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Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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"TELL me the truth, sir, oh, tell me the truth! Do they think at the Hospital that Daisy won't get well?"
"I can only say what I have been charged to tell you, Mrs. Maguire. I am truly sorry I cannot add of my own knowledge anything likely to comfort you; but it would be wrong of me to mislead you. I will not therefore disguise the fact that they have grave fears about her case. Everything possible is being done for her—that I know; the rest is in the hands of God."
The speaker was Mr. Weston, a Worker in one of the London Missions that combine District Visiting amongst the dwellings of the poor and lower middle class, with ministration to the sick in the Hospitals. A spare, elderly man, with pale face and anxious, but kindly, expression of countenance; to-day, he looked even more grave and anxious than usual, as he sat talking in Mrs. Maguire's little parlour in Battersea.
He had just come from the Hospital in which Daisy Maguire, a little girl of some ten years of age, had been lying for four or five weeks. Every day he was at the Hospital for a few hours, and on those days when neither the mother nor the father could call to make enquiries, he seldom failed to look in on his rounds to bring the parents the latest news.
He had known Mrs. Maguire in the country many years ago, when she had been a happy, cheerful, rosy-faced girl, and had met her again accidentally some months before at the Hospital—for this was the second time the child had been laid up there. Since that accidental meeting he had regularly visited the house, though he was but coldly received by the husband, William Maguire. The man was inclined to be sullen and unfriendly, but he never openly objected to Mr. Weston's visits, because they pleased his only child, Daisy, who had all his love. The mother now was very different from the maiden Mr. Weston had known years before. The daughter of a schoolmaster, and fairly well educated, she was now a sallow-faced, unhappy-looking matron, soured by the unhealthy conditions and sordid surroundings which fall to the lot of most of the workers in this great metropolis. She had that listless, half-vacant, half-absent look that tells its own tale of disappointed hopes and disillusion; of distrust of the future, mingled with dreamy memories of a brighter, but now fast-fading past. Even her care for her child, the pretty, bright-eyed, laughing Daisy, seemed unable to lift her out of the despondency that had become habitual to her. As a consequence the child was more drawn towards her father, who freely showed his love for her at all times. This preference on the child's part was an additional cause of complaint with the mother, who shut her eyes to the fact that in this matter what she complained of was mainly her own fault.
To-day the thought that the child's life might be in danger had the effect of rousing in the mother a greater thrill of natural affection than she had perhaps been sensible of for many a day past. And Mr. Weston, feeling sure that it was so, noted the fact with gladness, mixed with both sadness and compassion.
"She wants to see her father," he said, after a pause, and with some hesitation. "She was moaning and crying for him when I left, and they said that, in the circumstances—if he went round at once—he would be allowed to see her as a special favour. Otherwise, as I suppose you know, they are expecting a visit from the Princess there this afternoon, and he would not be admitted in the ordinary course till after she had gone."
The mother flushed.
"'Moaning and crying for her father,'" she repeated, plaintively. "Does she not want to see me, too?"
"I am sure she does," Mr. Weston answered, kindly. "But, you see, it was her father she asked for more particularly, and—seeing who is expected in the afternoon—they have already gone out of their way to give me permission for him to go at once. I could not well ask them to do more. Will you not go yourself in the evening? I feel sure they would let you see her then."
Mr. Weston," said the unhappy mother, "this seems like a judgment on me! I feel I must have done wrong somewhere—though I scarcely know how or where—when it has come to this, that my only child, who is, God knows, dearer to me than anything else in the world, asks, not for me at such a time, but for her father. Always for her father. Yet he it is who has made my life unhappy, and estranged from me my child's affection. But I ought not to have let him do it. I fear—I begin to see, to feel, it has been a good deal my own fault. But it is not now the less bitter!" And she burst into tears.
Her visitor waited awhile for the fit to subside somewhat before he made reply. Then he said, gravely—
"I will not hide from you that I have noticed with pain that little Daisy has not seemed to regard you with the same love that she shows so freely towards her father. That it is her fault I can scarcely believe, for she is evidently a child with strong affections. I have not ventured to speak of it before, because I did not wish to seem to interfere. Now, however, that you have referred to it, I will only say I pray it may please God to preserve the child to you, and to give you both the opportunity of understanding each other better in the future."
The mother continued to sob, and it was some time before she spoke. Then she looked up, and through her tears, replied—
"You have spoken truly, sir, and that shall be my prayer from now, so long as there is a hope left. Yet I have not been without some excuse. You do not know the load that is on my mind about my husband. I have been afraid even to breathe a word about it before. But now, as things are, I may tell you that I live in constant dread and fear. I have even—God help me—sometimes thought it might be better if—our—poor—Daisy—were—taken from us—than that she should live to know the trouble that I fear is too surely coming upon us."
Mr. Weston looked at her in surprise.
"Why," he exclaimed, "What can you mean? Your husband is not unkind to you, is he?"
She shook her head.
"Not directly unkind," she said, "though there has long been coldness, estrangement, between us."
"H'm. But—he does not give way to drink?"
"No; oh, no."
"What then?"
She looked at him doubtfully, as though debating how to answer. Then, seeming to make up her mind, she said, finally—
"I cannot tell you now. Perhaps another time— if I dare. But I expect him in every moment now. When he comes I will give him your message, and he will, I know, go to our darling instantly. Please leave me now; I do not feel able to talk any more."
And Mr. Weston rose, and with a word or two of comfort and encouragement, took his leave, shaking his head, however, gravely and sadly, as he left the house.
BESIDE a bed in one of the wards of the Hospital William Maguire sat holding the hand of his sick child. He was a handsome man of some five-and-forty years of age, with features that were not unpleasing, albeit they bore generally a stern, unsympathetic look. To-day, however, those who knew him best would have been surprised at the change in his expression, so tender and full of love was it now, while he bent over little Daisy. But when a nurse came up and touched him on the arm, whispering that he must come away, "as the Princess was coming," he received the message, kindly and gently spoken though it was, with a look so forbidding that she almost started.
