It was nearly three o’clock when Martin re-entered the village. Outside the boxing booth a huge placard announced, in sprawling characters, that the first round of the boxing competition would start punctually at 3P.M.“Owing to the illness of Mr. George Pickering, deeply regretted,” another referee would be appointed.
It cost the boy a pang to stride on. He would have dearly liked to watch the display of pugilism. He might have gone inside the tent for an hour and still kept his tryst with Mr. Herbert, but John Bolland’s dour teaching had scored grooves in his consciousness not readily effaced. The folly of last night must be atoned in some way, and he punished himself deliberately now by going straight home.
The house was only a little less thronged than the “Black Lion,” so he made his way unobserved to the great pile of dry bracken in which he hid books borrowed from the school library. Ten minutes later he was seated in the fork of a tree full thirty feet from the ground and consoling himself for loss of the reality by reading of a fight far more picturesque in detail—the Homeric combat between FitzJames and Roderick Dhu.
From his perch he could see the church clock. Shortly before the appointed hour he climbed down and surmounted the ridge which divided the Black Plantationfrom Thor ghyll. It was a rough passage, naught save gray rock and flowering ling, or heather, growing so wild and bushy that in parts it overtopped his height. But Martin was sure-footed as a goat. Across the plateau and down the tree-clad slope on the other side he sped, until he reached a point whence he could obtain a comprehensive view of the winding glen.
On a stretch of turf by the side of the silvery beck that rushed so frantically from the moorland to the river, he spied a small garden tent. In front was a table spread with china and cakes, while a copper kettle, burnished so brightly that it shone like gold in the sunlight, was suspended over a spirit lamp. Mr. Herbert was there, and an elderly lady, his aunt, who acted as his housekeeper—also Elsie and her governess and two young gentlemen who “read” with the vicar during the long vacation. Evidently a country picnic was toward; Martin was at a loss to know why he had been invited.
Perhaps they wished him to guide them over the moor to some distant glen or to the early British camp two miles away. Sometimes a tourist wandering through Elmsdale called at the farm for information, and Martin would be dispatched with the inquirer to show the way.
It was a pity that Mr. Herbert had not mentioned his desire, as the daily reading of the Bible was due in an hour, and most certainly, to-day of all days, Martin must be punctual.
If his brain were busy, his eye was clear. He sprang from rock to rock like a chamois. Once he swung himself down a small precipice by the tough root of a whin. He knew the root was there, and had already tested itscapabilities, but the gathering beneath watched him with dismay, for the feat looked hazardous in the extreme. In a couple of minutes he had descended two hundred feet of exceedingly rough going. He stopped at the beck to wash his hands and dry them on his handkerchief. Then he approached the group.
“Do you always descend the ghyll in that fashion, Martin?” cried the vicar.
“Yes, sir. It is the nearest way.”
“A man might say that who fell out of a balloon.”
“But I have been up and down there twenty times, sir.”
“Well, well; my imaginary balloonist could make no such answer. Sit down and have some tea. Elsie, this is young Martin Bolland, of whom I have been telling you.”
The girl smiled in a very friendly way and brought Martin a cup of tea and a plate of cakes. So he was a guest, and introduced by the vicar to his daughter! How kind this was of Mr. Herbert! How delighted Mrs. Bolland would be when she heard of it, for, however strict her Nonconformity, the vicar was still a social power in the village, and second only to the Beckett-Smythes in the estimation of the parish.
At first poor Martin was tongue-tied. He answered in monosyllables when the vicar or Mrs. Johnson, the old lady, spoke to him; but to Elsie he said not a word. She, too, was at a loss how to interest him, until she noticed a book in his pocket. When told that it was Scott’s poems she said pleasantly that a month ago she went with her father to a place called Greta Bridge and visited many of the scenes described in “Rokeby.”
Unhappily, Martin had not read “Rokeby.” He resolved to devour it at the first opportunity, but for the nonce it offered no conversational handle. He remained dumb, yet all the while he was comparing Elsie with Angèle, and deciding privately that girls brought up as ladies in England were much nicer than those reared in the places which Angèle named so glibly.
But his star was propitious that day. One of the young men happened to notice a spot where a large patch of heather had been sliced off the face of the moor.
He asked Mr. Herbert what use the farmers made of it.
“Nothing that I can recall,” said the vicar, a man who, living in the country, knew little of its ways; “perhaps Martin can tell you.”
“We make besoms of it, sir,” was the ready reply, “but that space has been cleared by the keepers so that the young grouse may have fresh green shoots to feed on.”
Here was a topic on which he was crammed with information. His face grew animated, his eyes sparkled, the words came fast and were well chosen. As he spoke, the purple moor, the black firs, the meadows, the corn land red with poppies, became peopled with fur and feather. On the hilltops the glorious black cock, in the woods the dandy pheasant and swift pigeon, among the meadows and crops the whirring partridge, became actualities, present, but unseen. There were plenty of hares on the arable land and the rising ground; as for rabbits, they swarmed everywhere.
“This ghyll will be alive with them in little more than an hour,” said Martin confidently. “I shouldn’tbe surprised, if we had a dog and put him among those whins, but half-a-dozen rabbits would bolt out in all directions.”
“Please, can I be a little bow-wow?” cried Elsie. She sprang to her feet and ran toward the clump of gorse and bracken he had pointed out, imitating a dog’s bark as she went.
“Take care of the thorns,” shouted Martin, making after her more leisurely.
She paused on the verge of the tangled mass of vegetation and said, “Shoo!”
“That’s no good,” he laughed. “You must walk through and kick the thick clumps of grass—this way.”
He plunged into the midst of the gorse. She followed. Not a rabbit budged.
“That’s odd,” he said, rustling the undergrowth vigorously. “There ought to be a lot here.”
“You know Angèle Saumarez?” said the girl suddenly.
“Yes.”
He ceased beating the bushes and looked at her fixedly, the question was so unexpected. Yet Angèle had asked him the selfsame question concerning Elsie Herbert. One girl resembled another as two peas in a pod.
“Do you like her?”
