Chapter IV: Front Matter (4)

“There you go. You haven’t the brain to imagine anything,” returned Bill loftily. “And what do you think a young lady would be carrying--herself--personally, mind, when she had a strappin’ maid walking behind her with a dressing-case a yard square. Maybe you’d have gone for that dressing-case,” he added, with a crushing sneer. “That’s the ordinary brain all over. Sees what’s just ahead an’ no more; goes for the gilt-topped bottles and lets the tiarys go. Now p’raps when we’ve sold the jools and are getting a fling on the Continnong you’ll be grateful you’ve got such a partner and you won’t be so narsty about it.”

It was a bitter night; sleeting now and with scurries of icy wind and snow. In the sky a moon was struggling up amongst thick black clouds, the streets and alleys through which they passed were slippery, wet and dark. Arrived at a dingy building with a gaping open doorway, they groped their way up an unlighted stone staircase and reached their “pitch” at the top in safety. Bill marched in first with the air of a conqueror, and Jim followed, bolting the door after him. There was a little light from the remains of a smouldering fire in the grate.

Jim stirred it into a blaze and fed it with some split-up egg-boxes, and Bill turned on the gas and lighted it.

“That’s my job,” he said, setting down the little dark case on the table, “and a neat bit of work I calls it, and that dawg helped wonderful.”

Jim regarded it mournfully. Odd though it may seem this strange waif of humanity was not thinking of the rich contents; he was wondering what the poor young lady was feeling at having lost it.

The light revealed a curious den in which these two lived. A folding bed of ancient date with one side sagging to the floor, in the corner. A capacious cupboard in the wall through the half-open door of which strange and various articles were protruding, a table in the centre with scattered tin cups and plates and battered tin teapot on it and on the window ledge a cracked flower-pot with a primrose-root growing in it--Jim’s.

“Now, then,” said Bill, “let’s have a look.” He took up the box and turned it round. “Why, blimey, it hasn’t a lock,” he exclaimed, rather blankly. “That don’t look like jools--only a bit of a catch like this, and two ’oles each side. Wot the ’Ell’s that for?”

With fingers beginning to tremble, he forced up the brass catch and then tore open the lid, and then both men who had been bending forward over their treasure, collapsed suddenly speechless, on the two chairs, and sat opposite to each other staring across the table, for there within the box was no necklace of rare pearls reposing on velvet cushions, but a neat little nest of hay, from the centre of which looked out with enquiring eyes--two white mice!

Very dainty silk-like coats of the purest white on which the gas-light gleamed, tiny pink paws of the palest shell-like pink, little white ears delicate as a butterfly’s wing and large eyes like glowing rubies. Gentle and not dreaming that anyone could hurt them, they looked up at the staring faces of the men over them, unafraid, and began polishing their noses with their tiny paws.

Bill recovered from the shock first. With a foul oath, he sprang to his feet and made a grab at the box, but Jim was too quick for him. With one of his agile movements that made him such an invaluable thief, he snatched away the box before Bill’s heavy hand reached it, snapped down its lid and held it firmly in both hands against his chest.

“Wot yer goin’ to do with it?” he asked.

For a full ten seconds, Bill swore all the best oaths he knew.

“Do with it?” he roared at the finish. “Throw it on the fire and see those vermin burn alive--you just give it me!”

Jim turned pale and clutched the box tighter.

“Now, Bill, you’d never do such a thing,” he urged anxiously. “They’s done you no harm and it’s crool to burn them; no good’d come of it, besides the lidy was fond of ’em, you saw that yourself, and maybe there’ll be a reward. Here’s a name and address on the box.”

This was sound sense, but Bill was blind and deaf with fury. No oaths nor mere words could suffice to vent his rage. Some horrible violence and cruelty alone could do that. He made a lunge across the rickety table, but Jim avoided him and backed against the wall. He was pale, but his eyes shone with an indomitable light. A frail, small man with a poor physique and little health or strength but there was a spirit in him that had often stood up to and conquered the big bully before. He saw now this might be a fight to the death, but he just felt he didn’t care. He would be crushed to a pulp first before Bill got hold of the box and burned those two little innocent things inside. His blood was up and on its tide had risen that wonderful determination that can make one weak man equal to ten strong ones. Bill was round the table in an instant and let fly at him a blow from his ponderous fist which he meant to stretch him senseless, but Jim dodged and it only caught the corner of his eye and his lean arm seemed locked like steel across the box on his chest and Bill wrenched at it in vain.

Does some great current of electricity come into being with that mental fixity of purpose and lend a determined combatant a strength altogether beyond his own?

It seemed so to Jim. He seemed full of some living force as he dodged round the table and chairs and over the bed and Bill came floundering after him, cursing and sending his blows wide of the mark. At last Jim found himself close to the door and with a monkey’s quickness shot back the bolt and fell through the opening door. Bill grabbed him by the neck, but Jim wriggled so furiously that both men fell in a heap on the top stair and then rolled to the bottom. As they bumped onto the last step, Bill’s hands sank from the other’s neck and while Jim scrambled to his feet he lay inert and crumpled on the lowest stair.

