CHAPTER X
SPORT
It was the day before Christmas Eve, and Avery had been shopping.
She and Mrs. Lorimer were preparing a Christmas Tree for the children, asecret to which only Jeanie had been admitted. The tree itself wasalready procured and hidden away in a corner of the fruit cupboard--towhich special sanctum Mrs. Lorimer and Avery alone had access. But thenumerous gifts and ornaments which they had been manufacturing for weekswere safely stored in a corner of Avery's own room. It was to completethis store that Avery had been down into Rodding that afternoon, and shewas returning laden and somewhat wearied.
The red light of a cloudy winter sunset lay behind her. Ahead of her, nowveiled, now splendidly revealed, there hung a marvellous, glimmeringstar. A little weight of sadness was dragging at her heart, but she wouldnot give it place or so much as acknowledge its presence. She hummed acarol as she went, stepping lightly through the muddy fields.
The frost had given place to an unseasonable warmth, and there had beensome heavy rain earlier in the day. It was threatening to rain again. Infact, as she mounted her second stile, the first drops of what promisedto be a sharp shower began to fall. She cast a hasty glance around forshelter, and spied some twenty yards away against the hedge a hut whichhad probably been erected for the use of some shepherd. Swiftly she madefor it, reaching it just as the shower became a downpour.
There was neither door nor window to the place, but an ancient shutterwhich had evidently done duty for the former was lodged against the wallimmediately inside.
She had to stoop to enter, and but for the pelting rain she might havehesitated to do so; for the darkness within was complete. But once in,she turned her face back to the dying light of the sunset and saw thatthe rain would not last.
At the same moment she heard a curious sound behind her, a panting,coughing sound as of some creature in distress, and something stirred inthe furthest corner. Sharply she turned, and out of the darkness two wildgreen eyes glared up at her.
Avery's heart gave a great jerk. Instinctively she drew back. Her firstimpulse was to turn and flee, but something--something which at themoment she could not define--prompted her to remain. The frantic terrorof those eyes appealed to that in her which was greater than her ownpersonal fear.
She paused therefore, and in the pause there came to her ears a swellingtumult that arose from the ridge of an eminence a couple of fields away.Right well Avery knew that sound. In the far-off days of her earlygirlhood it had quickened her pulses many a time. It was enough even nowto set every nerve throbbing with a tense excitement.
She turned her face once more to the open, and as she did so she heardagain in the hut behind her that agonized sound, half-cough, half-whine,of an animal exhausted and in the extremity of mortal fear.
It was enough for Avery. She grasped the situation on the instant, andon the instant she acted. She felt as if a helpless and tortured beinghad cried to her for deliverance, and all that was great in herresponded to the cry.
She seized the crazy shutter that was propped against the wall, put forthher strength, and lifted it out into the open. It was no easy matter toset it securely against the low doorway. She wondered afterwards how shedid it; at the time she tore her gloves to ribbons with the exertion, butyet was scarcely aware of making any.
When the pack swept across the grass in a single yelling, heaving mass,she was ready. She leaned against the improvised door with armsoutstretched and resolutely faced the swarming, piebald multitude.
In a moment the hounds were upon her. She was waist-deep in them. Theyleapt almost to her shoulders in their madness, smothering her with mudand slobber. For a second or two the red eyes and gaping jaws made evenAvery's brave heart quail. But she stood her ground, ordering them backwith breathless insistence. They must have thought her a maniac, shereflected afterwards. At the time she fully expected to be torn inpieces, and was actually surprised when they suddenly parted and sweptround the hut, encircling it with deep-mouthed baying.
The huntsman, arriving on the scene, found her white-faced but stilldetermined, still firmly propping the shutter in place with the weight ofher body. He called the hounds to order with hoarse oaths and furiouscrackings of the whip, and as he did so the rest of the field began toarrive, a laughing, trampling crowd of sportsmen who dropped intostaring, astounded silence as they reached the scene.
And then the huntsman addressed Avery with sardonic affability.
"P'r'aps now, miss, you'd be good enough to step aside and let the 'oundsattend to business."
But Avery, with eyes that blazed in her pale face, made scathing answer.
"You shan't kill the poor brute like a rat in a trap. He deserves betterthan that. You had your chance of killing in the open, and you failed. Itisn't sport to kill in the dark."
"We'll soon have 'im out," said the huntsman grimly.
She shook her head. Her hands, in the ripped gloves, were clenched andquivering.
The huntsman slashed and swore at one of the hounds to relieve hisfeelings, and looked for inspiration to the growing crowd of riders.
