a shouting.

“Farmer! farmer! your house is a-fire. The thatch be caught alight.”

James opened the window, yawned, and asked what was the matter.

“Father’s asleep,” he said, as if not comprehending them. “He got wet
in the brook, and went to bed early. Can’t ye come in the morning?”

But the others soon roused the house.

The thatch had indeed caught over the cellar window; but fortunately it
was nearly covered with moss and weeds, and was easily put out.

Then some one noticed the smashed window. “Who was it fired?” they
asked. “We heard a shot, and thought it was the swampers. We were
watching our sheep and barns. Then we saw this fire in your thatch, and
ran. Who was it fired? How came the window smashed like this? How came
the thatch alight?” James answered, “He really did not know. He had
heard no shot, he slept sound, knew nothing of the thatch being on
fire, and they would have been burnt in their beds if it had not been
for their kind neighbours.” Old Sibbold stood and shivered in his
shirt, his breeches were wet. The neighbours came in.

“I’ll go upstairs and fetch father a blanket to wrap his knees in,”
said James. “Father, thee blow the embers up; John Andrews, thee knows
where the cellar is: give ’em the key, father, and do you go, John, and
draw some cider.”

Away went John Andrews with the lantern, and came back with a face
white as a sheet, just as James got downstairs. There was a dead man in
the cellar, in a flood of gore and cider!

The result was a coroner’s inquiry; the thefts and so forth might have
gone on for ever, but death could not be disregarded. Even in that
lawless age, death was attended to. An inquest was held, and the jury
was composed of the farmers of the village. Suspicion fell very
strongly upon old Sibbold. The Swamp people openly denounced him as the
murderer. His neighbours, much as they hated the Swamp, believed in
their hearts that they were right; and not all their class prejudice
could overcome the innate horror they felt in his presence. More than
one had heard him say he would have blood. Now there was blood enough.

Still there was not enough evidence to arrest Sibbold. The Swamp people
said he would run away, and if he did they would watch him and bring
him back. But Sibbold did nothing of the kind. He faced the inquiry
with a stern dignity which imposed on some.

First came the medical evidence. The doctor proved that the shot had
entered the left side, just below the heart, and had passed downwards.
It had entered all together—the pellets not spread about, but close
together, like a bullet, which proved that the gun had been fired very
close. Death must have been absolutely instantaneous. Deceased was in a
stooping posture when he received the charge.

The constable who had examined the premises, declared it as his
belief—as, indeed, it was the belief of everyone present—that the shot
had been fired from without the window. The shot itself could not have
smashed every pane—that was the concussion. The thatch had been
doubtless set on fire by a piece of the paper which had been used as
wadding.

When this had been said there was nothing more to be done, at least so
the jury thought. Suspect Sibbold as much as they would, they were
determined to protect him if possible. This was partly class-feeling,
and partly remembrance of the provocation.

But the Coroner was not to be put off so easily. He had Sibbold called,
and questioned him closely. He called James also, but they both stuck
to their tale; they had never heard the shot, etc. The Coroner sent for
Sibbold’s gun, keeping Sibbold and James at the inn where the inquest
was held meantime. It was brought. It told no tales: it was loaded.
Finally, the Coroner, still dissatisfied and vaguely suspicious, called
_Arthur_ Sibbold, who, white as a sheet, was sitting near on a bench
watching the proceedings.

He started at his name and looked round, but finally came forward.
Where had he been that night? He was at Bassett, a small town six miles
distant. What was his business there? what time did he leave? and so
on. Arthur answered, but not so clearly as was desired. He contradicted
himself as to the time at which he left Bassett, and got confused.

The Coroner’s suspicions shifted upon him. He must have arrived about
the time the shot was heard, yet he did not go indoors, did not show
himself till breakfast-time next morning. James vouched for that,
unasked. What was he doing all night?

Suspicion fell very strong on Arthur. But at this moment the wife of
the deceased started forward and declared her belief in his innocence,
recounting how he had learnt basket-making, etc, of the dead man, and
they had been on the most friendly terms.

Still, said the Coroner, he might have mistaken his man in the
uncertain light. Had he a gun? It was shown that the three Sibbolds had
but one gun; that Arthur never used a gun, being of a tender nature,
and often expressing his dislike to see birds wantonly slaughtered.

The Sibbolds were then, with the other witnesses, ordered out, and the
Coroner addressed the jury.

He told them plainly where his suspicions lay: one of the Sibbolds, he
was certain, did the deed, but which? Two were in bed, or at least were
to all appearance in bed, and one point in their favour was that the
thatch was alight. Now, if they had known that, they would hardly have
lain till the neighbours came up. The third was out that night, and,
according to his own showing, must have returned about the time the
murder was committed. But in his favour it was urged that he was on the
best of terms with the deceased; that he had no gun of his own; that he
disliked the use of a gun. He said much more, but these were the chief
points, and particularly he laid down the law. They must not imagine
because a man was stealing that thereby his life was at any one’s
mercy. If a struggle took place, and the thief was killed in the
struggle, there were then several loopholes of escape from the penalty
of the law. First, it might be called chance-medley; next, there would
be a doubt whether the stab or shot was not given in self-defence, and
was not intended to kill. But in this case there was every appearance
of deliberate murder. The thief had been spied at the cask; the
murderer had coolly aimed along his gun and fired, hitting his man in a
vital part, evidently of design and aforethought.

He then left the jury to their deliberations. They talked it over half
an hour in a sullen manner, and then _returned an open verdict_—“Found
dead.” The Coroner remonstrated, and recommended that at least it
should be “Wilful murder against persons unknown,” but they were
obstinate.

That verdict stands to this day. The dread spectre of the gallows
vanished from Wolf’s Glow. Old Will Baskette was buried in the
churchyard, and his funeral was attended by the whole of the Swamp
people and half the village. And over their ale the farmers whispered
that it served the old thief right, but they avoided old Sibbold. The
work of the rats had already brought fruit in bloodshed.




Chapter Three.


In these days such a verdict and such an ending to a tragedy would be
out of the question; but there were no police in those times to take up
a case if it chanced to slip by the Coroner. Once past the Coroner, and
the criminal was practically safe. The county officers were never in a
hurry for such prosecutions, for a gallows cost at least 300 pounds.
They wanted a public prosecutor then ten times more than we do now.
Sibbold was shunned by the very men who had acquitted him; but there is
no reason to suppose he ever felt remorse. He was made of that kind of
stuff of which the men in armour, his ancestors, were composed, who
thought little or nothing of human life. But one day he met Arthur, his
eldest son, face to face upon the stairs. It was the first time they
had met since the inquest—Arthur had avoided the place, and wandered
about a good deal by himself, till some simple folk began to think that
it was he who had committed the deed, and that his conscience was
troubling him.

This meeting on the stairs took place by accident one morning—Sibbold
was going to pass, but Arthur put his hand on his shoulder, “I saw you
do it,” he said. He had just entered the rick yard when the shot was
fired. He had held his peace, but his mind could not rest. “I cannot
stay here,” he said, “I am going. I shall never see you again.”

Old Sibbold stood like a stone; but presently put his hand in his
pocket and held out his purse.

“No,” said Arthur; “not a penny of that, it would be blood money.”

He went, and evil report went after him. Perhaps it was James who
fanned the flame, but for years afterwards it was always believed that
Arthur had shot the basket-maker. Only the Swamp people combated the
notion. Arthur was one of them, and understood their language—it was
impossible. Not to have to return to these times, it will be, perhaps,
best to at once finish with old Sibbold; though the event did not
really happen till some time after Arthur’s departure.

Sibbold went to a fair at some twenty miles distance—a yearly custom of
his; and returning home in the evening, he was met by highwaymen, it is
supposed, and refusing to give up his money bag, was shot. At all
events his horse came home riderless, and the body of the old man was
found on the heath divested of every article of value. Suspicion at
once fell on his known enemies, the Swamp people. Their cottages were
searched and nothing found. Their men were interrogated, but had all
been either at home or in another direction. Calm reason put down
Sibbold’s death to misadventure with highwaymen, common enough in those
times; but there were those who always held that it was done in
revenge, as it was believed that the gipsies retained the old vendetta
creed.

As Arthur did not return, James took possession, and went on as usual;
but he did not disturb the Swamp settlement. He avoided them, and they
avoided him.

When Will Baskette was shot he left a widow and two sons, one of them
was strong and hardy, the other, about sixteen, was delicate and unfit
for rough outdoor life. This fact was well-known to the clergyman at
Wolf’s Glow, the Rev. Ralph Boteler, who was really a
benevolently-minded man.

The widow and her eldest son joined the gipsy tribe and abandoned the
Swamp. The Rev. Ralph Boteler took the delicate Romy Baskette into his
service as man of all work, meaning to help in the garden and clean the
parson’s nag. Romy could not read, and the parson taught him—also to
write. Being quiet and good-looking, the lad won on the vicar, who
after a time found himself taking a deep interest in the friendless
orphan. It ended in Romy leaving the garden and the stable, and being
domiciled in the studio, where the parson filled his head with
learning, not forgetting Latin and Greek.

The vicar was a single man, middle-aged, with very little thought
beyond his own personal comfort, except that he liked to see the hounds
throw off, being too stout to follow them. He had, however, one hobby;
and, like other men who are moderate enough upon other topics, he was
violence itself upon this. Of all the hobbies in the world, this
parson’s fancy was geology—then just beginning to emerge as a real
science.

The neighbours thought the vicar was as mad as a March hare on this one
point. He grubbed up the earth in forty places with a small mattock he
had made on purpose at the village blacksmith’s. He broke every stone
in the district with a hammer which the same artisan made for him.

His craze was that the neighbourhood of Wolf’s Glow was rich in the two
great stores of nature which make countries powerful—i.e. in Coal and
Iron. He proved it in twenty ways. First, the very taste of the water,
and the colour of the earth in the streams; by the nodules of dark,
heavy stone which abounded; by the oily substance often found floating
on the surface of ponds—rock oil; by the strata and the character of
the fossils; by actual analysis of materials picked up by himself;
lastly, by archaeology.

Wolf’s Glow! What was the meaning of that singular name? The only Glow
in the county. Wolf was, perhaps, a man’s name in the centuries since.
But Glow? Glow was, without a doubt, the ancient British for _coal_.

The people who argued against him—and they were all he met—ridiculed
the idea of the ancient Britons knowing anything of coal. Boteler
produced his authorities to show that they, and their conquerors the
Romans, were perfectly familiar with that mineral. Wolf’s Glow was, in
fact, Wolf’s Coal Pit. “Very well,” said the Objectors, “show us the
coal pit, and we’ll believe.” This the vicar could not do, and was held
to be mad accordingly.

But all this talking, and searching, and analysing made a deep
impression upon the mind of young Romy Baskette, who was now hard upon
twenty years of age. Boteler, really desirous of pushing the lad on,
sent him to London, whither Arthur Sibbold had preceded him, and placed
him, at a high premium, in the care of a friend of his, who was in the
iron trade. Romy grew and prospered, and being of a serious disposition
saved all the money he could lay hands on. Presently old Boteler died,
and left him, not all, but a great share of his worldly wealth. With
this he bought a share in the iron business, and became a partner.
Wealth rolled in upon him, and at an early period of life he retired
from active labour, married, and bought an estate a few miles from
Wolf’s Glow.

In his leisure hours the memory of the old days with the vicar
returned. He resolved to test the vicar’s theory. He purchased a small
piece of land in Wolf’s Glow parish, sank a shaft, and sure enough came
upon _coal_.

This discovery revivified the whole man. He cast off sloth, forgot all
about retirement, and plunged into business again. Another search,
conducted by practical hands, proved the existence of iron.

There was a _furore_. Collieries were started; iron furnaces set going.
It was just at the dawn of the great iron and coal trade. The railways
had been started, and the demand was greater than the supply. Romy
Baskette and Company soon employed two thousand hands coal-digging and
iron-smelting. The man, in fact, wore himself out at the trade of
money-making. He could not rest. Night and day his brain was at work:
An accidental conversation with one of his workmen suggested to him a
new idea. The smiths of the time could not make nails fast enough for
all the building that was going on. This workman had been a sailor in
his day, and had seen nails abroad which were made in batches by
machinery, instead of slowly and laboriously, one by one, by hand.

Baskette caught at the idea. He studied and learnt what he could. He
made a voyage himself abroad, and soon mastered the secret. He erected
machinery, and _cut_ nails were first made. The consumption was
enormous. The business of this Baskette and Company became so large
that it almost passed out of control. Meantime other firms had come and
settled, bought land, dug up coal, and set up smelting furnaces. In ten
years the population from being absolutely nil rose to thirty-five
thousand people. By this time Romy had killed himself. But that
mattered little, for he had left a son, and a son who inherited all his
genius, and was—if anything still “harder in the mouth.” He was named,
from his mother’s family, Sternhold Baskette.

Sternhold picked up the plough-handle which had dropped from his
father’s grasp, and continued the good work, never once looking back.
But although equally clever, the bent of his genius was different from
that of old Romy. Romy was at heart a speculator, and believed in
personal property. Sternhold was a Conservative, and put his faith in
real property, houses, and land. He kept up the old forges and
collieries, but he started no new ones. He invested the money in land
and houses, particularly the latter. His life may be summed up in two
strokes of genius—the first was bringing the iron horse to Stirmingham,
as the new town was called; the second was the building lease
investment.

It is hard to give the pre-eminence to either. They were both profound
schemes—neither would have been complete without the other. He did not
originate the idea of the railway—that was done for him—but he put it
on its legs, and he brought it to the centre of the town.

The original scheme almost omitted Stirmingham. Railways were not then
fully understood; their projectors had such vast ideas in their heads,
they aimed at long trunk lines, and so this railroad was to connect
London, the sea, and a certain large town—larger than Stirmingham then,
but now nothing beside the modern city.

Sternhold, as the largest shareholder, and as finding the capital to
get through Parliament, prevailed to have the course altered so as to
sweep by Stirmingham. He knew that this would improve his property
there at least fifty per cent. But he had other ideas in his head. The
line could not be finished under three years, and in those three years
it was his intention to become possessed of the whole ground upon which
the town of Stirmingham stood. He foresaw that it would become a mighty
centre. He braced up his nerves, and prepared to spend his darling
hoards like water.

One by one the fields, the plots, the houses, became his; and the greed
growing on him, he cast longing eyes on the adjacent marsh, now called
Glow’s Lea.

The solicitors he employed tried to restrain his infatuation. They
represented to him that even his vast wealth could not sustain this
more than kingly expenditure, and as to the marsh, it was sheer madness
to purchase it. In vain. Perhaps a tinge of pride had something to do
with it. He would buy up the rotten old Swamp where his progenitor had
dwelt, drain it, and cover it with mansions.

But now came a difficulty—the title to the ground was not all that
could be wished. James had been dead some years, but it was well-known
that had Arthur returned—if Arthur still lived, or his heirs—that James
had no right. He had enjoyed the farm and the land, such as it was,
unmolested, all his life. He had married, and had eight sons. Six of
these had married since, and most of them had children.

As none could claim the property, they all found a miserable livelihood
upon it, somehow or other. They had degenerated into a condition little
better than that of the squatters in the Swamp.

Three families lived in the farmhouse, constantly quarrelling; two made
their dwelling in the cowsheds, slightly improved; one boiled the pot
in the great carthouse, and the two single men slept in the barn. Such
a condition of slovenliness and dirt it would be hard to equal. And the
language, the fighting, and the immorality are better left undescribed!
The clergyman of Wolfs Glow wished them further.

To these wretches the offers of Sternhold Baskette came like the
promised land. He held out 300 pounds apiece, on condition that they
would jointly sign the deed and then go to America. They jumped at it.
The solicitor warned Baskette that the contract was not sound. He
asked, in reply, if any one could produce the deed under which the
property descended by “heirship.” No one could. Somehow or other it had
been lost.

In less than a month eight Sibbolds, with their wives and families,
were _en route_ to the United States, and Sternhold took possession.
Then came the Swamp settlement difficulty.

At first Baskette thought of carrying matters with a high hand. The
squatters said they had lived there for two generations, or nearly so,
and had paid no rent. They had a right. Sternhold remembered that they
were of his clan. He gave them the same terms as the Sibbolds—and they
took them. Three hundred pounds to such miserable wretches seemed an El
Dorado.

They signed a deed, and went to America, filling up half a vessel, for
there were seventeen heads of families, and children _ad libitum_.

Thus Sternhold bought the farm and the Swamp for 7500 pounds. His aim
in getting them to America was that no question of right might crop
up—for the Cunard line was not then what it is now, and the passage was
expensive and protracted. He reckoned that they would spend the money
soon after landing, and never have a chance of returning.

Meantime the railway came to a standstill. There had been
inflation—vast sums of promotion money had been squandered in the usual
reckless manner, and ruin stared the shareholders in the face. To
Sternhold it meant absolute loss of all, and above everything, of
prestige.

Already the keen business men of the place began to sneer at him. At
any cost the railway must be kept on its legs. He sacrificed a large
share of his wealth, and the works recommenced. The old swamp, or
marsh, was drained.

Sternhold had determined to make this the Belgravia of Stirmingham, and
had the plans prepared accordingly. They were something gigantic in
costliness and magnificence. His best friends warned and begged him to
desist. No; he would go on. Stirmingham would become the finest city in
England, and he should be the richest man in Europe. Up rose palatial
mansions, broad streets, splendid club-houses—even the foundations of a
theatre were laid. And all this was begun at once. Otherwise, Sternhold
was afraid that the compass of an ordinary life would not enable him to
see these vast designs finished. So that one might walk through streets
with whole blocks of houses only one story high.

