FORESTER had just finished his walk round the ruins, and had noticed how the new farm buildings seemed interwoven with the old fabric, as if they were striving to infuse fresh life into the decaying place, when he found himself approaching the outside of the grand entrance gate. And there, bending on his stick, was the old man. The bright August sunshine had tempted him out, and he was basking in its warmth and leaning upon the old gateposts for support.
‘Well, sir, what do you think of Hildick Castle?’ he asked, as he saw the doctor approaching.
‘It’s a splendid old place,’ said Forester; ‘it must have been grand in its day.’
‘Grand? I should think so,’ said the old man; ‘but it’s coming down fast—bit by bit. I’ve seen a great deal of it go since I was a boy; ay, and Rupert will see more go, and young Leonard will see more still. You were asking about the loft, sir; would you like to go up? You’re welcome, if you would care to see it.’
Forester thanked him, and the old man led the way to a door which opened into the courtyard not far from the large gateway. Several bats flew out of dark corners as they entered, and a great rat ran across the floor. This part of the building had, in bygone days, been the guardroom of the Castle, where the armed men, on watch at the gate, had warmed themselves at the large open fire on the hearth.
Here again were chimney-corners, and close to the fire was another ancient bed-place where the man who had come off guard might stretch himself on a winter’s night in warmth and comfort, as soon as he was relieved by a change of guards, and his long cold outlook was ended.
This old room and another opening out of it were used as lumber rooms, where all manner of things were stored away—an ancient pump, a bicycle, pieces of wood, tools of various kinds, bird cages, trestles, broken chairs, a churn, an old door, mole traps, and a variety of other articles.
The two rooms bore traces of having been used as a dwelling-place at no very remote date; soot was still hanging in the wide chimney; strong hooks for ham and bacon were fastened in the beams overhead, and an oak chest was standing under the narrow window.
‘My old grandmother lived in these rooms,’ said Mr. Norris; ‘many a bit of cake have I eaten sitting in that chimney-corner. I used to like to come in here when I was a youngster. This way, sir, up this old narrow staircase.’
As Forester followed him, he noticed that the stone steps wound round the inside of a high turret which stood close to the gateway, and from which there was a passage leading over the top of the gate. Every here and there were narrow slits in the thick wall, from which the guards could see the approach to the Castle. The steps brought them at last into the large room which went by the name of the loft.
The doctor looked curiously round, to see if he could find anything to confirm him in the impression that there had been footsteps over his head the night before. But the whole place appeared to be empty and to bear no sign of occupation. An ancient bedstead, which probably had not been used for centuries, stood at one end of it; a broken spinning-wheel of antique form was propped against the wall; a pile of musty books and papers lay in a corner: everything seemed to belong to past ages with the exception of the onions spread to dry on the floor.
There was no place where anyone could hide; there was no room for mystery; there was nothing ghostly or weird about the place. As Forester looked round it on that bright August morning, he saw nothing whatever to account for the sounds which had disturbed his slumbers.
When they had descended the narrow staircase, the doctor with light and easy tread, and the old man toiling slowly behind him, and had come out into the sunny courtyard again, they found a tall man with brick-red complexion, rough grizzly hair, and dressed in coarse corduroy and an old sealskin cap, standing near the farmhouse door. He had a basket on his right arm full of young lobsters and crabs, and in his left hand he was holding a plate covered with a clean white cloth.
‘What, Maxie! You here!’ said old Mr. Norris; ‘we were talking about you a while since, and now here you are.’
‘Fine crabs, sir,’ said the tall man; ‘fresh this very morning, sir. I went to the pots before it was light, brought ‘em home and boiled ‘em. Taste like chicken, sir; try ‘em.’
‘Bring them in, Maxie, and let’s have a look at them. I know a good crab when I see one. What’s that you’ve got under your cloth there?’
‘Laver bread—prime!’ said Maxie, smacking his lips; ‘never tasted better. Plucked it myself, sir, off the rocks.’
