CHAPTER II.

Mr. Gibbs's errand was not a pleasant one. He came to speak to his chief of complaints that had reached the office as to lost and missing letters. The most serious case was that of a man living in the neighbourhood of Duckwell, who complained that a money letter had never reached him, although it had been posted in Bristol three weeks back. Some inquiries had previously been made, but without result. And now the Duckwell man declared he would make a fine fuss, and bring the matter before the very highest authorities, if his letter were not forthcoming.

"What does the bumpkin mean, Gibbs?" asked Algernon, impatiently tapping with his fingers on the desk before him.

"I'm afraid he'll give us a deal of bother, sir," returned Mr. Gibbs slowly. "And I can't understand what has come of the letter. It's very awkward."

"Very awkward for him, if he really has lost his money. But I should not be surprised to learn that it never was posted at all."

"Humph! I don't know. He swears that the sender at Bristol can prove that it was posted."

"And why the deuce do people go on sending bank-notes by post, without the least care or precaution? One must have been connected with a post-office in order fully to appreciate the imbecility of one's fellow-creatures!"

"I don't know that it was bank-notes, sir. It may have been a cheque."

"Oh, depend upon it, it was whatever was stupidest to send, and most calculated to give trouble; if it was sent, that is to say! If it was sent!"

"I can't call to mind such a thing happening for twenty years back; not in this office. But lately there seems to be no end to things going wrong."

"Well, don't distress yourself about it, Gibbs. I have full reliance on you in every way."

"Oh no, sir! It is unpleasant, but I don't know that I specially need distress myself about it."

"Only because you have had the uncontrolled management of the office, Gibbs. And it is too bad, when one has worked so conscientiously as you have, to be worried by blundering bumpkins. I assure you, Gibbs, I am constantly singing your praises to Lord Seely. I tell him frankly, that if it were not for you, I don't know in the least how I should fulfil my onerous duties here! When I'm removed from this place, the powers that be won't have far to look for my successor."

This was the most explicit word that had yet fallen from Mr. Errington on the subject of his subordinate's promotion. And it decidedly gratified Mr. Obadiah Gibbs. Nevertheless, that steady individual was not so elated by the prospect held out to him as to dismiss from his mind the business he had come to speak about. "It is the most unaccountable thing!" said he. "Three or four cases of the kind within two months! And up to that time no office in the kingdom bore a better character than Whitford. I hope the thing may be cleared up. But it is next to impossible to trace a stolen letter. The Duckwell man—Heath, his name is; Roger Heath—says he is determined to complain to the Postmaster-General. I suppose we shall be having the surveyor coming to look after us. You see, it isn't like a solitary case. That's the worst of it. There's what you may term an accumulation, sir."

Whilst Mr. Gibbs poured forth his troubled mind in these and many more slow sentences, Algernon rose, took his hat, brushed it lightly with his glove, put it on, and was evidently about to depart. Gibbs ventured to lay his hand on his coat-sleeve to detain him. The clerk was not satisfied that the matter should be dismissed so lightly. It might not be possible to do anything, truly; but (in common with a great many other people) Mr. Obadiah Gibbs felt that, where efficacious action was impracticable, it was all the more desirable to mark the gravity of an unpleasant circumstance by copious talking of it. Life would become, in some sort, too frivolous and easy if, when a matter clearly could not be remedied, every one agreed to say no more about it! A vast deal of sage eloquence would thus be choked and dammed up. And Mr. Gibbs, for his special part, was conscious of having some reputation amongst his fellow Wesleyans for a gift of utterance.

"I really don't know, sir, what to say to Roger Heath," he persisted.

"Oh—tell him inquiries will be made in the proper quarters."

"That, sir, has been said already. He has been here twice or thrice."

"Then tell him to go to the devil!" said Algernon, sharply jerking his arm away from the clerk's grasp, and walking off.

The pious and respectable Mr. Gibbs shook his head disapprovingly at this profane speech, and went back to his stool in the outer office with a lowering brow.

Algernon walked along the High Street, and turned down a narrow lane leading towards the river, and past one corner of the Grammar School. The boys were just coming out of school with the usual shrill babble and rush. A party of Dr. Bodkin's private scholars were on their way to Whit Meadow.

"Good day, Ingleby," said Algernon, addressing the eldest of them, the same lad who had been Rhoda's squire in the tea-room on the night of Mrs. Algernon Errington's début in Whitford society. "Where are you off to?"

"We're going to have a row. I've got a boat, and we're going up the river as far as Duckwell Reach. We have leave from the doctor. Deuce of a job to get it, though!"

"Why?"

"Oh, because he's nervous about the river; thinks it dangerous, and all that."

"Well, you know, Ingleby," said a younger boy, with much eagerness, "lots of people have been drowned in that bit of the river between here and Duckwell Reach."

"Lots of people! Gammon!"

"Well, two since I've been here!"

"Oh, I daresay. Well, if you funk it you needn't come. There's plenty without you."

"You know I don't funk it for myself, Ingleby. I can swim."

"Yes, my friend. You wouldn't get into my boat if you couldn't. I'm on honour with the doctor to take none but swimmers," said Ingleby, turning to Algernon; "and of course that settles the matter. But, for my part, I should have thought anybody but the quite small boys might walk out of the Whit if they tumbled into it." "Oh no! You do our noble river injustice. You are not a Whitfordian or you would know better than that. There are some very ugly places between here and Duckwell Reach; places where I wouldn't give much for your chance of getting out if once you fell in, swimmer though you are. Good-bye. A pleasant row to you."

The boys pursued their way to the boat, and Algernon, turning off at right angles when he reached the bottom of the lane, got into Whit Meadow through a turnstile at the foot of the Grammar School playground.

There was a footpath through the meadow, and some fields beyond, which made a pleasant walk enough in fine summer weather, and was then a good deal frequented. But at this season it was damp, muddy, and lonely. The day was fine, but the ground had been saturated by previous rains, and that part of the meadow nearest to the margin of the river was almost a swamp. The path continued to skirt the Whit for some miles, running in the direction of Duckwell, and as Algernon walked along it he saw the windings of the river shining in the sun, and presently there appeared on it the boat full of schoolboys. One of them wore a scarlet cap, and thus made a bright spot of colour in the landscape. The sound of their young voices was carried across the water to Algernon's ears.

He stood for a minute or so at the gate of his own garden, which ran down behind the house to the river path, and watched them. The thought crossed his mind that, if any accident should occur to the boat at that spot, there would be little chance of assistance reaching it quickly. Ivy Lodge was the last house on that side of the river between Whitford and Duckwell Reach. And on the willow-fringed shore opposite not a living creature was to be seen, except some cattle grazing in the plashy fields.

The whole scene—the vivid green of the marsh grass, the grey willows, the boat with its wet oars flashing at regular intervals, the red-capped boy, and the sound of the fresh, shrill laughter of the crew, all fixed themselves on his mind with that vividness of impression which trivial external things so often make upon a brain labouring with some inward trouble.