The Revellers

The vicar danced about with his improvised weapon, imploring the boy to “throw it down and let me whack the life out of it,” but Martin was enraged with the pain and the damage to his clothing. In his anger he felt that he could wrench the wretched beast limb from limb, and he might have endeavored to do that very thing were it not for the presence of Elsie Herbert. As it was, when the cat fell to the ground its struggles had ended, but Mr. Herbert gave it a couple of hearty blows to make sure.

It was a tremendous brute, double the size of its domestic progenitors. At one period in its career it had been caught in a rabbit trap, for one of its forelegs was removed at the joint, and the calloused stump was hard as a bit of stone.

A chorus of praise for Martin’s promptitude and courage was cut short when he took the table leg and went back to the clump of gorse.

“I thought it was curious that there were no rabbits here,” he said. “Now I know why. This cat has a litter of kittens hidden among the whins.”

“Are you gug-gug-going to kuk-kuk-kill them?” sobbed Elsie.

He paused in his murderous search.

“It makes no matter now,” he said, laughing. “I’ll tell the keeper. Wildcats eat up an awful lot of game.”

His coolness, his absolute disregard of the really serious cuts he had received, were astounding to the town-bred men. The vicar was the first to recover some degree of composure.

“Martin,” he cried, “come this instant and have your wounds washed and bound up. You are losing a great deal of blood, and that brute’s claws may have been venomous.”

The boy obeyed at once. He presented a sorry spectacle. His arms and hands were bathed in blood and his clothes were splashed with it.

Elsie Herbert’s eyes filled with tears.

“This is nothing,” he said to cheer her. “They’re only scratches, but they look bad.”

As a matter of fact, he did not realize until long afterwards that were it not for the fortunate accident which deprived the cat of her off foreleg, some of the tendons of his right wrist might have been severed. From the manner in which he held her she could not get the effective claws to bear crosswise.

The vicar looked grave when a first dip in the brook revealed the extent of the boy’s injuries.

“You are plucky enough to bear the application of a little brine, Martin?” he said.

Suiting the action to the word, he emptied the contents of a paper of salt into a teacup and dissolved it in hot water. Then he washed the wounds again in the brook and bound them with handkerchiefs soaked in the mixture. It was a rough-and-ready cauterization, and the pain made Martin white, but later on it earned the commendation of the doctor. Mr. Herbert was pallid himself when Elsie handed him the last handkerchief they could muster, while Mrs. Johnson was already tearing the tablecloth into strips.

“It is bad enough to have your wrists scored in this way, my lad,” he murmured, “but it will be some consolation for you to know that otherwise these cuts would have been in my little girl’s face, perhaps her eyes – great Heaven! – her eyes!”

The vicar could have chosen no better words. Martin’s heart throbbed with pride. At last the bandages were secured and the tattered sleeve turned down. All this consumed nearly half an hour, and then Martin remembered a forgotten duty.

“What time is it?” he said anxiously.

“A quarter past five.”

“Oh, bother!” he murmured. “I’ll get into another row. I have missed my Bible lesson.”

“Your Bible lesson?”

“Yes, sir. My father makes me read a portion of Scripture every day.”

The vicar passed unnoticed the boy’s unconsciously resentful tone. He sighed, but straightway resumed his wonted cheeriness.

“There will be no row to-day, Martin,” he promised. “We shall escort you home in triumphal procession. We leave the things here for my man, who will bring a pony and cart in a few minutes. Now, you two, tie the hind legs of that beast with a piece of string and carry it on the stick. The cat is Martin’s spolia opima. Here, Elsie, guide your warrior’s faltering footsteps down the glen.”

They all laughed, but by the time they reached the White House the boy was ready to drop, for he had lost a quantity of blood, and the torment of the saline solution was becoming intolerable.

John Bolland, after waiting with growing impatience long after the appointed time, closed the Bible with a bang and went downstairs.

“What’s wrang wi’ ye now?” inquired his spouse as he dropped morosely into a chair and answered but sourly a hearty greeting from a visitor.

“Where’s that lad?” he growled.

“Martin. Hasn’t he come yam?”

She trembled for her adopted son’s remissness on this, the first day after the great rebellion.

“Yam!” – with intense bitterness – “he’s not likely te hearken te t’ Word when he’s encouraged in guile.”

“Eh, but there’s some good cause this time,” cried the old lady, more flustered than she cared to show. “Happen he’s bin asked to see t’ squire again.”

