Yeast: a Problem Part 18

whatever that may mean. If one of your squeamish 'dignity-of- poetry' critics had just had his head among the gun-stocks for five minutes that night, he would have found it grim tragic earnest enough; not without a touch of fun though, here and there.

Lancelot leant against a tree and watched the riot with folded arms, mindful of his promise to Argemone, and envied Tregarva as he hurled his a.s.sailants right and left with immense strength, and led the van of battle royally. Little would Argemone have valued the real proof of love which he was giving her as he looked on sulkily, while his fingers tingled with longing to be up and doing. Strange--that mere l.u.s.t of fighting, common to man and animals, whose traces even the lamb and the civilised child evince in their mock-fights, the earliest and most natural form of play. Is it, after all, the one human propensity which is utterly evil, incapable of being turned to any righteous use? Gross and animal, no doubt it is, but not the less really pleasant, as every Irishman and many an Englishman knows well enough. A curious instance of this, by the bye, occurred in Paris during the February Revolution. A fat English coachman went out, from mere curiosity, to see the fighting. As he stood and watched, a new pa.s.sion crept over him; he grew madder and madder as the bullets whistled past him; at last, when men began to drop by his side, he could stand it no longer, seized a musket, and rushed in, careless which side he took,--

'To drink delight of battle with his peers.'

He was not heard of for a day or two, and then they found him stiff and cold, lying on his face across a barricade, with a bullet through his heart. Sedentary persons may call him a sinful fool.

Be it so. h.o.m.o sum: humani nihil a me alienum puto.

Lancelot, I verily believe, would have kept his promise, though he saw that the keepers gave ground, finding c.o.c.kney skill too much for their clumsy strength; but at last Harry Verney, who had been fighting as venomously as a wild cat, and had been once before saved from a broken skull by Tregarva, rolled over at his very feet with a couple of poachers on him.

'You won't see an old man murdered, Mr. Smith?' cried he, imploringly.

Lancelot tore the ruffians off the old man right and left. One of them struck him; he returned the blow; and, in an instant, promises and Argemone, philosophy and anti-game-law prejudices, were swept out of his head, and 'he went,' as the old romances say, 'hurling into the midst of the press,' as mere a wild animal for the moment as angry bull or boar. An instant afterwards, though, he burst out laughing, in spite of himself, as 'The Battersea Bantam,' who had been ineffectually dancing round Tregarva like a gamec.o.c.k spurring at a bull, turned off with a voice of ineffable disgust,--

'That big cove's a yokel; ta'nt creditable to waste science on him.

You're my man, if you please, sir,'--and the little wiry lump of courage and conceit, rascality and good humour, flew at Lancelot, who was twice his size, 'with a heroism worthy of a better cause,'

as respectable papers, when they are not too frightened, say of the French.

'Do you want any more?' asked Lancelot.

'Quite a pleasure, sir, to meet a scientific gen'lman. Beg your pardon, sir; stay a moment while I wipes my face. Now, sir, time, if you please.'

Alas for the little man! in another moment he tumbled over and lay senseless--Lancelot thought he had killed him. The gang saw their champion fall, gave ground, and limped off, leaving three of their party groaning on the ground, beside as many Whitford men.

As it was in the beginning, so is it to be to the end, my foolish brothers! From the poacher to the prime minister--wearying yourselves for very vanity! The soldier is not the only man in England who is fool enough to be shot at for a shilling a day.

But while all the rest were busy picking up the wounded men and securing the prisoners, Harry Verney alone held on, and as the poachers retreated slowly up the ride, he followed them, peering into the gloom, as if in hopes of recognising some old enemy.

'Stand back, Harry Verney; we know you, and we'd be loth to harm an old man,' cried a voice out of the darkness.

'Eh? Do you think old Harry'd turn back when he was once on the track of ye? You soft-fisted, gin-drinking, counter-skipping c.o.c.kney rascals, that fancy you're to carry the county before you, because you get your fines paid by London-tradesmen! Eh? What do you take old Harry for?'

