Volume One—Chapter Eight.Mars in the Ascendant.“Better get it over,” said Captain Rolph, the next day, as he indulged himself in what he called a short “spin” down the lane by the side of The Warren, and in the direction of the Alleynes’ home, which stood up, grim and bleak, out of the sandy desert land. “What with the old man, and the major, and the mater, and Madge, and—oh, hang it all! I’m not going to stand any humbug from Judy, and so I tell her. There, I’ll go and get it over at once.”He stopped running, braced himself up, and marched in regular military fashion, back to The Warren, to see Marjorie seated at one of the front windows, ready to give him a smile in response to his short nod.The next moment he stopped short, gazing sharply down the avenue at the broad, bent back of the keeper, who, with head down, was striding away toward the gate.“What’s he been here for?—to see me?”Rolph entered the house, walked noisily into his study—a gun-room, for the study of fowling-pieces and fishing rods, with a museum-like collection of prize cups and belts dotted about, in company with trophies of the chase, heads, horns and skins. Here he rang the bell, which was very promptly answered by the butler, Captain Rolph being a follower of the celebrated Count Shucksen, and using so much military drill-sergeant powder with his orders that they went home at once.“Hayle been to see me, Smith?” he asked, sharply.“No, sir. Came to bring up your guns after my mistress had been down to the keeper’s lodge this morning.”“Brought up my guns,” said Rolph, wonderingly. “What for?”The man looked at him rather curiously in silence.“Well, idiot, why don’t you speak?”“Not my business, sir. In trouble, I suppose. Benjamin Hayle and me has never been friends, and so he said nothing, on’y one word as he went out.”“And what was that?”“Sack, sir—sack!”“That’ll do.”“Yes, sir—I knew it would come some day,” said the butler to himself. “Sticking up a notorious poacher on a level with respectable servants, and putting his daughter over ’em, making my lady of her. But pride always did have a fall.”“Humph!” muttered Rolph, with a laugh, “the old girl strikes first blow without knowing what was coming. All right. Now for it. Just as well, perhaps. But he was a good keeper.”He went out into the hall just in time to meet Marjorie, who was tripping blithely down the stairs, singing the while.“What a lovely day it is, Rob,” she said.“Is it?” he said grimly.“Isn’t it, dear? Why, what’s the matter? Are you going in to see auntie on business?”“Yes, on that business. Did you and my mother hatch up that dodge between you?”“I don’t know what you mean, Rob.”“Of course not, my clever little schemer. Come in, too, and hear how I’ve flanked you both.”A sudden change came over the girl’s smiling countenance, with its air of wonder, and it was with a vindictive flash of her eyes that she suddenly caught Rolph by the arm.“Not married?” she said in a harsh whisper.“No; not yet.”“Hah!”It was a catching sigh of relief as Rolph threw open the drawing-room door, and, with mock politeness, stood aside for Marjorie to enter.Mrs Rolph looked troubled and disturbed, and evidently welcomed the appearance of Marjorie, making a sign for the girl to come to her side, and then drawing herself up in her most stately way ready to receive her son’s attack, which was not long in coming.“Why did you go to Hayle’s this morning?”“On business, Rob.”“What for?”“To tell him that the time had come when I required his services no longer, and that he must go at once.”“What! My keeper?”“Mine, Robert,” said Mrs Rolph, firmly. “You forget the terms of your father’s will. You have your income; I have mine, with undisturbed possession of everything at The Warren while I live. You occupy the position of my guest when you are here.”“Humph! all right. And so you have discharged Ben, eh? When does he go?”“To-day.”“Sharp practice, mother; and all because poor Judy is pretty.”“And all because, as I told him, I wished to save—I will speak plainly, even in your cousin’s presence—a weak, vain girl from disgrace.”“Humph! pretty plain speaking that, mother.”“There are times when plain speaking is necessary, my son, and when strong action is required to save you from the consequences of a mad passion.”“Rubbish!”“What! Don’t you know Ben Hayle better than that? Do you think he is the man to sit down quietly when he knows the truth? Have you not seen that the foolish fellow believes thoroughly what he as good as told me to my face this morning—that he expects to see his daughter some day mistress here?”“Ben Hayle’s a fool,” cried Rolph, angrily, “and you and Madge here are half-crazy. Let’s have an end of it. Once for all, mother, I mean to do exactly as I like, and I have done as I liked.”Mrs Rolph started forward in her chair, and Marjorie’s lips tightened.“What do you mean, Rob?” cried the former.“You want to see me married, I believe?”“I want to see you prove yourself an honourable gentleman—a worthy son of your father, not a man for whom I should blush.”“All right, then. I’ve taken the right steps for settling into a quiet, country gentleman. I’m going to be married.”Marjorie’s eyes flashed.“Rob, you will not be so mad as to marry that girl?”“Yes, I shall,” he said coolly.“Then I have done with you for ever. Judith Hayle may come here when I am in my grave, but till then—”“Let the churchyard alone, mother. Do you think I’m such a fool as to marry a poacher’s daughter?”“Rob! Then you have repented!” cried Mrs Rolph excitedly, and Marjorie trembled and sank upon her knees to cling to her aunt’s waist.“Oh, yes, I’ve repented, and I’m going to be a very good boy and get married soon.”“Madge, my dear child!” cried Mrs Rolph, embracing the girl at her feet.“There, don’t get filling her head full of false hopes, the same as you did Judy Hayle’s mother,” said Rolph brutally. “I went yesterday and proposed, and have been accepted.”Marjorie’s breath came and went in a low hiss as she turned her wild eyes upon her cousin.“Proposed? To whom? Rob, not to that pert, penniless girl at The Firs?”“What, the moon-shooter’s sister!” cried Rolph. “Hah! nice, little, bright-eyed thing. But no: try again.”Mrs Rolph rose excitedly from her chair, and Marjorie’s hands dropped from her waist as she crouched lower upon the carpet.“Not John Day’s daughter—Glynne?”“Good guess, mother. Glynne Day is to be my wife by-and-by. The old man is agreeable and the major isn’t. So now, the sooner you go and call upon them and make it all right the better.”Poor Marjorie dropped out of Mrs Rolph’s sight.“Rob! my dear boy!” she cried as she flung her arms about her son’s neck to kiss him fondly, while Marjorie rose slowly, looking white even to her lips, and with a peculiar smile dawning upon them as her eyes flashed upon the group before her.“I knew I could trust you, Rob,” cried Mrs Rolph; and then, recollecting herself, “Madge, my poor child, I am very sorry, but, you see, it was not to be.”“No, auntie dear,” said the girl, with the smile growing more marked; “marriages are made in Heaven, you know. I shall not mind—much. Of course the great aim of all our lives was to see dear Rob happy. Glynne Day is very beautiful and sweet, and a daughter of whom you will be quite proud. I should be deceitful if I did not own to being grievously disappointed, but, as was natural, Rob’s love for me has only been that of a brother for a sister”—she fixed Rolph’s eyes as she spoke, and his turned shiftily away—“and if I have been a little silly, the pain will soon wear off. Glynne Day. How nice. I’m sure I shall love her very much, though she is rather cold. Isn’t she, Rob?”“That is very nice of you, Madge, my dear,” said Mrs Rolph, embracing her niece. “And who knows how soon another prince may come, my dear.”“Oh, aunt!”“And you will try to forget all this?”“Of course, aunt, dear. It was fate,” said the girl innocently.“And—and you will not mind going over to Brackley with me to call?”“I, mind? Oh, auntie, I should be horribly disappointed if you did not take me. There, Rob,” she continued, with a little sigh, “that’s all over, and I congratulate you—brother; and I shall kiss dearest Glynne as I kiss you now.”“Humph! thought she was going to bite me,” muttered Rolph. Then aloud, “Well, Madge, it was a bit of a flirtation, I own. Now, then, as you’ve behaved like a trump, so will I. What shall it be—a pearl locket, or diamonds, or a bracelet?”“Oh, how good and generous you are, Rob dear. How nice of you!” cried Marjorie in gushing tones. “I have so often longed for a sapphire bracelet.”“Then you shall have one,” said Rolph, but not quite so warmly as he had spoken before. “I’m off now.”“Won’t you stay to lunch, dear?” said Mrs Rolph.“No. I shall have a sandwich in my room. I’m training. I say! can you go over this afternoon?”“Of course we will, dear,” said Mrs Rolph, warmly; and there was a look of relief in her eyes.“Then that’s all settled,” said Rolph; and he left the room, not noticing the hard look in his cousin’s eyes. “Sorry about poor old Ben Hayle,” he muttered as he went to his own room. “But perhaps it’s best. Going to be married, and must be a good boy now.”Then a thought struck him, and he hurried back to the drawing-room, to surprise Marjorie upon her knees, with her face buried in Mrs Rolph’s lap.“Oh, beg pardon,” he said, hastily; “but look here, mother; don’t be quite so hard on Ben Hayle. I mean as to a day or two.”“Leave that to me, Rob—please,” said Mrs Rolph.“Oh, all right,” he cried, and he went right off this time. “Poor little Madge! but she won’t be long before she hooks another fish. Bet a sov. she tries it on with the astronomer; but I must go and smooth it down a bit at the lodge. What a blessing it is to have nearly enough coin. That bracelet did wonders; but Judy mustn’t play quite so high, and, as for Ben—well he’s my mother’s man, and—I know; I’ll let him keep that old gun.”
“Better get it over,” said Captain Rolph, the next day, as he indulged himself in what he called a short “spin” down the lane by the side of The Warren, and in the direction of the Alleynes’ home, which stood up, grim and bleak, out of the sandy desert land. “What with the old man, and the major, and the mater, and Madge, and—oh, hang it all! I’m not going to stand any humbug from Judy, and so I tell her. There, I’ll go and get it over at once.”
He stopped running, braced himself up, and marched in regular military fashion, back to The Warren, to see Marjorie seated at one of the front windows, ready to give him a smile in response to his short nod.
The next moment he stopped short, gazing sharply down the avenue at the broad, bent back of the keeper, who, with head down, was striding away toward the gate.
“What’s he been here for?—to see me?”
Rolph entered the house, walked noisily into his study—a gun-room, for the study of fowling-pieces and fishing rods, with a museum-like collection of prize cups and belts dotted about, in company with trophies of the chase, heads, horns and skins. Here he rang the bell, which was very promptly answered by the butler, Captain Rolph being a follower of the celebrated Count Shucksen, and using so much military drill-sergeant powder with his orders that they went home at once.
“Hayle been to see me, Smith?” he asked, sharply.
“No, sir. Came to bring up your guns after my mistress had been down to the keeper’s lodge this morning.”
“Brought up my guns,” said Rolph, wonderingly. “What for?”
The man looked at him rather curiously in silence.
“Well, idiot, why don’t you speak?”
“Not my business, sir. In trouble, I suppose. Benjamin Hayle and me has never been friends, and so he said nothing, on’y one word as he went out.”
“And what was that?”
“Sack, sir—sack!”
“That’ll do.”
“Yes, sir—I knew it would come some day,” said the butler to himself. “Sticking up a notorious poacher on a level with respectable servants, and putting his daughter over ’em, making my lady of her. But pride always did have a fall.”
“Humph!” muttered Rolph, with a laugh, “the old girl strikes first blow without knowing what was coming. All right. Now for it. Just as well, perhaps. But he was a good keeper.”
He went out into the hall just in time to meet Marjorie, who was tripping blithely down the stairs, singing the while.
“What a lovely day it is, Rob,” she said.
“Is it?” he said grimly.
“Isn’t it, dear? Why, what’s the matter? Are you going in to see auntie on business?”
“Yes, on that business. Did you and my mother hatch up that dodge between you?”
“I don’t know what you mean, Rob.”
“Of course not, my clever little schemer. Come in, too, and hear how I’ve flanked you both.”
A sudden change came over the girl’s smiling countenance, with its air of wonder, and it was with a vindictive flash of her eyes that she suddenly caught Rolph by the arm.
“Not married?” she said in a harsh whisper.
“No; not yet.”
“Hah!”
It was a catching sigh of relief as Rolph threw open the drawing-room door, and, with mock politeness, stood aside for Marjorie to enter.
