Charles left Slumberleigh Hall a few hours later than Dare had done, but
only to go back to Atherstone. He could not leave the neighborhood. This
burning fever of suspense would be unbearable at any other place, and in
any case he must return by Saturday, the day on which he had promised to
meet Raymond. His hand was really slightly injured, and he made the most
of it. He kept it bound up, telegraphed to put off his next shooting
engagement on the strength of it, and returned to Atherstone, even
though he was aware that Lady Mary had arrived there the day before, on
her way home to her house in London.
Ralph and Evelyn were accustomed to sudden and erratic movements on the
part of Charles, and to Molly he was a sort of archangel, who might
arrive out of space at any moment, untrammelled by such details as
distance, trains, time, or tide. But to Lady Mary his arrival was a
significant fact, and his impatient refusal to have his hand
investigated was another. Her cold gray eyes watched him narrowly, and,
conscious that they did so, he kept out of her way as much as possible,
and devoted himself to Molly more than ever.
He was sailing a mixed fleet of tin ducks and fishes across the tank by
the tool shed, under her supervision, on the afternoon of the day he had
arrived, when Ralph came to find him in great excitement. His keeper had
just received private notice from the Thursbys' keeper that a raid on
the part of a large gang of poachers was expected that night in the
parts of the Slumberleigh coverts that had not yet been shot over, and
which adjoined Ralph's own land.
"Whereabout will that be?" said Charles, inattentively, drawing his
magnet slowly in front of the fleet.
"Where?" said Ralph, excitedly, "why, round by the old house, round by
Arleigh, of course. Thursby and I have turned down hundreds of pheasants
there. Don't you remember the hot corner by the coppice last year, below
the house, where we got forty at one place, and how the wind took them
as they came over?"
"Near _Arleigh_?" repeated Charles, with sudden interest.
"Uncle Charles," interposed Molly, reproachfully, "don't let all the
ducks stick onto the magnet like that. I told you not before. Make it go
on in front."
But Charles's attention had wandered from the ducks.
"Yes," continued Ralph, "near Arleigh. There was a gang of poachers
there last year, and the keepers dared not attack them they were so
strong, though they were shooting right and left. But we'll be even with
them this year. My men are going, and I shall go with them. You had
better come too, and join the fun. The more the better."
"Why should I go?" said Charles, listlessly. "Am I my brother's keeper,
or even his underkeeper? Molly, don't splash your uncle's wardrobe.
Besides, I expect it is a false alarm or a blind."
"False alarm!" retorted Ralph. "I tell you Thursby's head keeper,
Shaw--you know Shaw--saw a man himself only last night in the Arleigh
coverts; came upon him suddenly, reconnoitring, of course; for to-night,
and would have collared him too if the moon had not gone in, and when it
came out again he was gone."
"Of course, and he will warn off the rest to-night."
"Not a bit of it. He never saw Shaw. Shaw takes his oath he didn't see
him. I'll lay any odds they will beat those coverts to-night, and, by
George! we'll nail some of them, if we have an ounce of luck."
Ralph's sporting instinct, to which even the fleeting vision of a chance
weasel never appealed in vain, was now thoroughly aroused, and even
Charles shared somewhat in his excitement.
How could he warn Raymond to lie close? The more he thought of it the
more impossible it seemed. It was already late in the afternoon. He
could not, for Raymond's sake, risk being seen hanging about in the
woods near Arleigh for no apparent reason, and Raymond was not expecting
to see him in any case for two days to come, and would probably be
impossible to find. He could do nothing but wait till the evening came,
when he might have some opportunity, if the night were only dark enough,
of helping or warning him.
The night was dark enough when it came; but it was unreliable. A tearing
autumn wind drove armies of clouds across the moon, only to sweep them
away again at a moment's notice. The wind itself rose and fell, dropped
and struggled up again like a furious wounded animal.
"It will drop at midnight," said Ralph to Charles below his breath, as
they walked in the darkness along the road towards Slumberleigh; "and
the moon will come out when the wind goes. I have told Evans and Brooks
to go by the fields, and meet us at the cross-roads in the low woods. It
is a good night for us. We don't want light yet a while; and the more
row the wind kicks up till we are in our places ready for them the
better."
They walked on in silence, nearly missing in the dark the turn for
Slumberleigh, where the road branched off to Vandon.
"We must be close upon the river by this time," said Ralph; "but I can't
hear it for the wind."
The moon came out suddenly, and showed close on their right the mill
blocking out the sky, and the dark sweep of the river below, between
pale wastes of flooded meadow. Upon the bridge, leaning over the wall,
stood the figure of a man, bareheaded, with his hat in his hands.
He could not see his face, but something in his attitude struck Charles
with a sudden chill.
