A Damaged Reputation Part 46

"Then I'm coming down," said the other man. "We have got to get him out of the stink if there's anything left of him."

Jimmy grasped the necessity for this, since the fumes of giant-powder are in confined s.p.a.ces usually sufficient to prostrate a strong man, and several of his comrades apparently came down instead of one, bringing lanterns and blazing brands with them. There was a slippery ledge a little lower down the gully, and while the nauseating vapor eddied about them and the shattered wreckage went thundering past below, they made their way along it until they came on Brooke.

He was lying partly up on the ledge with his feet in the swirling torrent and his s.h.i.+rt rent open. There was a big red smear on it, his lips were bloodless, and one arm was doubled limply under him. Jimmy stooped and shook him gently, but Brooke made no sign, and his head sank forward until his face was hidden. Then Jimmy, who slipped his hand inside the torn s.h.i.+rt, withdrew it, smeared and warm, with a little s.h.i.+ver.

"He's bleeding quite hard, and that shows there's life in him. We have got to get him out of this right now," he said.

None of them quite remembered how they did it, for few men unaccustomed to the ranges would have cared to ascend that gully unenc.u.mbered by daylight, but it was accomplished, and when a litter of fir branches had been hastily lashed together they plodded behind it in silence down the hillside. If anything could be done, and they were very uncertain on that point, it could only be done in the shanty.

As they floundered down the trail a man met them with the news that very little of the water had got into the mine, but that did not appear of much importance to any one just then. After all, the Dayspring belonged to an English company, and it was Brooke, who lay in the litter oblivious of everything, they had worked for.

x.x.x.

THE OTHER CHANCE.

The blink of sunlight was pleasantly warm where Barbara sat with Hetty Hume on a seat set back among the laurels which just there cut off the shrewd wind from the English lawn. A black cloud sailed slowly over the green hilltop behind the old grey house, and the close-cropped gra.s.s was sparkling still with the sprinkle of bitter rain, but the scent of the pale narcissus drifted up from the borders and the sticky buds of a big chestnut were opening overhead. Barbara glanced across the sweep of lawn towards the line of willows that swung their ta.s.seled boughs above the palely flas.h.i.+ng river. They were apparently dusted with silver and ochre, and here and there a flush of green chequered the ridge of thorn along the winding road that led the eye upwards to the clean-cut edge of the moor. It was, however, a regular, even line, cropped to one unvarying level save for the breaks where the neat gates were hung; the road was smooth and wide, with a red board beside the wisp of firs above to warn all it might concern of the gradient; while the square fields with the polled trees in the trim hedgerows all conveyed the same impression. This was decorous, well-ordered England, where Nature was broken to man's dominion centuries ago. As she glanced at it her companion laughed.

"The prospect from here is, I believe, generally admitted to be attractive, though I have not noticed any of my other friends spend much time in admiring it," she said. "Still, perhaps it is different in your case. You haven't anything quite like it in Canada."

"No," said Barbara. "Anyway, not between Quatomac and the big glacier.

You remember that ride?"

"Of course!" said Hetty Hume. "I found it a little overwhelming. That is, the peaks and glaciers. I also remember the rancher. The one who played the violin. I suppose you never came across him again?"

"I met him once or twice. At a big concert--and on other occasions."

Barbara's smile was indifferent, but she was silent for the next minute or two. She had now spent several weeks in England, and had found the smooth, well-regulated life there pleasant after the restless activity of the one she had led in Western Canada, where everybody toiled feverishly. She felt the contrast every day, and now the sight of that softly-sliding river, whose low murmur came up soothingly across the lawn, recalled the one that frothed and foamed amidst the Quatomac pines, and the roar that rose from the misty canon. That, very naturally, also brought back the face of the flume-builder, and she wondered vaguely whether he was still at the Dayspring, and what he was doing then, until her companion turned to her again.

"We will really have to decide about the Cruttendens' dance to-night,"

she said. "It will be the last frivolity of the season in this vicinity."

"I haven't met Mrs. Cruttenden, have I?" said Barbara, indifferently.

"You did, when you were here before. Don't you remember the old house you were so pleased with lower down the valley? In any case, she remembers you, and made a point of my bringing you. Cruttenden has a relative in your country, though I never heard much about the man."

Barbara remembered the old building very well, and it suddenly flashed upon her that Brooke had on one occasion displayed a curious acquaintance with it. Everything that afternoon seemed to force him upon her recollection.

"You would like to go?" she said.

"I, at least, feel I ought to. We are, of course, quite newcomers here.

In fact, we had only bought Larchwood just before you last came over, and it was Mrs. Cruttenden who first took us up. One may live a very long while in places of this kind without being admitted within the pale, you see, and even the rank of Major isn't a very great warranty, especially if it has been gained in foreign service instead of Aldershot."

Miss Hume stopped as her father came slowly down the pathway with a grey-haired lady, whose dress proclaimed her a widow, and the latter's voice reached the girl's clearly. Her face was, so Barbara noticed, very expressive as she turned to her companion.

