A FRESH START
Some people said it was a stroke of good luck, others that it was an exhibition of native genius, others still that it was the result of having a good education, and a few that it was just a dispensation of Providence, and nothing else. But whether luck or genius, Providence or education, all were agreed that Ralph Penlogan had struck a vein which, barring accidents, would lead him on to fortune.
For six months he had worked on the "floors" of St. Ivel Mine, and earned fourteen shillings a week thereat; but as a friendly miner and his wife boarded and lodged him for eight shillings a week, he did not do badly. His savings, if not large, were regular. Most months he laid by a pound, and felt that he had taken the first step on the road to independence, if not to fortune.
As the weeks sped away, and springtime grew into summer, and all the countryside lay smiling and beautiful in the warmth of the sunshine, his spirits rose imperceptibly; the sense of injustice that had burdened him gradually grew lighter, the bitter memory of Bodmin Gaol faded slowly from his mind, his grief at the loss of his parents passed unconsciously into painless resignation, and life, for its own sake, seemed to gather a new meaning.
He was young and strong, and in perfect health. Consequently, youth and strength and hope and confidence asserted themselves in spite of everything. How could he help dreaming bright dreams of the future when the earth lay basking in beauty in the light of the summer sun, and away at the end of the valley a triangular glimpse of the sea carried his thoughts into the infinite?
So strong he felt, so full of life and vitality, that nothing seemed impossible to him. He was not impatient. He was so young that he could afford to bide his time. He would lay the foundation slowly and with care. He had to creep before he could walk, and walk before he could run.
Now and then, it is true, he had his bitter and angry moments, when the memory of the past swept over him like an icy flood, and when a sense of intolerable injustice seemed to wrap the world in darkness and shut out all hope of the future.
One such moment he had when he contracted with William Jenkins to mow down a field of hay on Hillside Farm. He could do this only by working overtime, which usually meant working sixteen hours a day. But he was anxious to earn all he could, so that at the earliest possible date he might get a little home together for himself and Ruth.
He had not seen Hillside for many a month until the day he went to interview William Jenkins. He knew it would cost him a pang, but he could not afford to wait on sentiment or emotion. And yet he hardly realised how deeply the place was enshrined in his heart until he stood knocking at the door of the house that was once his home.
He was glad that nobody heard his first knock. He thought he had got beyond the reach of emotion, but it was not so. Suddenly, as a wave rises and breaks upon the shore, a flood of memory swept over him. He was back again in the dear dead past, with all the hopes of boyhood dancing before his eyes. He saw his father coming up the home-close with a smile upon his face, his mother in the garden gathering flowers with which to decorate the table. He could almost fancy he heard Ruth singing in the parlour as she bent over her sewing.
Then the wave retreated, leaving him cold and numbed and breathless. It was his home no longer. He was standing, a stranger, at the door that once he opened by right. His eyes cleared at length, and he looked out across the fields that he had helped to reclaim from the waste. How familiar the landscape was! He knew every mound and curve, every bush and tree. Could it be possible that in one short year, and less, so much had happened?
He pulled himself together after a few moments, and knocked at the door again. William Jenkins started and looked confused when he saw Ralph standing before him, for he had never been able to shake off an uneasy feeling that he had not done a kind and neighbourly thing when he took Hillside Farm over David Penlogan's head, even though Sir John's agent had pressed him to do so.
Ralph plunged into the object of his visit after a kindly greeting.
"I hear you are letting out your hay crop to be cut," he said, "and I came across to see if I could get the job."
"I did not know you were out of work," Jenkins said uneasily.
"I'm not," Ralph answered. "But I want to put in a little overtime these long days. Besides, you know I'm used to farm work."
"But if you work only overtime it will take you a long time to get down the crop."
"Oh, not so long. It's light till nearly ten o'clock. Besides, we're in for a spell of fine weather, and a day or two longer won't make any difference."
"The usual price per acre, I suppose?" the farmer questioned, after a pause.
"Well, I presume nobody would be inclined to take less," Ralph said, with a laugh.
The farmer dived his hands into his pockets, contemplated the evening sky for several minutes, took two or three long strides down the garden path and back again, cleared his throat once or twice, and then he said—
"Will waant yer money, 'spose, when the job's done?"
