Читать книгу The Small Dark Man (Maurice Walsh) (Literary Thoughts Edition) - Maurice Walsh - Страница 14

II

Hugh Forbes crouched on the edge of the path and looked down the steep heather-slope towards the river. “He never went the whole way,” he rumbled. “I never heard him souse—and maybe his neck isn’t broken either. Ah! here he comes, and in a hurry.”

Vivian Stark clawed up the slope, and there was fell purpose in his coming.

“Make it a game, son,” called Hugh Forbes happily, “and don’t be so dashed serious about it. I’m the king of the castle, and you’re the dirty rascal.”

Somehow, as he crouched there, he was no longer a small man. Rather was he a squat and powerful figure—force carried conveniently. His black head was sunk between great shoulders; his arms, bent at the elbow, reached his bowed knees gorilla-like; his legs were sturdy as towers. No urchin this.

Ten feet below the edge of the slope Vivian Stark paused for a moment, gathered all his poundage of bone and muscle, swerved a little to one side, and charged for the level ground of the path. Hugh Forbes side-stepped on nimble feet to meet him—met him solid as iron. . . .

Again the squat figure crouched on the edge of the slope. A glutton, that fellow down there. Barring the mercy of God, he’d be climbing up the bank and rolling down again the rest of the night. That last one was a clean “flying-mare,” and if he had any wind left in him he’d need it.

Stark did need his wind this time. He came up slowly, and, in the stillness of the night, the hissing draw of his breath came before him. A little nearer, and the man crouching above could see the white teeth gleam between open lips. He made no swerve and charge this time, but came on doggedly, almost dazedly, until his head was over the edge of the slope, and there he was gripped and held, one unforgettable clutch at his neck and one at wrist, so that his breast was pressed into the ground and a heather stem tickled his chin. The figure crouching over him was more gorilla-like than ever—a squat gorilla holding a frail human under a forelimb.

“And now we’ll talk,” said Hugh Forbes in his throat, and forthwith he had Stark on his feet on the path.

Charles William Vivian Stark could not talk yet awhile if he wanted to.

“And one of us will go down to Innismore. You or I?”

Stark did not deign to answer. Who could think of leaving a young girl alone with a savage and dangerous tramp—a plug-ugly—a tough trained in beer-house rough-and-tumbles? Loosed from Hugh’s grip, he swayed and steadied himself. The moonlight shining on his face gleamed on clenched teeth. He would have his wind back in a minute and——

“Did you ever hear Tearlath—Charles Grant—speak of Hugh Forbes?”

Vivian Stark did not need his wind any longer. “You!”

“Yes; I am Hugh Forbes.”

Stark did not doubt it. He had heard Charles speak of Hugh Forbes. Everyone had heard Charles Grant speak of Hugh Forbes, the black Irishman: frank as the day, secret as the night, of outrageous speech out of profound silences, gentle as a lamb, terrible as wrath—not to be forced, yet yielding his soul’s worth at a friend’s asking or an enemy’s pain. . . . So said Charles.

“This need not have happened,” said Stark.

“And it wouldn’t, if you took a man as you found him.”

And, oddly enough, that was the very thing that poor Vivian had done.

“Damn’d folly!” cried Stark angrily.

“It was all that,” agreed Hugh. He paused, and in that pause his whole manner and outlook changed. His voice showed the change. “It was damn’d folly, come to think of it. And maybe I was as much to blame as yourself. That wicked tongue of mine!” And now he grew cheerful. “Ah well! Sure, no harm is done. Only a bit of a wrestling match and never a blow struck. Man, if you had only used your reach and clouted me one!”

And there was Hugh Forbes forgetting to be ruthless, lightening his opponent’s discomfiture, putting himself in the other fellow’s place—after putting the other fellow in that place. A good right to be angry, the long lad had. Bad enough to be cross-buttocked and flying-mared by an insignificant tramp—and what else did he look like?—when a man upheld virtue, and defeat had an honourable sting; but to be stood needlessly on one’s ear by the friend of one’s friend—Murder! The boy’s mind must be taken off such contemplation.

“What do you propose to do now?” Stark asked that question shortly. He was in a predicament that he was not used to; he did not know what to do. He knew exactly what he would like to do, but for once in his life he doubted his ability to do it. He desired most urgently to hit this small scoundrel a thundering and demolishing blow that would flatten nose and drive teeth into throat—but—but—but would it be safe to try it, to risk a counter that might rend flesh from bone like the drawing stroke of one of the great apes? He had felt the wrenching quality of the small man’s grapple.

“Look you,” said the penitent Hugh, “this thing that happened—it was nothing; only you and I know, and let us forget it. Now that we are acquainted, let us make a fresh start. You go back to Frances Mary, and I’ll go down to Innismore and send up a pony.”

“Go to blazes!” said Stark with hot force, and, without another word, turned and strode down the glen, on the road for Innismore.

“Well, now!” said Hugh Forbes, and scratched the back of his head.