"Are these great people," he said to the nurse, in growling tones, as they passed together along the corridor, always to have their own way like this, do you think? May not a father sit by the side of his dying child but he must be ordered off, for fear his presence should pollute the atmosphere when Princesses or Princes, or some others of the rich and great choose to come here to make even a Hospital into a show place?"
"You shall come back later on," replied the nurse. She thought grief for his child had made him scarcely responsible for what he said. And she led him into a waiting room, and left him with a few kind words, and promising to come back for him shortly. And there Maguire sat down, resting his elbows on his knees and his chin on his hands, gazing on the floor with scowling looks, and brooding over his troubles and his enmity against the world. To be thus ordered away from the bedside of his child at the bidding of a Princess was, in his view, one more drop in the cup embittered by his hatred of the rich and great, that he had been steadily filling up for years.
In the ward he had just quitted, little Daisy, after watching her father wistfully so long as she could see him, closed her eyes wearily, and lay hugging to herself his solemn promise to return almost immediately. Meanwhile two or three ladies had entered quietly, and, all unknown to her, were now standing gazing pityingly at the young pallid face, so full of childish beauty and yet of suffering, that rested upon the snowy pillow. Something pathetic in it touched the heart of the gracious lady who looked upon it, and she went to the head of the bed and bent over it. Soon little Daisy felt her hand gently taken and another hand passed softly over the back of her own with light caressing touches. And then, looking up, she saw, to her great astonishment, a beautifully-dressed lady gazing at her with eyes that were full of tenderness and compassion, and a face that seemed to her more loving and lovable than any she had ever seen before. The poor child's heart went out at once to that sweet look, and, innocently responsive to its attraction, she wound her other arm round the neck of the strange lady, and with a soft happy smile she murmured, "Kiss me." And the face bent down and kissed her. Then her hands were gently replaced on the coverlet and a kind voice said, "There dear, now go to sleep, and try all you can to get well—to please me." And Daisy contentedly closed her eyes, and for some time tried to go to sleep, but could not for wondering who the kind lady was—whether she was a fairy—or whether she had been only a lovely dream. Presently this latter query grew upon her so, that she opened her eyes and looked round wonderingly. The beauteous lady had vanished, and in her place now stood the nurse, who was regarding her with a quiet smile.
"Please, nurse, did a fairy come to see me and kiss me, or did I dream it? She told me I was to get well—to please her. And I will too. I mean to," said Daisy, with more animation than she had exhibited for many days.
The nurse sat down by her and took her hand.
"That's right, Daisy—you must try all you can to get well, to please the nice lady. But it wasn't a fairy, and it wasn't a dream, child. It was a very great lady indeed—a Princess—and you ought to be very, very proud to think she kissed you."
"A Princess!" said Daisy, her large dark eyes opening in wonder. "Was that a Princess—a real one?"
"Yes, a real Princess. Very few children have such reason to feel proud as you have now. And I do believe she's done you good, you look better already."
"Yes," Daisy answered," I feel better, too. But that is because she told me to, you know. I would do anything—try all I can—to please anyone like that. Has she any little children? How nice it must be to have a mother like that! How I wish my mother was like her! But mother never looks at me that way. And yet"—she broke off with a puzzled air—"how can a real Princess be so nice? Father always declares that all Princes and Princesses, and Queens and Kings are bad, naughty people, that ought to be—" Here she stopped and gave a half-frightened look at the nurse, and seemed to shudder.
"Where is father?" she presently went on.
"He will be here soon, dear. Now lie quiet, and remember how glad and happy and proud you are to think the Princess kissed you—the only one she kissed, you know."
"Is that true?" asked Daisy, with a pleased smile.
"Quite true, child? Never forget it all your life."
"I won't," said Daisy—and she said it in a tone that showed she meant it. "She's my Princess now," she added softly, after a moment or two of thought. "I shall always call her 'my Princess.'" And the nurse laughed good-naturedly and went away.
Three days later the father and mother came together, and were surprised to see Daisy sitting up in bed and appearing already almost convalescent.
"The Doctor says she will get on now," said the nurse, looking kindly at the child. "I think you need not be anxious about her any longer."
Somewhat to the mother's surprise, Daisy stretched out her arms to her, instead of welcoming her father first, as was her wont.
"Kiss me, mother," she said, putting her arms round her mother's neck. "Kiss me, and look at me as 'my Princess' did. You remind me of her now, somehow. I don't know why, but your eyes are like hers, and you look at me more like she did. You never used to do that, you know. Did she teach it to you? Have you seen her?"
The mother scarcely replied, but kissed the child passionately, and a grateful sigh went up from her heart—a thanksgiving for this fulfilment of the prayer uttered but a few days before.
"You are going to get well now, my darling," she sobbed.
"Why, of course," Daisy replied, with prompt decision. "Didn't 'my Princess' tell me to—to please her? And didn't she kiss me on purpose to try to make me well? It would never do to keep ill after that, you know," she added, shaking her head sagely.
"And now," she went on, after she had been kissed by Maguire, "I want father to promise me he will never say unkind things about 'my Princess' or the Queen, or any of them again. Because they are not true, you know. Promise me, father dear."
"Very well, my child," Maguire answered. But there was no heartiness in his tone, and the child was quick to notice it.
"Say you mean it," she said stoutly, "or—or—or—" She hesitated, and then, with a playful smile, added wilfully, "or else I won't get well."
And the father pressed her hand, and repeated his promise, but at the same moment the eyes of the two parents met. And each turned away, that the artless Daisy might not see the terrible pain and distress that were too plainly written in that brief glance.
