CHAPTER I

[Cover Illustration]

POSSESSION

[Illustration]

MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited

LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA • MADRAS

MELBOURNE

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO

DALLAS • SAN FRANCISCO

THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd.

TORONTO

_POSSESSION_

BY

MAZO DE LA ROCHE

MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED

ST. MARTIN’S STREET, LONDON

1923

COPYRIGHT

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN

CONTENTS

PART I

CHAPTER PAGE

I. THE HALIGONIAN - - - - - - 3

II. MAY MORNING AT GRIMSTONE - - - - 16

III. LIFT UP YOUR HEARTS - - - - - 25

IV. SALE AT DURRAS—GRETTA VAN LOWE - - - 39

V. DARK WATER-LILIES - - - - - 48

VI. CHERRIES AT DAWN - - - - - 57

VII. THE FOLLY OF SOLOMON - - - - - 69

VIII. JULY NIGHT AT GRIMSTONE - - - - 74

IX. SOLOMON IN HIS GLORY - - - - - 80

X. CHRISTMAS AT GRIMSTONE - - - - 94

XI. THE RILL IN THE WOOD - - - - - 115

XII. THE WIND OUT OF WINDMILL’S SAILS - - 123

PART II

I. AN EAR-RING UPON THE EAR OF THE GUILTY - 137

II. HUBBUB AT GRIMSTONE - - - - - 148

III. “FOR SUCH PERSONS——” - - - - - 162

IV. DULCE DOMUM - - - - - - 179

V. EDMUND - - - - - - - 193

VI. SWEET APPLES ON A RUSTIC SEAT - - - 201

VII. SALE AT DURRAS—DARBY - - - - - 213

VIII. THINGS THAT HE LEARNED - - - - 227

IX. JAMMERY - - - - - - - 247

X. PEGLEG - - - - - - - 259

XI. LOVE AMONG THE HUMMOCKS - - - - 274

XII. BUCKSKIN STRIKES HIS TENT - - - - 285

TO

CHRISTOPHER MORLEY

PART I

CHAPTER I

THE HALIGONIAN

1.

On an evening in early May, a young man was walking sharply along the

country road that passed through the fishing-village of Mistwell, and,

following the shore of one of those inland seas, oddly called great

lakes, led to the town of Brancepeth, seven miles away.

The young man was just above medium height and just under thirty, and he

walked with a resolute and eager step that spoke of some elation of

spirit. As the deep ruts of the road were half frozen he kept to the

side, where a narrow path was beaten, looking about him with the

interest of one who sees his future surroundings for the first time. His

wide-open, greenish-blue eyes rested with pleasurable curiosity, first

on the budding orchards to his right, and then on the level expanse of

the lake, flushed pink by the reflection of the western sky, to his

left.

His eyes were not only wide open, as though they looked life eagerly in

the face, expecting more than most men: but they had a free, fearless,

careless look, that, combined with his closely cropped fair hair, and

small, tawny moustache, made him appear even younger than he was. His

strong limbs denoted vigour and his full, round chin and rather wide

nostrils indicated some rashness and dominance of character.

He stopped to snuff the crisp air from the lake and to watch a flock of

gulls circling in pursuit of their evening meal.

He now saw that he was not alone, for another pedestrian had appeared

around a bend of the road behind him. He watched the approach of the

newcomer with the same look of pleasant curiosity that he had given to

the landscape. As he came up beside him, he said:

“Can you tell me whether I am near a place named Grimstone?”

He spoke in the full, agreeable tones of a Nova Scotian; the other

replied with a slight North of Ireland accent:

“You are. It’s not above half a mile from here. I’m going past the gate

myself, and, if you like, I’ll bear you company.”

They walked along together, the Nova Scotian keeping to the narrow path,

while his companion strode doggedly over the frozen ruts. He was a

slender, wiry man, with thin, ruddy cheeks and hard, light-blue eyes.

His coat-collar was turned up against the frosty air, and he swung a

carved walking-stick, as though he had a fierce pleasure in movement.

“I take it that you’re young Mr. Vale himself,” he said.

The young man nodded, smiling with a little embarrassment.

“It’s queer they didn’t come to meet ye.”

“They are not expecting me till to-morrow. I found I could get away a

day earlier, and—well, I suppose I was in a hurry to see the place.”

“Naturally. It’s a fine place, but not kept up as it should be. But

perhaps you’ve visited it before?”

“No. I have never been west of Quebec till now.”

“Perhaps you’ve never taken much interest in farming, eh?” His tone was

inquisitive.

“Very little. I’m an architect. But I like the country. Riding, fishing.

That sort of thing.”

“Well, you’ll find life different here. Of course, Grimstone is a small

place, just two hundred acres; it’s not a great charge. Now, we have

eight hundred acres, and the finest herd of Holsteins in the Province.

You must come to see us, Mr. Vale, and I’ll show you about. I manage the

farm lands for Mr. Jerrold, the owner. My name is Hobbs.” He gave the

information about himself with a certain swagger. Obviously, he was a

man to be reckoned with.

While he discoursed with fluency of prize bulls, butter-making contests,

and fattening steers, young Mr. Vale, half wishing he were alone

again—this man seemed to take the glamour from his adventure—peered

into the now deepening dusk for the first signs of his new habitation.

He had been told at the station that a little graveyard lay just east of

Grimstone, and now the road, sweeping sharply to the very edge of the

steep shore, almost circled a grove of ragged pines, among which he

caught the pale glimmer of gravestones. The gentle swish of the water

seemed at his very feet. A white wooden house appeared like someone

waiting at the roadside. Hobbs was saying:

“This is where Chard lives. You’ll not find him much of a neighbour. Now

I’ll just tell you what he’s like. Not long ago he hired some men from

Mistwell to help him dig drains. Very well; when the end of the week

came he paid the men, all but old Peek. And he says to him—‘Peek,

you’re so old and feeble that you can’t do as much as the others, so

you’ll come back to work two days more before I give ye a week’s wage.’

And the poor old devil had to. So now I’ve introduced Chard, the

Superintendent of the Sunday-school, and a damned good farmer. But

that’s what I call sharp and hard, Mr. Vale, and yet I’m called hard

sometimes by the thirty-odd men under me. Now here’s your gate, and

good-night to you. Don’t forget to come over and see our herd.”

Touching his cap, he hurried down a sudden steep that fell from the

gates of Grimstone, ending in a little bridge that spanned an unseen

stream whose gushing murmur proclaimed it swollen with the spring rains.

2.

Derek Vale stood still. He did not want to open the gate till Hobbs was

out of sight. Then—“My gate,” he thought, and laid his hand on the cold

iron almost caressingly. The dark bulk of a low, broad, stone house rose

before him, surrounded by the massive trunks of trees whose lowest

branches were higher than its chimneys. The front of the house was in

darkness, but he could see a light in one of the back rooms. He

determined to go to the window where the light was and get a glimpse of

the occupants of the house, so that he might have the advantage of

having seen them unobserved.

The light was cast by an oil lamp on the kitchen table. Derek drew near

the window with caution. He felt beneath his feet the stone of a flagged

yard. A noise of stamping and singing came from within. He was

astonished and amused by what he saw.

In the circle of ruddy light a girl was dancing a sort of breakdown,

supplying the music for her performance with her own lusty, clear voice.

She seemed charged with rough vigour, snapping her fingers and stamping

her feet in almost frenzied rhythm. Her full breasts bounced, her strong

legs leaped against her long, heavy skirt; the lamplight sparkled on the

thick spectacles she wore. Around her were grouped four men and an old

woman. “She must be Mrs. Machin,” thought Derek, “the housekeeper . . .

the men, farm labourers, of course.”

He was fascinated by the dancing of the girl. Only when she had dropped

panting into a chair could he give more than a glance to the men. Two

were seated at the table facing each other. They had been playing at

dominoes and they now returned to the game, their faces still fixed in

the grin with which they had watched the dance. One was a red-cheeked

youth with a black bullet head, beady eyes, and a sly smile. His

opponent had a narrow head, a fair, reckless face, and the look of a

sailor rather than a farm labourer. Talking and laughing with the girl,

the third man showed through his open collar a full brown throat and

chest; he had an honest, stubborn face. The fourth had been sitting in

the shadow, but he now drew a match across a stove-lid and held it to a

cigarette, the flash illuminating for a moment his prominent, well-cut

cheek-bones, bright eyes, and curly brown hair. He rose, stretched

himself, and came towards the window. Derek hastily turned away, and,

finding himself facing the door, he gave a sharp, yet nervous rap.

3.

The man with the cigarette opened the door. A collie dog at his side

barked noisily.

“I should like to see Mrs. Machin,” said Derek.

The old woman instantly appeared, pushing aside the dog and man, and

presenting a peremptory front to Vale.

“You are the housekeeper, aren’t you?” he said.

She looked at him shrewdly. “My goodness, don’t tell me you are Mr.

Vale! We didn’t expect you till to-morrow. Of course, it don’t matter to

me. But one of these boys should ha’ met you.”

“I’ve enjoyed the walk,” said Derek. “Shall I come in at this door?”

“Well, I expect you can come in at any door you please. It’s your house.

But if I was you, I’d go round and come in at the front. It’d be more

seemly for the master.”

Derek laughed. “I think I shall come this way if you don’t mind. It

looks rather more cheerful.”

The young men had got to their feet, but the girl, evidently overcome by

shyness, sat with her face hidden in the curve of her arm, supported by

the back of her chair.

Mrs. Machin put the dog outside and shut the door sharply. She said:

“Now you are in the kitchen, Mr. Vale, I may as well name over these

idle rascals to you. The two playing dominoes are Bob Gunn and John

Newbigging. Bob used to be in the Chube Wur-rks in Glesca, he says. He

means he used to be in the Tube Works in Glasgow.” The bullet-headed

youth grinned. “John Newbigging has been all over creation and he has an

old mother in Dundee he never writes to. Perhaps you’ll be able to stop

him and Bob quarrelling as to which is the worst city, Glesca or Auld

Reekie. I can’t.” Both men burst into embarrassed laughs, and Newbigging

said, “It’s no fair, Mrs. Machin, to be tryin’ to prejudice Mr. Vale

against us frae the start.”

“This one,” proceeded Mrs. Machin, indicating the honest-faced fellow,

who still kept near the girl, “is Hugh McKay. He’s a Galloway shepherd,

and he’ll talk about sheep to you all day long if you’ll let him.” McKay

came forward with dignity and held out his hand.

“Mrs. Machin’d be givin’ us all a character,” he said.

“Well, I’m prepared to do a good deal of talking about sheep,” said

Derek, shaking the proffered brown hand, and liking McKay at once.

“Phœbe, get up out of that chair and speak to Mr. Vale.” But the girl,

though she rose, uncovering her comely, red face, would not speak. She

stared, teetering on her feet, and holding to McKay’s coat sleeve.

“Are you Scotch, too?” asked Derek.

“No, she comes from Kent. She used to work in the hop-fields,” replied

McKay. “That’s where she learned to dance.”

“To hop, as it were,” said Derek. The joke brought a roar of laughter

from the men.

“This is Mr. Windmill,” interrupted Mrs. Machin. He threw away his

cigarette and came forward. “He’s out here to study farming. But he just

works and lives like the rest of us. Except he wears gloves to plough.”

Windmill flushed but smiled good-humouredly. “The horses don’t seem to

mind me having gloves on.”

“No, but Mike minded you having boots on when you kicked him the other

day.”

“Didn’t I say she’d be givin’ us all characters?” said McKay.

Mrs. Machin had lighted a tall brass lamp; picking it up, she said:

“Well, you’ve had a look at us, Mr. Vale, and if you’ll come to the

dining-room now, I’ll lay you a bit of supper.” As she preceded Derek

with the lamp, she called back, “Wood and water, boys.”

She was a repellent old woman, he thought, with her yellow face, black,

oily hair, eyes the colour of an oyster, and stiff, white apron. And she

had hurried him out of the kitchen, his own kitchen, in a very

domineering fashion. Well, since she seemed so capable, and so used to

ordering the men about, it would relieve him of the necessity of taking

the reins into his unaccustomed hands at once.

The dining-room was a low-ceilinged room wainscoted in white and papered

in dark green. The furniture was black oak, and two deep, built-in

cupboards filled with blue china lent a comfortable old-world air. There

were two large steel engravings on either side of the chimney-piece:

Wellington and Blücher after Waterloo, and The Trial of William, Lord

Russell. The large fireplace had been papered over. Tapping it with his

knuckles, he thought, “I’ll have that opened up,” but, as Mrs. Machin

looked at him sharply, he picked up a china greyhound from the mantel

and examined it. His greyhound . . . but it was ridiculous.

Mrs. Machin set him down to cold beef, bread and butter, bramble jam,

and tea.

“Home-made bread?” he asked, with his mouth full.

“No, indeed. We’ve plenty to do without bread-making and the baker three

times a week from Mistwell. Ain’t it good?”

“Delicious,” he replied, abashed.

Mrs. Machin had closed the door between the dining-room and kitchen and

established herself in a straight-backed chair against the wall. She

said:

“I should know you for a Vale anywhere. I s’pose that’s why your uncle

took to you.”

“It was a great surprise. It scarcely seemed fair to my brother.”

“Fair! What’s unfair about it? Couldn’t he leave his property where he

liked?” She stroked her apron with her large-knuckled hands. “Well I

remember when he went away to Halifax ten years ago to choose which one

he would make his heir. When he came back he said to me—‘I’ve made my

choice, Mrs. Machin. His name’s Derek. The other one is no Vale,’ says

he. He was terrible proud of this place. I s’pose you know that your

great-grandfather built it above a hundred years ago.”

“My uncle talked to me a great deal when he was in Halifax. He spoke of

you too.”

“He might well speak of me. I’ve served his family faithful for—let’s

see—fifty-four years this month. And the last two years, I’ve run the

place myself, you might say. Not bad for a woman of seventy-two, eh?”

“Wonderful.”

“And now I want to know if you’re going to keep me on. It don’t matter a

bit to me because I’ve got a sister in Mistwell that wants me to live

with her, and I haven’t slaved all these years and saved nothing, you

may depend on it.”

For all her air of independence Derek could see that she was fiercely

eager to stay. He did not want her, yet he was afraid to be left alone

in charge of the four men and the girl. He might make himself

ridiculous. He said:

“In his will my uncle recommended you. Of course I shall want you to

stay on.”

“Well, I’m glad that’s settled. Not that it matters to me, though I do

look on Grimstone as my home, having lived here ever since my father was

drowned.”

“In the lake here?”

“Why not? There’s plenty of room, ain’t there? It gets all the Mistwell

fishermen sooner or later. It didn’t get pa till he’d fathered six of

us, so that wasn’t so bad. But it laid low and got two out of the six.

Fools, to be fishermen!”

4.

When she was gone and the door closed behind her, Derek stretched his

legs and felt for his pipe. He lay back in his armchair staring at the

ceiling darkened by the soot from a stove-pipe that crossed it from end

to end. “Stove-pipe’s got to go,” he muttered, between puffs. “Just a

big open fireplace—and logs.” He got up and began restlessly to pace

the room. He examined Wellington and Blücher again, shaking hands so

cordially, the dead and dying tumbled plentifully about their horses’

hoofs.

He next observed a sampler, The Lord’s Prayer, worked by Agnes Vale,

aged nine years, in the year of our Lord, Eighteen Hundred and

Thirty-six. Seventy-five years ago. Cousin Agnes in England must be

named for her . . . he thought of Cousin Agnes, whom he had never seen.

He thought of Edmund, his only near relation. How Edmund would laugh if

he could see him now! He felt that Edmund would have been better able to

cope with Mrs. Machin. He wished that she and the others would go to bed

so that he might adventure further. No doubt they were talking him over

in the kitchen. Now he heard a shuffling of feet and the click of a

bolt. He returned quickly to his chair and crossed his legs.

The door behind him opened. It was the women. Mrs. Machin gave the

impression of driving Phœbe before her. The girl’s hand was over her

mouth, as though at any moment she might explode with laughter. Mrs.

Machin gave a curt good-night, and they disappeared into the dark

passage. Soon the three Scotchmen went through in Indian file. They were

in their stockinged feet, and McKay carried a short end of candle. They

said “Good-nicht, sir,” in a friendly chorus, but kept their eyes shyly

averted. Derek waited impatiently for the Englishman, Windmill. It was

quite half an hour before he followed the others. He wore slippers and

carried a small lamp. He hesitated, smiled pleasantly, and said:

“There is a step down into the hallway, Mr. Vale. I thought I should

warn you.”

“Oh, thanks,” said Derek.

He was alone.

A clock in the hall struck ten with harsh, penetrating tones.

The dog was snuffling at the crack under the door, evidently disturbed

by the strange presence.

Derek went to a window and looked out. No moon; he had never seen such

utter darkness. It was as though Grimstone had swallowed him, and a

tangible body was reared between him and the world he had known. He

turned back to the room and picked up the lamp. Mrs. Machin had told him

that she had prepared two bedrooms for him—one downstairs—one above.

(It didn’t make no difference to her which he took.) Detestable old

woman. Why had she not warned him of the step? Even knowing of it he

almost stumbled. The lamplight showed him a severe hall with five closed

doors, and a hatstand, on either side of which a deer’s head peered at

him with startled brown eyes. The tall clock stood under the stairway

beside a narrow door, which, when he opened it, disclosed only a closet

hung with hats and coats, and a shelf of old magazines and ledgers. His

uncle’s clothes. He closed the door feeling a little rebuffed for his

curiosity, and opened a door opposite. Here was the parlour: a long,

narrow room with two doors opening on the hall, and a row of low

windows, hung with straight green curtains. There were many walnut

chairs and tables, the latter ornamented with brass-bound books, and

glass candelabra with hanging prisms. A group in marble stood on the

closed piano; a few oil-paintings hung against the pale walls. A room

full of memories; not to be taken possession of lightly, rather

repelling intrusion.

Across the hall he found a bedroom whose tall four-poster and deep

leather chair pleased him at once. The old English sporting prints on

the walls were nice, too. He was tired but he would not go to bed till

he had seen the upstairs.

So he ascended the uncarpeted steps, the lamp at a precarious angle. He

explored three bedrooms and a dingy little study, and peered down a

narrow passage that led to the rooms occupied by the help.

As he undressed he wondered how they were disposed: probably the robust

girl and the dry old woman together; Windmill alone; the three Scots

sleeping like logs. He found his bed, when he plunged into it, amazingly

soft and enveloping. He had never slept on feathers before. As he drew

the quilt to his chin he gave an amused little chuckle. It seemed to him

that he had taken command of a storm-worn old ship and was outward bound

on an unknown sea. Well, he had a hardy old pilot in Mrs. Machin . . .

and, thinking of her, he fell asleep.

CHAPTER II

MAY MORNING AT GRIMSTONE

1.

It was a rippling, throaty noise, sweet and oft-repeated; scarcely

enough to rouse one from deep slumber. But the vibrant, clanging note

which followed, effectually wakened him. The early sunlight was flooding

the room, and, beyond the open window, the lake stretched, a vast shield

of radiant blue and gold. He sat up in bed, half bewildered, staring. A

spreading bush of bleeding heart grew before the low window. It was in

full bloom, its long sprays of deep, pink hearts hanging, like jewels,

against the green of the wet lawn. A slow procession now passed: seven

bronze turkey-hens, with necks outstretched, went by in single file, and

a little space behind them, every feather bright with a metallic sheen,

his wattles, blue and scarlet, dangling beneath his open beak, the

gobbler. Close by his side, with light steps, a snow-white turkey-hen

walked delicately.

Derek could have shouted, the picture was so beautiful, so arranged, as

for a stage effect. He thought of it the while he dressed, and dashed

his face with icy water from the ewer.

The table was set for him in the dining-room. The sound of turning

machinery and a loud voice singing came from the kitchen. Mrs. Machin

appeared. In the daylight her face looked yellower, her eyes more like

oysters, and her apron more snowy than ever. She twisted her pale lips

into a smile.

“Good-morning. Will ye take porridge?”

“Please. And bacon and eggs, Mrs. Machin.”

“You don’t want them all at once, do ye?” she answered sharply.

“Oh, no,” he said, feeling rebuffed. He took his place at the table, and

hoped she noticed his displeased silence while she served him. But he

could not remain displeased; the food was good, his appetite sharp; he

smiled at her like a boy, in spite of himself.

“What’s the excitement in the kitchen?” he asked.

“Oh, that’s Phœbe separatin’. She always hollers when she does it. I’ll

tell her to stop.”

But the machine was stopping with a slow, whining rasp. Mrs. Machin went

out. Silence prevailed in the kitchen. He heard Phœbe go singing towards

the barn.

2.

A door opened from the dining-room on the flagged yard. He stood there

in the sunshine looking over his new possessions. A wide, rolling field

stretched before him to the banks of the stream, and rose beyond it in a

high, level meadow, fringed with warped trees whose stems and limbs were

bent in a single direction, away from the gently rippling lake, cowered

in their old age from the mutable master who had so cruelly lashed them

when they were but striplings.

But the stately group of trees about the house, whose massive trunks

supported such a fragile foliage that it scarcely threw a shade, seemed

never to have been fretted, but towered in upright dignity above the

solid walls. No shrubs or hedges softened the stern aspect of the place.

Grimstone fronted an unbroken view of cliff, and lake, and sky. Yet all

was not harshness, for a cherry orchard, in full bloom, crowded to the

very kitchen doors, the moist ground beneath the trees already white

with the tender petals that fell before the rough May wind. Behind the

cherry orchard rose the ordered ranks of the apple orchard barely in

bud, excepting a few crab-apple trees in pink flower, that filled the

air with their lovely scent. West and south of the orchards were the

plantations of small fruits, and, beyond them, fields and pastures, and

a dark pine wood.

Derek could see a group of figures kneeling among the rows of an immense

strawberry bed over which the collie was scampering, barking in

scatter-brain fashion at the circling gulls. He saw Newbigging and Gunn

and three barelegged village boys placing little plants in a shallow

trench. Mrs. Machin stood over them, directing the “puddling” of the

roots in a basin of earth and water, and the position of them in the

trench.

“We’re settin’ out some fresh strawberry plants,” she explained. “Them’s

Mistwell lads helping us, and they’d do naught but scuffle if I didn’t

watch them.”

“Where are the others?”

“Hugh McKay is ploughing, and Windmill has gone back to look for the

horses. Phœbe’s feedin’ the calves.”

“What buildings are those on up the road?”

“Mr. Jerrold’s stables, and Hobbs’s house. You can’t see Jerrold’s house

from here. Those are his orchards beyond the lane, and his house is hid

by them. It stands far from the road, with its back against a big wood.”

“I met the overseer, Hobbs, last night.”

“He’s a sharp ’un. But I don’t see how Mr. Jerrold could get on without

him. As it is, they can’t raise fodder enough off that great place to

feed their own creatures, but have to come buyin’ hay off us.”

Newbigging looked up from where he knelt.

“The men say that so long as they keep the horses and traps in fine

order, Mr. Jerrold don’t care a tinker’s dam about anything else.”

“Ay,” said Gunn, sitting on his heels, “and Miss Jerrold has the

gairdeners off their work half the time, plantin’ daffydils in the

woods, the way they grow wild in Scotland.”

“The Jerrolds are gentry,” said Mrs. Machin, “and you can’t expect no

better of them.”

“I don’t blame them,” said Newbigging. “I like a place to look bonny

mysel’. Don’t you call that a fine view over the sea, Mr. Vale?” He made

a broad gesture of his hand that held a strawberry plant.

“They all talk about the sea,” interrupted Mrs. Machin, “and they will

have it there’s a tide. I don’t pay no heed to views or tides. I’ve

never had no time for it.”

“Jock!” shouted Gunn to the collie. “If ye’ll no quit chasin’ they

seagulls, I’ll sort ye.”

The dog came bounding across the beds; the gulls rose, whimpering; two

steamers, passing, saluted each other hoarsely. It was a jolly thing to

be standing in the breeze on one’s own land.

