Rubina
Author: Blyth, James
Date: 2016-04-22T05:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Fiction
Description: Ebook prepared by crutledge@knology.net
Rights: Public Domain

TABLE of CONTENTS

PART I—THE SERGEANT

CHAPTER I—RUBINA’S HOME

CHAPTER II—SERGEANT GEORGE BUCK

CHAPTER III—MOONLIGHT ON THE MARSH

CHAPTER IV—BINA’S DISAPPOINTMENT

PART II—THE SUBALTERN

CHAPTER V—THE RETURN OF THE YOUNG SQUIRE

CHAPTER VI—SYMPTOMS

CHAPTER VII—IDYLLIC MOMENTS

CHAPTER VIII—HARVEST HOME

CHAPTER IX—FROM FEAST TO DANCE

CHAPTER X—VENUS VICTRIX

CHAPTER XI—GOOD-BYE

PART III—SERGEANT AND SUBALTERN

CHAPTER XII—FOR BINA’S SAKE

CHAPTER XIII—REGGIE’S GRATITUDE

CHAPTER XIV—A MIND DISEASED

CHAPTER XV—THE LAST LETTERS HOME

CHAPTER XVI—TO LADYSMITH

PART IV—THE VILLAGE

CHAPTER XVII—VIOLET IS PUZZLED

CHAPTER XVIII—THE VILLAGERS ON THE WAR

CHAPTER XIX—GUNNER’S YARN

CHAPTER XX—MISTRESS AND SISTER

CHAPTER XXI—PATTY WILLERS

CHAPTER XXII—BINA AND THE WISE WOMAN

CHAPTER XXIII—THE TIN PAN BAND

CHAPTER XXIV—BINA GOES AGAIN TO PATTY

CHAPTER XXV—VIOLET LEARNS THE TROTH

PART V—LADYSMITH AND THE VILLAGE

CHAPTER XXVI—THE SOLUTION OF THE PROBLEM

CHAPTER XXVII—THE END

ENDNOTES

PART I
THE SERGEANT

CHAPTER I
RUBINA’S HOME

Rubina took a peg out of her mouth and reached up to the line that was strung across from the staple in the wash-house wall to a branch of the old bullace-tree which stood on the edge of the dyke at the back of the garden. The fluttering indiscretions of lingerie flapped bravely in the brisk morning breeze, and imparted a mysterious sense of levity to the more sedate curves of the stout flannel wear which filled into the shapes of the limbs of her father or brother as the wind swelled them into rotundity.

Rubina was holding down the shoulder of one of her garments, and, as she fixed it with the peg, she glanced mischievously over her shoulder to the gate which led from the garden into the Long Lane.

There is no classic or modem pose which reveals the beauty of a shapely woman’s form more than that which Rubina was assuming at that moment She was standing on tiptoe, with both hands reaching up to the line. Her head was thrown back, and the blue veins were daintily traced upon her nobly poised neck. Her bosom swelled with promise of fair softness beneath its figured cotton print, curving to a waist that narrowed to the bulge of her hips in exquisite proportion. Her sleeves were rolled back to her elbows, and the lines of her forearms were perfect in their symmetry of strength. The tension of her attitude drew her skirt tight back, and permitted the grace and vigour of her limbs to be seen through the cotton stuff. A moment previously the beauty of her face had been marred by the pegs which she held between her lips. But she had just used the last of them—she would not have looked round otherwise—and the serenity of her pure features was unimpaired by aught more disfiguring than the smile which permitted her small even teeth to wink their gleams of eggshell china between the rich scarlet of her bounteous lips. Her face might have served as a model for any servant of art who sought a true type of rustic maiden loveliness. It was a full oval, approaching the wider curve of a circle, but with delicate and exquisite variations of contour, which gave it a personal allurement of charming idiosyncrasy. Her cheeks were smooth and rounded, and beneath the russet of health and outdoor life the pink and white of a delicate skin faded and glowed, flickering as the blood pulsed the faster or slower through her veins. Her forehead was high and ample, beneath a wealth of silky, chestnut-brown hair which was parted in the middle, and brought plainly back to a mighty knot of plaited “tails “above her neck. Here and there insubordinate wisps strayed in curly defiance about her neck. When the sun struck these they gleamed red gold. Her eyes were large and of a blue which varied in depth from the hue of a purple clematis to that of a fading cornflower. At rest they were wells of the deep mystery of feminine thought, of feminine instinct, but when they flamed with wrath they were as full of menace and the sense of mighty energy as is the sea in storm. When they danced with merriment they were as frolicsome as brisk white horses lipper-ing in a pleasant breeze, and when they glinted with mischief they were as alluring as is the bosom of the swell of flood-tide to a swimmer on a tropical day. Her nose was neither short nor long, neither coarse nor pinched, but a fair, straight nose, daintily covered with pulsing flesh, with wide nostrils which trembled and panted in moments of passion or excitement Her mouth was kind and human, the lips moist and smooth and full, the short upper lip curving prettily to the pout of the lower. A mouth that cried for kisses and yet was so childish and innocent in appearance that the fire of its clinging could not be guessed at The chin was rounded and well shaped, not weak nor vixenish. The ears were small, dainty and transparent The face was the face of a girl who might be a good woman—a pure, sweet innocent and thoughtful face, strong enough to promise self-respect and soft enough to disclaim obstinacy.

Rubina looked twenty years of age, but was only eighteen. Like many of her sisters of East Anglian villages, she had come to an early maturity both of body and mind. She had been able to leave school at thirteen, and at fourteen was more of a young woman than a child. At this age her mother died and left her to look after and “do for” her father, old Gunner Reeve, the marshman, and her elder brother, Tom: a duty to the fulfilment of which she had from the first proved herself to be fully adequate.

Old Gunner Reeve lived in the crumbling cottage at the end of Hockingham Dam on the east side of Hockingham Street, which had been appropriated as the dwelling of the guardian of the Hockingham marsh level ever since the great alluvial bed of the estuary, named “Hierus” by the Romans of Garion-anum, was first drained and reclaimed. The little dwelling itself had low, whitewashed walls surmounted by a high thatch that shot the rain off sharply, so small an angle did it make with the perpendicular. On the ground floor were the “parlour” and kitchen or living-room, both of which looked out on to the street At the back of these, reached by a door in the kitchen, ran the larder, which had formerly been a primitive dairy. Also leading from the kitchen was a corkscrew stairway, through the door of which a tall man must needs stoop to mount to the attic in which Gunner and his son Tom slept in one bed. This chamber was less than four feet high against the outer walls, but rose to full ten feet in the middle, for its lath and plaster ceiling followed the lines of the thatch. The whole attic did not quite coincide with the area of the ground floor, for there was a smaller first-floor chamber on the north side, which for some reason or other had been built without any communication with the rest of the cottage, and which could only be reached by ascending a wooden stairway which ran up outside the cottage. In this Rubina slept—more secure from nocturnal molestation by those who should have been the first to defend her honour than, alas, many village girls. The cottage was overgrown with woodbine and maiden-blush rose, and, in the summer, the charm of its exterior prevented admiring visitors who passed through the village on cycles or wheels of some kind from considering its lack of sanitation. A small wash and bake house, and the usual outdoor buildings of a cottage where water must be drawn from a well, stood in dilapidated deprecation at the back.

Old Gunner was well over sixty. He had married late in life, and there was a gap of twelve years between the births of Tom and Rubina. Mrs Reeve had borne more than one still-born child in the interim, and endured other tragedies of Ludna, and the villagers had some joke concerning Rubina. Whatever truth there might have been in the notion old Gunner paid no heed to it Marital infidelity in the villages can only be punished by blows in the case of an erring wife, or a system of reciprocity in the case of an erring husband, and Gunner, with all his primitive failings, was not a brutal man. He never bothered his head much concerning the paternity of Rubina. As the child grew up, the old man became very fond of her, whether he were her father or not (and no one could say for certain that he was not), and Bina loved the old man and her brother Tom with true family affection, and it must be remembered that the ties of family affection in rural communities are stronger than in more civilised societies. A countrywoman will often deceive her husband or her lover, but will rarely be disloyal to father, brother, sister, or mother. Antigone might have been an East Anglian marshland girl.

Tom Reeve was a tall and stalwart fellow who worked impartially on the land or “down to marsh,” and was capable as either ploughman or dyke sludger. Nor did he disgrace his blood by being over fond of work. He loved the sport of the marshes in season, and was wise enough to work so well at working times that he could afford a holiday with his dog and muzzleloader when he felt disposed for it In front of Dam’s End Cottage, facing west, two small flower-beds separated it from the palings which edged along the street At the back, behind the washhouse and other outdoor offices, stretched a garden and orchard of nearly an acre. A dyke divided this from the marsh proper. On the south of the garden was an ozier bed, and along the dyke a row of superb old bullace-trees. A reed fence protected the garden from the east wind across the marsh. To the north, the Long Lane ran between pollard willows or sallows to the cluster of houses known as the Devil’s Rookery, and from the west end of this, against the cottage, the dam wound its two miles across the marsh to Dingleton station. On the west and south was the village of Hocking-ham, which perched itself at the foot of the great hill on whose summit rests the round-towered church, the ironwork on which is famous throughout the world. Most of the cottages were similar to Gunner’s. But there were two old inns, formerly coaching houses, named respectively the Bushel o’ Malt and the Jolly Marshman, and these had a decayed grandeur which was pathetic amidst the modest retirement of the cottages. The London coaches used to pass through Hockingham on their way to Herringhaven, and about a mile from the end of the dam, on the other side of Church Hill, Hockingham Hall reaches out with its park and cosy coverts to the winding highway. Here lived Nathaniel Hogg, the lord of the manor, and the owner of most of the property in the Hockingham district In the next cottage to Gunner’s lived Bob Grim-stone, the market-gardener, whose orchard and garden marched parallel with Gunner’s, but were twice as large. Bob was a hearty, jovial man of thirty, and had taken to wife one Millie Buck, a girl from Duckingham parish, across the marshes.

By dint of skill and hard work the couple were rearing a family of four with happiness and success, and when Millie’s brother, George Buck (who had enlisted seven years previously), came back to England from India in May 1899, at the expiration of his seven years’ service, and found his father and mother dead, Bob readily consented to invite him to spend his furlough with his sister until such time as his leave should expire. For he had accepted the option of a further period of five years’ service.

George Buck was one of those fine survivals of a Puritan soldiery which may still be found, and which go far to make as believe in the sincerity of the Ironsides. The sordid nastiness which too often defiles the youth of the villages had never stained him, and, on enlisting, he had the good fortune to be drafted to a troop of Hussars which were under the influence of a body of officers of whom Havelock would have approved. This was not the luck of all the regiment, which, by reason of its “smart” reputation, was as rackety as any cavalry regiment in the service. But George’s troop formed a nucleus of sobriety, and was none the more liked by the comrades on that account But the men of that troop recked little of popularity. They did what they believed to be their duty, and so far as soldiering went there were no smarter men to be found.

George had of course met evil. Who has not who has seen anything of real life? He was no hypocrite nor plaster saint; but he had a reverence for women which is rare both in the villages and in the ranks, and he had brought a simple, honest, unsuspecting heart back home, even after his sojourn in India. The vices of Hindustan had never appealed to him, and the sight of the fresh, innocent-looking girls of his native land awoke in him a feeling that was both passionate and pure, eager and shy. He was, in fact, a brave, honest, worthy fool, the man of all others to fall a victim to a specious coquette.

Shortly before his seven years were out he had been wounded in a frontier affair and was invalided home, and when he met his sister at Duckinghatn station he was but a shadow of a man. But the sweet Hockingham air and the simple food, with the good malt and hops of the Bushel o’ Malt (one of those rare hostelries where pure beer can be found) soon pulled him together, and he began to carry himself erect, and to attract the sidelong glances of nearly every girl in the village, as he stepped jauntily down the street, with a gait and bearing so different from the slouching walk and heavy carriage of the labourers on the land.

He joyed in the beauty of the marshland in May; In the blaze of the crowfoot, the sheen of the bullace bloom, the scent of the sweetbrier after rain, the shadows chasing each other across the marsh, the swelling apple-buds, the golden softness of the bursting sallow, the spreading dyke weeds, the peas and beans green in the garden, die early potatoes blooming here and there, the delicious spring of life in the fat, rich, grazing land, where men are men and women are women and convention makes but a poor fight of it with nature. But the last fact he did not realise or his fate might have been different As it was he brought to the primaeval customs of the marshes the hesitation and the restraints upon natural conduct which the distaste for the immorality of the army life in India had fertilised in the clean, unsophisticated soil of his heart The bullace bloom was fair, the crowfoot and the bursting sallow buds were lovely, but to Sergeant George Buck the fairest and the loveliest, the prettiest and the most charming thing to be found in marshland was Rubina Reeve.

And Bina had observed his smartness, his air of distinction, of savoir faire, his growing manly grace and beauty of a strong man, and, above all, his admiration of herself. She was intimate with the Grimstones, and her brother Tom was Bob’s greatest friend. It was natural that she should be one of the first to welcome George home to marshland, one of the most eager to make his sojourn happy and beneficial to his health. Besides, the other girls were after him—the shameless things!

That was why she turned her head, with a mischievous glance, as she was pegging the clothes upon the line; for she knew well enough that George was at the gate, leaning over the top bar, gazing at her hungrily, and she had made up her mind to be kind to him, to win him for her own. Even apart from her genuine inclination in his favour, the mere spirit of rivalry with the other girls would have sufficed to ensure her eager and determined competition. Moreover, she felt a certain worthiness, a fitness for her design of winning him. For though, like Sterne’s femme de chambre, she may have been guilty of some few igartments de coeur, yet she was purer and of a cleaner life than most of her girl acquaintances. But, she wondered, would that be an argument in her favour with a soldier, if all the tales the girls brought back from Herringhaven market-days about the garrison at the depot were true? She did not know; but she was certain of the allurement of her face and figure, and she could frame her manners and her conduct to suit the man as she came to know him better. He did not seem to resemble the Hockingham men. She would have to study him and plan out her campaign on the results of her investigation.

Yes, he was certainly more taking to the female eye than the average young man of Hocking-ha nr-

CHAPTER II
SERGEANT GEORGE BUCK

“Mornin’, Bina,” said George, as he caught the laugh of her eyes fulL “Plenty to do?”

“Ah,” replied Bina, “us poor gals ha’ to work while you lazy chaps go about injyin’ of yourselves.” The Hockingham national school had greatly modified the splendid archaisms of the girl’s native vernacular. It was only in moments of excitement that the rich breadth of her father’s dialect was heard upon her lips. As for the Sergeant he had almost forgotten his native tongue.

“Can I help you?” asked George, pushing open the gate and advancing into the garden. He had a small basket in his hand, with a layer of soft hay in the bottom of it Bina giggled at him, holding her head a little out of the perpendicular, and mocking with her mouth.

“Why, what could the likes of you do, George?” she asked. “This bain’t man’s work. Can’t you git some work o’ your own. Lor’, I’d fare right ashamed to stand and set about doin’ nothing if I wuz a great, strong chap like you!”

George laughed. His absence from his native country had not rendered him unable to interpret the badinage of the marshes. He knew that a girl rarely means what she says to a man except in very serious circumstances, and all flirtation in Hockingham was always carried on by means of chaff.

“Now that’s unkind of you,” said he, “when I was thinking of you. Why, I was just going down to the hompie mash to see if I could find a clutch or two of plovers’ eggs for your tea. Would you like some?”

Bina’s eyes lit up with pleasure. She was fond of the rich transparent eggs, but still fonder of male solicitude, and she was charmed to believe that George had thought of her.

“Well there!” she cried. “I ax your pardon. You know I was only a-jookin’ about you bein’ lazy. Why, pore chap! you ha’ only just come out o’ the jaws o’ death. And now you’re a-thinkin’ o’ what I should like. Well. You bain’t half a bad sort, bor, and that’s a fact”

She looked gaily up in his face, for he had approached quite close to her. Her raised elbow laid her waist open to an enclasping arm. She laughed enticingly, almost wantonly, and she let a stray wisp of her hair touch his cheek as lightly as a breath.

The man’s heart gave a great leap and he felt his pulses galloping fiercely. His convalescence was nearly over and he was in almost his full man’s strength. For an instant his eyes glittered and his lips grew hot and parched. He could have taken the girl in his arms and crushed her to him. But his natural passions were under control. He had lived a chaste life of much self-restraint And he was no longer an irresponsible boy. But oh I how he longed for the girl! Was it time for him to speak yet? Would she have him for her man? Would she wait through the weary residue of his service, for five years, till he could come and settle in the village and take her to wife—for he would never marry a wife to keep her in the married quarters of a regiment After all she was, he thought, not much more than a child. She probably meant nothing by her manner. No. He must wait a little longer before he told her he loved her. As if the girl did not know it as well as he did!

“Why, Bina, you know I’ve nothing else to do,” said he, after a deep breath. “I’m pleased to get you anything you wish for or like.”

“Get along wi’ ye,” laughed Bina gaily. “Ah! you sodgers! A gal don’t want to pay no regard to what you say. You’ve got a rare an’ slaverin’ tongue, you have. That ‘ouldn’t do for me to believe half o’ what you say. Would it? ’’

The little minx perked her head saucily up and her eyes shot gleams of invitation at him. Above the average of village chastity as she was, she thought his wooing required a little livening up. Pretty words were very pleasant But not so sweet as clinging kisses. He was the smartest and most desirable man in the village, but he would be the better if he would wake up a little. He was inclined to be a bit “back’ard” in Bina’s notions.

“I’d do anything for you,” he cried with fervour. “And you know it”

Then the girl hesitated. After all, she thought, this stage of love-making was very nice. When affairs had gone further and the man had got what he wanted (a matter of course after a declaration of love which was accepted) she had noticed that it was the girl who did the wooing and not the man. In her heart she did not doubt as to the ultimate issue of her flirtation. The time would come when he would ask and she would give. Perhaps they might be married afterwards. Perhaps they might not. The natural result was, in her opinion, merely a matter of time, and she believed that it would be for her to choose the time. That a man should hang back from taking what was offered by a woman who admitted her love was not within the purview of her experience. But it was enjoyable to be so longed for, to be so loved, to be able to exercise so regal a sway over a man like Sergeant George. She did not want the dramatic climax to come just yet “Now don’t ye talk a pack o’ nonsense,” said she, drawing away and frowning a little. “But if you really do wish to get me what I like I should like a bit of fish. The boys hain’t netted the deeaks once this spring, and I reckon as there’s a planty o’ splandid tench and eels as well as rooch [1] an’ pike an’ putch [2] in the mill deeak.”

“Why, o’ course,” said the soldier. “It ’ud be a bit of sport too. I’ll get Bob and your brother Tom if I can, and we’ll take out the net to-night Lord! How many years is it since I went fish poaching in the dykes? But, Bina, you’ll come with us too. Won’t you?,”

Bina thought that the moon was full and that the nights were getting warm and balmy. Moonlight on the mash with the man she fancied! Of course she would go. But she would not seem as if she went willingly.

“I doubt that wouldn’t be right for a gal to be alone wi’ all you uns on the mash at night,” said she, smiling.

“Why, your own brother will be with you,” said George.

“We might miss him,” she said. “I ha’ knowed such things happen on the mash afore now.”

“But, Bina,” said the soldier eagerly, taking one of her hands in his. “You can trust me, can’t you? You know I’d never do anything to offend you. Don’t you? You can trust me. Can’t you?”

“The ally chump!” thought Bina to herself. But she only looked at him with a laugh and said, “Of course I can. Well, I’ll see what faa’er says. If he’ll let me, I daresay I can go a bit of the way with you. What time?”

“Say half-past ten,” said George. “The moon is full and will be well up by then, and there won’t be too many people about Lord I How the old time comes back when I used to go out on the Ducking-ham mashes to net pike. The old squire’s keeper nearly had me once. But I dodged into the shadow of the run bridge and he ran right past”

The reminiscences of his youth doubtless had great charm for George. But women are generally practical, and Bina saw little advantage or entertain-meat in conversation which concerned any subject other than’ that dearest to her heart “Well, this oan’t do,” said she, “I shall never get my washin’ done at this rate and faa’er’ll be hooam afore long. You’d best be a-goin, George. I can’t waste all the mornin’ mardlin’ [3] if you can.”

“I’ll go and see about the eggs then,” said George, with a little sigh. “And we’ll take the net out tonight Oh, Bina, I wish you’d tell me anything I could do.”

“There. Get along wi’ ye, do,” said Bina, making a dash for the washhouse door whence volumes of fragrant steam were pouring. Then just for one second her head reappeared at the door, framed by a misty wreath of steam. “I’ll go wi’ ye to-night” said she, and again disappeared.

George looked after her for a moment and then went through the gate into the Long Lane and turned to the right along the dam. A little way along this winding road a five-barred gate opened into a large marsh on the left or west side. Through this went the soldier.

All behind him was ablaze with the white blossoms of the bullace-trees. All before him stretched a carpet of yellow, dotted here and there with an early and adventurous spray of lady’s-smock. Numbers of larks were strutting about the marsh with their graceful and impudent swagger, or rising on their wings to enjoy the pleasures of chasing their lady-loves or of fighting their rivals. A few soared up high and sent their thin trills of tremulous song thrilling the clear, sunny air beneath the brilliant blue sky of the marshes in a spring easterly wind. As the soldier advanced into the marsh a score or more of hornpie (green plover) commenced an aerial performance of acrobatic somersaulting, wheeling and turning from side to side, flashing their white breasts in the sun and glinting with the purple and green of their necks and sides. “Pee-weep,pee-weep, pee-ee-wee-ee-eep,” they mourned, wailing and screaming to draw the man’s attention from the grass at his feet to their own flesh and feathers.

In the middle of the marsh there was a little declivity where a drain ran through, and recent rains had filled the dykes. The surface grew sodden and along the drain two or three inches of water oozed up at the suck of a man’s tread. Here there was a frantic bustle and an indignant shriek as a snipe rose with such blind haste as almost to knock George’s hat off.

George leapt over the worst part ‘of the drain and still advanced, his eyes searching keenly to the right and left and in front of him. The hornpie screamed and wheeled within two yards of his head, dashing down till they almost touched the ground in their flight and then shooting up on the inclined plane of their wings, only to return with a spread-winged swoop till the breath of their flight touched the man’s face and he could feel the waft of it.

Presently one of the wheeling birds came clumsily to ground, and, getting to its feet, began to limp painfully, one wing drooping as if broken, one leg trailing as if lame. “Pee-wee,”’it cried, as it shambled along. And from its whirling kin in the air there came answering wails of “ pee-weep, pee-ee-wee-eep.” But George was too old a marshman to be deceived by the ruse of the bird. He knew that there were nests nigh and that all the performance was merely to lure him away from the clutches of green and black eggs which are so hard to distinguish as they lie on the ground.

Ah! He had nearly put his foot on them. There at his very feet lay four eggs, their larger ends all turned outwards, their smaller placed together. They lay on a perfectly bare patch of ground, and their grey green, blotched with dusky brown, sympathised wonderfully with the lush grass which surrounded the spot on which they lay, and the red earth-tinted patch of bare alluvial soil on which the hen bird had deposited them like the spokes of a wheel “’Gad!” cried George, “I overlooked them three or four times. My eye is out of practice. I wish I had father’s old spaniel. I never knew man or dog who could find hornpies’ eggs as well as he could. And he’d bring ’em to us in his dear old mouth as tenderly as if they’d been new-born pups. He never even cracked a shell to my knowledge. Ahl he was a dog for plovers’ eggs!”

He bent and took the four eggs from their lay. “Must see if they’re sat on,” he said to himself. “It will never do to take half-hatched plovers’ eggs to a marshman’s daughter, though there are plenty of them go to the London market.”

He carried the clutch to the nearest dyke and, in a little hollow of the bank where a pool of dyke water lay shallow and inviting for the trial, he laid the eggs one after another. Three of them sank to the rounded hollow of the tiny bay in the dyke bank. These were good. But the fourth floated high and buoyant “Lord!” said George, “that’s no good.” He took it back to the “lay” where he had found it “The old bird’ll lay another clutch,” said he, “and I reckon it will puzzle her why this here one hatches out a fortnight afore the others.”

The scent of the marsh air and the wild life of air, water, and land, brought back the old accent to the tongue of the soldier. He placed the three good eggs on the soft layer of hay in his basket, and looked round him. The hompie were still wheeling frantically about his head. There were now two birds pretending to be disabled and limping along in front of him with a grotesqueness which only the knowledge of their purpose rendered pathetic In the next marsh, to the westward, a great herd of young heifers and steers frolicked. In the marsh towards the land Squire Hogg’s herd of red-polled cows browsed under the tutelage of their magnificent lord. There are few things more majestic than a mature, red East Anglian bull, and the master of the herd of cows from “The Hall” was pacing his way along the grazing land as daintily as a debutante in the ballroom, and with as much dignity of momentum as an eighteen-thousand-ton ironclad can boast when she moves from her moorings. Away to the nor’ard a flight of rooks was wheeling and cawing. The great expanse of marshland from Hockingham to the other side of the old Hierus estuary was filled with red and white stock, with here and there a dingy grey splotch where a flock of black-faced Suffolk sheep pattered and manured the marshes. In yonder marsh those great heaps of red-brown earth showed that the moles had been making their breeding” puts,” and the smaller hillocks all over the level prophesied that there would be plenty of work for “Moly Farman” (the Hockingham mole-catcher), when once the stock were off the marshes in October, and allowed the mole traps to be set without fear of their being stamped underfoot and destroyed by the galloping hoofs of the bovine summer tenants of the marsh.

George looked about him and sniffed the air. Though he was rapidly regaining strength this was the first time that he had ventured “down to mash” by himself, the first time he had risked getting “a wet fut”—that dreaded incident of overflowing drains in marshland—the first time he had openly devoted himself to the service of the marshman’s daughter.

How fair the whole spring scene appeared to his eyes, wearied by the burnt-out glories, the glaring ostentation of Hindustan I Here he was by himself in marshland. It might be true he had never been on this particular level before. He had not, though he had been taught the best spots for hompie eggs from the vantage post of the dam. But he had known the Duckingham marshes in his childhood, and the spell of one marsh is as the spell of another, and the man who once gets the marsh magic into his blood on one level can feel it pulse and swell on any tract of drained, alluvial land that East Anglia can charm him with.

And it was May. May in marshland, when first the stock go down to the lush grass, when the life of the marsh awakes, when the great stallions are led about the roads. The red bull yonder took on a greater dignity in May. The cows chewed their cud and whispered to each other as coyly as heifers. Yon great old “Harnsa” (which Shakespeare called a handsaw, or a hemshaw, and moderns call a heron), who stretched his long, grey, slaty neck, and rose with dangling legs, clanking his complaint that George had interrupted his search for eels in the marsh dykes, knew that his mate was waiting in the Duckingham heronry, wondering how many eels he would be able to disgorge for his scion on his return from the marsh. Ah! if George had known the verse he would have quoted:

“Nothing in the world is single,
All things, by a law divine,
In one another’s being mingle,
Why not I with thine?”

And the quaint thing about it was that the girl was the readier to “mingle” without restraint or convention than was the man. But manlike, with his chivalrous soul and his love of theoretic chastity, he prayed in the sweet marsh sunshine that he might be deemed worthy to win the love of that fair girl who was wondering internally how far she should go on the moonlight excursion which had been arranged for that night, and if it would not after all be better to keep up her pretence of coyness longer. For this soldier seemed “a funny sort of chap” to Bina. The “thing he would, that would he not” (to put one of Mr George Meredith’s verses into the oratio obliqua).

George turned from his draught of the beautiful nectar of the marshlands to the task that lay before him. The charm of the spring upon the level had made him think of Bina; and what he had to do for Bina was to find hompie eggs. His soldiering had taught him the importance of doing the thing that lay to his hand. “God I” he cried to himself, as he took a last glimpse round the flat to where the rising hills of Rushingham bounded the levels to the nor’-west. “How lovely it all is! How fresh and homelike. Oh, if I could only settle down here now at once with Bina; but I can’t get out of the service yet. Lord, bring me back to my native marshes, and make me happy with the woman I love.”

Half ashamed of his outburst he bent his eyes to the marsh again and searched for eggs. Despite the lateness of the season, and the lures of the wily old birds, he had quite a score of hompie eggs and a dozen red-legs’ eggs in his basket when he turned into the dam. Old Gunner was at his dinner as he stayed his steps at the open door of Dam’s End Cottage.

“Come ye in, bor,” said Gunner, “come ye in an’ ate a bit o’ wittles. Bina’s made us uns as pratty a poork an’ onion domplin’ as iver I taasted. Come ye in an’ set ye down.”

But George hung shyly outside the cottage. “No, thank you, Gunner,” said he. “Millie expects me home; but I say, Tom, will ye come dyke-nettin’ to-night? I’ll bring Bob’s net, and there ought to be a good lot of fish in the dykes if it’s true they haven’t been tried o’ late.”

“Right yew be, bor,” answered Tom, with his mouth full “And, Bina,” continued George, “I’ve brought you a few eggs I’ve found down on the marshes.”

“Oh, thank you, George,” said Bina, without turning a hair, as she took the basket from his hand, “that is kind of you.”

“Not at all,” said the soldier, as fatuous as the biggest booby of a “masher” about town. “ Then I’ll call for you with the net and plunger about halfpast ten, Tom.”

“Right yew be, bor,” replied Tom, with his teeth engaged in sampling the pork and onion dumpling. “I’ll have a look at my leapin’ pole, an’ bring my ole sack for the feesh.”

Bina nodded merrily as George saluted.

“Gi’e’s oover them eggs, gal,” said old Gunner, and when he had counted the basketful: “He ha’ done welL Theer’s a scoor o’ hompie eggs. I can get a couple o’ shillin’ for them at the Bushel, ’cos theer’s a gennleman from Herrin’haven a-stayin’ theer who ha’ ordered ’em. Yew can hev the red-legs, gal. Hand oover them hompies.”

But Bina laughed and said, “Not me, father. You go and find ’em for yourself if you want ’em. I’m not going to have George’s present to me sold, not me.

“Well! I niver see sech a gal!” cried Gunner.

Bnt the old fellow did not insist in his demand for the eggs. He winked slowly at his son Tom. “Be’t the iggs, bor,” he asked, “or be’t ’ecos George brote ’em? Well! she’ll be a loss to us uns. But arter all theer’ll be moor brass for bare arter she ha’ gart a hooam o’ har owan. Not as I want ta tarn har out Noo! Noo! But if she find a good maan, why she can’t dew better’n take up along o’ him.”

“Right yew be, faa’er,” said Tom. “Bust! yew ha’ droonk all the bare.”

“Well,” said Gunner, “I rackon I wanted it. Be yew a-gooin’ along o’ the feeshers ta-night, gal?” he asked Bina, as he filled and lit his black clay.

“I don’t know, faa’er,”, said Bina, nestling prettily against the old fellow’s sandy beard. “ I think I shall if it’s a fine night”

“Ah, dee yew, my pratty,” said Gunner, smoothing her hair. “That’ll dew ye good. An’ George is a proper chap, an’ tha’ss a fack.”

“D’ye think he’ll church har?” asked old Gunner of his son Tom, when Bina had retired to the washhouse to commence ironing some of the clean linen.

“I can’t hudly saay, faa’er,” replied Tom. “Ye see he’s a sodger and bain’t free ta sattle along with a wife afoor he ha’ done his time.”

“Noo, noo,” said Gunner, thoughtfully. “How-somedever he fare a tidy sort o’ chap, an’ I dew hare as some o’ them sodgers as ha’ been in Injy ha’ got a sight o’ brass. Theer wuz Jack Christmas o’

Turlham who come back wi’ parkutsful o’ brass. He tode me as he’d made moost on it a-lendin’ an’ out o’ what they call the canteen. He ha’ set up a shop an’ all an’ be a dewin’ tidy well. If this hare George fare like him he’d dew wholly well for Bina an’ might speer a shillun or tew for th’ ole man when he sattle. But theer, there’s no tallins. She’s a rum wench and doan’t run arter the chaps a sight Le’ss see how’ll they’ll git on. Us uns can’t dew narthen.”

“Noo,” said Tom, knocking the shag ashes carefully out of his clay bowl. “Well, I must be a-gooin’. Our master aspeck the hoss for th’ ole mare this arternune, an’ I ha’ gart ta see tew’t”

“He! he! he!” chuckled old Gunner, “I wish I wuz young agin! Tha’ss a fack, I dew. “Well, well, I worn’t noo image when I wuz young. But Lord! He! he! he! Ah, theer, bor! Yew all fare mighty partickler to what we wuz thutty yare agoo! He! he! he! But we must let our Bina goo har owan way. I doubt she oan’t niver hode back for a good market An’ she’s a-gittin on. Well, well. Theer’s a mune ta-night an’ I ha’ knowed a mune ekal ta moost gals. He ote ta be right enow if he ha’ gart the gumpertion. He should hev, ’cos he’s a sodger. But he fare kinder narvous. Lord, when I wuz a booy us didn’t knoo what narvousness wuz.”

Tom chuckled. “I bain’t narvous,” said he.

“Well, then, dee yew give ’em a chance,” said Gunner. “Taste afore ye buy’s a good motter. An’ that theer George dew fare narvous! I’m sartin on’t. Lor’! when he stood theer just now wi’ them eggs he fared like a duzzy fule he did. He hadn’t gart noo gumpertion at all. But gie’m time an’ a chance an’ theer’s noo tallins what the munell dew. An’ theer’s a planty o’ dry coortin’ places down ta mash. Ah, Tom, bor! She dew mind me o’ yar pore murrer now an’ agin. She fared narvous when I shot them tame ducks an’ she niver plucked ’em nor cooked ’em nor narthen. But when I’d doned it she ate a whool duck an’ said she’d niver taasted better. Tha’ss a wench all oover. They want ta be humoured. Well, theerl I’m an’ ole maan, though none sa ole as some. An’ I should like ta see Bina sattled.”

“Well,” repeated Tom, who had paid little attention to his father’s wanderings,” I’ll be a-gooin’.”

Old Gunner filled up a fresh pipe and poured out the last drop of stewed tea from the brown teapot “These hare young uns doan’t knoo wha’ss good for ’em,” said he. “They’re a sight tew pertickler. Tha’ss all that blarmed schulin. An’ yit I doan’t see a sight o’ difference in tother gals o’ the village. They all fare willin’ enow ta judge by the baabes. Wha’ss wrong wi’ Bina? Tha’ss time she was sattled. An if she doan’t fix it up wi’ George I doan’t knoo when she will. She fare tew highty tighty for moost on ’em in these parts. But theerl arter all I doan’t waant ta lewse har in my time. Tom an’ me ’ud be pore things alooan. Well, well, Nater must hev har waay. Gord bless ’em, saay I. Ah I she ha’ been a good gal ta me!”

The old man finished his pipe and his tea, and then got up from his chair and stretched himself before starting for his walk round his level of marsh to see if the stock and sheep were all right He was not intentionally immoral. He only wished to see his daughter settled in a home of her own. And he knew that standoffishness did not tend to an early marriage in country villages.

CHAPTER III
MOONLIGHT ON THE MARSH

The full moon was half-way up its zenith, and the Dutch clock on the kitchen wall of Dam’s End Cottage had reverberated the single vibrating “ping” which marked half-past ten, when a noise out in the street of shuffling footsteps and of quiet chuckling informed Bina that the fishing party had come. A jaunty tread (easily distinguishable from the lumping of local feet) came through the garden gate and approached the back door. Only “company” use the front doors in marshland.

“Are you ready, Bina?” asked the Sergeant’s voice. “I picked up Tom outside the Bushel, and we fetched the others. There’s Bob, and we happened on young Gil Heron from Frogsthorpe. Tom says he’s a rare one at dyke-nettin’, so we brought him along.”

Bina leapt up from the Windsor chair in which she was sitting, mending the family footwear. An odorous paraffin lamp, one of the shilling sort, with no globe, but a reflector, hung on the wall, and afforded her a feeble light, which was sufficient for her magnificent sight even during an occupation so tiring to the eyes as darning.

“Wait you a minute till I put my hat on,” said she. “Set ye down. I oan’t keep ye a-waitin’.”

She ran lightly into the parlour, where she was In the habit of keeping such articles of her scanty wardrobe as might be wanted at any time, and presently returned wearing a man’s cloth cap, which sat daintily upon her head, and permitted every coquettish glance from her eyes to reach its mark.

George Buck looked eagerly at her beauty. How hard it was that he could not “ask” her, there and then, and lead her to the old village altar as quickly as the callings could be got through. But he loved his service with that fine love of which honour forms a part He could not shirk his duty even for Bina. But he would let her know he loved her. He would be constrained to go to his regiment very soon now, for his health was almost restored, and there was an excitement in army quarters which had reached him through the medium of letters from his comrades in the regiment Already there was talk of the Scarlet Lancers being deported to Natal. Already there was a keenness to “have a go at old Kroojer.” There was no authoritative information that war was imminent But there had been, ever since the Jameson Raid, a feeling in the army that the time would not be long. In face of this he could not hold back from returning to his duty for a day longer than he felt to be fairly necessary. He would watch for a chance of speaking of his love that very night He would ask her to wait for him. Poor fellow! he was very childish and ignorant of the world of womanfolk in spite of his years and profession t “Hare, come yew on,” cried Tom Reeve, outside. “Doan’t yew meddle wi’ har, George,” he added jocularly. “Wait till we ha’ done a-feeshin’.”

Bina tossed her head and looked tauntingly at her lover. “I’m ready,” said she.

George would, I think, have summoned up courage to try for a kiss had it not been for Tom’s hail outside. He had lost the eager and unrestrained vigour of rustic wooing which his coevals of the village still retained, and he had not learnt the insolent licence of the army in its place. In war he was a very hero. In love he was more inept than the veriest tyro of any East Anglian village. He honoured women, and the village girls attributed it to stupidity or to some physical weakness.

He stepped aside as Bina went out from the back door, and closed the door after her—an act of courtesy which the girl was far from understanding. “Well I” she said with a laugh. “You do think somethin’ of yourself, you do. Don’t ye think I could ha’ shet the door myself wi’out your help?”

“Hare, come yew on, gal,” cried Tom. “We shall ha’ the mune down an’ all afore we ha’ doned onless yew star yar stumps.”

With a cheery giggle the girl ran swiftly to the place outside the gate where the fishing party was waiting for her. “Come on then, Tom,” said she, taking hold of her brother’s arm out of pure provocation, and looking back at George as she did so.

“Hare,” said her brother. “Yew leggoo o’ my arm. What are ye up tew? I never see ye like that afore!”

She withdrew her hand in “a pet,” and ranged alongside Gilbert Heron, a lad of seventeen or so, attired in a rough and worn suit of corduroys, with a rabbit-skin cap.

“Well, Gil,” said Bina. “So you are going to show us where the fish are?”

“I doan’t knoo narthen about that,” said Gil, with an awkward grin. “But I rackon us uns can dew wi’ an eel or a putch or tew, an’ Tom he axed me to come along o’ ye ’cos I can use my leapin’ pool handy and git acrost the wide deeaks easier ’an what he or Bob can.”

“Well, it’s very kind of you,” said Bina.

“Not a mite,” replied Gilbert gallantly. “I can dew wi’ a bit o’ feesh.”

The party trooped down the dam. Across the shoulders of Bob Grimstone was slung a fine-meshed net of some fifteen or sixteen feet in length, by from four to five feet in depth. The greatest depth of the net was in the centre as it shelved to the sides so as to follow the curve of the bottom of the ordinary marsh dykes. Along the top of the net was a line of small corks, many of them nothing more or less than corks from the bottles of spirits of which the Bushel o’ Malt disposed. Along the curving edge of the bottom were little cubes which consisted of leaden weights covered with sail cloth and fastened to the net with the idea of keeping it down. Gilbert carried a long ashen pole, ten or twelve feet m length, with a flat circle of inch board attached to its thicker end. This was the leaping pole, and the flat circle of board prevented the pole from plunging deep into the ooze when the leaper planted it in the middle of the dyke to support him in his flight over the water. Tom carried another long staff, but as this was only to be used to frighten the fish into the net it bore no circular support George had a sack for the catch.

The marsh was very still in the moonlight The village folk (with the exception of such sportsmen as those in whom we are now chiefly interested) had long gone to bed and blown the lights out The public-houses in marshland close at ten, and to keep a light burning in a village house half-an»hour after that dismal hour could be nothing but ostentation of wickedness—partaking of the nature of such mysterious and uncanny works of the devil as are necessarily concluded to be wicked by reason of their incomprehensibility. The dam wound its silver way along between the deep shadow of the pollard willows. Beyond this border of obscurity the mighty marsh stretched vast, brilliant, but whispering and mystic. The dykes shone beneath the moon, but under the cover of their walls lurked shadows where the spirits of the marsh might lay wait for the unwary, and where hob-o’-lantems might nestle till his time came to flash out in dancing radiance to the terror of the more superstitious countryfolk. A faint breeze was wafted from the nor’-west, and the new-born sallow leaves whispered of its refreshing nature. As the party walked along the dam they fell into silence. The hardiest marsh-man in Hockingham is not free from the eerie charm of the marsh. There had not been enough heat to dim the brightness of the ether. Far away to Rushingham the levels stretched. Even the familiar shapes of sleeping red and white stock failed to arouse a sense of familiarity with this fantastic region by moonlight George Buck himself felt the mystery of the lovely marshland steal over him.

A faint splash sounded in the dyke to the left which ran along the dam and separated the roadway from the level. A tiny dark spot followed by an arrow of streaking light passed over the water. Out in one of the distant marshes a bullock moaned. It sounded like the groan of some uncanny denizen of the ooze. The twinkling lights of Dingleton station were too far away to destroy the influence of the lonely spirit of marshland. A quick jibbering squeal and the rush of a rapid shadow brought Bina’s heart into her mouth.

Gilbert laughed. “Yew doan’t waant ta be afeared,” said he. Then taking off his rabbit-skin cap he sang:

“Bat, bat, come inta my hat,
An’ I’ll gi’e ye a slice o’ baacon.”

He waved his cap in a circle, firm in the belief that he would attract the bat by means of his incantation and his waving cap. But the darting creature made off into the marsh in search of the fat insects bred in the ooze. He was enjoying the spring and the awakening of insect life thereof.

“Blust the thing,” said Gil, “ta bain’t a mite o’ good a-hollerin’ at it”

“I say, Gil,” said Tom Reeve. “Shall us go on faa’er’s level?”

