Part 11

"If I had my way," snarled the General, fiercely, "I'd flog that young swine Parker to within an inch of his worthless life. And then I'd put a trap on his own leg."

The Actor nodded. "I agree, General. Personally I am no great dog-lover. They have a way of concealing themselves about the furniture which is most disconcerting should one inadvertently sit upon them. But a trap----"

He shuddered, and poured himself out some more port.

"If only we could get hold of the boy," mused the General, returning to his original theme. "I can guess what he's feeling, and the longer he goes on without the human touch, the harder and more bitter he'll become. He wants to be made to shake hands with reality again; to hit something, if you like--but to get it over. He's bottling it up--I know it; and it's a bad thing for a youngster to bottle up bitterness."

The Soldier rose and strolled over to the window. For a while he leaned against the open frame, smoking quietly, and hardly conscious of the argument which had started in the room behind him. The power of the stage as a pulpit was an evergreen with the Celebrated Actor, and he felt in no mood for a discussion on the matter. The youngster, Hugh Dawnay, was filling his mind, and also Tommy, that morning.

He'd helped the vet. put the little terrier under, with a dose of prussic acid, and after it was over the two men had stared at one another, and then looked away, as is the manner of men who are feeling deeply.

"I hate it, more and more each time," said the vet., gruffly. "Poor little chap!"

"It's worse than a man," snapped the General. "A dog trusts a fellow so--so infernally. Damn that young Parker!"

With which explosion he had blown his nose loudly and stalked off for a long walk.

At length he pitched his cigarette away and turned back into the room. And at that moment, very clear and distinct from somewhere in the garden, there came a low whistle.

"Hush! you fellows, listen!" The argument ceased at his abrupt words, and the two men stared at him, as he stood motionless half-way between the table and the window. "Did you hear that whistle?"

"Personally, I did not," remarked the Actor, "but at the moment I was engrossed in other matters. A vulgar habit--whistling--but not, I regret to say, uncommon."

"There's someone in the garden," said the General. "I thought I saw something move earlier, and just then I heard a whistle most distinctly."

"My dear man," said the Actor, with a beneficent wave of his shapely hand, "are there not maidservants in the house? I fear that soldiering destroys romance."

The Soldier grunted. "Perhaps you're right. My mind was busy with other things. I think I'll take a stroll outside, too, for a bit. Give me a hail when you've finished your discussion."

He moved once more towards the window, only to pause on the threshold.

"Why, Hugh, my dear lad," he said, quietly, "it's good to see you again. Come in."

And the Celebrated Actor and the Eminent Divine, looking up quickly at his words, saw a man standing outside on the path, whose face was the face of one into whose soul the iron had entered.

For a moment or two Hugh Dawnay hesitated. Then, with the faintest perceptible shrug of his shoulders, he stepped into the room. He glanced at each man in turn; then his eyes came back to the Soldier's face and rested there.

"Good evening, General." His voice was quite expressionless. "I must apologize for intruding like this."

"Apologize!" The Soldier smiled at him. "What the devil is there to apologize about? I'm just amazingly glad to see you. Do you know the Bishop of Sussex and Mr. Trayne?"

"I had the pleasure of seeing you act, Mr. Trayne, just before I was so kindly accommodated at His Majesty's expense." Hugh's voice was as expressionless as ever. "I suppose you are still charming London with your art?"

For the first time in his life the Celebrated Actor felt at a loss. Had some charming woman made the remark to him--and many had--he would have known his cue. A deprecating wave of his hands--a half-hearted denial--a delicately turned compliment; it was all too easy. But as he stared at the boy on the other side of the table--the boy with the tired face of a man--the cloak of mannerisms which he had worn successfully for twenty years slipped off, and the soul of the great artist--and he was that, for all his artificiality--showed in his eyes. More clearly, perhaps, than either of the other two, he realized the dreadful laughter which was shaking the boy's soul; realized the bitter cynicism behind the ordinary words. More clearly than they could he saw himself, he saw the room, he saw life through the eyes of Hugh Dawnay.

