The Heritage of Dedlow Marsh | Page 7

rounded but resolute, completed a
piquant and striking figure. The rich brown shadows on the
smoke-stained walls and ceiling, the occasional starting into relief of
the scutcheons of brilliant plumage, and the momentary glitter of the
steel barrels, made a quaint background to this charming picture.
Sitting there, and following some lingering memory of her tramp on the
Marsh, she hummed to herself a few notes of the bugle call that had
impressed her--at first softly, and finally with the full pitch of her
voice.
Suddenly she stopped.
There was a faint and unmistakable rapping on the floor beneath her. It
was distinct, but cautiously given, as if intended to be audible to her
alone. For a moment she stood upright, her feet still bare and glistening,
on the otter skin that served as a rug. There were two doors to the room,
one from which her brother had disappeared, which led to the steps, the
other giving on the back gallery, looking inland. With a quick instinct
she caught up her gun and ran to that one, but not before a rapid
scramble near the railing was followed by a cautious opening of the
door. She was just in time to shut it on the extended arm and light blue
sleeve of an army overcoat that protruded through the opening, and for
a moment threw her whole weight against it.
"A dhrop of whiskey, Miss, for the love of God."
She retained her hold, cocked her weapon, and stepped back a pace
from the door. The blue sleeve was followed by the rest of the overcoat,
and a blue cap with the infantry blazoning, and the letter H on its peak.
They were for the moment more distinguishable than the man beneath
them--grimed and blackened with the slime of the Marsh. But what
could be seen of his mud- stained face was more grotesque than
terrifying. A combination of weakness and audacity, insinuation and
timidity struggled through the dirt for expression. His small blue eyes
were not ill-natured, and even the intruding arm trembled more from
exhaustion than passion.
"On'y a dhrop, Miss," he repeated piteously, "and av ye pleeze, quick!

afore I'm stharved with the cold entoirely."
She looked at him intently--without lowering her gun.
"Who are you?"
"Thin, it's the truth I'll tell ye, Miss--whisth then!" he said in a
half-whisper; "I'm a desarter!"
"Then it was YOU that was doggin' us on the Marsh?"
"It was the sarjint I was lavin', Miss."
She looked at him hesitatingly.
"Stay outside there; if you move a step into the room, I'll blow you out
of it."
He stepped back on the gallery. She closed the door, bolted it, and still
holding the gun, opened a cupboard, poured out a glass of whiskey, and
returning to the door, opened it and handed him the liquor.
She watched him drain it eagerly, saw the fiery stimulant put life into
his shivering frame, trembling hands, and kindle his dull eye--
and--quietly raised her gun again.
"Ah, put it down, Miss, put it down! Fwhot's the use? Sure the bullets
yee carry in them oiyes of yours is more deadly! It's out here oi'll
sthand, glory be to God, all night, without movin' a fut till the sarjint
comes to take me, av ye won't levil them oiyes at me like that. Ah,
whirra! look at that now! but it's a gooddess she is--the livin' Jaynus of
warr, standin' there like a statoo, wid her alybaster fut put forward."
In her pride and conscious superiority, any suggestion of shame at thus
appearing before a common man and a mendicant was as impossible to
her nature as it would have been to a queen or the goddess of his simile.
His presence and his compliment alike passed her calm modesty
unchallenged. The wretched scamp recognized the fact and felt its
power, and it was with a superstitious reverence asserting itself through

his native extravagance that he raised his grimy hand to his cap in
military salute and became respectfully rigid.
"Then the sodgers were huntin' YOU?" she said thoughtfully, lowering
her weapon.
"Thrue for you, Miss--they worr, and it's meself that was lyin' flat in the
ditch wid me faytures makin' an illigant cast in the mud--more betoken,
as ye see even now--and the sarjint and his daytail thrampin' round me.
It was thin that the mortial cold sthruck thro' me mouth, and made me
wake for the whiskey that would resthore me."
"What did you desert fer?"
"Ah, list to that now! Fwhat did I desart fer? Shure ev there was the
ghost of an inemy round, it's meself that would be in the front now! But
it was the letthers from me ould mother, Miss, that is sthruck wid a
mortial illness--long life