The Project Gutenberg eBook ofCowardice CourtThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: Cowardice CourtAuthor: George Barr McCutcheonIllustrator: Harrison FisherTheodore B. HapgoodRelease date: February 3, 2017 [eBook #54101]Most recently updated: October 23, 2024Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by David Widger from page images generouslyprovided by Google Books*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK COWARDICE COURT ***
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
Title: Cowardice CourtAuthor: George Barr McCutcheonIllustrator: Harrison FisherTheodore B. HapgoodRelease date: February 3, 2017 [eBook #54101]Most recently updated: October 23, 2024Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by David Widger from page images generouslyprovided by Google Books
Title: Cowardice Court
Author: George Barr McCutcheonIllustrator: Harrison FisherTheodore B. Hapgood
Author: George Barr McCutcheon
Illustrator: Harrison Fisher
Theodore B. Hapgood
Release date: February 3, 2017 [eBook #54101]Most recently updated: October 23, 2024
Language: English
Credits: Produced by David Widger from page images generouslyprovided by Google Books
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK COWARDICE COURT ***
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CONTENTS
CHAPTER I—IN WHICH A YOUNG MAN TRESPASSES
CHAPTER II—IN WHICH A YOUNG WOMAN TRESPASSES
CHAPTER III—IN WHICH A DOG TRESPASSES
CHAPTER IV—IN WHICH THE TRUTH TRESPASSES
CHAPTER V—IN WHICH DAN CUPID TRESPASSES
CHAPTER VI—IN WHICH A GHOST TRESPASSES
CHAPTER VII—IN WHICH THE AUTHOR TRESPASSES
He's just an infernal dude, your lordship, and I 'll throw him in the river if he says a word too much.”
“He has already said too much, Tompkins, confound him, don't you know.”
“Then I 'm to throw him in whether he says anything or not, sir?”
“Have you seen him?”
“No, your lordship, but James has. James says he wears a red coat and—”
“Never mind, Tompkins. He has no right to fish on this side of that log. The insufferable ass may own the land on the opposite side, but, confound his impertinence, I own it on this side.”
This concluding assertion of the usually placid but now irate Lord Bazelhurst was not quite as momentous as it sounded. As a matter of fact, the title to the land was vested entirely in his young American wife; his sole possession, according to report, being a title much less substantial but a great deal more picturesque than the large, much-handled piece of paper down in the safety deposit vault—lying close and crumpled among a million sordid, homely little slips called coupons.
It requires no great stretch of imagination to understand that Lord Bazelhurst had an undesirable neighbour. That neighbour was young Mr. Shaw—Randolph Shaw, heir to the Randolph fortune. It may be fair to state that Mr. Shaw also considered himself to be possessed of an odious neighbour. In other words, although neither had seen the other, there was a feud between the owners of the two estates that had all the earmarks of an ancient romance.
Lady Bazelhurst was the daughter of a New York millionaire; she was young, beautiful, and arrogant. Nature gave her youth and beauty; marriage gave her the remaining quality. Was she not Lady Bazelhurst? What odds if Lord Bazelhurst happened to be a middle-aged, addle-pated ass? So much the better. Bazelhurst castle and the Bazelhurst estates (heavily encumbered before her father came to the rescue) were among the oldest and most coveted in the English market. Her mother noted, with unctuous joy, that the present Lady Bazelhurst in babyhood had extreme difficulty in mastering the eighth letter of the alphabet, certainly a most flattering sign of natal superiority, notwithstanding the fact that her father was plain old John Banks (deceased), formerly of Jersey City, more latterly of Wall street and St. Thomas's.
Bazelhurst was a great catch, but Banks was a good name to conjure with, so he capitulated with a willingness that savoured somewhat of suspended animation (so fearful was he that he might do something to disturb the dream before it came true). That was two years ago. With exquisite irony, Lady Bazelhurst decided to have a country-place in America. Her agents discovered a glorious section of woodland in the Adirondacks, teeming with trout streams, game haunts, unparalleled scenery; her ladyship instructed them to buy without delay. It was just here that young Mr. Shaw came into prominence.
