CHAPTER III.
KITTY HOOD AND HER SCHOOL-HOUSE--DICK COMPTON GOING SOLDIERING--A LOVERS' QUARREL, A BIT OF JEALOUSY, AND A THREAT--HOW DICK COMPTON MET HIS SUPPOSED RIVAL--AN ENCOUNTER, SUDDEN DEATH, AND KITTY HOOD'S TERRIBLE DISCOVERY.
"I do not care, Dick Compton! You are a mean, good-for-nothing fellow, andthe sooner you go away and get killed, the better. I hope I may never seteyes on you again, as long as I live."
A pleasant style of address, especially from a pretty woman; and yet one towhich a good many persons have submitted, first and last, from littlepeople whom they could physically have slain with a single stroke andmentally discomfited with very little more trouble!
The time of this objurgation was the same morning on which the events tookplace which have already been recorded as occurring at the residence ofMargaret Hayley, and at a very little earlier hour than that whichwitnessed the departure of Carlton Brand from the place of his signaldiscomfiture. The place was in front of a little country-school-housestanding half a mile from the Darby road, north-westward, and perhaps twomiles westward from the Hayleys. The interlocutors were Richard Compton(already introduced as "Dick" by the flippant tongue of his companion), ayoung and well-to-do farmer of the neighborhood, about a quarter of acentury old, perhaps some five feet nine in height, thickset,strong-limbed, with a round, good-humored face guiltless of beard butbrowned a good deal by exposure in the field, generally smiling andcontent, but with a spice of the bull-dog in his nature which made himsullen occasionally and led him always to be very fond of his own peculiarway;--and Kitty Hood, teacher of the district school of that particularsection of the Keystone State, a short, round, rosy little lass, with merrybrown eyes that only occasionally had a sterner kind of mischief in them,dark brown waved hair, and just the last general appearance in the worldthat a phrenologist would have selected for the necessarily calm anddignified life of an instructress of callow youth.
The old weather-beaten school-house, erected perhaps fifty years before butnot yet swept away in the prevailing rage for staring new white baby-housesfor the instruction of children in the country, stood at the base of aslight wooded hill, facing southward; a fine old sycamore near the doorholding the whole house and all its contents in flecked light and shade; agroup of locusts not far away to the left showing a motley jumble ofbenches beneath, that were evidently the favorite lounging-place of thechildren during play-hours; and a little pond of a hundred or two feet indiameter, with one edge half covered with the leaves of the intrusivepond-lilies, and the other bordered by a juvenile wharf of stones, oldboards and bark, supplying the youngsters with a place in which to paddle,sail boats and get very wet without any danger of being drowned, in summer,and with a reliable though limited skating-ground in winter. Itsconvenience for winter sports could only be imagined, at that season of theyear when the wild-roses were clambering up the dingy boards of theinclosure, to the windows of the school-room; but its inevitable use as apart of the great "highway of nations" was too plainly shown by acircumstance which, alas!--at the same moment illustrated the vicissitudesof commerce and the necessity for the existence of insurance companies. Astately vessel of the mercantile guild, twelve inches in length but withthe dignity of three masts and each holding spitted on it as a sail nearlyan entire half-sheet of foolscap paper, had evidently left the little wharfduring the morning play-hour, freighted for the Spice Islands lying upamong the pond-lilies, but suffered the fate of many sea-going ships,fallen under the power of foul winds or adverse currents, and stranded ona reef of mud some paces from the shore, from which the ingenuity of herfactors had not yet been able to release her, and where she lay "keeledover" in a manner equally contaminating to her white paper sails andunpleasant to her possible passengers. No doubt anxious eyes were meanwhileglancing out of the windows, between two leaves of the geography whichdetailed the perils of navigation in the East Indian archipelago, to seewhether piratical canoes or pirogues did not put off to burn that noblevessel and massacre her crew, before noon should give time for any furtherefforts towards her release. Here the course of this narration painfullybut necessarily loses sight of the good three-master "Snorter, ofPhiladelphia," as many another of the fairy barks launched by inexperiencedyouth disappears from view and is known no more forever; but let us hopethat this particular venture was floated off at some early "spring tide" ofplay-spell, and that she "came safely to her desired haven!"
