Chapter Forty Eight.

“A Health! Dorrien of Cranston?”

“What an awful young brute I must have been in those days, Roland! By Jove! any kicks that may have travelled my way I jolly well deserved.” And Hubert Dorrien puffed out a great cloud of smoke upon the sweet evening air.

“I think we all wanted a good shaking up,” answered his brother meditatively. “We are a rum lot, you know. At any rate we seem to have got it—all round.”

At the further end of the beautiful avenue of feathery elms rose the tall chimney stacks and long windows of Cranston Hall. The air was fragrant with the multifold scents of evening, distilled dewy from flower and herb, and the dappled deer moved like antlered ghosts in the gathering twilight. From the lake, embowered in overhanging leafage, came the craking cry of a waterhen or the plash of a rising fish, and in the boskiness of the home coverts a very chorus of song, as innumerable thrushes and blackbirds poured forth a final evening warble.

“Well, if I got some kicks, at any rate I captured plenty of halfpence,” went on Hubert. “Tell you what it is, old chap: that was the best day’s work that ever happened when you launched me out into the world to fish for myself.”

“It’s rum how things do come about,” said the other queerly.

“Rather. If I hadn’t got on board the Atlanta, or if she had transhipped me on to some homeward-bound craft, I shouldn’t have got to Australia, and if I hadn’t got to Australia I shouldn’t have struck that reef, and made my pile. Not but what I didn’t have some real rough ups and downs in between.”

“To continue the ‘ifs,’” said Roland, “what if you hadn’t turned up when you did, this time last year? What if your boat had been wrecked, and you had taken another outward-bound trip on some rescuing craft? What then?”

“Don’t speak of it, old chap. It’s enough to give one the cold shivers even to think of. But that sweep who had boned my clothes and things had something to answer for, or rather those who were ‘thick’ enough not to know the difference between him and me, when they held the inquest on him.”

“At any rate he sneaked certain elaborate obsequies under false pretences,” said Roland drily, whereat the other exploded.

The change which had taken place in Hubert Dorrien had been thorough and complete. Outwardly, there was hardly a trace of the weedy, loose-hung, shifty-mannered youth in the sun-browned, well-set-up man walking here now. Mentally, too, was he no less improved, and the process by which that desirable state of things had come about was, in his own words, that his ups and downs had knocked all the nonsense out of him, and prepared him to appreciate and turn to good account his luck when it came. And this he himself heartily recognised. Roland, on the other hand, had changed but little, save that the awful tension of those terrible weeks had turned his hair nearly grey. At the conclusion of the affair he had suffered no fuss to be made, but had driven quietly back to Cranston, and resumed life there as if nothing had happened. And that had been a year ago.

“Fancy Lizzie Devine being fool enough to marry that long-legged cad she was touring with, after all,” said Hubert presently.

“Yes. Not good enough for her. By Jove! but that girl is sterling and plucky. That was one of the finest things I ever saw, the way she came forward. Well, if they don’t hit it off, I’ll back her to come out best.”

Incidentally, both brothers had marked the event alluded to with a substantiality that bordered on the munificent. To one, the recollection of her would always be as that of the life-saver to the drowning man.

“And our rascally friend, Gipsy Steve? Does he still keep straight?” went on Hubert.

“Yes. A savage is capable of gratitude, and this one is so grateful to me for prevailing on Neville not to sack him by reason of his giving that evidence, that I believe he’d cut anyone’s throat if I told him to. But I only told him to keep straight, and I believe he’ll do it.

“Do you know, Roland, you’re no end of a popular chap round here now—among the sovereign people, I mean. Why, only the other day, when I was biking, I turned into a pub out beyond Clatton to get a whisky and soda, and the place was full of yokels and a small farmer or two, and they were booming you no end.”

“That was for your benefit.”

“Not a bit of it. They didn’t know me from Adam.”

“Then it was on Olive’s account. They recognise her as the good genius here.”

“That’s all right,” assented the other heartily. “But I don’t think it was altogether on Olive’s account, all the same. Besides, I’ve come across other instances of it. I say, though. Fancy a Dorrien popular! Eh?”

“Yes. Seems odd, doesn’t it?”

“I’ve got some good news to break to you, Roland, so prepare for the shock. I’m going back to Australia, now at once, the day after to-morrow.”

“The deuce you are! Tired of us already?”

“Tired of you! My dear old chap, how long have I been over here? Just a year. And about ten months out of the twelve has been spent here. Tired of you! Why, the shoe’s on the other hoof, I think.”

“That’s bosh, Hubert. We’ve had very jolly times here together. But why are you off? Business?”

“That’s it. As part proprietor and director of the Kulgurra and Dawkins Reef Company I’ve made my pile, and can go on making it. But, the fact is, this sort of life is turning me too soft again. Besides, I have a hankering after a certain amount of Bush life from time to time. They say every fellow gets it once he has known it. I must get back there and hustle around again.”

