The Village by the River Part 21

Dixon had turned livid with rage, but kept his head.

"You are a poor, drunken fool, and don't know what you are saying, or I'd make you swallow your words."

"You wouldn't! I could prove them!" went on Tom, choking with pa.s.sion.

"And as you've cheated in work, you've cheated in love. You've cheated me, and you've cheated that one as followed you sobbing and crying from the place where you last came from, and who you'd promised faithful to marry, and who you'd walked with for three years and more. I had the story from the woman where I lodge. The girl spent the night there, and she was pretty nigh broken-hearted. She'd even got her wedding-gown."

Dixon sprang across the road like a tiger, and gave Tom such a swinging box on the ear that, for a moment, he reeled again. And then, all the devil in Tom was loosed, and he leaped on his foe, gripping him by the throat until every vein in his forehead stood out in blue knots. The action was so unexpected and so rapid that Dixon found it impossible to free himself. The men swayed to and fro in each other's embrace, finally falling heavily together with a sickening thud upon the road.

Tom was uppermost, and picked himself up with a rather ghastly smile, but Dixon lay there rigid and motionless.

"Get up!" said Tom, poking him with the toe of his boot. "You won't be so ready to interfere with me another time." But Dixon did not stir.

Rose, who had tried to stop the quarrel by every artifice in her power, knelt down by the side of her lover. And suddenly a cry so shrill, so despairing, broke the air, that Tom's heart stood still and the blood froze in his veins.

"Tom! Tom!--you wicked man, you've killed him!" she shrieked.

And Tom, sobered by the cry, and realizing in all its horror the meaning of the words, turned like guilty Cain and fled. There was but one place for him now: the river--the river, and the end of it all. He was making for it straight, flying by the nearest cut across the fields, leaping ditches, scrambling through hedges, regardless of the brambles that scored his face and hands. Like a hare hunted by the hounds he fled; away from his own guilty action, away from the woman he loved, to the river which would sweep him swiftly, painlessly to rest and forgetfulness. But would it? He had stumbled accidentally into the path which led towards the cottage where he lodged, and turned his head as he ran to take one last glance at the light which glimmered in the window. He could see the river now; he was nearing the brink.

There was but one field between him and it, when he became conscious of a pursuing step. Somebody was already on his scent. The question now was whether he should die by his own act, or be delivered over to the terrible hands of justice; and at that thought Tom redoubled his speed to outstrip his pursuer. It was a desperate race, for his strength was nearly spent. His long fast had told upon him, and the fict.i.tious power of the spirit he had swallowed had pa.s.sed away. His breath was coming in quick, short gasps. His foot caught in a tussock of gra.s.s, and he fell face foremost to the ground, and, before he could regain his feet, a hand was on his collar.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Before he could regain his feet, a hand was on his collar.]

"Let me go! Let me go!" he cried, struggling desperately in the hands of his capturer. "If I've killed him I'm ready to die too. You can't do more than hang me! One more moment and I'd have been in the river.

Let me go, I say!"

"I shall _not_ let you go; you are either mad or drunk--incapable of taking care of yourself," said a low, clear voice; and Tom was lifted to a standing posture by the rector's strong arms.

When Dixon had called late on Sat.u.r.day night to ask the rector to put up his banns on the morrow, Mr. Curzon's thoughts flew straight to Tom.

So this was the end of his love-story, poor fellow! and he feared that it would go hardly with the lad.

"Maybe he will come to see me to-morrow. And, if not, I will see him,"

he had said.

He had noticed with satisfaction that Tom was in his accustomed place on Sunday morning, and did not see him slip out of church after the publishing of the banns; but on Sunday night he missed him, and, the minute service was ended, he set off for the cottage where he lodged.

He had reached the field-path which led to it, when he heard the sound of footsteps that stumbled in their running, and, pausing to look round, he saw a figure, which he did not immediately recognize in the moonlight as Tom's, dashing across the pathway in the direction of the river. Almost before he knew what he was doing the rector gave chase, for he felt the man meant mischief: a conviction which grew into certainty as he gained upon the runaway, and recognized him as the man whom he sought.

Tom attempted no further resistance, and, from his incoherent utterances, Mr. Curzon presently gathered what had occurred.

"And you ran off and left Rose with her dead lover? I could not have believed you such a coward, Tom!" he said, unable to keep back the indignation and scorn he felt. "This is no place for you and me; we must go back at once, and see if anything can be done."

Nothing was said as the two hastened back to the spot where Dixon was left lying; but, to the utter astonishment of both, when they arrived there, Rose and Dixon had gone.

