The Broom-Squire - Sabine Baring-Gould (life books to read .txt) 📗

in the smallest degree realized how it was that this relief was obtained.

"Fetch a hurdle," said Colpus, "and, Polly, run in and send a couple of men. We must carry him to the Punch-Bowl. I reckon he's pretty well done for. I don't see a sign of life in him."

The Broom-Squire was laid on the gass.

Strange is the effect of death on a man's clothes. The moment the vital spark has left the body, the garments hang about him as though never made to fit him. They take none of the usual folds; they lose their gloss--it is as though life had departed out of them as well.

Mehetabel seated herself on a bit of swelling ground and looked on, without understanding what she saw; seeing, hearing, as in a dream; and after the first spasm of relief, as if what was being done in no way concerned her, belonged to another world to her own. It was as though she were in the moon and saw what men were doing on the earth.

When the Broom-Squire had been lifted upon a hurdle, then Polly Colpus thought right to touch Mehetabel, and say in a low tone: "You will follow him and go to the Punch-Bowl?"

"I will never, never go there again. I have said so," answered Mehetabel.

Then to avoid being pressed further, she stood up and went away, bearing her child in her arms.

The men looked after her and shook their heads.

"Bideabout has had a blow on the forehead," said Colpus.

Mehetabel returned to the school, entered without a word, and seated herself by the fire.

"Have you succeeded?" asked the widow.

"How?"

"Will Farmer Colpus take you?"

"I don't know."

"What have you in your hand?"

Mehetabel opened her fingers and allowed Betty Chivers to remove from her hand a lump of ironstone.

"What are you carrying this for, Matabel?"

"I defend baby with it," she answered.

"Well, you do not need it in my house," said the dame, and placed the liver-colored lump on the table.

"How hot your hand is," she continued. "Here, let me feel again. It is burning. And your forehead is the same. Are you unwell, Matabel?"

"I am cold," she answered dreamily.

"You have been over-worried and worked," said the kind old woman. "I will get you a cup of tea."

"He won't follow me any more and try to take my baby away," said Mehetabel.

"I am glad of that."

"And I also."

Then she moved her seat, winding and bending on one side.

"What is it, my dear?" asked Betty.

"His shadow. It will follow me and fall over baby."

"What do you mean?"

Mehetabel made no reply, and the widow buried herself in preparation for the midday meal, a very humble one of bread and weak tea.

"There's drippin' in the bowl," she said, "you can put some o' that on the bread. And now, give me the little chap. You are not afraid of trusting him to me?"

"Oh, no!"

The mother at once surrendered the child, and Mrs. Chivers sat by the fire with the infant in her lap.

"He's very like you," she said.

"I couldn't love him if he were like him," said Mehetabel.

"You must not say that."

"He is a bad man."

"Leave God to judge him."

"He has judged him," answered the girl, looking vacantly into the fire, and then passed her hand over her eyes and pressed her brow.

"Have you a headache, dear?"

"Yes--bad. It is his shadow has got in there--rolled up, and I can't shake it out."

"Matabel--you must go to bed. You are not well."

"No--I am not well. But my baby?"

"He is safe with me."

"I am glad of that, you will teach him A B C, and the Creed, and to pray to and fear God. But you needn't teach him to find Abelmeholah on the map, nor how many gallons of water the Jordan carries into the Dead Sea every minute, nor how many generations there are in Matthew. That is all no good at all. Nor does it matter where is the country of the Gergesenes. I have tried it. The Vicar was a good man, was he not, Betty?"

"Yes, very good."

"He would give the coat off his back, and the bread out of his mouth to the poor. He gave beef and plum pudding all around at Christmas, and lent out blankets in winter. But he never gave anything to the soul, did he, Betty? Never made the heart warm. I found it so. What I got of good for that was from you."

"My dear," said the old woman, starting up. "I insist on your going to bed at once. I see by your eye, by the fire in your cheek, that you are ill."

"I will go to bed; I do not want anything to eat, only to lay my head down, and then the shadow will run out at my ear--only I fear it may stain the pillow. When I'm rich I will buy you another. Baby is rich; he has got a hundred and fifty pounds. What is his is mine, and what is mine is his. He will not grudge you a new pillow-case."

Mehetabel, usually reserved and silent, had become loquacious and rambling in her talk. It was but too obvious, that she was in a fever, and wandering. Mrs. Chivers insisted on her taking some tea, and then she helped her upstairs to the little bedroom, and did not leave her till she was asleep. The school children, who came in after their dinner hour, were dismissed, so that Mrs. Chivers had the afternoon to devote to the care of the child and of the sick mother, who was in high fever.

