CHAPTER XXI
BY THE LOUGHSIDE
There was nothing within reasonable distance better than the margin ofthe pool. Ninian spread his thick coat on the ground, and they satdown, glowing with heat, and with appetites sharpened by the keen air.
"I don't think I ever was so hungry in my life," said Olwen.
"You look twice as fit as you did when first you came to us," remarkedNin. "A little blue thing you were, with a red nose!"
"You're too complimentary!"
"And now you are what Mrs. Mountstewart Jenkinson would call 'a daintyrogue in porcelain.'"
"What! Have I ceased to be a school-marm and become a rogue?"
"I think you will, if we come skating often!"
"And meantime you have left off being a tavern clown and become a courtjester!"
"That's a pretty thing to say!"
"No worse than you are always saying to me! It's mean to keep onattacking and not allow me to hit back."
"Don't you like to be a dainty rogue in porcelain?"
"I would far rather be a serviceable school-marm."
"You have been serviceable," he said, with a sudden change of tone. Thechange brought her heart unexpectedly into her throat. It sounded asthough he were on the verge of becoming sentimental.
"Well, of course," said she hurriedly, "how could I earn a living if Iwere not serviceable? By the way, you promised me a sight of the RomanWall! Where is it! I can't see it anywhere! And what is a mile-castle?Is it so called because it is always a mile away from the place whereyou happen to be?"
"The Wall is up on the top of that black cliff," said he, "which latteris known in the neighbourhood as Duke's Crag; but that's supposed to bea corruption of Crag Dhu, the Black Crag. No connection between theCrag and any Duke can be traced."
"It wouldn't take us long, would it, to climb up there?" asked the girl."Is the mile-castle behind?"
"The mile-castle is in that dip about a quarter of a mile to our right.But you mustn't expect to find either it or the Wall very high, youknow. The highest bit of wall remaining isn't more than eight feet, Ibelieve, and none of the mile-castle is much higher than my head."
"Do tell me what exactly is a mile-castle?"
"There was one every mile, that is, every Roman mile, along the wall.It was a little fort in which there was a garrison of about a dozen men.At each quarter of a mile there was a smaller one, big enough to holdtwo or three, so that they were always near enough to call up theirmates in case of a surprise. The mile-castles were usually put justwhere the lie of the ground needed a little extra protection."
"Excellent! This is the young man who was asking for information aboutthe Wall from his teacher!"
He chuckled gaily. "Well, I shall be delighted to hear anything youhave to say."
"Do let us go up and look," said she impulsively. "This is the onlychance I shall have----"
"Go to! Why the only chance?"
"Oh, because I shall be leaving. It is no use my staying here. Thereisn't enough to do. I shall give warning, as you call it, next time Iget my wages."
"Then let us make hay, or--or anything else we want to make, while thesun shines," he returned, rising his lazy length, and stooping to helpher to her feet.
"Can we go right up the rock?" she asked. "It seems a tremendous wayround."
"Yes, the steep direct way is the best, if you think you can do it. Wecan use my stick by way of a rope for you to hold on by. Are you likelyto turn dizzy?"
"No, my head's all right."
"Then come on, and let's chance it. We must be pretty quick, however,for we have not very much time to spare."
The sky was blue, the sun clear above their heads. With their faces setto the northern wall of the cliff they saw nothing of the black cloudsbehind them.
Olwen had never enjoyed anything as she enjoyed that dizzy climb.Ninian left off fooling and became a guide in all respects to bedesired--steady, competent, and very strong.
She followed his advice exactly, and in what seemed quite a short timehe had reached the top, swung himself into a sitting posture on theverge, and reached his arms to raise her to his level.
Then, quite suddenly, when she had let go, as he held her suspended athis mercy, he said in a strained voice, unlike his own:
"Now say you believe me. Say you trust me! Do you hear? If you don'tsay so, I am going to let you drop."
She was used to him by now, and not at all frightened. "Don't be anidiot," said she with the utmost calm; "put me down."
"Not till you say you believe me. Say you are sure that I told you thetruth, _the real, whole truth_, when I told you about me and Lily Martinthe other day."
His face was close to hers, his eyes looked right into hers. They wereanxious, but perfectly clear and bold. She could not meet his glance andtell him that he lied. She tried to jest: "Any Guyse, with green eyes,will tell----"
In a moment he had caught her in his left arm, and with his right handcovered her mouth to prevent her completing the quotation.
"No, don't, for God's sake," he said in agitation which she knew to bereal. "Answer me just once, quite straight. Do you think I would tellyou a deliberate untruth?"
"Why should you? Please set me down----"
"In a moment. This is awfully important. Listen just a second. I havenever told you anything yet that isn't--quite--true. Do you believeme?"
There was an appeal in his voice that shook her. She knew that the factthat he still held her in the crook of his arm shook her also.
"I'll--I'll be far likelier to believe if you set me down and don'tbully," said she, still struggling for independence.
He set her down gently upon the rock at his side. "What a littlefeather-weight you are," he said absently; then caught himself up with alaugh and a glance of fun. "At it again! But you know you really are!You always remind me of the Duchess in the Browning poem--
'_I have seen a white crane bigger,--_ _She was the smallest lady alive!_'
I suppose it is your Welsh blood that makes you so small-boned, isn'tit?"
"Welsh?" said Olwen in surprise. "How do you know that I am Welsh? Inever told you!"
