THE TRESPASSER: CHAPTER I. ONE IN SEARCH OF A KINGDOM

WHY GASTON BELWARD LEFT THE wholesome North to journey afar, Jacques Brillon asked often in the brawling streets of New York, and oftener in the fog of London as they made ready to ride to Ridley Court. There was a railway station two miles from the Court, but Belward had had enough of railways. He had brought his own horse Saracen, and Jacques’s broncho also, at foolish expense, across the sea, and at a hotel near Euston Station master and man mounted and set forth, having seen their worldly goods bestowed by staring porters, to go on by rail.

In murky London they attracted little notice; but when their hired guide left them at the outskirts, and they got away upon the highway towards the Court, cottagers stood gaping. For, outside the town there was no fog, and the fresh autumn air drew the people abroad.

“What is it makes ‘em stare, Jacques?” asked Belward, with a humorous sidelong glance.

Jacques looked seriously at the bright pommel of his master’s saddle and the shining stirrups and spurs, dug a heel into the tender skin of his broncho, and replied:

“Too much silver all at once.”

He tossed his curling black hair, showing up the gold rings in his ears, and flicked the red-and-gold tassels of his boots.

“You think that’s it, eh?” rejoined Belward, as he tossed a shilling to a beggar.

“Maybe, too, your great Saracen to this tot of a broncho, and the grand homme to little Jacques Brillon.” Jacques was tired and testy.

The other laid his whip softly on the half-breed’s shoulder.

“See, my peacock: none of that. You’re a spanking good servant, but you’re in a country where it’s knuckle down man to master; and what they do here you’ve got to do, or quit—go back to your pea-soup and caribou. That’s as true as God’s in heaven, little Brillon. We’re not on the buffalo trail now. You understand?”

Jacques nodded.

“Hadn’t you better say it?”

The warning voice drew up the half-breed’s face swiftly, and he replied:

“I am to do what you please.”

“Exactly. You’ve been with me six years—ever since I turned Bear Eye’s moccasins to the sun; and for that you swore you’d never leave me. Did it on a string of holy beads, didn’t you, Frenchman?”

“I do it again.”

He drew out a rosary, and disregarding Belward’s outstretched hand, said:

“By the Mother of God, I will never leave you!” There was a kind of wondering triumph in Belward’s eyes, though he had at first shrunk from Jacques’s action, and a puzzling smile came.

“Wherever I go, or whatever I do?”

“Whatever you do, or wherever you go.”

He put the rosary to his lips, and made the sign of the cross.

His master looked at him curiously, intently. Here was a vain, naturally indolent half-breed, whose life had made for selfishness and independence, giving his neck willingly to a man’s heel, serving with blind reverence, under a voluntary vow.

“Well, it’s like this, Jacques,” Belward said presently; “I want you, and I’m not going to say that you’ll have a better time than you did in the North, or on the Slope; but if you’d rather be with me than not, you’ll find that I’ll interest you. There’s a bond between us, anyway. You’re half French, and I’m one-fourth French, and more. You’re half Indian, and I’m one-fourth Indian—no more. That’s enough. So far, I haven’t much advantage. But I’m one-half English—King’s English, for there’s been an offshoot of royalty in our family somewhere, and there’s the royal difference. That’s where I get my brains—and manners.”

“Where did you get the other?” asked Jacques, shyly, almost furtively.

“Money?”

“Not money—the other.”

Belward spurred, and his horse sprang away viciously. A laugh came back on Jacques, who followed as hard as he could, and it gave him a feeling of awe. They were apart for a long time, then came together again, and rode for miles without a word. At last Belward, glancing at a sign-post before an inn door, exclaimed at the legend—"The Whisk o’ Barley,"—and drew rein. He regarded the place curiously for a minute. The landlord came out. Belward had some beer brought.

