Here the trees grew more thickly, here there reigned a deeper silence. It seemed that here the birds did not come, nor any living thing, and over all the forest brooded the heavy silence of the warm autumn afternoon. They alone might have been living as they paced side by side through what seemed a perpetual twilight, beneath the heavy growth of entwining branches overhead. No breath of wind penetrated here, little sunshine either, only on each side grew the great trees, and beneath them a tangle of undergrowth, so that to Bobby and to Olive it was as though they were compassed in on every side.
“It’s very quiet, very peaceful,” Olive said, “but I don’t know that I like it.”
“Good place for any hermit chap,” Bobby remarked.
They went on, feeling as it were oppressed, as if in this hidden solitude some ancestral awareness of a need for caution had awakened in their souls. On the sea, on the hill-side, man may go upright, ready to face the dangers he can see, but who could tell what might not lurk in these green and silent shades?
“There is someone following us,” Olive said.
Bobby had paused to admire an enormous oak, a veritable monarch of the forest, a tree so huge in girth and growth it might well be that beneath its far flung branches Druids of old had celebrated their strange and dreadful rites. Under and near it the ground was clear, as though its majesty tolerated not even the smallest rival.
Olive said again:
“There’s someone following us.”
“Eh?” said Bobby. “Well, let ’em.” Then he asked: “How do you know?”
Olive did not answer a question which indeed did not strike her as very sensible. What did it matter how one knew when one did know? She said:
“There’s a bird.”
“First I’ve seen,” Bobby agreed. “What do you mean—someone following us?”
“Well, there is,” Olive said.
“Perhaps it’s the hermit,” Bobby said. “I’ll have a look.”
He went back a few paces and then called:
“Come and have a look. There’s a squirrel here.”
Olive joined him. In a tree near by, a squirrel perched on one of the branches, chattered at them what seemed its disapproval.
“It doesn’t like us,” Olive said.
“Thinks it owns the whole place,” Bobby said, and was going to throw a twig at it, had not Olive stopped him. “There’s that bird again,” he added, as with a flutter of wings it passed over their heads. “Bird and squirrel—place getting quite populated. I expect that’s what you heard when you thought there was someone there.”
Olive looked doubtful and puzzled, but said nothing and they resumed their way. They had not gone far when she said:
“They’re still following us, whoever it is.”
“See anyone?” Bobby asked.
“No,” she answered, “but those bushes moved and there’s no wind.”
Bobby shrugged his shoulders.
“Oh, well,” he said, “if it amuses them. Are you sure? You didn’t actually see anything?”
“No,” she repeated, “only a movement, only a shadow. But it was someone, something.”
“Oh, well,” Bobby repeated, and then gave a shout: “Hullo, you there. Do you want anything?”
There was no response. He shrugged his shoulders again and they walked on, seeing and hearing no more till they came presently to where, from the overhanging branch of a tree dangled a roughly scrawled board, on it the word ‘Teas’. Beneath the word an arrow pointed at right angles across a narrow glade, towards what seemed as unpromising a wilderness of young trees, bushes, undergrowth, as can well be imagined.
“Funny,” Bobby said. “Our chap told us distinctly there was no place about here where you could get anything.”
“I should like a cup of tea,” Olive said doubtfully, “but it doesn’t look as if many people went that way.”
They crossed the glade to look and Bobby shook his head. There was no sign of a path, and the dark, close labyrinth of tangled growth suggested that neither entrance nor emergence would be easy.
“Might easily lose your bearings in there,” he said. “I don’t think we’ll try it. Might be hours finding our way out.”
They turned to retrace their steps and when they had regained the path and had gone on a few yards, Olive pressed Bobby’s arm and whispered:
“There’s someone following us again—someone very angry.”
“How do you know?” Bobby asked.
Olive did not answer, for again she felt the question useless, since what you know, you know, and what does it matter how?
