Jenny was almost breathless when she reached the park palings of the
Manor House, some little distance from the gate at the end of the
avenue; and here she paused for a few moments beneath an oak which grew
within the park, but which, like many others, spread out three or four
huge horizontal boughs right across the boundary lane, and made the way
gloomy even on sunny days.
She looked sharply back in the direction by which she had come, but the
evening was closing in more and more gloomy, and the mist exceedingly
closely related to a rain, was gathering fast and forming drops on the
edges of dead leaves and twigs, beside making the grass overhanging the
footpath so wet that the girl's feet and the lower parts of her skirts
were drenched.
No one was in sight or likely to be in that secluded spot, and having
gained her breath, she started off once more, heedless of the sticky mud
of the lane, and followed it on, round by the park palings, where the
autumn leaves lay thick and rustled as her dress swept over them. In a
few minutes she reached a stile in the fence, where a footpath--an old
right of way much objected to by Squire Wilton, as the village people
called him--led across the little park, passing the house close by the
end of the shrubbery, and entering another lane, which curved round to
join the main road right at the far end of the village, a good mile away
from the Doctor's cottage.
There were lights in the drawing-room and dining-room, making a dull
glow on the thickening mist, as Jenny halted at the end of the
shrubbery, and all was still as death, till a dog barked suddenly, and
was answered by half a dozen others, pointers and retrievers, in the
kennel by the stables. This lasted in a dismal, irritating chorus,
which made the girl utter little ejaculations suggestive of impatience,
as she waited for the noise to end.
She glanced round once more, but the evergreens grew thickly just over
an iron hurdle fence, and she satisfied herself that as she could only
indistinctly see the shrubs three or four yards away, it was impossible
for her to be seen from the house.
The barking went on in a full burst for a few minutes. Then dog after
dog finished its part; the sextette became a quartette, a trio, a duet;
and then a deep-voiced retriever performed a powerful solo, ending it
with a prolonged bay, and Jenny raised her hand to her lips, when the
hill chorus burst out again, and the girl angrily stamped her foot in
the wet grass.
"Oh, what a cold I shall catch," she muttered. "Why will people keep
these nasty dogs?"
The barking went on for some minutes, just as before, breaking off by
degrees into another solo; but at last all was still, the little sighs
and ejaculations Jenny had kept on uttering ceased too. Then she raised
her head quickly, and a shrill chirp sounded dead and dull in the misty
air, followed at intervals by two more.
It was not a regular whistle, but a repetition of such a call as a night
bird might utter in its flight as it floated over the house.
The mist seemed to stifle the call, and the girl was about to repeat it,
but it was loud enough for the dogs to hear, and they set up a fierce
baying, which lasted till there was a loud commotion of yelps and cries,
mingled with the rattling of chains, the same deep-mouthed dog breaking
out in a very different solo this time, one suggestive of suffering from
the application of boot toes to its ribs.
Then quiet, and Jenny with trembling hand once more raised the little
silver whistle to her lips, and the shrill chirps rang out in their
former smothered way.
"Oh," sighed Jenny. "It will be a sore throat--I'm sure it will. I
must go back; I dare not stay any longer. Ugh! How I do hate the
little wretch. I could kill him!"
The girl's pretty little white teeth grated together, and once more she
stamped her foot, following up this display of irritation by stamping
the other.
"Cold as frogs," she muttered, "and the water's oozy in my boots.
Wretch!"
"Ullo!" came in a harsh whisper, followed by the cachination which often
accompanies a grin. "You've come, then!"
There was a rustle of the bushes before her, and the dimly seen figure
of Claud climbed over the iron hurdle, made a snatch at the girl's arm
with his right and a trial to fling his left about her waist, but she
eluded him.
"Keep off," she said sharply; "how dare you!"
"Because I love you so, little dicky-bird," he whispered.
"I thought you didn't mean to come."
"No, you didn't, pet. I heard you first time, but I had to go out and
kick the dogs. They heard it, too, and thought it was poachers. Only
one, though--come after me!"
"You!" she said, contemptuously. "You, sir! Who would come after you?"
"Why, you would."
"Such vanity!"
"Then what did you come for?"
"To bring you back this rubbishing little whistle."
"Nonsense; you'd better keep that."
"I tell you I don't want it. Take it, sir."
"No, I shan't take it. Keep it."
"There it is, then," she cried; and she threw it at him.
"Gone in among the hollies," he said. "Well, I'm not going to prick
myself hunting for it in the dark. What a little spit-fire it is!
What's the matter with you to-night?"
"Matter enough. I've come to tell you never to make signals for me to
come out again."
"Why? I say, what a temper you are in to-night. Here, let me help you
over, and we'll go round to the arbor. You'll get your feet wet
standing there."
"They are wet, and I shall catch a cold and die, I hope."
"Oh, I say, Jenny!"
"Silence, sir! How dare you speak to me like that!"
"Come over, then, into the arbor."
"I have told you again and again that I never would!"
