CHAPTER XXXVNEW YEAR’S EVETHEPig-driver had been absent from his usual haunts for more than ten days, business having taken him on a stealthy tour of inspection to the connecting links of his trade; it was a duty which called to him at the end of each year, and he had returned this time lighter of heart than ever, for his affairs were flourishing, and the books so carefully kept by his nephew told a promising tale.It was New Year’s Eve; a year and more since Rhys’ and Harry’s lives had crossed under the shadow of the Black Mountain in that unconscious rivalry which their destinies had forced upon them; a year since Mary had looked her last upon her lover’s face as he rode away from the Dipping-Pool. In the great shuffle which a year will sometimes bring to groups of people whose lives concentrate in the same circle, Bumpett was the unchanged one, as he shambled into Crishowell to hear what local news had cropped up since his departure.As he went along between the houses a burst of singing, which came like a gust of wind from a cottage a little way in front, caught his attention and made him smile. He smiled because he intended to spend the night in the village and because he knew very well that no conviviality was considered complete without his presence, more especially on an occasion so important as the seeing-out of the Old Year. He moistened his lips with his tongue and hurried forward, a pleasant anticipation on his face; it was little more than eight o’clock,and there was a deal in the way of joviality possible before midnight.He paused outside the house, like the discreet man he was, to see if he could identify any of the voices before committing himself to their society. A new song was beginning, and he recognized it as one called “Mary Morris” which had come from the mining districts, and which was very popular in the neighbourhood. It was sung by a single voice, and set forth the rather irregular loves of the mining character who was its hero. At the last line of each verse the company joined in with an ardour and a breadth of vowel which bid fair to rouse the village.There was a large stone outside the door, the remains of an old horse-block, and on this the Pig-driver sat down to listen.The singer made one or two false starts, and finding himself invariably landed in a higher key than he had bargained for, seemed inclined to desist but for the encouragements of his audience, which, at last, launched him safely upon the surging wave of the tune.“O! Mary Ma-awris!Why was you leave me?You leave me all alone, most fit to break my he-a-art!You have gone and left me,All alone so cruel,Never am I happy since you and I was pa-art!”“Since yew an’ oi was pa-a-art!” roared the chorus.“O! Mary Ma-awris!I was love your sister,I was love your sister most so well nor you!And my heart was brokenLike a crochan chinay;1Once that you have broke him, never can put him to!Never can put him to-o-o!”Here the audience began to stamp to the tune, and the singer raised his voice yet a little higher.“O! Mary Ma-awris!I’m living at Penpulchwyth;When you come to Merthyr, mind you come to me;Though I be marriedTo another ’ooman,Come in straight, O Mary, an’ never mind for she!Never moind for she-e-e!O! Mary Ma-awris!We will be so happy,We will be so happy, like a king and queen;I will mind the farm, andYou shall mind the babies,And we will be so bewtiful as never before was seen!As never before was see-e-en!”Almost as the last long-drawn syllable died away, the door opened and a man came out, who, not noticing Bumpett till he all but fell over him, jumped back with an exclamation. The Pig-driver was taken with a fit of laughter.“Who be you?” inquired the man, when he had collected his wits.“’Tis just me, Bumpett o’ Abergavenny, listenin’ to the music. Didn’t expect to find me, did ye? What sort of a feller is that singin’? I can’t mind his voice.”“Williams o’ Tan-y-bulch. He’s a fine talker too; tells ye as many lies an’ bad words in an hour as I could in a week.”“And who else?”“Stevens an’ Griffiths an’ Prosser an’ William Pritchard an’ old Job Hondy. There’s only a few more because of the drinking up at Price’s.”Price was the carpenter, and his house was the usual meeting-place of the Pig-driver’s set.“I’m going up there myself,” continued the man. “The jug’s getting pretty nigh empty here, an’ I don’t see my way to giving ’em no more. I’ll start fair over there, ye see.”“Then it’s you that’s payin’ for their treat?”“Yes, yes, ’tis my party. There’s just enough left i’ the jug to keep them quiet till I’ve had my turn over at Price’s afore they all be after me. I’ll be gone then, afore they do come.”“But you don’t own this house,” said Bumpett, rather mystified; “I’ve never seen you before.”