Kitabı oku: «Trevlyn Hold», sayfa 21

CHAPTER XXXVI
THE FIRE

There is a terror which shakes man's equanimity to its foundation—and that terror fell upon Trevlyn Hold. At the evening hour its inmates were sitting in idleness; the servants gossiping quietly in the kitchen, the girls lingering over the fire in the drawing-room; when those terrible sounds disturbed them. With a simultaneous movement, all flew to the hall, only to see Mr. Chattaway leaping down the stairs, followed by his wife and Miss Diana Trevlyn.

"What is it? What is the matter?"

"The rick-yard is on fire!"

None knew who answered. It was not Mr. Chattaway's voice; it was not their mother's; it did not sound like Miss Diana's. A startled pause, and they ran out to the rick-yard, a terrified group. Little Edith Chattaway, a most excitable girl, fell into hysterics, and added to the confusion of the scene.

The blaze was shooting upwards, and men were coming from the out-buildings, giving vent to their dismay in various exclamations. One voice was heard distinctly above all the rest—that of Miss Diana Trevlyn.

"Who has done this? It must have been purposely set on fire."

She turned sharply on the group of servants as she spoke, as if suspecting one of them. The blaze fell on their alarmed faces, and they visibly recoiled; not from any consciousness of guilt, but from the general sense of fear which lay upon all. One of the grooms spoke impulsively.

"I heard voices not a minute ago in the rick-yard," he cried. "I was going across the top there to fetch a bucket of water from the pump, and heard 'em talking. One was a woman's. I saw a light, too."

The women-servants were grouped together, staring helplessly at the blaze. Miss Diana directed her attention particularly to them: she possessed a ready perception, and detected such unmistakable signs of terror in the face of one of them, that she drew a rapid conclusion. It was not the expression of general alarm, seen on the countenance of the rest; but a lively, conscious terror. The girl endeavoured to draw behind, out of sight of Miss Diana.

Miss Diana laid her hand upon her. It was Bridget, the kitchenmaid. "You know something of this!"

Bridget burst into tears. A more complete picture of helpless fear than she presented at that moment could not well be drawn. In her apron was something hidden.

"What have you got there?" sharply continued Miss Diana, whose thoughts may have flown to incendiary adjuncts.

Bridget, unable to speak, turned down the apron and disclosed a little black puppy, which began to whine. There was nothing very guilty about that.

"Were you in the rick-yard?" questioned Miss Diana; "was it your voice Sam heard?" And Bridget was too frightened to deny it.

"Then, what were you doing? What brought you in the rick-yard at all?"

Mrs. Chattaway, timid Mrs. Chattaway, trembling almost as much as Bridget, but who had compassion for every one in distress, came to the rescue. "Don't, Diana," she said. "I am sure Bridget is too honest a girl to have taken part in anything so dreadful as this. The rick may have got heated and taken fire spontaneously."

"No, Madam, I'd die before I'd do such a thing," sobbed Bridget, responding to the kindness. "If I was in the rick-yard, I wasn't doing no harm—and I'm sure I'd rather have went a hundred miles the other way if I'd thought what was going to happen. I turned sick with fright when I saw the flame burst out."

"Was it you who screamed?" inquired Miss Diana.

"I did scream, ma'am. I couldn't help it."

"Diana," whispered Mrs. Chattaway, "you may see she's innocent."

"Yes, most likely; but there's something behind for all that," replied Miss Diana, decisively. "Bridget, I mean to come to the bottom of this business, and the sooner you explain it, the less trouble you'll get into. I ask what took you to the rick-yard?"

"It wasn't no harm, ma'am, as Madam says," sobbed Bridget, evidently very unwilling to enter on the explanation. "I never did no harm in going there, nor thought none."

"Then it is the more easily told," responded Miss Diana. "Do you hear me? What business took you to the rick-yard, and who were you talking to?"

