CHAPTER II.
The years rippled away so quietly at the convent that Freda Mulgrave shot up into a slender girl of eighteen while yet the remembrance of her romantic arrival was fresh in the minds of the good sisters. During all this time her father had given no sign of interest in her existence beyond the transmission of half-yearly cheques to the Mother-Superior for her maintenance and education. When, therefore, she declared her wish to become a nun, and Captain Mulgrave’s consent was asked as scarcely more than a matter of form, his reply, which came by telegraph, filled Freda and her companions with surprise.
This was the message:
“Send my daughter to me immediately. Train to Dieppe; boat to Newhaven; train to Victoria, London; cab to King’s Cross; train to Presterby.
“John Mulgrave,
“St. Edelfled’s.”
From the moment Freda read the telegram until the bitterly cold afternoon on which she found herself approaching her new Yorkshire home, the train labouring heavily through the snow, she seemed to live in a wild dream. She sat back in her corner, growing drowsy in the darkness, as the train, going more and more slowly, wound its way through a narrow, rock-bound valley, and at last entered a cutting down the sides of which the snow was slipping in huge white masses. The snorting of the two engines sounded louder, every revolution of the wheels was like a great heart-beat shivering through the whole train. Then the expected moment came, the engine stopped.
Freda heard the shouts of men as the passengers got out of the carriages, and then a rough-looking, broad-shouldered fellow climbed up to the door of her compartment, and called to her.
“Hallo! Hallo! Anybody here?” he cried, in a strange, uncouth accent. “Why, it’s t’ little lame lass, sewerly! Are ye all reeght?”
“Yes, thank you,” answered Freda. “An accident has happened, hasn’t it?”
“Ay, we’re snawed oop. Wheer were ye going to, missie? To Presterby?”
“Yes. Is it far?”
“A matter o’ nine mile or so.”
“And you don’t think we can get there to-night?”
“Noa. We’re fast. But there’s an inn nigh here, a little pleace, but better shelter nor this, an’ we could get food an’ foire theer. Ah’m afreed ye’ll find it rough getting through t’ snaw. But we must try an’ manage it, or ye’ll die o’ cawld.”
Freda hesitated.
“I suppose there’s no way of letting my father know!”
“Who is your father, missie?”
“Captain Mulgrave, of St. Edelfled’s, Presterby.”
The words were hardly out of her mouth when, as if by magic, a great change came over her companion. The hearty, good-natured, genial manner at once left him, and he became cold, cautious and quiet.
“Rough Jock’s daughter! Whew!” he whistled softly to himself.
“Rough Jock!” repeated Freda curiously. “That’s not my father’s name!”
“Noa, missie, but it’s what some folks calls him about here; leastways, so Ah’ve heerd tell,” he added cautiously. “Now,” he continued after a pause, “Ah’ll do what Ah can for ye. An’ ye’ll tell ‘Fox’—noa, Ah mean ye’ll tell Cap’n Mulgrave how ye were takken aht o’ t’ snaw-drift by Barnabas Ugthorpe.”
“Barnabas Ugthorpe!” softly repeated Freda, marvelling at the uncouth title.
“Ay, it’s not a very pretty neame, and it doan’t belong to a very pretty fellow,” said Barnabas, truly enough, “but to a honest,” he went on emphatically, with a large aspirate; “an’ me and my missis have ruled t’ roast at Curley Home Farm fifteen year coom next Martinmas, an’ my feyther and my grandfeyther and their feythers afore that, mebbe as long as t’ family o’ Captain Mulgrave has lived at Sea-Mew Abbey.”
Without further parley, the stout farmer opened the door; and taking the girl up, crutch and all, as if she had been a child, carried her along the line, up a steep path on to the snow-covered moor above, and across to a lonely-looking stone-built inn, into which the passengers from the snowed-up train were straggling in twos and threes.
The accommodation at the “Barley Mow” was of the most modest sort, and the proprietor, Josiah Kemm, a big, burly Yorkshireman, with a red face, seamed and crossed in all directions by shrewd, money-grabbing puckers, was at a loss where to stow this sudden influx of visitors. He opened the door of the little smoking-room, where the half-dozen travellers already penned up there made way for the lame girl beside the fire. One of them, a sturdily built middle-aged man, whose heart went out towards the fragile little lady, jumped up and said:
“Let me get you something hot to drink, and some biscuits.”
Freda’s new acquaintance was one of those men with “honest Englishman” writ large on bluff features and sturdy figure, whom you might dislike as aggressive and blunt in manner, but whom your instinct would impel you to trust. This little convent girl had no standard of masculine manners by which to judge the stranger, whose kindness opened her heart. He seemed to her very old, though in truth he was scarcely forty; and she babbled out all the circumstances of her life and journey to him with perfect confidence, in answer to the questions which he frankly and bluntly put to her.
“Mulgrave, Mulgrave!” he repeated to himself, when she had told him her name. “Of course, I remember Captain Mulgrave was the owner of the old ruin on the cliff at Presterby, popularly called ‘Sea-Mew Abbey.’ ”
“Yes, that’s it,” cried Freda, with much excitement. “That is my father. Oh, sir, what is he like? Do you know him?”
“Well, I can hardly say I know him, but I’ve met him. It’s years ago now though; I haven’t been in Yorkshire for nineteen years.”
“But what was he like then?”
“He was one of the smartest-looking fellows I ever saw. But he’s a good deal changed since then, so I’ve heard. I was only a youngster when I saw him, and he made a great impression upon me. Of course he was older than I, high up in his profession, while I hadn’t even entered upon mine.”
