CHAPTER IV.
"It's time for that laal Mr. Bonnithorne to be here," said Allan Ritson.
"Why did you send for him?" asked Mrs. Ritson, in the low tone that was natural to her.
"To get that matter about the will off my mind. It'll be one thing less to think about, and it has boddert me sair and lang."
Allan spoke with the shuffling reserve of a man to whose secret communings a painful idea had been too long familiar. In the effort to cast off the unwelcome and secret associate, there was a show of emancipation which, as an acute observer might see, was more assumed than real.
Mrs. Ritson made no terms with the affectation of indifference. Her grave face became yet more grave, and her soft voice grew softer as she said:
"And if when it is settled and done the cloud would break that has hung over our lives, then all would be well. But that can never be."
Allan tossed his head aside, and made pretense to smile; but no gleam of sunshine on his cornfields was ever chased so closely by the line of dark shadow as his smile by the frown that followed.
"Come, worrit thysel' na' mair about it! When I've made my will, and put Paul on the same footing with t'other lad, who knows owt mair nor we choose to tell?"
Mrs. Ritson glanced into his face with a look of sad reproach.
"Heaven knows, Allan," she said; "and the dark cloud still gathers for us there."
The old man took a step or two on the gravel path, and dropped his gray head. His voice deepened:
"Tha says reet, mother," he said, "tha says reet. Ey, it saddens my auld days—and thine forby!" He took a step or two more, and added: "And na lawyer can shak' it off now. Nay, nay, never now. Weel, mother, our sky has been lang owerkessen; but, mind ye," lifting his face and voice together, "we've had gude crops if we tholed some thistles."
"Yes, we've had happy days, too," said Mrs. Ritson.
At that moment there came from across the vale the shouts of the merrymakers and the music of a fiddle. Allan Ritson lifted his head, nodded it aside jauntily, and smiled feebly through the mist that was gathering about his eyes.
"There they are—wrestling and jumping. I mind me when there was scarce a man in Cummerlan' could give me the cross-buttock. That's many a lang year agone, though. And now our Paul can manish most on 'em—that he can."
The fiddle was playing a country dance. The old man listened; his face broadened, he lifted a leg jauntily, and gave a sweep of one arm.
Just then there came through the air a peal of happy laughter. It was the same heart's music that Hugh Ritson and Mr. Bonnithorne had heard in the road. Allan's face brightened, and his voice had only the faintest crack in it as he said:
"That's Greta's laugh! It is for sure! What a heartsome lass yon is! I like a heartsome lassie—a merrie touch, and gone!"
"Yes," said Mrs. Ritson, soberly; "Greta is a winsome girl."
It was hardly spoken when a young girl bounded down upon them, almost breathless, yet laughing in gusts, turning her head over her shoulder and shouting:
"Hurrah! Beaten, sir! Hurrah!"
It was Greta Lowther; twenty years of age, with fair hair, quick brown eyes, a sunny face lighted up with youthful animation, a swift smile on her parted lips—an English wild white rose.
"I've beaten him," she said. "He challenged me to cross Windybrowe while he ran round the Bowder stone, but I got to the lonnin before he had crossed the bridge."
Then, running to the corner of the lane, she plucked off her straw hat, waved it about her head, and shouted again in an accent of triumph:
"Hurrah! hurrah! beaten, sir, beaten!"
Paul Ritson came running down the fell in strides of two yards apiece.
"Oh, you young rogue—you cheated!" he cried, coming to a stand and catching his breath.
"Cheated?" said Greta, in a tone of dire amazement.
"You bargained to touch the beacon on the top of Windybrowe, and you didn't go within a hundred yards of it."
"The beacon? On Windybrowe?" said the girl, and wondrous perplexity shone in her lovely eyes.
Paul wiped his brow, and shook his head and his finger with mock gravity at the beautiful cheat.
"Now, Greta, now—now—gently—"
Greta looked around with the bewildered gaze of a lost lambkin.
"Mother," said Paul, "she stole a march on me."
"He was the thief, Mrs. Ritson; you believe me, don't you?"
"Me! why I never stole anything in my life—save one thing."
"And what was that, pray?" said Greta, with another mighty innocent look.
Paul crept up to her side and whispered something over her shoulder, whereupon she eyed him largely, and said with a quick smile:
"You don't say so! But please don't be too certain of it. I'm sure I never heard of that theft."
"Then here's a theft you shall hear of," said Paul, throwing one arm about her neck and tipping up her chin.
There was a sudden gleam of rosy, roguish lips. Old Allan, with mischief dancing in his eyes, pretended to recover them from a more distant sight.
"Er—why, what's that?" he said; "the sneck of a gate, eh?"
Greta drew herself up.
"How can you—and all the people looking—they might really think that we were—we were—"
Paul came behind, put his head over one shoulder, and said:
"And we're not, are we?"
"They're weel matched, mother, eh?" said Allan, turning to his wife. "They're marra-to-bran, as folks say. Greta, he's a girt booby, isn't he?"
Greta stepped up to the old man, and with a familiar gesture laid a hand on his arm. At the same moment Paul came to his side. Allan tapped his son on the back.
"Thou girt lang booby," he said, and laughed heartily. All the shadows that had hung over him were gone. "And how's Parson Christian?" he asked in another tone.
"Well, quite well, and as dear an old soul as ever," said Greta.
"He's father and mother to thee baith, my lass. I never knew thy awn father. He was dead and gone before we coom't to these parts. And thy mother, too, God bless her! she's dead and gone now. But if this lad of mine, this Paul, this girt lang—Ah, and here's Mr. Bonnithorne, and Hughie, too."
The return of the lawyer and Hugh Ritson abridged the threat of punishment that seemed to hang on the old man's lips.
Hugh Ritson's lifted eyes had comprehended everything. The girl leaning over his father's arm; the pure, smooth cheeks close to the swarthy, weather-beaten, comfortable old face; the soft gaze upward full of feeling; the half-open lips and the teeth like pearls; then the glance round, half of mockery, half of protest, altogether of unconquerable love, to where Paul Ritson stood, his eyes just breaking into a smile; the head, the neck, the arms, the bosom still heaving gently after the race; the light loose costume—Hugh Ritson saw it all, and his heart beat fast. His pale face whitened at that moment, and his infirm foot trailed heavily on the gravel.