There appeared to be no help for it; Bridget had felt this from the first; she should have to confess to her rustic admirer's stolen visit. And Bridget, whilst liking him in her heart, was intensely ashamed of him, from his being so much younger than herself.

"Ma'am, I only came into it for a minute to speak to a young boy; my cousin, Jim Sanders. Hatch came into the kitchen and said Jim wanted to see me, and I came out. That's all—if it was the last word I had to speak," she added, with a burst of grief.

"And what did Jim Sanders want with you?" pursued Miss Diana, sternly.

"It was to show me this puppy," returned Bridget, not choosing to confess that the small animal was brought as a present. "Jim seemed proud of it, ma'am, and brought it up for me to see."

A very innocent confession; plausible also; and Miss Diana saw no reason for disbelieving it. But she was one who liked to be on the sure side, and when corroborative testimony was to be had, did not allow it to escape her. "One of you find Hatch," she said, addressing the maids.

Hatch was found with the men-servants and labourers, who were tumbling over each other in their endeavours to carry water to the rick under the frantic directions of their master. He came up to Miss Diana.

"Did you go into the kitchen, and tell Bridget Jim Sanders wanted her in the rick-yard?" she questioned.

I think it has been mentioned once before that this man, Hatch, was too simple to answer anything but the straightforward truth. He replied that he did so; had been called to by Jim Sanders as he was passing along the rick-yard near the stables, who asked him to go to the house and send out Bridget.

"Did he say what he wanted with her?" continued Miss Diana.

"Not to me," replied Hatch. "It ain't nothing new for that there boy to come up and ask for Bridget, ma'am. He's always coming up for her, Jim is. They be cousins."

A well-meant speech, no doubt, on Hatch's part; but Bridget would have liked to box his ears for it there and then. Miss Diana, sufficiently large-hearted, saw no reason to object to Mr. Jim's visits, provided they were paid at proper times and seasons, when the girl was not at her work. "Was any one with Jim Sanders?" she asked.

"Not as I saw, ma'am. As I was coming back after telling Bridget, I see Jim a-waiting there, alone. He–"

"How could you see him? Was it not too dark?" interrupted Miss Diana.

"Not then. Bridget kep' him waiting ever so long afore she came out. Jim must a' been a good half-hour altogether in the yard; 'twas that, I know, from the time he called me till the blaze burst out. But Jim might have went away afore that," added Hatch, reflectively.

"That's all, Hatch; make haste back again," said Miss Diana. "Now, Bridget, was Jim Sanders in the yard when the flames broke out, or was he not?"

"Yes, ma'am, he was there."

"Then if any suspicious characters got into the rick-yard, he would no doubt have seen them," thought Miss Diana, to herself. "Do you know who did set it on fire?" she impatiently asked.

Bridget's face, which had regained some of its colour, grew white again. Should she dare to tell what she had heard about Rupert? "I did not see it done," she gasped.

"Come, Bridget, this will not do," cried Miss Diana, noting the signs. "There's more behind, I see. Where's Jim Sanders?"

She looked around as she spoke but Jim was certainly not in sight. "Do you know where he is?" she sharply resumed.

Instead of answering, Bridget was taken with a fresh fit of shivering. It amazed Miss Diana considerably.

"Did Jim do it?" she sharply asked.

"No, no," answered Bridget. "When I got to Jim he had somehow lost the puppy"—glancing down at her apron—"and we had to look about for it. It was just in the minute he found it that the flames broke forth. Jim was showing of it to me, ma'am, and started like anything when I shrieked out."

"And what has become of Jim?"

"I don't know," sobbed Bridget. "Jim seemed like one dazed when he turned and saw the blaze. He stood a minute looking at it, and I could see his face turn all of a fright; and then he flung the puppy into my arms and scrambled off over the palings, never speaking a word."

Miss Diana paused. There was something suspicious in Jim's making off in the manner described; it struck her so at once. On the other hand she had known Jim from his infancy—known him to be harmless and inoffensive.

