Burgo's Romance

by T. W. Speight

"Oh, yes, sir. It was some time in the spring of last year that he wrote to a firm in Whitehaven specifying what he wanted doing to the old house; but it was not till after he was married, that is to say, about three months ago, that he was at the trouble to come and see whether his orders had been carried out in a way to satisfy him. He and his bride--I heard they had only been married two or three weeks before--came down from London, staying a couple of nights at Oakbarrow, and driving over to the Keep during the day. It was then that the Baronet gave orders about the laying out of the grounds and the furnishing and fitting up of the old place, so that it seemed only natural to suppose he intended to make it his home for at least a part of the year."

Here was a point cleared up which had puzzled Burgo more than enough. When Lady Clinton decided upon bringing her husband to Garion Keep she had known quite well what she was about. That two days' visit had made her sufficiently acquainted with the place to enable her to judge how far it could be utilised for the furtherance of her secret designs.

[CHAPTER XIII.]

HELPLESS.

Rain and wind passed away in the course of the night, and next morning the sun shone softly brilliant. After a hastily demolished breakfast Burgo took his stick and portfolio--the latter in his assumed rôle of a wandering artist--and sallied forth. He retained sufficient recollection of the geography of the place to know in which direction Garion Keep lay, and thereby spare himself the necessity of an appeal to a native. But, first of all, he strolled down the one straggling street of the village to the little harbour, with its miniature jetty, at the extreme end of which was a tiny wooden erection, the harbour-master's office, to wit, surmounted by a lamp which turned a blood-red eye seawards during the dark hours. Everything was on a small scale, for Crag End was one of those places which never grow. As it was now so it had been as far back as the memory of its oldest inhabitant could stretch, and so it would continue to be. This morning the little harbour wore quite a deserted look, for its boats had gone northward, following in the wake of the herrings, and were not expected back for an uncertain time to come.

The hamlet nestled cosily in its narrow valley, which, in point of fact, was nothing more than a gully, or break in the sea frontage of the line of low cliffs which shut it in on the north and south. It was to the south cliff that Burgo presently addressed himself, climbing it by means of a zigzag footway which led almost directly from the harbour. Scarcely had he set foot on the short and slippery turf which crowned its summit when he saw looming before him, at a distance of a mile and a half, the grey weather-worn tower, scarred with the storms of more winters than men could reckon, because its age was known to none, which was all that now remained of the ancient Border stronghold, of which at one time it had formed a component part, known as Garion Keep.

As his eyes fell on it Burgo paused, less to gather breath after his climb than because he could no longer delay answering a certain awkward question which till now he had found no difficulty in putting aside. The question which thus intrusively thrust itself to the front was: "And now that I am here, within a mile of my uncle, what am I to do next? In what way am I nearer him than I was when I stood at the door of his London house and was refused admittance? Lady Clinton, having once succeeded in getting rid of me, will take very good care that I am never allowed to cross my uncle's threshold again, either in town or country." He had told himself that when he should once have succeeded in finding his uncle, he must let himself be guided by circumstances as to what his future course should be. But what if there were no circumstances to guide him? It would be the easiest thing in the world for Lady Clinton to set him and all his plans and schemes at defiance. Never had he realised his helplessness so clearly as at that moment.

He strolled slowly on in the direction of the Keep in a thoroughly downcast mood, till he was within a quarter of a mile of it. There, on a big rounded boulder, half embedded in the soil, and not improbably a relic of the ice period, he sat down to rest, for his ankle still pained him. From where he now was he had not only a near-at-hand view of the tower itself, but also of the more modern building (said to date no further back than the era of William and Mary), which was divided from it by a space of, some fifty or sixty yards, and had lately been renovated and made habitable by Sir Everard's orders.

Although the two structures were entirely distinct from each other they were both classed together, and had never been known by any other title than that of Garion Keep.

The modern building, which was long and low, being only two storeys in height, was constructed of large, roughly-hewn blocks of a stone indigenous to the district. The walls were of great thickness, and the high-pitched roof was covered with what looked less like slates than heavy flagstones; but on that coast the winter storms are often terrific in their force and fury, and people are wise enough to build accordingly. Although to an outsider it presented a somewhat gloomy and repellent appearance, Burgo called to mind that the interior, even as it was when he saw it, had pleased him far better than the exterior, and there was no doubt that only taste and the means were needed in order to convert it into a very charming home during the summer months. What it would be like as a dwelling-place in winter was another matter. On the landward side the house was shut in by a high wall with wrought-iron gates, enclosing a gravelled carriage sweep and a court paved with small round pebbles, and ornamented with a number of laurels and rhododendrons in green tubs. On the opposite side, between the drawing-room windows and the edge of the cliff, from which the house stood some way back, there stretched a pleasant space of lawn, interspersed with fancifully-shaped beds of the gayest flowers. Sir Everard's improvement to-this part of the house was a bow window with glass doors opening directly on the lawn.