THE LONG ODDS ARE LAID.
A man must be very peculiarly constituted—indeed, there must be something wrong about his organization—if he does not entertain a certain partiality for his female cousins, even to the third and fourth generation. But the same remark by no means applies to the brothers of those attractive kinswomen. Your male cousin either stands first and foremost on the list of your friends, or you are absolutely uninterested in his existence. There are instances of family feuds, of course, but these, nowadays, are comparatively rare. The intercourse between Alan Wyverne and Max Vavasour had never gone deeper than common careless courtesy. It was not to be wondered at. Both were in the best society, but they lived in different sets, meeting often, but seldom coming in actual contact. Just so, they say, the regular passengers by the parallel lines of rail converging at London-bridge recognise familiar faces daily as they speed along side by side, though each may remain to the other "nameless, nameless evermore." Besides this, the tastes of the cousins were as dissimilar as their characters; for the mere fact of two men being extravagant by no means establishes a real sympathy between them.
Alan's favourite pursuits you know already. Max was lady Mildred reproduced, with the exception of her great talents, which he had not fully inherited; but he had the same cool calculating brain, with whose combinations the well-disciplined heart never interfered. This, added to a perfect unscrupulousness of thought and action, many diplomatists besides Vavasour have found to be a very fair substitute for unerring prescience and profound sagacity. Both morally and physically he was wonderfully indolent, and, doing most things well, rarely attempted anything involving the slightest exertion. His shooting was remarkably good; but two or three hours of a battue about the time of the best bouquets, or a couple of turnip-fields swarming with birds, round which the stubbles had been driven for miles, were about the extent of his patience or endurance. As for going out for a real wild day after partridges, or walking a quaking bog after snipe, or waiting for ducks at "flight time," he would just as soon have thought of climbing the Schreckhorn. He rode gracefully, and his hand on a horse was perfection; but he had not hunted since he was eighteen, and his hacks, all thoroughbreds with good action, were safe and quiet enough to carry a Premier. He especially affected watching other men start for cover on one of those raw drizzling mornings which sometimes turn out well for hunting, but in every other point of view are absolutely detestable. It was quite a picture to see him return to his breakfast, and dally over it with a leisurely enjoyment, and settle himself afterwards into the easiest of lounging chairs, close to the library fire, with a pile of French novels within reach of his hand. Occasionally, during the course of the morning, he would lay aside his book, to make some such reflective remark as—
"Pours still, doesn't it? About this time Vesey's reins must be thoroughly soaked and slippery. I wonder how he likes riding that pulling mare of his. And I should think Count Casca has more mist on his spectacles than he quite fancies. It's a very strongly enclosed country, I believe, and the ditches are proverbially deep. He must have 'left all to his vife' before this."
And then he would resume his reading, with a shrug of his shoulders, intimating as plainly as words could speak, intense self-congratulation, and contempt for those who were out in the weather. Yet it was not nerve in which Max was deficient. Twice already—he was scarcely twenty-six—his life had been in mortal peril; once at Florence, where he had got into a bad gambling quarrel, and again in a fearful railway accident in England. On both occasions he had shown a cool, careless courage, worthy of the boldest of the valiant men-at-arms whose large-limbed effigies lined the galleries at Dene. In thews and stature and outward seeming he was but a degenerate descendant of that stalwart race, for he was scarcely taller than his sister, and had inherited his mother's smooth dark complexion and delicate proportions. That same indolence, it must be owned, told both ways, and went far to neutralize, for evil as well as for good, the effect of the calculating powers referred to. He had a certain obstinacy of will, and was troubled with a few inconvenient scruples, but wanted initiative energy to entangle himself or others in any of those serious scrapes which are not to be settled by money. So far, Max Vavasour's page in the Chronique Scandaleuse was a blank.
The heir of Dene and his friends arrived so late, that they had barely time to dress for dinner. No private conference took place, apparently, between the mother and son that evening; but the latter joined the others very late in the smoking-room. It is scarcely to be presumed that the doffing of la grande tenue and the donning of an elaborately embroidered suit of purple velvet, would consume forty-five minutes; so that half an hour remained unaccounted for, during which interval probably the boudoir was witness to a few important confidences.
Max was rather fond of his sister, after his own fashion, and never vexed or crossed her if he could help it; so when they spoke of her engagement on the following morning, he not only forbore to reproach her with its imprudence, but expressed himself hopefully and kindly enough to satisfy Helen's modest expectations. She knew her brother too well to anticipate expansiveness or enthusiasm from that quarter. To Alan he was, naturally, much less cordial in his congratulations; indeed, it was only by courtesy that they could be called congratulations at all. Max had a soft, quiet way of saying unpleasant things—truths or the reverse—that some people rather liked, and others utterly abhorred. On the present occasion he did not scruple to confess frankly his opinion as to the undesirability of the match, to which the other listened with at least equal composure.
"I wish I had not gone to Scotland," Vavasour went on, reflectively. "I do believe I could have stopped it, if I had only been on the spot, or forewarned. I needn't say, I have no prejudices against you personally—nobody has any such weaknesses nowadays"—(how very old the young face looked as he said it); "but it's a simple question of political expediency. I may be very fond of Switzerland or Belgium; but, as an ally, I should much prefer France or Russia. The Squire has told you, of course? Things are going hard with us just now. I doubt if the smash can be staved off much longer. A very great match might just have stood between us and ruin; and Helen would have had the chance of it, I am certain. You know that, as well as any one. There is something peculiar about her style of beauty. I am not infatuated about her because she is my sister; but I swear, there was not a woman in London fit to be compared with her last season, and I don't know that I ever saw one—except, perhaps, Nina Lenox in her best days. By the body of Bacchus! we might have had our choice of all the eligibles in England!"
"Including Clydesdale, for instance,"—Wyverne remarked.