Allan shook hands with Mr. Bonnithorne, and then turned to his sons. "Come, you two lads have not been gude friends latterly, and that's a sair grief baith to your mother and me. You're not made in the same mold seemingly. But you must mak' up your fratch, my lads, for your auld folks' sake, if nowt else."
At this he stretched out both arms, as if with the intention of joining their hands. Hugh made a gesture of protestation.
"I have no quarrel to make up," he said, and turned aside.
Paul held out his hand. "Shake hands, Hugh," he said. Hugh took the proffered hand with unresponsive coldness.
Paul glanced into his brother's face a moment, and said:
"What's the use of breeding malice? It's a sort of live stock that's not worth its fodder, and it eats up everything."
There was a scarcely perceptible curl on Hugh Ritson's lip, but he turned silently away. With head on his breast, he walked toward the porch.
"Stop!"
It was old Allan's voice. The deep tone betrayed the anger that was choking him. His face was flushed, his eyes were stern, his lips trembled.
"Come back and shak' hands wi' thy brother reet."
Hugh Ritson faced about, leaning heavily on his infirm foot.
"Why to-day more than yesterday or to-morrow?" he said, calmly.
"Come back, I tell thee!" shouted the old man more hotly.
Hugh maintained his hold of himself, and said in a quiet and even voice, "I am no longer a child."
"Then bear thysel' like a man—not like a whipped hound."
The young man shuddered secretly from head to foot. His eyes flashed for an instant. Then, recovering his self-control, he said:
"Even a dog would resent such language, sir."
Greta had dropped aside from the painful scene, and for a moment Hugh Ritson's eyes followed her.
"I'll have no sec worriment in my house," shouted the old man in a broken voice. "Those that live here must live at peace. Those that want war must go."
Hugh Ritson could bear up no longer.
"And what is your house to me, sir? What has it done for me? The world is wide."
Old Allan was confounded. Silent, dumb, with great staring eyes, he looked round into the faces of those about him. Then in thick, choking tones he shouted:
"Shak' thy brother's hand, or thou'rt no brother of his."
"Perhaps not," said Hugh very quietly.
"Shak' hands, I tell thee." The old man's fists were clinched. His body quivered in every limb.
His son's lips were firmly set; he made no answer.
The old man snatched from Mr. Bonnithorne the stick he carried. At this Hugh lifted his eyes sharply until they met the eyes of his father. Allan was transfixed. The stick fell from his hand. Then Hugh Ritson halted into the house.
"Come back, come back ... my boy ... Hughie ... come back!" the old man sobbed out. But there was no reply.
"Allan, be patient, forgive him; he will ask your pardon," said Mrs. Ritson.
Paul and Greta had stolen away. The old man was now speechless, and his eyes, bent on the ground, swam with tears.
"All will be well, please God," said Mrs. Ritson. "Remember, he is sorely tried, poor boy. He expected you to do something for him.'"
"And I meant to, I meant to—that I did," the father answered in a broken cry.
"But you've put it off, and off, Allan—- like everything else."
Allan lifted his hazy eyes from the ground, and looked into his wife's face. "If it had been t'other lad I could have borne it maybe," he said, feelingly.
Mr. Bonnithorne, standing aside, had been plowing the gravel with one foot. He now raised his eyes, and said: "And yet, Mr. Ritson, folk say that you have always shown most favor to your eldest son."
The old man's gaze rested on the lawyer for a moment, but he did not speak at once, and there was an awkward silence.
"I've summat to say to Mr. Bonnithorne, mother," said the statesman. He was quieter now. Mrs. Ritson stepped into the house.
Allan Ritson and the lawyer followed her, going into a little parlor to the right of the porch. It was a quaint room, full of the odor of a by-gone time. The floor was of polished black oak covered with skins; the ceiling was paneled oak and had a paneled beam. Bright oak cupboards, their fronts carved with rude figures, were set into the walls, which were whitened, and bore one illuminated text and three prints in black and white. The furniture was heavy and old. There was a spinning-wheel under the wide window-board. A bluebottle buzzed about the ceiling; a slant of sunlight crossed the floor. The men sat down.
"I sent for thee to mak' my will, Mr. Bonnithorne," said the old man.
The lawyer smiled.
"It is an old maxim that delay in affairs of law is a candle that burns in the daytime; when the night comes it is burned to the socket."
Old Allan took little heed of the sentiment.
"Ey," he said, "but there's mair nor common 'casion for it in my case."
Mr. Bonnithorne was instantly on the alert.
"And what is your especial reason?" he asked.
Allan's mind seemed to wander. He stood silent for a moment, and then said slowly, as if laboring with thought and phrase:
"Weel, tha must know ... I scarce know how to tell thee ... Weel, my eldest son, Paul, as they call him—"
The old man stopped, and his manner grew sullen. Mr. Bonnithorne came to his help.
"Yes, I am all attention—your eldest son—"
"He is—he is—"
The door opened and Mrs. Ritson entered the room, followed close by the Laird Fisher.
"Mr. Ritson, your sheep, them black-faced herdwicks on Hindscarth, have broke the fences, and the red drift of 'em is down in the barrowmouth of the pass," said the charcoal-burner.
The statesman got on his feet.
"I must gang away at once," he said. "Mr. Bonnithorne, I must put thee off, or maybe I'll lose fifty head of sheep down in the ghyll."
"I made so bold as to tell ye, for I reckon we'll have all maks of weather yet."
"That's reet, Mattha; and reet neighborly forby. I'll slip away after thee in a thumb's snitting."
The Laird Fisher went out.
"Can ye bide here for me until eight o'clock to-neet, Mr. Bonnithorne?"
There was some vexation written on the lawyer's face, but he answered with meekness:
"I am always at your service, Mr. Ritson. I can return at eight."
"Verra good" Then, turning to Mrs. Ritson, "Give friend Bonnithorne a bite o' summat," said Allan, and he followed the charcoal-burner. Out in the court-yard he called the dogs. "Hey howe! hey howe! Bright! Laddie! Come boys; come, boys, te-lick, te-smack!"
He put his head in at the door of an out-house and shouted, "Reuben, wheriver ista? Come thy ways quick, and bring the lad!"
In another moment a young shepherd and a cowherd, surrounded by three or four sheep-dogs, joined Allan Ritson in the court-yard.
"Dusta gang back to the fell, Mattha?" said the statesman.
"Nay; I's done for the day. I'm away home."
"Good-neet, and thank."
