The Star-Gazers

Volume Two – Chapter Nine.

The Major Happens to be there

A poaching affray was too common an affair in the neighbourhood of Brackley to make much stir. Sir John went in for two or three discussions with his keepers, and the rural policeman had been summoned, this worthy feeling sure that he would be able – in his own words – to put his hand upon the parties; but though the officer might have had the ability to put his hand upon the parties, he did not do so, or if he did, he forgot to close it. Then the dog was buried, and as a set off, Sir John had a fire made of the nets and stakes that had been taken from the gang; these, and their spoil of several brace of pheasants and partridges and a few hares, having been left behind in their hurried flight.

So, as it happened, the active and intelligent constable made no discoveries; but Rolph did, and whereas the one would have revelled in the hopes of promotion, and in seeing his name several times in the county paper; the other, when he had made his discovery, said only – and to himself – that it was “doosid awkward,” and held his peace.

“I never did see such a girl as you are to read,” said Rolph, entering the drawing-room one afternoon, when he had ridden over from Aldershot; “at it again.”

He spoke lightly and merrily, and Glynne hastily put aside her book, and rose from her chair.

“Did you want me to go out for a ride, Robert?” she said rather eagerly.

“Well, no; not this afternoon.”

The smile Glynne had called up, and which came with an unbidden flush, died out slowly, and a look of calmness, even of relief, dawned upon her countenance as the young man went on.

“Thought you wouldn’t mind if we didn’t go this afternoon. Looks a bit doubtful, too. Quite fine, now, but the weather does change so rapidly.”

“Does it?” said Glynne, looking at him rather wistfully.

“Yes. I think it’s the pine woods. High trees. Attract moisture. Don’t say it is, dear. I’m not big at that sort of thing, but we do have a deal of rain here.”

“Why, papa was complaining the other day about want of water,” said Glynne, smiling.

“Ah, that was for his turnips. They want rain. You won’t be disappointed?”

“I? – oh, no,” said Glynne, quietly.

“Think I’ll do a bit of training this afternoon. I’m not quite up to the mark.”

“Are you always going to train so much, dear?” said Glynne, thoughtfully.

“Always? Eh? Always? Oh, no; of course not; but it’s a man’s duty to get himself up to the very highest pitch of health and strength. But if you’d set your mind upon a ride, we’ll go.”

“I? – oh, no,” said Glynne. “I thought you wished it, dear.”

“That’s all right then,” said Rolph, cheerfully. “By-bye, beauty,” he said, kissing her. “I say, Glynne, ’pon my word, I think you are the most lovely woman I ever saw.”

She smiled at him as he turned at the doorway, nodding back at her, and she remained fixed to the spot as the captain, cigar in mouth, passed directly after, turning to kiss his hand as he saw her dimly through the window.

For Glynne did not run across the room to stand and watch him till he was out of sight, but remained where he had left her, with a couple of dull red spots glowing in her cheeks for a time, and then dying slowly out, leaving her very pale.

Glynne was thinking deeply, and it was evident that her thoughts were giving her pain, for her eyes darkened, then half-closed, and she slowly walked up and down the room a few times, and then returned to her chair, to bend over, rest her head upon her hand, and sit gazing straight before her at the soft carpet, remaining almost motionless for quite half-an-hour, when she sighed deeply, took up her book, and continued reading.

Rolph went right off at once through the park and out across the long meadow and into the fir wood, where, as if led by some feeling of attraction, he made for the spot where the encounter had taken place a week before, and stopped for a few minutes to gaze at the ground, as if he expected to see the traces still there.

“Tchah!” he exclaimed, impatiently; “it was an accident. Guns will go off sometimes.”

He wrenched himself away, walking on amongst the trees rapidly for a time, and then stopped to relight his cigar, whose near end was a good deal gnawed and shortened.

“Tchah!” he ejaculated again. “I won’t think of it. Just as well blame oneself, if a fellow in one’s troop goes down, and breaks his leg in a charge.”

He puffed furiously at his cigar as he went on, and then forgot it again, so that it went out, and he threw it away impatiently, thrust his hands into his pockets, and walked as fast as the nature of the ground would permit.

For, evidently with the idea of giving himself a very severe course of training, he kept in the woods where the pathways were rugged and winding and so little frequented that at times the young growth crossed, switching his hat or face, and often having to be beaten back by the hands which he unwillingly withdrew from his pockets.

Rolph probably meant to reach some particular spot before he turned, for twice over he crossed a lane, and instead of taking advantage of the better path afforded, he plunged again into the woods and went on.