“Well, I’m off exploring,” said Derek.

“Take a look at Chard’s place. There’s a farm in order. He’s what I call

a good man. He gets something out of every inch of his land.”

“And gives no heed to bonny views,” added Newbigging, slyly. Gunn and he

chuckled and giggled, glad of any diversion from work.

3.

In two hours Derek had inspected his apple, cherry, plum, and pear

trees; his thimbleberry, raspberry, and blackberry canes; leaned over

the pig-sty and held friendly converse with a Yorkshire sow which was

suckling eleven young; and searched for eggs in the poultry-house. He

had inspected the contents of the carriage-house; looked wisely at the

remainder of last year’s crops; crossed the stepping-stones of the

stream, and tried to make friends with the velvet-coated, dark-eyed

Jersey herd, grazing in the meadow next the shore.

Now he was loitering up the lane, boundary between Grimstone and Durras,

as the Jerrolds’ place was named. White and red wood-lilies, like

children at play, peeped among the undergrowth along the fence; in every

sheltered corner clumps of violets grew in moist seclusion.

He wished again that Edmund could see him. Edmund had been rather

facetious about the farm. He had counselled Derek to rent or sell it.

But Derek, though he liked his profession of architect, had often longed

for more adventurous living than the pleasant, ordered days of Halifax

could offer. He was thrilled by the thought that he owned all this

cared-for, fertile land; these grazing creatures, who did not know him

for their master; all these flowering trees, straining towards fruition;

even the tender, helpless violets were his to protect. The desire to

protect was (though unknown to himself) the strongest instinct of his

nature.

His thoughts were interrupted by a chorus of shouts and halloos in some

field ahead. There were cries of: “Head them off there! Whoa! Whoa!

They’re Vale’s horses! Catch the mare! Whoa, girl!”

He began to run. Now there were open fields on either hand. There came a

thud of horses’ hoofs. Then he saw Newbigging, Gunn, and McKay trying to

catch the galloping beasts, while Windmill stood astride of the fence

and shouted orders. Some of Mr. Jerrold’s men came running up headed by

Hobbs. He was swearing vigorously.

“Why in hell don’t you fellows mend your fences? This is the second time

in a week those horses have broken into our place.”

“Make it a month, Hobbs,” drawled Windmill.

“No. A week. . . . Look at that, now! There’ll be mischief done yet.”

Derek now perceived that only six of the animals were his; and that the

men were endeavouring to separate them from Mr. Jerrold’s horses, a much

handsomer lot, who were mingling wildly with the intruders, snorting and

giving vicious kicks as they flew past. The Grimstone horses were led by

two long-tailed Welsh ponies—mother and son, Derek afterwards

learned—and it was absurd to see the heavy farm horses capering and

careering at the beck of these vicious little fellows. The men ran till

the sweat poured down their faces, yelling, waving their arms, and

dodging kicks. At last Windmill leaped from the fence and joined the

chase. Hobbs, seeing Derek, came to him.

“I hope you’ll improve your fences, Mr. Vale. Your uncle never would.

This sort of thing’s a disgrace, happening every little while. Look at

that, now. I knew it would happen. Well, it’s not our fault.”

Blood was running down the flank of one of the Grimstone horses. He

paused for a moment, trembling, then, with a plunge that sent a spray of

red drops over the man who had approached him, he was off again.

“Fools!” muttered Hobbs, and threw down his cap. Suddenly, springing,

with surprising agility, in front of the ringleader, he caught her

dexterously by the nose and brought her sharply to a halt. Her son,

seeing his mother captured, stopped of his own accord, and laid his head

across her shoulders. In a few minutes the horses were separated and

Vale’s were being led quietly through the break in the fence by the

crestfallen men.

Derek could not but admire Hobbs for accomplishing in a flash what all

these fellows had failed to do. He came up laughing, his face red, and

self-conscious.

“I have to show ’em, every now and then,” he said. “But it’s nothing to

be cock-a-hoop about. Any live man could have done it. Miss Jerrold and

her father saw the whole thing. They are in the meadow beyond on their

horses.”

He pointed beyond the pasture. Derek saw a man on a tall grey horse, and

a woman on a slender chestnut. She rode side-saddle. He could see a

gleam of bright brown hair beneath her small black hat. He said:

“Mr. Jerrold looks to be a big man.”

“He’s the biggest man and the handsomest man in the county. There’s just

the two of them. Always together. Come on across and I’ll give ye an

introduction.”

“Thanks, not to-day. I’ll have to see about my horse. He’s bleeding

pretty freely.”

“Better telephone for the vet., and have him put a few stitches in. And

you ought to get rid of those little Welsh devils. They’re a perfect

nuisance. They were just pets of your uncle’s. Odd old fellow.”

Derek resented Hobbs’s interference. He determined to keep the ponies.

Leaving Hobbs abruptly, he went to them where they stood together

beneath a tree in the lane, reaching up with soft lips for the tender

foliage. He patted the moist, shaggy sides, and they turned to stare at

him, slowly drawing in the green leaves that projected from the corners

of their mouths.

Looking up, he saw that Hobbs had crossed the pasture and was talking to

the Jerrolds. Telling them, doubtless, that he was not cock-a-hoop over

what he had done. Perhaps telling them that their new neighbour had

refused to be introduced. . . . Well, he did not care. He would meet the

Jerrolds; but not through Hobbs.

4.

As he neared the house, he overtook a man on foot, driving a team of

yellow-maned horses, harnessed to a harrow. Two little boys ran

alongside. When the man was aware of Derek he drew up his horses and

turned to him with a wide, pale smile.

“I am your next-door neighbour,” he said, “H. P. Chard. I daresay you’ve

heard of me. I’m pleased to welcome you to the neighbourhood. We need

more enterprising young men around here.”

They shook hands. Chard’s smile deepened to a grin. “I do hope you’ll

soon feel at home here, and be one of us. I don’t know what Church you

belong to, but we all go together to the Methodist Church at Mistwell.

You’ll get a hearty welcome there.”

“Thanks. Are those your boys?”

“Yes. I’ve four boys and four girls. And they all look alike.”

Derek, observing the dingy tow heads of the youngsters, and their broad,

pasty faces, of which the nostrils seemed the only noticeable feature,

thought it a pity, but he said:

“They look lively.”

“They are. And they’re all trained to help as soon as they’re able.

We’re great workers, Mr. Vale. And I must be moving on now. It’s near

dinner-time. Good-day.”

Derek watched his figure in soiled khaki shirt and trousers move away,

with a strong feeling of distaste for the man.

As he sat at his midday dinner he suddenly remembered the harrow, and he

stopped Phœbe as she was about to return to the kitchen.

“What harrow was that Chard was taking away?”

“Oh, it was ours. He always borrers it.”

“Hasn’t he one of his own?”

“No. Mrs. Machin lets him borrer anythink he wants. He’s such a hard

worker.”

“Humph. What sort of pudding is this?”

“Spotted Dick.”

“Spotted Dick! Good Lord! Why Dick? and why spotted?” He blew a

spoonful. “It’s awfully hot.”

“It’s spotted because of the raisins, and it’s Dick—just ’cause it is.

It’s a clout puddin’, y’ see.”

He did not see, but he attacked it vigorously.

CHAPTER III

LIFT UP YOUR HEARTS

1.

By Derek’s first Sunday at Grimstone he had explored every corner of the

farm; had pushed his way through the densest undergrowth of the wood;

knew when certain cows were expected to calve, and a mare to foal; and

had even had a lesson in ploughing from Hugh McKay, which the others

ceased working to observe with tolerant amusement.

He felt a sort of peace and repose on this warm, bright morning which,

he liked to think, was the feeling experienced by labourers of the soil

on peaceful Sunday morns. He stood with Newbigging smoking in silence

while they both gazed across the lake. There was a land wind, warm, and

sweet with the fragrance of blossoms and moist earth.

“On days when it blows like this,” said Newbigging, at last, “ye can

always see yon wide strip of pinkish red next the shore. It’s awful

bonny, I think, for it makes the other part green by contrast.”

“The cliffs are red shale,” said Derek, “and I expect it extends for

some distance. As you say, it’s—bonny.”

“It makes a mon restive wi’ the fairm work, sir. Though I do like it

here, and I’ll stick by ye through the summer and the apple-pickin’.”

“Good. Can you tell me, Newbigging, what sort of trees these are? I

don’t know them. They’re alive with black squirrels. There are white

buds on the branches, too.”

“These are elm-locusts with the coarse bark. See this bit of iron

projecting. It’s just a hint, sir, of a bridle hook fastened there

generations ago, they say, for tying your horse to. But the bark’s grown

over it till it’s well nigh hidden. The others are walnut trees. They

get bushels of fine nuts off them in the autumn. That’s why there are so

many squirrels hereabouts. I think it’d be fine to be a squirrel, Mr.

Vale, always independent, and out of reach, livin’ up next the sky, and

speirin’ for nuts.”

“I’m afraid you’re a dissatisfied fellow, Newbigging,” Derek said,

laughing.

“Weel, I micht have done worse. I’d sooner be mysel’, for instance, than

Chaird yonder, goin’ off to the Methodist Chapel wi’ his fat wife, and

eight yellow-faced bairns.”

Derek had a glimpse of a waggonette, packed with his neighbour’s family

and drawn by the yellow-maned horses. Newbigging gave a sly smile. He

said:

“I suppose you’ll be wantin’ me to get the dogcart for ye? There’ll be

no time to spare.”

“Thanks; no,” said Derek. “But I suppose you and the other Scots are

going. You’re a nation of churchgoers, aren’t you?”

“When we’re at home, perhaps. But not one of the three of us have been

inside a church since we left the Old Land. But I’m English Church

mysel’. I used to sing in the choir in St. Mary’s, in Dundee, when I was

a lad.” He looked thoughtful for a moment and then he said:

“Look here, Mr. Vale. If I get the cart for ye, would ye drive to the

English Church at Brancepeth? Mr. Jerrold and his daughter go there.

It’s a pretty drive along the shore.” He looked genuinely eager.

To Derek suddenly came a recollection of the two figures on horseback,

and of the brightness of Miss Jerrold’s hair under her black hat . . .

and he had not yet seen Brancepeth. “Very well, Newbigging,” he said, “I

believe I shall go to church.”

Newbigging soon brought around a good bay gelding harnessed to a

heavy-wheeled dogcart. The road to Brancepeth lay close along the shore,

now high, and, it seemed, dangerously near the edge of the bluffs; now

dipping suddenly to cross some willow-shaded stream. Orchards in a storm

of bloom trooped almost to the water’s edge. Brancepeth was sedate,

respectable, very different from the rowdy, good-humoured poverty of

Mistwell. He left his horse in the stable of the “Duke of York,” a

deep-porched little hotel near the church.

He was late, and had half a mind not to go in. He pushed the inner green

baize door a few inches open and saw the congregation kneeling. A low

murmur came from them—“That we may hereafter live a godly, righteous,

and sober life.” . . . Like the subdued sound of waves their voices rose

and fell in solemn prayer and muffled response. Then came a scraping of

feet, a relieved heaving of bodies, and they rose. Derek felt his arm

grasped from behind, and a stout, determined-looking gentleman pushed

him irrevocably inside, and conducted him to a pew. He took a

prayer-book from the rack before him, and found the place. As he

mechanically sang the words of the _Venite_, he looked about for the

Jerrolds. Then he remembered that he had no way of recognizing them

except that Hobbs had told him that Mr. Jerrold was the handsomest man

in the countryside. Decidedly, then, he was not the man directly in

front of him with the sloping shoulders, red hair, and protruding ears.

Nor the one opposite with the officious Adam’s apple and nasal voice.

Could it have been he who led him into the church? He thought not. . . .

Then, suddenly he saw them; considerably in advance of him, across the

aisle. That was certainly the massive figure he had seen on horseback.

He seemed to rise above the commonplace figures about him like a dark

rock out of an expanse of shingle. Of his face, Derek could see only the

healthy olive cheek, and, as he turned a little, a regular profile, with

beautifully cut mouth and chin. Miss Jerrold was almost hidden by her

father, but, once, when she remained on her feet a second longer than

he, Derek had a glimpse of a fair oval face framed in the bronze-gold

hair, surmounted this time by a violet-coloured toque.

He thought of Edmund in the old garrison church at Halifax. He would

write and describe the Jerrolds to Edmund, and make him envious.

The rector was a robust, smooth-shaven man and he preached in a hearty

way, as though he enjoyed the sound of his own vibrant voice. He

preached so long that Derek lost the thread of what he was saying and

began to fidget. Mr. Jerrold began to fidget, too. He crossed and

recrossed his legs, and turned sidewise in his pew to get more room for

his length of limb. Derek could now see him very plainly. He saw him

remove his watch an inch or two from his waistcoat pocket. An expression

of chagrin crossed his handsome face. It had stopped. Surreptitiously he

began to wind it. The sound it made was scarcely audible to Derek, but

he perceived at once that the clergyman heard it. He ceased his

asseverations that the Fruit of the Spirit is long-suffering, and fixed

his eyes very sternly on Mr. Jerrold.

Mr. Jerrold’s colour rose, but he continued winding. Absolute silence

prevailed except for the one delicate, persistent sound. When he had

finished, Mr. Jerrold returned the watch to his pocket, folded his arms

on his powerful chest, and raised his eyes with a look of encouraging

interest to the clergyman. The sermon proceeded.

At last those who were not remaining for the Communion Service rose to

go. Derek felt under the pew for his hat; then he saw a whispered

conference between the Jerrolds, and hesitated. Very few were

remaining—only about twenty—among them the Jerrolds. A compelling

impulse made Derek lay his hat down. Then he half rose. Then he

encountered the stare of the man with the nasal voice, across the aisle,

and he dropped to his knees. There was a creaking of large boots, and

the man who had led him in moved up to the pew behind him. There was now

no hope of escape. He buried his face on his arm and tried to compose

his mind.

“Lift up your he-earts.” The sonorous, muffled tones came from a long

way off, it seemed.

“We lift them up unto the Lo-ord,” moaned the twenty people on a note of

abject misery.

Across his arm Vale saw Miss Jerrold’s head drooping above her clasped

hands; like some lovely flower bending to receive the dew of Heaven, he

thought, and felt surprised at his own poetic fancy. There was a

movement now towards the chancel. He shut his eyes for a time, and when

he opened them it was his turn to go forward. Mr. Jerrold and his

daughter were already in the aisle and he stepped out directly behind

them. . . . The man with the creaking boots pressed close after, and

they stood motionless for a space between the rows of staring

choir-boys, while three women who had just received the Communion filed

past them with meekly lowered eyes.

The sunlight through stained glass windows fell in ruddy efflorescence

on the white silk altar-cloth. Derek knelt, and fixed his eyes on the

solemn shine of the cross. Then altar and cross were hidden by the

billowing folds of a surplice, and sacred words were murmured above his

head. . . . When he rose to his feet his eyes fell on Mr. Jerrold. He

was still kneeling; erect and motionless as the brass eagle of the

lectern.

2.

Some impulse, and he was frequently the subject of unexpected impulses,

caused Derek to hurry from the church and climb into his cart at the

“Duke of York” without another glance in the direction of the Jerrolds.

The gelding was wild to be home, and stretched his long legs to good

purpose along the sandy road. In spite of this Mr. Jerrold overtook him,

driving a pair of spirited horses whose silver chains made a sprightly

clatter as they passed.

As Derek turned in at his own gate he saw his neighbour’s family

entering theirs. Chard saw him also and solemnly raised his whip to the

brim of his hat. When Derek next met him a degree of sourness had crept

into his pale smile.

Newbigging and Gunn took the horse, both clambering into the cart and

driving at a gallop to the stables. Derek had alighted near the open

door of the empty apple-house, and, glancing in as he passed, he saw

Phœbe and McKay inside. He had his arms around her, and evidently

pinched her, for she screamed and slapped him. His attentions to her

usually took the form of squeezing and pinching, and from their vicinity

there often issued her cries of delighted discomfort.

Indoors was a smell of hot roast beef. Derek, thinking of the two in the

apple-house, broke into a merry whistle.

3.

In the afternoon he had descended the tottering flight of steps that

were sunk into the bank before the house, and was stretched on the fine

sand listening to the cries of the gulls and the rhythmic wash of the

waves upon the shore. He was very drowsy, indeed almost asleep, when he

felt the contact of a moist tongue on his cheek, and looked up into the

face of a rough-haired Irish terrier. Mr. Jerrold was cautiously

descending the steps accompanied by two other dogs.

“If these steps give way, and I break my leg,” he called out, “you are

responsible, Mr. Vale. Come away, Badger, you rascal!” He crossed the

sand and Derek sprang to his feet.

“Mrs. Machin told me I should find you down here. I hope you’re not

hiding from her. I’m sure I’d be afraid of her. I am William Jerrold, a

neighbour of yours. I came to see if you will come over to my place and

have a cup of tea with us. I saw you in church this morning. How did you

like it?”

“That’s very kind of you,” said Vale. “I liked the church. Good sermon,

too.”

They both laughed. “My watch was rather unmanageable, wasn’t it? But

Ramsey has forgiven me. He’s at the house now. You’ll like him—out of

church, anyway.”

“I liked him in church. But his sermon was certainly long.”

“Get him talking about strawberry growing, or poultry-raising, or the

best recipe for jugged hare, and he’s decidedly interesting.”

They had climbed the steps and were walking along the road now. Derek

watched Mr. Jerrold’s face with interest as he talked. In his rough

tweed coat and soft hat he looked even more handsome than in church. His

black wavy hair, which was becoming thin at the forehead, still curled

closely around his temples. His finely moulded mouth expressed at once

engaging good humour and an ardent, quick temper. But it was his large,

dark eyes under their black brows, eyes pathetic, wistful, yet full of

fire, that stirred the emotions of the observer.

The two men were strongly contrasted, yet a boyish love of life and a

certain pleasure in their own bodies drew them together, and each found

much in the other to attract. They were talking like familiar friends

when they reached the door of Durras. A fire burned in the drawing-room

and its light was softly given back by ornaments of brass and silver,

and dark polished wood.

Derek was introduced to Miss Jerrold and Mr. Ramsey, and a stout

Aberdeen terrier was tipped from a chair to make room for him. He was

provided with a cup of tea and a scone; the Aberdeen, which a moment

before had seemed stupefied by sleep, sat up briskly before him waving

its forepaws, and fixing him with glowing, greedy eyes.

“That is Sgaith,” said Miss Jerrold. “She is a great nuisance.”

“Dear old Sgaith,” said Mr. Ramsey, “come and have a bit of scone.”

Sgaith turned to him without enthusiasm and he gave her a morsel, taking

care that her nose should not touch his hand.

“Sgaith always favours the newest friend with her attentions,” said Miss

Jerrold, as the terrier returned to Derek and again sat up with agitated

forepaws.

“She knows I like her,” said Derek in a low tone.

“And that Mr. Ramsey is only pretending to like her.” She looked into

his eyes with an amused and friendly smile. He thought he had never seen

a face in which reserve and mobility were so delicately blended.

Mr. Ramsey said: “I was delighted that you should so soon join us in

partaking of the Holy Eucharist, Mr. Vale. I am sorry to say that your

uncle was not a regular communicant. Your promptness is all the more

agreeable.”

“I was there, too,” said Mr. Jerrold, with a challenging smile.

“And equally welcome,” affirmed the clergyman.

“I had to do something to make up for the ill-behaviour of my watch.”

“Mr. Jerrold, I give you my permission to bring the clock from your

stable tower and wind it, if you will become a regular communicant.”

“That’s handsome of you, and I’ll consider it,” returned his host. “Have

another scone, Ramsey. And you, Mr. Vale. That rascal, Sgaith, has eaten

half of yours.”

“Did you notice our Communion vessels?” asked Mr. Ramsey. “They are

unusually beautiful. They were presented to the church by Queen Anne.”

“I’m afraid I didn’t. Everything was new to me, and I am very

unobservant.”

“I must let you examine them some day. The chasing is very beautiful.”

“How is your poultry?” interrupted Mr. Jerrold.

“He has the most amazing White Wyandottes,” said Miss Jerrold. “They

always lay when our hens are either moulting, or sitting, or just too

fat. Hobbs can never get our Leghorns or Dorkings to lay like that.”

“Yet he is always boasting about them,” said Mr. Ramsey. “I never meet

him but he has some record broken.”

“Hobbs is a good man with cattle,” declared Mr. Jerrold, “but he does

not understand poultry as you do.”

“They take a great deal of understanding, but they repay you in the end.

Why, bless you, I don’t know how I should make ends meet if it weren’t

for mine. I shipped forty-eight dozen eggs this week. At thirty cents a

dozen that amounts to fourteen dollars and forty cents. Not bad, eh? Of

course, the commission comes off that; still, it’s not bad. And I shall

soon have some plump broilers ready.”

“Poor little darlings,” put in Miss Jerrold.

“Oh, but, my dear young lady, we couldn’t have those young cockerels all

over the place. And they’ve had a very happy life.”

“But so short.” She looked pensive.

“I shall let all mine grow up to be hardy old cocks,” said Derek.

“And Mrs. Machin will make you eat them in the end,” retorted the

clergyman. He went on: “Now, what do you suppose happened while I was at

church this morning? I had six hens sitting in an old corn crib, and if

you’ll believe me, they all hatched their broods during the service.

Thirteen apiece. When I fed them at eight o’clock there were just a few

shells chipped. When I went to them after Matins, there were

seventy-eight little chicks, all dry, and as yellow as daffodils.

‘Worthy old hens!’ I exclaimed, ‘you have my deepest respect.’”

“When had you set them?” asked Miss Jerrold, innocently.

“Three weeks ago to the very day.”

“On a Sunday,” shouted Mr. Jerrold. “Well done, Grace! You cornered him.

The parson sets six hens on the Sabbath. No wonder my watch stopped!”

“Come, this is too cruel,” expostulated Mr. Ramsey. “What was I to do?

The hens were clucking. The eggs were warm. I said a little prayer over

each, and so made a respectable ceremony of it. The resultant chicks

look as though they had just fluttered down from Heaven.”

It was plain that he was eager to spend the remainder of the afternoon

talking about his poultry, but Mr. Jerrold proposed that they take a

stroll about the farm. He wanted to show Derek the stock, and to get Mr.

Ramsey’s opinion of a new mare.

The two older men walked ahead, Derek following with Grace Jerrold. He

felt an increasing sense of happiness in the possession of such pleasant

neighbours, especially since they seemed inclined to make him one of

their little circle.

“Do you know, it’s quite exciting to us to have a new neighbour,” she

said, as they crossed the lawn. “You have been one of the principal

topics of our conversation since you came.”

“I was afraid I was in disgrace since my horses break into your place so

often. About once a week, I think Hobbs said.”

“Oh, that just provides a little agreeable excitement for the men.

Please don’t mend the fences.”

“It was very good of your father to fetch me to tea.”

“Oh, I sent him.” She had, it seemed, an ingenuous little way of

beginning her sentences with “Oh,” like a child. Then she added quickly,

with a flush—“I thought you might be lonely—so far from home.”

“I was—a little. There are just my brother and myself. I feel very much

separated from him here.”

“It’s a lonely spot,” she said. “We have lived here six years, since I

lost my mother. I should be very lonely if father and I were not such

good companions. We go about the place together all day, and at night we

read aloud, or play cribbage.”

“I admire your father tremendously. He attracts me more than any other

man I can remember.”

Her eyes were bright with pleasure. “He is attractive, isn’t he? And

very clever, too. But, really, I believe I have the better business head

of the two. I mean I think I have a clearer grasp of the essentials, and

I don’t get enthusiastic over new projects till I’ve looked into them a

bit.”

“What’s that, Grace?” said Mr. Jerrold, turning round suddenly. “What’s

she saying about me?”

“I was remarking, William dear, that I have a better brain for business

than you. Mr. Vale says he can easily believe it.”

They were entering the stables now, and her father replied: “Well, Mr.

Vale may see for himself how I manage these.”

