As Stafford climbed the hill steadily, he wondered who the girl was. It
did not occur to him that she might be the daughter of the Mr. Heron to
whom the stream belonged and from whose family name the whole dale had
taken its own; for, though she had looked and spoken like a lady, the
habit, the gauntlets, the soft felt hat were old and weather-stained:
and her familiarity with the proper treatment of a sheep in difficulty
indicated rather the farmer's daughter than that of the squire.
She was not by any means the first pretty girl Stafford had seen--he
had a very large acquaintance in London, and one or two women whose
beauty had been blazoned by the world were more than friendly
with the popular Stafford Orme--but he thought as he went up
the hill, which seemed to have no end, that he had never seen a more
beautiful face than this girl's; certainly he had never seen one which
had impressed him more deeply. Perhaps it was the character of the
loveliness which haunted him so persistently: it was so unlike the
conventional drawing-room type with which he was so familiar.
As he thought of her it seemed to him that she was like a wild and
graceful deer--one of the deer which he had seen coming down to a
mountain stream to drink on his father's Scotch moor; hers was a wild,
almost savage loveliness--and yet not savage, for there had been the
refinement, the dignity of high race in the exquisite grey eyes, the
curve of the finely cut lips. Her manner, also, prevented him from
forgetting her.
He had never met with anything like it, she had been as calm and
self-possessed as a woman of forty; and yet her attitude as she leant
forward in the saddle, her directness of speech, all her movements, had
the _abandon_ of an unconscious child; indeed, the absence of
self-consciousness, her absolute freedom from anything like shyness,
combined with a dignity, a touch of hauteur and pride, struck him as
extraordinary, almost weird.
Stafford was not one of your susceptible young men; in fact, there was
a touch of coldness, of indifference to the other sex which often
troubled his women-friends; and he was rather surprised at himself for
the interest which the girl had aroused in him. He wondered if he
should meet her again, and was conscious of a strong, almost a very
strong, desire to do so which, he admitted to himself, was strange: for
he did not at that moment remember any girl whom, at his first meeting
with her, he had hankered to see again.
He got to the top of the hill at last and began to drop down; there was
nothing but a wandering sheep-path here and there, and the mountain was
by no means as easy to descend as the classic Avernus; so that when he
got to the bottom and came in sight of the little inn nestling in a
crook of the valley he was both tired and hungry. Howard, beautiful in
evening-dress, came sauntering to the door with his long white hands in
his pocket and a plaintive reproach on his Vandyke face.
"I was just about to send off the search party, my dear Stafford," he
said. "Is it possible that you have just come down that hill? Good
heavens! What follies are committed in thy name, O Sport! And of course
there are no fish--there never are! The water is always too thin or too
thick, the sky too bright or too dull, the wind too high or too low.
Excuses are the badge of all the angling tribe."
Stafford took his basket from his shoulder and made a pretence of
slinging it at Howard's head; then tossed it to the landlord, who stood
by, smiling obsequiously.
"Cook some of 'em as soon as you can," he said; then he followed the
neat and also smiling chamber-maid up to his room, where, for all his
pretended indolence and cynicism, Howard had caused his friend's things
to be laid out in readiness for him. Stafford dressed slowly, smoking a
cigarette during the operation, and still thinking of the strange
"farmer's daughter." And then he went down and joined Howard in the
room he had ordered.
Lake hotels may lack the splendour to which we are all growing
accustomed, and of which, alas! we are also growing rather wearied, but
they are most of them extremely comfortable and cosy; and The Woodman
at Carysford was no exception to the rule. Stafford looked round the
low-pitched room, with its old-fashioned furniture, its white
dinner-cloth gleaming softly in the sunset and the fire-light, and
sighed with a nod of satisfaction.
"This is something like, eh, old man?" he said; and even Howard deigned
to nod approvingly.
"Yes," he said. "If anything could compensate one for the miseries of
travel, especially that awful drive, this should do so. I confess I had
looked forward to a crowning discomfort in the shape of a cold and
draughty and smelly room, fried chops or a gory leg of mutton and a
heel of the cheese made by Noah in the Ark. I fancy that we are going
to have a decent dinner; and I trust I may not be disappointed, for it
is about the only thing that will save my life. Are you dry yet? You
looked as if you had been walking through a river instead of beside
it."
