Warlock o' Glenwarlock: A Homely Romance

"Caitch yer naig, an' pu' his tail;
In his bin' heel caw a nail!"

"I do believe," he said to himself, "this is the horse that was in the old villain's head every time he uttered the absurd rime!"

There must then be in the cane a secret, through which possibly the old man had overreached himself! Had that secret, whatever it was, been discovered, or did it remain for him now to discover?

A passion of curiosity seized him, but something held him back. What was it? The stick was not his property; any discovery concerning or by means of it, ought to be made with the consent and in the presence of the owner of it—her to whom the old lord had left his personal property!

And now Cosmo had to go through an experience as strange as it was new, for, in general of a quietly expectant disposition, he had now such a burning desire to conquer the secret of the stick, as appeared to him to savour of POSSESSION. It was so unlike himself, that he was both angry and ashamed. He set it aside and went to bed. But the haunting eagerness would not let him rest; it kept him tossing from side to side, and was mingled with strangest fears lest the stick should vanish as mysteriously as it had come—lest when he woke he should find it had been carried away. He got out of bed, unscrewed the horse, and placed it under his pillow. But there it tormented him like an aching spot. It went on drawing him, tempting him, mocking him. He could not keep his hands from it. A hundred times he resolved he would not touch it again, and of course kept his resolution so long as he thought of it; but the moment he forgot it, which he did repeatedly in wondering why Joan did not come, the horse would be in his hand. Every time he woke from a moment's sleep, he found it in his hand.

On his return from accompanying Lady Joan, Jermyn came to him, found him feverish, and prescribed for him. Disappointed that Joan was gone without seeing him, his curiosity so entirely left him that he could not recall what it was like, and never imagined its possible return. Nor did it reappear so long as he was awake, but all through his dreams the old captain kept reminding him that the stick was his own. "Do it; do it; don't put off," he kept saying; but as often as Cosmo asked him what, he could never hear his reply, and would wake yet again with the horse in his hand. In the morning he screwed it on the stick again, and set it by his bed-side.

CHAPTER XXXV.

PULL HIS TAIL

About noon, when both the doctors happened to be out, Joan came to see him, and was more like her former self than she had been for many days. Hardly was she seated when he took the stick, and said,

"Did you ever see that before, Joan?"

"Do you remember showing me a horse just like that one, only larger?" she returned. "It was in the drawing-room."

"Quite well," he answered.

"It made me think of this," she continued, "which I had often seen in that same closet where I suppose you found it yesterday."

Cosmo unscrewed the joints and showed her the different boxes.

"There's nothing in them," he said; "but I suspect there is something about this stick more than we can tell. Do you remember the silly Scotch rime I repeated the other day, when you told me I had been talking poetry in my sleep?"

"Yes, very well," she answered.

"Those are words an uncle of my father, whom you may have heard of as the old captain, used to repeat very often."—At this Joan's face turned pale, but her back was to the light, and he did not see it.—"I will say them presently in English, that you may know what sense there may be in the foolishness of them. Now I must tell you that I am all but certain this stick once belonged to that same great uncle of mine—how it came into your father's possession I cannot say—and last night, as I was looking at it, I saw something that made me nearly sure this is the horse, insignificant as it looks, that was in my uncle's head when he repeated the rime. But Iwould do nothing without you."

"How kind of you, Cosmo!"

"Not kind; I had no right; the stick is yours."

"How can that be, if it belonged to your great uncle?" said Joan, casting down her eyes.

"Because it was more than fifty years in your father's possession, and he left it to you. Besides, I cannot be absolutely certain it is the same."

"Then I give it to you, Cosmo."

"I will not accept it, Joan—at least before you know what it is you want to give me.—And now for this foolish rime—in English!"

"Catch your horse and pull his tail;
In his hind heel drive a nail;
Pull his ears from one another:
Stand up and call the king your brother!"

"What's to come of it, I know no more than you do, Joan," continued Cosmo; "but if you will allow me, I will do with this horse what the rime says, and if they belong to each other, we shall soon see."

