Frank Fairlegh Part 13

"Come and try," said Oaklands, folding his arms with an air of defiance.

Coleman, reckoning on his adversary's dislike of exertion, and trusting to his own extreme quickness and activity to effect his escape scot-free, made a feint of turning away as if to avoid the contest, and then, with a sudden spring, leaped upon Oaklands, and succeeded in just touching his nose. The latter was, however, upon his guard, and while, by seizing his outstretched arm with one hand, he prevented him from attaining his object, he caught him by the coat-collar with the other, and detained him prisoner.

"I've got you this time, at all events, Master Freddy; now what shall I do with you, to pay you off for all your impertinence?" said Oaklands, looking round the room in search of something suitable to his purpose.

"I have it," continued he, as his eyes encountered the bookcase, which was a large square-topped, old-fas.h.i.+oned affair, standing about eight feet high, and the upper part forming a sort of gla.s.s-fronted closet, in which the books were arranged on shelves. "Great men like you, who go ahead of archbishops and so on, should be seated in high places."

So saying he lifted Coleman in his arms, with as much ease as if he had been a kitten; and, stepping up on a chair which stood near, seated him on the top of the bookcase, with his head touching the ceiling, and his feet dangling about six feet from the ground.

"What a horrid shame!" said Coleman; "come help me down again, Harry, there's a good fellow."

"I help you down!" rejoined Oaklands, "I've had trouble enough in putting you up, I think; I'm a great deal too much tired to help you down again."

"Well, if you won't, there's n.o.body else can," said Coleman, "unless they get a ladder, or a fire-escape--don't call me proud, gentlemen, if I look down upon you all, for I a.s.sure you it's quite involuntary on my part."

"A decided case of 'up aloft': he looks quite the cherub, does he not?"

said Lawless.

-79--"They are making game of you, Coleman," cried Mullins, grinning.

"I hope not," was the reply, "for in that case I should be much too _high_ to be pleasant."

"They ought to keep you there for an hour longer for that vile pun,"

said c.u.mberland. "Is your letter ready, Oaklands, for I must be going?"

"It is upstairs, I'll fetch it," replied Oaklands, leaving the room.

"Well, as it seems I am here for life, I may as well make myself comfortable," said Coleman, and, suiting the action to the word, he crossed his legs under him like a tailor, and folding his arms leaned his back against the wall, the picture of ease.

At this moment there was a gentle tap at the door; some one said "Come in," and, without a word of preparation, Dr. Mildman entered the apartment. Our surprise and consternation at this apparition may easily be imagined. c.u.mberland and Lawless tried to carry it off by a.s.suming an easy unembarra.s.sed air, as if nothing particular was going on; I felt strongly disposed to laugh; while Mullins looked much more inclined to cry; but the expression of Coleman's face, affording a regular series of "dissolving views" of varied emotions, was the "gem" of the whole affair. The unconscious cause of all this excitement, whose back was turned towards the bookcase, walked quietly up to his usual seat, saying, as he did so:--

[Ill.u.s.tration: page79 The Doctor Makes a Discovery]

"Don't let me disturb you--I only came to look for my eye-gla.s.s, which I think I must have dropped".

"I see it, sir," said I, springing forward and picking it up; "how lucky none of us happened to tread on it and break it!"

"Thank you, Fairlegh, it is an old friend, and I should have been sorry to have any harm happen to it," replied he, as he turned to leave the room, without having once raised his eyes from the ground. Coleman, who up to this moment had considered a discovery inevitable, gave me a sign to open the door, and, believing the danger over, was proceeding to relieve his feelings by making a hideous face at his retiring tutor, when the bookcase, affected no doubt by the additional weight placed upon it, suddenly gave a loud crack.

"Bless my heart," said Dr. Mildman, looking up in alarm, "what's that?

Gracious me!" continued he, starting back as his eyes encountered Coleman, "there's something alive up there! why it's--eh?" continued he, levelling his newly restored eye-gla.s.s at the object of his -80--alarm; "yes, it certainly _is_ Coleman; pray, sir, is it usually your 'custom of an afternoon,' as Shakspeare has it, to sit perched up there cross-legged, like a Chinese mandarin? It's a very singular taste."

"Why, sir," replied Coleman, for once completely taken aback, "you see I didn't--that is, I wasn't--I mean, if I hadn't--I shouldn't."

"Hum," resumed Dr. Mildman, with whom he was rather a favourite, and who, now that he had satisfied himself it was not some wild animal he had to deal with, was evidently amused by Coleman's embarra.s.sment, "that sentence of yours is not particularly clear or explanatory; but,"

continued he, as a new idea occurred to him, "how in the world did you get up there? you must have flown."

"I didn't get up, I was--that is, he----" stammered

Coleman, remembering just in time that he could not explain without involving Oaklands.

"And how are you ever to get down again?" said Dr. Mildman.

"Has the pretty bird flown yet?" cried Oaklands, hastily entering the room; when, observing the addition the party had received during his absence, he started back, murmuring in an under tone, "The old gentleman, by Jove!" Quickly recovering himself, however, he sprang upon a chair, and, seizing Coleman in his arms, whisked him down with more haste than ceremony; and going up to Dr. Mildman said respectfully, "That was a bit of folly of mine, sir; I put him up there; I merely did it for a joke, and I hadn't an idea you would come in and find him".

"Never mind," replied Dr. Mildman, good-naturedly, "as you have contrived to get him down again safely there is no harm done;" adding as he left the room, "that young man is as strong as Hercules. I hope he'll never take it into his head to pop me up anywhere, for I am sure he could do it if he chose."

