“Keep up your point! Keep up your point!” some one cried briskly. “That is better!”
The unexpected sound — it was a man’s voice — did something to keep up my heart. But for answer I could only shriek, “I can’t! It will break!” as I watched the top of my rod jigging up and down, very much in the fashion of Clare performing what she calls a waltz. She dances as badly as a man.
“No, it will not,” he cried bluntly. “Keep it up, and let out a little line with your fingers when he pulls hardest.”
We were forced to shout and scream. The wind had risen and was adding to the noise of the water. Soon I heard him wading behind me. “Where’s your landing-net?” he asked, with the most provoking coolness.
“Oh, in the pool! Somewhere about. I don’t know,” I answered, wildly.
What he said to this I could not catch, but it sounded rude. Then he waded off to fetch, as I guessed, his own net. By the time he reached me again I was in a sad plight, feet like ice, and hands benumbed, while the wind, and rain, and hail, which had come down upon us with a sudden violence, unknown, it is to be hoped, anywhere else, were mottling my face all kinds of unbecoming colours. But the line was taut. And wet and cold went for nothing five minutes later, when the fish lay upon the bank, its prismatic sides slowly turning pale and dull, and I knelt over it half in pity and half in triumph, but wholly forgetful of the wind and rain.
“You did that very pluckily, little one,” said the on-looker; “but I am afraid you will suffer for it by-and-by. You must be chilled through.”
Quickly as I looked at him, I only met a good-humoured smile. He did not mean to be rude. And after all, when I was in such a mess it was not possible that he could see what I was like. He was wet enough himself. The rain was streaming from the brim of the soft hat which he had turned down to shelter his face; it was trickling from his chin, and turning his shabby Norfolk jacket a darker shade. As for his hands, they looked red and knuckly, and he had been wading almost to his waist. But he looked, I don’t know why, all the manlier and nicer for these things, because, perhaps, he cared for them not a whit. What I looked like myself I dared not think. My skirts were as short as short could be, and they were soaked; most of my hair was unplaited, my gloves were split, and my sodden boots were out of shape. I was forced, too, to shiver and shake with cold, which was provoking, for I knew that it made me seem half as small again.
“Thank you, I am a little cold, Mr. —— , Mr. —— ?” I said gravely, only my teeth would chatter so that he laughed outright as he took me up with —
“Herapath. And to whom have I the honour of speaking?”
“I am Miss Guest,” I said, miserably. It was too cold to be frigid with advantage.
“Commonly called Bab, I think,” the wretch answered. “The walls of our hut are not soundproof, you see. But come, the sooner you get back to dry clothes and the stove, the better, Bab. You can cross the river just below, and cut off half a mile that way.”
“I can’t,” I said, obstinately. Bab, indeed! How dared he?
“Oh yes, you can,” he answered, with intolerable good temper. “You shall take your rod and I the prey. You cannot be wetter than you are now.”
He had his way, of course, since I did not foresee that at the ford he would lift me up bodily and carry me over the deeper part without a pretence of asking leave, or a word of apology. It was done so quickly that I had no time to remonstrate. Still I was not going to let it pass, and when I had shaken myself straight again, I said, with all the haughtiness I could assume, “Don’t you think, Mr. Herapath, that it would have been more — more — —”
“Polite to offer to carry you over, child? No, not at all. And now it will be wiser and warmer for you to run down the hill. Come along!”
And without more ado, while I was still choking with rage, he seized my hand and set off at a trot, lugging me through the sloppy places much as I have seen a nurse drag a fractious child down Constitution Hill. It was not wonderful that I soon lost the little breath his speech had left me, and was powerless to complain when we reached the bridge. I could only thank Heaven that there was no sign of Clare. I think I should have died of mortification if she had seen us come down the hill hand-in-hand in that ridiculous fashion. But she had gone home, and at any rate I escaped that degradation.
A wet stool-car and wetter pony were dimly visible on the bridge; to which, as we came up, a damp urchin creeping from some crevice added himself. I was pushed in as if I had no will of my own, the gentleman sprang up beside me, the boy tucked himself away somewhere behind, and the little “teste” set off at a canter, so deceived by the driver’s excellent imitation of “Pss,” the Norse for “Tchk,” that in ten minutes we were at home.
