PUSHING onward at what fury of speed the dangerous state of the road permitted, Tuke, like a good captain, would not subordinate his prudence to his eagerness. True, he had nothing but a vague sense that some evil was abroad, to justify his mood of suspicion; yet, forasmuch as this mood was unaccountable, it behoved him to move circumspectly through the first stages of reconnoitre.
Therefore it was that coming to the top of the long dip, on the crest of whose further slope stood Mr. Breeds’s little ill-omened tavern, he called to Dennis and, pulling on his left rein, cantered his horse on to the easterly downs, with the idea of making a détour that should bring him into the Winchester road a half-mile above Stockbridge.
This was judicious enough; but it was some aggravation of his impatience to find now with what infinite caution it was necessary to proceed over the frozen wastes of grass and crumbling chalk patches. A rushed camp of mole-hills—a film of cat-ice, roofing some unsuspected hollow, trodden upon—and all his fine purposes of help might end in a broken neck. Fortunately there was a young wintry moon, whose radiance, struck back from the snow, made such a spectral twilight as it was possible to steer through.
He groaned to himself as yard by yard they crept upon their way and still the red glow seemed as far off as ever. Once indeed, looking as in a dream, he fancied they must have wandered widely afield, away from, instead of towards the fire; for then the latter seemed to have sunk in a little glimmer amongst distant hills, as if many miles separated it from them. But the next moment there came a great bellying upward of smoke, distinctly evident to their eyes; and immediately the pall was attacked and devoured by a dozen shooting tongues of flame, that slobbered myriads of sparks like blood as the monster of fire rent its prey.
“The roof has gone in, sir.”
“Aye, aye, Dennis. We must be near the road by now, I think.”
Not so near as he hoped and desired. It was a full hour and a half from the start when they broke at last into the Winchester highway and went down cautiously into the village. For many minutes before, there had been no doubt in Tuke’s mind but that his worst apprehensions would be realized. The “First Inn” it was that was alight—the old house endeared to him, in a sense, by more than one tender memory.
“How did it happen?” he asked of himself; and thought half-comically—“I must assure the poor girl it was like enough to have been spontaneous combustion, from the long warmth of hospitality it carried in its heart.”
Then he rebuked his levity
“Betty, Betty,” he thought, “are you safe, my dear?”—and at the fear the word evoked his breath caught in something like a sob.
The fury of the fire was over when they came upon the scene and stopped before the ravaged and gutted carcass of the once picturesque inn. But still the blackened walls blossomed with little spits and fronds of flame; and scarlet lines drawn upon the heavy curtains of smoke showed where smouldering beams clung tenacious of their hold.
The road was full of a drifting and pungent fog, and therein the whole village was alive, scurrying hither and thither in excitement like a colony of ants whose nest had been overturned.
On the outskirts of this press the two men, dismounted, were standing holding their horses, when a country youth, his red face all blubbered with tears and dust, came hurriedly up to them and seized Tuke by the sleeve.
“Master—Master Took!” he exclaimed in a broken voice.
“Jim!—Good God, man! how did this come about?”
“By foul play, your honour; and may the living hell be their portion that done it!”
“Steady, man!”
“I’ll ha’ justice o’ them—I’ll ha’ justice o’ them, by the Lord! Look at it! look here! Missy Pollack’s home—her that never done a hard thing by a soul, and treated poor Jim like a man. Drove a pauper at a blow, and her grandfather all burnt and choked and she cluckin’ to him like a hen that’s laid.”
“Where is she? Take me to her.”
The poor fellow pulled him forward immediately, shouting to those who interposed to make way for the gentleman that was come to see justice done on scoundrels and murderers. Some stared and some grinned, but one and all were too loutishly absorbed in the extempore show that yet crackled for their benefit to thrust an undesirable company upon him. So they let him pass undisturbed, and continued to ply the ashes from their useless buckets with what water they could find, while buffoonery and the animal jest at another’s misfortune kept them in a fine glow of good-humour.
