“That’s a pity, now, Josh,” said
Raffles, affecting to scratch his head and wrinkle
his brows upward as if he were nonplussed. “I’m
very fond of you; by Jove, I am! There’s
nothing I like better than plaguing you—you’re
so like your mother, and I must do without it.
But the brandy and the sovereign’s a bargain.”
He jerked forward the flask and Rigg went to a fine
old oaken bureau with his keys. But Raffles
had reminded himself by his movement with the flask
that it had become dangerously loose from its leather
covering, and catching sight of a folded paper which
had fallen within the fender, he took it up and shoved
it under the leather so as to make the glass firm.
By that time Rigg came forward with a brandy-bottle,
filled the flask, and handed Raffles a sovereign,
neither looking at him nor speaking to him.
After locking up the bureau again, he walked to the
window and gazed out as impassibly as he had done at
the beginning of the interview, while Raffles took
a small allowance from the flask, screwed it up, and
deposited it in his side-pocket, with provoking slowness,
making a grimace at his stepson’s back.
“Farewell, Josh—and if forever!”
said Raffles, turning back his head as he opened the
door.
Rigg saw him leave the grounds and enter the lane.
The gray day had turned to a light drizzling rain,
which freshened the hedgerows and the grassy borders
of the by-roads, and hastened the laborers who were
loading the last shocks of corn. Raffles, walking
with the uneasy gait of a town loiterer obliged to
do a bit of country journeying on foot, looked as
incongruous amid this moist rural quiet and industry
as if he had been a baboon escaped from a menagerie.
But there were none to stare at him except the long-weaned
calves, and none to show dislike of his appearance
except the little water-rats which rustled away at
his approach.
He was fortunate enough when he got on to the highroad
to be overtaken by the stage-coach, which carried
him to Brassing; and there he took the new-made railway,
observing to his fellow-passengers that he considered
it pretty well seasoned now it had done for Huskisson.
Mr. Raffles on most occasions kept up the sense of
having been educated at an academy, and being able,
if he chose, to pass well everywhere; indeed, there
was not one of his fellow-men whom he did not feel
himself in a position to ridicule and torment, confident
of the entertainment which he thus gave to all the
rest of the company.
He played this part now with as much spirit as if
his journey had been entirely successful, resorting
at frequent intervals to his flask. The paper
with which he had wedged it was a letter signed Nicholas
Bulstrode, but Raffles was not likely to disturb it
from its present useful position.
“How much, methinks, I could
despise this man
Were I not bound in charity against it!
—SHAKESPEARE:
Henry VIII.