Then the troop disappeared down the lonnin—the men calling, the dogs barking.
In walking through the hall Mr. Bonnithorne encountered Hugh Ritson, who was passing out of the house, his face very hard, his head much bent.
"Would you," said the lawyer, "like to know the business on which I have been called here?"
Hugh Ritson did not immediately raise his eyes.
"To make his will," added Mr. Bonnithorne, not waiting for an answer.
Then Hugh Ritson's eyes were lifted; there was one flash of intelligence; after that the young man went out without a word.
CHAPTER V.
Hugh Ritson was seven-and-twenty. His clean-shaven face was long, pale, and intellectual; his nose was wide at the bridge and full at the nostrils; he had firm-set lips, large vehement eyes, and a broad forehead, with hair of dark auburn parted down the middle and falling in thin waves on the temples. The expression of the physiognomy in repose was one of pain, and, in action, of power; the effect of the whole was not unlike that which is produced by the face of a high-bred horse, with its deep eyes and dilated nostrils. He was barely above medium height, and his figure was almost delicate. When he spoke his voice startled you—it was so low and deep to come from that slight frame. His lameness, which was slight, was due to a long-standing infirmity of the hip.
As second son of a Cumbrian statesman, whose estate consisted chiefly of land, he expected but little from his father, and had been trained in the profession of a mining engineer. After spending a few months at the iron mines of Cleator, he had removed to London at twenty-two, and enrolled himself as a student of the Mining College in Jermyn Street. There he had spent four years, sharing the chambers of a young barrister in the Temple Gardens. His London career was uneventful. Taciturn in manner, he made few friends. His mind had a tendency toward contemplative inactivity. Of physical energy he had very little, and this may have been partly due to his infirmity. Late at night he would walk alone in the Strand: the teeming life of the city, and the mystery of its silence after midnight, had a strong fascination for him. In these rambles he came to know some of the strangest and oddest of the rags and rinsings of humanity: among them a Persian nobleman of the late shah's household, who kept a small tobacco-shop at the corner of a by-street, and an old French exile, once of the court of Louis Phillippe, who sold the halfpenny papers. At other times he went out hardly at all, and was rarely invited.
Only the housemate, who saw him at all times and in many moods, seemed to suspect that beneath that cold exterior there lay an ardent nature. But he himself knew how strong was the tide of his passion. He could never look a beautiful woman in the face but his pulse beat high, and he felt almost faint. Yet strong as his passion was, his will was no less strong. He put a check on himself, and during his four years in London contrived successfully to dam up the flood that was secretly threatening him.
At six-and-twenty he returned to Cumberland, having some grounds for believing that his father intended to find him the means of mining for himself. A year had now passed, and nothing had been done. He was growing sick with hope deferred. His elder brother, Paul, had spent his life on the land, and it was always understood that in due course he would inherit it. That at least was the prospect which Hugh Ritson had in view, though no prospective arrangement had been made. Week followed week, and month followed month, and his heart grew bitter. He had almost decided to end this waiting. The day would come when he could bear it not longer, and then he would cut adrift.
An accidental circumstance was the cause of his irresolution. He used to walk frequently on the moss where the Laird Fisher sunk his shaft. In the beck that ran close to the disused headgear he would wade for an hour early in the summer morning. One day he saw the old laird's daughter washing linen at the beck-side. He remembered her as a pretty, prattling thing of ten or eleven. She was now a girl of eighteen, with a pure face, a timid manner, and an air that was neither that of a woman nor of a child. Her mother was lately dead, her father spent most of his days on the fell (some of his nights also when the charcoal was burning), and she was much alone. Hugh Ritson liked her gentle replies and her few simple questions. So it came about that he would look for her in the mornings, and be disappointed if he did not catch sight of her good young face. Himself a silent man, he liked to listen to the girl's modest, unconnected talk. His stern eyes would soften at such times to a sort of caressing expression. This went on for months, and in that solitude no idle tongue was set to wag. At length Hugh Ritson perceived that the girl's heart was touched. If he came late he found her leaning over the gate, her eyes bent down among the mountain grasses at her feet, and her cheeks colored by a red glow. It is unnecessary to go further. The girl gave herself up to him with her whole heart and soul, and he—well, he found the bulwarks with which he had surrounded himself were ruined and down.
Then the awakening came, and Hugh learned too late that he had not loved the simple child, by realizing that with all the ardor of his restrained but passionate nature he loved another woman.
So much for the first complication in the tragedy of this man's life.
The second complication was new to his consciousness, and it was at this moment conspiring with the first to lure him to consequences that are now to be related. The story which Mr. Bonnithorne had told of the legacy left by Greta's father to a son by one Grace Ormerod had come to him at a time when, owing to disappointment and chagrin, he was peculiarly liable to the temptation of any "honest trifle" that pointed the way he wished to go. If the Grace Ormerod who married Lowther had indeed been his own mother, then—a thousand to one—Paul was Lowther's son. If Paul was Lowther's son he was also half brother of Greta. If Paul was not the son of Allan Ritson, then he himself, Hugh Ritson, was his father's heir.
In the present whirlwind of feeling he did not inquire too closely into the pros and cons of probability. Enough that evidence seemed to be with him, and that it transformed the world in his view.
Perhaps the first result of this transformation was that he unconsciously assumed a different attitude toward the unhappy passage in his life wherein Mercy Fisher was chiefly concerned. What his feeling was before Mr. Bonnithorne's revelation, we have already seen. Now the sentiment that made much of such an "accident" was fit only for a "turgid melodrama," and the idea of "atonement" by "marriage" was the mock heroic of those "great lovers of noble histories," the spectators who applaud it from the pit.
When he passed Mr. Bonnithorne in the hall at the Ghyll he was on his way to the cottage of the Laird Fisher. He saw in the road ahead of him the group which included his father and the charcoal-burner, and to avoid them he cut across the breast of the Eel Crags. After a sharp walk of a mile he came to a little white-washed house that stood near the head of Newlands, almost under the bridge that crosses the fall. It was a sweet place in a great solitude, where the silence was broken only by the tumbling waters, the cooing of pigeons on the roof, and the twittering of ringouzels by the side of the torrent. The air was fresh with the smell of new peat. There was a wedge-shaped garden in front, and it was encompassed by chestnut-trees. As Hugh Ritson drew near he noticed that a squirrel crept from the fork of one of these trees. The little creature rocked itself on the thin end of a swaying branch, plucking sometimes at the drooping fan of the chestnut, and sometimes at the prickly shell of its pendulous nut. When he opened the little gate Hugh Ritson observed that a cat sat sedately behind the trunk of that tree, glancing up at intervals at the sporting squirrel in her moving seat.