There was a smile on his lip, but no mirth in his eyes, which fastened on his cousin's with a piercing earnestness hard to encounter. Not a muscle of Max's face moved, his pale cheek never flushed for an instant, and he returned the other's glance quite as steadily.
"Including Clydesdale,"—he answered, in his grave, gentle tones. "Of course, that would have been the very connexion one would have liked. I should have tried to make up the match, if you had not unfortunately come in the way, and I should do so still if anything were to happen to you. Don't suppose I am going to have you poisoned, or that I shall shoot you by accident, or machinate against you in any way whatever; but life is very uncertain; and—my dear Alan—you do ride remarkably hard."
Wyverne laughed merrily, without the slightest affectation or bitterness. Perhaps he had never liked his companion better than at that moment.
"By heaven, Max," he said—contemplating the philosopher not without admiration—"you're about the coolest hand I know. I don't believe there's another man alive, who would speculate on the advantages contingent on his cousin's breaking his neck, to the face of the said unlucky relation. I've hardly the heart to disappoint you, but—I don't think I shall hunt much this season. I suppose you wouldn't allow Clydesdale to buy Red Lancer, if Vesey does not take him? Ah! I thought not. Seriously—I admit all your objections—and more; but I exhausted my penitence with 'my lady' and the Squire, who appreciated it better than you would do. What would you have? All are not born to be martyrs. I quite allow that I ought never to have tried to win Helen; but I'm not self-denying enough to give her up. I shall keep her, if I can."
"Of course you will," the other replied, resignedly. "Well, I have said my say, and now things must take their course. I am passive. I hope the event may be better than the prospect; but I shall give myself no trouble till the crash comes—nor then, if I can help it. You seem to get on rather better since you were ruined. By the bye, there's no chance, I suppose, of that old ruffian, Haldane's, dying and relenting? My lady told me about his letter—at least, as much as you chose to tell her."
Wyverne shook his head, but had not time to answer, for at that moment they joined the rest of the shooting-party, who were at luncheon. Max had only come out just in time to have this talk with his cousin; but he remained with them for a couple of hours in the afternoon, seemed in capital spirits, and never shot better in his life.
I will try to sketch the scene, in the cedar drawing-room at Dene, on the fourth evening after the arrival of fresh guests. They are the only addition, so far, to the family party, though more are expected incontinently.
Helen Vavasour is at the piano, and close to her side, on a low chair, placed so that his head almost touches her shoulder, sits Alan Wyverne. He has behaved perfectly to-day, never attempting to monopolize his fiancée, not even securing a place near her when she came out to meet the shooting-party at luncheon; apparently he thinks he has a right to indemnify himself for a brief space now. It is rather a brilliant piece she is playing, but not so difficult as to interfere with a murmured conversation, evidently very pleasant and interesting to both parties. The Squire and the Rector are playing their everlasting piquet, which has been going on for nearly a score of years, and is still undecided. It is a very good match, and both are fair players, though each is disposed privately to undervalue his adversary's science, characterizing him as "the best card-holder in Europe." The great difference is that Vavasour looks at a bad hand with a cheerful unconcern, whereas Geoffry Knowles knits his brow, and bites his lip, when luck is running against him, and has never learnt to dissemble his discontent or discomfiture. Lady Mildred is reclining on her own peculiar sofa, and, on a stool close to her elbow, lounges Bertie Grenvil—better known as "The Cherub" in half the fast coteries of London, and throughout the Household Brigade.
It is a very fair face to look upon, shaded by masses of soft, sunny silken hair, and lighted up by large, eloquent eyes of the darkest blue. It would be almost faultless, were it not for the extreme effeminacy, which the delicately trained moustache fails to redeem. He is one of "my lady's" prime favourites; she has assisted him ere this with her countenance and counsel, when such help was sorely needed; for it is a wild, wicked little creature—reckless and enterprising as Richelieu in his pagehood—always gambling and love-making, in places where he has no earthly business to risk his money or his heart. With those smooth pink-and-white cheeks, and plaintive manner, and innocent ways of his, The Cherub has done more mischief already than a dozen years of perpetual penance could atone for. At this moment he is confiding to "my lady" the hopes and fears of his last passion malheureuse, suppressing carefully the name of the object—a very superfluous precaution, for Lady Mildred has guessed it long ago, and can afford to be amused—innocently. She knows, what Bertie does not wot of, that his pursuit will be absolutely theoretical and fruitless.
Very near them, lounges Max Vavasour. He looks up, ever and anon, from that eternal novelette, and as his eye meets his mother's, a quick glance of intelligence passes between them. It is more than probable that he has been, told off for "interior and picket duty" this evening, but the time for action has not yet come.
Only two of the party remain to be noticed. They are sitting together, rather remote from the rest, and somewhat in the shadow. We will take the younger man first, though his appearance is not exactly attractive.
His features, naturally coarse and exaggerated, bear evident traces of self-indulgence, if not of intemperance; that cruel sensual mouth would spoil a better face, and the effect of an unpleasantly sanguine complexion is rather heightened than relieved by crisp, strong reddish hair, coming low down on the heavy forehead, and framing the pendulous cheeks; his big, ungainly frame is far too full and fleshy for his years; one solitary sign of "race" shows itself in his hands, somewhat large, but perfectly shaped. Yet, if the possessor of all these personal disadvantages were to enter any London drawing-room side by side with Bertie Grenvil, and it were a question of being warmly welcomed, the odds would be heavily against the Guardsman. I wish an "alarum and flourish of trumpets" were available to accompany the announcement of so august a name. That is no other than Raoul, tenth Earl of Clydesdale, Viscount Artornish, lord of a dozen minor baronies, and Premier Parti of England.
