The Star-Gazers Part 42

"No, no," said the major. "We're defeated this time, Jack, and they've retired. Thank you, Morton. I think we four made a good fight of it, and--ah, poor fellow!" he cried, bending down. "Nero, Nero, good dog then."

In the darkness they could just see the great dog make an effort to reach the major's hand, but the attempt resulted in a painful moan; a shudder, a faint struggle, and death.

"I'll swear it was not my shot killed him," cried Rolph excitedly.

"Say no more about it," said Sir John; "it was an accident. I'd sooner one of the scoundrels had had it in his skin, though. I wouldn't have taken fifty pounds for that dog."

"Poor old fellow!" said the major, who was kneeling beside the dog, and he stroked the great ears; "but," he added softly to himself, "I've had enough of blood: thank G.o.d it was not a man."

A series of loud whistles brought back some of the scattered forces, the men meeting with such an ovation from Sir John that they began to think they had better have had it out honourably with the poachers; and then a stout sapling was cut down, and the dog's paws being tied, he was carried home to the stable-yard on the shoulders of two watchers.

After this, there was much beer drinking in the servant's-hall, and much discussion in the library, where a piece of sticking-plaister was sufficient to remedy Rolph's wound, his arm was bathed, and Glynne did not faint.

Rolph soon after retired for the night, the major noting that he was looking very pale and uneasy. Twice over he went and looked at himself in the gla.s.s, and once he shuddered and stood staring over his shoulder, as if expecting to see someone there.

"Man can't help his gun going off in the excitement of an action," he said slowly. "What a fool I was not to own up that I had shot the big dog."

"Well, they shouldn't poach," he muttered at last; and, lighting a cigar, he sat smoking for an hour before going to bed to sleep soundly, awake fairly fresh the next morning, and go out for what he termed "a breather."

Volume 2, Chapter VI.

ERRANT COURSES.

Lucy Alleyne was very pretty. Everybody said so--that she was pretty.

No one said that she was beautiful. Now, Lucy was well aware of what people said, and, without being conceited, she very well knew that what people said was true. In fact, she often admired her pretty little _retrousse_ nose and creamy skin in the gla.s.s, and, with a latent idea that she ought to preserve her good looks as much as possible for some one. She thought of the favoured person as "some one," and tried in every way possible to lead a healthy life.

To attain the above end, she strove hard to improve her complexion. It did not need improving, being perfect in its shades of pink and creamy white, that somehow put him who gazed upon her in mind of a _Gloire de Dijon_ rose; but she tried to improve it all the same, laughingly telling herself that she would wash it in morning dew, or rather let Nature perform the operation, as she went for a good early walk.

The pine woods and copses looked as if trouble could never come within their shades, and the last thing any one would have dreamed of would have been the possibility of men meeting there with sticks, bludgeons, and guns, ready to resist capture on the one side, to effect it on the other, and, if needs be, use their weapons to the staining of the earth with blood.

No news of the past night's encounter had reached The Firs. Moray Alleyne, while watching the crossing of a star in the zenith over certain threads of cobweb in the field of his transit instrument had heard the reports of guns; but he was too much intent upon his work to pay heed to what was by no means an unusual circ.u.mstance. Lucy, too, had started into wakefulness once, thinking she heard a sound, but only to sink back to her rest once more; and as she walked that morning she saw no sign of struggle, though, had she turned off to the right amongst the pines, she might have found one or two ugly traces, as if a burden had had been laid down by those who bore it while they rested for a few minutes, and while a bit of rough surgery was being performed.

The lovely silvery mists were hanging about in the little valleys, or curling around the tops, as if spreading veils over the sombre pines, patches of which, as seen in the early morning sunshine, resembled the dark green and purple plaid of some Scottish clan; and as Lucy reached the edge of the far-stretching common land, dazzled by the brilliancy of the sunshine, and elated by the purity of the morning air, she paused to enjoy the beauty of the lovely scene around.

"How stupid people are!" she said half aloud. "How can they call this place desolate and ugly. Why, there's something growing everywhere, and the gorse and broom are simply lovely."

There was a soft moisture in her pretty eyes, as they rested on the blue-looking distant hills, the purple stretches of heather, and the rich green lawnlike patches of meadow land, saved from the wilds around.

Between the hills there were dark shadowy spots, upon them brilliant bits of sunshine, while on all sides the gauzy, silvery vapours floated low down, waiting for the sun, as it increased in power, to drink them up, and after them the millions of iridescent tiny globules that whitened the herbage like frost.

The birds were singing from every patch of woodland in the distance; there was the monotonous "coo coo, coo--_coo, coo-hoo-coo_!" of a wood-pigeon in the pine tops singing his love-song that he always ends in the middle, and far out over the heathery common lark after lark was circling round and rising, in a wide spiral, up and up into the blue sky as it poured forth the never-wearying strain.

"People are as stupid and as dense as can be," said Lucy. "Ours is a grim-looking home, I know, but oh! how beautiful the country is--I wouldn't live anywhere else for the world."