Gilbert snorted with indignant contempt “Blust,” said he again. “Wha’ss the use on it? Tall me that. Wha’ss the use on it? Theer bain’t a feesh bigger’n a ruff since yew an’ yar mates slugged it out. Why yew cou’n’t lave it alooan noobardy doan’t knoo. Ole Gunner’s level! Yew might a’moost as well feesh in the deeak at the back o’ his garden. Hoo! hoo! hoo! Ole Gunner’s deeaks for feesh!”

“Yew young warmin!” cried Tom. “Yew meean as yew ha’ had ’em all out?”

“Well? What an’ if I hev?” asked Gilbert boldly. “I rackon as us uns come when yew wuz a-snorin’. We wark for what we git, an’ doan’f yew make noo mistaake.”

“Oh, come on, do,” cried Bob Grimstone. “We sha’n’t git to wark at all if we don’t leave off pa-laverin.”

“Well, wheer shall us go then?” asked Tom sulkily. He did not object to Gilbert poaching on all the other levels of the marshes if he’d leave his father’s alone. The other marshmen may be credited with reciprocity in this form of generosity.

“She knoo,” cried Gilbert admiringly. “Look at har. She knoo, though she bain’t oony a fule ’oman.”

The boy was, as has been written, not more than seventeen or eighteen, but he had already reached to the middle-aged opinion of the fair sex.

He pointed in front. Bina and George had taken advantage of the wrangle between the others to walk slowly ahead. They were now standing against a huge eight-barred black gate, which upheld its tarred defence against all attempts by wearied stock passing along the road to get to the sweet grass on the “camsa” [4] on to which it opened.

“They be a-gooin’ ta ole Dicky Nearboy’s mill deeak,” said he. “An’ tha’ss the best place for tench an’ eel in all the mashes hareabouts.’’

Now there is a certain understanding amongst marshmen that they will not poach on the lands in charge of their mates without taking them into partnership. But little Dicky Nearboy was a local “character.” He was a harmless little fellow, and very proud of the fish in his mill dyke. But he had not the strength, nor the spirit of camaraderie, which would have kept other marshmen from his dykes. Above all he was believed to be a miser, so that a “bit o’ feesh or tew couldn’t maake no odds ta him.” On the other hand, in spite of his simplicity of nature, he was known to be very determined in asserting his rights, and the rights of those who employed him. If he chanced to catch the party poaching he was quite capable of putting a charge or two of shot into them without so much as a word of warning. However, neither George nor Bina knew much about the little fellow, and the others were so used to hazard in their poaching forays (whether it were for birds, hares, fish, or mushrooms) that they did not think it worth while to draw attention to the possibilities of their trespass on little Jimmy’s level.

When Tom started he had honestly intended to try the dykes on his father’s level. But now that Gilbert (who had stepped naturally into the position of leader of the expedition) led the way to the mill dyke on the opposite side of the dam, he made no delay in following, and presently all the party were walking along the dyke wall towards the little redbrick building by the River Saelig in which was the steam mill for draining Dicky Nearboy’s level.

The kiss of the night air had made George Buck think of other kisses. His heart had grown very tender as he walked by Bina’s side along the dam and felt her arm swing against his own, felt her breath waft across his face as she turned to him as she talked, saw the lithe and graceful swing of her body as she kept pace, step by step, with him. Indeed he found that it was all he could do to measure his steps with hers, so boldly and freely did she stride out in her healthy vigour. She would be, he thought, a bride to bear heroes, to rear hale and active sons to be a stay to their parents in their old age if he, George, should chance to earn the meed of his country’s liberality to those who have suffered wounds or sickness in her service. And herein George was no parsimonious, calculating fellow. He was keen enough on his soldiering. But he had seen so many men worn out and cast away like broken tools by the grateful mother who calls on them for her defence.

And Bina felt that his blood was warming, his passion swelling within him.

“I reckon I’ll see what’s he’s made on to-night,” said she to herself. For she was a firm believer in the policy which caught Jude the Obscure.

Up to the time when Gilbert discovered the two leaning against the gate which led into little Dicky’s level their conversation had been almost silent George had felt the thrill of the presence of the woman he loved. Bina had sensed the excitement which her propinquity stirred up in the man. But as yet no words had been spoken, no overt act of wooing attempted.

“Shove it oopen, Bina,” cried out Gilbert, as he ambled towards her, resting his jumping pole on the edge of a dyke and progressing in uneven leaps. “Tha’ss the gaate.”

Bina knew it as well as did Gil. In her childhood she had often accompanied the village boys on forays on little Dicky’s fish, and she had allowed her feet to carry her to the gate unconsciously.

George knew little about the delimitations of the levels. He followed her on to the marsh in all innocence, believing that they had every right to go upon it The black shadows of the party danced and frolicked on the moonlit pastureland, as the unevenness of the going made their footsteps falter and halt Presently they came to a swart bridge of tarred planks, which afforded a way for stock from the southern side of the great mill dyke, along which they were passing, to the northern.

The water weeds had attained to but little growth as yet But here and there a fleshy frond of olive-green peeped above the surface of the water, which shone now black, now silvern in the moon, now opalescent green where the ripples flashed primitive colours in the moving prisms.

A sound that was like a sigh, and no more, a momentary flash of white followed by a speck of black, and then by receding circles from the spot of its appearance. Half-a-dozen little whispers of movement flickered for an instant “What’s that?” cried Bina, clutching at George’s arm with intention. She was courageous enough to meet all daylight marsh hazards. Not a bull from Buckenham Ferry to Breydon would have turned her from her path along a dyke wall. But the child of the estuary had the spirit of the marsh mystery in her, and knew well enough that there were things to be seen and heard on the marsh by night which “Famin’” couldn’t explain, and which often foretold good or bad luck.

George was not superstitious, but he had lost the fine sense which had enabled Bina to notice the momentary disturbance of the water. He had seen nothing.

“There’s nothing, dear,” he added, as he felt her hand tighten on his arm. “Don’t be afraid. Nothing shall hurt you while / am with you.”

“Doan’t be so silly,” cried Bina, relapsing into her native tongue. What would the likes o’ yew dew if the mash wum” (worm) “come up agin’ us. Lord, yew may laugh an’ yew may laugh. But yew doan’t knoo what I knoo, nor yit yew hain’t seed what I ha’ seed. What wuz’t?”

“I was not laughing,” said George, taking her hand and pressing it to appease her and to please himself. “I wouldn’t laugh at you for the world. You know that There! There’s nothing there. Look.”

Digitized by t^ooQle Bina looked, and resumed her tight hold of the arm of her cavalier. She looked up in his face, and oh! but her eyes shone and sparkled in the invitation of the white moon. But she was not quite at ease about that stir in the dyke. It was just like the marsh worm that had appeared to old Patty Willers, the wise woman of Hockingham, as she had “heard tell” time and time again. So she cried out to the person whom she believed to be the chief adept in marsh lore of those following.

“Did ye see that, Gil?” she asked. “Whatwas it?”

“He! he l he!” chuckled Gil. “Lor’! I see ye give a start, Bina. Did ye think as the mash daavil wuz a-coming arterye! He! het Lor’! Yew ta be the darter of a mashman and not ta reckemise a dab-chick an’ har young uns when they deeve” (dive).

“Are you sure?” asked Bina.

“Am I shore? ’’ cried Gilbert “Well, wait yew a min’t. This hare’s as good a place ta set the fust net as theer be, an’ I rackon us’ll cop ayther a dab-chick Or the mash daavil. Lor’, Bina! That ’ud be a wholly rum un if us brote up th’ ole daavil! I ote ta git a shillun or tew for him!”

Gilbert, as usual, had made himself the leader of the expedition. It mattered nothing to him or the others, that the net belonged to Bob Grimstone, or that he was the junior of the party. Still less that he had only been invited to come at the last minute. He was the prince of the sons of the marsh. And the spoils of the marsh were for him—or he would know the reason why. Moreover, was not the leaping pole his? And was not he the only one who could successfully negotiate a twenty-foot dyke such as would have to be leapt before the evening was over if the best spot of all were to be netted? For though Tom, as his father’s son, was a fair hand with the leaping pole, and no stranger to the mysteries of the marsh, yet he had not the genius of the ooze, the talent for gauging the exact spring, run, or take off, which would have made Gilbert famous throughout East Anglia in days when the marsh was the marsh and not a mere pastureland divided by dykes. The Board School had done no harm to Gilbert. He had refused to learn anything of the irrelevant stuff with which they tried to cram him. With dogged obstinacy he had attended his school day after day till such time as his age set him free. And three years after he had left off his daily attendance he would have been hard put to it to read the simplest sentence in any book or newspaper. But he had the ichor of the marshes in his blood. Probably he will be the last of a long and glorious line of men who were not altogether as other men, but who had strange powers, as well as strange disabilities, appertaining to the weird life they led on the great dank levels which exercise so wondrous a charm over those whose blood is of the marsh, and are so fatal and so repulsive to strangers.

“Hold yew on,” cried Gilbert “We’ll take a plunge here afore we goo oover the bridge.”

The mill dyke, which ran to the left of the party, in which the dabchick and her brood had silently disappeared, was a modest one for Gilbert’s powers, being a poor fifteen feet in width—that is to say, some twenty feet from the top of the south wall to the top of the north. Gil just reached out his pole till the circular board sunk almost in the middle Then he grasped the top, stood on the wall, and gave a leap which flung his heels higher than his head. He swung over, his weight resting on the hands which grasped the pole, and as the stout ash rolled across like a pendulum upside down the lad swept his heels over his head and. brought them down in time to land gracefully on the farther side of the water. He gave a tug to the pole and plucked the support from the ooze, and then waited, with his leaper trailing behind him.

“Tha’ss better’n gooin’ oover the bridge for the fust plunge,” said he. “Ole Dicky fare a rum egg, an’ he might be about. But if he doan’t hare us plungin’ we can goo right on. If he dew, well we shall git away better o’ this side o’ the bridge than we should o’ t’other.”

“Right yew be, Gil,” said Tom. “Are ye riddy?”

“Ay,” answered the boy.

“Then look out and cop it,” said Tom.

He took the net from Bob Grimstone’s shoulders and spread its length along the edge of the dyke. From one end he drew a line with a weight attached. This he threw over to Gilbert, who caught k and held it Then Tom lifted the net and paid it out as Gilbert drew on the line from the other side of the dyke. By this means the net was stretched across the entire width of the dyke, the top rim floating on its corks, the bottom weighted down to the ooze by the lead weights. Gilbert took his pole and thrust down at the net till it was pressed past any interfering weeds and lay regularly along the bottom. Then he laid the line flat on the grass and signed to Tom to follow his example.

Gilbert, Tom, and Bob now walked with either leaping poles or plungers In their hands for some hundred yards back along the wall the way in which they had come.

“Dee yew stay theer an’ watch the coorks,” said Gil to Bina and George. “I rackon yew can dew that if ye like, though I doubt yew wouldn’t be a sight o’ use at plungin’. Yew doan’t want ta pay noo regard onless ye see the coorks drawed right unner or runned away with. If ye see that dee yew holler an’ cop hold o’ yar eend o’ the top line. I ha’ made mine fast”

“All right, Gil,” said Bina, laughing. “It isn’t the first time I’ve seen a dyke netted.”

“Noo,” said Gil, drily. “But yew gals niver seem ta l’am narthen, an’ Sodger George ha’ forgart all he knowed I rackon. Dee yew dew as I ax ye, an’ yew shall ha’e the pick o’ the feesh.”

Bina knew the boy well enough not to point out that he was only an incident in the expedition. Indeed she knew he was a good deal more than that. For though both her brother and George’s brother-in-law were no tyros in the sport (if netting can ever be termed sport) yet neither of them could compare with Gil in the lore which means success in all such enterprises.

The three “plungers” now made their way to the spot where they intended to commence the “ drive.” Gilbert on the far side using his mighty leaping pole and its circular support, and the other two with simple poles. They formed up, the two men as nearly as possible level with the boy. Gil raised his pole in the air. “Now,” said he.

The three plungers dashed into the dyke, only to be withdrawn and thrust eagerly down again, then there was a beating of the surface, till any swimming fish must have thought the end of their watery world was come. Again and again the poles plunged down to the depths of the ooze so as to disturb any tench or eels which might be snoozing in the rich, fat mud, and then they clattered and splashed on the surface. No fish could face such a hallabulloo. Whatever life there might be in the dyke must go forward, to the point where the net stretched out its meshes ready for its spoil. But Gilbert knew well that tench are such lazy, sluggish fish that they would push grumbling out of the ooze, swim a few yards and then subside, sleepily, into their beloved mud again, so that in order effectually to “drive” the dyke clear, every yard would have to be properly searched by the plungers. Plunge, plunge, splash, splash, went the poles. “Theer goo one,” cried Gilbert, in high glee. “Did ye see’t? A gre’t ole eel. T’ree or far pound I rackon. Arter him. Arter him.” And the water splashed and boiled as the plungers rose and fell, till George could have cursed at this boisterous performance which made the sweet delicacy of love-making so inappropriate to the occasion.

“Oh, Bina,” he managed to whisper in the girl’s ear, “I should like to catch one little fish I know of in my net”

Bina pressed closely up to him. She was not so shy in the presence of the others as was her lover. She knew exactly what they could see in that light, and what they could not, and she felt that her lover might be more enterprising with perfect safety.

“Would ye?” said she. And she nestled close to him. “What sort of a fish would you like? An eel? They are very nice and rich out of the deeaks. Aren’t they?”

She looked roguishly up at him. She knew the fish he meant and had no great desire to avoid the mesh if he spread it It is only vain for the fowler to spread the snare in the sight of the bird when the bird does not desire to be caught If the sly little wild thing has an inclination towards captivity it saves time to let it see where it can easiest and quickest get itself enmeshed.

“Oh,” said George. “You know, you know, my darling, what little fish I want”

“How should I?” asked Bina, responding to the pressure of his hand. “Do ye like tench better ? I know there’s a many as do. Squire Hogg, he think the world of a tench.”

“You tantalising little darling,” whispered the soldier, his voice growing thick and hoarse with passion, “you know it is not a tench. Tell me, tell me?” he cried, making a snatch at her as she laughed in his face. “It is you, Bina—you I want to catch for my very own.”

For an instant he held her to him, his hands clasped round her lissome waist. She was panting eagerly, her bosom straining against the soldier’s chest, her face uplifted to his. He was bending his mouth to kiss her, oblivious of the others who were drawing nearer every minute as they plunged along the dyke wall. Bina made no movement of withdrawal. She was ready for the kiss. But at the critical moment Gil shouted out: “Hi there, Bina, bain’t the corks a-bobbin’? I see a gre’t ole feesh a-swimming down to ’em oony a min’t agoo. If that hain’t burrered in the mud agin that ote to be in the net”

“Damn the boy,” cried George, under his breath, and Bina echoed the curse in her heart How much longer was she to wait for some earnest of the passion which she knew this handsome well-set-up fellow felt for her? He might be a fine chap, he was certainly less ungainly than the others about the village, but he was more of a laggard in love (according to Bina’s notions of wbat a lover should be) than she had thought it possible for a man, and above all a soldier, to be. She gave a fretful little sigh as she slipped out of his embrace and emerged from the shadow of the bridge in which the pair had been standing. She passed out to the edge of the dyke and looked at the net, stretched across the sluggish water. Towards the centre the corks were depressed under the surface, and there was a shudder of rapid and energetic motion which extended all along the line of net The wall of meshes could be seen dimly beneath the water bulging and shaking, and during an occasional trembling of extra force the line of corks disappeared altogether.

Stifling her irritation, she called out: “There something in it, Gil. The corks drag right unner water now and agin. I good tidy catch I should reckon by the looks on it”

“Come yew on then, bors,” cried Gilbert exultingly, and apparently oblivious of the possible propinquity of little Dicky Nearboy. “Come yew on. Plunge intew ’em a rum un. Quick as ye like.”

He set a gallant example by the dash and rapidity with which he handled his leaping pole. The other two emulated him to the best of their respective abilities and swiftly the three came running along the dyke walls, one on the farther side and two on the hither, their plungers stirring the mud from the very depths of the dyke, and sending the water into a wild surge of foam.

As the drive drew close to the net, the corks sank lower and the middle of the line curved and bellied out till it formed almost a semicircle, concave towards the party who were driving the fish towards it “Gil, Gil,” cried Bina, now filled with the excitement of the chase, and forgetting her softer delights for the time. “Quick. Quick. There’s someat wholly a’tuggin’. Oohl” she cried, and dashed forward to catch hold of the end of the line which was being dragged along as the net bulged out more and more.

A last frantic plunge brought the three drivers up to the net, and with a whoop Gilbert threw down his leaping pole, and seized the end of the top line which he had made fast to a stake driven into the soft alluvial soil of the marshland. “Taake yew tother eend, Bob,” he cried to Grimstone. “Now, Tom, dee yew cop hold o’ yar eend o’ the leaded line. I can manage booth o’ mine. He took the lower line in his right band and the upper in his left, and when Tom and Bob each had their lines, he cried: “Now Altogether.”

The draw of the lines brought the top and bottom of the net together and confined every fish which had striven to force a way through the net.

Gilbert stood an instant. “Shall I draw ’em this side? Or will yew?” He asked. “I rackon I’d best loup oover yar side, now soo as we can all taake a hand togither.”

The projecting lines which he held were long enough to enable him to sling them in a noose round his neck and leap over the dyke with them without disturbing the net Then, when all four lines were on the same side of the dyke, George was given one end and the other three men each took one. Bina was deputed to take the fish from the meshes as they came to land.

“Haul,” cried Gilbert “Lor’, look ar ’em!”

Altogether the net was hauled up, twisting into itself as the far end was dragged in to meet the near. In the hollow of its bulge and here and there about its face, silver and gold, copper and olive glittered in the moonrays. In the centre of the bulge a great struggling mass of large fish was heaped together. In the outlying spots small perch and roach had been caught by the gills and were sticking in the net “Ahoy. Altogither,” yelled Gilbert, as with a mighty heave the whole net and its entire contents came up on the dyke wall.

“Where’s the sack? Where’s the sack?” cried Bina, her hands amidst the slimy mass in the centre.

“Hare ta be,” cried Gilbert, picking it up from the place where George had dropped it in the moment of his awakened passion. “Lor’, what a lot o’ bewties! Let’s heave ’em on to the mash.”

With a tilt of the net he shot out the catch along the marsh grass.

A huge, solid-looking, golden tench glowed like copper, its brilliant yellow eyes reflecting golden shafts from the white moonlight No man’s strength could have kept it from bowing itself to spring, for the muscular power of a large tench is enormous. But Bina slipped an edge of the sack under it and wriggled it in. Then a large olive-backed, silver-bellied eel made off across the grass as swiftly as a snake, and turned savage eyes on Gilbert as he caught it round the neck, where the unevenness of the gills gave him some handhold. It writhed and twisted round the lad’s arm till he was fain to take both hands to it before he could get it in the sack.

“That tench is a good saven pound,” said he, with a chuckle, “and I rackon that ole eel bain’t a sight unner far pound. Pick ’em up, bors. Pick ‘em up.” “Pah!” cried Bina, “how slimy they are!”

A jack of about eight pounds, half-a-dozen more eels, another but a smaller tench, and a score of perch (some of which scaled over a pound), with a few nicesized roach, made up the catch from the first drive. “A rare good cop,” said Gilbert, highly delighted. “If us uns dew as well for the rest o’ the night, that theer sack’ll be pratty nigh full. Pick yew up the net, Bob, bor. Le’ss try this hare cross deeak afore we goo oover the bridge.”

Bob slung the dripping net over his shoulders, regardless of the water which trickled down his back, Tom slung the sack on his back, and the others made ready to try the cross dyke. “Hoo! hoo! hoo!” chuckled Gilbert “Wouldn’t ole Dicky be mad if he knowed on it? I rackon we ha’ doned him proper! Goo’ Loord! Wha’ss that?”

A small misshapen figure had stealthily appeared on the black bridge close against the spot where the party were standing. The head of the new-comer seemed to be sunken between his shoulders, and his dwarf dimensions were accentuated by his stoop and bow legs.

In his hands he carried a huge single-barrelled muzzleloader, about six bore, and with this he was quietly threatening the trespassers. For a moment there hung a complete silence on the marsh, then the little man burst out into a storm of invective.

“What be yew a-dewin’ in my deeaks? Whew tode yew as yew might come a-thievin’ an’ a-robbin’ pore min when the whool warld ote ta be a-bed. As true as Gord I’ll sattle some on ye. I’ll send some on ye hoom with a bellyful o’ lead. Come yew hare, yew hoggish warmin’, yew swine yew, dee yew let me git my hands on ta yew, yew toods, yew freshers out o’ the deeaks. Ah! I know ye! I know ye. My master’ll hev a-h’arin’ wi’ yew. I’ll pull ye for’t Ah! As true as Gord I will. I’ll go right off ta the pleeceman now, ta oncet Yew see if I doan’t.

Come yew hare, afore I blow ye all to pieces. Let me see ye cloose by soo as I can’t maake noo mis’ taake a-reckernisin’ on ye for I wish ta be just ta all min an’ ta wrong noobardy. But yew uns I will hev, ah! If I have ta hang for ye. One, tew, free. Be yew a-comin’. As sune as I ha’ done a’countin’ a dozen I’m a-gooin’ ta shute an’ be hanged tee ye.”

During this outburst, the more terrible by reason of its insane incoherence, the poaching party had stood silent and aghast But as the little orator ceased there was a movement towards a general stampede. “Lave the feesh an’ cut it,” cried Tom.

“Blarmed if I dew,” said Gilbert “I’m gooin’ ta hev feesh an’ all. That ole warmin’ darsen’t pull on us, an’ he can’t cop me with my leapin’ pool. Hand me oover the feesh. I’ll git off safe enow with ’em.”

He snatched the sack and started off at full speed across the marsh. Little Dicky brought his gun to bear on him as he leapt and ran, doubling and dodging his line so as to make a steady aim difficult in the moonlight “His bleed be on his owan hid,” said little Dicky.

“Good God I” cried George, “don’t shoot Why it’ll be murder.”

Dicky turned fiercely on him. “Muddar! What da I keer.”

Tom and Bob in the meantime were both making off, and suddenly Bina cried out and clutched her lover by the arm. “Oh, George!” she said, “let’s run.” She let go of his arm and started for the gate at her best speed.

“As true’s Gord I’ll shute I” cried Dicky. The little man had dodged his aim about, but was unable to get a bead drawn on the agile Gilbert who was darting to right and left along the uneven marsh like same human species of snipe. The furious marshman began to jabber and chatter like an enraged baboon, and giving up all hope of hitting Gilbert, who was now nearly a hundred yards away, he swung his old gun round to the direction in which George and Bina were running, the man with his arm round the girl, helping her along over the mole puts and tussocks of coarse marsh grass.

Dicky lowered the stock for an instant and shook his fist aloft.

“I’ll git one on ye,” he yelled.

George cast a glance back over his shoulder, and saw that the little man had him covered as well as his wobbling aim would permit.

“Look out, darling,” he whispered to Bina.

There was a faint dick followed by the roar of the great gun. But George had recognised the fall of the hammer on the cap, and flung himself and Bina at full length by the time the ignition and explosion followed—for the old-fashioned muzzle-loader always delayed quite an appreciable time between the fall of the hammer and the discharge. This saved the pair of lovers from injury and the little marshman from the gallows—for though the natives of Hockingham are extremely averse to call in the vengeance of the law, such a serious matter as a murder could scarcely be hushed up.

“I tode ’em I’d dew’t,” said Dicky, who thought he had brought both birds down with one shot, “and I ha’ doned it, and I doan’t see as they ha’ got any call for complaint”

But no sooner were George and Bina down than they were up. George had heard the charge whish over his head, and knew that neither he nor his love were touched. “Come along, dear,” he said. “Or shall I go back and take it out of that old ruffian. The old scoundrel, to lire on unarmed people.”

“Oh, never mind him,” said Bina. “He’s soft, he is. Come quick, dear, before he interferes along of us any more.”

She caught hold of him and pulled him till he recommenced to run with her.

“That was wholly a good job as we dropped,” said Bina. “I reckon that old daavil meant to do for us.”

“Well,” said George, puffing as he ran, “I suppose we shall put the police on him.”

“You never mean that,” cried Bina, as she sprang fast and eagerly beside him. “Us uns doan’t have more to do with the pleece than we can help. No, we bain’t hurt a mite, and we ha’ got the fish. We’d best say nothin’ or he may pull us for tresparsin.”

George remembered his boyhood sufficiently well to appreciate the reluctance of Hockingham to “pull” any one. Little Dicky was hardly bon camarade enough to be bound by such scruples. But he would hardly stir in the matter if nothing was said of his attempt at murder. After all, the little man was hardly responsible for what he did, and in spite of his semi-foolishness he was so shrewd that he would be able to concoct some likely story which would change the real aspect of affairs. He would say that he was attacked and only fired in the air as a signal for help. No one can lie more admirably or with a greater appearance of truth than an illiterate marshman.

“I’m agreeable,” said George. “I don’t want to make trouble.” He panted very heavily. Although his health was nearly recovered, he was far from being in good condition, his compulsory physical idleness having made him flabby in his muscles and fat in his breathing passages.

Bina heard his laboured gasps, and eased her run to a walk. They were now nearly at the gate, and scarcely visible even to the wonderful marshman’s eyes which marked them from the bridge.

“Let’s lay down on the wall agin’ the dam,” said Bina. “You bain’t fit for runnin’ yet, my dear. T’others ha’ gone on. Let’s you and me have a rest in the shadder. Little Dicky oan’t trouble us no more.”

On the other side of the gate which led onto the dam the way lifted sharply in a considerable rise to the road. The incline was in the shadow of the pollard willows which ran along the highway.

Bina closed the gate behind her, and sank on the slope.

“Lay you down here along o’ me,” she said coaxingly. “You didn’t ought to ha’ runned so hard”

George sank down beside her on the bank, and felt his hand taken in her warm clasp and pressed.

A few clouds were coming up from the sou-west One passed over the moon.

In the direction of Hockingham the clatter of running hobnails grew fainter and fainter.

CHAPTER IV
BINA’S DISAPPOINTMENT

BlNA lay still, listening to the panting of the man beside her. Amorous thoughts throbbed in her brain and warmed her blood, accelerating and strengthening the beat of her pulses till she could hear their quickened thud. She had her lover to herself now, alone, on the pleasant grassy rise, beneath the darkening moon. The air she breathed in her wide, throbbing nostrils was balmy and sweet with springtime. Surely he would cast off his hesitation now. Men of war, she had always believed, were men of love. And was she not fair and wholesome enough to win love?

George’s breathing came easier and easier. The danger he had shared with the girl seemed to him to knit them closer together. As his heart slowed to its normal beat something of the impulse of springtime (which had set Bina’s senses a-dancing) passed through him. Ah! How brave the girl had been! How well she had run, how splendidly she had kept her head. Her hardihood seemed to him to be finer than callousness under the fire of battle. There had been none of the glamour of the glory of war in the danger on the marsh. It was sheer, brave-hearted, cool courage which had made her act as she did.

He knew that towards the end of the run she could very easily have outpaced him. He felt, with a tingling shame, that she had helped him along the last fifty yards of the run. And she had done it so sweetly, with such delicious tact. Even while she was lifting him, upholding him, she pretended that she was relying on him for his help.

He felt very tender towards her. How he loved her. And she loved him. He knew it “Oh, Bina,” he said.

A little sigh rose from the lips beside his face. He could see the gleam of her eyes as she looked up at him from her couch on the slope. He raised himself on his elbow and bent over her. Her lips smiled at him. Her hand again took his and pressed it.

“Bina, darling,” he said, “I love you so. I want you for my wife. Oh, Bina, will you wait for me? Will you be my wife when my time is up?”

The girl raised her arms to him and whispered, “I love you best, George. Kiss me. Kiss me.”

He bowed his lips to hers and their mouths met in a long kiss. Bina’s arms were round his neck, pressing his face down to hers. She held him close, her lips fixed on his, her moist, warm lips. The scent of her breath was like sweet hay. She held him till both were scant of breath.

“You will wait for me, darling?” he asked again, withdrawing his mouth from hers.

But waiting had an unpleasant savour for Bina’s notions. She ignored his question, and repeated the phrase of .the melody of love which rarely palls by reiteration when those who listen to it are sensitive to Its charm and when the singer and the hearer are in amorous rapport.

“I love you best,” she said. “Why haven’t you ever kissed me before? You might have, you know, dear.”

“I didn’t think you cared for me enough,” said George. “Bina, my darling, you do love me, don’t you?”

“With all my heart,” she murmured.

She opened her arms again to him and clasped him to her. He could feel the swell of her bosom beneath her cotton frock. She writhed in his arms.

Pure hearted as the man was the desire for the woman he loved leapt up with a giant’s strength. He grew frightened as he felt his self-control weakening. He withdrew a little, but Bina resisted and held him the closer. His brain began to reel and swim. “Don’t, my dear one,” he whispered. “I can’t stand it”

With a quick and fierce little kiss she let him go for the moment He sat up, and held her left hand in his right “You haven’t answered me,” he said, placing his left hand over hers so that both his hands embraced hers.

“I’ve told you I love you, dear,” replied Bina, turning on her side towards him.

“I want to hear you say you’ll be my wife,” he whispered. “I want to hear you promise that you’ll wait for me.”

Her eyes peered full into his and sent the meaning of their charm thrilling through him.

“I’ll be your true and lovin’ wife,” said she. “I’m yours whenever you want me.”

She lifted the hand which he held till she brought his fingers beneath her mouth. Then she mumbled the knuckles with kisses, kissing the back of his hand. She turned his clasp and kissed the palm of his hand, her lips brushed the skin with delicate softness.

“You’ll be faithful and true to me when I’m gone?” he said. “You won’t be like other village girls I’ve heard of?”

“What.other village gals have you had to do with?” she asked, her fingers pressing his tightly. “Tell me that, sir. I didn’t know you’d been a-makin’ love to village gals.”

“You know I haven’t,” he said. “I never loved any girl, village or other, but you. I only love you. I shall always love you, and you only, with all my heart and soul. But I’ve heard of other men who trusted girls at home.”

“And I’ve heard of plenty of gals who’ve trusted soldiers and been sorry for it,” said Bina; “but I’m not like them, I love you true, I do.”

“Then you’ll wait for me?” he persisted in asking her.

“What a slow softy he is,” she thought to herself; “but he fare that nice I can’t help bein’ fond on him.” She said aloud: “I’ve told you I’ll do whatever you wish. I know a gal might trust you not to leave her and forget her.”

“Please God,” said he, “I’ll never wrong any woman, least of all the woman I love.”

“I know you’d never leave me to forget me,” said Bina; “but—but you wouldn’t do me no wrong by lovin’ me as much as you liked.”

“No man could love you more, dear,” said he.

“Then kiss me,” said Bina, who thought it was time to wake things up, and again their lips met and clung together. She tried to fling her passion over him, to make him feel that she was his. She clasped him with all the strength of her muscular arms, and held him to her, wooing him with all the primitive force and beautiful sincerity of a child of nature, who recks little of any law but nature’s law. This magnificent surrender of self, this calm, unashamed trust in Mother Nature must always have a mighty power to influence men and women. There was something majestic, something grandly provocative in her serene disregard of any other thought but the longing of the moment He was her lover, and her desire was toward him. She felt that she and Nature were fighting against something which was unintelligible to her. What was it that kept him from the arms she opened ready for him? Had the man no warm blood in him? Had she frightened him by speaking of soldiers who had loved and ridden away to the grief and suffering of women who had trusted them?

She must try to undeceive him. It was not the winning that she deprecated, but the subsequent desertion. She had never felt an inclination for any of the village men, at least not such an inclinaas she felt for this smart sergeant And he loved her. He had said so, and she knew it without his telling her.

“Even if you have to go away for a time you’d come back to me, my darlin’,” she said.

“I should come back if I were alive,” he said. “But of course one never knows what the next fight may mean.”

“Oh!” she moaned. “If you were to go and never come back, and we’d never been all to each other, how awful that would be. George! George! Kiss me again. I can’t bear the thought of losing you. I can’t. I can’t”

George, fearing to touch her lips, kissed her lightly on the forehead, and brought a passion of embraces on him. “You sha’n’t kiss my head,” she cried, writhing round him. “You sha’n’t Here! Here!” She fixed her lips to his.

But after all he was but a man, and the woman he loved was in his arms, clinging to him, crying that he was hers, and she was his, and that they were man and wife in the sight of God. He felt himself growing less and less able to withstand the temptation which assailed him in so terrible a fashion. A shudder ran through his limbs, and a deep sigh burst from him. He was no longer master of himself. Answering her entreaty, he seized her and took her in his arms.

By now the clouds had covered the moon, and darkness brooded softly over the dam, over the marshes, teeming with the crescent life of spring. So far as the man and woman were concerned at the moment they were alone in the world, were as solitary in their love as Adam and Eve.

But their loneliness was but the loneliness of imagination. Scarce half-a-mile from them was Dam’s End Cottage. Entranced as they were with themselves they were not so blind and deaf to the reality of the world that they did not hear the hoarse call that droned in such an attempt at a whisper as Tom was capable of. “Hi! hi!” they heard, in the toneless, raucous croaking which Bina’s brother fondly thought was a cautious murmur. “Are ye theer? Wheer be ye? Bina! George! Wheer be ye?”

They did not speak, but George leapt to his feet, at first with fury, but then with thanksgiving in his heart Bina, still rested on the slope, anger and bitterness choking her breath, so that she gasped in dull sobbing. She had won, but for this unhappy interruption. Oh, why could not Tom mind his own business? Now she might never again get so good a chance to overcome her lover’s scruples before he was compelled to leave, for he expected to be informed that he must rejoin at any time now; and she did not know when she might see him again. He was bound for another five years’ service with the colours. Where would she be in five years? Would she be able to wait for him, to keep true to him for so long a space of time?. - If not, well, there were as good fish in the dykes as had ever been netted. She was not one to wear the willow for an absent lover, though she loved him and intended to keep true to him if she could.

Again Tom’s husky call came to them, and now It sounded close by. The girl’s keen ears caught the brush of his feet through the lush May grass along the side of the road.

She did not feel any sense of revolted delicacy at the interruption. But she knew that Tom would “put the grin on to her” if he thought he bad caught her with her lover. With a feverish abandonment she raised her arms high in the air above her head and a great sigh rose from her expanded chest, a sigh of desperation, of disappointed longing.

“Be ye theer?” again called Tom.

Bina gave a little musical laugh,and ran up the slope on to the dam. “Why, Tom,” she cried, “ did ye fare nervous? Whatever did ye want to come out arter us ’uns for. Poor George was a bit upset by bis run-nin’. He bain’t properly right yet, and that took all the blow out on him. We ha’ been a-restin’. We should ha’ been home in a min’t or two if you’d ha’ waited.”

“Tha’ss all right,”said Tom. Then, more cautiously, he tried to whisper. “Is that little warmin’, Dicky, anywheers about I I thote he’d done for ye. But I see ye runnin’ arter the shute soo I hoped he hadn’t hit ye hard. Come yew on, bora, dew. I ha’ skinned the best eel and the gre’t tench an’ young Gil is a-cuttin’ on ’em up for fryin’. I feel as if I could peck a rum un. An’ none on us can’t fry feesh like yew can.”

“Why, we shall be quite a part,”’said Bina, recovering herself, and joining her brother and the sergeant “Dee ye fare all right now, bor?” asked Tom of George. “Tha’ssright Lor’! That wuz whoollya rum game, wom’t it? He! he! he!”

George hardly said a word on the way homewards. But Bina managed to make an opportunity to be alone with him for a moment before they entered the cottage, and she took his hand and kissed him.

“You forgive me?” he whispered, under the impression that it had only been Tom’s appearance which had prevented him from taking advantage of the girl whom he loved and who would have given herself to him so readily solely because of the immensity of her love and the innocence of her nature.

“Forgiven you?” whispered Bina. “Why, dear, I love you.”

George was not ignorant of the nature of village girls. He had seen the lovers of his native village ere ever he enlisted. But he loved Bina, and his love placed her outside the sphere of her sisters, and, as has been said, she was really superior to most of them. In the case of anyone else he would have thought her conduct erring somewhat on the side of freedom. No ungenerous criticism perhaps. But he could not judge of Bina’s actions. He loved her. She was different from all other women. Better, purer, she was a law to herself.

Well, well, most of us have loved in our time and many of us have been as blind as poor George.

He went in to supper happy in the thought that the girl did not reproach him.

The next morning he was recalled to the depot of his regiment at Odinton. He left Bina after receiving her tearful promise that she would wait for him “if it was years and years.” Each vowed constancy. Each promised to write regularly to the other. But, in order to avoid “having the grin put on to her,” by reason of her lover’s absence, it was agreed between them that nothing should be said of their exchange of troth. Of course it was known that they were lovers in an unofficial sense. But the formality of a regular “engagement” was not to be made public.

George went off with a sore heart, and Bina thought how shabbily the Fates had treated her. But, with a consoling philosophy, she persuaded herself that “it was just as well arter all. P’r’aps he’ll be more likely to come back arter me now he’s got more to look forward to.”

She was soon too busied about her household affairs to brood much over her ill success.

Besides, she was not a girl to brood. She kept her promise to write, and she thought fondly enough of her absent lover. But there was nothing of the Mariana in the moated grange about her. She was too healthy, too superb an animal, to fret herself about something she could not help. And it was springtime in marshland.

But Sergeant George had taken the girl to his heart for so long as he might live. He was one of those rare men to whom constancy in love, as in aught else, comes naturally. If he were alive at the end of his five years’ service he would return to marry the girl he had left behind him. He was happy in believing that she was as faithful and truehearted as himself.

A lover’s paradise is a fool’s paradise, but it is a satisfactory elysium enough so knowing as the enchantment lasts. That disenchantment should convert the condition into a fair substitute for Tartarus is perhaps the result of the balance of compensation which is so constantly seen in operation.

What seems a little unfair is that Bina and her like can attain to the paradise, but rarely undergo the punishment of the Tartarus.

PART II
THE SUBALTERN

CHAPTER V
THE RETURN OF THE YOUNG SQUIRE

Hockingham Hall is a solid, square block of building which is far more comfortable than picturesque. Its plain white walls are featureless, but the great French windows, which open their loftiness on to a pleasant terrace, give an outside observer some idea of the spacious airiness of the rooms. But for the rich growth of wisteria, magnolia, Virginia creeper, clematis and passion-flower, which covered the front of the hall in summer and autumn, the exterior would have had even less charm than it might fairly claim on the morning in early July which found the squire and his wife and daughter round the breakfast-table, chatting smilingly in the delightful anticipation of welcoming home the heir.

It was two months since Sergeant George Buck had rejoined at the Odinton depdt for his regiment But even if it had only been a day not one of the three who were seated at the breakfast-table would have given a thought to the possibility that the fates of the Sergeant and of the son of the house were in any way mutually involved.

Even the fact that the Scarlet Lancers had been ordered from Meerut to Durban, and that George Buck had sailed with a draft to join his comrades in Natal would have been of no interest to Squire Hogg, Mrs Hogg, or Violet.

What did interest them was the letter from Reggie, the young squire, who wrote from Sandhurst to say that his final examination was concluded and that he had every hope of having done well enough to be gazetted soon after the lists were published. He would, he said, be due at Dingleton station on the morrow of the date of the letter (that was to say, on that very day) at one-thirty, and he would be glad if Violet would meet him with the dogcart Walter Sparkes, the groom, could bring the pony and trap for the luggage.

Violet was delighted by the message. Though she had always been a veritable comrade of her brother’s, she had sometimes doubted if the old affection had survived so keenly in Reggie as it had in her. She had not seen her brother for three years, for there had been some unpleasantness between the squire and his son by reason of certain bills which the young fellow had run up and which the father had been compelled to pay. As a consequence Reggie had been kept hard at it, first at a crammer’s and at a private tutor’s, and then at Sandhurst, and at another private tutor’s—the understanding being that he should return home for a stay after his final if he could bring a satisfactory report from Sandhurst This he had already forwarded, and it was evident that, if he had not succeeded in passing the absurd ordeal which the wisdom of the War Office Ka< devised for the selection of its fighting officers, it would be from ill luck, or from one of those extraordinary breakdowns of the examination-room which so often eliminate the fittest, rather than from any want of application or steadiness.

Reggie thought he was “through” all right But no one knew so well as he did how much dust he had thrown in the eyes of those in authority over him. He was not rowdy, nor blackguardly. But he had enjoyed himself far more than any one of the governing body at the cadets’ college was aware of, and was by no means so great a precisian, or, in other words, such an infernal prig, as the report would have made anyone believe. He was a jolly, careless, bright young fellow, fond of a lass and fond of a glass. He had not the vice of gambling, and the bills for which he had suffered ignominy had been accumulated by an irresponsible enjoyment of the good things of this life. He was full of la joie de vivre. But he was shrewd enough to indulge in his pleasures cautiously, and clever enough to be able to make a mighty show of industry on a very trifling amount of genuine work. He was a well-set-up youth of three and twenty (he had passed into Sandhurst via the militia and after having been sent down after a year’s residence at Trinity Hall), with a fine-featured, aristocratic face, lean-cheeked, aquiline-nosed, with large keen hazel eyes, and a promising dark moustache. He was nearly six feet in height, slim and graceful, and he carried himself with the ease of an athlete. His manner was gay and charming, and the affectation of intimacy which he assumed with those whom he liked, or whom he wished to have like him, was very winning. There was none of the haw-haw, don’t-yah-know army style about him. He was as frank and open in his looks and speech as he was careless of the consequences to others (either for good or evil) of his actions. He never had the slightest intention of doing any mortal person in the world any wrong or harm; he would have intensely disliked bringing the unpopularity upon himself which selfish disregard of another’s welfare might cause. But he could not consider or gauge the possible outcome of his actions. He was one of those dangerous men who always mean well and generally do ill, especially if the ill would result to others without reflecting upon themselves. To a superficial acquaintance, or to a girl blinded by fascination, he was a debonair, good-natured, bright and amusing fellow. Indeed, most of his friends so considered him, and he certainly would have thought that such a description of himself hit the mark. But here and there there were some who looked dark at his name, and who said that his good nature was chiefly for himself, and that he would sacrifice his own mother or sister to gratify a whim of the moment.

Probably he had not improved during the three years of his absence from Hockingham. At the time of the quarrel with his father he had been more open, a bigger fool to himself, more generous in his relations with others. The debts he had incurred were rather the result of thoughtlessness than of vice. He had known little of the world of credit when he went up to Trinity Hall, and the temptations offered him by the tradespeople, both of Cambridge and London, had proved too much for him. If his father had been less furious, and had treated him more as a silly youth and less as a responsible good-for-naught, he would not have developed the trace of hypocrisy which he brought home from Sandhurst with him; and he might have remained the nice, dean-hearted boy which his sister Violet had always thought him in the old days.

