Produced by Al Haines
[Illustration: Cover art]
[Frontispiece: "The Slight Figure that Swayed to the Stride of a
Galloping Horse"--_Chapter XXIX_]
Thurston of
Orchard Valley
_By_ Harold Bindloss
Author of "By Right of Purchase," "Lorimer of the Northwest," "Alton of
Somasco," etc.
with Frontispiece
By W. HERBERT DUNTON
A. L. BURT COMPANY
Publishers ------ New York
COPYRIGHT, 1910, BY
FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY
_All rights reserved_
_February, 1910_
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. "THURSTON'S FOLLY"
II. A DISILLUSION
III. GEOFFREY'S FIRST CONTRACT
IV. GEOFFREY MAKES PROGRESS
V. THE LEGENDS OF CROSBIE GHYLL
VI. MILLICENT'S REWARD
VII. THE BREAKING OF THE JAM
VIII. A REST BY THE WAY
IX. GEOFFREY STANDS FIRM
X. SAVINE'S CONFIDENCE
XI. AN INSPIRATION
XII. GEOFFREY TESTS HIS FATE
XIII. A TEST OF LOYALTY
XIV. THE WORK OF AN ENEMY
XV. A GREAT UNDERTAKING
XVI. MILLICENT TURNS TRAITRESS
XVII. THE INFATUATION OF ENGLISH JIM
XVIII. THE BURSTING OF THE SLUICE
XIX. THE ABDUCTION OF BLACK CHRISTY
XX. UNDER THE STANLEY PINES
XXI. REPARATION
XXII. A REPRIEVE
XXIII. THE ULTIMATUM
XXIV. AN UNEXPECTED ALLY
XXV. MILLICENT'S REVOLT
XXVI. A RECKLESS JOURNEY
XXVII. MRS. SAVINE SPEAKS HER MIND
XXVIII. LESLIE STEPS OUT
XXIX. A REVELATION
Thurston of Orchard Valley
CHAPTER I
"THURSTON'S FOLLY"
It was a pity that Geoffrey Thurston was following in his grandfather's
footsteps, the sturdy dalefolk said, and several of them shook their
heads solemnly as they repeated the observation when one morning the
young man came striding down the steep street of a village in the North
Country. The cluster of gray stone houses nestled beneath the scarred
face of a crag, and, because mining operations had lately been
suspended and work was scarce just then, pale-faced men in moleskin
lounged about the slate-slab doorsteps. Above the village, and beyond
the summit of the crag, the mouth of a tunnel formed a black blot on
the sunlit slopes of sheep-cropped grass stretching up to the heather,
which gave place in turn to rock out-crop on the shoulders of the fell.
The loungers glanced at the tunnel regretfully, for that mine had
furnished most of them with their daily bread.
"It's in t' blood," said one, nodding toward the young man. "Ay,
headstrong folly's bred in t' bone of them, an' it's safer to counter
an angry bull than a Thurston of Crosbie Ghyll. It's like his
grandfather--roughed out of the old hard whinstane he is."
A murmur of approval followed, for the listeners knew there was a
measure of truth in this; but it ceased when the pedestrian passed
close to them with long, vigorous strides. Though several raised their
hands half-way to their caps in grudging salute, Geoffrey Thurston, who
appeared preoccupied, looked at none of them. Notwithstanding his
youth, there were lines on his forehead and his brows were wrinkled
over his eyes, while his carriage suggested strength of limb and
energy. Tall in stature his frame looked wiry rather than heavily
built. His face was resolute, for both square jaw and steady brown
eyes suggested tenacity of purpose. The hands that swung at his sides
had been roughened by labor with pick and drill. Yet in spite of the
old clay-stained shooting suit and shapeless slouch hat with the grease
on the front of it, where a candle had been set, there was a stamp of
command, and even refinement, about him. He was a Thurston of Crosbie,
one of a family the members of which had long worked their own
diminishing lands among the rugged fells that stretch between the West
Riding and the Solway.