“Well, I never!” Clare said, surveying me from a respectful distance, when at last I was safe in our room. “I would not be seen in such a state by a man for all the fish in the sea!”
And she looked so tall, and trim, and neat, that it was the more provoking. At the moment I was too miserable to answer her; and I had to find comfort in promising myself, that when we were back in Bolton Gardens I would see that Fräulein kept Miss Clare’s pretty nose to the grindstone though it were ever so much her last term, or Jack were ever so fond of her. Father was in the plot against me, too. What right had he to thank Mr. Herapath for bringing “his little girl” home safe? He can be pompous enough at times. I never knew a stout Queen’s Counsel — and he is stout — who was not, any more than a thin one, who did not contradict. It is in their parents, I believe.
Mr. Herapath dined with us that evening — if fish and potatoes and boiled eggs, and sour bread and pancakes, and claret and coffee can be called a dinner — but nothing I could do, though I made the best of my wretched frock and was as stiff as Clare herself, could alter his first impression. It was too bad; he had no eyes! He either could not or would not see any one but the draggled Bab — fifteen at most and a very tom-boy — whom he had carried across the river. He styled Clare, who talked Baedeker to him in her primmest and most precocious way, Miss Guest; and once at least during the evening he dubbed me plain Bab. I tried to freeze him with a look then, and father gave him a taste of his pompous manner, saying coldly that I was older than I seemed. But it was not a bit of use; I could see that he set it all down to the grand airs of a spoiled child. If I had put my hair up, it might have opened his eyes, but Clare teased me about it and I was too proud for that.
When I asked him if he was fond of dancing, he said good-naturedly, “I don’t visit very much, Miss Bab. I am generally engaged in the evening.”
Here was a chance. I was going to say that that no doubt was the reason why I had never met him, when father ruthlessly cut me short by asking, “You are not in the law?”
“No,” he replied. “I am in the London Fire Brigade.”
I think that we all upon the instant saw him in a helmet sitting at the door of the fire station by St. Martin’s Church. Clare turned crimson, and his host seemed on a sudden to call his patent to mind. The moment before I had been as angry as angry could be with our guest, but I was not going to look on and see him snubbed when he was dining with us and all. So I rushed into the gap as quickly as surprise would let me with, “Oh, dear, what fun! Do tell me all about a fire!”
It made matters — my matters — worse, for I could have cried with vexation when I read in his face that he had looked for their astonishment; while the ungrateful fellow set down my eager remark to childish ignorance.
“Some time I will,” he said with a quiet smile de haut en bas; “but I do not often attend one in person. I am the Chief’s private secretary, aide-de-camp, and general factotum.”
It turned out that he was the son of a certain Canon Herapath, so that father lost sight of his patent box altogether, and they set to discussing Mr. Gladstone, while I slipped off to bed feeling as small as I ever did in my life and out of temper with everybody. Not for a long time had I been used to young men talking poli
tics to him, when they could talk — politics — to me.
Possibly I deserved the week of vexation which followed; but it was almost more than I could bear. He — Mr. Herapath, of course — was always on the spot fishing or lounging outside the little white posting-house, taking walks and meals with us, and seeming heartily to enjoy father’s society. He came with us when we drove to the top of the pass to get a glimpse of the Sultind peak; and it looked so brilliantly clear and softly beautiful as it seemed to float, just tinged with colour, in a far-off atmosphere of its own beyond the dark ranges of nearer hills, that I began to think at once of the drawing-room in Bolton Gardens with a cosy fire burning, and afternoon tea coming up. The tears came to my eyes, and he saw them before I could turn away from the view; and said to father that he feared his little girl was tired as well as cold — and so spoiled all my pleasure. I looked back afterwards as father and I drove down; he was walking beside Clare’s cariole and they were laughing heartily.
