"War to the Knife;" or, Tangata Maori

by Rolf Boldrewood

Thus, man's every earthly need being provided for, his spiritual welfare was by no means forgotten.

In the parish church, as was befitting in days of old, before the doctrine of equality and the "flat burglary" of democracy were so much as named, was reserved for the lords of Massinger and their assigns, by sale or lease, the whole of the south aisle and chapel. And as the church was within five minutes' walk of the Court, all pedestrian fatigue, as well as the indecency of taking out carriages and horses on the Sabbath, was avoided.

Now, from an earthly paradise like this, why should the lawful owner, young, good-looking, cultured, athletic, think for one moment of fleeing to the desert, socially, and no doubt literally, of a distant, almost unknown British colony?

Was there an angel with a flaming sword? If so, she was typified in the guise of Hypatia Tollemache. Was she mad?

Must be. He, of course, utterly moonstruck, inasmuch as there is well known to be throughout all England a sufficiency of marriageable damsels—even, as some have averred, a redundancy of that desirable national product. If the county had been polled, they would have voted for a de lunatico inquirendo.

Was there a hidden reason? There could not be.

He was not rich, but Massinger had stood many an extravagant squire in the old days without losing the estate which had come down from father to son since the Conquest, and would again so continue to descend, with a prudent marriage in aid of rent and relief of mortgages.

But there was a reason besides what lay on the surface, and the old family lawyer, Mr. Nourse, of Nourse and Lympett, knew it well. More than a hundred years ago there had been a sudden-appearing re-incarnation of one of the most reckless spendthrifts—and there had been more than one in the annals of the family—that had ever scandalized the county, frightened the villagers, and wasted like water the revenues which should have kept up the ancient traditions of the house.

Rainauld de Massinger had the misfortune to be a living anachronism. Born out of due time, he was at odds with the age and the circumstances amidst which his lot had been cast. Despising the unlettered squirearchy of his day, and the nearly as uncongenial nobility of the county, he threw himself with ardour into the semi-scientific, wholly visionary studies which, under the name of astrology, amused the leisure of those personages who could not content themselves with the dull round of duties and coarse dissipations which the manners of the age prescribed. He constructed a laboratory in one of the turret-rooms, which only he and his confidential servant, a grave, silent Italian, were suffered to enter. From time to time mysterious strangers of foreign habit and alien language arrived at Massinger, and were entertained with every mark of high respect. The villagers spoke with awe of midnight fires in the turret-room, of the strange sounds, the evil-smelling fumes thence proceeding, with other innovations proper in their untutored fancies to the occupation of a sorcerer. Seldom did he visit the Court, and when at rare intervals his tall figure and dark saturnine face were remarked in the throng of nobles, they inspired dislike or distrust more than kindly sentiment. Not that such feelings were openly displayed. For he had brought back from his travels in the East, and the far countries in which he had spent his early manhood, a reputation for swordsmanship which caused even the reckless gallants of the day to pause ere they lightly aroused the ire of one who was known to hold so cheaply his own life and that of others.

It was known that he had fought as a volunteer in the long Roumanian war with the Turks, in which it was popularly reported that he bore a charmed life; such had been his almost incredible daring, such had been the miraculous escapes from captivity and torture. And yet, all suddenly relinquishing a career which promised unusual brilliancy in court and camp, he had for years shut himself up in the old hall at Massinger, devoting himself to those unblessed studies which had excited the distrust of his neighbours, the displeasure of the Church, the cynical wonder of his peers.