CHAPTER XXXVII
I AM HEROIC
You may be sure that I kept up with the crowd. It was a disagreeablecrowd--Bewick Muir pitmen, and the navvies from the East Dene andThorsby waterworks--they were making a new pipe-line through the BewickBeck Valley, and the navvies were interested in poaching--so that waswhat had brought them so far from home. Only the few Breckonsidepeople who had not left early knew anything bout Elsie.
All that was known to the bulk of those present was that Hobby Stennishad amassed a great fortune by entrapping and making away with drovers,farmers and cattle dealers--that he had rigged out Deep Moat Grange forthat purpose, and that in his last will and testament he had expresseda wish that his heirs should continue the business. The sole heirappeared to be a certain Elsie, and her they naturally enough took fora dangerous malefactor.
There must, however, have been a Breckonside traitor among them, for assoon as they reached the town they made straight for the cottage at theBridge End. The door was burst in, the poor furniture turnedtopsy-turvy--Elsie's books thrown about. But I knew better than tointerfere at this point. There was something much more serious coming.
I knew very well that my father would never let poor Nance Edgar sufferfor something that she had not been mixed in at all. When JosephYarrow started in to do a thing--I don't mean me--it had to be gonethrough with, even though it cost some odd halfpence. For my father,keen at a bargain as he was, did not spare his money when once he puthis hand deep into his pocket.
So I pegged it down the road and over the bridge, with the hottest ofthe pack at my heels. Somebody must have told them that Elsie had goneto "the Mount." And if I could find who that person was, I would wringhis neck on the High Street of Breckonside--which would be not a bitmore than he deserves.
"_Death to the Stennises! Death to the murderers!_"
I could hear the shout right at my heels, turning after turning, tillat last I was in the home stretch, and clambering up the steep ascentto the red brick wall within which stood the house that was my home.What was my surprise to find all the iron window shutters, which eversince I could remember had been turned back against the wall (and eachcaught there with a screw catch) fitted into the window frames!
My father was on the housetop. I could just see him over the railings,for it was darkish in spite of the moon.
"Is that you, Joe?" he called out, leaning forward till I thought hewould fall off.
I answered that it was--I and no other.
"Then be off with you round by the stables. All is shut here. One ofthe two Robs will let you in!"
He meant Rob Kingsman or Rob McKinstrey. So I tell you I tracked itabout the house and thumped on the gate. There was not much time, youunderstand, for the first of the band were already shouting andgesticulating to my father to give up Elsie Stennis. They meant tomake an end of all the "murdering lot," and of any who sheltered them!So they said, and by the accent and the taint of whiskey in the air, Icould make out that there were a lot of Irish among them. Now theIrish that stay at home are very decent people indeed, as I have goodreason to know, but those that come about Breckonside to work at thequarries and waterworks are the devil and all--if Mr. Ablethorpe andthe vicar will excuse me the expression.
Well, I knocked and I shouted, but never an answer got I.
At last, at the window of the sleeping-room that was Rob Kingsman's, Isaw a white blob which I made out to be the occupant's face.
"Hey, Rob!" I cried; "let me in, Rob. They are after me--at my heels!"
"Reason the mair for you bidin' where ye are," said Rob, whose strongpoint was certainly not courage, "if they have done ye no harm as yet,just keep quiet and they will do ye none whatever. Ye are no Stennis.The Stennises are a' weel-faured!"
"But I want to help--I want to get in! De'il tak' ye, Rob, let me in!"
I think even the vicar, good Churchman as he is (though not in Mr.Ablethorpe's sense) would have forgiven me the strength of the lastexpression--considering the provocation, that is. As also the factthat, living so near Scotland, where there are so many "Presbies"about, the very best Churchman is sometimes seduced into their rough,but picturesque, habit of speech.
"Here, Joe!" said Rob, after a while, taking pity on me. He opened alittle wicket--just one pane of his iron-barred window, for my fatherhad had everything about the place strengthened at the first scareabout Riddick of Langbarns and the other lost farmers and drovers;"here, lad, tak' haud o' this! There's a barrel that had sugar intil'tdoon by the weighing machine. Creep into that. And mind--dinna shootonybody. Use the pistol only in self-defence. There's nae law again'that!"
The next moment I had a revolver in one hand and a pouch of cartridgesin the other--yellow bag, waist belt and all! I tell you I felt thecitizen of no mean city as I buckled them on. I would not have changedplaces with the Prince of Wales going to open an Aquarium. For, yousee, I had never been allowed to go near the little room where myfather kept the firearms for sale, the sporting ammunition, and theother touch-and-go truck, which interested me more than anything in theplace. Of course, when father was lost for so long, I could have goneand helped myself. But, though you mayn't think it, I had a sort ofpride about that.
I wasn't going to do when he was away what I durstn't do when he wasstamping about the yard and stores. So I didn't. But to have a real,_real_ revolver given me, with proper cartridges--and me outside andall the others inside--why, it was just the primest thing that everhappened to me in all my life.
When I reached the outer gate (that by which Dapple had entered, MadJeremy, no doubt, riding her to the door) Rob McKinstrey shouted thatif I looked sharp he would let me in and have the yard door shut againbefore ever one of the Paddies could get his nose inside.
But I knew better than that--oh, ever so much better.
