Winston of the Prairie Part 9

"Yes," said the lawyer. "Colonel Barrington does not dispute it, though I am of opinion that he might have done so under one clause of the will. I do not think we need discuss his motives."

Winston moistened his lips with his tongue, and his lips quivered a little. He had hitherto been an honest man, and now it was impossible for him to take the money. It, however, appeared equally impossible to reveal his ident.i.ty and escape the halter, and he felt that the dead man had wronged him horribly. He was ent.i.tled at least to safety by way of compensation, for by pa.s.sing as Courthorne he would avoid recognition as Winston.

"Still I do not know how I have offended Colonel Barrington," he said.

"I would sooner," said the lawyer, "not go into that. It is, I fancy, fifteen years since Colonel Barrington saw you, but he desired me to find means of tracing your Canadian record, and did not seem pleased with it. Nor, at the risk of offending you, could I deem him unduly prejudiced."

"In fact," said Winston dryly, "this man who has not seen me for fifteen years is desirous of withholding what is mine from me at almost any cost."

The lawyer nodded. "There is nothing to be gained by endeavoring to controvert it. Colonel Barrington is also, as you know, a somewhat determined gentleman."

Winston laughed, for he was essentially a stubborn man, and felt little kindliness towards any one connected with Courthorne, as the Colonel evidently was.

"I fancy I am not entirely unlike him in that respect," he said. "What you have told me makes me the more determined to follow my own inclination. Is there any one else at Silverdale prejudiced against me?"

The lawyer fell into the trap. "Miss Barrington, of course, takes her brother's view, and her niece would scarcely go counter to them. She must have been a very young girl when she last saw you, but from what I know of her character I should expect her to support the Colonel."

"Well," said Winston, "I want to think over the thing. We will talk again to-morrow. You would require me to establish my ident.i.ty, any way?"

"The fact that a famous inquiry agent has traced your movements down to a week or two ago, and told me where to find you, will render that simple," said the lawyer dryly.

Winston sat up late that night turning over the papers the lawyer left him and thinking hard. It was evident that in the meanwhile he must pa.s.s as Courthorne, but as the thought of taking the money revolted him, the next step led to the occupation of the dead man's property.

The a.s.sumption of it would apparently do n.o.body a wrong, while he felt that Courthorne had taken so much from him that the farm at Silverdale would be a very small reparation. It was not, he saw, a great inheritance, but one that in the right hands could be made profitable, and Winston, who had fought a plucky fight with obsolete and worthless implements and indifferent teams, felt that he could do a great deal with what was, as it were, thrust upon him at Silverdale. It was not avarice that tempted him, though he knew he was tempted now, but a longing to find a fair outlet for his energies, and show what, once given the chance that most men had, he could do. He had stinted himself and toiled almost as a beast of burden, but now he could use his brains in place of wringing the last effort out of overtaxed muscle. He had also during the long struggle lost to some extent his clearness of vision, and only saw himself as a lonely man fighting for his own hand with fate against him. Now, when prosperity was offered him, it seemed but folly to stand aside when he could stretch out a strong hand and take it.

During the last hour he sat almost motionless, the issue hung in the balance, and he laid himself down still undecided. Still, he had lived long in primitive fashion in close touch with the soil, and sank, as most men would not have done, into restful sleep. The sun hung red above the rim of the prairie when he awakened, and going down to breakfast found the lawyer waiting for him.

"You can tell Colonel Barrington I'm coming to Silverdale," he said.

The lawyer looked at him curiously. "Would there be any use in asking you to reconsider?"

Winston laughed. "No," he said. "Now, I rather like the way you talked to me, and, if it wouldn't be disloyalty to the Colonel, I should be pleased if you would undertake to put me in due possession of my property."

He said nothing further, and the lawyer sat down to write Colonel Barrington.