"Do whatever you please, Cosmo," returned Joan, with a tremble in her voice.

Cosmo began to screw off the top of the stick. Joan left her chair, drew nearer to the bed, and presently sat down on the edge of it, gazing with great wide eyes. She was more moved than Cosmo; there was a shadow of horror in her look; she dreaded some frightful revelation. Her father's habit of muttering his thoughts aloud, had given her many things to hear, although not many to understand. When the horse was free in Cosmo's hand, he set the stick aside, looked up, and said,

"The first direction the rime gives, is to pull his tail." With that he pulled the horse's tail—of silver, apparently, like the rest of him—pulled it hard; but it seemed of a piece with his body, and there was no visible result. The first shadow of approaching disappointment came creeping over him, but he looked up at Joan, and smiled as he said,

"He doesn't seem to mind that! We'll try the next thing—which is, to drive a nail in his hind heel.—Now look here, Joan! Here, in one of his hind shoes, is a hole that looks as if one of the nails had come out! That is what struck me, and brought the rime into my head! But how drive a nail into such a hole as that?"

"Perhaps a tack would go in," said Joan, rising. "I shall pull one out of the carpet."

"A tack would be much too large, I think," said Cosmo. "Perhaps a brad out of the gimp of that chair would do.—Or, stay, I know! Have you got a hair-pin you could give me?"

Joan sat down again on the bed, took off her bonnet, and searching in her thick hair soon found one. Cosmo took it eagerly, and applied it to the hole in the shoe. Nothing the least larger would have gone in. He pushed it gently, then a little harder—felt as if something yielded a little, returning his pressure, and pushed a little harder still. Something gave way, and a low noise followed, as of a watch running down. The two faces looked at each other, one red, and one pale. The sound ceased. They waited a little, in almost breathless silence. Nothing followed.

"Now," said Cosmo, "for the last thing!"

"Not quite the last," returned Joan, with what was nearly an hysterical laugh, trying to shake off the fear that grew upon her; "the last thing is to stand up and call the king your brother."

"That much, as non-essential, I daresay we shall omit," replied Cosmo.—"The next then is, to pull his ears from each other."

He took hold of one of the tiny ears betwixt the finger and thumb of each hand, and pulled. The body of the horse came asunder, divided down the back, and showed inside of it a piece of paper. Cosmo took it out. It was crushed, rather than folded, round something soft. He handed it to Joan.

"It is your turn now, Joan," he said; "you open it. I have done my part."

Cosmo's eyes were now fixed on the movements of Joan's fingers undoing the little parcel, as hers had been on his while he was finding it. Within the paper was a piece of cotton wool. Joan dropped the paper, and unfolded the wool. Bedded in the middle of that were two rings. The eyes of Cosmo fixed themselves on one of them—the eyes of Joan upon the other. In the one Cosmo recognized a large diamond; in the other Joan saw a dark stone engraved with the Mergwain arms.

"This is a very valuable diamond," said Cosmo, looking closely at it.

"Then that shall be your share, Cosmo," returned Joan. "I will keep this if you don't mind."

"What have you got?" asked Cosmo.

"My father's signet-ring, I believe," she answered. "I have often heard him—bemoan the loss of it."

Lord Mergwain's ring in the old captain's stick! Things began to put themselves together in Cosmo's mind. He lay thinking.

The old captain had won these rings from the young lord and put them for safety in the horse; Borland suspected, probably charged him with false play; they fought, and his lordship carried away the stick to recover his own; but had failed to find the rings, taking the boxes in the bamboo for all there was of stowage in it.

It was by degrees, however, that this theory formed itself in his mind; now he saw only a glimmer of it here and there.

In the meantime he was not a little disappointed. Was this all the great mystery of the berimed horse? It was as if a supposed opal had burst, and proved but a soap-bubble!

Joan sat silent, looking at the signet-ring, and the tears came slowly in her eyes.

"I MAY keep this ring, may I not, Cosmo?" she said.