Part 21

"Rats--if I'd been in the sandals of the Lady Judith--and I'd have made an inner bull if I had! '_He would taste of no dish_'--according to my Twelfth Century scribe--but he '_filled an ancient silver cup with the best wine of Kir Saba, and touched it with his lips once: seeming to drink while dropping into the goblet under cover of his beard, which was white as the snow of Herman, and fully an ell long--a ring of black onyx incarven very curiously, having a head of the Greek Hercules-with his club and lion-mask._'"

"The ring you wear. The fellow to my ring! And it was poisoned?"

"This ring I wear--the signet from his hand. There's a little compartment with a spring-lid, back of the setting, so I suppose it held poison--as you say, when he '_did hand the goblet to the Lady Judith, bidding her pledge him. But Sir Hew, stretching forth his hand in sport, laid hold of the goblet, whereupon said Hazaël: "Drink first, my Lady Forbis!" and she answered: "That will I right gladly, O my father! but thou and mine husband must kiss me first!" So she took the kisses and gave them back, and quaffed off the cup right merrily--and died as though she had been struck by lightning, not falling down, but sitting stiff and smiling in her chair...._'"

There was a silence in the room. Then Katharine murmured, still vibrating:

"Women knew how to love in those days!" ...

"And men knew how to hate!" ...

"And is that all?"

"All, except that Sir Hew leaped up, and cried, when the corpse fell down out of the chair upon the daïs strewn with lion-skins: '_We were wed by a priest! I dealt honourably by her!_' And Issachar said,--and I think he comes out of it pretty well on the whole: '_What is honour in thine esteem is dishonour in mine! For the girl, she was begotten of these my loins.... Take what is thine, Sir Knight, and depart an' thou will to thine own adopted country. I deal as I choose with that which is mine own!_' Straight off the ice, I call that. Fine old fellow!"

Katharine said, a little breathlessly, for the thrill of a great tragic happening seemed to be in the air:

"Yes, it was great, and terrible and merciless...."

"Hardly to Judith. When he'd once got her over in Britain, Hew would have gone back to the Beauty Chorus. For I'm not over struck on Hew," said John Hazel with a queer quirk of his fleshy underlip. "He appears to have anticipated the Profiteer's motto of the present date. Perhaps you've heard it? '_Self first, me next, and I'll take whatever's left over!_' Now I've gone and made you wild with me all over again!"

His huge size, and his genuine ruefulness, contrasted so queerly that Katharine, still tingling to the finger-tips at the insult to Sir Hew, was forced to smile.

"It is a mercy we are not likely to meet often, Mr. Hazel. We should quarrel inevitably. And yet--" There was sweetness in the smile of her eyes of cairngorm brown as she stretched out her long arm and offered her hand to him, saying: "And yet, in a tight place, I would trust you before most men!"

"Give me the chance, Miss Forbis!" His black eyes flashed in their deep caves as her white hand was engulfed in his huge brown one.

"If there is need," she said, "I will not fail to!"

"It's a bargain then!" said John Hazel, and released the hand. "Now I must be going. I have trespassed on your time most frightfully." He turned and reached down to the floor and picked up the cowskin bag....

"One moment, Mr. Hazel!" For he was striding towards the door, and urgently as she desired to be quit of her strange untimely visitor, the sacred bond of old fidelity, exerted its strong invisible influence between these two, so utterly dissimilar--making her add, even as she laid her hand on Whishaw's summoning bell: "You would--would you not wish to attend my father's funeral?"

"I meant to, whether you were willing or not! ..."

The tone robbed the assertive words of all offence. She answered:

"Thank you. He will be laid to rest in the vault in our little private burying-ground the day after to-morrow. Monday morning, immediately after the Requiem Mass at ten. If it will be difficult or bad for you,"--her glance was kind for the hollow cheeks and the bagginess of the khaki on the great wasted body--"to drive over from Cauldstanes in this sharp weather at so early an hour--I know my father would have been glad to--to have you stay...." She added as Whishaw opened the door: "Perhaps you would dine with us to-morrow and sleep the night here?"