"I still strut my small part," he said, gravely. "I still win a little brief applause. And if I can help those who see me to forget the bitterness and sorrow of the day, even though it be only for a while, it is enough." He rose, and laid both his hands on the boy's shoulders. "Forgive an old mummer's presumption, my lad. Don't think me an impertinent fool prating of what I do not know and cannot understand. You have been in the depths. God knows how deep and bitter they have been--God and you--unjustly, unfairly--I know that. And to you at the moment we seem typical of the smug respectability which pushed you there. Vain words of regret--empty phrases of sorrow, cannot give you back your two and a half wasted years any more than my playing alters the realities of the past. But maybe the hour or two of forgetfulness helps a man to face the realities of the future. Will you not try to forget, too?"

"And what play will you stage for me, Mr. Trayne," answered Hugh, quietly, "which will help me to forget? Will you cast me for the principal part, or am I to be one of the audience?" The boy threw back his head and laughed silently. "Two and a half years of the same soul-killing monotony. Why, I became an expert at talking to the man next to me, who was a 'lifer.' They couldn't prove he'd actually intended to murder the girl, and his counsel successfully pleaded drink. A charming fellow." Once again he laughed; then, with a quick movement, he thrust his hands in his pockets and, stepping back towards the window, faced the three men for a while in silence.

"For a moment or two you must listen to me," he said, and there was a harsh commanding ring in his voice. "Each of you is old enough to be my father in years; I am older than all of you combined in reality. At least, that is how I feel just now. You, Mr. Trayne, have talked about forgetfulness; in time, perhaps, I shall forget. But there's something inside me at the present moment which is numbing me. I can't feel, I can't think, I can't hate--I'm simply apathetic. I don't want to have anything to do with men; I want to get right away from them. And I'm going--I'm going; but I'm not going alone." He swung round and faced the Soldier. "Do you know why I've come here to-night, General?"

The Soldier looked at him quietly. "To see Beryl? Because she'd like to see you, Hugh."

But Hugh Dawnay shook his head. "No, not to see Beryl. I'm not fit to see her--yet. Perhaps in a year or two--if she isn't--married by then. No, it's not to see any human being; not even her. It's to get Tommy; and take him with me out into the big spaces where, perhaps, in time one may see things differently."

Unconscious of the effect of his words on his listeners, he had turned and was staring into the soft summer night.

"All the time that I've been in prison"--and his voice had lost its harshness--"I've thought, of that little chap. I've sat on my stool in the cell, and I've felt his cold, wet muzzle thrust into my hand: I've seen his eyes--those great brown eyes--staring up at me, asking for a hunt. But there's no hunting in prison--no rabbits: and I used to promise him that when I came out we'd go off together, just he and I--on to the moors somewhere--and be alone. He wouldn't mind even if I'd done it--even if I had stolen the money. That's the wonder of a dog: where he's so infinitely better than a man." The boy gave a little sigh, and for the first time a genuine smile flickered round his lips. "I've been all round the house, whistling and looking for him--but I expect he's in the drawing-room somewhere. With Beryl, perhaps. I wonder, General, if you'd get him for me?"

He glanced at the Soldier, and slowly his eyes dilated, as he saw the look on the older man's face. He glanced at the Bishop, who was staring at the cloth; he glanced at the Actor, who was staring at the Bishop, and suddenly he gave a little choking cry.

"My God!" he muttered, brokenly, "don't tell me that! Don't say that Tommy is--dead!"

It was the Soldier who answered, and his voice was suspiciously gruff.

"The little fellow was mauled in a trap this morning, old chap: and we had--to put him out of the way."

"Mauled in a trap?" The boy's voice was dead. "Tommy mauled in a trap? Who laid the trap?"

And it was the Actor who sat up, with a sudden light in his eyes, and supplied the information.

"Young Parker, who is farming the bit of ground next to here," he said, with almost unnecessary distinctness. "You can see his house through the trees."

"Young Parker? I remember young Parker." Covertly the Celebrated Actor watched the boy's face, and what he saw there seemed to afford him satisfaction.

"Where is the little dog buried?" asked the boy, quietly.

