THE WILDCAT
It was nearly three o'clock when Martin re-entered the village. Outside
the boxing booth a huge placard announced, in sprawling characters, that
the first round of the boxing competition would start punctually at 3
P.M. "Owing to the illness of Mr. George Pickering, deeply regretted,"
another referee would be appointed.
It cost the boy a pang to stride on. He would have dearly liked to watch
the display of pugilism. He might have gone inside the tent for an hour
and still kept his tryst with Mr. Herbert, but John Bolland's dour
teaching had scored grooves in his consciousness not readily effaced.
The folly of last night must be atoned in some way, and he punished
himself deliberately now by going straight home.
The house was only a little less thronged than the "Black Lion," so he
made his way unobserved to the great pile of dry bracken in which he hid
books borrowed from the school library. Ten minutes later he was seated
in the fork of a tree full thirty feet from the ground and consoling
himself for loss of the reality by reading of a fight far more
picturesque in detail--the Homeric combat between FitzJames and Roderick
Dhu.
From his perch he could see the church clock. Shortly before the
appointed hour he climbed down and surmounted the ridge which divided
the Black Plantation from Thor ghyll. It was a rough passage, naught
save gray rock and flowering ling, or heather, growing so wild and bushy
that in parts it overtopped his height. But Martin was sure-footed as a
goat. Across the plateau and down the tree-clad slope on the other side
he sped, until he reached a point whence he could obtain a comprehensive
view of the winding glen.
On a stretch of turf by the side of the silvery beck that rushed so
frantically from the moorland to the river, he spied a small garden
tent. In front was a table spread with china and cakes, while a copper
kettle, burnished so brightly that it shone like gold in the sunlight,
was suspended over a spirit lamp. Mr. Herbert was there, and an elderly
lady, his aunt, who acted as his housekeeper--also Elsie and her
governess and two young gentlemen who "read" with the vicar during the
long vacation. Evidently a country picnic was toward; Martin was at a
loss to know why he had been invited.
Perhaps they wished him to guide them over the moor to some distant glen
or to the early British camp two miles away. Sometimes a tourist
wandering through Elmsdale called at the farm for information, and
Martin would be dispatched with the inquirer to show the way.
It was a pity that Mr. Herbert had not mentioned his desire, as the
daily reading of the Bible was due in an hour, and most certainly,
to-day of all days, Martin must be punctual.
If his brain were busy, his eye was clear. He sprang from rock to rock
like a chamois. Once he swung himself down a small precipice by the
tough root of a whin. He knew the root was there, and had already tested
its capabilities, but the gathering beneath watched him with dismay,
for the feat looked hazardous in the extreme. In a couple of minutes he
had descended two hundred feet of exceedingly rough going. He stopped at
the beck to wash his hands and dry them on his handkerchief. Then he
approached the group.
"Do you always descend the ghyll in that fashion, Martin?" cried the
vicar.
"Yes, sir. It is the nearest way."
"A man might say that who fell out of a balloon."
"But I have been up and down there twenty times, sir."
"Well, well; my imaginary balloonist could make no such answer. Sit down
and have some tea. Elsie, this is young Martin Bolland, of whom I have
been telling you."
The girl smiled in a very friendly way and brought Martin a cup of tea
and a plate of cakes. So he was a guest, and introduced by the vicar to
his daughter! How kind this was of Mr. Herbert! How delighted Mrs.
Bolland would be when she heard of it, for, however strict her
Nonconformity, the vicar was still a social power in the village, and
second only to the Beckett-Smythes in the estimation of the parish.
At first poor Martin was tongue-tied. He answered in monosyllables when
the vicar or Mrs. Johnson, the old lady, spoke to him; but to Elsie he
said not a word. She, too, was at a loss how to interest him, until she
noticed a book in his pocket. When told that it was Scott's poems she
said pleasantly that a month ago she went with her father to a place
called Greta Bridge and visited many of the scenes described in
"Rokeby."
Unhappily, Martin had not read "Rokeby." He resolved to devour it at the
first opportunity, but for the nonce it offered no conversational
handle. He remained dumb, yet all the while he was comparing Elsie with
Angele, and deciding privately that girls brought up as ladies in
England were much nicer than those reared in the places which Angele
named so glibly.