'Go back, you old fool!' and a volley of oaths followed. 'If you follow us, we'll fire at you, as sure as the moon's in heaven!'

'Fire away, then! I'll follow you to--!' and the old man paced stealthily but firmly up to them.

Tregarva saw his danger and sprang forward, but it was too late.

'What, you will have it, then?'

A sharp crack followed,--a bright flash in the darkness--every white birch-stem and jagged oak-leaf shone out for a moment as bright as day--and in front of the glare Lancelot saw the old man throw his arms wildly upward, fall forward, and disappear on the dark ground.

'You've done it! off with you!' And the rascals rushed off up the ride.

In a moment Tregarva was by the old man's side, and lifted him tenderly up.

'They've done for me, Paul. Old Harry's got his gruel. He's heard his last shot fired. I knowed it 'ud come to this, and I said it.

Eh? Didn't I, now, Paul?' And as the old man spoke, the workings of his lungs pumped great jets of blood out over the still heather- flowers as they slept in the moonshine, and dabbled them with smoking gore.

'Here, men,' shouted the colonel, 'up with him at once, and home!

Here, put a brace of your guns together, muzzle and lock. Help him to sit on them, Lancelot. There, Harry, put your arms round their necks. Tregarva, hold him up behind. Now then, men, left legs foremost--keep step--march!' And they moved off towards the Priory.

'You seem to know everything, colonel,' said Lancelot.

The colonel did not answer for a moment.

'Lancelot, I learnt this dodge from the only friend I ever had in the world, or ever shall have; and a week after I marched him home to his deathbed in this very way.'

'Paul--Paul Tregarva,' whispered old Harry, 'put your head down here: wipe my mouth, there's a man; it's wet, uncommon wet.' It was his own life-blood. 'I've been a beast to you, Paul. I've hated you, and envied you, and tried to ruin you. And now you've saved my life once this night; and here you be a-nursing of me as my own son might do, if he was here, poor fellow! I've ruined you, Paul; the Lord forgive me!'

'Pray! pray!' said Paul, 'and He will forgive you. He is all mercy.

He pardoned the thief on the cross--'

'No, Paul, no thief,--not so bad as that, I hope, anyhow; never touched a feather of the squire's. But you dropped a song, Paul, a bit of writing.'

Paul turned pale.

'And--the Lord forgive me!--I put it in the squire's fly-book.'

'The Lord forgive you! Amen!' said Paul, solemnly.

Wearily and slowly they stepped on towards the old man's cottage. A messenger had gone on before, and in a few minutes the squire, Mrs.

Lavington, and the girls, were round the bed of their old retainer.

They sent off right and left for the doctor and the vicar; the squire was in a frenzy of rage and grief.

'Don't take on, master, don't take on,' said old Harry, as he lay; while the colonel and Honoria in vain endeavoured to stanch the wound. 'I knowed it would be so, sooner or later; 'tis all in the way of business. They haven't carried off a bird, squire, not a bird; we was too many for 'em--eh, Paul, eh?'

'Where is that cursed doctor?' said the squire. 'Save him, colonel, save him; and I'll give you--'

Alas! the charge of shot at a few feet distance had entered like a bullet, tearing a great ragged hole.--There was no hope, and the colonel knew it; but he said nothing.

'The second keeper,' sighed Argemone, 'who has been killed here!

Oh, Mr. Smith, must this be? Is G.o.d's blessing on all this?'

Lancelot said nothing. The old man lighted up at Argemone's voice.

'There's the beauty, there's the pride of Whitford. And sweet Miss Honor, too,--so kind to nurse a poor old man! But she never would let him teach her to catch perch, would she? She was always too tender-hearted. Ah, squire, when we're dead and gone,--dead and gone,--squire, they'll be the pride of Whitford still! And they'll keep up the old place--won't you, my darlings? And the old name, too! For, you know, there must always be a Lavington in Whitford Priors, till the Nun's pool runs up to Ashy Down.'

'And a curse upon the Lavingtons,' sighed Argemone to herself in an undertone.

Lancelot heard what she said.

The vicar entered, but he was too late. The old man's strength was failing, and his mind began to wander.