IVER! COME.
She paused, drew a long breath.
Again she swung the hammer-stone. And now she turned round, and
passed the piece of iron into her left hand. She raised it and
struck on the anvil, and cried: "Save me from him. Take him away."
A rush, all the leaves of the trees behind seemed to be stirring,
and all the foliage falling about her.
A hand was laid on her shoulder roughly, and the stone dropped
from her fingers on the anvil. Mehetabel shrank, froze, as struck
with a sudden icy blast, and cried out with fear.
Then said a voice: "So! you seek the Devil's aid to rid you of me."
At once she knew that she was in the presence of her husband, but
so dazzled was she that she could not discern him.
His fingers closed on her arm, as though each were an iron screw.
"So!" said he, in a low tone, his voice quivering with rage, "like
Karon Wyeth, you ask the Devil to break my neck."
"No," gasped Mehetabel.
"Yes, Matabel. I heard you. 'Save me from him. Take him away.'"
"No--no--Jonas."
She could not speak more in her alarm and confusion.
"Take him away. Snap his spine--send a bullet through his skull;
cast him into Pug's mere and drown him; do what you will, only
rid me of Bideabout Kink, whom I swore to love, honor, and to obey."
He spoke with bitterness and wrath, sprinkled over, nay, permeated,
with fear; for, with all his professed rationalism, Jonas
entertained some ancestral superstitions--and belief in the
efficacy of the spirits that haunted Thor's Stone was one.
"No, Jonas, no. I did not ask it."
"I heard you."
"Not you."
"What," sneered he; "are not these ears mine?"
"I mean--I did not ask to have you taken away."
"Then whom?"
She was silent. She trembled. She could not answer his question.
If her husband had been at all other than he was, Mehetabel would
have taken him into her confidence. But there are certain persons
to whom to commit a confidence is to expose yourself to insult and
outrage. Mehetabel knew this. Such a confidence as she would have
given would be turned by him into a means of torture and humiliation.
"Now listen to me," said Jonas, in quivering tones of a voice that
was suppressed. "I know all now. I did not. I trusted you. I was
perhaps a fool. I believed in you. But Sarah has told me all--how
he--that painting ape--has been at my house, meeting you, befooling
you, pouring his love-tales into your ears, and watching till my
back was turned to kiss you."
She was unable to speak. Her knees smote together.
"You cannot answer," he continued. "You are unable to deny that it
was so. Sarah has kept an eye on you both. She should have spoken
before. I am sorry she did not. But better late than never. You
encouraged him to come to you. You drew him to the house."
"No, Jonas, no. It was you who invited him."
"Ah! for me he would not come. Little he cared for my society. The
picture-making was but an excuse, and you all have been in a league
against me."
"Who--Jonas?"
"Who? Why, Sanna Verstage and all. Did not she ask to have you at
the Ship, and say that the painting fellow was going or gone? And
is he not there still? She said it to get you and him together
there, away from me, out of the reach of Sarah's eyes."
"It is false, Jonas!" exclaimed Mehetabel with indignation, that
for a while overcame her fear.
"False!" cried Bideabout. "Who is false but you? What is false but
every word you speak? False in heart, false in word, and false in
act." He had laid hold of the bit of ironstone, and he struck the
anvil with it at every charge of falsehood.
"Jonas," said Mehetabel, recovering self-control under the
resentment she felt at being misunderstood, and her action
misinterpreted. "Jonas, I have done you no injury. I was weak.
God in heaven knows my integrity. I have never wronged you; but
I was weak, and in deadly fear."
"In fear of whom?"
"Of myself--my own weakness."
"You weak!" he sneered. "You--strong as any woman."
"I do not speak of my arms, Jonas--my heart--my spirit--"
"Weak!" he scoffed. "A woman with a weak and timorous soul would
not come to Thor's Stone at night. No--strong you are--in evil, in
wickedness, from which no tears will withhold you. And--that
fellow--that daub-paint--"
Mehetabel did not speak. She was trembling.
"I ask--what of him? Was not he in your thoughts when you asked
the Devil to rid you of me--your husband?"
"I did not ask that, Jonas."
"What of him? He has not gone away. He has been with you. You knew
he was not going. You wanted to be with him. Where is he--this
dauber of canvas--now?"
Then, through the fine gauze of condensing haze, came a call from
a distance--"Matabel! Where are you?"
"Oh, ho!" exclaimed the Broom-Squire. "Here he comes. By appointment
you meet him here, where you least expected that I would be."
"It is false, Jonas. I came here to escape."
"And pray for my death?"
"No, Jonas, to be rid of him."
Bideabout chuckled, with a sarcastic sneer in the side of his face.
"Come now," said he; "I should dearly like to witness this meeting.
If true to me, as you pretend, then obey me, summon him here, and
let me be present, unobserved, when you meet. If your wish be, as
you say, to be rid of him, I will help you to its fulfilment."
"Jonas!"
"I will it. So alone can you convince me."
She hesitated. She had not the power to gather her thoughts together,
to judge what she should do, what under the circumstances would be
best to be done.
"Come now," repeated Jonas. "If you are true and honest, as you
say, call him."
She put her trembling hand to her head, wiped the drops from her
brow, the tears from her eyes, the dew from her quivering lips.
Her brain was reeling, her power of will was paralyzed.
"Come, now," said Jonas once more, "answer him--here am I."
Then Mehetabel cried, "Iver, here am I!"
"Where are you, Mehetabel?" came the question through the silvery
haze and the twinkling willow-shoots.
"Answer him, by Thor's Stone," said Jonas.
Again she hesitated and passed her hand over her face.
"Answer him," whispered Jonas. "If you are true, do as I say. If
false, be silent."
"By Thor's Stone," called Mehetabel.
Then all the sound heard was that of the young man brushing his
way through the rushes and willow boughs.
In the terror, the agony overmastering her, she had lost all
independent power of will. She was as a piece of mechanism in the
hands of Jonas. His strong, masterful mind dominated her, beat
down for a time all opposition. She knew that to summon Iver was
to call him to a fearful struggle, perhaps to his death, and yet
the faculty of resistance was momentarily gone from her. She tried
to collect her thoughts. She could not. She strove to think what
she ought to do, she was unable to frame a thought in her mind
that whirled and reeled.
Bideabout stooped and picked up a gun he had been carrying, and
had dropped on the turf when he laid hold of his wife.
Now he placed the barrel across the anvil stone, with the muzzle
directed whence came the sound of the advance of Iver.
Jonas went behind the stone and bent one knee to the ground.
Mehetabel heard the click as he spanned the trigger.
"Stand on one side," said Jonas, in a low tone, in which were
mingled rage and exultation. "Call him again."
She was silent. Lest she should speak she pressed both her hands
to her mouth.
"Call him again," said Jonas. "I will receive him with a dab of
lead in his heart."
She would not call.
"On your obedience and truth, of which you vaunt," persisted Jonas.
Should she utter a cry of warning? Would he comprehend? Would that
arrest him, make him retrace his steps, escape what menaced?
Whether she cried or not he would come on. He knew Thor's Stone
as well as she. They had often visited it together as children.
"If false, keep silence," said Jonas, looking up at her from where
he knelt. "If true, bid him come--to his death, that I may carry
out your wish, and rid you of him. If the spirits won't help you,
I will."
Then she shrilly cried, "Iver, come!"