Chapter V: A Day Out

"DOES a companion ever have a 'day out'?"

This astonishing question was put to Graham the next morning by Sara herself.

His startled look made her laugh.

"I was wondering," she went on. "Izzie had her day out last week. It made me want to go too."

"Are you in such bondage, then?" Graham asked. "You know you have only to express a wish to have it granted."

"That's nicely put. But I never want to get away from my position. And if I am not entitled to a day, I won't ask for it. Did any of my predecessors have a day out?"

Graham's eyes twinkled.

"I must think," he said; "the one who stayed longest did. She insisted upon coming my rounds with me one day in the dog-cart. We had lunch with Jack Fleming. Would you like to do the same?"

"No, thank you," said Sara, laughing. "When I go, you won't set eyes on me from breakfast to nightfall, I want to have my fill of the hills one day, and to feel that I have leisure to enjoy them, instead of hurrying back."

"What did you do in London when you could never gratify such longing?"

"I used sometimes to run away from my brother," Sara confessed. "I have picknicked by myself in Richmond Park, and in Kew Gardens, and had a delicious time."

"You must choose a day when the mists are not about. I have told you that our hills hold dangers."

"I shall be very cautious, I promise you. My only doubt is whether your mother can spare me."

"I will ask her to do so. I am sure she will."

So it came to pass that one lovely spring morning, Sara set out with a book, a stout stick in her hand, and a packet of sandwiches in her pocket. A feeling of exhilaration was in her soul. There was a crisp freshness in the air, and a warmth in the sun, which sent her on her way rejoicing.

When she got out on the hills with the soft springy turf underfoot, and saw the gorse in full bloom, and watched the upward flight of many larks carolling their way towards heaven, she forgot all the anxious thoughts about her poor depressed invalid, and lifted her face in joy at being alive. One companion she had with her, and that was Graham's collie, "Snooks." Snooks had attached himself with great pertinacity to Sara. He laid in wait for her when she came out of the house, and would trot round the garden after her watching all her performances with the greatest interest. Now he, like herself, was ecstatic with the sense of freedom. He bounded here and there, pursued imaginary rabbits, and barked at the larks.

Sara let him roam unhindered by whistle or calls; she tramped steadily upward, and at length turned to look about her. The beauty of the scene below made her determine to have a rest, so that she would have time to enjoy it. She lay down on the soft turf and gazed dreamily before her. In the distance was the lake, looking a brilliant blue this morning, with deep purple shadows on the farther side where the young larches lined the banks in their fresh shimmering dress of green. As she looked, a tiny boat with a white sail shot out from the shore, and took its way across the calm still water, leaving a streak of silver light behind it. From this height she could see behind the trees the towers of Sir Malcolm Ferris's house, and green valleys running up from the side of the lake through a break in the hills. She caught sight of the high white road through the pines which she had driven along that first night of her arrival. And then her thoughts centred on Mrs. Laird.

"She could be so happy," she mused; "she has an affectionate son, and a comfortable home, and she has no pains and aches to speak of. Whatever she has done, and I expect it is extreme morbidness that makes her think she has done anything, she could have the peace of forgiveness resting upon her soul, for I am sure her repentance and remorse has been lasting enough. How I wish she would confide in me! If I only knew more, I could help her more. I should love to have her up here with me now. What a world of good it would do her!"

Sara turned over on her side, the smell of the hot gorse with its peculiar fragrance came to her, bees buzzed busily round. In the distance, she heard the sheep bleating to each other. Then her thoughts began to get hazy. In the warmth of the sun, she slept.

She awoke with a start. Somebody was prodding her with the end of an umbrella. She rubbed her eyes, then sat up. An elderly lady in blue goggles and a big brown straw hat tied down with a veil was standing by her. The stranger was in short tweed skirt, and had a tin box slung over her shoulder. She was now leaning on a stout green umbrella, and she gave a little grunt when Sara rose to her feet.

"What are you thinking of to go to sleep upon the grass at this time of year? Are you trying to court rheumatism and ague, and sciatica, and all the rest of it?"

"No," said Sara, smiling. "I own I have been unwise, but I was so comfortable."