“Well, if there is, what’s the game?” he said, and again Olive did not answer, but this time because she did not know.
“I saw a shadow behind that beech,” she said.
“Well, you go that way and I’ll go this,” Bobby suggested, but Olive put her hand on his arm and stopped him.
“No, it’s a child, I think,” she said. “You’ll frighten it.”
She began to try to coax their unknown follower to appear, but without success.
“Oh, well, come along,” Bobby said. “We can’t wait all day.”
“Good-bye,” Olive called. “We can’t talk to you, you know, if you won’t let us see you.”
They started to walk on again and a small shrill voice called, startling them a little, as it came from out the stillness of the forest in that warm drowsy afternoon.
“There’s a bear.”
“Oh, I gobble up bears for supper every night,” Bobby called back and Olive laughed and said:
“The funny little thing. I’m afraid we are breaking up some exciting game or another.”
A little farther on they came to where there dangled from a tree a notice, old and weather-beaten and reading:
“Trespassers will be prosecuted with the utmost rigour of the law.”
“Well, that’s what I call being thorough,” Bobby commented. “I wonder where it’s been pinched from.”
When they passed on without heeding this dire warning, Olive declared she could hear an angry scolding behind, and Bobby presently made a sudden leap back and to one side, in the hope of catching a glimpse of their pursuer. But no human creature was visible, nor even so much as the trembling of a twig or the swift passage of a shadow on the ground to tell of the presence of any living creature. Only there was still a squirrel chattering defiance from half-way up a tree, and this time two or three birds fluttering from one branch to another. And Bobby was not sure, but he thought he could see a rabbit, too, peeping from beneath a bush. He was aware of an odd impression that all these creatures were not so much alarmed by his appearance as angered by it. He went back to Olive and she said:
“You mustn’t do that again. You’ll frighten whoever it is.”
“Well, they are trying to frighten us,” Bobby grumbled. “Funny thing, it’s only when I dodge back that you see anything living—a squirrel and a rabbit this time and birds, too. But for that I should say there wasn’t so much as a live mouse anywhere near.”
“It’s warm and it’s afternoon,” Olive said. “Everything’s asleep.”
CHAPTER IV
LOO
BEFORE LONG THE path Bobby and Olive were following, and now without further interruption, brought them to the rear of a small cottage. Its front was to a road that here skirted the edge of the forest where it died away into pasture and open field, with only here and there an ancient tree to give evidence of the woodlands whence this surrounding open land had been rescued. Behind the cottage lay a large, well-cultivated garden. At the end stood a row of hives and the air was heavy with the coming and the going of the bees. From the back door of the cottage emerged hurriedly a short, square-built man, flushed, angry, and gesticulating. Followed him, a tall, thin girl, as pale as the man was flushed, and in her hands she held a large iron pot wherefrom rose clouds of steam.
“You just dare, you just dare,” the man was shouting furiously, though, as he shouted, st
ill retreating. “Mind what you’re doing. That stuff could scald a man to death.”
“I shouldn’t wonder,” she agreed calmly.
The man waved his arms in furious indignation.
“Murder me, would you? You wait, you little devil,” he threatened. “I’ll break every bone in—ai-e-e,” he concluded abruptly, for with considerable dexterity and unexpected strength of wrist the girl had given the formidable weapon she held, the iron pot of nearly boiling broth, a sudden twirl that sent a splash of its contents on the man’s foot.
“Now go,” she ordered, “and don’t come back till evening.”
“You—you,” stuttered the man, choking with rage, and adding a few adjectives as he hopped on one foot, clasping at the other with his right hand. “You wait—you wait—when I get my hands on you, I’ll show you—”
“Unless you kill me,” the girl answered quietly, “you know what’ll happen to you afterwards. Another time you might be there longer than a week.”
“Aw, shut it,” he retorted, though with less vigour.
“As it is, I’ve a good mind to tell Loo about you,” the girl added.