Mrs Rolph looked troubled and disturbed, and evidently welcomed the appearance of Marjorie, making a sign for the girl to come to her side, and then drawing herself up in her most stately way ready to receive her son’s attack, which was not long in coming.
“Why did you go to Hayle’s this morning?”
“On business, Rob.”
“What for?”
“To tell him that the time had come when I required his services no longer, and that he must go at once.”
“What! My keeper?”
“Mine, Robert,” said Mrs Rolph, firmly. “You forget the terms of your father’s will. You have your income; I have mine, with undisturbed possession of everything at The Warren while I live. You occupy the position of my guest when you are here.”
“Humph! all right. And so you have discharged Ben, eh? When does he go?”
“To-day.”
“Sharp practice, mother; and all because poor Judy is pretty.”
“And all because, as I told him, I wished to save—I will speak plainly, even in your cousin’s presence—a weak, vain girl from disgrace.”
“Humph! pretty plain speaking that, mother.”
“There are times when plain speaking is necessary, my son, and when strong action is required to save you from the consequences of a mad passion.”
“Rubbish!”
“What! Don’t you know Ben Hayle better than that? Do you think he is the man to sit down quietly when he knows the truth? Have you not seen that the foolish fellow believes thoroughly what he as good as told me to my face this morning—that he expects to see his daughter some day mistress here?”
“Ben Hayle’s a fool,” cried Rolph, angrily, “and you and Madge here are half-crazy. Let’s have an end of it. Once for all, mother, I mean to do exactly as I like, and I have done as I liked.”
Mrs Rolph started forward in her chair, and Marjorie’s lips tightened.
“What do you mean, Rob?” cried the former.
“You want to see me married, I believe?”
“I want to see you prove yourself an honourable gentleman—a worthy son of your father, not a man for whom I should blush.”
“All right, then. I’ve taken the right steps for settling into a quiet, country gentleman. I’m going to be married.”
Marjorie’s eyes flashed.
“Rob, you will not be so mad as to marry that girl?”
“Yes, I shall,” he said coolly.
“Then I have done with you for ever. Judith Hayle may come here when I am in my grave, but till then—”
“Let the churchyard alone, mother. Do you think I’m such a fool as to marry a poacher’s daughter?”
“Rob! Then you have repented!” cried Mrs Rolph excitedly, and Marjorie trembled and sank upon her knees to cling to her aunt’s waist.
“Oh, yes, I’ve repented, and I’m going to be a very good boy and get married soon.”
“Madge, my dear child!” cried Mrs Rolph, embracing the girl at her feet.
“There, don’t get filling her head full of false hopes, the same as you did Judy Hayle’s mother,” said Rolph brutally. “I went yesterday and proposed, and have been accepted.”
Marjorie’s breath came and went in a low hiss as she turned her wild eyes upon her cousin.
“Proposed? To whom? Rob, not to that pert, penniless girl at The Firs?”
“What, the moon-shooter’s sister!” cried Rolph. “Hah! nice, little, bright-eyed thing. But no: try again.”
Mrs Rolph rose excitedly from her chair, and Marjorie’s hands dropped from her waist as she crouched lower upon the carpet.
“Not John Day’s daughter—Glynne?”
“Good guess, mother. Glynne Day is to be my wife by-and-by. The old man is agreeable and the major isn’t. So now, the sooner you go and call upon them and make it all right the better.”
Poor Marjorie dropped out of Mrs Rolph’s sight.
“Rob! my dear boy!” she cried as she flung her arms about her son’s neck to kiss him fondly, while Marjorie rose slowly, looking white even to her lips, and with a peculiar smile dawning upon them as her eyes flashed upon the group before her.
“I knew I could trust you, Rob,” cried Mrs Rolph; and then, recollecting herself, “Madge, my poor child, I am very sorry, but, you see, it was not to be.”
“No, auntie dear,” said the girl, with the smile growing more marked; “marriages are made in Heaven, you know. I shall not mind—much. Of course the great aim of all our lives was to see dear Rob happy. Glynne Day is very beautiful and sweet, and a daughter of whom you will be quite proud. I should be deceitful if I did not own to being grievously disappointed, but, as was natural, Rob’s love for me has only been that of a brother for a sister”—she fixed Rolph’s eyes as she spoke, and his turned shiftily away—“and if I have been a little silly, the pain will soon wear off. Glynne Day. How nice. I’m sure I shall love her very much, though she is rather cold. Isn’t she, Rob?”
“That is very nice of you, Madge, my dear,” said Mrs Rolph, embracing her niece. “And who knows how soon another prince may come, my dear.”
“Oh, aunt!”
“And you will try to forget all this?”
“Of course, aunt, dear. It was fate,” said the girl innocently.
“And—and you will not mind going over to Brackley with me to call?”
“I, mind? Oh, auntie, I should be horribly disappointed if you did not take me. There, Rob,” she continued, with a little sigh, “that’s all over, and I congratulate you—brother; and I shall kiss dearest Glynne as I kiss you now.”
“Humph! thought she was going to bite me,” muttered Rolph. Then aloud, “Well, Madge, it was a bit of a flirtation, I own. Now, then, as you’ve behaved like a trump, so will I. What shall it be—a pearl locket, or diamonds, or a bracelet?”
“Oh, how good and generous you are, Rob dear. How nice of you!” cried Marjorie in gushing tones. “I have so often longed for a sapphire bracelet.”
“Then you shall have one,” said Rolph, but not quite so warmly as he had spoken before. “I’m off now.”
“Won’t you stay to lunch, dear?” said Mrs Rolph.
“No. I shall have a sandwich in my room. I’m training. I say! can you go over this afternoon?”
“Of course we will, dear,” said Mrs Rolph, warmly; and there was a look of relief in her eyes.
“Then that’s all settled,” said Rolph; and he left the room, not noticing the hard look in his cousin’s eyes. “Sorry about poor old Ben Hayle,” he muttered as he went to his own room. “But perhaps it’s best. Going to be married, and must be a good boy now.”
Then a thought struck him, and he hurried back to the drawing-room, to surprise Marjorie upon her knees, with her face buried in Mrs Rolph’s lap.
“Oh, beg pardon,” he said, hastily; “but look here, mother; don’t be quite so hard on Ben Hayle. I mean as to a day or two.”
“Leave that to me, Rob—please,” said Mrs Rolph.
“Oh, all right,” he cried, and he went right off this time. “Poor little Madge! but she won’t be long before she hooks another fish. Bet a sov. she tries it on with the astronomer; but I must go and smooth it down a bit at the lodge. What a blessing it is to have nearly enough coin. That bracelet did wonders; but Judy mustn’t play quite so high, and, as for Ben—well he’s my mother’s man, and—I know; I’ll let him keep that old gun.”
Volume One—Chapter Nine.Attraction and Repulsion.Rolph dined at Brackley that evening, and found Sir John in the best of spirits. Glynne was bright and eager to show him the progress she had made with her painting, at the sight of which he started as they stood together in the drawing-room.“But I say, Glynne, you know, this is doosid clever and ought to go to the Academy; only, hang it all! you mustn’t get painting fellows like that.”“Why not?”“Because—because—well, you see the fellow’s a regular scamp—dangerous sort of a character, you know—been in prison for poaching, and that sort of thing.”“But he’s such a patient model.”“Model, eh? Not my idea of a model. Look here, if you want some one to sit, you shall have me.”The conversation changed to the visit she had received that afternoon; and Glynne in her new excitement was rapturous about “dear Mrs Rolph,” but rather lukewarm about her niece, and Rolph noticed it.“Madge nice to you?” he said.“Your cousin? Oh, yes,” replied Glynne, thoughtfully. “She seemed rather shy and strange at first, but soon got over that. We have always been a little distant, for I think I was too quiet for her; but of course we shall be like sisters now.”“H’m, yes, I suppose so. But Madge is rather a strange girl.”The dinner passed off pretty well. Rolph drinking a good deal of the baronet’s favourite claret, and every now and then finding the major’s eyes fixed upon him in rather a searching way which he did not like; but on the whole, Major Day was pleasant and gentlemanly, and rather given to sigh on seeing how happy and bright his niece looked. When at last she rose during dessert, and Rolph opened the door for her to pass out to the drawing-room, he was obliged to own that they would make a handsome couple, and on seeing his brother’s inquiring glance, he nodded back to him, making Sir John look pleased.“I’ve no right to object if they are satisfied,” he said to himself; “but he is not the fellow I should have chosen.”All the same, he shook hands warmly enough when Rolph left that night.“Jack,” he said, as he sat with his brother over their last cigar, “I think I may as well get married now.”“You think what!” cried Sir John dropping his cigar.“I think I shall get married. I mean, when Glynne has gone.”“I should like to catch you at it!” growled Sir John. “When Glynne goes you’ve got to stop with me.”“Ah, well we shall see,” said the major, whose eyes were fixed on the dark corner of the smoking-room, where he could see a fir glade with a pretty, bright little figure stooping over a ring of dark-coloured fungi—“we shall see. Glynne isn’t married yet.”The next morning, soon after breakfast, Rolph started off for a run, for he was training for an event, he said, the run taking him in the direction of the preserves about an hour later.He had gone for some distance along the path, but he leaped over a fence now and began to thread his way through a pine wood, where every step was over the thick grey needles; and as he walked he from time to time kicked over one of the bright red or speckled grey fungi which grew beneath the trees.He had about half a mile to go through this wood; the birch plantation and the low copse, and then through the grove in one of the openings of which, and surrounded by firs, stood the keeper’s cottage.He pressed on through the fir wood, then across the birch plantation, where the partridges loved to hide, and the copse where the poachers knew the pheasants roosted on the uncut trees at the edge, but dared not go, because it was so near the keeper’s cottage.Then on to Thoreby Wood, in and out among the bronze-red fir-tree trunks, under the dark green boughs, where the wind was always moaning, as if the sea shore was nigh, and the bed of needles silenced his footfalls, for the way was easy now. In another minute he would be out of the clearing, close to the cottage—at the back.“Why, there she is,” he said to himself, with his heart giving a throb of satisfaction, as he saw before him a girl standing where the sun shone down through the opening where the cottage stood, and half threw up the figure as it rested one hand upon a tree trunk and leaned forward as if gazing out from the edge of the wood at something in the opening beyond.Rolph stopped short, to stand gazing at her admiringly.“What is she watching?” he said to himself, then, smiling as the explanation came.“Been feeding the pheasants,” he thought. “She has thrown them some grain, and they have come out by the cottage.”“Yes,” he continued, “she is watching them feed, and is standing back so as not to scare them. Poor beggars! what a shame it seems to go and murder them after they have been reared at home and fed like this.”He hesitated for a few moments, and then began to walk swiftly on, with hushed footsteps, toward where the figure stood, a hundred yards away.When he saw her first, he was able to gaze down a narrow lane of trees, but a deep gully ran along there, necessitating his diverging from that part, and going in and out among the tall trunks, sometimes catching a glimpse of the watcher, sometimes for her to be hidden from his sight. And so it was that when at last he came out suddenly, he was not five yards behind her, but unheard. He stopped short, startled and astonished. For it was not Judith who stood watching there so intently.Madge! there!At that moment, as if she were impressed by his presence, Marjorie Emlin rose partly erect, drawing back out of the sunshine, and quite involuntarily turning to gaze full in Rolph’s face, her own fixed in its expression of malignant joy, as if she had just seen something which had given her the most profound satisfaction. She was laughing, her lips drawn away from her teeth, and her eyes, in the semi-darkness of the fir wood, dilated and glowing with a strange light.For a moment or two she gazed straight at Rolph, seeing him, but not seeming to realise his presence. Then there was a rapid change of her expression, the malignant look of joy became one of shame, fear, and the horror of being surprised.