Love of Brothers Part 4

"I don't deny as I 'ad a bob myself to spend," said the ruffian.

"'Ere, you, Georgie! You wake up, you lazy young devil! 'Tis time we was on the road."

Patsy stepped between the man and the child who had come out of his sleep with a cry of fear. He put a open hand on Mr. Baker's chest and pushed him backward. Somewhat contrary to his expectations the man did not resent his action, beyond remarking that no one had the right to interfere between a man and his kid.

"Now it comes to that," he said, with a sudden change to jocularity, "if so be as you've a fancy for 'er I'd sell her for five quid an'

throw in the kid. It's no catch draggin' 'em round an' me 'avin' to carry the cans 'arf the time because o' your blasted coppers."

The full enormity of the speech seemed to reveal itself only gradually to Patsy's mind. He turned red and then pale. The poor woman was quivering as though a lash had struck her.

"You're a bad brute," said Patsy quietly. "The woman's too good for you."

"You can 'ave her for nothink if you like. She never was much good to me."

He sat down suddenly in the chair Georgie had left empty.

"I want to see your boss," he said: and his tone was bullying.

"I was thinkin' about that myself," said Patsy.

"You go along the road an' wait for me," he said with a sudden ferocity which made the woman start. "Off with ye now. I'll come up with ye: unless this gentleman 'ud make it a matter of a five-pun' note."

"Hold your dirty tongue," said Patsy, and landed Mr. Baker one in the chest.

The man rushed at him with his head down, a shower of foul words coming from his lips. Before anything could happen some one intervened,--Terry O'Gara, dazzlingly clean as he always looked.

"Here, you keep quiet, you ruffian!" he said, delivering a very neat blow just under the man's chin. "What is it all about, Patsy? Hadn't I better send for the police?"

Mr. Baker had fallen back against the stone bench and subsided on to it, feeling his jaw bone.

"I'll make you pay for this yere conduck to an 'armless man wot was doin' nothink," he growled.

Something floated into Patsy's mind, vague, terrible. Before he could grasp it another person joined the group,--Sir Shawn O'Gara.

"What's the matter?" he asked. "Who is this person?"

His face changed. Patsy Kenny, who was watching him, saw the change.

He had grown livid, his lips blue. Was he ill? Was he going to fall?

Before Patsy could do anything he recovered himself and spoke.

"You have business with me?" he said to the tramp.

"Yes, sir." Mr. Baker was suddenly cringingly respectful. "I came 'ere to talk business an' was set upon by this yere man o' yourn somethink crool. I'd sack him if I was you. Your 'orses wouldn't be safe with 'im, 'im bein' so 'ot-tempered."

Sir Shawn still looked very ill. Patsy had once seen a person in a bad heart-seizure. Was Sir Shawn's heart affected? Small mottled patches of a purple colour had come out on the smooth darkness of his skin.

Angina. That was what the doctor called it in the case of that other person. Had that mysterious, terrible disease laid hold on the Master?

He had not looked well for many a day. Patsy had wondered that the Mistress did not see it, was not disturbed by it, seeing how fond a wife she was. His heart sank with fear for the Master.

"Let me deal with him, father," said Terry, looking like a young G.o.d in contrast with the unpleasant Mr. Baker.

"I know this man," Sir Shawn said, quietly. "He once rendered me a service."

"When I were gamekeeper over to Ashbridge 'All," said Mr. Baker eagerly, "you'd a bin shot but for me. Some gents will never learn 'ow 'to 'old their guns. I knocked the barrel up just in the nick. That Mr. Lascelles, 'e weren't safe."

Ashbridge! Oh--so the man had been employed at Ashbridge Hall, Lord Trentham's place, some thirty miles away on the edge of Lough Aske.

How long ago? Patsy kept asking himself the question. He looked after Sir Shawn and Mr. Baker as they went away in the direction of the house. Sir Shawn had an official room with a door opening out on to the grounds, so that the many people who came to consult him on one business or another need not enter through the house.

"That fellow's face would hang him anywhere," said Terry O'Gara. "I wonder what amount of villainy lies between a gamekeeper's place at Ashbridge and the brute he is to-day?"

"G.o.d help them that are in his power," Patsy Kenny said fervently.

Then he went to the gate and looked out. The pots and pans and cans had disappeared. Down the long straight road there was no one in sight. The woman and child had vanished.

Oddly enough he was disturbed by the noise Mustapha was still making in his box-stall.

"I shouldn't be surprised now if he was to be a foal of Spitfire," he said. "I did hear she was bought by a man somewhere about Lewy mountain. The little man we bought him from was a mountainy man, if he wasn't a fairy."

CHAPTER IV

FROM THE PAST

The morning after these happenings Lady O'Gara, turning over the pile of letters on the breakfast table, changed colour at the sight of one which bore an Italian postmark. It was addressed in a large firm handwriting in which only very keen observation could have discovered any sign of weakening. After that momentary glance she laid away the letter with the superscription turned downwards while she read the rest of her correspondence.

When she had finished breakfast she followed her husband into his office, as that special room was called. The windows had not been opened--they were French windows and they served as a door out on to the gravel sweep which ran around the house--and she thought she detected a faint disagreeable smell, as of drugs. She unbolted a window and flung it wide and the warm June air came flowing in, banishing the unpleasant sharp odour.

"You haven't been taking anything, Shawn?" she asked, looking at him a little anxiously. "I thought I smelt something peculiar. You are not looking well."

"I am very well, Mary," he answered. "Perhaps it was the person I had here yesterday evening. I believe I closed the window after he went out. He had been drinking. There was a horrible smell."

"I came to the door while you were talking to him and I heard you say, 'What do you mean by coming here?' Who was he, Shawn?"

Again Sir Shawn was suddenly pale. She was looking down at the letter she had extracted from the pile, and he turned his back to the window, so that when she looked at him again with her frank ingenuous gaze, his face was in shadow.

"He was a man who saved my life, or thinks he did, at a shooting-party at Ashbridge. There was a fellow there who had never handled a gun before. He would have put a whole charge of shot into me if this chap, Baker, hadn't knocked up his gun in time. I don't think it would have killed me, although it might have been rather unpleasant. Baker likes to think, for his own purposes,"--he spoke with a weary air,--"that he saved my life. He may have saved my beauty. He considers himself my pensioner."

"Ah!" Lady O'Gara was satisfied with the explanation. "What a pity he should drink! Can we do nothing for him?"

"I'm afraid not. He would like to be my game-keeper, but that is out of the question. He had not much character when he left Ashbridge. He has had more than one job in England since then, and has lost them all.

He has come down very much in the world even since I saw him last."

"A pity," said Lady O'Gara, "since he rendered you a service."

"I gave him some money and got rid of him: it was the only thing to do."

Once again Lady O'Gara's frank eyes turned upon her husband.