King of the Castle

“I don’t wonder, sir. Without going into trade, a man has to keep his eyes open to the rascality of the world.”

“Yes,” said Gartram, scanning the speaker keenly still. “Then now, sir, let me ask you a question.”

“By all means; as many as you like.”

“Then pray, sir, if my daughter had been a penniless girl, would you have felt this deep admiration for her?”

“Mr Gartram!” said Glyddyr haughtily, as he flushed deeply and rose from his chair. “Bah!” he added, after a pause, and he let himself sink back, and smoked heavily for a few moments. “Stupid to be so put out. Quite a natural question. Really, sir,” he said, smiling, and looking ingenuously in the old man’s face, “fate has been so kind to me over money matters that fortune-hunting has not been one of my pursuits. In round numbers, my father left me three hundred thousand pounds. Golden armour, sir, against the arrows of poverty, and such as turns aside so fierce a stab as that of yours. Has Miss Gartram any money?”

“Humph! I have,” said the old man roughly.

“If she has, so much the better,” continued Glyddyr, smoking calmly, and evidently thoroughly enjoying his cigar. “A lady with a private purse of her own no doubt occupies a more happy and independent position than one who appeals to her husband for all she wants. I am sorry that our conversation has taken this turn, Mr Gartram,” he added stiffly.

“I’m not, Glyddyr. It has shown you up in another light. Well, what do you want me to say?”

“To say, sir?” cried the young man eagerly.

“Yes. There, I don’t think I need say anything. Yes, I do. I don’t like the idea of Claude marrying any one, but nature is nature. I shall be carried off some day by a fit, I suppose, and when I am, I believe – slave driver as I am, and oppressor of the poor, as they call me, for making Danmouth a prosperous place, and paying thousands a year in wages – I should rest more comfortably if I knew my child was married to the man she loved.”

“Mr Gartram.”

“I haven’t done, Glyddyr.”

There was a pause, during which the old man seemed to look his visitor through and through. Then he held out his hand with a quick, sharp movement.

“Yes,” he said; “I like you, my lad: I always did. You think too much of sport; but you’ll weary of that, and your whole thoughts will be of the best and truest girl that ever lived.”

“Then you consent, Mr Gartram?” cried Glyddyr with animation.

“No: I consent to nothing. You’ve got to win her first. I give you my leave, though, to win if you can; and if you do marry her – well, I daresay I can afford to buy her outfit – trousseau – what you may call it.”

“Mr Gartram – ”

“That will do. Be cool. You haven’t won her yet, my lad.”

“I may speak to her at once?”

“If you like; but my advice is – don’t. Lead up to it gently – make sure of her before you speak. There, I’m a busy man, and I’ve got to go up the east river to look at a vein of stone which crops up there. Take another cigar, and walk with me – if you like.”

“I will, sir. Try one of mine.”

“Yes,” said Gartram laconically; and as they went out into the hall, he purposely picked out his worst hat from the stand, and put it on.

“Old chap wants to make me shy at him, and show that I don’t like walking through the town with that hat. Got hold of the wrong pig by the ear,” said Glyddyr to himself.

They walked along the granite terrace, with its crenellated parapet and row of imitation guns, laboriously chipped out of the granite; and then out through the gateway and over the moat, and descended to the village, reaching the path leading to the east glen, and were soon walking beside the rushing salmon river, with Gartram pointing out great veins of good granite as it cropped out of the side of the deep ravine.

“Hang his confounded stone!” said Glyddyr to himself, after he had made several attempts to change the drift of the conversation.

“Fine bit of stuff that, sir,” said his companion, pointing across the river with his heavy stick. “I believe I could cut a monolith twenty feet long out of that rock, but the brutes won’t let me have it. My solicitor has fought for it hard, but they stick to it, and money won’t tempt them. I believe that was the beginning of my sleeplessness – insomnia, as Asher calls it.”

“Asher?”

“Yes; our doctor. You must know him. Pleasant, smooth-spoken fellow in black.”

“Oh, yes; of course.”

“Worried me a deal, that did.”

“And you suffer from insomnia?”

“Horribly. Keep something to exorcise the demon, though,” he said laughingly, taking a small bottle from his pocket. “Chloral.”

“Dangerous stuff, sir. Take it cautiously.”

“I take it as my medical man advises.”

“That is right. Of course I remember Doctor Asher, and that other young friend of yours – the naturalist and salmon fisherman, and – ”

“Oh, Lisle. Yes; sort of ward of mine. I am his trustee.”

