Heriot's Choice Part 51

'What are you two young people talking about?' cried Dr. Heriot's voice in the darkness. 'Polly has quarrelled with me, and Chriss is cross, and Miss Lambert is dreadfully tired.'

'Are you tired, Aunt Milly? Mr. Marsden has been telling me about his sisters, and--and--I think we have had a little quarrel too.'

'No, it was I that was cross,' returned Hugh, with his big laugh; 'it always tries my temper when people talk in an unknown tongue.'

Olive gave him a kind look as she bade him good-night.

'I have enjoyed hearing about your sisters, so you must never call yourself prosaic and stupid again, Mr. Marsden,' she said, as she followed the others into the house.

CHAPTER XXI

UNDER STENKRITH BRIDGE

'I never felt chill shadow in my heart Until this sunset.'--George Eliot.

A few days after the Wharton Hall clipping, Mildred went down to the station to see some friends off by the train to Penrith. A party of bright-faced boys and girls had invaded the vicarage that day, and Mildred, who was never happier than when surrounded by young people, had readily acceded to their pet.i.tion to walk back with them to the station.

It was a lovely July evening, and as Mildred waved her last adieu, and ascended the steps leading to the road, she felt tempted to linger, and, instead of turning homewards, to direct her steps to a favourite place they often visited--Stenkrith Bridge.

Stenkrith Bridge lies just beyond the station, and carries the Nateby road across the river and the South Durham railway. On either side of the road there are picturesque glimpses of this lovely spot. Leaning over the bridge, one can see huge fragmentary boulders, deep shining pools, and the spray and froth of a miniature cascade.

There is an interesting account of this place by a contemporary which is worthy of reproduction.

He says, 'Above the bridge the water of Eden finds its way under, between, or over some curiously-shaped rocks, locally termed "brockram,"

in which, by the action of pebbles driven round and round by the water in times of flood, many curious holes have been formed. Just as it reaches the bridge, the water falls a considerable depth into a round-shaped pool or "lum," called Coop Kernan Hole: the word hole is an unnecessary repet.i.tion. The place has its name from the fact that by the action of the water it has been partly hollowed out between the rock; at all events, is cup or coop-shaped, and the water which falls into it is churned and agitated like cream in an old-fashioned churn, before escaping through the fissures of the rocks.

'After falling into Coop Kernan Hole, the water pa.s.ses through a narrow fissure into another pool or lum at the low side of the bridge, called "Spandub," which has been so named because the distance of the rocks between which the river ran, and which overshadow it, could be spanned by the hand.

'We doubt not that grown men and adventurous youths had many a time stretched their hands across the narrow chasm, and remembered and talked about it when far away from their native place; and when strangers came to visit our town, and saw the beautiful river, on the banks of which it stands, they would be hard to convince that half a mile higher up it was only a span wide. But William Ketching came l.u.s.ting for notoriety, stretched out his evil hand across the narrow fissure, declared he would be the last man to span Eden, and with his walling-hammer broke off several inches from that part of the rock where it was most nearly touching. "It was varra bad," says an old friend of ours who remembers the incident; "varra bad on him; he sudn't hev done it. It was girt curiosity to span Eden."'

Mildred had an intense affection for this beautiful spot. It was the scene of many a merry gipsy tea; and in the summer Olive and she often made it their resort, taking their work or books and spending long afternoons there.

This evening she would enjoy it alone, 'with only pleasant thoughts for company,' she said to herself, as she strolled contentedly down the smooth green glade, where browsing cattle only broke the silence, and then made her way down the bank to the river-side.

Here she sat down, rapt for a time by the still beauty of the place.

Below her, far as she could see, lay the huge gray and white stones through which the water worked its channel. Low trees and shrubs grew in picturesque confusion--dark lichen-covered rocks towered, jagged and ma.s.sive, on either side of the narrow chasm. Through the arch of the bridge one saw a vista of violet-blue sky and green foliage. The rush of the water into Coop Kernan Hole filled the ear with soft incessant sound. Some one beside Mildred seemed rooted to the spot.

'This is a favourite place with you, I know,' said a voice in her ear; and Mildred, roused from her dreams, started, and turned round, blushing with the sudden surprise.

'Dr. Heriot, how could you? You have startled me dreadfully!'

'Did you not see me coming?' he returned, jumping lightly from one rock to the other, and settling himself comfortably a little below her. 'I saw you at the station and followed you here. Do I intrude on pleasanter thoughts?' he continued, giving her the benefit of one of his keen, quiet glances.

'No; oh no,' stammered Mildred. All at once she felt ill at ease. The situation was novel--unexpected. She had often encountered Dr. Heriot in her walks and drives, but he had never so frankly sought her out as on this evening. His manner was the same as usual--friendly, self-possessed--but for the first time in her life Mildred was tormented with a painful self-consciousness. Her slight confusion was unnoticed, however, for Dr. Heriot went on in the same cool, well-a.s.sured voice--

'You are such a comfortable person, Miss Lambert, one can always depend on hearing the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth from you. I confess I should have been grievously disappointed if you had sent me about my own business.'

'Am I given to dismiss you in such a churlish manner, Dr. Heriot?'

returned Mildred, with a little nervous laugh; but she only thought, 'How strange of him to follow me here!'