And that was the way always. He was such an elder brother to me — a thing I never had and do not want — that a dozen times a day I set my teeth together viciously and vowed that if ever we met in London — but what nonsense that was, because, of course, it mattered nothing to me what he was thinking, only he had no right to be so rudely familiar. That was all; but it was quite enough to make me dislike him.
However, a sunny morning in the holidays is a cheerful thing, and when I strolled down stream with my rod on the day after our expedition, I felt that I could enjoy myself very nearly as much as I had, before his coming spoiled our party. I dawdled along, now trying a pool, now clambering up the hillsides to pick raspberries, and now counting the magpies that flew across, feeling altogether very placid and good and contented. I had chosen the lower river because Mr. Herapath usually fished the upper part, and I would not be ruffled this nice day. So I was the more vexed when I came upon him fishing; and fishing where he had no right to be. Father had spoken to him about the danger of it, and he had as good as said he would not do it again. Yet he was there, thinking, I daresay, that we should not know. It was a spot where one bank rose into a cliff, frowning over a deep pool at the foot of some falls. Close to the cliff the water ran with the speed of a mill race. But on the far side of this current there was a bit of slack water so promising that it had tempted some one to devise means to fish it, which from the top of the cliff was impossible. Just above the water was a ledge, a foot wide, which might have served only it did not reach the nearer end of the cliff. However, the foolhardy person had espied this, and got over the gap by bridging the latter with a bit of plank, and then had drowned himself or gone away, in either case leaving his board to tempt others to do likewise.
And there was Mr. Herapath fishing from the ledge. It made me giddy to look at him. The rock overhung the water so much that he could not stand upright; the first person who fished there must have learned to curl himself up from much sleeping in Norwegian beds, which were short for me. I thought of this as I watched him, and I laughed, and was for going on. But when I had walked a few yards, meaning to pass round the rear of the cliff, I began to fancy all sorts of foolish things might happen. I felt sure that I should have no more peace or pleasure if I left him there. I hesitated. Yes, I would. I would go down, and ask him to leave the place; and, of course, he would do it.
I lost no time, but ran down the slope. My way lay over loose shale mingled with large stones, and it was steep. It is wonderful how swiftly a thing that cannot be undone is done, and we are left wishing — oh, so vainly — that we could put the world, and all things in it, back by a few seconds. I was checking myself near the bottom, when a big stone on which I stepped moved under me. The shale began to slip in a mass, and the stone to roll. It was done in a moment. I stayed myself, that was easy, but the stone took two bounds, jumped sideways, struck the piece of board which only rested lightly at either end, and before I could take it in the little bridge plunged end first into the current, which swept it out of sight in an instant.
He threw up his hands, for he had turned, and we both saw it happen. He made indeed as if he would try to save it, but that was impossible. Then, while I cowered in dismay, he waved his arm to me in the direction of home — again and again. The roar of the falls drowned what he said, but I guessed his meaning. I could not help him myself, but I could fetch help. It was three miles to Breistolen, rough rocky ones, and I doubted whether he could keep his cramped position with that noise deafening him, and the endless whirling stream before his eyes, while I was going and coming. But there was no better way; and even as I wavered, he signalled to me again imperatively. For an instant everything seemed to go round with me, but it was not the time for that, and I tried to collect myself, and harden my heart. Up the bank I went steadily, and once at the top set off at a rim homewards.
I cannot tell how I did it; how I passed over the uneven ground or whether I went quickly or slowly save by the reckoning father made afterwards. I only remember one long hurrying scramble; now I panted uphill, now I ran down, now I was on my face in a hole, breathless and half-stunned, and now I was up to my knees in water. I slipped and dropped down places from which I should at other times have shrunk, and hurt myself so that I bore the marks for months. But I thought nothing of these things: all my being was spent in hurrying on for his life, the clamour of every cataract I passed seeming to stop my heart’s beating with fear. So I reached Breistolen and panted over the bridge and up to the little white house lying so quiet in the afternoon sunshine, father’s stool-car even then at the door ready to take him to some favorite pool. Somehow I made him understand that Herapath was in danger, drowning already, for all I knew; and then I seized a great pole which was leaning against the porch, and climbed into the car. Father was not slow either; he snatched a coil of rope from the luggage, and away we went, a man and boy whom he had hastily called running behind us. We had lost very little time, but so much may happen in a little time.
