McClure's Magazine/New Series Volume 1/Number 2/The Man With the Scar on His Face

WRITING gentleman, are you, sir?" said the landlord. "Well, well—it takes all sorts to make a world. Not that I hold much with it," he went on. "I reckon that it's better to be up and doing than sitting down and spoiling good paper."

Against such an outrageous assault as that I felt I had to defend myself, and I pointed out to him that one had to put in a bit of up and doing oneself before beginning to spoil the paper.

"Not that I should think there's much doing beyond sleep in this village," I added sarcastically.

"That's just where you're wrong," he remarked triumphantly. "Why in that very chair you're sitting in a man was shot through the heart. Plugged as clean as a whistle, and rolled off the chair up against that table your beer is standing on, stone dead. And that"—he paused for a moment only to continue ever more triumphantly—"is the man that did it."

He indicated a gray-haired man who was passing—a fine-looking old man who walked with a pronounced limp and leaned heavily on a stick.

"Good evening, Mr. Philimore," he called out.

"Evening, Sam," answered the other, pausing and coming over towards the door of the inn outside which we were sitting.

He stopped for a few moments discussing local affairs, and I studied him covertly. A man of seventy-five, I guessed, with the clear eye of one who has lived in the open. His great frame showed strength beyond the average, and even now it struck me that many a younger man would have found him more than a match physically.

He finished his discussion, and then, with a courteous bow that included me, continued his walk.

"Sleep, indeed!" snorted the worthy Sam. "Thirty years ago, sir, come next month, this village was more exciting than London."

"Look here, Sam," I said, "it strikes me that you'd better tell me all about it."

"You'll understand, sir," he began, lighting his pipe, "that when the thing happened I was just flabbergasted. Couldn't make head nor tail of it, because I didn't know what it was all about. It was only afterwards when I began making inquiries and talking to this person and that, that the whole thing was clear from the beginning. And that's the way I'm going to tell you the story."

"And quite the right way, too," I assured him.

"It starts nigh on fifty-five years ago, when I was a nipper of ten, and John Philimore—him as you've just seen—a man of twenty-one. You can talk of good-looking men—and I've seen a tidy few in my life—but you can take it from me he came first. The girls were fair crazy about him, and well they mighty be. Tall, upstanding, strong as a giant—they don't breed 'em nowadays. There wasn't a man on the countryside could touch him at any sport, or at swimming. Why, I can remember seeing him swim out with a life-line to a barque in distress in the October gales of 1868. Bit before your time, I reckon—but there's been no gales in these parts like 'em since.

"He lived up at Oastbury Farm, which had been his grandfather's and his great-grandfather's before him. Aye—and longer than that. Traced direct back from father to son for nigh on four hundred years was Oastbury with the Philimores. And John—he lived at home with his father, ready to take on when his time came.

"I've told you that all the girls were fair crazy about him, but John had eyes for only one—Mary Trevenna. And a proper match they were, too, in every way. Old Trevenna had Aldstock Farm,—the place next to Oastbury—and though he wasn't so wealthy as the Philimores, he was quite comfortably off. And Mary was his only daughter; just as John was the only son, though he had a sister. Oh! it was a proper match. Just as John had eyes only for Mary, so she never looked at another man. I remember catching 'em one day when they thought no one was about, kissing and cuddling fine. And then John—he caught me, and I couldn't sit down for a week.

"Well—I must get on with it. When Mary was twenty, they were to get married. That was the arrangement, and that is what happened. John was twenty-two and they were going to live in a small farm near Oastbury which his father had given them.

"It was a great wedding. The squire came—that's his present lordship's father—and every one from the country side. And after it was over they went off to Torquay for the honeymoon. Then they came back to the house where they were going to live, and things settled down normal again.

"Of course, you must remember, sir, that I was only a nipper at the time, helping my father in this very house. Them was the days before these new-fangled schemes of education, when folks held with a boy working and not filling his head with rubbish. But little pitchers have long ears, as they say, and I very soon finds out from what folks said that there was a baby on the way.

"John Philimore came in less and less, and after a while he hardly ever came in at all; and when he did it was only for a moment or two, and then he'd hurry off home. Not that things weren't going well, but a lad is apt to be a bit fazed over his first.

"A boy it would be—of course; for generations now the eldest child born to the Philimores had been a boy. And a rare fine specimen, too—with such parents. John's mother looked out the lace christening robe and all the old fal-lals the women like fiddling round with at such times. And at last Mary's time came, and it was a girl—as fine a child, so I heard tell, as any one would have wished for. But it was a girl.

