Chapter XVII: The True Life

As the first pale streak of dawn rose over the peaceful marshes of Bungay, and touched with palest rose the thatched eaves of the Farm, Mr. Jacob Minnidick, as was his custom, arose cursing and swearing from his truckle bed. Mr. Minnidick possessed a temperament which displayed itself chiefly in personal abuse, and he was quite as ready to direct this abuse against Nature as against man. Indeed, he was accustomed to treat the weather as his deliberate enemy, the sun or rain as full of a spite against him, the very earth itself as emphatically hostile to him, emphatically set on "getting at him" so far as Providence permitted.

"Darn it!" remarked Mr. Minnidick, putting on a stocking with a hole in it. "Darn it all, I say!"

And he proceeded to make a sketchy toilet of a rather corduroy nature, after which he walked to the narrow window and looked forth across the marshes. The grass was saturated with rain. Mr. Minnidick viewed it with sour disfavour.

"A deal of good it'll do us," he muttered. "Didn't I 'ave to drain the water off only yesterday, and the three-feet-sixer choked up, as I allers knew 'twould be? Darn the rain, I say!"

He shook a gnarled old fist at it out of the window, and heavily descended the narrow stairs.

Some threescore and ten summers had passed over Mr. Minnidick's head, and been darned by him, since he was born, yet still he laboured on as Mr. Bush's assistant in the grand, true life aimed at by Mrs. Verulam. His small and thin form was duly bent with years. His legs were bowed. His scanty grey hair fell adown his stooping shoulders, and his nut-cracker mouth, fallen in, moved incessantly as if he were trying to masticate invisible food. In fact, he lived up to his name and calling most thoroughly, and would have looked quite realistic in an Adelphi hay-field or Drury Lane cabbage scene. Emerging now into the garden, he glanced angrily around from under his shaggy eyebrows. He beheld a flat plot of ground bounded by tough hedges, in one of which stood a wicket-gate. There were beds of flowers, small paths, a thicket of trees, and a vegetable domain adorned with melon and cucumber frames against a moss-grown wall. Cherries were being forced in pots; beehives stood about; an old-fashioned brick flue had been turned into accommodation for some mysterious fruit; a small brick house, about as big as a loose-box with a roof to it, and devoid of windows, sheltered a pit in which mushroom-spawn was germinating in dense darkness and dull heat. Elsewhere stood two or three rather ramshackle outhouses. The Farm itself was a small and plain building, with narrow windows almost blinded with creepers, a door in the middle, and protruding eaves like Mr. Minnidick's eyebrows. Flattish land stretched away to the horizon on every side, steaming now in the gathering light of the morning. Mr. Minnidick surveyed this prospect and continued:

"Darn it all, I say!"

This sentence had been his morning hymn of praise for more than half a century, and it was quite certain that he would only cease to uplift it with the coming of death. His matins completed, Mr. Minnidick took his way to one of the outhouses, making a slight detour on the journey to glance at some marl and a pet manure tank, and, selecting from various implements a favourite hoe, and an enormous spade, returned to the kitchen-garden, prepared his hands for labour in the usual manner, and began performing various mysterious rites among the cabbages, peas, potatoes and other vegetables with which Mr. Bush's estate was liberally endowed. Now and then he desisted from labour for a moment, and on these occasions he invariably looked towards the wicket-gate and muttered, "He's a beauty—darn 'im!" a statement which seemed to bring with it great satisfaction, and to cause a certain amount of exultation in Mr. Minnidick's earnest and retiring soul. Towards seven o'clock, as Mr. Minnidick was looking towards the gate for the twentieth or so time, and was in the very act of opening his purse-like mouth in his age-honoured and terse remark, there appeared before him a vision that seemed to fill him with amazement. For he dropped the favourite hoe among some sprouts, set his hands over his eyes, let fall his lower jaw, and stared as one that sees a ghost.

"Darn it all!" he murmured. "If it ain't 'im aback a'ready! Darn it all, I say!"