The Thurstons had been a reckless, hard-living race, with a stubborn,
combative disposition. Most of them had found scope for their energies
in wresting a few more barren acres from the grasp of moss and moor;
but several times an eccentric genius had scattered to the winds what
the rest had won, and Geoffrey seemed bent on playing the traditional
_role_ of spendthrift. There were, however, excuses for him. He was
an ambitious man, and had studied mechanical science under a famous
engineer. Perhaps, because the surface of the earth yielded a
sustenance so grudgingly, a love of burrowing was born in the family.
Copper was dear and the speculative public well disposed towards
British mines. When current prices permitted it, a little copper had
been worked from time immemorial in the depths of Crosbie Fell, so
Geoffrey, continuing where his grandfather had ceased, drove the
ancient adit deeper into the hill, mortgaging field by field to pay for
tools and men, until, when the little property had well-nigh gone, he
came upon a fault or break in the strata, which made further progress
almost impossible.
When Thurston reached the mouth of the adit, he turned and looked down
upon the poor climbing meadows under the great shoulder of the Fell.
Beyond these, a few weatherbeaten buildings, forming a rude quadrangle
pierced by one tall archway, stood beside a tarn that winked like
polished steel. He sighed as his glance rested upon them. For many
generations they had sheltered the Thurstons of Crosbie; but, unless he
could stoop to soil his hands in a fashion revolting to his pride, a
strange master would own them before many months had gone. An angry
glitter came into his eyes, and his face grew set, as, placing a
lighted candle in his hat, he moved forward into the black adit.
Twenty minutes had passed when Thurston stood on the brink of a chasm
where some movement of the earth's crust had rent the rocks asunder.
Beside him was a mining engineer, whose fame for skill was greater than
his reputation for integrity. Both men had donned coarse overalls, and
Melhuish, the mining expert, held his candle so that its light fell
upon his companion as well as upon the dripping surface of the rock.
Moisture fell from the wet stone into the gloomy rift, and a faint
monotonous splashing rose up from far below. Melhuish, however, was
watching Thurston too intently to notice anything else. He was a
middle-aged man, with a pale, puffy face and avaricious eyes. He was
well-known to speculative financiers, who made much more than the
shareholders of certain new mining companies.
"It's interesting geologically--wholly abnormal considering the
stratification, though very unfortunate for you," said Melhuish. "I
give you my word of honor that when I advised you to push on the
heading I never expected this. However, there it is, and unless you're
willing to consider certain suggestions already made, I can't see much
use in wasting any more money. As I said, my friends would, under the
circumstances, treat you fairly."
Thurston's face was impassive, and Melhuish, who thought that his
companion bore himself with a curious equanimity for a ruined man, did
not see that Thurston's hard fingers were clenched savagely on the
handle of a pick.
"I fancied you understood my opinions, and I haven't changed them,"
said Geoffrey. "I asked you to meet me here to-day to consider whether
the ore already in sight would be worth reduction, and you say, 'No.'
You can advise your friends, when you see them, that I'm not inclined
to assist them in a deliberate fraud upon the public."
Melhuish laughed. "You are exaggerating, and people seem perfectly
willing to pay for their experience, whether they acquire it over
copper, lead or tin. Besides, there's an average commercial
probability that somebody will find good ore after going down far
enough, and your part would be easy. You take a moderate price as
vendor, we advancing enough to settle the mortgage. Sign the papers my
friends will send you, and keep your mouth shut."
"And their expert wouldn't see that fault?" asked Geoffrey. Melhuish
smiled pityingly before he answered:
"The gentlemen I speak of keep an expert who certainly wouldn't see any
more than was necessary. The indications that deceived me are good
enough for anybody. Human judgment is always liable to error, and
there are ways of framing a report without committing the person who
makes it. May I repeat that it's a fair business risk, and whoever
takes this mine should strike the lead if sufficient capital is poured
in. It would be desirable for you to act judiciously. My financial
friends, I understand, have been in communication with the people who
hold your mortgages."
