Part 2

"I never in my life saw anything that looked so delicious as your cold chicken," Louise declared. "May I have some--and some ham? I believe that you must farm some land yourselves. Everything looks as if it were home-made or home-grown."

"We are certainly farmers," John admitted, with a smile, "and I don't think there is much here that isn't of our own production."

"Of course, one must have some occupation, living so far out of the world," Louise murmured. "I really am the most fortunate person," she continued. "My car comes to grief in what seems to be a wilderness, and I find myself in a very palace of plenty!"

"I am not sure that your maid agrees," John laughed. "She seemed rather horrified when she found that there was no woman servant about the place."

"Aline is spoiled, without a doubt," her mistress declared. "But is that really the truth?"

"Absolutely."

"But how do you manage?" Louise went on. "Don't you need dairymaids, for instance?"

"The farm buildings are some distance away from the house," John explained. "There is quite a little colony at the back, and the woman who superintends the dairy lives there. It is only in the house that we are entirely independent of your sex. We manage, somehow or other, with Jennings here and two boys."

"You are not both woman-haters, I hope?"

Her younger host flashed a warning glance at Louise, but it was too late. Stephen had laid down his knife and fork and was leaning in her direction.

"Madam," he intervened, "since you have asked the question, I will confess that I have never known any good come to a man of our family from the friendship or service of women. Our family history, if ever you should come to know it, would amply justify my brother and myself for our attitude toward your sex."

"Stephen!" John remonstrated, a slight frown upon his face. "Need you weary our guest with your peculiar views? It is scarcely polite, to say the least of it."

The older man sat, for a moment, grim and silent.

"Perhaps you are right, brother," he admitted. "This lady did not seek our company, but it may interest her to know that she is the first woman who has crossed the threshold of Peak Hall for a matter of six years."

Louise looked from one to the other, half incredulously.

"Do you really mean it? Is that literally true?" she asked John.

"Absolutely," the young man assured her; "but please remember that you are none the less heartily welcome here. We have few women neighbors, and intercourse with them seems to have slipped out of our lives. Tell me, how far have you come to-day, and where did you hope to sleep to-night?"

Louise hesitated for a moment. For some reason or other, the question seemed to bring with it some unexpected and disturbing thought.

"I was motoring from Edinburgh. As regards to-night, I had not made up my mind. I rather hoped to reach Kendal. My journey is not at all an interesting matter to talk about," she went on. "Tell me about your life here. It sounds most delightfully pastoral. Do you really mean that you produce nearly everything yourselves? Your honey and preserves and bread and butter, for instance--are they all home-made?"

"And our hams," the young man laughed, "and everything else upon the table. You underestimate the potentiality of male labor. Jennings is certainly a better cook than the average woman. Everything you see was cooked by him. We have a sort of secondary kitchen, though, down at the bailiff's, where the preserves are made and some of the other things."

"And you live here all the year round?" she asked.

"My brother," John told her, "has not been further away than the nearest market-town for nearly twenty years."

Her eyes grew round with astonishment.

"But you go to London sometimes?"

"I was there eight years ago. Since then I have not been further away than Carlisle or Kendal. I go into the camp near Kendal for three weeks every year--Territorial training, you know."

"But how do you pass your time? What do you do with yourself?" she asked.

"Farm," he answered. "Farming is our daily occupation. Then for amusement we hunt, shoot, and fish. The seasons pass before we know it."

She looked appraisingly at John Strangewey. Notwithstanding his sun-tanned cheeks and the splendid vigor of his form, there was nothing in the least agricultural about his manner or his appearance. There was humor as well as intelligence in his clear, gray eyes. She opined that the books which lined one side of the room were at once his property and his hobby.

"It is a very healthy life, no doubt," she said; "but somehow it seems incomprehensible to think of a man like yourself living always in such an out-of-the-way corner, with no desire to see what is going on in the world, or to be able to form any estimate of the changes in men's thoughts and habits. Human life seems to me so much more interesting than anything else. Does this all sound a little impertinent?" she wound up naively. "I am so sorry! My friends spoil me, I believe, and I get into the habit of saying things just as they come into my head."