“I think I do, sometimes.”
“Do you think she is pretty?”
“Yes, often.”
“What do you mean by ‘sometimes,’ ‘often?’ How can a girl be pretty—‘often’?”
“Well, you see, I think she is nice in many ways, andthat if—she knew you—and copied your manner—your voice, and style, and behavior—she would improve very greatly.”
Martin had recovered his wits. Elsie tittered and blushed slightly.
“Really!” she said, and recommenced the kicking process with ardor.
Suddenly, with a fierce snarl, an animal of some sort flew at her. She had a momentary vision of a pair of blazing eyes, bared teeth, and extended claws. She screamed and turned her head. In that instant a wildcat landed on her back and a vicious claw reached for her face. But Martin was at her side. Without a second’s hesitation he seized the growling brute in both hands and tore it from off her shoulders. His right hand was around its neck, but he strove in vain to grasp the small of its back in the left. It wriggled and scratched with the ferocity of an undersized tiger. Martin’s coat sleeves and shirt were slashed to shreds, his waistcoat was rent, and deep gashes were cut in his arms, but he held on gamely.
Mr. Herbert and the others ran up, but came unarmed. They had not even a stick. The vicar, with some presence of mind, rushed back and wrenched a leg from the camp table, but by the time he returned the cat was moving its limbs in its final spasms, for Martin had choked it to death.
The vicar danced about with his improvised weapon, imploring the boy to “throw it down and let me whack the life out of it,” but Martin was enraged with the pain and the damage to his clothing. In his anger he felt that he could wrench the wretched beast limb fromlimb, and he might have endeavored to do that very thing were it not for the presence of Elsie Herbert. As it was, when the cat fell to the ground its struggles had ended, but Mr. Herbert gave it a couple of hearty blows to make sure.
It was a tremendous brute, double the size of its domestic progenitors. At one period in its career it had been caught in a rabbit trap, for one of its forelegs was removed at the joint, and the calloused stump was hard as a bit of stone.
A chorus of praise for Martin’s promptitude and courage was cut short when he took the table leg and went back to the clump of gorse.
“I thought it was curious that there were no rabbits here,” he said. “Now I know why. This cat has a litter of kittens hidden among the whins.”
“Are you gug-gug-going to kuk-kuk-kill them?” sobbed Elsie.
He paused in his murderous search.
“It makes no matter now,” he said, laughing. “I’ll tell the keeper. Wildcats eat up an awful lot of game.”
His coolness, his absolute disregard of the really serious cuts he had received, were astounding to the town-bred men. The vicar was the first to recover some degree of composure.
“Martin,” he cried, “come this instant and have your wounds washed and bound up. You are losing a great deal of blood, and that brute’s claws may have been venomous.”
The boy obeyed at once. He presented a sorry spectacle. His arms and hands were bathed in blood and his clothes were splashed with it.
Elsie Herbert’s eyes filled with tears.
“This is nothing,” he said to cheer her. “They’re only scratches, but they look bad.”
As a matter of fact, he did not realize until long afterwards that were it not for the fortunate accident which deprived the cat of her off foreleg, some of the tendons of his right wrist might have been severed. From the manner in which he held her she could not get the effective claws to bear crosswise.
The vicar looked grave when a first dip in the brook revealed the extent of the boy’s injuries.
“You are plucky enough to bear the application of a little brine, Martin?” he said.
Suiting the action to the word, he emptied the contents of a paper of salt into a teacup and dissolved it in hot water. Then he washed the wounds again in the brook and bound them with handkerchiefs soaked in the mixture. It was a rough-and-ready cauterization, and the pain made Martin white, but later on it earned the commendation of the doctor. Mr. Herbert was pallid himself when Elsie handed him the last handkerchief they could muster, while Mrs. Johnson was already tearing the tablecloth into strips.
“It is bad enough to have your wrists scored in this way, my lad,” he murmured, “but it will be some consolation for you to know that otherwise these cuts would have been in my little girl’s face, perhaps her eyes—great Heaven!—her eyes!”
The vicar could have chosen no better words. Martin’s heart throbbed with pride. At last the bandages were secured and the tattered sleeve turned down. Allthis consumed nearly half an hour, and then Martin remembered a forgotten duty.
“What time is it?” he said anxiously.
“A quarter past five.”
“Oh, bother!” he murmured. “I’ll get into another row. I have missed my Bible lesson.”
“Your Bible lesson?”
“Yes, sir. My father makes me read a portion of Scripture every day.”
The vicar passed unnoticed the boy’s unconsciously resentful tone. He sighed, but straightway resumed his wonted cheeriness.
“There will be no row to-day, Martin,” he promised. “We shall escort you home in triumphal procession. We leave the things here for my man, who will bring a pony and cart in a few minutes. Now, you two, tie the hind legs of that beast with a piece of string and carry it on the stick. The cat is Martin’sspolia opima. Here, Elsie, guide your warrior’s faltering footsteps down the glen.”
They all laughed, but by the time they reached the White House the boy was ready to drop, for he had lost a quantity of blood, and the torment of the saline solution was becoming intolerable.
John Bolland, after waiting with growing impatience long after the appointed time, closed the Bible with a bang and went downstairs.
“What’s wrang wi’ ye now?” inquired his spouse as he dropped morosely into a chair and answered but sourly a hearty greeting from a visitor.
“Where’s that lad?” he growled.
“Martin. Hasn’t he come yam?”
She trembled for her adopted son’s remissness on this, the first day after the great rebellion.
“Yam!”—with intense bitterness—“he’s not likely te hearken te t’ Word when he’s encouraged in guile.”
“Eh, but there’s some good cause this time,” cried the old lady, more flustered than she cared to show. “Happen he’s bin asked to see t’ squire again.”
“T’ squire left Elmsdale afore noon,” was the gruff reply.
Then the vicar entered, and Elsie, leading Martin, and the two pupils carrying the gigantic cat. Mrs. Johnson and the governess-companion had remained with the tent and would drive home in the dogcart.
