"Let us not go," urged Martin. "They will do very well without us, I am sure."

But John's only answer was to pull on his driving gloves. He antic.i.p.ated some satisfaction from the committee meeting; he suspected, indeed, that he would be asked to take the chair at it, and, like most men, he was not averse to the exercise of a little power in a small corner.

"We must go," he said. "I have important suggestions to make, especially concerning the volunteers. A sham fight on Scorhill would be a happy thought. We'll drive fast, and only be twenty minutes late."

A dog-cart had been waiting half an hour, and soon the brothers quickly whirled down Red House avenue. A groom dropped from behind and opened the gate; then it was all his agility could accomplish to scramble into his seat again as a fine horse, swinging along at twenty miles an hour, trotted towards Chagford.

CHAPTER XV

A BATTLE

Silent and motionless sat Blanchard, on the fringe of a bank at the coppice edge. He watched the stars move onward and the shadows cast by moonlight creep from west to north, from north to east. Hawthorn scented the night and stood like ma.s.ses of virgin silver under the moon; from the Red House 'owl tree'--a pollarded elm, sacred to the wise bird--came mewing of brown owls; and once a white one struck, swift as a streak of feathered moonlight, on the copse edge, and pa.s.sed so near to Blanchard that he saw the wretched shrew-mouse in its talons. "'Tis for the young birds somewheers," he thought; "an' so they'll thrive an' turn out braave owlets come bimebye; but the li'l, squeakin', blind shrews, what'll they do when no mother comes home-along to 'em?"

He mused drearily upon this theme, but suddenly started, for there came the echo of slow steps in the underwood behind him. They sank into silence and set Will wondering as to what they might mean. Then another sound, that of a galloping horse and the crisp ring of wheels, reached him, and, believing that John Grimbal was come, he strung himself to the matter in hand. But the vehicle did not stop. A flash of yellow light leapt through the distance as a mail-cart rattled past upon its way to Moreton. This circ.u.mstance told Will the hour and he knew that his vigil could not be much longer protracted.

Then death stalked abroad again, but this time in a form that awoke the watcher's deep-rooted instincts, took him clean out of himself, and angered him to pa.s.sion, not in his own cause but another's. There came the sudden scream of a trapped hare,--that sound where terror and agony mingle in a cry half human,--and so still was the hour that Blanchard heard the beast's struggles though it was fifty yards distant. A hare in a trap at any season meant a poacher--a hated enemy of society in Blanchard's mind; and his instant thought was to bring the rascal to justice if he could. Now the recent footfall was explained and Will doubted not that the cruel cry which had scattered his reveries would quickly attract some hidden man responsible for it. The hare was caught by a wire set in a run at the edge of the wood, and now Blanchard crawled along on his stomach to within ten yards of the tragedy, and there waited under the shadow of a white-thorn at the edge of the woods.

Within two minutes the bushes parted and, where the foliage of a young silver birch showered above lesser brushwood, a man with a small head and huge shoulders appeared. Seeing no danger he crept into the open, lifted his head to the moon, and revealed the person and features of Sam Bonus, the labourer with whom Will had quarrelled in times long past.

Here, then, right ahead of him, appeared such a battle as Blanchard had desired, but with another foe than he antic.i.p.ated. That accident mattered nothing, however. Will only saw a poacher, and to settle the business of such an one out of hand if possible was, in his judgment, a definite duty to be undertaken by every true man at any moment when opportunity offered.

He walked suddenly from shadow and stood within three yards of the robber as Bonus raised the b.u.t.t of his gun to kill the shrieking beast at his feet.

"You! An' red-handed, by G.o.d! I knawed 't was no lies they told of 'e."

The other started and turned and saw who stood against him.

"Blanchard, is it? An' what be you doin' here? Come for same reason, p'r'aps?"

"I'd make you pay, if 't was awnly for sayin' that! I'm a man to steal others' fur out of season, ban't I? But I doan't have no words wi' the likes o' you. I've took you fair an' square, anyways, an' will just ax if you be comin' wi'out a fuss, or am I to make 'e?"

The other snarled.

"You--you come a yard nearer an' I'll blaw your d.a.m.ned head--"

But the threat was left unfinished, and its execution failed, for Will had been taught to take an armed man in his early days on the river, and had seen an old hand capture more than one desperate character. He knew that instantaneous action might get him within the muzzle of the gun and out of danger, and while Bonus spoke, he flew straight upon him with such unexpected celerity that Sam had no time to accomplish his purpose.

He came down heavily with Blanchard on top of him, and his weapon fell from his hand. But the poacher was not done with. As they lay struggling, he found his foot clear and managed to kick Will twice on the leg above the knee. Then Blanchard, hanging like a dog to his foe, freed an arm, and hit hard more than once into Sam's face. A blow on the nose brought red blood that spurted over both men black as ink under the moonlight.

It was not long before they broke away and rose from their first struggle on the ground, but Bonus finally got to his knees, then to his feet, and Will, as he did the same, knew by a sudden twinge in his leg that if the poacher made off it must now be beyond his power to follow.

