"Why, of course, they were unusual," Miss Gabriel persisted, albeit a trifle dashed; "and indeed so incredibly absurd that we have brought Mr. Pope to hear your account of them; for, I a.s.sure you, he"ll hardly believe us."
Mrs. Treacher looked at Mr. Pope solemnly for the s.p.a.ce of about ten seconds, and then as solemnly at the ladies.
"_What_ won"t he believe?"
"Why"--Miss Gabriel plucked up her courage--"there was so much that afterwards, when we came to compare notes, neither of us could explain--as, for instance, who was the strange lady that walked into the room and was evidently surprised to see us, as we were naturally surprised to see her-----"
Mrs. Treacher turned slowly again to Mr. Pope, whose face (since this was the first he had heard of any strange lady) expressed no small astonishment.
"Poor man!" she murmured, sympathetically, "did they really go so far as all that?"
"I a.s.sure you--" began Mrs. Pope stammering.
"Oh, go your ways and take "em home!" cut in Mrs. Treacher. "I"m a friend to my s.e.x in most matters; but to come askin" me to back up such a tale as that, and for a shillin"!" She turned her palm over and let the coin drop on the soil at her feet.
But here unhappily, at the height of Mrs. Treacher"s indignation, a sneeze sounded from a bush across the patch of garden; and the eyes of her visitors, attracted by the sound, rested on an object which Mrs.
Treacher, by interposition of her shoulders, had been doing her best to hide--a scarecrow standing unashamed in the midst of the garrison potato patch--a scarecrow in a flaunting waistcoat of scarlet, green, and yellow!
"My antimaca.s.sar!" gasped Miss Gabriel.
"The Lord Pro--" Mr. Pope checked the exclamation midway. "You will excuse me, ma"am. I was referring to the lower part of the figure."
"Was ever such ingrat.i.tude?"
"It is worse, ma"am--ten times worse. You may call it sacrilege."
CHAPTER XV
BREFAR CHURCH
"It was all my fault," confessed Vashti.
"I was thinking so," said the Commandant, drily. "It had not occurred to me that Archelaus and the Treachers were acting on their own initiative."
Vashti laughed, and her laugh rippled over the waves to meet the sunset gold. They had taken boat beneath the Keg of b.u.t.ter Battery, and were sailing for Saaron with a light breeze on their quarter. Evening and Sabbath calm held the sky from its pale yellow verges up to the zenith across which a few stray gulls were homing. From Garland Town, from St.
Ann"s, from Brefar ahead of them, came wafted the sound of bells, far and faint, ringing to church, and the murmuring water in the boat"s wake seemed to take up Vashti"s laugh and echo it reproachfully, as she checked herself with a glance at her companion"s face, which also was reproachful and sternly set, but with a slight twitch at the corners of the mouth to betray it.
"Forgive me!" she pleaded, but her voice, too, betrayed her.
"You are not penitent in the least."
"As you are only pretending to be angry. Remember that I belong to the "profession," and no amateur acting can impose on me."
"You will admit that you have behaved abominably." The Commandant conceded a smile.
"Oh, abominably!"
"And perhaps you will be good enough to indicate how I am to restore my credit with--with those people. When I met them coming down the hill and pulled up to salute, Miss Gabriel froze me with a stare, Mrs. Pope looked the other way, and her husband could only muster up a furtive sort of grin. "Excuse me," it seemed to say; "things may right themselves by and by, but for the present I cannot know you." The three between them knocked me all of a heap. Of course I could not guess what had happened, but I made sure they had seen you."
"It was the closest miss that they did not. When they hove in sight I was actually standing in front of our masterpiece, with my back to the road; calling orders to Archelaus and Treacher, who were at work stuffing _them_ (so to speak) with straw. I fancy they have forgotten, on Garrison Hill, to guard against surprises. At any rate, we should have been taken in a highly unsoldier-like fashion if Mrs. Treacher hadn"t kept her eye lifting. She gave the alarm, and we scuttled into the bushes like rabbits, and watched while she held the gate. What is more, I believe she would have fended off the danger if Sergeant Archelaus hadn"t sneezed; and then--oh, then!--" Vashti paused, her eyes brimful of laughter.
"He broke cover?"
"I s.n.a.t.c.hed at the tail of his tunic--hastily, I will admit--but until he had stepped past me I had no idea he meant to be so foolish. It came away in my hand. They heard the noise it made in ripping."
"But they did not see you?"
"No; for seeing that the mischief was done Sergeant Treacher stepped out too. You should have heard them explaining to Miss Gabriel! But they were quite brave and determined. They told me afterwards that rather than allow one of the visitors to enter and catch sight of me they would have picked up all three and carried them outside the garrison gate."
"The Lord Proprietor will certainly hear of this," said the Commandant, musing.
Vashti, who had bent to pin the sheet closer, lifted her head and regarded him with a puzzled frown; then, averting her eyes, let them travel under the foot of the sail towards the sunset.
"Decidedly the Lord Proprietor will hear of it," she said, after an interval during which he almost forgot that he had spoken. "Indeed, if it will help to get you, or Archelaus, or anyone out of a sc.r.a.pe, I propose to call on him to-morrow and confess all. Do you think he will be lenient?"
There was a shade of contempt in the question, and it called a flush to the Commandant"s cheek. He was about to answer, but checked himself and sat silent, looking down at the foam that ran by the boat"s gunwale.
"He must be worth visiting, too; that is, if one may reconstruct him from--from them."
The Commandant smiled. "My dear lady, you have already made one attempt to reconstruct him from them."
Vashti pondered awhile, her chin resting on her hand and her eyes yet fixed upon the sunset.
"I give you fair warning that I am here on a holiday," she murmured.
"I don"t know what you consider a fair warning; but I had guessed so much."
"The first for fifteen years," she pursued; "and I won"t promise that I shall not behave worse--considerably worse. Are you very angry with me?"
"My dear," answered the Commandant ("My dear," it should be explained, is the commonest form of address in the Islands, and one that even a prisoner will use to the magistrate trying him), "if you really wish to know, I am enjoying myself recklessly; and it would be idle to call my garrison to put you under restraint, since you have already suborned them. I started, you see, with the imprudence of showing you my defences, and now you have us all at your mercy."
"You have been more than good to me," said Vashti, after a pause; "but the fortress is already vacated." She nodded towards a valise which rested under the thwart by the foot of the mast. "Mrs. Treacher packed it for me," she explained, "and her husband carried it down to the boat. If Ruth needs me--as she almost certainly does--and if her husband will tolerate me, I shall sleep on Saaron to-night."
"But you will come back?" he asked, dismayed.
"Certainly not, unless the Lord Proprietor drives me to seek refuge."
The Commandant did not answer. He had known that this happy time must be short; he had known it from the first, and that the end would come unexpectedly.
The wind had fallen slightly, and the boat crept up to the entrance of Cromwell"s Sound with sail that alternately tautened its sheet and let it fall slack. The single bell of Brefar Church yet rung to service; but the sun had sunk beneath the horizon, and the sea-lights were flashing around the horizon before Saaron loomed close on the port hand; and as they crept towards the East Porth under the loom of the Island, a row-boat shot out from the beach there, and headed up the Sound towards Brefar.
"Hush!" commanded Vashti, and peered forward.
But a boat putting out from Saaron at this hour could only belong to Saaron"s only inhabitants, and could be bound but on one errand. And Ruth was in her, for, presently, as the children"s voices travelled back across the still water, Vashti heard Matthew Henry"s pitched to a shrill interrogative and calling his mother by name.