"WHY, Daisy, what are you looking so thoughtful about? You used to be all smiles and gaiety; now you look as though you had the care of the whole world upon your shoulders. Soon I shall have to dub you 'Daisy the Thoughtful' instead of 'Daisy the Playful,' as I used to call you."
It was Mr. Weston who spoke. He had surprised the child sitting with an open book in her lap, apparently in a deep reverie. It was some weeks after her return home, and she had quite recovered her health, but not altogether, Mr. Weston had several times observed, her former spirits.
Daisy glanced up with a bright smile, and rose to greet him. Then the smile vanished, and she looked thoughtful again.
"I hardly know, sir," she replied, "whether I ought to tell you what I was thinking about. But—perhaps I may." Then, in a lower tone, "I am sorry about father and mother, sir."
"Why; they are kind to you; they are very fond of you?"
"Oh yes, sir. And mother especially; she's so kind now—kinder than she used to be before I was ill. But I know she troubles about father—I don't know why—and it makes me unhappy, too."
"By-the-bye, Daisy, what about your coming to our Sunday School? Have you got your father to consent yet?"
She shook her head gravely.
"No, sir—not yet," she said slowly. "But," she went on hopefully, "I think I shall soon. I mean to try all I can to coax him to let me."
Then Mrs. Maguire came in and told the child to go away, saying she wished to talk to their visitor; and Daisy tripped off, but not without a playful show of reluctance.
"I want to talk to Mr. Weston, too!" she declared, with a pout. "He's promised several times to tell me all about 'my Princess,' but you always send me away when he comes. And I know why, too," she added, saucily, "you want to talk about father, and don't want me to hear."
Mrs. Maguire watched her leaving them, with a look in which motherly pride and pleasure were strangely blended with pain, and then, turning with a sigh to her visitor, said, in reply to his enquiring look—
"I have discovered nothing further, and seem as far off as ever. But this I know—or rather feel—that things are coming to a crisis somehow. William seems more troubled from day to day. He seems to have something dreadful on his mind, and he talks and mutters, and tosses about in his sleep, but what he says I cannot understand. Only one expression have I heard that I could repeat with certainty, and that seems to have no meaning in it. More than once I have heard him mutter something about 'Daisy's Princess,' and then he sighs heavily. Of course you know that, since her illness, Daisy is constantly chattering, child-like, about the Princess who spoke so kindly to her. But what has that to do with William's talk in his sleep? One would almost think the Princess filled his thoughts as much as she does the child's. But, by day, he never mentions the subject—and—besides—why should it seem to trouble him?"
"I wish with all my heart," she went on, after a pause, "that he had never taken it into his head to invent anything. It has always seemed to me that all the mischief came from that. True, we are better off now; he brings home more money, and that has made things better for us at home here, and for Daisy, poor child. And he says it is all due to his inventiveness. Yet he does not explain how, and I have horrible doubts and fears that I dare not, as I have often said before, even hint to you. When he was at Mr. Duncan's, working regularly, he got less money, it is true, but he was a different man, and we were happy together. When he threw that up in a fit of temper, things went wrong, and we had a terrible time. And, now that things are better in one way, they are worse in another, for he is altogether a changed man. Oh, Mr. Weston, what am I to do? Could you not suggest anything to help me?"
In the end this talk came to nothing, as had been the case many times before, for Maguire guarded his secret too carefully for his wife to be able even to guess at it. So she could not tell Mr. Weston anything upon which he could advise. He left her, therefore, feeling more perplexed than ever, and full of misgivings.
"But, Mary Maguire," he said solemnly, at parting, "do not lose your faith and trust in God. When you were a young girl in our village, and I used to teach you at our Sunday School, you were one of our most earnest scholars, afterwards one of our most zealous assistants in our parish work. Have you forgotten the lessons you then learned? Have this London life, and your trials and troubles, crushed all these out? Try to bring back the state of feeling of those old days, act as you would then have acted, keep up your trust in God and never cease to pray to Him for help and light and guidance, and I feel sure all will yet be well. When your child lay ill at the Hospital,
I gave you the same advice, and—"
"I know, sir," Mary Maguire answered, humbly. "And I prayed then, and have ever since, as I—I confess with sorrow and shame—I had not done for many a long year."
She seemed on the point of bursting into tears, and seeing this, Mr. Weston said no more, but nodding his head approvingly, left her.
And now to tell what was the secret that Maguire concealed so carefully from his wife. He was indeed in a position of deadly peril, and he knew it—knew it but too well—and he was struggling in the toils in which he had become enmeshed, striving despairingly to find some way of escape. He was in the power, because in the pay, of the Anarchists; was involved in one of the cruellest, most diabolical plots that even those reckless conspirators ever conceived. And this is the stranger, in that he himself was very far from being a badly-disposed man. As a matter of fact, William Maguire was an honest, good-hearted specimen of the better class of British working men; a mechanic, clever and skilled above his fellows; educated beyond their average—chiefly through his own persistence in attending evening classes of instruction—and, withal, industrious and hard-working He was, too, sober and truthful, and incapable of a mean action—at least, apart from the plot he had become entangled in. How, then, came such a man to be mixed up in schemes that had for their object the wholesale murder or wounding and mutilation of fellow-creatures individually unknown to him, and against whom he had not even the excuse of personal enmity? It may be worth while to trace the causes that led to such an apparent anomaly; the more so that there is only too much reason to fear that his case is, in some measure, a representative, rather than an exceptional one.
Mrs. Maguire, in stating that his inventiveness had brought him trouble rather than advantage was partly right; others who knew him would perhaps have blamed his hot and hasty temper, and these, too, would have been partly right. But the origin of the mystery lay farther back.
