Charles Rex Part 39

"Chops! Back! Back! Do you hear, Chops? Come back."

Chops did not come back, but he paused above his quarry, and looked round with open jaws and lolling tongue. If it had been his master who thus called him, he would have obeyed on the instant. But Toby was a different matter, and the frantic, struggling thing in front of him was a sore temptation.

His brief hesitation, however, lost him the game. Her light feet raced through the gra.s.s with the speed of wings, and she threw herself over the gate and upon him before he could make good his claim. He found himself thrust back, and the long habit of obedience had conquered instinct before it could rea.s.sert itself. She dropped upon her knees beside the thing in the gra.s.s and discovered a young hare caught in a snare.

It was a very ordinary poacher's contrivance fas.h.i.+oned of wire. The little animal was fairly caught round the body, and the cruel tension of the gin testified to his anguished and futile struggles for freedom. The wire had cut into his shoulder, and his bolting eyes were wild with terror. It was no easy task to loosen the trap, and there was blood on Toby's hands as she strove to release the straining, frenzied creature.

She was far too deeply engrossed in the matter to heed any sound of approaching feet, and when the thud of a horse's hoofs suddenly fell on the turf close to her she did not raise her head. But she did look up startled when two hands swooped down from above her and gripped the hare with a vice-like strength that stilled all struggling.

"He will claw you to pieces," said Bunny bluntly. "Shall I kill him? He's damaged. Or do you want to let him go?"

"Oh, let him go--of course!" cried Toby, dragging reckless at the wire.

"See, it's coming now! Hold him tight while I slip it off!"

The wire slipped at last. She forced it loose, and the victim was free.

Bunny turned to lay him in the gra.s.s, and Toby sprang upon Chops and held him fast. She was crying, fiercely, angrily.

"How dare they set that cruel thing? How dare they? He isn't dead, is he?

Why doesn't he run away?"

"He's hurt," said Bunny. "Let me kill him! Let Chops finish him!"

"No, no, no, no!" Vehemently Toby flung her protest. "He may be hurt, but he'll get over it. Anyway, give him his chance! There! He's moving! It wouldn't be fair not to give him his chance."

"It would be kinder to kill him," said Bunny.

"I hate you!" she cried back, weeping over Chops who stood strained against her. "If--if--if you touch him--I'll never, never speak to you again!"

Bunny came to her, took Chops by the collar, and fastened him with his whip to the gate. Then he stooped over Toby, his young face sternly set.

"Stop crying!" he said. "Let me have your hands!"

They were a ma.s.s of scratches from the hare's pounding feet. He began to look at them, but Toby thrust them behind her back. She choked back her tears like a boy, and looked up at him with eyes of burning indignation, sitting back on her heels in the long gra.s.s.

"Bunny, it's a d.a.m.n' shame to trap a thing like that. Did you do it?"

"I? No. I'm not a poacher." Grimly Bunny made reply. That flare of anger made her somehow beautiful, but he knew if he yielded to the temptation to take her in his arms at that moment she would never forgive him.

"Don't be unreasonable!" he said. "You'll have to come and bathe your hands. They can't be left in that state."

"Oh, what does it matter?" she said impatiently. "I've had much worse things than that to bear. Bunny, you believe in G.o.d I know. Why does He let things be trapped? It isn't fair. It isn't right. It--it--it hurts so."

"Lots of things hurt," said Bunny.

"Yes, but there's nothing so mean and so horrible as a trap. I--I could kill the man who set it. I'm glad it wasn't you." Toby spoke pa.s.sionately.

"So am I," said Bunny.

He crumpled the wire gin in his hand, and dragged it up from the ground.

Toby watched him still kneeling in the gra.s.s. "What are you going to do with it?"

"Destroy it," he said promptly.

She smiled at him, the tears still on her cheeks. "That's fine of you.

Bunny, I haven't got a handkerchief."

He gave her his, still looking grim. She dried her eyes and got up. The hare, recovering somewhat, gave her a frightened stare and slipped away into the undergrowth. She looked up at Bunny.

"I'm sorry I was angry," she said. "Are you cross with me?"

He relaxed a little. "Not particularly."

"Don't be!" she said tremulously. "I couldn't help it. He suffered so horribly, and I know--I know so well what it felt like."

"How do you know?" said Bunny.

Her look fell before his. She made an odd movement of shrinking. He put his arm swiftly round her.

"Never mind the wretched hare! He's got away this time anyway. And I'm not at all sure you didn't have the worst of it. Feeling better now?"

She nodded. "Yes, much better. I like you, Bunny, but I can't help thinking you're rather cruel. You didn't want to kill the poor thing?"

"I think it was rather prolonging the agony to let him live," said Bunny.

"Let me see your hands!"

She tried to hide them, but he was insistent, and at length impulsively she yielded.

"You must come down to old Bishop's and bathe them," he said.

She shook her head instantly. "No, Bunny, I'm not going to. I'll run down to the lake if you like. There's sure not to be anyone there."

"All right," said Bunny, but he lingered still with his arm about her.

"Will you kiss me, Toby?" he said suddenly.

"No," she said, and swiftly averted her face.

His arm tightened for a second, then he felt her brace herself against him and let her go. "All right," he said again. "We'll go down to the lake."

She threw him a swift glance of surprise, but he turned away to release Chops and unfasten his horse without further discussion.

Their way lay along a gra.s.s ride that ran beside the larch wood. Bunny walked gravely along, leading his horse. Toby moved lightly beside him.

Behind them the silence closed like the soft folds of a curtain, but it was not a silence devoid of life. As they drew away from the place, a man stepped out from the larches and stood motionless, watching them. A whimsical smile that was not without bitterness hovered about his mouth.

As they pa.s.sed from sight, he turned back into the trees and walked swiftly and silently away.

It was nearly a mile across the park to the lake in the hollow, and the boy and girl tramped it steadily with scarcely a word. Chops walked sedately by Toby's side, occasionally poking his nose under her hand.

Bunny's face was stern. He had the look of a man who moved with a definite goal in view.

They came to the beechwood that surrounded the lake. The Castle from its height looked down over the terraced gardens upon one end of the water.