CHAPTER IX -- A DENOUEMENT

-81--

"Play not for gain but sport; who plays for more Than he can lose with pleasure, stakes his heart."

--Herbert.

"If you are so bold as to venture a blowing-up, look closely to it! for the plot lies deadly deep... but of all things have a care of putting it in your pocket,... and if you can shun it, read it not;... consider well what you do, and look to yourself,... for there is danger and jeopardy in it."-- --Dr. Eachard.

IN the course of my walk that afternoon I called at the billiard-rooms in F---- Street, in order to pay Oaklands' subscription. On inquiring for Mr. Johnson, the proprietor, I was told that he was engaged at present, but that if I did not mind waiting for a few minutes, he would be able to attend to me. To this I agreed, and was shown into a small room downstairs, which, from its sanded floor, and a strong odour of stale tobacco which pervaded it, was apparently used as a smoking-room.

It opened into what seemed to be a rather s.p.a.cious apartment from which it was divided by a gla.s.s half-door, across the lower panes of which hung a green blind: this door, on my entrance, was standing slightly ajar. The day being cold, there was a bright fire burning on the hearth; near this I seated myself, and, seduced by its drowsy influence, fell into a kind of trance, in which, between sleeping and waking, my mind wandered away to a far different scene, among well-known forms and familiar faces that had been strangers to me now for many a long day.

From this day-dream I was aroused by sounds, which, proceeding from the adjoining apartment, resolved themselves, as I became more thoroughly awake, into the voices of two persons apparently engaged in angry colloquy.

"I tell you," said a gruff voice, which somehow seemed familiar to me--"I tell you it is the only chance for you; you must contrive to bring him here again, and that without loss of time."

"Must I again repeat that the thing is impossible?" was the reply, in tones I knew but too well; "utterly impossible; when once his mind is made up, and he takes the trouble to exert himself, he is immovable; nothing can shake his determination."

"And is this your boasted skill and management?" -82--rejoined the first speaker; "how comes it, pray, that this overgrown child, who seemed the other day to be held as nicely in leading-strings as need be--this raw boy, whose hot-headedness, simplicity, and indolence rendered him as easy a pigeon to pluck as one could desire; how comes it, I say, that he has taken alarm in this sudden manner, so as to refuse to come here any more? you've bungled this matter most shamefully, sir, and must take the consequences."

"That's just the point I cannot make out," replied the second speaker, who, as the reader has probably discovered, was none other than c.u.mberland; "it's easy enough for you to lay it all to my mismanagement, Captain Spicer, but I tell you it is no such thing; did I not accommodate my play to his, always appearing to win by some accident, so that the fool actually believed himself the better player, while he was losing from twenty to thirty pounds a day? Didn't I excite him, and lead him on by a mixture of flattery and defiance, so that he often fancied he was persuading me to play against my will, and was so ready to bet that I might have won three times what I have of him, if you had not advised me to go on quietly, and by degrees? Did not you refuse when I wished you to take him in hand yourself, because you said I understood him best, and managed him admirably? No, I believe that detestable young Fairlegh is at the bottom of it: I observed him watching me with that calm, steadfast glance of his, that I hated him for from the first moment I saw him; I felt certain some mischief would arise from it."

"Yes!" replied Spicer, "that was your fault too: why did you let the other bring him; every fool knows that lookers-on see most of the game."

"I was afraid to say much against it, lest Oaklands should suspect anything," rejoined c.u.mberland; "but I wish to Heaven I had now; I might have been sure no good would come from it--that boy is my evil genius."

"I have no time for talking about geniuses, and such confounded stuff,"

observed Spicer, angrily, "so now to business, Mr. c.u.mberland: you are aware you owe me two hundred pounds, I presume?"

c.u.mberland grumbled out an unwilling a.s.sent, to which he appended a muttered remark not exactly calculated to enhance the Captain's future comfort.

"Like a good-natured fool," continued Spicer, "I agreed to wait for my money till you had done what you could with this Oaklands."

"For which forbearance you were to receive fifty -83--pounds extra, besides anything you could make out of him by private bets," put in c.u.mberland.

"Of course I was not going to wait all that time for my money for nothing," was the reply; "you have only as yet paid me fifty pounds, you tell me you can't persuade Oaklands to play again, so there's nothing more to be got from that quarter, consequently nothing more to wait for.

I must trouble you, therefore, to pay me the two hundred pounds at once; for, to be plain with you, it won't do for me to remain here any longer--the air does not agree with my const.i.tution."

"And where on earth am I to get two hundred pounds at a minute's notice?" said c.u.mberland; "you are as well aware the thing is impossible as I am."

"I am aware of this, sir," replied the Captain with an oath, "that I'll have my money; ay, and this very day too, or I'll expose you--curse me if I don't. I know your uncle's address: yes! you may well turn pale, and gnaw your lip--other people can plot and scheme as well as yourself: if I'm not paid before I leave this place, and that will be by to-night's mail, your uncle shall be told that his nephew is an insolvent gambler; and the old tutor, the Rev. Dr. Mildman, shall have a hint that his head pupil is little better than a blackleg."

"Now listen to me, Spicer," said c.u.mberland quietly; "I know you might do what you have threatened, and that to me it would be neither more nor less than ruin, but--and this is the real question--pray what possible advantage (save calling people's attention to the share, a pretty large one, you have had in making me what I am) would it be to you?"