The Long Portage Part 10

"It would be a strong place to hold, if the defenders had time to choose their ground," Lisle remarked.

"So it proved," replied his companion. "Well, once upon a time, a bold Scots reaver, riding south, saw a maid who pleased him near a c.u.mberland pele. His admiration was not reciprocated, but he came again, often, though being an armed thief by profession there was a price upon his head. It is stated that on each occasion he returned unaccompanied by any of the cattle belonging to his lady's relatives, which was an unusual piece of forbearance. In those days, men must have been able to disa.s.sociate business from their love-making."

"Don't they do so now?" Lisle inquired lazily.

She looked at him with a smile which had a hint of real bitterness in its light mockery.

"Not often, one would imagine. Perhaps they can't be blamed--I'm afraid we're all given to cultivating dreadfully expensive tastes. No doubt, when it was needful, the Border chieftain of the story could live on oatmeal and water, and instead of buying pedigree hunters he probably stole his pony. He haunted the neighborhood of the pele until the maid became afraid and urged her kinsmen to rid her of him. Several of them tried and failed--which wasn't surprising."

"Love made him invulnerable?" Lisle suggested.

"No," retorted his companion. "A man with a heart constant and stout enough to face the risks he ran would be hard to kill. When you read between the lines, it's a moving tale. Think of the long, perilous rides he made through an enemy's land, all for a glance at his disdainful lady!

They watched the fords in those days, but neither brawling rivers nor well-mounted hors.e.m.e.n could stop him. At last, he came one night with a dozen spears, broke in the barmkin gate and carried her off. All her relatives rode hard after them and came up with them in this ghyll. Then there happened what was, in one way, a rather remarkable thing--the abducted maid firmly declined to be rescued. There was a brisk encounter, I believe two or three were killed; but she rode off to Scotland with her lover. I suppose I needn't point the moral?"

"I can see only the ancient one--that it's unwise to take a lady's 'No'

as conclusive," Lisle ventured.

She laughed at him in a daring manner.

"The pity is that we haven't often a chance of saying it to any one worth while. But I'll express the moral in a prettier way--sometimes disinterested steadfastness and real devotion count with us.

Unfortunately, they're scarce."

There was a challenge in her glance, but the man, not knowing what was expected of him, made no answer. At first he had been almost repelled by the girl, but he was becoming mildly interested in her. She could, he thought, be daring to the verge of coa.r.s.eness, and he did not admire her pessimism, which was probably a pose; but there was a vein of elfish mischief in her that appealed to him. Sitting among the heather, small, lithe, and felinely graceful, watching him with a provocative smile in her rather narrow eyes, she compelled his attention.

"Well," she laughed, "you're not much of a courtier. But doesn't that story bring you back into touch with elemental things--treacherous mosses, dark nights, flooded rivers, pa.s.sion, peril, dauntlessness? Now we're wrapped about with empty futilities."

He understood part of what was in her mind and sympathized with it. He had lived close to nature in stern grapple with her unbridled forces.

From women he demanded no more than beauty or gentleness; but a man, he thought, should for a time, at least, be forced to learn the stress and joy of the tense struggle with cold and hunger, heat and thirst, on long marches or in some dogged attack on rock and flood. He had only contempt for the well-fed idlers who lounged through life, not always, as he suspected, even gracefully. These, however, were ideas he had no intention of expressing.

"There are still people who have to face realities in the newer lands; and I dare say you have some in this country, on your railroads and in your mines, for example," he said. "But hadn't we better be getting on?"

They left the brink of the hollow and plodded through the heather toward where a row of b.u.t.ts stood beneath a lofty ridge of the moor. A man appeared from behind one as they approached and glanced at them with unconcealed disapproval.

"Couldn't you have got here earlier, Bella?" he asked. "In another few minutes you'd have spoiled the drive--the birds can't be far off the dip of the ridge. Hardly fair to the keepers or the rest of us to take these risks, is it?"

"When I do wrong, I never confess it, Clarence," the girl replied. "You ought to know that by now."

Lisle heard the name and became suddenly intent--this was Clarence Gladwyne! There was no doubt that he was a handsome man. He was tall and held himself finely; he had a light, springy figure, with dark eyes and hair. Besides, there was a certain stamp of refinement or fastidiousness upon him which was only slightly spoiled by the veiled hint of languid insolence in his expression.

"I heard a shot," he resumed.

"I've no doubt you did," the girl agreed. "An old c.o.c.k grouse got up in front of us--it was irresistibly tempting."

Gladwyne turned to Lisle with a slight movement of his shoulders which was somehow expressive of half-indulgent contempt.

"You're Nasmyth's friend from Canada? I guess you don't understand these things, but you might have made the birds break back," he said. "However, we must get under cover now--there's your b.u.t.t. I'll see you later."

