When the new keeper and his wife took possession of their cottage,
deep in the heart of Westbury Chase, summer was still at its height.
Jim Whittle’s real responsibilities had not yet begun--a little
breathing space was, as it were, allotted to the young couple before
settling thoroughly into harness. So Betty thought at least, though Jim
frequently reminded her that summer was as anxious a time as any other
for a man in his position.
“What with folks expectin’ the young birds to be nigh full-growed afore
they was much more than hatched out; and what wi’ the fear of there
being too much wet, or too much sun, and varmint an’ sich-like, I can
tell ye, Betty,” said he, “I’m as anxious in summer as in winter, very
near.”
Nevertheless, he found time to do many little odd jobs for her which he
could not have accomplished in the shooting season: knocking together
shelves, digging in the garden, chopping up the store of wood which she
herself collected as she strolled out in her spare hours. Betty was as
happy as a bird in those days. Their new home had been put in order
before their advent, and was spick and span from roof to threshold;
the fresh thatch glinted bravely through the heavy summer foliage;
the flowers in the little garden made patches of bright colour amid
the surrounding green. Betty herself in her print dress and with her
hair shining like polished gold, Betty carrying her six-months-old
child poised on her round arm, was an almost startling figure to those
who came upon her suddenly in the leafy aisles about her home. Brown
and grey and fawn and russet are the tones chiefly affected by forest
people; yet here were the mother and child, wood creatures both of
them, flaunting it in their pinks and yellows before autumn had so much
as crimsoned a leaf.
What wonder that the shy folk in fur or feather peered at them with
round astonished eyes, ere scuttling to cover or taking to flight.
Dick Tuffin, the woodman, looked up in surprise from the faggot he had
just bound together, when Betty and her baby-boy came towards him one
sunny morning from one of the many shadowy avenues which abutted on a
glade cleared by his own hands. As she advanced, he sat back upon his
heels amid the slender sappy victims of his axe, and frankly stared at
her.
He was a young man, dark as a gipsy, muscular and lithe, with
quick-glancing eyes and a flashing smile.
“Good-day,” said Betty, pausing civilly.
“Good-day to you, Mum. I d’ ’low you be new keeper’s wife?”
“Yes, I am Mrs. Whittle,” said Betty. “Are you cutting down my
husband’s woods?” she added, smiling.
“Ah! your husband’s woods ’ud not be in sich good order as they do be
if it wasn’t for I an’ sich as I,” returned the man. “I do cut down a
piece reg’lar every year, an’ then the young growth comes, d’ye see,
twice so thick as before, so that the game can find so much shelter as
they do like.”
“And what are you going to do with all these poor little trees?”
inquired Betty. “They are too green for firewood, aren’t they?”
“Well,” said Dick, with his infectious smile, “I make hurdles wi’ ’em
for one thing, an’ some of ’em goes for pea-sticks, an’ others is made
into besoms. They mid be green,” he added reflectively, “but folks do
come here often enough a-pickin’ up scroff for burnin’.”
Here the child on Betty’s arm began to whimper, and she nodded to it
and dandled it, her own person keeping up a swaying, dancing movement
the while.
Dick Tuffin watched her, at first with a smile; but presently his face
clouded.
“You have a better time of it, Mrs. Whittle,” said he, “nor my poor
little ’ooman at home. You do see your husband so often as you like;
but there, I must bide away from home for weeks and months at a time. I
mid almost say I haven’t got a home; and Mary, she mid say she haven’t
got a husband.”
“How’s that?” inquired Betty, pausing, with the now laughing child
suspended in mid-air, to turn her astonished face upon him.
“My place is nigh upon fifteen mile away from here. I go travellin’ the
country round, cuttin’ the woods and makin’ hurdles; an’ ’tis too far
to get back except for a little spell now and then. I didn’t think o’
wedlock when I took up the work, an’ now I d’ ’low I wouldn’t care to
turn to any other. But ’tis hard on the ’ooman.”
