His mother had disappeared when he came back into the hall, but
Rishwald, emerging from the library, was struggling into his coat. He
asked for his car, checking Christian’s apologies with a certain amount
of dignity, and, in spite of his disastrous evening, shaking hands
warmly with his somewhat forlorn-looking host, who smiled dismally when
he had gone. No doubt he would find adequate consolation in his Tobies
and Queen Annes.
Racing upstairs, Christian changed rapidly into morning clothes, for
he expected Callander at any moment, and when he came down again he
noticed that the door into the garden was open. On a sudden impulse he
went out, to find his mother standing under the old cedar, looking up
at its swaying canopy.
The gale was at its height, now. The wind ran and roared through the
wood like a horde of yelling satyrs, and beat at the old house as if it
would rive the stones asunder. The cedar groaned as it wrestled in the
arms of its mighty antagonist, straightening its old limbs and lifting
its tossed head, only to be bowed to the earth anew. Sometimes, as it
bent, Mrs. Lyndesay was lost to sight beneath the straining boughs,
and Christian fought his way out to her, and laid a hand on her sleeve.
“You’d better come in!” he shouted, his mouth close to her ear. “It
isn’t safe out of doors--especially here. The wind’s taking the trees
all over the garden, and the old cedar’s rotten all through.”
She obeyed reluctantly, and as the full force of the wind met them
round the house, she staggered and caught him by the arm, and he
supported her across the lawn. It came to him, as he did so, that this
was the first time in his life that she had turned to him for help: the
first occasion since he had grown to manhood on which she had touched
him of her own accord.
Once inside, she sank panting on the window seat, while he put his
shoulder to the door and shut out the shrieking void.
“A Lyndesay’s Night!” she exclaimed, as he came back to her where she
sat, her white face framed by the oak of the wall and the wild night
without. “A Lyndesay’s Night! The tree is calling for one of us,
Christian. Shall it be you or I?”
“Neither, I hope!” he answered as cheerfully as he could, lifting his
coat from a peg near, and slipping it on. “Certainly not you. And for
me, I am not ready to go yet. I want much more of life before I follow
the Tree.”
“But I should be glad to go!” she broke out passionately. “I want
nothing more with anybody. Judases--Judases--the rotten world reeks
with them! I’ve only loved three people in the whole of my life,
and each of them played me false. Oh, God! is there no end to it?
Judases--Judases--every one!”
She wrung her hands together, rocking to and fro until her widow’s cap
touched the leaded pane. The ice was broken at last, and the torrents
of hidden anguish came racing into view, carrying all before them.
Christian shrank a little, appalled by the force of her unwonted
distress.
“All false!” she cried again. “That woman to-night--she lied when she
said that I did not love her. I had grown fond of her. She understood
me better than anybody; better than my own mother or my own children.
There was something frank and brave about her that got at my heart,
something that seemed mountains high above the mud of treachery. I
believed in her, in spite of the secret marriage; and all the time she
stayed with me for her own ends, not for my comfort--not because I
cared for her, but merely to gain a man who did not trust her--and with
cause! That was Nettie Stone. Let her go!”
She finished with her hands locked on her knees, her figure bent
forward, her staring gaze on the floor.
“She loved him,” Christian said gently. “She played a big stake, and
she took a big risk. And he trusts her, now.”
“Then there was Stanley,” she went on, apparently without hearing him,
“Stanley, who was the light of my eyes and my very soul. He was born
at a time when I had begun to think I could not go on living, and his
babyhood was the one bit of heaven I shall ever know. But as he grew
up, day after day I saw where he was going. I watched him grow from a
careless boy into a despicable, dissolute man. When once love sees,
it has the terrible lightning-clearness of the gods. I watched him
backing slowly into hell--the hell where I myself was already, with all
mothers in like case. When the Tree took him, I was glad, for I thought
everything was ended, and the long strain of deceit over. Then came the
last scandal. I knew most of the others, and he knew that I knew. But
this, the greatest thing in his life, the worst and yet perhaps the
best thing he had ever done, he kept from me. He was false to me as to
everybody else.”
“He is dead, Mother. Try to forget,” Christian put in, moved to a
sudden passion of pity. “We are left, you and I. Let us help each
other, if we can!”
She lifted wide, strange eyes to his pitying gaze.
