CHAPTER I.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 9254, 5 June 1908, Page 4

CHAPTER I.

<v If- you was a duke," said young Westwodd — " if you was a king — I'd b*y». your blood for this, yo<u villain ! t*e£,}ia» i'gpt at him ! Let me once get my finger^ on that ropy old gizzard of ois'n and he'll never insult no more maidens in their sweetheart's hearing." He began to foam and sputter inarticulately with rage; and Farmer Eddy took up the tale. "Go away, Sir Michael, and work your will. All men know .you for a shameless libertine, but I didn't look for such an insult to be offered to tr y darter under her father's roof. Get out of honest folk's sight, if it's only out of pity for yourself. If you think that death will be a shelter for your shame, you're a very ouch mistaken man. Your dirty memory will live in this countryside, if that's any consolation to you, for a hundred years !" Grim and grey as he was always, Sir Michael Dare grew grimmer and greyer than ever as he listened to this tirade. But when it was over he raised his hat with derisive politeness, mounted the horse he had tethered at the farmer's gate end rode away without a word. He- wrought himself into a towering passion at the beginning, but by-aad-by, across the tempest of bis rage, a voice within him said, with a sort of quiet dogmatism: "The man ivas right !'» He fought against the inward voice. He stormed at it but it would not be silenced, and, galled by the tumult of his own thoughts, Sir Michael Pare rode hard, and recklessly. His horse stayed at last of his own accord before a -wayside hostelry twenty miles from his last corn. Sir Michael baited him there and drank a bottle of mulled wine in ' a savage solitude. Then he mounted anew and jogged homeward. He found himself compelled to draw rein in the crowded market-place of a neighbouring hamlet, where some fort of annual fair was being held. He beoame aware, as he picked his way amongst the throng, of looks and tones to which he had never been accustomed. He heard his- name pass from mouth to mouth, and there were raurnmrs of anger and disdain all round him. And when one yokel, bolder than the rest, started with a loud "Boo!" the murmurs suddenly sprang to clamour, and when the vocal storm had lasted not more than half a minute an unseen hand hurled a missile at him. rhen came another ana another. There were fruit and vegetables in plenty on the stalls, and they wore thrown in show- i era. It took him <a second or two to recover from his amazement at the un-looked-for assault, but he was left in no doubt as to the motive which inspired it. The story of the insult he had offer- i ed that morning to Farmer Eddy's ] daughter was abroad already, and he j was learning how an English crowd could treat the man who had attempted to sully the hearth of an English home. | He laid about him furiously with his whip, and his frightened horse plunged so wildly a 6 almost to unseat him. Sir Michael would fain have staywd, though he iiad not one chance in a hundred against the mob ; but the terrified animal was beyond control, and, dashing through the crowded thoroughfare, overturned a score or so of people and made wildly for the open country. The baronet, in hi.s unwilling flight, could hear the yells of i>ain and rage 1 and terror which rose in a confused ! hubbub behind him. He was a mile i aw»y before he had recovered the control of his mount, and it would have been a sheer aqt of madness to return, j He was a good deal bruteed and batter©d batles?, and besmeared with mud and with, the» yolks of many eggs, and be was eager to change his dress to avcid observation. He rounaeu the hamlet in which h« had been so znal»

treated, and rode fiercely home, and sat alone there, haggard and grim, cursing the whole populace of England and himself in fruitless rage. ; The day wore on to sombre evening. : The stars were already twinkling in the sky when he called at last for wine. j He had lived a wild youth, but his later years had been spent in temperance, and his serving-man was astonished when he ordered a second bottle. He drank this as feverishly, and as greedily as the first, and, commanding his lamp to be lit, he began to arrange his books and papers for his customary night's study. His hands were unsteady, and the characters danced before him. He was conscious of an oppression in the brain, and he threw open the windows for more air and looked out from his : high-poised eyrie on the glittering night. "It's quiet enough up there," he mused, " and it's quiet enough below ground. I should have tired of that chit's chatter and companionship within a week, and I should have had her on my hands for life. . .) . Peaceful enough up there ! Peaceful _ enough down yonder under the brimming river ! Rest and quiet! Rest and quiet! No rest or quiet for me in this world ever any more; and in the next . . . Is there a next? Childish dreams, the progeny of priestcraft and superstition ! I'm too old to change my mind on that point, anyhow." The farmer's scornful words of that morning seemed to bite themselves into his brain, and he began to repeat them. "By heaven I" he broke out suddenly, in a loud voice, " it's true. My name's a byword in the countryside, and will be, as that confounded Eddy fellow told me, for a hundr.ed years." He turned back to the stable, seized a pen, and dashed off a letter to his heir, the nephew whom he had not seen for twenty years and against whom he had for some no-reason nursed a grudging hate throughout his lifetime. '"My dear Ronald" — so the letter ran — "you shall have your wish at last, and can come out of exile. Whet you receive this I shall have gone in search of a greater secret than the one I hunted for so many fruitless years. You can take the acres, and you may take my worst wishes along with them. You would not have them if it were in my power to leave them elsewhere. My will is in Speedwell's hands, and you will find in good time how I have disposed of all over which I hold control. And now, dear Ronald, good-bye, and be hanged to you ! These are the last words of your uncle, Michael Dare." On the reverse side of the sheet on which this was written he inscribed his heir's address, and before the ink was dry he had seized a pistol, and shaken a pinch of powder from the touch-hole to the pan, and had placed the weapon to his temple. For one second only he looked out through the open window on the wide and glitter-

ing expanse before him, and then he drew the trigger. The report rang out and he fell to the floor as lifeless as a stone.