Within the little one-story school-house, with its unpainted desks andbenches of pine, dark with age and scarred by notch and inscription fromthe penknives of half a century of school-boys,--there was going on, atthat moment, precisely what may be seen in any school from Windsor toWashoe, when the ruling power is temporarily absent. Wilkie painted notonly from life, but from the inevitable in life, when he drew the "VillageSchool in an Uproar;" for mobs have been put down by the military power andeven savage communities have been made quiet by the exercise ofpowder-and-ball; but no force has yet been discovered that could check (andwho would wish it to be entirely checked, after all?) the riotous mischiefof the school-room when the terrible eye is removed! Five minutes before,Mistress Hood in the chair of authority, fifty heads of all hues and alltextures had been more or less closely bent down over book and slate, and alow monotonous hum, something like the sleepy drone from a score ofbee-hives, had been heard floating out on the summer air. Now, MistressKitty Hood had been just two minutes absent from the school-room, and anice little Pandemonium was already established, that it would need somebirchings and many strong words to annihilate. Half a dozen of the big boyshad gathered into a knot, not far from the door, and were snickering aloudand pointing knowingly towards the point of interest without, with runningcomments on "Miss Hood's beau!" Three little girls, forgetting their sex,were playing at leap-frog between and over two of the benches, to thedisarrangement of their short skirts and the eventual tumbling over of oneof the benches with a loud clatter. Two or three of the larger girls werein close conversation, about what there is no means of knowing except thatone of them remarked that "it was real indecent and she meant to tell herma!" One boy, who was the possessor of a magnificently nationalhandkerchief, had stuck it on the end of the long ruler from the mistress'desk, and was going through a dress parade of one, with a feeble whistle asmusic. A young brute was taking the opportunity of pinching the ear of asmaller boy, and making him whimper, as a punishment for some previousalleged injury. Another had made a pair of spectacles out of blue paper,and stuck them on the nose of a little girl on one of the near benches, whoblushed so rosily that her white dress, blue spectacles and red face quitesupplied the national colors. And still another, with cheeks marvellouslydistended, was trying whether he could, in the short space of time duringwhich the mistress might be absent, manage to choke down three earlyharvest-apples without dying by strangulation or requiring any assistancefrom his companions.
Such were the surroundings of the country school-house, and such was theaspect of Kitty Hood's little school-room during her temporary absence. Andnow what was the necessity which had for the moment withdrawn her from hercharge, and what was the provocation under which the words were uttered,given at the commencement of this chapter?
Perhaps the personal appearance of Dick Compton may go at least a littledistance towards the explanation. As he stood kicking his foot against thelower step of the school-house door and listening to the words of petulancewhich his mistress so plentifully bestowed upon him, it was to be seen thatwhile his coat was a sack of ordinary light summer-stuff, looking civil andhomelike enough, his pants and cap were both gray and military, accordingto the pattern of the Reserves. Under his arm he held a bundle which mightvery easily have contained the coat necessary to make the uniform complete;and such was, indeed, the composition of the parcel. Dick Compton, neverbefore connected with any military organization, had the night beforedetermined to abandon home and the girl he loved, leave other hands togather in the fast ripening harvest, intrust his favorit
e pair offarm-horses to the care of his younger brother and the hands on the farm,and make at least a small part of the response to the urgent call ofGovernor Curtin. He had been down to the rendezvous, to sign the roll ofmembership in the Reserves, and to get his uniform, that morning. He was toleave with the regiment for Harrisburgh, that evening, and it was on hisway home to the pleasant farm-house lying a couple of miles northward andacross the main road leading up from Market street, that he had called atthe school-house to make his adieux to Kitty Hood, which seemed to be soungraciously received.