His grandfather had left him a fortune and he was looking about for ways in which to spend a portion of it. College, travel, and society having palled on him, he hied himself into the big hills west of Lake Champlain, searching for beauty, solitude, and life as he imagined it should be lived. He found and bought five hundred acres of the most beautiful bit of wilderness in the mountains.
The same streams coursed through his hills and dales that ran through those of Lady Bazelhurst, the only distinction being that his portion was the more desirable. When her ladyship's agents came leisurely up to close their deal, they discovered that Mr. Shaw had snatched up this choice five hundred acres of the original tract intended for their client. At least one thousand acres were left for the young lady, but she was petulant enough to covet all of it.
Overtures were made to Mr. Shaw, but he would not sell. He was preparing to erect a handsome country-place, and he did not want to alter his plans. Courteously at first, then somewhat scathingly he declined to discuss the proposition with her agents. After two months of pressure of the most tiresome persistency, he lost his temper and sent a message to his inquisitors that suddenly terminated all negotiations. Afterwards, when he learned that their client was a lady, he wrote a conditional note of apology, but, if he expected a response, he was disappointed. A year went by, and now, with the beginning of this narrative, two newly completed country homes glowered at each other from separate hillsides, one envious and spiteful, the other defiant and a bit satirical.
Bazelhurst Villa looks across the valley and sees Shaw's Cottage commanding the most beautiful view in the hills; the very eaves of her ladyship's house seem to have wrinkled into a constant scowl of annoyance. Shaw's long, low cottage seems to smile back with tantalizing security, serene in its more lofty altitude, in its more gorgeous raiment of nature. The brooks laugh with the glitter of trout, the trees chuckle with the flight of birds, the hillsides frolic in their abundance of game, but the acres are growling like dogs of war. “Love thy neighbour as thyself” is not printed on the boards that line the borders of the two estates. In bold black letters the sign-boards laconically say: “No trespassing on these grounds. Keep off!”
“Yes, I fancy you'd better put him off the place if he comes down here again to fish, Tompkins,” said his lordship, in conclusion. Then he touched whip to his horse and bobbed off through the shady lane in a most painfully upright fashion, his thin legs sticking straight out, his breath coming in agonized little jerks with each succeeding return of his person to the saddle.
“By Jove, Evelyn, it's most annoying about that confounded Shaw chap,” he remarked to his wife as he mounted the broad steps leading to the gallery half an hour later, walking with the primness which suggests pain. Lady Bazelhurst looked up from her book, her fine aristocratic young face clouding with ready belligerence.
“What has he done, Cecil dear?”
“Been fishing on our property again, that's all. Tompkins says he laughed at him when he told him to get off. I say, do you know, I think I 'll have to adopt rough methods with that chap. Hang it all, what right has he to catch our fish?”
“Oh, how I hate that man!” exclaimed her ladyship petulantly.
“But I 've given Tompkins final instructions.”
“And what are they?”
“To throw him in the river next time.”
“Oh, if he onlycould!” 'rapturously.'
“Could?My dear, Tompkins is an American. He can handle these chaps in their own way. At any rate, I told Tompkins if his nerve failed him at the last minute to come and notify me.I 'llattend to this confounded popinjay!”
“Good for you, Cecil!” called out another young woman from the broad hammock in which she had been dawdling with half-alert ears through the foregoing conversation. “Spoken like a true Briton. What is this popinjay like?”
“Hullo, sister. Hang it all, what's he like? He's like an ass, that's all. I've never seen him, but if I'm ever called upon to—but you don't care to listen to details. You remember the big log that lies out in the river up at the bend? Well, it marks the property line. One half of its stump belongs to the Shaw man, the other half to m—to us, Evelyn. He shan't fish below that log—no, sir!” His lordship glared fiercely through his monocle in the direction of the far-away log, his watery blue eyes blinking as malevolently as possible, his long, aristocratic nose wrinkling at its base in fine disdain. His five feet four of stature quivered with illy-subdued emotion, but whether it was rage or the sudden recollection of the dog-trot through the woods, it is beyond me to suggest.
