VIII
“WOMEN ARE DEVILS”
So sound was Elinor Marshall’s sleep that when she awoke the old clock behind the door was celebrating, with its usual music, the hour of nine. From the fury of the rain upon the roof and the sheets of water coursing down the little panes of the window in her chamber, it seemed as if a deluge had arrived. And upon opening the front door she stepped hastily back to avoid the water from the roof and the spattering from the doorstep. But Solomon was not afraid. He darted out into the rain and disappeared among the pines.
“Mr. Boyd will surely get a soaking when he comes for his breakfast,” she thought. And she wondered, casually, if he had a waterproof or an umbrella. He would soon appear, probably, and, as men were always hungry, she turned her attention to hunting up food and coffee for a breakfast. These were easily found. Having started a fire and set the table for two, she got the coffee under way. Crackers, boiled eggs, sardines, marmalade, cold ham, and apples were to appear at this repast.
But at ten o’clock Mr. Boyd had not appeared. At half-past ten she realized the folly of waiting indefinitely for a man who preferred his bed to his breakfast, and she sat down alone. In the midst of her meal, however, she heard Solomon scratching at the door. No sooner had he entered–dripping with rain–than he began the same pantomime of entreaty as that of yesterday when he tried to get somebody to follow him. Now, perhaps his master was in trouble.
But Elinor remembered what Mr. Boyd himself had said, “He has probably found a woodchuck or a squirrel track.”
Looking out into the driving rain she decided to take the benefit of the doubt. But Solomon was persistent; so aggressively persistent that in the end he became convincing. At last she put on her waterproof and plunged forth into the tempest, the overjoyed dog capering wildly in front. Straight into the woods he led her.
Only a short distance had they travelled among the pines when she stopped, with a new fear, at the sound of voices. Two men, she thought, were quarrelling. Then a moment later, she heard the fragment of a song. After listening more attentively she decided that the voice of Mr. Boyd was the only one she heard. But was he intoxicated? All she caught was a senseless, almost incoherent flow of language, with laughable attempts at singing. At this, Elinor was on the point of turning back, prompted both by terror and disgust, when Solomon, with increasing vehemence, renewed his exhortations. She yielded, and a few steps farther the sight of Pats lying upon the ground at the foot of a gigantic pine, his valise beside him, its contents, now soaked with rain and scattered about, brought a twinge of remorse.
So he had done this rather than oppose her ideas of propriety! And yesterday, when he spoke of another house, she, in her heart, had not believed him.
All scruples regarding intoxication were dismissed. She hastened forward and knelt beside him. Pats, with feverish face, lay on his back in wild delirium. The pine-needles that formed his bed were soggy with rain, and his clothing was soaked. She laid her hand against his face and found it hot. His eyes met hers with no sign of recognition.
“That’s all right,” he muttered, rolling his head from side to side, “nobody denies it. Run your own business; but I want my clothes. Damn it, I’m freezing!”
His teeth chattered and he shook his fist in an invisible face. Involuntarily, from a sense of helplessness, she looked vaguely about as if seeking aid.
Here, in the woods, was protection from the wind, but the branches aloft were moving and tossing from the fury of the gale above. The usual murmuring of the pines had become a roar. Great drops of rain, shaken from this surging vault, fell in fitful but copious showers. This constant roar,–not unlike the ocean in a gale,–the sombre light, the helpless and perhaps dying man before her, the chill and mortal dampness of all and everything around, for an instant congealed her courage and took away her strength. But this she fought against. All her powers of persuasion, and all her strength, she employed to get him on his feet. Pats, although wild in speech and reckless in gesture, was docile and willing to obey. The weakness of his own legs, however, threatened to bring his rescuer and himself to the ground. And, all the time, a constant flow of crazy speech and foolish, feeble song.
Half-way to the cottage he stopped, wrenched his arm from her grasp and demanded, with a frown: “I say; you expect decent things of a woman, don’t you?”
“Yes, of course.” And she nodded assent, trying to lead him on again. But he pushed her away and would have fallen with the effort had she not caught him in time.
“Well, there’s this about it,” he continued, trying feebly to shake his arm from her hands yet staggering along where she led, “I’m not stuck on that woman or any other. I’m not in that line of business. Do I look like a one-eyed ass?”
“No, no, not at all!” And, gently, she urged him forward.
“Because three or four fools are gone over her, she thinks everybody else–oh! who cares, anyway? Let her think!”
It was a zigzag journey. He reeled and plunged, dragging her in all directions; and so yielding were his knees that she doubted if they could bear him to the house. Once, when seemingly on the point of a collapse, he muttered, in a confidential tone: “This hauling guns under a frying sun does give you a thirst, hey? Say, am I right, or not?”
“Yes, yes, you are right. Come along: just a little farther.”
“Did you ever swim in champagne with your mouth open?”
“No.”
“What a fool!”
Then he stopped, straightened up and sang, in a die-away, broken voice, with chattering teeth:
“See the Britons, Bloody Britons,
Millions of ’em doncherknow,
All a swarming up the kopje–
Just to turn about an hopje!
O, where in hell to go!
Bloody Britons!”
Grasping her roughly by the shoulder, he exclaimed: “Why don’t you join in the chorus, you blithering idiot?”
This song, in fragments and with variations, he sang–or rather tried to sing–repeatedly. At the edge of the woods he seemed to shrink from the fury of the storm which drove, in cutting blasts, against their faces. And on the threshold of the cottage he again held back. In the doorway, leaning against the jamb, he said, solemnly:
“Look here, young feller, just mark my words, women are devils. The less you have to do with them the better for you. D–n the whole tribe! That’s what I say!”
But she dragged him in and supported him to a chair before the fire. He sat shivering with cold, his chin upon his breast, apparently exhausted by the walk. The water dripping from his saturated garments formed puddles on the floor.
Elinor, for a moment, stood regarding him in heart-stricken silence. Once more she felt of his clothes, then, after an inward struggle, she made a resolve. As she did it the color came into her cheeks.