Part 1, Chapter XXXVIII.
A Willing Invalid.
The footsteps heard as Luke Ross hurried away were those of the Churchwarden. He had been round the farm according to his custom when his after-dinner pipe was ended, and then spent his usual amount of time over scraper and mat, getting rid of the superabundant earth that always seemed to cling to his boots.
“Shortest day, mother,” he said, entering the long parlour where Mrs Portlock was seated watching the fire, with her knitting upon her knees. “Be dusk directly. Sage come in?”
“No, not yet. It is hardly her time,” was the reply. “But you need not fidget about her.”
“Wasn’t fidgeting about her,” said the Churchwarden, shortly, for the meaning tone in his wife’s words annoyed him. All that afternoon he had been thinking of Luke Ross, and it had struck him that it was just upon the young man’s time for paying a visit home.
“And then we shall be having him up here, and he’ll learn all about Sage. Hang me if I think that I ought to have listened to parson as I did!”
These thoughts had come to him over and over again, troubling him more than he cared to own, for there was something frank and manly about Luke Ross that he had always liked, and in spite of his own uncompromising refusal to sanction any engagement, he did not feel happy in his mind about the treatment the young man had received.
“Look here, mother,” he said, sharply, after standing at the front door for a few minutes, watching for Sage’s return, “this is your doing.”
“What is my doing?” she replied; “but there, for goodness’ sake, Joseph, do come in or stop out. You’ve done nothing but open and shut that door.”
The Churchwarden shut the front door with a bang, and strode up to the fire.
“I say this is your doing about Sage, and I don’t half like it after all.”
“There, there, there!” she cried. “I wish to goodness you’d mind the farm, and leave women and their ways alone. What in the world do you understand about such things?”
“I don’t think we’ve been doing right,” he said; “and I’m afraid that no good will come of it.”
“Stuff and nonsense, dear. Why any one, with half an eye, could have seen that the poor girl was fretting her heart out about young Mallow.”
“She didn’t fret her heart out about Luke Ross,” said the Churchwarden, sturdily.
“About him!” said Mrs Portlock, in a tone of contempt. “How could she? Cyril Mallow’s worth a dozen of him.”
“Proof of the pudding is in the eating,” said the Churchwarden, kicking at a piece of blazing coal with his boot toe.
“Yes, and a very unpleasant bit of pudding Mr Luke Ross would have been to eat. There, you hold your tongue, and let things go on. You ought to be very proud that matters have turned out as they have.”
“Humph! Well, I’m not a bit proud,” he replied; “and I’m very sorry now that I have let things go on so easily as I have. You may see Luke Ross when he comes down, for I won’t.”
“Oh! I’ll see him,” she replied. “That’s easily done. Why, Joseph, you ought to be ashamed to think of them both on the same day. Our Sage will be his lordship’s sister-in-law.”
“Hang his lordship! Well, perhaps I am, wife, and it’s because I’m afraid that Luke Ross is the better man of the two. Why, look here, it’s getting quite dark, and that girl not home,” he cried, angrily, as he strode towards the front door.
“Do come and sit down,” said Mrs Portlock. “She’s all right I tell you. I’ll be bound to say that some one has gone to meet her and see her home, and, look here, Joseph, don’t be foolish when Mr Cyril comes, but make yourself pleasant to him for Sage’s sake. She quite worships him, poor girl.”
“Hah!” said the Churchwarden, with a grim smile upon his lip. “No one ever worshipped me,” and he opened the front door.
“Now don’t keep letting in the cold wind, Joseph,” cried Mrs Portlock, and then, “Gracious! What’s that?”
She heard the faint scream of some one at a distance, but almost as it reached her ears the Churchwarden had gone off at a heavy trot across the home field, in the direction from whence the sound had come, and he burst through the gate, to find Sage upon her knees, nursing Cyril Mallow’s bleeding head, as the sound of steps was heard from the side lane.
“What’s this? Who did this?” cried the Churchwarden. “Is he much hurt?”
“I—I don’t know,” faltered Sage. “Oh, uncle, uncle, is he killed?”
“Killed—no,” said the Churchwarden, going down on one knee, “cut—stunned. How was it—a fall?”
“No, uncle,” sobbed Sage, who was now half beside herself with grief—“they—they fought.”
“Who did? Who has been here?”
“Don’t—don’t ask me,” she sobbed. “But I do ask you,” cried the Churchwarden, sharply. “Why,” he cried, struck as by a flash of inspiration, “Luke Ross has come down?”
“Yes,” moaned Sage, with a sigh of misery.
“And he did this?”
“Yes, uncle.”
“Humph! Then he’s a plucked un!” muttered the Churchwarden, with a low whistle. “Well, anyhow we’ve got it over.”