“She oughtn’t to let you do it!” cried the keeper’s wife firmly. “Ha’
done, Jim; ha’ done, thou naughty boy! I’ll throw thee over the trees
in a minute!”
The child had clutched at her golden locks, pulling one strand loose;
she caught at the chubby hand, made believe to slap it, and then kissed
the little pink palm half a dozen times.
“Your wife ought to make you get your livin’ some other way,” she added
seriously.
“It couldn’t be done now,” said the woodman. “I have done nothin’ but
fell trees an’ plesh hurdles since I was quite a little ’un. I couldn’t
do naught else,” he added somewhat dreamily; “I fancy I couldn’t bide
anywhere except in a wood.”
“Well, ’tis a fine life,” said she, willing to say something civil.
“Yes, pleasant enough,” he agreed. “If I could tole my missus about I’d
never complain; but, there! it can’t be done.”
He tossed the faggot on one side, and began to collect materials for
another. Betty noticed a great rent in his fustian waistcoat, and,
commenting upon the fact, volunteered to mend it.
“’Tis awkward for ye having no one to sew for ye,” she added, as Dick
gratefully divested himself of the garment in question.
“’Tis that,” agreed Tuffin. “I do move about so often the folks where
I lodge do never seem to take a bit of interest in I. My wife, she do
fair cry at times when she do see the state my things be in. Come, I’ll
hold the youngster for ye, Mum.”
“Oh, he’ll be all right on the soft grass here!”
“Nay, I’d like to hold ’en if ye’ll let me. I want to get my hand in,
d’ye see. There’ll be a little un at our place very soon.”
“I do call it unfeelin’ of ye to leave your wife alone at such a time,”
remarked Betty reprovingly.
“Her mother’s wi’ her,” returned Dick. “I’ll go home for a bit in a
fortnight or so, but I must be back in October.”
He chirruped to the child, swinging him high in the air, till Baby Jim
crowed and laughed again. Soon Mrs. Whittle’s task was accomplished,
and she handed back the waistcoat to its owner, receiving his profuse
thanks in return. As she walked away through the chequered light and
shade Dick looked after her.
“Some folks is luckier nor others,” he said. “Keeper can live in the
woods and have wife and child anigh him, too; but I, if I be to live at
all, must live alone.”
Then he thought of the little brown wife in that far-away village, and
wondered with a sudden tightening of the heart-strings how she was
getting on; but presently he whistled again, in time to the rhythmic
strokes of his axe, as he pointed the sowels for his next lot of
hurdles.
On the following morning when Betty was sweeping out her house a shadow
fell across the threshold, and, looking up, she descried the woodman.
“I’ve brought ye a new besom,” said he, with a somewhat shamefaced
smile. “One good turn do deserve another, Mrs. Whittle.”
“Thank ye kindly, I’m sure,” returned Betty, with a bright smile. “I
never thought of your making any return for the few stitches I set for
ye. The besom is a beauty, Mr. Tuffin.”
“Glad ye like it,” said Dick, turning to take his leave.
“If ye’ve any other bits o’ mending, Mr. Tuffin,” Betty called after
him, “I’d be pleased to do ’em for ye.”
“Nay, now, I don’t like puttin’ too much on your good nature, Mrs.
Whittle,” said Dick, glancing over his shoulder with a sheepish smile.
But the keeper’s wife insisted; and presently Dick confessed that there
were a good few socks lying by at his lodgings in sore need of repair.
On the morrow he brought them, with the addition of a large basket of
“scroff,” or chips, for firing.
Keeper Jim was much amused at this exchange of civilities; but was so
far moved with compassion for Tuffin’s lonely wife that he contributed
a couple of nice young rabbits to the little packet of comforts which
Betty sent her when Dick went home for his brief holiday; and he was
both touched and gratified when little Mrs. Tuffin sent a return
tribute of new-laid eggs and fresh vegetables to the woman who had
befriended her Dick.