"Underneath the old yew tree," said the General. "Beryl put a ring of stones around his grave this afternoon."

"I see," said the boy. "Thank you. I'm sorry to have troubled you."

The next instant he was gone, and it was the Actor who stopped the Soldier as he was on the point of going after him.

"The boy has got his part," he remarked, cryptically. "At present he requires no prompting."

"What the deuce are you talking about?" demanded the General, irritably.

But the Celebrated Actor was himself once more.

"Leave it to me, my dear fellow," he murmured, magnificently, throwing back his head in another of those famous gestures which were the pride and delight of countless multitudes. "Leave it entirely to me. The stage is set: very soon the curtain will ring up." He stalked to the window, and stood for a moment on the path outside, while the other two looked at one another and shrugged their shoulders.

"Can't feel, can't think, can't hate. That boy feels and thinks and hates--hates, I tell you, at this moment."

With which Parthian shot the Celebrated Actor vanished into the night.

"What on earth is the fellow driving at?" said the Soldier, peevishly.

But the answer to that question was apparently beyond the scope of the Eminent Divine, and in silence the two men listened to the scrunch of the Actor's footsteps on the gravel, growing fainter and fainter in the distance.

*II*

Half an hour later they were still sitting at the table. The Actor had not returned: there had been no further sign of Hugh, and the inaction was getting on the Soldier's nerves. Twice had he risen and gone to the window: twice had he taken a few steps into the darkness outside, only to return and hover undecidedly by the fireplace.

"I feel I ought to go and look for the boy," he remarked for the twentieth time. "Trayne's such an ass."

And for the twentieth time the Bishop counselled patience.

"In some ways he is," he agreed: "in others he's very shrewd. He's got more imagination, General, than both of us put together, and real imagination is akin to genius. Leave him alone: he can't do any harm."

With a non-committal grunt, the Soldier sat down, only to rise again immediately as a tall, slight girl in white came in through the open window. There was a misty look in her eyes, and her lips were faintly tremulous, but she came straight up to the General and put a hand on his arm. The other hand, with a piece of paper clutched in it, she held behind her back.

"Hugh has come back, Uncle Jim," she said. "Did you know?"

"Yes, old lady, I knew. Have you seen him?"

"No, I haven't seen him. Did he--did he come for Tommy?"

The General nodded. "Yes. And I told him what had happened."

For a moment the girl's lips quivered. "Poor old Hugh!"

Very gently the Soldier stroked the girl's hair. "We must give him time, Beryl. He's--he's not quite himself yet. By the way," he added, struck by a sudden thought, "if you haven't seen him, how do you know he's come back?"

The girl's eyes filled with tears. "I went out to Tommy's grave again--I wanted to see that the little fellow was comfortable, and--and--I found this."

She held out the scrap of paper to the Soldier, and then broke down uncontrollably. And the man, having glanced at it, coughed with unnecessary violence and handed it to the Eminent Divine.

"It was just like him--just like Hugh," sobbed the girl. "And Tommy--why, what more would Tommy want?" She picked up the paper and stared at it through her tears. "'Good hunting, old chap.--H.D.' Good hunting. He's got a soul--I know he has. He's having the most glorious chase after bunnies now--somewhere--somewhere else. Isn't he?"

She turned appealingly to the Bishop, but that eminent Pillar of the Church was engrossed in the study of a very ordinary print, and from the assiduous manner he was polishing his glasses he seemed to be having difficulties with his eyesight.

And it was thus a moment or two later that the Celebrated Actor found them.

"Successful." He barked the word grandiloquently from the window. "Utterly and completely successful. The curtain is shortly going up: it would be well if the audience took their seats as silently as possible."

"What do you mean, Mr. Trayne?" The girl was staring at him in amazement through her tears.

"A very human play, my dear young lady, is on the point of being acted. As producer, general manager, and box office combined, I beg to state that there will be only one performance. The financial receipts will be _nil_: the moral receipts will be a soul regained. And who shall say that it is not a more tangible asset?" For a while he stared magnificently at nothing, with one hand thrust carelessly out--that attitude which had long caused infatuated denizens of the pit to stand for hours in dreadful draughts lest they should fail to secure the front row. Then he returned with an effort to things mundane. "Follow me," he ordered, "and do not talk or make a noise."