"I thought you'd had a fit at least, seeing you in that ridiculous position on the ground."

Sara looked round for Snooks. He was nowhere to be seen.

"Have you seen a brown collie?" she asked.

"Of course I have. He was trying to court disaster too, chasing birds amongst the rocks. I tried to call him off, but he refused to come. He may get a tumble if he doesn't take care."

"I must go and find him."

"Do you know our hills? You look a stranger. I think I had better come with you. I am out botanizing."

"Thank you," said Sara, meekly. "I am a stranger. I am staying with Mrs. Laird."

The old lady took off her goggles and gazed at Sara with a pair of bright brown eyes.

"A relative, I presume?"

"No, a companion," said Sara with a smile; "and I am having a day out. Isn't it delicious up here?"

"I'm Kate Ferris. I come occasionally to stay with my nephew, he is down here now, and always invites me to the Towers in the spring. I sit and read and write and knit all the winter in my rooms in town. When the first breath of spring comes, I'm in the country to greet it. I've been hunting for a certain little plant which grows and blossoms on these hills this month. I know Mr. Laird, and he knows me, but he is always very rude to me—won't allow me to call upon his mother. I suppose she's a poor hypochondriac."

She was striding up the hill as she spoke, and Sara wondered at her strength and activity. She tried to explain that Mrs. Laird received no visitors.

"A great pity!" was the sharp reply. "People are not meant to shut themselves away from their fellow creatures, least of all women, who are a mass of fads and eccentricities and nerves, when they let themselves run to seed. We are like plants, which grow in clusters, and in their natural state like plenty of company."

Sara turned this over in her mind.

"There are single specimens," she said diffidently.

"Men cultured," snapped the old lady; "and if you let these precious single specimens alone to the state of nature in which God placed them—what happens?"

Sara did not answer, for she heard a yelp of pain proceeding from some rocks a short distance from them, and she ran forward in haste, for she knew that Snooks was in difficulties.

She was startled to find herself on a sharp spur of the hill which fell precipitately down hundreds of feet. About fifteen feet down, Snooks was struggling frantically to extricate himself from a narrow crevice, into which he had either tumbled or crept.

Miss Ferris had been quick to follow Sara.

"What are you going to do?" she asked. "It's perilous footing where he is."

Sara did not reply. In an instant, she was scrambling down to where the collie was. She found that one of his hind legs was seriously crushed. Miss Ferris watched from above anxiously. Very deftly and calmly, with soothing words and touch, did Sara release the poor dog. She was able to lift up a heavy piece of rock which had fallen on him, and so had imprisoned him. But having released him, she stood looking up in doubt.

Miss Ferris seemed unable to suggest anything.

"Can't he climb himself? You can never lift him?"

Sara slipped out of her thick tweed coat. She wrapped it round the dog's body, then took off her long thick scarf, and in five minutes had him slung across her back, and was climbing up to safety.

Miss Ferris heaved a long sigh when she was able to grip Sara by the hand, and see her bring her burden up to the green turf above.

"Splendidly done, young woman! And what an intelligent tractable dog! No trouble at all! If he had struggled and borne you down, you and he might have fallen back, and been dashed to pieces below! I'm quite breathless with the excitement of the moment."

"Poor Snooks!" said Sara, laying the collie tenderly down and examining his hurt. "I'm afraid his leg is broken, or very badly sprained. He won't let me touch it. I wonder what I had better do? Carry him home, I suppose."

"He will be too heavy. No, there's a doctor not far from here—a quack—a herb doctor, but he's very good with animals. My brother had a sheep up here doctored by him once, and it was quite a success! Keep the dog in your jacket and we'll carry him between us. I know the way. It's not so very far down."

"I know it too. We'll try."

With the help of a strap from Miss Ferris's tin box, they managed to carry the collie carefully between them, but it seemed a long and a rough way before they reached the little hut.

"This is another case of unhealthy isolation," said Miss Ferris, as she tapped peremptorily on the stout wooden door with her walking-stick.

There was no answer for some time, though they heard somebody moving about inside.

Then Miss Ferris said—

"Mr. Cleave, here is a wounded dog! We want your help. Don't keep us waiting."