The new mare was inspected, a daughter of Hearts Courageous, twice

winner of the King’s Plate. But the sixty milch cows in their immaculate

stalls, the black and white of their soft coats gleaming, their

over-developed udders pink and clean, roused in Derek both admiration

and envy. His own little Jersey herd, of which he had been so proud,

dwindled to insignificance. Mr. Jerrold, and Hobbs who had joined them,

expatiated on the superior virtues of the Holstein. Hobbs said he

wouldn’t give a Jersey stable-room.

4.

It seemed natural that Derek and Grace Jerrold should eventually

separate from the others, while she took him to see the rose garden

where the tight little olive buds were barely in sight, and the kitchen

garden already heavy with the scent of lilacs. They followed the stream

that entered Durras from Grimstone till they reached a low-lying meadow

so wet they could not cross it. Here marsh marigolds crowded in golden

profusion, more brilliant, it seemed to Derek, than anything he had ever

seen.

“I think Durras is beautiful,” he said. “It is like a fine English

place. I had not expected anything so—mellow.”

“It used to be a part of Grimstone, you know, till about thirty years

ago, when our predecessor bought it from your grandfather. Aren’t you

sorry he bought it?”

“No,” said Derek, positively, “I’m very glad. I shouldn’t know what to

do with such a big slice of land. Besides, I want you for neighbours.

It’s much jollier.”

“This place is a great expense.” She drew a deep breath that was almost

a sigh.

They now were retracing their steps. A primrose yellow filled the sky

behind the burnished bloom of the cherry orchards.

They were silent a while, then, as they drew near the gate, Derek said,

“I’ve been wondering, Miss Jerrold, if I were to rig up a tennis-court,

whether you would come over and play.”

“Oh, I should love to! But why can’t we have it here? Our lawns are more

level, I think.”

“I want _some_ attraction at Grimstone,” he said, and she remarked,

though not for the first time, that look of happy expectancy in his

greenish-blue eyes.

CHAPTER IV

SALE AT DURRAS—GRETTA VAN LOWE

1.

Every spring Mr. Jerrold held a sale of his surplus cattle, and those

interested in Holstein breeding came long distances to be present. It

was the principal event of the year in the neighbourhood of Brancepeth

and Mistwell. Waggonettes, dogcarts, and motors were sent to meet the

morning trains, and a substantial lunch was set out in Hobbs’s house for

those who had made long journeys. There was also a steady stream of

farmers’ vehicles up to the time of the sale, and for two days after it

there was the business of driving or carting away the purchased stock.

The morning broke cloudy and cold. Jagged lines of foam curled across a

steel-grey lake. Farmers driving by had their collars turned up to their

ears. Jock, the collie, raced up and down the road barking ceaselessly.

Derek decided to take Windmill with him for company. He would have liked

to give the four men a half-holiday that they might all go, but he was

afraid of Mrs. Machin. There was no doubt about it, he was afraid of

her.

There she stood on the flagstones outside the kitchen door, the wind

blowing her apron in snowy folds about her stiff black person, her lips

twisted in a smile of contempt for the hurrying passers-by.

“Fools,” she said. “Tumblin’ over themselves to pay fancy prices fur

cows that’s no better than any other cows only they’re fed up till their

bags is fit to bust. You stop crammin’ the high-priced feed down ’em and

they soon stop their fancy milkin’. Them Jerrolds make me sick. I can

tell you, your uncle had no use for him.”

“Why?”

“Well, fur one thing he pays higher wages than anyone hereabouts can

afford, and that makes it hard fur the farmers to get good help. Then,

when he first come here, he asked old Mr. Vale’s advice about his small

fruit, and your uncle went over and advised him just what to do and when

to do it. But after a couple o’ seasons’ worry with pickers my fine

gentleman flew in a temper and had it all ploughed under and swore he

wouldn’t have a berry on the place. Your uncle had no respect fur him

after that. . . . Phœbe! have ye naught to do but stand gapin’ at them

ninnys goin’ by? Get back to your churn, and be quick about it.”

2.

Tiers of seats were raised about the auctioneer’s stand for the

accommodation of the crowd. These were well filled when Derek and

Windmill arrived, so they had to be content with places at the back.

From there they looked down over a lively scene. Horses and vehicles of

all sorts were tied to trees and fences on the outskirts of the crowd;

late comers were hurrying to secure what positions they could; Hobbs was

shouting orders to stablemen who were already leading out the heavy,

slow-moving animals; the auctioneer and his assistant were consulting

over a list. Mr. Jerrold sat on his grey horse near the stand, an

expression of mingled pride and amusement on his face.

The auctioneer was loquacious, animated; he punctuated the sales by racy

anecdotes; the prices paid filled Derek with surprise. More and more as

the afternoon wore on he longed to possess one of these peerless,

soft-eyed creatures as the foundation of a new and lucrative herd.

Windmill continually urged him to buy, saying that he only wished _he_

had the chance. The auctioneer drew attention to the line of the back,

the shape of the udder and teats, the milk-vein of the animal before

him. The calf at her side, he affirmed, was the sweetest thing that had

ever come under his hammer. The mother had a record of 640 pounds of

butter from 17,610 pounds of milk. He was shocked at the languid

bidding.

Truly it was getting late, and many were leaving to catch their trains.

Derek felt that it was an auspicious time to bid. After a short struggle

between himself and an unseen, husky-voiced competitor, the pair were

knocked down to him, and the auctioneer congratulated him on the

excellence of his judgment. Mr. Jerrold met him as he was leaving and

said he had done something he would never repent. He was delighted that

Gretta would be next door where he could watch her progress, for she was

one of his favourites.

Windmill remained to get the cow, and as Derek walked home, he felt a

new sense of elation and proprietorship in Grimstone.

Mrs. Machin was laying tea-towels on the gooseberry bushes in the

kitchen garden, and she turned enquiringly toward him as though to ask

how the sale had gone. For some reason he did not wish to tell her of

his purchase just then. He passed her and went on to the stream, on

whose grassy bank he could see Hugh McKay shearing sheep. Gunn,

Newbigging, and Phœbe were looking on, now and then giving a helping

hand.

The sheep lay as though dead, her pale tongue lolling, her legs stiff;

only her thick white eyelashes flickered above her yellow eyes as she

felt the shears pass over her body.

“Ah, Rosebud,” said Hugh, comfortingly, “you’re no sae bad as you think

you are.”

“It’s a fine fleece. Ain’t it, Mr. Vale?” said Phœbe.

“Wonderful. Be careful not to nip her, Hugh.”

McKay laughed. “I never cut a sheep in my life, sir. And there’s the

fleece all complete in one piece for ye. Get up, Rosebud. Are ye wantin’

to lie all day?”

She sprang suddenly to her feet and ran bleating to her twin lambs, who

stared in stupefaction, scarce recognizing their dingy, rotund mother in

this skipping, snow-white creature. They nosed her for a moment and

then, ferociously, began to suck.

There was a guffaw from Newbigging, Gunn, and Phœbe, but McKay smiled

tenderly at his handiwork.

“We’ll be haein’ a new wee lamb afore the morn,” he whispered to Vale.

“Really?” Derek looked speculatively over the little flock.

“It’s Nonesopretty, over yon. I like the new lambs awful well. I wish

ye’d get more sheep, Mr. Vale. This is a paltry few. I could do with

five times as many.”

“I bought a cow and calf at the sale,” said Derek.

Phœbe overheard. “A cow from Jerrold’s!” she cried. “Mrs. Machin will be

in a fine taking. She hates them Holsteins. She says the milk’s so poor

you could see a silver coin lying in the bottom of a pail of it.”

“I did not buy the cow to please her,” said Derek sternly.

Nothing abashed, Phœbe chattered on. McKay caught another sheep and

began shearing it. Presently they saw Windmill driving Gretta van Lowe

through the gateway, her thick-legged milk-white calf gambolling at her

side. Windmill drove her gently with an air of importance. As she came

up to the group by the stream they closed about her, admiring her fine

proportions and looking into her large, sad face. Newbigging caught the

calf by the head and held him still.

“He’s as big as a year-old Jersey heifer already,” exclaimed Windmill

proudly. “Stop your sheep-shearing and look at him, Hugh.”

“I’ve no time to spare. I’ll go down to the byre and see them later.”

“Here comes Mrs. Machin!”

She was approaching them at a slow, solemn gait. She did not speak but,

throwing a look of bitter scorn at the cow, passed on into the barn,

slamming the door behind her. She did not look in Vale’s direction for

weeks.

3.

The next morning Vale was about early. On the way to the stables he met

Hugh McKay coming to the house carrying a newborn lamb.

“I telled ye we’d be haein’ a wee lamb the morn,” he said, beaming with

happiness. “I thought I’d tak’ it to the kitchen to warm it. It’s a weak

one.”

“You are a woolly little fellow,” said Derek, stroking it. “How is

Gretta, Hugh?”

“Ah, she’ll no let down her milk nor taste her mash. She’s homesick for

the fine byre yonder. She’ll do no guid.”

Derek hurried to see her, full of anxiety.

Gretta van Lowe stood solemnly alone in the cow-stable. The stalls must

have been built for smaller cattle; her flanks projected far into the

passage. An untouched pail of mash stood before her.

“Why isn’t she out with the other cows?” Derek asked Gunn, who was

cleaning the stable.

“They all tuk after her and butted her,” he replied, grinning. “There’s

none of them like her. They dinna like the colour o’ her.”

“Rubbish. Well, turn her into the yard where she’ll get the sun. She’ll

never thrive in this dark hole. Where’s the calf?”

“In the meadow wi’ the ither calves. He’s fine.”

Majestically Gretta left the byre and lay down in the yard.

She never re-entered. When night came she refused so stubbornly to go in

with the other cows, that it was held wise to humour her. Each day after

that she seemed to decline in spirits and strength. The veterinary was

sent for and prescribed, but it was of no avail. Her milk became unfit

for use. It was plain that she was going to die. Nothing would induce

her to enter the stable, and Derek began to hate the sight of the large

black and white mound in the stable-yard. He was glad when he saw her,

at last, heaved on to a stone-boat and hauled to the woods for burial.

Mrs. Machin became affable.

“The vet. said it was ulcer of the stomach, didn’t he?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Is Mr. Jerrold goin’ to make you pay for her?”

“Just for the calf.”

“Oh, well, you can easily get a good price for him, Mr. Vale.”

“I’m not going to sell him,” said Derek, testily. “It’s my farm, and if

I want an odd bull or so for a pet, I suppose I can have it.”

Because he thought everyone was against the young bull, it became his

favourite creature on the farm.

4.

Derek had written to his brother to send him his canoe which he had left

in Halifax. It arrived one evening in June, and the Scotchmen, who had

never seen one before, carried it to the stream, Derek following with

Mrs. Machin and Phœbe, eager to see him set out.

“There isn’t money enough in Canada to pairsuade me to go oarin’ in yon

skittish thing,” said Newbigging, as the canoe slid into the water.

“I’ve knocked aboot in vessels of all sorts, but I draw the line at

egg-shells.”

“I’d go in a minute,” said Phœbe, with a look at Vale.

“You’ll do nothing of the sort,” said Mrs. Machin. “And don’t be

impident.”

At the same moment Hugh McKay pinched her, and Windmill frowned and

shook his head.

Derek was already paddling down the stream, enjoying the pleasant

feeling that the canoe was conscious of him and responded eagerly to

him. All but Mrs. Machin ran before him to the little bridge where they

collected to watch him pass beneath. He was getting very fond of them,

he thought, as he looked up at their excited, sunburned faces.

“Mr. Vale! Ye can paddle your ain canoe, noo,” called Gunn after him.

“Take me next time, Mr. Vale!” cried Phœbe; and shrieked again at a

second, severer pinch from Hugh. He was alone save for a little group of

fishing-boats in the distance, and a flock of gulls that flew high above

him, angelic creatures that beat their silvery wings against the rosy

sky.

He paddled close to the shore in the direction of Durras, half hoping to

be seen by the Jerrolds. When he guessed that he was opposite their

gates he laid his dripping paddle athwart and lit a cigarette.

Scarcely had an ash formed when the figure of Grace Jerrold appeared on

the bank above him. Outlined against the sky, and dressed in white, she

seemed akin to the shining gulls, and, like them, more of the air than

of earth.

She called, “How happy you look! Is it as nice as the North-West Arm of

the Harbour?”

“Oh, yes. But I miss the tang of salt in the air. Won’t you come for a

paddle?”

“How should I get down?”

“Fly. You look as though you might. Just spread your wings and gently

float down to this blue cushion in front of me.”

“I’d like to, but my father and I are going for a walk. I am waiting for

him.”

“To-morrow, then?”

“I’m sorry. To-morrow I am going away on a visit. It will be several

weeks. But when I come back——”

“Very well. The canoe shall be freshly varnished and the tennis-court

got ready.”

Mr. Jerrold joined his daughter and the two stood looking down at Vale

as he paddled away.

“How well he paddles.”

“I can paddle just as well,” said her father. “I shall go out with him

sometimes while you are away, dear.”

“Oh, please don’t, William! You are much too heavy for a canoe. Promise

me, or I shan’t have a minute’s peace.”

“But I can swim like a fish, Gay.”

“I know. But I don’t want you two out in a canoe. You’re both too

reckless.”

“Vale reckless?”

“Oh, yes. I think there’s a headlong look in his eyes.”

“And what sort of look is there in mine?” he asked, bending them on her.

“A look of a wild eagle. Will you promise?”

“Yes, darling. May I have him to dinner, then? Or are you afraid we

should overeat?”

“Yes, have him to dinner. Look, he is almost out of sight.”

They turned to walk, holding each other’s hands. The sun was gone and

the clear, pale moon was gaining colour every moment. The gulls, too,

had disappeared, and in their place a flock of cliff swallows darted

about, silent as bats.

CHAPTER V

DARK WATER-LILIES

1.

The canoe had been varnished; the tennis-court was in process of

preparation. Mrs. Machin grumbled because he took the men from their

work to help him with his play. One morning in the latter part of June,

she marched over to him, as he was directing the rolling of the lawn by

Gunn and Newbigging, and said:

“Them fellas will just have to leave off that foolery to-day, and help

get the Indians’ shack ready. They’ve sent word that they’ll be here

to-morrow, and they’ll be mad if they find the roof not mended. They was

nearly flooded out before they left last year. Of course, if you don’t

care, Mr. Vale, what sort of accommodation you give the poor things, it

don’t matter to me.” She folded her arms across her stomach and stared

into the lake.

“I didn’t know they were coming,” said Vale, meekly. “Is that the little

house in the orchard?”

“Yes. How did ye s’pose the fruit got picked? The strawberries is tame,

but they won’t hop off the vines into the baskets themselves, I can tell

ye. With this hot sun there’ll be a pickin’ ready in a day or two.”

“Very well. I’ll let them off in a few minutes.” And he persisted for a

time in rolling, while Mrs. Machin stood by, impatient and contemptuous.

He would not let her domineer over him before the men, for he had seen

them grinning on more than one occasion, when he had been worsted by

her.

Derek had scarcely noticed the small shack in the far end of the

orchard. It was so dilapidated, so weather-beaten that he had supposed

it to be but an unused out-house.

Now he stood dismayed at the squalor of the hovel. It had been thrown

together of odds and ends of boards; the roof had been covered with

tar-paper, now flapping loosely; the one small window showed the bare

interior. The mud floor was still wet from spring rains, the walls were

lined with bunks half filled with evil-smelling straw. Under a lean-to

outside he saw a cooking-stove red with rust, and, beneath the trees, a

long table with benches on either side.

“This is horrible,” he said. “Do you mean to say they sleep here?”

“Indeed they do,” said Mrs. Machin, “and it’s better than they get lots

of places. I know of farms where they just live in the barns and sleep

in the mow.”

“Just the same,” put in Windmill, “the Government is putting a stop to

that sort of thing. If an inspector comes round and finds them all

sleeping in one room you’re liable to get into trouble.”

“How many are there?”

“About fifteen. Old Solomon Sharroe, his wife, two daughters and their

husbands, some younger boys and girls, and Jammery. He’s quite above the

rest of them.”

“We must get another room fixed up for those women. I won’t stand their

living like animals.”

“Your uncle never minded,” said Mrs. Machin.

“Well, he should have been ashamed of himself.”

“Look here,” said Windmill, “there’s a pile of timber down by the barn.

I believe we could run up an extra room for the women in no time.”

“And I shall drive to Brancepeth,” said Vale, “and buy a couple of

bedsteads and a chest of drawers.”

Mrs. Machin’s disgust was so deep that she could not abide to listen to

their plans. Calling Phœbe, she stalked gloomily down the orchard path,

wondering audibly how long Grimstone would endure under such

mismanagement.

2.

The men, delighted by a change of work, threw themselves heartily into

the building of the additional room. By evening of the next day, it was

not only built but the bedsteads, the chest of drawers, and a small

looking-glass had been arranged inside. However, Derek held it as only a

makeshift, and determined that before the next fruit season, he would

have a proper cottage where the Indians could dispose themselves

properly. He was eager to meet them and see their pleasure in the new

comforts he had provided.

He rose early the next morning after the shack had been completed, and,

after breakfast, strolled through the orchard to take a final look at

it. He thought it would look rather jolly when a spiral of blue smoke

curled from the rusty stove-pipe. He opened the cupboard door and looked

complacently at the gaudy new set of dishes he had bought at Brancepeth.

A sound of children’s voices made him start. He saw what seemed a long

procession of dusky people coming up the orchard path. Four little girls

danced ahead while the men and women approached slowly, laden with

burdens and infants. A boy of ten came last, carrying on his back an

idiot boy a couple of years younger.

The women chattered cheerfully in Indian, as they came up, and stared in

a friendly, amused way at Derek and the addition to the shack.

“I s’pose you’re Mr. Vale,” said a tall old man coming up to Derek.

“Mrs. Machin, she told us we’d find you up hereabouts. I’m Solomon

Sharroe, an’ all these folks is my family. We’ve been pickin’ fur your

uncle a good many years. You like livin’ here?”

“Yes,” said Vale, “and I’m very glad to see you. The strawberries need

your attention, I think.”

“We get something to eat now, and then me and the other men start in.

The women will want the rest of the day fur gettin’ settled.” His dark

eyes rested indulgently on the group of women and girls, who were

already lighting a fire in the stove and unpacking bread, bacon, and

bottles of pickles from a basket.

There was a grave dignity about the old man that pleased Derek. His

rugged, bronze face, high, deeply lined forehead surmounted by a thatch

of thick iron-grey hair, gave no evidence of racial degeneration. The

women, too, were attractive, plump, round-faced, with soft, quick

movements and shy, sidelong glances at him. The young men had

disappeared inside the shack, but one of them now came out and Solomon

motioned him to approach.

“This is Jammery,” he announced with a wave of his dark hand on which

shone a silver ring. Jammery held out his hand.

“How do you do, Mr. Vale?” he said in a soft voice.

Vale took the proffered hand. It was small, very smooth, and limp. He

returned his own to his pocket after the contact.

“Are you a son or son-in-law?” he asked, the old man having been called

away by his wife.

“Neither.” Jammery stroked his slender, black moustache. “I’m no

relation to these people. I’ve just thrown my lot in with theirs for a

while. I’m not much of an Indian.”

“No, I see that.” He was, indeed, only olive in complexion. “You speak

English well.”

Jammery gave a shrug. “I can scarcely speak Indian at all. But I know

what they say.”

“I suppose Jammery was originally Jean-Marie.”

He shrugged again. “No idea,” he said. “It’s my first, last, and middle

name. The only one I’ve got.”

Derek looked him over curiously, wondering what wild and picturesque

past had gone to the making of this handsome, unscrupulous-looking

little fellow. “Well,” he said, “if you need anything let me know. I

want you to be as comfortable as possible.”

“Thank you,” said Jammery. “Lots of the fruit-growers don’t care how we

live so long as they get plenty of work out of us. They don’t treat us

as well as their animals.”

3.

A new life and activity took possession of Grimstone. It seemed to Vale

that in whatever direction he looked he saw one of the dark tribe of

pickers. The men and older women set stolidly to work in the strawberry

beds; the two young boys ran continually from the barn to the shack

carrying armfuls of straw or tin pails of water; when he went to the

kitchen the round faces of two twelve-year-old girls were pressed

against the screen door. “Phœbe,” one of them was calling, “kin we git a

point of milk?” Seeing Vale she smiled broadly.

“What is your name, youngster?” he asked.

“Beulah. This here’s my niece, my oldest sister’s girl. Ain’t she

white?” This with candid pride. “The Government gent he wouldn’t give

her no allowance last time—she was so white.”

The girl’s skin was indeed white, but she preserved a stoical Indian

calm while being discussed. Laughing-eyed Beulah chattered on: “Will you

come and see our gorden? It’s terr’ble pretty. We’ll git the point of

milk when we come back. The gorden’s on the shore, won’t you come? Gosh!

you’ve got pretty hair.”

Derek suffered himself to be led by Beulah and her solemn niece, Alma,

to the shore. He had no idea what a “gordon” was, but he liked children,

especially dark-eyed little girls. They made him feel weakly

good-humoured, almost helpless. On the sand three younger girls were

bending over a miniature garden, made of bits of water-weeds and

flowering grass and intersected by paved walks of broken glass and

coloured stones. Derek was amazed at the nice care with which the

pattern was laid, and the dainty gestures of the small brown hands as

they placed a pebble or were clapped together in delight. He sat down on

the sand beside them and began to build a wall around the “gorden.” The

children pressed about him and ran to fetch little shells to ornament

the top of the wall. He caught the smallest in his hands and rolled her

on the sands. “Oh, you are a fonny man!” they shrieked. They found a

long grey quill from a gull’s wing and stuck it in his hair, chuckling,

“Now you are an Indian, like us.”

Even when darkness came they were not to be ignored. A shaft of light

struck through the orchard from a lantern hung by the door of the shack,

and a great blaze danced up from the shore where they made a bonfire at

the water’s edge.

Vale, sitting with his pipe on the porch, could see flames leaping above

the crest of the bluff, and he began to feel nervous lest the flying

sparks should do damage. Mrs. Machin had driven into Mistwell or she

would have gone down to them, he knew. By the screams and shrill

laughter he felt sure that the young women and girls were in bathing and

had made the fire to warm and dry themselves.

Half amused, more than a little annoyed, he crossed the lawn, quietly

passed through the gate and hid himself in the clump of stunted cedars

that overlooked the shore. His nostrils were tickled by a pungent odour

that quenched the sweetness of the locust flowers. Ruddy tongues licked

about a heap of driftwood and cast their fierce reflection on the water

next the shore. In this molten pool five little girls, three young

women, and a boy of fourteen were bathing. The boy, like a bronze imp,

chased one after another of his naked sisters, the captured one being

roughly splashed, and then held under water despite her cries. Their

smooth, brown bodies caught the glow from the fire like copper urns;

Derek could see even the jewel-like glitter of their eyes. He watched

them smiling, forgetting his annoyance.

The boy, soon tiring of his easy prey, swam outward into the darkness.

One of the girls raised her arms to her head to fasten the long wet hair

that had fallen about her shoulders. Derek’s heart gave a sudden leap; a

hot thrill of pleasure stirred, like a pain, in his breast. She seemed

to rise, a dark water-lily on its stem, a flower of unearthly beauty,

springing from the water, fed by the flames, filling the night air with

the perfume of her desire. At her side the dark head of the smallest

child lay on the water between its outstretched arms like an

olive-tinted bud. It was a moonless night and the sky hung low, dark as

a bowl of wine.

All the bathers were motionless now, or nearly so. Yes, they were

water-lilies, resting languorously in this secret place, their petals

drawn together, holding the sweetness of the night.

He gazed at them each in turn, but found none so lovely as she whose

slender arms still curved above her head.

She left the water and came slowly to the fire; picking up a cloth, she

began languidly to dry her breast. Her sisters followed her, and, as

they crouched together, their interlacing limbs made intricate linear

designs against the sombre glow of the subsiding fire.