Mr. Herbert’s glowing account of Martin’s conduct, combined with a judicious reference to his anxiety when he discovered that the hour for his lesson had passed, placed even Bolland in a good humor. Once again the boy filled the mouths of the multitude, since nothing would serve the farmhands but they must carry off the cat to the fair for exhibition before they skinned it.
The doctor came, waylaid on his return from the “Black Lion.” He removed the salt-soaked bandages, washed the wounds in tepid water, examined them carefully, and applied some antiseptic dressing, of which he had a supply in his dogcart for the benefit of George Pickering.
“An’ how is Mr. Pickerin’ te-night?” inquired Mrs. Bolland, who was horrified at first by the sight of Martin’s damages, but reassured when the doctor said the boy would be all right in a day or two.
“Not so well, Mrs. Bolland,” was the answer.
“Oh, ye don’t say so. Poor chap! Is it wuss than ye feared for?”
“No; the wound is progressing favorably, but he is feverish. I don’t like that. Fever is weakening.”
No more would the doctor say, and Mrs. Bolland soon forgot the sufferings of another in her distress at Martin’s condition. She particularly lamented that he should be laid up during the Feast.
At that the patient laughed.
“Surely I can go out, doctor!” he cried.
“Go out, you imp! Of course, you can. But, remember, no larking about and causing these cuts to reopen. Better stay in the house until I see you in the morning.”
So Martin, fearless of consequences, hunted up “Rokeby,” and read it with an interest hardly lessened by the fact that that particular poem is the least exciting of the magician’s verse. At last the light failed and the table was laid for supper, so the boy’s reading was disturbed. More than once he fancied he had heard at the back of the house a long, shrill whistle which sounded familiar. Curiosity led him to the meadow. He waited a little while, and again the whistle came from the lane.
“Who is it?” he called.
“Me. Is that you, Martin?”
“Me” was Tommy Beadlam, but his white top did not shine in the dark.
“What’s up?”
“Come nearer. I mustn’t shout.”
Wondering what mystery was afoot, Martin approached the hedge.
“Yon lass,” whispered Tommy—“I can’t say hername, but ye ken fine wheä ’tis—she’s i’ t’ fair ageän.”
“What! Angèle?”
“That’s her. She gemme sixpence te coom an’ tell yer. I’ve bin whistlin’ till me lips is sore.”
“You tell her from me she is a bad girl and ought to go home at once.”
“Not me! She’d smack my feäce.”
“Well, I can’t get out. I’ve had an accident and must go to bed soon.”
“There’s a rare yarn about you an’ a cat. I seed it. Honest truth—did you really kill it wi’ your hands?”
“Yes; but it gave me something first. Can you see? My arms and left hand are all bound up.”
“An’ it jumped fust on Elsie Herbert?”
“Yes.”
“An’ yer grabbed it offen her?”
“Yes.”
“Gosh! Yon lass is fair wild te hear all about it. She greeted when Evelyn Atkinson telt her yer were nearly dead, but yan o’ t’ farmhands kem along an’ we axed him, an’ he said ye were nowt worse.”
Martin’s heart softened when he heard of Angèle’s tears, but he was sorry she should have stolen out a second time to mix with the rabble of the village.
“I can’t come out to-night,” he said firmly.
“Happen ye’d be able to see her if I browt her here?”
The white head evidently held brains, but Martin had sufficient strength of character to ask himself what his new friends, the Herbert family, would think if they knew he was only too willing to dance to any tune the temptress played.
“No, no,” he cried, retreating a pace or two. “Youmust not bring her. I’m going to supper and straight to bed. And, look here, Tommy. Try and persuade her to go home. If you and Jim Bates and the others take her round the fair to-night you’ll all get into trouble. You ought to have heard the parson to-day, and Miss Walker, too. I wouldn’t be in your shoes for more than sixpence.”
This was crafty counsel. Beadlam, after consulting Jim Bates, communicated it to Angèle. She stared with wide-open eyes at the doubting pair.
“Misericorde!” she cried. “Were there ever such idiots! Because he cannot come himself, he doesn’t want me to be with you.”
There was something in this. Their judgment wavered, and—and—Angèle had lots of money.
But she laughed them to scorn.
“Do you think I want you!” she screamed. “Bah! I spit at you. Evelyn, ma chérie, walk with me to The Elms. I want to hear all about the man who was stabbed and the woman who stabbed him.”
Thereupon, Evelyn and one of her sisters went off with a girl whom they hated. But she was clever, in their estimation, and pretty, and well dressed, and, oh, so rich! Above all, she was not “stuck up” like Elsie Herbert, but laughed at their simple wit, and was ready to sink to their level.
Martin, taking thought before he slept, wondered why Angèle had not come openly to the farm. It did not occur to him that Angèle dared not face John Bolland. The child feared the dour old farmer. She dreaded a single look from the shrewd eyes which seemed to search her very soul.
The doctor came late next morning. He did not reach Elmsdale until after eleven o’clock. He called first at the White House and handed Mrs. Bolland a small package.
“These are the handkerchiefs I took away yesterday,” he said. “I suppose they belong to Mr. Herbert’s household. My servant has washed them. Will you see that they are returned?”
“Mercy o’ me!” cried Martha. “I nivver knew ye took ’em. What did ye want ’em for, docthor?”
“There might have been some malignant substance—some poisonous matter—in the cat’s claws, and as the county analyst was engaged at my place on some other business I—Oh, come now, Mrs. Bolland, there’s no need to be alarmed. Martin’s wounds were cleansed, and the salt applied to the raw edges so promptly, that any danger which might have existed was stopped effectually.”
Yet the doctor’s cheery face was grave that morning and his brow was wrinkled as he unfastened the bandages. Beyond a slight stiffness of certain sinews and the natural soreness of the cut flesh, Martin had never felt better in his life. After a disturbed slumber, when he dreamed that he was choking a wildcat—a cat with Angèle’s face which changed suddenly in death to ElsieHerbert’s smiling features—he lay awake for some hours. Then the pain in his wrists abated gradually, he fell sound asleep, and Mrs. Bolland took care that he was left alone until he awoke of his own accord at half-past eight, an unprecedented hour.
