The Lord of the Sea Part 2

Hogarth produced the Circular: but of Margaret not a word.

"Caps-and-ta.s.sels, you?"--flicking Frankl on the cheek with a fillip of his middle finger.

"You dare a.s.sault me! Why, I swear, I meant no harm--"

Down came the whip upon the Jew's shoulders, Frankl, as the stings penetrated his caftan, giving out one roar, and the next instant, seeing the two Jews at the doorway, groaned the mean whisper: "Oh, don't make a man look small before the servants", crying out immediately: "Help!"

Soon five or six servants were at the door, and, of these, two Arab Jews rushed forward, one a tall fellow, the other an obese bulk with bright black eyes, the former holding a slender blade--the knife with which "shechita", or slaughtering, was done: and while the corpulent Jew threw himself upon Hogarth, the other drew this knife through the flesh of Hogarth's shoulder, at the same time happening to cut the heavy Arab across the wrist.

Now, there was some quarrel between the two Arabs, and the injured Arab, forgetting Hogarth, turned fiercely upon his fellow.

Hogarth, meanwhile, had not let go Frankl, nor delivered the intended number of cuts: so he was again standing with uplifted whip, when his eye happened to fall upon the doorway.

He saw there a sight which struck his arm paralysed: Rebekah Frankl.

Two months had she been here at Westring--and he had not known it!

There she stood peering, of a divine beauty in his eyes, like half-mythical queens of Egypt and Babylon, blinking in a rather barbarous superfluity of jewels: and, blinded and headlong, he was in flight.

As for Frankl, he locked that door upon himself, and remained there, forgetting the sanctification of the Sabbath.

The Hebrew's eyes blazed like a wild beast's. The words: "As the Lord liveth..." hissed in whispers from his lips.

He took up a pinch of old ashes, and cast it into the air.

As s.h.i.+mei, the son of Gera, cursed David, so he cursed Richard Hogarth that night--again and again--with grave rites, with cancerous rancour.

"I will blight him, as the Lord liveth; as the Lord liveth, I will blight him..." he said repeatedly, his draperied arms spread in pompous imprecation.

As a beginning, he sat and wrote to Reid's Bank, requesting the payment in gold of 14,000--to produce a stoppage of payment at the little Bank in which were Richard's savings.

Afterwards, with mild eyes he repaired to the dining-hall, and sanctified the Sabbath, blessing a cup of wine, dividing up two napkined loaves, and giving to Rebekah his benediction.

IV

THE SWOON

Hogarth went moodily down the hillside to the Waveney, across the bridge, and home, his sleeve stained with blood.

In the dining-room, he threw himself into an easy-chair in a gloom lit only by the fireglow, in the room above mourning a little harmonium which Margaret was playing, mixed with the sound of Loveday's voice.

The old man said: "Richard, my boy..."

Hogarth did not answer.

"Richard, I have somewhat to say to you--are ye hearkening?"

Richard, losing blood, moaned a drowsy "Yes".

And the old Hogarth, all deaf and bedimmed, said: "I had to say it to you, and this night let it be: Richard, you are no son of mine".

At this point Hogarth's head dropped forward: but many a time, during long years, he remembered a dream in which he had heard those words: "Richard, you are no son of mine..."

The old Hogarth continued to ears that did not hear:

"I have kept it from you--for I'm under a bargain with a firm of solicitors in London; but, d.i.c.k, it doesn't strike me as I am long for this world: a queer feeling I've had in this left side the last hour or two; and there's that Circular--I never heard of such a thing in all my born days. But what can we do? You'll have to wear the cap--or be turned out. Always I've said to myself, from a young man: 'Get hold of a bit of land someways as your own G.o.d's own': but I never did; the days went by and by, and it all seems no longer than an after-dinner nap in a barn on a hot harvest-day. But a bit of land--the man who has that can make all the rest work to keep him. And if they turn me out, I couldn't live, lad: the old house has got into my bones, somehow. Anyhow, I think the time is come to tell you in my own way how the thing was. No son are you of mine, Richard. Your mother, Rachel, who was a Londoner, served me an ill turn while we were sweethearting, hankering after another man--a Jew millionaire he was, she being a governess in his house; but, Richard, I couldn't give her up: I married her three months before you were born; and not a living creature knows, except, perhaps, one--perhaps one: a priest he was, called O'Hara. But that's how it was. Your father was a Jew, and your mother was a Jew, and you are a Jew, and in the under-bottom of the old grey trunk you will find a roll of papers. Are you hearkening? And don't you be ashamed of being a Jew, boy--_they_ are the people who've got the money; and money buys land, Richard. Nor your father did not do so badly by you, either: his name was Spinoza--Sir Solomon Spinoza--"

At that point Margaret, bearing a lamp, entered, followed by Loveday, and at the sight of Richard uttered a cry.

V

REID'S

By noon Hogarth knew the news: his hundred and fifty at Reid's were gone; and he owed for the Michaelmas quarter--twenty-one pounds five, his only chattels of value being the thresher, not yet paid for, half a rick, seed, manure, and "the furniture". If he could realize enough for rent, he would lack capital for wages and cultivation, for Reid's had been his credit-bank.

After dinner he stood long at a window, then twisted away, and walked to Thring, where he captained in a football match, Loveday watching his rage, his twisting waist, and then accompanying him home: but in the dining-room they found the lord-of-the-manor's bailiff; and Loveday, divining something embarra.s.sing, took himself away.

The same evening there were two appraisers in the house, and the bailiff, on their judgment, took possession of the chattels on the holding except some furniture, and some agricultural "fixtures". The sale was arranged for the sixth day.

From the old Hogarth the truth could no longer be hidden...

Two days he continued quiet in the old nook by the hearth, apparently in a kind of dotage doze; but on the third, he began to poke about, hobbled into the dairy, peered into the churn, touched the skimmer.

"You'll have to wear the cap", Margaret heard him mutter--"or be turned out".

As if taking farewell, he would get up, as at a sudden thought, to go to visit something. He kept murmuring: "I always said, Get a bit of land as your own, but I never did; the days went by and by...."

Margaret, meantime, was busy, binding beds with sheets, making bundles, preparing for the flitting, with a heaving breast; till, on the fifth day, a van stood loaded with their things at the hall-door, and she, with untidy hair, was helping heave the last trunk upon the backboard, when the carman said: "Mrs. Mackenzie says, mum, the things mustn't be took to the cottage, except you pay in advance".

Now Margaret stood at a loss; but in a minute went bustling, deciding to go to Loveday, not without twinges of reluctance: for Loveday, with instinctive delicacy, had lately kept from the farm; and to Margaret, whose point of view was different, the words "false friends" had occurred.

Pa.s.sing through an alley of the forest, she was met by a man--a park-keeper of Frankl's--a German Jew, who had once handed her a note from Frankl. And he, on seeing her, said: "Here have I a letter for your brother".

"Who from?" she asked.

"That may I not say".

When he handed her an envelope rather stuffed with papers, she went on her flurried way; and soon Loveday was bowing before her in his sitting-room at Priddlestone.

"You will be surprised to see me, Mr. Loveday," said she, panting.