Part 13 (1/2)

”I say,” began Armitage, ”here's a riddle--a regular Sunday one.”

”Is there? Roll it up this way,” said Claverton, from the other end of the table, where he was seated between Mrs Naylor and Ethel, for he resolutely defied the dividing custom above mentioned.

”Here you are, then. Why is Allen like Moses?” asked Armitage.

”Oh, villainous!” laughed Claverton. ”Don't anybody attempt it. I really think you might trot out something a little more original, Armitage.”

Of course, every one then and there tried hard to solve the conundrum, and, of course, half of them gave it up, and, of course, the reply came even as was to be expected: ”Because he was drawn out of the water.”

”Oh-h!” groaned the whole party; while the object of the aqueous jest sat and grinned placidly, and made play with his knife and fork as though he were the perpetrator of it instead of its b.u.t.t.

”I say, Allen,” put in Naylor, on the other side, ”has that shooting match between you and Hicks come off yet?”

”What are the conditions?” asked Armitage.

”Dollar a side--Target, the shearing-house door--Distance, five yards-- Hicks to be allowed four yards on account of his want of practice. I'll bet on Hicks;” and the speaker roared at his own sorry wit.

”Eh! what's that about me?” called out Hicks from the other end of the table, which was longer than usual, by reason of the advent of the Naylors with their five olive-branches. He had just caught his name.

”Nothing, old man, nothing; we were only talking of those three guinea-fowl you shot this morning, coming up,” replied Armitage, grinning mischievously.

”But bother it, I had no gun,” said Hicks, thrown off his guard for the moment by this bare-faced accusation of Sabbath-breaking, and fairly losing his head as he caught a reproachful glance from Laura, which seemed to say: ”Didn't you promise me you'd leave your gun at home when you went out this morning?” For he had confidentially imparted to her his intention to take the trusty shooting-iron, as he was starting so early that there would be no one about to be scandalised; and Laura, who had her own ideas of right and wrong, had peremptorily forbidden his doing anything of the kind.

”I say!” exclaimed Armitage, with admirably-feigned amazement. He had taken in the other's look of confusion, and, incorrigible joker as he was, resolved to turn it to his own mischief-loving account.

”But, confound it!” began Hicks, wrathfully; for that mute upbraiding glance made him really savage with his tormentor, who he thought was carrying the joke too far. Chaff was all very well, but this kind of thing went beyond chaff, and he would give him a piece of his mind by-and-by.

”Er--n-no--of course--you hadn't a gun--I forgot--er--I--was thinking of yesterday,” rejoined Armitage, with the well-simulated air of a man who has ”put his foot in it,” and is endeavouring to withdraw that unlucky member--and endeavouring deucedly badly, too.

”I say, Jack, what about the scorpion fight, eh?” and Hicks proceeded to narrate how he had found that unscrupulous joker in the thick of the useful and intellectual little amus.e.m.e.nt at which we saw him in the last chapter, thus drawing upon him the laughter and sallies of the a.s.semblage, under cover of which he said quietly to Laura: ”I didn't really take the gun this morning, 'pon my word of honour I didn't; it's only that fellow's lies. He might draw the line somewhere; chaff's all very well, you know, but hang it, that's beyond a joke.”

”Yes, I think it's really too bad of him. I oughtn't to have thought you did what you told me you wouldn't do,” she replied, with an almost imperceptible stress on ”me,” and a glance which Hicks thought fully compensated for the former doubt. Leave we them beneath the friendly shelter of the noise at the other end of the table, and turn to the rest.

”Don't care, I won my bet,” Armitage was saying.

”What! And so you were betting on it, too--and on Sunday! I think it's disgraceful of you,” said Ethel.

”He's come up here to be reformed,” put in Allen.

”Oh, you needn't talk,” said Armitage, turning off the attack on to the last speaker. ”Miss Brathwaite, what do you think of a fellow who comes down to my place on a Sunday, and bothers me to take out a bees' nest; on a Sunday, too!”

There was a great laugh at this. The notion of Allen bothering any one to take out a bees' nest, Sunday or any other day, struck them all as ineffably rich. He would rather travel twenty miles than embark knowingly in that lively enterprise. And then the joke about the stings, and the plunge into the river came out, and poor Allen was roasted unmercifully on the strength of it, and the fun grew apace, when a vivid flash darting in upon them, and playing upon the knives and gla.s.ses with a blue steely gleam, brought the conversation up with a round turn.

”We shall have a storm,” said Mr Brathwaite, glancing at the window.

The deep azure of the heavens had become dark and overcast, and even as he spoke there pealed forth a long, angry roll of thunder.

A general move from the table now took place, and every one adjourned to the verandah, which looked out on the wide sweep of country const.i.tuting the great charm of the situation of the house. But now the joyous sunlight had disappeared, and the earth slept in a dread and boding stillness. Tall pillars of cloud, black as night, moved steadily on, their jagged edges taking the forms and faces of hideous and open-mouthed monsters. All nature seemed waiting for the battle of the forces of the air, the discharge of the pent-up cloud artillery which was to strike the awed surface of earth with its blasting fire. Then, athwart the hot, listening deadness of the atmosphere comes a dazzling flash, bathing the valley in a sea of flame; and a roll of thunder, long, loud, and close at hand, makes the expectant group, which is standing on the verandah to watch the storm, involuntarily start, and the silence is more intense than before. And now a great chain of fire shoots from the blackness immediately overhead, and before you could count one, an appalling crash shakes the solid old house to its very foundations, while the windows rattle like castanets.

”Let's go inside,” suggested Ethel; ”I don't like this.”