CHAPTER IV.
AN EXPLOSION

AT Christmas Hugh found that things were not so pleasant at home. There was nothing now to take his uncle away from Byrneside, and the dullness of the place told upon him. His outbursts of ill-temper were therefore more frequent than they had been the last holidays Hugh had spent at home. He sat much longer in the dining-room over his wine, after his wife and Hugh had left him, than he did before, and was sometimes moody, sometimes bad-tempered when he joined them. Hugh's own temper occasionally broke out at this, and there were several quarrels between him and his uncle; but there was a savage fierceness in the latter's manner that cowed the boy, and whatever he felt he learned to hold his tongue; but he came more and more to dislike his uncle, especially as he saw that when angry he would turn upon his aunt and speak violently to her in her own language. Sometimes she would blaze out in return, but generally she continued to smoke her cigarette tranquilly as if utterly unconscious that she was spoken to.

So for the next two years matters went on. During the summer holidays Hugh seldom saw his uncle, who was more and more away from home, being now a constant attendant at all the principal race-courses in the country. Even in winter he was often away in London, to Hugh's great satisfaction, for when he was at home there were frequent quarrels between them, and Hugh could see that his uncle habitually drank a great deal more wine than was good for him. Indeed it was always in the evening that these scenes occurred. At other times his uncle seemed to make an effort to be pleasant with him.

In summer Hugh went away with his aunt for a time, but he spent a part of his holidays at Byrneside, for of all exercises he best loved riding. His pony had been given up, but there were plenty of horses in the stables, for although William Tunstall did not care for hunting, he rode a good deal, and was an excellent horseman.

"What have you got in the stable, James?" Hugh asked one day on his return from the school.

"I have got a set of the worst-tempered devils in the country, Master Hugh. Except them two ponies that I drives your aunt out with, there isn't a horse in the stables fit for a Christian to ride. They are all good horses, first-rate horses, putting aside their tempers; but your uncle seems to delight in buying creatures that no one else will ride. Of course he gets them cheap. He doesn't care how wicked they are, and he seems to enjoy it when they begin their pranks with him. I thought at first he would get his brains dashed out to a certainty, but I never saw a man keep his seat as he does. He told me once, that when a man had been breaking bronchos – that is what he called them, which means, he said, wild horses that had never been backed – he could sit anything, and that English horses were like sheep in comparison.

"Of course, it is no use saying no to you, Master Hugh; but if you want to go out, you must stick to that big meadow. You must mount there, and you must promise me not to go beyond it. I have been letting the hedges grow there on purpose for the last two years, and no horse will try to take them. The ground is pretty soft and you will fall light. You have been getting on with your riding the last three years, and have had some pretty rough mounts, but none as bad as what we have got in the stables now. I shall always go out with you myself with one of the men in case of accident, and I can put you up to some of their tricks before you mount."

Hugh was more than fifteen now, and was very tall and strong for his age. He had ridden a great deal when he had been at home during the summer, and in the winter when the weather was open, and had learned to sit on nasty-tempered animals, for these had gradually taken the place of his father's steady hunters; but this year he found that the coachman's opinion of those now under his charge was by no means exaggerated. In spite of doing his best to keep his seat, he had many heavy falls, being once or twice stunned; but he stuck to it, and by the end of the holidays flattered himself that he could ride the worst-tempered animal in the stable. He did not go away this year, begging his aunt to remain at home.

"It is a splendid chance of learning to ride well, aunt," he said. "If I stick at it right through these two months every day I shall really have got a good seat, and you know it is a lot better my getting chucked off now than if I was older. You see boys' bones ain't set, and they hardly ever break them, and if they do they mend up in no time."

His aunt had at first very strongly opposed his riding any of the animals in the stable, and he had been obliged to bring in James to assure her that some of them were not much worse than those he had ridden before, and that a fall on the soft ground of the meadow was not likely to be very serious, but it was only on his giving her his solemn promise that he would not on any account go beyond the meadow that she finally consented. On his return at Christmas he found his uncle at home, and apparently in an unusually pleasant humour. A frost had set in that seemed likely to be a long one, and the ground was as hard as iron.

