Children of the Mist Part 67

But while Will marched upon this errand, the man he desired to see had just left his own front door, struck through leafless coppices of larch and silver beech that approached the house, and then proceeded to where bigger timber stood about a little plateau of marshy land, surrounded by tall flags. The woodlands had paid their debt to Nature in good gold, and all the trees were naked. An east wind lent a hard, clean clearness to the country. In the foreground two little lakes spread their waters steel-grey in a cup of lead; the distance was clear and cold and compact of all sober colours save only where, through a grey and interlacing nakedness of many boughs, the roof of the Red House rose.

John Grimbal sat upon a felled tree beside the pools, and while he remained motionless, his pipe unlighted, his gun beside him, a spaniel worked below in the sere sedges at the water's margin. Presently the dog barked, a moor-hen splashed, half flying, half swimming, across the larger lake, and a snipe got up and jerked crookedly away on the wind.

The dog stood with one fore-paw lifted and the water dripping along his belly. He waited for a crack and puff of smoke and the thud of a bird falling into the water or the underwood. But his master did not fire; he did not even see the flushing of the snipe; so the dog came up and remonstrated with his eyes. Grimbal patted the beast's head, then rose from his seat on the felled tree, stretched his arms, sat down again and lighted his pipe.

The event of the morning had turned his thoughts in the old direction, and now they were wholly occupied with Will Blanchard. Since his fit of futile spleen and fury after the meeting with Phoebe, John had slowly sunk back into the former nerveless att.i.tude. From this an occasional wonder roused him--a wonder as to whether the woman had ever given her husband his message at all. His recent active hatred seemed a little softened, though why it should be so he could not have explained. Now he sometimes a.s.sured himself that he should not proceed to extremities, but hang his sword over Will's head a while and possibly end by pardoning him altogether.

Thus he paltered with his better part and presented a spectacle of one mentally sick unto death by reason of shattered purpose. His unity of design was gone. He had believed the last conversation with Phoebe in itself sufficient to waken his pristine pa.s.sion, but anger against himself had been a great factor of that storm, apart from which circ.u.mstance he made the mistake of supposing that his pa.s.sion slept, whereas in reality it was dead. Now, if Grimbal was to be stung into activity, it must be along another line and upon a fresh count.

Then, as he reflected by the little tarns, there approached Will Blanchard himself; and Grimbal, looking up, saw him standing among white tussocks of dead gra.s.s by the water-side and rubbing the mud off his boots upon them. For a moment his breath quickened, but he was not surprised; and yet, before Will reached him, he had time to wonder at himself that he was not.

Blanchard, calling at the Red House ten minutes after the master's departure, had been informed by old Lawrence Vallack, John's factotum, that he had come too late. It transpired, however, that Grimbal had taken his gun and a dog, so Will, knowing the estate, made a guess at the sportsman's destination, and was helped on his way when he came within earshot of the barking spaniel.

Now that animal resented his intrusion, and for a moment it appeared that the brute's master did also. Will had already seen Grimbal where he sat, and came swiftly towards him.

"What are you doing here, William Blanchard? You're trespa.s.sing and you know it," said the landowner loudly. "You can have no business here."

"Haven't I? Then why for do'e send me messages?"

Will stood straight and stern in front of his foe. His face was more gloomy than the sombre afternoon; his jaw stood out very square; his grey eyes were hard as the glint of the east wind. He might have been accuser, and John Grimbal accused. The sportsman did not move from his seat upon the log. But he felt a flush of blood pulse through him at the other's voice, as though his heart, long stagnant, was being sluiced.

"That? I'd forgotten all about it. You've taken your time in obeying me."

"This marnin', an' not sooner, I heard what you telled her when you catched Phoebe alone."

"Ah! now I understand the delay. Say what you've got to say, please, and then get out of my sight."

"'T is for you to speak, not me. What be you gwaine to do, an' when be you gwaine to do it? I allow you've bested me, G.o.d knaws how; but you've got me down. So the sooner you say what your next step is, the better."

The older man laughed.

