The Solitary Farm - Hume Fergus

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him. But I up an' tole her, es I'd twist her damned neck ef she spoke agin with the lop-sided – "

      "Stop! stop!" remonstrated Pence feebly. "We are all brothers in – "

      "The lubber ain't no relative o' mine, hang him; an' y' too, fur sayin' so. Oh, Lister, Lister!" Huxham swung two huge fists impotently. "I hate him."

      "Why? why? why?" babbled the visitor incoherently.

      The surprise in his tones brought Huxham to his calmer senses, like the cunning old badger he was.

      "'Cause I jolly well do," he snorted, wiping his perspiring face with a flaunting red and yellow bandana. "But it don't matter nohow, and I arsk yer pardon fur gittin' up steam. My gel don't merry no Lister, y' kin lay yer soul t' thet, Mr. Pence. Lister! Lister!" He slipped off the sill in his excitement. "I hates the whole damned breed of 'em; sea-cooks all, es oughter t' hev their silly faces in the slush tub."

      "Do you know the Lister family then?" asked Pence, open-mouthed at this vehemence.

      This remark cooled the captain still further. "Shut yer silly mouth," he growled, rolling porpoise-fashion across the room, "and wait till I git m' breath back int' m' bellers."

      Being a discreet young man, Pence took the hint and silently watched the squat, ungainly figure of his host lunging and plunging in the narrow confines of the apartment. Whatever may have been the reason, it was evident that the name of Lister acted like a red rag to this nautical bull. Pence ran over in his mind what he knew of the young stranger, to see if he could account for this outbreak. He could recall nothing pertinent. Cyril Lister had come to remain in Marshely some six months previously, and declared himself to be a journalist in search of quiet, for the purpose of writing a novel. He occupied a tiny cottage in the village, and was looked after by Mrs. Block, a stout, gossiping widow, who spoke well of her master. So far as Pence knew, Captain Huxham had never set eyes on the stranger, and could not possibly know anything of him or of his family. Yet, from his late outburst of rage, it was apparent that he hated the young man.

      Lister sometimes went to London, but for the most part remained in the village, writing his novel and making friends with the inhabitants. At the house of the board-school mistress he had met Bella Huxham, and the two had been frequently in one another's company, in spite of the captain's prohibition. But it was evident that Huxham knew nothing of their meetings. Pence did, however, and resented that the girl should prefer Lister's company to his own. He was very deeply in love, and it rejoiced his heart when he heard how annoyed the captain was at the mere idea of a marriage between Lister and his daughter. The preacher was by no means a selfish man, or a bad man, but being in love he naturally wished to triumph over his rival. He now knew that his suit would be supported by Huxham, if only out of his inexplicable hatred for the journalist.

      Meanwhile Huxham stamped and muttered, and wiped his broad face as he walked off his anger. Finally he stopped opposite his visitor and waved him to the door. "Y' shell merry m' gel, Bella," he announced hoarsely; "m' conscience won't let me merry her t' thet – thet – oh, cuss him! why carn't he an' the likes o' he keep away!" He paused, and again cast an uncomfortable look over his left shoulder. "Kim up on th' roof," he said abruptly, driving Pence into the entrance hall. "I'll show y' wot I'll give y' with m' gel – on conditions."

      "Conditions!" The preacher was bewildered.

      Huxham vouchsafed no reply, but mounted the shallow steps of the grand staircase. The manor-house was large and rambling, and of great age, having been built in the reign of Henry VII. The rooms were spacious, the corridors wide, and the ceilings lofty. The present possessor led his guest up the stairs into a long, broad passage, with many doors leading into various bedrooms. At the end he opened a smaller door to reveal a narrow flight of steep steps. Followed by the minister, Huxham ascended these, and the two emerged through a wooden trap-door on the roof. Silas then beheld a moderately broad space running parallel with the passage below, and extending from one parapet to the other. On either side of this walk – as it might be termed – the red-tiled roofs sloped abruptly upward to cover the two portions of the mansion, here joined by the flat leads forming the walk aforesaid. On the slope of the left roof, looking from the trap-door, was a wooden ladder which led up to a small platform, also of wood, built round the emerging chimney stack. This was Captain Huxham's quarter deck, whither he went on occasions to survey his property. He clambered up the ladder with the agility of a sailor, in spite of his age, and was followed by the preacher with some misgivings. These proved to be correct, for when he reached the quarter-deck, the view which met his startled eyes so shook his nerve, that he would have fallen but that the captain propped him up against the broad brick-work of the chimney.

