Three men, one of whom was the last night's messenger, Caleb Kent, a
stranger to Oldroyd, were lounging about by the cottage gate as the
doctor stepped out, and their looks asked the question they longed to
have answered.
"I think he'll get over it, my men," said Oldroyd. "It's a narrow
escape for him, though, if he does pull through."
The men exchanged glances.
"I suppose you'll have the police over before long, and--What's the
matter?"
The men were looking sharply down the road.
"I mean they'll want to question him about the scoundrels who did this
work."
"It warn't no scoundrels, did it, doctor," said Caleb Kent, with a
vicious snarl.
"But I took it that the keeper had been shot by poachers."
"It were Cap'n Rolph shot him," said Caleb, fiercely.
"Dear me! What a sad accident."
"Accident?" cried Caleb Kent, with an ugly laugh. "Why, I see him lift
his gun and take aim. It was just as I was going to hit at him."
"Nonsense, my lad: his own master."
"Arn't no master of his'n now. Sacked nigh three months ago."
Oldroyd stared.
"Here, I'm getting confused, my man. That poor fellow upstairs is a
keeper, isn't he?"
"Was, sir," said Caleb Kent, with a grin; "but he arn't now. He was out
with us after the fezzans last night."
"Hold your tongue," growled one of the other men.
"Sha'n't. What for? Doctor won't tell on us."
"Then it is as I thought. You are a gang of poachers, and the man
upstairs is hand and glove with you."
"Well, why not, sir. They sacked him, and no one wouldn't have him,
because he used once to do a bit o' nights hisself 'fore he turned
keeper. Man can't starve when there's hares and fezzans about."
"Went a bit like out o' spite," said Caleb. "Hadn't been out with us
before."
"Humph! and you come and fetch me and tell me this," said Oldroyd. "How
do you know that I shall not go and give notice to the police?"
"Cause we know'd better. Caleb here was going to fetch old Blunt from
the town; but I says if you fetch him, he'll go back and tell the
police."
"And how do you know that I shall not?" said Oldroyd, tartly.
"Gent as goes out of his way to tent a poor labrer's wife when her
chap's out o' work, and does so much for the old folks, arn't likely to
do such a dirty trick as that. Eh, mates?"
"Humph! you seem to have a pretty good opinion of me," said Oldroyd.
"Yes, sir, we knows a gen'leman when we sees one. We'll pay you, sir,
all right. You won't let out on us, seeing how bad the poor fellow is."
Oldroyd was silent and thoughtful for a few moments, and then he turned
sharply upon Caleb Kent.
"Look here, sir," he said; "you've got a tongue and it runs rather too
fast. You made an ugly charge against that man's late master."
"I said I see him shute him," said Caleb.
"And you did not see anything of the kind."
"You gents allus stick up for each other," muttered Caleb.
"You could not see what took place in the darkness and excitement of a
fight, so hold your tongue. Such a charge would make endless mischief,
and it must be a mistake."
"All right, sir," said Caleb.
"It would upset that poor girl, too, if she heard such a thing."
"Yes, it would upset her sure enough if she heard," said Caleb, with a
peculiar smile, and he walked away.
"I ought to give you fellows a lecture on the danger of night poaching,"
continued Oldroyd.
"Don't, sir, please," said one of the men, with a laugh, "for it
wouldn't do no good. 'Sides; we might want to hing a brace o' fezzans
or a hare up agin your door now and then."
"Here, don't you do anything of the kind, my lads," cried Oldroyd. "I
forbid it, mind. Now get me my pony."
"All right, sir; we'll mind what you says," said the man who had spoken,
looking mirthfully round at his companions, one of whom at once
accompanied him to a low shed where the pony was munching some hay. The
willing little beast was saddled while Oldroyd walked up and down the
path with an abundance of sweet-scented and gay old-fashioned flowers on
either side. Carnations and scarlet lychnis, and many-headed sun
flowers and the like, were bright in the morning sunshine, for all
seemed to have been well tended; but, all at once, he came upon a
terrible tell-tale bit of evidence of the last night's work upon the red
bricks that formed the path--one that made him scrape off a little mould
from the bed with his foot, and spread it over the ugly patch.
"The cottage looks simple and innocent enough, with its roses, to be the
home of peace," he muttered. "Ah! how man does spoil his life for the
sake of coin. Thank you, my lad--that's right," he added, as his last
night's messenger brought the pony to the gate.
He mounted, and thrust a coin, that he could not spare, into his
temporary ostler's hand.
"Let him go. Fine morning, isn't it?"
But Caleb held on sturdily by the pony's bridle, and thrust the piece
back with an air of sturdy independence.
"No, thankye, sir," he said. "Me and my mates don't want paying by a
gentleman as comes to help one of us. 'Sides which, we're a-going to
pay you; aren't we, lads?"