"Well, sir—I don't profess to account for it; Lord knows there was plenty more time for 'em to have half a dozen boys, but it seemed to prey on Mary's mind that she should be the first for so many generations to have a girl as her first-born.

"I remember old Doctor Taggart coming into the inn here one night, and leaning across the bar for his brandy and water. He and my father were alone, and they paid no attention to me.

"'Sam,' he said—my father was Sam, too—'Sam, that girl don't want to get well. There's nothing the matter with her; at least nothing serious. She just don't want to get well. I tell you I could shake her. Just mazed, she is, because it's a girl, and John near off his head.'

"And sure enough old Taggart was right. Ten days after the child was born, Mary Philimore died. She died in the afternoon at three o'clock, and with her death something must have snapped in John Philimore's brain.

"Never to my dying day shall I forget that evening. There was a bunch of people inside there, and naturally every one was discussing it, when suddenly the door was flung open and John stood there swaying like a drunken man. He'd got no collar on; his eyes were blazing—and his great fists were clenching and unclenching at his sides. He stood there staring round the room, which had fallen silent at his entrance, and then he let out a great bellow of laughter.

"'A murderer!' he roared. 'That's what I am—a murderer. Confound you all! Give me some brandy.'

"'Shame on you, John,' said one of the men. 'With Mary not yet cold.'

"And John hit him on the point of the jaw, and as near as makes no matter broke his neck.

"'Brandy,' he shouted, 'or I'll take it!'

"And take it he did, for there was no stopping him. He tipped half the bottle down his throat, and once again he let out a roar of laughter, as he stood there with his back to the bar. He looked at the men bending over the chap he'd hit, and laughed and laughed and laughed.

"'What's it matter if he's dead!' he cried. 'One or two—what's it matter? I've murdered Mary: what's Peter Widgely to her? I tell you I've murdered her—my little Mary. What did it matter if it was a boy or girl? But she thought it did—and she's dead. And if they hadn't hidden the brat it would be dead too.'

"And then suddenly he grew strangely silent, and stared from one man to another. No one spoke; I guess they were all a bit scared. For maybe a minute you could have heard a pin drop in that room, and then John Philimore spoke again. He didn't shout this time; he spoke quite quiet. And in between his sentences he took great gulps of raw brandy.

"It's burnt on my brain, sir, what he said—and there it will remain. For on that night John Philimore cursed his Maker with blasphemy too hideous to think of. He cursed his Maker: he cursed his child: he cursed his father and, above all, he cursed himself. And when he'd finished he laid the empty bottle on a table, strode across the room looking neither to the right hand nor to the left, opened the door and went out into the night. And from that moment no man in this village saw him again for twenty years."

Mine host stared thoughtfully across the little harbor at two fishing boats beating in.

"A bad sailor, Bill Dennett. Always keeps too long on that tack. However, sir, as I was saying, John Philimore disappeared. From time to time there came news of him in different corners of the earth—and it wasn't good news. With a wild set he'd got in, and he was the wildest of the lot. From South Africa, from Australia, from over in America we heard of him at intervals—but only indirectly. He never wrote to his father, or to his sister—and it fair broke his mother's heart. For John was just the apple of her eye. She kept on hoping against hope that he'd walk in some day, and when the weeks passed, and the months and the years, she just faded out herself—though she was still a young woman.

"That was seven years after John went, and they buried her along with the rest of the Philimores. And then five years later the old man got thrown from his horse out hunting—and he died too—cursing his son on his death-bed for being the cause of his mother's death, even as John had cursed his father for being in part the cause of Mary's. A hard lot the Philimores—and always have been.

"And so for the first time Oastbury passed into the hands of a woman—John's sister, Ruth; though, of course, it was John's whenever he chose to return. If he'd been able to, the old man would have cut him out, and left it away from him—but he couldn't. But until John did return it was Ruth's, who went on living there with the innocent cause of all the trouble, who had been called Mary after her mother. She was twelve years old when her grandfather died, and even then gave promise of being as lovely as her mother. Of her father she knew nothing; she'd been told simply that he was abroad and no one could tell when he would return.

"On the death of the old man Ruth had written a letter to the last address at which her brother had been heard of, and she had caused advertisements to be put in the papers in Australia and South Africa. But after some months the letter came back to her, and there was no reply to the advertisements. In fact, there were a good many of us who began to think John Philimore was dead, and seeing how he had turned out, no bad riddance either.