To a barn in an adjacent yard Jim conducted his captive by way of a side-gate that had been closed against intruders. Within, gathered about the open door of the shed, was a little knot of men, whose dress showed them for the most part to be of the respectable class of village gentry. These Tuke saluted as he advanced.
“I trust, gentlemen,” he said, “that this I hear of the innkeeper is an exaggerated report?”
One of the company, who was muffled up in a great surtout and swung a horn lantern in his hand, detached himself from the group and came towards him.
“The man is dead, sir,” he said.
“Dead?”
“He has succumbed to shock induced by a period of inhalation of irrespirable gases, and aggravated by some superficial burns. I am Dr. Harmsworth, sir, at your service.”
Mr. Tuke bowed.
“And can you inform me, Dr. Harmsworth,” he said, “of the history of this catastrophe?”
“In faith, sir, I cannot. But it looks an ugly business. The wench, it appears, was gone to visit a neighbour, and the stableman to squire her. When they return—there is smoke leaking through the roof of the tap. They burst in, and are met by a vaporous volley of flame. The old man is down on the floor, insensible in the midst of it. They drag him out, and the young man hath the wit to observe that the fire has its three distinct sources or centres of eruption. That, to my mind, suspicions of some foulness. But him that could have best acquainted us of the truth has his mouth sealed to the Day of Judgment.”
“He is dead.”
“He is dead, sir.”
“And his granddaughter?”
“She is in there with the body. Her grief is very poignant for the moment.”
“I must see her.”
“By your leave, sir—”
“I must see her, Dr. Harmsworth. You needn’t say me nay, sir. I know, and would act the part of friend by her.”
The doctor would have further protested, but Jim put him roughly to one side and made a way for his gentleman.
“In here, sir,” he said.
It was a little sombre, pathetic scene that Tuke faced as he entered. A flaring candle, stuck in a cleft-stick, split up the windy darkness of the interior into spokes of light and shadow. From the roof, great misty mats of cobwebs drooping, swayed in the draught like grotesque banners hung appropriately to the lying-in-state of the dusty thing on the floor. Thereover a hard-grained female was stooped, engaged in covering the dead face with a napkin; and leaned upright against a partition, her head dropped listlessly upon her arm, was the poor living victim of all this tragic gallimaufry.
“Betty!”
A start and a shiver went through her, but she did not raise her face.
“I saw the glare,” he whispered behind her into her upturned ear, “and my heart misgave me and I rode over to your help. Yes, it is too late for him, Betty; but, for yourself, my dear? It is no time to speak of it all now; but if there has been villainy here, I will spend my fortune at need to procure its punishment. Betty!”
She only buried her face deeper in her arm. He put his hand on her shoulder with a caressing touch; then removed it and crossed to the kneeling woman.
“Tell me,” he said, stooping and speaking low—“has she any one relation in the village?”
“No, sir. Them two was alone in the world.”
“Friends—acquaintances? Any single soul who would show her kindness in this great affliction?”
The woman scrambled to her feet.
“Betty was none disliked,” she said. “But, Lord ha’ mercy, sir! is it righteous to talk to the poor, in sick a winter as this, o’ the grace o’ charity? Will your honour look at the gal, and tell me if them busts and shoulders was like to ha’ been nourished on pitaty parings?”
“She is ruined?”
The woman stared.
“Saving your honour, I won’t believe it. The gal is no road for the men, but as good a wench as ever served a pot.”
“Ruined, I mean, in the sense of fortune. She hath lost her all in this burning?”
“Ah! I misdoubt she’s worth no more than the clothes she stands in.”
“If I give you money, will you honestly do the last duties by the dead here?”
“Aye, that will I.”
“So that, if I procure the maid an asylum, she may feel happy that her grandfather will be laid decently to earth?”
“Aye, aye.”
She held out an eager hand; let those who have starved in a bitter winter call it a covetous one. She fingered each of the gold pieces as if it were a fairy flower of her imagination.
Tuke returned softly to the girl, who had never changed her position. He put his arm gently about her waist.
“Betty—I tell you to come with me.”
“No, no!”
Her voice shivered up, all drowned and bewildered.