“Quite an old friend, then, sir?”

“Yes; and – eh?” said the old man laughingly. “Why, Glyddyr, I can read you like a book. Is there, or has there ever been, anything between Claude and Christopher Lisle? I should think not, indeed. Rubbish, man, rubbish! and – ”

They had just turned one of the rugged corners of the glen, and there before them in the distance was Chris Lisle helping Claude to catch a fish – his words, of course, inaudible, but his actions sufficiently demonstrative to make Parry Glyddyr press his teeth hardly together, and the owner of the granite castle grip his stick and swear.

Volume One – Chapter Three.

Lesson the First

Things that seem far-fetched are sometimes simple matters of fact. Just as Claude was glancing back, and feeling as if she would give anything to be back home, a dove among the trees in the fern-clad glen began to coo, and Mary laughed.

“There,” she said, “only listen. You can’t go back now. It would be absurd.”

“But you are so imprudent,” whispered Claude, whose cheeks were growing hotter. “How could you?”

“I wanted to see you happy, my darling coz,” was whispered back. “I saw him coming here with his fishing-rod, and – ”

“But, Mary, what will Chris Lisle think?”

“Think he’s in luck, and bless poor little humpy, fairy godmother me, and – no, no, too late to retreat. We have been seen.”

For as they had passed out into an open part of the glen where the river widened into a pool, there, only a short distance from them, and with his bright, sun-browned face directed toward the river, was a sturdy, well-built young fellow, dressed in a dark tweed Norfolk jacket and knickerbockers, busily throwing a fly across the pool till, as if intuitively becoming aware that he was watched, he looked sharply round.

The next moment there was again the peculiar buzzing sound made by a rapidly-wound-up multiplying winch, the rod was thrown over the young man’s shoulder, and he turned to meet them.

“Ah, little Mary!” he cried merrily; and then, with a voice full of tender reverence, he turned, straw hat in hand, to Claude.

“I did not expect to see you here.”

“And I am as much surprised,” she said hastily. “Mary and I were having a walk.”

“And now we are here, Mr Lisle, you may as well show us all your salmon,” said Mary seriously.

“My salmon! I haven’t had a rise.”

“And we have interrupted you, perhaps, just as the fish are biting. Come, Mary. Good-morning, Mr Lisle.”

“Oh!”

Only a little interjection, but so full of reproach that Claude coloured here deeply, and more deeply still as, upon looking round for her companion, she found her comfortably seated upon a mossy stone, and with her head turned away to hide the mischievous delight which flashed from her eyes.

“I’m beginning to be afraid that I have offended you, Miss Gartram – Claude.”

“Oh, no; what nonsense. Come, Mary.”

The stone upon which she sat was not more deaf.

“Don’t hurry away. I thought I was some day to give you a lesson in salmon fishing.”

“I should never learn, Mr Lisle; and, besides, it is not a very ladylike accomplishment.”

“Anything you did, Claude, would be ladylike. Come, I know there are two or three salmon in this pool. They will not rise for me; they might for you.”

“I should scare them away.”

“No,” said the young man meaningly; “you would attract anything to stay.”

“Mr Lisle!”

“Well, what have I said? There, forgive me, and take the rod. You promised I should show you how to throw a fly.”

“Yes, yes; but some other time – perhaps to-morrow.”

“To-morrow comes never,” said the young man laughingly. “No; I have my chance now. Miss Dillon, did not your cousin promise to let me show her how to catch a salmon?”

“Yes; and I am so tired. I’ll wait till you have caught one, Claude.”

“There,” cried the young man hurriedly; and the stronger will prevailing over the weaker, Claude allowed her instructor to thrust the lithe rod he held into her hands, and, trembling and blushing, she suffered herself to be led to the side of the pool.

“I shall never learn,” she said.

“Not learn! I shall be able to come up to the Fort carrying your first salmon, and to say to Mr Gartram: ‘there, sir; salmon fishing taught in one lesson,’ What do you say to that?”

“How can she be so foolish? – Of what am I talking? – Mr Lisle, pray let me go.”

All silent sentences, but as the last was thought Claude raised her eyes to her companion, to meet his fixed upon hers, so full of tender, reverent love that she dropped her own, and fell a-trembling with a joy she tried vainly to crush down, while her heart beat heavily the old, old theme, —

“He loves me well – he loves me well.”