“You here, Madge!” he said at last, in a hoarse whisper lest Judith should know that she was being watched. “What does this mean?”She looked at him wildly, and began to creep away, as one might from some creature which fascinated and yet filled with fear.She was still shrinking away, but he had caught her wrist and held it firmly as she glared at him, till, with a sudden effort, she tried to wrest herself away.There was no struggle, for he suddenly cast her away from him, realising in an instant the reason of her presence and of this malignant look of satisfaction, for, as Madge darted away, he rushed into the opening where the cottage stood, in response to a wild cry for help.He reached the porch in time to catch Judith on his arm, as she was running from the place, and receive Caleb Kent who was in full pursuit, with his right fist thrown out with all his might.The impact of two bodies at speed is tremendous, and scientific people of a mathematical turn assure us that when such bodies do meet they fly off at a tangent.They may have done so here, but, according to matter-of-fact notions, Rolph’s fist and arm flew round Judith afterwards, to help the other hold her trembling and throbbing to his heart; while Caleb Kent’s head went down with a heavy, resounding bump on the tiled floor of the little entry.Then Judith shrank away, and Rolph in his rage planted his foot on Caleb Kent’s chest, as the fellow lay back, apparently stunned.But there was a good deal of the wild beast about Caleb Kent. He lay still for a few moments, and then, quick and active as a cat, he twisted himself sidewise and sprang up, his mouth cut and bleeding, his features distorted with passion; and, starting back, he snatched a long knife from his pocket, threw open the blade, and made a spring at Rolph.Judith uttered a cry of horror, but there was no occasion for her dread, for, quick in his action as the young poacher, Rolph struck up the attacking arm, and the next moment Caleb Kent was outside, with his opponent following him watchfully.“Keep of!” snarled Caleb, “or I’ll have your blood. All right: I see; but never mind, my turn will come yet. If I wait for years, I’ll make this straight.”And then as Rolph made a rush at him, he dodged aside and darted into the fir wood, running so swiftly that his adversary felt it would be useless to pursue.Neither did he wish to, for Judith was standing there by the porch, looking wild-eyed and ghastly.“You—you are hurt,” she faltered.“Hurt!” he cried, as he clasped her once more in his arms. “No, no, tell me about yourself. Curse him! what did he say?”“I was alone here and busy when he came. He has followed me about from a child and frightened me. To-day he walked straight in and roughly told me that he loved me, and that I must be his wife.”She shuddered.“The insolent gaol-bird!”“He frightened me, though I tried very hard to be firm, and ordered him to leave the place; but he only laughed at me, and caught me in his arms, and tried to kiss me. I was struggling with him for a long time, and no help seemed to be coming. I screamed out, and that frightened him, and he left me; but, before I could fasten the door, he came back and spoke gently to me, but when I would not listen to him, he tried to seize me again, and I cried for help, and you—”She did not shrink this time, as, throbbing with passion, and uttering threats against the scoundrel, Rolph once more folded her in his arms.Again she struggled from him, trembling.“I am not doing right,” she said firmly. “If you love me, Rob—”“If I love you!” he said reproachfully.“I am sure you have pity for me,” she said, taking his hand and raising it to her lips, to utter a cry of horror, for the hand was bleeding freely, and the ruddy current dyed her lips.“Hurt in my defence,” she said with a pained smile, as she bound her own handkerchief about the bleeding knuckles.“I’d die in your defence,” he whispered passionately; “your protector always, dearest.”“Then protect me now,” she said, “that I am weak, and let me trust in you. You wish me to be your wife, Robert?”“Eh? Yes, of course, of course,” he said hurriedly.“And you won’t let your mother sending me away make any difference?”“How could it, little stupid! I’m not a boy,” he said, banteringly. “But I must go now, and, as for Master Caleb Kent, I’ll just set the policeman on his track.”“But that will mean his being taken before the magistrates, Rob.”“Yes, and a long spell for him this time, or I’ll know the reason why.”“No, no,” cried the girl, hurriedly. “You mustn’t do that.”“Why?”“Because he hates you enough as it is. He said he’d kill you.”“Will he?” muttered Rolph, between his teeth.“And I should have to go before the magistrates as a witness; and there’s no knowing what Caleb might say.”Rolph looked at her searchingly, while she clung to him till he promised to let the matter rest.“But suppose he comes again?”“Father will take care of that,” she said confidently. “But do mind yourself as you go. Caleb may be hiding, and waiting for you.”“To come back here,” he said sharply.“If he does, he’ll find the door locked,” said Judith quietly. “Must you go now?”“Yes: your father may come back.”“But that doesn’t matter now, Rob, does it? Why not tell him we’re engaged?”“No, no: not yet. Leave that to me. Good-bye, now.”He drew the clinging arms from about his neck rather roughly, gave the girl’s lips a hasty kiss, and hurried out and across the clearing, turning back twice as he went to see Judith looking after him, with her face shadowed by tears, and then, as their eyes encountered, beaming with sunshine. And again, after he had passed out of sight, he stole back through the trees to find that she was still wistfully gazing at the spot where she saw him last.And, as unseen he watched her, his thoughts were many upon her unprotected state, and as to whether he ought not to stay until her father’s return.“No,” he said, “the beggar will not dare to come back!” and, after making a circuit of the place, and searching in all directions, he walked thoughtfully away, thinking of what must be done with regard to Caleb Kent, and then about his cousin, against whom his indignation grew hotter the more he thought of what he had seen.“She must have known that Caleb was in the cottage insulting Judith, and she was glorying in it and would not stir a step to save her, when her presence would have been enough to drive the beggar away. Oh, it seems impossible that a woman could be so spiteful. Hang it! Madge has got hold of that now. It’s like being at her mercy. Phew! I’m getting myself in a devil of a mess. I meant to fight shy of her now altogether, but of course no fellow could help running to save a woman in distress.”He stopped short, for a sudden thought struck him.“Then Judy hasn’t heard about Glynne yet. Confound it all! what a tangle I’m getting in.”He took out and lit a cigar. Then smoking rapidly, he felt better.“All right,” he muttered; “the old woman sets that square, and the sooner they’re off the estate the better for everybody. But there’s no mistake about it, Judy is deuced nice after all.”“Day, sir,” said a sharp voice, and Rolph started round to find himself face to face with Hayle.“Ah, Ben!—you!”“Yes, sir, me it is,” said the keeper, sternly. “Down, dogs!”This to the animals which began to play about the captain.“Oh, let ’em be,” said Rolph, patting one of the setters on the head.“Never mind the dogs, sir. I’ve got something more serious to think about. I suppose you know as the missus has sacked me, and we’re off?”“Yes, Ben, I know; but it was no doing of mine.”“I never thought it was, sir; but me and Judy’s to go at once—anywhere, for aught she cares. She’d like me to emigrate, I think.”“No, don’t do that, Ben. England’s big enough.”“For some people, sir. I don’t know as it is for me. Well, sir, I’m sacked, and I dare say it will be a long time before anyone will take me on. My character usen’t to be of the best, and the reasons for going ’ll be again me. Of course you know why it is.”“Well—er—I suppose—”“That’ll do, sir. You know well enough, it’s about you and my Judy.”The captain laughed.“There, sir, you needn’t shuffle with me. I’m my gal’s father, and we may as well understand one another.”“My good fellow, recollect whom you are talking to,” said the captain, haughtily.“I do, sir. My late missus’s son; and I recollect that I’m nobody’s servant now, only an Englishman as can speak out free like. So I say this out plain. Of course, after what’s been going on, you mean to marry my Judith?”“Marry her? Well—er—Ben—”“No, you don’t,” said the keeper fiercely, “so don’t tell me no lies, because I know you’ve been and got yourself engaged to young Miss Glynne over at Brackley.”“Well, sir, and if I have, what then?” said Rolph haughtily.“This, sir,” cried the keeper, with his eyes flashing, “that you’ve been playing a damned cowardly mean part to Miss Glynne and to my Judith. You’ve led my gal on to believe that you meant to marry her, and then you’ve thrown her over and took up with Sir John Day’s gal. And I tell you this; if my Judith hadn’t been what she is, and any harm had come of it, you might have said your prayers, for as sure as there’s two charges o’ shot in this here gun, I’d put one through you.”“What?”“You heared what I said, sir, and you know I’m a man of my word. And now, look here: you’ve been to the lodge to see Judith, for the last time, of course, for if ever you speak to her again, look out. Now, don’t deny it, my lad. You’ve been to my cottage, for it is mine till to-night.”“Yes, I have been to the lodge, Hayle,” said Rolph, who was thoroughly cowed by the keeper’s fierce manner. “I was going through the wood when, just as I drew near the cottage, I heard a cry for help.”“What?” roared Hayle.“I ran to the porch just as a man was after Miss Hayle—Steady there.”The sound was startling, for involuntarily the keeper had cocked both barrels of his gun; and, as he stood there with his eyes flashing, and the weapon trembling in the air, the three dogs looked as if turned to stone, their necks outstretched, heads down, and their long feathery tails rigid, waiting for the double report they felt must follow.“And—and—what did you do?” cried the keeper in a slow, hoarse voice, which, taken in conjunction with the rapid cocking of the gun, made Rolph think that, if it had been the father who had come upon that scene, there might have been a tragedy in Thoreby Wood that day.“I say, what did you do?” said the keeper again, in a voice full of suppressed passion.“That!” said Rolph, slowly raising his right hand to unwind from it Judith’s soft white handkerchief, now all stained with blood, and display his knuckles denuded of skin.“Hah!” ejaculated the keeper, as his eyes flashed. “God bless you for that, sir. You knocked him down?”“Of course.”“Yes—yes?”“And he jumped up and drew his knife and struck at me.”“But he didn’t hit you, sir; he didn’t hit you?” cried the keeper, forgetting everything in his excitement as he clutched the young man’s arm.“No; I was too quick for him; and then he ran off into the wood.”“Damn him!” roared the keeper. “If I had only been there this would have caught him,” he cried, patting the stock of his gun. “I’d have set the dogs on him after I’d given him a couple of charges of shot; I would, sir, so help me God.”The veins were standing out all over the keeper’s brow, as he ground his teeth and shook his great heavy fist.“But wait a bit. It won’t be long before we meet.”“I am very glad you were not there, Hayle,” said Rolph, after watching the play of the father’s features for a few moments.“Why, sir, why?”“Because I don’t want to have you take your trial for manslaughter.”“No, no; I had enough of that over the breaking of Jack Harris’s head, sir; but—”“Yes, but,” said Rolph, quickly, “I wanted to talk to you about that.”“It was Caleb Kent,” said the keeper, with sudden excitement.“Yes, it was Caleb Kent.”“I might have known it; he was always for following her about. Curse him! But talking’s no good, sir; and, perhaps, it’s as well I wasn’t there. Thankye, sir, for that. It makes us something more like quits. As for Caleb Kent, perhaps I shall have a talk to him before I go. But mind you don’t speak to my Judy again.”He shouldered his gun, gave Rolph a nod, and then walked swiftly away, the dogs hesitating for a few moments, and then dashing off, to follow close at his heels.Rolph stood watching the keeper for a few minutes till he disappeared.“Well out of that trouble then,” he muttered. “Not pleasant for a fellow; it makes one feel so small. Poor little Judy! she’ll be horribly wild when she comes to know. What a lot of misery our marriage laws do cause in this precious world.”“Now then for home,” he said, after walking swiftly for a few minutes, and, “putting on a spurt” as he termed it, he reached the house and went straight to the library.He had entered and closed the door to sit down and have a good think about how he could “square Madge,” when he became aware that the lady in his thoughts was seated in one of the great arm-chairs with a book in her hand, which she pretended to read. She cowered as her cousin started, and stood gazing down at her with a frowning brow, and a look of utter disgust and contempt about his lips which made her bosom rise and fall rapidly.“Do you want this room, Rob?” she said, breaking an awkward silence.“Well, yes, after what took place this morning, you do make the place seem unpleasant,” he said coolly.“Oh, this is too much,” cried Madge, her face, the moment before deadly pale, now flushing scarlet, as she threw down the book she had held, and stood before him, biting her lips with rage.“Yes, too much.”“And have we been to the cottage to see the fair idol? Pray explain,” said Marjorie, who was beside herself with rage and jealousy. “I thought gentlemen who were engaged always made an end of their vulgar amours.”“Quite right,” said Rolph, meaningly. “I did begin, as you know.”She winced, and her eyes darted an angry flash at him.“You mean me,” she said, with her lips turning white.“I did not say so.”“But would it not have been better, now we are engaged to Glynne Day—I don’t understand these things, of course—but would it not have been better for a gentleman, now that he is engaged, to cease visiting that creature, and, above all, to keep away when he was not wanted?”“What do you mean?—not wanted?”“I mean when she was engaged with her lover, who was visiting her in her father’s absence.”“The scoundrel!” cried Rolph, fiercely.