Weyman Stanley John
Starvecrow Farm

"No matter," he answered, thrusting his hands in his pockets and looking sullenly before him. "I'll not do it!"

Her face was dark with anger, and cruel. What is more cruel than jealousy?

"And that is your last word?" she cried.

He scowled at the table, aware in his heart that he would yield. For he knew-and he resented the knowledge-that he and Bess were changing places; that the upper hand which knowledge and experience and a fluent tongue had given him was passing to her for whom Nature intended it. The weak will was yielding, the strong will was asserting itself. And she knew it also; and in her jealousy she was no longer for humouring him. Brusquely she pushed together the pen and ink and paper.

"Very good," she said. "If that is your last word, be it so; I've done!"

But "Wait!" he protested feebly. "You are so hasty."

"Wait?" she retorted. "What for? What is the use? Are you going to do it?"

He fidgeted on his stool.

"I suppose so," he muttered at last. "Curse you, you won't listen to what a man says."

"You are going to do it?"

He nodded.

"Then why not say so at once?" she answered. "There, my lad," she continued, thrusting the writing things before him, "short and sweet, as nobody knows better how to do it than yourself! Half a dozen lines will do the trick as well as twenty."

To his credit be it said, he threw down the pen more than once, sickened by the task which she set him. But she chid, she cajoled, she coaxed him; and grimly added the pains she was at to the account of her rival. In the end, after a debate upon time and place, in which he was all for procrastination-feeling as if in some way that salved his conscience-the letter was written and placed in her hands.

Then "What sort is this Thistlewood?" she asked. "A gentleman?"

"You wouldn't know, one way or the other," he answered, with ill-humour.

"Maybe not," she replied; "but would you call him one?"

"He's been an officer, and he's been to America, and he's been to France. I don't suppose," looking round him with currish scorn, "that he's ever been in such a hole as this!"

"But he's in hiding. Is he married?"

"Yes."

She frowned as if the news were unwelcome.

"Ah!" she muttered. And then, "What of the others?"

"Giles and Lunt-"

"Ay."

"There's not much they'd stick at," he replied. "They are low brutes; but they are useful. We've to do with all sorts in this business."

"And why not?"

"Why not?"

"Ay! Didn't you tell me the other day, there was no one so mean, if we succeed, he may not rise to the top? nor any one so great he may not fall to the bottom?"

"Well?"

"That's what I like about it."

"Well, it's true, anyway; Henriot" – he was on a favourite topic and thought to reinstate himself by long words-"Henriot, who was but a poor pike-keeper, came to be general of the National Guard and Master of Paris. Tallien, the son of a footman, ruled a province. Ney-you've heard of Ney? – who began as a cooper, was shot as a Marshal with a score of orders on his breast and as much thought of as a king! That's what happens if we succeed."

"And some came down?" she said, smacking her lips.

"Plenty."

"And women too?"

"Yes."

"Ah," she said slowly, "I wish I had been there."

Not then, but later, when the letter had passed into her hands, he fancied that he saw the drift of her questions. And he had qualms, for he was not wholly bad. He was not cruel, and the thought of Henrietta's fate if she fell into the snare terrified him. True, Thistlewood, dark and saturnine, a man capable of heroism as well as of crime, was something of a gentleman. He might decline to go far. He might elect to take the girl's part. But Giles and Lunt were men of a low type, coarse and brutish, apt for any villainy; men who, drawn from the slums of Spitalfields, had tried many things before they took up with conspiracy, or dubbed themselves patriots. To such, the life of a spy was no more than the life of a dog: and the girl's sex, in place of protecting her, might the more expose her to their ruthlessness. If she fell into their hands, and Bess, with her infernal jealousy and her furious hatred of the class above her, egged them on, swearing that if Henrietta had not already informed, she might inform-he shuddered to think of the issue. He shuddered to think of what they might be capable. He remembered the things that had been done by such men in France: things remembered then, forgotten now. And he shuddered anew, knowing himself to be a poor weak thing, of no account against odds.

