who was Annie Cargill?’ burst out Bob. ‘There’s something strange about this place – I know there is! An old man I met here told me so – but I knew it myself. He said other people besides me don’t like the look of those trees and that chained-in place. He couldn’t have been lying – why should he tell me that?’
His companion seemed as non-communicative as the man with the rake, but Bob felt that he would be put off no longer. It was too annoying; also he had a passionate desire to justify himself, to force some admission that he was not altogether childish in his excitement.
‘Well, maybe a’ve heard tell o’ things,’ said the other cautiously; ‘a’ll not say that a havena’. But a’ve been here just twa year – it’s fowk aulder nor me that ye should speir at.’
‘But who was Annie Cargill?’ cried Bob again. ‘That’s what I want to know! The old man said she was “a lassie”.’
‘She was a lassie, and she wasna very weel used, they say. There was them that made owre muckle o’ her, that set her up aboon her place. She was just a gipsy lassie.’
‘A gipsy?’
‘Well, a dinna ken the rights o’t, but they say she was left to dee her lane, some way aboot the loan yonder.’
‘And who left her to die?’
A look came over the gardener’s face that made Bob think of the closing of a door.
‘A canna just mind about that,’ he replied. ‘A ken nae mair nor what a’m telling ye. An’ they buried her in here.’
‘Was she pretty?’ asked Bob.
‘Aye was she,’ said the other. ‘But she’ll no be bonnie now,’ he added grimly. ‘She’s been lyin’ here owre lang.’
‘And the trees? Who planted the trees?’
‘Well, they were plantit to hide the stane,’ said the gardener. ‘It’s an ugly thing and ye can see it frae the windows o’ the house.’
‘But they don’t hide it,’ rejoined Bob; ‘you can see it quite well, even across the den.’
‘Aye, but there’s twa trees wantin’ at the fit o’t. They were plantit, but the wind wadna let them stand. They got them in three times, they say, but the wind was aye owre muckle for them.’
‘There’s no mark of them now.’
‘Na. They wadna stand, ye see, and the roots was howkit out. It’s forty year syne that they did that.’
‘Well, it’s an extraordinary place,’ said Bob, as they turned to go, ‘and it’s a more extraordinary creature that I saw in there. Come outside and let us look if we can find any trace of her.’
They walked through the wood, then ran down to the den, they searched about in the neighbouring byroad and in the fields. No one was to be seen and the gathering dusk soon sent the gardener to lock the garden doors. He was anxious to get back to his tea. Bob bade him good night and they parted.
When the dinner-bell brought Bob downstairs that evening, Lyall, the butler, was waiting for him in the hall. He was to dine alone, it seemed, for his godfather was not going to leave his room. He had got a chill at the cattle-fair, said the butler, for he had refused to take his greatcoat with him, although it had been put in the dogcart. He had thrown it out angrily – so Bob gathered – and the butler had been angry too. He was grim to-night and wore the tense and self-righteous face of one who is justified of his words. Bob ate in silence and then betook himself to the smoking-room with the setter and installed himself with a book.
It was ten o’clock when Lyall came in and asked him to go up to Lindsay’s room; he had been having great trouble with his master, and, though from the old servant’s customary manner Bob believed himself to hold a mean place in his estimation, it was evident that he wished for his support now.
‘Hadn’t you better send for the doctor?’ he asked as they went out together.
The other snorted.
‘A doctor?’ he exclaimed. ‘I’ve done my best, but it’s neither you nor me that can make him see a doctor! There’s no doctor been in this house since I cam’ to it, and that’s twenty-five years syne.’
Lindsay was lying in his solid fourposter with his angry eyes fixed on the door; he looked desperately ill and as Bob approached he sat up.
‘What are you doing here?’ he cried. ‘Who told you to come up?’
The butler went quietly out. He had no mind for another scene.
‘I came to see how you were, sir,’ said Bob. ‘I am sorry you are not well.’
‘Now look here!’ said Lindsay, ‘let me have none of your nonsense here. That damned old fool outside has been telling me I ought to send for a doctor. I’ll have none of that! If you have come to say the same thing, out you go, and be quick about it too. I’ll see no doctors, I tell you! I’m not going to have one near me. I hate the whole lot! A set of…’
His abuse was searching. He shouted so loudly that the dog below in the smoking-room began to bark.
‘I’m not going to ask you to do anything,’ said Bob quietly, ‘only I wish you would lie down and get some sleep. I can sit here and if you want anything I can get it for you. Then you need not have Lyall up here to bother you.’
Lindsay looked at him suspiciously but he seemed not ill-pleased. He lay down again and turned over with his back to the young man.
The shutters were not closed nor the blinds pulled down and Bob was afraid of rousing Lindsay by moving about, so he sat quite still till the breathing in the bed told him that his godfather was asleep. The hands of the clock ticking on the mantelpiece were hard on eleven when he rose and went downstairs, priding himself a little on the success of his methods. He had just time to find his place in his book when a violent bell-ringing woke the house.
He heard Lyall run upstairs and he sat still, waiting. In another moment the man was down again.
‘You’ll need to go back, sir,’ said he. ‘The Colonel wants ye.’
Bob ran up.
‘Why did you go?’ cried Lindsay. ‘Stay here. You said you would stay! That damned fellow, Lyall, will drive me mad with his doctors. Don’t let him in!’
Bob looked at the harsh face and white whiskers of the solitary, uncouth old man in the bed. He pitied him, not so much because he was ill, but because of his rough, forlorn detachment from the humanities.
‘It’s late, you know, sir,’ said he, ‘but I’ll get my mattress and sleep on the floor. I will stay, certainly.’
The idea seemed to quiet Lindsay and he fell asleep; now and then he tossed his heavy body from one side to another, but Bob made up his shakedown bed and got into it without interruption and was soon lost in the healthy slumber of youth. He was roused from it a short time later by something which was not a noise but which had made appeal to some suspended sense of his own. He sat up.
