The Revellers

by Louis Tracy

  CHAPTER IX

  THE WILDCAT

  It was nearly three o'clock when Martin re-entered the village. Outsidethe boxing booth a huge placard announced, in sprawling characters, thatthe first round of the boxing competition would start punctually at 3P.M. "Owing to the illness of Mr. George Pickering, deeply regretted,"another referee would be appointed.

  It cost the boy a pang to stride on. He would have dearly liked to watchthe display of pugilism. He might have gone inside the tent for an hourand still kept his tryst with Mr. Herbert, but John Bolland's dourteaching had scored grooves in his consciousness not readily effaced.The folly of last night must be atoned in some way, and he punishedhimself deliberately now by going straight home.

  The house was only a little less thronged than the "Black Lion," so hemade his way unobserved to the great pile of dry bracken in which he hidbooks borrowed from the school library. Ten minutes later he was seatedin the fork of a tree full thirty feet from the ground and consolinghimself for loss of the reality by reading of a fight far morepicturesque in detail--the Homeric combat between FitzJames and RoderickDhu.

  From his perch he could see the church clock. Shortly before theappointed hour he climbed down and surmounted the ridge which dividedthe Black Plantation from Thor ghyll. It was a rough passage, naughtsave gray rock and flowering ling, or heather, growing so wild and bushythat in parts it overtopped his height. But Martin was sure-footed as agoat. Across the plateau and down the tree-clad slope on the other sidehe sped, until he reached a point whence he could obtain a comprehensiveview of the winding glen.

  On a stretch of turf by the side of the silvery beck that rushed sofrantically from the moorland to the river, he spied a small gardentent. In front was a table spread with china and cakes, while a copperkettle, burnished so brightly that it shone like gold in the sunlight,was suspended over a spirit lamp. Mr. Herbert was there, and an elderlylady, his aunt, who acted as his housekeeper--also Elsie and hergoverness and two young gentlemen who "read" with the vicar during thelong vacation. Evidently a country picnic was toward; Martin was at aloss to know why he had been invited.

  Perhaps they wished him to guide them over the moor to some distant glenor to the early British camp two miles away. Sometimes a touristwandering through Elmsdale called at the farm for information, andMartin would be dispatched with the inquirer to show the way.

  It was a pity that Mr. Herbert had not mentioned his desire, as thedaily reading of the Bible was due in an hour, and most certainly,to-day of all days, Martin must be punctual.

  If his brain were busy, his eye was clear. He sprang from rock to rocklike a chamois. Once he swung himself down a small precipice by thetough root of a whin. He knew the root was there, and had already testedits capabilities, but the gathering beneath watched him with dismay,for the feat looked hazardous in the extreme. In a couple of minutes hehad descended two hundred feet of exceedingly rough going. He stopped atthe beck to wash his hands and dry them on his handkerchief. Then heapproached the group.

  "Do you always descend the ghyll in that fashion, Martin?" cried thevicar.

  "Yes, sir. It is the nearest way."

  "A man might say that who fell out of a balloon."

  "But I have been up and down there twenty times, sir."

  "Well, well; my imaginary balloonist could make no such answer. Sit downand have some tea. Elsie, this is young Martin Bolland, of whom I havebeen telling you."

  The girl smiled in a very friendly way and brought Martin a cup of teaand a plate of cakes. So he was a guest, and introduced by the vicar tohis daughter! How kind this was of Mr. Herbert! How delighted Mrs.Bolland would be when she heard of it, for, however strict herNonconformity, the vicar was still a social power in the village, andsecond only to the Beckett-Smythes in the estimation of the parish.

  At first poor Martin was tongue-tied. He answered in monosyllables whenthe vicar or Mrs. Johnson, the old lady, spoke to him; but to Elsie hesaid not a word. She, too, was at a loss how to interest him, until shenoticed a book in his pocket. When told that it was Scott's poems shesaid pleasantly that a month ago she went with her father to a placecalled Greta Bridge and visited many of the scenes described in"Rokeby."

  Unhappily, Martin had not read "Rokeby." He resolved to devour it at thefirst opportunity, but for the nonce it offered no conversationalhandle. He remained dumb, yet all the while he was comparing Elsie withAngele, and deciding privately that girls brought up as ladies inEngland were much nicer than those reared in the places which Angelenamed so glibly.

