Through Russian Snows Part 10

"After a long tramp on the hills he took to a place of hiding. I am bound by oath to afford no clue as to where that place is, and can only say that upon my following him in, I was pounced upon by some French smugglers who were there with him, and trussed up like a fowl. Then there was a discussion what to do with me, in which the man I had been following joined. Of course I did not understand the language, but I could see that the smugglers were in favour of cutting my throat for having discovered their hiding-place, and that the man himself was, contrary to what I should have expected, arguing in my favour. He had been a smuggler as well as a poacher, but although he had murdered Mr. Faulkner, and knew that I had pursued him for that crime, he undoubtedly saved my life. They first made me take an oath not to reveal their hiding-place, and then said that they should carry me over to France, and would take steps so that I should not return to England for some years.

"What those steps will be I cannot say, but I feel sure that they will in some way prevent my coming back for a long time. They can't keep me themselves, but may hand me over as a prisoner to the French authorities. Before we sailed the man told me he had learnt that a warrant was out against me for the murder of Faulkner, and that Faulkner had declared it was I who shot him. If I could possibly have escaped I would have come back to stand my trial, though I can see plainly enough that it might go very hard with me, for there would be only my word, which would go for nothing against Faulkner's accusation, and the fact of our quarrel. However, I would have come rather than disappear with this awful charge against me. The man has given me permission, not only to write and tell you this story, but even to give you his name, which is Joseph Markham. He had only been a short time out of prison, where he had been sent for poaching, and he killed Faulkner simply for revenge. He told me that he did not mind my getting his name as, in the first place, he had no idea of returning to Weymouth, and intended making France his home; and, in the second place, because, although you might believe my story, no one else would, and even if he showed himself in Weymouth, this letter, written by a man accused of the murder, would not be accepted for a moment against him. However, there is no doubt that the fellow has behaved extremely well to me, and I should be sorry to get him into trouble over this business with Faulkner, which is no affair of mine.

"You can, of course, show this letter to whom you like, but I don't expect anyone except you and Aunt to believe it. I have hopes of being cleared some day, for Markham has promised me to write out a full confession of his shooting Faulkner, and to swear to it before a French magistrate. He is going to write it in duplicate, and carry one copy about with him, directed to Colonel Chambers, or the senior magistrate at Weymouth, and to send the other copy to someone at home, who will produce it in case of his death in France, or by drowning at sea. I do not think that, if I get away, I shall return to England until I hear of his death. I am awfully sorry for you, old fellow, and for Aunt. But with this frightful accusation hanging over me, I don't think your position would be better if I were to come back and be hung for murder; and I see myself that the case is so strong against me that it would almost certainly come to that if they laid hands on me. I am specially sorry that this trouble should come upon you now, just as you were going to try to get a commission, for of course they could hardly give one to a fellow whose brother is accused of murder, and if they did, your position in the army would be intolerable. Now, good-bye, dear old Frank; give my fond love to Aunt, who has always been too good to me. If I get an opportunity I will write again, but I hardly fancy that I shall get a chance to do so, as, even if I were free to write I don't see how letters can be sent from France except through smugglers. G.o.d bless you, old fellow.

"Your unfortunate brother,

"Julian."

Happily, by the time he had finished reading the letter, the servant had succeeded in restoring Mrs. Troutbeck.

"It is exactly what we thought, Aunt. Julian was seized by smugglers, and has been taken over to France, and I am afraid it will be some time before he gets back again, especially as he believes that this charge is hanging over him. I won't read you the letter now, but to-morrow when you are strong enough you shall read it yourself. I must take it the first thing in the morning to Colonel Chambers, who will, I am sure, be very glad to hear that Julian is safe, for I know that he thinks he was shot by the man he pursued. He will be interested, too, and so will Mr. Henderson, at seeing how exactly we were right in the conclusions we arrived at."

Mrs. Troutbeck was quite satisfied with the explanation, and was at once taken up to bed by the servant, while Frank, seeing that it was as yet but eight o'clock, put on his cap and ran to Mr. Henderson's. The latter was at home, and received with great pleasure the news that Julian was alive. He read the letter through attentively.

