THE GRAY CAR
It was one o'clock in the morning, but Andrew could not sleep. He sat
by an open window, looking at the tops of the firs, which stood out in
black silhouette. It annoyed him to be so wakeful, as he and Whitney
were to make an early start for Edinburgh; but Andrew had something to
think about, for he realized that his friendship with Elsie could not
be resumed where it had broken off. She had grown up while he was
away, and his feeling toward her had changed. To be regarded as an
elder brother no longer satisfied him, and if he were not very
careful, he would find himself in love with her. This was unthinkable:
first of all, because he was lame and poor, and then because it was
obvious that Elsie ought to marry Dick. She had no money; Dick had
plenty and, besides, Dick needed her. Elsie would keep him straight,
and his weak heart would cease to trouble him when he steadied down.
Andrew had long cherished an affection for both of them, and he knew
that Dick trusted him.
Then he reflected that Elsie's attitude toward Dick was to a large
extent protective and motherly, which was not the feeling one would
expect a girl to show for the man she meant to marry; and while Dick
was obviously fond of her, his attachment, so far as one could judge,
was not passionate. Besides, when one came to think of it, the
suggestion that their marriage must be taken for granted had come from
Staffer. He had, so to speak, delicately warned Andrew off.
Andrew firmly pulled himself up. He was being led away by specious
arguments. It was easy to find excuses for indulging oneself and he
had promised to look after Dick. If he tried to supplant his cousin in
Elsie's affection, he would be doing a dishonorable thing. There was
no getting around this; but it cost him an effort to face the truth.
A soft rattle of gravel down the drive attracted Andrew's attention.
Rabbits sometimes got through the netting and one might have disturbed
the stones as it sprang across; but he rejected this explanation. The
sound was too loud, although he imagined that there was something
stealthy in it. Anybody coming toward the house across the smoothly
paved bridge, would have to walk on the gravel, as there was a flower
border between the drive and the shrubbery. This had a narrow grass
edging, but hoops were placed along it to keep people off.
Andrew leaned forward cautiously and looked about him. It was a calm
night and not very dark, although there was no moon. He could see the
firs near the house cutting black against the sky, and the blurred
outline of a shrubbery beside the drive to the bridge. Thin white mist
rose from the ravine, and beyond it a beechwood rolled down the hill.
The air was warm, and the smell of flowers and wet soil drifted into
the room. There seemed to be nothing moving, however, and the sound
was not repeated. For a few moments Andrew waited, expecting to hear
the intruder fall over one of the hoops that edged the drive. When
this did not happen, he fixed his eyes intently upon the end of the
shrubbery, and then he made out a very indistinct figure moving slowly
through the gloom beneath the firs.
This was strange. He had never heard of any house-breaking in the
dale, and there was nothing at Appleyard to attract a burglar from the
distant towns. It was too late for a villager to keep tryst with one
of the maids; and a poacher would not cross the well-fenced grounds.
Andrew decided that he would not give the alarm, but he slipped across
the room and opened his door quietly so that he could hear if anybody
entered the house. Though he stood beside it, listening closely, he
heard nothing. Then he returned to the window, and saw a dark form
move back into the gloom of the trees. Presently there was another
soft rattle of gravel near the bridge, and after that deep silence
except for the splash of water in the ravine. Andrew imagined that
about five minutes had elapsed since he heard the first sound, but the
prowler had gone and he must try to solve the puzzle in the morning.
He got up early and went down to the drive before anybody was about. A
fresh footprint showed plainly in the flower border near the bridge,
close to an opening in the shrubbery by which one could reach the
lawn, as if the man had meant to jump across and had fallen a few
inches short. That he had not gone along the grass edging showed that
he knew the hoops were there.
Andrew examined the footprint. It was deep and clearly defined, and he
thought it looked more like the impress of a well-made shooting boot
than of the heavy boots the country people wore. For one thing, he
could see no marks of the tackets the Scottish peasant uses. Acting on
a half-understood impulse, he covered the footprint up and strolled
toward the gardener, who was just coming out with his rake.
"You have a big place to take care of, Fergus, but you keep it very
neat," Andrew said.
"Aye," replied the gardener. "I'm thinking it's big enough."
"Have you help?"
"Willie Grant comes over whiles, when I've mair than ordinar' to do.
He has a club foot, ye'll mind, an' is no' verra active, but there's
jobs he saves me."
Andrew knew the man, and knew that he could not have sprung across the
flower border.
"I see Tom is still at the stables, but the man who drives the car is
new. How long have they had him?"
"A year, maybe. Watson's a quiet man, an' makes no unnecessar' mess,
like some o' them. He leeves in the hoose."
"Then he doesn't get up very early."
"He's at Dumfries wi' the car. There was something to be sortit an' he
took her there yestreen. Mr. Staffer's for Glasgow, the morn."
After a few remarks about the garden, Andrew strolled away. He had
learned that the night prowler could not have been one of the men
employed at Appleyard. The fellow had apparently not entered the
house, and although he had stayed long enough to deliver a message to
somebody inside, Andrew had not heard a door or window open. The
matter puzzled him, but he determined to say nothing about it,
although he was conscious of no particular reason for his reserve.
An hour later, Whitney and he started for Edinburgh, with Dick on the
carrier of the motorcycle. The machine was powerful and they meant to
travel by short stages and stop at points of interest for a walk
across the hills. Andrew was glad to have Dick with them, particularly
as he was dubious about the visits the boy was in the habit of making
to Dumfries and Lockerbie. Dick generally returned late at night and
did not look his best the next morning.
Whitney enjoyed the journey. He had understood that southern Scotland
was the home of scientific agriculture, and in this respect the
valleys came up to his expectations; but when they left them on foot,
as they did now and then, they crossed barren, wind-swept spaces
clothed with bent-grass and heather. In places, lonely hills rolled
from horizon to horizon without sign of life except for the
black-faced sheep and the grouse that skimmed the heath.
Andrew knew every incident in the history of this rugged country, and
with a little encouragement he told tales of English invasions and
fierce reprisals, of stern Covenanting martyrs and their followers'
fanatical cruelties. Looking down from the heights of the Lammermuirs,
they saw where Cromwell crushed his Scottish pursuers; they climbed
the battlements of old square towers that had defied English raids,
and traced the line of Prince Charlie's march.
Whitney found it rather bewildering. There was so much romantic
incident packed into two or three centuries; but he felt that he
understood the insular Briton better than he had done, and this
understanding improved his conception of the native-born American. It
was here that some of the leading principles of American democracy
were first proclaimed and fought for. Another thing was plain--if the
spirit of this virile people had not greatly changed, deeds worthy of
new ballads would be done in France and Flanders.
On the return journey they reached Hawick one evening and stopped for
an hour or two. Dick suggested that they stay the night; but there was
nothing to keep them in the smoky, wool-spinning town, and Andrew
preferred to push on.
"The night air's bracing among the moors and I like to hear the whaups
crying round the house," he said to Whitney. "There's a small hotel,
built right on the fellside, and we should get there in an hour."
They set off, with Andrew on the carrier, and the powerful machine
rolled smoothly out of the town. The street lamps were beginning to
twinkle as they left it and low mist crept across the fields past
which they sped. The cry of geese, feeding among the stubble, came out
of the haze, which lay breast-high between the hedgerows, clogging the
dust, but it thinned and rolled behind them as the road began to rise.
Then the stubble fields became less frequent, fewer dark squares of
turnips checkered the sweep of grass, and the murmur of Teviot,
running among the willows, crept out of the gathering dusk.
Cothouses marked by glimmering lights went by; they sped through a
dim, white village; and Whitney opened out his engine as they went
rocking past a line of stunted trees. They were the last and highest,
for after them the rough ling and bent-grass rolled across the haunts
of the sheep and grouse. Whitney changed his gear as the grade got
steeper, the hedges gave place to stone walls until they ran out on an
open moor, round which the hills lifted their black summits against
the fading sky. The three men made a heavy load on the long incline,
but the machine brought them up, and the last of the light had gone
when they stopped in front of a lonely hotel. It looked like a Swiss
chalet on the breast of the fell, and a dark glen dropped steeply away
from it, but it glowed with electric light.
"They seem to have some shooting people here," Dick said. "I'll run
across and see if they can take us in, while you look at the
carbureter. We may have to go on to Langholm and she wasn't firing
very well."
He went up the drive and Whitney opened his tool bag. The top of the
pass was about half a mile behind them, and the road ran straight down
from it, widening in front of the hotel. There was a patch of loose
stones on the other side, and the motorcycle stood a yard or two from
the gate. Everything was very still except for the sound of running
water, and it was rather dark, because the hills rose steeply above
the glen.
"Dick's a long time coming back," Andrew said with a frown.
"Perhaps you'd better go for him," Whitney suggested.
Andrew went off, but met Dick in the drive.
"It's all right; there's nobody stopping here," he reported. "They
keep the lights blazing to draw motoring people."
He spoke clearly, but with an evident effort, and Andrew frowned
again.
"There's a nut I can't get hold of," Whitney called to them from under
the motorcycle. "Do you think I could borrow a smaller spanner here,
Dick?"