Autumn came, scarcely perceptible at first in this sheltered spot;
little drifts of yellow leaves strewed Betty’s threshold of a morning;
there was a brave show of berries amid the undergrowth; maple bushes
lit cool fires here and there; and travellers’ joy and bryony flung
silver-spangled tendrils or jewelled chains across a tangle of orange
and crimson and brown. The delicate tracery of twigs, the gnarled
strength of boughs, became ever more perceptible as the leafage
thinned; Jim could see more of the thatch of his house as he tramped
homewards, and could mark through the jagged outline of the naked
boughs how the blue smoke-wreaths blew hither and thither as they
issued from his chimney.
There was a growing sense of excitement in the woods; their silence
was often broken by startled cries and the whirring of great wings.
Soon the glades would echo to the sound of the beaters’ sticks; dry
twigs would crack beneath the sportsmen’s feet; shots would wake the
slumbering echoes; and then a cart would come and bear away the rigid
bodies erstwhile so blithe. Betty almost cried as she thought of the
fate that awaited the pretty birds which she had so often fed with her
own hand and which the baby had loved to watch; but Jim chid her when
she said she hoped many of them would escape.
“Tell ’ee what,” he remarked sternly, “if the gentry don’t find more
pheasants nor in the wold chap’s time they’ll say I bain’t worth my
salt. There, what be making such a fuss about? ’Tis what they be
brought up for. D’ye think folks ’ud want to be watchin’ ’em an’
feedin’ ’em an’ lookin’ arter ’em always if ’twasn’t that they mid get
shot in the end? They must die some way, d’ye see; and I d’ ’low if ye
was to ax ’em, they pheasants ’ud liefer come rocketin’ down wi’ a dose
o’ lead in their innards nor die natural-like by freezin’ or starvin’
or weasels or sich.”
Jim grew more and more enthusiastic as the time drew nearer for the
big shoot, which was, as he expected, to establish his reputation.
This was not to take place till late in November, so as to allow time
for the trees to be fully denuded of their leaves. The keeper often
talked darkly of the iniquities of certain village ne’er-do-weels, who,
according to him, thought no more of snaring a rabbit than of lying
down in their beds.
“If they only kept to rabbits,” he added once, “it wouldn’t be so bad;
but when those chaps gets a footin’ in these woods there’s no knowin’
where they’ll stop. But they’ll find I ready for them. They’ll find I
bain’t so easy to deal wi’ as wold Jenkins.”
“Dear, to be sure, Jim, I wish you wouldn’t talk so!” said Betty. “You
make me go all of a tremble! I shall be afeard to stop here by myself
when you’re away on your beat if you ’fray me wi’ such tales. I don’t
like to think there’s poachin’ folk about.”
“There, they’d never want to do nothin’ to a woman,” said Jim
consolingly; “’tis the game they’re arter. They’ll not come anigh the
house, bless ye!”
“Well, but I don’t like to think they mid go fightin’ you,” she
whimpered.
Jim bestowed a sounding kiss on her smooth cheek.
“Don’t ye fret yoursel’,” he cried; “they’ll run away fast enough when
they do see I comin’. Why, what a little foolish ’ooman thou be’est!
There, give over cryin’. I didn’t ought to ha’ talked about such
things.”
Betty’s pretty eyes were still somewhat pink, however, as she came
strolling into Dick’s quarters that afternoon; and her lip drooped when
in answer to his questions she divulged the cause.
“Afeard o’ poachers!” exclaimed the woodman, with a laugh. “Bless ye,
Mrs. Whittle, poachers bain’t no worse nor other folks! Dalled if I
can see much harm in a man catchin’ a rabbit or two when there’s such
a-many of ’em about! The place be fair swarmin’ wi’ ’em o’ nights.”
Betty was much shocked; and returned reprovingly that it couldn’t
ever be right to steal. “And poachin’ is but stealin’,” she summed up
severely.