Jim, breathless, his thin clothing torn and one eye closed, but still gripping the box to his body, ran out into the street and to the nearest lamp-post. There under the wavering light he read the address on the casket-lid:

MISS TORRINGTON
Hailstone Hall
Sevenoaks, Kent.

All the time Bill had been chasing him round the attic a resolution had been forming in his mind. If he escaped with his life he would take the box and its little inmates back to the young “lidy.”

For years past in his low degraded existence this man’s soul had vaguely yearned after goodness, as a plant in a dark cellar strains with its colourless leaves towards its native light, but there was little opportunity in his life overshadowed by Bill for anything but crime. He hated Bill but he couldn’t get away from him. He had not the strength of mind to say good-bye to the daring pal who kept the attic supplied with bread and beer and knew exactly how to utilise in his petty thievings the sharp agility of Jim. But now to-night was the end of it all. Bill was down and out and the way lay clear to a good action, and standing there in the biting cold with his bleeding eye and bruised body, he thrilled through and through with joy. He had done something already. He had foiled his companion’s brutal intention, he had saved the animals, and now if he could restore the “lidy’s” property to her safe and sound he felt he would be content no matter what happened to himself. Possibly the thought of a reward struggled for life at the back of his mind, but it was not the prompting motive, and there was a risk of being turned over to the law and to prison on returning the property, which far out-balanced the possible reward. To have kept on the right side of his partner and destroyed the stolen goods, as a business proposition, was far better, but the thought of the lady’s pleasure and the joy of the little creatures that had looked out so confidingly at him, attracted him just as the primrose blossoms pleased his eyes when they bloomed in the Spring on his window ledge.

Sevenoaks! Not so far away--a matter of twenty-four mile. He had tramped it before in the hop-picking season; he could tramp it again. It was a freezing night, but the moon was getting up, and if he had luck he would be there in the morning. He raised the lid of the casket and looked in to see if his treasures were still safe. Yes, there they lay close side by side, like tiny snowballs tucked down in the hay which had protected them through all the scuffling with Bill and the roll down the stairs.

Jim carefully snapped to the lid and put the box under his arm for shelter against the searching wind. Then aching and shaky in body but dauntless in mind he set out for his tramp to Sevenoaks. When the city and its pitiless streets were left behind him and he had once reached the open country road he felt happier. Here there were no police to pass with a quaking heart as they sternly eyed his blood-stained face and torn coat. He stepped out more strongly as the night wind of the countryside blew in his face. It was cold but not so damp and cruel as London’s breath. He looked over the hedge-tops across the wide meadows with the shadowy form of sleeping cattle; he looked at the trees arching over him and the tracery of their shadows on his path, at the sky with the moon riding high in it through bands of scurrying clouds, and he felt he loved it all. Wonderful indeed, as the Latin poet sang, is the joy of the mind conscious of its own right doing, and wonderful also is the dominion of man’s mind over his body. Jim, the poor, penniless tramp, hungry and empty and aching, footsore, weary and cold, marched on full of the greatest joy of his life because his mind told him he was doing right. Many doubts and fears beset him and much anxious questioning as to his reception and his fate but nothing could quell that springing sense of joy in his heart as mile after mile fell behind him. When the first red light of morning lit up the sky, it shewed a forlorn and limping figure with a drawn and haggard face, but with a proud, glad light in its one uninjured eye.

The great gates of Hailstone Hall looked imposing enough, shut tight in frosty splendour of twisted ironwork, but they were not locked and Jim pushed them open with an unfaltering hand. The drive winding between the velvet green of tall evergreen trees and with gleaming bands of sparkling frost on each side, lay before him silent and solitary save for the birds hopping across it, and Jim walked straight up the middle of it and found himself with a beating heart on the steps before the big front door. No slinking round by the back door for him with that proud consciousness of right in his breast. He wanted no delays and parleys with impeding and inquisitive servants. He felt weak and his strength failing; with the last bit of it he wanted to put the box himself straight into the lady’s hand, and then what became of him did not seem to matter at all.

The door opened in response to his modest ring and a young footman looked out at him with blank astonishment.

“Please can I see Miss Torrington,” said Jim. “I’ve something for her which she wants very particular.”

He had thought this sentence out with care, and it certainly showed ingenuity in its suggestion of the lady’s desire to see him.

The door was not slammed in his face as he feared it might be. The young footman held it, still staring at him in silence. As he said afterwards in the servants’ hall, “I was that surprised at his cheek coming to the front door in his condition I couldn’t say nothing.”

At that moment the butler chanced to cross the hall and seeing the open door and the intruder on the steps, approached. A tall, portly man the butler, who would have made about four of Jim. As he came up the frail one clutched still harder the box against his bony ribs. “Good Lord, if she should drop upon me, I’m done,” was the thought that dashed through his brain. Nothing of the kind happened, however.

“My good man,” said the butler benevolently, “what is it you want?”

Jim repeated his fine phrase, but stammering a little as his weakness gained on him.

