IN QUEST OF TREASURE.
Gray's spirits rose when he had left the station behind him and found
himself riding along the well-worn track towards the hills, that showed
themselves in clear outline against the brightening morning sky.
With a good horse under him and the fresh wind blowing on his face, he
found it easy to convince himself that it would not have made any
difference if he had gone back with the dog. He found it easy to look
forward instead of backward, to make resolutions about using the money
well, instead of indulging in vain repentance for the past.
It was a clear beautiful morning. The country Gray was riding through
was very unlike the level pastures he had lived on for months. It was
undulating and richly wooded. Here and there a stream, full and strong
in this joyous spring-time, flashed white in the dawn. Westwards rose
the great hills, blue in the distance, the hills towards which Gray was
riding. It was a country to make glad the heart of man, where he might
richly enjoy the fruits of his labour.
It was not thickly settled as yet. Gray passed but few houses in that
day's far ride, and it was long past dusk when he rode up to Mr.
Macquoid's, who owned the run next to Mr. Morton's, and where Mr.
Morton had advised him to stop that night.
Gray received a warm welcome. Tea was brought for him into the
pleasant sitting-room, where Mr. Macquoid's wife and daughters were
eager to hear Gray's account of Harding's disappearance. Mr. Macquoid
had sent out a search-party on his own account, for he knew Harding
well.
It irritated Gray savagely to find how warm and eager an interest they
all took in the lost man. He could have spent such a delightful
evening in that charming house, with those pretty girls. The piano was
open, and Gray was fond of music and could sing well. It would have
delighted him to prove to them his musical abilities. And the books in
the low book-cases, the etchings and engravings on the walls, the
periodicals and newspapers fresh from England, that lay heaped on the
round table by the window, showed that the Macquoids had a keen
cultured interest in literature and art. Gray could have talked to
them of so many things, showed them so easily how wide his knowledge
was, how correct his taste.
But they would talk of nothing but Harding. They seemed to think it
was the only subject Gray could feel any interest in just then. He was
thankful when the evening was over.
His next resting-place was a small station close under the shadow of
the hills. Here only vague rumours of Harding's loss had come, and
Gray found it easy to say nothing of his connection with the lost man.
A strange thing happened to him that night. He was put to sleep in a
small room opening on the rough verandah that ran round the house. It
was a hot still night, and the window was left open. Gray lay awake
for the first part of the night. He was restless and excited and could
not sleep. But towards morning he fell into a heavy dreamless slumber,
from which he was roughly awakened by a sharp, sudden noise.
He started up in bed and looked round the room. A man was standing
with his back to him in the act of picking up the chair he had just
thrown over. In the dim starlight Gray could just see him as he bent
over the chair. With a sharp exclamation Gray sprang out of bed and
made a dash at him. But the man was too quick. He wriggled out of
Gray's grasp as a snake might wriggle out of its captor's clutch, and
keeping his head well down, that Gray might not see his face, he dashed
out of the window and across the court-yard. Gray saw him disappear
over the fence, and run swiftly down the hollow.
He struck a light and carefully examined the room. His purse was safe.
Everything in his pocket was left intact.
Gray's story caused great excitement next morning. There had never
been an attempt at robbery in the station before.
"It must have been a black fellow," Mr. Stuart said. But Gray was
certain it was no black man. If it had not been absurd to think of
such a thing, he would have said it was Lumley, the Mortons' gardener.
But he dismissed that idea as absurd and impossible.
His next day's ride took him into the heart of the hill-country. The
track was far less clearly marked here, and often difficult to follow.
It ran through deep lonely ravines walled in by precipitous heights of
dark rock, and along the sides of mighty hills from which glimpses
could be got of still higher hills, towering up into the still blue
sky. Some of the hills were darkly wooded, others were clothed in rich
grass and flowering shrubs almost to the summits; others again, and
these more numerous as Gray rode on, were bare of blade or leaf, heaped
with dark scarred rocks, waterless, desolate.
Gray missed his road once or twice that day; and once he was unable to
cross a furious torrent which had swept down the frail bridge laid
across it, and was forced to make a long round.
