“Can you ask? To drag that poor little mite of a girl into such horrible scenes as those which took place in the village? Be off! You just wait until Mrs. Saumarez is better, and you will hear more of it.”

With that, she slammed the door on him.

So Angèle had posed as a simpleton, and he was the villain. This phase of the medley amused him. He was retreating down the drive, when he heard his name called. He turned. A window on the ground floor opened, and Mrs. Saumarez appeared, leaning unsteadily on the sill.

“Come here!” she cried imperiously.

Somehow she puzzled, indeed flustered, him. For one thing, her attire was bizarre. Usually dressed with unexceptionable taste, to-day she wore a boudoir wrap – a costly robe, but adjusted without care, and all untidy about neck and breast. Her hair was coiled loosely, and stray wisps hung out in slovenly fashion. Her face, deathly white, save for dull red patches on the cheeks, served as a fit setting for unnaturally brilliant eyes which protruded from their sockets in a manner quite startling, while the veins on her forehead stood out like whipcord.

Martin was utterly dismayed. He stood stock-still.

“Come!” she said again, glaring at him with a curious fixity. “I want you. Françoise is not here, and I wish you to run an errand.”

Save for a strange thickness in her speech, she had never before reminded him so strongly of Angèle. She had completely lost her customary air of repose. She spoke and acted like a peevish child.

Anyhow, she had summoned him, and he could now discharge his trust. In such conditions, Martin seldom lacked words.

“I asked for you at the door, ma’am,” he explained, drawing nearer, “but Miss Walker said you were ill. My mother sent me to give you this.”

He produced the little parcel of money and essayed to hand it to her. She surveyed it with lackluster eyes.

“What is it?” she said. “I do not understand. Here is plenty of money. I want you to go to the village, to the ‘Black Lion,’ and bring me a sovereign’s worth of brandy.”

She held out a coin. They stood thus, proffering each other gold.

“But this is yours, ma’am. I came to return it. I – er – borrowed some money from Ang – from Miss Saumarez – and mother said – ”

“Cease, boy. I do not understand, I tell you. Keep the money and bring me what I ask.”

In her eagerness she leaned so far out of the window that she nearly overbalanced. The sovereign fell among some flowers. With an effort she recovered an unsteady poise. Martin stooped to find the money. A door opened inside the house. A hot whisper reached him.

“Tell no one. I’ll watch for you in half an hour – remember – a sovereign’s worth.”

The boy, not visible from the far side of the room, heard the voice of Françoise. The window closed with a bang. He discovered the coin and straightened himself. The maid was seating her mistress in a chair and apparently remonstrating with her. She picked up from the floor a wicker-covered Eau de Cologne bottle and turned it upside down with an angry gesture. It was empty.

Martin, whose experience of intoxicated people was confined to the infrequent sight of a village toper, heavy with beer, lurching homeward in maudlin glee or fury, imagined that Mrs. Saumarez must be in some sort of fever. Obviously, those in attendance on her should be consulted before he brought her brandy secretly.

Back he marched to the front door and rang the bell. Lest Miss Walker should shut him out again, he was inside the hall before anyone could answer his summons, for the doors of country houses remain unlocked all day. The elder sister reappeared, very starchy at this unheard-of impertinence.

“I was forced to return, ma’am,” he said civilly. “Mrs. Saumarez saw me in the drive and asked me to buy her some brandy. She gave me a sovereign. She looked very ill, so I thought it best to come and tell you.”

The lady was thoroughly nonplussed by this plain statement.

“Oh,” she stammered, so confused that he did not know what to make of her agitation, “this is very nice of you. She must not have brandy. It is – quite unsuitable – for her illness. It is really very good of you to tell me. I – er – I’m sorry I spoke so harshly just now, but – er – ”

“That’s all right, ma’am. It was all a mistake. Will you kindly take charge of this sovereign, and also of the two pounds ten which Miss Angèle lent me?”

“Which Miss Angèle lent you! Two pounds ten! I thought you said your mother – ”

“It is mine, please,” said a voice from the broad landing above their heads. Angèle skipped lightly down the stairs and held out her hand. Martin gave her the money.

“I don’t understand this, at all,” said the mystified Miss Walker. “Does Mrs. Saumarez know – ”

“Mrs. Saumarez knows nothing. Neither does Martin.”

With wasp-like suddenness, the girl turned and faced a woman old enough to be her grandmother. Their eyes clashed. The child’s look said plainly:

“Dare to utter another word and I’ll disgrace your house throughout the village.”

The woman yielded. She waved a protesting hand. “It is no business of mine. Thank you, Martin, for coming back.”

Angèle lashed out at him next.

“Allez, donc! I’ll never speak to you again.”

She ran up the stairs. He stood irresolute.

“Anyhow, not now,” she added. “I may be out in an hour’s time.”

Miss Walker was holding the door open. He hurried away, and Françoise saw him, wondering why he had called.

