CHAPTER V

STANDING on Gamblesby Fell you can see Throstle Hall away to the right, its gables and the smoke of its chimneys above the tall elm trees, and the great sweep of park surrounding it.

Gazing straight before one the eye travels over pasture-land and corn-field, farm and village, to the far dim valley of the Eden beyond, and far beyond, the hills of Cumberland stand like the ramparts of a world dominated by the Saddle Back.

Carlisle to the right, twenty miles away, shows a tracery of smoke against the sky.

The pasture-land and the corn-fields come right up to the fell foot, where they cease suddenly, as though a line had been drawn between civilization and desolation.

The whole sky-line of the fells is unbroken by a tree; here and there, on the fell sides, you may come across a clump of stunted firs, a spread of bushes, a larch or two, but on the upper land nothing may grow but the short fell grass, and here and there, in the shelter of a hollow, a few whortle bushes. The reason of this desolation is the helm wind.

The helm wind has never been explained. Of nights in Blencarn, or Skirwith, or any of the villages in the plain below, the villagers, waking from their sleep, hear a roar like the roar of an express train. It is the helm wind.

Next morning the trees are in torment; in the plain below a high gale is blowing, and, looking up at the fells, you see above them, ruled upon the sky, a bar of cloud. It is the helm bar, under it the wind comes rushing. When it is high, nothing can withstand its force on the fell top; it will blow a farm cart away like a feather; the horned and black-faced fell sheep lie down before it.

One afternoon towards the end of March a man on a big black horse came riding through the little village of Blencarn.

He was a middle-sized man, dark, with a Vandyke beard; he wore glasses, and he rode as though half the countryside belonged to him, which, in fact, it did.

A farmer, leaning over his gate, touched his hat to the passer-by, watched him turn a corner, and then, turning, called out to a man working in a field beyond.

“Bill!”

“Ay.”

“Gyde’s back.”

“I seed’n.”

That was all, but the tones of the men’s voices spoke volumes.

Twice a year or so, once for the shooting in the autumn, and again in spring, as a rule, Sir Anthony Gyde came down to Throstle Hall, bringing with him his French valet, his cook, and in the autumn half a dozen friends.

He was a good landlord, and open-handed enough, but he had never gained the esteem of the country folks; they touched their hats to him, but they called him a stracklin.[1]

1. A bad un.

Certain incidents of his youth lingered in their memory. In the country the past dies slowly; if you leave a reputation there to-day, you will find it there ten years hence, not much the worse for the wear.

Leaving Blencarn, Sir Anthony struck over the lower fells; he did not trouble about roads or gates, when he met with a wall of loose stones he put his horse at it, and the horse, an Irish hunter, tipped it with his fore hoofs and passed over.

On Gamblesby Fell he drew rein. It was a still grey day; there was scarcely a sound on the breeze; one could hear the call of a shepherd, the bark of his dog, and, far away, the drumming sound of driven sheep.

The master of millions sat with the reins hanging loose upon his horse’s neck, gazing at the scene before him. Then, touching his horse with the spur, he resumed his way, making towards the plain and home.

He had only come down from London the day before, and he intended returning on the morrow; he had spent the day in going over the estate, and he intended passing the evening in consultation with his land-agent, Gristlethwaite.

Two miles from home he took a short cut, and struck across the fields into a very strange and desolate place.

Here, in a large meadow, stands Long Meg, and here recline her daughters.

They are a weird group, even by daylight, more so just now, for the dusk was beginning to fall.

Long Meg is just a huge stone, standing erect and lonely, the relic of some forgotten religion; her daughters, sixty or more, lie before her in a circle. They are boulders, seen by daylight; but in the dusk, they are anything your fancy wills. Hooded women, for choice, in all positions; some crouched as if in prayer, some recumbent, some erect. He was passing these things, which he had known from his childhood, when, amidst them, and almost like one of them, he perceived a form seated on a camp stool.

It was the form of a man wearing a broad-brimmed hat.

Now, what presentiment or curiosity stirred the mind of Sir Anthony Gyde will never be known, but on perceiving this figure he reined in, then turned his horse and rode towards it.

The man had been sketching, evidently, for a small easel stood before him, but he seemed to have forgotten his work, forgotten the dusk that had overtaken him, forgotten everything, in some reverie into which he had fallen.

He must have heard the horse’s hoofs approaching, but he did not turn.

“You are sketching the stones?” said Sir Anthony, drawing rein a few feet away.

The man on the camp stool turned and looked from under the brim of his hat at the man on the horse.

There was just enough light to see his face.

It was a face that no man or woman would ever forget, once having seen.

It was not ugly, but it was thin, cadaverous, and under the shadow of the hat brim, in some mysterious way dreadful. Now Sir Anthony Gyde was a man who feared neither ghost nor devil, but when his eyes met the eyes of this man his face fell away, and he sat in his saddle like a man who has suddenly been stricken by age.

He sat for a moment like this, then, wheeling his horse, he put spurs to it and fled, as a man flies for his life.