MISS BARRINGTON COMES HOME
The long train was slackening speed and two whistles rang shrilly
through the roar of wheels when Miss Barrington laid down the book
with which she had beguiled her journey of fifteen hundred miles, and
rose from her seat in a corner of the big first-class car. The car was
sumptuously upholstered, and its decorations tasteful as well as
lavish, but just then it held no other passenger, and Miss Barrington
smiled curiously as she stood, swaying a little, in front of the
mirror at one end of it, wrapping her furs about her. There was,
however, a faint suggestion of regret in the smile, and the girl's
eyes grew grave again, for the soft cushions, dainty curtains,
gleaming gold and nickel, and equable temperature formed a part of the
sheltered life she was about to leave behind her, and there would, she
knew, be a difference in the future. Still, she laughed again as,
drawing a little fur cap well down upon her broad, white forehead, she
nodded at her own reflection.
"One cannot have everything, and you might have stayed there and
revelled in civilization if you had liked," she said.
Crossing to the door of the portico she stood a moment with fingers on
its handle, and once more looked about her. The car was very cosy, and
Maud Barrington had all the average young woman's appreciation of the
smoother side of life, although she had also the capacity, which is by
no means so common, for extracting the most it had to give from the
opposite one. Still, it was with a faint regret she prepared to
complete what had been a deed of renunciation. Montreal, with its
gaieties and luxuries, had not seemed so very far away while she was
carried West amid all the comforts artizans who were also artists
could provide for the traveller, but once that door closed behind her
she would be cut adrift from it all, and left face to face with the
simple, strenuous life of the prairie.
Maud Barrington had, however, made her mind up some weeks ago; and
when the lock closed with a little clack that seemed to emphasize the
fact that the door was shut, she had shaken the memories from her, and
was quietly prepared to look forward instead of back. It also needed
some little courage, for, as she stood with the furs fluttering about
her on the lurching platform, the cold went through her like a knife,
and the roofs of the little prairie town rose up above the willows the
train was now crawling through. The odours that greeted her nostrils
were the reverse of pleasant, and glancing down with the faintest
shiver of disgust, her eyes rested on the litter of empty cans,
discarded garments, and other even more unsightly things which are
usually dumped in the handiest bluff by the citizens of a springing
Western town. They have, for the most part, but little appreciation of
the picturesque, and it would take a good deal to affect their health.
Then the dwarfed trees opened out, and flanked by two huge wheat
elevators and a great water tank, the prairie city stood revealed. It
was crude and repellent, devoid of anything that could please the most
lenient eye, for the bare frame houses rose with their rough boarding
weathered and cracked by frost and sun, hideous almost in their
simplicity, from the white prairie. Paint was apparently an unknown
luxury, and pavement there was none, though a rude plank platform
straggled some distance above the ground down either side of the
street, so that the citizens might not sink knee-deep in the mire of
the spring thawing. Here and there a dilapidated wagon was drawn up in
front of a store, but with a clanging of the big bell the locomotive
rolled into the little station, and Maud Barrington looked down upon a
group of silent men who had sauntered there to enjoy the one
relaxation the desolate place afforded them.
There was very little in their appearance to attract the attention of
a young woman of Miss Barrington's upbringing. They had grave, bronzed
faces, and wore, for the most part, old fur coats stained here and
there with soil. Nor were their mittens and moccasins in good repair,
but there was a curious steadiness in their gaze which vaguely
suggested the slow, stubborn courage that upheld them through the
strenuous effort and grim self-denial of their toilsome lives. They
were small wheat-growers who had driven in to purchase provisions or
inquire the price of grain, and here and there a mittened hand was
raised to a well-worn cap, for most of them recognized Miss Barrington
of Silverdale Grange. She returned their greetings graciously, and
then swung herself from the platform, with a smile in her eyes as a
man came hastily and yet, as it were, with a certain deliberation in
her direction.
He was elderly, but held himself erect, while his furs, which were
good, fitted him in a fashion which suggested a uniform. He also wore
boots which reached half-way to the knee, and were presumably lined to
resist the prairie cold, which few men at that season would do, and
scarcely a speck of dust marred their lustrous exterior, while as much
of his face as was visible beneath the great fur cap was lean and
commanding. Its salient features were the keen and somewhat imperious
grey eyes and long, straight nose, while something in the squareness
of the man's shoulders and his pose set him apart from the prairie
farmers and suggested the cavalry officer. He was, in fact, Colonel
Barrington, founder and autocratic ruler of the English community of
Silverdale, and had been awaiting his niece somewhat impatiently.
Colonel Barrington was invariably punctual, and resented the fact that
the train had come in an hour later than it should have done.
"So you have come back to us. We have been longing for you, my dear,"
he said. "I don't know what we should have done had they kept you in
Montreal altogether."
Maud Barrington smiled, though there was a brightness in her eyes and
a faint warmth in her cheek, for the sincerity of her uncle's welcome
was evident.
