The Swindler, Ethel May Dell [distant reading TXT] 📗

for many seconds. For his face was quite livid and streaked with blood, his hands groped blindly, beating the air, he staggered at each blow.
The whip fell flail-like, with absolute precision and regularity. It spared no part of him. His coat was nearly torn off. In one place, on the shoulder, the white shirt was exposed, and this also was streaked with blood.
Ernestine crouched under the tree and watched. But very soon a new fear sprang up within her, a fear that made her collect all her strength for action. It was something in that awful, livid face that prompted her.
She struggled stiffly to her feet, later she wondered how, and drew near to the two men. The whirling whip continued to descend, but she had no fear of that. She came quite close till she was almost under the upraised arm. She laid trembling hands upon a grey tweed coat.
"Let him go!" she said very urgently. "Let him go--while he can!"
Rivington looked down into her white face. He was white himself--white to the lips.
"I haven't done with him yet," he said, and he spoke between his teeth.
"I know," she said. "I know. But he has had enough. You mustn't kill him."
She was strangely calm, and her calmness took effect. Later, she wondered at that also.
Rivington jerked the exhausted man upright.
"Go back!" he said to Ernestine. "Go back! I won't kill him!"
She took him at his word, and went back. She heard Rivington speak briefly and sternly, and Dinghra mumbled something in reply. She heard the shuffling of feet, and knew that Rivington was helping him to walk.
For a little while she watched the two figures, the one supporting the other, as they moved slowly away. Dinghra's head was sunk upon his breast. He slunk along like a beaten dog. Then the trunk of a tree hid them from her sight.
When that happened, Ernestine suffered herself to collapse upon the moss, with her head upon her arms.
Lying thus, she presently heard once more the tread of a horse's feet, and counted each footfall mechanically. They grew fainter and fainter, till at last the forest silence swallowed them, and a great solitude seemed to wrap her round.
Minutes passed. She did not stir. Her strength had gone utterly from her. Finally there came the sound of a quiet footfall.
Close to her it came, and stopped.
"Why, Chirpy!" a quiet voice said.
She tried to move, but could not. She was as one paralysed. She could not so much as utter a word.
He knelt down beside her and raised her to a sitting posture, so that she leaned against him. Holding her so, he gently rubbed her cheek.
"Poor little Chirpy!" he said. "It's all right!"
At sound of the pity and the tenderness of his voice, something seemed to break within her, the awful constriction passed. She hid her face upon his arm, and burst into a wild agony of weeping.
He laid his hand upon her head, and kept it there for a while; then as her sobbing grew more and more violent, he bent over her.
"Don't cry so, child, for Heaven's sake!" he said earnestly. "It's all right, dear; all right. You are perfectly safe!"
"I shall never--feel safe--again!" she gasped, between her sobs.
"Yes, yes, you will," he assured her. "You will have me to take care of you. I shall not leave you again."
"But the nights!" she cried wildly. "The nights!"
"Hush!" he said. "Hush! There is nothing to cry about. I will take care of you at night, too."
She began to grow a little calmer. The assurance of his manner soothed her. But for a long time she crouched there shivering, with her face hidden, while he knelt beside her and stroked her hair.
At last he moved as though to rise, but on the instant she clutched at him with both hands.
"Don't go! Don't leave me! You said you wouldn't!"
"I am not going to, Chirpy," he said. "Don't be afraid!"
But she was afraid, and continued to cling to him very tightly, though she would not raise her face.
"Come!" he said gently, at length. "You're better. Wouldn't you like to bathe your feet?"
"You will stay with me?" she whispered.
"I am going to help you down to the stream," he said.
"Don't--don't carry me!" she faltered.
"Of course not! You can walk on this moss if I hold you up."
But she was very reluctant to move.
"I--I don't want you to look at me," she said, at last, with a great sob. "I feel such a fright."
"Don't be a goose, Chirpy!" he said.
That braced her a little. She dried her tears. She even suffered him to raise her to her feet, but she kept her head bent, avoiding his eyes.
"Look where you are going," said Rivington practically. "Here is my arm. You mustn't mind me, you know. Lean hard!"
She accepted his assistance in silence. She was crying still, though she strove to conceal the fact. But as she sank down once more on the brink of the stream, the sobs broke out afresh, and would not be suppressed.
"I was so happy!" she whispered. "I didn't want him here--to spoil my paradise."
Rivington said nothing. She did not even know if he heard; and if he were aware of her tears he gave no sign. He was gently bathing her torn feet with his hands.


