"Weel, and why should nae the puir wean droon his sorrows in the flowing bowl, the which term Thomas Moore applies tae whusky. He's got nae siller an' varra little o' that is in ma purse. But maybe he has enow tae help the guid friend whae guided his young footsteps. Hech," he rose, and pondered, "maybe if I flatter the lad, he may spare a bittock. Drink! aye drink, which maketh glad the hairt o' mon. He'll be guid for a shulling at daybreak."
In pursuance of this plan, the Rev. Michael Gowrie was shortly on his legs, staggering to the bedroom with a stiff jorum of gin and water. Mrs. Narby led the way, and pointed out the apartment occupied by Herries, with the unnecessary information that the unknown gentleman, now in the parlour, would sleep in the next room.
"An' me sleeping in the tap-room," mourned Gowrie. "Is yon gentleman in bed, wumon?"
"No. He's still in the parlour," snapped Mrs. Narby, bristling at being called a woman. "He's waiting fur 'is friend, as comes at eight."
"It'll be haulf an hoor tae eight," said Gowrie consulting a yellow-faced watch, not worthy of a pawnbroker's ticket.
"Ow shud I know? Give yer shady toff 'is drink, an' cut."
Gowrie had little difficulty in inducing Herries to swallow the hot liquor. The young man was worn out, and when the drink was finished his head fell on the pillow like a lump of lead. His kind preceptor tucked him in, and cast a longing glance at his pupil's garments, lying disorderly on a chair near the bed.
But Mrs. Narby glared grimly at the door, and Gowrie had no chance of examining the pockets, as he wished to do. It was with great reluctance that he departed with the ogress, while Herries, blind to the world, slept heavily, but, alas, not dreamlessly.
His dreams indeed were terrible. For hours and hours he seemed to be flying from some dreadful danger. Along a lonely road he sped breathless and anguished. After him raced a shadow, which once caught up with him, and enveloped him in cold gloom. But out of that Egyptian darkness, he was drawn by a firm warm hand, and found himself under a glimmering moon, looking into the face of Elspeth. She pointed towards the East, and there broke swiftly the cool fresh dawn, at the sight of which his terrors vanished. It seemed to the dreamer that he kissed the girl, but of this he could not be sure; for the vision dispersed into fragments, and he finally fell into the deep slumber of the worn-out.
When he awoke it was daylight, and from the position of a faint gleam of sunshine, breaking through the still clinging mists, he guessed that it was nine o'clock. But Herries cast no second look through the window, when he saw what lay on the patchwork quilt. Thereon appeared a white bone-handled razor crimson with blood, and he found that one sleeve of his woollen shirt was likewise stained red.
CHAPTER II
A RECOGNITION
After that first startled look, Herries sprang from the bed, anxious only, for the moment, to avoid contact with that blood-stained razor. But blood also smeared the right arm of his shirt, which he could not part with, as he had no other to wear. His hands were clean, the bed-quilt was smooth, and the door closed. He could not comprehend how the razor and the blood-stains came to be there. Half dazed and unable to grasp the meaning of these weird things, he flung open the window. It looked down into a small, bleak garden, and into thick white mists, behind which lay those weary marshes he had traversed on the previous evening. The inn might have been in the Aristophanic Cloud-Cuckoo-Land, for all the signs of earth-life that were visible in those dismal fogs. Herries, craning his body half out of the window, could hear men and women chattering in the street, and at times the shrill babble of children. So far as he could see and hear, nothing was wrong, yet he felt that something terrible had happened. It was at this point that he retreated suddenly from the window, with one awesome word beating insistently upon his confused brain.
"Murder!" he cried aloud in the empty room. "Murder!"
He sprang towards the door, clothed only in his shirt, and pulled it open with a jerk. Half frenzied with fear and possessed by an agonized feeling of terror, he shouted the word down the narrow staircase. People below were talking quietly, and moving about on various tasks intent, but at the sound of that choking cry, both movements and voices resolved themselves into an uncanny pause.
Shortly, the terror-stricken creature clinging to the top railings heard heavy footsteps ascending, and aware of his light attire, he slipped back into his room and into bed. The footsteps came nearer and a rough bearded face peered in at the door. It was that of the landlord, of whom he had caught a mere glimpse on the previous night. Mrs. Narby was well matched in her help-mate--outwardly at least--for he was a bulky, stout animal, with a heavy fist and a violent temper, when aroused. But for the most part he was too lethargic to become enraged, unless some special event demanded the use of uncontrolled passion. At the present moment, his mild face--in repose it was strangely mild--exhibited only wonder.
"What are you howling about?" he asked gruffly, and staring with bent brows at the white-faced man.
"Murder!" chattered Herries, shivering and sitting up in bed, chin on knees, "at least----" he flung the razor towards the man.
Narby, by this time well within the room, deftly caught the article, and examined it closely. "Blood!" said he under his breath; then looked at Herries, still shivering as with ague. "But y' ain't dead, cut yourself maybe, shaving?"
"I have not shaved for two days. I have no razor with me, that is not mine. Who has been murdered?" so Herries babbled, confusedly.
"Why, no one," growled the landlord, bristling. "This is a decent inn, this is. Do you think we take in folks to cut their throats. You've had a nightmare and this razor of yours----"
"It is not mine," passionately interrupted the young man. "I found it on the quilt when I woke at nine this morning."
"It's nearly ten by now."
"Then I mistook the time, having no watch. But the blood----"
"It is queer," admitted Narby, meditatively, "but there's no one dead, so far as I know. Old Gowrie slept in the tap-room, and went off at seven. My wife and Elspeth are alive and busy; Pope, too, ate a good breakfast, and there's no sign of a corpse about me."
"What of the gentleman who came last night?"
"He went away at eight, as he arranged, without his breakfast. My wife saw him pass through the tap-room in that fur-coat of his, and no wonder on such a chilly morning. He never passed the time of day--gentry manners in this country, I 'spose."
"Then there's nothing wrong!" cried Herries, more bewildered than ever.
"Not that I know of. Someone's been having a joke with you, though who'd play a low-down trick like this is more nor I can tell."
Narby looked at Herries, and Herries stared back at Narby, both puzzled, and both bad-tempered. Whosoever had played this poor joke, if joke it was, the landlord at least was innocent of the jest. The young man shook his head to clear it of cobwebs and signed to the other to leave the room, intending to get up and dress. The voice of Mrs. Narby in the passage chained him to the bed.
"Wot's he 'ollerin' abaout?" she asked in her vile dialect.
"Had the nightmare," grumbled her spouse, pushing her back as she tried to peep in.
"Ho! Then he'd best cut. D'y 'ear,--you," she shouted. "We don't want no crazy coves 'ere. Elspeth, go
