Thurston of Orchard Valley

The weather changed suddenly when at dusk Geoffrey rode home. In forecast of winter, a bitter breeze sighed across the heather and set the harsh grasses moaning eerily. The sky was somber overhead; scarred fell and towering pike had faded to blurs of dingy gray, and the ghostly whistling of curlew emphasized the emptiness of the darkening moor. The evening's mood suited Geoffrey's, and he rode slowly with loose bridle. The bouquet of the brandy had awakened within him a longing that he dreaded, and though, hitherto, he had been too intent upon his task to trouble about his character, it was borne in upon him that he must stand fast now or never. But it was not the thought of his own future which first appealed to him. Those who had gone before him had rarely counted consequences when tempted by either wine or women, and he would have risked that freely. Geoffrey was, however, in his own eccentric fashion, a just man, and he dared not risk bringing disaster upon Millicent. So he rode slowly, thinking hard, until the horse, which seemed affected by its master's restlessness, plunged as a dark figure rose out of the heather.

"Hallo, is it you, Evans?" asked the rider, with a forced laugh. "I thought it was the devil. He's abroad to-night."

"Thou'rt wrang, Mr. Geoffrey," answered the gamekeeper. "It's Thursday night he comes. Black Jim as broke thy head for thee is coming with t' quarrymen to poach t' covers. Got the office from yan with a grudge against t' gang, an' Captain Franklin, who's layin' for him, sends his compliments, thinkin' as maybe thee would like t' fun."

Thurston rarely forgot either an injury or a friend, and, the preceding October, when tripping, he fell helpless, Black Jim twice, with murderous intent, had brought a gun-butt down upon his unprotected skull. Excitement was at all times as wine to him, so, promising to be at the rendezvous, he rode homeward faster than before, with a sense of anticipation which helped to dull the edge of his care.

CHAPTER II

A DISILLUSION

It was a clear cold night when Geoffrey Thurston met Captain Franklin, who held certain sporting rights in the vicinity, at the place agreed upon. The captain had brought with him several amateur assistants and stablehands besides two stalwart keepers. Greeting Thurston he said:

"Very good of you to help me! Our local constable is either afraid or powerless, and I must accordingly allow Black Jim's rascals to sweep my covers or take the law into my own hands. It is the pheasants he is after now, and he'll start early so as to get his plunder off from the junction by the night mail, and because the moon rises soon. We had better divide, and you might come with Evans and me to the beeches while the others search the fir spinney."

Geoffrey, assenting, followed the officer across a dew-damped meadow and up a winding lane hung with gossamer-decked briars, until the party halted, ankle-deep among withered leaves, in a dry ditch just outside the wood. There were reasons why each detail of all that happened on that eventful night should impress itself upon Geoffrey's memory, and, long afterwards, when wandering far out in the shadow of limitless forests or the chill of eternal snow, he could recall every incident. Leaves that made crimson glories by day still clung low down about the wide-girthed trunks beyond the straggling hedge of ancient thorns, but the higher branches rose nakedly against faintly luminous sky. Spruce firs formed clumps of solid blackness, and here and there a delicate tracery of birch boughs filled gaps against the sky-line between. The meadows behind him were silent and empty, streaked with belts of spectral mist, and, because it was not very late, he could see a red glimmer of light in the windows of Barrow Hall.

But if the grass told no story it was otherwise with the wood, for Geoffrey could hear the rabbits thumping in their burrows among the roots of the thorn. Twice a cock-pheasant uttered a drowsy, raucous crow, and there was a blundering of unseen feathery bodies among the spruce, while, when this ceased, he heard a water-hen flutter with feet splashing across a hidden pool. Then heavy stillness followed, intensified by the clamor of a beck which came foaming down the side of a fell until, clattering loudly, wood-pigeons, neither asleep nor wholly awake, drove out against the sky, wheeled and fell clumsily into the wood again. All this was a plain warning, and keeper Evans nodded agreement when Captain Franklin said:

"There's somebody here, and, in order not to miss him, we'll divide our forces once more. If you'll go in by the Hall footpath, Thurston, and whistle on sight of anything suspicious, I'd be much obliged to you."