They were so indeed. Kitty, from the moment when Compton tapped at the doorand called her out amid the surprised glances and then the tittering of theschool-children--from the moment when she had observed his military cap andpants--had understood the whole story and put herself not only on herdignity but her unamiability. She had not smiled even once upon him, orallowed him to take her hand, though he reached out for it; and though thejolly round face of the school-mistress was not by any means the pattern ofcountenance that could be made stupendously awful by the greatest amountof effort, yet Kitty had done her best to be royal--not to say imperial. Tohis explanations she had been worse than the traditional"deaf"--insultingly interrupting; and to his asseverations that the countryneeded the heart and the arm of every true man, she had answered with thatunromantic but unanswerable word: "fiddlestick!" She had tried wheedling,coaxing, scolding, every thing but crying, in the effort to make him foregohis resolution and take off his name (supposing that he could do such athing) from the roll of the Reserves. She had no doubt, and expressedherself to that effect, that if he went to Harrisburgh he would come backin a coffin, all cut up into little bits by the savages, or not come backat all and have his skull and bones used for a drinking cup and a fewnecklaces by the women of Secessia, or come back in a condition worse thaneither, with both legs cut off close up to the body, one arm gone and hisskull broken in, and a pretty thing for a respectable young woman to marry!
It was very well, for the sake of his adherence to his patriotic purpose,that Dick Compton had in him that dash of bull-dog tenacity to whichallusion has before been made; for it is not every man to whom such wordsof spiteful prophesy and determined discouragement, coming from the lips ofa pretty woman who made her own love the excuse for uttering them, wouldhave been without their effect. They might as well have been uttered to oneof the granite gods of old, as to Compton, so far as moving him to anychange of purpose was concerned; but his temper was by no means of as goodproof as his determination. In fact, Kitty Hood's spiteful expostulationsvery soon made him ill-natured if not angry; and by the time theculmination already recorded was reached, he was quite ready to say, in atone corresponding to her own:
"Well, I _will_ go, Kitty Hood, whether you like it or not. I was a foolnot to go away without walking a mile further to let you know any thingabout it."
"Nobody asked you!" was the petulant reply.
"Nobody _need_ to ask me, next time!" was the rejoinder. "I have a right tobe killed, if I please, and it is none of your business whether I am ornot. A pretty world it would be, with half of it made up of women too weakand too cowardly to fight a cat, and the other half of men tied fast oftheir apron strings, so that they had to ask every time they wanted to goaway, just as one of your little whelps of school-boys whines: 'Please tolet me go out!'"
Kitty Hood was finding a tongue quite as sharp as her own, by this time,and the effect was very much what is often seen in corresponding cases.Finding her lover growing as angry as herself, and a little more violent,the young school-mistress concluded that it was time to assume a lessdecided demeanor, so that if they must part they might do so without anabsolute quarrel.
"Well, Dick," she said, after a moment of pause, "there is no use of yourbeing angry about it!" Just as if she had not been showing ill-temper fromthe beginning--the minx! "Of course I cannot hold you, and do not wish todo so, if you prefer dressing yourself up in that ridiculous manner andstanding up to be shot at, to remaining here with _me_."
"I don't _prefer_ it, you know I don't, Kitty!" said Dick, aware that hisflank of conversation had once more been turned and himself placed in afalse position.
But here came an interruption. A young gentleman of seven made hisappearance in the door of the school-room, his hands blacker than theproverbial ace-of-spades, his nether raiments spotted, and his face drawninto a most comical whimper, while his words came out between a sob and ahiccough:
"Please, Miss Hood, won't you come in to Jem Stephenson? He has gone andupsot the inkstand all over my hands and spoilt my new trowsers!"
"Go in and keep your seat, you young villain, or I shall flog you and JemStephenson both!" was the consoling assurance with which the "youngvillain" departed; while the hum from the school-room was evidentlyincreasing, and the young school-mistress felt that she must indeed soonresume the reins of government if she was not to be permanently leftwithout a realm worth ruling. But she took time to rejoin to Compton's lastassertion.
"I don't know any thing of the kind. I say that if you thought half as muchof me as you did of public opinion and making a show of your fine newclothes, you would not stir one step."
"Now, Kitty, do be reasonable--" again began Compton.
"Look at other people--don't _they_ respect the wishes of those they expectto marry?" the young lady went on, not heeding his last attempt."See--there is Carlton Brand--who does not know that he has remained athome ever since the war broke out, though he could have been a Colonel andperhaps even a General--just because he was really in love with MargaretHayley, and she did not wish him to leave her?"