‘What in the world is laver bread?’ enquired Forester, as he looked at the round black cakes which the crab seller uncovered and held out for Mr. Norris’ inspection.
‘It’s made from seaweed,’ explained the old man; ‘a certain kind of seaweed which grows on the rocks Here. They gather it and boil it down till it’s quite soft, and make it into cakes, and they’re thought a great delicacy. There was nothing my old father liked better than a slice of laver bread. How much do you want for them, Maxie?’
Forester left the old man to choose his crabs and to bargain with Maxie about the coveted cakes; and, after arranging with the crab seller to call for his luggage at the post office and to bring it up to the Castle in the afternoon, he passed through the great gateway and set out to explore the village and the bay.
Outside the gate, and standing patiently waiting for his master, he found Maxie’s donkey, a little brown beast with a black mark across its neck and down the middle of its back. On the cart were plums, apples, gooseberries, and a few potatoes and cabbages which Maxie was evidently hawking round the village; from which the doctor concluded that his crab pots did not form his only means of earning a livelihood.
Forester took the road leading across a field where the farm geese were keeping up a continual argument with each other. He stopped for a moment to notice one of them which kept apart from the flock and seemed to avoid their society. It had a broken leg and could only hobble from place to place. It objected to the noisy chatter of the rest and chose a quiet corner of the field, where it would be undisturbed by their disputes and in which it would be out of their way. Forester thought that he understood its feelings and could sympathize with them. The field is the world, and he had chosen Hildick as its quiet corner. But the lame goose had a companion; one of the flock seemed to pity it in its loneliness, and, leaving the common herd, followed it wherever he went. He had no companion, but had the quiet corner to himself.
Farther along the field he had his first view of the bay. The sea lay far below him, blue as the sky above it. To the right was the promontory, thickly wooded and stretching out far into the water. Beneath it the coast was bold and wild in the extreme, covered with huge boulders and heavy masses of rock. On the left rose high cliffs standing like sentinels guarding the bay, whilst between the two points was a beach of yellow sand covered in places by seaweed. Sandhills fringed this part of the shore, and formed a barrier between the sea and the low marshy ground which stretched for more than a mile inland, and across which, like a white snake, wound the road over which the coach had brought him the night before.
From the field-gate a steep descent led Forester down to the shore. The road was cool and shady, for trees grew thickly on either side and in many places their branches met overhead. The low stone walls were covered with ferns, moss, and trailing ivy and brambles. A pretty little creeper, with tiny leaves and diminutive lilac flowers, and which the country people call ‘Mother of Thousands,’ was hanging gracefully from the grey stones.
The loveliness of the place, the abundant life and beauty on all sides charmed him more and more. He was not an artist, but he had the eye of an artist, and he simply reveled in it all. He felt that after what he had gone through before leaving home, he needed just such peaceful scenes as these to act as a sedative to his overstrained feelings, and to fit him to take up his work again with fresh vigor and renewed zeal. As for human companionship, he craved none of it. He had come to Hildick to get away from people, and he hoped that he had succeeded When once his tent was pitched, somewhere in a remote port of the promontory, there would be no need for him to see anyone or to go anywhere.
Beyond an occasional chat with the old man at the Castle he would shun all intercourse with his fellow men. He would talk no one, and he wanted no one to speak to him. He would enjoy his solitude and revel in his very loneliness. If disturbing thoughts came, he would battle with them alone, and by degrees he would be able to get the mastery over them.
However, for this one day he would chance coming across the Hildick people. The tent was not up yet, so his life as a recluse could not begin. He would therefore make use of the day in finding out what manner of people inhabited the little village, and how many visitors staying in Hildick he would have to avoid in his future rambles in the neighborhood.
