Page:Hornung - Fathers of Men.djvu/311

 triumph. "Who's going to believe your lies?" he was rash enough to cry out, in a horror that increased with every moment he had for thought.

"I'm not going to listen to him," remarked Haigh, unexpectedly. "Or to you either!" he snapped at Jan.

"Oh, ain't you?" crowed Mulberry. "Well, you can shut your ears, and you needn't believe anything but your own eyes. I'll show you! I'll show you!"

He dived into a bramble bush alongside the old forked tree. It was a literal dive. His head disappeared in the dense green tangle. He almost lost his legs. Then a hand came out behind him, and flung something at their feet. It was an empty champagne bottle. Another followed, then another and another till the open space was strewn with them. Neither Haigh nor Jan said a word; but from the bush there came a gust of ribaldry or rancour with every bottle, and last of all the man himself waving one about him like an Indian club.

"A live 'un among the deaders!" he roared deliriously. "Now I can drink your blessed healths before I go!"

Master and boy looked on like waxworks, without raising a hand to stop him, or a finger between them to brush away a fly. Jan for his part neither realised nor cared what was happening; it was the end of all things, for him or Evan, if not for them both. Evan would hear of it—and then—and then! But would he hear? Would he, necessarily? Jan glanced at Haigh, and saw something that he almost liked in him at last; something human, after all these years; but only until Haigh saw him and promptly fell upon the flies.

Mulberry meanwhile had knocked the neck off the unopened bottle with a dexterous blow from one of the empties. A fountain of foam leapt up like a plume