The Great House

"After all," she said at last, "it is for Etruria to decide."

"No, it is for us both to decide," he replied. And then, as if he thought that he had sufficiently stated his case, "I ask your pardon, Miss Audley, for intruding," he continued. "I am keeping you, and as I am going your way that is needless. I have had a message from a sick woman, and I am on my way to see her."

He took permission for granted, and though Etruria's very shoulders forbade him, he moved on beside them. "Conditions are better here than in many places," he said, "but in this village you would see much to sadden you."

"I have seen enough," Mary answered, "to know that."

"Ten years ago there was not a house here. Now there is a population of two thousand, no church, no school, no gentry, no one of the better class. There is a kind of club, a centre of wild talk; better that, perhaps, than apathy."

"Is it in Riddsley parish?" Mary asked. They were nearly clear of the houses, and the slopes of the hill, pale green in the peaceful evening light, began to rise on either side. It was growing dusk, and from the moorland above came the shrill cries of plovers.

"Yes, it is in Riddsley parish," he answered, "but many miles from the town, and as aloof from it-Riddsley is purely agricultural-as black from white. In such places as this-and there are many of them in Staffordshire, as raw, as rough, and as new-there is work for plain men and plain women. In these swarming hives there is no room for any refinement but true refinement. And the Church must learn to do her work with plain tools, or the work will pass into other hands."

"You may cut cheese with an onion knife," Etruria said coldly. "I don't know that people like it."

"I know nothing better than onions in the right place," he replied.

"That's not in cheese," she rejoined, to Mary's amusement.

"The poor get little cheese," he said, "and the main thing is to cut their bread for them. But here I must leave you. My errand is to that cottage."

He pointed to a solitary house, standing a few score paces above the road on the hillside. Mary shook hands with him, but Etruria turned her shoulder resolutely.

"Good-bye, Etruria," he said. And then to Mary, "I hope that I have made a friend?"

"I think you have," she answered. "I am sure that you deserve one."

He colored, raised his hat, and turned away, and the two went on, without looking back; darkness was coming apace, and they were still two miles from home. Mary kept silence, prudently considering how she should deal with the matter, and what she should say to her companion. As it fell out, events removed her difficulty. They had not gone more than two hundred yards, and were still some way below the level of the Chase, when a cry reached them. It came out of the dusk behind them, and might have been the call of a curlew on the moor. But first one, and then the other stood. They turned, and listened, and suddenly Etruria, more anxious or sharper of eye than her mistress, uttered a cry and broke away at a run across the sloping turf towards the solitary cottage. Alarmed, Mary looked intently in that direction, and made out three or four figures struggling before the door of the house. She guessed then that the clergyman was one of them, and that the cry had come from him, and without a thought for herself she set off, running after Etruria as fast as she could.

Twice Etruria screamed as she ran, and Mary echoed the cry. She saw that the man was defending himself against the onset of three or four-she could hear the clatter of sticks on one another. Then she trod on her skirt and fell. When she had got, breathless, to her feet again, the clergyman was down and the men appeared to be raining blows on him. Etruria shrieked once more and the next moment was lost amid the moving figures, the brandished sticks, the struggle.

Mary ran on desperately. She caught sight of the girl on her knees over the fallen man, she saw her fend off more than one blow, she heard more than one blow fall with a sickening thud. She came up to them. With passion that drove out fear, she seized the arm of the nearest and dragged him back.

"You coward!" she cried. "You coward! I am Miss Audley! Do you hear! Leave him! Leave him, I say!"

Her appearance, the surprise, checked the man; her fearlessness, perhaps her name, gave the others pause. They retreated a step. The man she had grasped shook himself free, but did not attempt to strike her. "Oh, d-n the screech-owls!" he cried. "The place is alive with them! Hold your noise, you fools! We'll have the parish on us!"

"I am Miss Audley!" Mary repeated, and in her indignation she advanced on him. "How dare you?" Etruria, still on her knees, continued to shriek.

"You're like to get a wipe over the head, dang you!" the man growled, "whoever you be! Go to- and mind your own brats! He'll know better now than to preach against them as he gets his living by! You be gone!"

But Mary stood her ground. She declared afterwards that, brutally as the man spoke, the fight had gone out of him. Etruria, on the contrary, maintained that, finding only women before them, the ruffians would have murdered them. Fortunately, while the event hung in the balance, "What is it?" some one shouted from the road below. "What's the matter there?"

"Murder!" cried Etruria shrilly. "Help! Help!"

"Help!" cried Mary. She still kept her face to the men, but for the first time she began to know fear.

Footsteps thudded softly on the turf, figures came into view, climbing the slope. It needed no more. With a volley of oaths the assailants turned tail and made off. In a trice they were round the corner of the house and lost in the dusk.

A moment later two men, equally out of breath and each carrying a gun, reached the spot. "Well!" said the bigger of the two, "What is it?"

He spoke as if he had not come very willingly, but Mary did not notice this. The crisis over, her knees shook, she could barely stand, she could not speak. She pointed to the fallen man, over whom Etruria still crouched, her hair dragged down about her shoulders, her neckband torn, a ghastly blotch on her white cheek.

"Is he dead?" the new-comer asked in a different tone.

"Ay, dead!" Etruria echoed. "Dead!"

Fortunately the curate gave the lie to the word. He groaned, moved, with an effort he raised himself on his elbow. "I'm-all right!" he gasped. "All right!"

Etruria sprang to her feet. She stepped back as if the ground had opened before her.

"I'm not-hurt," Colet added weakly.

But it was evident that he was hurt, even if no bones were broken. When they came to lift him he could not stand, and he seemed to be uncertain where he was. After watching him a moment, "He should see a doctor," said the man who had come up so opportunely. "Petch," he continued, addressing his companion, who wore a gamekeeper's dress, "we must carry him to the trap and get him down to Brown Heath. Who is he, do you know? He looks like a parson."

"He's Mr. Colet of Riddsley," Mary said.

The man turned and looked at her. "Hallo!" he exclaimed. And then in the same tone of surprise, "Miss Audley!" he said. "At this time of night?"

Mary collected herself with an effort. "Yes," she said, "and very fortunately, for if we had not been here the men would have murdered him. As it is, you share the credit of saving him, Lord Audley."

"The credit of saving you is a good deal more to me," he answered gallantly. "I did not think that we should meet after this fashion."