Equal Shares

Chapter I

' Beg your pardon, sir.' The young man, who was weighing his port manteau in his hand, wondering if he could lug it over the seven miles of hilly road, turned and found the solitary porter at his elbow. ' Well, what is it ? Have you found a convey ance ? ' ' No, sir, but Miss Faber says she will take the bag, sir.' ' Miss Faber—? ' ' The lady that has the trap.' ' Oh, you mean the young lady who came by the same train as myself? ' ' Yes, sir.' ' Bless her sweet face ! ' mentally ejaculated Standen, making for the gig he had seen outside the station. ' Beg your pardon, sir,' repeated the porter, touching him on the arm. ' She said " The bag " only. The bag, sir.' ' Oh ! ' replied Standen. ' Only the bag ? ' A ' Yes, sir,' grinned the porter. ' She said she'd leave it at The George. You are going to The George ? ' 'Yes.' ' Then it'll be all right,' said the porter, making off with the bag.

Before Standen had thought out what was the best course to do under the circumstances, the boy had whipped up the horse, and the trap had gone off on its seven miles' journey. • Who is Miss Faber ? ' asked Standen of the porter, as they both stood in the road watching the fast disappearing vehicle. ' Minister's daughter at Bardsley.' ' What sort of a place is Bardsley ? ' ' A little village. Only a few houses ' Larger than this, I suppose ? ' said Standen, taking in at a glance the three or four cottages that clustered round the station. ' Ay, sir, bigger by far. It's up yon'r,' returned the porter, pointing to the distant hills. ' You can see the road there.' Following the direction of the man's hand, Standen saw a white streak of road crossing the hills a long way off. ' Bardsley's just below there.

But if I was goin' there I wouldn't go by the road. You see yon trees ? ' — pointing to a clump of trees a mile away — ' you leave the road there, and get on a path that takes you right over the top of the hills, and right into Bardsley ; sooner than by the road.' ' Thanks,' said Standen, dropping a half-crown into the man's hand. ' I shall be all right, now.' ' This is a queer, out-of-the-world place,' he thought, as he trudged along. ' A station with out cabs or anything of the kind in attendance, and a handsome young lady who finds no difficulty in the way of offering her services as a carrier of baggage. But I fancy I shall like Bardsley ; that is, if Miss Faber proves as good on closer acquaint ance as she does at present.' Standen was much struck at the experience he had already had of her perception and ready kind ness in the matter of the bag.

He gave a twist to his moustache, and wondered if she had taken notice of him, to recollect, laughingly, that he ought to be posing as a broken-hearted creature who had resolved to abjure weak, false women for evermore. To a young man of good physique and enjoying the best of health, the hilly road from Constell Bridge Station to Bardsley offers no difficulties, and Standen, turning from the road, attacked the steep ascent of the bridle-path with great vigour. Soon he saw below him the few buildings round the station, and, far off, could see an approaching train in the distance, looking like a child's toy. The narrow path he was on bordered the edges of a deep, rocky chasm, down which rushed a small stream, the water of which, dashing over the stones, made a subdued roar, quite in keeping with the solitude. ' Mighty pleasant here,' said Standen. ' Rugged, but pretty.

We don't have all the good things on our side of the " herring pond." He sat down on the grassy slope, and amused himself by dropping pebbles into the water below ; for, like many people who see the desire of their life to their hand, Standen dallied. He liked to think he was playing with Providence, and felt in no hurry to reach Bardsley, though he had come thousands of miles to do so. ' Bardsley, in Derbyshire, England,' were almost the last words Henry Standen, his father, had spoken. ' Frank, it is a story that we have handed down from father to son for generations. Where it originated I don't know. All I can say is this ; the monastery was suppressed by order of Henry the Eighth, but the monks carried off the appointments, many of them of great value, to a cave, where they kept up their religious ceremonies for years after.

They died off, one by one, till the last man went, and with him the secret of the cave. I've heard people scoff at the idea of the cave existing. But it does exist,' he cried, rising in his excitement, ' and in it is the treasure of the monastery. Gold and silver and jewels enough to buy a kingdom, all for the finding. You have the story as I had it. My father did not try to find the cave, and my life has been too busy. But you — you will be rich, with plenty of idle time. If the cave does exist, you are the man to find it. Bardsley, in Derbyshire, England.' And Henry Standen had died, sorry, perhaps, that the treasure of the cave had not been added to the magnificent fortune he left behind. A short time after his father's death, Frank Standen was seized with a desire to travel, brought about chiefly by the unexpected change of mind of a young lady, who threw him over for another man who possessed a few million dollars more than he ; and, after weighing up the possibilities of the existence, or non-existence, of the cave of his father's story, he journeyed to England, and after a few weeks in London, now found himself within a mile or two of the whereabouts of the supposed cave. ' Of course it does not exist,' he argued to himself. ' The thing is improbability itself.