“An’ you don’t see me now,” rejoined the other, with an airy glance into the darkness, “northeywon’t see me neither after I’ve had my drink.”“Well, youhavea right notion o’ things—I can see that, anyhow,” said the Pig-driver, beginning to like his acquaintance. “I’ll step down wi’ you to Price’s.”“Best not,” said his companion dubiously.“Oh, but that I will,” replied Bumpett, winding his arm confidingly through that of the stranger. The other proceeded rather unwillingly, but the old man would take no denial.“But that’s Pritchard’s house,” he began again, jerking his thumb towards the place they had come from; “how be you come to pay for the drink in it?”“I haven’t paid yet,” replied the other cheerfully.“Any news flyin’ about the town?” inquired Bumpett, after one or two vain attempts at forcing his companion’s confidence. “It’s goin’ ten days since I was hereabouts, and I haven’t had a word wi’ no one.”“It depends what you call news,” said the stranger. “For my part, there’s little can flummox me. Have e’ heard of the young Squire down Waterchurch way runnin’ off to Hereford last week? Took the Parson of Crishowell’s niece along wi’ him, an’ was married safe an’ sound like a man. The old Squire was after him, an’ Parson Lewis, an’ though they battered shameful at the church door—so they say—’twarn’t no use. The lock was turned till they was tied tight. Not that that flummoxes me though; why I tell ’e——”“Well, well, that’s all news to me,” exclaimed the Pig-driver, with whom admiration was beginning to oust every other sentiment. “I must get down to Price’s afore any o’ them’s gone, an’ hear the rights o’ that.”“The rights? Bean’t I tellin’ ’e the rights? What more do ye want nor what I’ve told ye?”“No offence,” said the Pig-driver hurriedly.“Ye don’t seem to know much about nothin’,” continued his friend, unmollified. “Now, for me, there’s not a thing done within twenty mile but I know it all pat afore ye can so much as put your thumb to your nose. Why, the breath wasn’t out of Evans o’ the Dipping-Pool’s body, an’ I knew where his money was to land. That’s me all over.”Bumpett dropped his arm with a jerk.“Did ’e say Evans? Hosea Evans?”“I did; an’ I’ll say it again if ye’ve any fancy for jumpin’ like that. He’s as dead as a nail. Died just after he come out of jail, an’ left every damn penny o’ two hundred pound to the toll-keeper’s wench that used to keep company wi’ Rhys Walters.”This time the Pig-driver was not to be borne down by any superfluous knowledge on the part of his companion.“She’s lucky,” he observed shortly.“And so’s the chap that’s married her. His name’s Williams, and he used to live in a queer enough place up by the mountain, and do a turn at hedgin’ now an’ again. Not much hedgin’ now, I suppose. Livin’ like a lord, more likely.”Bumpett’s tongue grew dry, and he grinned mechanically; his lips stretched and went back like pieces of elastic, and his friend, who was waiting for some tribute to his superior information, could hear odd sounds going on inside his mouth.“Ah, you didn’t know that!” he exclaimed, “and I’ll wager ye didn’t know ’twas him killed Vaughan an’ not Rhys Walters. He came out with it all on his death-bed to the Parson o’ Crishowell.”“Go on wi’ ye!” broke out the Pig-driver.“That’s all very fine,” replied the stranger in a tone of offence, “but just you go off to the police at Llangarth and see! Lewis an’ the doctor an’ a woman was witness to it, an’ it’s written down in the Law, I tell ’e. Like enough the Queen has it all at her fingers’ ends by now.”It was half-an-hour later when Bumpett slipped unnoticed out of Price’s door into the darkness. He had left his newacquaintance in an advanced state of intoxication among the revellers, where his varying moods of confidence and pugnacity were beginning to make him something of a nuisance. But the stranger had spoken truth and the old man had heard the same from the lips of his friends.It was not only rage at the thought of George’s good luck, though, that was boiling in him, which drove him along at such a pace, it was the far more disturbing knowledge of Rhys Walters’ innocence. He resolved to go to the cottage without an hour’s delay, and by threats or bribes to compel him to leave the country. He would, if all else failed, tell him that his hiding-place was known to the police and press on him any assistance to escape that his money or ingenuity could command.He had been living in daily dread of his unprofitable servant’s indiscretion, and since the experience of the man with the dark lantern had appeared in the local newspaper, he would have given much to know him clear of England. And now, if Walters’ own folly should bring him to discovery, and he should learn that he was innocent of Vaughan’s death, the consequences might be dreadful. He would have to suffer for his share in the