She made the boat fast to the twisted root of a tree, where it would be hidden among the bushes. Her feet sank into the moist earth from which water oozing into her footprints formed tiny glistening pools. She hid the basket among the elder bushes on the shore, and there, shading her eyes with her hand, scanned the fields for the figure of her unknown lover. Evening mists were gathering in the hollows; the hillsides were velvet brown. Would he be coming down a hillside maybe? Or at the far end of that narrow ribbon of a path that disappeared into the pine wood? When she saw him she must have courage, walk up to him and say—"Are you Mr. J. Adams? Please, I'm Delight Mainprize. . . ." But, of course, she wouldn't need to say who she was. He'd know the minute he saw her. Still it would be more polite to say—"I am Miss Mainprize, please. I have received your kind letter."
She had on her best dress, wine colour, with elbow sleeves and a little black bow at the neck, and her black velvet tam with the quill. In the rich light her tawny yellow hair and the tawny and red tints in her cheeks glowed like bright wine, alive, changeful. She turned this way and that, but there was no sign of any human being; just the rolling, velvet fields, the rose-tinted lagoon, the deep pine wood, and a silence that was not a silence, for it was full of whisperings that seemed no more than the breathing of the grass, or the sighing of the earth as it turned towards sleep.
Then from out a little copse of dense cedars a low whistle came, deep and flutelike, repeated thrice. It startled, almost frightened her. She stood like a deer, head up, listening, her great eyes fixed on the copse. He was there. She was to meet him there. It was only a very small copse, but a shelter, if he were a shy man. If she did not like him, if he were too forward, or a wretch, well, there was the lagoon. She would throw him in there as she had thrown Perkin into the stream. Full of curiosity now she hurried towards the copse. It was darker in there than she had expected, but in one place there was an opening where the light shone redly, and from just beyond it the whistle sounded, softer and yet more urgent.
She went into the open space and stood there smiling expectantly.
There was a crackling of twigs as someone emerged from the shadows. She drew a step nearer and saw, not a man but a woman, a thickset woman, bare-headed, with untidy grey hair.
It was Mrs. Jessop.
The meeting, the letter, was a hoax. Mrs. Jessop had played her this trick. Her pulses began to beat quickly. Rage flamed in her heart.
"How did you dare?" she said. "You ought to be ashamed. You'd better get out of here before I hurt you. I'll do it and no mistake. I'll give you a proper beating, I will."
Mrs. Jessop stood stock-still now. When she had entered the clearing she had been wearing her broadest grin. Now it changed to her black scowl.
"Now, you slut," she said, "I've got you."
"Got me! It's me that's got you. I'll throw you into the lagoon as quick as look at you."
"We'll see whether you're going to come back to this town and ruin our business after I've put you out."
"I'll come any place I like—"
"And ruin our men, too."
Delight thought: "If I can get hold of her wrists, I'll put her down on her knees and make her say she's sorry. She might get drowned if I threw her in the water." She moved towards Mrs. Jessop, holding her eyes with hers.
The housekeeper glared at her and again uttered that strange deep whistle which came from her coarse lips like a spring of sweet water from rough clay. . . . At the note every tree and shrub and clump of spiny undergrowth seemed to come alive. In every place that a woman could hide, there was a woman hidden. Like birds of prey, with skirts that flapped like flapping wings, uttering cries of rage and exultation, they swooped forth.
The sun had set. The bright space where the two stood became dusk as the other women gathered about them. For one instant Delight had seen their faces, transfigured by the last fiery glow into strange burning masks, more like metal than flesh, with jewels for eyes. Now, as the shadows fell, she only saw them surging about her, blurred, menacing, darker shadows from the shadow.
She struck out at them, as they surrounded her.
"Don't dare touch me!" she shrieked. "Keep your hands off me!"
