The Tree of Knowledge Part 47

"Thank you," he said again, and, lifting his cap, vaulted over the stile, and walked rapidly down the foot-path.

Miss f.a.n.n.y gazed after him through a mist of tears, which she presently wiped away from her fresh cheeks, and trotted back to the terrace with an expression not devoid of hope.

Her pigeons flew round her; they knew that it was past feeding-time. The gleaming wings flashed and circled in the light, and presently the gravel was covered with the pretty, strutting things, nodding their sheeny necks, and chuckling softly to each other.

"Jack-ee! Jack-ee!" screamed the chough, discordantly, rus.h.i.+ng in among their ranks, and routing them.

"Jackie! Come here, you naughty bird!" cried Miss f.a.n.n.y, interposing for the protection of her pets. "There! there! Go along, do! Go along, do!... I really don't know how it is--I do feel that I place such confidence in that young man! Quite a stranger, too! Very odd! But I feel as though a special Providence had sent that yacht our way to-day.

It seems as though it had been sent purposely--it really does. Somehow, to-night, I feel as if help were near. No power can restore poor dear G.o.dfrey, that's true; but we may save Elsa, I do hope and trust."

Claud was leaning over the low stone wall of the highroad, when a touch on the shoulder roused him, and, looking up, he met Percivale's collected gaze.

"Now, quick!" was all Percivale said; and, in a moment, both young men were hurrying along the Quarry Road as fast as their legs would carry them.

They only spoke once; and then it was Claud who broke the silence.

"Fowler thinks it hopeless--that you are altogether on a wrong track,"

he said.

"We shall see," was the response, in a tense voice which told of highly-strung nerves.

Claud thought of his last journey along that road, staggering blindly in darkness and rain, with the screaming wind and thundering sea in his ears. Last night! Could it be only last night? A thousand years seemed to have elapsed since then. Life, just now, seemed made up of crisis; and he railed at himself for being hatefully heartless, because he could not help a certain feeling of excitement, which was almost like pleasure, in antic.i.p.ating the _denouement_ of the affair.

A growing admiration for the strange owner of the _Swan_ was his dominant sensation. There was a light of purpose in Percivale's eye, an air of conviction about his whole manner, which could not fail to influence his companion.

The feelings of both young men were at a high pitch as they paused before the door of Mrs. Parker's somewhat remote cottage, and knocked.

The woman opened the door and looked at her visitors in astonishment.

One glance at her was enough to gauge her character in an instant. She was what country people call a "poor thing." Her expression was that of meek folly, and she wore a perpetual air of apology. Her red-rimmed, indefinite eyes suggested a perennial flow of tears, ready at the shortest notice, and her weak fingers fumbled at her untidy throat in fruitless efforts to hold together a dilapidated brown silk handkerchief which had become unfastened.

"Good evening, gentlemen," she said, "what can I do for you?"

Her air was mildly surprised.

"We called in," said Claud, who was not unknown to her, "to ask if you've heard the awful news about the discovery on the cliffs this morning?"

"Lord, no! She had heard never a word of it--n.o.body never took no trouble to look in and tell her any bit o' news as might be going; she might as well be dead and buried, for all the comfort she ever got out of _her_ life," grumbled she, plaintively.

Even at this juncture, Claud could not refrain from a cynical reflection on womanhood, as, in the person of the widow Parker, it calmly reckoned the news of a murder among the comforts of life.

"Your son Saul--where is he? Doesn't he bring you the news?" asked he.

"Lord no! not he! he mostly forgets it all on the way home, he don't keep nothing in his head for more than three minutes at a stretch. An'

he ain't been outside the place to-day, for I've had a awful night with him," whined Mrs. Parker, sitting down on a chair and lifting a coal-black pocket-handkerchief to her eyes.

"What, another fit?" asked Claud.

"He was out last night in all that gale, if you'll believe me, sir. What he was after pa.s.ses me, an' I set an' set awaitin' for him, and a-putting out my bit o' fire by opening the door, when the wind come in fit to blind yer, an' at last in he come, with every thread on him drippin' wet, and what he'd been after Lord knows, for not a word would he say but to call for his supper, and afore he'd 'ardly swallowed three mouthfuls he was took----"

"Took?" put in Percivale, sharply.