Everything went on swimmingly, till suddenly the mania for speculation
which had taken possession of all the kingdom received a sudden check
by the failure of a certain famous railway king.

As if by magic, all the mighty works at Stirmingham ceased, and
Sternhold grew sombre, and wandered about with dejected step. His
friends, men of business, reminded him of their former warnings. He
bent his head, bit his lip, and said only, “Wait!”

Meantime the line had been constructed, but was not opened. The metals
were down, but the stations were not built, and the locomotives had not
arrived. Everybody was going smash. Several collieries failed; land and
houses became cheap. Sternhold invested his uttermost in the same
property—bought houses, till he had barely enough to keep him in bread
and cheese. Still they laughed and jeered at him, and still he said
only, “Wait!”

This place, this swamp, seemed to be fated to demonstrate over and over
again at one time the futility of human calculation, and at another
what enormous things can be accomplished by the efforts of a clever
man.




Chapter Four.


The owner of three parts of Stirmingham—now a monstrous overgrown city,
just building a cathedral—actually had nothing but a little bread and
cheese for supper. There were people who condoled with him, and offered
to lend him sums of money—not large, but very useful to a starving man,
one would have thought. He shrugged his shoulders and said, “Thank you;
I’ll wait.”

Certain keen speculators tried to come round him in twenty different
ways. They represented that all this mass of bricks and mortar—this
unfinished Belgravia—really was not worth owning; no one could ever
find the coin to finish the plans, and house property had depreciated
ninety per cent.

“Very true,” said Sternhold. “Good morning, gentlemen.”

He held on like grim death. Men of genius always do—mark Caesar, and
all of them. ’Tis the bulldog that wins.

By-and-by things began to take a turn. The markets looked up. Iron and
coal got brisker. The first locomotive was put on the line, then
another, and another; London could be reached in two hours, goods could
be transmitted in six, instead of thirty by the old canal or turnpike.

The Stock Exchange got busy again. You could hear the masons and
bricklayers—chink, tink, tinkle, as their trowels chipped off the
edges—singing away in chorus. The whistle of the engines was never
silent. Vast clouds of smoke hung over the country from the factories
and furnaces. Two or three new trades were introduced—among others, the
placed goods, cheap jewellery, and idol-making businesses, and
trade-guns for Africa. Rents began to rise; in two years they went up
forty per cent. The place got a name throughout the length and breadth
of the kingdom, and a Name is everything to a town as well as to an
individual.

But by a curious contradiction, just as his property began to rise in
value, and his investment looked promising, Sternhold grew melancholy
and walked about more wretched than ever. The truth soon leaked out—he
had no money to complete his half-finished streets and blocks of
houses. Nothing could induce him to borrow; not a halfpenny would he
take from any man.

There the streets and houses, the theatres, club-houses, magnificent
mansions, huge hotels, languished, half-finished, some a story, some
two stories high, exposed to wind and weather. In the midst of a great
city there was all this desolation, as if an enemy had wreaked his
vengeance on this quarter only.

Large as were the sums derived from his other properties—houses and
shops and land, which were occupied—it was all eaten up in the attempt
to finish this _marble_ Rome in the middle of a brick Babylon. Heavy
amounts too had to be disbursed to keep the railway going, for it did
not pay a fraction of dividend yet. Men of business pressed on
Sternhold. “Let us complete the place,” they said. “Sell it to us on
building leases; no one man can do the whole. Then we will form three
or four companies or syndicates, lease it of you, complete the
buildings, and after seventy years the whole will revert to you or your
heirs.”

Still Sternhold hesitated. At last he did lease a street or two in this
way to a company, who went to work like mad, paid the masons and
bricklayers double wages, kept them at it day and night, and speedily
were paying twenty per cent, dividends on their shares out of the rents
of the completed buildings. This caused a rush. Company after company
was formed. They gave Sternhold heavy premiums for the privilege to buy
of him; even then it was difficult to get him to grant the leases. When
he did accept the terms and the ready cash, every halfpenny of it went
to complete streets on his own account; and so he lived, as it were,
from hand to mouth.

After all this excitement and rush, after some thousands of workmen
were put at it, they did not seem to make much impression upon the huge
desolation of brick and mortar. Streets and squares rose up, and still
there were acres upon acres of wilderness, foundations half-dug out and
full of dirty water, walls three feet high, cellars extending heaven
only knew where.

People came for miles to see it, and called it “Baskette’s Folly.”
After a while, however, they carefully avoided it, and called it
something worse—i.e. “The Rookery;” for all the scum and ruffianism of
an exceptionally scummy and ruffianly residuum chose it as their
stronghold. Thieves and worse—ill-conditioned women—crowds of lads,
gipsies, pedlars—the catalogue would be as long as Homer’s—took up
their residence in these foundations and cellars. They seized on the
planks which were lying about in enormous piles, and roofed over the
low walls; and where planks would not do they got canvas.

Now, it is well-known that this class of people do not do much harm
when they are scattered about and separated here, there, and everywhere
over a city; but as soon as they are concentrated in one spot, then it
becomes serious. Gangs are formed, they increase in boldness; the
police are defied, and not a house is safe.

This place became a crying evil. The papers raved about it, the police
(there were police now) complained and reported it to head-quarters.
There was a universal clamour. By this time Stirmingham had got a
corporation, aldermen, and mayor, who met in a gorgeous Guildhall, and
were all sharp men of business. Now the corporation began to move in
this matter of “Baskette’s Folly.” Outside people gave them the credit
of being good citizens, animated by patriotic motives, anxious for the
honour of their town, and desirous of repressing crime. Keen thinkers
knew better—the Corporation was not above a good stroke of business.
However, what they did was this: After a great deal of talk and
palaver, and passing resolutions, and consulting attorneys, and
goodness knows what, one morning a deputation waited upon Sternhold
Baskette, Esq, at his hotel (he always lived at an hotel), and laid
before him a handsome proposition. It was to the effect that he should
lease them the said “Folly,” or incomplete embryo city, for a term of
years, in consideration whereof they would pay down a certain sum, and
contract to erect buildings according to plans and specifications
agreed upon, the whole to revert in seventy years to Sternhold or his
heirs.

Sternhold fought hard—he asked for extravagant terms, and had to be
brought to reason by a threat of an appeal by the Corporation to
Parliament for a private Act.

This sobered him, for he was never quite happy in his secret mind about
his title. Terms were agreed upon, the earnest money paid, and the
masons began to work. Then suddenly there was an uproar. The companies
or syndicates who had leased portions of the estate grew alarmed lest
this enormous undertaking should, when finished, depreciate their
property. They cast about for means of opposing it. It is said—but I
cannot believe it—that they gave secret pay to the thieves and ruffians
in the cellars to fight the masons and bricklayers, and drive them off.

At all events serious collisions occurred. But the Corporation was too
strong. They telegraphed to London and got reinforcements, and carried
the entrenchments by storm.

Then, so goes the discreditable rumour, the companies bribed the masons
and bricklayers, who built so badly that every now and then houses fell
in, and there was a fine loss! Finally they got up an agitation, cried
down the Corporation for wasting public funds, and, what was far more
serious, brought high legal authority to prove that _as a Corporation_
they had no power to pledge themselves to such terms as they had, or
indeed to enter into such a contract without polling the whole city.

This alarmed the Corporation. There were secret meetings and long
faces. But if one lawyer discovers a difficulty, another can always
suggest a way round the corner. The Corporation went to Parliament, and
got a private Act; but they did not go as a body. They went through
Sternhold, who was persuaded; and indeed it looked plausible, that by
so doing, and by getting the sanction of the House of Commons, he
improved his own title.

Then the Corporation smiled, and built away faster than ever. In the
course of an almost incredibly short time the vast plans of Sternhold
were completed by the various companies, by the Corporation, and by
himself; for every penny he got as premium, every penny of ground-rent,
every penny from his collieries, iron furnaces, and cut-nail factories,
went in bricks and mortar. It was the most magnificent scheme, perhaps,
ever started by a single man. The city was proud of it. Like Augustus,
he had found it brick, and left it marble.

Yet, in reality, he was no richer. The largest owner, probably, of
house property in the world, he could but just pay his way at his
hotel. Although he had a fine country house (which old Romy had
purchased) in the suburbs, he never used it—it was let. He preferred a
hotel as a single man because there was no trouble to look after
servants, etc. He lived in the most economical manner—being obliged to,
in fact.

Yet this very economy increased the popular belief in his riches. He
was a miser. Give a man that name, let it once stick to him, and there
is no limit to the fables that will be eagerly received as truth. Give
a dog a bad name and hang him. Call a man a miser, and, if he is so
inclined, he can roll in borrowed money, dine every day on presents of
game and fish, and marry any one he chooses. I only wish I had the
reputation.

No one listened to Sternhold’s constant reiteration of what was
true—that he was really poor. It was looked upon as the usual
stock-in-trade language of a miser. His fame spread. Popular rumour
magnified and magnified the tale till it became like a chapter from the
Arabian Nights.

After all, there was some grain of truth in it. If he could have
grasped all that was his, he would have surpassed all that was said
about his riches.

At last the _Stirmingham Daily News_ hit upon a good idea to
out-distance its great rival the _Stirmingham Daily Post_. This idea
was a “Life of Sternhold Baskette, the Miser of Stirmingham.” After,
the editor had considered a little, he struck out “miser,” and wrote
“capitalist”—it had a bigger sound.

The manuscript was carefully got up in secret by the able editor and
two of his staff, who watched Sternhold like detectives, and noted all
his peculiarities of physiognomy and manner. They knew—these able
editors know everything—that the public are particularly curious how
much salt and pepper their heroes use, what colour necktie they wear,
and so on. As the editor said, they wanted to make Sternhold the one
grand central figure—perfect, complete in every detail. And they did
it.

They traced his origin and pedigree—this last was not quite accurate,
but near enough. They devoted 150 pages to a mere catalogue of his
houses, his streets, his squares, club-houses, theatres, hotels,
railways, collieries, ironworks, nail factories, estates, country
mansions, etc. They wrote 200 pages of speculations as to the actual
value of this enormous property; and modestly put the total figure at
“something under twenty millions, and will be worth half as much again
in ten years.” They did not forget the building leases; when these fell
in, said the memoir, he or his heirs would have an income of 750,000
pounds per annum.

They carefully chronicled the fact that the capitalist had never
married, that he had no son or daughter, that he was growing old, or,
at least, past middle age, and had never been known to recognise any
one as his relation (having, in fact, shipped the whole family to
America). What a glorious thing this would be for some lucky fellow!
They finished up with a photograph of Sternhold himself. This was
difficult to obtain. He was a morose, retiring man—he had never, so far
as was known, had his portrait taken. It was quite certain that no
persuasion would induce him to sit for it. The able editor, however,
was not to be done. On some pretext or other Sternhold was got to the
office of the paper, and while he sat conversing with the editor, the
photographer “took him” through a hole made for the purpose in the
wooden partition between the editor’s and sub-editor’s room. As
Sternhold was quite unconscious, the portrait was really a very good
one. Suddenly the world was taken by storm with a “Life of Sternhold
Baskette, the Capitalist of Stirmingham. His enormous riches, pedigree,
etc, 500 pages, post octavo, illustrated, price 7 shillings 6 pence.”

The able editor did not confine himself to Stirmingham. Before the book
was announced he made his London arrangements, also with the lessees of
the railway bookstalls. At one and the same moment of time, one morning
Stirmingham woke up to find itself placarded with huge yellow bills
(the _News_ was Liberal then—it turned its coat later on—and boasted
that John Bright had been to the office), boys ran about distributing
handbills at every door, men stood at the street corners handing them
to everybody who passed.

Flaring posters were stuck up at every railway station in the kingdom;
ditto in London. The dead walls and hoardings were covered with yellow
paper printed in letters a foot long. Three hundred agents, boys,
girls, and men, walked all over the metropolis crying incessantly
“Twenty Millions of Money,” and handing bills and cards to every one.
The _Athenaeum, Saturday Review, Spectator_, and _Times_; every paper,
magazine, review; every large paper in the country had an
advertisement. The result was something extraordinary.

The name of Sternhold Baskette was on everybody’s lips. His “Twenty
Millions of Money” echoed from mouth to mouth, from Land’s End to John
o’ Groats. It crossed the Channel, it crossed the Alps, it crossed the
Atlantic and the Pacific. It was heard on the Peak of Teneriffe, and in
the cities of India.

The New York firms seized on it as a mine of wealth. The book,
reprinted, was sold from the Hudson River to the Rocky Mountains, and
to the mouth of the Mississippi for twenty cents. The circulation was
even larger in the United States than in Britain, for there everybody
worshipped the dollar. The able editor made his fortune. The book ran
through thirty editions, and wore out two printing machines and three
sets of type. The two gentlemen of the staff who had assisted in the
compilation had a fair share, and speedily put on airs. They claimed
the authorship, though the idea had certainly originated with the
editor. There was a quarrel. They left, being offered higher salaries
in this way:—The other paper, the _Post_, though blue in principles,
grew green with envy, and tried to disparage as much as possible. They
offered these respectable gentlemen large incomes to cut the book to
pieces that they themselves had written. No one could do it better—no
one understood the weak points, and the humbug of the thing so well.
The fellows went to work with a will. The upshot was a little warfare
between the Sternholders and the anti-Sternholders. The _News_ upheld
Sternhold, stuck to everything it had stated, and added more. The
_Post_ disparaged him in every possible way. This newspaper war had its
results, as we shall presently see. For the present these two noble
principled young men, who first wrote a book for pay and then engaged
to chop it into mincemeat for pay, may be left to search and search
into the Baskette by-gone history for fresh foul matter to pour forth
on the hero of Stirmingham.




Chapter Five.


“The Hero of Stirmingham;” so the _News_ dubbed him; so it became the
fashion, either in ridicule or in earnest, to call him. People came
from all parts to see him. Every one who, on business or pleasure, came
to the city, tried to lodge at the hotel where he lived, or at least
called there on the chance of meeting the mortal representative of
Twenty Millions Sterling. The hotel proprietor, who had previously lost
money by him, and execrated his economy, now reaped a golden harvest,
and found his business so large that he set about building a monster
place at one side of the original premises, for he was afraid to pull
it down lest the capitalist should leave.

Now a curious psychological change was wrought by all this in old
Sternhold’s character. Up till this period of his life he had been one
of the most retiring and reserved of men, morose, self-absorbed,
shrinking from observation. He now became devoured with an insatiable
vanity. He could not shake off the habit of economy, the frugal manner
of living, which, he had so long practised; but his mind underwent a
complete revolution.

It has often been observed that when a man makes one particular subject
his study, in course of time that which was once clear grows obscure,
and instead of acquiring extraordinary insight, he loses all method,
and wanders.

Something of the kind was the case with Sternhold. All his life had
been devoted to the one great object of owning a city, of being the
largest proprietor of houses and streets in the world. His whole
thought, energy, strength, patience—his entire being—had been
concentrated upon this end. In actual fact, it was not attained yet,
for he was practically only the nominal owner; but the publication of
this book acted in a singular manner upon his brain. He grew to believe
that he really was all that the “Life” represented him to be—i.e. the
most extraordinary man the world had ever seen.

He attempted no state, he set up no carriage; he stuck to his old
confined apartments at the hotel he had always frequented; but he lived
in an ideal life of sovereign grandeur. He talked as though he were a
monarch—an absolute autocrat—as if all the inhabitants of Stirmingham
were his subjects; and boasted that he could turn two hundred thousand
people out of doors by a single word.

In plain language, he lost his head; in still plainer language, he went
harmlessly mad—not so mad that any one even hinted at such a thing.
There was no lunacy in his appearance or daily life; but the great
chords of the mind were undoubtedly at this period of his existence
quite deranged.

He really was getting rich now. The houses he had himself completed,
with the premiums paid for building leases, began to return a
considerable profit. The income from his collieries and factories was
so large, that even bricks and mortar could not altogether absorb it.
Perhaps he was in receipt of three thousand pounds per annum, or more.
But now, unfortunately, just as the fruits of his labour were fast
ripening, this abominable book upset it all.

There can be no doubt that the editor of the _Stirmingham Daily News_,
with the best intentions in the world, dealt his Hero two mortal
wounds. In the first place, he drove him mad. Sternhold spent days and
nights studying how he could exceed what he had already done.

Dressed in a workman’s garb for disguise, he explored the whole
neighbourhood of Stirmingham, seeking fresh land to purchase. His
object was to get it cheap, for he knew that if there was the slightest
suspicion that he was after it, a high price would be asked. In some
instances he succeeded. One or two cases are known where he bought,
with singular judgment and remarkable shrewdness, large tracts for very
small sums. He paid only one-fifth on completion, leaving the remainder
on mortgage. This enabled him to buy five times as much at once as
would have otherwise been possible.

But there were sharp fellows in Stirmingham, who watched the capitalist
like hawks, and soon spied out what was going on. Their game was to
first discover in what direction Sternhold was buying in secret, then
to forestall him, and nearly double the price when he arrived.

In this way Sternhold got rid of every shilling of his income. Even
then he might have prospered; but, as bad luck would have it, the
railway, after two millions of money had been sunk on it, actually
began to pay dividends of three and a half per cent, then four, then
six; for a clever fellow had got at the helm, and was forcing up the
market so as to make hay while the sun shone.