  But his star was propitious that day. One of the young men happened tonotice a spot where a large patch of heather had been sliced off theface of the moor.

  He asked Mr. Herbert what use the farmers made of it.

  "Nothing that I can recall," said the vicar, a man who, living in thecountry, knew little of its ways; "perhaps Martin can tell you."

  "We make besoms of it, sir," was the ready reply, "but that space hasbeen cleared by the keepers so that the young grouse may have freshgreen shoots to feed on."

  Here was a topic on which he was crammed with information. His face grewanimated, his eyes sparkled, the words came fast and were well chosen.As he spoke, the purple moor, the black firs, the meadows, the corn landred with poppies, became peopled with fur and feather. On the hilltopsthe glorious black cock, in the woods the dandy pheasant and swiftpigeon, among the meadows and crops the whirring partridge, becameactualities, present, but unseen. There were plenty of hares on thearable land and the rising ground; as for rabbits, they swarmedeverywhere.

  "This ghyll will be alive with them in little more than an hour," saidMartin confidently. "I shouldn't be surprised, if we had a dog and puthim among those whins, but half-a-dozen rabbits would bolt out in alldirections."

  "Please, can I be a little bow-wow?" cried Elsie. She sprang to her feetand ran toward the clump of gorse and bracken he had pointed out,imitating a dog's bark as she went.

  "Take care of the thorns," shouted Martin, making after her moreleisurely.

  She paused on the verge of the tangled mass of vegetation and said,"Shoo!"

  "That's no good," he laughed. "You must walk through and kick the thickclumps of grass--this way."

  He plunged into the midst of the gorse. She followed. Not a rabbitbudged.

  "That's odd," he said, rustling the undergrowth vigorously. "There oughtto be a lot here."

  "You know Angele Saumarez?" said the girl suddenly.

  "Yes."

  He ceased beating the bushes and looked at her fixedly, the question wasso unexpected. Yet Angele had asked him the selfsame question concerningElsie Herbert. One girl resembled another as two peas in a pod.

  "Do you like her?"

  "I think I do, sometimes."

  "Do you think she is pretty?"

  "Yes, often."

  "What do you mean by 'sometimes,' 'often?' How can a girl bepretty--'often'?"

  "Well, you see, I think she is nice in many ways, and that if--she knewyou--and copied your manner--your voice, and style, and behavior--shewould improve very greatly."

  Martin had recovered his wits. Elsie tittered and blushed slightly.

  "Really!" she said, and recommenced the kicking process with ardor.

  Suddenly, with a fierce snarl, an animal of some sort flew at her. Shehad a momentary vision of a pair of blazing eyes, bared teeth, andextended claws. She screamed and turned her head. In that instant awildcat landed on her back and a vicious claw reached for her face. ButMartin was at her side. Without a second's hesitation he seized thegrowling brute in both hands and tore it from off her shoulders. Hisright hand was around its neck, but he strove in vain to grasp the smallof its back in the left. It wriggled and scratched with the ferocity ofan undersized tiger. Martin's coat sleeves and shirt were slashed toshreds, his waistcoat was rent, and deep gashes were cut in his arms,but he held on gamely.

  Mr. Herbert and the others ran up, but came unarmed. They had not even astick. The vicar,
with some presence of mind, rushed back and wrenched aleg from the camp table, but by the time he returned the cat was movingits limbs in its final spasms, for Martin had choked it to death.

  The vicar danced about with his improvised weapon, imploring the boy to"throw it down and let me whack the life out of it," but Martin wasenraged with the pain and the damage to his clothing. In his anger hefelt that he could wrench the wretched beast limb from limb, and hemight have endeavored to do that very thing were it not for the presenceof Elsie Herbert. As it was, when the cat fell to the ground itsstruggles had ended, but Mr. Herbert gave it a couple of hearty blows tomake sure.

  It was a tremendous brute, double the size of its domestic progenitors.At one period in its career it had been caught in a rabbit trap, for oneof its forelegs was removed at the joint, and the calloused stump washard as a bit of stone.

  A chorus of praise for Martin's promptitude and courage was cut shortwhen he took the table leg and went back to the clump of gorse.

  "I thought it was curious that there were no rabbits here," he said."Now I know why. This cat has a litter of kittens hidden among thewhins."

  "Are you gug-gug-going to kuk-kuk-kill them?" sobbed Elsie.

  He paused in his murderous search.

