"They did grumble about the weather," Kit replied.
Janet looked amused. "You"re very cautious, my lad; but you needn"t take it for granted I"m always on father"s side. Do you think I don"t know why your neighbors came?"
"You don"t know altogether."
The moonlight was clear enough to show that Janet colored. "And you think I stopped you to find out?"
"I don"t," said Kit, rather awkwardly. "Still, perhaps it"s better that you shouldn"t know."
"Oh," said she, with some emotion, "I can"t tell if you mean to be nice or not. It"s the lazy, f.e.c.kless people who dislike father, because they"re jealous; and they try to make things hard for me. Why should I suffer because he"s cleverer than them?"
"You oughn"t to suffer. I really don"t think people blame you."
"They do blame me," Janet insisted. "You doubted if you could trust me just now."
This was true enough to embarra.s.s Kit, but he said, "I didn"t see why I should talk to you about our business; that was all. In fact, I don"t mean to talk about it to anybody."
"Now you"re nicer. I didn"t like to feel you were taking particular care not to let me know. Well, of course, father"s no friend of yours and perhaps he"ll like you worse by and by. But, after all, does that matter?"
"Not in a way," said Kit, pretending to be dull. "You have nothing to do with the dispute and we don"t want to quarrel with your father, although we mean to carry out our plans."
Janet looked rather hard at him and there was some color in her face, but she forced a smile.
"Oh, well! Good-night! I"ve stopped you, and expect you want to get home."
She went back through the gate and Kit resumed his walk, struggling with an annoyance he felt was illogical. He knew something about Bell"s household and imagined that Janet"s life was not smooth. He was sorry for her, and it was, of course, unjust to blame her for her father"s deeds.
All the same, the favor she had sometimes shown him was embarra.s.sing. He was not a philanderer, but he was young and she had made him feel that he had played an ungallant part. Jane was a flirt, but, after all, it would not have cost him much, so to speak, to play up to her. Perhaps he had acted like a prig. This made him angry, although he knew he had taken the proper line.
By and by he came to the water-splash, where a beck crossed the road. Its channel was paved, so that one could drive across, and at the side a stone causeway had been made for foot pa.s.sengers. Sometimes, when the beck was unusually swollen, shallow water covered the stones, and Kit saw the significance of a statement of Janet"s as he noted the width of the submerged spot. It looked as if Jim Nixon had carried her across. Then his annoyance vanished and he laughed. Gallant or not, he was satisfied to carry Janet"s letter.
As he went on in the moonlight he began to see that there were some grounds for his reluctance to indulge the girl. He had thought about Miss...o...b..rn often since he helped her across the stepping stones. He had not hesitated then, and although the things were different, to dwell upon the incident was perhaps rasher than indulging Janet. Miss...o...b..rn had, no doubt, forgotten, but he had not. The trouble was, he could not forget; his imagination pictured her vividly, sitting beneath the alders talking to him.
With something of an effort Kit pulled himself up. He was a small farmer"s son and the Osborns were important people. He knew Osborn"s family pride, which he thought his daughter had inherited. In Osborn, it was marked by arrogance; in the girl by a gracious, half-stately calm.
For all that, the pride was there, and Kit, resolving that he would not be a fool, went to the post office and put Janet"s letter in the box.
CHAPTER IV
THE PEAT CUTTERS
Osborn was dissatisfied and moody when, one afternoon, he stood, waiting for the grouse, behind a bank of turf on Malton moor. To begin with, he had played cards until the early morning with some of his guests and had been unlucky. Then he got up with a headache for which he held his wife accountable; Alice was getting horribly parsimonious, and had bothered him until he tried to cut down his wine merchant"s bill by experimenting with cheaper liquor. His headache was the consequence. The whisky he had formerly kept never troubled him like that.
Moreover, it was perhaps a mistake to invite Jardine, although he sometimes gave one a useful hint about speculations on the Stock Exchange. The fellow went to bigger shoots and looked bored when Osborn"s partridges were scarce and wild; besides, he had broken rules in order to get a shot when they walked the turnip fields in line. Osborn imagined Jardine would not have done so had he been a guest at one of the houses he boasted about visiting.
