English fiction; Horror tales, English; Short stories, English
“When we stopped at Willesden, I instantly changed my carriage. It
appears that I was not seen to do so, which is not surprising, as the
station was crowded with people. MacCoy, of course, was expecting me,
and he had spent the time between Euston and Willesden in saying all he
could to harden my brother’s heart and set him against me. That is what
I fancy, for I had never found him so impossible to soften or to move. I
tried this way and I tried that; I pictured his future in an English
gaol; I described the sorrow of his mother when I came back with the
news; I said everything to touch his heart, but all to no purpose. He
sat there with a fixed sneer upon his handsome face, while every now and
then Sparrow MacCoy would throw in a taunt at me, or some word of
encouragement to hold my brother to his resolutions.
“‘Why don’t you run a Sunday-school?’ he would say to me, and then, in
the same breath: ‘He thinks you have no will of your own. He thinks you
are just the baby brother and that he can lead you where he likes. He’s
only just finding out that you are a man as well as he.’
“It was those words of his which set me talking bitterly. We had left
Willesden, you understand, for all this took some time. My temper got
the better of me, and for the first time in my life I let my brother see
the rough side of me. Perhaps it would have been better had I done so
earlier and more often.
“‘A man!’ said I. ‘Well, I’m glad to have your friend’s assurance of it,
for no one would suspect it to see you like a boarding-school missy. I
don’t suppose in all this country there is a more contemptible-looking
creature than you are as you sit there with that Dolly pinafore upon
you.’ He coloured up at that, for he was a vain man, and he winced from
ridicule.
“‘It’s only a dust-cloak,’ said he, and he slipped it off. ‘One has to
throw the coppers off one’s scent, and I had no other way to do it.’ He
took his toque off with the veil attached, and he put both it and the
cloak into his brown bag. ‘Anyway, I don’t need to wear it until the
conductor comes round,’ said he.
“‘Nor then, either,’ said I, and taking the bag I slung it with all my
force out of the window. ‘Now,’ said I, ‘you’ll never make a Mary Jane
of yourself while I can help it. If nothing but that disguise stands
between you and a gaol, then to gaol you shall go.’
“That was the way to manage him. I felt my advantage at once. His supple
nature was one which yielded to roughness far more readily than to
entreaty. He flushed with shame, and his eyes filled with tears. But
MacCoy saw my advantage also, and was determined that I should not
pursue it.
“‘He’s my pard, and you shall not bully him,’ he cried.
“‘He’s my brother, and you shall not ruin him,’ said I. ‘I believe a
spell of prison is the very best way of keeping you apart, and you shall
have it, or it will be no fault of mine.’
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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