"That's just what I have been doing," said Stafford, with a laugh.
"I've had an adventure--"
"I know," interrupted Howard, with a sigh. "You are going to tell me
how you hooked a trout six foot in length, how it dragged you a mile
and a half up the river, how you got it up to the bank, and how, just
as you were landing it, it broke away and was lost. Every man who has
been fishing has that adventure."
Stafford laughed with his usual appreciation of his friend's amusing
cynicism; but he did not correct him; for at that moment, the neat
maid-servant brought in the trout, which proved to be piping hot and of
a golden-brown; and the two men commenced a dinner which, as compared
with the famous, or infamous one, of the London restaurant, was
Olympian. The landlord himself brought in a bottle of claret, which
actually was sound, and another of port, in a wicker cradle, which even
Howard deigned to approve of; and the two men, after they had lingered
over their dinner, got into easy-chairs beside the fire and smoked
their cigars with that sweet contentment which only tobacco can
produce, and only then when it follows a really good meal.
"Do you know how long you are going to stay in your father's little
place?" Howard asked, after a long and dreary silence.
Stafford shrugged his shoulders slightly.
"'Pon my word, I don't know," he answered. "I'm like the school-boy: 'I
don't know nothink.' I suppose I shall stay as long as the governor
does; and, come to that, I suppose he doesn't know how long that will
be. I've got to regard him as a kind of stormy petrel; here to-day and
gone to-morrow, always on the wing, and never resting anywhere for any
time. I'm never surprised when I hear that, though his last letter was
dated Africa, he has flown back to Europe or has run over to
Australia."
"Y-es," said Howard, musingly, "there is an atmosphere of mystery and
romance about your esteemed parent, Sir Stephen Orme, which smacks of
the Arabian Nights, my dear Stafford. Man of the world as I am, I must
confess that I regard him with a kind of wondering awe; and that I
follow his erratic movements very much as one would follow the
celestial progress of a particularly splendacious comet. He never
ceases to be an object of wonderment to me; and I love to read of his
gigantic projects, his vast wealth, his brilliant successes; and I tell
you frankly that I am looking forward to seeing him with a mixture of
fear and curiosity. Do not be surprised, if, at my introduction, I fall
on my hands and knees in Oriental abasement. I have admired him so much
and so long at a distance that he has assumed in my eyes an almost
regal, not to say imperial, importance." "I hope you will like him,"
said Stafford, with a touch of that simplicity which all his friends
liked.
"If he resembles his son, I am sure to do so," said Howard. "Indeed, in
any case I am pretty sure to do so. For how often have I read of his
wonderful charm of manner, his winning smile and brilliant
conversational powers? When do we get to this fairy palace?"
"I suppose if we get there before dinner, it will be time enough,"
replied Stafford. "By the way, I'd better ask how far it is. Don't
ring. I want to go up for some more cigars."
He went up to his room, and in getting them from his bag, saw the
little instrument case which he had thrown into his bag when he was
changing. Back came the vision of the strange girl with the beautiful
face.
He slipped the wallet in his pocket, and when he reached the hall he
turned to the open door of the little room which served as the
landlord's office, or bar-room.
The landlord was enjoying a cigar and a glass of whiskey and water, and
he opened the door still wider and gave a respectful smile of welcome.
"You have a very comfortable hotel here, Mr. Groves," said Stafford, by
way of opening the conversation. "We have had a capital dinner, and
have enjoyed it tremendously; was that '72 port you gave us?"
"Yes, sir," replied Mr. Groves, much gratified. For you go straight to
a landlord's heart when you guess a good vintage and appreciate it. "I
am glad you like it, sir; there's more of it at your service. Will you
take a seat, sir, and may I offer you a glass of whiskey? It is as good
as the port, if I may say so."
Stafford accepted, and presented his cigar case. He asked the distance
to the new house on the other side of the lake, and having been
informed, spoke of the fishing.
"You did very well to-day, sir." said Mr. Groves. "You were fishing in
the Heron water, I suppose?"
This was what Stafford wanted.
