Captain Jim Part 34

The old dog-fox was tiring, as well he might, and yet, ahead, he knew, lay sanctuary, in an old quarry where the piled rocks hid a hole where he had lain before, with angry hounds snuffing helplessly around him.

He braced his weary limbs for a last effort. The cruel eyes and lolling tongues were very close behind him; but his muscles were steel, and he knew how to save every short cut that gave him so much as a yard. He saw the quarry, just ahead, and snarled his triumph in his untamed heart.

Brunette's gallop was faltering a little, and Norah's heart sank. She had never had such a run: it was hard if she could not see it out, when they had led the field the whole way--and while yet Killaloe was going like a galloping-machine in front. Then she heard a shout from her father and saw him point ahead. "Water!" came to her. She saw the gleam of water, fringed by reeds: saw Killaloe rise like a deer at it, taking off well on the near side, and landing with many feet to spare.

"Oh--we can do that," Norah thought. "Brunette likes water."

She touched the pony with her heel for the first time, and spoke to her. Brunette responded instantly, gathering herself for the jump.

Again Norah heard a shout, and was conscious of the feeling of vague irritation that we all know when some one is trying to tell us something we cannot possibly hear. She took the pony at the jump about twenty yards from the place where Killaloe had flown it. Nearer and nearer. The water gleamed before her, very close: she felt the pony steady herself for the leap. Then the bank gave way under her heels: there was a moment's struggle and a stupendous splash.

Norah's first thought was that the water was extremely cold; then, that the weight on her left leg was quite uncomfortable. Brunette half-crouched, half-lay, in the stream, too bewildered to move; then she sank a little more to one side and Norah had to grip her mane to keep herself from going under the surface. It seemed an unpleasantly long time before she saw her father's face.

"Norah--are you hurt?"

"No, I'm not hurt," she said. "But I can't get my leg out--and Brunette seems to think she wants to stay here. I suppose she finds the mud nice and soft." She tried to smile at his anxious face, but found it not altogether easy.

"We'll get you out," said David Linton. He tugged at the pony's bridle; and Mrs. Ainslie, arriving presently, came to his a.s.sistance, while some of the other riders, coming up behind, encouraged Brunette with shouts and hunting-crops. Thus urged, Brunette decided that some further effort was necessary, and made one, with a mighty flounder, while Norah rolled off into the water. Half a dozen hands helped her at the bank.

"You're sure you're not hurt?" her father asked anxiously. "I was horribly afraid she'd roll on your leg when she moved."

"I'm quite all right--only disgustingly wet," said Norah. "Oh, and I missed the finish--did you ever know such bad luck?"

"Well, you only missed the last fifty yards," said Mrs. Ainslie, pointing to the quarry, from which the whips were dislodging the aggrieved hounds. "We finished there; and that old fox is good for another day yet. I'd give you the brush, if he hadn't decided to keep it himself."

"Oh!" said Norah, blushing, while her teeth chattered. "Wasn't it a beautiful run!"

"It was--but something has got to be done with you," said Mrs. Ainslie firmly. "There's a farmhouse over there, Mr. Linton: I know the people, and they'll do anything they can for you. Hurry her over and get her wet things off--Mrs. Hardy will lend her some clothes." And Norah made a draggled and inglorious exit.

Mrs. Hardy received her with horrified exclamations and offers of all that she had in the house: so that presently Norah found herself drinking cup after cup of very hot tea and eating b.u.t.tered toast with her father--attired in a plaid blouse of green and red in large checks, and a black velvet skirt that had seen better days; with carpet slippers lending a neat finish to a somewhat striking appearance. Without, farm hands rubbed down Killaloe and Brunette in the stable. Mrs. Hardy fluttered in and out, bringing more and yet more toast, until her guests protested vehemently that exhausted nature forbade them to eat another crumb.

"And wot is toast?" grumbled Mrs. Hardy, "and you ridin' all day in the cold!" She had been grievously disappointed at her visitors'

refusing bacon and eggs. "The young lady'll catch 'er death, sure's fate! Just another cup, miss. Lor, who's that comin' in at the gate!"

"That" proved to be Squire Brand, who had appeared at the scene of Norah's disaster just after her retreat--being accused by Mrs. Ainslie of employing an aeroplane.

"I came to see if I could be of any use," he said. His eye fell on Norah in Mrs. Hardy's clothes, and he said, "Dear me!" suddenly, and for a moment lost the thread of his remarks. "You can't let her ride home, Linton--my car is here, and if your daughter will let me drive her home I'm sure Mr. Hardy will house her pony until to-morrow--you can send a groom over for it. I've a spare coat in the car. Yes, thank you, Mrs. Hardy, I should like a cup of tea very much."