"'Im" signified the paragon, who had indeed at that very instant ridden up to the gate on the Emperor's head coachman's tricycle, and who now dismounted therefrom with much groaning, and walked unsteadily into the garden, the pockets of his coat bulging with the silver whisky-bottle and the gold presentation cigar-box. He approached the sprouts among which his retainer was standing, and gave the latter a sulky nod of the head, to which Mr. Minnidick returned a nod that was, if possible, sulkier.

"How's the vegs?" mumbled Mr. Bush.

"Mortial spoilt by rain—darn 'em!" replied Mr. Minnidick. "Mortial spoilt."

And he stared harder than ever at Mr. Bush, whose saturated evening costume was now beginning to steam in the sun.

"What's brought ye back s' soon?" he enquired.

The paragon shuffled his feet.

"What's that to yer?" he replied. "Why don't yer get to hoein'?"

Mr. Minnidick munched and swallowed nothing with considerable vehemence for some minutes, and then he said with excruciating bitterness:

"Why don't ye git to them as drew ye from hoein'?"

"Shut yer head, I've done with 'em," said the paragon.

"Oh, I dessay," returned Mr. Minnidick, with aggravated grievousness, "I dessay, but where's the garding been while ye was with 'em? Who's seen arter the mushrims? Who's a-cared for them there mellings? Who's been a-watchin' of the cowcumbers? Lawks-a-mussy! Darn it all, I say!"

Mr. Bush deigned no reply to these passionate questions, but proceeded heavily into the house, from which he presently emerged, clad in more suitable raiment, still loaded with the Emperor's gold and silver, and in the act of swallowing a mighty hunch of home-made bread. Without making any further remark, he laid hold of a spade and began to dig in gloomy silence, while Mr. Minnidick went on hoeing and muttering angrily to himself. How long these pastoral occupations would have continued in ordinary circumstances, it is impossible to say. They might, perhaps, have been protracted till full noontide, had not a sound of horses galloping in the adjacent lane suddenly attracted the attention of the paragon, who rested upon his spade, scratched his huge head, and began to look rather uneasy.

"Whatever's that?" he muttered.

"'Osses," replied Mr. Minnidick. "A-runnin' away, darn 'em!"

It really seemed as if there were something in this remark, for the noise upon the highway proclaimed that the animals were approaching at a tremendous pace, and would soon be in view of the diligent gardeners. Scarcely had Mr. Minnidick made his last statement, when Mr. Bush went through a somewhat remarkable performance. He dropped his spade, and cast himself down on the earth upon his face, at the same time shouting to Mr. Minnidick:

"Stand before me! Cover me up! Throw sprouts on me! Throw sprouts over me!"

These suggestions were not carried out, for Mr. Minnidick was of a leisurely turn of mind, and at no time of a disposition to sacrifice valuable cabbage growths without good reason. He therefore merely rested on his hoe and stared, at the same time munching the air with extraordinary rapidity and determination. And thus he was posed, like some Shakespearian rustic, when two smoking horses hove in sight, and the air was rent with the cracking of a hunting-whip, and the furious cries of one of the riders.

"Give him his head, Rodney! give him his head, I tell you!"

"I have been giving it him for the last three hours, Duke. If I give it him any more, I shall be killed, I shall indeed!"

"Take your arms from his neck, I tell you!"

"I will not. If I do I shall be thrown. Both the reins have been broken for hours."

"That's because you held 'em so damned tight. You'd break a six-foot rope that'd anchor a man-of-war. Why don't you sit straight?"

"Because I can't, because—I—am—dropping!"

