The Admirable Tinker Part 5

The farmer said nothing.

"He's young, isn't he?" said Tinker.

An acute and scornful expression of "You don't get round me!" filled all of the farmer's face that was not covered with whiskers.

"Did you think to tie him up before you ran after me?" said Tinker earnestly.

Alloway sprang from the gate as though a very sharp nail had of a sudden sprouted up immediately beneath him, slapped his thigh, and stood shaking his whip at Tinker with expressive, but starting eyes.

"I dare say he's out of the county by now," said Tinker thoughtfully.

"You young blackguard!" said Alloway, and stepped towards the kennel.

Blazer shot out to the length of his chain; and Alloway, in his fury, cut him savagely with his whip. Blazer roared rather than barked; the noise stimulated Tinker's wits; and he saw his way.

Alloway recovered himself sufficiently to say with choking emphasis, "Horse, or no horse, you don't get me to leave here!" and went back to the gate.

Tinker let him climb on it, and then he said gently, "Have you ever played at being a runaway slave hunted by bloodhounds, Mr. Alloway?"

Alloway scowled at him most malignantly.

"I should think it would be quite an exciting game. It doesn't really matter that Blazer's only a bull terrier; we can call him a bloodhound, you know," Tinker went on, looking at the dog a little regretfully.

Alloway, coddling his fury, scarcely heard him.

"I'll be the slave-owner," said Tinker, fumbling with the chain.

It came out of the staple; and Alloway roared, "What are you doing, you young rascal?"

"Oh, it's all right," said Tinker. "Don't be frightened; I'll keep him on leash till you get a good lead."

Alloway jumped down from the gate, on the other side of it, his anger changed to uncertainty spiced with discomfort.

Blazer felt the chain loosen, and darted forward, jerking Tinker after him.

"I can't hold him!" yelled Tinker.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "I can't hold him!"]

Alloway turned, dropped his whip, and bolted up through the village.

Blazer dashed at the gate, clawing it; Tinker got a better grip on the chain, opened the gate, s.n.a.t.c.hed up the whip as Blazer jerked him through; and they set off down the road after Alloway. The farmer ran better than ever, faster than he had run after Tinker, faster, probably, than he had ever run before in his life.

Blazer, though Tinker dragged for all he was worth, made a very fair pace after him. But by the time they were a hundred yards beyond the village, the throttling drag began to tell; Blazer slowed down; and Alloway, still going hard, disappeared round the corner.

Blazer and Tinker fell into a walk, and then stopped.

Sir Tancred Beauleigh, on his quiet way to the village post-office, was surprised at being nearly knocked down by one of the most respectable young farmers of the neighbourhood, who was running with the speed and face of a man pursued by all the tigers of Bengal. A hundred yards further on he heard yells and screams, and shouts of laughter; and coming round a corner, he saw a small boy rolling in recurring paroxysms of joy on the gra.s.s by the roadside, watched by a puzzled bull-terrier. He had no difficulty in connecting them with the flying farmer.

He came up to the absorbed pair unnoticed, and standing over them, said quietly, "What's the joke, Tinker?"

Tinker sprang to his feet, and wiping away the joyful tears, said, "I have been playing at hunting runaway slaves."

"Ah, Alloway was the slave?" said Sir Tancred.

"Yes, sir," said Tinker.

Sir Tancred dropped the subject; he knew by experience that the truth might be painful hearing, and that he would probably hear it from Tinker's flying partner in the game quite soon enough.

"What are you doing with that dog?" he said.

"I borrowed him," said Tinker.

Sir Tancred looked Blazer carefully over. "He's a very good dog," he said. "How would you like him for a birthday present?"

Tinker's eyes shone as a long vista of sc.r.a.pes, out of which Blazer's teeth might help him, opened before his mind.

"Ever so much!" he said quickly.

"Come on, then, we'll go and try to buy him." And they set out for the village.

Mr. Green stood in the door of the smithy, and grinned enormously at the sight of the returning Tinker. Sir Tancred said, "Good-morning, Green; do you care to sell this dog? I'll give you three pounds for him."

Mr. Green said, "Three pound," and stared helplessly at the cottages opposite, confused by the need to a.s.similate, on the spur of the moment, a new idea.

"Three pounds?" said Tinker quickly. "Why, he only cost fifteen shillings a year ago!"

"An orfer is an orfer!" said Mr. Green quickly, his wits spurred at the sudden prospect of a lowering of the price. "And I takes it."

As he led away Blazer, with a new proprietary pride Tinker said firmly to Sir Tancred, "I shall go on considering him a bloodhound, sir."

CHAPTER SIX

THE RESCUE OF ELIZABETH KERNABY

Sir Tancred paused now and again in his leisurely breakfast to scowl across the dining room at Mr. Biggleswade, who, with his sour-looking wife and woebegone little girl, was breakfasting at an opposite table.

The Royal Victoria Hotel was second-rate. The cooking was poor, the wine was bad, and Solesgate itself was dull. But these misfortunes Sir Tancred would have endured cheerfully because the place suited Hildebrand Anne, who had but lately recovered from an attack of scarlet fever at Farndon-Pryze, but he could not endure Mr. Biggleswade. It was not so much that he had reckoned up Mr. Biggleswade as a large, fat, greasy rogue, nor was it that no snub once and for all stopped Mr.

Biggleswade from thrusting himself upon him with a sn.o.bbish obsequiousness; it was Mr. Biggleswade's noisy and haphazard methods of disposing of his food, which left small portions of each course nestling in his straggling beard, and filled the air with the sound of the feeding of pigs.

This Sir Tancred found unendurable, and the more unendurable that Mr.

Biggleswade had made up his mind that he enjoyed his meals more in the presence of a baronet, and always waited for his coming.

Sir Tancred was eating his breakfast mournfully, therefore, reflecting on the unkindness of Fortune, who had afflicted Tinker with his fever at so inconvenient a time. For he had not been able to raise the money to take him to make his convalescence at one of the more expensive watering places, whither resort millionaires and the smart, whose fondness for games of chance and skill would have kept him in careless luxury. He had been driven to bring him to Solesgate, a town of six bathing-machines; and there the rest of his ready money dwindled to a few shillings. A sudden cessation of the sound of the feeding of pigs caught him from his mournful reflections. He looked up quickly, to see Mr. Biggleswade staring at his newspaper with a most striking expression of triumphant greed.

On the instant Sir Tancred filled with the liveliest interest; emotion, especially curious emotion, in his fellow creatures always aroused his interest, and not infrequently brought him profit, and Mr.

Biggleswade's emotion seemed to him curiously violent to be excited by the perusal of a newspaper. He made half a movement to show it to his wife, caught Sir Tancred's eye, and setting it down, went on hastily with his breakfast. He had not been so quick but that Sir Tancred had seen that the paper was _The Daily Telegraph_, and the exciting paragraph on the first page.