Johnny Ludlow Second Series Part 115

"I see him for certain. I see him busy with the baskets as the men filled 'em."

Dragging me after him, Tod went striding off to Tasker's. We knew the man by sight; had once spoken to him about his garden. He was a kind of nurseryman. Tasker was standing near his greenhouse.

"Why did I come and steal your roses?" he quietly repeated, when he could understand Tod's fierce demands. "I didn't _steal_ 'em, sir; I picked 'em."

"And how dared you do it? Who gave you leave to do it?" foamed Tod, turning green and purple.

"I did it because they were mine."

"Yours! Are you mad?"

"Yes, sir, mine. I bought 'em and paid for 'em."

Tod did think him mad at the moment; I could see it in his face. "Of whom, pray, did you buy them?"

"Of Captain Copperas. I had 'em from the garden last year and the year afore: other folks lived in the place then. Three pounds I gave for 'em this time. The captain sold 'em to me a month ago, and I was to take my own time for gathering them."

I don't think Tod had ever felt so _floored_ in all his life. He stood back against the pales and stared. A month ago we had not known Captain Copperas.

"I might have took all the lot: 'twas in the agreement; but I left you a few before the front winder," said Tasker, in an injured tone. "And you come and attack me like this!"

"But what do you want with them? What are they taken for?"

"To make otter of roses," answered Tasker. "I sell 'em to the distillers."

"At any rate, though it be as you say, I would have taken them openly,"

contended Tod. "Not come like a thief in the night."

"But then I had to get 'em afore the sun was powerful," calmly answered Tasker.

Tod was silent all the way home. I had not spoken a word, good or bad.

Betty brought in the coffee.

"Pour it out," said he to me. "But, Johnny," he presently added, as he stirred his cup slowly round, "I _can't_ think how it was that Copperas forget to tell me he had sold the roses."

"Do you suppose he did forget?"

"Why, _of course_ he forgot. Would an honest man like Copperas conceal such a thing if he did not forget it? You will be insinuating next, Johnny Ludlow, that he is as bad as Tasker."

I must say we were rather in the dumps that day. Tod went off fis.h.i.+ng; I carried the basket and things. I did wish I had not said so much about the roses to Mrs. Todhetley. What I wrote was, that they were brighter and sweeter and better than those other roses by Bendemeer's stream.

I thought of the affair all day long. I thought of it when I was going to bed at night. Putting out the candle, I leaned from my window and looked down on the desolate garden. The roses had made its beauty.

"Johnny! Johnny lad! Are you in bed?"

The cautious whisper came from Tod. Bringing my head inside the room, I saw him at the door in his slippers and braces.

"Come into my room," he whispered. "Those fellows who disturbed us the other night are at the gate again."

Tod's light was out and his window open. We could see a man bending down outside the gate, fumbling with the lock. Presently the bell was pulled very gently, as if the ringer thought the house might be asleep and he did not want to awaken it. There was something quite ghostly to the imagination in being disturbed at night like this.

"Who's there?" shouted Tod.

"I am," answered a cautious voice. "I want to see Captain Copperas."

"Come along, Johnny. This is getting complicated."

We went out to the gate, and saw a man: he was not either of the two who had come before. Tod answered him as he had answered them, but did not open the gate.

"Are you a friend of the captain's?" whispered the man.

"Yes, I am," said Tod. "What then?"

"Well, see here," resumed he, in a confidential tone. "If I don't get to see him it will be the worse for him. I come as a friend; come to warn him."

"But I tell you he is not in the house," argued Tod. "He has let it to me. He has left Cray Bay. His address? No, I cannot give it you."

"Very well," said the man, evidently not believing a word, "I am come out of friendliness. If you know where he is, you just tell him that Jobson has been here, and warns him to look out for squalls. That's all."

"I say, Johnny, I shall begin to fancy we are living in some mysterious castle, if this kind of thing is to go on," remarked Tod, when the man had gone. "It seems deuced queer, altogether."

It seemed queerer still the next morning. For a gentleman walked in and demanded payment for the furniture. Captain Copperas had forgotten to settle for it, he said--if he _had_ gone away. Failing the payment, he should be obliged to take away the chairs and tables. Tod flew into a rage, and ordered him out of the place. Upon which their tongues went in for a pitched battle, and gave out some unorthodox words. Cooling down by-and-by, an explanation was come to.

He was a member of some general furnis.h.i.+ng firm, ten miles off. Captain Copperas had done them the honour to furnish his house from their stores, including the piano, paying a small portion on account.

Naturally they wanted the rest. In spite of certain strange doubts that were arising touching Captain Copperas, Tod resolutely refused to give any clue to his address. Finally the applicant agreed to leave matters as they were for three or four days, and wrote a letter to be forwarded to Copperas.

But the news that arrived from Liverpool staggered us more than all. The brokers sent back Tod's first letter to Copperas (telling him of the grenadier's having marched off with the linen), and wrote to say that they didn't know any Captain Copperas; that no gentleman of that name was in their employ, or in command of any of their s.h.i.+ps.

As Tod remarked, it seemed deuced queer. People began to come in, too, for petty accounts that appeared to be owing--a tailor, a bootmaker, and others. Betty shed tears.

One evening, when we had come in from a long day's fis.h.i.+ng, and were sitting at dinner in rather a gloomy mood, wondering what was to be the end of it, we caught sight of a man's coat-tails whisking up to the front-door.

"Sit still," cried Tod to me, as the bell rang. "It's another of those precious creditors. Betty! don't you open the door. Let the fellow cool his heels a bit."

But, instead of cooling his heels, the fellow stepped aside to our open window, and stood there, looking in at us. I leaped out of my chair, and nearly out of my skin. It was Mr. Brandon.

"And what do you two fine gentlemen think of yourselves?" began he, when we had let him in. "You don't starve, at any rate, it seems."

"You'll take some, won't you, Mr. Brandon?" said Tod politely, putting the breast of a duck upon a plate, while I drew a chair for him to the table.

Ignoring the offer, he sat down by the window, threw his yellow silk handkerchief across his head, as a shade against the sun and the air, and opened upon our delinquencies in his thinnest tones. In the Squire's absence, Mrs. Todhetley had given him my letter to read, and begged him to come and see after us, for she feared Tod might be getting himself into some inextricable mess. Old Brandon's sarcasms were keen. To make it worse, he had heard of the new complications, touching Copperas and the furniture, at the Whistling Wind.

"So!" said he, "you must take a house and its responsibilities upon your shoulders, and pay the money down, and make no inquiries!"

"We made lots of inquiries," struck in Tod, wincing.

"Oh, did you? Then I was misinformed. You took care to ascertain whether the landlord of the house would accept you as tenant; whether the furniture was the man's own to sell, and had no liabilities upon it; whether the rent and taxes had been paid up to that date?"