Then the door was opened sharply; and an old grey-bearded man appeared. He was dressed in brown corduroy, had leather gaiters, and wore a shabby green felt hat. Sara thought him singularly handsome, with his dark piercing eyes and white hair; his features were clear cut and refined. And when he spoke, though his voice was gruff, his accent showed that he had had education.

"Bring him in, madam. A gun-shot wound?"

"No, we think he has broken his leg," said Sara, gently. "He belongs to Mr. Laird, and I know he values him."

"It is Snooks. I know him."

And Snooks raised his head at once and feebly wagged his tail.

Whilst the old man was examining his hurt, Sara looked around her.

It was a low-roofed room, a picture of a tidy farmhouse kitchen. There were rows of dried bunches of herbs hung from a beam across the ceiling, an old oak chest, a bright shining kitchen range, and an oak dresser which held on its shelves rows, and rows of bottles and glass jars, the latter full of preserved seeds and fruits. There was a shelf of books in a deep recess, and some quaint foreign curiosities in a glass cupboard. The floor was stone, and the window was shrouded with thick net curtains. Everything was beautifully clean, and there was a shelf of shining copper pans beneath the dresser. The walls were covered with quaint old wood-cuts. One particularly claimed her attention. It was of an old monk or hermit standing outside his cell in a wood. His hands were raised as if in benediction, and underneath was written:

"'The profit of the earth is for all: the king himself is served by the
field.'"

Whilst she was puzzling over this, Miss Ferris was chatting away in a very friendly fashion to the herb doctor. It seemed that she and he were great friends, and botany was the link between them. She had in fact more than once brought him rare herbs which she had discovered, and which he was desirous to obtain.

"The bone is not broken, but a ligament. I will dress it and bandage it. He has bruised himself. I will take care of him for a night. He wants rest. Mr. Laird can drive over for him to-morrow."

He spoke curtly. Sara looked troubled.

"I don't know what Mr. Laird will say. I ought to have looked after him better. I feel responsible for his accident."

She knelt down by Snooks, who was lying on a rug in front of the fire, and stroked his head gently. Snooks looked up at her with affection, but he made no attempt to move.

"You couldn't have helped it," said Miss Ferris, briskly. "Dogs will hunt, and if you had been close to him, he would have done it just the same. We'll leave him to the good doctor here, he couldn't be in better hands."

Then she and the old man began discussing the merits of the little plant for which she had been searching.

Sara walked out of the hut, and stood gazing before her deep in thought. Ought she to return home and report the dog's accident? She did not want to spoil her day out, but she felt that it would be right to inform Mr. Laird as soon as possible of what had happened.

As she was standing there, suddenly a woman came round the corner with a big brown pitcher of water in her hand. Sara knew in an instant who she was, from the way she shrank back, and from her limp.

Impulsively Sara stepped aside.

"I hope you don't mind, but we have brought a wounded dog to your father, and he is going to look after him for us."

The woman looked furtively at Sara from under a big print bonnet. She had her father's eyes, but her face was white and delicate; she rested her pitcher on the ground and listened to the voices within.

"Who is there?" she asked in a deep, quiet voice.

"Miss Ferris," said Sara; "she met me out of doors. I am staying with Mrs. Laird. I am her companion, and I came out for a day on the hills, and have allowed Snooks to meet with an accident."

The woman stood irresolute; she was unwilling to meet Miss Ferris, unwilling to talk to Sara; and yet her eyes could not keep away from Sara's face. Everybody who looked once at Sara always wanted to look again. There was so much sympathy and feeling in her expression. To the lame woman's eyes, Sara looked at her as if she had in that moment seen something that she admired and liked in her.

As a matter-of-fact there was a wistful sadness in the woman's face that drew out Sara's compassion and liking. Ever since she had been quite a child, she had always insisted that she liked sad people better than gay.

So now she touched the woman's arm softly—

"I'm a stranger in these parts," she said, "but I love nature, and I am sure you do. Will you be my friend? I haven't spoken to any woman outside the house till to-day, when I met Miss Ferris. May I come and see you?"