"I'll get it for you," Dick volunteered jovially, and started back
toward the house.
Andrew put a firm hand on his arm.
"You will not!" he said shortly.
Dick turned upon him in a moment's rage; and then laughed.
"Oh, all right. You're a tyrant, Andrew, but you mean well."
When Whitney went for the spanner Dick knelt down in the road to
inspect the machine.
"Lend me your knife," he requested. "It will be all right if I put
something in the jaws."
"I'm inclined to think you'd better leave it alone," Andrew replied
meaningly.
Dick laughed.
"You're a suspicious beggar. I wasn't away five minutes. Anyhow,
there's a fascination in tampering with other people's machines.
Where's the knife?"
Andrew let him have it, and soon afterward Dick uttered an expletive
as he tore the skin from one of his knuckles.
"The beastly thing will slip; but I'm not going to be beaten by a
common American nut," he declared. "If I can't screw it up, I'll twist
the bolt-head off."
"Leave it alone!" said Andrew.
"It's going!" Dick panted, and threw the spanner down. "Another
knuckle skinned," he added grimly.
As he stopped to wipe his hand, a loud humming came across the summit.
Then four lights leaped up and their united beam rushed down the
pass.
"That fellow's driving very fast, but he has plenty of room," Dick
remarked, and Andrew, stepping back, saw that the tail-lamp of the
motorcycle was burning well.
Dick got up, and Andrew moved out a yard or two across the road with
the headlamp, half dazzled by the blaze of light that filled the glen.
Suddenly the stream of radiance wavered, and Andrew wondered whether
the driver had lost his nerve on seeing the patch of stones, which
perhaps looked larger than they were. Then he heard the wheels skid
and loose metal fly as the car lurched across the road.
"Jump!" he shouted, violently hurling Dick back before he sprang out
of the way.
He struck the motorcycle with his lame leg, staggered, and fell on the
gravel close to the gate. For a moment or two he had not the courage
to look up, and then, with keen relief, he saw Dick standing safe.
"The clumsy brute!" Dick cried, in a voice that sounded hoarse with
rage.
Running to the bicycle, he started it and jumped into the saddle. The
red tail-light streamed away through the dark like a rocket, and when
it grew dim, Andrew, standing shakily, saw Whitney beside him.
"He's gone mad!" Whitney exclaimed.
Andrew did not speak, and above the dying roar the big car made in the
narrow hollow they heard a shrill buzzing that sounded strangely
venomous.
"Forty miles an hour, anyway," Whitney estimated. "It would take a
good car to get away from her. Is he fool enough to run into the back
of it?"
"I don't know," said Andrew. "Dick's capable of anything when he's
worked up. The curious thing is that his head is steadier than usual
then."
They waited until the sound grew fainter and then died away.
"I am going down the glen," Andrew said.
They had not gone far when they heard a motor panting up hill to meet
them, and a minute later Dick's car ran past and he waved his hand.
"Hotel gate!" he shouted. "Don't want to stop!"
When they reached the gate, Dick was waiting. Andrew turned the light
on him, and started at the sight which met him. Dick's face was white
and strained and smeared with blood, and he was evidently laboring
under an emotion not wholly due to anger and excitement.
Even in the sudden flash past them of the automobile Andrew thought he
had recognized the car as one belonging to Appleyard--a low, gray car
which Staffer always used. He had believed that the lurch which nearly
cost them their lives was due to reckless driving; but there was a
tenseness in Dick's expression which he could not quite understand.
"Did you overtake the car?" he asked.
"No," said Dick, with a forced grin; "I took the bank and I'm afraid
the machine is something the worse for it. I was gaining and close to
the car when we got down to the bottom of the glen. You know it's very
narrow there."
Whitney nodded. There was a sharp bend where road and stream ran out
side by side through the sharply contracted gap in the hills. The
slope on both sides was very steep and there was only a strip of
grass between the road and the water, seven or eight feet below.
"Yes; it's not the place I'd care to negotiate at full speed."
"I meant to catch the car and ran on to the grass to get a wider
sweep; but she wouldn't take the curve. Went straight up the hillside
for a dozen yards and then threw me off. Luckily I fell into some fern
and when I'd pulled myself together, I somehow got her down."
"But the car?"
"Got off," Dick replied in a strained tone.
Andrew spoke quickly.
"You'd better come and let us see if your face is badly cut."
They entered the hotel, but Dick stopped as they were passing the bar.
"We've all had a shock," he said; "and if you feel you'd like a drink,
don't mind me. You needn't be afraid of setting me a bad example--I
don't want anything."
Andrew smiled.
"Nor do I. Sometimes you're a very thoughtful fellow, Dick."