THE STONES
They stood up all around, forming a great amphitheatre—the great, grey
stones that had weathered so many centuries. Stark and grim, sentinels
of the ages, they stood in their changeless circle, as they had stood in
the early days of the world ere men had learned to subdue the earth.
Frances sat and gazed and gazed with a curious feeling of reverence upon
that forgotten place of sacrifice.
“Isn’t it strange?” she whispered to herself. “Isn’t it wonderful?”
And then she turned to the man by her side. “It reminds me of the days
when you were a Roman gladiator and I was one of the slaves who
sprinkled the saw-dust in the arena.”
He looked at her with his brooding eyes. “So you were a slave?” he said.
“I have always been one,” she answered, with a quizzical lifting of the
brows.
“You were not intended for a slave,” he said.
She smiled a little. “May I get down? I should like to walk here.”
“Are you strong enough?” he said.
“Of course I am strong enough. When I am tired, I will curl up and sleep
in the sunshine.”
“You’re not afraid?” he said.
She faced him. “Of course I am not afraid. Why should I be?”
He lifted his shoulders slightly. “You were—or I imagined you were—a
little while ago.”
“Oh, that was different,” she said. “Anyway, I am not so foolish now. I
could sit here for hours and sketch.”
“It has been called the devil’s paradise,” he said rather harshly.
She snapped her fingers and laughed. “I am never afraid of the devil
when the sun is out. Are you?”
“Sometimes,” he said.
He jumped to the ground and turned to help her, the reins over his arm.
She slipped down into his hold. “But there is nothing to frighten anyone
here,” she said.
Even as she spoke, her heart misgave her a little. The Stones looked
more imposing from the ground. Some of them had an almost threatening
aspect. They seemed to crouch like gigantic monsters about to spring.
“It is certainly a wonderful place,” she said. “And the farm is close
by?”
“Just down the hill on the other side,” he said. “It takes its name from
them. Some bygone race probably used the place for sacrifice. The actual
Tetherstones to which the victims were said to have been fastened are
over there, close to the cattle-shed in which Ruth found you. The shed
is just out of sight below the brow of the hill.”
“It is a wonderful place,” Frances said again.
She relinquished his arm, and began to walk a few steps over the grass.
The man stood motionless, watching her. His brows were drawn. He had a
waiting look.
Suddenly she turned and came back to him. She was smiling, but her face
was pale. “Mr. Dermot, I am not sure that I do want to stay here after
all,” she said. “There’s something I can’t quite describe—something
uncanny in the atmosphere.”
“You want to go?” he said.
She shivered sharply, standing in the full sunshine. “I don’t want to be
left alone here.”
“No,” he said, in his brief way. “And I don’t mean you to be here
alone.” He put out a hand and pointed to a curiously shaped stone so
poised that it seemed to be on the point of rolling towards them. “Do
you see that? That is one of the great tetherstones. It is called the
stone of sacrifice. It is so balanced that a child could make it rock,
but no one could move it from its place. There are marks on that stone
that scientists declare have been made by human hands, places where
staples have been driven in, and so cunningly devised that prisoners
chained to those staples were unharmed so long as they remained passive.
But the moment they strained for freedom, the stone rocked slowly to and
fro and they were crushed—gradually ground to death.”
“Oh, don’t!” Frances cried. “How gruesome—how horrible!”
“A devil’s paradise!” he said.
“But why did you bring me here?” she protested. “Why do you tell me
these dreadful things?”
He shrugged his shoulders again. “I brought you here to satisfy your
curiosity. My father will tell you much more horrible things than that.
His book is full of them.”
“Let us go!” she said, shuddering. “I won’t come here again.”
“As you wish,” he said. “There are certainly pleasanter places.”
He helped her back into the cart, and wrapped the rug about her knees.
As he did so, with his face turned from her he spoke again in a tone
that affected her very strangely.
“Miss Thorold, I haven’t told you everything. There is a much more
modern tragedy connected with this place which I haven’t told you of. It
isn’t a subject that is ever mentioned among us, and I can’t go into any
details. But—you’ve probably discovered by this time that there is
something that makes us different from the rest of the world. It
is—that.”
He spoke with an effort, and for the first time in all her knowledge of
men there came to Frances that tender, motherly feeling that comes to
every woman when she is face to face with a man’s suffering.
She sat for a moment or two without moving or speaking; then she put out
a hesitating hand and touched his shoulder. “I am sorry,” she said very
gently.
He drew in his breath sharply, but still he did not look at her. “I have
never spoken of it to anyone outside before. But you are somewhat
different. You have been through the mill, and you are capable of
understanding?”
“I hope so,” she said.
He jerked up his head with an odd movement of defiance. “There’s one
thing I would like you to know,” he said. “Though I am no more than a
country clod and grind my living out of the stones, I’ve made a success
of it. There’s not a single farmer hereabouts who can say that he has a
better show than mine. In fact, they know quite well that Tetherstones
beats them all.”
“That was worth doing,” said Frances.
“Yes. It was worth doing. But now that it’s done, anyone could run
it—anyone with any experience. Oliver could run it.” He spoke
contemptuously.
