CHAPTER XXII
'TIS GO OR SWIM
It was a strange meeting between brother and sister. Tom, mindful howthey had parted in Clarges Row, and with what loyalty she had strivento save him from himself--at a time when he stood in the utmost needof such efforts--was softened and touched beyond the ordinary. WhileSophia, laughing and crying at once in the joy of a meeting asunexpected as it was welcome, experienced as she held Tom in her armssomething nearer akin to happiness than had been hers since hermarriage. The gratitude she owed to Providence for preservation amidthe dangers of the night strengthened this feeling; the sunshine thatflooded the orchard, the verdure under foot, the laden sprays ofblossom overhead, the songs of the birds, the very strangeness of theretreat in which they met, all spoke to a heart peculiarly open atthat moment to receive impressions. Tom recovered, Tom kind, formedpart of the world which welcomed her back, and shamed her repining;while her brother, sheepish and affectionate, marvelled to see thelittle sister whom he had patronised all his life, suddenly andwonderfully transmogrified into Lady Coke.
He asked how she came to be so oddly dressed, learned that she alsohad fallen in with the vicar; and, when he had heard: "Well," heexclaimed, "'tis the luckiest thing your woman met me I ever knew!"
"You might have been in any part of England!" she answered, smilingthrough her tears. "Where were you going, Tom?"
"Why, to Coke's to be sure," he replied; "and wanted only two or threemiles of it!"
"Not--not knowing?" she asked. And she blushed.
"Not the least in life! I was on the point of enlisting," heexplained, colouring in his turn, "at Reading, in Tatton's foot, whena man he had sent in search of me, found me and gave me a note."
"From Sir Hervey?"
"Of course," Tom answered, "telling me I could stay at the Hall untilthings blew over. And--and not to make a fool of myself," he addedingenuously. "'Twas like him and I knew it was best to come, but whenI was nearly there--that was last night, you know--I thought I wouldwait until morning and hear who were in the house before I showedmyself. That is why Mistress Betty found me where she did."
Sophia could not hide her feelings on learning what Sir Hervey haddone for Tom and for her; what he had done silently, without boasting,without telling her. Tom saw her tremble, saw that for some reason shewas on the verge of tears, and he wondered.
"Why," he said, "what is the matter, Sophy? What is it now?"
"It's nothing, nothing," she answered hurriedly.
"I know what it is!" he replied. "You've been up all night, and hadnothing to eat. You will be all right when you have had a meal. Theold parson said he'd give us bacon and eggs. It should be ready bythis time."
Sophia laughed hysterically. "I fear it doesn't lie with him," shesaid. "His wife would not let me into the house. She's afraid of thesmallpox."
"Pooh!" Tom said contemptuously. "When she knows who we are she'llsing another tune."
"She won't believe," Sophia answered.
"She'll believe me," Tom said. "So let us go."
"Do you go first, sir, if you please," Lady Betty cried pertly,intervening for the first time. She had stood a little apart to allowthe brother and sister to be private. "I'm sure her ladyship's not fitto be seen. And I'm not much better," she added; and then, a suddenbubble of laughter rising to the surface, she buried her face inSophia's skirts, and affected to be engaged in repairing the disorder.Tom saw his sister's face relax in a smile, and he eyed the maidsuspiciously; but before he could speak, Sophia also begged him to go,and see what reception the old clergyman had secured for them. Heturned and went.
At the gate he looked back, but a wealth of apple blossom intervened;he did not see that the girls had flown into one another's arms, nordid he hear them laughing, crying, asking, answering, all at once, andout of the fulness of thankful hearts. Tom's wholesome appetite beganto cry cupboard. He turned briskly up the road, discovered thewicket-gate of the parsonage, and marching to it, found to hissurprise that it was locked. The obstacle was not formidable to youth,but the welcome was cold at best; and where was his friend the parson?In wonder he rattled the gate, thinking some one would come; but noone came, and out of patience he vaulted over the post, and passinground a mass of rose bushes that grew in a tangle about the pot-herbgarden, he saw the door of the house standing ajar before him.
One moment; the next and before he could reach it, a boy about twelveyears old, with a shock of hair and sullen eyes, looked out, saw him,and hastened to slam the door in his face. The action wasunmistakable, the meaning plain; Sir Tom stood, stared, and after amoment swore. Then in a rage he advanced and kicked the door. "What doyou mean?" he cried. "Open, sirrah, do you hear? Are these yourmanners?"
For a few seconds there was silence in the sunny herb garden with itsladen air and perfumed hedges. Then a casement above creaked open, andtwo heads peered cautiously over the window-ledge. "Do you hear?" Tomcried, quickly espying them. "Come down and open the door, or you'llget a whipping."