When they had drawn on their dresses they ascended the steps in the

bank, talking softly in Indian. Their mood of noisy gaiety seemed to

have passed; their faces were pensive, even sad. They were so near for a

moment that he might have touched them. He longed to put out his hand

and draw that supple, sweetest one in among the cedars, hold her in his

arms, and tell her how beautiful she was.

Their feet made a little rustling in the grass; the gate creaked and

they were gone.

The boy, returning to the shore, and finding himself deserted, began

carefully to extinguish the fire. With sand and stones he smothered it,

and, running up the steps, passed Derek, loudly whistling.

Once more the perfume of the locust flowers drenched the air; with it

mingled the sharp, sweet smell of the cedars, and the faint odour of

burnt wood. The waves commenced a sudden, crisp lapping on the shore, as

though the business of the night had just begun. All about his feet he

saw the dim, white heads of mushrooms.

“I must have some of those for my breakfast,” he thought.

He re-lit his pipe and sauntered to the house.

CHAPTER VI

CHERRIES AT DAWN

1.

A man could not help but feel proud to see the baskets of plump, ripe

strawberries spread in rows over the barn floor. They were so fresh, so

excellent, that they could not fail to bring the highest price. Phœbe,

kneeling on the floor, packed them into crates, each holding two dozen

boxes. Mrs. Machin, sitting on a chair, examined each carrier of six

boxes, as it was brought in, and, if it were satisfactory, paid the

picker in tickets valued at one cent each. Solomon Sharroe and Jammery,

she told Vale, were the best pickers, and could pick four hundred boxes

each in a day, in the height of the season. The women picked well but

were not to be depended on, often leaving the patch half picked, to take

the tram-car to Brancepeth, where they would spend all their earnings on

fancy shoes and hats, and, often, their men’s earnings too.

Vale had taken up a basket and was picking out the largest berries and

eating them with a boy’s mischievous pleasure in Mrs. Machin’s

disapproving glances. He dropped one to a rangy Dorking rooster which

was picking in the straw at his feet. The bird, snatching up the

unexpected prize, gallantly called his hens who came with long strides

from the barnyard, wings spread and beaks agape. The crimson berry was

presented with coaxing clucks to the favourite, who gulped it whole and

pecked greedily at the juice on her lord’s yellow beak. Vale began

tossing berries to the other hens.

“I will not have them fowls encouraged to come into the barn,” exclaimed

Mrs. Machin, angrily.

“But they like the berries,” protested Vale.

“Well, give them the whole mornin’s pickin’, then. I wash my hands of

it.” She jumped to her feet.

“Sit down. Sit down,” soothed Vale. “I’ll take them somewhere else. This

young Indian can help me shoo them out.”

“I’ll help you,” cried Phœbe.

“You’ll do nothing of the sort,” said Mrs. Machin. “I never see such a

girl. She’d sooner do anything under the sun than her proper work. Here,

Fawnie, help Mr. Vale scare these hens away and don’t set them floppin’

over the berries neither.”

The young girl set down the carrier she had brought and began gently to

urge the fowls through the door. Derek went ahead dropping berries

before them. He saw that she was the girl he had watched the night

before, whose shining brown-black hair had fallen about her wet

shoulders. He scarcely glanced at her but led the way around the barn

towards the poultry-house, which was partitioned by wire netting from

the byre.

“I think we had better put them inside,” he said, “and shut the door or

they will follow us straight back to the berries.” He opened the

half-door and entered the poultry-house backwards. He set the remainder

of the basket of berries in the straw on the floor. Instantly it was

covered by a tangle of wings, beaks, and wattles. He shut the door and

smiled at the girl. “That was neatly done. They’re all in, I think.”

The open windows looked over a stream and a flat meadow where the sheep

were grazing.

“The little new lambs are awful pretty,” she said in a soft, husky

voice.

“Yes, aren’t they?” He stared openly at her now, trying to recapture the

sensation of the night before. But now he saw only a pretty Indian girl

whose straight little body was covered by a coarse blue dress, who had

an empty berry-basket on her stomach, and whose pouting lips were

stained by the fruit to a brighter red. There was no mystery now, no

thrill, but she was amusing; and those fawn’s eyes of hers . . . they

called her Fawnie . . . and that round coffee-coloured neck with the

soft lock on the nape.

“I like eggs,” she was drawling, while she peered into the nests.

“Here’s a big brown one—as hot as hot——” She put it in his hand.

“That ole black hen laid it. She’s mad because I took it.”

He dropped the warm egg in her berry-basket. “Keep it,” he said, “and

cook it for your tea, Fawnie.”

“Here’s five more. All white. I do like white eggs. They’re jus’ laid

too. Hot as hot. Feel.”

“Take them, too. But don’t mention it to Mrs. Machin.” He flushed as he

said this. He was really afraid of her then . . . no—not afraid, but he

did not want her interference.

“Tell you what I’ll do! I’ll set them. You jus’ lend me this ole black

hen that’s all rumpled up cluckin’ an’ I’ll take her up to the shack an’

set her and get some nice little chicks, eh?” Her eyes sparkled, he

could see his face reflected in them . . . useless for him to resist

dark-eyed little girls. . . . “Take her, then,” he said weakly. Good

Lord, she was only seventeen! If she wanted a hen to set, why not?

They chased the hen, caught her; Fawnie pressed her firmly against her

side while they searched for more eggs. In the horse-stable they found

seven—five on a shelf inside an old horse-collar, two in the manger of

one of the Welsh ponies, wet with his slobber.

They set out like children, Derek carrying the eggs in his hat. They

took a roundabout way to the shack through the arching blackberry and

thimbleberry canes. Two babies rolled on a blanket on the beaten earth,

by the door, tended by an older child. The idiot boy, perched in the

crotch of an apple tree, stared blinking at the sky.

“Where shall we set her?” asked Derek.

“Under my bunk,” she chuckled. “It’s nice an’ dark there.”

“Oh no. I’ll get a coop and set her in the orchard.”

“The ole woman’d find her there first thing. I want her under my bunk.”

She stroked the hen’s head with a brown, supple hand.

“Very well. Which is your bunk?” They went into the dim hut, stuffy with

the smell of straw and old clothes.

“Beulah and Alma and me sleeps in this one,” she said, crouching before

one of the lower bunks. “You hold the hen.”

He held the warm bundle of feathers while she dragged forth an empty box

and half filled it with straw pulled from her bed. Derek felt hypnotized

by her soft, swift movements. She talked in a little muttering way to

herself as she arranged the nest:

“Here’s nice yaller straw already warmed—here’s a nasty ole

thistle—get out, you ole prickly thistle, on the floor—I hope Alma

will step on you—here’s a pigeon’s feather sure enough—that brings

luck—come, lazy-bones”—reaching up for the hen—“get on your eggs an’

mind you hatch ’em all out or Derek will pluck you alive, won’t you,

Derek?”

Derek lit a cigarette to drown the odours of the shack. “Who

told—you—my name?” he asked, between puffs.

“I heerd Phœbe an’ Bob Gunn talkin’ about you an’ they called you Derek.

They said you was afraid of Mrs. Machin. Are you?”

“A little,” he admitted. “Are you?”

“Not a bit. I ain’t afraid of nobody—except Jammery. . . . If any of

them kids touches this hen o’ mine I’ll chop their heads off. Ain’t she

nice?”

The hen was settling herself on the nest with elaborate care. Every

feather on end, she drew the eggs under the body by convulsive movements

of her encircling wings. With her beak she pressed the last one under

her full, downy breast. She looked from side to side to make sure that

none protruded, then, with a last shudder of sensuous delight, she half

closed her eyes, parted her beak, and settled down to her twenty-one

days’ vigil and retreat.

2.

It was an extraordinary fine season for fruit. The strawberries ran a

luxuriant course, without burning heat to shrivel them or storms to beat

them into the soil. Cherries were not successful everywhere, but the

cherries at Grimstone hung in large, plump clusters that almost hid the

foliage. The raspberries were the finest in years, and a good crop of

pears and apples was promised. Not only was there an abundance of fruit

but the stock was doing well. Six of the ewes had twins, there were

seven little Jersey calves, and a likely-looking foal. In the heavy soil

at the back of the farm there was a fine showing of oats, wheat, and

plump roots. Derek had had the fences between Grimstone and Durras

mended and intended in the autumn to paint some of the out-buildings and

build new houses for the pigs and poultry, separate from the other

stock. He wrote enthusiastic letters to his brother, urging him to pay

him a visit while the fruit was in its prime and the boating and bathing

good.

He was eating his bacon and eggs one morning, his brain busy with

agreeable plans, when he heard excited voices in the kitchen.

“I’ll go and tell him,” he heard Phœbe say.

“You’ll do nothing of the sort,” came sharply from Mrs. Machin, “just

let me get my hands out of this flour and I’ll tell him myself.”

Then Newbigging spoke: “Whist, can’t ye? I’ll go mysel’.”

He came to the door, cap in hand.

“Weel,” he announced, with a grin, “they’ve flitted.”

“Flitted? Who? Where?”

“The Indians. They’ve all gone to Chaird’s to pick. There’s neither hide

nor hair o’ them aboot the place.” The others crowded about him, staring

in at Derek.

He set down his teapot with a bang. Why was bad news so often announced

in the middle of a comfortable meal? “Why did they go?” he asked. “What

do you expect me to do about it?”

“Chaird has gie’d them a fine new cottage he had built for his parents

who died last winter, and he has twice as many raspberry canes an’

currants an’ black-caps coming on. His missus is goin’ to teach the

girls to sew an’ read, and she’s goin’ to doctor the bairn that has

fits.”

“He wouldn’t have dared do this in your uncle’s time, the scoundrel,”

said Mrs. Machin.

“You’re changing your tune about him, aren’t you?” said Windmill,

sarcastically. “But he’s only living up to his reputation for

shrewdness.”

“Good God,” said Vale, “what shall we do? Can’t we force them to come

back? The cherries are fairly dropping off the trees for ripeness.”

No one answered him. They had turned back to the kitchen with angry

looks towards someone who had come in. Then Derek heard the soft voice

of Jammery. He followed the others into the kitchen.

Jammery stood in the open doorway, an amused smile curving his sensitive

lips.

“Well,” cried Mrs. Machin, “this is a nice way to treat us after all

these years, and all we’ve done for you.”

“It’s not my fault, really,” protested Jammery. “It’s the old man. Mr.

Chard got around him somehow, and we’ve got to do what he says or he and

the old woman’d make the place too hot to hold us.”

“What is to become of my fruit?” demanded Vale. “Where are the white

pickers who used to pick for Chard—the mean cur? Could we get them?”

“They have a prejudice agin us here because we’ve always employed

Indians,” said Mrs. Machin. “But we’ve got to get pickers from

somewheres, for to-morrow’s the last day for the Saturday market.”

“I was thinking,” said Jammery, “that if Mr. Vale will pay my way I’ll

go to Brancepeth and see a family of Indians I know there. I might be

able to get them.”

“If you do I’ll make it worth your while.” Already Vale was growing

hopeful for his cherries. “And you fellows,” he added, turning to his

men, “can get busy and help pick. I shall take a hand at it myself.”

“I’m cuttin’ hay,” protested Hugh McKay.

“Cuttin’ hay, are you?” snapped Mrs. Machin. “I’m glad you told me. I

thought you was just standin’ there gapin’.”

“Weel, I’m goin’ to cut it, if I can ever get out o’ this kitchen,”

shouted McKay, angrily, and, pushing Jammery out of his way, he flung

off to his fields.

Mrs. Machin turned to Windmill. “You take the light waggon and go into

Mistwell and see what left-overs you can pick up. Tell them the pickin’s

fine and there’ll be hot tea supplied at noon. Bob and Jim and Phœbe and

I can turn right in now.”

That afternoon as Derek stood beside a prolific young Montmorency,

dropping its blood-red clusters into an eleven-quart basket at his feet,

Mr. Jerrold called.

“I hear your Indians have decamped,” he said. “Gone over to our friend

Chard, eh?”

“Yes. We’re all doing our best to save the cherries, but the raspberries

need going over and I don’t see how it’s to be done. Jammery went to

Brancepeth after pickers. Had no luck at all. And I wish you could see

the bunch Windmill got at Mistwell: two fat old women, three little

boys, and a young married woman named Orde with a two-year-old child

that has to be suckled every ten minutes or so.”

“Oh, I know the Ordes. He fishes in the winter and loafs all summer

while she supports him by picking berries. I tell you, Vale, small fruit

is the very devil. That’s why I ploughed mine under. I know a poor chap

from the city who got a place beyond mine, and planted an immense lot of

gooseberries. Last summer he came to me with tears streaming down his

face. He couldn’t get a soul to pick the damned gooseberries and he had

been working at them alone till he was worn to fiddle-strings and his

hands all scratched and bleeding. His wife was going to have a baby,

too.”

“Lord! What became of them?”

“We got a spell of heat and drought then and they all withered up on

him. He was sold out last spring.”

“Poor beggar. Well, Jammery’s coming over at daybreak to-morrow to pick

till noon when we ship. He is quite a decent fellow.”

“I shouldn’t trust him. Look here what I’ve done for you.” Holding his

walking-stick under one arm he had picked cherries till one large,

shapely hand was brimming.

“Fine,” said Derek, “just drop them in the basket.”

“I’ll light a cigar before I pick any more. Have one?”

“No, thanks. Too busy.”

“I wish Gay were here. She’d enjoy this.”

“When is she coming back?”

“Very soon. She can’t stay away from her father very long.”

Newbigging came up, a full basket in either hand. “Hoo many hae ye

plucked, Mr. Vale?” he asked, cheerily.

“This is my third. How are the Mistwell folk getting on?”

“Not too bad. Mrs. Orde’s away the best, but she has to back down her

ladder every wee while to nurse the bairn.”

The child, unspeakably dirty, ran up to Newbigging and began to throw

handfuls of earth on him. “Aw, Tommy,” said the Scot, “it’s a guid thing

for you I’m no your dada.”

The boy galloped back to the foot of the ladder up which he could see

his mother’s draggled skirt. “Mammy! Mammy!” he yelled, and beat on the

rungs with his fists.

“Little brute,” said Mr. Jerrold. He hung his stick on a branch, and the

two men worked in agreeable silence, broken only by the soft dropping of

fruit into the basket, and now and then, a snatch of jiggy song from the

tree where Gunn was perched. The smoke of Mr. Jerrold’s cigar hung in

fragrant blue wisps among the cherries.

3.

Vale was awakened by the same noise that had disturbed him on his first

morning at Grimstone, the boisterous gobble of the turkey-cock. He sat

up in bed and through the open window could barely see them as they

passed, for it was not yet sunrise. The white hen-turkey came last,

uttering little liquid sounds like dropping water.

He remembered his cherries with a pang. Oh, that those treacherous

Redskins were safely back at their job! Well, there was Jammery this

morning, at any rate. He made up his mind to be out before any of the

household. It would be a good thing, he thought, for them to see that he

would do everything in his power to prevent waste, and it would be

pleasant among the trees before the sun was up. He drew on a thin jersey

and a pair of old duck trousers.

The bees were already humming in the tops of the locust trees. A pale

saffron streak lay between lake and sky. A faint half-moon behind the

orchard was casting her last, timid gaze upon the world.

He went to the apple-house and got some empty baskets, then entered the

regular rows of the cherry orchard. Besides numerous ladders there were

several tall wooden stands on top of which two people could sit at ease

and strip the highest branches. Peering up, he could see Fawnie sitting

cross-legged on one of these, her dress dimly blue as the brightening

sky, her hair hanging unbound about her shoulders.

“Come on up,” she said, softly, leaning towards him, “come and sit

alongside o’ me. I’ll learn you how to pick our way.”

He clambered up the rungs and sat beside her, his legs dangling. “This

is ripping,” he laughed. “I didn’t expect anything so exciting.”

“Don’ you get excited or you’ll fall.”

He lit a cigarette. “Do you smoke, Fawnie? Will you try one?”

“I take a puff at the ole woman’s pipe sometimes when she’s not lookin’,

but I don’ want one o’ them.”

“Why?”

“It’d be like flirtin’, surely.” She resumed her cherry-picking with

deft fingers.

Vale laughed and began to pick, too. “I was surprised to find you here,

Fawnie.”

“I wanted to help you, and Jammery said I could. We’ve been here since

the first crack o’ day.”

“Good girl. I’ll do something nice for you.”

“What?” She was choosing two pairs of the finest cherries from her

basket.

“What would you like?”

She hung the cherries over her ears like scarlet ear-rings and looked at

him. The ruddy shine of the fruit, hardly fresher than her pouting lips;

the dark masses of her hair, her slender, coffee-coloured neck, her

slanting, humid eyes, awoke in Derek the same sensation he had had when

he watched her bathe. He experienced an intense consciousness of the

earth—mother of him and of all thriving, air-sucking things—men, deer

in the forest, trees interlacing their branches in the wind and their

roots in the life-giving soil—all driven by the same force, all feeling

the same, sharp, sweet urge. . . . He took her in his arms and kissed

her quickly on the cheeks and mouth. They clung together till the voice

of Newbigging below made them start apart.

“Hoo many hae ye plucked, master?” he said, with a broad grin on his

upturned face.

Vale looked down at him sternly. “Get about your work, Newbigging. If I

have any cheek from you, you’ll go.”

He was abashed, mortified at being caught in such a position. He fancied

the jests that would pass among the men. He stared, red-faced, at his

dangling boots for a space, and then muttered, sulkily:

“You’re a little baggage, Fawnie.”

She smiled at him from under her lashes. “You mean I act like I was

white,” she said.

CHAPTER VII

THE FOLLY OF SOLOMON

1.

“They’re goin’ to flit again,” said Newbigging.

“The Indians?” asked Vale.

“Ay. They’re leavin’ Chaird in the lurch this time. That is, they’re all

leavin’ but the eldest daughter and her husband, and young Fawnie and

Jammery. Chaird’s fair wild.”

“I suppose he’ll be after my few Mistwell pickers now.”

“He’ll never get them. They’re insulted because he turned them away for

Indians.”

“But why are they leaving?”

“It’s the auld man—Solomon. He was fiddlin’ away at the door of his

cottage yesterday when up marched Chaird and told him that the

black-caps were droppin’ off the bushes. ‘Let ’em drop,’ says Solomon.

‘The spirit’s on me to fiddle and I’ve got to fiddle though every berry

in the country rots.’ Chaird said he would not have an Indian on his

farm who would not pick every day and all day. Solomon said that was all

very well for squaws, but he was a chief and a gentleman and old Mr.

Vale had always treated him as such. This morning he and his family are

all packed up ready to go to Reuben MacNeil, who grows hops as well as

fruit, so auld Solomon says he’ll ‘make plenty money’ there. It sairves

Chaird right, and nobody’s sorry for him.”

Derek, however, could not help feeling sorry for Chard. He had

experienced so much anxiety himself over his cherries and raspberries

and had lost such a considerable portion of the crop through lack of

pickers, that, though Chard had been the cause of his troubles, he felt

himself better able to bear the loss than a man with a family of young

children. He had heard, too, that Mrs. Chard worked slavishly between

her periods of child-bearing, and now there would be still more to do.

He felt disgusted with the Indians. They were like naughty children. Yet

they were infinitely more efficient as pickers than the women and boys

of Mistwell. He could see some of the boys now scuffling among the

black-caps, probably trampling them. He told Newbigging to go and make

order among them, and himself went to inspect the raspberries. They were

almost over, and gentle little Mrs. Orde was cleaning up the last of

them, handicapped, as usual, by her greedy son.

He strolled among the canes, the new growth as high as his shoulder, the

last, sun-warmed berries smelling strangely sweet, like violets. Some

milkweed had come up among them and, here and there, a bursting pod

scattered its shimmering fluff. He found the nest of a yellow warbler

dangling, light and dried, from a curving cane. It seemed abnormally

deep and when he pulled it apart to examine it he discovered a tiny

separate compartment in the bottom almost filled by a large, whitish egg

and a very small blue one.

“Look here, Fawnie,” he called, for he saw her wandering among the canes

a short way off. She came slowly, picking raspberries and poking them

into her childish mouth. “I’m gettin’ my breakfas’ off your berry

patch,” she said. “I’m mad at everybody and I won’ eat with them.”

“What made you mad, Fawnie?”

“The ole man. He wants me to go pickin’ hops and I won’t. I got my hen

and chickens to look after, and Jammery and me’s goin’ to pick

thimbleberries for you. . . . What’s that you got?”

He showed her the strange nest.

She chuckled. “Oh, don’ you know what that’s for, Derek? Gosh, them

little birds are sly! I’ll tell you now. They built their nice little

nest, and the little squaw-bird, she laid a pretty blue egg in it, then

she flew away to eat a strawberry and rest awhile before she laid some

more. When she got back her ole man was perched on the side of the nest,

scratchin’ his head and lookin’ awful mad. ‘Come here, missus,’ he says,

‘and jus’ see what some darned cowbird’s did. Laid her egg alongside

what’s goin’ to be our little papoose.’ She hurried up to see if he was

lyin’, ’cos he often lied to her. But this time, sure enough, he was

tellin’ the truth. She swore pretty fierce and pecked him ’cos he hadn’t

guarded her egg better. Then they both set to work and built a new

bottom to the nest, right on top of the cowbird’s egg, and then she laid

some more eggs and hatched ’em out, but the cowbird’s egg got cold and

died—and so did her first poor little egg lyin’ there beside it. But

the ole man thought, ‘Oh, well, I don’ care—it’s one less to feed.’”

She smiled roguishly and shrugged her plump shoulders. “You like that

story? Yes? Well, kiss me, then.”

“I like your story, but your cheeks are berry-stained and if I kissed

you everyone would know. The stains are purple. Have you been trying the

thimbleberries? You’ll be sick, Fawnie, they’re not ripe.”

“Yes, they’re gettin’ ripe fast—millions of them. Oh, I forgot, Derek,

my paw wants to see you. He’s waitin’ by the shack. Come along.”

“Do you think he’s coming back to pick for me?” asked Derek, hopefully,

as they passed the thimbleberry canes whose purple clusters of fruit

were becoming dark and shiny.

“No. He’s goin’ to MacNeil’s to pick hops. But he wants to see you

first.”

They found Solomon Sharroe sitting on the edge of the long table beneath

the apple trees. His wife inside the shack was making a bundle of some

bedding. Fawnie’s hen, with her lusty, fluttering brood about her, was

scratching in the doorway. Solomon greeted Derek with a dignified

inclination of his iron-grey head.

“Mr. Vale,” he said, “I am goin’ to leave Chard to-day and take all my

family except Esther and her husband, and Jammery.”

“And me, paw!” cried Fawnie. “I’m goin’ to stay.”

“You’re goin’ to stay,” repeated Solomon, with a scornful gesture of his

dark hand. “Nobody cares what you’re goin’ to do because you’re so lazy.

Even Beulah, who is four years younger, picks faster than you. Yet when

the hot bread and the ham and the pickles are put on the table, you are

the first one to sit down and eat all you kin.” He turned to Derek with

a sombre smile. “There is no harm in her, but she was made for play. The

man who marries her will have to pick for the two of them.”

“I wish you would come back to me,” said Derek, abruptly, his eyes on

the vast stretch of his thimbleberry canes, almost threatening in their

imminent ripeness. “You know I never interfere with you.”

“You are a gentleman,” said Solomon, simply, “and I am a chief. I have

given my word to Mr. MacNeil that I will take my family to him to-day,

but next season we will come to you and stay till the last Spy ripens,

if you need us. . . . Your uncle would have lent me five dollars, for I

have done very badly at Chard’s. I would repay it next season and it

would make me certain to come. Your uncle knew that a chief is to be

trusted.”

Derek felt in his pocket. The five dollars was transferred to the hand

of Solomon. “The gulls are flying low, and screaming,” he said, his eyes

raised to the tree-tops. “That means a storm.” He muttered a sentence in

Indian to the woman, who, raising the heavy bundles, followed him meekly

through the orchard.

CHAPTER VIII

JULY NIGHT AT GRIMSTONE

1.

