STARVE CROW FARM.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 13006, 25 October 1905, Page 1 (Supplement)

STARVE CROW FARM.

[PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENTS

BY STANLEY J. WEYMA.N, Author of " The House of the Wolf," " A Gentleman of Prance," "Under the Re I I lobe," " Memoirs of a Minister of ! France," " Tile lied Cockade," "la King's By-ways," etc., etc.

[COPYRIGHT.] .. CHAPTER XXX. BBSS' fRIUKfH. Bess knocked twice, and, stooping to '/be keyhole, repeated the owl's hoot. Presently a bar was drawn back, and after a brief interval devoted to listening, the key was turned, and the door was opened far enough, to admit, them. The two slid in, Bess pushing Henrietta Inrfoie her. The moment she had passed the threshold Henrietta stoed, dazzled by the light and bewildered by what she saw. Nor was it her eyes only that were unpleasantly affected. A voice, loud and blustering, hailed her appearance with a curse, fired from the heart of a cloud of tobacco smoke. And the air was heavy with the reek of spirits.

"By !' ; the voice which had affrighted Her repeated. Who's-this? Are you mad, girl?" And the speaker sprang to his feet. He was one of two thick-set, unshaven men who were engaged in playing cards on a. corner of the table. His comrade kept his place, but stared, 0 jug half-lifted tc. his lips; while a third man, the only other present, a loose-limbed, good-looking gipsy lad who had opened the door, grinned at the unexpected visionas if his stake in the matter was less, and his interest in. feminine charms greatei. But nowhere, though the kitchen was wastefully lighted, and her frightened eyes flew to every part of it, was the man to be seen whom she came to meet.

She turned quickly upon Bess as if she thought that she might still escape. But the door was already closed, the key turned. And before she could speak—

"Have done a minute 1" 1 Bess muttered, pushing her aside. " And let me deal -with them." Then, advancing into the room—• but not before she had seen the great bar drawn across the locked door— your trap!" she crieu to the man who had spoken. " And listen!"

"Who's this?''

"What's that to you?" " Who is it, I say?" the man cried even i move violently. " And what have you brought her here fori" And he poured out a string of oaths that drove the blood from Henrietta's cheeks. " Who is it? Who is it-?" he continued. " D'you hink, you vixen, that because my neck is in a neose I want someone to pull the rope tight?" "What a fool you are to talk before her!" Bess answered with quiet scorn. "If anyone pulls the hemp it's you." "Lord help you, I'll do more than talk!" the man rejoined. And he snatched up a heavy pistol that lay on the table beside the cards. " Quick, will you? Speak Who is it, and why do you bring her?" - "I'll speak quick enough, but not here.!" Bess answered contemptuously. "If you must jaw, come into the dairy Come, don't think that 1 am afraid of you!" She. turned to Henrietta, who, stricken dumb by the scene, recognised too late the trap into which she had fallen. "Do you stay here," she said, " unless you want his hand, on you. Sit there!" pointing abruptly to the settle, and keep mum until 1 come back!" But. 'Henrietta's terror at the prospect of being abandoned' by the girl, , though that girl had betrayed' her, was such that she seized Bess by the sleeve and held her back. "Don't- leave me!" she said.- And again, with a shadow of the old aniperiousness, "You are not to leave me! Do" you hear! I will come with you. I—" You'll do.what you're bid Be«s answered. "Go and git down." And the savage glint in Iter eyes was such as to put a new fear int-o Henrietta.

Site we at to the settle, her limbs unsteady under Jier, her eyes glanti#g round for a chance of escape. Where was the woman of the house? Where was Tyson? Chiefest of all, where was WaltersoH'! She saw no sign of any of them. And terrified to the heart, she sat shivering where the other had bidden her sit.

Bess opened a side door which led to the dairy, a cold, flagged room, lower by a couple of steps than the kitchen. She took up a candle, one of five or six which were flaring on the table, and she beckoned to the two men to follow her. When they had done so, the one who had taken up the pistol still muttering and casting suspicious glances over his shoulder, she slammed to the door. But either by accident, or with a. view to intimidate her prisoner, she let it leap ajar again, so that much of the tjill' which followed reached Henrietta's ears. It banished from the unhappy girl's cheeks the blood which the gipsy lad's stare of admiration had first brought to them, Lunt's first word was an oath. " You know well enough," lie continued, " that we want no praters - here! Why hare you brought this fool here?" " Why?"

"Ay, why?" Luiat repeated. "In two days more we had all got clear, and nothing better managed?" And thanks to whom?" the girl retorted with energy. " Who has hidden you? Who has done all for you? But there it is! Now my lad's gone, and Thistlewoed's gone, you think all's yours. And as muck of yourselves as inasterless dogs!" " Stow it!"

But I'll not!"- she retorted. " Whose house is this?"

"Well, my lass, not yours!" Giles, the less violent of the two, answered.

"Nor yours either! And, any way, it's due to me that, you are in it, and not outside. with irons on you."