"Well, the years went on, and Mary grew from a girl into a woman. And the promise as she'd given as a little 'un became a certainty. She was lovelier even than her mother had been, for there was a touch of the Philimore in her—in the way she stood, and in the way she looked at you. And in addition to her looks Mary stood to be a pretty considerable heiress. Old Trevenna—her grandfather—was ailing, and he had no kith nor kin but her. And if, as most of us thought, John Philimore was dead, then Oastbury became hers on her twenty-first birthday. For Ruth was only just in there as a guardian; Oastbury was John's till they proved him dead and then it passed to his child.

"So you'll see, sir, that Mary was due for Oastbury and Aldstock—and that in the days when farming was farming. It made her the biggest heiress round these parts, and the young fellows weren't exactly blind to the fact. Not that she weren't worth having without anything at all except her sweet self; but with them two farms chucked in like, the boys were fairly sitting up.

"But Mary wasn't going to be in any hurry. No one could say which way her fancy lay—not even her aunt; though it did seem sometimes as if it was towards young George Turnbury, whose father was a big miller in Barnstaple. Not that they were tokened, but when old Gurnet drew him in the sweepstake he stood drinks all round.

"A fine boy—young George—big and upstanding, who would come into a pretty penny of his own in time. And absolutely silly over Mary, as well he might be. And we was all beginning to think as things would be settled soon when the trouble began.

"I was standing at this very door—I'd been landlord then for nigh on two years—when I saw a stranger coming up the street. A great big fellow, he was, with a curious sort of roll in his walk, such as you often see in men who have been a lot at sea. As soon as he seed the sign over the door he made for it like a cat for a plate of fish. And I give you my word, sir, I got a shock when I saw his face. Prom his left temple, right down his cheek as far as his chin, ran a vivid red scar. It was an old one and quite healed, but it must have been the most fearful wound that caused it. For the rest, his skin was dark brown, his nose was hooked and his eyes a vivid blue.

"'Say, I guess you'll know,' he said, staring at me with those blue eyes of his. 'Is there a shack called Oastbury in this district?'

"Well, at that I pricked up my ears, for I'd placed him already as a man from foreign parts.

"'There certainly is I said. 'If you go round the corner you can see Oastbury Farm upon the hill there.'

"'I guess it will stop there,' says he, without moving. 'Good farm, is it?'

"'It is accounted the best in these parts and one of the best in the whole West Country,' said I, and he nodded his head as if pleased with the news.

"'May I ask, sir,' I went on, 'if you have by any chance news of John Philimore? I can see you come from foreign parts, and since you've asked about Oastbury, I thought you might know something of him.'

"'Then your thoughts are correct,' he answered.

"'For twenty years we've had no word of him direct,' I said, 'and there are those who say he's dead.'

"'There are, are there!' he said. 'Well, they've backed a winner. John Philimore has been dead a year.'

"'Good heavens!' I cried—for now that the news was confirmed it seemed a terrible thing. 'What did he die of?'

"'An ounce of lead in a tender spot,' he answered shortly. 'Same as a good many other poor fools have died of. Say, now, there's a daughter of his alive, ain't there?'

"'There is,' I said. 'Living at Oastbury Farm now. And if John Philimore is dead, the farm is hers. Leastways, it will be in a year, when she's twenty-one.'

"'And what would happen, mister,' he said, 'if John had made a will leaving all he possessed to me?' "'It wouldn't be worth the paper it's written on,' I answered shortly. 'It's all tied up—see? John Philimore could no more leave Oastbury away from his daughter than he could give away Buckingham Palace.'

"'Are you sure o' that?' he said with a sort of snarl.

"'Of course I'm sure of it,' I answered. 'Didn't John's father go into the whole question after John ran off to Australia! That's what he wanted to do—leave Oastbury to his daughter—all tied up and secure. Went to Exeter, he did, to a big lawyer there, to see about it. But it couldn't be done. From eldest child to eldest child it's got to go—be it male or female. And so whatever John Philimore has done, he can't do his daughter out of Oastbury.'

"I tell you, sir, I was beginning to dislike this man, and I spoke a bit short.

"'And supposing,' says he very quiet-like, 'this daughter of his should die before she's twenty-one?'

"'Then,' I said, 'it would go to her aunt—John's sister."

"With that I left him and went indoors. And half an hour later he was still sitting at the table staring across the harbor. Then he gives a shout, and out I goes.

"'Can you give me a room here?' he says. 'I'll pay what you like, and give no trouble.'

"Well, business is business; and though I didn't fancy having him as a guest, I said I'd be able to fix him up.

"'Good,' he cried. 'Oh! and by the way, is this wench married?'

"'She is not,' I answered. 'But I expect she soon will be.'