“Very good,” replied the butler blandly, “Give me what you have and I will give it to Miss Torrington.”

Jim’s heart thumped, and the hall seemed moving round him, but he stuck to his purpose.

“Twenty-four miles,” he stammered with blue lips. “Give it ’er myself.”

The butler looked him over. He was a man of some brains, or perhaps he would not have been butler to Miss Torrington on a comfortable salary. He met the clear determined gaze of Jim’s one unclosed eye and read perhaps something in it that made him sign to Jim to enter and the footman to close the door. Then he said: “If you wait here I will enquire if Miss Torrington wishes to see you.”

Jim stood still as a post just inside the door and erect, though everything was getting uncertain round him, and the footman lounged watching him.

Though a thief by profession and accustomed to be so styled and considered, a feeling of amusement stirred in Jim that the man should mount guard over him here.

“As if I’d steal a thing off ’er,” passed through him, and somehow this new feeling of pride and self-respect he had been indulging in was so delightful he thought he would never steal another thing as long as he lived.

Jim did not know how long he waited, but it seemed a world of time, and then a swift, light step came down the stairs and the young lady herself came across the hall towards him. There she was, slim, dark-clothed form and golden hair and slender hand.

“Oh, you’ve found my box!” she exclaimed in a sweet, soft voice. “Oh, good man! Are they alive and all right?”

Jim stood speechless; the last of his powers seemed deserting him. His voice died in his throat. With both trembling hands he pushed out the precious casket into her eager grasp.

Then all went dark and he fell in a crumpled heap on the whiteness of the marble flooring.

* * * * *

Bill is now in quod doing seven years for a burglary with violence, but Jim is third gardener at Hailstone Hall, has a sunny room all to himself, and a whole row of primroses on his window sill.

THE VENGEANCE OF PASHT

In the torrid heat of the Egyptian afternoon the desert lay outstretched, a silent, shimmering golden sea. Little wavelets of sand rose from its surface at intervals, curled over and blew away as the scorching desert wind passed by. Otherwise nothing moved nor stirred till the form of a camel outlined itself against the blue sky, walking easily and swiftly and bearing on its back the slight white clothed figure of a girl. She was young and extremely fair, the mass of curls pressed up against the shady hat-brim was gold as the sunshine, the eyes were bright sparkling blue like the sky above, the skin all softness and bloom. She was humming to herself as she rode--she felt so happy, so delightfully alone and free. She had slipped away from the noisy clamoring crowd of tourists with whom she travelled on her little Cook’s ticket which had cost her £25 and brought her to this ancient land of old and sacred gods.

She had escaped from the hateful attentions of one of the men of the party and now with a map and a guide book she had started out on the great adventure of finding for herself the obscure and lonely little temple of the Goddess Pasht.

From her childhood she had studied Egyptian history and she knew all about the great Goddess; divine protector of all the feline tribe. Her father had been an Egyptologist of some note and books and pictures of Egypt had been her playthings from her earliest years but what were books and pictures to the delights of being here at last and seeing for herself the rich and glorious temples that have been the wonders of the world for centuries?

She rode on leisurely, accommodating her supple body to the long swinging stride of the camel and the sun slanted slowly to the Western sky behind her. She was thinking how delightful life would be if there were more of this loneliness in it; that horde of chattering companions she was with usually day and night, how she hated it and that one man who pursued her so relentlessly. That wretched man, how she hated him. He was positively spoiling the whole of her tour. Wherever she went she always found that he was there. She never seemed able to escape him. If their little boat had to cross the Nile to reach Thebes, he always managed to secure the seat next to hers. If the party were making an excursion on donkeys, he always rode his up beside hers and once, through pushing up close beside her on a steep bank, he had forced her donkey so near the edge that it had almost rolled over it. It had been so from the very first, this constant pursuit of her and she could honestly feel she had given him no encouragement. His personal appearance on the first day she saw him among the crowd of jolly-faced tourists had repelled her. The long lanky dark hair which was always falling over his pallid forehead, the sinister dark eyes, the peculiarly evil mouth and above all the large lean sinewy hands had filled her with a sense of horror and repulsion.

Even before she had heard what he was, a medical student, and been shocked by his callous conversation, his horrid talk of his cruel experiments on cats. Cats! animals that she particularly loved for their soft, sinuous movements, their beautiful eyes and their deep silent affections.

She shuddered as she thought of him and glanced involuntarily behind her. But here out in the desert there seemed no menace. Only limpid golden light on golden sand met her eye, infinite silence and peace was all around.

She consulted the map; she should be nearing her destination now and after a few more minutes she descried ahead of her the rising mound of sand that marked the site of the half buried temple of Pasht. Rather plain in its architecture and not imposing in size, it is often passed over by the tourist and the sight-seer as unworthy of particular notice, and the long camel ride one has to take to find. But now with its smooth straight walls glowing gold in the magic lights and its dark portal suggesting mysteries within, its lonely situation out here away from any other tomb or temple away from every sign of life, half buried beneath the drifting tide of sand it seemed to the girl most appealing, far more interesting visited thus in its grandeur of desolation than the larger ones she had seen thronged with loquacious dragomen and gaping visitors.

