The years rippled away so quietly at the convent that Freda Mulgrave
shot up into a slender girl of eighteen while yet the remembrance of
her romantic arrival was fresh in the minds of the good sisters.
During all this time her father had given no sign of interest in her
existence beyond the transmission of half-yearly cheques to the
Mother-Superior for her maintenance and education. When, therefore,
she declared her wish to become a nun, and Captain Mulgrave’s consent
was asked as scarcely more than a matter of form, his reply, which
came by telegraph, filled Freda and her companions with surprise.
This was the message:
“Send my daughter to me immediately. Train to Dieppe; boat to
Newhaven; train to Victoria, London; cab to King’s Cross; train to
Presterby.
“John Mulgrave,
“St. Edelfled’s.”
From the moment Freda read the telegram until the bitterly cold
afternoon on which she found herself approaching her new Yorkshire
home, the train labouring heavily through the snow, she seemed to live
in a wild dream. She sat back in her corner, growing drowsy in the
darkness, as the train, going more and more slowly, wound its way
through a narrow, rock-bound valley, and at last entered a cutting
down the sides of which the snow was slipping in huge white masses.
The snorting of the two engines sounded louder, every revolution of
the wheels was like a great heart-beat shivering through the whole
train. Then the expected moment came, the engine stopped.
Freda heard the shouts of men as the passengers got out of the
carriages, and then a rough-looking, broad-shouldered fellow climbed
up to the door of her compartment, and called to her.
“Hallo! Hallo! Anybody here?” he cried, in a strange, uncouth accent.
“Why, it’s t’ little lame lass, sewerly! Are ye all reeght?”
“Yes, thank you,” answered Freda. “An accident has happened, hasn’t
it?”
“Ay, we’re snawed oop. Wheer were ye going to, missie? To Presterby?”
“Yes. Is it far?”
“A matter o’ nine mile or so.”
“And you don’t think we can get there to-night?”
“Noa. We’re fast. But there’s an inn nigh here, a little pleace, but
better shelter nor this, an’ we could get food an’ foire theer. Ah’m
afreed ye’ll find it rough getting through t’ snaw. But we must try
an’ manage it, or ye’ll die o’ cawld.”
Freda hesitated.
“I suppose there’s no way of letting my father know!”
“Who is your father, missie?”
“Captain Mulgrave, of St. Edelfled’s, Presterby.”
The words were hardly out of her mouth when, as if by magic, a great
change came over her companion. The hearty, good-natured, genial
manner at once left him, and he became cold, cautious and quiet.
“Rough Jock’s daughter! Whew!” he whistled softly to himself.
“Rough Jock!” repeated Freda curiously. “That’s not my father’s name!”
“Noa, missie, but it’s what some folks calls him about here;
leastways, so Ah’ve heerd tell,” he added cautiously. “Now,” he
continued after a pause, “Ah’ll do what Ah can for ye. An’ ye’ll tell
‘Fox’--noa, Ah mean ye’ll tell Cap’n Mulgrave how ye were takken aht
o’ t’ snaw-drift by Barnabas Ugthorpe.”
“Barnabas Ugthorpe!” softly repeated Freda, marvelling at the uncouth
title.
“Ay, it’s not a very pretty neame, and it doan’t belong to a very
pretty fellow,” said Barnabas, truly enough, “but to a honest,” he
went on emphatically, with a large aspirate; “an’ me and my missis
have ruled t’ roast at Curley Home Farm fifteen year coom next
Martinmas, an’ my feyther and my grandfeyther and their feythers afore
that, mebbe as long as t’ family o’ Captain Mulgrave has lived at
Sea-Mew Abbey.”
Without further parley, the stout farmer opened the door; and taking
the girl up, crutch and all, as if she had been a child, carried her
along the line, up a steep path on to the snow-covered moor above, and
across to a lonely-looking stone-built inn, into which the passengers
from the snowed-up train were straggling in twos and threes.
The accommodation at the “Barley Mow” was of the most modest sort, and
the proprietor, Josiah Kemm, a big, burly Yorkshireman, with a red
face, seamed and crossed in all directions by shrewd, money-grabbing
puckers, was at a loss where to stow this sudden influx of visitors.
He opened the door of the little smoking-room, where the half-dozen
travellers already penned up there made way for the lame girl beside
the fire. One of them, a sturdily built middle-aged man, whose heart
went out towards the fragile little lady, jumped up and said:
“Let me get you something hot to drink, and some biscuits.”
Freda’s new acquaintance was one of those men with “honest Englishman”
writ large on bluff features and sturdy figure, whom you might dislike
as aggressive and blunt in manner, but whom your instinct would impel
you to trust. This little convent girl had no standard of masculine
manners by which to judge the stranger, whose kindness opened her
heart. He seemed to her very old, though in truth he was scarcely
forty; and she babbled out all the circumstances of her life and
journey to him with perfect confidence, in answer to the questions
which he frankly and bluntly put to her.
“Mulgrave, Mulgrave!” he repeated to himself, when she had told him
her name. “Of course, I remember Captain Mulgrave was the owner of the
old ruin on the cliff at Presterby, popularly called ‘Sea-Mew Abbey.’”
“Yes, that’s it,” cried Freda, with much excitement. “That is my
father. Oh, sir, what is he like? Do you know him?”
“Well, I can hardly say I know him, but I’ve met him. It’s years ago
now though; I haven’t been in Yorkshire for nineteen years.”
“But what was he like then?”
“He was one of the smartest-looking fellows I ever saw. But he’s a
good deal changed since then, so I’ve heard. I was only a youngster
when I saw him, and he made a great impression upon me. Of course he
was older than I, high up in his profession, while I hadn’t even
entered upon mine.”