One of them, the M.F.H., Colonel Rose of Wardenhurst, pushed his horseforward. He raised his hat with extreme courtliness.
"Madam," he said, "while appreciating your courage, allow me to point outthat that fox is now the legal property of the Hunt, and you have noright whatever to deprive us of it."
His daughter Ina, a slim girl of twenty, was at his elbow. She jogged itimpatiently. "He'll remain our property whether we kill or not, Dad. Lethim live to run again!"
"What?" cried a voice in the rear. "Let a woman interfere? Great Heavensabove, Barchard! Have you gone mad?"
Barchard the huntsman glanced round uneasily as an old man on a powerfulwhite horse forced his way to the front. His grey eyes glowered down atAvery as though he would slay her. The trampling hoofs came within a yardof her. But if he thought to make her desert her post by that means, hewas mistaken. She stood there, actually waiting to be hustled by thefretting animal, and yielding not an inch.
"Stand aside!" thundered Sir Beverley. "Confound you! Stand aside!"
But Avery never stirred. She faced him panting but unflinching. The foamof his hunter splashed her, the mud from the stamping hoofs struckupwards on her face; but still she stood to defend the defenceless thingbehind her.
She often wondered afterwards what Sir Beverley would have done had hebeen left to settle the matter in his own way. She was horribly afraid,but she certainly would never have yielded to aught but brute force.
But at this juncture there came a sudden diversion. Another voice madeitself heard in furious protest. Another horse was spurred forward; andPiers, white to the lips, with eyes of awful flame, leaned from hissaddle and with his left hand caught Sir Beverley's bridle, dragging hisanimal back.
What he said Avery did not hear; it was spoken under his breath. But shesaw a terrible look flash like an evil spirit into Sir Beverley's face.She saw his right arm go up, and heard his riding-crop descend with asound like a pistol-shot upon Piers' shoulders.
It was a horrible sight and one which she was never to forget. Bothhorses began to leap madly, the one Sir Beverley rode finally rearing andbeing pulled down again by Piers who hung on to the bridle like grimdeath, his head bent, his shoulders wholly exposed to those crashingmerciless blows.
They reeled away at length through the crowd, which scattered in dismayto let them pass, but for many seconds it seemed to Avery that theawful struggle went on in the dusk as Piers dragged his grandfatherfrom the spot.
A great weakness had begun to assail her. Her knees were quivering underher. She wondered what the next move would be, and felt utterly powerlessto put forth any further effort. And then she heard Ina Rose's clearyoung voice.
"Barchard, take the hounds back to kennels! I'm sure we've all had enoughfor one day."
"Hear, hear!" said a man in the crowd.
And Ina laughed. "Thank you, Dick! Come along, Dad! Leave
the horrid oldfox alone! Don't you think we ought to go and separate Sir Beverley andPiers? What an old pepper-pot he is!"
"Piers isn't much better," remarked the man she had called Dick. Hisproper appellation was Richard Guyes, but his friends never stood onceremony with him.
The girl laughed again inconsequently. She was spoken of by some as thespoilt beauty of the county. "Oh, Piers is stuffed tight with gunpowderas everybody knows. He explodes at a touch. Get along, Barchard! What areyou waiting for? I told you to take the hounds home."
Barchard looked at the Colonel.
"I suppose you'd better," the latter said. He threw a glance ofdispleasure at Avery. "It's a most unheard of affair altogether, but Iadmit there's not much to be said for a kill in cold blood. Yes, take'em home!"
Barchard made a savage cut at two of the hounds who were scratching andwhimpering at a tiny chink in the boarding, and with surly threatscollected the pack and moved off.
The rest of the field melted away into the deepening dusk. Ina and DickGuyes were among the last to go. They moved off side by side.
"It'll be the laugh of the county," the man said, "but, egad, I likeher pluck."
And in answer the girl laughed again, a careless, merry laugh. "Yes, Iwonder who she is. A friend of Piers' apparently. Did you see what astiff fury he was in?"
"It was a fairly stiff flogging," remarked Guyes. "Ye gods! I wonder howhe stood it."
"Oh, Piers can stand anything," said Ina unconcernedly. "He's as strongas an ox."
The voices dwindled and died in the distance. The dusk deepened. A senseof utter forlornness, utter weariness, came upon Avery. The struggle wasover, and she had emerged triumphant; but it did not seem to matter. Shecould think only of those awful blows raining down upon the defencelessshoulders of the boy who had championed her. And, leaning there in thedrizzling wet, she covered her face with her hands and wept.