Now, before Mr. Tuke was called upon to reap the full embarrassment
arising from that impulsive confession of his to Miss Royston, events
came to so crowd themselves upon the little stage of his history as
that he was spared what might have been otherwise a very complicated
situation. For, indeed, he had not thought in what matter Betty
Pollack, unchaperoned and living, so to speak, under his protection,
was to find her due of respect from his servants and of consideration
from his guests.
In this latter question, however, when he came to face it, he was to
suffer relief of his apprehensions in a treatment that was,
nevertheless, a little galling; for, whether from offended dignity, or
from any policy of indifference, Miss Royston made no allusion to the
subject before others, and, indeed, to all appearance, gave herself no
least concern about it. Still, Betty’s honour being his, and his
desire great that she should be placed by no private selfishness in a
false position, he was determined at the first convenient opportunity
to proclaim her his betrothed.
With regard to the present predicament, the morning of his restoration
to his friends saw much barren counsel and a dearth of decision.
Therefore, dispensing with informal advice, he went to examine his
defences and his commissariat. Given his adequate garrison, the former
were impregnable to any assault the rogues could venture; and, locked
in the coach-house was such store of fallow-deer meat as would
provision the company for months. The difficulty of feeding these poor
brutes was a matter that bothered him. They may have been a score in
number; and, should they once eat him out of hay and corn, there would
be nothing for it but to make a battue of them, and salt or smoke as
much of their flesh as circumstances would permit. As for the human
needs, his larder was for the present well stocked.
For protective purposes he could now number in all--not counting
Dunlone and the women--six men and a boy, a fighting strength
sufficient to justify him in taking action on his own account, did he
care to risk the lives of honest people in so indifferent a business.
He did not, of course. What need was there to put a termination to
conditions whose favour was all for the besieged? And he was
conscious, moreover, of that weakness of his party that lay in a lack
of fire-arms. Three fowling-pieces and a brace of duelling
pistols--such was his artillery, and a very limited supply of
ammunition to the back of it.
But they could afford to lie, and snugly, in these their winter
quarters till the snow should melt. When he came to look at the great
drifts piled all about the house; when he had made himself acquainted
with the excellence of Master Cutwater’s defences; when he compared
his position with that of the ruffians in their broken sty, and
thought of the improvidence of the typical bravo, and of how there, in
the lodge, food and fire would be sure to fail in the course of a day
or two--he could only marvel at the audacity of villainy that could
ever have dreamed of prevailing in a contest of such unequal
forces--of the desperate courage, or the magnificence of a cupidity,
that could still wait on in the face of so stubbornly forlorn a hope.
Yet surely, were Fern once acquainted of the extent of his opponent’s
resources, he would elect to withdraw his troop of cut-throats.
Still, he would not concede anything to a sense of security. He had
had his sufficient lesson, and he took his little garrison in hand
masterfully. The guns he committed to Sir David, to Jim, and the elder
groom, while he and Luvaine took a pistol apiece. A guard was
constantly posted upon the roof, and another in the hall, and every
man was enjoined to be awake to surprises of whatever description.
Satisfied on all these points, he could condescend to some relapse
into the social conditions; and three o’clock saw him ushering his
company into the dining-hall, where a meal was served.
The master of the house was the last to enter the room, and he led in
by the hand no less a person than his pretty maid of the inn. Miss
Royston stared amazed at the sight; but Betty herself--a very Hebe,
for all her homely gown--looked ready to burst into tears. For any
shame-faced agony she might suffer, her dear lord’s word was become a
thing to be answered to like a whistle to a dog; and at his nod she
sank into a chair at his right hand and drooped her sweet head, while
he stood erect, the light shining on his face.
“I wish to tell you all,” he said, in a clear, bold voice, “that this
lady hath included herself in her gift to me of my life, and that we
are plighted maid and man.”
Angela fell back in her chair, very white and smiling.
“For what we are about to receive,” she whispered to the Viscount who
sat next to her. “Why does the creature take us into his confidence?
We will accent the lady’s character on trust, though she dips her
fingers into the dish.”