But he was not a bad fellow at any time, only a selfish, thoughtless, irresponsible youth, eager to take the delight the moment offered him without remembering the after effects. He would never have wronged a woman if he thought he was wronging her; but he might forget that there were more points of view than one till it was too late. He would never have laid himself out to seduce a girl; but if he fell in love, or took a fancy to a fair damsel in a class beneath him (socially), he would be prone to attain the same result as would be reached by a deliberate libertine. But he would have been excessively shocked to realise that this was so. In bis own eyes he was king—that is to say, he could do no wrong; for, he would assure himself, if it were wrong he would not do it It is probable that specious egoists of the class to which Reggie unconsciously belonged do more harm in the world than the vilest criminal either hung or unhung; but they are often pleasant to look at, and capital companions to converse with. It is really a pity they are so dangerous as to make their charm as loathsome as any Rabesqurat (Queen of Illusions) when seen by the light of the Lily, the Lily of the Sea. [5]

Violet Hogg was three years younger than Reggie, and had grown from a bit of a tomboy to a healthy, outdoor girl, who loved the country but who did not unsex herself by playing games which are only fit for men, or by making herself ridiculous in the shooting field. She played tennis and rowed well, but she did not make a business of either amusement She loved animals, and was wonderfully skilled in interpreting the meaning of land, wind, and sky, or of nature. She was as learned in woodland lore and in the habits and customs of the shy, wild life of field, copse, or marsh as many keepers who have not the genius of the marsh in them. She went little into the village, and lived a life which other girls thought must be lonely. But she did not see either the loneliness or the dullness of it. She had not yet been up to a London season, and had no desire for that insanitary whirlpool. A slim girl, with large, dark eyes, and a sweet, tender mouth with little, thin ears, curling wisps of dark hair, brunette skin, and a quiet grace which was serene in its self-sufficiency. A dear, lovable girl, of whom I regret that we shall see too little.

Old Nat Hogg was an old-fashioned country squire. Mrs Hogg a peaceful, demure, worthy lady, who had become subdued by years of self-surrender to her husband’s noisy importance. But in spite of old Hogg’s obstreperous obstinacy, and his wife’s placid acquiescence, the man would have died to save Reggie from shame or harm, and the woman would have suffered torment, or contumely, for either her son or her daughter, and that in flat defiance of her husband. The pair, no doubt, had old-fashioned absurdities, old-fashioned vices it may be; but they had old-fashioned virtues also, and they loved the fruit of their union as irrationally and as passionately as nature wills her children to love their young. The old-fashioned country gentry, even as the still more archaic villagers, had the faults and the merits of old times. Reggie laughed at both his mother and his father, jeered at them in his heart, felt ashamed of them after some public display of their absurdities. Either of the old folk would have cut a hand ofT rather than hurt the feelings of their son. They would remonstrate with him, punish him, when they thought the boy needed it; but they spared his feelings, and never struck on his heart Ah me! How many wounds do the young deal to the hearts of their parents! And how long-suffering and patient are the parents with the follies and wickednesses of their young. It is not enough to say that the young people think the old ones are fools but the old ones know that the young ones are fools. The pity of it is that the young ones of modernity do not hesitate to say, or hint, to their parents, that they think they are absurd, behind the times, vulgar, “no class.” And the old folk will disguise the agony they feel at the blithe cruelty of their conceited offspring. If the young could only take back one word of the cruel insults they have heaped on those who loved them and who are now dead I If only youth could remember that it will have longer to repent of its “froth and conceit,” and could realise that repentance is sure to come, it would be more thoughtful and more considerate towards the fathers and the mothers. The most beautiful story ever written is one by the Brothers Grimm, where an infirm old grandsire breaks the basin in which his son and his daughter-in-law are wont to give him his broth. They scold the old man and make him put up with a wooden bowl. Soon they observe their own youngster hard at work with his knife on a block of wood. “What’s that for?” asks the father, smiling. “That’s for you and mother when you get as old as grandfather,” said the youngster. Most young folk have proffered that wooden bowl, and have had no child of their own to give them tit-for-tat, till it was too late to restore the earthenware to the aged.

Violet was in high spirits when she drove across the dam to meet her brother. It was a fine hot day, and the upland haysel had well begun. The clicking of the cutter where the machine was at work, or the cries of “Hold yer!” where the sun-dried hay was being pitched on to the great wains and loaded in fragrant mountains, came sweet to the girl’s ears.

She bad a fast-trotting bay mare in the shafts, reputed to have the blood of Marshland Shales in her, and the ball bearings in the hubs of the wheels buzzed merrily as the dogcart spun over the splendid road across the marsh.

Sparkes was already at the station when the girl arrived, and held the mare while his young mistress went on to the platform.

“What’s Master Reggie a-comin’ hoom to-day, miss?” asked the old stationmaster, who had known her and her brother since they had plagued the life out of him to be allowed to ride on an engine.

“Yes, Easter,” said Violet. “And I’m so glad!”

“I doubt we sha’n’t hardly know him,” said the stationmaster with a grin. “There! I reckon that’ll be his train now signalled.”

The bell rang in the office, and the wire pulls along the platform clanked and jangled. The black and white arm of the semaphore signal dropped with a clatter. A blur of smoke and steam rose round an embankment a quarter of a mile off, and the train came puffing and groaning up to the platform.

“There you are, Vi,” cried Reggie, leaping out of his carriage. “Here you, why, it’s Leonard Nearboy, see to my things and put ’em in the luggage cart Is Sparkes there? That’s all right Come along. How well you’re looking. How well the marshes look. And, by George! I believe I can hear the hay-cutter and smell the upland hay though it is two miles across the.dam. So ho! my beauty. Shall I take the reins or will you keep them, dear? Ah,

Walter! You all right? And Tom Cable (the coachman)? By George, old girl, it’s good to see you. That’s right You drive. I’d rather look about me.” There was little or no change in bis manner. It was just as hearty and jolly as ever. His eager kiss (so different from the kiss which most brothers think good enough for their sisters!) was warm and affectionate—not a flabby dab of compulsory convention. His eyes shone and sparkled with good humour and with pleasure at seeing again the fields and marshes where he had enjoyed such good sport in his childhood. And Violet? “ Why how you’ve improved! ’’ he cried. “I can’t call you a flapper any more, can I? But I hope you haven’t become a wishy-washy young lady. Have you?”

“There’s no fear of that, dear Reggie,” replied \ Violet, beaming with delight at the sight of his high spirits, at his evident affection for her and his pleasure in seeing her again.

“And the guv’nor and mater?” he asked. “Am I fairly popular at home again now? Eh?”

“Oh, Reggie I” cried Violet (who knew well how really deeply the squire and the mother loved the young scapegrace), “you know how fond they are of you! They will be as delighted to see you home again as I am. Oh, you dear boy. It is delightful to have you home again.”

Reggie bent and kissed her again. “That’s the last one,” said he. “We are almost in the village.” Bina was standing in the front garden of Dam’s End Cottage when the dogcart drove past She had never spoken to “Miss Violet,” and saw no reason why she should make any obeisance to her. She held herself upright and looked straight at the brother and sister as they drove past.

Reggie’s eyes fell upon her. He had a quick sight for a pretty face.

“Does that old rascal Reeve still live there?” he asked—“at Dam’s End Cottage?”

“I don’t know,” replied Violet “Mother doesn’t want me to have anything to do with the marsh people, and he’s father’s marshman, isn’t he?”

“He used to be,” said Reggie, with a chuckle. “But I didn’t know he had a grown-up daughter.”

“I’m afraid I can’t tell you,” said Violet “Why do you wish to know? I expect mother will know, or at anyrate Sparkes will.”

“I thought the old fellow would be able to tell me where to find some duck,” said Reggie. “They’ll come in in about a fortnight, and he used to be the biggest old poacher in the parish. I’ve had many a good day’s sport with him. Don’t you remember?” “Why, of course I do,” said Violet “I haven’t heard that he’s gone, so I expect he still lives there.”

“Then that must be that daughter of his. I forgot how long I’d been away. Of course it is she. Well, I shall know where to find the old chap.”

In another ten minutes’ time Reggie was being welcomed to the bosom of his family, and found that the fatted calf was all ready for him.

He enjoyed the fuss that was made over him. He felt very affectionate towards father and mother and sister.

And, when he went to bed that night, he felt very interested in that wonderful face which had been the first to greet him across the dam. What had the girl’s name been? Griselda? Some fantastic name. Oh! Rubina, Bina, that was it So that little dusty girl had developed into that superb young woman. He had not seen Bina during the few days he spent at home after he had been sent down. He could not have seen her for four or five years perhaps. Anyhow when last he did see her she was only a ragged kid. And now! He supposed it must be Bina. He had learnt from his father that Reeve still lived in Dam’s End Cottage. What a splendid woman she had become! Yes. And she looked as if she might be sport, too, by the glance she gave him. Straight and clean in his face she had looked, with her beautiful eyes blandly full open and absorbent of the passing dogcart and its occupants. Oho! No mock modesty about her. He must see if she was as well worth looking up as at first sight she seemed to be. Of course he meant no harm. The idea of harm never entered into his mind or his calculations. But that calm magnificent face and form would not leave him. He dreamt of Bina more than once that night, and his dreams were of folly.

CHAPTER VI
SYMPTOMS

For a week or ten days after his return to his home, Reggie was Ineffably bored by the country festivities which his sister persuaded him to attend. A back-stair rumour had come to the hall that he had been successful in his examination and that shortly, when the lists were published, he would be found to have done nearly as well as the authorities had expected. His proud father made no secret of this, and the young fellow took up the position of a subaltern somewhat in advance of being justified by actuality. And a young officer is a rara avis in the country, at least in such society as that which formed the circle of acquaintance for the Hoggs—old-fashioned county folk with no pretences at being “smart” Among the youths and maidens whom he met at the tennis and croquet parties, Reggie could pose as a man of the world at his ease. It pleased him, boy-like, to affect an air of ennui which was an exaggeration of his very real sense of boredom. The giddy rustic maidens giggled and fluttered about him and did their best to make themselves pleasing in his eyes. The somewhat uncouth rural bucks looked askance at him, and spoke slightingly of him amongst themselves, bat had not the courage to enter into bold competition with his popularity. But the respectability of provincialdom, the stale humour, the wretched exhibitions of drawing-room “accomplishments” (with which rural society is wont to make the time drag), the awful failures at conversation, the sham gaiety of the weird entertainments of the halls and manor houses, soon became too much for the young man’s patience. Violet had been a stay-at-home girl, and could not gauge the fatuity of the afternoon “shows” to which she took her brother. But they soon became more than he could stand, and on the tenth day after his return home he frankly declined to go to any more local “parties” till he had had a rest from the monotony of them.

He really loved his sister, but, by never letting him out of her sight, she had committed the imprudence of making her solicitude for him a trifle tedious. More than once during the ten days had his thoughts flown to Dam’s End Cottage,and to the girl whose fair face had met him as he drove into the village. And although he posed as blase, as a man of the world, among the youth and beauty of local Daneshire, be was in reality little more than a boy with a sweet ‘tooth. And the girl’s face had fascinated him. Ay! fascinated him far more than he realised. He felt drawn towards the dam. He wanted to see if she was really as pretty as he had thought her. No harm of course. Oh, no harm. He wanted to see old Reeve about the duck. He would go to the cottage that very afternoon.

He would probably have gone before but for a feeling of shyness which he would have been the first to repudiate. He would have been furious at the notion that he, the young squire, who would wear her Majesty’s uniform within a week or two, should feel any shyness, any backwardness, in approaching the daughter of one of his father’s men, of a disreputable old marshman. He would speak to her kindly of course. Perhaps he might even condescend to have a little chaff with her—she looked game for that—but that he could feel any nervousness in her presence was out of the question.

And yet, as he strode over the brow of Church hill, his gun over his shoulder (on the chance of a shot at a wood-pigeon) and saw a cotton frock fluttering in the garden at the back of Dam’s End Cottage, he was conscious of a quickening of the heart As if in sympathy with his pulse his footsteps quickened also, and he was in a boyish state of heat and excitement when he stayed his steps against the gate which opened on to the “street” from the little flower garden in front of Gunner Reeve’s tumbledown dwelling.

The door of the cottage stood half open, and permitted the afternoon sun to glare on a bright segment of the kitchen. The “parlour” window was covered by a number of flowering geraniums and other pot plants which reared their green stems and many-coloured blossoms between the trim white starched lace curtains which fell on each side of the leaded window. Reggie stood a moment and looked into the kitchen. He could see the brightness of die sun on the sanded bricks, and, by bending forward a little, he caught sight of the scoured deal table in the middle of the room and of a door on the farther side of the room which was open, permitting a glimpse of the back garden to be seen sheer through the house. There was no sign of anyone in the kitchen. Reggie knew, before he reached the cottage, that he would find no one there but Bina. He had watched Gunner go off to his level through the powerful binoculars which he had brought home with him as part and parcel of his military equipment He knew, by inquiry from Walter Sparkes, that Tom Reeve worked for Farmer Back’s haysel and Harvest, and would be busy in the hayfield till sunset Moreover he had seen Bina’s shape in the garden from the top of Church Hill. Why did his hands feel hot? Why was his breath uncomfortable? Nature in him knew the reason of his presence there, and the probable outcome of the visit, though he would never have acknowledged it It was a fine hot day in late July, and he was young and hot blooded. Bina was fair, very fair, with the tempting, ripe daintiness of a young Daneshire marsh girl. Reggie told himself that he had come thither to ask Gunner about the fowl. But he had seen Gunner go off on his level! Why did he not follow him there?

Of course-these reflections did not occur to the youth as he stood against the gate.

Men like Reggie rarely reflect at all—till it is too late. He delayed in reality but a moment before he pushed open the gate and, walking up to the open door of the kitchen, knocked briskly against it with the stock of his gun.

Bina had seen him coming down the hill, and wished to ascertain if he was “as proper-lookin’ a chap” as she had thought him as he drove past in the dogcart from the hall. She had seen him several times when he had been but a boy, and she only a child, when the young squire had been taken by the marshman to see the eel picking, or the plovers’ egg gathering (when the birds and their nests were more plentiful than now), but there had been little or no acquaintance between the scion of the hall and the scrubby little daughter of the marsh. Reggie in his boyhood, boylike, disdained to notice little girls. Most lads who are attracted by women in after years feel their first pangs of love for women old enough to be their mothers. Beyond an occasional patronising gift of sweets, Reggie had scarce noticed Bina, with her thumb in her mouth, and her dirty legs. But Bina had thought what a pleasant clean boy he was, and how she would like to have a pony to ride when she got as old as he.

But now it was the girl who was cool and the man who was feverish. She had seen, with her marsh-bred eyes, that he watched through “them little titty glasses,” and she had noticed that he had pointed them in the direction of her departing father, and then towards herself. She had, moreover, caught the fire of his eyes as he drove past, and knew that there was something in them which was not confined to “gennlemen,” but was common to most of the “young chaps” about the village who had sought her love before. At what age does a girl understand? How old must she be before she will flaunt and flirt to win masculine admiration, little recking of the cost of it? And Bina was no young girl now, but a robust and hearty young woman with the feminine instinct for all the wiles of fascination, and she was more than a match for this budding subaltern who, had he been asked, would have expressed the belief that it lay with him to be the conqueror in any village amour in which he might condescend to-engage. Bina wore a very different expression from that with which she had placidly surveyed “Miss Violet” She smiled to herself as she heard the knock on the door, and, after waiting an instant in the scullery to wash the garden mould off her face and hands, and to tidy up her hair in a becoming disorder, she tripped lightly to the threshold and opened the door wide. She made quite a pretty little “bop,” or curtsey, when she met the eyes of the young squire upon her, and, after one searching, burning look, full in the face of the young fellow, she withdrew her glance, and stood with her lids and lashes demurely lowered, looking on the ground.

She had never been more self-possessed. The look she had caught told her all she wanted to know. She had not been mistaken in her interpretation of the glance he had thrown her from the dogcart. No. This nicely-dressed, “plcasant-spoke young gennleman” had an inclination towards her.

She knew of a girl who had wheedled a quantity of “brass” (to buy pretty frocks with) out of the young squire of another village. And why should not she have a nice frock or two? She would never be able to get them out of her father or Tom. They spent so much on beer that they could only keep her in one patched frock for Sunday and rags on weekdays—for so she thought of the neat cotton print which she wore with such grace. Pah I It had only cost a few pence a yard, and every girl who saw it must know it.

“Ah, hum,” said Reggie, clearing his throat, and feeling very hot about the eyes and parched about the lips. “A hum.”

Bina said nothing, but lowered her head a little, so as to seem eagerly watching the movements of her right foot, which she was twisting about on the doorstep.

“A hum,” said Reggie again. “Wonder what the devil’s the matter with me this afternoon?” he thought. “Must have got a touch of the sun or something.”

“Why don’t he say some’at?” Bina asked herself. “He fare like a man struck wi’ the dumb aager.”

She twisted her little foot about for another minute, then raised her eyes to the young fellow’s. There was a laughing allurement in them which made him clench his jaws together.

“Did you want to see faa’er, sir?” she asked.

“A, a hum,” said Reggie. And at this the girl looked brightly up and fairly laughed.

“Why!” she cried. “I believe as you’re young squire as used to gie me cooshies (sweets) when you come arter the eels down ta mash.”

Reggie took courage from the fire of her eyes. “Yes,” he cried gaily, holding out his hand. “ And you! You must be Bina!”

“That’s right!” she cried. “I’m Bina,. but,” and she lowered her gaze for a tantalising moment, and did not take the proffered hand, “I doubt that bain’t for the likes o’ me to be a-shakin’ hands along o’ such as you, sir.”

Instinctively the girl knew that if she wished to win the boy she must hold back modestly at first. Too great freedom on her part would have awoke him to a sense of his condescension. It was by appealing to his chivalry as well as to his passions that she must attract him to her. Moreover, George Buck’s sister lived next door, in the cottage scarce hidden behind that row of trees. She must have no suspicion that there was any flirtation going on between the hall and Dam’s End Cottage, or she might tell tales not only to George but to young squire. Bina did not wish to lose the chance of matrimony with George, nor the pleasures of love which the young squire seemed to promise. It behoved her to walk circumspectly. She was a true woman, and was fully equal to the situation.

“Nonsense,” cried Reggie, his shyness giving way as the excitement of the chase arose high in him, and carried out of himself by the wonderful longing for intimacy with this girl which had come upon him. He felt at home with her already—for the moment She wished him to do so.

“Nonsense,” he said again, laughing, and seizing her right hand. “Why, we are old friends.”

“Well, that’s true enough,” said Bina, yielding her firm, strong clasp to his fingers. “But you seem somethin’ different to what you was when I see you last”

“And so do you,” cried Reggie. “Why, I should never have known you, Bina.”

“Oh, I reckon I hain’t altered much,” said the girl, looking at him till her magnetism caught him and almost swirled him out of his senses. There was something so magnificently natural about this girl, something so womanly, in its majesty of natural impulses, that the man in him answered to it as glass will answer the vibrations of a musical tone.

He felt backward, shy, again, and did not know that it was because he felt his inferiority in sexual strength. He was a man, it was true, or rather a boy who fancied himself a man of the world. But there confronted him a woman who might have been taken as a type of Mother Nature, of the teeming Earth, so vigorous, so fresh and enticing, was the mere sight of her. beauty, the mere scent of her sweet breath.

The boy gave a little gasp and devoured Bina with his eyes. She met his look frankly. “If ye want to see father,” said she, “he’ve gone down ta mash. I reckon you’ll find him somewhere down on the level.”

“Oh, it doesn’t matter this evening,” said Reggie, recovering himself. “I’ll call to-morrow afternoon at the same time if you’ll tell him. I want to ask him about the fowl on the level. Duck shooting begins in four days, and he’ll tell me if there are any about”

“I doubt you’ll find most on ’em killed a’riddy,” said the girl. “There’s one or two on ’em hardly waits for ’em to fly afore they’re arter ’em. How-somedever, I’ll ax father. Will ye hev a glass o’ hoam-brewed, sir?”

“Don’t call me sir,” cried Reggie.

“What ought I to call ye then?” asked Bina, with a look of surprise admirably counterfeited.

“Oh, call me Mr Reggie—or—or Reggie. We are old friends,” said Reggie.

“I might try Master Reggie,” said the girl, “but I couldn’t never lave out the master. That would fare like disreSpeck to the young squire.”

“Damn the young squire,” muttered Reggie to himself. A swift sense came to him that it would be well if he went then and there without waiting for the home-brewed. Why had he asked her not to call him “sir”? Of course she ought to call him “sir.” What an ass he had made of himself I And why? Why?

But while he was deliberating thus the girl had slipped back into the kitchen, and he could not go without saying good-afternoon to her. She returned presently with a beaded, foaming glass of sparkling nut-brown home-brewed in her hand. “You’ll find that’s all right,” said she, holding out the delicious draught Reggie took it. Mere politeness required him to pledge her. He did so, and she laughed at him without any of that restraint which was inferred from her unwillingness to omit the “master” from her address to him.

“Till to-morrow then,” he said.

“I’ll tell father,” said she.

This time the two hands met and clung together for a moment without any fuss about it “Good-bye,” said Reggie, thinking how lovely she was.

“Good-bye,” said Bina, criticising the refinement of his manner and attire, the delicacy of his pronunciation, the smartness of his carriage and his walk. “I’ll be sure and tell father.”

“Thank you,” said Reggie. Then he added, as he turned away, and with a glow of satisfaction in his heart, “I shall see you to-morrow.”

“Either me or father,” said Bina, laughing. “You won’t want me if father’s at home.”

And Reggie had to fight with himself to avoid returning and assuring her that he would want her at all times and seasons.

Bina went back into the house and thence calmly into the garden, where she continued her task of forking up the crop of early potatoes.

“I reckon he’ll be worth somethin’,” said she to herself. “And he’s a rare, nice-Iookin’ chap. That he is. I niver see a properer. Soft his hand feel I

Soft as soft And the little titty starsher on his lip. Right pretty that is. And he so kind and gentle!”

She gave a little sigh, and turned her attention to vigorous forking. For more than one reason did she rejoice that she seemed fair in his eyes—for she was sure of that For more than one reason she looked forward to the meeting to-morrow which she determined should, in the first place at anyrate, be between Reggie and herself alone.

She analysed her heart and her Intentions better than did the more highly educated youth. Had she been called upon to forecast the future, she would probably have got many incidents correct But she knew her powers, and that she could influence the fall of circumstance when such fall depended on the action of a youth in love.

But Reggie walked homewards feeling full of life and energy, full of high spirits and of joie de vivre. What a splendid girl Bina had become I And how simple and charming she was. He would see old Gunner about the fowl to-morrow. He wondered why he had felt that curious hesitation when first she came to him through the kitchen door. Well He must see if he could do anything for her for old sake’s sake. It would be kind of him to cheer her up. It could not be very lively for a girl like that with her old rascal of a father and her lubberly brother to look after. Nice girl, too.

He dreamt of Bina more than ever on that night; and his dreams were less vague, and more definite and pointed than they had been as yet He woke in the morning unsettled and ill at ease. How long the day would seem before it was time to go down to Gunner’s!

And yet he had no idea as to what his symptoms portended.

CHAPTER VII
IDYLLIC MOMENTS

The next afternoon, when Reggie called at Dam’s End Cottage to keep the appointment which he asked Bina to make with her father, the girl herself answered his knock at the door.

“Father won’t be long, Master Reggie,” she said, smiling with both lips and eyes. “I told him what you said and I’m aspectin’ of him in ivery min’t”

“A hum,” said Reggie, who again found himself curiously tongue-tied in the girl’s presence. “ Did, eh, did he say if he knew where there were any duck?”

“I’ll make a bet he know o’ some,” said Bina encouragingly. “But won’t you come in and set ye down? He’ve gone up to the mill for half-a-bushel o’ fresh-ground malt and half-a-pound o’ hops. Tomorrow’s my brewin’ day and tha’ss best to begin right early in the momin’.”

“Thank you,” said Reggie, walking towards the kitchen. But Bina hastily threw open the door of the parlour, and carefully wiped down the seat of an old oak elbow-chair with her apron as she ushered him into the chamber of ceremony.

“I’d much rather go into the kitchen,” said Reggie. “It’s more homelike. Do you mind?”

“Oh, I don’t mind,” the girl replied, looking at him with a dancing humour in her eyes. “But that’ll seem a pore place to the likes o’ you, sir.”

“I’ve asked you not to call me, sir,’” said Reggie. “You haven’t shaken hands yet Shake hands on your promise not to call me sir ’ any more.”

Laughing a little more broadly Bina suffered the young fellow to take her hand in his and press it. She led him into the kitchen. “Set ye down,” she said again.

Reggie sat down in one of the plain Windsor chairs which stood near the door which led past the larder into the garden at the back. It was long since he had been in old Gunner’s kitchen, and the poverty of its furniture caught his notice more than it had done in the old days. The deal table, coverless, stood along the farther wall. Three Windsor chairs and one elbowed oak settle stood about the sanded bricks of the floor, the settle being turned towards the stove where a small fire of coal and root wood was burning. The heat was modified by the draught which poured through the house through the doors, which were open both back and front A sooty saucepan and an iron kettle, which looked as though it were overgrown with dusky hanging fungi, accumulated blacks from the smoke of the fire as it swirled against them on the hob. The door leading to the tiny corkscrew staircase up to the room where Gunner and his son Tom slept was also open, and showed the wood in the centre of the stairs to be well worn. In a cupboard let into the wall the protecting panels were thrown back and the common thick crockery of the household was displayed in its rugged coarseness. A Dutch clock wagged its tail on the outer wall, and a tradesman’s almanac, three years old, flaunted the gaudy colours of a shiny copy of a horrible portrait of the Prince of Wales. A bare, sordid room, but, to Bina’s credit, spotlessly clean everywhere save about this stove and the cooking utensils.

“Father won’t be long,” Bina assured her guest The silence which followed on his taking his seat was not to the girl’s taste.

“Oh, I’m not in any hurry,” said Reggie. “By Jove! I can remember the taste of the home-made bread with the butter and brown sugar which your mother used to give me. How good it was!”

“I reckon you wouldn’t think a sight on it now,” Bina said, with a laugh. “But will ye have a glass o’ hoam-brewed. You’re right welcome.”

Reggie accepted and drank the foaming, fragrant tumbler, and the thickness of the glass did little to disguise the admirable flavour of the beer.

What should he talk about? What should she say? Each wondered how to commence a conversation which might run easily and pleasantly.

“Tha’ss a rare long time since you was home, Master Reggie,” the girl said at last, “I shouldn’t hardly ha’ knowed ye if I hadn’t ha’ seed ye drivin’ in the hall dogcart along o’ Miss Violet.”

Reggie thought that perhaps his military prospects might impress her. “I’ve been trying to pass an examination for the army,” said he. “And it was hard work, I can tell you. But it’s all right now and I shall be gazetted in a week or so.”

“What, hev ye been a-studyin’ to be a sodger?” asked Bina, with interest She had not heard the Sergeant say anything about studying, before he ’listed,” though he had made some mention about drill-books or something. She thought soldiers offered themselves to the “gover’ment,” and were either refused or accepted. Of course she understood that there was a difference between the status of Reggie and of George Buck, but she had heard the latter speak of himself as a non-commissioned officer, and she was far too ignorant and unsophisticated to be able to appreciate the distinction between the commissioned and the non-commissioned.

The mention of the army brought George vividly before her memory. She could not but compare this slim gentleman sitting in her kitchen with the sturdier manliness of the Sergeant To many women the physical advantages of the non-commissioned officer might have seemed superior to those of Reggie. But Bina herself was a fine, strapping wench. And fine women often prefer delicacy and wiriness to “beef.”

Besides, although Reggie seemed a bit boyish and nervous, he would, she thought, prove less of a laggard in love than George had been. But though the girl was making a mental comparison it was almost unconscious. She liked the thought that this young “gennleman” was attracted by her. She felt as though he were fated to provide her with some of the gaiety of life of which she had as yet enjoyed but little, but for which she longed with a great longing.

Gradually the nervousness wore off the boy and girl, and they had been chatting pleasantly and gaily enough for some minutes when the arrival of old Gunner (who had been carefully warned by his thoughtful daughter not to be too early for the appointment lest he should weary of waiting and repair, incontinently to the Bushel o’ Malt) interrupted them, and brought forward the topic of duck shooting—a subject on which Gunner rarely allowed anyone to discourse until he had given forth all his mighty store of marsh lore.

Reggie found it necessary to make many appointments with the old marshman; and where so convenient a meeting-place as Dam’s End Cottage? It was, of course, nothing but coincidence that he often arrived at the rendezvous fifteen minutes or so before the time fixed, and it was due to Bina, out of mere politeness, to accept her ofTer of hospitality pending Gunner’s appearance. By the first of August there was little restraint left in their mutual relations. They talked and laughed together as freely and easily as if they had been intimate for years. But as yet no word of love had been spoken between them. The nearest approach to love-making had been chaff concerning the lovers whom Bina might have had. But not a word was ever said about George Buck. Reggie had never heard of him, and Bina had no mind to mention his name. His letters came to her regularly. But she kept them to herself, and though the indiscretion of the village postman made more than one of her friends inquisitive as to the identity of her correspondent (“in furrin parts an’ all!”) she grew more averse every day from breathing one syllable of the understanding on which poor George had pinned his heart and his faith. In reality George’s letters rather bored the girl. They had done so even before the return of the young squire. He wrote a small, neat hand, difficult for Bina’s eyes to peruse. She could manage “print” or copy-book writing (in large, round, characterless, childish lines and curves), but the rapid cursive hand which the soldier wrote made first her eyes ache and then her head, till she said, more than once, “Blarm the man! Why do he want to keep on a-writin’ all this here nonsense? I can’t make head or tail on it! And that do worry me to bev to answer ’em.” She could understand the expressed wish that the letter should reach her as well as it left George at the time of writing. That was of course all proper, and the right sort of thing to put in a letter. But all the news of Natal, the excitement at the peril of approaching war, the names of Kruger and his parasites, were meaningless to her. His self-restraint had inclined her to think him a poor sort of man in a way, too bloodless for a girl of her physique and tastes. And the letters, in which poor George poured out his heart, in which he spoke of possible war, of his chances of winning a commission, of the tyranny of the Transvaal Boers, of someone named Steyn and some place called the Orange Free State (which the girl understood to mean some elysium where oranges could be had “free”), bored her intensely. She found the task of replying to them grow intolerably hard, and the scrawled lines which reached the Sergeant from Hockingham became less and less and rarer and rarer. He rarely wrote to his sister. Neither she nor her husband Bob was “a scholard,” and he did not like the idea of his letters being hawked about for some less illiterate villager to read. Not a word reached him as to the young squire. He wrote on, hoping and believing that Bina was as true in heart as he himself. Well, he was happy in his belief.

And Bina was growing more and more happy in the society of Reggie. Though there was no actual love-making as yet, they would skirt round the subject in a tantalising way which was perhaps more dangerous to both of them than a declaration would have been. Reggie never thought of the direction in which he was drifting. He enjoyed the minutes spent with Bina while he waited for her father. Tom was taking a harvest and did not return home from early morning to dusk. Old Gunner may have had some suspicion as to what young squire “wuz arter along o’ his darter,” but the-old fellow belonged to the old marsh school. Reggie kept him well supplied with money for beer, and with better tobacco than could be bought in the village, and the old fellow was content The “gal was old enow to know har owan mind, and strong enow to see noobardy didn’t interfare along o’ har if she di’n,‘t waant ’em tew.” It was not for him to interfere on his part, besides, young squire was a free-handed gentleman.

For the news of the young fellow’s success had been confirmed by the published lists, and he had applied for a commission in the Scarlet Lancers and expected to be gazetted any day. The old squire was proud of his son. Fathers are always more proud of a reformed prodigal than of a consistently virtuous scion of their house. (This may lead to anthropomorphic and theological inferences, but these have nothing to do with the course of this story, and the reader is requested to leave ‘em alone.)

The result was that Reggie was kept well off in pocket money, and did not stint Gunner of what his soul delighted in. He was a favourite at Dam’s End Cottage.

“Bina,” said he one day, when the two were sitting in the cottage kitchen waiting for Gunner’s arrival, “I saw Rabbits Bexfield look very hard at you the other day. I suppose you’ve been breaking his heart Eh?”

Bina pretended indignation, but laughed at him. And now there was enough provocation in her eyes for ten women. Curiously enough, she had not attempted to lead Reggie to the point as she had tried to wake up George Buck from his austerity. Though she felt no restraint in the boy’s presence, she found that she was- becoming more shy than he. Perhaps the secret was that her heart was at last really touched. In the case of George she had longed to win him, to satisfy her pride, to keep him from any other village girl, because he was the smartest eligible suitor she had seen; but there was something different in her feeling for Reggie. Something which inclined her to be the one to yield, to follow, but not to take the initiative. She could not keep her heart from the treachery of her eyes. But though she looked at Reggie with an expression easy enough to understand, she never made any advances to him. She was waiting, she scarce knew for what. But if she had been able to analyse herself she would have known that she would follow to his call whithersoever he might summon her.

Reggie was still more blinded to the meaning of his delight in the beauty, the splendid health, of the girl. And there was less excuse for him. Had he dared to question himself, he must have admitted that there was only one probable end to his intimacy with Bina; but he carefully refrained from asking himself uncomfortable questions. He lived in the moment and enjoyed it He did not bring himself to think if he would take what was his to take when the time came—as it was sure to come.

‘‘Don’t ye talk so silly,” said Bina, in reply to his raillery. “Rabbits is nothin’ to me, and you know it ’Tain’t kind on ye, Master Reggie, to put the grin on to me like that I”

The little minx carried her apron to her eyes, and looked out slyly between her fingers through its coarse fabric. There was a hole just where it was wanted to enable her to see through and she knew it “Oh, Bina,” cried Reggie, jumping up and taking her hand, “I didn’t mean to be nasty. You know I didn’t. Forgive me, won’t you, my little friend?”

Bina’s face peeped out again, and the mischievous charm of it made the lad’s heart strings vibrate.

“No, I know ye didn’t,” said she. “I’m a silly gal. Don’t pay no regard to me.”

“Oh, do forgive me,” begged Reggie, still holding her hand.

“What do that signify to you whether such as me forgives a gentleman like you or not?” asked Bina, more saucily than sadly. “I reckon you bemean yourself a-axin me to forgive ye.”

“I wouldn’t hurt your feelings for anything,” said Reggie with more impressiveness than he had hitherto shown in his association with her.

“Then say you know he’s nothin’ to me,” said Bina.

“Of course,” said Reggie hotly. “I should be very angry if I thought he was.”

Bina’s heart leapt at the words. She thought she might treat herself to just a little more indulgence.

“Well I never I” she cried. “What differ could it make to you?”

“Oh, I should not like to think you could throw yourself away on a man like that,” said Reggie earnestly. “You are too good for a lumbering labourer.”

“He’s rare an’ steady,” said Bina. “He’s allust in work.”

“But you don’t think anything about him, do you?” said Reggie.

“O’ course I don’t,” replied the girl, and there was something very like tenderness in her voice. With a gesture of abandonment she again gave her hand to Reggie. “There’s my hand on it,” said she.

Reggie took the hand. Alas I It was a little rough. But it was finely shaped, and the pressure of its fingers was very pleasant to him.

“Ah dear!” sighed Bina, looking down at her feet and twisting her toes about as she had done on the occasion of their first meeting after his return. “I doubt there’s some pratty young lady you think a lot more on than I do of any chap in these parts.”

“I’ll swear there’s not a girl I know who can hold a candle to—t-” Reggie began, but stopped himself for the moment. After all, though, why should he not tell the truth? There was not a lady of his acquaintance whom he thought to be so superb a girl as the one before him. Bina was careful to keep her speech as free as possible from the vernacular when Reggie was with her. And her voice was rich, soft, and low, a voice that would have made most men forgive a breadth of dialect which she never approached in her most excited moments.

“To?” asked Bina, lifting her eyes, half sadly, half alluringly to his.

“To you,” he cried.

“Why,” objected the girl, who was thrilled with the delight of the atmosphere of love which thickened at every rejoinder. “Why, I’m only a pore] mashman’s gaL Tha’ss too bad of ye to put the grin on to me agin. I don’t half like it I don’t”

She turned her head and shoulders away, but not so far but that she could glance back over her noble neck.

“I’ll swear I mean every word I say,” cried Reggie heatedly. “If you wait for me to marry one of the affected idiots or dull, frumpish cuckoos one meets in society you’ll have to wait a long time, Bina. No. I think no more of any of them than you do of Rabbits.”

“Ah, well,” said Bina, turning round, her face beaming. “I’m glad you don’t look down on me like dirt”

And at this juncture old Gunner appeared, and the development of the idyll was necessarily postponed.

CHAPTER VIII
HARVEST HOME

Harvest was early and there was every prospect of all the corn, down to the last forkful of barley, being stacked and even thatched by the third week in August Reggie’s birthday fell on the 16th, and, as there had been no formal rejoicings on his coming of age, the squire made up his mind that he would show his content with his son by giving such a harvest supper to all his tenants and labourers as had not been seen for years of these degenerate times. Reggie entered heartily into the arrangements. He consulted Gunner for precedents of long-spread and long-eaten feasts when the harvest home was a recognised Daneshire institution. Incidentally, of course, he saw Bina when he sought her father at Dam’s End Cottage, but no one at the hall, not even his sister, Violet, had any suspicion that the marsh-man’s residence held any other attraction for the young squire than himself and his tales of marsh sport and marsh lore.

The great home barn at the hall was cleaned and scoured. The festoons of cobwebs hanging from its mighty cross joists were dissipated and destroyed. Bunting was hung on the dingy walls, pennants streamed down from the worm-eaten rafters, trestles made their appearance in the mighty body of the building. The Hockingham butcher whispered rumours of mighty joints, of a five-year-old blackfaced Daneshire wether fatting up in the park for the knife, of a plump fat buck which the deer-keeper had been ordered to keep his eye on. And in the stubbles the green Michaelmas geese began to have more interest than usual for the villagers. In any ordinary year the people of Hockingham might only think of the succulent Daneshire dainty as a thing to be cared for and fatted for Herringhaven market, a feast for others, and a mere source of profit for themselves. But this year it was known that some of the squire’s finest young Emdens would smoke on the boards.

There was to be music from Herringhaven after the supper was eaten, and Jack Pope, the little handy man at the Bushel o’ Malt, was sure to take his melodeon to the supper. The smaller barm, with a better floor than the huge old granary, was being prepared as a ballroom.

Before the general invitations had been issued, Reggie found Bin a alone one afternoon. The girl did not respond to his greeting as readily as usual. She hung back, and there were signs of disturbance on her cheeks, little marks of tears, a limpid redness in her eyes.

“Why, Bina,” said Reggie, “what’s the matter? I want you to be as jolly as ever you can, for I’m going to ask you a favour. Will you promise to dance at least two dances with me on the night of the supper?”

Bina looked up at him and fairly burst into tears. “Oh, go along with ye, do!” she cried. “Tain’t nothin’. I shall fare all right in a min’t or two if you’ll leave me alone.”

“I won’t leave you like this,” said Reggie, going close up to the girl and placing his hand on her shoulder. He could feel her body shaken by sobs and his heart fell sick within him.

“Tell me,” he begged, “tell me, Bina, what is the matter. Can’t I do anything? I can’t bear to see you cry. Come, don’t cry any more. I came down hoping you’d be pleased to hear about the dancing after the supper, I shall look forward to dancing with you, I know that”

“That’s just it,” sobbed Bina. “I ha’ heard so much about it all, and I should so love to be there! And now I can’t, I can’t”

“Can’t come to my birthday supper?” cried Reggie. “Whyever not? My dear girl, you must come. I don’t think there would have been any dancing but for you. I know I should not have suggested it if I had not made sure that you would be pleased.”

“All the other gals will go!” Bina continued to moan. “And they’ll wholly put the grin on to me ’cos I sha’n’t be there.”

“But you shall be there!” cried Reggie. “I’ll swear there shall be no dancing if you are not there. What is it, Bina? Doesn’t your father wish you to go?”

“Oh, he don’t mind if I go or stay,” wept the girl. “But I hain’t got any clothes fit to go in. I can’t go and make a scarecrow of myself in the old rags as is all I ha’ got I have axed Tom if he could spare me a pound o’ his harvest money, but he say as he owe such a lot o’ brass at the Bushel that he can’t spare a farden. I won’t go and shame myself. I won’t I won’t. I’d rather not go than make a duzzy silly of myself. And I did so wish to go. I heard as you’d wear your sodger’s clothes and all. I should ha’ liked to ha’ seed ye.”

“But, my dear girl,” cried Reggie, with his hand searching in his pockets. “Why on earth didn’t you speak to me before. Of course you must look the smartest girl in the village. I should be very unhappy if you didn’t go in a pretty frock. See. Here are five pounds. I don’t know a bit how much girls’ clothes cost But if that’s not enough, you must let me know. Why, my dear girl, whyever didn’t you tell me before. Aren’t we friends?”

The words “No! We’re not!” rose to Bina’s lips, but she checked them. She would wait her time. She had half hoped that Reggie would offer to help her in her difficulty. But five pounds I It was such a sum as she had never dreamed of.

“Oh, Master Reggie!’’ she cried. “Oh, Reggie! How kind of you! But it won’t cost half that money. Give me two pounds and that’ll be a plenty, and then I shall be better dressed than any other village gal.” “No, no,” cried Reggie. “I wish you to have it in memory of my birthday. Perhaps I sha’n’t spend another birthday at home. I expect to get my commission every day, and there is talk of war. Who knows if I may ever see another birthday here?”

A cold breath of air struck through the room and made the girl shiver. She held her hand up as though to ward off a blow—it was to guard Reggie from impending misfortune.

“Don’t ye talk like that,” she cried. “Old Patty Willers says that’s no good hollerin’ for misfortun’. Don’t ye ever ax ill to come anigh ye. To call for the daavil give the daavil his chance. O’ course you’ll come into your own and be squire. Don’t ye talk like that”

“Why, Binal” cried Reggie. “You are not superstitious l Are you?

“Ah I” said the girl seriously, “there’s a deal as you gentry don’t understand. There’s a deal o’ life and life’s happenings as old Patty Willers could teach ye. Mostly we don’t trouble to warn the gentry. They call us superstitious fools. But I won’t ha’e you talkin’ rash and darin’ like that without a word agin it.”