As he entered the garden Mercy was crossing it with a pail of water just raised from the well. She had seen him, and now tried to pass into the house. He stepped before her and she set down the pail. Her head was held very low, and her cheeks were deeply flushed.
"Mercy," he said, "it is all arranged. Mr. Bonnithorne will see you into the train this evening, and when you get to your journey's end the person I spoke of will meet you."
The girl lifted her eyes beseechingly to his face.
"Not to-day, Hugh," she said in a broken whisper; "let me stay until to-morrow."
He regarded her for a moment with a steadfast look, and when he spoke again his voice fell on her ear like the clank of a chain.
"The journey has to be made. Every week's delay increases the danger."
The girl's eyes fell again, and the tears began to drop from them on to the brown arms that she had clasped in front.
"Come," he said in a softer tone, "the train starts in an hour. Your father is not yet home from the pit, and most of the dalespeople are at the sports. So much the better. Put on your cloak and hat and take the fell path to the Coledaie road-ends. There Mr. Bonnithorne will meet you."
The girl's tears were flowing fast, though she bit her lip and struggled to check them.
"Come, now, come; you know this was of your own choice."
There was a pause.
"I never thought it would be so hard to go," she said at length.
He smiled feebly, and tried a more rallying tone.
"You are not going for life. You will come back safe and happy."
The words thrilled her through and through. Her clasped hands trembled visibly, and her fingers clutched them with a convulsive movement. After awhile she was calmer, and said quietly:
"No, I'll never come back—I know that quite well." And her head dropped on her breast and she felt sick at heart. "I'll have to say good-bye to everything. There were Betsy Jackson's children—I kissed them all this morning, and never said why—little Willy, he seemed to know, dear little fellow, and cried so bitterly."
The memories of these incidents touched to overflowing the springs of love in the girl's simple soul, and the bubbling child-voice was drowned in sobs.
The man stood with a smile of pain on his face. He came close, and brushed away her tears, and touched her drooping head with a gesture of protestation.
Mercy regained her voice.
"And then there's your mother," she said, "and I can't say good-bye to her, and my poor father, and I daren't tell him—"
Hugh stamped on the path impatiently.
"Come, come, Mercy, don't be foolish."
The girl lifted to his the good young face that had once Been bonny as the day and was now pale with weeping and drawn down with grief. She took him by the coat, and then, by an impulse which she seemed unable to resist, threw one arm about his neck, and raised her face to his until their lips all but touched, and their eyes met in a steadfast gaze.
"Hugh," she said, passionately, "are you sure that you love me well enough to think of me when I am gone?—are you quite, quite sure?"
"Yes, yes; be sure of that," he said, gently.
He disengaged her arm.
"And will you come and fetch me after—after—"
She could not say the word. He smiled and answered, "Why, yes, yes."
Her fingers trembled and clung together; her head fell; her cheeks were aglow.
"Why, of course." He smiled again, as if in deprecation of so much child-like earnestness; then put his arm about the girl's shoulder, dropped his voice to a tone of mingled compassion and affection, and said, as he lifted the brightening face to his, "There, there—now go off and make ready."
The girl brushed her tears away vigorously, and looked half ashamed and half enchanted.
"I'm going."
"That's a good little girl."
How the sunshine came back at the sound of his words!
"Good-bye for the present, Mercy—only for the present, you know."
But how the shadow pursued the sunshine after all!
Hugh saw the tears gathering again in the lucent eyes, and came back a step.
"There—a smile—just one little smile!" She smiled through her tears. "There—there—that's a dear little Mercy. Good-day; good-bye."
Hugh turned on his heel and walked sharply away. As he passed out through the gate he could not help observing that the cat from the foot of the chestnut-tree was walking stealthily off, with something like a dawning smile on its whiskered face, and the brush of the squirrel between its teeth.
Hugh Ritson had gained his end, and yet he felt more crushed than at the darkest moment of defeat. He had conquered his own manhood; and now he crept away from the scene of his triumph with a sense of utter abasement. When he had talked with Mr. Bonnithorne it was with a feeling of the meanness of the folly in which he was involved; and if any sentiment touching the girl's situation was strong upon him it was closely bound up with a personal view of the degradation that might come of a man's humiliating unwisdom. The very conventionality of his folly had irked him. But its cowardice was now uppermost. That a man should enter into warfare with a woman on unequal terms, and win by cajolery and deceit, was more than cruel; it was brutal. He could have borne even this hard saying so far as it concerned the woman's suffering, but for the reflection that it made the man something worse than a coxcomb in his own eyes.
The day was now far spent; the brilliant sun had dipped behind Grisedale, and left a ridge of dark fells in the west. On the east the green sides of Cat Bells and the Eel Crags were yellow at the summit, where the hills held their last commerce with the hidden sun. Not a breath of wind; not the rustle of a leaf; the valley lay still, save for the echoing voices of the merrymakers in the booth below. The sky overhead was blue, but a dark cloud, like the hulk of a ship, had anchored lately to the north.
Hugh Ritson took the valley road back to Ghyll. He was visibly perturbed; he walked with head much bent, stopped suddenly at times, then snatched impetuously at the trailing bushes, and passed on. When he was under Hindscarth, the sharp yap of dogs, followed by the bleat of unseen sheep, caused him to look up, and he saw a group of men, like emmets creeping on a dark bowlder, moving over a ridge of shelving rock.
There was a slight spasm of his features at that moment, and his foot trailed more heavily as he went on. At a twist of the road he passed the Laird Fisher. The old man looked less melancholy than usual. It was as if the familiar sorrow sat a little more lightly to-night on the half-ruined creature.
"Good-neet to you, sir, and how fend ye?" he said almost cheerily.
Hugh Ritson responded briefly.
"So you're not sleeping on the fell to-night, Matthew?" and as he spoke his eyes wandered toward the fell road.
"Nay; I's not firing to-neet, for sure; my daughter is expecting me."
Hugh's eyes were now fixed intently on the road that crossed the foot of the fell to the west. The charcoal-burner was moving off, and, following at the same moment the upward direction of Hugh Ritson's gaze, he said:
"It's a baddish place yon, where your father is with Reuben and the lad, and it's baddish weather that is coming, too—look at yon black cloud over Walna Scar."