But his star was propitious that day. One of the young men happened to
notice a spot where a large patch of heather had been sliced off the
face of the moor.
He asked Mr. Herbert what use the farmers made of it.
"Nothing that I can recall," said the vicar, a man who, living in the
country, knew little of its ways; "perhaps Martin can tell you."
"We make besoms of it, sir," was the ready reply, "but that space has
been cleared by the keepers so that the young grouse may have fresh
green shoots to feed on."
Here was a topic on which he was crammed with information. His face grew
animated, his eyes sparkled, the words came fast and were well chosen.
As he spoke, the purple moor, the black firs, the meadows, the corn land
red with poppies, became peopled with fur and feather. On the hilltops
the glorious black cock, in the woods the dandy pheasant and swift
pigeon, among the meadows and crops the whirring partridge, became
actualities, present, but unseen. There were plenty of hares on the
arable land and the rising ground; as for rabbits, they swarmed
everywhere.
"This ghyll will be alive with them in little more than an hour," said
Martin confidently. "I shouldn't be surprised, if we had a dog and put
him among those whins, but half-a-dozen rabbits would bolt out in all
directions."
"Please, can I be a little bow-wow?" cried Elsie. She sprang to her feet
and ran toward the clump of gorse and bracken he had pointed out,
imitating a dog's bark as she went.
"Take care of the thorns," shouted Martin, making after her more
leisurely.
She paused on the verge of the tangled mass of vegetation and said,
"Shoo!"
"That's no good," he laughed. "You must walk through and kick the thick
clumps of grass--this way."
He plunged into the midst of the gorse. She followed. Not a rabbit
budged.
"That's odd," he said, rustling the undergrowth vigorously. "There ought
to be a lot here."
"You know Angele Saumarez?" said the girl suddenly.
"Yes."
He ceased beating the bushes and looked at her fixedly, the question was
so unexpected. Yet Angele had asked him the selfsame question concerning
Elsie Herbert. One girl resembled another as two peas in a pod.
"Do you like her?"
"I think I do, sometimes."
"Do you think she is pretty?"
"Yes, often."
"What do you mean by 'sometimes,' 'often?' How can a girl be
pretty--'often'?"
"Well, you see, I think she is nice in many ways, and that if--she knew
you--and copied your manner--your voice, and style, and behavior--she
would improve very greatly."
Martin had recovered his wits. Elsie tittered and blushed slightly.
"Really!" she said, and recommenced the kicking process with ardor.
Suddenly, with a fierce snarl, an animal of some sort flew at her. She
had a momentary vision of a pair of blazing eyes, bared teeth, and
extended claws. She screamed and turned her head. In that instant a
wildcat landed on her back and a vicious claw reached for her face. But
Martin was at her side. Without a second's hesitation he seized the
growling brute in both hands and tore it from off her shoulders. His
right hand was around its neck, but he strove in vain to grasp the small
of its back in the left. It wriggled and scratched with the ferocity of
an undersized tiger. Martin's coat sleeves and shirt were slashed to
shreds, his waistcoat was rent, and deep gashes were cut in his arms,
but he held on gamely.
Mr. Herbert and the others ran up, but came unarmed. They had not even a
stick. The vicar, with some presence of mind, rushed back and wrenched a
leg from the camp table, but by the time he returned the cat was moving
its limbs in its final spasms, for Martin had choked it to death.
The vicar danced about with his improvised weapon, imploring the boy to
"throw it down and let me whack the life out of it," but Martin was
enraged with the pain and the damage to his clothing. In his anger he
felt that he could wrench the wretched beast limb from limb, and he
might have endeavored to do that very thing were it not for the presence
of Elsie Herbert. As it was, when the cat fell to the ground its
struggles had ended, but Mr. Herbert gave it a couple of hearty blows to
make sure.
It was a tremendous brute, double the size of its domestic progenitors.
At one period in its career it had been caught in a rabbit trap, for one
of its forelegs was removed at the joint, and the calloused stump was
hard as a bit of stone.
A chorus of praise for Martin's promptitude and courage was cut short
when he took the table leg and went back to the clump of gorse.
"I thought it was curious that there were no rabbits here," he said.
"Now I know why. This cat has a litter of kittens hidden among the
whins."
"Are you gug-gug-going to kuk-kuk-kill them?" sobbed Elsie.
He paused in his murderous search.
