第157章

"I pretty soon turned out of it again. I'm like the monkey when I venture there--get more kicks than halfpence. Hush, old gentleman! We interrupt the eloquence."

Of course "the eloquence" applied to Sir Francis Levison, and they set themselves to listen--Mr. Dill with a serious face, Mr. Ebenezer with a grinning one. But soon a jostle and movement carried them to the outside of the crowd, out of sight of the speaker, though not entirely out of hearing. By these means they had a view of the street, and discerned something advancing to them, which they took for a Russian bear on its hind legs.

"I'll--be--blest," uttered Mr. Ebenezer James, after a prolonged pause of staring consternation, "if I don't believe its Bethel!"

"Bethel!" repeated Mr. Dill, gazing at the approaching figure. "What has he been doing to himself?"

Mr. Otway Bethel it was, just arrived from foreign parts in his travelling costume--something shaggy, terminating all over with tails.

A wild object he looked; and Mr. Dill rather backed as he drew near, as if fearing he was a real animal which might bite him.

"What's your name?" cried he.

"It used to be Bethel," replied the wild man, holding out his hand to Mr. Dill. "So you are in the world, James, and kicking yet?"

"And hope to kick in it for some time to come," replied Mr. James.

"Where did you hail from last? A settlement at the North Pole?"

"Didn't get quite as far. What's the row here?"

"When did you arrive, Mr. Otway?" inquired old Dill.

"Now. Four o'clock train. I say, what's up?"

"An election; that's all," said Mr. Ebenezer. "Attley went and kicked the bucket."

"I don't ask about the election; I heard all that at the railway station," returned Otway Bethel, impatiently. "What's /this/?" waving his hand at the crowd.

"One of the candidates wasting breath and words--Levison."

"I say," repeated Otway Bethel, looking at Mr. Dill, "wasn't it rather --rather of the ratherest, for /him/ to oppose Carlyle?"

"Infamous! Contemptible!" was the old gentleman's excited answer. "But he'll get his deserts yet, Mr. Otway; they have already begun. He was treated to a ducking yesterday in Justice Hare's green pond."

"And he did look a miserable devil when he came out, trailing through the streets," added Mr. Ebenezer, while Otway Bethel burst into a laugh. "He was smothered into some hot blankets at the Raven, and a pint of burnt brandy put into him. He seems all right to-day."

"Will he go in and win?"

"Chut! Win against Carlyle! He has not the ghost of a chance; and government--if it is the government who put him on--must be a pack of fools; they can't know the influence of Carlyle. Bethel, is that style of costume the fashion where you come from?"

"For slender pockets. I'll sell 'em to you now, James, at half price.

Let's get a look at this Levison, though. I have never seen the fellow."

Another interruption of the crowd, even as he spoke, caused by the railway van bringing up some luggage. They contrived, in the confusion, to push themselves to the front, not far from Sir Francis.

Otway Bethel stared at him in unqualified amazement.

"Why, what brings /him/ here? What is he doing?"

"Who?"

He pointed his finger. "The one with the white handkerchief in his hand."

"That is Sir Francis."

"No!" uttered Bethel, a whole world of astounded meaning in his tone.

"By Jove! /He/ Sir Francis Levison?"

At that moment their eyes met, Francis Levison's and Otway Bethel's.

Otway Bethel raised his shaggy hat in salutation, and Sir Francis appeared completely scared. Only for an instant did he lose his presence of mind. The next, his eyeglass was stuck in his eye and turned on Mr. Bethel, with a hard, haughty stare; as much as to say, who are you, fellow, that you should take such a liberty? But his cheeks and lips were growing as white as marble.

"Do you know Levison, Mr. Otway?" inquired old Dill.

"A little. Once."

"When he was not Levison, but somebody else," laughed Mr. Ebenezer James. "Eh, Bethel?"

Bethel turned as reproving a stare on Mr. Ebenezer as the baronet had just turned on him. "What do you mean, pray? Mind your own business."

A nod to old Dill, and he turned off and disappeared, taking no further notice of James. The old gentleman questioned the latter.

"What was that little bit of by-play, Mr. Ebenezer?"

"Nothing much," laughed Mr. Ebenezer. "Only he," nodding towards Sir Francis, "was not always the great man he is now."

"Ah!"

"I have held my tongue about it, for it's no affair of mine, but I don't mind letting you into the secret. Would you believe that that grand baronet there, would-be member for West Lynne, used, years ago, to dodge about Abbey Wood, mad after Afy Hallijohn? He didn't call himself Levison then."

Mr. Dill felt as if a hundred pins and needles were pricking at his memory, for there rose up in it certain doubts and troubles touching Richard Hare and one Thorn. He laid his eager hand upon the other's arm. "Ebenezer James, what did he call himself?"

"Thorn. A dandy, then, as he is now. He used to come galloping down the Swainson road at dusk, tie his horse in the woods, and monopolize Miss Afy."

"How do you know this?"

"Because I've seen it a dozen times. I was spooney after Afy myself in those days, and went down there a good deal in an evening. If it hadn't been for him, and--perhaps that murdering villain, Dick Hare, Afy would have listened to me. Not that she cared for Dick; but, you see, they were gentlemen. I am thankful to the stars, now, for my luck in escaping her. With her for a wife, I should have been in a pickle always; as it is, I do get out of it once in a while."

"Did you know then that he was Francis Levison?"

"Not I. He called himself Thorn, I tell you. When he came down to offer himself for member, and oppose Carlyle, I was thunderstruck--like Bethel was a minute ago. Ho ho, said I, so Thorn's defunct, and Levison has risen."

"What had Otway Bethel to do with him?"

"Nothing--that I know of. Only Bethel was fond of the woods also--after other game than Afy, though--and may have seen Thorn often. You saw that he recognized him."