She pulled up the camel and looked around. Everywhere about her amber glory of soundless space.

“Khush” she said gently to the camel and the great docile beast went down on his knees and let her dismount.

She had to descend three steps and then through the great granite doorway she entered the temple.

There were three small horizontal windows, rectangular slits, at the top of the walls near the stone roof on which the sand had piled and the whole of the interior was full of a soft grey light. In the very centre of the small square chamber was the great statue of the Goddess about three times the girl’s own size. A seated majestic figure in grey stone, the body that of a woman, bare breasted and with hands resting on its knees, the head and face that of an enormous cat with calm fixed eyes looking out towards the desert beyond the open door. So had it sat gazing in unmoved calm while the centuries rolled by and generations of men turned into dust which the desert wind swept by the temple door.

Pasht sat there silent and alone in her neglected temple. Her worshippers had passed away, the flowers and lights and wreaths of former days were hers no more, the girls who had danced in her honour and flung chains of roses round her feet, where were they now with their dusky slender limbs and dark laughing eyes? Perished and gone but she in her carven stone sat there still, serene and secure.

The girl on first entering could see nothing but after a few minutes when her eyes, accustomed to the soft gloom, took indistinctly the huge form of the great woman-cat towering over her, a sense of awe enfolded her and she dropped into a sitting position near its feet, and gazed up reverently into the curious feline countenance, carved so long ago by some skilled and loving hand.

“Goddess, I love you,” she said in a whispering tone after a minute’s silent musing, “just as much as any of your old, old long ago worshippers did, and I love all cats all your incarnations. They are the dearest darlings in the world and so misunderstood. Just because they have not the exuberant spirits of the dog, man thinks they can’t feel. But deep down in their dark reserved passionate natures, they feel intensely and they love. Oh, how they can love when one understands them! I am glad they were held sacred and worshipped in Egypt! Perhaps I was one of your temple girls, Goddess, in those old, far off times!”

She sat still on the sand, her hands loosely clasped round her knees. She felt so happy to have discovered the temple--and the statue that her father had told her of and all by herself, and happy to be able to sit still and think for which there was generally so little time in this tour with the band of people always being hurried along from one place to another.

This was an interval of calm and rest and she was thoroughly enjoying it. She felt no fear, no sense of loneliness, under the kind grave eyes of the stone deity. She felt protected and with some august companion.

Suddenly in the soft and profound stillness a sound struck upon her and thinking the camel had become restless, she rose and turned to the door. Then drew back with a half uttered exclamation and stood close against the colossal knees of the goddess with horror stamped on her face. In the doorway stood the slim erect figure of a young man in a light grey suit. Not apparently a very horrifying sight but a chill hatred ran all along the girl’s veins as she looked at him and her hand grew cold as the stone on which it rested.

He advanced smiling. “This is a treat darling to find you here all alone,” he said gaily coming up to her. “What’s this old thing here? Why I do believe its a beastly cat,” and he stared up impudently into the stately countenance above them.

“Oh, hush! please, it’s a statue of the Goddess Pasht.”

The young man looked back at her laughing, “Pasht, well who’s she and why’s she got a cat’s head?”

“She was the patron Goddess of cats,” said the girl.

“Oh, was she? Well, she won’t like me then, I’ve cut up lots of her protégés, starved them and drowned them and doubled them up with tetanus.”

“Please don’t tell me about it. I don’t want to hear.” The girl’s lips were white; all her happy smiles and colour had fled.

“Oh they were only ordinary wretched little street cats anyway,” rejoined the man lightly.

“How did you come here?” asked the girl. Her eyes were fixed on the stone face above them. Was it only her fancy, or that the light was failing? It seemed to her the countenance had darkened as if with wrath and the calm gaze grown fierce and grim.

“On a camel; same as you did. Oh, you didn’t think I was going over to Thebes did you with the rest of the flock, if you weren’t there? Not much. I just waited about in the Hotel and after you’d gone I found out from the porter whom you’d hired the camel from, then I went to _him_ and found out where you had headed for. Then I followed you but I had to be precious careful you didn’t turn round and see me. One can see for such miles in the desert.”

“Why did you come?” the girl’s voice was strained and low. Oh, how she hated this man who had made her life a burden ever since the beginning of the tour.

The man laughed.

“What a question! As if you don’t know, you little humbug! Why to make love to you of course, not to see this old Smash Pash or whatever you said her name was.”

“Well you know I don’t want to listen to you and its getting late now. Let us ride back.” She was still standing by the knees of the statue. He was between her and the door, she could not move towards it without approaching him.

She glanced round; the greyness of the temple was of a darker tint; outside the glowing patch of light showed the approach of sunset.

“Not at all. I have no intention of going back yet. You may as well sit down and be sensible. I’ve come out to ask you again will you marry me?”

“No, I have told you before I will not.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t love you. I could never love anybody who cut up animals alive.”