He turned away and Lisle took up his station behind the wall of turf pointed to. He had once upon a time been forcibly rebuked for his clumsiness at some unaccustomed task in the Canadian bush and had not resented it, but the faint movement of Gladwyne's shoulders had brought a warmth to his face. The girl noticed this.

"Clarence can be unpleasant when he likes, but there are excuses for him," she said. "A day's shooting is one of the things we take seriously, and manners are not at a higher premium here than I suppose they are in the wilds."

Lisle made no response, and there was silence on the sun-steeped moor until a row of small dark objects skimming the crest of the ridge above became silhouetted against the sky. Then a gun cracked away to the right and in another moment a dropping fusillade broke out.

CHAPTER VIII

GLADWYNE RECEIVES A SHOCK

It was about nine o'clock in the evening, and Gladwyne's somewhat noisy guests were scattered about his house and the terrace in front of it.

Several of them had gathered in the hall, and Bella Crestwick, Lisle's companion on the moors, stood, cigarette in hand, with one foot on the old-fas.h.i.+oned hearth-irons, frankly discussing him. A few birch logs glowed behind the bars, for on those high uplands the autumn nights were chilly, but the wide door stood open, revealing a pale green band of light behind the black hills, and allowing the sweet, cool air of the moors to flow in.

The girl had gained something by the change from her outdoor attire to the clinging evening dress, but it was with characteristic unconcern that she disregarded the fact that the thin skirt fell well away from one shapely ankle effectively displayed by a stocking of the finest texture.

"The man," she said, "is a bit of a Puritan. They still live over there, don't they? His idea of English women is evidently derived from what his father told him, or from early-Victorian literature. I'm inclined to believe I shocked him."

"It's highly probable," laughed a man lounging near. "Still, I believe the descendants of the folks you mention live three thousand miles from his country, in the neighborhood of the Atlantic sh.o.r.e. One wouldn't fancy that you'd like Puritans."

There was nothing offensive in the words, but his glance was a little too bold and too familiar, and Bella looked at him with a gleam of malice in her eyes.

"Extremes meet; it's the middle--the medium mediocrity--that's irreconcilable with either end," she retorted. "For instance, I led a life of severe asceticism all last Lent." There were incredulous smiles, though the statement was perfectly correct. "It's a course I could confidently recommend to you," she proceeded, unheeding; "of late you have been putting on flesh with an alarming rapidity."

The man made no response and Bella resumed:

"Besides, the Puritans have their good points; they're so refres.h.i.+ngly sure of themselves and their views, while the rest of us don't believe in anything. You can't be a fanatic without being thorough, and in renouncing the world and the flesh you may gain more than a pa.s.sable figure. Among other things, the ascetic life means straight shooting, steady hands, and an eye you can depend upon. The overcivilized man who does nothing to counterbalance his luxuriousness is generally a rotter."

"But what has all this to do with Nasmyth's Canadian?" somebody asked.

Bella waved her cigarette.

"Try to walk a steep moor with him and you'll see. If that's not sufficient, take the same b.u.t.t with him when the grouse are coming over."

Suddenly she straightened herself, dropping her foot from the iron and flinging the cigarette into the fire, as a gray-haired lady entered the hall. She had been a beauty years ago and now her fragility emphasized the fineness of her features and the clear pallor of her skin. She was dressed in a thin black fabric, and her beautifully shaped hands gleamed unusually white against its somber folds.

"Where's Clarence?" she asked the group collectively, in a voice that was singularly clear and penetrative. "I haven't seen him for the last half-hour."

One of the men immediately went in search of him, and the lady crossed the hall to where Millicent Gladwyne was sitting, for the time being alone. Millicent had noticed Bella's sudden change of demeanor upon her hostess's entrance, with something between amus.e.m.e.nt and faint disgust.

Mrs. Gladwyne was what Bella would have called early-Victorian in her views, and she would occasionally have been disturbed by the conversation of some of her son's guests, had she not been a little deaf.

"Sitting quiet?" she said to Millicent, who was a favorite of hers; and her voice carried farther than she was aware of as she continued: "I heard the laughter and it brought me down, though I want to tell Clarence something. I like to see bright faces; but the times have changed since I was young. We were a little more reserved and not so noisy then."

"A dear old thing! It's a pity she's quite so antediluvian," Bella remarked to a man at her side.

"Isn't that the natural penalty of being a dear old thing?" laughed her companion. "There's no doubt we have progressed pretty rapidly of late."

Clarence appeared shortly after this and was gently chidden by his mother for going out without his hat, because the autumn nights were getting chilly. A few minutes later, footsteps became audible outside the open door and Nasmyth entered the hall with Lisle. It was s.p.a.cious and indifferently lighted; the others, standing near the hostess, concealed her, and Lisle stopped for a word with Bella. Then Nasmyth noticed Mrs.

Gladwyne and called to his companion.