Shining Ferry Part 24

I don't notice you send that precious boy o' yourn to the Board School; and yet if 'tis good enough for Clem and Myra, 'tis good enough for any Rosewarne."

"Calvin has received a superior education. Yet I don't mind telling you that, if I find Miss Marvin competent, I propose asking her to teach him privately."

"O--oh!" Mrs. Purchase pursed up her lips and eyed him askance.

"Such a nice-looking girl, too!"

Mr. Sam flushed beneath his sallow skin. He was about to command her angrily to mind her own business, when the air between the hedgerows, and even the road beneath his feet, shook with a dull and distant detonation.

"Sakes alive!" cried Mrs. Purchase. "Don't tell me that's the powder-s.h.i.+p, up the river!"

"It didn't come up from the river--it came from Hall!" He gripped her arm with sudden excitement; then, as she began to protest, "Don't talk, woman, but help me along! It came from Hall, I tell you!"

Master Calvin defied Myra bravely enough while she threatened, and even while she piled a little heap of gunpowder under the sycamore and ostentatiously sprinkled a train of it across the roadway. He supposed that she intended only to frighten him.

Nor would any mischief have happened had he kept his perch. The heap of gunpowder was too small to do serious damage--though he may well be excused for mis...o...b..ing this. But when Myra struck a match and challenged him for the last time, he called to her not to play the fool, and began to scramble down for dear life. In truth, for two or three minutes he had been feeling strangely giddy, and to make matters worse, was suddenly conscious of a horrible burning pain in his side.

So intolerable was the pain, that he clutched at it with one hand; and missing his hold with the other, slipped and hung dangling over the powder, supported only by the bough under the crook of his armpit.

At that instant, while he struggled to recover his balance, Myra was horrified to see smoke curling about his jacket; a fiery shred of tobacco and jacket-lining dropped from his plucking fingers. She had flung away her match and was running forward--the burning stuff fell so slowly, there was almost time to catch it--when the ground at her feet leapt up with a flame and a bang, and Master Calvin thudded down upon the explosion.

She ran to him. He was not dead, for at once he began screaming at the pitch of his voice; but his features were black, his smallclothes torn, and his legs writhed in a terrifying way. His screams sank to groans as she beat out the smouldering fire in his jacket-lining; and for a while she could get no other answer from him. By and by she lost patience, and shook him by the shoulder.

"Oh, get Up for goodness' sake! I believe you're more frightened than hurt; but if you're really hurt, sit up and tell me what's the matter."

"Let me alone," groaned Calvin. "I want to die."

"Fiddlesticks--'want to die'! Come along to the pump and wash yourself."

"You're a wicked girl! You tried to kill me!"

"I didn't. I wanted to frighten you, and--and I'm sorry; but you fired the powder yourself with your nasty pipe, and you've burnt a hole in your pocket. You'd best come along and get washed and changed before your father catches you. It looks to me you've lost one of your eyebrows, but the other one's so pale I daresay 'twon't be noticed. Or I might give you a pair with a piece of burnt cork."

It was while she stood considering this that Mr. Sam and her aunt made their appearance round the corner of the road.

"Whatever in the round world have you children been doin'?" panted Mrs.

Purchase, and wound up with a gasp at sight of Calvin's face.

"I believe I'm going to die!" The boy began to writhe again.

"What has happened?" his father demanded, with a shake in the voice, stooping to lift him.

"She--she tried to kill me!" Calvin pointed at her with vindictive finger, and at once clasped both hands over his stomach.

"I did not," retorted Myra.

"Ask her who brought the powder and laid a train right under me! Ask her what she's doing with that box of matches!"

"Is that true?" Mr. Sam demanded again, straightening himself up and fixing a terrible stare on Myra.

The girl's face hardened. "Yes, I brought the powder." She pointed to the flask lying in the roadway.

"You dare to tell me that you did this deliberately?"

"I never did it at all."

"Yes, she did!" almost screamed the boy. "She put the powder here; she owns up to it."

Myra shrugged her shoulders and turned away. "Very well; he's telling a nasty fib, but you can believe him if you like."

"Stop a minute, miss." Mr. Sam strode across to her. "You don't get off in that fas.h.i.+on, I promise you!"

She looked up at him sidewise, under lowered brows. "Are you going to beat me?" she asked quietly.

The question took Mr. Sam aback. "You deserve a whipping if ever a girl did," he answered, after a second or two. "First, it seems, you almost succeed in killing your cousin, and then you tell a falsehood about it."

"I have told you the truth. I put the powder there. As for meaning to kill him, that's nonsense, and he knows it. I didn't even mean to hurt him, though he deserves it."

"Deserves it!" echoed Mr. Sam.

"Yes, for robbing Clem."

"Sam--Sam!" Mrs. Purchase thrust herself between them. "What's the matter? Don't go for to hurt the child!"

"What--what does she mean, then?" He had stretched out a hand to grip Myra by the shoulder, but fell back with a yellow face.

"Tom Trevarthen told me." Myra pointed from father to son. "He says you're no better than a pair of robbers."

"Myra," said her aunt quietly, "go to your room at once. On your own confession you have done wickedly, and must be punished."

"Very well, Aunt Hannah."

"I must attend to Calvin first; but I will come to you by and by.

Until then you are not to leave your room. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Aunt Hannah."

She turned and walked towards the house.

"And now," said Mrs. Purchase, after a glance at Mr. Sam's face, "let's see what bones are broken."

She bent over Calvin, but looked up almost immediately, as Mr. Sam uttered a sharp exclamation.

"What's this?" he asked, stooping to pick up a briar pipe.

Master Calvin blinked, and turned his head aside from Mrs. Purchase's curious gaze.

"I think it belongs to Tom Trevarthen," he mumbled.

"How on the airth did Tom Trevarthen come to drop a pipe here, and walk off 'ithout troubling to pick it up? If 'twas a hairpin, now," said Mrs.