



Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England




In the Whirl of the Rising, by Bertram Mitford.

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IN THE WHIRL OF THE RISING, BY BERTRAM MITFORD.



PROLOGUE.

"You coward!"

The word cut crisply and sharp through the clear frosty air, lashing and
keen as the wind that stirred the crystal-spangled pines, and the
musical ring of skate-blades upon the ice-bound surface of the mere.
She who uttered it stood, her flower-like face and deep blue eyes all
a-quiver with contemptuous disgust.  He to whom it was addressed,
started, blenched ever so slightly, his countenance immediately resuming
its mask of bronze impassibility.  Those who heard it echoed it,
secretly or in deep and angry mutter, the while proceeding with their
task--to wit, the restoring of animation to a very nearly drowned human
being, rescued, at infinite risk, from the treacherous spring hole which
had let him through the surface of the ice.

"Say it again," was the answer.  "It is such a kind and pleasant thing
to hear, coming from you.  So just, too.  Do say it again."

"I will say it again," went on the first speaker; and, exasperated by
the bitter sneering tone of the other, her voice rang out high and
clear, "You coward!"

Piers Lamont's dark face took on a change, but it expressed a sneer as
certain retrospective pictures rose before his mental gaze.  Such
indeed, in his case, drew the sting of about the most stinging epithet
that lips can frame; yet, remembering that the lips then framing it were
those of the girl with whom he was passionately in love, and to whom he
had recently become engaged, it seemed to hurt.

"Say something.  Oh, do say something!" she went on, speaking quickly.
"The boy might have been drowned, and very nearly was, while you stood,
with your hands in your pockets, looking on."

"If your people see fit to throw open the mere to the rabble, the rabble
must take care of itself," he answered.  "I daresay I can risk my life,
with an adequate motive.  That--isn't one."

The words, audible to many of the bystanders, the contemptuous tone, and
nod of the head in the direction of the ever-increasing group on the
bank, deepened the prevailing indignation.  Angry murmurs arose, and
some "booing."  Perhaps the presence of the Squire's daughter alone
restrained this demonstration from taking a more active form of
hostility; or it may even have been a something in the hard, bronzed
face and firm build of the man who had just been publicly dubbed
"coward."

"For shame!" hotly retorted the girl.  "I have no wish to talk to you
any more, or ever again.  Please go."

He made no reply.  Lifting his hat ceremoniously he turned away.  A few
yards' glide brought him to the bank.  He sat down, deliberately removed
his skates, lit a cigar, then started upon his way; the no-longer
restrained jeers which followed him falling upon his ears with no other
effect than to cause him to congratulate himself upon having given
others the opportunity of performing the feat from which he had
refrained.

The subject of all this disturbance was showing signs of restoration to
life and consciousness.  Seen in the midst of the gaping--and for the
most part useless--crowd which hemmed him in, he was an urchin of about
thirteen or fourteen, with a debased type of countenance wherein the
characteristics of the worst phase of guttersnipe--low cunning,
predatoriness, boundless impudence, and aggressive brutality--showed
more than incipient.  Such a countenance was it, indeed, as to suggest
that the rescue of its owner from a watery death went far to prove the
truth of a certain homely proverb relating to hanging and drowning.  And
now, gazing upon it, Violet Courtland was conscious of an unpleasant
truth in those last words spoken by her _fiance_.  She was forced to own
to herself that the saving of this life assuredly was not worth the
risking of his.  Yet she had implored him to do something towards the
rescue, and he had done nothing.  He had replied that there was nothing
to be done; had stood, calmly looking on while others had risked their
lives, he fearing for his.  Yes, _fearing_.  It looked like that.

And yet--and yet!  She knew but little of his past, except what he had
told her.  She had taken him on trust.  He had led something of an
adventurous life in wild parts of Africa.  Two or three times, under
pressure, he had told of an adventurous incident, wherein assuredly he
himself had not played a coward's part.  Yet the recollection so far
from clearing him in her estimation produced a contrary effect, and her
lips curled as she decided that he had merely been bragging on these
occasions; that if the events had happened at all they must have
happened to somebody else.  For, when all was said and done, he had
shown himself a coward in her sight.  Her hastily formed judgment
stood--if anything--stronger than before.  And--she was engaged to marry
a coward!

With a sad sinking of heart she left the spot, and, avoiding all escort
or companionship, took her way homeward alone.  The short winter
afternoon was waning, and a red afterglow was already fast fading into
the grey of dusk.  Against it the chimney stacks of Courtland Hall stood
silhouetted blackly, while farther down, among the leafless and frost
spangled tree-tops, the old church-tower stood square and massive.

It was Christmas Eve, and now the bells in the tower rang out in sudden
and tuneful chime, flinging their merry peal far and wide over leafless
woodland and frozen meadow.  They blended, too, with the ring of belated
blades on the ice-bound mere behind, and the sound of voices mellowed by
distance.  To this girl, now hurrying along the field path, her little
skates dangling from her wrist, but for the events of the last half-hour
how sweet and hallowed and homelike it would all have been; glorified,
too, by the presence of _one_!  Now, anger, disgust, contempt filled her
mind; and her heart was aching and sore with the void of an ideal cast
out.

One was there as she struck into the garden path leading up to the
terrace.  He was pacing up and down smoking a cigar.

"Well?" he said, turning suddenly upon her.  "Well, and have you had
time to reconsider your very hastily expressed opinion?"

"It was not hastily expressed.  It was deliberate," she replied quickly.
"I have no words for a coward.  I said that before."

"Yes, you said that before--for the amusement of a mob of grunting
yokels, and an odd social equal or two.  And now you repeat it.  Very
well.  Think what you please.  It is utterly immaterial to me now and
henceforward.  I will not even say good-bye."

He walked away from her in the other direction, while she passed on.  A
half impulse was upon her to linger, to offer him an opportunity of
explanation.  Somehow there was that about his personality which seemed
to belie her judgment upon him.  But pride, perversity, superficiality
of the deductive faculty, triumphed.  She passed on without a word.

The hour was dark for Piers Lamont--dark indeed.  He was a