But the boys, the one he had seen at the door, and another, a year ortwo older, preserved a sulky silence; eyeing him with evident dreadand at the same time with a kind of morbid curiosity. Tom threatened,stormed, even took up a stone; they answered nothing and it was onlywhen he had begun to retreat, fuming, towards the gate that one ofthem found his voice.
"You'd better be gone!" he cried shrilly. "They are coming for you."
Sir Tom turned at the sound, and went back at a white heat. "What doyou mean, you young cubs?" he cried, looking up. "Who are coming forme?"
But they were dumb again, staring at him over the ledge with sombreinterest. Tom repeated his question, scolded, even raised his stone,but without effect. At last he turned his back on them, and in a rageflung out of the garden.
He went out as he had entered, by vaulting the gate. As he did so, heheard a woman's shrill voice raised in anger; and he looked in thedirection whence it came. He saw a knot of people coming down theroad. It consisted of three or four women, and a rough-lookinglabourer; but while he stood eyeing them a second party, largely madeup of men and boys, came in sight, following the other; and tailingbehind these again came a couple of women and last of all two or threelads. The women speaking loudly, with excited gestures, appeared to bescolding the men; those on the outside of each rank hurrying a step inadvance of the others, and addressing them with turned heads. Tomwatched them a moment, thinking that they might be a search party sentby Coke; then he reflected that the noise would alarm his sister, andturning in at the gate he crossed the orchard.
Sophia came to meet him. "What is it?" she asked anxiously. "What isthe matter, Tom?" The clamour of strident voices, the scolding of thewomen had preceded him. "Have you seen the clergyman? Why, they arecoming here!"
"The deuce they are!" Tom answered. He looked back, and seeing throughthe trees that the man with the first gang had opened the gate of theorchard, he went to meet him.
"What is it?" he asked. "What are you doing here? Has Sir Hervey sentyou?"
"We want no sending!" one of the women cried sharply. "'Tis enough tosend us of ourselves."
"Aye, so it is!" a second chimed in with violence. "And do you keepyour distance if you be one of them! Let's have no nonsense, master,for we won't stand it!"
"No, no nonsense!" cried another, as the larger party arrived andraised the number to something like a score. "She's got to go, and youwith her if you be one of her company! Ain't that so?" the speakercontinued, turning to her backers.
"Aye, she must go!" cried one. "We'll ha' no smallpox here!" criedanother. "She'll go or swim! Out of the parish, I say!" shrieked athird.
Tom looked along the line of excited faces, faces stupid or cruel; atthe best of a low type, and now brutalised by selfish panic. And hisheart sank. But for the present he neither blenched nor lost histemper.
"Why, you fools," he said, thinking to reason with them, "don't youknow who the lady is?"
/> "No, nor care!" was the shrill retort. "Nor care, do you understandthat?"
And then a man stepped forward. "She's got to go," he said, "whoevershe be. That's all."
"I tell you, you don't know who she is," Tom answered stubbornly."Whose tenant are you, my man?"
"Sir Hervey's, to be sure," the fellow answered, surprised at thequestion.
"Well, she's his wife," Tom answered. "Do you hear? Do youunderstand?" he repeated, with growing indignation. "She is Lady Coke,Sir Hervey's wife. Lady Coke, Sir Hervey's wife! Get that into yourheads, will you! His wife, I tell you. And if you raise a finger orwag a tongue against her, you'll repent it all your lives."
The man stared, doubting, hesitating, in part daunted. But a womanbehind him--a lean vixen, her shoulders barely covered by a meagrekerchief, pushed herself to the front, and snapped her fingers inTom's face. "That, my lady?" she cried. "That for the lie. You be aliar, my lad, that's what you be! A liar, and ought to swim with her.Neighbours," the shrew continued volubly, "she be no more my lady thanI be. Madam told me she faked for to be it, but was a gipsy wench ashad laid the night at Beamond's, and now was for 'fecting us."
"Anyway she don't go another step into this parish," pronounced anelderly man, something better off than the others. "We don't want toswim her, and we don't want to stone her, but she must go, or worsecome of it. And you, my lad, if you be with her, and the other." ForLady Betty had crept timidly out of the garden-shed and joined thepair.
Tom was bursting with passion. "I!" he cried. "You clod, do you knowwho I am? I am Sir Thomas Maitland, of Cuckfield."
"Sir, or no sir, you'll ha' to go," the man retorted stubbornly. Hewas a dull fellow, and an unknown Sir Thomas was no more to him thanplain Tom or Dick. "And 'tis best, with no more words," he continuedheavily.
Tom, enraged, was for answering in the same strain, but Sophia pluckedhis sleeve, and took the word herself. "I am quite willing to go," shesaid, holding her head up bravely. "If you let me pass safely to theHall, that is all I ask."
