Danger! and Other Stories Page 8

  II--HOW I WENT FORTH TO GASTER FELL

  I was still engaged upon my breakfast when I heard the clatter of dishesand the landlady's footfall as she passed toward her new lodger's room.An instant afterward she had rushed down the passage and burst in upon mewith uplifted hand and startled eyes. "Lord 'a mercy, sir!" she cried,"and asking your pardon for troubling you, but I'm feared o' the youngleddy, sir; she is not in her room."

  "Why, there she is," said I, standing up and glancing through thecasement. "She has gone back for the flowers she left upon the bank."

  "Oh, sir, see her boots and her dress!" cried the landlady, wildly. "Iwish her mother was here, sir--I do. Where she has been is more than Iken, but her bed has not been lain on this night."

  "She has felt restless, doubtless, and went for a walk, though the hourwas certainly a strange one."

  Mrs. Adams pursed her lip and shook her head. But then as she stood atthe casement, the girl beneath looked smilingly up at her and beckoned toher with a merry gesture to open the window.

  "Have you my tea there?" she asked in a rich, clear voice, with a touchof the mincing French accent.

  "It is in your room, miss."

  "Look at my boots, Mrs. Adams!" she cried, thrusting them out from underher skirt. "These fells of yours are dreadful places--effroyable--oneinch, two inch; never have I seen such mud! My dress, too--_voila_!"

  "Eh, miss, but you are in a pickle," cried the landlady, as she gazeddown at the bedraggled gown. "But you must be main weary and heavy forsleep."

  "No, no," she answered, laughingly, "I care not for sleep. What issleep? it is a little death--_voila tout_. But for me to walk, to run,to beathe the air--that is to live. I was not tired, and so all night Ihave explored these fells of Yorkshire."

  "Lord 'a mercy, miss, and where did you go?" asked Mrs. Adams.

  She waved her hand round in a sweeping gesture which included the wholewestern horizon. "There," she cried. "O comme elles sont tristes etsauvages, ces collines! But I have flowers here. You will give mewater, will you not? They will wither else." She gathered her treasuresin her lap, and a moment later we heard her light, springy footfall uponthe stair.

  So she had been out all night, this strange woman. What motive couldhave taken her from her snug room on to the bleak, wind-swept hills?Could it be merely the restlessness, the love of adventure of a younggirl? Or was there, possibly, some deeper meaning in this nocturnaljourney?

  Deep as were the mysteries which my studies had taught me to solve, herewas a human problem which for the moment at least was beyond mycomprehension. I had walked out on the moor in the forenoon, and on myreturn, as I topped the brow that overlooks the little town, I saw myfellow-lodger some little distance off among the gorse. She had raised alight easel in front of her, and with papered board laid across it, waspreparing to paint the magnificent landscape of rock and moor whichstretched away in front of her. As I watched her I saw that she waslooking anxiously to right and left. Close by me a pool of water hadformed in a hollow. Dipping the cup of my pocket-flask into it, Icarried it across to her.

  "Miss Cameron, I believe," said I. "I am your fellow-lodger. Uppertonis my name. We must introduce ourselves in these wilds if we are not tobe for ever strangers."

  "Oh, then, you live also with Mrs. Adams!" she cried. "I had thoughtthat there were none but peasants in this strange place."

  "I am a visitor, like yourself," I answered. "I am a student, and havecome for quiet and repose, which my studies demand."

  "Quiet, indeed!" said she, glancing round at the vast circle of silentmoors, with the one tiny line of grey cottages which sloped down beneathus.

  "And yet not quiet enough," I answered, laughing, "for I have been forcedto move further into the fells for the absolute peace which I require."

  "Have you, then, built a house upon the fells?" she asked, arching hereyebrows.

  "I have, and hope within a few days to occupy it."

  "Ah, but that is _triste_," she cried. "And where is it, then, thishouse which you have built?"

  "It is over yonder," I answered. "See that stream which lies like asilver band upon the distant moor? It is the Gaster Beck, and it runsthrough Gaster Fell."

  She started, and turned upon me her great dark, questioning eyes with alook in which surprise, incredulity, and something akin to horror seemedto be struggling for mastery.

  "And you will live on the Gaster Fell?" she cried.

  "So I have planned. But what do you know of Gaster Fell, Miss Cameron?"I asked. "I had thought that you were a stranger in these parts."

  "Indeed, I have never been here before," she answered. "But I have heardmy brother talk of these Yorkshire moors; and, if I mistake not, I haveheard him name this very one as the wildest and most savage of them all."

  "Very likely," said I, carelessly. "It is indeed a dreary place."

  "Then why live there?" she cried, eagerly. "Consider the loneliness, thebarrenness, the want of all comfort and of all aid, should aid beneeded."

  "Aid! What aid should be needed on Gaster Fell?"

  She looked down and shrugged her shoulders. "Sickness may come in allplaces," said she. "If I were a man I do not think I would live alone onGaster Fell."

  "I have braved worse dangers than that," said I, laughing; "but I fearthat your picture will be spoiled, for the clouds are banking up, andalready I feel a few raindrops."

  Indeed, it was high time we were on our way to shelter, for even as Ispoke there came the sudden, steady swish of the shower. Laughingmerrily, my companion threw her light shawl over her head, and, seizingpicture and easel, ran with the lithe grace of a young fawn down thefurze-clad slope, while I followed after with camp-stool and paint-box.