"Yes," he said. "I was poaching. I mistook it for the Lesset water. I
must go over and apologise to Mr. Heron. By the way, I was told I was
poaching by a young lady who rode down to the stream while I was
fishing. I had some little conversation with her, but I did not learn
her name. She was a young lady with dark hair, rode a big horse, and
had a couple of dogs with her--a collie and a fox-terrier." The
landlord had nodded assentingly at each item of the description.
"That must have been Miss Ida--Miss Heron, the squire's daughter, sir,"
he said.
Stafford's brows went up.
"No wonder she stared at me," he said, almost to himself. "But are you
sure? The young lady I saw was not dressed, well--like a squire's
daughter, and she was looking after some sheep like--like a farmer's
girl."
The landlord nodded again.
"That was Miss Ida, right enough, sir," he said, with a touch of
respect, and something like pride in his tone. "Indeed, it couldn't be
anyone else. No doubt Miss Ida had come down to look after the sheep in
the valley; and there's no farmer's daughter in the vale that could do
it better, or half so well, as she. There isn't a girl in the county,
or, for that matter, a man, either, who can ride like Miss Ida, or
knows more about the points of a horse or a dog--yes, and you may say a
cow--than the squire's daughter. And as to her being poorly
dressed--well, there's a reason for that, sir. The family's poor--very
poor."
"Yet the dale seems to be called after them?" Stafford remarked.
"It is, sir!" assented the landlord. "At one time they owned more land
than any other of the big families here; miles and miles of it, with
some of the best farms. But that was before my time, though I've heard
my father tell of it; there's not very much left now beyond the dale
and the home meadows." He sighed as he spoke and looked sadly at the
costly cigar which he was smoking. The feudal spirit still exists in
the hearts of the men who were born in these remote dales and towering
hills, and the landlord of the little inn was as proud of the antiquity
of the Heron family, and as sorry for its broken fortune as any
_villein_ of the middle ages could have been for the misfortunes of his
feudal baron.
"Heron Hall used to be a fine place at one time, sir. I can remember my
father describing what it was in his and his father's days; how there
used to be scores of servants, and as many as fifty horses in the
stables; with the great place filled with guests summer and winter,
spring and autumn. The Squire Heron of that time never rode behind less
than four horses, and once, when he was high sheriff, he rode to meet
the judges with six. It was open house to every poor man in the place,
and no wanderer was ever turned from the door. The squire of my
father's time was the county member, and the day he was elected there
were two hogsheads of port and two of brandy broached on the lawn in
front of the terrace; and for a week afterwards there was scarcely a
sober man in the town for miles round. He was master of the hounds, and
the hunt breakfasts and the hunt balls were more splendid than anything
else of that kind in the kingdom; in fact, people used to come from all
parts of the kingdom to attend them. Yes, the Herons made Herondale
famous, as you may say, sir."
He paused and shook his head, and Stafford remained silent: he was too
wise to break in upon the narrative. The landlord sighed and looked
lovingly at his cigar, then went on:
"They offered that squire--Miss Ida's grandfather--a peerage; the
Herons had often been offered a baronetcy; but they'd always refused,
and the squire declined the peerage. He said that no man could wish to
be higher than Heron, of Herondale; that better men than he had been
contented with it, and he was quite satisfied with the rank which had
satisfied his forefathers. When he died, the followers at the funeral
made a procession a mile and a quarter long."
"How did the family lose its money, drop its greatness?" Stafford
asked.
The landlord screwed up his eyes thoughtfully.
"Well, it's hard to tell, sir," he replied. "Of course there was always
a tremendous drain going on; for it was not only down here that the
squire spent the money freely; but it was just the same or worse when
he was in London; he had a big house there, and entertained as
splendidly, perhaps more so, than he did at the Hall. In those days,
too, sir, there was as much gaming and betting as there is now, perhaps
more--though I'm told that great folks are more given nowadays to
gambling on the Stock Exchange than at cards or race-horses; begging
your pardon, sir!"
"I'm afraid you're right," assented Stafford, with his short laugh. "I
prefer the old way myself."
"Just so, sir," said the landlord, with an approving nod. "Well, what
with the money going here and there and everywhere, they found when the
present squire's father died that there was very little left; and worse
than all, that some of the land was sold, and what remained was heavily
mortgaged. It's what often happens to old families, sir, more's the
pity!"