“Yes; a miserable, contemptible wretch, I suppose, but an old flame of hers.”“Look here, Madge; you’re saying all this to make me wild,” cried Rolph, “but it won’t do. You know it’s a lie.”Madge laughed unpleasantly.“It’s true. He was always after her. She told me so herself, and how glad she was that the wretch had been sent to prison—of course, because he was in the way just then.”“Go on,” growled Rolph. “A jealous woman will say anything.”“Jealous?—I?—Pah!—Only angry with myself because I was so weak as to listen to you.”“And I was so weak as to say anything to a malicious, deceitful cat of a girl, who is spiteful enough to do anything.”“I, spiteful?—Pah!”“Well, malicious then.”“Perhaps I shall be. I wonder what dear Glynne would say about this business. Suppose I told her that our honourable and gallant friend, as they call it in parliament, had been on a visit to that shameless creature whom poor auntie had been compelled to turn away from the house, and in his honourable and gallant visit arrived just in time to witness the end of a lover’s quarrel; perhaps you joined in for ought I know, and—I can’t help laughing—Poor fellow! You did. You have been fighting with your rival, and bruised your knuckles. Did he beat you much, Rob, and win?”Robert Rolph was dense and brutal enough, and his cousin’s words made him wince, but he looked at the speaker in disgust as the malevolence of her nature forced itself upon him more and more.“Well,” he cried at last, “I’ve seen some women in my time, but I never met one yet who could stand by and glory in seeing one whom she had looked upon as a sister insulted like poor Judy was.”“A sister!” cried Marjorie, contemptuously. “Absurd!—a low-born trull!”“Whom you called dear, and kissed often enough till you thought I liked her, and then—Hang it all, Madge, are you utterly without shame!”She shrank from him as if his words were thongs which cut into her flesh, but as he ceased speaking, with a passionate sob, she flung her arms about his neck, and clung tightly there.“Rob! Don’t, I can’t bear it,” she cried. “You don’t know what I have suffered—what agony all this has caused.”“There, there, that will do,” he said contemptuously. “I am engaged, my dear.”She sprang from him, and a fierce light burned in her eyes for a moment, but disappointment and her despair were too much for her, and she flung herself upon his breast.“No, no, Rob, dear, it isn’t true. I couldn’t help hating Judith or any woman who came between us. You don’t mean all this, and it is only to try me. You cannot—you shall not marry Glynne; and as to Judith, it is impossible now.”“Give over,” he said roughly, as he tried to free himself from her arms.“No, you sha’n’t go. I must tell you,” she whispered hoarsely amidst her sobs. “I hate Judith, but she is nothing—not worthy of a thought I will never mention her name to you again, dear.”“Don’t pray,” he cried sarcastically. “If you do, I shall always be seeing you gloating over her trouble as I saw you this morning.”“It was because I loved you so, Rob,” she murmured as she nestled to him. “It was because I felt that you were mine and mine only, after the past; and all that was forcing her away from you.”“Bah!” he cried savagely. “Madge! Don’t be a fool! Will you loosen your hands before I hurt you.”But she clung to him still.“No, not yet,” she whispered. “You made me love you, Rob, and I forget everything in that. Promise me first that you will break all that off about Glynne Day.”“I promise you that I’ll get your aunt to place you in a private asylum,” he cried brutally, “if you don’t leave go.”There was a slight struggle, and he tore himself free, holding her wrists together in his powerful grasp and keeping her at arm’s length.“There! Idiot!” he cried. “Must I hold you till you come to your senses.”“If you wish—brute!” she cried through her little white teeth as her lips were drawn away. “Kill me if you like now. I don’t care a bit: you can’t hurt me more than you have.”“If I hurt you, it serves you right. A nice, ladylike creature, ’pon my soul. Pity my mother hasn’t been here to see the kind of woman she wanted me to marry.”“Go on,” she whispered, “go on. Insult me: you have a right. Go on.”“I’m going off,” he said roughly. “There, go up to your room, and have a good hysterical cry and a wash, and come back to your senses. If you will have it you shall, and the whole truth too. I never cared a bit for you. It was all your own doing, leading me on. Want to go.”“Loose my hands, brute.”“For you to scratch my face, my red-haired pussy. Not such a fool. I know your sweet temper of old. If I let go, will you be quiet?”Marjorie made no reply, but she ceased to struggle and stood there with her wrists held, the white skin growing black—a prisoner—till, with a contemptuous laugh, he threw the little arms from him.“Go and tell Glynne everything you know—everything you have seen, if you like,” he said harshly, “only tell everything about yourself too, and then come back to me to be loved, my sweet, amiable, little white-faced tigress. I’m not afraid though, Madge. You can’t open those pretty lips of yours, can you? It might make others speak in their defence.”“Brute,” she whispered as she gazed at him defiantly and held out her bruised wrists.“Brute, am I? Well, let sleeping brutes lie. Don’t try to rouse them up for fear they should bite. Go to your room and bathe your pretty red eyes after having a good cry, and then come and tell me that you think it is best to cry truce, and forget all the past.”“Never, Rob, dear,” she said with a curious smile. “Go on; but mind this: you shall never marry Glynne Day.”“Sha’n’t I? We shall see. I think I can pull that off,” he cried with a mocking laugh. “But if I don’t, whom shall I marry?”She turned from him slowly, and then faced round again as she reached the door.“Me,” she said quietly; and the next minute Robert Rolph was alone.
Rolph dined at Brackley that evening, and found Sir John in the best of spirits. Glynne was bright and eager to show him the progress she had made with her painting, at the sight of which he started as they stood together in the drawing-room.
“But I say, Glynne, you know, this is doosid clever and ought to go to the Academy; only, hang it all! you mustn’t get painting fellows like that.”
“Why not?”
“Because—because—well, you see the fellow’s a regular scamp—dangerous sort of a character, you know—been in prison for poaching, and that sort of thing.”
“But he’s such a patient model.”
“Model, eh? Not my idea of a model. Look here, if you want some one to sit, you shall have me.”
The conversation changed to the visit she had received that afternoon; and Glynne in her new excitement was rapturous about “dear Mrs Rolph,” but rather lukewarm about her niece, and Rolph noticed it.
“Madge nice to you?” he said.
“Your cousin? Oh, yes,” replied Glynne, thoughtfully. “She seemed rather shy and strange at first, but soon got over that. We have always been a little distant, for I think I was too quiet for her; but of course we shall be like sisters now.”
“H’m, yes, I suppose so. But Madge is rather a strange girl.”
The dinner passed off pretty well. Rolph drinking a good deal of the baronet’s favourite claret, and every now and then finding the major’s eyes fixed upon him in rather a searching way which he did not like; but on the whole, Major Day was pleasant and gentlemanly, and rather given to sigh on seeing how happy and bright his niece looked. When at last she rose during dessert, and Rolph opened the door for her to pass out to the drawing-room, he was obliged to own that they would make a handsome couple, and on seeing his brother’s inquiring glance, he nodded back to him, making Sir John look pleased.
“I’ve no right to object if they are satisfied,” he said to himself; “but he is not the fellow I should have chosen.”
All the same, he shook hands warmly enough when Rolph left that night.
“Jack,” he said, as he sat with his brother over their last cigar, “I think I may as well get married now.”
“You think what!” cried Sir John dropping his cigar.
“I think I shall get married. I mean, when Glynne has gone.”
“I should like to catch you at it!” growled Sir John. “When Glynne goes you’ve got to stop with me.”
“Ah, well we shall see,” said the major, whose eyes were fixed on the dark corner of the smoking-room, where he could see a fir glade with a pretty, bright little figure stooping over a ring of dark-coloured fungi—“we shall see. Glynne isn’t married yet.”
The next morning, soon after breakfast, Rolph started off for a run, for he was training for an event, he said, the run taking him in the direction of the preserves about an hour later.
He had gone for some distance along the path, but he leaped over a fence now and began to thread his way through a pine wood, where every step was over the thick grey needles; and as he walked he from time to time kicked over one of the bright red or speckled grey fungi which grew beneath the trees.
He had about half a mile to go through this wood; the birch plantation and the low copse, and then through the grove in one of the openings of which, and surrounded by firs, stood the keeper’s cottage.
He pressed on through the fir wood, then across the birch plantation, where the partridges loved to hide, and the copse where the poachers knew the pheasants roosted on the uncut trees at the edge, but dared not go, because it was so near the keeper’s cottage.
Then on to Thoreby Wood, in and out among the bronze-red fir-tree trunks, under the dark green boughs, where the wind was always moaning, as if the sea shore was nigh, and the bed of needles silenced his footfalls, for the way was easy now. In another minute he would be out of the clearing, close to the cottage—at the back.
“Why, there she is,” he said to himself, with his heart giving a throb of satisfaction, as he saw before him a girl standing where the sun shone down through the opening where the cottage stood, and half threw up the figure as it rested one hand upon a tree trunk and leaned forward as if gazing out from the edge of the wood at something in the opening beyond.
Rolph stopped short, to stand gazing at her admiringly.
“What is she watching?” he said to himself, then, smiling as the explanation came.
“Been feeding the pheasants,” he thought. “She has thrown them some grain, and they have come out by the cottage.”
“Yes,” he continued, “she is watching them feed, and is standing back so as not to scare them. Poor beggars! what a shame it seems to go and murder them after they have been reared at home and fed like this.”
He hesitated for a few moments, and then began to walk swiftly on, with hushed footsteps, toward where the figure stood, a hundred yards away.
When he saw her first, he was able to gaze down a narrow lane of trees, but a deep gully ran along there, necessitating his diverging from that part, and going in and out among the tall trunks, sometimes catching a glimpse of the watcher, sometimes for her to be hidden from his sight. And so it was that when at last he came out suddenly, he was not five yards behind her, but unheard. He stopped short, startled and astonished. For it was not Judith who stood watching there so intently.
Madge! there!
At that moment, as if she were impressed by his presence, Marjorie Emlin rose partly erect, drawing back out of the sunshine, and quite involuntarily turning to gaze full in Rolph’s face, her own fixed in its expression of malignant joy, as if she had just seen something which had given her the most profound satisfaction. She was laughing, her lips drawn away from her teeth, and her eyes, in the semi-darkness of the fir wood, dilated and glowing with a strange light.
For a moment or two she gazed straight at Rolph, seeing him, but not seeming to realise his presence. Then there was a rapid change of her expression, the malignant look of joy became one of shame, fear, and the horror of being surprised.
“You here, Madge!” he said at last, in a hoarse whisper lest Judith should know that she was being watched. “What does this mean?”
She looked at him wildly, and began to creep away, as one might from some creature which fascinated and yet filled with fear.
She was still shrinking away, but he had caught her wrist and held it firmly as she glared at him, till, with a sudden effort, she tried to wrest herself away.
There was no struggle, for he suddenly cast her away from him, realising in an instant the reason of her presence and of this malignant look of satisfaction, for, as Madge darted away, he rushed into the opening where the cottage stood, in response to a wild cry for help.
He reached the porch in time to catch Judith on his arm, as she was running from the place, and receive Caleb Kent who was in full pursuit, with his right fist thrown out with all his might.
The impact of two bodies at speed is tremendous, and scientific people of a mathematical turn assure us that when such bodies do meet they fly off at a tangent.
They may have done so here, but, according to matter-of-fact notions, Rolph’s fist and arm flew round Judith afterwards, to help the other hold her trembling and throbbing to his heart; while Caleb Kent’s head went down with a heavy, resounding bump on the tiled floor of the little entry.
Then Judith shrank away, and Rolph in his rage planted his foot on Caleb Kent’s chest, as the fellow lay back, apparently stunned.
But there was a good deal of the wild beast about Caleb Kent. He lay still for a few moments, and then, quick and active as a cat, he twisted himself sidewise and sprang up, his mouth cut and bleeding, his features distorted with passion; and, starting back, he snatched a long knife from his pocket, threw open the blade, and made a spring at Rolph.