They had known each other since they were boy and girl, and the affection had slowly and steadily grown stronger and stronger, but Chris Lisle had said to himself time after time that it was too soon to tell her his love, and ask for the guardianship of her heart; and he had waited, feeling satisfied that some day Claude Gartram would be his.

“There,” he said playfully, “now for lesson the first. Let me draw out some more line. That’s the way. Now, you know as well as I do how to throw. Try to let your fly fall amongst that foam below where the water rushes into the pool. That’s the way. Bravo!”

“There, Mr Lisle,” cried Claude, after making a very fair cast, “now take the rod, for I must go. Mary, dear, come along.”

“Sha’n’t,” said Mary to herself, as she grew more deaf than ever. “Gather your rosebuds while you may, dear. He’s a nice, good fellow. Ah! how I could have loved a man like that.”

“Mary Dillon is too much interested in her book,” said Chris. “There, that’s plenty of line for a good cast. You must go on now. It isn’t so very wicked, Claude.”

“There, then, this one throw and I must go,” said the girl, her cheeks burning, and her head seeming to swim, for she was conscious of nothing – running river, the foam and swirl, the glorious landscape of rugged glen side, and the bright sun gilding the heathery earth upon which she stood – conscious of nothing save the fact that Chris Lisle was by her, and that his words seemed to thrill her to the heart, while in spite of herself he seemed to have acquired a mastery over her which it was sweet to obey.

“Well back,” he cried; “now then, a good one.”

It was not a good cast, being a very clumsy one, for the fly fell with a splash right out in a smooth, oily looking patch of water behind some stones. But, as is often the case, the tyro is more successful than the tried fisherman. The fly had no sooner touched the water than there was a rise, a singing whirr from the winch, and Chris shouted aloud with joy.

“There!” he cried. “You have him. First lesson.”

“Have I caught it?”

“Yes, yes; hold up the point of your rod.”

Claude immediately held it down, and the line went singing out, till Chris darted close behind his pupil and seized the rod, just over her hands, raising the top till it bent nearly double.

“A beauty!” he cried excitedly. “You lucky girl!”

“Thank you. That’s right. Now, take the rod and pull it out.”

“No, no,” he said, with his lips close to her ear, and she trembled more and more as she felt his crisp beard tickle the back of her neck, and his strong arms tightly press hers to her sides; “you must land him now.”

Away darted the salmon wildly about the pool, but Claude could not tell whether it was the excitement caused by the electric messages sent through the line, or by the pressure of Chris Lisle’s hands as he held hers to the rod.

“Mary, come and see Mr Lisle catch this salmon,” she cried huskily; but Mary only turned over a leaf, and seemed more deaf than ever, while the fish tugged and strained.

“Mr Lisle, loose my hands now. This is absurd. What are you doing?”

“Telling you I love you,” he whispered, in spite of himself, for the time had come, “Claude, dearest, better than my life.”

“No, no; you must not tell me that,” she said, half tearfully, for the declaration seemed to give her pain.

“I must. The words have come at last.”

“And you have lost your fish,” cried Claude for the line had suddenly become slack.

“But have I won you?”

“No, no. And pray let me go now.”

“No?”

There was so much anguish in the tone in which that one little word was spoken, that it went right to Claude’s heart, and as if involuntarily, she added quickly, —

“I don’t know.”

“Claude, dearest,” he whispered, and his voice trembled as the words were breathed in her ear, “for pity’s sake don’t trifle with me.”

“I am not trifling with you. I told you the truth. I don’t know.”

“Ah, that’s not catching salmon,” came sharply from behind them. “Claude, dear, don’t listen to him. He’s a wicked fortune-hunter.”

Chris started away from Claude as if some one had struck him a violent blow.

“Mary!” cried Claude.

“Oh, I beg your pardon. What did I say?”

Whizz!

“Mr Lisle! Help!” cried Claude, for the line had suddenly tightened, the top of the rod bent over in a curve, and the winch sang out as it rapidly revolved.

“Take the rod, please, Mr Lisle,” continued Claude, in a voice full of emotion; and, as he took it without a word, she saw that he was deadly pale, and that his white teeth were pressing hard upon his nether lip.

He played the fish mechanically, and with Claude steadily looking on, and feeling as if she would like to run home to shut herself in her own room and throw herself upon her knees and sob. But the face before her held her as by a chain, and she turned with a bitter look of reproach upon her cousin, as she saw the way in which Chris was stung.