The unfortunate owner of Mitching Dean did indeed seem in a parlous condition. Wrapped in the travelling ulster, his silk hat smashed into a pulp and fixed, by the edge of a rent, on his left ear, he was laid out almost flat along his horse with his arms clasped round its neck. His long white face was smothered in liquid mud, which had only dried upon the bridge of his nose, forming a sort of forbidding-looking island in the midst of his wrinkled countenance. His trousers had been torn into ribbons by the quick-set hedges through which he had passed and the five-barred gates he had reduced to splinters. One of his stirrups had gone. His reins, as he had affirmed, fluttered around his horse's chest in fragments, and he had in some mysterious manner lost a boot, possibly in a small pond in which his animal had recently lain down and rolled out of sheer gaiety of disposition. Altogether, he scarcely looked his best as he reached the hedge of the paragon's domain. On perceiving the rigid figure of Mr. Minnidick, the Duke suddenly pulled up, with the result that Mr. Rodney cannoned against him and promptly bit the mud.

"Damn you, Rodney! Why don't you look where you're going?" said his Grace crossly. "Here, you—my man, can you tell me the way to the Farm, Bungay Marshes, Lisborough?"

"Heh?"

"I want the Farm, Bungay Marshes, Lisborough."

"What d'ye want 'un fur?"

"What the deuce is that to you? Get on again, Rodney, or the brute'll be off."

"I cannot. I am unable; I fear both my legs are fractured."

"Nonsense! The shaking'll do you good—wake you up—put some spirit into you. Well, my man, don't you know where the Farm is?"

"Yes, I knows," said Mr. Minnidick.

"Where, then?"

"'Ereabouts."

"I know that."

"What did ye arst me fur, then?"

"Shovel the sprouts over me, d'ye hear? Cover me over!" muttered Mr. Bush, while the Duke angrily rejoined:

"If I have any of your impudence, I'll give you a taste of my whip. Tell me where the Farm is this moment."

"I have told ye."

"Where is it?"

"'Ereabouts."

"Where the devil's hereabouts?"

"Where I'm a-standing of."

"Where you're standing! Why didn't you say so?"

"I did say so—darn it all!"

"Where's your master?" said the Duke. "Is he back?"

"Heh?"

"Where the deuce is your infernal master?"

"'Ereabouts," replied Mr. Minnidick calmly, despite renewed and furious whispers of "Throw sprouts over me! Cover me up!" from the paragon.

"Where the deuce is that?"

"Where I'm a-standin' of," replied Mr. Minnidick, indicating Mr. Bush with the favourite hoe.

The Duke leaped from his horse.

"Here, catch hold, Rodney!" he cried, flinging the reins to the owner of Mitching Dean, who, failing to grasp them, permitted the animal to gallop from the spot at the rate of about twenty miles an hour.

"Rodney, you're the ——dest muddler I ever met in the whole course of my life!" said the Duke witheringly, as he tied up the remaining horse and proceeded to scramble over the hedge in a most murderous and determined manner.

The paragon hastily sat up among the sprouts, and raised his arms before his face in an attitude of awkward defence.

"You rascal!" said the Duke—"you infernal rascal! Then I didn't strangle you, after all?"

"Eh?" said Mr. Bush sulkily, and still keeping up his arms.

"I didn't strangle you. But I will!"

"Duke, Duke, let me counsel delay!" cried Mr. Rodney from the other side of the hedge. "Take time, I implore you—take a little time to think it over."

"Rodney, hold your tongue! I thought I'd killed you," continued his Grace to Mr. Bush.

"You never touched me!" growled the paragon. "You never caught me; I went too quick."

At this statement the Duke looked surprised.

"I certainly strangled someone," he said meditatively. "Rodney, I know I strangled somebody. Who could it have been?"

"Possibly it was merely a footman, Duke," said Mr. Rodney in a relieved tone of voice. "You ought to be very thankful, I am sure."

"I daresay, a footman; or it may have been only Bliggins. It doesn't matter. What does matter is, that I'm going to have satisfaction. D'you hear, sir?" he shouted in Mr. Bush's ear.

"I ain't deaf," retorted that gentleman.

"I'm going to fight you and kill you in your own garden here."

"Darn it all, I say!" from Mr. Minnidick, who was standing calmly by during this social intercourse.

"Duke, I implore you, be calm!" cried Mr. Rodney, grasping some brambles oratorically. "Kill him quietly; don't make a scene, Duke—for Heaven's sake, don't make a scene!"