Judith uttered a cry of horror, but there was no occasion for her dread, for, quick in his action as the young poacher, Rolph struck up the attacking arm, and the next moment Caleb Kent was outside, with his opponent following him watchfully.
“Keep of!” snarled Caleb, “or I’ll have your blood. All right: I see; but never mind, my turn will come yet. If I wait for years, I’ll make this straight.”
And then as Rolph made a rush at him, he dodged aside and darted into the fir wood, running so swiftly that his adversary felt it would be useless to pursue.
Neither did he wish to, for Judith was standing there by the porch, looking wild-eyed and ghastly.
“You—you are hurt,” she faltered.
“Hurt!” he cried, as he clasped her once more in his arms. “No, no, tell me about yourself. Curse him! what did he say?”
“I was alone here and busy when he came. He has followed me about from a child and frightened me. To-day he walked straight in and roughly told me that he loved me, and that I must be his wife.”
She shuddered.
“The insolent gaol-bird!”
“He frightened me, though I tried very hard to be firm, and ordered him to leave the place; but he only laughed at me, and caught me in his arms, and tried to kiss me. I was struggling with him for a long time, and no help seemed to be coming. I screamed out, and that frightened him, and he left me; but, before I could fasten the door, he came back and spoke gently to me, but when I would not listen to him, he tried to seize me again, and I cried for help, and you—”
She did not shrink this time, as, throbbing with passion, and uttering threats against the scoundrel, Rolph once more folded her in his arms.
Again she struggled from him, trembling.
“I am not doing right,” she said firmly. “If you love me, Rob—”
“If I love you!” he said reproachfully.
“I am sure you have pity for me,” she said, taking his hand and raising it to her lips, to utter a cry of horror, for the hand was bleeding freely, and the ruddy current dyed her lips.
“Hurt in my defence,” she said with a pained smile, as she bound her own handkerchief about the bleeding knuckles.
“I’d die in your defence,” he whispered passionately; “your protector always, dearest.”
“Then protect me now,” she said, “that I am weak, and let me trust in you. You wish me to be your wife, Robert?”
“Eh? Yes, of course, of course,” he said hurriedly.
“And you won’t let your mother sending me away make any difference?”
“How could it, little stupid! I’m not a boy,” he said, banteringly. “But I must go now, and, as for Master Caleb Kent, I’ll just set the policeman on his track.”
“But that will mean his being taken before the magistrates, Rob.”
“Yes, and a long spell for him this time, or I’ll know the reason why.”
“No, no,” cried the girl, hurriedly. “You mustn’t do that.”
“Why?”
“Because he hates you enough as it is. He said he’d kill you.”
“Will he?” muttered Rolph, between his teeth.
“And I should have to go before the magistrates as a witness; and there’s no knowing what Caleb might say.”
Rolph looked at her searchingly, while she clung to him till he promised to let the matter rest.
“But suppose he comes again?”
“Father will take care of that,” she said confidently. “But do mind yourself as you go. Caleb may be hiding, and waiting for you.”
“To come back here,” he said sharply.
“If he does, he’ll find the door locked,” said Judith quietly. “Must you go now?”
“Yes: your father may come back.”
“But that doesn’t matter now, Rob, does it? Why not tell him we’re engaged?”
“No, no: not yet. Leave that to me. Good-bye, now.”
He drew the clinging arms from about his neck rather roughly, gave the girl’s lips a hasty kiss, and hurried out and across the clearing, turning back twice as he went to see Judith looking after him, with her face shadowed by tears, and then, as their eyes encountered, beaming with sunshine. And again, after he had passed out of sight, he stole back through the trees to find that she was still wistfully gazing at the spot where she saw him last.
And, as unseen he watched her, his thoughts were many upon her unprotected state, and as to whether he ought not to stay until her father’s return.
“No,” he said, “the beggar will not dare to come back!” and, after making a circuit of the place, and searching in all directions, he walked thoughtfully away, thinking of what must be done with regard to Caleb Kent, and then about his cousin, against whom his indignation grew hotter the more he thought of what he had seen.
“She must have known that Caleb was in the cottage insulting Judith, and she was glorying in it and would not stir a step to save her, when her presence would have been enough to drive the beggar away. Oh, it seems impossible that a woman could be so spiteful. Hang it! Madge has got hold of that now. It’s like being at her mercy. Phew! I’m getting myself in a devil of a mess. I meant to fight shy of her now altogether, but of course no fellow could help running to save a woman in distress.”
He stopped short, for a sudden thought struck him.
“Then Judy hasn’t heard about Glynne yet. Confound it all! what a tangle I’m getting in.”
He took out and lit a cigar. Then smoking rapidly, he felt better.
“All right,” he muttered; “the old woman sets that square, and the sooner they’re off the estate the better for everybody. But there’s no mistake about it, Judy is deuced nice after all.”
“Day, sir,” said a sharp voice, and Rolph started round to find himself face to face with Hayle.
“Ah, Ben!—you!”
“Yes, sir, me it is,” said the keeper, sternly. “Down, dogs!”
This to the animals which began to play about the captain.
“Oh, let ’em be,” said Rolph, patting one of the setters on the head.
“Never mind the dogs, sir. I’ve got something more serious to think about. I suppose you know as the missus has sacked me, and we’re off?”
“Yes, Ben, I know; but it was no doing of mine.”
“I never thought it was, sir; but me and Judy’s to go at once—anywhere, for aught she cares. She’d like me to emigrate, I think.”
“No, don’t do that, Ben. England’s big enough.”
“For some people, sir. I don’t know as it is for me. Well, sir, I’m sacked, and I dare say it will be a long time before anyone will take me on. My character usen’t to be of the best, and the reasons for going ’ll be again me. Of course you know why it is.”
“Well—er—I suppose—”
“That’ll do, sir. You know well enough, it’s about you and my Judy.”
The captain laughed.
“There, sir, you needn’t shuffle with me. I’m my gal’s father, and we may as well understand one another.”
“My good fellow, recollect whom you are talking to,” said the captain, haughtily.
“I do, sir. My late missus’s son; and I recollect that I’m nobody’s servant now, only an Englishman as can speak out free like. So I say this out plain. Of course, after what’s been going on, you mean to marry my Judith?”
“Marry her? Well—er—Ben—”
“No, you don’t,” said the keeper fiercely, “so don’t tell me no lies, because I know you’ve been and got yourself engaged to young Miss Glynne over at Brackley.”
“Well, sir, and if I have, what then?” said Rolph haughtily.
“This, sir,” cried the keeper, with his eyes flashing, “that you’ve been playing a damned cowardly mean part to Miss Glynne and to my Judith. You’ve led my gal on to believe that you meant to marry her, and then you’ve thrown her over and took up with Sir John Day’s gal. And I tell you this; if my Judith hadn’t been what she is, and any harm had come of it, you might have said your prayers, for as sure as there’s two charges o’ shot in this here gun, I’d put one through you.”
“What?”
“You heared what I said, sir, and you know I’m a man of my word. And now, look here: you’ve been to the lodge to see Judith, for the last time, of course, for if ever you speak to her again, look out. Now, don’t deny it, my lad. You’ve been to my cottage, for it is mine till to-night.”
“Yes, I have been to the lodge, Hayle,” said Rolph, who was thoroughly cowed by the keeper’s fierce manner. “I was going through the wood when, just as I drew near the cottage, I heard a cry for help.”
“What?” roared Hayle.
“I ran to the porch just as a man was after Miss Hayle—Steady there.”
The sound was startling, for involuntarily the keeper had cocked both barrels of his gun; and, as he stood there with his eyes flashing, and the weapon trembling in the air, the three dogs looked as if turned to stone, their necks outstretched, heads down, and their long feathery tails rigid, waiting for the double report they felt must follow.
“And—and—what did you do?” cried the keeper in a slow, hoarse voice, which, taken in conjunction with the rapid cocking of the gun, made Rolph think that, if it had been the father who had come upon that scene, there might have been a tragedy in Thoreby Wood that day.
“I say, what did you do?” said the keeper again, in a voice full of suppressed passion.
“That!” said Rolph, slowly raising his right hand to unwind from it Judith’s soft white handkerchief, now all stained with blood, and display his knuckles denuded of skin.
“Hah!” ejaculated the keeper, as his eyes flashed. “God bless you for that, sir. You knocked him down?”
“Of course.”
“Yes—yes?”
“And he jumped up and drew his knife and struck at me.”
“But he didn’t hit you, sir; he didn’t hit you?” cried the keeper, forgetting everything in his excitement as he clutched the young man’s arm.
“No; I was too quick for him; and then he ran off into the wood.”
“Damn him!” roared the keeper. “If I had only been there this would have caught him,” he cried, patting the stock of his gun. “I’d have set the dogs on him after I’d given him a couple of charges of shot; I would, sir, so help me God.”
The veins were standing out all over the keeper’s brow, as he ground his teeth and shook his great heavy fist.
“But wait a bit. It won’t be long before we meet.”
“I am very glad you were not there, Hayle,” said Rolph, after watching the play of the father’s features for a few moments.
“Why, sir, why?”
“Because I don’t want to have you take your trial for manslaughter.”
“No, no; I had enough of that over the breaking of Jack Harris’s head, sir; but—”
“Yes, but,” said Rolph, quickly, “I wanted to talk to you about that.”
“It was Caleb Kent,” said the keeper, with sudden excitement.
“Yes, it was Caleb Kent.”
“I might have known it; he was always for following her about. Curse him! But talking’s no good, sir; and, perhaps, it’s as well I wasn’t there. Thankye, sir, for that. It makes us something more like quits. As for Caleb Kent, perhaps I shall have a talk to him before I go. But mind you don’t speak to my Judy again.”
He shouldered his gun, gave Rolph a nod, and then walked swiftly away, the dogs hesitating for a few moments, and then dashing off, to follow close at his heels.
Rolph stood watching the keeper for a few minutes till he disappeared.
“Well out of that trouble then,” he muttered. “Not pleasant for a fellow; it makes one feel so small. Poor little Judy! she’ll be horribly wild when she comes to know. What a lot of misery our marriage laws do cause in this precious world.”
“Now then for home,” he said, after walking swiftly for a few minutes, and, “putting on a spurt” as he termed it, he reached the house and went straight to the library.
He had entered and closed the door to sit down and have a good think about how he could “square Madge,” when he became aware that the lady in his thoughts was seated in one of the great arm-chairs with a book in her hand, which she pretended to read. She cowered as her cousin started, and stood gazing down at her with a frowning brow, and a look of utter disgust and contempt about his lips which made her bosom rise and fall rapidly.
“Do you want this room, Rob?” she said, breaking an awkward silence.
“Well, yes, after what took place this morning, you do make the place seem unpleasant,” he said coolly.
“Oh, this is too much,” cried Madge, her face, the moment before deadly pale, now flushing scarlet, as she threw down the book she had held, and stood before him, biting her lips with rage.
“Yes, too much.”
“And have we been to the cottage to see the fair idol? Pray explain,” said Marjorie, who was beside herself with rage and jealousy. “I thought gentlemen who were engaged always made an end of their vulgar amours.”
“Quite right,” said Rolph, meaningly. “I did begin, as you know.”
She winced, and her eyes darted an angry flash at him.
“You mean me,” she said, with her lips turning white.
“I did not say so.”
“But would it not have been better, now we are engaged to Glynne Day—I don’t understand these things, of course—but would it not have been better for a gentleman, now that he is engaged, to cease visiting that creature, and, above all, to keep away when he was not wanted?”
“What do you mean?—not wanted?”
“I mean when she was engaged with her lover, who was visiting her in her father’s absence.”
“The scoundrel!” cried Rolph, fiercely.
“Yes; a miserable, contemptible wretch, I suppose, but an old flame of hers.”
“Look here, Madge; you’re saying all this to make me wild,” cried Rolph, “but it won’t do. You know it’s a lie.”
Madge laughed unpleasantly.
“It’s true. He was always after her. She told me so herself, and how glad she was that the wretch had been sent to prison—of course, because he was in the way just then.”
“Go on,” growled Rolph. “A jealous woman will say anything.”
“Jealous?—I?—Pah!—Only angry with myself because I was so weak as to listen to you.”
