dan dragged bess up by the wrist, and, seeing that she was dazed and faint, let her lean for a moment against a tree. the girl had been half stunned by the blow he had given her; blood was trickling from her mouth, her head drooping upon her bosom.
dan, who was biting his nails and looking the creature of fury and indecision, turned on her at last, and, taking her by the cloak, dragged her back along the path. bess had no spirit left in her for the moment. faint, dizzy, and unable to think, she was yet conscious of the fact that she was utterly at her husband’s mercy. dan dragged her along roughly, cursing her when she stumbled, and shifting his grip from her cloak to her arm. she felt his fingers bruising the flesh as he gripped the muscles, grinding his teeth and shaking her now and again as though she were a child.
dan brought his wife to the monk’s grave again. from afar they saw the light of the lantern blinking through the forest, for isaac had relit it and was standing on guard with his gun at full-cock. dan gave a shout as he dragged bess through the undergrowth, careless of how the boughs and briers smote and scratched her face. isaac came limping up the glade towards them, the lantern in one hand, the gun in the other.
“who be it, dan?” he asked.
dan laughed and held the girl out at arm’s-length towards his father. isaac lifted the lantern. the light flashed upon bess’s face with its wild and shadowy eyes and bleeding mouth.
“bess!”
“a pretty trick she’s been playing us, father.”
“odds my life, how much have you seen, wench—how much have you seen?”
he set the lantern down, seized bess by the bosom of her gown, and shook her.
“speak, you she-dog, what were you spying on us for?”
bess shivered and her lips twitched.
“i followed dan,” she said.
“the deuce—you did!”
“i saw him throw the money out.”
she broke suddenly into half-hysterical laughter, the mirthless and uncontrollable laughter of one unnerved by shock. isaac threw her back from him so roughly that she reeled and staggered against dan. bess felt her husband’s hands over her bosom, gripping her so that she stood with her back to him and could not move. isaac was limping to and fro before them, handling his gun, flashing now and again a fierce look at bess. for the moment she understood but vaguely what was passing in the old man’s mind.
isaac faced them suddenly, his eyes glinting from a net-work of wrinkles.
“stand aside, lad,” he said, his fingers contracting about the stock of the gun.
bess felt dan’s arms tighten about her body.
“what be ye thinking of, father?” he asked.
“stand aside.”
bess, with a sudden flash of dread, understood the fierce purpose in him, and her terror swept away all other feelings for the instant. she twisted herself round in dan’s arms and clung to him desperately, looking up into his face.
“no, no,” she panted, “hold me, dan; dear god, don’t let the old man shoot me.”
dan’s arms were fast about her, and he faced his father, who was poking the gun forward and licking his lips.
“odd’s my life, stand aside from the she-dog.”
dan kept his post, feeling the pressure of his wife’s arms and the terror of her appealing face.
“put the gun down, father,” he said.
isaac hesitated. bess cast a rapid glance at him over her shoulder.
“i’ll not tell,” she said. “i’ll not tell.”
dan still held her fast and kept his eyes fixed on his father’s face.
“put the gun down,” he said, with a hoarse oath.
isaac lowered the muzzle and came a step nearer to his son.
“ye great fool,” he said, “will ye trust to a woman’s word!”
“i’ll not have ye shoot my wife like a dog,” quoth the younger man, fierce with the pride of ownership.
isaac uncocked the gun and threw it from him with a curse.
“as ye will, as ye will,” he said, limping rapidly to and fro in his agitation. “i have heard o’ kings losing their crowns from the curse of a woman’s tongue.”
dan had freed bess. he sprang forward and picked up the gun.
“ye shall not be doing murder this night, father,” he said.
the dawn was creeping up over pevensel when isaac, dan, and bess came through the woods towards the hamlet. the forest was full of mist and silence, vague and ghostly vapor standing in the glades. the stars sank back as the gray light increased in the vault above. then came the first whimper of a waking bird, followed as by magic by the shrill piping from a thousand throats. the whole vast wilderness seemed to grow great with sound. the trees stood as though listening, their huge polls shrouded in mysterious vapor. from the east a gradual glory of gold swam up into the heavens, flashing over the misty hills, touching all the dewy greenness of the woods with light.
isaac limped along in front, sniffing the air, and darting rapid glances from side to side. bess and her husband followed him, the girl white and silent, her black hair in a tangle, her eyes dark with the perilous fortune of the night. she walked wearily, looking neither to the right hand nor the left, but watching old isaac limping in the van. dan, dour and sullen, strode at her side, his gun over one shoulder, spade and pick over the other.
not till he reached his own doorway did isaac turn and face the two who followed him. he gave a fierce glance at bess, a questioning look at dan, and, unlocking the door of the cottage, went in without a word. they heard the merry whimpering of the dog, the jingle of money, the sound of the old man rummaging in a cupboard. when he came out again there were pistols in his belt.
