In the fading light of a close dull autumn afternoon
Martin Stoner plodded his way along muddy lanes and
rut-seamed cart tracks that led he knew not exactly whither.
Somewhere in front of him, he fancied, lay the sea, and
towards the sea his footsteps seemed persistently turning;
why he was struggling wearily forward to that goal he could
scarcely have explained, unless he was possessed by the same
instinct that turns a hard-pressed stag cliffward in its
last extremity. In his case the hounds of Fate were
certainly pressing him with unrelenting insistence; hunger,
fatigue, and despairing hopelessness had numbed his brain,
and he could scarcely summon sufficient energy to wonder
what underlying impulse was driving him onward. Stoner was
one of those unfortunate individuals who seem to have tried
everything; a natural slothfulness and improvidence had
always intervened to blight any chance of even moderate
success, and now he was at the end of his tether, and there
was nothing more to try. Desperation had not awakened in
him any dormant reserve of energy; on the contrary, a mental
torpor grew up round the crisis of his fortunes. With the
clothes he stood up in, a halfpenny in his pocket, and no
single friend or acquaintance to turn to, with no prospect
either of a bed for the night or a meal for the morrow,
Martin Stoner trudged stolidly forward, between moist
hedgerows and beneath dripping trees, his mind almost a
blank, except that he was subconsciously aware that
somewhere in front of him lay the sea. Another
consciousness obtruded itself now and then---the knowledge
that he was miserably hungry. Presently he came to a halt
by an open gateway that led into a spacious and rather
neglected farm-garden; there was little sign of life about,
and the farm-house at the further end of the garden looked
chill and inhospitable. A drizzling rain, however, was
setting in, and Stoner thought that here perhaps he might
obtain a few minutes' shelter and buy a glass of milk with
his last remaining coin. He turned slowly and wearily into
the garden and followed a narrow, flagged path up to a side
door. Before he had time to knock the door opened and a
bent, withered-looking old man stood aside in the doorway as
though to let him pass in.
“Could I come in out of the rain?” Stoner began, but the
old man interrupted him.
“Come in, Master Tom. I knew you would come back one of
these days.”
Stoner lurched across the threshold and stood staring
uncomprehendingly at the other.
“Sit down while I put you out a bit of supper,” said the
old man with quavering eagerness. Stoner's legs gave way
from very weariness, and he sank inertly into the arm-chair
that had been pushed up to him. In another minute he was
devouring the cold meat, cheese, and bread, that had been
placed on the table at his side.
“You'm little changed these four years,” went on the old
man, in a voice that sounded to Stoner as something in a
dream, far away and inconsequent; “but you'll find us a
deal changed, you will. There's no one about the place same
as when you left; nought but me and your old Aunt. I'll go
and tell her that you'm come; she won't be seeing you, but
she'll let you stay right enough. She always did say if you
was to come back you should stay, but she'd never set eyes
on you or speak to you again.”
The old man placed a mug of beer on the table in front of
Stoner and then hobbled away down a long passage. The
drizzle of rain had changed to a furious lashing downpour,
which beat violently against door and windows. The wanderer
thought with a shudder of what the sea-shore must look like
under this drenching rainfall, with night beating down on
all sides. He finished the food and beer and sat numbly
waiting for the return of his strange host. As the minutes
ticked by on the grandfather clock in the corner a new hope
began to flicker and grow in the young man's mind; it was
merely the expansion of his former craving for food and a
few minutes' rest into a longing to find a night's shelter
under this seemingly hospitable roof. A clattering of
footsteps down the passage heralded the old farm servant's
return.
“The old Missus won't see you, Master Tom, but she says
you are to stay. 'Tis right enough, seeing the farm will be
yours when she be put under earth. I've had a fire lit in
your room, Master Tom, and the maids has put fresh sheets on
to the bed. You'll find nought changed up there. Maybe
you'm tired and would like to go there now.”
Without a word Martin Stoner rose heavily to his feet and
followed his ministering angel along a passage, up a short
creaking stair, along another passage, and into a large room
lit with a cheerfully blazing fire. There was but little
furniture, plain, old-fashioned, and good of its kind; a
stuffed squirrel in a case and a wall-calendar of four years
ago were about the only symptoms of decoration. But Stoner
had eyes for little else than the bed, and could scarce wait
to tear his clothes off him before rolling in a luxury of
weariness into its comfortable depths. The hounds of Fate
seemed to have checked for a brief moment.
In the cold light of morning Stoner laughed mirthlessly as
he slowly realized the position in which he found himself.