Stories of treasures, hidden in lost caves, are traditional to localities in all parts of the world. And surely, if there had been such a cave, some one possessed the secret of its whereabouts, and any treasure that may have been there has been looted long ago. No, the odds are against it ever having been, though,' he muttered thoughtfully, ' my father seemed very much in earnest about it.' And of course Standen made belief to himself that it was more to prove his father had been right that he had come, than that the adventure was his own, taken out of a spirit of curiosity, leavened with a spice of possible romance. The pebbles near to hand had all disappeared, one by one, into the water below during his cogitations, which ended, as might be expected, in his convincing himself that the cave was a myth.

But, he thought, as he had come so far, it was no use going back, and he might as well see what Bardsley was like. He rose, and continued his way up the path, admiring the rugged beauty of his surroundings, with the weather-beaten rocks peeping out from the grassy slopes, and here and there huge de tached blocks lying bare. His footsteps disturbed funny little rabbits that scuttled away into distant burrows. Behind him he could see, far below, a stretch of pasture land, the fields, from where he stood, looking like mere cattle-pens, while the few farms scattered up and down looked like the dwellings of pigmies. Presently he reached the top of the hill, and going round the huge fragment of rock that here diverts the path, caught his first sight of Bardsley Vale.

Chapter II

Bardsley Vale holds only two villages, Bardsley itself, and a small cluster of cottages, a couple of miles away, called Honley village. Taking a glance at the vale from the summit of Hales Torr, as Standen did, the scene is not without beauty. Before him, to the right of him and to the left, the spectator sees grassy hills of moderate height which completely shut in the Vale, and give it a look of being quite out of the way of the world. To the right, at the foot of the hills at the further end of the vale, the spectator sees Bardsley — a group of cottages, standing chiefly on the white, dusty road, which leaves the houses abruptly, and plunging through a gap in the hills, disappears into the neighbouring valley of Harrie. Leaving the main road on the left, past the village, the spectator sees a narrow road bordered by a few detached cottages, which seems to lose itself in its ascent to a rugged plateau covered with huge fragments of rock.

These blocks of stone cover the ground for a considerable distance, giving one the idea that in the days of giants some monster had amused himself by throwing these stones on to the plateau. The vale is neatly divided up into fields by the mortarless stone walls. Here and there, as Standen looked, could be heard the sound of the scythe being sharpened, and from under the shadow of the plateau across the valley he heard the whirr of a hay-cutting machine. ' So this is Bardsley,' he mused ; ' a sleepy hollow. Just the place a man retires to when sick of the world. Quiet as the grave from morning till night. Cut off from everywhere. And I am to suppose that it is here I must look for the cave which generations of clodhoppers may have passed by unnoticed. Or, truer maybe, the first generation despoiled the cave, if cave there ever was, and the succeeding generation ever lamented that it was born too late.

The place looks too un romantic, too quiet. No, no ; the dear old governor must have listened to a fiction — and I have been no wiser than he. That square tower must be the church, and the white house in the open square The George, which I may as well make for.' And he picked his way down the path, the fields and houses growing larger, and no longer impressing him with their littleness. Half-way down he caught sight of the road he had quitted to cross the hills. It came round over a lower spur of the hills with a sweep, and then dropped away into the village, crossing the stream that runs down the valley by a stone bridge. Just at this point he stopped with a little tremor of excitement. On his left lay rising ground, on which were the ruins of some building of large extent, the still remaining portions of which indicated the strength and majesty of the original structure.

The whole aspect of these ruins at once gave Standen the idea that on this spot had existed a building, whose age, even in its first decay, was to be reckoned by centuries. ' The monastery ! ' he ejaculated aloud, and cast a sudden look over his shoulder as if expecting to see the mouth of the cave in close promixity. But, meeting only the smiling expanse of meadow and upland, he turned to the hill again. There could be no doubt of it ; the unmistak able air of grandeur and antiquity about the ruins convinced him that it was here the monastery had stood. And there rose a feeling in his mind, quite definite and growing stronger every minute, that the legend was true, aud that the cave did exist, and its treasure was to be his for the search. He left the path, and ran up the declivity to the ruins.