CHAPTER XIV
THE LETTER

We left Mr. Bishop standing in the middle of the woodland track and following Henrietta with his eyes. He had suspected the girl before; his suspicions were now grown to certainties. Her agitation, her alarm on meeting him, her refusal to parley, her anxiety to be gone, all-and his keen eyes had missed no item of her disorder-all pointed to one thing, to her knowledge of her lover's hiding-place. Doubtless she had been to visit him. Probably she had just left him.

"But she's game, she's very game," the runner muttered sagely. "It's breed does it." And plucking a scrap of green stuff from a briar he chewed it thoughtfully, with his eyes on the spot where he had lost the last wave of her skirt.

Presently he faced about. "Now where is he?" he asked himself. He scanned the path by which she had descended, the briars, the thorns, the under-growth. "There's hiding here," he thought; "but the nights are cold, and it'd kill him in the open. And she'd been on the hill. In a shepherd's hut? Possibly; and it's a pity I was not after her sooner. But we searched the huts. Then there's Troutbeck? And the farms? But how'd he know any one here? Still, I'll walk up and look about me. Strikes me we've been looking wide and he's under our noses-many a hare escapes the hounds that way."

He retraced his steps to the road, and strolled up the hill. His air was careless, but his eye took note of everything; and when he came to the gate of Starvecrow Farm he stood and looked over it. The bare and gloomy aspect of the house and the wide view it commanded impressed him. "I don't wonder they keep a dog," he thought. "A lonely place as ever I saw. Sort of house the pedlar's murdered in! Regular Red Barn! But that black-eyed wench the doctor is gallivanting after comes from here. And if all's true he's in and out night and day. So the other is not like to be here."

Still, when he had walked a few yards farther he halted. He took another look over the fence. He noted the few sombre pines that masked the gaunt gable-end, and from them his eye travelled to the ragged garden. A while he gazed placidly, the bit of green stuff in his mouth. Then he stiffened, pointing like a game dog. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, his hand went to the pocket in his skirts, where he carried the "barker" without which he never stirred.

On the other side of the breast-high wall, not six paces from him, a man was crouching low, trying to hide behind a bush.

Mr. Bishop had a stout heart. He had taken many a man in the midst of his cronies in the dark courts about St. Giles's; and with six hundred guineas in view it was not a small danger that would turn him. Yet he was alone, and his heart beat a little quicker as he proceeded, with his eyes glued to the bush, to climb the wall. The man he was going to take had the rope about his neck-he would reck little of taking another life. And he might have backers. Possibly, too, there was something in the silence of this hill-side-so different from the crowded alleys in which he commonly worked-that intimidated the officer.

Yet he did not flinch. He was of the true bull-dog breed. He, no more than my Lord Liverpool and my Lord Castlereagh, was to be scared by uncertain dangers, or by the fear of those over whom he was set. He advanced slowly, and was not more than four yards from the bush, he was even poising himself to leap on his quarry, when the man who was hiding rose to his feet.

Bishop swore. And some one behind him chuckled. He turned as if he had been pricked. And his face was red.

"Going to take old Hinkson?" laughed Tyson, who had come up unseen, and been watching his movements.

"I wanted a word with him," the runner muttered. He tried to speak as if he were not embarrassed.

"So I see," Tyson answered, and pointing with his finger to the pistol, he laughed.

Mr. Bishop, with his face a fine port-wine colour, lowered the weapon out of sight. Then he laughed, but feebly.

"Has he any sense?" he asked, looking with disgust at the frowsy old creature, who mopping and mowing at him was holding out a crooked claw.

"Sense enough to beg for a penny," Tyson answered.

"He knows enough for that?"

"He'd sell his soul for a shilling."

The runner hooked out a half-penny-a good fat copper coin, to the starveling bronze of these days as Daniel Lambert to a dandy. He put it in the old scarecrow's hand.

"Here's for trespass," he said, and turning his back on him he recrossed the wall.

"That'll stop his mouth," Tyson grinned. "But what are you going to give me to stop mine?"

Bishop laughed on the wrong side of his face.

"A bone and a jorum whenever you'll come and take it," he said.

"Done with you," the doctor replied. "Some day, when that old beldame, mother Gilson, is out, I'll claim it. But if you think," he continued, "that your man is this side of the hill you are mistaken, Mr. Bishop. I'm up and down this road day and night, and he'd be very clever if he kept out of my sight."

