BY THE LOUGHSIDE
There was nothing within reasonable distance better than the margin of
the pool. Ninian spread his thick coat on the ground, and they sat
down, glowing with heat, and with appetites sharpened by the keen air.
"I don't think I ever was so hungry in my life," said Olwen.
"You look twice as fit as you did when first you came to us," remarked
Nin. "A little blue thing you were, with a red nose!"
"You're too complimentary!"
"And now you are what Mrs. Mountstewart Jenkinson would call 'a dainty
rogue in porcelain.'"
"What! Have I ceased to be a school-marm and become a rogue?"
"I think you will, if we come skating often!"
"And meantime you have left off being a tavern clown and become a court
jester!"
"That's a pretty thing to say!"
"No worse than you are always saying to me! It's mean to keep on
attacking and not allow me to hit back."
"Don't you like to be a dainty rogue in porcelain?"
"I would far rather be a serviceable school-marm."
"You have been serviceable," he said, with a sudden change of tone. The
change brought her heart unexpectedly into her throat. It sounded as
though he were on the verge of becoming sentimental.
"Well, of course," said she hurriedly, "how could I earn a living if I
were not serviceable? By the way, you promised me a sight of the Roman
Wall! Where is it! I can't see it anywhere! And what is a mile-castle?
Is it so called because it is always a mile away from the place where
you happen to be?"
"The Wall is up on the top of that black cliff," said he, "which latter
is known in the neighbourhood as Duke's Crag; but that's supposed to be
a corruption of Crag Dhu, the Black Crag. No connection between the
Crag and any Duke can be traced."
"It wouldn't take us long, would it, to climb up there?" asked the girl.
"Is the mile-castle behind?"
"The mile-castle is in that dip about a quarter of a mile to our right.
But you mustn't expect to find either it or the Wall very high, you
know. The highest bit of wall remaining isn't more than eight feet, I
believe, and none of the mile-castle is much higher than my head."
"Do tell me what exactly is a mile-castle?"
"There was one every mile, that is, every Roman mile, along the wall.
It was a little fort in which there was a garrison of about a dozen men.
At each quarter of a mile there was a smaller one, big enough to hold
two or three, so that they were always near enough to call up their
mates in case of a surprise. The mile-castles were usually put just
where the lie of the ground needed a little extra protection."
"Excellent! This is the young man who was asking for information about
the Wall from his teacher!"
He chuckled gaily. "Well, I shall be delighted to hear anything you
have to say."
"Do let us go up and look," said she impulsively. "This is the only
chance I shall have----"
"Go to! Why the only chance?"
"Oh, because I shall be leaving. It is no use my staying here. There
isn't enough to do. I shall give warning, as you call it, next time I
get my wages."
"Then let us make hay, or--or anything else we want to make, while the
sun shines," he returned, rising his lazy length, and stooping to help
her to her feet.
"Can we go right up the rock?" she asked. "It seems a tremendous way
round."
"Yes, the steep direct way is the best, if you think you can do it. We
can use my stick by way of a rope for you to hold on by. Are you likely
to turn dizzy?"
"No, my head's all right."
"Then come on, and let's chance it. We must be pretty quick, however,
for we have not very much time to spare."
The sky was blue, the sun clear above their heads. With their faces set
to the northern wall of the cliff they saw nothing of the black clouds
behind them.
Olwen had never enjoyed anything as she enjoyed that dizzy climb.
Ninian left off fooling and became a guide in all respects to be
desired--steady, competent, and very strong.
She followed his advice exactly, and in what seemed quite a short time
he had reached the top, swung himself into a sitting posture on the
verge, and reached his arms to raise her to his level.
Then, quite suddenly, when she had let go, as he held her suspended at
his mercy, he said in a strained voice, unlike his own:
"Now say you believe me. Say you trust me! Do you hear? If you don't
say so, I am going to let you drop."
She was used to him by now, and not at all frightened. "Don't be an
idiot," said she with the utmost calm; "put me down."
"Not till you say you believe me. Say you are sure that I told you the
truth, _the real, whole truth_, when I told you about me and Lily Martin
the other day."
His face was close to hers, his eyes looked right into hers. They were
anxious, but perfectly clear and bold. She could not meet his glance and
tell him that he lied. She tried to jest: "Any Guyse, with green eyes,
will tell----"
In a moment he had caught her in his left arm, and with his right hand
covered her mouth to prevent her completing the quotation.
"No, don't, for God's sake," he said in agitation which she knew to be
real. "Answer me just once, quite straight. Do you think I would tell
you a deliberate untruth?"
"Why should you? Please set me down----"
"In a moment. This is awfully important. Listen just a second. I have
never told you anything yet that isn't--quite--true. Do you believe
me?"
There was an appeal in his voice that shook her. She knew that the fact
that he still held her in the crook of his arm shook her also.
"I'll--I'll be far likelier to believe if you set me down and don't
bully," said she, still struggling for independence.
He set her down gently upon the rock at his side. "What a little
feather-weight you are," he said absently; then caught himself up with a
laugh and a glance of fun. "At it again! But you know you really are!
You always remind me of the Duchess in the Browning poem--
'_I have seen a white crane bigger,--_
_She was the smallest lady alive!_'
I suppose it is your Welsh blood that makes you so small-boned, isn't
it?"
"Welsh?" said Olwen in surprise. "How do you know that I am Welsh? I
never told you!"
He coloured suddenly and deeply, and for a moment foundered. "Oh, but
didn't you tell Madam? No? Then it must have been your name. Anyone
would guess you to be Welsh with such a name as Olwen."
"It is rather a give-away," said she, wondering a little it his
confusion, but attributing it to his realisation of the fact that his
remark amounted to an admission of his having thought a good deal about
her. "I'm not so very short," said she with dignity.
He had taken out a handkerchief, and was wiping her hands--those hands
upon which Sunia bestowed such care--first one and then the other in an
absorbed way, as if he disliked the least hint of earth upon them. "You
haven't answered me," he said after a minute; "but you do believe me you
know, only you don't like to say so."
"How many times am I to tell you that I don't have any opinion about
you? You're outside my scheme of the universe altogether."
"That," said he, as he rose and helped her up, "is the merest piffle,
as, of course, you know. Come along if you want to see the old
mile-castle. It isn't much to look at. When the weather gets better
we'll go to Housesteads, and I'll show you the stone sills of the
gateway, worn away with the driving in and out of chariot wheels which
were no more than a hoary legend to William the Conqueror's Normans."
"Oh, isn't it incredible?" she sighed. "The wonderful world!"
"Hallo!" said he, stopping abruptly, and shading his eyes with his hand.
"Is this a snowstorm that I see before me? Gee whiz, we have got to be
quick!"
"What do you mean? Oh, those clouds? Why, it will be ages before they
get anywhere near us."
"Don't you be so cock-sure! What a fool I was not to look at the
barometer this morning! If I know my weather, it is snowing like
Billy-o at this moment in the Cheviots."
"Well, I don't know how Billy-o does snow, so I'm not impressed. I see
a great broad worm wriggling up over the top of this height, and
slithering off down the other side, and I believe, I do believe it is
the Wall itself! My Wall!"
"Oh, Wall, oh, Wall, oh, sweet and lovely Wall!" echoed Nin with a shout
of laughter. "Yes, there it is, right enough, and we can run along the
top of it if you like."
In another few minutes they were both on the top, running fleetly along,
and gazing down at the vast natural rampart upon which great Rome
founded her artificial one.
"You'll have to do with the merest peep, my lady, and then I march you
off home," cried Nin as they raced along. "What a goat I was to tell
you anything about it! There's nothing to see."
"Just to set my foot within the threshold and feel like Macaulay's New
Zealander on the ruins of London Bridge--'Rome shall perish! Write that
word in the blood that she has spilt!'--and now Rome is gone, and we are
here."
"Yes," he replied, "we're here, and thank God for that!"
They paused, for they had reached the small quadrangular enclosure which
had once been a mile-castle. Here the proprietors had set up a bit of
iron rail, designed probably to deter visitors from the favourite
pursuit of walking upon the wall itself--a process leading to gradual
disintegration. They let themselves down into the castle, and stood
within its boundaries.
The site had been carefully excavated, and its dimensions and plan could
be clearly seen. It had once been divided, like the upper floors of the
Pele, into four small chambers, each about twelve feet square. Its
northern face was built against the Wall itself, and there had been a
gateway leading through, designed for foot passengers only. On the
south side also there had been a doorway, not very wide. In the
southwest corner the farmer who now owned it had built up a small shed
or shelter, using stones collected from along the Wall, and roofing with
corrugated iron.
Olwen was anxious to linger and make mind-pictures of the garrison
seated round their charcoal brazier, throwing dice, as once they did in
Palestine at the foot of the Cross. He began to describe to her the
rows of wooden huts and booths which grew up in those old days under the
sheltering Wall, forming as it were one long town from east to west.
"So that one could buy tooth-brushes and writing-paper and, I suppose,
postage stamps, without travelling to Hexham or Newcastle," said she
mirthfully.
Then he glanced once more at the menacing north, and urged her--
"Come! For us to-day as for the old legions then, trouble cometh out of
the north. Let us get down from these dizzy heights and make our way
across the fell to the road. I don't want to be caught by the snow up
here."
He was turning in a different direction, but she cried out that they had
better go down the short way. He hesitated: "It's a bit steep down
there for you."
"But it's much, much shorter."
He admitted it.
"Then let us scramble down as fast as we can. You go first, and then
you can find nice holes for my feet."
After a moment's doubt he gave in, and they retraced their steps to the
place where they had made the ascent of Duke's Crag. For some way down
all went well, though Ninian was a little anxious, having realised, by
the slipping of a jutting bit of rock beneath his hand, how keenly the
late tremendous frost had acted upon the somewhat loose and scaly
surface.
"Look out, Teacher, it came off in me 'and," said he lightly; and it
occurred to Olwen for the first time that she now understood that
nervousness always made him flippant.
Perhaps her success so far had made the inexperienced girl a little
reckless. She set her foot carelessly, the ledge upon which she dropped
her weight gave, and she slipped, grasping with a sudden jerk at a
projecting lump above her head. The lump detached itself with a crack
like a pistol shot, and came down upon her, flinging her upon Ninian,
who, just below, had fortunately braced himself firmly to withstand the
shock.
The loosened rock rushed on, leaping down the slope, and he heard it
crash dully upon the ice below.
"You clumsy little----" he began.
Olwen neither moved nor spoke. Her head was hanging over his shoulder,
her limbs seemed to trail helplessly.
"Speak!" he said chokingly. There was no answer.