As he stepped over what might have been the remains of a wall he saw a man sitting on a detached block of stone. Standen stopped. He resented the man's presence, feeling that Providence had given to himself the ruins, and their secret, and now, as he entered into possession of them, he found another already established there. The feeling was only momentary. He laughed softly to himself. ' How absurd,' he thought. ' I suppose this is some village clodhopper, ignorant, maybe, of the reason of these stones, and certainly unconscious that for years he has lived within reach of the treasure. We shall see if he has an opinion as to the nature of the original building.' Standen walked slowly round, trying to imagine what kind of a building had existed, making belief it had been a mill of some sort, stables, a row of cottages, and other things ; all the time the con viction forcing itself on him all the stronger that this had been the monastery of his father's tale.

Presently he came close to the man, who had watched his examination of the place with the greatest interest. Standen, instead of finding in him an ordinary villager, red -faced, hard-handed, and homely dressed, found him to be a young man with light hair, worn very long, and a straggling beard accent uating a haggard white face. The man's forehead was narrow, and his light blue eyes had a restless look, never staying long on any object. He was dressed in a brown tweed suit of good cut and material, but the clothes were dirty, and torn, and a soiled collar showed itself under the untidy beard. All over the man was stamped with an undefinable something that might be disease, or some queer working of the mind that made him quite heedless of his dress and appearance. Standen ventured on a • good day ! ' but the man merely looked at him without moving ; only his eyes kept up their intermittent glances, first at Standen, then on other objects, then back to Standen again. ' A fine day ! ' said Standen, louder. ' Yes,' returned the man, ' I heard you.' He spoke in a low, soft voice, without any anger.

Standen felt inclined to turn his back, and walk away, but after a moment's consideration he thought better. ' What are these the ruins of? Do you know ? ' he queried. ' Ruins ! ' echoed the man, and the restless eyes, for a moment or two, fixed themselves on Standen's face. ' Yes, they are ruins, unmistakably. Have you any idea what the original building was ? ' ' No. Have you ? ' said the man, eagerly, his lower jaw drooping, and his whole face appearing to wait Standen's reply. ' A mill, I should think,' said Standen, carelessly. ' Yes,' returned the man, with an air of great relief; 'a mill.' ' Or a monastery,' said Standen, quietly. At these words the man rose to his feet, and looked at Standen interrogatively ; but his eyes dropped before those of the other. 'What do you mean,' he cried, 'asking me questions ?

I am no guide ; ' and he strode away, leaving Standen as much inclined for pity as anger. ' That's queer,' thought Frank. ' But, I suppose, he's not altogether' — and he touched his forehead with his finger. — ' My first experience of Bardsley is a novel one at anyrate.' Turning away, he continued his examination of the place, and the more he saw the more he wondered at the extent and strength of the original buildings. He endeavoured to conjure up pictures of the place as it was in its palmiest days, though the real thing, as it may have been, fell far short of the brilliant scenes he saw in his mind's eye. Troops of bishops, priests, knights, and fair ladies he saw grouped under the massive walls. Rows of tents, each with its owner's shield, if he were knight, at the entrance, covered the hillside ; while in and out of the monastery fluttered grave cowled monks.

Prelates, loaded with jewels, leisurely strolled around the courtyard. From a chapel within the walls floated sounds of magnifi cent music ; and in his mind he penetrated into the chapel, with its groups of priests all splendidly apparelled. He fancied he saw the gold candle sticks, and silver articles innumerable. He saw the altar-cloth, covered with gems, that threw back the light from the candles. His mind built up a strong room cut in the solid rock, in which abounded boxes of gems and precious stones, whilst queer coins of gold and silver overflowed from great chests. Standen was seized with the fever of excitement, and for a time, forgetting that he was rich, and that the possession of these things could bring him no further happiness, revelled in the thought that he was to obtain all these treasures.

He was rudely awakened from his day dreams by hearing footsteps behind him. He turned to encounter the stranger, who looked so gaunt and wild that Standen stepped back. ' Don't be afraid,' said the man, nervously. ' I want to talk to you.' ' Well,' returned Standen, the man hesitating, ' what do you wish to say to me ? ' ' You're not English ? ' ' No ; American.' ' Thought so. You are travelling ? ' ' I ? Yes, I am travelling.' ' Bardsley is not a show-place,' said the stranger. ' No Americans come here.' ' Yet I am here,' replied Standen. ' But you are not going to stay — ' ' That depends.' ' On what? ' was the anxious question. ' Many things. These ruins, for instance.' 'A heap of stones, not worth a second thought. No, there is nothing at Bardsley. You should go to Wasworth, ten miles further on.