"Yes," said Stafford. "And is the present squire like his father?"
"No, sir, not a bit," replied the landlord, with a thoughtful and
somewhat puzzled frown. "Quite the reverse. His father was free and
easy with everybody, and had a pleasant word and shake of the hand for
everyone he met; but the present squire was always shy and quiet as a
boy; kind of reserved and stand-offish, if you know what I mean, sir.
When he came into the property, he became more reserved than ever,
avoided all his father's old friends and shut himself up at the Hall
and kept himself to himself. He was a college gentleman and fond of
books, and he spent all his time alone in his library like a--a hermit.
He went abroad for a time, to Italy, they thought, and he came back
with a wife; but she didn't make things more lively, for she died soon
after Miss Ida was born. Miss Ida was the only child. She was sent away
for some time to be taken care of by one of the relatives, and she's
only been back for a couple of years."
"Poor girl," said Stafford, involuntarily.
"Well, yes, you may say that, sir," said the landlord, but doubtfully,
"though it don't seem as if Miss Ida was in need of much pity; she is
so bright and--and high-spirited, as you may say; though it's a wonder
she can be so, seeing the life she leads, alone in that great place
with her father, who never goes beyond the garden, and who shuts
himself up with his books all day. Yes, it's a wonder, when you come to
think of it, that she can smile and laugh and be as cheerful as she is.
I often hear her singing when she's riding through the dale or along
the road here. Miss Ida's wonderfully liked by all the people, sir; in
fact, you might say that they worship her."
"I can understand it," said Stafford, almost to himself.
"It must have been great change to her," continued the landlord,
"coming down here from London to such a wild, out-of-the-way place;
many young ladies would have lost heart and pined and fretted; but
she's a true Heron, is Miss Ida, and she faced the thing fairly and
buckled to, as you may say. She took the whole thing on her shoulders,
and though she couldn't coax the squire out of his shell, she takes
care of him and runs the whole place as if she were a man. Yes, sir,
though she's only a girl, as you saw yourself, she manages the house
and the farm as if she were a woman of forty. It's wonderful how she's
picked it up. I honestly believe there isn't a man in the place as
knows more about horses, as I said, than she does; but that's in the
blood, sir, and she can ride--well, you saw for yourself."
"And has she no society, no amusements; doesn't she go out, have
friends, I mean?"
The landlord shook his head.
"No, sir; she just lives there with the squire, and they see no one,
receive no visits and pay none. You see, sir, the Herons are proud;
they're got cause to be, and I've heard it told that the squire is too
proud to let the old family friends see the poverty of the house, and
that he hates the new people who bought land and built houses in the
place--I'm sure I beg your pardon, sir--I was forgetting for the moment
that your father, Sir Stephen, had just built that beautiful place the
other side of the lake."
Stafford smiled.
"That's all right, Mr. Groves," he said. "I can quite understand Mr.
Heron thinking it confounded cheek of a stranger to come here and stick
up a great white place which no one can fail to see five miles off. I
suppose you think if I were to present myself at the Hall, I should get
a very cold reception, eh?"
"I'm afraid you wouldn't get any reception at all, sir," replied
Groves, with respectful candour. "I am afraid neither Mr. Heron nor
Miss Ida would see you. The old butler would just say: 'Not at home,'
as he says to the county people when they try and call there,
especially if they knew who you were, sir. If I remember rightly, the
part of the land Sir Stephen bought belonged to the Herons."
"I see," said Stafford. "It strikes me it is rather a sad story, Mr.
Groves; it's a case of the children paying for the sins of their
fathers."
"That's it, sir," assented the landlord. "It takes ages to build up a
house and a family like the Herons; but one man can knock it down, so
to speak. It's hard lines for Miss Ida, who is as well-born as any of
the titled people in the county, and far better than most. They say
that she's been wonderful well educated, too; though, of course, she
hasn't seen anything of the world, having come straight from some small
place in foreign parts to be shut up in the dale. And it's quite out of
the world here, sir, especially in the winter when the snow lies so
thick that we're almost imprisoned. But wet or fine, hot or cold, Miss
Ida can always be seen riding or driving or walking; she's a regular
Westmoreland lass for that; no weather frights her."