XII
THE KNIGHT ERRANT PLAYS THE GAME

She began to command herself at last, and to be inexpressibly ashamed of her weakness. She sat in silence, accepting his ministrations, till Rivington proceeded to tear his handkerchief into strips for bandaging purposes; then she put out a protesting hand.
"You--you shouldn't!" she said rather tremulously.
He looked at her with his kindly smile.
"It's all right, Chirpy. I've got another."
She tried to laugh. It was a valiant effort.
"I know I'm a horrid nuisance to you. It's nice of you to pretend you don't mind."
"I never pretend," said Rivington, with a touch of grimness. "Do you think you will be able to get your stocking over that?"
"I think so."
"Try!" he said.
She tried and succeeded.
"That's better," said Rivington. "Now for the shoes. I can put them on."
"I don't like you to," she murmured.
"Knights errant always do that," he assured her. "It's part of the game. Come! That's splendid! How does it feel?"
"I think I can bear it," she said, under her breath.
He drew it instantly off again.
"No, you can't. Or, at least, you are not going to. Look here, Chirpy, my dear, I think you must let me carry you, anyhow to the caravan. It isn't far, and I can fetch you some slippers from the mill from there. What? You don't mind, do you? An old friend like me, and a poor relation into the bargain?" The blue eyes smiled at her quizzically, and very persuasively.
But her white face crimsoned, and she turned it aside.
"I don't want you to," she said piteously.
"No, but you'll put up with it!" he urged. "It's too small a thing to argue about, and you have too much sense to refuse."
He rose with the words. She looked up at him with quivering lips.
"You wouldn't do it--if I refused?" she faltered.
The smile went out of his eyes.
"I shall never do anything against your will," he said. "But I don't know how you will get back if I don't."
She pondered this for a moment, then, impulsively as a child, stretched up her arms to him.
"All right, Knight Errant. You may," she said.
And he bent and lifted her without further words.
They scarcely spoke during that journey. Only once, towards the end of it, Ernestine asked him if he were tired, and he scouted the idea with a laugh.
When they reached the caravan, and he set her down upon the step, she thanked him meekly.
"We will have tea," said Rivington, and proceeded to forage for the necessaries for this meal in a locker inside the caravan.
He brought out a spirit-lamp and boiled some water. The actual making of the tea he relegated to Ernestine.
"A woman does it better than a man," he said.
And while she was thus occupied, he produced cups and saucers, and a tin of biscuits, and laid the cloth. Finally, he seated himself on the grass below her, and began with evident enjoyment to partake with her of the meal thus provided.
When it was over, he washed up, she drying the cups and saucers, and striving with somewhat doubtful success to appear normal and unconstrained.
"Do you mind if I smoke?" he asked, at the end of this.
"Of course not," she answered, and he brought out the briar pipe forthwith.
She watched him fill and light it, her chin upon her hand. She was still very pale, and the fear had not gone wholly from her eyes.
"Now I'm going to talk to you," Rivington announced.
"Yes?" she said rather faintly.
He lay back with his arms under his head, and stared up through the beech boughs to the cloudless evening sky.
"I want you first of all to remember," he said, "that what I said a little while ago I meant--and shall mean for all time. I will never do anything, Chirpy, against your will."
He spoke deliberately. He was puffing the smoke upward in long spirals.
"That is quite understood, is it?" he asked, as she did not speak.
"I think so," said Ernestine slowly.
"I want you to be quite sure," he said. "Otherwise, what I am going to say may startle you."
"Don't frighten me!" she begged, in a whisper.
"My dear child, I sha'n't frighten you," he rejoined. "You may frighten yourself. That is what I am trying to guard against."
Her laugh had a piteous quiver in it.
"You think me very young and foolish, don't you?" she said.
He sat up and looked at her.
"I think," he said, "that you stand in very serious need of someone to look after you."
She made a slight, impatient movement.
"Why go over old ground? If you really have any definite suggestion to make, why not make it?"
Rivington clasped his hands about his knees. He continued to look at her speculatively, his pipe between his teeth.
"Look here, Chirpy," he said, after a moment, "I can't help thinking that you would be better off and a good deal happier if you married."
"If I--married!" Her eyes flashed startled interrogation at him. "If I--married!" she repeated almost fiercely. "I would rather die!"
"I didn't suggest that you should marry Dinghra," he pointed out mildly. "He is not the only man in the world."
The hot colour rushed up over her face.
"He is the only one that ever wanted me," she said, in a muffled tone.
"Quite sure of that?" said Rivington.
She did not answer him. She was playing nervously with a straw that she had pulled from the floor of the caravan. Her eyes were downcast.
"What about me?" said Rivington. "Think you could put up with me as a husband?"
She shook her head in silence.
"Why not?" he said gently.
Again she shook her head.
He knelt up suddenly beside her, discarding his pipe, and laid his hand on hers.
"Tell me why not," he said.
A little tremor went through her at his touch. She did not raise her eyes.
"It wouldn't do," she said, her voice very low.
"You don't like me?" he questioned.
"Yes; I like you. It isn't that."
"Then--what is it, Chirpy? I believe you are afraid of me," he said half quizzically.
"I'm not!" she declared, with vehemence. "I'm not such a