Читать книгу The Lone Hand - Harold Bindloss - Страница 10

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Pale sunshine touched the gray wall at Howbarrow, but the morning was keen and the withered grass on the hillside rippled in a nipping wind. Two battered sycamores tossed their branches above the courtyard arch, and for a few minutes Mark leaned against the gate and looked about.

The spacious yard was clean; the mewsteads, byres, and stables round its sides were large and strongly built of whinnstone blocks. The house fronted the cart-bay, and near the door water splashed in a stone trough. Shining milk-tankards occupied a mossy slab, and the water went through the dairy where a separator droned. The mullioned windows were narrow, and at the top of the first row a broken molding went along the wall. Howbarrow was planned to resist winter storms, but the gloomy rooms were cold. Peat is not a hot fuel, and Isaac hated to send his horses eight miles for expensive coal.

Yet Mark admitted all he saw implied calculated efficiency, and when his father and brother ruled, it was perhaps not like that. Turning his head, he glanced down the green hollow of the ghyll, where the cart-road went and mountain-ashes grew beside the noisy beck. At the bottom, black and white belted cattle, released from steaming byres, frolicked uncouthly about a pasture. Behind the dry-stoned dyke, a plow team labored across a field. The soil was purple-red and shining gulls searched the furrow. The team was good, and chain and clevis and buckle sparkled in the sun. Across the dale, long rows of sheep climbed the hill, and Mark heard lambs bleat.

All stood for sound planning and competent control. Isaac Crozier used business methods and declared that the best farmer he knew was a draper who had sold his shop. Isaac himself was for long an auctioneer, but he sprang from yeoman stock and had perhaps inherited some talent for husbandry. At all events, since he seized control Howbarrow had prospered.

Mark frowned. His uncle knew where to spend, but he expected a profit, and he knew where to use stern economy. Mark doubted if he could persuade him to run some risk, and when he went to the house he unconsciously braced up.

Isaac was in his office. His keeping books and calculating costs was typical, for he maintained that a farmer did not get rich by cleaning the byre. The room was bleak, and in the keen spring morning the grate was empty. A seedsman's almanac, a plan of a separator, and some Ministry of Agriculture notices occupied the walls. When Mark came in, Isaac Crozier looked up from a large office desk.

He was a big man and began to get fat. His shoulders were rather bent, his face was red, and his eyes were watery. His mouth was large and loose. At a market-day dinner, one might mistake him for a jolly fellow, and sometimes he was broadly humorous; his debtors knew him another man. When he consulted with his lawyer and banker, his English was good, but, as a rule at Howbarrow he used Cumbrian.

"I have loafed for some time and feel I ought to get a job," said Mark. "All the same, shipbuilding is dull, ironworks and foundries are stopping, and nobody seems to have much use for an engineer."

"Bob Wallace o' Langwath got a good post at a South-African mine, and they tell me Tom Hewett's lad is a foreman at Melbourne. Well, I would not see my nivew beat for a steamship-ticket."

Mark cogitated. He imagined he knew his uncle, and he certainly knew his parsimonious aunt. They wanted to be rid of him, and he was willing to indulge them, but he was not going to Australia, unless he were forced.

"I had thought about Chester. Scot wants me to join him and start a small garage and repair-shop. He can get the workshop and is negotiating for one or two agencies. In fact, I believe the plan is good. The awkward part is to get the money."

"To get money is awkward," Isaac agreed. "Hooiver, what is the sum ye want?"

"Five hundred pounds ought to see me out," said Mark. "We'd pay current interest and give a mortgage on tools and stock."

Isaac shook his head. "Money at bank is idle money, and mine is walking aboot farm. Until I sell lambs and bullocks, I'll not can get it back; but sooner than refuse you, I might rob a sheep-fold and risk a hundred pound."

Mark smiled. His uncle's argument, although plausible for a poor man, was ridiculous for Isaac Crozier. Yet Mark had expected him to refuse outright.

"There is no use in your risking a hundred pounds," he replied. "I want a fair chance to get on my feet and pay my debt. I believe I could engage to do so, and I feel you ought to indulge me."

