Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker.
by Marguerite Bryant.
CHAPTER I
It was a hot July day, set in a sky of unruffled blue, with sharp shadows across road and field, and a wind that had little coolness in it playing languidly over the downland. The long white dusty road kept its undeviating course eastward over hill and dale, through hamlet and town, till it was swallowed up in the mesh-work of ways round London, sixty-three miles away according to the mile-stone by which a certain small boy clad in workhouse garb was loitering. He had read the inscription many times and parcelled out the sixty-three miles into various days" journeys, but never succeeded in bringing it within divisionable distance of the few pennies which found their way into his pockets. His precocious little head carried within it too bitter memories of hungry days, and too many impressions of the shifts and contrivances by which fortune"s votaries bamboozle from that fickle G.o.ddess a meagre living, to adventure on the journey unprepared.
Moreover, Mr. and Mrs. Moss of the Whitmansworth Union were not unkind, and meals were regular, so he did not run away from the house that had opened its doors to him and an exhausted mother six months ago. But he still dreamt of London as the desideratum of his fondest hopes, and that, in spite of a black terror crouching there and carefully nurtured by the poor mother in the days of their wanderings.
He saw it all through a haze of people and experiences, of friends and foes, and it was the Place of Liberty.
Therefore, when escape was possible from the somewhat easy rule of the Union, he hurried away to the mile-stone on the "Great Road," as it was called about here. The stone with its clear distinct black lettering, seemed to bring him nearer London, and he would spend his time contentedly flinging pebbles into the river of dust at his feet, or planning out in his active little mind what he would do when old Granny Jane"s prophecy came true.
There was a wide strip of turf on each side of the road bejewelled with poppies and daisies, matted with yellow and white bedstraws, carpeted with clovers, and over all lay a coating of fine chalky dust, legacy of pa.s.sing cart and carriage.
The boy was very hot and very dusty, and a little sleepy. He lay on his back drumming his heels on the turf and watching an exuberant lark tower up into the sky above him. He was not unmindful of the lark"s song, but he vaguely wondered if a well-thrown stone could travel as far as the dark mounting speck.
"It"s a year ago I am sure since that old woman told me my fortune,"
he said, suddenly sitting up. "I wonder if it will come true. Mother said it was nonsense."
It was a lonely stretch of road. The mile-stone was on the summit of a rise and the ground sloped away on his right to a reach of green water-meadow through which a chalky trout-stream wandered, and the red roof of an old mill showed through a group of silvery poplars and willows. On the other side of the road were undulating fields that dwindled from spa.r.s.e cultivation to bare down-land. There was no sign of any house except the distant mill, but directly over the summit of the hill, happily hidden, an ugly little red-brick mushroom of a town a.s.serted itself, overgrowing in its unbeautiful growth the older picturesque village of Whitmansworth.
The faint sharp click of horses" hoofs stepping swiftly and regularly swept up the road towards the boy. He stood up the better to see the approaching vehicle which was coming from out of the east towards him.
Two horses, he judged, listening intently. Presently a distant dark spot on the road evolved itself into a carriage--a phaeton and a pair of iron grey horses. It was long before the days of motors, when fine horses and good drivers were common enough in England, but even the small boy recognised that these animals were exceptional and were stepping out at a pace that spoke of good blood, good training and good hands on the reins.
He watched them trot full pace down the opposite hill and breast the steep rise after without a break in the easy rhythm of their movements. It was a matter of their driver"s will rather than their pleasure that made them slacken pace as they neared the mile-stone.
The lonely little figure standing there was clearly visible to the travellers in the phaeton. The man who was driving looked at him casually, looked again with sudden sharp scrutiny, and abruptly pulled up his horses. He thrust the reins into his companion"s hands, and was off the box before the groom from behind could reach the horses"
heads.
The owner of the phaeton came straight towards the small boy who was watching the horses with interest, pleased at the halt and oblivious of his own connection with it. The traveller was a man who looked forty-eight despite his frosted hair, and was in reality ten years older. He was tall, well beyond average height, thin, well-fashioned, with a keen kindly face, clean shaven. His mouth was humorous, and there was a certain serenity of expression and bearing that invited confidence. The boy, casting a hasty glance at him as he approached, thought him a very fine gentleman indeed: as in fact he was, in every possible meaning of the word.
"Is this Whitmansworth?" demanded the owner of the phaeton. His tone was not aggressive. The boy gave him as straight a look of judgment as he himself received.