"Where's the boy, Trayne?" demanded the General, almost angrily. In his own vernacular, he was feeling rattled.

"You shall see in good time. Come."

It was a strange procession which might have been seen wending its way through the darkness a little later. First came the Celebrated Actor--supremely happy, as befits the great showman who has the goods to offer. Then, a few steps behind him, was the Well-known Soldier, periodically muttering under his breath, and with the girl's hand on his arm. Behind them again trotted the Eminent Divine, unable to see very well in the dark, and continually stubbing his toes on various obstructions in the ground.

"Where is he taking us to?" whispered the girl to her uncle.

"Heaven knows, my dear!" he answered, irritably. "The man's an ass, as I've said before."

"But what did he mean about the very human play?" she persisted. "And the soul regained?"

Before the Soldier could answer, the guide turned, and holding up his hand demanded silence.

"We approach the stage," he declaimed. "Silence is essential."

He led the way between some trees, and finally halted behind a clump of low bushes.

"Personally," he whispered, "I am a man of peace, but it struck me from my rudimentary knowledge of pugilism that the clearing in front was ideally suited to that brutal form of amusement. And when I suggested it to Hugh, he quite agreed."

"You suggested it to Hugh!" said the Soldier slowly, and gradually a look of comprehension began to dawn in his eyes. "Why, Actor-man, Actor-man, I retract every thought I've had about you to-night."

He peered cautiously through the bushes, and a slow smile spread over his face.

"Tell me, Actor-man," he whispered, "how did you get the other?"

"I howled such insults as I could think of in my poor way through the window."

Then he, too, cautiously peered over the top of the bush. "What think you of my show, Soldier-man?"

"It is altogether beautiful and lovely to regard," replied the other. "Can the Church see?"

And, behold, the Church was lying on its stomach to get a better view.

The moonlight shone down, clear and bright, on the little glade in front. At the back of it, in the trees, stood young Parker's house, but young Parker himself, with an ugly sneer on his face, was engaged in removing his coat. Facing him stood Hugh Dawnay, and in the cold white light his eyes shone hard and merciless.

"So you want me to thrash you as well as stop your damned dog poaching," laughed young Parker. "All right, you bally jail-bird, come on!"

He rushed in as he spoke and his fist shot out as he closed. The fight had started, and from that moment no one of the fascinated audience spoke or moved. Parker was the heavier of the two, but the boy was the better boxer. In fact, in the strict sense of the word, the young farmer was not a boxer at all--but he was fit and he was strong. And had it not been for the two and a half years' hard manual labour which the other had gone through, the issue in all probability would have been different.

As it was they fought all out for five minutes, and then young Parker grew wild. He became flurried--tried rushing--his fists whirling like flails. And the more flurried he grew the more cool and collected became the boy. And then came the end. A right-arm jolt below his heart brought the farmer's head forward, a left uppercut under the jaw laid him out. For a while the spectators watched him moaning on the ground, while the Church wriggled ecstatically under its sheltering bush.

"Had enough, you swine?" asked the boy, quietly.

The prostrate figure mumbled something.

"Get up and swear to me that you will never again lay a trap in that part of your land. Get a move on!" he snarled.

"All right." The farmer shambled to his feet, watching him sullenly. "I swear."

"Now go down on your knees and apologize for calling me a jail-bird. Hurry up, you filthy scum! On your knees, I said."

And as young Parker went on his knees, according to order, the girl, her eyes shining like stars, clapped her hands softly together.

"Quick!" said the Celebrated Actor, authoritatively. "Back to the house, you people. The play is over and my estimate of the receipts is, I think, correct."

Stealthily as it had come, the procession moved back to the house. At intervals, the Eminent Divine was observed to jolt with his right, following it up with a slashing left upper-cut into space, what time he chuckled consumedly. And even a slight error as to distance, which caused him far more pain than the tree which he unfortunately smote, failed to damp his spirits. The Soldier walked with a spring in his step, the Actor hummed gently under his breath, and it was only as they reached the open window of the dining-room that they realized that the girl had slipped away in the darkness and was not with them.