It is scarcely necessary to say, at this stage of the narration, that MissKitty Hood was "begging the question." She had never heard one word toindicate why Carlton Brand had not accepted his opportunities, and shemerely mentioned the two as people of prominence in the section,acquaintances, and the first pair of lovers of whom she happened to think.But she had made a terrible blunder, as many of us do at the very momentwhen we seem to be performing the very keenest of operations. CarltonBrand--one of the finest-looking men to be found within a radius of anhundred miles, a member of one of the liberal professions, and known to bewealthy enough to afford indulgence in any line of life which he mighthappen to fancy--was naturally an object of envy if not of suspicion tohundreds of other young men who did not feel that they possessed quite thesame advantages. Young farmers, who chanced to catch him saying a politeword to their sisters, looked at him through eyes not too confiding, inspite of the fact that not even rumor had pointed out a single instance inwhich he had indulged in a dishonorable amour; and those who detected himin glances of kindness (perhaps of admiration) towards demoiselles whomthey had marked out as their own destined marital property, had a bad habitof even looking out of the corners of their eyes and scowling a little, atsuch manifestations. Carlton Brand, in all this, was only paying a veryslight penalty for his triple advantage of wealth, position and good looks,while many others pay the same unpleasant toll to society for thepossession of even one (and sometimes none) of the three favors of fortune.
The farm-house of the Comptons and the residence of the Brands (as will behereafter made apparent) lay but a very short distance apart; and thelittle house (perhaps it might with more propriety have been called acottage) in which Kitty Hood had seen the light, and where she lived withher quiet widowed mother, was still nearer to the abode of the younglawyer. Though the Hoods were much more humbly circumstanced than theirneighbors, intercourse between the two families had always been frequent,with a very pleasant friendship between Elsie and Kitty, and more visits ofthe young girl at the residence of the Brands, and of Carlton, accompanyinghis sister, to that of the Hoods, than at all pleased the lover andexpectant husband of Kitty. Then the latter had a head a little giddy and atongue more than a little imprudent; and she had shown the bad taste, manytimes since their tacit engagement, to draw comparisons, in the presence ofher lover, to his disadvantage, and in favor of a
man who had much betteropportunities than the farmer for keeping his clothes unimpeachable, hishands unsoiled, and his cheek unbrowned. Only very imprudent people, andperhaps very unfeeling ones, use such words; but they are used much toooften, ignoring the pure gold that may lie within a rough nugget, andpreferring the mere tinsel leaf on a bit of handsome carving. Kitty Hoodwas one of the thoughtless, and she was likely, some day, to pay thepenalty in a manner she little anticipated.
Within the few weeks previous, without Kitty being at all aware of thefact, Mr. Dick Compton had allowed himself to ruminate more than washealthy upon the glances he had chanced to see interchanged between Kittyand her "stuck-up lawyer friend," as he chose to designate him, and uponthe continual commendations which she chose to bestow on the latter--untilrooted personal dislike and something very near to positive jealousy, hadbeen the result. Walking over towards the rendezvous that morning, if oneshadow of hesitation on the subject of going to Harrisburgh had passedthrough the mind of the young farmer, it was caused by his dislike ofleaving Kitty out of view, with Carlton Brand in the same nearneighborhood. All that difficulty had been removed by the understandingthat the lawyer was to leave at the same time and on the same service withhimself; but when Kitty at once revived the obnoxious name with a newphrase of commendation, and signified that the section was not to berelieved of the lawyer's presence during his own absence, it is not verystrange that the unreasonable demons of jealousy began tugging again at hisheart-strings, and that he felt like performing some severe operation uponthe Mordecai who sat in his gate, if he could only catch him!
"So you have got to quoting Carlton Brand again, have you!" he responded toMiss Kitty's citation. "I thought I had told before that I had heard nearlyenough of that proud puppy!"
"'Puppy' indeed!" and Miss Kitty fired in an instant. "He's nothing of thekind, but a man and a gentleman, and you know it, Dick Compton!"
