A DREAM, a memory of a wire factory he had once been shown over—this to re-connect him with a world he had sunk fathom-deep from; a buzzing and whistling in his brain, from which the brassy filament was being whirled to spin round a great reel at which some shadowy horror toiled; a snapping of the attenuated strand—and Mr. Tuke came to consciousness with a shock.
Even then, at first, he could not disassociate himself from the business of his quickening stupor; but saw the criss-cross of wires on all his drowsy eyes looked at. Somewhere in his forehead was the hole the screaming thread had issued from. He put up his hand vaguely to feel the acrid wound he knew must be there; for his whole skull yet throbbed and ached from the jarring process. He groped for the fancied mark, curiously, and then with a sense of grievance. If it had closed already, the torture would go on in his brain and find no outlet.
Suddenly the instinct of motion came to him, and he staggered to his feet. Yet his eyes were half-blind to the reality of his surroundings.
Bit by bit, however, these shook out into distinctness, vibrating like a spun coin before they settled down and became the commonplace objects of the room he had fallen asleep in. And then he saw that broad daylight was beating through a little high window, half-choked with creepers, that pierced the wall at the far end.
A few moments later the furious jangling of a bell seized every echo in the “Dog and Duck.” He who had awakened them, finding no response follow, flung out into the passage storming like a maniac.
An old shuffling woman was coming towards him. She was so old and so bent that, it seemed, to stoop a little lower would complete her circuit of days. A great mobcap was perched on her wrinkled poll, and under it her eyes ran moist with the humours of long-decayed passions.
“Where is the landlord of this tavern?” thundered Mr. Tuke.
The last trump would have done no more than tickle her auriculum.
“Eh!” she said, chafing her miserable old hands.
“Where is Breeds?” he roared.
“To be sure,” she whined, “he went off arly to Stockbridge.”
“And left you in charge—you unconscionable old beldame?” he added under his breath.
“Aye, aye,” she answered. “In charge to wake the gen’leman as had fell asleep over his cups.”
“And where are the others—the three who are stopping in the house?”
“I know nowt about en. There be nubbody here but you. I come fro’ Gorepit yon to do the tending when Breeds goes a-jaunting. He said nowt about anybody but you; and that your nag were in the stable.”
Fuming, driven beyond himself, his head one racked and aching bone, the baronet pushed past the withered hag and started on an exploration of the house. He flung up the stairs, and passed into more than one meagre little bed-chamber. Each was tenantless; as was every room upon the floor below.
“I have been drugged, by God!” he thought to himself; and went out to the rear where the stables were.
Here he found his horse comfortably stalled, and with all his housings yet on him.
He climbed into the saddle. He might have had a full sack upon his shoulders, from the trouble it cost him. As he rode away, he could have thought his head rocking like a toy-tumbler. He had to hold on with a frantic grip, or he would have rolled off into the road and probably snapped his spine like a stick of celery. The flinty track seemed to slide under him as if it were a long ribbon reeling off a drum. And all the time the pain in his head was horrible.
Presently he was sicklily aware of a woman’s figure crossing from a field-path in front of him. Even in his anguish, something that was familiar in its pose struck him.
“Betty!” he murmured thickly; and pulling up his horse with uncalculated abruptness, actually toppled out of the saddle, and fell in a heap to the ground.
She ran to him, uttering a faint cry. The horse had swerved on the moment, and one of its rider’s feet was wedged in a stirrup. She caught the bridle, backed the frightened animal, and so saved its master a deadly mangling.
Then, looping the reins over her arm, she bent above the prostrate man, with shining eyes full of rebuke and pity.
“Oh!” she said—“how could your honour be so foolish?”
He smiled up at her with a lost look of pain.
“How, Betty?” he whispered.
“You should ’a slept it off,” she said, “before you took the road.”
“You think me tipsy?”
She answered with a little sigh.
“Betty, my dear”—the mere effort of speech wrung a moan from him—“I’m not tipsy, upon my honour. I was fool enough to trust Mr. Breeds, that’s all; and he repaid me by drugging my wine.”
“You come fro’ the ‘Dog and Duck’?”
“I’ve spent the night there in a chair.”
“Oh, Mr. Tuke! What made you go?”
“Why, I wanted to see for myself.”
She went quite pale; and suddenly there was a bright tear running down her cheek.
“Oh, me!” she whispered. “’Twas I drove you to it. You might ha’ been murdered, and ’twas I drove you to it.”
“Nonsense, Betty. ’Twas coming to a head before you spoke. I should have had it out with Mr. Breeds in any case, sooner or later.”
“And he poisoned your wine? Oh, oh!”
“Now, my dear—that was only a move in the game. Forewarned is forearmed, you know. But my head seems like to burst. Will you put your cool hand on it, Betty?”
She acquiesced timidly, as he lay against the hedge-side. But soon, emboldened by the yearning pity that, in her sex, so passionlessly yields itself to any passionate appeal for help or comfort, she wrought with instinctive sympathy upon the throbbing temples and pressed the hard pain from them.
“It is like a little snow-wind from the mountains blowing over flowers,” murmured the patient drowsily. “What are you doing at ‘Delsrop’ again, Betty?”
“At ‘Delsrop’! Sure your honour’s dreaming,” she cooed. “You lie a’most within hailing distance of the ‘First Inn.’”
Mr. Tuke uttered an exclamation and struggled into a sitting posture.
“Eh!” he cried in a startled voice, and looked bewildered about him. True enough, the roofs of Stockbridge showed over the trees a quarter of a mile below him.
“Oh, Betty!” he groaned—“whither have my sodden wits led me?—And I made sure I was lying near the gates of the drive. I must mount and prick homewards.”
He rose to his feet with difficulty. His face was ghastly with nausea.
“You are in no state,” said the girl—“your honour is in no state to go alone. Come and rest awhile at the inn, and wend back in an hour or so.”
“I believe you are right,” he muttered stupidly. “Give me your arm, Betty, and lead me on. I’m blind and weak as a new-born kitten. But Mr. Breeds must be called to a reckoning by and by.”
“Yes, yes!” she cried—“but not now.”
She walked by his side, helping him so far as she could. It took them long, short distance as it was, to reach the inn. Once there, she led him up to a fresh-smelling guest-room, with a great four-poster in it, and wishing him sleep and a quick recovery, shut him in and went about to see to his horse.
All the morning and into the afternoon her heart sang in her breast like a robin. She was busy in the bar by herself when her gentleman walked in, refreshed, in his right mind, and very fairly recovered of his unintended debauch. He put out his hand and took one of hers into its grasp, firmly and caressingly, while she looked down and was busy over something with the point of her sandal.
“Betty,” said Mr. Tuke, “it has come to me that you pulled my heel out of the stirrup this morning. I was too befuddled at the time to realize it.”
She gazed up at him, her breath coming quickly, a scared entreating look on her flushed face.
“No,” he answered gravely to the mute appeal. “I’m not going to offer you money. I’ve been a sinner, Betty, but I’m a gentleman. Only I shall remember, my dear—I shall remember.”
He bent and kissed the warm hand courteously. It trembled against his lips before he released it. Then he turned and walked out of the bar without another word.
And as, a few moments later, the ring of his horse’s hoofs echoed away down the road, the girl ran hurriedly into the little back-parlour, threw herself into a chair, and broke into a passion of crying.