"Aye, aye, Sir."
"I'll come back to you, as soon as I can," said French to Helena. "Don't be anxious about us. We shall get into the market-hall by a back way and find out what's going on. They've probably got the hose on by now. Nothing like a hose-pipe for this kind of thing! Congratters on a splendid bit of driving!"
"Hear, hear," said Buntingford.
They went off, and Helena was left alone with the farm people, who made much of her, and poured into her ears more or less coherent accounts of the rioting and its causes. A few discontented soldiers, an unpopular factory manager, and a badly-handled strike:—the tale was a common one throughout England at the moment, and behind and beneath the surface events lay the heaving of that "tide in the affairs of men," a tide of change, of restlessness, of revolt, set in motion by the great war. Helena paced up and down the orchard slope behind the house, watching the conflagration which was beginning to die down, startled every now and then by what seemed to be the sound of shots, and once by the rush past of a squadron of mounted police coming evidently from the big country town some ten miles away. Hunger asserted itself, and she made a raid on the hamper in the car, sharing some of its contents with the black-eyed children of the farm. Every now and then news came from persons passing along the road, and for a time things seemed to be mending. The police were getting the upper hand; the Mayor had made a plucky speech to the crowd in the market-place, with good results; the rioters were wavering; and the soldiers had been stopped by telephone. Then following hard on the last rumour came a sudden rush of worse news. A policeman had been killed—two injured—the rioters had gained a footing in the market-hall, and driven out both the police and the specials—and after all, the soldiers had been sent for.
Helena wandered down to the gate of the farm lane opening on the main road, consumed with restlessness and anxiety. If only they had let her go with them! Buntingford's last look as he raised his hat to her before departing, haunted her memory—the appeal in it, the unspoken message. Might they not, after all, be friends? There seemed to be an exquisite relaxation in the thought.
Another hour passed. Geoffrey French at last! He came on a motor bicycle, and threw himself off beside her, breathless.
"Please get the car, Helena, and I'll go on with you. The town's safe. The troops have arrived, and the rioters are scattering. The police have made some arrests, and Philip believes the thing is over—or I shouldn't have been allowed to come for you!"
"Why not?" said Helena half-indignantly, as they hurried towards the barn in which the car had been driven. "Perhaps I might have been of some use!"
"No—you helped us best by staying here. The last hour's been pretty bad.
And now Philip wants you to take two wounded police to the Smeaton
Hospital—five miles. He'll go with you. They're badly hurt, I'm
afraid—there was some vicious stone-throwing."
"All right! Perhaps you don't know that's my job!"