She was in the bedroom when she heard a knock at the door, and then a heavy foot below. She descended the rickety stairs as gently as possible, and found Farmer Colpus in the schoolroom.

"How do you do, Mrs. Chivers? Can you tell me, is Matabel Kink here?"

"Yes--if you do not mind, Mr. Colpus, to speak a little lower. She is in bed and asleep."

"Asleep?"

"She came in at noon, rather excited and queer, and her hand burnin' like a hot chestnut, so I gave her a dish o' tea and sent her upstairs. I thought it might be fever--and her eyes were that strange and unsteady--"

"It is rather odd," said the constable, "but my daughter observed how calm and clear her eye was--only an hour before."

"Maybe," said Mrs. Chivers, "and yet she was that won'erful wanderin' in her speech--"

"You don't think she was shamming?"

"Shammin'! Lord, sir--that Matabel never did, and I've knowed her since she was two-year old. At three and a half she comed to my school."

"By the way, what is that stone on your table?" asked Colpus.

"That, sir? Matabel had it in her hand when she comed in. I took it away, and then I felt how burnin' she was, like a fire."

"Oh! she was still holding that stone. Did she say anything about it?"

"Yes, sir, she said that she used it to defend herself and baby."

"From whom?"

"She didn't say--but you know, sir, there has been a bit of tiff between her and the Broom-Squire, and she won't hear of goin back to the Punch-Bowl, and she has a fancy he wants to take the baby away from her. That's ridic'lous, of course. But there is no getting the idea out of her head."

"I must see her."

"You can't speak to her, sir. She is asleep still." Colpus considered.

"I'll ask you to allow me to take this stone away, Betty. And I must immediately send for the doctor. He has been sent for to the Punch-Bowl, and I'll stop him on the way back to Godalming. I must be assured that Matabel is in a fit state to be removed."

"Removed, whither?"

"To the lock-up."

"The lock-up, sir?"

"To the lock-up. Do you know, Mrs. Chivers, that Jonas Kink is dead, and that very strong suspicions attach to Matabel, that she killed him?"

"Matabel killed him!"

"Yes, with that very stone."


CHAPTER XLV.


IN HOPE.

When the surgeon, on his return from the Punch-Bowl was called in to see Mehetabel, he at once certified that she was not in a condition to be removed, and that she would require every possible attention for several days.

Accordingly, James Colpus allowed her to remain at the Dame's School, but cautioned Betty Chivers that he should hold her responsible for the appearance of Mehetabel when required.

Jonas Kink was not dead, as Colpus thought when lifted out of the kiln into which he had been precipitated backwards, but he had received several blows on the head which had broken in the skull and stunned him. Had there been a surgeon at hand to relieve the pressure on the brain, he might perhaps have recovered, but there was none nearer than Godalming; the surgeon was out when the messenger arrived, and did not return till late, then he was obliged to get a meal, and hire a horse, as his own was tired, and by the time he arrived at the Punch-Bowl Jonas had ceased to breathe, and all he could do was to certify his death and the cause thereof.

Mehetabel's nature was vigorous and elastic with youth. She recovered rapidly, more so, indeed than Mrs. Chivers would allow to James Colpus, as she was alarmed at the prospect of having to break to her that a warrant was issued against her on the charge of murder.

When she did inform her, Mehetabel could not believe what she was told.

"That is purely," she said. "I kill Jonas! If he had touched me and tried to take baby away I might have done it. I would have fought him like a tiger, as I did before."

"When did you fight him?"

"In the Moor, by Thor's Stone, over the gun--there when the shot went off into his arm."

"I never knew much of that, though there was at the time some talk."

"Yes. I need say nothing of that now. But as to hurting Jonas, I never hurted nobody in my life save myself, and that was when I married him. I don't believe I could kill a fly--and then only if it were teasin' baby."

"There is Joe Filmer downstairs, has somethin' to say. Can he come up?"

"Yes," answered Mehetabel. "He was always kind to me."

The ostler of the Ship stumbled up the stairs and saluted the sick girl with cordiality and respect.

"Very sorry about this little affair. 'Tis a pity, I sez, that such a fuss be made over trifles. There's been the crownin' of the body, and now there's to be the hearin' of you afore the magistrates, and then they say you'll have to go to the 'sizez, and there'll come the hangin'. 'Tis terrible lot o' fuss all about Jonas as wasn't worth it. No one'll miss him and if you did kill him, well, there was cause, and I don't think the wuss o' you for it."

"Thank you, Joe, but I did not kill him."

"Well--you know--it's right for you to say so,