"Yes," she said, "I have come back. It was very pleasant in the city,
and they were all kind to me; but I think, henceforward, I would
sooner stay with you on the prairie."
Colonel Barrington patted the hand he drew through his arm, and there
was a very kindly smile in his eyes as they left the station and
crossed the tract towards a little, and by no means very comfortable,
wooden hotel. He stopped outside it.
"I want to see the horses put in and get our mail," he said. "Mrs.
Jasper expects you, and will have tea ready."
He disappeared behind the wooden building, and his niece standing a
moment on the veranda watched the long train roll away down the faint
blur of track that ran west to the farthest verge of the great white
wilderness. Then with a little impatient gesture she went into the
hotel.
"That is another leaf turned down, and there is no use in looking
back; but I wonder what is written on the rest," she said.
Twenty minutes later she watched Colonel Barrington cross the street
with a bundle of letters in his hand. She fancied that his step was
slower than it had been, and that he seemed a trifle preoccupied and
embarrassed; but he spoke with quiet kindliness when he handed her
into the waiting sleigh, and the girl's spirits rose as they swung
smoothly northwards behind two fast horses across the prairie. It
stretched away before her, ridged here and there with a dusky birch
bluff or willow grove under a vault of crystalline blue. The sun that
had no heat in it struck a silvery glitter from the snow, and the
trail swept back to the horizon a sinuous blue-grey smear, while the
keen, dry cold and sense of swift motion set the girl's blood
stirring. After all, it seemed to her, there were worse lives than
those the Western farmers led on the great levels under the frost and
sun.
Colonel Barrington watched her with a little gleam of approval in his
eyes. "You are not sorry to come back to this and Silverdale?" he
said, sweeping his mittened hand vaguely round the horizon.
"No," said the girl, with a little laugh. "At least, I shall not be
sorry to return to Silverdale. It has a charm of its own, for while
one is occasionally glad to get away from it, one is even more pleased
to come home again. It is a somewhat purposeless life our friends are
leading yonder in the cities. I, of course, mean the women."
Barrington nodded. "And some of the men! Well, we have room here for
the many who are going to the devil in the old country for the lack of
something worth while to do; though I am afraid there is considerably
less prospect than I once fancied there would be of their making
money."
His niece noticed the gravity in his face, and sat thoughtfully silent
for several minutes, while, with the snow hissing beneath it, the
sleigh nipped into and swung out of a hollow.
Colonel Barrington had founded the Silverdale settlement ten years
earlier, and gathered about him other men with a grievance who had
once served their nation, and the younger sons of English gentlemen
who had no inclination for commerce, and found that lack of brains and
capital debarred them from either a political or military career. He
had settled them on the land, and taught them to farm, while, for the
community had prospered at first when Western wheat was dear, it had
taken ten years to bring home to him the fact that men who dined
ceremoniously each evening and spent at least a third of their time in
games and sport, could not well compete with the grim bushmen from
Ontario, or the lean Dakota ploughmen, who ate their meals in ten
minutes and toiled at least twelve hours every day.
Colonel Barrington was slow to believe that the race he sprang from
could be equalled and much less beaten at anything, while his respect
for and scrupulous observance of insular traditions had cost him a
good deal, and left him a poorer man than he had been when he founded
Silverdale. Maud Barrington had been his ward, and he still directed
the farming of a good many acres of wheat land which she now held in
her own right. The soil was excellent, and would in all probability
have provided one of the Ontario men with a very desirable revenue,
but Colonel Barrington had no taste for small economies.
"I want to hear all the news," said the girl. "You can begin at the
beginning--the price of wheat. I fancied, when I saw you, it had been
declining."
Barrington sighed a little. "Hard wheat is five cents down, and I am
sorry I persuaded you to hold your crop. I am very much afraid we
shall see the balance the wrong side again next half-year."
Maud Barrington smiled curiously. There was no great cause for
merriment in the information given her, but it emphasized the contrast
between the present and the careless life she had lately led when her
one thought had been how to extract the greatest pleasure from the
day. One had frequently to grapple with the problems arising from
scanty finances at Silverdale.
"It will go up again," she said. "Is there anything else?"
Barrington's face grew a trifle grim as he nodded. "There is; and
while I have not much expectation of an advance in prices, I have been
worrying over another affair lately."
His niece regarded him steadily. "You mean, Lance Courthorne?"
"Yes," said Barrington, who flicked the near horse somewhat viciously
with the whip. "He is also sufficient to cause any man with my
responsibilities anxiety."
Maud Barrington looked thoughtful. "You fancy he will come to
Silverdale?"
Barrington appeared to be repressing an inclination towards vigorous
speech with some difficulty, and a little glint crept into his eyes.
"If I could by any means prevent it, the answer would be, No. As it
is, you know that, while I founded it, Silverdale was one of Geoffrey
Courthorne's imperialistic schemes, and a good deal of the land was
recorded in his name. That being so, he had every right to leave the
best farm on it to the man he had disinherited, especially as Lance
will not get a penny of the English property. Still, I do not know why
he did so, because he never spoke of him without bitterness."
