LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

which they were needed, the jacket sleeves, which impeded everything she did, to be shortened, and other tasks which it is needless to detail. And in that three days’ search she had come on so many things which she did not need at the moment, but which she knew might be of irreplaceable value, and which she must also try to secure from beast and bird and weather.

      And then the gardens. Already the weeds were rejoicing that the hoe had ceased to trouble them. They were beyond any possible effort from her; but on an impulse, one day, she had decided that she would at least save the patch of potatoes that Mr. Wilkes had been earthing-up on his last Saturday, and had spent the best part of the day in searching for a suitable tool before she could complete her labour.

      One afternoon, while she was engaged in retrieving the contents of one of her most desirable discoveries—a stout leather trunk, which had only burst on its under side, and containing a wealth of silk and linen garments, undamaged, except that a mouse had found them to be an ideal nesting-place—two men approached the church who did not walk openly down the road, as honest men should surely do, but came furtively through the ruined woods, among fallen trunks and half-uprooted trees that yet showed a valour of green leaves upon their skyward branches.

      They walked straight to the church, as men that had an assured object. The one who entered first was slim and rather short, young, and dressed with a surprising neatness, as though unaware of any change in the conditions of life around him. He carried a light sporting-rifle under his arm.

      He glanced round the empty church and whistled to attract the notice of any possible occupant.

      “Probably dead, or gone,” he remarked to his rearward companion, a fresh-coloured youth, who was rarely talkative. “But we’d better look thoroughly now we’re here. Tom was sure he saw them. And there’s been a fire outside not many days since.”

      Bill Horton said, “Ah,” and followed him up the church.

      Muriel had grown careless about locking the vestry door during the day. She was becoming used to solitude.

      Jack Tolley lifted the latch, and the two men gazed at a sight which left no doubt that they had found what they sought.

      “Here’s your chance, Bill, if you can’t get Bella. There’s one here that understands housekeeping. Ever seen so much flour in a church before? And here’s half a hundredweight of Brazil nuts. It’s like a harvest service.”

      Bill Horton said “Ah” again.

      Jack Tolley closed the door, and retreated down the church. “We’ve got to find them,” he said. “It’s not likely they’re far. But they might scare if they saw us.”

      He led the way to the Rector’s orchard. “Keeps a cow too,” he observed. “You’re in luck today, Bill.”

      Bill Horton said no more than before, but his fresh complexion was a shade deeper than usual.

      He knew well enough that he had no chance with Bella, and he had the desire for mating which is common to all healthy young animals.

      He was here with Jack because he liked him better than Rattray, and he hated Bellamy, but he hadn’t forgotten what they said…

      They lay for half an hour in the orchard grass, watching the churchyard path, and were then roused to alertness by a sound of furious barking in the road below.

      “That’s dogs,” said Bill, with more animation of voice than he had shown previously. He jumped the low hedge and ran down the field, followed by Jack Tolley at a more moderate pace. Jack did not approach anything, even a dog-fight, without circumspection—especially in such days as these.

      Chapter Twelve

      Muriel came up the road in excellent spirits, even more heavily loaded then usual, and with such articles as no woman, even an ex-Zulu missionary, can regard with indifference, especially one whose wardrobe was in the condition from which Muriel’s suffered.

      Even the dresses, of so little substance that they could have been concealed in a man’s hands, gave her more satisfaction than she would have cared to analyse, or why had she measured them against herself before she had chosen them for the parcel which she was making?

      She was walking as rapidly as she could—she tired less easily now than she had done three weeks ago—for there were heavy clouds coming from the direction of Cowley Thorn, and she was anxious to get ‘home’ before the storm should drench her plunder. Gumbo was trotting before her, equally impatient for his own reasons, thinking of the evening meal with the appetite of a young and healthy dog whose life had become an almost ceaseless rat hunt. He carried a salt cellar in his mouth, not because Muriel would have been unable to accommodate it in one of her ample pockets, but because it had become the custom for him to carry something, and there was nothing else on this occasion with which Muriel could content his urgency.

      They were clear of the village, and in sight of the church which they were approaching from the lower road, when a dog jumped up from the wayside ditch, where it had been occupied on some business best known to itself, and stood in the centre of the road, with a lifted tail and an air of dubious hesitation.

      Muriel recognized the dog. It was the liver-coloured mongrel that had growled at her from his interrupted meal in the cottage garden.

      Gumbo dropped the salt-cellar. The two dogs advanced slowly. Their noses touched. It is impossible to say how much was communicated between them. It is a thought which might bring some humility even to the colossal conceit of men that a dog may understand the methods of human intercourse far better than a man can understand those of a dog.

      But whatever passed it was a cause of instant antagonism. The dog that has taken to unmastered living will never tolerate those who are still content with a human servitude, and the ill-feeling is returned with even greater intensity.

      The two dogs backed from each other, growling deeply.

      There was the pause which often ends in one dog turning aside with an abstracted expression, as though occupied with other thoughts, or troubled by some uncertain recollection of a prior engagement: a movement which is commenced very slowly, but at a pace which increases as the distance widens.

      But the liver-coloured mongrel had no thought of retreating from an enemy less than half his size, and Gumbo, aware that he stood between his mistress and the forces of anarchy, was equally resolute.

      The rush of the bigger dog carried the terrier off his feet, and the two rolled together for some yards, a snarling, dust-hidden heap, from which they broke apart, with their positions reversed, Gumbo now facing his mistress, and the bigger dog between them.

      The terrier was shaken and breathless, but he had managed to avoid the grip of the white fangs which had sought his throat in the scuffle; he had also taken an instant advantage of opportunity when he had snapped at a hind paw as the heavier dog passed over him, and had assured that his opponent would continue the conflict with a limping leg.

      He had won the first round on points, but he badly lacked a referee who would call time and give him the minute’s rest that he needed.

      The big dog had no such intention. He came again with a rush that Gumbo dodged with difficulty, and the next moment the two were in a struggling heap again, with a flurry of snapping jaws, and a pandemonium of outcry, sinking to one rumbling growl as the big dog got the choking grip that it sought upon the throat of its enemy.

      Muriel might be an exponent of the gospel of peace, but she was not of the kind to stand aside from a conflict of this character.

      The stick she had picked up from the roadside was little help, as it broke the first time she applied it accurately; but it was unfortunate for the strange dog that, like Gumbo, he was still encumbered by his late owner’s collar.

      In Gumbo’s case the broad metal band which prevented his opponent’s teeth getting a firm hold beneath the throat may have saved his life in the extremity of the next three minutes, but the other collar offered an inviting grip for Muriel’s hands, which became a choking one as her fingers worked in beneath it.

      Bill

Скачать книгу