"But no," put in Isabel quickly, and knelt again; "my husband will not hurt where I have pardoned!" Rapidly she unloosed the strap about Leicester"s ankles and stood up. "Now hold out your hands,"
she said.
He held them out. She looked him in the face, and a sudden tide of shame forced her to cover her own. In the silence her husband stepped to her side. His eyes were steady upon Leicester now.
"How could you? How could you?" she murmured.
Then, dragging--as it were--her hands down to the task, she unbuckled the strap around his wrist and pointed to the door.
Said Miss Belcher, "So two women have shown you mercy to-night, George Leicester!"
He went, without any swagger. His face was white. Miss Belcher and the Rector drew back as though he carried a disease, and let him pa.s.s. At the door he turned and his eyes, with a kind of miserable raillery in them, challenged Archibald Plinlimmon.
"Yes, you are right." The young man took a step towards him.
"Between us two there is a word to be said." He turned on us abruptly. "I have been afraid of that man--yes, afraid. To say this out, and before Isabel, costs me more courage than to thrash him.
Through fear of him I have been a villain. Worse wrong than I did to my wife--worse in its consequences--I could not do: you know it, all of you; and I must go now and tell it to her father. I did it unknowingly, by this man"s contrivance; but not in any fear of him.
What I did in fear, and knowingly, was worse in another way--worse in intention. I tell you that but for an accident I might--I might have--" He stammered and came to a halt. "No, I cannot tell it yet," he muttered half defiantly, with a shy look at the Rector.
"But this I can tell"--and his voice rose--"that no fear of _him_ stays me. You? I have your secret now. You have none of mine I dare not meet. You may go: you have my wife"s pardon, it seems.
I do not understand it, but you have mine--with this caution.
You are my superior officer. If to-morrow, outside of the ranks, you dare to say a word to me, I promise to strike you on the mouth before the regiment, and afterwards to tell the whole truth of us both, and take what punishment may befall."
So he too pointed towards the door. Leicester bowed and went from us into the night.
"That"s all very well," groaned Mr. Rogers, "but I"ll have to resign my commission of the peace."
"If it"s retiring from active service you mean," said Miss Belcher cheerfully, "that"s what I began by advising. But stick to the t.i.tle, Jack: you adorn it--indeed you do. And for my part," she wound up, "I think you"ve done mighty well to-night, considering."
"I"ve let one villain escape, you mean, and t"other go scot free."
"And the nuisance of it is," said she with a broadening smile, "I shan"t be able to congratulate you in public."
"Well"--Mr. Rogers regained his cheerfulness as he eyed his knuckles--"we"ve let a deal of villainy loose on the world: but I got in once with the left, and that must be my consolation. What are we to do with this boy?"
"Hide him."
"Easier said than done."
"Not a bit." Miss Belcher turned to me. "Have you any friends, boy, who will be worrying if we keep you a few days?"
"None, ma"am," said I, and thereby in my haste did much injustice to the excellent Mr. and Mrs. Trapp.
"Eh? You have the world before you? Then maybe you"re luckier than you think, my lad. What would you like to be? A sailor, now?
I can get you shipped across to Guernsey to-morrow, if you say the word."
"That would do very well, ma"am: but if you ask me to choose--"
"I do."
"Then I"ll choose to be a soldier," said I stoutly.
"H"m! You"ll have to grow to it."
"I could start as a drummer, ma"am." The drum in Major Brooks"s summer-house had put that into my head.
"My father can manage it, I am sure!" cried Isabel. "And meanwhile let him come back to the Cottage. No one will think of searching for him there: and to-night, when I have spoken to my father--"
"You will speak to your father to-night?"
Isabel glanced at her bridegroom, who nodded. "To-night," said he firmly. "We sail to-morrow."
Miss Belcher wagged her head at him. "I had my doubts of you, young man. You"ve been a fool: but I"ve a notion you"ll do, yet."
"Good-night, then!" Isabel went to her and held up her cheek to be kissed.
"Eh? Not a bit of it! I"m coming with you. Don"t stare at me now-- I"ve a word to say, and I think maybe "twill help."
