"When you send back the cow, you'll be told."

Mr. Stockwell scanned his notes rapidly.

"I'll put my clerks to work at this to-night," he said. "As I am a trustee, my partner will attend to-morrow to get your signature. Of course, you know you must be married before you make your will, or it will be invalid? Before I go, George, are you sure it is all over with you?"

"MacGregor says so. I suppose he knows."

"Yes, he knows, if any man does. Yet I can't believe it. It seems monstrous, incredible."

They gazed fixedly at each other. Of the two, the man of law was the more affected. Before either could speak again they heard Betsy's agonized cry:

"Oh, for G.o.d's sake, miss, don't tell me I may not be with him always!

I've done my best; I have, indeed. I'll give neither him nor you any trouble. Don't keep me away from him now, or I'll go mad!"

The lawyer, wondering what new frenzy possessed the woman who had struck down his friend, opened the door. He was confronted by a hospital nurse sent by Dr. MacGregor. She looked like a strong-minded person and was probably a stickler for the etiquette of the sick room. He took in the situation at a glance.

"There need be no difficulty, nurse, where Miss Thwaites is concerned,"

he said. "She is to be married to Mr. Pickering to-morrow, and as he has only a few days to live they should see as much of each other as possible. Any other arrangement would irritate your patient greatly, and be quite contrary to Dr. MacGregor's wishes, I am sure."

The nurse bowed, and Betsy sobbed as the secret that was no secret to her was revealed. None of the three realized that several men standing in the hall beneath, whose talk had been silenced by Betsy's frenzied exclamation, must have heard every word the lawyer uttered.

CHAPTER XI

FOR ONE, THE NIGHT; FOR ANOTHER, THE DAWN

So Elmsdale was given another thrill, and a lasting one. The Feast was ruined. Not a man or a woman had heart for enjoyment. If a child sought a penny, it was chided sharply and asked what it meant by gadding about "when poor George Pickerin' an' that la.s.s of his were in such trouble."

Martin heard the news while standing outside the boxing booth, waiting for the sparring compet.i.tion to commence. He went in, it is true, and saw some hard hitting, but the tent was nearly empty. When he and Jim Bates came out an hour later, Elmsdale was a place of mourning.

A series of exciting events, each crowding on its predecessor's heels as though some diabolical agency had resolved to disturb the community, had roused the hamlet from its torpor.

Five slow-moving years had pa.s.sed since the village had been stirred so deeply. Then it endured a fortnight's epidemic of suicide. A traveling tinker began the uncanny cycle. On a fine summer's day he was repairing his kettles on a corner of the green, when he was observed to leave his little handcart and to go into a neighboring wood. He did not return.

Search next day discovered him swaying from a branch of a tall tree, looking like some forlorn scarecrow suspended there by a practical joker.

The following morning a soldier on furlough, one of the very men who helped to cut down the tinker's body, went into a cow-house at the back of his mother's cottage and suspended himself from a rafter. An odd feature of this man's exit was that the rope had yielded so much that his feet rested on the ground. Before the hanging he had actually cut letters out of his red-cloth tunic and formed the word, "Farewell" in a semicircle on the stable floor. A girl soon afterwards selected the mill-dam for a consoling plunge; and, to crown all, the vicar, Mr.

Herbert's forerunner, having received a telegram announcing the failure of a company in which he had invested some money, opened his jugular vein with a sharp scissors. That these tragedies should happen within a fortnight in a community of less than three hundred people was enough to give a life-insurance actuary an attack of hysteria.

But each lacked the dramatic flavor attached to the ill-governed pa.s.sion of Betsy Thwaites and her fickle swain. Kitty was known to all in Elmsdale, Betsy to few, but George Pickering was a popular man throughout the whole countryside. It was sensation enough that one of his many amours should result in an episode more typical of Paris than of an English Sleepy Hollow. But the sequel--the marriage of this wealthy gentleman-farmer to a mere dairymaid, followed by his death from a wound inflicted by the bride-to-be--this was undiluted melodrama drawn from the repertoire of the Pet.i.t Guignol.

That night the story spread over England. A reporter from the _Messenger_ came to Elmsdale to glean the exact facts as to Mr.

Pickering's "accident." Owing to the peculiar circ.u.mstances, he, perforce, showed much discretion in compiling the story telegraphed to the Press a.s.sociation. Not even the use of that magic word "alleged"

would enable him to charge Betsy Thwaites with attempted murder, after the police had apparently withdrawn the accusation. But he contrived to retail the legend by throwing utter discredit on it, and the rest was plain sailing. Moreover, he was a smart young man. He pondered deeply after dispatching the message. He was employed on the staff of a local weekly newspaper, so his traveling allowance was limited to a third-cla.s.s return ticket and a shilling for "tea." Yet he decided to remain in Elmsdale at his own expense. The departure of the German Government agent for another horse-fair left a vacant bedroom at the "Black Lion." This he secured. He foresaw a golden harvest.

Luck favored him. Conversing with a village Solon in the bar, he caught a remark that "John Bolland's lad" would be an important witness at the inquest. Of course, he made inquiries and was favored with a full and accurate account of the wanderings of the farmer and his wife in London thirteen years earlier, together with their adoption of the baby which had literally fallen from the skies. To the country journalist, Fleet Street is the Mecca of his earthly pilgrimage, and St. Martin's Court, Ludgate Hill, was near enough to newspaperdom to be sacred ground. The very name of the boy smacked of "copy."

John Bolland, lumbering out of the stockyard at tea-time, encountered Dr. MacGregor. The farmer had been thinking hard while striding through his diminished cornfields, and crumbling ears of wheat, oats, and barley in his strong hands to ascertain the exact date when they would be ripe.

Already some of his neighbors were busy, but John was more anxious about the condition of the straw than the forwardness of the grain; moreover, men and women did not work so well during feast-time. Next week he would obtain full measure for his money.

"I reckon Martin'll soon be fit?" he said.

The doctor nodded.

"He's a bright lad, yon?" went on the farmer.

"Yes. What are you going to make of him?"

Dr. MacGregor knew the ways of Elmsdale folk. They required leading up to a subject by judicious questioning. Rarely would they unburden their minds by direct statements.

"That's what's worryin' me," said John slowly. "What d'ye think yersen, docthor?"

"It is hard to say. It all hinges on what you intend doing for him, Bolland. He is not your son. If he has to depend on his own resources when he's a man, teach him a useful trade. No matter how able he may be, that will never come amiss."

The farmer gazed around. As men counted in that locality, he was rich, not in hard cash, but in lands, stock, and tenements. His expenses did not grow proportionately with his earnings. He ate and dressed and economized now as on the day when Martha and he faced the world together, with the White House and its small meadows their only belongings. In a few years the produce of his shorthorn herd alone would bring in hundreds annually, and his Cleveland bays were noted throughout the county.

He took the doctor's hint.

"I've nayther chick nor child but Martin," he said. "When Martha an' me are gone te t' Lord, all that we hev'll be Martin's. That's settled lang syne. I med me will four years agone last Easter."

There was something behind this, and MacGregor probed again.

"Isn't he cut out for a farmer?"

"I hae me doots," was the cautious answer.

The doctor waited, so John continued.

"I was sair set on t' lad being a minister. But I judge it's not t'

Lord's will. He's of a rovin' stock, I fancy. When he's a man, Elmsdale won't be big eneuf te hold him. He cooms frae Lunnon, an' te Lunnon he'll gang. It's in his fece. Lunnon's a bad plece for a youngster whe kens nowt but t' ways o' moor folk, docthor."

Then the other laughed.

"In a word, Bolland, you have made up your mind, and want me to agree with you. Of course, if Martin succeeds you, and you have read his character aright, there is but one line open. Send him to a good school, leave the choice of a profession to his more cultivated mind, and tie up your property so that it cannot be sold and wasted in a young man's folly. When he is forty he may be glad to come back to Elmsdale and give thanks for your foresight on his bended knees. In any event, a little extra book lore will make him none the worse stock-raiser. Eh, is that what you think?"

"You're a sound man, docthor. There's times I wunner hoo it happens ye cling te sike nonsense as that mad Dutchman----"

MacGregor laughed again, and nudged his groom's arm as a signal to drive on. He favored neither church nor chapel, but claimed a devoted adherence to the doctrines of Emanuel Swedenborg, thus forming a sect unto himself. There was not a Swedenborgian temple within a hundred miles. Mayhap the doctor's theological views had a geographical foundation.

The farmer lumbered across the street and took a corner of the crowded tea-table. Mrs. Summersgill was entertaining the company with a description of George Pickering's estate.

"It's a meracle, that's what it is!" she exclaimed. "Te think of Betsy Thwaites livin' i' style in yon fine hoos! There's a revenue o' trees quarther of a mile long, an' my husband sez t' high-lyin' land grows t'

best wuts (oats) i' t' county. An' she's got it by a prod wi' a carving-knife, while a poor body like me hez te scrat sae hard for a livin' that me fingers are worn te t' bone!"

Mrs. Summersgill weighed sixteen stone, but she was heedless of satire.

Her eye fell on Martin, eating silently, but well.