THROUGH THE WOOD
Behind the closed door the two haggard-faced women looked at one
another. Mrs. Tyson had not left her bed for many days. But she had
heard the knocking at the outer door and the answering growl of the dog
chained under her window; and hoping, yet scarcely daring to expect,
that the nightmare was over and her husband or her friends were at
hand, she had dragged herself from the bed and opened the door as soon
as the knocking sounded in turn at that.
For days, indeed, one strand, and one only, had held the feeble,
frightened woman to life; and that strand was the babe that lay beside
her. The sheep will fight for its lamb, the wren for its fledglings.
And Mrs. Tyson, if she had not fought, had for the babe’s sake borne
and endured; and surrounded by the ruffians who had the house at their
mercy, she had survived terrors that in other circumstances would have
driven her mad.
True, Bess had not ill-treated her. On the contrary, she had been
almost kind to her. And lonely and ill, dependent on her for
everything, the woman had lost much of her dread of the girl; though
now and again, in sheer wantonness, Bess would play with her fears.
Certain that the weak-willed creature would not dare to tell what she
knew, Bess had boasted to her of Henrietta’s presence and her danger
and her plight. When Henrietta, therefore, the moment the door was
unfastened, flung herself into the room, and with frantic fingers
helped to secure the door behind her, Mrs. Tyson was astonished indeed;
but less astonished than alarmed. She was alarmed in truth, almost to
swooning, and showed a face as white as paper.
Luckily, Henrietta had resumed the wit and courage of which stupor had
deprived her for a time. She had no longer Bess at her elbow to bid her
do this or that. But she had Bess’s example and her own spirit. There
was an instant of stricken silence, during which she and the woman
looked fearfully into one another’s faces by the light of the poor dip
that burned beside the gloomy tester. Then Henrietta took her part. She
laid down the child, to which she had clung instinctively; and with a
strength which surprised herself, she dragged a chest, that stood but a
foot on one side of the opening, across the door. It would not
withstand the men long, but it would check them. She looked doubtfully
at the bed, but mistrusted her power to move it. And before she could
do more, a sound reached them from an unexpected quarter, and struck at
the root of her plans. For it came from the window; and so
unexpectedly, that it flung them into one another’s arms.
Mrs. Tyson screamed loudly. They clung to one another.
“What is it? What is it?” Henrietta cried.
Then she saw a spectral face pressed against the dark casement. A hand
tapped repeatedly on a pane.
Henrietta put Mrs. Tyson from her and approached the window. She
discovered that the face was a woman’s face, and with fumbling fingers
she slid aside the catch that secured the window.
“Tell the missus not to be scared,” whispered an anxious voice. “Tell
her it’s me! I got up the pear tree to see her, and I saw you. I knew
that Bess was lying, and I thought I’d—I thought I’d just get up and
see for myself!”
“Thank God!” Henrietta cried, clinging to the sill in a passion of
relief as she recognised the stolid-faced servant. “You know me?”
“You’re the young lady that’s missing?” the woman answered, taking a
securer hold of the window-frame, and bringing her head into the room.
“I know you. I was thinking if I dared scare the missus, when I see you
tumble in—I nigh tumbled down with surprise! I’ll go hot-foot and take
the news, miss!”
“No, no, I shall come!”
“You let me go and fetch ’em! I’ll bet, miss, I’ll be welcome. And do
you bide quiet and safe. Now we know where you are, they’ll not harm
you.”
But Henrietta had heard a footstep on the stairs, and she was not going
to bide quiet. She had no belief in her safety.
“No,” she said resolutely. “I am coming. Can you take the child?”
“Well, if you must, but——”
“I must! I must!”
“Lord, you are frightened!” the woman muttered, looking at her face.
And then, catching the infection, “Is’t as bad as that?” she said. “Ay,
give me the child, then. And for the Lord’s sake, be quick, miss. This
pear is as good as a ladder, and the dog knows me as well as its own
folk!”
