The breast of a wooded hill, leaning towards water still as glass and green as malachite, confronted the Hôtel des Boërs, at Vresse-sur-Semois. Dark-green and silver, the valley lay below; a nightingale was singing in the dawn; and presently the gold eye of the sun, looking down through the high woods, shone on hills white with dew, spangling them with fiery drops, and changing into silver threads the little singing streams which tumbled down through bright-green dells to join the silent river. Mists cleared away like breath from a mirror, and there on the water a little lawny islet lay like an anchored dream; they had been cutting the hay, and from the grey swaths floated up the odours of Eden. Thus rose Lucian’s first day in Arden, and he was up to see the dawn.
Farquhar had gone on some weeks before to complete his arrangements. Having been brought up by his Scotch relations near Aberdeen,he knew a good deal about granite, and on his first visit of inspection had pointed out that in texture, grain, and colour the stone of the Petit-Fays quarry resembled the valuable red granite of Peterhead. The owner simply laughed him to scorn, and went about lauding his scrupulous honesty at the expense of his sense in a fashion which afforded a subtle gratification to the person praised. Nevertheless, Farquhar persisted in buying the quarry, and soon proved himself right. At once he brought over new, modern machinery, and sent for skilled workmen from England. His design was to supply the Belgian market, which had heretofore been satisfied with Scotch granite. Paving-stones, better finished than those turned out by the primitive quarries of the Meuse; polished shop-fronts for the new suburbs of Brussels, especially the splendid streets near the Boulevard d’Anspach: these he could tender at lower prices than the Scotch dealers, for in Belgium labour is cheap and the cost of transport light, especially on the state railways. For the present he retained his English workmen, with the intention of replacing them by Belgians so soon as they had learned the niceties of their trade; and for this purpose he had already formed classes for instruction in polishing and sculpture. His manager, an Americannamed Charlesworth, had the teaching of them, and Lucian had promised to give his services as well.
The quarry, which was already in full work, lay behind the bend of the Semois, just out of sight of the hotel. In Belgium one looks for the grubbily picturesque, for endless variations on the themes of dirt and art, rather than for the beauty of rock and wood and river; yet here in the south the streams run through the loneliest, loveliest valleys, abandoned to their kingfishers and great butterflies, and musical with little springs which run among the hills. The quarries are hardly eyesores. The approaches of Farquhar’s were even picturesque; the intractable granite, interrupting with its fire-scarred shoulders the suave contour of the hills, had scattered rocks across the stream, which reared in a white ruff round each and raced away with plenty of noise and foam. The stately cliff which the quarrymen were labouring to destroy rose up behind from among trees. Lucian, who never loved his bed, by six o’clock had had his breakfast and was standing on the verge, looking down into the pit. It was unbeautiful; blackened like a hollow tooth by the smoke of the blasting, swarming with midget figures, the rocks fell away down to the depth, where the blocks of granite were beingsplit up for convenience of loading. The graceful, deliberate crane let sink its trucks to be filled, and as slowly raised each to its appointed bourn; the noise of the steam crusher, where the chips were being ground to powder for cement, went on continuously; the boring-machine was also at work; and four or five men, splitting up a large block of granite, were playing “The Bluebells of Scotland” by striking on drills of different tones.
Presently the whistle of a siren silenced the music, and with one accord the quarrymen left their work and took shelter. Five minutes later, a detonation and strong reverberations shook the cliff; and when the smoke cleared, Lucian saw fresh boulders lying displaced from their bed, and a fresh scar graven upon the corrugated walls. So the work went on. Danger was always present; but the danger of the quarry is not like the loathsome sleuth-hound of disease which tracks down the potter and the worker in lead. It is a sudden and violent peril, which leaps out like a lion and strikes down its victim in the midst of life. Day by day the quarryman deliberately stakes against death the dearest of man’s gifts; it is not surprising that for other stakes he is a gambler, too.
There was an accident even as Lucian watched.A young Belgian neglected to obey the warning of the siren, and was overtaken. After the fumes and smoke had cleared, his mates went down and found him lying unconscious, little injured, but stupefied by the poisonous gases which the explosion had set free. A crowd came together, Farquhar among them, barely distinguishable by the eye, though the tone of his voice came up with surprising clearness. The lad was carried away, and work went on again; but Lucian was now all on fire to join the toilers and take his share in their risks. Most excitable men fall disinterestedly in love with danger at least once in their lives; Lucian himself had done so before, and had stopped a mad dog scare by picking up in his arms the supposed terror, an extremely depressed but perfectly sane fox-terrier. For this piece of uncalculated bravado he had consistently and correctly disclaimed the title of heroism, of course in vain. He turned now and marched gaily down the path, with the intention of falling to work at once; but midway down he encountered Farquhar, with Charlesworth, the quarry-master, and was stopped for introduction.