She grasped the one nearest her and threw her to the ground. She caught the next by the throat and threw her into a bush. One from behind tore off her velvet tam. Another pulled down her hair. She turned and faced them like a wild thing at bay. A short girl with a broad flat face spat on her. She struck the flat face with her fist. There was a scream.
"Ow, she's broke my nose! It's streamin' blood."
They were a wave now that submerged her. They struggled with each other that they might get near her to deliver a blow for some harm they fancied she had done them, or just because she was so strangely beautiful, and they had her at their mercy, and Mrs. Jessop had aroused the savage in them.
Mrs. Jessop had taken no hand in the attack as yet. She stood apart, her arms folded, her head on her strong neck thrust forward. Mrs. Jessop, respectable for all these years, obeying only the incalculable promptings of her fierce heart. Once more the grin was enthroned on her face, such a grin as might have stretched the lips of one of her cutthroat ancestors. Her blood danced singing through her veins. She felt and looked twenty years younger.
But she did not want her girls to go too far. She did not want her victim to be seriously hurt or rendered unconscious. She raised her voice and shouted to the little mob that moved here and there in the dusk of the copse like a strange animal in pain:
"Easy there, girls! No more now—take her into the open—down to the lagoon. I'm going to duck her!"
They did not seem to hear but they must have heard, for very soon the animal that had seemed to be in pain in the copse writhed out into the field, and down to the water's edge, as though it would end its suffering there.
Lovering was leaning against the bar, sipping a glass of whisky and water, with a feeling of deep content. He had got a raise, and at last he had been able to send for his wife and two little girls. A telegram had come that day from Quebec to say that they were arrived. He was thoroughly tired of hotel life. It was all very well in its way, but, after all, there was nothing like a home of his own for a man. He had had enough of rooming with Kirke. Duncan was getting more overbearing all the time, especially since he was going with the mayor's daughter.
He came in now, and said to Lovering:
"It's a fine nicht."
"Ay. But sultry."
"Nothing of the soort. It's balmy. You couldn't ask for a finer nicht." He ordered his beer and then continued—"The Byes have given notice today. Going to start on their own. Five of the third-floor boarders are leaving with them. Charley told me just now that Mrs. Jessop had a letter from Mr. Hodgins this morning giving her a month's warning, too. Mark my words, Jack, Bastien himself will be out of a job before spring."
"He can marry Mrs. Jessop, then."
Kirke's light eyes moved sharply over the room.
"Who's that just come in? Why, it's Mayberry! He's in a fine stew about something. He's gibbering like an idiot. Let's see what's up, Jack."
He hurried over to the tailor, and Lovering, sucking his "clay," lazily followed him.
Mr. Mayberry was in a pitiable state. He, who rarely moved faster than a snail's gallop, had run wildly through the street from his shop to Beemer's, forcing his weak limbs and sluggish heart to such violent action that he stood now, open-mouthed, gasping like a fish, clinging to the bar for support, while he tried with all his might to tell the men who were excitedly crowding around him what was wrong.
"Gie him a drop of liquor," suggested Kirke.
"I'm afraid he couldn't swallow it the state he's in," said Eddie, the barman.
"I'll see that he swallows it," said Kirke.
He approached Mr. Mayberry with a commanding look, but the tailor put up his hand to keep him off, looked imploringly at the others, and then got out the words:
"De-light—"
There was a sudden and spontaneous roar of laughter. So this was what all the anguish was about! Delight! Poor old Mayberry.
Mr. Mayberry glared at them. He was recovering himself. By the time the laughter had subsided he could speak coherently.
"Delight Mainprize. Some of the women folk—factory girls—Mrs. Jessop—ill-treating her in the field across the lagoon—my niece told me—she got scared and ran home. Men! They're ducking her—drowning her perhaps. I came here to see if she'd got back. Oh—what can I do?"
"Godamoighty!" shouted Lovering, "coom along, Duncan! Everybody! Lead the way, tailor, if you know where they've got the lass; coom on, boys." He stuffed his pipe into his pocket.