"'T isn't the beaten party makes the terms as a rule."

"I want no terms; I wouldn't make terms with you for a sure plaace in heaven. Tell me what you be gwaine to do against me. I've a right to knaw."

"I can't tell you."

"You mean as you won't tell me?"

"I mean I can't--not yet. After speaking to your wife I forgot all about it. It doesn't interest me."

"Be you gwaine to give me up?"

"Probably I shall--as a matter of duty. I'm a bit of a soldier myself.

It's such a dirty coward's trick to desert. Yes, I think I shall make an example of you."

Will looked at him steadily.

"You want to wake the devil in me--I see that. But you won't. I'm aulder an' wiser now. So you 'm to give me up? I knawed it wi'out axin'."

"And that doesn't wake you?"

"No. Seein' why I deserted an' mindin' your share in drivin' me."

Grimbal did not answer, and Will asked him to name a date.

"I tell you I shall suit myself, not you. When you will like it least, be sure of that. I needn't pretend what I don't feel. I hate the sight of you still, and the closer you come the more I hate you. It rolls years off me to see your d.a.m.ned brown face so near and hear your voice in my ear,--years and years; and I'm glad it does. You've ruined my life, and I'll ruin yours yet."

There was a pause; Blanchard stared cold and hard into Grimbal's eyes; then John continued, and his flicker of pa.s.sion cooled a little as he did so,--

"At least that's what I said to myself when first I heard this little bit of news--that I'd ruin you; now I'm not sure."

"At least I'll thank you to make up your mind. 'T is turn an' turn about. You be uppermost just this minute. As to ruining me, that's as may be."

"Well, I shall decide presently. I suppose you won't run away. And it 's no great matter if you do, for a fool can't hide himself under his folly."

"I sha'n't run. I want to get through with this and have it behind me."

"You're in a hurry now."

"It 's just an' right. I knaw that. An' ban't no gert odds who 's informer. But I want to have it behind me--an' you in front. Do 'e see?

This out o' hand, then it 's my turn again. Keepin' me waitin' 'pon such a point be tu small an' womanish for a fight between men. 'T is your turn to hit, Jan Grimbal, an' theer 's no guard 'gainst the stroke, so if you're a man, hit an' have done with it."

"Ah! you don't like the thought of waiting!"

"No, I do not. I haven't got your snake's patience. Let me have what I've got to have, an' suffer it, an' make an' end of it."

"You're in a hurry for a dish that won't be pleasant eating, I a.s.sure you."

"It's just an' right I tell 'e; an' I knaw it is, though all these years cover it. Your paart 's differ'nt. I lay you 'm in a worse h.e.l.l than me, even now."

"A moralist! How d' you like the thought of a d.a.m.ned good flogging--fifty lashes laid on hot and strong?"

"Doan't you wish you had the job? Thrashing of a man wi' his legs an'

hands tied would just suit your sort of courage."

"As to that, they won't flog you really; and I fancy I could thrash you still without any help. Your memory 's short. Never mind. Get you gone now; and never speak to me again as long as you live, or I shall probably hit you across the mouth with my riding-whip. As to giving you up, you're in my hands and must wait my time for that."

"Must I, by G.o.d? Hark to a fule talkin'! Why should I wait your pleasure, an' me wi' a tongue in my head? You've jawed long enough. Now you can listen. I'll give _myself_ up, so theer! I'll tell the truth, an' what drove me to desert, an' what you be anyway--as goes ridin' out wi' the yeomanry so braave in black an' silver with your sword drawed!

That'll spoil your market for pluck an' valour, anyways. An' when I've done all court-martial gives me, I'll come back!"

He swung away as he spoke; and the other sat on motionless for an hour after Will had departed.

John Grimbal's pipe went out; his dog, weary of waiting, crept to his feet and fell asleep there; live fur and feathers peeped about and scanned his bent figure, immobile as a tree-trunk that supported it; and the gun, lying at hand, drew down a white light from a gathering gloaming.

One great desire was in the sportsman's mind,--he already found himself hungry for another meeting with Blanchard.