Dorrien of Cranston

The landing was a good deal more difficult than it looked. There was something of a current swirling round the rock, and the boat, as it got within the recoil of the waves, danced about in lively fashion. Olive, a little overawed at finding herself for the first time in this uncanny place, looked about her in a half-scared, half-subdued manner, as if she expected to behold the spectral hound start open-mouthed from the waves. Then enjoyment of the adventure dispelled all other misgiving.

“Just in time,” she remarked gaily, as, her companion having secured the boat, they gained the desired shelter. A violent downpour followed, beating down the sea like oil. Not a soul was in sight on the lonely and desolate beach, and away on the horizon great cloud banks came rolling. Our two wanderers – three rather, for Roy was not slow to assert his claim – made the best they could of the limited shelter, contemplating the rushing deluge a yard in front of them with the utmost equanimity.

“May as well make ourselves snug while we can. I shall venture to smoke.”

“One of your many advantages over us poor women. Well, why do you look so astonished? Isn’t it?”

“Why do I look astonished?” echoed her companion lazily and between the puffs as he lighted up. “Oh, only because one seems to have heard that sentiment before.”

“Well? And then?”

“And then? Oh – and then – I suppose it astonished me to hear a threadbare sort of a commonplace proceed from you. That’s all.”

Olive tried to feel angry. She could not even look it, however. The tell-tale laugh rose to her eyes, curved the witching little mouth – then out it came.

“Do you know – you are very rude? At least I ought to tell you so – ”

“Another commonplace.”

“Why you deliberately snubbed me?” she went on, taking no notice of the murmured interruption. “Snubbed me like a brother. Shut me up, in fact.”

“Cool hands, brothers – stick at nothing. Ought to know. One myself. But, I say, wasn’t it odd how we first ran against each other that morning – you and I – when you were drawing?”

Now there was nothing in the foregoing conversation as set down on cold-blooded and unfeeling paper which all the world and his wife might not have heard. Nothing in the words, that is. But were that conjugal impersonality within earshot of these two people coasting along a dismal and desolate seashore at imminent peril of a wetting through, or crouched under the rock to avoid it, much gossip might it have chucklingly evolved, merely from the tone of their voices. For the said tone had that subtle ring about it which meant that the owners of these voices were fonder of each other’s society than either would admit to the other – or possibly to him or herself. And it happened that they had enjoyed a good deal more of that society than was known to anyone outside the mystic circle of three, that mystic three bound together in a tacit bond of fellowship – the safer that the third factor in this sodality was by nature denied the gift of human speech. The summer weather was delightful. Meadow and down, country landscape and breezy seashore, were open to all. A chance meeting, such as that of to-day, developed into a ramble more or less protracted, in the most natural way in the world. What more natural either, than that such chance should by some occult and mysterious process have a way of multiplying itself until matters should have reached such a point that the issue would be momentous for weal or for woe to one or both of these two? And then to think that all this should have dated from the too exuberant wag of a dog’s tail.

“And wasn’t it a shame that you should have led me on to talk about your people – and – and – ‘kept dark’ – isn’t that what you call it?”

“It was rather a sin,” he answered languidly. “Good discipline, though. Won’t do the confidence trick again to divert the insinuating stranger.”

Olive made no reply. She was thinking what pickle she would get into if her afternoon’s pastime should transpire. But there was a strong spice of the dare-devil in her composition, and life at Wandsborough was apt to strike her as dull at times. And —

And what?

Never mind what – at present.

So they sat there and talked, heedless of time, and suddenly a gleam of sunshine straggled through the curtain of cloud. The rain had ceased, and behind them, to seaward, the squall, which had now passed, rolled further and further away.

“Now I shall go and prospect for the relics of my ghostly ancestor,” said Roland. “If you don’t mind waiting, I’ll be with you again in a few minutes.”

“Why? Where are you going?”

“To ascend this – er – Skeg.”

“But I want to go too. You must not expect to keep all the honour and glory of this hairbreadth adventure to yourself.”

“You want to go, too! H’m! You’ll slip or turn giddy. The way is infamous.”

Both stood gazing at the wretched slippery path that wound up and around the great rock.