Rebecca riot, but having done so he might one day return to his own, damaged, perhaps, but with the stain of blood-guiltiness off his hands, and live on the very scene of his—Bumpett’s—activities, a constant embarrassment and menace. It was not likely that he would denounce malpractices in which he had been involved, for the same drag would act on him as on the Pig-driver’s other subordinates, namely, their liability to suffer side by side with their master. Sheep-stealing, though no longer a capital offence, was punished heavily, and sane men do not usually open the prison doors for themselves. But, of late, there had been that about Rhys which forbade him to judge him as he would have judged another man. He felt that it was desperately urgent.When he was clear of the village and beginning to ascend towards the mountain he found it no easy matter to getforward; there was not a star in the sky, and a damp mist, which, though he knew it not, was enwrapping the higher country towards which he pressed, became thicker at every step. The lane leading to the old cart track was scarcely less deserted than itself, and his feet struck against heaps of loose stones which the autumn rains had rolled here and there into shelving heaps. He put his hand up to his face and cursed to meet the wet on it. It was one of those nights so frequent in winter, a repetition of the one through which Rhys had once felt his way to the Dipping-Pool.By the time he reached the cottage the enveloping fog was so thick that he would not venture to trust himself upon the plank crossing the water, but waded through, though the cold touch on his ankles made him gasp. He groped round the end of the house till he found himself among the gooseberry bushes of the garden. It was impossible to see anything, and he could only guess at their position as he stumbled along, pricking himself against the stems. When he came to one growing by the wall he pushed it aside, guided by a faint light which came out of the hole in the masonry behind it. From the little shine he gathered that Rhys had not gone out and was in the cellar below. He put his mouth to the aperture and called down it.After two or three vain attempts to make himself heard, the Pig-driver could distinguish steps moving in the cellar.“’Tis me—Bumpett!” he cried. “Go you round to the door and let me in.”As he stood waiting for Walters to turn the key, he told himself that he would not depart again without the young man’s consent to leave; but he wondered how he should manage the matter, for there seemed to be nothing in the world by which he could keep a hold over him. It must be done somehow, that was all he knew.It was quite dark in the upper part of the house as he entered and followed Walters down the ladder. There was alight standing on a piece of furniture, and Bumpett sat down by it on a broken chair and looked up at his companion. He had seen him continually at short intervals during the last six months, and the alteration in him had not hitherto struck him as it would have struck a stranger. But, all at once, in the wretched light, as the two confronted each other, the Pig-driver saw through the veil of custom which had blinded him to the ghastliness of the change in Rhys. A feeling akin to horror took him by the throat as he sat and looked into the haggard face with the black shadows thrown upwards by the candle lying upon it. Not that it was pity or concern that moved him—he cared little enough for anything that affected the man before him—but even he, coarse, sordid, callous as he was, could feel that Rhys Walters had gone beyond the reach of fear or hope, joy or malice, and that the grey waters of despair divided him from the power of aught else but some one influence which was working within him. Nothing could help or harm him any more. The soul that looked out of his sunken eyes was one pertaining no longer to the ordinary world of human beings with its hates and loves, its ambitions and griefs; it was something which had gone far off into a dominion of one idea.“What do you want?” asked Walters, laying his hand on the improvised table and bringing his face into the circle of light.The shades cast round his jaw and cheek-bones made them stand out with even greater prominence, and the hair, hanging unkempt on either side of his brow, framed it in with dull black. He seemed to Bumpett gigantically tall.“Look you,” began the Pig-driver, folding his hands over his stick, “there’s no more use in dangling on here, an’ ye must just pearten up, Walters. It’s time ye was out o’ this. I’ve got a cousin down Cardiff way, and if I could get ye off to him, he’d give ye a hand wi’ some o’ they ship captains. Ye’d be out o’ harm’s reach then, an’ a good job too.”For answer Rhys looked at him with a smile, not as though he were smiling at him, but at something which he saw in his mind.“No,” he said, shaking his head; “no, no.”“Nonsense,” rejoined Bumpett smartly. “I’m not trifling now, and out o’ this ye’ll have to go, my lad.”“Not I,” said Rhys, his eyes hardening.“I tell ’e, go ye shall!” cried the old man. “’Tis my place, not yours, an’ not another bite nor sup can ye get when I stop sendin’ the food that keeps ye. I can turn ye out, an’ I will too.”“You daren’t do that,” said the other, looking sideways at him; “there’s no manner of use trying to frighten me. Put me out of this house, and it’s you that’ll have to be on your way to Cardiff, not me. And you’ll be too late.”“I’m speakin’ for yer good,” began the Pig-driver again, seeing that threats could produce no effect. “Mind me, ye don’t hear nothing hid away in this black hole, but it’s different wi’ me. I get all the talk o’ the country-side, an’ I know the police has got their noses turned this way ever since ye let the fellar wi’ the dark lantern get sight o’ ye on the mountain. It was all written i’ the newspapers, so I did hear. Old Job Hondy in Crishowell was tellin’ me, for he got a loan of the paper from Parson Lewis.”A ray of interest lit up Rhys’ face.“And I’ll tell Hondy to ask for a sight of it again,” continued Bumpett, seeing that he had caught the other’s attention, “an’ bring it up to show ye; leastways, if it’s not lost wi’ all the moyther he’s had i’ the house wi’ that young miss o’ his.”“What do you say?” exclaimed Walters, coming closer to Bumpett.“I said I’d get the newspaper an’ show ye what ye’ve done wi’ yer tomfooleries.”“What did you say about Mr. Lewis?” cried Rhys, taking hold of the Pig-driver.“I said he was likely moythered wi’ that young niece of his and her doin’s.”“But she is in Hereford,” broke out the young man.“In Hereford? Not she. She’s off to London wi’ young Squire Fenton. Run out one mornin’ when the old boy was between the blankets an’ up to Hereford an’ got married to him. He’s been left a fine fortune. She didn’t forget that, I’ll be bound, no, no indeed.”Bumpett had hardly time to end his sentence before Rhys sprang at him like a wild cat and gripped him by the collar.“Liar!” he shouted, “liar! liar!”At every word he shook the old man as though he would jerk the life out of him.The Pig-driver, though naturally cautious, was not altogether a coward, and rage and bewilderment are sharp spurs. He struck out as fiercely as he could; words were impossible, for he had not the breath with which to utter them. When Walters threw him back into the chair from which he had dragged him, he was livid and lay against the back of it with hardly strength left in him to speak.“That’s not true!” shouted Rhys, standing over him. “It’s a lie! Speak up, or I’ll twist your neck like a jackdaw’s!”His face was twitching all over and his hands clasped and unclasped themselves.The Pig-driver opened his mouth.“The truth!” cried Rhys, “do you hear? The truth, or out of this you don’t go a living man!”“I’ve told ye the truth,” snarled Bumpett. “’Twas no more nor last week, an’ every one knows it now.”“It can’t be, it can’t be.”“But I tell ye it is,” cried Bumpett, turning the knife in the wound. “She’s a tiert lass, she is, not one o’ the sort that gives a bean for a pea.”There was the silence of a moment, and there broke from Rhys a cry so bitter, so despairing, that it seemed as though the heart from whose depths it came had broken. Then hesank down by the table, and, laying his head on his arms, sobbed like a little child, with his face hidden on the sleeve of his shabby coat.It was not until the Pig-driver had been long gone that he raised himself. The light had sputtered out beside him, and he got up and groped his way to the ladder. He climbed to the room above, crossed the threshold into the night, and set his face to the hills.1A broken jug.
THEPig-driver had been absent from his usual haunts for more than ten days, business having taken him on a stealthy tour of inspection to the connecting links of his trade; it was a duty which called to him at the end of each year, and he had returned this time lighter of heart than ever, for his affairs were flourishing, and the books so carefully kept by his nephew told a promising tale.
It was New Year’s Eve; a year and more since Rhys’ and Harry’s lives had crossed under the shadow of the Black Mountain in that unconscious rivalry which their destinies had forced upon them; a year since Mary had looked her last upon her lover’s face as he rode away from the Dipping-Pool. In the great shuffle which a year will sometimes bring to groups of people whose lives concentrate in the same circle, Bumpett was the unchanged one, as he shambled into Crishowell to hear what local news had cropped up since his departure.
