A Country Sweetheart. Dora Russell
shilling with something between a grin and a nod, and then touching his forelock. “Must I go directly?”
“Yes,” said Henderson, and then he turned away, and went whistling out of the stables with his hands in his pockets.
Upon which Jack took a rough towel and rubbed his own face and hands, and otherwise improved his appearance, and then started off on his way to the wayside public house.
“The game’s nearly up,” he thought, with another grin, as he went shambling on. “Miss Elsie will ha’ to look a bit lower than the young master before she’s done.”
He speedily arrived at his destination. It was a pretty spot—this wayside house, with its trellised walls, covered with creepers and roses, and its open porch. In the porch the master of the house, James Wray, was sitting smoking a long white pipe, and he took it from his mouth and nodded in a friendly manner when the groom from Stourton Grange appeared.
“Well, Jack, my lad,” he said, “and how are ye all at the Grange?”
James Wray was not unaware of the intimacy of his daughter with the young owner of the Grange, or without his private hopes that some day he might see Elsie the mistress there. He therefore made room for Jack, the groom, to take a seat beside him in the porch, but this did not suit Jack’s views.
“No, master,” he said, “I’m that dry I must ha’ a drop o’ beer first, and I’ll go in and get it, and then come out and ha’ a bit crack.”
The landlord nodded his head and resumed his pipe, and Jack entered the house. Two or three men were sitting drinking, and a good-looking smart girl was acting as barmaid, but Elsie Wray was not visible. Jack looked around, called for his beer, but had a word to whisper in the barmaid’s ears as she was serving it.
“Where’s the young missis?” he asked.
“She’s in the parlor, I think, Mr. Impudence,” answered the smart barmaid, tossing her head.
“Tell her one of the lads fra’ the Grange wants a word wi’ her,” said Jack, winking one eye, upon which, with another toss of the head, the barmaid vanished; and a few moments later Elsie Wray, who looked pale, agitated, and handsome, appeared.
Jack touched his forelock and went up to her, and produced Tom Henderson’s letter.
“The young master sent this for you, miss,” he said.
Elsie put out a shapely brown hand and eagerly caught at the letter, and then without another word retired with it and ran hastily upstairs to her own little bedroom to read it.
When she got there she tore it open with trembling fingers, and, as her eyes fell on the insulting words it contained, the poor girl turned deadly pale, and staggered back as if something had struck her.
“How dare he! How dare he!” she cried aloud, in sharp bitter tones of anguish.
Again she read the cruel words. She stared at them as though they burned into her brain, and then with sudden passion she flung the letter on the floor and trampled it beneath her feet.
“The coward! The base coward!” she muttered. “So he would buy me off, would he? Me! But he shall see; he shall see!”
She began to pace up and down the room after this, evidently revolving some question in her mind. Then she suddenly remembered that the groom from Stourton would probably be waiting for an answer. And with her eyes flashing, and her head thrown back, she returned to the bar in the room below.
Jack was still sitting there drinking his beer, and he rose when Elsie appeared.
Without a moment’s hesitation she went up to him.
“Tell him,” she said, in concentrated tones of suppressed anger and passion, “that I will be there.”
That was all; without another word she turned and left the bar, and the men sitting there looked at each other as she did so. The expression of her face was so tragic that it seemed to forebode evil. Jack Reid—the groom’s surname was Reid—said nothing. He looked rather frightened, and shortly afterward left the Wayside Inn, declining the offer of the landlord, who was still sitting on the porch, to remain any longer.
Meanwhile in her room upstairs Elsie Wray was in a state of mind bordering on distraction. All the hopes of her future life seemed dashed to dust. But with hard-set teeth she told herself that she would not give in. Tom Henderson must keep his word and marry her, even if he never spoke to her afterward.
“Or he or I shall die for it,” she muttered with bated breath.
Then she stole to her father’s room, and from a locked cupboard there drew out a loaded revolver. Elsie, a favorite daughter, and one whom he completely trusted, always kept the landlord’s keys.
Having thus secured the weapon, about two hours later she started with a determined heart to keep the tryst that Tom Henderson had given her.
By this time a fitful moon had risen, the light being constantly obscured by drifting clouds. It was a wild-looking night, and seemed to suit the mood of the unhappy woman who went out to meet her false lover under such cruel circumstances.
CHAPTER VII.
THE LAST TRYST.
Before Elsie Wray quitted the Wayside Inn, however, she had a word to say to the young barmaid who had brought her the message that the groom from Stourton Grange wished to speak to her.
She beckoned this girl to her, who was officiating at the bar, and whispered a few words to her in the passage outside the room.
“Alice,” she said, “I am going out, but don’t tell father. Say, if he asks after me, that I have gone to bed with a bad headache. Do you understand?”
The barmaid nodded; she quite understood that her mistress was going out to meet the young squire from Stourton Grange. This affair was known and had been much commented on by the small circle round the inn-keeper’s family. Some had shaken their heads over it, and wished it might end well. Others took a more charitable view. But Alice, the barmaid, had seen the look in Elsie’s face when she had given her message to Jack Reid the groom, and her expression did not bode well.
“You won’t be late, mistress?” whispered the girl.
“No,” answered Elsie, in a low, slow tone, and she clutched the revolver she held beneath her cloak yet harder as she spoke. “I will go out by the back door,” she added.
“I’ll watch till you come back,” said Alice, and Elsie nodded and then glided away into the darkness, and the barmaid looked after her for a moment, but was quickly recalled to her duties by her master’s voice.
Elsie having quitted the house and closed the door softly behind her, passed down through the kitchen garden, and speedily found herself on the high road.
She had a long walk—at least two miles and a half—before she could reach the high land that lies above Fern Dene. Stourton Grange stands about a mile to the west of Fern Dene, and once or twice in the early days of their love, Elsie had met young Henderson in the Dene. But this was before Henderson had discovered that this shady and romantic spot was the favorite walk and resort of pretty May Churchill. After this there were no more meetings in the Dene with his lowly-born sweetheart. Henderson chose another direction, and ran no risks of encountering May Churchill while walking with Elsie Wray.
Now swiftly and silently beneath the drifting clouds the forsaken woman went on to what Henderson meant to be her last tryst with him. She never looked up nor around. She knew the way well, and every feeling of her heart was concentrated on one object.
“He shall die unless he does me justice,” was the thought that entirely possessed her. She was desperate,