The pride
Of the day--my Swan--that a first fleck's fall
On her wonder of white must unswan, undo!
_The Worst of It._
It was evening when Percivale left Edge Willoughby, and walked slowly
down the terrace, accompanied by dear little Miss Fanny, who had
undertaken to show him the stile leading to the foot-path which was the
nearest way to the quarries.
Jackie, the chough, was strutting along the gravel in much
self-importance, his body all sideways, his bright eye fixed on the
stranger, and uttering his unmusical cry of, "Jack-ee! Jack-ee!"
The young man paused, bent down, and caressed the bird, spite of the
formidable-looking orange beak.
"What a queer old chap!" he said.
"Yes, he is quite a pet. Elsa is very fond of him," said Miss Fanny,
seizing as eagerly as he had done on any topic of conversation which was
not too heavily charged with emotion to be possible.
Of the terrible issues so near at hand neither dared to speak. As if
nothing more unusual than an afternoon call had transpired, Percivale
asked of Jacky's age and extraction, learned that he was a Cornishman by
birth, and of eccentric disposition, and so travelled safely along the
wide gravel-walk, on one side of which the garden rose abruptly up,
whilst on the other it sloped as suddenly down, losing itself in a maze
of chrysanthemums, gooseberry-bushes, potatoes, and scarlet-runners,
till a tall thorn hedge intervened to separate the garden from the
cornfield, where the "mows" lay scattered about in every direction,
dispersed and driven by the tempest of last night.
So they gained the stile, and here Miss Fanny paused.
"If you go down the hill by the foot-path, you will come out on the main
road," she said, pointing with her dear little fat finger.
"Thank you. Mr. Cranmer will meet me somewhere on the road--he said he
would. I--I shall see you again as soon as--directly--as I said to your
sister," stammered the young man, in an unfinished, fragmentary way.
He took her hand, with the graceful gravity which characterized all his
greetings of women.
"Thank you," he said again, and, lifting his cap, vaulted over the
stile, and walked rapidly down the foot-path.
Miss Fanny gazed after him through a mist of tears, which she presently
wiped away from her fresh cheeks, and trotted back to the terrace with
an expression not devoid of hope.
Her pigeons flew round her; they knew that it was past feeding-time. The
gleaming wings flashed and circled in the light, and presently the
gravel was covered with the pretty, strutting things, nodding their
sheeny necks, and chuckling softly to each other.
"Jack-ee! Jack-ee!" screamed the chough, discordantly, rushing in among
their ranks, and routing them.
"Jackie! Come here, you naughty bird!" cried Miss Fanny, interposing for
the protection of her pets. "There! there! Go along, do! Go along,
do!... I really don't know how it is--I do feel that I place such
confidence in that young man! Quite a stranger, too! Very odd! But I
feel as though a special Providence had sent that yacht our way to-day.
It seems as though it had been sent purposely--it really does. Somehow,
to-night, I feel as if help were near. No power can restore poor dear
Godfrey, that's true; but we may save Elsa, I do hope and trust."
Claud was leaning over the low stone wall of the highroad, when a touch
on the shoulder roused him, and, looking up, he met Percivale's
collected gaze.
"Now, quick!" was all Percivale said; and, in a moment, both young men
were hurrying along the Quarry Road as fast as their legs would carry
them.
They only spoke once; and then it was Claud who broke the silence.
"Fowler thinks it hopeless--that you are altogether on a wrong track,"
he said.
"We shall see," was the response, in a tense voice which told of
highly-strung nerves.
Claud thought of his last journey along that road, staggering blindly in
darkness and rain, with the screaming wind and thundering sea in his
ears. Last night! Could it be only last night? A thousand years seemed
to have elapsed since then. Life, just now, seemed made up of crisis;
and he railed at himself for being hatefully heartless, because he could
not help a certain feeling of excitement, which was almost like
pleasure, in anticipating the _denouement_ of the affair.
A growing admiration for the strange owner of the _Swan_ was his
dominant sensation. There was a light of purpose in Percivale's eye, an
air of conviction about his whole manner, which could not fail to
influence his companion.
The feelings of both young men were at a high pitch as they paused
before the door of Mrs. Parker's somewhat remote cottage, and knocked.
The woman opened the door and looked at her visitors in astonishment.
