"Never fear," answered Kenelm, with the nearest approach to a laugh he had ever made since childhood; "but when we are relieved, wait for me a few minutes at yon gate."
CHAPTER XII.
KENELM spoke no more to his new friend in the hayfields; but when the day"s work was over he looked round for the farmer to make an excuse for not immediately joining the family supper. However, he did not see either Mr. Saunderson or his son. Both were busied in the stackyard.
Well pleased to escape excuse and the questions it might provoke, Kenelm therefore put on the coat he had laid aside and joined Jessie, who had waited for him at the gate. They entered the lane side by side, following the stream of villagers who were slowly wending their homeward way. It was a primitive English village, not adorned on the one hand with fancy or model cottages, nor on the other hand indicating penury and squalor. The church rose before them gray and Gothic, backed by the red clouds in which the sun had set, and bordered by the glebe-land of the half-seen parsonage. Then came the village green, with a pretty schoolhouse; and to this succeeded a long street of scattered whitewashed cottages, in the midst of their own little gardens.
As they walked the moon rose in full splendour, silvering the road before them.
"Who is the Squire here?" asked Kenelm. "I should guess him to be a good sort of man, and well off."
"Yes, Squire Travers; he is a great gentleman, and they say very rich.
But his place is a good way from this village. You can see it if you stay, for he gives a harvest-home supper on Sat.u.r.day, and Mr. Saunderson and all his tenants are going. It is a beautiful park, and Miss Travers is a sight to look at. Oh, she is lovely!" continued Jessie, with an unaffected burst of admiration; for women are more sensible of the charm of each other"s beauty than men give them credit for.
"As pretty as yourself?"
"Oh, pretty is not the word. She is a thousand times handsomer!"
"Humph!" said Kenelm, incredulously.
There was a pause, broken by a quick sigh from Jessie.
"What are you sighing for?--tell me."
"I was thinking that a very little can make folks happy, but that somehow or other that very little is as hard to get as if one set one"s heart on a great deal."
"That"s very wisely said. Everybody covets a little something for which, perhaps, n.o.body else would give a straw. But what"s the very little thing for which you are sighing?"
"Mrs. Bawtrey wants to sell that shop of hers. She is getting old, and has had fits; and she can get n.o.body to buy; and if Will had that shop and I could keep it,--but "tis no use thinking of that."
"What shop do you mean?"
"There!"
"Where? I see no shop."
"But it is _the_ shop of the village,--the only one,--where the post-office is."
"Ah! I see something at the windows like a red cloak. What do they sell?"
"Everything,--tea and sugar and candles and shawls and gowns and cloaks and mouse-traps and letter-paper; and Mrs. Bawtrey buys poor Will"s baskets, and sells them for a good deal more than she pays."
"It seems a nice cottage, with a field and orchard at the back."
"Yes. Mrs. Bawtrey pays L8 a year for it; but the shop can well afford it."
Kenelm made no reply. They both walked on in silence, and had now reached the centre of the village street when Jessie, looking up, uttered an abrupt exclamation, gave an affrighted start, and then came to a dead stop.
Kenelm"s eye followed the direction of hers, and saw, a few yards distant, at the other side of the way, a small red brick house, with thatched sheds adjoining it, the whole standing in a wide yard, over the gate of which leaned a man smoking a small cutty-pipe. "It is Tom Bowles," whispered Jessie, and instinctively she twined her arm into Kenelm"s; then, as if on second thoughts, withdrew it, and said, still in a whisper, "Go back now, sir; do."
"Not I. It is Tom Bowles whom I want to know. Hush!"
For here Tom Bowles had thrown down his pipe and was coming slowly across the road towards them.
Kenelm eyed him with attention. A singularly powerful man, not so tall as Kenelm by some inches, but still above the middle height, herculean shoulders and chest, the lower limbs not in equal proportion,--a sort of slouching, shambling gait. As he advanced the moonlight fell on his face; it was a handsome one. He wore no hat, and his hair, of a light brown, curled close. His face was fresh-coloured, with aquiline features; his age apparently about six or seven and twenty. Coming nearer and nearer, whatever favourable impression the first glance at his physiognomy might have made on Kenelm was dispelled, for the expression of his face changed and became fierce and lowering.
Kenelm was still walking on, Jessie by his side, when Bowles rudely thrust himself between them, and seizing the girl"s arm with one hand, he turned his face full on Kenelm, with a menacing wave of the other hand, and said in a deep burly voice,
"Who be you?"
"Let go that young woman before I tell you."
"If you weren"t a stranger," answered Bowles, seeming as if he tried to suppress a rising fit of wrath, "you"d be in the kennel for those words.