“Stealin’!” echoed Dick; “nay, ye’ll never make me believe that. I d’
’low the Lard did make they little wild things for the poor so well
as for the rich. Pheasants, now,” he continued, ruminating, “I won’t
say as any one has a right to take pheasants except the man what owns
the woods. I’d as soon rob a hen-roost, for my part, as go arter one
o’ they fat tame things as mid be chicken for all the spirit what’s
in ’em. I’d never ax to interfere wi’ a pheasant,” he continued
reflectively, “wi’out it was jist for the fun o’ the thing. But settin’
a gin or two--wi’ all these hundreds and thousands o’ rabbits runnin’
under a body’s feet--ye’ll never make me think there’s a bit o’ harm in
it.”
“Don’t let my husband hear such talk!” said Betty loftily.
The woodman laughed again. “I wouldn’t mind speakin’ out plain to his
face,” said he. “Him and me is the best o’ friends--I do like en very
well,” continued Dick handsomely; “better nor I ever thought to like a
gamekeeper. As a rule, I don’t hold with folks what goes spyin’ about,
a-tryin’ to catch other folks in the wrong. I never could a-bear a
policeman, now--’tis my belief they do more harm than good.”
“Gracious!” ejaculated the scandalised Betty. “I don’t know how you can
go for to say such things.”
“Well, d’ye see, ’tis this way,” explained Dick. “If a man do want for
to get drunk, drunk he’ll get if there be farty policemen arter him.
If he’s willin’ to make a beast of hisself, and to ruin his wife and
family, and to get out o’ work an’ everything, for the sake of a drap
o’ drink, ’tisn’t a policeman that ’ull stop him. And if a chap do
want to fight another chap--his blood being up, d’ye see--he’ll fight
en--ah, that he will! and give no thought at all to the chance o’ bein’
run in for it. And jist same way--if a body has a notion to trap a
rabbit, trap it he will, keeper or no keeper.”
Here Dick selected a sapling and began to trim it leisurely, pursing up
his lips the while in a silent whistle.
“I’ll not tell Whittle all you’ve said,” remarked Betty with dignity,
as she shifted her baby from one arm to the other, and prepared to walk
on. “He mid think you was a poacher yourself.”
“You may tell him if you like,” retorted Dick, and then he whistled
out loud and clapped his hands at the baby, which thereupon laughed
ecstatically, and almost sprang from its mother’s arms. The keeper’s
wife relaxed, and mentally resolved to make no allusion to Dick’s
unorthodox sentiments in conversing with her husband. Jim himself had
said that it wouldn’t be so bad if folks only kept to rabbits, and Dick
had intimated that he would never care to touch anything else. A body
should not be too hard, she reflected, on a poor fellow who had no
home, so to speak; why, he was almost like a wild creature of the woods
himself, living out in all weathers, sleeping often under the stars,
picking up a chance meal as he best could--there was no great wonder
if he had become as lawless as the four-footed “varmint” against whom
the keepers waged such fierce war.
One evening, shortly before the great shoot was to take place, Jim came
home to tea in a state of contained excitement. When the meal was over
he went to the door, and began, to his wife’s surprise, to examine the
fastenings carefully.
“’Tis a good stout bolt,” he remarked, “and the lock be a new ’un. I d’
’low if house was shut up you wouldn’t be afeard to bide alone in it?”
Betty immediately demonstrated the presence of mind which she would be
likely to display under such circumstances by uttering a loud scream.
“Oh, Jim, Jim!” she cried, “why be goin’ to stop out all night? I do
know so well as if you did tell me that you be goin’ into danger.”
“Danger!” cried the keeper, thumping his great chest, “not much fear
o’ that! There, don’t ye be so foolish. Me and Stubbs be a-goin’ over
t’other side o’ the park down to the river to see to that ’ere decoy
for duck, as squire be so set on puttin’ to rights. ’Tis five mile
away; we be like to be kep’ late, very late--till daybreak, most like;
but do you make the house fast, old ’ooman, and no harm ’ull come to
either of us.”
