He looked up as if to take aim with that introductory shot. The weather he began.
Why dont you finish and go? said the rigid figure, evidently in a state of painfully suppressed rage. All youve got to do is to fix the hour-hand on its axle. Youre simply humbugging
Certainly, sir one minute more. I overlooked and Mr. Henfrey finished and went.
But he went feeling excessively annoyed. Damn it! said Mr. Henfrey to himself, trudging down the village through the thawing snow; a man must do a clock at times, surely.
And again, Cant a man look at you? Ugly!
And yet again, Seemingly not. If the police was wanting you you couldnt be more wropped and bandaged.
At Gleesons corner he saw Hall, who had recently married the strangers hostess at the Coach and Horses, and who now drove the Iping conveyance, when occasional people required it, to Sidderbridge Junction, coming towards him on his return from that place. Hall had evidently been stopping a bit at Sidderbridge, to judge by his driving. Ow do, Teddy? he said, passing.
You got a rum un up home! said Teddy.
Hall very sociably pulled up. Whats that? he asked.
Rum-looking customer stopping at the Coach and Horses, said Teddy. My sakes!
And he proceeded to give Hall a vivid description of his grotesque guest. Looks a bit like a disguise, dont it? Id like to see a mans face if I had him stopping in my place, said Henfrey. But women are that trustful where strangers are concerned. Hes took your rooms and he aint even given a name, Hall.
You dont say so! said Hall, who was a man of sluggish apprehension.
Yes, said Teddy. By the week. Whatever he is, you cant get rid of him under the week. And hes got a lot of luggage coming tomorrow, so he says. Lets hope it wont be stones in boxes, Hall.
He told Hall how his aunt at Hastings hadbeen swindled by a stranger with empty portmanteaux. Altogether he left Hall vaguely suspicious. Get up, old girl, said Hall. I spose I must see bout this.
Teddy trudged on his way with his mind considerably relieved.
Instead of seeing bout it, however, Hall on his return was severely rated by his wife on the length of time he had spent in Sidderbridge, and his mild inquiries were answered snappishly and in a manner not to the point. But the seed of suspicion Teddy had sown germinated in the mind of Mr. Hall in spite of these discouragements. You wim dont know everything, said Mr. Hall, resolved to ascertain more about the personality of his guest at the earliest possible opportunity. And after the stranger had gone to bed, which he did about half-past nine, Mr. Hall went very aggressively into the parlour and looked very hard at his wifes furniture, just to show that the stranger wasnt master there, and scrutinised closely and a little contemptuously a sheet of mathematical computations the stranger had left. When retiring for the night he instructed Mrs. Hall to look very closely at the strangers luggage when it came next day.
You mind your own business, Hall, said Mrs. Hall, and Ill mind mine.
She was all the more inclined to snap at Hall because the stranger was undoubtedly an unusually strange sort of stranger, and she was by no means assured about him in her own mind. In the middle of the night she woke up dreaming of huge white heads like turnips, that came trailing after her, at the end of interminable necks, and with vast black eyes. But being a sensible woman, she subdued her terrors and turned over and went to sleep again.
Chapter III
The thousand
and one bottles
So it was that on the twenty-ninth day of February, at the beginning of the thaw, this singular person fell out of infinity into Iping village. Next day his luggage arrived through the slush and very remarkable luggage it was. There were a couple of trunks indeed, such as a rational man might need, but in addition there were a box of books big, fat books, of which some were just in an incomprehensible handwriting and a dozen or more crates, boxes, and cases, containing objects packed in straw, as it seemed to Hall, tugging with a casual curiosity at the straw glass bottles. The stranger, muffled in hat, coat, gloves, and wrapper, came out impatiently to meet Fearensides cart, while Hall was having a word or so of gossip preparatory to helping bring them in. Out he came, not noticing Fearensides dog, who was sniffing in a dilettante spirit at Halls legs. Come along with those boxes, he said. Ive been waiting long enough.
And he came down the steps towards the tail of the cart as if to lay hands on the smaller crate.
No sooner had Fearensides dog caught sight of him, however, than it began to bristle and growl savagely, and when he rushed down the steps it gave an undecided hop, and then sprang straight at his hand. Whup! cried Hall, jumping back, for he was no hero with dogs, and Fearenside howled, Lie down! and snatched his whip.
They saw the dogs teeth had slipped the hand, heard a kick, saw the dog execute a flanking jump and get home on the strangers leg, and heard the rip of his trousering. Then the finer end of Fearensides whip reached his property, and the dog, yelping with dismay, retreated under the wheels of the waggon. It was all the business of a swift half-minute. No one spoke, everyone shouted. The stranger glanced swiftly at his torn glove and at his leg, made as if he would stoop to the latter, then turned and rushed swiftly up the steps into the inn. They heard him go headlong across the passage and up the uncarpeted stairs to his bedroom.
