THE LEGENDS OF CROSBIE GHYLL
Helen Savine had passed two years in England, and, because her father
was a prosperous man who humored her slightest wishes, she occasionally
returned to take her pleasure in what she called the Old Country. It
is a far cry from the snowy heights of the Pacific slope to the
pleasant valleys of the North Country, but in these days of
quadruple-expansion engines, distance counts but little when one has
sufficient money.
The Atlantic express had brought Helen and her aunt by marriage, Mrs.
Thomas P. Savine, into Montreal, whence a fast train had conveyed them
to New York in time to catch a big Southampton liner, but Mrs. Savine
was a restless lady, and had grown tired of London within six weeks
from the day she left Vancouver. She was an American, and took pains
to impress the fact upon anybody who mistook her for a Canadian, and,
finding a party of her countrymen and women, whom she had hoped to
overtake in the metropolis, had departed northwards, she determined to
follow them to the English lakes.
"It's a big, hot, dusty wilderness, Tom, and we've seen all they've got
to show us here before," she said to her long-suffering husband, as she
stood in the vestibule of a fashionable hotel. "Say, we'll pull out
to-day and catch the Schroeders' party meditating around Wordsworth's
tomb. Young man, will you kindly get us a railroad schedule?"
The silver-buttoned official, who watched the big plate-glass door,
started at a smart rap on his shoulder, and blinked at the angular lady
in a startling costume and a blue veil. Thomas Savine interposed
meekly:
"A time-table; and that's evidently not the man to ask, my dear."
"Then he can tell the right one," Mrs. Savine answered airily, and
presently halted before a row of resplendently-gilded books adorning
one portion of the vestibule. She thereupon explained for the benefit
of all listeners that it was hard to see the necessity for so many
railways in so small a country, and finally, with a clerk's assistance,
selected a train which would deposit her at Oxenholme, from which place
the official suggested that she might find means of transport into the
district in which, to the best of his belief, Coleridge and Wordsworth,
or one of them, wrote what Mrs. Savine entitled charming little pieces.
It proved good counsel, and two of the party passed a delightful week
at Ambleside, where their sojourn was marred only by Mrs. Savine's
laments that potatoes were not served at supper and breakfast.
"I want some potatoes with my ham," she said, and when the attendant
explained that the vegetables were never eaten in England at that meal,
she inquired, "Don't you grow potatoes anywhere in this country?"
The attendant said that very fine ones were produced in the immediate
vicinity, and Mrs. Savine waved a jeweled hand majestically.
"Then away you go and buy some. I'll sit right here until they're
boiled," she said.
"It really isn't the custom, and you know you never got them in London,
and hardly ate them at home," said Thomas Savine, but Mrs. Savine
remained superior to such reasoning.
"That's quite outside the question. I want those potatoes, and I'm
going to have them," she insisted.
There was a whispering at the end of the breakfast hall, somebody
whistled up a tube, and the hotel manager appeared to announce, with
regrets, that it was unfortunately impossible in the busy season to
upset the culinary arrangements for the benefit of a single guest.
"Then we'll start again and follow the Schroeders' trail to that place
in Cumberland," Mrs. Savine decided. "Tom, you go out and buy one of
those twenty five cent guide-books which tell you all about everything.
Hire some ponies and a man, and we'll drive a straight line across the
mountains."
The manager respectfully suggested it would be better to take the
train, even though the railway went round, because the mountains were
lofty, and the roads were indifferent in the region traversed. To this
the lady answered with some truth that the highest peak in Britain was
a pigmy to the lowest of the Selkirks, and that she had spent two
summers camping among the fastnesses of the snow-clad Olympians.
"Your aunt is a smart woman, but she can't help upsetting things," said
Thomas Savine, when his niece went out with him to make arrangements
for the trip. Helen smiled pleasantly, for she knew her aunt's good
qualities, and also she was fond of adventurous wanderings.
It was perfect weather, and the three tourists enjoyed their journey
among the less frequented fells, during which they camped, so Thomas
Savine termed it, each night in some high-perched hostelry or
trout-fisher's haunt. Helen realized that never before had she fully
appreciated the beauty of England. Quite apart from its wonders of
industrial enterprise, tide of world-wide commerce, and treasury of
literature and art, the old country was to be loved for its quiet,
green restfulness, she thought.
Suddenly there came a change. A south-wester drove thick rain-clouds
scudding across peak and valley, and filled the passes with dank, white
mists from the Irish Sea, and so, towards the close of a threatening
day, Mrs. Savine's party came winding down in a hurry from a bare hill
shoulder and under the gray crags of Crosbie Fell. The hollows beneath
them were lost in a woolly vapor, low-flying scud raked the bare ridges
above, and even as they passed a black rift in the hillside the first
heavy drops of rain fell pattering. Helen Savine had seen many a
mining adit in British Columbia, and, turning to glance at the mouth of
the tunnel, she read, scratched on the rock beside it, "Thurston's
Folly." That careless glance over her shoulder was to lead to
important results.