  "It makes no matter now," he said, laughing. "I'll tell the keeper.Wildcats eat up an awful lot of game."

  His coolness, his absolute disregard of the really serious cuts he hadreceived, were astounding to the town-bred men. The vicar was the firstto recover some degree of composure.

  "Martin," he cried, "come this instant and have your wounds washed andbound up. You are losing a great deal of blood, and that brute's clawsmay have been venomous."

  The boy obeyed at once. He presented a sorry spectacle. His arms andhands were bathed in blood and his clothes were splashed with it.

  Elsie Herbert's eyes filled with tears.

  "This is nothing," he said to cheer her. "They're only scratches, butthey look bad."

  As a matter of fact, he did not realize until long afterwards that wereit not for the fortunate accident which deprived the cat of her offforeleg, some of the tendons of his right wrist might have been severed.From the manner in which he held her she could not get the effectiveclaws to bear crosswise.

  The vicar looked grave when a first dip in the brook revealed the extentof the boy's injuries.

  "You are plucky enough to bear the application of a little brine,Martin?" he said.

  Suiting the action to the word, he emptied the contents of a paper ofsalt into a teacup and dissolved it in hot water. Then he washed thewounds again in the brook and bound them with handkerchiefs soaked inthe mixture. It was a rough-and-ready cauterization, and the pain madeMartin white, but later on it earned the commendation of the doctor. Mr.Herbert was pallid himself when Elsie handed him the last handkerchiefthey could muster, while Mrs. Johnson was already tearing the tableclothinto strips.

  "It is bad enough to have your wrists scored in this way, my lad," hemurmured, "but it will be some consolation for you to know thatotherwise these cuts would have been in my little girl's face, perhapsher eyes--great Heaven!--her eyes!"

  The vicar could have chosen no better words. Martin's heart throbbedwith pride. At last the bandages were secured and the tattered sleeveturned down. All this consumed nearly half an hour, and then Martinremembered a forgotten duty.

  "What time is it?" he said anxiously.

  "A quarter past five."

  "Oh, bother!" he murmured. "I'll get into another row. I have missed myBible lesson."

  "Your Bible lesson?"

  "Yes, sir. My father makes me read a portion of Scripture every day."

  The vicar passed unnoticed the boy's unconsciously resentful tone. Hesighed, but straightway resumed his wonted cheeriness.

  "There will be no row to-day, Martin," he promised. "We shall escort youhome in triumphal procession. We leave the things here for my man, whowill bring a pony and cart in a few minutes. Now, you two, tie the hindlegs of that beast with a piece of string and carry it on the stick. Thecat is Martin's _spolia opima_. Here, Elsie, guide your warrior'sfaltering footsteps down the glen."

  They all laughed, but by the time they reached the White House the boywas ready to drop, for he had lost a quantity of blood, and the tormentof the saline solution was becoming intolerable.

  John Bolland, after waiting with growing impatience long after theappointed time, closed the Bible with a bang and went downstairs.

  "What's wrang wi' ye now?" inquired his spouse as he dropped moroselyinto a chair and answered but sourly a hearty greeting from a visitor.

  "Where's that lad?" he growled.

  "Martin. Hasn't he come yam?"

  She trembled for her adopted son's remissness on this, the first dayafter the great rebellion.

  "Yam!"--with intense bitterness--"he's not likely te hearken te t' Wordwhen he's encouraged in guile."

  "Eh, but there's some good cause this time," cried the old lady, moreflustered than she cared to show. "Happen he's bin asked to see t'squire again."

  "T' squire left Elmsdale afore noon," was the gruff reply.

  Then the vicar entered, and Elsie, leading Martin, and the two pupilscarrying the gigantic cat. Mrs. Johnson and the governess-companion hadremained with the tent and would drive home in the dogcart.

  Mr. Herbert's glowing account of Martin's conduct, combined with ajudicious reference to his anxiety when he discovered that the hour forhis lesson had passed, placed even Bolland in a good humor. Once againthe boy filled the mouths of the multitude, since nothing would servethe farmhands but they must carry off the cat to the fair for exhibitionbefore they skinned it.

  The doctor came, waylaid on his return from the "Black Lion." He removedthe salt-soaked bandages, washed the wounds in tepid water, examinedthem carefully, and applied some antiseptic dressing, of which he had asupply in his dogcart for the benefit of George Pickering.