“take her home, lad,” he said, curtly.
dan nodded bess towards the cottage beyond the orchard. she walked on slowly, dan setting himself beside his father as they followed under the trees. bess heard them talking together in undertones, the old man’s voice suave and insinuating, dan’s gruff and obstinate. when they came through the garden, with its monthly roses dashed with dew and all its green life fragrant and full of a summer freshness, dan laid a hand on bess’s shoulder, unlocked the door, and pushed her over the threshold. he bade her sit down in the heavy oak chair, while isaac sank with a tired grunt on the settle by the window. dan brought bess a mug of water and a hunch of bread and commanded her to eat. she obeyed mechanically, wondering what they were going to do with her. isaac and his son watched her in silence.
when she had made a meal, dan went out to the shed behind the cottage and brought back some fathoms of stout cord. he ordered bess to hold out her hands. there was no sign of hesitation on his sullen, black-bearded face. he tied bess’s hands together, bound her about the body and the ankles to the chair, isaac watching with silent satisfaction. when dan had bound her thus he went out with his father, locking the door after him, and left bess to the fellowship of her thoughts.
isaac turned into his cottage for a moment to count out the eighty guineas he had promised ursula and to lock the rest of the gold in his strong box at the bottom of the oak hutch. he did not doubt that the money would put the old lady in the best of tempers, and that he could safely confide in her concerning bess. isaac rejoined dan in the garden, and they moved away towards ursula’s cottage whose stone-wall and thatched roof showed amid the dark trunks and drooping branches of the pines. the old woman was in bed when isaac knocked at the door. a lattice opened overhead, and a red beak and a pair of beady eyes under a pink night-cap appeared, with a few wisps of gray hair falling about a yellow and skinny neck. isaac spoke a few words to her and jingled the money. the face popped in again and they heard ursula hobbling down the stairs. she had tied on a red petticoat and thrown a black shawl over her shoulders. isaac went into her when she had unbolted the door, leaving dan leaning against the wall with his hands deep in his breeches-pockets.
isaac remained with the old woman half an hour or more, the sound of their voices stealing out on the morning silence. he appeared in the best of tempers when he emerged from the cottage, slapped dan on the shoulder, and limped away with him towards the hamlet, smiling to himself as though pleased with his own cleverness.
“the money’s tickled her into a good temper, lad,” he said. “i told her about the wench, and she took it very quiet.”
dan cocked an eye shrewdly at his father.
“we waste a powerful lot of patience on the women,” he retorted.
isaac wagged his head and looked particularly wise and saintly for the moment.
“i reckon we’d better shift the money,” he said.
as they rounded the corner of ursula’s cow-house isaac’s glance lighted on a man who was standing in the garden before his cottage. the fellow was busy throwing pebbles at the upper casements, imagining that the owner was still asleep within. as dan and isaac crossed the open stretch of grass-land that ran like a broad highway through the hamlet, the man standing in the garden caught sight of them as he turned to gather a fresh handful of pebbles from the path. he looked at them suspiciously for the moment, then waved his cap and came striding towards them over the grass. he was a rough, strongly built fellow, with the keen yet foxy air of a born poacher, his bushy brown beard and whiskers hiding fully half of his red and sun-tanned face.
“hallo, jim! what brings you this way, eh?”
the man grinned, and glanced first at isaac and then at dan.
“it be probable, master grimshaw, that we shall be running the ‘osses’ through to-morrow.”
“so—so!”
“mus garston be a-wanting to see ye both down at thorney chapel. there be a fat load comin’ through, and mus garston he’ll share like a gentleman.”
isaac’s gray eyes gave that peculiar twinkle that told those who knew him that he was in the sweetest of tempers. he was never backward where money might be made, and he had no objection to cheating the customs occasionally, provided that the adventure was worth the risk. mus garston was one of the finest land smugglers on the southern coast—a keen, black-eyed fellow, who loved the game better than he loved his soul. bess, too, was safe, bound to the chair in dan’s cottage. they could join garston’s men and leave the girl to be dealt with at their leisure.
“we’ll come, jim,” he said. “come in and have a bite of food and a pull at the ale-pot.”
the poacher capped isaac, for grimshaw was a man of some circumstance among the night-moths of pevensel. they went, the three of them, into isaac’s cottage, and were soon gossiping over their bacon, brown bread, and ale. when they had ended the meal, isaac whispered a few words into his son’s ear, and dan, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand, marched off to his cottage to look at bess.
he found her much as they had left her, sitting stiffly in the chair, and gazing out of the window. her face brightened a little when dan entered, and she tried to smile at him as though for welcome. the man appeared in no mood to pity her. he felt the cords about her wrists and ankles, stared at her a moment in silence, stroking his beard with the palm of his hand.
“dan,” she said, with a wistful drooping of the mouth.
her husband’s dark eyes were hard and without light.
“what are you going to do with me?”
“do with ye?”
“yes.”
dan frowned as he turned towards the door.
“keep ye from playing more tricks,” he said. “you will bide there safe, i reckon, till we come back.”
bess said never a word to him, but it was with a sinking heart that she heard dan shut and lock the door. what would they do with her when they returned? of a surety she had discovered some great secret that had lain hid in the deeps of pevensel. what if her meddling should bring her to her death?