A half-dozen rustics stood gaping, not far away. He touched his horse with a heel. Saracen sprang towards them, and they fell back alarmed. Belward now drank his beer quietly, and asked question after question of the landlord, sometimes waiting for an answer, sometimes not—a kind of cross-examination. Presently he dismounted.

As he stood questioning, chiefly about Ridley Court and its people, a coach showed on the hill, and came dashing down and past. He lifted his eyes idly, though never before had he seen such a coach as swings away from Northumberland Avenue of a morning. He was not idle, however; but he had not come to England to show surprise at anything. As the coach passed his face lifted above the arm on the neck of the horse, keen, dark, strange. A man on the box-seat, attracted at first by the uncommon horses and their trappings, caught Belward’s eyes. Not he alone, but Belward started then. Some vague intelligence moved the minds of both, and their attention was fixed till the coach rounded a corner and was gone.

The landlord was at Belward’s elbow.

“The gentleman on the box-seat be from Ridley Court. That’s Maister Ian Belward, sir.”

Gaston Belward’s eyes half closed, and a sombre look came, giving his face a handsome malice. He wound his fingers in his horse’s mane, and put a foot in the stirrup.

“Who is ‘Maister Ian’?”

“Maister Ian be Sir William’s eldest, sir. On’y one that’s left, sir. On’y three to start wi’: and one be killed i’ battle, and one had trouble wi’ his faither and Maister Ian; and he went away and never was heard on again, sir. That’s the end on him.”

“Oh, that’s the end on him, eh, landlord? And how long ago was that?”

“Becky, lass,” called the landlord within the door, “wheniver was it Maister Robert turned his back on the Court—iver so while ago? Eh, a fine lad that Maister Robert as iver I see!”

Fat laborious Becky hobbled out, holding an apple and a knife. She blinked at her husband, and then at the strangers.

“What be askin’ o’ the Court?” she said. Her husband repeated the question.

She gathered her apron to her eyes with an unctuous sob:

“Doan’t a’ know when Maister Robert went! He comes, i’ the house ‘ere and says, ‘Becky, gie us a taste o’ the red-top-and where’s Jock?’ He was always thinkin’ a deal o’ my son Jock. ‘Jock be gone,’ I says, ‘and I knows nowt o’ his comin’ back’—meanin’, I was, that day. ‘Good for Jock!’ says he, ‘and I’m goin’ too, Becky, and I knows nowt o’ my comin’ back.’ ‘Where be goin’, Maister Robert?’ I says. ‘To hell, Becky,’ says he, and he laughs. ‘From hell to hell. I’m sick to my teeth o’ one, I’ll try t’other’—a way like that speaks he.”

Belward was impatient, and to hurry the story he made as if to start on. Becky, seeing, hastened. “Dear a’ dear! The red-top were afore him, and I tryin’ to make what become to him. He throws arm ‘round me, smacks me on the cheek, and says he: ‘Tell Jock to keep the mare, Becky.’ Then he flings away, and never more comes back to the Court. And that day one year my Jock smacks me on the cheek, and gets on the mare; and when I ask: ‘Where be goin’?’ he says: ‘For a hunt i’ hell wi’ Maister Robert, mother.’ And from that day come back he never did, nor any word. There was trouble wi’ the lad-wi’ him and Maister Robert at the Court; but I never knowed nowt o’ the truth. And it’s seven-and-twenty years since Maister Robert went.”

Gaston leaned over his horse’s neck, and thrust a piece of silver into the woman’s hands.

“Take that, Becky Lawson, and mop your eyes no more.”

She gaped.

“How dost know my name is Becky Lawson? I havena been ca’d so these three-and-twenty years—not since a’ married good man here, and put Jock’s faither in ‘s grave yander.”

“The devil told me,” he answered, with a strange laugh, and, spurring, they were quickly out of sight. They rode for a couple of miles without speaking. Jacques knew his master, and did not break the silence. Presently they came over a hill, and down upon a little bridge. Belward drew rein, and looked up the valley. About...