“You help me? _You?_ I would not owe you a paltry kindness, or a single
kindly word!” She stood up abruptly, throwing back her head, and for a
brief moment he looked, shuddering, behind the Lyndesay mask. “I have
always hated you--you don’t need to be told that; but you need to be
told why. There was another I loved--your father. And you are William
Lyndesay’s son--William Lyndesay who was false to me from our very
wedding-day, and with whom I lived twenty years, holding my peace! Ay,
there is more than one curse on Crump. No wonder we are a by-word
in the countryside for all that spells sorrow and hate and death! We
are cursed down to the very soil we tread, and up to the roof of the
shambles where we die. Judases! Judases all!” She sank back, putting
her hands to her face. “Take your pity and your help elsewhere--you
who look at me with William Lyndesay’s eyes!” The hall bell rang, and
Christian stepped quickly between her and the approaching servant.
“Mother!” he pleaded earnestly, very low, bending over her. “I am
myself as well as my father’s son. I am your child--no treachery in the
world can alter that. Forget, if you can. In time you will forgive. We
are so alone, Mother, you and I!”
His voice shook as he put out a hand and laid it on hers, a passionate
need of sympathy strong upon him, and his heart drew to her when she
showed no outward resentment at his touch. She turned her head to the
window, where by the wild light from the hurrying sky they could see
the tree lashing to and fro.
“The Tree calls,” she said quietly, as Callander came in behind them
on the wind. “The Tree is hungry and calls. Now may the Tree take me
before I either forget or forgive!”
* * * * *
During their breathless fight across the park, the two men had no words
to spend on each other, and Christian’s restless brain raced like
driven quarry through the twisted tangle of the day. His interview
with Deborah seemed already blurred and far-off; his mother’s fierce
monologue a nightmare to be shaken clear. Only one picture stood out
brightly on the crowded canvas, sweet and gracious against the troubled
bewilderment of the rest. He saw Anthony’s arm go round the woman he
loved, and Nettie’s head sink to its place at last.
_That_ was love, then--the thing of which Deborah had said he knew
nothing; the going into a place apart of two souls, for whom even the
dark avenue of death could hold no fear. Nettie had been his comrade,
his strong stay, but for Anthony she would be only a woman, weak for
the glory of his strength. Not in comradeship alone lay the secret, not
even in mutual reliance and support, unless crowned and welded by the
unpurchasable magic, lacking which the highest must stay sealed. Deb
had been right; he had not understood--but he understood now. Farmer
and horse-dealer’s daughter were priest and priestess of his vision.
“We’re late,” Callander observed, when at last they struggled into
the village. “But most of the men would be late too, I expect, so it
doesn’t really matter. The Whyteriggers must have had a tough fight for
it across the mosses.”
It was with a sense of relief that they stumbled out of the merciless
night into the warmth and brightness of the hall, packed from platform
to gallery, for it was a special night, and the Crump Silver Belt was
up for competition. Moreover, this was the first time that Christian
had appeared at a meeting since his brother’s death, and all his
admirers were there to greet him. They got to their feet as he came
in, and a shower of caps darkened the air on a mighty cheer for Lakin’
Lyndesay. The older men, who had known him from childhood, crowded
round him, grasping his hand, while the lads in the background eyed him
with reverent awe, for he held a record that could not be beaten by any
in the room.
He passed the gauntlet of outstretched hands by gradual degrees, and
came laughing to the platform, where a chair had been kept for him,
and a morose Larrupper greeted him with a dismal nod. The cheering was
still raising the roof as he took his seat in the centre, and the Crump
men came out _en masse_ to give him a final yell. Still the familiar
faces pressed upon him, and still the welcoming hands went out. Even
Larrupper thawed at last in the general enthusiasm, and clapped him
cheerily on the shoulder as the oldest Crump tenant worried his way
through for a word with the squire.
“Eh, Laker lad, but I be main glad to see thee back!” he quavered,
holding to the young man’s hand as much for support in his agitation as
for greeting; and Christian laughed and pushed him gently into his own
chair, while a dozen eager sportsmen fought and scrambled after another.