"It makes no matter now," he said, laughing. "I'll tell the keeper.
Wildcats eat up an awful lot of game."
His coolness, his absolute disregard of the really serious cuts he had
received, were astounding to the town-bred men. The vicar was the first
to recover some degree of composure.
"Martin," he cried, "come this instant and have your wounds washed and
bound up. You are losing a great deal of blood, and that brute's claws
may have been venomous."
The boy obeyed at once. He presented a sorry spectacle. His arms and
hands were bathed in blood and his clothes were splashed with it.
Elsie Herbert's eyes filled with tears.
"This is nothing," he said to cheer her. "They're only scratches, but
they look bad."
As a matter of fact, he did not realize until long afterwards that were
it not for the fortunate accident which deprived the cat of her off
foreleg, some of the tendons of his right wrist might have been severed.
From the manner in which he held her she could not get the effective
claws to bear crosswise.
The vicar looked grave when a first dip in the brook revealed the extent
of the boy's injuries.
"You are plucky enough to bear the application of a little brine,
Martin?" he said.
Suiting the action to the word, he emptied the contents of a paper of
salt into a teacup and dissolved it in hot water. Then he washed the
wounds again in the brook and bound them with handkerchiefs soaked in
the mixture. It was a rough-and-ready cauterization, and the pain made
Martin white, but later on it earned the commendation of the doctor. Mr.
Herbert was pallid himself when Elsie handed him the last handkerchief
they could muster, while Mrs. Johnson was already tearing the tablecloth
into strips.
"It is bad enough to have your wrists scored in this way, my lad," he
murmured, "but it will be some consolation for you to know that
otherwise these cuts would have been in my little girl's face, perhaps
her eyes--great Heaven!--her eyes!"
The vicar could have chosen no better words. Martin's heart throbbed
with pride. At last the bandages were secured and the tattered sleeve
turned down. All this consumed nearly half an hour, and then Martin
remembered a forgotten duty.
"What time is it?" he said anxiously.
"A quarter past five."
"Oh, bother!" he murmured. "I'll get into another row. I have missed my
Bible lesson."
"Your Bible lesson?"
"Yes, sir. My father makes me read a portion of Scripture every day."
The vicar passed unnoticed the boy's unconsciously resentful tone. He
sighed, but straightway resumed his wonted cheeriness.
"There will be no row to-day, Martin," he promised. "We shall escort you
home in triumphal procession. We leave the things here for my man, who
will bring a pony and cart in a few minutes. Now, you two, tie the hind
legs of that beast with a piece of string and carry it on the stick. The
cat is Martin's _spolia opima_. Here, Elsie, guide your warrior's
faltering footsteps down the glen."
They all laughed, but by the time they reached the White House the boy
was ready to drop, for he had lost a quantity of blood, and the torment
of the saline solution was becoming intolerable.
John Bolland, after waiting with growing impatience long after the
appointed time, closed the Bible with a bang and went downstairs.
"What's wrang wi' ye now?" inquired his spouse as he dropped morosely
into a chair and answered but sourly a hearty greeting from a visitor.
"Where's that lad?" he growled.
"Martin. Hasn't he come yam?"
She trembled for her adopted son's remissness on this, the first day
after the great rebellion.
"Yam!"--with intense bitterness--"he's not likely te hearken te t' Word
when he's encouraged in guile."
"Eh, but there's some good cause this time," cried the old lady, more
flustered than she cared to show. "Happen he's bin asked to see t'
squire again."
"T' squire left Elmsdale afore noon," was the gruff reply.
Then the vicar entered, and Elsie, leading Martin, and the two pupils
carrying the gigantic cat. Mrs. Johnson and the governess-companion had
remained with the tent and would drive home in the dogcart.
Mr. Herbert's glowing account of Martin's conduct, combined with a
judicious reference to his anxiety when he discovered that the hour for
his lesson had passed, placed even Bolland in a good humor. Once again
the boy filled the mouths of the multitude, since nothing would serve
the farmhands but they must carry off the cat to the fair for exhibition
before they skinned it.
The doctor came, waylaid on his return from the "Black Lion." He removed
the salt-soaked bandages, washed the wounds in tepid water, examined
them carefully, and applied some antiseptic dressing, of which he had a
supply in his dogcart for the benefit of George Pickering.