“We don’t call it that now, you are so old fashioned, we call it Scientific Research.”

“It’s the same thing whatever you call it.”

“Lots of women admire it.”

“Well marry one of them.”

“I don’t want to, I want to marry you.”

“You can never do that.”

“We shall see. To-morrow morning you will be begging and praying me to marry you.”

The girl went deadly cold all over and the sweat broke out on her forehead. He had come a little nearer. Through the dark she could see the evil face, the horribly eager expression.

“What do you mean?” she stammered, her throat was dry, her limbs trembled. Horror and hatred and a nameless fear possessed her. The temple seemed growing smaller, its walls contracting, pushing him upon her.

“I should think you’d know. We’re going to make a night of it here and if you’re alive in the morning--well, we’ll see what you say then.”

There was a great dead silence. Now that she realized the extremity of her danger her courage seemed to rise to meet it. She thought rapidly: Was there any escape, any help anywhere? Was anyone likely to come to her rescue? Would she be missed, followed?

“You arranged it all very well,” the man’s voice went on in mocking tones as if in answer to her thoughts. “You told no one where you were going. Only the camel man has the least idea where you are and I’ve tipped him well. He won’t tell anyone _in time_.”

He was very near her now and suddenly he threw both arms round her and drawing her up to him kissed her violently on the mouth. At the touch of his lips a perfect fury of revolt rose in her and she struck out wildly at him with her clenched fists. With the strength that the madness of anger gives she wrenched herself loose from him and fled behind the statue so that the colossal form of the image was between her and her tormentor. There she paused trembling and gasping.

The man was now by the knees of the statue. She saw his dark face and the black brows contracted into a straight savage line as the light from one of the slit-like windows above fell on it. He followed her but terror lent wings to her feet and she fled away before he could reach her circling round the image. He followed and dodged and circled also but she was too quick and fleet in her movements for him to circumvent. So for a few moments they played in a deadly game round the age old Deity. But the girl felt her strength failing. The poisons of hatred and anger, terror and loathing were pouring into her blood, enervating her, taking away her powers. Her eyes were darkening, her limbs giving way.

In another moment she must faint and fall.

They were on opposite sides now. Across the lap of the Goddess she saw the crimson face, the bulging blood-shot eyes of the human beast waiting to spring on her. The temple was going dark, all was whirling before her.

“Save me, Pasht!”

And as her agonized scream rang through the temple, she pressed her slender white hands against the arms of the statue.

Was it the pressure of those soft fingers disturbing the balance already shaken by the shifting of the sand floor through a thousand years? Or was the stone heart of the Goddess turned to flesh and blood as man’s heart is so often turned to stone? Who shall say?

Before the murderous beast could move back from where he stood beside her lap the huge idol reeled and fell over on its side with a sullen thud bearing him to the ground beneath its six tons of solid granite. The temple shook to its foundation and the whole air was filled with a fog of blood and sand. One piercing shriek of agony rang through it. Then there was silence except for the sound of the blood thrown on the walls trickling down them to the ground. The concussion of the air in that small space had thrown the already half fainting girl back against the wall. For a moment she could see nothing, the stinging sand filling and closing her eyes. Then as the particles settled down once more to their age old repose her terrified gaze took in the form of the huge image at her feet, the scarlet wall opposite her, the semi-obliterated mass of small human form and clothes. The man’s face was crushed deeply into the sand under the colossal shoulder of the Goddess but something still moved, chaining her fascinated gaze--two large sinewy hands scrabbled still convulsively pulling at the sand. Then after a few more minutes these also grew motionless. Breathless, terrified, half suffocated and dazed the girl still clung to the wall hardly realising yet what had happened and if she herself were still living and uninjured. Then as the sand settled and the air grew clear, calmness returned to her and she knew she was safe and free.

With gentle steps she approached the huge fallen form, avoiding the horrid blue hands that looked still able to grip and grasp and holding her skirts away from all the contamination oozing from under the stone and looked down into the face of the statue. The light from the doorway slanted on to it and seemed to soften it all into smiles and the desert wind springing up passed through the temple and out at the top slits by the roof with a loud purring sound. The girl stooped and pressed her warm red lips on the ancient stone brow in a kiss of gratitude, then passed out into the sunset and mounting her camel and followed by the other, rode away over the golden sand and night settled slowly on the desert in a violet dusk enclosing the ancient temple where the Goddess Pasht lay purring on her prey. Her starry eyed children were avenged.

VILLAGE PASSION

The shapely mass of her body was outlined dark against the rosy gold of the evening sky, as she sat on the top of the red brick orchard wall, looking up and down the country road on which it bordered.

She was named Apricot Marten and the Christian name given her by a fanciful mother could not have been more suitably bestowed. She was just like a golden glowing apricot in its very best condition when it hangs basking in the summer sun. She had a soft, clear skin with a warm flush in the velvet cheek, great lustrous laughing eyes of a warm golden brown, and a wealth of bright waving hair in which the sunrays seemed to have got permanently entangled. Her mouth was bright crimson and turned up at its smiling corners, and her body was supple and gracious in its full rounded contours. Altogether she was an enchanting piece of girlhood just merging into womanhood, and many were the sleepless nights passed by the young men of Fullingham village in thinking about her.

