By Right of Purchase Part 3

"One would certainly imagine that it was his means."

Leland left her presently. As she watched him stride along the terrace, her shrewd, faded face grew gentle.

"If I have read that man aright, there may be results," she said. "In that case, I almost fancy Carrie will have much to thank me for."

Then she rose and, crossing the quadrangle, sought the card-room. It was an hour later when she came upon Carrie Denham sitting alone.

"I have been talking to Mr. Leland, and am rather pleased with him," she said to the girl. "He is a curious compound of simplicity and forcefulness. They must live like anchorites out there."

Carrie Denham laughed. "I thought that type was distinctly out of date now. It probably has its disadvantages."

"Still," said Mrs. Annersly with an air of reflection, "he would scarcely jar as much on one's self-respect as the people one would meet as the wife of the other sort of man."

CHAPTER III

PRESSURE OF CIRc.u.mSTANCES

The early breakfast over, Leland was walking up and down beneath the red beeches that grew close up to the old arched gateway of Barrock-holme, one of his fellow guests beside him, and a gun under his arm. Looking in through the quadrangle, they saw a young groom holding with some difficulty a restive, champing horse that pawed the gravel and shook his head impatiently.

"He doesn't like waiting either," said Leland's companion to the groom.

"How long have you been holding him here?"

"About half an hour, Mr. Terry," said the groom.

Terry glanced at Leland with a little uplifting of his brows, and again addressed the groom.

"You can't pack all of us into that dog-cart, and it's four miles, anyway, to the edge of Garberry moor," he said. "Do you know how we are expected to get there?"

"Mr. Parsons of the Dell farm keeps a smart cart, and he promised to lend it Mr. James when he heard we had the tire loose on our other one.

It should have been here."

"Then why isn't it?"

Leland fancied that a suspicion of a smile flickered in the man's eyes.

"I don't know, sir, unless Mr. James forgot to let him know when we wanted it."

"I should consider it very probable," said Terry drily. "Have you any objections to walking on as far as the Dell, Leland? It wouldn't astonish me greatly if Jimmy kept us waiting an hour yet."

Leland having no objections, they strode away together. Beech-mast crackled underfoot between the colonnades of lichened trunks, whose great branches stayed the high, vaulted roof of gold and crimson leaves.

Looking out through the openings between, one could see the sweep of rolling champaign stretch away into the horizon through gradations of blueness, and the rigid line of the fells smeared with warm brown patches of withered bracken.

"It's rather a shame that Jimmy and his father should have a place of this kind in their hands at all," said Terry. "Still, for the credit of the country, I should like to explain that there are not very many English properties run on the same lines. In fact, the Denhams are an exception to everything, but I really think Jimmy might have got up in time for once in a way."

Leland laughed. "The loss of an hour's shooting seems to count with you."

"It does. You see, like a good many other people, I have to work rather hard for my living, and time is of a little more value to me than it apparently is to Jimmy Denham. Besides, my stay here has cost me a good deal more than I expected, and, being engaged in commerce, I can't help feeling that I ought to get something in return for my money."

"I don't quite understand that last remark."

"No?" said Terry. "Well, perhaps you don't. In fact, I have had a fancy that you were a bona-fide guest. You see, two or three of us aren't."

"Will you make that a little clearer?" And Leland looked astonished, though he remembered now several little incidents that had struck him as strange.

"With pleasure. Indeed, I feel I owe it to Jimmy for his losing us an hour or two every day. Our amus.e.m.e.nt costs two or three of us a good deal directly, as well as the other way. Brans...o...b.. Denham, naturally, doesn't advertise Barrock-holme as a shooting hotel, but, though affairs are arranged more tastefully, it amounts to much the same thing. You share expenses of watching and turning down hand-reared birds, and you get so many days' shooting with entertainment thrown in. The latter, however, is usually costly. One way or the other, Jimmy has taken one hundred pounds out of me."

"Ah," said Leland. "Is that sort of thing common in this country? I had a notion that you were rather proud of yourselves. It wouldn't strike us as quite nice in Western Canada."

"No," said the other man. "Still, it's done occasionally, and, as to family pride, you are not likely to come across anybody who has more of it than the Denhams. How they reconcile it with some of the things they do is a different matter; but you can take it as a rule that the less people have to congratulate themselves upon, the prouder they are. In fact, Jimmy Denham, who, though one can't help liking him, is a downright bad egg, was at first a little shy of me. I am a partner in a concern making a certain advertised specialty, you see."

"I wonder," said Leland reflectively, "if the girls quite understand the position."

"I don't think they do. Anyway, not exactly. Indeed, it's a little difficult to believe they're daughters of Brans...o...b.. Denham, or sisters of Jimmy. They show some trace of sense and temper, whilst you can't ruffle Jimmy. Still, I fancy, if it were necessary, they would stand by their delightful relatives through thick and thin."