“I daresay you’re right after all. Olive will be sorry. But, Hubert, when you are back in the old country again, you know where your home is?”

“Rather, old chap. How things come round, eh? The last place I should ever have thought of in that connection would have been this jolly old place. But now.”

“There’s an unwelcome sort of song to you, Hubert,” said Roland drily, as an unmistakable infantile squall sounded from an upper room, for they had regained the house now. “One more between you and this. And he’s sound in wind and limb; extra so, in fact.”

“Oh, skittles, old man,” laughed the other. “And as to that, I’ll be more of a millionaire than you are, if things go on as they’ve begun. No, no. You’re the man for this place, and I hope you’ll live another hundred years—you and Olive—to run it, and my six-month-old godson, now equalling up there, after you.”

“What’s that? What are you finding fault with your godson about, Hubert?” laughed Olive, who was crossing the hall as they entered, and caught the last words.

“I’m not abusing him. I’m giving him my benediction. Ask Roland.”

“Fact, Olive,” supported the latter. “But Hubert is leaving us to-morrow. He’s off to Australia the day after.”

“No. But where’s the hurry. Short notice, isn’t it?”

And then she tried to prevail upon him to put off his departure.

“Can’t do it, dear,” he answered, greatly pleased. “As I said just now, I’m getting soft here. And I’ve been accustomed of late to make all my moves at short notice.”

“Where’s Roy?” said Roland suddenly. “The rascal seems to have deserted me in these days.”

“Roy, indeed? You haven’t asked after your son and heir, I notice,” said Olive, in feigned indignation.

“H’m! Seniores priores. Roy is a much older friend,” returned Roland. “Moreover, he is an intelligent animal, whereas the other is not—as yet.”

“You hard-hearted, unnatural parent. But—here he is.”

“Who? Roy, I hope.”

“I scorn to reply.”

“Ha-ha! You’re spared the trouble. Come here, Roy, you scamp. What do you mean by deserting me in this fashion? Eh, sir?”

The woolly rascal rushed at his master, squirming and whining with delight, as he made playful snaps at the hand wherewith his said master was pulling his ears, and only flailing a couple of knick-knacks off a low table with his wagging brush.

“Go now and dress, you people, or you’ll be late, as usual,” laughed Olive.

It was essentially a family party, that which gathered round the dinner-table at Cranston that evening, and it was the anniversary of the sudden rolling away of that last and terrible cloud, which had lain so heavily on all concerned since last we saw them together. Dr Ingelow was there, genial, sunny-hearted, as of yore, and Margaret. Sophie, too, tyrannising over and teasing her fiancé—none other than Frank Marsland, there at her side. Nellie Dorrien, however, is missing, and, in fact, is far enough away, for she is making her début in an Indian station as a bride of a month, Eustace Ingelow being there quartered. But they are all uncommonly lively, except that every now and then the recollection of Hubert’s impending departure creates a momentary silence, for he has long been one of this circle, and they will miss him.

From the repartee and laughter of the general conversation, Olive, sitting there, bright and winning as of old, at times drops out. The anniversary of this night rests in her memory still; so, too, does that other terrible night, when they went down into the Valley of the Shadow together—when they stood beneath the iron cliffs in the dim gloaming, and Death stared them in the face, and his grisly hand was over them, reached forth from the on-rushing thunder of raving surges. Both these ordeals had left their mark upon her, moulding her character, and bringing out the best of her nature, shining and durable. No cloud remained now.

But—the Ban! More than a year had passed and gone since its last and grisly manifestation, but none had fallen victim. It was as though cheated. But further literary research on the legendary terror overshadowing his house had carried a reassuring conviction to the mind of Roland Dorrien, strange in the light of his utter and scoffing scepticism on the subject in former times. This was nothing less than a prophecy appended to the prophecy, and done out of the quaintly-spelt and worded phraseology of its period, this is how it ran:

“All events befall in cycles. One woman consigned these two to the bloodless Death. Generations seven shall pass, and he of that time two women shall save from it. Then the Ban shall be removed and the bloodless Death shall depart from Craunston.”

The cryptic utterance revealed itself to Roland’s mind as clear as daylight. He, himself, was of the seventh generation from the original event, and sure, indeed, was it that two women had saved him—one upon the lone sea coast, and one, indeed, from a still more hideous form of the bloodless Death. And so deciding, he was conscious of a relief that was hardly in keeping with his former scepticism.

Such thoughts, not for the first time, are underlying his mind as he sits at the head of his bright and sparkling dinner-table here this evening. Then Marsland’s voice breaks in upon his meditations.

“Before we separate, I want to propose a health, one specially appropriate this evening. Are you all charged? Well then—A health! Dorrien of Cranston?”

Hearty, spontaneous, and sharp is the response.

“A health! Dorrien of Cranston!”

The End.