"No odds," he gasped, answering his thought aloud, while they wrestled.

"If you've brawk me somewheers 't is no matter, for you 'm marked all right, an' them squinting eyes of yourn'll be blacker 'n sloes come marnin'."

This obvious truth infuriated Bonus. He did not attempt to depart, but, catching sight of his gun, made a tremendous effort to reach it. The other saw this aim and exerted his strength in an opposite direction.

They fought in silence awhile--growled and cursed, sweated and swayed, stamped and slipped and dripped blood under the dewy and hawthorn-scented night. Bonus used all his strength to reach the gun; Will sacrificed everything to his hold. He suffered the greater punishment for a while, because Sam fought with all his limbs, like a beast; but presently Blanchard threw the poacher heavily, and again they came down together, this time almost on the wretched beast that still struggled, held by the wire at hand. It had dragged the fur off its leg, and white nerve fibres, torn bare, glimmered in the red flesh under the moon.

Both fighters were now growing weaker, and each knew that a few minutes more must decide the fortune of the battle. Bonus still fought for the gun, and now his weight began to tell. Then, as he got within reach, and stretched hand to grasp it, Blanchard, instead of dragging against him, threw all his force in the same direction, and Sam was shot clean over the gun. This time they twisted and Will fell underneath. Both simultaneously thrust a hand for the weapon; both gripped it, and then exerted their strength for possession. Will meant using it as a club if fate was kind; the other man, rating his own life at nothing, and, believing that he bore Blanchard the grudge of his own ruin, intended, at that red-hot moment, to keep his word and blow the other's brains out if he got a chance to do so.

Then, unheard by the combatants, a distant gate was thrown open, two brilliant yellow discs of fire shone along the avenue below, and John Grimbal returned to his home. Suddenly, seeing figures fighting furiously on the edge of the hill not fifty yards away, he pulled up, and a din of conflict sounded in his ears as the rattle of hoof and wheel and harness ceased. Leaping down he ran to the scene of the conflict as fast as possible, but it was ended before he arrived. A gun suddenly exploded and flashed a red-hot tongue of flame across the night. A hundred echoes caught the detonation and as the discharge reverberated along the stony hills to Fingle Gorge, Will Blanchard staggered backwards and fell in a heap, while the poacher reeled, then steadied himself, and vanished under the woods.

"Bring a lamp," shouted Grimbal, and a moment later his groom obeyed; but the fallen man was sitting up by the time John reached him, and the gun that had exploded was at his feet.

"You 'm tu late by half a second," he gasped. "I fired myself when I seed the muzzle clear. Poachin' he was, but the man 's marked all right.

Send p'liceman for Sam Bonus to-morrer, an' I lay you'll find a picter."

"Blanchard!"

"Ess fay, an' no harm done 'cept a stiff leg. Best to knock thicky poor twoad on the head. I heard the scream of un and comed along an' waited an' catched my gen'leman in the act."

The groom held a light to the mangled hare.

"Scat it on the head," said Will, "then give me a hand."

He was helped to his feet; the servant went on before with the lamp, and Blanchard, finding himself able to walk without difficulty, proceeded, slowly supporting himself by the poacher's gun.

Grimbal waited for him to speak and presently he did so.

"Things falls out so different in this maze of a world from what man may count on."

"How came it that you were here?"

"Blamed if I can tell 'e till I gather my wits together. 'Pears half a century or so since I comed; yet ban't above two hour agone."

"You didn't come to see Sam Bonus, I suppose?"

"No fay! Never a man farther from my thought than him when I seed un poke up his carrot head under the moon. I was 'pon my awn affairs an'

comed to see you. I wanted straight speech an' straight hitting; an' I got 'em, for that matter. An' fightin' 's gude for the blood, I reckon--anyway for my fashion blood."

"You came to fight me, then?"

"I did--if I could make 'e fight."

"With that gun?"

"With nought but a savage heart an' my two fistes. The gun belongs to Sam Bonus. Leastways it did, but 't is mine now--or yours, as the party most wronged."

"Come this way and drink a drop of brandy before you go home. Glad you had some fighting as you wanted it so bad. I know what it feels like to be that way, too. But there wouldn't have been blows between us. My mind was made up. I wrote to Plymouth this afternoon. I wrote, and an hour later decided not to post the letter. I've changed my intentions altogether, because the point begins to appear in a new light. I'm sorry for a good few things that have happened of late years."

Will breathed hard a moment; then he spoke slowly and not without more emotion than his words indicated.

"That's straight speech--if you mean it. I never knawed how 't was that a sportsman, same as you be, could keep rakin' awver a job an' drive a plain chap o' the soil like me into h.e.l.l for what I done ten year agone."

"Let the past go. Forget it; banish it for all time as far as you have the power. Blame must be buried both sides. Here's the letter upon my desk. I'll burn it, and I'll try to burn the memory often years with it.

Your road's clear for me."

"Thank you," said Blanchard, very slowly. "I lay I'll never hear no better news than that on this airth. Now I'm free--free to do how I please, free to do it undriven."