There seemed to be no reason for a blush to come into Lucy's cheeks at this declaration, but one certainly did come, like a ruddy cloud over their soft outline, as she glanced back at the blank-looking pile with the hideous brick additions made by Alleyne for his instruments and observations. Not so much as a thread of smoke rose yet, from either of the chimneys, for Eliza was only at the point that necessitated a vexed rub occasionally at her nose with the woody part of a blacklead brush; Mrs Alleyne was dreaming of her son; and her son, who sought his pillow a couple of hours before--after a long watch of his star as it climbed to the zenith and then went down--to lie and think of Glynne Day, and ask himself whether he was not a scoundrel to allow such thoughts to enter his breast.

"How good it is to get up so early," thought Lucy, aloud; and then she stepped lightly over the dewy gra.s.s, marked down the spot where several mushrooms were growing, and then stepped on to the sandy road.

"I wish Moray would get up early," she thought, "it would be so nice to have him for a companion; but, poor fellow, he must be tired of a morning. I know what I'll do," she cried suddenly. "I'll get Glynne to promise to meet me two or three times a week, whenever it's fine, and we'll go together."

Her cheeks flushed a little hot as she began to think about Glynne, and her thoughts ran somewhat in this fashion,--

"She doesn't know--she doesn't understand a bit, or she would never have consented. Oh! it's absolutely horrid, and I don't believe he cares for her a morsel more than she cares for him."

Lucy stooped down to pick a mushroom, and laid it aside ready to retrieve as she came back from her walk, for Mrs Alleyne approved of a dish for breakfast.

"Why, at the end of a year it would be horrible," cried Lucy, with emphasis. "Mrs Rolph! What would be the use of being married, if you were miserable, as I'm sure she would be."

"It isn't dishonourable; and if it is, I don't mind. I know he is beginning to worship her, and it's as plain as can be that she likes to sit and listen to him, and all he says about the stars. Why, she seems to grow and alter every day, and to become wiser, and to take more interest in everything he says and does."

"There, I don't care," she panted, half-tearfully, as she picked another mushroom; and, as if addressing someone who had had spoken chidingly, "I can't help it; he is my own dear brother, and I will help him as much as I can. Dishonourable? Not it. It is right, poor fellow! Why, she has come like so much sunshine in his life, and it is as plain as can be to see that she is gradually beginning to know what love really is."

As these thoughts left her heart, she looked guiltily round, but there was no one listening--nothing to take her attention, but a couple of glistening, wet, and silvery-looking mushrooms in the gra.s.s hard by.

"It's very dreadful of me to be thinking like this," she said to herself, as she finished culling the mushrooms, and began to make her way back to the road, "but I can't help it. I love Glynne, and I won't see my own brother made miserable, if I can do anything to make him happy. It's quite dreadful the way things are going, and dear Sir John ought to be ashamed of himself. I declare--Oh! how you made me start!"

This was addressed to wet-coated, dissipated rabbit, with a tail like a tuft of white cotton, which little animal started up from its hiding-place at her very feet, and went bounding and scuffling off amongst the heather and furze.

"I wish, oh, how I wish that things would go right," cried Lucy, with tears in her eyes. "I wish I could do something to make Glynne see that he thinks ten times more about his nasty races and matches than he does about her. I don't believe he loves her a bit. It's shameful. He's a beast!"

There was another pause, during which the larks went on singing, the wood-pigeon cooed, and there was a pleasant twittering in the nearest plantation.

"Poor Glynne! when she might be so happy with a man who really loves her, but who would die sooner than own to it. Oh, dear me! I wish a dreadful war would break out, and Captain Rolph's regiment be ordered out to India, and the Indians would kill him and eat him, or take him prisoner--I don't care what, so long as they didn't let him come back any more, and--"

_Pat--pat--pat--pat--pat--pat--pat--pat_--a regular beat from a short distance off, and evidently coming from round by the other side of a clump of larches, where the road curved and then went away level and straight for about a mile.

"Whatever is that?" thought Lucy, whose eyes grew rounder, and who stared wonderingly in the direction of the sound. "It can't be a rabbit, I'm quite sure."

She was perfectly right; it was not a rabbit, as she saw quite plainly the next minute, when a curious-looking figure in white, braided and trimmed with blue, but bare-armed, bare-legged and bare-headed, came suddenly into view, with head forward, fists clenched, and held up on a level with its chest, and running at a steady, well-sustained pace right in the middle of the sandy road.

It was a surprise for both.

"Captain Rolph!" exclaimed Lucy, as the figure stopped short, panting heavily, and looking a good deal surprised.

"Miss Alleyne! Beg pardon. Didn't expect to see anybody so early.

Really."

Lucy felt as if she would like to run away, but that she felt would be cowardly, so she stood her ground, and made, sensibly enough, the best of matters in what was decidedly a rather awkward encounter.

"I often come for an early walk," said the girl, coolly as to speech, though she felt rather hot. "Is this--is this for amateur theatricals?"

It would have been wiser not to allude to the captain's costume, but the words slipped out, and they came like a relief to him, for he, too, had felt tolerably confused. As it was his features expanded into a broad grin, and he then laughed aloud.

"Theatricals? Why, bless your innocence, no. I am in training for a race--foot-race--ten miles--man who does it in shortest time gets the cup. I give him--"

"Him?" said Lucy, for her companion had paused.

"Yes, him," said the captain. "Champion to run against."

"Run against?" said Lucy, glancing at a great blue bruise upon the captain's arm and a piece of sticking-plaister upon his forehead. "Do you hurt yourself like that when you run against men?"