The lonely plough

by Constance Holme

“You’ll never get Martha off the spot!” she added, laughing.

“I must! I must!” Brack beat his clenched hand on the door. “Guess you might come along and help.”

“What? Me?” She laughed again, but with less heartiness. Brack was so strange, so daft. “Nay, I’d have all the breath out of me afore we’d reached the first gate! Stop here, lad, and make yourself easy.”

Francey stepped forward suddenly. Mad or no, Brack had made her afraid.

“I’ll go!” she said. “We’d be happier with them here at Ladyford. Anyhow, we can see if they’re all right and not anxious.”

Brack gave her no time to retract, but thrust her roughly into a wrap close at hand, paying no whit of attention to motherly protests, and had her out in the yard before she had drawn the streaming ends of her scarf around her head. Scrambling over her to his seat, he bade her crouch on the floor for protection, for the rain made the screen worse than useless, and, moreover, he was afraid for it against the gale. In the whirling dark he dared not reverse out, so set the car head on to the gateway, trusting to luck to turn her in the open road. With the wind behind her, she took the slight gradient free like a greyhound, and he threw in the clutch at the bottom just in time to save her mounting the sea-wall. Then, with infinite trouble and labour on the narrow track, he wrenched her head round into the storm, the gale fighting him all the time. Brack had done many a pretty piece of driving for the impressing of his friends, but to-night both vanity and pose were as far from him as the black gulf of heaven above. Straining and gasping, he pulled round on his road with a sob of relief, not even conscious of the crouching girl at his feet.

Then began the struggle out to the Pride, the engine biting its way yard by yard through the opposing force, often almost stopping, as an extra weight of air drove upon it, but always gallantly picking up again. Brack had learned to see through slashing rain, like most drivers, but this torrent of wind and water made as though it would hurl him off the face of the earth. With numb hands he kept the car on the road by some sense that seemed outside himself altogether.

Francey, with her head buried on her knees, feeling the striving engine growing hot and hotter beneath her, and Brack’s feet moving beside her, wondered what tremendous motive could have brought them both to this shared nightmare. She remembered the former occasion when he had asked her to drive with him, and she had refused, little dreaming of this that lay before. In the comparative tranquillity of Ladyford it had seemed easy to talk of going over to the Pride. On a reasonable day it was no more than fifteen minutes’ walk. To-night, behind a powerful engine, it seemed as far away as Whitehaven.

She had little hope of persuading the Whinnerahs, and, indeed, dreaded for them the shock of this sudden midnight descent, but at least they would know that they were not unthought of at their lonely post. Did Brack really think that the Lugg might go to-night? She remembered all the tests it had passed, triumphantly as Wythebarrow itself. She thought of the gale that had overthrown the Whitehaven express in the dead of a black night on the viaduct crossing the sands. The fury and passion of that tempest had left the Lugg untouched, as had many another. Why should Brack fume and fret and struggle to reach the lonely house on the farthest marsh? And—still more—why should she have joined forces with him? Her heart gave her the answer. She went to carry the news of Lup’s return. Whatever they might say, however puzzle and condemn, how glad they would be over the main fact, the three of them together, father, mother and lover!

The road ceased suddenly, and they were on the grass-grown trail leading to the Pride, the wheels squelching and sticking on the sodden land; and at once, by the lessened force of the wind, they knew the Lugg to be risen at their left hand. They were still swept and buffeted, but not with the pitiless malignacy of the open, and the run along the difficult waste was accomplished in less time than that on the metal. So thick was the darkness, however, that they did not raise the Pride until practically at its door, and saw a warm-eyed window peer unblinking into the immeasurable solitude. Through the unshuttered pane they could see Wolf and his wife at either side of the hearth, staring into the red cavern of magic and memory that was built between them. The light of it fondled the old faces and shot along the walls, turning steel to silver and copper to gold, drawing the deep blues out of the china, and chasing itself in molten streams along oak and stone. Only the fire and the dogs stirred in that absolute, happy peace of reaching back. The latter were plainly uneasy, lifting themselves out of sleep with pricked ears; and at intervals the older dog laid a wistful muzzle on his master’s knee and cried softly. Then Wolf would set a hand on its head without look or word, and it would sink back to the hearth, yet keeping its questioning eyes on his dreaming face. It was a curious picture to be seen in the heart of a waste that should by rights have been covered with rolling billows, and to the watchers it had the effect of a tiny gem on the mourning folds of a widow’s robe, of a lost star in an illimitably shrouded heaven.