Dick Compton was not one of the most delicate of men, either in action or perception, but he was a good fellow in the main, with quite enough of intuition to foresee the worst perils of a situation, and with quite enough of presence of mind to act quickly in a desperate emergency. There was yet no breath or motion in the prostrate man: he would die very soon if not already dead: something might yet be done for him: but that something, if done at all, must be done at once. Besides, if death should prove to be real, he would himself be a little better circumstanced if found trying to preserve the life of his antagonist, than if discovered to have let him die without effort. A mile to the westward, and at the side of the very road at the edge of which he was standing, was the residence of one of the two doctors of the immediate section, and medical assistance might be procured, with the aid of the fallen man's horse, in a brief period.
With this thought in mind, and in far less time after the occurrence of the catastrophe than it has needed to put it upon record, Dick Compton had unfastened the horse of Carlton Brand from the post, swung himself into the saddle, and was galloping away westward, a little doubtful in mind whether he was indeed going after a doctor or looking for a convenient gallows and a hangman,—and wishing, from the bottom of his soul, that he had never entertained quite so good an opinion of his personal prowess as that which had led him into such a terrible position. Once, as he galloped on, he caught sight of his new military trowsers, and found himself thinking whether, when they hung soldiers, they allowed them to retain their uniform or subjected them to the degrading alternative of the prison gray! And that is all, of the very peculiar reflections of Mr. Dick Compton as he sped away after the doctor, that needs to be put upon record.
Kitty Hood, meanwhile, leaving the school-house perhaps ten minutes after her lover, had sped along the path at the base of the woods, intent on going over to the residence of the Brands and seeking advice, if not assistance, from Elsie, in her dilemma. She had quite overcome her anger, now, and taken into her young heart a full supply of that which very often follows the former—anxiety; and her feet moved as glibly, in the better cause of reconciliation, as her tongue had done not long before in a very unreasonable lovers' quarrel.
The path she was pursuing would have led her out to the main road, which she must cross to reach the Brands', some half a mile further west than the point at which the gate gave access to the blind road through the wood. But there was a little spot of marshy ground before reaching the road; she remembered that her shoes were thin and that wet feet were disagreeable even in June, and as a consequence she struck into a cross path which intersected the blind road and would bring her out at the gate. As a secondary consequence, she followed that road and came out a minute after at the gate, to open it without observing what lay beyond, and to start back with a scream of affright as she saw the body of Carlton Brand lying on the green sward without, his face still set in that terrible contortion, and the rigidity of death alike in limb and feature.
The young girl had seen but little of death, and not yet learned to regard it rather as a deliverance than otherwise; and in any shape it frightened her. How natural, then, that she should regard it with peculiar horror when she came upon it alone, by a wood-side, and in the person of an acquaintance equally admired and respected! But what must have been her feelings when, the moment after, and before she had commanded herself sufficiently to do more than utter that single scream of terror, she saw a bundle lying near the apparently dead man, saw blood staining one of his hands and the grass beside him, and recognized the bundle as the same she had seen, not half an hour before, under the arm of Richard Compton!
If that unfortunate young man, on discovering the supposed extent of his mishap, had remembered the threat against the lawyer made but a little while before to Kitty, how did that threat spring into her mind on seeing the blood and recognizing the bundle! Murder, beyond a doubt, and Dick Compton the murderer! The two had met, accidentally, had quarrelled, had clenched, and in that clench her lover had forgotten all except his jealousy and fear of the lawyer, and had killed him outright! Oh, here was trouble, indeed, to which that of a few moments previous had been but the merest shadow! Dick would be arrested, tried, imprisoned, perhaps hung; and she would be obliged to give the fatal evidence that must seal his doom! Terrible indeed—most terrible!—the thought culminating in such mental suffering that the poor girl scarcely knew whether she was treading upon earth or air, as she took one more look upon the motionless form, the blood, and the accusing bundle that lay beside—then turned her back with a shudder upon all, crossed the road and hastened over the fields beyond, by a bye-path that would lead her to the home of the murdered man—her errand now, and her reason for haste, how different from what it had been when walking towards, the same destination but a few moments before!
CHAPTER IV.
The Residence of the Brands—Robert Brand and Dr. Philip Pomeroy—Radical and Copperhead—A passage-at-arms that ended in a Quarrel—Elspeth Graeme the Housekeeper—The Shadow of Shame—Father and Daughter—The Falling of a Parent's Curse.