Part 12

It was not, perhaps, an intelligent question, but it did not seem to justify what followed. The window was shut with a little shriek, and a pair—or two pairs—of sturdy arms closed about Masson’s body. It did not require so much force as was used to bring him to the ground, his antagonist or antagonists on top of him. He explained as much with some warmth as he lay there, but only had the satisfaction of hearing one of the men say to the other—there were two, it seemed: “You tak’ un by the lags, Mr. Board, and ef ’e tries kicken’, Ah’ll gi’e un a jog in the belly.”

“Right y’are, Jenkins.... Now, sir, gently, if you please.”

The last words were addressed to Masson, and he guessed, from the tone of reluctant respect, that the speaker was some house-servant. Probably the butler.

“All right,” he said. “Only, if you’re going to carry me, for Heaven’s sake be careful. If you drop me, it’s murder, mind. You’ll be hanged for it.”

“No fear, sir,” said Mr. Board genially. “We won’t hurt you, never fear. What the squire’ll do is another matter, sir, as I dessay you guess. Ready, Jenkins?”

“Ah,” said Jenkins, and moved forward with Masson’s head. Mr. Board followed with his legs. In this manner, and with an unpleasant feeling that one or other of them would certainly slip, Masson made his untriumphal procession into the house.

He was dumped, brutally by Jenkins, respectfully by Mr. Board, on the Turkey-carpet of what—so far as he could see for the sudden glare of lights—was the large and armoured hall of a manor-house.

He lay for a moment on the Turkey-carpet with closed eyes. When he looked up there was a tall and irascible old gentleman standing over him with a heavy riding-whip.

“Stand him on his feet, Jenkins, and you stand by the door, Board, and see that he don’t make a rush. Now, sir”—the old gentleman addressed himself to Masson with a most threatening countenance—“you’re going to elope with my daughter—eh, what?”

Masson stared. “Going to elope with your daughter? Might I ask—can you explain to me what the meaning of this assault on me by your servants—I presume they’re your servants—means?”

“You might,” said the old gentleman caustically. “They had their orders, sir, from me, to bring you in neck and crop, sir—neck and crop, by gad! You didn’t expect _that_ when you came sneaking round here after my daughter—eh, what?” He thrashed the air significantly. “Any excuse to offer before——”

Masson backed away a little towards a light but solid chair that stood near. It might serve as a weapon if this old madman attacked.

Mr. Board—a middle-aged man, unmistakably the butler—put his back against the hall door and stood rubbing his hands. Jenkins, a gaitered person, choked a guffaw. It seemed to Masson that, with three able-bodied persons opposed to him, he had better try the discreet before the valorous part.

“It seems to me,” he said, raising his voice a little, “that the excuse should be offered to me. I can only imagine you’re labouring under some delusion——”

“Ha!” said the old gentleman.

“Which I am quite willing to help to clear, so far as I am concerned. I haven’t the least idea what you mean by accusing me of sneaking round after your daughter. I have never set eyes on your daughter. I don’t know who she is or who you are. I came here off the high-road—perhaps I ought to say I’m motoring to London—because the roads are so slippery I couldn’t get on. Seeing your lights, I thought I could get some assistance here.”

“That’s why you went round to the back of the house, eh?”

“My dear sir,” said Masson impatiently, “are you aware that it’s a pitch-dark night, that the back and the front of your house are equally strange to me, that the mistake I made in going to the back instead of the front is the kind of mistake any stranger trying to get here would make?”

He spoke with a good deal of indignation, by no means soothed to hear Jenkins snigger: “He, he! that’s a good un. Et was all along of a mistake. He, he!” and the squire’s reply, snorted insultingly:

“Look here, my young man, I knew you were a rogue. I didn’t know you were a cur too. Likely story, ain’t it? Motoring, eh? Never seen my daughter. What? Never seen John Clifton o’ the King’s Arms neither, I dare say? Well, I have. John Clifton knows me, and he knows I’ve got him in my pocket. So when you went and ordered a horse and trap for ten o’clock to-night, mentioning—hang your impudence—that you might be wanting it for a young lady you were going to elope with, John Clifton, he came round to me. ‘He’ll be waiting about ten-thirty to-night, under missy’s window. That’s the arrangement, squire.’ John Clifton told me that. ‘Ten-thirty,’ said he, and, by gad, ten-thirty it is.”