"Unless you prefer to pay in advance."
The farmer grinned, and dug a hole into the ground with his heel.
"There ain't too much money to be made out of this place, I'm thinkin'," he said at length.
"Not at the price you suggest," Ralph said, with a twinkle in his eye.
The farmer grinned again.
"I didn't main it that way," he said, digging another hole in the gravel. "I was thinkin' of myself. The farm ain't as good as I took it to be."
"But it will mend every year."
"Ef it don't I shall wish I never see'd it. The crops are lookin' only very middlin', I can assure 'ee."
"Sorry to hear that. But what about the hay-field?"
"I 'spose you've got a scythe?"
"I can get one, in any case."
"Well, 'spose we say done!" And Jenkins contemplated the evening sky again with considerable interest.
Afterwards Ralph wished that he had found work for his spare time almost anywhere rather than on Hillside Farm. There was not a single thing that did not remind him in some way of the past. He would raise his head unconsciously, expecting to see his father working by his side. The flutter of Mrs. Jenkins' print dress in the garden would cause the word "mother" to leap to his lips unbidden, and when the daylight faded, and the moon began to peep over the hill, he would turn his face towards the house, fancying that Ruth was calling him to supper.
He finished the task at length, and dropped his hard-earned silver into his pocket.
"It'll be a dear crop of hay for me, I'm thinkin'," Jenkins said lugubriously.
"It isn't so heavy as it might be," Ralph answered. "A damp spring suits Hillside best."
"I sometimes wish your father had it instead of me." And Jenkins twisted his shoulders uncomfortably.
"Father is better off," Ralph answered slowly, looking across the valley to a distant line of hills.
"Ay, it's to be hoped so, for there ain't much better off here, I'm thinkin'. It's mostly worse off. And as we get owlder we feel it more 'n more."
"So you regret taking the farm already?" Ralph questioned almost unconsciously.
"I ded'n say so. We've got to make a livin' somehow, leastways we've got to try." And he turned suddenly round and walked into the house.
Ralph walked across the fields to interview Peter Ladock, whose farm adjoined. He struck the boundary hedge at a point where a gnarled and twisted oak made a feature in the landscape. Half-way over the hedge he paused abruptly. This was the point his father had asked him to keep in his memory, and yet until this moment he had never once thought of it.
Not that it mattered: the county was intersected with tin lodes, iron lodes, copper lodes, and lead lodes, and most of them would not pay for the working. And very likely this lode, if it existed—for, after all, his father had had very little opportunity of demonstrating its existence—would turn out to be no better than the rest.
For a moment he paused to draw an imaginary line to the chimney-top, as his father had instructed him, then he sprang off the hedge into Ladock's field and made his way towards his house. Peter, who knew his man, agreed to pay Ralph by the hour, and he could work as many hours as he liked.
To one less strong and healthy than Ralph it would have been killing work; but he did not seem to take any harm. Once a week came Sunday, and during that day he seemed to regain all that he had lost. Fortunately, too, during harvest-time the farmers provided extra food. There was "crowst" between meals, and supper when they worked extra late.
No sooner was the hay crop out of the way than the oats and barley began to whiten in the sunshine, and then the wheat began to bend its head before the sickle.
Ralph quadrupled his savings during the months of June, July, and August, and before September was out he had taken a cottage and begun to furnish it.
Bice had a few things left that once belonged to his mother and father. Ralph pounced upon them greedily, and bought them cheaply from the assistant when Bice was out.
On the first Saturday afternoon he had at liberty he went to St. Hilary to interview his sister. Ruth was on the look-out for him. She had got the afternoon off, and was eager to look into his eyes again. It was nearly three months since she had seen him.
She met him with a glad smile and eyes that were brimful of happy tears.
"How well you look," she said, looking up into his strong, sunburnt face. "I was afraid you were working yourself to death."
"No fear of that," he said, with a laugh; "it is not work that kills, you know, but worry."
"And you are not worrying?" she asked.
"Not now," he answered. "I think I'm fairly started, and, with hard work and economy, there is no reason why we should not jog along comfortably together."
"And you are still of the same mind about my keeping house for you?"
"Why, what a question! As if I would stay a day longer in 'diggings' than I could help."
