A Bit of Red May: a village mystery

Chapter I

, THE BULLET'S COURSE. He asked her the most natural question in the world : " What was my father ? " And she told him proudly : "An officer and a gentleman." " He was killed in the war, you say, in battle ? " "Yes." "Ah!" exclaimed the lad, his eyes flashing with enthusiasm. " How I should love to be a soldier, as you say my father was, and to fight. Yes ; how I would love to fight." The woman smiled at his vehemence; and, drawing him close to her, she asked : " Why do you want to fight ? " B "I do not know," he returned. "But men ought to fight ; and when I'm a man, I think that I should like to." At that moment a quiet-looking boy walked into the cottage, and sat down by the table. " Ralph ! " his brother shouted, shaking him self free of his mother, and rushing up to the interrogated, "have you been by the river; and did you bag any rats ?

" The instinct to kill was strong within that youngster. Mrs. Blake seated herself in a chair by the window, and looked out upon the green lane. Hers was an old, old story. She had married a man who was in a better position than her own. He went to the war, and was numbered among what they call England's heroes. The lads were talking eagerly together ; and as she sat there, her mind went back to that awful dream of hers, which, unlike most dreams, had turned out to be only too true. She was in that very chair ; and he had been gone about two months to the war. His wife was thinking of him, wondering whether he were safe, and what he was doing, when suddenly she had felt a sharp twinge of pain, THE BULLET'S COURSE. 3 just as though a bullet had pierced right through her body ; and she sank back unconscious in her chair.

She was upon the field of battle ; and a soldier lay there, shot through the left breast. The dead and the dying lay around him; and their prayers and their curses went up to heaven in one mass together. It was a terrible sight for a delicate woman to witness. Strong men were writhing in agony : the con tortions of their faces made them appear more like demons than human beings ; and those dreadful oaths, which were sighed out, hurled out, as a beast moans when wrestling with death. But he lay quietly there, with his head resting upon his arm, while his life-blood flowed from him. - Neither curse nor prayer escaped his lips ; but when he opened his eyes there was a look of agony in them, a pleading, implor ing look, which told her that he was longing for death to put an end to his misery. A man approached him ; and, stooping over the dying officer, he saw at once that his art could avail nothing.

" Blake, old fellow," he whispered, as he raised the dying man's head tenderly, " can I take a message home ?" B MAI . The woman, who was dreaming in the chair, saw him open his eyes, and heard him murmur (she could only just catch his words) : " My poor wife ! Tell her, tell her how I died." Then his face turned ashy-pale ; a great sigh shook his tall frame ; and he was dead. This is how the heroes die, this is what they call glory ; and yet, when one comes to think, Civilisation has not a much better fate to offer thousands of her stay-at-home sons. " George," Mrs. Blake said, addressing her younger son, " have you ever noticed that mark over your heart ? " " Yes ! " he exclaimed eagerly. " Man}7 a time I have wondered how it came there." " I will try to explain. You remember my having told you that you were born after your father's death.

One day when I was bathing you I noticed that mark upon your breast ; and it looked to me just like a wound, as though you had been shot there and the place had healed. In a moment it flashed across my mind that it was in that very spot your father received his death-wound." THE BULLET'S COURSE. 5 " But, surely, the same bullet did not strike me?" She shook her head, and did not answer him ; for she remembered the terrible blow, which an invisible hand had struck her; and though her common-sense forbade her saying that the strange phenomenon was in any way connected with his father's death, she thought so all the same. " Do you know the cause ? " the lad asked her. "No; how you came by that mark, George, must always remain a mystery."

Chapter II. His Little Margaret

"And how goes the world with you, Ralph, old fellow ? Aren't you about tired to death of being a schoolmaster?" "No; it suits me well enough. Indeed, I'd rather be it than a city clerk." " Eh ! But think of the future, man. Yet I don't know that you're not happier down here all among the buttercups and daisies ; for, 'pon my soul, unless you've knocked about in a big city, you can form but a poor opinion of what devils most men are," the speaker concluded, with a touch of bitterness in his tones. " You need not go to cities to find that out," the other returned. " Men, George, are much the same." " I suppose so." George Blake was home for his holidays ; and the brothers were taking a stroll through the fields together. The schoolmaster was the taller of the two ; and there was always a smile upon his lips, which contrasted strangely with his brother's determined cast of countenance.

