What Necessity Knows by Lily Dougall (web ebook reader TXT) 📕

well." He added benevolently, "If you're scared of the road, come right through my place here, and I'll set you on your own farm double quick."

It was with pleasurable fear that the girls got through the fence with his help. They whispered to each other their self-excuses, saying that mamma would like them to be in their own fields as quickly as possible.

The moonlight was now gloriously bright. The shrubs of the old garden, in full verdure, were mysteriously beautiful in the light. The old house could be clearly seen. Harkness led them across a narrow open space in front of it, that had once been a gravel drive, but was now almost green with weeds and grasses. On the other side the bushes grew, as it seemed, in great heaps, with here and there an opening, moonlit, mysterious. As they passed quickly before the house, the girls involuntarily shied like young horses to the further side of Harkness, their eyes glancing eagerly for signs of the old man. In a minute they saw the door in an opening niche at the corner of the house; on its steps sat the old preacher, his grey hair shining, his bronzed face bathed in moonlight. He sat peaceful and quiet, his hands clasped. Harkness next led them through, a dark overgrown walk, and, true to his promise, brought them at once to the other fence. He seemed to use the old paling as a gate whenever the fancy took him. He pulled away two of the rotten soft wood pales and helped the girls gallantly on to their father's property.

"Charmed, I'm sure, to be of use, ladies!" cried he, and he made his bow.

On the other side of their own fence, knee-deep in dry uncut grass, they stood together a few paces from the gap he had made, and proffered their earnest thanks.

"Say," said Harkness, abruptly, "d'you often see Miss White up to your house?"

"Eliza, do you mean?" said they, with just a slight intonation to signify that they did not look upon her as a "Miss." Their further answer represented the exact extent of their knowledge in the matter. "She didn't come much for a good while, but last week she came to tea. It is arranged for mamma to ask her to tea once in a while, and we're all to try and be nice to her, because--well, our sister says, now that people pay her attentions, she ought to have a place where she can come to, where she can feel she has friends."

"How d'ye mean--'pay her attentions'?"

"That was what we heard sister Sophia say," they replied, pursing up their little lips. They knew perfectly well what the phrase meant, but they were not going to confess it. The arts of those who are on the whole artless are very pretty.

"Say, d'ye think Miss White's got the least bit of a heart about her anywheres?"

"We don't know exactly what you mean"--with dignity--"but one of the ladies who boards at the hotel told mamma that Eliza _always_ behaves _admirably_'; that's part of the reason we're having her to tea."

"Did she, though? If having about as much feeling as this fence has is such fine behaviour--!" He stopped, apparently not knowing exactly how to end his sentence.

The girls began to recede. The grass grew so thin and dry that they did little harm by passing through it. It sprang up in front of their feet as they moved backwards in their white dresses. All colour had passed from the earth. The ripple of the river and the cry of the whip-poor-will rose amid the murmur of the night insects.

"Do you sometimes come down here of an evening?" asked the young man. "At sunset it's real pleasant."

"Sometimes," answered Blue. Her soft voice only just reached him.


CHAPTER XV.

So the days wore on till August. One morning Cyril Harkness lay in wait for Eliza. It was early; none of the boarders at the hotel were down yet. Eliza, who was always about in very good time, found him in the corridor on the first floor. He did not often attempt to speak to her now.

"Say," said he, gloomily, "come into my office. I've something to tell."

The gloom of his appearance, so unusual to him, gave her a presage of misfortune. She followed him into the room of dental appliances.

He told her to sit down, and she did so. She sat on a stiff sofa against the wall. He stood with one elbow on the back of the adjustable chair. Behind him hung a green rep curtain, which screened a table at which he did mechanical work. They were a handsome pair. The summer morning filled the room with light, and revealed no flaw in their young comeliness.

"Look here! It's January, February, March"--he went on enumerating the months till he came to August--"that I've been hanging on here for no other earthly reason than to inspire in you the admiration for me that rises in me for you quite spontaneous."

"Is that all you have to say?"

"Isn't that enough--eight months out of a young man's life?"

"It's not enough to make me waste my time at this hour in the morning."

"Well, it's _not_ all, but it's what I'm going to say first; so you'll have to listen to it for my good before you listen to the other for your own. I've done all I could, Miss White, to win your affection."

He paused, looking at her, but she did not even look at him. She did appear frightened, and, perceiving this, he took a tone more gentle and pliant.

