Morgan's Run

Think, Ceely, think! It is going where I thought I would have to lead it without his aid. He is talking more, acting with less violence. The rum is slowing him down at last.

Trevillian wet his lips and found the words he had rehearsed. “Morgan, I acknowledge that ye have the right to take measures at law, and I admit that ye’d get some damages. But let us not air this matter in a court, please! My mama and brother—! And think of your wife, of her public reputation! Were her name to be bandied about in a court, she would be jobless and cast out.”

Yes, the rage was dying; Morgan looked suddenly confused, ill, at a loss. Trevillian babbled on. “I admit my guilt freely, but let me settle this out of court—here and now, Morgan, here and now! Ye would not get a thousand pounds, but ye might get five hundred. Let me give you my note of hand for five hundred pounds, Morgan, please! Then we can call the matter settled.”

Thrown off balance by this cow-hearted surrender, Richard sat on the edge of the bed wondering what to do now. He had envisioned Trevillian fighting back, resisting, daring him to do his worst—why had he envisioned that? Because of memories of the slim, crisp excise defrauder stripped in the moonlight of his fancy clothes and fancy ma

“ ’Tis a fair offer, Richard,” said Willy Insell timidly.

“Very well,” Richard said, and got off the bed. “Dress yourself, Ceely, ye look ridiculous.”

Having scrambled any old how into his plush jade green outfit embroidered in peacock blue, Trevillian followed Richard into the back room and sat down at A

The note of hand for £500 was made payable to Richard Morgan of Clifton, and signed “Jno. Trevillian.”

Richard studied it, tore it up. “Again, Ceely,” he said. “Sign it with all your wretched names, not half of them.”

At the top of the stairs the temptation was too much; Richard applied the toe of his shoe to Trevillian’s meager buttocks and sent him pitching down with a roll and a somersault, the noise of his body when it struck the flimsy board partition echoing like thunder. By the time he reached the tiny square of hall, Trevillian was yelling at the top of his lungs. No cool excise defrauder now! He tugged at the door and fell into the lane, weeping and howling, there to be succored by all the neighbors.

Richard shot the bolt and went up the stairs to A

She had not moved. Her eyes followed Richard as he crossed to the bed and picked up the hammer again.

“I ought to kill you,” he said tiredly.

She shrugged. “But you will not, Richard. It is not in you, even with the rum.” A smile tugged at her mouth. “Ah, but Ceely believed for a moment that you would. A surprise for that one, so confident, so full of himself, so fond of complicated schemes.”

He might have fastened upon this remark as betraying a more intimate knowledge of Ceely Trevillian than a chance encounter in a bed, but someone was pounding on the front door. “Now what?” he asked, and went downstairs. “Yes?” he called.

“Mr. Trevillian wants his watch back,” said a man’s voice.

“Tell Mr. Trevillian that he can have his watch back after I have had satisfaction!” Richard roared through the bolted door. “He wants his watch back,” he said as he re-entered the bedroom.

The watch was still lying on the window-sill, though the fob and purse had gone.

“Give it back,” said A

“I’m damned if I will! He can have it back, but when I am good and ready.” He picked it up and examined it. “What a conceit! Steel. All the go, top of the trees, very dapper.” The watch went into his greatcoat pocket alongside the note of hand.

“I am out of here,” he said, feeling very sick.

She was off the bed in an instant, throwing on a dress, shoving her bare feet into shoes. “Richard, wait! Willy, Willy, come and help me!” she called.

Willy appeared as they reached the bottom of the stairs, face dismayed. “Here, Richard, what are ye going to do? Leave be!”

“If it is Ceely ye’re worried about, there is no need,” said Richard, stepping into the lane and inhaling fresh air deeply. “He ain’t here now. The performance stopped two minutes ago.”

He set off toward Brandon Hill, A

“Richard, what will happen to me if you go?” A

“I care not, madam. I did ye the honor of allowing Ceely to think ye were my wife, but I’d not have the likes of you to wife, and that is the truth. What will change for ye? Ye’re still in employment, and Ceely and I between us have seen to it that your reputation is pure.” He gri

“What about me?” Willy asked, thinking of £500.

“I will be at the Cooper’s Arms. With the Excise case still coming up, we have to stick to each other.”

“Let us see ye over the hill,” Willy offered.

“No. Take madam back to her house. It is not safe.”

Thus they parted in the night, one man and the woman returning to Clifton Green Lane, the other man striding off along the Brandon Hill footpath, heedless of its dangers. Mrs. Mary Meredith stopped outside her front door, glad she had arrived, but wondering at the fearlessness of the walker, whose companions had left him. They had been talking in low voices and had seemed on excellent terms, but who they were she had no idea. Their faces were invisible on this late September evening.

Too empty to be sick, Richard stumbled home feeling the rum far more than he had in the heat of that confrontation. What a business! And what was he going to say to his father?

“But at least I can say that the fire is out,” he ended a letter to Mr. James Thistlethwaite the next day, which was the last day of September, 1784. “I do not know what came over me, Jem, save that the fellow I met inside myself I do not like—bitter, vengeful and cruel. Not only that, but I find myself in possession of the two articles I want least in the world—a steel watch and a note of hand for £500. The first I will return as soon as I can bear to set eyes upon Ceely Trevillian’s face and the second I will never present to his bank for payment. When I return the watch I will tear it up under his nose. And I curse the rum.

“Father sent a man over to Clifton for my stuff, so I have not set eyes on A

“The business has made me understand much about myself I had no inkling of. What shames me is that I have betrayed my little son—thought not a scrap about him or his fate from the time I met A

“Please write, Jem. I can understand that it might be very difficult to write in the aftermath of our news about William Henry, but we would all like to hear from you, and worry at your silence. Besides, I need your words of wisdom. In fact, I am in dire need of them.”