The latter was a short, thick-set, powerfully built man, who was simply a genius at figures. He was in a stockbroker's office in the city of N ; and he could do in his head those intricate sums which most of his fellow-clerks were not able to work out upon paper ; con sequently they hated him because he was more clever than they. The man had a handsome face ; and his dark, piercing eyes gave it a rather fierce touch. Nor was he a very sociable animal ; for his undoubted mental gifts made him look down upon his fellows, whose tastes and vices he did not share. The man was not greedy to make money, but rather anxious to attain a certain kind of knowledge which brings with it that satisfaction which friendship and one's fellows' esteem seldom does George Blake stopped in front of a gate, upon which he rested his arms, and stood gazing upon the meadows beyond.

Presently he observed : "Many a fight have I had with John Lees in this old meadow, Ralph, when school was over." His brother gave a start upon hearing that name pronounced. "What, by the way, has become of Lees?" "He's in the next village." "I can picture it to myseli all over again," George continued. "And I can hear those boys swearing, Ralph. How they did swear to be sure." And he smiled at his thoughts. Yes; many a fight had George Blake had with John Lees in that charming meadow; and many a beating had the great dealer's son given him. The latter was older and stronger than George, who, however, had never given in, but had just been pommelled by his adversary until all the breath was knocked clean out of his body. It was then Lees' custom to give him a parting kick and to walkaway. Having, upon a certain occasion, received the customary kick as he lay panting upon the grass, with the blood streaming from his nose, apparently quite done up, he suddenly sprang upon his feet, and amidst wild shouts of encouragement from his " backers," had another round with the great bully, whose kick had imparted to him fresh bodily vigour.

Rushing upon Lees, he had dealt him blow after blow, until the great fellow had given in and taken the customary kick. Ever after that day George could beat him easily. Have you ever seen two schoolboys fight ? You should just have seen these two. Their innocent playmates cut a ring in the grass with their broken-bladed knives, into which the com batants stepped ; whereupon these gentle boys would form themselves into two groups, each behind its respective champion, and would watch the progress of the fight, whilst encouraging their favourite and swearing fearful oaths. Those little chaps who had laid marbles or half-pence upon the issue of the fight would go almost mad with excitement, shouting and swearing in their shrill treble voices, and pushing one another from side to side with such violence that a free fight was often the result.

They would rush down to the stream, which mean dered through the meadow, in order to fill their hats, and occasionally even their boots, at the pellucid streamlet ; then back they would come to sprinkle their champion so as to bring him up to time. How astonished their fond mothers would have been could they only have seen them. Go where one may, one will never hear viler oaths than those youngsters used to throw off their baby chests. They screamed, they stamped their feet, and yelled out the name of their champion, which they qualified with an adjective ; and, though backward in their parsing, they could modify the adjective by a string of adverbs. All this in shrieks. Such a chorus of oaths went up to heaven ; yet how innocent many of them looked when their mothers tubbed them of a Saturday night ; and they never used a naughty word even when she rubbed into their matted locks Sunday's share of hair-oil !

These thoughts were passing through George Blake's brain as he gazed upon the old meadow. " Ralph, old boy," he burst out suddenly, "I was reading the other day in some society weekly that Englishmen are becoming over civilised. It went on to say that we are los ing our fighting-powers, whilst hinting that, some day, we shall be overcome by a stronger and fiercer race. What do you think ? " "That the writer must have been dreaming, judging others by himself, perhaps." "Ah, that is it. He did not really understand whence England gets her savage sons. He must have forgotten that there were two such races as the Danish and the Saxon, which fought each other with the fury of wild beasts ; and if he think that civilisation has tamed their descendants, he has made a great mistake. He must remember, too, that our climate is a cold one, and that the English soldier of to-day is the finest in the world, because he is the greatest blackguard, and the greatest savage among Christian nations.

Our business-men succeed for the same reason ; there is no man so cruel and so brutal as an Englishman," he concluded with feeling. " You may be right," his brother allowed. "You are, no doubt, correct so far as your argument a propos of heredity goes ; but in the latter part I differ from you. I can see nothing noble in man, whom I believe to be an animal in the accepted sense of the word ; yet I'd hardly go to that length. What makes you so bitter ? " " I'm not bitter, man," the interrogated returned, slapping his brother heartily upon the shoulder. " But I like to see things as they are, and not to puff myself out with a lot of vain conceits as to man's descent from the gods. He is little in all that he says, and in all that he does. I see him in the city wild for money, rushing here and there in his mad haste to be rich ; and it makes a man feel slightly sick when he hears his beautiful sentiments."