“But suppose our fish venture into his waters, Cecil; what then? Is n't that trespass?” demanded the Honourable Penelope Drake, youngest and most cherished sister of his lordship.
“Now, don't be silly, Pen,” cried her sister-in-law. “Of course we can't regulate the fish.”
“But I daresay his fish will come below the log, so what's the odds?” said his lord-ship quickly. “A trout 's a lawless brute at best.”
“Is he big?” asked the Honourable Penelope lazily.
“They vary, my dear girl.”
“I mean Mr. Shaw.”
“Oh, I thought you meant the—but I don't know. What difference does that make? Big or little, he has to stay off my grounds.” Was it a look of pride that his tall young wife bestowed upon him as he drew himself proudly erect or was it akin to pity? At any rate, her gay young American head was inches above his own when she arose and suggested that they go inside and prepare for the housing of the guests who were to come over from the evening train.
“The drag has gone over to the station, Cecil, and it should be here by seven o'clock.”
“Confound his impudence, I 'll show him,” grumbled his lordship as he followed her, stiff-legged, toward the door.
“What's up, Cecil, with your legs?” called his sister. “Are you getting old?”
This suggestion always irritated him.
“Old? Silly question. You know how old I am. No; it's that beastly American horse. Evelyn, I told you they have no decent horses in this beastly country. They jiggle the life out of one—” but he was obliged to unbend himself perceptibly in order to keep pace with her as she hurried through the door.
The Honourable Penelope allowed her indolent gaze to follow them. A perplexed pucker finally developed on her fair brow and her thought was almost expressed aloud: “By Jove, I wonder if she really loves him.”
Penelope was very pretty and very bright. She was visiting America for the first time and she was learning rapidly. “Cecil 's a good sort, you know, even—” but she was loyal enough to send her thoughts into other channels.
Nightfall brought half a dozen guests to Bazelhurst Villa. They were fashionable to the point where ennui is the chief characteristic, and they came only for bridge and sleep. There was a duke among them and also a French count, besides the bored New Yorkers; they wanted brandy and soda as soon as they got into the house, and they went to bed early because it was so much easier to sleep lying down than sitting up.
All were up by noon the next day, more bored than ever, fondly praying that nothing might happen before bedtime. The duke was making desultory love to Mrs. De Peyton and Mrs. De Peyton was leading him aimlessly toward the shadier and more secluded nooks in the park surrounding the Villa. Penelope, fresh and full of the purpose of life, was off alone for a long stroll. By this means she avoided the attentions of the duke, who wanted to marry her; those of the count who also said he wanted to marry her but could n't because his wife would not consent; those of one New Yorker, who liked her because she was English; and the pallid chatter of the women who bored her with their conjugal cynicisms.
“What the deuce is this coming down the road?” queried the duke, returning from the secluded nook at luncheon time.
“Some one has been hurt,” exclaimed his companion. Others were looking down the leafy road from the gallery.
“By Jove, it's Penelope, don't you know,” ejaculated the duke, dropping his monocle and blinking his eye as if to rest it for the time being.
“But she's not hurt. She's helping to support one of those men.”
“Hey!” shouted his lordship from the gallery, as Penelope and two dilapidated male companions abruptly started to cut across the park in the direction of the stables. “What's up?” Penelope waved her hand aimlessly, but did not change her course. Whereupon the entire house party sallied forth in more or less trepidation to intercept the strange party.
“Who are these men?” demanded Lady Bazelhurst, as they came up to the fast-breathing young Englishwoman.
“Don't bother me, please. We must get him to bed at once. He'll have pneumonia,” replied Penelope.
Both men were dripping wet and the one in the middle limped painfully, probably because both eyes were swollen tight and his nose was bleeding. Penelope's face was beaming with excitement and interest.
“Who are you?” demanded his lordship, planting himself in front of the shivering twain.
“Tompkins,” murmured the blind one feebly, tears starting from the blue slits and rolling down his cheeks.
“James, sir,” answered the other, touching his damp forelock.
“Are they drunk?” asked Mrs. De Peyton, with fresh enthusiasm.
“No, they are not, poor fellows,” cried Penelope. “They have taken nothing but water.”