"'So do I,' he said, and laughed in a funny sort of way.

"'She's all but tokened to young George Turnbury from Barnstaple,' I told him, but that only made him laugh the more.

"And then, what with one thing and another, and telling the news of John Philimore's death, I forgot all about him for a time.

"I reckons it must have been about nine o'clock when George Turnbury came in. He'd been up at Oastbury.

"'Say, fellows,' he said, 'have any of you seen a queer-looking customer about the place? A great big hook-nosed fellow with a huge red scar down his face.'

"'It's the stranger,' I cried. 'The one who told me John Philimore was dead.'

"'Dead?' cried George, staring at me. 'John Philimore dead?' For, of course, he hadn't heard the news.

"'That's so,' I said. 'A year ago.'

"'Good Lord!' he muttered, and I could see he was a bit moved. After all, though he'd never known John, he'd just been up at his daughter's.

"'Well, anyway,' he went on, 'I saw this man nosing round Oastbury, and I tell you I didn't like the look of him. So I passed the word to some of the hands, and heaven help him if he tries any tricks!'

"'In my life I've never relied overmuch on heaven,' said a voice from the door, and there was the stranger, with his eyes fixed on George. As you can imagine, sir, it was a bit of an awkward moment, because we didn't know how much he'd heard.

"'I've found that I'm quite capable of looking after myself, young man,' he continued, crossing the room and standing close to George. 'And now may I ask why you don't like the look of me?'

"George Turnbury got a bit red.

"'I'm sorry you should have heard that,' he said. 'I didn't know you were in the room.'

"'I'm still waiting for an answer to my question, young man,' said the other quietly, though there was a nasty note in his voice.

"Young George, he drew himself up, for he had a temper of his own, and he didn't like the stranger's tone.

"'You'll get the answer in a looking-glass,' he said, and turned his back on him. 'I guess it was a powerful cat you tried petting,' he flung over his shoulder.

"The stranger put out both his hands quite gently, and caught hold of George from behind just above each elbow. Now, George was a powerful lad, used to handling sacks of corn, and I shall never forget the look of blank amazement that spread over his face. It must have been a quarter of a minute they stood there without movement, and the reason was plain to us all. George couldn't move; he was as powerless as a child in that man's grasp. We could see him struggling so that the sweat broke out on his forehead, and there was hardly a tremor in that stranger's hands. And then the stranger laughed.

"'It wasn't a cat, little boy,' he said. 'It was the slash of a cutlass. And the man who did it died as he did it. It was a much stronger man than you, little boy. But as far as you're concerned, don't be rude any more, or I might have to whip you.'

"And with that he let George go and swung out the door.

"For a while after he left no one spoke. George—who had a proper pride in himself—was well-nigh crying with shame and mortification at having been made to look such a fool before us all. And, of course, a thing like that was bound to get around, if only as a measure indicating the stranger's strength. But as the days went on it was forgotten in the much more important affairs that were happening up at Oastbury. It had us all beat; we couldn't make head nor tail of 'em.

"For this stranger pretty well lived up there, and what Mary Philimore or her aunt could see in him was beyond us. He still kept on his room here; but mostly he was at Oastbury.

"George was pretty near off his head about it all; seemed to think he'd got some hold over Mary—this man with the scar. And sure enough two or three times when I seed her, she seemed to have a hunted look in her sweet eyes.

"Then a month after he'd arrived we heard the news. At first no one would believe it; but it was true right enough. Mary had tokened herself to this man, whose name was Henry Gaunt.

"I tell you, sir, it had us all knocked endwise. For Mary, that sweet girl, to marry this bully, who was old enough to be her father, seemed a horrible sin. And once it was settled, what little mark of decency he had kept on to start with disappeared. He took a delight in picking quarrels and insulting people. Such a man was he that women fled at the sight of him. He nearly killed poor old Dick, the policeman, one night—and only just escaped prison by a hair.

"That sobered him up a bit, and he was more careful in future. But even then he was a devil. Chaps as had come to this house for years, and their fathers before them, stayed away because they were afeard of Gaunt. And this was the man Mary was going to marry.

"Time went on and the wedding was due in a fortnight. And then one morning I was standing in the door there thinking things over, when again I seed a stranger coming up the street. The house was empty; Gaunt was up at Oastbury—but this stranger reminded me in a way of him. The same build—the same roll in his walk, and I thought to myself, I thought, 'Good Lord! This ain't another such as Gaunt!'

"And then as he got nearer I began to rub my eyes. I must be wrong, of course, but it surely was a staggering likeness to John Philimore.