"Oh, yes, a _gentleman_, and that suits you to a turn, Kitty Hood!" was thesneering reply. "When your _gentlemen_ are in the way, you think that anhonest hard-working man is nobody."
If ever a man spoke an unjust word to a woman (and it is to be feared thata great many have been uttered since the unfortunate gift of speech wasconferred upon the race), Dick Compton was stupidly unjust at that moment.For the very quarrel (it was but little else, from first to last) in whichthey were engaged, had originated in the young girl's evident anxiety forhis safety and pleading that he would not go away and leave her, even for ashort period! Kitty Hood felt the injustice, if he did not, and all the oldrage came back again, in a varied form, but hotter than ever. Her eyesflashed, she choked for a moment, and then, before Dick Compton could be atall aware what was about to happen, the school-mistress drew her littlewhite hand back and brought him a ringing box on the ear and cheek, thatthe latter would not be very likely to forget for a fortnight,--while sheflashed out:
"Dick Compton, just take that for a fool! You are not worth any honestwoman's loving, with your mean jealousy. You can go where you please, and Iwill never speak to you again until you learn better manners than to talkto _me_ in that manner!"
Before the jealous lover had half recovered from the blow she stepped awayfrom him and put her foot on the sill of the door, to re-enter. Compton,spite of the tingle in his cheek, did not quite believe in the propriety ofparting in that manner, when he was just going to the war; and he made astep towards her.
"Kitty!--oh, now, Kitty--"
"Keep off, Dick Compton! Good-day and good-bye, and nobody cares where yougo or how long you stay!" was the forbidding rejoinder, as theschool-mistress swung herself round the jamb of the door and halfdisappeared. Her blood was at fever heat: that of her lover was likely tobe at the same pitch in a moment.
"You won't come back, then?"
"No, I won't!"
"Then I will tell you something, Kitty Hood!" and the young man was veryangry and very earnest when he made the threat. "If I can catch CarltonBrand before I go away to-night, I will just flog him till he is thenearest to a dead man _you_ ever saw,--and see how you both like it!"
Without another word the young farmer turned and strode round the corner ofthe school-house with his bundle and his indignation, making hasty stridesup the hill and towards the woods that lay in the direction of his home.Kitty Hood saw thus much, and realized that very probably she was lookingat him for the last time. Then she realized, too, what she had scarcelyfelt before--that she had been terribly to blame in the quarrel--that shemight have been wrecking the happiness of a life by her ill-temper--andthat it would never do to let poor Dick go away to the war, so angry at herthat if killed his last thought would be upon every one else rather thanher, and that if he returned he would never come near her again--never!Then poor Kitty dropped her head upon her desk, heedless of the onlypartially-hushed Pandemonium around her and the necessity of settling withMaster Jem Stephenson, spiller of ink and others,--dropped her head uponher desk and sobbed loudly enough for some of the children to be quiteaware of the fact, so that one of the little boys hazarded the remark,_sotto voce_: "Wonder what is the matter with her!" and a bigger oneenlightened his ignorance with: "Why, didn't you see? Her beau has got onsojer clothes and is going away--stupid!"
Only a minute or two, and then Kitty Hood could endure the struggle nolonger. She was very unhappy and not a little penitent. She _could_ notremain any longer in the midst of those noisy children: she _must_ go home(or elsewhere) and see what facilities fate might yet throw in her way forseeing and speaking once more to her angry lover before his departure.Perhaps she could even find some means, still, for inducing him to remain,and then----. And at that thought the school-mistress raised her head,informed her school that she had a bad headache and must go home to bed,and dismissed them for a half-holiday.
Whereupon one of the larger girls, who had seen the lover go away, withouthearing any of the parting words, and who thought that she understood allabout the affair, remarked to one of her companions that: "That was realnice, and she thought all the better of Miss Hood for it!" while one of thelarger boys, unawake as yet to any of the softer feelings, bawled out tohis mates that: "Miss Hood was going to see her old beau off--ki-yah!" Itis painful to be obliged to say, justifying previously-expressedapprehension, that even the stranded vessel was forgotten in the haste withwhich the school separated, and that all the imaginary pirates of theSociety, the Friendly and various other islands that maintained every thingelse rather than friendly society for sailors, had at least one day more ofchance at her with their canoes and pirogues.