“Aw, shut it, I’m not afraid of her—or you either. Got you,” he yelled, for the girl had rashly turned back to re-enter the cottage, so that he saw his opportunity, made a dash forward, and had her in his grasp before she could get the heavy iron pot into position again.
At the same time Bobby vaulted the gate into the garden and called out:
“Now, then, what’s all this?”
The man turned, saw Bobby.
“Blasted copper,” he said.
Promptly he released his captive and made off at a run.
Bobby scowled. He did hate being called a ‘copper’, especially and most especially when he was in plain clothes. Besides how did the fellow know? Bobby’s firmest conviction was that he didn’t in the least look like a policeman, and here was this fellow calling him a ‘copper’ at the first glimpse. Both puzzling and annoying, he thought. Olive came up to him. She said:
“Bobby, did you notice how that girl looked? She had her pot full of boiling soup and she was quite ready to throw it all over him.”
“He would have known all about it, if she had,” Bobby remarked. “Just as well she didn’t, even if it was self-defence. What do we do now?”
He answered his own question by walking up the path. Olive followed. The girl, going back into the cottage, had closed the door behind her, but closed it hurriedly so that in her haste she failed to make the latch secure. The door swung open and through it they heard a woman’s voice saying:
“Oh, Mary, you shouldn’t! Oh, Mary, why do you? He didn’t hurt me. He’ll do something awful.”
“He daren’t,” came the girl’s calm voice in answer. “He knows what’ll happen if he tries. Next time he got drunk. Unless he kills me first,” she added as an afterthought.
The woman said:
“There’s a man in the garden.”
“I know. It’s why he ran away when he had hold of me,” the girl answered.
“You wait,” Olive said to Bobby. “I’ll knock.”
She had no need to do so, however, for the girl came to the threshold of the open door. Through it Bobby could see into the kitchen, a clean, comfortable looking room. A fire of pine branches and cones was burning in the old-fashioned grate, giving out a fresh and pleasant smell. On the hob stood the big iron pot that had so recently been so effective a weapon of defence. On a sofa lay a woman, evidently an invalid. The girl said to Olive:
“Won’t you come in?”
She went back into the cottage. Olive followed her and so did Bobby, considering that he was included in the invitation. Abruptly the girl said to Bobby:
“That was my step-father. You frightened him. Thank you.”
“Oh, well,” Bobby said, a little awkwardly.
“Please sit down,” the girl said.
She was standing by the head of the sofa, almost as if still guarding the invalid. She was tall and thin, with large melancholy eyes, beneath clearly marked brows. Her nose, her lips, her high cheek-bones were all long and narrow, and the beauty that she had was more of line and form than of any perfection of colouring or feature—an austere and even intellectual beauty, unexpected in this poor and lonely cottage. She had one hand held out in a gesture of protection before the invalid, and Bobby, with his instinct for form and pattern, noticed at once its delicacy of structure. Almost, in the light of the afternoon sun shining through one of the windows, were the bones visible under the fine skin. Yet they were strong hands, too, for all their delicacy of appearance, for they had wielded the heavy iron pot with ease. Olive said:
“We have been having a walk in the forest. We thought we would come back this way. You are Miss Floyd, aren’t you? My name is Owen and this is my husband.”
The woman on the sofa said:
“I am Mrs Coop. Mary is my daughter. That was my husband. He isn’t generally like that. He gets so excited. Mary thought he was hurting me. He wasn’t really.”
“He was shaking you,” Mary said. “He was trying to get money from you. That’s why he was so angry, because I came in just in time to stop him.”
There was a resemblance between them—the tall, pale, upright girl, the worn-looking recumbent woman. Both had the same fineness of bone and structure, the same long and narrow features, the same air of a remote distinction. But the older woman owed it, one felt, to long suffering patiently borne, while with the girl it seemed innate, as though always from her birth she had moved a little apart from the common things amidst which she lived! Yet none the less those common things of everyday life surrounding her showed every sign of receiving a constant and industrious care. Poor they evidently were. Everything showed that. But it was a poverty of simplicity; for as there is a poverty of squalor so there is a poverty of simplicity, and this last can be a lovely thing, a poverty not of want and need but of content.
