Tom Gallon

“ Step by step—day by day—I have seen what was coming; I dare not draw back now, whatever happens. If it is a crime, then the man himself has drawn it down upon his own head. Think of what he has done: to get hold of this girl he has banished himself out of the world; has played a trick, to persuade people that he is going on a long voyage, while in reality he is in hiding—waiting like a spider in his web—crouching ready to spring. Think of that, Barbara; if I kill him to-night, I kill a man who has no name, who is unknown; Murray Olivant will be in another place altogether. ”

“ I might have died that shameful death twenty years ago. But I am a felon; I am branded with the brand of Cain; there is blood on my hands."
"Spilled for my sake!" she cried quickly, taking my hands, as she had done once before, and putting her lips to them. "And you lied to me, Charlie; you did not kill Olivant."
"I did not kill Olivant," I said; "but I am guilty, in that I set out to do it. Some one forestalled me: some one who has died a violent death, and paid that penalty. But that, too, was some one who loved you, in however poor a fashion. It was Jervis Fanshawe." ”

“ For I had never seen on any face such a look of mingled fear and hopelessness, and longing and misery, as I saw in his face then.
"Why was I spying on you? Why do I spy on every one? Why do I feel, when I am near that child, like a weak and impotent child myself? I could crush the life out of her with that hand"—he shook it fiercely in the air before me as he spoke—"and yet she could make me do murder, with a word or a look. I want her—and I mean to have her; there's a passion in me that a boy such as you can't understand. ”

“ In a limp fashion I was clinging to young Millard, whose fury, as it seemed, had suddenly relaxed, leaving him helpless.
"Here?" gasped the boy, in a sort of horrified whisper.
"Yes!" cried Olivant loudly. "Here—by her own choice, and of her own free will. I suppose the girl can choose for herself—and in this case, she has chosen wisely. Like every one else in this world, she knows on which side her bread is buttered. Now, get out of my place," he added, advancing towards us: "open the door there, you; show these people out." ”

“ I saw the girl, too, in the hands of the scoundrel with whom she had so willingly set off on a journey that must end in disaster; and I ground my teeth on the gag that had been forced between them, in bitter despairing rage at the man who seemed to hold us all in the hollow of his hand.
Slowly the shame and degradation of the thing seemed to drop into my soul like a subtle poison. In a world that should be fair and bright—a world made for lovers—it was horrible and unnatural to think that such a creature as Murray Olivant should triumph over love and beauty and purity. ”

“ What have you to be afraid of? We're in the same boat, you and I; the world has kicked us both pretty hard; we may do better together than we have done apart. Don't be ungrateful; your loving guardian has come back to you after twenty years; we'll see life together, Charlie."
I shrank away from him, and put up my arm as though to ward off a blow. "Where are you taking me?" I asked in a whisper.
"To London—and back into the world," he said, seizing my upraised arm, and dragging it down, and shaking me playfully. "There's work for you to do in the world, Charlie—great work." ”

“ WHAT I FOUND IN THE WOOD
In all that I shall set down here, in telling the strange story of my poor life, I shall write nothing but the truth. It has been written in many odd times and in many odd places: in a prison cell, on paper stamped with the prison mark; on odd scraps of paper in a lonely garret under the stars, with a candle-end for light—and I, poor and old and shivering—scrawling hastily because the time was so short. I have been at once the meanest and the greatest of all men ”

“ I tell you so again now, Charlie. To-night in London, as I tramped through the streets (and I swear I was not thinking of her in any way) , I saw her face pass me again—it was as though there was some strange light upon it, that never was on this earth. Before God, Charlie, she's come back; as I live, she means to haunt me and to follow me!"
I saw in a moment what had happened. The face of that elder Barbara, as he had seen it for a moment, had been to him the face of the woman he believed to be dead; his further meeting her in London had been a mere accident. ”

“ I loved—loved Barbara," I whispered brokenly.
"You shall see her again; talk with her again; come into her life again." There was a fierce eagerness about him that held me and frightened me. "That's what I'm going to do for you; that's what I meant when I said that I would bring you back to love and life and laughter. Look round this room—and then see it all swept away," he went on with growing excitement. "I've found one friend who will help us both; it may happen that we are not poor and forlorn any more. We have both suffered; it is right that we should have some little joy in our lives." ”

“ I can do nothing, because I have no money and no strength left; you can do nothing, because you died to the world years ago, and at the best, even though you lived, you are poor and helpless as I am. While we stand here—two poor ghosts come back out of the world that is dead—this boy and girl take up the tale, and rush straight to disaster, just as we did."
"But we have come back to save her," she exclaimed quickly. "This is no time for despair, Charlie; we have a greater power given to us than you imagine. ”