“You must come, dear. This is no longer a place for you. I will arrange all matters necessary about—about him there, and I will take you into my service.”
She only lowered her head deeper, and gave out a miserable sigh.
“You are forlorn and alone in the world, Betty. You would have to exchange your independence for a wretched drudgery.”
At that she looked up at last, and put her hair from her wild eyes and wet cheeks.
“I should be honest,” she whispered. “They could not be cruel to blame me even if I starved. Why should I help you to a lie and myself to misery?”
“To a lie, Betty?”
She flashed round on him quite suddenly.
“What is the sort of service you offer me?” she cried.
He did not answer. Irresistibly impassioned, he seized her fiercely in his arms. The woman had gone out and for the moment they were alone.
“Betty, you shall come! I will try to be fair with you. If you have fought against this, so have I.”
“Hush, hush!” she cried pitifully. “Oh! think of him there!”
“He offered you to me for a price. I curse myself for telling you this now; but I must have you by fair means or foul.”
She fell against him, weeping heavily, while he held her.
“Oh, for shame!” she gasped, “that I should be put up to be bid for in my innocence! What brutes are men!”
“I won’t gainsay you. But, Betty, am I to live on in my warm house and know her cold and hungry that all my soul longs to?”
“Don’t!—oh, don’t talk to me like that!”
“Give me your lips, wench. Come! I will have them. By this and this, Betty, through every fibre of your sweetness I love and claim you.”
“Oh, what am I to do?”
“As I bid you, girl.”
He had out his handkerchief and wiped her eyes, and he smoothed her roughened hair and kissed her again into servility. Then he led her unresisting towards the door; and there was Jim mounting guard.
“Jim,” he said—“Missy Pollack is coming home with me. Go and find my man and bid him lead the horses thitherwards to some place where we can mount in quiet.”
The fellow sped away, and Tuke, leaving the girl by the barn-door, walked across to the doctor who was withdrawn with his friends to a little distance.
“Dr. Harmsworth, the pleasure of a word with you, sir.”
The other detached himself from the group and joined him.
“This unfortunate young woman is known to me. I take her into my service, with her consent and approval, and make myself responsible for her safe custody. You will greatly oblige me by undertaking the business of the proper interment of these poor remains, and you will apply to me for all professional and sundry charges. I am Mr. Tuke of ‘Delsrop,’ where I am to be seen and held to account for claims both moral and practical.”
The doctor gave a stiff bow.
“I am acquainted with you by report, sir, and will be happy to honour your instructions. As for the wench, she is of an age to negotiate her own business, and, I trust, to exhibit prudence in the conduct of it.”
He looked hard at the other, who saluted very rigidly in response.
“You can do her only justice, I am sure,” said he; and bowed once more and turned on his heel.
He found the girl prostrate on her knees beside the dead body—sobbing—appealing to it—murmuring broken words of penitence and love. She had moved the napkin from the face, and Tuke saw the cunning still engraved finely about the sightless eyes, and the little close leer of covetousness at the corners of the mouth, which showed a grotesque, clownish distortion of shape in the sooty border that suffocation had painted round it. Knowing what he did, he could not bear to see her thus wasting her heart of affection on the dead, unworthy thing. He stooped, and put his arm about her, and drew the cloth once more over the face.
“Come,” he said, and helping her to her feet, pulled off his own great-coat and wrapped it about her shoulders.
At that, “No, no!” she whispered. “You will perish of the cold.”
“I am going to take you pillion, Betty; and you must clasp your warm hands over my heart and keep it beating for you. That is your charge.”
He hurriedly withdrew her and urged her up the road. A little distance off they came upon the two men with the horses. Tuke sprang to his saddle, gave the girl a hand, and pulled her to a seat behind him.
“God bless your honour!” cried poor Jim.
“What of you, my good fellow?”
“What but the Union, master?”
“Get up behind my servant. You shall serve your mistress yet.”
Betty gasped.
“Did you kiss my shoulder, Betty?”
No answer.
With a light laugh Tuke touched up his horse, and the deadly cold of the night met them full-face as they sped homewards.