Part 1 — CHAPTER III

LITTLE STAPLE

It was beginning to rain heavily as Silas went up the track on which he had stood listening about half-an-hour before. He had put on an oilskin mackintosh, and the drops pattered drearily on his shoulders as he trudged along the narrow way. The murmur of the spring in the ditch had become a definite chatter. The mud was thick and clinging, but he tramped through it without pause, the faithful Nero closely following. There was more than fatefulness about him now; there was fighting determination. It was very dark by this time, and he carried a hurricane-lamp that shone with a fitful gleaming upon the puddles as he went.

The track seemed to wind endlessly, though it was in reality barely half-a-mile from the Staple Farm lane that it widened out to a duck-pond on one side and an open space in front of a small garden on the other. Silas turned into this garden, admitting himself by a little white gate. A row of uneven flagstones led to a cottage, also white and thatched, smelling of wood-smoke. It was an ancient place, with lattice-windows from two of which on the ground floor a light shone through red blinds. He reached a whitewashed porch and set his lantern upon a seat at the side. Then he knocked with his knuckles somewhat imperiously upon the stout wooden door.

For a moment or two there was no sound within, and then suddenly a merry childish voice began to sing a ditty with an impudent lilt.

The words were spoken with great directness close to the keyhole, and they ended in a laugh so gay and spontaneous that most people would have found it hard not to laugh also. Not so Silas Hickory! His face darkened as he listened, and ere the ditty was well over he was rattling the latch.

"Let me in, please!" he commanded. "I want to speak to Miss Roberta."

Another burst of laughter greeted this announcement. The door showed no signs of yielding. The impudent voice chanted another verselet through the keyhole as soon as mirth permitted.

At this point Silas lost his temper and delivered a prolonged volley of such thundering knocks that the ribald vocalist could make no headway in the din.

His attack ended with somewhat disconcerting suddenness in the sudden swinging open of the door, a coup which nearly precipitated him headlong upon the threshold.

A gay voice greeted him. "Hullo, landlord! Hold up—hold up! Where have you been entertaining yourself this evening?"

He found himself face to face with a laughing imp of a girl, blue-eyed, golden-haired, bewitchingly pretty, dressed in a white shirt and brown breeches with boots to the knee. Laughter quivered in every line of her. She looked like a saucy lad of fourteen.

Silas, ten inches above her head, looked down on her with complete disapproval. "I want to speak to your aunt," he said.

She stooped with careless grace to caress Nero. "Ça va!" she remarked. "But he can't always have what he wants, can he, Nero? Aunt Bobby is busy," she announced, standing up again. "But I'll give her a message if you like."

"Thanks. I don't," said Silas grimly. "I'll wait."

"I expect she'll be busy all night now," said the girl, making an impertinent grimace at him. "Will you take a seat on the mat?"

"I'll stand, thanks," said Silas.

Again laughter burst from her; it seemed impossible to keep it in. "Bronze statue of a ferocious cave-man masquerading in the fustian of a British farmer!" she observed to the oak rafters. "Price of raw material alone—five and threepence, clothes—shocking misfit, artistry—too atrocious to mention. Would make a good background to a prehistoric film—minus the clothes of course, which completely fail to disguise the violent and very unattractive temperament of the man!"

Silas spoke, with difficulty restraining himself. "I won't detain you, Miss Rosemary. Will you kindly mention to your aunt that I am here?"

She held up her hands in mock astonishment. "Kindly mention you are here! My good man, if I could only mention that you had gone again, I might be giving her an unexpected piece of good news. As to your arrival, she must be only too well aware of it. I suppose that as the house is your own, you are at liberty to knock it down whenever the fancy takes you. But after all, we do pay our rent regularly, don't we?"

It was Silas's opportunity and he seized it. "I don't think you personally ever do anything beyond getting up to mischief," he said.

She put out her tongue at him; then spoke compassionately. "Yes, I daresay a very limited intelligence might take that point of view, and clodhoppers seldom manage to develop anything more. Cave-men too are guided only by the most primitive instincts, so perhaps it would be unkind to expect too much. Ah! Your dignified entrance has had the unlooked-for effect of rousing the household. Guess who it is, Aunt Bobby!"

She turned to a dark corner behind her whence a winding oak staircase led steeply upwards, to meet a slight hurrying figure that swiftly reached the uneven floor and came running over the rough matting to join them.

"Mr. Hickory, I am so sorry you should have been kept waiting," the new-comer said.