But I s"pose you don"t know that I"m Tom Bowles, and I don"t choose the girl as I"m after to keep company with any other man. So you be off."
"And I don"t choose any other man to lay violent hands on any girl walking by my side without telling him that he"s a brute; and that I only wait till he has both his hands at liberty to let him know that he has not a poor cripple to deal with."
Tom Bowles could scarcely believe his ears. Amaze swallowed up for the moment every other sentiment. Mechanically he loosened his hold of Jessie, who fled off like a bird released. But evidently she thought of her new friend"s danger more than her own escape; for instead of sheltering herself in her father"s cottage, she ran towards a group of labourers who, near at hand, had stopped loitering before the public-house, and returned with those allies towards the spot in which she had left the two men. She was very popular with the villagers, who, strong in the sense of numbers, overcame their awe of Tom Bowles, and arrived at the place half running, half striding, in time, they hoped, to interpose between his terrible arm and the bones of the unoffending stranger.
Meanwhile Bowles, having recovered his first astonishment, and scarcely noticing Jessie"s escape, still left his right arm extended towards the place she had vacated, and with a quick back-stroke of the left levelled at Kenelm"s face, growled contemptuously, "Thou"lt find one hand enough for thee."
But quick as was his aim, Kenelm caught the lifted arm just above the elbow, causing the blow to waste itself on air, and with a simultaneous advance of his right knee and foot dexterously tripped up his bulky antagonist, and laid him sprawling on his back. The movement was so sudden, and the stun it occasioned so utter, morally as well as physically, that a minute or more elapsed before Tom Bowles picked himself up. And he then stood another minute glowering at his antagonist, with a vague sentiment of awe almost like a superst.i.tious panic. For it is noticeable that, however fierce and fearless a man or even a wild beast may be, yet if either has. .h.i.therto been only familiar with victory and triumph, never yet having met with a foe that could cope with its force, the first effect of a defeat, especially from a despised adversary, unhinges and half paralyzes the whole nervous system. But as fighting Tom gradually recovered to the consciousness of his own strength, and the recollection that it had been only foiled by the skilful trick of a wrestler, and not the hand-to-hand might of a pugilist, the panic vanished, and Tom Bowles was himself again. "Oh, that"s your sort, is it? We don"t fight with our heels hereabouts, like Cornishers and donkeys: we fight with our fists, youngster; and since you _will_ have a bout at that, why, you must."
"Providence," answered Kenelm, solemnly, "sent me to this village for the express purpose of licking Tom Bowles. It is a signal mercy vouchsafed to yourself, as you will one day acknowledge."
Again a thrill of awe, something like that which the demagogue in Aristophanes might have felt when braved by the sausage-maker, shot through the valiant heart of Tom Bowles. He did not like those ominous words, and still less the lugubrious tone of voice in which they were uttered, But resolved, at least, to proceed to battle with more preparation than he had at first designed, he now deliberately disenc.u.mbered himself of his heavy fustian jacket and vest, rolled up his shirt-sleeves, and then slowly advanced towards the foe.
Kenelm had also, with still greater deliberation, taken off his coat--which he folded up with care, as being both a new and an only one, and deposited by the hedge-side--and bared arms, lean indeed and almost slight, as compared with the vast muscle of his adversary, but firm in sinew as the hind leg of a stag.
By this time the labourers, led by Jessie, had arrived at the spot, and were about to crowd in between the combatants, when Kenelm waved them back and said in a calm and impressive voice,--
"Stand round, my good friends, make a ring, and see that it is fair play on my side. I am sure it will be fair on Mr. Bowles"s. He is big enough to scorn what is little. And now, Mr. Bowles, just a word with you in the presence of your neighbours. I am not going to say anything uncivil.
If you are rather rough and hasty, a man is not always master of himself--at least so I am told--when he thinks more than he ought to do about a pretty girl. But I can"t look at your face even by this moonlight, and though its expression at this moment is rather cross, without being sure that you are a fine fellow at bottom, and that if you give a promise as man to man you will keep it. Is that so?"
One or two of the bystanders murmured a.s.sent; the others pressed round in silent wonder.
"What"s all that soft-sawder about?" said Tom Bowles, somewhat falteringly.
"Simply this: if in the fight between us I beat you, I ask you to promise before your neighbours that you will not by word or deed molest or interfere again with Miss Jessie Wiles."
"Eh!" roared Tom. "Is it that you are after her?"
"Suppose I am, if that pleases you; and on my side, I promise that if you beat me, I quit this place as soon as you leave me well enough to do so, and will never visit it again. What! do you hesitate to promise? Are you really afraid I shall lick you?"
"You! I"d smash a dozen of you to powder."
"In that case, you are safe to promise. Come, "tis a fair bargain. Is n"t it, neighbours?"