The Revellers Part 12

"Poof!" t.i.ttered Angle. "Who heeds a domestic?"

Someone came at a fast run into the yard, running in desperate haste, and making a fearful din. Two boys appeared. The leader shouted:

"Angle! Angle! Are you there?"

Martin had missed her. Jim Bates, who knew the chosen rendezvous of the Atkinson girls, suggested that they and their friends had probably gone to the haggarth.

"Shut up, you fool!" hissed Frank. "Do you want the whole village to know where we are?"

Martin ignored him. He darted forward and caught Angle by the shoulder.

He distinguished her readily by her outline, though she and the rest were hidden in the somber shadows of the outbuildings.

"Why did you leave me?" he demanded angrily. "You must come home at once. It is past ten o'clock."

"Don't be angry, Martin," she pouted. "I am just a little tired of the noise. I want to show you and the rest a new dance."

The minx was playing her part well. She had read Evelyn Atkinson's soul.

She felt every throb of young Beckett-Smythe's foolish heart. She was quite certain that Martin would find her and cause a scene. There was deeper intrigue afoot now than the mere folly of unlicensed frolic in the fair. Her vanity, too, was gratified by the leading rle she filled among them all. The puppets bore themselves according to their temperaments. Evelyn bit her lip with rage and nearly yielded to a wild impulse to spring at Angle and scratch her face. Martin was white with determination. As for Master Frank, he boiled over instantly.

"You just leave her alone, young Bolland," he said thickly. "She came here to please herself, and can stay here, if she likes. I'll see to that."

Martin did not answer.

"Angle," he said quietly, "come away."

Seeing that he had lived in the village nearly all his life, it was pa.s.sing strange that this boy should have dissociated himself so completely from its ways. But the early hours he kept, his love of horses, dogs, and books, his preference for the society of grooms and gamekeepers--above all, a keen, if unrecognized, love of nature in all her varying moods, an almost pagan worship of mountain, moor, and stream--had kept him aloof from village life. A boy of fourteen does not indulge in introspection. It simply came as a fearful shock to find the daughter of a lady like Mrs. Saumarez so ready to forget her social standing. Surely, she could not know what she was doing. He was undeceived, promptly and thoroughly.

Angle s.n.a.t.c.hed her shoulder from his grasp.

"Don't you dare hold me," she snapped. "I'm not coming. I won't come with you, anyhow. Ma foi, Frank is far nicer."

"Then I'll drag you home," said Martin.

"Oh, will you, indeed? I'll see to that."

Beckett-Smythe deemed Angle a girl worth fighting for. In any case, this clodhopper who spent money like a lord must be taught manners.

Martin smiled. In his bemused brain the idea was gaining ground that Angle would be flattered if he "licked" the squire's son for her sake.

"Very well," he said, stepping back into the moonlight. "We'll settle it that way. If _you_ beat _me_, Angle remains. If _I_ beat _you_, she goes home. Here, Jim. Hold my coat and hat. And, no matter what happens, mind you don't play for any dancing."

Martin stated terms and issued orders like an emperor. In the hour of stress he felt himself immeasurably superior to this gang of urchins, whether their manners smacked of Elmsdale or of Eton.

Angle's acquaintance with popular fiction told her that at this stage of the game the heroine should cling in tears to the one she loved, and implore him to desist, to be calm for her sake. But the riot in her veins brought a new sensation. There were possibilities. .h.i.therto unsuspected in the darkness, the secrecy, the candid brutality of the fight. She almost feared lest Beckett-Smythe should be defeated.

And how the other girls must envy her, to be fought for by the two boys pre-eminent among them, to be the acknowledged princess of this village carnival!

So she clapped her hands.

"O l l!" she cried. "Going to fight about poor little me! Well, I can't stop you, can I?"

"Yes, you can," said one.

"She won't, anyhow," scoffed the other. "Are you ready?"

"Quite!"

"Then 'go.'"

And the battle began.

CHAPTER VI

WHEREIN THE RED BLOOD FLOWS

They fought like a couple of young bulls. Frank intended to demolish his rival at the outset. He was a year older and slightly heavier, but Martin was more active, more sure-footed, sharper of vision. Above all, he had laid to heart the three-pennyworth of tuition obtained in the boxing booth a few hours earlier.

He had noted then that a boxer dodged as many blows with his head as he warded with his arms. He grasped the necessity to keep moving, and thus disconcert an adversary's sudden rush. Again, he had seen the excellence of a forward spring without changing the relative positions of the feet.

a.s.suming you were sparring with the left hand and foot advanced, a quick jump of eighteen inches enabled you to get the right home with all your force. You must keep the head well back and the eye fixed unflinchingly on your opponent's. Above all, meet offense with offense. Hit hard and quickly and as often as might be.

These were sound principles, and he proceeded to put them into execution, to the growing distress and singular annoyance of Master Beckett-Smythe.

Ernest acted as referee--in the language of the village, he "saw fair play"--but was wise enough to call "time" early in the first round, when his brother drew off after a fierce set-to. The forcing tactics had failed, but honors were divided. The taller boy's reach had told in his favor, while Martin's newly acquired science redressed the balance.

Martin's lip was cut and there was a lump on his left cheek, but Frank felt an eye closing and had received a staggerer in the ribs. He was aware of an uneasy feeling that if Martin survived the next round he (Frank) would be beaten, so there was nothing for it but to summon all his reserves and deliver a Napoleonic attack. The enemy must be crushed by sheer force.

He was a plucky lad and was stung to frenzy by seeing Angle offer Martin the use of a lace handkerchief for the bleeding lip, a delicate tenderness quietly repulsed.

So, when the rush came, Martin had to fight desperately to avoid annihilation. He was compelled to give way, and backed toward the hedge.

Behind lay an unseen stackpole. At the instant when Beckett-Smythe lowered his head and endeavored to b.u.t.t Martin violently in the stomach, the latter felt the obstruction with his heel. Had he lost his nerve then or flickered an eyelid, he would have taken a nasty fall and a severe shaking. As it was, he met the charge more than halfway, and delivered the same swinging upper stroke which had nearly proved fatal to his gamekeeper friend.

It was wholly disastrous to Beckett-Smythe. It caught him fairly on the nose, and, as the blow was in accord with the correct theory of dynamics as applied to forces in motion, it knocked him silly. His head flew up, his knees bent, and he dropped to the ground with a horrible feeling that the sky had fallen and that stars were sparkling among the rough paving-stones.

"That's a finisher. He's whopped!" exulted Jim Bates.

"No, he's not. It was a chance blow," cried Ernest, who was strongly inclined to challenge the victor on his own account. "Get up, Frank.

Have another go at him!"

But Frank, who could neither see nor hear distinctly, was too groggy to rise, and the village girls drew together in an alarmed group. Such violent treatment of the squire's son savored of sacrilege. They were sure that Martin would receive some condign punishment by the law for pummeling a superior being so unmercifully.

Angle, somewhat frightened herself, tried to console her discomfited champion.

"I'm so sorry," she said. "It was all my fault."