A Letter of Credit Part 87

"Well--'tis; but I don' know as that's any objection. Young feet don't mind runnin' up and down; and when you are here, you've got it to yourself. Well, you can take care o' yourself up here; and down stairs Prissy will see that you don't starve. I expect that's how it'll be." And with again an affable nod of his capable head, Mr. Purcell departed.

Rotha locked the door, and went to her window; nature being the only quarter from which she could hope for a look or a tone of sympathy. The day was well on its way now, and the May sun s.h.i.+ning warm and bringing out the spicy odours of the larches and firs. A little stir of the soft air lightly moved the small branches and twigs and caressed Rotha's cheek. A sudden impulse seized her, to rush out and get rid of the house and its inmates for a while, and be alone with the loveliness of the outer world. She threw a shawl round her, put on her straw bonnet, locked her door, and ran down.

The front door of the main hall was fast, and no key in the lock; Rotha must go out as she had come in, through the kitchen. Mrs. Purcell was there, but made no remark, and Rotha went out and made her way first of all round to the front of the house. There she sat down upon the steps and looked about her.

An unkept gravel road swept round from the gate by which she had entered, up to her feet, and following a similar curve on the other side swept round to another gate, opening on the same high-road. The whole sweep took in a semicircle of ground, which lay in gra.s.s, planted with a few trees. To explore this gravel sweep was the first obvious move. So Rotha walked down to the gate by which she had come in that morning, and then back and down to the corresponding gate on the other side. All along the way from gate to gate, there ran wide flower beds on both sides; the back of the flower beds being planted thick with trees and shrubbery. Old fas.h.i.+oned flowering shrubs stood in close and wildering confusion. Lilac bushes held forth brown bunches where the flowers had been. Syringas pushed sweet white blossoms between the branches of other shrubs that crowded them in. May roses were there, with their bright little red faces, modest but sweet; and Scotch roses, aromatic and wild-looking.

There was a profusion of honeysuckle, getting ready to bloom; and laburnums hung out tresses of what would be soon "dropping gold." And Rotha stood still once before the snowy b.a.l.l.s of a Guelder rose, so white and fresh and fair that they dazzled her. She went on, down to the gate furthest from Tanfield, and spent a little while there, looking up and down the road. A straight, well-kept country road it was, straight and empty. Not a house was in sight, and only farm fields on the other side of the bordering fences. Rotha would have gone out, and walked at least a rod or two, but that gate was locked. There was no traffic or intercourse in any direction but with Tanfield. The empty highway seemed very lonely and desolate to the gazer at the gate. How shut off from the world she was! shut off in one little corner where n.o.body would ever look for her.

If Rotha had put any faith in her aunt's promises, of course she would not have minded a month's abode in this place; but she put no faith in her aunt, and had a sort of instinct that she had been sent here for no good reason, and would be allowed, or forced, to remain here for an indeterminate and possibly quite protracted length of time. The mere feeling of being imprisoned makes one long to break bounds; and so Rotha longed, impatiently, pa.s.sionately; but she saw no way. A little money would enable her to do it. Alas, she had no money. Her aunt had taken care of that. After paying for her breakfast and drive, she had only a very few s.h.i.+llings left; not even enough to make any impression upon the good will of her guardians, or jailers. Somehow they seemed a good deal more like that than like servants.

Rotha turned despairingly away from the gate and retraced her steps, examining the old flower beds more minutely. They were terribly neglected; choked with weeds, encroached upon by the bordering box, the soil hard and unstirred for many a day. Yet there were tokens of better times. Here there was a nest of lilies of the valley; there a mat of moss pink, so bright and fresh that Rotha again stood still to admire.

Daffodils peeped out their yellow faces from tufts of enc.u.mbering weeds; and stooping down, Rotha found an abundance of polyanthus scattered about among the other things, and periwinkle running wild. Nothing was seen to advantage, but a great deal was there. If I stay here, thought Rotha, I will get hold of a hoe and rake, and put things to rights. The flowers would be good friends, any way.