Leland lapsed into thoughtful silence. He fancied that his companion was right, for he had seen a good deal of Carrie Denham during the month he had now spent at Barrock-holme. She had been, in her own reserved fas.h.i.+on, gracious to him, and Leland did not in the least resent the fact that there was in all she said a suggestion of condescension that he surmised was unconscious. Indeed, this struck him as being what it should be. Though quite aware of his own value where men were concerned, he had seen very few women, and regarded them in general with a vague, uncomprehending respect. Furthermore, the girl's physical beauty, her pride and almost stately coldness, made a strong appeal to him. She was, he was quite willing to admit, a being of a very different order from a plain Western farmer. Besides that, she was the one person who had quite come up to his expectations, for his visit to the old country had in most respects brought him disillusionment.

His father had often spoken of it with all the exile's appreciation of the home he had left, and he could remember his mother's daintiness and refinement; it was, perhaps, not astonis.h.i.+ng that he had learned to idealise the old land and those who lived in it. It was also unfortunate that, whilst it might have happened differently, the few English men and women he had met on any terms of intimacy during his stay in London had resembled the Denhams more or less, and it had hurt him to discover what he considered was the reality. For Jimmy and his father he had a tolerant contempt, and it was, in fact, only the presence of Carrie Denham that had kept him at Barrock-holme so long. He was sorry for her, and had a vague fancy that she might need a friend. There was a vein of chivalry in him, and he was also a just man. His sense of justice led him to play billiards periodically for somewhat heavy stakes with Jimmy.

It was one way of getting even, as he expressed it, for he did not care to be indebted to a man he looked down upon. Jimmy, who was skilful and almost suspiciously fortunate at both billiards and cards, had also no objections to emptying the pockets of his guests, though, as Leland was aware, the chance stranger very seldom leaves a ranch of Western Canada any poorer than when he came there.

In the meanwhile it happened that Brans...o...b.. Denham sat talking to his son in what he called his library. The few books in it for the most part related to the estate, for Denham had reasons for not trusting his affairs altogether to a steward or country lawyer. He was, in some respects, a handsome man, though his eyes were of too pale a blue, and his thin face, in spite of its unmistakable stamp of refinement, lacked character. The room was in the old tower, ceiled with dark wood and sombrely panelled, with one long, narrow leaded-gla.s.s window. The tall, sparely-framed man with his white hands and immaculate dress seemed out of place there. He was essentially modern, the room belonged to the more virile past. There was a pile of letters before him, and he took one up delicately.

"If I could have foreseen that it would lead to this kind of thing, I should never have consented to your grandfather's breaking the entail,"

he said, with a little whimsical smile. "Lancely has written me in his usual stand-and-deliver style again:--'I am now directed to inform you that, unless the last instalment with arrears of interest is remitted me by next quarter-day, my clients will regretfully feel themselves compelled to foreclose.'"

He laid down the letter with a little lifting of his brows. "I really think they mean it at last, and their mortgage covers most of the Dell, and the leys on Stapleton's holding. I suppose it is no use asking if you could dispense with your next allowance."

Jimmy Denham laughed, though he was quite aware that the occasion was serious enough. "I'm afraid not, sir. In fact, as I had regretfully to admit, unless I can raise two hundred pounds in addition to it before my leave runs out, I shall probably have to send in my papers. Fortunately, I think I can manage it."

He spoke quite frankly, and there was nothing in the att.i.tude of either to suggest that one was a father embarra.s.sed by financial difficulties and the other a spendthrift son. Indeed, they faced each other as comrades, one could almost have said confederates, for in spite of their shortcomings, which were somewhat plentiful, the Denhams at least recognised the family bond, standing by one another in everything.

"In that case," said Brans...o...b.. Denham, "the allowance must stand, though I don't know at present where it is to come from. The other affair is more difficult. In fact, unless we face it resolutely it might become serious."

"So one would imagine," said Jimmy, reflectively. "The Dell is the best farm we have, and to let those fellows have it would make things a little too plain to everybody. Besides, it's splitting up the property.

To a certain extent, of course, we are living upon our credit."

Brans...o...b.. Denham nodded, though there was a curious look in his pale blue eyes as he fixed them on his son.

"I'm rather afraid you don't quite grasp the point," he said. "You see, Lancely's man holds a mortgage on most of the Dell; but, as you, perhaps, remember, Lennox lent me a couple of thousand, with the plough-land in the bottom as security. He did it as a friend, and didn't worry much about his papers, while I'm not sure I remembered to mention Lancely's bond to him, so there is what one might call a certain overlapping of the mortgages. Then I found it necessary to realise a little on the oaks and beeches at Arkil bank."

Jimmy's face grew grave. "I rather fancy they brought you in a good deal. They were unusually good trees. You sold the timber after you raised the money on the mortgages?"

"I did. That is just the point of it. I needn't say that I had then a scheme of retrenchment in my mind which would provide a kind of sinking fund to meet the interest, and in due time extinguish the loan, in which case the question of the timber would, naturally, never have been raised. Unfortunately, the fall in rents and one or two other matters--rendered it unworkable."

Jimmy made a gesture of comprehending sympathy. "I'm afraid it would look rather bad, sir, if it came out. Lancely's man might make a good deal of trouble if he wants his timber and finds it isn't there, to say nothing of what Lennox, who, it seems, has a claim on it as well, might do. Still, no doubt, you did what you could, sir, and I'm rather afraid it was one or two of my little extravagances that put some of the pressure on you. I needn't say that if there is anything I can do, down to cutting the service--or bearing part of the responsibility----"