Читать книгу The Lone Hand - Harold Bindloss - Страница 8

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Where a limestone block broke the keen wind Wellwin threw his mackintosh in the heath, and, sitting down, lighted a cigarette. Since they lunched by a lonely tarn he and Mark had plowed across the high watershed from which the rivers run to the Solway and the North Sea. Now the sun was low, Wellwin was satisfied to rest and looked about.

As far as one could see, the moors rolled east, and the sunset touched their tops with pale gold and silver-gray. In the keen spring evening, the landscape struck the note of austerity one senses in the North. In front, a narrow valley pierced the hills, and where the heath and bent-grass rolled down the long slope the brown and gray melted into elusive purple. In the dale the light was blue, and the silver birch-trunks and a long limewashed house by the glimmering river were not altogether white. By contrast with the yellow reflections on the moor-tops, the dim blue hollow was strangely beautiful.

For three days, Wellwin, steered by Mark across moors and bogs, had studied the Emperor Hadrian's wall, and a rampart the Picts had supposititiously built. Looking down from a huge earth fort, he had watched the rain slant across a valley through which for two hundred years the Scots invasions had flowed and ebbed. He had seen the legions' mile-castles, broken hypocausts, and gate-tower pavements scored by chariot wheels.

Bob was interested. He liked the Old Country, and began to revise his views about the inhabitants. It looked as if they were not the back numbers he had at one time thought. Their methods were not the methods one used in North America, but after a few transactions with the Glasgow Scots, he admitted they got results. Then he liked the big, quiet English Borderers. Where a Canadian boosted his town and his possessions, they apologized. It looked as if they would sooner listen than talk, but sometimes their slow smile was illuminating. To move them might be hard, but when they got going Bob imagined they went all the way. Mark Crozier was perhaps a good example.

Although Mark was franker than some, Bob sensed a sort of solidity of character; perhaps he meant steadfastness. One felt that his word went and as a rule was not rashly given. Yet sometimes he was humorous and the twinkle in his gray eyes was like the sudden sparkle of a calm pool. In fact, Mark was a regular fellow and Bob would be sorry to let him go. Well, he was entitled to take a holiday and for a few days he might stop at the Packhorse Inn.

By and by Mark pulled out his watch and got up.

"Your inn is three or four miles off, but we'll stop at the Millhouse. If the doctor is not about, the girls will give us tea."

"Perhaps I ought not to bother your friends," said Bob.

"They will not be bothered," Mark rejoined. "In winter, at all events, strangers are not numerous, and to meet a Canadian will be something fresh."

They went down across dry bents and bright-green mossy belts, but at the top of a long scree Mark braced his legs and pushed off. The sharp stones flowed in noisy waves about his feet, and where the pitch was steepest he dragged his stick for a brake. Wellwin, following awkwardly, sat down in the stones, rolled across a mossy slab, and when another brought him up crawled to firmer ground. Forty yards below, Mark looked up with a twinkle.

"I expected you to keep the heather," he remarked.

"Oh, well, you went down," said Bob. "I expect you see the implication?"

Mark laughed. "The first time, I went down on my stomach, and I have plowed a channel with my head. On the whole, I think your luck was good."

"I wonder—" said Bob. "The stones are sharp, my clothes were not made in England, and I cannot see my back. Since we are visiting with your friends, you might inspect——"

"You are not notably the worse for wear," Mark reported. "Anyhow, we are not dining at the Frontenac, and if it's some comfort, we are rather a frugal than a fashionable lot. A dalesman reckons his clothes should last for three or four years."

"In Canada, we'd think him dippy," Wellwin rejoined, and studied the steep slope. "Looks impossible; but you shot the grade all standing, and although I did not, I did come down. Since the important thing's to arrive in one piece, how d'you judge the pitch?"

"Where stones will lie an active man may go; but before you start you ought to find out if they are held up by the top of a precipice. However, we'll shove on for the Millhouse."

Brushing through dead fern, they reached a fence, and crossed a mossy pasture to the road. Behind a dry-stone wall and naked alders, a river brawled; and then silver birches clustered round the white Millhouse. The flagged roof was stained ochre, gray, and green by moss and house-leeks, and for a background the thin, purple birch-twigs cut the sky. The big wheel was gone, but water splashed across the top of the broken weir. Wellwin smelt burning wood and heard sheep bleat. Where he had gone in Canada, all that man had made was new; in the Border dale he felt that time was put back two hundred years.