Vale was lounging on the steps of his porch, alone with his pipe. The

night was intensely dark and opulently warm. The lake lay tranquil and

dark as though sleeping, touched only by the light on some anchored

schooner, and a faint glimmer of star-shine. In the stress of summer

work the unused lawn, on the side of the house next Chard’s, had been

allowed to grow tall and rank. This evening Newbigging had mowed it and

he now lay prone upon one of the mounds of moist, sweet-smelling grass.

Vale could not see him, but the knowledge that he was there brought a

comfortable sense of companionship. Of the four men in the house he

liked this reckless, fair-haired Scot best. Windmill was aloof,

reticent, often brooding, though his quick smile was pleasant; Gunn was

lazy, and sometimes quarrelsome as he expounded his socialistic opinions

in the kitchen; while Hugh McKay was always preoccupied with lambs or

Phœbe.

Newbigging struck a match and lighted a cigarette. Vale had a fleeting

glimpse of his head and shoulders before he settled himself once more. A

sudden chill air rose from the lake and enveloped Grimstone like an

embrace from the tomb. It seemed to penetrate to the very bone.

“Lord!” exclaimed Newbigging. “D’ye feel that, sir?”

“I’ve often noticed it at night. It will pass.”

It passed quickly as it had come, and a tide of warm air rushed in to

take its place. The night became sultry. Across the lake sheet lightning

began to play about the horizon.

Derek heard the gate click and he listened for voices or footfalls on

the drive. The silence was profound. Then a flash of lightning more

vivid than what had gone before discovered a small, white figure but a

yard or two away. He rose and went to it.

“Is it you, Fawnie?” he whispered. “Anything wrong?”

She caught his hand in her fingers and drew him away from the house.

“Come and walk with me,” she breathed. “I’m lonesome.”

He took her hand and led her across the lawn between the tall trunks of

the locust and walnut trees that rose like pillars of some dark aisle

about them. They crossed the old strawberry bed, now weed-grown, and

marked for the plough, and came to the bank of the stream.

He emptied his pipe and dropped it in his pocket. His arm drew her to

his side.

“What are you lonely for?”

“You. . . . I want to go out in the canoe.”

“In this inky darkness?”

“I like it. It’s awful to feel the way I do. Like as if my blood was

dancin’ in my body. If I could get out in that canoe I’d feel nice and

quiet.”

“All right,” said Derek. He felt suddenly restless himself, and the

thought of being in a canoe with Fawnie on the vast darkness of the lake

was soothing. “But keep very quiet. Don’t speak above a whisper. And

keep hold of me. We’ll scramble down the bank right here.”

She clutched his sleeve, and the two descended the steep bank overgrown

with brambles and wild roses. The stream that had gushed so freshly on

the night of his arrival at Grimstone, now trickled thinly over the

ledges of its chalky bed. Under the bridge it had formed a dark pool and

there the canoe was tied. While Derek unlocked the chain that secured it

the slender girl crept in and knelt in the bow. He handed her a paddle

and dropped down behind her.

Under the low bridge it was profoundly dark. The moist, velvety air

seemed to envelop them; to press down upon them; even to support them,

as upon a sombrous cloud. The silence was scarcely disturbed by the

delicate ripple of the stream as it crept languidly across the beach and

entered the lake.

Vale, taking up his paddle, said:

“Are you lonesome now, Fawnie? Is this dark enough for you?”

Her voice answered out of the blackness—“I am not lonesome—but I’m

listening.”

“Listening. What do you think you hear?”

“Footsteps.”

“Footsteps!” he murmured. “Where? On the bridge?”

“No . . . down the road . . . a lot o’ them. Listen hard. Don’t you

hear?”

“Not a sound. They must be your people.”

“No . . . men marching.”

As he strained to listen a sudden burst of music broke forth but a few

hundred yards away—the cheerful, brazen music of a band. The arch of

silence above them was thrown into fragments like a shattered bowl. With

every heartbeat the music grew louder, more penetrating.

“I know,” she said. “It’s the band from Mistwell. They march up to

Jerrold’s once every summer—in July—that’s where they’re marchin’ now.

Mr. Jerrold he gives them lemonade and sandwiches and cake

and—twenty-five dollars—every blessed year. The horns frighten me.”

The bandsmen were now ascending the slope to the bridge. The wild music

of the horns was deafening; the beating of the great drum was just above

their heads; the bridge vibrated beneath the tramp of feet. There must

have been many hangers-on from Mistwell following. A blaze of light from

torches fell upon the stream, and glittered on the sticky leaves of the

Balm of Gilead trees that overhung it. The darkness was driven back,

receding up the stream and under the bridge where Derek and Fawnie were

hiding. They seemed to be under a whirlpool of strident music and

leaping light. She stretched her hand back to his and clasped his

fingers. The band descended the opposite slope; the blaze of the torches

was withdrawn as abruptly as it had appeared, and now fell in waning

blotches on the field of ripened grain beyond the bridge. Gradually the

sound of the horns became less strident, then was softened by distance

into a plaintive reiteration of a few notes. Fawnie uttered a deep sigh.

Once more darkness enfolded them.

Derek dipped his paddle. . . .

“Which way?” he asked, as the canoe slipped into the lake.

The only light visible was a calm, pale beam from the Mistwell

lighthouse.

“Away from that light,” she whispered.

Derek turned the canoe in the direction of the unseen cliffs that rose

before Durras. Fitful lightning, now and then, played upon their sides

and showed him where he was. No sound broke the stillness now but the

delicate drip of water from their paddles.

It seemed to the young man that a long time passed, and still she did

not speak. A glimmer of lightning showed him her upright, slender body

with bared arms using her paddle with short, quick Indian strokes. What

were her thoughts? he wondered. Where was she leading him? He felt an

immense curiosity aroused by this half-civilized girl—creature of

masterful emotions, in her element where there was darkness and storm.

“Where are we going?” he asked, at last, and ceased to paddle.

A pinkish light hung tremulously between sky and lake. It made rosy for

a second the face of the low cliff above them. It made rosy the ripply

sand of the little sheltered cove hardly more than a paddle’s length

way.

“I know this place,” she said. “Let us rest here for a little.”

She turned the bow of the canoe toward the shore. It grounded with a

soft jar. Derek, without a word, leaped to the sand and drew the little

craft to security after him. The two stood in silence for a moment

enveloped in the languorous darkness. . . . “Fawnie!” he cried low.

He felt her soft mouth under his; he was overcome by a sort of

giddiness, and, at the same time, filled by an immense compassion for

her. . . .

2.

They parted on the driveway, she going towards the orchard and he

crossing the wet lawn. As her hand was withdrawn from his, it crossed

his mind that during all this time he had never once seen her face.

He was about to enter the house when he remembered Newbigging, whom he

had left lying on the mound of freshly-cut grass. He went to it and

discovered the Scot heavily sleeping.

“Newbigging!” he said, shaking him, “do you want to get your death of

cold?”

Newbigging sat up, rubbing his eyes like a drowsy child. Derek felt his

shirt.

“Good Lord, man! You’re wet through. Get up!”

“That’ll no hurt me,” said Newbigging, stretching. “I like sleepin’ in

the open.”

“Just the same, I think you should have a drop of something to warm

you.”

“Weel—it micht be safer.”

They went around to the side and quietly entered the dining-room. From

the cupboard beneath the stairs Derek got a bottle of Canadian Rye and

poured Newbigging a glass.

“Your health and very good fortune, sir.” He stood with one hand on the

back of a chair while he drank, then carefully set the empty glass on

the table.

“Mr. Vale,” he said, with his bright, blue eyes on Derek’s face, “if it

wasn’t for a few things—why—life wouldn’t be worth livin’.”

CHAPTER IX

SOLOMON IN HIS GLORY

1.

September was waning; the thimbleberries had been picked, Vale scarcely

knew how. Mrs. Orde and the other village women and boys had been

faithful, and Jammery and Fawnie picked from dawn to dark, but there had

been times when they could not keep up to the bountiful crop, and

over-ripe shipments had been sent down at the railway station that had

oozed juice in a purple stream straight across the platform.

Now mellow pears hung in proud fruition. Every now and again one would

drop with a soft thump on the golden stubble beneath the pear trees to

be instantly pierced by the voracious beak of some attentive fowl.

Mounds of red and green and yellow apples were piled beneath the orchard

trees. The men worked all day packing barrels for shipping. A large

portion were to be stored in the apple-house for winter use, and to sell

as the prices rose. The defective were stored in the barn for the stock,

and, last of all, the pigs would be turned into the orchard to clean up

the ground for themselves.

It was a happy time at Grimstone; rough jokes were shouted from tree to

tree, Old Country songs were sung as the tops were hammered into

barrels, even Mrs. Machin relaxed and carried a brimming jug of cider to

the thirsty men, Phœbe’s blue dress gleamed bright as a bit of sky among

the branches of a Greasy Pippin tree.

Grace Jerrold had been home for a month. The tennis-court was in fairly

good condition and, almost every day, she came over for a game. Mr.

Jerrold was too heavy to play, but sometimes Mr. Ramsey accompanied her,

and when Vale was busy, the Vicar and she would play together.

This morning she and Vale were opponents. It was a calm, fair day of

perfect peace. The gulls sailed idly above the lake, bright, angelic

creatures sporting for pleasure in the lustrous ether. A large, white

yacht lay becalmed with sails collapsed; they could see the figures of

people aboard her moving about her deck. In the distance a steamer with

scarlet funnels was heading towards Niagara.

It was delightful on such a morning to run and leap after the ball over

the closely shaven lawn. The delicate foliage of the walnut trees cast a

light shade on the court; sometimes a walnut in its smooth, green burr,

smelling like bergamot, would fall noiselessly on the grass.

“Oh, I don’t think I have ever enjoyed a game so much!” cried Grace

Jerrold, as they rested after a hard-fought contest.

“And yet you were beaten,” said Derek.

“Still, I almost won, and, after all, it’s the good fight that counts.”

He looked into her fair, flushed face, curiously. “Are you that way

about the big things—in life I mean?”

“Yes, I think I am. Father is like that, too. He has often played a

losing game, but his spirits are always good.”

“I believe if things went very wrong with me I should turn sulky and

give up trying.”

Miss Jerrold laughed, and then looked seriously into his candid,

greenish-blue eyes. “I don’t see you being unhappy,” she said. “Your

eyes seem to me to be looking straight into a golden future.”

“They’re looking straight at you.”

“Oh, I’m afraid I cannot do much towards your happiness.”

“You do a great deal simply by coming over to play tennis with me.”

“Then we had better begin another game and not lose any time.” She

picked up a walnut on her racquet and tossed it to him.

He caught it on his and then took it in his hand. “It smells sweet and

yet sharp,” he said, sniffing it. “Is it like bergamot, or what?” He

held it to her nose—a beautiful little nose, he thought, with its

slender nostrils and delicate aquilinity—made for sweet smells, and the

expression of slightly amused scorn. “It is like lemons, and verbena,

and half a dozen elusive odours,” she declared. He dropped it on his

jacket that lay on the grass. “I’m going to keep it,” he said.

“But you have thousands of them.” She looked up into the trees.

“None like this.”

“Because I sniffed it?”

“Yes.”

“If you are so silly I shall spend my morning sniffing walnuts all over

the place. Then you’ll have to save them all.”

“I certainly shall. I’ll throw the apples out of the apple-house and

store all the nuts you have sniffed in there. Then I shall spend my

winter in the middle of them like a luxurious squirrel.”

She crossed the court laughing, but as she raised her arm to serve, the

smile left her face and she stared with a puzzled look at the road.

Derek’s eyes followed hers. “There is something wrong with that old man

on the waggon,” she said. “Look. The other man is holding him up.”

“Why, it is Solomon Sharroe,” exclaimed Vale. “He must be sick. I shall

go and investigate.”

Grace Jerrold followed him, and the two were filled with pity by the

plight of the old man. He was sitting on the narrow, uncomfortable seat

of a light fruit-waggon, his head resting weakly on the shoulder of the

sullen youth who held the reins. His hollow eyes stared blankly before

him; his dark hands were clasped resignedly between his bony knees.

“What is wrong with him?” Derek asked of the boy.

“I dunno. He ain’t been much good fer a week, but he got took worse last

night and Muster MacNeil waount have him dyin’ on him, so I’ve brung him

back to Chard’s where he come from.”

“Where is his family?”

“Comin’ by tram.”

“Mr. MacNeil has a comfortable buggy,” cried Grace. “Why did he send him

in this wretched waggon?”

The youth grinned. “He thought it was good enough fer an Injun, I

s’pose.”

“Oh, the brute! I shall have my father write him a letter. We must get a

doctor at once.”

“Where do you feel the worst, Solomon?” asked Derek, raising his voice.

“My spirit,” he answered, in a surprisingly strong voice. “My spirit

. . . is broke. . . . You are a gentleman and I am a chief . . . you

understand. Now about that five dollars . . . I have done very badly at

MacNeil’s. He treated me like a dog. . . .”

“Never mind about the money. I am going to send for a doctor for you.

Have you any special pain? Would you take a little brandy?”

“Yes, I would. You get me a little in a bottle and my old woman will fix

me a dose when I need it. MacNeil he give me just one mouthful before I

left.”

Derek ran to the house and brought a flask. When he had taken a drink

Solomon put the flask carefully in his pocket and turned his eyes,

filled with a sombre brightness, on Derek and Miss Jerrold. He said

solemnly:

“You are a gentleman, Mr. Vale, and you know what becomes a chief. When

I get better I will tell you tales of the old days—not so long ago,

either—when my people owned all this”—he extended his arm in a noble

gesture over lake and land. “That was before you drove us back as the

waves wash away those dark red cliffs. I will tell you tales my

grandfather taught me—yes, and you, too, young lady—that will make

your hair rise.” He showed his yellow teeth in a ghastly smile. “We

didn’t go picking berries then, by God! . . . No, we didn’t go picking

berries. Ho, ho, ho!”

He laughed deeply, and would have fallen from his seat but that the boy

clutched him and, at a nod from Derek, drove on.

“What he says is true,” said Grace, soberly. “We have taken their land,

and civilization demoralizes them.”

“Yes, but we have made a better land of it, and I think they are better

employed picking berries than scalping each other.”

“I should like to hear some of his tales.”

“I’m afraid he won’t live to tell them. I shall send for a doctor right

away, and have Mrs. Machin pack a basket of groceries for his family.”

“Our men have killed a calf to-day. I shall send them some veal and some

eggs.”

“Never mind the eggs,” said Derek. “They can steal them from Chard.”

2.

The butter had just come after a long churning. Beads of perspiration

glistened on Phœbe’s rosy face and little strands of hair curled damply

on her forehead. Derek had come to the kitchen for a drink of

buttermilk. She got a glass from the dresser and filled it to the brim.

“Look at the bits of yellow butter floatin’ about,” she said, “that’s

what I call good buttermilk.”

“Splendid,” said Derek, taking a draught. “You’re a fine butter-maker,

Phœbe.”

“If I wasn’t, Mrs. Machin’d take my head off. She’s an old terror, she

is. This ’ud be a pretty hard place for a gal if it wasn’t for the

lads.”

“Come now, Phœbe, you have an easy time of it. I see you playing about

by the hour.”

She tossed her head. “Ay, but think of the work I’ve done before I play!

I wouldn’t think you’d be so hard on me, Mr. Vale.”

“Hard on you, Phœbe? No . . . I like you too well. You’re a good girl.”

She came close to him, and tilted her chin. “Will you untie the knot in

my sunbonnet? It’s fallen down my back, and the knot’s fair chokin’ me.”

He set down his empty glass and fumbled with the knot against her

milk-white, softly throbbing throat. “Oh, I couldn’t deny you anything,

Mr. Vale,” she panted, “not if it was ever so.”

“Well,” he said, cheerfully, loosening the knot, “give me another glass

of buttermilk, then, unless you’re saving it for Hughie.”

“Hughie!”—scornfully. “What do I care about Hughie, when you’re by?”

She turned the tap of the churn and refilled his glass. There was a soft

knocking on the screen door. Beulah’s round face was pressed against the

netting.

“Say, Phœbe,” she said, solemnly, “the ole man’s dead.”

“What, Solomon?”

“Yes. My paw. He died a little while ago. We’re goin’ to have a funerl.”

“I’m sorry,” said Derek. “The doctor told me yesterday he might get

better.”

“Well, he ain’t. He couldn’t be worse. He’s as dead as the blackbird Mr.

Chard nailed to his barn-door. We’re goin’ to have a funerl with a

minister. Paw’s other wife’s comin’ too.”

“Good Lord! Has he got another wife?”

Beulah grinned. “He had her before he had Maw, but she was no good so he

fired her. But she’s comin’ to his funerl. . . . Miss Jerrold sent a lot

of things. Phœbe, kin I have a point of milk?”

“Buttermilk?”

“No. Real milk.”

“Where’s your money?”

“I’ll pay you after the funerl, Phœbe.”

“Give her the milk,” said Vale, curtly. He was shocked by the child’s

callousness. “Aren’t you sorry he is dead, Beulah?”

“Yes. He was a great chief. Mrs. Chard she’s makin’ a purty thing out of

flowers for his grave. Gates of Jar, she calls it. Are you comin’ to the

funerl?” . . .

All the next day there was a feeling of excitement in the air. Phœbe

spent most of the morning peering through the picket fence that

separated the yards. She reported stirring events. Indians were arriving

from all directions. A large table was being laid for a feast under the

apple trees. She had squeezed through a gap in the fence, and seen with

her own eyes The Gates of Jar . . . it was unaccountably lovely. She had

not seen Solomon himself, but one of the Chard boys had told her that he

was all got up in war paint and feathers. Phœbe scarcely knew whether to

believe this but, if it were true, he must be terrible. . . . They said

he died hard.

Mrs. Machin thought it would be only the respectable thing for herself,

attended by one of the men, to go to the funeral. Windmill accompanied

her, carrying his bowler hat in his hand, and trying to conceal his

amusement by a frown.

The funeral was at three o’clock. It was a hazy, languid day of yellow

sunshine and smoky horizon. As the hour drew near the three Scots and

Phœbe gathered in the cherry orchard behind the kitchen garden, from

whence they could view the ceremony. Derek did not know whether to join

them or not. As he was standing undecidedly in the porch Mr. Jerrold,

his daughter, and Mr. Ramsey came down the road. They turned in at the

gate followed by their dogs.

“Are we too late to see the ceremony?” asked Mr. Jerrold. “Gay has never

seen an Indian funeral and she’s determined not to miss the

opportunity.”

“From what I hear,” said Derek, “it is to be very civilized. No savage

rites for Chard. He has a minister from Mistwell who is to bring an

autoharp.”

“I think that’s a splendid idea,” said Mr. Ramsey. “I must get one.”

“Oh, we shouldn’t make fun of the Chards,” said Grace Jerrold. “Mrs.

Chard is a very good woman and very sincere in her religion.”

“Lead on, Vale,” interrupted her father. “I want to see the show.”

They found an open space near Phœbe and the men, from which they could

watch the proceedings almost unobserved. The body of Solomon in its

cheap coffin had been carried from the cottage and placed on a pair of

trestles near the table spread for the feast. About fifty Indians were

seated in a half-circle on the ground, except a few of the older ones

for whom chairs had been placed. Chief among these was the former wife,

an enormously fat squaw in a bright green skirt and red shawl. Her brown

hands were crossed complacently on her stomach, and there was about her

an air of stoical triumph. Two elderly Indians in check shirts and black

trousers sat on either side of her. Near by, wearing a clean white apron

over her torn skirt, sat Solomon’s present wife. She wiped her face

continually with a red-and-white handkerchief and gazed with sorrowful

eyes at the floral Gates Ajar that Mrs. Chard had placed upon the

coffin. Around her were grouped her family—the little girls and idiot

boy at her feet, her daughters and their husbands holding moon-faced

babies behind her. A little aloof stood Fawnie and her nineteen-year-old

brother Charles, the young fellow dapper in city clothes with a straw

sailor, a bow tie, and polished shoes with broad ribbon laces. Bobby,

the boy whom Derek had first seen bathing with his sisters, had refused

to join the mourners and had mounted a large swing beneath an elm tree,

and there swung lazily to and fro, his handsome, inscrutable face turned

towards the officiating minister.

“I like the boy in the swing,” whispered Grace Jerrold to Derek. “He

strikes a really barbaric note.”

“To me,” said Derek, “the minister is the one barbaric thing present.”

He was a lank man with a damp black lock pendent over his forehead. He

wore a black frock coat, a turn-down collar, and striped trousers. On a

small table before him lay his autoharp; he held a Bible in one hand,

while the index finger of the other stabbed dramatically at its open

pages as he spoke. Behind him were ranged the Chard family,

large-bosomed Mrs. Chard in respectable black, grasping a tow-headed

child in either hand. With them stood Mrs. Machin and Windmill, her hand

resting on his arm, he jauntily holding his bowler hat. Overhead the

inquisitive gulls swept with glistening wings, peering down at the

mysterious conclave.

When the minister had finished his discourse he announced the number of

a hymn. Vale then perceived that all present had been supplied with

small red hymn-books. Solomon’s former wife was so heavy that she had to

be raised to her feet by the united strength of the elderly men in check

shirts. As she rose a lunch that she had been holding in her lap rolled

to the ground, the red handkerchief in which it was wrapped fell open,

and the idiot boy, seeing the food, like manna, at his very hand,

snatched a cold sausage and a piece of cheese, and scuttled to the

shelter of his mother’s skirt with them. None of the Indians could read,

but they stared at their books with solemn attention. The minister

struck a few tinkling notes on the autoharp and raised his nasal tenor

voice. The Chards and Windmill supported him so sturdily that the air

swelled to a considerable volume. Like a metallic thread the voice of

the autoharp persisted thinly from first to last. The spectators in the

cherry orchard could distinguish some words of the refrain:

“I’ll stand by until the morrow,

I’ve come to save you, do not fe-ar;

I’ll stand by until the mor-row,

I’ve come to save you, do not fear.”

The minister’s voice rose with a swoop of indescribable anguish on the

first “fear.” A guffaw burst from the three Scots, silenced only by a

frown from Derek. The boy in the swing, wrought upon by the sensuousness

of the scene, bent and straightened his body vigorously so that he swung

in great semicircles under the elm, now up among its branches, now

skimming above the ground.

When the hymn was finished the little red books were collected by the

eldest Chard boy, and returned to the minister, who stood mopping his

brow with a white handkerchief. The Indians arranged themselves in

single file and began slowly to pass the coffin to take their last look

on the face of Solomon, upturned, with sunken eyes and cheeks, and a

smile of bitter composure. His wife came last, and bent for a moment to

press her round wet face against his cold one. Then a loud wail broke

from her and she clutched him by the shoulders and tried to drag him

from the coffin. Moans of sympathy came from the other squaws, excepting

Solomon’s other wife, who stared at her successor with the ponderous

contempt of a mountain for a brawling stream.

The coffin was hidden by a surging crowd. The minister carefully laid

his autoharp in its case. Chard was very busy giving orders; then the

coffin reappeared borne on the shoulders of six men. A wavering

procession was formed, brightened by the gay colours of the women’s

shawls and the flowery hats of the girls. Jammery carried the Gates

Ajar. They were now bound for the little graveyard.

A cry of anger burst from Phœbe: “Let loose, now, Hughie—this minute,”

she was saying.

“What are you up to, Hugh?” asked Derek, reproachfully, with a glance

towards Mr. Ramsey.

“He’s been and took my spectacles,” cried Phœbe, “and I couldn’t see the

percession at all. He’s an unnatural lover, if ever there was one.”

“Give them back to her,” ordered Derek, and Hugh sheepishly handed them

over.

“Rose-coloured spectacles, I am sure,” said Mr. Ramsey, airily.

“I’m watching that young boy,” said Mr. Jerrold. “He has never left his

swing. What do you suppose he is thinking?”

The procession had disappeared, but the boy hung motionless as a snake

on the ropes of the swing which barely stirred beneath him.