"To the Hall?"
"Yes, to my husband."
"To the Hall indeed! No! No! That's likely," cried the crowd; and werenot to be silenced till the elderly farmer who had spoken beforeraised his hand for a hearing.
"'Tis no wonder they shout," he said, with a smile half-cunning,half-stupid. "The Hall? No, no. Back by Beamond's and over the water,my girl, you'll go, same as Beamond's folk did. There's few live theother side, and so the fewer to take it, d'ye see. Besides, 'tis everyone for himself."
"Aye! aye!" the crowd cried. "He's right; that way, no other! Hallindeed?" And at the back they began to jeer.
"You've no law for this?" Tom cried, furious and panting.
"Then we'll make a law," they answered, and jeered again, with somewords that were not very fit for the ladies to hear.
Tom, at that, would have sprung at the nearest and punished him; butSophia held him back. "No, no," she said in a low tone. "We had bettergo. Sir Hervey is surely searching for us. We may meet him, and theywill learn their mistake. Please let us go. Let us go quickly, or theymay--I do not know what they may do."
Tom suffered himself to be convinced; but he made the mistake of doingwith a bad grace that which he had to do whether he would or no.
"Out of the way, you clods!" he cried, advancing on them with hisstick raised. "You'll sing another tune before night! Do you hear, Isay? Out of the way!"
Moving sullenly, they left his front open; and he marched proudlythrough the gate of the orchard, Sophia and Betty beside him. But hischallenge had raised the devil that lies dormant in the most peacefulcrowd. He had no sooner passed than the women closed in upon his rear,and followed him with taunts and laughter. And presently a boy threw astone.
It fell short of the mark; but another stone followed, and another;and the third struck Tom on the leg. He wheeled round in a toweringpassion, caught sight of the offender, and made for him. The boytripped in trying to escape, and fell, shrieking. Tom got home twocuts; then a virago, her tongue spitting venom, her nails in the air,confronted him over the body of the fallen, and he returned sullenlyto his charges, and resumed his retreat.
But the boy's screams had exasperated the rabble. Groans took theplace of laughter, curses succeeded jeers. The bolder threw dirt, themore timid hooted and booed, while all pressed more and more closelyon his heels, threatening every moment to jostle him. Tom had to turnand brandish his stick to drive them back, and finding that even so hecould scarcely secure the briefest respite, he began to grow hot andconfused, and looked about for a way of escape in something betweenrage and terror.
To run, he knew, would only precipitate the disaster. To defendhimself was scarcely possible, for Sophia, fearing he would attemptreprisals, hampered him on one side, while Betty, in pure fear, clungto him on the other. Both were sinking with apprehension, while hisears tingled under the coarse jeers and coarser epithets that werehurled at them. Yet he dared not suffer them to move a pace from him.Cries of "Roll them! Duck them! To the pond!" began to be heard; andonce he barely checked an ugly rush by facing about at the lastmoment. At last he espied a little before him the turning into themain road, and whispering to the women to keep up their courage, hepressed sullenly towards it.
He had as good as reached it, when a stone more weighty and betteraimed than those which had preceded it, struck Lady Betty fairlybetween the shoulders. The girl stumbled forward with a gasp, andSophia, horror-stricken and uncertain how much she was hurt, sprang toher side to hold her up. The movement freed Tom's arm; his sister'sfurious cry, "You cowards! Oh, you cowards!" burned up the last shredof his self-control.
In a tempest of rage he rushed on the nearest hobbledehoy, and fellinghim with his stick, rained blows upon him. In an instant he wasengaged, hand to hand, with half a dozen combatants.
Unfortunately the charge had carried him a dozen yards from hiscompanions; the more timid of the rascals, who were not eager toencounter him or his stick, saw their opportunity. In a twinkling theycut off the two girls, and hemmed them in. Beginning with pushing andjostling them they would soon have gone on to further insults ifSophia had not flown at them in her turn, and repelled them with arage that for a few seconds daunted them. Tom, too, heard the girls'cries, and turned to relieve them; but as he sprang forward a boytripped him up, and he fell prone on the road.
That gave the last impulse to the evil instincts of the crowd. Thelouts darted on him with a savage yell, and began to pommel him; andill it must have gone with Tom as well as with his womenfolk if thecrowd had had their way with them for many seconds.
But at that critical instant, without warning, or any at least thatthe victors regarded, the long lash of a hunting-whip flickered in theair, and fell as by magic between the girls and their assailants; itseared, as with a red-hot iron, the hand which a sturdy young clown,half-boy, half-man, was brandishing under Sophia's nose; it stung withthe sharpness of a dozen wasps the mocking face that menaced Betty onthe other side. The lads who had flung themselves on Tom, awoke withyells of pain to find the same whip curling about their shoulders, andto see behind it, set in grim rage, the face of their landlord.