“Then why not let him,” suggested Frances, “and take a holiday
yourself?”
“Let him!” He turned upon her almost violently. “Leave Oliver to run
this show! You don’t know—” He pulled himself up. “Of course you don’t
know. How should you? Oliver is very useful, but he is only a labourer
after all. I don’t see myself putting him in my place. He thinks too
much of himself as it is.”
“Ah!” Frances said, with an unpleasant feeling of duplicity at her
heart. “But you like him, don’t you? He is a good sort?”
“I hope he is a good sort,” Arthur said grimly. “He needs to be kept in
his place. I know that much. And I’ll see that it’s done, too.”
He looked at her hard with the words, as if challenging a reply. But
Frances made none. Her years of rigorous work had taught her to maintain
silence where she felt speech to be futile. She never wasted her words.
And in a moment Arthur relaxed. “I couldn’t leave my post in any case,”
he said. “There are—other reasons.”
“Yes,” Frances said, glad of the change of topic. “I realize that.”
“Do you? How?” Again that peremptory, challenging look met hers.
But she answered him with absolute simplicity. On this point at least
she felt no qualms. “On account of your mother,” she said. “I guessed
that.”
His face changed, softening magically. “Yes, my mother,” he said. “But
what made you guess it?”
“It just came to me,” she said. “I knew you must be fond of someone.”
He looked away from her to a gap of blue distance in front of them, and
for a few seconds there was silence between them. Then: “Thank you for
saying that,” he said, “and for thinking it. You have an extraordinary
insight. Do you read everyone’s motives in this way? Or is it only
mine?”
There was a hint of melancholy in the question, as though he invited
ridicule to cover an unacknowledged pathos. But Frances did not answer
it, for she had no answer ready. She felt as if in his silence he had
lifted the veil and given her a glimpse of his lonely soul. She saw him
as it were surrounded by a great solitude which she could not cross. And
so she turned away.
“I am not a great reader of character,” she said. “Only I know that
there is only one way of turning our stones into bread. And if we don’t
find it, we starve.”
“Yes, starve!” He repeated the word with his eyes still upon the blue
distance. “I’m used to starving,” he said slowly. “It’s a sort of
chronic state with me.”
The sound of the reaping-machine came whirring through the sunlit
silence, and the man pulled himself together with a gesture of
impatience. “Well, I suppose we must go. You have seen the Stones, and I
hope you are satisfied.”
“I am glad you brought me,” she said. “But I don’t think I shall come
again.”
He looked at her, and she thought there was a hint of relief on his
face. “You have seen all there is to see,” he said. “I think you are
wise.”
He mounted into the cart beside her and walked the horse forward over
the grass.
“There is little Ruth,” said Frances.
The child had come suddenly into view from behind one of the great
stones, moving as was her wont lightly and fearlessly, her face
upturned. She was carrying a small bunch of harebells, and as she came
towards them she stooped and felt among the grass for more. Her soft,
chirruping song rose up like the humming of a fairy. Finding some of the
wiry stalks she sought, she knelt down in the sunshine to gather them.
“How happy she is!” whispered Frances.
The man said nothing. He walked the horse straight up to the little
kneeling figure and reined in beside it.
“Is that you, Uncle Arthur?” said little Ruth.
“Yes,” he said. “Come here to me and I will take you back to the
corn-field!”
She got up and came to him. He stooped and grasped her shoulder, guiding
her to the step.
“Is Miss Thorold there?” said the child.
“Yes, darling. I am here,” Frances answered, and made room for her in
the seat.
Ruth mounted the step, and in a moment nestled in beside her. “I
gathered these flowers for you,” she said.
“Thank you, darling.” Frances took the flowers and stooped to kiss her.
“I’ve been waiting for you a long, long time,” Ruth said. “Have you
liked your drive?”
“I have loved it,” Frances said with simplicity.
“Thank you,” said Arthur quietly, on the other side.
They passed on through the great circle and out between the stones on to
a narrow track that led steeply downwards to a lane.
The buzz of a car rose from below them as they approached it, and Arthur
drew in his horse. The car went by unseen, but to Frances in the high
cart there came a sudden, sharp sense of insecurity that was almost
panic, and for a moment she ceased to breathe. She knew that car.
Her agitation subsided gradually. They went on down the lane and turned
into the corn-field.
“I must leave you here,” Arthur said.
He helped them both down and settled them comfortably with a rug and
cushions in the shade of the hedge.
“Will you be all right here?” he asked Frances. “I will tell Elsie to
look after you.”
“I shall be quite all right,” she assured him. “Please don’t let anyone
waste any time over me!”
He smiled and turned away. She watched him go with an answering smile
upon her lips.
Roger came up and lay down beside them. The peace of a perfect day
descended upon the harvest-field. The fragrance of the cut corn was like
an oblation.
“Are we alone?” said Ruth.
“Yes, darling. Why?”
The little girl came pressing close to her side. “Because I’ve got
something to tell you, and it’s a secret. I met a man to-day in the
lane, who said he was a friend of yours. He didn’t tell me who he was,
but it was the friend who wrote that letter to you. And he said—would I
tell you that he will be at the Stones again to-night at ten.”