"Why here comes John Lees!" he exclaimed, abruptly. " I wonder if he'll speak to me ? It costs him an effort, I know, to string half-a dozen words together." A tall, bloated fellow passed the two brothers. He just glanced at his old enemy, but took no further notice of him. He did not even nod his head ; so his nature was evidently not a for giving one. To look at the man one would have thought that he did not possess much beyond the coat which was upon his back. And, in all conscience, that was shabby enough for a Sunday rig-out. Lees' father was a rich horse-dealer, who, though quite unable to write his own name, could give one a cheque for a thousand pounds with his initials scrawled against a stamped signature ; and the same would be, as business-men say, duly honoured upon presentation.

Old Lees was the richest dealer for miles round, and the greatest drunkard to boot. He dealt in beasts ; and perhaps his having had so much to do with them had made him a trifle like them in his manners ; for they were his superior in all else. Drunk or sober, Lees never gave too high a price for an animal ; and though he drank him self, he seldom paid for anybody else's glass, unless he thought that a " deal " depended upon his so doing. His son, John, was a chip of the old block. " His manners haven't improved," George remarked after his old enemy had passed. Did you see the look he gave me? Why I believe that even now he'd like to pay off old scores. By the way, Ralph, you haven't told me any very exciting news yet." His brother smiled, as he returned : " We're in a somnolent state down here, old fellow.

Now and again we have a little excite ment, as, for instance, when the whole village turns out to see a funeral or a marriage ; but such treats are few and far between." " And which do they prefer ? " " I hardly know ; they seem to take just what's sent. You see, we haven't got a theatre down here ; and the only way a labourer can vary the monotony of life is by getting drunk." The young men laughed lightly. " Must you really be off to-morrow, George ? Why not stay another day ? " " I'm afraid so, thanks. The governor will be making out his monthly accounts ; and he generally has a deal for me to do then." " And do you like the life ? " " Oh," indifferently, "I suppose it's about the same as any other existence ; and the hours are pretty easy, you know. Besides, Mr. Manners has taken a fancy to me.

Don't think that I'm sentimental, old fellow, or that I believe in dis interested friendship, any more than I do in brotherly love, at least in business. The man has an idea that I'm useful to him : he thinks that I'm suited to the business ; and so he, in a friendly way, tries, as most employers do, to get the maximum quantity of work out of me for the minimum amount of pay. The life's exciting, too, almost like horse-racing ; and as I know how to keep my brain cool, why the time passes quickly. What more can a man expect?" " Then you like Mr. Manners ?" " My dear old boy, I'm perfectly indifferent to him. The only two persons for whom I feel any amount of friendship are you and our mother. They say that man is a gregarious animal ; and I thoroughly agree with them that he is ; but in the same sense as are the wolves ; for he preys upon his own wounded.

I'm going to indulge in a pipe of baccy after that, just to soothe my nerves." And he suited the action to the words. " I am thinking of that wound of yours, George," his brother remarked as they strol led along. " You know the tale our mother tells. Do you believe it?" " Yes." The schoolmaster smiled. " But you must remember what a state her mind was in. Surely you do not believe that she saw our father die — really saw him ? " " Yes." " Then she must have been, for the moment, from her mind." " I don't think so. Have you ever read Darwin ? " "Darwin be hanged!" retorted the interrogated. " He gives you a reason for everything, and backs up his arguments by quot ing facts which, in many instances, drive his meaning right home to one. How on earth can you take a common-sense view of our mother's case, and bracket it under the head ing of any Natural Law, except that of hallu cination ?

It's all very well to argue that every phenomenon can, if one care to search deeply enough, be explained away ; but I hardly think that you will be able to satisfy any sane man as to how that mark on you is connected with our father's death, George." George Blake puffed away at his pipe. I call it sympathy," he said at length " And I account for it in this manner. Our father was in danger ; and our mother was constantly thinking of him. At that very moment he was in her thoughts, and she in his ; then what more natural than she should feel his pain, and that I should bear evi dence of it upon my body ? Why, Ralph, old fellow, you know how you and I are attached to each other, that we'd not by deed or word cause one another a moment's pain ; and I tell you, honestly, that if anything were to go wrong with you I should know.