His income varies by tens of thousands, according to the price of divers minerals, but never falls short of the colossal. He owns broad lands and manors in nearly every county north of the Tyne; and, when he came of age four years ago, the border-side blazed with as many bale-fires, as ever were lighted in old days to give warning that the lances of Liddesdale were out on the foray. Ever since he left college, the match-makers of Great Britain have been hard on his trail; and his movements, as chronicled in the Post, are watched with a keener interest than attaches to the "progress" of any royal personage. He is so terribly wealthy that even the great city financiers speak of his resources with a certain awe; for, independently of his vast income, there are vague reports of accumulations, varying from a quarter to half a million. His father died when the present Earl was in his cradle.
There is nothing very remarkable, outwardly, about the other man. Harding Knowles has rather a disappointing face: you feel that it ought to have been handsome, and yet that is about the last epithet you would apply to it. The features individually are good, and there is plenty of intellect about them, though the forehead is narrow; but the general expression is disagreeable—something between the cunning and the captious. There is a want of repose, just now, about his whole demeanour—a sort of fidgety consciousness of not being in his right place; he is always changing his position restlessly, and his hands are never still for a moment. He had been Clydesdale's "coach" at Oxford for two or three terms, and had acquired a certain hold on the latter's favour, chiefly by the exercise of a brusque, rough flattery, which the Earl chose to mistake for sincerity and plain speaking.
No parasite can be perfect, unless he knows when to talk and when to hold his tongue. Knowles had mastered that part of the science, thoroughly. On the present occasion he saw that the silent humour possessed his patron, and was careful not to interrupt the lordly meditations; only throwing in now and then a casual observation requiring no particular answer. No one dreams of deep drinking nowadays in general society; but the Earl has evidently taken quite as much claret as was good for him—enough to make him obstinate and savage. That pair at the piano seem to fascinate him strangely. He keeps watching every movement of Wyverne's lips, and every change in Helen's colour, as if he would guess the import of their low earnest words. A far deeper feeling than mere curiosity is evidently at work. It is well that the half-closed fingers shade his eyes just now, for they are not good to meet—hot and blood-shot, with a fierce longing and wrathful envy. Not an iota of all this escaped Harding Knowles; but he allowed the bad brutal nature to seethe on sullenly, till he deemed it was time to work the safety-valve.
"A pretty picture," he said at last, with rather a contemptuous glance in the direction of the lovers—Clydesdale ground out a bitter blasphemy between his teeth; but the other went on as if he had heard nothing—"Yes, a very pretty picture; and Sir Alan Wyverne deserves credit for his audacity. But I can't help feeling provoked, at such a rare creature being so perfectly thrown away. If ever there was a woman who was born to live in state, she sits there; and they will have to be pensioners of the Squire's, if they want anything beyond necessaries. It's a thousand pities."
"You mean she might have made a better match?" the other asked: he felt he must say something, but he seemed to speak unwillingly, and his voice, always harsh and guttural, sounded thicker and hoarser than usual.
"Yes, I am sure she might have made a better match: I think she might have made—the best in England."
Knowles spoke very slowly and deliberately, almost pausing between each of the last words. His keen steady gaze fastened on Clydesdale, till the Earl's fierce blue eyes sank under the scrutiny, and the flush on his cheek deepened to crimson.
"What the d—l's the use of talking about that now?" he grumbled out, "now that it's all over and settled?"
"Settled, but not all over. I'm not fond of betting as a rule; but I should like to take long odds—very long odds, mind, for Wyverne's dangerous when he is in earnest—that the engagement never comes off."
Lord Clydesdale paused quite a minute in reflection. There was a wicked crafty significance in the other's look that he could not misunderstand.
"I don't know what you call long odds," he said at last, "but I'll lay you five thousand to fifty that it is not broken off within the year."
There are men, not peculiarly irascible or punctilious, who would have resented those words and the tone in which they were spoken as a direct personal insult; but Knowles was not sensitive when it was a question of his own advantage or advancement, and had sucked in avarice with his mother's milk.
"I'll book that bet," he answered, coolly. "I take all chances in. Sir Alan might die, you know, before the year is out; or Miss Vavasour might come to her senses."
So he wrote it down carefully on his ivory tablets, affixing the date and his initials. They both knew it—he was signing a bond, just as effectually as if it had been engrossed on parchment and regularly witnessed and sealed. But neither cared to look the other in the face now. In the basest natures there lingers often some faint useless remnant of shame. I fancy that Marcus rather shrank from meeting his patron's glance, when he went out from the Decemvir's presence to lay hands on Virginius's daughter.
While this conversation was going on, Max Vavasour had roused himself from his easy chair, and strolled over towards the piano. It is probable that he had got his orders from "my lady's" eloquent eye. As he came near, Wyverne drew back slightly, with a scarcely perceptible movement of impatience, and Helen stopped playing. They both guessed that her brother had not disturbed himself without a purpose.
"It's a great shame to interrupt you, Alan," Max said; "but one has certain duties towards one's guests, I believe; and you might help me very much, if you would be good-natured. You see, all this isn't much fun for Clydesdale; and I want to keep him in good humour, if I can—never mind why. He's mad after ecarté just now, and he has heard that you are a celebrity at it. He asked me to-day if I thought you would mind playing with him? I would engage him myself with pleasure; but it would be no sport to either party. He knows, just as well as you do, how infamously I play."
Wyverne very seldom refused a reasonable request, and he was in no mood to be churlish.
"What must be, must be," he replied, with a sigh of resignation. "If the Great Earl is to be amused, and no other martyr is available, thy servant is ready, though not willing. I thought I had lost enough in my time at that game. It is hard to have to lose, now, such a pleasant seat as this. Tell him I'll come directly. I suppose he don't want to gamble? He has two to one the best of it, though, when he has made me stir from here. Helen, perhaps you would not mind singing just one or two songs? I am Spartan in my tastes so far: I like to be marshalled to my death with sweet music."
So the two sat down, at the ecarté table. Clydesdale betrayed an eagerness quite disproportionate to the occasion when Max Vavasour summoned him to the encounter. He suggested that the stakes should be a "pony" on the best of eleven games: to this Alan demurred.