Maguire's father had been one of those people who are the friends of everybody in the world, save those they ought to think the most of—their own wives and children. He spent much of his time in getting up and attending meetings of working men, at which it pleased him to join with other agitators in declaiming against capital, wealth, and the upper classes generally. Their aim was to persuade their listeners that they were down-trodden slaves, whose duty to themselves and their fellows was to "rise in their millions against the few thousand of their oppressors, and seize upon the land they had been robbed of, and the wealth that had been wrung out. of the vitals of the people," and so on. A well-meaning, but ignorant and uneducated man, who neglected his work and made his own house an unhappy, poverty-stricken home for his wife and children, that he might persuade others to turn the world upside down, in order to experiment with the crude theories and imaginings of his own undisciplined mind.
Naturally the son, William, brought up in such an atmosphere, imbibed many of his father's notions, and, in particular, his hatred and distrust of those above him.
A relative of his mother had come forward and found the money for his schooling, and to have him apprenticed to a firm of mechanical engineers, and here he exhibited such aptitude and application, that when his term expired, he found himself able to earn more money than any other workman of his own age in the place. But he could put nothing by, for all his earnings were required to keep the home together and find food for his father and mother and several younger brothers and sisters. William submitted to this, and manfully, too, but under protest as it were; and in the end it became a burden that soured him and filled him with a sense of injury. He was too shrewd not to see that his father was thrusting upon him an unfair load for a youngster to bear, and all because he—the father—had wasted his own time and opportunities in trying to manage other people's business. If he, William, was able to earn more money than his fellows, the fact was due, not to his own father, but, firstly, to money found by a distant relative; and, secondly, to his own perseverance in attending classes at the Polytechnic. And, when he went on a visit to his mother's relations in the country, and saw and fell in love with pretty Mary Blake, his present wife, and awoke to the knowledge that he could not himself marry for some years by reason of the burden he had already on his hands, then he felt there was something rotten somewhere. Conscientious and industrious, he postponed his own marriage for years; but he did not do so willingly or cheerfully. Henceforth he was a man who had a grievance. And, whereas he had been taught in his youth to hate capital and wealth, he now went farther, and distrusted the whole fabric of society high and low. There seemed to him something wrong about a state of things that had compelled him to bear, while still young, an unfair share of the burden of life: therefore, in his view, all society, as at present constituted, was wrong, and ought to be reformed from top to bottom.
However, in the course of time his father and mother died, the younger members of the family were able to shift for themselves, and William went down and married Mary Blake and brought her up to London. Then all went smoothly for a few years, till he fell under the influence of the inventing fever. He passed much of his spare time in making small working models of engines and other machines, and, in the course of this work, an idea struck him that he subsequently worked out and patented. His employer, Mr. Duncan, thought well of it, and promised to aid him in getting it brought forward; and doubtless would have succeeded in doing so, had he been allowed reasonable time. But in such matters progress is nearly always inevitably slow: nor could a busy man be expected to put all current business matters aside to devote his time and attention exclusively to the exploiting of a new and untried invention. Moreover, Maguire's expectations and demands were absurdly inflated, and he exhibited the impracticable spirit that inventors so frequently become imbued with. Finally, the unhealthy principles that had become implanted in his mind during his earlier life now exercised their malign influence, rendering him suspicious and impatient. He had formed extravagant notions of the value of his invention, and, when offered reasonable terms, refused them with indignation, believing that, as a poor working man, he was being treated with injustice, and ground down by the force of capital. At last, in a burst of passion, he quarrelled with his well-intentioned employer, threw up his situation, and insisted upon liberty of action to do what he pleased with his own invention.
Then came the usual results. He neglected to get another place, and devoted his time to hawking his invention about in all sorts of likely and unlikely quarters. His savings disappeared—for he had been thrifty, and had put a little by—first one thing, then another, was pawned or sold, and still he went on, ever fatuously believing, from day to day, that he was on the eve of making a fortune. And ever, at each succeeding disappointment and failure, he grew more soured and more embittered, laying the blame of his troubles, not on himself, but on society at large.
It is scarcely needful to say more. When, in time, he drifted against some Anarchist refugees who were carrying on their deadly plottings in London, he fell an easy prey to their persuasions. They were shrewd enough to see the use they could make of his mechanical ingenuity, and, by flattery and pretended sympathy, soon converted him into a compliant tool. Having money enough for their purposes—it is strange that it should be so, but these wretches never seem to be in want of funds—they were able to bind him to them the more irrevocably by supplying him with means enough to lift him out of the slough of poverty in which he had been struggling.
And this is how William Maguire—an industrious, clever, thrifty mechanic—had come to be mixed up with some of the most bloodthirsty miscreants of our time. But now, at the eleventh hour, he had suddenly come to a sense—vague, perhaps, as yet, but growing—of the wickedness of the schemes in which he was engaged. The great plot his employers had in hand was against the lives of the Queen and others of the Royal Family on the occasion of the Jubilee Procession of 1887, then but a few weeks distant, and what had happened at the Hospital on the day of the visit of the Princess had upset all his previous ideas and filled him with uneasy throes of conscience. Daisy quite believed that she owed her recovery to the Princess, and he himself felt that there was good foundation for her belief. It had been a turning point in her illness, and the pleasure and freshness inspired in the child's mind—perhaps even her touching belief that she ought to get well, if only to obey and please the Princess—all these things had worked together for good at a critical time; and Maguire knew it. But it all came as a revelation to him. He saw how absolutely, cruelly wrong he had been in his notions and conceptions of this particular member of the Royal Family. Could he then be sure he was not wrong in other directions, in his opinions of the upper classes—possibly even of the much-abused capitalist? These thoughts set up a contest in his mind, of which the concrete result was that he was now casting about despairingly for some way of separating himself from those he was associated with, without incurring the vengeance with which he knew too well they would pursue him. But he was too surely entangled; and the more he thought about his position and the difficulties of escape, the more steadily, from day to day, the conviction forced itself upon him that he had gone too far to retreat. And what this meant to him, when he reflected upon the consequences that must fall upon his wife, and the innocent child upon whom he had for long centred almost all his love, may be more easily imagined than described.
