Helbeck of Bannisdale, vol 1 | Page 2

himself very erect,
as a soldier holds himself; but he had never been a soldier.
Once in his rapid course, he paused to look at his watch, then hurried
on, thinking.
"She stipulates that she is never to be expected to come to prayers," he
repeated to himself, half smiling. "I suppose she thinks of herself as
representing her father--in a nest of Papists. Evidently Augustina has
no chance with her--she has been accustomed to reign! Well, we shall
let her 'gang her gait.'"
His mouth, which was full and strongly closed, took a slight expression
of contempt. As he turned over a bridge, and then into his own gate on
the further side, he passed an old labourer who was scraping the mud
from the road.
"Have you seen any carriage go by just lately, Reuben?"
"Noa--" said the man. "Theer's been none this last hour an
more--nobbut carts, an t' Whinthrupp bus."
Helbeck's pace slackened. He had been very solitary all day, and even
the company of the old road-sweeper was welcome.
"If we don't get some drying days soon, it'll be bad for all of us, won't it,
Reuben?"
"Aye, it's a bit clashy," said the man, with stolidity, stopping to spit into
his hands a moment, before resuming his work.
The mildness of the adjective brought another half-smile to Helbeck's

dark face. A stranger watching it might have wondered, indeed,
whether it could smile with any fulness or spontaneity.
"But you don't see any good in grumbling--is that it?"
"Noa--we'se not git ony profit that gate, I reckon," said the old man,
laying his scraper to the mud once more.
"Well, good-night to you. I'm expecting my sister to-night, you know,
my sister Mrs. Fountain, and her stepdaughter."
"Eh?" said Reuben slowly. "Then yo'll be hevin cumpany, fer shure.
Good-neet to ye, Misther Helbeck."
But there was no great cordiality in his tone, and he touched his cap
carelessly, without any sort of unction. The man's manner expressed
familiarity of long habit, but little else.
Helbeck turned into his own park. The road that led up to the house
wound alongside the river, whereof the banks had suddenly risen into a
craggy wildness. All recollection of the marshland was left behind. The
ground mounted on either side of the stream towards fell-tops, of which
the distant lines could be seen dimly here and there behind the
crowding trees; while, at some turns of the road, where the course of
the Greet made a passage for the eye, one might look far away to the
same mingled blackness of cloud and scar that stood round the head of
the estuary. Clearly the mountains were not far off; and this was a
border country between their ramparts and the sea.
The light of the March evening was dying, dying in a stormy greyness
that promised more rain for the morrow. Yet the air was soft, and the
spring made itself felt. In some sheltered places by the water, one might
already see a shimmer of buds; and in the grass of the wild untended
park, daffodils were springing. Helbeck was conscious of it all; his eye
and ear were on the watch for the signs of growth, and for the birds that
haunted the river, the dipper on the stone, the grey wagtail slipping to
its new nest in the bank, the golden-crested wren, or dark-backed
creeper moving among the thorns. He loved such things; though with a

silent and jealous love that seemed to imply some resentment towards
other things and forces in his life.
As he walked, the manner of the old peasant rankled a little in his
memory. For it implied, if not disrespect, at least a complete absence of
all that the French call "consideration."
"It's strange how much more alone I've felt in this place of late than I
used to feel," was Helbeck's reflection upon it, at last. "I reckon it's
since I sold the Leasowes land. Or is it perhaps----"
He fell into a reverie marked by a frowning expression, and a harsh
drawing down of the mouth. But gradually as he swung along, muttered
words began to escape him, and his hand went to a book that he carried
in his pocket.--"_O dust, learn of Me to obey! Learn of Me, O earth and
clay, to humble thyself, and to cast thyself under the feet of all men for
the love of Me._"--As he murmured the words, which soon became
inaudible, his aspect cleared, his eyes raised themselves again to the
landscape, and became once more conscious of its growth and life.
Presently he reached a gate across the road, where a big sheepdog
sprang out upon him, leaping and barking joyously. Beyond the gates
rose a low pile of buildings, standing