“Mischief, I’ll be bound,” said the Vicar.

3.

They strolled through the apple orchard, examining the quality of the

fruit. Grace Jerrold paused before a mound of Tolman Sweets. “Oh, may I

have a few of these to take home? There is nothing I like so well, and

we haven’t one.”

“I shall send a basket to you,” said Vale. He selected one of the finest

and handed it to her. As she bit into it their eyes met; they smiled.

Suddenly they seemed to be alone in the orchard. “With that golden apple

at your lips, and the golden light on your hair, you are exactly like

Eve,” whispered Derek.

She laughed and he could see the white bit of apple in her mouth.

“This Spy is delicious,” said her father, crunching it like a schoolboy.

“I am hungry,” said Mr. Ramsey, “but it seems to be tea I want.”

“Look here,” said Derek, “you must all stay and have tea with me. I’ll

go and tell Mrs. Machin.” He felt a little nervous as he hurried towards

the house. He had not entertained guests at Grimstone before and he was

afraid Mrs. Machin’s way of doing things might seem a little rough.

Mrs. Machin did not take the announcement amiss. Excitement was in the

air; half the day was wasted; one might as well be hanged for a sheep as

a lamb. She would make little sweet muffins and butter them well while

hot. “Make plenty of tea,” said Derek. “Mr. Ramsey can drink a potful.”

“He’s got a thirst for more than tea from what I hear,” said Mrs.

Machin. “They say he can swig down beer with the best of ’em at the

‘Duke of York.’”

“Oh, Mrs. Machin!” cried Phœbe, shocked.

“You get busy and cut some bread,” ordered Mrs. Machin.

“And for heaven’s sake, cut it thin!” said Vale. . . .

Tea was a distinct success. The Vicar found the muffins excellent. He

sent a message of praise by Phœbe to Mrs. Machin. Phœbe, pink-cheeked

and white-aproned, bore herself admirably. Grace Jerrold admired the

homely dignity of the old-fashioned room. As she poured tea into his

grandmother’s dark blue cups, Derek thought, “How thoroughly at home she

looks . . . as if she belonged here . . . and the turn of her wrist

above the teapot. . . .” He asked for another cup of tea just for the

pleasure of seeing her pour it.

“Some of those young Indian girls are lovely,” Mr. Jerrold was saying.

“Hobbs caught one of them in my woods the other day with a rabbit she

had just killed. She’d set a trap for it. He brought her to me, rabbit

and all, for a lecture, but she was so confoundedly pretty I couldn’t be

cross to her. She said her name was Fawnie—Fawnie Sharroe. Have you

noticed her, Vale?”

“Yes,” answered Derek, stirring his tea. “I’ve noticed her.”

CHAPTER X

CHRISTMAS AT GRIMSTONE

1.

Edmund wrote that he had got leave from his regiment, the Royal

Canadians, and would spend Christmas with Derek. They had never been

separated for so long before and Derek counted the days till he should

meet him at the station with his new red sleigh and black bear robes.

But winter seemed loath to descend from the low grey skies or to set his

foot sharply oh the quiescent earth. November was hazy and warm;

December was like Indian summer; on Christmas Eve there had not been a

fleck of snow. Derek, in disgust, ordered Gunn to wash the muddy trap,

and scrub the bay gelding’s sides, for he had seen fit to roll on the

muddy bank of the stream.

It seemed that train time would never come. He looked at his watch every

five minutes; he went upstairs twice to inspect Edmund’s room. He even

wound the grandfather clock in the hope that he might hurry Time along.

At last Gunn’s rosy face appeared in the door. “Hadn’t we better be

gettin’ along, sir?” he asked.

“Yes, yes,” said Derek, “it must be time.”

He and Gunn got into the cart and Phœbe ran ahead to open the gate. Jock

snapped at the gelding’s legs, and circled the trap with exasperating

yelps. They sped quickly along the hard road, for now it seemed that

after all the waiting they were a little late. As they passed the

graveyard they saw Solomon Sharroe’s grave surmounted by the skeleton of

the Gates Ajar, a few dead leaves clinging to the wire frame. The pier

at Mistwell was white with gulls, basking in the sun. Before they

reached the station they heard the train whistle at a crossing.

Derek drove the horse behind the station and gave the reins to Gunn just

as the roar of the locomotive subsided to a hiss. He hurried along the

platform looking eagerly for his brother. Edmund alighted from the last

coach, followed by a porter with his travelling-bag.

“I’ve got a trunk somewhere,” he said, after they had shaken hands.

“I’ll give the check to the bus-driver and he can bring it later. My

trap is behind the station. Jove, you look well!”

“So do you. I expected you to meet me on a load of hay, wearing a coon

coat. You’re far too swell for a farmer.”

Derek felt boyishly happy as they rolled briskly along towards

Grimstone. It was good to have Edmund with him; he had scarcely realized

how fond he was of him; he wished Gunn were not behind so they might be

quite alone. He fired rapid questions at him about friends in Halifax.

Edmund told him the latest jokes of his regiment, and he laughed

uproariously. As they neared Grimstone he looked anxiously at his

brother to see what effect the place would have on him.

“Nice old house, but rather bleak,” was the verdict.

“You should see it in summer. Isn’t that a great view?”

“Fine. Where do the Jerrolds live?”

“Over there. You can’t see the house. She’s a lovely girl, Ted, bronzy

hair, and eyes almost violet. . . . There’s my barn and stables. If it

isn’t too dark after tea we’ll go and have a look at the stock. Have a

beautiful filly.”

“Is she at home now?”

“At home? Oh, yes, she’s not broken in yet.”

“Good heavens! I meant Miss Jerrold.”

Derek heard Gunn snigger. He looked at him sternly as they alighted at

the door. He felt that some day he should cuff Gunn’s ears.

2.

Edmund Vale was a year younger than Derek, slenderer, more supple, and

not so tall. They bore a brotherly resemblance, but their eyes were so

different that the difference was more pronounced than the resemblance.

Derek’s, wide-open, nearer green than blue, were expectant, confident,

mirthful; Edmund’s, velvety brown with a slightly oblique slant, were

questioning rather than expectant, pleading rather than confident,

malicious rather than mirthful. His lips were pouting, and when he

smiled, as he did readily, he showed excellent white teeth.

He was immensely amused by Derek’s situation at Grimstone; he chaffed

him about the number of his “retainers” and the beauty of his

“handmaidens.” It was easy to see that he had at once slipped into the

good graces of Mrs. Machin. When she and Derek were alone for a moment

she said that she could not see for the life of her what his uncle had

had against Edmund. For her part she thought him a fine young man that

any uncle might be proud to make his heir.

They had a hearty meal, and it was pleasant indeed to Derek to have

someone to talk and laugh with, over his food, after eating so long by

himself. After the meal it was still light enough for a casual

inspection of the stock and farm. They filled their pockets with apples

for the horses, and Edmund could hardly tear himself away from the two

Welsh ponies who, like forward children, pushed and jostled each other

and their new friend in their desire to be fed and petted. In fact he

seemed more interested in them than in the skittish filly, or the two

“drivers,” or the broad-backed farm horses. When Derek took him to the

cow-stable he had little enough to say about the two fine Holstein cows

that had been purchased in the autumn to mate with the young son of

Gretta van Lowe. Yet he hung fascinated over the calf-pen to watch Phœbe

feed twin Jersey calves, late comers in the season, her arm rising,

round and white, from the warm, sickly-smelling milk, her face flushed

with exertion as she cuffed back the other twin.

“Hello,” said Derek, sharply, “you dropped a cigarette stub. If you were

a hired man I’d fire you.” He put his foot on the smouldering spark.

“Mr. Vale’s awful partic’ler about cigarette stubs,” said Phœbe, drawing

her hand from the clinging mouth of the calf. “He nearly sacked Bob Gunn

for dropping one once.”

“Very well,” said Edmund, petulantly, “if I can’t drop a few cigarette

stubs about the place, I’d better go home, eh, Phœbe?”

“Come along,” said Derek, “you scarcely saw the bull. Then there are the

pigs and sheep and poultry.”

The turkeys had got into the poultry-house and were resting on the

highest perch, pecking the heads of the unhappy fowls beneath, so that

most of the hens had huddled together in a corner of the floor, while

the cocks with ruffled plumage strode up and down before the perches,

longing but not daring to attack the intruders. Derek began to throw the

turkeys out over the half-door. With heavy beating of wings they alit in

the barnyard and, with scornful dignity, walked unhurriedly to the rail

fence where they were supposed to perch.

“Why do they want to be in here?” asked Edmund, cautiously grasping the

white hen-turkey.

“Pure cussedness. They know the fowls hate them, and they know we’ll

throw them out if we catch them, yet they persist.”

“Perhaps they’re cold.”

“Not a bit. Feel the depth of that plumage.” He plunged his hand into

the downy whiteness of her breast. She drew her head back sharply,

uttering a strange hissing noise, and staring into his mouth with her

wild black eyes.

“She’d like to peck out one of my teeth. Put your hand on her neck.”

“She’s lovely. Like a graceful, pale woman. She’s afraid, poor thing.

I’ll send her after the others.” He dropped her lightly over the

half-door, and they watched her as she delicately walked into the dusk,

trailing her long feet.

“She’s absolutely useless,” said Derek. “She should have been eaten for

Christmas. She sat twice last summer and didn’t hatch a poult. But she’s

so damned decorative——” He closed the door and bolted it, and they

turned to go. Their feet scuffled the deep, clean straw; the perches

were full of gentle, puffed-out hens, with here and there the toothed

comb of a cock rising watchfully. On the lowest perch a row of

immaculately white Wyandotte pullets pressed shoulder to plump shoulder.

The air, smelling of straw and feathers, was full of comfortable, sleepy

twitterings and cluckings, sometimes broken by a complaining note as

some greedy perch-fellow pressed too close against another.

They passed between the dim rows of cows, gently clanking their chains

as they stooped for cut hay and chop, and came upon Hugh McKay putting

mangolds through the pulping machine. Behind him the blackness of the

root cellar yawned like a cave, but his strong body and swinging arms

were illuminated by the red glow of a lantern that hung from a rafter

above. His shirt was thrown open and the curly hairs on his broad breast

glistened in the light. The machine gave forth a crunching, pulpy sound

as it disgorged the cut-up mangolds that lay in a juicy mound on the

floor, white, rosy pink, and purple. The nearest cow stretched her neck

towards it, protruding her tongue, and rolling her liquid, dark eyes.

As they went up the stairs Derek said to his brother: “That fellow,

Hugh, is sweet on Phœbe, the girl who was feeding the calves.”

“He is a fine-looking fellow. Looks as though he would be a good

worker.”

“He is. He has only two interests in life—the farm, and Phœbe. I wish

you could see her dance. She used to be a hop-picker in the Old

Country.”

It had grown dark outside. “It is too late to see anything more

to-night,” said Derek. “To-morrow morning I shall take you all over the

place. We are to have dinner with the Jerrolds at two, and in the

evening I’m giving a party for the “help.” Phœbe’s been begging for one

for a month and I thought we might as well have it while you are here.”

“By George, I shall dance with Phœbe!”

“Not too often or you will have Hugh after you.”

“Are they engaged?”

“I expect so, but he’s far too good for her. She’s not to be trusted.”

“Where is the woman who is?” exclaimed Edmund, cynically.

3.

For the first time since he had come to the farm Derek had a lamp

lighted in the drawing-room. Edmund sat down at the old square piano and

played with lightness and vigour popular music, and some of Derek’s

favourites from the operas; Derek lounged on the brocaded sofa and

smoked, while the eyes of those who had built and cherished Grimstone

looked soberly down from the walls.

In a pause of the music Derek said: “Oh, I say, Edmund, I have a

Christmas present for you. Shall I give it to you now or shall you wait

till to-morrow?”

Edmund swung around on the stool and faced him. “I think I’ll wait. I

have something for you too. Only a trifle. Not at all what I should have

liked, but you know how it is with me. I’m always hard up.”

“Oh, that’s all right. How would you like a game of cribbage? I should

like to give you a good licking before you go.”

“All right. The piano is out of tune but it has a nice tone. Better get

it tuned before it is too late.”

“For whom?” asked Derek.

“Miss Jerrold, of course. I see her firmly established here as mistress

by my next visit.”

“Rot. I’ve no intention of getting married. I like the freedom of my

life just as it is. I’m wedded to old Grimstone.”

“Well, get the cribbage board, and I’ll make you sorry you spoke.”

They went to the dining-room to play. The doors of the pantry between it

and the kitchen were open and their game was frequently interrupted by

noisy talk and laughter.

“Deuce take those hoodlums,” muttered Derek. “I’ll shut the doors.”

“Not for a bit. I want to hear them. One of the Scotchmen is reading

aloud—something from ‘Jack Canuck,’ I think. He sounds aggressive.”

“He is—in the kitchen. That’s Gunn. There; I peg two on you. That’s

what you get for not attending to the game.”

“Whatever are they doing now? Listen.”

A hoarse guffaw came from the kitchen. “There goes Newbigging! Ho! ho!

ho! There goes Gunn! Gie a blink, Phœbe, and knock Windmill off. There

he goes—ho! ho! ho!”

“What are they up to, Derek?”

“Phœbe is sticking apple-seeds to her eyelids. She names each of them

for one of the boys, and the one that hangs on longest . . .”

“Now there’s only Hughie and the two chaps in yonder.” . . . “Aw, she

put a extra dod o’ spit on them, ye can be sure.” Mrs. Machin spoke.

“Sh. They’ll hear you.” A smothered burst of laughter followed, and a

whispered—“There go Hugh and the master! Gosh! There’s only Captain

Vale left.” Mrs. Machin then slammed the door.

“Now, Ted,” said Derek, sternly, “are you going to play or are you not?”

Edmund was going to play, and played so well that he won two games, with

Derek many points behind. Then supper was laid on the table—good cold

beef, cheese, and baked apples, and Derek fetched two bottles of ale

from the cupboard beneath the stairs. As they sat down, the party from

the kitchen filed past on their way to bed, Phœbe in a state of

impending collapse from stifled laughter. She had removed her spectacles

for the test of the apple-pips, and, being almost blind without them,

she clutched Hughie’s sleeve for guidance.

The brothers, left to themselves, grinned at each other across the

table.

“This place of yours is a regular picnic,” said Edmund. “Tell me, are

you always so hilarious? I wouldn’t have missed it for anything. I like

your old dining-room. That china greyhound on the chimney-piece seems a

friendly soul, and even the pictures, though at first glance they seem

depressing, are really jolly. I’ve never seen dying men look so neat and

comfortable as those chaps scattered about Wellington and Blücher.

Except perhaps the fellow bent across the cannon. Then that ‘Trial of

William, Lord Russell’—there’s a good, solid air of comfort about it.

Yes, I like your house and your stock and, above all, your ‘help.’ No

one could feel blue with Hugh and Phœbe about. I’m awfully glad to find

you so comfortable here, Derek.”

What a decent fellow Edmund was! Not a hint of envy—of grudging him his

good fortune! Derek made up his mind to destroy the cheque he had

written for him and to write a more substantial one.

The ale had put an agreeable glow into their veins. They were as

light-hearted as schoolboys. Derek told his brother of all his ambitions

for Grimstone, and impressed him with the knowledge of farming he had

gained in the past months. They went to the kitchen where the collie

lay, stretched on his mat beside the cooking-stove. Plates of

apple-parings on the table reminded them of Phœbe’s eyelids and the

apple-pips. They laughed, and then suddenly began to scuffle. Around the

kitchen they strained and heaved, getting more in earnest every moment.

At last Derek bent Edmund across the table and, holding his head down,

administered some hearty thumps. The collie sprang up and began to bark.

“You blasted idiot, you’ve hurt me,” groaned Edmund. “My hair’s full of

apple-parings.”

“Be a little soldier,” said Derek. “Here, have a drink of cream. I’ll

wager you’ve never seen cream like this.” He lifted the lid from an

earthen crock and showed the bubbly, yellow foam.

Edmund came over, nursing his elbow. “You hurt me,” he repeated. “I’m

damned if I have another tussle with you. What cream!” He took the cup

that Derek gave him, and dipped it. “I wonder if it will hurt me,” he

said.

“No, but Mrs. Machin will if she finds out; we shall have to wash the

cups.”

The kitchen clock, with red roses on its dial, struck twelve. “We had

better go to bed,” said Derek. “I’ll get a candle and light you to your

room.”

“Rot,” said Edmund. “I’m going to sleep with you in that big

four-poster.”

“Good. It will be a regular Christmas Eve. We should hang up our

stockings. Do you remember the time . . .” Remembrances occupied them

till they were in bed. They did not draw the blind, and the clear,

wintry moonlight flooded the room. They stretched luxuriously side by

side on the soft feather bed, their full, firm limbs outlined under the

blankets. They lay in drowsy silence breathing the sharp, pure air that

came in from the lake.

At last Derek said: “You remember those Indians I had here?”

“Of course.”

“There was one young girl . . . she was really lovely . . . just

half-civilized, you know . . . and her eyes—like a fawn’s. She liked me

and I liked her. One couldn’t help it. Do you know what I mean? She was

more like a tender, timid, audacious little animal than a woman. Only

seventeen.”

“Tell me about her,” said Edmund, turning on his side and putting one

arm across his brother.

They lay awake talking for a long time.

4.

Edmund shivered and laughed on Christmas morning as he splashed the icy

water from the ewer over his face and neck. From the kitchen came the

sound of Phœbe’s voice singing “Christians, Awake,” as she turned the

separator. He had been mightily pleased with the cheque Derek had given

him impulsively, as soon as they were out of bed, and Derek had been

equally pleased by the old English hunting print brought from Halifax.

The day was fine, and so mild that the bare earth and moist, brown

orchard trees seemed to be stretched in but a feline half-sleep and

needed only a whisper or a touch to awaken to activity. They spent the

morning in visiting every building on the farm. They walked to the wood,

followed all the way up the lane by the two Welsh ponies. There the

paths were slippery with pine needles; beds of moss dotted with scarlet

wintergreen berries looked like diminutive cultivated gardens. They sat

on a fallen tree watching the smoke from their cigars wind like a blue

veil in and out among the pines. Rabbits and squirrels were about

hopping and scampering in the sun. Presently the four men came out to

cut spruce and hemlock branches to decorate the house for the dance.

Mrs. Machin and Phœbe were busy baking cakes and tarts, and decorating

freshly-boiled hams with frills of fringed pink tissue paper. Into the

fat they pressed many cloves.

At two o’clock the brothers were met at the door of Durras by Mr.

Jerrold himself. He took them into the drawing-room where there were

already Grace Jerrold, Mr. Ramsey, and a young lady from Brancepeth of

whom the Vicar spoke as “my tower of strength in the Chancel Guild.”

Miss Edna Pearsall was dark-haired, pale, with square, plump jaws,

permanent dimples in her cheeks, and glistening grey eyes. The presence

of four unattached males exhilarated her pleasantly. She had an especial

air for each of them. Towards the Vicar she was at once deferential and

mischievous; towards Mr. Jerrold child-like and yet knowing—even

naughty; towards Edmund, worldly, richly cultivated; but towards Derek

there was a deadly seriousness in her manner that alarmed him. They were

seated beside each other at table, and Mr. Ramsey smiled encouragingly

at them. Edmund, on Grace’s right hand, seemed entirely absorbed by her,

talking in a low voice, and only joining in the general conversation

occasionally. Mr. Jerrold and the Vicar were boisterously happy,

praising the juicy turkey and drinking freely of the good wine. Wreaths

of holly hung against the panelled walls; dark pictures reflected the

ruddy candle-shades.

“How invigorating and cheering is this excellent port!” intoned Mr.

Ramsey, as they reached the walnuts and raisins. “There is no drink so

healthful, and so calculated to bring out the most amiable qualities in

one, as wine, taken in moderation, of course. I deplore the taste for

whisky in our country. It comes, I suppose, from our strongly Scotch

ancestry. Now, if our working classes drank light wines, as the French

do, it would be better for them.”

“Canadian wines are very poor,” said Mr. Jerrold. “The summer is so

short, even in the Niagara peninsula, that there is very little natural

sugar in the grapes. Probably the soil has something to do with it, too.

Consequently we have to sweeten the wine with manufactured sugar, which

makes it very indigestible. I think the working man is safer with his

glass of whisky.”

“Why not beer? The Americans and English drink beer.”

“We are a stubborn Northern race,” said Edmund. “Beer is too insipid for

us.”

“I think if a drink could be invented with a flavour like whisky but

without its evil effect, it would very soon supplant it, don’t you, Mr.

Vale?” said Miss Pearsall, arranging her fingers about the stem of her

wine-glass.

Vale’s dislike of her was turning to hatred. He had an overwhelming

desire to shock her, even if in doing it he disgusted Grace Jerrold.

“Just to show what a childish illusion that is,” he said in a sulky,

muffled voice, “I shall tell you a little story about a hunting party I

was once with. There were six of us deer-shooting in the North, and we

had taken a keg of Scotch with us. The weather was so cold and rainy

that it went much faster than we had expected. We could plainly see that

the last week there would be nothing to drink. One of the party got an

empty bottle and, unknown to the rest of us, filled it from the keg and

hid it, so that on the last day when we should be preparing the cabin

for the winter, and have a twelve-mile walk through the forest ahead of

us, he might produce this pleasant surprise. The last week was a sterile

one, no deer—nothing to drink but prepared coffee. The last morning

broke cold and damp. Everyone out of sorts. Then appeared our friend,

beaming, with his bottle of Scotch. Now the sad thing was that the empty

bottle he had got, though it had a good Scotch label on it, had once

been filled with coal oil, and the idiot had never smelled it. Imagine

our feelings when we tasted it! Imagine the abuse we heaped on his

head!”

“You would just have to throw it out, wouldn’t you, Mr. Vale?”

“No. That’s the strange part of it. We kept sniffing it and tasting it

to see how bad it was till, if you’ll believe me, we ended by drinking

every drop of it, and by that time we loved the taste of coal oil.”

“How horrible!” said Grace Jerrold, on a note of disgust.

“I don’t agree with you, Grace,” cried Miss Pearsall. “To me there was

something fine about those huntsmen. Their single-mindedness, their

subduing of the flesh——”

“To the spirits,” suggested Mr. Jerrold.

“It seems to me that such a man,” she went on, “would be capable of

tremendous self-sacrifice for one he loved.”

“Dear Edna,” said the Vicar, “she has the temperament of the artist. By

the way, you young men must hear her sing. She has a lovely soprano

voice. . . .”

In the drawing-room after dinner she sang. Like most singers she was

easy to start and hard to stop. Grace Jerrold played her accompaniments.

She sang, her glistening grey eyes on Derek’s face, and a professional’s

smile deepening the dimples in her cheeks. It irritated Derek to see his

brother’s supple figure lounging against the piano. Edmund was already

more familiar with Grace, he thought, than he who had known her so long.

It was the first time he had ever come to Durras when he had not

thoroughly enjoyed himself. He wished he had not told that story of the

hunting party. He was always doing things he afterwards regretted. Good

heavens, couldn’t Edmund tear himself away from the piano? He thought of

their tussle the night before, and wished he had hurt him more. If they

had another . . .

At last Miss Pearsall ceased singing and a game of billiards was

proposed. Mr. Jerrold, Mr. Ramsey, Miss Pearsall, and Derek went

upstairs to the billiard-room. The other two said they would follow

later; they were going to try over some music. Derek enjoyed the

billiards. One could not help enjoying a game with Mr. Jerrold. He threw

himself into it with such zest, made such daring, brilliant shots, and

was so unconscious of his fine physique and power. Grace and Edmund

appeared after a while and remained as spectators.

It was dark, and the tea-things had been taken away when Derek

remembered the party at Grimstone. “We shall have to go,” he said. “I am

giving a dance for Phœbe and the boys to-night and I must see how they

get on.”

“How interesting!” exclaimed Miss Pearsall. “I should love to see

peasants dancing.”

“There are fishermen, and farm hands, and berry-pickers, and servant

girls, but there are no peasants that I know of,” said Derek, coldly.

