CHAPTER VI.
HER PICTURE.
Wyllard stayed at the inn three days without seeing anything more of the girl he had met beside the stream, though he diligently watched for her. For one thing, he had long felt it was his duty to communicate with the relatives of the lad he had befriended, and the fact that he had found her photograph in the young Englishman"s possession made it appear highly probable that she could a.s.sist him in tracing them.
Apart from this, he could not quite a.n.a.lyse his motives for desiring to see more of her, though he was conscious of the desire. Her picture had, however, been a companion to him in his wanderings, and he had, indeed, now and then found a certain solace in gazing at it, while now he had seen her in the flesh he was willing to admit that he had never met any woman who had made the same impression on him. What he meant by that he was not quite certain; but it was in the meanwhile as far as he would go.
It was, of course, open to him to call at the vicarage, but though he meant to adopt that course as a last resort, there were certain objections to it. He did not even know the girl"s name, and there was n.o.body to say a word for him; while, so far as his experience went, the English were rather apt to be reticent and reserved to an unknown stranger. It seemed to him that, although she might give him the information he required, their acquaintance would probably terminate then and there, which was not what he desired. She would, he decided, be less likely to stand upon her guard if he could contrive to meet her casually without pre-arrangement.
On the fourth day fortune favoured him, for he came upon her endeavouring to open a tottering gate where a stony hill track led off from the smooth white road. As it happened, he had received a letter from Mrs. Hastings that morning, fixing the date of her departure, which rendered it necessary for him to discharge the duty Hawtrey had saddled him with as soon as possible. The Grange, where he understood Miss Ismay was then staying, lay thirty miles away across the fells, and he had already decided to start early on the morrow. That being the case, it was clear that he must make the most of this opportunity; but he also realised that it would be advisable to proceed circ.u.mspectly. Saying nothing, he set his shoulder to the gate, and lifting it on its decrepit hinges swung it open.
"Thank you," said the girl, and then, remembering that this was the last thing she had said to him, she smiled, as she added, "It is the second time you have turned up when I was in difficulties."
In spite of his resolution to proceed cautiously, a twinkle crept into Wyllard"s eyes, and suggested that the fact she had mentioned was not so much of a coincidence as it probably appeared. She saw it, and was about to pa.s.s on, when he stopped her with a gesture. He was, after all, usually a candid person.
"The fact is, I have been looking out for you the last three days," he said.
He fancied the girl had taken alarm at this, and spread his hands out deprecatingly. "Won"t you hear me out?" he added. "There"s a matter I must put before you, but I won"t keep you long."
His companion was a little puzzled, and naturally curious. It struck her as somewhat strange that his rather startling admission should have roused in her very little indignation; but she felt that it would be unreasonable to suspect this man of anything that savoured of impertinence. His manner was rea.s.suring, and she liked his face.
"Well?" she said inquiringly.
The man indicated a big oak trunk that lay just inside the gate.
"If you"ll sit down, I"ll get through as quick as I can," he said. "In the first place, I am, as I told you, a Canadian, come over partly to see the country, and partly to carry out one or two duties. In regard to one of them, I believe you can help me."
His companion"s face was expressive of a very natural astonishment.
"I could help you?"
Wyllard nodded. "I"ll explain my reasons for believing it later on,"
he said. "In the meanwhile, I asked you a question the other night, which I"ll now try to make more explicit. Were you ever acquainted with a young Englishman who went to Canada from this country several years ago? He would be about twenty then, and had dark hair and eyes.
That, of course, isn"t an unusual thing, but there was a rather curious white mark on his left temple. If he was ever a friend of yours, that scar ought to fix it."
"Oh!" said the girl, "that must have been Lance Radcliffe. I was with him when the scar was made--ever so long ago. But you said his name was Pattinson--and we heard that he was dead."
"I did," said Wyllard gravely. "Still, I wasn"t quite sure of it, and he"s certainly dead. I buried him."
His companion made a little abrupt movement, and he saw the sudden softening of her eyes. There was, however, only a gentle pity in them, and nothing in her manner suggested the deeper feeling he had half-expected. That was also a relief to him.
"Then," she said, "I am sure that his father would like to meet you.
There was some trouble between them--I don"t know which was wrong--and Lance went out to Canada, and never wrote. By and bye, Major Radcliffe tried to trace him through a Vancouver banker, and only found that he had died in the hands of a stranger who had done all that was possible for him." She turned to Wyllard with a look which set his heart beating rather faster than usual. "You are that man?"
"Yes," said Wyllard simply, "I did what I could for him. It didn"t amount to very much. He was too far gone."
Then at her request he told her the story he had told to Hawtrey, and when he had finished her face was soft again, for it had stirred her curiously.