“The child! The child!” Henrietta repeated. Again her ear had caught
the sound of shuffling feet, and of whispering on the stairs. She
carried the child, which seemed paralysed by fear, to the sill, and
delivered it into the other’s arm.
The sill of the window was barely ten feet from the ground, and an old
pear tree, spread-eagled against the wall, formed a natural ladder. The
dog, which had been chained under the window to guard against egress,
knew the woman and did no more than stand below and wag its tail. In
two minutes Henrietta was safe on the ground, had taken the child from
the other’s arms, and was ready for flight.
But the servant would not leave until she had made sure that her
mistress had strength to close the window. That done, she turned to
Henrietta.
“Now come!” she said. “And don’t spare yourself, miss, for if they
catch us after this they’ll for certain cut our throats!”
Henrietta had no need of the spur, and at their best pace the two fled
down the paddock, the servant-wench holding Henrietta by the elbow and
impelling her. The moon had risen, and Mrs. Tyson, poor, terrified,
trembling woman, watching them from the window, could follow them down
the pale meadow, and even discern the dark line of the rivulet, along
the bank of which they passed, and here and there a patch of higher
herbage, or a solitary boulder left in the middle of the turf for a
scratching-post. Perhaps she made, in leaning forward, some noise which
irritated the dog; or perhaps the moonlight annoyed it. At any rate, it
began to bay.
By that time, however, Henrietta and her companion had gained the
shadow of the trees at the upper end of the wooded gorge through which
the stream escaped. They stood there a brief while to take breath, and
the woman offered to carry the child. But Henrietta, though she felt
that her strength was uncertain, though she experienced an odd
giddiness, was unwilling to resign her charge. And after a pause they
started to descend the winding path which followed the stream, and
often crossed and re-crossed it.
They stumbled along as fast as they could. But this was not very fast.
For not only was it dark in the covert, but the track was beset with
projecting roots, and overhead branches hung low and scraped their
faces. More than once startled by a rabbit, or the gurgle of the
falling water, they stopped to listen, fancying that they were pursued.
Still they went fast enough to feel ultimate safety certain; and
Henrietta, as she held an end of the other’s petticoat between her
fingers and followed patiently, bade herself bear up a little longer
and it would be over. It would soon be over, and she—she would put his
child in his arms. It would soon be over, and she would be able to sink
down upon her bed and rest. For she was very weary—and odd. Very,
unaccountably weary. When she stumbled or her foot found the descent
longer than she expected, she staggered and swayed on her feet.
But, “We shall soon be safe! We shall soon be safe!” she told herself.
“And the child!”
Meanwhile they had passed the darkest part of the little ravine. They
had passed the place where the waterfalls made the descent most
arduous. They could even see below them a piece of the road lying white
in the moonlight.
On a sudden Henrietta stopped.
“You must take the child,” she faltered, in a tone that startled her
companion. “I can’t carry—it any farther.”
“I’ll take it. You should have given it me before!” the woman scolded.
“That’s better. Quiet, my lad. I’ll not hurt you!” For the child,
silent hitherto, had begun to whimper. “Now, miss,” she continued
sharply, “bear up! It’s but a little way farther.”
“I don’t think—I can,” Henrietta said. The crisis over, she felt her
strength ebbing away in the strangest fashion. She swayed, and had to
cling to a tree for support. “You must go on—without me,” she
stammered.
“I’ll not go on without you,” the woman answered. She was loath to
leave the girl helpless in the wood, where it was possible that she
might still come to harm. “You come down to the road, miss. Pluck up!
Pluck up! It’s but a step!”
And partly by words, partly by means of a vigorous arm, the good
creature got the girl to the bottom of the wood, and by a last effort,
half lifted, half dragged her over the stile which closed the gap in
the wall. But once in the road, Henrietta seemed scarcely conscious
where she was. She tottered, and the moment the woman took her hands
from her, she sank down against the wall.
“Leave me! Leave me!” she muttered, with a last exertion of sense. “And
take the child! I’m—giddy. Only giddy! I shall be better in a minute.”