The tailor, suddenly galvanized into new life, sprang forward, tottering in a kind of anguished speed, like an autumn leaf in the gale. He was first into the hall, first out of the front door, first to round the corner by The Duke of York. The men nearest the window of that bar saw him pass, his thin hair flying, his spiderish legs almost doubling under him. And in his train stout Lovering, rushing like a curly polled bull; Kirke, in angular leaps, like a deer; fat Beemer, waddling at the tail of a score of others.
Forgetting his feud with Beemer, Bastien strode to the door.
"Hi, Beemer!" he called. "What's the matter?"
"Batter enough," choked Beemer. "The women folks is gone clean crazy and they're killin' my girl—you know, the Prize girl—I mean the Mainprize girl—Delight. Oh, don'd keep me, Mr. Bastien!" He ran on, vainly trying to overtake the others.
Delight! The syllables clutched at the men's hearts like fingers of fire. They burst into incoherent babbling all at once and rushed for the doors. Some of them ran with glasses in their hands, hesitated in the street to drain them; then dashed them into the road as they sped on.
Charley Bye was among the leaders when they started. His noble head thrown back, his chest inflated, he looked, in truth, like some classic runner. But his erratic legs played him false, he tripped over his own toes, fell to the road and lay there groaning while Kirke leaped over him, Bastien gave him a kick, and, at last, fat Beemer trotted round him. When he gathered himself up, the others had turned in at the park gates. He sighed, brushed the dust from his legs and, remembering that the bar was deserted, ambled back there and had a glass of gin and water in peace.
Meanwhile men from doorways of cottages joined the others. Men, chopping wood for their wives, dropped their axes and made the streaming tail of the rescue party longer. One man, leaning on a gate, nursing his baby, ran for a space after the others with it in his arms, till his wife overtook him and brought him back, shame-faced, but muttering the name that thrilled them all.
As the first of the men reached the park gates, strange muffled cries came to them from across the lagoon. They had half believed that they were on a wild-goose chase, but those unearthly cries brought the sweat to their foreheads and deadly certainty of danger to their hearts. They could see nothing beyond the race course but the topaz glint of the water between the willows that fringed the lagoon.
All other noises were now drowned by a wild clamour among the crows. They rose out of the pine wood and swept like a tumultuous cloud above the lagoon. Flying close together, fanning each other with their heavy wings, uttering cries of fear and rage, they cast their black shadow on the limpid mirror below.
Delight saw them, as, bruised and drenched, not certain whether it were not all a horrible nightmare, she raised her terrified eyes to the sky. Above the drumming in her ears, she heard their cries. Jimmy's crows were calling, rowdy, noisy, faithful crows:
"Caw! Caw! They've got her—Jimmy's girl—Jimmy's pretty girl—Jim's Delight. Delight! Delight! 'Light! Give us 'Light! Give us 'Light!"
Mayberry, almost fainting, cursed the birds for their noise. If it were not for them he might know just which opening to head for. As it was they bewildered him till he felt that when his feet were once on the race course he might have no more wit left than to run there in a half-mile circle till he dropped. . . .
Kirke was the first to crash through the undergrowth to the water's edge. His small eyes screwed into two points of light, he peered across. He saw the crowd of women on the opposite shore, Mrs. Jessop in the foreground. She stood up to her waist in water, clutching in her hands something—someone that hung limply like a doll.
Kirke gave forth a great yell:
"Mrs. Jessop! Woman alive! Are ye gone mad? Ye've killed the lass. Are ye all out of your senses?"
A scream of defiance rose from the women. One shouted: "Never fear. She ain't dead—yet!"
The other men now thronged to Kirke's side. As the women had screamed defiance at them, they shouted impotent rage at the women. They shook their fists to heaven. Macy, the constable took out his handcuffs, and waved them in the air, threatening to clap them all in gaol. . . . But Kirke, more practical, was pulling off his coat.