The widow paused, with her last pair of tears unwiped on her cheeks, and stared at him.

"With a fit, sir--he suffers from fits, my poor boy do," she said.

"_Epiplexy_ the doctor do call it, and, whatever it is, it's a nasty thing to suffer with. It makes him sorft, poor lad, and the other chaps laughs at him, and it's very hard on him, for you see, now he's growin'

up, he feels it. I ain't a Devons.h.i.+re woman myself--I'm from London, I am, and I do say these Devons.h.i.+re lads are a sight deal too rough and rude. When they was all little together, I could cuff them as hurt him, but they're too big for that now."

There was no stopping her tongue. Poor soul! she led a lonely life, for her peevishness alienated her neighbors, who did not approve of the censure their manners and customs met with at her hands. She never could talk for five minutes to anyone without insisting on her London origin; and, as a result, it was but rarely that she could get an audience at all.

The flood-gates of her eloquence were now opened, and she poured forth a lengthy string of grievances.

"It's terrible hard on a woman like me, as never was strong at the best of times, to be left a widder with a boy like that on my hands! He's a head taller than 'is mother, and strong--bless yer! He could knock either o' you gentlemen down and think nothing of it, and you may think if he's easy to manage when he's took with his fits!"

"You should send him away," said Claud, gravely. "Have you never thought that, if he is so strong, he might do somebody some harm in a fit of temper?"

The woman looked attentive.

"Well," she said, "I can't say I've ever give it much of a thought; but maybe you're right. But oh!" with a fresh access of tears, "I do call it hard to separate a poor widder from 'er only son! I do call it hard!"

She set herself afresh to wipe her eyes, with shaking hands, reiterating her inconsistent complainings about the difficulties of managing Saul, and the cruelty of suggesting a separation; when suddenly, ceasing her whining and looking up, she said, "But you ain't told me the bit o'

news, yet, have yer?"

"You haven't given us much chance, my good woman," said Mr. Percivale.

"The news is that young Mr. G.o.dfrey Brabourne was found dead out on the cliffs this morning."

As the words left his lips, a shuffling, thudding sound was heard, a door at the back of the little room was pushed open, and there stood Saul, leaning against the wall, attired merely in his s.h.i.+rt and trousers, the former open at the throat. His feet were bare, his thick yellow hair was matted, his cheeks were rosy and flushed; altogether he wore the look of having just that moment awakened from sleep.

His great eyes, of Devon blue, looked out from beneath the tangled waves of hair with a shy smile. He recognised Claud, but, when his gaze fell on Percivale, his whole face changed. A look of fear and repulsion came over him--he uttered a hoa.r.s.e cry or rather bellow, and, turning away, darted down a small dark pa.s.sage and was lost to view.

"There now! Did you ever!" cried his parent, indignantly. "Lord! what a fool the lad is! That's for nothing in life but because he seen you--"

addressing Percivale, "and now he's gone to his hole, and nothing'll bring him out again perhaps for five or six hours, and nothing on him but his s.h.i.+rt and breeches! Oh, dear, dear, he'll kill me afore long, I'm blest if he won't!"

"What do you mean by his hole?" asked Percivale.

"It's a wood-shed as he's very partial to, an' hides all his treasures an' rubbish in there, out o' my reach. For it's very dark in there, and I can't get in very well, at least 'twouldn't be no use if I could, because I couldn't drive him out. I can't do nothing with him, when he's contrairy, and that's the truth, gentlemen."

"But is it impossible to get into the woodshed?" continued Percivale, holding her to her point with a patience that made Claud marvel.

"No, sir, but he's piled up the wood till you can only crawl in, and then as likely as not he'll hit you over the head," returned Mrs.

Parker, encouragingly; "and it's that dark you can't see nothing when you _are_ in, so it's no sense to try, as I can see."

"Why on earth don't you nail the place up when he's out, so that he _can't_ get in?" cried Claud, irritated beyond measure at her stupidity.

"Well, I can't say I ever thought o' that," naively admitted the poor woman.

"You are afraid Saul will take a chill if he stays there now?"

interrogated Percivale.

"I'm dead certain he will, sir!"

"Very well, I'll go and fetch him out for you."