The umpires restored order at last, and the ring was cleared. The crowd
subsided, and presently the men began to come out in wrestling-kit,
white, yellow, or even purple, richly embroidered in many cases, for
there was a prize to be won by the best costume. At the edge of the
ring the ponderous, but still light-footed umpires, themselves old
wrestling champions, grunted curt orders at competitor and partisan
alike.
Christian leaned forward after the first clean fall, his breath
coming fast as the glamour of the game gripped him afresh. He had all
the names of all the great wrestlers by heart, from the Cork Lad o’
Kentmere, who won his Troutbeck home in a tussle before Edward VI, to
Jemmy Fawcett, Jackson of Kinneyside, and the best men of his own day.
Jemmy Fawcett was one of his favourites in history, a little ten-stone
man of five foot seven, who had been known to fell seventeen stone,
even with a handkerchief to lengthen his reach. Then there was Belted
Will; and Bone-setter Dennison, who dislocated his opponent’s shoulder
in a fall, and put it right again before leaving the ring; others, too,
whose names rose slowly to the surface of his mind as he watched.
This was not one of the weekly matches, but a competition open to the
district and to all weights, though the fact that the men were mainly
drawn from Crump and Whyterigg caused the party feeling between the
two villages to run high. The Crump men did well at first. Long John
Carradus had little trouble with young Harry Newby, a lightweight whose
favourite chip was the somewhat dangerous “hank”--dangerous because
it has the knack of felling the aggressor instead of the defendant.
Lowther disposed of his man with a swift back-heel; and the inside
click finished a Whyterigg favourite whose chances had been highly
assessed. The brawny Arevar cowman had done himself proud by drawing
the pick of the room, and was greeted with uproarious, derisive cheers
as his knotted arms went heavily round Gaskarth’s slender waist,
his coarse blue shirt and clumsy fustians in striking contrast with
the white elegance of the other. He made a great parade of finding
his hold, ramming his rough head against his opponent’s cheek, and
breathing heavily, while Gaskarth padded lightly round him, taking
his time, and smiling gently at the cowman’s mighty lumberings and
strenuous efforts to force him to close. He got his hands together
at last, swiftly and unobtrusively, and allowed his enthusiastic foe
to swing him about the ring for a few moments, for the amusement of
the spectators, smiling blissfully all the while; then, suddenly
striking inside and lifting at the same time, held the astonished
Samson helpless in his grasp before laying him gently and almost
affectionately on the mat. Christian uttered a sharp word of applause,
and Gaskarth, hearing it through the general laughter, acknowledged
it with a lifted finger. He had learned his quiet science from Lakin’
Lyndesay himself.
The following half-dozen pairs gave little sport, and Christian,
running his eye over the men, had already come to the conclusion that
Gaskarth had no need to fear anybody present, when the last couple of
the first round took the mat.
One of the two he knew, but the other, whom he took to be a
Whyterigger, was a stranger to him, a big, fair man scaling fourteen
stone, with a splendid pair of shoulders slightly overweighting the
rest of him, and a long reach. He had a sullen expression, and a temper
not thoroughly under control, Christian judged, noticing his restless
hands as the Whyteriggers went down before Crump. He strode on to the
mat aggressively and rather contemptuously, and made short work of the
young groom who fell to his lot, barely stopping to shake hands before
marching off again.
After that, Christian watched him intently as he lived through the
next few rounds, foreseeing that he and Gaskarth would meet in the
finals, and hoping to see him downed--not because he was an outsider,
but because the man’s attitude annoyed him, lacking as it did the frank
heartiness of the genuine sportsman. His science was creditable--he
knew more than a little--did not rely entirely, by any means, upon
his strength and lightness of foot; but it was evident that he was
not popular, though his favourite trick was the showy swinging hipe
which takes so tremendously with the crowd. And once, when he felled
Lanty Strickland, a beginner who had fought his way gallantly to the
last round, finishing him off with needless force, after a fashion
of which Gaskarth would never have been guilty, an ominous murmur
ran through the room, checked instantly and gruffly by the umpires.
Christian pricked his ears, looking more intently than ever at the
stranger. During the last eighteen months he had got out of touch with
wrestling-gossip, but he knew that behind that murmur was something of
older standing than to-night, a grudge born, not of the moment, but of
settled prejudice. He tapped one of the committee on the shoulder, and
learned the man’s name to be Harker; and when, as he had anticipated,
he came out with Gaskarth for the finals, he settled himself keenly to
enjoy the contest.