"If we had seen the whole thing happen, we could not have been closer than we were in our conclusion as to how it all came about. Well, the news that it is Markham who shot Mr. Faulkner does not surprise me, for, as you know, I have already a warrant out against him on the charge. I fear that there is little chance that we shall lay hands on him now, for he will doubtless learn from some of his a.s.sociates here of the evidence given at the coroner's inquest, and that your brother has been proved altogether innocent of the crime. I can understand that, believing, as he did, the evidence against Mr. Wyatt to be overwhelming, he had no great objection to his giving his name; for, as the matter then stood, your brother's story would only have been regarded as the attempt of a guilty man to fix the blame of his crime on another. As it has turned out, the letter is a piece of important evidence that might be produced against Markham, for all the statements in it tally with the facts we have discovered for ourselves. Still I congratulate you most heartily. I certainly thought that your brother had been murdered, though our efforts to find any traces of the crime have failed altogether. I am afraid, as he says, it will be a long time before he manages to get away; still, that is a comparatively unimportant matter, and all that I can hope is that this fellow Markham will come to a speedy end. Of course you will show this letter to everyone, for now that n.o.body believes for a moment that your brother was Mr. Faulkner's murderer, everyone will be glad to hear that the mystery is cleared up, and that he is simply in France instead of being, as all supposed, buried in some hole where his body would never be discovered.

"All that can possibly be said against him now is that he behaved rashly in following a desperate man instead of coming back to us for a.s.sistance; but I quite see that, under the circ.u.mstance of his relations with the magistrate, he was doubly anxious to bring the latter's murderer to justice, and, as we now know, the latter would certainly have got away unsuspected had your brother not acted as he did."

Colonel Chambers was equally pleased when Frank called upon him the next morning, and begged him, after showing the letter to his friends, to hand it over to him for safe keeping, as, in the event of Markham ever being arrested, it would be valuable, if not as evidence, as affording a.s.sistance to the prosecution.

"Do you think, Colonel Chambers, that they will be able to keep Julian away for a long time?"

"If his supposition is a correct one, and they intend to hand him over to the French authorities as a prisoner of war, it may be a long time before you hear of him. There are many towns all over France where English prisoners are confined, and it would be practically impossible to find out where he is, or to obtain his release if you did find out, while the two nations are at war. There are very few exchanges made, and the chances of his being among them would be very small. However, lad, things might have been a great deal worse. This tremendous war cannot go on for ever. Your brother is strong and healthy; he seems to be, from all I hear, just the sort of fellow who would take things easily, and although the lot of prisoners of war, whether in England or France, cannot be called a pleasant one, he has a fairer chance than most, of going through it unharmed.

"The experience may be of benefit to him. Of course, when this matter first began, I made close enquiries in several quarters as to his character and habits. I need not say that I heard nothing whatever against him; but there was a sort of consensus of opinion that it was a pity that he had not some pursuit or occupation. As you know, he mixed himself up to some extent with smugglers, he spent his evenings frequently in billiard-rooms, and altogether, though there was nothing absolutely against him, it was clear that he was doing himself no good."

"He had given up the billiard-table," Frank said. "He promised me that he would not go there any more, and I am sure he wouldn't."

"I am glad to hear it, lad; still I think that this experience will do him good rather than harm. He was a kindly, good-tempered, easy-going young fellow, a little deficient, perhaps, in strength of will, but very generally liked, and with the making of a fine man about him; and yet he was likely, from sheer easiness of temper and disinclination to settle down to anything, to drift with the stream till he ruined his life. That is how I read his character from what I have heard of him, and that being so, I think this complete break in his life may ultimately be of considerable benefit to him."

"Perhaps it will, sir. A better brother never lived, but he may have been too ready to fall in with other people's views. I think that it was a very great pity that he did not apply for a commission in the army."

"A great pity," Colonel Chambers agreed. "A young fellow who will start in pursuit of a desperate man who is armed with a gun, would be the sort of fellow to lead a forlorn hope. And what are you going to do, Frank?"

"I am going to try and get a commission, sir, now that Julian is completely cleared. I shall set about it at once. I am sixteen now. Colonel Wilson, with whom my father served in Spain, wrote at his death, and said that if either of us wished for a commission, he would, when the time came, use his influence to get him one, and that after father's services he was sure there would be no difficulty about it."

"None whatever. Colonel Wyatt's sons have almost a right to a commission. If you will write to Sir Robert Wilson at once, and let me know when you get his reply, I will write to a friend at the Horse-guards and get him to back up the request as soon as it is sent in."

Three weeks later Frank received an official doc.u.ment, informing him that he had been gazetted to the 15th Light Dragoons, and was to join the depot of his regiment at Canterbury immediately. Mrs. Troutbeck had been consulted by Frank before he wrote to Colonel Sir R. Wilson. As it had, since Julian decided not to enter the army, been a settled thing that Frank should apply for a commission, she had offered no objection.