A few minutes later Thurston halted on the topmost step of the lofty stile by which a footpath from the Hall entered the wood. Looking back across misty grass land and swelling ridges of heather, he could see a faint brightness behind the eastern rim of the moor; but, when he stepped down, it was very dark among the serried tree-trunks. The slender birches had faded utterly, the stately beeches resembled dim ghosts of trees and only the spruces retained, imperfectly, their shape and form. Thurston was country bred, and, lifting high his feet to clear bramble trailer and fallen twig, he walked by feeling instead of sight. The beck moaned a little more loudly, and there was a heavy astringent odor of damp earth and decaying leaves. When beast and bird were still again it seemed as if Nature, worn out by the productive effort of summer, were sinking under solemn silence into her winter sleep.

The watcher knew the wood was a large one and unlawful visitants might well be hidden towards its farther end. He stood still at intervals, concentrating all his powers to listen, but his ears told him nothing until at last there was a rustle somewhere ahead. Puzzled by the sound, which reminded him of something curiously out of place in the lonely wood, he instantly sank down behind an ash tree.

The sound certainly was not made by withered bracken or bramble leaves, and had nothing to do with the stealthy fall of a poacher's heavy boot. It came again more clearly, and Thurston was almost sure that it was the rustle of a woven fabric, such as a woman's dress. To confirm this opinion a soft laugh followed. He rose, deciding it could only be some assignation with a maid from the Hall, and no business of his. He had turned to retreat when he noticed the eastern side of a silver fir reflect a faint shimmer. Glancing along the beam of light that filtered through a fantastic fretwork of delicate birch twigs arching a drive, he saw a broad, bright disk hanging low above the edge of the moor. It struck him that perhaps the poachers had used the girl to coax information out of a young groom or keeper, and that she was now warning them. So he waited, debating, because he was a rudely chivalrous person, how he might secure the girl's companion without involving the girl's disgrace. Again a laugh rose from beyond a thicket. Then he heard the voice of a man.

Geoffrey was puzzled, for the laugh was musical, unlike a rustic giggle; and, though the calling of the beck partly drowned it, the man's voice did not resemble that of a laborer. Thurston moved again, wondering whether it was not some affair of Leslie's from the Hall, and whether he ought not to slip away after all. The birch boughs sighed a little, there was a fluttering down of withered leaves, and he remained undecided, gripping his stout oak cudgel by the middle. Then the hot blood pulsed fiercely through every artery, for the voice rose once more, harsh and clear this time, with almost a threat in the tone, and there was no possibility of doubting that the speaker was Leslie.

"This cannot continue, Millicent," the voice said. "It has gone on too long, and I will not be trifled with. You cannot have both of us, and my patience is exhausted. Leave the fool to his folly."

Geoffrey raised the cudgel and dropped it to his side. Turning suddenly cold, he remained for a second or two almost without power of thought or motion. The disillusion was cruel. The woman's light answer filled him with returning fury and he hurled himself at a thicket from which, amid a crash of branches, he reeled out into the sight of the speakers. The moon was well clear of the moor now, and silver light and inky shadow checkered the mosses of the drive.

With a little scream of terror Millicent sprang apart from her companion's side and stood for a space staring at the man who had appeared out of the rent-down undergrowth. The pale light beat upon Geoffrey's face, showing it was white with anger. Looking from Geoffrey, the girl glanced towards Leslie, who waited in the partial shadow of a hazel bush. Even had he desired to escape, which was possible, the bush would have cut off his retreat.

Geoffrey turned fiercely from one to the other. The woman, who stood with one hand on a birch branch, was evidently struggling to regain her courage. Her lips were twitching and her pale blue eyes were very wide open. The man was shrinking back as far as possible in a manner which suggested physical fear; he had heard the dalesfolk say a savage devil, easily aroused, lurked in all the Thurstons, and the one before him looked distinctly dangerous just then. Leslie was weak in limb as well as moral fiber, and it was Geoffrey who broke the painful silence.