Geoffrey Thurston's temper, always fiery, had been sorely tried.
Dropping his pick, he gripped the tempter by the shoulder with fingers
that held him like a vice. He pressed Melhuish backward until they
stood within a foot of the verge of the black rift. Melhuish's face
was gray in the candle-light as he heard the dislodged pebbles splash
sullenly into the water, fathoms beneath. He had heard stories of the
vagaries of the Thurstons of Crosbie, and it was most unpleasant to
stand on the brink of eternity, in the grasp of one of them.
Suddenly Geoffrey dropped his hands. "You need better nerves in your
business, Melhuish," he said quietly. "One would hardly have fancied
you would be so startled at a harmless joke intended to test them for
you. There have been several spendthrifts and highly successful
drunkards in my family, but, with the exception of my namesake, who was
hanged like a Jacobite gentleman for taking, sword in hand, their
despatches from two of Cumberland's dragoons, we have hitherto drawn
the line at stealing."
"I'm not interested in genealogy, and I don't appreciate jests of the
sort you have just tried," Melhuish answered somewhat shakily. "I'll
take your word that you meant no harm, and I request further and
careful consideration before you return a definite answer to my
friends' suggestions."
"You shall have it in a few days," Geoffrey promised; and Melhuish, who
determined to receive the answer under the open sunlight, and, if
possible, with assistance near at hand, turned toward the mouth of the
adit. Because he thought it wiser, he walked behind Geoffrey.
The afternoon was not yet past when Thurston stood leaning on the back
of a stone seat outside a quaint old hall, which had once been a feudal
fortalice and was now attached to an unprofitable farm. Because the
impoverished gentleman, who held a long lease on the ancient building,
had let one wing to certain sportsmen, several of Geoffrey's neighbors
had gathered on the indifferently-kept lawn to enjoy a tennis match.
Miss Millicent Austin sat in an angle of the stone seat. Her little
feet, encased in white shoes, reposed upon a cushion that one of the
sportsmen had insisted on bringing to her. Her hands lay idly folded
in her lap. The delicate hands were characteristic, for Millicent
Austin was slight and dainty. With pale gold hair and pink and white
complexion, she was a perfect type of Saxon beauty, though some of her
rivals said the color of her eyes was too light a blue. They also
added that the blue eyes were very quick to notice where their owner's
interests lay.
An indefinite engagement had long existed between the girl and the man
beside her, and at one time they had cherished a degree of affection
for each other; but when the merry, high-spirited girl returned from
London changed into a calculating woman, Geoffrey was bound up, mind
and body, in his mine, and Millicent began to wonder whether, with her
advantages, she might not do better than to marry a dalesman burdened
by heavy debts. They formed a curious contrast, the man brown-haired,
brown-eyed, hard-handed, rugged of feature, and sometimes rugged of
speech; and the dainty woman who appeared born for a life of ease and
luxury.
"Beauty and the beast!" said one young woman to her companion as she
laid by her racquet. "I suppose he has the money?"
"Unless his mine proves successful I don't think either will have much;
but if Miss Austin is a beauty in a mild way, he's a noble beast, one
very likely to turn the tables upon a rash hunter," was the answer.
"And yet he's stalking blindly into the snare. Alas, poor lion!"
"You seem interested in him. I'm not partial to wild beasts myself,"
remarked her companion, and the other smiled as she answered:
"Hardly that, but I know the family history, and they are a curious
race with great capabilities for good or evil. It all depends upon how
they are led, because nobody could drive a Thurston. It is rather, I
must confess, an instinctive prejudice against the woman beside him. I
do not like, and would not trust, Miss Austin, though, of course,
except to you, my dear, I would not say so."