Her scholars dismissed, Kitty Hood took time to wash and cool her eyes andto smooth her hair, for a moment, at the little wash-closet in one cornerof the school-room--then flung on her light bonnet and gauzy mantle andtook her way, walking somewhat rapidly in spite of the heat of the comingnoon, along the path that led around the base of the hill north-westwardtowards the residence of Carlton and Elsie Brand.
Mr. Richard Compton had meanwhile been walking yet more rapidly, with hisbundle under his arm, up the path leading over the hill, almost due north,and through the belt of woods discernible from the school-house. Whetherthe increasing heat of the day added to the heat of his temper isuncertain; but certain it is that he did not at all cool down under it. Hehad the excuse of being the party _last_ ill-used, if not indeed the party_first_ so treated. He loved Kitty Hood beyond all reason, and he was ofcourse the person most likely to grow angry at her and jealous of her,beyond all endurance. He felt that he could not worse punish her, or bettersatisfy himself, than by carrying out his threat and soundly floggingCarlton Brand if he should once catch him under proper circumstances; hehad no doubt whatever of his ability to flog him or "any other man," whenhe once set about the task; and while surmounting the hill, and even afterplunging into the cool, thick, leafy woods, full of the twitter of birdsand the fragrance of June blossoms, which should have had the power tosoften passion in the breast of any man who held a true sympathy withNature, his mental fists were
clenched and his teeth set in a manner mostthreatening for any opposing force with which he might happen to be broughtinto contact.
That "opposing force" was much nearer than the young man at the momentimagined. He was just emerging by the path to the main road which he was tocross, half a mile before reaching his own farm, when he saw a horsemanriding rapidly up from the eastward. Intersecting the path just where itjoined the road, was a blind road leading through the woods across towardthe Darby, and closed at the entrance by a swinging gate. There was a lowpanel near it, and the young farmer leaped it in preference to unfasteningthe clumsy latch--finding himself, when beyond the fence, in the presenceof Carlton Brand, who had just reined in his horse at the gate. Whateverthere may have been in the face of the horseman at that moment, within afew minutes after his leaving the presence of Margaret Hayley and hissister, the eyes of Dick Compton were not sufficiently keen to recognizeit. He only saw the handsome, proud-looking young lawyer, and his oldantipathy rose, with the remembrance of the threat he had just used,accompanying it. Carlton Brand saw nothing more in the face of the youngfarmer than he had been accustomed to see, and accosted him as he mighthave done any other acquaintance, under the same circumstances, with arequest for a slight service.
"Ah, Compton, is that you?--just be kind enough to throw open that gate forme, will you?"
"No--I'll not do any thing of the kind. If you want the gate open, justget off and open it yourself!" was the surly reply, very much to theastonishment of the lawyer. His face paled a little, then flushed, and hehesitated for an instant before he asked:
"What do you mean, Richard Compton, by answering me in that manner?"
"What I say!" answered Compton, quite as insolently as before. "You are apuppy, Carlton Brand, and I have half a mind to take you off that horse andflog you soundly, instead of opening a gate for you."
"The d----l you have!" was the very natural reply. "Well, Dick Compton, Ido not know what it is all about, but you are behaving very much like aruffian, to a man who has never done any thing worse to you than to treatyou like a gentleman."
"You lie, Carlton Brand, and you know it!" was the response.
"I lie, do I?" and the speaker shifted a little uneasily in his saddle,though he made no apparent movement to alight.
"Yes, you lie!" said Compton, his voice thick and hoarse with agitation andanger. "And if you will get off that horse I will teach you a lesson aboutmeddling with other people's property, that you will remember for atwelvemonth."
If Carlton Brand's face expressed intense surprise, it was certainlynothing more than he felt; for what the "meddling with other people'sproperty" could mean, except that he might unwittingly have run across someinterest of Compton's in the pursuit of his profession, he had no more ideathan he could have had of the number of trees in the adjoining wood or thedepth of soil on which his horse was standing. Yet he threw his leg at onceover the saddle, at the last salutation, sprang to the ground, flung hisbridle over one of the posts near the gate, and said:
"Now then!"