ONE warm sunny morning in June, Daisy set off to carry a letter to her father. It had arrived after he had left home, and being marked "immediate," Mrs. Maguire had decided to send it on to him at once. Daisy knew the way, having been sent on similar errands before. She started off in high spirits, well content at the prospect of seeing her father, and receiving from him a kiss and a caress. Her way led through Battersea Park, which, as those who are familiar with it are aware, is one of the most charming of London's open spaces. Then she went across the river by the graceful Chelsea Suspension Bridge and along the Embankment towards Vauxhall. On a crowded river steamer she heard music, and, after listening to it for a few minutes, she tripped lightly on her way again, singing the refrain of the popular song they had been playing on the boat. Finally, leaving the riverside, she turned into some narrow roads running through ground but partially built over, and stopped outside a closed gate in a narrow street in a poor neighbourhood. This gate had painted on it, "William Maguire, Engineer and Machine Fitter," a sufficiently respectable, if somewhat vague, description; also the words "No admittance except on business. Please ring." Daisy, though she had been there many times before, had never been inside; her father always came out to her when she rang, and sent her away again—sometimes walking part of the way home with her—without ever gratifying her curiosity as to what was to be seen inside that closed gate. To-day. however, for a wonder, the gate was ajar, and Daisy, prompted by the wish she had long felt to see beyond, pushed it open and went in. Inside, she found herself in a yard, at the far end of which was an old stable that had been converted into a workshop. Seeing no-one about, she entered this—the door being open—and looked round. There were benches and a lathe, an anvil and forge, and other usual fittings of a mechanic's workshop. On one of the benches were two curious, complicated-looking machines, somewhat like the works of a clock. Passing on through another door, she entered an inner room where were many glass bottles and jars, and chemical apparatus. On a bench there was a strong open box, fitted with what looked like little nests lined with soft wadding, and in each space, reposing like an egg in its nest, was a round glass ball, filled with a coloured substance. On one side was a step-ladder that led up to an open loft extending across one end of the room. Running along the edge of the loft, as a protection, was a rough railing, over which two or three horse-cloths were thrown. Just when Daisy had noted these and other details, she heard voices in the yard, and, peeping cautiously through the window, was greatly alarmed to see, not her father, as she had expected, but two strange men. They were rough-looking men, and Daisy did not like their looks. Thinking they might be angry at her coming in without permission, she hastily made up her mind to hide, until her father came. Then she knew she would be safe; he might be angry with her, perhaps, but would not hurt her; and these men looked so rough and fierce, one could not tell what they might not do. Thus thinking, Daisy crept noiselessly up the ladder into the loft, and hid behind the horse-cloths that hung over the railing, peeping out between them at the men who were now entering the room. She could see the whole room plainly, without much fear of being seen herself. Here she waited, panting with fear and hardly daring to breathe.
The men went first to the box with the glass balls. Here they stood silent for half-a-minute, regarding the box apparently with great interest and curiosity. Certainly they were not prepossessing in appearance, and it was not surprising that the child had felt afraid of them. One was a tall brawny fellow, with red hair and beard unkempt, and not too clean. As to his nationality it was doubtful. From his speech he might have been either an Englishman or a foreigner. Perhaps, originally, a desperado from the States, or one of the South American Republics. As a matter of fact he was an ex-Communist. The other, a shorter, thick-set man with fair hair and moustache, was somewhat cleaner and neater in appearance, but he had a sinister expression that was too obvious to escape the notice of the observant, albeit the man was less aggressively fierce-looking than his companion. He was probably a Russian exile, but, like the other, spoke English well, as was evident when the two began to talk.
"So!" said the shorter man, looking at the glass balls, "these are the pretty playthings, are they? Humph! They look innocent enough, too. They've taken some time to make; however, it's a good thing to know they are ready in good time. Sure they're all right, Legrand?"
He stretched out his hand while he spoke, as though to take one up. The one addressed as Legrand stepped forward hastily, and interposed.
"Am I sure, say you? Oui, mon ami, I am so sure, that I don't want to see you touch one. If you were to drop it do you know the consequence? Poof! Away we all go to 'Kingdom come,' as the children say. Only bits of you or of me, or of this place, would be found here one minute after. Do not be rash and foolish, mon ami. Leave them alone; I am almost afraid to touch them myself."
Then ensued a long talk. The Russian seemed to be in some sense a stranger to the place, or had been away some time, and the other showed and explained everything to him, going at length into the details of the fiendish plot that had been elaborated. And though their language was interspersed with foreign expressions here and there, and many fierce oaths and coarse words that need not be reproduced, they spoke principally in English, and with sufficient clearness for Daisy, horrified and trembling, to understand the drift of what was said. She grasped the fact that it was intended to attempt the lives of the Queen and those with her on the occasion of the Jubilee procession, and comprehended, above all, that "her Princess" was among those threatened.
Presently the two went into the outer room, and Daisy found she could still hear plainly what was said. The loft, in fact, ran back without any partition over the first workshop, and there were wide cracks in the boards through which she could both see and hear.
"These, friend Karanoff," said Legrand, pointing to the mysterious-looking small machines on the bench, "are the two 'death clocks' I told you about. They've taken a long time to get out; had to make special moulds and patterns first, and all that; but there they are now, loaded up and 'ready for use,' as the window-tickets say. You see that pointer and those figures there? You set that, and, according to the figure you set it at, it will go off in so many hours. Then you dig a hole in the ground at the foot of the wall of any place you want to send up skywards, put a lot of dynamite cartridges in it, and this machine in the middle of them, cover them up, and leave them. A few stones or branches strewed about will suffice to hide the fresh earth, and—there you are; you can retire in safety and without hurry, knowing that, at the appointed time, your little 'flare up' will come off—when you yourself are far away."