"An honest lad would have remained to see what assistance he could render towards putting it out, not have run off in that cowardly way," spoke Miss Diana. "I don't like the look of this."

Bridget made no reply. She was beginning to wish the ground would open and swallow her up for a convenient half-hour; wished Jim Sanders had been buried also before he had brought this trouble upon her. Miss Diana, Madam, and the young ladies were surrounding her; the maid-servants began to edge away suspiciously; even Edith had dismissed her hysterics to stare at Bridget.

Cris Chattaway came leaping past them. Cris, who had been leisurely making his way to the Hold when the flames broke out, had just come up, and after a short conference with his father, was now running to the stables. "You are a fleet horseman, Cris," Mr. Chattaway had said to him: "get the engines here from Barmester." And Cris was hastening to mount a horse, and ride away on the errand.

Mrs. Chattaway caught his arm as he passed. "Oh, Cris, this is dreadful! What can have caused it?"

"What?" returned Cris, in savage tones—not, however, meant for his mother, but induced by the subject. "Don't you know what has caused it? He ought to swing for it, the felon!"

Mrs. Chattaway in her surprise connected his words with what she had just been listening to. "Cris!—do you mean–It never could have been Jim Sanders!"

"Jim Sanders!" slightingly spoke Cris. "What should have put Jim Sanders into your head, mother? No; it was your favoured nephew, Rupert Trevlyn!"

Mrs. Chattaway broke into a cry as the words came from his lips. Maude started a step forward, her face full of indignant protestation; and Miss Diana imperiously demanded what he meant.

"Don't stop me," said Cris. "Rupert Trevlyn was in the yard with a torch just before it broke out, and he must have set it on fire."

"It can't be, Cris!" exclaimed Mrs. Chattaway, in accents of intense pain, arresting her son as he was speeding away. "Who says this?"

Cris twisted himself from her. "I can't stop, mother, I say. I am going for the engines. You had better ask my father; it was he told me. It's true enough. Who would do it, except Rupert?"

The shaft lanced at Rupert struck to the heart of Mrs. Chattaway; unpleasantly on the ear of Miss Diana Trevlyn: was anything but agreeable to the women-servants. Rupert was liked in the household, Cris hated. One of the latter spoke up in her zeal.

"It's well to try to throw it off the shoulders of Jim Sanders on to Mr. Rupert! Jim Sanders–"

"And what have you to say agin' Jim Sanders?" interrupted Bridget, fearing, it may be, that the crime should be fastened on him. "Perhaps if I had spoken my mind, I could have told it was Mr. Rupert as well as others could; perhaps Jim Sanders could have told it, too. At any rate, it wasn't–"

"What is that, Bridget?"

The quiet but imperative interruption came from Miss Diana. Excitement was overpowering Bridget. "It was Mr. Rupert, ma'am; Jim saw him fire it."

"Diana! Diana! I feel ill," gasped Mrs. Chattaway, in faint tones. "Let me go to him; I cannot breathe under this suspense."

She meant her husband. Pressing across the crowded rick-yard—for people, aroused by the sight of the flames, were coming up now in numbers—she succeeded in reaching Mr. Chattaway. Maude, scared to death, followed her closely. She caught him just as he had taken a bucket of water to hand on to some one standing next him in the line, causing him to spill it. Mr. Chattaway turned with a passionate word.

"What do you want here?" he roughly asked, although he saw it was his wife.

"James, tell me," she whispered. "I felt sick with suspense, and could not wait. What did Cris mean by saying it was Rupert?"

"There's not a shadow of doubt that it was Rupert," answered Mr. Chattaway. "He has done it out of revenge."

"Revenge for what?"

"For the horsewhipping I gave him. When I joined you upstairs just now, I came straight from it. I horsewhipped him on this very spot," continued Mr. Chattaway, as if it afforded him satisfaction to repeat the avowal. "He had a torch with him, and I—like a fool—left it with him, never thinking of consequences, or that he might use it in the service of felony. He must have fired the rick in revenge."