"He shall have a chance, Rodney; he shall die in fair fight. Choose your weapons!" he added to the paragon.

"Eh?"

"Choose your weapons! What do you generally fight with here?"

"Hoes," replied Mr. Bush sulkily, while Mr. Minnidick muttered something about "Allers fight with a 'oe and you won't repint of it."

"Hoes!" said his Grace. "I've never tried them. I shall have to practise first; that's only fair."

"Yes, yes!" cried Mr. Rodney eagerly—"that's it. Take a week to practise, and then kill him quietly."

"A week! An hour will be enough," said the Duke. "Very well, hoes let it be; where can I get one?"

"At the Elephant and Drum," mumbled the paragon.

"What the deuce is that?"

"The inn to Bungay."

"An inn!" exclaimed Mr. Rodney—"an inn! The very place. There are always plenty of hoes at an inn, and things to eat, and water to wash in. The Elephant and Drum is the very place for us."

"How far is it?" said his Grace.

"Only a mile, straight on," said Mr. Bush, "as the rooks a-go."

"I shall be back in an hour or two, then; and mind, if you try to get away, I'll follow you to the ends of the earth and strangle you there. Now, then——Hulloa! what's that?"

His Grace had perceived the tricycle standing at the wicket-gate. A crafty look came into his face, such as decorates Dan Leno's when that marvel is enacting clever Mr. Green.

"Rodney!" he said.

"Duke!"

"Come over the hedge, get on that tricycle, and follow me; I'll ride the horse."

"But, Duke, I have never tricycled in my life. Indeed, I——"

"Come over the hedge and get on this moment!"

Mr. Rodney feebly crawled sufficiently high up the brambles to be caught hold of and thrown among the sprouts. He was then picked up, led to the machine and placed upon it in a nerveless and quivering heap. The Duke gave him a push, and, as the Farm stood on a slight eminence, the machine instantly ran off at an increasing pace, till Mr. Rodney's cries for assistance died down towards the horizon. Then the Duke mounted the horse, gave Mr. Bush a sinister look, informed him that the duel would take place within the next two hours—or three, at latest—and galloped off towards the inn.

Mr. Bush and Mr. Minnidick examined each other's physiognomies for a moment with some attention. Then Mr. Bush grunted; Mr. Minnidick replied, "Darn it all, I say!" and they resumed their labours among the sprouts. It seemed that Mr. Bush considered any attempt at further flight useless; or possibly he thought that he could hold his own with a hoe against any living man. In either case, he looked more dogged and heavier even than usual as he solemnly turned up the damp earth with his spade, and arranged the lives of various inoffensive and patient vegetables for them, no doubt entirely to his own satisfaction. Presently the rattle of a trotting chaise disturbed these processes. Mr. Bush paused and scratched his head.

"Whatever's that?" he said.

"A kerridge a-comin'," said Mr. Minnidick.

"What should a carriage a-come for?" rejoined the paragon.

Mr. Minnidick uttered his morning hymn, and stared across the hedge by way of reply, while Mr. Bush looked somewhat inclined to lie down again among the sprouts. He stood his ground, however, and was rewarded almost immediately by the appearance of a tub-like chaise chiefly constructed of basket-work, and drawn by a tottering white pony which was driven by a small boy with a very sharply-pointed nose, at whose side—in an attitude of large abandonment and intimate despair—was spread her Grace the Duchess of Southborough. On seeing the paragon, her Grace gave vent to a bass screech, and seizing the hands of the boy with the sharply-pointed nose—much to that individual's fury—compelled him to bring the white pony to against the hedge.

"Oh, Mr. Bush! Mr. Bush!" cried the Duchess.

"What's brought you a-here?" queried the paragon.

"Oh, Mr. Bush, you have ruined me! You have undone me, Mr. Bush!" continued the Duchess, on her most piercing lower notes.

"Get along with yer!" said Mr. Bush, while Mr. Minnidick, poised upon the favourite hoe in a gardening attitude, surveyed the dreadful scene.