“Do you really think a man can call down misfortune on himself by talking about it?” asked Reggie “Now do ha’ done,” said Bina earnestly. “An’ let me thank ye agin for your prasant. It’s right good and kind of ye to think of a pore gal like me. I don’t know how to thank ye t I’d do anything for ye, I would. Anything.”

She looked at him as she emphasised the last word.

Would the time come before he left Hockingham when he should ask her for something she could give, something she knew now that she could not refuse, did not wish to refuse, him?

Reggie felt awkward. He knew that he had been guilty of an indiscreet action. If it got to be known that he had given the girl five pounds only one construction would be put upon his gift The thought made him think suddenly of the relations between him and Bina. What did he mean? What did he wish? Was she more to him than she ought to be? Of course he knew that she was, and that he had been wooing her, though he had spoken no word of love. Well, he would soon be leaving home, and she was a dear girl; it was delightful to talk to her, to be with her. She was so fresh, so ingenuous, so breezy and wholesome. He would soon be away, probably out of England. Of course he would do her no harm. If she missed him a bit for a time, well, he thought, he would miss her too. No harm. No harm. Of course he would not harm her for the world. It had been different with girls he had known in town. They got no more than they asked for. But this marsh blossom—of course he would not pluck it.

And yet how sweet she was. How would it feel to have her in his arms, her mouth beneath his, her lips clinging to his. The blood flushed into his cheeks as he thought of this in her presence. For an instant his passion swelled and he took a quick step forward. But he pulled himself together. No. He could not answer for himself if he went further.

He would stop at the point he had already reached. He would try to give her a pleasant evening on the night of the supper. But he would not do anything which might give him a sore heart when he thought of her in future days.

And Bina knew as well as he, perhaps better, all that was passing in his heart and mind. She saw the flush rise to his cheeks, and her own pulses quickened at the sight. When he made the quick step forward she gave a little gasp. Had the time come? Was he to tell her that he loved her? Oh yes. She knew he loved her, if he did not. And, oh! how she loved him. Of course nothing could come of it The marshman’s daughter could not marry the young squire. But love recks little of results. Bina knew that she longed for him. What harm in giving love his way? She could marry afterwards if necessary. It was the ordinary procedure of nine tenths of the village girls.

“Then you’ll try to enjoy yourself on the night of the supper?” said Reggie, stifling the consciousness of passion which had come upon him. “And you’ll dance with me?”

Bina, on her part, saw that she must wait She looked him full in the face, and the signs of weeping made the brightness of her look, the serene selfsurrender of her expression, the more attractive.

“Of course I’ll do whatever you tell me,” she said.

Reggie gave a gulp. He could not face the absolute abandonment of self which he recognised in her every look, her every gesture, her every pose.

He took the advice of Mephistopheles to “Henry” and fled temptation.

“You must be sure to be in good time,” he said, as he took up his hat. “I’ll see places are kept for you and your father and brother. And—and- Oh! I must be off.”

He shook hands with her hurriedly, and dashed out.

“’Gad!” he said to himself. “In another minute I should have had my arms round her. What an ass I’ve been not to see it was bound to come. Well, I sha’n’t have a chance of meeting her alone again before the supper, and it’s just as well. I must cool off there, much as I shall miss her. If she’d got a lover it would not be so hard for me. But I know she’s fond of me. I’d take my oath on it. And, and, yes, by Jupiter I I was getting most absurdly fond of her—fond of old Gunner’s daughter. Well! I am damned!”

He kept to his decision and did not visit at Dam’s End Cottage before the night of the harvest supper. The excitement of assisting in the arrangements, of helping Violet to decorate the barns, of superintending the limewashing of the walls of the dancing-room, and the hanging festoons of bunting and drapery to prevent any dropping of seeds or rubbish through the chinks of the roughly boarded attic above the dancing and supping rooms, as well as a pleasant sense of importance caused by the consciousness that he was the hero of the function, kept him amnsed.

He could not keep his mind entirely from Bina in the quiet of the night. And his dreams recked little of his determination to “cool off.” More than once he woke with pulses beating, and with the taste of lips which he had never pressed upon his mouth. But he did not go on to the dam or “ down to mash” or anywhere where he might chance to meet the girl, and when he went up to his room to get ready for his share in the festivities of the night he metaphorically patted himself on the back for his resolution. It was only human nature in him that made him think he would be justified in “treating resolution” that night He would dance with the girl and do his best to make the evening memorable to her. Then he would put her out of his life for ever. He thanked God he had had the strength of mind to pull up before it was too late.

Owing to the heat he had decided to wear flannels and the Sandhurst tennis blazer. He meant to do a lot of the waiting and to keep things lively. He knew, moreover, that flannels and a blazer suited his style of manly beauty extremely well He felt kindly towards all the village. Perhaps there was a quaint flavour of patronage in his thoughts of the rustic guests in the bulk. But suddenly a vision of Bina rose before his imaginative sight He felt no condescension towards her. As he gave his hair a final smooth with the pair of brushes he wondered to what use she had put the money he had pressed upon her. Dear girl! He hoped she would enjoy herself. She would know in after years that had loved her so well he only could leave her.

Humming Theodore Marzial’s setting of Mrs Browning’s words he ran lightly down to see if Violet and his father and mother were ready. Violet was awaiting him in the hall, and arm in arm the two went out, laughing and chatting merrily, to see if the barn was in proper order for the reception of the first of the visitors.

In the soft dusk of a cloudy August sunset the brother and sister could see groups of men and women standing awkwardly about the park, waiting till they should be in sufficient force to gain courage from their numbers to advance to the shafts and blurs of light which poured out of the door and open wall spaces of the barn.

“What is it, dear?” asked Violet, as she felt her brother start.

Reggie had caught a glimpse of a figure which he thought he recognised. But it seemed even daintier . than in his recollection. Ah, the new frock! What would she look like?

“Nothing,” said he. “Come, let’s get the great bell. I’ll ring. Everything seems to be ready.”

He ran and fetched an old railway station bell which he had obtained for the occasion, and in a few moments its reverberations clanged out across the park and brought the groups of peasants lurching and lumbering up.

The squire and his wife advanced out of the hall and took their stand a little pompously against the great doors of the barn. There they welcomed each guest until the sense of shy awkwardness which was almost universal amongst the villagers communicated itself to the local magnates so that they withdrew, leaving the bailiff and housekeeper to act as supports to Reggie and Violet, both of whom were fully occupied in ushering guests to the seats.

Presently the band from Herringhaven struck up “The Roast Beef of old England.” The harvest supper had begun.

CHAPTER IX
FROM FEAST TO DANCE

There was no special feature about the harvest supper which rendered it worthy of particular description. The usual mighty rounds of boiled beef, of roast beef, the geese, the legs of mutton, the pies and the tarts came on in their seasons and disappeared in disorder. A “fat haunch of a buck to eat” might have made the feast notable if it had been appreciated by the feasters. But though it was regarded with considerable curiosity, plain beef, mutton, and goose were good enough for the villagers, and, when once the discomfort of shyness had worn off, and the awkwardness of Sunday clothes had been forgotten under the influence of generous mugs of well-malted beer, men and women fell to with a will, and the great barn was filled with the sound of champing jaws, of rattling cutlery, clinking crockery, tinkling glass, cries for a bit “moor o’ that biled round,” or, “gi’e’s a slice o’ that theer roost beef, some’at as I can chow, not all slithery shaavin’s like.” Reggie armed himself with a two-gallon beer jug which he refilled as soon as it was empty, and his progress round the long trestle tables was greeted with cries of approbation and laughter. Violet helped to serve for a time, but the boisterous coarseness of the animal enjoyment was too much for her, and she withdrew for a while to the door end of the barn, whence she watched the hall servants hurrying about with huge helpings of provender. When the plum puddings came in, however, Violet carried a plate or two to some of the older women of the village whom she knew. But if she did not intermix with the majority of the guests she bethought herself much of her ignorance of these people, these peasants who were the vassals of her father almost as much as their forebears had been two centuries ago. There was a virility and a natural frankness about the men which interested her. The women seemed less attractive to the girl, who did not realise that these hearty, rubicund matrons, these plump, muscular girls, were fitting representatives of their sex to breed up strong men of the old marsh blood.

The rude animalism of the scene, lurid with flaring oil lamps and torches, touched some nerve in the girl’s brain which was becoming atrophied from disuse. It was the nerve of humanity, the nerve which sends a vibration of communion, of physical sympathy, between the cultured and the Philistine, between the gentry and the peasantry, between the urban and the bucolic, the nerve that bids us all remember that we are “The Same Clay.” Her eyes grew large with interest Why, what histories must there be going on beneath the very shadow of the hall of which she, the squire’s daughter, knew nothing. She had been kept too much apart from these people. She, who stood there as the young mistress of the hall, knew nothing of the hopes and fears, the joys and sorrows of all these human entities which depended more or less on the goodwill and the prosperity of the squire. She had never looked so beautiful as then, as she stood in the shadow of the door at the end of the great barn, her face turned towards the feasters, her eyes glowing at them with a new fire, her lips just parted to permit her little panting breaths of wonder and curiosity to join with the reek of human breath which came from the tables with a swirl to the draught of the doorway. And, in the midst of her new-found interest, the scent of the peasantry, of the men and women of the land, heated with much eating and drinking, sweltering in the hot night with the closeness of mutual proximity, with the confinement of the Sunday clothes, struck full upon her nostrils, and turned her interest to nausea. She gave a gasping shudder and passed quickly out into the sweet soft air, into the cool dusk of night, where the crescent glimmer of a rising moon low down beneath the screen of trees afforded the relief of light and shade to her eyes. She stood an instant against the outer walls of the barn and listened to the tuneless clamour of the noise within. Then she turned her steps in the direction of the hall, whither her father and mother had long departed, and did not again approach the scene of the festivities which were becoming more and more uproarious.

But those few minutes during which she had stood by the door of the barn, and watched her fellow-creatures as they were without the glamour of such delicacy as gentle blood and higher education can give, had taught her a lesson which she brooded over, and which she was long in forgetting, if indeed she ever entirely forgot it.

Meanwhile, within the barn, the plum puddings had been cleared away, but the coverings had been left upon the long trestle tables so as to hide the joins of the boards where they were temporarily fixed. Beer jugs were placed at frequent intervals so that everyone might help himself or herself. “Pop” was not wanting for such weak vessels of modernity as feared the nut-brown ale, and the pleasant gleam of lemonade—the pretty, greenish liquor—and the sheen of the yellow peel sparkled here and there.

It had been arranged among the more responsible of the tenants that Elliot Bacon, a small tenant farmer, should propose the heajth of the young squire. But there was more than one marshman present utterly regardless of convention, and of these old Gunner was the strongest character. He had well eaten and well drunken, and was warmed to the pitch of oratory. Moreover, had he not seen more of the young squire than any other of the tenants. Ha<j not Master Reggie chosen him above all others to initiate him afresh into the mysteries of fowl and fish, drain and dyke, peat and ooze, cloud and shine, in a word, into the secrets of the lore of the mighty marsh?

“Set ye down, faa’er, do,” said Bina, pulling at the coat tails of her sire, who was evincing an intention of rising to his feet “Set down, ye ole fule,” said his dutiful son Tom, on his other side.

But the old man blandly waved them aside. “Yew doan’t knoo narthen,” said he.

He raised his eyes and looked round the long tables? Then he smote upon the boards with his clenched fist till the trestles rocked and there was imminent danger of a collapse.

“Hark ye hare, bors,” said Gunner.

There were a few shouts of “Set down, set down. Lave’t ta Farmer Baacon,” none of which had the slight-est effect on Gunner; but the more popular cry was “Goo ahid, ole Gunner. Talk tew’em. Leremhae’t” “I bain’t much of a one ta palaver,” said Gunner, waving the stem of his smoking clay pipe to and fro in complicated involutions, “but what I ha’ got ta say I can say plain enow for anybardy ta onnerstan’. Now, whew o’ us uns fust see our young maaster? Whew o’ us uns did our young maaster goo tew fust when he wanted some un ta l’arn him about the mash? Wha, ole Gunner Reeve! Tha’ss whew! And he couldn’t ha’ gorn ta noobardy better, though I dew say soo my owan self.”

“Tha’ss right, Gunner, bor. Tha’ss right Dee yew holler yar owan feesh. Goo yew on.”

“Lor’!” said Gunner, contemptuously, “what a pore lot o’ duzzy fules yew be a-hollerin’. Let th’ ole man hev his say an’ then yew can blether arterwards if ye want tew.”

The bailiff, a stout, rather pompous man, was seen to begin to work round in Gunner’s direction, a shocked and pained expression on his fat, cleanshaven face. But the young squire intercepted him. He would not have had Gunner stopped or interfered with for worlds.

Gunner refreshed himself from the mug which stood by his hand, reached out for a neighbouring jug, and refilled his measure. Then he continued:

“Now, as I ha’ said afore, I bain’t much of a chap for palaver,” he rolled out,“but what I dew know I dew know, an’ what I doan’t I doan’t make noo pre-tance ta know.”

“Oh, father,” whispered Bina, “do ha’ done.”

The poor girl feared lest her father was shaming her in the eyes of the young squire. She had bought herself a plain white muslin frock, but of a better-class muslin than was often seen in the village, a softer and silkier stuff, which hung in graceful folds and showed the bold and lovely lines of her figure. Blue ribbons and other trimmings brightened the plainness of the white, and no London débutaute could have presented a more attractive appearance than this village girl. She made many a man’s mouth water, so appetising was she, as she sat beside her father, eating but little. For all her thoughts were fixed on the dance which was to follow the supper and on what Reggie thought of her appearance. She had greeted the removal of the eatables with relief and was awaiting the adjournment to the dancing-room with eagerness. Reggie had had no chance of speaking to her as yet, and though she could comfort her eyes by the sight of him, and admire the kindly and hearty manner in which he made himself useful (serving and joking, pouring out the foaming beer, and handing it with a laugh), yet her heart yearned for speech with him, for propinquity with him, for some thought, some idea shared with him, and with him alone. Why would not her father cease to make himself ridiculous. Then perhaps there would be dancing.

“Oh, do ha’ done,” she implored.

“Hode yar n’ise, gal,” muttered Gunner. Then be continued his speech.

“I reckon,” he said, “as noobardy oan’t say ‘as I bain’t a mashman. What I doan’t know about the mash bain’t a sight! But this I’ll tall ye all plain an’ straight. Theer bain’t much as I know as our young master doan’t know tew. I niver see a body l’am so quick. An’ shute! Well theer, bors, I reckon he could shute the hid ofT o’ any o’ us mashmen. An’ bain’t he a fine set-up young gennle-man? Ah, an’ as pl’asant spooken as iver I see. An’ hain’t he gi’en us all good bare an’ wittles? Hain’t ivery one on us had as much as we could dew wi’, an’ if we hain’t bain’t theer a planty o’ jugs o’ good bare a-stannin’ round the table now. Wery well then. Then what is our pl’asure an’ our duty ta dew? So, bors, git up, all on ye, an’ see yar mugs be full Maaster Reggie, hare’s tee ye, sir! hare’s tee ye! Our bes’ respecks! May ye live long an’ lave a son behind ye as proper as yarself.”

The old fellow reached across the table to Reggie who was standing on the farther side thoroughly enjoying the speech. “He hain’t got no mucky’ pride!” cried old Gunner. “He’ll drink along o’ a pore man as sune as along of a king. Hold yew on till he ha’ done it”

The guests, now all on their feet, paused in lifting their mugs or glasses to their mouths. Reggie flushed a little as he took the mug which Gunner proffered him. He knew he could not offer a more mortal insult than to refuse the beaker. He held it to his lips and drank an honest draught. The heat of the room had parched him, and he had not thought to quench his thirst before. He lifted the bottom of the pint mug and fairly emptied it at a draught. Then he reached out and took a jug from the table, and frothed up another pint which he held out to old Gunner, who stood, a smile of admiring affection, with his hand held out to demand attention.

“What did I tall ye?” cried the old marshman. “Can any one on ye take off a pint better’n that? Now, bors, all together. Master Reggie, our bes’ respecks!”

Bina held the glass, which, as a woman, she drank from instead of a mug, and raised her eyes bravely to Reggie. What she saw in his look made her tremble. A shudder, half delicious, half an agony, quivered through her limbs.

The toast was drunk with hearty stamping of feet, with cries of “My bes’ respecks,” and with muttered complaints from Farmer Elliot Bacon that his duty should have been taken upon himself by another. But the peasants cared little who made the speech as long as it was made and done with so that they could resort to pure enjoyment again, unworried by any “serciety etiquetty” or such nonsense. An attempt to strike up “For he’s a jolly good fellow” failed by reason of the diversity of keys which were tried. Reggie spoke a few words of thanks, and referred to the dancing which was to be held in the other barn.

Then he left the barn and went up to the hall, where he drank the greater part of a bottle of Pommery in his own honour and in honour of the drought which his bustling about in the barn had caused. His father and mother were pleased to see how much interest he seemed to take in the people . who would in all likelihood one day be under his tutelage. They did not attempt to restrain him when he spoke of going to see how the dancing progressed. But Violet declined to venture again. What she had experienced already had furnished her with sufficient food for thought without the necessity for her to enter the atmosphere of rustic revelry again.

By the time that Reggie got back to the barn it was half empty, and from the dancing-room sounds of squeaking music pierced the night Reggie was too eager to find Bina to think much of the music The girl was still sitting where he left her. Old Gunner was peacefully smoking and drinking, and yarning with an old crony or two. Tom Reeve had departed, and was either in the dancing-room or had gone home.

Most of the younger women had left the supper barn, but there were a few matrons remaining who preferred the reek of the meats and tobacco to the noise of the dancing. These chuckled when they saw the young squire bend over Bina, and speak to her. Most of the women had done their duty to the squire’s beer and the barrel had been specially brewed with twice the usual allowance of malt, so that it was more heady than the beer they were accustomed to. They were frank with each other. Not in the least censorious, but ready to criticise life from the common-sense point of view, to take it as it was with laughter, and to be bound by no foolish restrictions of convention or otherwise.

If Bina were to “have a bit of fun” with the young squire there was not a woman present who would blame her in her heart She might feel envious of the girl’s luck. But whatever she suspected she would never really reproach her with it, and would certainly never betray her suspicions to any of the “Hall” people or to George Buck, if ever he came home.

The secret of the letters from “furrin parts” had been penetrated, and it was generally understood that die Sergeant was Bina’s “young man.” But that bound Bina to little, for no village woman would be so disloyal as to give the girl away to her sweetheart even if she were a little indiscreet (and “a little indiscreet” would cover a good deal in Hockingham) with the young squire or any other man.,

While Reggie bent over Bina, with a pulse beating quickly, with a heart full of the chivalry of a boy’s love, with the innocence of a trust in his self-restraint which was far from being justified, and while Bina looked up at him, longing for him, yearning for his kisses, really loving him as much as it was in her nature to love anyone, wondering if the time she lived for was coming at last, the experienced village matrons were laughing and talking together, going right to the heart of the thing at once.

“Pretty dears,” said Mrs Oldboy, the wife of the landlord of the Bushel o’ Malt “Lor’, Susan, doan’t garp at ’em. Gi’ em a chance ta hev a bit o’ fun if they goo out togither. There hain’t been no rain o’ late an’ tha’ss a beautiful night for coortin’. Why, young squire be allust agoin’ ta Dam’s End Cottage I Arter ole Gunner, I rackon! Eh? Well, well. Wc can oony be young but once. Wish ’em luck, say I. Wish ’em luck.”

“He! he! he!” laughed the woman addressed as Susan, who had come as a housekeeper to a labouring man (a widower with two children), in answer to an advertisement in The Daneshire Press, and who had recently been heard to express her anxiety on account of the cadaverous body of the labourer. “Well, I’m agreeable, I’m sure I They make a pretty couple, don’t they? No, my dare, I doan’t want to watch ’em, bless ’em. I wuz young myself oncet”

“Bina,” whispered Reggie, “will you come with me? You know you promised me a dance or two.”

“Yes,” murmured Bina, “I’ll go anywhere wi’ ye. How d’ye like my frock?”

“You darling,” he whispered, unable to refrain from the endearing epithet, “I couldn’t notice the frock, I only had eyes for you I Bina, I don’t believe yoa’ve any idea how pretty you are I”

Bina had risen from the bench and was standing beside him, her face upraised, with a glory of love shining on the man from her superb eyes.

Reggie had not intended to show his love for the girl if he could help it But the deep draught of rather strong ale, followed by the Pommery, had scarce left him master of himself. He felt all aglow with tenderness for this lovely vision of femininity. He had a difficulty in restraining himself from throwing his arms about her then and there, and kissing her in the sight of all the people.

He was indeed so exalted that he even forgot to fear what might happen if he gave his passion way.

And Bina? She had felt his absence. She had worried because he had not been to see her for so long. Had he wearied of her? Nol The light in his eyes, the touch of his hand told her that it was far from being so. She had been busy about her frock; and the buying and making of the frock, of the trinkets she wore, had kept her mind fixed on the quarter from whence came the means which enabled her to make herself so fine.

Old Gunner had not troubled to ask her where she had obtained “the brass.” So long as she did not come upon his pocket he was happy. He had a shrewd suspicion that the young squire might have had something to do with it. But if he had what did it matter? The gal was old enough to look after herself.

The matrons looked on the idyll before them with coarse understanding, with laughs and jokes, and old Gunner saw the practical side of the love affair, if love affair there were. Perhaps the only people who were blind, whose eyes were closed by the radiance of young love, were Reggie and Bina. Reggie’s passion was not the mere animal longing of a middle-aged man. Most young men of two or three and twenty have a spirit of chivalry in them which does not prevent them from going to practical lengths, but which makes the dragon of desire seem fairer to them. If Reggie and Bina could have openly thought and said “this love-making will end in -”—in what it probably would end in—they would have been revolted, so speciously does Love cloak his resemblance to the god Pan by pretty subterfuge of purity. But in their hearts and minds was nothing but a great mutual tenderness, a great mutual desire. How fair a girl was Bina, how splendid a young fellow was Reggie! And this magnificent young prince loved her. She knew it! And this beautiful girl, with a refinement which was the more entrancing because of its utter lack of culture, loved him! Was his to take! He knew it I Oh, Cupid! How their hearts beat How the oil flares blazing against the sombre background were transformed to the fairy lights of Cyprus to the sight of the lovers. Was ever a night so fair? Did ever harvest moon shine over the trees so ruddy or so golden, so warm or so sympathetic as yon red disc?

“Oh, Reggie!” sighed Bina.

As innocently as a couple of toddling babies they clung to each other as they left the barn and went towards the dancing place.

“Pretty dares!” chuckled Mrs Oldboy,who had never suffered from the illusions of love.

And who had thus doubtless lost half the delights of the God. For if it is a stale aphorism that the pleasures of anticipation are greater than those of attainment, it is even more true that the unconscious ecstasy of love has a delicacy, an indefinable refinement of delight, which can never be experienced when once the glamour of self-deception, of spurious purity, of nerve-racking uncertainty, of the ignorance of the issue of the chase, are rendered dreams of the past by the cold agent Experience, and our past will no longer leave us in doubt about our future. Alas! how many of us look back on innocent love episodes with regret We forget that the pseudo chivalry of calf love, the ridiculous heroics of a young man’s worship of some preposterous ideal of the opposite sex which he has elevated upon the altar of his heart, afford the most exquisite delights that are known to man, and can never be tasted when experience or age has killed our ingenuousness. Some there be, no doubt, who think of past fruitions with remorse. But there are more who sigh over past compunctions.

Perhaps the acme of delight is attained in circumstances like those which enveloped Reggie and Bina that night of harvest moon and harvest supper. Each of them palpitating with love, each driven by force of circumstance to the plucking of the rose of love while it hung fresh and dewy for their delectation.

As Reggie and Bina approached the smaller barn where the dancing was, sounds of a simple strain again struck upon the man’s hearing:

“Tiddle tun tum tun
Tiddle um tun tun
Tiddle iddle iddle iddle iddle tun tun

came in reedy squeaks, punctuated by resounding stamps.

“Why,” said Reggie, “that’s surely not the band from Herringhaven? ’’

“No,” whispered Bina “I think that’s Jack Pope with his ’cordian.”

There was no one in sight near the smaller barn, and ere he led his partner into the light which streamed from the open door Reggie bent his head and looked in her eyes for a moment. There hung a dewy kiss all ready for him upon her tremulous lips. Ohl if she should never feel his mouth upon hers after all.

But Reggie was aglow with love. His brain whirled with the stimulant he had taken as well as with the fever of the passion he felt for the girl. With a little cry he stooped and pressed his lips to hers. For an instant she flung her arms round his neck and hung, dependent from him. There was a sob, a gasp, and the mouths parted.

Reggie was white as death when he lifted his head with a jerk, as if to have withdrawn it slowly would have been impossible for him.

“Oh, Bina,” he groaned.

Then he took her arm beneath his and walked into the light The dancing and the dancing-room were before him.

CHAPTER X
VENUS VICTRIX

A waft’ of hot air, foetid with the scent of rustic humanity, brought the young squire to a standstill at the very threshold of the dancing saloon. Bina, her hand still resting on his arm, pressed by his arm to his side, stood beside him, and together they looked at the hopping, whirling figures which were turning the place into a pandemonium.

The band from Herringhaven had been easily persuaded to rest from their labours. One or two couples had ventured to stand up and endeavour to dance to the more pretentious strains of brass and wood: But this was not the dancing which the villagers enjoyed and understood. The band stood aside, “by special request,” and Jack Pope, the handyman from the Three Tuns, brought forward his melodeon in triumph. He flourished it bravely in the air and his fingers began to jump about the keys as a jerky wheezy beat of time rather than a melody squeaked and rumbled from the weird instrument Ah! this was “all right” This was as good as the kitchen of the Bushel o ’Malt, with beer thrown in— and “all for narthen!”

Reggie saw some fifteen or sixteen couples bobbing solemnly up and down, now “setting” to each other, now twirling in uncouth reels. And ever the heavy-booted feet kept up the clatter, the vigorous beat, on the floor.

“Tiddle iddle iddle um
Tiddle iddle iddle um
Tiddle iddle iddle iddle iddle um tum tum.”

squealed the melodeon, while Jack kept his boots pounding away like some human metronome. The dancers rose and fell, swayed hither and thither, their bodies reeking in the hot air, their faces red and shiny with perspiration. At one spot Walter Sparkes, the groom, was performing a pas seul in the midst of an admiring crowd. He was recognised as the king of the village dancers, and he solemnly shuffled and kicked, stamped and leapt with the intense satisfaction of a man who knows he is not only doing his best but that his best is very highly appreciated by the critics.

The heat and the exercise had generated a fierce thirst in both men and women, and the beer had been flowing freely before Reggie and Bina made their appearance. The rustics were happy with beer, bold with beer, amorous, in a vague, general way, with beer. Their sympathies were with all lovers, their class prejudices were dulled by the enjoyments of eating and drinking which had come to them through “the young squire.”

“Wha, hare be our master!” cried Bob Grimstone, “along o’ his wench I Haw I bawl bawl Come yew on an’ l’am us uns the way ta dew’t Come yew on, Bina, bor, and step up I”

A rumble of welcome muttered through the room. Eyes liquid with drink and good humour shone kindly on the young couple who stood in the doorway. There was some nudging of ribs, some sly chuckling. But all in the way of good-fellowship and all with wishes for the best o’ luck.

The dancers paid no heed, and Walter Sparkes continued to foot it and to bring his heels down on the floor with a tremendous crepitation, while his toes played the kettledrum of the music of his dancing. His admirers stood, their mouths half open or twisted awry round the stem of a pipe, and their eyes followed each movement of his feet. “Come yew on,” again cried Bob Grimstone.

But Reggie stared aghast! He had expected some rough polking perhaps, some crude and unbeautiful valsing. But what he found transcended his wildest imagination. He could not join in that hurly burly, he could not submit either Bina or himself to the ordeal of the criticism of such an audience.

“No, no,” said he. “I’ve only come to look on. I won’t dance to-night.”

“Wha, that’ss all right, master,” said Bob Grimstone, who was in that happy condition of malt and hops that he would have approved whatever course of action had seemed good to the young squire. He and his wife were sitting on a bench against the wall, each with a mighty sense of content stretching lips in a smile of wide benignity. They were happy, their normal, dull indifference to the hardships of existence had been brightened up to conscious pleasure. They would have thought none the worse of Bina if she had danced all night with the young squire—no worse of the young squire if he had danced all night with Bina. They would have criticised the unexciting simplicity of Reggie’s dancing, but in a good-natured and patronising manner.

“O’ coorse he doan’t know no better!” would have been their excuse for him. “That take a sight o’ time an’ trouble for anyone ta dew’t like Walter Sparkes theer! He can dew it proper an’ no mistake!”

Reggie nodded to two or three of those in the room who caught his glance as it wavered about the room. Then he pressed Bina’s hand against his side, and the two went out into the dark.

For a minute or two Bina walked beside her lover in silence. She had him there with her. All else was as nothing. She gave no thought to the fact that they two were wandering off alone into the park, into the dim blotches of shadow which lay about the moonlit grass where the copses and plantations thrust the density of their foliage between land and sky.

“I couldn’t stand that, dear,” said Reggie.

It was quite natural to him to call her “dear.’ Quite natural to her to hear herself called “dear.”

Presently Reggie’s left arm ceased to press the girl’s hand to his side. It hung down for a bare moment, and then stole round the waist that invited it so daintily beneath the swell of the girl’s ripe bosom. A delicious tremor ran through Bina. She shuddered and almost cried aloud with the delight of his touch.

And Reggie’s arm was sending shooting messages of passion through the warm soft form which it embraced. His heart beat riotously. “Oh, Bina,” he whispered, his head bent down to her.

She raised her face to his and again the twin pairs of lips clung together.

And now the rest of the universe was forgotten. Twining, embracing, they moved on slowly under the shadow of a copse. No eye could see them but that of some stealthily flying owl or night hawk. No ears could hear their murmurs but the quick twitching ears of some watchful hare or rabbit, which looked, started, sniffed, wrinkled its lips and whiskers, and then gave a rodent laugh. Hares and rabbits understood the position. These young humans were making love. They would not interfere with the fur or feather of the night

Unnoticing, they strayed deep into the park. Towards the west in the direction of St Mary’s on the Fen, the finely timbered sweep of grassland rolled downwards, till a long slope led to a tiny brook which rippled its way to the thirty acres of pool or lake, which nestled amidst thick woods, in the heart of the park, and which was a favourite resort for all kinds of wildfowl. On the lush grass, which the proximity of the brook had kept sweet even in August, a herd of red deer loved to feed. The herd consisted of the descendants of the herd of a famous Daneshire sportsman of the seventeenth century who had imported the stock, and in the days of Squire Hogg there may have been some fifty or sixty. Most of them were timorous and quiet enough. But there was one old buck, “a stag, a stag, a runable stag,” who had a great sense of his own dignity and was not backward in resenting anything which seemed to him to be uncalled for and undesirable interference.

It happened that just as Reggie and Bina turned the western comer of the larch plantation they came right on the monarch of the herd, and at so small a distance that the old buck was frightened. Furious at having been subjected to the indignity of (ear, he raised his head only to lower it again and came at the pair of human beings with his antlers spreading in front of him in an attitude admirably adapted for either defence or offence.

Had Bina been by herself she would probably have been a match for the stag. But her hour of weakness was upon her. Her heart was soft with love.

She gave a little scream and hid her face in Reggie’s blazer. There was no time to run in the first instance. Reggie snatched the girl up in his arms and deftly dodged the charge of the stag so that the latter went leaping on till his antlers were brought up by the railings which ran all round the larch plantation.

Before he could recover himself and charge again Reggie had borne Bina swiftly to the western gate of the plantation, which was fortunately close by the scene of the stag’s charge.

“Quick I quick, my darling!” he cried, as he almost threw Bina behind the gate, and turned to make the swinging bars fast against any four-footed attempt to force an entry.

And Bina, seeing that not only her own life but that of the man she loved was in danger, speedily recovered her presence of mind, and helped to fix the chain over the staple.

“Thank God you’re safe!” cried Reggie, taking the girl in his arms. “The vicious brute. I shall have to have him killed I Are you all right, darling?” he asked Bina, as he watched her panting, her hand to her throat.

“Oh, Reggie!” she moaned, “you’ve saved my life! Oh, you’ve saved my life at the risk of yours. How brave you are! Oh, how I—how I love you!”

Reggie could not choose but take her in his arms again? How could he? He fondled her hair, her neck, her ears, and kissed her gently and daintily beneath the curve of the jaw—oh, fragrant kisses I Oh, maddening scent of femininity! Oh,sweet call of breath!

Holding hands like two children (as indeed in many respects they were) they went deeper and deeper into the plantation.

Towards the heart of the larches there is a thick undergrowth of nuttery, and the ride runs through this to a hollow clearing where bracken and ling are thick and sweet with an aromatic pungency. The harvest moon did not throw her. rays to the carpet of this clearing, but her radiance shimmered and flowed on the tops of the graceful larches which towered round the bower.

Insensibly the lovers stayed their walk on this delicious resting place. The excitement of the night, the terror of the stag’s attack, all tended to unnerve the girl. Most of all did Love and the hopes and fears of love make her weary and faint.

“Oh, I’m so tired,” she said, sinking down on the ling, and lying back till the bracken waved above her head, and her body nestled in the heather like that of a squatting hare.

Reggie threw himself beside her and threw his arm round her neck. She drew the hand of this arm to her lips and kissed it and fondled it The harvest moon was past her zenith, and her line of light rose slowly up die circle of larches to the east of the resting place. The night was hot and close, but the shade of the woods had kept the bower pleasantly cool and the spicy odours of the larches and the heather were as the incense of Love in that temple of the goddess amidst the tall fragility of the graceful trees. Cytherea’s self must have deemed the couch of ling and bracken worthy to bear the weight of Anchises or Adonis.

Reggie drew the girl close to him, and both his arms folded round her. The moon sank lower and the last shafts of her light were trembling on the topmost sprays of the larches. Through the green tracery the lines of light quivered. On the ground amidst the ling and bracken it was quite dark, but Reggie could see his sweetheart’s face by the faint light of the stars.

And mother Venus, Cytherean Venus, breathed upon these twain of her children, breathed upon them and smiled upon them unseen.

They were no longer young squire and marshman’s daughter, no longer gentleman and peasant, indeed no longer responsible boy and girl.

The dancing was nearly over when Reggie and Bina returned to the barn some two hours later. But their absence had scarce been observed. There had been a good-natured chuckle or two, but the thing had attracted little notice. No one really knew that the young squire and Bina had been wandering about the park for nearly three hours. Each group of guests thought Bina might be with another. The people of the hall had no doubt but that Reggie was playing the host now with one set of guests and now with another.

And when the two returned Bina had a flush of pride and triumph, which made her face glow with added beauty. Her eyes shone like stars in the night And Reggie looked more tenderly on her, but seemed less happy, less superbly content with the consciousness that his true love had his heart and he had hers. He was less at ease than Bina. An undercurrent of convention prevented him from reaching to the splendid insolence of Bina’s fearlessness in Love I For die loved now I Oh yes I

This was no mere caprice or fancy such as had impelled her to seek to win George Buck. This was the love of woman for man, of the youth of woman for the youth of man who is her mate. She recked nothing of rules in the making of which she and her mother, mighty Dame Nature, had had no share. The teeming earth, the air, the sky, the waste of marsh—these were her tutors of the ways of life, these and the heart that the great mother had implanted in her.

CHAPTER XI
GOOD-BYE

Night after night, for a fortnight, Reggie slipped stealthily from the hall, mounted his bicycle, and rode silently down to the Long Lane which ran past the garden of Dam’s End Cottage. Here he hid his cycle while he made his way, in stocking feet, up the old wooden stairway which ran up outside the walls of the cottage to Bina’s sleeping chamber. Before dawn he was back at the hall again. Each night he had to pass the house of Millie Grimstone, the sister of the man who believed that Bina was to be his true wife. Night after night Millie or her husband had the chance of penetrating the secret of the intrigue. But the chance was never taken. There was a little rustic chaff in the village as to the way in which “our maaster fared wholly taken up along o’ Gunner’s gal,” but the tittle tattle soon died, and no one had a suspicion that the night of the harvest supper was but the beginning of the love episode for Reggie and Bina.

Perhaps the passion and the indulgence of it would have become weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable had it been suffered to run a protracted course. But the signal for parting came when it was still as bitter to the young lovers as the lark’s matins to Juliet It was in vain to make pretence that the call to arms which came to Reggie with his commission was “the nightingale,” and not “the lark.”

“Good-bye, my own dartin’,” said Bina, on the last morning of the episode.- “When shall I see ye agin?” And then Reggie (who had kept silent as to the news which had come to him two or three days previously) held her close to him, and hesitated. At last he said,“God knows, my dear one.”

“What d’ye mean?” asked the girl anxiously, clutching him and pressing him to her.

“I’m gazetted,” said he—“gazetted to the Scarlet Lancers.”

“My God I” groaned Bina, in a hushed whisper that was more pregnant with tragedy than any loud outcry could have been.

“And I’m ordered to join the regiment at Durban as soon as possible,” Reggie said.

Oh, why, thought Bina, why need this have happened? Why need this man whom she really loved, be brought into proximity with the other, with George Buck, the trusting fool who had trusted her, and whom she had despised for his scruples? She did not realise the difference in rank between the non-commissioned and the commissioned. She feared lest the two men might meet, lest in some way or other their rivalry might become manifest But women are quick witted in moments of danger. She must know what likelihood there was of her secret being betrayed.

“And what will ye be now, my dear?” she asked.

“Captain or—or sergeant—or—”

Reggie laughed. “Lieutenant Reginald Hogg,” said he. “You innocent darling. Sergeants are only promoted privates, sort of superior rankers, don’t you know. Officers begin as lieutenants and then rise to captains, and so on. What made you think I might be a sergeant?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said the girl. “Only I ha’ heard o’ sergeants as sort o’ orficers. But you’ll be right above that lot, I s’pose.”

“Well, yes,” Reggie assured her. “You see, the commissioned officers do not mix with the noncommissioned men except on parade or in the field. It is different altogether. A non-commissioned officer may be degraded to the ranks again at any time for misconduct. An officer cannot be degraded. He can be dismissed the service—but that won’t matter to you, dear. But don’t let’s waste our last few moments together in talking of soldiering. Oh, Bina! I never thought it would be so hard for me to go. You won’t forget me altogether, will you?”

And Bina, reassured, and with a mischievous amusement at the coincidence, gave herself up to the bitter ecstasy of farewell.

For a few minutes after Reggie had stolen noiselessly down the outside stairway Bina lay upon her bed shaken with sobbing. Then, like the sensible girl she was, she brought her matter-of-fact mind to bear, and satisfied herself that it was useless to repine over the inevitable. As she sighed to herself “Tha’ss no good me a-blarrin’ ’cos I ha’ lost my man. P’raps he’ll come back, p’raps he oan’t. But he ha’ loved me dear, and I love him. Bat that bain’t a mite o’ use frettin’ my eyes red. Lor’! Bain’t that a rum un as he should jine the very ridgment as George belong to? I reckon I’ll write ta George an’ ax him to keep an eye on him ’cos he’s the young squire, an’ faa’er’s the squire’s mashman. George ought ta know a sight more o’ fightin’ than my Reggie. He ha’ seed seven year on it. Tha’ss what I’ll do. I’ll ax him to mind as he doan’t get hurt I”

The notion soothed her. She went to sleep thinking that she would ask one of her lovers to hold the other free from danger.

“You’ll do your duty, my boy, I know,” said the squire to his son as the two shook hands at the doors of the Hall. “If it comes to war you’ll remember we’ve had famous fighters in the family. Good-bye, my dear boy, and God bless you.”

Reggie had thrown off the dejection of a lover parting from his love, and was bright and eager with the excitement of setting out to take his stand on the bottom rung of the ladder of renown up which he meant to fight his way. But he had been aide to sleep but little, and his excitement and forced gaiety were a little feverish. Violet, who was to drive him to Hockingham station in the dogcart, looked anxiously at him. She remembered some boyish flirtations of his which he had confided to her in the old days, and she saw, with feminine intuition, that there was something working on her brother similar in its effects to those early flirtations. But she could not guess at the identity of the girl who had caught her brother’s heart—if indeed she were right in her guess. She knew that he had not shown any attentions to any girl of her acquaintance at the tennis parties and carpet dances to which she had accompanied him since his return from Sandhurst It never occurred to her to consider that there was a fair girl at the Dam’s End Cottage, and that Reggie had often been to see Gunner. She had retired within the hall before Reggie and Bina wandered out into the park on the night of the harvest supper. Walter Sparkes winked to himself occasionally when he saw his young master bound in the direction of the dam. He had noticed more than the others on the festive night. But no one of the peasant class (from which the groom had sprung) would betray a secret of the kind to his employers or their equals in the social scale. And Violet had not heard a whisper of the brief curiosity which had been aroused in the servants’ hall Bina was standing at the front door of the cottage when Violet drove past, with Reggie beside her. The heavy luggage had already been sent on to Southampton, and there was no need that morning for the services of Walter Sparkes and the luggage cart Bina modestly gave a rustic “bop ” as the brother and sister spun past But Reggie’s eyes sought hers and held them and he saw the deep appeal behind the humidity which she had been unable to prevent. He turned pale and could’not altogether suppress a sigh.

Violet turned and looked at him. She saw the direction of his gaze and followed it. She Saw Bina’s look. She opened her lips to speak but thought better of it. But she was very silent during the rest of the drive across the dam, and when she kissed Reggie good-bye, she held his hand in a firm honest grip and said to him,“Reggie, dear, if there’s anything I can do for you at home you’ll let me know, won’t you? I want you to feel that you can trust me as well as ever. Trust me in any difficulty, dear, and I’ll help you. I always have been your pal. Haven’t I? ’’

“Yes, old girl,” said Reggie, the buoyancy of his excitement a good deal modified by now.

“Then you’ll write if there’s anything I can do,” said Violet. “You’re worrying about something and I don’t know what, though I tell you frankly that for the last ten minutes I’ve had a shrewd suspicion. Well Here’s the train. Write if there’s anything I can do, if there’s anything I ought to do, and remember that I am your sister and not a narrow minded prude.”

“Er—er—er—” stammered Reggie looking straight in the girl’s calm and steadfast eyes. “I’ve forgotten to give old Gunner Reeve another tip for that dog otter he shot for me. Would you mind sending this down to him? Walter could take it”

Violet smiled a little sadly as she took the coin.