A short cut across the fields to the left of the road led him by a narrow lane into the village street. He found himself close to the post office before which the coach had, stopped the night before. He stepped inside to tell the postmistress that Maxie would call for his luggage, and he found a young man there, standing at the counter writing a telegram.
Forester could not see his face, for his back was turned towards him. He stood waiting until the young man had finished, and meanwhile he glanced round the tiny shop, to see what he would be able to buy there if occasion required. Every little hole and corner in the place was filled with odds and ends of all kinds and descriptions—tea, sugar, currants, soap, candles, stockings and haberdashery, writing materials and stationery, a little crockery, a little of everything, in fact, which the villagers might require, whilst on the counter were several large loaves of bread and a few bunches of green watercress.
Forester has just finished his survey when the young man at the counter laid down his pen. The postmistress took up the white telegraphic form and read aloud what was written on it:
‘Mainwaring, Faudry Street, Manchester.
‘Expect you tomorrow by evening ‘bus.’
‘All right,’ said the young man, and turned round to leave the shop. Forester eyed him curiously. He was dressed in grey flannel, and was wearing a straw hat with a Varsity boating ribbon on it. Surely he knew him, —the curly hair, the regular features, the laughing blue eyes—surely he had seen all these before. He had known some Mainwarings once in his schooldays at Repton; the elder one had been his greatest friend there and was about his own age, the other was some years younger. It was of the younger brother that he was reminded now. Could it be the same? It was the same, and young Mainwaring recognized him the next moment.
‘Why, Forester! To think of meeting you of all people in this outlandish place! Why, it’s years since I saw you, and yet I should have known you anywhere. Whatever on earth brought you to Hildick?’
‘I might say the same to you, Don,’ said Forester, laughing. ‘Where’s Jack? Is he here?’
‘Coming tomorrow. I was just sending a wire to him when you came in. Why, I shall fancy we are at Repton again when I see you two fellows together. What are you doing here, Forester?’
‘I’ve come to camp out and to take life easy a bit,’ he answered.
‘Been working too hard, old chap? You look a bit seedy, I think, now I look at you more closely; I didn’t notice it at first. What’s up?’
‘Oh, nothing, never mind me, Don; tell me about yourself. What are you going to do?’
I’m at the ‘Varsity still, grinding away for my degree. I ought to be working now, but it poured nearly all day yesterday, so I did double measure, and it’s so jolly this morning I couldn’t settle down to books. Lucky, wasn’t it, that I just met you here? Won’t Jack open his eyes when I tell him who is in Hildick!’
‘What’s Jack doing?’
‘Oh, Jack? He’s a parson, working all the flesh off his bones in Manchester in some slummy sort of parish there; running in and out of dirty houses all day, and teaching grimy children, and all the rest of it. I wouldn’t have his job for a pot of money; but he’s as happy as the day is long in it all. He’s coming to take the duty here for a few weeks. This parson has gone away for his holiday, and Jack has to look after these few sheep in the wilderness. Very nice-looking old sheep too, if that’s a specimen,’ he added, as they passed a pretty lime-washed cottage where an old woman in a white apron was standing at the door.
The small garden in front of this cottage was full of fuchsias and rose-colored phlox, and a beautiful myrtle tree massed with white blossom was growing over the porch. The old woman had a square Dutch-looking face, was spotlessly clean, and had a very white cap on her head.
‘Good morning,’ said Mainwaring, who had a word for everyone he met. ‘What a jolly myrtle tree! Did you ever see such a fine one, Forester?’
‘My mother planted it, sir,’ said the woman; ‘it was a tiny slip then, no longer than your little finger and just see it now!’
‘Then you’ve lived here all your life?’
‘Yes, sir, and my mother before me; she lived here all her life too. Mr. John Wesley stayed here in our cottage; that would be in my great-grandmother’s time. Come inside, gentlemen, if you like, and I’ll show you something.’
The two young men followed her into a beautifully clean room, with sanded floor and low ceiling. A grandfather’s clock in a handsome oak case stood in one corner, and most lovely old china was arranged on a brightly polished dresser.
