Dawn

by S. Fowler Wright

  Tom came up as he talked. He said, “We’ve got to stop this. Who’ll come with me to get her back?” The men looked at each other. There was indignation enough, but less resolution, in their expressions. Where were they to go? Who knew where Bellamy’s gang might be now? Would it not be too late to do anything? Who knew, even, whether Marian had been taken willingly? She was not popular. There was a feeling that anyone who had taken her might soon wish he hadn’t.

  James Hatterley, listening at the rear of the group, spoke in his rather high-pitched voice, and every one turned round to look. He was not generally known, and any stranger was an excitement in a community which was getting to know every one else.

  “They’ve gone off down the London Road. They’ve got Marian Hulse, and they’re making all the pace they can.”

  “Any horses?” said Jack.

  “There’s a rather big cart, and two horses to draw it.”

  “That won’t help the pace. How many are there?”

  “Over twenty.”

  “Teller there?” asked Tom.

  “Yes.”

  “It’s that damned rat’s doing, more like than not,” said Jack.

  Ellis Roberts, to whom he spoke, only nodded in reply.

  Jack went on, “It’s no use wasting time to get a party together. I’m fresh enough. I’ve done nothing all day.” (Which was scarcely accurate.) “If there’s anyone who’ll come with me we’ll find where they are before morning, and then if you fellows don’t settle the lot you’ll deserve whatever happens afterwards.”

  Tom said, “Of course I’ll come, Jack.”

  “Better not, Tom. If I get a chance, I shall put a bullet through Bellamy; but if we’re going to attack the whole gang we’ll want more help than we shall get here tonight. If you get the boys together, and you’re the one who can, I’ll be back before morning.”

  “I do, Tom?” said Ellis Roberts laconically.

  “No thanks, Ellis. I’d set a pace that wouldn’t suit you after the first few miles. You come, Bill?”

  Bill Horton said, “Ah.”

  Ten minutes after the two men set out together. They passed Monty Beeston sitting outside his lair. He was whetting his bill-hook with great diligence.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Jack Tolley was not back as quickly as he had expected. Under Reddy Teller’s cunning direction the cart had turned off the road, pursued a byway for some distance, returned by a field-track, and then left the road on the other side.

  They did not expect any prompt or vigorous pursuit, nor that their direction would have been observed, but Reddy was one who liked precautions.

  Jack observed with some annoyance that the fleeing party had either failed to scatter the clues which the etiquette of the case demanded, or he was too dense to observe or too foolish to understand them.

  Even when Bill Horton discovered an empty meat-tin in a field-side ditch, Jack had difficulty in deciding how long it had been thrown away, and was utterly unable to deduce in which direction the individual(s) who had thrown it aside had been moving at the time.

  Probably this should have been apparent from the angle at which it lay, but Bill had lifted it up without proper observation of such detail, and could only contribute his usual mono-syllable to the investigation.

  Indeed, this absence of any evidences by which the movements of the gang could be trailed neutralized much of the effect of Reddy Teller’s ingenuities.

  Jack’s pursuit was speedy, and his search thorough and systematic. At midday he located the gang, which had camped in a wooded space, unloaded the cart, and turned the horses to graze.

  Most of them were resting after the exertions of yesterday. Jack, profiting by the poaching experiences of earlier days, which he had practised for several years without drawing suspicion upon himself from any direction, was able to get close enough to ascertain that Marian was not there.

  He returned to Bill Horton, whom he had prudently left some distance away, in doubt about the course to follow. She might have escaped, or been released, and there might be little gain from a further search. He could not challenge Bellamy for information while only Bill was with him.

  It would be best, he decided, to return at once, and come in force to settle, once for all, the issue that had arisen. Whatever might have subsequently happened to the girl, the outrage remained, and others would surely follow, should it pass without reprisal.