At the end of an hour he came upon another lane more solitary and unused than those he had passed. It was a mere track occasionally used by the woodcutters for a timber wagon, and the marks of the broad wheels were here and there visible in the white sand, which as a rule trickled down into all depressions, fine as that in an hour-glass, and hid the marks left by man.

“Rather warm,” muttered Rolph as he was crossing the sandy track; and he was in the act of charging up the bank on the other side, when there was a cheery hail, and as he turned with an angry ejaculation, he became aware of the fact that Sir John was coming along the lane upon one of his ponies, whose tread was unheard in the soft sand.

“Why, hullo, Rob, where are you going?” cried the baronet. “You look like a lost man in a forest.”

“Do I? oh, only having a good breather. Getting a little too much fat. Must keep myself down. Ride very heavy with all my accoutrements.”

“Hah! Yes. You’re a big fellow,” said Sir John, looking at him rather fixedly. “Why didn’t you have the horses out, then, and take Glynne for a ride?”

“Glynne? By Jove, sir, I did propose it, only she had got a book in the drawing-room.”

“Damn the books!” cried Sir John, pettishly. “She reads too much. But, hang it all, Rob, my lad, don’t let her grow into a bookworm because she’s engaged. She’s not half the girl she was before this fixture, as you’d call it, was made.”

“Well, really, I – ”

“Yes, yes, I know what you’d say. You do your best. But, hang it all, don’t let her mope, and be always indoors. Plenty of time for that when there are half-a-dozen children in the nursery, eh? Coming back my way?”

“No. Oh, no,” cried Rolph, hastily; “I must finish my walk. I shall take a short cut back. Been for a ride?”

“I? Pooh! I don’t go for rides, my lad. I’ve been to see my sheep on the hills, and I’ve another lot to see. There, good-bye till dinner-time, if you won’t come.”

He touched his pony’s ribs and cantered off. Rolph plunging into the wood, and hastily glancing at his watch as he hurried on.

“Lovers are different to what they were when I was a young fellow,” said Sir John. “We were a bit chivalrous and attentive then. Pooh! So they are now. There’s no harm in the lad. It isn’t such a bad thing to keep his body in a state of perfection – real perfection of health and strength. Makes a young fellow moral and pure-minded; but I wish he would devote himself more to Glynne. Take her out more; she looks too pale.”

“Hang him! I wish he had been at Jericho,” muttered the subject of Sir John’s thoughts. “Let’s see, I can keep along all the way in the woods now. I sha’n’t meet any one there.”

The prophecy concerning people held good for a quarter of an hour or so, and then, turning rapidly into an open fir glade, Rolph found out that being prophetic does not pay without a long preliminary preparation, and an ingenious consideration of probabilities and the like, for he suddenly came plump upon the major, stooping down, trowel in hand – so suddenly, in fact, that he nearly fell over him, and the two started back, the one with a muttered oath, the other with words of surprise.

“Why, I didn’t expect to find you in this out-of-the-way place,” said the major.

“By Jove, that’s just what I was going to say,” cried Rolph.

“Not raw beef-steaks this time, is it?” said the major with a grim look full of contempt.

“Steaks – raw steaks. I don’t understand you.”

“This is rough woodland; you are not training now, are you?” said the major, carefully placing what looked like a handful of dirty little blackish potatoes in his fishing creel.

“Training? Well, yes, of course I am. Keeping myself up to the mark,” retorted Rolph. “A soldier, in my opinion, ought to be the very perfection of manly strength.”

“Well, yes,” said the major, rubbing the soil off one of his dirty little truffles, and then polishing his bright little steel trowel with a piece of newspaper, “but the men of my time did pretty well with no other training than their military drill.”

“Autres– I forget the rest,” said Rolph. “I never was good at French. It means other fellows had other manners in other times, major. Got a good haul of toadstools?”

“No, sir, I have not got a good haul of toadstools to-day; but I have unearthed a few truffles. Should you like a dish for dinner?”

“Thanks, no. Not coming my way, I suppose?”

“No,” said the major. “I think I shall trudge back.”

“Ho!” exclaimed Rolph. “Well, then, I’ll say ta-ta, till dinner-time;” and he went off at a good swinging pace.

“Almost looks as if they were watching me,” muttered the young officer, as he trudged on. “Tchah! no! The old boys wouldn’t do that, either of them;” and he turned into one of the thickest portions of the wood.

The major kept on rubbing his little steel trowel till long after it was dry, and then slowly sheathed it, as if it were a sword, before going thoughtfully on hunting up various specimens of the singular plants that he made his study.

“It’s very curious,” he mused, “very. Women are unmistakably enigmas, and I suppose that things must take their course. Bless me! I must want some of his training. It’s very warm.”

