Johnstone of the Border Part 9

Andrew had long cherished an affection for both of them, and he knew that d.i.c.k trusted him.

Then he reflected that Elsie's att.i.tude toward d.i.c.k was to a large extent protective and motherly, which was not the feeling one would expect a girl to show for the man she meant to marry; and while d.i.c.k was obviously fond of her, his attachment, so far as one could judge, was not pa.s.sionate. Besides, when one came to think of it, the suggestion that their marriage must be taken for granted had come from Staffer. He had, so to speak, delicately warned Andrew off.

Andrew firmly pulled himself up. He was being led away by specious arguments. It was easy to find excuses for indulging oneself and he had promised to look after d.i.c.k. If he tried to supplant his cousin in Elsie's affection, he would be doing a dishonorable thing. There was no getting around this; but it cost him an effort to face the truth.

A soft rattle of gravel down the drive attracted Andrew's attention.

Rabbits sometimes got through the netting and one might have disturbed the stones as it sprang across; but he rejected this explanation. The sound was too loud, although he imagined that there was something stealthy in it. Anybody coming toward the house across the smoothly paved bridge, would have to walk on the gravel, as there was a flower border between the drive and the shrubbery. This had a narrow gra.s.s edging, but hoops were placed along it to keep people off.

Andrew leaned forward cautiously and looked about him. It was a calm night and not very dark, although there was no moon. He could see the firs near the house cutting black against the sky, and the blurred outline of a shrubbery beside the drive to the bridge. Thin white mist rose from the ravine, and beyond it a beechwood rolled down the hill.

The air was warm, and the smell of flowers and wet soil drifted into the room. There seemed to be nothing moving, however, and the sound was not repeated. For a few moments Andrew waited, expecting to hear the intruder fall over one of the hoops that edged the drive. When this did not happen, he fixed his eyes intently upon the end of the shrubbery, and then he made out a very indistinct figure moving slowly through the gloom beneath the firs.

This was strange. He had never heard of any house-breaking in the dale, and there was nothing at Appleyard to attract a burglar from the distant towns. It was too late for a villager to keep tryst with one of the maids; and a poacher would not cross the well-fenced grounds.

Andrew decided that he would not give the alarm, but he slipped across the room and opened his door quietly so that he could hear if anybody entered the house. Though he stood beside it, listening closely, he heard nothing. Then he returned to the window, and saw a dark form move back into the gloom of the trees. Presently there was another soft rattle of gravel near the bridge, and after that deep silence except for the splash of water in the ravine. Andrew imagined that about five minutes had elapsed since he heard the first sound, but the prowler had gone and he must try to solve the puzzle in the morning.

He got up early and went down to the drive before anybody was about. A fresh footprint showed plainly in the flower border near the bridge, close to an opening in the shrubbery by which one could reach the lawn, as if the man had meant to jump across and had fallen a few inches short. That he had not gone along the gra.s.s edging showed that he knew the hoops were there.

Andrew examined the footprint. It was deep and clearly defined, and he thought it looked more like the impress of a well-made shooting boot than of the heavy boots the country people wore. For one thing, he could see no marks of the tackets the Scottish peasant uses. Acting on a half-understood impulse, he covered the footprint up and strolled toward the gardener, who was just coming out with his rake.

"You have a big place to take care of, Fergus, but you keep it very neat," Andrew said.

"Aye," replied the gardener. "I'm thinking it's big enough."

"Have you help?"

"Willie Grant comes over whiles, when I've mair than ordinar' to do.

He has a club foot, ye'll mind, an' is no' verra active, but there's jobs he saves me."

Andrew knew the man, and knew that he could not have sprung across the flower border.

"I see Tom is still at the stables, but the man who drives the car is new. How long have they had him?"

"A year, maybe. Watson's a quiet man, an' makes no unnecessar' mess, like some o' them. He leeves in the hoose."

"Then he doesn't get up very early."

"He's at Dumfries wi' the car. There was something to be sort.i.t an' he took her there yestreen. Mr. Staffer's for Glasgow, the morn."

After a few remarks about the garden, Andrew strolled away. He had learned that the night prowler could not have been one of the men employed at Appleyard. The fellow had apparently not entered the house, and although he had stayed long enough to deliver a message to somebody inside, Andrew had not heard a door or window open. The matter puzzled him, but he determined to say nothing about it, although he was conscious of no particular reason for his reserve.

An hour later, Whitney and he started for Edinburgh, with d.i.c.k on the carrier of the motorcycle. The machine was powerful and they meant to travel by short stages and stop at points of interest for a walk across the hills. Andrew was glad to have d.i.c.k with them, particularly as he was dubious about the visits the boy was in the habit of making to Dumfries and Lockerbie. d.i.c.k generally returned late at night and did not look his best the next morning.