Coming up towards the house again, Rotha saw a road which branched off at right angles from the sweep and went straight on, parallel to the side of the house but at a good distance from it. She turned into this road.

Between it and the house was one ma.s.s of thick shrubbery, thick enough and high enough to hide each from the other. Following 011, Rotha presently saw at a little distance on her right hand, the house being to the left, a black board fence with a little gate in it. The garden perhaps, she thought; but for the present she pa.s.sed it. Further along, the shrubbery ceased; a few large trees giving pleasant shade and variety to the ground about the barns, which stood here in numbers. Stables, carriage house, barn, granary; there was a little settlement of outhouses. Rotha had a liking for this neighbourhood, dating from old Medwayville a.s.sociations; her feet lingered; her eyes were gladly alive to notice every detail; her ears heard willingly even a distant grunting which told of the presence of the least amiable of farm-yard inhabitants, somewhere. Rotha opened a door here and there, but saw neither man nor beast. Wandering about, she found her way finally to a huge farmyard back of the barn. It was tramped with the feet of cattle, so cattle must be there at times. On one side of the farmyard she found the pig pen. It was so long since she had seen such a sight, that she stood still to watch the pigs; and while she stood there a voice almost at her elbow made her start.

"Them pigs is 'most good enough to belong to Mis' Busby, aint they?"

Mr. Purcell was coming at long strides over the barnyard, which Rotha had not ventured to cross; she had picked her way carefully along a very narrow strip of somewhat firm ground by the side of the fence. The man seemed disposed to be at least not unkindly, and Rotha could not afford to do without any of the little civility within her reach. So she answered rather according to her policy than her feeling, which latter would have bade her leave the spot immediately.

"I am no judge."

"Never see a litter o' piggies afore?"

"I suppose I have, sometime."

"Them's first-rate. Like to eat 'em?"

"Eat them!" cried Rotha. "Such young pigs?"

"Just prime now," said the man, looking at them lovingly over the fence, while grunting noses sniffing in his direction testified that the inmates of the pen knew him as well as he knew them. "Just prime; they's four, goin' on five, weeks old. Prissy's at me to give her one on 'em; and maybe I will, now you've come. I telled her it was expensive, to eat up a half a winter's stock for one dinner. I aint as extravagant as Prissy."

"How 'half a winter's stock'?" said Rotha, by way of saying something.

"Bless you, don't you see? Every one o' them fellers'd weigh two hundred by next Christmas; and that'd keep Prissy and me more'n half the winter.

I s'pose you won't be here to help us eat it then?"

"Next Christmas! No," said Rotha. "I shall not be here so long as that."

"Summer's got to come first, hain't it? Well, you might be in a wuss place."

Slowly Mr. Purcell and Rotha left the pig pen and the barnyard and came out into the s.p.a.ce between the various farm buildings.

"Where does that road lead to?" Rotha asked, pointing to one which ran on from the barns with a seemingly straight track between fields.

"That? that don't lead no wheres."

"Where should I find myself, if I followed it out to the end?"

"You'd find yourself jammed up agin the hill. Don't you see them trees?

that's a hill runnin' along there."

"Running right and left? It is not high. Just a hilly ridge. What is on it?"

"Nothin's on it, but a mean little pack o' savins Aint good for nothin'; not even worth cuttin' for firewood. What ever do you s'pose hills was made for? I mean, sich hills; that haint got nothin' onto 'em but rocks.

What's the use of 'em?"

"If it wasn't for hills, Mr. Purcell, your low lands would have no water; or only in a pond or a ditch here and there."

"What's the reason they wouldn't? There aint no water on the hills now."

"Springs?"

"There's springs every place. I could count you a half a dozen in less'n half a mile."

"Ay, but the springs come from the hills; and if it were not for the hills they would not be anywhere."