That instant, the harpies, who had been hounding them on, vanished asby magic, scuttling all ways like frightened hens. And Sir Hervey letthem go--for the time; but behind the lads and louts, fleeing andpanting and racing and sweating down the road, and aiming fruitlesslyat gates and gaps, the lash fell ever and mercilessly on sturdy backsand fleshy legs. The horse he rode was an old hunter, known in thedistrict, quick and cunning, broken to all turns of the hare; and thatday it carried fate, and punishment with no halting foot followed hardupon the sin!
Sobbing with exhaustion, with labouring chests that at intervals shotforth cries of pain, as the flickering thong licked their hams, andthey bounded like deer under the sting, the bullies came at last tothe vicarage gate. There Sir Hervey left them, free at last to rubtheir weals and curse their folly; sorer, but it is to be hoped wisermen.
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Sophia, supporting herself by a gate, and now laughing hysterically,now repressing with difficulty the inclination to weep, watched himreturn. She saw him through a mist of smiles and tears. For the momentshe forgot that he was her husband, forgot that this was the meetingso long and greatly dreaded.
He sprang from his horse.
"You're not hurt?" he cried. "Child----" and then, with astonishmentshe saw that he was speechless.
Her own words came easily; even her manner was eager andunembarrassed. "No," she cried, "nor Lady Betty! You came just intime, Sir Hervey."
"Thank God, I did," he answered; "thank God! And you are sure, child,you are none the worse? You are not hurt?"
"No," she answered, laughing, as people laugh in moments of agitation."Not a bit! You are looking at my dress? Oh, we have had adventures, avast lot of adventures, Sir Hervey! It would take a day to tell them,wouldn't it, Betty? Betty's my maid, Sir Hervey." She was aboveherself. She spoke gaily and archly, as Betty might have spoken.
"Lady Betty your maid?" he exclaimed, turning to Betty, who blushedand laughed. "What do you mean?"
"Mean? Why only--hush, where is Tom? Oh, repairing himself! Why, onlya frolic, Sir Hervey! Tom took her for my woman, and we want to keephim in it! So not a word, if you please. This is Betty the maid,you'll remember?"
"I obey," Sir Hervey answered. "But to tell the truth," he continuedsoberly, "my head turns. Where did you meet Tom, my dear? What hashappened to you? And why are you wearing--that queer cloak? And whereare your shoes?"
"It's not very becoming, is it?" she cried, and she looked at him.Never before in her life had she played the coquette, never; now inthis moment of unrestrained feeling, her eyes, provocative as LadyBetty's, challenged the compliment. And she wondered at herself.
"You are always--the same to me," he said simply. And then: "You arereally all of you unhurt? Well, thank God for it! And, Tom, my lad,you know, I suppose, how you came to be in this? I am sure I don't;but I thought it was you when I came up."
"I hope you flayed them!" Tom growled, as they gripped hands. "See,she's barefoot! They hunted us half a mile, I should think."
Sir Hervey looked and grew red. "I did!" he answered. "I think theyhave learned a lesson. And they have not heard the last of it!" Thenthe post-chaise, which he had escorted to Beamond's Farm on afruitless search, came up, and behind it a couple of mounted servants,whose training scarce enabled them to conceal their surprise, whenthey saw the condition of their new mistress.
Sir Hervey postponed further inquiry. He hurried the two ladies intothe carriage, set Tom on a servant's horse, and gave the word. Amoment later the party were travelling rapidly in the direction of theHall. Coke rode on the side next his wife, Tom by Lady Betty. But thenoise of the wheels made conversation difficult, and no one spoke.
Presently Sophia stole a glance at Sir Hervey; and whether his countrycostume and the flush of colour which exercise had brought to hischeek became him, or he had a better air, as some men have, onhorseback, it is certain that she wondered she had ever thought himold. The moment in which he had appeared, towering on his horse abovethe snarling, spitting rabble, and driven them along the road as a mandrives sheep, remained in her memory. He had wielded, and grimly andably wielded, the whip of authority. He had ridden as if horse and manwere one; he had disdained weapons, and had flogged the hounds intosubmission and flight. Now in repose his strong figure in its plaindress wore in her eyes a new air of distinction.
She looked away and looked again, wondering if it really was so. Andslowly a vivid blush spread over her pale face. The man who rodebeside the wheel, the man whose figure she was appraising was--herhusband. At the thought she turned with a guilty start to Lady Betty;but the poor girl, worn out by excitement and the night's vigil, hadfallen asleep. Sophia's eyes went slowly back to her husband, and thecarriage, leaving the road, swept through the gates into the park.