But it was none of these that the old woman had brought them to see. Many of these were valuable, but they were not the treasure, the priceless treasure, of that house. The old woman brought it out with pride. It was a small chair with wide wooden arms and seat, a chair which was carefully handled and kept scrupulously clean, and which had been handed down from generation to generation as a precious heirloom.
‘Look at that chair!’ she said, as she stooped down to dust it. ‘In that chair John Wesley sat when he was in Hildick. Ay, he was a good man was John Wesley. Sit in the chair, young gentlemen. if you like, and you can say you’ve sat where John Wesley sat.’
‘We must bring Jack here,’ said Don as they came out. ‘He’ll talk to that old dame by the hour. He’s capital with old women. Fancy Jack at a mothers’ meeting, Forester! Isn’t it funny to think of it?’
‘Where are you staying, Don?’
‘Oh, at the Bank.’
‘The Bank?’
‘Yes, not a branch of Lloyd’s or Barclay’s—the other kind of bank:
“I know a bank whereon the wild thyme blows,
Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows.”
And the house where we are lodging is half way up the bank, and gets its name from it.’
‘Which of you are here?’
‘Oh, all of us except Jack, and he’s coming tomorrow. The girls will be down on the shore presently, Mab and Dolly, you know. Don’t you remember they came over to Repton for Speech Day? Let’s get on the rocks, and they’ll find us there.’
‘Are many people lodging here?’
‘Many? No, there are only four or five houses where they let rooms. Where are you staying?’
‘I’m camping out; at least, I shall be tomorrow; I was at the Castle last night. Do you know any of the other people here?’
‘Only Uncle Dick and Doris; they came yesterday. They’re staying at Bill Jenkins’, higher up the street.’
‘Oh,’ said Forester, ‘I believe I came on the coach with them.’
‘Jolly girl, Doris; isn’t she?’
‘Well, I hardly saw her,’ said Forester.
‘Didn’t you? Well, you’ll see her this morning. She’s not exactly our cousin, you know. Uncle Dick is mother’s second cousin, but we call him uncle, and he likes it, and he’s in that generation, you know. Have you been on the shore yet?’
Forester told him that he had only just come down the hill, and they walked on together.
The more the young doctor saw of Hildick, the more he admired it. The old church stood at the foot of the cliffs, with the woods above it and the rocks and the sea below. The shore was practically deserted, and the tide was a long way out, but the coloring was exquisite. The green foliage of the trees above the rocks, the grey stone, yellow sand, and blue sea—all formed one lovely picture. Three fair-haired children were wading at the edge of the water, white seagulls were strutting over the sand, a coastguard was looking through his telescope at a ship far out at sea, but beyond these there seemed no sign of life.
The two young men sat down on the shingle which was piled in a high bank along the shore, and gazed out to sea. It was a quiet, peaceful scene on which they looked, and Forester and his friend, as they smoked together, chatted of their old schooldays, and watched the tide coming in and swiftly covering the sandy shore. The three children paddling in the shallow water, and letting the advancing waves wash over their feet, were every moment coming nearer, and they could hear their merry voices more distinctly.
Soon other voices were heard behind them, and three girls with bathing-dresses and towels over their arms came down to the shore. Don made short work of the introduction.
‘Here, Mab and Dolly, this is Jack’s friend, Forester. You remember him, don’t you? He read the prize poem that day you came to Repton, you know; and got all the prizes and all the clapping.’
Mab was a merry, good-natured girl of about twenty. She was not pretty, Forester thought, when he looked at her. She had large and rather prominent blue eyes, and a somewhat broad face; but her hair was a lovely shade of brown, and looked as if the sunbeams had somehow become entangled in it. She was the very embodiment of good-nature and merriment, and Forester liked her from the very first.
