The Obstacle Race Part 30

"I'll be decent to anyone," she said, "so long as you are decent to me."

"Hear, hear!" said the squire. "Now dry your eyes and be sensible! Miss Moore will go for me like mad if she finds you crying again. If we don't pull together we shall have that girl running the whole show before we are much older, and neither of us will ever dare even to contradict the other in her presence again. We shouldn't like that, should we?"

She laughed a little in spite of her wan countenance. "Oh, no, Edward. We mustn't risk that." Then, with a touch of anxiety, "It wasn't Miss Moore's idea that you should bring me flowers, was it?"

"No." The squire grinned at her suddenly. "The worthy Columbus was responsible for that. I found him routing in the lily-bed after snails or some such delicacy. He was so infernally busy he made me feel ashamed. So I went down on my knees and joined him, gathered the lot,--nearly killed myself over it, but that's an unimportant detail. Now for your champagne! You'll feel a different woman when you've had it."

He departed, leaving his wife looking after him with an odd wistfulness in her eyes. She was seeing him in a new light which made her feel strangely uncertain of herself also. Was it possible that all these years of misunderstanding, which she had regarded as inevitable, might have been avoided after all?

A quick sigh rose to her lips as again she took his flowers and held them against her face.

CHAPTER VII

THE SPELL

A wonderful summer evening followed the sultry day. The sun sank gloriously behind High Shale, and a soft breeze blew in from the sea.

On the slope of the hill behind the lighthouse and above the miners'

village there stood an old thatched barn, and about this a knot of men and youths loitered, smoking and talking in a desultory, discontented fashion. On the other side of the barn a shrill cackling proclaimed the presence of some of the feminine portion of the community, and the occasional squall of a baby or a squeal of a bigger child testified to the fact that the greater part of the village population awaited the entertainment which Green contrived to give on the first Sat.u.r.day of every month.

He had started these concerts two winters before down in the village of Little Shale, and they had originally been for men and boys only, but the women had grumbled so loudly at their exclusion that Green had very soon realized the necessity of extending a welcome to them also. So now they flocked in a body to his support, even threatening to crowd out the men in the winter evenings when he had to a.s.semble his audience at the Village Club at Little Shale. But in the summer, as a concession to High Shale, he held his concerts, whenever feasible, up on the hill, and practically the whole of High Shale village came to them. Little Shale was also well represented, but he always felt that he was in closer touch with the miners on these occasions, when he met them on their own ground.

The two villages were apt to eye one another with scant sympathy, the fisher population of the one and the mining population of the other having little in common beyond the liquor which they uniformly sought at The Three Tuns by the sh.o.r.e. Green never permitted any bickering, and they were all alike in their respect for him, but a species of armed neutrality which was very far removed from comradeship existed between them. Fights at The Three Tuns were by no means of unusual occurrence and the miners of High Shale were invariably spoken of with wholesale contempt by the men along the sh.o.r.e.

But, thanks to Green's untiring efforts, they met on common ground at his concerts, and any member of the audience who dared to commit any breach of the peace on any of these occasions was summarily dealt with by Green himself. He knew how to keep his men in hand. There was not one of them who ever ventured to question his supremacy. He ruled them, not one of them could have said how. Ashcott, the manager of the mine, who battled in vain against the rising spirit of disorder and rebellion among them, was wont to describe his influence over them as black magic. Whatever its source it was certainly unique. None but d.i.c.k Green could spring from the platform, seize a delinquent by his collar or the scruff of his neck, and run him, practically unresisting, out of the a.s.sembly. His lightning decisions were never questioned. His language, which could be forcible upon occasion, never met with any retort. The men seemed to recognize instinctively that it was useless to stand up to him. He could have compelled them blindfold and with his hands behind him.

It was this quality in him, this dynamic force, restrained yet always somehow in action, that had affected Juliet so strangely in the beginning of their acquaintance. Like these rough miners and fisher-folk she could not have said wherein the attraction lay, but she recognized in him that inner fire called genius, and it drew her unaccountably, irresistibly.

