CHAPTER I. A MIDNIGHT SURPRISE

Steering his course by a tapering spire notched in the eye of the sunset, a tramp slouched along the Heathton Road. From the western sky a flood of crimson light poured over the dusty white highway, which led straightly across the moor. To right and left, acres of sear coarse herbage rolled towards the distant hills, now black against the flaming horizon. In the quivering air gnats danced and flickered; the earth panted with the thirst of a lengthy drought, and the sky arched itself over the heat of a fiery furnace.

For many hours the tramp had held on steadily in the pitiless glare of the mid-June sun, and now that he saw ahead of him the spire and house-roofs and encircling trees of the village whither he was bound, a sigh of relief burst from him.

To ease his aching feet he sat down beside a moldering millstone and wiped his beaded brow with a red bandana. He did not swear, which was singular in a tramp.

Apparently he had but recently joined the cadging profession, for about him there lingered an air of respectability and the marks of a prosperity not wholly decayed. He was stout, rubicund of countenance, and he wheezed like a sick grampus. Watery gray eyes and a strawberry nose revealed the seasoned toper; thick lips and a slack mouth the sensualist. As a begging friar of med?val times he would have been altogether admirable; as a modern tramp he was out of the picture.

Clothed in a broadcloth frock-coat considerably the worse for wear, he wore--oddly enough for a tramp--gaiters over his gouty-looking boots. His black gloves were darned at the finger-tips, and his battered silk hat had been ironed and brushed with sedulous care. This rook-like plumage was now plentifully sprinkled with the white dust of travel. His gait, in spite of his blistered feet, was dignified, and his manners were imposing.

The road was lonely, likewise the heath. There was no one in sight, not even a returning plowman; but the recumbent wayfarer could hear, mellowed by distance, the bells of homing cows. Beasts as they were, he envied them. They at least had a place to sleep in for the night; he was without a home, without even the necessary money to procure shelter. Luckily it was summer-time, dry and warm. Also the tramp affected the philosopher.

"This," he remarked, eying a sixpence extracted from the knotted corner of his handkerchief, "is a drink--two drinks if I take beer, which is gouty. But it is not a meal nor a bed. No! one drink, and a morsel of bread-and-cheese. But the bed! Ah!" He stared at the coin with a sigh, as though he hoped it would swell into a shilling. It did not, and he sighed again. "Shall I have good luck in this place?" cried he. "Heads I shall, tails I shan't." The coin spun and fell heads. "Ha!" said the tramp, getting on to his feet, "this must be seen to. I fly to good fortune on willing feet," and he resumed his trudging.

A quarter of an hour brought him to the encircling wood. He passed beyond pine and larch and elm into a cozy little village with one street. This was broken in the center by an expanse of green turf surrounded by red-roofed houses, amongst them--as he saw from the swinging sign--a public-house, called, quaintly enough, the Good Samaritan.

"Scriptural," said the stranger--"possibly charitable. Let us see." He strode forward into the taproom.

In the oiliest of tones he inquired for the landlord. But in this case, it appeared, there was no landlord, for a vixenish little woman, lean as a cricket and as shrill, bounced out with the information that she, Mrs. Timber, was the landlady. Her husband, she snapped out, was dead. To the tramp this hostess appeared less promising than the seductive sign, and he quailed somewhat at the sight of her. However, with a brazen assurance born of habit, he put a bold face on it, peremptorily demanding bread, cheese, and ale. The request for a bed he left in abeyance, for besides the vixenish Mrs. Timber there hovered around a stalwart pot-boy, whose rolled-up sleeves revealed a biceps both admirable and formidable.

"Bread, cheese, and ale," repeated the landlady, with a sharp glance at her guest's clerical dress, "for this. And who may you be, sir?" she asked, with a world of sarcasm expended on the "sir."

"My name is Cicero Gramp. I am a professor of elocution and eloquence."

"Ho! a play-actor?" Mrs. Timber became more disdainful than ever.

"Not at all; I am not on the boards. I recite to the best families. The Bishop of Idlechester has complimented me on my----"

"Here's the bread-and-cheese," interrupted the landlady, "likewise the beer. Sixpence!"

Very reluctantly Mr. Gramp produced his last remaining coin. She dropped it into a capacious pocket, and retired without vouchsafing him another word. Cicero, somewhat discouraged by this reception, congratulated himself that the night was fine for out-of-door slumber. He ensconced himself in a corner with his frugal supper, and listened to the chatter going on around him. It appeared to be concerned with the funeral of a local magnate. Despite the prophecy of the coin, now in Mrs. Timber's pocket, Cicero failed to see how he could extract good fortune out of his present position. However, he listened; some chance word might mean money.