“And I was so weak as to say anything to a malicious, deceitful cat of a girl, who is spiteful enough to do anything.”
“I, spiteful?—Pah!”
“Well, malicious then.”
“Perhaps I shall be. I wonder what dear Glynne would say about this business. Suppose I told her that our honourable and gallant friend, as they call it in parliament, had been on a visit to that shameless creature whom poor auntie had been compelled to turn away from the house, and in his honourable and gallant visit arrived just in time to witness the end of a lover’s quarrel; perhaps you joined in for ought I know, and—I can’t help laughing—Poor fellow! You did. You have been fighting with your rival, and bruised your knuckles. Did he beat you much, Rob, and win?”
Robert Rolph was dense and brutal enough, and his cousin’s words made him wince, but he looked at the speaker in disgust as the malevolence of her nature forced itself upon him more and more.
“Well,” he cried at last, “I’ve seen some women in my time, but I never met one yet who could stand by and glory in seeing one whom she had looked upon as a sister insulted like poor Judy was.”
“A sister!” cried Marjorie, contemptuously. “Absurd!—a low-born trull!”
“Whom you called dear, and kissed often enough till you thought I liked her, and then—Hang it all, Madge, are you utterly without shame!”
She shrank from him as if his words were thongs which cut into her flesh, but as he ceased speaking, with a passionate sob, she flung her arms about his neck, and clung tightly there.
“Rob! Don’t, I can’t bear it,” she cried. “You don’t know what I have suffered—what agony all this has caused.”
“There, there, that will do,” he said contemptuously. “I am engaged, my dear.”
She sprang from him, and a fierce light burned in her eyes for a moment, but disappointment and her despair were too much for her, and she flung herself upon his breast.
“No, no, Rob, dear, it isn’t true. I couldn’t help hating Judith or any woman who came between us. You don’t mean all this, and it is only to try me. You cannot—you shall not marry Glynne; and as to Judith, it is impossible now.”
“Give over,” he said roughly, as he tried to free himself from her arms.
“No, you sha’n’t go. I must tell you,” she whispered hoarsely amidst her sobs. “I hate Judith, but she is nothing—not worthy of a thought I will never mention her name to you again, dear.”
“Don’t pray,” he cried sarcastically. “If you do, I shall always be seeing you gloating over her trouble as I saw you this morning.”
“It was because I loved you so, Rob,” she murmured as she nestled to him. “It was because I felt that you were mine and mine only, after the past; and all that was forcing her away from you.”
“Bah!” he cried savagely. “Madge! Don’t be a fool! Will you loosen your hands before I hurt you.”
But she clung to him still.
“No, not yet,” she whispered. “You made me love you, Rob, and I forget everything in that. Promise me first that you will break all that off about Glynne Day.”
“I promise you that I’ll get your aunt to place you in a private asylum,” he cried brutally, “if you don’t leave go.”
There was a slight struggle, and he tore himself free, holding her wrists together in his powerful grasp and keeping her at arm’s length.
“There! Idiot!” he cried. “Must I hold you till you come to your senses.”
“If you wish—brute!” she cried through her little white teeth as her lips were drawn away. “Kill me if you like now. I don’t care a bit: you can’t hurt me more than you have.”
“If I hurt you, it serves you right. A nice, ladylike creature, ’pon my soul. Pity my mother hasn’t been here to see the kind of woman she wanted me to marry.”
“Go on,” she whispered, “go on. Insult me: you have a right. Go on.”
“I’m going off,” he said roughly. “There, go up to your room, and have a good hysterical cry and a wash, and come back to your senses. If you will have it you shall, and the whole truth too. I never cared a bit for you. It was all your own doing, leading me on. Want to go.”
“Loose my hands, brute.”
“For you to scratch my face, my red-haired pussy. Not such a fool. I know your sweet temper of old. If I let go, will you be quiet?”
Marjorie made no reply, but she ceased to struggle and stood there with her wrists held, the white skin growing black—a prisoner—till, with a contemptuous laugh, he threw the little arms from him.
“Go and tell Glynne everything you know—everything you have seen, if you like,” he said harshly, “only tell everything about yourself too, and then come back to me to be loved, my sweet, amiable, little white-faced tigress. I’m not afraid though, Madge. You can’t open those pretty lips of yours, can you? It might make others speak in their defence.”
“Brute,” she whispered as she gazed at him defiantly and held out her bruised wrists.
“Brute, am I? Well, let sleeping brutes lie. Don’t try to rouse them up for fear they should bite. Go to your room and bathe your pretty red eyes after having a good cry, and then come and tell me that you think it is best to cry truce, and forget all the past.”
“Never, Rob, dear,” she said with a curious smile. “Go on; but mind this: you shall never marry Glynne Day.”
“Sha’n’t I? We shall see. I think I can pull that off,” he cried with a mocking laugh. “But if I don’t, whom shall I marry?”
She turned from him slowly, and then faced round again as she reached the door.
“Me,” she said quietly; and the next minute Robert Rolph was alone.
Volume One—Chapter Ten.A Cloudy Sky.“Oh, father, I’m so glad you’ve come.”This was Ben Hayle’s greeting as he reached the keeper’s lodge.“Eh? Are you?” he said, with an assumed look of ignorance; but the corners of his eyes were twitching, and he was asking himself how he was to tell his child matters that would nearly break her heart, as he yielded his hand to hers, and let her press him back into his windsor arm-chair. “Nothing the matter, is there?”She knelt at his feet, and told him all that had passed, and the strong man’s muscles jerked, and his grasp of her arm grew at times painful. As she went on, he interjected a savage word from time to time.“Good girl, good girl. It has hurt you, my darling, but it was right to tell me all, and keep nothing back.”Then he laid his hand softly on her glossy hair, and sat staring straight before him at the window, the moments being steadily marked off by thetick-tackof the old eight-day clock in the corner, and no other sound was heard in the room.Outside, the silence of the fir wood was broken by the cheery lay of a robin in one of the apple-trees of the garden, and once there came the low, soft cooing of a dove, which the soft, sunny autumn day had deluded into the belief that it was spring.Then all was again silent for a time, and it seemed to Judith, as she looked up into the stern, thoughtful face, with its dark, fierce eyes, that the heavy throbbing of her heart drowned the beat of the clock; at other times the regulartick-tackgrew louder, and she could hear nothing else.“You’re not cross with me, father?” she said at last.“No, it was no fault of yours. Ah, Judy, my girl, I was so proud of your bonny face, but it seems as if it is like to be a curse to you—to us both.”“Father!”“Yes, my lass; and I don’t know which of they two we ought to be most scared of—Caleb Kent or the captain.”“Oh! father!” cried Judith; and she let her head fall upon his knee, as she sobbed wildly.“I need hardly ask you, then, my girl,” he said, as with tender, loving hands, he took her head and bent over it, with his dark, fierce eyes softening. “You like him, then?”She looked up proudly.“He loves me, father.”“Ay, and you, my lassie?”“Yes, father. I have tried very hard not to think about him, but—Yes, I do love him very dearly, and I’m going to be his wife. He said he would speak to you.”“Yes, my dear, and he has spoken to me.”“Oh!” she cried, as she reached up to lay her hands upon the keeper’s shoulders, and gaze inquiringly in his eyes.“It was all one big blunder, my dear,” he said; “you ought never to have gone up to the house, and learned things to make you above your station. I used to think so, as I sat here o’ night’s and smoked my pipe, and say to myself, ‘She’ll never care for the poor old cottage again.’”Judith looked up quickly, and her arm stole round her father’s neck.“And then,” she whispered, “you said to yourself, ‘It is not true, for she’ll never forget the old home.’”“You’re a witch, Judy,” he cried, drawing her to him, with his face brightening a little. “I did. And if it could have been that you’d wed the captain, and gone up to the house among the grand folk, you would have had me there; you would not have been ashamed of the old man—would you?”“Why do you ask me that, dear?” said Judith, with her lips quivering. “You know—you know.”“Yes,” he said, “I know. But we shall have to go away from the old place, Judy, for it can’t never be.”“Oh, father!”“No, my dear, it won’t do. It’s all been a muddle, and I ought to have known better, instead of being a proud old fool, pleased as could be to see my lassie growing into a lady. There, I may as well tell you the truth, lass, at once.”“The truth, father?” she said sharply.“Yes, my dear, though it goes again me to hurt your poor little soft heart.”“What do you mean, father?” she cried, startled now by the keeper’s looks.“It must come, Judy; but I wish you’d found it out for yourself. Young Robert isn’t the man his dead father was. He’s a liar and a scoundrel, girl, and—”She sprang from him with her eyes flashing, and a look of angry indignation convulsing her features.“It’s true, my girl. He never meant to marry you, only to make you his plaything because he liked your pretty face.”“It isn’t true,” said the girl harshly; and the indignation in her breast against her father made her wonderfully like him now.“It is true, Judy, my pretty. I wouldn’t lie to you, and half break your heart. You’ve got to face it along with me. We’re sent away because the captain is going to marry.”“It isn’t true, father; he wouldn’t marry Madge Emlin, with her cruel, deceitful heart.”“No, my lass; he’s chucked her over too. He’s going to marry Sir John Day’s gal, over at Brackley Hall—her who came here and painted your face in the sun bonnet, when you were home those few days the time I had rheumatiz.”“Is this true, father?”“As true as gospel, lass.”She gave him a long, searching look, as if reading his very soul, and then crept back to a low chair, sank down, and buried her face in her hands.“Hah!” he said to himself, “she takes it better than I thought for. Thank God, it wasn’t too late.”He stood thinking for a few minutes.“Where am I to get a cottage, Judy, my lass?” he said at last. “One of those at Lindham might do for the present, out there by your grandmother’s, if there’s one empty. Mother Wattley would know. I’ll go and see her. Let’s get out of this. Poor old place, though,” he said, as he looked round. “It seems rather hard.”Judith had raised her head, and sat gazing straight before her, right into the future, but she did not speak.
“Oh, father, I’m so glad you’ve come.”
This was Ben Hayle’s greeting as he reached the keeper’s lodge.
“Eh? Are you?” he said, with an assumed look of ignorance; but the corners of his eyes were twitching, and he was asking himself how he was to tell his child matters that would nearly break her heart, as he yielded his hand to hers, and let her press him back into his windsor arm-chair. “Nothing the matter, is there?”
She knelt at his feet, and told him all that had passed, and the strong man’s muscles jerked, and his grasp of her arm grew at times painful. As she went on, he interjected a savage word from time to time.
“Good girl, good girl. It has hurt you, my darling, but it was right to tell me all, and keep nothing back.”
Then he laid his hand softly on her glossy hair, and sat staring straight before him at the window, the moments being steadily marked off by thetick-tackof the old eight-day clock in the corner, and no other sound was heard in the room.
Outside, the silence of the fir wood was broken by the cheery lay of a robin in one of the apple-trees of the garden, and once there came the low, soft cooing of a dove, which the soft, sunny autumn day had deluded into the belief that it was spring.
Then all was again silent for a time, and it seemed to Judith, as she looked up into the stern, thoughtful face, with its dark, fierce eyes, that the heavy throbbing of her heart drowned the beat of the clock; at other times the regulartick-tackgrew louder, and she could hear nothing else.
“You’re not cross with me, father?” she said at last.
“No, it was no fault of yours. Ah, Judy, my girl, I was so proud of your bonny face, but it seems as if it is like to be a curse to you—to us both.”
“Father!”
“Yes, my lass; and I don’t know which of they two we ought to be most scared of—Caleb Kent or the captain.”
“Oh! father!” cried Judith; and she let her head fall upon his knee, as she sobbed wildly.
“I need hardly ask you, then, my girl,” he said, as with tender, loving hands, he took her head and bent over it, with his dark, fierce eyes softening. “You like him, then?”
She looked up proudly.
“He loves me, father.”
“Ay, and you, my lassie?”
“Yes, father. I have tried very hard not to think about him, but—Yes, I do love him very dearly, and I’m going to be his wife. He said he would speak to you.”
“Yes, my dear, and he has spoken to me.”
“Oh!” she cried, as she reached up to lay her hands upon the keeper’s shoulders, and gaze inquiringly in his eyes.