  But as they returned, in a narrow lane, not half a mile from the place where the gang was camping, they came on the body of Marian Hulse. Her clothing was torn and disordered; her right arm lay awkwardly, being dislocated at the elbow; her face had an expression of savage anger, that even death could not entirely obliterate.

  “Bellamy’s work,” said Jack. Probably it was not the work of Bellamy only, but there was his signature in the broken arm. Had he not seen a woman’s fingers and a man’s wrist broken by the same hands?

  Bill Horton said “Ah,” as usual, muttering something else which was not fully articulated. His fresh colour showed an unusual pallor.

  “The sooner the boys know this, the better,” Jack said, but hesitated to leave her unburied, even though he might cover her from the flies. There were too many roaming dogs and other wilderness creatures now, which might increase in ferocity and contempt for mankind on such a diet.

  Yet what could he do? He had no tools suitable for digging. He could only decide that the sooner they were back the better. Perhaps it might be well for the others to see also….

  There were over fifteen miles of cumbered roads and rough cross-country to be traversed, but they were back at the railway camp while the sun was still in the sky.

  He told the tale to Tom Aldworth, and the others who clustered round to listen. Indignation stirred as they heard it, and the thought that no woman could be securely left, nor any small party wander far afield, as they were beginning to do again with a return of fairer weather, while such men were living around them.

  “If we start early in the morning—” Jack began.

  But for once Tom was the cooler, and the more reasonable.

  “There’s no real hurry now, Jack. We’d better get all the men together, and do it thorough, and once for all. We’ve got to settle that lot, and we don’t want any to escape to Cooper, or anywhere else. There’ll be trouble enough with him too before we’ve finished.

  “If we get things arranged tomorrow and start the nest day, it’s as much as we shall do now.”

  Jack saw that he was right. He had become restless and impatient for action lately. It was not usual for Tom to give him wiser counsel than his own. He knew quite well that he could judge more accurately and see farther than Tom could often do. But he was content to let him lead, and give him a very loyal support. He himself would nearer be a leader of others—he knew that as clearly as he knew other things. He was too detached: he saw all sides at once. Never a leader, nor one to be led very easily. One to see but not to succeed, he thought rather bitterly. Even Madge.…

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Tom’s counsel was good in itself, but it had another reason which he had not mentioned. To exterminate Bellamy’s gang would mean leading an expedition into the very district in which Mrs. Webster believed that her husband might still be living. Forty men can search more thoroughly than one or two, and it would be in the general interest to discover what that district might hold of human life or of material things. He determined that this should be done, and that he would go over to Hallowby Lodge the next morning, and come to a clear understanding of what his position would be should the search be unsuccessful, as he anticipated.

  He had not been there that day, waiting for Jack’s return, and hardening the resolution in his own mind not to be put off with any further indefiniteness. It was so much easier to make such resolutions than to keep them when Helen Webster stood before him…

  Muriel told the news to John Pettifer. She had set his wrist as well as she could, and dressed his oth
er injuries, and tried to get him to lie down in her own compartment, but he sat on her wooden-box step, staring blindly before him. She supposed he had loved the ill-tempered woman…. Now she had to tell him she was dead, and how she died….

  He heard it without any change of expression, except that tears began to fall slowly down his cheeks.

  Then he made an attempt to rise. “God blast—” he began. He made an involuntary gesture with his bandaged arm, that pulled it from the sling, and the sudden pain stopped the curse midway.

  He sat down again while she examined the wrist and rearranged the sling.

  He looked at Muriel, and said in a quiet, natural voice, “She was a brave woman, Miss Temple. I knew they’d get nowt from her.”

  Muriel said what she could, but what comfort was there to give?

  Outside the goods ran just below, Monty sat getting the last of the evening sun, which would disappear over the edge of the cutting in a few minutes, though there would still be two hours of daylight. He had resumed the sharpening of the bill-hook, and looked up at Muriel as she passed him to fetch the water which she would need for her evening meal. “Bellamy’s guts,” he remarked in cheerful explanation, as he plied the stone.