“By Jove, deuced clever that,” drawled the duke. “Eh?” to the New Yorker.
“Deuced,” from the Knickerbocker.
“Well, well, what's it all about?” demanded Bazelhurst.
“Mr. Shaw, sir,” said James.
“Good Lord, could n't you rescue him?” in horror.
“He rescued us, sir,” mumbled Tompkins.
“You mean—”
“He throwed us in and then had to jump in and pull us out, sir. Beggin' your pardon, sir, butdamnhim!”
“And you did n't throw him in, after all? By Jove, extraordinary!”
“Do you mean to tell us that he threw you great hulking creatures into the river? Single-handed?” cried Lady Bazelhurst, aghast.
“He did, Evelyn,” inserted Penelope. “I met them coming home, and poor Tompkins was out of his senses. I don't know how it happened, but—”
“It was this way, your ladyship,” put in James, the groom. “Tompkins and me could see him from the point there, sir, afishin' below the log. So we says to each other 'Come on,' and up we went to where he was afishin'. Tompkins, bein' the game warden, says he to him 'Hi there!' He was plainly on our property, sir, afishin' from a boat for bass, sir. 'Hello, boys,' says he back to us. 'Get off our land,' says Tompkins. 'I am,' says he; 'it's water out here where I am.' Then—”
“You're wrong,” broke in Tompkins.
“He said 'it 's wet out here where I am.'”
“You 're right. It was wet. Then Tompkins called him a vile name, your lordship—shall I repeat it, sir?”
“No, no!” cried four feminine voices.
“Yes, do,” muttered the duke.
“He did n't wait after that, sir. He rowed to shore in a flash and landed on our land. 'What do you mean by that?' he said, mad-like. 'My orders is to put you off this property,' says Tompkins, 'or to throw you in the river.' 'Who gave these orders?' asked Mr. Shaw. 'Lord Bazelhurst, sir, damn you—' beg pardon, sir; it slipped out. 'And who the devil is Lord Bazelthurst?' said he. 'Hurst,' said Tompkins. 'He owns this ground. Can't you see the mottoes on the trees—No Tres-passin'?'—but Mr. Shaw said: 'Well, why don't you throw me in the river?' He kinder smiled when he said it. 'I will,' says Tompkins, and made a rush for him. I don't just remember why I started in to help Tompkins, but I did. Somehow, sir, Mr. Shaw got—”
“Don't call himMr. Shaw. Just Shaw; he's no gentleman,” exploded Lord Bazelhurst.
“But he told us both to call him 'Mister,' sir, as long as we lived. I kinder got in the habit of it, your lordship, up there. That is, that's what he told us after he got through with us. Well, anyhow, he got the start of us an'—there's Tompkins' eyes, sir, and look at my ear. Then he pitched us both in the river.”
“Good Lord!” gasped the duke.
“Diable!” sputtered the count.
“Splendid!” cried Penelope, her eyes sparkling.
“Hang it all, Pen, don't interrupt the count,” snorted Bazelhurst, for want of something better to say and perhaps hoping that Deveaux might say in French what could not be uttered in English.
“Don't say it in French, count,” said little Miss Folsom. “It deserves English.”
“Go on, James,” sternly, from Lady Bazelhurst.
“Well, neither of us can swim, your ladyship, an' we'd 'a' drowned if Mr.—if Shaw had n't jumped in himself an' pulled us out. As it was, sir, Tompkins was unconscious. We rolled him on a log, sir, an' got a keg of water out of him. Then Mr.—er—Shaw told us to go 'ome and get in bed, sir.”
“He sent a message to you, sir,” added Tompkins, shivering mightily.
“Well, I 'll have one for him, never fear,” said his lordship, glancing about bravely. “I won't permit any man to assault my servants and brutally maltreat them. No, sir! He shall hear from me—or my attorney.”
“He told us to tell you, sir, that if he ever caught anybody from this place on his land he'd serve him worse than he did us,” said Tompkins.
“He says, 'I don't want no Bazelhursts on my place,'” added James in finality.
“Go to bed, both of you!” roared his lordship.
“Very good, sir,” in unison.
