Part 56

"He's a bit too quick with his signs and badges of slavery. He's so complacent with himself, and thinks he's ousted the 'red-headed mug' as he calls him, that I hate him."

"He has a right to be complacent. You have given him reason to be. He has won you, so you have told him, and he believes you."

"Yes, I know, and it makes me all the madder to think of it."

I suppressed a chuckle; even before attaining my teens I had never been so splendidly, autocratically young as this beautiful high-spirited creature!

"Let things settle awhile, and then we'll pour them off the dregs," I advised.

TWENTY-TWO.

"O Spirit, and the Nine Angels who watch us, And Thy Son, and Mary Virgin, Heal us of the wrong of man."

Outside politics the next item of interest on the Clay programme was the reappearance of Mr Pornsch, who came for afternoon tea, during which he invited himself to evening tea later on, and before it took Dawn's time in the drawing-room trying some late songs. Dawn averred that it was with difficulty she had restrained from setting fire to him or attacking him with the piano-stool.

He got so far with his "love-making" on this occasion that he had asked Dawn to take a little walk with him, which she had readily consented to do, as it would enable her to entrap him for the tarring-and-feathering upon which she had determined.

"He is going to meet me over among the grapes in the shade of the osage breakwind. Do you think we will be able to manage him? Let us be sure to have everything well arranged," whispered Dawn to me as we came to evening tea.

Near the appointed time of tryst, when the first division of the Western mail was roaring by--the warm red lights from its windows shedding a glow by the viaduct--she and I betook ourselves to the far end of Grandma Clay's vineyard, where we were securely screened by the osage orange hedge on one side and the grape-canes and their stakes on the other. Dawn carried a two-pound treacle-tin filled with tar, and which had been sitting on the end of the stove during the afternoon to melt into working order. Carry, who had entered into the affair with vim, had her share of the arrangements in readiness, and was secreted nearer the house to act as sentinel, and to run to our assistance if summoned by a prearranged whistle.

Dawn placed me and the superannuated hair broom, with which she had armed me, behind a grape-vine, and herself took up a position before it and beside a hole about eighteen inches deep and two feet square which she had excavated.

Mr Pornsch was soon to be heard tripping and blundering along, while the starlight, to which our eyes had grown accustomed, showed the river where the dead girl whom we were there to avenge had ended her miserable existence.

"Dawn, my pet, where are you? Curse the grape-vines," he gasped.

"I'm here, uncle darling," she responded, the two last words under her breath.

Directed by her voice, he neared till we could discern his bulk.

"My little queen," he exclaimed, the tone of his voice betraying that which defiled the crisp glory of the night for as far as it carried.

"Just wait a minute till I see where we are," said Dawn, "or we will be getting all tangled up in these canes."

With this she started back, causing him to do likewise, and drawing a swab on a stick from the pot in her hand, she brought a consignment of the black sticky tar a resounding smack on his face, and following it with others thick and fast, exclaimed--

"There! There! That's all for you!"

Mr Pornsch naturally stepped backwards into the excavation, as designed, and sat down as completely and largely helplessly as one of his figure could be counted upon to do, and coming to Dawn's assistance I planted the broom on his chest, and bore with my feeble strength upon him. It was quite sufficient to detain him, seeing he was now stretched on the broad of his back with his amidship departments foundered in two feet of indentation.

Dawn thoroughly plastered his face and head, and in spitting to keep his mouth clear he lost his false teeth. He attempted to bellow, but jabbing his mouth full Dawn soon cowed him into quietude.

"Shut up, you old fool; if you make a noise we have six more girls waiting in a boat to fling you in the river and drag you up and down for a while tied on to a rope like a porpoise. Do you think you'll float?"

This had the desired effect, though he spluttered a little.

"What is the meaning of this? Have you all gone mad? I met you here at your own request to speak about helping you with your singing, and you've evidently put a wicked construction on my action. I demand a full explanation and an abject apology."

"Well," said Dawn, punctuating her remarks with little dabs of the tar, "the explanation is that we're doing this to show what we think of a murderer. Even if Miss Flipp had not drowned herself, but had lived to be an outcast, you would be still a murderer of her soul."

"What's this?" he blustered.

"We have several witnesses ready to give evidence regarding all that passed between you and the unfortunate girl supposed to be your niece during your midnight calls upon her," I interposed, speaking for the first time, "so bluff or pretence of any kind on your part is unavailing. Remain silent and hear what we intend to say."