In an instant and without another word, Dick Compton, who had dropped hisbundle as the other dismounted, sprang at him, fury in his face and theclench of determined hostility in every nerve. Probably no battle on earthwas ever fought so singularly--the one combatant without the least causefor his rage, and the other not even acquainted with the accusation madeagainst him. They seemed not badly matched, in physical force, though anyconnoisseur of the exclusively muscular would have considered Comptonlikely to be by far the most enduring. He was fifteen or twenty pounds theheavier, and fully trained by field labor; Brand two or three inches thetaller, athletic, and a little the longer armed.
Half a dozen blows were rapidly exchanged, before either succeeded inbreaking the guard of the other. Then Compton managed to reach the lawyer'scheek, with a blow of some violence that probably stung within quite asmuch as it did without. At all events it brought a new color to his face,and from that instant he was cool no longer. He struck out more rapidly andangrily, and Compton followed his motion. In less than a minute half adozen blows had reached the faces and bodies of each, and there was aprobability that, whatever the event of the fight, both would be injured aswell as disfigured. Suddenly, the instant after, as Compton aimed awell-directed blow at the throat of his antagonist, that he believed wouldentirely settle the affair, something happened, upon which he had notcalculated. Whether his blow was entirely fended he did not know; but whathe did know, so far as he knew any thing, was that Carlton Brand's rightfist, dashed out with a force little less formidable than the kick of aniron-shod horse, struck him on the left of the nose and the cheekadjoining, sending a perfect gore of blood spouting over face and clothing,and throwing him reeling backward, stunned and half senseless, to theearth,--the fight over, so far as he was to bear any part in it.
There was only a little sensation left in poor Compton at that juncture,but that little cried out against being beaten down in such a manner by aman whom he had before considered his inferior in muscular power, and whomhe had set out to flog. The bull-dog within him wished to rise and makeanother effort, but for a moment his eyes _would not_ open and his headwould not clear sufficiently for him to make any effort at regaining hislost perpendicular. When he thought he heard a groan and a loud "thud" onthe ground, and he did manage to struggle to a sitting position, the sightthat met his eyes was nearly sufficient to drive him back into his partialinsensibility, amazement and horror being about equally compounded in thespectacle. Carlton Brand lay at length on the ground, his face set in afrightful spasm, a thin white froth issuing from the set lips, the eyesclosed, and not even a quiver of motion in the limbs. Dick Compton sprangup, then, with a supernatural energy born of absolute fright, and bent overhis prostrate antagonist. To all appearance he was dead!--dead as if he hadbeen lying there for the last century! The frightened farmer put his handto his temples, his pulses and his heart, and found no motion whatever.Then the dreadful fear took possession of him that his own last blow, whichhe remembered aiming at the throat of the other, might have taken effectthere at the same moment when he was himself struck and prostrated--thatsome vital part of the throat might have been touched and death instantlyensued!
To say that Dick Compton was frightened and even horrified at thisunexpected issue of the pugilistic combat which he had forced, is indeed toput the case very mildly. He was literally paralyzed, for the moment, withconsternation. What was his fate?--to be a homicide! And--good God!--hereanother thought took possession of him. He had left Kitty Hood at theschool-house, only a little while before, himself angry and in a dangerousmood, and with his last words threatening personal violence against CarltonBrand! If he should be dead--and there seemed to be no hope to thecontrary--what words of his could ever persuade the school-mistress that hehad not entertained enough of jealousy and anger against the lawyer todesire his death?--and how far would not Kitty's evidence go in provingbefore a criminal court that he was an intentional murderer?
Such reflections are not pleasant, to say the least! A very few of them goa great way in a man's life. Those who have been placed, even for onemoment, in the belief that they have suddenly become homicides, need not betold how far beyond all other horrors is the feeling: those who have missedthe sensation, may thank God with all reverence for having spared them oneof the untold agonies which belong only to the damned!