Isaac gave him a queer, swift glance, and then his watery eyes shifted.

"You might state your grounds," he said in the sort of English he used at the bank.

"I'll try," said Mark. "You wanted to be a farmer, and you have obviously some talent for the job. Well, you have got the best farm in the dale, and the Howbarrow black-faces are the best sheep on the hills. The farm and sheep were my father's, and but for your transactions with Jim would not have been yours——"

He stopped with a touch of surprise. For all his frankness, Isaac was not annoyed. If he moved at all, Mark thought his emotion relief.

"Was the flock famous when I got Howbarrow? Did the farm carry the first-class herd I feed?"

"I think not," Mark admitted, for he wanted to be just.

"Very well. Sometimes your father was embarrassed, and sometimes I helped Jim. I risked my money, and they knew I did not help for nothing. If they'd thought I wasn't just, they might tried t' bank. I think Jim did try, but manager wanted a mortgage. Then I reckon your lawyer was satisfied."

"That was so," Mark agreed.

"Then, where's your ground for thinking I ought to humor you?"

Mark was baffled. Isaac was sternly logical, but Mark was not satisfied, and because somehow he doubted, he would not urge their relationship.

"Oh, well," he said dully, "I suppose we must let it go."

For a few moments Isaac said nothing and knitted his heavy brows. He wanted to help the lad, and although he was shrewdly practical, he felt that for him to agree might pay. Yet the sum was large, and he had sweated for all he had got. He hesitated, but greed tipped the beam.

"Would two hundred pounds see ye oot?"

"I think not," said Mark. "Since you don't know much about our speculation, you are kind—Still, I expect we'd lose a small sum, which would not buy the tools we need; and there's no use in my bothering you."

He went to the door. Isaac hesitated, but let him go. He rather hoped the lad might stop, but Mark did not. Isaac heard his steps in the passage, and when all was quiet his wife came in.

Mrs. Crozier was tall and thin; a competent, firm-mouthed, parsimonious woman. Her relations were farmers, but they did not visit at Howbarrow, and her friends were not numerous. Ellen Crozier's habit was to be usefully occupied. She did not squander time and effort in hospitality.

"What did Mark want?" she asked.

Isaac told her and she nodded, as if she had expected something like that.

"You refused and sent him off?"

"I let him go," Isaac rejoined. "I might have chanced two hundred pounds. It wasn't enough for Mark."

Mrs. Crozier gave him a scornful glance.

"You're soft; sometimes you're a fool. His father and Jim were squanderers. You'd niver have got a penny back."

As a rule, Isaac's wife dominated him, but his loose mouth got firm.

"Mark's another sort, and five hundred pounds would not have broken us. If I'm soft, I reckon neabody has noticed it but you. Anyhow, I'll tell you something—if the boy had stopped and bothered me, he might have got t' lot. The queer thing is, I felt t' proper plan was t' give it him. And I gey nearly did."

Mrs. Crozier's surprise was obvious, but she smiled, a hard, contemptuous smile.

"Your nerve's not very good. You dinnot ken where you must fix and keep your line. You refused Mark t' money he wanted; and then you offered a sum that was nea use to him—How much did Rob Turnbull get?"

"A hundred pounds," Isaac replied, in an apologetic voice. "I was forced to pay. He knew I met Jim on moor t' neet the lad went over quarry."

"He heard you fratch?" said Mrs. Crozier, and her voice was hard.

"Niver a blow was struck; you're not to think it! Jim had taken liquor, and he was annoyed because I'd sold t' bullocks. He began to shout, and Trum'll was in path by quarry fence. But you ken aw aboot it. I've told you before——"

Mrs. Crozier's mouth was tight and her glance was fixed on Isaac's face. She saw he sweated and his hand shook. Well, she knew he indulged and imagined he had begun to smuggle liquor into the house. Although he admitted he and Jim disputed, she believed he yet kept something back. Her sign implied that it was done with.

"Trum'll wanted more?"

"He got nea mair," Isaac rejoined. "He wrote from Canadian sawmill and I said I'd send letter to my lawyers."

"Durst you have sent the letter?" Mrs. Crozier inquired.