"Ay?"

"You may take my word for that. I'll lay you a dozen wherever he is, he's not this side."

The runner nodded. At this moment he was a little out of conceit with himself, and he thought that the other might be right. Besides, he might spend a week going from farm to farm, and shed to shed and be no wiser at the end of it. Yet, the girl knew, he was convinced; and after all, that was his way to it. She knew, and he'd to her again and have it out of her one way or another. And if she would not speak, he would shadow her; he would follow her hour by hour and minute by minute. Sooner or later she would be sure to try to see her man, and he would nab them both. There were no two ways about it. There was only one way. An old hand should have known better than to go wasting time in random searchings.

He returned to the inn, more fixed than ever in his notion. With an impassive face he told Mrs. Gilson that he must see the young lady.

"She's come in, I suppose?" he added.

"Ay, she's come in."

"Well, you'll please to tell her I must see her."

"I fancy must will be your master," Mrs. Gilson replied, with her usual point. "But I'll tell her." And she went upstairs.

Henrietta was seated at the window with her back to the door. She did not turn.

"Here's the Bow-Street man," Mrs. Gilson said, without ceremony. "Wants to know if he can see you. Shall I tell him yes, or no, young lady?"

"No, if you please," Henrietta answered, with a shiver.

Mrs. Gilson went down.

"She says 'No, on no account,'" she announced, "unless you've got a warrant. Her room's her room, she says, and she'll none of you."

"Hoity-toity!"

"That's what she said," Mrs. Gilson repeated without a blush. "And for my part I don't see why she's to be persecuted. What with you and that sneaking parson, who's for ever at her skirts, and another that shall be nameless-"

"Just so!" said Bishop, nodding.

But whereas he meant Walterson, the good woman meant Mr. Hornyold.

" – her life's not her own!" the landlady ended.

"Well, she's to be brought up next Thursday," the runner replied in dudgeon. "And she'll have to see me then." And he took a seat near the foot of the stairs, more firmly determined than ever that the girl should not give him the slip again a second time. "He's here," he thought. "He's not a mile from me, I'll stake my soul on it! And before Thursday it's odds she'll need to see him, and I'll nab them!" And he began to think out various ways of giving her something which she would wish to communicate.

Meanwhile Henrietta, seated at her window in the south gable, gazed dolefully out; on the grey expanse of water, which she was beginning to hate, on the lofty serrated ridge, which must ever recall humiliating memories, on the snow-clad peaks that symbolised the loneliness of her life. She would not weep, but her lip quivered. And oh, she thought, it was a cruel punishment for that which she had done. In the present she was utterly alone: in the future it would be no better. And yet if that were all, if loneliness were all, she could bear it. She could make up her mind to it. But if not today, to-morrow, and if not to-morrow, the day after, the man would be taken. And then she would have to stand forth and tell her shameful tale, and all the world, her world, would learn with derision what a fool she had been, for what a creature she had been ready to give up all, what dross that was which she had taken for gold! And that which had been romantic would be ridiculous.

Beside this aching dread the insult which Captain Clyne had put upon her lost some of its sting. Yet it smarted at times and rankled, driving her into passing rages. She had wronged him, yet, strange to say, she hated to think that she had lost his esteem. And perhaps for this reason, perhaps because he had shown himself less inhuman at the outset than her family, his treatment hurt her to a point she had not anticipated, nor could understand.

The one drop of comfort in her cup sprang from a source as unlikely as the rock which Moses struck. It came from the flinty bosom of Mrs. Gilson. Not that the landlady was outwardly kind; but she was brusquely and gruffly inattentive, trusting the girl and leaving her to herself. And in secret Henrietta appreciated this. She began to feel a dependence on the woman whom she had once dubbed an odious and a hateful thing. She read kindness between the lines of her harsh visage, and solicitude in the eye that scorned to notice her. She ceased to tremble when the voice which flung panic through the Low Wood came girding up the stairs. And though no word of acknowledgement passed her lips, she was conscious that in other and smoother hands she might have fared worse.