“Ah. I love peasants. One always thinks of the Happy Peasant!”

“Why not the Hungry Peasant? Or the Half-hanged Peasant? Or the Hideous

Peasant?”

Miss Pearsall gave a little shriek. “How brutal you are! Is your brother

always so cruel, Captain Vale? But indeed, I have no repartee. All I can

do is to dance in the sun and sing!” She danced a few graceful steps,

and trilled a bar or two.

The Vicar was warming his legs before the fire. He said: “It would not

be a bad idea, really, for me to drop in on the dancers. Many of them

must be parishioners of mine. It might encourage them if I put in an

appearance, eh?”

“They don’t need encouraging in what they’re up to this evening,” said

Mr. Jerrold. “I shouldn’t go, if I were you.”

“One thing that has surprised me since I came here,” said Derek, “is

that the Scots do not go to church. I had always thought they were

inveterate churchgoers.”

“We all have our illusions,” laughed Mr. Jerrold. “I used to think that

the Englishman of the labouring class was a domineering fellow, rather

rough with his women-folk. I know now that, whatever he may be abroad,

he is amazing meek at home and it is the woman who does the bossing.

They are Tartars, too.”

Grace followed Derek to the hall when he went for his top-coat. “I like

your brother,” she said.

“I liked him too—until to-day.”

She flushed and said plaintively: “You do take sudden dislikes, don’t

you? You don’t like Miss Pearsall; you have turned against your own

brother; shall I be the next?”

“Well, be careful what you do,” he warned.

5.

The footsteps of the brothers rang crisply on the smooth, hard road as

they returned to Grimstone. On their left, the frosty stubble of the

shore meadows swept in silvery undulations beneath the bright half-moon

that, like a noble ship, ploughed her way across a billowy sky. Clouds

and moon were alike reflected on the still, burnished shield of the

lake.

As they neared the house they heard the scrape of fiddles, and the stamp

of jigging feet. Lights streamed from the dining-room, kitchen, and

back-kitchen. Derek quickened his steps. He strained towards the crude

jollity of the dance. Here, at least, there would be no Miss Pearsall.

They entered quietly by the front door, hanging their caps and coats in

the hallway before they went to the dining-room. The dancing was in full

swing, but there was a moment of hesitation and embarrassment when the

Vales entered. Derek at once introduced Edmund to Miss Carss, the

handsome daughter of the head gardener at Durras, who was too proud to

dance with any of the Mistwell lads, or any of Vale’s men, except

Windmill. She had been brought by Hobbs, who looked rather horsey in a

check suit, red tie, and hunting-crop tie-pin. Derek took as his partner

the plump daughter of a fisherman, Nan Hinton. She was a good dancer in

a hearty, stamping way, and a certain roughness in his nature responded

to the appeal of her throbbing, healthy body, her coarse, curly hair

which tickled his cheek, and the clasp of her strong, freckled hand. The

rooms were hot and heavy with the perfume of the balsam and hemlock

boughs which the Scotchmen had hung above the doorways. He saw Mrs.

Machin staring at him with disapproval in her eyes. He held Nan the

closer for that, and threw himself with more energy into the dance. Gunn

was whirling round and round with a black-eyed, plump girl, as rosy as

himself. They looked into each other’s eyes, grinning happily.

Newbigging had kissed his partner, and she was protesting loudly that

she would dance with him no more, the while she still jigged on and

courted another kiss. Only Hugh McKay looked glum, standing in a corner,

gnawing his knuckle, for Phœbe hung exultantly on the shoulder of a

young fisherman whose eyes shone in his tanned face, blue as the winter

lake. Derek felt sorry for Hugh and when the waltz was over he went to

Phœbe and said sternly:

“You must go and dance with Hugh, Phœbe. He’s getting very huffish.”

“Huffish, is he? Oh, the very idear! How can he be huffish after the way

I bear with him month in and month out? Oh, he’s an unnatural lover if

ever there was one!”

But she went to him and, though at first he refused her belated

compliance, he was before long dancing in sulky submission.

After supper, which was hot and substantial, Hobbs took Miss Carss away,

lest the increasing roughness should offend her. He told Derek he was

glad to see him mixing with his “help.” “I’m a good mixer, myself,” he

said.

As the evening wore on the room became very hot, the music wilder, the

dancers more abandoned to pleasure. The faces of the men grew red, their

collars sagged, the eyes of the girls grew languorous, it seemed that

their hair must fall down; the rhythmic beat of their feet on the floor,

the swaying of their healthy bodies, their clasped, hot hands held them

in a spell. Mrs. Machin had gone to bed. An epidemic of kissing broke

out. Derek and Edmund slipped quietly into the passage, and went

upstairs to the cold little study.

“Have you had enough?” Derek asked.

“I’ve never spent such a Christmas!” declared Edmund, thumping him

joyously on the shoulder. “I’ve enjoyed every minute of it. There’s

something about those simple, country wenches that is very attractive. I

danced with every blessed one of them. . . . How cold it is here!”

“Light your pipe,” said Derek, “that will help warm you. They’ll go very

soon.” He got a travelling rug and laid it over his brother’s knees.

6.

Edmund stayed two weeks with Derek. A part of almost every day was spent

with the Jerrolds. The roads were good, the air pleasantly crisp; the

four took long rides together. Derek felt that he had shown himself

churlish on Christmas Day, so after that he almost invariably dropped

behind to ride with Mr. Jerrold while Edmund and Grace cantered ahead.

On New Year’s Day, as they rode beside the bluffs, Grace’s horse took

fright at a white cat that crossed the road dragging the body of a

rabbit, and shied almost to the edge of the rocky steep. It was Edmund

who reached her first, who caught the bridle, and led the rearing horse

to safety. Father and daughter seemed to look on him as a splendid

fellow. And so he was! A brother to be proud of. Why then the sullen,

burning anger when the voice of Grace floated back next day, calling him

Edmund? Was this shameful feeling jealousy? Derek thought not. One must

be in love first. . . . He was scarcely in love with Grace. He liked

her, admired her; the thought of her pretty hair would come to him at

the most unexpected times. Sometimes he met her eyes or her cool, amused

little smile in his dreams. Still, that was scarcely love. He could

spend whole days among his horses and cattle and never think of her. And

she so near! He concluded that it was just a precious friendship, and

that some base strain in himself resented the thought of Edmund’s being

admitted to the same friendship. As a kind of discipline, then, he would

stay at home sometimes and let Edmund go to Durras alone. Or was it

cowardice that kept him home? The childish fear of seeing them together?

He was not introspective. He was singularly inarticulate. He did not try

to analyze his feelings or find words for them. He groped among them as

he tramped over his fields or exercised his arms in currying the silken

sides of the new filly who blew her sweet breath down his neck as she

turned to nose him. The brothers did not speak of Grace until they stood

on the platform the day of Edmund’s departure. Then Derek said:

“I don’t suppose I need look forward to a long separation, Ted. . . .

Not with such an attraction next door.”

Edmund answered seriously: “I can never hope for anything there. I’m too

damned poor.”

“Is she—going to write to you?”

“Of course.”

There was that wretched stab at his heart again! He was thankful for the

shriek of the locomotive. He wrung Edmund’s hand.

He did not go to the Jerrolds’ for a fortnight.

CHAPTER XI

THE RILL IN THE WOOD

1.

When spring came Derek had the new red sleigh stored away under canvas.

He heaved a deep sigh as he gave the order, for there had been no snow

all winter, and the sleigh had never been out of the carriage-house.

Still, it had been a pleasant winter, days when there was always

something of interest on the farm, long evenings spent before the

fireside at Durras. His relations with Grace Jerrold had become happy

again, though not quite so happy as before Edmund’s visit. Still,

sometimes there were little flashes of atoning tenderness between them,

when her gentle, ironic smile would become almost maternal.

At Grimstone things went very well, though there was occasionally some

roughness of temper in the men thrown together so constantly, with

little amusement, except what they made for themselves. Windmill came in

for a good deal of chaff because of his attentions to Miss Carss. They

were often seen walking on the bluffs in the moonlight, his arm about

her shapely waist, and her long scarf streaming in the wind.

Phœbe lost a front tooth in February, broken off while biting a hard

russet apple. Not at all abashed by the loss, she smiled, it seemed,

more broadly than ever, as though she were rather proud of the gap. It

was evident that she was secure in Hugh’s love and admiration; as a

matter of truth, no man could look on the milk and roses of Phœbe’s

cheeks or the subtle curves of her smooth arms and neck without

admiration.

It was a forward spring, and all hands were needed for the rush of farm

work. Derek, therefore, was exasperated, even hurt, when Gunn came to

him one morning in April and announced that he had engaged to work for

Chard. He wished to leave that night.

“Well, Gunn, it is very annoying,” said Derek, “after my keeping you in

comparative idleness all winter, to have you leave me just when you

would be of some use.”

“Comparative idleness!” cried Gunn. “Idleness! What about all them

drains we dug, and the care of the stock? Do ye ca’ that idleness?”

“Two men could easily have done what the four of you did. Do you suppose

for a minute that I should have kept you sitting beside the stove all

winter if I had known you would leave in the spring?”

“Well, I’m goin’ anyway.” His small black eyes were sulky.

“What the devil’s the matter? Is Chard paying you more?”

“It’s no money. It’s environment. I dinna like the environment here. For

one thing, I’m sick to death o’ Mrs. Machin’s cookin’. She maks our

porridge so stiff ye could stumble over it, and she gie’s us clout

puddin’s nearly every day. She doesn’t gie us what you get on your table

at all. Mrs. Chaird is a fine cook. She bakes pies and cakes every

morning. Their Dick tells me he’s treated just like one o’ the family.

Another thing. Newbigging and I can’t get on togither and never shall.

And I’m awfu’ sick o’ watchin’ Phœbe and Hughie spoon, and o’ Windmill

and his upstairt ways.”

“It is time you went. But, you know, I have the power to hold you for a

month’s notice, Gunn.”

Gunn grinned. “I dinna think I’d be much guid if I was held,” he said.

“Well, you’re no prize at your best,” said Derek. “You can go.”

Shortly afterwards Gunn carried his tin box through the gate. That

afternoon, walking through his orchard, Derek saw him at work hoeing

among Chard’s gooseberry bushes, Chard by his side. “Chard will get the

last squeak out of him, and I wish him luck,” thought Derek.

2.

Windmill and Newbigging were spraying the orchard. Windmill held the

hose while Newbigging pumped the machine. A glittering green rainbow of

the evil-smelling Bordeaux mixture curved above the freshly budded

trees. Newbigging sang a sailor’s chanty as he pumped. His mind seemed

full of the sea those spring days, and Derek feared that some day he,

too, would get restless and leave. In spite of Mrs. Machin’s protest, he

raised the wages of the remaining men.

He climbed the low fence at the end of the orchard and, passing the

acres of pruned berry canes, entered the lane. He intended to inspect a

field of fall wheat at the back of the farm, now submerged by recent

rains.

At the edge of the wood he heard his name called, and saw Mr. Jerrold

striding towards him across the grass meadow. His dogs were as always at

his heels. He came up and rested his arm on the fence. He began to talk

with what seemed to Vale rather forced cheerfulness, of the prospect of

early crops. Presently he said, looking into Derek’s eyes with sudden

seriousness:

“I wonder if you could lend me some money.”

“Rather,” said Derek, quickly, trying not to seem taken aback. “How

much?”

“I know you’re surprised at my asking, Vale, but things have gone very

badly with me the past year. I have notes to meet. Expenses are

devilishly high. It takes a pile of money just to pay the men’s wages.

Of course, last year was exceptional. Everything went against me. It

will probably never happen again. As a matter of fact, I can see the day

approaching when Durras will flourish and repay me all the money I have

put in it. In the meantime”—he gave his confident smile—“I thank God I

have a good friend who comes to my assistance.”

“Mr. Jerrold,” said Derek, “I wish you would get rid of Hobbs. I don’t

think he is the best man for this place. He talks impressively, and he

understands his work, I grant, but he spends a great deal of time on the

road driving that fast white horse, or boasting about his achievements

at the ‘Duke of York.’ Mrs. Machin says—oh, well, you needn’t laugh,

she’s a pretty shrewd old head—she says that you could do with far

fewer men; and you told me yourself that a carload of your apples went

to waste last year, and you lost Count Robert because Hobbs didn’t send

for the vet. in time. I hope you don’t mind my talking like this.”

A shadow flitted over Mr. Jerrold’s vigorous, sanguine face. “No, no. I

don’t mind a bit. It’s true, too, what you say. But, look here, Vale,

are you under the impression that Hobbs is a poor man? That seems a

ridiculous question . . . the truth is . . . oh, Lord! I’ve borrowed

money from the man. An uncle died in the Old Country two years ago. Left

him rich. I haven’t borrowed a little. I’ve borrowed a lot.” He stood

shamefaced, like a boy who has made a confession, hitting his leg with

the stick he carried.

Derek was aghast. “Why did Hobbs stay on then—after the fortune was

left him?”

“I don’t know. Said he liked the job. Hopes some day perhaps—well, he’s

a fool. I’ll pay him off very soon and fire him. I’m tired of him;

though in some ways I don’t see how I shall replace him.”

“Well, I am very glad you came to me,” said Derek. “How much do you

want?”

He was surprised at the largeness of the sum mentioned by Mr. Jerrold,

but he promised to write a cheque for it that day.

3.

A little stream, nothing more than a rill, nosed its way delicately

among the ferns and brambles of the Grimstone wood, and, after curving

about a bank of violets, slipped under the boundary fence into Durras,

hurried over a sloping meadow and was lost in the creek.

When Mr. Jerrold and he had parted Derek strolled musingly along the

bank of the rill, his mind dwelling, now on Mr. Jerrold’s ill fortune,

now, half consciously, upon a certain melancholy unrest within himself.

He was absent-minded, erratic, changeable, and he wondered vaguely why.

He had set out to inspect the fall wheat, and now he did not care

whether it were submerged or not. He was much more interested in the

fate of an empty bird’s-nest, doubtless torn from its branch by some

boy, robbed of its eggs, and thrown in the little stream. It bobbed and

jigged like some ludicrous old boat; its progress was stayed by a few

spears of grass; it was free again, and caught in a tiny eddy, whirled

and danced as though it had never held five throbbing little hearts

within its woven curve.

The white turkey-hen came from under an elderberry bush, trailing her

slender feet, and craning her neck to peer at the bird’s-nest. She gave

Derek a gloomy yet not unfriendly glance. “She feels like I do,” thought

Derek, “and Newbigging is the same. There’s a vagabond streak in all

three of us.” She swept back into the shadow of the bush and sank

wearily and yet mysteriously to her nest. Derek followed her and looked

down. “You know,” he said, “I’m perfectly aware of what you’re up to.

And it’s no use. You never bring anything out. I don’t believe there’s

anything to bring. That empty nest was an omen for you. Better give up

trying and just be ornamental.” She looked out at him, her head

delicately poised, with the cold, aloof regard of a snake.

A meadow lark rose from its nest in the meadow beyond. Turning his eyes

to watch its flight Derek saw Grace Jerrold kneeling bareheaded by the

rill. Her face was half hidden, but her posture suggested sadness. She

sad, too, on this mirthful day of spring! As he looked, she raised her

hand from the moist grass and held it to her eyes. She was quietly

crying. Again she laid her hand on the grass—a gentle white hand, he

thought, like a flower. He wanted very much to comfort her. But how to

speak—how to pass comfort through this damnable barbed-wire fence! His

eyes fell on the bird’s-nest. He snatched it up. It should bear the

cargo of his comfort past that barbed barrier. He took a small note-book

from his pocket, tore out a leaf, and wrote, very carefully, so that one

might read it easily through tears—“Please don’t cry.” He folded it,

laid it in the nest, now a useless derelict no longer, and set it

carefully in the middle of the rill just under the fence. He loosed it.

For a space it floated languidly against a spray of watercress, then a

masterful current took it in hand, and hurried it quickly on its

mission. The rill broadened where Grace knelt and Derek feared for a

moment that his note would be rushed past her unseen, but the instant

the nest appeared before her, the white hand that had been raised to

wipe another tear, darted out and swept it ashore. She opened the note.

She read. She sprang to her feet and faced him. He could see then that

her white cheeks were dabbled with tears.

“You looked like a Greek girl,” he said, to make light of the situation,

“kneeling to pray to the deity of the stream.”

“Offering my tears,” she said, with a little smile, coming towards him.

She still held the nest as though it were a treasure. Derek suddenly

remembered his conversation with Fawnie among the raspberry canes about

a goldfinch’s nest.

“Can I help?” he asked.

“That’s the trouble. I’m crying because father has asked you to help. I

begged him not to. But he has. When I saw you two talking—and your

expressions—I knew.”

“You know too,” he said, gently, “that it gives me real pleasure to help

your father. And it will make it easier for me to ask his help some day.

Think how gladly he would give it.”

“Oh, but you don’t understand! Things are going very badly with us. Of

course, William will repay you this loan, but—he is so optimistic, and

he does not foresee great difficulties arising—as I do. But don’t let

us talk of it any more. Tell me where you found the nest. You know, that

was rather a sweet thing you did. I shan’t forget it.”

He noticed then that she was wearing a white skirt and a close-fitting

green jersey. Her bronze hair was loosened from its usual smoothness by

the wind. He thought she looked the very spirit of spring.

“Tell me,” she said, suddenly, “if you had it to do over again would you

come to Grimstone as you did? Or should you sell it and stick to Halifax

and your profession?”

“I should come if it were only for the sake of being near you.” His

heart began to beat quickly as he heard his own words. He was moved by

an exquisite desire to take her into his arms, to press the feminine

softness of the silk jersey against his rough tweed coat, to smell the

perfume of that sunny bronze hair. Yet there stood the fence!

She saw the look in his eyes. He felt that she read him. They both

laughed. Was she laughing with him or at him? Though he laughed he had a

feeling of chagrin. He felt angry with her. Angrier still when he

fancied she looked relieved as the figure of Hobbs approached on his

white horse.

Hobbs touched his hat. He said, “I’m sorry to inform you, Mr. Vale, that

those Welsh ponies of yours have broken down the fence by our wheat

fields. Your horses and cows are in there now. I’m just sending some men

up to turn them out. Sorry to interrupt you.”

CHAPTER XII

THE WIND OUT OF WINDMILL’S SAILS

1.

Things seemed determined to go wrong that spring. Phœbe affirmed that

from the moment when she had set her teeth in that hard russet apple

which had snapped off a perfectly good incisor misfortunes had come

tripping on one another’s heels. Excessive rains had swollen the stream

until it had grown to a tumbling, coffee-coloured torrent, in which a

ewe and her skipping lamb had lost their lives. Bessie, Derek’s

favourite Jersey, had given birth to twin calves, both of which had

died, and she herself had been ailing ever since. Mike had torn his leg

on a piece of barbed-wire, carelessly left dangling at a fence

corner—it was impossible to tell by whom—and had severed an artery.

Derek would never forget Mike’s hard breathing and the look in his

distended eyes as he stood beside him miserably waiting for the

veterinary, while the blood gushed from the wound as from a tap, making

a thick puddle on the floor of the stall. Mike had recovered but must go

easy for a while; another horse had to be purchased, and it turned out

that he was full of nasty tricks, in stall and field—the men vied with

each other in repeating Philip’s misdeeds. The heavy rain produced a

growth of rank weeds that fought for supremacy over the mangolds,

turnips, and garden vegetables. Old Peek and Mrs. Orde’s short-legged

husband, and four boys from Mistwell were constantly employed in

weeding, and in sorting the last of the apple crop in the apple-house.

Carelessness in storing defective apples and leaves among the good ones,

combined with the mildness of the winter, had caused a great deal of

rot. The sound apples had to be separated and washed, and the decayed

thrown to the pigs. The air about the apple-house was full of a sweet,

acrid, ciderish smell.

Derek anxiously waited for a new man to be sent by the Immigration

Agency in York, but every farm seemed to be in need of help, and

experienced men were few.

One morning in late May Hugh strode up to Derek, where he stood on the

porch snuffing the fresh breeze from the lake. Phœbe followed Hugh

closely, her eyes dancing with excitement behind her spectacles.

“Guid-mornin’, sir,” said Hugh, “and I’ve got to tell ye that

Newbigging’s flitted. He was restless all day yesterday, and last nicht

he sat by the window peerin’ out and wouldna coom to bed, and when he

did, he kept me awake wi’ his tossing. Then, this morn he must have been

up with the birds, for when I woke at sunrise he was gone, and his wee

bag, and his box wi’ the gilt collar-studs, and his wee red book of

songs. He’s flitted for certain.”

“And I called over the fence and told Bob Gunn,” said Phœbe, “and he

said it was all one could expect from one of those chaps from Dundee.

He’s getting pretty sick of Chard’s, Bob is.”

That evening Bob himself came to Derek, short, stocky, and rosy as ever.

“I hear Newbigging’s made off,” he said.

“Yes, what’s that to you?” asked Derek, shortly.

“Nothing. But I’ll come back and fill his place if ye say the word, Mr.

Vale.”

“What, you want to leave Chard after only a month?”

“A month can seem like a lifetime, sometimes, sir. He’s a regular

slave-driver, Chaird is. The very first nicht I was there after an awfu’

day’s work, he says after supper, ‘Come on now, Bob, and get busy

cuttin’ up potatoes for seed.’ ‘Cut up potatoes!’ I said. ‘Why, we never

work in the evenings at Mr. Vale’s.’ ‘Weel,’ says he, ‘we work all the

time here, and anyone who won’t do it, can get out.’”

“It served you right for leaving me.”

“Will ye hae me back, sir? Now that Newbigging’s gone, me and the other

lads’d get along fine.”

“What about Mrs. Chard’s pies?”

“Pies! I’m fair sick o’ the very sicht o’ pie. She gies them to us even

for breakfast.”

“Well, you’ve made your bed, Gunn, and you must lie on it——”

“It’s straw and awfu’ lumpy,” interrupted Gunn.

“I’ll not have Mr. Chard saying that I took you away from him,” went on

Derek. “What do you think you are, Gunn, a shuttlecock, to be bandied

back and forth across the fence?”

“I’m no shuttlecock,” said Gunn, his eyes snapping. “I’m a free British

citizen, and I can’t be forced to stop anywhere. I’ll gang where I

please.”

“You can go to the devil as far as I’m concerned,” said Derek, packing

tobacco into his pipe with the handle of his pocket-knife. “You played

me a dirty trick, and I’m through with you.”

Gunn turned away, his rosy face puckered with chagrin. “Weel, good-bye,

and I’m no afeerd to say that you’ll wish you had me back before the

summer’s through.” He hung about a moment, irresolutely, and then walked

slowly back to Chard’s.

2.

Derek, impatient at the delay of the immigration officials in sending

him help, had taken the train to York to impress them, if possible, with

his extreme need. He could not believe that other farms were crying for

succour so urgently as Grimstone. Yet the officials, though polite, were

singularly callous to his need, and offered as a sop only one poor

creature, Snailem by name, suspiciously smooth of hand, who now sat in

the other end of the coach gazing out of window with dull eyes that,

Derek thought, would blink before the problem of distinguishing a reaper

from a mower. Still, he was a “hand,” and Derek determined to get the

utmost out of him till more help came, which was promised shortly.

He, too, gazed through the window at the fields steaming in a hot sunset

after a day of rain. He saw woods flash by, rounded in all the rank

effulgence of their springing maturity; hillsides dotted by plump ewes

with sucking lambs butting against their udders; black, rich fields

where wet-booted men still seeded the hungry soil. He saw a deep cut

through a cedar wood, where a narrow stream ran far below, its course

marked by white lilies and lady’s slipper. A heron rose heavily above

it, his long legs stiff, his neck stretched, his wings beating against

the flaring sunset.

Derek felt very content. Life in all its intensity surged about him, and

he was part of all this divine, strange vivacity of living—the steaming

fields—the flying heron—the flying train—even Snailem,

surreptitiously slipping a wad of tobacco into his untidy mouth.

