Part 34 (2/2)
”How funnily you say that! No, he's just rode away. I watched him from the light-house windows. He can't be gone far yet.”
”Look here, Joey--can you run?”
”Yes, if you hold my hand; only you mustn't go too fast. Oh, you're hurting!”
Taffy took the child in his arms, and with the wind at his back went up the hill with long stride. ”There he is!” cried Joey as they gained the ridge; and he pointed; and Taffy, looking along the ridge, saw a speck of scarlet moving against the lead-coloured moors--half a mile away perhaps, or a little more. He sat the child down, for the cottages were close by. ”Run home, sonny. I'm going to have a look at the soldier, too.”
The first bad squall broke on the headland just as Taffy started to run. It was as if a bag of water had burst right overhead, and within a quarter of a minute he was drenched to the skin.
So fiercely it went howling inland along the ridge that he half expected to see the horse urged into a gallop before it. But the rider, now standing high for a moment against the sky-line, went plodding on. For a while horse and man disappeared over the rise; but Taffy guessed that on hitting the cross-path beyond it they would strike away to the left and descend toward Langona Creek; and he began to slant his course to the left in antic.i.p.ation. The tide, he knew, would be running in strong; and with this wind behind it he hoped--and caught himself praying--that it would be high enough to cover the wooden foot-bridge and make the ford impa.s.sable; and if so, the horseman would be delayed and forced to head back and fetch a circuit farther up the valley.
By this time the squalls were coming fast on each other's heels, and the strength of them flung him forward at each stride. He had lost his hat, and the rain poured down his back and squished in his boots.
But all he felt was the hate in his heart. It had gathered there little by little for three years and a half, pent up, fed by his silent thoughts as a reservoir by small mountain streams; and with so tranquil a surface that at times--poor youth!--he had honestly believed it reflected G.o.d's calm, had been proud of his magnanimity, and said ”forgive us our trespa.s.ses, as we forgive them that trespa.s.s against us.” Now as he ran he prayed to the same G.o.d to delay the traitor at the ford.
Dusk was falling when George, yet unaware of pursuit, turned down the sunken lane which ended beside the ford. And by the sh.o.r.e, when the small waves lapped against his mare's fore-feet, he heard Taffy's shout for the first time and turned in his saddle. Even so it was a second or two before he recognised the figure which came plunging down the low cliff on his left, avoiding a fall only by wild clutches at the swaying elder boughs.
”h.e.l.lo!” he shouted cheerfully. ”Looks nasty, doesn't it?”
Taffy came down the beach, near enough to see that the mare's legs were plastered with mud, and to look up into his enemy's face.
”Get down,” he panted.
”Hey?”
”Get down, I tell you. Come off your horse and put up your fists!”
”What the devil is the matter? h.e.l.lo! . . . Keep off, I tell you!
Are you mad?”
”Come off and fight.”
”By G.o.d, I'll break your head in if you don't let go. . . . You idiot!”--as the mare plunged and tore the stirrup-leather from Taffy's grip--”She'll brain you, if you fool round her heels like that!”
”Come off, then.”
”Very well.” George backed a little, swung himself out of the saddle and faced him on the beach. ”Now perhaps you'll explain.”
”You've come from the headland?”
”Well?”
”From Lizzie Pezzack's.”
”Well, and what then?”
”Only this, that so sure as you've a wife at home, if you come to the headland again I'll kill you; and if you're a man, you'll put up your fists now.”
”Oh, that's it? May I ask what you have to do with my wife, or with Lizzie Pezzack?”
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