The open sympathy of Modest Ann was less welcome. It was even a terrible plague at times. For the waiting-maid never came into the girl's presence without full eyes and a sigh, never looked at her save as the kind-hearted look at lambs that are faring to the butcher, never left her without a gesture that challenged Heaven's pity. Ann, indeed, saw in the young lady the martyr of love. She viewed her as a sharer in her own misfortunes; and though she was forty and the girl nineteen, she found in her echoes of her own heart-throbs. There was humour in this, and, for some, a touch of the pathetic; but not for Henrietta, who had a strong sense of the ridiculous and no liking for pity. In her ordinary spirits she would have either laughed at the woman or rated her. Depressed as she was, she bore with her none too well.

Yet Ann was honestly devoted to her heroine, and continually dreamed of some romantic service-such as the waiting-maid in a chap-book performs for her mistress. Given the occasion, she would have risen to it, and would have cut off her hand before she betrayed the girl's secrets. But her buxom form and square, stolid face did not commend her; they were at odds with romance. And Henrietta did not more than suffer her, until the afternoon of this day, when it seemed to the girl that she could suffer her no longer.

For Ann, coming in with wood for the fire, lingered behind her in a way to try a saint. Her sighs filled the air, they were like a furnace; until Henrietta turned her head and asked impatiently if she wanted something.

"Nothing, miss, nothing," the woman answered. But she gave the lie to her words by laying her finger on her lip and winking. At the same time she sought for something in an under-pocket.

Henrietta rose to her feet.

"Nothing!" she repeated. "Then what do you-"

"Nothing, miss," Ann rejoined loudly. "I'm to make up the fire." But she still sought and still made eyes, and at last, with an exaggeration of mystery, found what she wanted. She slipped a letter into Henrietta's hand. "Not a word, miss," she breathed, with a face of rapturous enjoyment. "Take it, miss! Lor'!" she continued in the same tone of subdued enthusiasm, "I'd die for you, let alone do this! Even missus should not wring it from me with wild horses!"

Henrietta hesitated.

"Who gave it you?" she whispered. "I don't wish" – she drew back-"I don't wish to receive anything unless I know who sends it."

"You read it," Ann answered in an ecstasy of benevolence. "It's all right, trust me for that! Bless your heart, it comes from the right place. As you will see when you open it!" And with absurd precaution she tip-toed to the fire-place, took up her wood-basket, banged a log on the dogs, and went out.

Henrietta waited with the letter hidden in her hand until the door closed. Then she looked at the paper and grew pale, and was on the verge of tears. Alas! she knew the handwriting. She knew, whether there was a right place or not, that this came from the wrong.

"Shall I open it?" she asked herself. "Shall I open it?"

A fortnight before she had opened it without a thought of prudence, without a glance at the consequences. But a fortnight, and such a fortnight, had taught her much. And to-day she paused. She eyed the coarse paper askance-with repugnance, with loathing. True, it could no longer harm her. She had seen the man as he was, stripped of his disguises. She had read in his face his meanness, his falseness, his cowardice. And henceforth his charms and cajoleries, his sweet words and lying looks were not for her. But she had to think what might be in this letter, and what might come of it, and what she should do. She might burn it unread-and perhaps that were the safer course. Or she might hand it to the Bow Street runner, or she might open it and read it.

Which should she do?

One course she rejected without much thought. To hand the letter to Bishop might be to betray the man to Bishop. And she had made up her mind not to betray the man.

Should she burn it?

Her reason whispered that that was the right, that that was the wise course. But then she would never know what was in the letter; and she was a woman and curious. And reason, quickly veering, suggested that to burn it was to incur unknown risks and contingencies. It might be equivalent to giving the man up. It might-in a word, it opened a world of possibilities.

And after all she could still burn the letter when she had read it. She would know then what she was doing. And what danger could she incur, seeing that she was proof against the man's lying tongue, and shuddered at the thought of contact with him?

She made up her mind. And roughly, hating the task after a fashion, she tore the letter open. With hot cheeks-it could not be otherwise, since the writing was his, and brought back such memories-she read the contents. There was no opening-she was glad of that-and no signature. Thus it ran: -

"I have treated you ill, but men are not as women, and I was tempted, God knows. I do not ask you to forgive me, but I ask you to save me. I am in your hands. If you have the heart to leave me to a violent death, all is said. If you have mercy, meet my messenger at ten to-morrow evening, where the Troutbeck lane comes down to the lake. As I hope to live you run no risk and can suffer no harm. If you are merciful-and oh, for God's sake spare me-put a stone before noon to-morrow on the post of the second gate towards Ambleside."

