The Long Portage Part 9

"What's that for?" she asked impertinently. "It's hammerless; there's nothing to catch."

"The pull-off's probably very light, if it's been made for a lady's use.

It's sometimes possible to jar the strikers down when they set the springs to yield at a touch."

"Then you know something about guns?" she said, as if she had not expected this.

"Not a great deal about the scatter kind, though I've stripped a few."

"We never do that," she informed him. "We send them to London. Still, you're right; the gun did go off when I knocked it jumping down from a wall."

"If you'll let me have it to-night, I'll alter that. I understand we're going out again to-morrow."

She considered a moment.

"Well," she consented, with the air of one conferring a favor, "you may take it when we've finished."

Lisle wondered what had prompted him to make the offer. The way she had addressed him was not ingratiating, but he delighted in examining any fine mechanism and he had never handled such a beautifully made weapon.

They plodded on side by side through the heather, which was long and matted, and presently, seeing that she was breathless, he stopped on the crest of a higher rise and once more looked about with keen appreciation.

In front of him the crimson and purple heath was rent and fissured, and in the deep gaps washed out by heavy rains the peat gleamed a warm chocolate-brown. Elsewhere, patches of moss shone with an emerald brightness, and there were outcrops of rock tinted l.u.s.trous gray and silver with lichens. Below, near the foot of the moor, ran a straight dark line of firs, the one coldly-somber streak in the scene; but beyond it the rolling, sunlit plain ran back, fading through ever varying and softening colors to the hazy blue heights of Scotland.

Lisle's companion noticed his intent expression.

"It is rather fine up here," she conceded. "I sometimes feel it's almost a pity one couldn't live among the heather. Certain things would be easier on these high levels."

"Yes?" interrogated Lisle, slightly puzzled and astonished.

"You're obviously from the woods," she smiled. "If you had spent a few years among my friends, you would understand. I was referring to the cultivation of ideas and manners which seem to be considered out of date now."

Lisle made no reply to this, but he glanced too directly at a red stain on her hand.

"Blood," she explained. "I had a bet with Alan that I'd get a brace more than Flo; that's why I went after a cripple running in the ling. It wasn't dead when I picked it up--rather horrid, wasn't it?"

The man was conscious of some disgust. She looked very young and, slight as she was, her figure was prettily rounded and she had a soft, kittenish gracefulness; but she spoke with the a.s.surance of a dowager. Though he had killed and cut up many a deer, he shrank from the small red stain on her delicate hand. She saw it and laughed, and then with a sudden change of mood she stooped and swiftly rubbed her fingers in the heather.

"Now," she said sharply, "if you're sufficiently rested, we'll go on."

Lisle moved away, but he asked a question:

"Do many girls shoot in this country?"

"No," she answered with a mocking smile; "not so many, after all. That's comforting, isn't it? This kind of thing is hard work, and damaging to the complexion."

Presently they came to a wall, and Lisle stopped in some uncertainty. It was as high as his shoulders and built of loose, rough stones.

"Get over," she ordered him. "Then pull a lot of it down."

He did so, making, though he endeavored to avoid this, a rather wide hole.

She scrambled through agilely and then regarded him with surprise as he proceeded to replace the stones.

"Why are you doing that?" she asked.

"There are sheep up here."

"Too many, considering that it's a grouse-moor; but what of it? They don't belong to us."

"They belong to somebody who would rather they didn't stray," Lisle rejoined. "In the country I come from, it's considered a serious transgression to knock over another person's fence and not put it up again."

He calmly went on with his task, and sitting down she took out a silver cigarette-case. After a minute or two she looked up at him.

"You're doing that very neatly," she remarked.

"I've done something of the kind for a living," Lisle informed her.

"Oh! It's curious that you seem proud of it. In this case, I don't mind your keeping me, because they can't drive up the birds until we have crossed the higher moor. It will annoy Gladwyne and his keeper, and I'm not pleased with either of them. I wanted Flo Marple's station at the first b.u.t.ts."

Lisle considered this. He had wondered why she had favored him with her company, when, although her previous companion had deserted her, she could by hurrying a little have joined the others. The b.u.t.ts were not s.p.a.ced very far apart. Their late occupants had, however, now vanished into a dip of the moor. He asked himself why a girl with her a.s.surance should have troubled to offer him an explanation.

When he had finished the repairs to the wall, they went on, and a little later he heard a sharp "Cruck--cruck-curruck," to one side of him.

Swinging around, he saw a grouse skimming the heather.

"A pair of gloves to a sovereign that you miss!" cried his companion.

The bird was flying fast; Lisle had to load, and by the time he had snapped in a cartridge it was a long range. This, however, was somewhat in his favor, as he was better used to the rifle. There was a flash and the bird struck the heath. The girl glanced at him in unveiled appreciation.

"A clean kill!" she exclaimed. "You have won the gloves; and you'll deserve them before you have heard the last of this incident. I suppose you don't know that you shouldn't have fired a shot except from behind the b.u.t.ts."

She watched his expression with open amus.e.m.e.nt.

"You don't like to ask why I tempted you," she went on. "It was to vex the keeper; you may have turned back the birds the beaters are driving up."

"Thanks for the information," Lisle said coolly. "Do you mind my inquiring whether you would have taken the sovereign in case I'd missed?

As you suggested, I'm lately from the wilds."

"Of course!" she mocked. "I could have had it drilled and worn it on a chain!"

The man made no comment as they went on. Presently they came to a deep rift in the moor through which a stream leaped sparkling. The girl scrambled down, waist-deep in yellow fern, but the other side was steep and stony and she was glad of help when he held out his hand. They made the ascent with some difficulty and on reaching the summit she looked around, breathless.

"This is a romantic spot, if you're interested in the legends of the Border," she told him.

"I am," Lisle said; and she sat down among the heather.

"It's an excuse for a rest," she confessed. "The old moss-troopers used to ride this way to ravage c.u.mberland. It was advisable for them to follow hidden paths among the moors, and once an interesting little skirmish took place among those brakes down the hollow."

She pointed toward a spot where the ravine widened into a level strip of quaggy gra.s.s and moss which glowed a brilliant emerald. On either side of it a gnarled and stunted growth of alders and birches fringed the foot of the steep slopes, and between them the stream spread out across a stretch of milk-white stones. The hollow was flooded with light and filled with the soft murmur of running water.