So the boy laughed at his mother’s fears. Her lips quivered, and she tried to choke back a sob. The doctor turned on her angrily.
“Stop that!” he growled. “I suppose you think I’m hoodwinking you. It is not so. I am very much worried about another matter altogether, so please accept my assurance that Martin is all right. He can run about all day, if he likes. The only consequence of disturbing these cuts will be that they cannot heal rapidly. Otherwise, they will be closed completely by the end of the week.”
While he talked he worked. The dressings were changed and fresh lint applied. He handed Mrs. Bolland a store of materials.
“There,” he said, “I need not come again, but I’ll call on Monday, just to satisfy you. Apply the lotion morning and night. Good-by, Martin. You did a brave thing, I hear. Good-by, Mrs. Bolland.”
He closed his bag hurriedly and rushed away. Mrs. Bolland, drying her eyes, and quite satisfied now, went to the door and gazed after him.
“He’s fair rattled wi’ summat,” she told another portly dame who labored up the incline at the moment. “He a’most snapped my head off. Did he think a body wouldn’t be scared wi’ his talk about malignous p’ison i’ t’ lad’s bluid, I wonder?”
The doctor did not pull up outside the “Black Lion.”He drove to the Vicarage—a circumstance which would most certainly have given Mrs. Bolland renewed cause for alarm, were she aware of it—and asked Mr. Herbert to walk in the garden with him for a few minutes.
The two conversed earnestly, and the vicar seemed to be greatly shocked at the outcome of their talk. At last they arrived at a decision. The doctor hastened back to the “Black Lion.” He did not remain long in the sick room, but scribbled a note downstairs and gave it to his man.
“Take that to Mr. Herbert,” he said. “I’ll make a few calls on foot and meet you at the bridge in a quarter of an hour.”
The note read:
“There is no hope. Things are exactly as I feared.”
The vicar, looking most woebegone, murmured that there was no answer. He procured his hat and walked slowly to the inn, which was crowded, inside and out. Nearly every man knew him and spoke to him, and many noted that “t’ passon looked varra down i’ t’ mooth this mornin’.”
He went upstairs. The conjecture flew around at once that Pickering was worse. Someone remembered that Kitty Thwaites said the patient had experienced a touch of fever overnight. Surely, his wound had not developed serious symptoms. The chief herd of his Nottonby estate had seen him during the preceding afternoon and found his master looking wonderfully well. Indeed, Pickering spoke of attending to some business matter in person on Saturday, or on Monday for certain. Why, then, the vicar’s visit? What did it portend? People gathered in small groups and theirvoices softened. By contrast, the blare of lively music and the whistle of the roundabout were intolerably loud.
In the quiet room at the back of the hotel, with its scent of iodoform mingling with the sweet breath of the garden wafted in through an open window, Pickering moved restlessly in bed. His face was flushed, his eyes singularly bright, with a glistening sheen that was abnormal.
By his side sat the pallid Betsy, reading a newspaper aloud. She followed the printed text with difficulty. Her mind was troubled. The fatigue of nursing was nothing to one of her healthy frame, but her thoughts were terrifying. She lived in a waking nightmare. Had she dared to weep, she might have felt relief, but this sure solace of womankind was denied her.
The vicar’s entrance caused a sensation. Betsy, in a quick access of fear, dropped the paper, and Pickering’s face blanched. Some secret doubt, some inner monitor, brought a premonition of what was to come. He flinched from the knowledge, but only for a moment.
Mr. Herbert essayed most gallantly to adopt his customary cheerful mien.
“Dr. MacGregor asked me to call and see you, George,” he said. “I hope you are not suffering greatly.”
“Not at all, thanks, vicar. Just a trifle restless with fever, perhaps, but the wound is nothing, a mere cut. I’ve had as bad a scratch and much more painful when thrusting through a thorn hedge after hounds.”
“Ah. That is well.”
The reverend gentleman seemed to be strangely at a loss for words. He glanced at Betsy.
“Would you mind leaving me alone with Mr. Pickering for a little while?” he said.
The wounded man laughed, and there was a note in his voice that showed how greatly the tension had relaxed.
“If that’s what you’re after, Mr. Herbert,” he said promptly, “you may rest assured that the moment I’m able to stir we’ll be married. I told Mr. Beckett-Smythe so yesterday.”
“Indeed; I am glad to hear it. Nevertheless, I want to talk with you alone.”
The vicar’s insistence was a different thing to the wish expressed by a magistrate and a police superintendent. Betsy went out at once.
For an appreciable time after the door had closed no word was spoken by either of the men. The vicar’s eyes were fixed mournfully on the valley, through which a train was winding its way. The engine left in its track white wraiths of steam which vanished under the lusty rays of the sun. The drone of the showman’s organ playing “Tommy Atkins” reached the hardly conscious listeners as through a telephone. From a distant cornfield came the busy rattle of a reaping machine. The harvest had commenced a fortnight earlier than usual. Once again was the bounteous earth giving to man a hundredfold what he had sown. “As ye sow, so shall ye reap.” Out there in the field were garnered the wages of honest endeavor; here in the room, with its hospital perfume, were being awarded the wages of sin, for George Pickering was condemned to death, and it was the vicar’s most doleful mission to warn him of his doom.
“Now, Mr. Herbert, pitch into me as much as you like,” said the patient, breaking an uneasy silence. “I’ve been a bad lot, but I’ll try to make amends. Betsy’s case is a hard one. You’re a man of the world and you know what the majority of these village lasses are like; but Betsy——”
The vicar could bear the suspense no longer. He must perform his task, no matter what the cost.
“George,” he broke in tremulously, “my presence here to-day is due to a very sad and irrevocable fact. Dr. MacGregor tells me that your condition is serious, most serious. Indeed—indeed—there is no hope of your recovery.”
Pickering, who had raised himself on an elbow, gazed at the speaker for an instant with fiery eyes. Then, as though he grasped the purport of the words but gradually, he sank back on the pillow in the manner of one pressed down by overwhelming force. The vicar moved his chair nearer and grasped his friend’s right hand.
