The Sheep-Stealers

by Violet Jacob

Their struggles drew them nearer to the unlatched door which a little burst of wind had blown open; they felt the air on their foreheads, and it refreshed Rhys, whose breath was beginning to fail in the sheep-stealer’s continued grasp. With an effort which nearly broke his back and loins he freed one arm and hit him on the temple as hard as he could, allowing for the impossibility of getting his fist far enough back for a satisfactory blow. George tried to dodge it with his head, failed, slipped up, and fell with a shock which shook the building, striking the lintel with the back of his skull. He made one convulsive effort to rise and fell back unconscious.

The young man stood looking at the great, still form with the blood oozing from underneath its hair; then he turned cold with fear lest he should have killed a man without meaning to for the second time in his life. There was no room for triumph in his mind as he knelt down and put his hand inside Williams’ shirt.

But the heart was moving, and, much reassured, he fetched the square of looking-glass which hung on the wall and held it over George’s lips. His breath made a distinct fog on it, and it was evident to Rhys that he was only stunned by his fall against the woodwork of the door. With the relief, all his animosity came back, and having ventured a few steps out to take a precautionary look round, he began to drag Williams rather roughly over the threshold. This was no easy task, and it took him some time to get him round the end of the house and into the garden behind it, where he laid him on his back under the thickest gooseberry bush in a place which could not be seen from the cart-track.

There he left him while he went in to fetch the bird’s-eye neck-cloth; he dipped it in the brook as he came out, and then laid one end under the cut on the back of George’s head and wound the other round his temples. After this he smoothed away all signs of their difficult progress round the cottage, covered over a few drops of blood on the ground and went in, locking the door. The air and the cold would soon revive George, and he would have to come round and beg for admittance. Meanwhile Rhys went down the ladder, meaning to keep his eye at the aperture in the wall, from which he could see his fallen enemy as he lay by the bush. He was occupying the exact spot under which he generally buried his sheep’s heads; indeed, his own was supported by the little mound which these frequent interments had raised, and Rhys smiled as he noticed it. It pleased him to see so pregnant an illustration of “the biter bit.”

It did not take long for the air and the wet bandage to do their work, and Williams, who had only, to use his own phrase, “been knocked silly,” soon stirred and sat up. The bleeding from the cut, which was not a deep one, relieved his head a good deal, and he gathered himself up quite unconscious of the fact that Walters’ eyes were watching him not three yards away from his feet. His first impulse as he rose was to hurry down the ladder after his enemy and begin the fight afresh, but he had enough sense to realize that, with a giddiness which made walking rather difficult, he was not likely to gain by such an attempt. He leaned against the end of the cottage with a sore heart. In his eternal quarrel with life he never failed to get the worst of it, and, though he had not the morbid temperament which broods over these things, the grim undercurrent of dislike to his surroundings was always there. He ground his teeth as he thought of Rhys Walters, of Bumpett and his hateful trade, of his ill success with Mary and the rebuke he had felt so much, of the vile round of law-breaking to which he was bound for yet another year; it was a miserable prospect. What if he were to break away from it? The thought was like a whiff from Paradise.

He could not owe the Pig-driver very much now, and the rent of the hovel he was occupying was barely worth consideration, for Bumpett would have had some difficulty in finding any one who would live in such a place. True, he had been forgiven his old debt, which amounted to nearly four pounds—an enormous sum for him. In his two years’ service he must have wiped it out again and again, even taking his weekly wage into account. But, if he were free, if he could get work of any sort, he would pinch himself to the uttermost farthing till he could pay it back in consideration of his broken contract. He had no one now to think of but himself; if he starved he would starve alone. Bumpett would, of course, be furious, but, as far as giving him up to justice was concerned, his hands would be tied. No doubt he would do his best to injure him in small ways, but that was a risk to be accepted in common with other chances and changes of this transitory life. What if he were to do this thing—now—this moment—as he was? He drew a long breath.

A shooting pain coming from the cut on his head began to annoy him, and he went down to the brook, noticing as he passed that the door of the cottage was shut and suspecting that Rhys had locked it; he knelt down and rinsed the neck-cloth, wringing out the blood-stains till it was quite clean.

As he bent forward his head ached horribly. He washed his wound and poured the chill water over his face, which refreshed him and took away the feeling of giddiness, then he got up and stood looking at the house.

A bill-hook he had left outside was lying by the wall, and he went and picked it up; in spite of his having several small possessions inside the cottage, not for anything in the world would he have entered it, though a push or two from his shoulders would have made short work of the door.