"So!" grunted Karanoff, approvingly. "Mais—how do you know it will go off punctually?"
"I've tried 'em both—many times, before they were 'loaded'—and they never failed."
"Let us see now, mon ami. I turn this—"
Again the other interposed.
"Don't do that, for, if you do, it will have to go off in due time, and we don't want that, you know. Once started you can't stop it or unload it."
"So! But that seems to be a—what do you call it? a weak point, does it not?"
"It can't be helped; it would have taken ever so much more time to make them so that you could stop them. At least so Maguire says; he made them, you know. Besides, where is the use? You could not use them a second time, you see. You only want to use them once. Once will be quite enough for those anywhere in the neighbourhood, I guess." And he gave a brutal laugh.
"Oui, oui. C'est vrai. Mais, you speak of Maguire. Is he quite safe, do you feel sure?"
Legrand hesitated, and drummed with his fingers on the bench, before he answered. Then, in a lower voice, he said:
"There you've hit it. I do not trust him, especially of late. Somehow, I hardly know how, he seems altered. With us, as you know, to doubt is fatal, and means but one thing. We must make him safe before the time comes. You understand?"
"I think so, mon ami. We've been through too much of this sort of thing together for me to misunderstand. Still, there may be risk in that. If he is getting what you call lukewarm only, perhaps a little more money, eh? He's too deep in now to be likely to risk his own skin?"
Just then the outer gate opened and swung to, and a step was heard crossing the yard.
"Sh—. Here he is! Be cautious what you say. If it has to come to my plan, do not forget that we can do without him now. He has done all we want."
Maguire threw the door open and came in. He looked pale and haggard. There were dark rings round his eyes, as though he had had no sleep for many nights. The man called Karanoff greeted him effusively, but Maguire responded but coldly, and, though he seemed to smile, there was something in the lines about his mouth that gave him an expression of grim determination.
"Ah! I'm glad you've come, friend Karanoff," he said in a hard, low tone. "I've been hoping to see you, for there is something that I wish to say."
"Mais, that is all right, my dear friend. I am only too delighted. What is it you would say to me?"
"To put it shortly, this. I am going no further in this business!"
A fierce oath broke from Legrand, but the other only held up his hand, and said quietly:
"So! And why, if I may ask, my dear friend?"
"Because I am sick of it; and for reasons of my own."
"So! Very thoughtful of you; very frank. Mais, why this sudden change? You had even more of zeal than we ourselves not long ago. Is it that you want more money?"
"No! I wish to heaven I had never taken any of your filthy, bloodstained money."
"Ha, ha! Perhaps all the same you do want a leetle more, and do not know it. See here now, let us talk this over."
He pulled a roll of bank notes out of his pocket.
"Look at these, now," said the tempter, "you know they are good, you have had plenty before, and know we do not deal with bad money. Now come! You are out of sorts to-day. There is nothing like the money to put one in a good humour. See here are notes for one hundred pounds. You will take them, will you not? and all shall go on well."
But Maguire, to their surprise, firmly refused; and even when the offer was gradually increased up to five hundred, he showed no sign of yielding. Then ensued arguments and discussion, slowly but surely working up, through threats and counter-threats, to a heated quarrel.
"I say to you both, go!" Maguire exclaimed, fiercely. "If you like to clear out you shall be safe from me, provided you leave all these infernal devil's hatchings of murder machines behind. You shall have plenty of time to get safe away out of the country. You have money; I want none of it. I say go! Let me see the last of your hateful faces!"
"You infernal traitor!" hissed Legrand, through his clenched teeth, but stopped when Maguire turned upon him savagely.
But this brought him with his back to Karanoff, and that suave, but ruthless ruffian, raised his arm in the air, and in it was a gleaming poignard that he had for some minutes had concealed up his sleeve, watching for his opportunity, while outwardly appearing to control his temper.
A blow—a groan—a fall. Fierce oaths and expressions of malignant triumph from the two men that drowned a low, smothered, sobbing cry from the unseen spectator above. Then, for a space, a horrible, deadly stillness.
"Ugh!" the assassin exclaimed, stretching his arms, and yawning, and looking with a cruel smile first at the prostrate man and then at his confederate. "That was sharp work! I'm glad it's over and done with. Help me to push him out of the way—under that bench."
When this had been done, the two scoundrels sat down unconcernedly to discuss what next to do.
"This puts an entirely new face on things," observed Karanoff reflectively. "He will be missed—sought for. Ma foi! It upsets matters badly! We cannot stay here! I begin to fear perhaps, after all, I have been too hasty. It appears to me, mon ami, we must clear out."
"I'm afraid it is so," returned the other, gloomily. "But what can we take with us? Only these two 'death clocks.' We dare not risk carrying those glass things. It's lucky the clocks are finished and all ready for action. There are the padded leather hand-cases we had made for them. It's lucky all that part is ready to our hands."
"You'd better pack them up at once," replied the Russian, and his companion forthwith set to work to do so.