"I'll swim across," he snarled.
Other men began to follow his example, though the water was icy cold. Seeing what they were about to do Mrs. Jessop turned and spoke to her girls, with a jerk of the head towards a pile of broken bricks, ruin of an old smoke-house. They fell on the pile with screams of triumph and half hysterical laughter. They were more like malicious children now than furies. With Mrs. Jessop as captain, they would hold the fort. Pelt any man who ventured near their side till he would be glad to turn back. They filled their skirts with the fragments and some began to throw pieces into the water, and to invite the men sarcastically to join them. When Mr. Mayberry saw that Kirke was preparing to enter the water, an heroic flame transfigured his sallow face.
"I go first, Mr. Kirke," he said, and without waiting to remove his coat, he leaped into the lagoon, his long coattails flying like the tail of some grotesque water fly. His body smote the water flatly with a loud splash and he struck out with short, pawing strokes, coughing and groaning. A cheer went up from the opposite shore and a shower of missiles splashed into the water.
Kirke was after the tailor. In three clean strokes he had passed him. His gimlet eyes were fixed on the figures of the two women in the water. With every nerve in his hard muscular body he strained towards them. He could see Delight's face now, white and still. But she must have seen him coming, for a piercing scream came from her cold lips:
"Help!"
That scream and the shock of the cold water were more than Mr. Mayberry could bear. He flung up his arms and in a weak voice echoed the cry—
"Help! I'm sinking."
Kirke turned on his side and threw an angry glance back at the tailor. He had a mind to let him sink. Still, the old cadger was better plucked than the string of goggle-eyed men that fringed the shore. Not one of them—yes, one—Bastien! Now, another—Fergussen!
"Help!" came weakly from Mr. Mayberry, and he sank out of sight.
Could these devils of girls on the shore see that a man was drowning? Or did they think it fun for men to be stoned in the water like stray cats? A piece of brick struck him on the head, inflicting a sharp pain.
"Hello, Kirke! Hello, Scotchie! What are you turning back for?" came with jeers and laughter, and a fresh volley of broken bricks.
Bastien and Fergussen had got the tailor between them.
"Come back, men!" shouted Lovering. "They vixens'll stone your heads in. Mrs. Jessop's trying to say something. Let's hear what she has to say."
The four men, perishing of cold, climbed on to the reedy shore. The constable and another began to apply first aid to Mayberry. Kirke turned on Lovering.
"You blasted coward, Jack! Why did ye no stand by me?"
"I knew it would do no good. Tha'rt as wet as a rat and I'm dry. That's the only difference. Listen what tha auld girl has to say."
Mrs. Jessop had a magnificent voice. It came to them now, clear and vibrant, across the lagoon.
"You're a fine lot, aren't you? And we've a fine reception waiting for the next that ventures over here. You've had it all your way for the last few months. Now, we've got it all ours."
"You'll spend the night in gaol," cried Macy.
"Just wait a minute and listen. I sent this girl out of the town two months ago because she was making fools of all you men. But she wouldn't stay away. You wouldn't let her stay away. We know who brought her back. And we've reached the end of our patience. Haven't we, girls?"
"Ah-h!" groaned the girls.
"Now we're giving this Jezebel a fair trial by water. I've ducked her twice, and after each ducking she says she's innocent. Now—I'm a-going to duck her a third time and I may bring her up—and I may not—"
"Shame! Shame! For God's sake, no!"
The men, goaded into recklessness, prepared as one to rush into the water, while the women opposite, reinforced by fresh arrivals, frantically tore at the ruin for more ammunition.
"Wait!" thundered Mrs. Jessop, and held up her hand.
The pine wood stood black against the red curtain of the afterglow. The hunter's moon had risen and the reflection of her lovely shape lay on the ambient oval of the lagoon. Far away the crows could be heard, a distant black-winged band, mournfully crying.