As he went along between the houses a burst of singing, which came like a gust of wind from a cottage a little way in front, caught his attention and made him smile. He smiled because he intended to spend the night in the village and because he knew very well that no conviviality was considered complete without his presence, more especially on an occasion so important as the seeing-out of the Old Year. He moistened his lips with his tongue and hurried forward, a pleasant anticipation on his face; it was little more than eight o’clock,and there was a deal in the way of joviality possible before midnight.
He paused outside the house, like the discreet man he was, to see if he could identify any of the voices before committing himself to their society. A new song was beginning, and he recognized it as one called “Mary Morris” which had come from the mining districts, and which was very popular in the neighbourhood. It was sung by a single voice, and set forth the rather irregular loves of the mining character who was its hero. At the last line of each verse the company joined in with an ardour and a breadth of vowel which bid fair to rouse the village.
There was a large stone outside the door, the remains of an old horse-block, and on this the Pig-driver sat down to listen.
The singer made one or two false starts, and finding himself invariably landed in a higher key than he had bargained for, seemed inclined to desist but for the encouragements of his audience, which, at last, launched him safely upon the surging wave of the tune.
“O! Mary Ma-awris!Why was you leave me?You leave me all alone, most fit to break my he-a-art!You have gone and left me,All alone so cruel,Never am I happy since you and I was pa-art!”
“O! Mary Ma-awris!Why was you leave me?You leave me all alone, most fit to break my he-a-art!You have gone and left me,All alone so cruel,Never am I happy since you and I was pa-art!”
“O! Mary Ma-awris!
Why was you leave me?
You leave me all alone, most fit to break my he-a-art!
You have gone and left me,
All alone so cruel,
Never am I happy since you and I was pa-art!”
“Since yew an’ oi was pa-a-art!” roared the chorus.
“O! Mary Ma-awris!I was love your sister,I was love your sister most so well nor you!And my heart was brokenLike a crochan chinay;1Once that you have broke him, never can put him to!Never can put him to-o-o!”
“O! Mary Ma-awris!I was love your sister,I was love your sister most so well nor you!And my heart was brokenLike a crochan chinay;1Once that you have broke him, never can put him to!Never can put him to-o-o!”
“O! Mary Ma-awris!
I was love your sister,
I was love your sister most so well nor you!
And my heart was broken
Like a crochan chinay;1
Once that you have broke him, never can put him to!
Never can put him to-o-o!”
Here the audience began to stamp to the tune, and the singer raised his voice yet a little higher.
“O! Mary Ma-awris!I’m living at Penpulchwyth;When you come to Merthyr, mind you come to me;Though I be marriedTo another ’ooman,Come in straight, O Mary, an’ never mind for she!Never moind for she-e-e!O! Mary Ma-awris!We will be so happy,We will be so happy, like a king and queen;I will mind the farm, andYou shall mind the babies,And we will be so bewtiful as never before was seen!As never before was see-e-en!”
“O! Mary Ma-awris!I’m living at Penpulchwyth;When you come to Merthyr, mind you come to me;Though I be marriedTo another ’ooman,Come in straight, O Mary, an’ never mind for she!Never moind for she-e-e!
“O! Mary Ma-awris!
I’m living at Penpulchwyth;
When you come to Merthyr, mind you come to me;
Though I be married
To another ’ooman,
Come in straight, O Mary, an’ never mind for she!
Never moind for she-e-e!
O! Mary Ma-awris!We will be so happy,We will be so happy, like a king and queen;I will mind the farm, andYou shall mind the babies,And we will be so bewtiful as never before was seen!As never before was see-e-en!”
O! Mary Ma-awris!
We will be so happy,
We will be so happy, like a king and queen;
I will mind the farm, and
You shall mind the babies,
And we will be so bewtiful as never before was seen!
As never before was see-e-en!”
Almost as the last long-drawn syllable died away, the door opened and a man came out, who, not noticing Bumpett till he all but fell over him, jumped back with an exclamation. The Pig-driver was taken with a fit of laughter.
“Who be you?” inquired the man, when he had collected his wits.
“’Tis just me, Bumpett o’ Abergavenny, listenin’ to the music. Didn’t expect to find me, did ye? What sort of a feller is that singin’? I can’t mind his voice.”
“Williams o’ Tan-y-bulch. He’s a fine talker too; tells ye as many lies an’ bad words in an hour as I could in a week.”
“And who else?”
“Stevens an’ Griffiths an’ Prosser an’ William Pritchard an’ old Job Hondy. There’s only a few more because of the drinking up at Price’s.”
