Jack Raymond

Then he climbed out on to the window sill and let himself down by the ivy. He had done it often enough before, without any thought of danger; but to-night, as he reached the projecting ledge, the dizziness overcame him again, the wall seemed to sway and lurch forwards and the garden bed below to rise up, rushing upon him. He threw up his hands and fell.

The rest of the night was a medley of con­fused impressions and strange things happen­ing without any ordered sequence; impres­sions of its being very hot, and then again very cold; of huge crowds of people surging about noisily and fading suddenly away; of something burning, pressed up against his right arm; of tumult and of lights and rushing water; and, here and there, black intervals of silence.

After dawn he woke up somehow, and crawled into the wood-shed close at hand. There was little conscious purpose in the action; hardly more than the blind instinct of a wounded animal, to hide and die in some dark place. He realised that his right arm was broken; but beyond that he was not very clear about anything, except that he was cold and giddy, and wished, if he was going to die, he could die a bit quicker and get it over. Dying unrepentant after always having been such a wicked boy, he would of course go to hell; but that troubled him little; it is a long time yet till the Judgment Day, and hell is as good as any other place when you feel so sick.

About eight o'clock the Vicar came down into the garden. His eyes were hard and steely with anger; he had been in the empty gable room and had seen the marked Bible and the broken ivy hanging from the wall. What if the boy had run away and gone to the villagers, or to the Dissenting minister? More probably he was trying to make his way to Falmouth, with some wild notion of going to sea. But there was yet another pos­sibility...

The Vicar clenched his hands. "If I had only not touched him..." he thought; and flushed angrily at the memory of the bare shoulder and the red wound which had driven him mad with desire. What had happened to him yesterday he dared not call by its name, even in thought; yet he knew well enough what it was. All night he had been haunted by dreams that he had believed would never trouble him again; he, whose life was so strict, whose imagination, for years past, had been so steadily controlled. When a young man, just ordained, he had caught a rat one evening in his London bedroom after many fruitless efforts; the long search had angered him, and the creature, when caught at last, had died no easy death. Then he had gone out; and, slinking home at daybreak, sickened and remorseful, had said to himself: "It's the fault of the rat." Now his anger was bitter against Jack, who had been a cause of stumbling and offence to him in his sober maturity, and had brought back memories and longings of which he was ashamed.

The open door of the wood-shed caught his eyes, and he looked in. The figure huddled up among the faggots crept further into its dim corner. He approached and stooped down.

"Jack, what are you doing there?"

The boy shrank a little further away.

"What is the matter? Have you fallen and hurt yourself?"

"No."

"You got out of the window? You were thinking of ru

He paused a moment, waiting to be obeyed; but there was no movement. He felt that his self-control was going again; this cower­ing impotence, this voiceless terror tempted him beyond endurance.

"Stand up!" he repeated.

Jack raised himself a little and looked up. The red flash of the retina showed behind his eyes, as the flame leaps out in a smouldering tinder heap that flares up, suddenly on fire.

"Well?" he said, "will you kill me, or must I kill you?"

A mist blurred the man's sight; he struck out blindly, with a clenched hand.

As Jack dropped, like a thing struck dead, silently in a heap at his feet, he realised what he had done. In the first shock of fear he thought that it was he who had broken the arm. At his call for help Mrs. Raymond came ru

"Josiah! Oh, what is it?"

"Help me carry him indoors, and send for the doctor as quick as you can. Make haste!"

She bent down to enter the shed; but stopped short, seeing the boy lying on the ground. She stood still for a moment, look­ing; then turned on her husband.

"What have you done?" she said.

His eyes fell before hers.

"I don't know."

She stooped without another word and helped him to lift the boy; and he knew, like Philip of Spain, that his subjects had condemned him.

For some time Jack only passed from one fainting fit into another. Dr. Jenkins, hastily summoned, looked round with a grave face after he had felt the pulse.

"Some more brandy; and get hot appli­cations, quick! And send for Dr. Williams; I want a second opinion."

The Vicar was almost as white as Jack.

"Is there any... danger?" he faltered.

"The pulse is very low. Why was I not called in sooner?"

The Vicar moistened his lips.

"I don't know," he said again. Dr. Jenkins looked round keenly, his hand on the pulse.

"You don't know when it happened? Nor how?"

"No."

The doctor turned back to his patient.

By the time Dr. Williams arrived the danger of collapse was over, and the old man was a little surprised that his colleague should have thought it necessary to send for him. The operation of setting the bone brought on another fainting fit; but this time the boy soon rallied, and lay with half-closed eyes, glancing now and then indifferently at the figures moving round the sofa. He wished they would leave off pulling him about, but it was too much trouble to protest, and if he did they would probably take no notice; so there was nothing for it but to submit. When his uncle approached him he shuddered and turned his head away; other­wise he was quite passive and docile, but would answer no questions.

"Did he remember falling? Was it from window-ledge? When was it? How did it happen?"

He only shook his head in silence.

Then they brought him something to drink; and he took it obediently, wondering why they could not let him alone, and why the glass should jingle so against his teeth. But he felt much stronger and more alive after it, which indeed was small gain. The position in which he lay was hurting him very much; and he made several patient efforts to change it, stopping perforce when too many sparks danced before his eyes, and stubbornly trying again as soon as he could breathe. But he gave up the struggle at last, and lay still, biting his lip and wishing he were dead. It had not occurred to him to ask any one's help.

"Do you want the pillow shifted?" asked the Vicar.

Jack looked up at him silently; and Dr. Jenkins, standing near, saw the deadly vin­dictiveness in the black eyes and bent down over the sofa.

"Is the arm hurting you much now?" "It's not so bad when you let it alone." "Does anything else hurt you except the arm?"

Jack looked round at him slowly, with grave contempt.

"What makes you think that? I haven't made a fuss, have I?"

"Indeed you haven't, you little Spartan," said Dr. Williams, turning his head with a smile. He had overheard only the last words. "I wish all grown-up patients made so little — don't you, Jenkins?"

Dr. Jenkins said nothing. He had keener eyes than the older man, and to him the steady, practised stoicism of this mere child was a frightful thing to see. The rope marks on the wrists had aroused his suspicions at the first, and he had been watching quietly. When no one else was looking he had seen the boy put up his left hand furtively, and bite it. The action had explained to him the savage little dints marking the brown skin in so many places; apparently the mere clenching of teeth had often not proved help enough. "You didn't learn that trick in one night," he thought; "and you know more than you care to tell. We haven't got to the bottom of this story yet."