Sternhold was in raptures with railways. Some sharp young men of
forty-five and fifty immediately laid their heads together, and
projected a second railway at almost right angles—not such a bad idea,
but one likely to cause enormous outlay. They represented to Sternhold
that this new line would treble the value of the property he had
recently bought, extending for some miles beyond the city. He jumped at
it. The Bill was got through Parliament. One half of these sharp young
men were lawyers, the other half engineers and contractors.

Sternhold deposited the money, and they shared it between them. When
the money was exhausted the railway languished. This exasperated old
Baskette. For the first time in his life he borrowed money, and did it
on a royal scale;—I am almost afraid to say how much, and certainly it
seems odd how people could advance so much knowing his circumstances.

However, he got it. He bought up all the shares, and became practically
owner of the new line. He completed it, and rode on the first
locomotive in triumph, surrounded by his parasites. For alas! he had
yielded to parasites at last, who flattered and fooled him to
perfection. This was the state of affairs when the second mortal wound
was given.

It happened in this way. The “Life of Sternhold Baskette, Esq,” had, as
was stated, got abroad, and penetrated even to the Rocky Mountains. It
was quoted, and long extracts made from it in the cheap press—they had
a cheap press in the United States thirty years before we had, which
accounts for the larger proportion of educated or partly educated
people, and the wider spread of intelligence. After a while, somehow or
other, the marvellous story reached the ears of one or two persons who
happened to sign their names Baskette, and they began to say to
themselves, “What the deuce is this? We rather guess we come from
Stirmingham or somewhere thereabouts. Now, why shouldn’t we share in
this mine of wealth?”

The sharp Yankee intellect began to have “idees.” Most of the cotters
whom Sternhold had transhipped to America thirty years or more
previous, were dead and buried—that is to say, the old people were.

The air of America is too thin and fine, and the life too fast, for
middle-aged men who have been accustomed to the foggy atmosphere and
the slow passage of events in the Old Country. But it is a tremendous
place for increase of population.

The United States are only just a century old, and they have a
population larger than Great Britain, which has a history of twenty
centuries, or nearly so.

So it happened that, although the old people were dead, the tribe had
marvellously increased. Half who were transhipped had borne the name of
Baskette. This same question was asked in forty or fifty places at
once—“My name is Baskette; why should not I share?”

These people had, of course, little or no recollection of the deed
signed by their forefathers: and if they had had a perfect knowledge,
such a trifling difficulty as that was not one calculated to appal a
Yankee’s ingenuity. When once the question had been asked it was
repeated, and grew and grew, and passed from man to man, made its
appearance in the newspapers, who even went so far as to say that the
finest city in England, the very workshop of the Britishers, belonged
to United States citizens.

Some editor keener than the rest, or who had read the book more
carefully, pointed out that the capitalist had no heirs living, that he
had never been married, and no one knew to whom all this vast wealth
would descend.

Twenty millions sterling begging a heir! This was enough to set the
American mind aflame. It was just like applying a lighted match to one
of their petroleum wells.

The paragraph flew from paper to paper, was quoted, conned, and talked
over. Men grew excited. Presently, here and there one who considered
that he had some claim began to steal off to England to make inquiries.
The Cunard were running now, though they had not yet invented the
“ocean highway,” by keeping to a course nothing to the north or south
of a certain line. Passage was very quick, and not dear. In a little
time the fact that one or two had started oozed out, then others
followed, and were joined by a lawyer or so, till at last fourteen or
fifteen keen fellows reached Stirmingham.

Now mark the acuteness of the American mind! Instead of announcing
their arrival, every one of these fellows kept quiet, and said not a
word! When they met each other in the streets they only smiled. They
were not going to alarm the game.

These gentlemen were not long in Stirmingham before they found out that
the _Stirmingham Daily Post_ was a deadly enemy of old Sternhold. To
the office of the second able editor they tramped accordingly.

There they learnt a good deal; but in return the editor pumped
something out of them, and, being well up in the matter, sniffed out
their objects. He chuckled and rubbed his hands together. Here was a
chance for an awful smash at the _News_.

One fine morning out came a leading article referring also to several
columns of other matter on the same subject, headed “The Heirs of
Stirmingham.”

Being Blue, you see, the _Post_ affected to abominate United States’
Republicanism and all the American institutions. This article recounted
the visit of the dozen or so of possible claimants, described them so
minutely that no one could help recognising them, and wound up with a
tremendous peroration calling upon all good citizens to do their best
to prevent the renowned city of Stirmingham falling into the hands of
the Yankees!

Such property as Sternhold’s, the article argued, was of national
importance; and although the individual should not be interfered with,
the nation should see that its rights were not tampered with. There was
danger of such tampering, for who knew what an _infirm, old_ man like
Sternhold might not be led to sign by interested parties? At his age he
could not be expected to possess the decision and mental firmness of
earlier years. This was a cruel hit at Sternhold’s mental weakness,
which had begun to grow apparent.

An endeavour should be made to find an English heir, and that there was
such an heir they (the staff of the _Post_) firmly believed. Two
gentlemen of the staff (meaning thereby the late writers for the
_News_), who had devoted some time to the matter, had made a certain
important discovery. This was nothing less than the fact that Sternhold
had had an uncle! This in big capital letters.


An Uncle. Then followed a little bit of genealogy, in approved fashion,
with dashes, lines, etc—the meaning of which was that Sternhold’s
father, old Romy Baskette, had had a brother, who, when the original
Will Baskette was shot, had departed into the unknown with his mother.

What had become of Romy’s brother? The probability was that by this
time he was dead and buried. But there was also the probability that he
had married and had children. Those children, if they existed, were
undoubtedly the nearest heirs of Sternhold Baskette, Esq, now residing
at Dodd’s Hotel, South Street. As an earnest of the anxiety of the
_Post_ to preserve the good city of Stirmingham from Yankee
contamination, they now offered three rewards:—First, fifty pounds for
proof of Romy’s brother’s death; secondly, one hundred pounds for proof
of Romy’s brother’s marriage, if he had married; thirdly, one hundred
and fifty pounds for the identification of his child or children. This
was repeated as an advertisement in the outer sheet, and was kept in
type for months.

It deserves notice as being the first advertisement which appeared in
the Great Baskette Claim Case—the first of a crop of advertisements
which in time became a regular source of income to newspaper
proprietors.

When this leading article and advertisement, supported by several
columns of descriptive matter and genealogies was laid on the breakfast
tables of half Stirmingham, it caused a sensation. The city suddenly
woke up to the fact that as soon as old Sternhold died half the place
would have no owner.

The Yankee visitors now had no further reason for concealment. They
went about openly making inquiries. They were fêted at hotel bars and
in billiard rooms. They called upon Sternhold bodily—_en masse_—forced
themselves into his apartment, though, he shut the door with his own
hands in their faces, shook him by the hand, patted him on the
shoulder, called him “Colonel,” and asked him what he would take to
drink!

They walked round him, admired him from every point of view, stuck
their fingers in his ribs, and really meant no harm, though their
manners were not quite of the drawing-room order.

They cut up the old man’s favourite armchair, whittled it up, to carry
away as souvenirs. They appropriated his books—his own particular
penholder, with which he had written every letter and signed every deed
for fifty years, disappeared, and was afterwards advertised as on show
at Barnum’s in New York City, as the Pen which could sign a cheque for
Twenty Millions!

When at last they did leave, one popped back, and asked if the
“Colonel” believed this story about his _Uncle_? He was sure he had
never had an uncle, wasn’t he? The old man sat silent, which the
inquirer took for once as a negative, and wrote a letter to the _News_,
denying the existence of Romy’s brother.

Poor old Sternhold was found by the landlord, old Dodd, sitting in his
chair, which was all cut and slashed, two hours afterwards, staring
straight at the wall.

Dodd feared he had an attack of paralysis, and ran for the nearest
doctor; but it was nothing but literally speechless indignation. After
a while he got up and walked about the room, and took a little dry
sherry—his favourite wine. But the mortal wound Number 2 had been
given. Henceforth the one great question in Sternhold’s mind was his
heir.




Chapter Six.


His heir! Sternhold seriously believed that he had no living relations.
It is often said that poor people have plenty of children, while the
rich, to whom they would be welcome, have few or none. This was
certainly a case in point. The poor Baskettes, who had been shipped to
America, had a whole tribe of descendants. Here was a man who,
nominally at least, was the largest owner of property known, who was
childless, and had already reached and exceeded the allotted age of
man.

Sternhold was seventy-two. He looked back and ransacked his memory. He
had never heard anything of this uncle, his father’s brother; his
mother’s friends were all dead. There was not a soul for whom he cared
a snap of his fingers. Firstly, he had no relations; secondly, he had
no friends, for Sternhold, wide as was his circle of acquaintances, had
never been known to visit any one. His life had been solitary and
self-absorbed.

Now, for the first time, he felt his loneliness, and understood that he
was a solitary being. Who should be his heir? Who should succeed to
that mighty edifice he had slowly built up? The architect had been
obliged to be content with gazing upon the outside of his work only;
but the successor, if he only lived the usual time, would revel in
realised magnificence unsurpassed. The old man was quite staggered, and
went about as in a dream.

The idea once started, there were plenty who improved upon it. The
Corporation at their meetings incidentally alluded to the matter, and
it was delicately suggested that Sternhold would crown his memory with
ineffable glory if he devised his vast estate to the city. Such a
bequest in a few years would make the place absolutely free from
taxation. The rents would meet poor’s-rates, gas-rates, water-rates,
sanitary-rates, and all. One gentleman read an elaborate series of
statistics, proving that the income from the property, when once the
building leases fell in, would not only free the city from local, but
almost, if not quite, from imperial taxation. There were many instances
in history of kings, as rewards for great services, issuing an order
that certain towns should be exempt from the payment of taxes for a
series of years. Sternhold had it thus in his power to display really
regal munificence.

Other gentlemen of more radical leanings cried “Shame!” on the mere
fact of one man being permitted to attain such powers. It was absurd
for one man to possess such gigantic wealth, and for several hundred
thousand to live from hand to mouth. The people should share it, not as
a gift, but as a right; it should be seized for the benefit of the
community.

The Corporation people were much too knowing to talk like this. They
went to work in a clever way. First, they contrived various great
banquets, to which Sternhold was invited, and at which he was put in
the seat of honour and lauded to the skies. Next, they formed a
committee and erected a statue in a prominent place to the founder of
Stirmingham, and unveiled it with immense ceremony. Certain funds had
been previously set apart for the building of a public library; this
being completed about that time, was named the Sternhold Institute. An
open space or “park,” which the Corporation had been obliged to provide
for the seething multitudes who were so closely crowded together, was
called the Sternhold Public Park. Yet Sternhold never subscribed a
farthing to either of these.

Nothing was left undone to turn his head. His portrait, life-size,
painted in oil, was hung up in the Council-hall; medals were struck to
commemorate his birthday. The Corporation were not alone in their
endeavours; other disinterested parties were hard at work. Most
energetic of all were the religious people. Chapel projectors,
preachers, church extension societies, missionary associations, flew at
his throat. His letter-box was flooded; his door was for ever
resounding with knocking and ringing. The sound of the true clerical
nasal twang was never silent in his anteroom. The hospitals came down
on him flat in one lump, more particularly those establishments which
publicly boast that they never solicit assistance, and are supported by
voluntary contributions caused by prayer.

The dodge is to publish the _fact_ as loudly as possible. To proclaim
that the institution urgently wants a few thousands is not begging. A
list of all the charities that recommended themselves to his notice
would fill three chapters: then the patentees—the literary people who
were prepared to write memoirs, biographies, etc—would have to be
omitted.

Now here is a singular paradox. If a poor wretched mortal, barely
clothed in rags, his shoes off his feet, starring with hunger,
houseless, homeless, who hath not where to lay his head, asks you for a
copper, it means seven days’ imprisonment as a rogue. If all the
clergymen and ministers, the secretaries, and so forth, come in crowds
begging for hundreds and thousands, it is meritorious, and is
applauded.

Now this is worthy of study as a phenomenon of society. But these were
not all. Sternhold had another class of applicants, whom we will not
call ladies, or even women, but _females_ (what a hateful word female
is), who approached him pretty much as the Shah was approached by every
post while in London and Paris.

He was deluged with photographs of females. Not disreputable characters
either—not of Drury Lane or Haymarket distinction, but of that class
who use the columns of the newspapers to advertise their matrimonial
propensities. Tall, short, dark, light, stout, thin, they poured in
upon him by hundreds; all ready, willing, and waiting.

Most were “thoroughly domesticated and musical;” some were penetrated
with the serious responsibilities of the position of a wife; others
were filled with hopes of the life to come (having failed in this).

Some men would have enjoyed all this; some would have smiled; others
would have flung the lot into the waste-basket. Sternhold was too
methodical and too much imbued with business habits to take anything as
a good joke. He read every letter, looked at every photograph, numbered
and docketed them, and carefully put them away.

Other efforts were made to get at him. He had parasites—men who hung on
him—lickspittles. To a certain extent he yielded to the titillation of
incessant laudation; and, if he did not encourage, did not repel them.
They never ceased to fan his now predominant vanity. They argued that
the Corporation and all the rest were influenced by selfish motives
(which was true). They begged him not to forget what was due to
himself—not to annihilate and obliterate himself. It was true he was
aged; but aged men—especially men who had led temperate lives like
himself—frequently had children. In plain words, they one and all
persuaded him to marry; and they one and all had a petticoated friend
who would just suit him.

Sternhold seemed very impassive and immoveable; but the fact was that
all this had stirred him deeply. He began to seriously contemplate
marriage. He brooded over the idea. He was not a sentimental man; he
had not even a spark of what is called human nature in the sense of
desiring to see merry children playing around him. But he looked upon
himself as a mighty monarch; and as a mighty monarch he wished more and
more every day to found not only a kingdom, but a dynasty.

This appears to be a weakness from which even the greatest of men are
not exempt. Napoleon the Great could not resist the idea. It is the one
sole object of almost all such men whose history is recorded.
Occasionally they succeed; more often it destroys them. Some say
Cromwell had hopes in that direction.

So far the parasites, the photographs, the stir that was made about it,
affected Sternhold. But if he was mad, he was mad in his own way. He
was not to be led by the nose; but those who knew him best could see
that he was meditating action.

Dodd, the landlord of the hotel, was constantly bothered and worried
for his opinion on the subject. At last, said Dodd, “I think the
Corporation have wasted their money.” And they had.

In this unromantic country the human form divine has not that
opportunity to display itself which was graciously afforded to the
youth of both sexes in the classic days of Greece, when the virgins of
Sparta, their lovely limbs anointed with oil, wrestled nude in the
arena.

The nearest approach to those “good old times” which our modern prudery
admits, is the short skirts and the “tights” of the ballet.

Sternhold, deeply pondering, arrived at the notion, true or false, that
the wife for him must possess physical development.

This is a delicate subject to dwell on; but I think he was mistaken
when he visited the theatres seeking such a person. He might have found
ladies, not _females_ nor women, but ladies in a rank of life nearer or
above his own, who exulted in the beauty of their form, and were
endowed with Nature’s richest gifts of shape. But he was a child in
such a search: his ideas were rude and primitive to the last degree. At
all events, the fact remains.

It was found out afterwards that he had visited every theatre in
London, but finally was suited on the boards of a fourth-rate “gaff” in
Stirmingham itself.

There was a girl there—or rather a woman, for she was all
five-and-twenty—who was certainly as fine a specimen of _female_
humanity as ever walked. Tall, but not too tall, she presented a
splendid development of bust, torso, and limbs. Her skin was of that
peculiar dusky hue—not dark, but dusky—which gives the idea of intense
vitality. Her eyes were as coals of fire—large, black, deep-set, under
heavy eyebrows. Her hair at a distance was superb—like night in hue,
and glossy, curling in rich masses. Examined closer it was coarse, like
wire. Her nose was the worse feature; it wanted shape, definition. It
was a decided _retroussé_, and _thick_; but in the flush of her
brilliant colour, her really grand carriage, this was passed over. Her
lips were scarlet, and pouted with a tempting impudence.

This was the very woman Sternhold sought. She was vitality itself
impersonified. He saw her, offered his hand, and was instantly
accepted. He wished her to keep it quiet; and notwithstanding her
feminine triumph she managed to do so, and not a soul in Stirmingham
guessed what was in the wind.

Sternhold went to London, got a special licence, and the pair were
married in Sternhold’s private apartments at his hotel in the presence
of three people only, one of whom was the astounded Dodd. They left by
the next train for London, where the bride went to Regent Street to
choose her trousseau, with her husband at her side.

Not a bell was rung in Stirmingham. The news spread like wildfire, and
confounded the city. People gathered at the corners of the streets.

“He is certainly mad,” they said. Most of them were in some way
disappointed.

“He may be,” said a keener one than the rest; “he may be—but _she_ is
not.”




Chapter Seven.


Lucia Marese, now Mrs Sternhold Baskette, was the daughter of an
Italian father and an English mother, and had a tolerably accurate
acquaintance with Leicester Square and Soho. She was not an absolutely
bad woman in the coarsest sense of the term—at least not at that time,
she had far too much ambition to destroy her chance so early in life.
Physiologists may here discuss the question as to whether any latent
trace of the old gipsy blood of the Baskettes had in any way influenced
Sternhold in his choice. Ambitious as she was, and possessed of that
species of beauty which always takes with the multitude, Lucia had
hitherto been a failure. Just as in literature and in art, the greatest
genius has to wait till opportunity offers, and often eats its own
heart in the misery of waiting, so she had striven and fought to get to
the front, and yet was still a stroller when Sternhold saw her. She
knew that if only once she could have made her appearance on the London
boards, with her gorgeous beauty fully displayed, and assisted by dress
and music, that she should certainly triumph. But she could not get
there.

