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JAMES MAXLEY came out of the bank that morning with nine hundred and four pounds buttoned up tight in the pocket of his leather breeches, a joyful man; and so to his work, and home at one o'clock to dinner. At 2 P.M. he was thoughtful; uneasy at 3; wretched at 3.30. He was gardener as well as capitalist, and Mr. Hardie owed him 30s. for work.
Dear fatther' Lawk o' daisy, what ails you, Daddy Maxley? You be as white as a Sunday smock. Be you poisoned again, if you please?" "Worse than that worse!" groaned Maxhey, trembling all over. "Hush! hold your tongue! Give me that letter!
"She was dying of a blow given her by a maniac called Maxley." "Maxley!" said the judge to counsel. "I remember the Queen v. Maxley. I tried him myself at the assizes: it was for striking a young lady with a bludgeon, of which she died. Maxley was powerfully defended; and it was proved that his wife had died, and he had been driven mad for a time, by her father's bank breaking.
And in her ungovernable passion, she actually ran to the dresser for a knife: at which Maxley caught up a chair and lifted it furiously, above his head to fling at her. Luckily the man had more self-command than the woman; he dashed the chair furiously on the floor, and ran out of the house. He wandered about half stupid, and presently his feet took him mechanically round to his garden.
"Why, Jem, it is a ten-pound note, one of Hardie's as was." "Then what were those fools laughing at?" And he told her all that had happened. Mrs. Maxley dropped her knitting and stood up trembling. "Why, you told me you had got our money all safe out!" "Well, and so I have, ye foolish woman; and he drew the whole packet out of his pocket and flung them fiercely on the table. Mrs.
Maxley sat smoking complacently; and when his turn came to groan, he said drily: "I draad all mine a week afore. The club was wroth. "What, you went and made yourself safe and never gave any of us a chance? Was that neighbourly? was that clubbable?" To a hailstorm of similar reproaches, Maxley made but one reply, "'Twarn't my business to take care o' you."
To this anxious trio entered Sampson radiant. "There, it's all right. Come, little Maxley, ye needn't cry; he has got lots more mischief to do in the world yet; but, O wumman, it is lucky you came to me and not to any of the tinkering dox. No more cat and dog for you and him but for the Chronothairmal Therey.
Soon Edward's mute agitation communicated itself to him, and he went striding and trembling by his side. The crowd had gone with insensible Maxley to the hospital, but the traces of the terrible combat were there. Where Maxley fell the last time, a bullock seemed to have been slaughtered at the least.
"I'll see ye hanged first, ye miserly old assassin." "Then I have nothing to thank you for," roared Maxley, and made his adieux, ignoring with marked contempt the false physician who declined to doctor the foe of his domestic peace and crocuses. "Quite a passage of arms," said Edward. "Yes," said Mrs. Dodd, "and of bludgeons and things, rather than the polished rapier.
But the captain for my money." The sage shouldered his tools and departed. But he left a good hint behind him. Alfred hovered about the back-door the next day till he caught Mrs. Maxley; she supplied the house with eggs and vegetables. "Could she tell him whether his friend Edward Dodd was likely to come home soon?" She thought not; he was gone away to study.
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