Mrs. Chattaway had been gradually drawing away from the heat of the blaze; from the line formed to pass buckets for water on to the flames, which crackled and roared on high; from the crowd and confusion prevailing around the spot. Mr. Chattaway had drawn with her, leaving his place in the line to be filled by another. She fell against a distant rick, sick unto death.

"Oh, James! Why did you horsewhip him? What had he done?"

"I horsewhipped him for insolence; for bearding me to my face. I bade him tell me who let him in last night when he returned home, and he set me at defiance by refusing to tell. One of my servants must be a traitor, and Rupert is screening him."

A great cry escaped her. "Oh, what have you done? It was I who let him in."

"You!" foamed Mr. Chattaway. "It is not true," he added, the next moment. "You are striving also to deceive me—to defend him."

"It is true," she answered. "I saw him come to the house from my dressing-room window, and I went down the back-stairs and opened the door for him. If he refused to betray me, it was done in good feeling, out of love for me, lest you should reproach me. And you have horsewhipped him for it!—you have goaded him on to this crime! Oh, Rupert! my darling Rupert!"

Mr. Chattaway turned impatiently away; he had no time to waste on sentiment when his ricks were burning. His wife detained him.

"It has been a wretched mistake altogether, James," she whispered. "Say you will forgive him—forgive him for my sake!"

"Forgive him!" repeated Mr. Chattaway, his voice assuming quite a hissing angry sound. "Forgive this? Never. I'll prosecute him to the extremity of the law; I'll try hard to get him condemned to penal servitude. Forgive this! You are out of your mind, Madam Chattaway."

Her breath was coming shortly, her voice rose amidst sobs, and she entwined her arms about him caressingly, imploringly, in her agony of distress and terror.

"For my sake, my husband! It would kill me to see it brought home to him. He must have been overcome by a fit of the Trevlyn temper. Oh, James! forgive him for my sake."

"I never will," deliberately replied Mr. Chattaway. "I tell you that I will prosecute him to the utmost limit of the law; I swear it. In an hour's time from this he shall be in custody."

He broke from her; she staggered against the rick, and but for Maude might have fallen. Poor Maude, who had stood and listened, her face turning to stone, her heart to despair.

CHAPTER XXXVII
A NIGHT SCENE

Alas for the Trevlyn temper! How many times has the regret to be repeated! Were the world filled with lamentations for the unhappy state of mind to which some of its mortals give way, they could not atone for the ill inflicted. It is not a pleasant topic to enlarge upon, and I have lingered in my dislike to approach it.

When Rupert leaped the palings and flew away over the field, he was totally incapable of self-government for the time being. I do not say this in extenuation. I say that such a state of things is lamentable, and ought not to be. I only state that it was so. The most passionate temper ever born with man may be kept under, where the right means are used—prayer, ever-watchful self-control, stern determination; but how few there are who find the means! Rupert Trevlyn did not. He had no clear perception of what he had done; he probably knew he had thrust the blazing torch into the rick; but he gave no thought whatever to consequences, whether the hay was undamaged or whether it burst forth into a flame.

He flew over the field as one possessed; he flew over a succession of fields; the high-road intervened, and he was passing over it in his reckless career, when he was met by Farmer Apperley. Not, for a moment, did the farmer recognise Rupert.

"Hey, lad! What in the name of fortune has taken you?" cried he, laying his hand upon him.

His face distorted with passion, his eyes starting with fury, Rupert tore on. He shook the farmer's hand off him, and pressed on, leaping the low dwarf hedge opposite, and never speaking.

Mr. Apperley began to doubt whether he had not been deceived by some strange apparition—such, for instance, as the Flying Dutchman. He ran to a stile, and stood there gazing after the mad figure, which seemed to be rustling about without purpose; now in one part of the field, now in another: and Mr. Apperley rubbed his eyes and tried to penetrate more clearly the obscurity of the night.