Perhaps he might snatch a bit of breakfast on the strength
of his likeness to this other missing neer-do-well, and get
safely away before any one discovered the fraud that had
been thrust on him. In the room downstairs he found the
bent old man ready with a dish of bacon and fried eggs for
“Master Tom's” breakfast, while a hard-faced elderly maid
brought in a teapot and poured him out a cup of tea. As he
sat at the table a small spaniel came up and made friendly
advances.
“'Tis old Bowker's pup,” explained the old man, whom the
hard-faced maid had addressed as George. “She was main
fond of you; never seemed the same after you went away to
Australee. She died 'bout a year agone. 'Tis her pup.”
Stoner found it difficult to regret her decease; as a
witness for identification she would have left something to
be desired.
“You'll go for a ride, Master Tom?” was the next
startling proposition that came from the old man. “We've a
nice little roan cob that goes well in saddle. Old Biddy is
getting a bit up in years, though 'er goes well still, but
I'll have the little roan saddled and brought round to
door.”
“I've got no riding things,” stammered the castaway,
almost laughing as he looked down at his one suit of
well-worn clothes.
“Master Tom,” said the old man earnestly, almost with an
offended air, “all your things is just as you left them. A
bit of airing before the fire an' they'll be all right.
'Twill be a bit of a distraction like, a little riding and
wild-fowling now and agen. You'll find the folk around here
has hard and bitter minds towards you. They hasn't
forgotten nor forgiven. No one'll come nigh you, so you'd
best get what distraction you can with horse and dog.
They'm good company, too.”
Old George hobbled away to give his orders, and Stoner,
feeling more than ever like one in a dream, went upstairs to
inspect “Master Tom's” wardrobe. A ride was one of the
pleasures dearest to his heart, and there was some
protection against immediate discovery of his imposture in
the thought that none of Tom's aforetime companions were
likely to favour him with a close inspection. As the
interloper thrust himself into some tolerably well-fitting
riding cords he wondered vaguely what manner of misdeed the
genuine Tom had committed to set the whole countryside
against him. The thud of quick, eager hoofs on damp earth
cut short his speculations. The roan cob had been brought
up to the side door.
“Talk of beggars on horseback,” thought Stoner to
himself, as he trotted rapidly along the muddy lanes where
he had tramped yesterday as a down-at-heel outcast; and then
he flung reflection indolently aside and gave himself up to
the pleasure of a smart canter along the turf-grown side of
a level stretch of road. At an open gateway he checked his
pace to allow two carts to turn into a field. The lads
driving the carts found time to give him a prolonged stare,
and as he passed on he heard an excited voice call out,
“'Tis Tom Prike! I knowed him at once; showing himself here
agen, is he?”
Evidently the likeness which had imposed at close quarters
on a doddering old man was good enough to mislead younger
eyes at a short distance.
In the course of his ride he met with ample evidence to
confirm the statement that local folk had neither forgotten
nor forgiven the bygone crime which had come to him as a
legacy from the absent Tom. Scowling looks, mutterings, and
nudgings greeted him whenever he chanced upon human beings;
“Bowker's pup,” trotting placidly by his side, seemed the
one element of friendliness in a hostile world.
As he dismounted at the side door he caught a fleeting
glimpse of a gaunt, elderly woman peering at him from behind
the curtain of an upper window. Evidently this was his aunt
by adoption.
Over the ample midday meal that stood in readiness for him
Stoner was able to review the possibilities of his
extraordinary situation. The real Tom, after four years of
absence, might suddenly turn up at the farm, or a letter
might come from him at any moment. Again, in the character
of heir to the farm, the false Tom might be called on to
sign documents, which would be an embarrassing predicament.
Or a relative might arrive who would not imitate the aunt's
attitude of aloofness. All these things would mean
ignominious exposure. On the other hand, the alternatives
was the open sky and the muddy lanes that led down to the
sea. The farm offered him, at any rate, a temporary refuge
from destitution; farming was one of the many things he had
“tried,” and he would be able to do a certain amount of
work in return for the hospitality to which he was so little
entitled.
“Will you have cold pork for your supper,” asked the
hard-faced maid, as she cleared the table, “or will you
have it hotted up?”
“Hot, with onions,” said Stoner. It was the only time
in his life that he had made a rapid decision. And as he
gave the order he knew that he meant to stay.