Other girls less favoured by Nature, but more by circumstance, and by
the fickle and unaccountable tastes of certain wealthy individuals, had
forestalled her, and she stored up in her mind bitter hatred of several
of these who had snubbed and sneered at her.

The fairy prince of her dream, however, came at last in the person of
an old man of three score years and ten, and she snapped him up in a
trice. No doubt, like all Stirmingham, she entertained the most
fabulous ideas of Sternhold’s wealth.

These dreams were destined to be rudely shattered. She seems to have
had pretty much her own way at first. Doubtless the old man was as wax
in her hands, till his former habits began to pull at him. She had one
good trait at all events, if it could be called good—the first use she
made of her new position was to provide for her family, or rather for
the only member of it in England.

This was Aurelian Marese, her brother, who must have been a man of some
talent and energy, for despite all obstacles of poverty he contrived to
pass his examination and obtain a diploma from the College of Surgeons.
He came to Stirmingham, and with the assistance of Sternhold’s purse
set up as a mad doctor, in plain parlance, or in softer language,
established a private lunatic asylum. Oddly enough, it would seem that
notwithstanding the immense population of the city, there was not till
that time any establishment of the kind in the place, and the result
was that Aurelian prospered. He certainly was a clever fellow, as will
be presently seen, though some fancy he over-reached himself. When at
last Sternhold, worn out with the unwonted gaieties into which Lucia
plunged him, showed unmistakable signs of weariness, and desired to
return to Stirmingham, she yielded with a good grace. She reckoned that
he could not last long, and it was her game to keep him in good temper;
for she had learnt by this time that he had the power to dispose of his
property just as he chose.

We can easily imagine the restlessness of this creature confined in the
dull atmosphere of three or four rooms at Dodd’s Hotel, South Street.
But she bore it, and to her it was a species of martyrdom—the very
reverse of what she had pictured.

After a while, as time went on, whispers began to fly about—people
elevated their eyebrows and asked questions under their breath,
exchanged nods and winks. The fact was apparent; Sternhold could scarce
contain himself for joy. There was an undoubted prospect of The Heir.
The old man got madder than ever—that is, in the sense of
self-laudation. He could not admire himself sufficiently. The artful
woman played upon him, you may be sure; at all events there was a deed
of gift executed at this time conveying to her certain valuable estates
lying outside the city, and tolerably unencumbered. Why she came to
select those particular estates which were not half so valuable as
others she might have had, was known only to herself then; but
doubtless Aurelian had heard about the Yankee claims, and advised her
to take what was safe. These estates were, in fact, bought with old
Romy’s money made by the nail factory, and were quite apart from the
rest.

About this time, also, Sternhold left Dodd’s Hotel. This was another
evidence of her power over him. The best joke was, that although there
was old Romy’s country mansion about five miles from Stirmingham,
although Sternhold had since purchased four other mansions, and had
nominally street upon street of houses in the town, he had not a place
to take his wife to. He was obliged to rent one of his own houses of
the company who had built it on a building lease.

Mrs Sternhold now had her great wish gratified to some extent. She was
the observed of all observers. They tell you tales now in Stirmingham
of her extravagance, and the lengths she went. Her carriages, her
horses, her servants, her dinners, parties, and what not, were the one
topic of conversation. Even old-fashioned, straitlaced people found
their objections overcome by curiosity, and accepted her invitations.

Old Sternhold was never visible at these gatherings; but he rejoiced in
them. He was proud of his wife. He looked upon her as a prodigy. He
gave her the reins. But personally he practically returned to his old
habits. He still retained his old apartments at Dodd’s; and there he
might be found, at almost all hours, sitting at his desk, and eagerly,
joyously receiving every visitor who came to tell him of some fresh
extravagance, some fresh frolic of his wife’s!

How was all this expenditure supported, since his actual income was so
small? By a series of loans, which there were always men ready to
offer, and whose terms Sternhold always signed. Once or twice he did
remonstrate, but darling Lucia went into tears, and her brother
Aurelian assured him that, in her state of health, any vexation was
dangerous, etc. Aurelian, through the Sternhold connexion, was now a
fashionable physician.

At last the event happened, and a son was born. The memory of the week
succeeding that day will not soon pass away in Stirmingham.

Old Sternhold, himself a most temperate man, declared that he would
make every one in the city tipsy; and he practically succeeded. He had
barrels of ale and gallons of spirits and wine offered free to all
comers at every public-house and tavern. He had booths erected in an
open field just outside the town, for dancing and other amusements, and
here refreshments of all kinds were served out gratis.

The police were in despair. The cells overflowed, and would hold no
more, and the streets reeled with drunken men, and still more drunken
women.

This saturnalia reigned for four days, and would soon have
culminated—at least, so the police declared—in a general sack of the
city by the congregated ruffians. A detachment of dragoons was actually
sent for, and encamped in Saint George’s Square, with their horses and
arms ready at a moment’s notice. But it all passed off quietly; and
from that hour Sternhold, and more particularly the infant son, became
the idol of the populace.

They still look back with regret to those four days of unlimited
licence, and swear by the son of Sternhold.

This boy was named John Marese Baskette, but was always called Marese.
Singularly enough, the birth of this child, which one would have
prophesied would have completed the hold Lucia had over the father, was
the beginning of the difficulties between them. It began in his very
nursery. Proud of her handsome figure, and still looking forward to
popular triumphs, Lucia flatly refused to nurse the infant herself.

This caused a terrible quarrel. Old Sternhold had old-fashioned ideas.
But there is no need to linger on this. Lucia, of course, had her own
way, and Sternhold retired to sulk at Dodd’s Hotel. From that time the
chink widened, and the mutual distrust strengthened.

There never was any real doubt that the boy was legitimate; but some
devil whispered the question in Sternhold’s mind, and, he brooded over
it. I say some devil, but, in actual fact, it was one of those
parasites who have been once or twice alluded to. Is there anything
that class will stop at in the hope of a few formal lines in a rich
man’s will?

It was their game to destroy Lucia. The plan was cunningly formed. As
if by accident, passages in Lucia’s previous life, when she was a
stroller, were alluded to in Sternhold’s presence.

He grew excited, and eager to hear more; to probe her supposed
dishonour. The parasites distinctly refused; it was too serious a
matter. Still, if he wished to hear—it was common talk—all he had to do
was to go into the billiard rooms. Some of the fellows there did not
know him by sight, and they were sure to talk about it.

Sternhold went. Of all the sights in the world, to see that old man
making a miserable attempt to play billiards while his ears were
acutely listening to the infamous tales purposely started to inflame
him, nothing could be more deplorable. The upshot was he grew downright
mad, but not so mad that anything could be done with him. He watched
over Lucia like a hawk. She could not move; her life became really
burdensome.

It must be remembered that at that time she really was, though wild
enough in blood, perfectly stainless in fact. The temper in the woman
was long restrained. In the first place, she wanted his money; in the
next place, there was her son, whom she loved with all the vigour of
her nature. She bore it for a year or two, then the devil in her began
to stir.

Old Sternhold, who had watched and inquired hour by hour all this time,
had found nothing wrong; but this very fact was turned against her by
those devils, his lickspittles. They represented that this was part of
her cunning—that she had determined he should have no hold upon her, in
order that her son might inherit. They reminded Sternhold that,
although he could not divorce her, he could alter his will. Here they
rather overshot the mark, because he began to reflect that if he cut
off his son the old question would arise—To whom should he leave his
city, as he called it?

The miserable dilemma haunted and worried his already weakened brain
and body till he grew a shadow, and Lucia had hopes that he would die.
But he did not; in a month or two the natural strength of his
constitution brought him round.

All this time Lucia was in dread about his will. Aurelian astute and
cunning as he was hardly knew what to advise or how to act. He had his
spies—for he was wealthy now to a certain degree, and could afford it.
He had his strong suspicions that some of the companies who had leased
the property for building had a hand in the persecution of Lucia, and
in the inflammation of Sternhold’s jealousy. It was certainly their
interest to get the boy disinherited. Aurelian began to grow seriously
alarmed. Sternhold was stronger and better—perhaps if he had had
Aurelian for physician he would not have recovered so fast; but with
his distrust of Lucia, came an equal distrust of her brother, and he
would not acknowledge him.

Aurelian looked at it like this: Sternhold was now about seventy-five,
and had no organic disease. His father, Romy, had lived to a ripe old
age; his grandfather, the basket-maker, though shot in the prime of
life, came of a hardy, half-gipsy stock. The chances were that
Sternhold, with all the comforts that money could buy, would live
another ten years. This very worry, this jealousy, by keeping his
mental faculties alive, might contribute to longevity. In ten years, in
a year, in a month, what might not happen?

His greatest fear was in Lucia herself, who had shown signs of late
that she must burst forth. If she did, and without his being near her,
there was no knowing what indiscretion she might not commit. It was
even suspicious that Sternhold had recovered. It looked as if he had
made up his mind, and had signed a will averse to Lucia’s interest and
his son’s—had settled it and dismissed it. This was a terrible thought,
this last. When he suggested the possibility of it to Lucia, you should
have seen her. She raved; her features swelled up and grew inflamed;
her frame dilated; her blood seemed as if it would burst the veins:
till at last she hissed out, “I’ll kill him!” and fell fainting.

Aurelian determined one point at once. There must be no more delay;
action was the order. But what? Suppose the worst. Suppose the will
already made, and against Lucia’s interests, what was the course to be
taken? Why, to accumulate evidence to invalidate it. _Prove him mad_!




Chapter Eight.


The idea having been once entertained, grew and grew, till it
overshadowed everything else. The singular circumstance then happened
of one man slowly and carefully collecting evidence during another’s
lifetime to prove him insane the moment he died.

Aurelian placed his principal reliance upon the violent jealousy
Sternhold had exhibited. So vehement and irregulated a passion founded
upon mere phantasms of the imagination, was in itself strong
presumptive proof of an unsound mind. He had no difficulty in finding
witnesses to Sternhold’s outrageous conduct. The old man had been seen
walking up and down the street, on the opposite side of the pavement to
the house in which Lucia lived, for hours and hours at a time, simply
watching. He had been heard to use violent and threatening language. He
had made himself ill. The mind was so overwrought by excitement that it
reacted upon the body, and it was some time before the balance was
restored—if indeed it could ever be restored.

There were many trifling little things of manner—of fidgetiness—absurd
personal habits—which, taken in conjunction with the bad temper he had
displayed, went to make up the case. Aurelian added to this the vanity
Sternhold had of late openly indulged in. This was notorious, and had
become a by-word.

But when Aurelian had written all this out upon paper—when he had, as
it were, prepared his brief—his shrewd sense told him that in truth it
was very weak evidence. Any lawyer employed for the defence could
easily find arguments to upset the whole.

Day by day, as he thought it over, his reliance upon the insanity
resource grew less and less—and yet he could not see what else there
was to do. He racked his brain. The man, like others, was in fact
fascinated by the enormous property at stake: he could not get it out
of his mind. It haunted him day and night. He ransacked his memory,
called up all his reading, all his observation, all that he had
heard—every expedient and plan that had come under his notice for
gaining an end.

For a time, however, it was in vain. It is often the case that when we
seek an idea it flies from us, and will not be constrained, not even by
weeks of the deeply-pondering state. Often the more we think upon a
subject, the less we seem to see our way clear. And so it was with him.

Sometimes a little change of scene, even a little manual exercise, will
stimulate the imagination. So it was with him.

He had an important and serious case to attend—a rich patient underwent
an operation at his hands, and the physician grew so absorbed with his
delicate manipulation and in genuine delight in his own skill, that
Lucia and the property passed for a day or two completely out of his
memory. This was followed by profound slumber, and next morning he
awoke with the answer to the great question staring him in the face.

If Sternhold was not mad enough now, why not drive him mad? If he was
driven frantic and shut up in an asylum, Lucia’s son would to a
certainty inherit the property. Possibly he (Aurelian) might be
appointed trustee—he, as uncle, would be a guardian, and probably the
only one. He might also have the pleasure of receiving Sternhold into
his own retreat for lunatics; and so, while furthering the interests of
his sister and nephew, do himself a good turn. The idea enraptured him.

Aurelian possessed the true scientific mind which is incapable of
feeling. Some thinkers believe that the true artistic mind, the highest
artistic mind, is also incapable of feeling. It is so absorbed in its
own realisation of one idea, that it loses all consciousness of
possible suffering in others. He never doubted for an instant that it
was in his power to attain the proposed object—it was only to _let
Lucia loose_. Let her loose—a little way. Let her loose under strict
supervision—under the constant surveillance of himself, his son, a
youth of twenty whom he was training up in the right road, and perhaps
of other witnesses.

There was such a thing as divorce—this might not destroy the child’s
right, but it would place him out of Lucia’s hands. There must be no
handle for Lucia’s enemies to grasp at. She must be manoeuvred so as to
make Sternhold frantic without committing herself.

Lucia was aflame for such a course. She had restrained herself for
years. She was burning to be free, on fire for “life” and excitement;
above all, for admiration, for praise—the intoxicating breath of the
multitude that cheers to the echo! The Stage! the dance—music—the fiery
gaze of a thousand eyes following each motion! There must have been
something of the true artist in her. The grandest position, the most
unlimited wealth, would not have satisfied her without the stage.

She had married Sternhold in the hope of appearing as other women did
in the theatres owned by their lovers. She had tried to broach the
subject to Sternhold; he had held up his hands in horror, and she
constrained herself and bided her time.

Nearly four years now—four years! The coarse jests, the loud laughter,
the shouts and screams and cat-calls of the low threepenny gaff or
music hall from which she had been snatched—even such a life as that
seemed to her far, far superior to this irksome confinement, this
slavery which was not even gilded. Aurelian was right in his conjecture
that she could not be much longer held in—she must burst out.

Half-formed schemes had been working themselves into shape in her mind
for months past. She would leave her boy with Aurelian, take her jewels
and sables, sell them, borrow money upon the estate which Sternhold had
made hers by deed of gift, go to London or Paris, and plunge headlong
into “life,” paying any price for the one grand ambition of her
existence.

The craving—the _fury_, it might almost be called—the furious desire
for admiration from men which seized upon her at times, would
certainly, sooner or later, have hurled her on to a desperate step.

At this moment Aurelian came with his carefully-considered plan. She
met him open-armed. With one blow she could avenge herself upon
Sternhold, with one blow gratify herself and destroy him—destroy him
body and soul. This moment—this hour!

But not so fast. First, Aurelian obtained the money—no small sum. Next,
said he, this thing must not be done by halves. It was useless for her
to appear on some small stage; she must at one bound become the talk of
all the town. This required care, thought, and organisation. Those
great successes that seemed so suddenly attained without an effort, as
by a wave of the hand, had really been preceded by months and months of
preparation, and depended in great part upon the matured judgment and
clever advice of men who had watched the public for years.

Impatient as she was, Lucia again controlled herself, and did as she
was bid. Aurelian made it his business first to discover where she
could appear with most effect. He soon selected the place, Paris! he
obtained an interview with the proper authorities, and confided to them
a part of his secret. They saw their way to profit, and agreed.

The next thing was the character she should take, and the second, the
season. This last the manager, or rather owner, who was in raptures
with the thing, easily decided. It must be at the height of the Paris
season. He was a popular man, who could gather together a mighty crowd
of his own acquaintances.

If poor Sternhold, sitting in his apartment at Dodd’s Hotel, could have
heard these “fast” young men discussing the approaching appearance of
his wife, Aurelian would have gone no further.

The choice of character Aurelian insisted upon deciding, and he chose
Lady Godiva. As has been stated, Lucia had extraordinary hair, both for
length and abundance, and, unlike long hair generally, it was curly.
Had it been fine and delicate hair she could have boasted that few
women in Europe could equal her. The coarseness of its texture would
not be visible upon the stage.

She had really a magnificent figure. The character of Lady Godiva was
one exactly fitted for her. It is needless to say that there was little
or no acting—no study of parts, no insight into the meaning required,
as in the case of Shakespeare’s heroines. The piece was simply a
spectacle devised to bring out one central figure into the boldest
relief.

The greatest difficulty the conspirators—for so they may be fairly
called—had to contend with was the necessity of keeping Sternhold
completely in the dark, and yet at the same time getting together a
large audience, which could only be done by advertising. But Aurelian
was capable of dealing with more difficult dilemmas than this. His plan
was very simple and yet effective. The manager had a piece in his
_répertoire_ which, owing to the fame or infamy of a certain
fascinating lady, was the rage of the town. Suddenly this creature
disappeared—went off to Vienna with a titled gentleman—and after
blazing as a meteor of the first water there for a short time, as
suddenly dropped out of sight altogether.

The manager, at Aurelian’s suggestion, gave out that this lady had
turned up, and was going to again act at his house on a certain night.

The excitement was intense. It was an awful falsehood, for the poor
girl was in reality dead. (She met with her death under some strange
and suspicious circumstances, which were, by influence, suppressed.)
Her beauty, great as it was, had lost its charm in the tomb; yet her
name, in flaring letters, was prominent all over Paris.

The deception was kept up to the very end; and the company of the
theatre, by dint of double pay, were got to carry it out to perfection.
An exceptional number of waiters were, however, hired, and no one but
the manager and Aurelian had any idea what the object of this troop of
apparently idle fellows could be.