John's lips were open to reply, but Stephen once more intervened.

"Life means a different thing to each of us, madam," he said sternly. "There are many born with the lust for cities and the crowded places in their hearts, born with the desire to mingle with their fellows, to absorb the conventional vices and virtues, to become one of the multitude. It has been different with us Strangeweys."

Jennings, at a sign from his master, removed the tea equipage, evidently produced in honor of their visitor. Three tall-stemmed glasses were placed upon the table, and a decanter of port reverently produced.

Louise had fallen for a moment or two into a fit of abstraction. Her eyes were fixed upon the opposite wall, from which, out of their faded frames, a row of grim-looking men and women, startlingly like her two hosts, seemed to frown down upon her.

"Is that your father?" she asked, moving her head toward one of the portraits.

"My grandfather, John Strangewey," Stephen told her.

"Was he one of the wanderers?"

"He left Cumberland only twice during his life. He was master of hounds, magistrate, colonel in the yeomanry of that period, and three times he refused to stand for Parliament."

"John Strangewey!" Louise repeated softly to herself. "I was looking at your family tree up-stairs," she went on. "It is curious how both my maid and myself were struck with a sense of familiarity about the name, as if we had heard or read something about it quite lately."

Her words were almost carelessly spoken, but she was conscious of the somewhat ominous silence which ensued. She glanced up wonderingly and intercepted a rapid look passing between the two men. More puzzled than ever, she turned toward John as if for an explanation. He had risen somewhat abruptly to his feet, and his hand was upon the back of her chair.

"Will it be disagreeable to you if my brother smokes a pipe?" he asked. "I tried to have our little drawing-room prepared for you, but the fire has not been lit for so long that the room, I am afraid, is quite impossible."

"Do let me stay here with you," she begged; "and I hope that both of you will smoke. I am quite used to it."

John wheeled up an easy chair for her. Stephen, stiff and upright, sat on the other side of the hearth. He took the tobacco-jar and pipe that his brother had brought him, and slowly filled the bowl.

"With your permission, then, madam," he said, as he struck a match.

Louise smiled graciously. Some instinct prompted her to stifle her own craving for a cigarette and keep her little gold case hidden in her pocket. All the time her eyes were wandering around the room. Suddenly she rose and, moving round the table, stood once more facing the row of gloomy-looking portraits.

"So that is your grandfather," she remarked to John, who had followed her. "Is your father not here?"

He shook his head.

"My father's portrait was never painted."

"Tell the truth, John," Stephen enjoined, rising in his place and setting down his pipe. "Our father's portrait is not here, madam, because he was one of those of whom I have spoken--one of those who were drawn into the vortex of the city, and who knew only the shallow ways of life. Listen!"

With a heavy silver candlestick in either hand, Stephen crossed the room. He raised them high above his head and pointed to the pictures one by one.

"John Robert Strangewey, our great-grandfather," he began. "That picture was a presentation from the farmers of Cumberland. He, too, was a magistrate, and held many public offices in the county.

"By his side is his brother, Stephen George Strangewey. For thirty-five years he took the chair at the farmers' ordinary at Market Ketton on every Saturday at one o'clock, and there was never a deserving man in this part of the county, engaged in agricultural pursuits, who at any time sought his aid in vain. They always knew where he was to be found, and every Saturday, before dinner was served, there would be some one there to seek his aid or advice. He lived his life to his own benefit and to the benefit of his neighbors--the life which we are all sent here to lead.

"Two generations before him you see my namesake, Stephen Strangewey. It was he who invented the first threshing-machine used in this county. He farmed the land that my brother and I own to-day. He was churchwarden at our little church, and he, too, was a magistrate. He did his duty in a smaller way, but zealously and honestly, among the hillmen of this district."