As they climbed Malton Head another of the party had broken Dowthwaite"s drystone wall and the farmer had said more about the accident than the damage justified. In fact, Dowthwaite was rather aggressive, and now Osborn came to think of it, one or two others had recently grumbled about things they had hitherto borne without complaint.
In the meantime, Osborn and Thorn, who shared his b.u.t.t, looked about while they waited for the beaters. The row of turf banks, regularly s.p.a.ced, ran back to the Force Crags at the head of the dale. The red bloom of the ling was fading from the moor, which had begun to get brown.
Sunshine and shadow swept across it, and the blue sky was dotted by flying, white-edged clouds. A keen wind swept the high tableland, and the grouse, flying before it, would come over the b.u.t.ts very fast.
In the distance, one could distinguish a row of figures that were presently lost in a hollow and got larger when they reappeared. They were beaters, driving the grouse, and by and by Osborn, picking up his gla.s.ses, saw cl.u.s.ters of small dark objects that skimmed and then dropped into the heath. It was satisfactory to note that they were numerous.
Although the birds were rather wild, he could now give his friends some sport. After a time, however, the cl.u.s.ters of dark dots were seen first to scatter and then vanish. Osborn frowned as he gave Thorn the gla.s.ses.
"What does that mean? Looks as if the birds had broken back."
"Some have broken back," said Thorn. "If they"ve flown over the beaters, we have lost them for the afternoon." He paused and resumed: "I think the first lot are dropping. No; they"re coming on."
Picking up his gun, he watched the advancing grouse. They flew low but very fast, making a few strokes at intervals and then sailing on stretched wings down the wind. In a few moments they were large and distinct, but there were not enough to cross more than the first two b.u.t.ts. When they were fifty yards off Thorn threw up his gun and two pale flashes leaped out. Osborn was slower and swung his barrel. The sharp reports were echoed from the next b.u.t.t and a thin streak of smoke that looked gray in the sunshine drifted across the bank of turf. Two brown objects, spinning round, struck the heath and a few light feathers followed. The grouse that had escaped went on and got small again.
"Missed with my right," said Osborn. "Had to shoot on the swing. Don"t know about the other barrel."
Thorn did know, but used some tact. "I may have been a trifle slow; my last bird was going very fast."
"I expect you saw whose bird it was," Osborn said to the lad who took their guns.
"Yes, sir; Mr. Thorn"s, sir."
"Oh, well," said Osborn, forcing a smile as he turned to Thorn, "you have youth upon your side. Anyhow, I don"t imagine the others have done much better, and it looks as if we might as well go home. When the birds broke back we lost the best chance we"ll get. I wonder what spoiled the drive?"
"Something on the old green road, I think. The grouse turned as they crossed the hollow."
A short distance off there was a fold in the moor, and while Osborn wondered whether he would walk to the top a man came over the brow, leading two horses that hauled a clumsy sledge. Another team followed and presently four advanced across the heath.
"Now you know what spoiled the drive," Thorn remarked with some dryness.
"You can"t expect a good shoot on the day your tenants move their peat."
Osborn, who was very angry, picked up the gla.s.ses. "The first two are not my tenants. They"re the Askews, and the boundary of their sheepwalk runs on this side of the green road."
"Then I suppose there"s nothing to be said!"
In the meantime, Osborn"s friends had left the other b.u.t.ts and come up, with Jardine in front. He was a fat, red-faced man, and as he got nearer remarked to his companions: "I call it wretched bad management! Somebody ought to have turned the fellows off the moor."
Osborn heard and glanced at Thorn as he left the b.u.t.t. "There is something to be said; I"m going to relieve my mind."
He went off and signaled the farmers to stop. They waited, standing quietly by their horses. On the open moor, their powerful figures had a touch of grace, and their clothes, faded by sun and rain, harmonized with the color of the heath. Peter Askew"s brown face was inscrutable when he fixed his steady eyes on Osborn.
"You turned back the grouse and spoiled the beat. Do you call that sporting?" Osborn asked.
"I"m sorry," Peter replied. "If I"d kenned you were shooting, mayhappen we could have put off loading the peat."
"You knew we were shooting when you saw the beaters."
"Aw, yis," said Peter. "It was over late then. I wadn"t willingly spoil any man"s sport, but we had browt up eight horses and had to get to work."
"You have plenty of work at Ashness."