346

A Dreadful Case.

I.

I THOUGHT it was very good of Messrs. Buckram and Blake to tell me on my sixtieth birthday that they did not believe in working a willing horse to death, and that therefore they had decided to allow me to retire from their service on two-thirds of my salary. I had been with them altogether five-and-forty years, and it seemed but yesterday that I was appointed their chief clerk, having two subordinates; but full twenty years had passed since then. Now I had a staff of fifteen clerks under me, and my salary of four hundred pounds per annum will give you some little idea of the responsibility attached to my position. I cannot think for a moment that that unfortunate error of mine a week or two before they invited me to retire-I mean, my sending a rather stern application for payment to the wrong parties-had anything at all to do with this event. True, when the blunder was discovered, Mr. Blake said, with a severity which was really quite uncalled for, 'Your memory is not what it used to be, Frogg'; but men who thought poorly of the ability of their chief clerk would scarcely on his retirement have made him a present for his wife of a neat little silver tea-service, 'As a trifling tribute' (so ran the inscription on the tea-pot) to his long and faithful labours '— would they, now? No. I flatter myself that I could have done justice to Buckram and Blake for another ten years and more. However, I was by no means loath to be completely master of my own time at an age when I was still, as Mr. Harry Blake Buckram said, in his funny way, a dashing old youngster.' Gardening (window-gardening, that is to say) had long been with me a passion. Yet Claremont Square, Pentonville, afforded far too little scope for my horticultural genius. I do not refer to the square itself, but to the window-sills of the four rooms at No. 45 that my wife and I had occupied for many, many years. Here at length was an opportunity, in the large garden of some picturesque suburban villa, for the full development of those powers which had hitherto been exercised after six o'clock in the evening on windowflowers, and that in a very fitful way. Geraniums in perennial pots might now yield to geraniums in beds.

things have happened in history), the name

Perhaps, too (stranger even of a humble city

clerk might be handed down to posterity, and the Froggei variety

of geraniums flourish in a thousand gardens generations after poor old Frogg himself was dead and gone!

I confess that with these dreams of the future which crowded my brain on my way home, was mingled a feeling of shame at the thought of the vexation I had shown that very morning on learning that a tenant of mine intended next quarter-day to give up the cottage which he occupied at Dulwich. Why, as it had happened, nothing could suit me better. Of the house itself I had certainly never thought very highly. It was simply a rather poor specimen of modern Building Society Gothic semi-detached, as they call it. The party-wall which separated my own from its companion house was a marvel of tenuity. That wall had evidently been built for the sole purpose of promoting a feeling of neighbourliness; since friendly conversation between the inhabitants of the two dwellings was quite practicable through it; and scandal was checked, thank heaven! by the fact that it could easily be overheard. But there was one advantage which my property possessed which to me was unmixed; namely, that a large plot of garden-ground was attached thereto; in none the worse condition, to my mind, because the present occupant of 'Marie Villa' (named after my wife Polly, by the way) had no soul for gardening, and had allowed it to become overgrown with weeds. For, beginning my career as a practical horticulturist under such circumstances, the triumph over Nature which I fondly anticipated would be entirely my own. In years to come I could proudly say, 'I found a wilderness: I leave the Froggei variety of geranium in glorious profusion!'

Well, to avoid verbosity—which is the bane of age—I will just state at once that the autumn following my retirement from the service of Buckram and Blake found me fully established as a gentleman-gardener. It was the noon of a dull September day. The man whom I employed to dig up the ground, and do the rougher work generally, had just laid down his spade and gone to dinner. My maxim is—as it was when I was Buckram's chief clerk -'Never be seen idle by a subordinate;' so it was not until the gardener's back was turned that I put my pruning-knife in my pocket, yawned lazily, filled my old briar-root pipe, and prepared to look around reflectively. What a strange contrast was the scene around to that which daily greeted my eyes year after year from the top of the Islington 'bus! Thank God! the harsh clatter of the mill of commerce had not become such music to my ears that I could not enjoy the sombre calm of such a day as this. Above was a waste of pale grey sky; a mist hung upon the skirts of the meadows-in that light, a deep soothing green-which stretched towards Dulwich College and the Crystal Palace; and in

a neighbouring field chestnut-trees, whose leaves were reddening with the decay of autumn, relieved the dulness of the slaty clouds. O to live amid such scenes until I dropped from the tree of life as gently as those decaying leaves! O to find, perhaps, my views about the Froggei geranium appreciated by genial neighbours!

'If you please, sir, the mistress says as they've come.'

The owner of the voice which thus interrupted my meditations at a most interesting stage was that very worthy woman Ann Lightbody, our middle-aged servant-maid.

'Ah!' I exclaimed, somewhat vacantly; the influence of the thoughts which had just been passing through my mind conspiring with Ann's vague statement to prevent a more expressive

response.

'The mistress can't make 'em out a bit, and she have her doubts, sir.'

This satisfactory addition to my information was made while Ann held open the French window of the drawing-room, in order to allow me to pass into the house.

6

You mean that you have your doubts, Ann,' said I, and that your mistress did not contradict you.'