“They can get to bed without your help, I daresay, Pen,” added his lordship caustically, as she started away with them. Penelope with a rare blush and—well, one party went to luncheon while the other went to bed.
“I should like to see this terrible Mr. Shaw,” observed Penelope at table. “He 's a sort of Jack-the-Giant-Killer, I fancy.”
“He is the sort onehasto meet in America,” lamented her ladyship.
“Oh, I say now,” expostulated the New York young man, wryly.
“I don't mean in good society,” she corrected, with unconscious irony.
“Oh,” said he, very much relieved.
“He's a demmed cad,” said his lordship conclusively.
“Because he chucked your men into the river?” asked Penelope sweetly.
“She's dooced pretty, eh?” whispered the duke to Mrs. De Peyton without taking his eyes from his young countrywoman's face.
“Who?” asked Mrs. De Peyton. Then he relinquished his gaze and turned his monocle blankly upon the American beside him.
“I shall send him a warning that he'll have to respect, cad or no cad,” said Bazel-hurst, absently spreading butter upon his fingers instead of the roll.
“Sendhim a warning?” asked his queenly wife. “Aren't you going to see him personally? You can't trust the servants, it seems.”
“My dear, I can't afford to lose my temper and engage in a row with that bounder, and there's no end of trouble I might get into—”
“I shall see him myself, if you won't,” said her ladyship firmly. There was frigid silence at the table for a full minute, relieved only when his lordship's monocle dropped into the glass of water he was trying to convey to his lips. He thought best to treat the subject lightly, so he laughed in his most jovial way.
“You'd better take a mackintosh with you, my dear,” he said. “Remember what he told Tompkins and James.”
“He will not throwmeinto the river. It might be different if you went. Therefore I think—”
“Throw me in, would he?” and Bazel-hurst laughed loudly. “I 'm no groom, my dear. You forget that it possible for Mr. Shaw to be soused.”
“He was good enough to souse himself this morning,” volunteered Penelope. “I rather like him.”
“By Jove, Cecil, you're not afraid to meet him, are you?” asked the duke with tantalizing coolness. “You know, if you are, I'll go over and talk to the fellow.”
“Afraid? Now, hang it all, Barminster, that's rather a shabby thing to suggest. You forget India.”
“I 'm trying to. Demmed miserable time I had out there. But this fellow fights. That's more than the beastly natives did when we were out there. Marching is n't fighting, you know.”
“Confound it, you forget the time—”
“Mon Dieu, are we to compare ze Hindoo harem wiz ze American feest slugger?” cried the count, with a wry face.
“What's that?” demanded two noblemen in one voice. The count apologized for his English.
“No one but a coward would permit this disagreeable Shaw creature to run affairs in such a high-handed way,” said her ladyship.
“Of course Cecil is not a coward.”
“Thank you, my dear. Never fear, ladies and gentlemen; I shall attend to this person. He won't soon forget what I have to say to him,” promised Lord Bazelhurst, mentally estimating the number of brandies and soda it would require in preparation.
“This afternoon?” asked his wife, with cruel insistence.
“Yes, Evelyn—if I can find him.”
And so it was that shortly after four o'clock, Lord Bazelhurst, unattended at his own request, rode forth like a Lochinvar, his steed headed bravely toward Shaw's domain, his back facing his own home with a military indifference that won applause from the assembled house party.
“I'll face him alone,” he had said, a trifle thickly, for some unknown reason, when the duke offered to accompany him. It also might have been noticed as he cantered down the drive that his legs did not stick out so stiffly, nor did his person bob so exactingly as on previous but peaceful expeditions.
In fact, he seemed a bit limp. But his face was set determinedly for the border line and Shaw.
Mr. SHAW was a tall young man of thirty or thereabouts, smooth-faced, good-looking and athletic. It was quite true that he wore a red coat when tramping through his woods and vales, not because it was fashionable, but because he had a vague horror of being shot at by some near-sighted nimrod from Manhattan. A crowd of old college friends had just left him alone in the hills after spending several weeks at his place, and his sole occupation these days, aside from directing the affairs about the house and grounds, lay in the efforts to commune with nature by means of a shotgun and a fishing-rod. His most constant companion was a pipe, his most loyal follower a dog.