  "An' how is Mr. Pickerin' te-night?" inquired Mrs. Bolland, who washorrified at first by the sight of Martin's damages, but reassured whenthe doctor said the boy would be all right in a day or two.

  "Not so well, Mrs. Bolland," was the answer.

  "Oh, ye don't say so. Poor chap! Is it wuss than ye feared for?"

  "No; the wound is progressing favorably, but he is feverish. I don'tlike that. Fever is weakening."

  No more would the doctor say, and Mrs. Bolland soon forgot thesufferings of another in her distress at Martin's condition. Sheparticularly lamented that he should be laid up during the Feast.

  At that the patient laughed.

  "Surely I can go out, doctor!" he cried.

  "Go out, you imp! Of course, you can. But, remember, no larking aboutand causing these cuts to reopen. Better stay in the house until I seeyou in the morning."

  So Martin, fearless of consequences, hunted up "Rokeby," and read itwith an interest hardly lessened by the fact that that particular poemis the least exciting of the magician's verse. At last the light failedand the table was laid for supper, so the boy's reading was disturbed.More than once he fancied he had heard at the back of the house a long,shrill whistle which sounded familiar. Curiosity led him to the meadow.He waited a little while, and again the whistle came from the lane.

  "Who is it?" he called.

  "Me. Is that you, Martin?"

  "Me" was Tommy Beadlam, but his white top did not shine in the dark.

  "What's up?"

  "Come nearer. I mustn't shout."

  Wondering what mystery was afoot, Martin approached the hedge.

  "Yon lass," whispered Tommy--"I can't say her name, but ye ken finewheae 'tis--she's i' t' fair ageaen."

  "What! Angele?"

  "That's her. She gemme sixpence te coom an' tell yer. I've bin whistlin'till me lips is sore."

  "You tell her from me she is a bad girl and ought to go home at once."

  "Not me! She'd smack my feaece."

  "Well, I can't get out. I've had an accident and must go
to bed soon."

  "There's a rare yarn about you an' a cat. I seed it. Honest truth--didyou really kill it wi' your hands?"

  "Yes; but it gave me something first. Can you see? My arms and left handare all bound up."

  "An' it jumped fust on Elsie Herbert?"

  "Yes."

  "An' yer grabbed it offen her?"

  "Yes."

  "Gosh! Yon lass is fair wild te hear all about it. She greeted whenEvelyn Atkinson telt her yer were nearly dead, but yan o' t' farmhandskem along an' we axed him, an' he said ye were nowt worse."

  Martin's heart softened when he heard of Angele's tears, but he wassorry she should have stolen out a second time to mix with the rabble ofthe village.

  "I can't come out to-night," he said firmly.

  "Happen ye'd be able to see her if I browt her here?"

  The white head evidently held brains, but Martin had sufficient strengthof character to ask himself what his new friends, the Herbert family,would think if they knew he was only too willing to dance to any tunethe temptress played.

  "No, no," he cried, retreating a pace or two. "You must not bring her.I'm going to supper and straight to bed. And, look here, Tommy. Try andpersuade her to go home. If you and Jim Bates and the others take herround the fair to-night you'll all get into trouble. You ought to haveheard the parson to-day, and Miss Walker, too. I wouldn't be in yourshoes for more than sixpence."

  This was crafty counsel. Beadlam, after consulting Jim Bates,communicated it to Angele. She stared with wide-open eyes at thedoubting pair.

  "Misericorde!" she cried. "Were there ever such idiots! Because hecannot come himself, he doesn't want me to be with you."

  There was something in this. Their judgment wavered, and--and--Angelehad lots of money.

  But she laughed them to scorn.

  "Do you think I want you!" she screamed. "Bah! I spit at you. Evelyn, macherie, walk with me to The Elms. I want to hear all about the man whowas stabbed and the woman who stabbed him."

  Thereupon, Evelyn and one of her sisters went off with a girl whom theyhated. But she was clever, in their estimation, and pretty, and welldressed, and, oh, so rich! Above all, she was not "stuck up" like ElsieHerbert, but laughed at their simple wit, and was ready to sink to theirlevel.

  Martin, taking thought before he slept, wondered why Angele had not comeopenly to the farm. It did not occur to him that Angele dared not faceJohn Bolland. The child feared the dour old farmer. She dreaded a singlelook from the shrewd eyes which seemed to search her very soul.