“I’ll take it myself,” she said. “Well, you won’t say anything more now. But promise you’ll write if I can do anything for you. Anything, mind.”

Reggie looked hard in her eyes and saw the meaning in them, saw also their honesty of purpose, their loyalty, their love and charity.

“Yes,” he cried. “By God, I will promise. Vi, you’re a brick.”

“Time to get in if yew’re a-goin’, sir,” said the station master.

A last hurried kiss, a leap into the carriage, a slam of the door, a wave of a truncheon, and a shrill whistle, and the train bore the young squire off on his long journey to Ladysmith.

Violet looked out for Bina as she drove past on her way home. But the girl had gone in and the door was shut.

PART III
SERGEANT AND SUBALTERN

CHAPTER XII
FOR BINA’S SAKE

Reggie landed at Durban in the last week of September, and was at once sent up to the front, where the composite force under General Penn Symons was awaiting the issue of the negotiations then proceeding between the Transvaal and the Government at home. He had but bare time to learn the rudiments of his duty and to become acquainted with his brother officers when the ultimate issue of war was joined, and the Boers advanced to invade Natal and to drive the red necks into the sea. There was so much that was strange to the young fellow, so much that was fascinating by reason of its strangeness, that his love affair with Bina was becoming as hazy in his memory as a recollection of ten years past The Sandhurst youngster was familiar enough with Tommy whether afoot or on horseback. But here were folk from far lands of which he knew nothing. The hosts of Hindoos in Durban, the rickshas drawn by huge Zulu boys, the Indian ambulance men, all interested him. Not a subaltern in the force went into camp at Glencoe with a lighter heart, with more irresponsible gaiety of spirit, than did Reggie Hogg.

Brief as the time had been between his departure from Hockingham and the morning of the 20th October, the morning of the battle of Dundee, or Talana Hill, there had been time for one of Bina’s rare letters to be written to the Sergeant in the interval and to find him in the thick of preparation for action. The girl had had the impudence to tell the non-commissioned officer of the sailing of the subaltern, and to ask the former to keep a watchful eye over the latter. “If you was to do something for him,” she wrote, “that might be of use to us when you come home, for he’s the son of Squire Hogg at the hall what is father’s guv’nor, and if you was to save his life or something squire might let us have a bit of land cheap, or even let us the Bushel o’ Malt, for old Buffy Oldboy don’t fare up to a sight and I reckon he won’t last long, and that would be something all right if we was to get set up in the public and we should be made for life.”

The girl artfully and treacherously used the argument which she thought would have most weight with George Buck and persuaded him to be ready to sacrificehimself for the sake of the man she really loved.

And George was in the same troop as Reggie, and from the date of his receipt of Bina’s letter he did his best to make Reggie’s lines easy, to give him useful hints, to help him in his duties on parade or whenever the tutelage of an experienced cavalryman might be of service to a newly joined subaltern.

Reggie liked the Sergeant and spoke of him at mess as a well-mannered and obliging man. But he had not the faintest notion that there was any special cause for the manner in which George Buck laid himself out to be of assistance to him. He thought it possible that it was usual for some man of the standing of the Sergeant to act as a sort of military governess to inexperience. He offered pecuniary reward, and when George refused it with a blush he only thought that he was a man of exceptional personal dignity for one in his position. And George watched him as the apple of his eye, always remembering that Bina was waiting for him at Hockingham and that by judicious services he might get the Bushel o’ Malt, which would enable him to marry the girl as soon as he reached home.

When the Boers came on with the daylight of the morning of the 20th and saluted the British flag over the camp of Glencoe with a whizz of shells from their Krupp and Creuzot field guns, George Buck prayed within himself that the time might be come for him to show that he was ready to risk life and limb for the sake of winning a comfortable home for Bina Throughout the day Buck kept as near to Reggie as his duty would permit He watched the changes of expression, the variation in the shades of complexion, which marked the effect of his first action on the young fellow’s mind and heart, and he was glad when he saw the shifting flushes and pallors merge in a fresh clean colour, a bright quick eye, and a steady self-control which spoke of a higher courage than the feverish excitement which sent some of the others into fits of laughter—into a madness of gaiety.

From near their horse lines at the back of Glencoe the Scarlet Lancers watched the artillery duel, the silencing of the Boer guns by our own magnificently served field artillery, and the advance of the Fusiliers and Rifles to the base of Talana Hill, and both men and horses were fidgeting with eagerness to be “at them.” The famous advance of the infantry had commenced when orders came to the Scarlet Lancers to sweep round to the rear of the Boer position and to do as much damage to the retreating enemy as was possible if the charge were successfuL They were cantering towards the main road on the far side of the hill when they heard the bugles ring out the infantry charge which was to teach the Boers the feel of the bayonet For a few minutes they were halted. Then they saw the glitter of steel on the summit of the hill,

In a moment the defending force broke and poured down the hill in riotous disorder, shrieking guttural curses on the rooibatjes, on the tardy Erasmus, and on each other. The charge was sounded and the Lancers quickened to a gallop as the rout swept across their front Reggie and George Buck were in the first troop, and they dashed into the fugitives, the one spearing and the other sabreing as they charged clean through them. When they wheeled on the farther side of rout and swung round to charge back, they found that the first troop was cut off from the rest of the regiment.

There was one strong and courageous man with the enemy, and one strong man can do much. He had stemmed the tide of retreat and reformed a considerable body of bandoliered men who were using their Mausers with deadly effect. Dick Stracey, the captain of the first troop, saw that no time was to be lost, and, with a cheer, and a “back through them again, my lads,” he waved his sword and charged.

In the disarray of the cavalry ranks George Buck found his opportunity to get close by Reggie. He had already speared one man whose rifle was levelled at the young subaltern and the knowledge that he had saved the young fellow’s life endeared the latter to him more than ever. He felt a sort of paternal interest in him, an anxious pride at the gallant way in which he bore himself in the face of the grave danger—for Reggie had the joy of battle in him and was fighting with as much energy and judgment as the oldest soldier in the ranks. Back into the spluttering mass of Mausers galloped the remnants of the first troop of the Scarlet Lancers, and once again the steel forced a passage and swept sheer through the enemy. But not without scathe. There were three or four empty saddles, and more than one of the troop was wounded more or less severely. George had kept his place beside Reggie, and charged back knee to knee with him, watching all the time to protect his officer. They were almost through when the Sergeant saw a rifle levelled point blank at the subaltern, he rose in his stirrups and reached out with his lance, but he was unable to get“home” in time. The bullet was sped, and instantly George saw the man he was guarding shoot over the head of his falling horse and pitch heavily on the hard, dry veldt “Now for it I” he cried to himself. “Now for Bina and the Bushel o’ Malt, by God!”

He swung his horse sharp round on his hind legs,and cleared a space about the fallen officer by fierce thrusts of his lance. Then, miraculously untouched by the scores of dying bullets, he dismounted as calmly as if he were on parade. He seized Reggie in his arms, raised him to his saddle bow, leapt ahorseback himself, drove his spurs in, and with a yell of defiance to the Boers he charged after his disappearing comrades.

Staggered by his coolness and gallantry the enemy seemed unable to get their rifles on him, and though they knocked his helmet off, and cut through the bamboo of his lance with bullets too close to be pleasant^he succeeded in bearing Reggie safe back to the body of the regiment The men opened out to let rescuer and rescued through, and cheered wildly in frantic appreciation of the gallant action.

Captain Stracey had got through unscathed, and took charge of his lieutenant.

George blandly made his way to his place in the ranks without having exchanged a word with the man whom he had brought out of the melfie. He had heard the captain cry something about the V.C., the pleasure of pride in his success. Bina and the Bushel o’ Malt seemed nearer to him. Ah! dear Bina! Was she thinking of him?

She was. She was hoping that he would take care that no harm came to Reggie.

Reggie’s silence and omission to thank the man who had saved him were natural enough seeing that his fall had unsensed him for the time. But his injury was not serious, and he recovered in time to join in the final pursuit of the enemy that followed their decisive rout by artillery.

“By George, Hogg,” said his captain to him as they were jogging slowly back to camp, “you’ve got cause to be grateful to Buck! He brought you out of as tight a place as I’ve ever seen a man in, and did it at imminent risk of death. It was as gallant a thing as ever I’ve seen, and I shall ask the C.O. to recommend him for the Cross.”

“Tell me about it,” said Reggie eagerly. “Since I lumped down on-my head I remember nothing till you were holding me on some other Johnnie’s mount. What’s become of poor old Caesar?”

So the captain told him how Buck had saved him, and had only yielded him up after he had placed him on one of the horses which was racing with its comrades with empty saddle.

And Reggie could not but let his heart warm to the man who had saved him. What a good chap he was! From the very first he had seemed to wish to make things easy for him. And there was not a smarter man in the regiment Hang it! he ought to have his commission. He would see what he could do. Why did he risk so much in his defence? Whatever claim had he, Reggie, on this man’s devotion? It was more than the devotion of a man to his officer. It was a superb solicitude which must rise from some personal cause. He had always been civil and courteous to the Sergeant; but then there were no bullying cads in that regiment There was nothing uncommon in the way he bad treated his subordinate. Why should the latter lay himself out to such an extent to protect him ?

“Well,” he thought, “anyway it’s a damned good thing for me that he has taken a fancy to be my dry nurse! I must find him out and thank him properly as soon as we get to camp.”

“I must look him up and thank him,” he said aloud.

“Well, yes,” said the captain, “that’s the least you can do. He couldn’t have looked after you more tenderly if you had been his brother. Did you know him at home at all? He seemed to be keeping guard over you all during the charge. I couldn’t help noticing it whenever I caught sight of you and was not too occupied in saving my own bacon to observe. Does he come from your place, or why the devil should he show such an interest in you? It isn’t as if you had been with us long enough for him to have conceived one of the passionate affections which are sometimes found in a man for his officer.”

“No,” said Reggie, shaking his head; “I never saw or heard of him before I joined. He has been most useful to me ever since I’ve been with you; but I knew nothing of him at home, nothing whatever.”

“I suppose there can’t be a woman at the bottom of it, then,” said Stracey, with a grin. “ I’ve known a woman the cause of an officer being shot in the back by one of his own men, but never of a man taking special charge of his officer.”

For a moment the image of Bina flashed across the retina of Reggie’s recollection. Absurd! How could Bina and Buck be associated? Bina had hardly ever left Hockingham, and certainly Buck was no native of Hockingham. There was not a Buck in the village, Reggie was sure of that Besides, he thought (and he felt somewhat ill at ease at the thought), Stracey was right: Bina would be more likely to be the cause of his having a bullet in the back than of any man’s protecting him as Buck had protected him. But the whole thing was a mystery. Perhaps Buck would explain it all to him when he sought him out in camp.

It was dusk when the regiment came to the horse lines, and learnt the news of the fatal wound of Penn Symons.

As soon as the men and horses had been settled for the night, Reggie went in search of the Sergeant.

CHAPTER XIII
REGGIE’S GRATITUDE

Reggie found Sergeant Buck chatting with two or three comrades outside the non-commissioned officers’ mess tent, and signed to him to come to him alone. George went forward rather sheepishly. He had done a gallant action and was proud of it, but he had a brave man’s dislike to receiving praise and thanks, for he guessed what had sent the young squire to him. At the same time he remembered the message in Bina’s letter which had caused him to take special care of the lieutenant, and he was rejoiced to think that he had established a fair claim to consideration at the hands of the Hogg family. Although he would have been well pleased to receive no reward he felt that the duty which his love for Bina imposed upon him rendered it obligatory for him to accept the guerdon which he had earned. He hoped that he would have done his duty without the incentive which Bina’s letter had provided. But he knew that he might not have taken the pains to be near at hand in case of his assistance being needed had he not known the importance of doing some favour to Reggie.

He saluted and stepped to his officer’s side.

Though there was no great difference in the ages of the men the non-commissioned man looked many years older than the lieutenant He had enlisted at the age of seventeen, and the eight years of service which had since elapsed had hardened and bronzed him. There was a firmness and strength about his active figure which was lacking in the lithe athleticism of the gentleman, and his mouth was harder set, his moustache more manly than the corresponding features of the younger man.

Reggie held out his hand eagerly, and gripped the hand which was extended in answer to his invitation.

“Buck,” said Reggie, “thanks are sorry things in a case of this kind. Men of your kidney, I know, think little of rewards. The V.C. will please you more than anything I can offer, and Captain Stracey and I have got the Colonel to promise that you will be recommended for that. I will not speak of gratitude or admiration—mere meaningless terms. But if you care to have my friendship you must know that it is yours. Ever since I joined you have been of the utmost service to me. Any difficulty I might have had in picking up my duties has been smoothed away by you. What I have done that you should have taken such good care of me, even to the extent of saving my life at the risk of your own, I do not know. It only makes me feel the more what a fine fellow you are. Of course I need not assure you that if at any time there is anything on earth which either I or my father, Mr Nathaniel Hogg of Hockingham Hall, can do for you we shall be only too pleased, ay, and proud, to do. It will be an honour for either of us to show our appreciation of a gallant man.”

“Stop, sir, stop!” cried George, responding manfully to the close pressure of the other’s hand. “Why, any of our men would have done as much as I did if they had had the chance. Besides,” he added shyly, and with a ruddy evidence of his modesty deepening the healthy brown of his skin,“I had a special reason for looking after you, sir.”

“A special reason?” asked Reggie. “I was sure of it! I knew there must be some reason for your care of me. What is it, man? Tell me how I am worth all the care you have taken of me.”

George glanced round and saw that he and Reggie were out of earshot of any other. Then he frankly met the questioning gaze of his officer, and as frankly answered, “You are the young squire of Hockingham, sir. And anything even distantly connected with Hockingham is dear to me. Ha! ha!”

He laughed aloud in the delightful belief that Hockingham held the girl whom he loved, the girl who loved him, his little Bina, his darling, true little sweetheart “But why?” cried Reggie, “you’re not a Hockingham man. I’ll take my oath of that I know the name of everyone in our village and I’ll swear there isn’t a Buck in the place.”

“No, sir, that’s right enough,” said George, shuffling a little with his feet and plucking up his courage to speak of his lady-love. “But there’s someone there as ain’t a Buck but may be some day. Ah, sir!

‘tain’t always fathers nor mothers, nor yet brothers nor sisters, as is the dearest.”

“Egad I” thought Reggie, “he must have a sweetheart in Hockingham. I wonder who the dickens it is?”

He smiled at the Sergeant He had not the faintest suspicion of the tidings which were about to strike him down.

“Oho I” he cried aloud genially. “So there’s a lady in the case, is there? I wish you luck, my boy. Who is she? Do I know her? Is she a Hockingham girl? I know there are several very pretty girls in the village, and I’m sure your girl is as good as she is pretty.”

“That she is, sir,” said George, with enthusiasm. “Ah! she’s the beauty of the village in my eyes. I don’t believe there’s her ekal in all Daneshire, and I’m a Duckingham man.”

“But who is it?” asked Reggie. “I can’t make out how it is that I never heard of you while I was at home. You know I went home from Sandhurst and stayed there till I was gazetted to the Scarlets. I can’t make out how it is I did not hear of you. When were you in the village last? ”

“I can’t ha’ left so very long afore you got down, sir,” said George. “That was about the middle o’ last May as I was there. I’d heard from my girl as you was the young squire. The letter came soon after you joined, sir. She asked me to have an eye to you seeing as her father is in your father’s employ. To tell you the truth, sir, she wanted to make favour for speakin’ for the Bushel o’ Malt when my time is up and old Buffy Oldboy pegs out. She told me to keep an eye to you, sir. Bless her heart! Not but what I should ha’ done my duty ’thout that But still, hearin’ from her naturally made me look out sharper.” “But who is it?” asked Reggie, a horrible doubt springing up in his mind when he heard that George’s future father-in-law was in the employment of the squire. For he was unable to think of any particularly charming daughter of an employee other than Bina.

“Oh, you’ll know her right enough, sir,” said George, pride beaming all over his face. “Why, you must ha’ seen Bina Reeve, old Gunner’s daughter. I reckon you ha’ seen old Gunner while you was after the wildfowl scores and scores o’ times.”

He was so pleased, so proud at being able to claim Bina for his own that he did not notice the awful change of expression which had come over Reggie’s face.

“Why, sir,” he continued, as though chewing a delicious cud of memory, “she’s the prettiest girl in all the marshes. You must ha’ noticed her.”

“Of course. Of course,” Reggie managed to gasp out “She is— Oh, God!”

His hand flew up to his heart, and he leant on his sword while he stood and gasped, beads of cold sweat standing out on his chalk-white forehead.

“What is it, sir?” cried George anxiously. “Here am I a-goin’ on and you in pain! Let me help you to quarters, sir.”

“No, no,” said Reggie, trying to master the nausea which had come upon him. “I shall be all right directly. I got more of a shock in the charge than I thought Ah! thank you.”

George, fearing lest Reggie might fall (so tremulous and weak did he seem as he stood shuddering there), had slipped his arm beneath the other’s elbow and supported him. “Excuse the liberty, sir,” said he. “But let me help you back to your quarters. A good night’s rest will set you up again, sir. You’ll be all right at revelly.”

The touch of George’s hand burnt into Reggie’s elbow like vitriol. He would have given the world to be able to shake it off, and to behave as if there were nothing wrong with him. Good God ! What had he done? What could he do? But he felt that he was really physically incapable of walking alone for the moment. Loathing himself and cursing his fate he bore with the help George afforded him until he felt more capable of self-control.

“Let me help you back, sir,” again pleaded George.

“Yes, yes. Thank you,” said Reggie. “But don’t —don’t—don’t think I shall forget. I shall be all— all right to-morrow, and then you must—must tell me all about it—all about her. Let’s see. Bina Reeve, isn’t it? Ah! Bina Reeve.”

“That’s right, sir,” said George, leading him slowly towards the officers’ quarters of the camp. “But, please don’t start a-thankin’ me again. Only if you get a chance slip in a word for the Bushel, sir. But I didn’t ought to speak o’ that now you’re so poorly, sir. Have a nip o’ brandy, sir, and try to sleep. You’ll be all right at revelly.”

“Yes, yes. Thank you,” said Reggie feebly, as he got to his tent and his man came bustling out to him. “Good-night,” he said to George. “Good-night. I’ll—I’ll have another talk with you to-morrow. To-morrow.”

“Poor chap,” said George to himself as he walked back to the non-commissioned men’s tents. “He caught it worse than we knew. But I’ll start a-writin’ to Bina to-night She’ll be rare and pleased to hear what I’ve done. Rare and pleased she’ll be; bless her dear heart and eyes, my darling.”

So he withdrew and fetched out his paper, and pen and ink, and was presently busily engaged in writing a long screed of love and triumph to the girl who recked little of his danger so that Reggie was safe.

CHAPTER XIV
A MIND DISEASED

REGGIE ordered his servant to bring him the brandy, and then dismissed him. He took nearly half-a-tumbler of the neat spirit, and felt his nervous system revive and leap to activity under the influence of the stimulant. He could still feel the effects of the shock which George Buck had given him, but he felt more able to think out the position, to grapple with the terrible problem with which life had. confronted him. He mixed himself a stiff brandy-and-soda, lit his favourite briar, and flung himself on the camp-bed which stood ready for his night’s rest The first thought, inspired by the feeling of exhilaration set up by the brandy, was that things could not be so bad as he had fancied. But it was a chimsera of stimulant which soon passed, and left him alone with the hard facts of the past, and the extraordinary riddle of the future. With a lover’s unreason, at first he blamed Bina. Why had she not told him that she was plighted to this man? But was she? Buck had called her his girl. It might be that he was her lover without her having returned his love, or even having pretended to return it It was not her fault or his (Reggie’s) if a dozen men were fascinated’ by her beauty. That must be it Had she engaged her troth to George she would surely have let him know. She could not have lain in his arms so often, have been so often heart to heart with him, if there was a shadow of infidelity about her.

For a moment the notion comforted the boy. But only for a moment If that were so, if the love and the troth were all on one side only, how was it that she had written to Buck? George had said that she had written to him to ask him to keep an eye on his, the young squire’s, safety so that they might win favour with the squire and obtain the tenancy of the Bushel o’ Malt when Buck went home—when they married, in fact Bugles rang out over the camp as “lights out” was sounded, and Reggie cursed their jarring timbre. The parade of war was hateful to him at the moment The sound which brought home to him the fact that there were thousands of his fellow-creatures encamped all round him was loathsome. He seemed to himself to be alone in the dramatic tragedy of his life. The murmur of an army struck upon his hearing with horrible incongruity.

What had he done?

He had meant no harm. God knew that Never for a moment till that fatal night of the harvest supper had he thought that there was a chance of his succumbing to temptation. The charm of the girl had come upon him so sweetly, so insensibly, that he loved her before he knew that he even condescended to admire her beauty. He had meant to enjoy a slight and pretty comedy. Chuckling circumstance had changed the play to tragedy—and sordid tragedy.

What had he done? And why?

Did she love him? Or had she been fooling him?

Oh, surely her love, her passion, had been real! Surely no young girl could have given herself in such a fervour of passion, in such superb self-abandonment, who did not love I And if she loved him? Well. What then? What course could he pursue in that event?

Could he marry her? He had never thought of it Neither he nor she had ever troubled to discuss practicalities in the midst of their delirium. The wave of love had smitten one and the other, and borne them away on its crest A dangerous conveyance, but intoxicating in the very madness of its riot So short had been the intrigue, so fierce had been their mutual love, that the episode had passed m a whirl. They had loved and lost each other scarce conscious of the reality of their embrace.

Ah! if she loved him! Could he affront father and mother, could he fly in the face of the county, of his brother officers, by marrying a peasant girl, however lovely she might be? The recollection of cool blood reminded him that she was but semi-educated, that there were uncouthnsses of speech and solecisms of manner which could not but attract notice in the society of his social equals. But then the world might be well lost for love—if only love could last Already the young fellow had begun to recover from his delirium of passion. He knew, now that he was not under the charm of Bina’s presence or proximity, that he must weary of her sooner or later. He was too sensible to be deluded into the belief that he could have the girl educated to be his mate. He knew that if he married her he cut himself off from his set for ever. Could he be content to settle down in the village with her?—to live the life of a countryman, of a small farmer, or what not till he came into his own as squire of Hockingham? For the Hockingham estate had been continued in strict settlement and he was tenant in tail while his father retained a life interest only. He must become squire in course of time. But even if he could find happiness and content in waiting for his father’s death, what would be the position when he came to his own? How could Bina assume the dignity of first lady of the village? It was impossible.

And if he mortally offended his father what would he and Bina have to live on? It was true that he had the income of a sum of five thousand pounds under his grandmother’s settlement, and could dispose of the capital of this by will. But his past extravagances had compelled him to mortgage his interest to his father, and there would be little enough left over after his father had deducted the yearly sums to which he was entitled.

He tossed and writhed upon his pallet.

What had he done?

Good God! he had forgotten George Buck—the cause of all this self-searching! How could he dream of marrying the girl if she were promised to the man who had saved his life? His whole effort must be to prevent George from ever finding out that Bina had been false to him. He must never suspect that. How proud the poor fellow had seemed of her! How he must love her to accept her every word as law so far as to look after the safety of another man at her bidding. But then, of course, he did not know that the other man had-

What had he done?

But if he allowed George Buck to remain in blissful ignorance he might go home after the war was over and marry the girl. How could he permit the man who had saved his life to marry a woman who had been his mistress? Was that fair as between man and man?

On the other hand, how could he betray the secrets of love to any man, whether he had saved his life or not The abandonment of a woman to the man she loves is surely a holy mystery. He could not betray the trust of love.

What had he done? What was he to do?

Suppose he kept silent, and suppose a—well_ suppose certain circumstances arose which inevitably brought to light the fact that Bina had had a lover other than Buck. For Reggie knew by instinct that, however much Buck might have loved Bina, he had never been her lover other than In all honour and discretion. Despite himself he glowed with joy, with masculine triumph, at the consciousness that Bina had taken no other man to her arms as she had taken him, Reggie. He could not guess that it had not been her fault that George had left her pure so far as he was concerned. He could not have realised that any woman could ever surrender herself entirely to a man whom she did not love utterly, and Bina had not loved George utterly. She had merely desired him from caprice, and would not have found any of the raptures in his arms which she experienced with Reggie. For Reggie was the physical mate for her, and her whole nature cried out that this was so.

But of this Reggie was ignorant He could only brood and scheme on his partial knowledge.

What had he done? What could he do?

Could he do as George asked him? Could he arrange so that the Sergeant might return home and obtain the tenancy of the Bushel o’ Malt, whither he might take Bina as his bride?

Perhaps it would be the best issue of the events. Yet how could he bear that the man who had saved his life should marry his mistress!

The knowledge suddenly came to him that even this would not be so bitter, so utterly unbearable, as the thought of Bina in the arms of another man, legitimate owner of her though the other man might be. He could not bear to give her up to anyone else. He could not bear that George Buck should suffer shame and wrong, the ultimate injury, at his hands.

What then could he do, in God’s name? What had he done? What could he do?

Then a cold sweat again chilled him till he sought the brandy bottle for another prophylactic against the torture of self-accusation.

What if his relations with Bina were to have their natural result?

What if the poor girl were to suffer shame and ignominy at home by reason of her surrender to his love? And he, out in Natal, likely (if the camp rumours proved true) soon to be cut off from all communication with home, unable to assist her, powerless to comfort her who had given herself so freely, with such passionate devotion, to him? She had promised to write to him if she were in any trouble. But how if the Boers intercepted all letters?

The girl might be pushed for sheer necessaries, for food and drink proper to one who has taken up the burden of mother Eve. Gunner would not turn her out of Dam’s End Cottage. Reggie did not fear that And .Tom would probably do his best to snare rabbits and pick eels for her. But there would be no delicacies for the sick bed. The thought that the girl whom he had loved so fiercely should lack comforts and attentions which might spare her pain racked the young fellow with anguish.

And then George Buck might return home after the war, and find that the girl whom he believed to be his faithful sweetheart had given birth to a child. Would she conceal the paternity of it? He doubted it He believed that Bina had been so proud of his love, so devoted to him, that she would rather vaunt her motherhood of a child of his than hide it as a shameful secret. Yet he knew that she was so loyal to love that if she thought that he desired her to be silent she would die rather than open her lips.

Apart from her own admissions what evidence would there be that he, Reggie, was the father? He did not think that anyone had seen them as they wandered off together through the park on the fateful night He did not think that anyone had seen him during his nocturnal excursions to the stairway outside Dam’s End Cottage. But he could not be sure. He knew that there might have been poachers about, and they could see though they were not seen. Moreover, there were his frequent visits to Gunner’s cottage to be taken into consideration. Unless Bina could throw dust in the eyes of the village, the probability was that, should a child be born, there would be a pretty definite notion in the village as to its father.

That would make the shock to George still worse. He would return to find that the girl in whom he trusted had been-got in trouble by the man whose life he had saved, and whom she had asked him to protect The splendid insolence of the girl’s request made Reggie smile with admiration for an instant Never for a moment did he misconstrue her request to George. He fully understood that she had mentioned the Bushel o’ Malt as an inducement which was more likely than any other to persuade him to keep a watchful eye on his officer. If both men returned to Hockingham Reggie could not bring himself to believe that Bina would marry George and live on happily under the patronage of the man to whom she had first given herself utterly.

What then would Buck think? What could he think but that he had been foully betrayed by those who should have been the first to guard his honour? It would be but little consolation to him to know that Reggie was ignorant of his- relations with Bina There would be the fact of the intimacy. Nothing could get over that What had he done? What would come of it?

Please God, no trouble would come on the girl. Why had he never realised so clearly the possibility of the consequences of the ecstasy of passion which had held him and Bina enthralled? He ought to have left money with her. But the notion of money in connection with Bina had always seemed so sordid to him after that night in the park. When he had given her the five pounds for a frock he had regarded her rather as a pretty child whom it would be an innocent delight to please. But when Love entwined their very souls the hard facts, the stern necessities of reality, had seemed so far away from both of them that they gave no thought for to-morrow. They scarce gave a thought beyond the immediate present Grasping and avaricious as is the nature of many Daneshire marsh folk there had been no taint of greed in Bina’s surrender to Reggie. Her heart beat for him, her brain throbbed for him. What was “brass”or the things to be bought by “brass” to her? What were gauds and the finery of externals? It was she, it was her body, her heart and soul that loved Reggie and which he loved. Not her old cotton frock or her new muslin one. In their loves there was no difference between their stations.

So it had come about that Reggie had given no thought for her possible needs. The anguish of the last parting had bereft both of them of any little prudence or foresight which their love permitted to exist. And now it was too late. He doubted if he would be able to get money through to the girl without arousing suspicion.

Was there not some way in which he might learn what was taking place at home, in which he might arrange so that if need came to Bina she could have such assistance as was advisable?

He remembered his sister Violet’s strange look at him as he stood on the platform of Dingleton station. He remembered her earnest offers of assistance if there were anything she could do for him at home. What had she meant? She was a real good sort anyway. Could he ask her to keep a look out on Bina, and give her a helping hand if she should need it. It was not a very nice thing for a brother to ask his sister to do. But Violet and he had always been pals, and after all she must know that such unhappy incidents did occur in this vale of tears! Yes, begad] He’d write guardedly to Violet, and get the letter sent down at once. God knew when they might be shut in by the enemy. He knew they could not retain their position and that it was expected that Sir George White would lead them to make a stand at Ladysmith. If they had to endure a siege there it might be impossible to get any letters through. He must write at once.

He rose from his bed and lit a small electric readinglamp which he had brought out with him, shading it in such a manner that no gleam from it could be seen from without He did not wish to be interrupted in his letter writing.

CHAPTER XV
THE LAST LETTERS HOME

While Reggie was flinging himself about and groaning on his camp bed, racking his head with the problem with which he had been confronted in so dramatic a fashion, George Buck was quietly sitting in the regimental non-commissioned officers’ tent writing home to Bina.

“My own dear Bina,” he wrote, “I was wholly pleased to receive your kind letter and to hear as you were well as this leaves me at present and hoping that you continue the same. I looked out after young squire at once, and I must thank you my dear for your kind thought that we might get round Mr Hogg to let us have the Bushel which would suit me proper, for then we should be able to get churched as soon as ever I come home again to you my dear which I wish was to-morrow. But there’s not much chance of that for as I have wrote you before I think these Boers will give us chaps a lot to do afore we get them right under and make them give in humble so as we can leave them alone for a bit. I think there’ll be many pore fellows killed before I see Hockingham again. But young squire is a real gentleman. I’d seen him afore your letter come, and thought he looked a smart young chap. But as soon as I’d read your dear letter I did all as I could to help him to learn. And this very blessed day when we was having our first proper brush with the Boers I saw my chance. One of the blarmed Boers shot young squire’s horse and pitched him on his head in the middle of a whole parcel of them a-firing, so I jumped off and caught hold on him and heaved him on to my horse in front and galloped off with him and got him among our chaps again all right which he has only just been here a-thanking of me and praising me till I didn’t know which way to look till I up and told him as how I’d had the orders from you to keep an eye on him and give him a hint as we could do with the Bushel if I’m come home when old Buffy pop off and he promised to make it right with the old squire for he’s as pleasant spoken a young officer as is in the regiment “Now my dear Bina I must close. I don’t want to alarm you my dear but I don’t know when I may be able to write again. I fancy as we shall soon have the blamed Boers all round us so as we sha’n’t get any letters through and oh how I shall miss the kind letters from my dear Bina though they haven’t been as many as I should have wished but I know my dear as you do not like a-writing and you have made up for everything by your kind thought about the ...not readable...

“I have put my lips against these marks my dear Bina. Will you do the same my dear.

“So no more at present from “Your true lover “George.”

“X X X X X (kisses.)”

The next morning George took his letter and asked Reggie if he could expedite its passage home in any way.

“Yes,” said Reggie, but not meeting the honest eyes which looked frankly in his face. “I have one myself. I’ll see that yours goes with mine.”

He turned from the man whom he had wronged, and fetched the letter he had written overnight to Violet This was as follows:—

“My dear old Vi,—As this may be the last chance I shall have for some time of getting a letter home I’m going to make the most of it I had a narrow squeak for my life yesterday at the battle of Smith’s Hill, which you’ll read all about in the papers, and should have stood no chance of getting out alive but for Sergeant George Buck, who brought me out in front of him at the imminent risk of his own life. I never saw a more gallant action (and I did not see this for I was insensible), and he ought to get the V.C. as well as his commission before the war is over. I don’t think the people at home have yet realised that this is not going to be a week-end sham light From what I’ve seen and heard we shall have plenty to do before we’ve beaten the Boers to their knees. And now I fancy we are going to be shut up in Ladysmith, where the probability is that we shall be besieged. Whether or not I shall be able to get any letters through I don’t know. Of course I will do so if I can.

“But I was forgetting to tell you that after we had got back into camp I naturally went to thank Buck for what he had done. And you’ll be surprised to hear that he told me that he had been asked to look after me by a Hockingham girl. Who do you think it was? Why, it seems that George Buck was staying In Hockingham last May and pledged his troth to Bina Reeve, the daughter of old Gunner, with whom I used to go out wildfowling so much. Buck seems to be very fond of the girl, and she suggested to him in a letter that if he did anything for me I might.be able to persuade the pater to let the young couple have the Bushel o’ Malt when Oldboy dies, if the war is over by then. I think it would be nice of you to see if there is anything you can do for the girl for Buck’s sake. Don’t let her know anything beyond the fact that Buck saved my life to-day, and that you will be glad to do anything for her that you can. You told me to let you know if you could do anything for me at home. And really I think it is due to the family to make some recognition of Buck’s bravery, and that you can do best by being kind to the girl he loves. . . .”

The rest of the letter had little to do with the story of Rubina, and consisted mostly of an account of Reggie’s regimental experiences and of messages to his father and mother.

He took the two letters to the field postal authorities, and arranged for their despatch.

Then he went back to his quarters and wondered if he had not been guilty of the blandest insolence and imprudence of his life.

He thanked God when his duties took his mind off his troubles so that he could postpone coming to any decision as to his future action in regard to George and Bina.

CHAPTER XVI
TO LADYSMITH

The small British force, which with a few Colonial volunteers was all the army there was wherewith the advance of the Boers into Natal could be opposed, did not commence its retirement from the field of Dundee till the 22nd, and though the batteries were engaged on the 21st the cavalry did not leave their lines. For all that Reggie managed to find sufficient occupation to excuse himself from again seeking out George Buck. Though the agony of the first shock was over he still found that it was only when he was busily engaged that he could keep from worrying over the complication which had arisen from Bina’s serene impudence and Buck’s gallantry. And he knew that if he brooded too much over the thing “that way lay madness.”

He felt it bitterly that a man like himself, a really quite well-meaning young fellow, should have got “landed” in such an awful quandary. He had commenced his recent association with Bina in all Innocence. He had been a blind fool no doubt But what a punishment for folly! Who was it who had said, “I believe the wicked and the fools get paid out in this world—but the fools first ”? And yet what folly had there been in giving way to a passion which he could still feel was a part of his best manliness? As he surveyed the situation he could not help feeling that he had been hardly treated by fate. Even if he had loved and ridden away owing to the call to arms, he had not deserved to suffer as he had suffered last night He had not intended to be a “bold bad man”! He and Bina had found each other without any formal prearrangement, without those sordid practical details of forethought which sometimes make the service of Love so cold blooded and inexcusable. At the worst if no one but he and Bina had been concerned he had been guilty of a trifling peccadillo. Now, owing to the sardonic stroke of destiny, that insignificant peccadillo had assumed the proportions of a sin of the first magnitude. And it was so unfair. He could not help it that George Buck had known and loved Bina before he, Reggie, had returned home from Sandhurst Yet on that hung all this weight of misery.

He braced himself to approach George Buck before night and to tell him that his letter to Bina had gone forward with one of his own to the Hall. And George had saluted and looked at the young officer with the pride of a man who is responsible for the active life he has saved. If the fact that he had been saved by a man whom he had wronged made the situation doubly bitter to Reggie, the knowledge that but for his protection this lithe young officer would have been lying dead somewhere under the northern slope of Talana Hill made Buck regard him with a tender affection which was unbearable. For now bis eyes not only followed Reggie anxiously, they dwelt on him with the sweet placid steadiness of a doglike love, and Reggie writhed, both literally and metaphorically, when he caught the look and understood it Ah! if only the positions had been reversed, and he had been the rescuer, George the rescued. He could then look the Sergeant and fate in the face and chance it But now he was a slave of circumstance and he girded at fate and groaned as he realised his powerlessness to make things better. He forgot that we are all slaves of circumstance, and it would not have comforted him to remember it George wondered a little why Reggie had not gone so far as definitely to promise him the Bushel o’ Malt But he remembered that he had been “taken queer” soon after he had mentioned the inn. Still he might have reassured him since. Perhaps after all his service had not been sufficient to warrant his asking a favour of the kind. Well, if that were so he would see if he could not win to bigger deserts. He would do his utmost for Bina—for Bina and for the man whom he had made his own by a gallant action.

When the little army commenced its retirement from Dundee on the morning of the 22nd George managed to ride where he could keep an eye on Reggie. Reggie saw the solicitude which the other had for him and he cursed and shuddered.

The march was silent The troops were retreating in spite of the victory at Dundee, and they did not like it Reggie found himself brooding again over what had happened, and what might happen, at Hockingham. He was glad now he had written to Violet He knew that his sister would do her best for the sweetheart of the man who had saved her brother’s life? But would she wonder why Bina had written to George? The old questions rose again and again and he never got any nearer to their answers.

He would have liked to show George that he had not forgotten his bravery. But he could not bring himself to face him. “Why should I be uneasy at facing any man on earth?” he complained to himself. “I have not wronged him intentionally.”

But he knew that he could not throw off the heaviness of compunction. He had not come to any decision as to his action in the event of George going home to marry Bina. Which should prevail— Loyalty in Love, or Honour between Man and Man?

On the 23rd the camp broke up and the march south to Ladysmith began.

Captain Stracey’s troop was detached, well away on the right flank, to skirt the line of march. Throughout the 23rd and 24th the retreat proceeded without disturbance. The fight at Elandslaagte served to keep the enemy quiet for a day or two. But in this the Scarlet Lancers were not engaged.

All went well and quietly with the detachment with which the Scarlets were brigaded until the fall of dusk on the 24th, and during the march there had been little opportunity for Reggie to blame himself for not seeing more of Buck. After all, military discipline must be preserved, and however great an obligation lay upon him he could not go out of his way to associate with a non-com. The annoying thing was that every day he saw that he was being “dry nurse,”’and that Buck was ever ready to sacrifice his own life to save his, Reggie’s. But the occasional sound of the guns, and the excitement of the anticipation of going into action at any moment, served to clear the lieutenant’s mind of much of that perilous stuff which had been weighing upon it He had given up trying to solve the problem of his future course of action. He saw that there was no need for any immediate decision. He was content to let events develop themselves as they might When the time came he could come to just as reasonable and useful a determination on the point at once and without forethought as he could by worrying himself for days and weeks over what was practically an insoluble riddle.

He was carrying himself upright and with something of his old gaiety by the 24th, and comparative peace had settled upon his soul. At the fall of dusk the troop which had been detached under Captain Stracey found itself shut in by the grim brown hills near Rietfontein. The firing between Sir George White’s force and the enemy had been heard, hard and long, and -the men coming in from Dundee did their utmost to march to “the sound of the guns” of the battle of Tinta Inyoni, which was clearing the road for them in the neighbourhood of Ladysmith. Scattered companies of Boers were known to be moving about with their wonderful mobility, and the Scarlets, on scouting duty, had the responsibility for the safety of the main body on their shoulders. It was not expected that any body of the enemy would dare to attack the troops on the march, but great vigilance was recommended and exercised. It was known already that if the enemy could strike a serious blow at the Hussars or the Lancers they would delight in doing it, for not only had they suffered slightly from the lance at Smith’s Hill, but at Elandslaagte the lances (though not the Scarlets) had done terrible execution, and had impressed the enemy both with the fear of God and with a loathing of cold steeL For though the Boer is indifferent to bullet wounds he has a horror of cold steel which is unequalled by any other race. He will face a rifle, or even a gun, but the glitter of a lance point is too much for him if it is anywhere near striking distance. The Boers even attempted to maintain that lances and swords were not weapons which should be used in civilised warfare. And though the lance had done far more execution at Elandslaagte than at Smith’s Hill, yet the brilliant dash of the Scarlets across the rout of the enemy at the latter had made the regiment a welcome target for the Mausers.

Perhaps under these circumstances it was somewhat indiscreet of Captain Stracey to draw his troop out of its proper line in the hope of picking up a straggler or two from the fight which Sir George had been waging at Tinta Inyoni. But he was excited; he remembered the joy of the charge to the rear of the enemy’s position at Smith’s Hill, and he tingled for another.

He had the caution to send a couple of vedettes well ahead, for the ground was hilly, and in many places very suitable for ambush. And it was as well that he did so, for while the troop was isolated from the main body of the retreating force, by reason of the deviation from the proper line which Stracey had risked, the blow fell. As the vedettes swung round a point ahead they were seen to halt, and two shots rang out from their carbines. Then they turned and came speeding back to the main body of the troop which advanced towards them as quickly as might be.

In reply to Stracey the vedettes reported that there were about two hundred of the enemy formed across the track round the point ahead.

“Poohl” cried Stracey. “It’s only two to one. Come on, boys.”

The charge was sounded and the whole troop swung round the point at full gallop, to be confronted by a sharp fire from the force of Boers which was lined across and along the sides of the kopjes overlooking the track some two or three hundred yards from the turn in the roadway.

It was rather a long distance to charge at full speed, but there was nothing else for it, and relying on the terror which he knew the steel had inspired in the Boers, Stracey waved his sword and led the charge straight against the storm of Mauser bullets which came sweeping along the track.

Reggie inadvertently looked at George Buck and saw him edging as far as duty would permit in his direction. He obviously had no intention of giving up the dry nursing. Reggie could have cursed deeply and volubly had he had the time, and yet he knew how thankful he ought to be for the other’s care. But he felt a “skunk” (ate he thought to himself), and as he galloped and heard the song of the bullets about his ears he braced himself up to do mighty things to clear his conscience of a sense of cowardice. It was not that he feared an attack of physical poltroonery. It was because he could not help thinking that the straight thing to do was to tell George all, and that he felt sure he could never do.

On swept the Lancers, and whizz ping sang the bullets, with an occasional soft thud, a dull unmusical note which sounded of tragedy.

