TO ABERGAVENNY
THAT the toll-gate raid would end in a murder was the last thing
expected by Rhys. In all the riots which had taken place since the
beginning, nothing worse had happened than broken limbs and bruised
bodies, such having been the luck of Rebecca and her followers that
only a few captures of unimportant hangers-on had been made. Indeed,
it is likely that without Howlie's unseasonable prowlings and
recognition of his adversary Turnbull, and his determination to pay
off old scores, the matter might have had no greater consequences than
the terrifying of society in general and the building up of a new
gate.
As Rhys took the young mare by the head, and turned out of the crowd,
a man who had been some way from Hosea when he shouted, was so much
demoralized by the cry, that his hand, almost on one of the rioters'
collars, dropped to his side. In a flash there came back to Harry
Fenton the evening he had strayed in the mist round the spurs of the
Black Mountain, and his eyes were opened. This tall, shock-headed
figure which was scattering the people right and left as it made for
Crishowell Lane was the man he had ridden beside and talked to so
frankly in the innocence of his soul. With wrath he remembered how
much he had admired his companion, and how apparent he had allowed his
interest to become. He had returned home full of talk about his new
acquaintance, his good-nature in turning out of his road for a
stranger, his fine seat on horseback, and now it made the boy's face
hot to think how Rhys must have laughed in his sleeve as his victim
had fallen into the trap laid for him. He had been put on the wrong
scent by the very ringleader of the mischief he had come so far to
help in preventing. His wounded vanity ached; he had been tricked,
bested, mocked, deceived. There was only one solace for him, and that
was action, action which would not only be his refuge, but his bounden
duty. He almost jerked the bit out of his horse's mouth as he wrenched
his head round and shot after his enemy, through the crowd and up the
resounding highway on the young mare's heels.
Rhys' start was not great--about fifty yards--and Harry thought with
satisfaction that he was better mounted than usual. His brother
Llewellyn had lent him his horse, one lately bought, and the best that
either of the young men had ever had. As long as the animal under him
could go, so long would he never lose sight of that devil in front, if
both their necks should break in the attempt. He would give Llewellyn
anything, everything--all he possessed or ever would possess--if he
might only lay hands on the man who had cheated him and whose high
shoulders now blocked his view of the starlit horizon which seemed to
lie just at the end of the open highway.
Rhys swung into the lane, and, once between the hedges, he drove in
his heels; the road turned a corner a short way ahead, and he wanted
to get round it while he had the lead of Harry. Further on there was a
thin place in the hazels on his left, and he meant to get in on the
grass, though in reality it took him out of his direct route to the
mountain. But the going would be softer, and there was the chance of
entangling his enemy in the geography of the trappy little fields.
He did not know which of the uniformed figures that had poured down to
the gate was on his track, but he felt an absolute consciousness that
the man behind was as determined to ride as he was himself, and he
suspected who that man might be. As he came to the bend he looked back
to make sure. He could not tell in the uncertain light, but he saw it
was war to the knife; every line of the rider's figure told him that.
He turned the mare short and put her at the bank; that it was not
sound he knew, but the hedge let through a gleam of standing water,
and there was not enough resistance in it to turn her over if she made
a mistake. She scrambled through, loosening clods of earth with her
heels, but the good turf was on the further side, and she got through
with a clatter of stones and wattle. They struck to the right across a
field, and, when they were well out in the middle, Rhys saw that Harry
had landed without losing ground, and he settled himself down to a
steady gallop. As he reflected that his goal was nothing less than
Abergavenny, and thought of the distance lying before him, he knew
that his best plan was to hustle his pursuer while they were in the
valley, and trust to his knowledge of hill tracks and precipices when
they had left the pastures behind. It would not be a question of pace
up there. All the same, fifteen long miles were in front of him, and
behind him--manslaughter.
Directly in his way some hundred yards ahead a wide dark patch
stretched across the meadow. He knew it to be a piece of boggy ground
deep enough to embarrass a horseman, and too well fed by a spring
below to freeze, but he also knew the precise spot at which it could
be crossed without difficulty. The recent wet weather had made it
bigger than usual, and he headed for it, hoping that Fenton would
choose a bad bit, and at least take something out of his horse in the
heavy clay. In he went, knowing that where there were rushes there was
foothold, and keeping his eye on a battered willow-stump which stood
like a lighthouse at the further border of the little swamp. A snipe
rose from under his feet, a flash of dark lightning whirling in the
greyness of the atmosphere. He was through and making steadily for the
line of hedge before him.
But Harry had not hunted for nothing; ever since his earliest boyhood
he had followed hounds on whatever he could get to carry him, and long
years of riding inferior beasts had taught him many things. He had
never possessed a really perfect hunter in his life, and he was
accustomed to saving his animals by every possible means; mad with
excitement as he was, he instinctively noticed the odd bit of ground,
and pulled straight into the mare's tracks. Walters, looking back from
an open gate through which he was racing, ground his teeth as he saw
how well he had steered his enemy.
Soon the ground began to slope away, and Rhys knew that they were
getting near the brook running only a few fields from the road. Just
beyond it was Crishowell village, and the land would ascend sharply as
soon as they had left the last cottage behind.