Across the way a young woman comforted her little boy, who was crying

because he had bumped his nose on the window sill. She gave him and his

sister each a sponge cake, and kissed the little bumped nose, and

laughed. The two children ate the cakes hungrily, but the boy dug the

caraway seeds out of his and laid them on the plush seat beside him. His

mother, seeing him deposit the last one there, gave him a little slap

and brushed the seeds hurriedly to the floor. The boy puckered his face

to cry again, but seeing Derek laughing at him, he laughed too, and, in

a moment, sidled across the aisle and stood at his side.

“You don’t like caraway seeds, eh?” said Derek.

“I frow ’em away.”

“That’s a mistake. They’ll give you muscle—make you strong.”

“What’s the use of being strong?” said the little fellow, his mouth down

at the corners; “there’s always somebody else stronger.”

“Cyril,” called his mother, “come here, this moment. Don’t be so

forward.”

“Shan’t go,” said Cyril. “I’ll stop here till we get to Mistwell.”

“He does need a man to straighten him,” confided the mother, leaning

across. “His father’s been out two years now. We’re just coming to

him. . . . It’s an awful journey crossing the ocean and taking such a

long rileway journey with young children.”

“I’ll see that you get off all right,” said Derek. “Is your husband at

Mr. Jerrold’s?”

“No. He’s with a Mr. Vile, at a farm called Grimstone, quite near

Mistwell. He’s not expecting us——” Her face flushed, and grew hard.

Derek was staggered. Rapidly the faces of his four men flitted across

his mental vision—rosy, beady-eyed Gunn, altogether too young—brown,

honest Hugh—if it were he, Good God! what a time they would have with

Phœbe!—Windmill, who was courting Miss Carss, and who was a notch above

this worried, dowdy, little woman surely—Newbigging, ah, Newbigging,

who had so lately “flitted,” having got wind perhaps of his wife’s

intentions. It must be Newbigging.

He had leaned back, staring out at the fields without seeing them. Now

he asked the little boy, who had squeezed into the seat beside him,

“What is your other name—besides Cyril?”

“Windmill. . . . And daddy’s name’s Windmill, and mother’s name’s

Windmill, and Ruby’s name’s——”

The train stopped with a jolt, its grinding of wheels drowning the

child’s voice. Derek was thankful; he felt that he could stand no more

reiterations of that name.

3.

He had helped the woman into the bus. He had sent Snailem in it, too,

and had paid the fares of all four. Then he had set out on foot himself,

determining to telephone to Windmill and prepare him for the coming

visitation. Although he pitied the dowdy little wife, some loyalty of

sex made him pity, still more, the erring husband. Poor Windmill! who

had fainted in the field the day before because of the heat, and who was

probably now washing and dressing, after a hard day in the fields, in

preparation for his evening walk with Miss Carss, all unconscious of the

weary Nemesis that was rolling towards him in the bus.

Derek called up Grimstone from the village store. Phœbe’s voice came

thickly over the wire as though she were eating something. Windmill? Oh,

he was out. The usual, she s’posed. He’d hurried right off after tea.

She had a terrible sore throat and would Mr. Vale fetch her a few

peppermint bull’s-eyes from the shop?

Derek hung up the receiver and bought the bull’s-eyes from the

shop-keeper’s wife, who grunted as each one dropped from the jar, as

though it hurt her. Disconsolately he left the shop and walked slowly

towards Grimstone. His one idea now was to loiter till the worst should

be over when he arrived. He could picture that little woman making a

pretty scene. He put a bull’s-eye in his mouth and sucked it

meditatively, feeling rather as he used to at eight, when he had a mind

to be late for school.

As he was passing the graveyard he heard a rattle of wheels behind him,

and, turning, saw the bus lumbering up. Good Lord! He had thought it had

reached Grimstone long ago. Now he remembered to have seen Jackman in

it, a farmer who lived a mile east of Mistwell. He had been driven home

first! The bus-driver drew up his horses. “Can I give you a lift, sir?”

he called.

Derek swallowed his third bull’s-eye and climbed into the bus. He was in

for the scene after all!

Cyril, Ruby, and Mrs. Windmill smiled as though he were an old friend.

Snailem tried to smile, but he was manipulating a fresh wad of tobacco

and it took all his skill.

“The bus-driver tells me that you are Mr. Vile,” said Mrs. Windmill.

“I’m so glad, for I’m sure you’ll tell my husband that I did right in

coming to him. It’s no way for husband and wife to live, and—I’ve heard

rumours. So I just sold my bit of furniture and came strite across. His

father gave me money for the passage, so you can see what his family

feel about it.”

“I shouldn’t place much dependence in rumours, if I were you,” said

Derek. “A man sometimes makes a friend when he’s far from home, but he

means nothing wrong—he’s just lonely.”

“Mr. Vile, did my husband tell you he is a married man?”

“No,” acknowledged Derek, “he didn’t.”

“Oh! the villain!”

“Be careful. That man Snailem will hear you.”

“It mikes me wild. Look at his two lovely kiddies—and him not to own to

them.”

“He does not tell me his affairs.”

“And I sent him their picture at Christmas. I’ll wiger he never showed

it to that minx he’s walking out with!”

“This is my place,” said Derek, thankfully, as the bus stopped. He swung

the children to the ground, and helped Mrs. Windmill with her bundles;

Snailem let himself down heavily, and cast a dismal look over the farm.

There was no sign of life about. The air was moist, heavy, and filled

with the honeyed smell of the locust flowers. The lake lay still as

molten lead, following the hot exuberance of sunset.

The bus rattled away. Derek sent Snailem to the kitchen to report to

Mrs. Machin. Then he turned to Mrs. Windmill. “Don’t you think it would

be best,” he said, “for you to wait here a bit? I’ll find your husband

and send him to you.” She assented, and he went through the house to the

kitchen.

He found Snailem and Mrs. Machin there, she regarding him as he stood

before her, with the ironical grin of an old spider who had just caught

a stupid fly in her web . . . not the sort of fly she fancied, but one

which nevertheless had to be demolished.

“Where is Windmill?” demanded Derek.

“He ain’t here,” replied Mrs. Machin, “that’s all I know about him. He

went out half an hour ago, slicked up like a city feller.”

“I must send Hugh to find him. His wife is here. I don’t want her to see

him perhaps with Miss Carss. I’d better fetch her in.”

“His wife?” Mrs. Machin’s grin broadened. “Well, he kep’ it mighty

quiet. Here’s a pretty kettle of fish. Fool!”

Phœbe dashed in from the outer kitchen followed by Hugh.

“Hugh,” began Derek, “go over to Mr. Jerrold’s——”

“Ow!” cried Phœbe, “there’s a norful scene on the bluffs! Windmill and

Miss Carss, and a woman in high-strikes. Come along out!”

They hurried to the flagged yard. On the bluffs they could see Windmill

outlined against the sky, and beside him the tall figure of Miss Carss,

her long veil fluttering in a freshly sprung breeze. Climbing towards

them up the side of the bluff was the wife, her hat fallen back, her

arms waving, her voice raised in screams. Her two children were running

far behind her down the road.

“I had a fambly once,” remarked Snailem, “but they’re all dead. Wife and

triplets.”

“Ow, the villain,” cried Phœbe, “to desert his poor wife like that! He

ought to be horsewhipped.”

“Hold your tongue,” ordered Mrs. Machin, “you’ll likely be deserted

yourself some day.”

They saw Windmill stride quickly to his wife and take her roughly by the

arm. His touch only made her more violent, and Miss Carss, after

watching them struggle for a moment, turned abruptly away and began to

run along the bluffs towards home. Windmill’s wife, seeing her rival

retreat, ceased her screams, and sank exhausted to the grass. The two

children reached their mother’s side and threw themselves upon her,

sobbing. Windmill’s bowler hat was on one side. He stood looking down at

the dishevelled heap of humanity before him, the wife of his bosom, and

the two beings he had begotten, who had brought this shame, this

chagrin, this retribution across the sea to him.

“It was for all the world like a play,” heaved Phœbe from the depths of

her.

“All the world’s a stage,” observed Snailem, moving closer to her.

“All the world ’ud be a work-house, if we was all as simple as some

folks,” snapped Mrs. Machin.

4.

Windmill and his wife sat for an hour or more on the cliff, talking

earnestly. It was almost dark when he came at last to the house, leading

one of his children by each hand. His wife, he explained, was not in a

condition to meet strangers, but she would like a pot of tea. He would

carry it to her. He displayed his pink-cheeked children proudly, and

while Phœbe stuffed them with strawberries and cream, he told Vale,

shamefacedly, that he must leave that very night. They could catch the

late train from York, and they would return almost directly to the Old

Country. His father was a boot manufacturer and he could go into the

business at any time. He regretted leaving Canada, for he loved the

life, and—he had meant no harm by his friendship with Miss Carss—it

was purely platonic.

Vale had Hugh harness the gelding and drive the family to the train.

When Windmill had lifted his wife and whining infants into the surrey,

and the huddle of drooping figures had disappeared into the dusk, Derek

went to his room to read a letter from Edmund that had awaited him on

his return from town.

He felt rueful over the loss of Windmill, and he opened the letter

slowly. Edmund seemed to be in good spirits. Towards the end of the

letter he wrote: “I think you can safely expect me to visit you before

the summer is over. I am keen to see you, and besides, I have a mind to

try my luck next door. It seems audacious, I know, but I have reason to

hope. Anyway, it would not be the first time that a beautiful heiress

has thrown herself away on a penniless young officer. God knows, I do

not want her money, but I do want her desperately. I know you wish me

luck.”

After reading the letter Derek felt more rueful than ever. Indeed, he

felt perilously near to being sick at heart.

PART II

CHAPTER I

AN EAR-RING UPON THE EAR OF THE GUILTY

1.

The Sharroe family had promised to pick fruit at Grimstone that summer.

They were expected any day; and it was high time they came, for under

every strawberry leaf red berries winked ripely, growing redder hour by

hour. The weather had become hot and dry; a strong wind blew the sandy

dust in clouds from the driveway all day till sundown, when it fell,

leaving the air heavy and oppressive.

Vale was in his bedroom, washing, and brushing his hair before going to

Durras to spend the evening. He heard the sound of voices, and cries of

children on the road, and went to the window, hoping that it might be

the Sharroes. That wayward family was indeed turning in at the gate. No

imposing figure of Solomon Sharroe led them now, but his squatty wife

carrying an immense bundle; and there was Fawnie, and Jammery; and

Esther and Maggie with their husbands; and Charley and Bobby; and Beulah

and Alma (each bearing a baby in her arms) and, last of all, the idiot

boy, riding on the back of a brother scarce larger than himself.

Poor, ignorant, innocent children! He had intended having a new cottage

built for them this season, but they must once more make shift with the

old shack. And little Fawnie. . . . He wondered whether she would want a

hen to set this year. He remembered her little, round, coffee-coloured

neck, and her even teeth, like so many pearls. And those small, supple,

berry-stained hands. “You are a little baggage, Fawnie,” he had said to

her, in his moment of chagrin. “You mean I act like I was white,” she

had answered.

He went slowly from his room to the passage and took his straw hat from

the rack. He whistled for a half-grown Irish terrier pup that Mr.

Jerrold had given him, but the puppy did not come. He went to the

kitchen to look for him, fearing that Phœbe was feeding him a second

supper.

As he expected, the puppy was there, his sides drawn together, his legs

apart, as he wolfed the greasy contents of a bowl. “Phœbe! Phœbe!”

expostulated Derek. “How often have I told you not to let that little

brute gorge himself!”

“I can’t help it,” said Phœbe, “the creature gives me no peace till I

do.”

There was a chuckling sound at the door and Derek saw the round faces of

Beulah and Alma pressed against the screen.

“Phœbe,” said Beulah, grinning, “kin I have a point of milk?”

“Oh,” cried Phœbe, impatiently, “you and your points of milk! The moment

you arrive, I’m running to the milk jug, or the paraffin jar, or the

butter crock. Where’s your money?” Beulah showed a few blackened

coppers, and Phœbe went to the cellar, still scolding.

Beulah cautiously opened the door and put her rough black head inside.

“Say,” she whispered, “my Maw wants to see you—up at the shack—I was

to say, come now.”

“What does she want me for? Tell her to come here if she wants to see

me.”

“She don’ want the old woman and Phœbe to hear. She says there’ll be a

lot of trouble if you don’ come.”

“Very well,” said Derek, “but if she thinks I will pay any more for the

picking she’s mistaken.”

Phœbe brought the milk and Derek set out through the orchard with the

children. It was dusk, and a lantern had been lighted in the old part of

the shack. A red shaft of light through the open door pierced the

dimness of the orchard like the gleam of a baleful eye. Under the trees

the air was intensely sultry. As Derek drew near, the two little girls

suddenly darted away from his side, so that he approached alone. At the

same instant several dark figures passed out of the shack and appeared

to go around to the addition.

When Derek stood in the doorway, only the old squaw, Fawnie, Esther, and

Jammery were inside. Fawnie was standing under the lantern. In the red

glow her cheeks had the bloom of a dark, ripe peach. Her lips were

pressed together in an inscrutable smile. Esther and Jammery stood with

bent heads, but the old woman turned a look of thunderous fury on Derek.

“Look here, Mr. Vale,” she said, in a thick voice, “I want you to take

that woman o’ yours away out o’ here. I won’t stand her around me any

longer.”

Derek stared at her in astonishment. “What woman?” he said, sharply.

“What do you mean?”

“That woman there,” she replied, jerking her head towards Fawnie. “That

woman that’s got a baby born of yours last April. You get her out o’

here or I’ll kill her.”

Derek turned to Esther—she had always seemed a sensible girl. “Is your

mother crazy?” he asked.

Esther answered composedly, “No, she ain’t crazy, she’s just mad.

Fawnie’s got a little boy belongin’ to you, and Maw says she won’t have

any white babies livin’ with her.”

Derek looked at her directly, ignoring the old squaw. “Well, she has

Alma. She’s half white. She’s yours, isn’t she?”

“Yes, but I was married to her paw, all right. He got killed one

winter—loggin’.”

“Alma!” shouted the mother. “Let me at that girl! I’ll kill her yet,

with her white face like dough! She looks down on her old grandmaw. She

thinks I’m like the dirt under her feet. She’d like to wipe her feet on

me. She’d like to spit on me. I’ll take an axe and chop her head off

yet. Jus’ let me at that girl. . . . Fawnie, you show Mr. Vale the

papoose that you got of his.”

Fawnie, still with her inscrutable smile, turned to one of the bunks and

picked up a rolled shawl. She opened it and showed something that slept

curled up like a mouse. Derek saw that the down on its head gleamed like

silver in the lantern light.

Fawnie smiled at it adoringly. “My little baby,” she said. “My own

little baby.” She seemed singularly undisturbed by the storm about her.

It appeared that they might do with her what they wished, if only she be

allowed to keep her plaything. With a violent gesture the mother

snatched it from her and thrust it into Derek’s arms. “Here,” she

shouted, “take your brat—and take Fawnie, too—or I’ll kill ’em!” Derek

would have dropped the child, but Jammery took it from him lightly, and,

with an imploring look at the old squaw, said: “Please don’t make so

much noise. Let me go out with Mr. Vale, and talk things over quietly.

You come too, Fawnie.”

“You take them out and don’t bring them back,” said Mrs. Sharroe.

Thankful to escape from the insufferable odours of the shack, Derek drew

a deep breath of the night air. Fawnie, Jammery, the child in his arms,

and he, moved some distance into the orchard. The puppy, with short,

sharp cries, started off in pursuit of something in the dark.

“Honestly,” said Jammery, under his breath, “I think you’ll have to take

her away till the old woman cools down. She’s pretty dangerous. It isn’t

just what she says—she does things. You’d hardly believe the way she

can act, Mr. Vale. Honestly, she ought to be locked up when she gets

these spells. Would you mind showing Mr. Vale your shoulders, Fawnie? If

I light a match, I think he can get an idea . . . just loosen your

dress.”

He struck a light, and Derek, as one in a dream, peered at the girl’s

shoulder off which she had drawn her loose cotton blouse. “Ah, they

scarcely show in this light at all,” murmured Jammery, “but move your

fingers over them. Feel.” He took Derek’s hand in his and laid it on her

back. Derek, moving his fingers, felt one hot welt after another on the

tender flesh. “By God!” he exclaimed, “I’ll make that old woman suffer

for this. I’ll have her arrested.”

“No, no,” said Jammery, “don’t do that. Think of the way she’d talk.

She’d tell how you ruined the girl. Everything will be all right if you

just keep Fawnie and the baby out of her sight for a few days.”

“Very well,” said Derek, “I’ll take them down to the house now. There’s

plenty of room. But you tell the old squaw that I won’t stand anything

more from her. She’s got to behave or to gaol she goes. And you may be

certain I’ll never have her here another year.”

“No, of course not. But Fawnie’s a good girl. She’ll never make you

sorry you protected her. It’s an awful thing for a young girl to get

walloped like that, so soon after childbirth.”

“Stop talking about it,” said Derek. It hurt him even to think of such

barbarity. “Come along, Fawnie. Poor little child.”

2.

When they emerged from the orchard, Derek tried to see Fawnie’s face but

he could not. Yet he had the impression that she was still smiling in

the darkness. He could make out the curve of her arms about the baby. He

still felt like one in a dream. All this seemed most unreal, and,

suddenly, he remembered that July night, a year ago, and the same dark

girl whose face he could not see. And here were they two once more—and

a third—the silver-haired being in the shawl—born, one might say, of

that flash of lightning that had shown them the coign in the cliff.

A steamer was sweeping past; she showed a row of illuminated windows,

and a brighter light at the bow. A bell clanged as she passed. . . . Now

they were beneath the heavy aching scent of the locust flowers.

“Fawnie,” said Derek, “we’ll go in at the front door, so the men won’t

see you.”

“The front door,” she repeated, in a tone of awe. “Right in at the front

door.”

A hanging lamp burned in the hall. He hesitated a moment and then took

her arm and guided her up the stairs. He had decided that he would give

her the bedroom that had been got ready for Edmund at Christmas. There

she could keep herself and her baby in seclusion for a few days, till

the old squaw should quiet down. He would give Fawnie a little

allowance, which would put her in quite a different position in her

mother’s household.

He lighted two candles that stood on the dressing-table. Their

reflection flashed out in the looking-glass: his strong figure in white,

his fair face flushed, little knots of perplexity between his brows;

she, dusky, receptive, immobile, holding her baby to her breast.

He felt the allure of her presence in that remembered quiver of the

nerves, but, pushing the sensation from him, he said:

“Now, I’m going to send Mrs. Machin to you. She’ll fix you up for the

night.”

“No, I won’t have her,” with a stubborn shake of the head. “I’m scared

of her, Derek. Just leave me here and I’ll lay on the bed as nice as

anything. I won’t have that ole woman scoldin’ me. I’ve had enough

scoldin’.”

“Very well. But I’ll get her to give me some sheets and you can make

your own bed.”

“Sheets! My goodness”—her lips curved into a smile—“I would like

sheets—and a white piller-case.”

3.

“Well,” said Mrs. Machin, when he had told her as much of the story as

he thought was good for her to know, “so you expect me to wait on an

Indian girl and her bastard brat, eh? Give ’em my best sheets, eh? And

towels with rick-rack on the ends? What do you take me for, Mr. Vale? A

simpleton?” Mrs. Machin was making the porridge for breakfast, and now

she stirred it with all her might, and whacked the wooden porridge

stick, that was nearly as old as she, on the side of the porridge pot.

“What do you take me for, Mr. Vale?” she repeated. “A simpleton to let a

dirty Indian into one of my bedrooms? How should I get rid of her

again——”

“I’ll see to that.”

“You’ve seen to about enough,” she retorted grimly. “You haven’t told me

who that child belongs to, but I know what everybody’ll say. They’ll say

it’s yours. Now the Vales have always been respectable. Grimstone is the

grandest old place in the countryside, and would you go and disgrace us

all?”

“My God,” said Derek, “would you send that poor child back to her crazy

mother to be beaten again, perhaps killed?”

“Why did she wait till she was coming here to beat her? Why did she

bring her back here at all? Just because she thought you was easy prey.

Leave me to deal with them Indians, Mr. Vale. I understand ’em, through

and through, from their dirty black hair to their sneaky, flat feet. You

leave ’em to me.”

“Mrs. Machin,” said Derek, firmly, “I am going to protect that young

girl. Get me some sheets for her bed.”

“I won’t do nothing of the sort,” she repeated, attacking the porridge

with renewed spite. “If she sleeps here, she sleeps on the mattress or

the floor. It don’t matter to me.”

“Very well. I’ll get the sheets myself.” He left her angrily, and strode

through the house and up the stairway. He pulled open a heavy drawer in

an old chest of drawers that stood at the top of the stairs. He knew

that the bed linen was kept there. He had barely extracted a pair of

sheets and was searching for pillow-cases when Mrs. Machin came panting

up the stairs behind him. She carried a lamp in her hand which she set

down heavily on the chest.

“Here,” she said, thickly, “if it’s got to be done, I’ll do it. I won’t

have you messin’ about in my linen.” She took the sheets from him

roughly, and, after examining them with a groan, gave him two of coarser

material, and a patched pillow-case.

With a curt “Thanks,” Derek left her and went to Fawnie’s door. He

tapped.

The door opened a little way. He saw that Fawnie had laid the baby on

the bed, and had opened the small drawers on either side of the

looking-glass, doubtless in the hope of discovering hidden finery.

“Here are sheets,” he said. “There is a quilt on the bed. Now make it up

quickly, like a good girl, and be off to sleep. You’re safe.”

“And make the most of this night in a proper bed,” interposed Mrs.

Machin, “for it’s likely the last you’ll ever have.”

The two women faced each other for a moment, as might a cynical old cat

and an enquiring, yet self-possessed, little animal of the forest.

Derek hurriedly went downstairs, fearful of a scene. But there was none.

He heard the door softly close, then Mrs. Machin’s slowly retreating

footsteps. He did not go to Durras, as he had intended, but, descending

the steps to the shore, walked up and down the hard sand, for a long

time, smoking.

He saw the light extinguished in the room upstairs. Even yet the whole

thing seemed a preposterous dream. That child. . . . Well, he had no

doubt about it. Still, it was not the child, but Fawnie, who occupied

his thoughts. He saw her in the shack, in the glow of the lantern, her

lips folded together in that inscrutable, slightly derisive smile, as

though the rest had been puppets gesticulating about her. Then her

composure before Mrs. Machin. It was really fine; though, Heaven only

knew how her heart may have been tapping on her side. What was there

about her? Some odd barbaric charm. Even old Solomon had seen it, known

that she was not like the others. “Her man will have to pick for the two

of them,” he had said. She was a being for love alone—yet love was not

the word—it was ridiculous—simply she must be cared for. She was

Oriental, like some strange, sweet fruit that allured, even though one

knew it were poison.

What would Grace Jerrold think of his bringing Fawnie into his house,

protecting her? She would understand; she would sympathize. But the

child—she must never know of that; he grew hot all over at the very

thought of her knowing it. Anyway, the night was insufferable, no wonder

he was hot. Not the faintest ripple disturbed the sombre ebony of the

lake. He longed for a storm to clear the air. Awful weather on the

strawberries. Thank God, he would have plenty of pickers to-morrow.

Fresh crates were needed. He must order them. . . .

It was late when he went into the house. The oil lamp was still burning

on the dresser at the head of the stairs. Mrs. Machin evidently had

forgotten it. He began to ascend slowly to put it out, but had only

mounted a few steps when he perceived that she herself was sitting in a

straight-backed chair by the dresser knitting at a grey stocking.

“Whatever are you doing up so late?” he asked, dreading the answer.

“Well,” she said, her needles clicking with precision, “now that yon

girl has got into one of our bedrooms I’m going to see to it that she

stays there.”

“You don’t mean to say you are going to sit there all night?”

“It looks like it, don’t it?” she snapped.

There was nothing more to be said, so Derek went to his room.