by all the chill miles homewards, whatever and what varying emotions prevailed in the breasts of the little party found no expression in words. indeed there could be no passion of feeling in that bitter night so hot as to resist the numbing influence of a frost that seemed to glaze the roof of one’s mouth, if opened to speak, with ice. tuke felt little but the instinct to prick his snorting beast onwards with bloodless heels. yet through all he was conscious of a spark that glowed and wavered in him like a pulse—a little fierce flame of triumph and of ecstasy—a suffusion of audacity, or repudiation of the formal conduct to which he had vainly struggled to subscribe. he had no deliberate plan of evil in his soul; neither had he the courage or the inclination to face the situation of his own contriving. he had snapped under a strain, so it seemed to him; and that was all. for the moment it was exquisite pleasure to feel all his moral fibres relaxed as he drove intoxicated before the force he had for a time withstood.
“your fingers are a love-knot about my heart, betty,” he once said over his shoulder. “it should be a toasting fire for their comfort.”
he gently unslackened the clasp of the brown hands and bent and put one to his lips.
“they are cold as snow, sweetling,” said he. “the little bones of them are stiff as flower-stalks; and they are as pretty, betty, and by and by the buds shall break on them, if you please. would you like these poor cold little stalks to blossom into pearls and rubies?”
she tried to pull her hand away; but he would not let her.
“no,” she said in a weeping voice. “oh! how can you put me to the shame?”
“is it shame? that must be a stale superstition. it were shame in my eyes to pluck my flower and leave it to wither.”
“shame to the flower, that must be a bold, flaunting weed to invite such notice.”
“betty, that is sorry logic. what weed ever won man’s heart?”
“i had best slip off and go back to my dead.”
“down with you, girl! and we will lie and die in the snow together.”
“oh, me! what can i say? will your honour not ride on and forget i am here?”
“to be sure, betty—as i forget myself. you had best not remind me of it by addressing me so.”
“i am your honour’s servant.”
“lip-service, wench. no, it will not do. before others as you like; but alone with me—there, don’t cry! the frost will catch your tears, and your lashes will be hung with diamonds no gift of mine. we must think this all out, betty, by a glowing fire. it is too cold here. that little touch on my heart is the only feeling i am conscious of.”
“and you gave me your coat! oh! take it—take it.”
“that i shall not.”
“i am warm—indeed i am.”
“lie in your burrow, little rabbit, and hide your eyes from the dogs. we go up to mr. breeds’s tavern here, and i don’t know what may be abroad.”
he had decided to risk the main road for their return. the augmentation of his party, the necessity of direct progress in that killing cold were his sufficient reasons. they rode past the house and awakened nothing but echoes from its stony walls. on the blind of the lighted tap fell the shadows from within of a group of men. no notice, however, was taken of the little cavalcade as it went silently by outside in the snow.
“betty, can you spell?”
“oh! yes.”
“spell this, then: l-o-v-e-r. what, you can’t? i must put you to school. see, l-o-v-e, and r for the little thumb that points at me. that is your lesson; and now here’s a prize for the quick scholar in the palm of her hand. close it and keep it. you won’t? then you shall return it to me in the dark by and by.”
he hardly knew what nonsense he talked. a core of fire flickered in the numbness of his brain. he gave a whoop! like an excited boy presently as a herd of fallow deer—some twenty or thirty of them—broke from a covert and went beating down the road in front of them.
“these must be some of friend david’s,” he cried.
the poor beasts were smitten with the frost-fright—the desolation of despair that induces the last appeal of the lower to the higher animal. “if he who by his cunning can stultify all our traditional methods of self-protection,” they must argue, “be as full of resource as of foresight, and as full of noble clemency withal, it were well to submit ourselves to his mercy.” and so in strange times, man’s littleness is forced upon himself, because all his vaunted superiority cannot make food in a wilderness or flesh on starved bones; and he cries aloud and his voice returns to him as an empty echo. then, “i must kill,” he says, “that there may be fewer mouths to feed”; and he kills, and fancies that he has mastered the problem of life.
the deer cantered before the horsemen, grunting and shaking their heads. they had no action of escape, but seemed rather to have deliberately entrusted themselves, for safe passage to a greener land of hope, to this human convoy. they went down, a dusky bob of backs, into the hollow where was the entrance to “delsrop”; and here, led by some attraction of the mightier race, they turned into the drive—for the gate had been left open—and trotted along it as far as the lawn, against the sheltering shrubberies of which they took refuge. and, upon the morrow, the most of them were discovered patiently waiting and snuffling about the stable-doors; and an empty coach-house was thrown open and scattered with hay for their benefit; and there, for a time at least, the trusting creatures found the help and protection they sought.
reaching the door of his house at last, tuke swung a leg over his beast’s withers and, leaping to the ground, pulled betty into his arms and landed her by his side. the other two, close upon him, had dismounted at the same moment. he called dennis to him—the formal and authoritative master.