"What are you doing here at such an hour with this man, Millicent?" he asked sternly. "No answer! It appears that some explanation is certainly due to me – and I mean to force it out of one of you."

Millicent, saying nothing, gazed at her companion, as if conjuring him to speak plainly and to end an intolerable position. Geoffrey read her meaning, even though Leslie, who glanced longingly over his shoulder down the drive, refused to do so. Because there was spirit in her, and she had recovered from the first shock of surprise, Millicent ground one little heel into the mosses with a gesture of disgust and anger when the man made answer:

"I resent your attitude and question. We came out to see the moon rise on the moor, and found the night breeze nipping."

Geoffrey laughed harshly before he repeated: "You found the breeze nipping! There is scarcely an air astir. And you understand the relations existing between Miss Austin and me? I want a better reason. Millicent, you, at least, are not a coward – dare you give it me?"

"I challenge your right to demand an account of my actions," said the girl. With an evident effort to defy Thurston, she added, after a pause, "But the explanation must have come sooner or later, and you shall have it now. I have grown – perhaps the brutal truth is best – tired of you and your folly. You would sacrifice my future to your fantastic pride – and this man would give up everything for me."

The first heat of Geoffrey's passion was past, and he was now coldly savage because of the woman's treachery.

"Including his conscience and honor, but not his personal safety!" he supplemented contemptuously. "Millicent, one could almost admire you." Turning to Leslie he asked: "But are you struck dumb that you let the woman speak? This was my promised wife to whom you have been making love, though, for delicacy would be superfluous, it is evident that she has not discouraged you. Until three days ago I could have trusted my life to her. Now, I presume, she has pledged herself to you?"

"Yes," answered Leslie, recovering his equanimity as his fears grew less oppressive. He began to excuse himself but Geoffrey cut him short with a gesture.

"Then, even if I desired to make them, my protests would be useless," said Geoffrey. "I am at least grateful for your frankness, Millicent; it prevented me from wringing the truth from your somewhat abject lover. Had you told me honestly, when this man first spoke to you, that you had grown tired of me, I would have released you, and I would have tried to wish you well. Now I can only say, that at least you know the worst of each other – and there will be less disappointment when, stripped of either mutual or self respect, you begin life together. But I was forgetting that Franklin's keepers are searching the wood. Some of them might talk. Go at once by the Hall path, as softly as you can."

The man and the girl were plainly glad to hurry away, and Geoffrey waited until the sound of their footsteps became scarcely audible before he heeded a faint rustling which indicated that somebody with a knowledge of woodcraft was forcing a passage through the undergrowth. He broke a dry twig at intervals as he walked slowly for a little distance. Then he dropped on hands and knees to cross a strip of open sward at an angle to his previous course, and lay still in the black shadow of a spruce. It was evident that somebody was following his trail, and the pursuer, passing his hiding-place, followed it straight on. Geoffrey's was a curious character, and the very original cure for a disappointment in love, that of baffling a game watcher while his faithless mistress escaped, brought him relief; it left no time for reflection.

Presently he dashed across a bare strip of velvet mosses and rabbit-cropped turf, slipped between the roots of the hedge, and, running silently beneath it, halted several score yards away face to face with the astonished keeper. "Weel, I'm clanged; this clean beats me," gasped that worthy. "Hello, behind there. It's only Mr. Geoffrey, sir. Didst see Black Jim slip out this way, or hear a scream a laal while gone by?"

"I saw no one," answered Geoffrey, "but I heard the scream. It was not unlike a hare squealing in a snare. You and I must have been stalking each other, Evans, and Black Jim can't be here."

The rest came up as they spoke, and Captain Franklin said, "You seem badly disappointed at missing your old enemy, Thurston. I never saw you look so savage. I expect Black Jim has tricked us, after all."