"I can't think why you won't keep company with me. I'm a real lovable young man, if you'd only look at the thing fairly."

He had plenty of humour in him, but he did not seem to perceive the humour of acting as showman to himself. He was evidently sincere.

"Why, now, one of my most lovable qualities is just that when I do attach myself I find it awful hard to pull loose again. Now, that's just what you don't like in me; but if you come to think of it, it's a real nice characteristic. And then, again, I'm not cranky; I'm real amiable; and you can't find a much nicer looking fellow than me. You'll be sorry, you may believe, if you don't cast a more favourable eye toward me."

She did not reply, so he continued urging. "If it's because you're stuck up, it must have been those poor English Rexfords put it into your head, for you couldn't have had such ideas before you came here. Now, if that's the barrier between us, I can tell you it needn't stand, for I could have one of those two pretty young ladies of theirs quick as not. If I said 'Come, my dear, let's go off by train and get married, and ask your father's blessing after,' she'd come."

"How dare you tell me such a falsehood!" Eliza rose magnificently.

"Oh," said he, "I meet them occasionally."

She looked at him in utter disdain. She did not believe him; it was only a ruse to attract her.

"How do you know," she asked fiercely, "what ideas I could have had or not before I went to the Rexfords?"

"That's a part of what I was going to say next"--she sat down again--"but I don't _want_ to hurt you, mind. I'd make it real easy for you if you'd let me cherish you."

"What have you to say?"

"Just this--that it'll all have to come out some time; you know to what I allude."

She did not look as if she knew.

"Upon my word!" he ejaculated admiringly, "you do beat all."

"Well, what are you talking of?" she asked.

"In this world or the next, all you've done will be made public, you know," he replied, not without tone of menace. "But what I want to speak about now is Father Cameron. I've got him here, and I've never regretted the bread and shelter I give him, for he's a real nice old gentleman; but I can't help him going to people's houses and putting ideas into their heads--no more than the wind, I can't keep him. He's crazed, poor old gentleman, that's what he is."

"You ought never to have brought him here."

"_You'd_ rather he'd been stoned in Quebec streets?" He looked at her steadily. "It's because they all more than half believe that he got his ideas when dead, and then came to life again, that he gets into harm. If it wasn't for that tale against him he'd not have been hurt in Quebec, and he'd not be believed by the folks here."

"I thought you believed that too."

He gave her a peculiar smile. "If you was to say right out now in public that you knew he wasn't the man they take him for, but only a poor maniac who don't know who he is himself, you'd put an end to the most part of his influence."

"What do I know about it?" she asked scornfully; but, in haste to divert him from an answer, she went on, "I don't see that he does any harm, any way. You say yourself he's as good as can be."

"So he is, poor gentleman; but he's mad, and getting madder. I don't know exactly what's brewing, but I tell you this, there's going to be trouble of some sort before long."

"What sort?"

"Well, for one thing, drunken Job is calling out in the rum-hole that he'll kill his wife if he finds her up to any more religious nonsense; and she is up to something of that sort, and he's quite able to do it, too. I heard him beating her the other night."

Eliza shuddered.

"I'm a kind-hearted fellow, Miss White," he went on, with feeling in his voice. "I can't bear to feel that there's something hanging over the heads of people like her--more than one of them perhaps--and that they're being led astray when they might be walking straight on after their daily avocations."

"But what can they be going to do?" she asked incredulously, but with curious anxiety.

"Blest if I know! but I've heard that old man a-praying about what he called 'the coming of the Lord,' and talking about having visions of 'the day and the month,' till I've gone a'most distracted, for otherwise he does pray so beautiful it reminds me of my mother. He's talking of 'those poor sheep in the wilderness,' and 'leading them' to something. He's mad, and there's a dozen of them ready to do any mad thing he says."

"You ought to go and tell the ministers--tell the men of the town."

"Not I--nice fool I'd look! What in this world have I to accuse him of, except what I've heard him praying about? I've done myself harm enough by having him here."

"What do you want me to do then?"

"Whatever you like; I've told you the truth. There was a carter at Turrifs drunk himself to death because of this unfortunate Mr. Cameron's rising again--that's one murder; and there'll be another."

With that he turned on his heel and left her in his own room. He only turned once to look in at the door again. "If _you're_ in any trouble, I'm real soft-hearted, Eliza; I'll be real good to you, though you've been crusty to me."

If she was in