There was a small cottage in these parts kept by M'Pherson, an old
stock-keeper of Mr. Macquoid's. Gray had hoped to leave it far behind
him in this day's journey, but he was only too glad to see it when he
had at last regained the track just after sunset. He and his horse
were both tired out.
The old man came to his cottage door as Gray clattered up the hilly
path. He looked at Gray, and then beyond him.
"Ye're kindly welcome, lad. But hasna your mate come up wi' ye?"
Gray looked involuntarily behind him. The path stretched away lonely
and desolate in the gathering darkness.
"What do you mean?" he asked; turning a pale face on M'Pherson. "I am
quite alone."
"Weel, weel; there was a callant here no' sae lang syne, speering after
ye. Aye, 'twas you he meant. A weel set-up, black-haired chap, he
said, riding a roan horse wi' a white blaze in front."
Gray got off his horse and stood with his hand upon the bridle.
"I know no one about here. You must be mistaken," he said. But he
said it falteringly, and a cold sweat broke out upon his brow. The
idea had flashed upon him that it might be Harding who was tracking his
footsteps.
"What was he like?" he asked, as carelessly as he could.
"A soft-spoken callant wi' reddish hair--a puir thin sort o' body wi' a
ferrety face. Sae ye didna luke for him? Weel, weel, maybe it's no a
maitter for greeting that ye havena come across him. I wadna hae gi'en
muckle for his honesty. But ye wull be wanting a meal, lad, and your
bonnie horse too. Yon's the stable. A gude man is gude to his
beastie, and ye'll no be wanting me to assist."
He bustled into the house without waiting for Gray to speak. He would
have waited long, for Gray was too startled to speak. He began to
think it must be Lumley who was following him. He slowly led his horse
to the stable and made it comfortable, and then went back to the house.
He stopped at the door to look back into the dusk.
The house was built in a green hollow carved out of the side of a steep
hill. The ground rose steeply behind the place, rising up into a
jagged ridge against the sky. In front there was a small flat meadow
immediately before the house; then the ground fell almost precipitously
and then rose again, with only a narrow ravine between. The opposite
hills were higher than the hill under which the cottage was built, and
frowned above it in heavy overhanging masses of rock. As Gray looked
up he could only distinguish the vague dark outlines of the gloomy
hills. A thousand men might have been hidden in the hollows and he
would have been none the wiser. He listened intently, but there was no
sound of human life. The wind had fallen, and the rush of the stream
at the bottom of the ravine was the only sound that struck his ear.
M'Pherson had a comfortable meal prepared for him, late as it was. But
Gray could not eat. He was too excited and uneasy. He tried to get a
clear description of the man who had asked for him, but M'Pherson could
tell him little more. The man had come to the door about four in the
afternoon. He explained that he was expecting to come up with a friend
along that road, and wanted to know how far he was ahead.
"He seemed verra oneasy when I told him I'd set eyes on naebody the day
lang. I tauld him ye must hae gone the ither road."
"I missed my way."
"Aye, 'twas that made ye sae late. And sae ye arena acquent wi' the
man? 'Tis verra strange."
Yes, it was very strange. The more Gray thought of it the more
alarming it seemed. And then quite suddenly an explanation came to
him, which, while it did not remove the annoyance of the occurrence,
robbed it of all its more alarming elements. The explanation was
this:--
Lumley had evidently conceived an absurd dog-like affection for him.
The fellow had not taken his refusal to have him as a servant as a
final one, and was following him in the hope that he might still be
taken on. He had not dared to come face to face with Gray. Perhaps
when he had entered the room at Mr. Stuart's (for Gray was now
convinced that it was Lumley he saw) he intended to make one more
appeal, but Gray's sudden wakening had startled him too much.
Gray's face cleared as he forced himself to accept this explanation as
the true one. He stretched himself with the air of one who throws off
a burden.
"I'll turn in," he said, yawning as he spoke. "But I'll have another
look at my horse first."
"Aye, do, my lad. But ye needna feel oneasy aboot your horse. Sandy
here"--and he looked down at the old sheep-dog at his knee--"wull hear
ony step that comes near the house, be it e'er sae saft."
Gray shuddered as his glance fell on the dog. He was looking up at his
master just as Watch used to look at Harding.