“T’ squire left Elmsdale afore noon,” was the gruff reply.

Then the vicar entered, and Elsie, leading Martin, and the two pupils carrying the gigantic cat. Mrs. Johnson and the governess-companion had remained with the tent and would drive home in the dogcart.

Mr. Herbert’s glowing account of Martin’s conduct, combined with a judicious reference to his anxiety when he discovered that the hour for his lesson had passed, placed even Bolland in a good humor. Once again the boy filled the mouths of the multitude, since nothing would serve the farmhands but they must carry off the cat to the fair for exhibition before they skinned it.

The doctor came, waylaid on his return from the “Black Lion.” He removed the salt-soaked bandages, washed the wounds in tepid water, examined them carefully, and applied some antiseptic dressing, of which he had a supply in his dogcart for the benefit of George Pickering.

“An’ how is Mr. Pickerin’ te-night?” inquired Mrs. Bolland, who was horrified at first by the sight of Martin’s damages, but reassured when the doctor said the boy would be all right in a day or two.

“Not so well, Mrs. Bolland,” was the answer.

“Oh, ye don’t say so. Poor chap! Is it wuss than ye feared for?”

“No; the wound is progressing favorably, but he is feverish. I don’t like that. Fever is weakening.”

No more would the doctor say, and Mrs. Bolland soon forgot the sufferings of another in her distress at Martin’s condition. She particularly lamented that he should be laid up during the Feast.

At that the patient laughed.

“Surely I can go out, doctor!” he cried.

“Go out, you imp! Of course, you can. But, remember, no larking about and causing these cuts to reopen. Better stay in the house until I see you in the morning.”

So Martin, fearless of consequences, hunted up “Rokeby,” and read it with an interest hardly lessened by the fact that that particular poem is the least exciting of the magician’s verse. At last the light failed and the table was laid for supper, so the boy’s reading was disturbed. More than once he fancied he had heard at the back of the house a long, shrill whistle which sounded familiar. Curiosity led him to the meadow. He waited a little while, and again the whistle came from the lane.

“Who is it?” he called.

“Me. Is that you, Martin?”

“Me” was Tommy Beadlam, but his white top did not shine in the dark.

“What’s up?”

“Come nearer. I mustn’t shout.”

Wondering what mystery was afoot, Martin approached the hedge.

“Yon lass,” whispered Tommy – “I can’t say her name, but ye ken fine wheä ’tis – she’s i’ t’ fair ageän.”

“What! Angèle?”

“That’s her. She gemme sixpence te coom an’ tell yer. I’ve bin whistlin’ till me lips is sore.”

“You tell her from me she is a bad girl and ought to go home at once.”

“Not me! She’d smack my feäce.”

“Well, I can’t get out. I’ve had an accident and must go to bed soon.”

“There’s a rare yarn about you an’ a cat. I seed it. Honest truth – did you really kill it wi’ your hands?”

“Yes; but it gave me something first. Can you see? My arms and left hand are all bound up.”

“An’ it jumped fust on Elsie Herbert?”

“Yes.”

“An’ yer grabbed it offen her?”

“Yes.”

“Gosh! Yon lass is fair wild te hear all about it. She greeted when Evelyn Atkinson telt her yer were nearly dead, but yan o’ t’ farmhands kem along an’ we axed him, an’ he said ye were nowt worse.”

Martin’s heart softened when he heard of Angèle’s tears, but he was sorry she should have stolen out a second time to mix with the rabble of the village.

“I can’t come out to-night,” he said firmly.

“Happen ye’d be able to see her if I browt her here?”

The white head evidently held brains, but Martin had sufficient strength of character to ask himself what his new friends, the Herbert family, would think if they knew he was only too willing to dance to any tune the temptress played.

“No, no,” he cried, retreating a pace or two. “You must not bring her. I’m going to supper and straight to bed. And, look here, Tommy. Try and persuade her to go home. If you and Jim Bates and the others take her round the fair to-night you’ll all get into trouble. You ought to have heard the parson to-day, and Miss Walker, too. I wouldn’t be in your shoes for more than sixpence.”

This was crafty counsel. Beadlam, after consulting Jim Bates, communicated it to Angèle. She stared with wide-open eyes at the doubting pair.

“Misericorde!” she cried. “Were there ever such idiots! Because he cannot come himself, he doesn’t want me to be with you.”

There was something in this. Their judgment wavered, and – and – Angèle had lots of money.

But she laughed them to scorn.