"It is only right, my dear," she said, with tears in her eyes and a little break in her voice, "that one of my dear brother's sons should follow in his footsteps. I know that he always wished you both to join the army, and as Julian had no fancy for it, I am glad that you should go. Of course it will be a trial, a great trial to me; but a young man must go on his own path, and it would be wrong indeed for an old woman like me to stand in his way."

"I don't know, Aunt, that it is so. That is my only doubt about applying for the commission. I can't help thinking that it is my duty to stay with you until Julian comes back."

"Not at all, Frank. It would make me much more unhappy seeing you wasting your life here, than in knowing you were following the course you had marked for yourself. I shall do very well. Mary is a very good and attentive girl, and I shall get another in to do most of her work, so that she can sit with me and be a sort of companion. Then, you know, there are very few afternoons that one or other of my friends do not come in for an hour for a gossip or I go in to them. I take a good deal of blame to myself for all this trouble that has come to Julian. I think that if, three years ago, I had pressed it upon him that he ought to go into the army, he would have done so; but certainly anything that I did say was rather the other way, and since he has gone I see how wrong I was, and I certainly won't repeat the mistake with you. Even now Julian may come back long before you go. I don't mean before you go away from here, but before you go out to join your regiment, wherever that may be. You are sure to be a few months at the depot, and you know we have agreed to write letters to Julian, telling him that the matter is all cleared up, and that everyone knows he had nothing to do with the murder, so of course he will try to escape as soon as he gets one of them."

"Yes, when he gets one, Aunt. I will give the letters to men who are, I know, connected with the smugglers, and possibly they may be taken over, but that is a very different thing from his getting them. We may be sure that the smugglers who have taken Julian over will not trouble themselves about detaining him. They would never go to all the bother of keeping and watching him for years. If they keep him at all it will be on board their craft, but that would be a constant trouble, and they would know that sooner or later he would be able to make his escape. If they have handed him over to the French authorities he may have been taken to a prison hundreds of miles from Nantes, and the smugglers would not know where he was and would be unable to send a letter to him. No, Aunt, I feel confident that Julian will come home, but I am afraid that it will be a long time first, for as to his escaping from prison, there is no chance whatever of it. There are numbers of English officers there; many of them must be able to speak French well, and the naval officers are able to climb ropes and things of that sort that Julian could not do. It is very rare indeed that any of them, even with these advantages, make their escape, and therefore I cannot hope that Julian will be able to do so."

"Well, then, my dear, I must wait patiently until he does. I only hope that I may be spared to see him back again."

"I am sure I hope so, Aunt. Why should you always call yourself an old woman? when you know that you are not old in years. Why, you said last birthday that you were fifty-nine, and it is only because you are such a hand at staying indoors, and live such a quiet life, that it makes you think yourself old. I should think this war won't last very much longer. If it does all the men in Europe will be used up. Of course, as soon as peace is made Julian will be sent home again."

The same day that the post brought Frank the news of his commission, it brought a letter from Colonel Wilson saying that he was at present in town, and giving him a warm invitation to come up and stay with him for a week, while he procured his necessary outfit. A fortnight later Frank arrived in town and drove to Buckingham Street, where Colonel Wilson was lodging. He received Frank very kindly, and when the lad would have renewed the thanks he had expressed in the letter he had written on receiving the news of his having obtained his commission, the Colonel said:

"It was a duty as well as a pleasure. Your father saved my life at Aboukir. I had been unhorsed and was guarding myself as well as I could against four French cuira.s.siers, who were slas.h.i.+ng away at me, when your father rode into the middle of them, cut one down and wounded a second, which gave me time to s.n.a.t.c.h a pistol from the holster of my fallen horse and to dispose of a third, when the other rode off. Your father got a severe sabre wound on the arm and a slash across the face. Of course, you remember the scar. So you see the least I could do, was to render his son any service in my power. I managed to get you gazetted to my old regiment, that is to say, my first regiment, for I have served in several. I thought, in the first place, my introduction would to some extent put you at home there. In the second, a cavalry man has the advantage over one in a marching regiment that he learns to ride well, and is more eligible for staff appointments. As you know, I myself have done a great deal of what we call detached service, and it is probable that I may in the future have similar appointments, and, if so, I may have an opportunity of taking you with me as an aide. Those sort of appointments are very useful. They not only take one out of the routine of garrison life and enable one to see the world, but they bring a young officer's name prominently forward, and give him chances of distinguis.h.i.+ng himself. Therefore I, as an old cavalry man, should much prefer taking an a.s.sistant from the same branch, and indeed would almost be expected to do so. From what I hear, I think that, apart from my friends.h.i.+p for your father, you are the kind of young fellow I should like with me."

Frank looked rather surprised.