“I’m inclined to think,” Bobby said slowly, “that Mr Coop had better have a warning and I’ll see he gets one all right.”
“I can look after myself,” Mary said, frowning a little, as if she did not altogether approve of this hint of interference.
“Prevention better than cure,” Bobby told her.
“There’s Loo,” Mrs Coop said, and Mary did not answer, but looked troubled.
“I don’t expect he’ll try to do it again,” Mrs Coop said. “It was all so sudden he hadn’t time to think or remember. You see, last time, Mary put him in the cellar and kept him there a week and he’s always been afraid perhaps she might again.”
“If he touches Loo,” Mary said, “I think I would put him there and keep him there till he was dead, and never let him out at all.”
“What was it you did?” asked Bobby, thinking he could hardly have heard aright, as he surveyed the girl’s fragility.
“He beat Mary,” Mrs Coop explained. “So when he came home drunk she pushed him down in the cellar with some water and dry bread—at least, not very much water and not very much bread. Only there were potatoes, too, weren’t there?”
“Yes,” answered Mary. “A lot.”
“Of course, they were raw,” Mrs Coop admitted. “She didn’t let him out for a week, only after we heard him crying and he had promised he never would again. It was awful and he looked worse.”
“Served him right,” Olive said. “Served him jolly well right. Did he hurt you much?” she asked Mary.
“There are marks still,” Mrs Coop said.
“Oh,” said Olive.
“I should have again,” Mary said gravely, “only longer this time. I mean, if he had beaten me again. It was stupid of me to let him get hold of me. I think he might have killed me this time though,” she added reflectively.
“There’s Loo,” Mrs Coop said again. “Mary says he is too afraid of her to touch her, but you can’t be sure, not when he gets like he was to-day.”
“I’ve told him I shall kil
l him if he touches her and he knows I will,” Mary remarked dispassionately.
“Look here,” began Bobby uneasily.
“If I didn’t, Peter would,” Mary said. “Peter has told him so.”
“Who is Loo?” asked Olive.
“Who is Peter?” Bobby asked almost at the same time.
Neither question was answered, for a chattering at the window made them all look round. A squirrel was on the sill, peeping into the room, and apparently dissatisfied by what it saw there. It vanished.
“Loo’s squirrel,” Mary explained. “It’s gone to tell Loo there’s someone here. Now she won’t come.”
“Well, I think that’s awfully mean of her,” declared Olive.
Mary looked offended.
“It’s not that at all,” she said. “It’s because strangers frighten her.” Then she added. “If you went and sat in the doorway where she could see you and kept very quiet and still, perhaps she might come. Only you mustn’t take any notice.”
“I won’t stir a finger,” Olive promised and seated herself on a rough wooden bench that stood by the door. Sitting there, she said: “What I really wanted to ask you about was those lovely chocolates you make and send to Mr Walters’s.”
“You haven’t come from that man who was here yesterday, have you?” Mary asked doubtfully. “I told Peter about that and he’s most awfully angry.”
“Who is Peter?” Bobby asked again.
CHAPTER V
STOLEN ESSENCE
MARY LOOKED A trifle surprised, as if not quite sure how to reply to a question to which it might be supposed every one must know the answer.
“Is that the man they call Peter the Hermit?” Olive asked.
“What’s he angry about?” Bobby added. “What man do you mean?”
“We don’t come from any one,” Olive went on, as Mary, still hesitating and a little puzzled, made no answer. “It’s just that a friend of mine gave me some of your chocolates she bought at Walters’s shop in Tombes and they were lovely.”
“Does this Peter the Hermit live near here?” Bobby asked. “He has a cottage somewhere about, hasn’t he?”
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