“It was all one big blunder, my dear,” he said; “you ought never to have gone up to the house, and learned things to make you above your station. I used to think so, as I sat here o’ night’s and smoked my pipe, and say to myself, ‘She’ll never care for the poor old cottage again.’”
Judith looked up quickly, and her arm stole round her father’s neck.
“And then,” she whispered, “you said to yourself, ‘It is not true, for she’ll never forget the old home.’”
“You’re a witch, Judy,” he cried, drawing her to him, with his face brightening a little. “I did. And if it could have been that you’d wed the captain, and gone up to the house among the grand folk, you would have had me there; you would not have been ashamed of the old man—would you?”
“Why do you ask me that, dear?” said Judith, with her lips quivering. “You know—you know.”
“Yes,” he said, “I know. But we shall have to go away from the old place, Judy, for it can’t never be.”
“Oh, father!”
“No, my dear, it won’t do. It’s all been a muddle, and I ought to have known better, instead of being a proud old fool, pleased as could be to see my lassie growing into a lady. There, I may as well tell you the truth, lass, at once.”
“The truth, father?” she said sharply.
“Yes, my dear, though it goes again me to hurt your poor little soft heart.”
“What do you mean, father?” she cried, startled now by the keeper’s looks.
“It must come, Judy; but I wish you’d found it out for yourself. Young Robert isn’t the man his dead father was. He’s a liar and a scoundrel, girl, and—”
She sprang from him with her eyes flashing, and a look of angry indignation convulsing her features.
“It’s true, my girl. He never meant to marry you, only to make you his plaything because he liked your pretty face.”
“It isn’t true,” said the girl harshly; and the indignation in her breast against her father made her wonderfully like him now.
“It is true, Judy, my pretty. I wouldn’t lie to you, and half break your heart. You’ve got to face it along with me. We’re sent away because the captain is going to marry.”
“It isn’t true, father; he wouldn’t marry Madge Emlin, with her cruel, deceitful heart.”
“No, my lass; he’s chucked her over too. He’s going to marry Sir John Day’s gal, over at Brackley Hall—her who came here and painted your face in the sun bonnet, when you were home those few days the time I had rheumatiz.”
“Is this true, father?”
“As true as gospel, lass.”
She gave him a long, searching look, as if reading his very soul, and then crept back to a low chair, sank down, and buried her face in her hands.
“Hah!” he said to himself, “she takes it better than I thought for. Thank God, it wasn’t too late.”
He stood thinking for a few minutes.
“Where am I to get a cottage, Judy, my lass?” he said at last. “One of those at Lindham might do for the present, out there by your grandmother’s, if there’s one empty. Mother Wattley would know. I’ll go and see her. Let’s get out of this. Poor old place, though,” he said, as he looked round. “It seems rather hard.”
Judith had raised her head, and sat gazing straight before her, right into the future, but she did not speak.
Volume One—Chapter Eleven.In a Mist.Glynne Day was seated in her favourite place—a bright, cheerful-looking room connected with her bedchamber on the first floor at Brackley, and turned by her into a pleasant nest; for the French windows opened into a tiny conservatory over a broad bay window of the dining-room, where were displayed the choicest floral gems that Jones, the head gardener, could raise, all being duly tended by her own hands.The gardener shook his head, and said that “the plahnts wiltered” for want of light, and wanted to cut away the greater part of the tendril-like stems of the huge wistaria, which twisted itself into cables, and formed loops and sprays all over the top glass; but Glynne looked at him in horror, and forbade him to cut a stem. Consequently, in the spring-time, great lavender racemes of the lovely flowers clustered about the broad window at which the mistress of the Hall loved to sit and sketch “bits” of the beautiful landscape around, and make study after study of the precipitous pine-crowned hill a mile away, behind whose dark trees the sun would set, and give her opportunities to paint in gorgeous hues the tints of the western sky.Here Lucy Alleyne would be brought after their walks, to sit and read, while Glynne filled in sketches she had made; and many a pleasant hour was passed by the two girls, while the soft breezes of the sunny country waved the long wistaria strands.“It’s no use for me to speak, Mr Morris,” said the gardener one day. “It ’most breaks my heart, for all about there, and under the little glass house is the untidiest bit about my garden. I told Sir John about it, and he said, ‘Why don’t you cut it then, booby?’ and when I told him why, and ast him to speak to Miss Glynne, he said, ‘Be off, and leave it alone.’”“And of course you did,” said Morris, the butler.“Sack’s the word if I hadn’t, sir. But you mark my words: one of these days—I mean nights—them London burglars ’ll give us a visit, and they won’t want no ladder to get up to the first-floor windows. A baby could climb up them great glycene ropes and get in at that window; and then away goes my young lady’s jewels.”“Well, they won’t get my plate,” said Morris with a chuckle. “I’ve two loaded pistols in my pantry for anyone who comes, so let ’em look out; and if I shout for help, the major’s got his loaded too.”Glynne Day was seated one afternoon in her conservatory, bending over her last water-colour sketch by the open window, when a loud, reverberating bang echoed along the corridor, making the windows rattle outside her room. Starting up, knowing from old experience that it was only an earthquake, one of the social kind which affected Brackley from time to time, she hurried into her little study, and out into the passage, to go to the end, and tap sharply at the door facing her.“Come in,” was shouted in the same tones as he who uttered the order had cried “wheel into line!” and Glynne entered to find the major with his hair looking knotted, his moustache bristling, and his eyes rolling in their sockets.“What is the matter, uncle?”“Matter?” cried the major, who was purple with rage. “Matter? He’s your father, Glynne, and he’s my brother, but if—if I could only feel that it wasn’t wicked to cut him down with the sword I used at Chillianwallah, I’d be thankful.”“Now, uncle, dear, you don’t feel anything of the kind,” said Glynne, leaning upon the old gentleman’s arm.“I do feel it, and I mean it this time. Now, girl, look here! Why am I such an old idiot—”“Oh, uncle!””—As to stop here, and let that bullying, farm-labouring, overbearing bumpkin—I beg your pardon, my dear, but he is—father of yours, ride rough-shod over me?”“But, uncle, dear—”“But, niece, dear, he does; and how I can be such an idiot as to stop here, I don’t know. If I were his dependent, it couldn’t be worse.”“But, uncle, dear, I’m afraid you do show a little temper sometimes.”“Temper! I show temper! Nothing of the kind,” cried the old fellow, angrily, and his grey curls seemed to stand out wildly from his head. “Only decision—just so much decision as a military man should show—nothing more. Temper, indeed!”“But you are hasty, dear, and papa so soon gets warm.”“Warm? Red hot. White hot. He has a temper that would irritate a saint, and heaven knows I am no saint.”“It does seem such a pity for you and papa to quarrel.”“Pity? It’s abominable, my child, when we might live together as peaceably as pigeons. But he shall have it his own way now. I’ve done. I’ll have no more of it I’m not a child.”“What are you going to do, uncle?”“Do? Pack up and go, this very day. Then he may come to my chambers and beg till all’s blue, but he’ll never persuade me to come out here again.”“Oh, uncle! It will be so dull if you go away.”“No, no, not it, my dear. You’ve got your captain; and there’ll be peace in the house then till he finds someone else to bully. Why, I might be one of his farm labourers; that I might. But there’s an end of it now.”“But, uncle!” cried Glynne, looking perplexed and troubled, “come back with me into the library. I’m sure, if papa was in the wrong, he’ll be sorry.”“If he was in the wrong! Hewasin the wrong. Me go to him? Not I. My mind’s made up. I’ll not have my old age embittered by his abominable temper. Don’t stop me, girl. I’m going, and nothing shall stay me now.”“How tiresome it is!” said Glynne, softly, as her broad, white forehead grew full of wrinkles. “Dear uncle; he must not go. I must do something,” and then, with a smile dawning upon her perplexed face, she descended the stairs, and went softly to the library door, opened it gently, and found Sir John tramping up and down the Turkey carpet, like some wild beast in its cage.“Who’s that? How dare you enter without—Oh, it’s you, Glynne.”“Yes, papa. Uncle has gone upstairs and banged his door.”“I’m glad of it; I’m very glad of it,” cried Sir John, “and I hope it’s for the last time.”“What has been the matter, papa?” said Glynne, laying her hands upon his shoulders. “Sit down, dear, and tell me.”“No, no, my dear, don’t bother me. I don’t want to sit down, Glynne.”“Yes, yes, dear, and tell me all about it.”Fighting against it all the while, the choleric baronet allowed himself to be pressed down into one of the easy-chairs, Glynne drawing a footstool to his side, sitting at his feet, and clasping and resting her hands upon his knees.“Well, there, now; are you satisfied?” he said, half laughing, half angry.“No, papa. I want to know why you and uncle quarrelled.”“Oh, the old reason,” said Sir John, colouring. “He will be as obstinate as a mule, and the more you try to reason with him, the more he turns to you his hind legs and kicks.”“Did you try to reason with Uncle James, papa?”“Did I try to reason with him? Why, of course I did, but you might as well try to reason with a stone trough.”“What was it about?” said Glynne, quietly.“What was it about? Oh, about the—about the—bless my soul, what did it begin about? Some, some, some—dear me, how absurd, Glynne. He upset me so that it has completely gone out of my head. What do you mean? What do you mean by shaking your head like that? Confound it all, Glynne, are you going to turn against me?”“Oh, papa, papa, how sad it is,” said Glynne, gently. “You have upset poor uncle like this all about some trifle of so little consequence that you have even forgotten what it was.”“I beg your pardon, madam,” cried Sir John, trying to rise, but Glynne laid her hand upon his chest and kept him back. “It was no trifle, and it is no joke for your Uncle James to launch out in his confounded haughty, military way, and try to take the reins from my hands. I’m master here. I remember now; it was about Rob.”“Indeed, papa!” said Glynne, with a sad tone in her voice.“Yes, finding fault about his training. I don’t want him to go about like some confounded foot-racing fellow, but he’s my son-in-law elect, and he shall do as he pleases. What next, I wonder? Your uncle will be wanting to manage my farm.”Glynne remained very thoughtful and silent for a few minutes, during which time her father continued to fume, and utter expressions of annoyance, till Glynne said suddenly as she looked up in his face,—“You were wrong, papa, dear. You should not quarrel with Uncle James.”“Wrong? Wrong? Why, the girl’s mad,” cried Sir John. “Do you approve of his taking your future husband to task over his amusements?”“I don’t know,” said Glynne slowly, as she turned her great, frank-looking eyes upon her father. “I don’t know, papa, dear. I don’t think I do; but Uncle James is so good and wise, and I know he loves me very much.”“Of course he does; so does everybody else,” cried the baronet, excitedly. “I should like to see the man who did not. But I will not have his interference here, and I’m very glad—very glad indeed—that he is going.”“Uncle James meant it for the best, I’m sure, papa,” said Glynne, thoughtfully, “and it was wrong of you to quarrel with him.”“I tell you I did not quarrel with him, Glynne; he quarrelled with me,” roared Sir John.“And you ought to go and apologise to him.”“I’d go and hang myself sooner. I’d sooner go and commit suicide in my new patent thrashing-machine.”“Nonsense, papa, dear,” said Glynne quietly. “You ought to go and apologise. If you don’t, Uncle James will leave us.”“Let him.”“And then you will be very much put out and grieved.”“And a good job too. I mean a good job if he’d leave, for then we should have peace in the place.”“Now, papa!”“I tell you I’d be very glad of it; a confounded peppery old Nero, talking to me as if I were a private under him. Bully me, indeed! I won’t stand it. There!”“Papa, dear, go upstairs and apologise to Uncle James.”“I won’t, Glynne. There’s an end of it now. Just because he can’t have everything his own way. He has never forgiven me for being the eldest son and taking the baronetcy. Was it my fault that I was born first?”“Now, papa, dear, that’s talking at random; I don’t believe Uncle James ever envied you for having the title.”“Then he shouldn’t act as if he did. Confound him!”“Then you’ll go up and speak to him. Come, dear, don’t let’s have this cloud over the house!”“Cloud? I’ll make it a regular tempest,” cried Sir John, furiously. “I’ll go upstairs and see that he does go, and at once. See if I ferret him out of his nasty, dark, stuffy, dismal chambers again. Brought him down here, and made a healthy, hearty man of him, and this is my reward.”“Is that you talking, papa?” said Glynne, rising with him, for he made a rush now out of his seat, and she smiled in his face as she put her arms round his neck and kissed him.“Bah! Get out! Pst! Puss!” cried Sir John, and swinging round, he strode out of the library, and banged the door as if he had caught his brother’s habit.Glynne stood looking after him, smiling as she listened to his steps on the polished oak floor of the hall, and then seemed quite satisfied as she detected the fact that he had gone upstairs. Then it was that a dreamy, strange look came into her eyes, and she stood there, with one hand resting upon the table, thinking—thinking—thinking of the cause of the quarrel, of the words her uncle had spoken regarding Rolph; and it seemed to her that there was a mist before her, stretching out farther and farther, and hiding the future.For the major was always so gentle and kind to her. He never spoke to her about Rolph as he had spoken to her father; but she had noticed that he was a little cold and sarcastic sometimes towards her lover.Was there trouble coming? Did she love Robert as dearly as she should?She wanted answers to these questions, and the responses were hidden in the mist ahead. Then, as she gazed, it seemed to her that her future was like the vast space into which she had looked from her window by night; and though for a time it was brightened with dazzling, hopeful points, these again became clouded over, and all was misty and dull once more.
