The Obstacle Race. Ethel M. Dell
Mr. Fielding was very cross with him, but that didn't make no difference. You see, Dick had got fond of him, and as for Robin, why, he just worshipped Dick. So there it was left, and Dick gave up all his prospects to keep the boy with him. He were reading for the law, you see, but he gave it all up and turned schoolmaster, so as he could live here and take care of young Robin."
"Turned schoolmaster!" Juliet repeated the words. "He's something of a scholar then!"
"Oh, no," said Mrs. Rickett. "It's only the village school, miss. Mr. Fielding got him the post. They're an unruly set of varmints here, but he keeps order among 'em. He's quite clever, as you might say, but no, he ain't a scholard. He goes in for games, you know, football and the like, tries to teach 'em to play like gentlemen, which he never will, for they're a low lot, them shore people, and that dirty! Well, he makes 'em bathe every day in the summer whether they likes it or whether they don't. Oh, he does his best to civilize 'em, and all them fisher chaps thinks a deal of him too. They've got a club in the village what Mr. Fielding built for 'em, and he goes along there and gives 'em musical evenings and jollies 'em generally. They'll do anything for him, bless you. But he tells 'em off pretty straight sometimes. They'll take it from him, you see, because they respects him."
"I thought the parson always did that sort of thing," said Juliet.
Mrs. Rickett uttered a brief, expressive snort. "He ain't much use—except for the church. He's old, you see, and he don't understand 'em. And he's scared at them chaps what works the lead mines over at High Shale. It's all in this parish, you know. And they are a horrid rough lot, a deal worse than the fisher-folk. But Dick he don't mind 'em. And he can do anything with 'em too, plays his banjo and sings and makes 'em laugh. The mines belong to the Farringmore family, you know—Lord Wilchester owns 'em. But he never comes near, and a' course the men gets discontented and difficult. And they're a nasty drinking lot too. Why, the manager—that's Mr. Ashcott—he's at his wit's end sometimes. But Dick—oh, Dick can always handle 'em, knows 'em inside and out, and their wives too. Yes, he's very clever is Dick. But he's thrown away in this place. It's a pity, you know. If it weren't for Robin, it's my belief that he'd be a great man. He's a born leader. But he's never had a chance, and it don't look like as if he ever will now, poor fellow!"
Mrs. Rickett ended mournfully and picked up Juliet's empty plate.
"How old is he?" asked Juliet.
"Oh, he's a lot past thirty now, getting too old to turn his hand to anything new. Mr. Fielding he's always on to him about it, but it don't make no difference. He'll never take up any other work while Robin lives. And Robin is stronger nor what he used to be, all thanks to Dick's care. He's just sacrificed everything to that boy, you know. It don't seem hardly right, do it?"
"I don't know," Juliet said slowly. "Some sacrifices are worth while."
Mrs. Rickett looked a little puzzled. There was something about this young lodger of hers that she could not quite fathom, but since she 'liked the looks of her' she did not regard this fact as a serious drawback.
"Well, there's some folks as thinks one way and some another," she conceded. "My husband always says as there's quite a lot of good in Robin if he's treated decent. He's often round here at the forge. That's how he come to get so fond of my Freddy. You ain't seen Freddy yet, miss. He's a bit shy like with strangers, but he soon gets over it."
"You must bring him in to see me," said Juliet.
Mrs. Rickett beamed. "I will, miss, I will. I'll bring him in with the pudding. P'raps if you was to give him a little bit he wouldn't be shy. He's very fond of gingerbread pudding."
"I wish I were!" sighed Juliet, as her landlady's portly form disappeared. "I shall certainly have to have a cigarette after it, and then there will only be one left! Oh, dear, why was I brought up among the flesh-pots?" She broke off with a sudden irresistible laugh, and rising went to the window. Someone was sauntering down the road on the other side of the high privet hedge. There came to her a whiff of cigarette-smoke wafted on the sea-breeze. She leaned forth, and at the gap by the gate caught a glimpse of a trim young man in blue serge wearing a white linen hat. She scarcely saw his face as he passed, but she had a fleeting vision of the cigarette.
"I wonder where you get them from," she murmured wistfully. "I believe I could get to like that brand, and they can't be as expensive as mine."
The door opened behind her, and she turned back smiling to greet the ginger pudding and Freddy.
CHAPTER III
MAGIC
The scent of the gorse in the evening dew was as incense offered to the stars. To Juliet, wandering forth in the twilight after supper with Columbus, the exquisite fragrance was almost intoxicating. It seemed to drug the senses. She went along the path at the top of the cliff as one in a dream.
The sea was like a dream-sea also, silver under the stars, barely rippling against the shingle, immensely and mysteriously calm. She went on and on, scarcely feeling the ground beneath her feet, moving through an atmosphere of pure magic, all her pulses thrilling to the wonder of the night.
Suddenly, from somewhere not far distant among the gorse bushes, there came a sound. She stopped, and it seemed to her that all the world stopped with her to hear the first soft trill of a nightingale through the tender dusk. It went into silence, but it left her heart throbbing strangely. Surely—surely there was magic all around her! That bird-voice in the silence thrilled her through and through. She stood spell-bound, waiting for the enchanted music to fill her soul. There followed a few liquid notes, and then there came a far-off, flute-like call, gradually swelling, gradually drawing nearer, so pure, so wild, so full of ecstasy, that she almost felt as if it were more than she could bear. It broke at last in a crystal shower of song, and she turned and looked out over the glittering sea and asked herself if it could be real. It was as if a spirit had called to her out of the summer night.
Then Columbus came careering along the path in fevered search of her, and quite suddenly, like the closing of a lid, the magic sounds vanished into a deep silence.
"Oh, Columbus!" his mistress murmured reproachfully. "You've stopped the music!"
Columbus responded by planting his paws against her, and giving her a vigorous push. There was decidedly more of common sense than poetry in his composition. The passion for exploring which had earned him his name was his main characteristic, and he wanted to get as far as possible before the time arrived to turn back.
She yielded to his persuasion, and walked on up the path with her face to the shimmering sea. For some reason she felt divinely happy, as if she had drunk of the wine of the gods. It had been so wonderful—that song of starlight and of Spring.
It was very warm, and she wore neither hat nor wrap. If she had come out in a bathing-dress, no one would have known, she reflected. But in this she was wrong, for presently, as she sauntered along, she became aware of a faint scent other than the wonderful cocoa-nut perfume of the gorse bushes—a scent that made her aware of the presence of another human being in that magic place.
She looked about for him with a faint smile on her lips, but the cliff-path ran empty before her, ascending in a series of fairly stiff climbs to the brow of High Shale Point. Columbus hurried along ahead of her as if he had made up his mind to reach the top at all costs. But Juliet had no intention of mounting to the summit of the frowning cliff that night. She had a vagrant desire to track that elusive scent, but even that, it seemed was not to be satisfied, and at length she stopped again and sent a summoning whistle after Columbus.
It was almost at the same moment that there came from behind her a sound that shattered all the fairy romance of the night at a blow. She turned sharply, and immediately, like a fiendish chorus, it came again spreading and echoing along the cliffs—the yelling of drunken laughter.
Several men were coming along the path that she