The Obstacle Race by Ethel May Dell (chromebook ebook reader TXT) 📖

sort of thing--as you know. It isn't especially inspiring for either of us. I shouldn't qualify for it if I were you."
Robin had begun to shake again. The cold, clear words seemed to deprive him of the brief strength he had managed to muster. His eyes fell before the steady regard that was fixed upon him. With an incoherent murmur he turned aside, and dropped upon the end of the bench indicated, his trembling hands gripped hard between his knees, his attitude one of utter dejection.
Green went back to his correcting with a frown between his brows, and a deep silence fell.
Minutes passed. The room grew darker, the atmosphere more leaden. Pencil in hand, Green went over book after book and put them aside. Suddenly he looked across at the silent figure. The humped shoulders were heaving. Slow tears were falling upon the clasped hands. There was no sound of any sort. Green sat and watched, a kind of stern pity replacing the unyielding mastery of his look. He moved at length, was on the verge of speech, when something checked him. Footsteps fell beyond the open door, and in a moment a man's figure appeared entering through the gloom.
"Hullo, Dick!" a voice said. "You here? There's going to be the devil of a storm. Where's that scoundrel Robin?"
Robin stirred with a deep sound in his throat like the growl of an angry animal.
Richard Green rose with a sharp movement. "Jack! I want a word with you. Come outside!"
He passed Robin and went to the new-comer, gripping him quickly by the shoulder and turning him back by the way he had come.
Jack submitted to the imperative touch. He was taller and broader than his elder brother, but he lacked that subtle something--the distinction of bearing--which in Richard was very apparent.
"Well, Dick! What do you want?" he said. "I'm pretty mad, I can tell you. I hope you're going to thrash him well. Because if you don't, I shall."
Briefly and decidedly Dick made answer. "No, you won't. You'll not touch him. I shall do--whatever is necessary."
"Shall you?" said Jack. "Then why don't you shut him up in a wild-beast house? It's the only place he's fit for."
"Shut up, please!" Richard's tone was an odd mixture of tolerance and exasperation. "I'll manage this affair my own way. But I've got to know the truth of it first. What made him throw that stone? Have you been baiting him again?"
"I?" Jack squared his shoulders; a sneer crossed his good-looking face. "Oh, say I did it!" he drawled.
"Don't be an ass, Jack! Can't you see I want your help?" Richard spoke with insistence; his hand gripped his brother's arm.
Jack's sneer turned to a self-satisfied smile. "I'll help you hammer him if you like. There's nothing would please me better. Oh, all right, man! Don't be impatient! That's my funny bone when you've done with it. I don't mind telling you all about it if you want to know. He chucked that stone at me out of sheer damned vindictiveness. He meant to break my head, but he broke the window instead, and frightened Madam Fielding into fits. In her own park too! It's a bit thick, you know, that. I don't wonder that she came straight along to you to demand his blood. You'll have the old man down next; also the beautiful Miss Moore. It's getting beyond a joke, you know, Dick. You'll have to shut the beast up. You can't let him run amuck like this."
"Shut up!" Dick said again. In the unnatural light his face looked drawn and almost haggard. "I want to know why he did it. Can't you tell me?"
"Oh yes, I can tell you that. He's taken to haunting the place--the Court, mind you--to lie in wait for the fair Juliet. She's been too kind to him, unluckily for her, and now he dogs her footsteps whenever he gets a chance. I caught him this afternoon, right up by the house, and I ordered him off. You know the squire and madam both loathe the very sight of him, and small wonder. I do myself. So I told him what he was and where to go to, and I presume he thought he'd send me there first. There you have it all--cause and effect."
"Thank you," said Dick. He paused a moment looking speculatively at Jack's complacent face. "It was a pity you were so damned offensive, but I suppose it's the way you're made. You were the sole cause of the whole thing, and if there's any decency in you, you'll go and tell the squire so."
He spoke quickly, but with characteristic decision and wholly without excitement. Jack jumped, and threw back his head as if he had received a blow across the mouth. Swift temper sprang to his eyes.
"What the devil do you mean?" he demanded.
"Exactly what I have said," returned Dick briefly. "And perhaps a little more."
"Confound you!" blustered Jack. "And you expect me to go to the squire and tell him it was my fault, do you?"
"No. I don't expect it in the least." Dick almost laughed. "In fact, nothing would surprise me more. Thank you for telling me the truth. Do you mind clearing out now? I don't want you in here."
His curt, cold tones fell like ice on flame. Jack swore a muffled oath and turned away. There was no one in the world who possessed the power to humble him as did Dick, who with a few scorching words could make him writhe in impotent fury. For there was no gainsaying Dick. He was always unassailable in his justice, since in a fashion inexplicable but tacitly acknowledged by both he occupied a higher plane altogether. Ignore it as he might, deep in his inner soul Jack knew this man to be his master. He might, and sometimes did, resist his control, deny his authority; yet the power remained, and Dick knew how to exercise it if the need arose. They were seldom at open variance, but practically never in sympathy.
