GEORGE'S BUSINESS
IT was well into the middle of January, and a few days after Isoline's
arrival, before Rhys was sufficiently recovered from his injuries to
move about; luckily for him, no bones had been broken, and George's
simple nursing, supplemented by the Pig-driver's advice, had met every
need. The slight concussion and the exposure had brought on fever,
which left him so helpless and weak that he could not rise from his
bed without help, while the strange place he was forced to inhabit
held back his progress, for he could get no more fresh air than was
admitted by the openings in the wall. When he was able to walk again,
George would drag him up the ladder after night had fallen, and he
would pace unsteadily about the potato-patch, ready to disappear into
the cottage at the faintest sound of an approaching foot. But such a
thing was rarely heard near their God-forsaken habitation, and, when
it was, it belonged to no other than Bumpett. Had he searched the
kingdom, he could not have found a safer place in which to hide his
head, than the one chance had brought him to on the night of his
flight.
Convalescence, once begun, makes strides in a constitution such as
his. Every day added something to his strength, bringing at the same
time an impatience of captive life, untold longings for a new horizon;
by the time he was practically a sound man with the full use of his
limbs, he was half mad with the monotony of his days. Besides this,
Nannie, according to Bumpett's order, had brought most of his everyday
possessions to the Pedlar's Stone, and, once in his own clothes, an
intense desire for his past identity came upon him, embittered by the
knowledge that his choice lay between an absolute abandonment of it,
and prison and disgrace. All his life he had been accustomed to be
somebody, and he felt like a man in a dream as he looked round at the
sheepskins, the iron hooks, and implements of Williams' illicit trade.
Only a few miles divided him from Great Masterhouse; surely he had but
to step out of these unworthy surroundings and go back to his own!
Everything since his illness seemed unreal, his old self was the true
one, this a nightmare, a sham. Nevertheless, between him stood that
one night's deed like a sentry and barred the way.
There was not even the remotest prospect of escape, for Bumpett, who
made it his business to gather all the news he could about the search,
had strongly impressed on him the necessity of lying low. When it
should be given up as hopeless and vigilance relaxed, the time would
be come, he said, to make for Cardiff, and get out on the high seas by
hook or by crook. The knowledge of the fugitive's hiding-place would
remain entirely between the Pig-driver and George Williams, for the
old man was firm in his refusal to divulge it to Nannie, devoted as
she was, saying that what he had seen of women did not incline him to
trust them with his secrets. "They be a pore set," he observed,
"they've room for naught i' their heads but tongues."
So Rhys and George made up their minds to live together for some time
to come, though it was hardly a prospect that gave either much
satisfaction. That the one owed a debt of gratitude to the other did
not tend to make matters better, for being under an obligation to a
person with whom one is not in sympathy, can scarce be called a
pleasure, and Rhys was not at all in sympathy with George. Acutely
sensitive as to what people thought of him, whether he actually
respected their opinion or not, he soon saw that it was from no
personal admiration or regard that he had been so carefully tended--as
much would have been done for any human creature in distress. The
sheep-stealer too was at all times a taciturn man with deep prejudices
and strong loves and hates; simple and unpretentious to a degree
himself, he loathed all pretension in others, and felt it hard to bear
the airs of superiority and patronizing ways which were seldom absent
from Rhys' manner towards him. Coming from a runaway criminal to whom
he was extending shelter they were absurd; but George did not think of
that, for he had as little humour as Rhys, though its want arose from
vastly different causes. The lighter aspects of life had passed him
by, and he was hampered by the misfit of his double life to his
eminently single mind. And whenever he looked at Rhys, the face of the
girl in the churchyard rose before him.
It was the direst necessity which had induced George Williams to stray
so far across the line of honesty, and bitterly he regretted the step.
