"Devilish nice gal!" affirms the other, no longer addressing himself to the barmaid, who has scornfully shown them the back of her head, with its tower of twisted jute. "Devilish nice gal, indeed! Never saw spicier stand before a counter. What a dainty little fish for a farmer"s daughter! Say, Charley! wouldn"t you like to be sellin" her a pair of kids--Jouvin"s best--helpin" her draw them on, eh?"
"By Jove, yes! That would I."
"Perhaps you"d prefer it being boots? What a stepper she is, too! S"pose we slide after, and see where she hangs out?"
"Capital idea! Suppose we do?"
"All right, old fellow! I"m ready with the yard stick--roll off!"
And without further exchange of their professional phraseology, they rush out, leaving their gla.s.ses half-full of the effervescing beverage--rapidly on the spoil.
They have sallied forth to meet disappointment. The night is black as Erebus, and the girl gone out of sight. Nor can they tell which way she has taken; and to inquire might get them "guyed," if not worse. Besides, they see no one of whom inquiry could be made. A dark shadow pa.s.ses them, apparently the figure of a man; but so dimly descried, and going in such rapid gait, they refrain from hailing him.
Not likely they will see more of the "monstrously crummy creetya" that night--they may on the morrow somewhere--perhaps at the little chapel close by.
Registering a mental vow to do their devotions there, and recalling the bottle of fizz left uncorked on the counter, they return to finish it.
And they drain it dry, gulping down several goes of B.-and-S., besides, ere ceasing to think of the "devilish nice gal," on whose dainty little fist they would so like fitting kid gloves.
Meanwhile, she, who has so much interested the dry goods gentlemen, is making her way along the road which leads past the Widow Wingate"s cottage, going at a rapid pace, but not continuously. At intervals she makes stops, and stands listening--her glances sent interrogatively to the front. She acts as one expecting to hear footsteps, or a voice in friendly salutation, and see him saluting--for it is a man.
Footsteps are there besides her own, but not heard by her, nor in the direction she is hoping to hear them. Instead, they are behind, and light, though made by a heavy man. For he is treading gingerly as if on eggs--evidently desirous not to make known his proximity. Near he is, and were the light only a little clearer she would surely see him.
Favoured by its darkness he can follow close, aided also by the shadowing trees, and still further from her attention being all given to the ground in advance, with thoughts preoccupied.
But closely he follows her, but never coming up. When she stops he does the same, moving on again as she moves forward. And so for several pauses, with spells of brisk walking between.
Opposite the Wingates" cottage she tarries longer than elsewhere. There was a woman standing in the door, who, however, does not observe her--cannot--a hedge of holly between. Cautiously parting its spinous leaves and peering through, the young girl takes a survey not of the woman, whom she well knows, but of a window--the only one in which there is a light. And less the window than the walls inside. On her way to the Ferry she had stopped to do the same; then seeing shadows--two of them--one a woman"s, the other of a man. The woman is there in the door--Mrs. Wingate herself; the man, her son, must be elsewhere.
"Under the elm by this," says Mary Morgan, in soliloquy. "I"ll find him there," she adds, silently gliding past the gate.
"Under the elm," mutters the man who follows, adding, "I"ll kill her there--ay, both!"
Two hundred yards further on, and she reaches the place where the footpath debouches upon the road. There is a stile of the usual rough crossbar pattern, proclaiming a right of way.
She stops only to see there is no one sitting upon it--for there might have been--then leaping lightly over she proceeds along the path.
The shadow behind does the same, as though it were a spectre pursuing.
And now, in the deeper darkness of the narrow way, arcaded over by a thick canopy of leaves, he goes closer and closer, almost to touching.
Were a light at this moment let upon his face, it would reveal features set in an expression worthy of h.e.l.l itself; and cast farther down, would show a hand closed upon the haft of a long-bladed knife--nervously clutching--every now and then half drawing it from its sheath, as if to plunge its blade into the back of her who is now scarce six steps ahead!
And with this dread danger threatening--so close--Mary Morgan proceeds along the forest path, unsuspectingly: joyfully as she thinks of who is before, with no thought of that behind--no one to cry out, or even whisper, the word, "Beware!"
CHAPTER XX.
UNDER THE ELM.
In more ways than one has Jack Wingate thrown dust in his mother"s eyes.
His going to the Ferry after a piece of whipcord and a bit of pitch was fib the first; the second his not going there at all--for he has not.
Instead, in the very opposite direction; soon as reaching the road, having turned his face towards Abergann, though his objective point is but the "big elm." Once outside the gate he glides along the holly hedge crouchingly, and with head ducked, so that it may not be seen by the good dame, who has followed him to the door.
The darkness favouring him, it is not; and congratulating himself at getting off thus deftly, he continues rapidly up the road.