“Oh, don’t be afraid,” she said. “It isn’t the first time. I crossed Hadden’s Slide once, and that’s far worse than this.”

“You, never having seen this, are of course an authority.”

“Rude again,” she laughed. “Now let me have my way.”

Shaking his head dubiously, he allowed her that privilege. But more than once as they came suddenly upon a great yawning rift where the path had fallen away, revealing a perfect abattis of jagged rocks beneath, which, although at no great depth, were sufficiently far down to dash either of them to pieces like an egg-shell, in the event of a slip, he began to wish he had never allowed her to come. Olive, however, seemed to revel in the danger. Her face was flushed with the glow and excitement of the adventure, and her dark eyes shone and sparkled with exhilaration.

They had attained a height of some fifty feet and were stopping to rest. Roy had been left below, his master having entrusted him with something to keep watch over. Two email craft were tacking to and fro on the dull, leaden waters, at some distance off, and a grey-backed gull or two floated stationary against the wind, which, increasing in threatening puffs as they rounded a projecting angle of the rock, tended not to render their perilous foothold any the more secure.

The sky was again growing overcast, and the melancholy and hollow moaning of the waves beneath, swishing and swirling round many a submerged reef, produced a most dismal and depressing effect. Olive, with the dour legend running in her mind, now longed to get away from the place. Her companion seemed in no such hurry.

“This is about as far as we shall manage to go,” he remarked, scrutinising the rock overhead. The ledge on which they stood was barely a yard in width. Olive, peering over, noted that at that point the drop was sheer, and looking down upon the pointed reefs with the milky foam seething through and over them – shuddered.

“Take care!” he warned, holding her hand to steady her. “Better come down now, before you begin to feel nervous.” He had felt her hand tremble.

“Perhaps we had. Hark! What is that?” she broke off in an awed whisper.

Even her companion could hardly repress a start of astonishment. Apparently from within the rock itself came the deep-mouthed voice of a dog. Olive turned as white as a sheet. The terrible spectre of The Skegs was her only thought.

To her surprise the other burst out laughing.

“Not the ancestor this time,” he said. “It’s only good old Roy. He’s getting tired of his own company down there, and is remonstrating. Possibly, too, he has an eye on some stray crustacean which invites assault, but that he will not desert his post.”

Olive was immensely relieved. The colour came back into her pale cheeks and she tried to laugh, succeeding a little hysterically, it must be owned. She had been a good deal scared, and, all things considered, there was some excuse for her. This lonely rock, banned by popular superstition, was dread and forbidding enough in itself. Add to this the gloomy sky and the moaning sea; the rather precarious descent yet lying before them; and remember that the spectral hound wae believed in as firmly among the seafaring population as the Deity Himself, and a great deal more feared; that disaster, more or less grave – and sometimes, according to that belief, fatal – had overtaken those upon whose ears the spectral voice had fallen; and it follows that if the girl was momentarily unnerved by a weird and mysterious howl, which, owing to some acoustic peculiarity in its formation, seemed to come from within the haunted rock itself, there was every excuse for her.

“How ridiculous of me to forget all about Roy!” she said. “But anyhow, let us go down now.”

“We had better,” assented he quietly. A very uncomfortable misgiving had flashed across his mind. Far away over the sea a black curtain of cloud was approaching rapidly, its advance marked by a line of troubled water breaking into white foamy crests. He knew that a violent squall would be upon them in a few minutes – and if it caught them on that wretched ledge their position would be horribly dangerous.

“Let me get past you!” he said in an unconcerned voice.

“There; now if you should chance to slip I can easily catch you. We had better get back to Minchkil rather soon, in case the wind rises.”

“Oh dear, I forgot that. It looks dreadfully rough already. I feel almost afraid to get into the boat again. Couldn’t we wait until Pollock comes to look for us? He is sure to do so when he finds we don’t come back.”

“Not to be thought of. In half an hour the tide will be all over the landing place. To use a succinct and expressive metaphor, it’s a case of ‘between the devil and the deep sea.’ Careful here!” he enjoined warningly, holding out his hand to help her over a place where the path had fallen away, leaving an ugly and formidable gap, up which the waves were now shooting in clouds of misty spray.