Glynne Day was seated in her favourite place—a bright, cheerful-looking room connected with her bedchamber on the first floor at Brackley, and turned by her into a pleasant nest; for the French windows opened into a tiny conservatory over a broad bay window of the dining-room, where were displayed the choicest floral gems that Jones, the head gardener, could raise, all being duly tended by her own hands.
The gardener shook his head, and said that “the plahnts wiltered” for want of light, and wanted to cut away the greater part of the tendril-like stems of the huge wistaria, which twisted itself into cables, and formed loops and sprays all over the top glass; but Glynne looked at him in horror, and forbade him to cut a stem. Consequently, in the spring-time, great lavender racemes of the lovely flowers clustered about the broad window at which the mistress of the Hall loved to sit and sketch “bits” of the beautiful landscape around, and make study after study of the precipitous pine-crowned hill a mile away, behind whose dark trees the sun would set, and give her opportunities to paint in gorgeous hues the tints of the western sky.
Here Lucy Alleyne would be brought after their walks, to sit and read, while Glynne filled in sketches she had made; and many a pleasant hour was passed by the two girls, while the soft breezes of the sunny country waved the long wistaria strands.
“It’s no use for me to speak, Mr Morris,” said the gardener one day. “It ’most breaks my heart, for all about there, and under the little glass house is the untidiest bit about my garden. I told Sir John about it, and he said, ‘Why don’t you cut it then, booby?’ and when I told him why, and ast him to speak to Miss Glynne, he said, ‘Be off, and leave it alone.’”
“And of course you did,” said Morris, the butler.
“Sack’s the word if I hadn’t, sir. But you mark my words: one of these days—I mean nights—them London burglars ’ll give us a visit, and they won’t want no ladder to get up to the first-floor windows. A baby could climb up them great glycene ropes and get in at that window; and then away goes my young lady’s jewels.”
“Well, they won’t get my plate,” said Morris with a chuckle. “I’ve two loaded pistols in my pantry for anyone who comes, so let ’em look out; and if I shout for help, the major’s got his loaded too.”
Glynne Day was seated one afternoon in her conservatory, bending over her last water-colour sketch by the open window, when a loud, reverberating bang echoed along the corridor, making the windows rattle outside her room. Starting up, knowing from old experience that it was only an earthquake, one of the social kind which affected Brackley from time to time, she hurried into her little study, and out into the passage, to go to the end, and tap sharply at the door facing her.
“Come in,” was shouted in the same tones as he who uttered the order had cried “wheel into line!” and Glynne entered to find the major with his hair looking knotted, his moustache bristling, and his eyes rolling in their sockets.
“What is the matter, uncle?”
“Matter?” cried the major, who was purple with rage. “Matter? He’s your father, Glynne, and he’s my brother, but if—if I could only feel that it wasn’t wicked to cut him down with the sword I used at Chillianwallah, I’d be thankful.”
“Now, uncle, dear, you don’t feel anything of the kind,” said Glynne, leaning upon the old gentleman’s arm.
“I do feel it, and I mean it this time. Now, girl, look here! Why am I such an old idiot—”
“Oh, uncle!”
”—As to stop here, and let that bullying, farm-labouring, overbearing bumpkin—I beg your pardon, my dear, but he is—father of yours, ride rough-shod over me?”
“But, uncle, dear—”
“But, niece, dear, he does; and how I can be such an idiot as to stop here, I don’t know. If I were his dependent, it couldn’t be worse.”
“But, uncle, dear, I’m afraid you do show a little temper sometimes.”
“Temper! I show temper! Nothing of the kind,” cried the old fellow, angrily, and his grey curls seemed to stand out wildly from his head. “Only decision—just so much decision as a military man should show—nothing more. Temper, indeed!”
“But you are hasty, dear, and papa so soon gets warm.”
“Warm? Red hot. White hot. He has a temper that would irritate a saint, and heaven knows I am no saint.”
“It does seem such a pity for you and papa to quarrel.”
“Pity? It’s abominable, my child, when we might live together as peaceably as pigeons. But he shall have it his own way now. I’ve done. I’ll have no more of it I’m not a child.”
“What are you going to do, uncle?”
“Do? Pack up and go, this very day. Then he may come to my chambers and beg till all’s blue, but he’ll never persuade me to come out here again.”
“Oh, uncle! It will be so dull if you go away.”
“No, no, not it, my dear. You’ve got your captain; and there’ll be peace in the house then till he finds someone else to bully. Why, I might be one of his farm labourers; that I might. But there’s an end of it now.”
“But, uncle!” cried Glynne, looking perplexed and troubled, “come back with me into the library. I’m sure, if papa was in the wrong, he’ll be sorry.”
“If he was in the wrong! Hewasin the wrong. Me go to him? Not I. My mind’s made up. I’ll not have my old age embittered by his abominable temper. Don’t stop me, girl. I’m going, and nothing shall stay me now.”
“How tiresome it is!” said Glynne, softly, as her broad, white forehead grew full of wrinkles. “Dear uncle; he must not go. I must do something,” and then, with a smile dawning upon her perplexed face, she descended the stairs, and went softly to the library door, opened it gently, and found Sir John tramping up and down the Turkey carpet, like some wild beast in its cage.
“Who’s that? How dare you enter without—Oh, it’s you, Glynne.”
“Yes, papa. Uncle has gone upstairs and banged his door.”
“I’m glad of it; I’m very glad of it,” cried Sir John, “and I hope it’s for the last time.”
“What has been the matter, papa?” said Glynne, laying her hands upon his shoulders. “Sit down, dear, and tell me.”
“No, no, my dear, don’t bother me. I don’t want to sit down, Glynne.”
“Yes, yes, dear, and tell me all about it.”
Fighting against it all the while, the choleric baronet allowed himself to be pressed down into one of the easy-chairs, Glynne drawing a footstool to his side, sitting at his feet, and clasping and resting her hands upon his knees.
“Well, there, now; are you satisfied?” he said, half laughing, half angry.
“No, papa. I want to know why you and uncle quarrelled.”
“Oh, the old reason,” said Sir John, colouring. “He will be as obstinate as a mule, and the more you try to reason with him, the more he turns to you his hind legs and kicks.”
“Did you try to reason with Uncle James, papa?”
“Did I try to reason with him? Why, of course I did, but you might as well try to reason with a stone trough.”
“What was it about?” said Glynne, quietly.
“What was it about? Oh, about the—about the—bless my soul, what did it begin about? Some, some, some—dear me, how absurd, Glynne. He upset me so that it has completely gone out of my head. What do you mean? What do you mean by shaking your head like that? Confound it all, Glynne, are you going to turn against me?”
“Oh, papa, papa, how sad it is,” said Glynne, gently. “You have upset poor uncle like this all about some trifle of so little consequence that you have even forgotten what it was.”
“I beg your pardon, madam,” cried Sir John, trying to rise, but Glynne laid her hand upon his chest and kept him back. “It was no trifle, and it is no joke for your Uncle James to launch out in his confounded haughty, military way, and try to take the reins from my hands. I’m master here. I remember now; it was about Rob.”
“Indeed, papa!” said Glynne, with a sad tone in her voice.
“Yes, finding fault about his training. I don’t want him to go about like some confounded foot-racing fellow, but he’s my son-in-law elect, and he shall do as he pleases. What next, I wonder? Your uncle will be wanting to manage my farm.”
Glynne remained very thoughtful and silent for a few minutes, during which time her father continued to fume, and utter expressions of annoyance, till Glynne said suddenly as she looked up in his face,—
“You were wrong, papa, dear. You should not quarrel with Uncle James.”
“Wrong? Wrong? Why, the girl’s mad,” cried Sir John. “Do you approve of his taking your future husband to task over his amusements?”
“I don’t know,” said Glynne slowly, as she turned her great, frank-looking eyes upon her father. “I don’t know, papa, dear. I don’t think I do; but Uncle James is so good and wise, and I know he loves me very much.”
“Of course he does; so does everybody else,” cried the baronet, excitedly. “I should like to see the man who did not. But I will not have his interference here, and I’m very glad—very glad indeed—that he is going.”
“Uncle James meant it for the best, I’m sure, papa,” said Glynne, thoughtfully, “and it was wrong of you to quarrel with him.”
“I tell you I did not quarrel with him, Glynne; he quarrelled with me,” roared Sir John.
“And you ought to go and apologise to him.”
“I’d go and hang myself sooner. I’d sooner go and commit suicide in my new patent thrashing-machine.”
“Nonsense, papa, dear,” said Glynne quietly. “You ought to go and apologise. If you don’t, Uncle James will leave us.”
“Let him.”
“And then you will be very much put out and grieved.”
“And a good job too. I mean a good job if he’d leave, for then we should have peace in the place.”
“Now, papa!”
“I tell you I’d be very glad of it; a confounded peppery old Nero, talking to me as if I were a private under him. Bully me, indeed! I won’t stand it. There!”
“Papa, dear, go upstairs and apologise to Uncle James.”
“I won’t, Glynne. There’s an end of it now. Just because he can’t have everything his own way. He has never forgiven me for being the eldest son and taking the baronetcy. Was it my fault that I was born first?”
“Now, papa, dear, that’s talking at random; I don’t believe Uncle James ever envied you for having the title.”
“Then he shouldn’t act as if he did. Confound him!”
“Then you’ll go up and speak to him. Come, dear, don’t let’s have this cloud over the house!”
“Cloud? I’ll make it a regular tempest,” cried Sir John, furiously. “I’ll go upstairs and see that he does go, and at once. See if I ferret him out of his nasty, dark, stuffy, dismal chambers again. Brought him down here, and made a healthy, hearty man of him, and this is my reward.”
“Is that you talking, papa?” said Glynne, rising with him, for he made a rush now out of his seat, and she smiled in his face as she put her arms round his neck and kissed him.
“Bah! Get out! Pst! Puss!” cried Sir John, and swinging round, he strode out of the library, and banged the door as if he had caught his brother’s habit.
Glynne stood looking after him, smiling as she listened to his steps on the polished oak floor of the hall, and then seemed quite satisfied as she detected the fact that he had gone upstairs. Then it was that a dreamy, strange look came into her eyes, and she stood there, with one hand resting upon the table, thinking—thinking—thinking of the cause of the quarrel, of the words her uncle had spoken regarding Rolph; and it seemed to her that there was a mist before her, stretching out farther and farther, and hiding the future.
For the major was always so gentle and kind to her. He never spoke to her about Rolph as he had spoken to her father; but she had noticed that he was a little cold and sarcastic sometimes towards her lover.
Was there trouble coming? Did she love Robert as dearly as she should?
She wanted answers to these questions, and the responses were hidden in the mist ahead. Then, as she gazed, it seemed to her that her future was like the vast space into which she had looked from her window by night; and though for a time it was brightened with dazzling, hopeful points, these again became clouded over, and all was misty and dull once more.