There were several empty saddles before the glint of the steel unnerved the riflemen. But the threat of the lances cleared the way, and the greater part of the troop got safely through. One or two wounded men were assisted by comrades. But the dead had for the time being to be left where they fell, for in the gloom a number of dusky horsemen appeared which looked like the enemy.

The dash, from the point of view of the captain, had been successful. He could claim a success over superior numbers though he had been attacked when off his proper line. He had put the mark of the lance on more of the enemy than he could stop to count And his losses had been less than he could have expected. But Reggie’s charger bore him out from the charge gasping and helpless, with a bullet through his chest George had seen him hit and had his arm round him in a trice, or the probability is that the lieutenant would have dropped in the track and died there. But George had his work cut out He managed to support his officer with his left arm, and to guide his horse by pressure of his knees. For he had no other hand to use. His right arm had been shattered at the elbow by a Mauser bullet Fortunately the road took another sharp turn and before the impetus of the charge was over the troop were out of sight and too far for the enemy to follow up from the rear in their favourite fashion of fighting, for the darkness was falling swiftly with African suddenness.

When the halt was called the horses obeyed irrespective of some of their riders, and, at the sudden stop, both Reggie and the man who had brought him out dropped together. George’s loss of blood had been great, and the strain of supporting Reggie, together with the agony of the grinding bones of the swinging right arm, had been too much for him.

They were lying cot by cot in the Ladysmith hospital when they regained consciousness, and George’s right arm was off at the shoulder.

George’s case caused no anxiety. It was merely a case of regaining strength; but Reggie’s state was very different, and the surgeons looked grave when they came at the nurse’s call that he had opened his eyes. Every breath caused him rending pain. The bullet had not yet been extracted, and the frothy, light-coloured blood on his lips showed that the lungs had been touched. The poor young fellow was blue with weakness and pain, and he knew what the surgeons’ faces meant when they bent over him.

“Is it all up?” he managed to whisper, and they thought it right to admit that his condition was serious.

This upset George, who was strong enough to say audibly: “Don’t you believe it, sir, I didn’t bring you out twice to no purpose. You’re as good as ten dead men, sir. You’re to live, I’m sure of it”

And as the days drew on, a flicker of strength seemed to back George’s opinion. The bullet was extracted and the pain grew less, but what created an ever-increasing agony and sense of irritation was George’s action, for, as soon as he was well enough to get about, he persuaded the surgeon-major that he could look after the lieutenant with his one arm better than any other orderly with two, so that he was allowed to have his way and make himself useful in the only way that now remained to him.

No definite news of the chances of Reggie’s recovery had been sent to England by the 3rd November, on which day the isolation of Ladysmith became complete.

PART IV
THE VILLAGE

CHAPTER XVII
VIOLET IS PUZZLED

If George Buck had felt the parting with Bina more bitterly than the girl the positions of the sexes were reversed after Reggie had sailed for Natal. Although he had been fond of the girl the young squire was naturally affected by the difference in their relative social stations. He would not have admitted to himself that his love affair had been the ordinary one between a gentleman and a peasant girl. He was still too clean-hearted a youth to analyse the motive forces which had impelled him. He had not yet outgrown the chivalry of boyhood, when every girl (even one who has been treated with but little respect) is more or less a goddess, and when the male betrays the female (if the word “betray” is justifiable) under the pretence of worshipping at her shrine. He sincerely believed he had been influenced by a serious passion. But, despite himself, his new life, the war talk aboard the ship, the eager anticipation of the pomp and panoply of a military life in the field, made his heart sing, and muted the dull minor chords of recollection.

But with Bina it was different For her the world had been brighter of late than she had ever known it Reggie had introduced a new element into her life. His frequent interviews with her, the delights of an avowed passion, the charm of his wooing (none the less delightful because it was at first unconscious), had made Hockingham a fairyland to her. And when the climax of her life was reached in the larch plantation, on the night of the harvest supper, existence glowed roseate, and flushed to renewed brilliance whenever he whispered his love in her ears in that dingy chamber at the top of the outside stairway.

And now he was gone. Her dear delights were dead. She had not the acid comfort of renunciation to console her. She was forsaken and no more. For no one knew better than did she that there was no thought of legitimising their love in Reggie’s mind, perhaps if the young fellow had thought of it he might have made protestations of lifelong fidelity, might have vowed to marry her when he returned from Africa. But the dream of passion was so idyllic to these two that so conventional and unromantic a topic as marriage had never been broached. This was the more natural to Bina because Love for Love’s sake was no uncommon thing in the village. ‘Marriage between the youthful peasants often occurred when material facts had killed the romance of early love. But it was as yet too soon for Bina to look on her love episode with Reggie in a matter-of-fact, common-sense manner. She bewailed his absence silently, and nursed her sorrow secretly. But she could not help showing that she was depressed. She lost much of her buoyant jollity, and she went about her housework brooding, and rarely singing the rustic ballads which she had formerly loved.

It had comforted her to write the letter to George asking him to watch over Reggie. It did not occur to her for an instant that she was guilty of an act of treachery in writing it She yearned over her absent lover with an affection that had something maternal in it Despite the superiority of the man in the eyes of the world Bina had been wont to fondle him, to pet him, to coax him as “her boy,” when once he had given her the right to regard him as her lover. She had the bland hardihood to think exceptionally kindly of George when she remembered that his experience might be of use to the young squire.

During the weeks which intervened between Reggie’s departure from Hockingham and the receipt of the news of the battle of Dundee, Violet had often passed the cottage at Dam’s End. Sometimes she had caught sight of Bina standing in the front strip of garden. Sometimes she had seen nothing of the girl. But it seemed to Violet that each time she did see her the girl looked more depressed, more concentrated in some sorry recollection. The lesson of humanity which Violet had learnt in the supper-room was not forgotten. Her heart was more tender to the peasants, whom she could not understand. She told her mother that she wished to see more of the villagers, and that she was now of an age when closer acquaintance with them could not harm her, and Mrs Hogg, who was a feeble, good-tempered sort of person, had not the courage to resist her daughter. So Violet began to go about in the village, calling here and there, where sickness was, or impotent old age, and taking little presents of tea or tobacco to the old men and women. Daneshire peasants resent patronage from anyone but a member of a real old county family. But the inherited instincts of the feudal times were not yet dead. The Hoggs had long been the lords of the parish. It was fitting that a scion of their blood should see to her people. A nouveau riche or a stranger would very likely have had the tea and tobacco thrown at his head. But Violet was a daughter of “The House,” and if they delighted to honour her they were not unwilling to accept favours at her hands.

For long Violet could find no excuse for calling on Bina. But she was gaining experience every day, and stored it up till such time as it might prove of vital importance.

For Bina’s part, she felt more kindly towards the young lady since Reggie had been her, Bina’s, lover. She no longer stared at her without the courtesy of a recognition. The mere fact that Violet was Reggie’s sister inclined Bina’s heart in her favour.

The two girls were drawing nearer to each other without the help of speech. Although old Gunner (busy in poaching the marsh partridges now that the young squire had gone) was away from home too much to observe any change in Bina’s demeanour, and although brother Tom (who was away “one-journey trips,” mowing reeds along the rands of the Saelig from morning to night) saw nothing strange in his sister, Violet noticed the difference. Violet first saw that the girl was getting thinner, and more delicate in feature; that she had lost some of her colour, and that there was a new pleading expression in her eyes in place of their former bold challenge. Perhaps other village women might have noticed a change, but Bina had never associated on intimate terms with the other girls of the parish. She partly despised them because she felt herself to be their superior, and she was partly shy of them because her father and brother bore no very good name. Millie Grimstone called in to borrow the mash and cooling tubs, the hop sieve, the wilch, and the stirrer one day and thought Bina “wom’t a-lookin’ up ta much.” But Bina said that she was “doin’ moderate,” and a Daneshire peasant rarely admits a better state of health than is implied by that phrase. Millie shook her head and said to herself, “She’s a-worritin’ about George, I rackon. This hare war’ll make har worrit somethin’ dreffiil.”

And she told her husband, Bob, that Gunner’s gal didn’t “look up tew a sight” and she “rackoned” as she was “a-worryin’ ’cos George wuz a-fightin’ the Boors.”

One of the chief causes of Bina’s anxiety was that the village of Hockingham was far too primitive for its inhabitants to take any interest in the war.

Farmer Back took in The Daneshire News weekly, but he was averse from lending the paper, and was not communicative of its contents. The Daneshire Daily Press and a London Morning arrived by post at the Hall and the parsonage. But neither of these was available for the people. There was not a newspaper shop or agent in the village. Across the dam, at Dingleton, The Daneshire Daily Press could be seen at the Queen’s Head. But it would make a girl conspicuous to go thither to look at the paper. She might go in for a glass of stout readily enough. But to ask to see the paper would render her an object of amused interest at once—and Bina was shy of her eager anxiety for news.

It happened that the only men connected with Hockingham who were in Natal were Reggie and George Buck, and Buck was not a native and was only of interest to his sister, Millie, and, to a certain extent, partly vicarious, to Bina. Mrs Old-boy at the Bushel had a son who was a recruity at Gib., and Rabbits Bexfield had a brother who was also a recruity at the Rock. But though Mrs Oldboy and Rabbits made a lot of martial capital out of this Bina did not think that much reliance could be placed on news of the war which came through Gibraltar. This feeling was not shared by many of the villagers, who for the most part were entirely ignorant of the whereabouts of either Gibraltar or South Africa. But Bina had learnt a little from George and a little from Reggie.

It is a treatise in itself on the efficacy of the national educational cutriculum that the marsh folk in many of the Daneshire villages thought that there was a possibility of the Boers invading this country, and were very uneasy at the prospect Had it not been that Violet remembered that George Buck was brother to Millie Grimstone, Bina might have had to wait longer for the first tidings which reached her, for Violet knew nothing of the love affair between George and Bina, and what little the village had guessed about it had been surmise, and was only occasionally brought to mind by the nods and winks of the postman when he announced from time to time that he had delivered another letter “from furrin parts ta ole Gunner’s gal! He I he! he!”

But Violet thought of Millie when the cable brought the news of the battle of Dundee, and the gallantry of Sergeant Buck was described in quite a quarter of a column of The Morning Post and (under the heading of “A Local Hero”) in a column and a half of The Daneshire Daily Press, and went down to the market garden to congratulate her on her brother’s exploit, and to thank her on behalf of the Hogg family. What she was to thank her for she was not quite clear, but presumably for having had a brother who had distinguished himself by the rescue of the son and heir of the squire—a meritorious fact, doubtless, but one for which the market gardener’s wife could hardly be considered responsible.

It happened that when Violet knocked at the Grimstones’ door Bina was in the kitchen at the back, having come round for her brewing tubs and apparatus which Millie, in the face of all village etiquette, had omitted to return the day after having used and cleaned them.

“I’m right wexed, me dare,” Millie was just saying in apology to Bina, “right wexed as I shouldn’t ha’ took ’em back tee ye. But Bob ha’ been that worritin’ that I hain’t knowed if I wuz on my hid or my heels.’’

“It doesn’t matter a mite, Millie,” said Bina. “I hain’t wanted ’em afore to-day, and- Lor’! wha’ss that?”

It was Violet’s knock at the front door, which told the two village women that either “parson,” a stranger, or one of “the gentry” applied for admission. No peasant would have knocked at the front door of a weekday, unless on some formal visit, such as an invitation to tea or some other function out of the common.

“Dee yew goo an’ and see whew ’tis, theer’s a dare,” said Millie. “I fare that mucky that I bain’t fit ta be seed afore I ha’ had a slosh o’ soop an’ water. Dee yew goo. Theer’s a dare. Yew allust look up ta the nines, yew dew, though how yew fare ta manage it beat me, I’m shore.”

“Ob, I bain’t nothin’ outV the common,” replied Bina, a little wearily. “But I’ll go if ye wish it.”

“Say as I sha’n’t be a minnut,” said Millie, and ran into the washhouse to remove some of the Dane-shire soil which caked her hands.

“Why, it’s Miss Violet,” cried Bina, with more animation than she had been wont to show of late. “Good-momin’, miss. Mrs Grimstone be a-tidyin’ of herself. She won’t be long. Will ye come in an’ set down?”

Violet’s eyes were still shining with delight at the brave action she had come to speak of. She spoke excitedly and eagerly.

“Thank you,” said she. “I will come in. Oh, Bina! I have such grand news for Mrs Grimstone.”

“Lor’!” said Bina, dusting the seat of a chair in the “parlour,” into which she had ushered Violet, with her apron. “May I know what it is?”

“Oh yes,” cried Violet. “All the world will know. It’s news from the war.”

Violet saw Bina start and look at her, her lips half parted, tremulous with excitement “The war?” asked Bina.

Her common sense told her that the tidings must concern both Reggie and George. Had not Reggie been involved why should Violet be so animated? If George had nothing to do with it, why should Millie Grimstone be interested? Oh, why did not the young mistress speak?

“Yes, yes,” said Violet, seating herself. “It’s about her brother and my brother! Her brother, George Buck, is a sergeant in the same regiment as that to which my brother was gazetted, and he has saved my brother’s life at the risk of his own. They say he will get the Victoria Cross. It was the bravest thing done as yet.”

Bina’s hand went up to her heart and remained pressed against her bosom. Had Reggie been in danger then? And she had had no intimation? Had not some dream, some warning, come to her to let her know? He could not have been hurt, thank God, or Violet would not be in such high spirits. Had George kept watch over Reggie because of her letter? If so, had she not been instrumental in saving the life of the man she loved? Oh, joy! Oh, happy tidings I She could not conceal her eagerness to hear more. Her breath came in quick, uneven gusts. She panted, and her eyes glowed upon Violet with a fire of life which had been lit at the torch of the news.

“Oh, tell me all about it,” she cried. “Don’t keep me waiting. Pray don’t!”

Violet remembered her suspicion that there was something between Reggie and this girL For a moment she felt a little revolted. But then the greater charity which she had learnt came to her, and she spoke kindly. At such a time she could not feel out of harmony with anyone, even this village girl who loved her brother.

She hesitated. Should she ask the girl why she was so interested? But her feelings of delicacy mutinied at the idea. No. If she were to learn aught she must let the intelligence come naturally from Bina. She must not try to force the girl’s confidence at such a time.

Then, in simple but expressive and picturesque words she told the story of the rescue. As he spoke of the fall of Reggie’s charger, of his crash to the earth, of his lying insensible in the midst of the enemy, Bina could hardly breathe. She caught at her breath in painful and spasmodic gasps. Once she murmured, “Reggie! Oh, Reggie!” and though she did not know that she had spoken Violet heard the cry and put her own interpretation upon it But she was puzzled when, later in the tale, at the point where she said that it seemed that Gdorge had kept a watchful eye on his officer (for an enterprising war correspondent had interviewed Reggie before he had undergone the fateful interview with the Sergeant at which he learnt that George considered himself engaged to Bina) she cried, “Thank God I wrote. Thank God I wrote. He’s done as I asked him.”

This puzzled Violet All during the rest of her narration she was endeavouring to understand to what letter Bina referred. If she were in love with Reggie (and it was really too bad of the naughty boy if he had flirted with her!) what did she mean about the letter? Whom had she written to? What had she asked? Who had done what in compliance with her request? It could not be that she had written to Reggie to look after himself. And surely she could not have written to George Buck! The whole thing was a puzzle to her.

She had hardly concluded the story when Millie came bustling in, still wiping her hands on her apron. “Lor’, Miss Woilet!” cried Millie. “I fare right ashamed as yew should ha’ cotched me like this. But I ha’ been settin’ out a row o’ spring cabbages, ’cos Bob hain’t got any tew much time just now, what wi’ the geese, an’ th’ ole sow farrowin’, an—”

“Please don’t excuse yourself,” cried Violet. “I have only come to give you some good news of your brother. Shall I tell the story again, Bina? Or will you tell Mrs Grimstone?”

“Oh, you, please, if that ain’t too much trouble,” said Bina, who was hugging herself, with her arms stretched across her bosom, and her right hand clasping her left side, her left hand her right side.

So Violet told the story again, while Rubina tried to check the tears of delight which reaction from her first feelings of triumph and thankfulness had sent to the fringe of her lashes. Millie interrupted much with “Did yew iver!” “Well, theer!” “Tha’ss whoolly a maasterpiece!” “Brayvoo for George!” At last, in an ecstasy of indiscreet delight, she cried to Bina, “Well theer, gal! Yew ote ta think some’at on him now! Saved young squire’s life) Well, I fare that proud I can’t hudly hold myself! Why, Bina, gal, why doan’t ye spake up an’ say how proud ye feel as he should ha’ thote sa much on ye! But di’n’t he saay narthen about it in his larse letter tew ye? Di’n’t he saay narthen about young squire? Yew sly wench! I rackon yew knowed on it afoor!”

“There hasn’t been time for letters,” said Violet, wondering who the “he” was, and whom the letters referred to were from. It seemed as if it were George Buck to whom Millie referred as thinking so much of Bina, and as though it were George’s letters she meant If so, then she must have misinterpreted Bina’s agitation at first hearing the news. And yet she did not think she had done so. She could not shake off her impression that it was Reggie in whom Bina was principally interested.

Bina looked up at Millie angrily. “I don’t know what you’re a-talkin’ about,” she said angrily. “George was the right sort, but he wom’t nothin’ pertickler to me. O’ course you ought to be proud on him. But he never thote no more o’ me than he did o’ any other gal.”

For a few seconds Millie was so indignant that she went nigh to speaking out plainly. She was sure that the letters from “furrin” parts (about which the postman bad spoken so much) must have come from George. But she remembered that when George had spoken to her of Bina he had made her promise to keep her tongue between her teeth and she thought that he might have some reason for leaving himself a loophole of escape in case he should weary of the love which he had confessed to her the last morning of his stay at Hockingham. She might have sacrificed Bina to the spite she felt at the moment but she would not do aught to harm her brother.

“Oh, well,” she said, “I only thought he seemed to like ye, and I’m shore that ote ta deelaight any wench to ha’ been friendly along o’ him. Yew didn’t waant ta be soo short waisted, Bina, bor. Lor’! wheer’s the harm in a bit o’ fun. I didn’t want ta put the grin on tew ye.”

The little squabble puzzled Violet more than ever. At first Millie had strengthened her first impression.

Then, for no reason which she could fathom, the hero’s sister pretended that she meant nothing.

Violet saw that she would learn no more, and do no good by remaining longer, so shaking hands heartily with Millie, and complimenting her warmly on her brother (“He’s sure to be promoted, and very likely he’ll get his commission given him,” she said), she turned to go. She saw Bina looking a little ruefully at her. She had not offered to shake hands with her. But impulsively she held out her hand to the girl, and was astonished at the warmth of the clasp round her fingers. There was the very pulse of affection in the grip. Why, what was she to this girl?

Bina could scarce have answered this question herself. But to shake hands with Violet, Reggie’s sister, gave her a sense of propinquity to Reggie himself. The sympathy in her heart made itself sensed by Violet Without thinking she said to the girl as she walked out into the village street, “I’ve never seen your cottage, Bina. May I call some morning or afternoon?”

Again she wondered at herself. What was there in this girl which attracted her? She could not resist the feeling of warm sympathy which the handclasp had communicated to her. Well, impulse was often divine.

“Oh, that would be somethin’ kind of ye, Miss Violet,” cried Bina. “Any time you’ll be as welcome as a spring shower ta the mash.”

Violet promised to call soon, and went on her way towards the Hall.

Then Bina returned into Millie’s cottage for the brewing things.

If Bina had given Millie an opening there would have been some sparring. But the girl did not allude to what had passed beyond expressing her admiration for George’s bravery, and her sympathy with the pride which Millie must feel, so the latter thought it best to keep to her policy of silence. George would be best pleased with that Together the two’women hoisted the mash and cooling tubs upon the wheelbarrow which Bina had brought with her, laid the sieve, wilch, and stirrer on the top, and “scrowged” the barrow through the gate.

Then Bina took the handles and trundled it off homewards.

Millie popped her apron over her head and ran eagerly towards the Bushel o’ Malt, whither the men from the land were now making their way for their dinner beer.

There she was in her glory for the next hour, and consumed more free glasses of porter than she had been able to obtain for a long time. “Larse time,” she reflected, “as I got the chanst o’ so much stout wuz at young squire’s harvest supper. An’ now agin it’s ’ecos o’ him. Bless his heart i”

CHAPTER XVIII
THE VILLAGERS ON THE WAR

The exhilaration which came to Violet and Bina after the news of Dundee was speedily neutralised by the meagre report which followed the more important account of the battles of Elandslaagte and Tinta Inyoni to the effect that, in what was little more than an affair of outposts, Reggie and George had both been wounded. That was reported in the London morning paper which the squire took, and had its effect on so much of the drama of Bina’s life as was being enacted in the village. Then, while the details of the affair and the gravity of the wounds of the Lieutenant and the Sergeant were yet unknown, Ladysmith was isolated, the wires cut, and those at home who had been shocked by scanty particulars of tragedy to loved ones shut up in the besieged town were left to eat their hearts out in ignorance or uncertainty.

The circumstances had their due effect on die mutual relations between Violet and Bina But it was not till the disasters of Buller’s force had begun to throw their black shadow over such parts of England as were sufficiently civilised to appreciate them that Bina’s situation assumed an acute stage.

Apart from the family at the hall, Bina and Millie Grimstone (and Millie was rather upheld by the importance of having a brother at the heart of the war than disturbed by anxiety for his life), the peasant inhabitants of Hockingham pursued their usual routine without troubling overmuch concerning the fate of their fellow-countrymen in Natal, It was only when Farmer Back had wagged his head solemnly in a swede field, and muttered that such-and-such a number had been killed according to his weekly local paper, that conversation often turned upon the war when the evening village parliament assembled for its nightly sitting at the Bushel o’ Malt This admirable house of call was kept by “Buffy” Oldboy, a huge body of a man with a figure and countenance which threatened apoplexy at every instant of his life, and his wife, Martha, a handsome, buxom woman of forty. A family of eight were alive (five having died previous to the commencement of this story), but only the youngest boy, a child of seven, and Florence, a girl of sixteen, were at home. The others were all “out,” at service or elsewhere. Martha Oldboy was one of the “ scholards” of the village, and could read print aloud without making more mistakes than one in every three words read. Her great rival for literary supremacy in the village was Susan Bexfield, the mother of Rabbits, the labourer who has been mentioned before as having cast envious eyes on Bina. Susan Bexfield claimed to have seen better days, though she had borne little away from them if this were so. And she resented Martha Oldboy’s claims to be the best woman reader in the village, and there were occasional vigorous controversies between the two.

On the Saturday night after the news of the battle of Colenso had found its way into Farmer Back’s local weekly there was a goodly assembly within the arms of the wooden screen which stretched out on each side of the great fireplace in the kitchen of the Bushel o’ Malt. Within this cosy embrace, on the settle bench which ran along the screen, and on the rout seat under the window looking into the street (but screened from the gaze of those outside by a heavy wooden shutter which was always bolted securely as soon as the paraffin lamps were lit inside), were seated Rabbits and his mother Susan Bexfield, Bob Grimstone, Tom Reeve, Gilbert Heron from Frogsthorpe, Jack Pope, the handy man of the inn and the famous accordion performer, Sam Thaxter, Farmer Back’s shepherd and his wife, Ethel; while old Gunner and the landlord occupied two elbow oaken chairs, placed one on each side of the stove. Martha Oldboy was here, there, and everywhere, as business required.

A mighty fire of coke and green ash (that most delightful fuel) glowed red between the bars, and sent the pleasant sound of crackling and the still pleasanter smell of burning wood through the kitchen. The oil lamp fell on the red blind which hung within the great window shutter and cast a ruby glow of comfort Every man had his clay drawing well, every man had his mug, and every woman her glass.

There had been little speech as yet; for the last comers, the Thaxters, had not been in the kitchen more than ten minutes.

At length Sam Thaxter spat reflectively into the fire, and listened to the resulting sizzle with a look of pleased interest on his heavy countenance.

“Ah I” said he, very slowly and with an air of great importance. “They dew say as they ha’ whoolly been a-knockin’ on ’em oover.”

Buffy lifted his huge expanse of rubicund face and nodded slowly at his customer.

“Ah!” said he.

“Wha, drat the man!” cried out Martha Oldboy. “Whew ha’ been a-knockin’ whew oover? Doan’t ye know as I ha’ gart a son out at Geebrarlter and I fare somethin’ narvous about him. Spit it out, can’t ye?”

Sam blew a stupendous puff from his clay. Then he rose from his seat and went to the fireplace. Hanging from a nail over the stove were two or three tin utensils, two of which were funnel shaped, and another in the form of a man’s shoe. This last Sam took down, and into the open top poured the beer from his mug so that it ran down into the toe part of the shoe.

“I rackon tha’ss cold enow ta hot the bare,” said he, thrusting the toe deep into the red glow of the fire. He returned to his seat with the utmost deliberation, only to return more rapidly to the fire to save his beer from boiling over. He removed the “boot” (as the utensil is locally called) and creamed the frothing, fragrant liquid into his mug. Then he again returned to his seat, which he resumed in silence. A deep, low chuckle was the only sound from human throat which had been heard during his operations.

“I ha’ bu’nt myself I” he cried, after a swig at the boiling beer.

“An’ sarve yew right, bor,” cried Martha Oldboy, shaking her buxom sides till her wholesome round face glowed with heat and mirth. “Now will ye spake up an’ tall us wha’ss all this yew’re a-mardlin’ about? Whew’s been a-knockin’ oover whew?”

Sam thoughtfully drew the back of his hand across his mouth, then he protruded his tongue and hissed upon it to cool it.

“Tha’ss our chaps,” he said at last “Wha, yew iggerant fule man?” cried Martha, by this time exasperated. “What hev our chaps been up tew? Have they been a-knockin’ oover them Boors or hev they been gittin’ ’emselves knocked oover?”

Sam removed his pipe from his mouth and said solemnly, “My guv’nor tode me to-daay as they ha’ kilt pratty nigh a thousand o’ our min. Ah I knocked oover like soo many rarbuts!”

“What? Did them ’uns git all the spoort?” said old Gunner.

“What an’ if they did?” asked Gilbert Heron, the youngest man present “Sarve our chaps right, I say. What right ha’ they got to goo a-tresparsin oover t’other chaps’ land? How should we like it if they wuz ta come hare?”

“Lor’, Gil!” cried Mrs Thaxter, “yew doan’t think as they may come hare!”

“I don’t see why they shou’n’t,” said Gilbert “Dee yew, Gunner?”

“Noo,” said old Gunner. “Nor yit I doan’t care I They ‘oun’t goo for ta hu’t a pore old chap like me!”

“Wha,lor’!” cried Mrs Bexfield. “Yew dew talk a pack o’ nonsense I O’ course they can’t come oover here! They hain’t got noo ships.”

“Wha’ss ta prewent their a-takin’ some o’ what we ha’ sent oover theer?” asked Gilbert “I shou’n’t be sapparised a mite ta see ’em come a-marching oover the mash. Tha’ss all very well for yew ta say as they ’oun’t hu’t yew, Gunner. What an’ if our chaps made yew fight, bor? How’d ye like that? Yew might git a bullet in yar-”

“Lor’!” said Gunner. “I niver thote o’ that But I rackon they’d use up yew young ’uns fust”

“But why did us want ta goo oover a-tresparsin’?” again asked Gilbert “We hadn’t got no right theer!”

“Ah!” said Sam Thaxter. “That dew appare as if theer might be a some’at in that?”

“Well, that was like this,” began Mrs Bexfield, simpering. “Ye see old Krugger he sent an im-pident memorandum ta the Queen, an’ o’ course she couldn’t put up wi’ that from him!”

“But look yew hare, Mrs Bexfield,” objected Gilbert, “suppoose iverybardy what yew got yar tongue on tew wuz ta jam all oover yar bit o’ garden, how’d ye like that? That doan’t seem right ta me as ‘cos he gave Queen Wictoriay some o’ his lip she should send all her min a-tresparsin’.”

“That wom’t all,bor,” said Jack Pope, who had heard the Herringhaven market people discussing the situation in the stable. “Our gov’ment knowed as the Boors had a sight o’ gold saved up an’ they thote as they could dew wi’t If ta hadn’t ha’ been for that they’d niver ha’ let th’ ole laady make sech a stir about it Not them I They rackoned as they’d fill theer parkuts out o’ the Boors’ banks! He! he! An’ quite right tew ta look arter the brass, say I. I wish I could git my fingers inta a heap o’ Boors’ sarvrins! I’d graise ‘em ta hoold all they could! He! he! he!

Gunner shook his head approvingly, “tha’ss sense, that is,” said he to Gilbert “An’ yew doan’t want to forgit it, bor.”

“Well, that wasn’t azackly like that, te-he!” sniggered Mrs Bexfield. “Not ta say azackly. I wuz a-readin’ in the paaper” (it must be remembered that in peasant language “the paaper” covers every species of news journal, just as “a book” comprises all magazines and some journals), “as there wuz somethin’ about the wootin’.”

“Lor’, Susan Bexfield,” cried Martha Oldboy, with a sniff, “yew think yew’re the oon’y one as can read the paaper. Why I can read twist so well as yew any day. Theer bain’t a week pass but I right injy lookin’ at them ulsterated paapers with the gays “(pictures) “in ’em.’’

She reached her hand into a cupboard which was let into a recess in the wall on the inner side of the fireplace, and produced two or three back numbers erf’ Skurey’s Illustrated\ a production which had a great vogue in the Daneshire villages at the time of the war by reason that its illustrations were more vivid and intelligible than its letterpress, and the rustic can be easiest appealed to by what he calls “gays.”

“Look a hare!” cried Martha triumphantly, “I’ll read agin yew any day.”

“But whew’s ta be judge?” asked old Gunner, thoughtfully. “I ’ouldn’t take on that job for a shillun. That I ’ouldn’t!”

“HotI hor! hor!” rumbled the landlord and Rabbits Bexfield. “And yew’d be in the right not tew, Gunner bor. That doan’t dew ta interfare when the women git theirselves a-gooin’.”

Mrs Bexfield, a prim little woman who always wore seedy black and no apron, to show that she considered herself to be one of the elite of the village, if not quite on a par with the Hoggs, shook her black stuff frock. “But I did ought ta know somethin’ about it,” she said. “ You forgit, Mrs Oldboy, that I hev a son at Gibraltar.”

“Soo have I an’ all,” said Martha. “An’ yew doaa’t want ta forgit it”

“I heard from my son this wery morain’,” said Mrs Bexfield, producing a letter from her pocket “He say as he ha’ heard the guns at Ladysmith right plain and they’ve been a-firin’ somethin’ terrific”

“Theer!” cried Thaxter. “What did I tall ye? Ah! They’ve been a-knockin’ our chaps oover tarruble! tarrublel”

“Ladysmith! Wha, tha’ss wheer the young squire be, bain’t it?” asked Gunner. “Ah! an’ George Buck an’ all. Hev ye heard anythin’ moor from George, Bob?” he asked Bob Grimstone.

“Yew waant to ax, Bina, bor,” said Mrs Oldboy, with a grin. “But Snuffy postman ha’ tode me as he ha’en’t brote har no letters from furrin parts o’ late.”

“Dee yew lave my darter aloan, if yew please, Martha,” said Gunner. “She doan’t worrit yew about Brassy Far man, dew she? Then dee yew let her aloan.”

“Wha, doan’t ye be sa sharp, bor, else yew’ll cut yarself,” said Mrs Oldboy, a little ruffled, for there was too much truth in the growing scandal concerning her and Brassy to enable her to feel easy at the matter being mentioned before her husband. “I di’n’t mean no harm.”

“I hain’t heerd o’ narthen not since Miss Woilet sketw [6] us the letter as young squire writ hoam about George a-savin’ his life. Ah! Something thankful they are ta George, I can tell ye,” said Bob, feeling that some of his brother-in-law’s glory was reflected upon him.

“Nor yit hain’t noobardy as I knows on,” said Gunner.

(From this it may be assumed that Bina had kept quiet about the letter from George which had been sent off with that of Reggie to his sister, and that the postman had been more discreet than was his wont. But the latter assumption would unfortunately be incorrect, the fact being that Snuffy had been taking his yearly holiday when the letter arrived, and his substitute, not being a native of Hockingham, had not the same temptation to commit the breach of faith which Snuffy committed each day of his duty.)

“Ah!” said Gilbert, “if they wuz all like them tew I rackon our chaps would (stand a better chance. But just look at a lob on ’em I What they want ta dew is ta send ’em down hare to be lamt the ways o’ us mash folk. Dee yew think now as I should iver goo inta the hall coverts onless I’d made sartin as theer wom’t noo keepers theer fust? Yit them fules out in Africay are allust gitting ambushed or someat, though I doan’t azackly know what kind o’ bush it is that them Boors hide behind. Dee yew know what an ‘ambush ’ be, Gunner?”

“Niver heerd on it,” said Gunner. “I rackon tha’s one o’ them curious furrin shrubs.”

“Te-he! te-hel” giggled Mrs Bexfield, “you are all wrong, my good people. ‘Ambush’ means to take a body by surprise. Tha’ss what that mean.”

“Then why can’t they put it plain?” said Gilbert. “I read it out in the paper oover at the Queen’s Hid as a body o’ min had been ambushed by Boors in hidin’. Why cou’n’t they call it sapparised?”

“Ah!” grunted okl Gunner, “there bain’t a sight o’ good in them papers. I doan’t see as they l’arn yew anythin’ moor ‘an I know, an’ I can’t read nor write an’ doan’t want tew.”

“That baln’t narthen ta dew wi’t,” persisted Gilbert, whose second pint of beer invariably made him quarrelsome. “What I say is, let ’em come down hare an’ l’am how ta stalk an ole hare, or how ta stand agin the hidge ta watch for hornpie or duck. Let ’em come an’ crawl on theer bellies oover the mash arter a parcel o’ golden plover in the middle of the mash an’ git within’ shot ’thout bein’ seed. Then let ’em. I’arn ta hode theer guns straight an’ they might hev a chanst Wha, that theer cunnel as come ta Frogsthorpe Hall ta hire the shutin’ tew year agoo cou’n’t hit an ole crow. He paid me a shillin a-head for killin’ his phasants for him. Ah! an’ I got a tidy nice few for myself an’ all tewt He! he! he!”

Just at this point some noisy feet came clattering in the draw-up outside, and a loud harsh voice began to shout as soon as ever its owner was in the passage leading to the kitchen.

“Co, bors! Co, bors! Git us a pint o’ ole bare! I’m half kilt wi’ the cold. I tell ye tha’ss parrishin’ along the wall.”

It was Noggin, the village policeman, who had hurried from his beat on the wall of the River Saelig to warm himself with a pint of “old” after facing a biting east wind over the marshes.

He came in, a great blustering man of six feet, broad in proportion, with a grey-black moustache and a red coarse face. He had gone into his cottage hard by and changed his police coat for an old greatcoat His collarless thick flannel shirt showed above the coat Gilbert sank quietly into the comer. He had had unpleasant questions put to him by Noggin; but the others knew that so long as he could get a pint of mild beer out of anyone he would leave them alone. Gilbert, coming from Frogsthorpe, six or seven miles away, did not know the representative of law and order so well as those who lived in his immediate neighbourhood. His discussion was over for the night and presently he started off homeward after a “good-night, all.”

Noggin hotted his beer and drank it off. “Fill ’em up, Martha,” cried Gunner, who found it best to be on good terms with the policeman. “Fill ’em up. Hare’s tee ye Noggin, bor.”

“Here ye be!” cried Martha triumphantly. “Now then, Susan Bexfield, shall me an’ yew hev our match a-readin’? Mister Noggin ’ill judge, oan’t ye?”

“I hain’t gart the time,” said Noggin, not having the slightest intention of acting as Paris to two women of such vigorous opinions as Martha Oldboy and Susan Bexfield. “I ralely can’t speer the time. I ha’ gart ta see ta the dorg licences as I hear hain’t been took out Theer’s tew as I know on as ha’ kep’ dorgs iver since July an’ hain’t took out theer papers.” “Yew want ta be shore they bain’t dummy dorgs, Nog,” said Gunner, with a chuckle.

“Ah, yew ole rascal,” cried Noggin, “you did the revnew prarper that time; but that wom’t me.”

“What wuz that?” asked Bob. “I hain’t heerd o’ that”

“That wuz when yew wuz a-warkin’ on the line,” said Gunner, “afore ye married an’ took yar cottage. He! he! he!”

“Well, I’ll be a-gooin’,” said Noggin, who thought that it might harm his dignity if he stayed to hear the story, which he already knew by heart He was of pure Daneshire blood, and, apart from the ability to read and write, was very nearly as illiterate as any of the old men of the village. But he watched his dignity as constable with an eager eye when he was sober, as he was that night This was not often, so that he had to be all the more careful when it occurred.

Old Gunner knocked his pipe out refilled it, and began his tale.

CHAPTER XIX
GUNNER’S YARN

“That wuz when that new chap Jenkinson fast come to St-Mary’s-on-the-Fen,” said Gunner, “and come a-ridin’ hareabouts on his bicycle which didn’t make no n’ise. I’d give up my level o’ mash that yare, but I ha’n’t took out no licence for ole Roover, which I ote tew ha’ doned seein’ as he wom’t a stockman’s dorg noo longer ’an when I had the level. Soo Jenkinson he come a-ridin’ up ta me as I set in front o’ my cottage, an’ he axed me for my licence. O’ coorse, I hadn’t got none, an’ although I asplained ta him as I’d oony jest give up the level he pulled me an’ got me fined twenty shillun and the licence an’ all. Costs come ta seven an’ six, so that blarmed chap cost me thutty-five shillun. I made up my mind as I’d git even wi’ him; but afoor I could dew anything pore old Roover up an’ died. That made me as mad as a fly-stung bullock an’ all the more eagerer to take it out o’ Master Jenkinson, blust him!”

The old man raised his mug and took a deep and satisfying swig before he resumed. Throughout the narration there was a wry smile of intense humorous enjoyment about his mouth, and his eyes twinkled mischievously.

“Theer wuz a gre’t show up in Lunnon that winter,” said he, “up at the Aggericultooral Hall, an’ squire he sent me up ta look arter his gre’t red bulL Well, while I wuz theer I happened on a someat as I thote might give us a bit o’ fun wi’ Jenkinson, an’ I bote it an’ brote it hooam wi’ me.

“Nex’ March, one bewtiful shiny mornin’, the fust rale breath o’ spring, I sot in the front of the cottage a-smookin’ o’ my pipe, when I heerd a bell tinklin’ in the rood round the coarner, an’ I say ta myself, ‘Hare come ole Jenks! ’ I wuz all riddy for him an’ had been that month past Jenks wuz as hit as a Christmas peeg, an’ he come a-ridin’ up a-puffin’ an’ a-blowin’ like a hoss just took from grass. He give a look in as he come a-ridin’ past ‘Aha! ’ he say, ‘theer’s yar dorg then I ’ An sure enow he see a liver-coloured spannel a-layin’ inside the door, a waggin’ of his tail moost friendly like.

“‘I ha’ had a letter about yew,’ he say.

“‘What? ’ I say. ‘Consamin’ ole Gunner? ’

“‘Ah! ’ he say. ‘I heerd as yew had a dorg an’ hadn’t gart no licence.’

“‘Le’ss hev a look,’ I say.

“Soo he took an’ sheew me the letter, an’ this wuz what wuz wroot, for though I can’t read I knowed well enow what wuz in’t for I had paid Hoppety Sam, the clerk, free pence for a-writin’ on it, an’ I poosted it myself, without no stamp. He! he! he! That must ha’ cost Maas ter Jenks two pence!

“‘Sir,’ the letter say, ‘this is to inform yew as Gunner Reeve hev gart a dorg but hain’t gart no licence. From a friend.’ He! he! he!

‘“Well,’ I say, arter I’d made as if I read the letter. ‘What o’ this? ’

“‘Oh, nothin’,’ he say, sneerin’ like. ‘But I’ll jest ax yew if that theer’s yar dorg.’

“‘He’s my dorg right enow,’ I say. ‘Bain’t he a bewty. Did ye want ta buy a dorg, maaster ?’

“At that he fared some savage, an’ he louped on his bike agin, an’ said ‘Yew’ll hare moor o’ this. This is the second time an’ I shall press for the extreme penalty.’

“‘Good-bye, ole fat-an-puffy,’ I say, laughing at him.

‘Mind an’ doan’t forgit. I’m allust glad ta hare from yew.’

“He rood off that mad that he felled right oover a heap o’ sharp flints as wuz left at the coamer for the roods, an’ while I pratty nigh bust myself a-laughin’ he cussed an’ swoor till yew’d hudly believe as a man in Government emply ’ould ha’ doned it I “Sure enow ole Nog come sune arter. ‘Gunner,’ he saay. ‘Ye ole fule, yew’ve been an’ copped it agin. I ha’ gart ta sarve this on ye. Why doan’t yew take out a licence for yar dorg? ’

“’Cos I likes ta hev a h’arin along o’ the magistrates,’ I saay. ‘I wuz allust one for yarnin’ wi’ the gentry.’

‘Yew’re whoolly a rum egg,’ he say. ‘But how-somedever ta bain’t noo bizness o’ mine escep’ ta hand yew this hare. Wensdy week at Chetbridge, bor. Ten in the mornin’.’

“‘Right,’ I say. ‘Yew’ll see me theer.’

“Well, I sot an’ laughed for a bit Then I come down hare ta the Bushel an’ see ole Buffy and a few moor on ’em an’ tode ’em my idee. An’ tha’ss a fack, an’ I bain’t a-tallin’ yew noo lies nayther, but yew could ha’ heerd us uns a-roarin’ fit ta bust half way acrost the dam. When the Wensdy come theer wuz quite a little party as stutted from hare ta Chet-bridge. Buffy hare come wi’ his ole poona, an’ Martha. Noo, I’m wrong. Martha cou’n’t come She wuz in the straw wi’ har last darter.’”

“He! he! Tha’ss right,” said Martha.

“But anyways,” continued Gunner, “the coort wuz chock full o’ folk from Hockin’ham. Why theer wuz some as took a day from the land as hadn’t done it since Rush wuz hanged at Narwich Castle! Theer wuz tew or t’ree min brote up afoor me. Then some gennleman called out ‘Queen warsus Reeve. Rewenoo case.’ I up an’ say ‘Hare I be.’ Now, all in ye know as moost o’ them magistrates at Chetbridge be game-presarvin’ warmin’—not as I ote ta cuss ’em for r’aring buds for me ta kill—an’ they wuz dead on dorgs an’ guns. I had my gun licence an’ that didn’t make ’em love me. Ole Nog he shoved me inta a kind o’ lewse box. I had a ped unner my arm as I had brote down from Lunnon wi’ someat in it ‘Put that thing down,’ say one o’ the magistrates. Soo I put it on the floor o’ the lewse box. Ole Jenks be up an’ tole how he see a dorg at my cottage an* how I hadn’t gom for to deny as ’twuz my dorg. Then the gennleman what had called out my name fust he got up an’ say* Hode yew hud. He hain’t pleaded.’ ‘Nor yit I bain-’t a-gooin’ ta plead,’ I saay, ‘seein’ as all I ax is fair play and justice.’