"I hear, Hugh," his uncle said the second morning at breakfast, "that you are becoming a first-rate rider. I am glad to hear it. Out in the Western States every man is a good rider. You may say that he lives on horseback, and it comes natural even to boys to be able to sit bare-backed on the first horse that comes to hand. Of course it is not so important here, still a man who is a really good rider has many advantages. In the first place, all gentlemen here hunt, and a man who can go across any country, and can keep his place in the front rank, has much honour among his neighbours; in the second place, he is enabled to get his horses cheap. A horse that will fetch two hundred if he is free from vice can be often picked up for twenty if he gets the reputation of being bad-tempered. There is another accomplishment we all have in the west, and that is to be good pistol-shots. As we cannot ride, and there is nothing else to do, I will teach you, if you like."

Hugh accepted the offer with lively satisfaction, heedless of an exclamation of dissent from his aunt. When he had left the room William Tunstall turned savagely upon his wife.

"What did you want to interfere for? Just attend to your own business or it will be the worse for you."

"It is my own business," she said fearlessly. "I like that boy, and I am not going to see him hurt. Ever since you told me, soon after we first came here, that by his father's will the whole property came to you if Hugh died before he came of age, I have been anxious for him. I don't want to interfere with your way of going on. Lead your own life, squander your share of the property if you like, it is nothing to me; when it is spent I am ready to go back to our old life, but I won't have the boy hurt. I have always accepted your story as to how you became possessed of the papers without question. I know you have killed a score of men in what you call fair fight, but I did not know that you were a murderer in cold blood. Anyhow the boy sha'n't be hurt. I believe you bought those horses knowing that he would try them, and believing they would break his neck. They haven't, but no thanks to you. Now you have offered to teach him pistol-shooting. It is so easy for an accident to take place, isn't it? But I warn you that if anything happens to him, I will go straight to the nearest magistrate and tell him who you really are, and that I am certain there was no accident, but a murder."

The man was white with fury, and advanced a step towards her.

"Have you gone mad?" he asked between his teeth. "By heavens! – "

"No, you won't," she interrupted. "Don't make the threat, because I might not forgive you if you did. Do you think I am afraid of you? You are not in California or Mexico now. People cannot be shot here without inquiry. I know what you are thinking of; an accident might happen to me too. I know that any love you ever had for me has died out long ago, but I hold to my life. I have placed in safe hands – never mind where I have placed it – a paper telling all the truth. It is to be opened if I die suddenly and without sending for it. In it I say that if my death is said to have been caused by an accident, it would be no accident, but murder; and that if I die suddenly, without visible cause, that I shall have been poisoned. Do you think I don't know you, and that knowing you I would trust my life altogether in your hands? There, that is enough, we need not threaten each other. I know you, and now you know me. We will both go our own way."

And she walked out of the room leaving her husband speechless with fury at this open and unexpected revolt. Half an hour later his dog-cart was at the door and he left for London. Hugh was astonished when, on his return from a walk down to Gowan's cottage, he found that his uncle had gone up to town.

"Why, I thought, aunt, he was going to be at home all the holidays, and he said that he was going to teach me pistol-shooting."

"Your uncle often changes his mind suddenly. I will teach you pistol-shooting, Hugh. Most Mexican women can use a pistol in case of need. I cannot shoot as he does, but I can teach you to shoot fairly, and after that it is merely a matter of incessant practice. If you ever travel I daresay you will find it very useful to be able to use a pistol cleverly. There are two or three revolvers upstairs and plenty of ammunition, so if you like we will practise in the conservatory; it is too cold to go out. You had better go and ask James to give you some thick planks, five or six of them, to set up as targets. If he has got such a thing as an iron plate it will be better still. I don't want to spoil my picture. The place is forty feet long, which will be a long enough range to begin with."