"By ----," he said, below his breath, plucking Ralph's arm, "there's
mischief going on there!"
Ralph did not hear, and in another moment Charles was thankful he had
not done so.
The man raised himself a little, and the light fell full on his white
desperate face. He was feeling up and down the edge of the stone-parapet
with his hands. As he moved, Charles recognized him, and drew in his
breath sharply.
"Who is that?" said Ralph, his obtuser faculties perceiving the man for
the first time.
Charles made no answer, but began to whistle loudly one of the tunes of
the day. He saw Dare give a guilty start, and, catching at the wall for
support, lean heavily against it as he looked wildly down the road,
where the shadow of the trees had so far served to screen the approach
of Charles and Ralph, who now emerged into the light, or at least would
have done so, if the moonlight had not been snatched away at that
moment.
"Holloa, Dare!" said Ralph, cheerfully, through the darkness, "I saw
you. What are you up to standing on the bridge at midnight, with the
clock striking the hour, and all that sort of thing; and what have you
done with your hat--dropped it into the water?"
Dare muttered something unintelligible, and peered suspiciously through
the darkness at Charles.
The moon made a feint at coming out again, which came to nothing, but
which gave Charles a moment's glimpse of Dare's convulsed face. And the
grave penetrating glance that met his own so fixedly told Dare in that
moment that Charles had guessed his business on the bridge. Both men
were glad of the returning darkness, and of the presence of Ralph.
"Come along with us," the latter was saying to Dare, explaining the
errand on which they were bound; and Dare, stupefied with past emotion,
and careless of what he did or where he went, agreed.
It was less trouble to agree than to find a reason for refusing. He
mechanically put on his hat, which he had unconsciously crushed together
a few minutes before, in a dreadful dream from which even now he had not
thoroughly awaked. And, still walking like a man in a dream, he set off
with the other two.
"There was suicide in his face," thought Charles, as he swung along
beside his brother. "He would have done it if we had not come up. Good
God! can it be that it is all over between him and Ruth?" The blood
rushed to his head, and his heart began to beat wildly. He walked on in
silence, seeing nothing, hearing nothing. Raymond and the poachers were
alike forgotten.
It was not until a couple of men joined them silently in the woods, and
others presently rose up out of the darkness, to whisper directions and
sink down again, that Charles came to himself with a start, and pulled
himself together.
The party had halted. It was pitch-dark, and he was conscious of
something towering up above him, black and lowering. It was the ruined
house of Arleigh.
"You and Brooks wait here, and keep well under the lea of the house,"
said Ralph, in a whisper. "If the moon comes out, get into the shadow of
the wall. Don't shout till you're sure of them. Shaw is down by the
stables. Dare and Evans you both come on with me. Shaw's got two men at
the end of the glade, but it's the nearest coverts he is keenest on,
because they can get a horse and cart up close to take the game, and get
off sharp if they are surprised. They did last year. Don't stir if you
hear wheels. Wait for them." And with this parting injunction Ralph
disappeared noiselessly with Dare and the other keeper in the direction
of the stables.
Ralph had been right. The wind was dropping. It came and went fitfully,
returning as if from great distances, and hurrying past weak and
impotent, leaving sudden silences behind. Charles and his companion, a
strapping young underkeeper, evidently anxious to distinguish himself,
waited, listening intently in the intervals of silence. The ivy on the
old house shivered and whispered over their heads, and against one of
the shuttered windows near the ground some climbing plant, torn loose by
the wind, tapped incessantly, as if calling to the ghosts within.
Charles glanced ever and anon at the sky. It showed no trace of
clearing--as yet. He was getting cramped with standing. He wished he had
gone on to the stables. His anxiety for Raymond was sharpened by this
long inaction. He seemed to have been standing for ages. What were the
others doing? Not a sound reached him between the lengthening pauses of
the wind. His companion stood drawn up motionless beside him; and so
they waited, straining eye and ear into the darkness, conscious that
others were waiting and listening also.
_At last_ in the distance came a faint sound of wheels. Charles and
Brooks instinctively drew a long breath; and Charles for the first time
believed the alarm of poachers had not been a false one after all. It
was the faintest possible sound of wheels. It would hardly have been
heard at all but for some newly broken stones over which it passed.
Then, without coming nearer, it stopped.
Charles listened intently. The wind had dropped down dead at last, and
in the stillness he felt as if he could have heard a mouse stir miles
away. But all was quiet. There was no sound but the tremulous whisper of
the ivy. The spray near the window had ceased its tapping against the
shutter, and was listening too. Slowly the moon came out, and looked on.