"You have, indeed. But you must make reparation! You must and shall!"

And her Grace, who still wore the early Victorian dressing-gown, surmounted with a waterproof cloak, and crowned by a bonnet and feathers, began attempting to scramble over the hedge into the paragon's domain.

"What are yer up to now?" said Mr. Bush. "Where are yer a-makin' for?"

"You!" replied the Duchess, atop of a big bramble interspersed with stakes. "You, you bad, evil-minded man!"

And she pitched into the mould at Mr. Minnidick's feet, head foremost.

"Darn it all, I say!" quoth Mr. Minnidick, while the small boy with the sharply-pointed nose broke out incontinently a-laughing.

"You must go to the Duke, Mr. Bush," proceeded her Grace, getting right end up, and raising her hands towards heaven. "You must go to him and tell him how innocent I am!"

"Innercent—oh, crikey!" said the small boy, emerging for an instant from his convulsions and speaking in a very high treble voice. "Innercent, does she sy?" and he relapsed again into his fit.

Mr. Bush began to look very sulky, and rather as if he were meditating a nap. The Duchess clasped his knees.

"Oh, Mr. Bush!" she wailed; "do me justice! set me right! Go to my husband and tell him what a true wife I have always been to him!"

"Give over! Give over now!"

"I will not give over! I have followed you here, for you alone can tell the Duke that there's nothing between——Oh, hide me! hide me! There's a carriage coming! Oh, if I am seen here I am lost for ever! Hide me!"

"Give over! Where can yer be a-hid?"

Her Grace sprang up with amazing agility for so large a woman. She glanced around like a hunted elephant. She heard the noise of rapidly approaching wheels. Her protruding eye took in the aspect of the place, ravaging it for its possibilities of concealment. Then, with the wail of a thing at bay, she fled across the vegetable-garden, fought her way through a small but dense jungle of gooseberry bushes, and darted into the mushroom-house just as a hired fly containing Mrs. Verulam, Chloe, and the faithful Marriner drove up to the wicket-gate.

"She'll a-treadle down the spawn! She'll do a mischief on them there mushrims! Darn it all, I say!" was Mr. Minnidick's comment on her Grace's choice of sanctuary, while Mr. Bush, who—perhaps deliberately—became more and more lethargic with each accumulating disaster, solemnly started digging again, with the manner of a labourer totally isolated from all intercourse with human-kind.

The bed of sprouts, which seemed rapidly becoming the centre of a whirlpool of violent activities, was at some little distance from the residence of the paragon, and was partially concealed from the wicket-gate and the flower-garden by a small hedge of yew. For this reason, perhaps, the occupants of the hired fly did not at first observe that the garden was tenanted. After enquiring the way to the nearest inn, and being duly informed of the existence of the Elephant and Drum, Mrs. Verulam and Chloe descended from the vehicle, in which the faithful Marriner—looking rather pale—was deliberately driven away.

Mrs. Verulam approached the wicket-gate, leaned upon it, and breathed a gentle sigh.

"Ah, Chloe," she murmured; "how exquisitely peaceful it is! Just what I expected. No harm could happen here. No echoes from the cruel world could ever pierce to this haven. Here there are no intrigues, no quarrels, no secrets, no slanders. Here all is rest and happiness."

"Quite so, dear. And here, or at least very near here, at the Elephant and Drum, I shall be able to change my trousers. It is sweet!"

"It's like heaven!" said Mrs. Verulam ecstatically. "How little Mr. Bush knows that we are here, looking upon his birthplace"—the paragon was born at Brixton, but no matter—"breathing the same air he has so often breathed!"

"You're hardly scientific, Daisy. Besides, by this time Mr. Bush is reading your note at the palace, and the Duchess and all of them know of our departure."

"Ah—true; I had forgotten that. I wonder what the Duchess is saying."

Her Grace was at the moment saying, "Oh, I shall be suffocated!" as she tried to compose herself upon a stack of dibble-holes filled with spawn that would have rejoiced the heart of Nicol.