“George,” he murmured, “bear up, and try to prepare your soul for that which is inevitable. What are you losing? A few years of joys and sorrows, to which the end must come. And the end is eternity, compared with which this life is but a passing shadow.”
Pickering did not answer immediately. He raised his body again. He moved his limbs freely. He looked at a square bony wrist and stretched out the free hand until he caught an iron rail, which he clenched fiercely. In his veins ran the blood of a race of yeomen. His hardy ancestors had exchanged blow for blow with Scottish raiders who sought to steal their cattle. They had cracked the iron rind of many a marauder, broken manya border skull in defense of their lives and property. Never had they feared death by flood or field, and their descendant scoffed at the grim vision now.
“What nonsense is this MacGregor has been talking?” he shouted. “Die! A man like me! By gad, vicar, I’d laugh, if I wasn’t too vexed!”
“Be patient, George, and hear me. Things are worse than you can guess. Your wound alone is a small matter, but, unfortunately, the knife——”
“There was no knife! It was a pitchfork!”
“Bear with me, I pray you. You will need to conserve your energy, and your protest only makes my duty the harder. The knife has been submitted to analysis, as well as corpuscles of your blood. Alas, that it should fall to me to tell it! Alas, for the poor girl whom you have declared your intention to marry! The knife had been used to carve grouse, and some putrid matter from a shot wound had dried on the blade. This was communicated to your system. The wound was cleansed too late. Your blood was poisoned before the doctor saw you, and—and—there is no hope now.”
The vicar bowed his head. He dared not look in the eyes of the man to whom he was conveying this dire sentence. He felt Pickering subsiding gently to the pillow and straightening his limbs.
“How long?”
The words were uttered in a singularly calm voice—so calm that the pastor ventured to raise his sorrow-laden face.
“Soon. Perhaps three days. Perhaps a week. But you will be delirious. You have little time in which to prepare.”
Again a silence. A faint shriek reached them from afar, the whistle of the train entering Nottonby, the pleasant little town which Pickering would never more see.
“What a finish!” he muttered. “I’d have liked it better in the saddle. I wouldn’t have cared a damn if I broke my neck after hounds.”
Another pause, and the vicar said gently:
“Have you made your will?”
“No.”
“Then it must be attended to at once.”
“Yes, of course. Then, there’s Betsy. Oh, God, I’ve treated her badly. Now, help me, won’t you? There’s a hundred pounds in notes and some twenty-odd in gold in that drawer. Telegraph first to Stockwell, my lawyer in Nottonby. Bring him here. Then, spare no money in getting a license for my marriage. I can’t die unless that is put right. Don’t delay, there’s a good chap. You have to apply to the Archbishop, don’t you? You’ll do everything, I know. Will you be a trustee under my will?”
“Yes, if you wish it.”
“It’ll please me more than anything. Of course, I’ll make it worth your while. I insist, I tell you. Go, now! Don’t lose a moment. Send Betsy. And, vicar, for Heaven’s sake, not a word to her until we are married. I’ll tell her the fever is serious; just that, and no more.”
“One other matter, George. Mr. Beckett-Smythe will come here to-day or to-morrow to take your sworn deposition. You must not die with a lie on your conscience, however good the motive.”
“I’ll jump that fence when I reach it, Mr. Herbert.Meanwhile, the lawyer and the license. They’re all-important.”
The vicar left it at that. He deemed it best to take the urgent measures of the hour off the man’s mind before endeavoring to turn his thoughts toward a fitting preparation for the future state. With a reassuring handclasp, he left him.
The two sisters waylaid him in the passage.
“Ye had but ill news, I fear, sir,” said Betsy despairingly, catching Mr. Herbert by the arm.
The worried man stooped to deception.
“Now, why should you jump to conclusions?” he cried. “Dr. MacGregor asked me to look up his patient. Am I a harbinger of disaster, like Mother Carey’s chickens?”
“Oh, parson,” she wailed, “I read it i’ yer face, an’ in t’ doctor’s. Don’t tell me all is well. I know better. Pray God I may die——”
“Hush, my poor girl, you know not what you say. Go to Mr. Pickering. He wants you.”
He knew the appeal would be successful. She darted off. Before Kitty, in turn, could question him, he escaped.
It was easier to run the gantlet of friendly inquirers outside. He telegraphed to the solicitor and sent a telegraphic remittance of the heavy fees demanded for the special license. Within two hours he had the satisfaction of knowing that the precious document was in the post and would reach him next morning.
Mr. Stockwell’s protests against Pickering’s testamentary designs were cut short by his client.
“Look here, Stockwell,” was the irritated comment,“you are an old friend of mine and I’d like this matter to remain in your hands, but if you say another word I’ll be forced to send for someone else.”
“If you put it that way——” began the lawyer.
“I do, most emphatically. Now, what is it to be? Yes or no?”
For answer the legal man squared some foolscap sheets on a small table and produced a stylographic pen.
“Let me understand clearly,” he said. “You intend to marry this—er—lady, and mean to settle four hundred a year on her for life?”
“Yes.”
“Suppose she marries again?”
“God in heaven, man, do you think I want to play dog-in-the-manger in my grave?”
“Then it had better take the form of a marriage settlement. It is the strongest instrument known in the law and avoids the death duties.”
Pickering winced, but the lawyer went on remorselessly. He regarded the marriage as a wholly quixotic notion, and knew only too well that Betsy Thwaites would be tried for murder if Pickering died.
“Have you no relatives?” he said. “I seem to recollect——”
“My cousin Stanhope? He’s quite well off, an M.P., and likely to be made a baronet.”
“He will not object to the chance of dropping in for £1,500 a year.”
“Do you think the estate will yield so much?”
“More, I imagine. Did you ever know what you spent?”
“No.”
“Well, is it to be this Mr. Stanhope?”
“No. He never gave me a thought. Why should I endow him and his whelps? Let the lot go to the County Council in aid of the county orphanage. By Jove, that’s a good idea! I like that.”