"There are gaps in your family history," Louise observed.

"The gaps, madam," Stephen explained, "are left by those who have abandoned their natural heritage. We Strangeweys were hillfolk and farmers, by descent and destiny, for more than four hundred years. Our place is here upon the land, almost among the clouds, and those of us who have realized it have led the lives God meant us to lead. There have been some of our race who have been tempted into the lowlands and the cities. Not one of them brought honor upon our name. Their pictures are not here. They are not worthy to be here."

Stephen set down the candlesticks and returned to his place. Louise, with her hands clasped behind her back, glanced toward John, who still stood by her side.

"Tell me," she asked him, "have none of your people who went out into the world done well for themselves?"

"Scarcely one," he admitted. "My brother's words seem a little sweeping, but they are very near the truth. The air of the great cities seems to have poisoned every Strangewey--"

"Not one," Stephen interrupted. "Colonel John Strangewey died leading his regiment at Waterloo, an end well enough, but reached through many years of evil conduct and loose living."

"He was a brave soldier," John put in quietly.

"That is true," Stephen admitted. "His best friends have claimed no other quality for him. Madam," he went on, turning toward Louise, "lest my welcome to you this evening should have seemed inhospitable, let me tell you this. Every Strangewey who has left our county, and trodden the downward path of failure, has done so at the instance of one of your sex. That is why those of us who inherit the family spirit look askance upon all strange women. That is why no woman is ever welcome within this house."

Louise resumed her seat in the easy chair.

"I am so sorry," she murmured, looking down at her slipper. "I could not help breaking down here, could I?"

"Nor could my brother fail to offer you the hospitality of this roof," Stephen admitted. "The incident was unfortunate but inevitable. It is a matter for regret that we have so little to offer you in the way of entertainment." He rose to his feet. The door had been opened. Jennings was standing there with a candlestick upon a massive silver salver. Behind him was Aline. "You are doubtless fatigued by your journey, madam," Stephen concluded.

Louise made a little grimace, but she rose at once to her feet. She understood quite well that she was being sent to bed, and she shivered a little when she looked at the hour--barely ten o'clock. Yet it was all in keeping. From the doorway she looked back into the room, in which nothing seemed to have been touched for centuries. She stood upon the threshold to bid her final good-night, fully conscious of the complete anachronism of her presence there.

Her smile for Stephen was respectful and full of dignity. As she glanced toward John, however, something flashed in her eyes and quivered at the corners of her lips, something which escaped her control, something which made him grip for a moment the back of the chair against which he stood. Then, between the old man servant, who insisted upon carrying her candle to her room, and her maid, who walked behind, she crossed the white stone hall and stepped slowly up the broad flight of stairs.

III

Louise awoke the next morning filled with a curious sense of buoyant expectancy. The sunshine was pouring into the room, brightening up its most somber corners. It lay across the quilt of her bed, and seemed to bring out the perfume of lavender from the pillow on which her head reposed.

Aline, hearing her mistress stir, hastened at once to the bedside.

"Good morning, _madame_!"

Louise sat up and looked around her, with her hands clasped about her knees.

"Tell me everything, Aline," she said. "Have you my breakfast there? And what time is it?"

"It is half-past nine, _madame_," Aline replied, "and your breakfast is here. The old imbecile from the kitchen has just brought it up."

Louise looked approvingly at the breakfast tray, with the home-made bread and deep-yellow butter, the brown eggs and clear honey. The smell of the coffee was aromatic. She breathed a little sigh of content.

"How delicious everything looks!" she exclaimed.

"The home-made things are well enough in their way, _madame_," Aline agreed, "but I have never known a household so strange and disagreeable. That M. Jennings, who calls himself the butler--he is a person unspeakable, a savage!"

Louise's eyes twinkled.

"I don't think they are fond of women in this household, Aline," she remarked. "Tell me, have you seen Charles?"