"It would put you out." His vast shoulders filled the open doorway, the lintel of which just cleared his towering head. He added as Whishaw faintly clacked behind him: "It's awfully good of you to suggest finding me a bivvy, but the motor-bike that brought me over here to-day--it belongs to the son of the landlady at the _Cross Keys_--will hold together long enough--at least I hope so!--to carry me over the distance again. But there's one thing I'll ask you. Not, as a favour, mind you!--but as a right, to let me--_see him_!"

Whishaw again forgot himself so far as to clack, this time distinctly. Miss Forbis' momentary hesitation was dissipated by the sound. She bent her head in grave assent, took her black lace veil and blue-check apron from the writing-table, saying to John Hazel:

"Wait here one instant!" and quitted the room, closely followed by her ancient serving-man.

As the door shut behind them John Hazel's expression altered. His beetling eyebrows drew into a savage line over his great hooked nose, and his swarthy colour faded to ashen brown. His coarse mouth hardened grimly as he crossed with long, noiseless strides to the open terrace-window, and stood there for a moment, quietly looking out. At the first glimpse the sunshiny terrace showed deserted of the pacing khaki figure.... Then the crack of a kindled match broke the silence. Yaill stepped from behind the buttress that had sheltered him as he had paused to light another pipe. The fragrance of the good weed came to Hazel's nostrils, as their eyes met for the second time that day....

"Did you wish to speak to me, by any chance?"

The great menacing figure blocking the window-frame slewed its head in the customary quarter-turn, and raised ar hand in the usual salute.

"As man to man--not as private to field-officer--I have something urgent to say to you, Colonel Yaill."

A pale light flickered in the sorrowful grey eyes he looked at. Was it irresolution, anger, apprehension? The actual truth he utterly failed to guess. Relief.... The die cast, the doubt resolved, the tangle straightened.... The path clear for the lonely feet till death....

"Have you? Well, carry on! We have no hearers. Will you come outside, or shall I come in? ..."

John stepped back. Yaill entered. The men confronted each other. There was one instant's pause before Hazel said:

"This is Saturday forenoon--"

"Twelve pip emma precisely." Yaill glanced at the cheap new watch upon his wrist. A flush burned his thin brown cheeks as he remembered that the bauble had been Lucy's wedding-gift.

"Twelve Saturday.... The Funeral is to be on Monday at ten o'clock...."

"You are incorrect. Monday at ten-thirty...."

"I aim at being plain and short with you, sir. If by three o'clock on Monday afternoon you have not told Miss Forbis of your marriage, I am going to save you the trouble, Colonel Yaill."

"Indeed?" ... Yaill's face was deathly under its sun-tan. "Perhaps you'll tell me who the Hell you are?" ...

John answered with a grim inexpressive visage:

"You can see for yourself. A London Territorial.... Ranker as long as this blasted old War goes on.... And a kind of--family friend of this house of Forbis.... If you're taking any further explanation--I'm bound to tell you you won't get it here...."

"Very well. Your name? ..." It was the crisp, curt tone that marks the caste of the officer, making the other stiffen against his will:

"Private John Benn Hazel, No. 000. X Platoon--Company F. 4th Battalion, 448th City of London Fusiliers, sir."

"I shall remember. Good-day to you, Private Hazel. And carry on!"

"You may be sure I will!"

The door-handle turned as the short, stern colloquy ended. Both men looked round and saw Katharine standing near the door. Her black lace veil draped her head with mystery. In her hand was a little bunch of purple violets, whose perfume made rich sweetness in the air.... She made a sign to Hazel that he should follow her, gave one swift glance of tenderness to Edward, and left the room, followed by his enemy....

"I was going to give him these. Perhaps you would like to?" she said, putting the flowers in John's great hand. He mumbled something she did not catch, but she understood that he would like to, as she led the way down the vaulted corridor--pausing before opening the chapel door to stroke the decrepit pointer-bitch Dawtie, who lay with her muzzle between her forepaws, keeping guard over the sleeper who would wake in Time no more....

Then she passed into the sacred place; bent in reverence before the Presence in the Tabernacle, and led the way up the little aisle closely followed by John. He heard her say in a low, clear voice, as he stood near the feet of the old man who lay in the long oak coffin:

"Father dear, here is a friend of ours whom you have wished to see! ..."

