For some seconds the diner sat, too astounded for speech or action.
That either of his dependents should have dared to thus defy him!
At length he rose, and took a step or two towards the window. It was
no trick of his fancy. There lay the abomination, its dry dead hair
stirring in the draught, its stuft lid winking a dirty white, as if it
cocked an eye at him in a hideous merriment.
He strode to the door and thundered for his henchman. The latter came
immediately, apprehensive already, and doubly so when he marked the
other’s face.
“You see that?” said his master, in a voice whose quiet was more
appalling than any outburst of fury.
Whimple’s very lips went ghastly. He tried to answer, and broke down
at the first syllable.
“I don’t accuse you of putting it there. Now, tell me--why didn’t you
get rid of it as you undertook to do?”
He made out the man to say that he had--that he had removed it to his
own room, intending later to find some means of disposing of it.
In the midst of his stammering explanations, Darda came softly into
the hall. Her brother seized her arm with a shaking hand.
“How could you?” he muttered. “How could you do a thing so stupid and
wicked?--and you have ruined us.”
She followed the direction of his wild eyes, and her own opened round
in wonder.
“I didn’t put it there,” she said. “Does he say I did? It is a lie.”
He whispered “Hush!” in a fearful voice; but his master broke in at
once.
“No matter who did it. One of you has thought fit to make a mock of
me, and you must both pay the penalty.”
The girl laughed scornfully.
“You only wanted a pretext,” she said, “to get rid of us. I thought
you would, sooner or later. Perhaps you put it there yourself.”
Her voice was rising to bitterer significance, when she heard a sound
at her side, and, turning, made a frantic clutch at her brother as he
slid to the floor. His head came with a little thwack on the boards;
and there he lay with clinched teeth and a face like a stone.
Then--“Oh! oh!” she wailed, and threw herself down beside him.
Mr. Tuke was very embarrassed and a little shocked. He took no
resentment over the girl’s spirit, though he still firmly believed she
lied about the skull. But after all, it was patently unjust to hold
the man responsible for the cantrips of so unmanageable a charge.
He seized a jug of water.
“Here--pour some of this over him,” he said. “He’s fainted like a
woman.”
She looked up at him with fierce eyes; but she took the jug
nevertheless.
“He’s a better man than you!” she cried. “He can suffer and endure;
and fight too, when there’s need.”
She was human enough in her fearless championship of her own flesh and
blood.
The gentleman laughed uneasily, and, feeling himself under the
circumstances a little _de trop_, left the hall, with a certain
consciousness of shame tingling in his heels.
Outside, he thought, “Did she get the better of me? If this sort of
thing goes on, I shall lose the sense of how to be master in my
house.”
Stung by the thought, he threw open the door once more and looked in.
“He’ll come round in a minute,” he said hardly. “Listen to me. I shall
sleep out to-night. You can----”
He broke off suddenly; paused a moment in indecision--then tip-toed
gently away.
The girl’s face had been drowned in tears as she bent over her
brother.
He passed to the neglected stables, and was fain to saddle his own
horse and lead him forth and mount in the weed-choked yard.
He rode down by way of the long slumberous drive. Its whole course was
matted with woodland moss, smooth as green felt; and thereon the
beeches, staking their aftermath of glory, flung golden counters
softly, as if on a card-table. At the half-ruined lodge he paused, and
dwelt upon its desolation curiously. Ivy, like a cluster of swarming
snakes, held the writhed chimneys in a death-grip, and had fractured
the spine of the gabled roof. The ribs of the structure showed through
gaping rents, like those in a stranded ship. Not a melancholy
window-place but gaped a black mouth, full of broken splints of teeth
and dead sticks of sashes. The whole building seemed sunk into the
moss and leafiness that engirdled it.
He went out through the iron gate, and spurred along the road that was
yet unfamiliar to him. The air was at once soft and keen as the taste
of olives, and as such stimulated his new appetite for Nature.
Life seems never so desirable as in typical days of autumn, when the
year rallies of its disease and makes a brave effort to renew its
thoughtless morning with a few withering leaves. Of all the motley
months, none is so pathetic as October in its likeness to an aging
lady, striving to salve by gentleness the unhealed wounds inflicted of
her earlier pugnacity.
Mr. Tuke’s spirits rose as he advanced. He seemed already in touch
with the world again--a butterfly of the second brood emerged from a
buried larva. He met a few clowns, and acknowledged their salutations
brightly. His voice rose and cracked in snatches of romantic song, and
he greeted with pleasure whatever landmarks he remembered.
