Ships in the Bay!. D. K. Broster

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СКАЧАТЬ impatiently. “There was one younger than the rest, I remember, and I have a strong impression——”

      For one fleeting second the eyes of witness and accused met. In Nest’s at any rate there was anguish. Next moment the Precentor was the recipient of a strong impression of another sort, which reached him through the agency of a human fist, in the middle zone of his waistcoat; and though this partook far more of the character of a vigorous shove than of an actual blow, it loosened his hold of its author like magic and sent him staggering back several paces. Simultaneously, or almost so, the lantern was wrenched from Mr. Thistleton’s hold and sent clattering down into the vault; and in the resulting darkness a form rushed past Nest and leapt down the steps. The captured intruder was gone.

      The Precentor was too much winded, Mr. Thistleton too lame, both of them too much taken by surprise, to set out in pursuit; indeed the former, more damaged, however, in his dignity than in his bodily frame, was leaning gasping against the doorway with his hands to his diaphragm.

      “Papa, Papa!” cried Nest, running to him, “are you hurt? Did he really hit you?”

      But the Precentor, though breathless and outraged, was still a truthful Christian gentleman. “He . . . he pushed me . . . exceedingly hard. Young scoundrel . . . certainly up to no good . . . must make sure that all our . . . doors and windows . . . securely fastened!” Having recovered a little, he finished by saying: “Come along, Thistleton; ’tis of no use to pursue him now; we had best get back to the house as soon as possible.”

      In the press of this intention the question of the assailant’s identity was, fortunately for the unwilling witness, crowded out. Abandoning all considerations of æsthetics or archæology—though not, indeed, quite unconcerned with ethics—the three hurried back to the Precentory, to find it wrapped in perfect security and calm, and Aunt Pennefather already retired to her bedroom for the night. Nest, conscience-stricken and unhappy, did the same; but she had hardly reached her room before her father came to her door to reassure her.

      “You must try not to let that unpleasant little episode keep you awake, my dear child,” he said. “Mr. Thistleton suggests that the vagabond was probably a gipsy, and I recall now that the young sailor from the prize, whom I thought at first that he resembled, was not nearly so dark complexioned. I do not imagine that there is the slightest likelihood now of his trying to break in and steal, so do not dream of robbers, my dear.”

      Nest did not dream of robbers, nor of gipsies. But she lay a long time sleepless in her little dimity-draped bed wondering if after all Papa were not right, and whether the young man from the Fair Penitent had not been lurking in the precincts with some ill intent. Why else should he have concealed himself there instead of going to seek work on a farm? For since she had the best of reasons for knowing it to be untrue that a farmer had set a dog at him, it was probably equally untrue that he had been to a farmhouse at all. . . . Yet suppose he had said: “Your daughter’s dog attacked me”? He had not; he had preferred to tell a lie. And he had made his dash for freedom just in time to save her from either betraying his identity or herself telling a deliberate falsehood on his behalf. The look in his eyes, which she still remembered with vividness . . . had it meant that he wished to spare her that difficult alternative? At the moment she had half fancied so.

      But for the first time it came to Nest, what if behind his taking the violent step of deserting from the privateer there were something more than just distaste for the hard life there? For he had not looked effeminate—far from it; and he had described the fight with the French brig with undoubted gusto.

      In any case speculation was wasted on a man whom she would never see again, for it was very unlikely that Mark Thompson would ask now for employment at any farm in the neighbourhood. And since she did not feel that, after her deceitful silence, she could tell her father anything about him, she only hoped that with time the burden of that deceit would grow lighter, and that she would not, as just now, feel ashamed to receive his good-night kiss. Meanwhile she tried to turn her thoughts on to the impending arrival of sister Jane and her baby, who would be here the day after to-morrow; and picturing this joyful event at last fell asleep.

      (5)

      William David Frederick Stalybridge’s name seemed almost longer than himself, though not as long as his embroidered robes, in which he had something the semblance of a tadpole with a white and inordinately flowing tail. No such irreverent simile, to be sure, occurred to Nest when she visited him in the room set apart as his nursery, or, feeling very important, walked slowly to and fro upon the terrace bearing him in her arms. It was delightful having this little creature here, it was a joy to see Jane once more, the young mother so proud of her offspring (to whom, in spite of her strictures on the position of the Cathedral, she had given the Saint’s for a second name). As for the Precentor, he was in great spirits, and Mrs. Pennefather had quite abandoned Cicero and Euripides for Dr. Brownlow’s Nursery Guide, though she was understood to be perpending some Lines to a Great-Nephew.

      Although the whole household, with the exception of the Precentor himself, appeared to revolve round the tadpole, yet he could on occasion be left, since he had a nurse to tend him and still passed much of his existence in sleep. His mother and aunt were therefore able to take a walk together without feeling that they were neglecting either a duty or a privilege. On the fourth evening after Mrs. Stalybridge’s arrival, making their way up to the cliffs, they strolled thence eastwards, looking down, as they skirted the top of Caerfai Bay, upon a long smooth green swell breaking on the sand between cliffs of pinkish purple. The grassy bank upon their left was thickly embroidered with flowers; rough gorse-sprinkled land stretched upon the other side of it, but after a while, when they had passed a little green promontory where the wraiths of a myriad sea-pinks still shivered in the breeze, they were aware of the scent of hay. They had come to a field wherein, not far from the bank, two men were piling hay into a wain, while further back other figures were busy raking it into swathes ready for the fork.

      “Griffiths of Tan-y-bach has quite a good crop this year,” said Jane, stopping and looking over the bank with an appraising eye. “Considering, that is, that this land along the cliff cannot be very productive.”

      “Last time I walked this way,” observed her sister, “there was a quantity of that pretty tall blue flower—viper’s bugloss, is it not?—growing just there among the grass. I wish I had plucked some of it before it was all mown down. The only other place where I have seen any growing this summer——”

      She broke off abruptly. From idly looking for traces of the withered bugloss in the heaps of hay her eyes had wandered to the laden cart and to the two men in attendance on it; and now, with the unfinished sentence withered also, she was staring at the haymaker who was tossing up the heap with a pitchfork to the man on top of the pile. It was her acquaintance the deserter.

      He was cleanly shaved now, and had not quite so piratical, so gipsy an air, though he still wore the same clothes, save that he had discarded the flannel waistcoat. And indeed, though it was not a hot day, the sweat, even at that distance, could be seen glistening on his forehead, and his mouth was tightly set as though the pitching up of the hay were a considerable effort. He did not once look at the two ladies on the further side of the bank, though their heads and shoulders at least must have been fully visible; it seemed as though his task were absorbing all his energies, for when the lad at the horse’s head led the animal to the next heap, he did not immediately follow the cart, and, when he did, used his fork after the manner of a staff.

      “How lame that man of Griffiths’ is!” observed Jane.

      Nest made no reply, but she was unconsciously twisting the ends of her muslin handkerchief about her fingers. The man on the cart shouted something impatient in Welsh, and he with the hayfork quickened his hobbling pace.

      “It СКАЧАТЬ