And for hours thereafter, until night fell, a white-faced woman paced restlessly to and fro in the sitting-room, ever and anon raising the window, and watching for Martin’s return with a fierce intensity that rendered her almost maniacal in appearance.

Happily, the boy was unaware of the pitiful tragedy in the life of the rich and highly placed Mrs. Saumarez. While she waited, with a rage steadily dwindling into a wearied despair, he was passing, all unconsciously, into the next great phase of his career.

He took one forward step into the unknown before leaving the tree-lined drive. He met Fritz, the chauffeur, who was so absorbed in the study of a folding road-map that he did not see Martin until the latter hailed him.

“Hello!” was the boy’s cheery greeting. “That affair is ended. Please don’t say anything to Mrs. Saumarez.”

The German closed the map.

“Whad iss ented?” he inquired, surveying Martin with a cool hauteur rare in chauffeurs.

“Why, last night’s upset in the village.”

“Ah, yez. Id iss nod my beeznez.”

“I didn’t quite mean that. But there’s no use in getting Miss Angèle into a row, is there?”

“Dat iss zo. Vere do you leeve?”

“At the White House Farm.”

“Vere de brize caddle are?”

Martin smiled. He had never before heard English spoken with a strong German accent. Somehow he associated these resonant syllables with a certain indefinite stress which Mrs. Saumarez laid on a few words.

“Yes,” he said. “My father’s herd is well known.”

Fritz’s manner became genial.

“Zome tay you vill show me, yez?” he inquired.

“I’ll be very pleased. And will you explain your car to me – the engine, I mean?”

“Komm now.”

“Sorry, but I have an engagement.”

There was plenty of time at Martin’s disposal, but he did not want to loiter about The Elms that afternoon. This man was a paid servant who could hardly refuse to carry out any reasonable order, and it would have been awkward for Martin if Mrs. Saumarez asked him to give Fritz the sovereign she had intrusted to his keeping.

“All aright,” agreed the chauffeur, whose strong, intellectual face was now altogether amiable; in fact, a white scar on his left cheek creased so curiously when he grinned that his aspect was almost comical. “We vill meed when all dis noise sdops, yez?” and he waved a hand toward the distant drone of the fair.

Thus began for Martin another strange friendship – a friendship destined to end so fantastically that if the manner of its close were foretold then and there by any prophet, the mere telling might have brought the seer to the madhouse.

CHAPTER IX
THE WILDCAT

It was nearly three o’clock when Martin re-entered the village. Outside the boxing booth a huge placard announced, in sprawling characters, that the first round of the boxing competition would start punctually at 3 P.M. “Owing to the illness of Mr. George Pickering, deeply regretted,” another referee would be appointed.

It cost the boy a pang to stride on. He would have dearly liked to watch the display of pugilism. He might have gone inside the tent for an hour and still kept his tryst with Mr. Herbert, but John Bolland’s dour teaching had scored grooves in his consciousness not readily effaced. The folly of last night must be atoned in some way, and he punished himself deliberately now by going straight home.

The house was only a little less thronged than the “Black Lion,” so he made his way unobserved to the great pile of dry bracken in which he hid books borrowed from the school library. Ten minutes later he was seated in the fork of a tree full thirty feet from the ground and consoling himself for loss of the reality by reading of a fight far more picturesque in detail – the Homeric combat between FitzJames and Roderick Dhu.

From his perch he could see the church clock. Shortly before the appointed hour he climbed down and surmounted the ridge which divided the Black Plantation from Thor ghyll. It was a rough passage, naught save gray rock and flowering ling, or heather, growing so wild and bushy that in parts it overtopped his height. But Martin was sure-footed as a goat. Across the plateau and down the tree-clad slope on the other side he sped, until he reached a point whence he could obtain a comprehensive view of the winding glen.

On a stretch of turf by the side of the silvery beck that rushed so frantically from the moorland to the river, he spied a small garden tent. In front was a table spread with china and cakes, while a copper kettle, burnished so brightly that it shone like gold in the sunlight, was suspended over a spirit lamp. Mr. Herbert was there, and an elderly lady, his aunt, who acted as his housekeeper – also Elsie and her governess and two young gentlemen who “read” with the vicar during the long vacation. Evidently a country picnic was toward; Martin was at a loss to know why he had been invited.

Perhaps they wished him to guide them over the moor to some distant glen or to the early British camp two miles away. Sometimes a tourist wandering through Elmsdale called at the farm for information, and Martin would be dispatched with the inquirer to show the way.

It was a pity that Mr. Herbert had not mentioned his desire, as the daily reading of the Bible was due in an hour, and most certainly, to-day of all days, Martin must be punctual.

If his brain were busy, his eye was clear. He sprang from rock to rock like a chamois. Once he swung himself down a small precipice by the tough root of a whin. He knew the root was there, and had already tested its capabilities, but the gathering beneath watched him with dismay, for the feat looked hazardous in the extreme. In a couple of minutes he had descended two hundred feet of exceedingly rough going. He stopped at the beck to wash his hands and dry them on his handkerchief. Then he approached the group.