Then for an instant there was embarrassment in Hugh Ritson's eyes, and he answered in a faltering commonplace.
"Ways me; but I must slip away home, sir; my laal lass will be weary waiting. Good-neet to you, sir; good-neet."
"Good-night, Matthew, and God help you," said Hugh in a tone of startling earnestness, his eyes turned away.
He had walked half a mile further, and reached the lonnin that led to the Ghyll, when he was almost overrun by Greta Lowther, who came tripping out of the gate of a meadow, her bonnet swinging over her arm, her soft, wavy hair floating over her white forehead, her cheeks colored with a warm glow, a roguish light in her eyes, and laughter on the point of bubbling out of her lips.
Greta had just given Paul Ritson the slip. There was a thicket in the field she had crossed, and it was covered with wild roses, white and red. Through the heart of it there rippled a tiny streak of water that was amber-tinted from the round shingle in its bed. The trunk of an old beech lay across it for ford or bridge. Underfoot were the sedge and moss; overhead the thick boughs and the roses; in the air, the odor of hay and the songs of birds. And Paul, the cunning rascal, would have tempted Greta into this solitude; but she was too shrewd, the wise little woman, to-be so easily trapped. Pretending to follow him in ignorance of his manifest design, she tripped back on tiptoe, and fled away like a lapwing over the noiseless grass.
When Greta met Hugh Ritson she was saying to herself, of Paul in particular, and of his sex in general: "What dear, simple, unsuspecting, trustful creatures they are!" Then she drew up sharply, "Ah, Hugh!"
"How happy you look, Greta!" he said, fixing his eyes upon her.
A new light brightened her sunny face. "Not happier than I feel," she answered. She swung the arm over which the bonnet hung; the heaving of her breast showed the mold of her early womanhood.
Hugh Ritson's mind had for the last half hour brooded over many a good purpose, but not one of them was now left.
"You witnessed a painful scene to-day," he said, with some hesitation. "Be sure it was no less painful to me because you were there to see it."
"Oh, I was so sorry," said Greta, impetuously. "You mean with your father?"
Hugh bent his head slightly. "It was inevitable—I know that full well—but for my share in it I ask your pardon."
"That is nothing," she said; "but you took your father too seriously."
"I took him at his word—that was all."
"But the dear old man meant nothing, and you meant very much. He only wanted to abuse you a little, and perhaps frighten you, and shake his stick at you, and then love you all the better for it."
"You may be right, Greta. Among the whims of nature there is that of making such human contradictions; but, as you say, I take things seriously—everything—life itself."
He paused, and there was a slight trembling of the lip.
"Besides," he went on in another tone, "it has been always so. Since our childhood—my brother's and mine—there has not been much paternal tenderness wasted on me. I can hardly expect it now."
"Surely that must be a morbid fancy," Greta said in a distressed tone. The light was dying out of her eyes. She made one quick glance downward to where Hugh Ritson's infirm foot trailed on the road, and then, in an instant of recovered consciousness, she glanced up, now confused and embarrassed, into his face.
She was too late; he had read her thought. A faint smile parted her lips; and the light of his own eyes was cold.
"No; not that," he said; "I ask no pity in that regard—and need none. Nature has given my brother a physique that would shame a Greek statue, but he and I are quits—perhaps more than quits."
He made a hard smile, and she flushed deep with shame of having her thought read.
"I am sorry if I conveyed that," she said, slowly. "It must have been quite unwittingly. I was thinking of your mother. She is so good and tender to everybody. Why, she is the angel of the country-side. Do you know what name they've given her?"
Hugh shook his head.
"Saint Grace! Parson Christian told me—it seems it was my own dear mother who christened her."
"Nevertheless, there has not been much to sweeten my life, Greta," he said.
His voice arrested her; it was charged with unusual feeling. She made no answer, and they began to walk toward the house.
After a few steps Greta remembered the trick that she had played on Paul, and craned her beautiful neck to see over the stone cobble-hedge into the field where she had left him.
Hugh observed her intently.
"I hear that you have decided. Is it so, Greta?" he said.
"Decided what?" she asked, coloring again.
He also colored slightly, and answered with a strained quietness.
"To marry my brother."
"If he wishes it—I suppose he does—he says so, you know."
Hugh looked earnestly into the girl's glowing face, and said with deliberation:
"Greta, perhaps there are reasons why you should not marry Paul."
"What reasons?"
He did not reply at once, and she repeated her question. Then he said in a strange tone:
"Just and lawful impediments, as they say."
Greta's eyes opened wide in undisguised amazement.
"Impossible—you cannot mean it," she said with her customary impetuosity. She glanced into Hugh's face, and misread what she saw there. Then she began to laugh; at first lightly, afterward rather boisterously, and said with head averted, and almost as if talking to herself, "No, no; he is nothing to me but the man I love."
"Do you then love him?"
Greta started.
"Do you ask?" she said. The amazement in the wide eyes had deepened to a look of rapture. "Love him?" she said; "better than all the world beside." The girl was lifted out of herself. "You are to be my brother, Hugh, and I need not fear to speak so."
She swung her bonnet on her arm, just to preserve composure by some distracting exercise.
Hugh Ritson stopped, and his face softened. It was a perplexing smile that sat on his features. While he had talked with Greta there had run through his mind, as a painful undertone, the thought of Mercy Fisher. He had now dismissed the last of his qualms respecting her. To be tied down for life to a mindless piece of physical prettiness—what man of brains could bear it? He had yielded to a natural impulse—true! That moment of temptation threatened painful consequences—still true! What then? Nothing! Was the dead fruit to hang about his neck forever? Tut!—all natural law was against it. Had he not said that he was above prejudice? So was he above the maudlin sentiment of the "great lovers of noble histories." The sophistry grew apace with Greta's beautiful countenance before him. Catching at her last word, he said:
"Your brother—yes. But did you never guess that I could have wished another name?"
The look of amazement returned to her eyes; he saw it and went on:
"Is it possible that you have not read my secret?"
"What secret?" she said in a half-smothered voice.
"Greta, if your love had been great love, you must have read my secret just as I have read yours." In a low tone he continued: "Long ago I knew that you loved, or thought you loved, my brother. I saw it before he had seen it—before you had realized it."
