Alfred Layard was thirty years of age, and had been a widower two years, his young wife dying a twelve-month after the birth of her only child Freddie, now three.
William Crawford was a man of very different mould; thick-set, good-looking, with bold brown eyes, clean-shaven face, close thick hair which curled all over a massive head, full lips that had few movements, and handsome well cut forehead too hollow for beauty in the upper central region. The face was singularly immobile, but it had a look of energy and resolution about it that caught the eye and held the attention, and ended in arousing something between curiosity and fear in the beholder. Plainly, a man with a will of his own, and plenty of energy to carry that will out. In all his movements, even those of courtesy, there was a suggestion of irrepressible vigour. His age was about five or six and thirty.
It was an odd procession. In front, the gay fair girl with azure eyes, golden-brown hair, and lithe form, ascending with elastic step. Behind her, the thick-set, firm, resolute figure of the elder man, with dark, impassive, immobile features, bold dark eyes, and firm lips, moving as though prepared to meet opposition and ready to overcome it. Last, the tall, lank angular form of the young widower, with plain, almost ugly, face, deep-set eyes, snub nose, dull complexion, and long melancholy dun beard, flowing like a widow's streamers in two thin scarves behind him. Here were three faces, one of which was always alight, a second which could never light, and a third usually dull and dead, but which could light at will.
"This is the sitting-room," said Hetty, standing at the threshold. "You said you would prefer having the back room furnished as the sitting-room, Alfred told me."
"Yes, certainly, the back for the sitting-room," said Crawford, as they entered. He looked round sharply with somewhat the same surprising quickness of glance which had greeted Red Jim's question at the door. It conveyed the idea of a man at once curious and on his guard.
His survey seemed to satisfy him, for he ceased to occupy himself with the room, and said, turning to the brother and sister, with a short laugh, "This, as you know, is my first visit to Crawford Street. I had no notion what kind of a place it was; and when I am here, two or three days in the month, and a week additional each quarter, I should like to be quiet and much to myself. I don't, of course, my dear Mr. Layard, mean with regard to your sister and you," he bowed, "but the people all round. They are not a very nice class of people, are they?" with a shrug of his shoulders at people who were not very nice.
"There are no people at all near us," answered Layard cheerfully. "No one else lives in the street, and we have the canal, or rather the Bay, at the back."
"Capital! capital!" cried Crawford in a spiritless voice, though he rubbed his hands as if enjoying himself immensely. "You, saving for the presence of Miss Layard and your little boy, whose acquaintance, by the way, I have not yet made, are a kind of Robinson Crusoe here."
"O!" cried Hetty, running to the window and pointing out, "the real Robinson Crusoe is here."
"Where? I hope he has Man Friday, parrot, and all; walking to the window, where they stood looking out, the girl, with her round arm, pointing into the gathering dusk. In the window-place, they were almost face to face. Instead of instantly following the direction of Hetty's arm, he followed the direction of his thoughts, and while her eyes were gazing out of the window, his were fixed upon her face.
"There," she said, upon finding his eyes were not in the direction of her hand.
"I beg your pardon," he said, "but I can see no one."
He was now looking out of the window.
"But you can see his island."
"Again I beg your pardon, but I can see no island."
"What you see there is an island. That is not the tow-path right opposite: that is Boland's Ait."
"Boland's Ait! Yes, I have heard of Boland's Ait. I have nothing to do with it, I believe?" he turned to Layard.
"I think not."
"O, no!" said the girl laughing; "the whole island is the property of Mr. Francis Bramwell, a most mysterious man, who is either an astrologer, or an author, or a pirate, or something wonderful and romantic."
"Why," cried her brother in amused surprise, "where on earth did you get this information?"
"From Mrs. Grainger, whom you sent to help me to-day. Mrs. Grainger knows the history of the whole neighbourhood from the time of Adam."
"The place cannot have existed so long," said Crawford, with another of his short laughs; "for it shows no sign of having been washed even as far back as the Flood. Is your Crusoe old or young?"
"Young, I am told, and handsome. I assure you the story is quite romantic."
"And is there much more of the story of this Man Friday, or whatever he is?" asked Crawford carelessly, as he moved away from the window towards the door.
"Well," said she, "that is a good deal to begin with; and then it is said he has been ruined by some one or other, or something or other, either betting on horses or buying shares in railways to the moon, and that he did these foolish things because his wife ran away from him; and now he lives all alone on his island, and leaves it very seldom, and never has any visitors, or hardly any, and is supposed to be writing a book proving that woman is a mistake and ought to be abolished."
"The brute!" interpolated Crawford, bowing to Hetty, as though in protest against any one who could say an unkind thing of the sex to which she belonged.
"Isn't it dreadful?" cried the girl in a tone of comic distress. She was still standing by the window, one cheek and side of her golden-brown hair illumined by the fading light, and her blue eyes dancing with mischievous excitement. "And they say that, much as he hates women, he hates men more."
"Ah! that is a redeeming feature," said Crawford. "A misanthropist is intelligible, but a misogynist is a thing beyond reason, and hateful."
"But, Hetty," said Layard, "if the man lives so very much to himself and does not leave his house, how is all this known?"
"Why, because all the women have not been abolished yet. Do you fancy there ever was a mystery a woman could not find out? It is the business of women to fathom mysteries. I'll engage that before we are a week here I shall know twice as much as I do now of our romantic neighbour."
"And then," said Crawford, showing signs of flagging interest, and directing his attention once more to the arrangement of the room, "perhaps Miss Layard will follow this Crusoe's example, and write a book against men."
"No, no. I like men."
He turned round and looked fully at her. "And upon my word, Miss Layard," said he warmly, "I think you would find a vast majority of men very willing to reciprocate the feeling."
Hetty laughed, and so did her brother.
"As I explained," said Crawford, "I shall want these rooms only once a month. I shall have to look after the property in this neighbourhood. I think I shall take a leaf out of our friend Crusoe's book, and keep very quiet and retired. I care to be known in this neighbourhood as little as possible. There is property of another kind in town. It, too, requires my personal supervision. I shall make this place my head-quarters, and keep what changes of clothes I require here. It is extremely unlikely I shall have any visitors. By the way, in what direction does Camberwell lie?" He asked the question with an elaborate carelessness which did not escape Alfred Layard.
"Up there," said Layard, waving his left hand in a southerly direction.
Once more Crawford approached the window. This time he leaned out, resting his hand on the sill.
In front of him lay Boland's Ait, a little island about a hundred yards long and forty yards wide in the middle, tapering off to a point at either end. Beyond the head of the island, pointing south, the tow-path was visible, and beyond the tail of the island the tow-path again, and further off Welford Bridge, lying north.
Hetty was leaning against the wainscot of the old-fashioned deep embrasure.
"Does