“When is it ye’re leavin’?
Is it the ocean’s heavin’
That sets your stummick grievin’,
To see what lies before?
What ails that nowt ’ll start ’ee?
We wait ye right and hearty,
Oh, Mounseer Buonaparte,
Upon S’thampton shore!
Chorus, gen’men, chorus!
We wait ye ri’ and hearty,
Oh, Mou’seer Buonaparte,
Upo’ S’thampton shore!”
He thumped the table, did that crapulous squireen, and all the others joined in, as by honour expected—like school-boys beating the bounds of time.
Truth to tell, the hour was late, the whisky-punch was low in the bowl, and the three little moon-calves were very drunk. One of them, moreover, was in process of insulting Captain Luvaine.
“You’re no’ good company, sir,” he had said, after staring at that baneful person for some solemn moments. “I thick you no’ goo’ company, and I—hic!—ta’ leaverer-telleso”;—and he nodded profoundly, with the air of one who has solved a long-vexing problem.
“Well, sir,” said the captain, “you’re welcome to your opinion for me.”
He had sat out the orgy; but with something a gloomy and preoccupied air, and with a frequent manner of impatience to have it ended.
“Whas you say?” said the offender, cocking his head magisterially. “Whas you say, sir?” Then he sang:
Jake gave Moll a push—
Derry-derry-down.
Moll fell into a bush—
Derry-down-derry.
“Is that to your taste, capt’n? or d’ye prefer somethig i’ the psalmody fashion?”
Sir David and Mr. Tuke interfered. They had been moderate in their cups; and the latter, at least, was seasoned.
“Oh, Charlie!” said the baronet, “get off to bed with you. You’re drunk, man.”
“He’s got a face as sour as rennet, Davy. It’s cur-curdled the milk o’ human kideness in me.”
This was good for the manling. Mr. Tuke patted him on the back.
“There,” he said, “go and sleep it off. The captain gives you good-night.”
“And a ring for the hog’s snout to-morrow!” thundered the soldier.
“Fie, sir—fie!” whispered the other. “’Tis but a tipsy boy”—and with great ado, he and the baronet made a patch of the peace, and got the squireens outside and on their horses, and saw them ride off swaying.
The wind drove with gusts of sleet at them, as they turned tail and fled into the house once more; for the night had bellied up slurred and stormy, and there was a melancholy sound in every keyhole of the hall.
They found the soldier standing up grave and lowering; but his eyes took an eager look upon their re-entrance, and he stepped up to his host with an air of impatient apology.
“I was an ass to take offence at that pigwash,” said he—“the more so as I have been poor company, I confess; and you, sir” (he turned suddenly upon Tuke), “have been the cause of it.”
“I!” exclaimed the visitor, in a voice vibrating all the harmonics of surprise.
“You, sir. Blythewood,” said the soldier, turning upon the baronet, “I make no apology for harping upon an old string in your presence. You know my monomania, and the wrack it hath made of my peace. I have waited but for those Jack-puddings to begone, to speak.”
Mr. Tuke could only stare in amazement; and “Fire away, old cock!” quoth the master of the house.
Then he added: “You’ll take beds here, the two of you, or we shall come to words.”
Both gentlemen protested; but the other would not listen, and he ended by carrying his point.
“And now,” said Blythewood, “charge your piece—whatever it is—and let fly at our friend; and so to t’other glass.”
Captain Luvaine’s eyes had a light of strange trouble in them, and he gnawed his knuckles nervously.
“I startled you just now, Mr. Tuke,” he said. “’Twas some words you let fall disturbed me, so that I dropped the book.”
“Believe me, sir, I was innocent of designs on your composure.”
“I know, I know—that is, of course—how could it be otherwise?”
“How, indeed? But I am all at sea.”
“They could not have been accidental. No, ’twas impossible. And yet—you uttered the words, sir—‘the Lake of Wine’—there was no mistake. I heard you.”
“And what then, Captain Luvaine? Do I deny it?”
“No, no. Only—oh, sir! the lady says ‘What mystery?’ and you answer ‘The Lake of Wine.’ Could that be an invention—a mere playful fancy? ’Tis out of reason.”
At the first reference to this strange title, Sir David had given a low whistle; and he now came forward and took the soldier by the sleeve.
“Harkee, Luvaine!” he said. “Here’s the yeast to work ye up like a pan of bread. Did he say that? Then it’s a strange thing, by God. But, steady, man. And, what d’ye say?—shall I, before more’s spoke, give Mr. Tuke the history of your trouble?”
The other’s mouth was twitching in an agitated manner.
“Well,” he said, after a moment’s thought, “I’m like to lose command of myself whenever that nightmare gets up. Speak, Davy, and I’ll sit mum while I can.”
The baronet turned to his astonished neighbour.
“’Tis passing strange, upon my soul, that the words should be on your lips,” said he; “for ’twas the name of a great ruby that was stole from Luvaine’s father.”