"Are you not comfortable?" she questioned, glancing anxiously up into his face.
"Yes, when at work or asleep."
"There is still another question," she said at length, with a smile.
"And that?"
"You may want to get married some time, and then I shall be in the way."
He laughed boisterously for a moment, and then his face grew grave.
"I shall never marry," he said at length. "At least, that is my present conviction."
She regarded him narrowly for a moment, and wondered. There came a look into his eyes which she could not understand—a far-away, pathetic look, such as is seen in the eyes of those who have loved and lost.
Ruth was curious. Being a woman, she could not help it. Who was there in St. Goram likely to touch her brother's fancy? Young men who have never been in love often talk freely about getting married.
She changed the subject a few minutes later, and carefully watched the effect of her words.
"I suppose nothing has been heard in St. Goram of Miss Dorothy?"
"No," he said hurriedly. "Have you heard anything?" And he looked at her with eager eyes, while the colour deepened on his cheeks.
"I am not in the way of hearing St. Goram news," she said, with a smile.
He drew in his breath sharply, and turned away his eyes, and for several minutes neither of them spoke again.
Ruth began unconsciously to put two and two together. She had heard of such things—read of them in books. Fate was often very cruel to the most deserving. Unlikelier things had happened. Dorothy was exceedingly pretty, and since her accident she had revealed traits of character that scarcely anyone suspected before. Ralph had been thrown into very close contact at the most impressionable part of his life. He had succoured her when she was hurt, carried her in his arms all the way from Treliskey Plantation to the cross roads. Nor was that all. She had discovered him after his accident, and when the doctor arrived on the scene, he was lying with his head on her lap.
If he had learned to love her, it might not be strange, but it would be an infinite pity, all the same. The cruel irony of it would be too sad for words. Of course, he would get over it in time. The contempt he felt for Sir John, the difference in their social position, and last, but not least, the fact that she had been effectually banished from Hamblyn Manor, and that there was no likelihood of their meeting again, would all help him to put her out of his heart and out of his life. Nevertheless, if her surmise was correct, that Dorothy Hamblyn had stolen his heart, she could quite understand him saying that he did not intend to marry.
"Poor Ralph!" she said to herself, with a sigh. And then she began to talk about the things that would be needed in their new home.
Ruth had saved almost the whole of her nine months' wages, which, added to what Ralph had saved, made quite a respectable sum. To lay it out to the best advantage might not be easy. She wanted so many things that he saw no necessity for, while he wanted things that she pronounced impossible.
On the whole, however, they had a very happy time in spending their savings and getting the little cottage in order. Everything, of course, was of the cheapest and simplest. They attended most of the auction sales within a radius of half a dozen miles, and some very useful things they got for almost nothing.
Both of them were in the best of spirits. Ruth looked forward with great eagerness to the time of her release from service; not that she was overworked, while nobody could be kinder to her than her mistress. Nevertheless, a sense of servitude pressed upon her constantly. She had lived all her life before in such an atmosphere of freedom, and had pictured for herself a future so absolutely different, that it was not easy to accommodate herself to the straitened ways of service.
Ralph was weary of "diggings," and was literally pining for a home of his own. He had endured for six months, because he had been lodged and boarded cheap. He had shown no impatience while nothing better was in sight, but when the cottage was actually taken, and some items of furniture had been moved into it, he began to count the days till he should take full possession.
He went to bed, to dream of soft pillows and clean sheets, and dainty meals daintily served; of a bright hearth, and an easy-chair in which he might rest comfortably when the long evenings came; of a sweet face that should sit opposite to him; and, above all, of quietness from the noisy strife of quarrelsome and unruly children.
Ruth returned from St. Hilary on the first of October—a rich, mellow day, when all the earth seemed to float in a golden haze. William Menire discovered that he had business in St. Hilary that day, and that it would be quite convenient for him to bring Ruth and her boxes in his trap. He put the matter so delicately that Ruth could not very well refuse.
It was a happy day for William when he drove through St. Goram with Ruth sitting by his side, and a happy day for Ruth when she alighted at the garden gate of their little cottage, and caught the light of a new hope in her brother's eyes.
It was a fresh start for them both, but to what it might lead they did not know—nor even desire to know.