It Never Can Happen Again. William De Morgan

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СКАЧАТЬ to put a leading question about. In like manner, a party sim'lar to you describe come straight—according to other proffered testimony—acrost yarnder open ground to this very self-same spot, and so forrard over the bridge to'ards the Princess Charlotte down the lane, and went in at the bar. But the photographic likeness of this person to any description you choose to give of the man sought for fails to establish the identity of the two, as he was seen on the previous day, maybe about dinner-time. Compromise is impossible; the informant stands committed to yesterday, past recall.

      But the track on the snow is lost—that is the one fact clear. Give it up and go back?—is that the only course open to us? Not when the chase ends so close to a canal-lock. True, the footsteps do not go to the edge, but only because a wind-swept skirting of brick pavement is clear of snow. The last one is none so far off the stone curb, above the water. Look down into the empty lock, and think!

      The parson and the doctor represent intelligent speculation; the policeman, official reserve ready to listen to information and compare it with his pre-omniscience; the gathering crowd of early workmen, the uselessness of defective reasoning powers brought to bear on insoluble problems.

      After a moment the parson speaks to the doctor: "The ice is broken over there—just where the water is running in."

      "Are you sure?" asks the doctor. "Isn't it only the wash of the water melting it off? But your eyesight is better than mine, I expect."

      "No, there's a broken edge. The water-wash would scoop and leave a curve."

      "What do you think?" the doctor asks the policeman, who replies briefly: "Gentleman's right, perhaps. Worth trying, anyhow!... Now then, some of you, idling round, I want that bit of ice broke up—against the lower gate. Look alive now!... Yes!—a couple of planks and a short ladder and a yard or so of scaffold-cord. Get 'em anywhere round! I'm answerable. Never you mind what anyone says—just you take 'em!" And the leading casuals, probably labourers on the building job down the lane, are off at a trot to requisition planks and cords. But not without establishing a slight collateral grievance, in the manner of their kind: "You've only got to name what you want, and we'll get it fast enough. Who's to know what you're askin' for, exceptin' you speak?"

      Athelstan Taylor's surmise of course was that Uncle Bob had ended his run by falling into the lock at the upper end, where the ice was thin; and, breaking through it, had passed below the thicker ice, where he remained—probably jammed against the lower gate, which was closed. He noticed that this conjecture was at once accepted, but that no living soul of all those present referred to it in words. Silence is kept about it, but for a word between himself and the doctor, even till after the planks and cords and ladder have come, and the planks are laid athwart the sounder ice at the lower gate. One man can stand on them safely without fear of its giving—perhaps two. But one can break the ice with a pick fast enough, as soon as he can get at it. Hand him down a shovel to clear the snow a bit!

      The parson is feeling sick at heart with his long night's vigil, and as though he could hardly face the dreadful end. He shrinks back, not to see more than he need. Then from the depths of the lock comes the crackling sound of the ice that breaks beneath the pick. Then the tension of the growing excitement as those on the brink watch for a result they feel confident of.

      "Nothing there?"... "Nothing that side."... "Now you keep steady across with your peck—right you are!—across the middle ... don't go to sleep!... yes, now right up in the corner.... Something there?"... "Ah!—easy a minute till I catch holt ... have that cord ready.... Got him?"

      "You are quite certain nothing can be done?"

      "Absolutely certain. He was ready for heart-failure, without being an hour under the ice."

      "Will you tell the poor woman, from me, that I had no choice but to go? And that poor baby...."

      "Is there a baby?"

      "Well—little girl of six then! Say I'll come at three to take her to see her father at the Hospital. You're sure it's the same case?"

      "Not the least doubt. A blind sailor beggar—there couldn't be two. You know the wards at St. Brides.... Never mind—you'll find out.... What is it, my good woman?"

      It is a woman with a tale to tell. Briefly, that she looked out of her bedroom window about an hour and a half since, and saw what must have been the unhappy inebriate running across the field, looking back, time and again, as if he see some party follering of him. Then he come to the lock, and stood close over the edge—back to, as you might say. So standing, he went wild, on the sudden, and threw up his arms, and there!—he was over in the lock, afore you could reckin him up like—clear over! Both her hearers are indignant, or perhaps incredulous about the truth of the story. For if she really saw this, why in Heaven's name did she give no alarm?—the man's life might have been saved! She expresses contrition as for an error of judgment, but no great remorse. She told her master—meaning her husband—who said it was a queer start. But it was that early! The exact bearing of this fact on the matter was far from clear.

      "She'll have to tell her tale before the coroner, anyhow," said the doctor, as he showed his companion a short-cut into his road home. "Well!—now keep straight on—you'll be in the main road in five minutes. I hope you'll get a good breakfast and a good sleep before you marry those two sinners. Good-bye! Remember, straight on!"

      For the Rev. Athelstan had told this gentleman of the binding engagement that he had to keep that morning as locum tenens at St. Vulgate's. He had with difficulty persuaded a navvy to remedy an omission in his duties towards the mother of his family, whom he had never led to the Altar of Hymen; and the said navvy had consented to do so this morning, and was rather entering into the fun of the thing. But if the parson were to fail in his appointment, was it certain that the delinquent would be brought to the scratch a second time?

      However, he had still time for breakfast and rest before this appointment was due. So he walked briskly on through the thick snow, sad at heart, but wonderfully little the worse physically for his terrible experience. And as he walked he shuddered as he thought of the unhappy case of Alcoholism, flying over the spotless, virgin snow from God knows what, to his death. "I suppose Simon Magus had got out, after all, and was sharp on his heels," said the Rev. Athelstan, and then added: "At any rate, I'm glad it was me, not Gus!"

CHAPTER XV

       Table of Contents

      HOW LIZARANN WAS TAKEN TO MISS FOSSETT'S, BUT HAD A STITCH IN HER SIDE, AND WASN'T TO GO TO DADDY TO-DAY. HOW THE RECTOR WENT TO JIM IN THE HOSPITAL, AND JIM WAS DISAPPOINTED ABOUT HIM

      If Lizarann had had no grounds for looking forward to a reappearance of the curious New Policeman who had rescued her, she would have been more on the alert about the events of the previous night that concerned Uncle Bob. But she had no doubt her rescuer would come back. And this anticipation, as well as the hopeful tone in which he had spoken of Daddy's prospects at the Hospital, set her mind quite at rest about everything but the thing which presented itself to her merely as exaggerated domesticity. It was Uncle Bob, only rather more so.

      Seen from her point of view, the events that had preceded Uncle Bob were that Daddy had been in collision with a Pickford's Van, and had suffered, but not murderously, from the accident; that he had not been able to walk, because of his leg; and that he had been carried away by well-disposed officials to an institution that promoted soundness of wind and limb, and had even been known to make its bénéficiaires musical. A child's mind knows no proportion; and the last item, which was really a gratuitous invention СКАЧАТЬ