The Doings of Raffles Haw | Page 4

to the light. Why, it's a fifty-pound Bank of England note.
Nothing remarkable about it that I can see."
"On the contrary. It's the queerest thing that ever happened to me. I
can't make head or tail of it."
"Come, then, Hector," cried Miss McIntyre with a challenge in her eyes.
"Something very queer happened to me also to-day. I'll bet a pair of
gloves that my adventure was more out of the common than yours,
though I have nothing so nice to show at the end of it."
"Come, I'll take that, and Robert here shall be the judge."
"State your cases." The young artist shut up his sketch-book, and rested
his head upon his hands with a face of mock solemnity. "Ladies first!
Go along Laura, though I think I know something of your adventure

already."
"It was this morning, Hector," she said. "Oh, by the way, the story will
make you wild. I had forgotten that. However, you mustn't mind,
because, really, the poor fellow was perfectly mad."
"What on earth was it?" asked the young officer, his eyes travelling
from the bank-note to his fiancee.
"Oh, it was harmless enough, and yet you will confess it was very
queer. I had gone out for a walk, but as the snow began to fall I took
shelter under the shed which the workmen have built at the near end of
the great new house. The men have gone, you know, and the owner is
supposed to be coming to-morrow, but the shed is still standing. I was
sitting there upon a packing-case when a man came down the road and
stopped under the same shelter. He was a quiet, pale-faced man, very
tall and thin, not much more than thirty, I should think, poorly dressed,
but with the look and bearing of a gentleman. He asked me one or two
questions about the village and the people, which, of course, I answered,
until at last we found ourselves chatting away in the pleasantest and
easiest fashion about all sorts of things. The time passed so quickly that
I forgot all about the snow until he drew my attention to its having
stopped for the moment. Then, just as I was turning to go, what in the
world do you suppose that he did? He took a step towards me, looked
in a sad pensive way into my face, and said: `I wonder whether you
could care for me if I were without a penny.' Wasn't it strange? I was so
frightened that I whisked out of the shed, and was off down the road
before he could add another word. But really, Hector, you need not
look so black, for when I look back at it I can quite see from his tone
and manner that he meant no harm. He was thinking aloud, without the
least intention of being offensive. I am convinced that the poor fellow
was mad."
"Hum! There was some method in his madness, it seems to me,"
remarked her brother.
"There would have been some method in my kicking," said the
lieutenant savagely. "I never heard of a more outrageous thing in my

life."
"Now, I said that you would be wild!" She laid her white hand upon the
sleeve of his rough frieze jacket. "It was nothing. I shall never see the
poor fellow again. He was evidently a stranger to this part of the
country. But that was my little adventure. Now let us have yours."
The young man crackled the bank-note between his fingers and thumb,
while he passed his other hand over his hair with the action of a man
who strives to collect himself.
"It is some ridiculous mistake," he said. "I must try and set it right. Yet
I don't know how to set about it either. I was going down to the village
from the Vicarage just after dusk when I found a fellow in a trap who
had got himself into broken water. One wheel had sunk into the edge of
the ditch which had been hidden by the snow, and the whole thing was
high and dry, with a list to starboard enough to slide him out of his seat.
I lent a hand, of course, and soon had the wheel in the road again. It
was quite dark, and I fancy that the fellow thought that I was a
bumpkin, for we did not exchange five words. As he drove off he
shoved this into my hand. It is the merest chance that I did not chuck it
away, for, feeling that it was a crumpled piece of paper, I imagined that
it must be a tradesman's advertisement or something of the kind.
However, as luck would have it, I put it in my