One glance at her was enough to gauge her character in an instant. She
was what country people call a "poor thing." Her expression was that of
meek folly, and she wore a perpetual air of apology. Her red-rimmed,
indefinite eyes suggested a perennial flow of tears, ready at the
shortest notice, and her weak fingers fumbled at her untidy throat in
fruitless efforts to hold together a dilapidated brown silk handkerchief
which had become unfastened.
"Good evening, gentlemen," she said, "what can I do for you?"
Her air was mildly surprised.
"We called in," said Claud, who was not unknown to her, "to ask if
you've heard the awful news about the discovery on the cliffs this
morning?"
"Lord, no! She had heard never a word of it--nobody never took no
trouble to look in and tell her any bit o' news as might be going; she
might as well be dead and buried, for all the comfort she ever got out
of _her_ life," grumbled she, plaintively.
Even at this juncture, Claud could not refrain from a cynical reflection
on womanhood, as, in the person of the widow Parker, it calmly reckoned
the news of a murder among the comforts of life.
"Your son Saul--where is he? Doesn't he bring you the news?" asked he.
"Lord no! not he! he mostly forgets it all on the way home, he don't
keep nothing in his head for more than three minutes at a stretch. An'
he ain't been outside the place to-day, for I've had a awful night with
him," whined Mrs. Parker, sitting down on a chair and lifting a
coal-black pocket-handkerchief to her eyes.
"What, another fit?" asked Claud.
"He was out last night in all that gale, if you'll believe me, sir. What
he was after passes me, an' I set an' set awaitin' for him, and
a-putting out my bit o' fire by opening the door, when the wind come in
fit to blind yer, an' at last in he come, with every thread on him
drippin' wet, and what he'd been after Lord knows, for not a word would
he say but to call for his supper, and afore he'd 'ardly swallowed three
mouthfuls he was took----"
"Took?" put in Percivale, sharply.
The widow paused, with her last pair of tears unwiped on her cheeks, and
stared at him.
"With a fit, sir--he suffers from fits, my poor boy do," she said.
"_Epiplexy_ the doctor do call it, and, whatever it is, it's a nasty
thing to suffer with. It makes him sorft, poor lad, and the other chaps
laughs at him, and it's very hard on him, for you see, now he's growin'
up, he feels it. I ain't a Devonshire woman myself--I'm from London, I
am, and I do say these Devonshire lads are a sight deal too rough and
rude. When they was all little together, I could cuff them as hurt him,
but they're too big for that now."
There was no stopping her tongue. Poor soul! she led a lonely life, for
her peevishness alienated her neighbors, who did not approve of the
censure their manners and customs met with at her hands. She never could
talk for five minutes to anyone without insisting on her London origin;
and, as a result, it was but rarely that she could get an audience at
all.
The flood-gates of her eloquence were now opened, and she poured forth a
lengthy string of grievances.
"It's terrible hard on a woman like me, as never was strong at the best
of times, to be left a widder with a boy like that on my hands! He's a
head taller than 'is mother, and strong--bless yer! He could knock
either o' you gentlemen down and think nothing of it, and you may think
if he's easy to manage when he's took with his fits!"
"You should send him away," said Claud, gravely. "Have you never thought
that, if he is so strong, he might do somebody some harm in a fit of
temper?"
The woman looked attentive.
"Well," she said, "I can't say I've ever give it much of a thought; but
maybe you're right. But oh!" with a fresh access of tears, "I do call it
hard to separate a poor widder from 'er only son! I do call it hard!"
She set herself afresh to wipe her eyes, with shaking hands, reiterating
her inconsistent complainings about the difficulties of managing Saul,
and the cruelty of suggesting a separation; when suddenly, ceasing her
whining and looking up, she said, "But you ain't told me the bit o'
news, yet, have yer?"
"You haven't given us much chance, my good woman," said Mr. Percivale.
"The news is that young Mr. Godfrey Brabourne was found dead out on the
cliffs this morning."
As the words left his lips, a shuffling, thudding sound was heard, a
door at the back of the little room was pushed open, and there stood
Saul, leaning against the wall, attired merely in his shirt and
trousers, the former open at the throat. His feet were bare, his thick
yellow hair was matted, his cheeks were rosy and flushed; altogether he
wore the look of having just that moment awakened from sleep.
