Chapter 16

LISTER CLEARS THE GROUND

The sun was on the rocks and the lichen shone in rings of soft and varied color. Blue shadows filled the dale, which, from the side of the Buttress, looked profoundly deep. A row of young men and women followed a ledge that crossed the face of the steep crag; Mortimer Hyslop leading, a girl and Vernon a few yards behind, Lister and Barbara farther off.

Hyslop knew the rocks and was a good leader. He was cool and cautious and did not undertake a climb until he was satisfied about his companions' powers. The slanting edge looked dangerous, but was not, although one must be steady and there was an awkward corner. At the turning, the ledge got narrow, and one must seize a knob and then step lightly on a stone embedded in mossy soil.

When they reached the spot Hyslop stopped and told Vernon what to do; the girl immediately behind him was a clever mountaineer. They went round and Lister watched from a few yards off. For a moment or two each in turn, supported by one foot with body braced against the rock, grasped the knob and vanished round the corner. It was plain one must get a firm hold, but Lister thought this was all. He was used to the tall skeleton trestles that carried the rails across Canadian ravines.

After the others disappeared Lister seized the knob. He thought the stone he stood on moved and he cautiously took a heavier strain on his arm. He could get across, but he obeyed an impulse and gave the stone a push. It rolled out and, when he swung himself back to the ledge, plunged down and smashed upon the rocks below. For a few moments the echoes rolled about the crags, and then Hyslop shouted: "Are you all right? Can you get round?"

Lister said he thought not, and Hyslop replied that it did not matter. Barbara would take him up a grassy ridge and the others would meet them at the top. A rattle of nailed boots indicated that he was going off and Lister turned and glanced at Barbara. She had sat down on an inclined slab and her figure and face, in profile, cut against the sky. A yard or two beneath her, the sloping rock vanished at the top of a steep pitch and one saw nothing but the crags across the narrow dale. Yet Lister thought the girl was not disturbed.

"I expect I was clumsy,'' he apologized.

"Well," she said, "it looks like that!"

He gave her a quick glance and pondered. Although he had gone to Carrock since she came home, she had been strangely cold and, so to speak, aloof. He had imagined their meeting might embarrass her, but she was not embarrassed. In fact, she had met him as if he were a friend, but he had not seen her afterwards unless somebody was about. Now he meant to force her to be frank.

"I was clumsy," he resumed. "All the same, when I felt the stone begin to move I might have pulled myself across by my hands. I expect the block would have been firm enough to carry you."

"Yes, I know," said Barbara. "You didn't want me to get across!"

Lister studied her. He doubted if it was altogether exertion that had brought the blood to her skin and given her eyes the keen sparkle. Clinging to the rock, with the shadowy gulf below, she looked strangely alert and virile. Her figure cut against the sky; he noted its slenderness and finely-drawn lines. She was not angry, although he had admitted he pushed down the stone, but he felt as if something divided them and doubted if he could remove the obstacle.

"I wanted to talk and had found I could not get near you unless the others were about," he said. "It looked as if I had unconsciously given you some grounds for standing me off. Well, I suppose I did put your relations on your track."

"It wasn't that," said Barbara. "I imagine Harry Vernon helped you there. You were forced to tell your story."

"I was forced. All the same, I think Harry's plan was good."

"He went away a few days before I arrived!" Barbara remarked.

Lister thought he saw where she led and knitted his brows. He was on awkward ground and might say too much, but to say nothing might be worse.

"Harry's a good sort and I expect he pulled out because he imagined you'd sooner he did so," he said. "For all that, I reckon he ought to have stayed."

Although her color was vivid, Barbara gave him a searching glance. "In order to imply I had no grounds for embarrassment if I met him? Harry was at the camp in the woods."

"He knew you had no grounds for embarrassment," Lister declared. "I knew, and Harry's an older friend."

Barbara turned her head, and when she looked back Lister thought his boldness was justified. In a sense she had been very frank, although perhaps this situation made for frankness. They were alone on the face of the towering crag. All was very quiet but for the noise of falling water, and the only living object one could see was a buzzard hovering high up at a white cloud's edge. One could talk in the mountain solitude as one could not talk in a drawing-room. For all that, Lister felt he had not altogether broken the girl's reserve.