Mark, pushing open the thick, low door, steered him along a flagged passage to a spacious room. The furniture was dark and old and the wall was paneled, but Wellwin knew the modern decorator had nothing to do with it. Crooked beams crossed the ceiling; the floor was dark polished oak. In the big hollow fireplace ash blocks snapped among smoldering peat. Bob noted the peat's aromatic smell, and, for a casement window was open, the harsh freshness that marks spring in the North.

A girl got up from a low chair and gave Mark her hand. She was tall and nobly built. Her eyes were calm and gray; but in the meantime that was all Bob knew. He was presented to Miss Forsyth, and she said:

"If you were Mark's walking companion, I expect you will need some food. Tea and scones are waiting. We saw you on the scree."

"I had hoped you did not," Bob rejoined. "You are probably not interested, but I'd like to state the experiment was my first."

Another girl advanced and he was presented to Miss Flora Scot.

"When one goes with Mark one must reckon on queer adventures," she said. "Was your plunge down the scree the only chance you took?"

Bob gave her a twinkle. "You are keen, Miss Scot. Am I very obviously North American? If so, did you spot my clothes, or me?"

"I might enlighten you again. In the meantime I inquired about your adventures."

"Then, I recently helped push and throw two hundred sheep across a flooded creek, but I don't know if it was properly an adventure. Mark and the herds rather implied it was the sort of exploit an Englishman undertakes for exercise."

Miss Forsyth looked up.

"Isaac's black-faces, Mark? The flock was cut off by a spring tide?"

"Something like that; his two hundred were on the low marsh. However, since Wellwin is modest, I must state that he's a useful man."

Bob thought Miss Forsyth's look got thoughtful, but she crossed the floor.

"I will go for tea. Flora, you might see Mr. Wellwin is not bored."

They went off, and Miss Scot remarked: "At the Millhouse one does not order tea; one goes, oneself, for it. In Canada, I suppose you take supper at a large and very efficiently run hotel?"

"Something depends on where you are and your occupation. We have not yet done with domestic life, and I have got my supper at a bunkhouse in the woods; pork and beans and a slab of pie, every evening for six months. However, I don't imagine it's important, and perhaps the queer thing is you seem to know much about us."

"Oh, well, one sees the moving pictures, and since our barren hills will not support us all, for the most part we have relations across the Atlantic. Unconsciously perhaps, they carry on propaganda, and we begin to enjoy some American advantages; for example saxophones and mosquitoes. I don't know how the mosquitoes get across, but the jazz musicians arrive by first-class liners and rendezvous at famous London hotels."

"And that's all? I am, of course, Canadian; but I imagine our neighbors export some finer stuff."

"Ah," said Flora, "imitative people do not discriminate; they are satisfied to follow the latest fashion. The drawback is obvious, because there are American rules we might with some advantage use but rather leave alone. When you have a foreign model you perhaps copy its exaggerations. I expect it's easier. However, Madge declared you must not be bored."

Wellwin was not at all bored and he politely stated something like that. Miss Scot was keen, and although she had not Miss Forsyth's calm and touch of dignity, she was attractive. She was lightly built and somehow alert; her skin was browned by the weather, her lines were like a graceful boy's, and her quick glance was humorous. Bob was willing for her to banter him; but she had indicated that she had had enough, and he must play up.

"I know nothing about old English houses, but yours is beautiful," he said.

"In the northern dales old houses are numerous, but perhaps the Mill is a good example. At one time, it was the manor; and then, a hundred years since, somebody used it for a water-mill. Now it's a country doctor's home, and although its disadvantages are evident, they were reckoned on when the purchase was fixed."

For all the signs of cultivation, Bob had imagined the doctor was not rich. The rugs on the polished boards were threadbare, and articles a Canadian would have thrown away were carefully mended. He did not know much about women's clothes, but he imagined the material the girls had used was not expensive. Yet Bob knew his hosts thoroughbred.

"Is Mark's home like yours?" he asked.