She had a sweet clear voice, and her movements were quick and bird-like. In appearance she might have been the elder sister of the taunting imp in riding-breeches, so light a mark had the twenty years that divided them made upon her. A little taller than Rosemary and exquisitely formed was Miss Roberta Wendholme. She had a soft gay laugh, but there was a decision about her straight blue eyes and delicate chin that gave undeniable force to her personality. Her hands were small and dainty, but firm in every gesture.

She gave Silas one of them with a smile of welcome. "And you have come up in all this horrible rain! Do come in to the fire! Rosemary, you should have asked him in."

"He came in without," laughed Rosemary. "And you'd better be very careful, Aunt Bobby, for he's feeling rather prehistoric."

"Foolish child!" said Aunt Bobby, turning to a half-open door on her left whence came the cosy glow of lamplight and firelight combined. "Come in here, Mr. Hickory! How very kind of you to have sent us up another bird! It is such a treat, especially for my sister in her poor state of health."

She led the way into her little parlour with the words where a peat fire burned with a steadfast redness beneath a wide-mouthed chimney. There were a good many books on shelves along the walls and a few good oil-colours. An ancient oak dresser with some china stood at one end, and at the side of it a door led into the kitchen. There were rose-coloured curtains at the windows and rose cushions on the chairs. A leopard-skin rug covered the shabbiness of the settee that was drawn up to the fire. The whole effect was one of comfort oddly mingled with penury.

"Sit down!" said Aunt Bobby, pointing to the settee.

Silas hesitated for a moment, for Rosemary was dancing on her toes behind him softly humming her impromptu nursery rhyme; then with an air of determination he pulled off his wet mackintosh, dropped it on the back of a chair and complied.

"Afraid I'm rather muddy," he said.

"What does that matter?" said Aunt Bobby tranquilly. "Everybody is now-a-days."

She sat in an old rickety armchair, and Rosemary came and perched on the arm, her vivid face alight with mocking merriment.

"Dear Aunt Bobby!" she said, twining a warm arm round her as she sat. "You've given up the unequal contest, haven't you? The snow-boots have gone by the board and top-boots have taken their place. It'll be breeches too before the year is out."

Bobby lifted a slightly flushed face to the child's laughing eyes. "Rosemary darling," she said, "there is one rule which I think you have forgotten. Outdoor clothes are always changed as soon as we come in for the evening."

"Oh, but I'm going out again," said Rosemary, unabashed. "I've got to take Jess her supper. Yes, darling, I know I ought to have done it before, but I was busy, and then Peter Garnet came, and after that I forgot. She won't hurt, you know. I expect with all those puppies to look after she's forgotten too.

"Go and do it at once, dear!" said Bobby. "It's very unkind to keep her waiting."

"A few minutes more or less can't matter now," responded Rosemary. "By the way, Nero is in the hall. Shall I lake him along to see her? He doesn't know he is the happy father of five, does he? He was only a bridegroom last time he came."

"Go, dear!" said Bobby, gently patting her hand. "But leave Nero where he is!"

"Oh, there's plenty of time," protested Rosemary. "I want to hear what Mr. Hickory has come for this time I'm sure it's something to do with pigs. I can feel it in my bones."

She laughed across at Silas with eyes of roguish effrontery and swung a careless leg in his direction.

Silas said nothing with conspicuous determination. There was something about him suggestive of a colossal force strongly pent at the moment. He did not even look at Rosemary, but stared straight at the fire.

Bobby spoke, with firmness. "Rosemary dear, go now! Please don't let me have to speak again!"

Rosemary jumped lightly to her feet. She looked more than ever like a very winning young boy as she stood facing Silas,—daring him, it almost seemed.

"I went round to see Mary to-day," she observed. "She told me quite a lot about you, and all about your funny little ways when you were a child. She seems absolutely devoted to you. I can't think why you don't marry her. She'd make you a jolly suitable wife."

She shot the words at him with supreme impertinence Silas stiffened at the sudden attack. She had pierced his armour at last, and he opened his mouth to reply. But before he could do so, Aunt Bobby swooped like an angry bird upon the offender.

"Rosemary," she said, "you annoy me very much. Please go at once!"

It was a very definite command. Rosemary whizzed round on her heels to face her, and brought her hand to her forehead in a smart salute. Her eyes sparkled with wicked gaiety as she tramped to the door.

Reaching it, she threw Silas a look over her shoulder that challenged and disdained him in the same moment. Then she was gone, whistling with great emphasis the tune to which she had sung her ditty through the keyhole a few minutes earlier, breaking into song as she pulled the door behind her.