Gaskarth was not smiling, now. He knew he had big work before him, to
be approached seriously; yet that hardly accounted for the fact that
he offered his hand with less than his usual open good-will, or that
the crowd, while urging him to “Git on to him, Bob! Good lad, Bob! Mind
what thoo’s at!”--had scarcely a word or even a name for the other.
They fell to--Gaskarth quiet in all his movements, from the settling
of his chin to his easy, circling step and the swing of his sinewy
reach; but Harker closed and unloosed rather fiercely, in a manner
more suggestive of real combat than of scientific play. Gaskarth got
hold soon, too--it was only his cowman friend whom he played for the
fun of the crowd--but Harker dallied beyond all reason, irritating
the spectators and drawing reproof from the umpires, at the same time
wearing his opponent in a manner scarcely worthy of his superior
strength and weight. He got hold at last though--a greedy hold,
Christian noticed, that made Gaskarth bite his lip with annoyance,
and a brilliant struggle followed, during which the stout umpires were
harried from pillar to post by the indignant sportsmen whose view
they blocked. The hold was too much for Gaskarth, however, backed by
Harker’s greater power, and he went down at last before the swinging
hipe which had sent the others to the mat. He got back on him, though,
in the next round, taking very good care that holds should be fair this
time, and with his usual neat inside stroke flooring his man in a few
seconds. Harker got up frowning as the other pulled him to his feet,
and in the pause before the last round stood breathing hard, his thick,
fair brows drawn sharply together.
But it was not until the third round was well advanced that Christian
discovered the real cause of his unpopularity. Not only was he
maddeningly slow to “close for fair,” but when once at grips he
deliberately forced Gaskarth’s arms upward above his shoulders,
until their heads were set crown to crown, the deadlock ending in a
futile slipping of holds. Time after time this happened, earning the
disapprobation of the umpires and the open condemnation of the crowd.
Gaskarth, not a man of particularly powerful physique, depending more
upon his knowledge of the game than on sheer strength, began to show
signs of exhaustion as this senseless waste of energy continued.
Dripping with perspiration in the crowded, airless room, he looked
across to Christian, lifting his eyebrows meaningly, to be answered
by an infinitesimal nod, and Gaskarth was comforted, though he knew
he was done. His fine temper broke a little when he took hold for the
last time, and he endeavoured to force himself over his adversary in
a final spurt, but the edge had been worn off his delicate dexterity,
and instead he went hurtling over his opponent’s head, and lay panting,
looking up into Harker’s sullen eyes.
There was a pause for realisation, and then, as he dragged himself
up, grinning humorously and reaching out an ungrudging hand, a storm
of disapproval broke from the room. Shaking his head rebukingly at
the demonstration, he walked cheerfully back to his corner, but
Harker stayed doggedly on the mat, waiting for the winner’s ticket,
and staring defiantly round him when the paper was in his hand. The
discontent was so marked that the big referees looked appealingly at
Christian, who responded by rising to his feet and holding up his hand
for silence.
“Did you give the fall?” he asked quietly, when the last murmur had
died down, and, as the umpires reluctantly signified their assent, he
beckoned Harker forward, lifting the belt from the table beside him.
From the platform he looked down into the square, dogged face, and in
spite of his forced impartiality, his voice was cold as he spoke the
usual formula of presentation; but when he would have handed him the
trophy, Harker shook his head brusquely, and stepped back.
“I haven’t won it yet, sir,” he said, rather insolently, “though I
mean to have it in the end, all right! There’s one Crump man that
hasn’t come out against me, and that’s yourself!”
The colour flamed into Christian’s face as he stood with the belt in
his hands, lifting his head rather haughtily; and instantly from the
disappointed assembly a chorus of demand was flung towards him, the
more insistent pressing to the very steps.
“Take him on, sir! Give him a taste of the old stuff. Topple him over!
Lakin’ Lyndesay! Lakin’ Lyndesay! Give him Crump----!” and it seemed to
Christian that he himself was borne bodily upon the wind of tumult as
his name ran from mouth to mouth.
The men on the platform gathered round him urgently; the oldest tenant
clung to his arm, quaveringly imploring, eager to see him justified;
and even Larrupper added his pithy persuasion.