Of these, the “Dog and Duck” stood as unchanged as any tree or
hillock; for on the window-sill of the tap the same figure lounged and
smoked. The rider got a better view of the fellow as he stood broadly
in the sunlight. He was built sturdily, with something of an air of
the sea about him; and his coat was bedecked with trinketry of faded
gold, like an old galley-foist. But his face, red as brick and patched
with eyebrows like tags of wild clematis-down, was a cut-throat one by
every sinister mark.
As before--the traveller past--he swung heavily out into the road to
watch his going.
“I’ve an eye for you, my friend,” murmured the baronet. “What do you
do in this happy valley, where winds and waters should be the only
forces to strive with?”
He was pondering a little all the way to Stockbridge; and there Betty
Pollack came upon him with a blush and a smile, like a posy of
sweetbriar, and drew his honour a mug of ale. She knew him now by
report, of course; and was curious, with the gossips of the
neighbourhood, as to the history of his mysterious coming. Near all
the years of her short life, “Delsrop,” unclaimed and deserted, had
been lonely, enchanted ground for the builders of local tradition to
lay their airy bricks on.
“Is your honour for Winchester?” she said. “The evenings draw in, and
it’s well to be over the downs by sunset. There have been bad
characters about of late.”
“Betty,” said he, “will you give me a curl to put over my heart for a
charm?”
She laughed and then looked grave.
“I’m not that sort,” she said. “I keep my favours for my inferiors.”
“And what am I but one?”
“Well,” said she, “I think you are, to talk so.”
It was like a glimpse of an orchard through a wall-wicket to tarry
with her a moment; but he must needs be up and onward if he wished to
reach the old Burgh before dark fell.
Therefore he mounted and went his way, whereby we need not pursue him;
for it was devoid of incident, and of much emotion but weariness.
He slept that night at the “George,” and the next morning sought out
his agent and went deep into matters of business with him.
The upshot was so satisfactory, that he felt justified, then and
there, in giving considerable commissions for furniture, and in
arranging for the hire of such servants as were at least
indispensable.
He dined early, and had made his return journey, with a heart
considerably lightened and braced to content by three o’clock.
As he came within sight of the iron gate, he noticed to his surprise a
horse tethered amongst the bushes off the road; and still more did he
marvel upon nearing it, to see that it was a well-groomed animal and a
lady’s, by token of the side-saddle.
He dismounted, and leading his own beast over the turf, pushed open
the gate, and stood still to reconnoitre. No sign of the owner of the
horse was there--no sound of voice or footstep in the green glooms
beyond.
Uncertain what to do he remained a moment looking this way and that,
when suddenly there broke upon his ear a shrill scream of terror. It
seemed to issue not twenty paces away, from the direction of the
ruined lodge.
He dropped the reins and sprang forward.
“Here!” he shouted. “What is it? Where are you?”
Crying, frenzied words came back to him--a woman’s voice, but
inarticulate. Guided by it, however, he ran round by way of a little
tangled garden that brought him to the rear of the low building.
Nothing was to be seen; but here the voice appealed to him in agony
from out the very ground. He fell upon his knees by a sunk heap of
rubbish--saw in a moment, and snapped vigorously at two gloved hands,
that wavered up at him from a ruin of weeds and broken earth.
As he held on, frantically hauling, with his jaw set square, the
matted ground shook and crumbled under his feet. He saw what was
happening, and, throwing himself back with a mighty effort of
resolution, drew slowly from the bowels of the earth, as it were, the
collapsed and almost senseless form of a young woman. Then, scarcely
might he stagger with her to a place of security, when a rent opened
in the spot whence he had struggled, and a great pad of undergrowth
went down with a roar and hollow splash of water to ugly depths.
Mr. Tuke laid his dainty salvage on the _débris_ of a bench, and
looked down upon it all amazed. It presented the form of a girl, of
nineteen or twenty perhaps, with a quantity of pale golden hair
dragged and tumbled over her very white face, and her dress and velvet
spencer--both rich and fashionable--torn and stained in twenty places.
Her eyes were closed, and her gloved hands daubed with mud and roots
of grass.
He was quite at a loss as to what to do; and could only stand
helplessly above her, wondering who she could be, and what the chance
that had brought her into so perilous a position. Vaguely he recalled
certain specifics for faintness, that seemed scrawled illegibly in the
commonplace-book of his mind. Wringing her ears, or her nose--he could
not remember which--suggested itself as a remedy dimly familiar. Burnt
feathers, also--but whether for _in_- or _ex_ternal application, he
had no recollection--fluttered faintly in the background of his fancy.
