George Henty - Redskin and Cow-Boy - A Tale of the Western Plains

"I have killed him," he said. "Well, he brought it on himself, and I didn't mean it. It was the cabinet that did it. Perhaps he is only stunned. If he is, he will charge me with trying to murder him. Well, it is no use my staying here; they will be here in a moment," and he glanced at the door. But the servants at Byrneside were so accustomed to the sound of pistol shots that they paid no attention to it. Hugh picked up the weapon that had dropped from his uncle's hand and put it in his pocket; then glanced at his aunt and hesitated. "She will come round in time," he muttered, "and I can do nothing for her." Then he walked out of the room, turned the key in the door, and took it with him. He went out to the stable, and ordered his horse to be saddled, keeping in the stable while it was being done, so that his white face should not attract notice. As soon as the horse was brought out he leapt into the saddle and galloped off.

MR. Randolph was at dinner when the servant came in and said that young Mr. Tunstall wished to speak to him; he was in the library, and begged the lawyer to give him two minutes' conversation. Hugh was walking up and down the little room when he entered. The old lawyer saw at once that something was wrong.

"What is it, Hugh, what is the matter, lad?"

"A good deal is the matter, Mr. Randolph; but I don't want you to ask me. I am sure you will be glad afterwards that you didn't know. You were a friend of my father's, sir. You have been always very kind to me. Will you give me fifty pounds without asking why I want it?"

"Certainly I will, lad; but in heaven's name don't do anything rash."

"Anything that was to be done is done, Mr. Randolph; please let me have the money at once. You don't know how important it is. You will know soon enough."

Mr. Randolph unlocked his desk without a word, and handed him ten five-pound notes. Then he said: "By the way, I have gold, if you would rather have it. There were some rents paid in this afternoon."

"I would much rather have gold."

Mr. Randolph put the notes in the desk, and then unlocked the safe. "Would you rather have a hundred?"

"Yes, sir, if you will let me have them."

The lawyer handed him a small canvas bag.

"God bless you, sir!" the lad said; "remember, please, whatever you hear, it was done in self-defence."

Then without another word he opened the door and was gone.

"Why, what is the matter, my dear?" Mrs. Randolph exclaimed, as her husband returned to the dining-room. "Why, you are as pale as death."

"I don't know what is the matter exactly," he said. "Hugh has borrowed a hundred pounds of me, and has gone."

"Gone! Where has he gone to?"

"I don't know, my dear. I hope, I sincerely hope he is going out of the country, and can get away before they lay hands on him."

"Why, what has happened?"

"I don't know what has happened. I know things haven't been going on well for some time at Byrneside. I am afraid there has been a terrible quarrel. He begged me to ask him no questions, and I was glad not to do so. The less one knows, the better; but I am afraid there has been a scuffle. All he said was, just as he went out: 'Whatever you hear, remember I did it in self-defence.'"

"But, goodness gracious, Thomas, you don't mean to say that he has killed his uncle?"

"I don't mean anything," the lawyer said. "Those were his words. I am afraid it won't be long before we hear what he meant. If they come to ask me questions, fortunately I know nothing. I shall say no word except before a magistrate, and then my story is simple enough. He came and asked me to let me have £100, and as I was his trustee, and have the rents of his estate for the past five years in my hands, I let him have it as a matter of course. I did not ask him why he wanted it. I saw that he was agitated, and from his manner, and from my knowledge that he and his uncle did not get on very well together, I judged there had been a quarrel, and that he intended to leave home for a while. It was only when he was leaving the room that I gathered there had been any personal fracas, and then from his words, 'It was done in self-defence,' I judged that his uncle had struck him, and that he had probably struck him in return. I hope that is all, my dear. I pray heaven that it may be all."

Hugh had dismounted just outside the town, opened a gate leading into a field, taken off his horse's bridle, and turned the horse in and closed the gate behind it. Then he had turned up the collar of his coat, pulled his hat down over his eyes, and made his way to the lawyer's. He had cooled down now, but still felt no regret for what had passed. "He would have killed me," he said to himself, "and I had no thought of killing him when I knocked him down; anyhow, he brought it on himself. If he is dead, and I am pretty sure he is, I have no one to prove that it was done in self-defence; but if he is not dead, he will give his own version of it when he recovers. I know he is a liar, and in his quiet manner he would be able to make everyone believe that I had attacked him without the least provocation. He might even say that I fired the pistol, that he knocked it out of my hand, and that then I sprang on him and struck him down with his head against that cabinet. Either way I shall get years of imprisonment if I am caught; but I don't mean to be caught if I can help it."

On leaving Mr. Randolph's he proceeded to the railway-station, consulted the time-tables, and then took a third-class ticket to Glasgow. He bought a Bradshaw, and sitting down on a bench under a light, turned to the advertisements of the sailing of steamers. By the time he had done that the train came in. It was a slow one, stopping at every station. He got out at the first station and paid the fare from Carlisle, then walked back to the town, and took a second-class ticket by the night mail for London. Arriving at Euston, he walked across to the docks, whence he had found that a steamer started for Hamburg at eight o'clock, and he would catch a trans-Atlantic steamer that started the next day. On his arrival at Hamburg he went to the steam-boat office and took a second-class ticket to New York. Having done this, he bought at a shop near the wharves a supply of clothes for the voyage, placed them in a cheap German trunk, and walked on board the steamer.

He was now, he thought, fairly safe from pursuit. The hour at which he would arrive at the station at Carlisle would be known, and as the northern train was nearly due, and someone answering to his description had taken a ticket to Glasgow, it would be at once suspected that he intended to sail by a steamer from that port. No pursuit could be set on foot before the morning. Indeed, it was probable that before the police took the matter fairly in hand it would be late in the afternoon. It might then be another day before they picked up the clue that he had gone to Glasgow, and followed him there.

If a steamer had happened to start that morning or the day before, it would be supposed that he had gone by it, and they might telegraph across, and search the ship for him when it arrived at New York. If no steamer had started, and they could obtain no clue to him in Glasgow, they would think that he had gone back to Liverpool, and would make search there, watching all the steamers sailing. They would in any case hardly suspect that he could have gone up to London, across to Hamburg, and caught the steamer sailing from there. Indeed, it would not have been possible for him to do so had he first gone up to Glasgow as they would believe he had done.

As soon as the vessel was fairly under way Hugh looked round. On deck there was no distinction made between second-class emigrants and steerage, but it was easy to distinguish the two classes. The second-class kept somewhat together near the companion leading to their portion of the ship, while the steerage passengers were well forward. The number of the latter was not very large, for the emigrant traffic across the Atlantic was still carried principally in sailing ships. The second-class were composed chiefly of substantial-looking Germans, for the most part farmers going out with a small amount of capital to settle in the West.