Whitney enjoyed the journey. He had understood that southern Scotland was the home of scientific agriculture, and in this respect the valleys came up to his expectations; but when they left them on foot, as they did now and then, they crossed barren, wind-swept s.p.a.ces clothed with bent-gra.s.s and heather. In places, lonely hills rolled from horizon to horizon without sign of life except for the black-faced sheep and the grouse that skimmed the heath.

Andrew knew every incident in the history of this rugged country, and with a little encouragement he told tales of English invasions and fierce reprisals, of stern Covenanting martyrs and their followers'

fanatical cruelties. Looking down from the heights of the Lammermuirs, they saw where Cromwell crushed his Scottish pursuers; they climbed the battlements of old square towers that had defied English raids, and traced the line of Prince Charlie's march.

Whitney found it rather bewildering. There was so much romantic incident packed into two or three centuries; but he felt that he understood the insular Briton better than he had done, and this understanding improved his conception of the native-born American. It was here that some of the leading principles of American democracy were first proclaimed and fought for. Another thing was plain--if the spirit of this virile people had not greatly changed, deeds worthy of new ballads would be done in France and Flanders.

On the return journey they reached Hawick one evening and stopped for an hour or two. d.i.c.k suggested that they stay the night; but there was nothing to keep them in the smoky, wool-spinning town, and Andrew preferred to push on.

"The night air's bracing among the moors and I like to hear the whaups crying round the house," he said to Whitney. "There's a small hotel, built right on the fellside, and we should get there in an hour."

They set off, with Andrew on the carrier, and the powerful machine rolled smoothly out of the town. The street lamps were beginning to twinkle as they left it and low mist crept across the fields past which they sped. The cry of geese, feeding among the stubble, came out of the haze, which lay breast-high between the hedgerows, clogging the dust, but it thinned and rolled behind them as the road began to rise.

Then the stubble fields became less frequent, fewer dark squares of turnips checkered the sweep of gra.s.s, and the murmur of Teviot, running among the willows, crept out of the gathering dusk.

Cothouses marked by glimmering lights went by; they sped through a dim, white village; and Whitney opened out his engine as they went rocking past a line of stunted trees. They were the last and highest, for after them the rough ling and bent-gra.s.s rolled across the haunts of the sheep and grouse. Whitney changed his gear as the grade got steeper, the hedges gave place to stone walls until they ran out on an open moor, round which the hills lifted their black summits against the fading sky. The three men made a heavy load on the long incline, but the machine brought them up, and the last of the light had gone when they stopped in front of a lonely hotel. It looked like a Swiss chalet on the breast of the fell, and a dark glen dropped steeply away from it, but it glowed with electric light.

"They seem to have some shooting people here," d.i.c.k said. "I'll run across and see if they can take us in, while you look at the carbureter. We may have to go on to Langholm and she wasn't firing very well."

He went up the drive and Whitney opened his tool bag. The top of the pa.s.s was about half a mile behind them, and the road ran straight down from it, widening in front of the hotel. There was a patch of loose stones on the other side, and the motorcycle stood a yard or two from the gate. Everything was very still except for the sound of running water, and it was rather dark, because the hills rose steeply above the glen.

"d.i.c.k's a long time coming back," Andrew said with a frown.

"Perhaps you'd better go for him," Whitney suggested.

Andrew went off, but met d.i.c.k in the drive.

"It's all right; there's n.o.body stopping here," he reported. "They keep the lights blazing to draw motoring people."

He spoke clearly, but with an evident effort, and Andrew frowned again.

"There's a nut I can't get hold of," Whitney called to them from under the motorcycle. "Do you think I could borrow a smaller spanner here, d.i.c.k?"

"I'll get it for you," d.i.c.k volunteered jovially, and started back toward the house.

Andrew put a firm hand on his arm.

"You will not!" he said shortly.

d.i.c.k turned upon him in a moment's rage; and then laughed.

"Oh, all right. You're a tyrant, Andrew, but you mean well."

When Whitney went for the spanner d.i.c.k knelt down in the road to inspect the machine.

"Lend me your knife," he requested. "It will be all right if I put something in the jaws."

"I'm inclined to think you'd better leave it alone," Andrew replied meaningly.

d.i.c.k laughed.

"You're a suspicious beggar. I wasn't away five minutes. Anyhow, there's a fascination in tampering with other people's machines.

Where's the knife?"

Andrew let him have it, and soon afterward d.i.c.k uttered an expletive as he tore the skin from one of his knuckles.

"The beastly thing will slip; but I'm not going to be beaten by a common American nut," he declared. "If I can't screw it up, I'll twist the bolt-head off."

"Leave it alone!" said Andrew.