The house filled to the last seat. The poor dead girl’s name was on
every lip—her frailties were discussed with horrid flippancy; the
orchestra began, and Lucia Marese Baskette robed, or rather unrobed, as
Lady Godiva.

The owner of the theatre was there, and with him a whole host of men
about town, most of whom were partly in the secret, but not quite.

Just before the time arrived for the curtain to rise, this troop of
idle waiters entered the arena, swarmed into the boxes, into the
galleries and pit, distributing to every single individual who had
entered a handbill, announcing that, instead of Miss, “Mrs Sternhold
Baskette, the beautiful wife of Sternhold Baskette, Esq, the richest
man in the world, the owner of twenty millions sterling worth of
property, would appear as Lady Godiva; a part for which her splendid
physique and magnificent hair peculiarly fitted her.” At the same
moment a large poster was put out in front of the curtain, bearing the
same announcement.

The effect was singular. The house, which had been full of noise
before, became as still as death. People were astounded. They could not
believe it possible; yet, at the same time, they knew that the manager
dared not play a trick. Theatres had been wrecked before now by
indignant audiences. They waited in silence.

The curtain rose. I cannot pause to describe the gradual enthusiasm
which arose, nor to draw a picture of the grand _tableau_. But there
are many living who remember that memorable night, who declare that
anything equal to it has never been seen upon the stage.

Lucia rode on a milk-white palfrey, and looked extraordinarily
handsome. The house rose—the audience went mad. Recalled and recalled,
again and again that white palfrey paced to and fro, and the mighty
multitude would not allow the scene to pass.

The mesmeric influence of the excitement filled Lucia with a glowing
beauty; with a brilliance which made her seem a goddess—of her order.
No one remarked whether the piece was properly gone through after this.
I think it was not. From all that I can learn, I believe the audience
watched Godiva to and fro till the palfrey or its rider grew exhausted,
and then left _en masse_.

Paris was aflame next day. The papers said nothing—they were wise.
There is, however, something more powerful even than the newspaper—it
is conversation. Lucia had got conversation—her name was heard
everywhere. It was not only the acting, or show—it could not be called
acting—it was the fact of her position as Sternhold’s wife. She stood
upon the pinnacle of his fame for wealth, brazen and shameless in the
eyes of the world. Brazen and shameless, yet secure; for Aurelian never
left her. He watched her himself. His son—his paid servants—did the
same; not from fear of her indiscretion, but in order to appear as
witnesses if any proceedings should take place.

Next night and next night, and again on the third night, this
extraordinary spectacle was repeated. The crowds that came to the doors
could not be admitted. But by this time the leading papers had felt the
pulse of the people—not the excitable populace, but the steady
_people_. With one consent they rushed at the exhibition with lance in
rest. Improper was the softest insinuation. They were undoubtedly
right. The moment they took this tone all the press followed, and
before the week was over those who had the power had prohibited the
performance.




Chapter Nine.


The exhibition was stopped, but the end had been attained—Lucia was
famous. The manager and Aurelian had foreseen the inevitable official
veto, and had prepared for it. They had arranged for her to appear as
Cleopatra; it was a part which could be made to suit her admirably by
leaving Shakespeare’s text out of the question, and studying spectacle
instead.

It is a singular fact that Sternhold had no idea of what was going on
until the fourth or fifth day. He was told that Lucia had left
Stirmingham with her brother for a short visit to Paris, and paid
little or no attention to it. For the first day or two the papers had
been silent. At last the news reached him.

What Dodd had previously feared now happened—he was struck down with a
slight attack of paralysis, which affected one side. Some persons said
it was a merciful infliction, as it prevented him from witnessing his
wife’s disgrace with his own eyes. They were wrong. His body was bent,
but his mind was torn with contending and frenzied passions. The sense
of outrage—of outrage upon his dignity—was perhaps the strongest. That
after all his labour and self-denial, after long, long years of slowly
building up a property such as his, which rendered him in his own
estimation not one whit inferior to a king; that he should be insulted,
his name dragged in the dirt, his wife a spectacle for all Paris!

Sternhold had the vaguest ideas of stage proprieties and theatrical
morality. He had not a doubt but that Lucia was already an abandoned
woman. There were plenty who urged upon him to commence a suit for
divorce, though in reality it was extremely doubtful whether there were
sufficient grounds for anything beyond a judicial separation.

But Sternhold was filled with one consuming desire—to see her with his
own eyes. Whether it was this passion, or whether it was the natural
strength of his constitution, certain it is that in a marvellously
short time after the attack, he had himself conveyed to Paris, and sat,
a miserable, haggard, broken-down old man, in a box at the theatre the
same night, watching his wife upon the stage. He did this night after
night. A species of fascination seemed to carry him there to sit
silent, brooding over the utter wreck of his great schemes.

After a while he went suddenly back to Stirmingham without a word,
without so much as seeking an interview with Lucia, or issuing any
instructions as to what was to be done. He went back to his old
apartments at Dodd’s Hotel. He shut himself up, refusing to see even
the wretched parasites who had sown the seed of this mischief. It was
an instinctive attempt to return to the old, old habit, the ancient
self-concentration, apart from the world. But it failed. So soon as
ever he began to read his letters, to look into his accounts, every
figure, every transaction reminded him of Lucia and her extravagance;
the follies she had been guilty of, and the no less greater folly he
had himself yielded to in granting her every wish, thereby involving
his affairs in the most hopeless confusion. The attempt failed. He
rushed again from his retreat to seek her. Then he heard that she was
in Vienna performing. He got there, supported by his attendants.
Doubtless the physical fatigue of the journey irritated his nerves; at
all events, there seems no doubt that when he reached Vienna he was for
the time absolutely mad.

He went to the theatre. He saw Lucia as Godiva, just as she had been
seen in Paris. He was alone in his box. Deliberately he levelled a
pistol, resting the barrel upon the edge of the balustrade. As the
incense of praise and adulation rose up, as the pageant moved to and
fro, the deadly weapon was aimed at the central figure. He fired, and
the house was in commotion.

Those who know what happens when a full theatre is alarmed and excited
will require no description; those who have not seen it cannot imagine
it.

A second report, and the curling smoke caused a rush to the box, and
the occupant was found upon the floor, as was thought, dead. Lucia
alone was calm and cool. The bullet had not passed even near her; the
distance was great and the aim unsteady; the ball had struck a screen,
and did no injury. She dismounted and advanced to the footlights,
extended her hands, and in a few words begged the audience to be calm.
Speedily they saw her thus, as it were, in their very arms.

The theatre rang with acclamation. If it had been a scene prepared it
could not have succeeded better.

There were threats and loud cries of rage against the man who had fired
at her.

“Do not injure him,” she said, at the top of her full, deep voice; “he
is mad!” For she guessed in a moment who it was.

In a few minutes the whole thing was understood. Continental people are
quick at comprehending—an old husband, a young wife—bah! An attempt
first at murder, then at suicide—bah! What could he have done better
calculated to put Lucia upon the pedestal of fame?

Sternhold was not dead; not even injured. The ball he had fired at
himself had not touched him. He had fallen exhausted. When he became
physically conscious, he was raving mad.

There was no doubt about it this time. It was a pitiable sight.

Aurelian insisted upon seeing him: even he shuddered. The old man was
muttering gibberish to himself. Half his grey hair was gone, for before
he could be stayed he had dragged it out. His arms and limbs were
pinioned, but his body shook with a trembling convulsive movement. The
deed was done.

Aurelian braced himself up, and hastened at once to Lucia. He knew he
should have a struggle with her, and hoped that in the conflict he
should forget the sight he had left. He had determined to at once
withdraw her from the stage. The victory was won; there must be no more
risk.

The conflict between the brother and sister was terrible. She raged,
her frame swelled; she had tasted triumph, and the draught is more
intoxicating even than the taste of blood. She would go on.

But he was resolute, and he won. That very day he took her to
England—took is the right word, for it was necessary to use physical
force at times. He got her to her house at Stirmingham, and never left
her till she had grown more composed.

Sternhold was in an asylum. Aurelian thought that he would surely die;
but he did not.

Aurelian then began to scheme to get him in his own “retreat.”
Possession was nine points of the law. He went to Vienna at once before
any one guessed his object, obtained the proper permit, and in six days
deposited the wretched being in his asylum in the suburbs of
Stirmingham. Once there, thought Aurelian, let them get him out if they
can.

The fact was soon known; and there was an excitement. The parasites,
disappointed and raging, did their best to inflame the populace. There
was a growl, and the police began to prepare for an attack upon the
asylum; but, after all, the moment any of them reflected, they said,
“Why, it’s all right; the poor fellow is mad. He could not be in better
hands.” The plan of a popular tumult fell through.

The parasites next tried the law, but found that Aurelian had been
before them: he had all the proper documents; he could not be touched.

Next the companies began to stir. They were uncertain what to do, and
whether it was better for their interests that Sternhold should be in
his brother-in-law’s custody or not.

That astute gentleman very soon learnt what was passing in their minds,
and he had a very good conception of what could be effected by powerful
combination.

He opened negotiations with them. He pointed out to them privately that
the real point at issue was not Sternhold, but the boy—the heir—for no
one doubted the legitimacy. Who was to have the custody of the heir?

Clever Aurelian hoped that by making friends with the companies who
held the building leases that there would be no opposition to his
holding the boy—to his guardianship of the estate. He had strong
grounds to go upon. To all intents and purposes he was the nearest
relation. If the boy died, and no son of the phantom brother of Romy
turned up, _perhaps_ he might have a claim to the estate.

He gave the companies to understand that if he had the guardianship of
the boy their interests should be most carefully studied.

They appeared favourable. The step was taken. The boy remained with his
mother; his mother remained in her house, seeing Aurelian daily, and
indeed watched by his _employés_.

No change took place. Aurelian congratulated himself that all was going
on favourably. The boy, who had little or no idea of the meaning of the
word “father,” was constantly at Aurelian’s residence—the asylum where
his parent was confined—playing with Aurelian’s son, who was carefully
instructed to please him, and indeed was sharp enough already to
require little instruction.

Sternhold lingered in his melancholy state. He was no longer
violent—simply dejected. He did not seem able to answer the simplest
question. If asked if he was hungry, he would stare, and say something
relating to his school-days.

And this was the man who had built Stirmingham. For five years he
remained in this state, and then suddenly brightened up; and it was
thought and _feared_ that he would recover the use of his faculties. It
lasted but three days. In that short time he wrote three important
documents.

The first was a statement to the effect that he had wronged Lucia. He
now saw his folly—he had been led into his persecution of her by
designing people, and blamed himself for his subsequent conduct. He
earnestly entreated her forgiveness. The second was a species of family
history, short but complete, refuting the claims of the American
Baskettes. They were indeed of the same name, he wrote, but not of the
same blood. The truth was that the cotters who had lived in the Swamp,
now covered with mansions, had no name. They were half gipsies; they
had no registered or baptismal name.

Will Baskette, who had been shot, was the chief man among them, and
gradually they came by the country people to be called by his name.
They were not blood relations in any sense of the term. This paper also
gave the writer’s views of his transactions with the Sibbolds and the
cotters or “Baskettes,” and concluded with the firmly expressed
conviction—the honest statement of a man near his end—that his title
was irrefutable, and he knew of no genuine claim.

The third document was his Will. For now it appeared that hitherto he
had never made a will at all. It was extremely short, but terse and
unmistakable. It left the whole of his property, real and personal
(with the single exception of the gift to Lucia), to his son, John
Marese Baskette.

The will Aurelian took care was properly attested, and by independent
witnesses whom he sent for.

On the fourth day old Sternhold died, quietly and without a word. He
was buried, and hardly was he in the tomb before the battle began. The
companies at once cut off all connection with Aurelian. They had
reckoned upon his managing to get their terms at all events extended,
as he had promised. The Corporation refused any honours to the dead
king, and all eagerly sought about for the means of dividing the spoil.

After all their consultations, not all the subtlety of twenty
solicitors could suggest any feasible plan—the old man had baffled them
at last. It was useless to plead that he was insane, and actually in an
asylum at the moment of executing the will. What was the good even if
such a plea was successful—if the will was upset, the property would
descend to the boy just the same. There seemed no way of getting at it.

But at last a weak point was found. It was a time when a great deal of
commotion was made about the Roman Catholic question and the religious
education of minors. Now Lucia was certainly half a foreigner, and it
was believed she was a Catholic. Aurelian was certainly a Catholic.
With all his cunning he had not foreseen this, and he had allowed
himself to become a somewhat prominent member of the Catholic community
in Stirmingham. He had no religion, but it paid him. Catholics are rich
people, and when rich people go insane they are profitable. So he was
caught in his own trap.

There was an agitation got up among the ultra-Protestant community.
Funds were started to release the heir from the clasp of Rome. The
companies, the Corporation, all joined in the outcry. The question was
made a national one by the newspapers. But there was one difficulty:
the law required that there should be a person to sue. After much
trouble this person was selected in one of the Baskettes of American
origin, who had settled in Stirmingham, and claimed to be a nearer
relation than Aurelian.

The battle was long and furious, and cost heavy sums. No expense was
spared on either side, and the estate got still further encumbered. It
promised to be a drawn battle; but at last, having passed all the
tribunals, it began to approach the place of power, and to be discussed
in the Ministerial Cabinet. There was a man there who desired to obtain
the Catholic vote of Ireland, and the Aurelian party began to boast
already of success. But this very boasting spoilt their game. The
Ministry lost the confidence of the people, the House followed suit, a
new Ministry came into place, and the final decision was against the
Catholic, or, as they termed themselves, legitimate party—for they said
the uncle and the mother were the legitimate guardians.

The result was in truth disappointing to all the parties. The boy was
made a ward of Chancery, proper receivers of the estate were appointed,
and the companies who had begun to exult were entrapped. The lad was
taken from his mother and uncle, and sent to Eton to prepare for
college.

Thus a new element of complexity was added to the already chaotic state
of this vast estate.




Chapter Ten.


If ever there was a life that illustrated the oft-quoted phrase “poor
humanity,” it was that of Sternhold Baskette. But this is not the place
to moralise—we must hasten on. The orchestra has nearly finished the
overture; the play will soon begin.

Lucia had now no longer any reason for restraint. Her boy was safe—safe
as the laws of a great country could make him—certain to inherit a
property which by the time he was forty would be of value surpassing
calculation. She rejoiced in it, gloried in it. To her it was more
welcome than the confirmed guardianship of Aurelian would have been,
because it left her free.

The lad was at Eton, and happy—far happier than he could have been
elsewhere. His mother immediately commenced a course which led her by a
rapid descent to the lowest degradation.

She returned to Paris. Aurelian felt it was useless now to interfere,
neither could he afford more expense.

She easily got upon the stage again, and became more popular than ever.
At the age of forty she was even more handsome than in her youth. Her
features had been refined by the passage of time and by the restraint
to which she had been subjected. Her form was more fully developed.

It is unpleasant to linger on this woman’s disgrace. She formed a
_liaison_ with a rich foreign gentleman, retired with him from Paris
after a time, and the _Stirmingham Daily Post_, which pursued the
Baskettes with unmitigated hatred year after year, did not fail to
chronicle the birth of a son.

Aurelian, baffled, was not beaten. He was a resolute and patient man.
Like the famous Carthaginian father, he brought up his son and educated
him to consider the Baskette estates as the one object of his
attention—only in this case it was not for destruction, but for
preservation.

When young John Marese Baskette, the heir, after distinguishing himself
at Eton, was sent higher up the Thames to Oxford, Aurelian immediately
placed his son, Theodore Marese, at the same college.

The result was exactly as he had foreseen. The heir formed a bond of
friendship—such as it is in these days—with Theodore. Their one topic
of conversation was the estate.

John was full of the most romantic notions. He was in youth a really
exemplary lad—clever, hard-working, winning to himself the good will of
all men. Theodore had a genuine liking for his cousin—then, at all
events, though probably in after life the attachment he professed was
chiefly caused by self interest.

John was full of ambitious dreams. His vivid imagination had been
worked upon by the talk among his companions about the famous owner of
twenty millions sterling—his father. Upon an old bookstall he obtained
a copy of “The Life of Sternhold Baskette,” now out of print. It
inflamed him to the uttermost. There was good metal in the boy if he
had only had friends and parents to put it to proper use. He formed the
most extraordinary schemes as to what he would do with this wealth when
he became of age, and stepped at one bound into the full enjoyment of
it, as he supposed he should.

It was all to be used for the alleviation of the misery of the world,
for the relief of the poor, for the succouring of the afflicted, the
advancement of all means that could mitigate the penalties attaching to
human existence.

As time wore on, however, these benevolent intentions received their
first check.

He reached his twenty-first birthday. He claimed his birthright, and
was refused. Briefly, the reason was because the companies and the
American claimants had entered pleas, and because also the property was
terribly encumbered, and would require long years of nursing yet before
it could be cleared, and this nursing the higher Courts insisted upon.

Instead of the magnificent income he expected, the young man received
two thousand pounds per annum only. It struck his nature a heavy blow,
and did much to pervert it, for he looked upon it in the sense of a
shameful injustice. With Theodore he left college; at all events he was
now his own master, and entered “life.”

Every one knows what “life” is to a young man of twenty-one with two
thousand a year certain—the power of borrowing to a wide margin, and no
monitor to check and retard the inevitable course.

Theodore was much older—fully thirty at this time; but he was as eager
for enjoyment, and perhaps more so.