At this juncture Howard sauntered out of the sitting-room, and he and
Stafford went to the open door and looked out on the exquisite view
which was now bathed in the soft light of a newly risen moon.
"It still has a smack of Drury Lane, hasn't it?" said Howard. "Strange
that whenever we see anything beautiful in the way of a landscape we at
once compare it with a stage 'set.' The fact of it is, my dear
Stafford, we have become absolutely artificial; we pretend to admire
Nature, but we are thinking of a theatre all the time; we throw up our
eyes ecstatically when we hear a nightingale, but we much prefer a
comic singer at the Tivoli. We talk sentiment, at feast, some of us,
but we have ceased to feel it; we don't really know what it means. I
believe some of the minor poets still write about what they call Love,
but in my private opinion the thing itself has become instinct. Who
knows anything about it? Take yourself, for instance; you've never been
in love, you've everything that you can desire, you're clad in purple
and fine linen, you fare sumptuously every day, you flirt six days in
the week, and rest not on the seventh--but love! You don't know what it
means; and if you do, you're far too wise in your generation to go in
for such an uncomfortable emotion."
Stafford smiled rather absently; he was scarcely listening; he was so
accustomed to Howard's cynical diatribes that more often than not they
made no more impression on him than water on a duck's back. Besides, he
was thinking of Ida Heron, the girl whose strange history he had just
been listening to.
There was silence for a minute or two, and while they stood leaning
against the door-way two men came out of another door in the inn and
stood talking. They were commercial travellers, and they were enjoying
their pipes--of extremely strong tobacco--after a hard day's work.
Presently one of them said:
"Seen that place of Sir Stephen Orme's on the hill? Splendacious, isn't
it? Must have cost a small fortune. I wonder what the old man's game
is."
The other man shook his head, and laughed.
"Of course he's up to some game. He wouldn't lay out all that money for
nothing, millionaire as he is. He's always got something up his sleeve.
Perhaps he's going to entertain some big swell he wants to get into his
net, or some of the foreign princes he's hand-in-glove with. You never
know what Sir Stephen Orme's up to. Perhaps he's going to stand for the
county; if so, he's bound to get in. He always succeeds, or, if he
don't, you don't hear of his failures. He's the sort of man Disraeli
used to write about in his novels. One of the chaps who'd go through
fire and water to get their ends; yes, and blood too, if it's
necessary. There's been some queer stories told about him; they say he
sticks at nothing. Look at that last Turkish concession."
The speaker and his companion sauntered down the road. Stafford and
Howard had heard every word; but Stafford looked straight before him,
and made no sign, and Howard yawned as if he had not heard a syllable.
"Do you raise any objection to my going to my little bed, Stafford?" he
asked. "I suppose, having done nothing more than clamber about a river,
get wet through, and tramp a dozen miles over hills, you do not feel
tired."
"No," said Stafford, "I don't feel like turning in just yet.
Good-night, old man."
When Howard had gone Stafford exchanged his dress-coat for a
shooting-jacket, and with the little wallet in his pocket and his pipe
in his mouth, he strode up the road. As he said, he did not feel
tired--it was difficult for Stafford, with his athletic frame and
perfect muscular system, to get tired under any circumstances--the
night was one of the loveliest he had ever seen, and it seemed wicked
to waste it by going to bed, so he walked on, all unconsciously going
in the direction of Heron Hall. The remarks about his father which had
fallen from the bagman, stuck to him for a time like a burr: it isn't
pleasant to hear your father described as a kind of charlatan and
trickster, and Stafford would have liked to have collared the man and
knocked an apology out of him; but there are certain disadvantages
attached to the position of gentlemen, and one of them is that you have
to pretend to be deaf to speeches that were not intended for your ears;
so Stafford could not bash the bagman for having spoken disrespectfully
of the great Sir Stephen Orme.
But presently, almost suddenly, Stafford came in sight of the
magnificent iron gates, and he forgot his father and the talkative
commercial traveller, and his interest in the girl of the dale flashed
back upon him with full force. He saw that the gates were chained and
locked, and, with a natural curiosity, he followed the road beside the
wall. It stopped almost abruptly and gave place to a low railing which
divided the lawn in front of the house from the park beyond; and the
long irregular facade of the old building was suddenly revealed.