He stopped, took out his handkerchief, a genuine Indian bandanna, that he had brought home himself years ago, and now very soft and pleasant to the touch, but decidedly the worse for wear. He wiped his face, took off his hat, and had a good dab at his forehead, and then, after a few minutes’ search round the bole of a huge beech, whose bark was ornamented with patches of lovely cream and grey lichens, he stopped short to look at a great broad buttress-like root, which spread itself in so tempting a way that it suggested a comfortable garden seat, a great favourite of the major’s. Then, with a smile of satisfaction, the old man sat down, shuffled himself about a little, and finally found it so agreeable, with his back resting against the tree, that he fell into a placid state of musing on the various specimens he had collected; from them he began to think of his niece, then of Lucy Alleyne, and then of Rolph, returning to his niece by a natural sequence, and then thinking extremely deeply of nothing.

It was wonderfully quiet out there in the woods. Now and then a bird chirped, and the harsh caw of a rook, softened by distance, was heard. Anon there came a tap on the ground, as if something had fallen from high up in the big tree, and then, after a pause, there was a rustle and swishing about of twigs and leaves, as something bounded from bough to bough, ran lightly along the bigger branches, and finally stopped, gazing with bright, dark eyes at the sleeping intruder. The latter made no sign, so after a while, the squirrel gave its beautiful, bushy tail a few twitches, uttered a low, impatient sound that resembled the chopping of wood on a block, and then scurried down the bole of the tree, picked up something, and ran off.

Soon after a rabbit came cantering among the leaves, sat up, raising it ears stiffly above its head, drooped its fore paws, and stared in turn at the sleeper, till, gaining confidence from his motionless position, it played about, ran round, gave two or three leaps from the ground, and then proceeded to nibble at various succulent herbs that grew just outside the drip from the branches of the beech.

The rabbit disappeared in turn, and after picking up a worm that had slipped out of the ground, consequent upon the rabbit having given a few scratches, in one place, a round-eyed robin flitted to a low, bare twig of the beech, and sat inspecting the major, as if he were one of the children lost in the wood, and it was necessary to calculate how many leaves it would take to cover him before the task was commenced.

The delicious, scented silence of the wood continued for long enough, and then closely following each other, with a peculiarly silent flight, half-a-dozen grey birds came down a green arcade straight for the great beech, where one of them, with vivid blue edges to its wings, all lined with black, and a fierce black pair of moustachios, set up its loose, speckled, warm grey crest, and uttered a most demonically harsh cry of “schah-tchah-tchah!” taking flight at once, followed by its companions, giving vent to the same harsh scream in reply, and making the major start from his nap, spring up, and stare about.

“Jays!” he cried. “Bless my soul, I must have been asleep.”

He pulled out his watch, glanced at it, muttered something about “a good hour,” which really was under the mark, and then, after a glance at his specimens and a re-arrangement of his creel, he started to trudge back to the Hall, but stopped and hesitated.

“Too far that way,” he said. “I’ll try the road and the common.”

He glanced at the tiny pocket compass attached to his watch-chain, and started off once more in a fresh direction, one which he knew would bring him out on the road near Lindham. The path he soon found was one evidently rarely used, and deliciously soft and mossy to his feet, as, refreshed by his nap, he went steadily on, following the windings till he stopped short wonderingly, surprised by eye and ear, for as he went round a sudden turn it was to find himself within a yard or two of a girl seated on the mossy ground, her arms clasping her knees, and her face bent down upon them, sobbing as if her heart would break.

“My good girl,” cried the chivalrous major eagerly.

Before he could say more, the woman’s head was raised, so that in the glance he obtained he saw that she was young, dark and handsome, in spite of her red and swollen eyes, dishevelled, dark hair, and countenance generally disfigured by a passionate burst of crying.

For a moment the girl seemed about to bound up and run; but she checked the impulse, clasped her knees once more, and hid her face upon them.

“Why, I ought to know your face,” said the major. “Mr Rolph’s keeper’s daughter, if I am not mistaken?”

There was no reply, only a closer hiding of the face, and a shiver.

“Can I do anything for you?” said the major kindly. “Is anything the matter?”

“No. Go away!” cried the girl in low, muffled tones.

“But you are in trouble.”

“Go away!” cried the girl fiercely; and this she reiterated so bitterly that the major shrugged his shoulders and moved off a step or two.

“Are you sure I cannot assist you?” said the major, hesitating about leaving the girl in her trouble.

“Go away, I tell you.”

“Well then, will you tell me where to find the Lindham road?”

For answer she averted her head from him and pointed in one direction. This he followed, found the road and the open common, coming out close to a cottage to which he directed his steps in search of a cup of water.