"No doubt she is taking away your character," said Chloe.

"I hate those large, respectable women!" said Mrs. Verulam with sudden energy, and getting very red.

The special large, respectable woman to whom she alluded was furtively considering the chances of apoplexy, and marvelling at the heroic endurance displayed by the average mushroom.

"Mr. Rodney will be terribly shocked at my running away like this," continued Mrs. Verulam. "He is so neat, so cautious, so deliberate. He cannot understand a wild impulse, and would rather die than embark on any fierce adventure."

This chanced to be the very thought passing through the mind of the owner of Mitching Dean at this moment, as he offered the Duke a choice of hoes in the backyard of the Elephant and Drum, preparatory to taking his stand in the shadow of an upturned tub, to be practised upon in preparation for the duel.

"Poor Mr. Rodney!" said Chloe.

Mrs. Verulam got red again.

"Why poor?" she said.

"Because—oh, Daisy, you know quite well!"

"Please don't be silly, Chloe. I wonder who it was that fired all those shots last night, and what all the noise was about."

"I can't imagine—burglars perhaps. It covered our escape most beautifully. Well, Daisy, you're out of your cage now with a vengeance. Society will never have anything more to do with a hostess who leaves a Duke and a Duchess stranded in the middle of an Ascot week. You might have got over a murder safely, or even me, but you can never get over that."

"I suppose the Duke is furious," said Mrs. Verulam rather wistfully.

She happened to be right. His Grace was furious just then with the owner of Mitching Dean, who, in endeavouring to defend his person from the Duke's attack during the rehearsal, had used his hoe in such an unwarrantable manner as to black his Grace's left eye and very nearly knock out a couple of his Grace's front teeth.

"It can't be helped if he is," said Chloe, wondering what was the exact condition of the Lady Pearl.

"Mr. Bush will follow us immediately, I feel sure," continued Mrs. Verulam, wholly unaware that the paragon had immediately preceded them. "I can see him here before me in his sweet little home;" and as she spoke she opened the wicket-gate with a click and advanced into the garden.

"There doesn't seem to be anybody about," said Chloe, behaving like a person on the stage, and looking everywhere but in the direction where there was somebody to be seen; "not a creature, not a soul. Let us sit down for a moment and rest;" and she took a seat upon a deal bench, of which the mushroom-house formed the back.

The Duchess trembled on the dibble-holes.

"This is deliciously comfortable," said Mrs. Verulam. "I shall always sit on plain wood for the future. Shall you be glad to change your trousers?"

"Little hussy!" thought the Duchess, swelling with angry respectability at this remark.

"Thankful, darling!" said Chloe. The Duchess nearly fainted. "I am sick of them; and, besides, I look ever so much better without them."

At this point her Grace was on the point of forgetting her own somewhat equivocal situation, of bursting out of the mushroom-house, and taking to the open country, where her ears could not be defiled with such terrible revelations. Recollecting herself, however, just in time, she clapped her hands to her ears and endeavoured not to hear another word. In this effort she was successful, for when Chloe spoke again the words sounded but a blurred and distant murmur.

"I long for my darling petticoats," said Chloe, "and for my—my——"

"Your darling Huskinson," said Mrs. Verulam.

"Hush, Daisy!"

"Isn't it true?"

"I don't know. Perhaps, when I see him, I—but he may have gone back to America. He may—ah! ah! ah!"

She suddenly cried out at the very top of her voice, sprang up like one distraught, and grew as pale as a sheet of paper.

Mrs. Verulam was seriously startled.

"What is it? What is the matter?" she exclaimed.

"There—there!" shrieked Chloe, pointing with a trembling finger to a remote part of the garden.

"Where? What? Is it a serpent? Is it a monster?"

"Boswell!" cried Chloe—"Boswell! Oh, if he sees me in these—oh! oh! Daisy, come—come!" and dragging the amazed Mrs. Verulam with her, she sprang across the garden, and darted into the paragon's house without so much as knocking at the door.

