Hitchin

“ As the veteran fireman responds to the gong, so did the brain of Hobart Hitchin respond to that bump! Fifteen seconds and he had visualized the whole of the next step; the trunk to the freight elevator, thence to the street, thence to the waiting motor express wagon, thence—
Again, after a time, came the bump, indicating that the trunk was in the living-room now—and then, absolutely true to the hypothesis, Anthony's door opened and the bumps went to the hall, while the freight elevator came up the shaft! ”

“ There can be no denying that Anthony's mouth opened and that his eyes grew rounder. Before him, spread upon the table, lay David's trousers!
"Well, those—those——" he stammered. "Where did you get them?"
"From the dumbwaiter, where you placed them so very quietly, so very cautiously, so very early this morning!" said Hobart Hitchin, with his devilish laugh. "You even went so far as to run the thing down, so that it would be emptied at once, didn't you? But you didn't happen to look down! You didn't see me take the whole suit from the dumbwaiter as it passed my door." ”

“ HITCHIN is an ancient town, full of interest, 32 miles N. from King’s Cross, G.N.R. It was formerly called Hitche, very probably from the little river Hiz, which rises at Well Head, about 11⁄2 mile S.W. from the centre of the town. Roman coins and pottery, and even prehistoric implements have been found in great quantities in the neighbourhood, and there are traces of a prehistoric lake bed, to the S.E. The Priory, immediately S. (R. H. J. Delmé-Radcliffe, Esq., J.P.) , occupies the site of a Carmelite monastery and Conventual church founded in the reign of Edward II. ”

“ Locke, M.P., and was associated with them in the construction of the Great Northern, the London and South-Western, the Midland, the Oxford and Cambridge, and the Hitchin and Royston Railways. In those days railway engineering was quite different from what it is now, and meant very hard work. ”

“ The church of St Mary is Perpendicular, with a fine porch, a painting of the Adoration of the Magi, attributed to Rubens, a small crypt said to have been used by Cromwell as a prison for the Royalists, and many interesting monuments. Hitchin Priory is a mansion on the site of a Carmelite foundation of the early 14th century. ”

“ Anthony said.
"Crime—some of it—is mysterious," smiled Mr. Hitchin. "Motives are usually more mysterious. Mistaken motives—motives formed under misapprehension—are most mysterious of all. But the consequences of crime," said Mr. Hitchin, whirling suddenly on Anthony, "are inevitable, inescapable as the rising of the sun."
Johnson Boller shook his head. The man had always been queer ”

“ He should have been sedate and subdued, to put it mildly, yet he grinned at the impeccable night clerk from under his cap and sent his impudent eyes roving on, to alight finally on the big chair near the north elevator.
"Who's the party with the big specs and why the prolonged stare?" the youngster asked irreverently.
"Eh? Oh, that's Mr. Hitchin, a neighbor of mine," Anthony smiled.
"He's an amateur detective, kid," Johnson Boller added significantly. "He knows every young crook in town. He's coming here to give you the once over." ”

“ Anthony broke in. "I forbid you to say one word of your ridiculous and unjustified——"
Beatrice simply ignored his presence and favored Theodore Dalton with her unspeakable smile.
"Mary Dalton passed the night in this apartment," she said quickly.
"Mary——" Dalton cried, just as Robert hurried to his side and clutched his arm.
"They say she was here!" he panted. "The woman says so, and Mary's hat—see! She's holding it even now! And Mary's bag is in a room there, and her comb and brush and two of her handkerchiefs and——"
"But it wasn't a woman, whatever she's left!" Hobart Hitchin contributed. ”

“ The fact is, I once gave the poor fellow a severe thrashing; it was before he succeeded to the title I was obliged to do it. Poor Bolsover confessed afterwards that he had behaved badly (there was a lady in the case) , but it put an end to our intimacy. And now he's gone, and the least I can do is to attend his funeral. That reminds me, Gammon, I fear I shall have to borrow a sovereign, if it's quite convenient to you. There's the hire of the black suit, you see, and the fare to Hitchin. Do you think you could? ”