“Do you think I want you!” she screamed. “Bah! I spit at you. Evelyn, ma chérie, walk with me to The Elms. I want to hear all about the man who was stabbed and the woman who stabbed him.”

Thereupon, Evelyn and one of her sisters went off with a girl whom they hated. But she was clever, in their estimation, and pretty, and well dressed, and, oh, so rich! Above all, she was not “stuck up” like Elsie Herbert, but laughed at their simple wit, and was ready to sink to their level.

Martin, taking thought before he slept, wondered why Angèle had not come openly to the farm. It did not occur to him that Angèle dared not face John Bolland. The child feared the dour old farmer. She dreaded a single look from the shrewd eyes which seemed to search her very soul.

CHAPTER X

DEEPENING SHADOWS

The doctor came late next morning. He did not reach Elmsdale until after eleven o’clock. He called first at the White House and handed Mrs. Bolland a small package.

“These are the handkerchiefs I took away yesterday,” he said. “I suppose they belong to Mr. Herbert’s household. My servant has washed them. Will you see that they are returned?”

“Mercy o’ me!” cried Martha. “I nivver knew ye took ’em. What did ye want ’em for, docthor?”

“There might have been some malignant substance – some poisonous matter – in the cat’s claws, and as the county analyst was engaged at my place on some other business I – Oh, come now, Mrs. Bolland, there’s no need to be alarmed. Martin’s wounds were cleansed, and the salt applied to the raw edges so promptly, that any danger which might have existed was stopped effectually.”

Yet the doctor’s cheery face was grave that morning and his brow was wrinkled as he unfastened the bandages. Beyond a slight stiffness of certain sinews and the natural soreness of the cut flesh, Martin had never felt better in his life. After a disturbed slumber, when he dreamed that he was choking a wildcat – a cat with Angèle’s face which changed suddenly in death to Elsie Herbert’s smiling features – he lay awake for some hours. Then the pain in his wrists abated gradually, he fell sound asleep, and Mrs. Bolland took care that he was left alone until he awoke of his own accord at half-past eight, an unprecedented hour.

So the boy laughed at his mother’s fears. Her lips quivered, and she tried to choke back a sob. The doctor turned on her angrily.

“Stop that!” he growled. “I suppose you think I’m hoodwinking you. It is not so. I am very much worried about another matter altogether, so please accept my assurance that Martin is all right. He can run about all day, if he likes. The only consequence of disturbing these cuts will be that they cannot heal rapidly. Otherwise, they will be closed completely by the end of the week.”

While he talked he worked. The dressings were changed and fresh lint applied. He handed Mrs. Bolland a store of materials.

“There,” he said, “I need not come again, but I’ll call on Monday, just to satisfy you. Apply the lotion morning and night. Good-by, Martin. You did a brave thing, I hear. Good-by, Mrs. Bolland.”

He closed his bag hurriedly and rushed away. Mrs. Bolland, drying her eyes, and quite satisfied now, went to the door and gazed after him.

“He’s fair rattled wi’ summat,” she told another portly dame who labored up the incline at the moment. “He a’most snapped my head off. Did he think a body wouldn’t be scared wi’ his talk about malignous p’ison i’ t’ lad’s bluid, I wonder?”

The doctor did not pull up outside the “Black Lion.” He drove to the Vicarage – a circumstance which would most certainly have given Mrs. Bolland renewed cause for alarm, were she aware of it – and asked Mr. Herbert to walk in the garden with him for a few minutes.

The two conversed earnestly, and the vicar seemed to be greatly shocked at the outcome of their talk. At last they arrived at a decision. The doctor hastened back to the “Black Lion.” He did not remain long in the sick room, but scribbled a note downstairs and gave it to his man.

“Take that to Mr. Herbert,” he said. “I’ll make a few calls on foot and meet you at the bridge in a quarter of an hour.”

The note read:

“There is no hope. Things are exactly as I feared.”

The vicar, looking most woebegone, murmured that there was no answer. He procured his hat and walked slowly to the inn, which was crowded, inside and out. Nearly every man knew him and spoke to him, and many noted that “t’ passon looked varra down i’ t’ mooth this mornin’.”

He went upstairs. The conjecture flew around at once that Pickering was worse. Someone remembered that Kitty Thwaites said the patient had experienced a touch of fever overnight. Surely, his wound had not developed serious symptoms. The chief herd of his Nottonby estate had seen him during the preceding afternoon and found his master looking wonderfully well. Indeed, Pickering spoke of attending to some business matter in person on Saturday, or on Monday for certain. Why, then, the vicar’s visit? What did it portend? People gathered in small groups and their voices softened. By contrast, the blare of lively music and the whistle of the roundabout were intolerably loud.