Whatever the sphere to which he had been born, he was a man created to lead, to overcome obstacles, to wrest victory from failure,--a man who possessed the rare combination of a highly sensitive temperament and a practically invincible courage--a man who could handle the great forces of life with the fearless certainty of the born conqueror.

Yes, he attracted her, undoubtedly he attracted her. He stirred her to an interest which she had believed herself too old, too jaded with the ways of the world, ever to feel again. But she did not want to yield to the attraction. She wanted to hold aloof for a s.p.a.ce. She had come to this quiet corner of the world in search of peace. She wanted to avoid the problems of life, to get back her poise, to become an onlooker and no longer a compet.i.tor in the maddening race from which she had so lately withdrawn herself. She was willing to be interested, she already was deeply interested, but only as a spectator, so she told herself. She would not be drawn in against her will. She would stand aside and watch.

It was in this mood that she drove off with the squire on the way to the open-air concert on the High Shale bluff on that magic June evening. Mrs.

Fielding was too weary after the many emotions of the day to accompany them, but they left her in a tranquil frame of mind, and the squire was in an unusually good humour. Though he had small liking for the High Shale village people, it pleased him that Juliet should take an interest in Green's enterprises, eccentric though they might be. And he considered that she deserved a treat after her diplomatic handling of a very difficult situation that morning.

"Might as well call and see if d.i.c.k would like a lift," he said, as they neared the gates. "We've got to pa.s.s his door. I'll send Jack in."

But when they stopped at the school-house gate, a humped, familiar figure was leaning upon it, and Jack flung an imperious question without descending.

The squire's face darkened at the sight. "Here's that unspeakable baboon Robin!" he growled.

Robin paid about as much attention to his brother's curt query as he might have bestowed upon the buzzing of a fly. His dark eyes below his s.h.a.ggy thatch of hair were fixed, deeply shining, upon Juliet.

Jack muttered an impatient e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n under his breath and flung himself out of the car. Before Juliet could speak a word to intervene, he had given the gate on which Robin leant a push that sent the boy backwards with considerable force on the gra.s.s while he himself went up the path to the house at a run.

"Oh, what a shame!" said Juliet, a quick vibration of anger in her deep voice.

She leaned forward sharply to open the door and spring out, but in a second Fielding's hand caught hers, holding her back.

"No, no! Leave the young beggar alone! He's none the worse. He can pick himself up again. Ah, and here comes d.i.c.k! He'll manage him!"

Robin was indeed struggling to his feet with a furious bellowing that might have been heard on the sh.o.r.e. But d.i.c.k was quicker than he. He came down the path, as it seemed in a single bound. He took Robin by his swaying arms and steadied him. He spoke, quickly and decidedly, and the roaring protest died down to a snarling, sobbing sound like the crying of a wounded animal. Then, still holding him, d.i.c.k turned towards the car at the gate. And Juliet saw that he was white with pa.s.sion. The fierce blaze of his eyes was a thing she would not soon forget.

He spoke with twitching lips. "No, sir. I'm not coming, thanks. I shall go on foot over the down. It's only a quarter of the distance that way."

He drew Robin aside at the sound of Jack's approach behind him, but he did not look at him. And Robin became suddenly and terribly silent. He was quivering all over like a dog that is held back from his prey.

Jack gave him a look of contempt as he strode past and returned to his seat at the wheel. And Juliet awoke to the fact that like Robin she was trembling from head to foot.

The car shot forward. She saw the two figures no more. But the memory of Green's face went with her, its pallor, and the awfulness of his eyes--the red flame of his fury. Robin's unrestrained wrath was of small account beside it. She felt as if she had never seen anger before that moment.

She scarcely heard the squire's caustic remarks concerning Robin. She was as one who had touched a live wire, and her whole being tingled with the shock. The hot glitter of those onyx eyes had been to her as the sudden revelation of a destroying force, fettered indeed, but how appalling if once set free!

