A sad little note for lover’s heart. Mr.
Marrapit, it said, abed of a chill, prevented Margaret
meeting her Bill that afternoon. Her father must
be constantly ministered; impossible to say when she
would be released. She heard him calling, she
must fly to him. With fondest love. No time
for more.
The lines chilled Bill’s heart. His was
a fidgety and nervous love that took fright at shadow
of doubt. The week that had divided him from
Margaret was the longest period they had not embraced
since their discovery one of another. Was it
not possible, he tortured himself, that loss of his
presence had blurred his image in her heart?
Countless heroes of his own stories who thus had suffered
rose to assure him that possible indeed it was.
The more he brooded upon it the more probable did
it become.
Bedtime found him desolated. In apprehension
he paced his room. The thought of sleep with
this devil of doubt to thump his pillow was impossible.
Leaning from his window he gazed upon the stars and
groaned; dropped eyes to the lawn, silvered in moonlight,
and started beneath the prick of a sudden thought.
It was a night conceived for lovers’ tryst.
He would seek his Margaret’s open window, whistle
her from her bed, and bring this damned doubt of her
to reality or knock the ghostly villain dead.
It was an inspiriting thought, and Bill started to
whistle upon it until he remembered the demeanour
in which he would have sent forth one of his own heroes
upon such a mission. “Dark eyes gleaming
strangely from a pale, set face,” he would have
written. Bill’s eyes were of a clearest,
childlike blue which interfered a little with the
proper conception of the role he was to play; but blanketing
his spirits in melancholy he stepped from his room
and passed down the stairs.
That favoured bull-terrier Abiram, sleeping in the
hall, drummed a tattoo of welcome upon the floor.
“Chuck it,” said Bill morosely.
The “faithful hound” that gives solace
to the wounded heart is a pretty enough thing in stories;
Abiram had had no training for the part. This
dog associated his master not with melancholy that
needed caressing but with wild “rags”
that gave and demanded tremendous spirits.
Intelligence, however, showed the wise creature that
the tone of that command meant he was to be excluded
from whatever wild rag might be now afoot. It
was not to be borne. Therefore, to lull suspicion,
Abiram ceased his drumming; rose when Bill had passed;
behind him crept stealthily; and upon the door being
opened bounded around his master’s legs and
into the moonlight with a joyous yelp.
Fearful of arousing Korah and Dathan in their kennels
to tremendous din if he bellowed orders, Bill hissed
commands advising Abiram to return indoors under threat
of awful penalties.
Abiram frisked and skipped upon the lawn like a young
lamb.