Had Betty not been so much absorbed in the main issue, she might have
detected something improbable about the keeper’s story; but, as it was,
her fears for him were almost lost in the horror of being left all
night alone in that desolate spot.
Jim, however, jested at her terrors, and himself made the round of the
cottage, fastening the casements and securing the seldom-used front
door. He stood outside the threshold while she drew the bolts and
locked the back one.
“Get to thy bed early,” he called to her. “Go to sleep so fast as thou
can; and first thing thou knows thou’lt hear me knockin’ to be let in.”
But somebody else knocked before Betty had any thought of going to bed;
before, indeed, she had finished washing up the tea-things.
“Who’s that?” cried she, thrusting a scared face out of the window.
“It’s me, Mrs. Whittle--Dick Tuffin. I’ve a-brought ye back your hamper
what I promised to mend for ye. Why, ye be shut up very early, bain’t
ye?”
“Whittle’s gone travellin’ off a long way,” she answered with a
scarcely perceptible sob. “There, he be gone to the river--’tis a good
five mile off, he do say. I’m frightened to death here by myself.”
She heard him laugh in the darkness.
“How ’ud ye like to be my little wife,” he asked, “as bides alone night
after night, wi’ nobody but the little ’un, now her mother have a-left
her? I wouldn’t be afeard, Mrs. Whittle. Your house be so safe as a
church; and there’s Duke--he’s big enough and strong enough to guard
ye. Hark to en barkin’ now, the minute he do hear my voice!”
“Well, and that’s true,” agreed Betty in a more cheerful tone. “Thank
ye for mendin’ the hamper, Mr. Tuffin. I’ll open the door in a minute.”
“No, don’t ye bother to do that,” said Dick. “The hamper’ll take no
harm out here till morning. Good-night to ye.”
“Good-night,” said Betty, closing the window.
She heard the sound of his footsteps die away, and then the loneliness
of the forest night seemed to close in upon her. Jim had often been
out as late as this, and later, but the mere knowledge that he did not
intend to return till daybreak made her more nervous than she had ever
been. When the logs crackled or fell together she started violently;
the moaning of the wind in the branches without filled her with
dread, though often, when she and her husband sat by the hearth, they
had declared the sound made them feel more snug. More than once she
opened the window and listened; a fine, close rain was falling, making
a dull patter upon the thatched roof, dripping from the eves; but
besides these sounds there were many others, strange, unaccountable,
terrifying--creakings and crackings of boughs; now what seemed to be
a stealthy tread, now whispering voices. She chid herself for these
fancies, knowing well that they must be without foundation, since Duke
remained silent; nevertheless her flesh crept and the dew of terror
started to her brow.
At length, making a strong resolution, she went up to her attic
bedchamber, undressed, and, taking the child into her arms, crept into
bed. But she lay there for a long time, quaking, and staring with
wide-open eyes into the darkness; until, overcome by sheer fatigue
after a long and busy day, she fell asleep.
She woke up suddenly, and sat for a moment vainly endeavouring to
disentangle the confusion of sound which filled her ears. Her heart was
beating like a drum, the blood surged in her brain--a dream-panic was
still upon her, and yet there were certain other unmistakable noises to
be heard without. Duke was barking in frenzied fashion and straining at
his chain; men were shouting at no very great distance, and now--what
was that? A single shot!
“It’s the poachers!” exclaimed Betty, with chattering teeth. “Pray God
they don’t come here!”