"I think you know what I really came for," she said. "I feel I owe you a very great deal."

Major Hume made a little deprecatory gesture. "I have," he said, "at least, seen the papers, and was very glad to notice that Reggie has got his step. He certainly deserved it. Very plucky thing, especially with only a handful of a raw native levy to back him. Frontal attack in daylight--and the n.i.g.g.e.rs behind the stockade seem to have served their old guns astonis.h.i.+ngly well!"

"Still, if it had not been for your forbearance he would never have had the opportunity of doing it," said the lady. "I shall always remember that. You were the only one who made any excuse for him, and he told me his colonel was very bitter against him."

The pair pa.s.sed the girls, apparently without noticing them, and Barbara did not hear Major Hume's answer, but when he came back alone a few minutes later he stopped in front of them.

"You were here when we went by?" he said.

"Yes," said Hetty. "We heard you quite distinctly, too, and that suggests a question. What was it Reggie Ferris did?"

Major Hume smiled drily. "Stormed a big rebel stockade with only a few half-drilled natives to help him. If you haven't read it already I can give you a paper with an account of the affair."

"That," said Hetty, "is, as you are aware, not what I wished to ask.

What was it he did before he left the line regiment? It was, presumably, something not especially creditable--and I always had an idea that he owed it to you that the result was not a good deal more unpleasant."

The Major appeared a trifle embarra.s.sed. "I scarcely think it would do you very much good to know," he said. "The thing wasn't a nice one, but there was good stuff in the lad, who, it was evident to me, at least, had been considerably more of a fool than a rogue, and all I did was to persuade the Colonel, who meant to break him, to give him another chance. It seems I was wise. Reggie Ferris has had his lesson, and has from all accounts retrieved his credit in the Colonial service."

"If I remember correctly you once made a bad mistake in being equally considerate to another man," said Hetty, reflectively.

"I certainly did, but you will find by the time you are as old as I am that taking it all round it is better to be merciful."

"The Major," said Hetty, with a glance at Barbara, "is a confirmed optimist--and he has been in India."

Major Hume smiled. "Well," he said, "the mistakes one makes from that cause hurt one less afterwards than the ones that result from believing in n.o.body. Now, there was that young woman who was engaged to Reggie----"

"He has applied the suggestive epithet to her ever since she gave him up," said Hetty. "Still, I really don't think anybody could have expected very much more from her."

"No," said the Major, grimly. "In my opinion she went further than there was any particular necessity for her to do. She knew the man's shortcomings when she was engaged to him--and she should have stuck to him. You don't condemn any one for a single slip in your country, Miss Heathcote?"

Barbara made no answer, for this, it seemed, was just what she had done, but Hetty, who had been watching her, laughed.

"You couldn't expect her to admit that their standard in Canada is lower than ours," she said.

The Major appeared disconcerted. "That is not exactly what I mean. They have a little more charity yonder, and, in some respects, a good deal more sense. From one or two cases I am acquainted with they are, in fact, usually willing to give the man who trips another chance instead of falling upon him mercilessly before he can get up."

"Still you haven't told us yet what Reggie Ferris did."

Major Hume laughed as he turned away. "I am," he said, "quite aware of it."

He left them, and Hetty smiled as she said, "The Major has not infrequently been imposed upon, but nothing will disabuse him of his cheerful belief in human nature, and I must admit that he is quite as often right as more censorious people. There was Lily Harland who gave Reggie Ferris up, which, of course, was probably only what he could have expected under the circ.u.mstances, but Reggie, it appears, is wiping out the past, and I have reasons for surmising that she has been sorry ever since. n.o.body but my father and his mother ever hear from him now, and if that hurts Lily she has only herself to blame. She had her opportunity of showing what faith she had in the man, and can't expect to get another just because she would like it."

She wondered why the warm color had crept into her companion's face, but Barbara said nothing, and vacantly watched the road that wound up through the meadows out of the valley, until a moving object appeared where it crossed the crest of the hill. In the meanwhile her thoughts were busy, for the Major's suggestive little story had not been without its effect on her, and the case of Reggie Ferris was, it seemed, remarkably similar to that of a certain Canadian flume-builder. The English soldier and Grant Devine had both been charitable, but she and the girl who was sorry ever since had shown themselves merciless, and there was in that connection a curious significance in the fact that Reggie Ferris, who was now brilliantly blotting out the past, wrote n.o.body but his mother and the man who had given him what the latter termed another chance. Barbara remembered the afternoon when she waited at the window and Brooke, who, she fancied, could have done so had he wished, had not come up from the depot. She could not ignore the fact that this had since occasioned her a vague uneasiness.

In the meanwhile the moving object had been growing larger, and when it reappeared lower down the road resolved itself into a gardener who had been despatched to the nearest village on a bicycle.

"We will wait until Tom brings in the letters," said Hetty.

It was a few minutes later when the man came up the path and handed her a packet. Among the letters she spread out there was one for Barbara, whose face grew suddenly intent as she opened it. It was from Mrs.