Just as though the old man lying there had not been dead at all.... He--Sir Philip--must have been a tall man, rather narrow than broad-chested; and in youth his fine aquiline-featured face, now set in the sternness of death, might have belonged to his ancestor Marcus Fabius--that Tribune of Constantine,--who superintended the building of fortified camps on the Scottish Border--and planted millions of barbed iron prongs on the brae-sides and in the moss-hags for the bedevilment of naked Celtic feet.

So John laid the bunch of violets below the stiff grey hands that were clasped over a Crucifix and had a Rosary threaded between their rigid fingers,--and rode back on his borrowed motor-bike to the _Cross Keys_ at Cauldstanes--an ancient stone box full of prehistoric smells (stale beer and boiled cabbage predominating)--and slept in a bedroom with an uphill floor, crowded with glass-fronted cases of stuffed salmon and trout, owls, heron, and moth-eaten brocks and foxes.

XX

On Monday John attended the Funeral, driving out to Kerr's Arbour in the dog-cart, in company of Mr. Kellar, the Cauldstanes solicitor and notary, who had heard, possibly through Mrs. Govan, that the big black sojer-man from London was "somehow conneckit wi' the family at Kerr's."

Khaki predominated, for the General commanding at the P---- Depot attended with his _aide-de-camp_, and the officers of the Fourth and Fifth Squadrons of the Tweedburgh Light Horse officiated as pall-bearers at the burial of their Chief.... In the company of the handful of troopers detailed to act as escort, John Hazel remained near the door of the chapel throughout the Requiem Mass. Declining with obstinate shakes of the head Whishaw's hoarse-whispered invitations that he should "tak' a move up and sit wi' the family" in the parallel rows of benches close-packed by County friends and tenants, and a relative here and there.... Red Cross uniforms were worn by many among the women,--nor was wanting the khaki of the L.L.W.S.L. If the green eyes of Trixie Lady Wastwood picked out among the troopers on the benches near the west door, her fellow-traveller of two days previously--John remained ignorant of the fact.

Bolt upright against the plastered wall left of the chapel door, his great height lifting him above the heads of the congregation, his hawk-vision showed him through an unfamiliar, glittering haziness--the long coffin covered with the Union Jack, on its black-draped trestles, with its single wreath of violets, gathered and placed there that morning by the daughter's loving hand....

An old-type long brass-scabbarded R.H.A. sword with the heavy-fringed sash of faded crimson, rested on the Red, White and Blue, with the soldier's medals and decorations.... The Burmese War Medal of 1826, the four-barred Crimean medal with its faded blue yellow-edged ribbon, the medal of the Indian Mutiny, ribbon white and scarlet; the Turkish Order of the Medjidie with its star and crimson circle, the Maltese Cross of the C.B., the K.C.V.O., the Belgian Order of Leopold; and the eight-pointed, red-enamelled gold Cross of the Pontifical Order of St. Gregory....

Two figures kneeling on _prie-dieux_ on the right of the coffin nearest the gate in the Communion-rail, drew and held the black hawk-eyes from the beginning of the Rite to its close. A tall brown-haired man in khaki, and a woman in deepest mourning, tall also, and bending like a palm in tempest under her shrouding black crape veil. When the fragrant incense rose at the chant of the Responsory:

"_Libera me Domine, de morte æterna._"

When the Kyrie Eleison wailed out, and the Paternoster filled the silence; when the priest circled the bier, asperging the feet, the middle and the head of the corpse with the consecrated Water; when the prayer of Hope and Faith ended with the intoned "Amen" and Yaill rose to his feet and stepped to the head of the coffin--John Hazel got up too from the back-bench, where he was sitting: glowering, reluctant but driven on by a Force he could not but obey....

