His brother was waiting in the little garden to welcome him. Martin walked up and down, smelled the flowers, and gazed with sober delight upon the surrounding scene. Already sunset fires had waned; but the high top of the fir that crowned Rushford Bridge still glowed with a great light on its red bark; an uprising Whiddon, where it lay afar off under the crown of Cranbrook, likewise shone out above the shadowed valley.
Martin Grimbal approached his brother and laid his hand upon the fisherman’s arm. He stood the smaller in stature, though of strong build. His clean-shaved face had burned much darker than John’s; he was indeed coffee-brown and might have been mistaken for an Indian but for his eyes of ordinary slate-grey. Without any pretension to good looks, Martin Grimbal displayed what was better—an expression of such frank benignity and goodness that his kind trusted him and relied upon him by intuition. Honest and true to the verge of quixotism was this man in all dealings with his fellows, yet he proved a faulty student of character. First he was in a measure blinded by his own amiable qualities to acute knowledge of human nature; secondly, he was drawn away from humanity rather than not, for no cynic reason, but by the character of his personal predilections and pursuits.
“I’ve seen father’s grave, John,” were his first words to his brother. “It’s beside the mother’s, but that old stone he put up to her must be moved and—”
“All right, all right, old chap. Stones are in your line, not mine. Where’s dinner? I want bread, not a stone, eh?”
Martin did not laugh, but shrugged his shoulders in good-tempered fashion. His face had a measure of distinction his brother’s lacked, and indeed, while wanting John’s tremendous physical energy and robust determination, he possessed a finer intellect and instinct less animal. Even abroad, during their earlier enterprises, Martin had first provided brains sufficient for himself and John; but an accident of fortune suddenly favoured the elder; and while John took full care that Martin should benefit with himself, he was pleased henceforth to read into his superior luck a revelation of superior intelligence, and from that moment followed his own inclinations and judgment. He liked Martin no less, but never turned to him for counsel again after his own accidental good fortune; and henceforward assumed an elder brother’s manner and a show of superior wisdom. In matters of the world and in knowledge of such human character as shall be found to congregate in civilisation’s van, or where precious metals and precious stones have been discovered to abound, John Grimbal was undoubtedly the shrewder, more experienced man; and Martin felt very well content that his elder brother should take the lead. Since the advent of their prosperity a lively gratitude had animated his mind. The twain shared nothing save bonds of blood, love of their native land, and parity of ambition, first manifested in early desires to become independent. Together they had gone abroad, together they returned; and now each according to his genius designed to seek happiness where he expected to find it. John still held interests in South Africa, but Martin, content with less fortune, and mighty anxious to be free of all further business, realised his wealth and now knew the limits of his income.
The brothers supped in good spirits and Will Blanchard’s sister waited upon them. Chris was her “brother in petticoats,” people said, and indeed she resembled him greatly in face and disposition. But her eyes were brown, like her dead father’s, and a gypsy splendour of black hair crowned her head. She was a year younger than Will, wholly wrapped up in him and one other.
A familiarity, shy on Martin’s side and patronising in John, obtained between the brothers and their pretty attendant, for she knew all about them and the very cottage in which their parents had dwelt and died. The girl came and went, answered John Grimbal’s jests readily, and ministered to them as one not inferior to those she served. The elder man’s blue eyes were full of earthy admiration. He picked his teeth between the courses and admired aloud, while Chris was from the room.
“’Tis wonderful how pretty all the women look, coming back to them after ten years of nigger girls. Roses and cream isn’t in it with their skins, though this one’s dark as a clear night—Spanish fashion.”
“Miss Blanchard seems very beautiful to me certainly,” admitted Martin.
“I’ve seen only two maids—since setting foot in Chagford,” continued his brother, “and it would puzzle the devil to say which was best to look at.”