Mr. Raynald turned to his son rather sharply.
"I don"t want any nonsense of that kind set about, Mark," he said. "It would frighten the younger children when they come down here. I will ask about the old man. It is quite possible he is half-witted, or something of that sort. I forgot about it when Sybil mentioned it before. But no doubt he is perfectly harmless. Has no one seen him but you, Sybil?"
The girl shook her head.
"None of _us_," she replied. "And I wasn"t exactly frightened. There was something very pathetic about him. He looked at me closely, murmuring some words, and then shook his head. That was all."
But just then her father was called away to give some last directions, and in the bustle of hurry to catch their train the matter pa.s.sed from the minds of the younger as well as the elder members of the family.
It returned to Sybil"s memory, however, when she found herself in their London house again, and called upon by her younger sisters to relate every detail of Monksholdings and its neighbourhood. But mindful of her father"s warning, she said nothing to Esther or Annis of the figure at the gate. It was only to Miss March--Ellinor March--the dearly-loved governess, who was more friend than teacher to her three pupils, that she spoke of it, late in the evening, when the younger ones had gone to bed, and her father and mother were busy with Indian letters in Mr.
Raynald"s study.
The two girls, we may say--for Ellinor was still some years under thirty--were alone in the drawing-room. Ellinor had been playing something tender and faintly weird--it died away under her fingers, and she sat on at the piano in silence.
Sybil spoke suddenly.
"That is _so_ melancholy," she said, "something so long ago about it, like the ghost of a sorrow rather than a sorrow itself. I know--I know what it makes me think of. Listen, Ellinor."
For out of school hours the two threw formality aside. And Sybil told of the sad, wistful old face looking over the stile.
"Now it has come back to me," she said, "I can"t forget it."
Ellinor, too, was impressed.
"Yes," she said, "it sounds very pitiful. Who knows what tragedy is bound up in it?" and she sighed.
Sybil understood her. Miss March"s own history was a strange one.
"We must find out about it when we go down to Monksholdings next year,"
she said.
"And perhaps," added Ellinor, "even if he is half-witted, we might do something to comfort the poor man."
Sybil hesitated.
"Then you don"t think he can be a ghost?" she said, looking half ashamed of the suggestion.
Miss March smiled--her smile was sad.
"In one sense, no, I should think it highly improbable; in another, yes, there must be the ghost of some great sorrow about the face you describe," she said.
So there was.
This is the story.
At the farther end of Scarby village--the farther end, that is to say, from Monksholdings and the path between the hills--the road drops again somewhat suddenly. Only for a short distance, however; Mayling Farm--"Giles"s" as it is colloquially called--which is the first house you come to when you reach level ground again, being by no means low lying.
On the contrary, the west windows command a grand view of the great Scarshire plain beneath, bordered by the faint hazy blue, scarcely to be distinguished from clouds, of the long range of hills concealing the far-off glimmer of the ocean, which otherwise might sometimes be perceptible.
Mayling is a very old place, and the Giles"s had been there "always," so to speak--steady-going, unambitious, save as regards their farming and its success; they had been just the make of men to settle on to their ground as if it and they could have no existence apart. A fine race physically as well as morally, though some twenty-five years or so before the Raynalds bought Monksholdings, a run of ill luck, a whole chapter of casualties, had brought them down to but one representative, and he scarcely the typical Farmer Giles of Mayling.
This was Barnett, the youngest of four stalwart sons; the youngest and the only survivor. He was already forty when his father died, earnestly commending to him the "old place," which even at eighty the aged farmer felt himself better fitted to manage than the somewhat delicate, sensitive man whom his brothers had made good-natured fun of in his youth as a "book-worm".
But Barnett was intelligent and sensible, and he rose to the occasion.
Circ.u.mstances helped him. The year after old Giles"s death Barnett for the first time fell in love, wisely and well. His affection was bestowed on a worthy object--Marion Grover, the daughter of a yeoman in the next county--and was fully returned.
Marion was years younger than her lover, fifteen at least, eminently practical, healthy, and pretty. She brought her husband just exactly what he was most in need of--brightness, energy, and youth. It was an ideal marriage, and everything prospered at Mayling. Four years after the advent of the new Mrs. Giles you would scarcely have recognised the farmer, he seemed another man.