Dick Compton was not one of the most delicate of men, either in action orperception, but he was a good fellow in the main, with quite enough ofintuition to foresee the worst perils of a situation, and with quite enoughof presence of mind to act quickly in a desperate emergency. There was yetno breath or motion in the prostrate man: he would die very soon if notalready dead: something might yet be done for him: but that something, ifdone at all, must be done at once. Besides, if death should prove to bereal, he would himself be a little better circumstanced if found trying topreserve the life of his antagonist, than if discovered to have let him diewithout effort. A m
ile to the westward, and at the side of the very road atthe edge of which he was standing, was the residence of one of the twodoctors of the immediate section, and medical assistance might be procured,with the aid of the fallen man's horse, in a brief period.
With this thought in mind, and in far less time after the occurrence of thecatastrophe than it has needed to put it upon record, Dick Compton hadunfastened the horse of Carlton Brand from the post, swung himself into thesaddle, and was galloping away westward, a little doubtful in mind whetherhe was indeed going after a doctor or looking for a convenient gallows anda hangman,--and wishing, from the bottom of his soul, that he had neverentertained quite so good an opinion of his personal prowess as that whichhad led him into such a terrible position. Once, as he galloped on, hecaught sight of his new military trowsers, and found himself thinkingwhether, when they hung soldiers, they allowed them to retain their uniformor subjected them to the degrading alternative of the prison gray! And thatis all, of the very peculiar reflections of Mr. Dick Compton as he spedaway after the doctor, that needs to be put upon record.
Kitty Hood, meanwhile, leaving the school-house perhaps ten minutes afterher lover, had sped along the path at the base of the woods, intent ongoing over to the residence of the Brands and seeking advice, if notassistance, from Elsie, in her dilemma. She had quite overcome her anger,now, and taken into her young heart a full supply of that which very oftenfollows the former--anxiety; and her feet moved as glibly, in the bettercause of reconciliation, as her tongue had done not long before in a veryunreasonable lovers' quarrel.
The path she was pursuing would have led her out to the main road, whichshe must cross to reach the Brands', some half a mile further west than thepoint at which the gate gave access to the blind road through the wood. Butthere was a little spot of marshy ground before reaching the road; sheremembered that her shoes were thin and that wet feet were disagreeableeven in June, and as a consequence she struck into a cross path whichintersected the blind road and would bring her out at the gate. As asecondary consequence, she followed that road and came out a minute afterat the gate, to open it without observing what lay beyond, and to startback with a scream of affright as she saw the body of Carlton Brand lyingon the green sward without, his face still set in that terrible contortion,and the rigidity of death alike in limb and feature.
The young girl had seen but little of death, and not yet learned to regardit rather as a deliverance than otherwise; and in any shape it frightenedher. How natural, then, that she should regard it with peculiar horror whenshe came upon it alone, by a wood-side, and in the person of anacquaintance equally admired and respected! But what must have been herfeelings when, the moment after, and before she had commanded herselfsufficiently to do more than utter that single scream of terror, she saw abundle lying near the apparently dead man, saw blood staining one of hishands and the grass beside him, and recognized the bundle as the same shehad seen, not half an hour before, under the arm of Richard Compton!
If that unfortunate young man, on discovering the supposed extent of hismishap, had remembered the threat against the lawyer made but a littlewhile before to Kitty, how did that threat spring into her mind on seeingthe blood and recognizing the bundle! Murder, beyond a doubt, and DickCompton the murderer! The two had met, accidentally, had quarrelled, hadclenched, and in that clench her lover had forgotten all except hisjealousy and fear of the lawyer, and had killed him outright! Oh, here wastrouble, indeed, to which that of a few moments previous had been but themerest shadow! Dick would be arrested, tried, imprisoned, perhaps hung; and_she_ would be obliged to give the fatal evidence that must seal his doom!Terrible indeed--most terrible!--the thought culminating in such mentalsuffering that the poor girl scarcely knew whether she was treading uponearth or air, as she took one more look upon the motionless form, theblood, and the accusing bundle that lay beside--then turned her back with ashudder upon all, crossed the road and hastened over the fields beyond, bya bye-path that would lead her to the home of the murdered man--her errandnow, and her reason for haste, how different from what it had been whenwalking towards, the same destination but a few moments before!
The Coward: A Novel of Society and the Field in 1863 Page 4