Now he thought he would lay her flat, and now seat her upright like a
limp Eastern idol, in the hope that the position most favourable to
Nature’s purpose would induce recovery.
While he was speculating in great embarrassment, the young lady solved
the problem for herself by opening her eyes, and giving out a little
tremulous sigh, like the flutter of a scorched moth.
“Oh!” she whimpered--a line of pain coming across her brow--“where is
my _saltier_?”
It was her chain, ending in a little medallion called a
_bréviaire_--at that time fashionable--that she missed. Life devoid
of this trinket was a petty possession.
“It must have gone whither you nearly followed, into a disused well,”
said Mr. Tuke, becomingly grave.
He added with some humour of impertinence:
“How a foot, too light to bruise a daisy, could tread so heavy a
measure, passes my comprehension.”
A little flush, as when a spoonful of red wine is dropped into a glass
of milk, came to her cheek and delicate ear.
“I felt it going,” she whispered; “and screamed out. Did you save me?
And are you the new squire of ‘Delsrop’? Oh, sir! I am ashamed.”
She broke off abruptly, and, blushing a more vivid pink, rose to a
sitting posture, and put back the hair from her face in a bewildered
manner.
“I hardly know what I say or do,” she said. “I was so frightened; and
I have lost my _saltier_. My horse is somewhere outside. Will you help
me to it?”
“You are not in a state to ride. Wait and rest, and I will escort you
whither you wish by and by.”
“No; I must go now. My brother will be home from cock-fight and raging
for his supper. It was wrong of me to venture in, and I have lost my
_saltier_, and nearly my life. Will you have search made for it in the
well? It is gold, and the _bréviaire_ is shaped prettily like a
_ridicule_.”
“It shall be found, if possible. If you must go, I will ride with
you.”
“No, no.”
“Yes, indeed. And whither may I squire you, madam?”
“To ‘Chatters,’ if you must. ’Tis his house--my brother’s.”
“Your brother’s?”
“He is Sir David Blythewood, sir.”
“You must pardon me. I have only made my _début_ in the neighbourhood
this day or so.”
“Yes; I know.”
She looked at him with a vague little smile. Her eyes swam as pale a
blue as plumbago flowers. Her features were cut to a sharpish pattern;
but their complexion was of snow berries, and the softness of youth
triumphed over all angles. Suddenly she put her hands to her rumpled
hair.
“My hat!” she cried.
“I fear it has followed the _saltier_. We must make shift without it.”
She rose at once and took the arm he offered. The shock and the fright
seemed to have confused her, so that her actions and most of her
speech were mechanical.
When he had helped her to mount and was riding beside her, he had full
opportunity, in the intermittent silences that fell awkwardly between
them, to study her very dainty personality. She managed her “grey”
like one finely educated in the science of horsemanship. All graces of
mien and action seemed exhibited with the cultivated art that conceals
art.
Now and again he would be conscious of an inquisitive glance shot in
his direction, and the little confusion that followed upon discovery
was skillfully expressed.
A long two miles they rode together, by further way of the “Delsrop”
road; and presently, skirting a sweep of park-land--in ordered
contrast with Mr. Tukes’ domain--came in view of a lodge and gates of
the most admired substantiality.
Here the gentleman would insist upon delivering up his charge, and
returning the way he had come. No pretty remonstrances would avail to
make him spoil the romance of the situation by so much as a yard of
anti-climax.
“I am too happy in having been the means of help,” said he. “If you
are beholden to me at all, a word of thanks from your brother would
make me a debtor instead of a creditor.”
She smiled back delightfully.
“He shall come in person,” she said, “and bring you a receipt of my
safe custody.”
She laughed and waved to him, and was gone up the drive.
He stood hat in hand until she had disappeared. Then he mounted and
rode back, with a heart full of sun and merriment.
Indeed, it was like a sail to a castaway, this vision in his waste of
days. To know that refined civilization was within a couple of miles
or so of his gates, did more to reconcile him to his embowered lot,
than any philosophy of nature. He felt friendless and isolated no
longer; but rather inspired to a pursuit that should make of his
thickets a garden of Hesperus.
In this mood of exaltation he reached his own door, rapped on it with
the butt of his riding-whip, and, as it was swung open, encountered
the figures of Whimple and his sister arrayed as if for a journey.