I could see Lettie like a distant sail stealing along the water's edge, her parasol flowing above. She turned through the wicket under the pine clump, climbed the steep field, and was enfolded again in the trees beside Highclose.
Leslie was sprawled on a camp-chair, under a copper beech on the lawn, his cigar glowing. He watched the ash grow strange and grey in the warm daylight, and he felt sorry for poor Nell Wycherley, whom he had driven that morning to the station, for would she not be frightfully cut up as the train whirled her further and further away? These girls are so daft with a fellow! But she was a nice little thing—he'd get Marie to write to her.
At this point he caught sight of a parasol fluttering along the drive, and immediately he fell into a deep sleep, with just a tiny slit in his slumber to allow him to see Lettie approach. She, finding her watchman ungallantly asleep, and his cigar, instead of his lamp untrimmed, broke off a twig of syringa whose ivory buds had not yet burst with luscious scent. I know not how the end of his nose tickled in anticipation before she tickled him in reality, but he kept bravely still until the petals swept him. Then, starting from his sleep, he exclaimed: "Lettie! I was dreaming of kisses!"
"On the bridge of your nose?" laughed she—"But whose were the kisses?"
"Who produced the sensation?" he smiled.
"Since I only tapped your nose you should dream of——"
"Go on!" said he, expectantly.
"Of Doctor Slop," she replied, smiling to herself as she closed her parasol.
"I do not know the gentleman," he said, afraid that she was laughing at him.
"No—your nose is quite classic," she answered, giving him one of those brief intimate glances with which women flatter men so cleverly. He radiated with pleasure.
CHAPTER II
DANGLING THE APPLE
The long-drawn booming of the wind in the wood and the sobbing and moaning in the maples and oaks near the house, had made Lettie restless. She did not want to go anywhere, she did not want to do anything, so she insisted on my just going out with her as far as the edge of the water. We crossed the tangle of fern and bracken, bramble and wild raspberry canes that spread in the open space before the house, and we went down the grassy slope to the edge of Nethermere. The wind whipped up noisy little wavelets, and the cluck and clatter of these among the pebbles, the swish of the rushes and the freshening of the breeze against our faces, roused us.
The tall meadow-sweet was in bud along the tiny beach and we walked knee-deep among it, watching the foamy race of the ripples and the whitening of the willows on the far shore. At the place where Nethermere narrows to the upper end, and receives the brook from Strelley, the wood sweeps down and stands with its feet washed round with waters. We broke our way along the shore, crushing the sharp-scented wild mint, whose odour checks the breath, and examining here and there among the marshy places ragged nests of water-fowl, now deserted. Some slim young lap-wings started at our approach, and sped lightly from us, their necks outstretched in straining fear of that which could not hurt them. One, two, fled cheeping into cover of the wood; almost instantly they coursed back again to where we stood, to dart off from us at an angle, in an ecstasy of bewilderment and terror.
"What has frightened the crazy little things?" asked Lettie.
"I don't know. They've cheek enough sometimes; then they go whining, skelping off from a fancy as if they had a snake under their wings."
Lettie however paid small attention to my eloquence. She pushed aside an elder bush, which graciously showered down upon her myriad crumbs from its flowers like slices of bread, and bathed her in a medicinal scent. I followed her, taking my dose, and was startled to hear her sudden, "Oh, Cyril!"
On the bank before us lay a black cat, both hindpaws torn and bloody in a trap. It had no doubt been bounding forward after its prey when it was caught. It was gaunt and wild; no wonder it frightened the poor lap-wings into cheeping hysteria. It glared at us fiercely, growling low.
"How cruel—oh, how cruel!" cried Lettie, shuddering.
I wrapped my cap and Lettie's scarf over my hands and bent to open the trap. The cat struck with her teeth, tearing the cloth convulsively. When it was free, it sprang away with one bound, and fell panting, watching us.
I wrapped the creature in my jacket, and picked her up, murmuring:
"Poor Mrs. Nickie Ben—we always prophesied it of you."
"What will you do with it?" asked Lettie.
"It is one of the Strelley Mill cats," said I, "and so I'll take her home."
The poor animal moved and murmured and I carried her, but we brought her home. They stared, on seeing me enter the kitchen coatless, carrying a strange bundle, while Lettie followed me.
"I have brought poor Mrs. Nickie Ben," said I, unfolding my burden.
"Oh, what a shame!" cried Emily, putting out her hand to touch the cat, but drawing quickly back, like the pee-wits.
"This is how they all go," said the mother.
"I wish keepers had to sit two or three days with their bare ankles in a trap," said Mollie in vindictive tones.
We laid the poor brute on the rug, and gave it warm milk. It drank very little, being too feeble, Mollie, full of anger, fetched Mr. Nickie Ben, another fine black cat, to survey his crippled mate. Mr. Nickie Ben looked, shrugged his sleek shoulders, and walked away with high steps. There was a general feminine outcry on masculine callousness.
George came in for hot water. He exclaimed in surprise on seeing us, and his eyes became animated.
"Look at Mrs. Nickie Ben," cried Mollie. He dropped on his knees on the rug and lifted the wounded paws.
"Broken," said he.
"How awful!" said Emily, shuddering violently, and leaving the room.
"Both?" I asked.
"Only one—look!"
"You are hurting her!" cried Lettie.
"It's no good," said he.
Mollie and the mother hurried out of the kitchen into the parlour.
"What are you going to do?" asked Lettie.
"Put her out of her misery," he replied, taking up the poor cat. We followed him into the barn.
"The quickest way," said he, "is to swing her round and knock her head against the wall."
"You make me sick," exclaimed Lettie.
"I'll drown her then," he said with a smile. We watched him morbidly, as he took a length of twine and fastened a noose round the animal's neck, and near it an iron goose; he kept a long piece of cord attached to the goose.
"You're not coming, are you?" said he. Lettie looked at him; she had grown rather white.
"It'll make you sick," he said. She did not answer, but followed him across the yard to the garden. On the bank of the lower mill-pond he turned again to us and said:
"Now for it!—you are chief mourners." As neither of us replied, he smiled, and dropped the poor writhing cat into the water, saying, "Good-bye, Mrs. Nickie Ben."
We waited on the bank some time. He eyed us curiously.
"Cyril," said Lettie quietly,