The door was half open, and as soon as his steps approached, an old woman’s sharp voice exclaimed, —

“Ah, you’ve come back then, you hussy! Who was that came and called you out, eh?”

“You are making a mistake,” said the major quietly. “I came to ask if I could have a glass of water?”

“Oh yes, come in, whoever you are, if you ar’n’t afraid to see an ugly old woman lying in bed. I thought it was my grandchild. Who are you?”

“I come from Brackley,” said the major, smiling down at the crotchety old thing in the bed.

“Do you? oh, then I know you. Your one of old Sir John Day’s boys. Be you the one who went sojering?”

“Yes, I’m the one,” said the major, smiling.

“Ah, you’ve growed since then. My master pointed you out to me one day on your pony. Yes, to be sure, you was curly-headed then. There, you can take some water; it’s in the brown pitcher, and yonder’s a mug. It was fresh from the well two hours ago. That gal had just fetched it when some one throwed a stone at the door, and she went out to see who threw it, she said. Ah, she don’t cheat me, a hussy. She knowed, and I mean to know. It was some chap, that’s who it was, some chap – Caleb Kent maybe – and I’m not going to have her come pretending to do for me, and be running after gipsy chaps.”

“No, you must take care of the young folks,” said the major. “What beautiful water!”

“Yes, my master dug that well himself, down to the stone, and it’s beautiful water. Have another mug? That’s right. You needn’t give me anything for it without you like; but a shilling comes in very useful to get a bit o’ tea. I often wish we could grow tea in one’s own garden.”

“It would be handy,” said the major. “There’s half-a-crown for you, old lady. It’s a shame that you should not have your bit of tea. Good-bye.”

“Good-bye to you, and thank you kindly,” cried the old woman; “and if you see that slut of a girl just you send her on to me.”

“I will,” he said. “Good-bye.”

“Good-bye,” shrieked the old woman; and as the major passed out of the gate, the shrill voice came after him, “Mind you send her on if you see her.”

The words reached a second pair of ears, those of Judith, who flushed up hot and angry as she found herself once more in the presence of the major.

“You’ve been telling her about me,” she cried fiercely. “It’s cowardly; it’s cruel.”

She stood up before him so flushed and handsome that the major felt as it were the whole of her little story.

“No,” he said quietly, “I have not told your grandmother about you; she has been telling me.”

With an angry, indignant look the girl swept by him and entered the cottage.

“Poor lass, she is very handsome,” said the major to himself, “and it seems as if her bit of life romance is not going so smoothly as it should. Hah! that was a capital drop of water; it gives one life. Crying in the woods, eh – after a signal that the old lady heard. Gipsy lad, eh? Bad sign – bad sign. Ah, well,” he added, with a sigh, “I’m getting too old a man to think of love affairs; but, somehow, I often wonder now that I did not marry.”

That thought came to him several times as he walked homeward over the boggy common, and rose again more strongly as he came in sight of The Firs and the grim, black mansion on the hillock. Fort Science, as he had jestingly called it, looked at times bright and sunny, and then dull, repulsive and cold.

The major reached home after his very long walk rather out of spirits; and his valet, unasked, fetched him a cup of tea.

Volume Two – Chapter Ten.

Lucy Examines the Examiner

“I wish you would be more open with me, Moray,” said Lucy to her brother.

He was gazing through one of his glasses intently upon some celestial object, for the night was falling fast, and first one and then another star came twinkling out in the cold grey of the north-east.

Alleyne raised his head slowly and looked at his sister’s pretty enquiring face for a few moments, and then resumed his task.

“Don’t understand you,” he said quietly.

“Now, Moray, you must,” cried Lucy, pettishly; “you have only one sister, and you ought to tell her everything.”

As she spoke, in a playful, childish way, she began tying knots in her brother’s long beard, and made an attempt to join a couple of threads behind his head, but without result, the crisp curly hairs being about half-an-inch too short.

Alleyne paid no heed to her playful tricks for a time, and she went on, —

“If I were a man – which, thank goodness, I am not – I’d try to be learned, and wise, and clever, but I’d be manly as well, and strong and active, and able to follow all out-door pursuits.”

“Like Captain Rolph,” said Alleyne, with a smile, half reproach, half satire.

“No,” cried Lucy, emphatically; “he is all animalism. He has all the strength that I like to see, and nothing more. No, the man I should like to be, would combine all that energy with the wisdom of one who thinks, and uses his brains. Captain Rolph, indeed!”

What was meant for a withering, burning look of scorn appeared on Lucy’s lips; but it was only pretty and provocative; it would not have scorched a child.