What's more, I'm uneasy now." His brother laughed merrily ; for he could not understand a hard-headed man as was George — who could keep in his head the prices of almost every stock upon the market, and the names of pretty well every company that had been floated, together with its share capital and the names of its money-grubbing directors — talking nonsense. Every man, he remembered, is mad upon some pet subject ; he, therefore, charitably assumed that he had hit upon his brother's. They crossed over the fields into the main road. Neither of them was speaking ; for they were true friends ; and each took a pleasure in the other's presence. Perfect trust existed between those two men ; they could almost read each other's thoughts. It was towards the middle of May ; and the hedges were looking beautifully fresh and green ; for Nature, whether it be vegetable or human, is never so charming as when young.

The air, c too, was fresh ; and, consequently, breathing was a pleasure. Why the very toad, as he hopped across the road, seemed cheerful, and the birds were making merry among them selves ; for we do not believe that they sing for man's pleasure. Indeed, were such the case, the modern smart man would be the first to say " more fools the birds." He lives for his own amusement: most of us do; and so likewise do the birds. And if they sing in order to amuse that mighty creature man, who is related to the gods, instinct, at any rate, cautions them to keep out of range oi his gun. What that instinct is we do not quite know, though we shrewdly suspect that, like our own reason, it is culled from the fruits of experience. Lovers are supposed to enjo}7 this month of the year more than any other. Perhaps it appeals to their imagination, or blinds their eyes as to what is to follow.

Be that as it may, Nature has many a lesson to teach them. She is there silently obeying the same law as those men who claim descent from the gods ; but they are too blind to notice her, too conceited and puffed up ; and yet she can give them what they are all searching scr. Even their gold she holds in her bosom : she is the mother of them all ; and in May she bursts forth into fresh life ; and yes — she mocks them. For she, each year, renews her spell of life ; and they — they go to their noble ancestors the gods, who dwell somewhere. A man and a girl were walking down the road towards the brothers ; and when Ralph Blake saw the couple, a dark look came upon his face. Margaret, his Margaret, was with that drunken scamp John Lees. He had noticed that she had been cool towards him ; and if he had persuaded her to make an appoint ment with him, she had never kept her pro mise.

How dared she to walk out with that man ? For the second time that day John Lees passed the brothers. He looked as sullen as before. Even if he felt at all elated, his dull, expressionless face could not have shown it ; but like the pigs in his yards, he would just have grunted out his sense of satisfaction. The girl, who was hanging upon his arm, blushed crimson when she passed the c brothers, at whom she smiled, and then cast her eyes upon the ground. A very pretty girl was Margaret, with her sparkling dark blue eyes, and her golden hair, which was as yellow as a guinea. Her features were small and exquisitely modelled. Even the nose, which had the faintest suspicion of being a snub, gave to her face a vivacious touch ; and when she smiled she displayed a set of the whitest and most even teeth imagin able.

Her manners too were charming. She was one of those bewitching little women who know so well how to get what they want out of a man. Had she gone to any great city, an enterprising music-hall manager would have given her plenty of guineas ; and she would have driven his " mashers " just mad. That life, too, would have suited Mar garet ; but she did not know that her charms had a market-price, that she had only to walk on the boards and smile, when the " mashers " would cluster thick around her, like a flock of geese rushing to be fed at the hand of Beauty. Yes ; Margaret would have been in her element there : she would have picked the richest goose in the market. As it was, she had singled out John Lees, who was the most notorious blackguard in the village ; and she could twist him, as the saying is, round her little finger.

He, who seldom spoke without an oath, rarely swore in her presence ; and she had taught him to call her his little Margaret and to say " sweetie " and " duckie dear." Tucked into her frock, she wore a little bit of red may. Whenever one met the little witch she always wore a flower of some description ; but she professed to have a tender adoration for a little bit of red may. " You love me ? " her companion blurted out brutally as they passed Ralph Blake, just as though he were shouting at the cattle in the market-place. " Hush ! " she remonstrated, in trembling tones. " Do not speak like that or he will hear," "And I mean him to hear," he retorted. " Let him understand that I'm, going to marry you, the darned skulemaister, with his airs of a squire." And John Lees, forgetting his good manners, made use of language, the mildest word of which suggested that a cow was of a blood-red colour.