There you will find plenty to interest you. Here there is nothing.' i4 EQUAL SHARES ' I am in no hurry. I may stay here for a few weeks.' ' A few weeks ! But there is nothing to see ! ' ' I have not thoroughly examined these ruins,' said Standen ; 'and I must find out what the original building was. You say it was not a monastery ? ' ' I said nothing. Mere heaps of stones. Now at Wasworth — ' ' Yes, yes,' said Standen, testily. ' I shall go to Wasworth in time. I have heard there are caves about here.' ' Caves ! ' The word came from the man's throat with a gasp. ' Who told you ? ' ' I forget. There are caves then ? ' ' No — who told you ? ' The stranger seized hold of Standen's arm and peered into his face. ' Come, hands off, my friend,' said Standen, thrusting him away. ' Are there caves here ? ' ' No, no !

No caves. None to be found. You must go to Wasworth.' ' Case of compulsion, I suppose,' said Standen, wishing the next moment he had not said it. ' I shall see,' he continued. ' This neighbourhood will do for the present.' ' There is nothing here.' ' That remains to be seen,' said Standen, walking away down the hillside. As he reached the path he looked round and saw the tall figure of the man stationary at the point he had left him. A quarter-of-an-hour's walk brought him to the village. He crossed the bridge, and walked along the street, past the ivy-covered church, and the minister's pretty little house, on to The George Hotel. He found his bag all right, and ordered rooms for a week, thereby raising the curiosity of the landlord to such a pitch that that worthy could hardly keep from asking the stranger what he proposed to do all that time, as most people exhausted Bardsley in a few hours.

Though, in answer to Standen's question, he gave a glowing account of the wonderful things to be found in the neighbourhood, which Standen, on retiring to his room, reduced to a few uninterest ing places — a lead mine, almost worked out, and about to be closed, and one cave ; which cave, from the landlord's description, ran only a few feet into a hillside, and could not be the cave that held the treasure of the monastery.

Chapter III

Standen was wakened next morning by the sound of church bells. Perplexed, it was only after a minute or two's thought that he recollected it was Sunday. And he recalled his intention to be present at morning service. But it was too late to go now, so he dressed slowly. His room looked over the road, and moving the blind, he saw the people going to church. The first thing that struck him was the bent position of everybody. Young and old, they all appeared as if their backs groaned under an invisible burden that made them double up as they walked. This puzzled him very much at the time, and afterwards, till he ventured to ask the reason, and learned that all dwellers in hilly localities were troubled thus. Some of the church-goers were very quaint characters; particularly the old men, who mostly affected black clothes and ancient chimney-pot hats, with their long, straggling, white hair hanging over brown, wrinkled faces that the sun had burnt into a sort of parchment.

Some of the girls were pretty, but looked dowdy in town fashions of two years two. Young men were scarce, and Standen smiled as he re collected that, even in New York, morning service is mostly attended by women. There were a few persons who did not walk with their heads down ; and one young man, coming from the direction of the church, was one of the exceptions. Standen was struck with the appearance of this young man, and took a good look at him ; op portunity offering as the man stopped opposite Standen's window as if waiting for someone. He was tall and straight as a ramrod, with a spring in his step that made his movements ex tremely graceful. His face was perfectly oval, and his complexion clear, with dark eyebrows, and a short moustache, slightly curled upwards at the ends, completed, what Standen reluctantly confessed to himself, was a very handsome man.

He was dressed in the ordinary Sunday clothes of a villager ; but they seemed to fit him, and instead of the hard felt hat, he wore a soft cleft one, that became him wonderfully. He stood giving greetings to the passers-by with a supercilious air, and presently danced away, for by no other name could his movements be called. * I wonder how many hearts that fellow has broken,' soliloquised Standen, regarding his own good-looking face in the glass. 'All the girls that have passed, and not a few matrons, have cast eyes at him, and more than a few have looked B visibly affected. He is a contrast to my acquaint ance of yesterday. By the way, I wonder what was my friend's motive in wishing me to leave here and get on to Wasworth.' He went down to breakfast, after which he stepped round to the church, where, just as he arrived, the worshippers were coming out.

Seated with the utmost nonchalance on a gravestone, was the man he had seen from the window, and beside him a burly, red-faced young man, who, as the people came out, walked up to a very pretty girl, and spoke to her with evident embarrassment. 'As handsome in her way as he is,' was Standen's unspoken thought, glancing from the man on the gravestone to the girl, whose face was a miracle of cream and roses, with two bewitching dimples set in the red cheeks of a laughing face. ' And as shallow as he is deep,' were Standen's second thoughts. The burly young man and his pretty companion passed, on their way, the man on the gravestone, who said something to the girl that caused her to break into a laugh, which she cut short as she remembered where she was, and straightened her face under the glowering glances thrown at her.