A couple of years before, he and his mother, a blind old woman, had
inhabited a little hovel near Presteign, which belonged to the
Pig-driver, for the old man owned many cottages in various parts of
the neighbourhood. As she could do nothing towards their livelihood,
the whole maintenance of the household fell upon the son, who worked
hard at such odd jobs as he could get, and earned a small sum weekly
by hedging and ditching. They lived very frugally, and with great
management made both ends meet, until, one winter, the widow fell ill
and took to her bed; then came the pinch. At the end of her illness
the young man found himself in debt with arrears of rent and no
prospect of paying; besides which, he was receiving messages from
Bumpett every week to the effect that, if money were not forthcoming,
they would be turned out of doors. Work was slack, and he was in
despair; finally he went off to Abergavenny to interview his landlord,
and to get, if possible, a little grace from the close-fisted old man.
It happened that, at that time, Bumpett was beginning to make a
regular business of sheep-stealing; he had started by receiving the
stolen goods from men whose private enterprise had led them to lay
hands on the animals, and he ended by taking the responsibility of the
trade on himself, and stipulating that the actual thieves should enter
his employment and supply no other person. It had paid him well.
George's need was his opportunity; he wanted another active, reliable
hand, and, knowing most things about most people connected with him,
he perceived that this steady and trustworthy young fellow was the man
for the place. He told him that he meant to offer him a chance on
condition that he pledged his word to secrecy, and, when this had been
done, he put before him a choice of two things; either he was to
become his workman at a small fixed wage, living rent-free in the
cottage which now sheltered Rhys, or he was to turn out of his present
quarters the next day with a debt which he could not pay off. If he
accepted the first alternative his debt was to be cancelled. This
contract was to hold good for three years, during which time he was to
serve Bumpett entirely, sworn faithfully to secrecy when the time
should have elapsed.
It was a hard struggle with fate for the poor boy, and one in which he
came off second-best; he took the Pig-driver's terms with a heavy
heart, and entered on his new occupation, going out for several nights
with an expert thief, both in the near and more remote parts of the
county, to see the way in which things were done. Afterwards he
removed with his mother to their new abode, where the poor woman,
being blind, dwelt till the day of her death without knowing how her
son was occupied. She lived in that end of the cottage which did not
communicate with the cellar, and George, who still kept his hedge and
ditching work, easily persuaded her that it was to this and to the
lower rent of their new home that they owed their comparative
prosperity. She had now been dead about ten months, and he was still
working out his time with his employer and longing for its end.
"What are you going to do?" asked Rhys one afternoon, as he saw George
take a pickaxe and shovel from a corner of the cottage. The outer door
was locked, and he had come up from below to escape the dullness of
his underground dwelling for a while.
"Dig a hole in the garden," replied the other, "I be goin' out
to-night, and maybe there'll be something to bury afore morning."
"I'll come with you," said Rhys.
"Well, I suppose you may as well begin some time, and, if you're
feeling right enough, I've nothing against it. It'll be a change for
you."
"I am sick and tired of this place," exclaimed his companion
ungraciously, for he was somewhat piqued by the indifferent acceptance
of his companion. He had condescended rather in offering his help.
"I'll lock the door on the outside," observed Williams, as he went
out, "so you needn't go below again."
Rhys sat down by the hearth and listened to the strokes of the pickaxe
among the gooseberry bushes outside. He took out his watch and counted
the hours till night should come and he should go for the first time
beyond the walls of the weary little garden which had become so
hateful to him. Seven hours; it was an age to wait. But it went by at
last.
In the dark of the moonless night the two men went out, taking with
them the few implements needful to their work--a piece of rope, a
small, very heavy hammer, and a long knife which George attached to a
leather belt round his middle. Rhys carried a dark lantern, which for
extra safety was muffled in a felt bag, and an old, tattered cloak. As
they stepped across the plank into the track up the hillside, the
smell of the chill night blew against his nostrils. The air was thick,
only faintly penetrated by stars, and bearing with it a chill of
approaching rain, but, to the captive, it was a taste of Paradise. He
drew a long breath and rubbed his feet against the turf for the pure
pleasure of feeling again its firm velvet, and there ran through his
being that sense of expansion, mental and physical, which comes to
many people in the wide stillness of the night world. Had he been a
woman, he would have wept; as it was he did not analyze his feelings,
but was merely conscious that he had been dead and that he lived
again.