"Now, listen." Mrs. Jessop's voice was compelling. "You men love this girl. Have any of you got the spunk to marry her and take the responsibility of her? Have you? Because if you have—and she'll agree—I'll pronounce her innocent this minute, and she can set on the bank while you fools make it up between you which it's to be. Will anybody marry this Delight Mainprize?" Her big voice shook with sardonic laughter. "A handsome filly—sound in wind and limb—will not shy at anything—guaranteed to be fond of gentlemen."
A shrill chorus of laughter rose from the other women, exhilarated beyond measure by all the unloosed passions of the senses.
"Tak' that lass out of the water," yelled Kirke, mopping his bleeding forehead, "or I'll have you hanged."
"Hanging's nothing new in our family. My grandfather was hanged." Mrs. Jessop cast all those cherished years of respectability from her now, as a snake casts its skin. In new, fierce colours she reared her flat head and sparkling eyes among them.
"Will you marry her?" she demanded.
"I will," shouted Kirke.
He had forgotten his fine ambitions. He had forgotten the mayor's daughter. He was only Duncan Kirke, who had been a wild bare-legged boy among the heather. He wanted, more than anything on earth, to marry the half-drowned servant, Delight.
Mrs. Jessop, now that her lust for revenge was satisfied, now that she had crushed the girl, became almost tender with her. With a fawning gesture, she bent over her and whispered, and hung waiting for an answer. When she had got it, her voice came with a cooing note across the lagoon.
"She says she'll marry anyone."
"Take her out of the water," shouted the men.
Mrs. Jessop helped Delight to the bank. She herself was soaked to the thighs, but she felt neither chilled nor stiff. Delight was drenched, through and through. Her heavy hair, in long wet strands, half hid her marble face as she sank to the ground, her head resting on her hand—her strong right hand that now felt so weak. . . .
The tailor, now resuscitated, had heard Mrs. Jessop's question and Kirke's answer. Scrambling to his shaking legs, he ran to the Scotchman and grasped him by the arm.
"No, no," he entreated. "Don't take her from me. It was me that saved her. She ought to be mine, I tell you. I want to marry her! She's mine by right."
"Rot!" said Kirke, shaking him off. "Do you suppose she wants to tie up with a skinny old gaffer like you?"
But what was this? Bastien at the water's rim. He curved his hand at his mouth and shouted:
"Mrs. Jessop! Ask her if she'll have me? I'll take her fast enough."
"Oh, is that you, Billy, my beauty? Yes, I'll ask her if she'll have you. . . . She says she doesn't care. She loves you all so well, she'll marry any, or all of you. Settle it among yourselves, gentlemen."
Burly Fergussen pushed his way to the front.
"Marryin' hasn't been my long suit," he said. "I'm all for travellin' light. But, blast my eyes, if I aren't ready to marry this poor girl."
"You," said a sneering voice beside him. "Do you thing she'd marry a coarse brute like you? Smelling of fish and dirty with tobacco juice? Have a heart."
It was the slender, dark-haired schoolmaster who spoke. He had been in the park before it all began, so absorbed in his own dreams that he had heard nothing of what went on beyond the lagoon till the other men came running in.
"Fish, hell! Tobacco juice, hell! I'm a man, you silly blighter, and it's a man she needs, not a chalky-faced—what the hell's your business, anyhow?"
"Teaching school."
"Teaching school, eh? Is that a man's job? You'd be no more to her than a toe-rag. Ho, you fellers here's a white-livered schoolmaster wants to marry my gal!"
"Your geerl," snarled Kirke, digging his bony elbow into the fisherman's stomach. "You must think she's badly off."
"Friends—friends! Don't let us quarrel at such a moment," beseeched Mr. Mayberry. "Let us pick out the most suitable man—regardless of age—and send him over to the maid. See, two of the women are starting across in a boat to fetch him. At least, it appears that way to me. Now, let us choose the best—"
"I'll put a head on him—" growled Fergussen.