“Anything else?” demanded the lawyer.
“Yes. You and Mr. Herbert are to be the trustees.”
“The deuce we are. Who said so?”
“I say so. You are to receive £50 a year each from the estate for administering it.”
“Ah. That gilds the pill. Next?”
“I have nearly a thousand in the bank. Keep half as working capital, give a hundred to my company in the Territorials, and divide the balance, according to salary, among all my servants who have more than five years’ service. And—Betsy is to have the use of the house and furniture, if she wishes it.”
“Anything else?”
Pickering was exhausted, but continued to laugh weakly.
“Yes; I had almost forgotten. I bequeath to John Bolland the shorthorn cow he sold me, and to that lad of his—you must find out his proper name—my pair of hammerless guns and my sword. He frames to be a sportsman, and I think he’ll make a soldier. He picked up a poker like a shot the other day when I quarreled with old John.”
“What was the quarrel about?”
“When you send back the cow, you’ll be told.”
Mr. Stockwell scanned his notes rapidly.
“I’ll put my clerks to work at this to-night,” he said. “As I am a trustee, my partner will attend to-morrowto get your signature. Of course, you know you must be married before you make your will, or it will be invalid? Before I go, George, are you sure it is all over with you?”
“MacGregor says so. I suppose he knows.”
“Yes, he knows, if any man does. Yet I can’t believe it. It seems monstrous, incredible.”
They gazed fixedly at each other. Of the two, the man of law was the more affected. Before either could speak again they heard Betsy’s agonized cry:
“Oh, for God’s sake, miss, don’t tell me I may not be with him always! I’ve done my best; I have, indeed. I’ll give neither him nor you any trouble. Don’t keep me away from him now, or I’ll go mad!”
The lawyer, wondering what new frenzy possessed the woman who had struck down his friend, opened the door. He was confronted by a hospital nurse sent by Dr. MacGregor. She looked like a strong-minded person and was probably a stickler for the etiquette of the sick room. He took in the situation at a glance.
“There need be no difficulty, nurse, where Miss Thwaites is concerned,” he said. “She is to be married to Mr. Pickering to-morrow, and as he has only a few days to live they should see as much of each other as possible. Any other arrangement would irritate your patient greatly, and be quite contrary to Dr. MacGregor’s wishes, I am sure.”
The nurse bowed, and Betsy sobbed as the secret that was no secret to her was revealed. None of the three realized that several men standing in the hall beneath, whose talk had been silenced by Betsy’s frenzied exclamation, must have heard every word the lawyer uttered.
So Elmsdale was given another thrill, and a lasting one. The Feast was ruined. Not a man or a woman had heart for enjoyment. If a child sought a penny, it was chided sharply and asked what it meant by gadding about “when poor George Pickerin’ an’ that lass of his were in such trouble.”
Martin heard the news while standing outside the boxing booth, waiting for the sparring competition to commence. He went in, it is true, and saw some hard hitting, but the tent was nearly empty. When he and Jim Bates came out an hour later, Elmsdale was a place of mourning.
A series of exciting events, each crowding on its predecessor’s heels as though some diabolical agency had resolved to disturb the community, had roused the hamlet from its torpor.
Five slow-moving years had passed since the village had been stirred so deeply. Then it endured a fortnight’s epidemic of suicide. A traveling tinker began the uncanny cycle. On a fine summer’s day he was repairing his kettles on a corner of the green, when he was observed to leave his little handcart and to go into a neighboring wood. He did not return. Search next day discovered him swaying from a branch of a talltree, looking like some forlorn scarecrow suspended there by a practical joker.
The following morning a soldier on furlough, one of the very men who helped to cut down the tinker’s body, went into a cow-house at the back of his mother’s cottage and suspended himself from a rafter. An odd feature of this man’s exit was that the rope had yielded so much that his feet rested on the ground. Before the hanging he had actually cut letters out of his red-cloth tunic and formed the word, “Farewell” in a semicircle on the stable floor. A girl soon afterwards selected the mill-dam for a consoling plunge; and, to crown all, the vicar, Mr. Herbert’s forerunner, having received a telegram announcing the failure of a company in which he had invested some money, opened his jugular vein with a sharp scissors. That these tragedies should happen within a fortnight in a community of less than three hundred people was enough to give a life-insurance actuary an attack of hysteria.
But each lacked the dramatic flavor attached to the ill-governed passion of Betsy Thwaites and her fickle swain. Kitty was known to all in Elmsdale, Betsy to few, but George Pickering was a popular man throughout the whole countryside. It was sensation enough that one of his many amours should result in an episode more typical of Paris than of an English Sleepy Hollow. But the sequel—the marriage of this wealthy gentleman-farmer to a mere dairymaid, followed by his death from a wound inflicted by the bride-to-be—this was undiluted melodrama drawn from the repertoire of the Petit Guignol.
That night the story spread over England. A reporterfrom theMessengercame to Elmsdale to glean the exact facts as to Mr. Pickering’s “accident.” Owing to the peculiar circumstances, he, perforce, showed much discretion in compiling the story telegraphed to the Press Association. Not even the use of that magic word “alleged” would enable him to charge Betsy Thwaites with attempted murder, after the police had apparently withdrawn the accusation. But he contrived to retail the legend by throwing utter discredit on it, and the rest was plain sailing. Moreover, he was a smart young man. He pondered deeply after dispatching the message. He was employed on the staff of a local weekly newspaper, so his traveling allowance was limited to a third-class return ticket and a shilling for “tea.” Yet he decided to remain in Elmsdale at his own expense. The departure of the German Government agent for another horse-fair left a vacant bedroom at the “Black Lion.” This he secured. He foresaw a golden harvest.
Luck favored him. Conversing with a village Solon in the bar, he caught a remark that “John Bolland’s lad” would be an important witness at the inquest. Of course, he made inquiries and was favored with a full and accurate account of the wanderings of the farmer and his wife in London thirteen years earlier, together with their adoption of the baby which had literally fallen from the skies. To the country journalist, Fleet Street is the Mecca of his earthly pilgrimage, and St. Martin’s Court, Ludgate Hill, was near enough to newspaperdom to be sacred ground. The very name of the boy smacked of “copy.”
