Chapter IX.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5760, 2 January 1897, Page 1

Chapter IX.

THE FORESHADOWING OP A COMING EVENT. " Ho, ho ! Ha, ha ! When thon'st gotten to take Clegg," shouted the landlord, interrupting Dakin's remark humorously, "it'll puzzle thee, master Dakin, I warrant, more than it did to hale Jasper the Minstrel before the Justice."

'"Most like," said tbe constable. "Most like ; but if it come in the way of my duty I'd tackle it if the man's name was Goliath and he met me with the sling of David." "Or the tailor's yard of Jacob Vicars," said Clegg; "an' they called him Touchstone, and he met thee with a quip and a quiddity, tempered with blows from a bladder, I doubt me not thou'dst have at him all the same." " That would I, Master Clegg, and I'd as lief one as the other." " Liefer, no doubt," said Clegg. " But as for neighbour Rndford not caring to meet the strangers within our gates " "I said,. outside, Master Clegg," interrupted the landlord. " So far as fearing to meet the strangers within or without our gates, I warrant me they are peaceful folk, and they might say the same of us as you, Radford, say of them, if it should have been our lot to travel into their country; for I tell you that we are accounted no better than cutthroats beyond seas, and I don't know as we are much better, when it becomes our interest to take a purse or a ship, a life or two standing in our way." " You scoff at me, Master Clegg, but I am free to say, and I say it to thy face, that for an Englishman thou'st gotten the most parlous opinions ; and as they favour the devil in one thing, why not in another ? That's my delivery, and I stand by it." The constable unbuttoned. his cloak as he spoke, and breathed hard; he was angered.

" Thou'rt always so clear and straight in the exposition of thy opinion, Dakin, that it's a pleasure to listen to thee."

" I say thou speakest treason and heresy and schism ; and, with moderate support, I'd hold ifc righteous and within the law to make arrest of thee."

Radford's loud laugh was nipped in the bud by the crowd, among whom there were murmurs of encouragement of the constable, and at the same time of sympathy with Clegg, whose hostility to the law excited their admiration, but whose '.known controversial disposition on the Creeds and the Sacraments of the Church made them fear ; for Eyam, though it had been but little disturbed by religious feuds, had traditions of the stake and the gallows. She had been, happily, free of both ; but further away the Hundred of the Peak had contributed victims to the animosity of the avowed followers of Christ.

"An thou laid'st thy hand upon me, constable, without warrant, Fd make thy bones rattle. Thou'rt only an ass; it shames me to challenge thee, mentally or physically ; I'm but a fool to do it. ' Get thee gone before I do thee a mischief, with thy prate of treason and heresy. Because thy Master Charles is restored, thinkest thou freedom is underhis heel,and thatsuch as thou may brc w -beat honest men? Out pf my sight, I tell thee !"

" Nay, but Master Clegg," said Vicars, in his mild voice, "we be all neighbours, and it befits not that we wrangle here when Master Radford has tapped last March brewing!"

" Ho, ho; Ha, ha !" now shouted the landlord, clapping his big hands upon the constable's shoulders and pushing him into the house. "Come along, old ' Wait-a--bit' — come along friends all; Mistress Radford and my daughter Jane will serve you with bread and cheese, an you so desire, while I put the spigot into as fine a barrel of liquor as ever was supped in Eyam,"

The constable made some show of resistance ere his boots crunched the sanded floor of the general room of the Crown and Anchor.

" Won't you come in, Master Clegg ? " said Longstaffe, the cobbler, pausing at the door, where Clegg stood mentally upbraiding himself for his exhibition of temper. "No, Master Longstaffe : I've been fool enough on the doorstep to be likely to improve my manners over Radford's ale."

" What's gone wrong with 'thee, Clegg ? It's unlike thee to invite a brawl. I hate thy opinions, nay, I lament them • but I respect thy candour and honour thy abilities. If thou didst not blaspheme, I could love thee as a brother."

"That's mortal kind of thee, Master Longstaffe," Clegg replied. "Thou sayest so with denial in thy /heart, Master Clegg ; I feel the bite of thy ill-humour, but I forgive thee. Won't come in ? " " Nay, I'll home," said Clegg. " I'm not good company even for myself at times." "Ah, my friend, if thou'dst let thy mind rest a bit on the saving grace thy mother's found, thou'dst be a happier man." " Dost think so ?" " I know it." "And have yonder fools and asses \that are "blethering over Radford's March brewing got saving grace ?" " Marry, and I hope so ; leastwise some." "My mother has whatever is worth..

having in this world in the way of peace and love and sweetness, but that comes by Nature ; she'd have been the same had she been bom in the days when Rome worshipped Flora iv the way that Eyam worships Christ over the springs at Ascension."

" Nay, thou art to be counted among the lost, I fear me, unless it be God's purpose to make a shining example of thy great conversion, or thy great punishment. I'm but a witless creature, Master Clegg, peradventure, with not a tithe of the talents the Master of the Vineyard hath entrusted to thee ; but I would not be in thy present shoes for all the wealth of the StaffordBrawshaws multiplied by the King's." "Nay, and if thou art to be counted among the prophets, Joshua, it behoves thee to remember that ifc was thou who madest my shoes ; and I will say this for thy workmanship, that they like me well."

The village eordwainer shook his head mournfully, and disappeared within the portals of the inn.

Clogg betook himself homewards. The wind had risen. It was lifting the fallen leaves and shaking others down from the trees. The rooks protested in harbh cries. Attacked by the wind, their plumage was as ragged as Clegg's reflections. He passed the Manor House without looking at it. It seemed to him as if that strange procession had blurred the image of Mary Talbot.

Was her fate, and his own, threatened in these new arrivals ? While Bernardo Roubillac had come over the seas that his wife might fly from the evil influence of a daring and unholy passion, had she brought in her glittering train a danger and a pestilence ? Clegg had no divining-rod to probe these secrets of the future ; but such love as Clegg's is often blessed, or cursed, with second sight.

Entering the garden-path of /his cottage, and looking towards the Dale where the foreign procession had first come into sight, a sudden fear took possession of him. It was one of those moments when an imaginative man might feel as if the shadow of a cruel Fate had passed between him and the sun. He leaned against the great elm that embowered his house, and watched the clouds, through which the evening sun was driving fitful lances, blood red. It appeared to him as if the clouds were being hurried forward by a mighty hand to cover the red reflection ; and the wind went storming down the valley with wintry messages.

With all Clegg's learning — one might better say by reason of it — he was superstitious. If he fought clear of what he called the superstition as religion, there were a thousand puzzling things in Nature to fire such an imagination as his, softened as it was and brought into sympathy with the pathos of life by his love for Mary Talbot, the love of a reticent wooer, who kept his secret in his own heart, a strong man who needed some great opportunity to show his love by an heroic sacrifice rather than disclose it and risk the discovery that it was not returned.

"I am all unstrung," he said to himself, "like a broken harp or a faulty hazelwand. They ask me what is the matter with me. Well, what is ? I know not. Why did I pass her door and bend my head? Why did I avert my eyes ? What has come over me ? * # * To the mystic art of some, and the ardent love of others, the veil of the future has been raised. Is my hand upon the curtain now?" (To be continued.)