His great eyes, of Devon blue, looked out from beneath the tangled waves
of hair with a shy smile. He recognised Claud, but, when his gaze fell
on Percivale, his whole face changed. A look of fear and repulsion came
over him--he uttered a hoarse cry or rather bellow, and, turning away,
darted down a small dark passage and was lost to view.
"There now! Did you ever!" cried his parent, indignantly. "Lord! what a
fool the lad is! That's for nothing in life but because he seen you--"
addressing Percivale, "and now he's gone to his hole, and nothing'll
bring him out again perhaps for five or six hours, and nothing on him
but his shirt and breeches! Oh, dear, dear, he'll kill me afore long,
I'm blest if he won't!"
"What do you mean by his hole?" asked Percivale.
"It's a wood-shed as he's very partial to, an' hides all his treasures
an' rubbish in there, out o' my reach. For it's very dark in there, and
I can't get in very well, at least 'twouldn't be no use if I could,
because I couldn't drive him out. I can't do nothing with him, when he's
contrairy, and that's the truth, gentlemen."
"But is it impossible to get into the woodshed?" continued Percivale,
holding her to her point with a patience that made Claud marvel.
"No, sir, but he's piled up the wood till you can only crawl in, and
then as likely as not he'll hit you over the head," returned Mrs.
Parker, encouragingly; "and it's that dark you can't see nothing when
you _are_ in, so it's no sense to try, as I can see."
"Why on earth don't you nail the place up when he's out, so that he
_can't_ get in?" cried Claud, irritated beyond measure at her stupidity.
"Well, I can't say I ever thought o' that," naively admitted the poor
woman.
"You are afraid Saul will take a chill if he stays there now?"
interrogated Percivale.
"I'm dead certain he will, sir!"
"Very well, I'll go and fetch him out for you."
"It ain't a bit o' use, sir," she cried, eagerly, "he'll never stir for
you. He's mortal feared o' strange folks."
"Never fear, I shall manage him," was the placid reply. "Give me a
candle, will you?"
He took the light in his hand, and followed the woman through the gloomy
back regions of the little cottage to the wood-shed, the doorway of
which was, as she had stated, barricaded with logs, in a sort of arch,
so that only the lower half of it was practicable.
"Saul! Are you in there?" cried his mother, shrilly.
An idiotic gurgle of laughter, and a slight rustling, assured them of
the fact.
"If I push over this barricade, shall I hurt him?" asked Percivale.
"No, sir, no--there's plenty of space beyond."
"Here goes then," he answered; and placing his shoulder to the logs,
handing the light to Claud, and getting a firm hold with his feet, he
gave a vigorous heave, and the logs rolled clattering down, and about
the shed.
There was a scream from Saul, so loud and piercing that both young men
thought he must be hurt. Snatching the candle, Percivale hurried in,
over the prostrate defences. Saul was standing back against the wall, as
far as he could get away, niched into a corner, his face hidden in his
arms.
"Come, Saul, my boy--come out of this dark place," said the intruder, in
kindly tones. "Come--look at me--what is there to be afraid of?"
The boy removed his screening arm from before his eyes with the pretty
coquetry of a shy baby. He had apparently forgotten his rage, for he
laughed--a low, chuckling laugh--and fixed his look appealingly on the
stranger.
"What made you run away--eh?" asked Percivale, gently.
But no answer could be extorted from Saul. He would only laugh, hide his
face, and peep again, with coy looks, from under his long lashes.
Percivale flashed a look round him, and decided on making a venture to
arouse some consciousness. By the light of the candle he held, every
line of the lad's face was distinctly visible. Outside, Mrs. Parker was
talking too volubly to Claud to hear what he might say.
"Saul," he said, "where is Master Godfrey?"
For a moment a spasm of terror crossed the beautiful face--a look which
somehow suggested the dim return of intelligence once possessed; for it
seemed evident that Saul had not always been absolutely idiotic, but
that what brain he had had gradually been destroyed by epilepsy. His
eyes dwelt with a look of speculation on those of his questioner, and
his lips parted as if an answer were forced from him.
"Out there!" he whispered.
"What, out on the cliffs?"
He nodded.
"Is he dead--is Master Godfrey dead?" said Percivale, still keeping his
eyes fixed on his by a strong effort of will.
Saul nodded again.
"Dead," he said, "quite dead! Naughty boy!"