Page:What will he do with it.djvu/654

644 He had not advanced many paces when, from a branch-road to the right that led to the railway station, another gentleman, much younger, and whose dress unequivocally bespoke him a minister of our Church, came suddenly upon him. Each with surprise recognized the other.

"What!—Mr. George Morley!"

"Mr. Hartopp!—How are you, my dear Sir?—What brings you so far from home?"

"I am on a visit to my daughter, Anna Maria. She has not been long married—to young Jessop. Old Jessop is one of the principal merchants at Ouzelford—very respectable, worthy family. The young couple are happily settled in a remarkably snug villa—that is it with the portico, not a hundred yards behind us, to the right. Very handsome town, Ouzelford; you are bound to it, of course?—we can walk together. I am going to look at the papers in the City Rooms—very fine rooms these are. But you are straight from London, perhaps, and have seen the day's journals? Any report of the Meeting in aid of Ragged Schools?"

"Not that I know of. I have not come from London this morning nor seen the papers."

"Oh!—there's a strange-looking fellow following us; but perhaps he is your servant?"

"Not so, but my traveling companion—indeed my guide. In fact, I come to Ouzelford in the faint hope of discovering there a poor old friend of mine, of whom I have long been in search."

"Perhaps the Jessops can help you; they know everybody at Ouzelford. But now I meet you thus by surprise, Mr. George, I should very much like to ask your advice on a matter which has been much on my mind the last twenty-four hours, and which concerns a person I contrived to discover at Ouzelford, though I certainly was not in search of him—a person about whom you and I had a conversation a few years ago, when you were staying with your worthy father."

"Eh?" said George, quickly; "whom do you speak of?"

"That singular vagabond who took me in, you remember—called himself Chapman—real name William Losely, a returned convict. You would have it that he was innocent, though the man himself had pleaded guilty on his trial."

"His whole character belied his lips, then. Oh, Mr. Hartopp, that man commit the crime imputed to him!—a planned, deliberate robbery—an ungrateful, infamous breach of trust! That man—that!—he who rejects the money he does not earn, even when pressed on him by anxious, imploring friends—he who