"I have given up gambling now," he said; "but, even when I played for money, I never did so with women in the room. A pony is a nominal stake with you, of course: with me, it is different. You may have ten on, if you like. I only play one rubber."
The other assented without another word, and the battle began. The Earl was far from a contemptible adversary; but he was palpably over-matched. Wyverne had held his own before this with the best and boldest of half the capitals in Europe. He played carelessly at first, for his thoughts were evidently elsewhere; but got interested as the game went on, and developed all the science he possessed: it carried him through one or two critical points against invariably indifferent cards. At last they were five games all, and were commencing "la belle." Max, Harding Knowles, and Bertie Grenvil (who never could keep away from a card-table, unless some extraordinary potent counter-excitement were present) had been watching the match from the beginning; the last having invested 11—10 on Wyverne—taken by Clydesdale eagerly. The cards ran evenly enough. By dint of sheer good play Alan scored three to his opponent's two. As he was taking up his hand in the next deal, Miss Vavasour came up softly behind him, and leant her arm on the high carved back of his chair. She felt sure that her cousin would win, and wanted to share even in that trivial triumph. I wonder how often in this world women have unconsciously baulked the very success they were most anxious to secure? Alan held the king and the odd trick certain; but, if his life had depended on the issue, he could not have helped looking up into the glorious dark eyes to thank them for their sympathy. At that moment his adversary played first, and Wyverne followed suit, without marking. It was one of those fatal coups that Fortune never forgives. The next deal Clydesdale turned up the king, and won the vole easily.
Even Max Vavasour, who knew him well, and had seen him play for infinitely larger stakes, was astonished at the excitement that the Earl displayed; he dashed down the winning card with an energy which shook the table, and actually glared at his opponent with a savage air of exultation, utterly absurd and incomprehensible under the circumstances.
Alan leant back in his chair, regarding the victor's flushed cheek and quivering lips with an amused smile, not wholly devoid of sarcasm.
"On my honour, I envy you, Clydesdale," he said quietly; "there's an immense amount of pleasure before you. Only conceive the luxury of being able to gratify such a passion for play as yours must be, without danger of ruin! I never was so interested about anything in my life as you were about that last hand; and bad cards for ten years, at heavy stakes, would only get rid of some of your superfluous thousands."
The exultation faded from the Earl's face, and it began to lower sullenly. He felt that he had made himself ridiculous, and hated Wyverne intensely for having made it more apparent.
"You don't seem to understand that we were playing for love," he muttered. "I had heard so much of your play, that I wanted to measure myself against it, and I was anxious to win. It appears that the great guns miss fire sometimes, like the rest of us."
"Of course they do," Wyverne answered, cheerfully. "Not that I am the least better than the average. But we are all impostors from first to last."
The party broke up for the night almost immediately afterwards. Alan laughed to scorn all his fair cousin's penitential fears about "her having interrupted him just at the wrong moment." It is doubtful if he ever felt any self-reproach for his carelessness, till Bertie Grenvil looked up plaintively in his face, as the two were wending their way to the smoking-room.
"Alan, I did believe in your ecarté," he said.
There was not much in the words, but the Cherub uttered them with the air of a man to whom so wonderfully few things are left to believe in, that the defalcation of one of those objects of faith is a very serious matter indeed.
Yet Wyverne was wrong, and did his adversary in some sort injustice, when he supposed that the spirit of the gambler accounted altogether for the latter's eagerness and excitement. Other and different feelings were working in Lord Clydesdale's heart when he sat down to play. One of those vague superstitious presentiments that men are ashamed to confess to their dearest friends shot across him at the moment. He had said within himself—"It is my luck against his, not only now, but hereafter. If I win at this game, I shall beat him at others—at all." So you see, in the Earl's imagination, much more was at issue than the nominal stakes; and there was a double meaning in his words—"We were playing for love."
CHAPTER X.
"A shiny night,
In the season of the year."
It was the third evening after that one recorded in the last chapter; the party at Dene remained the same, though a large reinforcement was expected on the morrow. Only the younger Vavasour was absent; he had gone out to dine and sleep at the house of a country magnate, with whom a Russian friend of Max's was staying. Lady Mildred and her daughter had just left the drawing-room—it was close upon midnight—Wyverne followed them into the hall to provide them with their tapers, and had not yet succeeded in lighting Helen's—there never was such an obstinate piece of wax, or such an awkward [Greek: pyrphoros.] It is possible he would have lingered yet longer over the operation, and some pleasant last words, but he suddenly caught sight of the chief butler standing in the deep doorway that led towards the offices. The emergency must have been very tremendous to induce that model of discretion to intrude himself on any colloquy whatever; he evidently did not intend to do so now; but an extraordinary intelligence and significance on the grave precise face, usually possessed by a polite vacuity, made Alan conclude his "good-nights" rather abruptly; he guessed that he was wanted.
"What is it, Hales?" he said, as soon as he came within speaking distance.
The butler's voice was mysteriously subdued as he replied—
"My master wishes to see you in his study immediately, if you please, Sir Alan. Mr. Somers is with him."
The said Somers was born and bred in Norfolk, but had been head keeper at Dene for fifteen years—a brave, honest, simple-minded man, rather blunt and unceremonious with his superiors, and apt to be surly with his equals and subordinates; but not ill-conditioned or bad hearted au fond; a really sincere and well-meaning Christian, too, though he would swear awfully at times. He had only one aim and object in life—the rearing and preservation of game; we should be lucky, some of us, if we carried out our single idea as thoroughly well.
The Squire was looking rather grave and anxious, as his nephew entered.
"Tell Sir Alan at once what you have been telling me, Somers," he said. "There is no time to lose, if we mean to act."