"There's wild weather brewing," said Thomas Savine. "Make those ponies
rustle, and we'll get in somewhere before it comes along."
When they reached the little wind-swept village, it became evident that
no shelter for the night could be found there, for it was seldom that
even an enterprising pedestrian tourist came down from the high moors
behind Crosbie Fell. Still, one inhabitant informed their guide, in a
tongue none of the others could comprehend, that if he was in an
unusually good humor old Musker, the keeper, might take them in at
Crosbie Ghyll. Thus it happened that just as the rain began in
earnest, such a cavalcade as had probably never before passed its
gloomy portals rode up to the gate of the dilapidated edifice. Some of
the iron-bound barriers still lay moldering in the hollow of the arch,
and Helen noticed slits for muskets in the stout walls above, for the
owners had been a fighting race, and several times in bygone centuries
the tide of battle had rolled about and then had ebbed away from the
stubbornly-held stronghold. The observer had gathered so much from a
paragraph in her guide-book.
The romance of English history appealed to Helen as it does to the
citizens of the wider Britain over seas, and she turned in her saddle
to look about her. Framed by the weather-worn archway she could see
the black rampart of the fells fading into the rain, and the bare sweep
of moss and moor, which had once stretched unbroken to the feet of the
great ranges above the Solway shore. Inside the quadrangle, for the
place had during the past century served as farm instead of hall, barn,
cart-shed and shippon were ruinous and empty, but she could fill the
space in fancy with sturdy archer, man-at-arms, and corsleted rider,
for that the present venerable edifice had been built into an older one
the stump of a square tower remained to testify.
Thomas Savine pounded on the oaken door at one end of the courtyard
until it was opened by a bent-shouldered man with frosted hair and
wrinkled visage.
"We are unfortunate strangers with a guide who has lost his way, and it
would be a favor if you could take us in to-night out of the storm," he
said. The older man glanced at the party suspiciously.
"If you ride straight on across the moor you'll find a road, and a
brand new hotel in twelve miles, where you'll get whatever you have
been used to," he said. "I once took some London folks in, and after
the thanks they gave me I never will again."
"We're not Londoners, only forlorn Canadians," explained Thomas Savine.
"Never mind, Matilda; he'll find out that you're an American in due
time. We have all learned to rough it in our own country, and would
trouble you very little."
"What part of Canada?" asked the forbidding figure in the doorway, and
when Savine answered, "British Columbia," called "Margery!" A little
weazened woman, with cheeks still ruddy from much lashing of the wind,
appeared in the portal.
"Strangers from British Columbia! Perhaps they know the master," said
the man, and there was a whispering until the woman vanished, saying,
"I'll ask Miss Gracie."
She returned promptly, and, with a reserved courtesy, bade the party
enter. Then she sent her husband and the guide to stable the ponies,
and fifteen minutes later the travelers reassembled beside the
deep-seated window of a great stone-flagged room, darkly wainscoted,
which apparently once had been the hall, and was now kitchen. There
were a spotless cloth and neat cutlery on the table by the window;
trout and bacon, hacked from the sides hanging beneath the
smoke-blackened beams, frizzled upon a peat fire; and, though she found
neither wine nor potatoes, Mrs. Savine said that she had not enjoyed
such a meal since she left Vancouver.
"We can't give you a sitting-room to yourselves," apologized the
withered dame as the removed the cloth. "What furniture there is above
is covered up, and it will be ill finding you sleeping quarters even.
Nobody lives here beside ourselves, except when Mr. Forsyth comes down
for a few weeks' shooting. His wife was a Thurston, and he bought the
old place to please her sooner than let it go out of the family."
"A Thurston!" said Helen Savine. "We saw 'Thurston's Folly' written
beside a mining tunnel on the fell. Was that one of the former owners?
Being Colonials we are interested in all ancient buildings and their
traditions."
"Oh, yes!" broke in Mrs. Savine. "We just love to hear about wicked
barons and witches and all those quaint folk of the olden time."
Musker had drawn nearer meanwhile, and Thomas Savine held out the cigar
case that lay upon his knee. "If we may smoke in the great hearth
there, just help yourself," said he. "My wife is fond of antiquities,
and if you have any to talk of, we should be glad of your company."
Musker glanced keenly at his guests. Though, having lived elsewhere,
he spoke easy colloquial English, he was a son of the North Country
dogged and slow, intensely self-respecting, and, while loyal with
feudal fealty to superiors he knew, quick to resent a stranger's
assumption of authority. Thomas Savine, brown-faced, vigorous, a
pleasant Colonial gentleman, smiled upon him good-naturedly, and Musker
took a cigar awkwardly. Mrs. Savine surveyed the great bare hall with
respectful curiosity and evident interest, while Helen, visibly
interested, leaned back in her chair.