And then suddenly, from the direction of the stables, came a roar of
men's voices, a sound of bursting and crashing through the under-wood, a
thundering of heavy feet, followed by a whirring of frightened birds
into the air. Brooks leaned forward breathing hard, and tightening his
newly moistened grip on his heavy knotted stick.
Another moment and a man's figure darted across the open, followed by a
chorus of shouts, and Charles's heart turned sick within him. It was
Raymond.
"Cut him off at the gate, Charles," roared Ralph from behind; "down to
the left."
There was not a second for reflection. As Brooks rushed headlong
forward, Charles hurriedly interposed his stick between his legs, and
leaving him to flounder, started off in pursuit.
"Down to your left," cried a chorus of voices from behind, as he shot
out of the shadow of the house; for Charles was some way ahead of the
rest owing to his position.
He could hear Raymond crashing in front; then he saw him again for a
moment in a strip of open, running as a man does who runs for his life,
with a furious recklessness of all obstacles. Charles saw he was making
for the rocky thickets below the house, where the uneven ground and the
bracken would give him a better chance. Did he remember the deep sunken
wall which, broken down in places, still separated the wilderness of the
garden from the wilderness outside? Charles was lean and active, and he
soon out-distanced the other pursuers, but a man is hard to overtake who
has such reasons for not being overtaken as Raymond, and do what he
would he could not get near him. He bore down to the left, but Raymond
seemed to know it, and, edging away again, held for the woods a little
higher up. Charles tacked, and then as he ran he saw that Raymond was
making with headlong blindness through the shrubbery direct for the deep
sunk wall which bounded the Arleigh grounds. Would he see it in the
uncertain light? He must be close upon it now. He was running like a
madman. As Charles looked he saw him pitch suddenly forward out of sight
and heard a heavy fall. If Charles ever ran in his life, it was then. As
he swiftly let himself drop over the wall, lower than Raymond had taken
it, he saw Ralph and Dare, followed by the others, come streaming down
the slope in the moonlight, spreading as they came. It was now or never.
He rushed up the fosse under cover of the wall, and almost stumbled over
a prostrate figure, which was helplessly trying to raise itself on its
hands and knees.
"Danvers, it's me," gasped Raymond, turning a white tortured face feebly
towards him. "Don't let those devils get me."
"Keep still," panted Charles, pushing him down among the bracken. "Lie
close under the wall, and make for the house again when it's quiet;" And
darting back under cover of the wall, to the place where he had dropped
over it, he found Dare almost upon him, and rushed headlong down the
steep rocky descent, roaring at the top of his voice, and calling wildly
to the others. The pursuit swept away through the wood, down the hill,
and up the sandy ascent on the other side; swept almost over the top of
Charles, who had flung himself down, dead-beat and gasping for breath,
at the bottom of the gully.
He heard the last of the heavy lumbering feet crash past him, and heard
the shouting die away before he stiffly dragged himself up again, and
began to struggle painfully back up the slippery hill-side, down which
he had rushed with a whole regiment of loose and hopping stones ten
minutes before. He regained the wall at last, and crept back to the
place where he had left Raymond. It was with a sigh of relief that he
found that he was gone. No doubt he had got into safety somewhere,
perhaps in the cottage itself, where no one would dream of looking for
him. He stumbled along among the loose stones by the wall till he came
to the place by the gate where it was broken down, and clambering up,
for the gate was locked, made his way back through the shrubberies, and
desolate remains of garden, towards the point near the house where
Raymond had first broken cover. As he came round a clump of bushes his
heart gave a great leap, and then sank within him.
Three men were standing in the middle of the lawn in the moonlight,
gathered round something on the ground. Seized by a horrible misgiving,
he hurried towards them. At a little distance a dog-cart was being
slowly led over the grass-grown drive towards the house.
"What is it? Any one hurt?" he asked, hoarsely, joining the little
group; but as he looked he needed no answer. One glance told him that
the prostrate, unconscious figure on the ground, with blood slowly
oozing from the open mouth, was Raymond Deyncourt.
"Great God! the man's dying," he said, dropping on his knees beside him.
"He's all right, sir; he'll come to," said a little brisk man, in a
complacent, peremptory tone. "It's only the young chap,"--pointing to
the bashful but gratified Brooks--"as crocked him over the head a bit
sharper than needful. Here, Esp,"--to the grinning Slumberleigh
policeman, whom Charles now recognized, "tell the lad to bring up the
'orse and trap over the grass. We shall have a business to shift him as
it is."
"Is he a poacher?" asked Charles. "He doesn't look like it."
"Lord! no, sir," replied the little man, and Charles's heart went
straight down into his boots and stayed there. "I'm come down from
Birmingham after him. He's no poacher. The police have wanted him very
special for some time for the Francisco forgery case."