Well, sir, the Pantegon man's at the door, and you can see for yourself. Such a 'eap of lumber I never see, in all my exper❜ence.'

The drift of Ann's critical remarks began to be plain to me. We had been expecting fresh tenants of the adjoining house for some days, and now they were moving in.

'I cannot think he is a gentleman,' said my wife, as I approached the front window to inspect the lumber,' as Ann called it. 'I do hope there are no children,' she added, evidently feeling that the offspring of a man who was not a gentleman must necessarily be ill-mannered and unruly.

The person to whom she referred-clearly, judging by his actions, the owner of the van's contents-was leaning against the railings of the next house, and from time to time cautioning the men-very much to their annoyance, I thought-as to their way of carrying in the goods. He was a tall, sallow man, with a thick but closely cropped beard, and a long ferocious moustache. His hands were in the pockets of a rather seedy blue serge jacket, and on his head was a wideawake that had evidently suffered very much from the rain. A short clay pipe, black with long service, gave the finishing touch to the disreputable appearance which he presented. My wife's opinion, that he was not a gentleman, seemed not altogether so groundless as I should have imagined. Discernment of character is not one of her strong points.

It was this that made me pause before replying to her comment on our neighbour, for I knew from long experience that she would feel so flattered by my agreeing with her judgment that her imagination would soon get quite beyond control; and this tall sallow man, in addition to being not genteel, would rapidly reach, in my wife's estimation, yet more distinguished positions in crime. In a week he would be a possible forger; in ten days a probable murderer.

Ah! little did I think when these thoughts were passing through my mind that very shortly I, Joram Frogg, the experienced, cool-brained commercial man, should deem my wife's most extravagant speculation a strong probability.

What do you think, Joram dear?' she inquired anxiously. 'I have not made up my mind.'

'I wish we had never left Claremont Square,' exclaimed my poor wife; of course interpreting my hesitation unfavourably to our neighbour. There now! I have been watching every single thing that has been taken out of the van, and there is not a shrub, nor a plant, nor a garden tool among them. And how you have talked, to be sure, about nice neighbours who had a taste for flowers!'

My heart sank as I reflected on the latter part of my wife's remarks. The feeling of repulsion I experienced on seeing that tall, carelessly-attired man, was intensified when I realised that I dare not hope for neighbourly sympathy with the taste which had mainly induced me to live in Dulwich. Neither Polly nor myself were happy when we retired to rest that night, separated from an unsatisfactory neighbour by the thinnest of walls!

II.

A NOVEMBER morning. The rime upon tree and shrub and the hard bare earth is slowly yielding to the rays of a winter sun. I, Joram Frogg, a frozen-out gardener, have come out into the air to enjoy the sudden burst of warmth, and to watch the glistening icicles change to dew-drops, as it were, and sparkle, each one, with the glory of the rainbow.

There is more to be done, however, than simply enjoying the unwonted sunlight. The easy life I have spent during the last month or two has, notwithstanding my energetic gardening, begun to affect me in a very disagreeable and unexpected manner. I have been getting fat! But I flatter myself that I have peculiar talent for meeting and overcoming difficulties of every kind. The heavy garden-roller which I bought on entering Marie Villa

would have lain by, gathering the rust of idleness, during the winter months, had not the happy idea entered my brain of employing it in the interests of health. Consequently, every morning, be it wet or be it dry, sees me, for at least half-an-hour, manfully trotting round the trim gravel paths of my flowery domain, with the garden roller behind me.

Crunch, crunch, crunch-tramp, tramp, tramp. The perspiration stood upon my brow in beads as I gave myself to my laborious task this sunny morning. I had made half-a-dozen circuits of the garden with my eyes bent upon the path before me, when the sound of a voice, trembling as with age, caused me to stop and look towards our neighbour's garden.

Hi! Good morning to you, sir.'

'Good morning, sir,' I replied, howing to the elderly, infirmlooking man who greeted me.

He had a long beard of snowy whiteness, save round his mouth, where it was jet black. His eyebrows, also, were of the same hue. This contrast alone gave him a very singular look; but the addition of a huge seal-skin cap, with great flaps covering his ears, and a long rough Ulster coat, the collar of which was turned up, would have made his appearance comical in the extreme, save that the soft, almost beseeching expression of his dark eyes forbade the thought.

This old man, plainly an invalid, with a tendency to limpness, had arrived in a cab along with our suspicious neighbour's wife towards the close of the day on which the house was tenanted. This was the first time, to my knowledge, that he had stirred out of doors since then.

He coughed violently for about a minute, and then said, as he wiped the moisture from his eyes:

'You are a very young man, sir; and a rather lively young man, sir.'

'Sixty-one next birthday, sir,' I answered, with all the boastfulness of youth.

'Bless my soul, sir! Three years younger than I am: but you have led a very quiet life, I suppose; and I have become sapless by long exposure to a tropical sun.'

'A traveller, sir?'

Forty thousand miles in India and Persia.'

'Deary me, sir; deary me!'

'But I have made money by it,' he said, chuckling feebly.

I do not know whether it was the whispered tone in which he uttered these last words, or the vacant look in his eyes, but I began to feel that a tropical sun had enfeebled my new acquaint