"Good-night, Martin--dear!" she cried.

He did not answer. There was some delay. Evidently she had not been missed.

"Are you there?" She was impatient of his continued coldness.

"Yes."

"Then why don't you speak, silly?"

The door opened with the clanking of a chain. There was a woman's startled cry as the inner light fell on Angle. Then he turned.

Not until he reached the "Black Lion" and its well-lighted area did he realize that he was coatless and hatless. Jim Bates had vanished with both of these necessary articles. Well, in for a penny, in for a pound!

There would be a fearful row, and the thrashing would be the same in any case.

He avoided the crowd, keeping to the darker side of the street. A policeman had just come out of the inn and was telling the people to go away. All the village seemed to have gathered during the few minutes which had elapsed since the tragedy took place. He felt strangely sorry for Betsy Thwaites. Would she be locked up, handcuffed, with chains on her ankles? What would they do with the knife? Why should she want to kill Mr. Pickering? Wouldn't he marry her? Even so, that was no reason he should be stabbed. Where did she stick him? Did he quiver like Absalom when Joab thrust the darts into his heart?

At last he ran up the slight incline leading to the White House; there was a light in the front kitchen. For one awful moment he paused, with a finger on the sneck; then he pressed the latch and entered.

John Bolland, grim as a stone gargoyle, wearing his Sunday coat and old-fashioned tall hat, was leaning against the ma.s.sive chimneypiece.

Mrs. Bolland, with bonnet awry, was seated. She had been crying. A frightened kitchenmaid peeped through the pa.s.sage leading to the back of the house when the door opened to admit the truant. Then she vanished.

There was a period of chill silence while Martin closed the door. He turned and faced the elderly couple, and John Bolland spoke:

"So ye've coom yam, eh?"

"Yes, sir."

"An' at a nice time, too. Afther half-past ten! An hour sen yer m.u.t.h.e.r an' me searched high and low for ye. Where hev ye bin? Tell t' truth, ye young scamp. Every lie'll mean more skin off your back."

Mrs. Bolland, drying her eyes, now that Martin had returned, noticed his disheveled condition. His face was white as his shirt, and both were smeared with blood. A wave of new alarm paled her florid cheeks. She ran to him.

"For mercy's sake, boy, what hev ye bin doin'? Are ye hurt?"

"No, mother, not hurt. I fought Frank Beckett-Smythe. That is all."

"T' squire's son. Why on earth----"

"Go to bed, Martha," said John, picking up a riding whip. But Mrs.

Bolland's sympathies discerned a deeper reason for Martin's escapade than a mere boyish frolic which deserved a thrashing. He was unnaturally calm. Something out of the common had happened. He did not flinch at the sight of the whip.

"John," she said sternly, "ye shan't touch him t'-night."

"Stand aside, Martha. If all my good teachin' is of no avail----"

"Mebbe t' lad's fair sick o' yer good teachin'. You lay a hand on him at yer peril. If ye do, I don't bide i' t' house this night!"

Never before, during thirty years of married life, had Martha Bolland defied her husband. He glowered with anger and amazement.

"Would ye revile the Word te shield that sp.a.w.n o' Satan?" he roared.

"Get away, woman, lest I do thee an injury."

But his wife's temper was fierce as his own when roused. She was a Meynell, and there have been Meynells in Yorkshire as long as any Bollands.

"Tak' yer threats te those who heed 'em," she retorted bitterly. "D'ye think folk will stand by an' let ye raise yer hand te me?... David, William, Mary, coom here an' hold yer master. He's like te have a fit wi' pa.s.sion."

There was a shuffling in the pa.s.sage. The men servants, such as happened to be in the house, came awkwardly at their mistress's cry. The farmer stood spellbound. What devil possessed the household that his authority should be set at naught thus openly?

It was a thrilling moment, but Martin solved the difficulty. He wrenched himself free of Mrs. Bolland's protecting arms.

"Father, mother!" he cried. "Don't quarrel on my account. If I must be beaten, I don't care. I'll take all I get. But it's only fair that I should say why I was not home earlier."