John Bolland, lumbering out of the stockyard at tea-time,encountered Dr. MacGregor. The farmer had been thinking hard while striding through his diminished cornfields, and crumbling ears of wheat, oats, and barley in his strong hands to ascertain the exact date when they would be ripe. Already some of his neighbors were busy, but John was more anxious about the condition of the straw than the forwardness of the grain; moreover, men and women did not work so well during feast-time. Next week he would obtain full measure for his money.
“I reckon Martin’ll soon be fit?” he said.
The doctor nodded.
“He’s a bright lad, yon?” went on the farmer.
“Yes. What are you going to make of him?”
Dr. MacGregor knew the ways of Elmsdale folk. They required leading up to a subject by judicious questioning. Rarely would they unburden their minds by direct statements.
“That’s what’s worryin’ me,” said John slowly. “What d’ye think yersen, docthor?”
“It is hard to say. It all hinges on what you intend doing for him, Bolland. He is not your son. If he has to depend on his own resources when he’s a man, teach him a useful trade. No matter how able he may be, that will never come amiss.”
The farmer gazed around. As men counted in that locality, he was rich, not in hard cash, but in lands, stock, and tenements. His expenses did not grow proportionately with his earnings. He ate and dressed and economized now as on the day when Martha and he faced the world together, with the White House and its small meadows their only belongings. In a few yearsthe produce of his shorthorn herd alone would bring in hundreds annually, and his Cleveland bays were noted throughout the county.
He took the doctor’s hint.
“I’ve nayther chick nor child but Martin,” he said. “When Martha an’ me are gone te t’ Lord, all that we hev’ll be Martin’s. That’s settled lang syne. I med me will four years agone last Easter.”
There was something behind this, and MacGregor probed again.
“Isn’t he cut out for a farmer?”
“I hae me doots,” was the cautious answer.
The doctor waited, so John continued.
“I was sair set on t’ lad being a minister. But I judge it’s not t’ Lord’s will. He’s of a rovin’ stock, I fancy. When he’s a man, Elmsdale won’t be big eneuf te hold him. He cooms frae Lunnon, an’ te Lunnon he’ll gang. It’s in his feäce. Lunnon’s a bad pleäce for a youngster wheä kens nowt but t’ ways o’ moor folk, docthor.”
Then the other laughed.
“In a word, Bolland, you have made up your mind, and want me to agree with you. Of course, if Martin succeeds you, and you have read his character aright, there is but one line open. Send him to a good school, leave the choice of a profession to his more cultivated mind, and tie up your property so that it cannot be sold and wasted in a young man’s folly. When he is forty he may be glad to come back to Elmsdale and give thanks for your foresight on his bended knees. In any event, a little extra book lore will make him none the worse stock-raiser. Eh, is that what you think?”
“You’re a sound man, docthor. There’s times I wunner hoo it happens ye cling te sike nonsense as that mad Dutchman——”
MacGregor laughed again, and nudged his groom’s arm as a signal to drive on. He favored neither church nor chapel, but claimed a devoted adherence to the doctrines of Emanuel Swedenborg, thus forming a sect unto himself. There was not a Swedenborgian temple within a hundred miles. Mayhap the doctor’s theological views had a geographical foundation.
The farmer lumbered across the street and took a corner of the crowded tea-table. Mrs. Summersgill was entertaining the company with a description of George Pickering’s estate.
“It’s a meracle, that’s what it is!” she exclaimed. “Te think of Betsy Thwaites livin’ i’ style in yon fine hoos! There’s a revenue o’ trees quarther of a mile long, an’ my husband sez t’ high-lyin’ land grows t’ best wuts (oats) i’ t’ county. An’ she’s got it by a prod wi’ a carving-knife, while a poor body like me hez te scrat sae hard for a livin’ that me fingers are worn te t’ bone!”
Mrs. Summersgill weighed sixteen stone, but she was heedless of satire. Her eye fell on Martin, eating silently, but well.
“Some folks git their bread easy, I’m sure,” she went on. “Ivver sen I was a bit lass I’ve tewed and wrowt an’ mead sike deed ower spendin’ hawpenny, whiles uthers hev a silver spoon thrust i’ their gob frae t’ time they’re born!”
“T’ Lord gives, an’ t’ Lord taks away. Ye munnot fly i’ t’ feäce o’ t’ Lord,” said Bolland.
“I’m not built for flyin’ anywhere,” cried the old lady. “I wish I was. ’Tis flighty ’uns as wins nowadays. Look at Betsy Thwaites! Look at Mrs. Saumarez! She mun hae gotten her money varra simple te fling it about as she does. My man telt me that her little gal, t’ other neet——”
“Yer cup’s empty, Mrs. Summersgill,” put in Martha quickly. “Bless my heart, ye talk an’ eat nowt. Speakin’ o’ Mrs. Saumarez, hez anyone heerd if she’s better? One o’ Miss Walker’s maids said she was poorly.”
Martin caught his mother’s eye, and rose. He went upstairs; the farmer followed him. The two sat near the window; on the broad ledge reposed the Bible; but Bolland did not open the book. He laid his hand on it reverently and looked at the boy.
“Martin,” he began, “yer muther tells me that Benson med yer mind sair by grabbin’ te t’ squire aboot yer bringin’ up. Nay, lad, ye needn’t say owt. ’Tis no secret. We on’y kept it frae ye for yer good. Anyhow, ’tis kent noo, an’ there’s nae need te chew on ’t. What troubled me maist was yer muther’s defiance when I was minded te punish ye for bein’ out late.”
“It won’t occur again, sir,” said Martin quietly.
“Mebbe. T’ spirit is willin’, but t’ flesh is wake. Noo, I want a straight answer te a straight question. Are these Bible lessons te yer likin’?”
It was so rare for the farmer to speak in this downright fashion that the boy was alarmed. He knew not what lay behind; but he had not earned his reputation for honesty on insufficient grounds.