"Down there it is," with a nod of his head in the direction of the distant townlet.
"And not up here?"
"Dunno, they calls it the Great Road."
The stranger still stood looking down at him fixedly.
"Is your name James Christopher Hibbault?"
Without warning, without time for the canny little morsel of humanity to weigh the wisdom of an answer, the question was shot at him and he was left gasping and speechless after an incriminating "Yes," forced from him by the suddenness of the onslaught, and the truth-compelling power of those keen eyes. "Least it"s Hibbault," he added unwillingly.
"Jim, they calls me."
"I think it is Christopher as well, and I prefer Christopher. And what are you doing on the Great Road at this hour in the afternoon, Christopher?"
And Jim--or Christopher,--trained and renowned for a useful evasiveness of retort in those far-off London days, answered mechanically: "Waiting for the fortune to come true."
Then the hot blood rushed to his face from sheer shame at his own betrayal of the darling secret of his small existence.
"Your fortune?" echoed the other slowly. "Fortunes do not come for waiting. What do you mean?"
"It was the old woman said so--mother didn"t believe it. She said as how my fortune would come to me on the Great Road. There wer"n"t no Great Road there, so when I heard as how they called this the Great Road, I just stuck to it."
It was a long speech. The boy had none of the half-stupid stolidity of the country-bred, and yet lacked something of the garrulity of the cute street lad. His voice too was a surprise. The broad vowels seemed acquired and uncertain and jarred on the hearer with a sense of misfit.
"Do you live at Whitmansworth Union?"
There was a faint tinge of resentment in the short "Yes."
How did the gentleman know it, and, anyhow, why should he tell him?
Jim felt irritated.
The owner of the phaeton stood still a moment with one hand on the dusty little shoulder, and then looked round at the water-meadows, the distant copses, the more distant shimmering downs. Then he laughed, saying something the boy did not understand, and looked down at the sharp inquiring little face again.
"Which means, Christopher, hide-and-seek is an easy game when it"s over," he explained. "Come and show me where you live."
They walked back towards the carriage together. The elderly gentleman holding the reins was looking back at them; so was the groom. The elderly gentleman cast a puzzled, inquiring glance from the boy to his companion as they came near.
"Fortune meets us on the road-side, Stapleton," said the owner of the phaeton. "Let me introduce you to Christopher Hibbault. Get up, child."
Get up? Mount that quietly magnificent carriage, ride behind those beautiful animals with their pawing feet and arched necks? The small boy stood still a moment to appreciate the greatness of the event.
"Are you afraid, Christopher?"
Resentment sprang to life. Yet it was almost well so transcendent a moment should have its pin p.r.i.c.k of annoyance. With a "No" of ineffable scorn, Jim--or Christopher--the name was immaterial to him--clambered up into the high carriage and wedged himself between the elderly gentleman and the inquisitive driver, who had regained his seat and the reins.
Christopher"s experiences of driving were of a very limited nature, and certainly they did not embrace anything like this. He had no recollection of ever having travelled by train, and it was the question of pace that fascinated him, the rapid, easy swinging movement through the air, the fresh breeze rushing by, the distancing of humbler wayfarers, all gave him a strange sense of exhilaration.
Years afterward, when flesh and blood were all too slow for him and he was one of the best motorists in England, if not in Europe, he used to recall the rapturous pleasure of that first drive of his, that first introduction to the mad, tense joy of speed that ever after held him in thrall.
The owner of the phaeton and the elderly gentleman whom he had called Stapleton exchanged no remarks, but they both cast curious, thoughtful glances at their small companion from time to time. They had to rouse him from his rhapsody to ask the way at last. He answered concisely and shortly with no touch of the local burr.
"How came you to be so far away?" demanded Jim"s fine gentleman as they were pa.s.sing through the market-place.
Jim was engaged in superciliously ignoring the amazed stares of the town boys who were apt to look down on the "workhouse kid," though he attended the Whitmansworth school. Once past them he answered the question vaguely.
"The master was out: I hadn"t to do anything."
"And you had permission to wander where you liked?"
To this Jim did not reply. He had _not_ permission, but he counted on the good nature of Mrs. Moss, with whom he was a favourite, to plead his cause with her husband.
"Had you permission?" demanded his questioner again, bending down suddenly to look in the boy"s face with his disconcerting eyes.
It would have seemed to Jim on reflection a great deal more prudent and quite as easy to have said "yes" as "no," but the "no" slipped out, and the questioner smiled, not ill-pleased.