Ships in the Bay!. D. K. Broster

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СКАЧАТЬ was suddenly and curiously that of one speaking to a man, and to an equal, not to a superior. “I don’t suppose you have ever seen either process. I have; and I assure you that you would not enjoy witnessing them!”

      Brutal, brutal words! Nest turned pale and shrank back once more against her gate.

      “I am sorry,” said the young man curtly. “But you see, madam, that you do not like the notion. I suggest, then, that you do not take upon yourself the responsibility of procuring me five hundred lashes or so. However, if you really intend going to a justice of the peace about me, at least I need not wait for the consequences. I must look for work in some other district; and I will therefore bid you good day before you can lay your information.”

      Bewildered as well as outraged—because he had so completely changed since the beginning of the interview—Nest would have let him pass without further parley, glad indeed to be relieved from the strain of this extraordinary encounter. But not so Bran, the intelligent and warmhearted. For some time he had been sitting quite quietly (until, just now, his mistress had jerked the leash), though with his eyes fixed upon the stranger; but his opinion of him was not really changed. Individuals unlawfully concealed in haycocks, who caused his mistress (and himself) alarm, and were the occasion of his being chastised for doing his plain duty, were not going to slink away like that, as long as there was a tooth in a faithful dog’s jaws, and the chance that that mistress, who had just reminded him of his duty, now had the end of his tether in her hand and not round her wrist. . . . Yes, better late than never! As the objectionable man passed, Bran launched himself like a knight in the lists, his leash flying loose behind him, got in a soul-satisfying bite through the fustian trousers somewhere in the region of the knee; was flung off; came on again, filled with the wine of battle; was caught by the throat by hands a great deal stronger than Miss Meredith’s; was choked . . . choked more . . . was down on his back in the dust, struggling, suffocating. . . .

      “Don’t kill him, O, don’t kill him!” cried the terrified Nest, the tears running down her face, for every moment she expected to see the sheath knife come out. “I’ll do anything . . . help you in every way . . . give money . . . only don’t kill him! I did not set him on, indeed I did not!”

      Kneeling on one knee, pinning down his now feebly writhing assailant, the assailed lifted an angry face with set teeth and dark brows drawn together. He was going to strangle Bran! . . . Next moment, with a half-contemptuous exclamation, he had loosed him and got to his feet.

      Bran too got up, very shakily, and going, with his tail tucked in, to the bank on his mistress’s side of the lane, was sick; after which he shivered violently and lay down, all the knight-errantry squeezed out of him. The distracted Nest bent over him, half scolding, half petting, till, bethinking herself of Bran’s victim, she turned round and saw that he was engaged in tying a not over-clean red cotton handkerchief round his right trouser leg, just below the knee.

      She drew a long breath. “Has he bitten you badly?”

      “It feels like it,” responded the young man grimly. “I will take a look at it presently and wash the place. I hope I haven’t hurt the dog overmuch; I don’t blame him, on the whole.”

      This magnanimity nearly reduced Miss Meredith to tears again. “Oh, I cannot tell you how sorry I am! And you must have the bite attended to at once! It might be dangerous . . . though of course my dog is not in the least mad. Will you . . . will you come to the Precentory—I am Miss Meredith, the Precentor’s daughter—and——”

      “To the Precentory—I?” he interrupted with a laugh half scornful and half amused. “A runaway sailor at a Precentory! No, I’ll go to some farm——”

      “There’s Rhosson, just back there; and Mrs. Lloyd is very kind.”

      He shook his head. “No, too near the landing-place. But I will find another farm, never fear, miss; and get taken on for the hay harvest, too, with luck.”

      Nest began to fumble in the little reticule at her waist. “You must allow me, please . . .” For “Miss” had come back into the conversation, and the country accent; and the young man must be poor, she thought, since he had been pressed for a common sailor. It was merely imagination which seemed, just now, to have given her a glimpse of something different.

      But if it was embarrassing to intend bestowing money upon him, it was much more so to find that the intention must go unfulfilled, for she had not a penny with her. Very flushed, she desisted from the search, and said awkwardly instead: “Will you not tell me your name . . .” and stopped because he looked amused; then added quickly, “You may be quite easy; I am not going to a magistrate, after—this.”

      The runaway at that smiled fully; and when he smiled he was good-looking, scamp or no. “Mark Thompson, that’s my name.” Then he glanced at Bran, still lying dejectedly close to the bank. “I’ll let you be going on first this time, miss, I reckon—not that I bear your dog any grudge; he’s a good-plucked one for sure.”

      Nest murmured appreciation of this generous attitude. “And you will go to a farm, and have the wound washed as soon as possible,” she adjured. “Perhaps indeed it ought to be cauterised.”

      “Thank you, miss. Perhaps it ought.”

      She pulled Bran to his feet. “And I hope that you will succeed in finding work.”

      “Thank you kindly, miss.” Once more the forelock was touched; and next moment the Leghorn hat and the high-waisted pink muslin dress were going away down the narrow lane and disappearing into the wider one which met it. Their owner did not look back. The ex-privateersman waited another moment, then, compressing his lips, he leant up against the flowery bank, untied the red handkerchief, rolled up the leg of his loose trousers, and looked at the blood running down his calf from the blue and lacerated wound which was the memento of his meeting with Miss Nest Meredith, the Precentor’s daughter.

      (4)

      Nest Meredith walked home rather fast, followed by a very different Bran from the bounding dog who had set out with her. Both their thoughts were occupied with the same person, yet they could not share them with each other. The immediate question for Nest was, how much she should tell her Papa, and she had not made up her mind upon this point even when she entered his study to see if he were back.

      He was, and Mr. Thistleton, too, of course.

      “My dear young lady,” said the latter when, a little shyly, she presented him with his sheet of notes, “had I known that you were going in search of what I lost, I should never have mentioned my carelessness!”

      “I think that is what Papa felt,” answered Nest, a dimple showing for a moment. “But you see, sir, the distance is not great, and the gratification of recovering your notes would have repaid me for a much longer walk.”

      “For a lady, my daughter is really a prodigious walker,” explained the Precentor. “I have known her compass as much as five miles in a morning! And this walk, I am sure, gave her nothing but pleasure—is that not so, Nest?”

      His daughter’s hesitation was so fleeting that it would have needed a very acute perception to notice it. “Oh, yes, indeed, Papa; as you know, I love walking!”

      “Yet I expected to find you back before us,” went on Dr. Meredith, “instead of the other way about.”

      “I did not hasten back,” said Nest, dropping her gaze. “I . . . went into a hayfield СКАЧАТЬ