"Do you mean me?" asked Kirke.
"Yes, I mean you."
"Ah, I'd like to see you."
But their voices were drowned in a cheer, half-welcoming, half-threatening, as the faces of the two young women who rowed the boat now became recognizable. Mrs. Jessop had picked out these two to approach the men for good reasons. Nannie Wilcox, the stouter and older, was the daughter of Tom Wilcox the baker, a jolly girl and a favourite with all the men whom she had served in the little ice-cream parlour behind the shop. Always good-humoured and ready to chaff a customer, it was hard for the men to believe that she had taken part in such a cruel persecution as they had just witnessed, without deep provocation. The truth was that Nannie had held no personal spite towards Delight but she was tired of hearing her praises sung by the infatuated men. Mrs. Jessop had, for years, been her father's best customer. Beemer had bought nothing. Now Beemer (through Delight) was ruining The Duke of York. A little rough-house, Nannie thought, would clear the air, and it was a grand outlet for high spirits.
The other girl, Gertie Reed, was a sharp-featured factory girl. Mrs. Jessop had chosen her because she was afraid of no one.
"Nannie, Nannie, I never thought to see you mixed up in a mess like this," cried fat Tom Wilcox.
"Oh, Father, we didn't hurt her. It was only what she deserved, anyway."
Kirke shook his fist at her.
"The buckle end of a strap is what you desairve. And you'd get it if I had the handling of ye!"
"You let Nannie alone," said Wilcox. "She's no worse than the others."
"Jump into the boat, Mr. Kirke," invited Gertie Reed, "and we'll row you across to your lady-love. This here is the river Jordan and she's waiting in heaven on the other side." She leaned on her oars, raising her vixenish face to the fringe of men on the shore.
"I'll come fast enough. You'll be made to suffer for this, I warn you."
Mr. Mayberry struggled to the front and raised a trembling hand. "I beg you, don't let this man in the boat. He's not fit. He's a loose liver. I tell you I'm going to marry that poor, dear girl. I will marry her! I will—I will—I will—" He would have hurled himself into the boat but Fergussen pushed him ruthlessly aside and himself charged toward the prow that now nosed seductively against the shore.
The two girls in the boat gazed up, with envious interest at the men struggling on the shore. Each wished that she were waiting across the lagoon while angry men fought to reach her.
Now the schoolmaster was talking and flourishing his hand but no one would listen to him. Now a shadow fell like the wing of a crow. The afterglow changed from petunia to orange. The hunter's moon sailed upward in the melting twilight of the sky.
Another figure had entered the far end of the park. A man, alone, running like the wind, all the muscles in his strong, compact body moving in sweet accord. Along the race course he ran like a race horse. Now he left it and sped toward the lagoon. . . . Above him in a dark column flew the crows. All those that lived in the pine wood were there, winging along the evening sky with great, strong strokes. Soon they would be going South—tomorrow perhaps—the urge was in their blood. But now there was this wild flying together.
To Jimmy Sykes they were friends. He stretched his legs the faster when he heard their cries of encouragement:
"Here's Jimmy! Young Jim's here! Come to fetch his gal. His pretty gal—pretty gal! Help them, lads—hurt those that hurt them—peck their eyes out—tear their hearts out—Delight's foes—Delight—'Light—'Light—" A mad uproar of caws.
Jimmy was shoving his way among the men now, his face flaming, his sandy hair erect. He made as though to leap into the boat but some of the men caught him by the arms and held him, struggling. Only a moment they restrained him, for Kirke was at his side.
"Fine nicht, Jim," he bit off. "You're the mon. I'll uphaud ye."
Guarded by Kirke's steel arms, heaved by Kirke into the boat, Jimmy, the bridegroom, was on his way across the lagoon. It was now the dusky red of ashes of roses, reflecting a cloud that had caught the last of the afterglow. A sudden breeze stirred and all the reeds along the shore were whispering.