"I had a letter," Colonel Wilson went on, "from Colonel Chambers, who was a captain in the 15th when I joined. He spoke in very high terms of you, and sent a copy of the proceedings and reports connected with the murder of that magistrate, and said that it was almost entirely due to your sharpness that your brother was cleared of the suspicion that had not unreasonably fallen upon him, and the saddle put upon the right horse. There is a sort of idea that any das.h.i.+ng young fellow will do for the cavalry, and no doubt dash is one of the prime requisites for cavalry officers, but if he is really to distinguish himself and be something more than a brave swordsman, more especially if he is likely to have the opportunity of obtaining a staff appointment, he needs other qualities, for on a reconnaissance a man who has a quick eye, good powers of observation and thoughtfulness, may send in a report of a most valuable kind, while that of the average young officer might be absolutely useless.

"Having said this much, I would advise you strongly to devote a couple of hours a day regularly to the study of French and German. You may find them invaluable, especially if you are engaged on any diplomatic mission, and much more useful at first than the study of writers on military tactics and strategy. There will be plenty of time for that afterwards. At Canterbury you will have no difficulty in finding a master among the many French emigres, and as there are at present two or three troops of one of our German Hussar regiments there, and some of these men belong to families who preferred exile and service in the ranks to living under French domination, you may find a soldier who will be glad enough to add to his pay by a little teaching. A draft went out only a fortnight or so since to your regiment, and you are therefore likely to be some time at Canterbury before you are ordered out, and as the time in a garrison town hangs heavily on hand, a little steady work will help to make it pa.s.s not unpleasantly."

"I will certainly do so, sir. We had a French master at school. It was not compulsory to learn the language, but I thought it might be useful if I went into the army, and so took it up. I don't say that I can speak well at all, but I know enough to help me a good deal."

"That is right, lad. Ah, here is supper. I am sure you must want it after being eighteen hours on the outside of a coach in such weather as this, though I daresay as far as food went you did not do badly."

"No, sir; there was plenty of time at the stopping-places for meals, and as I was well wrapped up the cold was nothing."

Frank, however, could not deny that he felt very stiff after his journey, and was not sorry to retire to bed as soon as he had eaten his supper. There were few men in the army who had seen so much and such varied service as Colonel Sir Robert Wilson. Joining the army in 1793, he served through the campaigns of Flanders and Holland. In 1797, having attained the rank of captain, he was detached from his regiment and served on Major-general St. John's staff during the rebellion in Ireland. Two years later he rejoined his regiment and proceeded to the Helder, and was engaged in all the battles that took place during that campaign. On the Convention being signed he purchased a majority in one of the regiments of German Hussars in our service. He was then sent on a mission to Vienna, and having fulfilled this, went down through Italy to Malta, where he expected to find his regiment, which formed part of General Abercrombie's command. He joined it before it landed in Egypt, and served through the campaign there. He then purchased his lieutenant-colonelcy, and exchanged into the 20th Light Dragoons. He was with that portion of his regiment which formed part of Sir David Baird's division, and sailed first to the Brazils and then to the Cape of Good Hope, which possession it wrested from the Dutch.

On his return to England he was directed to proceed on the staff of Lord Hutchinson to Berlin, but on his arrival at Memel was despatched to the Russian headquarters as British commissioner. He continued with the Russian army during the next two campaigns, and on the signature of the treaty of Tilsit returned to England, and made several journeys to St. Petersburg with confidential despatches, and brought to England the first news that the Czar had concluded an alliance with Napoleon and was about to declare war against England. In 1808 Sir Robert Wilson was sent to Portugal to raise the Portuguese legion, and, acting independently as a Brigadier-general, rendered very valuable services, until in 1809 the legion was absorbed in the Portuguese army. He was now waiting for other employment.

The colonel went out with Frank after breakfast next morning and ordered his uniform and equipments. Frank was well supplied with money, for by the terms of his father's will either of his sons who entered the army was ent.i.tled to draw two hundred pounds a year to pay for outfit, horse, and as allowance until he came of age, when he would receive his share of the capital. Mrs. Troutbeck had, when he said good-bye to her, slipped a pocket-book with bank-notes for a hundred pounds into his hands.

"Money is always useful, Frank," she said, when he protested that he was amply supplied, "and if you should ever find that your allowance is insufficient write to me. I know that you are not in the least likely to be extravagant or foolish, but you see what a sc.r.a.pe your brother has got into, without any fault of your own, and you may also find yourself in a position where you may want money. If you do, write to me at once."

After the orders had been given, Sir Robert Wilson took Frank about London to see some of the sights. At dinner he asked him many questions as to his studies and amus.e.m.e.nts, and the way in which his day was generally spent. After dining at Sir Robert's club they returned to his lodgings.