As he sauntered slowly down the river road that afternoon, smiling retrospectively from time to time as he looked into the swift, narrow stream that had welcomed his adversaries of the morning, he little thought of the encounter in store for him. The little mountain stream was called a river by courtesy because it was yards wider than the brooks that struggled impotently to surpass it during the rainy season. But it was deep and turbulent in places and it had a roar at times that commanded the respect of the foolhardy.
“The poor devils might have drowned, eh, Bonaparte?” he mused, addressing the dog at his side. “Confounded nuisance, getting wet after all, though. Lord Bazelhurst wants war, does he? That log down there is the dividing line in our river, eh? And I have to stay on this side of it. By George, he's a mean-spirited person. And it's his wife's land, too. I wonder what she's like. It's a pity a fellow can't have a quiet, decent summer up here in the hills. Still”—lighting his pipe—“I daresay I can give as well as I take. If I stay off his land, they'll have to keep off of mine. Hullo, who's that? A man, by George, but he looks like a partridge. As I live, Bonaparte is pointing. Ha, ha, that's one on you, Bony.” Mr. Shaw stepped into the brush at the side of the path and watched the movements of the man at the “log,” now less than one hundred yards away.
Lord Bazelhurst, attired in his brown corduroys and his tan waistcoat, certainly suggested the partridge as he hopped nimbly about in the distant foreground, cocking his ears from time to time with all the aloofness of that wily bird. He was, strange to relate, some little distance from Bazelhurst territory, an actual if not a confident trespasser upon Shaw's domain. His horse, however, was tethered to a sapling on the safe side of the log, comfortably browsing on Bazelhurst grass. Randolph Shaw, an unseen observer, was considerably mystified by the actions of his unusual visitor.
His lordship paced back and forth with a stride that grew firmer as time brought forth no hostile impediments. His monocle ever and anon was directed both high and low in search of Shaw or his henchmen, while his face was rapidly resolving itself into a bloom of rage.
“Confound him,” his lordship was muttering, looking at his timepiece with stern disapproval; “he can't expect me to wait here all day. I'm on his land and I 'll stay here as long as I like.” (At this juncture he involuntarily measured the distance between himself and the log.) “I knew it was all a bluff, his threat to put me off. Hang it all, where is the fellow? I won't go up to his beastly house. I won't gratify him by going up there even to give him his orders. Demmed cad, blowhard! Five o'clock, confound him! I daresay he's seen me and has crawled off into the underbrush. He's afraid of me; he's a coward. It is as I feared. I can't see the rascal. There's only one thing left for me to do. I'll pin a note to this tree. Confound him, he shall hear from me; he 'll have to read it.”
Whereupon his lordship drew forth a large envelope from his pocket and proceeded to fasten it to the trunk of a big tree which grew in the middle of the road, an act of premeditation which showed strange powers of prophecy. How could he, except by means of clairvoyance, have known before leaving home that he was not to meet his enemy face to face?
As Mr. Shaw afterwards read the note and tossed it into the river, it is only fair that the world should know its contents while it hung unfolded to the bark of the tall tree. It said, in a very scrawling hand: “Mr. Shaw, I have looked all over this end of your land for you this afternoon. You doubtless choose to avoid me. So be it. Let me state, once and for all, that your conduct is despicable. I came here personally to tell you to keep off my land, henceforth and for ever. I will not repeat this warning, but will instead, if you persist, take such summary measures as would befit a person of your instincts. I trust you will feel the importance of keeping off.” To this his lordship bravely signed himself.
“There,” he muttered, again holding his watch and fob up for close inspection. “He'll not soon overlook what I've said in that letter, confound him.”
He had not observed the approach of Randolph Shaw, who now stood, pipe in hand, some twenty paces behind him in the road.
“What the devil are you doing?” demanded a strong bass voice. It had the effect of a cannon shot.