Price was the carpenter, and his house was the usual meeting-place of the Pig-driver’s set.
“I’m going up there myself,” continued the man. “The jug’s getting pretty nigh empty here, an’ I don’t see my way to giving ’em no more. I’ll start fair over there, ye see.”
“Then it’s you that’s payin’ for their treat?”
“Yes, yes, ’tis my party. There’s just enough left i’ the jug to keep them quiet till I’ve had my turn over at Price’s afore they all be after me. I’ll be gone then, afore they do come.”
“But you don’t own this house,” said Bumpett, rather mystified; “I’ve never seen you before.”
“An’ you don’t see me now,” rejoined the other, with an airy glance into the darkness, “northeywon’t see me neither after I’ve had my drink.”
“Well, youhavea right notion o’ things—I can see that, anyhow,” said the Pig-driver, beginning to like his acquaintance. “I’ll step down wi’ you to Price’s.”
“Best not,” said his companion dubiously.
“Oh, but that I will,” replied Bumpett, winding his arm confidingly through that of the stranger. The other proceeded rather unwillingly, but the old man would take no denial.
“But that’s Pritchard’s house,” he began again, jerking his thumb towards the place they had come from; “how be you come to pay for the drink in it?”
“I haven’t paid yet,” replied the other cheerfully.
“Any news flyin’ about the town?” inquired Bumpett, after one or two vain attempts at forcing his companion’s confidence. “It’s goin’ ten days since I was hereabouts, and I haven’t had a word wi’ no one.”
“It depends what you call news,” said the stranger. “For my part, there’s little can flummox me. Have e’ heard of the young Squire down Waterchurch way runnin’ off to Hereford last week? Took the Parson of Crishowell’s niece along wi’ him, an’ was married safe an’ sound like a man. The old Squire was after him, an’ Parson Lewis, an’ though they battered shameful at the church door—so they say—’twarn’t no use. The lock was turned till they was tied tight. Not that that flummoxes me though; why I tell ’e——”
“Well, well, that’s all news to me,” exclaimed the Pig-driver, with whom admiration was beginning to oust every other sentiment. “I must get down to Price’s afore any o’ them’s gone, an’ hear the rights o’ that.”
“The rights? Bean’t I tellin’ ’e the rights? What more do ye want nor what I’ve told ye?”
“No offence,” said the Pig-driver hurriedly.
“Ye don’t seem to know much about nothin’,” continued his friend, unmollified. “Now, for me, there’s not a thing done within twenty mile but I know it all pat afore ye can so much as put your thumb to your nose. Why, the breath wasn’t out of Evans o’ the Dipping-Pool’s body, an’ I knew where his money was to land. That’s me all over.”
Bumpett dropped his arm with a jerk.
“Did ’e say Evans? Hosea Evans?”
“I did; an’ I’ll say it again if ye’ve any fancy for jumpin’ like that. He’s as dead as a nail. Died just after he come out of jail, an’ left every damn penny o’ two hundred pound to the toll-keeper’s wench that used to keep company wi’ Rhys Walters.”
This time the Pig-driver was not to be borne down by any superfluous knowledge on the part of his companion.
“She’s lucky,” he observed shortly.
“And so’s the chap that’s married her. His name’s Williams, and he used to live in a queer enough place up by the mountain, and do a turn at hedgin’ now an’ again. Not much hedgin’ now, I suppose. Livin’ like a lord, more likely.”
Bumpett’s tongue grew dry, and he grinned mechanically; his lips stretched and went back like pieces of elastic, and his friend, who was waiting for some tribute to his superior information, could hear odd sounds going on inside his mouth.
“Ah, you didn’t know that!” he exclaimed, “and I’ll wager ye didn’t know ’twas him killed Vaughan an’ not Rhys Walters. He came out with it all on his death-bed to the Parson o’ Crishowell.”
“Go on wi’ ye!” broke out the Pig-driver.
“That’s all very fine,” replied the stranger in a tone of offence, “but just you go off to the police at Llangarth and see! Lewis an’ the doctor an’ a woman was witness to it, an’ it’s written down in the Law, I tell ’e. Like enough the Queen has it all at her fingers’ ends by now.”