Smith Charlesworth was a huge man who would have balanced Bernard Fane upon a see-saw; he dwarfed Farquhar’s excellent proportions.His bronzed countenance might have been hammered out of the granite which he surveyed, without any great skill on the part of the craftsman; but it inspired confidence. His slow, soft voice and deliberate movements built up the notion of strength; and Lucian had not heard him speak two sentences before he knew that he liked him. Here was a man whose calm courage was not at the mercy of his nerves; a man also of stern rectitude, by nature narrow, but broadened into tolerance by experience.
“Yes, it’s a bad business about that young chap,” he was saying: “but what can you expect? It was his own fault. They’ve got industry but no method. Here’s Mr. Farquhar thinks they’re going to turn out A1 copper-bottomed sculptors, but I guess he’ll find his error. They haven’t got it in ’em.”
“Well, we’ve just got to put it in,” said Farquhar, good-humouredly. He was on his best behaviour, saying not a word that was genuine, and consequently his conversation was dull.
“What do you think of the quarry?” Lucian asked.
“First rate.” Charlesworth stepped to the edge of the pit and stood there calm as a rock, with the square toes of his big boots projectinginto the air. He pointed to the dark buttress behind which the boring-machine was at work. “See that? That’s the finest sample I’ve seen out of Scotland. You mark my words; in five years you’ll be sending shipments right out to the States, and they’ll take all you’ve got and ask for more. Mr. Farquhar’s begun the right way; he’s put plenty money in the concern and he’ll take plenty out—always providing we don’t get sent to kingdom come first.”
Farquhar laughed at this last idea, but Lucian asked an explanation. The American impressed him as a very careful speaker, not given to random words.
“Well,” said Charlesworth, stroking his chin, “these chaps here don’t take to your Britishers, and that’s the bed-rock fact.”
“What’s going to happen, do you think?”
“I guess we shall be running into some dirt before long.”
“Most pacific nation in the world, the Belgians,” said Lucian, cheerfully. “Been fought over so many times that they haven’t a ha’porth of kick left in them.”
“Yes; good square fighting’s not in their line. It’s the stab in the dark they go in for,” said the American, drily. “Two-thirds of the continental anarchists hail from Brussels. I’ve run Dutchmen and I’ve run Kanakas, and I guessI can make out to put up with these stiff-necked Britishers of yours; but the Belgian mongrels are enough to make an oyster sick. However, the crew’s not my affair; and if Mr. Farquhar’s satisfied, why, so am I. And I hope I may be wrong.”
Charlesworth was no croaker; having given his warning he left the matter, and they went down into the quarry talking of possibilities rather than of presentiments. Lucian could not see the grounds of his forebodings; the men seemed friendly, both with the manager and between themselves, and they were certainly all that is gracious to him personally. Lucian thought in French when he spoke to a Frenchman.
They stayed all day at the quarry, taking lunch in the engine-room on slim little sausages and beer. Later on, Lucian assisted at the modelling class, acting as interpreter for Charlesworth, who could not always find the right technical terms. He was a strict master, extreme to mark what was done amiss. “I’ve no opinion of soft jobs,” he said to Lucian, who had stood listening to what seemed a very harsh rebuke for a very small fault on the part of an elderly English workman who had taken Lucian’s fancy. “Keep them up to the mark, that’s my motto. I never will tolerate scamping.Give me good work and I’ll give you good wages; but if a man don’t handle the tools the way he ought, why, he can go! and good riddance, say I.”
“That’s all right for you, with your confounded meticulous correctitude and exactitude, my friend,” said Lucian, still vicariously sore; “but how would you feel if you knew that the worst work they put in was head and shoulders better than the best work you put in?”
“I guess I should turn to and take a hand at something I could do.”
“And suppose you were incompetent all round?”
Charlesworth turned and looked at him. Lucian, laughing, appeared hardened and insouciant, but the American was slow to judge. “Well, I don’t say I’m right,” he said; “and I don’t say you’re wrong. But I couldn’t do with your way, and I guess you couldn’t do with mine.”
“There are nine-and-sixty ways of constructing tribal lays, and every single one of them is right,” quoted Lucian, coughing.
“You toddle home; the siren will go in half an hour, and this air’s bad for your cough,” said Farquhar, coming up and putting his hand on Lucian’s shoulder.
“Shut up, you prophet! you thing of evil! I haven’t coughed once this day.”
“There you err; I’ve heard you twice, myself.”
“Well, that isn’t once, is it?”
They laughed, and Farquhar shook him by the shoulder, apostrophizing him as a fool. “It’s reeking damp here by the water; you’ll be laid up if you aren’t careful.”
“You want me to see your dinner’s ready, that’s what it is,” said Lucian, going. Charlesworth looked at Farquhar. “Sick?” he asked, with a backward nod.
“No constitution at all.”
“I should put a bullet through my head if it was me,” said Charlesworth, briefly. “This world’s not made for incompetents.” But, luckily for the peace of the quarry, Farquhar did not hear what he said.