  Muriel only smiled in answer. She preached a gospel of peace, and she would hold that evil can be overcome by good rather than by its own devices, against any appearances of circumstance, but she had learnt that there are times when speech may be worse than useless; she knew Monty Beeston, and did not waste her words.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  The next day was busy with preparations, and with canvassing of the scattered population to secure volunteers for the expedition.

  Sympathy with its object was general, but personal excuses were many. State of health, or of boots, lack of weapons, sometimes a frank unwillingness to leave an only partly trusted woman for so uncertain a period, were among the reasons put forward.

  Some, who were unwilling or unable to go themselves, offered the loan of weapons, or to help to guard the camp while so many would be absent. It was a general objection that there must be enough remaining to protect the women.

  No doubt it required some quality of courage, or willingness to take the chances of life, to volunteer for such a conflict, leaving a woman (and perhaps a child) to the mercy of circumstance, under the conditions that were then prevailing.

  But over forty promised to assemble on the following morning—and over twenty came. The remainder included those who had promised without sincerity, or had spoken under an impulse of indignation, which the night had weakened, or were withheld by the reproaches or the tears of women.

  But Tom, looking at the assembled force, was well content. It included most of those on whom he had cause to rely, and he had already learnt that numbers (of the wrong kind) may be a source of weakness rather than strength, especially where there is no effectual discipline to control them.

  They were twenty-three in all when they started, with three led horses to carry such stores as they required, for they would not impede their mobility with vehicles which could not be moved freely aside from the cumbered roads.

  Of the men of the railway camp, Jack Tolley was there, of course, and Ellis Roberts. Monty also, and Bill Horton, and Harry Swain (with a borrowed rifle, which made his society a somewhat perilous enterprise); and, rather surprisingly, Ted Wrench was there; and—even more so to most—Steve Fortune wasn’t.

  Tom was in good spirits, being one who was always roused by adventure and movement, and having a special cause in the fact that he had, at last, brought himself to the point of having a straight talk with Helen Webster, and that a clear bargain had followed.

  He was to search for the missing barrister in the southern country from which her boat had drifted. If he should fail to find him within a month, she was to resign herself to his ownership and protection.

  That was the best he could make of the bargain, even in his own mind. She had not professed that she was willing to consent to such an alliance—had, indeed, told him plainly that she had no feeling for him beyond a compulsory gratitude—but she had given way at last before the implacable logic of circumstance.

  He had made it clear that she would have no safety for herself, nor provision for her children, apart from a continuance of the service and protection which he had given for some months already. Had she been alone, she might have found courage to take the risk of setting forth to search for one who she tried to persuade herself might still be living, though there could have been few women less fit by temperament or past experiences to face the dangers of such an enterprise, but the children made it impossible…

  He had no expectation of finding Martin Webster alive. It was not a reasonable probability. But he would search fairly and well. He did not expect that it would take a month, and he did not suppose that any of his companions would be willing to be absent for such a period. But they had agreed among themselves that there should be no return till Bellamy’s gang should be wiped out. He could not tell what time, or how wide a search, that might involve. But that must be the first task to which he must direct his mind, and it appeared that it would take him into the country where Martin should be found, if he were still living. Beyond that, he must be guided by opportunity.

  But he had little doubt that he would come back with a good right to claim the reward on which, rather by convergence of circumstance than by the impulse of his own nature, his heart was fixed.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  ON the evening before the expedition set out Tom had confided to Muriel the nature of his understanding with Helen Webster. This was a natural continuation of the confidence which he had already given, and was also impulsed by the necessity for making arrangements for her support during the uncertain period of his absence.