It was half-an-hour later when Bumpett slipped unnoticed out of Price’s door into the darkness. He had left his newacquaintance in an advanced state of intoxication among the revellers, where his varying moods of confidence and pugnacity were beginning to make him something of a nuisance. But the stranger had spoken truth and the old man had heard the same from the lips of his friends.
It was not only rage at the thought of George’s good luck, though, that was boiling in him, which drove him along at such a pace, it was the far more disturbing knowledge of Rhys Walters’ innocence. He resolved to go to the cottage without an hour’s delay, and by threats or bribes to compel him to leave the country. He would, if all else failed, tell him that his hiding-place was known to the police and press on him any assistance to escape that his money or ingenuity could command.
He had been living in daily dread of his unprofitable servant’s indiscretion, and since the experience of the man with the dark lantern had appeared in the local newspaper, he would have given much to know him clear of England. And now, if Walters’ own folly should bring him to discovery, and he should learn that he was innocent of Vaughan’s death, the consequences might be dreadful. He would have to suffer for his share in the Rebecca riot, but having done so he might one day return to his own, damaged, perhaps, but with the stain of blood-guiltiness off his hands, and live on the very scene of his—Bumpett’s—activities, a constant embarrassment and menace. It was not likely that he would denounce malpractices in which he had been involved, for the same drag would act on him as on the Pig-driver’s other subordinates, namely, their liability to suffer side by side with their master. Sheep-stealing, though no longer a capital offence, was punished heavily, and sane men do not usually open the prison doors for themselves. But, of late, there had been that about Rhys which forbade him to judge him as he would have judged another man. He felt that it was desperately urgent.
When he was clear of the village and beginning to ascend towards the mountain he found it no easy matter to getforward; there was not a star in the sky, and a damp mist, which, though he knew it not, was enwrapping the higher country towards which he pressed, became thicker at every step. The lane leading to the old cart track was scarcely less deserted than itself, and his feet struck against heaps of loose stones which the autumn rains had rolled here and there into shelving heaps. He put his hand up to his face and cursed to meet the wet on it. It was one of those nights so frequent in winter, a repetition of the one through which Rhys had once felt his way to the Dipping-Pool.
By the time he reached the cottage the enveloping fog was so thick that he would not venture to trust himself upon the plank crossing the water, but waded through, though the cold touch on his ankles made him gasp. He groped round the end of the house till he found himself among the gooseberry bushes of the garden. It was impossible to see anything, and he could only guess at their position as he stumbled along, pricking himself against the stems. When he came to one growing by the wall he pushed it aside, guided by a faint light which came out of the hole in the masonry behind it. From the little shine he gathered that Rhys had not gone out and was in the cellar below. He put his mouth to the aperture and called down it.
After two or three vain attempts to make himself heard, the Pig-driver could distinguish steps moving in the cellar.
“’Tis me—Bumpett!” he cried. “Go you round to the door and let me in.”
As he stood waiting for Walters to turn the key, he told himself that he would not depart again without the young man’s consent to leave; but he wondered how he should manage the matter, for there seemed to be nothing in the world by which he could keep a hold over him. It must be done somehow, that was all he knew.
It was quite dark in the upper part of the house as he entered and followed Walters down the ladder. There was alight standing on a piece of furniture, and Bumpett sat down by it on a broken chair and looked up at his companion. He had seen him continually at short intervals during the last six months, and the alteration in him had not hitherto struck him as it would have struck a stranger. But, all at once, in the wretched light, as the two confronted each other, the Pig-driver saw through the veil of custom which had blinded him to the ghastliness of the change in Rhys. A feeling akin to horror took him by the throat as he sat and looked into the haggard face with the black shadows thrown upwards by the candle lying upon it. Not that it was pity or concern that moved him—he cared little enough for anything that affected the man before him—but even he, coarse, sordid, callous as he was, could feel that Rhys Walters had gone beyond the reach of fear or hope, joy or malice, and that the grey waters of despair divided him from the power of aught else but some one influence which was working within him. Nothing could help or harm him any more. The soul that looked out of his sunken eyes was one pertaining no longer to the ordinary world of human beings with its hates and loves, its ambitions and griefs; it was something which had gone far off into a dominion of one idea.
“What do you want?” asked Walters, laying his hand on the improvised table and bringing his face into the circle of light.
The shades cast round his jaw and cheek-bones made them stand out with even greater prominence, and the hair, hanging unkempt on either side of his brow, framed it in with dull black. He seemed to Bumpett gigantically tall.