She was not entirely free from the reputation of a flirt, but deep in her heart her choice was made, and from it she never swerved however mischievously she might behave.

It was John Macpherson the Highlander, the lithe, agile, black-haired, hasty-tempered Scot who worked on the farm which adjoined her father’s cottage and orchard. But she gave this away to no one, and many thought she had her eye on Tony Morrison, whose father owned the little village shop and general store, and, in absence of all competition, did a good business. Tony served in the store, and while rather short and insignificant in physique, made up for this by the extreme care he bestowed upon his dress and personal appearance. He wore neat and becoming grey suits and townish-looking hats, and always produced a pleasing impression of great cleanliness and smartness. Tony’s heart had been given long ago to Bessie Smith in the next village, a little quiet mouse of a girl with violet eyes. Apricot was much too flamboyant a personage to please his quiet taste, but this secret devotion he also imparted to no one, and as Apricot was considered the belle of his village, it flattered his masculine vanity to be supposed one of her accepted admirers. By a quiet and modest smile he generally managed to encourage the rumours about himself and Apricot while ostensibly denying them. All of which made the heart of John Macpherson flare up with consuming anger against him.

Thus stood matters in Fullingham village on that lovely summer evening when Apricot sat humming to herself on the top of the orchard wall. The scene was truly idyllic in its beauty. Fullingham is one of the prettiest villages in the quietest and most remote part of Devonshire, and this evening the glory of pink light in the sky was so great it turned even the white road a rosy colour, and all the hedges were full of wild roses and the still warm air heavy with balmy scents.

Apricot thought it beautiful, and looked with longing eyes up and down the road. She felt she wanted to kiss somebody, to throw her arms round somebody’s neck, and who so delightful for this as the handsome Highlander, if he would only come! They had an appointment at this place and hour. She was there, but where was he? There was no one to be seen in the road except a small shock-haired boy gnawing an apple. Then, swinging lightly along, came a figure down the road.

Apricot put her hand to shade her eyes to see, but it was not John. She thought at first it was Tony, that slight, neat form in grey with the smart hat; but no, it was not he. It was a stranger.

Up went Apricot’s hand to her hair to smoothe back a tress. What would he think of her? She wondered. Would he look up as he passed?

The stranger did more than that. When he came up to the orchard he stopped and looked up.

“What are you doing up there?” he asked. His voice was gentle and courteous, and the face he turned up towards her very pleasant to look at.

Apricot did not resent his addressing her.

“What’s that to you?” she called back saucily, showing her small white teeth in a gay smile; and pulling a great red rose that grew on the wall close to her hand, she threw it down full in his face.

The stranger caught the rose and kissed it, and then stuck it in his coat.

“Come down and have a little walk with me. You look lonely up there.”

“Not so lonely as you look in the road, young man.”

“Oh, I’m lonely enough! That’s why I want your company.”

“Will you catch me?” she said laughing and leaning over.

“Certainly I will,” he answered, holding out his arms. “Come along.”

She swung her shapely legs and neat feet over the side of the wall next him, and then let herself slip down it. He caught her fine, well-developed figure in his arms, and holding her up tight and close gave her a kiss on her bright red lips.

She slapped his face, but quite gently, and struggled away from him, shaking her blue cotton gown straight that had been rather rumpled by her descend.

“Now we’ll go for a walk,” said the stranger. “Which way?”

“Oh, we’ll go towards Hawley village. That’s very pretty,” she answered. “And if you want the train you can get it there. You’re a town gentleman, aren’t you?” she added shyly.

Fullingham village is off the railway line and it was not an uncommon thing for strangers to pass through the village from Riverside where there was a station to Hawley on the other side where they could again take the train, having walked through six miles of the prettiest Devonshire scenery.

“Oh, that’ll do very well. I didn’t know you had a train so near. Yes, I’m finishing my holiday and going back to town to-night.”

They were walking slowly up the road now in the gorgeous sunset light. A moon large and pale as a thin white paper disc rose in the East before them.

Apricot had her own ideas in view in going in the Hawley direction and shipping the stranger off her hands there. She was thoroughly enjoying the new sensation of walking and talking with a London gentleman, but she was not _quite_ sure how John Macpherson would view her little promenade, and she was not _too_ anxious to be met or seen by him. It was quite true he had not kept their tryst, and in her own mind that quite excused her for going off with someone else. But then, he and she did not always agree about these things, and altogether it was best to take the handsome stranger out of her own village and over to Hawley in which direction the Fullingham rustics did not often walk.

Laughing and jesting and walking quite near together the two young figures passed up the sunlit road. Some little way ahead of them there was a fork, one road winding up an incline and passing through a larch plantation on the hill before it dipped down to Hawley station, the other a far prettier road following the valley and passing through a lovely wood as it worked round to Riverside.