"Charles has gone to the nearest blacksmith's forge to get something made for the car, _madame_," Aline replied. "He asked me to say that he was afraid he would not be ready to start before midday."

"That does not matter," Louise declared, as she settled down to her breakfast. "I do not care how long it is before he is ready. I should love to spend a month here!"

Aline held up her hands. She was speechless. Her mistress laughed at her consternation.

"Well," she continued, "there is no fear of their asking us for a month, or for an hour longer than they can help. The elder Mr. Strangewey, it seems, has the strongest objection to our sex. There is not a woman servant in the house, is there?"

"Not one, _madame_," Aline replied. "I have never been in a household conducted in such a manner. It is like the kitchen of a monastery. The terrible Jennings is speechless. If one addresses him, he only mumbles. The sound of my skirts, or my footstep on the stone floor, makes him shiver. He is worse, one would imagine, than his master."

Louise ate and drank reflectively.

"It is the queerest household one could possibly stumble upon," she remarked. "The young Mr. Strangewey--he seems different, but he falls in with his brother's ways."

Aline glanced at herself in the mirror. She was just out of her mistress's range of vision, and she made a little grimace at her reflection.

"I met him twice this morning in the hall," she remarked. "He wished me good morning the first time. The second time he did not speak. He did not seem to see me."

Louise finished her breakfast and strolled presently to the window. She gave a little sigh of pleasure as she looked out.

"But, Aline," she exclaimed, "how exquisite!"

The maid glanced over her shoulder and went on preparing her mistress's clothes.

"It is as _madame_ finds it," she replied. "For myself, I like the country for fete days and holidays only, and even then I like to find plenty of people there."

Louise heard nothing. She was gazing eagerly out of the casement-window. Immediately below was a grass-grown orchard which stretched upward, at a precipitous angle, toward a belt of freshly plowed field; beyond, a little chain of rocky hills, sheer overhead. The trees were pink and white with blossom; the petals lay about upon the ground like drifted snowflakes. Here and there yellow jonquils were growing among the long grass. A waft of perfume stole into the room through the window which she had opened.

"Fill my bath quickly, Aline," Louise ordered. "I must go out. I want to see whether it is really as beautiful as it looks."

Aline dressed her mistress in silence. It was not until she had finished lacing her shoes that she spoke another word. Then, suddenly, she stopped short in the act of crossing the room. Her eyes had happened to fall upon the emblazoned genealogical record. A little exclamation escaped her. She swung round toward her mistress, and for once there was animation in her face.

"But, _madame_," she exclaimed, "I have remembered! The name Strangewey--you see it there--it was in our minds all the time that we had seen or heard of it quite lately. Don't you remember--"

"Yes, yes!" Louise interrupted. "I know it reminds me of something, but of what?"

"Yesterday morning," Aline continued, "it was you _madame_, who read it out while you took your coffee. You spoke of the good fortune of some farmer in the north of England to whom a relative in Australia had left a great fortune--hundreds and thousands of pounds. The name was Strangewey, the same as that. I remember it now."

She pointed once more to the family tree. Louise sat for a moment with parted lips.

"You are quite right, Aline. I remember it all perfectly now. I wonder whether it could possibly be either of these two men!"

Aline shook her head doubtfully.

"It would be unbelievable, _madame_," she decided. "Could any sane human creatures live here, with no company but the sheep and the cows, if they had money--money to live in the cities, to buy pleasures, to be happy? Unbelievable, _madame_!"

Louise remained standing before the window. She was watching the blossom-laden boughs of one of the apple trees bending and swaying in the fresh morning breeze--watching the restless shadows which came and went upon the grass beneath.

"That is just your point of view, Aline," she murmured; "but happiness--well, you would not understand. They are strange men, these two. The young one is different now, but as he grows older he will be like his brother. He will live a very simple and honorable life. He will be--what is it they call it?--a county magistrate, chairman of many things, a judge at agricultural shows. When he dies, he will be buried up in that windy little churchyard, and people will come from a long way off to say how good he was. My hat, quickly, Aline! If I am not in that orchard in five minutes I shall be miserable!"

