DOROTHY CURWEN.
I was at the breakfast-table, you may be sure, that morning no later
than my host and his daughter. Mr. Curwen greeted me with an evident
relief, but neither then nor afterwards did he ever refer to the
journey I had taken during the night. On the contrary, his talk was
all of Paris and France, plying me with many questions concerning the
French generals, the Duc de Vendôme, Maréchal Villars, the Duc de
Noailles, and the rest which I was at some loss to answer. Often and
often would he return to that subject with something of a boyish zest
and enthusiasm. He had never been in France, he informed me, yet would
tell me many stories concerning the Court and the magnificence of
Versailles and the great hunting-parties at Meudon when Monsieur was
alive, with so much detail that but for a certain extravagance, as of
one whose curiosity, through much feeding upon itself, has grown
fantastic, I could not but have believed that he had himself been
present at their enactment. And then he would light his pipe and look
across this quiet Ennerdale water to the rugged slopes beyond, with a
sigh, and so get him back to his romances. He was no less curious
concerning Lorraine and the little Court at Bar-le-Duc; and when I
told him that I had myself had speech with the King, his enthusiasm
rose to excitement.
"Oh!" he cried, starting up, "you have seen him? you have heard his
voice speaking to you, as you hear mine now?" and all at once I
acquired a new honour in his eyes. "Mr. Clavering, you have something
to compensate you for your outlawry."
"Yes," I replied, "he spoke to me and with the sweetest kindliness."
"And the King was hopeful--was positive in his hopes?"
"Very."
"That is right," he continued, walking about the room and smiling to
himself. "That is right So a strong man should be."
"And so weak men are," said I rather sadly, for I recalled all that
Lord Bolingbroke had told me.
"Mr. Clavering," said the old gentleman, suddenly pausing in his walk,
"you are the last man who should say that. You have lost all that a
man holds dear, and are you not hopeful?"
I bowed my head to the rebuke. It was, indeed, well-timed and just,
though for a very different reason than that which had inspired Mr.
Curwen to utter it.
"I was so," said I humbly, "so lately as this morning. Nay," and I
rose to my feet, "I am so still. Besides," I continued, reverting to
the King, "he has Lord Bolingbroke to help him, and I set great store
on that."
"Bolingbroke!" cried Mr. Curwen, and seldom have I seen a man's face
change so suddenly. A flame of anger kindled in his eyes and blazed
across his face, shrivelling all the gentleness which made its home
there. "Bolingbroke!" he cried wildly--"a knave! a debauched,
villainous knave! God help the man, be he king or serf, that takes his
counsel! Look you, Mr. Clavering, a very dishonest, treacherous
knave;" and he wagged his head at me. I was astonished at the
outburst, since the Jacobites were wont to look with some deference
towards Lord Bolingbroke.
"He is my kinsman," I said meekly, "and a very good friend to me;" and
while Mr. Curwen was still humming and hawing in some confusion, his
daughter came into the room, and gazing at his troubled face with some
anxiety, put an end to the talk.
This was by no means, however, the last I was to hear of the matter,
and in truth Lord Bolingbroke, through merely arousing Mr. Curwen's
indignation, was to prove a much better friend to me than ever I had
looked for. For when we were again alone together:
"I regret the words I spoke to you," he said a little stiffly and with
considerable effort in the apology. "I did not know Lord Bolingbroke
was your kinsman;" and then in a rush of sincerity: "But far more than
the words, I regret your relationship with the man."
I began to make such defence of my kinsman as I could, pointing to his
industry, and declaring how his services had always been thwarted by
his colleagues while he was in power.
"And what of the Catalans?" he asked.
Now, I knew very little about the Catalans.
"Well, what of the Catalans?" I asked doubtfully.
"Why, this," he returned. "We instigated them to war; we made them our
allies against Philip of Spain by the promise of restoring them their
ancient liberties. They fought with us, spilled their blood on the
strength of that promise, and then Lord Bolingbroke patches up his
peace of Utrecht, and not a word in it from end to end about their
liberties. They continue the war alone, and he finds nothing better to
do than to sneer at their obstinacy. They still continue, and he is
ready to send an English fleet to help in their destruction."
His voice increased in vehemence with every word he spoke, so that I
feared each moment another outburst against my kinsman. It may be that
he feared it too, for he checked himself with some abruptness, and it
was his daughter who revived the subject later on during that same
day.
It was after dinner. I had taken a book with me, and climbed up to the
orchard behind the house. But little I read in the book. The sun had
set behind the hills, but the brightness of that morning lingered on
my thoughts. I was, as Mr. Curwen had said, hopeful, though with no
great reason, and being besides weary with the fatigue I had
undergone, fell into a restful state between sleep and waking. With
half-closed eyes I saw Dorothy Curwen come from the back of the house,
and talk for a little with Mary Tyson. Then she mounted towards the
orchard. I watched her, marked the lightness of her step, the supple
carriage of her figure, the delicate poise of her head, and then rose
from the grass and went forward to meet her.
"Mr. Clavering," she began very decidedly, and paused in some
difficulty. Then she stamped her foot with a little imperious
movement. "You talk too much of France and Paris and the great world
to my father. You will not do so any more."
She spoke with the prettiest air of command imaginable the while she
looked up at me, and it was the air I smiled at, not the command.
"No!" she said, "I mean it. You will not do so any more;" and she
coloured a little and spoke with a yet stronger emphasis.
"Madam," said I with a bow, "since you wish it----"
"I do wish it, Mr. Clavering," she interrupted me.
"I did not think----" I began.
"No," says she, "you are young and imprudent. I have noticed that
already." And with great stateliness and dignity she walked for ten
yards down the hillside. Then she began to hum a tune, and laughed as
though mightily pleased with herself and her stately walk changed to a
dance. A few yards further on, she sat down in the bracken with her
back towards me and began plucking at the grasses. I remained where
she had left me, quite content to watch from that distance the coils
of hair nestling about her head, and to hearken to the rippling music
of her song. But after a little she turned her head with a glance
across her shoulder towards me, and so back again very quickly. I went
down to her.
"The lecture is not ended?" said I, gravely.
She gave a start and looked at me, as though my presence there was the
last thing she expected, or indeed wished for. Then in an instant her
whole manner changed.
"I will tell you the truth of it," she said. "Something you will
perhaps have guessed already, the rest you would discover did not I
tell you."
I sat down by her side, and she continued, choosing her words.
"My father is not altogether--strong, and these stories do no good."
Then she stopped. "It is more difficult to tell you than I thought."
"There is no need," said I, "that you should say another word."
"Thank you," said she very gratefully; and for a little we were
silent.
"Has he spoken to you of a ship?" she asked slowly; and I started.
"Ah! he thinks it is a secret from us. But we know, for he sold the
land not so long ago wherewith to buy it He is the noblest man in the
world," she continued hurriedly. "The thought of any one suffering
touches him to the quick; the thought of oppression kindles him to
anger, and he will do his part, and more than his part, in relieving
the one and fighting against the other. So that unless Mary and I did
what we could, he would not possess to-day so much as a farthing."
"I understand," said I, "Mary's welcome to me yesterday."
She looked at me with a smile.
"Yes," said she, "but your looks warranted her. The ship was to be
fitted out to help the Catalans. It lies at Whitehaven now. He was
there but a few days ago."
"He spoke of it to me," said I, "with some hint that he might put me
across to France."
"But you will not go?" she said, turning to me quickly. "Any day the
country may rise and every arm will be needed--I mean every young
arm."
I shook my head.
"The French King is dying, maybe is dead, and without his help will
the country rise? Besides, so long as I stay here, I endanger you."
I spoke reluctantly enough, for though I had no intention whatever to
seek a refuge in France, I felt that if once Mr. Curwen definitely
promised to send me thither, I could not remain at Applegarth at
however small a risk to him and his. I must needs accept the offer
and--betake me again to the hillside, in which case there was little
probability that I should be able to effect anything towards Anthony
Herbert's enlargement before I was captured myself.
"There is no danger to us," she said. "For, some while since, we
persuaded my father to take no active share in the plans. There will
be no danger," and she stopped for a second, "if you will put out your
candle when next you leave it in the stables."
"My candle?" I stammered, taken aback by her words. "I left it
burning?"
"Last night," said she.
"I beg your pardon."
"There is very great reason that you should," she said with a laugh.
"For I must needs hurry on my clothes and put it out. As I said, you
are very imprudent, Mr. Clavering;" and with that she tripped down to
the house, leaving me not so much concerned with what she had hinted
about her father, as with my own immediate need to secure the
knowledge I was after quickly, and avert by my departure the smallest
risk from Applegarth.
I was on that account the more relieved when, late upon the third
night afterwards, Tash knocked at the door, and brought me a letter
from Lord Derwentwater. I opened it eagerly, and read it through. It
told me much which is common knowledge now, as that the Earl of Mar
had summoned his friends in Scotland to meet him at Aboyne on the
27th, upon the pretext of a great hunting-party; that the mug-house
riots in London were daily increasing in number and violence; but that
with the French King, so near to his dissolution, and the precautions
of the English Government in bringing over Dutch troops, and thronging
the Channel with its ships, Lord Bolingbroke was all for delay. "But
God knows," he added, "whether delay is any possible, and I fear for
the event. We have many of the nobles on our side--but the body of our
countrymen? It will be like a game of chess in which one side plays
without pawns. We have Bishops and Knights and Castles, but no pawns."
There was more of the same kind, and I glanced through it hurriedly,
until I came to that of which I was more particularly in search.
"The sheriff came with his posse to Lord's Island in the morning, so
that it was well you left during the night. He is still after you. I
passed his messenger yesterday near Braithwaite, so it behoves you to
be wary. I do not think, however, he has winded you as yet, and as
soon as I can discover an occasion I will have you sent over the
water. But being myself under the cloud of their suspicions, I have to
step very deliberately. Your cousin, Jervas Rookley, lives openly
under his own name at Blackladies, and receives visits from the Whig
attorney; and since he can only be staying there with the sufferance
of the Government, you may be certain what I told you is true. By the
way, Mr. Anthony Herbert, the painter, disappeared on the same day or
thereabouts that you did. It is rumoured that he has been arrested,
but nothing certain is known. But if the rumour is true I greatly fear
that he owes his arrest to his acquaintanceship with you and myself. I
suspect Mr. Rookley's finger in the pie. Since he was playing false
with the Government concerning you, he would most likely be anxious to
give them an earnest of loyalty in some other matter. But I do not
know."
So far I read and clapped the letter down with a bang. For here was
the fellow to my own suspicion.
I sat down and finished the letter. There was but another line to it.
"I got my information about Rookley from an oldish man who came
secretly here from Blackladies. He seemed in some doubt as to which of
yourself or your cousin he should call master, but he was very
insistent that I should let you know of his coming. I had, indeed,
some difficulty in comprehending him, for now he wished me to style
him 'Aron' to you and now 'Ashlock.' Altogether I thought it wiser to
give him no news as to your whereabouts. This, however, is certain,
from what he said to me--there is a watch set about Blackladies on the
chance that you might return."
This last sentence troubled me exceedingly. For it had been growing in
my mind that there was but one person who could tell me fully what I
needed to know, and that person Mr. Jervas Rookley; and a vague
purpose was gradually taking shape within me that I would once more
make use of Mr. Curwen's stables, and riding one night round by
Newlands valley and Keswick, seek to take Mr. Rookley by surprise, and
wrest the truth from him. That project the letter seemed to strike
dead. Accordingly I took the occasion to write to Lord Derwentwater,
and implored him, if by any means he could, to inform himself more
particularly of Anthony Herbert's arrest, and whither he had been
taken. "For upon these two points," said I, "hangs not my safety, but
my soul's salvation;" and so hurried Tash off before the poor man was
halfway through his supper, and waited impatiently for an answer.
Now, during this period of waiting, since each time that I found
myself alone with Mr. Curwen, his talk would wander back inquisitively
to the French Court, discovering there a lustre which no doubt it had,
and a chivalry which it no less certainly lacked, I began of a set
purpose to avoid him; and avoiding him, was thrown the more into the
company of Miss Dorothy. Moreover, the frankness with which she had
hinted to me the weakness of her father, brought about a closer
intimacy between us as of friend and friend rather than as of hostess
and guest. It was as though Mary Tyson and she were continually
building up out of their love a fence around the father, and she had
joined me in the work.
Many a time, when I was on the hillside behind the house I would be
startled by the sight of a horse and the flash of a red-coat upon the
horse's back, only to find my heart drumming yet the faster when I
perceived that it was Miss Dorothy Curwen in her red cramoisie
riding-habit. Maybe I would be standing no great distance from the
house, and she would see me and come up the grass while I went down
towards her, her hair straying about her ears and forehead in the
sweetest disorder, and her cheeks wind-whipped to the rosiest pink. On
the wet days, which were by no means infrequent, she would sit at her
spinet and sing such old songs as that I had listened to on the first
night of my coming. If the evenings were fine, we would sometimes row
out upon Ennerdale water, in a crazy battered boat, so that I was more
often baling out the leakage in a tin pannikin than pulling at the
oars. And on afternoons, when the sunlight fell through the leaves
like great spots of a gold rain we would climb up to the orchard, and
I would spread an old cloak for her upon the grass, and we would sit
amongst the crabbed trunks of trees. But at all times--in the dusk,
when she sang and the rain whipped the panes; at night, when we rowed
across the moonlit lake as across a silver mirror, in the hush of a
world asleep--at all times a feverish impatience would seize on me for
an answer to my letter, and a shadow would darken across our talk, so
that thereafter I sat mum and glooming and heard little that was said
to me. It was not, indeed, the shadow of the gallows, but rather of
the fear lest while I lingered here at Applegarth, chance might thwart
me of the gallows. For the girl's presence was to me as a perpetual
accusation.
Upon one such occasion, when we were together in the orchard, she
looked at me once or twice curiously.
"For one so imprudent," said she, a trifle petulantly, "you are
extraordinary solemn."
"There are creatures," said I, with a weariful shake of the head, "who
are by nature solemn."
"True," says she, placidly, "but even they hoot at night;" and she
looked across the valley with extreme unconsciousness. But I noticed
that her mouth dimpled at the corners as if she was very pleased.
"I know," said I, remorsefully, "that I make the dullest of
companions."
She nodded her head in cordial agreement
"Perhaps you cannot help it," says she, with great sympathy.
"The truth is," I exclaimed sharply, "I have overmuch to make me
solemn."
"No doubt," and the sympathy deepened in her voice, "and I am sure
every one must pity you. There was a king once who never smiled again.
I am sure every one pitied him too."
"He only lost a son," I replied foolishly, meaning thereby that honour
was a thing of more worth.
"And you an estate," says she. "It is indeed very true," and she
clasped her hands and shook her head.
"Madam," I returned with some dignity, "you put words into my mouth
that I had no thought of using. It was not of a mere estate that I was
speaking."
"No?" says she reflectively. "Could it be a heart, then? Dear! dear!
this is very tragical."
"No," I said very quickly; and on the instant fell to stammering "No,
no."
"The word gains little force from repetition. In fact, I have heard
that two noes make a yes."
"Madam," said I stiffly, getting to my feet, "you persist in
misunderstanding me;" and I moved a step or two apart from her.
"I do not know," she said demurely, "that you use any great effort to
prevent the mistake."
That I felt to be true. I wondered for a moment whether she had not a
right to know, and I turned back to her. She was sitting with her head
cocked on one side and glancing whimsically towards me from the tail
of her eye. The glance became, on the instant, the blankest of
uninterested looks. I plumped down again on the grass.
"That evening," I began, "when I left the candle burning in the
stables, I rode into Keswick. There was something I should have done
before I came hither," and I stumbled over the words.
She took me up immediately with a haughty indifference, and her chin
very high in the air.
"Nay, I have no desire to pry into your secrets--not the least in the
world."
"Oh," said I, "I fancied you were curious."
"Curious?" she exclaimed, with a flash of her eyes. "Curious, indeed!
And why should I be curious about your concerns, if you please?" And
she spoke the word again with a laugh of scorn, "Curious!"
Said I, "The word gains no force from repetition."
Dorothy Curwen gasped with indignation.
"A very witty and polite rejoinder, upon my word," she said slowly,
and began to repeat that remark too, but broke off at the second word.
For a little we were silent. Then she plucked a reed of grass and bit
it pensively.
"No!" she said indifferently, "since my father has lived quietly at
Applegarth, I have lost my interest in politics."
"It was no question of politics at all!" I exclaimed, and--
"Oh!" she exclaimed, swinging round to me with all her indifference
gone.
"No," I went on, but reluctantly, for I was no longer sure that I
ought to tell her, and quibbled accordingly. "There was some one in
Keswick for whom I had news which would not wait."
"News of your escape?" she interposed, with a certain constraint in
her voice.
"Partly that," I replied, and continued, "and from whom I most
heartily desired news."
She sat for a moment with her face averted and very still.
"And what is she like?" she asked of a sudden.
The question startled me so that I jumped and stared at her
open-mouthed. But by the time I had fashioned an answer, she had no
longer any need for it For "No! No!" she exclaimed. "I have no wish to
hear;" and she fell unaccountably to talking of Jervas Rookley, at
first in something of a flurry, and afterwards in a tone as though she
found great comfort in the thought of him. "He is not so black as he
is painted," was the burden of her speech, and she played many
variations on the tune.
Now, I had in my pocket a certain letter from Lord Derwentwater, which
was a clear disproof of her words, and, to speak the truth, her manner
stung me. For whatever part of my misfortunes I did not owe to myself,
that I owed to Mr. Jervas Rookley.
"And I never could bring myself to believe that story of the
wad-mines," she said. "Never! Ah, poor man! What will he be doing now?
It is a thought which often troubles me, Mr. Clavering. Doubtless he
is somewhere tossed upon the sea. It is a very noble life, a sailor's.
There is no nobler, is there?" and she asked the question as if she
had no doubt whatever but that I should agree with her.
"I know nothing of that," I replied in some heat, "but as for the
wad-mines I know that story to be true, for I have seen the shaft."
She shook her head at me with an air of disappointment. It seemed she
thought I was slandering the man after slipping into his shoes. I
whipped the letter out of my pocket and thrust it before her.
"There, Madam, there!" I exclaimed. "The thought of Mr. Rookley need
no longer trouble you. I am glad, indeed, to have the opportunity of
disposing of your trouble. It will be the one moment's satisfaction
the man has given me. He is nowhere tossed upon the sea, in that
noblest of all lives, as you will be able to perceive for yourself, if
you will glance through this letter, but, on the contrary, sitting
quietly in an armchair in whatever room at Blackladies pleases him
best."
"I am not so short of sight," she observed sedately, "that I need the
paper to be rubbed against my nose."
She took it and read it through once and a second time. I told her the
story of my dealings with Mr. Rookley, from the moment of his coming
to me at the Jesuit College in Paris, to the morning when I fled from
Blackladies, and so much of his dealings with me as I was familiar
with. It was, in fact, much the same story that I had told to my Lord
and Lady Derwentwater, and contained little mention of Mr. Herbert,
except the fact that he was painting my portrait, and no mention
whatsoever of Mr. Herbert's wife. For I found that the whole account
of my proceedings since I had come to England, fell very naturally
into two halves, each of which to all seeming was in itself complete.
She heard me out to the end, and then in low, penitent voice, for
which it seemed to me there was no occasion--
"I knew nothing of this," she said, "or I would never so much as have
uttered Mr. Rookley's name. I could not know. You will bear me out in
this; I could not know." And she turned to me with the sweetest appeal
in her grey eyes and a hand timidly outstretched.
"Indeed," said I, earnestly, "I will. You could not know, and I can
well believe Mr. Jervas Rookley's conduct was very different to
you." With that I took her hand, and again took it gingerly by the
finger-tips. Thereupon she snatched it away, and got quickly to her
feet.
"And for whom----" she began, and stopped, while she very deliberately
fastened a button of her glove which was already buttoned.
"For whom--what?" said I.
"It is no matter," she said carelessly, and then, "For whom was the
picture intended?" and as though she was half-ashamed of the question,
she ran lightly down the hillside without waiting for an answer.
"For no one," I cried out after her. "It was intended to hang in the
great hall of Blackladies." But she descended into the house, and I--I
passed through the orchard and up the hillside behind it, and over the
crest of the fell, until ridge upon ridge opened out beneath the
overarching sky, and the valleys between them became so many furrows
drawn by a giant's plough. And coming into that great space and
solitude where no tree waved, no living thing moved, no human sound
was heard, I dropped upon the ground, pressing a throbbing face down
among the cool bracken, and twining my fingers about the roots of
ferns. It was the blackest hour that had ever till then befallen me;
mercifully I could not know that it was but a foretaste of others yet
blacker which were to follow. Something very new and strange was
stirring within me; I loved her. The truth was out that afternoon. I
think it was her questioning which taught it me. For it brought Mrs.
Herbert into my thoughts, and so I learned this truth by the bitterest
of all comparisons. I saw the two faces side by side, and then the one
vanished and the other remained. Here, I thought, was my life just
beginning to take some soul of meaning; here was its usual drab
a-flush with that rosy light, as of all the sunrises and all the
sunsets which had ever brightened across the world--and I must give it
up, and through my own fault. There was the hardest part of the
business--through my own fault! The knowledge stung and ached at my
heart intolerably. There was nothing heroical in the reparation which
I purposed; here was no laying down of one's life at the feet of one's
mistress, with a blithe heart and even a gratitude for the occasion,
such as I had read of in Mr. Curwen's romances--and how easy that
seemed to me at this moment!--it was the mere necessary payment for a
sordid act of shame.
It was drawing towards night when I rose to my feet and came down the
mountain-side to Applegarth, and, as the outcome of my torturing
reflections, one conviction, fixed very clearly in my mind before, had
gained an added impulsion. I must needs hasten on this reparation. It
was not, I am certain, the fear that delay in the fulfilment would
weaken my purpose, which any longer spurred me; but of those two faces
which had made my comparison: one, as I say, had vanished from my
thoughts, the other now occupied them altogether, and it seemed to me
that if by any chance I missed the opportunity of atonement, I should
be doing the owner of that face an irreparable wrong.
Miss Dorothy Curwen came late from her room to supper, and the moment
she entered the parlour where Mr. Curwen and I were waiting, it
appeared that something had gone amiss with her, and that we were in
consequence to suffer. Her face was pale and tired, her eyes hostile,
and asperity was figured in the tight curve of her lips. From the
crown of her head to the toe-tips, she was panoplied in aggression, so
that the very ribands seemed to bristle on her dress.
It was plain, too, that she did but wait her opportunity. Mr. Curwen
provided it by a question as to her looks, and a suggestion that her
health was disordered.
"No wonder," says she, and "Not a doubt of it." She snatched the
occasion with both hands as it were, and said, I think, more than she
intended. "I am much troubled by an owl that keeps me from my proper
sleep."
"An owl?" asked Mr. Curwen, with an innocent sympathy.
"An owl?" I asked in a sudden heat.
Her eyes met mine, very cold and blank.
"O-w-l," she answered, spelling the word deliberately.
I could not think what had caused this sudden change in her.
"But, my dear," said Mr. Curwen in perplexity, "are you certain you
have made no mistake?"
"Oh no, sir, there will be no mistake," says I, indignantly, or ever
she could open her lips. But, indeed, I do not know whether in any
case she would have opened them or not. For her face was like a mask.
"But I did not know there was an owl at Applegarth," says he.
"He is a new-comer," says I; "but you may take my word for it, there
is an owl at Applegarth--a tedious, solemn owl."
Miss Dorothy nodded her head quietly at each epithet, and her action
much increased my anger.
"Then you have heard it, Mr. Clavering," says Mr. Curwen; and "Indeed
I have," I cried in a greater heat than ever, for I noticed a certain
contentment begin to steal over the girl's face at each fresh evidence
of my rage. "Indeed I have--under the eaves at my bedroom window."
"But, my dear Mr. Clavering," expostulated Mr. Curwen, "what sort of
an owl is it?"
"A very uncommon owl," said I.
"Oh dear no, not at all," said Miss Curwen, stonily, with a lift of
her eyebrows.
"Well, we will have him out to-morrow," says the father.
"No, sir, to-night," says I, "this very night"
Dorothy gave a start and looked at me with a trace of anxiety.
"Yes," I repeated significantly, wagging my head in a fury,
"to-night--no later."
"Oh, but I like owls," cried she of a sudden. "That can hardly be," I
insisted, looking hard at her, "since they keep you awake o' nights."
At that she coloured and dropped her eyes from my face.
"Perhaps I exaggerated," she said weakly, and sat smoothing the
table-cloth on each side of her with her fingers. She glanced up at
me. I was still looking at her. She glanced from me to her father. He
was waiting for her answer, utterly at a loss.
"But I like owls," she said again in a queer little, high-pitched,
plaintive voice; and somehow I began to laugh, and in a moment she was
laughing too. "You make too much of the trouble," said she.
"We will have him out to-morrow," said Mr. Curwen; and again she
laughed, but with something of mischief, so that though for that night
there the matter dropped, I suspected she had devised some plan by
which I was to suffer a penalty for her present discomfiture. And that
suspicion I found to be true no later than the next morning.
For while we were yet at breakfast, Mr. Curwen returned to the
subject, and was for sending out Mary Tyson to fetch in one of the
shepherds in order to oust the bird.
"Yes, indeed," cries Dorothy, with a delighted little clap of the
hands and a quick meaning glance at Mary Tyson.
The shepherds were all on the hillside; not one of them was within
reach, said Mary, with suspicious promptitude.
"But we have a ladder," said Dorothy, speaking at me, and her eyes
sparkling and dancing.
I made as though I had not heard the suggestion.
"Then I will myself hunt him out," said Mr. Curwen, with a ready
eagerness to make proof of his activity.
"Father, that cannot be," says she. "It would put us to shame. Rather
I will take it in hand;" and again she looked at me.
There was no escape.
"It is a duty which naturally falls to me," said I, not with the best
grace in the world.
"Nay," said she, "we cannot admit of duties in our guests. It must be
a pleasure to you before we allow you to undertake it."
"Then it will be a pleasure," I agreed lamely.
"We will endeavour to make it one," she replied, with a malicious nod
of the head.
I tried, you may be sure, to defer this chase for an owl which I knew
did not exist, and hoped by talking very volubly upon other topics to
drive the thought of it from their minds, and to that end lingered
over my breakfast, even after the rest had for some while finished.
But the moment we did rise from the table: "There is no time like
present," hinted Dorothy, plainly; and Mr. Curwen warmly seconding
her--for he began to show something of excitement, like a child when
some new distraction is offered to it--I fetched the ladder from an
outhouse and reared it against the wall of Applegarth, at a spot she
pointed out close to my window. Accordingly I mounted, the while Mr.
Curwen and his daughter remained at the foot--he quite elated, she
very sedate and serious. But no sooner had I reached the topmost
rungs, than Dorothy discovers the nest a good twenty feet away; and I
must needs descend, like the merest fool, shift the ladder, and mount
again. And when once more I was at the top, she discovers it at a
third place, and so on through the morning. I know not how many times
I ran up and down that accursed ladder, but my knees ached until I
thought they would break. Once or twice I stopped, as if I would have
no more of it, whereupon she covered me with the tenderest apologies
and regrets.
"But it is a farce," said I, laughing in spite of myself.
"Of course you are very tired," said she, reproachfully. "It is a
shame that I should put you to so much trouble;" and she pops her foot
upon the lowest rung of the ladder. So there was no other course, but
up I must go again, until at last she was satisfied, and I beaten with
fatigue.
"It is a strange thing," said Mr. Curwen, scratching his forehead,
"that we cannot discover it."
"I fancy Mr. Clavering was right," says she, with a bubble of delight,
"and it is a very uncommon owl."
And I was allowed to carry the ladder back to the outhouse.