CHAPTER XV
THE ANSWER

When Henrietta had read this letter twice, shivering and drawing in her breath as often as she came to the passionate cry for mercy that broke its current, she sat gazing at the paper. And her face was rigid. Had he made appeal to her affection, to the past, to that which had been between them, still more had he assumed that the spell was unbroken and her heart was his, her pride had revolted and revolted passionately. She had spurned the letter and the writer. And perhaps, when it was too late, she had repented.

But that cry, wrung, it seemed, from the man's heart in his own despite, pierced her heart. How could she refuse, if his life hung on her act, if by lifting her finger, she could save him without risk to herself? The thought of him was repugnant to her, shamed her, filled her with contempt of herself. But she had loved him once, or had fancied in her folly that she loved him; and he asked for his life. He, a man, lay at the mercy of a woman, a girl; how could she refuse? If her heart were obdurate, her sex spoke for him.

"And oh! for God's sake spare me!"

She read the words again and again, and shuddered. If she refused, and afterwards when it was too late, when nothing could be done, she repented? If when judgment had passed upon him, and the day was come and the hour and the minute-and in her brain, though she were one hundred miles away, St. Sepulchre's bell tolled-if she repented then how would she bear it?

She would not be able to bear it.

And then other considerations not less powerful, and all pointing in the same direction, arose in her mind. If she did this thing, whatever it was, the man would escape. He would vanish from the country and from her knowledge and ken. There would be an end of him, and the relief would be great. Freed from the shameful incubus of his presence she would breathe again. She might make a new start then, she might frame some plan for her life. She was too young to suppose that she could ever be happy after this, or that she would live to smile at these troubles. But at least she would not be harassed by continual fears, she would not be kept in a panic by the thought of that which every hour might bring forth. She would be spared the public trial, the ordeal of the witness-box, the shame of open confession. Should she do, then, that which he wished? Ay, a thousand times, ay. Her heart cried, ay, her mind was made up. And rising, she walked the room in excitement. Her pulse beat high, her head was hot, she was in a fever to begin, to be doing, to come to an end of the thing and be safe.

But the thing? Her heart sank a little when she turned to that, and conned the note again and marked the hour. Ten? The evenings were long and dark, and the house was abed by ten. How was she to pass out? Nor was that all. What of her position when she had passed out? She shrank from the thought of going alone to meet she knew not who in the darkness by the lonely edge of the water. There would be no help within call at that hour; nor any, if she disappeared, to say which way she had gone or how she had met her fate. If aught happened to her she would vanish and leave no trace. And they would think perhaps that she had fled to him!

The prospect was terrifying. And nine girls out of ten, though of ordinary courage, would have shrunk hack. But Henrietta had a spirit-too high a spirit or she had not been here! – and she fancied that if ever it behoved her to run a risk, it behove her to run one now. And that not for the man's sake only, but for her own. She rose above her momentary alarm, therefore, and she asked herself what she had to fear. True, when she had met him that morning she had imagined in the gloom of the kitchen that she read murder in his eyes. But for an instant only; now she laughed at the notion. Safe in her chamber she found it absurd: the bizarre creation of her fancy or her timidity, aided by some shadow cast athwart his face. And for the matter of that, why should he harm her? Her presence at the trysting-place would be his surety that she had no mind to betray him; but that on the contrary she was willing to help him.

"I will go, I must go," she thought. "I must go."

Yet vague alarms troubled her; and she hesitated. If there had been no menace in his eyes that morning-the eyes that had so often looked into hers and languished on her with a lover's fondness-why had she fled so precipitately? And why had her knees shaken under her? Pshaw, she had been taken by surprise. It was repugnance rather than fear which she had felt. And because she had been foolish once, and imagined things, because she was afraid, like a child, of the dark, because she shrank from meeting a stranger after nightfall, surely, surely she was not going to let a man perish whom she could save with one of her fingers!

