"Why, last night's upset in the village."

"Ah, yez. Id iss nod my beeznez."

"I didn't quite mean that. But there's no use in getting Miss Angle into a row, is there?"

"Dat iss zo. Vere do you leeve?"

"At the White House Farm."

"Vere de brize caddle are?"

Martin smiled. He had never before heard English spoken with a strong German accent. Somehow he a.s.sociated these resonant syllables with a certain indefinite stress which Mrs. Saumarez laid on a few words.

"Yes," he said. "My father's herd is well known."

Fritz's manner became genial.

"Zome tay you vill show me, yez?" he inquired.

"I'll be very pleased. And will you explain your car to me--the engine, I mean?"

"Komm now."

"Sorry, but I have an engagement."

There was plenty of time at Martin's disposal, but he did not want to loiter about The Elms that afternoon. This man was a paid servant who could hardly refuse to carry out any reasonable order, and it would have been awkward for Martin if Mrs. Saumarez asked him to give Fritz the sovereign she had intrusted to his keeping.

"All aright," agreed the chauffeur, whose strong, intellectual face was now altogether amiable; in fact, a white scar on his left cheek creased so curiously when he grinned that his aspect was almost comical. "We vill meed when all dis noise sdops, yez?" and he waved a hand toward the distant drone of the fair.

Thus began for Martin another strange friendship--a friendship destined to end so fantastically that if the manner of its close were foretold then and there by any prophet, the mere telling might have brought the seer to the madhouse.

CHAPTER IX

THE WILDCAT

It was nearly three o'clock when Martin re-entered the village. Outside the boxing booth a huge placard announced, in sprawling characters, that the first round of the boxing compet.i.tion would start punctually at 3 P.M. "Owing to the illness of Mr. George Pickering, deeply regretted,"

another referee would be appointed.

It cost the boy a pang to stride on. He would have dearly liked to watch the display of pugilism. He might have gone inside the tent for an hour and still kept his tryst with Mr. Herbert, but John Bolland's dour teaching had scored grooves in his consciousness not readily effaced.

The folly of last night must be atoned in some way, and he punished himself deliberately now by going straight home.

The house was only a little less thronged than the "Black Lion," so he made his way un.o.bserved to the great pile of dry bracken in which he hid books borrowed from the school library. Ten minutes later he was seated in the fork of a tree full thirty feet from the ground and consoling himself for loss of the reality by reading of a fight far more picturesque in detail--the Homeric combat between FitzJames and Roderick Dhu.

From his perch he could see the church clock. Shortly before the appointed hour he climbed down and surmounted the ridge which divided the Black Plantation from Thor ghyll. It was a rough pa.s.sage, naught save gray rock and flowering ling, or heather, growing so wild and bushy that in parts it overtopped his height. But Martin was sure-footed as a goat. Across the plateau and down the tree-clad slope on the other side he sped, until he reached a point whence he could obtain a comprehensive view of the winding glen.

On a stretch of turf by the side of the silvery beck that rushed so frantically from the moorland to the river, he spied a small garden tent. In front was a table spread with china and cakes, while a copper kettle, burnished so brightly that it shone like gold in the sunlight, was suspended over a spirit lamp. Mr. Herbert was there, and an elderly lady, his aunt, who acted as his housekeeper--also Elsie and her governess and two young gentlemen who "read" with the vicar during the long vacation. Evidently a country picnic was toward; Martin was at a loss to know why he had been invited.

Perhaps they wished him to guide them over the moor to some distant glen or to the early British camp two miles away. Sometimes a tourist wandering through Elmsdale called at the farm for information, and Martin would be dispatched with the inquirer to show the way.

It was a pity that Mr. Herbert had not mentioned his desire, as the daily reading of the Bible was due in an hour, and most certainly, to-day of all days, Martin must be punctual.

If his brain were busy, his eye was clear. He sprang from rock to rock like a chamois. Once he swung himself down a small precipice by the tough root of a whin. He knew the root was there, and had already tested its capabilities, but the gathering beneath watched him with dismay, for the feat looked hazardous in the extreme. In a couple of minutes he had descended two hundred feet of exceedingly rough going. He stopped at the beck to wash his hands and dry them on his handkerchief. Then he approached the group.

"Do you always descend the ghyll in that fashion, Martin?" cried the vicar.

"Yes, sir. It is the nearest way."

"A man might say that who fell out of a balloon."

"But I have been up and down there twenty times, sir."

"Well, well; my imaginary balloonist could make no such answer. Sit down and have some tea. Elsie, this is young Martin Bolland, of whom I have been telling you."

The girl smiled in a very friendly way and brought Martin a cup of tea and a plate of cakes. So he was a guest, and introduced by the vicar to his daughter! How kind this was of Mr. Herbert! How delighted Mrs.

Bolland would be when she heard of it, for, however strict her Nonconformity, the vicar was still a social power in the village, and second only to the Beckett-Smythes in the estimation of the parish.

At first poor Martin was tongue-tied. He answered in monosyllables when the vicar or Mrs. Johnson, the old lady, spoke to him; but to Elsie he said not a word. She, too, was at a loss how to interest him, until she noticed a book in his pocket. When told that it was Scott's poems she said pleasantly that a month ago she went with her father to a place called Greta Bridge and visited many of the scenes described in "Rokeby."

Unhappily, Martin had not read "Rokeby." He resolved to devour it at the first opportunity, but for the nonce it offered no conversational handle. He remained dumb, yet all the while he was comparing Elsie with Angle, and deciding privately that girls brought up as ladies in England were much nicer than those reared in the places which Angle named so glibly.

But his star was propitious that day. One of the young men happened to notice a spot where a large patch of heather had been sliced off the face of the moor.

He asked Mr. Herbert what use the farmers made of it.

"Nothing that I can recall," said the vicar, a man who, living in the country, knew little of its ways; "perhaps Martin can tell you."

"We make besoms of it, sir," was the ready reply, "but that s.p.a.ce has been cleared by the keepers so that the young grouse may have fresh green shoots to feed on."

Here was a topic on which he was crammed with information. His face grew animated, his eyes sparkled, the words came fast and were well chosen.

As he spoke, the purple moor, the black firs, the meadows, the corn land red with poppies, became peopled with fur and feather. On the hilltops the glorious black c.o.c.k, in the woods the dandy pheasant and swift pigeon, among the meadows and crops the whirring partridge, became actualities, present, but unseen. There were plenty of hares on the arable land and the rising ground; as for rabbits, they swarmed everywhere.

"This ghyll will be alive with them in little more than an hour," said Martin confidently. "I shouldn't be surprised, if we had a dog and put him among those whins, but half-a-dozen rabbits would bolt out in all directions."

"Please, can I be a little bow-wow?" cried Elsie. She sprang to her feet and ran toward the clump of gorse and bracken he had pointed out, imitating a dog's bark as she went.

"Take care of the thorns," shouted Martin, making after her more leisurely.

She paused on the verge of the tangled ma.s.s of vegetation and said, "Shoo!"

"That's no good," he laughed. "You must walk through and kick the thick clumps of gra.s.s--this way."

He plunged into the midst of the gorse. She followed. Not a rabbit budged.

"That's odd," he said, rustling the undergrowth vigorously. "There ought to be a lot here."