I inquired in which direction lay the hall. She pointed to the nearest trees, a small forest of stunted oaks, which shut in the view to the right, after quarter of a mile of a bare and rugged valley. Through this valley twisted the beck which I had heard faintly in the night. It ran through the oak plantation and so to the sea, some two or three miles further on, said my landlady; but nobody would have thought it was so near.
'T'squire was to be away to-day,' observed the woman, with the broad vowel sound which I shall not attempt to reproduce in print. 'He was going to Lancaster, I believe.'
'So I understood,' said I. 'I didn't think of troubling him, if that's what you mean. I'm going to take his advice and fish the beck.'
And I proceeded to do so after a hearty early dinner: the keen, chill air was doing me good already: the 'perfect quiet' was finding its way into my soul. I blessed my specialist, I blessed Squire Rattray, I blessed the very villains who had brought us within each other's ken; and nowhere was my thanksgiving more fervent than in the deep cleft threaded by the beck; for here the shrewd yet gentle wind passed completely overhead, and the silence was purged of oppression by the ceaseless symphony of clear water running over clean stones.
But it was no day for fishing, and no place for the fly, though I went through the form of throwing one for several hours. Here the stream merely rinsed its bed, there it stood so still, in pools of liquid amber, that, when the sun shone, the very pebbles showed their shadows in the deepest places. Of course I caught nothing; but, towards the close of the gold-brown afternoon, I made yet another new acquaintance, in the person of a little old clergyman who attacked me pleasantly from the rear.
'Bad day for fishing, sir,' croaked the cheery voice which first informed me of his presence. 'Ah, I knew it must be a stranger,' he cried as I turned and he hopped down to my side with the activity of a much younger man.
'Yes,' I said, 'I only came down from London yesterday. I find the spot so delightful that I haven't bothered much about the sport. Still, I've had about enough of it now.' And I prepared to take my rod to pieces.
'Spot and sport!' laughed the old gentleman. 'Didn't mean it for a pun, I hope? Never could endure puns! So you came down yesterday, young gentleman, did you? And where may you be staying?'
I described the position of my cottage without the slightest hesitation; for this parson did not scare me; except in appearance he had so little in common with his type as I knew it. He had, however, about the shrewdest pair of eyes that I have ever seen, and my answer only served to intensify their open scrutiny.
'How on earth did you come to hear of a God-forsaken place like this?' said he, making use, I thought, of a somewhat stronger expression than quite became his cloth.
'Squire Rattray told me of it,' said I.
'Ha! So you're a friend of his, are you?' And his eyes went through and through me like knitting-needles through a ball of wool.
'I could hardly call myself that,' said I. 'But Mr. Rattray has been very kind to me.'
'Meet him in town?'
I said I had, but I said it with some coolness, for his tone had dropped into the confidential, and I disliked it as much as this string of questions from a stranger.
'Long ago, sir?' he pursued.
'No, sir; not long ago,' I retorted.
'May I ask your name?' said he.
'You may ask what you like,' I cried, with a final reversal of all my first impressions of this impertinent old fellow; 'but I'm hanged if I tell it you! I am here for rest and quiet, sir. I don't ask you your name. I can't for the life of me see what right you have to ask me mine, or to question me at all, for that matter.'
He favored me with a brief glance of extraordinary suspicion. It faded away in mere surprise, and, next instant, my elderly and reverend friend was causing me some compunction by coloring like a boy.
'You may think my curiosity mere impertinence, sir,' said he; 'you would think otherwise if you knew as much as I do of Squire Rattray's friends, and how little you resemble the generality of them. You might even feel some sympathy for one of the neighboring clergy, to whom this godless young man has been for years as a thorn in their side.'
He spoke so gravely, and what he said was so easy to believe, that I could not but apologize for my hasty words.
'Don't name it, sir,' said the clergyman; 'you had a perfect right to resent my questions, and I enjoy meeting young men of spirit; but not when it's an evil spirit, such as, I fear, possesses your friend! I do assure you, sir, that the best thing I have heard of him for years is the very little that you have told me. As a rule, to hear of him at all in this part of the world, is to wish that we had not heard. I see him coming, however, and shall detain you no longer, for I don't deny that there is no love lost between us.'
I looked round, and there was Rattray on the top of the bank, a long way to the left, coming towards me with a waving hat. An extraordinary ejaculation brought me to the right-about next instant.
The old clergyman had slipped on a stone in mid-stream, and, as he dragged a dripping leg up the opposite bank, he had sworn an oath worthy of the 'godless young man' who had put him to flight, and on whose demerits he had descanted with so much eloquence and indignation.
CHAPTER X
WINE AND WEAKNESS
Sporting old parson who knows how to swear?' laughed Rattray. 'Never saw him in my life before; wondered who the deuce he was.'
'Really?' said I. 'He professed to know something of you.'
'Against me, you mean? My dear Cole, don't trouble to perjure yourself. I don't mind, believe me. They're easily shocked, these country clergy, and no doubt I'm a bugbear to 'em. Yet, I could have sworn I'd never seen this one before. Let's have another look.'