“ He sat up then, because Wilkins was talking and there was another voice he could not at first place. He had heard it before, many times, and it was very calm, very clear, very determined; and now Wilkins' tone came distinctly and resignedly.
"Well, of course, if he's expecting you, sir——"
The door closed. Steps approached the living-room. And with Mary sitting at the table, coffee-cup in hand, furnishing just the homelike touch a bachelor apartment must normally lack, Hobart Hitchin was with them! ”

“ Dude assured him. “All de niggers wucks in de big mill dresses jes’ like you is now. Dainty will figger dat you is a sawmill hand. Talk right up to her, Revun”——
“I ain’t no preacher!” Hitch interrupted, growling like an angry bear. “I’s a prize-fighter.”
“Dat won’t do,” Dude chuckled, as he looked at the giant’s mighty arms and shoulders. “Dainty is powerful sot on preachers. I ’speck you better be one as long as you is hangin’ aroun’ her.”
“All right,” Hitch said reluctantly, as he started away. “I ain’t none too good or too proud to piddle wid dat job—ef I got to.” ”

“ In his present quandary, with French's fate literally in his hands, and with no idea how to preserve it, the clever and capable face of Miss Hitchen came as a light to a man in darkness.
They had parted in amity. In fact, the last words Miss Hitchen had said to him were of a nature almost [Pg 226] prophetic. "Bobby," she said, "if your irresponsibility ever gets you into any scrape, and I can help you, let me know, for you are just the sort of boy that gets into scrapes that only women can help a man out of." ”

“ When Hitch Diamond emerged from the plum-thicket 56 which had served for a dressing-room, his seconds behind him, and stalked through the crowd to the ring, a wild burst of greeting and applause went up from his waiting fellow townsmen, all of whom, except Skeeter Butts and Figger Bush, had backed him to the limit at any odds.
Hitch bowed right and left, waved his giant arms at the people on the edge of the crowd, and listened with hungry ears to their pleas:
“We’re bettin’ on you, Hitch; don’t make us lose our money!”
“Knock him out, Hitchey! Den us’ll all be rich!” ”

“ He ain't in his right mind."
"Perhaps you'd better let Hitchens drive, George," said the governor, addressing the injured young man. "I declare, you're pale! Sure you're not badly hurt?"
"Somehow walking makes me dizzy," was the answer. "Still, I'm feeling better. I think I'll step into this store and get a drink of water."
Having become suddenly anxious, the chief executive followed him into the store. Hitchens, fretful and none too well pleased with the governor for wasting so much time on Wiggin, left the latter sitting in the car and mounted the store steps. ”

“ A man ran out of a by-path, and his head collided with Hitch’s fist like a punching-bag. As the negro ran another, another, and another came out of the little pathways, and each one went down like a bag of salt. Thus Hitch arrived at the main passageway.
Then he found every by-path pouring forth its quota of men, every thoroughfare contributed its number, and every man upon the lumber-piles ran toward one spot to illumine the passage with their dark lanterns. ”

“ So the winter passed by. The noises and lights that had awoke Hitty at midnight in the house at Greenfield had become so far an institution in this lonely dwelling that now they disturbed her sleep no more; for it was a received custom, that, whenever Abner Dimock's two visitors should appear, the cellar should resound all night with heavy blows and clinking of metal, and red light as from a forge streamed up through the doorway; but it disturbed Hitty no more; apathy settled down in black mist on her soul, and she seemed to think, to care, for nothing. ”

“ Macgowan walked away with a certain lofty, indifferent air, which English people so well understand, of washing one's hands of matters generally.
There had, indeed, been a sore struggle between Hetty and her husband on this matter of their being remarried by Father Antoine. When Dr. Eben first said to her: “And now, what are we to do, Hetty?” she looked at him in an agony of terror and gasped:
“Why, Eben, there is only one thing for us to do; don't we belong to each other? don't you love me? ”

“ The features of this personage are crudely represented: the eye is shown in full, and exaggerated in size; the nose, in contradistinction to the usual Hittite representations, is small and almost Mongoloid; the lips are heavy. The beard, both upon the cheek and where it hangs freely, is in the style illustrated by the sphinx figure which precedes, but the hair obeys the older convention to a certain extent, being bunched together behind the neck and curling backwards. In his right hand the king-priest holds out something like a cup with a long stem, the precise nature of which is not evident. ”

