CHAPTER XVIII A STRANGE INTERVIEW

The sun had gone down behind a bank of angry, leaden-coloured clouds, which were fast spreading over the whole surface of the sky. Only here and there a stunted, half-grown, and leafless oak-tree stretched out its naked branches towards the darkening sky, and within a yard or two of me there was a miserable apology for a cottage.

No one, save they had known otherwise, would have taken it for anything but a cowshed of the rudest form. It was built of boards dipped in black tar, windowless, chimneyless, save for a hole in the roof through which a small piece of dilapidated stove piping had been thrust, and without the merest pretence of a garden. It stood, or rather leaned, against one side of a sharp slope in the moor, and fifty yards from the rude sheep-track which did duty as a road, and even in the daytime there was no other human habitation within sight, or any sign of one.

With my arm in the bridle of the Black Prince, I led him down the slope, and, grasping my riding-whip by the stock, knocked sharply at what I concluded to be the door. I heard the quick sound of a man's startled curse, and then there was a dead silence. I knocked again, but no one answered. Then I kicked at the loose planks till the place seemed as though it would tumble down like a pack of cards.

"What d'ye want?" a woman's shrill voice cried through the open chinks. "Who be you?"

"I want your husband," I answered.

"Well, he bean't here, 'e bean't coom home."

"It's a lie!" I shouted back. "Tell him I shall not go away until I have seen him, though I kick this place about your ears. Is he afraid? Tell him I am alone."

She withdrew muttering, and I fastened Black Prince as securely as I could against the wall. Suddenly the door was opened, and stooping low, with my heavy riding-whip grasped firmly in my right hand, I stepped inside.

At first I could see nothing, but just as I was cautiously feeling in my pockets for a match, the red flames of a wood fire, which was smouldering on the hearth, leaped up and showed me the bare walls and miserable interior of the tumble-down hovel, showed me, too, the figure of a tall, evil-looking man grasping a thick cudgel in his hand, and peering through the gloom at me with a sort of threatening inquisitiveness.

"What d'ye want wi' me?" the man began, suspiciously. Then suddenly he dropped his cudgel and staggered back against the frail wall, with his arms stretched out as though to keep me off.

"God, it's Muster Herbert! It's Muster Herbert's ghost. What d'ye want? What d'ye want? What d'ye want here wi' me? Speak, can't you!" he cried out in a tone of hysterical dread.

"Don't be a fool, John Hilton," I said, contemptuously. "I am Hugh Devereux, son of the man against whom you swore a lie twenty-five years ago, and I have come here to ask you a few questions."

He kept his eyes fixed upon me in a sort of sullen fascinated stare.

"First tell me why you swore that lie? It was Rupert Devereux who made you."

The man's brute courage was returning to him slowly. He picked up his cudgel and began to beat the side of his legs with it.

"You know how to command, young sir," he said, sneeringly. "Suppose I say I won't answer your d—d questions?"

"I don't think you'll be so foolish," I said. "If you don't want to find yourself in gaol for poaching, before the week's out, you'll do exactly as I tell you."

He swore savagely, and turned his ugly face full upon me.

"So you was the d—d young swell that came busting in upon us when we was just a-settling things off nice and comfortable t'other night, was you! I've a good mind——"

He had advanced a step or two towards me, and his fingers had closed firmly round his cudgel.

"Put that piece of timber down, John Hilton," I said, firmly; "you've tried conclusions with me once at Porlock, and you got the worst of it. So you will again if you try the same game. Drop it. Do you hear?"

I took a quick step forward, and raised my riding-whip. He hesitated, and then threw it savagely down.

"Curse it, what d'ye want to know?"

"It was Rupert Devereux who made you tell that lie before the court-martial?"

"Ay, 'twas him, right enough. I'll tell yer all about it. Muster Rupert Devereux ain't nothink to me! He comes to me that morning t' moment the bugle had sounded, and we was in the tents. 'Hilton,' he said to me, 'would yer tell a lie to be made a rich man for the rest of your life?' 'In coors I would,' said I. 'Then when you're summoned before General Luxton to-morrow,' says he, 'tell him that you saw nothing of my brother during the fight. Forget that he ran out to help us against those two black varmint. Do that, and I'll allow you two hundred pounds a year as long as you live.' 'I'm your man,' said I. 'That's right,' says he, and turns on his heel and walks back again. That were 'ow it war," he wound up defiantly.

I had hard work to keep my hands off him, but I did.

"And your two hundred pounds a year?" I asked, glancing around and at the bold-looking, slatternly woman who sat crouched on a stool watching us. "What's become of that? I presume you don't live here from choice?"

He broke into a volley of horrible curses.