“Don’t look at me like that, dear,” cried Mary, “the words slipped out. I did not mean them, indeed. It’s a big fish, isn’t it, Mr Lisle? Shall I gaff it for you?”

“Thank you,” he said drearily; and Mary picked up the bamboo staff with the glistening hook at the end.

“Oh, I do beg your pardon, Mr Lisle.”

“Granted,” was the laconic reply.

“Don’t, pray, don’t punish me for saying those words,” cried Mary. “There, finish your lesson in love and fishing. Claude,” she whispered, as the young man had to follow the fish a few yards down the stream, “you’ve caught him tightly; shall I gaff him as well?”

“Yes; you had better finish your lesson, Miss Gartram,” said Chris, walking back slowly winding in the line, and speaking in a hard, cold tone.

“No; you had better finish,” she replied hastily; and then, as she saw the cloud deepening on his brow, she stepped forward quickly, and laid her hand on the rod. “Yes, let me finish, Chris,” she said, and she gazed at him with her eyes full of faith and trust.

“Claude,” he whispered, as he gave her the rod, “you couldn’t think – ”

“Hallo! What’s this?” cried a harsh voice, and all started, so suddenly had Norman Gartram – followed closely by his visitor – stepped up to where they stood.

“Mr Lisle giving Claude and me a lesson in fishing,” said Mary sharply. “Now, Claude, dear, wind in and I’ll hook him out.”

“Most interesting group,” said Parry Glyddyr, with rather a contemptuous look at the teacher of the art.

“Very,” said Norman Gartram, frowning. “Here, Claude, stop that fooling and come home.”

“Mary, Mary, what have you done?” whispered Claude, as they walked away.

“Made a mess of it, darling, I’m afraid.”

As they turned a corner of the glen, with her father’s guest talking about what she did not know, Claude stole a glance back, to see Christopher Lisle standing with his hands resting upon the rod he held, and a bright, silvery fish lying at his feet.

The girl’s heart went on beating heavily with pulsations that seemed as full of pleasure as of pain.

Volume One – Chapter Four.

“All to Bits!”

Mary Dillon did the greater part of the talking on the way home, Gartram saying scarcely a word, but making great use of his eyes, to see how Glyddyr took the unpleasant contretemps.

“And just after what I had said to him,” muttered Gartram. “The insolent young scoundrel! The miserable, contemptible pauper! How dare he?”

But Glyddyr’s behaviour was perfect, and excited Gartram’s wonder.

“He can’t have seen what I did,” he thought, “or he would never talk to her so coolly.”

For, ignoring everything, and as if he was blind to what had passed, Glyddyr dashed at once into a series of inquiries about Danmouth, and the weather in the winter.

“Do the storms affect the place much?” he said, looking at Claude.

“Knock the pots off sometimes, and always wash the slates clean,” said Mary, before Claude could reply.

“Not pleasant for the inhabitants,” said Glyddyr, after giving Mary a quick, amused glance before turning again to Claude. “But at the Fort, of course, you are too high up for the waves to reach?”

“Salt spray coats all the windows, and makes the walls shine,” interposed Mary.

“What will he think of me?” thought Claude; and then she wondered that she did not feel sorry, but that all the time, in spite of her father’s fiercely sullen looks, a peculiar kind of joy seemed to pervade her breast.

Glyddyr talked on, but he was completely talked down by Mary, who felt that the kindest thing she could do was to draw every one’s attention from her cousin, till they had passed through the little town, and nearly reached the Fort, where they were met by a rough-looking workman, who ran unceremoniously towards them, caught hold of Gartram roughly, and cried out, in wild excitement, —

“Come on to the quarry at once.”

“What’s the matter – fall of rock?” cried Gartram.

“Blasting – Woodham – blown all to bits,” panted the man.

“Then he has been using dynamite.”

“Nay; soon as we picked him up, he said it was the cursed bad powder.”

“Bah! Where is he?”

“We took him home, and I fetched the doctor, and then come on here.”

“Run home, girls. No, Mr Glyddyr, see them in. I’m going on to my workmen’s cottages.”

He hurried off, and Glyddyr turned to Claude.

“I’m sorry there is such terrible news,” he began; but Claude did not seem to hear him.

“Make haste, Mary,” she said hurriedly. “Bring brandy and wine, and join me there.”

“My dear Miss Gartram, are you going to the scene of the accident?”

Claude looked at him in an absent way.

“I am going to the Woodhams’ cottage,” she said hurriedly. “Sarah Woodham was our old servant. Don’t stop me, please.”