"Maybe you met the master in British Columbia?" Musker hazarded with an
eager look in his dim eyes.
"What is his full name, and what is he like?" asked Helen, bending
forward a little. The old woman, reaching over, lifted a faded
photograph from the window seat.
"Geoffrey Thurston!" she answered. "That was him when he was young.
My husband yonder broke the pony in."
Helen started as she gazed at the picture of the boy and the pony. The
face was like, and yet unlike, that of the gaunt and hungry man whom
she had first seen sitting upon the fallen fir. "Yes," she answered
gravely; "I know him. I met Mr. Thurston in British Columbia."
"We would take it very kindly if you would tell us how and where you
found him, miss," said Musker in haste.
"I found him in a great Canadian forest. He was looking very worn and
tired," Helen answered, with a trace of color in her face. "I--I hired
him to do some work for me, and it was hard work--much harder than I
fancied--but he did it, and, as we afterwards discovered, spent all I
paid him on the powder he found was necessary."
"Ay," said the old man. "That was Mr. Geoffrey. They were all hard
and ill to beat, the Thurstons of Crosbie. And you'll kindly tell us,
miss, you saw him again?"
"Yes," repeated Helen, "I saw him again. By good fortune the work he
did for me procured him a contract he carried out daringly, and when I
last saw him he was no longer hungry or ragged, but, I fancy, on the
way to win success as an engineer."
Musker straightened his bent shoulders and smiled a slow, almost
reluctant smile of pride, while his wife's eyes were grateful as she
fixed them on the speaker. "Ay! What Mr. Geoffrey sets his heart on
he'll win or ruin himself over. It was the way of all of them; and
this is gradely news," he told her.
"Now," said Helen, nodding towards him graciously, "we don't wish to be
unduly inquisitive, but--if you may tell us--why did Mr. Thurston
emigrate to Canada?"
Musker was evidently tempted to embark upon a favorite topic, and his
wife went out hurriedly. But he hesitated, sitting silent for a minute
or two. Savine, rising under the arch of the great hearth, flung his
cigar into the fire, as a young woman, wearing what Helen noticed was a
decidedly antiquated riding habit, came forward out of the shadows.
"I hope we are not intruding here," said the Canadian. "We were tired
out before the rain came down, and almost afraid to cross the moor."
"You are very welcome," said the stranger. "I am not, however,
mistress, only a relative of the old place's owner, and, therefore, a
kinswoman of Geoffrey Thurston. I heard that you had shown him a
passing kindness, and should like to thank you."
There was no apparent reason why the two young women should scrutinize
each other, and yet both did so by the fading daylight and red blaze of
the fire. Helen saw that the stranger was ruddy and blonde--frank by
nature and impulsive, she imagined. The stranger noted only that the
Colonial was pale and dark and comely, with a slightly imperious
presence, and a face that it was not easy to read.
"I am Marian Thwaite of Barrow Hall, and regret I cannot stay any
longer, having three miles to ride in the rain," she said. "Still, I
may return to-morrow before you set out. Mrs. Forsyth will be pleased
if she hears you have made these Canadian strangers comfortable,
Musker, and I think you may tell them why Mr. Geoffrey left England.
May I ask your names?"
Helen told her, and after Miss Thwaite departed, Musker began the story
of Thurston's Folly. It had grown quite dark. Driving rain lashed the
windows. The ancient building was filled with strange rumblings and
the wailing of the blast when the old man concluded: "Mr. Geoffrey was
too proud to turn a swindler, and that was why he shook off his
sweetheart, who tried to persuade him, though he knew old Anthony
Thurston would have left him his money, if they married."
"Some said it was the opposite," interposed his wife; but Musker
answered angrily, "Then they didn't tell it right. No woman born could
twist Geoffrey Thurston from his path, and when she gave him bad
counsel he turned his back on her. A fool these dolts called him. He
was a leal, hard man, and what was a light woman's greediness to him?"
"And what became of the lady?" asked Helen, with a curious flash in her
eyes.
"She married a London man, who came here shooting, married him out of
spite, and has rued it many times if the tales are true. She was down
with him fishing, looking sour and pale, and the Hall maids were
say----"
"Just gossip and lies!" broke in his spouse; and Helen, who apparently
had lapsed into a disdainful indifference, asked no further questions.
Mrs. Savine, however, made many inquiries, and Musker, who became
unusually communicative, presently offered to show the strangers what
he called the armory.