"Where is Beryl?" said the General, pausing on the path.

"Heaven help the man!" fumed the Actor, addressing space. "His past career, we understand, is comparatively distinguished from a military point of view. But"--and he turned accusingly to the Soldier--"you must have driven every woman you ever met completely off her chump."

"Chump," chuckled the Bishop, feinting with his right and gently upper-cutting the Celebrated Actor's celebrated chin. "What is chump, you old sinner?"

But the Well-known Soldier only smiled--a trifle sadly. "She's all I've got, old chap, and her happiness is mine."

"She is happy now," remarked the Actor, quietly. "The boy's all right."

For a while the three men were silent, each busy with his own thoughts. And then over the General's face a grin began to spread.

"Tell me, you charmer of foolish women," he demanded, "how did you manage it?"

"Your vulgar gibe leaves me unmoved," returned the Actor, calmly. "To-night is merely a proof of how brains and imagination control every situation. I hope you both appreciate my inference."

"Go on," chuckled the General. "The Church and the Army hide their diminished heads."

"What better destroyer of apathy is there than scrapping with someone, whom in less civilized and more primitive days one would have killed? I followed him. I suggested it to him--I even went so far as to assist him in his search for a suitable spot on which to do it. And then"--he paused magnificently--"I drew the badger. I bolted the fox. I extracted young Parker."

"How?" murmured the Church.

"I hit him first on the head with an over-ripe pear, which I threw through the window. A wonderful shot--not once in a hundred times would I do it again. And as he jumped up from the table where he was sitting, I spoke to him from my heart."

"Yes," grinned the Soldier. "And what did you say?"

"I said, 'You dirty louse--you maimer of little dogs--come out and fight, unless you're a coward as well as a swine.' Then," murmured the Actor, "I ran as fast as I could, for fear he might mistake his opponent and start on me."

For a space there was silence, while the Army and the Church shook hopelessly, and the Stage impressively lit a cigar. And it was as he deposited the match in an ash-tray on the table that he saw the piece of paper lying in front of him. He read what was written on it, and then he turned slowly and looked at the other two.

"So that's what he was doing under the yew tree," he said, softly. "Dear lad! Why, yes, he's a dear lad."

"Of course he is," returned the Soldier, gruffly. "What the devil did you think?"

It was under the yew tree that the boy and the girl met. She was kneeling there, her frock gleaming white in the moonlight as Hugh came through the trees, and for a time he watched her without speaking. Two and a half years--more--since he had seen her, and now it seemed to him that she was more lovely than ever. His eyes took in every detail of her, as she bent forward and laid both her hands on the little grave, and, suddenly, with a great wave of wonder, he realized that all the bitterness had gone from his soul. The past was blotted out--sponged from the slate; he was alive again, and the present--why, the present held out beckoning hands of welcome.

"Beryl," he whispered very low, but not so low that she failed to hear him.

"Why, Hugh, dear," she answered. "I was afraid you'd go away without seeing me."

"I should, if--Tommy had been alive."

He knelt beside her, and together they rearranged two or three of the stones.

"I put a bit of paper here," he said, after a moment.

"I found it," she answered. "That's how I knew you were here--first. Oh! Hugh"--almost unconsciously she found herself in his arms--"poor little chap! And I'd been telling him all last week he'd be seeing you soon."

"You darling!" The boy's voice was husky. "He knows--Tommy knows."

And so for a while they clung together, while the scent of the summer flowers drifting idly by mingled with the scent of her hair.

"If he'd been here, Beryl, I was going to take him," he said, at last. "I was bitter--dear heavens! but I was bitter. I felt I didn't even want to see you. We were going hunting together--just he and I--out in the wilds."

"And now, boy," whispered the girl, "are you bitter any more?"

"No," he answered, wonderingly. "I'm not. Because, Beryl, because I've thrashed that swine who killed him. Something seemed to snap in me as he went down and out, and I was conscious of a sort of marvellous happiness."