“I’ve never heard of John Clifton in my life,” said Masson soothingly.

“Stick to your lie,” snorted the squire.

“Stick to your mulish idiocy,” returned Masson, equally enraged; “only, if you want to avoid making a drivelling fool of yourself, send for your daughter. I imagine she’ll be able to inform you that you’ve made a mistake, so far as I’m concerned.”

Whether the squire, thus braved, would have proceeded at once to carry out the intention his hands, twitching at the whip, suggested, Masson hardly knew. At that moment an elderly lady opened a door at the far end of the hall and entered.

“Oh, Reginald!” she cried.

“What is it?” asked the squire, turning at her.

“Is this the young man?”

“Is this the——” the squire choked. “No, it isn’t. This is the young man who swears he isn’t the young man. That’s who this young man is. Wants me to call Judith down to verify him. I’ll be——”

“Merely in justice to the young lady,” said Masson scornfully, as the squire stopped for breath.

“Perhaps——” said the elderly lady, in a deprecating voice. “Possibly, Reginald, it would be fairer. You have never seen the young man before, have you? Judith——”

“Judith’s a minx!” said the squire furiously.

“But she has never told a lie,” said the elderly lady.

“Call her!” The squire rumbled the order, and the elderly lady fled. “Judith, my dear, Judith!” Masson could hear her twittering to her charge as he leaned on the back of the chair which was to have served him for a weapon in case the squire had proceeded to extremities. He supposed the matter was now as good as ended, and could afford a smile at the disappointed expression of Jenkins, who was evidently the squire’s principal backer in the scheme of _force majeure_. Mr. Board, indeed, had allowed a sigh, as of relief, to escape him at the new turn of affairs, and was for leaving his post at the door.

“Didn’t I tell you to stay there?” said the squire sharply; and, observing Masson’s smile, “Don’t you imagine, my fine fellow, that you’ve escaped your thrashing yet. Ha!”

The last word was an acknowledgment of his daughter’s arrival under the wing of the elderly lady. Masson looked at the girl with interest. She was tall and slender—a pretty girl. There was, Masson judged, some grounds for the squire’s suspicions, for she was dressed for out of doors, in hat and furs, and seemed pale and upset. She avoided Masson’s eyes.

“You wanted me, father,” she said.

“No, I didn’t; confound it!” said the squire rudely. “It was your aunt wanted you. This rogue”—he indicated Masson with his riding-whip—“wants to save his skin; says he isn’t your man. Ha! What do you say?”

Masson waited in all serenity for her reply. She seemed to hesitate and gulp for words. It was excusable, Masson thought. The old curmudgeon had frightened the wits half out of her.

“What do you say?” roared the squire, again.

She twisted her hands together, took a step forward, and, in a trembling voice, addressing Masson:

“Oh, Dick!” she said fondly.

Masson became aware that the dropping of a pin might have been audible but for Mr. Board’s respectful sigh of dismay at the door. For a second he doubted his full possession of his senses.

“What did you say?” he stammered.

“Oh, Dick! Why, why did you come? I wish——” she burst into gentle sobs.

Masson looked about him wildly. He felt a mere fool.

“My name is Henry,” he explained—“Henry Masson.”

“Just so,” said the squire grimly. “Martha, take Judith upstairs! Send her to bed. Quickly now; no talking. Now, sir” (to Masson as the door closed upon the two ladies), “are you going to take your thrashing standing up or lying down?” He had recovered his self-possession, and it was Masson who felt his leaving him. Only for a moment, however. Then, “Standing up,” he said, and gave Jenkins, as that individual advanced to collar him, a kick that brought him to the ground. He seized the momentary advantage to dodge the squire’s whip and to give a swing of the chair into Mr. Board’s bread-basket. Mr. Board fell back—unfortunately, against the hall door, which was against Masson’s chance of escaping. It is probable that the next five minutes offered as good an exhibition of rough-and-tumble fighting as the hall of the manor-house had ever been privileged to witness. Only superior agility enabled Masson to keep his end up, for, though Mr. Board’s attack was reluctant, it was not devoid of cunning, and both the squire and Jenkins were bulls for fierceness. Indeed, Masson, panting hard, was having his chair wrenched from him by the latter, while he dodged the squire’s attempts to clinch, when he felt the other door, through which the ladies had vanished, scrape his back. It gave him an idea, and he acted on it. Letting Jenkins have the chair at full grip, which sent him staggering backwards, Masson butted the squire, turned the handle, and was through. He hung on to the handle desperately, feeling for a key. There was none. The opposition forces had got their hold, and were forcing the door open.