“Get along down, Laker, an’ break the beggar’s neck!” he growled. “Or
if it’s not dainty enough handlin’ for Lyndesay of Crump, I’ll sail in
an’ do it myself!”
“No, no, Larry! I can’t have you landing in the police-court,”
Christian laughed, torn between his hunger for the game and the memory
of an extorted promise. Perhaps, too, as Larrupper had so delicately
hinted, Lyndesay of Crump was loth to meet the upstart challenger, but
the primitive man at least was all agog to prove his mettle. He looked
hesitatingly round the urgent faces, the sea of entreaty surging in
his ears. The events of the long day had swung him far from his normal
temperate attitude, and at that moment he did not care greatly what
he did or by what influence he was led. More than one tie had been
definitely broken during the last few hours, and the promise might as
well break with the rest.
Only Callander hesitated, driven by his undertaking to Deborah,
and, curiously enough, his very protest clinched consent. Callander
had never seen him wrestle, Christian remembered suddenly, and his
boyish vanity rose to back his natural desire. Fate had used him none
too kindly, that day, leaving him with a sense of having been found
wanting, of having missed by an ace a gift he was not strong enough
to hold. He felt humiliated, sunk in his own eyes, and he longed to
set himself right at least on this, his own peculiar ground. Moreover,
Callander had never seen him wrestle! Afterwards, he remembered how
that touch of innocent folly had swung the balance on the fatal side.
He caught Harker’s eye and nodded, and instantly the hard-used caps
soared up once more; and as he shook himself free from the exultant
press, he saw old Parker beckoning him anxiously from a door behind.
“You’ll excuse me taking the liberty, sir,” the butler apologised,
trembling in every limb with excitement, “but I ventured to slip down,
just to see what was going on, and at the same time I brought the old
rig down with me! You see, Mr. Christian, I thought they’d like as not
want you to turn out, and I didn’t fancy the things not being on the
spot, so I hope you’ll excuse me having brought them along. Oh, sir!
It’s like old times, isn’t it?--and mind you give him a bit of Crump’s
best!”
That was sufficient, if any extra pressure were needed, and they
disappeared behind the stage, while the umpires growled the meeting
into a semblance of order, and Harker flung himself down to rest, his
heart beating fast in spite of his outward indifference.
It is always the dependants of an old house who nurse and keep alive
any feud that may be going--the family servants, the old keepers, the
workmen on the estate. Theirs it is to see that the bad blood should
be kept running, no matter how sweetly, on the part of the masters,
righteousness and peace may have kissed each other. Crump and Whyterigg
had shaken hands and buried the knife, but Christian’s old nurse would
not sit at meat with Rishwald’s chauffeur, nor the head gardener so
much as exchange a cutting with Whyterigg’s horticultural head. Harker
was well come for this sort of thing, being a son of the now-pensioned
Whyterigg coachman and a lady’s maid also bred on the spot, who had
handed on to him their lusty hate of Crump almost as a sacred duty.
“Whyterigg thieves” and “Crump liars” had constituted the common
interchange of courtesies between the boys of the two villages, and
though education and sport had done much to root out the old feudal
folly, the opprobrious term still rankled in Harker’s mind. He now
held a Whyterigg farm, but until the present year he had been with an
uncle in Cumberland, so that he knew nothing of Christian beyond his
sporting reputation, seeing him through the smoked glass of inherited
hostility more as a symbol than as a man. In his mind had always been a
half-formed determination to meet Lakin’ Lyndesay on this one possible
ground of equality, and now his opportunity had arrived. He meant to
make the most of it. The old coachman and the lady’s maid would surely
weep tears of joy if he could carry home a victory over Crump.
There was a stir on the platform, heads turning to the inner door
framing the illuminated countenance of the old butler; and then
Christian ran down into the ring, his nerves thrilling to the
affectionate recognition flung him from all sides. He wore the pale
orange they all knew, his fair head shining against the black Crump
cedar embroidered on the chest; and as he stood, waiting, the full
light falling upon his bright, frank expression and clean-limbed grace,
Harker, approaching, was conscious of unwilling and deeply heretical
admiration. And Callander’s heart warmed to his young employer, for all
that he guessed him to be the unconscious barrier to his dearest desire.
