Meanwhile Mrs. Byron, not suspecting the importance of the doctor's
note, and happening to be in a hurry when it arrived, laid it by
unopened, intending to read it at her leisure. She would have
forgotten it altogether but for a second note which came two days
later, requesting some acknowledgment of the previous communication.
On learning the truth she immediately drove to Moncrief House, and
there abused the doctor as he had never been abused in his life
before; after which she begged his pardon, and implored him to
assist her to recover her darling boy. When he suggested that she
should offer a reward for information and capture she indignantly
refused to spend a farthing on the little ingrate; wept and accused
herself of having driven him away by her unkindness; stormed and
accused the doctor of having treated him harshly; and, finally, said
that she would give one hundred pounds to have him back, but that
she would never speak to him again. The doctor promised to undertake
the search, and would have promised anything to get rid of his
visitor. A reward of fifty pounds wag offered. But whether the fear
of falling into the clutches of the law for murderous assault
stimulated Cashel to extraordinary precaution, or whether he had
contrived to leave the country in the four days which elapsed
between his flight and the offer of the reward, the doctor's efforts
were unsuccessful; and he had to confess their failure to Mrs.
Byron. She agreeably surprised him by writing a pleasant letter to
the effect that it was very provoking, and that she could never
thank him sufficiently for all the trouble he had taken. And so the
matter dropped.
Long after that generation of scholars had passed away from Moncrief
House, the name of Cashel Byron was remembered there as that of a
hero who, after many fabulous exploits, had licked a master and
bolted to the Spanish Main.
III There was at this time in the city of Melbourne, in Australia, a
wooden building, above the door of which was a board inscribed
"GYMNASIUM AND SCHOOL OF ARMS." In the long, narrow entry hung a
framed manuscript which set forth that Ned Skene, ex-champion of
England and the colonies, was to be heard of within daily by
gentlemen desirous of becoming proficient in the art of
self-defence. Also the terms on which Mrs. Skene, assisted by a
competent staff of professors, would give lessons in dancing,
deportment, and calisthenics.
One evening a man sat smoking on a common wooden chair outside the
door of this establishment. On the ground beside him were some tin
tacks and a hammer, with which he had just nailed to the doorpost a
card on which was written in a woman's handwriting: "WANTED A MALE
ATTENDANT WHO CAN KEEP ACCOUNTS. INQUIRE WITHIN." The smoker was a
powerful man, with a thick neck that swelled out beneath his broad,
flat ear-lobes. He had small eyes, and large teeth, over which his
lips were slightly parted in a good-humored but cunning smile. His
hair was black and close-cut; his skin indurated; and the bridge of
his nose smashed level with his face. The tip, however, was
uninjured. It was squab and glossy, and, by giving the whole feature
an air of being on the point of expanding to its original shape,
produced a snubbed expression which relieved the otherwise
formidable aspect of the man, and recommended him as probably a
modest and affable fellow when sober and unprovoked. He seemed about
fifty years of age, and was clad in a straw hat and a suit of white
linen.