When the discourse was at this point of animation, came up Mr. Frank Hawley.
He was not a man to compromise his dignity by lounging at the Green Dragon, but happening to pass along the High Street and seeing Bambridge on the other side, he took some of his long strides across to ask the horsedealer whether he had found the first-rate gig-horse which he had engaged to look for.
Mr. Hawley was requested to wait until he had seen a gray selected at Bilkley: if that did not meet his wishes to a hair, Bambridge did not know a horse when he saw it, which seemed to be the highest conceivable unlikelihood.
Mr. Hawley, standing with his back to the street, was fixing a time for looking at the gray and seeing it tried, when a horseman passed slowly by.
"Bulstrode!" said two or three voices at once in a low tone, one of them, which was the draper's, respectfully prefixing the "Mr.;" but nobody having more intention in this interjectural naming than if they had said "the Riverston coach" when that vehicle appeared in the distance.
Mr. Hawley gave a careless glance round at Bulstrode's back, but as Bambridge's eyes followed it he made a sarcastic grimace.
"By jingo! that reminds me," he began, lowering his voice a little,
"I picked up something else at Bilkley besides your gig-horse, Mr. Hawley.
I picked up a fine story about Bulstrode.
Do you know how he came by his fortune?
Any gentleman wanting a bit of curious information, I can give it him free of expense.
If everybody got their deserts, Bulstrode might have had to say his prayers at Botany Bay."
"What do you mean?" said Mr. Hawley, thrusting his hands into his pockets, and pushing a little forward under the archway.
If Bulstrode should turn out to be a rascal, Frank Hawley had a prophetic soul.
"I had it from a party who was an old chum of Bulstrode's.
I'll tell you where I first picked him up," said Bambridge, with a sudden gesture of his fore-finger.
"He was at Larcher's sale, but I knew nothing of him then—he slipped through my fingers—was after Bulstrode, no doubt.
He tells me he can tap Bulstrode to any amount, knows all his secrets.
However, he blabbed to me at Bilkley: he takes a stiff glass.
Damme if I think he meant to turn king's evidence; but he's that sort of bragging fellow, the bragging runs over hedge and ditch with him, till he'd brag of a spavin as if it 'ud fetch money.
A man should know when to pull up." Mr. Bambridge made this remark with an air of disgust, satisfied that his own bragging showed a fine sense of the marketable.
"What's the man's name?
Where can he be found?" said Mr. Hawley.
"As to where he is to be found, I left him to it at the Saracen's Head; but his name is Raffles."
"Raffles!" exclaimed Mr. Hopkins.
"I furnished his funeral yesterday.
He was buried at Lowick.
Mr. Bulstrode followed him.
A very decent funeral."
There was a strong sensation among the listeners.
Mr. Bambridge gave an ejaculation in which "brimstone" was the mildest word, and Mr. Hawley, knitting his brows and bending his head forward, exclaimed,
"What?—where did the man die?"
"At Stone Court," said the draper.
"The housekeeper said he was a relation of the master's.
He came there ill on Friday."
"Why, it was on Wednesday I took a glass with him," interposed Bambridge.
"Did any doctor attend him?" said Mr. Hawley
"Yes.
Mr. Lydgate.
Mr. Bulstrode sat up with him one night.
He died the third morning."
"Go on, Bambridge," said Mr. Hawley, insistently.
"What did this fellow say about Bulstrode?"
The group had already become larger, the town-clerk's presence being a guarantee that something worth listening to was going on there; and Mr. Bambridge delivered his narrative in the hearing of seven.
It was mainly what we know, including the fact about Will Ladislaw, with some local color and circumstance added: it was what Bulstrode had dreaded the betrayal of—and hoped to have buried forever with the corpse of Raffles—it was that haunting ghost of his earlier life which as he rode past the archway of the Green Dragon he was trusting that Providence had delivered him from.
Yes, Providence.
He had not confessed to himself yet that he had done anything in the way of contrivance to this end; he had accepted what seemed to have been offered.
It was impossible to prove that he had done anything which hastened the departure of that man's soul.
But this gossip about Bulstrode spread through Middlemarch like the smell of fire.
Mr. Frank Hawley followed up his information by sending a clerk whom he could trust to Stone Court on a pretext of inquiring about hay, but really to gather all that could be learned about Raffles and his illness from Mrs. Abel. In this way it came to his knowledge that Mr. Garth had carried the man to Stone Court in his gig; and Mr. Hawley in consequence took an opportunity of seeing Caleb, calling at his office to ask whether he had time to undertake an arbitration if it were required, and then asking him incidentally about Raffles. Caleb was betrayed into no word injurious to Bulstrode beyond the fact which he was forced to admit, that he had given up acting for him within the last week.