"It was Rupert Trevlyn—if I ever saw him," decided he, at length. "What can have put him into this state? Perhaps he's gone mad!"

The farmer, in his consternation, stood he knew not how long: ten minutes possibly. It was not a busy night with him, and he would as soon linger as go on at once to Bluck the farrier—whither he was bound. Any time would do for his orders to Bluck.

"I can't make it out a bit," soliloquised he, when at length he turned away. "I'm sure it was Rupert; but what could have put him into that state? Halloa! what's that?"

A bright light in the direction of Trevlyn Hold had caught his eye. He stood and gazed at it in a second state of consternation equal to that in which he had just gazed after Rupert Trevlyn. "If I don't believe it's a fire!" ejaculated he.

Was every one running about madly? The words were escaping Mr. Apperley's lips when a second figure, white, breathless as the other, came flying over the road in the selfsame track. This one wore a smock-frock, and the farmer recognised Jim Sanders.

"Why, Jim, is it you? What's up?"

"Don't stop me, sir," panted Jim. "Don't you see the blaze? It's Chattaway's rick-yard."

"Mercy on me! Chattaway's rick-yard! What has done it? Have we got the incendiaries in the county again?"

"It was Mr. Rupert," answered Jim, dropping his voice to a whisper. "I see him fire it. Let me go on, please, sir."

In very astonishment, Mr. Apperley loosed his hold of the boy, who went speeding off in the direction of Barbrook. The farmer propped his back against the stile, that he might gather his scared senses together.

Rupert Trevlyn had set fire to the rick-yard! Had he really gone mad?—or was Jim Sanders mad when he said it? The farmer, slow to arrive at conclusions, was sorely puzzled. "The one looked as mad as the other, for what I saw," deliberated he. "Any way, there's the fire, and I'd better make my way to it: they'll want hands if they are to put that out. Thank God, it's a calm night!"

He took the nearest way to the Hold; another helper amidst the many now crowding the busy scene. What a babel it was!—what a scene for a painting!—what a life's remembrance! The excited workers as they passed the buckets; the deep interjections of Mr. Chattaway; the faces of the lookers-on turned up to the lurid flames. Farmer Apperley, a man more given to deeds than words, rendered what help he could, speaking to none.

He had been at work some time, when a shout broke simultaneously from the spectators. The next rick had caught fire. Mr. Chattaway uttered a despairing word, and the workers ceased their efforts for a few moments—as if paralysed with the new evil.

"If the fire-engines would only come!" impatiently exclaimed Mr. Chattaway.

Even as he spoke a faint rumbling was heard in the distance. It came nearer and nearer; its reckless pace proclaiming it a fire-engine. And Mr. Chattaway, in spite of his remark, gazed at its approach with astonishment; for he knew there had not been time for the Barmester engines to arrive.

It proved to be the little engine from Barbrook, one kept in the village. A very despised engine indeed; from its small size, one rarely called for; and which Mr. Chattaway had not so much as thought of, when sending to Barmester. On it came, bravely, as if it meant to do good service, and the crowd in the rick-yard welcomed it with a shout, and parted to make way for it.

Churlish as was Mr. Chattaway's general manner, he could not avoid showing pleasure at its arrival. "I am glad you have come!" he exclaimed. "It never occurred to me to send for you. I suppose you saw the flames, and came of your own accord?"

"No, sir, we saw nothing," was the reply of the man addressed. "Mr. Ryle's lad, Jim Sanders, came for us. I never see a chap in such commotion; he a'most got the engine ready himself."

The mention of Jim Sanders caused a buzz around. Bridget's assertion that the offender was Rupert Trevlyn had been whispered and commented upon; and if some were found to believe the whisper, others scornfully rejected it. There was Mr. Chattaway's assertion also; but Mr. Chattaway's ill-will to Rupert was remembered that night, and the assertion was doubtfully received. A meddlesome voice interrupted the fireman.