“The Lake of Wine?”
“The Lake of Wine, sir. Ronald Luvaine was a dependent of Hastings in John Company’s pay, and received the stone in reward of some particular nice service.”
“A crimson token and an apt. Was it plucked from the withered bosom of some starved Begum?”
“That’s no concern of ours,” said Sir David dryly. “The point is that the gem was stole from Ronald Luvaine, that was my father’s friend, and that he went crazy of it and died in a year or so.”
The soldier jumped to his feet with an insane look.
“And his son,” he cried, “that should have been a rich man, succeeded to an empty legacy and a search of hate that shall be unending.”
He tossed one arm aloft, with a grandiose gesture. Mr. Tuke stared at him, his brain full of bewilderment and wonder.
“Steady, Luvaine!” said Sir David once more; then proceeded to discuss the other with admirable ingenuousness.
“It hath made a wreck of his life, as he says—this sense of wrong and loss. We have been acquainted from boys—at least since I was one—and the grievance hath enlarged upon him with the years. Not to this day has he lighted upon any clue to the stone’s whereabouts, though the cursed red stain of it has bitten into his life.”
“It hath corroded me!” cried the soldier, unabashed. He seemed to think his conduct justified by the magnitude of his loss. “I have wrought for a pittance when I should have ruffled it with the highest.”
“But, how was it lost?” asked the listener, with some secret scorn for such a bitterness of avarice as he could not conceive would demoralize other than a contemptible nature.
“Proposals were made by a syndicate for its purchase,” put in Sir David hastily. “The whole thing was a monstrous swindle, planned with every elaboration. Ronald Luvaine was ill-advised enough to let the stone out of his hands, and——”
“There was the last of it,” cried the captain madly—“and the plunge for me into a hell of disappointment and misery.”
His jaw was shaking like a rabid dog’s.
“Not for a day since my dying father swore me to the curse of vengeance,” he cried, “has the stone been out of my mind. Judge then of my agitation when I hear you, a stranger, casually refer to it by name as having some bearing on a mystery connected with your house.”
“But not with me,” said Mr. Tuke coldly. There was something nameless in the man’s frenzy—an uncleanly savour of passion that was devoid of all nobility.
“I can have no objection,” he went on, “to acquaint you of the circumstances that inspired me to so unfortunate a reference.”
“If you please, sir,” said the soldier, in a tone that was almost a menace.
Sir David saw the blood leap to his new neighbour’s face.
“Humour him, humour him,” he whispered, “in the Lord’s name!”
“Well, sir,” said Mr. Tuke, “if you will give me your attention, I will endeavour to recall the matter for your behoof”—and he then and there recounted those experiences of his at “Delsrop” that had awakened his suspicions, ending up with the history of the interview between Mr. Joseph Corby and the crazed girl.
To this description Sir David listened with some open-mouthed astonishment, and Captain Luvaine with a black concentration of his every faculty upon the minutest details.
As the speaker ended, he, the latter, blew out all his restraint in a labouring sigh, and stared before him with eyebrows pulled together like the strings of a purse.
“’Tis passing strange,” he muttered. “There can be but one Lake of Wine. Whence does the fellow come, and wherefore?”
“That, sir, I know no more than you.”
“Blythewood,” said the soldier, turning suddenly on the baronet, “has no tenant been in ‘Delsrop’ since the time of the gallows-bird?”
“None, Luvaine, till our friend here.”
The other addressed Mr. Tuke with icy civility.
“Perhaps I discuss what is yours with undue freedom, sir. My excuse must be that ‘Delsrop’ is a tradition for desolation; and to us of the neighbourhood it hath long been a thickset of mysteries. Here is another, it seems, that I little thought to connect with the place. Is it asking you too great a favour to acquaint me of developments, should they occur?”
“By no means. I will undertake that you are informed of the progress of any events that seem to touch upon a certain subject.”
The soldier bowed low, and walked to the door.
“Why, man—you are never going?” cried Sir David.
“You must hold me excused—yes. This strange recountal has vastly disturbed me. I would seek counsel of my pillow.”
The door closed behind him. Mr. Tuke turned mutely to his host.
“Zounds!” whispered the latter to his silent inquiry. “The beggar is half off his head with life-long brooding over his grievance. The loss occurred in ’76, when I was a child—a brat of two or so. He was a young man when his father died, and I had the story fifty times from Ned here before I was out of my teens. His long face is one of my first remembrances. The families were connected, and he played off the privileges of cousinship upon me to the hilt, by Gad!”
“He spoke of me as a neighbour.”
“And that he is, in a way. He settled, when he retired from the service, in Winchester, where his regiment used to lie. And there he eats out his heart, like Sir Thingumbob in the Tower, planning what he would have done if the old stone had rounded off his jointure. It was valued at £70,000, if you can believe him.”
“A melancholy story. How the wind rises!—And who was the gallows-bird he referred to?”