Now that the excitement of the day was over, Norah was beginning to feel tired enough to be glad to escape the long ride home on a jaded horse. So, with Mrs. Hardy's raiment hidden beneath a gorgeous fur coat, she was presently in the Squire's car, slipping through the dusk of the lonely country lanes. The Squire liked Jim, and asked questions about him: and to talk of Jim was always the nearest way to Norah's heart. She had exhausted his present, and was as far back in his past as his triumphs in inter-State cricket, when they turned in at the Homewood avenue.

"I'm afraid I've talked an awful lot," she said, blushing. "You see, Jim and I are tremendous chums. I often think how lucky I was to have a brother like him, as I had only one!"

"Possibly Jim thinks the same about his sister," said the old man. He looked at her kindly; there was something very child-like in the small face, half-lost in the great fur collar of his coat.

"At all events, Jim has a good champion," he said.

"Oh, Jim doesn't need a champion," Norah answered. "Every one likes him, I think. And of course we think there's no one like him."

The motor stopped, and the Squire helped her out. It was too late to come in, he said; he bade her good night, and went back to the car.

Norah looked in the gla.s.s in the hall, and decided that her appearance was too striking to be kept to herself. A very battered felt riding-hat surmounted Mrs. Hardy's finery; it bore numerous mud-splashes, some of which had extended to her face. No one was in the hall; it was late, and presumably the Tired People were dressing for dinner. She headed for the kitchen, meeting, on the way, Allenby, who uttered a choking sound and dived into his pantry. Norah chuckled, and pa.s.sed on.

Miss de Lisle sat near the range, knitting her ever-present m.u.f.fler.

She looked up, and caught her breath at the apparition that danced in--Norah, more like a well-dressed scarecrow than anything else, with her grey eyes bright among the mud-splashes. She held up Mrs. Hardy's velvet skirt in each hand, and danced solemnly up the long kitchen, pointing each foot daintily, in the gaudy carpet slippers.

"Oh my goodness!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Miss de Lisle--and broke into helpless laughter.

Norah sat down by the fender and told the story of her day--with a cheerful interlude when Katty came in hurriedly, failed to see her until close upon her, and then collapsed. Miss de Lisle listened, twinkling.

"Well, you must go and dress," she said at length. "It would be only kind to every one if you came down to dinner like that, but I suppose it wouldn't do."

"It wouldn't be dignified," said Norah, looking, at the moment, as though dignity were the last thing she cared about. "Well, I suppose I must go." She gathered up her skirts and danced out again, pausing at the door to execute a high kick. Then she curtsied demurely to the laughing cook-lady, and fled to her room by a back staircase.

She came down a while later, tubbed and refreshed, in a dainty blue frock, with a black ribbon in her shining curls. The laughter had not yet died out of her eyes; she was humming one of Jim's school songs as she crossed the hall. Allenby was just turning from the door.

"A telegram, Miss Norah."

"Thanks, Allenby." She took it, still smiling. "I hope it isn't to say any one is coming to-night," she said, as she carried it to the light. "Wouldn't it be lovely if it was to tell us they had leave!"

There was no need to specify whom "they" meant. "But I'm afraid that's too much to hope, just yet." She tore open the envelope.

There was a long silence as she stood there with the paper in her hand: a silence that grew gradually more terrible, while her face turned white. Over and over she read the scrawled words, as if in the vain hope that the thing they told might yet prove only a hideous dream from which, presently, she might wake. Then, as if very far away, she heard the butler's shaking voice.

"Miss Norah! Is it bad news?"

"You can send the boy away," she heard herself say, as though it were some other person speaking. "There isn't any answer. He has been killed."

"Not Mr. Jim?" Allenby's voice was a wail.

"Yes."

She turned from him and walked into the morning-room, shutting the door. In the grate a fire was burning; the leaping light fell on Jim's photograph, standing on a table near. She stared at it, still holding the telegram. Surely it was a dream--she had so often had it before. Surely she would soon wake, and laugh at herself.

The door was flung open, and her father came in, ruddy and splashed.

She remembered afterwards the shape of a mud-splash on his sleeve. It seemed to be curiously important.

"Norah!--what is wrong?"

She put out her hands to him then, shaking. Jim had said it was her job to look after him, but she could not help him now. And no words would come.

"Is it Jim?" At the agony of his voice she gave a little choking cry, catching at him blindly. The telegram fluttered to the floor, and David Linton picked it up and read it. He laid the paper on the table and turned to her, holding out his hands silently, and she came to him and put her face on his breast, trembling. His arm tightened round her. So they stood, while the time dragged on.

He put her into a chair at last, and they looked at each other: they had said no word since that first moment.

"Well," said David Linton slowly, "we knew it might come. And we know that he died like a man, and that he never shirked. Thank G.o.d we had him, Norah. And thank G.o.d my son died a soldier, not a slacker."

CHAPTER XIV

CARRYING ON