“And what is yours?” asked Freda simply.
“I have a situation under government,” he answered, smiling at her ingenuousness. “The way I came to hear of the change in Captain Mulgrave,” he went on, “was through a brother I have in the navy. Of course you have heard the circumstances: how Captain Mulgrave shot down four men in a mutiny——”
“What!” cried the girl in horror, “my father—killed four men!”
“Oh, well, you are putting it too harshly—as the authorities did. Those who know best said that if only there had been one of our periodical war-scares on, a couple of shiploads of such fellows as he shot would have been better spared than a man of the stamp of Captain Mulgrave. But the affair ruined him.”
“My poor father!” whispered Freda tremulously.
“I believe you wouldn’t know him for the same man. But cheer up, little woman, perhaps your coming will waken up his interest in life again. I’m sure it ought to,” he added kindly.
“Oh,” she said in a low voice, “that is almost too good to hope; but I will pray that it may be so.”
She leant back wearily in her chair, her arms slipping down at her sides. Her friend rose and left the room, speedily returning with the landlady, an untidy, down-trodden looking woman, who shook her head at the suggestion that she should find a room for the lady upstairs.
“There’s a sofy in t’ kitchen wheer she can lie down if she’s tired. But there’s a rough lot in theer, Ah tell ye. And ye, mester, can bide here. They doan’t want for company yonder.”
The kitchen was a large, bare, stone-flagged room, with a wide, open fireplace and rough, greyish walls. From the centre-beam hung large pieces of bacon, tied up with string in the north-country fashion. On a bare deal table was a paraffin lamp with a smoke-blackened chimney. The only other light was that thrown by the wood-fire. Freda, therefore, could see very little of the occupants of the room. But their voices, and strong Yorkshire accent, told that they belonged to a different class from that of the travellers in the bar-parlor.
These men stood or sat in small groups talking low and eagerly. Mrs. Kemm upset Freda, rather than assisted her, on to the sofa, with a nod to her husband.
“She’s a soart o’ furreigner, and saft besides, by t’ looks on her. She’ll not mind ye.”
“Ah tell tha,” one of the men was saying to Kemm, “Rough Jock’s not a mon to play tricks with, either; tha mun be squeer wi’ him, or leave him aloan. Ah’ it’s ma belief he wouldn’t ha’ quarrelled wi’ t’ Heritages, if t’ young chaps hadn’t thowt they could best him. An’ see wheer they’ll be if he dew break off wi’ ’em! It’ll be a bad deay for them if he dew!”
“Ah tell tha,” said Kemm, doggedly, “he has broke off wi’ ’em. As for them chaps, they weren’t smart enough to do wi’ a mon loike Rough Jock. That’s wheer t’ mischief lay. They shouldn’t nivver ha’ tuk on wi’ him.”
“Ah’m thinking if they hadn’t tuk on wi’ him, they’d ha’ tuk on wi’ t’ workhouse; and that’s what it’ll coom to neow, if Rough Jock leaves ’em in t’ lurch, wi’ their proide and their empty larder! An’ thur’ll be wigs on t’ green tew, for Bob Heritage is a nasty fellow when his blood’s oop. Have a care, Josiah, have a care!”
“Oh, ay, Ah’m not afraid o’ Bob Heritage, nor o’ Rough Jock either; an’ me an’ him are loike to coom to an unnerstanding.”
“Weel, ye mun knaw yer own business, Kemm; but Ah wouldn’t tak’ oop wi him mysen,” said the third man, who had scarcely spoken.
“Not till ye gotten t’ chance, eh, lad?” said Josiah stolidly. “Coom an’ have a soop o’ ale; it shall cost ye nowt.”
He led the way out of the room; and the rest, not all at once, but by twos and threes and very quietly, followed him, until Freda was left quite alone. As she leaned upon her elbow, trying to piece together the fragments she had understood of the talk, she heard in the passage, to her great relief, a voice she recognised. It was that of her farmer friend, Barnabas Ugthorpe, who looked in at the kitchen door the next moment.
“Weel, lass,” he said, cheerily, “How are ye gettin on? T’ night’s cleared a bit, an’ Ah can tak’ ye on to Owd Castle Farm. T’ fowks theer are very thick wi’ Capt’n Mulgrave. It isn’t more’n a moile from here.”
Within ten minutes a cart was at the door, and they were on their way. The road lying over a smooth expanse of moorland, and the moon giving a little more light; it was not long before a very curious building came in sight, on rising ground a little to the east of the road as it went northwards.
The front of the house, which faced south, was long and singularly irregular. At each end were the still solid-looking remains of a round tower built of great blocks of rough-hewn stone, roofed in with red tiles. Both were lighted by narrow, barred windows. Between the towers ran an outer wall of the same grey stone, much notched and ivy-grown at the top, and broken through here and there lower down to receive small square latticed windows greatly out of character with the structure. Into a breach in this wall a very plain farm-house building had been inserted, with rough white-washed surface and stone-flagged roof.
Barnabas got down, raised the knocker and gave three sounding raps.
In a few moments Freda heard rapid steps inside, and a woman’s voice, harsh and strident, saying in a whisper:
“That’s not the Captain, surely!”
Freda turned quickly to her companion.
“Who are these people? What is their name?”
“Their neame’s Heritage,” said Barnabas.
Freda started. It was the name she had heard at the “Barley Mow” as that of the family who had quarrelled with “Rough Jock.”