In the midst of her anguish of fear she felt a sudden rush of
gratitude. Jim was safe out of the way, thanks be! Jim would not be
back till the folks had got off with their spoil. But now Duke was
whimpering and crying in a most eerie and heartrending manner, and
presently uplifted his voice in long-drawn howls which jarred upon
Betty’s overwrought nerves beyond endurance. She jumped out of bed
and ran to the casement. It had ceased raining, and though the moon
rode between piles of angry clouds, she sent forth at that moment an
extraordinarily clear light. Betty could see the skeleton branches
of the trees all wet and shining as they tossed against the sky; the
little paved path glimmered white; yonder stood a dark patch--Dick’s
hamper. She could see Duke pacing round and round his kennel, at the
utmost length of his chain; now sniffing the ground, now lifting up his
head for another howl.
She rapped at the pane and called to him sharply; and the dog looked up
at her window, and suddenly wheeled in the opposite direction, pricking
his ears.
Steps were heard approaching--slow, lagging steps--and presently
two figures came staggering together out of the wood. Betty screamed
as they emerged from the shadow, and then leaned forth, paralysed
with dread; for as the two slowly advanced into the moonlit path she
recognised Stubbs, the under-keeper, and saw that he was supporting,
almost carrying, his companion.
“Be that you, Mrs. Whittle?” cried Stubbs. “Come down, Mum, come down
this minute! This be a bad night’s work!”
The man leaning upon him raised his head with an inarticulate attempt
to speak, and Betty saw that it was Jim--her own Jim--her husband! But,
oh! what tale was that told by the drawn features and glassy eyes?
She had screamed at the unknown terror, but she uttered no sound now.
Before they reached the door she had mechanically thrown on her dress
over her nightgown, and had come downstairs, pattering with her bare
feet. She flung open the door, and put her arms round her husband,
almost as if she grudged him any support but hers.
“My poor little ’ooman!” said Jim brokenly; “I d’ ’low I’m done for.”
With Stubbs’ aid she stretched him on the sofa, and unfastened coat and
waistcoat. She drew out her hand from his bosom suddenly, and looked at
it with a shudder: it was red!
“Ah, he’s got the whole charge in en somewhere,” groaned Stubbs. “There
was a lot of ’em out to-night, and we catched one of ’em; he fought
like a devil, he did--’twas in wrestling wi’ him poor Whittle’s gun
went off. Dear to be sure, ’tis awful to think on. His own gun!”
“Where’s the man?” asked Betty sharply; her face was as white as a
sheet--her lips drawn back from her gleaming teeth.
“Oh, he made off, ye mid be sure,” returned the other. “I don’t know
who he was. ’Twas in the thick o’ the trees yonder we come on ’em. Moon
had gone in and ’twas as dark as pitch.”
“Do you think my husband will die!” gasped Betty.
“Ah! ’tis a bad job--’tis surely,” responded the other, almost
whimpering; “and the worst on’t is we be nigh six mile from a doctor.”
“Oh, Mr. Stubbs,” cried the keeper’s wife earnestly, “let’s do
everything we can, any way! Will ye go for the doctor for me? Do!
I’ll--I’ll give ye every penny in the house if ye will!”
“Lard! my dear ’ooman, I don’t want no pay for doin’ what I can at
sich a time. I’ll go, to be sure, an’ make so much haste as I can;
but--won’t ye be afeard to bide here all alone--and him so bad?”
Betty saw that he expected her husband would die before his return, but
she did not flinch.
“I will do anything in the world so long as there’s a chance of saving
him!” she cried. “Run, Mr. Stubbs, run! Make haste--oh, do make haste!”
Stubbs drew his arm from beneath the wounded man’s shoulder, and
hastened away without another word. Betty went to her linen-drawer,
and found an old sheet, which she tied round Jim’s body to staunch
the bleeding; he seemed to have received the charge chiefly in his
right side. He opened his eyes and smiled at her faintly, and then she
dropped on her knees beside him.
“Jim,” she whispered, “you never went away arter all?”
He shook his head feebly. “I meant it for the best,” he said; “I heard
these chaps would be up to their tricks to-night, and I thought me and
Stubbs ’ud catch them.”
“Oh, Jim,” said Betty, “ye told me a lie!”