"Mr. Courthorne proves obdurate," he said. "He is, however, by no means the type of man I expected to find, and I venture to surmise that you will eventually discover him to be a less undesirable addition to Silverdale than you are at present inclined to fancy."

CHAPTER VIII

WINSTON COMES TO SILVERDALE

There was warmth and brightness in the cedar-boarded general room of Silverdale Grange, and most of the company gathered there basked in it contentedly after their drive through the bitter night. Those who came from the homesteads lying farthest out had risked frost-nipped hands and feet, for when Colonel Barrington held a levee at the Grange n.o.body felt equal to refusing his invitation. Neither scorching heat nor utter cold might excuse compliance with the wishes of the founder of Silverdale, and it was not until Dane, the big middle-aged bachelor, had spoken very plainly, that he consented to receive his guests in time of biting frost dressed otherwise than as they would have appeared in England.

Dane was the one man in the settlement who dare remonstrate with its ruler, but it was a painful astonishment to the latter when he said in answer to one invitation, "I have never been frost-bitten, sir, and I stand the cold well, but one or two of the lads are weak in the chest, and this climate was never intended for bare-shouldered women. Hence, if I come, I shall dress myself to suit it."

Colonel Barrington stared at him for almost a minute, and then shook his head. "Have it your own way," he said. "Understand that in itself I care very little for dress, but it is only by holding fast to every traditional nicety we can prevent ourselves sinking into Western barbarism, and I am horribly afraid of the thin end of the wedge."

Dane having gained his point said nothing further, for he was one of the wise and silent men who know when to stop, and that evening he sat in a corner watching his leader thoughtfully, for there was anxiety in the Colonel's face. Barrington sat silent near the ample hearth whose heat would scarcely have kept water from freezing but for the big stove, and disdaining the dispensation made his guests, he was clad conventionally, though the smooth black fabric clung about him more tightly than it had once been intended to do. His sister stood, with the stamp of a not wholly vanished beauty still clinging to her gentle face, talking to one or two matrons from outlying farms, and his niece by a little table turning over Eastern photographs with a few young girls. She, too, wore black in deference to the Colonel's taste, which was somber, and the garment she had laughed at as a compromise left uncovered a narrow strip of ivory shoulder and enhanced the polished whiteness of her neck. A slender string of pearls gleamed softly on the satiny skin, but Maud Barrington wore no other adornment, and did not need it. She had inherited the Courthorne comeliness, and the Barringtons she sprang from on her father's side had always borne the stamp of distinction.

A young girl sat at the piano singing in a thin reedy voice, while an English lad waited with the ill-concealed jealousy of a too officious companion to turn over the music by her side. Other men, mostly young, with weather-bronzed faces, picturesque in embroidered deerskin or velvet lounge jackets, were scattered about the room, and all were waiting for the eight o'clock dinner, which replaced the usual prairie supper at Silverdale. They were growers of wheat who combined a good deal of amus.e.m.e.nt with a little, not very profitable, farming, and most of them possessed a large share of insular English pride and a somewhat depleted exchequer.

Presently Dane crossed over, and sat down by Colonel Barrington. "You are silent, sir, and not looking very well to-night," he said.

Barrington nodded gravely, for he had a respect for the one man who occasionally spoke plain truth to him. "The fact is, I am growing old," he said, and then added, with what was only an apparent lack of connection, "Wheat is down three cents, and money tighter than ever."

Dane looked thoughtful, and noticed the older man's glance in his niece's direction, as he said, "I am afraid there are difficult times before us."

"I have no doubt we shall weather them as we have done before," said the Colonel. "Still, I can't help admitting that just now I feel--a little tired--and am commencing to think we should have been better prepared for the struggle had we worked a trifle harder during the recent era of prosperity. I could wish there were older heads on the shoulders of those who will come after me."

Just then Maud Barrington glanced at them, and Dane, who could not remember having heard his leader talk in that fashion before, and could guess his anxieties, was a little touched as he noticed his attempt at sprightliness. As it happened, one of the lads at the piano commenced a song of dogs and horses that had little to recommend it but the brave young voice.

"They have the right spirit, sir," he said.

"Of course!" said Barrington. "They are English lads, but I think a little more is required. Thank G.o.d we have not rated the dollar too high, but it is possible we have undervalued its utility, and I fear I have only taught them to be gentlemen."

"That is a good deal, sir," Dane said quietly.

"It is. Still, a gentleman, in the restricted sense, is somewhat of an anachronism on the prairie, and it is too late to begin again. In the usual course of nature I must lay down my charge presently, and that is why I feel the want of a more capable successor, whom they would follow because of his connection with mine and me."

Dane looked thoughtful. "If I am not taking a liberty--you still consider the one apparently born to fill the place quite unsuitable?"

"Yes," said Barrington quietly. "I fear there is not a redeeming feature in Courthorne's character."

Neither said anything further, until there was a tapping at the door, and, though this was a most unusual spectacle on the prairie, a trim English maid in white-banded dress stood in the opening.

"Mr. Courthorne, Miss Barrington," she said.

Now Silverdale had adopted one Western custom in that no chance guest was ever kept waiting, and the music ceased suddenly, while the stillness was very suggestive, when a man appeared in the doorway. He wore one of the Scandinavian leather jackets which are not uncommon in that country, and when his eyes had become accustomed to the light, moved forward with a quiet deliberation that was characterized neither by graceful ease nor the restraint of embarra.s.sment. His face was almost the color of a Blackfeet's, his eyes steady and gray, but those of the men who watched him were turned the next moment upon the Colonel's sister, who rose to receive him, slight, silver-haired, and faded, but still stamped with a simple dignity that her ancient silks and laces curiously enhanced. Then there was a silence that could be felt, for all realized that a good deal depended on the stranger's first words and the fashion of his reception by Miss Barrington and the Colonel.

Winston, as it happened, felt this too, and something more. It was eight years since he had stood before an English lady, and he surmised that there could not be many to compare with this one, while after his grim lonely life an intangible something that seemed to emanate from her gracious serenity compelled his homage. Then as she smiled at him and held out her hand, he was for a moment sensible of an almost overwhelming confusion. It pa.s.sed as suddenly, for this was a man of quick perceptions, and remembering that Courthorne had now and then displayed some of the grace of by-gone days he yielded to a curious impulse, and, stooping, kissed the little withered fingers.

"I have," he said, "to thank you for a welcome that does not match my poor deserts, madam."

Then Dane, standing beside his leader, saw the grimness grow a trifle less marked in his eyes. "It is in the blood," he said half-aloud, but Dane heard and afterwards remembered it.

In the meanwhile Miss Barrington had turned from the stranger to her niece. "It is a very long time since you have seen Lance, Maud, and, though I knew his mother well, I am less fortunate, because this is our first meeting," she said. "I wonder if you still remember my niece?"

Now, Winston had been gratified by his first success, and was about to venture on the answer that it was impossible to forget; but when he turned towards the very stately young woman in the long black dress whose eyes had a sardonic gleam, and wondered whether he had ever seen anybody so comely or less inclined to be companionable, it was borne in upon him that any speech of the kind would be distinctly out of place.

Accordingly, and because there was no hand held out in this case, he contented himself with a little bend of his head. Then he was presented to the Colonel, who was distantly cordial, and Winston was thankful when the maid appeared in the doorway again, to announce that dinner was ready, Miss Barrington laid her hand upon his arm.

"You will put up with an old woman's company tonight?" she said.

Winston glanced down deprecatingly at his attire. "I must explain that I had no intention of trespa.s.sing on your hospitality," he said. "I purposed going on to my own homestead, and only called to acquaint Colonel Barrington with my arrival."

Miss Barrington laughed pleasantly. "That," she said, "was neither dutiful nor friendly. I should have fancied you would also have desired to pay your respects to my niece and me."