They followed him down a draughty corridor to the black-wainscoted
gun-room at the base of the crumbling tower, and when he had lighted a
lamp its glow revealed a modern collection of costly guns. There were
also trout-rods hung upon the wall, and a few good sporting etchings,
at all of which Musker glanced somewhat contemptuously. "These are Mr.
Forsyth's, and I take care of them, but he only belongs to the place by
purchase and marriage. Those belonged to the Thurstons--the old, dead
Thurstons--and they hunted men," he said.
He ran the lamp up higher by a tarnished brass chain, and pointed first
to a big moldering bow. "A Thurston drew that in France long ago, and
it has splitted many an Annandale cattle thief in the Solway mosses
since. Red Geoffrey carried this long spear, and, so the story goes,
won his wife with it, and brought her home on the crupper from beside
the Nith. She pined away and died just above where we stand now in
this very tower. That was another Geoffrey's sword; they hanged him
high outside Lancaster jail. He was for Prince Charlie, and cut down
single-handed two of King George's dragoons carrying a warrant for a
friend's arrest when the Prince's cause was lost. His wife, she
poisoned herself. Those are the spurs Mad Harry rode Hellfire on a
wager down Crosbie Ghyll with, and broke his neck doing it, besides his
young wife's heart. The women who married the Thurstons had an ill lot
to grapple with. Even when they settled down to farming, the Thurstons
were men who would walk unflinchingly into ruin sooner than lose their
grip on their purpose, and Mr. Geoffrey favors them."
"They must have been just lovely," sighed Mrs. Savine. "Say, I've
taken a fancy to some of those old things. That rusty iron lamp can't
be much use to anybody, but it's quaint, and I'd give it's weight in
dollars for it. Can't you tell me where Mr. Forsyth lives?"
Musker stared at her horrified, Thomas Savine laughed, and even Helen,
who had appeared unusually thoughtful, smiled. Musker answered:
"No money could buy one of them out of the family, and if any but a
Thurston moves that lamp from where it hangs the dead men rise and come
for it when midnight strikes. It is falling to pieces, but once when
they took it to Kendal to be mended, the smith sent a man back with it
on horseback before the day had broken."
There was a few moments' silence when Musker concluded, and the ancient
weapons glinted strangely as the lamp's flame wavered in the chilling
draughts. A gale from the Irish Sea boomed about the crumbling tower,
and all the lonely mosses seemed to swell it with their moaning. Helen
shivered as she listened, for those clamorous voices of wind and rain
carried her back in fancy to the old unhappy days of bloodshed and
foray. The associations of the place oppressed her. She had acquired
a horror of those grim dead men whose mementos hung above her, and
whose spirits might well wander on such a night vainly seeking rest.
Even Mrs. Savine became subdued, and her husband said:
"We can't tell tales like these in our country, and I'm thankful we
can't. Still, I daresay it was such men as these who bred in us the
grit to chase the whales in the Arctic, build our railroads through the
snow-barred passes, and master the primeval forest. Now we'll try to
forget them, and go back out of this creepy place to the fire again."
An hour later Mrs. Musker escorted Helen to her quarters. A bright
fire glowed in the rusty grate, and two candles burned on the
dressing-table. "It's Mrs. Forsyth's own room, and the best in the
house," the old caretaker assured the girl. "Musker has been telling
you about the old Thurstons. He's main proud of them, but you needn't
fear them--it's long since the last one walked. You have a kind heart,
and nothing evil dare hurt you. See! I've tried to make you
comfortable. You were kind to the old place's real master--many a time
I've nursed him--God bless you!"
Helen was not in the least afraid of the dead Thurstons. She was
filled with the common-sense courage which characterizes the
inhabitants of her new country, but she had been affected by the
stories, and she sat for a time with her feet on the hearth irons,
gazing thoughtfully into the blaze. She had met a modern Thurston, and
found the instincts of his forbears strong within him. She considered
that strength, courage, and resolution well became a man, but that
gentleness and chivalrous respect for women were desirable attributes,
too. The Thurstons, however, had taken to bloodshed as a pastime, and
broken most of their wives' hearts until it seemed that they had
brought a curse upon their race. She suspected there was a measure of
their brutality in the one she knew. Remembering something Geoffrey
once had said, her face grew flushed and she clenched a little hand
with an angry gesture, saying, "No man shall ever make a slave of me,
and my husband, if I have one, must be my servant before he is my
master."
Thereupon she dismissed the subject, tried to blot the stories from her
memory, and presently buried her ears in the pillow to shut out the
clamor of the storm. After a sound night's slumber, and an interview
with Miss Thwaite she resumed her journey next morning.
Musker stood in the gate to watch the party ride away, and glancing at
the coins in his hand said to Margery, "I wish they'd come often. Main
interested in my stories they were all of them, and it's double what
any of the shooting folks ever gave me. This one came from the young
lady, and there's a way about her that puzzles me after seeing her."