The Digedi brook was as unlike the flag-bordered trout-stream of the
midlands as one piece of water can be to another, for it rose far up
in the Black Mountain near the pass by which Walters hoped to reach
Abergavenny, and, after a rapid descent to the valley, passed the
village, circling wantonly through the pastures to cross Crishowell
Lane under a bridge. There was hardly a yard in its career at which
its loud voice was not audible, for the bed was solid rock, and the
little falls, scarce a foot high, by which it descended to the lower
levels, called ceaselessly among the stones. The water-ousel nested
there in spring, and wagtails curtseyed fantastically by the brink. In
summer it was all babble, light, motion, and waving leaves. As the
young man came down the grass, he saw the line of bare bushes which
fringed it, and heard the pigmy roar of one of the falls. Flat slabs
of rock hemmed it in, jutting into the water and enclosing the dark
pool into which it emptied itself. On an ordinary occasion he would
have picked his way through the slippery bits and let his horse
arrange the crossing as his instinct suggested, but he had no time for
that now. He took the mare by the head, and came down the slope as
hard as he could towards a place just above the fall. He saw the white
horseshoe foaming under him as they cleared it and the boulders on the
edge, and he smiled grimly as he pictured Fenton's horse possibly
stumbling about among the rocks. He made straight for the highway, the
mare's blood was up, and she took the big intervening hedges like a
deer.
They were now on the road, and he pulled up for a moment to listen for
any sign of his pursuer, but there was no other sound than the barking
of a dog in Crishowell. The slippery boulders had probably delayed
Harry. He cantered on steadily past the village with its few lighted
windows; as the barking had raised a reply from every dog's throat in
the place, no one heard him till he had passed the last outlying
house, and he made for the steep lane leading up to where he had
parted with Fenton on the night of their first meeting.
It was highly unlikely that he would come across any one at that time
of night, for the Crishowell people went early to rest, like all
agricultural characters, and the news of Rebecca's attack on the toll
could hardly have reached them yet. Now that he had time to think a
little, he began to realize the full horror of the thing that had
happened. He had killed a man; worse, he had killed Mary's father;
worse still, it was known that he had done so. Curse Hosea! curse him!
Why had he been such a madman as to shout out his name? No one need
have identified him but for the innkeeper's crass folly. What he was
going to do he knew not, beyond that he must make for Abergavenny,
where he might possibly lie hidden for a time till he could devise
some means of leaving the country. Poor little Mary too, his heart
smote him as he thought of her; in one hour she had been robbed of her
father, and was losing her lover--losing him as every beat of the
mare's hoofs carried him further away towards the great lone mountain
that he had to cross that night somehow. He hoped the wet places up
there would not have frozen over before he got through the pass, for
it was hard underfoot already and the puddles crackled faintly as he
rode over them. Every moment it was getting lighter, and he could see
a piece of the moon's face above the high banks of the lane. He put
his hand down on the mare's shoulder; she was sweating a good deal,
though they had only come a couple of miles at most, but she was raw
and excitable, and had pulled him considerably since they had come
over the brook, taking more out of herself than she need have done.
She had good blood in her--thank Heaven for that--and she would want
it all. He had paid a long price for her, and, if ever money were well
spent, it was then; the young fool behind him was not likely to get
much out of his ride. He pulled up once again, just to make sure that
Harry was nowhere near, standing in the shadow with his hand over his
ear and the mare quivering with excitement under him. Yes, sure
enough, there were galloping hoofs distinct on the stillness of the
sharp night some way below. Fenton was in the lane.
On they went, sparks flying from the flints as the shoes smote hard
upon them. The air grew more chilly as they got higher up and the road
more slippery; Rhys leaned forward, encouraging the mare as she
laboured valiantly up the heart-breaking slope. The banks flew by,
gates, stiles; soon they were passing the ruined cottage that stood
not a hundred yards from the egress to the mountain; he could see the
bare boughs of the apple-trees that tapped against the battered
window-panes.
Suddenly the mare lurched, scraping the earth with her feet, and the
moon seemed to sway in the sky and to be coming down to meet the
hedge. A crash, and she was lying on her off side with Rhys' leg
pinned underneath her. A mark like a slide on the blue, shining ground
showed how the frost was taking firm grip of the world.
She struggled up again before he had time to find out whether he was
hurt or not, and stood over him, shivering with fright. Fortunately
she had hardly touched him in her efforts to rise, as his foot had
come out of the stirrup, and he was able to pick himself up in a few
seconds with a strong feeling of dizziness and an aching pain in his
shoulder. His first idea was to remount as quickly as possible, but,
when he put his foot in the iron, he almost fell back again on the
road. Something hot was running down his face, first in slow drops,
then faster; he could not raise his right shoulder at all, and his arm
felt weary and numb. A gust of wind brought the sound of Harry's
galloping fitfully up the lane, making the mare turn half round to
listen, her nostrils dilated; she seemed quite uninjured. Rhys seized
the stick he had dropped as they fell, and, with it in his available
hand, struck her two violent blows on her quarter. She plunged forward
like a mad creature, and set forth for her stable at Great
Masterhouse.
As she disappeared he dragged himself with great difficulty through
the hedge on his right. Before him the fields fell away
perpendicularly to the valley, and the moon was white on the grass
that lay like a frosty, vapoury sheet round him. He saw a deep ditch
running downward with the land, and had just sense and strength enough
left to stagger towards it, a black, positive silhouette on the
moon-struck unreality of the surrounding world.
As he rolled into it he lost consciousness, and so did not hear Harry
Fenton a minute later as he tore past.