Now, John Bolland, notwithstanding his dealing in the matter of the pedigree cow, prided himself on his sense of justice. Indeed, the man who does the gravest injury to his fellows is often cursed with a narrow-minded certainty of his own righteousness. Moreover, this matter had gone beyond instant adjustment by the unsparing use of a whip. His wife, his servants, were arrayed against him. By the Lord, they should rue it!

"Aye," he said grimly. "Tell your m.u.t.h.e.r why you've been actin' t'

blackguard. Mebbe she'll understand."

Mrs. Bolland had the sense to pa.s.s this taunt unheeded. Her heart was quailing already at her temerity.

"Angle Saumarez came out without her mother," said Martin. "Mrs.

Saumarez is ill. I thought it best to remain with her and take her home again. Frank Beckett-Smythe joined us, and he--he--insulted her, in a way. So I fought him, and beat him, too. And then George Pickering was murdered----"

"What?"

Bolland dropped the whip on the table. His wife sank into a chair with a cry of alarm. The plowmen and maids ventured farther into the room. Even the farmer's relentless jaw fell at this terrific announcement.

"Yes, it is quite true. Frank and I fought in the yard of the 'Black Lion.' George Pickering and Kitty Thwaites went down the garden--at least, so I was told. I didn't see them. But, suddenly, Kitty came screaming along the path, and after her a woman waving a long knife in the air. Kitty called her 'Betsy,' and said she had killed George Pickering. She said so herself. I heard her. Then some men came with a light and caught hold of Betsy. She was going to stab Kitty, too, I think; and Jim Bates ran away with my coat and hat, which he was holding."

The effect of such a narration on a gathering of villagers, law-abiding folk who lived in a quiet nook like Elmsdale, was absolutely paralyzing.

John Bolland was the first to recover himself. A man of few ideas, he could not adjust his mental balance with sufficient nicety to see that the tragedy itself in no wise condoned Martin's offense.

"Are ye sure of what ye're sayin', lad?" he demanded, though indeed he felt it was absurd to imagine that such a tale would be invented as a mere excuse.

"Quite sure, sir. If you walk down to the 'Black Lion,' you'll see all the people standing round the hotel and the police keeping them back."

"Well, well, I'll gan this minit. George Pickerin' was no friend o'

mine, but I'm grieved te hear o' sike deeds as these in oor village. I was maist angered wi' you on yer m.u.t.h.e.r's account. She was grievin' so when we failed te find ye. She thowt sure you were runned over or drownded i' t' beck."

This was meant as a graceful apology to his wife, and was taken in that spirit. Never before had he made such a concession.

"Here's yer stick, John," she said. "Hurry and find out what's happened.

Poor George! I wish my tongue hadn't run so fast t' last time I seed him."

Bolland and the other men hastened away, and Martin was called on to recount the sensational episode, with every detail known to him, for the benefit of the household. No one paid heed to the boy's own adventures. All ears were for the vengeance taken by Betsy Thwaites on the man who jilted her. Even to minds blunted almost to callousness, the _crime pa.s.sionel_ had a vivid, an entrancing interest. The women were quick to see its motive, a pa.s.sive endurance stung to sudden frenzy by the knowledge that the faithless lover was pursuing the younger sister.

But how did Betsy Thwaites, who lived in far-off Hereford, learn that George Pickering was "making up" to Kitty? The affair was of recent growth. Indeed, none of those present was aware that Pickering and the pretty maid at the "Black Lion" were so much as acquainted with each other. And where did Betsy spring from? She could not have been staying in the village, or someone aware of her history must have seen her. Did Kitty know she was there? If so, how foolish of the younger woman to be out gallivanting in the moonlight with Pickering.

The whole story was fraught with deepest mystery. Martin could not answer one-tenth of the questions put to him. Boy-like, he felt himself somewhat of a hero, until he remembered Angle's glee at the "good luck"

of the occurrence--how she would save herself from blame by telling Miss Walker and Franoise "all about it."

He flushed deeply. He wished now that Bolland had given him a hiding before he blurted out his news.