Marcella. Mrs. Humphry Ward

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СКАЧАТЬ wavering eye seemed to interrogate her companion. Marcella was puzzled by her manner—it was so far from simple.

      "But that was long ago, surely," she said.

      "Yes, it wor long ago, but you don't forget them things, miss! An' Westall, he's just the same sort as he was then, so folks say," she added hurriedly. "You see Jim, miss, how he's made? His back was twisted that way when he was a little un. His father was a good old man—everybody spoke well of 'im—but his mother, she was a queer mad body, with red hair, just like Jim and the children, and a temper! my word. They do say she was an Irish girl, out of a gang as used to work near here—an' she let him drop one day when she was in liquor, an' never took no trouble about him afterwards. He was a poor sickly lad, he was! you'd wonder how he grew up at all. And oh! George Westall he treated him cruel. He'd kick and swear at him; then he'd dare him to fight, an' thrash him till the others came in, an' got him away. Then he'd carry tales to his father, and one day old Westall beat Jim within an inch of 'is life, with a strap end, because of a lie George told 'im. The poor chap lay in a ditch under Disley Wood all day, because he was that knocked about he couldn't walk, and at night he crawled home on his hands and knees. He's shown me the place many a time! Then he told his father, and next morning he told me, as he couldn't stand it no longer, an' he never went back no more."

      "And he told no one else?—he never complained?" asked Marcella, indignantly.

      "What ud ha been the good o' that, miss?" Mrs. Hurd said, wondering. "Nobody ud ha taken his word agen old Westall's. But he come and told me. I was housemaid at Lady Leven's then, an' he and his father were old friends of ourn. And I knew George Westall too. He used to walk out with me of a Sunday, just as civil as could be, and give my mother rabbits now and again, and do anything I'd ask him. An' I up and told him he was a brute to go ill-treatin' a sickly fellow as couldn't pay him back. That made him as cross as vinegar, an' when Jim began to be about with me ov a Sunday sometimes, instead of him, he got madder and madder. An' Jim asked me to marry him—he begged of me—an' I didn't know what to say. For Westall had asked me twice; an' I was afeard of Jim's health, an' the low wages he'd get, an' of not bein' strong myself. But one day I was going up a lane into Tudley End woods, an' I heard George Westall on tother side of the hedge with a young dog he was training. Somethin' crossed him, an' he flew into a passion with it. It turned me sick. I ran away and I took against him there and then. I was frightened of him. I duresn't trust myself, and I said to Jim I'd take him. So you can understan', miss, can't you, as Jim don't want to have nothing to do with Westall? Thank you kindly, all the same," she added, breaking off her narrative with the same uncertainty of manner, the same timid scrutiny of her visitor that Marcella had noticed before.

      Marcella replied that she could certainly understand.

      "But I suppose they've not got in each other's way of late years," she said as she rose to go.

      "Oh! no, miss, no," said Mrs. Hurd as she went hurriedly to fetch a fur tippet which her visitor had laid down on the dresser.

      "There is one person I can speak to," said Marcella, as she put on the wrap. "And I will." Against her will she reddened a little; but she had not been able to help throwing out the promise. "And now, you won't despair, will you? You'll trust me? I could always do something."

      She took Mrs. Hurd's hand with a sweet look and gesture. Standing there in her tall vigorous youth, her furs wrapped about her, she had the air of protecting and guiding this poverty that could not help itself. The mother and wife felt herself shy, intimidated. The tears came back to her brown eyes.

      * * * * *

      When Miss Boyce had gone, Minta Hurd went to the fire and put it together, sighing all the time, her face still red and miserable.

      The door opened and her husband came in. He carried some potatoes in his great earth-stained hands.

      "You're goin' to put that bit of hare on? Well, mak' eëaste, do, for I'm starvin'. What did she want to stay all that time for? You go and get it. I'll blow the fire up—damn these sticks!—they're as wet as Dugnall pond."

      Nevertheless, as she sadly came and went, preparing the supper, she saw that he was appeased, in a better temper than before.

      "What did you tell 'er?" he asked abruptly.

      "What do you spose I'd tell her? I acted for the best. I'm always thinkin' for you!" she said as though with a little cry, "or we'd soon be in trouble—worse trouble than we are!" she added miserably.

      He stopped working the old bellows for a moment, and, holding his long chin, stared into the flames. With his deformity, his earth-stains, his blue eyes, his brown wrinkled skin, and his shock of red hair, he had the look of some strange gnome crouching there.

      "I don't know what you're at, I'll swear," he said after a pause. "I ain't in any pertickler trouble just now—if yer wouldn't send a fellow stumpin' the country for nothink. If you'll just let me alone I'll get a livin' for you and the chillen right enough. Don't you trouble yourself—an' hold your tongue!"

      She threw down her apron with a gesture of despair as she stood beside him, in front of the fire, watching the pan.

      "What am I to do, Jim, an' them chillen—when you're took to prison?" she asked him vehemently.

      "I shan't get took to prison, I tell yer. All the same, Westall got holt o' me this mornin'. I thought praps you'd better know."

      Her exclamation of terror, her wild look at him, were exactly what he had expected; nevertheless, he flinched before them. His brutality was mostly assumed. He had adopted it as a mask for more than a year past, because he must go his way, and she worried him.

      "Now look here," he said resolutely, "it don't matter. I'm not goin' to be took by Westall. I'd kill him or myself first. But he caught me lookin' at a snare this mornin'—it wor misty, and I didn't see no one comin'. It wor close to the footpath, and it worn't my snare."

      "'Jim, my chap,' says he, mockin', 'I'm sorry for it, but I'm going to search yer, so take it quietly,' says he. He had young Dynes with him—so I didn't say nought—I kep' as still as a mouse, an' sure enough he put his ugly han's into all my pockets. An' what do yer think he foun'?"

      "What?" she said breathlessly.

      "Nothink!" he laughed out. "Nary an end o' string, nor a kink o' wire—nothink. I'd hidden the two rabbits I got las' night, and all my bits o' things in a ditch far enough out o' his way. I just laughed at the look ov 'im. 'I'll have the law on yer for assault an' battery, yer damned miscalculatin' brute!' says I to him—'why don't yer get that boy there to teach yer your business?' An' off I walked. Don't you be afeared—'ee'll never lay hands on me!"

      But Minta was sore afraid, and went on talking and lamenting while she made the tea. He took little heed of her. He sat by the fire quivering and thinking. In a public-house two nights before this one, overtures had been made to him on behalf of a well-known gang of poachers with head-quarters in a neighbouring county town, who had their eyes on the pheasant preserves in Westall's particular beat—the Tudley End beat—and wanted a local watcher and accomplice. He had thought the matter at first too dangerous to touch. Moreover, he was at that moment in a period of transition, pestered by Minta to give up "the poachin'," and yet drawn back to it after his spring and summer of field work by instincts only recently revived, after long dormancy, but now hard to resist.

      Presently he turned with anger upon one of Minta's wails which happened to reach him.

      "Look СКАЧАТЬ