“ Atter I come in, you say to Dainty dat she better gimme a dram because I’s so crippled up. Of co’se, she will hab to be manners an’ gib you some, too.”
“Dar, now!” Hitch boomed. “You shore is a smart boy, Dude. Dat plan is accawdin’ to de Bible, wise as suppents an’ harmless as ducks. But”——
Here Hitch broke off and looked down at his clothes.
“It ’pears to me it ain’t proper to call on a lady when I is barefooted an’ ain’t got nothin’ on but a pair of pants an’ a red undershirt,” he mourned. ”

“ Macgowan's any more. I will get Sister Catharine from the convent to come and take my place at once. Yes, come with me. We will walk together, but we must not talk, Eben."
"No," said her husband.
He understood and shared her feeling. In silence they took their way through the outskirts of the town. Constantly they stole furtive looks at each other; Hetty noting with sorrow the lines which grief and ill-health had made in the doctor's face; he thinking to himself:
"Surely it is a miracle that age and white hair should make a woman more beautiful." ”

“ A trifle gay for father's crowd was Miss Hitty, but they didn't dast to say a word. She belonged to one of our best families, and her brother-in-law, who could be as ungodly a man under provocation as you ever see, held a mortgage on the church. He'd 'a' dumped the outfit into the snows of winter, and never a second thought, if they didn't treat Miss Hitty right. So they overlooked things and gave her the Bible class to run. Mighty nice to us boys she was; she certainly was. Curious mix of part child and part horse-sense woman. ”

“ So she lived to find herself immured in this damp and crumbling house, with no society but a drinking and crime-haunted husband, and the ignorant negroes who served him,—society varied now and then by one or two men revolting enough in speech and aspect to drive Hitty to her own room, where, in a creaking chair, she rocked monotonously back and forth, watching the snapping fire, and dreaming dreams of a past that seemed now but a visionary paradise. ”

“ Hitch narrated, drawing upon his imagination, and recalling an incident in the career of his friend, the Reverend Vinegar Atts. “Atter dat I felt a call to preach.”
“Mebbe you could come back,” Gaze suggested.
“Naw, suh,” Hitch grinned, quoting a remark he had heard Vinegar make. “Preachin’ is a plum’ sight safer. I kin git up befo’ a lot of 279 Christyums an’ knock noses an’ pull hair an’ skin shins all I’m got a mind to, an’ all dey kin do is to turn aroun’ de yuther cheek. Ef dey hits back, dey ain’t pious!” ”

“ The doctor forgot himself in his dismay.
“I would not leave it, if there were no one to fill it,” replied Hetty, gently; “but Sister Catharine is a better nurse than I am. She will more than fill my place.”
“Pshaw! Mrs. Smailli,” ejaculated the doctor. “She can't hold a candle to you. Is it any thing about the salary which is taking you away? I will raise it: you shall fix your own price.”
Flushing red with shame, Hetty said hotly:
“I have never worked for the money, Dr. Macgowan; only for enough for my living. Money has nothing to do with it. ”

“ Hitch replied. “I been livin’ aroun’ in dis part of de worl’ all my life, an’ I ain’t never seed dat big saw-mill town yit. ’Tain’t been but ’bout fo’ year ago dat Sawtown started off—when dey sot dat big mill dar in de woods.”
“I’s proud I met up wid you, Revun,” Dinner Gaze said. “I lives in Sawtown, an’ I’ll show you all de good p’ints in de place.”
Hitch opened his mouth to deny that he was a preacher, but the negro’s natural love of the game of make-believe prevented him. His slow mind evolved the humor of the situation, and he bestowed a pious smile upon the man beside him. ”

“ Dinner Gaze was listening with great interest to Hitch’s talk.
“I ain’t went to N’Awleens befo’ fer mighty nigh five year,” said Hitch as he extracted a long Perique stogie from the side-pocket of his gorgeous yellow waistcoat.
Dinner Gaze reached out, took the stogie from Hitch’s giant hand, and tossed it out of the window. He handed the pugilist a big, fat cigar with a broad gold band, and grinned in a friendly way. Then he said in his low, gentle voice:
“Ef you wants me to set by you, don’t smoke no roll of rags an’ garbage. Take a real seegar!” ”