They shook hands quickly and got to work, and were barely into holds
before Harker realised that he was overmatched. He had placed his
opponent at Gaskarth’s valuation, or little higher, and for a few
moments he was conscious of a deadly helplessness under the other’s
superior skill. Christian seemed to read his purpose at the instant
it was framed, and his foot was changed or his weight thrown on the
opposite side in what appeared an impossible fraction of time. He
was cool, too, patient, and most terribly certain,--moreover, he was
unexpectedly strong. Try as he might, Harker could not raise his hold
as he had raised Gaskarth’s. Christian was always ready for him,
and any attempt to force things brought him perilously near his own
destruction. Once, indeed, he did go down, but with a powerful effort
he brought his man alongside, and the umpires gave it a dog-fall. He
got up trembling and breathing hard, but now he, too, was cool. He set
his teeth, doggedly weighing his chances. Christian scaled no more than
eleven stone, if he touched that, and he was out of training, while
the Whyterigger was in the pink of condition, having, too, the slight
advantage in years which tells so enormously at a certain age. But he
was nowhere near him in knowledge and lightning judgment, and he saw
that he must depend on his endurance and his magnificent lifting powers
if he were to come off victor. A few seconds later he was lying on the
mat, laid there as lightly as a child, sent down by a simple back-heel
accomplished in the one infinitesimal second in which he had advanced
his left foot an inch too far.
In the next round he held the advantage for some time, having managed
to secure his favourite monopolising hold, and after a hard struggle
he succeeded in forcing Christian over; but with beautiful dexterity
the younger man twisted from beneath before striking ground, and
reversed the positions. Harker saved himself likewise, by a marvellous
exhibition of strength which brought him a grudging cheer, but he
had lost his first supremacy completely, and when he put in the hank
desperately, the initiated knew he was at the end of his resources. A
dogged clinging together for several minutes almost without movement
ended in a sharp release and the dropping of both men, Harker under.
Three out of five had been the test arranged, but already the
spectators looked upon the match as won, and Harker, after a long
rest, stood up to what was probably the last round, filled with bitter
resentment and hot humiliation.
Yet he started carefully enough, schooling himself to patience, strung
to his highest point of wariness and ingenuity, and presently he became
conscious of a faint wonderment, for something was evidently the matter
with Christian. During one of the pauses when they drew apart before
clinching, he saw that his opponent’s eyes had a dazed and distant
look, as if his mind had ceased to concentrate on the game; and though,
when they closed again, he seemed still in full command of his science,
Harker’s hopes rose.
It was eleven o’clock. From the church hard by the strokes reached them
in spite of the wind, and the white-faced timepiece in the room replied
punctually to its greater brother. Christian knew that, at Crump, the
clock in the stable-yard would be equally faithful, for, only that
afternoon, crossing the park, he had heard the chimes mingle and clash.
His eye stayed mechanically on the white surface as he circled round
the watchful Harker, his hold already joined; and as the last vibration
died, a swaying blackness came over him, veiling his eyes. He was back
again under the ancient cedar, the big wind roaring in his ears, the
staggering giant threatening him with its monstrous, thrashing arms.
He felt them crashing upon him, so seemingly alive in the murderous
intensity of their purpose that he stepped back, desperately striving
to elude their reach; and in that instant Harker took hold. He closed
so fiercely, tautening his muscles and lifting in the same movement,
that Christian winced sharply, and the shock snatched him back to the
work at hand. Struggling to collect his scattered senses, he resisted
Harker’s repeated attempts to put in the hipe, and, anxious to finish
the round, tried both the outside stroke and the inside in quick
succession, but with no result. A demon seemed to have entered into
Harker, roused by the realisation of his opponent’s sudden weakness,
and he saved himself time and again, often without knowing how, as
they swung from end to end of the ring, twisting, lifting, wrenching,
straining, with hard-coming breath and scarlet faces, until even the
hardened watchers wondered that any men could last so long at such
a pitch. As in a dream, Christian heard the impatient--“Stir about,
umpire!” snapping like pistol-shots from every side.
There were pillars at the end by the door, stout, carved shafts,
supporting the heavy gallery; and as the combatants panted down the
mat for the last time, the close-pressing crowd parted a little before
their violent approach. Christian’s clouded eyes went back to the
clock, as if magically drawn, and at that moment Harker put in the
cross-buttock with a mighty heave, sending him flying through the air
clean off the mat and against the unguarded pillar. He struck the deep
carving with his head, and lay still. It was five minutes past eleven.