His lordship leaped half out of his corduroys, turned with agonizing abruptness toward the tall young man, and gasped “Oh!” so shrilly that his horse looked up with a start. The next instant his watch dropped forgotten from his fingers and his nimble little legs scurried for territory beyond the log. Nor did he pause upon reaching that supposedly safe ground. The swift glance he gave the nearby river was significant as well as apprehensive. It moved him to increased but unpolished haste.
He leaped frantically for the saddle, scorning the stirrups, landing broadside but with sufficient nervous energy in reserve to scramble on and upward into the seat. Once there, he kicked the animal in the flanks with both heels, clutching with his knees and reaching for the bridle rein in the same motion. The horse plunged obediently, but came to a stop with a jerk that almost unseated the rider; the sapling swayed; the good but forgotten rein held firm.
“Ha!” gasped his lordship as the horrid truth became clear to him.
“Charge, Bonaparte!” shouted the man in the road.
“Soldiers?” cried the rider with a wild look among the trees.
“My dog,” called back the other. “He charges at the word.”
“Well, you know, I saw service in the army,” apologized his lordship, with a pale smile. “Get ep!” to the horse.
“What's your hurry?” asked Shaw, grinning broadly as he came up to the log.
“Don't—don't you dare to step over that log,” shouted Bazelhurst.
“All right. I see. But, after all, what's the rush?” The other was puzzled for the moment.
“I'm practising, sir,” he said unsteadily. “How to mount on a run, demmit. Can't you see?”
“In case of fire, I imagine. Well, you made excellent time. By the way, what has this envelope to do with it?”
“Who are you, sir?”
“Shaw. And you?”
“You'll learn when you read that document. Take it home with you.”
“Ah, yes, I see it's for me. Why don't you untie that hitch rein? And what the dickens do you mean by having a hitch rein, anyway? No rider—”
“Confound your impudence, sir, I did not come here to receive instructions from you, dem you,” cried his lordship defiantly. He had succeeded at that moment in surreptitiously slashing the hitch rein in two with his pocketknife. There was nothing to prevent him from giving the obtrusive young man a defiant farewell. “I am Lord Bazelhurst. Good day, sir!”
“Just a minute, your lordship,” called Shaw. “No doubt you were timing yourself a bit ago, but that 's no reason why you should leave your watch on my land. Of course, I 've nothing against the watch, and, while I promise you faithfully that any human being from your side of the log who ventures over on my side shall be ejected in one way or another, it would seem senseless for me to kick this timepiece into the middle of next week.”
“Don't you dare kick that watch. It's a hundred years old.”
“Far be it from me to take advantage of anything so old. Don't you want it any longer?”
“Certainly, sir. I would n't part from it.”
“Then why don't you come over and get it? Do you expect me to break the rule by coming over on to your land to hand it to you?”
“I should n't callthattrespassing don't you know,” began his lordship.
“Ah? Nevertheless, if you want this watch you 'll have to come over and get it.”
“By Jove, now, that's a demmed mean trick. I'm mounted. Beastly annoying. I say, would you mindtossingit up to me?”
“I wouldn't touch it for ten dollars. By the way, I'll just read this note of yours.” Lord Bazelhurst nervously watched him as he read; his heart lightened perceptibly as he saw a good-humoured smile struggle to the tall young man's face. It was, however, with some misgiving that he studied the broad shoulders and powerful frame of the erstwhile poacher. “Very good of you, I'm sure, to warn me.”
“Good of me? It was imperative, let me tell you, sir. No man can abuse my servants and trample all over my land and disturb my fish—”
“Excuse me, but I have n't time to listen to all that. The note's sufficient. You've been practising the running mount until it looks well nigh perfect to me, so I'll tell you what I 'll do. I'll step back thirty paces and then you come over and get the watch if you 're not afrain of me—and I promise—”
“Afrain? Demmit, sir, didn't I say I was Lord Bazelhurst? Of the Guards, sir, and the Seventy-first? Conf—”
“You come over and get the watch and then see if you can get back to the horse and mount before I get to the log. If I beat you there, you lose. How's that?”