You brute, you! said Fearenside, climbing off the waggon with his whip in his hand, while the dog watched him through the wheel. Come here, said FearensideYoud better.
Hall had stood gaping. He wuz bit, said Hall. Id better go and see to en, and he trotted after the stranger. He met Mrs. Hall in the passage. Carriers darg, he said bit en.
He went straight upstairs, and the strangers door being ajar, he pushed it open and was entering without any ceremony, being of a naturally sympathetic turn of mind.
The blind was down and the room dim. He caught a glimpse of a most singular thing, what seemed a handless arm waving towards him, and a face of three huge indeterminate spots on white, very like the face of a pale pansy. Then he was struck violently in the chest, hurled back, and the door slammed in his face and locked. It was so rapid that it gave him no time to observe. A waving of indecipherable shapes, a blow, and a concussion. There he stood on the dark little landing, wondering what it might be that he had seen.
A couple of minutes after, he rejoined the little group that had formed outside the Coach and Horses. There was Fearenside telling about it all over again for the second time; there was Mrs. Hall saying his dog didnt have no business to bite her guests; there was Huxter, the general dealer from over the road, interrogative; and Sandy Wadgers from the forge, judicial; besides women and children, all of them saying fatuities: Wouldnt let en bite me, I knows; Tasnt right have such dargs; Whad e bite n for, then? and so forth.
Mr. Hall, staring at them from the steps and listening, found it incredible that he had seen anything so very remarkable happen upstairs. Besides, his vocabulary was altogether too limited to express his impressions.
He dont want no help, he says, he said in answer to his wifes inquiry. Wed better be a-takin of his luggage in.
He ought to have it cauterised at once, said Mr. Huxter; especially if its at all inflamed.
Id shoot en, thats what Id do, said a lady in the group.
Suddenly the dog began growling again.
Come along, cried an angry voice in the doorway, and there stood the muffled stranger with his collar turned up, and his hat-brim bent down. The sooner you get those things in the better Ill be pleased. It is stated by an anonymous bystander that his trousers and gloves had been changed.
Was you hurt, sir? said Fearenside. Im rare sorry the darg
Not a bit, said the stranger. Never broke the skin. Hurry up with those things.
He then swore to himself, so Mr. Hall asserts.
Directly the first crate was, in accordance with his directions, carried into the parlour, the stranger flung himself upon it with extraordinary eagerness, and began to unpack it, scattering the straw with an utter disregard of Mrs. Halls carpet. And from it he began to produce bottles little fat bottles containing powders, small and slender bottles containing coloured and white fluids, fluted blue bottles labeled Poison, bottles with round bodies and slender necks, large green-glass bottles, large white-glass bottles, bottles with glass stoppers and frosted labels, bottles with fine corks, bottles with bungs, bottles with wooden caps, wine bottles, salad-oil bottles putting them in rows on the chiffonnier, on the mantel, on the table under the window, round the floor, on the bookshelf everywhere. The chemists shop in Bramblehurst could not boast half so many. Quite a sight it was. Crate after crate yielded bottles, until all six were empty and the table high with straw; the only things that came out of these crates besides the bottles were a number of test-tubes and a carefully packed balance.
And directly the crates were unpacked, the stranger went to the window and set to work, not troubling in the least about the litter of straw, the fire which had gone out, the box of books outside, nor for the trunks and other luggage that had gone upstairs.
When Mrs. Hall took his dinner in to him, he was already so absorbed in his work, pouring little drops out of the bottles into test-tubes, that he did not hear her until she had swept away the bulk of the straw and put the tray on the table, with some little emphasis perhaps, seeing the state that the floor was in. Then he half turned his head and immediately turned it away again. But she saw he had removed his glasses; they were beside him on the table, and it seemed to her that his eye sockets were extraordinarily hollow. He put on his spectacles again, and then turned and faced her. She was about to complain of the straw on the floor when he anticipated her.
I wish you wouldnt come in without knocking, he said in the tone of abnormal exasperation that seemed so characteristic of him.
I knocked, but seemingly
Perhaps you did. But in my investigations my really very urgent and necessary investigations the slightest disturbance, the jar of a door I must ask you
Certainly, sir. You can turn the lock if youre like that, you know. Any time.
A very good idea, said the stranger.
This stror, sir, if I might make so bold as to remark
Dont. If the straw makes trouble put it down in the bill. And he mumbled at her words suspiciously like curses.