"Not at all," said Flora. "Howbarrow is a queer, grim old house; the Croziers are hard folk. I suppose one mustn't be romantic, but the dalesmen call them the unlucky Croziers and it looks as if they were haunted by misfortune. Mark's father was lost in the snowdrifts and died a day or two afterwards; his brother plunged down a limestone quarry, and his cousin was fatally hurt at a football match——"

"Oh, well, I am going to the inn."

"Howbarrow is not Mark's," said Flora, as if she apologized. "I myself would much sooner be at the Packhorse, and as a rule, when my uncle is not engaged in the evenings, Mark is at the Mill."

"Then, you are Miss Forsyth's cousin?"

"That is so. I have other relations, but for the most part the Millhouse is my home."

"It's a charming spot," said Bob. "I believe you stated something about one's reckoning on adventures if one went with Mark. As a rule, I expect your adventures depend on your temperament, but I do not think him rash."

"Something depends on your luck, and, so far, Mark's has not been good. It perhaps accounts for his queer soberness. Some people get things easily, but some must fight for the little that is theirs. I think Mark must fight and half-consciously he knows."

"Does one know one's luck?" Bob inquired.

"I wonder—Perhaps, to some extent, it's possible," Flora replied, and got up, for the others came in.

Tea was a cheerful function, and when it was over and the light began to go the reflections of the log fire flickered on shining brass and old polished oak. Bob heard the river's tranquil throb, and fronting the window, saw the thin birch-branches melt and the sunset fade from the moors. He sensed the old room's charm and hoped Miss Forsyth would not get a light.

"Jerry was with us for two days and I believe his letter's at Howbarrow," she said to Mark. "He can get the yard and workshop he wanted at Chester, and thought it the proper spot for a garage."

Miss Scot and Wellwin were on the other side of the fireplace, and she explained:

"Jerry is my brother, and they talk about a partnership."

"Then, I must get to work," said Mark. "To borrow five hundred pounds is an awkward job, but there are perhaps one or two people on whom I have a claim——"

He brooded, and Bob remarked Miss Forsyth's sympathetic glance. Bob knew Mark was her lover, and, for all her gentle calm, he imagined her disturbed.

"Your uncle Isaac?" she said in a quiet voice.

Mark smiled, a rather dreary smile.

"Isaac ought perhaps to indulge me, particularly since Wellwin and I helped to save sheep of his worth four hundred pounds. If he'd guarantee the loan at his bank, I'd be satisfied; but I doubt——"

"Madge doubts," Flora remarked to Wellwin. "If you are a dalesman's friend, you may use his horses and implements; you may borrow his plowmen, but he will not give you money."

"You are entitled to ask," Madge said to Mark.

Mark looked up, rather quickly. Miss Forsyth's glance was calm, but Bob imagined something she implied bothered Mark and she understood. Bob had begun to allow for British reserve, although he thought, if he were forced to weigh things, to consult with a girl like Miss Forsyth would be some relief. In the meantime, it had nothing to do with him, and he looked the other way.

"I rather think that is so, but I'm not hopeful," Mark said quietly.

Bob gave Miss Scot a meaning glance, and she got up.

"Mr. Wellwin and I are going to the river," she remarked and steered Bob through the house and across the garden.

They stopped by a mossy wall. On the other side, water splashed across the weir and pale stars were reflected in a quiet pool.

"Is it important for Mark to get the money?" Bob inquired.

"Very important. Just now for an engineer to get a post is almost impossible, and Mark and my brother planned to start a motor workshop. He declares there is no use in doing so unless they can buy the proper tools. I don't know if Jerry is too hopeful, but he imagines he can get half the sum they need. Mark's business is to get the other. If he cannot, he must emigrate."

"Thank you," said Bob. "I'm a stranger and since I don't know your rules, you perhaps will see me out. Well, I have known Mark for six or seven days, but I'd bet my arm on his making good. Do you think I might help him put up the wad?"

"You might offer. For him to know you were willing might be some comfort; but he will refuse. We do not exploit our friends."

"Oh, well, I think my object was good. I was not entitled to consult you, and I hope you're not annoyed."

Flora looked up, and although the light was almost gone, Bob saw her smile.

"I am rather moved. Trust like yours is bracing," she replied.

They started for the house, and soon afterwards Mark and Bob took the road up the dale.