The Channings. Henry Wood

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СКАЧАТЬ he said, speaking very hastily, “you will see a twenty-pound bank-note on my desk, and the directed envelope of this letter; bring them here.”

      Arthur went, and brought forth the envelope and bank-note. Mr. Galloway doubled the note in four and slipped it between the folds of the letter, putting both into the envelope. He had fastened it down, when a loud noise and commotion was heard in the street. Curious as are said to be antiquated maidens, Mr. Galloway rushed to the window and threw it up, his two clerks attending in his wake.

      Something very fine, in a white dress, and pink and scarlet flowers on her bonnetless head, as if attired for an evening party, was whirling round the middle of the road in circles: a tall woman, who must once have been beautiful. She appeared to be whirling someone else with her, amid laughter and shrieks, and cries and groans, from the gathering mob.

      “It is Mad Nance!” uttered Mr. Galloway. “Poor thing! she really ought to be in confinement.”

      So every one had said for a long time, but no one bestirred themselves to place her in it. This unfortunate creature, Mad Nance, as she was called, was sufficiently harmless to be at large on sufferance, and sufficiently mad at times to put a street in an uproar. In her least sane moments she would appear, as now, in an old dimity white dress, scrupulously washed and ironed, and decorated with innumerable frills; some natural flowers, generally wild ones, in her hair. Dandelions were her favourites; she would make them into a wreath, and fasten it on, letting her entangled hair hang beneath. To-day she had contrived to pick up some geranium blossoms, scarlet and pink.

      “Who has she got hold of there?” exclaimed Mr. Galloway. “He does not seem to like it.”

      Arthur burst into laughter when he discovered that it was Harper, the lay-clerk. This unlucky gentleman, who had been quietly and inoffensively proceeding up Close Street on his way to service in the cathedral, was seized upon by Mad Nance by the hands. He was a thin, weak little man, a very reed in her strong grasp. She shrieked, she laughed, she danced, she flew with him round and round. He shrieked also; his hat was off, his wig was gone; and it was half the business of Mr. Harper’s life to make that wig appear as his own hair. He talked, he raved, he remonstrated; I am very much afraid that he swore. Mr. Galloway laughed till the tears ran down his cheeks.

      The crowd was parted by an authoritative hand, and the same hand, gentle now, laid its firmness upon the woman and released the prisoner. It was Hamish Channing who had come to the rescue, suppressing his mirth as he best could while he effected it.

      “I’ll have the law of her!” panted Harper, as he picked up his hat and wig. “If there’s justice to be got in Helstonleigh, she shall suffer for this! It’s a town’s shame to let her go about, molesting peaceable wayfarers, and shaking the life out of them!”

      Something at a distance appeared to attract the attention of the unhappy woman, and she flew away. Hamish and Mr. Harper were left alone in the streets, the latter still exploding with wrath, and vowing all sorts of revenge.

      “Put up with it quietly, Harper,” advised Hamish. “She is like a little child, not accountable for her actions.”

      “That’s just like you, Mr. Hamish Channing. If they took your head off, you’d put up with it! How would you like your wig flung away in the sight of a whole street?”

      “I don’t wear one,” answered Hamish, laughing. “Here’s your hat; not much damaged, apparently.”

      Mr. Harper, settling his wig on his head, and composing himself as he best could, continued his way to the cathedral, turning his hat about in his hand, and closely looking at it. Hamish stepped across to Mr. Galloway’s, meeting that gentleman at the door.

      “A good thing you came up as you did, Mr. Hamish. Harper will remember Mad Nance for a year to come.”

      “I expect he will,” replied Hamish, laughing still. Mr. Galloway laughed also, and walked hastily down the street.

      CHAPTER XIV. – KEEPING OFFICE

      Hamish entered the office. Arthur and Roland Yorke had their heads stretched out of the window, and did not hear his footsteps. He advanced quietly and brought his hands down hastily upon the shoulder of each. Roland started, and knocked his head against the window-frame.

      “How you startle a fellow! I thought it was Mad Nance come in to lay hands upon me.”

      “She has laid hands upon enough for one day,” said Hamish. “Harper will dream of her to-night.”

      “I thought Galloway would have gone into a fit, he laughed so,” cried Arthur. “As for my sides, they’ll ache for an hour.”

      Roland Yorke’s lip curled with an angry expression. “My opinion agrees with Harper’s,” he said. “I think Mad Nance ought to be punished. We are none of us safe from her, if this is to be her game.”

      “If you punish her to-day, she would do the same again to-morrow, were the fit to come over her,” rejoined Hamish. “It is not often she breaks out like this. The only thing is to steer clear of her.”

      “Hamish has a fellow-feeling for Mad Nance,” mockingly spoke Roland Yorke.

      “Yes, poor thing! for her story is a sad one. If the same grievous wrong were worked upon some of us, perhaps we might take to dancing for the benefit of the public. Talking of the public, Arthur,” continued Hamish, turning to his brother, “what became of you at dinner-time? The mother was for setting the town-crier to work.”

      “I could not get home to-day. We have had double work to do, as Jenkins is away.”

      Hamish tilted himself on to the edge of Mr. Jenkins’s desk, and took up the letter, apparently in absence of mind, which Mr. Galloway had left there, ready for the post. “Mr. Robert Galloway, Sea View Terrace, Ventnor, Isle of Wight,” he read aloud. “That must be Mr. Galloway’s cousin,” he remarked: “the one who has run through so much money.”

      “Of course it is,” answered Roland Yorke. “Galloway pretty near keeps him: I know there’s a twenty-pound bank-note going to him in that letter. Catch me doing it if I were Galloway.”

      “I wish it was going into my pocket instead,” said Hamish, balancing the letter on his fingers, as if wishing to test its weight.

      “I wish the clouds would drop sovereigns! But they don’t,” said Roland Yorke.

      Hamish put the letter back from whence he had taken it, and jumped off the desk. “I must be walking,” said he. “Stopping here will not do my work. If we—”

      “By Jove! there’s Knivett!” uttered Roland Yorke. “Where’s he off to, so fast? I have something that I must tell him.”

      Snatching up his hat, Roland darted at full speed out of the office, in search of one who was running at full speed also down the street. Hamish looked out, amused, at the chase; Arthur, who had called after Roland in vain, seemed vexed. “Knivett is one of the fleetest runners in Helstonleigh,” said Hamish. “Yorke will scarcely catch him up.”

      “I wish Yorke would allow himself a little thought, and not act upon impulse,” exclaimed Arthur. “I cannot stop three minutes longer: and he knows that! I shall be late for college.”

      He was already preparing to go there. Putting some papers in order upon his desk, and locking up others, he carried the letter for Ventnor into Mr. Galloway’s private room and placed it in the letter rack. Two СКАЧАТЬ