“Is—is he dead, uncle?” whispered Sage, hoarsely.
“Dead—no. I tell you his head’s too thick. Well, you’ve done it, young lady. There, I’ll stop with him while you run up and tell Tom Loddon and Jack Rennie to bring the little stable door off the hinges. We must get him up to the farm.”
“Can’t—can’t I carry him, uncle?” said Sage, naïvely.
“Pish! what nonsense, girl. I don’t think I could carry him myself. Let’s try.”
He placed his arms round Cyril’s chest, and raised him into a sitting posture, the act rousing Cyril from his swoon.
“That’s better. How do you feel now?” cried the Churchwarden. “He’ll be able to walk, and it will do him good. Come, Master Cyril, how do you feel?”
“Sick—faint,” he replied. “Cowardly assault on a fellow.”
He clung to the Churchwarden, for his head swam, but the sickness passed off in a few minutes, and then, leaning heavily upon the Churchwarden’s strong arm, the injured man walked slowly across the field to where Mrs Portlock was standing at the open door, Sage feeling sick and faint herself, as she followed close behind, bearing both Cyril’s and Luke Ross’s hats, that of the latter having been picked up by her without any knowledge of what she had done.
“What is it? What is the matter?” cried Mrs Portlock.
“Help with thy hands, wife, and let thy tongue rest,” said the Churchwarden, sharply; and in answer to the rebuke, Mrs Portlock did help by drawing forward the great couch near the fire, and sending Sage for some pillows, after which the latter supported Cyril, while Mrs Portlock, with a good deal of notable quickness, bathed the cut at the back of the injured man’s head, afterwards cutting away a little of the hair, and strapping it up with diachylon in quite a business-like way.
“Mother’s good as a doctor over a job like this,” said the Churchwarden, cheerily. “So am I. Here’s your physic, squire. Sip that down.”
The medicine was a good glass of brandy and water, of which Cyril partook heartily; and then, in obedience to the tender request of Sage, he lay down on the pillows, and half closed his eyes.
“Now, then,” said the Churchwarden, bluffly, “what do you say? Shall I send over and tell them at the rectory you’ve had a tumble and cracked your crown, or will you have a cup of tea with us and then walk up? You don’t want a doctor.”
Cyril opened his eyes languidly, and gazed at the Churchwarden. Then he let them rest on Mrs Portlock with a pitiful gaze, finally turning them upon Sage, who was kneeling by him holding one hand.
Cyril Mallow’s thoughts were that he should prefer to stay where he was, tended by the women, and he said, faintly—
“Doctor—please.”
“Nonsense, man,” cried Portlock, bluffly. “Why, wheres your heart? Pluck up a bit. You don’t want a doctor for a bit of a crack like that.”
“Oh, uncle, you are cruel!” cried Sage. “I am sure he is very much hurt.”
Her hand received a tender squeeze in response to this, and, in spite of her present misery, Sage felt her heart begin to glow.
“Not I, my lass,” said the Churchwarden, in his bluff way. “Perhaps some one else thinks that you are.”
Sage sank lower, and hid her face upon Cyril’s hand.
“Let us send one of the lads,” said Mrs Portlock.
“All right,” said the Churchwarden, good-humouredly. “Send word up to the rectory that Mr Cyril has had a bit of an accident—mustn’t say you’ve been fighting, eh?”
Cyril moaned softly, but did not speak.
“Say that he has had a bit of an accident, and that he won’t be home for an hour or two. Would you like him to come round by the town and tell Vinnicombe to come up?”
“Oh, yes, yes, uncle,” cried Sage, pitifully; and the messenger was sent off.
The doctor and the Rector arrived almost together about an hour later, during which interval Portlock had made himself acquainted with the circumstances of the struggle.
“And was Luke Ross hurt?” he asked.
“I—I think not, uncle,” said Sage, colouring deeply, and then turning pale.
“Humph! Poor fellow!” said the Churchwarden. “Sage, my lass, you’ve behaved very badly to that young chap, and no good will come of it, you’ll see.”
Mr Vinnicombe did not consider that there was much the matter, that was evident; but he apparently did not care to tell his patient that this was the case, and consequently it was arranged that Cyril should stop at the farm, the best bed-room being appointed to his use; and he amended so slowly that he quite fulfilled a prophecy enunciated by the Churchwarden.
“Strikes me, mother,” he said, “that yon chap will be so unwell that he won’t go away for a fortnight; and if you let Sage nurse him he’ll stop a month.”
Sage, to Cyril’s great disgust, was not allowed to nurse him; but he stayed for a month all the same, fate having apparently arranged that, if Luke Ross’s cause was not hopeless before, it was now wrecked beyond the slightest chance of being saved.