“I meant it for the best, my dear,” he returned faintly. “I didn’t want
ye to be frayed--poor little ’ooman! Ye mustn’t be vexed.”
Betty stooped and kissed him, and he closed his eyes.
“I reckon I’m goin’,” he said. “Well, I done my dooty. But what ’ull ye
do, my dear?”
“I’ll manage,” said Betty.
Her voice had a harsh note quite unlike its own; she sank down in a
heap on the floor, staring before her. She knew what she would do if
Jim died. She would first of all find the man who had killed him, and
then--oh, he should pay for it!
Jim had fallen into a kind of drowsy state, and presently his hand
slipped down and unconsciously touched hers: it was very cold. Betty,
rousing herself, went towards the hearth, drawing the embers together.
There was not enough fuel, however, to make much of a fire; and, softly
opening the door, she went out to the woodshed, her bare feet making
no sound on the damp stones. As she was returning with her burden the
wicket-gate swung open, and Dick Tuffin come up the path.
“Mrs. Whittle! Mrs. Whittle!” he called pantingly.
She turned and confronted him. The moon had dipped behind the trees
and she could not distinguish his face, but something in the aspect of
the man struck her with a lightning-like intuition.
“Come in,” she said hoarsely.
Dick followed her into the house, starting back at sight of the
prostrate figure on the couch. Betty dropped her wood on the hearth and
came swiftly across to him with her panther-like tread. There was an
expression on her face which might have recalled the beast in question.
She placed both her hands upon his breast, and he, giving way before
them, stepped backwards a few paces.
“Look at him,” said Betty; “he is dying! Dick Tuffin, it is you who
have killed my husband!”
“I swear I didn’t know it was him,” faltered Dick. “I’d no thought of
harm. I went out with the others for a frolic. You yourself did tell I
your husband was miles away.”
She had told him! He would make out that she had delivered him into
their hands! A red mist came before her eyes.
“Even when he did catch I,” went on Dick, “I didn’t know who ’twas. But
somebody told me jist now that Stubbs was runnin’ for the doctor for
en, so I come--I couldn’t rest, ye see. I had to come. Mrs. Whittle, I
don’t know what you’ll say to me.”
Betty said nothing at all, but the steady pressure of her hands upon
his breast increased, and, as before, Dick recoiled beneath it. Her
eyes were blazing in her white face; her dishevelled fair hair fell
about her shoulders. Dick gazed at her remorsefully, suffering her
unresistingly to push him the length of the little room and through an
open doorway. He imagined her to be ejecting him from the house, but
all in a moment she threw her whole weight upon him with such violence
that he stumbled and fell. Before he could recover he found the door
closed upon him and bolted. He heard hasty steps in the inner room and
the dragging across the floor of some heavy piece of furniture, which
was presently pushed against the door.
“Mrs. Whittle!” he called out, “what are you doing? Are you mad?”
Then came Betty’s voice, harsh and broken: “I’ve got ye, Dick Tuffin!
Ye can’t get out; there’s no window and no other door. I’ve got ye and
I mean to keep ye! Ye’ve killed my husband--ye’ve made me a widow and
my child an orphan--an’ I’ll not rest till I do the same by your wife
and your child.”
And then something else came battering up against the door. Dick had
no doubt but that the barricade was now complete. He felt about him in
the darkness, identifying shelves, one or two small barrels, a crock:
he was in the buttery most likely. He might possibly force his way out;
the bolt was in all probability not very strong, and once the door was
opened he could soon do away with all other obstacles; but then he
would have that fierce woman to encounter. He could not escape without
doing her some hurt, and the awful face of the wounded man would again
meet his gaze. Besides, of what use would it be to attempt to escape?
He was well known in the place, and the police would soon track him.