"Ah! 'tis a fine dry airy vault," said a lean man who proved to be a stonemason. "Never built a finer, I didn't, nor my mates neither. An' Muster Marlow'll have it all to 'isself."

"Such a situation!" croaked another. "Bang opposite the Lady Chapel! An' the view from that there vault! I don't know as any corp 'ud require a finer."

"Mr. Marlow'll be lonely by himself," sighed a buxom woman; "there's room for twenty coffins, an' only one in the vault. 'Tain't natural-like."

"Well," chimed in the village schoolmaster, "'twill soon fill. There's Miss Marlow."

"Dratted nonsense!" cried Mrs. Timber, making a dash into the company with a tankard of beer in each hand. "Miss Sophy'll marry Mr. Thorold, won't she? An' he, as the Squire of Heathton, 'as a family vault, ain't he? She'll sleep beside him as his wife, lawfully begotten."

"The Thorolds' vault is crowded," objected the stonemason. "Why, there's three-hundred-year dead folk there! A very old gentry lot, the Thorolds."

"Older than your Marlows!" snapped Mrs. Timber. "Who was he afore he came to take the Moat House five year ago? Came from nowhere--a tree without a root."

The schoolmaster contradicted.

"Nay, he came from Africa, I know--from Mashonaland, which is said to be the Ophir of King Solomon. And Mr. Marlow was a millionaire!"

"Much good his money'll do him now," groaned the buxom woman, who was a Dissenter. "Ah! Dives in torment."

"You've no call to say that, Mrs. Berry. Mr. Marlow wasn't a bad man."

"He was charitable, I don't deny, an' went to church regular," assented Mrs. Berry; "but he died awful sudden. Seems like a judgment for something he'd done."

"He died quietly," said the schoolmaster. "Dr. Warrender told me all about it--a kind of fit at ten o'clock last Thursday, and on Friday night he passed away as a sleeping child. He was not even sufficiently conscious to say good-by to Miss Sophy."

"Ah, poor girl! she's gone to the seaside with Miss Parsh to nurse her sorrow."

"It will soon pass--soon pass," observed the schoolmaster, waving his pipe. "The young don't think much of death. Miss Sophy's rich, too--rich as the Queen of Sheba, and she will marry Mr. Thorold in a few months. Funeral knells will give way to wedding-bells, Mrs. Berry."

"Ah!" sighed Mrs. Berry, feeling she was called upon for an appropriate sentiment; "you may say so, Mr. Stack. Such is life!"

Cicero, munching his bread-and-cheese, felt that his imposing personality was being neglected, and seized upon what he deemed his opportunity.

"If this company will permit," he said, "I propose now to give a recitation apropos of the present melancholy event. Need I say I refer to the lamented death of Mr. Marlow?"

"I'll have no godless mumming here," said Mrs. Timber firmly. "Besides, what do you know about Mr. Marlow?"

Whereupon Cicero lied lustily to impress the bumpkins, basing his fiction upon such facts as his ears had enabled him to come by.

"Marlow!" he wailed, drawing forth his red bandana for effect. "Did I not know him as I know myself? Were we not boys together till he went to Africa?"

"Perhaps you can tell us about Mr. Marlow," said the schoolmaster eagerly. "None of us knows exactly who he was. He appeared here with his daughter some five years ago, and took the Moat House. He was rich, and people said he had made his riches in South Africa."

"He did! he did!" said Cicero, deeply affected. "Millions he was worth--millions! I came hither to see him, and I arrive to find the fond friend of my youth dead. Oh, Jonathan, my brother Jonathan!"

"His name was Richard," said Mrs. Timber suspiciously.

"I know it, I know it. I use the appellation Jonathan merely in illustration of the close friendship which was between us. I am David."

"H'm!" snorted Mrs. Timber, eying him closely, "and who was Mr. Marlow?"

This leading question perplexed Mr. Gramp not a little, for he knew nothing about the man.

"What!" he cried, with simulated horror. "Reveal the secrets of the dead? Never! never!"

"Secrets?" repeated the lean stonemason eagerly. "Ah! I always thought Mr. Marlow had 'em. He looked over his shoulder too often for my liking. An' there was a look on his face frequent which pointed, I may say, to a violent death."

"Ah! say not that my friend Dick Marlow came to an untimely end."