The keeper's hard, dark face, grew more ominous and threatening, as he muttered—"Acting! I should hope there's no doubt about that: there never was such a chance." And then in his own curt, quaint way, he gave Wyverne the sum of his intelligence.
It appeared that the neighbourhood had been infested lately by a formidable poaching gang, chiefly organized and directed by a certain "Lanky Jem;" their head quarters were at Newmanham, and they had divided their patronage pretty equally, so far, over all the manors in a circle of miles round. They had done a good deal of harm already; for they first appeared in the egging season, and had netted a large number of partridges and hares, even before the first of September, since which day they had been out somewhere every night. Of course it was most important to arrest their depredations before they could get at the pheasants. The gang had been seen more than once at their work; but their numbers were too formidable—they mustered quite a score—for a small party to buckle with; and to track them home was impossible; they had carts always near, artfully concealed, with really good trotters in the shafts; so, when they had secured as much as they could carry, they were able to ensure their retreat, and dispose of their booty. In Newmanham they took the precaution of changing their quarters perpetually, which made it more difficult to catch them "red-handed."
That very day, however, one of the lot, partly from revenge, partly on the certainty of a rich reward, had turned traitor. Somers was in possession of exact information as to time and place: about catching the poachers that night there was no doubt whatever—holding them was another question; for "Lanky Jem" had made no secret of his intention to show fight if driven into a corner; indeed it was supposed that he would not be averse to having a brush, under favourable circumstances, with his natural enemies, the guardians of the game.
"They terms him Lanky Jem," the head-keeper explained; "'cause he comes from Lankyshire. He's a orkard customer in a row, they say, wery wenturesome and wery wenomous; he's taught his gang what they calls the 'rough-and-tumble game;' all's fair in that style they says, and if they gets you down, you may reckon on having their heel in your mouth before you can holler. I don't think that chap would have split, only he had words with Jem; he knocked two of his teeth out, and roughed him dreadful, by the looks on him. You'll see our man with the rest on 'em to-night, Sir Alan, and don't you go to hit him; he'll have a spotted hankercher half over his face, and won't be blacked like the others, that's how you'll know him. I've taken the liberty already of letting Sir Gilbert's folks know; we shall muster a score or thereabouts, and I don't see no fear about matching 'em. The moon won't be down these two hours, and they won't begin much afore that. They'll come back through Haldon-lane, and I thought of lining it, Sir Alan, and nipping down on 'em there, if it's agreeable to you; the banks are nicely steep, and they won't get out of that trap in a hurry."
The Squire could not help smiling at the quiet way in which the old keeper took his nephew's presence and personal aid for granted.
"You have not asked Sir Alan if he means to go out with you," he remarked.
"I should think not," Wyverne interposed. "Somers knows me too well to waste words in that way. What a piece of luck, to be sure! Haldon-lane is the very place for an ambush; if we manage well we ought to bag the whole batch of them. You shall be general, Somers—I see your baton's all ready—I'll do my best as second in command. I think I ought to let the other men know, Uncle Hubert? I shall be ready in ten minutes, and so will they, I'll answer for them. If you've anything to do before we start, you had better see about it at once, Somers. We'll all meet in the servants' hall in a quarter of an hour."
The keeper indulged in a short, grim laugh of satisfaction and approval.
"I like to hear you talk, Sir Alan," he said; "you always comes to the point and means business. Everything's ready when you are; but we needn't start for a good half hour yet. My men are stanch enough, I reckon; but it's no good keeping 'em too long, sitting in the cold."
The Squire laid his hand kindly on his nephew's shoulder, and stood for a second or two looking into his face, with a hearty affection and pride.
"I can't tell you how glad I am you are here, Alan. Even if Max had been at home, I think I would have asked you to go out to-night. I am too old for this sort of thing now; but somebody must be there that I can trust thoroughly. There will be wild work before morning, I fear, and coolness may be needed as much as courage. There has been no bloodshed, for the game, in my time, that the village-doctor could not stanch; and it would grieve me bitterly—you can guess why—if any one were dangerously hurt now. We have had no fray so serious as this promises to be. You will take care, Alan, will you not? I am very anxious about it; I half wish I were going out myself."
"I'll take every care, Uncle Hubert," the other answered, cheerily. "But I don't the least apprehend any grave accident; it isn't likely they will have guns with them, as they are out netting, and don't dream of being waylaid. I must go and tell the others, and get ready. I shall see you before we start, and when we come back, perhaps, with our prisoners."
It was very characteristic of those two, that Vavasour never hesitated to expose his nephew to peril, nor of excusing himself for not going out to share it; while Wyverne accepted the position perfectly, simply, and naturally. It was evidently a plain question of expediency; the idea that it was possible to shrink from mere personal danger never crossed either of their minds.
Lord Clydesdale and Bertie Grenvil decided at once on joining the expedition; though it must be confessed that the alacrity displayed by the former hardly amounted to enthusiasm: it had rather the appearance of making the best of a disagreeable necessity.
Alan had nearly finished his brief preparations when there came a low knock at his door; when he opened it Lady Mildred's maid was on the threshold. "'My lady' wished to speak to him particularly: she was in her boudoir, and would not detain him a moment."
There Wyverne found her. It struck him that her cheek was a shade paler than usual, but the effect of contrast, produced by her peignoir of deep purple and her dark hair braided close round her small head, may have helped to deceive him. There was an accent of annoyance in her voice as she said—
"Alan, what is this I hear about your going out with the keepers? How can you be so rash? What on earth are those people paid for if it is not to take poachers? Surely they know their own business best, and can do it alone."
"Not on an occasion like this, Aunt Mildred: heads as well as hands are useful sometimes. Even as Venice used to send out a pacific civilian to watch the conduct of their generals, so am I deputed to-night to control the ardour of the faithful Somers and his merry-men all. I hope to do myself credit as a moderator."