"Jim Sanders! why 'twas he fired it. There ain't no doubt he did. Little wonder he seemed frighted."

"Did he fire it?" interrupted Farmer Apperley, eagerly. "What, Jim? Why, what possessed him to do such a thing? I met him just now, looking frightened out of his life, and he laid the guilt on Rupert Trevlyn."

"Hush, Mr. Apperley!" whispered a voice at his elbow, and the farmer turned to see George Ryle. The latter, with an almost imperceptible movement, directed his attention to the right: the livid face of Mrs. Chattaway. As one paralysed stood she, her hands clasped as she listened.

"Yes, it was Mr. Rupert," protested Bridget, with a sob. "Jim Sanders told me he watched Mr. Rupert thrust the lighted torch into the rick. He seemed not to know what he was about, Jim said; seemed to do it in madness."

"Hold your tongue, Bridget," interposed a sharp commanding voice. "Have I not desired you already to do so? It is not upon the hearsay evidence of Jim Sanders that you can accuse Mr. Rupert."

The speaker was Miss Diana Trevlyn. In good truth, Miss Diana did not believe Rupert could have been guilty of the act. It had been disclosed that the torch in the rick-yard belonged to Jim Sanders, had been brought there by him, and she deemed that fact suspicious against Jim. Miss Diana had arrived unwillingly at the conclusion that Jim Sanders had set the rick on fire by accident; and in his fright had accused Rupert, to screen himself. She imparted her view of the affair to Mr. Apperley.

"Like enough," was the response of Mr. Apperley. "Some of these boys have no more caution in 'em than if they were children of two years old. But what could have put Rupert into such a state? If anybody ever looked insane, he did to-night."

"When?" asked Miss Diana, eagerly, and Mrs. Chattaway pressed nearer with her troubled countenance.

"It was just before I came up here. I was on my way to Bluck's and someone with a white face, breathless and panting, broke through the hedge right across my path. I did not know him at first; he didn't look a bit like Rupert; but when I saw who it was, I tried to stop him, and asked what was the matter. He shook me off, went over the opposite hedge like a wild animal, and there tore about the field. If he had been an escaped lunatic from the county asylum, he couldn't have run at greater speed."

"Did he say nothing?" a voice interrupted.

"Not a word," replied the farmer. "He seemed unable to speak. Well, before I had digested that shock, there came another, flying up in the same mad state, and that was Jim Sanders. I stopped him. Nearly at the same time, or just before it, I had seen a light shoot up into the sky. Jim said as well as he could speak for fright, that the rick-yard was on fire, and Mr. Rupert had set it alight."

"At all events, the mischief seems to lie between them," remarked some voices around.

There would have been no time for this desultory conversation—at least, for the gentlemen's share in it—but that the fire-engine had put a stop to their efforts. It had planted itself on the very spot where the line had been formed, scattering those who had taken part in it, and was rapidly getting itself into working order. The flames were shooting up terribly now, and Mr. Chattaway was rushing here, there, and everywhere, in his frantic but impotent efforts to subdue them. He was not insured.

George Ryle approached Mrs. Chattaway, and bent over her, a strange tone of kindness in his every word: it seemed to suggest how conscious he was of the great sorrow that was coming upon her. "I wish you would let me take you indoors," he whispered. "Indeed it is not well for you to be here."

"Where is he?" she gasped, in answer. "Could you find him, and remove him from danger?"

A sure conviction had been upon her from the very moment that her husband had avowed his chastisement of Rupert—the certainty that it was he, Rupert, and no other who had done the mischief. Her own brothers—but chiefly her brother Rupert—had been guilty of one or two acts almost as mad in their passion. He could not help his temper, she reasoned—some, perhaps, may say wrongly; and if Mr. Chattaway had provoked him by that sharp, insulting punishment, he, more than Rupert, was in fault.