AND during this time, on the floor above, a slender, white-faced child was lying on the floor, with wide-open, horror-stricken eyes, gasping and panting for breath, and heroically striving to keep down the convulsive sobs that rose in her throat and threatened to choke her, if she did not give them vent. But suddenly a thought came into her mind—a wild, awful, terrible thought! A thought so dreadful, that at first she would not, could not face it; it seemed only a formless brooding horror. But it grew, and grew, and gradually took shape; and still it grew ever clearer and clearer, till finally it was no longer a mere thought, but a solid, fixed resolve. Then she rose to her knees, and clasping her hands, prayed silently to God, only just breathing the words. - And while she prayed, the look of resolve took an expression such as might have been worn by a Christian martyr facing death in the amphitheatre of ancient Rome. Her eyes were now tearless, but never did they lose that look of stony horror. And this is somewhat how her prayer ran:—
"Oh, dear God, give me strength to do this, and forgive me if it is not right, because I am only a little girl and I do not know—and cannot think of any other way. Father is dead; so nothing can hurt him, and I don't want to live now—only for mother; but I don't mind dying, if it will save my dear Princess that was so good to me, and that made me well. It can't be wrong, dear God, I think, because I read in the Bible about Samson, and it didn't say he was wrong, and I can't think of any other way. And please, dear God, be kind to dear mother and make her happy; she will be so lonely." Then a sob nearly choked her again, and she remained for a while quite still, striving to quiet her emotions and collect all her energies for this last act of her young life. For this poor little would-be martyr, impressed with the belief that the two assassins were hurrying away to use their infernal machines against 'her Princess,' at once, had made up her mind to thwart them by sacrificing at one blow both their dastardly worthless lives and her own! Meanwhile the miscreants were completing their preparations for departure. Suddenly a groan from the prostrate form under the bench proclaimed the fact that Maguire was still alive. Both turned to look at him, and Legrand exclaimed, with a savage oath, "You've bungled it after all! He's not dead!"
"We'll soon settle that, curse him," Karanoff hissed out between his teeth. He gave a snarl, like a wild beast; then he drew out the poignard again, and advanced upon his victim. But at the first step he paused in surprise, for he saw that Maguire, who had raised himself painfully on one elbow, was gazing intently, not at his would-be murderer, but at something behind him; and in his eyes there was an expression that made the assassin start and look round to see what the wounded man was staring at.
In the doorway between the two workshops stood Daisy, and the sight of her nearly made the two hardened wretches before her fall to their knees in terror. She spoke no word, only stood and regarded them with a wild hard look that almost froze the blood in their veins, for they saw that in each hand she held one of the death-dealing glass bombs. Instinctively they divined her purpose, and the two cowards trembled as they realised their awful danger. For a space that seemed like hours no one either moved or spoke. The two hardly dared to breathe, much less to risk any word or movement that might startle the child into dropping one of the terrible instruments of death. So they stood and looked at her and at one another, she all the time seeming like one walking in her sleep, or as one doing unconsciously the bidding of some will stronger than her own. To the two vile beings who cowered before her she seemed like a veritable Destroying Angel, sent for their punishment by an avenging God.
Maguire was the first to speak. He spoke with effort, and scarcely above a whisper.
"Daisy, be careful! Do not drop one of those things."
She shivered and seemed to listen, as though some one had spoken from afar. But her eyes never swerved from their watchful regard of the two villains. And still she gazed vacantly, as one who sees not.
"Daisy, be careful, I say! Listen to me. Obey me. Be careful!"
"Yes, father." The words came in a hurried surprised whisper. But still the eyes never moved.
Maguire understood. Gently, in low, guarded accents, he spoke to her again and again, gradually bringing to her wandering senses the fact that he was still alive, and that it was not, as the child seemed to have imagined, his spirit that spoke to her. And the other two stood and listened the while, and shook with fear and terror, knowing but too well what awaited them all if, when the truth should be borne in upon her, she should start forward and drop one of the deadly bulbs.
Nor was Maguire less terribly solicitous, as well may be believed. Spite of the smarting of his wound, of the exhaustion that was creeping upon him from loss of blood, he spoke on gently, quietly, till at last there appeared in his daughter's eyes a dawning, glad light of comprehension, and, for a moment, she looked at him. Her pale face flushed, and she exclaimed—
"Then they have not killed you, father! But they tried to. Will you get well?"
"Y—yes, I think—I hope so. Be careful, Daisy."
"Yes, father. What shall I do? You told them to go if they took nothing with them. Shall I let them go like that?"
Legrand here seemed to recover his scattered senses somewhat. He noiselessly drew a revolver from his pocket, and was evidently about to aim it at the girl to frighten her, but Karanoff now woke up, too, and seized his hand.
"You confounded fool!" he exclaimed, hotly, but in a low voice. "Would you bring death upon us all! Leave this to me. Let me talk to her."
And he talked and talked, and tried to coax and wheedle the girl, but to no purpose. Instead, she seemed every moment to regard the two with added contempt and disgust, as though she realised their despicable cowardice, and knew that she was mistress of the situation.
"Tell me, father, are they to go?" she asked, without looking at him, but keeping her eyes fixed upon their enemies.
"Yes, Daisy, I wish it."
"Not without these things, though, mon ami" exclaimed Karanoff. He pointed to the two leather cases containing the infernal machines.
"Let them take them, Daisy."
The child stared at him wonderingly. There was, however, a strange smile on his face that reassured her.
"Now, you two, do as I told you at first," said Maguire, his voice full of bitter scorn—"Go!"
And the two anarchists sneaked out furtively. But, when they got outside, they broke into a run, and hustled one another, striving which should get into the street first. Two bullying, boastful cut-throats, belittled, defeated, frightened by the superior courage and loving devotion of a girl of tender years.
"Will they not come back, father?" asked Daisy, doubtfully.
"No, child. Now go and put those things back, very, very quietly and carefully. And then come to me. I have much yet for my brave little girl to do."
"Yes, father."
Maguire waited, in shivering anxiety, till she appeared again with empty hands.
"Now close the door—it shuts with a catch lock."
"And now," when she had closed it, "turn the key and double lock it."
"Yes, father."
"Now come and sit beside me, and tell me what brought you here to-day."
He made her sit by him, not feeling certain yet that their enemies might not steal back, and, if they saw her unarmed, fire at her through the window. Hidden by the bench, however, she was safe from such a danger.
"Hold my hand, Daisy, and do not stir till I tell you," he went on. Now that the strain was relaxed, he could feel himself getting momentarily weaker. "Tell me, how came you here, my child?"
She told him of the letter, and drew it out of her pocket.