" But cannot you see, lass," Giles; answered, "that you've upset all by bringing the wench here? You'll hear the morrow, or the morrow of that, that your lad's got clear to Leith, and Thistlewood with him! And then we go our way, and yon gipsy will carry off the brat in his long "pack, and drop him the devil cares where, and nobody 'II be the wiser, and his father '11 haw a lesson thai will do him good! But now you've let the girl in, what'll you do with her when we get clear? You cannot stow her in the long pack, and the moment you let her go her tongue will clack!" " How do you know it will clack?" Bass asked, in a tone that froze the listening girl's blood. " How do you know it will clack?'' she repeated. " The lake's deep enough to hold both." '• But what's the game, lass?" Giles asked. "Show a glim! Lei's see it. If you are so feud of us," in a tone of ' unpleasant meaning, " that you've brought her—just to amuse u« in our leisure, say it out! Though even Mien I'm not for saying that the game is worth the candle, my lass! Since coves in our very particular case lias to be careful, and the prettiest bit of red and white may hang a man as quick as her mother! But I don't think you had that in your mind, Bess." "Well':" " And that being so, and ,liemp to cheap, out with it! Show a glim, and you'll not find us nasty." "The thing's pretty plain, isn't it?" Bess answered coolly. " You've had your fun. , Why shouldn't I have mine? You'd a grudge, and you've paid it. Why am I not to pay mine?" "What has the weuch done to you?" "What's that to you?" viciously. "Stolen my lad, if you like. Any way, it is my business. If I choose to treat her as you have treated the brat, what is it to you? It* I've a mind to give her a taste of the smuggler's oven, what's that to you? Or if I choose to spoil her looks, or "break her pride—she's one of those that teach us to behave ourselves lowly and reverently all to our betters—and if I choose to give her a lesson, is it any business but mine? She crossed me! She's! a, peacock! Arid it I choose to have i some fun with her, and hold her nose to j the grindstone—what's that to you?" "But afterwards!" Giles persisted. " ai£ lassi?" ' j

"Ask. me no questions, .and I'll tell you no lie,;," Bess answered. "For the matter of that, if my old dad once gets his lingers roind her throat she'll not squeak! You may swear to that." • They dropped their veices then, or they moved from the door. •So that the remainder of the debate escaped Henrietta, though she strained liar ears tol 'jthfl utmost.

She had heard enough, .however;, enough to know where she stood, and to fee! the cold grip of despair close upon, her. Fortunately she had had such preparation as the scene and the change in Bess's amour afforded; and while her heart- thumped to choke her, and she could not restrain the glances that like a hunted haw she enst about her, (she neither fainted nor raised an outcry. The gipsy lad who lolled beside the door, and never took his bold eyes from her, detected the sudden stillness of her pose and her changed aspect. Cut, though his gaze dwelt as freely as he pleased on her, on the turn of her pale' cheek, and the curve of her figure, lie was deceived into thinking that she did not catch lie drift that was so cleat- to him.

" She's frightened!" lie thought, smacking his lips. " She's frightened! But she'd be more frightened if she hoard what they are saying. A devil. Bess is, a devil if ever there was one!" And Ins wondered whether, if lie told the girl, she would cling to him, and pray to him, and kneel to bin—to save her! He would like that, for she was a pretty prey; and the prettier in his eyes because she was not dark-skinned and 'black-eyed, but. a thing of creamy fairness. Henrietta heard all, however, and understood. And for a few moments, she was near to swooning. Then the very peril in which she found herself steadied her, and gave her power to think. Was there any quarter to which she could look for helpoutside or in? Outside the house, alas, none, for she had- taken care, fatal care, to blind her trail, and to leave no tracer by which her friends could' find her! And inside the hope was as slight. Waltersow, to : whose pity she might have appealed— with success, if all chivalry were not dead in himwas gone, >!:• seemed. There remained onlya feeble straw indeed to which to cling—the woman of the house; the white-faced woman who had gone in J' fear, and thought, this very girl Bees had designs on her life! But was she here? She had been very near her time, yet 110 cry, 110 whimper, bore, witness to the presence of child- r life iin the house. And the room in its wild and wasteful disorder gave the lie to the presence of any housewife, hewever careless. The.flagged floor, long uuleaned and tin whitened, was strewn with broken pipe-stems, half-burned pipe lights, gnawed bones, and dirty platters. ' The bright oaken table, the pride of generations of thrifty wives, was' a litter of dugs-eared cards and over-set bottles, broken loaves, and pewter dishes. One of the oat-cake springs hftng loose, tearing the ceiling; in hub corner a bacon chest gaped open and empty. In another comer a pile of dubious bedding lay as its occupant had left it. The chimney - corner was cumbered with logs of wood: Greasy frying-pans and half-cleaned pots lay everywhere and on the whole, anti 011 a medley of tattered things too repulsive to mention, a show of . candles, that would have scared the least frugal dame, cast a useless glare. ' In a word, everything within s%;ht proved that the house was at the mercy -} of the gang who surrounded her. ' And ■ if that were so? If no help . were pas-1 sible.' 1 Far an instant, panic gripped her. ' The room swam round, and she had to grasp the settle with her hands to maintain her composure. What was she to do? What, could she d °' thus trapped' What.? What?

She jimusfc thinkfor her own sake, for the child';! sake, >. who, it was dear, was" also in their power.' But it Was haul : very hard, to think with that man's eyes ' gloating on her; . and when with every's® second the door «f the dairy, where they were conferring, might open, and—she knew not what horror might befall her. , And—and then again there was the child! • -

For she spared it a thought of pity grudgingly taken from her own need. And then the d**r opened. And Bess, carrying the light ah>ve her head, came out, followed by two men. ...

"We'll let her down soft!" she said as she appeared. "We'll make her drudge first and smart afterwards! And she'll come to it the quicker." "Nay, Bess," one of the men answered with a grin, "but you'll not spoil hex pretty fingers!" "Of), won't we?" Bess answered. And turning to Henrietta, and throwing off th« mask, "Now, peacock!" she said. "I've got you here and you can't- escape. lam going to have some fun with you. I am going : to see if you are of the same stuff as other people! Can you cook!"

(To he continued daily).