"I wish you would be serious for once. Even if you must go out, which I am certain there is no necessity for, there can be no reason for those other two accompanying you. Of course, I don't suppose there is danger of life; but it is quite dreadful to think of that poor delicate Bertie aux prises with some drunken ruffian; and if Lord Clydesdale were to meet even with a slight hurt or disfigurement, I am sure he would detest Dene for ever and ever. Alan, do try what you can do to stop it."
He laughed within himself as he muttered, under his breath, "Enfin, je te vois arriver;" but his manner was quite easy and unsuspicious as he answered her—
"I'm not much afraid for the Cherub; he can take good care of himself anywhere. You all pet him so much that you do injustice to his pluck. You never seem to remember that he is a soldier. He may have to guard his head in sharp earnest one of these days. But you are quite right about Clydesdale. I had much rather he stayed behind; but I fear it would be useless to try to dissuade him now. Aunt Mildred, you don't quite understand these things. He must go. But you may sleep in peace. Not a hair of that august head shall be harmed if I can help it. You have read your Maid of Perth? Well, your unworthy nephew and other retainers of the house will do duty as a body-guard, like Torquil and his eight sons. The word for the night is, Bas air son Eachin. I only hope the parallel won't quite be carried out. All the nine fell, you remember, and then—the young chief ran away. I must not stay another second. Dear Aunt Mildred, give us your good wishes. You may be easy, if you will only trust to me."
He kissed her hand before she was aware, and was gone before she could reply. When Alan came into the servants' hall, he found the whole party mustered, with the exception of the Earl, who joined them almost immediately. The latter had evidently bestowed some pains on his equipment. He wore rather an elaborate cap, with a black cock's feather in the band, white breeches, and boots coming above the knee; but the most remarkable feature was a broad belt of untanned leather, girding the shooting-coat of black velvet. From this was suspended a formidable revolver, balanced by a veritable couteau-de-chasse.
Wyverne scanned him from head to foot with a cool critical eye, and then took Clydesdale aside a little from the rest.
"It's a picturesque 'get up,'" he said; "a little too much in the style of the bold smuggler, but that's a matter of taste. May I ask what you intend to do with these?"
He touched the weapons with the point of his finger.
"Do with them? Use them, of course," the earl replied, flushing angrily. "I made my fellow load the revolver afresh, while I was dressing. There's no fear of its missing fire."
The other laughed outright.
"Did you mean to let all those barrels off, and then go in and finish the wounded with that terrible hanger? I give you credit for the idea; but, my dear Clydesdale, we are not in Russia or the Tyrol, unluckily. A man's life is held of some account here, you know, and there's a d—l of a row if you massacre even a poacher. You must be content with the primeval club. See, there's a dozen to choose from. The Squire allows no other weapons. Ask him, if you like. Here he comes."
Vavasour, when appealed to, spoke so decisively on the subject, that the Earl had no option but to yield. He did so, chafing savagely, for he was unused to the faintest contradiction, and registered in his sullen heart another grievance against Alan Wyverne. After a few words of caution and encouragement, addressed by the Squire to the whole party, they started. He griped his nephew's hand hard as the latter went out, and whispered one word—"Remember."
When they had gone a few hundred yards from the house, Wyverne fell back to the rear of the column and took Grenvil by the arm.
"Look here, Bertie," he said, gravely. "I'm rather sorry I didn't go out alone on this business. We shall meet a roughish lot in an hour's time. Now, don't be rash and run your head against danger unnecessarily. I shall not be able to look after you; I've got a bigger baby in charge to-night. I should hate myself for ever if your beauty was spoiled."
The Cherub laughed carelessly and confidently. The burliest Paladin that ever wore a beard was not more utterly fearless than he. He could use those little hands of his (he was in the habit of exchanging gloves with his favourite partners) as neatly and as prettily as he did everything else, and in sooth was no contemptible antagonist for a lightweight.
"Don't bother yourself about me, Alan," he answered. "I'll look after my face, you may rely on it. I've been very diligent in my practice lately, and if I get hold of an extraordinarily small poacher, perhaps I may astonish him with what the Pet calls—the 'London Particular.'"
They met Sir Gilbert Nevil's men by the way, and when they reached the place of ambush, numbered twenty-two stalwart fighting men. The spot was admirably adapted for the purpose; a narrow deep lane passed just there through the crest of a small hill, and the brushwood on the steep banks was sufficient to hide a larger party. The rest nestled down there as comfortably as they could, while Alan and the head-keeper climbed the ridge to look out over the champaign lying beneath them. They had not long to wait before two lights appeared on the plain below, moving quickly within a foot or so of the ground, and every now and then becoming stationary. They were lanterns fastened round the necks of the steady pointers quartering the stubbles.
The keeper gave vent to a suppressed groan, ending in a growl.
"There they are, d—n 'em," he muttered. "The very beat I meant you to take to-morrow, Sir Alan. They won't be long in filling that ere blasted bag of theirs. I see five coveys on that forty-acre bit this arternoon. We'll take our change out of 'em before we sleep, or my name ain't Ben Somers."
Wyverne shook his head warningly.
"Your blood's hotter than mine, I do believe," he said, "though you are old enough to be my father. But mind, there is to be no unnecessary violence to-night. I've passed my word to the Squire, and you ought to help me to keep it. If they show fight, it's another matter, and they may take the consequences."
"I'll pound it, they fight," the other grumbled; "it comes more nateral to Jem than running, 'specially as he'll find hisself in a middlin' tight trap. We may get back to cover, sir; they'll not be long now; I reckon they'll finish in that stubble close agin' the lane."
So they rejoined their companions. The ambush was thus disposed. Eight men, including Somers, Wyverne, and Lord Clydesdale, took post, four on either bank, at a certain spot; six others, similarly divided, were left about forty yards in the rear—Bertie Grenvil was with this lot—the others concealed themselves at short intervals along the vacant space; the signal was not to be given till the poachers had got well into the space between the two main bodies; that in advance was rather the strongest, as it was expected the marauders would try to force their way into the high road, where carts were sure to be awaiting them. So, without a movement of tongue or finger, they were to bide their time.