'You are the soul of courtesy itself; you have a benevolent forehead, Miss Lambert. "Entertainment for Pilgrims" ought to be bound round it as a sort of phylactery. Why are women so much more unselfish than men, I wonder?'

'They need something to compensate them for their weakness,' she returned, softly.

'Their weakness is strength sometimes, and masters our brute force. I am in the mood for moralising, you see. Last Sunday evening I was reading my _Pilgrim's Progress_. I have retained my old childish penchant for it. Apollyon with his darts was my favourite nightmare for years. When I came to the part about Charity and the Palace Beautiful, I thought of you.'

Mildred raised her eyes in surprise, and again the sensitive colour rose to her face. Dr. Heriot was given to moralising, she knew, but it was a little forced this evening. In spite of his coolness a suppressed excitement bordered the edge of his words; he looked like a man on the brink of a resolution.

'The damsel Discretion would suit me better,' she said at last, with a.s.sumed lightness.

'Yes, Discretion is your handmaid, but my name fits you more truly,' he returned, with a kind look which somehow made her heart beat faster.

'Your sympathy offers such a soft pillow for sore hearts, and aches and troubles--have you a ward for incurables, as well as for the sick and maimed waifs and strays of humanity, I wonder?'

'Dr. Heriot, what possesses you this evening?' returned Mildred, with troubled looks. How strangely he was talking!--was he in fun or earnest?

Ought she to stay there and listen to him, or should she gently hint to him the expediency of returning home? A dim instinct warned her that this hour might be fraught with perilous pleasure; a movement would break its spell. She rose hastily.

'You are not going?' he exclaimed, raising himself in some surprise; 'it is still early. This is an ungrateful return for the compliment I have just paid you. I am certain it is Discretion now, and not Charity, that speaks.'

'They will be expecting me,' she returned. Dr. Heriot had risen to his feet, and now stretched out his hand to detain her.

'They do not want you,' he said, with a persuasive smile; 'they can exist an hour without Aunt Milly. Sit down again, Charity, I entreat you, for I have followed you here to ask your advice. I really need it,'

he continued, seriously, as Mildred still hesitated; but a glance at the grave, kind face decided her. 'Perhaps, after all, he had some trouble, and she might help him. It could be no harm; it was only too pleasant to be sitting there monopolising his looks and words, usually shared with others. The opportunity might never occur again. She would stop and hear all that he had to say. Was he not her brother's friend, and hers also?'

Dr. Heriot seemed in no hurry to explain himself; he sat throwing pebbles absently into the watery fissures at their feet, while Mildred watched him with some anxiety. Time had dealt very gently with Dr.

Heriot; he looked still young, in the prime of life. A close observer might notice that the closely-cropped hair was sprinkled with gray, but the lines that trouble had drawn were almost effaced by the kindly hand of time. There was still a melancholy shade in the eyes, an occasional dash of bitterness in the kind voice, but the trouble lay far back and hidden; and it could not be denied that Dr. Heriot was visibly happier than he had been three years ago. Yes, it was true, sympathy bad smoothed out many a furrow; kindly fellowship and close intimacy had brightened the life of the lonely man; little discrepancies and angles had vanished under beneficent treatment. The young fresh lives around him, with their pa.s.sionate interests, their single-eyed pursuits, lent him new interests, and fostered that superabundant benevolence; and Hope and its twin-sister Desire bloomed by the side of his desolate hearth.

Dr. Heriot had ever told himself that pa.s.sion was dead within him, slain by that deadly disgust and terror of years. 'A man cannot love twice as I loved Margaret,' he had said to his friend more than once; and the two men, drawn together by a loss so similar, and yet so diverse, had owned that in their case, and with their faithful tenacity, no second love could be possible.

'But you are a comparatively young man; you are in the very prime of life, Heriot; you ought to marry,' his friend had said to him once.

'I do not care to marry for friendship and companionship,' he had answered. 'My wife must be everything or nothing to me. I must love with pa.s.sion or not at all.' And there had risen up before his mind the dreary spectacle of a degraded beauty that he once had worshipped, and which had power to charm him to the very last.

It was three years since Dr. Heriot had uttered his bitter protest against matrimony, and since then there had grown up in his heart a certain sweet fancy, which had emanated first out of pure benevolence, but which, while he cherished and fostered it, had grown very dear to him.

He was thinking of it now, as the pebbles splashed harmlessly in the narrow rivulets, while Mildred watched him, and thought with curious incongruity of the dark, sunless pool lying behind the gray rocks, and of the wild churning and seething of foamy waters which seemed to deaden their voices; would he ever speak, she wondered. She sat with folded hands, and a soft, perplexed smile on her face, as she waited, listening to the dreamy rush of the water.

He roused himself at last in earnest.

'How good you are to me, Miss Lambert. After all, I have no right to tax your forbearance.'

'All friends have a right,' was the low answer.

'All friends, yes. I wonder what any very special friend dare claim from you? I could fancy your goodness without stint or limit then; it would bear comparison with the deep waters of Coop Kernan Hole itself.'

'Then you flatter me;' but she blushed, yes, to her sorrow, as Mildred rarely blushed.