Part 3 (1/2)

”Tell me one thing first--it sounds impossible. What would you do?”

”Simply this,” said Wrigley, with a smile. ”I tell you because you will not go back, neither could I. There's my hand on it.”

Jessop eagerly grasped the extended hand.

”It means being loss to thousands--fortune to two.”

”Us two?” said Jessop hoa.r.s.ely.

”Exactly! It is in a nutsh.e.l.l, my boy. All is fair in love, in war, and money-making, eh? Here is my plan.”

CHAPTER THREE.

ANOTHER.

”Come, I say, my dear, what's the good of being so stand-offish. It's very nice and pretty, and makes a man fonder of you, and that's why you do it, I know! I say! I didn't know that the pretty Derbys.h.i.+re la.s.ses in this out-of-the-way place were as coy and full of their little games as our London girls.” Out-of-the-way place indeed! Dinah Gurdon knew that well enough, as, with her teeth set fast and her eyes dilated, she hurried along that afternoon over the mountain-side. The path was an old track, which had been made hundreds of years before, so that ponies could drag the little trucks up and down, and in and out, but always lower and lower to the smelting-house down in the dale, a mere crack in the limestone far below, whose perpendicular jagged walls were draped with ivy, and at whose foot rushed along the clear crystal trout-river, which brought a stranger into those solitudes once in a way. But not on this particular afternoon, for Dinah looked vainly for some tweed-clothed gentleman with lithe rod over his shoulder and fis.h.i.+ng-creel slung on back, to whom she could appeal for protection from the man who followed her so closely behind on the narrow, shelf-like path.

Two miles at least to go yet to the solitary nook in the hills just above the bend in the stream, where the pretty, romantic, flower-clothed cottage stood; and where only, as far as she knew, help could be found.

And at last, feeling that she must depend entirely upon herself for protection, she drew her breath hard, and mastered the strong desire within her to cry aloud and run along the stony track as fast as her strength would allow.

But she only walked fast, with her sunburned, ungloved fingers tightly holding her basket, her face hidden by her close sun-bonnet, and her simply made blue spotted cotton dress giving forth a peculiar ruffing sound as she hurried on with ”that man” close behind.

She had seen that man again and again for the past two months, and he had spoken to her twice, and each time she had imagined that he was some stranger who was pa.s.sing through, and whom one might never see again.

She knew better now.

He was not a bad-looking fellow of five-and-thirty; and an artist, who could have robed him as he pleased, instead of having him in ordinary clothes, could not have wished for a better model for a picturesque ruffian than Michael Sturgess, a man born in London, but who had pa.s.sed the greater part of his time in Cornwall and in Wales. A good workman, but one who had a kind of notoriety among his fellows for divers little acts of gallantry, real and imaginary. He was not a man of strong perceptions or experiences out of mines, and he judged womankind, as he called them, by their faces and their clothes. Silk and fas.h.i.+onable bonnets suggested ladies to him; cotton dresses and pretty faces, girls who enjoyed a bit of flirtation, and who were his lawful prey.

”I say, you know,” he cried, ”what's the good of rus.h.i.+ng on like that, and making yourself so hot? Hold hard now; you've done the coy long enough. Sit down and rest, and let's have a good long talk. You need not look round; there's n.o.body about, and it's a good two miles to the cottage where your old dad lives.”

Dinah started and increased her pace.

”You see I know. I've seen the old boy in his brown alpaca and straw hat; I've watched him, same as I have you--you pretty little bright-eyed darling. Come, stop now; I want to make love to you.”

As Michael Sturgess said these last words, he bent forward and caught hold of the folds of the dress, and tried to stop the girl, who sprang round in an instant, striking the dress from the man's hand, and facing him with her handsome face flas.h.i.+ng its indignation.

”How dare you!” she cried. ”Such insolence! You forget yourself, sir, and if my father were here--”

”Which he isn't, dear. But bravo! That's very nice and pretty, and makes you look ten times as handsome as ever. I like it. I love to see a girl with some pluck in her. But come now, what's the good of going on like that and pretending to be the fine lady, I know what you are, and who you are, and where you live, as I told you.”

”I desire you to leave me instantly, sir. My father is a gentleman, and you will be severely punished if you dare to interrupt me like this.”

”Go on,” said the man, with a laugh. ”I know the old boy, and have talked to him twice. It's all right, dear, don't be so proud. I mean the right thing by you. I'm down here to take charge of the `White Virgin' yonder, behind where you live, and want to take charge of this little white virgin too. See? I shall have a grand place of it, and I'll make quite the lady of you. There now, you see it's all right.

Let me carry the basket; it's too big and heavy for your pretty little hands.”

He made a s.n.a.t.c.h at the creel she was carrying, but she drew back quickly, and hurried on once more, fighting hard to keep back the hysterical tears, and vainly looking to right and left for help or a means of escape from the unwelcome attentions forced upon her. But she looked in vain. The hillside sloped off too rapidly for any one but a most able climber to mount, and to have attempted to descend meant doing so at great risk to life and limb.

There was nothing for it but to hurry on, and this she did with her breath coming faster--faster from excitement and exertion, as she recalled his words.

What did he say? He was in charge of the ”White Virgin” mine--the old disused series of shaft and excavation down the narrow chasm which ran like a huge ragged gash into the mountain, and from which hundreds of thousands of tons of stone and refuse had been tilted down the mountain-side to form the moss-grown ugly cascade of stones which stood out from the hill-slope forming a prominent object visible for miles.

The shelf she was following led past the narrow ravine, with its many pathways cut in the steep sides all running towards the great shaft, fenced in with blocks of stone. She had been there several times with her father, bearing him company during his walks in search of minerals, so that the way was perfectly familiar to her, though it was a place not to be approached without a feeling of dread. Country superst.i.tion had made it the home of the old miners, who now and then revisited the glimpses of the moon; two people had been, it was said, murdered there, and their bodies hidden in the dark, wet mazes of the workings; and within the recollection of the oldest inhabitant an unhappy forsaken maiden, who feared to face the reproaches of her relatives, had sought oblivion in the water at the bottom of the princ.i.p.al shaft, and her body had never been found.