The red glow colored her cheeks more deeply than before. She had stopped, and he was tramping nervously backward and forward.
"Greta," he said again, and he fixed his eyes entreatingly upon her, "what is the love that scarcely knows itself?—that is the love with which you love my brother. And what is the tame, timid passion of a man of no mind?—that is the love which he offers you. What is your love for him, or his for you?—what is it, can it be? Love is not love unless it is the love of true minds. That was said long ago, Greta, and how true it is!" He went on quickly, in a tone of dull irritation: "All other love is no better than lust. Greta, I understand you. It is not for a rude man like my brother to do so." Then in an eager voice he said: "Dearest, I bring you a love undreamed of among these country boors."
"Country boors!" she repeated in a half-stifled whisper.
He did not hear her. His vehement eyes swam, and he was dizzy.
"Greta, dearest, I said there has been little in my life to sweeten it. Yet I am a man made to love and to be loved. My love for you has been mute for months; but it can be mute no longer. Perhaps I have had my own impediment, apart from our love for Paul. But that is all over now."
His cheeks quivered, his lips trembled, his voice swelled, his nervous fingers were riveted to his palm. He approached her and took her hand. She seemed to be benumbed by strong feeling. She had stood as one transfixed, a slow paralysis of surprise laying hold of her faculties. But at his touch her senses regained their mastery. She flung away his hand. Her breast heaved. In a voice charged with indignation, she said:
"So this is what you mean! I understand you at last!"
Huge Ritson fell back a pace.
"Greta, hear me—hear me again!"
But she had found her voice indeed.
"Sir, you have outraged your brother's heart as surely as if at this moment I had been your brother's wife!"
"Greta, think before you speak—think, I implore you!"
"I have thought! I have thought of you as your sister might think, and spoken to you as my brother. Now I know how mean of soul you are!"
Hugh broke in passionately:
"For God's sake, stop! I am an unforgiving man."
His nostrils quivered, every nerve vibrated.
"Love? You never loved. If you knew what the word means you would die of shame where you stand this instant."
Hugh lost all control.
"I bid you beware!" he said in wrath and dismay.
"And I bid you be silent!" said Greta, with an eloquent uplifting of the hand. "You offer your love to a pledged woman. It is only base love that is basely offered. It is bad coin, sir, and goes back dishonored."
Hugh Ritson regained some self-command. The contractions were deep about his forehead, but he answered in an imperturbable voice:
"You shall never marry my brother!"
"I will—God willing!"
"Then you shall marry him to your lifelong horror and disgrace."
"That shall be as Heaven may order."
"A boor—a hulking brute—a bas—"
"Enough! I would rather marry a plowboy than such a gentleman as you!"
Face to face, eye to eye, with panting breath and scornful looks, there they stood for one moment. Then Greta swung about and walked down the lonnin.
Hugh Ritson's natural manner returned instantly. He looked after her without the change of a feature, and then turned quietly into the house.
CHAPTER VI.
There was a drowsy calm in the room where Mr. Bonnithorne sat at lunch. It was the little oak-bound parlor to the right, in which he had begun the conversation with old Allan Ritson that had been interrupted by the announcement of the Laird Fisher. Half of the window was thrown up, and the landscape framed by the sash lay still as a picture. The sun that had passed over Grisedale sent a deep glow from behind, and the woods beneath took a restful tone. Only the mountain-head was white where it towered into the sky and the silence.
Mrs. Ritson entered and sat down. Her manner was meek almost to abjectness. She was elderly, but her face bore traces of the beauty she had enjoyed in youth. The lines had grown deep in it since then, and now the sadness of its expression was permanent. She wore an old-fashioned lavender gown, and there was a white silk scarf about her neck. Her voice was low and tremulous, yet eager, as if it were always questioning.
With downcast head, and eyes bent on her lap, where her fingers twitched nervously as she knitted without cessation, she sat silent, or put meek questions to her guest.
Mr. Bonnithorne answered in smiles and speeches of six words apiece. Between each sparse reply he addressed himself afresh to his lunch with an appetite that was the reverse of sparse. All the while a subdued hum of many voices came up from the booth in the fields below.
At length Mrs. Ritson's anxiety overcame the restraint of her manner.
"Mr. Bonnithorne," she said, "do let the will be made to-night. Urge Mr. Ritson, when he returns, to admit of no further delay. He has many noble qualities, but procrastination is his fault. It has been ever so."
Mr. Bonnithorne paused with a glass half raised to his lips, and lifted his eyes instead.
"Pardon me, madame," he said, with the customary smile which failed to disarm his words; "this is for certain reasons a subject I can hardly discuss with—with—- with a woman."
And just then a peacock strutted through the court-yard, startling the still air with its empty scream.
Mrs. Ritson colored deeply. Even modesty like hers had been put to a severe strain. But she dropped her eyes again, finished a row of stitches, rested the steel needle on her lip, and answered quietly:
"Surely a woman may talk of what concerns her husband and her children."
The great man had resumed his knife and fork.
"Not necessarily," he said. "It is a strange and curious fact that there is one condition in which the law does not recognize the right of a woman to call her son her own."
During this prolonged speech, Hugh Ritson, fresh from his interview with Greta Lowther, entered the room, and stretched himself on the couch.
Mrs. Ritson, without shifting the determination of her gaze from the nervous fingers in her lap, said:
"What condition?"
Mr. Bonnithorne twisted slightly, and glanced significantly at Hugh as he answered:
"The condition of illegitimacy."
Something supercilious in the tone jarred on Mrs. Ritson's ear. She looked up from her knitting, and said:
"What do you mean?"
Bonnithorne placed his knife and fork with precision over his empty plate, used his napkin with deliberation, coughed slightly, and said: "I mean that the law denies the name of son to offspring that has been bastardized."
Mrs. Ritson's face grew crimson, and she rose to her feet.
"If so, the law is cruel and wicked," she said in a voice more tremulous with emotion.
Mr. Bonnithorne leaned languidly back in his chair, ejected a long "hem" from his overburdened chest, inserted his fingers in the armpits of his waistcoat, looked up, and said: "Odd, isn't it?"
Unluckily for the full effect of Mr. Bonnithorne's subtle witticism, Paul Ritson, with Greta at his side, appeared in the door-way at the moment of its delivery. The manner more than the words had awakened his anger, and the significance of both he interpreted by his mother's agitated face. In two strides he stepped up to where the great man sat, even now all smiles and white teeth, and laid a powerful hand on his arm.