“Do you always descend the ghyll in that fashion, Martin?” cried the vicar.

“Yes, sir. It is the nearest way.”

“A man might say that who fell out of a balloon.”

“But I have been up and down there twenty times, sir.”

“Well, well; my imaginary balloonist could make no such answer. Sit down and have some tea. Elsie, this is young Martin Bolland, of whom I have been telling you.”

The girl smiled in a very friendly way and brought Martin a cup of tea and a plate of cakes. So he was a guest, and introduced by the vicar to his daughter! How kind this was of Mr. Herbert! How delighted Mrs. Bolland would be when she heard of it, for, however strict her Nonconformity, the vicar was still a social power in the village, and second only to the Beckett-Smythes in the estimation of the parish.

At first poor Martin was tongue-tied. He answered in monosyllables when the vicar or Mrs. Johnson, the old lady, spoke to him; but to Elsie he said not a word. She, too, was at a loss how to interest him, until she noticed a book in his pocket. When told that it was Scott’s poems she said pleasantly that a month ago she went with her father to a place called Greta Bridge and visited many of the scenes described in “Rokeby.”

Unhappily, Martin had not read “Rokeby.” He resolved to devour it at the first opportunity, but for the nonce it offered no conversational handle. He remained dumb, yet all the while he was comparing Elsie with Angèle, and deciding privately that girls brought up as ladies in England were much nicer than those reared in the places which Angèle named so glibly.

But his star was propitious that day. One of the young men happened to notice a spot where a large patch of heather had been sliced off the face of the moor.

He asked Mr. Herbert what use the farmers made of it.

“Nothing that I can recall,” said the vicar, a man who, living in the country, knew little of its ways; “perhaps Martin can tell you.”

“We make besoms of it, sir,” was the ready reply, “but that space has been cleared by the keepers so that the young grouse may have fresh green shoots to feed on.”

Here was a topic on which he was crammed with information. His face grew animated, his eyes sparkled, the words came fast and were well chosen. As he spoke, the purple moor, the black firs, the meadows, the corn land red with poppies, became peopled with fur and feather. On the hilltops the glorious black cock, in the woods the dandy pheasant and swift pigeon, among the meadows and crops the whirring partridge, became actualities, present, but unseen. There were plenty of hares on the arable land and the rising ground; as for rabbits, they swarmed everywhere.

“This ghyll will be alive with them in little more than an hour,” said Martin confidently. “I shouldn’t be surprised, if we had a dog and put him among those whins, but half-a-dozen rabbits would bolt out in all directions.”

“Please, can I be a little bow-wow?” cried Elsie. She sprang to her feet and ran toward the clump of gorse and bracken he had pointed out, imitating a dog’s bark as she went.

“Take care of the thorns,” shouted Martin, making after her more leisurely.

She paused on the verge of the tangled mass of vegetation and said, “Shoo!”

“That’s no good,” he laughed. “You must walk through and kick the thick clumps of grass – this way.”

He plunged into the midst of the gorse. She followed. Not a rabbit budged.

“That’s odd,” he said, rustling the undergrowth vigorously. “There ought to be a lot here.”

“You know Angèle Saumarez?” said the girl suddenly.

“Yes.”

He ceased beating the bushes and looked at her fixedly, the question was so unexpected. Yet Angèle had asked him the selfsame question concerning Elsie Herbert. One girl resembled another as two peas in a pod.

“Do you like her?”

“I think I do, sometimes.”

“Do you think she is pretty?”

“Yes, often.”

“What do you mean by ‘sometimes,’ ‘often?’ How can a girl be pretty – ‘often’?”

“Well, you see, I think she is nice in many ways, and that if – she knew you – and copied your manner – your voice, and style, and behavior – she would improve very greatly.”

Martin had recovered his wits. Elsie tittered and blushed slightly.

“Really!” she said, and recommenced the kicking process with ardor.

Suddenly, with a fierce snarl, an animal of some sort flew at her. She had a momentary vision of a pair of blazing eyes, bared teeth, and extended claws. She screamed and turned her head. In that instant a wildcat landed on her back and a vicious claw reached for her face. But Martin was at her side. Without a second’s hesitation he seized the growling brute in both hands and tore it from off her shoulders. His right hand was around its neck, but he strove in vain to grasp the small of its back in the left. It wriggled and scratched with the ferocity of an undersized tiger. Martin’s coat sleeves and shirt were slashed to shreds, his waistcoat was rent, and deep gashes were cut in his arms, but he held on gamely.

Mr. Herbert and the others ran up, but came unarmed. They had not even a stick. The vicar, with some presence of mind, rushed back and wrenched a leg from the camp table, but by the time he returned the cat was moving its limbs in its final spasms, for Martin had choked it to death.

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.