The brute! The bully! When my darling told me that story (I had to drag
it out of her) I felt that if I had been within a hundred miles at the
time, and had had to crawl home to the man on my hands and knees, there
wouldn't have been enough of him left now to throw on the dust-heap.
Nearly two years had passed since the debt was incurred, but I thought a
Christian world could not go on a day longer until I had paid it
back--with interest.
So fearing that my tender-hearted little woman, if she got wind of my
purpose, might make me promise to put away my vow of vengeance, I got up
early next morning and ordered the motor-car to be made ready for a
visit to Castle Raa.
Old Tommy happened to be in the yard of the inn while I was speaking to
the chauffeur, and he asked if he might be allowed to go with me. I
agreed, and when I came out to start he was sitting in a corner of the
car, with his Glengarry pulled down over his shaggy eyebrows, and his
knotty hands leaning on a thick blackthorn that had a head as big as a
turnip.
We did not talk too much on the way--I had to save up my strength for
better business--and it was a long spin, but we got to our journey's end
towards the middle of the morning.
As we went up the drive (sacred to me by one poignant memory) an open
carriage was coming down. The only occupant was a rather vulgar-looking
elderly woman (in large feathers and flowing furbelows) whom I took to
be the mother of Alma.
Three powdered footmen came to the door of the Castle as our car drove
up. Their master was out riding. They did not know when he would be
back.
"I'll wait for him," I said, and pushed into the hall, old Tommy
following me.
I think the footmen had a mind to intercept us, but I suppose there was
something in my face which told them it would be better not to try, so I
walked into the first room with the door open.
It turned out to be the dining-room, with portraits of the owner's
ancestors all round the walls--a solid square of evil-looking rascals,
every mother's son of them.
Tommy, still resting his knotty hands on his big blackthorn, was sitting
on the first chair by the door, and I on the end of the table, neither
saying a word to the other, when there came the sound of horses' hoofs
on the path outside. A little later there were voices in the hall, both
low and loud ones--the footmen evidently announcing my arrival and their
master abusing them for letting me into the house.
At the next moment the man came sweeping into the dining-room. He was
carrying a heavy hunting-crop and his flabby face was livid. Behind him
came Alma. She was in riding costume and was bending a lithe whip in her
gloved hands.
I saw that my noble lord was furious, but that mood suited me as well as
another, so I continued to sit on the end of the table.
"So I hear, sir," he said, striding up to me, "I hear that you have
taken possession of my place without so much as 'by your leave'?"
"That's so," I answered.
"Haven't you done enough mischief here, without coming to insult me by
your presence?"
"Not quite. I've a little more to do before I've finished."
"Jim," said the woman (in such a weary voice), "don't put yourself about
over such a person. Better ring the bell for the servants and have him
turned out of doors."
I looked round at her. She tried an insolent smile, but it broke down
badly, and then his lordship strode up to me with quivering lips.
"Look here, sir," he said. "Aren't you ashamed to show your face in my
house?"
"I'm not," I replied. "But before I leave it, I believe _you'll_ be
ashamed to show your face anywhere."
"Damn it, sir! Will you do me the honour to tell me why you are here?"
said his lordship, with fury in his looks.
"Certainly. That's exactly what I've come for," I said, and then I
stated my business without more ado.
I told him what he had done to the woman who was ten thousand times too
good to be his wife-torturing her with his cruelties, degrading her with
his infidelities, subjecting her to the domination of his paramour, and
finally striking her in the face like a coward and a cur.
"Liar!" he cried, fairly gasping in his rage. "You're a liar and your
informant is a liar, too."
"Tommy," I said, "will you step outside for a moment?"
Tommy went out of the room at once, and the woman, who was now looking
frightened, tried to follow him.
I stopped her. Rising from the table, I stepped over to the door and
locked it.
"No, madam," I said. "I want you to see what takes place between his
lordship and me."
The wretched woman fell back, but the man, grinding his teeth, came
marching up to me.
"So you've come to fight me in my own house, have you?" he cried.
"Not at all," I answered. "A man fights his equal. I've come to _thrash
you_."
That was enough for him, he lifted his hunting-crop to strike, but it
didn't take long to get that from his hand or to paralyse the arm with
which he was lunging out at me.
And then, seizing him by the white stock at his throat, I thrashed him.
I thrashed him as I should have thrashed vicious ape. I thrashed him
while he fumed and foamed, and cursed and swore. I thrashed him while he
cried for help, and then yelled with pain and whined for mercy. I
thrashed him under the eyes of his ancestors, the mad, bad race he came
from, and, him the biggest blackguard of them all. And then I flung him
to the ground, bruised in every bone, and his hunting-crop after him.
"I hear you're going to court for an Act of Divorce," I said. "Pity you
can't take something to back you, so take that, and say I gave it you."
I was turning towards the door when I heard a low, whining cry, like
that of a captured she-bear. It was from the woman. The wretched
creature was on her knees at the farthest corner of the room, apparently
mumbling prayers, as if in terror that her own turn might be coming
next.
In her sobbing fear I thought she looked more than ever like a poisonous
snake, and I will not say that the old impulse to put my foot on it did
not come back for a moment. But I only said as I passed, pointing to the
writhing worm on the floor:
"Look at him, madame. I wish you joy of your nobleman, and him of you."
Then I opened the door, and notwithstanding the grim business I had been
going through, I could have laughed at the scene outside.
There was old Tommy with his back to the dining-room door, his Glengarry
awry on his tousled head, and his bandy legs stretched firmly apart,
flourishing his big-headed blackthorn before the faces of the three
powdered footmen, and inviting them to "come on."
"Come on, now, you bleating ould billy-goats, come on, come on!"
I was in no hurry to get away, but lit a cigar in front of the house
while the chauffeur was starting the motor and Tommy was wiping his
steaming forehead on the sleeve of his coat.
All the way home the old man talked without ceasing, sometimes to me,
and sometimes to the world in general.
"You gave him a piece of your mind, didn't you?" he asked, with a wink
of his "starboard eye."
"I believe I did," I answered.
"I allus said you would. 'Wait till himself is after coming home, and
it'll be the devil sit up for some of them,' says I."
There was only one limitation to Tommy's satisfaction over our day's
expedition--that he had not cracked the powdered skulls of "some o' them
riddiclus dunkeys."
[END OF MARTIN CONRAD'S MEMORANDUM]