"My friend," said Paul, lustily, "it might not be safe for you to speak to my mother again like that!"
Mr. Bonnithorne rose stiffly, and his shifty eyes looked into Paul's wrathful face.
"Safe?" he echoed with emphasis.
Paul, his lips compressed, bent his head, and at the same instant brought the other hand down on the table.
Without speaking, Mr. Bonnithorne shuffled back into his seat. Mrs. Ritson, letting fall her knitting into her lap, sat and dropped her face into her hands. Paul took her by the arm, raised her up, and led her out of the room. As he did so, he passed the couch on which Hugh Ritson lay, and looked down with mingled anger and contempt into his brother's indifferent eyes.
When the door closed behind them, Hugh Ritson and Mr. Bonnithorne rose together. There was a momentary gleam of mutual consciousness. Then instantly, suddenly, by one impulse, the two men joined hands across the table.
CHAPTER VII.
The cloud that had hung over Walna Scar broke above the valley, and a heavy rain-storm, with low mutterings of distant thunder, drove the pleasure-people from the meadow to the booth. It was a long canvas tent with a drinking-bar at one end, and stalls in the corners for the sale of gingerbreads and gimcracks. The grass under it was trodden flat, and in patches the earth was bare and wet beneath the trapesing feet of the people. They were a mixed and curious company. In a ring that was cleared by an athletic plowman the fiddler-postman of Newlands, Tom o' Dint, was seated on a tub turned bottom up. He was a little man with bowed legs and feet a foot long.
"Now, lasses, step forret! Dunnot be blate. Come along with ye, any as have springiness in them!"
The rough invitation was accepted without too much timidity by several damsels dressed in gorgeous gowns and bonnets. Then up and down, one, two, three, cut and shuffle, cross, under, and up and down again.
"I'll be mounting my best nag and comin' ower to Scara Crag and tappin' at your window some neet soon," whispered a young fellow to the girl he had just danced with.
She laughed a little mockingly.
"Your best nag, Willy?"
"Weel—the maister's."
She laughed again, and a sneer curled her lip. "You Colebank chaps are famous sweethearts, I hear. Fare-te-weel, Willy."
And she twisted on her heel. He followed her up.
"Dunnet gowl, Aggy. Mappen I'll be maister man mysel' soon."
Aggy pushed her way through the crowd and disappeared.
"She's packed him off wi' a flea in his ear," said an elderly man standing near.
"Just like all the lave of them," said another, "snurling up her neb at a man for lack of gear. Why didna he brag of some rich uncle in Austrilly?"
"Ey, and stuff her with all sorts of flaitchment and lies. Then all the lasses wad be glyming at him."
The dance spun on.
"Why, it's a regular upshot, as good as Carel fair," said one of the girls.
"Bessie, you're reet clipt and heeled for sure," responded her companion.
Bessie's eyes sparkled with delight at the lusty compliment paid to her dancing, and she opened her cloak to cool herself, and also to show the glittering locket that hung about her neck.
"It's famish, this fashion," muttered the elderly cynic. "It must tak' a brave canny fortune."
"Shaf, man, the country's puzzen'd round with pride," answered his gossip. "Lasses worked in the old days. Now they never do a hand's turn but washin' and bleachin' and starchin' and curlin' their polls."
"Ey, ey, there's been na luck in the country since the women-folk began to think shame of their wark."
The fiddler made a squeak on two notes that sounded like kiss-her, and from a corner of the booth there came a clamorous smack of lips.
"I saw you sweetheartin' laal Bessie," said one of the fellows to another.
"And I saw you last night cutteran sa soft in the meadow. Nay, dunnot look sa strange. I never say nowt, not I. Only yon mother of Aggy's, she's a famous fratcher, and dunnot you let her get wind. She brays the lasses, and mappen she'll bray somebody forby."
While the dancing proceeded there was a noisy clatter of glasses and a mutter of voices in the neighborhood of the bar.
"The varra crony one's fidgin to see! Gie us a shak' of thy daddle!" shouted a fellow with a face like a russet apple.
"Come, Dick, let's bottom a quart together. Deil tak' the expense."
"Why, man, and wherever hasta been since Whissen Monday?"
"Weel, you see, I went to the fair and stood with a straw in my mouth, and the wives all came round, and one of them said, 'What wage do you ask, canny lad?' 'Five pounds ten,' I says. 'And what can you do?' she says. 'Do?' I says, 'anything from plowing to threshing and nicking a nag's tail,' I says. 'Come, be my man,' she says. But she was like to clem me, so I packed up my bits of duds and got my wage in my reet-hand breek pocket, and here I am."
The dancing had finished, and a little group was gathered around the fiddler's tub.
"Come thy ways; here's Tom o' Dint conjuring, and telling folk what they are thinking."
"That's mair nor he could do for the numskulls as never think."
"He bangs all the player-folk, does Tom."
"Who's yon tatterdemalion flinging by the newspaper and bawling, 'The country's going to the dogs?'"
"That's Grey Graham, setting folk by the lug with his blusteration."
"Mess, lads, but he'd be a reet good Parli'ment man to threep about the nation."
"Weel, I's na pollytishun, but if it's tearin' and snappin' same as a terrier that mak's a reet good Parli'ment man, I reckon not all England could bang him."
"And that's not saying nowt, Sim. I've heard Grey Graham on the ballot till it's wet him through to the waistcoat."
"Is that Mister Paul Ritson and Mistress Lowther just run in for shelter?"
"Surely; and a reet bonny lass she is."
"And he's got larnin' and manners too."
"Ey, he's of the bettermer sort, is Paul."
"Does she live at the parson's—Parson Christian's?"
"Why, yes, man; it's only naturable—he's her guardian."
"And what a man he is, to be sure."
"Ey, we'll never see his like again when he's gone."
"Nay, not till the water runs up bank and trees grow down bank."
"And what a scholar, and no pride neither, and what's mair in a parson, no greed. Why, the leal fellow values the world and the world's gear not a flea."
"Contentment's a kingdom, as folk say, and religion is no worse for a bit o' charity."
There was a momentary pressure of the company toward the mouth of the booth, where Gubblum Oglethorpe reappeared with his pack swung from his neck in front of him. The girls gathered eagerly around.
"What have you to-day, Gubblum?"