"You are a little tartar," he whispered. "You get prettier every day,
and peck and say nastier things to me. But there, I don't mind; it only
makes me love you more and more."
"It isn't true," she cried furiously. "You're a wicked story-teller,
and you know it."
"Am I?"
"Yes; that's the same miserable sickly tale you have told to
half-a-dozen of the silly girls in the village. I know you thoroughly
now. How dare you follow me and speak to me? If I were to tell my
brother he'd nearly kill you."
"Quite, p'raps, with a drop out of one of his bottles."
"I can never forgive myself for having listened to the silly,
contemptible flattery of the cast-off lover of a labourer's daughter."
"Oh, I like that, Jenny; what's the good of bringing all that up?
That's been over ever so long. It was only sowing wild oats."
"The only sort that you are ever likely to have to sow. I know all
now--everything; so go to her, and never dare to speak to me again."
"What? Go back to Sally? Well, you are a jealous little thing."
"I, jealous--of you?" she said, with contempt in her tone and manner.
"Yes, that's what's the matter with you, little one. But go on; I like
it. Shows me you love me."
"I? Ha, ha, ha!" laughed Jenny derisively. "Do you think I don't know
everything?"
"I daresay you do. You're such a clever little vixen."
"Do you suppose it has not reached my ears about your elopement with
your cousin?"
"I don't care what you've heard; it ain't true. But I say, don't hold
me off like this, Jenny; you know I love you like--like anything."
"Yes, anything," she retorted angrily; "any thing--your dogs, your
horses, your fishing-rods and gun."
"Oh, I say."
"You miserable, deceitful trickster, I ought not to have lowered myself
to even speak to you, or to come out again to-night, but I wanted to
tell you what I thought about you, and it's of no use to treat such
thick-skinned creatures as you with contempt."
"Well, you are wild to-night, little one. Don't want me to show my
teeth, too, and go, do you?"
"Yes, and the sooner the better, sir; go back to your wife."
"Go back to my wife!" he cried, in tones which carried conviction to her
ears. "Oh, I say; you've got hold of that cock-and-bull story, have
you?"
"Yes, sir, I have got hold of the miserable cock-and-bull story, as you
so elegantly turn it."
"Oh, I don't go in for elegance, Jenny; it ain't my way; but as for that
flam, it ain't true."
"You dare to tell me that, when the whole place is ringing with it,
sir!" she cried, angrily.
"The whole place rings with the noise when that muddle-headed lot got
pulling the bells in changes. But it's only sound."
"Don't, pray don't try to be witty, Claud Wilton; you only fail."
"All right; go on."
"Do you dare to tell me that you did not elope with your cousin the
other night?"
"Say slope, little one; elope is so old-fashioned."
"And I suppose you've married her for the sake of her money."
"Do you?" he said, sulkily; "then you suppose jolly well wrong. It's
all a lie."
"Then you haven't married her?"
"No, I haven't married her, and I didn't slope with her; so now then."
"Do you dare to tell me that you did not go up to London?"
"No, I don't, because I did."
"With her, in a most disgraceful, clandestine manner?"
"No; I went alone with a very jolly good-tempered chap, whom everybody
bullies and calls a liar."
"A nice companion; and pray, who was that?"
"This chap--your sweetheart; and I came back with him too."
"Then where is your cousin?"
"How should I know?"
"She did go away, then, the same night?"
"Yes. Bolted after a row we had."
"Is this true?"
"Every blessed word of it; and I haven't seen her since. Now, tell me,
you're very sorry for all you've said."
"Tell me this; has she gone away with some one else?"
"What do you want to know for?"
"I want to find out that you are not such a wicked story-teller as I
thought."
"Well, I have told you that."
"Who can believe you?"
"You can. Come, I say; I thought you were going to be really a bit
loving to me at last when I heard the whistle. It's been like courting
a female porcupine up to now."
"You know whom your cousin has gone with?"
"Pretty sure," he said, sulkily.
"Who is it?"
"Oh, well, if you must know, Harry Dasent."
"That cousin I saw here?"
"Yes, bless him! Only wait till we meet."
"Oh!" ejaculated Jenny, and then she turned to go; but Claud caught her
arm.
"No, no; you might say something kind now you've found out you're
wrong."
"Very well then, I will, Claud Wilton. First of all, I never cared a
bit for you, and--"
"Don't believe you. Go on," he said, laughing.
"Secondly, take my advice and go away at once, for if my brother should
meet you there will be a terrible scene. He believes horrible things of
you, and I know he'll kill you."
"Phew!" whistled Claud. "Then he has found out?"
"Take my advice and go. He is terrible when he is roused, and I don't
know what he'd do."
"I say, this ain't gammon, is it?"
"It is the solemn truth. Now loose my arm; you hurt me."
"Well, it's all right, then, and perhaps it's for the best I am going
off to-night to hunt out Harry Dasent. I should have gone before, but I
had to be about with the guv'nor, making inquiries."
"Then loose my arm at once, and go before it is too late."
"It is too late," thundered a voice out of the gloom. "Jenny--sister--
is this you?"