"One envies men like you who build railways and sail ships," she said, and now Lister wondered where she led. "You live a natural life, knowing bodily strain and primitive emotions. Sometimes you're exhausted and sometimes afraid. Your thought's fixed on the struggle; you're keenly occupied. Isn't it like that?"

"Something like that," Lister agreed. "Sometimes the strain gets monotonous."

"But it's often thrilling. Men and women need to be thrilled. People talk about the modern lust for excitement, but it isn't modern and I expect the instinct's sound. Civilization that gives us hot water before we get up and food we didn't grow is not all an advantage. Our bodies get soft and we're driven back on our emotions. Where we want action we get talk. Then one gets up against the rules; you mustn't be angry, you mustn't be sincere, you must use a dreary level calm."

Lister was puzzled and said nothing, but Barbara went on: "Perhaps some girls like this; others don't, and now and then rebel. We feel we're human, we want to live. Adventure calls us, as it calls you. We want to front life's shocks and storms; unsatisfied curiosity drives us on. Then perhaps romance comes and all the common longings of flesh and blood are transfigured."

She stopped, and Lister began to see a light. This was her apology for her rashness in Canada, all she would give, and he doubted if she had given as much to others. On the whole, he thought the apology good.

"Romance cheats one now and then," he remarked, and pulled himself up awkwardly, but Barbara was calm.

"I wonder whether it always cheats one!"

"I think not," he said. "Sometimes one must trust one's luck, and venture. All the same, philosophizing is not my habit, and when I didn't step lightly on the stone--"

"You mean, when you pushed the stone down?" Barbara interrupted.

"Oh, well. Anyhow, I didn't mean to philosophize. I wanted to find out why you kept away from me."

"Although you knew why I did so? You admitted you knew why Harry went off!"

"I see I've got to talk," said Lister. "Shillito was a cheat, but when you found him out you tried to jump off the train. You let me help because I think you trusted me."

"I did trust you. It's much to know my trust was justified. For one thing, it looks as if I wasn't altogether a fool."

"Afterwards, when I met you at Montreal, you were friendly, although you tried to persuade me you were a shop girl."

Barbara smiled. "I was a shop girl. Besides, you were a stranger, and it's sometimes easy to trust people one does not expect to see again."

"My plan's to trust the people I like all the time," Lister replied. "When I found you on the car platform I knew I ought to help, I saw you meant to escape from something mean. Then at Montreal it was plain you were trying in make good because you were proud and would not go back. I liked that, although I thought you were not logical. Well, I told your story because Vernon bluffed me, but if I'd known your step-father as I know him now, I'd have told the tale before."

"Then, it was in order that I might understand this you sent the stone down the crag?"

"I think it was," said Lister. "I hope I have, so to speak, cleared the ground."

Barbara gave him a puzzling smile. "You're rather obvious, but it's important you mean to be nice. However, I expect the others are waiting for us and we must join them, although we won't go by the grass ridge," She indicated the slope of cracked rock in front. "The hold is pretty good. Do you think you can get up?"

Lister doubted. He was athletic and steady, but the climb looked awkward for a beginner.

"If you are going, I'll try."

"You imagine you can go where I can go?"

"Something like that," Lister admitted. "If I'm beaten, you're accountable and will have to help."

He was satisfied by Barbara's frank laugh. Her mood was changeable. Not long since he had, with awkward sympathy, thought her a proud humiliated woman; now she was marked by the humor of a careless girl. He could, however, play up to her later mood, and when they set off he began to joke.

The rock slanted, and cracks and breaks gave a firm hold, but there was not a crack wherever one was needed and the pitch was steep. Then in places the slabs were slippery with wet lichen and Lister's ordinary walking boots could get no grip. His jokes stopped and the sweat began to dew his face. His breath got hard and he felt his heart beat. It was obvious that climbing needed study.

For all that, he went on and found a strange delight in watching Barbara. Her clothes harmonized with the soft colors of lichen and stone; her movements were confident and light. He got no sense of effort; her pose was seldom strained and the lines of her limbs and body flowed in easy curves. He thought she rather flitted than labored up the rock. Practice no doubt accounted for much, but something was due to temperament. Barbara did not hesitate; she trusted her luck and went ahead.