Then, “I think—I think I am fainting.”
“I think you are,” the woman answered drily. She stooped over her.
“Poor thing!” she said. “There’s no knowing what has happened to her!
But she’ll freeze as she is!”
And whipping off her thick drugget shawl—they made such shawls in
Kendal—she wrapped it about the girl, snatched up the child, and set
off running and walking along the road. The Low Wood Inn lay not more
than four furlongs away, and she counted on returning in twenty
minutes.
“Ay, in twenty minutes!” she muttered, and then, saving her breath, she
kept on steadily along the moonlit road, soothing the child with a word
when it was necessary. In a very brief time she was out of sight.
For a while all was still as death. Then favoured by the recumbent
position, Henrietta began to recover; and presently, but not until some
minutes had elapsed, she came to herself.
She sighed deeply, and gazing upward at the dark sky, with its
twinkling stars, she wondered how she came to be in such a strange
place; but without any desire to rise, or any wish to solve the riddle.
A second sigh as deep as the first lifted the oppression from her
breast; and with returning strength she wondered what was the long dark
line that bounded her vision. Was it, could it be, the head-board of
her bed? Or the tester?
It was, in fact, the wall that bounded the wood, but she was not able
to take that in. And though the nipping air, blowing freely on her
face, was doing its best to refresh her, and she was beginning to grope
in her memory for the past, it needed a sound, a voice, to restore to
her, not her powers, but her consciousness. The event soon happened.
Two men drew near, talking in low fierce tones. At first, lying there
as in a dream, she heard without understanding; and then, still
powerless under the spell, she heard and understood.
“Why didn’t you,” Lunt’s voice growled hoarsely, “loose the dog, as I
told you? We’d have had her by now.”
“Ay, and have had the country about our ears, too,” Giles answered
angrily.
“And shan’t we have it about our ears when that vixen has told her
tale?” the other cried. “I swear my neck aches now!”
“She couldn’t carry the brat far, nor fast.”
“No, but—what’s that?” There was alarm in Lunt’s tone.
“Only the lad following us,” Giles answered. “He’s brought the
lanthorn.”
Perhaps the three separated then: perhaps not. She could not rise to
see. She was paralysed. She lay as in a nightmare, and was conscious
only of the yellow gleam of the lanthorn as it quartered the ground
this way and that, and came nearer and nearer. At last the man who
carried it was close to her; on the other side of the wall. He raised
the lanthorn above his head, and looked over the wall. By evil chance,
the light focussed itself upon her.
She knew that she was discovered. And her terror was the greater
because she knew that the man who held the lanthorn was the gipsy—whom
she feared the most of all. But she was not capable of motion or of
resistance; and though he held the light steadily on her, and for a few
seconds she saw in the side-glow his dark features gleaming down at
her, she lay fascinated. She waited for him to proclaim his discovery.
He shut off the light abruptly.
“So—ho! back!” he cried. “She’s not this way! Maybe she’s in the bushes
above!”
“This way?”
“Ay!”
“Then, burn you, why don’t you bring the light, instead of talking?”
Lunt retorted. And from the sound he appeared to be kicking the nearer
bushes, and probing them with a stick.
The gipsy answered impudently, and the three, blaming one another,
moved off up the wood.
“You should have brought the dog,” one cried.
“Oh, curse the dog!” was the answer. “I tell you she can’t be far off!
She can’t have come as low as this.” The light was thrown hither and
thither. “She’s somewhere among the bushes. We’ll hap on her
by-and-by.”
“And s’help me when we do,” Lunt answered, “I’ll——”
And then, mercifully, the voices grew indistinct. The flicker of the
lanthorn was lost among the trees. With wonder and stupefaction
Henrietta found herself alone, found herself faint, gasping, scarcely
sensible—but safe! Safe!
She could not understand the why or the wherefore of her escape, and
she had not energy to try to fathom it. She lay a few seconds to rest
and clear her head, and then she thought that she would try to rise.