We left the Rector and Mr. Rogers to their task of overhauling the house while they sat up on the chance of Hodgson"s returning with Whitmore or with news of him: and trooped up the lane and down across the park to Minden Cottage.
"Take the child to bed," said Miss Belcher, as we reached the door: and so to my room Isabel conducted me, the others waiting below.
She lit my candles and kissed me. "You won"t forget your prayers to-night, Harry? And say a prayer for me: I shall need it, though I have more call to thank G.o.d for sending you."
A minute later I heard her tap on her father"s door. He was awake and dressed, apparently--for it seemed at any rate but a moment later that her voice was guiding his blind footsteps by whispers down the stairs. Had I guessed more of the ordeal before her, my eyes had closed less easily than they did. As it was, I tumbled into bed and slept almost as soon as my head touched the pillow.
I had forgotten to blow out the candles, and they were but half burnt, yet extinguished, when I awoke from a dream that Isabel was kneeling beside me in their dim light to find her standing at the bed"s foot in a fresh print gown and the room filled again with sunshine. Her eyes were red. Poor soul! she had but an hour before said good-bye to Archibald; and Spain and its battlefields lay before him, and between their latest kiss and their next--if another there might be. Yet she smiled bravely, telling me that all was well, and that her father would be ready for me in the summer-house.
Major Brooks, when I found him there, made no allusion to the events of the night. His face was mild and grave as at our first meeting.
At the sound of my footsteps he picked up his Virgil and motioned me to be seated.
"Let me see," he began: "_liquidi fontes_, was it not?"--and forthwith began to dictate at his accustomed pace.
"But seek a green-moss"d pool, with well-spring nigh, And through the gra.s.s a streamlet fleeting by.
The porch with palm or oleaster shade-- That when the regents from the hive parade Its gilded youth, in Spring--their Spring!--to prank, To woo their holiday heat a neighbouring bank May lean with branches hospitably cool.
And midway, be your water stream or pool, Cross willow-twigs, and ma.s.sy boulders fling-- A line of stations for the halting wing To dry in summer sunshine, has it shipped A cupful aft, or deep in Neptune dipped.
Plant ca.s.sias green around, thyme redolent, Full-flowering succory with heavy scent, And violet-beds to drink the channel"d stream.
And let your hives (sewn concave, seam to seam, Of cork; or of the supple osier twined) Have narrow entrances; for frosts will bind Honey as hard as dog-days run it thin: --In bees" abhorrence each extreme"s akin.
Not purposeless they vie with wax to paste Their narrow cells, and choke the crannies fast With pollen, or that gum specific which Out-binds or birdlime or Idxan pitch--"
--And so on, and so on, until midday arrived, and Isabel with the claret and biscuits. She lingered while he ate: and when he had done he shut his Virgil, saying (in a tone which, though studiously kind, told me that she was not wholly forgiven):
"Take the drum, Isabel, and give the lad his first lesson. It will not disturb me."
She choked down a sob, pa.s.sed the drum to me, and put the drumsticks into my hands. And so by signs rather than by words, she began to teach me; scarcely letting me tap the vellum, but instructing me rather how to hold the sticks and move my wrists. So quiet were we that the old man by and by dropped asleep: and then, as she taught, her tears flowed.
This was the first of many lessons; for I spent a full fortnight at Minden Cottage, free of its ample walled garden, but never showing my face in the high road or at the windows looking upon it. I learned from Isabel that Whitmore had not been found, and that Archibald and his regiment had sailed for Lisbon. Sometimes Miss Belcher or Mr. Rogers paid us a visit, and once the two together: and always they held long talks with the Major in his summer-house. But they never invited me to be present at these interviews.
So the days slipped away and I almost forgot my fears, nor speculated how or when the end would come. My elders were planning this for me, and meanwhile life, if a trifle dull, was pleasant enough.
What vexed me was the old man"s obdurate politeness towards Isabel, and her evident distress. It angered me the more that, when she was not by he gave never a sign that he brooded on what had befallen, but went on placidly polishing his petty and (to me) quite uninteresting verses.
But there came an evening when we finished the Fourth Georgic together.