‘“What d’ye mane?’ axed the man in the middle o’ the magistrates. ‘Be yew guilty or not guilty?’

“’Why,’ I say, ‘hain’t I jest said as I wom’t guilty.’ “‘Wery well, then,’ he say, ‘we must hare the rewenew orficer agin.’ Soo Jenks he up an’ tode his tale oover agin, an’ wound up by sayin’, ‘this is the second time.’ But they shut him up an’ said he must wait till I wuz found guilty or not “‘Hev yew anythin’ ta say,’ asks the man in the middle o’ the magistrates—the cheerman, I think they called him.

Ah! * I say. ‘I rackon I hev.’

“I hefted up the ped I’d put on the floor an’ oopened it I lifted out the liver-coloured spannel, an’ held him in my arms. He wagged his tail a rum un. ‘Is this hare the dorg as yew see ? ’ I axed Jenks. “‘I believe as it be,’ he saay.

“‘What has this got to do with die case? ’ asked the cheerman. ‘This is only impidence.’

”’D’ye see him wag his tail? ’ I ax, and the cheerman he began to get as nigh cussin* as he dust bein’ wheer he wuz. ‘Wait yew a min’t while I wind him up,’ I saay, ‘an’ yew shall hare him bark.’ Wough! wough! that went, an’ I bust out a-laughin’ an’ soo did ivery man jack as had come along o’ me from Hockin’ham.

“’This is disgustin’,’ saay the cheerman. ‘Forty shillun or a month.’

“‘Hare, wait yew a min’t,’ I say. ‘That theer ole fat an* puffy Jenks or whativer he call his-self-’

“Jenks he got red as a tarkey cock an* began ta sputter, an’ the cheerman said, ‘Taake the man away.’ But ole Nog, who wuz a-stannin* cloose, begun ta see what the game wuz, an’ he hid his mouth ahind his hand.

“* Wait yew a min’t’ I saay agin. * He ha’ swoor as this is the dorg he see, an’ I’ll sweer as it’s the oony dorg as I ha’ gart since pore ole Roover died as yew pulled me for afoor. Now this hare’s a dummy dorg what I bote in Lunnon. He wag his tail an’ bark when yew wind him up and pinch his belly. But he’s oony stuffed. If ye playse, gennie-men,’ I axed, innercent-like, ‘I didn’t know as I wanted a licence for him. I dew love a dorg, but I cou’n’t afford a licence soo I bote this up in Lunnon larse winter, an’ yew’d niver believe what company he is ta me.’

“But by this time iverybardy in the coort, save an’ ascept Jenks an’ the cheerman, whew fared fit ta bust, wuz a-roarin’ an’ a-jumpin’ about wi’ laughin’.

“‘Discharged, oh, discharged,’ bellowed the cheer-man. ‘Not as I di’n’t ote ta fine yew for contempt o’ coort’ But hare the gennleman what had called out my name fust got up an’ whispered ta him, and I believe as them coorts can’t fine for that Anyways I stutted off hooam, an’ the larse thing as I heerd wuz the cheerman givin’ ole Jenks a taste o’ his tongue, a rum un. Jenks he got the push sane arter. He! he! he! That wuz whoolly a master* piece that wuz.”

The happy company in the inn kitchen laughed and applauded, and as it was just on ten some rose to go.

But Rabbits Bexfield, who had been absorbed in thought even to the exclusion of appreciation of Gunner’s yarn, suddenly spoke up. “I see,” said he, “what young Gil meant about our min tresparsin’ in the Boors’ land. He think as arter ole Krugger insulted the Queen, she ote tew ha’ lawed him.”

But this was too much even for the Hockingham feeble sense of patriotism, and, seizing his accordion from the chimney-piece, Jack Pope struck up “God save the Queen,” and to a hearty if discordant and inaccurate rendering of the national anthem, the party dispersed, and Martha Oldboy began to shut up the house.

Before she followed her husband upstairs to bed she found time to slip round to the back where Brassy Farman was awaiting her. She gave him a pint and a kiss, and whispering, that she would try to see him soon, she locked the last door and went up.

CHAPTER XX
MISTRESS AND SISTER

The letters written by Reggie and George after the battle of Dundee reached Hockingham early in December. By that time the Hoggs and Bina had grown used to the further anxiety caused by the cabled account of the encounter of Captain Stracey’s troop of Scarlet Lancers with the enemy under the hills of Rietfontein. But the receipt of the letters rendered the anxiety the more poignant It was as though they had been written by dead hands—as though they brought a message from the dead While Bina rejoiced to learn from George’s letter that she had been partly instrumental in the rescue of the young squire her conscience pricked her for having appealed to one lover to take care of the other. But Bina’s conscience was not highly developed. Like most primitive women she worried little about her “soul.” There was none of that selfish eagerness to save one’s soul at all costs about Bina. She was too noble, too stout-hearted a woman for all her faults, to set her visionary “soul” before the practicalities of life. She would have had no sympathy with anyone who sacrificed the whole world to save his own soul. It would have been a piece of incredible, unintelligible stupidity, of preposterous selfishness and short sight in her opinion. Perhaps it is as well for the world that there are still some folk left in it who are not taken up entirely with the salvage of so worthless a thing as the soul of the majority of them must be. It always seems doubtful to me whether the people who talk so much about their souls, who are so greatly exercised about saving them, are not something like the old definition of a company—a creature without a body to be kicked or a soul to be damned. For in most cases there is no virility in them to make their hulks worthy of the name of body, and the existence of any essence so refined as a soul must be (if it exists) is surely impossible in their sorry carcases.

So Bina, feeling the prick of her conscience, bade it lie down and go to kennel, and proceeded on her own healthy human way untroubled by the vain imaginings of theological schoolmen.

She had indeed something else to think about. For she could not any longer disguise from herself that her love episode with Reggie would bear its natural fruit if Nature were permitted to have her uninterrupted way. She felt no shame because of this. Rather did she glow with a premature glory of maternity. The life she bore beneath her bosom belonged to her and the man she loved. She had felt no shame in giving her passion full scope. Why should she shrink from the effects of which her love had been the cause, her love, and (oh, the joy of remembering it!) the love which Reggie had felt for her.

But despite the romanticism of love Bina’s experiences had tended to make her practical. Should she bear a child to Reggie what would George think? If Reggie survived his wounds, perhaps he would come back to her—though she did not build on that to any great extent—but suppose Reggie died and George survived? What would be her position then? Even suppose Reggie lived how would he feel when he learnt (as learn he would) that he had been the lover of the woman whom the man who saved his life meant to marry. Even Hockingham public opinion could scarce approve of that And would not Reggie resent the position into which she had thrust him? She need only have told the young fellow that she was engaged to George to have checked him from what happened. And yet was that correct? Would anything have checked him or her that night in the larch plantation. She sighed and shuddered with the delightful pain of recollection as she thought that nothing could have made any difference. And yet she knew that, despite Reggie’s self-deception in thinking, or pretending to himself to think, that he merely called at Dam’s End Cottage in the first place to meet Gunner, he would have ceased his visits, he would never have given her the five pounds for a frock, had he known that she was “bespoke” by the Sergeant Then again she brought her mind to actualities. Suppose Reggie died. (Ah I God! Her heart stopped its beat at the thought, but life is stronger than sorrow and it pulsed on again as though there were no such possibility as death for the man she loved.) And suppose George came home to her, flushed with his fame, glorified by the Victoria Cross,having won his commission, favoured by the squire for what he had done for Reggie, suppose he came home with all his blushing honours thick upon him, home to her, to claim her promise, to make her his bride, and found that she was a mother! What then? She knew that he was a precisian, what (had she known the word) she would have called a bit of a prude. She knew he would not forgive her. He would find out that Reggie was the father of her babe, and he would remember the letter she had written him to Natal. He would think it a two-faced, heartless, treacherous letter. Though she could excuse it to herself, she knew full well that she could never make her point of view clear to him. She knew well enough that to her everything was permissible to save her lover. She would have sacrificed anything in the world for Reggie’s sake. But she could hardly expect the rival who had a prior claim to admit that as an excuse. She would then be left, a mother without a husband to keep her and her babe. Gunner was an old man. He would not grudge the support of her and her little one so long as he lived. But she doubted if her brother Tom would consent to spare any portion of his hard-won earnings for their sustenance.

The people at the Hall would not help her. Their sympathies would probably be with George Buck who had done his best for Reggie. She would very probably be regarded by them as a young woman who had led the son of the house astray, and though she understood the injustice of this idea she liked it none the more.

No. She would see old Patty Willers, the wise woman of Hockingham, and endeavour to persuade her to help her in her difficulty as she had helped many young village women who found that their indiscretion brought its consequences.

“I’ll go round to her at once,” said Bina, pulling her uprolled sleeves down over her wrists. “The sooner it’s taken the easier it’ll fare to be.”

She was about to go round to the outside stairway which led to her room when she heard a knock at the front door which she thought she recognised. She hesitated for a moment, and there was a frown upon her serene face. Then she passed swiftly through the kitchen and opened the door on to the front garden. Violet stood there waiting for admission.

Reggie’s letter had been to Violet but a confirmation of her suspicions. She had read between the lines with a shrewder woman’s instinct than her brother thought she possessed. She knew that the passages about Bina and George were not in character with Reggie’s normal style of correspondence. There was too great an assumption of indifference to Bina, for he must have seen the girl scores and scores of times during his visits to old Gunner. And there was too great an ostentation of the will to help the love affair between George and Bina. In former days Violet would have looked on any intrigue between her brother and a girl of the village with an intolerant disgust But her fuller knowledge of the peasantry had enlarged her mind. She was not prepared to judge too severely. Moreover, in some way or other, Bina appealed to her sympathies. She had read the girl like a book when she had first carried the tidings of George’s rescue of Reggie to Millie Grimstone’s cottage, and she saw that there was no selfishness about the girl. Now that they were both suffering from the horrible uncertainty as to what had happened within the walls of Ladysmith, the delivery of Reggie’s letter seemed to Violet to give her an opportunity of paying the call at Dam’s End Cottage which she had promised to make.

“What?” cried Bina. “Is it you, Miss Violet? Why, I thought as you’d forgot all about me! ”

“Oh no, dear,” said Violet, taking Bina’s hand in hers, and sending her a message of sympathy through the pulsation of her blood. “But I didn’t know if I should be in the way or not. Now, however, I’ve got something which I think you’ll like to see. I’ve heard from my brother this morning, and he gives a full description of what Sergeant Buck did for him at the battle of Dundee.”

The thing that puzzled Violet more than anything else was the fact that George Buck had spoken of Bina as his sweetheart She did not believe that Bina was a wanton. And yet what else was a girl who engaged herself to one man and then suffered another to make love to her. For though Violet had no actual evidence that there had been any lovemaking between her brother and Bina she felt that there had been, and with women presentiment or instinct is often a mightier proof than any evidence. And, as Bina stood there in front of her, some mystic talebearer informed Violet that it was Reggie and Reggie alone who was the man beloved. How then did George Buck understand that Bina was plighted to him?

Bina flushed high at the mention of Buck’s name. She guessed that Reggie must have written of her in connection with George. How did he know? Had George told him? If so it seemed that her sole hope of the future lay in George. Reggie would never forgive her secretiveness. He would feel that she had caused him to do what he would consider an inexcusable act.

“Well, miss,” said she, mastering her emotion. “Tha’ss right good on ye. Will ye come in an’ set down?”

She led the way into the kitchen, as frankly as if Violet had been any village crony of hers. “There’s no fire in the parlour,” she said by way of excuse. “And that do fare perishin’ cold this mornin’.”

“Oh, kitchens are always more cosy,” said Violet, with a laugh.

She followed Bina within and took the chair which her hostess proffered. Then she took off her right glove, withdrew Reggie’s letter from her muff, and held it out to Bina. “There’s nothing in it which you may not read,” she said. “It’s all about your lover’s bravery.”

She watched Bina as she spoke the word “lover.” A quaint humour tingled within her. How if Bina scarce knew to which of the two the term applied?

Bina took the letter eagerly. From it she would learn what Reggie knew.

Her face paled as she read. There it was, in plain black and white, written by Reggie, that George Buck was her sweetheart, and that it would be a kindness to him (to George, alas! not to Reggie!) if anything were done to give pleasure to Bina—to her, poor Bina! She could have kissed the words which had been traced by Reggie’s hand. And yet they brought her a cruel message, a message that all was over between him and her. That her future lay with the man she did not love.

She glanced up at Violet, and in that interchange of looks the two girls understood one another. Making an effort to control herself Bina held out a tremulous hand, offering the letter back to Violet. Violet took both letter and hand, and in a moment Bina was on her knees weeping, shuddering with sobs, moaning and crying that she could not tear it, she could not bear it Violet had never before been confronted with a situation so pregnant with dramatic force. But the girl’s instinctive strength and kindliness bore her in good stead. She bent down, and gathered the weeping girl in her arms, hushing her and soothing her as though she were a baby. .And Bina, the strong, self-reliant, mature marshwoman, leant against the budding femininity of the girl to whom passion had made her a sister, and clung to her.

“Hush! Hush! My poor girl,” murmured Violet, permitting her hands to fondle the other’s hair, and stroke her cheeks and open neck. “Come, tell me if I cam do anything to help.”

Violet did not mean “help” for the sake of George, who had saved Reggie’s life. But “help” for the sake of womanhood, for, perhaps, Reggie’s sake. And Bina understood her and blessed her in her heart But how could she take this pure girl into her confidence? How could she speak of her capricious wooing of George, of her wealth of love for Reggie? She must seem a despicable creature in the eyes of this lady who was so kind to her, if she told the truth. She couldn’t tell the truth. If she did she knew that Violet would never let her marry George when he came home, and she would be left with no one to choose from but the Hock-ingham yokels whom she had flouted often and often, and any one of whom would make her pay for her past contempt after marriage if she ever brought herself to take one of them. No. She must marry George. It was the only way. Oh I If neither George nor Reggie should come home.

She endeavoured to pull herself together, to restrain her hysterical sobbing, and wondered that she found it so hard—she—who had always been so strong, so self-possessed before. She did not know that her physical condition had weakened her. The coming maternity of a healthy woman often sends a glow of vigour through her frame, and Bina had recovered her physical perfections. But her nerves were affected by the new cause. She could not conceal all from Violet—not all.

“Oh no, Miss Violet,” she sobbed. “But I fare upset at thinkin’ o’ them two fine chaps out there. Both on ’em wounded. And Gord knows whether ayther on ’em’s alive by this time.”

“You see, George Buck saved my brother,” said Violet. “I think he behaved magnificently. Don’t you?”

“No, there! there!” she continued, as she saw the look of horror which had crept over Bina’s face. “I think I know. But oh, Bina I What can I do for you? What can I do?”

“You can’t do nothin’, miss, a thanky,” said Bina, checking her tears. “I reckon I ought to be proud o’ havin’ sech a chap. Don’t you?”

She lifted her face to Violet’s, and the pitiful resignation upon it was more tragic than her former despair.

Violet would have liked to be less cruel. But she was a young girl on the track of a romance, and there is no keener chien dt chasse in the world.

“Yes,” she answered. “And father says of course Buck and you can have the Bushel o’ Malt as soon as he gets home again. He’ll pension Oldboy off rather than not let you have it as soon as you wish for it” “Tha’ss whoolly kind of him, miss,” said Bina, wondering despondently whether Reggie really meant that he would be glad if she married George, and had the Bushel o’ Malt Ah, well! It could not be helped. She must make the best of it One thing was certain: she could never take Violet into her confidence about her “trouble.”

Violet pitied her distress, and thought she understood it altogether.

“You’ll let me come to see you again. Won’t you?” she said.

“Oh yes, miss, an’ thanky,” said Bina. “That do me good to talk along o’ you, miss. Oh, I never see your ekal for kindness.”

Really Bina knew that Violet meant to be kind. She appreciated it, and realised that after all the tidings had come to her in as easy a manner as possible. And Violet was Reggie’s sister. That was some comfort Violet hesitated as she took her leave. She was divided in her intention between impulse and prudence. Impulse won.

“Would you,” she asked, holding out Reggie’s letter, “would you like to keep this? It—it says so much of-” She refrained from naming Buck.

Somehow it would have jarred.

Bina’s eyes lit up. It was the only bit of Reggie’s handwriting she had ever seen. Oh, how good of Miss Violet!

“Ah! That I should,” she cried.

“Then—then you may have it,” said Violet recklessly.

With shining eyes Bina took the letter, and held it till Violet was out of sight along the village street Then she closed her door and kissed the letter again and again before hiding it in her bosom.

“Naughty boy,” said Violet to herself. “He’s broken that poor girl’s heart”

She was too young and inexperienced to think of the more tragic possibilities of her brother’s love episode. But Bina had come to her decision. She must see Patty Willers without delay.

CHAPTER XXI
PATTY WILLERS

Patty Willers was one of the most degraded old women to be found In all the Daneshire marshlands. She had not the force of character, or the mystic powers, whereby she might attain to the reputation of a witch. No one ever suggested that she had sold herself to the Black Man. No one ever thought the Black Man would have been so extravagant (and extravagance is to the marsh folk the most inexcusable of frailties) as to purchase what he could get for nothing. The old woman was known to have some skill with herbs and country simples—herbal secrets which she had inherited from her mother and grandmother and their forebears back to generations of long-forgotten primitive people. She had made an ointment which had cured the head gardener at the hall when the doctor from Thorsand Bay (who spent his life in finding that he had not the time to attend all the patients in the clubs for which he was the paid medical attendant) had failed. When Fred Todd died soon after his wife had discovered his intimacy with Mabel Shardelow, the wife of his farm hand, village rumour had it that Mrs Todd had paid a secret visit to old Patty and had left the old woman’s dilapidated cottage with a “package o’ rum stuff an’ doan’t yew forgit it!” But if there were any truth in this scandal, the “rum stuff” was prepared with sufficient skill as to defy any analysis of rural practitioners, and old Patty stood outside the room in which the inquest was held (by request of the deceased man’s sister, Sarah Moss, wife of Dick Moss the Herringhaven carrier) and wagged her wicked old head and chuckled. There are vegetable secrets known to some old village women which would be worth their weight in diamonds to chemists. Incredible as it must seem to townsfolk I myself have seen some extraordinary cures wrought by an old harridan who could neither read nor write, who could indeed scarce talk, but whose mumblings over her gallipots and saucepans, together with the hedge remedies she gathered, proved of more avail than the whole British pharmacopoeia as exhibited by the average country general practitioner. Many and many a mysterious death is glossed over in the villages, some by reason of the ignorance of the medical men, some because of the utter incompetence of the rural coroners, and many owing to the dislike of the villagers to having any “furriners” interfering with the internal affairs of their little communities. In little societies like these old women of the class of Patty Willers must needs flourish until such time as man becomes regenerated both morally and physically.

One of Patty’s chief sources of revenue was the benevolent assistance which she was always ready to afford (for a proper consideration) to such of the village girls as “got into trouble” and wished to get out of it again with as much secrecy and expedition as possible. There was not a rye field set for miles round of which Patty did not know, and which she did not watch at every stage of its growth, for rye is not much grown in marshland—the land is too good to be wasted on rye—and rye was an ingredient of many of Patty’s soothing potions. Old ale, green tea, and gin boiled in a certain manner and in certain proportions was another mixture which the old woman made up and sold under the attractive title of “Mothers’ helps,” or “Gals’ comfort” When all her simples failed her the old woman was not afraid of exercising her surgical skill if she were well enough paid to run the risk. She supervised what she called grandiloquently “Mother Patty’s nursing home,” and though the family at the Hall had no suspicion as to the nature of the traffic which went on in the old woman’s cottage there was scarce a girl for ten villages round but knew where she could find help if she needed it There was no “witch” in Hockingham though there were two, one white and one black, in the neighbouring villages of FrogsthorpeandTurlham. But so far as outward appearance went, and so far as personal influence was concerned, old Patty answered every demand of a witch—save only the power to “put anythin’ on to anybardy” at a distance. If she could get at her enemies or the enemies of those who paid her, she could work them as much ill as could the famous or infamous old Granny Young of Turlham by Frogsthorpe. But she could not send her sprites to work for her afar, and she could not do any of the wonderful things which were attributed to Granny. She was as influential as she could be, and stuck at nothing because of cowardice or conscience. But her powers were more limited than Granny’s were (if the country tales were true), and she used more material means in effecting her cures or the reverse.

For the last forty years she had lived in a cottage of wattle and daub which stood under the scowl of Hockingham Church Hill on the east-side. A narrow loke ran past the cottage up to the farmhouse inhabited by Farmer Back, and on the other side of this loke and to the south and west, the land rose abruptly so that Patty’s cottage seemed hidden in a hole. Its thatch was -worn and broken, its walls had lost much of their daub covering and in places showed the wattle through. There was only one habitable room, on the ground floor, the attic beneath the thatch having no light, and being rotten with wet and riddled with rat holes. The one room on the ground floor had a floor of beaten earth. Its walls had once been limewashed, but that was beyond the memory of living man. All about the face of them ran streaky lines, with blotches here and there, looking like some foul growth of fungus. In the corner to the left as the door was entered was the top of a small donkey cart This was heaped with straw and filthy rags, and served as a bed for Patty. But in the opposite comer was an old-fashioned wooden bedstead, over which hung a paraffin lamp of more power than was often seen in cottages. On this were some rough sheets and blankets. This was the “hospital “—the nursing home for Patty’s in-patients. A huge fire always burned in the open fireplace, for Patty helped herself freely to wood whether out of copse or thicket or hedgerow, and no one liked to say her no, for no one knew when he or she might require the old woman’s services. One small diamond-paned window permitted a dull glimmer of shaded light to float wearily round the room when Patty had her shutters open. But it was characteristic and ominous that when Patty had a patient the shutter was always closed, and, despite the powerful paraffin lamp within, no glint of light was ever suffered to show outside. In the brick hearth or on the glowing wood ashes heaped in the stove, gallipots or pipkins continually boiled and seethed. An iron pan, deeper than a frying pan, which had been made for Patty’s mother by the village blacksmith of her time, generally stood on the ashes or hung suspended over the dogs, some fat or other hissing and clearing to an oiL A deal table and two or three chairs, settles, and stools completed the furniture of the room. A sordid and horrible place, one which would have been dreadful enough in a London or Liverpool slum, and which, in the pure beauty of that Daneshire village, was like some noxious abscess, some festering sore on a fair body.

Patty herself might have been aged anything from sixty to a hundred and sixty. She was a lean, withered woman, long-armed and long-legged for the size of her body—a monkey-shaped woman, with dried, withered flesh. Her teeth were all in her head in excellent preservation, and this kept her chin and nose from meeting, her cheeks from falling in. But her complexion was cadaverous, and her face a mummified resemblance to a human countenance. Her meagre frame was bowed, but at times she would hold herself up erect, and always she strode along with wonderful vigour. Her eyes never looked twice the same. Now they would twinkle almost humorously, now they would be stern, and now they would light up and glow with a life and energy, with a fever of triumphant power, that was of the very essence of youth—for it was impossible to think that the owner of those eyes could be so old as her wasted shape suggested. The evidence of old age in villages is not very trustworthy. But if any reliance can be placed on the stated recollections of men who could be proved to have lived over eighty years, old Patty was as old as anyone about Hockingham. Some of the oldest inhabitants talked of a marshman with whom the old woman had lived before three-fourths of the then living villagers were born. She herself insisted on being called either “Mother” or “Missus” Willers. But whether she had ever been married or not no one knew. There was no record in the church registry. But the absence of that was not conclusive. Perhaps more might have been known about this evil woman but for the superstition that it would bring ill-luck to talk, or even to think, about her. She had her uses, uses which the whole village recognised. But it was not lucky to be free with the name or life of a woman such as she.

It was to this wicked and mysterious woman that Bina went in her trouble.

She had “slept upon her determination” after Violet’s visit Had slept in her chamber at the top of the winding stairway outside the cottage, up which she used to hear the soft brush of Reggie’s “stocking” feet during those few happy weeks. She held his letter to Violet in her hand throughout the night, and prayed that some dream, some mystic message might come to her from him to let her know if he were still alive. Then she remembered that even if he were he would hate her. There was no chance for her save in George and George’s ignorance, and though she knew that her neighbours would not “give her away” to a “furriner,” yet she remembered that Millie Grimstone was his sister, and that she would probably let him know how he had been deceived if Reggie’s baby were ever bom. For a moment the girl thought of Violet as a refuge and a strength. But she felt that she could not go to her with the tale of her “misfortune.” No. There was nothing for it but a visit to Patty Willers. But, oh! how she hoped that it would be unnecessary for her to stay in that dreadful cottage for even one night At night time, to the ears of many of the village women, that hovel of wattle and daub under the hill was clamorous with the cries of women in agony, piteous with the wails of unborn infants, with the appeals for life of babes to whom life was never to be granted. Few village women cared to pass the hovel after dark. Even if Patty was not a witch there was something uncanny about her, and if she had not sold herself to the devil, because the devil was too sly to make so poor a bargain, it did not necessarily follow that she was not on intimate terms with his Satanic Majesty, and it might be that strange shapes hobbed and nobbed with the old woman round the open stove in that gloomy and eerie seclusion, that sordid apology for a room.

She must either go to the hovel under the hill before dawn or after dusk. No girl would be seen seeking the advice of the old woman when there was a chance that she might be spied upon. She would wait till the evening. Gunner would be out after fowl, and Tom had found up a sweetheart in Frogs-thorpe to whom he always went on Saturday nights, and to-morrow, nay, to-day, would be Saturday.

CHAPTER XXII
BINA AND THE WISE WOMAN

The bright frosty sky of the earlier days of December softened at the dawn of the morning, of Bina’s first expedition to old Patty’s cottage, and before the sun had well begun to persuade shivering mortality that there was still some warmth left in his rays, a grey canopy swept over the sky and a great silence fell upon the marshland. Some few cows which had been brought down from Farmer Back’s yards to pick a bit of winter-grown grass on the grazing mashes huddled together and looked apprehensively towards the nor’ard. The wind swept round from the south (whither it had first veered on the change from frost) and delicately attempted each quarter of the four. When it gave a whistle on the northern stop, hesitated, and tried again, the cows knew what it meant, and mooed, thinking that if it was fair that they should lurch landwards to the “ ha hao, ha hao, ha hao,” of their custodian, he on his side, ought to understand and answer their cries of warning that the north wind did blow and there would be snow, and no respectable cow cares to be out in a snowstorm. It might be all very well for a young heifer who had never before seen the snow. But experienced matrons of the herd knew that* snow would be uncomfortable and would render it impossible for them to crop the close green marsh grass without making their muzzles unpleasantly cold.

Bina had been busy washing. She was not pedantic in her household rules as so many village women are, to whom Monday is sacred for washing and drying, Tuesday for ironing, Friday for baking, and Saturday for cleaning the knives and forks, and for washing the husband’s or father’s feet in houses where such effeminate customs were observed. Bina liked to hang up her things to dry when there was likelihood of either snow or frost. She fancied it whitened them, and though snow delayed the drying it was her theory (not shared by many of her sisters) that it did them good.

What with the washing and the cooking necessary to send her father out on his level with plenty of pork-and-apple or pork-and-onion rolls to support exhausted nature on a cold night’s wild fowling on the marshes, the day went quickly enough. But when the snow began to fall about three o’clock in the afternoon Bina felt that she could have done better without it for all her washing. For if the fall was as heavy as it promised to be, and if it ceased either before her visit to Patty Willers or before she had returned safely home, there would be her “feetings” to show whither she had bent her steps. And there were plenty of folk in Hockingham inquisitive enough to follow up “feetings” from Patty’s loke*

As the light failed, and the night settled down, the air grew crisper. “Gal,” said Gunner, as he wrapped himself up in a horse blanket and slung his flighting stool over his shoulder preparatory to making for the level, “I rackon as that’ll tarn ta frost. If ta dew an’ the mune come up bright, I doan’t know as I shall be hoam afore mune dark. That’ll be pratty nigh sheer enow ta spot a snipe, and tew sheer for flightin’ onless they come low, which they oan’t dew if the wind drop.”

Gunner proved to be right Before five o’clock the snow had ceased, and a little, thin fall of fine, hard pellets of frozen snow prophesied that a night’s frost would whelm the marsh first in moonlight, and then in mist. It would never do for Bina to go direct to Patty. She must go down the first carnsa on to the marsh, confuse her track among the marsh drains, and then return to land by the next carnsa to the westward.

A little after six she set out, having, as a happy thought, put on her “pattens,” which were indistinguishable from those of any other woman or girl of the village. She had traversed the two marshes which intervened between the first carnsa up to land and the second, and was making her way beneath the row of full-grown willows, which stretched cones of white beauty as they lifted their snow-laden arms to the moonlight Away across the levels, towards the Cut, the mist was shimmering. The north wind would soon bring it landwards. Hockingham would wake to an eerie morning of drifting haze till the sun Digitized by Google cleared the sky and left it blue and brilliant in a winter atmosphere.

Between the marsh proper to which the second loke led, and the land of a market gardener, past which the loke ran, was a meadow on which Rabbits Bexfield was wont to graze his cows. Rabbits also loved to lurk under the hedge which divided the meadow from the loke on the watch for either horn* pie, wildfowl, or village girl. The loke was a favourite way for the village girls to get from the dam to the western end of the village, and it saved them some hundred yards, so that Rabbits had plenty of sport of one kind or another,

On the night on which Bina had chosen this way to take her to Patty Willers, Rabbits was on the watch. He chuckled with delight when he saw who was approaching. He had long looked enviously on Bina, and though he would not have had the courage to challenge the claims of either George Buck or the young squire, now that both those gallants were safely shut up in Ladysmith, and Bina had not chosen a substitute, he regarded the girl as fair sport He leaped out at her as she passed his gate, and tried to throw his arms round her.

But Bina had heard stories of that loke before. More than one girl had giggled and told, and Bina had no intention of undergoing a similar experience. So she raised her stalwart arm and caught Master Rabbits such a magnificent smash on the mouth that he subsided peacefully into the snow, where he lay and cursed as he saw the blood from his mouth stain the white carpet of the loke.

“I’ll pay ye fort!” he yelled. “I’ll pay ye fort. Wha’ss the harm if I did try ta kiss ye? Babes bain’t bred o’ kisses. Noo one ’ould ha’ beened the wiser an’ I should ha’ been the better. Whew are ye? Ole Gunner Reeve’s darter! Wee! Yew doan’t waant ta think as I ha’e ta goo beggin’ arter a wench. Theer’s a planty as bain’t soo consayted as yew be. But doan’t yew forgit it Yew ha’ put the humble onta me, an’ yew shall pay fort. Ah! that yew shell, if I ha’ to foorce ye. Whew are yew ta stick yarself up as better’n other gals? I’ll l’am ye some’at afore I ha’ done wi’ ye! Yew mucky pride, yew! Yah! mucky pride! Why doan’t ye sew yar lips up? Yah! I rackon as young squire —”

Bina had passed on. And though Rabbits had used young squire’s name in vain he did not really believe that there had been anything between the Hall and Dam’s End Cottage. He hoped that he would overcome Bina by surprise, or counterfeited surprise, as he had overcome many other sham reluctants. Bina had escaped for the time, but she had made a bitter enemy. Rabbits was a cowardly cur. But as relentless in pursuit as a weasel, and utterly conscienceless as to what means he used to attain his ends. He had fancied Bina for long, and thought his time had come now that the Sergeant had been away so long, and Bina had had time to get over any weakness for the young squire which she might have entertained at one time. And he had heard chuckling remarks from Martha Oldboy.

But Bina went on her way, caring little that Rabbits had seen her. She knew that he would not “put the grin on to himself” by giving any account of his meeting with her, and the encounter had strung her nerves tight. She walked briskly over the snow towards Patty’s. As she neared the cottage she heard the wind moan and saw the moon shudder behind a passing film of haze. “Ah!” she said, “I doubt there’ll be more snow. So much the better. It’ll cover my tracks.”

There was no light, no sign of life within the cottage under the hill when Bina passed up the loke towards it. The rickety gate into the garden which stretched its exiguous neglected space in front of the hovel swung open to her touch. A scurry of tiny life from the waterbutt at the side of the house showed that the rats had found some offal. “Queek! Queek!” and rattle rattle, thud thud, went the rodents as they scuttled up to their quarters in the attic until such time as the stranger should be gone. They were good servants of Patty, and they knew it But they found that strangers did not appreciate their virtues.

There was something very repellent about the silent darkness of the cottage. The overshadowing hill and the snow-laden trees kept out the moon. But Bina knew well that Patty was at home. The old woman rarely went into the village except to buy provisions or liquor, and she nearly always made her purchases in the morning so as to have the evenings free, “for her wickedness”—as the villagers said.

Bina advanced up to the door, over which the leaning thatch held a shelving roof of snow. Her steps were noiseless in the snow. Some migrant curlew and plover whistled far overhead as she stood on the threshold for an instant before knocking. Then she knocked. She was too familiar with the sounds of flying birds by night to take an omen from their noises; but she thought to herself that they were flying high by the sound of them, and that her father would probably have poor sport and would come home sulky or half-drunk in consequence; but that she was used to. She could take care of herself.

“Whew is’t?” asked Patty’s croak from within, here showing her lack of magical powers, for everyone knew that old Granny Young had always been able to tell who it was who approached her before the visitor got within sight or hearing.

“Bina Reeve,” said the girl, speaking out boldly, with never a quiver of hesitation or dread.

“He, he, he!” chuckled the hoarse voice within. “Well, ye know how ta spake up, gal! An’ soo much the better tew! Soo much the better tew!”

A sound of fumbling at the bolts and locks of the one door of ingress followed, and presently Bina saw a chink of light cutting into the darkness with an edge as long as the height of the door.

“Come ye in, bor,” croaked Patty. “Doan’t ye stand out theer wheer anybardy may see ye when the light shine out. Pop yarself t’rew like a mouse-hunter, [7] me dare. Come yew on, I ha* been lookin’ for ye this week past. Ah, iver since I see ye stannin’ agin* yar front door, a-showin* yar shape ruther moor ’an wuz wise. He, he, he! ”

A shiver ran through Bina. She had not realised the sordid actuality of the scene which the interior of the cottage presented. The great lamp over the four-poster was not lit; but a mighty fire of wood, partly wreckage, but mostly small boughs or brushwood, glowed and sputtered in the open chimney. Four or five small lights (which Patty made from the pith of the marsh rushes and the fat of eels or herring, which she boiled down into oil for herself, and which spread an indescribable scent of putrefaction through the room) shed a feeble light around the settle from which Patty had just arisen, and which was placed in the warm glow of the fire against the deep frying-pan which hissed over the red heat in the chimney, but threw the right hand of the den in deep shadow, where quivering eccentricities of light danced like unclean sprites, illuminating patches of the bed and its covering.

But Bina was not a girl to be easily turned back from the purpose which had sent her on a mission. She brought her mind to bear on the fact that within a few feet was the loke, and within a few yards of the loke was the highway which ran to Hocking-ham street Why need she be terrified by the melodramatic illusion of the scene? She did not know the word “melodramatic,” but that was what she meant.

“You fare as if you know a lot,” she said, a little disdainfully. “But I don’t want no wonders nor mysteriousness. Fanny Oldboy told me, afore she started for her last place, what you done for her, and I ha’ come ta see if you’ll do the same for me.”

“Yew’ll find me moost accommodatin’, me dare,” sniggered the old woman. “What? Hev ye got some’at as ye want ta git rid on? Come. Yew must tall moor or I can’t dew narthen.”

“Oh I It’s the usual thing for us girls,” said Bina, a little wearily. She had so often prided herself on not being as the other village girls, and now to find herself in the common way, to have to seek the help of this old woman!

“Ah. But I must know the times and saysons or I can’t help ye,” said old Patty. “Come. Yew doan’t waant ta be afeared. When did ye fust think about cornin’ ta me?”

Bina braced herself. She saw that she had better be outspoken, and give the old woman all the par* ticulars which might be requisite. She bent forward, and whispered in the old woman’s ear. Old Patty waggled her head and sniggered, nodding now and then with an air of complete understanding.

“Ta bain’t time yit,” she said. “But what ha’ ye brote fur th’ old ’ooman? I niver dew narthen for narthen. That doan’t paay. What ha’e ye brote th* old ’ooman?”

Bina flushed as she produced one of the trinkets which she had bought with part of the five pounds which Reggie had given her. It pained her ineffably to part with this. But she had her future to consider and she knew no other way of raising the wind.

“Will that do?” she asked.

Patty took it and examined it closely. “Well!” said she, “ta bain’t a deal, but that’ll dew ta begin with. Now hearken yew hare. Taake this hare bartle, and drink wha’ss in it afoor yew go ta bed. Then taake yew this little titty box o’ pills, and taake one on ’em ivery night Theer’s tew dozen on ’em. On the fust Saturday arter yew ha’ done ’em come yew hare ta me. Maybe yew’ll ha’e ta stay the night Maybe yew oan’t But afoor then I can’t dew noo moor. Now dee ye be a-gooin’, an’ good-night tee ye. But stay yew a bit If anythin’ happen as opset ye afoor that, dee yew come hare straight, an’ for yar life’s sake don’t be tew long about it”

“Oh, nothing can upset me,” said Bina.

“Yew doan’t want ta be tew sartin o’ that,” croaked Patty. “But if not, soo much the better. Oony if anythin’ dew opset ye, hare yew come.”

“Very well,” said Bina, stowing away the bottle and box in her pocket “Thank ye, Patty, you bain’t a bad sort.”

“Theer’s a many i’ this village as ha’ had cause ta say that,” chuckled the old woman. “But ontil I see ye t’other day I never thote I should ha’ seed yew hare this tew or free yare. Lord! yew young ’uns. Yew doan’t know narthen. Good-night tee ye.”

She pushed the girl out into the night, and barred the door behind her.

Bina saw with pleasure that the night had softened again, and that flakes of snow were falling, slowly, but with sufficient persistency to cover her footprints.”

She went home by the shortest way, through the village. Her father had not yet come home, nor had Tom, so she ate what she needed, and set a pot of tea to stew on the hob for the men when they should return. They would probably bring rum to drink with it as it was a cold Saturday night She saw that everything which they might want was ready to their hands, and then lit her candle and retired up the outside stairway to her room.

She had done it then. Old Patty had never been known to fail. She might suffer intense agony— indeed, the tales of some of Patty’s clients made her shudder with terror, physically brave as she was— but she would keep the secret from George, and when he came home he would find her ready for him. Why not? Reggie would never love her again if he came home. There was no outlook for her except union with a village yokel or with George. And George remained in her memory as a king compared with the average yokel. Probably this was because he was less known to her than her neighbours. For there were handsomer and finer men on the marshes than the Sergeant But his smartness and briskness had pleased the girl though he had not won her love as Reggie had done. Every day she- became more reconciled to the thought of marrying George. Every day a sense of injustice suffered at Reggie’s hands dinted the surface of her love for him. What right had he to send a letter to Violet such as that? How could he write of her as another man’s sweetheart? She had wished to win George in the previous May. Why should she not be content with him now? And prudence and feminine spite both tended to make her less reluctant to become George’s wife, and consequently more eager to hide the fruit of her love for Reggie.

CHAPTER XXIII
THE TIN PAN BAND

The Sunday morning, the day after Bina’s visit to Patty Willers, and the day after the symposium at the Bushel o’ Malt described in Chapters XVIII. and XIX. was rendered memorable’ to the inhabitants of Hockingham by the terribly sudden death of Bufly Oldboy. When the usual company trooped to the door of the public-house at half-past twelve they found it not yet open. For the last hour and a half the twelve or fifteen men and hobbledehoys who thronged to the locked entrance had, according to their custom, been waiting and “mardling” with their backs up against the wooden walls of the stables and outbuildings which belonged to the inn. They heard the church clock toll the half hour, and advanced with confidence to demand their first pint of a Sunday.

At last, in response to a vigorous kick, Noggin, the policeman, appeared at the door. His coarse face was pulled into an expression of exaggerated sobriety. “Dee yew be quiet, yew chaps,” said he, breaking the news gently. “Pore ole Buffy fell din agin the pump in the backyard, well, that wom’t ten minutes agoo, an’ Martha she come a-runnin’ arter me ta fetch Brassy Farman. But what ha’ he gart ta dew with a corpse? As iverbardy know ’tis the pleece as must be called fust, soo I corned round an’ found him layin’ on his back agin’ the pump, a-tamin’ black in the face. ‘Git up, Buffy, bor,’ I say. But theer! He’ll niver git up agin, an’ tha’ss not a mite o’ use o’ Martha a-m’istenin’ har hankshiff as she dew. Pore ole chap. I held a drarp o’ brandy ta his lips, an’ if that di’n’t bring him round, I know as narthen iver will in this world!”

Mighty expressions of surprise, sorrow, amaze* ment puffed out on the cold air from mouths longing to feel the taste of the Bushel o’ Malt’s beer.

At last Gunner, who had had a sufficiency of rum with the tea which Bina left out for him on the previous night, said, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. “Well, what an’ if he be did, pore ole chap? That bain’t noo rayson as I knows on why us ’uns should goo dry. Come yew on, bors. Tha’ss for the widder’s adwantage as we should swaller as much bare an’ liquor as we can hode. Come yew on. Doan’t speer yar parkuts. I’ll dew my best, I’ll prarmuss ye.”

There was a rumble of appreciative laughter at this sally, and the company trooped into the familiar kitchen, where the fire blazed as red and cheerful as though its master, who had stirred it fondly but half-an-hour since, were not lying dead in the outhouse, on the pig-sticking table, whither Noggin had conveyed him as being handy for “the crowner.”

The fact of Buffy’s death did not immediately affect Bina. But it was important in its after effects, and indirectly brought home to her the existence of a public opinion in Hockingham.