Louise found her way without difficulty across a cobbled yard, through a postern gate set in a red-brick wall, into the orchard. Very slowly, and with her head turned upward toward the trees, she made her way toward the boundary wall. Once, with a little exclamation of pleasure, she drew down a bough of the soft, cool blossom and pressed it against her cheek. She stopped for a moment or two to examine the contents of a row of chicken-coops, and at every few steps she turned around to face the breeze which came sweeping across the moorland from the other side of the house.

Arrived at the farther end of the orchard, she came to a gate, against which she rested for a moment, leaning her arms upon the topmost bar. Before her was the little belt of plowed earth, the fresh, pungent odor of which was a new thing to her; a little way to the right, the rolling moorland, starred with clumps of gorse; in front, across the field on the other side of the gray stone wall, the rock-strewn hills. The sky--unusually blue it seemed to her, and dotted all over with little masses of fleecy, white clouds--seemed somehow lower and nearer; or was she, perhaps higher up?

She lingered there, absolutely bewildered by the rapid growth in her brain and senses of what surely must be some newly kindled faculty of appreciation. There was a beauty in the world which she had not felt before.

She turned her head almost lazily at the sound of a man's voice. A team of horses, straining at a plow, were coming round the bend of the field, and by their side, talking to the laborer who guided them, was John Strangewey. She watched him as he came into sight up the steep rise. Against the empty background, he seemed to lose nothing of the size and strength that had impressed her on the previous night. He was bareheaded, and she noticed for the first time that his closely cropped fair hair was inclined to curl a little near the ears.

He walked in step with the plowman by his side, but without any of the laborer's mechanical plod--with a spring in his footsteps, indeed, as if his life and thoughts were full of joyous things. He was wearing black-and-white tweed clothes, a little shabby but well-fitting; breeches and gaiters; thick boots, plentifully caked now with mud. He was pointing with his stick along the furrow, so absorbed in the instructions he was giving that he was almost opposite the gate before he was aware of her presence. He promptly abandoned his task and approached her.

"Good morning!" he called out.

She waved her hand.

"Good morning!"

"You have slept well?" he asked.

"Better, I think, than ever before in my life," she answered. "Differently, at any rate. And such an awakening!"

He looked at her, a little puzzled. The glow upon her face and the sunlight upon her brown hair kept him silent. He was content to look at her and wonder.

"Tell me," she demanded impetuously, "is this a little corner of fairy-land that you have found? Does the sun always shine like this? Does the earth always smell as sweetly, and are your trees always in blossom? Does your wind always taste as if God had breathed the elixir of life into it?"

He turned around to follow the sweep of her eyes. Something of the same glow seemed to rest for a moment upon his face.

"It is good," he said, "to find what you love so much appreciated by some one else."

They stood together in a silence almost curiously protracted. Then the plowman passed again with his team of horses, and John called out some instructions to him. She followed him down to earth.

"Tell me, Mr. Strangewey," she inquired, "where are your farm-buildings?"

"Come and I will show you," he answered, opening the gate to let her through. "Keep close to the hedge until we come to the end of the plow; and then--but no, I won't anticipate. This way!"

She walked by his side, conscious every now and then of his frankly admiring eyes as he looked down at her. She herself felt all the joy of a woman of the world imbibing a new experience. She did not even glance toward the dismantled motor in the barn which they passed.

"I am glad," he remarked presently, "that you look upon us more charitably than your maid."

"Aline is a good girl," Louise said, smiling, "but hot-water taps and electric lights are more to her than sunshine and hills. Do you know," she went on, "I feel like a child being led through an undiscovered country, a land of real adventures. Which way are we going, and what are we going to see? Tell me, please!"

"Wait," he begged. "It is just a queer little corner among the hills, that is all."