“I decline to make a fool of myself. Either you will restore my watch to me, or I shall instantly go before the authorities and take out a warrant. I came to see you on business, sir, not folly. Lady Bazelhurst herself would have come had I been otherwise occupied, and I want to assure you of her contempt. You are a disgrace to her countrymen. If you ever put foot on our land I shall have you thrown into the river. Demmit, sir, it 's no laughing matter. My watch, sir.”
“Come and get it.”
“Scalawag!”
“By George, do you know if you get too personal Iwillcome over there.” Randolph Shaw advanced with a threatening scowl.
“Ha, ha!” laughed his lordship shrilly; “I dare you!” He turned his horse's head for home and moved off a yard or more. “Whoa! Curse you! This is the demdest horse to manage I ever owned. Stand still, confound you! Whoa!”
“He 'll stand if you stop kicking him.”
“Halloa! Hey, Bazelhurst!” came a far distant voice. The adversaries glanced down the road and beheld two horsemen approaching from Bazelhurst Villa—the duke and the count.
“By Jove!” muttered his lordship, suddenly deciding that it would not be convenient for them to appear on the scene at its present stage. “My friends are calling me. Her ladyship doubtless is near at hand. She rides, you know—I mean dem you! Would n't have her see you for a fortune. Not another word, sir! You have my orders. Stay off or I'll—throw you off!” This last threat was almost shrieked and was plainly heard by the two horsemen.
“By Jove, he's facing the fellow,” said the duke to the count.
“Ees eet Shaw? Parbleu!”
“I'll send some one for that watch. Don't you dare to touch it,” said his lord-ship in tones barely audible. Then he loped off to meet his friends and turn them back before they came too close for comfort. Randolph Shaw laughed heartily as he watched the retreat. Seeing the newcomers halt and then turn abruptly back into their tracks he picked up the watch and strolled off into the woods, taking a short cut for the dirt road which led up to his house.
“I had him begging for mercy,” explained his lordship as he rode along. “I was on his land for half an hour before he would come within speaking distance. Come along. I need a drink.”
Young Mr. Shaw came to the road in due time and paused, after his climb, to rest on a stone at the wayside. He was still a mile from home and in the loneliest part of his domain. The Bazelhurst line was scarcely a quarter of a mile behind him. Trees and underbrush grew thick and impenetrable alongside the narrow, winding road; the light of heaven found it difficult to struggle through to the highway below. Picturesque but lonely and sombre indeed were his surroundings.
“Some one coming?” he said aloud, as Bonaparte pricked up his ears and looked up the road. A moment later a horse and rider turned the bend a hundred yards away and came slowly toward him. He started to his feet with an exclamation. The rider was a woman and she was making her way leisurely toward the Bazelhurst lands.
“Lady Bazelhurst, I'll bet my hat,” thought he with a quiet whistle. “By George, this is awkward. My first trespasser is in petticoats. I say, she's a beauty—a ripping beauty. Lord, Lord, what do such women mean by giving themselves to little rats like Bazelhurst? Oh, the shame of it! Well, it's up to me! If I expect to make good, I've just got to fire her off these grounds.”
Naturally he expected to be very polite about it—instinctively so; he could not have been otherwise. The horsewoman saw him step into the middle of the road, smiling oddly but deferentially; her slim figure straightened, her colour rose, and there was a—yes, there was a relieved gleam in her eyes. As she drew near he advanced, hat in hand, his face uplifted in his most winning smile—savouring more of welcome than of repellence.
“I beg your pardon,” he said; “doubtless you are not aware that this is proscribed land.”
“Then youareMr. Shaw?” she asked, checking her horse with premeditated surprise and an emphasis that puzzled him.
“Yes, madam,” he responded gravely, “the hated Shaw. Permit me,” and he politely grasped the bridle rein. To her amazement he deliberately turned and began to lead her horse, willy nilly, down the road, very much as if she were a child taking her first riding lesson.
“What are you doing, sir? she exclaimed sharply. There was a queer flutter of helplessness in her voice.
“Putting you off,” he answered laconically. She laughed in delight and he looked up with a relieved smile. “I'm glad you don't mind. I have to do it. These feuds are such beastly things, you know. One has to live up to them whether he likes it or not.”
“So you are putting me off your place? Oh, how lovely!”