Carmen's Messenger Part 15

"You can fix her all right, I suppose?" he said to the driver.

The latter said something about a sparking-plug, and when Daly stooped over the engine the light of a lamp shone into his face. He was a big, handsome man, but Foster, studying him closely, noted his hard and greedy eyes. For a moment, he came near forgetting the need for caution and giving way to a fit of rage. The fellow had it in his power to bring disgrace upon upright people and drag an honored name in the mire. He could humble Alice Featherstone's pride and ruin the brother she loved.

Lawrence had done wrong, but had paid for it and made good in Canada, and now the rogue who had learned his secret would drag him down, or, as the price of silence, bring his relatives to poverty. Foster felt that Daly was not the man to be merciful when there was an advantage to be got; one saw a sinister hint of cruelty in his coa.r.s.ely-handsome face. It would have been a relief to provoke the fellow and throw him out of the garage, but Foster knew he must deny himself this satisfaction, since it would make things worse for those he meant to s.h.i.+eld. He did not remember having felt so full of primitive savageness before, but he exercised his self-control.

Standing in the shadow, he turned his head, looking down at the lamp he began to take to pieces, and presently Daly said to the driver, "You had better get some food; I'll want you soon."

Then he came back and pa.s.sing close enough to touch Foster, went up the steps and through a door. Foster put down the lamp and strolled out of the garage. He found dinner ready at his hotel and when he had finished went to the smoking-room, which was opposite the office. He left the door open and by and by heard a man enter the hall and stop at the counter.

"Have you an American called Franklin here?" he asked and Foster smiled as he recognized Daly's voice.

He had half-expected the visit, and the inquiry was cleverly framed.

Daly had not asked about a Canadian, because the accent of Western Canada is that of the United States, and Franklin resembled Featherstone enough to prompt the girl clerk to mention the latter if he were a guest. For all that, Daly was ignorant of the Scottish character, because the Scot seldom offers information that is not demanded.

"No," she said, "we have no American staying with us."

Foster thought Daly opened the visitors' book, which lay on the counter, but as he had not yet entered his name, there was nothing to be learned from it. Still Daly might come into the smoking-room, and he picked up the _Scotsman_ and leaning back in his chair held up the newspaper to hide his face. After a few moments, Daly said, "I don't know anybody here; it looks as if my friends aren't in the town."

Then he went along the hall, and when the door shut Foster put down the newspaper and began to think. He imagined that Daly hardly expected to find Featherstone in Hawick, but it was curious that he was going to Langholm, which was on the best road to Lockerbie in Annandale. It was the police Foster had tried to put off the track at the clachan by striking west across the moors, and he did not think Daly had anything to do with them. He could see no light on the matter, but when he went back to the garage it was something of a relief to find the car had gone.

XIII

FOSTER RETURNS TO THE GARTH

After breakfast next morning Foster asked the hotel porter to take his knapsack to the station and get him a ticket to Carlisle. He must leave a clew for Daly, who might come back to Hawick when he failed to find him in Annandale but would be badly puzzled if he went to Carlisle, because it was an important railway center, where one would have a choice of several different routes. This would give Foster a few quiet days, after which he must think of a way of inducing Daly to resume the chase. The latter probably thought he was following Lawrence, and if he did not, no doubt concluded that Foster was working in concert with him, and to find one would help him to deal with the other.

It was a dark morning and the smoke of the woolen factories hung about the town. A few lights burned in the station, but the building was gloomy and Foster had some trouble in finding the porter among the waiting pa.s.sengers. Soon after he did so, the train came in and the man hurried along the platform, looking into the carriages.

"Ye wanted a corridor, sir," he said as he opened a door.

Foster got in and stood at the window until the porter went away.

People were running up and down looking for places, but he had no time to lose. Opening the door on the opposite side, he went along the corridor and stood for a moment on the step at the other end of the carriage. He could not see the porter, and when two or three pa.s.sengers ran up got down from the step. Next moment the whistle blew, the engine snorted, and the train rolled out of the station.