"Ye arena that fond o' dogs," said the old man quickly. He had noticed
Gray's look. "But Sandy's nae common dog. I could tell you mony a
tale o' his cleverness."
He patted the dog's head and looked across at Gray, who had resumed his
seat and was staring fixedly into the fire. He had turned deadly pale.
M'Pherson's shrewd kindly eyes dwelt on him for a moment. Gray was
conscious of the look and roused himself with an effort.
"How far is it to Daintry's Corner?" he asked abruptly.
Daintry's Corner was close to Rodwell's Peak, and Gray was making that
the apparent end of his journey.
"Aboot a maitter o' twal mile or sae. Ye'll win it by mid-day the
morn." He paused a moment and then added: "Ye look ower pale, my lad,
for sic journeying amang the hills. Ye wad do weel to tak' a bit rest;
and it's lang since I've set een on a braw lad like you. A day or
twa's rest wi' me wad freshen you up."
Gray hastily declined the invitation, and then, feeling he had been too
abrupt, he said:
"I am sailing for England in a month, and I want to get a good idea of
your hill scenery. I've lived on the plains a great deal, and this is
my first opportunity."
"Eh! I ken what the plains are. I lived nigh the allotted span o'
life upon them--saxty years I lived there. I cam from Scotland a bairn
o' seven, and I lived on the Macquoid estate till I cam up here."
"Whatever made you leave your home for this lonely spot?" Gray asked,
glad to keep the old man talking about himself to prevent any more
curious inquiries about his own doings.
"Ye wadna understand if ye werena born amang the hills, lad. The
gudewife, she kent how I felt, and when the Lord took her hame the
hills seemed to ca' more and more on me. It's no lonely here; there's
voices everywhere. Did ye ever think, my lad, o' the way the Bible
speaks of hills an' a' high places. 'The shadow o' a great rock in a
weary land.' Yon's a grand passage; but the fu' meaning naebody can
understand wha hasna kent the thirst and heat o' a waterless desert.
Were ye ever lost in the Bush, lad?"
Gray stared across at him in angry bewilderment.
"Never," he said abruptly.
"Ye may be thankful; 'tis a terrible place. The skies like brass abune
your head; the grund like parchment under your feet. I was a lost man
amang those deserts once. Four days I wandered through dry and thirsty
places. Eh, sirs, 'twas a terrible time! But the Lord brought me
through; thanks be to His holy name!"
Gray did not speak. The old man's words had called up in clear vision
those endless deserts of scorched sand, where the very herbage was
hateful to look upon, and the blessed light became a consuming fire.
Had Harding, faint with his wounds, wandered helplessly there till he
fell to rise no more?
M'Pherson got up and reached down the great Bible that lay by itself on
the shelf above his head.
"'Tis time for evening worship, my lad. I'll read ye a chapter."
He sat down and placed the Bible on the table, and put on his
silver-rimmed spectacles. Gray leant back in his chair and folded his
arms, and prepared himself to listen. The old man looked at his face,
and then turned over the leaves of his Bible with a sigh.
"I'll read ye what has often been a comfort to me, my lad," he said.
But Gray's eyes had fallen on the sheepdog, and he had seen it drag
itself up, with ears upraised and head pointed at the door, in the very
attitude of Watch that night the fugitive Dearing had been outside the
hut.
"Look at the dog!" he stammered out to M'Pherson. "He hears someone
outside the house."
"That's verra onlikely," said M'Pherson with a calmness that was
intensely irritating to Gray.
"He isn't much use as a dog if he makes that fuss for nothing," Gray
returned.
"Weel, weel, we are baith getting auld thegither."
M'Pherson rose as he spoke and went to the door to open it.
"You are not going out?" Gray cried.
The old man turned a wondering face upon him.
"Wad ye keep the door barred on sic a nicht as this, if there's onybody
outside i' the wind and rain? A braw laddie like you suld hae nae
fears: ye suld leave that to the women, puir feeble folk."
Gray's face grew scarlet at the rebuke. He said no more, and M'Pherson
opened the door and peered out into the dark, stormy night. He shouted
once or twice, but there was no answer nor sound of footsteps. If the
dog had heard footsteps they had now ceased; and only the voices of
wind, and rain, and rushing torrent came up the glen.