“These must be some of friend David’s,” he cried.
The poor beasts were smitten with the frost-fright—the desolation of despair that induces the last appeal of the lower to the higher animal. “If he who by his cunning can stultify all our traditional methods of self-protection,” they must argue, “be as full of resource as of foresight, and as full of noble clemency withal, it were well to submit ourselves to his mercy.” And so in strange times, man’s littleness is forced upon himself, because all his vaunted superiority cannot make food in a wilderness or flesh on starved bones; and he cries aloud and his voice returns to him as an empty echo. Then, “I must kill,” he says, “that there may be fewer mouths to feed”; and he kills, and fancies that he has mastered the problem of life.
The deer cantered before the horsemen, grunting and shaking their heads. They had no action of escape, but seemed rather to have deliberately entrusted themselves, for safe passage to a greener land of hope, to this human convoy. They went down, a dusky bob of backs, into the hollow where was the entrance to “Delsrop”; and here, led by some attraction of the mightier race, they turned into the drive—for the gate had been left open—and trotted along it as far as the lawn, against the sheltering shrubberies of which they took refuge. And, upon the morrow, the most of them were discovered patiently waiting and snuffling about the stable-doors; and an empty coach-house was thrown open and scattered with hay for their benefit; and there, for a time at least, the trusting creatures found the help and protection they sought.
Reaching the door of his house at last, Tuke swung a leg over his beast’s withers and, leaping to the ground, pulled Betty into his arms and landed her by his side. The other two, close upon him, had dismounted at the same moment. He called Dennis to him—the formal and authoritative master.
“You will speak to your sister, and see that this young woman, whom I am taking into my service, is fitly lodged and provided for. To-morrow I shall assign her her duties. In the meantime she is to meet with every sympathy and consideration. The man, also, you must accommodate with suitable quarters. You know my interest in the girl, and the circumstances of her misfortune. I leave her proper reception to your charge.”
Not another word he said; but when they had been admitted by an amazed wench, he nodded gravely to the little group, and turned into his own dining-hall.
Here, as if his opening of the door had released a spring, Luvaine came at him like a Jack-of-the-clockhouse.
“This is well,” he cried in a high manner of sarcasm—“this is well and hospitable to quit affairs of state for the entertainment of a poor guest or so!”
The wine was still on the table, and it was evident the soldier had had free recourse to it for the smothering of his intolerable suspense. His thin hair was rumpled; his eyes bloodshot; a slumberous demon of fury seemed to struggle in him for wakefulness. Flung into an elbow-chair by the hearth, Sir David discordantly acknowledged the potency of his own cups. No doubt he had drunk himself to sleep to escape the other’s company.
“You have some title to offence, sir,” said the returned host. “You have been acquainted with the cause of my absence, I believe; but I think no words of mine will persuade you to exonerate me from blame. Still, I make you my apologies for what was virtually inevitable.”