"Oh, yes," he answered, "of course I am. I would not miss the chance for worlds. Why, Beecham Bones is going to be there, the member of Parliament who has just done his four months for inciting to outrage.
We are old friends; I was at school with him. Poor fellow, he was mad even in those days, and I want to chaff him.""I think that you had far better not go, Mr. Bingham," said Beatrice;"they are a very rough set."
"Everybody is not so cowardly as you are," put in Elizabeth. "I am going at any rate.""That's right, Miss Elizabeth," said Geoffrey; "we will protect each other from the revolutionary fury of the mob. Come, it is time to start."And so they went, leaving Beatrice a prey to melancholy forebodings.
She waited in the house for the best part of an hour, making pretence to play with Effie. Then her anxiety got the better of her; she put on her hat and started, leaving Effie in charge of the servant Betty.
Beatrice walked quickly along the cliff till she came in sight of Jones's farm. From where she stood she could make out a great crowd of men, and even, when the wind turned towards her, catch the noise of shouting. Presently she heard a sound like the report of a gun, saw the crowd break up in violent confusion, and then cluster together again in a dense mass.
"What could it mean?" Beatrice wondered.
As the thought crossed her mind, she perceived two men running towards her with all their speed, followed by a woman. Three minutes more and she saw that the woman was Elizabeth.
The men were passing her now.
"What is it?" she cried.
"/Murder!/" they answered with one voice, and sped on towards Bryngelly.
Another moment and Elizabeth was at hand, horror written on her pale face.
Beatrice clutched at her. "/Who/ is it?" she cried.
"Mr. Bingham," gasped her sister. "Go and help; he's shot dead!" And she too was gone.
Beatrice's knees loosened, her tongue clave to the roof of her mouth;the solid earth spun round and round. "Geoffrey killed! Geoffrey killed!" she cried in her heart; but though her ears seemed to hear the sound of them, no words came from her lips. "Oh, what should she do? Where should she hide herself in her grief?"A few yards from the path grew a stunted tree with a large flat stone at its root. Thither Beatrice staggered and sank upon the stone, while still the solid earth spun round and round.
Presently her mind cleared a little, and a keener pang of pain shot through her soul. She had been stunned at first, now she felt.
"Perhaps it was not true; perhaps Elizabeth had been mistaken or had only said it to torment her." She rose. She flung herself upon her knees, there by the stone, and prayed, this first time for many years --she prayed with all her soul. "Oh, God, if Thou art, spare him his life and me this agony." In her dreadful pangs of grief her faith was thus re-born, and, as all human beings must in their hour of mortal agony, Beatrice realised her dependence on the Unseen. She rose, and weak with emotion sank back on to the stone. The people were streaming past her now, talking excitedly. Somebody came up to her and stood over her.
Oh, Heaven, it was Geoffrey!
"Is it you?" she gasped. "Elizabeth said that you were murdered.""No, no. It was not I; it is that poor fellow Johnson, the auctioneer.
Jones shot him. I was standing next him. I suppose your sister thought that I fell. He was not unlike me, poor fellow."Beatrice looked at him, went red, went white, then burst into a flood of tears.
A strange pang seized upon his heart. It thrilled through him, shaking him to the core. Why was this woman so deeply moved? Could it be----?
Nonsense; he stifled the thought before it was born.
"Don't cry," Geoffrey said, "the people will see you, Beatrice" (for the first time he called her by her christian name); "pray do not cry.
It distresses me. You are upset, and no wonder. That fellow Beecham Bones ought to be hanged, and I told him so. It is his work, though he never meant it to go so far. He's frightened enough now, I can tell you."Beatrice controlled herself with an effort.
"What happened," he said, "I will tell you as we walk along. No, don't go up to the farm. He is not a pleasant sight, poor fellow. When I got up there, Beecham Bones was spouting away to the mob--his long hair flying about his back--exciting them to resist laws made by brutal thieving landlords, and all that kind of gibberish; telling them that they would be supported by a great party in Parliament, &c., &c. The people, however, took it all good-naturedly enough. They had a beautiful effigy of your father swinging on a pole, with a placard on his breast, on which was written, 'The robber of the widow and the orphan,' and they were singing Welsh songs. Only I saw Jones, who was more than half drunk, cursing and swearing in Welsh and English. When the auctioneer began to sell, Jones went into the house and Bones went with him. After enough had been sold to pay the debt, and while the mob was still laughing and shouting, suddenly the back door of the house opened and out rushed Jones, now quite drunk, a gun in his hand and Bones hanging on to his coat-tails. I was talking to the auctioneer at the moment, and my belief is that the brute thought that I was Johnson. At any rate, before anything could be done he lifted the gun and fired, at me, as I think. The charge, however, passed my head and hit poor Johnson full in the face, killing him dead. That is all the story.""And quite enough, too," said Beatrice with a shudder. "What times we live in! I feel quite sick."Supper that night was a very melancholy affair. Old Mr. Granger was altogether thrown off his balance; and even Elizabeth's iron nerves were shaken.
"It could not be worse, it could not be worse," moaned the old man, rising from the table and walking up and down the room.
