Starvecrow Farm Part 61

But, "Curse me if you are!" Giles answered. Drink had made him the more dangerous of the two. He lurched forward as he spoke, and placed himself between the girls and the foot of the open staircase that led to the upper floor. "We're one apiece for you and one over! And you're going to stay, my girls, and amuse us!"

And he opened his arms, with a tipsy laugh.

If Henrietta had been slow to see the danger, she saw it now. And the shock was the greater. The men's flushed faces and vinous eyes, still more the dark face of the smiling gipsy who had raised the tempest for his own ends, filled her with fear. She clutched the child to her, but as much by instinct as from calculation; and she cast a desperate look round her--only to see that retreat was cut off. The girls were hemmed in on the hearth between the fire and the long table, and it was hard to say which of the men she most dreaded. She had gone through much already and she cowered, white to the lips, behind her companion, who, for her part, looked greater confidence than she felt. But whatever Bess's fears, she rallied bravely to the occasion, being no stranger to such scenes.

"Well," she said, temporising, "we'll sit down a bit if you'll mind your manners. But we'll sit here, my lads, and together."

"No, one apiece," Giles hiccoughed, before she had finished speaking.

"One apiece! You come and sit by me--'twon't be the first time, my beauty! And--and t'other one by him!"

Bess stamped her foot in a rage.

"No!" she cried, "I will not! You'll just stay on your own side! And we on ours!"

"You'll just do as I say!" the man answered, with tipsy obstinacy.

"You'll just do--as I say!"

And he lurched forward, thinking to take her by surprise and seize her.

Henrietta screamed, and recoiled to the farthest corner of the chimney nook. Bess stood her ground, but with a dark face thrust her hand into her bosom--probably for a knife. She never drew it, however. Before Giles could touch her, or Lunt, who was coasting about the long table to come at Henrietta, had compa.s.sed half the distance--there was a knock at the door.

It was a small thing, but it was enough. It checked the men as effectually as if it had been the knell of doom. They hung arrested, eye questioning eye; or, in turn, tip-toeing to gain their weapons, they cast looks of menace at the women. And they listened with murder in their eyes.

"If you breathe a word," Giles hissed, "I'll throttle you!"

And he raised his hand for silence. The knock was repeated.

"Some one must go," the gipsy lad muttered.

His face was sallow with fear.

"Go?" Bess answered, in a low tone, but one of fierce pa.s.sion. "Who's to go but me? See now where you'd be without me!"

"And do you see here," Lunt made answer, and he drew a pistol from his pocket, and c.o.c.ked it, "one word more than's needful, and I'll blow your brains out, my la.s.s. If I go, you go first! So mark me, and speak 'em fair!"

And with a gesture he pointed to the dairy, and beckoned to the other men to retire thither.

He seemed to be about to command Henrietta to go with them. But he saw that in sheer terror she would disobey him, or he thought her sufficiently hidden where she was. For when he had seen the other men out he followed them, and holding the door of the dairy half open showed Bess the pistol.

"Now," he said, "and by G--d, remember. For I'll keep my word."

Bess had already, with a hasty hand, removed some of the plates and mugs from the table. She made sure that Henrietta was all but invisible behind the settle. Then she went to the door.

"Who's there?" she cried aloud.

No one answered, but the knock was repeated.

Henrietta raised her white face above the level of the settle. She listened, and hope, terrified as she was, rose in her heart. Who was likely to visit this lonely house at so late an hour? Was it not almost certain that her friends were there? And that another minute would see her safe in their hands?

Giles's dark face peering from the doorway of the dairy answered that question. The muzzle of his weapon now covered her, now Bess. Sick at heart, almost fainting, she sank again behind the settle and prayed.

While Bess with a noisy hand thrust back the great bar, and opened the door.

There was no inrush of feet, and Bess looked out.

"Well, who is it?" she asked of the darkness. "You're late enough, whoever you are."

The entering draught blew the flames of the candles awry. Then a woman's voice was heard:

"I've come to ask how the missus is," it said.

"Oh, you have, have you? And a fine time this!" Bess scolded, with wonderful glibness. "She's neither better nor worse. So there! I hope you think it's worth your trouble!"

"And the baby? I heard it was dead."

"Then you heard a lie!"

The visitor, who was no other than Mrs. Tyson's old servant, the stolid woman who had once admitted Henrietta to the house, seemed at a loss what to say next. After an awkward pause:

"Oh," she said, "well, I am glad. I was not sure you hadn't left her.

And if she can't get out of her bed----"

"You thought there'd be pickings about!" Bess cried, in her most insolent tone. "Well, there ain't, my girl! And don't you come up again scaring us after dark, or you'll hear a bit more of my mind!"

"You're not easy scared!" the woman retorted contemptuously. "Don't tell me! It takes more than the dark to frighten you!"

"Anyway, nine o'clock is my hour for getting scared," Bess returned.

"And as it's after that, and you've a dark walk back---- D'you come through the wood?"

"Ay, I did."

"Then you'd best go back that way!" Bess replied.

And she shut the door in the woman's face, and flung the bar over with a resounding bang.

And quickly, before the men, heaving sighs of relief, had had time to emerge from their retreat, she was across the floor, and had dragged Henrietta to her feet.

"Up the stairs!" she whispered. "The door on the left! Knock! Knock!

I'll keep them back."

Taken by surprise as she was, Henrietta's courage rose. She bounded to the open stairs, and was half-way up before the men took in the position and understood that she was escaping them. They rushed forward then, falling over one another in their eagerness to seize her. But they were too late, Bess was before them. She sprang on to the widest of the lower steps where the staircase turned in the corner of the room, and flas.h.i.+ng her knife in their eyes, she swore that she would blind the first man who ascended. They knew her, and for the moment fell back daunted and dismayed; for Giles had put up his pistol. He bethought himself, indeed, of pulling it out, when he found parley useless; but it was then too late. By that time Bess's ear told her that Henrietta was safe in Mrs. Tyson's room, with the bolt shot behind her.

CHAPTER x.x.xV

THROUGH THE WOOD