"Yes," said the girl, while a little flush crept into her face. "I was
sorry for the old man. It was a painful story."
Colonel Barrington nodded. "It is one that is best forgotten--and you
do not know it all. Still, the fact that the man may settle among us
is not the worst. As you know, there was every reason to believe that
Geoffrey intended all his property at Silverdale for you."
"I have much less right to it than his own son, and the colonial cure
is not infrequently efficacious," said Miss Barrington. "Lance may,
after all, quieten down, and he must have some good qualities."
The Colonel's smile was very grim. "It is fifteen years since I saw
him at Westham, and they were not much in evidence then. I can
remember two little episodes, in which he figured, with painful
distinctness, and one was the hanging of a terrier which had in some
way displeased him. The beast was past assistance when I arrived on
the scene, but the devilish pleasure in the lad's face sent a chill
through me. In the other, the gardener's lad flung a stone at a
blackbird on the wall above the vinery, and Master Lance, who, I
fancy, did not like the gardener's lad, flung one through the glass.
Geoffrey, who was angry, but had not seen what I did, haled the boy
before him, and Lance looked him in the face and lied with the
assurance of an ambassador. The end was that the gardener, who was
admonished, cuffed the innocent lad. These, my dear, are somewhat
instructive memories."
"I wonder," said Maud Barrington, glancing out across the prairie
which was growing dusky now, "why you took the trouble to call them up
for me?"
The Colonel smiled dryly. "I never saw a Courthorne who could not
catch a woman's eye, or had any undue diffidence about making the most
of the fact; and that is partly why they have brought so much trouble
on everybody connected with them. Further, it is unfortunate that
women are not infrequently more inclined to be gracious to the sinner
who repents, when it is worth his while, than they are to the honest
man who has done no wrong. Nor do I know that it is only pity which
influences them. Some of you take an exasperating delight in
picturesque rascality."
Miss Barrington laughed, and fearlessly met her uncle's glance. "Then
you don't believe in penitence?"
"Well," said the Colonel dryly, "I am, I hope, a Christian man, but it
would be difficult to convince me that the gambler, cattle-thief, and
whisky-runner who ruined every man and woman who trusted him will be
admitted to the same place as clean-lived English gentlemen. There
are, my dear, plenty of them still."
Barrington spoke almost fiercely, and then flushed through his tan,
when the girl, looking into his eyes, smiled a little. "Yes," she
said, "I can believe it, because I owe a good deal to one of them."
The ring in the girl's voice belied the smile, and the speech was
warranted; for, dogmatic, domineering, and vindictive as he was apt to
be occasionally, the words he had used applied most fitly to Colonel
Barrington. His word at least had never been broken, and had he not
adhered steadfastly to his own rigid code, he would have been a good
deal richer man than he was then. Nor did his little shortcomings,
which were burlesqued virtues, and ludicrous now and then, greatly
detract from the stamp of dignity which, for speech was his worst
point, sat well upon him. He was innately conservative to the
backbone, though since an ungrateful Government had slighted him, he
had become an ardent Canadian, and in all political questions
aggressively democratic.
"My dear, I sometimes fancy I am a hypercritical old fogey!" he said,
and sighed a little, while once more the anxious look crept into his
face. "Just now I wish devoutly I was a better business man."
Nothing more was said for a little, and Miss Barrington watched the
crimson sunset burn out low down on the prairie's western rim. Then
the pale stars blinked out through the creeping dusk, and a great
silence and an utter cold settled down upon the waste. The muffled
thud of hoofs, and the crunching beneath the sliding steel, seemed to
intensify it, and there was a suggestion of frozen brilliancy in the
sparkle flung back by the snow. Then a coyote howled dolefully in a
distant bluff, and the girl shivered as she shrank down further amidst
the furs.
"Forty degrees of frost," said the Colonel. "Perhaps more. This is
very different from the cold of Montreal. Still, you'll see the lights
of Silverdale from the crest of the next rise."
It was, however, an hour before they reached them, and Miss Barrington
was almost frozen when the first square loghouse rose out of the
prairie. It and others that followed it flitted by, and then, flanked
by a great birch bluff, with outlying barns, granaries and stables,
looming black about it against a crystalline sky, Silverdale Grange
grew into shape across their way. Its rows of ruddy windows cast
streaks of flickering orange down the trail, the baying of dogs
changed into a joyous clamour when the Colonel reined in his team,
half-seen men in furs waved a greeting, and one who risked frost-bite,
with his cap at his knee, handed Miss Barrington from the sleigh and
up the veranda stairway.
She had need of the assistance, for her limbs were stiff and almost
powerless, and she gasped a little when she passed into the drowsy
warmth and brightness of the great log-walled hall. The chilled blood
surged back tingling to her skin, and swaying with a creeping
faintness she found refuge in the arms of a grey-haired lady who
stooped and kissed her gently. Then the door swung to, and she was
home again in the wooden grange of Silverdale, which stood far remote
from any civilization but its own on the frozen levels of the great
white plain.