We were forced to leave the car a quarter of a mile from the river, and walk or run the rest of the way. We all ran, even father, as I had never known him run before. My heart sank at the groan he uttered when I pointed out the spot. We came to it one by one and we all looked. The ledge was empty. Mr. Herapath was gone. I suppose I was tired out. At any rate I could only look at the water in a dazed way, and cry without much feeling that it was my doing; while the men shouted to one another in strange hushed voices and searched about for any sign of his fate— “James Herapath!” So he had written his name only yesterday in the travellers’ book at the posting-house, and I had sullenly watched him from the window, and then had sneaked to the book and read it. That was yesterday, and now! Oh, to hear him say “Bab” once more!
“Bab! Why, Miss Bab, what is the matter?”
Safe and sound! Yes, when I turned he was there, safe, and strong, and cool, rod in hand, and a smile in his eyes. Just as I had seen him yesterday, and thought never to see him again; and saying “Bab” exactly as of old, so that something in my throat — it may have been anger at his rudeness, but I do not think it was — prevented me answering a word until all the others came around us, and a babel of Norse and English, and something that was neither yet both, set in.
“But how is this?” my father objected, when he could be heard, “you are quite dry, my boy?”
“Dry! Why not, sir? For goodness’ sake, what is the matter?”
“The matter! Didn’t you fall in, or something of the kind?” father asked, bewildered by the new aspect of the case.
“It does not look like it, does it? Your daughter gave me a very uncomfortable start by nearly doing so.”
Every one looked at me for an explanation. “How did you manage to get from the ledge?” I asked feebly. Where was the mistake? I had not dreamed it.
“From the ledge? Why, by the other end, to be sure. Of course I had to walk back round the hill; but I did not mind. I was thankful that it was the plank and not you that fell in.”
“I — I thought — you could not get from the ledge,” I muttered. The possibility of getting off at the other end had never occurred to me; and so I had made such a simpleton of myself. It was too absurd, too ridiculous. It was no wonder that they all screamed with laughter at the fool’s errand they had come upon, and stamped about and clung to one another. But, when he laughed too — and he did until the tears came into his eyes — there was not an ache or pain in my body — and I had cut my wrist to the bone against a splinter of rock — that hurt me one-half as much. Surely he might have seen another side to it. But he did not; and so I managed to hide my bandaged wrist from him, and father drove me home. There I broke down entirely, and Clare put me to bed, and petted me, and was very good to me. And when I came down next day, with an ache in every part of me, he was gone.
“He asked me to tell you,” said Clare, not looking up from the fly she was tying at the window, “that he thought you were the bravest girl he had ever met.”
So he understood now, when others had explained it to him. “No, Clare,” I said coldly, “he did not say that; he said ‘the bravest little girl.’” For indeed, lying upstairs with the window open I had heard him set off on his long drive to Laerdalsören. As for father he was half-proud and half-ashamed of my foolishness, and wholly at a loss to think how I could have made the mistake.
“You’ve generally some common-sense, my dear,” he said that day at dinner, “and how in the world you could have been so ready to fancy the man was in danger, I — can — not — imagine!”
“Father,” Clare put in suddenly, “your elbow is upsetting the salt.”
And as I had to move my seat at that moment to avoid the glare of the stove which was falling on my face, we never thought it out.
CHAPTER II
HIS STORY
I was not dining out much at that time, partly because my acquaintance in town was limited, and partly because I cared little for it. But these were pleasant people, the old gentleman witty and amusing, the children, lively girls, nice to look at and good to talk with. All three had a holiday flavour about them wholesome to recall in Scotland Yard; and as I had expected that, playtime over, I should see no more of them, I was pleased to find that Mr. Guest had not forgotten me, and pleased also — foreseeing that we should kill our fish over again — to regard his invitation to dine at a quarter to eight as a royal command.
Complete Works of Stanley J Weyman Page 825