"I am very pleased, Frank," he said as he lighted a cigar, "both with what I have heard of you and with what I see for myself. Now I will speak to you more freely than I did before, but mind, what I say is strictly confidential. Government have obtained secret information which points surely to the fact that Napoleon is meditating an offensive war against Russia. He is acc.u.mulating troops in Germany and Poland out of all proportion to the operations he has been carrying on against Austria. When that war will break out is more than I or anyone can say, but when it does take place I have Lord Wellesley's promise that I shall go out there in the same position I held during their last war, that is, as British commissioner with the Russian army. Now, lad, in that position I shall be ent.i.tled to take a young officer with me as my a.s.sistant, or what, if engaged on other service, would be called aide-de-camp. One cannot be everywhere at once, and I should often have to depend upon him for information as to what was taking place at points where I could not be present.

"He would, too, act as my secretary. It may possibly be a year before Napoleon's preparations are completed; but even in a year I should hardly be justified in choosing so young an officer from my old regiment, unless he had some special qualifications for the post. Now, for your father's sake, Frank, and because I like you and feel sure that you are just the man I require, I should like to take you, but could not do so unless you had some special knowledge that I could urge as a reason for applying for you. There is only one such qualification that I know of, namely, that you should be able to speak the Russian language. When I spoke to you about learning French and German I did so on general principles, and not with a view to this, for it did not seem to me that I could possibly select you to go with me on this service; but I have since thought it over, and have come to the conclusion that I could do so, if you did but understand Russian. It is a most difficult language, and although I can now get on with it fairly after my stay out there, I thought at first I should never make any headway in it. It would, therefore, be of no use whatever for you to attempt it unless you are ready to work very hard at it, and to give up, I should say, at least four hours a day to study."

"I should be quite ready to do that, sir," Frank said earnestly, "and I thank you indeed for your kindness. But who should I get to teach me?"

"That we must see about. There are, I have no doubt, many Russian Poles in London who speak the language well, and who have picked up enough English for your purpose. The Poles are marvellous linguists. We will go to-morrow to the headquarters of the Bow Street runners. They are the detectives, you know, and if they cannot at once put their hands upon such a man as we want, they will be able to ferret out half a dozen in twenty-four hours. One of these fellows you must engage to go down to Canterbury and take lodgings there. They are almost always in dest.i.tute circ.u.mstances, and would be content with very moderate pay, which would not draw very heavily on your resources. Thirty s.h.i.+llings a week would be a fortune to one of them. Even if this war should not come off-but I have myself no doubt about it-the language might in the future be of great value to you. I don't suppose there is a single officer in the English army, with the exception of myself, who knows a word of Russian, and in the future it might secure you the position of military attache to our emba.s.sy there. At any rate it will render it easy for me to secure you an appointment on my mission when it comes off, and in that case you will be a witness of one of the most stupendous struggles that has ever taken place. You think you can really stick to it, Frank? You will have, no doubt, to put up with a good deal of chaff from your comrades on your studious tastes."

"I sha'n't mind that, sir. I have often been chaffed at school, because I used to insist on getting up my work before I would join anything that was going on, and used to find that if I took it good temperedly, it soon ceased."

The next day they went to Bow Street. Sir Robert's card was sufficient to ensure them attention, and several of the detectives were questioned. One of them replied, "I think that I know just the man. He occupies an attic in the house next to mine. He is a young fellow of four-and-twenty, and I know he has been trying to support himself by giving lessons in German, but I don't think that he has ever had a pupil, and I believe he is nearly starving. His landlady told me that he has parted with all his clothes except those that he stands upright in. Of late he has been picking up a few pence by carrying luggage for people who land at the wharves. I have not spoken to him myself, but she tells me that he is a perfect gentleman, and though sometimes, as she believes, he has not so much as a crust of bread between his lips all day, he regularly pays his rent of a Sat.u.r.day."

"I should think that he would be just the man for us. Would you see him when you go home this afternoon, and ask him to come to No. 44 Buckingham Street, either this evening at nine, or at the same hour to-morrow morning? I have written my address on this card."

At nine o'clock that evening the landlady came upstairs and said, rather doubtfully, that a young man had called to see Sir Robert, and that he had one of Sir Robert's cards.

"That is right, Mrs. Richards. I was expecting him."

The Pole was brought up. He was a pale young man, dressed in a thin suit of clothes that accorded but ill with the sharp frost outside. He bowed respectfully, and said in very fair English, "I am told, sir, that you wish to speak to me."