"Tell me that you love me?" he again grunted. She was in despair; tor there was a reason which made it imperative that she should hold the other. "You know that I adore you, dear," she said, laying her dainty little hand upon his arm. " So you say," he growled. " Look here, Margaret, I'm not goin' to have that skulemaister danglin' after my gal. It's him or me, an' you must choose." He looked at her just as the old pig does at the fair sow ; for John was only accustomed to the very primitive courtships of the farm yard. " It is you that I love, sweetie," she told him softly. " What do I care for him ? But you must remember that it is so hard to break with old friends. Why are you so jealous ? " And she looked reproachfully into his face as though chiding her "sweetie" for not having more confidence in his little Margaret.

Grasping her delicate hand in his own great fist, her "sweetie " squeezed it until she almost skrieked with pain, saying : "You must not speak to him again, must not do ye hear ? " Her face became contracted with pain, as she screamed : " Let go my hand ! let go, I say — you are hurting me!" He laughed brutally as he released her hand; and they walked along in silence. She was thinking of her old lover, Ralph, and wondering how she could get rid of him without making a fuss ; for one word from him might open her rich lover's eyes, and change his brutish love into hate. "He is so poor," she ruminated. "And I could never marry a poor man. I am sure that I could not live without pretty frocks. And he " (she glanced up affectionately at the clown who walked by her side), "he can give me all that my heart longs for."

And she went up a little closer to him, and rubbed herself gently against her " sweetie," who asked her : " Why the hell can't ye walk straight, wench ? " ■24 A BIT OF RFD MAY. He was in a temper ; but Margaret coaxed the beast, just as does a modern man of busi ness a remunerative, though disagreeable customer, whose gold more than makes amends for his manners. "In love, Ralph?" George Blake asked his brother lightly. " With a chicken like that, too, who has a doll's face and blue eyes. Pah, I don't like your fair women : a fair woman with a smile must be false. Give me a dark woman, who has some character. Why, old boy, you look quite cut up ; but, mark me, you'll get over it." The schoolmaster did not make any reply. He was longing to tell his brother all ; but he did not like to give the girl away ; so he kept his secret to himself.

"Do you believe in women, George?" he asked. The reply was characteristic of the man : " In nothing that is human. You must, in a case like this, take common-sense as a basis. Man is a money-making machine. In business he is a monster, and he will indirectly kill his hundreds in order that he may live a life of luxury and of pleasure. But a woman, who often does not know what life really is, lives in a kind of dream, listening to and believing in his professed love for the human kind, when all he really wants is to satisfy his two ruling passions — gold and lust. She marries a man ; her duty is to teach her children how to pray, and his to instruct them in the art of legal stealing. And so the game goes on : an amus ing little comedy if you ask me," he concluded. Ralph Blake smiled and shook his head ; for he loved Margaret with all his soul.

" Have you ever been hit, George ? " he asked. "By what?" " Oh, you know." I can guess ; yes, I was once " And what did you do ? "Quadratic equations, old fellow, and read through a couple of books on Political Economy. It's the only cure I know of. But gracious me, you can't be mad enough to dream of marry ing Margaret, that pretty little doll of a thing, whose mother keeps a small general shop just outside the village. Do some hard reading, if you don't like mathematics, but don't make a fool of yourself." " It's his gold," Ralph said to himself. " I could kill that lout, whose money is tempting my little Margaret." The false, little witch certainly knew the value of a rich lover, and had pictured to her self a nice home and a carriage to drive about in, just as had the other farmers' wives ; for she meant to cut a dash.

Such a picture appealed to her imagination. Hers was a dream of pretty frocks and social distinction. "Why haven't you brought Dash out? What's the matter with the old dog?" George demanded, thinking it wise to turn the conver sation into another channel. " Oh, he's hurt his foot, poor old fellow got a thorn in it or something ; so I left him at home." They strolled in a homeward direction, ex changing a word every now and then. Ralph answered his brother's questions with either a Yes or a No ; and occasionally he said the one when he meant the other; for his thoughts were with Margaret, who had been tempted from him by that drunkard's gold. Uneasy as George Blake felt, little did he dream that his brother's love of the village beauty would cost three lives.