Unless one is gifted with exceptional nerves, that time of suspense before action is very trying. To compare great things with small, I heard one of the best and bravest of all who went up to the Redan, confess, the other day, that he never felt so uncomfortable as during those long minutes when the men stood in their ranks waiting for the last orders, and that it was an unspeakable relief when the word was given for the stormers to advance.
Lord Clydesdale evidently liked his position less and less every moment. "Cursedly cold, isn't it?" he muttered, at last, and in truth his teeth were chattering audibly.
"Pocket-pistols are not interdicted, if other fire-arms are," Wyverne whispered, good-humouredly. "Take a pull at mine, and wrap my plaid round you; I really don't want it, I'm better clothed for this work than you are, I fancy; I've been at it before."
The Earl took the plaid, and half drained the flask without a word of thanks; he was still brooding sulkily over the rebuff he fancied he had met with before starting; besides this, the world had spoilt him so long, that self-sacrifice on the part of his fellow-men for the convenience of Lord Clydesdale, seemed to him the most natural condition of things imaginable; he accepted such tributes affably or morosely, according to his humour, but invariably as his proper due.
Alan interpreted his companion's feelings pretty correctly, and smiled contemptuously to himself in the darkness.
"You amiable aristocrat!" he muttered between his teeth; "if it were not for vexing Aunt Mildred, and for my promise to her, would I not let you look out for yourself this cold morning? I wonder if a thoroughly good thrashing would improve your temper; it were a good deed to allow the experiment to be tried. I do believe the most inveterate ruffian we shall meet, has more natural courtesy than has fallen to your share."
But the momentary bitterness soon passed away. Alan—as is the wont of his kind—never felt so benevolent towards mankind in general as when the moment of danger approached, which was to bring him into conflict with certain units of the species. Surely that perfect physical fearlessness is an enviable, if not a very ennobling qualification; it enables you to charge a big fence or a big adversary, with comparative comfort to yourself; in neither case, unfortunately, will it ensure you against a bad fall; but unless quite disabled, you rise up and go on again, as cheerfully as Antæus, and are at all events spared any pains of anticipation. An interval of silence which seemed very long, ensued. Suddenly Wyverne laid a firm, steady grasp on Lord Clydesdale's arm.
"Take off that plaid," he said, in the lowest and quietest of whispers; "you'll be warm enough in five minutes. They are in the next stubble now."
The ear of the practised deer-stalker, accustomed to listen for the rattle of a hoof far up the corries, had already caught certain faint sounds imperceptible to his companions. Somers heard them, though, nearly as soon; they could just see him through the black darkness, stretching his brawny limbs, and twisting round his wrist the thong of his bludgeon.
The fall of footsteps came nearer and nearer, more and more distinct, as the poachers crossed the low fence one by one, and got on to the harder ground; they were evidently very numerous. They did not come on in detached straggling parties, but appeared to wait till all were in the lane, and then advanced in something like a regular column, in the centre of which four men carried, in two nets made for the purpose, the night's spoil; as this entirely consisted of birds, the weight was overwhelming, though the result had been extraordinarily successful.
"Get on, two of ye, as soon as we top the hill," a deep, hoarse voice said, from the midst of the poachers; "and mind you see all clear."
The slightest touch of Wyverne's arm, and the discreetest chuckle, testified to Somers' intense appreciation of the impending "sell." The gang advanced with their habitually stealthy tread, but evidently quite unsuspiciously, till they were hemmed in by the divisions of the ambush. Then a whistle sounded shrill and ominous as Black Roderick's signal, and a dozen port-fires blazed out at once, casting a weird, lurid glare over the crowd of rugged blackened faces, working with various emotions of wonder, rage, and fear.
In the pause that ensued, while the assailed were still under the influence of the first surprise, and the assailants were waiting for orders, Wyverne's voice was heard, not raised by one inflection above its usual tone, and yet the most distant ear caught every syllable.
"Will you surrender at once? It is the best thing you can do."
The same voice answered which had spoken before—hoarse and thick with passion.
"Surrender be d—d! Here's the chance we've been wanting ever so long. Stick together, lads, and be smart with those bludgeons: there's enow of us to cut the —— keepers to rags."
Alan spoke again; and the curt, stern, incisive accents clove the still night-air like points of steel.
"Stand fast in the front: close up there in the rear. It is our own fault if a man gets through: we'll have all—or none."
He had only time for a hurried whisper—"Somers, whatever happens, look after Lord Clydesdale;" for Bertie and his men came on with a rush and a cheer. The port-fires were cast down and trampled out instantly, and so—darkly and sullenly—the melée began. It was likely to be an equal one; the poachers had the disadvantage of the surprise and the attack being against them, but they were slightly superior in numbers, and their bludgeons were of a more murderous character than those carried by the keepers, shod with iron for the most part, and heavily leaded. For a minute or two the struggle went on in silence, only broken by the dull sound of heavy blows, by hard, quick breathings, and by an occasional curse or groan. Lord Clydesdale had drawn slightly aside, and so, avoiding the first rush of the poachers, remained for awhile inactive. Suddenly, as ill-luck would have it, he found himself face to face with the most formidable of all the gang. "Lanky Jem" had forced his way to the front, partly because safety lay in that direction, partly because he fancied that there fought "the foemen worthiest of his steel;" he had his wits perfectly about him, and was viciously determined to do as much damage as possible, whether he escaped or no. He saw the figure standing apart from the rest, taking no part in the conflict, and instantly guessed that he had to do with a personage of some condition and importance: keepers are rarely contemplative or non-combatants at such a moment.
"Here's one of them —— swells!" he growled. "Come on, d—n ye! I'll have your blood, if I swing for it."