Lucian went to the Hôtel des Boërs and flirted with Laurette, the charmingly pretty maid, as he smoked on the veranda. He shared Dolly’s opinion that a kiss or two did not matter to any one, and he carried his views into practice, which she did not. This was not heroic, but Lucian had many commonplace failings which disqualified him for the post of hero. He was still living at Farquhar’s expense; he had brought into this present undertakingnothing but his knowledge of modelling. Yet he accepted his position and was in the main content. The timely sale of a couple of short stories had permitted him to buy the clothes which he was wearing and to pay his journey over, otherwise he would have euphemistically borrowed from Farquhar. Little debts such as that galled him; but the main burden sat lightly on his shoulders, which was well; for, as he told himself with obstinate pride when visited by the pricks of self-contempt, he had consistently done his best and had failed not through his own fault.
The evening set the pattern of many evenings following. Charlesworth came in with Farquhar to dinner; he had been lodging at Petit-Fays, but now talked of transferring himself to the hotel, which, though as primitive as the pious farmers whose name it bore, was certainly cleaner than they. The dinner made Farquhar sigh for the flesh-pots of England; he permitted himself to be a bon-vivant, to tone down his excessive virtues. Sorrel soup, beefsteak which never grew on an ox, tongue stewed with cherries, and ababamade by the eldest son of the house, who was a pâtissier; this was the menu. Now ababais a kind of sponge-cake soaked in rum and sweet as saccharine: Charlesworth would not touch it,Farquhar ate a morsel and did not want any more, but Lucian, with the whimsical appetite of an invalid, was only deterred from clearing the dish by Farquhar’s solemn assurance that it would make him tipsy. Such was their meal, finished off by a cup of excellently strong black coffee, which they drank on the veranda as they smoked and talked. The night was dark, still, and starry; the huge, soft, shadowy hills shut out all wandering airs, and the river passed them silent, gleamless. But close beside them a wooden trough guided down the water of a spring which rose among the moss of the steep hill-orchard, and the loquacious little fount made an irregular sibilant accompaniment for their voices. Laurette’s young brothers, shy but friendly, hovered round the door listening to the strange foreign talking, anxious only to be allowed to be useful. The Ardennois are hospitable folk.
Farquhar was thinking of building a small house; he had interviewed a local architect, who proffered him weird designs for a maisonette after the style of the Albert Memorial, with multitudinous tourelles and pinnacles picked out in red and white and blue, and liberally gilded. Refusing this gorgeous domicile, he was beset with advice from Lucian and from Charlesworth, each of whom professed to knowsomething about architecture; though Lucian’s counsels recalled the wise saw that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, especially in ceilings, and seemed likely to afford a modern instance of a castle in the air. The talk became more personal. They were all travellers: Lucian the most inveterate, for he had wandered the world across. Farquhar could speak familiarly of Africa; Charlesworth of the States and the South Seas, where for several years he had traded with a schooner of his own, until a drunken pilot kept Christmas by sinking her off Butaritari, in the Gilberts. Charlesworth’s voice softened when he spoke of the Islands, which had set their spell upon him; but there was little softness in it when he mentioned that pilot. His talk was deeply coloured by the sea, but he had when he chose the address of a gentleman. He was married, he said: had married a clever Boston girl, grown tired of high culture, who sailed with him till theGolden Hornmet her watery fate, and who was now teaching school in California at a salary of two hundred dollars a month. She put by every cent she could spare, and he was doing the same, until they had saved enough to return to the South Seas. “For,” said Charlesworth, “there’s nothing draws you like the Islands.”
“Islands have a special fascination, I suppose,” said Lucian, thinking of Guernsey.
“Yes, it’s right enough out here, but England’s the place for me,” said Farquhar, pushing back his chair. “Come to bed, De Saumarez; it’s time for all good little boys to turn in.”
Lucian settled back into his seat. “Go away: I won’t be mussed up! I believe you’re simply thirsting to flesh your clinical on me.”
“Not I. I’ve done enough nursing since December to last me my life.”
“Very good for you,” said Lucian, lighting a fresh cigar.
Farquhar watched his chance and snatched it. Lucian was up in a moment, and there was a scrimmage in which he did not conquer; whereupon he lifted up his voice and wailed aloud, to the amazement of Charlesworth, who was not used to Lucian’s ways. “I want my cigar!” was the burden of his complaint, repeated with variations.
“Go to bed and you shall have it,” said Farquhar, laughing and wary.
“Never!”
“You’re unreasonable. Why shouldn’t you?”
“I’ll be shot if I’ll give in to an arrogant brute like you! Besides, I want to wait for the post.”
“Oh, the post,” said Farquhar, with a singular change of tone. He dropped the cigar and sat down. He did not look at Lucian, but Lucian shot a glance at him, and both were silent. Charlesworth stared. The constraint lasted for a moment. Then, pat to the occasion, Laurette came out with the letters. Farquhar half rose and put out his hand, but she passed him by for Lucian. “Pour monsieur.” The amazed Charlesworth saw rapidly varying expressions flit over both faces: anger, jealousy, triumph, rancour: and then Laurette, after rubbing her hand clean on her skirt, turned and held out to Farquhar the exact facsimile of Lucian’s small grey envelope. “Et pour monsieur, encore une.”
Farquhar took his letter, and Charlesworth took himself home.