To make the story short, they ran through every species of
extravagance—visited Paris, Vienna, and all the continental centres of
dissipation.

Ten whole years passed away. John Marese Baskette was by this time a
thorough man of the world, deeply in debt, brilliant and fascinating in
manner, false and selfish to the backbone. He inherited his mother’s
beauty. A tall, broad, well-made man, dark curling hair, large dark
eyes, and large eyelashes, bronzed complexion, which, when he was
excited, glowed with almost womanly brilliance; strong as a lion,
gentle in manner, and fierce as a tiger under the velvet glove.
Polished and plausible, there were those who deemed him shallow and
wholly concerned with the pleasure of the hour; but they were mistaken.

John Marese Baskette had rubbed off all the soft and good aspirations
of his boyhood; but the ambition which was at the bottom of those
schemes remained, and had intensified tenfold. He was burning with
ambition. The hereditary mind of the Baskettes, their brain power, had
descended to him in full vigour (though hitherto he had wasted it), and
he also inherited their thirst for wealth. But his idea of obtaining it
was totally opposed to the family tradition. The family tradition was a
private life devoted with the patience and self-denial of a martyr to
the accumulation of gold.

Marese’s one absorbing idea was power. To be a ruler, a statesman, a
leader, was his one consuming desire. As a ruler he thought, as a
member of the Cabinet, it would be easy for him to affect the market in
his favour, for Marese was a gambler already upon a gigantic scale. The
Stock Exchange and the Bourse were his arena.

The intense vanity of the man, which led him to seriously hope even for
the English Premiership, was, doubtless, a _trait_ derived from his
mother. “If I had my rights,” he was accustomed to say to Theodore, “I
should be not only the wealthiest man in England, but in Europe and
America. My father’s property has more than doubled in value. In
England the wealthiest man at once takes a position above crowds of
clever people who have nothing but their talents. Without any conceit,
I can safely say that I am clever. A clever, wealthy man is so great a
rarity that my elevation is a certainty. But nothing can be done
without money. At present my wealth is a shadow only. The one thing,
Theodore, is money. Our Stock Exchange labour is, in a sense, wasted;
our operations are not large enough. What we make is barely sufficient
to provide us with common luxuries (he did not pretend to say
necessities) and to keep our creditors quiet. Nothing remains for
bolder actions. I am thirty, and I have not yet entered the House.”

This last remark was always the conclusion of his reflections. In a
sense, it was like Caesar lamenting upon seeing a statue of
Alexander—that he had done nothing at an age when Alexander had
conquered the world. He had not even the means to fight the enemies who
withheld his birthright from him. The bitterness engendered of these
wrongs, the constant brooding over the career that was lost to him,
obscured what little moral sense had been left in him after the course
of life he had been through; and the once gentle boy was now ripe for
any guilt. The verse so often upon the lips of the tyrant was for ever
in his mind, and perpetually escaped him unconsciously—

Be just, unless a kingdom tempt to break the laws,
For sovereign power alone can justify the cause.


Like his father Sternhold, he looked upon the undisputed possession of
such an estate as conferring powers and position nothing inferior to
that of a monarch. His dislike to all things American—in consequence of
the claims, now more loudly proclaimed than ever, of the Baskettes from
the States—grew to be almost a monomania. He wished that the United
States people had but one neck, that he might destroy them all at
once—applying the Roman emperor’s saying to his own affairs.

His especially favourite study was “The Prince” of Machiavelli, which
he always carried with him. His copy was annotated with a scheme for
applying the instructions therein given to modern times—the outline of
the original requiring much modification to suit the changes in the
constitution of society. Some day he hoped to utilise the labours of
the man whose name has become the familiar soubriquet of the Devil.

Theodore, whom Aurelian had made qualify as a surgeon, was imbued with
an inherited taste for recondite research. He would return from a wild
scene of debauchery at early dawn, and drawing the curtains and
lighting his lamp to exclude daylight, plunge into the devious paths of
forbidden science. Keen and shrewd as he was, he did not disdain even
alchemy, bringing to the crude ideas of the ancients all the knowledge
of the moderns. Cruel by nature, he excelled in the manipulation of the
dissecting knife, and in the cities upon the Continent where their
wanderings led them, lost no opportunity of practising with the
resident medical men, or of studying those wonderful museums which are
concealed in certain places abroad. Marese was the fiery charger, ready
to dash at every obstacle Theodore was the charioteer—the head which
guided and suggested. Yet all their concentrated thought could not
devise a method by which Marese might obtain the full enjoyment of his
estate. Briefly, this was the condition of Marese’s mind and his
position, when the death of Aurelian took place, and a letter reached
them written by him in his last hours, entreating their return to
Stirmingham for reasons connected with the estate. They went, and a
woman went with them as far as London—a woman whom we must meet
hereafter, but who shall be avoided as much as possible.

They arrived at Stirmingham unannounced, and examined the papers which
the deceased had particularly recommended to their study. Aurelian, as
has been said, was baffled but not beaten. The fascination of the vast
estate held his mind, as it held so many others, in an iron vice. The
whole of his life was devoted to it. He had searched and searched back
into the past, groping from point to point, and he had accumulated such
a mass of evidence as had never been suspected.

He knew far more even than poor Sternhold, who had occupied himself
exclusively with the future.

Marese and Theodore, living quietly in the residence attached to the
asylum for the insane, which Aurelian had continued to keep, carefully
studied these papers by the light of the lucid commentary the dead man
had left. It is needless to recount the whole of the contents—most of
them are known already to the reader. But the substance of it all was
that three great dangers menaced the estate. The first was the claims
of the Baskettes from America.

The evidence which Aurelian had collected was clear that the land they
had occupied in the Swamp had been practically theirs, since they had
paid no rent; but as to their power of handing it over to Sternhold, it
was extremely questionable. The second great danger was the claim of a
new tribe that had recently started up—the descendants of James
Sibbold, who had also expatriated themselves.

It was doubtful if the transfer made by their ancestors could be
maintained, and for this simple reason—it was doubtful whether James
Sibbold himself had any right to the property his sons sold to
Sternhold. He was not the eldest son. The eldest son, Arthur, had
disappeared for a number of years; but there was not the slightest
proof that he had died childless. Far from it. Aurelian, incessantly
searching, had found out what no one else yet knew—that Arthur had
married, had had children, and that one at least of his descendants was
living but a short time since.

When Marese had read thus far his countenance turned livid, and
Theodore feared he would have fallen in a fit. The savage passions
inherited from his mother surged up in his frame, and overmastered him.
He was ill for days, almost unconscious—the shock was so great, his
passion so fierce—but presently recovering, read on.

Aurelian had traced Arthur in his wanderings, had traced his
marriage—but there was one loophole. Do what he might, Aurelian could
not discover _where_ Arthur had married. It was in London, but a minute
search failed to discover the church, and the register could not be
found.

This fact, and the fact of the long silence, the absence of any claim
being put forward, led Aurelian to believe that there really was no
legal marriage—that it was only reputed. He hoped as much, at all
events.

There was another loophole—the deed which old Sibbold had so treasured
in his padlocked oaken chest—the deed which settled the inheritance (on
the female as well as the male)—had disappeared. Sternhold had searched
for it and failed. It was lost. If the marriage could not be proved,
and if the deed was really lost, then there was no danger from Arthur
Sibbold’s descendants; but there remained those “ifs.” Also, if
Arthur’s claim was put aside, then the succession would of course
belong to his brother James Sibbold’s descendants: but then again came
in the question—Could these Sibbolds sign away (to Sternhold) an
inheritance which at the time was _entailed_?

Aurelian finished with several hints and schemes which need not be gone
into here, and indeed were never carried out. But his one great point
throughout was a warning against the living descendant of Arthur
Sibbold, whose name and present address he had discovered and left for
Marese, and against the companies who held the leases. “For,” said he,
“these companies would foster any and every claim against the estate;
anything to bar the succession of Marese, the heir, in order to obtain
a grant or extension of time from the courts of law, to enable them to
hold the property till the succession to the estate was established.”
These companies were so rich and powerful that it was difficult to
contend against them. Their strength was money, their weapons were the
various claimants.

“Therefore,” wrote Aurelian, “the first thing is money, and I wish my
property to be used freely for this end, convinced that you will do
Theodore full justice; and I bid you, if possible, to take the
_weapons_ of the companies out of their hands. Without the claimants
they are powerless.”

These papers, and the facts and reflections they contained, made the
deepest impression upon Marese and Theodore. In secret they walked
through the city of Stirmingham, and marked its wealth, its vastness,
its trade and population.

“And nearly all this is mine,” whispered Marese, pale as death in his
subdued excitement. He had to hold Theodore’s arm to sustain his body,
for, strong as he was, he trembled.

Next day they left for London, for Marese could not bear the
Tantalus-like view of the wealth which was and was not his. In London
they thought and planned as only such men seeking such an end can think
and plan.




Chapter Eleven.


While Marese and Theodore are maturing their plans, it will conduce to
the easier comprehension of the horrible, complicated events which
followed, if the past history of the estate be briefly summed up in
such a manner that this chapter can be used for reference.

In the commencement, nearly a century previous to the present time, we
have seen old Sibbold, the morose miser, gloating over his money, and
studying his title-deeds. These gave him an unquestioned right to the
farm he occupied, and to the Swamp, or waste land, which had been
squatted on by Will Baskette and his companions. This right mainly
depended, though not entirely, upon a certain deed of entail. Without
that deed Sibbold had still sufficient evidence to prove his right to
his farm, but not to the Swamp; without that deed there was no fixed
succession—that is to say, he could have devised it to any one he
chose.

There was, therefore, just the possibility that, hating his eldest son
Arthur, he had himself destroyed this deed, in order to prepare the way
for his second son, James. But against this supposition there was the
known character of the man, which led one to imagine that he would
rather have died than give up the smallest fraction of his possessions.
At all events, this deed was missing, as were several others of little
or no value, such as expired leases of fields to tenants, which had
once been kept in Sibbold’s oaken press, under padlock and key.

When Sibbold met with his death at the hands of highwaymen, the farm
and waste lands, in the natural course of things, would have passed to
his eldest son, Arthur, but he having disappeared, and not appearing to
make a claim, James Sibbold, the younger son, took the property. The
majority of people always thought, from the fact of Arthur’s not
returning to claim his birthright, that he had had a hand in the
slaughter of old Will Baskette, and that his conscience drove him away.

James Sibbold, after a while, married, and had several sons. In time he
died, and these sons, though married, still all remained living on the
farmstead, or in the outhouses; for as it was known that James’ right
was doubtful, they could not agree about the succession, and preferred
to live like pigs rather than go to law and have it settled, since the
result was so uncertain. At the same time the squatters, basket-makers,
reed-cutters, clothes-peg makers, etc, who resided in the Swamp which
the rat had caused, had considerably increased in numbers, and were
always called, after their former chief, by the name of Baskette.

This chief at the date of his death had two sons. The eldest went off
with his mother, and joined the original gipsy tribe; the youngest,
whose name or nickname was Romy, entered the service of the clergyman.
The eldest was never heard of more; but Romy prospered, and in early
middle age bought an estate and country mansion, not far from his
birthplace.

It was he who opened up the concealed mineral wealth of coal and iron,
and thus, as everything goes by contradiction in this world, it
happened that the descendant of gipsies, notorious for their wandering
habits and dislike of houses, was the founder of one of the largest
cities in the world.

He married with every legal formality, and his son, Sternhold Baskette,
imbued with the firmest convictions that in the future the young city
would prosper to an unprecedented extent, employed the whole of the
wealth he inherited in purchasing land and erecting houses.

In the course of his transactions he desired to purchase the Wick Farm,
where old Sibbold had dwelt, and the Swamp where the Baskette tribe
flourished. Finding the title of the vendors imperfect, he devised the
strongest safeguard he could think of, which was to make all the
Sibbolds then living or known, to sign one document, and all the
reputed Baskettes to sign another. He then transhipped them all to
America—first, to get complete possession; secondly, in the hope that
they would never return to trouble him.

He proceeded to drain the Swamp, and to convert it into the Belgravia
of Stirmingham. But this project required an enormous expenditure, and
just at that moment the first railway to the place, which he had
largely supported, came to a standstill, and ate up all his available
capital. When, therefore, a return of commercial prosperity took place,
he found it impossible alone to complete the vast scheme of streets,
squares, etc, which had been commenced.

Then the building lease plan was resorted to—the very keystone of all
this curious history. First, the Corporation of the city took a large
slice of the uncompleted property of him on a building lease for a term
of years, on the expiration of which the whole reverted to him or his
heirs (practically his heirs, as he was not likely to live to the age
of 120 years).

After they had commenced building some uncertainty arose as to whether
or no they had the power to enter into such an agreement; they could
bind themselves, but could they bind their successors in office? This
took place, it must be remembered, long, long before the recent
sanitary legislation, which gives such extensive powers to local
bodies.

In order to confirm their proceedings they obtained a private Act of
Parliament, which, when it was drawn up, seemed to be worded clearly
enough. But every one knows that after the lapse of thirty years or
less, words in an inexplicable manner seem to lose their meaning, and
to become capable of more than one interpretation. This is perhaps
because the persons who read them are influenced unconsciously by a
series of circumstances which did not exist at the time the document
was composed.

At any rate, at the date when Marese and Theodore were thinking and
scheming, there had already been a great deal of contention over the
precise scope of several sentences in this Act: a part of which arose
over the question of repairs to the buildings, and partly as to
whether, by a little straining, the seventy years of the lease might
not be construed to mean practically for ever.

This little straining was managed in this way. When did the lease
commence? Had not each successive Mayor got the right to say, “This
lease, as interpreted by the Private Act, means, not seventy years from
the days of my predecessor, but seventy years from the commencement of
my term of office.” By this way of looking at it, so long as there was
a Mayor the Corporation would always have seventy years to look forward
to.

Of course all such reasoning was nothing but pure sophistry; but then
most law is sophistry, and sophistry when supported by a rich body of
men and called Vested Interest, is often much stronger than the highly
belauded and really feeble truth.

Here was a tough Gordian knot, to add to the already difficult question
of original title. But this was only the preface to the complications
to follow. There still remained, after the Corporation had taken a
part, a huge howling wilderness of streets with walls two feet high.
Companies or syndicates were formed (eight companies in all)—perhaps
they had better be called in modern parlance building societies—who
took this howling wilderness on the same system of building leases, to
fall in at a certain date.

Apparently in this case it was all plain, straightforward sailing; but
not so. Sternhold Baskette got into difficulties over Railway Number 2,
and had to borrow money. He also had to borrow money to complete
portions of the estate which he had kept in his own hands, and to
acquire lands just outside the city. Lastly, he had to borrow money to
support the extravagance of his wife. In the aggregate these sums were
something enormous.

At the moment of borrowing he was under the impression that he had
dealt with independent persons—with financiers, in fact, of London,
being so assured by his solicitors. These solicitors had had a pretty
picking out of his railways and estates; they had grown fat and
prosperous upon him, and might, one would have thought, have been
trusted to serve him honestly.

But no—whenever was there a friendship formed in business? Ostensibly,
the financiers who advanced the cash were independent; in reality, they
acted for certain of these very aforesaid building societies who had
taken the building leases! Four at least of them had their money thus
out upon good security; and Sternhold, unknowingly at first, owed them
a large fortune.

For their own interest they had proved easy creditors. They had not
called in the loans; not a fraction of the original sums borrowed from
them to complete Railway Number 2, to finish houses, buy fresh lands,
to pay for Lucia’s extravagance, had been repaid. Very little of the
interest had been cleared off; none while Sternhold lived. They knew
that they were safe. The railway was now paying a fair dividend, the
houses and lands had trebled in value; as for Lucia’s waste it was
small in comparison—when they chose to call in their money they could
seize upon property to twice the amount due, even with added interest.

But they did not choose to call in their money. The leases were now
approaching the day of expiration. They knew that the trustees of
Sternhold’s estate had not one tithe of the cash required to meet their
demands: they would be compelled to submit to one of two things—first,
they must yield up a good part of the estate, or they must grant an
extension of the leases—either of which would suit the societies
exactly.

They intended to push matters in such a way as to compel the trustees
to extend the term, in order to retain both halves, as it were, of the
estate under their control. This was Gordian knot Number 3. How was the
heir to come by his own through all this? It was impossible, unless he
could scrape together sufficient money to pay off the loans which had
been contracted by his father. He would then be in a position to claim
the property held by the trustees at the expiration of the leases,
which was now fast approaching.

The other four companies had got wind of this nice little arrangement,
and it upset them extremely. They had not been half so shrewd as their
fellows, and that was a bitter reflection. They foresaw their valuable
properties passing away from them, while the other societies held fast
to their share. It was gall and wormwood.

But they were not to be outdone in the Art of Entanglement. Sternhold
was dead; they could not lend him money. But the heir, our friend
Marese, was living, and living “fast;” and not only that, he was
speculating heavily upon the Stock Exchange. Here was a fine opening.
With careful and judicious management they bought up all Marese’s
debts; they lent him money to a large amount through their agents,
keeping themselves in the background out of sight; and they had
gentlemen always on the watch on the Exchange, whose business it was to
tempt Marese into apparently good bargains with floating paper.

Not content with this, they had still further secured themselves. They
had allied themselves with a certain powerful and enterprising railway
company. This company had hitherto been shut out of Stirmingham, and
were extremely desirous of getting access to it. These second four
societies combined, and declared that in the interests of the
properties committed to their charge (save the mark!) it was essential
that there should be more direct railway communication with a certain
district which it is immaterial to name, and that there should be a
station close to their portion of the estate, the other stations being
at some distance. The enterprising railway company would guarantee good
terms if the trustees of the estate would enter into agreement with
them.