“Look you,” began the Pig-driver, folding his hands over his stick, “there’s no more use in dangling on here, an’ ye must just pearten up, Walters. It’s time ye was out o’ this. I’ve got a cousin down Cardiff way, and if I could get ye off to him, he’d give ye a hand wi’ some o’ they ship captains. Ye’d be out o’ harm’s reach then, an’ a good job too.”
For answer Rhys looked at him with a smile, not as though he were smiling at him, but at something which he saw in his mind.
“No,” he said, shaking his head; “no, no.”
“Nonsense,” rejoined Bumpett smartly. “I’m not trifling now, and out o’ this ye’ll have to go, my lad.”
“Not I,” said Rhys, his eyes hardening.
“I tell ’e, go ye shall!” cried the old man. “’Tis my place, not yours, an’ not another bite nor sup can ye get when I stop sendin’ the food that keeps ye. I can turn ye out, an’ I will too.”
“You daren’t do that,” said the other, looking sideways at him; “there’s no manner of use trying to frighten me. Put me out of this house, and it’s you that’ll have to be on your way to Cardiff, not me. And you’ll be too late.”
“I’m speakin’ for yer good,” began the Pig-driver again, seeing that threats could produce no effect. “Mind me, ye don’t hear nothing hid away in this black hole, but it’s different wi’ me. I get all the talk o’ the country-side, an’ I know the police has got their noses turned this way ever since ye let the fellar wi’ the dark lantern get sight o’ ye on the mountain. It was all written i’ the newspapers, so I did hear. Old Job Hondy in Crishowell was tellin’ me, for he got a loan of the paper from Parson Lewis.”
A ray of interest lit up Rhys’ face.
“And I’ll tell Hondy to ask for a sight of it again,” continued Bumpett, seeing that he had caught the other’s attention, “an’ bring it up to show ye; leastways, if it’s not lost wi’ all the moyther he’s had i’ the house wi’ that young miss o’ his.”
“What do you say?” exclaimed Walters, coming closer to Bumpett.
“I said I’d get the newspaper an’ show ye what ye’ve done wi’ yer tomfooleries.”
“What did you say about Mr. Lewis?” cried Rhys, taking hold of the Pig-driver.
“I said he was likely moythered wi’ that young niece of his and her doin’s.”
“But she is in Hereford,” broke out the young man.
“In Hereford? Not she. She’s off to London wi’ young Squire Fenton. Run out one mornin’ when the old boy was between the blankets an’ up to Hereford an’ got married to him. He’s been left a fine fortune. She didn’t forget that, I’ll be bound, no, no indeed.”
Bumpett had hardly time to end his sentence before Rhys sprang at him like a wild cat and gripped him by the collar.
“Liar!” he shouted, “liar! liar!”
At every word he shook the old man as though he would jerk the life out of him.
The Pig-driver, though naturally cautious, was not altogether a coward, and rage and bewilderment are sharp spurs. He struck out as fiercely as he could; words were impossible, for he had not the breath with which to utter them. When Walters threw him back into the chair from which he had dragged him, he was livid and lay against the back of it with hardly strength left in him to speak.
“That’s not true!” shouted Rhys, standing over him. “It’s a lie! Speak up, or I’ll twist your neck like a jackdaw’s!”
His face was twitching all over and his hands clasped and unclasped themselves.
The Pig-driver opened his mouth.
“The truth!” cried Rhys, “do you hear? The truth, or out of this you don’t go a living man!”
“I’ve told ye the truth,” snarled Bumpett. “’Twas no more nor last week, an’ every one knows it now.”
“It can’t be, it can’t be.”
“But I tell ye it is,” cried Bumpett, turning the knife in the wound. “She’s a tiert lass, she is, not one o’ the sort that gives a bean for a pea.”
There was the silence of a moment, and there broke from Rhys a cry so bitter, so despairing, that it seemed as though the heart from whose depths it came had broken. Then hesank down by the table, and, laying his head on his arms, sobbed like a little child, with his face hidden on the sleeve of his shabby coat.
It was not until the Pig-driver had been long gone that he raised himself. The light had sputtered out beside him, and he got up and groped his way to the ladder. He climbed to the room above, crossed the threshold into the night, and set his face to the hills.
1A broken jug.