“ I lay a thing apart, condemned to die; and there was in my mind the curious feeling then that it was strange that the needs of the world were such that a fellow-man had been able to say that I should die, and that other fellow-men were appointed to watch me that I did not escape, and that yet another fellow-man had the dreadful task of killing me, just as I had killed Gavin Hockley. Lying on my bed in my cell I thought of all that, and watched the men who were seated silently near me. And then I fell asleep, quite peacefully; and in that sleep I dreamed a dream. ”

“ And instantly there came a remarkable change over my guardian. In all my life I never remember to have seen a man so suddenly become a wild beast in a moment as Jervis Fanshawe did then. He ran to the door, and pulled it open, and spluttered out blasphemies into the darkness of the staircase; slammed the door, and came back into the room again, and raged up and down there, saying horrible things about Hockley until my blood seemed to run cold. And all the time taking not the faintest notice of me at all. ”

“ It was the merest whisper, but I heard it as I stood behind Olivant; I saw the girl's distressed face, and I saw, too, that the boy's hand had gripped a knife beside him, and that his look was absolutely murderous. Olivant bent towards the girl as though he did not understand; looked down at the hand he held, and laughed.
"But it's such a pretty hand," he said—"belonging to a pretty Barbara. Tell me, Dawkins," he called to the other man, "hasn't one a right to hold a lady's hand if one likes?" ”

“ I had not understood that any man could live for that and that only; could wait in the snow outside my prison to seize me as an instrument ready to his hand. I did not even then understand the man.
"The Barbara who died—the Barbara I loved," I said gently—"won't you tell me about her?"
"She died at sea," he replied. "Her child had been born, and they said that the mother was not strong; that she had never been the same woman after her marriage. Perhaps she fretted after you"—this with a grin and a kick at me under the table that was meant to be facetious. ”

“ Yes, Charlie—I saw in that the only way to atone. Look at me, Charlie: an old man that has suffered, and behind whom lie so many years that are broken and unhallowed, and worse than useless. I felt that someday—quite soon—I might be called to meet my God; and that there—radiant, as we knew her years ago, Charlie, in her young and innocent beauty—there might rise up against me the woman we both loved. She's dead, but she had nothing to fear from death. ”

“ And I found another man taking my revenge from me, and robbing Savell, and draining him dry. And I wormed myself in with that man, and made myself useful to him—just as you will do, Charlie—just as you're going to do from to-night. He's a fine fellow, this Murray Olivant; he'll break them up, and make a beggar of Savell—and he'll get the girl. Think of that, Charlie; the Barbara for whom you've worn out your heart and your life in prison is dead, and the new Barbara shall be at the beck and call of this man—who won't treat her any too well, I'll warrant. There's a revenge for you! ”

“ The new Barbara rises up in your image, to find herself hopelessly in love with a boy who may be something like myself twenty years ago; like myself, the boy has no chance, from a worldly point of view. Some strange fate has cast us up here together, like ghosts out of the past, and it is for us to help them. That will be beautiful, Barbara, because in doing that we may mend that broken love story that was our own. ”

“ The girl sleeping there is but the image of the Barbara I loved; the boy who would strike this blow, if I did not, represents what I was—must represent in the future what I might have been under happier circumstances. I strike now for the love I bore you, Barbara, and bear you still; and because I know that if I do not this boy must step in, and commit the crime for which I suffered through twenty long years. There is no hope that he will turn back, any more than there is any hope that Murray Olivant will give up his purpose. ”

“ Then, as I glanced up at him, and saw his hungry eyes fixed upon me, he went on in tones little above a whisper, and with a curious mocking grin on his face: "Charlie!—how does it feel to kill a man?"
I turned round slowly; I saw in a moment that he had read my secret. My fear was not that he might do anything to me; my only dread was that he might warn Murray Olivant, if indeed he had not already done so. ”

“ One longs to get hold of another man, and to drag that other man down, and show him that bitter life too," he added savagely.
"I—I'm sorry," I said vaguely; I did not know what else to say. "You see, I have not known what has been happening. In all the long time (they tell me it was twenty years) —in all the long time that I have been there I have not seen the face of any one I ever knew before; and I have not heard a voice that was a voice out of the past, save in dreams. And I never had a letter."
"No—they forget you easily when you go under," said Fanshawe. ”