“And what is yours?” asked Freda simply.
“I have a situation under government,” he answered, smiling at her
ingenuousness. “The way I came to hear of the change in Captain
Mulgrave,” he went on, “was through a brother I have in the navy. Of
course you have heard the circumstances: how Captain Mulgrave shot
down four men in a mutiny----”
“What!” cried the girl in horror, “my father--_killed_ four men!”
“Oh, well, you are putting it too harshly--as the authorities did.
Those who know best said that if only there had been one of our
periodical war-scares on, a couple of shiploads of such fellows as he
shot would have been better spared than a man of the stamp of Captain
Mulgrave. But the affair ruined him.”
“My poor father!” whispered Freda tremulously.
“I believe you wouldn’t know him for the same man. But cheer up,
little woman, perhaps your coming will waken up his interest in life
again. I’m sure it ought to,” he added kindly.
“Oh,” she said in a low voice, “that is almost too good to hope; but I
will pray that it may be so.”
She leant back wearily in her chair, her arms slipping down at her
sides. Her friend rose and left the room, speedily returning with the
landlady, an untidy, down-trodden looking woman, who shook her head at
the suggestion that she should find a room for the lady upstairs.
“There’s a sofy in t’ kitchen wheer she can lie down if she’s tired.
But there’s a rough lot in theer, Ah tell ye. And ye, mester, can bide
here. They doan’t want for company yonder.”
The kitchen was a large, bare, stone-flagged room, with a wide, open
fireplace and rough, greyish walls. From the centre-beam hung large
pieces of bacon, tied up with string in the north-country fashion. On
a bare deal table was a paraffin lamp with a smoke-blackened chimney.
The only other light was that thrown by the wood-fire. Freda,
therefore, could see very little of the occupants of the room. But
their voices, and strong Yorkshire accent, told that they belonged to
a different class from that of the travellers in the bar-parlor.
These men stood or sat in small groups talking low and eagerly. Mrs.
Kemm upset Freda, rather than assisted her, on to the sofa, with a nod
to her husband.
“She’s a soart o’ furreigner, and saft besides, by t’ looks on her.
She’ll not mind ye.”
“Ah tell tha,” one of the men was saying to Kemm, “Rough Jock’s not a
mon to play tricks with, either; tha mun be squeer wi’ him, or leave
him aloan. Ah’ it’s ma belief he wouldn’t ha’ quarrelled wi’ t’
Heritages, if t’ young chaps hadn’t thowt they could best him. An’ see
wheer they’ll be if he dew break off wi’ ’em! It’ll be a bad deay for
them if he dew!”
“Ah tell tha,” said Kemm, doggedly, “he has broke off wi’ ’em. As for
them chaps, they weren’t smart enough to do wi’ a mon loike Rough
Jock. That’s wheer t’ mischief lay. They shouldn’t nivver ha’ tuk on
wi’ him.”
“Ah’m thinking if they hadn’t tuk on wi’ him, they’d ha’ tuk on wi’ t’
workhouse; and that’s what it’ll coom to neow, if Rough Jock leaves
’em in t’ lurch, wi’ their proide and their empty larder! An’ thur’ll
be wigs on t’ green tew, for Bob Heritage is a nasty fellow when his
blood’s oop. Have a care, Josiah, have a care!”
“Oh, ay, Ah’m not afraid o’ Bob Heritage, nor o’ Rough Jock either;
an’ me an’ him are loike to coom to an unnerstanding.”
“Weel, ye mun knaw yer own business, Kemm; but Ah wouldn’t tak’ oop wi
him mysen,” said the third man, who had scarcely spoken.
“Not till ye gotten t’ chance, eh, lad?” said Josiah stolidly. “Coom
an’ have a soop o’ ale; it shall cost ye nowt.”
He led the way out of the room; and the rest, not all at once, but by
twos and threes and very quietly, followed him, until Freda was left
quite alone. As she leaned upon her elbow, trying to piece together
the fragments she had understood of the talk, she heard in the
passage, to her great relief, a voice she recognised. It was that of
her farmer friend, Barnabas Ugthorpe, who looked in at the kitchen
door the next moment.
“Weel, lass,” he said, cheerily, “How are ye gettin on? T’ night’s
cleared a bit, an’ Ah can tak’ ye on to Owd Castle Farm. T’ fowks
theer are very thick wi’ Capt’n Mulgrave. It isn’t more’n a moile from
here.”
Within ten minutes a cart was at the door, and they were on their way.
The road lying over a smooth expanse of moorland, and the moon giving
a little more light; it was not long before a very curious building
came in sight, on rising ground a little to the east of the road as it
went northwards.
The front of the house, which faced south, was long and singularly
irregular. At each end were the still solid-looking remains of a round
tower built of great blocks of rough-hewn stone, roofed in with red
tiles. Both were lighted by narrow, barred windows. Between the towers
ran an outer wall of the same grey stone, much notched and ivy-grown
at the top, and broken through here and there lower down to receive
small square latticed windows greatly out of character with the
structure. Into a breach in this wall a very plain farm-house building
had been inserted, with rough white-washed surface and stone-flagged
roof.
Barnabas got down, raised the knocker and gave three sounding raps.
In a few moments Freda heard rapid steps inside, and a woman’s voice,
harsh and strident, saying in a whisper:
“That’s not the Captain, surely!”
Freda turned quickly to her companion.
“Who are these people? What is their name?”
“Their neame’s Heritage,” said Barnabas.
Freda started. It was the name she had heard at the “Barley Mow” as
that of the family who had quarrelled with “Rough Jock.”