Once Aboard The Lugger | Page 9

find their greatest happiness in funerals. The sombre trappings;
white handkerchiefs against black dresses; tears; the mystery of
gloom--these trickle with a warm glow through all their senses. They
are as aroused by grief, unpleasant to the majority, as the drunkard is
quickened by wine, to many abhorrent.
Thus it was with Margaret, and to her the shroud of melancholy in
which she was now wrapped brought an added boon--arrayed in it she
was best able to make her verses. Not of necessity sad little verses;
many of her brightest were conceived in profoundest gloom. With a
pang at the heart she could be most merry--tinkling out her laughing
little lines just as martyrs could breathe a calm because, rather than

spite of, they were devilishly racked.

III.
But this was no hour for tinkling lines. A manuscript returned by the
last post emphasised her gloom.
Kissing her father good-night, Margaret crept to her room, aching with
desire to write.
She undressed, read a portion of the Imitation, then to her table by the
open window.
Two hours brought relief. Margaret placed her poem in an envelope
against its presentation to George in the morning, then from her
window leaned.
From her thoughts at once George sped; they rushed across the sleeping
fields to cling about the person of that Mr. William Wyvern who had
spoken of Mr. Marrapit as reminding him of a minor prophet--shaved.
This was Margaret's nightly practice, but to-night this girl was most
exquisitely melancholy, and with melancholy her thoughts of her
William were tinged. She had not seen him that day; and now she
brooded upon the bitter happening that had forced all her meetings with
her lover to be snatched--fugitive, secret.
For Mr. William Wyvern was not allowed at Herons' Holt. When love
first sent its herald curiosity into William's heart, the young man had
sought to relieve its restlessness by a visit ostensibly on George, really
upon Margaret, and extremely ill-advised in that at his heels gambolled
his three bull-terriers.
Korah, Dathan, and Abiram these were named, and they were abrupt
dogs to a point reaching brusqueness.
At the door, as William had approached, beamed Mr. Marrapit; upon
the drive the queenly Rose of Sharon sat; and immediately tragedy
swooped.
The dogs sighted the Rose. Red-mouthed the shining pack flew at her.
Dignity fell before terror: wildly, with streaming tail, she fled.
Orange was the cat, white the dogs: like some orange and snow-white
ribbon magically inspired, thrice at enormous speed they set a belt
about the house. With tremendous bounds the Rose kept before her
pursuers--heavily labouring, horrid with thirsty glee. Impotent in the
doorway moaned Mr. Marrapit, his dirge rushing up to a wail of grief

each time the parti-coloured ribbon flashed before his eyes.
With Mr. Fletcher the end had come. Working indoors, aroused by the
din, the gardener burst out past his master just as the ribbon fluttered
into sight upon the completion of its fourth circuit. Like a great
avalanche it poured against his legs; as falls the oak, so pressed he fell.
Each eager jaw snapped once. Korah bit air, Dathan the cat's right ear.
She wrenched; freed; sprang high upon the porch to safety, blood on
her coat.
Abiram put a steely nip upon Mr. Fletcher's right buttock.
William called off his dogs; stood aghast. Mr. Marrapit stretched
entreating arms to his adored. Mr. Fletcher writhed prone.
The torn Rose slipped to Mr. Marrapit's bosom. Clasping her he turned
upon William--"You shall pay for this blood!"
William stammered: "I'm very sorry, sir. If--"
"Never again enter my gates. I'll have your curs shot!"
Curs was unfortunate; the evil three were whelped of a mighty strain.
"If your fool of a man hadn't got in the way, the cat would have
escaped," William hotly cried. Indignant he turned. Banishment was
nothing then; in time it came to be a bitter thing.
Mr. Marrapit had raged on to Mr. Fletcher, yet writhing.
"You hear that?" he had cried. "Dolt! You are responsible for this!" He
touched the blood-flecked side, the abrased ear; clasped close the Rose;
called for warm water.
Mr. Fletcher clapped a hand to his wound as shakily he rose.
"I go to rescue his cat!" he said; "I'm near worried to death by 'ounds.
I'm a dolt. I'm responsible. It's 'ard,--damn 'ard. I'm a gardener, I am;
not a dog muzzle."
A dimness clouded Margaret's beautiful eyes as this bitter picture-- she
had watched it--was again reviewed. She murmured "Oh, Bill!";
stretched her soft arms to the night; moved her pretty lips in a message
to her lover; snuggled between the sheets and made melancholy her
bedfellow.

IV.
By seven she was up and in the fresh garden. George was before her.
She cried brightly: