The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood Part 80

"Why cannot we be friends, Mr. Purling? It pains me to be hated as you hate me."

"You are really quite mistaken," Harold began.

"I am ready to prove my friendship. I know all about Miss Driver--there!"

"Do you know where she is at this present moment?" Harold asked, eagerly.

"You really wish to know? Your mother will tell me, I daresay. How hard hit you must be! But there is my hand on it. You shall have all the help that I can give."

Next day she told him.

"Miss Driver is at Harbridge."

"In service?"

"No; at home. They live there. Her father is a Custom-house officer."

That evening Harold informed his mother that important business called him away. She remonstrated. How could he leave the house while Miss Fanshawe was still there? What was the business? At least he might tell his mother; or it might wait. She could not allow him to leave.

Mere waste of words; Harold was off next morning to Harbridge, and Phillipa reported progress to her co-conspirator.

"It promises well," said Gilly. "I may be able to muzzle that scoundrel after all."

CHAPTER V.

A quaint old red-sandstone town; the river-harbour crowded with small craft, but now and again, like a Triton among the minnows, a timber-brig or a trading-barque driven in by stress of weather. When the tide went out--as it did seemingly with no intention of coming back, it went so far--the long level sands were spotted with groups of fisherfolk, who dug with pitchforks for sand-eels; while in among the rocks an army of children gleaned great harvests of a kind of seaweed, which served for food when times were hard.

These rocks were the seaward barrier and break-water of the little port, and did their duty well when, as now, they were tried by the full force of a westerly gale. It is blowing great guns; the hardy sheep that usually browse upon the upland slopes must starve perforce to-day--they cannot stand upon the steep incline; the c.o.c.ks and hens of the cottagers take refuge to leeward of their homes; every gust is laden with atoms of sand or stone, which strike like hail or small shot upon the face. See how the waves dash in at the outlying rocks, hurrying onward like blood-hounds in full cry, scuffling, struggling, madly jostling one another in eagerness to be first in the fray; joining issue with tremendous crash, only to be spent, broken, dissipated into thin air. Overhead the sky changes almost with the speed of the blast; sometimes the sun winks from a corner of the leaden clouds and tinges with glorious light the foam-bladders as they burst and scatter around their clouds of spray; in between the headlands the sea is churned into creaming froth, as though the housewives of the sea-G.o.ds with unwearying arms were whipping "trifle"

for some tremendous bridal-feast.

The houses at Harbridge mostly faced the sh.o.r.e, but all had stone porches, and the doors stood not in front, but at one side. The modest cottage which Mr. Driver called his own was like the rest; but as he enters, for all his care, a keen knife-edged gust of the pushing wind precedes him and announces his return. Next instant the little lobby is filled: a bevy of daughters, the good house-mother, one or two youngsters dragging at his legs, everyone eager to welcome the breadwinner home. They divest him of his wraps, soothing him the while with that tender loving solicitude a man finds only at his own happy hearth.

He unfolds his budget of news: a lugger driven by stress of weather upon the Castle Rock; suspicions of smuggling among the rough beyond Langness Cove; Dr. Holden's new partner arrived last night.

"I have asked him to come up this evening. A decent sort of chap."

Forthwith they fired a volley of questions. Was he old or young, married or single? had he blue eyes or brown? and how was he called?

To all papa makes shift to reply. The name he had forgotten, also the colour of his hair; but the fellow had eyes and two arms and two legs; he did not squint; had a pleasant address and all the appearance of an unmarried man.

"How could you see that, wise father?" asked Doll.

"He looked so sheepish when I mentioned my daughters. Doubtless he had heard of you, Miss Doll, and of your dangerous wiles."

She pinched his ear. They were excellent friends, were father and eldest daughter. Mr. Driver, a scholar and a man of letters, who had been thankful to exchange an uncertain footing upon the lower rungs of the ladder of literature for a small post under Government, had for years devoted his talents to the education of the children. In Dolly, as his most apt pupil, he took a peculiar pride.

"Come in, doctor!" cried Mr. Driver that night. "We are all dying, but only to make your acquaintance."

The new visitor was checked at the very threshold by Dolly's cry--

"Mr. Purling!"

And Harold stood confessed to his cousins without a chance of further disguise.

"Cousin Harold, you mean," he said, as he offered Dolly his hand.

She tried hard to hide her blushes; and then and there Mrs. Driver, after the manner of mothers, built up a great castle in the air, which her husband shook instantly to its foundations by asking unceremoniously and not without a shade of angry suspicion in his tone--

"Why did you not claim relationship this morning?"

He disliked the notion of a man stealing into his house under false colours.

"I waited for you to speak. You heard my name."

"I did not catch it clearly. Besides, I had never heard of you. None of us have. Your mother did not choose to recognise the relationship."

"She called you a tide-waiter," said his wife indignantly.

"At least I'm not a white-tied waiter," cried Mr. Driver, with a laugh, in which all joined. Then in low voice Dolly said--

"I met Mr. Purling at Purlington."

At which her father turned upon her with newly-raised suspicion. Why had she not mentioned the fact before? But something in Mrs. Driver's face deterred him. A woman in these matters sees how the land lies, while the cleverest man is still unable to distinguish it from the clouds upon the horizon-line.

"We are pleased to know you, Harold," said Mrs. Driver, a gentle, soft-voiced motherly person.

"You have really come to practise here?" went on the father, still rather on his guard.

"I wanted sea-air. The change will do me good," replied Harold, rather evasively. "I like the place, too."

Not a doubt of it. Harbridge was after his own heart, and so were some people who lived in it. He found it so much to his taste that he declared within a week or two that he thought of remaining there altogether. He would go into partnership with the local doctor; perhaps he had another partnership also in his eye.

"Can't you see what's going on under your nose, father?" asked Mrs.

Driver.

"What do I care? I shall not interfere."

"Mrs. Purling will never give her consent. Poor Doll!"

"_That_ for Mrs. Purling and her consent!" said Mr. Driver, snapping his fingers. "Doll is ever so much too good for them--well, not for him; he is an honest, straightforward fellow: but as for that selfish, silly, purse-proud old woman, she may thank Heaven if she gains a daughter like Doll."

That this was not Mrs. Purling's view of the question was plainly evident from a letter which awoke Harold rather rudely from his rosy dreams.

"So at length I have found you out, Harold. I never dreamt you could be so deceitful and double-faced. To talk of clinical lectures in town, and all the time at Harbridge, philandering with that forward, intriguing girl! Only with the greatest difficulty have I succeeded in learning the truth. Phillipa--who, it seems, has known your secret all along, and to whom, I find, you have constantly written--could not continue indifferent to my distress of mind. Although she has shielded you so far with a magnanimity that is truly heroic, she has interposed at length only to save my life.