"'Hullo, Sam!' he sung out. 'Forgotten me, I suppose. I know it's you; you're so like your father.'

"'Great guns!' I said, all mazed-like, 'it's John Philimore!'

"'The very same,' he answered.

"'But we was told you were dead.'

"'And who told you that?' he says.

"'Why, Henry Gaunt,' I answers. 'Him as is staying here now.'

"The smile had left his face, and he stared at me speechless.

"'Do you mean a man with a great red scar down his face?' he said in a terrible voice.

"'That's the one,' I told him. 'And not only is he staying here, but he's tokened to your daughter.'

"'What!' he roared, and I thought he was going to strike me. Then he pulled himself together. 'Come inside and tell me about it. But—wait a moment. Where is he now?'

"'Up at Oastbury,' I said, and I've never seen such a look of rage on a man's face before or since.

"Well, I took him inside, and I told him all I knew.

"'Sam,' he said, 'I rely on you. Not a word to a soul that I'm back. Above all, not a word to that devil incarnate.'

"'You have my word, sir,' I said. 'And if you can get rid of him, I, for one, will be profoundly thankful.'

"'I'll get rid of him all right,' he answered quietly.

"Naturally I was fair bursting with the news, but I kept my word and didn't breathe a hint to a soul. At six Gaunt came in and, sitting down in the chair you're in, he ordered his usual bottle. In a foul temper he was over something or other, and he sat there glowering across the harbor. There were two or three others drinking over at that table, and by this time my knees were shaking under me.

"Five minutes later young George Turnbury passed down the road on the way to the station.

"'Hi, you—you young swab,' sung out Gaunt. 'Come here!'

"George, he took no notice and just walked on, when—would you believe it, sir?—that devil pulled out a revolver and fired. George told us afterwards that he felt the wind of the bullet.

"'Next time I'll hit you,' said Gaunt, 'unless you stop!'

"George stopped. "'Now, you young cockerel, is it you who has been closeted all the afternoon with the girl I'm going to marry?'

"'It was not,' said a stern voice behind him. 'It was I.'

"And there was John Philimore standing just behind Gaunt with a revolver pressed into the devil's neck.

"'And if you move, Gaunt; if you try any of your foul tricks, I'll blow the top of your head off.'

"Gaunt's face was a study. He'd gone quite white, and the scar looked like a streak of bright red paint, while in his eyes there was the look of an animal at bay, a sort of snarling fear.

"'Is it you, John Philimore?' he said, moistening his lips, for with that gun in his neck he dursn't look round to see.

"'Who else would it be, Gaunt?' said John. 'You see you didn't kill me after all, though it was touch and go, Gaunt—touch and go. If two prospectors hadn't come along soon after you cleared out with what was left of the water you would have killed me, Gaunt.'

"Young George, he started forward. "'You foul swine!' he shouted, but Gaunt heeded him not. There was only one thing he could think of at the moment, and that was that his sin had found him out. And ceaselessly he moistened his lips with his tongue.

"'And then, Gaunt,' went on John Philimore in a terrible voice, 'having killed me, as you thought, you came to my home. And when you found it was entailed, and you couldn't get it by forgery—then Henry Gaunt, you went to my daughter, and told her that I wasn't really dead; that you'd lied when you said so—lied on purpose. You said that I was in prison for life for murder and bushranging; that I'd been guilty of unnameable crimes; that you had proof of it. And you blackmailed her into the unthinkable sacrifice of marrying you. Can you tell me. Gaunt, of any single reason why I shouldn't kill you where you sit?'

"Gaunt laughed harshly, though his eyes roved wildly from side to side as if seeking some way of escape.

"'One very good one,' he snarled. 'They'll hang you if you do.'

"'True, answered John Philimore. 'Then I'll flog you, Gaunt—flog you here and now till the blood drips off you.'

"And then, sir, it happened—so quickly that one could scarce see. Of a sudden two shots rang out, and we saw John Philimore sink to the ground. And even as he fell on one side of the chair, Gaunt rolled off on the other.

"We rushed up to them, young George Turnbury first of us all. And John, he looked up at him with a smile.

"'Go up, young George,' he said, 'and tell Mary that the wedding can take place, but the bridegroom will be different.'

"'Are you hurt, sir?' cried George.

"'Not as badly as Henry Gaunt.'

"We looked at the man with the scar on his face, and he was dead. Shot through the heart—plugged clean.

"Well, sir, that's the story. John Philimore was shot through the groin; maybe you noticed he still limps. And young George, he married Mary. That shows we don't always sleep here."