He was so odd, standing there, so aggressive and explosive, bottle in one hand and test-tube in the other, that Mrs. Hall was quite alarmed. But she was a resolute woman. In which case, I should like to know, sir, what you consider
A shilling put down a shilling. Surely a shillings enough?
So be it, said Mrs. Hall, taking up the tablecloth and beginning to spread it over the table. If youre satisfied, of course
He turned and sat down, with his coat-collar toward her.
All the afternoon he worked with the door locked and, as Mrs. Hall testifies, for the most part in silence. But once there was a concussion and a sound of bottles ringing together as though the table had been hit, and the smash of a bottle flung violently down, and then a rapid pacing athwart the room. Fearing something was the matter, she went to the door and listened, not caring to knock.
I cant go on, he was raving. I cant go on. Three hundred thousand, four hundred thousand! The huge multitude! Cheated! All my life it may take me! Patience! Patience indeed! Fool! fool!
There was a noise of hobnails on the bricks in the bar, and Mrs. Hall had very reluctantly to leave the rest of his soliloquy. When she returned the room was silent again, save for the faint crepitation of his chair and the occasional clink of a bottle. It was all over; the stranger had resumed work.
When she took in his tea she saw broken glass in the corner of the room under the concave mirror, and a golden stain that had been carelessly wiped. She called attention to it.
Put it down in the bill, snapped her visitor. For Gods sake dont worry me. If theres damage done, put it down in the bill, and he went on ticking a list in the exercise book before him.
Ill tell you something, said Fearenside, mysteriously. It was late in the afternoon, and they were in the little beer-shop of Iping Hanger.
Well? said Teddy Henfrey.
This chap youre speaking of, what my dog bit. Well hes black. Leastways, his legs are. I seed through the tear of his trousers and the tear of his glove. Youd have expected a sort of pinky to show, wouldnt you? Well there wasnt none. Just blackness. I tell you, hes as black as my hat.
My sakes! said Henfrey. Its a rummy case altogether. Why, his nose is as pink as paint!
Thats true, said Fearenside. I knows that. And I tell ee what Im thinking. That marns a piebald, Teddy. Black here and white there in patches. And hes ashamed of it. Hes a kind of half-breed, and the colours come off patchy instead of mixing. Ive heard of such things before. And its the common way with horses, as any one can see.
Chapter IV
Mr. Cuss interviews the stranger
I have told the circumstances of the strangers arrival in Iping with a certain fulness of detail, in order that the curious impression he created may be understood by the reader. But excepting two odd incidents, the circumstances of his stay until the extraordinary day of the club festival may be passed over very cursorily. There were a number of skirmishes with Mrs. Hall on matters of domestic discipline, but in every case until late April, when the first signs of penury began, he overrode her by the easy expedient of an extra payment. Hall did not like him, and whenever he dared he talked of the advisability of getting rid of him; but he showed his dislike chiefly by concealing it ostentatiously, and avoiding his visitor as much as possible. Wait till the summer, said Mrs. Hall sagely, when the artisks are beginning to come. Then well see. He may be a bit overbearing, but bills settled punctual is bills settled punctual, whatever youd like to say.
The stranger did not go to church, and indeed made no difference between Sunday and the irreligious days, even in costume. He worked, as Mrs. Hall thought, very fitfully. Some days he would come down early and be continuously busy. On others he would rise late, pace his room, fretting audibly for hours together, smoke, sleep in the armchair by the fire. Communication with the world beyond the village he had none. His temper continued very uncertain; for the most part his manner was that of a man suffering under almost unendurable provocation, and once or twice things were snapped, torn, crushed, or broken in spasmodic gusts of violence. He seemed under a chronic irritation of the greatest intensity. His habit of talking to himself in a low voice grew steadily upon him, but though Mrs. Hall listened conscientiously she could make neither head nor tail of what she heard.
He rarely went abroad by daylight, but at twilight he would go out muffled up invisibly, whether the weather were cold or not, and he chose the loneliest paths and those most overshadowed by trees and banks. His goggling spectacles and ghastly bandaged face under the penthouse of his hat, came with a disagreeable suddenness out of the darkness upon one or two home-going labourers, and Teddy Henfrey, tumbling out of the Scarlet Coat one night, at half-past nine, was scared shamefully by the strangers skull-like head (he was walking hat in hand) lit by the sudden light of the opened inn door. Such children as saw him at nightfall dreamt of bogies, and it seemed doubtful whether he disliked boys more than they disliked him, or the reverse; but there was certainly a vivid enough dislike on either side.