Arrived at the stile, he makes stop, saying in soliloquy:--
"I take it she be sure to come; but I"d gi"e something to know which o"
the two ways. Bein" so darkish, an" that plank a bit dangerous to cross, I ha" heard--"tan"t often I cross it--just possible she may choose the roundabout o" the road. Still, she sayed the big elm, an" to get there she"ll have to take the path comin" or goin" back. If I thought comin"
I"d steer straight there an" meet her. But s"posin" she prefers the road, that "ud make it longer to wait. Wonder which it"s to be."
With hand rested on the top rail of the stile, he stands considering.
Since their stolen interchange of speech at the Harvest Home, Mary has managed to send him word she will make an errand to Rugg"s Ferry; hence his uncertainty. Soon again he resumes his conjectured soliloquy:--
""Tan"t possible she ha" been to the Ferry, an" goed back again? G.o.d help me, I hope not! An" yet there"s just a chance. I weesh the Captain hadn"t kep" me so long down there. An" the fresh from the rain that delayed us nigh half an hour, I oughtn"t to a stayed a minute after gettin" home. But mother cookin" that nice bit o" steak; if I hadn"t ate it she"d a been angry, and for certain suspected somethin". Then listenin" to all that dismal stuff "bout the corpse-candle. An" they believe it in the shire o" Pembroke. Rot the thing! Tho" I an"t myself noways superstishus, it gi"ed me the creeps. Queer, her dreamin" she seed it go out o" Abergann! I do weesh she hadn"t told me that; an" I mustn"t say word o"t to Mary. Tho" she ain"t o" the fearsome kind, a thing like that"s enough to frighten any one. Well, what"d I best do? If she ha" been to the Ferry an"s goed home again, then I"ve missed her, and no mistake! Still, she said she"d be at the elim, an"s never broke her promise to me when she cud keep it. A man ought to take a woman at her word--a true woman--an" not be too quick to antic.i.p.ate. Besides, the surer way"s the safer. She appointed the old place, an" there I"ll abide her. But what am I thinkin" o"? She may be there now, a-waitin" for me!"
He doesn"t stay by the stile one instant longer, but, vaulting over it, strikes off along the path.
Despite the obscurity of the night, the narrowness of the track, and the branches obstructing, he proceeds with celerity. With that part he is familiar--knows every inch of it, well as the way from his door to the place where he docks his boat--at least so far as the big elm, under whose spreading branches he and she have oft clandestinely met. It is an ancient patriarch of the forest; its timber is honeycombed with decay, not having tempted the axe, by whose stroke its fellows have long ago fallen, and it now stands amid their progeny, towering over all. It is a few paces distant from the footpath, screened from it by a thicket of hollies interposed between, and extending around. From its huge hollow trunk a b.u.t.tress, horizontally projected, affords a convenient seat for two, making it the very _beau ideal_ of a trysting-tree.
Having got up and under it, Jack Wingate is a little disappointed--almost vexed--at not finding his sweetheart there. He calls her name--in the hope she may be among the hollies--at first cautiously and in a low voice, then louder. No reply; she has either not been, or has and is gone.
As the latter appears probable enough, he once more blames Captain Ryecroft, the rain, the river flood, the beefsteak--above all, that long yarn about the _canwyll corph_, muttering anathemas against the ghostly superst.i.tion.
Still she may come yet. It may be but the darkness that"s delaying her.
Besides, she is not likely to have the fixing of her time. She said she would "find a way"; and having the will--as he believes--he flatters himself she will find it, despite all obstructions.
With confidence thus restored, he ceases to pace about impatiently, as he has been doing ever since his arrival at the tree; and, taking a seat on the b.u.t.tress, sits listening with all ears. His eyes are of little use in the Cimmerian gloom. He can barely make out the forms of the holly bushes, though they are almost within reach of his hand.
But his ears are reliable, sharpened by love; and, ere long they convey a sound, to him sweeter than any other ever heard in that wood--even the songs of its birds. It is a swishing, as of leaves softly brushed by the skirts of a woman"s dress--which it is. He needs no telling who comes. A subtle electricity, seeming to precede, warns him of Mary Morgan"s presence, as though she were already by his side.
All doubts and conjectures at an end, he starts to his feet, and steps out to meet her. Soon as on the path he sees a cloaked figure, drawing nigh with a grace of movement distinguishable even in the dim glimmering light.
"That you, Mary?"
A question mechanical; no answer expected or waited for. Before any could be given she is in his arms, her lips hindered from words by a shower of kisses.
Thus having saluted, he takes her hand and leads her among the hollies.
Not from precaution, or fear of being intruded upon. Few besides the farm people of Abergann use the right-of-way path, and unlikely any of them being on it at that hour. It is only from habit they retire to the more secluded spot under the elm, hallowed to them by many a sweet remembrance.
They sit down side by side; and close, for his arm is around her waist.
How unlike the lovers in the painted pavilion at Llangorren! Here there is neither concealment of thought nor restraint of speech--no time given to circ.u.mlocution--none wasted in silence. There is none to spare, as she has told him at the moment of meeting.
"It"s kind o" you comin", Mary," he says, as soon as they are seated. "I knew ye would."
"O Jack! What a work I had to get out--the trick I"ve played mother!
You"ll laugh when you hear it."