This outcry came from Cicero; it was answered by Mrs. Timber.

"He died of a fit," she said tartly, "and that quietly enough, considering as Dr. Warrender can testify. But now we've talked enough, an' I'm going to lock up; so get out, all of you!"

In a few minutes the taproom was cleared and the lights out. Cicero, greatly depressed, lingered in the porch, wondering how to circumvent the dragon.

"Well," snapped that amiable beast, "what are you waitin' for?"

"You couldn't give me a bed for the night?"

"Course I could, for a shillin'."

"I haven't a shilling, I regret to say."

"Then you'd best get one, or go without your bed," replied the lady, and banged the door in his face.

Under this last indignity even Cicero's philosophy gave way, and he launched an ecclesiastic curse at the inhospitable inn.

Fortunately the weather was warm and tranquil. Not a breath of wind stirred the trees. The darkling earth was silent--silent as the watching stars. Even the sordid soul of the vagabond was stirred by the solemn majesty of the sky. He removed his battered hat and looked up.

"The heavens are telling the glory of God," he said; but, not recollecting the rest of the text, he resumed his search for a resting-place.

It was now only between nine and ten o'clock, yet, as he wandered down the silent street, he could see no glimmer of a light in any window. His feet took him, half unconsciously as it were, by the path leading towards the tapering spire. He went on through a belt of pines which surrounded the church, and came suddenly upon the graveyard, populous with the forgotten dead--at least, he judged they were forgotten by the state of the tombstones.

On the hither side he came upon a circular chapel, with lance-shaped windows and marvelous decoration wrought in gray-stone on the outer walls. Some distance off rose a low wall, encircling the graveyard, and beyond the belt of pines through which he had just passed stretched the league-long herbage of the moor. He guessed this must be the Lady Chapel.

Between the building and the low wall he noticed a large tomb of white marble, surmounted by a winged angel with a trumpet. "Dick Marlow's tomb," he surmised. Then he proceeded to walk round it as that of his own familiar friend, for he had already half persuaded himself into some such belief.

But he realized very soon that he had not come hither for sight-seeing, for his limbs ached, and his feet burned, and his eyes were heavy with sleep. He rolled along towards a secluded corner, where the round of the Lady Chapel curved into the main wall of the church. There he found a grassy nook, warm and dry. He removed his gloves with great care, placed them in his silk hat, and then took off his boots and loosened his clothes. Finally he settled himself down amid the grass, put a hand up either coat-sleeve for warmth, and was soon wrapped in a sound slumber.

He slept on undisturbed until one o'clock, when--as say out-of-door observers--the earth turns in her slumber. This vagrant, feeling as it were the stir of Nature, turned too. A lowing of cows came from the moor beyond the pines. A breath of cool air swept through the branches, and the somber boughs swayed like the plumes of a hearse. Across the face of the sky ran a shiver. He heard distinctly what he had not noticed before, the gush of running water. He roused himself and sat up alert, and strained his hearing. What was it he heard now? He listened and strained again. Voices surely! Men's voices!

There could be no mistake. Voices he heard, though he could not catch the words they said. A tremor shook his whole body. Then, curiosity getting the better of his fear, he wriggled forward flat on his stomach until he was in such a position that he could peer round the corner of the Lady Chapel. Here he saw a sight which scared him.

Against the white wall of the mausoleum bulked two figures, one tall, the other short. The shorter carried a lantern. They stood on the threshold of the iron door, and the tall man was listening. They were nearer now, so that he could hear their talk very plainly.

"All is quiet," said the taller man. "No one will suspect. We'll get him away easily."

Then Cicero heard the key grate in the lock, saw the door open and the men disappear into the tomb. He was sick with terror, and was minded to make a clean bolt of it; but with the greatest effort he controlled his fears and remained. There might be money in this adventure.

In ten minutes the men came out carrying a dark form between them, as Cicero guessed, the dead body of Richard Marlow. They set down their burden, made fast the door, and took up again the sinister load. He saw them carry it towards the low stone wall. Over this they lifted it, climbed over themselves, and disappeared into the pine-woods.

Cicero waited until he could no longer hear the rustle of their progress; then he crept cautiously forward and tried the door of the tomb. It was fast locked.

"Resurrection-men! body-snatchers!" he moaned.

He felt shaken to his very soul by the ghastliness of the whole proceeding. Then suddenly the awkwardness of his own position, if by chance any one should find him there, rushed in upon his mind, and, without so much as another glance, he made off as quickly as he could in the opposite direction.