"I should think I don't," he broke out. "I'll tell 'e how that —— served me. I was maybe a bit of a fool; anyways, I was a bit strong-headed, and when we got back to England I would live wi' 'im as his servant, though he didn't like it, and said I was too rough and clumsy, and so I war. But I got into his ways a bit, and live wi' 'im I would, for I didn't nohow feel safe about getting the coin, he war always moving about so. Often we had rows, and he used to say as he'd send me a-packing; but I only laughed at 'im. But that 'ere night, down at Porlock, yer remember it, he got to hear what I'd done, and he sent for me. 'Hilton,' he said, 'here's a month's wages, and you can go to the devil. I've done wi' you.' ''Ow about our little secret, mister?' I said, for I didn't think as he was noways in earnest, and he says, 'You're a fool. Hilton. You think you've got me in your power, but it's the stupidest mistake you ever made in your life. You can go and tell your secret to any one you like, and I wish you joy of those who'll believe yer.' And I saw then as I wor done, for of coors no one would believe me. They all said as it wor a bit o' spite because he'd given me the sack and so I went down, down, down, and here I am."

"A poacher," I remarked.

"I didn't say nowt about that," he answered, sullenly. "Wot more do yer want wi' me?"

"A little family history, that's all. Whom did your master marry?"

"Miss Saville, or some such name. She war a clergyman's daughter, and she died soon after the second child were born."

"The second child! There is a daughter living at Devereux Court now—is the other one a son?"

The man nodded sullenly.

"And where is he?"

"How the devil should I know! He war at college when I left Muster Rupert; ain't 'eard of 'im since!

"Or of Rupert Devereux?"

"No, I ain't 'eard of 'im. D'ye think I reads the sassiety papers down 'ere to know where all the fine folks is, 'cos I don't."

I was silent for a few minutes, thinking. Of what use was this fellow's confession to me now that I had got it? Who would believe the word of such a disreputable vagabond against the word of Rupert Devereux? Still, I would have his confession—some day it might be useful.

"Have you a candle?" I asked.

The woman rose from her seat for the first time, and after groping about for a moment or two produced a few inches of tallow dip I struck a match, and, righting it, thrust it in the neck of a black bottle which she silently handed me. Then, in as few words as possible, I wrote down the substance of Hilton's confession and handed it to him, with the pencil, to sign.

"If it only does 'im the harm I wish it will," he muttered, "it'll do. Now, mister," he went on, turning towards me half threateningly, half whiningly, "wot I wants to know is this—Be yer going to peach on me for that poaching job, and how in thunder's name did yer know where to find me?"

"By accident, the latter," I answered. I saw you come out of this den months ago, when I was riding across the moor to Silverbridge. I thought it was a chance resemblance then, but when I saw you in the wood I knew you. John Hilton, I am not going to denounce you as one of that gang of poachers; on the other hand, I have purposely refrained from handing in your description. But you have an account to settle with me.

He grasped his cudgel again.

"What do you mean?" he muttered.

"I shall show you," I answered. I turned aside to the woman, who sat watching us with a weary, indifferent stare.

"How long is it since you had anything to eat?" I asked.

"Yester forenoon," she moaned. "Him there"—she pointed to her husband—"he daredna go owt, and I ain't got no money, nor nowt to sell. We be starving."

I put my hand in my pocket and gave her half-a-sovereign.

"Take that, and go and get something at once," I said.

She started to her feet, and her fingers closed eagerly over the coin. Then she drew her shawl around her and hurried to the door.

"I'll be back inside o' an hour, Jack," she called out to her husband. "We'll 'a some supper to-night; I'll go to Jones's"—and she hurried away.

I turned to the man, who stood looking hungrily after his wife.

"John Hilton, I said that I had an account to settle with you. I have. It is through your damnable conspiracy and lying that my father is wandering about in a foreign land a miserable man; that I am here compelled to bear a false name and occupy a false position. If you think that I have forgiven you this because I gave your wife money and do not cause you to be arrested as a poacher, you are mistaken. I don't want your miserable life. I wouldn't take it if I had the chance. But I am going to give you the soundest horsewhipping you ever had in your life."

He shrunk back. He was a coward at heart, but he had plenty of bravado.

"Now, look 'ere, young mister," he said, savagely, "you've given my missus money when we wanted it, lad, and I don't want to hurt you. But you're only a stripling, and if you lay 'ands on me I sha'n't take it quiet, I can tell you. Now keep off."

He was a tall man, but I was a taller; and though I was slim, my out-of-door life had hardened my muscles till they were like iron. But had I been less his superior in strength, the passionate hatred and disgust which leaped up within me when I remembered what this man had done would have helped me to have gained my end. As it was, he was utterly helpless in my grasp, and I had wrenched his cudgel from him in a moment. All round the little room he struggled and writhed; whilst holding him by the collar with one hand I dealt him fierce, quick blows with my thonged riding-whip. Then, throwing him from me, panting and helpless, into the furthest corner of the room, I strode out of the shaking tenement to where my horse was neighing impatiently outside. He made no attempt to follow me, and in a few minutes I had given Black Prince the rein, and we were flying across the moor homewards.