All would have gone well, but just at the moment of stepping across this gap, a piercing, unearthly shriek rang out in their very ears, as something cleft the air with a swirl and a rush almost between their faces. Olive, already unnerved by her former alarm, uttered a quick gasp, and an ashen pallor spread over her features. For a fraction of a moment she stood tottering; then her eyes closed, she swayed heavily and – a strong arm was flung round her and she was held firmly against the cliff.

“Don’t look down, Olive. You’re quite safe now. Keep perfectly cool and do exactly as I tell you.”

The prompt, commanding tone was effectual. And even then, in the moment of her peril, the girl realised that he had called her for the first time by her Christian name. The convulsive shuddering left her frame, which relaxed its terror-strained rigidity. Obeying his directions implicitly, she kept with him step by step, supported by his ready arm, till they reached the slab of flat rock on which they had landed. Meanwhile two great gulls, the cause of what was within an inch of being an awful catastrophe, circled around and around their disturbed eggs, uttering their harsh and peevish shrieks. Roy, whom they found whining uneasily, jumped up in delight. Once in the boat, however, he lay perfectly still. He was not at his ease though, poor fellow, and began to feel uncomfortable, like a Frenchman crossing the Channel.

“There, it’s even as I told you,” said Roland, as having with some trouble effected a successful embarkation, he rested for a moment on his oars. “The ‘landing stage’ will be entirely covered in a few minutes. We were scarcely half an hour on the island, and it was as long as we could have stayed. It’s an abominably dangerous place, all the same, and I don’t wonder the people funk it. The little ‘Skeg’ isn’t landable on at all.”

He had hoisted the sail and they were scudding rapidly before the wind. Olive, looking back at the great rock towers, shuddered. The sea was rising momentarily, and long hillocks of dull green water swept on – line upon line – gathering into knife-like crests to roll and break into surge upon yonder shore. From seaward came the moan of the rising gale, and already the faces of the great cliffs were dim and misty. A dire and blood-curdling suspicion was in her mind. What if it had been the terrible spectre voice after all – and not poor Roy’s honest bay? Her own narrow escape, immediately afterwards, looked ominously significant. She heartily wished they were safe home again.

Splash! Whish!

The boat careened over, dipping her gunwale. The squall was upon them. Roland, with one anxious glance to windward, turned all his attention to the little craft, controlling the tiller with a firm and judicious hand. White crests leaped around them with an angry hiss, the stunning whirl of the blast was in their ears, and overhead the mast danced madly against the wrack-driven sky. Either the gear must carry away or they must capsize. Great streamers of cloud, like horizontal waterspouts, darted across the sky, and there was wild exhilaration in the breath of the salt scud driven before the squall as they stormed along through the white and seething crests. He had dreaded this squall. Now it was upon them he enjoyed the fierce excitement of it. Suddenly the boat careened again, shipping something of a sea. Olive uttered a cry of dismay.

“Don’t be frightened, Olive,” he said, throwing an arm round her in support, for she nearly lost her balance in the furious rocking of the boat. “Why, I could land you on shore at any point I chose, even if we did capsize. I should rather enjoy the swim than otherwise, and I believe you would, too.”

A blush came into the girl’s face. She had caught some of his exhilaration, and gazed fearlessly at the tumbling seas. Her cheeks were wet with the salt spray, and a soft, dark tress which had escaped from its fastening kept blowing across her eyes. Very beautifully did the excitement, dashed with a tinge of apprehension, become her.

“No – I am not afraid,” she answered – “with you.”

These two young people were getting on, you see.

A whirr overhead – a hurtling rush – and a wild hailstorm swept down upon the sea, curbing its fury slightly, and rendering the inmates of the boat very uncomfortable. Poor Roy, whom his master had disposed in such place as to afford the best ballast, looked simply piteous. He shivered, and in his wistful, patient eyes there was a mute appealing look, which his master noticing, could not restrain a laugh at.

“Never mind, Roy, old chap. You’ll be as right as nine-pence directly! Now for it! Kill or cure!” he cried, bringing round the boat’s head a point and a half.

A confused whirl, an upheaval as if they had left the water altogether; and – they were in the comparatively smooth water of Minchkil Bay, and running comfortably for the little fishing village. A few moments later and half a score of stalwart hands had hauled them up high and dry on the beach.

“All’s well that ends well!” cried Roland, helping his companion to alight.

“You’re in tremenjious luck, sir, that’s all I’ve got to say about it!” said the owner of the boat dryly. “Never thought you’d have got back without a bath.”

“Ha-ha! In luck are we, Jem Pollock? Glad to hear you say so, because according to all the rules of that humbugging old superstition of yours we ought to have come to mortal grief. We’ve been exploring The Skegs.”

The man started, and queer looks were exchanged among the group.

“Did you land there, sir?” he asked uneasily.

“Land there? I should rather think we did. Climbed nearly to the top of the rock – as far as we could get. Then ran home at a ripping pace in a thundering squall and a good deal of a sea. So you see, Pollock, on your own admission, the spectre of The Skegs is a fraud of the first water. No ill luck has ensued to us from it – has it now?”

“I devoutly trust it never may, sir,” answered the fisherman in a queer tone.

“And by the way, Pollock, that’s a first-rate little craft of yours. She behaved grandly. You should have seen her run just before we rounded the point yonder. Perhaps she was eager to get away from The Skegs, ha-ha! Well, good-day, my men. Now drink my health, and confusion to my ancestral ghost,” and leaving a substantial largesse with them, he turned and joined Olive.

Was there yet time before they reached home for some foretaste of that ill luck predicted by the superstitious fishermen? Let us see. They were in great spirits as they struck across the down, turning now and again to look back at the storm-lashed sea, and mark how The Skegs were now almost hidden in clouds of spray as the flying waves leaped high against their slippery sides. At length, as they reached the last stile a rumble of approaching wheels was audible on the high road. Now this stile was in a shaky condition, consequently a piece of the woodwork gave way as Olive was in the act of crossing. She must have had a nasty fall, but for the two ready hands prompt to set her securely on her feet. Just then an open carriage swept round the bend of the road from the direction of Wandsborough. So rapidly did it whirl past that Roland had not time to do more than recognise its occupants; yet in that brief moment he took in everything – the pair of high-stepping bays, the silver crest on the harness, even the identity of the men on the box. But what he took in most surely of all was the expression of furious anger through which his father had regarded him, and the no less hostile look on the cold impassive face of his mother.

Chapter Thirteen.

Breakers Ahead

“I sat, Nell,” said Hubert Dorrien, coming into the morning-room, where his sister sat alone. “What the very dickens is wrong now? The veteran’s in an exemplary state of grumps.”

“Well, he isn’t particularly amiable this morning; but then he isn’t always, you know,” answered Nellie.

Hubert shook his head moodily.

“Ah, yes, but there’s something in the wind. He’s far worse than usual, and now he and the missis are hobnobbing together in the library. Now, Nell, be a good girl and tell a fellow what it’s all about.”

“But, Hu, I give you my word I haven’t an idea. It may be nothing, after all.”

“Pooh!” exclaimed her brother irascibly. “I believe you do know, though. You women dearly love beating about the bush and all that sort of thing,” and throwing his leg over the arm of a chair, he flung himself back, his face a picture of unreasonable peevishness. Nor could he afford to await with indifference the paternal storm, for Master Hubert’s conscience was a tolerably blemished article, and now he was speculating with a troubled mind as to which of his peccadilloes might have come to the paternal knowledge.

The girl made no reply, as she bent over her work, while her brother sat uneasily swinging his legs, the apprehensive frown deepening on his brow. Then they heard the door of the study open and their father’s voice saying:

” – And send Hubert here; I want to talk to him. If he is out, he had better come directly he returns.” And the door closed as Mrs Dorrien replied in the affirmative.

“Oh, Lord!” groaned Hubert. “Well, it’s of no use putting off the evil day. Here goes. Oh, it’s nice to have a father! Well, mother, and what’s it all about?” as Mrs Dorrien entered the room.

“I don’t know for certain, dear,” she said anxiously. “But I think your father only wants to talk to you about your allowance.”

A very blank look came into his face. “Couldn’t be much worse,” he muttered, and went to meet his fate.