Apricot and the stranger walked along with springing steps, taking the Hawley road. It was surely an evening to feel, if ever, the madness of Summer in one’s veins. He thought he had never seen such a lovely country girl and she, without swerving in the least from her allegiance to the fiery Macpherson, thought it was the greatest fun in the world to be admired by a town gentleman, a real London man, with London clothes and all.

“There’ll be none of this when I’m married to John,” she was reflecting inwardly. “Best have what fun I can now.”

Heated a little by their walk up hill in the warm Devonshire air, they entered the feathery larch plantation with a feeling of relief. It was full of light, shade and music; thrushes and blackbirds, robins and chaffinches not yet exhausted by their nesting cares were trilling on every side of them.

“Let’s sit down here,” he suggested as they came to a mossy bank where a tiny brooklet tinkled by, and Apricot, flushed and lovely, sat down willingly and let the stranger’s arm come round her waist. Her conscience told her it was not quite right, but oh! that wood with its rosy mystery of softened summer light and the wandering perfumes of roses and hot resin and the magic of the birds’ voices, all talking of love, what girl would not be swayed by it and made a little giddy by the sweet intoxication of it all?

Meantime, Macpherson had gone down to the store, his work being over at the farm for that day, to buy himself a new tie wherewith to charm Apricot at the trysting. He was much put out to find there only one tie and that green, a colour he thought didn’t suit him. Everyone knows the kind of village shop it was where everything is sold, but things are so seldom what one wants. Gloves are there, but only size ten. Boots are there, but only size four. Pencils are sold out, but you can have a slate pencil. Bootlaces have not come in, but you can have a ball of string. Macpherson bought his tie, and as the gawky girl who assisted Morrison, was wrapping it up in a bit of paper too small for it, he asked:

“Where’s Tony?”

“Gorn sweethearting, I ’spects,” answered the girl with a grin, “leastways, he went out all dressed up in his new soot and hat.”

Macpherson grunted, paid and left, went home, donned the tie, and then, a little late, flustered and rather put out, hurried to the appointed orchard wall. There was no Apricot--no one to be seen at all up or down the wide country road except a small boy devouring the core of an apple. Macpherson waited with glowering eyes. It was all very well for him to be a bit late. He had a man’s work to do, but girls should be punctual.

Several minutes went by, each an hour to the waiting man. Then he strode across to the boy on the other side.

“You seen Miss Apricot about here?” he asked.

The boy looked up stolidly. “I seed her a while ago.”

“Where?”

“On yon wall,” answered the boy, nodding in that direction.

“Well, where did she go?”

“Nowhere, till a gent comed along; then there wur a lot of huggin’ and kissin’ an’ she went off with he.”

Macpherson’s face was a study as he listened to this astounding statement. He stood rooted to the spot, and from his six feet glowered down on the malicious little imp in the road as if he could kill him. The boy knew perfectly well that Macpherson was “sweet” on Miss Apricot, and he thoroughly enjoyed imparting this information. He would have been afraid to make up such a story, but since he had witnessed it all and it was perfectly true and this great giant had asked him, he was going to have the fun of telling him, on the same principle that he egged on Farmer Smith’s dog to fight another dog and shook the bag when he was carrying ferrets to make them attack each other.

He was a little alarmed when Macpherson’s great paw came down heavily on his shoulder.

“You little rat! What sort of a man was it? Tell me that!”

“I dunno,” said the boy sullenly, trying to shake himself free, “a kind of a smart chap in a grey soot and hat.”

“A grey suit and hat!” The light blazed in Macpherson’s dark eyes. He shook the boy by the shoulder.

“Was it Tony Morrison at the store?”

“I dunno,” wailed the boy frightened now by the awful look of rage in the man’s face and only anxious to get away. “I never go to the store, muvver always goes.”

Another frightful shake that made his teeth rattle.

“Was it?”

“I dunno. I never saw ’is face, only ’is back as he was a-kissin’ of her. It mout be the store man, or it moutn’t.”

“Little devil!” growled Macpherson, and with a final shake sent the boy down on his hands and knees in the dust. Then he strode off up the road at a tremendous pace, his blood on fire, his mind entirely made up.

It was Tony, of course. He knew that absolutely. He was convinced of it. The grey suit and hat, the smart appearance--who else in Fullingham had that? It was Tony’s own particular property and asset. Besides, had he not just heard at the store that Tony was gone sweethearting? Of course it was all quite clear. Huggin’ and kissin’ his Apricot! The thought of her darling velvet cheek that he himself so reverently touched, her lovely smiling scarlet mouth, came to him and seemed to add boiling oil to the raging flame within him. He would do for him! He would kill him! He would break his back! The cur! The reptile! Who all along had been carrying on with his girl and who was so smug and so satisfied--always at the store so neat and clean, and always so civil-spoken and so quiet!

He had always rather liked Tony. There had been a great friendship between the men only lately a little spoiled by the slumbering suspicion in John’s mind that Tony might be “after his girl,” but Tony had always been good to him personally and he always spoke of Apricot to John as Miss Marten, which came back bitterly to John now. “I’ll ‘Miss Marten’ him when I catch him,” he said between his teeth.

