mr. tuke and his man were employed upon a very profitless and monotonous task. the one—the first—was engaged in drawing stagnant water from a well in a bucket; the other received and toiled away with each vessel-full in succession, and flung it broadcast about the garden.
they had cleared from the well-rim the torn earth and rubbish that encumbered it. a flap of wood had originally protected the mouth of the hole; but the slobbering tooth of time had chewed this to the veriest pulp, upheld only by the clutch of the grass roots that had spread over and beyond it, and it had become the merest question of accident as to whose foot should first break into the pitfall.
despite the unchancy look of the place, measurement with a plumb revealed the fact that not so much as four feet of dead water lay at the bottom of the inky funnel; and this four feet mr. tuke had set himself patiently to withdraw, in fulfilment of a certain promise made to a couple of rather colourless beaux yeux.
now, for an hour had the two been regularly dipping and spilling, in the remote hope of finding a gold chain and bréviaire curled snugly in the pail after some particular haul. but it seemed a forlorn and fruitless search. if the gewgaw had in truth slipped in, it was for a certainty imbedded in the silt and slime at the bottom.
fatigue was telling a little upon the loose physique of the servant. his cheeks were hot and his breath laboured. but the master worked on, vigorous and pre-occupied, and gave little thought to the other’s condition.
indeed, his want of consideration could plead the excuse that he had much present matter to meditate and digest. he had inherited, it seemed, the lonely lordship of many mysteries; and to the devil’s captured attorneys, he could have thought, had been committed the task of drawing up his new lease of life, so teeming was it with uninterpretable perplexities, after the most admired human models.
once or twice he spoke to his servant, in a stern, even voice that was really little of an invitation to confidence.
“whimple,” he had said, “had you any previous knowledge of the fellow who called yesterday?”
“i have seen him about, sir.”
“had he ever spoken to you before?”
“he had—he may have once or twice.”
it was always an aggravation that this man could never, it appeared, give a direct answer.
“what do you mean by ‘may have’? has he or has he not?”
“he has, sir.”
“on what matters?”
“i don’t know, sir—of no importance—i really couldn’t tell.”
mr. tuke glanced up angrily.
“you part with every word as if it were a tooth. now, mind,” he said sharply—“you’ll give him a wide berth for the future. i’ll not have anything concerning me discussed between you—concerning me, or my house, or whatsoever connected with the estate.”
once again, as the man took the bucket from him, he had looked into his face and said:
“so your removal of the abominations belonging to your sister was an evasion, after all?”
whimple gave a gasp and dropped his eyes.
“sir,” he muttered piteously—“i thought you would never know, or, knowing, never mind. she—she—it would break her heart to part with them altogether. they are abominations to you and me——”
“you can leave yourself out of the question, fellow. i don’t concern myself with the quality of your emotions.”
the other twined his nervous fingers together over the bucket handle. suddenly he spoke up, with a flushed face.
“if they are to go, sir, i would rather take the girl, with all her cranks and fancies, and do my best to seek a living elsewhere.”
the baronet looked hard at the poor baited creature.
“am i losing touch of humanity in face of a little botheration?” he thought. then he added aloud, with a spirit of scorn: “words, words! but you would force me again into being the agent of your self-martyrdom. it won’t do, my friend. the lodge may serve as museum until it is pulled down. i see at least that the most disgusting item of the collection has vanished.”
“the skull, sir? yes, it is gone.”
they laboured at their task once more; and once more mr. tuke fell into profound musing over the perplexities of his later lot. in this connection were two matters for worrying consideration—two flails that beat up the dust of his mind in the absence of any sound grain of evidence.
of these, the first was a certain hyperbolic expression used and reiterated by yesterday’s rogue—a preposterous inquiry that had yet seemed instinct with a subtle undermeaning, and, so weighted, had sung and buzzed ever since in the eavesdropper’s brain.
“the lake of wine!” the term had been surely employed to cover or suggest a tangible fact. its persistent repetition by mr. joe corby precluded the idea that it was merely an accidental fancy played upon for the girl’s behoof.
then, what was its interpretation?—to what did it allude? beyond the surmise that it must refer to something concealed upon, or connected with, his bugbear property, it was obviously impracticable for him to reach.
so, rebounding from a blank wall of speculation, he would stumble against his second trouble. this, in its essence, was nothing but a fear, or the shadow of one. it amounted to sounds about the house of a night—sounds indistinctly acknowledged by a consciousness on the borderland of slumber and acute to nice impressions of the senses. he could recall them thundering on the drum of his visionary ear, and could remember starting up wildly awake to be aware of nothing in all the atmosphere of his room but a ticking silence. still, the feeling would remain that something had been moving, creeping, breathing in his neighbourhood only a moment earlier; and more than once he had risen, with a wet forehead, to satisfy himself that he had been merely dreaming.
this recurrent uneasiness he had experienced on every night but the first of his inhabitance of the room; and it was beginning to thread his being with a little strand of nervousness. oddly he felt himself in some telepathic way to be the centre of a nebulous mystery without having the remotest idea as to what was its nature. but his present lot was so strange, his position so isolated, that, even as a fearless man, he felt he was justified in adopting some nice precautions against the possibility of midnight surprises.
now it occurred to him that upon that single night only of his arrival had he enjoyed immunity from this shadowy sense of unseen company in his room; and he could not fail to remember that upon that occasion alone had the shutters of the broad window been closed and fastened. ever since, by his own order, had they remained open. moreover, as was his custom, he slept with a lattice flung wide to the inpour of fresh cold air.
certainly to assume that any midnight visitor could have taken advantage of this so far as to enter, by way of ladder or creeper, and prowl about his chamber without immediately awakening him, seemed a ridiculous supposition. yet, as a wise man, it would perhaps be as well for the future to obviate, by closing the shutters, the necessity of suffering an apprehension so far-fetched.