"Ay, that's so," growled the others. "Don't take it."
With the cleverness of a pickpocket, but the reverse action--say of a
negative and not a positive pickpocket--the florin was thrust into
Oldroyd's vest, and the man drew back, leaving the doctor to pursue his
way.
"Poachers even are not so black as they are painted," he said to himself
as he cantered along, and then he fell to thinking of the girl he had
seen that morning. "They've better daughters than you would have
suspected, more affectionate wives, the best of neighbours, and
companions as honest and faithful as one could wish; and, all the while,
they are a set of confounded scoundrels and thieves, for it's just as
dishonest to shoot and steal a man's carefully-raised foreign birds--his
pheasants--as it is to break into a hen-roost. As to partridges and
hares, of course they are wild things; but, so long as they lived and
bred on one's land, they must be as genuine property as the apples and
pears that grow upon a fellow's trees. Yes, poachers are thieves; and I
daresay my friend there, with the shot-hole in his body, is as great a
scoundrel as the worst."
He laughed as he cantered along the soft green beside the road.
"My practice is improving. I shall have my connection amongst the
rogues and vagabonds mightily increased, for I certainly shall not go
and inform the police: not my business to do that. They're punished
enough, even if I pull him through. And I shall," he said aloud. "I
must and will, for the sake of his pretty daughter. I wonder whether
they'll pay me after all," he went on, as the pony ambled over the
grass, and the naturally sordid ideas of the man often pressed for money
and struggling for his income, came uppermost. "When people are in the
first throes of excitement and gratitude for the help Doctor Bolus has
rendered them, they almost worship him, and they'll give, or rather they
will promise, anything; but when time has had his turn, and the
gratitude has begun to cool, it's a different thing altogether; and,
last of all, when the bill goes in--oh dear, for poor human nature, if
the case had been left alone, A, B, C, or D would have got better
without help.
"Well, never mind," he said merrily, for the refreshment and the
delicious morning air were telling upon his spirits, "the world goes
round and round all the same, and human nature is one of the things that
cannot be changed."
He had to turn the pony out on to the road here, for the long green
strands of the brambles were hanging right out over the grass, and
catching at his legs as he cantered by. The soft mists were floating
away as he began to descend the hilly slope, still at his feet the
landscape seemed to be half hidden by clouds, through which hillocks,
and hedge, and trees were visible, with here and there a house or a
brown patch of the rough common land; and right away on the other side,
stood up, grim and depressing of aspect, the ugly brick house upon the
big hillock of sand, with the various and grim-looking edifices that
Moray Alleyne had raised. Forming a background were the sombre fir
trees with the column-topped slope and hill; and, even at that distance,
he could make out, here and there, portions of the sandy lane that
skirted the pine slope, which formed so striking an object in the
surrounding landscape.
So beautiful was the scene in the early morning, so varied the tints,
that Oldroyd checked his pony, and told himself that he could not do
better than pause and admire the landscape. But somehow his eyes lit
upon the ugliest object there, focused themselves so as to get the most
photographic idea upon the polished plate of his memory, and there they
stayed, for he saw nothing else but Mrs Alleyne's gloomy house.
This, however, is not quite the fact, for in a most absurd way--for a
young medical man who had been telling himself a hundred times over that
it would be insanity for him to think of marrying--he furnished that
gloomy picture with one figure that seemed to him to turn the whole
place into a palace of beauty, of whose aspect he could never tire.
"Go along!" he exclaimed aloud at last, as if to himself for his absurd
thoughts; but the pony took the order as being applied to the beast of
burden present, and went off at once in a good canter, one that gained
spirit from the fact that he knew the way and that way was homewards.
So absorbed was Oldroyd that he left the sturdy little animal to itself,
and it went pretty swiftly over the driest bits of close, velvety turf,
cleverly avoiding the bigger furze clumps, and reaching at last the
lighter ground where the fir trees grew. Then it snorted and would have
increased its pace, but there were awkward stumps here and there, and
slippery places, such as the cleverest pony could not avoid, so the
rider drew rein, and let the little steed amble gently along.
All at once Philip Oldroyd's heart seemed to stand still, and he checked
the pony suddenly, sitting breathless and half stunned, gazing straight
before him at a couple of figures passing along the road.
He drew a long breath that hissed between his closed teeth; and even a
pearl diver might have envied his power of retaining that breath, so
long was it before he exhaled it again.
Then he turned his pony's head, bent down his darkened face till his
chin rested upon his breast, and rode forward again; but the pony began
to resist a change which suggested going right away from home. He
drummed its ribs fiercely with his heels, and pressed it on, but only to
turn its head directly after, forcing himself into a state of composure
as he rode quietly by Lucy Alleyne and Rolph, and saluted them as he
passed.