Timidly Delight crept to the shore to see whom they were bringing to her in the boat. She was afraid, ashamed, to look in his face, with her hair all streaming loose and wet, and her bare shoulders and breast showing through her torn gown, but when she saw that square honest face, those faithful eyes under the broad white brow, she was no longer ashamed. She ran to the water's edge. He sprang from the boat.
"Jimmy!"
"Delight!"
Each sobbed the other's name, and they fell, half-dead, into each other's arms.
Some of the girls, not the ringleaders, but those who had taken part on the outskirts of the attack, were sorry and ashamed. They brought Delight her coat which she had laid on her basket of dishes among the elder bushes, and they found the velvet tam and would have helped her to fasten up her hair under it, but Jimmy would not let them touch her.
Neither he nor Delight would enter Brancepeth again. He had a cousin who was a blacksmith in the hamlet of Mertonbrook, three miles along the road to Mistwell, and his plan was to walk through the pine wood, strike the road on the other side, and reach his cousin's that night. He had given Delight a mouthful of brandy from a pocket flask and it had brought the colour to her cheeks and lips and set her blood into motion.
But more effective than the brandy, had been the coming of Jimmy at the moment when her heart cried out for him. Now, simple and trusting, she put the terrible events of the evening behind her, behind her with all frightening remembrances—Perkin—the Heaslips—other things that she did not distinctly recall. With all dark shadows of the past she cast Mrs. Jessop and her followers, and threw herself upon Jimmy's love. Her stalwart young body rebounded quickly as a boy's from the effects of the buffeting and ducking. . . . To be sure, she was a little dizzy, there was a humming in her ears, she had to cling tightly to Jimmy's arm as they walked. Jimmy, too, was feeling a little shaky, after all his excitement and violent exertion.
"O-o, Jimmy, it's good to be together again, isn't it?"
"My own darling girl! I'll never let you out of my sight again, I swear that."
"Don't swear anything, Jimmy. Let's just be good as good, all the rest of our lives, never say one cross word to one another, and never do a single bad thing."
"All right," agreed Jimmy. "I'll try. But you know I've got a quick temper."
"I know you have. You see it was that temper you got into that sent me downstairs crying, and made Mrs. Jessop turn me out and all."
"Yes, I know, darling. But she said she found you in Bastien's room. That was a lie, wasn't it?"
"Well, I was just inside the door. He'd been so sorry to see me crying, he was showing me some little trinkets he'd brought from South Africa to take my mind off my troubles."
"Huh!"
"Really people are kind, though. Why those men tonight, they were fighting cruel to see which one would come over to marry me. Just think of it, Jimmy."
"Well, I showed them which was your man. And Kirke, he helped me, Delight. He's a good head. A regular brick is Kirke."
"Good old Fine Nicht! He wanted to marry me, too. He was asking me two months ago in his wee dairy to be his wife."
"He was? Oh, I like his cheek! When he knew you was promised to me."
"But he knew you'd broke it off, Jimmy." Jimmy groaned and held her closer.
"Well, I'll never let you out of my sight again till we're safely tied up. It's an awful thing to love a girl like you, Delight, that other men can't look at without something inside them just turning over."
"Yes, isn't it, Jimmy? Even the schoolmaster and all. . . . But I'll be true to you and never give you any cause for worry. Have you got my tea-set safe?"
"Yes, dear. Are you all right? It's not hurting you to walk? I do feel anxious about you in all those wet clothes."
"But my coat is so warm and dry on top. I'm as snug as can be. . . . O-o, Jimmy, see the moon!"
'Yes, and hear the crows! My crows. Dear old fellows, they were almost wild at the way those women were treating you. Listen to 'em now. Cozy, I call it.
Truly, the crows were going to bed, folding their long black wings, pouting their breasts, snuggling their sharp black beaks against the down. Now they uttered only sleepy little croaks as they settled on the resinous pine boughs.