Not many fellows get a chance to die nobly, like a young hero, in frontof his own father's house, in defence of his girl--with not only thatgirl, her own self, but also his second best--I mean another girlfriend (of his mother's) looking out at him from the wall, just likethe beautiful Jewess Rebecca, and Rowena the Saxon, and all that lot.
So I charged round, knowing that the eyes of Elsie and the Caw girlswere on me. And there in front of the house was a whole mob ofGeordies and Paddies, navvies, and all the general riff-raff, with hereand there an angry Bewicker who knew no better--all calling for Elsieto be given up to them. My father was up on a flat part of the roof,and was haranguing them, as if he had been brought up to the business.They were flinging dirt and stones at him, too, and one had clipped himon the side of his head, so that the blood was trickling down histemple, which made me mad to watch. Morning had come by this time, sothat was how I could see so well. It comes precious early atBreckonside this time of the year, as you would know if your fatherstarted you out as early as mine did. We have lots of winter there,but when the light time does arrive, it comes along early and stays tosupper.
Well, you see, ever since my father took so stiffly to Elsie, I hadbeen pretty much gone on the governor. I suppose, even before that, Iwould not have seen him mishandled without shaking a stick for him.But now, it just made my blood boil, and I am not one of your furiousheroes either. I always think well before I let my courage boil over.As you may have noticed from this biography, I do not profess to be oneof your fetch-a-howl-and-jump-into-the-ring heroes.
But, as father's spring sale advertisements say, this was anopportunity which might never occur again. (It didn't, as a fact.)
So I got right between the crowd and our varnished front door, overwhich stood my father with his broken head, still holding forth as towhat he would do to every man present. "Twenty years hard" was theleast that even the back ranks would get.
There was not a real armed man among them. So, when I stepped up onthe stone stoop with the morning sun glinting down my revolver and mywarlike eye squinting t'other way along the sights, one hand behind myback as I had seen them do in pictures o
f duellists in the _Graphic_(when they do half-page pictures to illustrate what father calls"bloodthirsty yarns." I never read the small print, of course, but thepictures are prime for sticking up over a fellow's bed) and the yellowleather belt and open pouch for cartridges--well, I wouldn't have takenthe fanciest price for myself at that moment--I really wouldn't. If ithad been at Earl's Court, they would have marked me _Hors Concours_,and set me to judge the other exhibits!
Well, of course, these fellows had never seen the funny round black dota loaded revolver makes when it is pointed square at your right eye andthe fellow behind looks like pulling the trigger. And I tell you theyscurried back, fifty yards at least, and some of the less keen evenbegan to sneak off. Pretty soon they all did so. I think they feltthat they had been behaving foolishly.
But what they felt was nothing to what _I_ did a moment after.
You see, my father didn't know what had been happening down below. Hecouldn't see, for one thing. The jut of the porch hid my warlike arrayand bold defence. So he couldn't understand who the--umph--was downthere. To make out he came forward and leaned over the stone corniceat the end of the railings, with Elsie on one side of him and HarrietCaw on the other.
I stood up as noble as the boy on the burning deck or Fitz-James, whenhe said--
"Come one, come all, this rock shall fly From its firm base as soon as I!"
Or, at any rate, something like that. But _my_ feet were really on mynative doorstep, while as for Fitz-James--my father says that, whetherthe rock flew or not, he had no title to it that could stand the leastsniff of law.
Before my father spoke to me, both Elsie and Harriet Caw thought that Ilooked "just too heroic." This I heard on good authority, and itpleased me, for that was the exact effect I was trying to produce.Elsie was such a brick as to swear that she thought so even after, andto this day she sticks to it. Girls have some good points.
But it was awful enough at the time.
"Joe," shouted my father, and I could see his face red and threateningabove me, with the effort of leaning so far over, "if you do not put upthat popgun and come in the house directly, I will come out with a caneand thrash you within an inch of your life!"
He even went on to give particulars, which I think was mean of him inthe circumstances. But no fellow can argue with his father--at least,not with one like mine--so I stepped round to the door. My father metme, took the revolver away from me, and made as if he would box myears. Last of all, he told me to go into the back kitchen and wash myface--and ears.
I could have forgiven him all but that word.
Then Harriet Caw giggled, and said she would come and see that I didit. But just then the tide turned. For, hearing Harriet say this,Elsie came along, too, and though I was, indeed, pretty grimy withracing and scratching along after these Bewick pit fellows, she took myhands, right under the nose of Harriet Caw, and said, "Joe, I thank youfor saving my life!"
Then, loosing one of my hands, she put her palm on my shoulder, andstooped and kissed me on the forehead, ever so stately and noble, likeanother of those _Graphic_ pictures.
But evidently Harriet Caw did not think so, for she only sniffed and,turning on her patent india-rubber heels (which she had bought toimitate Elsie), she went right upstairs.
So it was Elsie who helped me to wash away the smoke of battle. Thatwasn't so altogether bad. You should have seen her eyes, all you otherfellows, when I undid the yellow leather belt from about my war-wornwaist, and gave her the pouch of cartridges to put away.
"Are they Dum-Dum?" she said reverently.
And I said they were.
I didn't really know about the cartridges, but at least _I_ was--andElsie liked it very well. The fellows who talk a lot at such timesnever get on with girls.
Deep Moat Grange Page 37