And still, prudence whispered her, asking why he fixed so late an hour. Why had he not fixed five or six, if it were only out of respect for her? At five it was already dark, yet the world was awake and astir, respectable folk were abroad, and help was within call. She would have met him without hesitation at five or at six. But there, how stupid she was! It was the very fact that the world was astir and awake that made an early hour impossible. If she went at five or at six she would be followed, her movements would be watched, her companion would be noted. The very air would be full of eavesdroppers. She knew that, for the fact irritated her hourly and daily. And doubtless he too, hedged about by fears and suspicions, knew it.

The lateness of the hour was natural, therefore. Still, it rendered her task more difficult. She dared not interfere with the heavy bars that secured the two doors which looked on the lake. She would be heard, even if the task were not beyond her strength. And to gain the back entrance she must thread a labyrinth of passages guarded by wakeful dogs and sleeping servants; for servants in those days slept on the stairs or in any odd place. She would be detected before she had undone a single bolt.

Then what was she to do? Her bedroom was on the second floor, and exit by the window was not possible. On which, some, surveying the situation, would have sat still, and thought themselves justified. But Henrietta was of firmer stuff; and for such where there is a will there is a way. Mr. Rogers's room, of which she had still the use, was on the first floor of the south wing and somewhat remote from the main part of the house. Outside the door was a sash window which gave light to the passage; and owing to the rise of the hill on every side of the house save the front, the sill of this window was not more than six feet above the garden. She could drop from it with safety. Return was less easy, but with the help of a chair, which she could lower before she descended, she might manage to climb in again. The feat seemed easy and she did not feel afraid. Whether she would feel afraid when the time came was another matter.

In the meantime she had to wait, and sleeping ill that night, she had many uneasy dreams, and waking before daybreak thought herself into a fever. All the dreadful things that might befall her rose before her in the liveliest shapes; and long before the house awoke-there is no fear like five-o'clock-in-the-morning fear-she had given up the notion. But when the dull November day peered in at the bedroom window, and she had risen, she was herself again. She chid herself for the childish terrors in which she had indulged, and lest she should give way to them again she determined to take a decisive step. Long before noon she slipped out of the house and turned towards Ambleside.

Unfortunately it was a wet morning, and she feared that her promenade in such weather must excite suspicion. Eyes, she was sure, were on her before she had gone a dozen paces. To throw watchers off the scent and to prove herself careless of espial she would not look back; but when she reached the first corner she picked up a stone, and threw it at an imaginary object on the edge of the lake. She stood an instant with her wet-weather hood drawn about her face as if to mark the effect of her shot. Then she picked up another stone and poised it, but did not throw it. Instead, she walked on with the stone in her hand. All without looking back.

She came to the second gate on the Ambleside road. It was out of sight of the inn, and it seemed an easy and an innocent thing to lay the stone on the head of the pillar-gate-posts in that country are of stone-and to go on her way. But she heard a footstep behind her and panic seized her. She felt that nothing in the world would be so suspicious, so damning as such an act. She hesitated, and was lost. She walked on slowly with the stone in her hand, and the fine rain beating in her face.

Her follower, a country clown, passed her. She loitered until he was out of sight; then she turned and retraced her steps. A half-minute's walking brought her again to the gate. There was no one in sight and in a fever lest at the last some one should take her in the act she set the stone on the top of the post, and passed on.

Half-way back to the inn she stopped. What if the stone had not kept its place? She had merely thrust out her hand as she passed, and deposited the stone without looking. Now she was sure that her ear had caught the faint sound which the stone made in striking the sodden turf. She turned and walked back.

When she reached the gate she was thankful that she had had that thought. The stone had fallen. Fortunately there was no one in sight, and it was easy to pick up the first stone that came to hand and replace the signal. Then she walked back to the inn, inclined to laugh at the proportions to which her simple task had attained in her mind.

She would have laughed after another fashion had she known that her movements from beginning to end had been watched by Mr. Sutton. The chaplain, ashamed yet pursuing, had sneaked after her when she left the inn, hoping that if she went far he might find in some lonely place, where she could not escape, an opportunity of pleading his cause. He fancied that the lapse of three days, and his patient, mournful conduct, might have softened her; to say nothing of the probable effect on a young girl of such a life as she was leading-of its solitude, its dullness, its weariness.