Stoner kept rigidly to those portions of the house which
seemed to have been allotted to him by a tacit treaty of
delimitation. When he took part in the farm-work it was as
one who worked under orders and never initiated them. Old
George, the roan cob, and Bowker's pup were his sole
companions in a world that was otherwise frostily silent and
hostile. Of the mistress of the farm he saw nothing. Once,
when he knew she had gone forth to church, he made a furtive
visit to the farm parlour in an endeavour to glean some
fragmentary knowledge of the young man whose place he had
usurped, and whose ill-repute he had fastened on himself.
There were many photographs hung on the walls, or stuck in
prim frames, but the likeness he sought for was not among
them. At last, in an album thrust out of sight, he came
across what he wanted. There was a whole series, labelled
“Tom,” a podgy child of three, in a fantastic frock, an
awkward boy of about twelve, holding a cricket bat as though
be loathed it, a rather good-looking youth of eighteen with
very smooth, evenly parted hair, and, finally, a young man
with a somewhat surly dare-devil expression. At this last
portrait Stoner looked with particular interest; the
likeness to himself was unmistakable.
From the lips of old George, who was garrulous enough on
most subjects, he tried again and again to learn something
of the nature of the offence which shut him off as a
creature to be shunned and hated by hiss fellow-men.
“What do the folk around here say about me?” he asked
one day as they were walking home from an outlying field.
The old man shook his head.
“They be bitter agen you, mortal bitter. Ay, 'tis a sad
business, a sad business.”
And never could he be got to say anything more
enlightening.
On a clear frosty evening, a few days before the festival
of Christmas, Stoner stood in a corner of the orchard which
commanded a wide view of the countryside. Here and there he
could see the twinkling dots of lamp or candle glow which
told of human homes where the goodwill and jollity of the
season held their sway. Behind him lay the grim, silent
farm-house, where no one ever laughed, where even a quarrel
would have seemed cheerful. As he turned to look at the
long grey front of the gloom-shadowed building, a door
opened and old George came hurriedly forth. Stoner heard
his adopted name called in a tone of strained anxiety.
Instantly be knew that something untoward had happened, and
with a quick revulsion of outlook his sanctuary became in
his eyes a place of peace and contentment, from which he
dreaded to be driven.
“Master Tom,” said the old man in a hoarse whisper,
“you must slip away quiet from here for a few days.
Michael Ley is back in the village, an' he swears to shoot
you if he can come across you. He'll do it, too, there's
murder in the look of him. Get away under cover of night,
'tis only for a week or so, he won't be here longer.”
“But where am I to go?” stammered Stoner, who had caught
the infection of the old man's obvious terror.
“Go right away along the coast to Punchford and keep hid
there. When Michael's safe gone I'll ride the roan over to
the Green Dragon at Punchford; when you see the cob stabled
at the Green Dragon 'tis a sign you may come back agen.”
“But---” began Stoner hesitatingly.
“'Tis all right for money,” said the other; “the old
Missus agrees you'd best do as I say, and she's given me
this.”
The old man produced three sovereigns and some odd silver.
Stoner felt more of a cheat than ever as he stole away
that night from the back gate of the farm with the old
woman's money in his pocket. Old George and Bowker's pup
stood watching him a silent farewell from the yard. He
could scarcely fancy that he would ever come back, and he
felt a throb of compunction for those two humble friends who
would wait wistfully for his return. Some day perhaps the
real Tom would come back, and there would be wild wonderment
among those simple farm folks as to the identity of the
shadowy guest they had harboured under their roof. For his
own fate he felt no immediate anxiety; three pounds goes but
little way in the world when there is nothing behind it, but
to a man who has counted his exchequer in pennies it seems a
good starting-point. Fortune had done him a whimsically
kind turn when last he trod these lanes as a hopeless
adventurer, and there might yet be a chance of his finding
some work and making a fresh start; as he got further from
the farm his spirits rose higher. There was a sense of
relief in regaining once more his lost identity and ceasing
to be the uneasy ghost of another. He scarcely bothered to
speculate about the implacable enemy who had dropped from
nowhere into his life; since that life was now behind him
one unreal item the more made little difference. For the
first time for many months he began to hum a careless
light-hearted refrain. Then there stepped out from the
shadow of an overhanging oak tree a man with a gun. There
was no need to wonder who he might be; the moonlight falling
on his white set face revealed a glare of human hate such as
Stoner in the ups and downs of his wanderings had never seen
before. He sprang aside in a wild effort to break through
the hedge that bordered the lane, but the tough branches
held him fast. The hounds of Fate had waited for him in
those narrow lanes, and this time they were not to be
denied.