"An' how is Mr. Pickerin' te-night?" inquired Mrs. Bolland, who was
horrified at first by the sight of Martin's damages, but reassured when
the doctor said the boy would be all right in a day or two.
"Not so well, Mrs. Bolland," was the answer.
"Oh, ye don't say so. Poor chap! Is it wuss than ye feared for?"
"No; the wound is progressing favorably, but he is feverish. I don't
like that. Fever is weakening."
No more would the doctor say, and Mrs. Bolland soon forgot the
sufferings of another in her distress at Martin's condition. She
particularly lamented that he should be laid up during the Feast.
At that the patient laughed.
"Surely I can go out, doctor!" he cried.
"Go out, you imp! Of course, you can. But, remember, no larking about
and causing these cuts to reopen. Better stay in the house until I see
you in the morning."
So Martin, fearless of consequences, hunted up "Rokeby," and read it
with an interest hardly lessened by the fact that that particular poem
is the least exciting of the magician's verse. At last the light failed
and the table was laid for supper, so the boy's reading was disturbed.
More than once he fancied he had heard at the back of the house a long,
shrill whistle which sounded familiar. Curiosity led him to the meadow.
He waited a little while, and again the whistle came from the lane.
"Who is it?" he called.
"Me. Is that you, Martin?"
"Me" was Tommy Beadlam, but his white top did not shine in the dark.
"What's up?"
"Come nearer. I mustn't shout."
Wondering what mystery was afoot, Martin approached the hedge.
"Yon lass," whispered Tommy--"I can't say her name, but ye ken fine
wheae 'tis--she's i' t' fair ageaen."
"What! Angele?"
"That's her. She gemme sixpence te coom an' tell yer. I've bin whistlin'
till me lips is sore."
"You tell her from me she is a bad girl and ought to go home at once."
"Not me! She'd smack my feaece."
"Well, I can't get out. I've had an accident and must go to bed soon."
"There's a rare yarn about you an' a cat. I seed it. Honest truth--did
you really kill it wi' your hands?"
"Yes; but it gave me something first. Can you see? My arms and left hand
are all bound up."
"An' it jumped fust on Elsie Herbert?"
"Yes."
"An' yer grabbed it offen her?"
"Yes."
"Gosh! Yon lass is fair wild te hear all about it. She greeted when
Evelyn Atkinson telt her yer were nearly dead, but yan o' t' farmhands
kem along an' we axed him, an' he said ye were nowt worse."
Martin's heart softened when he heard of Angele's tears, but he was
sorry she should have stolen out a second time to mix with the rabble of
the village.
"I can't come out to-night," he said firmly.
"Happen ye'd be able to see her if I browt her here?"
The white head evidently held brains, but Martin had sufficient strength
of character to ask himself what his new friends, the Herbert family,
would think if they knew he was only too willing to dance to any tune
the temptress played.
"No, no," he cried, retreating a pace or two. "You must not bring her.
I'm going to supper and straight to bed. And, look here, Tommy. Try and
persuade her to go home. If you and Jim Bates and the others take her
round the fair to-night you'll all get into trouble. You ought to have
heard the parson to-day, and Miss Walker, too. I wouldn't be in your
shoes for more than sixpence."
This was crafty counsel. Beadlam, after consulting Jim Bates,
communicated it to Angele. She stared with wide-open eyes at the
doubting pair.
"Misericorde!" she cried. "Were there ever such idiots! Because he
cannot come himself, he doesn't want me to be with you."
There was something in this. Their judgment wavered, and--and--Angele
had lots of money.
But she laughed them to scorn.
"Do you think I want you!" she screamed. "Bah! I spit at you. Evelyn, ma
cherie, walk with me to The Elms. I want to hear all about the man who
was stabbed and the woman who stabbed him."
Thereupon, Evelyn and one of her sisters went off with a girl whom they
hated. But she was clever, in their estimation, and pretty, and well
dressed, and, oh, so rich! Above all, she was not "stuck up" like Elsie
Herbert, but laughed at their simple wit, and was ready to sink to their
level.
Martin, taking thought before he slept, wondered why Angele had not come
openly to the farm. It did not occur to him that Angele dared not face
John Bolland. The child feared the dour old farmer. She dreaded a single
look from the shrewd eyes which seemed to search her very soul.