She hurried along the narrow road leading west, and it was not until she had gone some hundred yards following the messenger, who was trotting heavily at Gartram’s heels, that she realised that she was not alone.

“Mr Glyddyr!” she exclaimed.

“Pray pardon me,” he said, in a low, earnest voice. “As a friend, I cannot let you go alone at a time like this.”

Claude looked up at him wildly, but there was so much respectful deference in his manner that she could say nothing. In fact, her thoughts were all with the suffering man and woman – the victims of this deplorable mishap.

It was nearly half-a-mile along the rough cliff road; and it was traversed in silence, Claude being too much agitated to say more.

The scene was easy enough to find when they were approaching the place, for a knot of rough quarry workmen were gathered round a clean-looking, white-washed cottage, from out of whose open door came the harsh tones of a man’s voice, while the crowd parted left and right, and several placed the short black pipes they were smoking hurriedly in their pockets.

Claude had nearly reached the door when the words which were being uttered within the cottage seemed to act like a spell, arresting her steps and making her half turn shuddering away, as they seemed to lash her, so keenly and cuttingly they fell.

“Curse you! curse you! It’s all your doing. You’ve murdered me. Sarah, my girl, he has done for me at last.”

Gartram’s voice was heard in low, deep, muttering tones, as if in reproof; but the injured man’s voice overbore it directly, sounding shrill and harsh from agony as he cried, —

“Let every one outside hear it. Hark ye, lads, I wanted to use the dinnymite, but he made me use the cursed old powder again, and he has murdered me.”

“My good man,” said a fresh voice, which sounded clear in the silence, “you must be calm. It was a terrible accident.”

“Nay, doctor, it’s his doing; it’s his meanness. I wanted him to use the dinnymite, and he would keep to powder. He has murdered me.”

There was a low groan, and then a terrible cry; and as Glyddyr mentally pictured the scene within, of the doctor dressing the injuries, he turned to the trembling girl beside him.

“Miss Gartram,” he whispered, “this is no place for you. There is plenty of help. Let me see you home.”

She shook her head as she looked at him wildly, and, making a deprecating gesture, Glyddyr turned to one of the men.

“Is he very bad?” he whispered.

“Blowed a’most to bits,” said the man in a hoarse whisper.

“Did the powder go off too soon?”

“It warn’t powder at all,” said the man, as Gartram stepped quickly out of the cottage. “It were the dinnymite. He would use it, and he warn’t used to its ways.”

It was evident from the peculiar tightening of Gartram’s lips that he had heard the man’s words; and he turned back and re-entered the cottage, for his name was sharply pronounced within.

Then there was another groan, and the injured man cried, —

“Don’t, don’t; you’re killing me.”

At that moment a thin, keen-looking woman of about thirty rushed out of the cottage, her eyes wild and staring, and her face blanched, while her hands and apron were horribly stained.

“I can’t bear it,” she cried; “I can’t bear it!” and she flung herself upon her knees in the stony road, and covered her face with her hands, sobbing hysterically.

The sight of the suffering woman roused Claude to action; and as she took a couple of steps forward, and with the tears falling fast, laid her hand upon the woman’s shoulder, a low murmur arose among the men, and Glyddyr saw that they drew back respectfully, several turning right away.

“Sarah, my poor Sarah,” said Claude, bending low.

At the tender words of sympathy and the touch of the gentle hands, the woman let her own fall from her face, and stared up appealingly at the speaker.

Claude involuntarily shrank away from the ghastly face, for the hands had printed hideous traces upon the woman’s brow.

The shrinking away was momentary, for, recovering herself. Claude drew her handkerchief from her pocket, to turn in surprise as it was drawn from her hand, but she directly gave Glyddyr a grateful look, as she saw him step to a rough granite trough into which a jet of pure water was pouring from the cliff, and saturating it quickly, he returned the handkerchief to its owner.

But before the blood stains could be removed, the voice of the injured man was heard calling.

“Sarah! Don’t leave me, my girl. He has murdered me.”

The woman gave Claude a wild look, rose from her knees, and tottered back to the cottage as the voice of Gartram was heard in angry retort.

“Its like talking to a madman, Ike Woodham,” came clear and loud; “but you’ve got hurt by your own wilful obstinacy, and you want to throw the blame on me.”

As he spoke, Gartram strode out of the cottage, and then whispered to his child, —

“Come home, my dear. You can do no good.”