He adored his wife, and could hardly find it in his heart to regret that their child was not a son, even though, failing an heir, the old name must die out; for if there was one creature the husband and wife loved more than each other it was their baby girl.
A month or two after this child"s second birthday the singular catastrophe occurred which changed the world to poor Barnett Giles, leaving him but a wreck of his former self, physically and mentally.
Young Mrs. Giles was strong in every way, and from the first she took the line of saving her husband all extra fatigue or annoyance which she could possibly hoist on to her own brave shoulders. There was something quaint and even pathetic in the relations of the couple. For, notwithstanding Marion"s being so much Barnett"s junior, her att.i.tude towards him had a decided suggestion of the maternal about it, though at times of real emergency his sound judgment and advice never failed her.
It was within a week or two of Christmas; the weather was bitingly, raspingly cold. And though as yet no snow had fallen, the weather-wise were predicting it daily.
"I _must_ go over to Colletwood this week," said Mrs. Giles, "and I must take Nelly. Her new coat is waiting to be tried at the dressmaker"s, and I must get her some boots and several other things before Christmas. And there is a whole list of other shopping too--all our Christmas presents to see to."
Her husband was looking out of the window, it was still very early in the day.
"I doubt if the snow will hold off much longer," he said.
"And once it begins it may be heavy," his wife replied, "and then I might not be able to go for ever so long, even by the road,"--for a deep fall of snow at Scarby was practically a stoppage to all traffic. "I"ll tell you what, Barnett, we"ll go to-day and make sure of it. I will put other things aside and start before noon. A couple of hours, or three at the most, will do everything, and then Nelly and I will be back long before dark. You"ll come to meet us, won"t you?"
"Of course I will--if you go. But," and again he glanced at the sky.
The morning was, so far, clear and bright, though very cold, but over towards the north there was a suspicious look about the blue-grey clouds. "I don"t know," he said, "but that you"d better wait till to-morrow and see if it blows off again."
But Marion shook her head.
"I"ve a feeling," she said, "that if I don"t go to-day, I won"t go at all. And I really must. I"ll take Betsy to carry the child till we"re just above the town, and then send her home, so as not to be tired for coming back. Not that I"m _ever_ tired, as you know," with a smile.
He gave in, only stipulating that at all costs they should start to return by a certain hour, unless the snow should have already begun, in which case Marion was to run no risks, but either to hire a fly to bring her home by the road, or to stay in the town with some of her friends till the weather cleared again.
"And I"ll meet you," he added. "Let us set our watches together--I"ll start from here so as to be at--let me see----"
"Half-way between the stiles," said Marion. "We can each see the other from one stile to the opposite one, you know, even though it"s a good bit of a way. Yes, dear, I"ll time it as near as I can to meet half-way between the stiles."
And with these words the last on her lips, she set off, a picture of health and happiness--little Nelly crowing back to "Dada" from over stout Betsy"s shoulder.
Betsy was home again within the hour.
But the mother and child--alas and alas! It was the immortal story of "Lucy Gray" in an almost more pathetic shape.
Farmer Giles, as I have said, was a studious, often absent-minded man.
There was not much to do at that season and in such weather, and what there was, some amount of supervision on his part was enough for. After his early dinner he got out his books for an hour or two"s quiet reading till it should be time to set off to meet his darlings. No fear of his forgetting _that_ time, but till the clock struck, and he saw it was approaching nearly, he never looked out--he was unconscious of the rapid growth of the lurid, steely clouds; he had no idea that the snowflakes were already falling, falling, more and more closely and thickly with each instant that pa.s.sed.
Then rose the storm spirit and issued his orders--all too quickly obeyed. Before Barnett Giles had left the village street he found himself in what now-a-days would be called a "blizzard". And his pale face grew paler, and his heart beat as if to choke him, when at last he reached the first stile and stood there panting, to regain his breath.
It was all he could do to battle on through the fury of the wind, the blinding, whirling snow, which seemed to envelop him as if in sheets.
Not for many and many a day will that awful snowstorm be forgotten in Scarshire.