"O' course it's so, since you say it," said Mr. Purcell, scratching his head with a comic expression of eye;--"but I never see the world when there warn't no hills on it; and I reckon you didn't."

Rotha let the question drop.

"I s'pose you'd say, accordin' to that, the rocks made the soft soil?"

"They have made a good deal of it," said Rotha smiling.

"Whose hammer broke 'em up?"

"No hammer. But water, and weather; frost and wet and suns.h.i.+ne."

"Suns.h.i.+ne!" cried Mr. Purcell.

"They are always wearing away the rocks. They do it slowly, and yet faster than you think."

"But I'll tell you. You forget. The soil aint up there--it's down here."

"Yes, I know. I do not forget. Water brought it down."

Here Mr. Purcell went off into an enormous guffaw of laughter, amused to the last degree, and probably in doubt whether to think of his informant as befooled or befooling. He went off laughing; and Rotha returned slowly homeward. Half way towards the drive, she struck a walk which led obliquely through the tangled shrubbery to the kitchen door.

Her room, when she reached it, looked cheerful and pleasant enough. The open windows let in the air and the suns.h.i.+ne, and the top of the tulip tree was glittering in the warm light. At the same time the slantness of the rays shewed that the afternoon was on its way. Night was coming. And a spasm of dread seized Rotha at the thought of being up there, quite alone, away from anybody, and without guardians.h.i.+p or help in any occasion of need or alarm. Rotha was of a nervous and excitable temperament, a coward physically, unaccustomed to being alone or to taking care of herself. She looked forward now to the darkness with positive dread and dismay. O for her little corner room at Mrs.

Mowbray's, where she was secure, and in the midst of friends! O for even her cheerless little room at her aunt's, where at least there were people below her to guard the house! Here, quite alone through the long, still nights, and n.o.body within even calling distance, how should she ever stand it! For a little while Rotha's wits were half paralyzed with terror. Reason then began slowly to a.s.sert herself, and the girl's natural force of character arose to struggle with the incubus of fear.

She reminded herself that nothing was more unlikely than a night alarm; that the house was known to be empty of all that might tempt thieves, and that furthermore also it was in the highest degree unlikely that the neighbourhood of Tanfield harboured such characters. Probably she was safer from disturbance up here, than either at Mrs. Mowbray's or at Mrs.

Busby's. But of what use was the absence of disturbance, when there was the presence of fear? Rotha reasoned in vain. She had a lively imagination; and this excellent property now played her some of the arch tricks of which it is capable. Possible disturbances occurred to her; scenes of distress arose upon her vision, so sharp and clear that she shrank from them. Probable? No, they were not; but who should say they were not possible? Had not everything improbable happened in this world, as well as the things which were reasonably to be expected? And if only possible, if they were possible, where were comfort and security to be found? Without some degree of both, Rotha felt as if she must quit the place, set out and walk to the hotel at Tanfield; only she had no money to pay her charges with if she were there.

Distress, and be it that it was unreasonable, it was very real distress, drove her at last to the refuge we all are ready to seek when we can get no other. She took her Bible and sat down with it, to try to find something that would quiet her there. Opening it aimlessly at first; then with a recollection of certain words in it, she turned to the third psalm.

"I cried unto the Lord with my voice, and he heard me out of his holy hill. Selah. I laid me down and slept; I awaked, for the Lord sustained me. I will not be afraid of thousands of people, that have set themselves against me round about."

David had more than fancied enemies to fear; he was stating an actual, not a problematical case; and yet he could say "_I will not be afraid"!_ How was that ever possible? David was one of the Lord's people; true; but do not the Lord's people have disagreeable things happen to them? How can they, or how should they, "not be afraid"? Just to reach that blessed condition of fearlessness was Rotha's desire; the way she saw not. There was a certain comfort in the fact that other people had seen it and found it; but how should she? Rotha had none to ask beside her Bible, so she went to that Query, do the books and helps which keep us from applying to the Bible, act as benefits or hindrances?