She looked forward with a curious dread to seeing him again. She wondered if the man who drove the car so recklessly had the faintest suspicion of the storm he had stirred up. But surely he knew d.i.c.k in all his moods! He had probably encountered it before. They sped on through the fragrant summer night, and she talked at random, hardly knowing what she said. If the squire noticed her preoccupation, he made no comment. He had conceived a great respect for Juliet.

They neared their destination at last, and Jack performed what the squire called his favorite circus-trick, racing the car to the top of the towering cliff and stopping dead at the edge of a great immensity of sea and stars.

Again Juliet drew a deep breath of sheer marvelling delight, speaking no word, held spell-bound by the wonder of the night.

"We needn't hurry," Fielding said. "They won't be starting yet."

So for a s.p.a.ce they remained as though caught between earth and heaven, silently drinking in the splendour.

After a long pause she spoke. "Do you often come here?"

"Not now," he said. Then, as she glanced at him: "I used to in the days of my youth--the long past days."

And she knew by his tone, by the lingering of his words, that he had not always come alone.

She asked no more, and presently the jaunty notes of a banjo floating up the gra.s.sy slope told them that Green's entertainment had begun.

They left the car at the top of the rise, and walked down over the springy turf towards the old barn about which d.i.c.k's audience were collected. Two hurricane lamps and a rough deal table were all he had in the way of stage property. But she was yet to learn that this man relied upon surroundings and circ.u.mstances not at all. As she herself had said, possibly the torch of genius burned brightest in dark places, for it was certainly genius upon which she looked to-night.

He sat on the edge of the deal table with one leg crossed over his knee, his dark face thrown into strong relief, intent, eager, with a vitality that seemed to make it almost luminous. From the crowd that watched him there came not a sound. The thought crossed Juliet's mind that the instrument he played so cunningly might have been a harp from a fairy palace. For there was magic in the air. He played with a delicacy that seemed to wind itself in threads of gold about the inner fibres of the soul. They listened to him as men bewitched.

When the music ended, a great noise went up--shouts and whistles and cat-calls. They were wild for more. But Green knew the value of a reserve. He laughed away the _encores_ with a careless "Presently!" and called a young miner to him for a song. The lad sang and Green accompanied, and again Juliet marvelled at the amazing facility of his performance. He seemed to be able to adapt the instrument to every mood or tone. The boy's voice was rough and untrained, but it held a certain appeal and by sheer intuition--comradeship as it seemed--Green brought it home to the hearers. The man's unfailing responsiveness was a revelation to her. She believed it was the secret of his charm.

When the song was ended, a fisherman came forward and danced a hornpipe on the table, again to the thrumming of the banjo, without which nothing seemed complete. It was while this was in progress that a thick-set, somewhat bulletheaded man came up and addressed the squire by name.

"We don't often see you here, Mr. Fielding."

The squire turned. "Hullo, Ashcott. Your lambs are in force to-night. How are they behaving themselves?"

"Pretty fair," said Ashcott. "They're getting the strike rot like the rest of the world. We shan't hold 'em for ever. If any of the Farringmore lot turned up here, I wouldn't answer for 'em. Lord Wilchester talked of motoring down the other day, bringing friends if you please to see the mine, I warned him off--the d.a.m.n' fool! Simply asking for trouble, as I told him. 'Well, what's the matter?' he said. 'What do they want?'

'They'd like houses instead of pigsties for one thing,' I said. And he laughed at that. 'Oh, let 'em go to the devil!' he said. 'I haven't got any money to spare for luxuries of that kind.' So far as that goes I believe he is hard up, but then look at the way they live! They'd need to be multi-millionaires to keep it up."

The man's speech was crude, even brutal, and the girl on Fielding's other side shivered a little and drew a pace away. It was very evident on which side his sympathies lay. There was more than a tinge of the street ranter in his utterance. She was glad that Fielding spared her an introduction.