      "Oh, me," moaned the unfortunate Silas, holding on tightly to the iron clamps of the brick-work. "I am throned on a dangerous eminence," and closed his eyes.

      "Open 'em, open 'em," commanded the captain gruffly, "an' jes' look et them twenty acres of corn, es y'll git with m' gel when I'm a deader."

      Pence slipped into a sitting position and looked as directed. He beheld from his dizzy elevation the rolling marshland, extending from the far-distant stream of the Thames to the foot of low-lying inland hills. As it was July, and the sun shone strongly, the marshes were comparatively dry, but here and there Pence beheld pools and ditches flashing like jewels in the yellow radiance. Immediately before him he could see the village of Marshely, not so very far away, with red-roofed houses gathered closely round the grey, square tower of the church; he could even see the tin roof of his own humble Bethel gleaming like silver in the sunlight. And here and there, dotted indiscriminately, were lonely houses, single huts, clumps of trees, and on the higher ground rising inland, more villages similar to Marshely. The flat and perilously green lands were divided by hedges and ditches and fences into squares and triangles and oblongs and rectangles, all as emerald-hued as faery rings. The human habitations were so scattered, that it looked as though some careless genii had dropped them by chance when flying overhead. Far away glittered the broad stream of the Thames, with ships and steamers and boats and barges moving, outward and inward bound, on its placid surface. The rigid line of the railway shot straightly through villages and trees and occasional cuttings, across the verdant expanse, with here and there a knot representing a station. Smoke curled from the tall chimneys of the dynamite factories near the river, and silvery puffs of steam showed that a train was on its way to Tilbury. All was fresh, restful, beautiful, and so intensely green as to be suggestive of early Spring buddings.

      "When I took command of this here farm, ten years back," observed Captain Huxham, drawing in a deep breath of moist air, "it were water-logged like a derelict, es y' might say. Cast yer weather-eye over it now, Mr. Pence, an' wot's yer look-out: a gardin of Edin, smilin' with grain."

      "Yet it's a derelict still," remarked the preacher, struggling to his feet and holding on by the chimney; "let me examine your farm of Bleacres."

      Bleacres – a corruption of bleakacres – consisted of only twenty acres not at all bleak, but a mere slice out of the wide domains formerly owned by the aristocratic family dispossessed by Huxham. It extended all round the ancient manor-house, which stood exactly in the centre, and every foot of it was sown with corn. On every side waved the greenish-bluish crop, now almost breast high. It rolled right up to the walls of the house, so that this was drowned, so to speak, in the ocean of grain. The various fields were divided and sub-divided by water-ways wide and narrow, which drained the land, and these gave the place quite a Dutch look, as fancy might picture them as canals. But the corn grew everywhere so thick and high, in contrast to the barren marshes, that the farm looked almost aggressively cultivated. Bleacres was widely known as "The Solitary Farm," for there was not another like it for many miles, though why it should have been left to a retired sailor to cultivate the soil it is hard to say. But Huxham for many years had sown corn on his twenty acres, so that the mansion for the most part of the year was quite shut off from the world. Only a narrow path was left, which meandered from the front door and across various water-ways to Marshely village, one mile distant. In no other way save by this path could the mansion be approached. And as guardian of the place a red-coated scarecrow stood sentinel a stone-throw from the house. The bit of brilliant colour looked gay amidst the rolling acres of green.

      "The domain of Ceres," said Pence dreamily, and recalling his meagre classical studies; "here the goddess might preside.

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