"I never see visitors."

"I don't want you to think of me as a visitor. If I come up here and sit under that old rock over there, will you join me sometimes? I won't intrude upon your privacy."

The woman turned away with a little nod. She took her pitcher of water indoors, and a moment after Miss Ferris came out.

"That sulky Agnes and I don't get on," she said, "but the father is a very good sort. I believe it is she who makes him live out in this wild. Have you heard her story? Of course it has to do with blighted love, what woman's story has not! Come along out of their hearing and I will tell you.

"She wasn't lame when she was young, and she was going to marry the young blacksmith of her village. But her mother died suddenly, and she could not make up her mind to leave her father. He used to go off for tramps by himself and be away three and four days at a time, hunting about for his plants and herbs.

"There was another girl in the story, of course, and she was wildly in love with the blacksmith. One day the two girls met on these hills. Agnes was waiting for her lover. The other one taunted her with her laggard lover. They fell to abuse, and finally Agnes was struck by her rival, and in falling she tumbled over some rocks and broke her thigh.

"She was laid up for a long time, and left permanently lame. She only recovered to find that the other girl had improved her opportunities, had made the smith see that a delicate crippled wife would be no helpmate to him, and had married him herself. Agnes never got over it. She was laughed at by some giddy girls for her limping gait one day, and she then persuaded her father to come out of the village and live up on these hills. Her trouble soured her, and she has a great dislike to her own sex. Rather pitiful, isn't it?"

"Oh, I'm sorry for her!" exclaimed Sara.

"Yes, so was I. But she's had years to get sweetened up here, with no neighbours to irritate her; and I don't approve of her sulking still. After all, don't we most of us have to go through the mills of God? We don't get our own way, as a rule. I never did. But is that any reason why we should shut ourselves away from humanity, and narrow down our circle to our own precious selves? I've no patience with it! Where are you going now?"

"Home, I'm afraid," said Sara, a little ruefully. "I must let Mr. Laird know about his dog."

"Oh, you needn't trouble! He's coming over to see my brother after lunch about some business matter, and I'll tell him then. Take your fill of air and sunshine whilst you can, and then go home and try to shake old Mrs. Laird out of her morbid melancholy, and get her into the open, where the wind will blow on her, and the sun shine upon her! Oh, these petulant rebels! They're just like roses creeping away into a sheltered corner to escape the pruning and training which they need. What happens to them? They degenerate into briars. Agnes Cleave is one briar, your Mrs. Laird is another. Good-bye. Glad to have met you."

She strode away with an abrupt little nod, and Sara was left alone.

She wandered up the hill again, but felt ill at ease. The accident to poor Snooks had spoiled her day. It seemed heartless to go on enjoying herself whilst he lay in the herb doctor's hut, suffering acutely. Then she sat down and ate her sandwiches. She was just resolving to return to the house, when she saw in the distance a rider coming up in her direction.

As he came nearer, she recognized Graham Laird, and she hastily went forward to meet him.

"Oh," she said, "I was longing to make my confession to you. I am so glad to have the opportunity. My day out is spoiled. Poor Snooks has hurt himself badly."

"I have just met Miss Ferris," he said, "and she has told me the story. But you couldn't have left him in better hands. I'll just look in at the hut. I caught sight of you perched on the sky line, and came on to relieve your mind."

"I think you must be a wizard," said Sara, laughing; "I was feeling quite miserable."

"What are you going to do with yourself now? Perhaps I oughtn't to ask!"

"Oh yes. I feel quite cheered up, and am ready for anything. I want to get away to that pine ridge. I love walking amongst pines."

She pointed to a distant line of firs on the slope of the hill above her.

He looked at her and then at the ridge.

"By the time you reach that, you will be wanting your tea."

"I dare say I shall," said Sara, laughing, "but I shall do without it."

"I was going to suggest that you should get it at a small farm close by. I know Mrs. Gates would be delighted to give it to you. She loves visitors."

"Perhaps I shall not get so far, but I will try. I am so sorry about Snooks."

They parted.

For a moment he watched her, as she walked off with her happy easy stride, then he turned his horse's head, and rode off to the herb doctor's.