In the quiet room at the back of the hotel, with its scent of iodoform mingling with the sweet breath of the garden wafted in through an open window, Pickering moved restlessly in bed. His face was flushed, his eyes singularly bright, with a glistening sheen that was abnormal.

By his side sat the pallid Betsy, reading a newspaper aloud. She followed the printed text with difficulty. Her mind was troubled. The fatigue of nursing was nothing to one of her healthy frame, but her thoughts were terrifying. She lived in a waking nightmare. Had she dared to weep, she might have felt relief, but this sure solace of womankind was denied her.

The vicar’s entrance caused a sensation. Betsy, in a quick access of fear, dropped the paper, and Pickering’s face blanched. Some secret doubt, some inner monitor, brought a premonition of what was to come. He flinched from the knowledge, but only for a moment.

Mr. Herbert essayed most gallantly to adopt his customary cheerful mien.

“Dr. MacGregor asked me to call and see you, George,” he said. “I hope you are not suffering greatly.”

“Not at all, thanks, vicar. Just a trifle restless with fever, perhaps, but the wound is nothing, a mere cut. I’ve had as bad a scratch and much more painful when thrusting through a thorn hedge after hounds.”

“Ah. That is well.”

The reverend gentleman seemed to be strangely at a loss for words. He glanced at Betsy.

“Would you mind leaving me alone with Mr. Pickering for a little while?” he said.

The wounded man laughed, and there was a note in his voice that showed how greatly the tension had relaxed.

“If that’s what you’re after, Mr. Herbert,” he said promptly, “you may rest assured that the moment I’m able to stir we’ll be married. I told Mr. Beckett-Smythe so yesterday.”

“Indeed; I am glad to hear it. Nevertheless, I want to talk with you alone.”

The vicar’s insistence was a different thing to the wish expressed by a magistrate and a police superintendent. Betsy went out at once.

For an appreciable time after the door had closed no word was spoken by either of the men. The vicar’s eyes were fixed mournfully on the valley, through which a train was winding its way. The engine left in its track white wraiths of steam which vanished under the lusty rays of the sun. The drone of the showman’s organ playing “Tommy Atkins” reached the hardly conscious listeners as through a telephone. From a distant cornfield came the busy rattle of a reaping machine. The harvest had commenced a fortnight earlier than usual. Once again was the bounteous earth giving to man a hundredfold what he had sown. “As ye sow, so shall ye reap.” Out there in the field were garnered the wages of honest endeavor; here in the room, with its hospital perfume, were being awarded the wages of sin, for George Pickering was condemned to death, and it was the vicar’s most doleful mission to warn him of his doom.

“Now, Mr. Herbert, pitch into me as much as you like,” said the patient, breaking an uneasy silence. “I’ve been a bad lot, but I’ll try to make amends. Betsy’s case is a hard one. You’re a man of the world and you know what the majority of these village lasses are like; but Betsy – ”

The vicar could bear the suspense no longer. He must perform his task, no matter what the cost.

“George,” he broke in tremulously, “my presence here to-day is due to a very sad and irrevocable fact. Dr. MacGregor tells me that your condition is serious, most serious. Indeed – indeed – there is no hope of your recovery.”

Pickering, who had raised himself on an elbow, gazed at the speaker for an instant with fiery eyes. Then, as though he grasped the purport of the words but gradually, he sank back on the pillow in the manner of one pressed down by overwhelming force. The vicar moved his chair nearer and grasped his friend’s right hand.

“George,” he murmured, “bear up, and try to prepare your soul for that which is inevitable. What are you losing? A few years of joys and sorrows, to which the end must come. And the end is eternity, compared with which this life is but a passing shadow.”

Pickering did not answer immediately. He raised his body again. He moved his limbs freely. He looked at a square bony wrist and stretched out the free hand until he caught an iron rail, which he clenched fiercely. In his veins ran the blood of a race of yeomen. His hardy ancestors had exchanged blow for blow with Scottish raiders who sought to steal their cattle. They had cracked the iron rind of many a marauder, broken many a border skull in defense of their lives and property. Never had they feared death by flood or field, and their descendant scoffed at the grim vision now.