She was on her knees, and was supporting herself with one hand against
the cold, rough surface of the wall, when every fibre in her cried
suddenly, Alarm! Alarm! He was coming back. Yes, he was coming back,
leaping and running, bursting his way through the undergrowth. And she
understood. He had led the others away and he was coming back—alone!
She fell back feeling deadly faint. Then she tried to rise, but she
could not, and she screamed. She screamed hoarsely once and again, and,
oh, joy! even as the gipsy clambered over the stile, sprang into the
road and came to seize her, and all her being arose in revolt against
him, a voice answered her, feet came racing up the road, a man
appeared, she was no longer alone.
It was the chaplain, panting and horrified. He had been the first to be
alarmed by the woman’s tale, and running out of the house unarmed and
hatless he had come in time, in the nick of time! Across her lifeless
body, for at last she had swooned quite away, the gipsy and he looked
at one another by the light of the moon. And without warning, without a
word said, the gipsy came at him like a wildcat, a knife in his hand.
Sutton saw the gleam of the weapon, and the gleam of the man’s savage
eyes, but he held his ground gallantly. With a yell for help he let the
man close with him, and, more by luck than skill, he parried the blow
which the other had dealt him with the knife. But the gipsy, finding
his arm clutched and held, struck his enemy with his left fist a heavy
blow between the eyes. The poor chaplain fell stunned and breathless.
The gipsy stood over him an instant to see if he would rise. But he did
not move; and the man turned to the girl, who lay insensible beside the
wall. He stooped to raise her, with the intention of putting her over
the wall. But in the act he heard a shout, and he lifted his head to
listen, supposing that his comrades had got wind of the skirmish.
It was not his comrades; for despairing of retaking the girl, they had
hurried back to the house to attend to their own safety. He stooped
again; but this time he heard the patter of footsteps coming up the
road, and a man came in sight in the moonlight. With every passion
roused, and determined, since he had risked so much, that he would not
be balked, the gipsy lifted the girl none the less, and had raised her
almost to the level of the top of the wall, when the man shouted anew.
Perforce the ruffian let the girl down again, and with a snarl of rage
turned and faced the newcomer with his knife.
But Clyne—for it was he—had not come unarmed. For many days he had not
gone so much as a step unarmed. And the stranger’s attitude as he let
the girl fall, and the gleam of his knife, were enough. The man rushed
at him, as he had rushed at the chaplain, with the ferocity of a wild
beast. But Clyne met him with a burst of flame and shot, and then with
a second shot; and the gipsy whirled round with a muffled cry and
fell—at first it seemed backwards. But when he reached the ground he
lay limp and doubled up with his face to his knees, and one arm under
him.
Clyne, with the smoking pistol in his hand, bent over him, ready, if he
moved, to beat out his brains. But there was no need of that third
blow, which he would have given with hearty good-will. And he turned to
the girl. Something, perhaps the pistol-shot, had brought her to
herself. She had raised herself against the wall, and holding it, was
looking wildly about her; not at the dead man, nor at the chaplain, who
stirred and groaned. But at Clyne. And when he approached her she threw
herself on his breast and clung to him.
“Oh, don’t let me go! Oh, don’t let me go!” she cried.
He tried to soothe her, he tried to pacify her; keeping himself between
her and the prostrate man.
“I won’t,” he said. “I won’t. You are quite safe. You are quite safe.”
He had fired with a hand as steady as a rock, but his voice shook now.
“Oh, don’t let me go!” she repeated hysterically. “Oh, don’t let me
go!”
“You are safe! you are safe!” he assured her, holding her more closely,
and yet more closely to him.
And when Bishop and Long Tom Gilson, and three or four others, came up
at a run, breathing fire and slaughter, he was still supporting her;
and she was crying to him, in a voice that went to the men’s hearts,
“Not to let her go! Not to let her go!”
Alas, too, that was the sight which met the poor chaplain’s swimming
gaze when he came to himself, and, groaning, felt the bump between his
eyes—the bump which he had got in her defence.