The other members of the congregation, after taking good looks at Standen, drifted slowly away, till only the man on the gravestone was left. ' What is he waiting for ? ' thought Standen, making belief himself to decipher the inscription on a moss-covered gravestone. ' He cannot be — ? ' He was jealous, without reason ; for Miss Faber walked out of the church, and, after looking at him with a sudden start, passed by the other man, who had risen, hat in hand, without a sign of recognition, and went round to the Vicarage. The man put on his hat, gave Frank a careless look, and thrusting his hands in his pockets, walked away. Somehow, feeling greatly relieved, Standen, after a casual glance in the direction of the Vicarage, had a look through the village ; an occupation that did not take him very long.

After dinner he button-holed the landlord, and, touching on the various people in the village, gathered the information he wanted. The man he had encountered on the ruins was not a native of Bardsley. ' He's a Lancashire man, I've heard. A college chap, very clever, and that sort o' thing. Was goin' to be a minister, but he went cracked, and since then he's lived in Bardsley with Mother Lorimer. His people have taken him away once or twice, but first opportunity he's back here. So they've made the best of a bad job, and send him money every month. Least'ways it's sent to Miss Faber, and she see's he's all right. He was a friend of her brother's.' ' Her brother ? ' ' Yes, Tom Faber. He was killed— let me see, it'll be twelve years ago. A handsome, light hearted young chap. Fell over into Bamber Dale, and broke every bone in his body.

It was Miss Faber found him. The young chap is Bob Lorimer. He works for Hall, the wheelright ; a smart chap is Bob. The other would be George Hallett. They're great chums, I hear, though Bob was bad to George's sister Ann. If George had done the right thing he'd have given Master Bob a good hidin' before now. That's what Joe Hallett, George's uncle, did. He thrashed Bob with a ridin' whip, years ago, and I know there's bad blood between 'em. The girl would be Polly Graham, old Dick Graham's girl.' As he warmed to his subject the worthy man would fly off into the personal history of every person whose name cropped up ; but his hearer very adroitly introduced Miss Faber's name, and glowed at the panegyric the landlord heaped on her. She was good, gentle, and a score other attributes ; in fact, the landlord summed her up ' as being as good as she looked,' to which Standen murmured, ' Hear, hear ! ' Frank atoned for his defection of the morning by attending evening service in the queer little church, that smelled of mould, and was short of ventilation.

By craning his neck he managed to see, over the high, old-fashioned pews ; first Miss Faber's calm, peaceful face in the front pew ; then Polly Graham's roses in a distant corner, and finally George Hallett, sitting next to a subdued, black haired young woman, whom he guessed to be Ann Hallett. The Rev. Eustace Faber was a short, subdued man, verging on to the three-score years and ten. His sermon was about matrimony ; a pleasant subject, but dry as he preached it, and the feeble, hesitating voice of the minister utterly failed to drown the snores that came from the heads of families all over the church. The younger people seemed to take some interest in the sermon, and at certain points Standen saw George Hallett look over his shoulder at Polly, who, on her part, seemed to steadily avoid meeting Hallett's gaze.

Ann Hallett looked stolidly before her all through the sermon. Once Standen caught Miss Faber looking at himself. She instantly moved her eyes, and he spent the rest of the service endeavouring to catch her again without success. After church, which ended early, as the nights were getting short, and the only candles were in the pulpit, Standen strolled leisurely through the village till he came to the bridge crossing the Stane, the narrow bustling stream that intersects the valley, and found it to be the great lounging place on Sunday nights. He heard the affairs of the past week, and those likely to happen in the one to come, argued on. And many were the head-shakes, and ' I told yo' so,' and ' It's my belief,' and ' See if I'm not reet's,' he heard. Politics, of course, were dipped into, and argu ments driven home with the usual vehemence of those whose acquaintance with the subject was of the scantiest. ' Free trade,' and ' Fair trade ' dropped glibly from lips whose owners would have been floored in the A B C of political economy.

These questions of the State were argued on by the elder men, the younger ones confining themselves to local affairs. Bob Lorimer alter nated between the two groups, appearing to Standen to be the decider on all questions. Even in the group of elders his opinion — and he had strong ones — were accepted. He let the others do the arguing, then gave his view in his ordinary supercilious manner, and that subject dropped. The man was an enigma to Standen. Openly admired by the women, he was looked up to by the men, whom he evidently despised. He was only a wheelwright's workman, perhaps not even clever at his trade, yet he thrust himself above men older and shrewder than himself. The more he saw of him, the more Standen felt that this man, against whom he had already set himself in antagonism, had not only the best opinion of himself, but had the power of influencing others to believe it.