Clydesdale was not exactly a coward; if any ordinary social danger had presented itself, he would scarcely have quailed before it. For instance, I believe he would have faced a pistol at fifteen paces with average composure. But it so happened (he had not been at a public school) that in all his life he had never seen a blow stricken in anger. The aspect of his present adversary fairly appalled him. Independently of the poacher's huge proportions and evidently great strength, there was a cool, concentrated cruelty about the bull-dog face—the white range of grinded teeth showing in relief against the blackness of his sooty disguise—which made him a really terrible foe. The Earl looked helplessly round, as though seeking for succour; but all his party seemed to have already as much as they could do. He saw the grim giant preparing for a spring, and all presence of mind utterly deserted him; he drew hastily back without lifting his hands to defend himself; his heel caught in a projecting root, and he fell supine, with a loud, piteous cry. "Lanky Jem" was actually disconcerted by such absolute non-resistance; but the brutal instinct soon reasserted itself, and he was rushing in to maim and mangle the fallen man, after his own savage fashion, when a fresh adversary stood in his path, bestriding Clydesdale where he lay.
Wyverne had been engaged with a big foundry-man, who chanced to come across him first; but even in the fierce grapple, where pluck and activity could scarcely hold their own against weight and brute strength, he had found time to glance repeatedly over his shoulder. He saw the Earl fall, and extricating himself from his opponent's gripe with an effort that sent the latter reeling back, he sprang lightly aside, just in time to intercept the Lancashire man from his prey. But the odds were fearfully against him now; for his original adversary had recovered himself, and made in quickly to help his comrade. Both struck at Alan savagely at the same instant. He caught one blow on his club, but was obliged to parry the other with his left arm: the head was saved, but the limb dropped to his side powerless. He ground his teeth hard, and threw all the strength that was left him into one bitter blow; it lighted on the temple of the man who had disabled him, and dropped him like a log in his tracks. But, before Wyverne could recover himself, the terrible Lancashire bludgeon came home on his brows, crushing in the low, stiff crown of his hat like paper, and beating him down, sick and dizzy, to his knee. He lifted his club mechanically, but it hardly broke the full sway of another murderous stroke, which stretched him on his face senseless. It looked as if he had remembered his promise to the last; for he fell right over Clydesdale, effectually shielding the latter with his own body.
Alan's life and this story had well nigh ended there and then. Such an abrupt termination might possibly have been to his advantage as well as to yours, reader of mine. But it was not so to be. Just as Jem was bracing his great muscles for one cool, finishing stroke on the back of Wyverne's unprotected skull, a lithe active form lighted on his shoulders, and slender, nervous fingers clutched his throat till they seemed to bury themselves in the flesh; and as he fell backward, gasping and half-strangled, a voice, suppressed and vicious as a serpent's hiss, muttered in his ear three words in an unknown tongue—"Basta, basta, carissimo!"
The poacher's vast strength, however, soon enabled him to shake off his last assailant, and he was rising to his feet, more dangerous than ever, when a tremendous blow descended right across his face, gashing the forehead and crushing the bones of the nose in one fearful wound. The miserable wretch sank down—all his limbs collapsing—without a groan or a struggle, and lay there half drowned in blood.
The old head keeper stooped for a moment to examine his ghastly handiwork, and then, lifting his head, remarked with a low fierce laugh—
"I gives you credit for that move, Master Bertie, it wur wery neatly done."
The poachers had been getting the worst of it all through; they were so hemmed in in the narrow way that their numbers helped them but little; indeed, some in the centre of the crowd never struck a blow. Their leader's fall decided the fray at once; some voice cried out—"Don't hit us any more; we gives in;" and they threw down their bludgeons, as though by preconcerted signal.
So ended the most successful raid that had been heard of in that country for years; they talk of it still. Out of twenty-six men, only three escaped, and one of these was the informer. Neither was any one mortally or even dangerously hurt, though there were some hideous wounds on both sides; but, if you bar gunpowder, it takes a good deal to kill outright a real tough "shires-man." Even "Lanky Jem" recovered after a while from Somers' swashing blow, though they were obliged to carry him back to Dene. The permanent disfigurement which ensued, made his repulsive countenance rather more picturesque in its ugliness, so that it was an improvement after all. He quitted those parts, though, as soon as he got out of gaol, and never returned.
Of all the wounded, perhaps Wyverne was the most seriously hurt; but, though his senses came back slowly, he was able to stagger home, leaning heavily on Bertie Grenvil's shoulder. You must imagine the satisfaction with which the Squire welcomed the conquerors and their captives.
Unwounded from the dreadful close,
But breathless all, the Earl arose.
Even his overweening self-esteem could not prevent Clydesdale's feeling nervous and uncomfortable. He was conscious of having betrayed a very discreditable pusillanimity; and he could not guess how many might be in the secret of his discomfiture. There was nothing in the mere fact of his coming out of the fray scathless, for Grenvil had not a scratch or a bruise; but it struck him as rather odd, that nobody asked "if he were hurt in any way." He was so perturbed in spirit, as hardly to be able to display a decent amount of solicitude about Wyverne's injuries, or to sympathize, with a good grace, in the triumph of the rest of the party. There was one man, at all events, that he could never look in the face again, without an unpleasant feeling of inferiority and obligation. Poor Alan! He meant well; but he did not make a very good night's work of it, after all. He got one or two hard blows, and changed Clydesdale's previous dislike into a permanent and inveterate hate. Virtue is always its own reward, you know.
Perhaps the Earl's largesse to every one concerned in the capture would not have been so extravagantly liberal, if he had guessed how thoroughly the old keeper appreciated the real state of affairs. When Somers alluded to the subject—which he did once a month for the rest of his natural life—he generally concluded in these words:
"It wur the prettiest managed thing ever I see; but we wery near got muddled at one time, all along of that there helpless Lord."