Within a week of Bina’s visit to Patty Willers, Violet had gone down again to see her, and the girl’s sweet graciousness, and the delicacy and affection which she had shown to Bina, torn with mental and physical influences, did much towards dissuading her from her purpose of utilising old Patty’s services to their ultimate issue. Somehow the transaction seemed unutterably revolting to Bina. “Where the apple reddens Never pry.” She would not allow the apple to redden. And this she hated, though she was determined. This primitive girl, this daughter of nature, felt it unworthy of herself that she could not let Nature have her way. She knew that what she intended was not natural. She did her best to tiy to reconcile herself to it on the ground of its expediency, but she was not happy. She could not have explained why she thought she was consenting to a vileness. But she knew that it was so. And Violet unsettled her. Violet, so free from “mucky pride,” so full of the camaraderie of true woman for true woman, might have changed the whole course of Bina’s life if she had had time to get her influence to work. But the time was wanting. Violet did not in the least know in what way she was influencing Bina, but she felt that the girl took comfort in her presence, and clung to her morally if not mentally. And she felt the appeal of the girl to her more refined nature. She had found something in this superbly primitive woman which was lacking in so many of the pet pupils and pupil teachers of her experience. There was no mock modesty about Bina. She never made an exhibition of her delicacy. Possibly she did not understand quite what was meant by delicacy. But she was far less vulgar than more pretentious country girls, even of the class of small farmers or provincial professional folk, for she was ruled by Mother Nature—and Nature is never vulgar though she may occasionally shock the over-developed nicftness of sham culture.

Ah! if Violet had known! If Bina had been able to confide in her! Well—it is very doubtful if the end of the drama would have been so satisfactory to the humorist as it was, and the true humorist is so rare and so deserving of all consideration that his appreciation should go for much.

Despite herself, and despite Violet’s entire ignorance of the visit to Patty Willers or the necessity for it, Bina was being drawn by Violet in the direction which led away from Patty’s nursing home. But events at the Bushel o’ Malt changed the current of her thoughts, and made her former resolution irrevocable.

Martha Oldboy was a jolly, kind-hearted woman, rubicund, healthy, and full of warm and swiftly running blood. For years Buffy had been scarce half a man. There was considerable doubt as to the paternity of the last two children born to Martha, though Buffy never knew it. It did not shock the village that Martha should take a lover.

In the eyes of the primitive folk it was the natural thing for Martha to do. But there is a certain etiquette to be observed in these intrigues, and Martha made two mistakes. The first and least important one was that she chose as her lover Brassy Farman, a man who lived close by, and had a wife and four little children, and the other, and serious one, was that Martha pursued her passion without that show of discretion which is so necessary. If she had kept her love affair moderately quiet, and if Brassy had not had a wife who was bom in Hockingham (which Martha had not been), the disturbance might never have taken place. But it happened that about a fortnight after poor Buffy had been laid in the chill winter ground, Noggin, the policeman, full of beer, and stirred to action by the relatives of Mrs Farman, attempted to have Brassy turned out of the Bushel o’ Malt at closing time.

“If he doan’t goo, Martha,” said Noggin, “I shall ha’ ta pull ye for ketepin’ oopen arter hours.”

“Wha, how can ye be soo ridicklus?” cried Martha. “Surely ta goodness I can ax a friend in ta spend the evenin’ oover a pack o’ cards or what not if I wish tew?”

“But pore ole Buffy—” began Noggin.

“Now that’ll dew,” said Martha firmly. “Yew know theer’s noo law about pore ole Buffy. I wuz a good wife ta him an’ noobardy can’t deny it. But now I’m not gooin’ ta be parsecuted becos he bain’t hare. I shall ha’e ta call for help. Hare, Brassy, bor, dee yew ax pleeceman Noggin ta step off my premsis so as I can shut up.”

Noggin puffed and raged and blustered, but be knew that he had not a leg to stand on, and that he had already gone too far in ordering Brassy off the premises. Noggin was a stalwart, hearty man. But he was no match for the rollicking, jovial Brassy, who stood over six feet, and weighed fifteen stone without a particle of fat. Brassy could have thrown the representative of the law over his shoulder, and Noggin knew it “Yew’ll ha’e ta pay for it, Martha,” he said, sidling out.

“I pays my licence, an’ tarn all out asceptin’ private freends at ten,” said Martha, “an’ tha’ss all that sigerfy ta yew. Soo off yew goo, Nog, bor, or I shall ha’ ta ax Brassy ta tarn ye out”

Noggin dared stay no longer, but he went out breathing vengeance.

In a day or two there was a very pretty little scandal in Hockingham. Mrs Brassy’s relations and their set, one or two who thought it worth while to curry favour with the policeman, and more than one village girl who had been former favourites of the handsome Brassy, cackled and hissed together. The old frequenters of the Bushel o’ Malt declined to be drawn into the controversy. There was no beer so good as that of the Brothers Morse or so well kept as that at the Bushel o’ Malt to be had for money. They took in to Martha the news of the threats they had heard, and cautioned her to be more discreet But Martha was in some ways like Bina. She loved, or rather desired, Brassy, and saw no reason why she should not let Nature have her way.

This English language (though it is better than the French in which “aimer” has to serve so many purposes) is unequal to expressing the difference between the primitive love and the chastened love of refinement I admit that the latter is rarely found. But people claim to have met with it, and there ought to be some word which could be used for one or the other without shocking the principles of the Puritans or causing the wicked to smile. As it is, those who think that the love of a man for a woman or of a woman for a man is degraded if it is mingled with natural passion, with the desire for the whole of love, must take my sentences as best they can or throw the book away. For my part I doubt the genuineness of any pretence of unadulterated purity of the love of any man for a woman after the former has attained the age of twenty-one or married (as the lawyers put it). It may be coarse. But I am firmly convinced that it is for the most part true.

So I must write of the feelings of Martha Oldboy for Brassy Farman as love.

At anyrate the people of Hockingham were troubled by no nice distinctions, in terms or otherwise.

They saw that Martha and Brassy were “cariyin’ on togither” to the detriment and dishonour of Mrs Brassy, one of themselves, and Brassy’s lawful married wife. They had Noggin the policeman with them, and knew that he would not interfere in anything short of a riot because he would not think it worth while and would certainly keep clear of a riot from motives of prudence—Noggin having a wife and large family himself, and not being inclined to desperate courage. As he said himself, “The pay wom’t wuth a man’s riskin’ life or limb.”

So the “tin pan band,” that famous rustic affront, was arranged, and Bina heard the hideous clamour of the clanging iron as she sat in Dam’s End Cottage waiting for her father to come home from his wildfowling. The girl started and rose. She listened. Then she threw a shawl over her head and shoulders and ran out in the direction of the noise.

Nearly all Hockingham was gathered in front of the Bushel o’ Malt Even those who took no part in the band or in the subsequent damage and whose sympathies were rather with Martha, were there as passive onlookers and sniggered and grinned at the torture of a woman.

“Tha’ss better’n any fair! Lor’, look ar ’em!” cried old Gunner, who had come up from the marsh but had been attracted by the noise so that he had not gone home.

Men and women circled about the draw up of the inn. The moon was up, but the sky was cloudy with threat of snow. The road was brown from cart wheels passing over the lay of snow, but the edges on either side of the dam and street were pure white, and glistened in the blazing torches of pitch pine, or greased tow, and tarred oakum which the “band” whirled about, till all the night was blurred with stinking smoke. The fireirons of the village had been requisitioned. Dust pans, pokers, tongs and shovels, with old saucepans and washing baths, all contributed to the hideous din. One woman beat upon a foot bath with a pair of tongs, another hammered on a tin tea-tray with?l kitchen poker.

“They’re in theerl booth on ’em,” cried Rabbits Bexiield, one of Mrs Brassy’s keenest partisans. “I see her faace up agin’ the bedrume windor jest this wery min’t, an* I know as Brassy was at the back on her ’ecos I see his arm. Yah I yah! yah! Faithless wife and shameful widder, hare the tin pan band.”

The cry was taken up and yelled by men and women alike: “Faithless wife an* shameful widder, hare the tin pan band!”

Yells of cruel laughter howled out across the neighbouring marsh. No one who had only seen these marsh folk plodding in the fields or about the marsh work would have believed that they could get into such a state of excitement They were as mad and irresponsible as those who once danced the Carmagnole—which, by the way, can’t have been very unlike the frantic capers of this yelling crowd.

Bina stood, and looked on with intense disgust The matter was too near to her for her to see the bitter humour of it Here there were two young girls shrieking horrible accusations against Martha and Brassy, two young girls who were well known to have been former favourites of Brassy. Here was another buxom matron, the mighty thrashing of whom by her husband because she had been caught with Brassy was still talked of with admiration in the village. Many of the men who were foremost in shouting and spitting out foul abuse had been thwarted candidates for Martha’s favours. It would not be unfair to say that nearly half of the “band” was composed of men and women who were stirred by jealousy, by the insult of their rejected charms— sprite injuria forma.

The others were partisans of Mrs Brassy, who herself was there in the front rank, and whose ungoverned tongue was making such disclosures of her domestic life that many of those about her shrieked with laughter.

“What? Did he dew that, missus?” cried out Gunner. “Good foor’m! I didn’t know he had it in him. Horl horl hor l”

“Ah, yew may laugh, Gunner!” screamed the infuriated Mrs Brassy. “But how’d yew like yar darter ta be wife ta such a man?”

“Goo on, missus!” cried another loafer. “Why, yew tall the tales bewtiful. Tha’ss better’n any paper or book, I rackon.”

It was never quite certain who threw the first stone; but evidence pointed to one of the two young girls who had been discarded by Brassy in favour of Martha. Whoever it was the stone went crash through the window of the upper room, at the window of which Martha’s face had appeared for one terrified moment Smash went another, and another.

“Hewray! hewray I Tha’ss right Stoon ’em out! stoon ’em out I” cried the crowd.

“Le’ss bust in an’ drink up all the bare!” yelled a famous village toper, and his suggestion was greeted with roars of delight But at the psychological moment, when the noise of the shouting and the din of the tin pan band was at its height, the front door of the inn burst suddenly open and Brassy came raging out, amok, like any Berserk forebear of his in the days of the Danish forays.

Brassy was a finely built man, in the prime of life, and as full of courage as a bulldog or gamecock. He bore a mighty staff in his right hand and the kitchen poker in his left, and he went straight at the nearest of the crowd.

With yells of terror the band separated and fled in all directions. Brassy caught one or two of the men and laid them flat with one blow of his cudgel Then he went back to the inn, after shouting out a challenge to all the village, with detailed threats of what revenge he would take if any further disturbance occurred.

Bina had kept her stand, she had taken no part in the attack.

“What’s that you, Bina?” asked Brassy. “Yew wom’t along o’ them muckers shorelie?”

“No, no,” said Bina; “but what was it about?”

Brassy hesitated for a moment, and then said with a somewhat sickly grin: “Well, ye see, they think as me an’ Martha wuz too thick while Buffy wuz alive, an’ we hain’t waited long enow for him now he’s did. What harm can that dew him? Tha’ss what I say. He doan’t keer, wheer he ha’ gorn tew I Noo; they doan’t think as a woman should ha’ tew min ta oncet, not public like. O’ coorse most on ’em hev; but they kape quiet about it, an’ perhaps we ha’ been a bit keerless like. It’s a pity, ’cos I rackon Martha’ll ha’e ta lave the house. The squire ’ll git ta hare about it. Nasty, spiteful, mischievous warmin’s! I’ll tall ye for why they fare sa spiteful, tha’ss ecos the women are arter me an’ the min are arter Martha. Goodnight tee ye, gal. Be yew keerful. Doan’t let anybardy know if iver yew hev tew strings ta yar bow.”

He went into the inn, leaving Bina struck dumb outside. Hockingham could, then, fly into such a fury because a woman had two strings to her bow! What would Hockingham think of the story of her lovers? Was not she almost worse than Martha? Oh! she could not go back now! Violet herself would understand the extremity of her necessity did she but know the facts.

Brassy’s words had disturbed the girl. She could not go home beneath four walls as yet. Without taking much thought as to where she was going she wandered down along the dam, out into the darkness of the shadow of the pollard willows.

Rabbits Bexfield, who had been watching her from behind the vantage post of the Bushel o’ Malt’s stable, waited till she was well on her way across the dam, and then stole softly after her, hiding himself in the shadow of the pollards, and stealthily hastening. He would soon catch her up. Ah! revenge was exceeding sweet.

CHAPTER XXIV
BINA GOES AGAIN TO PATTY

Bina was walking steadily along, thinking that she would have to go to Patty Willers on the following Saturday, when she heard the thud of a leaping man behind her, felt the whiff of air propelled in front of him, and found herself clasped in two powerful arms and flung on the snow by the edge of the dyke which ran alongside the east of the dam. A reek of beer drove against her nostrils and sickened her. Horrible lips sought hers. The arms which had clasped her were relaxed, and the hands began to pull and claw at her. She had given herself to Reggie, but her instincts were pure none the less for that—she was a very Briinnhilde in her chastity where neither love nor inclination impelled her to be weak. She had been free with George. But she had been provoked by his coldness, attracted by his smartness, and irritated by ambition to win him for her own. Now, however, this horrible, foul-breathed beast was upon her, pressing his weight against her as she lay twist-and writhing to free herself. His mouth slobbered and sputtered with eagerness. He grunted at her like some boar. And he had taken her at a disadvantage. He had her down, and, strong as she was, she felt that she would have the hardest fight of her life to save herself from contamination.

She freed her hands from the grip in which he had seized them soon after he had withdrawn his arms from her waist Then hope sprang up in her. With free hands she thought she could defend herself from any man. She dashed her fingers down the man’s face, and each of her nails drew blood. Rabbits gave a howl of rage and pain, but smothered his yell in Bina’s bosom. He dared not make too much noise, lest help should come to Bina. Bina, feeling his face against her breast, clutched at his hair— unhappily for her he wore no whiskers, beard, or moustache—and tugged and tugged till he could not restrain his yells of agony. Brutally infuriated he raised his right hand and struck down at the girl’s body. He hit her a blow, and for a moment Bina felt faint and sick. Then the anguish she was suffering inspired her with a madwoman’s strength. With every muscle taut, every sinew stretched, she heaved the man over, and, gripping his throat with her fingers, she held his head down while she got her knees upon him. He tried every foul blow he could, he tore at her clothing, he struck at her vital organs. But Bina was now able to do much to defend herself, and most of his blows were guarded well and promptly. But she knew that she could not hold out long. She knew that the blow he had dealt her as she lay beneath him had done its work—that as soon as she could get from this brute she must hurry to Patty Willers. She clasped her hands together, and raised them, knuckles to knuckles, aloft above her head. Then she brought them both crashiug down upon his temple. The blow unsensed him, and Bina got her grip round his throat She throttled him for a little, and then rose painfully to her feet. She could get to Patty’s loke. But she must not loiter.

Leaving her assailant where he lay she tottered homewards. Her father was at home. She could see the light in the kitchen. Softly and silently she slipped past Dam’s End Cottage. She always locked her room, and she had the key in her pocket It would not have been prudent to leave a chamber so isolated from the rest of the cottage unlocked. The habit stood her in good stead. Her father would think she had gone to bed and would not worry about her, so long as she put in an appearance some time the next morning. This she hoped she would be able to do.

The village was very quiet after its orgy of riot. Scarce four lights were shining in the street as she passed up it She turned to the right, and in less. than ten minutes she passed through the gate leading to Patty’s hovel. She was now very weak, and as she knocked at the door she staggered and moaned. Great pains seized her. Oh, God I would the old woman be long?

Patty creaked the door open half-an-inch. “Wha’ss that yew, me dare?” she asked surprised. “ Now yew ha’ beened an’ opset yourself, I can see. I wuz afeared on it Come ye in. Come ye in. Tha’ss fort’nit as yew*d made it right with me fust, bain’t it? Hare, set ye down while I light the lamp. I see we shall want light afore long. Set ye down. But fust drink a drop o’ this.”

The old woman poured out some syrupy liquid into an old flint glass, and watched the girl swallow it It burned her like red pepper, and stung her gullet as she gulped it down. But it invigorated her wonderfully. Despite her growing agony she felt stronger, strong enough to bear what she was to undergo.

Old Patty clambered up on a sugar-box, and lit the great lamp over the dingy four-poster.

“Now, my pratty,” she said to Bina, “come yew an* lay down hare. Trust ole Patty Willers, an’ mind that the stiller yew be the aysier it’ll fare for ye. Whativer ye dew doan’t kick an’ struggle.”

Bina bit her lips and hardened her endurance to suffer. The old crone began to potter about Outside and in the attic above the scurry of rats sounded eerie and the walls were alive with tiny shrieks, and the soft pads of feet and whisks of tails.

The great duplex shone down on the body of the splendid young woman.

The night drew on.

A little before midnight, while old Patty was routing about for some unguent in the dark part of the room, the lamp above her head, the four-poster, the sordid surroundings of the hovel disappeared from Bina’s vision. The worst of her anguish was over. She was lying resting, enjoying the cessation o of pain, feeling life and strength return to her with each flow of blood pumped in its endless round by her heart Patty had assured her that she would be able to go home before dawn, and would be able to get about so as not to excite remark. “You may fare a bit pale,” said the old woman, “and yew doan’t waant ta dew too much wark the fust day or tew. But noobardy need nootuss narthen if yew’ve gum* pertion, an’ I knows yew ha* got that”

So as Bina lay, waiting for her strength to come to its fulness, she was at ease.

At first it did not astonish her that the scene before her eyes should change. The change was so rapid that there was no intervening moment between the sight of the hovel as shown by the duplex, and the vision which ousted it It was a strange vision to the girl. She had never seen a place like it The place seemed round, with a pointed dome overhead. The walls, or whatever took the place of walls, shook now and then. Ahl She knew now. It was a tent, like the tents she had seen on Herringhaven North Denes when the volunteers were up orsome regiment from Bottleby was encamped. It was daylight, and a dull patter of rain thrummed on the canvas. In the centre of the tent was a cot, its occupant at first hidden from Bina’s eyes by a one-armed man, who was bending over the bed. The watcher rose and turned, and Bina saw that it was George Buck, and that the figure in the bed, the motionless, frail figure, was Reggie. She saw George’s lips move, but heard no words. She did not see any movement upon the Ups of the figure in the bed.

She had no sense of surprise. It all seemed quite natural to her. She did not need the gestures of the watching man to know that he whom he watched was dead. She knew (but how she knew she could not tell, nor did she in the least care) that Reggie had been dead some minutes. It must have been when- Ah! there was nothing left of him now.

She did not wonder how it was that she could see this vision. She did not puzzle her poor brain to think why Reggie should be lying there with George beside him. She saw George turn to the entrance of the tent, and walk towards it Then she heard old Patty’s voice saying, “Hare ta be, me dare. Now jest yew take a sup o’ this an’ then I rackon as yew may be a-gooin’ hooam.”

And lo! the tent had disappeared and she was once again in the wise woman’s hovel.

Had she dreamt the vision? She did not know. She could not speak of it to old Patty. She looked at the old woman, a little dazed with wonder. She had not wondered while she saw the tent It was the return to reality that caused her astonishment “Tha’ss right me, dare,” said old Patty, pouring some pungent tonic down the girl’s throat “Hare, wrop yarself up in yar shawl, and yew oan’t take noo harm. Good-night tee ye, an’ if iver yew should want me agin-”

“Oh no! No!” cried Bina.

“Lor*! Yew can’t niver tall, me dare,” chuckled the old woman. “But if ye should yew’ve oony gart ta let me know on’t Good-night tee ye.”

The first streaks of dawn had not yet appeared over the marsh to the eastward when Bina crept up the outside staircase to her room and let herself in.

When she woke in the morning she felt weak, but well enough to be up and about. And the vision was as clear to her memory as it had been to her mystic sense of sight Strangely enough it softened her heart towards George to think that he had watched over Reggie on his death-bed. Her love was dead then, she knew it. It would not be so hard a task for her to keep her word to George.

But how had Reggie died, and why? It could not have been from his wounds or he would have died long ago. Had he fought again and been wounded again. She did not imagine for a moment that the vision had been of a scene long since past. She knew that she had seen the death. Should she, ought she to, tell Miss Violet? Would not her story be ridiculed? A sudden doubt came upon her that all the vital events of the previous night had been a dream. She went out and walked a little way along the. street There stood the Bushel o’ Malt with its broken windows. She returned to Dam’s End Cottage, and looked in her glass. The tale of the night’s suffering was still written on her face. It had been no dream.

Who was that?

There was a knocking at the door of the cottage. She hurried down the stairway and went straight round to the front of the house. It was Violet

CHAPTER XXV
VIOLET LEARNS THE TROTH

BlNA opened the door into the kitchen and let in her guest without a word of greeting. She could not speak as yet.

“Oh, Bina I” cried Violet, seizing her right hand in her two tiny ones. “What is the matter ? You do look ilL”

Then Bina felt the power of the first words of sympathy and kindness that had come to her in her trouble. She had not seen her father or brother that morning. Often she left them to get their early snack for themselves. They were content provided she took care that their dinners and teas were satisfactory. Patty had spoken to her with a horrible jocosity, with an air of vile good-fellowship. But here was Reggie’s sister, who had from the first been kind to her. She could not bear the strain of her doubts alone any longer. She fell on her knees on the sanded bricks of the kitchen floor, and freeing her hand from Violet’s clasp caught at the other with both hands, pleading with outstretched palms, with upraised eyes, with dropping tears.

“Hush I hush!” said Violet softly. “Come. Tell me all about it”

“Oh, Miss Violet!” cried Bina, “he’s dead! he’s dead! He’ll niver come hoam noo moor!”

Violet started. She too had had a presentiment of ill, a sense of brooding horror which had darkened her dreams and thrown a shadow over her waking hours. Lady as she was she was not above certain beliefs which hard-headed materialists are too prone to call superstition.

“Who is dead, Bina, dear?” she asked. “Tell me what you mean. Oh, try to control yourself.”

“He’s dead I” cried Bina. “Reggie. Your brother, Miss Violet He’s dead, with George Buck a-watchin’ oover him.”

Little by little Violet coaxed the story out of her. Little by little Bina told the events of the previous night from her entry into the wise woman’s hoveL Inexperienced as Violet was she had of late seen enough of village life to enable her to piece the patch-work of Bina’s narrative together. She knew why the girl had gone to the hovel. She knew who was responsible for the necessity for her to go. She gathered the truth of the relations between Bina and George. But despite herself she could not feel repelled by the revelation. She felt an intense pity for Bina, a quaint desire to guard the girl from evil—to watch over Bina, who was so far more capable of defending her, Violet She felt in her heart that the vision had warned Bina of the truth.

“My poor girl,” she said. “I understand everything.”

But Bina, in the depth of her desire for disclosure, wished to give fuller details of her story, and it was only by turning the conversation to Ladysmith that Violet escaped hearing what she had guessed already.

“We shall know soon,” she said. “Though Buller lost Colenso he is within signalling distance. I’ll get father to try to learn if anything can be got through about my brother.”

“Ah I” said Bina dully.

“But what will you do?” cried Violet What will you do when Buck comes home to claim you?”

“Oh, I s’pose I shall ha’e ta marry him,” said Bina. “That doan’t seem so hard now that Reggie’s dead.”

Neither of the girls saw the strangeness of their discussing the tragedy as they were doing. Nature thought fit to overbear convention in both their hearts. Yet Violet was doubtful if the marriage should be allowed.

“But is it fair to him?” she asked.

“What else can I do?” cried Bina passionately. “He believed I was prarmussed to him. What escuse can I give? Can I tall him, him who saved Reggie’s life, what ha’ happened? Can I spit on Reggie’s grave like that? Think on it, miss. Oh, think on it. What else can I do?”

The full horror of the situation struck Violet. What else could the girl do? She could only excuse herself to George^ by breaking his heart But was she justified in shielding Reggie’s memoiy at such a cost to George’s honour? The matter of honour did not appeal to Bina, but she understood how hard it would hit the man to know that he had gone out of his way to protect him who had inflicted a grievous wrong upon him, unconsciously though it had been done. And Bina had herself too to think of. She must marry George. It was the only way.

“Of course I shall say nothing,” said Violet, after a pause. “And of course we, we—that is, father and all of us—will be only too pleased to do anything for—for Buck when once he gets home, if he does get home.”

Then she, too, broke down, and the two girls blended their tears in quite an early Victorian fashion. The relief of tears is the great boon which is common to women. The strongest and the weakest can meet over a cry.

Violet left Bina, promising to do her best to learn what had happened in Ladysmith, and to respect the secrets she had learnt In two or three days Bina was as strong and hearty as ever. She and Violet both looked forward to the receipt of some intelligence from Ladysmith. Neither could speak of what they both believed. And this formed an additional tie between them. Scarce a day passed but Violet found occasion to look in at Dam’s End Cottage. She now brought down photographs and little mementos of her brother, and the two girls consoled themselves by mutual sorrowing-Their sympathy grew so great that Violet ended in thinking that Bina would be quite right in marrying George—if Reggie had not told him. The thought came to both of them at the same time. Could Reggie have told George the truth? Or did he die with his lips sealed? Did he let the man who had saved his life tend him to the last without telling him how he had wronged him? Everything must depend on that Bina thought that he would die rather than betray her. But Violet saw the awful difficulty of the problem. Could he let George Buck go home and marry the girl who had been his mistress? What ought he as a man and gentleman to do?

What, oh what, news would come from Ladysmith? And when would it come?

To these two girls the whole interest of the world seemed wrapped up in the answer to that question. Had Reggie died without speaking or had he told George?

They alone knew that Reggie was dead. They were sure of it. Violet’s presentiment and Bina’s vision were sufficient evidence for them. And this placed them apart from all others. Violet could not speak of her fears for Reggie before her father or her mother. She could not tell them of Bina’s vision. If she had done so she would have been forbidden to see more of Bina and would have been laughed at for being superstitious and credulous. And there was no one in whom Bina could confide, except Violet.

Every day brought them closer together. Every day rendered it the more certain that when the news did come it would come to them bearing the same message for each. Rarely have the hall and the cottage come so closely together as in the cases of Bina and Violet. And the worsted which knit them so tight was of a fabric that in nine cases out of ten ravels and divides rather than entwines. Had Reggie lived it might have been different. But to these two girls he was dead. Should he prove to be alive what would their relations be? Should both he and George come home what would happen then? Neither Bina nor Violet considered the possibility of this. But Buller got some heliograph messages through, and they received some news of the state of Ladysmith. And still no tidings came of the death of Lieutenant Hogg.

Alas! within the walls of the town and in the camp hospital at Intombi Spruit death was becoming too common to waste heliograph messages upon its victims.

The exploits of the tin pan band were almost forgotten. Mrs Oldboy disappeared to some place where only Brassy knew her whereabouts. A new tenant took the Bushel o’ Malt until such time as George’s fate should be known, and the new year was well on its way and still Bina and Violet waited But they were prepared to have their presentiments and visions corroborated, and grew resigned to the idea that Reggie was dead. Their interest lay in the question as to whether he had died with sealed lips or not Oh! would the relief never get into the town? For until a letter could get through or George could get home, they could not know the truth. What they longed to learn was not material for wiring to the War Office or the papers. They must await private intelligence. Lord! how long?

PART V
LADYSMITH AND THE VILLAGE

CHAPTER XXVI
THE SOLUTION OF THE PROBLEM

GEORGE’S prophecy, in defiance of the medical authorities, that Reggie would recover from his bullet wound, was justified by the result. Greatly owing to the tenderness and devotion with which George nursed him, Reggie gathered strength little by little, till by the time that Buller’s relief column began to be talked of in the town he was able to crawl about and watch Long Tom’s practice, and the reply of the British naval guns to the great Boer artillery.

His illness had for a long time deadened his brain. For days as he lay between life and death he could not think of the problem which had so sorely troubled him on the ride from Dundee. But even at his worst he observed and appreciated the tenderness and unwearied attention of his nurse. When he found strength to think once more his difficulties, already great enough, had become complicated by a very real affection which had, despite himself, sprung up in him for George. George had been so tender, so longsuffering with the peevishness of an invalid, so cheery and so full of encouragement at the times when encouragement was what was most needed to keep the patient alive that the distinctions of officer and non-commissioned man gave way in the lieutenant’s heart, and he was sensible that he held his nurse in as high regard as any man in the world with, perhaps, the sole exception of his father.

While he was weak and barely convalescent, Reggie thrust the thought of his trouble away. Hockingham seemed so distant to him, in the midst of that horror-stricken city. He busied himself as best he could in interesting himself in George’s future. He had some influence from his father’s friendship with a certain person high in authority at Ladysmith, and he had not only secured George a likelihood of the Victoria Cross, but also a promise that if it could be brought about he should be retired with a commission. But he knew that this was only salving his conscience George spoke frequently of Bina to the young squire, and Reggie realised how he looked forward to going home to claim the promise which he believed he held. Sometimes Reggie thought it would have been better if he had died and got out of it, had died without coming to his senses so that the solution of the problem would have been taken out of his hands. Now he was recovering he postponed coming to a decision. None of them might get out of Ladysmith after all, and unless George were going home to make Bina his wife there could be no possible reason why Reggie should betray the secrets of love. Despite his affection for George he sometimes grew so irritated at the tragic horror of the situation that he was short and bluff with his subordinate. And it made him writhe and long to hurt himself to see how patiently George bore it. He could almost hear George saying to himself “Poor fellow, he’s not so well to-day!”

Reggie was not a religious man or he might have thought of taking counsel with the chaplain, or of asking for light by prayer. But he would have scorned to throw the weight of his own burden on another’s responsibility. He must fight his own way out of the muddle somehow. No one could help him.

He felt great indignation with Bina. How could she have permitted him to place himself in so false a position? If only she had told him at first that she was pledged to George nothing would have happened. He was more sure of that than Bina bad been when she considered the same “might have been.” Yet his heart sometimes went out to the girl who had lain in bis arms, who had given herself to him with such magnificent self-abandonment Then he thought his very remembrance of her was a disloyalty to George. And then he could not but recollect the burning softness of her lips, the superb ardour of her passion.

The worry of his mind retarded his complete recovery and kept him weak. He was in no condition to withstand the attacks of the enteric microbes when they dashed into his system. Scarcely had he done what he could for George, scarcely had he regained sufficient strength to mingle with his brother officers, when enteric had him, and he was removed to a single tent in the camp at Intombi Spruit, with George as his attendant He did his best to persuade George not to run the risk of coming into the fever-smitten area of the camp but George only laughed at him and said that he would never leave him till he was well and strong again.

From the first Reggie had no doubt as to the issue of his illness. He knew that he had not the strength to fight the disease even with plenty of pure milk and all the delicacies which are permitted typhoid convalescents. Here, at Intombi, where condensed milk was worth its weight in gold, and brandy was measured out in graduated [glasses, what chance had he? And as the fever mounted higher, his hot brain began to see that he must decide as to whether he should be loyal to love or friendship. Then or never was the time. He might become insensible at any moment, and might never regain his consciousness.

What could he do?

He groaned as the vivid ^pagination induced by the fever showed him the situation in all its lights. How could he betray the girl? Even if she had been faithless to George was it not for him ? How was she to know the peculiar bond which was to arise between George and him? To be just he must consider her position as though George had never saved his life. Would he have felt the same remorse in the case of any other man being in George’s place? Was it not because George had saved his life that he fancied that It was his duty to let him know the truth?

He groaned and turned in his bed.

“Don’t you feel so well, sir?” asked George anxiously. “Can I get ye anything?”

Every word of attention, every kindness from George struck Reggie like a Mauser bullet It was intolerable that he should lie there and be nursed by this man whom he had wronged as greatly as one man can wrong another. It made no difference to the fact that he had not known he was wronging him. The terrible truth remained. George was longing to get home as soon as possible in order that he might marry the girl who had been his, Reggie’s, mistress. And as soon as the siege was over George would go home. He would be discharged with a sergeant’s rank. Reggie could not get the grant of a commission; and George did not wish for it Ah I there was one thing he, Reggie, could do for him. Those few thousands over which he had a power of appointment by will, which he had mortgaged to his father. He could leave those to George as some token of his gratitude. He would do that at once. Afterwards he would try to decide what he ought to do about Bina.

He was no lawyer, but he knew that a soldier’s holograph will written on active service would hold good. So he wrote his wishes that all he possessed, including the sum in which he had a life interest, and over which he had a power of disposition by will, should go to George Buck. He called for the surgeon-major and handed him the will, and told him it was a token of his gratitude to George for his gallantry and his devotion. “And sure he deserves it,” said the surgeon-major, who happened to be an Irishman. “No one deserves better to be remimbered in your will, onless it’s yerself.”

Reggie also wrote a long letter of farewell to his father, recommending George to his best offices, and mentioning that,if he still wished for the Bushel o’ Malt (and Reggie knew he did, for George had given it as a reason why a commission would be rather a handicap than a help to him, that a lieutenant could not very well keep a country inn), he was to have it if it could be arranged. He wrote a shorter letter of affection to Violet For long he hesitated whether he should write to Bina. But he could not have done so without the knowledge of George, and his writing would be to solve the problem at once— which he was not ready to do.

At last the night came (it was the night before the tin pan band Saturday) when the doctors advised him to prepare for the worst. They said that though they had not given up all hope they feared his strength could not hold out another four and twenty hours.

George tried to laugh at them, to rebut their croaking prophecies by cheerful forecasts that the young squire would be up and about in ten days and would be well enough to start for home as soon as ever Buller got through—and the sound of his guns at Colenso had been heard all day at Ladysmith.

But Reggie knew the truth. He knew that he would die, but not yet. He believed he would not die till the next day. For he too, even as Bina, bad seen a vision. He had been sleeping, and had dreamt that he looked on a mighty stone which lay in the grounds of Hockingham Hall, and, on the stone was cut the date of the morrow, with the word “FINIS,” and he understood it was as a warning that on the morrow the last of the males of the race of his fathers would perish. And as the certainty of approaching death came to him it seemed strange to him that he should have been at a loss to solve the problem for so long. He groped feebly for George’s hand and said, “ George, I’ve something to say to you.”

“Yes, sir,” said George. “But don’t tire yourself.” “Yes,” said Reggie. “But not now. To-morrow morning, George. Remind me I have something to tell you.”

“Yes, sir,” said George.

Reggie could not bear to tell George the truth until he was at the very point of death. He could not face the reproach which he knew would cry from those faithful eyes. He could not speak of Bina until such time as he should be dying. No. When he was at the point of death George would forgive him. For a moment he wondered if Bina would forgive his treachery to love. But Bina had been false! Ah! Not to him! Not to Reggie! And again the turmoil of doubt made his weary brain reel and swim. But there was no backing out now. He had told George that he had something to tell him. After all could he let him go home and marry Bina?

Was it all remorse? Was there not a feeling of jealousy which made him loth to think of Bina as George’s wife? Was he solely swayed by the loyalty to friendship in his determination to tell George the truth? Or was there lurking in him some lingering passion, some longing that Bina should be his for ever, his and no one’s else? If this were what was influencing him was he justified?

He half wished he had taken the bull by the homs and spoken out to George there and then. But how could he have borne the look upon George’s face?— the face which had been so constant in its kind encouragement, in its devoted comfort And how, if| after he had spoken, he was again assailed by doubts of what was right? No. He would only speak at the point of death.

Poor boy. He was only weak and short-sighted, a little self-indulgent, a little apt to deceive himself. The indulgence of his passion had been paid for again and again in bitter remorse. I am not altogether sure that he was not fully justified in considering that the Fates had dealt hardly with him— not by reason of his wounds or his fever, but by reason of the weight of troubled repentance which the fall of circumstance had heaped upon his boyish head.

Well. He had made up his mind for good and all, that he would speak on the morrow. He would last till the morrow, for it was on the morrow that the word “Finis” was due. He did not know that he had left a promise of renewal of the blood at home with Bina, or that that promise of renewal was to be horribly falsified on the morrow. He relied on the dream, and he sank to sleep, easy and at peace with the thought that at last he had decided. He would tell George on the morrow, in the morning, the morning of his death.

George sat by his side, watching his feeble breathing, and now that Reggie no longer saw his face, the sergeant’s face grew very grave. He feared that the doctors were right He had seen death before, and he thought he saw it now.

A little before dawn of the Saturday George saw Reggie’s eyes open and saw his lips move. He bent over the cot to listen.

“George,” whispered Reggie, “George. Oh! Bina I Bina!”

The eyes remained open, and the mouth was still, the lips still parted.

George felt for his heart It had ceased to beat “Poor fellow! Poor fellow!” sobbed George, at last breaking down utterly. “How kind and good he was. He even remembered that I loved Bina. His last words were for me and for her. Poor fellow! Poor fellow!” And the sergeant who had won the cross wept without any disguise, and blessed the man for remembering Bina with his last conscious thought If Reggie had become attached to George, much more had George grown to love Reggie. Anyone becomes attached to a man whose life he has saved, and George had saved Reggie’s twice. Alas! to no avail I

When the surgeons came in they sent him off and bade him rest or he would be stricken down.

And the Irish surgeon-general told him of the will, and how he had it safe. “But divil knows if iver we’ll get out of this, me booy,” said he. “If not it’ll be mighty hard on those of ye who’ve distinguished yourselves. For the cross will niver be sent after ye to the next worruld.”

The first train which started for Durban after the relief of Ladysmith on the 28th of January bore George. The will had been handed to him, and he was also entrusted with the duty of delivering the dead man’s letters to Squire Hogg and Violet His story went before him by cable, and all Hockingham was eagerly awaiting his return. For the squire had given a lecture in the schoolroom, and let it be known that any who absented themselves would not be regarded with favour by the Hall. And at that lecture he had described the gallant actions of George as given in purple patches by the correspondents who were at last able to get their copy out, and who made the most of the rescue at Rietfontein, and of the subsequent devotion of the one-armed man to the lieutenant. The tragedy of the death of the latter gave the penmen a fine chance for fine writing, and they took it and sent George’s name ringing throughout England. It was as a self-set penance that the squire forced himself to speak publicly while still suffering from the recent news of his bereavement For the old fellow quite unjustly blamed himself for his son’s death. No honour which he could show George would be too great in his opinion. He intended to go to Southampton to meet him.

There were others in Hockingham who awaited the coming of the hero with beating hearts.

CHAPTER XXVII
THE END

The news that George was coming home, and that he had watched by Reggie’s death-bed, was only partly illuminating to Bina and Violet Violet thought that if Reggie had spoken George would hardly return to Hockingham. But on the other hand he might consider it as a duty to deliver Reggie’s letters and effects to the squire.

When the squire left Hockingham on his way to Southampton he gave orders that there were to be triumphal arches and decorations of bunting and the usual display of welcome for the hero when he should arrive. The great Hall coach with four horses was to meet them at Dingleton station, “and I rely on you all to honour the memory of my son in showing your welcome to the man who did his utmost to save him,” said the squire.

Many a secret conference did Bina and Violet have together in the days which elapsed between the receipt of the cabled news and the return of George. One or two of the villagers chuckled at Bina and muttered that they supposed as how George would be tew high and mighty for the likes of her now. But Bina knew inwardly that he was coming home to claim her and the Bushel o’ Malt. And she grew more reconciled to the notion the more she thought of it George had been so good to Reggie. She would show her love for Reggie in tenderness towards George. And George was a hero, a real hero. If only Reggie had told him nothing.

There was no delay in the answer which George was to give. The squire had met him at Southampton and had insisted on his coming straight through with him to Hockingham.

He grasped the left hand, the only one which George had left “I thank you, sir,” he said, with tears in his voice and in his eyes. “I thank you for your gallant rescue of my son, and for your devotion to him. Nothing I can do for you will be too much. Nothing.”

But George pooh-poohed all gratitude as well as he could without giving offence. “I loved the lad, sir, if I may say so without offence,” said he. “And he gave promise of being as good an officer as there is in the service. He was a loss to the country, sir.”

And the two men felt their eyes burn and their throats fill as the two hands of the squire gripped and squeezed George’s one.

The squire made George fight his battles over again and again and the journey from Southampton to town, and from town to Dingleton passed quickly for both men.

It was not till George saw the coach and four and heard the cheers of the folk assembled at the station that he blushed and hung back. He had got on well with the squire, each man appreciating the manliness of the other. But this public reception was too much for his modesty. He begged the squire to drive on to Hockingham without delay. But when the coach reached Dam’s End Cottage George answered the question which had been disturbing Bina and Violet once for all He begged the coachman, Tom Cable, to stop, and he leapt down. Bina had taken her stand at her door, determined to read the answer on his Cue as he drove past But when she saw him leap down from the box, she knew that Reggie had kept silence^ and with a little cry she ran to Geoige and suffered him to embrace her in the sight of the squire and of all the carts and traps which had driven across die dam in procession to do honour to the hero. There in the sight of all she was claimed by the man of the hour, and made glorious by the reflection of his glory.

“Bina! Bina!” he cried. “You’ve been true and faithful to me. I can read it in your dear eyes.”

“Why, o’ course I have! * said Bina.

The wedding was the gayest which Hockingham had seen for generations. The squire insisted on the four horses and the coach being requisitioned, and a military band came over from Herringhaven to do honour to the Victoria Cross of the man of the hour.

Violet was the only bridesmaid, and old Gunner gave the bride away with as much dignity as if he had been the squire himself I doubt if there was ever a happier marriage in Daneshire. George makes a good and tender husband, and so admirable a landlord that his house has been enlarged and is now one of the most famous marshland hostelries in Daneshire for shooting and fishing visitors. The squire himself does not disdain to go and chat over the war with the man who saved his son’s life—to no purpose!

And Bina is a good housewife, and an obedient and affectionate wife. Sometimes when Violet and she are alone together a few tears are shed, a few words spoken, which are more loyal to the memory of Reggie than to the love of George; but Bina has come to love George in a sufficiently satisfactory way. It is not the fever of passion which she felt for Reggie; but her pride in the man and the position which he has given her have turned her heart to him so that he will never know that he has not the most faithful and loving wife in the world. For the matter of that perhaps he has. He knows no better, Reggie is but a memory. What does the past matter to George? His ignorance renders him happy.

And I, who know the story as far as it can be known, still wonder what would have happened if Reggie had survived for another twelve hours, or, for the matter of that, had not died till his natural term of years had been spent.

Would he have spoken, or would he have remained true to love? Should the chivalry of friendship be preferred to fidelity to the woman who has given herself?

And what would have happened if the child had been born and lived?

My readers must worry these questions out for themselves. For my part I think that Reggie was happy to die.

ENDNOTES

Endnote 1: Roach.

Endnote 2: Pandi.

Endnote 3: Gossiping.

Endnote 4: A track for stock or carts leading into the marsh between two dykes. Possibly the derivation of the word is causeway.

Endnote 5: Vide that wonderful book, “The Shaving of Shagpat,” by Mr George Meredith.

Endnote 6: To rhyme with flew.—J.B*

Endnote 7: Weasel.