Johnny Ludlow Fourth Series Part 91

"I tell you that I do not know anything of her. You must be mad to think it. Get along with you!"

"Hyde Stockhausen, you lie. _You do know where she is; you know that it is with you she has been._ Heaven hears me say it: deny it if you dare."

His face looked whiter than death. Just for an instant he seemed unable to speak. Ketira changed her tone to one of plaintive wailing.

"She was my one little ewe lamb. What had she or I done to you that you should come as a spoiler to the fold? I _prayed_ you not. Make her your wife, and I will yet bless you. It is not too late. Do not break her heart and mine."

Hyde had had time to rally his courage. A man full of wine can generally call some up, even in the most embarra.s.sing of situations. He scornfully asked the gipsy whether she had come out of Bedlam. Ketira saw how hard he was--that there was no hope.

"It is said that you depart to-morrow to bring home a bride, Hyde Stockhausen. _I counsel you not to do it._ For your own sake, and for the young woman's sake, I bid you beware. The marriage will not bring good to you or to her."

That put Hyde in a towering pa.s.sion. His words came out with a splutter as he spurned her from him.

"Cease your folly, you senseless old beldame! Do you dare to threaten me? Take yourself out of my sight instantly, before I fetch my horsewhip. And, if ever you attempt to molest me again, I will have you sent to the treadmill."

Ketira stood looking at him while he spoke, never moving an inch. As his voice died away she lifted her forefinger in warning. And anything more impressive than her voice, than her whole manner--anything more startlingly defiant than her countenance, I never wish to see.

"It is well; I go. But listen to me, Hyde Stockhausen; mark what I say.

Only three times shall you see me again in life. But each one of those times you shall have cause to remember; and after the last of them you will not need to see me more."

It was a strange threat. That she made it, Duffham could, to this day, corroborate. Pulling her red cloak about her shoulders, she went swiftly through the gate, and disappeared within the opposite coppice.

Hyde smiled; his good humour was returning to him. One can be brave enough when an enemy turns tail.

"Idiotic old Egyptian!" he exclaimed lightly. "What on earth ever made her take the fancy into her head, that I knew what became of Kettie, I can't imagine. I wonder, Duffham, some of you people in authority here don't get her confined as a lunatic!"

"We must first of all find that she is a lunatic," was Duffham's dry rejoinder.

"Why, what else is she?"

"Not that."

"She is; and a dangerous one," retorted Hyde.

"Nonsense, man! Gipsies have queer ways and notions; and--and--are not to be judged altogether as other people," added the doctor, finis.h.i.+ng off (as it struck me) with different words from those he had been about to say. "Good-night; and don't take any more of that champagne."

Hyde returned indoors, and we walked away, not seeing a sign of the red cloak anywhere.

"I must say I should not like to be attacked in this manner, were I Hyde," I remarked to Duffham. "How obstinate the old gipsy is!"

"Ah," replied Duffham. "I'd sooner believe her than him."

The words surprised me, and I turned to him quickly. "Why do you say that, sir?"

"Because I do say it, Johnny," was the unsatisfactory answer. "And now good-evening to you, lad, for I must send the physic in."

"Just a word, please, Mr. Duffham. Do you know where that poor Kettie is?--and did you know that Hyde Stockhausen stole her?"

"No, to both your questions, Johnny Ludlow."

Everybody liked Hyde's wife. A fragile girl with a weak voice, who looked as if a strong wind would blow her away. Duffham feared she was not strong enough to make old days.

Virginia Cottage flourished. Parson Hyde had died and left all his fortune to Hyde: who had now nothing to do but take care of his wife and his money, and enjoy life. Before the next summer came round, Hyde had a son and heir. A fine little shaver, with blue eyes like Hyde's, and good lungs. His mother was a long while getting about again: and then she looked like a shadow, and had a short, hacking kind of cough. Hyde wore a grave face at times, and would say he wished Mabel could get strong.

But Hyde was regarded with less favour than formerly. People did not scruple to call him "villain." And one Sunday, when Mr. Holland told us in his sermon that man's heart was deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, the congregation wondered whether he meant it especially for Stockhausen. For the truth had come out.

When Hyde departed to keep his marriage engagement, Ketira the gipsy had again disappeared from Church d.y.k.ely. In less than a month afterwards, Abel Carew received a letter from her. She had found Kettie: and she had found that her own instincts against Hyde Stockhausen were not mistaken ones. For all his seeming fair face and his indignant denials, it was he who had been the thief.

"Of all brazen-faced knaves, that Stockhausen must be the worst!--an adept in cunning, a lying hypocrite!" exploded the Squire.

"I suspected him at the time," said Duffham.

"You did! What were your grounds for it?"

"I had no particular grounds. His manner did not appear to me to be satisfactory; that was all. Of course I was not sure."

"He is a base man," concluded the Squire. And from that time he turned the cold shoulder on Hyde.

But time is a sure healer of wounds; a softener of resentment. As it pa.s.sed on, we began to forget Hyde's dark points, and to remember his good qualities. Any way, Ketira the gipsy and Ketira's daughter pa.s.sed out of memory, just as they had pa.s.sed out of sight.

Suddenly we heard that Abel Carew was preparing to go on a journey. I went off to ask him where he was bound for.

"I am going to see _them_, Master Johnny," he replied. "I don't know how they are off, sir, and it is my duty to see. The child is ill: and I fear they may be wanting a.s.sistance, which Ketira is too proud to write and ask for."

"Kettie ill! What is the matter with her?"

Abel shook his head. "I shall know more when I get there, sir."

Abel Carew locked up his cottage and began his pilgrimage into Hertfords.h.i.+re with a staff and a wallet, intending to walk all the way.

In a fortnight he was back again, bringing with him a long face.

"It is sad to see the child," he said to me, as I sat in his room listening to the news. "She is no more like the bonnie Kettie that we knew here, than a dead girl's like a living one. Worn out, bent and silent, she sits, day after day and week after week, and her mother cannot rouse her. She has sat so all along."

"But what is the matter with her?"

"She is slowly dying, sir."

"What of?"

"A broken heart."

"Oh dear!" said I; believing I knew who had broken it.

"Yes," said Abel, "_he_. He won her heart's best love, Master Johnny, and she pines for him yet. Ketira says it was his marriage that struck her the death-blow. A few weeks she may still linger, but they won't be many."

Very sorry did I feel to hear it: for Ketira's sake as well as Kettie's.

The remembrance of the day I had gilded the oak-ball, and her wonderful grat.i.tude for it, came flas.h.i.+ng back to me.