Lorimer of the Northwest. Harold Bindloss
day, so the men I met in her father’s business said; but if Alice Lorimer ever 12 remembered the fact, it made but little difference to her. She was delicate, slight, and homely, with a fund of shrewd common-sense and a very kindly heart, whose thoughts, however, she did not always reveal. Now she sat on a lounge before the fire, with the soft light of a colored lamp falling upon her, while a great embroidered screen shut off the rest of the partly-darkened room.
“I have been waiting for you with the tea so patiently, Ralph,” she said. “You look tired and moody—you have been out on the moors too long. See, here is a low chair ready just inside the screen, and here is the tea. Sit down and tell me what is troubling you.”
I settled myself in the corner, and answered, looking into the fire:
“You were always kind to me, Alice, and one can talk to you. Something made me unsettled to-day, and I didn’t care about the birds, though I got a plump brace for you. Alice, I can’t help thinking that these brief holidays, though they are like a glimpse of Paradise after my dingy rooms in that sickening town, are not good for me. I am only a poor clerk in your father’s mill, and such things as guns and horses are out of my sphere. They only stir up useless longings. So I return on Monday, and hardly think that I shall come back for a long time.”
Alice laughed softly, for she was a shrewd young person, then she laid her little hand restrainingly on my arm, before she said:
“And who has a better right to the bay horse and the new hammerless ejector than the nephew of the man who never uses them? Now, I’m guessing at a secret, but it’s probable that your uncle bought that gun especially for you. Ralph, you are getting morbid—and you have not been shooting all day. Did you meet Miss Carrington on the moor again?” 13
Now in such matters I was generally a blunderer; yet something warned me that my answer would displease her. I could, however, see no way of avoiding it, and when I said as unconcernedly as I could, “Yes, and talked to her about Canada!” Alice for no particular reason stooped and dropped a thread into the fire. Then lifting her head she looked at me steadily when I continued, with some hesitation:
“You know how I was always taught that in due time I should work the lands of Lindale Hall, and how, when we found on my father’s death that there was nothing left, I tried the cotton-mill. Well, after four years’ trial I like it worse than I did at the beginning, and now I feel that I must give it up. I am going back to the soil again, even if it is across the sea.”
Alice made no answer for a few moments; then she said slowly: “Ralph you will not be rash; think it over well. Now tell me if you have any definite plans—you know how I always used to advise you?”
I felt I needed sympathy, and Alice was a faithful confidant, so I opened my heart to her, and she listened with patient interest. It seemed to me that my cousin had never looked so winsome as she sat close beside me with a slight flush of color in her usually pale face where the soft lamplight touched it. So we sat and talked until Martin Lorimer entered unobserved, and when, on hearing a footstep, I looked up I saw that he was smiling with what seemed grim approval as his eyes rested on us, and this puzzled me. Then his daughter started almost guiltily as he said, “I wondered where you two were. Dinner has been waiting, and you never heard the bell.”
I retired early that night, and, being young, forgot my perplexities in heavy slumber. The next morning I noticed that Alice’s eyes seemed heavy, and I wondered what 14 could be the reason. In after years I mentioned it when Grace and I were talking about old times together, but she only smiled gravely, and said, “I sometimes think your cousin was too good for this world.”
The next day was one of those wet Sundays which it is hard to forget. The bleak moor was lost in vapor, and a pitiless drizzle came slanting down the valley, while the raw air seemed filled with falling leaves. A prosperous man with a good conscience may make light of such things, but they leave their own impression on the poor and anxious; so, divided between two courses, I wandered up and down, finding rest nowhere until I chanced upon a large new atlas in my uncle’s library. Martin Lorimer was proud of his library. He was a well-read man, though like others of his kind he made no pretense at scholarship, and used the broad, burring dialect when he spoke in his mill. Here I found occupation studying the Dominion of Canada, especially the prairie territories, and lost myself in dreams of half-mile furrows and a day’s ride straight as the crow flies across a cattle run, all of which, though I scarcely dared hope it then, came true in its own appointed time.
My uncle had ridden out early, for he was to take part in the new mayor’s state visit to church in the manufacturing town, and even Alice seemed out of spirits, so when I left the library there was the weary afternoon to be dragged through somehow. It passed very slowly, and then as I stood by the stables a man from the house at the further end of the valley, where Colonel Carrington was staying, said to our stable lad:
“I mun hurry back. Our folks are wantin’ t’ horses; maister an’ t’ Colonel’s daughter’s going to the church parade. They’re sayin’ it’s a grand turnout, wi’ t’ firemen, bands, an’ t’ volunteers, in big brass helmets!” 15
Neither of them saw me, and presently calling the lad I bade him put the bay horse into the dog-cart.
“He’s in a gradely bad temper,” said the lad doubtfully. “Not done nothink but eat for a long time now, an’ he nearly bit a piece out of me; I wish t’ maister would shoot him.”
I laughed at the warning, though I had occasion to remember it, and looking for Alice I said, “I am driving in to church to-night. Would you like to come with me?”
Now Alice Lorimer possessed her father’s keen perception, and when he kept his temper he was perhaps the shrewdest man I ever met; so when she looked me straight in the face I dropped my eyes, because I really was not anxious for her company, and should not have gone except in the hope of seeing Grace Carrington.
“Have you turned religious suddenly, Ralph?” she asked. “Or have you forgotten you told me yesterday that you did not care to go?”
I made some awkward answer, but Alice smiled dryly, and with a solemn courtesy said:
“Two are company, three are none. Cousin Ralph, I will not go with you. But don’t leave the dog-cart behind and come back with the shafts.”
I went out with a flushed face, and a sense of relief, angry, nevertheless, that she should read my inmost thoughts, having fancied that my invitation was a stroke of diplomacy. I learned afterward that diplomacy is a mistake for the simple man. With a straightforward “Yes” or “No” he can often turn aside the schemes of the cunning, but on forsaking these he generally finds the other side considerably too clever for him—all of which is a wanton digression from the story.
16
CHAPTER II
THE CHURCH PARADE
It was raining hard when I climbed into the dog-cart and rattled away into the darkness, while somewhat to my surprise Robert the Devil, or Devilish Bob, as those who had the care of him called the bay horse, played no antics on the outward journey, which was safely accomplished. So leaving him at the venerable “Swan,” I hurried through the miry streets toward the church. They were thronged with pale-faced men and women who had sweated out their vigor in the glare of red furnace, dye-shop, and humming mill, but there was no lack of enthusiasm. I do not think there are any cities in the world with the same public spirit and pride in local customs that one may find in the grimy towns of Lancashire. The enthusiasm is, however, part of their inhabitants’ nature, and has nothing to do with the dismal surroundings.
A haze of smoke had mingled with the rain; yellow