He sat down, therefore, with the resignation of despair, shivering
from time to time, and straining his ears for every sound in the next
room. He heard poor Jim groan now and then, and Betty speak to him in a
voice of such yearning tenderness that it was scarcely recognisable as
the same which had threatened himself a little while before. He thought
of Betty as she had first come upon him, so young and gay in her pink
dress, and with her yellow hair glancing in the sun, and of the child
which he had so often dandled in his arms. Widow and orphan! Widow and
orphan! And all because Dick Tuffin had gone out with a few idle chaps
for a night’s frolic. And then he thought of his own little woman at
home: he seemed to see her in her “deep”. And the little one, who would
never be able to hold up his head because they hanged his father.
Thus did he muse very sorrowfully until slumber overtook him in that
inexplicable fashion with which it will sometimes come upon the weary
and anxious of heart. And he slept until the grey light of morning
began to creep through the chinks of the barricaded door.
He heard voices in the adjoining room--men’s voices, and Betty’s; then
the tread of feet walking in unison. The little stairs creaked; the
heavy footfalls now tramped in the room overhead, then descended again,
and crossed the kitchen. Now the folks were leaving the house; he could
hear them clattering down the path, and caught the swing of the gate.
“It’s all over,” he said to himself, “they’ve carried the poor chap
upstairs.”
A sudden numbness came upon him: it was true, then, and not a bad
dream. Poor Jim Whittle was dead, and he, Dick, had killed him; and
now Betty would give him up to the police, and he would be tried and
convicted and hanged.
Dick was not very learned in the statutes of his country, and had no
manner of doubt that since the keeper had been killed in struggling
with him--by his hand, it might be said, for the gun had gone off owing
to Dick’s endeavour to wrench it away--he would have to pay the full
penalty of the law. To be hanged by the neck until he was dead. He put
his hand to his throat, and drew a long sobbing breath.
After what seemed an interminable time, he heard once more the sound
of voices in the kitchen--a man’s voice and Betty’s--then a quick firm
step crossing the room to the house-door, and finally the retreating
sounds of a horse’s feet. Then there was a scraping and bumping of
furniture; the rim of light which had been perceptible but half-way
down the door suddenly lengthened, the bolt grated in its hasps, and in
another moment Betty stood before him.
Dick had been so long imprisoned in the darkness that at first he could
hardly bear the flood of wintry light which burst upon him. And there,
in the midst of it, was the woman, with so bright a face that he could
scarce credit his eyes. She stretched out both hands to him and cried:--
“He be to live! Doctor says he be to live!” Her voice faltered and
broke, the tears leaped from her eyes. “Thank God!” she cried. “Oh,
thank God! He’ll live! My Jim’s to live!”
Dick came staggering forth from his cell. His brown face was blanched
to a sickly pallor; he trembled in every limb. Choking back her sobs,
Betty again extended her hand to him, and he wrung it; but, turning
from her, he leaned against the wall, hiding his face. His shoulders
were heaving.
“Doctor says he’ll not die,” pursued Betty betwixt laughing and crying.
“He’s young and strong, he says, and he’ll get over it. ‘We’ll get as
much lead as we can out of him,’ says doctor, ‘and he’ll carry the rest
quite comfortable, as many another has done before him.’”
She laughed a feeble, wavering laugh that ended in a sob. “He said we’d
best get him upstairs and put him to bed,” continued Betty. “Stubbs
and another man come up from the village, so they carried him up; and
doctor’s been with him a long time, and he’s sleepin’ now.”
She told her tale brokenly, with a little gasp between each word; but
Dick made no comment. Presently he turned round again, his face still
working.
“Mrs. Whittle,” he said unsteadily, “I’d like ye to hear me say so
solemn as I can, as I’ll never lay another finger on any creature in
the woods. I’ll never touch another feather----”
“Oh, it’s all right, it’s all right!” interrupted she quickly. “I’d
like ye to hear _me_ say summat too. I was mad last night, but I bain’t
so hard-hearted as I made out. Even if my Jim had died I wouldn’t never
ha’--I wouldn’t ha’ made a widow of your poor wife, nor yet an orphan
o’ the baby.”