"I've had several troubles lately, and don't find much amusement in hunting poachers who aren't there," said Geoffrey. "You will excuse me from going back with you."

He departed across the meadows, at a swinging pace, and the keeper, who stared after him, commented:

"Something gradely wrang with Mr. Geoffrey to-night. They're an ill folk to counter yon, and it's maybe as well for Black Jim as Mr. Geoffrey didn't get hold on him."

Geoffrey saw no more of Millicent, but once he visited her younger sister, a gentle invalid, who, because of the friendship which had long existed between them, said: "You must try to believe I mean it in kindness when I say that I am not wholly sorry, Geoffrey. You and Millicent would never have gotten on well together, and while I wish the awakening could have happened in a more creditable way, you will realize – when somebody else makes you happy – that all has been for the best."

"That day will be long in coming," declared the man, grimly, and the sick girl laid a thin white hand on his hard one as she answered him.

"It is not a flattering speech, and you must not lose faith in all of us," the invalid went on. "Lying still here, helpless, I have often thought about both of you, and I feel that you have done well in choosing a new life in a new country. When you go out, Geoffrey, you will take my fervent wishes for your welfare with you."

Janet Austin was frail and worn by pain. Her pale face flushed a little as the man suddenly stooped and touched her forehead with his lips.

"God bless you for your kindly heart," he said. "A ruined man has very few friends, and many acquaintances are waiting to convince him that his downfall is the result of his own folly, but" – and he straightened his wiry frame, while his eyes glinted – "they have not seen the end, and even if beaten, there is satisfaction in a stubborn, single-handed struggle."

Janet Austin, perhaps thinking of her own helplessness, sighed as she answered:

"I do not think you will be beaten, Geoffrey, but if you will take advice from me, remember that over-confidence in your powers and the pride that goes with it may cost you many a minor victory. Good-by, and good luck, Geoffrey. You will remember me."

That afternoon, while Thurston was in the midst of preparations to leave his native land, the mining engineer called upon him with a provincial newspaper in his hand. "I suppose this is your answer," he remarked, laying his finger on a paragraph.

"Mr. G. Thurston, who has, in the face of many difficulties, attempted to exploit the copper vein in Crosbie Fell, has been compelled to close the mine," the printed lines ran. "We understand he came upon an unexpected break in the strata, coupled with a subsidence which practically precludes the possibility of following the lost lead with any hope of commercial success. He has, therefore, placed his affairs in the hands of Messrs. Lonsdale & Routh, solicitors, and, we understand, intends emigrating. His many friends and former employees wish him success."

"Yes," Geoffrey answered dryly, "I sent them the information, also a copy to London financial papers. Considering the interest displayed just now in British mines, they should insert a paragraph. I've staked down your backers' game in return for your threats, and you may be thankful you have come off so easily. Your check is ready. It is the last you will ever get from me."

The expert smiled almost good-naturedly. "You needn't have taken so much trouble, Thurston," he said. "The exploitation of your rabbit burrow would only have been another drop in the bucket to my correspondents, and it's almost a pity we can't be friends, for, with some training, your sledge-hammer style would make its mark in the ring."

"Thanks!" replied Geoffrey. "I'm not fishing for compliments, and it's probably no use explaining my motives – you wouldn't understand them. Still, in future, don't set down every man commonly honest as an uncommon fool. If I ever had much money, which is hardly likely, I should fight extremely shy of any investments recommended by your friends!"

CHAPTER III

GEOFFREY'S FIRST CONTRACT

It was springtime among the mountains which, glistening coldly white with mantles of eternal snow, towered above the deep-sunk valley, when, one morning, Geoffrey Thurston limped painfully out of a redwood forest of British Columbia. The boom of a hidden river set the pine sprays quivering. A blue grouse was drumming deliriously on the top of a stately fir, and the morning sun drew clean, healing odors from balsam and cedar.