"But," she said, "he had no claim on you."
Wyllard lifted one hand as if in expostulation. "He was dying in the bush. Wasn"t that enough?"
The girl made no answer for a moment or two. She had earned her living for several years, and was, because of it, to some extent acquainted with the grim realities of life. She did not know that while there are certainly hard men in Canada, the small farmers and ranchers of the West--and, perhaps above all, the fearless free lances who build railroads and grapple with giant trees in the forests of the Pacific slope--are, as a rule, distinguished by a splendid charity. With them the sick or worn-out stranger is very seldom turned away. Still, watching her companion covertly, she understood that this man whom she had seen for the first time three days ago had done exactly what she would have expected of him. Then she proceeded to give him the information she supposed he desired.
"I saw a good deal of Lance Radcliffe--when I was younger," she said.
"His people still live at Garside Scar, close by Dufton Holme. I presume you will call on them?"
Wyllard said that he proposed doing so as he had a watch and one or two other mementoes that they might like to have, and when she told him how to reach Dufton Holme by a very round-about railway journey he supposed it lay somewhere in the dale to which he already purposed going. Then she turned to him again.
"There is one point that rather puzzles me," she said. "How did you know that I could tell you anything about him?"
The man thrust his hand into his pocket, and took out a little leather case.
"You are by no means a stranger to me," he said, and quietly handed her the photograph. "This is your picture; I found it among the dead lad"s things."
The girl, who started visibly, flashed a very keen glance at him.
There was, however, no doubt that he had not intended to produce any dramatic effect. Then she flushed a little.
"I never knew he had it," she said. "Perhaps he got it from his sister." She paused, and then, as though impelled to make the fact quite clear, added, "I certainly never gave it him."
Wyllard smiled gravely, for he recognised that while she was clearly grieved to hear of his death, she could have had no particular tenderness for the unfortunate lad. He was, however, a little off his guard just then.
"Well," he said, "perhaps he took it in the first place for the mere beauty of it, and it afterwards became a companion--something that connected him with the Old Country. It appealed in one of those ways to me."
Again she flashed a sharp glance at him, but he went on unheeding:
"When I found it I meant to keep it merely as a clue, and so that it could be given up to his relatives some day," he added. "Then I fell into the habit of looking at it in my lonely camp in the bush at night, and when I sat beside the stove while the snow lay deep upon the prairie. There was something in your eyes that seemed to encourage me."
"To encourage you?"
"Yes," Wyllard a.s.sented gravely; "I think that expresses it. When I camped in the bush of the Pacific slope we were either out on the gold trail--and we generally came back ragged and unsuccessful after spending several months" wages which we could badly spare--or I was going from one wooden town to another without a dollar in my pocket and wondering, how I was to obtain one when I got there. For a time it wasn"t much more cheerful on the prairie: twice in succession the harvest failed. Perhaps Lance Radcliffe felt as I did."
The girl cut him short. "Why didn"t you mention the photograph at once?"
Wyllard smiled at her. "Oh," he said, "I didn"t want to be precipitate--your folks don"t seem to like that; I"ve met them out West. I think"--and he seemed to consider--"I wanted to make sure you wouldn"t be repelled by what might look like Colonial _brusquerie_.
You see, you have been over snow-barred divides and through great shadowy forests with me. We"ve camped among the boulders by lonely lakes, and gone down frothing rapids. I felt--I can"t tell you why--that I was bound to meet you some day."
It was, perhaps, a trifle startling, but the girl now showed neither astonishment nor resentment. She felt curiously certain that this stranger was not posing or speaking for effect. It did not occur to him that he might have gone too far, and for a s.p.a.ce he leaned against the gate, saying nothing, while she looked at him with what he thought of as her gracious English calm.
Pale sunshine fell upon them, though the larches beside the road were rustling beneath a little cold wind, and the song of the river came up brokenly out of the valley. An odour of fresh gra.s.s floated about them, and the dry, cold smell of the English spring was in the air.
Across the valley dim ghosts of hills lighted by evanescent gleams rose out of the east wind greyness with shadowy grandeur.
Then Wyllard seemed to rouse himself. "I wonder if I ought to write Major Radcliffe and tell him what my object is before I call?" he said.
"It would make the thing a little easier."
The girl rose. "Yes," she a.s.sented, "that would, perhaps, be wiser."
Then she glanced at the photograph which was still in her hand. "It has served its purpose. I scarcely think it would be of any great interest to Major Radcliffe."
She saw his face change as she made it evident that she did not mean to give the portrait back to him; but there was, at least, one excellent reason why she would not have her picture in a strange man"s hands.