“What nonsense is this MacGregor has been talking?” he shouted. “Die! A man like me! By gad, vicar, I’d laugh, if I wasn’t too vexed!”

“Be patient, George, and hear me. Things are worse than you can guess. Your wound alone is a small matter, but, unfortunately, the knife – ”

“There was no knife! It was a pitchfork!”

“Bear with me, I pray you. You will need to conserve your energy, and your protest only makes my duty the harder. The knife has been submitted to analysis, as well as corpuscles of your blood. Alas, that it should fall to me to tell it! Alas, for the poor girl whom you have declared your intention to marry! The knife had been used to carve grouse, and some putrid matter from a shot wound had dried on the blade. This was communicated to your system. The wound was cleansed too late. Your blood was poisoned before the doctor saw you, and – and – there is no hope now.”

The vicar bowed his head. He dared not look in the eyes of the man to whom he was conveying this dire sentence. He felt Pickering subsiding gently to the pillow and straightening his limbs.

“How long?”

The words were uttered in a singularly calm voice – so calm that the pastor ventured to raise his sorrow-laden face.

“Soon. Perhaps three days. Perhaps a week. But you will be delirious. You have little time in which to prepare.”

Again a silence. A faint shriek reached them from afar, the whistle of the train entering Nottonby, the pleasant little town which Pickering would never more see.

“What a finish!” he muttered. “I’d have liked it better in the saddle. I wouldn’t have cared a damn if I broke my neck after hounds.”

Another pause, and the vicar said gently:

“Have you made your will?”

“No.”

“Then it must be attended to at once.”

“Yes, of course. Then, there’s Betsy. Oh, God, I’ve treated her badly. Now, help me, won’t you? There’s a hundred pounds in notes and some twenty-odd in gold in that drawer. Telegraph first to Stockwell, my lawyer in Nottonby. Bring him here. Then, spare no money in getting a license for my marriage. I can’t die unless that is put right. Don’t delay, there’s a good chap. You have to apply to the Archbishop, don’t you? You’ll do everything, I know. Will you be a trustee under my will?”

“Yes, if you wish it.”

“It’ll please me more than anything. Of course, I’ll make it worth your while. I insist, I tell you. Go, now! Don’t lose a moment. Send Betsy. And, vicar, for Heaven’s sake, not a word to her until we are married. I’ll tell her the fever is serious; just that, and no more.”

“One other matter, George. Mr. Beckett-Smythe will come here to-day or to-morrow to take your sworn deposition. You must not die with a lie on your conscience, however good the motive.”

“I’ll jump that fence when I reach it, Mr. Herbert. Meanwhile, the lawyer and the license. They’re all-important.”

The vicar left it at that. He deemed it best to take the urgent measures of the hour off the man’s mind before endeavoring to turn his thoughts toward a fitting preparation for the future state. With a reassuring handclasp, he left him.

The two sisters waylaid him in the passage.

“Ye had but ill news, I fear, sir,” said Betsy despairingly, catching Mr. Herbert by the arm.

The worried man stooped to deception.

“Now, why should you jump to conclusions?” he cried. “Dr. MacGregor asked me to look up his patient. Am I a harbinger of disaster, like Mother Carey’s chickens?”

“Oh, parson,” she wailed, “I read it i’ yer face, an’ in t’ doctor’s. Don’t tell me all is well. I know better. Pray God I may die – ”

“Hush, my poor girl, you know not what you say. Go to Mr. Pickering. He wants you.”

He knew the appeal would be successful. She darted off. Before Kitty, in turn, could question him, he escaped.

It was easier to run the gantlet of friendly inquirers outside. He telegraphed to the solicitor and sent a telegraphic remittance of the heavy fees demanded for the special license. Within two hours he had the satisfaction of knowing that the precious document was in the post and would reach him next morning.

Mr. Stockwell’s protests against Pickering’s testamentary designs were cut short by his client.

“Look here, Stockwell,” was the irritated comment, “you are an old friend of mine and I’d like this matter to remain in your hands, but if you say another word I’ll be forced to send for someone else.”

“If you put it that way – ” began the lawyer.

“I do, most emphatically. Now, what is it to be? Yes or no?”

For answer the legal man squared some foolscap sheets on a small table and produced a stylographic pen.

“Let me understand clearly,” he said. “You intend to marry this – er – lady, and mean to settle four hundred a year on her for life?”

“Yes.”

“Suppose she marries again?”

“God in heaven, man, do you think I want to play dog-in-the-manger in my grave?”