* * * * *
Roger Lyndesay fell asleep when the wind dropped, but Deb, cruelly wide
awake, could not persuade herself to follow him upstairs. Instead, she
flung a scarf over her head, and went out to the gate. It was close
upon midnight, but to her surprise Crump lights were still burning; and
as she stood, resting in the quiet after the storm, she heard horses
galloping down the park. They turned out by the lower lodge and were
lost for a moment, then came on again, the hoofs beating nearer and
louder; and something fateful in their frantic speed sent her out into
the road to wait their approach. The black night hid the horsemen until
they were close upon her, but one had a lantern at his saddle, dancing
like a will o’ the wisp, and by its light she saw that he was Dixon
of Dockerneuk. She cried after him, then, and he checked violently,
swinging his horse completely round, while the other raced on into the
night.
“Is anything wrong?” she asked anxiously, coming quickly to his
stirrup, and he nodded, panting, as he bent towards her from his
labouring mount.
“It’s Mrs. Lyndesay!” he told her, when he could get his breath.
“The old cedar’s taken her at last, and it’s gone itself along with
her--just as eleven o’clock struck, they say. The servants heard the
crash and ran out, and they found her underneath. They were nigh
scared to death with that and the storm, and they sent for me. Even
Parker was down at the wrestling, and there was nobody else to see to
things. Yon’s a groom gone on ahead for the doctor, and I’m seeking Mr.
Christian to tell him, poor lad! You’d best keep it from your father
till morning, Miss Deborah.”
She agreed quickly.
“I won’t delay you, Anthony,” she added; and then, struck by a sudden
thought, stopped him a second time. “But where is Mrs. Stanley?” she
went on, puzzled, and got no answer, for Dixon, his ear bent towards
the road, was listening to the slow tread of many feet.
They came from the direction of the village, growing steadily louder,
and presently, after a questioning, anxious look at the girl, he
turned and rode slowly to the foot of the bridge, Deb clinging to his
leather. There they waited in a tense silence, straining their eyes
through the dark.
When at last the dim figures were limned on the night, it seemed to
them that the whole village was coming to Crump. Here and there a
lantern swung in the dense, hushed crowd, and in the midst, borne by
his own wrestlers, Gaskarth at his head, the master of Crump came home,
covered and very still--
Deb moved under the lantern, and a man in advance hurried towards her;
and when he saw her eyes, any hope that he had cherished for himself
fell shrivelled to the earth for ever. She looked up at him dumbly,
terribly.
“Hurt--not dead!” Callander answered with merciful directness. “He was
thrown, wrestling. We got the doctor at once. He has hopes----” He
stopped, for the doctor was at his side, and Dixon speaking hurried,
fearful news from his saddle. Suddenly Deb began to laugh very low,
making him shiver.
“It’s a Lyndesay’s Night!” she said. “A Lyndesay’s Night! They follow
the Tree! Christian, too--all of them--they follow the Tree!” And she
laughed again.
He put his arm round her and drew her into the blackness under the
bridge, and together they watched the procession pass, Larruppin’
Lyndesay walking with his hand on the stretcher. Anthony Dixon turned
his horse close behind, and followed his silent master. The dim,
voiceless crowd passed heavily into the park.
* * * * *
All night long Nettie watched by Christian’s bed, while messages went
out to the nearest nursing-homes in the district. Anthony’s vow had
been broken in a few hours--she was back at Crump already. Indeed, she
had been waiting on the steps when the ghostly cortège had shuffled up
the drive.
In a far room the dead mother lay unaware of her son as he of her; and
out on the smooth lawn the uprooted cedar spread its huge branches
like a monster octopus flung dead. It had had a dramatic end, Nettie
thought, shuddering in remembrance. One Lyndesay it had carried with
it, and another seemed far on the road. It was certainly true that the
Lyndesays went out violently and not as other folk. Yet, if Christian
lived, surely the spell would now be broken for all time? If Christian
lived--! She looked at the still, fair head with earnest affection, the
tears rising to her eyes, and a past conversation floated back into her
mind. The gruesome link between the master and his forbears was gone
for ever. If Christian lived, he would be left standing alone.