“ I remembered the face of Barbara; I remembered the words of her note: "I love you and I trust you; you are going always to be very brave and very gentle, so that I may carry that memory of you in my heart." No such bully as this should break down my resolution; there was a power in me greater than he suspected.
It was my guardian who stirred the wound. "Why don't you be quiet, Hockley?" he said; "why don't you leave difficult subjects alone? ”

“ I climbed the stairs, and reached the door of the rooms. As I fumbled for my key, I suddenly discovered that the door was open a couple of inches; I put my hands against it, and went quietly in. The place was in darkness; but I remember that I had that curious feeling that one has, even in the darkness, that there was some one there near me. I called out the man's name again, as I had done before—
"Mr. Olivant! Mr. Olivant!"
Only the echoes floated back to me; I could not understand what the silence meant. ”

“ I ASSIST THE ENEMY
As I came to the door of that shabby room in which I knew the man Dawkins was, a great trembling fell upon me, so that I hesitated, and was afraid to go in. It was not fear for myself: I think at that time I had no fear of anything; it was only that I knew that I should not be able to control myself, if I stood face to face with this creature who had assisted Murray Olivant to secure the girl, and now held her to be sold for a price. I stopped outside the door, with my hands clenched, and with my heart beating wildly. ”

“ After a moment or two Murray Olivant followed him; he seemed at a loss to know what to do. I heard his voice raised presently in the room on the other side of the hall; I opened the door and listened. I was able to see out into the hall also; I saw that Lucas Savell stood at the foot of the stairs, as if he were just about to climb them, and that Olivant was speaking to him in his strident voice.
"Fetch her down, I say. I won't have her sulking upstairs. If she won't come for you, I'll come myself."
"My dear Olivant!" began Savell pleadingly; but the brutal voice broke in again quickly. ”

“ I have lived in God's sunlight, and in the sunlight of her eyes; I have gone down into the Valley of the Shadow of Death, and have not been afraid; I have been caged like a wild beast, until I forgot the world, just as the world forgot me. In a mere matter of the counting of years I am but little past forty years of age; yet I am an old man, and I have lived two lives—just as, when my time comes, I shall have died two deaths. ”

“ I listened with the humility that years had bred in me to what they said of me.
"You can kick or bully him into anything," I heard Fanshawe say, as he looked over his shoulder at me contemptuously. "For the sake of his bread and butter he'll do what he's told, and he'll do it humbly. If any feeling of revenge is left in him, it will act as a spur; but I don't think the spur will be needed. If he gets troublesome, you can always kick him into the road; he'll crawl back to you, and lick your hand, like the shabby dog he is." ”

“ An unwilling witness this, my lord; a man dragged here by the stern arm of a subpoena to give evidence against this young man, whose friend and guardian he has been; you must not be surprised, my lord, if he should break down! He has tried hard to shield the prisoner already; such knowledge of the crime as he possessed has only been dragged out of him with great difficulty. Bear with him gently, my lord, and gentlemen of the jury, for his position is truly a pitiful one!
Mr. Jervis Fanshawe answered the first question in so low a tone that it was difficult to hear him. ”

“ Dear, you came back to me wonderfully from out of your prison; you fought for me again; you were ready to lay down your life for that other Barbara, who was like the Barbara you had loved. I am lonely now—lonely and unknown; do not send me away from you!"
"I am so poor a thing for any woman to cling to," I said pitifully. "I have been down to the depths; I am a thing of poverty, and shame, and degradation."
"You are the man I love," she said, putting her arms about me. "There is a great world waiting for us—a world of sunshine, and life, and laughter ”

“ I would live a life that had in it nothing of commercialism, and nothing of the sordid. I did not know then how circumstances mould a life and change it; how rough-fingered Fate can step in, and tear asunder in a moment the fair threads we have woven, and twist and tangle them, and ruin the fabric. [Pg 11] Like many another poor fool before me, I told myself that I could do what I liked with my life, and shape it in what fashion I would.
Up to this time—that is, the time when I began to think for myself, and to take my life into my own hands—I had not met my guardian. ”

“ One dreadful thought came to me: had I by any chance dropped them in that room in Lincoln's Inn Fields where Murray Olivant lay murdered?
I was making my way out of the station, when I felt a quick touch on my arm; I looked round sharply, and saw young Arnold Millard beside me. I suppose my face must have shown in a moment the fear that was in my heart for him, and for his safety; but there was a fine assumption of astonishment in his tones when he spoke to me.
"Why, Tinman, what's the matter with you?" he demanded. "You look as if you'd seen a ghost. What's wrong?" ”