The young speaker glanced a moment towards the pair, and then passed on
with a slight frown upon her honest face, for Thurston bent over his
companion with something that suggested deadly earnestness in his
attitude, and the spectator assumed that Millicent Austin's head was
turned away from him, because she possessed a fine profile and not
because of excessive diffidence. Nor was the observer wrong, for
Millicent did little without a purpose, and was just then thinking
keenly as she said:
"I am very sorry to hear about your misfortune, Geoffrey, but there is
a way of escape from most disasters if one will look for it, you know,
and if you came to terms with them I understand those London people
would, at least, recoup you for your expenditure."
"You have heard of that!" exclaimed Geoffrey sharply, displeased that
his _fiancee_, who had been away, should betray so accurate a knowledge
of all that concerned his business affairs.
"Of course I did. I made Tom tell me. You will agree with them, will
you not?" the girl replied.
"So," said Geoffrey, with a slight huskiness. "I wish I could, but it
is impossible, and I am not pleased that Tom should tell you what I was
waiting to confide to you myself. Let that pass, for I want you to
listen to me. The old holding will have to go, and there is little
room for a poor man in this overcrowded country. As you know, certain
property will revert to me eventually, but, remembering what is in our
blood, I dare not trust myself to drag out a life of idleness or
monotonous drudgery, waiting for the future here. The curse is a very
real thing--and it would not be fair to you. Now I can save enough
from the wreck to start us without positive hardship over seas, and
George has written offering me a small share in his Australian
cattle-run. You shall want for nothing, Millicent, that toil can win
you, and I know that, with you to help me, I shall achieve at least a
competence."
Millicent, who glanced up at him as if she were carefully studying him,
could see that the man spoke with conviction. She knew that his power
of effort and dogged obstinacy would carry him far toward obtaining
whatever his heart desired. She dropped her long lashes as he
continued:
"Hitherto, I have overcome the taint I spoke of--you knew what it was
when you gave me your promise--and working hard, with you to cheer me,
in a new land under the open sun, I shall crush it utterly.
Semi-poverty, with an ill-paid task that demanded but half my energies,
would try you, Millicent, and be dangerous to me. What I say sounds
very selfish, doesn't it--but you will come?"
There was an appeal in his voice which touched the listener. It was
seldom a Thurston of Crosbie asked help from anyone; but she had no
wish to encourage Geoffrey in what she considered his folly, and shook
her head with a pretty assumption of petulance.
"Don't be sensational," she said with a wave of her hand. "You are
prone to exaggeration, and, of course, I will not go with you. How
could I help you to chase wild cattle? Now, try to be sensible! Come
to terms with these company people, and then you need not go."
"Would you have me a thief?" asked Geoffrey, gazing down upon her with
a fierce resentment in his look of reproach, and the girl shrank from
him a little.
"No, but, so far as I understand it, this is an ordinary business
transaction, and if these people are willing to buy the mine, why
should you refuse?" she returned in a temporizing tone.
If Thurston was less in love with Millicent Austin than he had been, he
hardly realized it then. He was disappointed, and his forehead
contracted as he struggled with as heavy a temptation as could have
assailed the honor of any man. Millicent was very fair to look upon,
as she turned to him with entreaty and anxiety in her face.
Nevertheless, he answered wearily: "It is not an ordinary business
transaction. These people would pay me with the general public's
money, and when the mine proves profitless, as it certainly will, they
would turn the deluded shareholders loose on me."
"There are always risks in mining," Millicent observed significantly.
"The investing public understands that, doesn't it? Of course, I would
not have you dishonest, but, Geoffrey----"
Thurston was patient in action, but seldom in speech, and he broke out
hotly:
"Many a woman has sent a man to his damnation for a little luxury, but
I expected help from you. Millicent, if I assist those swindlers and
stay here dragging out the life of a gentleman pauper on a dole of
stolen money, I shall go down and down, dragging you with me. If you
will come out to a new country with me, I know you will never regret
it. Whatever is best worth winning over there, I will win for you.
Can't you see that we stand at the crossroads, and whichever way we
choose there can be no turning back! Think, and for God's sake think
well! The decision means everything to you and me."
