Jim darted off. The roundabout slackened speed and stopped, but Mrs. Saumarez ordered another ride. The whirl had begun again when Bates returned with a parcel.
“It was four shillin’s, ma’am,” he said.
“Thank you, very much. Keep the change.”
Even Evelyn Atkinson was so awed by the magnitude of the tip that she forgot for a moment to glue her eyes on Angèle and Martin.
But Angèle, wildly elated though she was with the sensation of flight, and seated astride like a boy, until the tops of her stockings were exposed to view, did not fail to notice the conclusion of Jim Bates’s errand.
“Mamma will be ill to-night,” she screamed in Martin’s ear. “Françoise will be busy waiting on her. I’ll come out again at eight o’clock.”
“You must not,” shouted the boy. “It will be very rough here then.”
“C’la va—I mean, I know that quite well. It’ll be all the more jolly. Meet me at the gate. I’ll bring plenty of money.”
“I can’t,” protested Martin.
“You must!”
“But I’m supposed to be home myself at eight o’clock.”
“If you don’t come, I’ll find some other boy. Frank Beckett-Smythe said he would try and turn up every evening, in case I got a chance to sneak out.”
“All right. I’ll be there.”
Martin intended to hurry her through the fair and take her home again. If he received a “hiding” for being late, he would put up with it. In any case, the squire’s eldest son could not be allowed to steal his wilful playmate without a struggle. Probably Adam reasoned along similar lines when Eve first offered him an apple. Be that as it may, it never occurred to Martin that the third chapter of Genesis could have the remotest bearing on the night’s frolic.
CHAPTER V
“IT IS THE FIRST STEP THAT COUNTS”
Mrs. Saumarez and Angèle returned to The Elms, but Martin had to forego accompanying them. He knew that—with Bible opened at the Third Book of Kings—John Bolland was waiting in a bedroom, every downstairs apartment being crowded.
He ran all the way along the village street and darted upstairs, striving desperately to avoid even the semblance of undue haste. Bolland was thumbing the book impatiently. He frowned over his spectacles.
“Why are ye late?” he demanded.
“Mrs. Saumarez asked me to walk with her through the village,” answered Martin truthfully.
“Ay. T’ wife telt me she was here.”
The explanation served, and Martin breathed more freely. The reading commenced:
“Now king David was old and stricken in years; and they covered him with clothes, but he gat no heat.
“Wherefore his servants said unto him, Let there be sought for my lord the king a young virgin: and let her stand before the king, and let her cherish him, and let her lie in thy bosom, that my lord the king may get heat.”
Martin, with his mind in a tumult on account of the threatened escapade, did not care a pin what method was adopted to restore the feeble circulation of the withered King so long as the lesson passed off satisfactorily.
With rare self-control, he bent over the, to him, unmeaning page, and acquitted himself so well in the parrot repetition which he knew would be pleasing that he ventured to say:
“May I stay out a little later to-night, sir?”
“What for? You’re better i’ bed than gapin’ at shows an’ listenin’ te drunken men.”
“I only ask because—because I’m told that Mrs. Saumarez’s little girl means to see the fair by night, and she—er—would like me to be with her.”
John Bolland laughed dryly.
“Mrs. Saumarez’ll soon hev more’n eneuf on’t,” he said. “Ay, lad, ye can stay wi’ her, if that’s all.”
Martin never, under any circumstances, told a downright lie, but he feared that this was sailing rather too near the wind to be honest. The nature of Angèle’s statement was so nebulous. He could hardly explain outright that Mrs. Saumarez was not coming—that Angèle alone would be the sightseer. So he flushed, and felt that he was obtaining the required permission by false pretense. He could have pulled Angèle’s pretty ears for placing him in such a dilemma, but with a man so utterly unsympathetic as Bolland it was impossible to be quite candid.
He had clear ideas of right and wrong. He knew it was wrong for Angèle to come out unattended and mix in the scene of rowdyism which the village would present until midnight. If she really could succeed in leaving The Elms unnoticed, the most effectual way to stop her was to go now to her mother or to one of the Misses Walker and report her intention. But this, according to the boy’s code of honor, was to play the sneak, than which there is no worse crime in the calendar. No. He would look after her himself. There was a spice of adventure, too, in acting as the chosen squire of this sprightly damsel. Strong-minded as he was, and resolute beyond his years, Angèle’s wilfulness, her quick tongue, the diablerie of her glance, the witchery of her elegant little person, captivated heart and brain, and benumbed the inchoate murmurings of conscience.
Oddly enough, he often found himself comparing her with Elsie Herbert, a girl with whom he had never exchanged a word, and Angèle Saumarez invariably figured badly in the comparison. The boy did not know then that he must become a man, perhaps soured of life, bitter with experience, before he would understand the difference between respect and fascination.
With housewife prudence, Mrs. Bolland hailed him as he was passing through the back kitchen.
“Noo, then, Martin, don’t ye go racketin’ about too much in your best clothes. And mind your straw hat isn’t blown off if ye go on one o’ them whirligigs.”
“All right, mother,” he said cheerfully, and was gone in a flash.
Two hours must elapse before Angèle could appear. Jim Bates, who bore no malice, stood treat in gingerbread and lemonade out of the largesse bestowed by Mrs. Saumarez. Martin, carried away by sight of a champion boxer who offered a sovereign to any local man under twelve stone who stood up to him for three two-minute rounds, spent sixpence in securing seats for himself and Jim when the gage of combat was thrown down by his gamekeeper friend.
There was a furious fight with four-ounce gloves. The showman discovered quickly that Velveteens “knew a bit.” Repeated attempts to “out” him with “the right” on the “point” resulted in