It was at this crisis that the elderly lady again made her appearance. She came bustling into Masson’s back, crying aloud, “She’s gone! She’s gone with the other young man! Oh, dear” (as she perceived Masson), “what is happening? Where is my brother?”

“In there,” said Masson, and let go.

“Reginald!” she cried, as the squire came bouncing through. “Stop! It’s not this young man. It’s another young man; and Judith’s gone. She got out of her bedroom window, and they’re driving off now!”

“What?” cried the squire.

“Perhaps,” said Masson politely, “you will now believe what I said.”

He might as well have addressed the walls for all the attention he received. The squire had no sooner grasped the new situation than he was foaming for the front door, giving directions at the top of his voice.

“Put in the mare, Jenkins. Saddle Black Beauty. Tell the boy to ride for the police. Drat and confound this——”

Masson gathered that the squire’s broken sentences signified that he had stepped out into the ice-paved night, with the inevitable results. However, he must have picked himself up, for his halloaing grew fainter.

“But how it will all end, Heaven only knows,” said the elderly lady to Masson, in a despairing way.

“I’m afraid you’re right,” said Masson. “Good evening, madam.”

The hall door was open, his late antagonists had disappeared, but since there was no knowing when they would return, or in what frame of mind, it was not wise to lose an opportunity. Stepping out into the darkness, Masson found that the silver thaw had turned to rain, and that the path, though slippery in parts, was safety itself to what it had been. He followed the winding drive until he came to the white gate and the road beyond. There, unnoticed, it seemed, and untouched, stood his car by the side of the road. He started it and moved on at a moderate pace. A couple of minutes later he neared two figures going at a plodding canter in the light of his lamps. The one that led was tall and large. “The squire,” thought Masson, and hooted vigorously.

“A hundred pounds if you’ll give me a lift,” cried the squire. “I want to catch up a horse and trap—just ahead. Won’t take you three minutes. A hundred pounds! Come!”

“For mercy’s sake, sir, do!” said the other—Mr. Board, it was clear. Neither of the two seemed to know whom they were addressing; or else they had forgotten the events of the evening, which hardly seemed possible.

“I’m afraid—very sorry—but I can’t stop,” said Masson politely. He bore them no grudge, on the whole; but, having witnessed the squire in the fulness of his raging, he felt no desire to cumber himself with him any more. It would be conniving at manslaughter. “Quite impossible,” he repeated, as he whizzed by them.

He put on speed, turned a bend of the highway a minute and a half later, and pulled up just in time to avoid not mere connivance, but actual committal of manslaughter. For there, in the very centre of the road, was the horse and trap which the others were so anxious to come up with. Only it was no longer a horse and trap united, but a horse and a trap quite separate entities—of which, moreover, the trap lay on one side, minus a wheel and with broken shafts.

So much Masson’s lights showed him as he came to a stop just in time. A little shriek that arose at the same moment from the bank at the side of the road revealed more.

“Oh, Dick, is it—father?”

“No,” said Mr. Masson. With every wish to be neutral in this family affair, he could not resist giving so much consolation. A young man, who had, it seemed, been divided between soothing the author of the little shriek and holding on to the frightened horse—not altogether a simple division of labour—came forward at this. “Excuse me, sir,” he said to Masson: “I don’t know who you are, but——”

“Oh, Dick, it’s the other young man—Mr.—Mr. Henry.” The squire’s daughter spoke from the bank.

“Henry Masson,” said that gentleman; “not Dick! I should have been obliged,” he continued, with a good deal of urbanity, “if you could have mentioned that fact half an hour ago.” He bore the squire’s daughter no grudge, on the whole, but he felt that he was entitled to that small piece of irony at least. It was not altogether amusing to be “the other young man.”