Again Millicent was aware of an unwilling admiration for the speaker,
even though she had little for his sentiments. He stood erect, with a
grim look on his face, his nostrils quivering, and his lips firmly
set--stubborn, vindictive, powerful. Though his strength was
untrained, she knew that he was a man to trust--great in his very
failings, with no meanness in his composition, and clearly born for
risky enterprise and hazardous toil. She was a little afraid of him, a
fact which was not in itself unpleasant; but she dreaded poverty and
hardship! With a shrug of the shoulder upon which he had laid his
hand, she said:
"I think you are absurd to-day; you are hurting me. This melodramatic
pose approaches the ludicrous, and I have really no patience with your
folly. A little period of calm reflection may prove beneficial, and I
will leave you to it. Clara is beckoning me."
She turned away, and Thurston, after vainly looking around for Clara,
stalked sullenly into the hall, where he flung himself down in a chair
beside an open window. It did not please him to see Millicent take her
place before the net in the tennis court and to hear her laugh ring
lightly across the lawn. A certain sportsman named Leslie, who had
devoted himself to Miss Austin's service, watched him narrowly from a
corner of the big hall.
"You look badly hipped over something, Thurston," commented the
sportsman presently. "I suppose it's the mine, and would like to offer
my sympathy. Might I recommend a brandy-and-soda, one of those
Cubanos, and confidence? Tom left the bottle handy for you."
In spite of the family failing, or, perhaps, because it was the only
thing he feared, Thurston had been an abstemious man. Now, however, he
emptied one stiff tumbler at a gulp, and the soda frothed in the
second, when he noticed a curious smile, for just a moment, in the eyes
of his companion. The smile vanished immediately, but Thurston had
seen and remembered. It was characteristic of him that, before two
more seconds had passed, the glass crashed into splinters in the grate.
"Quite right!" exclaimed Leslie, nodding. "When one feels as you
evidently do, a little of that sort of consolation is considerably
better than too much. You don't, however, appear to be in a
companionable humor, and perhaps I had better not intrude on you."
During the rest of the afternoon, Thurston saw little of Millicent and
Leslie was much with her.
The weather changed suddenly when at dusk Geoffrey rode home. In
forecast of winter, a bitter breeze sighed across the heather and set
the harsh grasses moaning eerily. The sky was somber overhead; scarred
fell and towering pike had faded to blurs of dingy gray, and the
ghostly whistling of curlew emphasized the emptiness of the darkening
moor. The evening's mood suited Geoffrey's, and he rode slowly with
loose bridle. The bouquet of the brandy had awakened within him a
longing that he dreaded, and though, hitherto, he had been too intent
upon his task to trouble about his character, it was borne in upon him
that he must stand fast now or never. But it was not the thought of
his own future which first appealed to him. Those who had gone before
him had rarely counted consequences when tempted by either wine or
women, and he would have risked that freely. Geoffrey was, however, in
his own eccentric fashion, a just man, and he dared not risk bringing
disaster upon Millicent. So he rode slowly, thinking hard, until the
horse, which seemed affected by its master's restlessness, plunged as a
dark figure rose out of the heather.
"Hallo, is it you, Evans?" asked the rider, with a forced laugh. "I
thought it was the devil. He's abroad to-night."
"Thou'rt wrang, Mr. Geoffrey," answered the gamekeeper. "It's Thursday
night he comes. Black Jim as broke thy head for thee is coming with t'
quarrymen to poach t' covers. Got the office from yan with a grudge
against t' gang, an' Captain Franklin, who's layin' for him, sends his
compliments, thinkin' as maybe thee would like t' fun."
Thurston rarely forgot either an injury or a friend, and, the preceding
October, when tripping, he fell helpless, Black Jim twice, with
murderous intent, had brought a gun-butt down upon his unprotected
skull. Excitement was at all times as wine to him, so, promising to be
at the rendezvous, he rode homeward faster than before, with a sense of
anticipation which helped to dull the edge of his care.