The fate of poor Robin had been a matter of disagreement between them ever since Jack had come to man's estate, but the issue did not rest with Jack. No power on earth could move Dick in that direction. Robin was his own peculiar property, and in this respect he permitted interference from none.
He left Jack now, and turned back into the schoolroom with deep lines between his brows, but implacable determination in his every movement, a determination that was directed against the poor cowering form that crouched still in the same position waiting for him.
Robin looked up at his coming, drawing himself together with a nervous contraction of the muscles like the mute shrinking of an abject dog.
Dick stopped in front of him. "So you're not going to take a caning!" he said.
There was no longer any rebellion in Robin's attitude. He dropped his eyes swiftly from his brother's face, saying no word. In the silence that followed, his hands began to work, straining ceaselessly against each other.
Dick waited for a few seconds. "Going on strike, are you?" he asked then, as Robin did not speak.
Robin shook his head dumbly.
"What does that mean?" Dick said.
Robin was silent. He was nearly dislocating his fingerjoints in his agitation.
Richard bent suddenly and laid a quieting hand upon him. "Robin, do you know you've got me into bad trouble?"
Robin gave a violent jerk, and in a moment stumbled to his feet. He did not look at his brother, but turned aside in his blundering pathetic fashion, and went to the littered writing-desk.
Dick's wand of office still lay among the scattered exercise-books. He pulled it out with a clumsy eagerness, tossing papers and books on the floor in his haste. He turned and went back to Dick, thrusting the cane towards him.
"There, Dicky!" he said, and stood breathing heavily and trembling.
Dick reached out and took the cane. The lines of his face were oddly softened. He stood for a moment looking at the boy, then very sharply he moved, bent, and snapped the thing across his knee.
"Oh, dash it, Robin!" he said. "You're getting too much for me."
He tossed the fragments from him, and went to pick up the books that Robin had scattered on the floor.
Robin came and grovelled by his side, helping him. "You aren't angry, are you, Dicky?" he murmured anxiously.
"I ought to be," Dick said, as he sat down and began to straighten out the muddle in front of him.
Robin knelt up by his side. "Please don't be, Dicky!" he said very earnestly. "I won't ever do it again. I swear I won't."
Dick smiled somewhat wryly. "No. You'll probably think of some other devilry even worse." He put his arm round the humped shoulders with the words. "You'll forget--you always do--that it's I who have to pay."
Robin pressed against him, still dog-like in his contrition. "Will it cost much?" he asked.
"Oh that! The window, you mean? Well, not so much as if you had broken Jack's head--as you intended."
There was some hint of returning grimness in Dick's voice. Robin made an ingratiating movement, leaning his rough head against his brother's arm.
Dick went on, ignoring the unspoken appeal. "You've got to stop it Robin. If you don't, there'll be trouble--worse trouble than you've had yet. You don't want to leave me, I suppose?"
"Leave you, Dicky?" Robin stared round in horror. "Leave you?" he repeated incredulously. "Go to prison, do you mean?"
Dick nodded. "Something like it."
"Dick!" Robin stared at him aghast. "But--you--you'd never let them--take me?"
"If you were to damage Jack--or anyone else--badly, I shouldn't be able to prevent it." Dick said rather wearily. "If it came to that--I shouldn't even try."
"Dick!" Robin gasped again, then passionately; "But I--I--I couldn't live--away from you! I'd--I'd kill myself!"
"No, you wouldn't. You wouldn't get the chance." Dick was staring straight before him down the room, as if he watched some evil vision against the darkness. "People aren't allowed to kill themselves in prison. If they try to do anything of that sort, they're tied down till they come to their senses. If they behave like brutes, they're treated as such, till at last they turn into that and nothing else. And then--God help them!"
A sudden hard shudder caught him. He shook it off impatiently, and turned to the quivering figure still kneeling in the circle of his arm.
He gripped it suddenly close. "That's the sort of hell these fiendish tempers of yours might end in," he said. "You've got to save yourself, my son. I can't save you."
Robin clung to him tensely, desperately. "You don't--want me to go, Dicky?" he whispered.
"Good God!" Richard said. "I'd rather see you dead!"
In the silence that followed, Robin turned with a curious groping movement, took the hand that pressed his shoulder, and pulled it over his eyes.


CHAPTER II
MIDSUMMER MADNESS

An ominous darkness brooded over all things as Green walked up the long avenue of Shale Court half-an-hour later. The storm had been long in, gathering, and he judged that he would yet have time to reach his destination before it broke. But it was nearer than he thought, and the first dull roar of its coming reached him soon after he had passed the gates. He shrugged his shoulders at the sound and hurried on, for he was in no mood to turn back. The business before him was one that could not be shirked, and the lines on his dark face showed unyielding determination as he went.
He was half-way up the drive when the first flash of lightning glimmered eerily across the heavy gloom. It was