That unseen hand that had thrust down his head when he entered the presence of Katharine had him again in its resistless grip.... He went up the little aisle between the packed benches, moving with long, noiseless strides, and took his place opposite Yaill. Had he been asked why he did this, he would have mumbled that it had seemed only the decent thing to lend a hand, and yet the impulse, rendered into words, would have been capable of a nobler interpretation:

"_Thou hast here no son to bear thee to thy tomb. Therefore, let me render thee this service, whom, never having heard thy voice or touched thy living hand,--I, by the oath of my forefather, nevertheless am bound to serve. And after thee those that are thine, as long as life remains to me!_"

The muttered word of command was drowned by the harmonium. The troopers detailed as bearers clanked up the aisle, Yaill's hand steadying the coffin as they lifted it--John Hazel taking upon his shoulders his full share of its weight. Seeing the words, "Because thou hast no son," written in letters of golden fire upon the frescoed stone walls, in violet and orange and fiery crimson across the face of the rose-window in the ogive over the West door, as the escort formed in file at the head of the procession and passed out by a side-exit, heralding the bearer of the Crucifix with its child-borne lights, the chanting choir, the tall young officer with the black-craped regimental Standard, and--carried by five tall Light Horsemen and one taller infantryman--its pall borne by officers of the Fourth and Fifth Squadrons--the coffin of their dead Chief....

So they bore him to the little private burial-place at the foot of the wood-shagged hill that rose behind Kerr's Arbour, touched by the long shadow of its Tower when the sun moved towards the south....

Before the steps leading to the gate of the open vault, the escort of troopers halted and turned inwards, making a lane for the dead man to pass through, as they rested on arms reversed. The coffin was lowered, again asperged by the celebrating priest and incensed with the words:

"_Eco sum resurréctio et vita, qui credit in Me etiam--si mórtuus fuerit vivet...._"

During the singing of the Canticle Edward Yaill led forward Katharine Forbis. John Hazel, standing in rank with the bearers, caught full view of her death-white, tear-drenched face. Something wrenched at his heart as the priest assisting offered her a silver shell of sacred earth, and she scattered some upon the lid of the coffin--from which the Union Jack with the sword and decorations were now removed. Yaill followed suit: some old friends and Mrs. Bell and the lawyer, Mr. Kellar, pressed forward to take part in this significant act. But Katharine's eyes beckoned and Hazel's answered. He held his palm; she poured from the silver shell--and the soil from the Mount of Olives streamed between his fingers in a thin brown stream, dulling the purple petals of the violets....

And then, moving slowly under the weight of the burden, came the slow descent of the steps leading into the vault, where--to the solemn company of the departed--ranged upon rock-hewn shelves in their modern oak or old-world lead, or antique granite coffins,--Philip, last Forbis of the male line save Julian,--supposing Julian yet to be numbered amongst the living,--was joined with the solemn blessing of his Church.

John Hazel's stern black eyes met Yaill's grey ones, as in unison with others they lent their strength to place the heavy coffin on the stone shelf appointed for its repose. When it slid to its place, their glances again encountered. Yaill was livid and spent and panting, for the effort had taxed him. But he gave back the other's look with cold composure, brushing a little dust from his ringed sleeve. Then, only delaying to replace upon the coffin its wreath of violets--he mounted the moss-grown steps--following the celebrant--and drew Katharine's cold hand once more within his arm.

"Attention! Present! ... Slope arms!"

As the ponderous door of the vault was shut and locked, the sharp voice of the commander of the escort broke the awed silence. The trumpeter sounded the Last Post--and three times the ringing crash of the volley startled to flight the rooks of the home-wood and the jackdaws of the Tower. As the small procession of friends, mourners and clergy returned from the burial-ground to the slow recital of the _De Profundis_, Yaill thought bitterly:

"Out of the depths I have cried, and no One has heard me. Yet, what had I done amiss?"