“whimple,” said he, as the man brought the bucket wearily back to the well-side—“why, when i first came, did you so protest against my flinging open the shutters of my bedroom?”
the servant hesitated, then stammered:
“i—i thought it wisest, sir. the—the house is lonely, and the neighbourhood harbours some rogues, i fear.”
“such as him you are on speaking terms with? well, i have altered my mind. for the future, close them—you understand?”
for the life of him he could not treat the man with even an assumption of confidence. he would have thought the revocation of his order received with unmistakable relief, had he not been so steeped in suspicion of all things.
he was bending to his work again, when a voice hailing him from over the garden hedge made him start and turn round.
“hi! are you squire tuke?”
“at your service,” said he, and went forward.
a little man seated on a great horse was there in the drive—a pert cocksparrow knowingly-attired and bristling with pride of raiment. he had a comical small face, very pale, and his hat was of the last-approved shade of grey, with a broad ribbon of black and a broader buckle about it.
he looked a mere handy-dandy snip; though he had in fact at that time come of age some five years; but his whimsical self-sufficiency not the fly on the bull’s horn could have outdone.
he raised his hat in a very courtly manner as the other approached.
“i have to apologize,” he said, “for this unceremonious greetin’.”
his voice was high and restive, as if it were not yet quite broken in.
“by no means,” said mr. tuke. “you are sir david blythewood, i presume?”
the manling had by this time dismounted. he reached a hand over the hedge—a little gloved paw, small as a girl’s—and offered it in grasp to the gentleman.
“i ask the honour of your acquaintance,” said he. “my sister owes her life to you, i hear. ’twas an admirable rescue, and more than her deserts.”
he grinned all over his little face.
“she was pryin’, mr. tuke—she was pryin’. she didn’t let that cat out of the bag, i’ll warrant. ever since your comin’ she’d been eatin’ her heart out to get a glimpse of the lord of wastelands, as they call you.”
“indeed? i am happy to interest miss blythewood. she suffers no hurt from her mishap, i hope?”
“rest you, rest you. the hurt’s to her vanity, by gad. ’twas rich for her to make her bow wrong end up. she’s miss royston—my half-sister; and a devilish responsible legacy, by the token. she keeps house for me. i say, you’ll let us be acquainted. d’you breed from your own game-eggs? there’s a pit at stockbridge kept by old pollack of the inn. i’ve a duckwing cockerel, march sittin’ would torment ye;—hackles as gold as his mettle. come yule, i’ll back him, fifty pounds a side, against the bloodiest rooster you can show.”
so he ran on. his naïve self-importance, half-nullified by the frankness of his boyish confidence, was like a gush of sweet air through the enwrapping gloom of the other’s surroundings.
“we’ll see,” said mr. tuke, with a smile—“we’ll see. at present, as you may observe, i’ve my work cut out here for months.”
sir david craned his neck over the hedge.
“it’s a wilderness, good truth,” said he. “is that whimple? he’s a spine-broke artichoke, he is, with a worm at his root. what’s he doin’ there? sure that’s the hole that angel near sunk into. you ain’t never—why, you ain’t never dippin’ for that chain of hers?”
“we are, though.”
the youngling turned to him with a grin and a titter.
“it’s a shame, by cock,” said he. “i ought to have sent a message, but clean forgot. you may save yourself the trouble. she had left it at home all the time.”
mr. tuke, all considered, received this belated information very handsomely.
“then i have laboured like jacob,” said he. “but my second term is yet to serve.”
sir david chuckled.
“rachel was a prodigious coquette,” he said. “well, mr. tuke, i’m forgettin’ my manners keepin’ you talkin’ here.”
“no, no. come to the house.”
he was reluctant to part with the bright little dandy; but the latter was already in the saddle.
“can’t,” he chirped. “i’ve an appointment at four, and angel ’ll be faintin’ to hear tell of every word you’ve spoke. i say—i’ll draw the bow on that jacob. you must come over to my place, and let’s be friends.”
the lord of wastelands walked with him to the gate, and bid him a cheery good-speed as he cantered away.
he was dipping out of sight, when a long man, with a rod over his shoulder, came past up the road, and leered sourly as he went by at the baronet.
“come,” thought the gentleman, “i’ve seen you once before. what do you fish for in these dry beds, my friend?”
he waited until the man had vanished over the hill. the latter had looked back once on his way, and seeing himself observed, had gone forward with no further token of inquisitiveness.
mr. tuke returned to his house, in a pleasantly preoccupied frame of mind. he was both cheered and amused over the meeting with his lively neighbour, and promised himself a substantial dividend of fun out of that investment in the other’s friendship. he called to whimple, as he passed, that he should need him no longer, and so went by to his front door, and, on the threshold, met darda.
at once, some impulse of the moment drove him to look full in her face and to say: “what is the lake of wine?”
the girl backed from him, and stared a breathless instant with round eyes of wonder. then she gave a small soft laugh, and, twining her fingers together, set her lips chilly like frosted rosebuds shrunk from opening to a north-easter.
“darda,” he said, “will you not tell me? i think you don’t know what is the lake of wine, or where it is?”
“i know—i know!” she cried suddenly—“but what have you done that i should tell you?”—and, with a changeling screech, she sprang past him and vanished up the drive.
