The Happy Warrior Part 59

Then he had encouraged Rollo--as all through life thereafter he had heartened him. Now? Now he was to strike the appealing face that then and ever had looked to him for aid....

How do it? How do it? Why hesitate? Why hesitate? How strike him?

Why spare him? How break him? Why let him go? Like live wild things the questions came at him and tore him; as one in direst torment there broke from his lips "O G.o.d, my G.o.d!": as one pursued he burst from the room, through the parlour where Aunt Maggie stretched hands and cried to him, out into the night where tempest raged and blackness was--fierce as his own, black as the thoughts he sought to race.

Out, out, as one pursued! Away, away, to shake pursuit! And caught as he ran, screamed at as he stumbled on, by all the howling pack that gathered strength and fury as he fled. His feet took the Down; full the tempest struck him as he breasted it; ah, ah, more violent the furies fought within! Thunder broke sheer above him out of heaven with detonation like a thousand guns; he staggered at the immensity of it; on, on, for furious more what joined in shock of battle in his brain!

A sword of lightning showed him the Ridge and seemed to shake it where it lay. He gained the crest and turned along it and knew in his ears old friend wind in howling mock of ha! ha! ha! to see this fruitless race.

CHAPTER XIV

ALWAYS VICTORY

I

He came over against Burdon Old Manor and stopped and knew himself where he had stood with Dora three hours before. His exertions had run him to the end of his physical strength. He sank to his knees, and there, like vultures swooping to their stricken prey, the torments he had raced from came at him in last a.s.sault; there had him writhing on the sodden ground....

In their stress, as a hand put down to touch him where he writhed, a sudden recollection came--himself with j.a.phra by the van by Fir-Tree pool; j.a.phra with a lighted match cupped against his face and j.a.phra's words: "Listen to me, master. Listen to me--thy type runneth hot through life till at last it cometh to the big fight. Send me news of that. Send only 'The Big Fight, j.a.phra.' I shall know the winner."

Ah, here was the Big Fight, saved for him, growing for him through these years and now released upon him! "I shall know the winner." He crouched lower beneath the storm, and in his inward storm buried his fingers in the sodden turf. "I shall know the winner"--ah, G.o.d, G.o.d, which was victory and which defeat? To win Dora, to take all that was his and she, his darling, with it, but against Rollo to use this hideous thing: was that victory? To lose all, all, to let his darling go, but to spare Rollo: was victory there? Was that victory with such a prize? his Dora won? Yes, that was victory, victory! Was that victory at such a price, Rollo spared, his darling lost? Could he bear to see his darling go? Endure to live and know whose son he was?

Watch Rollo with his darling and keep his secret sheathed? Was victory there? No, no, defeat--defeat unthinkable, impossible, not to be borne! He sprang to his feet and another thought came at him and gripped him. j.a.phra again: "Get at the littleness of it--get at the littleness of it. It will pa.s.s." Ah, easy, futile words; ah, d.a.m.nable philosophy! Was littleness here? Was littleness in this? "Remember what endureth. Not man nor man's work--only the green things, only the brown earth that to-day humbly supports thee, to-morrow obscurely covers thee. Lay hold on that when aught vexeth thee; all else pa.s.seth."

The Big Fight had him; in its agony he cried aloud, threw up his arms and fell again to his knees.

II

So Ima found him.

When he had burst from the house, when Aunt Maggie had followed him and cried after him into the night, when she had returned and for a while wrestled with fear of what she had seen in his face, she went to the little room that was set apart for Ima and in sharp agony, in dreadful possession of that "Mistress, beware lest thou betrayest him," had cried "Ima, Ima, go to him! go to him!"

And Ima, taking Aunt Maggie's hands and staring in her face, "What has happened to him? What has happened to him? I heard him in his room alone. I knew something had happened to him."

The other could only say: "Go to him, Ima! Go! He must not be alone!"

She was at once obeyed; her voice and face, and nameless dread that had been with Ima since Percival had left the cart and while she heard him in his room, commanded it.