“No, they’re not,” he said.
Bolland groaned. “T’ minister said so. Why not?”
“I can hardly explain. For one thing, I don’t understand what I read. And often I would like to be out in the fields or on the moor when I’m forced to be here. All the same, I do try hard, and if I thought it would please you and mother, I’d do much more than give up half an hour a day.”
“Ay, ay. ’Tis compulsion, not love. I telt t’ minister that Paul urged insistence in season an’ out o’ season, but he held that the teachin’ applied te doctrine, an’ not te Bible lessons for t’ young. Well, Martin, I’ve weighed this thing, an’ not without prayer. I’ve seen many a field spoiled by bad farmin’, an’, when yer muther calls my own hired men te help her ageän me; when a lad like you goes fightin’ young gentlemen aboot a lass; when yon Frenchified ninny eggs ye on te spend money like watter, an’ yer muther gies ye t’ brass next day te pay Mrs. Saumarez, lest it should reach my ears—why, I’ve coom te believe that my teachin’ is mistakken.”
Martin was petrified at hearing his delinquencies laid bare in this manner. He had not realized that the extravagant display of Monday must evoke comment in a small village, and that Bolland could not fail to interpret correctly his wife’s anxiety to hush up all reference to it. He blushed and held his tongue, for the farmer was speaking again.
“T’ upshot of all this is that I’ve sought counsel. Ye’re an honest lad, I will say that fer ye, but ye’re a lad differin’ frae those of yer age i’ Elmsdale. If all goes well wi’ me, ye’ll nivver want food nor lodgin’, but an idle man is a wicked man, nine times out o’ ten, an’I’d like te see ye sattled i’ summat afore I go te my rest. You’re not cut out fer t’ ministry, ye’re none for farmin’, an’ I’d sooner see ye dead than dancin’ around t’ countryside after women, like poor George Pickerin’. Soa ye mun gang te college an’ sharpen yer wits, an’ happen fower or five years o’ delvin’ i’ books’ll shape yer life i’ different gait te owt I can see at this minnit. What think you on’t?”
“Oh, I should like it better than anything else in the world.”
The boy’s eyes sparkled at this most unlooked-for announcement. Never before had his heart so gone out to the rugged old man whose stern glance was now searching him through the horn-rimmed spectacles.
What magician had transformed John Bolland? Was it possible that beneath the patriarchial inflexibility of the rugged farmer’s character there lay a spring of human tenderness, a clear fountain hidden by half a century of toil and narrow religion, but now unearthed forcibly by circumstances stronger than the man himself? The boy could not put these questions into words. He was too young to understand even the meaning of psychological analysis. He could only sit there mute, stunned by the glory of the unexpected promise.
Of course, if a thinker like Dr. MacGregor were aware of all the facts, he would have seen that the rebellion of Martha had been a lightning stroke. The few winged words she shot at her husband on that memorable night had penetrated deeper than she thought. It chanced, too, that the revivalist preacher whom Bolland took into his confidence was a man of sound common sense, and much more acute in private life than anyonecould imagine who witnessed his methods of hammering the Gospel into the dullards of the village. He it was who advised a timely diminution of devotional exercises which were likely to become distasteful to a spirited lad. He recommended the farmer to educate Martin beyond the common run, while the choice of a profession might be left to maturer consideration. Among the many influences conspiring in that hour to mold the boy’s future life, none was more wholesome than that of the tub-thumping preacher.
Bolland seemed to be gratified by Martin’s tongue-tied enthusiasm.
“Well,” he said, rising. “Noo my hand’s te t’ plow I’ll keep it there. Remember, Martin, when ye tak te study t’ Word o’ yer own accord, ye can start at t’ second chapter o’ t’ Third Book o’ Kings. I’ll be throng wi’ t’ harvest until t’ middle o’ September, but I’ll ax Mr. Herbert te recommend a good school. He’s a fair man, if he does lean ower much te t’ Romans. Soa, fer t’ next few days, run wild an’ enjoy yersen. Happen ye’ll never hae as happy a time again.”
He patted the boy’s head, a rare sign of sentiment, and walked heavily out of the room. Martin saw him cross the road and clout a stable-boy’s ears because the yard was not swept clean. Then he called to his foreman, and the two went off to the low-lying meadows. Bolland had been turning over in his mind Mrs. Saumarez’s remarks about draining; they were worthy of consideration and, perhaps, of experiment.
Martin remained standing at the window. So he was to leave Elmsdale, go out into the wide world beyond the hills, mix with people who spoke and acted and movedlike the great ones of whom he had read in books. He was glad of it; oh, so glad! He would learn Greek and Latin, French and German. No longer would the queer-looking words trouble his eyes. Their meaning would be made clear to his understanding. He would soon acquire that nameless manner of which the squire, the vicar, Mrs. Saumarez, the young university students he met yesterday, possessed the secret. Elsie Herbert had it, and Angèle was veneered with it, though in her case he knew quite well that the polish was only skin deep.
It was what he had longed for with all his heart, yet now that the longing was to be appeased he had never felt more drawn to his parents; his only by adoption, it was true; but nevertheless father and mother by every tie known to him.
By the way, whose child was he? No one had told him the literal manner in which he fell into the hands of the Bollands. Probably his real progenitors were dead long since. Were it not for the kindness of the farmer and his wife he might have been reared in that awful place, the “Union,” of which the poverty-stricken old people in the parish spoke with such dread. His own folk must have been poor. Those who were well off were fond of their children and loth to part from them. Well, he must be a real son to John and Martha Bolland. They should have reason to be proud of him. He would do nothing to disgrace their honored name.
What was it his father said just now? When he studied the Bible of his own accord he might begin at the second chapter of the Second Book of Kings.
It would please the old man to know that he gave thefirst moment of liberty to reading the Word which was held so precious. He opened the book at the page where the long, narrow strip of black silk marked the close of the last lesson. For the first time in his life the boy brought to bear on the task an unaided and sympathetic intelligence, and this is what he read: