HOME AGAIN
"I am sorry to have troubled you to call again," was Sir John's
greeting, "but there is a little matter that quite slipped my memory
yesterday. Won't you be seated?"
Ralph sat down, still hoping that he was going to hear some good news.
"It is nothing about the Brick, Tile, and Clay Company," Sir John went
on, "and, in fact, nothing that concerns you personally."
Ralph's face fell, and the sparkle went out of his eyes. It was foolish
of him ever to hope for anything. Good news did not come his way. He did
not say anything, however.
"The truth is, a friend of mine is considering the advisability of
purchasing Hillside Farm, and has asked me to make one or two inquiries
about it."
Ralph gave a little gasp, but remained silent.
"Now, I presume," Sir John said, with a little laugh, "if there is a man
alive who knows everything about the farm there is to be known you are
that man."
"But I do not understand," Ralph said. "I have always understood that
the Hamblyn estate is strictly entailed."
"That is true of the original estate. But you may or you may not be
aware that Hillside came to Sir John by virtue of the Land Enclosures
Act."
"Oh yes, I know all about that," Ralph said, with a touch of scorn in
his voice; "and a most iniquitous Act it was."
Sir John shrugged his shoulders, a very common habit of his. It was not
his place to speak ill of an Act of Parliament which had put a good deal
of money into his pocket and into the pockets of his professional
brethren in all parts of the country.
"Into the merits of this particular Act," he said, a little stiffly, "we
need not enter now. Suffice it that Hamblyn is quite at liberty to
dispose of the freehold if he feels so inclined."
"And he intends to sell Hillside Farm?"
"Well, between ourselves, he does--that is, if he can get rid of it by
private treaty. Naturally, he does not want the matter talked about. I
understand there is a very valuable stone quarry in one corner of the
estate."
"There is a quarry," Ralph answered slowly, for his thoughts were intent
on another matter, "but whether it is very valuable or not I cannot say.
I should judge it is not of great value, or the squire would not want to
sell the freehold."
"When a man is compelled to raise a large sum of money there is
frequently for him no option."
"And is that the case with Sir John?"
"There can be no doubt whatever that he is hard up. His life interest in
the Hamblyn estate is, I fancy, mortgaged to the hilt. If he can sell
Hillside Farm at the price he is asking for it, he will have some ready
cash to go on with."
"What is the price he names?"
"Twenty years' purchase on the net rental--the same on the mineral
dues."
"There are no mineral dues," Ralph said quickly, and his thoughts flew
back in a moment to that conversation he had with his father.
"Well, quarry dues, then," Sir John said, with a smile.
"And is your friend likely to purchase?" Ralph questioned.
"I believe he would like the farm. But he is a cautious man, and is
anxious to find out all he can before he strikes a bargain."
"And will he be guided by your advice?"
"In the main he will."
"Then, if you are his friend, you will advise him to make haste slowly."
"You think the farm is not worth the money?"
"To the ordinary investor I am sure it is not. To the man who wants it
for some sentimental reason the case is different."
"What do you mean by that?"
"Well, if I were a rich man, for instance, I might be disposed to give a
good deal more for it than it is worth. You see, I helped to reclaim the
land from the waste. I know every bush and tree on the farm. I remember
every apple tree being planted. I love the place, for it was my home. My
father died there----"
"Then why don't you buy it?" interrupted Sir John.
Ralph laughed.
"You might as well ask me why I don't buy the moon," he said. "If I had
been allowed to go on with my present work I might have been able to buy
it in time. Now it is quite out of the question."
"That is a pity," Sir John said meditatively.
"I don't know that it is," Ralph answered. "One cannot live on
sentiment."
"And yet sentiment plays a great part in one's life."
"No doubt it does, but with the poor the first concern is how to live."
"Then, sentiment apart, you honestly think the place is not worth the
money?"
"I'm sure it isn't. Jenkins told me not long ago that if he could not
get his rent lowered he should give up the farm."
"And what about the quarry?"
"It will be worked out in half a dozen years at the outside."
"You think so?"
"I do honestly. I've no desire to do harm to the squire, though God
knows he has been no friend to me. But twenty years' purchase at the
present rental and dues would be an absurd price."
"I think it is rather stiff myself."
"Is Sir John selling the place through some local agent or solicitor?"
"Oh no. Messrs. Begum & Swear, Chancery Lane, are acting for him."
An hour later, Ralph was rolling away in an express train towards the
west. He sat next the window, and kept his eyes steadily fixed on the
scenery through which he passed. And yet he saw very little of it; his
thoughts were too intent on other things. Towns, villages, hamlets,
homesteads, flew past, but he scarcely heeded. Wooded hills drew near
and faded away in the distance. The river gleamed and flashed and hid
itself. Gaily-dressed people made patches of colour in shady backwaters
for a moment; the sparkle of a weir caught his eye, and was gone.
It was only in after days that he recalled the incidents of the journey;
for the moment he could think of nothing but Dorothy Hamblyn and the
sale of Hillside Farm. The sudden failure of his small commercial
enterprise did not worry him. He knew the worst of that. To cry over
spilt milk was waste both of time and energy. His business was not to
bewail the past, but to face resolutely the future.
But Dorothy and the fate of Hillside Farm belonged to a different
category. Dorothy he could not forget, try as he would. She had stolen
his heart unconsciously, and he would never love another. At least, he
would never love another in the same deep, passionate, overmastering
way. He was still angry with himself for his mad outburst of the
previous day, and could not imagine what possessed him to speak as he
did. He wondered, too, what she thought of him. Was her feeling one of
pity, or anger, or amusement, or contempt, or was it a mixture of all
these qualities?
Then, for a while, she would pass out of his mind, and a picture of
Hillside Farm would come up before his vision. On the whole, he was not
sorry that the squire was compelled to sell. It was a sort of Nemesis, a
rough-and-ready vindication of justice and right.
The place never was his in equity, whatever it might be in law. If it
belonged to anybody, it belonged to the man who reclaimed it from the
wilderness.
No, he was not sorry that the squire was unable to keep it. It seemed to
restore his faith in the existence of a moral order. A man who was not
worthy to be a steward--who abused the power he possessed--ought to be
deposed. It was in the eternal fitness of things that he should give
place to a better man.
Ruth met him at St. Ivel Road Station, and they walked home together in
the twilight. They talked fitfully, with long breaks in the
conversation. He had told her by letter the result of his mission, so
that he had nothing of importance to communicate.
"The men are very much cut up," she said, after a little lull in their
talk, which had been mainly about London. "Several of them called this
afternoon to know if I had heard any news; and when I told them that you
were not going to contest the claim of the company, and that the works
would cease, they looked as if they would cry."
"I hope they will be able to get work somewhere else," he answered
quietly.
"But they will not get such wages as you have been giving them. You
cannot imagine how popular you are. I believe the men would do anything
for you."
"I believe they would do anything in reason," he said. "I have tried to
treat them fairly, and I am quite sure they have done their best to
treat me fairly. People are generally paid back in their own coin."
"And have you any idea what you will do next?" she questioned, after a
pause.
"Not the ghost of an idea, Ruth. If I had not you to think of, I would
go abroad and try my fortune in a freer air."
"Don't talk about going abroad," she said, with a little gasp.
"Yet it may have to come to it," he answered. "One feels bound hand and
foot in a country like this."
"But are other countries any better?"
"The newer countries of the West and our own Colonies do not seem quite
so hidebound. What with our land laws and our mineral dues, and our
leasehold systems, and our patent laws, and our precedents, and our
rights of way and all the bewildering entanglements of red-tapeism, one
feels as helpless as a squirrel in a cage. One cannot walk out on the
hills, or sit on the cliffs, or fish in the sea without permission of
somebody. All the streams and rivers are owned; all the common land has
been appropriated; all the minerals a hundred fathoms below the surface
are somebody's by divine right. One wonders that the very atmosphere has
not been staked out into freeholds."
"But things are as they have always been, dear," Ruth said quietly.
"No, not always," he said, with a laugh.
"Well, for a very long time, anyhow. And, after all, they are no worse
for us than for other people."
He did not reply to this remark. Getting angry with the social order did
not mend things, and he had no wish to carp and cavil when no good could
come of it.
Within the little cottage everything was ready for the evening meal. The
kettle was singing on the hob, the table was laid, the food ready to be
brought in.
"It is delightful to be home again," Ralph said, throwing himself into
his easy-chair. "After all, there's no place like home."
"And did you like London?"
"Yes and no," he answered meditatively. "It is a very wonderful place,
and I might grow to be fond of it in time. But it seemed to be so
terribly lonely, and then one's vision seemed so cramped. One could only
look down lines of streets--you are shut in by houses everywhere. The
sun rose behind houses, set behind houses. You wanted to see the distant
spaces, to look across miles of country, to catch glimpses of the
far-off hills, but the houses shut out everything. Oh, it is a lonely
place!"
"And yet it is crowded with people?"
"And that adds to the feeling of loneliness," he replied. "You are
jostled and bumped on every side, and you know nobody. Not a face in all
the thousands you recognise."
"I should like to see it all some day."
"Some day you shall," he said. "If ever I grow rich enough you shall
have a month there. But let us not talk of London just now. Has anything
happened since I went away?"
"Nothing at all, Ralph."
"And has nobody been to see you?"
"Nobody except Mary Telfer. She has come in most days, and always like a
ray of sunshine."
"She is a very cheerful little body," Ralph said, and then began to
attack his supper.
A few minutes later he looked up and said--
"Did you ever hear the old saying, Ruth, that one has to go from home to
hear news?"
"Why, of course," she said, with a laugh. "Who hasn't?"
"I had rather a remarkable illustration of the old saw this morning."
"Indeed?"
"I had to go to London to learn that Hillside Farm is for sale."
"For sale, Ralph?"
"So Sir John Liskeard told me. I warrant that nobody in St. Goram
knows."
"Are you very sorry?" she questioned.
"Not a bit. The squire squeezed his tenants for all they were worth, and
now the money-lenders are squeezing him. It's only poetic justice, after
all."
"Yet surely he is to be pitied?"
"Well, yes. Every man is to be pitied who fools away his money on the
Turf and on other questionable pursuits, and yet when the pinch comes
you cannot help saying it serves him right."
"But nobody suffers alone, Ralph."
"I know that," he answered, the colour mounting suddenly to his cheeks.
"But as far as his son Geoffrey is concerned, it may do him good not to
have unlimited cash."
"I was not thinking of Geoffrey. I was thinking of Miss Dorothy."
"It may do her good also," he said, a little savagely. "Women are none
the worse for knowing the value of a sovereign."
For several minutes there was silence; then Ruth said, without raising
her eyes--
"I wish we were rich, Ralph."
"For why?" he questioned with a smile, half guessing what was in her
mind.
"We would buy Hillside Farm."
"You would like to go back there again to live?"
"Shouldn't I just! Oh, Ralph, it would be like heaven!"
"I'm not so sure that I should like to go back," he said, after a long
pause.
"No?" she questioned.
"Don't you think the pain would outweigh the pleasure?"
"Oh no. I think father and mother wander through the orchard and across
the fields still, and I should feel nearer to them there; and I'm sure
it would make heaven a better place for them if they knew we were back
in the old home."
"Ah, well," he said, with a sigh, "that is a dream we cannot indulge in.
Sir John Liskeard asked me why I did not buy it."
"And what did you say to him?"
"What could I say, Ruth, except that I could just as easily buy the
moon?"
"Would the freehold cost so much?"
"As the moon?"
"No, no, I don't mean that, you silly boy; but is land so very, very
dear?"
"Compared with land in or near big towns or cities, it is very, very
cheap."
"But I mean it would take a lot of money to buy Hillside?"
"You and I would think it a lot." And then the sound of footsteps was
heard outside, followed a moment later by a timid knock at the door.
"I wonder who it can be?" Ruth said, starting to her feet. "I'm glad you
are at home, or I should feel quite nervous."
"Do you think burglars would knock at the front door and ask if they
might come in?" he questioned, with a laugh.
Ruth did not reply, but went at once to the door and opened it, much
wondering who their visitor could be, for it was very rarely anyone
called at so late an hour.
It had grown quite dark outside, so that she could only see the outline
of two tall figures standing in the garden path.
She was quickly reassured by a familiar voice saying--
"Is your brother at home, Miss Penlogan?"
And then for some reason the hot blood rushed in a torrent to her neck
and face.