The upshot was that another Act of Parliament was obtained by the
influence of the said powerful railway company, authorising this line,
station, and agreement. It was now argued that this Act and agreement
would override the original building leases; especially as the railway
company were prepared to prove that they had not yet reaped any
reasonable benefit, and, unless the leases were extended, would be
serious losers. As they had immense interest in the House, they were
likely enough to gain their point. Here were two more Gordian knots,
Numbers 4 and 5!

Then there was the list of claimants to the estate, which had now been
swelled from all parts of the world, and the series of suits and pleas,
and Heaven knows what other litigation threatened by them, making
Gordian knot Number 6. Finally, the estate was in Chancery. Knot Number
7.

Here was a pleasant prospect for the heir! To put all the rest on one
side, on the day that the building leases expired, and he stepped
forward to claim his rights, the building societies would present him
with the following neat little bill:—


“After all,” said Marese to Theodore, as they planned and schemed, and
smoked cigars at 120 shillings the hundred, “after all, old fellow,
this is but one year’s income if I could only get possession. And I
believe we could finance the thing and raise the money without
difficulty, if it were not for those cursed, hateful claimants from
America and elsewhere. The Jews fight shy on account of the title
difficulty. If we could but get rid of those claimants!”




Chapter Twelve.


There was once a very wise man who invented what was considered a
saying almost inspired, which was afterwards inculcated as a most
important lesson by mighty princes upon their sons, and continues to be
constantly quoted in our day with approval—it is, that “Unity is
strength.” But the strength of the claimants to the Baskette estate
consisted in the number of their scattered forces.

All that Marese, the heir, could have desired was that by some means
they could be condensed into one person, and thus destroyed at a blow.
They had increased as the years went by in a geometrical ratio, till
the total formed a small battalion.

When the idea of making claims upon the estate first arose in America,
there were already quite fifty families who in one way or another
thought they had “rights.” About a dozen visited Stirmingham, and all
but drove poor old Sternhold frantic. That was a generation ago, and
the tribe had nearly trebled. Mothers of children who had the remotest
possible chance of a share in the prize took care to have them
christened Baskette or Sternhold. There were Sternhold Baskette Browns,
Baskette Johnsons, Baskette Stirmingham Slicks, English Baskette
Williamsons, and every possible combination of Baskette.

Those who, either by the male or female side, really could show some
species of proof that they were descended from the seventeen squatters
who were transhipped to the States now numbered no less than one
hundred and forty-three individuals—men, women, and children. To
distinguish themselves from other claimants, they called themselves
“The True Swampers.”

But in addition to these, there was a host of other Baskettes, who in
one way or another foisted in their names. There were Baskets, Bascots,
Buscots, Biscuits, Buschcotts, Bosquettes—every conceivable variation
of spelling from every State and territory, who declared that they were
related to the parent stem of Will Baskette, the squatter, who was shot
by old Sibbold. These might be called for distinction the
pseudo-Baskettes.

Then among the True Swampers there was an inner circle, who professed
to have prominent “rights” on account of their progenitors having been
more nearly related to the original Will Baskette. They argued that the
others were not true Baskettes, and had only adopted that name from the
chief, while they were real blood Baskettes.

In addition, there was another host of people who made a virtue of
proclaiming that they were not named Baskette. They did not profess to
be named Baskette—they did not take a name which was not theirs! They
were Washingtons, Curries, Bolters, Gregorys, Jamesons, and so on. But
they had claims because their father’s wives were of the Baskette
blood.

Finally, there was another sub-division who loudly maintained that half
of the original cotters who landed in New York were not Baskettes, but
Gibbs, Webbes, Colborns, and so on, and that they were the descendants
of these people. And there were some who went the length of declaring
that they were descended from two alleged illegitimate sons of old Romy
Baskette!

The Baskette Battalion was therefore made up of—1st. The Pure Blood
Baskettes; 2nd. The True Swampers; 3rd. Demi-Baskettes, who had that
name added to another; 4th. Nominal Baskettes, whose names had an
accidental resemblance; 5th. The Feminine Baskettes, descended from
women of Baskette strain; 6th. Independent Squatters, not Baskettes,
but companions; 7th. Illegitimate Baskettes!

Then there were the Sibbolds—such a catalogue! These had been slower to
wake up to their “rights” than the Baskettes, but when they did
discover them they came in crowds. First, there were the descendants,
in a straight line, of the eight sons of James Sibbold, shipped (six
with families) to New York. They had multiplied exceedingly, and there
was no end to them. The simply Sibbolds, as we may call them, numbered
no less than two hundred and eighteen, all told—men, women, and
children. Every one of these had some register, some old book—many of
these books were worm-eaten copies of Tom Paine’s “Rights of Man”—some
piece of paper or other to prove that they had the blood of James
Sibbold in their veins.

Then there were all the ramifications, pretty much like the Baskette
branches; innumerable cadets distantly related, innumerable people
whose wife’s uncle’s mother or cousin’s name was Sibbold; and all the
various Sibbolde, Sibboldes, Sibald, Sigbeld, Sybels, Sibils, Sibelus,
Sibilsons, _ad libitum_. Illegitimate Sibbolds were as plentiful as
blackberries, and all ready to argue the merits of the case with
revolver and bowie. If the Baskettes made up a battalion, the Sibbolds
formed an army!

Between these two great divisions there was the bitterest enmity. The
Baskettes derided the claims of the Sibbolds; the Sibbolds derided
those of the Baskettes. The Sibbolds told the Baskettes that they were
an ill-conditioned lot; if they had been respectable people, and really
his relations, old Sternhold would never have shipped them to America
out of his sight. The Baskettes retorted that the Sibbolds were ashamed
to stay in England, for they were the sons of a murderer; they were the
descendants of a dastardly coward, who shot a man through a window. The
Sibbolds snarled, and pointed out that the great chief of the Baskettes
was nothing but a thief, caught in the act and deservedly punished; a
lot of semi-gipsies, rogues, and vagabonds. Their very name showed that
they were but basket-makers; they were not even pure gipsy
blood—miserable squatters on another man’s property.

Blows were not unfrequently exchanged in the saloons and
drinking-stores over these quarrels. The result was the formation of
two distinct societies, each determined to prosecute its own claim and
to oust the other at all hazards. The Baskette battalion relied upon
the admitted non-payment of rent by their forefathers to upset all
subsequent agreements, and they agreed also that this agreement which
their forefathers had signed was not binding on the remote descendants.
The document was obtained by trickery, and the land was not put to the
use the vendors had understood it was to be put, as the representatives
now alleged, to simple agricultural purposes. Further, each of those
who signed the document only gave up his cottage and the small plot of
garden round it; they did not sell the waste land between the islands.

The Sibbolds principal argument was that their forefathers could not
sign away an entailed estate without previously cutting off the entail,
and it was acknowledged that this had not been done. But, said the
Baskettes, there was a question if the land ever was entailed; let the
Sibbolds produce the deed, and if it was not entailed, where was their
claim?

Each of these divisions formed itself into a society, with a regular
committee and place of meeting, a minute-book to record accumulated
evidence, legal gentlemen to advise, corresponding secretaries, and
Heaven knows what. They actually issued gazettes—printed sheets of
intelligence. There was the _Baskette Gazette_ and the _Sibbold
Gazette_, which papers carefully recorded all deaths, marriages, and
new claims. There was a complete organisation, and a—fine thing it was
for the lawyers and some few sharp young men.

Of late these societies had received more or less cordial overtures
from the eight building societies at Stirmingham who held the leases.
The first four societies encouraged the Baskette battalion, the second
held out hopes to the Sibbolds. The cunning building societies, without
committing themselves, desired nothing better than protracted
litigation between these claimants and the heir, in the certainty that
meantime they should reap the benefit.

Among the American corps of claimants there were men of all
classes—from common labourers, saloon-keepers, etc, up to judges,
editors, financiers, merchants; and many of them were clever,
far-seeing persons, who, without putting any weight upon the somewhat
strained “rights” they professed to believe in, still thought that
there was “something in it, you know,” and money might be got by
persistent agitation, if it was only hush-money.

Throughout many turbulent States there was at one time quite a feeling
aroused against England (which added its venom to the unfortunate
_Alabama_ business), as having unjustly kept what was due to American
citizens. These societies had their regular agents in Stirmingham and
London, whose duty it was to report every change that took place, every
variation of the case, and to accumulate evidence and transmit it.
These bulletins were received by the “caucuses,” and sometimes printed
in the _Gazettes_.

Besides these regular organisations, who had money at disposal and were
really formidable, there were several free lances careering over the
country, representing themselves as the sons of the elder brother of
Romy Baskette, the brother who had disappeared with the gipsies. These
were downright impostors, and yet got a living out of the case. Several
lecturers also promenaded the States, who made a good thing of it by
giving a popular version of the story, illustrated by a diorama of
incidents in the lives of the principal actors, from the shooting of
Will Baskette to the appearance of Lucia Marese as Lady Godiva. It was
singular that no one presented himself as a descendant of Arthur
Sibbold; he seemed to have been quite forgotten. So much for America.

From Australia there came, time after time, the most startling reports,
as is usual when any _cause célèbre_ is proceeding in the Old World.
Now, it was a miner at the diggings who had made extraordinary
disclosures; now, some shepherd on a sheep-run, after a fit of illness,
found his memory returned, and recollected where important deeds were
deposited.

Nothing, however, came of it. The principal seats of disturbance were
America and England; for England produced a crop of what we may call
Provisional, or Partial Claimants. Here and there, scattered all over
the country—from Kent to Cornwall, from Hampshire to
Northumberland—were people of the name of Baskette, which is a very
ancient English cognomen, and to be found in every collection of
surnames.

Most of these were of little or no consequence, but one or two held
good positions as gentlemen or merchants. None of these latter made the
shadow of a pretence to the estate, but they were fond of speculating
as to their possible remote connection with the now famous Baskette
stock; and some said that if anything did turn up, if any practical
results followed the American attempt, it would be as well to be
prepared to take a share in the spoil.

There were also at least three impostors—utter scoundrels, who obtained
a profusion of drink and some sustenance from credulous fools in
tap-rooms by pretending that they were descendants of the elder brother
of Romy Baskette. They had not the shadow of a proof, and ought to have
been treated to a dose of “cell.”

A gipsy tribe, a travelling clan which went about the country with
shooting galleries, merry-go-rounds, peep-shows, and so on, were in the
habit of proclaiming that they were the very identical tribe from whom
offshoots settled in the historical swamp at Wolf’s Glow, in order to
attract custom.

Certain persons in and around Stirmingham, whose fathers or ancestors
had sold lands to Sternhold Baskette—lands now worth ten, and in some
cases a thousand, times the price he had given for them—had a
fallacious idea that if the title of the heir was upset, they would
have a chance of regaining possession, or at least of an additional
payment for the property.

They formed themselves into a loosely-compacted society to protect
their interest. It was remarkable that in England, as in America, no
one set up a claim to be the descendant of Arthur Sibbold. The real
danger was from America, the land of organisation.

But in England there was a class of persons who, without possessing any
personal interest in the matter, made it their especial business to
collect all the “ana” that could be discovered, and gained a livelihood
out of their study of the case. More than one private inquiry office in
London received large fees from New York clients to make special
investigations. The credulity of mankind is exhibited in a striking
manner in the support given to these offices. How should they be
supposed to be so devotedly attached to the cause of one client? What
is to prevent them having fifty, all with the same end, and from
selling the information gained from one to the other?

There were men who made it a speciality of their trade to collect all
books, pamphlets, pictures, lectures, genealogies, deeds, documents,
letters, papers, _souvenirs_—anything and everything, from Sternhold
Baskette’s old hat upwards, that could be twisted into relation with
the case.

Those who have never had any leaning towards antiquarian research have
no idea of the enormous business done in this way—not only in reference
to great cases of this kind, but in reference to matters that would
appear to an outsider as absolutely not worth a thought. There is
scarcely a scrap of written or printed paper of the last century, or up
to within fifty years of the present date, which has not got its value
to such a collector, for he knows there will be fools to buy them.
Sometimes it happens that an apparently worthless piece of paper or
parchment, bought as waste, turns out, under his sharp eye, to be a
really awkward thing for some owner of property unless he purchases it.

There were lawyers in a peculiar way of business who did not disdain
this species of work, and presently they may cross our path. Such men
were in constant communication with people on the other side of the
Atlantic, where there is, year by year, an increasing desire manifested
to trace out genealogies.

The year in which, in the ordinary course of events, the building
societies and the Corporation must relinquish their expired leases was
now fast approaching. Some such person as has been described was seized
with a brilliant idea, and made haste to advertise it. Why should not
all the claimants to the estate meet on the disputed spot at this
critical moment? Why should there not be a regular family council, the
largest and most important that had ever taken place? The idea was a
good one, and spread like wildfire. The newspapers took it up; the
American societies thought highly of it. Nothing like a grand
demonstration.

The upshot was that Stirmingham began to look forward to the assembling
of these would-be monarchs of the city, which was finally, after much
discussion, fixed for the next New Year’s Day.

This New Year’s Day was fast approaching, while Marese and Theodore
planned.




Chapter Thirteen.


The grand family council was to be held at Stirmingham on the coming
New Year’s Day. How difficult it is to trace the genesis of an idea! It
does not seem to have any regular growth—to begin with a seed and cast
out roots, a stem, branches, leaves; it shoots now one way, now this,
like those curious creatures revealed by the microscope, or like the
germs of fungi. Upon the original thought odd branches are engrafted,
accidental circumstances suggest new developments, till at last the
full completed idea bears no sort of resemblance to what might have
been expected from the embryo.

How the idea was first started neither Marese nor Theodore could tell,
nor how it was communicated from one to the other. There is a method of
communication which is not dependent upon direct speech; there is a way
of talking at a subject without mentioning it. When two clever men’s
minds are full of one absorbing topic it does not require formal
sentences to convey their conceptions. They did not seem even to
actually talk of it, and yet it grew and grew, till it overshadowed
them like a vast gloomy mountain.

It would not be just to so much as hint at a latent insanity in these
men’s minds, for it would partly absolve them from responsibility, and
would dispose their judges to regard their crimes leniently. Certainly
no one, if asked to do so, could have pointed out two keener men of the
world than these. Yet, somehow, despite one’s reluctance to afford them
the shadow of an excuse, there does creep in the conviction that such a
ghastly conception could only be formed in a brain lacking the moral
organs, if such an expression may be used, in a brain unbalanced with
natural human sympathy.

Marese’s father, old Sternhold, had certainly been mad at one period of
his career. His mother, Lucia, had exhibited a vanity so overweening,
and a temper so intense, that at times it resembled lunacy. It may have
been that, along with the mental powers of calculation and invention
which distinguished old Romy and Sternhold, Marese had also inherited
the mental weakness of Sternhold and Lucia.

Theodore had shown a taste for extraordinary studies usually avoided by
healthy-minded men. His father, Aurelian, had passed the whole of his
time with insane patients, and it is said that too much contact with
mad people reacts upon the sane. He had early initiated his son into
the mysteries of that sad science of the mind which deals with its
deficiencies. The son’s youth had been passed in constant intercourse
with those harmless and, so to say, _reasonable_ lunatics who are to be
met with in the homes and at the dinner-tables of medical men, and
whose partial sanity and occasional singular flashes of unnatural
intelligence are perhaps more calculated to affect the minds of others
than the vagaries of the downright mad.

In one short sentence, this terrible crime, which was looming over
Marese and Theodore, was nothing less than the deliberate intention to
destroy the whole of the claimants to the estate at once. How it
originated it is difficult to imagine, but it did. It might perhaps be
partly traced to the injunction in Aurelian’s papers to take the
weapons out of the hands of the companies; or partly to the
oft-expressed wish of Marese’s, after the Roman emperor, that all the
claimants had but one neck, so that he might cut it. The said emperor
has much to answer for.

The announced gathering of the claimants at Stirmingham certainly
seemed to bring them all within the reach of the fowler’s net, if he
could but cast it aright. Marese and Theodore had half-formed ideas of
blowing the whole company into the air as they sat at council in the
Sternhold Hall on New Year’s Day, something after the fashion of Guy
Fawkes, but with a deadlier compound than he had at his
disposal—nitro-glycerine or dynamite; especially the first might be
trusted to do the work much more effectually than gunpowder, which was
also more difficult to conceal on account of its bulk.

It will barely be believed that these two men, in the height of the
nineteenth century, calmly examined the vault under that famous hall,
in order to see if it was fitted for the purpose. This hall or
assembly-room had been finished about the time that the agitation
commenced over the heir to the estate, just before Sternhold had
married, when the Corporation heaped flattery upon him. It had been
named after him.

It was a fine room, not too large, and yet of sufficient size to seat
an audience. The object was to afford a concert-room for dramatic and
theatrical performances, and also for balls. As the site was valuable,
and every particle of space had to be utilised in the centre of this
mighty city, it had been built over vaults, which were intended for
bonded warehouses; but partly on account of the high rent asked, and
partly because of the dampness of the cellars—the site was the very
centre of the old Swamp—had never been occupied. The access was bad,
and there was no place for a display or advertisement, which was
another reason why the cellars had not let. There was a certain amount
of propriety in holding what was to be called “The Grand Centennial
Family Council” in this hall, built upon the centre of the ancient
Swamp, and named after the founder of the city.