At length she stopped, pressed against the stone in the hollow of a gully, while Lister crept obliquely across a long wet slab. He looked up and saw her face, finely colored after effort, against a background of green and gold. The berries on a small mountain-ash in a cranny harmonized with the carmine of her skin. She looked down and smiled with careless amusement.

Then Lister's foot slipped and he could get no hold for his hands. His smooth boots drew a greasy line across the wet slab as he slid down. Perhaps the risk was not very daunting, but he knew he must not roll down far. At the bottom of the slab he brought up with his foot braced against a knob, and he saw Barbara coming after him. When she stopped her glance was apologetic.

"I forgot you hadn't proper boots. Give me your hand and try again."

"No, thanks," said Lister. "Do you think I'm going to let you pull me up?"

"Why not?" she asked with a twinkle.

"To begin with, I'm obstinate and don't mean to be beaten by a bit of greasy rock. Then I expect I'm heavier than you think."

"You're ridiculously proud. It would hurt to let a girl help," Barbara rejoined. "After all, you're a conventionalist, and I rather thought you were not."

"Anyhow, I'm going up myself," Lister declared.

He got up, but his clothes gathered some slime from the rock and his skin was stained by soil and moss. Barbara looked at him with a twinkle.

"Your obstinacy cost you something," she remarked. "If you're tired, you had better stop and smoke."

Lister lighted a cigarette. She had been rather keen about rejoining the others, but he thought she had forgotten. Barbara's carelessness gave her charm. Perhaps he ought to go on, but he meant to take the extra few minutes luck had given him.

"I'm really sorry I forgot about your boots and brought you up the rock," she said.

"I wonder why you did bring me up?"

"Oh, well, a number of the men I know have a comfortable feeling of superiority. Of course, nice men don't make you feel this, but it's there. One likes to give such pride a jolt."

"I think I see. If it's some comfort, I'll own you can beat me going up awkward rocks. But where does this take us?"

Barbara smiled. "It takes us some distance. When you admit a girl's your equal, friendship's easier. You know, one reason Mortimer and I can't agree is, his feeling of superiority is horribly strong."

"Couldn't you take him up an awkward gully and get him stuck?"

"No," said Barbara, in a regretful voice. "He's really a good cragsman and knows exactly how far he can go. When he starts an awkward climb he reckons up all the obstacles and is ready to get round them when they come. The plan's good. People like Mortimer don't get stuck."

"It's possible, but I expect they miss something now and then. There isn't much thrill in knowing you are safe."

"Sometimes you play up rather well," Barbara remarked.

"I'm not playing up. I'm preaching my code. I'm not as sober and cautious as you perhaps think."

"For example?"

"You'll probably get bored, but in Canada I turned down a pretty good job because it was monotonous. I wanted something fresh, and thought I'd go across and see the Old Country. Well, I'm here and all's charming, but I don't know how I'll get back when my wad runs out."

"Ah," said Barbara, "you mean your money will soon be gone? But you have relations. Somebody would help."

"It's possible, but I would refuse," Lister rejoined. "You're not adventuring much when another meets the bill. When my wallet's empty I'll pull out and take any old job. The chances are I'll go to sea."

Barbara gave him an approving glance. She had known but one other adventurer and he was a rogue. Lister was honest and she thought he would go far. She liked his rashness, but if he found it hard to get on board ship, she imagined she could help. All the same, she would not talk about this yet.

"We really must go," she said, and they started up a gully where holes and wedged stones helped them up like steps.

When they left the gully they saw a group of people on the neighboring summit of the hill and for a moment Lister stopped.

"We have had a glorious climb," he said, "Now it's over, I hope you're not going to stand me off again."

Barbara gave him a curious smile. "One can't stop on the mountains long. We're going down to the every-day level and all looks different there."

The others began to wave to them, and crossing a belt of boggy grass they joined the group. When they returned to Carrock, Cartwright was not about and Mrs. Cartwright said he had got a telegram calling him to Liverpool.