"I would die to save him, George," she whispered. "I would give all I am worth to save him from the consequences. Mr. Chattaway says he will prosecute him to the last."

"I am quite sure you will be ill if you stay here," remonstrated George, for she was shivering from head to foot; not, however, with cold, but with emotion. "I will go with you to the house, and talk to you there."

"To the house!" she repeated. "Do you suppose I could remain in the house to-night? Look at them; they are all out here."

She pointed to her children; to the women-servants. It was even so: all were out there. Mr. Chattaway, in passing, had once or twice sharply demanded what they, a pack of women, did in such a scene, and the women had drawn away at the rebuke, but only to come forward again. Perhaps it was not in human nature to keep wholly away from that region of excitement.

A half-exclamation of fear escaped Mrs. Chattaway's lips, and she pressed a few steps onwards.

Holding a close and apparently private conference with Mr. Apperley, was Bowen, the superintendent of the very slight staff of police stationed in the place. As a general rule, these rustic districts are too peaceable to require much supervision from the men in blue.

"Mr. Apperley, you will not turn against him!" she implored, from between her fevered and trembling lips; and in good truth, Mrs. Chattaway gave indications of being almost as much beside herself that night as the unhappy Rupert. "Is Bowen asking you where you saw Rupert, that he may go and search for him? Do not you turn against him!"

"My dear, good lady, I haven't a thing to tell," returned Mr. Apperley, looking at her in surprise, for her manner was strange. "Bowen heard me say, as others heard, that Mr. Rupert was in the Brook field when I came from it. But I have nothing else to tell of him; and he may not be there now. It's hardly likely he would be."

Mrs. Chattaway lifted her white face to Bowen. "You will not take him?" she imploringly whispered.

The man shook his head—he was an intelligent officer, much respected in the neighbourhood—and answered her in the same low tone. "I can't help myself, ma'am. When charges are given to us, we are obliged to take cognisance of them, and to arrest, if need be, those implicated."

"Has this charge been given you?"

"Yes, this half-hour ago. I was up here almost with the breaking out of the flames, for I happened to be close by, and Mr. Chattaway made his formal complaint to me, and put it in my care."

Her heart sank within her. "And you are looking for him?"

"Chigwell is," replied the superintendent, alluding to a constable. "And Dumps has gone after Jim Sanders."

"Thank Heaven!" exclaimed a voice at her elbow. It was that of George Ryle; and Mrs. Chattaway turned in amazement. But George's words had not borne reference to her, or to anything she was saying.

"It is beginning to rain," he exclaimed. "A fine, steady rain would do us more good than the engines. What does that noise mean?"

A murmur of excitement had arisen on the opposite side of the rick-yard, and was spreading as fast as did the flame. George looked in vain for its cause: he was very tall, and raised himself on tiptoe to see the better: as yet without result.

But not for long. The cause soon showed itself. Pushing his way through the rick-yard, pale, subdued, quiet now, came Rupert Trevlyn. Not in custody; not fettered; not passionate; only very worn and weary, as if he had undergone some painful amount of fatigue. It was only that the fit of passion had left him; he was worn-out, powerless. In the days gone by it had so left his uncle Rupert.

Mr. Bowen walked up, and laid his hand upon his shoulder. "I am sorry to do it, sir," he said, "but you are my prisoner."

"I can't help it," wearily responded Rupert.

But what brought Rupert Trevlyn back into the very camp of the Philistines? In his terrible passion, he had partly fallen to the ground, partly flung himself down in the field where Mr. Apperley saw him, and there lay until the passion abated. After a time he sat up, bent his head upon his knees, and revolved what had passed. How long he might have stayed there, it is impossible to say, but that shouts and cries in the road aroused him, and he looked up to see that red light, and men running in its direction. He went and questioned them. "The rick-yard at the Hold was on fire!"