THE FURTHER BRINK
Wratislaw left betimes the next morning, and a long day faced Lewis with
every hour clamouring for a decision. George would be back by noon, and
before his return he must seek quiet and the chances of reflection. He
was happy with a miserable fluctuating happiness. Of a sudden his
horizon was enlarged, but as he gazed it seemed to narrow again. His
mind was still unplumbed; somewhere in its depths might lie the
shrinking and unwillingness which would bind him to the dreary present.
He went out to the autumn hills and sought the ridge which runs for
miles on the lip of the glen. It was a grey day, with snow waiting in
cloud-banks in the north sky and a thin wind whistling through the
pines. The scene matched his humour. He was in love for the moment
with the stony and stormy in life. He hungered morbidly for
ill-fortune, something to stamp out the ease in his soul, and weld him
into the form of a man.
He had got his chance and the rest lay with himself. It was a chance of
high adventure, a great mission, a limitless future. At the thought the
old fever began to rise in his blood. The hot, clear smell of rock and
sand, the brown depths of the waters, the far white peaks running up
among the stars, all spoke to him with the long-remembered call. Once
more he should taste life, and, alert in mind and body, hold up his chin
among his fellows. It would be a contest of wits, and for all his
cowardice this was not the contest he shrank from.
And then there came back on him, like a flood, the dumb misery of
incompetence which had weighed on heart and brain. The hatred of the
whole struggling, sordid crew, all the cant and ugliness and ignorance
of a mad world, his weakness in the face of it, his fall from common
virtue, his nerveless indolence--all stung him like needle points, till
he cried out in agony. Anything to deliver his soul from such a
bondage, and in his extreme bitterness his mind closed with Wratislaw's
offer.
He felt--and it is a proof of his weakness--a certain nameless feeling
of content when he had once forced himself into the resolution. Now at
least he had found a helm and a port to strain to. As his fancy dwelt
upon the mission and drew airy pictures of the land, he found to his
delight a boyish enthusiasm arising. Old simple pleasures seemed for
the moment dear. There was a zest for toils and discomforts, a
tolerance of failure, which had been aforetime his chief traveller's
heritage.
And then as he came to the ridge where the road passes from Glenavelin
to Glen Adler, he stopped as in duty bound to look at the famous
prospect. You stand at the shedding of two streams; behind, the green
and woodland spaces of the pastoral Avelin; at the feet, a land of
stones and dwarf junipers and naked rifts in the hills, with
white-falling waters and dark shadows even at midday. And then, beyond
and afar, the lines of hill-land crowd upon each other till the eye is
lost in a mystery of grey rock and brown heather and single bald peaks
rising sentinel-like in the waste. The grey heavens lent a chill
eeriness to the dim grey distances; the sharp winds, the forerunners of
snow, blew over the moors like blasts from a primeval night.
By an odd vagary of temper the love of these bleak hills blazed up
fiercely in his heart. Never before had he felt so keenly the nameless
glamour of his own heritage. He had not been back six months and yet he
had come to accept all things as matters of course, the beauty of the
place, its sport, its memories. Rarely had he felt that intimate joy in
it which lies at the bottom of all true souls. There is a sentiment
which old poets have made into songs and called the "Lilt of the
Heather," and which is knit closer to man's heart than love of wife or
kin or his own fair fortune. It had not come to him in the time of the
hills' glory, but now on the brink of winter the far-off melancholy of
the place and its infinite fascination seemed to clutch at his
heart-strings. It was his own land, the place of his fathers; and now
he must sever himself from it and carry only a barren memory.
And yet he felt no melancholy. Rather it was the immortal gaiety of the
wanderer, to whom the homeland is dearest as a memory, who pitches his
camp by waters of Babylon and yet as ever the old word on his lip, the
old song in his ear, and the kindly picture in his heart. Strange that
it is the little races who wander farthest and yet have the eternal
home-sickness! And yet not strange, for to the little peoples, their
land, bare and uncouth and unfriendly for the needs of life, must be
more the ideal, the dream, than the satisfaction. The lush countries
give corn and wine for their folks, the little bare places afford no
more than a spiritual heritage. Yet spiritual it is, and for two men
who in the moment of their extremity will think on meadow, woodland, or
placid village, a score will figure the windy hill, the grey lochan, and
the mournful sea.
For the moment he felt a self-pity which he cast from him. To this
degradation at least he should never come. But as the thought of Alice
came up ever and again, his longing for her seemed to be changed from
hot pain to a chastened regret. The red hearth-fire was no more in his
fancy. The hunger for domesticity had gone, and the girl was now less
the wife he had desired than the dream of love he had vainly followed.
As he came back across the moors, for the first time for weeks his
jealous love left him at peace. His had been a fanciful Sylvia, "holy,
fair, and wise"; and what if mortal Sylvia were unkind, there was yet
comfort in this elusive lady of his memories.
* * * * *
He found George at the end of a second breakfast, a very ruddy, happy
young man hunting high and low for a lost tobacco-jar.
"Oh, first-class," he said in answer to Lewis's question. "Out and out
the best day's shooting I've had in my life. You were an ass not to
come, you know. A lot of your friends there, tremendously disappointed
too, and entrusted me with a lot of messages for you which I have
forgotten."
His companion's high spirits infected Lewis and he fell into cheery
gossip. Then he could contain the news no more.
"I had Tommy up last night on a flying visit. He says that Beauregard
wants me to go out to Kashmir again. There has been some threatening of
a row up there, and he thinks that as I know the place I might be able
to get good information."
"Official?" asked George.
"Practically, yes; but in theory it's quite off my own bat, and they are
good enough to tell me that they will not acknowledge responsibility.
However, it's a great chance and I am going."
"Good," said the other, and his face and voice had settled into gravity.
"Pretty fair sport up in those parts, isn't there?"
"Pretty fair? it's about the best in the world. Your ordinary man who
goes the grand tour comes home raving about the sport in the Himalayan
foothills, and it's not to be named with this."
"Good chance too of a first-rate row, isn't there? Natives troublesome,
and Russia near, and that sort of thing?" George's manner showed a
growing enthusiasm.
"A rather good chance. It is about that I'm going, you know."
"Then if you don't mind, I am coming with you."
Lewis stared, incredulous.
"It's quite true. I am serious enough. I am doing nothing at the Bar,
and I want to travel, proper travelling, where you are not coddled with
railways and hotels."
"But it's hideously risky, and probably very arduous and thankless. You
will tire of it in a week."
"I won't," said George, "and in any case I'll make my book for that.
You must let me come, Lewie. I simply couldn't stand your going off
alone."
"But I may have to leave you. There are places where one can go when
two can't."
"When you come to that sort of place I'll stay behind. I'll be quite
under your orders."
"Well, at any rate take some time to think over it."
"Bless you, I don't want time to think over it," cried George. "I know
my own mind. It's the chance I've been waiting on for years."
"Thanks tremendously then, my dear chap," said Lewis, very ill at ease.
"It's very good of you. I must wire at once to Tommy."
"I'll take it down, if you like. I want to try that new mare of yours
in the dog-cart."
When his host had left the room George forgot to light his pipe, but
walked instead to the window and whistled solemnly. "Poor old man," he
said softly to himself, "it had to come to this, but I'm hanged if he
doesn't take it like a Trojan." And he added certain striking comments
on the ways of womankind and the afflictions of life, which, being
expressed in Mr. Winterham's curious phraseology, need not be set down.
* * * * *
Alice had gone out after lunch to walk to Gledsmuir, seeking in the
bitter cold and the dawning storm the freshness which comes from
conflict. All the way down the glen the north wind had stung her cheeks
to crimson and blown stray curls about her ears; but when she left the
little market-place to return she found a fine snow powdering the earth,
and a haze creeping over the hills which threatened storm. A mile of
the weather delighted her, but after that she grew weary. When the fall
thickened she sought the shelter of a way-side cottage, with the purpose
of either sending to Glenavelin for a carriage or waiting for the
off-chance of a farmer's gig.
By four o'clock the snow showed no sign of clearing, but fell in the
same steady, noiseless drift. The mistress of the place made the girl
tea and dispatched her son to Glenavelin. But the errand would take
time, for the boy was small, and Alice, ever impatient, stood drumming
on the panes, watching the dreary weather with a dreary heart. The
goodwife was standing at the door on the look-out for a passing gig, and
her cry brought the girl to attention.
"I see a machine comin'! I think it's the Etterick dowg-cairt. Ye'll
get a drive in it."
Alice had gone to the door, and lo! through the thick fall a dog-cart
came into view driven by a tall young man. He recognized her at once,
and drew up.
"Hullo, Miss Wishart! Storm-stayed? Can I help you?"
The girl looked distrustfully at the very restless horse and he caught
her diffidence.
"Don't be afraid. 'What I don't know about 'oases ain't worth
knowin','" he quoted with a laugh; and leaning forward he prepared to
assist her to mount.
There was nothing for it but to accept, and the next minute she found
herself in the high seat beside him. Her wraps, sufficient for walking,
were scarcely sufficient for a snowy drive, and this, to his credit, the
young man saw. He unbuttoned his tweed shooting-cape, and gravely put
it round her. A curious dainty figure she made with her face all bright
with wind, framed in the great grey cloak.
The horse jibbed for a second and then swung along the wild road with
the vigorous ease of good blood skilfully handled. George was puzzling
his brain all the while as to how he should tell his companion something
which she ought to know. The strong drift and the turns of the road
claimed much of his attention, so it is possible that he blurted out his
news somewhat baldly.
"Do you know, Miss Wishart, that Lewis Haystoun and I are going off next
week? Abroad, you know."
The girl, who had been enjoying the ecstasy of swift motion through the
bitter weather, glanced up at him with pain in her eyes.
"Where?" she asked.
"To the Indian frontier. We are going to be special unpaid unofficial
members of the Intelligence Department."
She asked the old, timid woman's question about danger.
"It's where Lewis was before. Only, you see, things have got into a
mess thereabouts, and the Foreign Office has asked him to go out again.
By the by, you mustn't tell any one about this, for it's in strict
confidence."
The words were meaningless, and yet they sent a pang through her heart.
Had he no guess at her inmost feelings? Could he think that she would
talk to Mr. Stocks of a thing which was bound up for her with all the
sorrow and ecstasy of life?
He looked down and saw that her face had paled and that her mouth was
drawn with some emotion. A sudden gleam of light seemed to break in
upon him.
"Are you sorry?" he asked half-unwittingly.
For answer the girl turned her tragic eyes upon him, tried to speak, and
faltered. He cursed himself for a fool and a brute, and whipped up an
already over-active horse, till it was all but unmanageable. It was a
wise move, for it absorbed his attention and gave the poor child at his
side a chance to recover her composure.
They came to Glenavelin gates and George turned in. "I had better drive
you to the door, in this charming weather," he said. The sight of the
pale little face had moved him to deep pity. He cursed his blindness,
the blindness of a whole world of fools, and at the same time, with the
impotence of the honest man, he could only wait and be silent.
At the door he stopped to unbutton his cape from her neck, and even in
his nervousness he felt the trembling of her body. She spoke rapidly
and painfully.
"I want you to take a message from me to--to--Lewis. Tell him I must
see him. Tell him to come to the Midburn foot, to-morrow in the
afternoon. Oh, I am ashamed to ask you, but you must tell him." And
then without thanks or good-bye she fled into the house.