  * * * * *

  It was the eve of my departure from Kirkby-Malhouse that we sat upon thegreen bank in the garden, she with dark dreamy eyes looking sadly outover the sombre fells; while I, with a book upon my knee, glancedcovertly at her lovely profile and marvelled to myself how twenty yearsof life could have stamped so sad and wistful an expression upon it.

  "You have read much," I remarked at last. "Women have opportunities nowsuch as their mothers never knew. Have you ever thought of goingfurther--or seeking a course of college or even a learned profession?"

  She smiled wearily at the thought.

  "I have no aim, no ambition," she said. "My future is black--confused--achaos. My life is like to one of these paths upon the fells. You haveseen them, Monsieur Upperton. They are smooth and straight and clearwhere they begin; but soon they wind to left and wind to right, and somid rocks and crags until they lose themselves in some quagmire. AtBrussels my path was straight; but now, _mon Dieu_! who is there can tellme where it leads?"

  "It might take no prophet to do that, Miss Cameron," quoth I, with thefatherly manner which twoscore years may show toward one. "If I may readyour life, I would venture to say that you were destined to fulfil thelot of women--to make some good man happy, and to shed around, in somewider circle, the pleasure which your society has given me since first Iknew you."

  "I will never marry," said she, with a sharp decision, which surprisedand somewhat amused me.

  "Not marry--and why?"

  A strange look passed over her sensitive features, and she pluckednervously at the grass on the bank beside her.

  "I dare not," said she in a voice that quivered with emotion.

  "Dare not?"

  "It is not for me. I have other things to do. That path of which Ispoke is one which I must tread alone."

  "But this is morbid," said I. "Why should your lot, Miss Cameron, beseparate from that of my own sisters, or the thousand other young ladieswhom every season brings out into the world? But perhaps it is that youhave a fear and distrust of mankind. Marriage brings a risk as well as ahappiness."

  "The risk would be with the man who married me," she cried. And then inan instant, as though she had said too much, she sprang to her feet
anddrew her mantle round her. "The night air is chill, Mr. Upperton," saidshe, and so swept swiftly away, leaving me to muse over the strange wordswhich had fallen from her lips.

  Clearly, it was time that I should go. I set my teeth and vowed thatanother day should not have passed before I should have snapped thisnewly formed tie and sought the lonely retreat which awaited me upon themoors. Breakfast was hardly over in the morning before a peasant draggedup to the door the rude hand-cart which was to convey my few personalbelongings to my new dwelling. My fellow-lodger had kept her room; and,steeled as my mind was against her influence, I was yet conscious of alittle throb of disappointment that she should allow me to depart withouta word of farewell. My hand-cart with its load of books had alreadystarted, and I, having shaken hands with Mrs. Adams, was about to followit, when there was a quick scurry of feet on the stair, and there she wasbeside me all panting with her own haste.

  "Then you go--you really go?" said she.

  "My studies call me."

  "And to Gaster Fell?" she asked.

  "Yes; to the cottage which I have built there."

  "And you will live alone there?"

  "With my hundred companions who lie in that cart."

  "Ah, books!" she cried, with a pretty shrug of her graceful shoulders."But you will make me a promise?"

  "What is it?" I asked, in surprise.

  "It is a small thing. You will not refuse me?"

  "You have but to ask it."

  She bent forward her beautiful face with an expression of the mostintense earnestness. "You will bolt your door at night?" said she; andwas gone ere I could say a word in answer to her extraordinary request.

  It was a strange thing for me to find myself at last duly installed in mylonely dwelling. For me, now, the horizon was bounded by the barrencircle of wiry, unprofitable grass, patched over with furze bushes andscarred by the profusion of Nature's gaunt and granite ribs. A duller,wearier waste I have never seen; but its dullness was its very charm.

  And yet the very first night which I spent at Gaster Fell there came astrange incident to lead my thoughts back once more to the world which Ihad left behind me.

  It had been a sullen and sultry evening, with great livid cloud-banksmustering in the west. As the night wore on, the air within my littlecabin became closer and more oppressive. A weight seemed to rest upon mybrow and my chest. From far away the low rumble of thunder came moaningover the moor. Unable to sleep, I dressed, and standing at my cottagedoor, looked on the black solitude which surrounded me.

  Taking the narrow sheep path which ran by this stream, I strolled alongit for some hundred yards, and had turned to retrace my steps, when themoon was finally buried beneath an ink-black cloud, and the darknessdeepened so suddenly that I could see neither the path at my feet, thestream upon my right, nor the rocks upon my left. I was standing gropingabout in the thick gloom, when there came a crash of thunder with a flashof lightning which lighted up the whole vast fell, so that every bush androck stood out clear and hard in the vivid light. It was but for aninstant, and yet that momentary view struck a thrill of fear andastonishment through me, for in my very path, not twenty yards before me,there stood a woman, the livid light beating upon her face and showing upevery detail of her dress and features.

  There was no mistaking those dark eyes, that tall, graceful figure. Itwas she--Eva Cameron, the woman whom I thought I had for ever left. Foran instant I stood petrified, marvelling whether this could indeed beshe, or whether it was some figment conjured up by my excited brain. ThenI ran swiftly forward in the direction where I had seen her, callingloudly upon her, but without reply. Again I called, and again no answercame back, save the melancholy wail of the owl. A second flashilluminated the landscape, and the moon burst out from behind its cloud.But I could not, though I climbed upon a knoll which overlooked the wholemoor, see any sign of this strange midnight wanderer. For an hour ormore I traversed the fell, and at last found myself back at my littlecabin, still uncertain as to whether it had been a woman or a shadow uponwhich I gazed.