Johnny Ludlow Second Series Part 112

Inquiring of our landlady for the nearest bank, Tod was directed to a town called St. Ann's, three miles off; and we started for it at once, pelting along the hot and dusty road. The bank found--a small one, with a glazed bow-window, Tod presented a cheque for a hundred and fifty pounds, twenty-five of it being for himself, and asked the clerk to cash it.

The clerk looked at the cheque then looked at Tod, and then at me. "This is not one of our cheques," he said. "We have no account in this name."

"Can't you read?" asked Tod. "The cheque is upon the Worcester Old Bank.

You know it well by reputation, I presume?"

The clerk whisked into a small kind of box, divided from the office by gla.s.s, where sat a bald-headed gentleman writing at a desk full of pigeon-holes. A short conference, and then the latter came to us, holding the cheque in his hand.

"We will send and present this at Worcester," he said; "and shall get an answer the day after to-morrow. No doubt we shall then be able to give you the money."

"Why can't you give it me now?" asked Tod, in rather a fiery tone.

"Well, sir, we should be happy to do it; but it is not our custom to cash cheques for strangers."

"Do you fear the cheque will not be honoured?" flashed Tod. "Why, I have five hundred pounds lying there! Do you suppose I want to cheat you?"

"Oh, certainly not," said the banker, with suavity. "Only, you see, we cannot break through our standing rules. Call upon us the day after to-morrow, and doubtless the money will be ready."

Tod came away swearing. "The infamous upstarts!" cried he. "To refuse to cash my cheque! Johnny, it's my belief they take us for a couple of adventurers."

The money came in due course. After receiving it from the cautious banker, we went straight to Rose Lodge, pelting back from St. Ann's at a fine pace. Tod signed the agreement, and paid the cash in good Bank of England notes. Captain Copperas brought out a bottle of champagne, which tasted uncommonly good to our thirsty throats. He was to leave Cray Bay that night on his way to Liverpool to take possession of his s.h.i.+p; Miss Copperas would leave on the morrow, and then we should go in. And Elizabeth, the grenadier, was to remain with us as servant. Miss Copperas recommended her, hearing Tod say he did not know where to look for one. We bargained with her to keep up a good supply of pies, and to pay her twenty s.h.i.+llings a month.

"Will you allow me to leave one or two of my boxes for a few days?"

asked Miss Copperas of Tod, when we went down on the following morning, and found her equipped for departure. "This has been so hurried a removal that I have not had time to pack all my things, and must leave it for Elizabeth to do."

"Leave anything you like, Miss Copperas," replied Tod, as he shook hands. "Do what you please. I'm sure the house seems more like yours than mine."

She thanked him, wished us both good-bye, and set off to walk to the coach-office, attended by the grenadier, and a boy wheeling her luggage.

And we were in possession of our new home.

It was just delightful. The weather was charming, though precious hot, and the new feeling of being in a house of our own, with not as much as a mouse to control us and our movements, was satisfactory in the highest degree. We pa.s.sed our days sailing about with old Druff, and came home to the feasts prepared by the grenadier, and to sit among the roses.

Altogether we had never had a time like it. Tod took the best chamber, facing the sea; I had the smaller one over the dining-room, looking up coastwards.

"I shall go fis.h.i.+ng to-morrow, Johnny," Tod said to me one evening.

"We'll bring home some trout for supper."

He was stretched on three chairs before the open window; coat off, pipe in mouth. I turned round from the piano. It was not much of an instrument. Miss Copperas had said, when I hinted so to her on first trying it, that it wanted "age."

"Shall you? All right," I answered, sitting down by him. The stars were s.h.i.+ning on the calm blue water; here and there lights, looking like stars also, twinkled from some vessels at anchor.

"If I thought they wouldn't quite die of the shock, Johnny, I'd send the pater and madam an invitation to come off here and pay us a visit. They would fall in love with the place at once."

"Oh, Tod, I wish you would!" I cried, eagerly seizing on the words.

"They could have your room, and you have mine, and I would go into the little one at the back."

"I dare say! I was only joking, lad."

The last words and their tone destroyed my hopes. It is inconvenient to possess a conscience. Advantageous though the bargain was that Tod had made, and delightfully though our days were pa.s.sing, I could not feel easy until they knew of it at home.

"I wish you would let me write and tell them, Tod."

"No," said he. "I don't want the pater to whirl himself off here and spoil our peace--for that's what would come of it."

"He thinks we are in some way with the Temples. His letter implied it."

"The best thing he can think."

"But I want to write to the mother, Tod. She must be wondering why we don't."

"Wondering won't give her the fever, lad. Understand me, Mr. Johnny: you are not to write."

Breakfast over in the morning, we crossed the meadows to the trout stream, with the fis.h.i.+ng-tackle and a basket of frogs. Tod complained of the intense heat. The dark blue sky was cloudless; the sun beat down upon our heads.

"I'll tell you what, Johnny," he said, when we had borne the blaze for an hour on the banks, the fish refusing to bite: "we should be all the cooler for our umbrellas. You'll have a sunstroke, if you don't look out."

"It strikes me you won't catch any fish to-day."

"Does it? You be off and get the parapluies."

The low front window stood open when I reached home. It was the readiest way of entering; and I pa.s.sed on to the pa.s.sage to the umbrella-stand.

The grenadier came das.h.i.+ng out of her kitchen, looking frightened.

"Oh!" said she, "it's you!"

"I have come back for the umbrellas, Elizabeth; the sun's like a furnace. Why! what have you got there?"

The kitchen was strewed with clothes from one end of it to the other.

On the floor stood the two boxes left by Miss Copperas.

"I am only putting up Miss Copperas's things," returned Elizabeth, in her surly way. "It's time they were sent off."

"What a heap she must have left behind!" I remarked, and left the grenadier to her work.

We got home in the evening, tired out. The grenadier had a choice supper ready; and, in answer to me, said the trunks of Miss Copperas were packed and gone. When bed-time came, Tod was asleep at the window, and wouldn't awake. The grenadier had gone to her room ages ago; I wanted to go to mine.

"Tod, then! Do please wake up: it is past ten."

A low growl answered me. And in that same moment I became aware of some mysterious stir outside the front-gate. People seemed to be trying it.

The grenadier always locked it at night.

"Tod! Tod! There are people at the gate--trying to get in."

The tone and the words aroused him. "Eh? What do you say, Johnny? People are trying the gate?"

"Listen! They are whispering to one another. They are trying the fastenings."