"Can you read it, do you think?" he asked. He felt his head swimming and his eyesight growing dim. And she opened it, and read it out—
"I have pondered what you told me, and have arranged a plan that may save you without compromising you. I will be with you punctually at 2.30 to-day, and shall have trustworthy friends with me.—J. W."
"God in his mercy be thanked!" exclaimed the wounded man, faintly and humbly. "Now will my poor child be saved." Then to Daisy, "Look at my watch, child, and tell me the time. I must not move."
"Ten minutes past two, father."
"Only twenty minutes and he will be here. Now, Daisy, listen carefully."
"Yes, father."
"I may fall asleep; but if I do, take no notice. Soon someone will come. I have given him a key of the gate, and he will ask to be let in here. Do not move, or show yourself at the window, till you are quite sure it is Mr. Weston."
"Mr. Weston! Is he coming here?" Daisy exclaimed gladly.
"Yes, God reward him for it! Let him in; then first warn him against touching those glass balls you had in your hands just now; and he will know what else to do."
"Yes, father," came the dutiful answer; and her father, satisfied, sank down into unconsciousness.
Daisy, holding his hand, never moving, waited patiently; and after what seemed a terribly long time, she heard the outer gate open and shut, then footsteps in the yard, and shortly a knock at the door.
"Is William Maguire in?" asked a voice.
Daisy knew it well; she had no need to ask who it was. Springing up, she ran to the door and opened it. There stood Mr. Weston, with three or four men. He started back in surprise at sight of her, but something in her looks alarmed him, and he came hurriedly forward.
"What is the matter?" he asked, quickly.
Daisy dropped into his outstretched arms.
"Hush!" she said. "Father is down there ill— hurt—asleep. You see those glass balls over there?"
"Yes," Weston wonderingly replied.
"They are dreadful things! Let nobody touch them, or you will all be killed. Oh, Mr. Weston, I am so glad you have come!" And, with a soft sigh, the poor, overburdened, courageous child gave way, and fell into his arms unconscious.
AND once more the Hospital doors opened to receive these two—the father nigh to death's door with a terrible wound, his daughter tossing about in an access of brain fever. But Heaven was merciful to the erring father. Thanks greatly to good nursing and attention, he pulled through, and so did Daisy. Indeed, they left the Hospital one day together, Mr. Weston and Mrs. Maguire coming to fetch them.
No steps were taken against Maguire, in commiseration of his sufferings and his timely repentance; and Mr. Weston prevailed upon his former employer to take him back. Mr. Duncan even interested himself once more in the wonderful invention; and since then it has prospered and turned out profitable to all connected with it—the inventor, of course, most of all.
One day Mr. Weston came to Maguire, and showed him a cutting from a newspaper, stating how, in France, two persons had been killed by the explosion of an infernal machine they were carrying. They both lived long enough, though in terrible agony, to give some account of themselves, and it appeared that the names by which they went were Karanoff and Legrand.
"By the way, that reminds me," said Mr. Weston. "I always wondered why you let those villains carry off those two machines."
There came over Maguire's face the same strange smile that Daisy had seen there when he had bade her let the men take them.
"That is the reason," he responded, pointing to the paragraph.
"How—I don't understand," Mr. Weston said, confused. "You don't think this accident was caused by those same machines?"
"Certainly it was. And what's more, I intended it—I planned it," Maguire returned, quietly.
"You—planned—this, the death of these two men!" exclaimed Mr. Weston, aghast.
"Yes, sir; and I'm not ashamed of it. I have rid the world of two atrocious villains, and—I say it again—I'm not ashamed of it. It was their lives— or—somebody else's," Maguire continued, with the same hard smile.
"You see, sir," he went on, composedly, "as soon as I came to a sense of my own wickedness and folly in this business—and that was brought about through the kindness my little Daisy met with at the Hospital —I resolved to have nothing more to do with it, although I felt that most likely I should be sealing my own fate. For I knew the men I had to deal with; that they would try all they could to murder me, or do me some great personal injury. So I made up my mind to play a trick on them that would avenge me in the end, whatever they might do to me. When I designed those infernal machines, I so arranged the mechanism that, if the 'pointer' were turned to the left, they would go off at once, but if to the right, the explosion would not take place till so many hours afterwards, according to the number at which the pointer was 'set.' These two men knew all about this. I was sure that, whenever they came to 'set' the pointer, it would be either when they were alone or in the company of desperadoes as bad as themselves. They knew that, the pointers once set, the explosion must follow sooner or later—for they could not be stopped. Hence they were not likely to attempt to set them frivolously, but only for some definite murderous purpose. Thus I considered I was quite justified in providing for the safety of the persons whose lives were menaced, by sacrificing the plotters. So I took out the pointers and reversed the screws. Then I felt satisfied. I knew their punishment was assured, for they carried with them the apparatus for their own execution. That's all, sir!" And the smile on Maguire's face became very grim when he finished this explanation, and looked, half defiantly, at Mr. Weston.
To-day Maguire and his wife are once more happy together, almost as in the early days of their marriage. And Daisy has younger brothers and sisters for whom she cares in quite a motherly fashion, for she is grown up now—at least she herself thinks so. Indeed, there is quite a flirtation going on between her and a certain well-built young fellow who acts as her father's foreman. For Maguire has now a factory of his own, and many men under him, all busily employed in manufacturing his successful inventions.
It has been truly said that
"Evil is wrought by want of thought,
As well as want of heart."
But if it is the case that there are many in the world who often do evil without intending it, it is also true that there are some who constantly do good without even being aware of it. There are kindly natures filled with their own natural sweetness, who, wherever they go, whatever they do, leave behind them blessings and happiness of which they themselves are as unconscious as is the flower of the fragrance it leaves in the path along which we bear it.
Of such may be reckoned the act of a gracious lady, whose kiss, given in a generous impulse to a poor sick child, carried with it after-results little dreamed of at the time. Would there were more amongst us in the world here below like unto "Daisy's Princess."
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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