Half an hour later the sharp cracks of a revolver rang out in the conservatory, and from that time to the end of the holidays Hugh practised for two or three hours a day, the carrier bringing over fresh supplies of ammunition twice a week. He found at first that the sharp recoil of the revolver rendered it very difficult for him to shoot straight, but in time he became accustomed to this, and at the end of a fortnight could put every shot in or close to the spot he had marked as a bull's-eye. After the first day his aunt laid aside her pistol, and betook herself to her favourite hammock, where, sometimes touching her guitar, sometimes glancing at a book, she watched his progress.

At the end of the fortnight she said: "You begin to shoot fairly straight. Keep on, Hugh, and with constant practice, you will be able to hit a half-crown every time. In the West it is a common thing for a man to hold a copper coin between his finger and thumb for another to shoot at. I have seen it done scores of times, but it will take you some time to get to that. You must remember that there is very seldom time to take a steady deliberate aim as you do. When a man shoots he has got to shoot quickly. Now, practise standing with your face the other way, and then turn and fire the instant your eye catches the mark. After that you must practise firing from your hip. Sometimes there is no time to raise the arm. Out in the West a man has got to do one of two things, either not to carry a revolver at all, or else he must be able to shoot as quickly as a flash of lightning."

"I don't suppose I am ever going to the West, aunt; still I should like to be able to shoot like that, for if one does a thing at all one likes to do it well."

And so to the end of the holidays the revolver practice went on steadily every morning, Hugh generally firing seventy or eighty cartridges. He could not do this at first, for the wrench of the recoil strained his wrist, but this gained strength as he went on. Before he went back to school he himself thought that he was becoming a very fair shot, although his aunt assured him that he had hardly begun to shoot according to western notions.

Mrs. Tunstall had one day, a year before this, driven over to Carlisle, and, somewhat to the surprise of Mr. Randolph, had called upon him at his office.

"Mr. Randolph," she began, "I do not know anything about English law. I want to ask you a question."

"Certainly, my dear madam."

"If a married woman was to leave a sealed letter in the hands of a lawyer, could he retain possession of it for her, even if her husband called upon him to give it up?"

"It is a nice question, Mrs. Tunstall. If the lawyer was acting as the fiduciary agent of a lady he would at any rate see that her wishes were complied with; whether he could absolutely hold the paper against the husband's claim is a point upon which I am not prepared at present to give an answer. But anyhow there are ways of evading the law; for instance, he could pass it on to a third party, and then, unless the husband had been absolutely informed by his wife that she had handed over this document to him, the husband would be powerless, the lawyer would simply declare that he had no such document. Are you asking for your own sake, Mrs. Tunstall, or in the interest of a friend?"

"In my own interest, Mr. Randolph. I have a written paper here. I have not signed it yet, because I believe it is necessary to sign papers in the presence of witnesses."

"It depends upon the nature of the paper, Mrs. Tunstall; but in all cases it is a prudent step, for then no question as to the authenticity can arise."

"And it is not necessary for the witnesses of the signature to read the contents of the document?"

"By no means; they simply witness the signature."

"Well, Mr. Randolph, this is the document I want to leave in safe hands, so that it can be opened after my death, unless I previously request, not by letter, but by word of mouth, that it should be returned to me. I know of no one else to whom I could commit the paper, which is, in my opinion, a very important one; the only question is whether, as you are Mr. Tunstall's solicitor, you would like to take it."

"Frankly, without knowing the nature of the contents, Mrs. Tunstall, I should certainly prefer not to undertake such a charge. Should it remain in my hands, or rather in the hands of our firm – for we may sincerely trust that there would be no occasion for opening it until very many years after my death – it might be found to contain instructions which could hardly be carried out by a firm situated as we are with regard to Mr. Tunstall."

"I see that, Mr. Randolph."

There was a pause, and then the lawyer said: "Will you be going up to town shortly, Mrs. Tunstall?"

"Yes, in the course of a month or so I shall be passing through London with Hugh."

"Will the matter keep until then?"

"Certainly, there is no great hurry about it; but I wish the packet placed in safe hands, where it would be opened in the event of my death, unless I recall it before that."