Lords of the North | Page 6

the arched gateway; and my surprise increased on nearer inspection. As I walked up, the creature gave a whinny and I recognized Hamilton's horse, lathered with sweat, unblanketed and shivering. The possibility of an accident hardly suggested itself before I observed the bridle-rein had been slung over the hitching-post and heard steps hurrying to the side door of the club-house.
"Is that you, Eric?" I called.
There was no answer; so I led the horse to the stable boy and hurried back to see if Hamilton were inside. The sitting room was deserted; but Eric's well-known, tall figure was entering the dining-room. And a curious figure he presented to the questioning looks of the club men. In one hand was his riding whip, in the other, his gloves. He wore the buckskin coat of a trapper and in the belt were two pistols. One sleeve was torn from wrist to elbow and his boots were scratched as if they had been combed by an iron rake. His broad-brimmed hat was still on, slouched down over his eyes like that of a scout.
"Gad! Hamilton," exclaimed Uncle Jack MacKenzie, who was facing Eric as I came up behind, "have you been in a race or a fight?" and he gave him the look of suspicion one might give an intoxicated man.
"Is it a cold night?" asked the colonel punctiliously, gazing hard at the still-strapped hat.
Not a word came from Hamilton.
"How's the cold in your head?" continued Adderly, pompously trying to stare Hamilton's hat off.
"Here I am, old man! What's kept you?" and I rushed forward but quickly checked myself; for Hamilton turned slowly towards me and instead of erect bearing, clear glance, firm mouth, I saw a head that was bowed, eyes that burned like fire, and parched, parted, wordless lips.
If the colonel had not been stuffing himself like the turkey guzzler that he was, he would have seen something unspeakably terrible written on Hamilton's silent face.
"Did the little wifie let him off for a night's play?" sneered Adderly.
Barely were the words out, when Hamilton's teeth clenched behind the open lips, giving him an ugly, furious expression, strange to his face. He took a quick stride towards the officer, raised his whip and brought it down with the full strength of his shoulder in one cutting blow across the baggy, purplish cheeks of the insolent speaker.
CHAPTER II
A STRONG MAN IS BOWED
The whole thing was so unexpected that for one moment not a man in the room drew breath. Then the colonel sprang up with the bellow of an enraged bull, overturning the table in his rush, and a dozen club members were pulling him back from Eric.
"Eric Hamilton, are you mad?" I cried. "What do you mean?"
But Hamilton stood motionless as if he saw none of us. Except that his breath was labored, he wore precisely the same strange, distracted air he had on entering the club.
"Hold back!" I implored; for Adderly was striking right and left to get free from the men. "Hold back! There's a mistake! Something's wrong!"
"Reptile!" roared the colonel. "Cowardly reptile, you shall pay for this!"
"There's a mistake," I shouted, above the clamor of exclamations.
"Glad the mistake landed where it did, all the same," whispered Uncle Jack MacKenzie in my ear, "but get him out of this. Drunk--or a scandal," says my uncle, who always expressed himself in explosives when excited. "Side room--here--lead him in--drunk--by Jove--drunk!"
"Never," I returned passionately. I knew both Hamilton and his wife too well to tolerate either insinuation. But we led him like a dazed being into a side office, where Mr. Jack MacKenzie promptly turned the key and took up a posture with his back against the door.
"Now, Sir," he broke out sternly, "if it's neither drink, nor a scandal----" There, he stopped; for Hamilton, utterly unconscious of us, moved, rather than walked, automatically across the room. Throwing his hat down, he bowed his head over both arms above the mantel-piece.
My uncle and I looked from the silent man to each other. Raising his brows in question, Mr. Jack MacKenzie touched his forehead and whispered across to me--"Mad?"
At that, though the word was spoken barely above a breath, Eric turned slowly round and faced us with blood-shot, gleaming eyes. He made as though he would speak, sank into the armchair before the grate and pressed both hands against his forehead.
"Mad," he repeated in a voice low as a moan, framing his words slowly and with great effort. "By Jove, men, you should know me better than to mouth such rot under your breath. To-night, I'd sell my soul, sell my soul to be mad, really mad, to know that all I think has happened, hadn't happened at all--" and his speech was broken by a sharp intake of breath.
"Out with it, man, for the Lord's