It was hard work to ride on like that, without looking back, but he
mastered himself and went quickly on for some distance before drawing
rein, and sitting like a statue upon the pony, which began to graze, and
only lifted its head and gave a momentary glance at Lucy, when, sobbing
as if she would break her heart, the little lady nearly ran up against
the waiting rider and his steed.
"Mr Oldroyd!" cried Lucy, after giving vent to that astonished,
frightened "Oh!"
"Yes, Miss Alleyne," he said coldly, "Mr Oldroyd."
"Why--why are you stopping me like that? Oh, I beg your pardon;
good-morning!" she cried hastily, and in a quick, furtive way she swept
the tears from her eyes, and wiped her pretty little nose, which crying
was turning of a pinky hue.
"Was I stopping you?" he said, speaking mechanically, and glancing
straight before him. "I have been out all night with a patient six
miles away."
"Indeed!" said Lucy, hastily; "yes, it is a beautiful morning."
She went by him without trusting herself to look in his face.
"If I did so, I should burst out sobbing," she said to herself.
But by the time Lucy had gone half a score yards, Oldroyd was by her
side, the pony keeping step with her, pace for pace, while the little
woman's breast was heaving with love, sorrow and despair.
"What will he think? what will he think?" she kept saying to herself as
she longed to lay her hands in his, and to tell him that it was no fault
of hers, but an accident that Captain Rolph had met her during her walk.
But she could not tell him--she dared not. It was like a confession
that she cared for his opinion more than for that of anybody in the
world. It would be unmaidenly, and degrading, and strange; and there
was nothing for her to do but assume anger and annoyance, and treat
Oldroyd as if he had been playing the part of spy.
A very weak conclusion, no doubt, but it was the only one at which, in
her misery, she arrived.
The sun was shining now from a pure, blue sky, the birds were darting
beneath the trees, where the long spider webs hung, strung with jewels,
that flashed and glowed as they were passing fast away. There was a
delicious aroma, too, in the soft breeze that floated from among the
gloomy pines; but to those who went on, side by side, it was as if the
morning had become overcast; all was stormy and grey, and life was in
future to be one long course of desolation and despair. Nature was at
her best, and all was beautiful; but Lucy could not see a ray of hope in
the far-off future. Philip Oldroyd could see a gloomy, wasted life--the
life of a man who had trusted and believed; but to find that the woman
was weak and vain as the rest of her sex.
They had relapsed into silence, and were going on pretty swiftly towards
The Firs, but their proceedings did not seem to either to be at all
strange. Lucy's destination was, of course, home, and Oldroyd appeared
resolved to accompany her; why, he knew not, and it did not trouble him
after the first few minutes, seeming quite natural that he should take
her to task, and he determined, as a punishment, to see her safely back.
She did not deserve it, of that she was sure, but there was something
comfortable and satisfactory in being thus silently scolded by one much
wiser and stronger than herself.
Oldroyd wished to speak. He had a good deal to say--so he felt, but not
a word escaped him till they reached the steep path that ran up to the
gates at The Firs, when he drew rein, and made way for Lucy to pass.
"Good-bye," he said.
"Good-bye," faltered Lucy, looking at him wistfully.
He looked down into her eyes from where he sat, with his very heart
ready to leap from his breast towards her; but, as he gazed, he saw
again the sunny sandy road with the velvety grass, and golden-bloomed
furze on either side; the long, sloping bank with its columnar pines,
and the dark background of sombre green, while in front was Lucy, the
girl in whom he had so believed, walking with Rolph; and then all was
bitterness and cloud once more.
"He was marked," thought Oldroyd; "there was a patch of plaister on his
forehead. Hang it all! could he have shot that man?"
The doctor's heart beat fast, for, in a confused fashion, light, the
glimmering light upon a reflector when an image plays about the focus of
a telescope, he saw difficulties dragging Captain Rolph away from that
neighbourhood: a man dying of his wounds, and Lucy Alleyne turning from
her idol in utter disgust.
But he shook his head.
"Nothing to me," he cried, with a bitter laugh, as he rode away. "The
old story--Nature asserting herself once more. A fine figure, grand
muscles, a chest that is deep and round, and the noble bovine front of a
bull, and you have the demi-god gentle woman makes her worship. Ah,
well, it was time I awakened from a silly dream. Good-bye, little Lucy,
good-bye! Next time I come to see your brother, I'll wear the armoured
jerkin of common sense. What a weak idiot I have been."
There were no mushrooms that morning for Mrs Alleyne's breakfast; those
which Lucy should have brought home lying by the wayside, whereat the
slugs rejoiced and had a glorious banquet all to themselves.
Volume 2, Chapter IX.