The younger girl, whom Don had called Dolly, was a little beauty. She had delicate, refined features, a high forehead, lighter hair than her sister, a clear complexion, a very white skin, and a face the expression of which changed every moment. Forester imagined that she must be about seventeen.
The third girl was his travelling companion of the night before. She looked at him with a shy smile as Don introduced him to her; in better form this time.
‘Dr. Forester—Miss Doris Somerville.’
She was a great contrast to the two sisters. Her hair was very dark, almost black; she had a bright color, and her eyes—well, Forester could not make up his mind what color her eyes were. Sometimes he thought they were bright blue, like the forget-me-nots which grew in the brook that ran at the bottom of the garden in his old home. Sometimes they seemed to him more like the Parma violets which he had bought a few weeks ago to send to—. But he was not going to think of that now, or here. He would not look at Miss Doris Somerville’s eyes, if they reminded him of anything of the kind.
As the merry talk went on around him, in which he could not help joining from time to time, he felt inclined to smile at himself. All this was so vastly different from the kind of life he had intended to lead at Hildick. Well, perhaps it was better so, for the first day at least, and the tent would be up tomorrow.
He caught Doris’ eyes looking at him once or twice. There was a puzzled look in them, and he wondered what it meant. Did she fancy she had seen him before?
If he could have read her thoughts, he would have found that, as she looked at him, she was wondering at the change in him from the night before. Then he had seemed so terribly sad that his face of hopeless misery had haunted her all night. Now he looked as if he had not a care in the world, and as if life to him was all pleasure and enjoyment. Which, she wondered, was the real man?
The bay was becoming quite lively now. Doris’ father, Mr. Somerville, two old ladies staying at the post office, and a large party of children who were lodging in a house close to the sands, had all come down to the shore, and the sea birds began to beat a retreat, for the tide was coming in apace.
After a time the party on the shingle broke up. Most of them walked along the shore to the bathing-place, and Forester found himself left behind with Mr. Somerville.
‘Shall we walk along the shore under the church, Dr. Forester,’ he said; ‘and sit there until they return? There are comfortable seats on the rocks this way. I leave the climbing to you young people. Give me a seat with a nice back to it, and I want nothing more.’
Forester readily agreed, and when Mr. Somerville had selected the place he sat down beside him. The elder man then took a copy of the Standard from his pocket, carefully divided it, and gave half of it to his companion, whilst he settled himself comfortably to read the leading articles.
Forester did not read at first. He was watching a very old sailor who appeared to be about eighty years of age, and who had unfastened a boat which was moored to the rocks, and was rowing it slowly out to sea. But after a time he looked down at the newspaper he held in his hand. What did he see there that made the color fade out of his face? What could he have read that made the hand which held the newspaper tremble?
The old gentleman looked up to make some remark on the condition of Turkey, and was astonished to see the extraordinary change in his companion. He stopped in the midst of what he was saying and asked him if he felt ill.
‘Oh, nothing much,’ said Forester hurriedly. ‘I have been rather seedy lately. I shall be all right in a moment. I’ll just be going slowly up the hill, I think. Dinner will be ready at the Castle, and they’ve asked me to come to it.’
‘Better wait a bit,’ said Mr. Somerville.
‘Oh no, thank you; I’m quite all right now, perfectly right. Good morning. Just tell them, please, when they come back, that I was afraid of being late, so had to go.’
Mr. Somerville looked after him, and watched him climbing the shingle and taking the path towards the village.
‘He seems to walk steadily,’ he said; ‘but he certainly looked faint. I wonder what was the matter with him. Could it be anything he saw in this paper that upset him?’
He picked up the sheet which Forester had laid beside him, but found nothing to account for the change in his companion. There was the history of a murder in the east of London, and of a burglar carrying off a countess’ jewels; but the rest of the paper seemed filled with advertisements.
‘Perhaps he is given to faint turns,’ he said. ‘Well, this Hildick air will soon do him good.’