As none of the porters spoke to him, Foster thought he had managed the thing neatly and made it look as if he had come to see somebody off instead of having been left behind. For all that, he waited a minute or two, studying a time-table, to avoid the risk of overtaking the hotel porter; and then made his way by back streets out of the town.

For some miles, the road he took ran south up a well-cultivated valley, past turnip and stubble fields and smooth pasture; and then changed to a rough stony track that climbed a hill.

A turn shut in the valley when he reached higher ground, and a long stretch of moor rolled away ahead. Foster thought these sharp transitions from intensive cultivation to the sterile wilds were characteristic of southern Scotland. It had rained since he left Hawick, but now the sun shone down between the clouds and bright gleams and flying shadows chased each other across the waste. To the south the sky was clear and shone with a lemon-yellow glow, against which the rounded hills rose, delicately gray. In one place there was a gap that Foster thought was Liddesdale, and his path led across the latter towards the head of Tyne. Not a house broke the sweep of withered gra.s.s and heath, and only the crying of plover that circled in the distance disturbed the silence.

Foster liked the open trail and went on with a light step, until as he crossed the watershed and the country sloped to the south, he came to a wire fence and saw the black mouth of a railway tunnel beneath. It was now about two o'clock, and feeling hungry, he sat down where a bank cut off the wind, and took out some food he had bought at Hawick. He did not know if he found the s.h.i.+ning rails and row of telegraph posts that curved away down the hillside out of place, but somehow they made him feel foolishly unconventional. His boots and mackintosh were wet, he was lunching on sweet biscuits and gingerbread, and did not know where he would spend the night, although it would not be at a comfortable hotel. Until he saw the tunnel, he had felt at home in the wilds and might have done so yet, had he, for example, been driving a flock of sheep; but the railway was disturbing.

In this country, people traveled by steam-heated trains, instead of on foot, and engaged a lawyer to defend them from their enemies. He was going back to the methods of two or three centuries ago, and not even doing this properly, since the moss-troopers who once rode through those hills carried lances instead of a check-book, which was after all his best weapon. He laughed and felt himself something of a modern Don Quixote as he lighted his pipe.

Then there was a roar in the tunnel and a North British express, leaping out through a cloud of smoke, switched his thoughts on to another track. His adventures had begun in a train, and it was in a train he met the girl who warned him not to deliver Carmen's packet.

He did not see what the packet had to do with him, but he had had some trouble about it and thought it might turn up again. Then he wondered whether Daly was now in Annandale. The fellow was obviously determined to find Lawrence, and, if one admitted that he had come to England for the purpose, did not mind how much it cost him, which was rather strange. After all, blackmailing was a risky business and the Featherstones were not rich. It looked as if Daly might have some other object in tracking Lawrence, but Foster could not see what it was. Indeed, he was frankly puzzled. There was a mystery about Carmen's packet, he had been warned out of Edinburgh, and inquiries about him were afterwards made, while Daly's keenness was not quite explained. He wondered whether these things were somehow related, but at present they only offered him tangled clews that led nowhere. Well, he might be able to unravel them by and by, and getting up went on his way.

He spent the night at a lonely cothouse on the edge of a peat-moss and reached the Garth next afternoon. John let him in and after taking his mackintosh remarked: "Mr. and Mrs. Featherstone are out, but Miss Featherstone is at home; I will let her know you have arrived." Then he paused and added in a half-apologetic tone: "I hope you had a pleasant journey, sir."

Foster smiled. John had softened his imperturbable formality by just the right touch of respectful interest. In a sense, they were accomplices, but Foster thought if they had committed a crime together, the old fellow would have treated him with unmoved deference as his master's guest.

"On the whole, I had. I suppose you met the other car when you turned back at the station?"

"Yes, sir. I met it coming round the bend."

"As the road's narrow, your judgment's pretty good. Did anything happen?"