Marese and Theodore, in disguise, examined the vaults, under the
pretence of being agents for London merchants desirous of opening
business in Stirmingham. There was hardly any necessity for this
precaution, for it was so many years since they had openly resided in
the place that few would have recognised them.

To their great surprise, these vaults, whose gloomy darkness they
explored by the light of lanterns, extended in one vast cavern, under
the whole of the hall. Instead of a series of cellars, there was one
huge cavern. This was occasioned by the flooring not being supported
upon brick arches, as would have been architecturally preferable, but
upon timber posts, or pillars. The place had, in fact, been put up
hastily, and the vaults were never completed. The timber pillars were
placed in regular order, and it had been intended to build brick
partitions; but as no one seemed to care to occupy the cellars, this
had never been done. The floor was extremely damp, and the whole
appearance of the place repulsive. Snails, toads, and slimy reptiles
crawled about, and this under the very stage above, upon which music,
song, and dance were wont to enliven the gay hearts of the audiences.

One great obstacle to the idea of blowing up the place was the height
of these timber posts, which was full eighteen feet, so that the roof
of the vault was high over head, and any explosives, to produce the
full effect, would have to be piled up on casks or stands. Then the
hall was larger than they had supposed, and it was apparent that the
coming council would occupy but a portion of it, and perhaps change
that portion now and then, so that it would be uncertain where to place
the nitro-glycerine.

The idea, looked at from a distance and in the abstract, seemed
feasible enough; but when they came to face the physical difficulties,
it was found to be hard of realisation. There was the danger of getting
the explosives into the place, the danger of detection, and, finally,
the chance of an accident hoisting the engineer with his own petard,
especially at that time of the year when nitro-glycerine was
notoriously dangerous on account of the crystals which cold formed upon
its surface, and the least jar or shake was sufficient to cause an
explosion. Obviously, the plan was a cumbrous one, and without
hesitation it was abandoned.

But the main idea, that of getting rid of the claimants at one blow,
was not abandoned; it grew and grew, and occupied their minds day and
night. At last the thought of transferring the Guy Fawkes expedient
from the land to the ocean, which, once the deed was successfully
accomplished, would tell no tale, occurred to them.

The claimants must come over on shipboard, if only they could be got
into one or even two ships; and if these vessels sank upon the voyage
suddenly without a warning! This was certainly much safer for the
conspirators, as no trace would be left, and it was surer of success,
because in the hall some of the victims might escape—at sea they could
scarcely do so. They ran over in their minds the various methods of
scuttling ships which have been invented from time to time.

There was the good old simple plan of boring holes in the bottom with
augurs. There was the devilish coal-shell. A box painted to resemble
coal, but really containing powder, was thrown among the coal, and when
placed in the furnace blew up the boiler, and destroyed the ship. There
was the ship-rat—a contrivance by which the very motion of the vessel
caused an augur in a box to bore its way through, and so cause a leak.
Some benevolent socialists, anxious for the welfare of man, had also
promulgated a notion of exploding nitro-glycerine by clockwork,
arranged to go so long, and set to act just as the vessel was farthest
from land.

But all these seemed to Marese and Theodore clumsy, risky, and, what
was worse, uncertain of operation. It was reserved for Marese to
suggest the deadliest of all destructive engines, and he arrived at its
conception in this way. He had, as it were, a double mind. He was
liable to flashes of inspiration—such as it was—to sudden ideas which
shot through him without endeavour. He had also the power of
concentrating his thoughts, and bringing the regular forms of logic to
his assistance. But this latter method he could only practise with the
aid of pen and ink; and it was his constant habit, whenever
contemplating an important step, such as a coup upon the Exchange, to
write out his plans in a regular sequence, just as he wished them to
take place.

This written guide he corrected and enlarged until it seemed beyond any
further improvement; and then shutting his eyes to all consequences,
resolutely avoiding those secret promptings which suggest that
something has been left undone, he was accustomed to rush at the matter
in hand, and dispose of it with bold, unhesitating strokes. This method
certainly had its advantages, but it had also the disadvantage that if
by any accident his notes fell into other hands, he was lost.

Nevertheless, after thinking and thinking in vain over this great
problem, and failing of any very brilliant flash of intelligence,
Marese at last resorted to his favourite system, and sought the
solution by the aid of pen and ink. First he wrote at the top of his
rough draft—

“What is it that I desire? Define it. Definition: to destroy the
claimants. Who are the claimants? A body of men. How is a body of men
to be destroyed? In the same way as a single person. How is man
destroyed? By the knife, by bullets, by explosives, by garotting, by
fire, by water, by poison, narcotics.”

Such were his rough premises. Then he laid the pen down and thought.
Why not set the vessels these men were coming over in on fire? That at
first seemed to him a most feasible plan, far superior to the uncertain
action of explosives. It required some arrangement, which he felt
confident the scientific knowledge of Theodore could easily supply, to
cause the flames to break out at the proper moment.

He began to grow enraptured with it. It seemed so easy and sure. Then,
picturing in his mind the vessel sinking, the thought occurred to him
that if the risk was to be run, something might as well be got out of
it. Why not put a cargo on board insured far beyond its value, and so
kill two birds with one stone?

At one blow to destroy his enemies and fill his own pockets was superb
triumph! He called Theodore and explained the idea to him. Theodore was
struck with it—especially with the notion of making a profit out of the
risk. He was, however, considerably opposed to the insurance dodge, on
the ground that it had been tried so often, and people had got so keen
that it was ten to one if some suspicion did not arise, especially when
it was seen what an object it would be to Marese to secure the
destruction of the passengers. Some other plan must be adopted.
Suppose, for instance, they took Marese’s yacht and followed the
vessel, and after its partial destruction, if they could secure only
partial destruction, put in a claim for salvage. To do this they must
encounter serious difficulties, but it would be far less risky.

Marese wished to know what substances they could employ to produce a
fire which could not be extinguished without some special chemical
composition. Theodore produced a series of manuscript volumes
containing the notes which he had accumulated during his long and
curious studies. He turned them over one by one, extracting such
information as appeared applicable to their purpose, while Marese,
waiting for his friend’s reply, amused himself by reading pieces here
and there. It was while thus employed that the devilish means by which
their end could be obtained occurred to him.




Chapter Fourteen.


He happened to light on a volume of notes made upon the remarkable
properties of gases. They began with a description of those curious
caves and even meadows abroad wherein no animal can live, and the place
is strewn with the bones of birds and beasts who have incautiously
entered the infected circle. This effect was proved to proceed from a
vapour which rose up from the earth, and was no sooner breathed than it
produced asphyxiation. Animals who inhaled it fell as if shot, so
sudden was the action.

Gases as deleterious were often generated in wells, caves, and confined
places, such as the huge tuns or casks used by brewers to keep their
beer in, and which had often proved fatal to the men who attempted to
scour them out.

Theodore believed that the cold shiver which some persons affected to
feel upon entering a churchyard and passing over the graves of the
dead, was caused by the presence of a gas in small quantities, evolved
from the decaying remains beneath the feet. Then there were gases which
upon inhalation caused a profound slumber; others which had precisely
an opposite result, and made the patient lively and brisk; and others
which rendered the person who took them perfectly insensible to
surgical operations.

Marese, a man who had never paid the least regard to science, was
deeply struck with these facts, with which the veriest tyro in
chemistry is well acquainted. But he did what no tyro or even advanced
student would perhaps have done—he applied his discovery—for so it was
to him—to his own circumstances.

There are, says Bacon, three modes of reading—one to pass away an idle
hour, one to acquire a knowledge of a subject, and the third and the
most advantageous method is always to keep your own ends in view, and
to apply everything to your object.

In these gases Marese found his desideratum. His engine of destruction
burst upon his mind, as it were, complete in a moment. Some such
poisonous gas should be shipped on board these vessels, closely
confined in a box or other receptacle, and at the proper moment
liberated, to spread throughout the steamer a subtle vapour which no
man could see coming, and against which strength, skill, and discipline
would be perfectly powerless.

Theodore, looking up, saw a change upon Marese’s countenance, and
immediately knew that something had occurred to him. The heir was pale
as death; his own conception, so ghastly and treacherous, filled him
with a nameless horror at the same moment that he never hesitated in
his purpose.

After a while he took up a pen and added to his already written
premises the conclusion—his idea in a few brief sentences—and handed it
to Theodore. He left it to Theodore to select the gas, and to arrange
the mechanical details. He had sown the seed, the other must patiently
tend it. And the other did patiently tend it; and this is what it grew
to.

The name of the gas which Theodore at last, after much thought, fixed
upon shall not be here disclosed; for although it is well-known to
chemists, and any one who can read could easily find it, there is no
knowing what imitations might not spring up if they were aware of the
means being so ready at hand.

Though suicide is such a simple and obvious expedient in difficulties,
yet there are scores who do not commit it because they never think of
it. If some kind friend suggested the pistol or the knife they would at
once employ it.

Gas had one property which rendered it peculiarly fitted for the
purpose in view. Being elastic, it could be compressed to a great
extent, and thus an immense volume might be contained in a small
compass. Therefore the case or receptacle to hold the vapour poison
need not be of large dimensions; and this was a matter of some
importance.

The gas chosen was not in any way explosive; on the contrary, it had
the property of extinguishing any light which was placed in it—there
was thus no danger of any accidental circumstance causing an explosion
at an awkward moment. It was absolutely safe—the operator ran no risk,
provided always that he did not inhale the vapour.

Theodore sketched out a case about three feet square, which was to be
formed of an outer box of deal, and an inner skin of thin iron. Into
this case, which would be tolerably strong, he proposed to pump a vast
volume of gas, taking care that the pressure should not exceed the
power of the box to withstand. The aperture through which it had been
pumped was then to be hermetically sealed with molten lead.

The greatest difficulty was to provide for the escape of the devilish
vapour at the proper moment; and this caused the projectors much
reflection. Clockwork was objectionable; it was liable to injury from
jars and shakes. Cases of this character, which looked strong and
substantial, and would be placed in the hold, would be certain to
receive the roughest of usage.

At one time he conceived the idea of relying upon the cupidity of the
seamen. It was suspected that many of the accidents which had taken
place at sea, and caused the destruction of hundreds by fire, had
arisen through dishonest seamen or _employés_ on board going at night
with a candle into the compartment where valuable goods were stowed,
and dropping sparks.

Why not utilise this propensity? Mark the case “watches,” “jewellery,”
or “bullion,” cause it to be surrounded with a certain amount of
mystery and precaution enough to engender suspicion; and leave the rest
to the chisel and drill of the would-be thief.

But this, though clever, was too uncertain. Another idea which occurred
to him was to have a wooden case only, but a strong one, and to confine
in a small hole prepared for the purpose one of the boring insects,
which in a certain time would be sure to eat its way through and leave
an aperture.

This, too, was more ingenious than practicable. He was delayed for a
time. Accident solved the difficulty. Passing through the streets, he
was stopped by a crowd which had collected around a quack doctor.

“See,” cried the vendor of patent vegetable pills, “here is the horrid
stuff the allopathists, the doctors and physicians sell to you at high
prices. Here is a common drug used by them in this phial. I will pour
some of the liquid upon the hard stone pavement—just see how it acts
upon the granite, and then guess how your wretched stomachs must be
abused.”

He poured it on the stone—the crowd pressed forward, and saw it eat a
hole. “Aquafortis,” thought Theodore, and the idea was his—aquafortis
was the agent he wanted.

He passed on, and left the crowd thoroughly convinced of the tricks
played by the medical faculty, and purchasing largely of the vegetable
pills. Theodore had found a substance which would eat through his iron
and wood cases, and leave an aperture—a substance, too, whose action
was equal, and could be regulated to a sufficiently accurate extent.

Upon reflection, however, and after making several experiments, he did
not employ ordinary aquafortis, but another acid equally powerful, and
which was still more regular in its action. He tried the experiment
time after time, till at last he obtained the proper strength, and
fixed the requisite amount of acid to eat through a given thickness of
iron and wood in a certain time. He repeated the experiment till he was
absolutely certain of the result.

The plan had now grown delightfully clear and well-defined—the infernal
machine became of the simplest construction. All that had to be done
was to place the acid in the case confined in a small and very thin
copper vessel (lined with an enamel to resist it), which was to be
screwed to one side of the case, then pump the gas in, hermetically
seal it, heave the whole thing on board the steamer, and leave it to
work its way. Delightfully simple!

He called Marese to look over his drawings, and to witness his
experiments with the acid. Marese was enchanted; his confidence in
Theodore’s scientific resources was confirmed. There was, however, one
question he asked—Was the gas so strong and so poisonous that the small
quantity confined in a case three feet square would destroy a whole
ship’s company? Would not the gas escape, rise up, and dissipate itself
through the port-holes, up the hatchways, and be further weakened by
the breezes that blew and caused draught in various places between
decks? These ocean steamers were very roomy.

Theodore was delighted to have an opportunity of explaining the
properties and nature of the vapour to his friend. The peculiarity of
this gas was that, although an invisible fluid, it was extremely
heavy—it was heavier far than atmospheric air. He easily proved that a
gas might be heavier than air by a well-known experiment with a vapour
(not the one to be used in this case) which he poured out of a glass
phial over a candle. The invisible gas descended and extinguished the
candle; There was not the slightest chance of the poison-vapour
escaping quickly through ports or up hatchways. It would, as it were,
cling to the vessel. The pressure inside the case would cause it to
issue rapidly from the aperture eaten out by the acid. It would then
diffuse itself laterally, and gradually penetrate into every crevice
and corner of the ship. The effect would be that one by one every
person on board would inhale it, and in an instant, let the quantity
breathed be never so small, down he would drop, or grow rigid as he
sat—unconscious was the word Theodore used as an euphemism for death.
He did not mention another effect it would have, lest the horror of it
should cause even Marese to falter.

Theodore traced out the probable course of events on board the fated
vessel. First, the persons working or living in the cabins and places
nearest the case would feel the effect and succumb. Then there would be
alarm and excitement—others would rush to the spot, and they would
immediately fall, just as the birds and beast did who entered those
fatal caves abroad. One man on board, perhaps, might detect the
cause—the surgeon, or any doctor who chanced to be a passenger—and
might cry out to man the boats and escape; but who, in the hurry and
excitement, would heed him?—he would not have time to escape himself,
much less to explain the danger to others. It was doubtful whether even
so much as a signal of distress would be hoisted. The crew, the
officers, the passengers would be so completely puzzled, so utterly at
their wit’s end, that no course would suggest itself to them before it
was too late.

In this respect the gas had an immense advantage over any apparatus
which would set the ship on fire. Let the fire be never so rapid, one
boat at least might get away, and on that boat the very person whom it
was most desirable should seek the floor of the ocean. Moreover, fire
could be seen from a vast distance, and might attract attention from
other vessels, who by day would observe the smoke, and by night the
glare of the flames.

But in this case probably not so much as a flag would be hoisted. One
by one the seamen and passengers, the captain and officers, would
succumb to the invisible vapour, first becoming weak and helpless, and
next “unconscious.” The steersman would fall at the wheel. The engineer
would drop at his engine; the stoker as he shovelled up the coal; the
passenger would lie in his berth. And the steamer, so long as the fuel
in the furnace lasted, would pursue her way unguided over the waves;
finally, after a few hours, to float a derelict at the mercy of the
wind.

There was a completeness, a finish, an elaboration of detail about this
scheme which fascinated the conspirators. It was so novel, daring, and
yet safe, it enchanted them. When at last the great horror was
discovered, what risk would there be? Nothing on board would excite
suspicion. The gas had actually no smell; besides, long before anything
was discovered, it would have dissipated itself.

Even if the whole of the cargo was examined, the case itself would
offer, no handle to an inquirer. The powerful acid would have eaten its
way out, and nothing would be left but a small empty case with a hole
in it. Nothing need show who consigned the case. Better still: Marese’s
yacht would follow the doomed steamer, keeping close on pretence of the
safety of having company in a voyage across the Atlantic.

They would easily know when the desired result was obtained by the view
of the steamer rolling helplessly in the trough of the waves. By the
time that was the case some hours would have elapsed after the
catastrophe, and various pretences could be arranged to avoid
immediately proceeding on board—especially as from a distance nothing
would look the matter—and by then the poisonous vapour would have
dissipated itself, or so mixed with the air as to have lost its fatal
power. They would then take charge of the vessel and bring it into
port, and claim the salvage.

If they contrived to select a vessel which carried a valuable cargo,
that salvage money would be something extremely large in amount, added
to the value of the steamer itself. They might manoeuvre to get such a
cargo stored. This would be far superior to the clumsy dodge of sinking
the ship and claiming the insurance money.

As to getting the case on board, it was as easy as could be. Having
proceeded to New York in Marese’s yacht, taking with them the necessary
apparatus for producing the gas (which was very simple), and pumping it
into the case, they could ascertain the hour of the steamer’s
departure, fill the case, regulate the acid for say four, or perhaps
three days, and send it on board only a little while before she
started. They would then, on board the yacht, proceed to sea on a
cruise and keep the steamer in sight.

Delightfully simple! Perfectly complete and scientific in every detail!

Marese once again asked if the gas was really so powerful? Theodore
referred to his note-books, and showed him an extract from a newspaper
not of so very remote a date, wherein it was stated that at a
conference of the various leading European Powers it had been resolved
not to employ certain implements in warfare, such as explosive shells
or bullets under a certain size, and poisonous gases or vapours which

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