He coloured suddenly and deeply, and for a moment foundered. "Oh, butdidn't you tell Madam? No? Then it must have been your name. Anyonewould guess you to be Welsh with such a name as Olwen."
"It is rather a give-away," said she, wondering a little it hisconfusion, but attributing it to his realisation of the fact that hisremark amounted to an admission of his having thought a good deal abouther. "I'm not so very short," said she with dignity.
He had taken out a handkerchief, and was wiping her hands--those handsupon which Sunia bestowed such care--first one and then the other in anabsorbed way, as if he disliked the least hint of earth upon them. "Youhaven't answered me," he said after a minute; "but you do believe me youknow, only you don't like to say so."
"How many times am I to tell you that I don't have any opinion aboutyou? You're outside my scheme of the universe altogether."
"That," said he, as he rose and helped her up, "is the merest piffle,as, of course, you know. Come along if you want to see the oldmile-castle. It isn't much to look at. When the weather gets betterwe'll go to Housesteads, and I'll show you the stone sills of thegateway, worn away with the driving in and out of chariot wheels whichwere no more than a hoary legend to William the Conqueror's Normans."
"Oh, isn't it incredible?" she sighed. "The wonderful world!"
"Hallo!" said he, stopping abruptly, and shading his eyes with his hand."Is this a snowstorm that I see before me? Gee whiz, we have got to bequick!"
"What do you mean? Oh, those clouds? Why, it will be ages before theyget anywhere near us."
"Don't you be so cock-sure! What a fool I was not to look at thebarometer this morning! If I know my weather, it is snowing likeBilly-o at this moment in the Cheviots."
"Well, I don't know how Billy-o does snow, so I'm not impressed. I seea great broad worm wriggling up over the top of this height, andslithering off down the other side, and I believe, I do believe it isthe Wall itself! My Wall!"
"Oh, Wall, oh, Wall, oh, sweet and lovely Wall!" echoed Nin with a shoutof laughter. "Yes, there it is, right enough, and we can run along thetop of it if you like."
In another few minutes they were both on the top, running fleetly along,and gazing down at the vast natural rampart upon which great Romefounded her artificial one.
"You'll have to do with the merest peep, my lady, and then I march youoff home," cried Nin as they raced along. "What a goat I was to tellyou anything about it! There's nothing to see."
"Just to set my foot within the threshold and feel like Macaulay's NewZealander on the ruins of London Bridge--'Rome shall perish! Write thatword in the blood that she has spilt!'--and now Rome is gone, and we arehere."
"Yes," he replied, "we're here, and thank God for that!"
They paused, for they had reached the small quadrangular enclosure whichhad once been a mile-castle. Here the proprietors had set up a bit ofiron rail, designed probably to deter visitors from the favouritepursuit of walking upon the wall itself--a process leading to gradualdisintegration. They let themselves down into the castle, and stoodwithin its boundaries.
The site had been carefully excavated, and its dimensions and plan couldbe clearly seen. It had once been divided, like the upper floors of thePele, into four small chambers, each about twelve feet square. Itsnorthern face was built against the Wall itself, and there had been agateway leading through, designed for foot passengers only. On thesouth side also there had been a doorway, not very wide. In thesouthwest corner the farmer who now owned it had built up a small shedor shelter, using stones collected from along the Wall, and roofing withcorrugated iron.
Olwen was anxious to linger and make mind-pictures of the garrisonseated round their charcoal brazier, throwing dice, as once they did inPalestine at the foot of the Cross. He began to describe to her therows of wooden huts and booths which grew up in those old days under thesheltering Wall, forming as it were one long town from east to west.
"So that one could buy tooth-brushes and writing-paper and, I suppose,postage stamps, without travelling to Hexham or Newcastle," said shemirthfully.
Then he glanced once more at the menacing north, and urged her--
"Come! For us to-day as for the old legions then, trouble cometh out ofthe north. Let us get down from these dizzy heights and make our wayacross the fell to the road. I don't want to be caught by the snow uphere."
He was turning in a different direction, but she cried out that they hadbetter go down the short way. He hesitated: "It's a bit steep downthere for you."
"But it's much, much shorter."
He admitted it.
"Then let us scramble down as fast as we can. You go first, and thenyou can find nice holes for my feet."
After a moment's doubt he gave in, and they retraced their steps to theplace where they had made the ascent of Duke's Crag. For some way downall went well, though Ninian was a little anxious, having realised, bythe slipping of a jutting bit of rock beneath his hand, how keenly thelate tremendous frost had acted upon the somewhat loose and scalysurface.
"Look out, Teacher, it came off in me 'and," said he lightly; and itoccurred to Olwen for the first time that she now understood thatnervousness always made him flippant.
Perhaps her success so far had made the inexperienced girl a littlereckless. She set her foot carelessly, the ledge upon which she droppedher weight gave, and she slipped, grasping with a sudden jerk at aprojecting lump above her head. The lump detached itself with a cracklike a pistol shot, and came down upon her, flinging her upon Ninian,who, just below, had fortunately braced himself firmly to withstand theshock.
The loosened rock rushed on, leaping down the slope, and he heard itcrash dully upon the ice below.
"You clumsy little----" he began.
Olwen neither moved nor spoke. Her head was hanging over his shoulder,her limbs seemed to trail helplessly.
"Speak!" he said chokingly. There was no answer.
The Lonely Stronghold Page 21