As they passed the Pedlar's Stone they halted for a minute while
George showed him the rock a few yards off under which the meat could
be hidden until Bumpett should come to take it away. Rhys pushed his
arm into the hole beneath and felt the lining of hay which was put
there periodically for its better preservation. His hand was stung by
the nettles growing round and above it.
When they reached the Twmpa's foot they went westward and skirted the
base, keeping as close to it as possible, then turned into a creek
down which a rush of mountain-water was flowing between rocks.
Rhys understood nothing of his companion's plan and was not inclined
to question him, so he kept silence; though his interest was roused he
had sense enough to know that obedience would further their work, and
that trusting to Williams would be the best way of saving them both
from the chance of discovery. The sheep-stealer stopped where the
running water swirled into a pool and out again yet more violently
through a narrow place in the rocks, and directed him to set down the
lantern.
"We'll come back here when we get our beast," he said. "Listen, do you
hear anything?"
Across the noise of the torrent came the faint baa of a sheep.
"There's a flock not far off," said George.
"There used to be a hut up here," said Rhys, stretching out his arm
towards the slope above.
"Aye, an' likely there's a man in it too," replied the other. "I can't
see no light. Maybe he's sleeping. He'll have to hearken pretty smart
if he's to hear we."
They crossed the water and began quietly to descend the hillside. Some
way up they could see the dim forms of the sheep, above them again the
shepherd's hut, a faint excrescence on the sky-line. Williams uncoiled
the rope he carried and twisted it round his body; in one hand he held
the hammer.
"Now," he said to Rhys, "put the cloak over your back an' get on your
hands and knees. Keep anigh me, and when you see me throw the sheep,
down you wi' the cloak over his head to stop his noise and hold him
fast. I'll do the rest."
They crawled forward, one behind the other, stopping for several
minutes at a time, flattened against the earth when they saw any
animal look in their direction. The sheep were feeding unconsciously,
having finished the first long sleep with which the animal world
begins the night, and when they were close enough to see their white
bodies take definite shape in the dull starlight, Williams chose his
victim, a fine large wether on the outskirts of the flock. Rhys
pressed close behind him.
They were well within a couple of yards of their game when the animal
sniffed suspiciously and would have turned his head towards the danger
after the manner of horned creatures. But George's hand had gripped
him by the hind-leg and laid him with a turn of the wrist on the
hillside before he had fully realized that an enemy was upon him, and
he was struggling half suffocated by the heavy cloak which Walters
flung round his head. The two strong men held him down with all their
might till his efforts had grown less violent and Williams had unwound
the rope from his body and tied his legs. Then he took up the hammer
and, with all his force, dealt him one tremendous blow between the
horns. The sheep quivered and lay still.
"Thank God, that's done," he said, getting up from his knees.
They hoisted their prize on to George's back and went stealthily down
the hill to the stream. Here they laid it on a rock, and while Rhys
held its head over the water, his companion severed the large artery
in the throat. The lantern which they had turned on their work showed
the crimson stain, as it mixed itself with the torrent, to be borne
whirling down between the boulders and out of sight.
When the blood had ceased flowing, Williams took a wisp of hay and
stopped the wound, binding it round with a strand of rope; he washed
the red marks from his hands and sleeves and from the stones on which
they had been kneeling, making Rhys search each foot of ground with
the lantern for the least traces of their deed. Then he got the dead
beast upon his back again covered by the cloak, and they set their
faces towards the cottage.
Since they had started that night, the sheep-stealer had taken rather
a different place in his companion's mind. Accustomed to regard him as
a clod and no more, the calm skill he displayed in his occupation and
his great personal strength impressed Rhys, and, for the first time in
their acquaintance, he spoke an appreciative word.
"That was a wonderful fine bit of work," he remarked as they left the
mountain behind them, "few could match you at that, Williams!"
"'Tis a cursed business," said George between his teeth. "God's truth!
but I do hate it!"
"Then what makes you do it, man?" exclaimed Rhys.
"Ah, that's just it. I've sold myself to the devil, that's why."
Rhys laughed. "Where did you meet with him?" he asked lightly.
"At Abergavenny," replied George gravely. "And his name is James
Bumpett."