Part 27 (1/2)

”You all know now,” he said slowly, staring with strained piteous eyes at the little lifeless body--”you understand,--the motor killed my Kiddie! He was playing on the road--I was close by among the trees--I saw the cursed car coming full speed downhill--I rushed to take the boy, but was too late--he cried once--and then--silence! All the laughter gone out of him--all the life and love----” He paused with a shudder.--”I carried him all the way, and followed the car,” he went on--”I would have followed it to the world's end! I ran by a short cut down near the sea,--and then--I saw the thing break down. I thanked G.o.d for that! I tracked the murderers here,--I meant to kill the man who killed my child!--and I have done it!” He paused again. Then he held out his hands and looked at the constable.

”May I--before I go--take him in my arms--and kiss him?” he asked.

The chief officer nodded. He could not speak, but he unfastened Tom's manacles and threw them on the floor. Then Tom himself moved feebly and unsteadily to where the women knelt beside his dead child. They rose as he approached, but did not turn away.

”You have hearts, you women!” he said faintly. ”You know what it is to love a child! And Kiddie,--Kiddie was such a happy little fellow!--so strong and hearty!--so full of life! And now--now he's stiff and cold!

Only this morning he was jumping and laughing in my arms----” He broke off, trembling violently, then with an effort he raised his head and turned his eyes with a wild stare upon all around him. ”We are only poor folk!” he went on, in a firmer voice. ”Only gypsies, tinkers, road-menders, labourers, and the like! We cannot fight against the rich who ride us down! There's no law for us, because we can't pay for it. We can't fee the counsel or dine the judge! The rich can pay. They can trample us down under their devilish motor-cars, and obliging juries will declare our wrongs and injuries and deaths to be mere 'accident' or 'misadventure'! But if _they_ can kill, by G.o.d!--so can _we_! And if the law lets them off for murdering our children, we must take the law into our own hands and murder _them_ in turn--ay! even if we swing for it!”

No one spoke. The women still sobbed convulsively, but otherwise there was a great silence. Tom o' the Gleam stretched forth his hands with an eloquent gesture of pa.s.sion.

”Look at him lying there!” he cried--”Only a child--a little child! So pretty and playful!--all his joy was in the birds and flowers! The robins knew him and would perch on his shoulder,--he would call to the cuckoo,--he would race the swallow,--he would lie in the gra.s.s and sing with the skylark and talk to the daisies. He was happy with the simplest things--and when we put him to bed in his little hammock under the trees, he would smile up at the stars and say: 'Mother's up there!

Good-night, mother!' Oh, the lonely trees, and the empty hammock! Oh, my lad!--my little pretty lad! Murdered! Murdered! Gone from me for ever!

For ever! G.o.d! G.o.d!”

Reeling heavily forward, he sank in a crouching heap beside the child's dead body and s.n.a.t.c.hed it into his embrace, kissing the little cold lips and cheeks and eyelids again and again, and pressing it with frantic fervour against his breast.

”The dark hour!” he muttered--”the dark hour! To-day when I came away over the moors I felt it creeping upon me! Last night it whispered to me, and I felt its cold breath hissing against my ears! When I climbed down the rocks to the seash.o.r.e, I heard it wailing in the waves!--and through the hollows of the rocks it shrieked an unknown horror at me!

Who was it that said to-day--'He is only a child after all, and he might be taken from you'? I remember!--it was Miss Tranter who spoke--and she was sorry afterwards--ah, yes!--she was sorry!--but it was the spirit of the hour that moved her to the utterance of a warning--she could not help herself,--and I--I should have been more careful!--I should not have left my little one for a moment,--but I never thought any harm could come to him--no, never to _him_! I was always sure G.o.d was too good for that!”

Moaning drearily, he rocked the dead boy to and fro.

”Kiddie--my Kiddie!” he murmured--”Little one with my love's eyes!--heart's darling with my love's face! Don't go to sleep, Kiddie!--not just yet!--wake up and kiss me once!--only once again, Kiddie!”

”Oh, Tom!” sobbed Elizabeth,--”Oh, poor, poor Tom!”

At the sound of her voice he raised his head and looked up at her. There was a strange expression on his face,--a fixed and terrible stare in his eyes. Suddenly he broke into a wild laugh.

”Ha-ha!” he cried. ”Poor Tom! Tom o' the Gleam! That's me!--the me that was not always me! Not always me--no!--not always Tom o' the Gleam! It was a bold life I led in the woods long ago!--a life full of suns.h.i.+ne and laughter--a life for a man with man's blood in his veins! Away out in the land that once was old Provence, we jested and sang the hours away,--the women with their guitars and mandolines--the men with their wild dances and tambourines,--and love was the keynote of the music--love!--always love! Love in the suns.h.i.+ne!--love under the moonbeams!--bright eyes in which to drown one's soul,--red lips on which to crush one's heart!--Ah, G.o.d!--such days when we were young!

'Ah! Craignons de perdre un seul jour, De la belle saison de l'amour!'”

He sang these lines in a rich baritone, clear and thrilling with pa.s.sion, and the men grouped about him, not understanding what he sang, glanced at one another with an uneasy sense of fear. All at once he struggled to his feet without a.s.sistance, and stood upright, still clasping the body of his child in his arms.

”Come, come!” he said thickly--”It's time we were off, Kiddie! We must get across the moor and into camp. It's time for all lambs to be in the fold;--time to go to bed, my little lad! Good-night, mates! Good-night!

I know you all,--and you all know me--you like fair play! Fair play all round, eh? Not one law for the rich and another for the poor! Even justice, boys! Justice! Justice!”

Here his voice broke in a great and awful cry,--blood sprang from his lips--his face grew darkly purple,--and like a huge tree snapped asunder by a storm, he reeled heavily to the ground. One of the constables caught him as he fell.

”Hold up, Tom!” he said tremulously, the thick tears standing in his eyes. ”Don't give way! Be a man! Hold up! Steady! Here, let me take the poor Kiddie!”

For a ghastly pallor was stealing over Tom's features, and his lips were widely parted in a gasping struggle for breath.

”No--no!--don't take my boy!” he muttered feebly. ”Let me--keep him--with me! G.o.d is good--good after all!--we shall not--be parted!”

A strong convulsion shook his sinewy frame from head to foot, and he writhed in desperate agony. The officer put an arm under his head, and made an expressive sign to the awed witnesses of the scene. Helmsley, startled at this, came hurriedly forward, trembling and scarcely able to speak in the extremity of his fear and pity.

”What--what is it?” he stammered. ”Not--not----?”