“you will speak to your sister, and see that this young woman, whom i am taking into my service, is fitly lodged and provided for. to-morrow i shall assign her her duties. in the meantime she is to meet with every sympathy and consideration. the man, also, you must accommodate with suitable quarters. you know my interest in the girl, and the circumstances of her misfortune. i leave her proper reception to your charge.”
not another word he said; but when they had been admitted by an amazed wench, he nodded gravely to the little group, and turned into his own dining-hall.
here, as if his opening of the door had released a spring, luvaine came at him like a jack-of-the-clockhouse.
“this is well,” he cried in a high manner of sarcasm—“this is well and hospitable to quit affairs of state for the entertainment of a poor guest or so!”
the wine was still on the table, and it was evident the soldier had had free recourse to it for the smothering of his intolerable suspense. his thin hair was rumpled; his eyes bloodshot; a slumberous demon of fury seemed to struggle in him for wakefulness. flung into an elbow-chair by the hearth, sir david discordantly acknowledged the potency of his own cups. no doubt he had drunk himself to sleep to escape the other’s company.
“you have some title to offence, sir,” said the returned host. “you have been acquainted with the cause of my absence, i believe; but i think no words of mine will persuade you to exonerate me from blame. still, i make you my apologies for what was virtually inevitable.”
“well, sir, well. and you are prepared, i presume, to take up the thread where you dropped it?”
“oh! i cry you mercy, captain luvaine. what would you have, sir? the night is far advanced; i have had an exhausting experience of travel. on my honour, i must recuperate for the next move.”
“mr. tuke, do you mean to tell me, with all deliberateness, that you purpose resting upon my sickness—upon my agony of suspense, sir, counting the question of my reason as nothing compared with your little bodily discomfort?”
“if you will put it crudely, sir; why, so must i. i refuse to act further until i have rested; and you will do well to school your reason into a little consideration for others.”
“you must take note that this is a matter affecting my very last interests.”
“as the necessity for sleep affects mine. restored, i shall be of infinitely more service to you in that respect than i could possibly be now.”
the soldier bowed. so much of the discipline of his profession remained to him. but it seemed almost a murderous demon that dictated the courtesy. he walked towards the door, and turned glowering.
“i must not gainsay you,” he said; “but—but—may god never curse you with the torment to which you are wantonly condemning me.”
he could not altogether so control his feelings as to refrain from slamming the door to behind him as he went out. the clap shook the hall, and brought sir david to his feet with a stare and a cry.
“hallo!” he exclaimed, his headpiece fuddled out of all comprehension. “where—where ha’ you been, you inhospitalable scamp?”
“never mind. i apologize; but you wouldn’t understand.”
“understad?—understad, you conceited peddler? lookee ’ere. tuke. le’s go and hunt for that skull. ain’t you ready—ain’t you, you——”
“oh! go to bed, blythewood. we’ll hunt on the morrow. i’ve arranged it all. we’ll get some sleep first, man; for i’m just dropping.”
“droppin’? you’re drunk as david’s sow, you clever man. there go away. you’re a sight to make the angels weep. i’ll have you before me to-morrer on a warra’t, by the lord i will.”
he stopped, and struck his brow rather aimlessly.
“angel and dunlone!” he cried. “i forgot all about the high-stepper. here’s a pretty host for you. i shall have to commit myself before you. cock! the scarecrow’ll ‘drizzle’ the jade into an asylum. tuke, d’ye hear? if i stop and join in this chase, i must sed the girl a note.”
“well, to-morrow will do for that.”
“curse me! what a wiggin’ i’ll get from her. you must help me out of this scrape. let me bid ’em both to lunch at your place, to hear the result of our expedition. that’ll be a sop to the creature.”
the other hesitated. he still laboured under the excitement of his recent undertaking—still tingled with the afterglow of the late riot in his heart. he had formulated, had conceived indeed, no line of conduct for himself or betty that should meet the occasion. he would not have her a serving drudge in his house, and beyond that one resolve all was indefinite. but he had burnt his boats behind him, and to temporize with circumstance was no longer possible. as he had made his dash for freedom, so must he continue the race recklessly.
“by all means,” he said, with a rather wild laugh. “we will dissolve the ruby in a glass of wine, and miss royston shall drink to the health of the ‘drizzler’ in it.”
