'You have been on the Continent, have you not?' she said to Henry, with her mouth full of cake. 'Ah, I know all about you, our footman is cousin to your cook. We were in Paris ourselves last winter, because my grandfather let my father have some money to spend, and we went to Paris instead of buying new curtains for my mother's bedroom.'
'Yes, you baggage,' said Simon Flower, 'and whenever we visited a picture-gallery what should we find in every room but a trail of young Frenchmen behind us? So in the end the people were bowing to us, thinking we were a royal procession.'
'It was a Miss Wilson who was our governess then,' said Fanny-Rosa, 'and I slipped away from her twice when she was conducting me through the streets, so that she thought I had been abducted, and went in tears to the policemen, but they, being French, did not understand her. She was forced to go to a quiet place in the country when we returned, as she had developed nervous trouble. Would you believe it, but I have had a dozen governesses since I was fourteen, and I had my seventeenth birthday last month, so this is the end of it all.'
'You will be the end of your parents too,' said Mrs.
Flower severely, entering the room at this moment, after a vain attempt to mollify the unfortunate Miss Harris. 'You may think yourselves lucky, Mr.
Brodrick, that your own sisters do not behave in similar fashion, and I trust you will not give an account of this daughter of mine to Miss Brodrick when you return.'
'I tell you what,' cried Simon Flower.
'Why do you two boys go back home at all?
Let your father go down the old burrows after the miners if it pleases him. You shall stay and dine with us, and we will pay another visit to the cellar, and Fanny-Rosa shall come with us.'
But Henry shook his head and moved towards the door, much to his brother's mortification.
'You are very kind, sir,' he said, 'but we have already delayed far too long as it is. My father will be in some anxiety concerning U.'
Simon Flower waved a careless hand, and sat himself down to the piano.
'I'll shoot with your father any day he fancies, on Doon Island,' he said. 'I'd never refuse an invitation of that sort. But to go crawling or my stomach after Morty Donovan in the middle of the night, no, I will not do it, and ye can tell him so to hia'oux'
'bb'face.'
And with that he burst once more into song, joined by the faithful setter, and the two Brodricks left Castle Andriff to the confused sound of clashing chords, a rich baritone voice, and the barking of at least half-a-dozen dogs, while the elder daughter of the house, an enchanting barefooted figure, waved to them from the stone steps.
Dazed, bewildered, and still slightly intoxicated, the two brothers rode home at a pace that would have infuriated Copper John could he have seen them. It was not until they were within sight of Doon-haven that they drew rein, and Henry pulled himself to his senses.
'You know, John,' he said, 'my father is perfectly right. This country will never prosper while it continues to breed people like the Flowers.'
John did not answer. The prosperity of the country meant nothing to him. Henry could continue his observations in his critical fashion and abuse Simon Flower if he wished. The only thing that mattered to John was this: that never in his life had he set eyes on anything quite so lovely as Simon Flower's daughter Fanny-Rosa.
On the following Saturday evening the Brodricks were seated round the fire in the library, having dined early, as was their custom. Jane had been gathering cones from the woods during the day, and these she now scattered on the smoking turf, making the fire hiss and crackle, the better to shut out the sound of the wind as it moaned in the trees behind Clonmere. There was a full gale blowing outside in Mundy Bay, but the long Atlantic rollers swept past the entrance to Doonhaven, while the straggling length of Doon Island acted as a natural breakwater.
The tide ebbed swiftly in the creek below the castle, making a strong ripple against the wind, but so sheltered was Clonmere from the full force of the gale that only the sudden tremor of the woods above the house gave warning that the still weather had broken at last.
Henry was seated at his father's desk, writing a letter to Barbara at Lletharrog, while John sprawled as usual in the most comfortable chair, one hand fondling the ear of his favourite greyhound, the other propping up a book he did not read. He was watching the cones as they burst in the fire, and Jane, glancing up at his half-closed eyes, wondered what he was thinking.
The week had been quiet. No further pilfering had been discovered at the mine, and though a watch had been stationed on the hillside every night no one had come upon the hill save the watchers themselves. Yet there was a strange feeling of unrest in the air, a brooding sense of disquiet. And the miners, watching one another in suspicion, went about their work sullenly and in silence.
It was not only at the mine that this atmosphere prevailed. Down in Doonhaven, when Jane, accompanied by old Martha, went to make a purchase at Murphy's shop, and would have chatted as usual in her happy way to Murphy, whom she had known from babyhood, the man avoided her eye, looking uncomfortable, and muttering some excuse, disappeared into the back of his shop, leaving a young ignorant lad to serve her. It seemed to her too that the people in the market square stared at her with hostility, and when she smiled and said good-morning they turned their backs and pretended not to see.
Doonhaven had suddenly become a place of whispers, of figures peering round doorways and then withdrawing, and Jane, who had a place in her heart for all comers and loved the people of Doonhaven, returned home with a heavy feeling of foreboding.
'I don't like it,' she said to Henry. 'I believe my father takes this business of the mine not seriously enough. All he thinks about is to catch the few miners and to punish them for taking the copper. He does not realise that his mine is hated by every one of the people in Doonhaven.'
'The trouble is that they are jealous,' said Henry.
'They would like all the benefits of the copper, and none of the trouble in getting it. Father knows what he is talking about. If you were not firm with the people in the country nothing would ever be done, and no progress would be made.'
'We were happy enough without progress.'
'That is just sentimentality, and you have been listening to John.'
Jane threw another cone on to the fire. It spat and hissed, and became still. Soon there was no sound but the scratching of Henry's nib at the desk, and the occasional rustle of a page as John turned the leaves of his book. Suddenly the dog pricked his ears and looked towards the door, and the door itself opened, and their father, Copper John, stood upon the threshold. His coat was buttoned to his chin, his hat was pulled low over his brow, so that little of him could be seen but the long nose and the thin lips above the square jaw, while in his hand he carried his favourite stick, short and nobbled, with a head on it like a club. Behind him, in the hall, stood the agent, Ned Brodrick, his lean, mournful face a contrast to the forceful determination of his more fortunate brother.
'I want you two boys to accompany me immediately,' said Copper John. 'We are starting for the mine in five minutes. Outside in the drive I have some dozen of the tenants waiting, also Parsons, the customs officer, Sullivan from the Post Office, Doctor Beamish, and one or two others that have mustered. There is no time to lose.'
The three young Brodricks had risen to their feet, Henry tense and alert, John a little bewildered, awoken too rudely from his dream, and Jane pale and anxious, clasping her hands in front of her.
'Is anything wrong, sir?' asked Henry.
Copper John smiled grimly.
'Word has come that there are some thirty men or more marching out from Doonhaven to Hungry Hill, and leading them are the half-dozen miners suspected by Captain Nicholson. They are out to do mischief, of course, and I propose to stop them.'
Jane followed her father and uncle into the hall, where her two brothers were fastening their coats, their faces pale and excited in the dim candle-light.
The door was open on to the drive, and she could see the small huddled group of men waiting for her father, shuffling their feet on the gravel, talking amongst themselves in whispers. One or two of them swung lanterns in their hands, and all carried heavy sticks.
There was still no rain, but the wind came in gusts, and the clouds raced one another across the sky. It was about half-past eight, and the night was dark. No moon shone, and the stars were mere pin-pricks of light that