A hideous thing is jealousy, blinding its victim, deafening him alike to the voice of conscience and the voice of reason hounding him on to the scaffold and the grave.

John Macpherson, good man, great soul, walked up the road that evening with red murder in his heart. When he came to the cross-roads he stopped and hesitated. Which way had they gone?

He decided they must have taken the road to Riverside. It lay before him so attractively beautiful all bathed in golden sheen; the road to Hawley was up hill and in shadow.

Before one reaches Riverside comes the wood, and as the road passes into it there is a low stile. On this stile with his back to the road and all unconscious of the desperate figure of vengeance striding along it, sat a figure in grey. It was Tony, blissfully happy; full of light-hearted innocent enjoyment swinging his legs to the tune he was whistling. He was looking back to Riverside and was counting the kisses shy little Bessie had given him that day, and thinking how sweet she had looked when she promised to marry him. Now he was on his way home to Fullingham and just pausing to rest on the stile and enjoy the sweet calm and peace of this perfect evening which suited so well his happy mood.

Suddenly as John came along the road he caught sight of the grey back rising above the stile and every drop of blood in John’s body turned to raging flame. His ears caught the gay whistle. Apricot was nowhere to be seen, but that was natural. She would be slinking home through the woods by way of Riverside and back to her father’s cottage, where she would turn up with the innocent look of the cat who has stolen the cream. Well, nothing could be better. Apricot out of the way he could deal all the more swiftly and better with his rival.

Like a bull at a fence he rushed at the stile, and Tony was knocked off and down on the ground, pinned under John’s hands at his throat before he knew who had approached.

“You weasel! You little devil! I’ll kill you!” John stormed, and lifting the prostrate man by the neck dashed him down again with all his force. There was a wide stone flag just under the stile to help matters in the muddy wintertime, and on this flag Tony’s head came down with a good bang.

“What’s up?” he gasped, as well as he could with John’s suffocating grip on his neck. “What’s this for, Mac?”

“Huggin’ and kissin’!” ground out John between his teeth. “I’ll teach you to come after my girl!”

“I haven’t! I haven’t!” cried Tony. “Let up, Mac, let up! You’re mad.”

“If I’m mad you’re dead. I’m going to kill you, you little beast!” Bang! “Where were you this afternoon?” Bang! “Answer me that.” Bang!

Tony’s lips were going white. His thoughts were scattered by the blows on his head. He managed to gasp out: “Riverside! I’ve been to Bessie--I haven’t seen your girl.”

“You’re a good liar,” scoffed John. “You were seen huggin’ my girl and I’ll see you never do again. Now go on with more of your lies.” Bang! Bang!

But Tony’s lying or speaking at all had come to an end. His face went grey; his jaw dropped; his body fell limp in the fierce hands which held him.

John let him slide down and struggled to his feet. Instantly his rage fell from him. He was face to face with the awful fact--he had killed a man.

Sane now, calm, his anger utterly spent and gone from him, John stood panting there, looking about him. He was quite alone in the golden evening; everything was exquisitely calm about him, a thrush near by was pouring out his song, and the figure, a few moments before sitting whistling on the stile, was now lying limp and motionless at his feet. Those few moments of blind, dark rage had turned one man into a corpse, the other into a murderer.

Murder! It was hanging for that.

A wild longing to undo what he had done possessed him. He went down on his knees.

“Tony!” he called. “What’s the matter with you? Tony, wake up!” But the man lay still and grey before him. He undid his coat and felt his heart; there was no movement.

He passed his trembling arm under his head and raised him and put his own face down close to see if any breath touched his cheek; but there was none. Limp, nerveless, the body lay across the flagstone, seeming to ask him, “What will you do with me now?” And John, wrapped in that awful horror, that awful responsibility of his deed, rose from his knees and stood shuddering by the stile.

Then terror came and seized him. He must conceal his act. He must hide the body. It must never be known he had murdered Tony. He might never be discovered. If Tony’s body were found later, in the wood, what would tie this deed to him, Macpherson? Tony might have been murdered by a tramp in the wood.

Shivering as if with mortal cold, John stooped over the body and dragged it by the shoulders out of the path, and into the little wood. Parting the flowering bushes by the side of the track, he pushed into the thick undergrowth and there left the motionless form under some wild azaleas.

Then with, the cold, clammy fingers of his crime clinging to him, unnerved and shaken, with his heart in a black terror, he crept out, a criminal, from the shade of the trees and took the sunfilled road again.

He looked all round the stile, but there was no trace of the crime committed there. He brushed the white dust of the path from his own clothes. Then he stood and listened.

Not a sound to mar the lovely serenity of the golden air. Even the thrush had finished his beautiful song and all was silence.

* * * * *

John Macpherson, the same in outward appearance, but within a miserable, broken and craven man, entered the village pot-house as the sunset faded and the moon grew brighter, and called for a glass of beer.

When he got it he took it to one of the side benches, where he sat down away from the rest of the company and swallowed it in silence.