John's eyes twinkled faintly. "Not to our car, sir. The other had the bad luck to run on to the gra.s.s where the ground was soft. In fact, we had some trouble to pull her out. The gentleman seemed annoyed, sir."

Foster went to his room chuckling. He could imagine the deferential way in which John, who had caused the accident, had offered help. When we went down Alice met him in the hall and he thrilled at something in her manner as she gave him her hand. It was getting dark and the glow of the fire flickered among the shadows, but there was only one lamp, and as it was shaded the light did not travel far beyond the small table, on which tea was presently served. This hinted at seclusion and homelike intimacy. An embroidered cloth half-covered the dark, polished oak, the china was old but unusually delicate, and the blue flame of a spirit lamp burned beneath the copper kettle.

Foster thought everything showed signs of fastidious taste, but there was something austere about it that harmonized with the dignified shabbiness of the house. It was, for example, very different from the prettiness of the Edinburgh tea-room, and he thought it hinted of the character of the Borderers. For all that, the society of his companion had the greatest charm. Alice was plainly dressed, but simplicity became her. The girl had the Border spirit, with its reserves of strength and tenderness. Now she was quietly friendly, but Foster knew her friends.h.i.+p was not lightly given and was worth much.

Alice made him talk about his journey and he did so frankly, except that he did not mention his meeting the girl in the tea-room or the detective's visit to his hotel. Still he felt a certain embarra.s.sment, as he had done when he told his partner's story. It was rather hard to relate his own exploits, and he knew Alice would note any error he was led into by vanity or false diffidence.

"Then it was really to keep a promise to Miss Austin you went to Newcastle," she remarked presently. "Since she sent you with the packet, you must know her pretty well."

"Yes," said Foster, "in a way, we are good friends. You see there are not a great many people at the Crossing."

Alice gave him a quiet glance. He was not such a fool as to imagine it mattered to her whether he knew Carmen well or not. But he thought she was not altogether pleased.

"What is Miss Austin like?" she asked.

Foster was careful about his reply. He wanted Alice to understand that he was not Carmen's lover, which needed tact; but he was her friend and must do her justice, while any breach of good taste would be noted and condemned. He did his best, without learning if he had produced the right effect, for Alice let the matter drop, as if it no longer interested her.

"Perhaps it's a pity you helped the men who were poaching," she said.

"I'm afraid you're fond of romantic adventures."

"I'm sometimes rash and sorry afterwards," Foster admitted. "However, there's an excuse for the other thing. This is a romantic country and I've spent a long time in Canada, which is altogether businesslike."

Alice gave him an approving smile, but she said, "One shouldn't be sorry afterwards. Isn't that rather weak?"

"I'm human," Foster rejoined. "A thing looks different when you come to pay for doing it. It's pretty hard not to feel sorry then."

"After all, that may be better than counting the cost beforehand and leaving the thing undone."

"You're a Borderer; one of the headstrong, old-fas.h.i.+oned kind that broke the invasions and afterwards defied their own rulers for a whim."

"As a matter of fact, a number of them were very businesslike. They fought for their enemies' cattle and the ransom of captured knights."

"Not always," Foster objected. "At Flodden, where the Ettrick spears all fell in the smashed squares, the Scots king came down from his strong camp to meet the English on equal terms. Then it wasn't businesslike when Buccleugh, with his handful of men, carried off Kimmont Willie from Carlisle. There was peace between the countries and he had two offended sovereigns to hold him accountable."

"It looks as if you had been reading something about our history,"

Alice said smiling.

"I haven't read much," Foster answered modestly. "Still, we have a few books at the mill, and in the long winter evenings, when the thermometer marks forty degrees below and you sit close to the red-hot stove, there's nothing to do but read. It would be hard for you to picture our little room; the match-boarding, split by the changes from heat to bitter cold, the smell of hot iron, the dead silence, and the grim white desolation outside. Perhaps it's curious, but after working hard all day, earning dollars, one can't read rubbish. One wants romance, but romance that's real and has the truth in it."

"But your own life has been full of adventure."