The County, with genuine regret tinging its discreetly-conventional condolences, rolled away in its landau-limousines or open cars. The officiating priests,--Father Haddon of the parish church at Birkleas,--the Father Superior of the Benedictine Monastery,--his guest the Jesuit from Farm Place, and Father Inghame,--pleaded an engagement to early dinner at Scraeside. The cars that had brought the General and his aide, and one or two elderly County magnates, remained outside the courtyard railings; their owners having stayed to lunch, as did the officers of the Tweedburgh Light Horse. At the board, Yaill did the honours, aided by Mr. Kellar, the Mistress of Kerr's not being present. A strange, ungenial banquet, crowning a strange, sorrowful day, that,--like how many others that had preceded it,--seemed to the host to be woven of the stuff of dreams. Only the rosy Kellar and one or two of the juniors grew merry over the Forbis port, while John Hazel,--who had shortly declined all hospitable offers of refreshment, rode back to Cauldstanes on Alec Govan's rickety "Sunray,"--thinking of the eyes that had silently bidden him

## participate in the final rite that only the nearest share.

The reading of the Will in the dead man's library followed the departure of the guests. There were a few personal legacies to friends and pensioners. Kerr's Arbour, with its eleven-hundred acres of moss-hag and moorland, its few productive farms and its neglected coverts, would, did Julian live, be Julian's, with reversion to Katharine and her heirs.

Over that windfall of £8000, rosy Mr. Kellar chuckled, or would have, had the solemnity of the occasion allowed. It would apply at this juncture to pay outstanding debts of Captain Mark's,--who had been something of a spendthrift--patch up yawning holes in the rent-roll, where the master of Kerr's Arbour had foregone the rents of such tenants as had volunteered for military service--pay the expenses of the funeral,--and swell with the balance remaining the tale of odd thousands, that, with her mother's little fortune,--would, if invested in four per cent War Bonds--provide Miss Forbis with an income approximating to £700 a year.

"This is a sad day, Colonel Yaill--a sad black day for a' of us!" said the lawyer, as Whishaw helped him into his shaggy overcoat. "But Gude be thanked! the warst o't is ower. We're looking to yoursel' now, an' to Miss Forbis, to bring back life and happiness to Kerr's. Ye'll be blessed in your pairtner--" the good man was sorely henpecked--"a sonsy, sweet body that can be relied on neither to stick nor fling! Not but housekeeping in these times is a trial an' a hertbreik. Mrs. Kellar is sore put to it by the scarceness o' sugar an' fat. She made ninety-eight punds of blackberry-an'-apple jam for the Expeditionary Arrmy last September--an' some clever billie put her up to the eking out the sugar wi' saut. I fand mysel' sadly the warse for having tasted it by accident, an' Toch!--if the lads at the Front get muckle o' that stuff intil them, I tell her she'll be fechtin' on the side o' the Huns. Here comes the meir an' cairt. Is there no one wanting a cast to Cauldstanes? ... Put in the black bag, Erchie Whishaw, no' in the well to be overlooked, but juist between my feet. And Gude-bye again to ye, Colonel Yaill, and an auld freend's love to Miss Forbis! This has been a black sair day for a' of us ... but thanks be to Providence! we're at the end o't!" ...

Yaill thought as the gravel of the courtyard shirred under the wheels of the retreating dog-cart, "More black, more sore than the good man dreams! And my part in it is not yet finished. Old Webster never conjured up a grimmer tragedy. For at ten o'clock I lend a hand to bury Katharine's father. Upon the stroke of three I stab the daughter to the heart. And having killed her love for me--at four--possibly earlier--I say Farewell to God's Forget--unlucky Edward Yaill!"

XXI

He went to Katharine, before three o'clock, in the little oak parlour, a panelled, chintz-hung, feminine nest that her dead mother had loved--looking over the South garden, across the now frozen expanse of a curlew-haunted lake.

She rose up out of her low chair by the hearthside at the welcome sight of Edward, and at her dear look his fetters seemed to fall from him and for one blessed minute he forgot--in the bliss of their embrace....

Attar of roses is composed of two essential oils, both scentless. When these meet and mingle, a divine perfume is born. So from the meeting of two pure and noble souls an ideal passion is engendered. Love that is founded on the rock of Reality,--yet capped with the cloud-domes of Imagination, cloaked with the glamour--exhaling the sweetness of Poetry and Romance.

It may be that these two had loved each other too purely for their earthly welfare. But as they settled into talk, fond, intimate, personal--tinged with Katharine's sacred sorrow, and yet illuminated with their joy--it seemed to Yaill that he had never yet tasted such happiness, as in this long-delayed, long-desired exchange of touch and thought and feeling--this perfect comradeship between woman and man.