"Nay, nowt for you, my dear. You're one of them that allus looks best with nothing on."
"Oh, Gubblum!"
The compliment was certainly a dubious one.
"Only your bits of shabby duds—that's all that pretty faces like yours wants."
"Oh, Gubblum!"
The peddler was evidently a dear, simple soul.
"Lord bless you, yes; what's in here," slapping his pack contemptuously, "it's only for them wizzent old creatures up in London—them 'at have faces like the map of England when it shows all the lines of the railways—just to make them a bit presentable, you know. And there is no knowing what some of these things won't do to mak' a body smart—what with brooches and handkerchers and collars, and I don't know what."
Gubblum's air of indifference had the extraordinary effect of bringing a dozen pairs of gloating eyes on the strapped pack. The face of the peddler wore an expression of bland innocence as he continued:
"But bless you, I'm such a straightforward chap, or I'd make my fortune with the like of what's here."
"Open your pack, Gubblum," said one of the fellows, Geordie Moore, prompted by sundry prods from the elbow of a little damsel by his side.
The "straightforward chap" made a deprecatory gesture, and then yielded obligingly. While loosening the straps he resumed his discourse on his own general ignorance of business tactics, his ruinous honesty, and demoralizing sense of honor.
"I'm not cute enough, that's my fault. I know the way to my mouth with a spoonful of poddish, and that's all. If I go further in the dark, I'm lost."
Gubblum opened his pack and drew forth a red and green shawl of a hideous pattern.
"Now, just to give you a sample. Here's a nice neat shawl that I never had no more nor two of. Well, I actually sold the fellow of that shawl for seven-and-sixpence."
The look of amazement at his own shortcomings which sat on the child-like face of the peddler was answered by the expression of mock surprise in the face of Paul Ritson, who came up at the moment, took the shawl from Gubblum's outstretched arms, and said in a hushed whisper:
"No, did you now?"
Geordie Moore thereupon dived into his pocket, and brought out three half-crowns.
"Here's for you, Gubblum; let's have it."
"'Od bless me!" cried the elderly cynic, "but that Gubblum will never mak' his plack a bawbee."
And Grey Graham, having disposed of the affairs of the nation and witnessed Geordie snap at the peddler's bait, cried out in a bitter laugh:
"'There's little wit within his powe
That lights a candle at the lowe.'"
Just then a tumult arose in the vicinity of the bar. The two cronies were at open war.
"Deuce take it! I had fifteen white shillin' in my reet-hand breek pocket, and where are they now?"
"'Od dang thee! what should I know about your brass? You're kicking up a stour to waken a corp!"
"I had fifteen white shillin' in my reet-hand breek pocket, I tell thee!"
"What's that to me, thou poor shaffles? You're as drunk as muck. Do you think I've taken your brass? You've got a wrong pig by the lug if you reckon to come ower me!"
"They were in my reet-hand breek pocket, I'll swear on it!"
"What a fratchin'—try your left-hand breek pocket."
The russet-faced plowman thrust his hand where directed and instantly a comical smile of mingled joy and shame overspread his countenance. There was a gurgling laugh, through which the voice of the peddler could be heard saying:
"We'll mak' thee king ower the cockers, my canny lad."
The canny lad was slinking away amid a derisive titter, when a great silence fell on the booth. Those in front fell back, and those behind craned their necks to see over the heads of the people before them.
At the mouth of the booth stood the old Laird Fisher, his face ghastly pale, his eyes big and restless, the rain dripping from his long hair and beard.
"They've telt me," he began in a strange voice, "they've telt me that my Mercy has gone off in the London train. I reckon they're mistook as to the lass, but I've come to see for mysel'. Is she here?"
None answered. Only the heavy rain-drops that pattered on the canvas overhead broke the silence. Paul Ritson pushed his way through the crowd.
"Mercy?—London? Wait, Matthew; I'll see if she's here."
The Laird Fisher looked from face to face of the people about him.
"Any on you know owt about her?" he asked in a low voice. "Why don't you speak, some on you? You shake your heads—what does that mean?"
The old man was struggling to control the emotion that was surging in his throat.
"No, Matthew, she's not here," said Paul Ritson.
"Then maybe it's true," said Matthew, with a strange quiet.
There was a pause. Paul was the first to shake off his surprise.
"She might be at Little Town—in Keswick—twenty places."
"She might be, Master Paul, but she's nowt o' the sort. She's on her way to London, Mercy is."
It was Natt, the stableman at the Ghyll, who spoke.
At that the old man's trance seemed to break.
"Gone! Mercy gone! Gone without a word! Why? Where?"
"She'd her little red bundle aside her; and she cried a gay bit to hersel' in the corner. I saw her mysel'."
Paul's face became rigid with anger.
"There's villainy in this—be sure of that!" he said, hotly.
The laird rocked his head backward and forward, and his eyes swam with tears; but he stood in the middle as quiet as a child.
"My laal Mercy," he said, faintly, "gone from her old father."
Paul stepped to the old man's side, and put a great hand on his shoulder as softly as a woman might have soothed her babe. Then turning about, and glancing wrathfully in the faces around them, he said:
"Some waistrel has been at work here. Who is he? Speak out. Anybody know?"
No one spoke. Only the laird moaned feebly, and reeled like a drunken man. Then, with the first shock over, the old man began to laugh. What a laugh it was!
"No matter," he said; "no matter. Now I've nowt left, I've nowt to lose. There's comfort in that, anyways. Ha! ha! ha! But my heart is like to choke for all. You say reet, Mr. Ritson, there's villainy in it."
The old man's eyes wandered vacantly.
"Her own father," he mumbled; "her lone old father—broken-hearted—him 'at loved her—no matter, I've nowt left to—Ha! ha! ha!"
He tried to walk away jauntily, and with a ghastly smile on his battered face, but he stumbled and fell insensible into Paul's outstretched arms. They loosened his neckerchief and bathed his forehead.
Just then Hugh Ritson strode into the tent, stepped up to the group, and looked down over the bent heads at the stricken father lying in his brother's arms.
Paul's lips trembled and his powerful frame quivered.
"Who knows but the scoundrel is here now?" he said; and his eyes traversed the men about him. "If he is, let him look at his pitiless work; and may the sight follow him to his death!"
At that moment Hugh Ritson's face underwent an awful change. Then the old man opened his eyes in consciousness, and Hugh knelt before him and put a glass of water to his lips.