The young man—the real Dick—had apparently received only a partial account of the evening’s proceedings.

“I’m afraid I don’t understand,” he said frankly. “I know something went wrong up at the house—Judy was telling me just as our horse came down—confound that ice thaw! The squire mistook you for me, didn’t he?”

“Well,” said Masson, “the squire couldn’t very well help making the mistake when——” A fierce bellowing not far in the rear interrupted him. “That is the squire, I suppose,” he went on. “I passed him a couple of minutes ago. He seemed anxious to come up with you.”

“Good heavens!” said the young man. “Look here, sir. I don’t know if you know the state of affairs. This lady and I wish to get married. You see what’s happened? Cart smashed. If you could give us a lift——”

He spoke very pleasantly and yet earnestly. Masson bore no grudge against him. As he hesitated, the squire’s daughter came from the hedge bank, where she had been sitting, into the light of his lamps.

“You will forgive me, won’t you?” she said winningly. “It was my only chance of getting away. I was frantic.” She looked very piteous and pretty in the light of the lamps. “You will, won’t you?” she repeated.

“Certainly,” said Masson; “there’s nothing to forgive. Pray get in. I ought to think myself lucky to have been the young man, if it was only for ten minutes.”

“Come, Dick—quick!” cried the squire’s daughter.

The young man let the horse go and climbed into the car.

“Just in time, I think,” he said, as Masson backed a little and slipped the car past the fallen trap to a loud chorus of “Stop, you rogue!”

“Good night, squire!” they all cried, as they went ahead through the thin, falling rain.

Later on, when Masson accepted an invitation to be best man at the wedding of Mr. Richard Castle with Miss Judith Trelawney, he realised that he had not come so badly out of that silver thaw. He felt magnanimous, in fact.

Carnage

_By_ Compton Mackenzie

_Royal Navy_

I am not a man naturally fond of adventure, but on the contrary have preserved from earliest youth an ambition to stay at home and watch from a sunny window-seat the orderly course of humanity along an orderly street.

Fortune, however, by depriving my parents of everything except myself, and myself of everything except a flute, made me a raggle-taggle wanderer, dependent for my livelihood on the charms of music.

Ignorant of luxury through the exigencies of a nomadic existence, I owned nevertheless a very fastidious taste which often led me to despise the miseries of my situation—so much so that I believe I would rather a thousand times depend on the hard ground than sacrifice my sensibility in the endurance of an uncongenial bedfellow.

So much by way of explaining the following adventure, which was actually produced by my inability to suffer a common hardship of the wanderer’s lot.

On a December dusk of the year 1753, I found myself, with apparently no prospect of a lodging, on a bleak high-road in the middle of Cornwall. What horrid impulse took me to that barbarous peninsula, I cannot now recall exactly; but probably my journey was connected with some roadside rumour of prosperity to be found in the West of England at the holiday season.

My first experience of Cornish hospitality was not happy; for, having begun to flute merrily in the yard of an outlying farmhouse, the savage owner loosed a pair of lean hounds, who followed me with a very odious barking nearly half a mile along the road. I was determined to avoid such places in future, and to keep my breath for a town, where the amenity of a closer social intercourse might have evolved a more generous spirit among the inhabitants.

With gloomy thoughts I trudged on, without a glimpse of any village or hamlet, or even of an isolated dwelling such as I had lately tried.

The night was coming up fast behind me, and I was already pondering the imminent extinction of my life’s flame in the wind-swept bogs on either side of the path, when I came suddenly on a small inn, not visible before on account of the road’s curve and a clump of firs shorn and blistered by the prevailing wind.

Here I asked for a bed; but on being informed that I must share it with a degraded idiot whom I perceived slobbering in a corner of the taproom, I scorned the accommodation and inquired the distance and direction of the nearest village.

“There’s no village for another five mile or more,” said the landlord. “What’s your trade, master?”

I did not wish to gratify the bumpkin’s curiosity; but reflecting that I might hear of a junketing in the neighbourhood, told him I was a musician.

“Then why don’t ’ee make for Cannebrake?” he asked.

“Cannebrake?” I exclaimed. “How on earth shall I make for a place of whose existence I am only this moment aware?”

“Never heard of Cannebrake o’ the Starlings?” he exclaimed. “Why, ’tis a famous place here around, and the old lord he might be proud to listen to a parcel o’ music. Come, I’ll show ’ee the road.”

A burst of gibberish from the idiot made up my mind, and I hurried after the landlord, who with much circumlocution described my route. I left him by the inn door, and when I turned once or twice to wave a farewell, saw him still standing there, a white patch in the fading light.

I passed, according to his directions, a dry tree, a slab of granite shaped like an elephant’s back, and a stretch of waste water stuck here and there with withered reeds like an old brush, until I reached a tall Celtic cross that leaned very forbiddingly towards the path. Here a side track dipped down from the main road to a valley whose ample vegetation contrasted strangely with the barren moors above. My path was soon overarched with trees. A smell of damp woodland pervaded its gloom, and my footsteps were muffled by the drift of wet leaves. Had it not been for the deep ruts into which from time to time I slipped, I should have concluded I had missed the path and was penetrating towards the heart of a forest.

I emerged from the avenue at last; though by now it was so dark that only the fresher air and the rasping of my feet on stones told me I was again in open country. But it was impossible to advance, and I was beginning to regret the inn and rail at myself for objecting to the idiot’s company, when I saw above a black hill-top the yellow rim of the full moon, whose light, increasing every moment, was presently strong enough to show me I was not fifty yards from the great gates of Cannebrake.

Yet I was half afraid to set them creaking in the silence, so menacing were they between their tall stone pillars, so complete was the absence of any welcome.

I have often had occasion to visit the seats of the nobility and gentry in more civilised corners of England, and the air of abandonment that surrounded the entrance of Cannebrake did not seem to consort with the traditions of any famous or honoured name.

The very moonlight in that hollow was tainted with a miasma, setting no clear contrasts of shadow and silver, robbing the pillars of all solidity and giving the landscape the tremulous outlines of a half-remembered dream.

I had never before experienced the sensation of absolute decay. I had been affected by the fall of autumn leaves from dripping branches, by the melting of ice on warm winter mornings; but here dissolution was silent, without a curlew’s cry or lisp of withered grass to mark its accomplishment.

At last, by an effort of common sense, I pushed the gates ajar, and the creaking of them, as they swung back upon their hinges, followed me up the moss-grown drive with a wailful indignation.

The shrubbery planted round the gates did not extend far, and the drive soon unfolded its direction, running straight and bare over a wide, undulating grassland populated with the shadowy forms of cattle, to the doors of Cannebrake—a long, low building of the undistinguished architecture which I had already learned to associate with Cornish houses.

I stood awhile contemplating the mansion that seemed impalpable in the webs of the moon.

There was neither barking of dogs nor any sign of human life until I observed the shadow of a man carrying from room to room of the second story a circle of candlelight increasing and diminishing with each entrance and exit. I supposed it to be a servant’s nightly round of inspection, and, assured of the existence of life within, moved across to the heavily nailed door.

I would have pulled at once the great iron bell-chain, had it not been for a strange disinclination to destroy the quiet with so wild a sound. As it was, I stood there holding my breath, I believe, while I deciphered the coat-of-arms above the door—a medley of Turks’ heads and birds.

Then, with the slight knowledge of French gleaned on my wanderings, I fell to translating the motto of the family, “Aux amis l’amour, aux ennemis la mort.”

Notwithstanding the pledge of this sentiment in stone, I could not spur myself into arousing the inmates; but as there was a rank growth of grass between the drive and the house itself, I availed myself of its quiet to crawl round and peer unheard into the windows on the ground floor.

On a closer view of the window to the right of the door, I saw glinting on the darkness of heavy curtains a thin line of light. Without more ado I pulled out my flute and started “Come, Lasses and Lads.”

This harmless old air seemed to produce a most distressing effect upon the inmates, for the curtains were immediately flung back and an elderly gentleman, with wig all awry and hands tugging at his stock, stared out into the night as if afraid of hell.

I tapped gently with my flute upon the lattice, and in response to my knocking, but with evident dismay, my listener was persuaded to throw it open.