"Looks as if Rob thowt I might, for I didn't get another," said Isaac dryly, and, looking up, fronted his wife. "Sure as deith, Ellen, I've nea reason to be afraid!"

He did not know if she were satisfied, for all she said was, "You gave Rob a hundred pounds!"

For a moment or two she pondered, her glance yet searching the other's face; and then she resumed:

"You cannot front two ways, Isaac, and you must choose—Mark begins to weigh things, and he is not a fool, like Jim. Do you want him at Chester, and at Howbarrow for his holidays?"

"I do not," said Isaac, in an embarrassed voice.

"Very well. So long as you are firm, Scot and he cannot start the motor-shop. The doctor will nut help them, he has not five pounds to lend. Mark will emigrate. I saw some books he got from steamship agents in his room, and when we have done with him I'll be happier. Howbarrow's ours, my man, and aw that's ours we keep."

Isaac's slack gesture implied that he agreed, but when Mrs. Crozier went out he knitted his brows.

He had plotted and pinched for the farm, and by all the rules he knew, it was his. When he looked back, he admitted that he was jealous of his half-brother. Tom's mother, the first wife, had money; Isaac's mother had not. Then he knew he was the better farmer, and he loved the soil, but he took his small inheritance and started for the market town. Although he prospered, he was not satisfied; he wanted Howbarrow, and by and by he saw a plan. Tom had not his talent for using money and was trustful. He consulted with Isaac about his speculations in young stock and sheep, and when he was embarrassed asked him to negotiate a loan.

Tom was not fortunate, and when Jim inherited, the young fellow was Isaac's debtor for a large sum. His plans had worked, but to some extent the plans were Ellen's. At all events, he admitted she had supplied the driving-force that carried him along. Now Jim was dead and Turnbull had grounds to think Isaac had something to do with it. Isaac clenched his fist. He had not pushed his nephew over the quarry bank, but he dared not dwell upon the dispute in the fog, and he pondered something else.

Had Ellen not been firm, he might have helped Mark. He did not want the boy at Howbarrow, but if he went to Chester, his occupation might absorb him and when he married the doctor's girl he'd be willing to leave the past alone. Ellen, however, did not agree, and where she was resolved there was nothing to be said. Isaac was sorry. After all, he might have risked five hundred pounds—But he must order seed oats and so forth, and he got to work.

In the meantime, Mark took a green road across the hills. He had not reckoned on his uncle's support, but all the same he had got a knock and he wanted to be alone. Coming back across the moor in the afternoon, he sat down where a limestone ridge broke the wind. Behind the stones, the sun was warm and Mark lighted his pipe.

The brown slope rolled down to the hollow Howbarrow occupied. Mark saw the tops of the sycamores and thin blue smoke. Six or seven hundred yards from the house, the quarry, like a white scar, cut the heath. Four years since, his brother, crossing the moor in the dark, went through the rotten fence, although it implied his leaving the path and plowing through tangled heather. Jim knew the moor, and in the dark a dalesman trusts his feet to keep a path. Then, if Jim had left the Packhorse when Turnbull and the landlord stated, he ought to have reached Howbarrow twenty minutes before he plunged down the quarry. His watch had stopped and fixed the time, although at the inquest nobody seemed to have remarked his slowness.

Since Turnbull started soon after Jim, he might, had he left the road where a path went obliquely to the ghyll, have passed the spot when Jim was there. All the same, Mark had no grounds to doubt Turnbull. He was moody and obstinate, but a first-class cowman, and Jim trusted him. Anyhow, he emigrated soon after the accident and nobody knew where he was.

The strange thing was, Isaac, who was at Howbarrow, was not disturbed when Jim did not come back. About the time his nephew reached the quarry, he had gone out in the fog because two horses had strayed from the pasture and the quarry fence was bad. Isaac saw nobody. Yet Jim's habit was not to be away at night.

Mark, as he had done before, let it go. In the evening he must tell Madge about Isaac's refusal, and his resolve to emigrate. Although he knew her pluck, he did not like his job. Yet, since he could not get a post in England, he thought she would agree. Madge would not want him to loaf. All the same, to go was hard, and he started moodily for the farm.