



Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England




The Red Derelict
By Bertram Mitford
Published by Methuen and Co. London.
This edition dated 1904.
The Red Derelict, by Bertram Mitford.

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THE RED DERELICT, BY BERTRAM MITFORD.



CHAPTER ONE.

THE EPISODE OF THE BRINDLED GNU.

"Mine!"

The word was breathed rather than uttered, and its intonation conveyed a
sense of the most perfect, even ecstatic, contentment.  The vivid green
of early summer woods piled as it were in great cloud masses to the
clear, unbroken blue, rolling up from the sheen and glory of golden seas
of buttercups which flooded every rich meadow surface.  Hawthorn hedges
distilled their sweetness from snowy clusters crowding each other in
their profusion, a busy working ground for myriad bees whose murmur made
music in low waves of tone upon the sweet evening glow.  And yonder,
behind him who is contemplating all this, the slant of the westering sun
touches the tall chimney stalks of the old house, just visible among
masses of feathery elms loud with cawing clamour from black armies of
homing rooks.  Again the glance swept round upon this wealth of English
summer loveliness and again the uttered thought, with all its original
exaltation, escaped the lips.

"Mine!"

Wagram Gerard Wagram strolled leisurely on, drinking in the golden glory
of the surroundings as though suffering it to saturate his whole being.
As for the second time he half-unconsciously enunciated that single
possessive it was with almost a misgiving, an uncomfortable stirring as
of unreality.  Would he awaken directly, as he had more than once
awakened before, to find this vision of Paradise, as it were, dispelled
in the cold and sunless grey of a mere existence, blank alike of aim or
prospect--illusions dead, life all behind, in front--nothing?

With these conditions he was well acquainted--only too well.  The seamy
side of life had indeed been his--failure, straitened means,
disappointment in every form, and worse.  Years of bitter and
heart-wearing experiences had planted the iron in his soul--but this was
all over now, never to return.  To him, suddenly, startling in its
unexpectedness, had come the change, and with it, peace.

A perfect chorus of bird harmony filled the air.  Thrushes innumerable
poured forth their song, whose sweet and liquid notes gurgled upon the
ear as though through organ pipes.  Robins, too, and blackbirds were not
slow to join in, and then the soft amorous coo of wood-pigeons, and
through all--thrown as it were from copse to copse--the blithe and
gladsome shout of answering cuckoos.

Wagram opened a gate noiselessly, and with equally noiseless tread moved
along one of the "rides" of a wood.  On his shoulder was a rabbit
rifle--one of some power and driving capacity--with which he was wont to
practise long shots at outlying but uncommonly suspicious and wideawake
Bunny.  Things rustled in the undergrowth and brambles on either side,
as though stealthily creeping away.  A slight stirring of the grass
caught his eye, and, as he bent over it, an adder contracted itself into
a letter S, with its heart-shaped head somewhat lifted, alert,
defensive.  He raised the rifle so as to bring down the butt upon the
snake--then seemed to think better of it.

"Poor little brute.  The chances are ten thousand to one against it ever
damaging anybody in a place like this, and those chances it can have the
benefit of."

He touched it with the muzzle of the gun, amused by the impotent wrath
wherewith the small reptile struck at the cold iron.  Then he went on
his way.

He reached a gate and peered over.  Two or three rabbits were out
feeding, but they darted like lightning into cover before he had time so
much as to raise the piece.  Passing out of the gate he crossed the open
meadow.

In front a gleam of water, and beyond it the skipping forms of young
lambs, whose shrill bleat harmonised with the multitudinous bird voices,
and the green loveliness of the picture.  Leaning lazily on the parapet
of an old stone bridge which spanned the river, Wagram watched the
ripple here and there of a rising trout, or the perky flirtings of a
pair of water-ouzels, whose