And soothly, a bad quarter of an hour was in store for him, for it happened that the General had received certain bills on his account – not University duns, but long outstanding London debts, and, as to one, a letter of demand. Cold, sarcastic and incisive was the lecture he poured forth on the head of the luckless Hubert. He reminded him of former scrapes of the kind, of the fact that he would have little or nothing hereafter but what he obtained by his own exertions, and wound up by recommending him to apply himself to his reading with renewed determination.

Hubert, who thought he was getting into smooth water again, began to promise, but once more his father cut him ruthlessly short.

“And now, for the third time,” he said, “I shall have to get you out of the embarrassment into which your own folly has plunged you – but I shall not do so without exacting some guarantee that you will make a good use of your time in return. Your mother tells me that you and Roland are invited to spend a fortnight at Ardleigh Court.”

“Oho!” thought Hubert, noting a slight frown which came over his father’s face at the mention of his brother. “Oho! – so Roland’s in the veteran’s black books, too! Wonder what about.”

” – This invitation you will decline,” went on the hard, condemnatory voice. “Amusement and work in your case don’t agree – and work you must. Every morning from breakfast time till luncheon during the next six weeks I shall expect you to be at your books, unless I see special reason to make an exception. You have done literally no work at all since your return home this vacation, and it is high time you began. And for the last time these” – tapping the bills lying upon his desk – “shall be paid. Are there any more of them outstanding, by the way?”

Now why had not Hubert the courage to make a clean breast of it. Here was an opportunity such as would not occur again. Ah I that slightly receding chin.

“Only two or three, for small amounts,” he faltered.

“Very good. Make a list of them here,” handing him a piece of paper.

” – And that is all? Yes? Then I need not detain you here any further – except again to impress upon you the necessity of attending to what I have been saying.”

Hubert went out of his father’s presence with hot, seething rage at his heart. He to be confined to the house every morning like a schoolboy, with a set task to do. “Gated,” in fact – and that by his own father, and in his home. It was humiliating in the extreme. And there was no way in which the devil within him could find vent.

“Well, dear?” said his mother enquiringly, as he burst into the morning-room, where she had been anxiously awaiting the result of the interview. “And now I hope things are all right.”

“All right?” echoed Hubert, his countenance ablaze with wrath and disgust. “All right? No, they’re not, they’re as wrong as they can be. Here am I set down to work every morning like a wretched schoolboy. I swear, it’s damnable the way in which he treats me.”

“Oh, Hubert – hush!” cried his mother and sister in one breath, both horror-stricken.

“Hush? Oh yes! Aren’t we horrified?” he said jeeringly. “Women are so very easily shocked, I know. Faugh?” and he flung himself from the room.

But it was not on his younger son’s account that General Dorrien had come down that morning “in a state of thundercloud,” as that graceless delinquent had facetiously put it; and to let the reader into the real cause, it will be necessary for him or her to assist in the discussion which took place previous to the unlucky Hubert being summoned to the library.

“I don’t really know what to think, much less what to Bay or do,” said the General. “You saw for yourself, Eleanor; you saw them together. Now, what do you make of it?”

“Well, I do think it’s too bad of Roland, and shows a great want of proper feeling on his part. After all these years he has been away he does not give us much of his society. He seems to be quite taken up with those – people,” answered Mrs Dorrien, though, to do her justice, she answered with some reserve. Her heart was cold towards her eldest son, and not one spark of love had she for him; all was lavished on the younger. Yet, she told herself, she hoped she had a conscience.

“You are right,” said the General decisively. “It shows a complete want of proper feeling. To be hanging about the public roads like that with the girl! Why, I believe he was about to – pah! It is disgraceful – disgusting and disgraceful, absolutely. Who are these Ingelows, by the way, Eleanor?”

“Oh, I’m sure I don’t know,” she answered loftily, as if the bare suspicion of her knowing anything about them was an imputation to be resented. “I believe they are well-connected and all that. But that anything serious should be the outcome of this would be most deplorable, I should think.”

“It would, indeed. Highly deplorable, and in fact I won’t entertain the idea of anything of the kind. Moreover, if what I hear is true, Roland spends a very great deal of his time in the society of this girl.”