"Jimmy's safe," they seemed to croak. "Jimmy's safe. He's got his gal. His gal, Delight."
Dim as a cathedral aisle the path lay through the wood, and in the tallest pine, like a garland, hung the moon.
The walls of evening closed about them, but the moon lighted their path, smooth and sweet-smelling with pine needles. With arms clasping each other they told of all that had happened while they were separated. Delight, of her sojourn at the Heaslips', of Perkin's passion for her, of Kirke's coming, just at the moment when she was desperate. Jimmy, of his weary search through the city, inquiries at agencies, false clues, of his return to Brancepeth, almost in despair, and of Charley Bye's meeting him with the awful news of her persecution in the park.
As for going out with another girl, as Pearl had said, he had never spoken to another girl except to inquire for Delight since he had last seen her.
"And, oh, Jimmy," she said, "I was that vexed, I unravelled your poor jersey every bit, and there it lies in your tin trunk in my room at Beemer's! Oh, whatever shall I do?"
"My trunk in your room at Beemer's? How did it come there? I left it at The Duke."
"Fine Nicht had it sent to me so you'd never get it away without me knowing it."
"He did?" shouted Jimmy. "He's a good head, that's what he is! I wish I'd shaken his hand before I jumped into the boat. But I'll search him out when I go back for our trunks."
"We'll have him come to visit us when we're married, won't we?" she cooed. "And I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll get a pair of knitting needles and knit your jersey all up again, as good as new."
"What a darling you are," said Jimmy.
At last they were before the blacksmith's door. The forge was open. A sharp, musical tapping came from within and a ruddy glow lighted the arms and leather apron of the smith. In his cottage next door the windows were alight and they could see a supper table set with a cold joint and a loaf and a huge pot of tea.
"The kindest people in the world," said Jimmy. "They'll do everything for you, sweetheart. . . . Now Tom sees us. He's taking off his apron."
Delight's deep gay eyes were shining. She was so happy, and so very, very hungry. If only Gran could see her! Lucky girl that she was. She knew God saw her. . . . He had saved Gran's tea-set and now He had saved her. Darling Gran! Darling Jimmy! Dear, dear God!
While Delight and Jimmy were being reunited, Macy, the constable, and his assistant were hastening in a jog trot around the end of the lagoon, with the object of heading off Mrs. Jessop. Macy was burning to arrest the woman who had defied him, and thoroughly to frighten the other women who had been led by her into such an outrage. But, while the two men were panting on their way, the women, yearning towards the lads in the park, and being tired already of this antagonism of sex, were crossing the lagoon in relays by the little green boat.
Mrs. Jessop was the last to leave, sitting in the stern with Nannie and Gertie to row her. They were midway on the moonlit water when Macy arrived with his handcuffs. Brandishing them aloft, he shouted:
"Don't think you can escape me, Mrs. Jessop! You shall spend tonight in gaol."
"Gaol!" Mrs. Jessop's resonant voice threw back the word in scorn. "Gaol! As though I was afraid of your little one-horse county gaol! Now, I'll tell you, I was born in a prison—a real penitentiary—a lot I care for your little tupenny-hapenny gaol!"
After that terrible speech the two girls were glad to put her ashore and turn in the opposite direction. She was a bad woman and they wanted nothing more to do with her. . . . That night she disappeared and was not seen again in Brancepeth.
The older men, and the sadder, had drifted away, but the young, light-hearted ones hung about while succeeding boatloads of girls landed, and imperceptibly group melted into group. What was the use of holding spite? And on a night like this, warm with the last kiss of summer?
They merged together. Soon a game of hide and seek was in progress. Dark forms holding hands darted among the willows. Faint cries were uttered.
The great red moon shining on the race course, transformed the white dust to gold, so that it resembled a huge wedding ring couched on the velvet of the turf.