"How will you find him?" Aunt Maggie asked.

Hatless and without covering against the storm, Ima went to the outer door. "He will be on Plowman's Ridge," she said. "I shall find him."

Some instinct took her along the very path that he had followed. Some fear put her to speed. Her heart that he had silenced on Bracken Down and that never again she had permitted him to see, carried her to him.

She ran with her skirts taken in her left hand, gipsy again in her free and tireless action, gipsy when at the summit of the Ridge instinct directed her without hesitancy to the right, gipsy when in the blackness she almost ran upon him and a second time revealed him what he was to her.

He cried, "Ima! Why are you here?" but carried his surprise no further.

"Percival, what has come to thee?"

"O Ima, leave me alone! leave me alone!"

"Ah, let me help thee!"

He cried, "None can--none can help me! Leave me! leave me!" Almost he struck her with his frantic arms that pressed her from him. She nothing cared, but caught them:

"Ah, suffer me to help thee. Look how I have come to thee. I healed thee once."

Her voice, and memories of her touch when he had lain sick, acted upon him. "Hold my hands, then. I must hold something. Hold them, hold them! O Ima, I am suffering, suffering!"

"That is why I am come. Your hands burn in mine and tremble."

"Kind Ima!" he said brokenly. "Kind Ima!" and put her hands to his face.

She caught at her breath. There came a sudden lull in the storm as though the wind paused for words she tried to make.

"Some one is running to us," Percival cried, and took his hands from her; stepped where approaching feet sounded and suddenly caught one that ran into his arms.

"Who are you?" Then peered and then cried, "Hunt!"

The figure that he held panted for breath. "I'm going to him--me lord," Hunt said, and laughed with the words.

Percival went back a step and there came to Ima's ears his breathing, heavy as Hunt's that laboured from his run. "What do you mean?"

Again the laugh. "I heard, me lord. Like as I heard that odd bit in the hall at the Manor years back and never forgot it that day to this."

"How did you hear?"

"I come to you. I come to you hiding, knowing you'd be kind as was the only one ever kind to me. Hid in your bedroom back of the screen, you not being there. Saw you come in and heard--"

His sentence was broken in the savage hands with which Percival caught his collar and shook him. "What did you hear? What? What?"

"Leave off of me! You're choking of me."

"What did you hear?"

"Y're Lord Burdon. Not him--not that--"

He was swung from his feet by Percival's grasp. "What now? What now, Hunt?"

"Leave off of me! Leave off! You're killing me."

The grip relaxed, and Hunt shook himself free, and tossed his arms.

"What now?" he echoed, and had hate and dreadful laughter in the scream his words made. "What now! I come out for him! For him and 'er as put me away and as I told her in the dock I'd come. Straight for 'em I come. Straight for 'em with the police after me. Stole this for 'em and come to give it 'em." He drew from his jacket what gleamed in his hand as he shook it aloft. "Come to shoot 'em like dogs as used me like dogs, the b.l.o.o.d.y tyrangs. I've got better for 'em now. They can go free--free! turned out! turned out! chucked into the street! kicked out! Think of 'em! Think of 'em crying and howling and beggars and laughed at and pointed at! That's what I'm going to give 'em. Into my hand G.o.d Almighty what casts down the oppressors and the tyrangs has delivered 'em! That's what--ar-r-r!"

Percival was on him and threw him. His throat was in Percival's clutch and his hands tearing at the hands that throttled him.

"You are not!" Percival cried. "You are not. By G.o.d, you shall not!"

In those wild words of Hunt's and what they meant--the world's mockery; in that vile face and what it stood for--the world's cruelty, clearly there came to him the answer that vainly in his torment he had sought.

Rollo face this? Rollo to this be subjected? Rollo suffer ejection from home and name? Ah, now he knew which in the big fight had been defeat and which was victory. "Rollo! Rollo! Rollo!" he had cried, and cried it as a curse. "Rollo! Rollo! Rollo!" now beat in his brain and in his grinding fingers and was pulse of the old protection throbbing for his friend that ever had been more than brother to him.