  If Mrs. Webster were to remain in the isolation of Hallowby Lodge, it was necessary that there should be regular supplies delivered of many things which she had not acquired a habit of seeking for herself—which would have been impossible during her illness, and which Tom had continued to supply since she had recovered her health. Milk, in particular, he had rarely failed to furnish daily, and for the continuance of this and other supplies for which she had become accustomed to rely upon him he had arranged with Will Carless, whose ready offer to join the expedition he had refused on the ground that he must ask this service from him, and also (in his own mind) because he thought that Will’s absence would almost certainly lead to trouble with Doll Withlin, who was not a young woman to be safely left to her own devices. Next morning he was additionally glad that he had not accepted Will’s offer, when he observed that Steve Fortune was not among those who assembled for the expedition. He did not wish to avenge one tragedy to find another awaiting his return….

  He could trust Will, also, to do what he undertook; and he was free from any jealous suspicion that his confidence would be abused in his absence. Indeed, the idea of any familiarity between Will Carless and Mrs. Webster was an incongruity to the imagination. The idea brought vividly to his mind how different she was from most of the women that the chances of flight and flood had left living around him, and from that realization he saw, with an unwelcome clarity, how deep, in her eyes, might be the gulf which separated himself and her.

  Muriel listened to the tale he told, trying to visualize the woman to whom his attentions were so plainly unwelcome. She had witnessed some strange matings during the last few weeks. Doubtless such things were inevitable now. Some of them were turning out well enough. She hoped this one might also. She liked Tom Aldworth. But she wondered about this barrister’s wife whom she had not met. Would she be content to remain isolated with her children at Hallowby Lodge, now that she had recovered her strength? There seemed no sufficient reason, now that she and Tom had arrived at a definite understanding. Also, she might be safer at the camp under such conditions. She put this idea to Tom, and ended by asking, “Would you like me to see her?”

  Yes, Tom would be glad of t
hat.

  So next morning, when the expedition had started, she set out for Hallowby Park.

  Under the directions which Tom had given her, she did not go by the main road, for he had left the lodge gates locked, and neither they nor the park-palings could be easily surmounted, but she went up Bycroft Lane, from which she could enter the park on its eastern side.

  She went alone and fearless, though most of the women were becoming reluctant to do so. There was not only the danger of human violence. Cattle and dogs roamed loosely over field and road, and with an increasing ferocity, though it was also true that they showed an increasing desire to avoid the neighbourhood of mankind, and were of no active danger to those who did not seek them, unless they should come together by a mutual blundering.

  But none of these dangers, either from man or beast, was very great in the district through which she walked. Hallowby Park lay in the north-eastern corner of the island, with the railway camp and the districts of Larkshill and Cowley Thorn curving round it, south to west, so that it was bounded on two sides by the not distant sea, and on the others by the most populated part of the island. The animals within this area had mostly been captured or killed, or had deserted it for the emptier inland spaces.

  Yet the way Muriel went showed signs enough that the iron hand of civilization had been lifted from it.

  Bycroft Lane was very old, and deep, and narrow. It had never led anywhere within memory or tradition except to Bycroft Farm, and who knew but that some old-standing habitation of man might have been there, with a deep-worn lane approaching it through the oak woods, when Caesar came to Britain?

  It had never been more than a narrow, deep-rutted hollow between high banks, with the park-palings at the bank-top on the left hand going north; but now it was choked with weeds from bank to bank—weeds of such height that Muriel found the nettles sting her face as she slipped or stumbled in the cart-tracks which she could not see. And the thick tangle was wet about its roots, although the weather had been finer during recent days, and her ankles and worn-out shoes were quickly soaked. But the steep bank and the high park-palings were not an attractive alternative, and she held on (half wishing that she had kept to her older garments, and the Rector’s coat, rather than drawn upon the reserves of the plundered trunk) till she came to the place of which Tom had told her, where some high ladder-steps at the bank-top supplied a way for pedestrian traffic into the park; but climbing this, and seeing a better way ahead, where the rabbits kept short pasture between the bracken, and finding that she had suffered little damage, beyond the clinging of many seeds that must be brushed or picked off with some patience, she was glad to think that she was dressed with some appearance of respectability, for she had a feeling as though she were calling upon someone who still belonged to the world that the floods had covered.