"They've a-gone inside. Darn it all!" remarked Mr. Minnidick to Mr. Bush among the sprouts.

The paragon made no reply, but went on digging in a heavy and almost soporific manner. His calm was so great, so apparently complete, that it nearly attained to majesty. The sphinx could not have gardened with a greater detachment in worlds before the sun and before the birth of Time.

Glancing from Mr. Minnidick's attic-window, Mrs. Verulam saw him, and cried out in wild astonishment:

"Chloe, there's Mr. Bush! How can he have got here?"

"I see him," said Chloe. "It doesn't matter. The point is that there's Boswell! There he is—no, not there; more to the left. Now, don't you see him?"

Mrs. Verulam followed her fluttering indication, and perceived a good-sized monkey, with a peculiarly plain and missing-link sort of face, seated upon a red geranium and devouring a very satisfying white rose.

"Isn't he lovely?" continued Chloe. "Isn't he a perfect specimen?"

"Of monkey beauty, no doubt, dear. But——"

"Oh, if he had seen me in those horrible trousers I should have died!" exclaimed Chloe, burying her hot face on Mrs. Verulam's shoulder.

"Are American monkeys really so dreadfully particular?"

"Not Boswell. Huskinson! He must be here. Boswell and he are like brothers."

"Not in appearance, I hope, Chloe?"

"Oh no—no; but in feeling. Huskinson must be close by. What shall I do?—what shall I do?"

"Keep quiet, and escape as soon as possible to the Elephant and Drum. Oh, there's a man——"

"Huskinson! Hide me! hide me! Let me get into a cupboard, or——"

"Two men coming up the road."

"Don't say it's Bream! Daisy, for Heaven's sake, don't—don't say it's Bream!"

"Isn't Bream short?"

"A dwarf, with an immense beard and bow-legs! Is it? is it?"

"No; he has a beard."

"Then it is—it is! What shall I do?"

"But he's tall, and so is——Good heavens!"

"What? what is it?"

"Good heavens!" repeated Mrs. Verulam, falling back from the window as pale as death.

"It is Bream! I knew it! It is Bream!"

"The Duke and Mr. Rodney!" whispered Mrs. Verulam.

Chloe was dumb with mingled relief and surprise.

"It can't—they can't——"

"It is. They are."

It was. They were. Carrying several hoes, they reached the wicket-gate, and advanced into the garden of the paragon.

The Duchess, aware of the flight of Mrs. Verulam and Chloe, was just opening the small door of the mushroom-house in the hope of making good her escape, when, to her horror, she heard the voice of her lawful husband say: "I shall kill him, without a doubt."

A second voice, which she also knew too well, replied in a trembling manner:

"Indeed, I fervently hope so, Duke—I fervently hope so. Still, we can never tell in these matters. A false step, the breaking of a hoe at a critical juncture, and—you have made your will, I hope?"

The speakers stood still at the very door of the mushroom-house, and the Duke said:

"By Jove!"

"I beg your pardon, Duke?"

"By Jove! It's lucky you reminded me. Rodney, have you a sheet of paper?"

"A sheet of paper?"

"Only a scrap—enough for me to disinherit that false woman upon—and a pencil."

The Duchess with difficulty repressed an outcry as she sank down upon a superb specimen of the Black Marsh mushroom.

"I think so, Duke. I have half an envelope."

"Enough. Give it me."

"But—but let me intercede——"

"Not a word. How do you spell 'testament'?"

"With two t's—no, three."

"I know that. Don't be a fool. Is it 'tement' or 'toment'?"

"The latter, I think, I fancy—or the former, one of the two most certainly."

"Of course it's one of the two. But which? It doesn't matter. There! If I fall, she's a pauper. That's something."

It was indeed something to the poor lady among the dibble-holes.

"Take charge of that, Rodney."

"Certainly, Duke. Now I see the word written I fancy it may possibly be 'tament.'"

"It doesn't matter. When a man's going to fight to the death to revenge his honour, one vowel's as good as another."

They advanced towards the bed of sprouts.