Rodney Stone | Page 8

of his dark eyes. Even at school he was the same, with such
a sense of his own dignity, that other folk had to think of it too. He
might say, as he did say, that a right angle was a proper sort of angle, or
put Panama in Sicily, but old Joshua Allen would as soon have thought
of raising his cane against him as he would of letting me off if I had
said as much. And so it was that, although Jim was the son of nobody,
and I of a King's officer, it always seemed to me to have been a
condescension on his part that he should have chosen me as his friend.
It was this pride of Boy Jim's which led to an adventure which makes
me shiver now when I think of it.
It happened in the August of '99, or it may have been in the early days
of September; but I remember that we heard the cuckoo in Patcham
Wood, and that Jim said that perhaps it was the last of him. I was still at
school, but Jim had left, he being nigh sixteen and I thirteen. It was my
Saturday half-holiday, and we spent it, as we often did, out upon the
Downs. Our favourite place was beyond Wolstonbury, where we could
stretch ourselves upon the soft, springy, chalk grass among the plump
little Southdown sheep, chatting with the shepherds, as they leaned
upon their queer old Pyecombe crooks, made in the days when Sussex
turned out more iron than all the counties of England.
It was there that we lay upon that glorious afternoon. If we chose to roll
upon our right sides, the whole weald lay in front of us, with the North
Downs curving away in olive-green folds, with here and there the
snow-white rift of a chalk-pit; if we turned upon our left, we
overlooked the huge blue stretch of the Channel. A convoy, as I can

well remember, was coming up it that day, the timid flock of
merchantmen in front; the frigates, like well-trained dogs, upon the
skirts; and two burly drover line-of-battle ships rolling along behind
them. My fancy was soaring out to my father upon the waters, when a
word from Jim brought it back on to the grass like a broken- winged
gull.
"Roddy," said he, "have you heard that Cliffe Royal is haunted?"
Had I heard it? Of course I had heard it. Who was there in all the Down
country who had not heard of the Walker of Cliffe Royal?
"Do you know the story of it, Roddy?"
"Why," said I, with some pride, "I ought to know it, seeing that my
mother's brother, Sir Charles Tregellis, was the nearest friend of Lord
Avon, and was at this card-party when the thing happened. I heard the
vicar and my mother talking about it last week, and it was all so clear to
me that I might have been there when the murder was done."
"It is a strange story," said Jim, thoughtfully; "but when I asked my
aunt about it, she would give me no answer; and as to my uncle, he cut
me short at the very mention of it."
"There is a good reason for that," said I, "for Lord Avon was, as I have
heard, your uncle's best friend; and it is but natural that he would not
wish to speak of his disgrace."
"Tell me the story, Roddy."
"It is an old one now--fourteen years old--and yet they have not got to
the end of it. There were four of them who had come down from
London to spend a few days in Lord Avon's old house. One was his
own young brother, Captain Barrington; another was his cousin, Sir
Lothian Hume; Sir Charles Tregellis, my uncle, was the third; and Lord
Avon the fourth. They are fond of playing cards for money, these great
people, and they played and played for two days and a night. Lord
Avon lost, and Sir Lothian lost, and my uncle lost, and Captain
Barrington won until he could win no more. He won their money, but
above all he won papers from his elder brother which meant a great
deal to him. It was late on a Monday night that they stopped playing.
On the Tuesday morning Captain Barrington was found dead beside his
bed with his throat cut.
"And Lord Avon did it?"
"His papers were found burned in the grate, his wristband was clutched

in the dead man's hand, and his knife lay beside the body."
"Did they hang him, then?"
"They were too slow in laying hands upon him. He waited until he saw
that they had brought it home to him, and then he fled.