girls could not possibly sleep until the house was cleared.
Ernest Beckett-Smythe was her cavalier at the moment.
“We’ve seen all there is te see,” she whispered. “Let’s go and have a dance in our yard. Jim Bates can play a mouth-organ.”
Ernest was a slow-witted youth.
“Where’s the good?” he said. “There’s more fun here.”
“You try it, an’ see,” she murmured coyly.
The suggestion caught on. It was discussed while Martin and Jim Bates were driving a weight up a pole by striking a lever with a heavy hammer. Anything in the shape of an athletic feat always attracted Martin.
Angèle was delighted. She scented a row. These village urchins were imps after her own heart.
“Oh, let’s,” she agreed. “It’ll be a change. I’ll show you the American two-step.”
Frank had his arm around her waist now.
“Right-o!” he cried. “Evelyn, you and Ernest lead the way.”
The girl, flattered by being bracketed publicly with one of the squire’s sons, enjoined caution.
“Once we’re past t’ stables it’s all right,” she said. “I don’t suppose Fred’ll hear us, anyhow.”
Fred was at the front of the hotel watching the road, watching Kitty Thwaites as she flitted upstairs and down, watching George Pickering through the bar window, and grinning like a fiend when he saw that somewhat ardent wooer, hilarious now, but sober enough according to his standard, glancing occasionally at his watch.
There was a gate on each side of the hotel. That on the left led to the yard, with its row of stables and cart-sheds, and thence to a spacious area occupied by hay-stacks, piles of firewood, hen-houses, and all the miscellaneous lumber of an establishment half inn, half farm. The gate on the right opened into a bowling-green and skittle-alley. Behind these lay the kitchen garden and orchard. A hedge separated one section from the other, and entrance could be obtained to either from the back door of the hotel.
The radiance of a full moon now decked the earth in silver and black; in the shade the darkness was intense by contrast. The church clock struck ten.
Half a dozen youngsters crept silently into the stable yard. Angèle kicked up a dainty foot in a preliminary pas seul, but Evelyn stopped her unceremoniously. The village girl’s sharp ears had caught footsteps on the garden path beyond the hedge.
It was George Pickering, with his arm around Kitty’s shoulders. He was talking in a low tone, and she was giggling nervously.
“They’re sweetheartin’,” whispered a girl.
“So are we,” declared Frank Beckett-Smythe. “Aren’t we, Angèle?”
“Sapristi! I should think so. Where’s Martin?”
“Never mind. We don’t want him.”
“Oh, he will be furious. Let’s hide. There will be such a row when he goes home, and he daren’t go till he finds me.”
Master Beckett-Smythe experienced a second’s twinge at thought of the greeting he and his brother would receive at the Hall. But here was Angèle pretending timidity and cowering in his arms. He would not leave her now were he to be flayed alive.
The footsteps of Pickering and Kitty died away. They had gone into the orchard.
Evelyn Atkinson breathed freely again.
“Even if Kitty sees us now, I don’t care,” she said. “She daren’t tell mother, when she knows that we saw her and Mr. Pickerin’. He ought to have married her sister.”
“Poof!” tittered Angèle. “Who heeds a domestic?”
Someone came at a fast run into the yard, running in desperate haste, and making a fearful din. Two boys appeared. The leader shouted:
“Angèle! Angèle! Are you there?”
Martin had missed her. Jim Bates, who knew the chosen rendezvous of the Atkinson girls, suggested that they and their friends had probably gone to the haggarth.
“Shut up, you fool!” hissed Frank. “Do you want the whole village to know where we are?”
Martin ignored him. He darted forward and caught Angèle by the shoulder. He distinguished her readily by her outline, though she and the rest were hidden in the somber shadows of the outbuildings.
“Why did you leave me?” he demanded angrily. “You must come home at once. It is past ten o’clock.”
“Don’t be angry, Martin,” she pouted. “I am just a little tired of the noise. I want to show you and the rest a new dance.”
The minx was playing her part well. She had read Evelyn Atkinson’s soul. She felt every throb of young Beckett-Smythe’s foolish heart. She was quite certain that Martin would find her and cause a scene. There was deeper intrigue afoot now than the mere folly of unlicensed frolic in the fair. Her vanity, too, was gratified by the leading rôle she filled among them all. The puppets bore themselves according to their temperaments. Evelyn bit her lip with rage and nearly yielded to a wild impulse to spring at Angèle and scratch her face. Martin was white with determination. As for Master Frank, he boiled over instantly.
“You just leave her alone, young Bolland,” he said thickly. “She came here to please herself, and can stay here, if she likes. I’ll see to that.”
Martin did not answer.
“Angèle,” he said quietly, “come away.”
Seeing that he had lived in the village nearly all his life, it was passing strange that this boy should have dissociated himself so completely from its ways. But the early hours he kept, his love of horses, dogs, and books, his preference for the society of grooms and gamekeepers – above all, a keen, if unrecognized, love of nature in all her varying moods, an almost pagan worship of mountain, moor, and stream – had kept him aloof from village life. A boy of fourteen does not indulge in introspection. It simply came as a fearful shock to find the daughter of a lady like Mrs. Saumarez so ready to forget her social standing. Surely, she could not know what she was doing. He was undeceived, promptly and thoroughly.
Angèle snatched her shoulder from his grasp.
“Don’t you dare hold me,” she snapped. “I’m not coming. I won’t come with you, anyhow. Ma foi, Frank is far nicer.”
“Then I’ll drag you home,” said Martin.
“Oh, will you, indeed? I’ll see to that.”
Beckett-Smythe deemed Angèle a girl worth fighting for. In any case, this clodhopper who spent money like a lord must be taught manners.
Martin smiled. In his bemused brain the idea was gaining ground that Angèle would be flattered if he “licked” the squire’s son for her sake.
“Very well,” he said, stepping back into the moonlight. “We’ll settle it that way. If you beat me, Angèle remains. If I beat you, she goes home. Here, Jim. Hold my coat