“He’s always so cursed convinced we’re thinking about him,” said the
lord.
But Sir David Blythewood was risen to his feet, and faced his Bohemian
friend with a wrathful face.
“The times excuse some jesting,” he began.
“I am in dead earnest, Blythewood.”
“Then, so am I, sir; and I’ll beg the favour of a word with you by and
by.”
“At your pleasure. And now, having called the grace, we’ll drink the
soup.”
At all this Luvaine looked plentifully surprised. He stared from one
to the other of the company with his melancholy frown; and of a sudden
he was on his feet.
“Since none will congratulate you, sir,” he said, “I will venture the
statement that I never read man’s happiness in a purer face. I know
nothing but this; and I drink the lady’s fair health with all my
heart.”
Here in truth was an unexpected champion. With a radiant smile Tuke
turned to one of the gaping servants.
“Fill your future mistress’s glass,” he said; “and kiss the rim,
Betty, to your good friend.”
The poor girl shot a timid, grateful glance across the table. Her eyes
swam with tears. For her, indeed, the ordeal was the severest. Gifted
with a natural grace of refinement, she yet would hardly venture to
eat or drink, lest she should offend by some little solecism against
taste. She would not question her lord’s insistence that she should
come and sit at his table and take her right rank that was to be the
mistress of it; but, oh! how she had longed to be spared the trial
until he had loved her and coaxed her and disciplined her into a grave
knowledge of the proprieties.
And, for himself, he was not long in recognizing how his impulsiveness
had again thrown him at the jump. For, to satisfy his own scruples of
high-mindedness, he had submitted his sweet maid to insult and his
guests to embarrassment; and there the situation stuck, and a very
awkward and unappetizing one it was.
The meal passed to a stiff accompaniment of formalities of both speech
and behaviour. Angela assumed, perhaps, a superlative manner of
deportment, and she laughed extremely, on a high note, at some very
stupid things Dunlone said to her. It would have been all dreadfully
prosaic and worldly, had not a touch of tragedy been introduced
suddenly from a quite unexpected quarter.
The wine had been placed on the table and the servants were withdrawn,
when Tuke was aware that the crazed girl had come into the room and
was standing motionless behind his chair. He turned sharply round.
Darda, her hands clasped at her back, was gazing at him with an
intense look.
“What is it?” he said. “Have you news?”
“Oh! yes,” she answered, nodding her head--“bad news--very, very bad.”
He thought he saw an expression in her eyes that was strange to him,
though he fancied himself familiar with most of her moods.
“Tell it me,” he said, hastily rising--to the good fortune of one of
the company.
“Don’t you know ’twas _I_ tried to save you?” she asked him in a low
voice. “But there was something false--the shadow; it was the shadows
that were false. Are you going to throw me away for that? How could I
help it? I did my best. You were enchanted, and I walked singing into
the castle of the giants to save you; and when I came you were flown.
Who tempted you away?”
“Go now, Darda,” he said gently. “I will talk to you by and by.”
“I must know first. They said; but my brain burst like glass, and then
I could not remember.”
He took a step towards her; but she backed from him, and cried out in
a sudden triumphant voice:
“I can tell her!--the white woman who would set her wit against steel.
See now if she can!”
In a moment she had snapped her hands to the front--and a bright blade
was in one of them--and she was running to where Miss Angela was
seated at the table.
Tuke was upon the mad creature’s heels--his hand clutched at her
shoulder. The lady, unconscious that she was the destined victim, was
only turned about in her chair with a curious face. It all passed in
an instant--a very dramatic episode. The vicious arm lunged out--the
pursuer struck up--there flashed an arc of light as the blade
somersaulted in the shine of the candles, and there broke a shrill
scream and a jarring flurry of chair-legs as the company scrambled to
its feet. Then were to be seen Darda standing passively in the grasp
of her captor, and the victim fallen into a faint against the shoulder
of her neighbour, who looked down upon her with a face all quivering
with fright and fury.
And: “Curse me!” cried Lord Dunlone; “why doesn’t somebody come and
take her? I never was in such a nest of cursed brigands in my life
before.”