As they floundered down the trail a man met them with the news that very little of the water had got into the mine, but that did not appear of much importance to any one just then. After all, the Dayspring belonged to an English company, and it was Brooke, who lay in the litter oblivious of everything, they had worked for.
XXX.
THE OTHER CHANCE.
The blink of sunlight was pleasantly warm where Barbara sat with Hetty Hume on a seat set back among the laurels which just there cut off the shrewd wind from the English lawn. A black cloud sailed slowly over the green hilltop behind the old grey house, and the close-cropped grass was sparkling still with the sprinkle of bitter rain, but the scent of the pale narcissus drifted up from the borders and the sticky buds of a big chestnut were opening overhead. Barbara glanced across the sweep of lawn towards the line of willows that swung their tasseled boughs above the palely flashing river. They were apparently dusted with silver and ochre, and here and there a flush of green chequered the ridge of thorn along the winding road that led the eye upwards to the clean-cut edge of the moor. It was, however, a regular, even line, cropped to one unvarying level save for the breaks where the neat gates were hung; the road was smooth and wide, with a red board beside the wisp of firs above to warn all it might concern of the gradient; while the square fields with the polled trees in the trim hedgerows all conveyed the same impression. This was decorous, well-ordered England, where Nature was broken to man's dominion centuries ago. As she glanced at it her companion laughed.
"The prospect from here is, I believe, generally admitted to be attractive, though I have not noticed any of my other friends spend much time in admiring it," she said. "Still, perhaps it is different in your case. You haven't anything quite like it in Canada."
"No," said Barbara. "Anyway, not between Quatomac and the big glacier. You remember that ride?"
"Of course!" said Hetty Hume. "I found it a little overwhelming. That is, the peaks and glaciers. I also remember the rancher. The one who played the violin. I suppose you never came across him again?"
"I met him once or twice. At a big concert—and on other occasions."
Barbara's smile was indifferent, but she was silent for the next minute or two. She had now spent several weeks in England, and had found the smooth, well-regulated life there pleasant after the restless activity of the one she had led in Western Canada, where everybody toiled feverishly. She felt the contrast every day, and now the sight of that softly-sliding river, whose low murmur came up soothingly across the lawn, recalled the one that frothed and foamed amidst the Quatomac pines, and the roar that rose from the misty cañon. That, very naturally, also brought back the face of the flume-builder, and she wondered vaguely whether he was still at the Dayspring, and what he was doing then, until her companion turned to her again.
"We will really have to decide about the Cruttendens' dance to-night," she said. "It will be the last frivolity of the season in this vicinity."