SANCTUARY
The tawny scudding streak that led that long chase had shot into the
yard, turning for a last desperate double. It saw the man in the
foreground and its bounding, agonized little wild heart that so prayed
for life, gave way. With a final effort, it gained the porch and
crouched down in its corner, an abject, sweated, hunted morsel, at
hopeless bay.
Like a flash, Valiant stooped, caught the shivering thing by the scruff,
and as its snapping jaws grazed his thumb, dropped it through the open
window behind him. "Sanctuary!" quoth he, and banged the shutter to.
At the same instant, as the place overflowed with a pandemonium of
nosing leaping hounds, he saw the golden-chestnut reined sharply down
among the ragged box-rows, with a shamefaced though brazen knowledge
that the girl who rode it had seen.
She sat moveless, her head held high, one hand on the hunter's
foam-flecked neck, and their glances met like crossed swords. The look
stirred something vague and deep within him. For an unforgettable
instant their eyes held each other, in a gaze rigid, challenging,
almost defiant; then it broke and she turned to the rest of the party
spurring in a galloping zigzag: a genial-faced man of middle age in
khaki who sat his horse like a cavalryman, a younger one with a reckless
dark face and straight black hair, and following these a half-dozen
youthful riders of both sexes, one of the lads heavily plastered with
mud from a wet cropper, and the girls chiefly gasps and giggles.
The elder of the two men pulled up beside the leader, his astonished
eyes sweeping the house-front, with its open blinds, the wisp of smoke
curling from the kitchen chimney. He said something to her, and she
nodded. The younger man, meanwhile, had flung himself from his horse, a
wild-eyed roan, and with his arm thrust through its bridle, strode
forward among the welter of hounds, where they scurried at fault, hither
and thither, yelping and eager.
"What rotten luck!" he exclaimed. "Gone to ground after twelve miles!
After him, Tawny! You mongrels! Do you imagine he's up a tree? After
him, Bulger! Bring him here!"
[Illustration]
He glanced up, and for the first time saw the figure in tweeds looking
on. Valiant was attracted by his face, its dash and generosity overlying
its inherent profligacy and weakness. Dark as the girl was light, his
features had the same delicate chiseling, the inbreeding, nobility
and indulgence of generations. He stared a moment, and the somewhat
supercilious look traveled over the gazer, from dusty boots to waving
brown hair.
"Oh!" he said. His view slowly took in the evidences of occupation. "The
house is open, I see. Going to get it fit for occupancy, I presume?"
"Yes."
The other turned. "Well, Judge Chalmers, what do you think of that? The
unexpected has happened at last." He looked again at the porch. "Who's
to occupy it?"
"The owner."
"Wonders will never cease!" said the young man easily, shrugging. "Well,
our quarry is here somewhere. From the way the dogs act I should say
he's bolted into the house. With your permission I'll take one of them
in and see." He stooped and snapped a leash on a dog-collar.
"I'm really very sorry," said Valiant, "but I'm living in it at
present."
The edge of a smile lifted the carefully trained mustache over the
other's white teeth. It had the perfectly courteous air of saying, "Of
course, if you say so. But--"
Valiant turned, with a gesture that included all. "If you care to
dismount and rest," he said, "I shall be honored, though I'm afraid I
can't offer you such hospitality as I should wish."
The judge raised his broad soft hat. "Thank you, sir," he said, with a
soft accent that delightfully disdained the letter "r." "But we mustn't
intrude any further. As you know, of course, the place has been
uninhabited for any number of years, and we had no idea it was to
acquire a tenant. You will overlook our riding through, I hope. I'm
afraid the neighborhood has got used to considering this a sort of
no-man's land. It's a pleasure to know that the Court is to be
reclaimed, sir. Come along, Chilly," he added. "Our fox has a burrow
under the house, I reckon--hang the cunning little devil!"
He whistled sharply to the dogs, who came leaping about his horse's legs
for their meed of praise--and clubbing. "Down, Fan! Down Trojan! Come
on, you young folks, to breakfast. We've had a prime run of it, anyhow,
and we'll put him up another day."
He waved his hat at the porch and turned his horse down the path, side
by side with the golden-chestnut. After them trooped the others, horses
walking wearily, riders talking in low voices, the girls turning often
to send swift bird-like glances behind them to where the straight
masculine figure still stood with the yellow sunshine on his face. They
did not leap the wall this time, but filed decorously through the
swinging gate to the Red Road. Then, as they passed from view behind the
hedges, John Valiant heard the younger voices break out together like
the sound of a bomb thrown into a poultry-yard.
After a time he saw the straggling bunch of riders emerge at a slow
canter on the far-away field. He saw the roan spurred beside the golden
chestnut and both dashed away, neck and neck in a race, the light
patrician form of the man leaning far forward and the girl swaying to
the pace as if she and her hunter were one.
* * * * *
John Valiant stood watching till the last rider was out of sight. There
was a warm flush of color in his face.
At length he turned with the ghost of a sigh, opened the hall door wide
and stalking a hundred yards away, sat down on the shady grass and began
to whistle, with his eyes on the door.
Presently he was rewarded. On a sudden, around the edge of the sill
peered a sharp, suspicious little muzzle. Then, like a flash of tawny
light, the fox broke sanctuary and shot for the thicket.