"Either some vehicle has driven by which has conveyed Dixon to the Court, or he was, by G.o.d's mercy, only stunned," said the rector.

"We'll go on and find out."

Tom made no answer, but followed the rector's lead. In a kind of dumb despair he felt he was walking to meet his fate. They made their way first to the stables, anxious not to give the alarm at the house until they knew the extent of the mischief. The usual orderly quiet prevailed, and, in response to the rector's knock, the groom, who had played such a faithless part by Rose, appeared.

"Is Dixon in? Can I see him for a moment?" asked Mr. Curzon, guardedly.

"He came in, sir, about a quarter of an hour since, but he's gone straight up to bed. He'd a nasty fall--did not know quite how he'd done it, slipped up on his heel, he said, and fell on the back of his head. Rose Lancaster was with him, and seemed terrible cut up about it, said he lay like a dead thing; and she would never have got him home if it had not been that a cart drove by and gave 'em both a lift."

"Thank you. Tell Dixon that I'll come round in the morning to see how he is."

"We need do nothing more to-night; your worst fear is not realized," he said, as he and Tom turned towards home. "Now you will come back to supper with me, and we will trace your sin to its very root, please G.o.d. You've had a warning that I think you are not likely to forget."

But Tom, in the sudden relief from the horrible fear that he had inadvertently taken the life of a fellow creature, had broken into a pa.s.sion of sobs, shedding such tears as a man sheds but once in a lifetime--scalding tears of bitter repentance and shame.

He and Mr. Curzon sat talking far into the night, and Tom told the story truly, keeping nothing back.

"You've let drink and pa.s.sion get the upper hand, Tom. You have put the love of a woman before the love of G.o.d, and you've come near to wrecking your life and hers in consequence. It would not have mended matters if you had hurried yourself into another world to which you have given so little thought, would it? It was a mad, wicked thought!

a thought of the devil's own suggestion; but you are saved for the beginning of a better life, a new life in new surroundings."

Tom glanced up quickly. "Not in Tasmania," he said. "The squire won't send me, after this."

"You'll tell him about it, then," replied Mr. Curzon, with a heart-throb of thanksgiving that Tom was ready to face out the consequences of his action.

"Oh yes; I shall tell him. He might hear it any way, but I'd rather tell him myself."

"Very good. Now you had better go home to bed, and, if you have never said a real prayer before, you will say one to-night, Tom, to the G.o.d who has saved you from falling over a precipice of crime."

Tom nodded; his heart was too full to speak.

When the morning broke it found the rector in his study where Tom had left him, still upon his knees, for here and there, in this hurrying nineteenth century world, there is yet found a disciple who, like the Master whom he serves, will spend whole nights in prayer. Was not the salvation of a soul at stake?

A fresh development of Rose Lancaster's love-affairs was brought to Mr.

Curzon's notice on Monday, for the first person he met, as he left the rectory in the morning, was Rose herself--a crumpled dishevelled Rose, whose toilet gave evidence of hurry, and whose eyes were red with weeping.

"Oh, sir, I've come because I didn't know what to do. We're all in dreadful trouble!--Dixon's gone!"

"Not dead!" cried the rector in horror.

"Oh no; he's run away. And oh, it's cruel, cruel! to have used me like this," said Rose, her sobs bursting out afresh.

"I wonder what has made him do it? Has he left no note behind him?"

"Not a line--nor a message for me," replied Rose. "Only a scrawl in pencil which the groom found on the saddle-room table, to say that n.o.body need try to trace him. And only to think that our banns were put up yesterday."

"I think you are wasting your tears over a heartless scamp!" said the rector, a little impatiently. "Did you come with any message from the Court?"

"No, sir; I only came to ask you if I ought to tell?"

"To tell what?"

"All that happened last night. There was a dreadful quarrel between Dixon and Tom Burney; and that's how Dixon got hurt. He was stunned, and I thought he was dead; and Tom ran off, and, when Dixon came to himself, his one notion was that I was not to tell any one how he came by his fall."

"So you promised to back him up in a lie!" said the rector, coldly.

"One can scarcely wonder that you wished to keep the thing quiet, however. You've terribly misused G.o.d's good gift of a pretty face, Rose. You have played with two men; and chosen the wrong one, and driven the other half off his head with misery. Mercifully the good G.o.d has saved you from what must have been a miserable marriage, for there is more in Dixon's disappearance than we can see just yet."

Rose's tears dried with her gathering indignation. It had not occurred to her to blame herself in any way; she felt rather in the position of the ill-used heroine of a tragedy in real life.