Chapter I: Lotty Lee

The young man stood on the deserted platform of the small, north-country station, just where the train had left him, on that bright August evening. Yonder she was speeding east-wards against the breeze.

Against the breeze, and along towards the cliffs that o'erhung the wild, wide sea, the end of the last carriage gilded with the rays of the setting sun, the smoke streaming backwards and losing itself over the brown-green woods that stretched away and away till lost in a haze at the foot of the hills.

He hailed a solitary porter.

'This isn't a very inviting station of yours, Tom, is it?'

'An awful good guess at my name, sir,' said the man, saluting.

'Your name is Tom, then?'

'No, sir--George,' he smiled. 'But any name does; and as for the station, weel, it's good enough in its way. We only tak' up or pit doon by signal. But you'll be English, sir?'

'That's it, George; that's just it. I'm only English. But, so far, I am in luck; because I understand your talk, and I thought everybody here ran about raw, with kilts on and speaking in Scotch.'

'So they do, sir, mostly; but I've been far south myself. No, sir, no left-luggage room here; but if you're going to the inn I'll carry your portmanteau, though ye'll no' find much accommodation there for a gentleman like yourself. Besides, it's the nicht of the fair, and they'll be dancin' and singin' in the road till midnicht.'

'But,' said the stranger, 'I'm bound for Loggiemouth, if I can only find the way. I'm going to a gipsy encampment there--Nat Lee's or Biffins'. You know Nat Lee?'

'Well, and curly-headed Lotty too. But, man, you'll have ill findin' your road over the moor the nicht. It's three good Scotch miles, and your portmanteau's no' a small weight--a hundred and twenty pounds if an ounce.'

This young man, with the sunny hair, square shoulders, and bravely chiselled English face, seized the bag with his left hand and held it high above his head, much to the admiration of the honest porter.

'You're a fine lad, sir,' said the latter. 'An English athlete, no doubt. Weel, we all love strength hereabouts, and Loggiemouth itself can boast of bonny men.'

'Here!' cried the stranger abruptly, as he looked to the west and the sun that was sinking like a great blood-orange in the purple mist of the woodlands, 'take that portmanteau, George, in your own charge. I suppose you live somewhere?'

'I'll lock it up in the lamp-room, sir. It'll be safe enough there.'

'Well, thanks; and to-morrow I'll either stride over for it myself or send some one. Now, you'll direct me to the camp, won't you?'

'Ay, ay, sir, and you've a good stick and a stout heart, so nothing can come o'er ye. But what way did nobody meet you, sir?'

'Nat Lee said he would send some one, but--hallo! who is this?'

She ran along the platform hurriedly but smiling--a little nervously perhaps, blinking somewhat moreover, for the sun's last beams lit up her face and eke her yellow hair. Her colour seemed to rise as she advanced. Blushing? No. Lotty Lee was barely twelve.

'Oh, please, sir, are you Mr Blake?'

'I am. And you?'

'Me? I'm only Lotty Lee, and that's nobody. But father sent me to meet you, and lead you home to our pitch across the Whinny Moor. You couldn't find the way by yourself, never, never, _never_!'

'Good-night, sir.--Good-night, Miss Lotty,' cried the porter, throwing the portmanteau on his shoulder and marching off with it.

'Well,' said the young fellow, 'I have a sweet little guide anyhow; but are you sure that even you can find the way yourself, Lotty?'

'Oh yes, Mr Blake, please.'

Hers was a light, musical, almost bird-like laugh.

She tossed back her head a little, and all those impossible little crumply curls caught by the evening breeze went dancing round her brow and ears.

'If you have any--any big thing, I will carry it for you, sir.'

It was his turn to laugh now. 'Why, Lotty,' he said, 'I shouldn't wonder if I had to carry you before we get to camp.'

'Come,' she answered, with an uneasy glance at the west. She took his hand as if he'd been a blind man. 'Father said I was to lead you, sir.'

'But I don't think he meant it in so literal a sense, Lotty. I think I can see for quite half an hour yet.'

He kept that warm hand in his, nevertheless. So on they went, chatting together gaily enough now, for she did not seem a bit afraid of her tall companion.

'I would have been here much sooner, you know, but Wallace followed me. Wallace is a very naughty boy sometimes, and father doesn't like him to be out of camp at nights.'

'And where is the young gentleman now?'

'Oh, I had to take him back, and that is what kept me.'

It was getting early dark to-night, and one great star was already out in the east. Whinny Moor was beginning to look eerisome enough. The patches of furze that everywhere hugged the ground were like moving shapes of strange and uncanny antediluvian monsters, and here and there stood up the dark spectre of a stunted hawthorn-tree waving black arms in the wind as if to forbid their approach.

Sometimes they had to creep quite sideways through the bushes of sturdy whins and bramble; sometimes the moor was more open, and here and there were little lakes or sedgy ponds of silver sheen, where black things swam or glided in and out among the rustling rushes. Flitter-mice darted over their heads or even between them, and from the forest now and then came the doleful cry of the great barn-owl.

'On the whole,' said young Blake, 'I'm glad you came, Lotty. I doubt if ever I could have made my way across this moor.'

'Nor through the forest yonder. Ah! the forest is much worse, Mr Blake.'

'Dark and dismal, I suppose?'

'It is dark; I don't know about dismal, Mr Blake. But I know all the road through this moor; because when things come to the station father often sends me for them.'

'At night?'

'Oh yes, often at night. Only, there is a little winding path through among the pine-trees, and one day Chops went in daylight and marked all the trees in white paint for me. But father thrashed him for it, because white paint is one of the show properties, and we mustn't waste the properties. But I cried for Chops.'

'And who is Chops, Lotty?'

'Oh, Chops is the fat boy; he is a property himself, but nobody could waste him.'

'No?'

'No; and Chops is fifteen, you know, and so good and so fond of me; but he is so fat that he can't look at you, only just blinks over his cheeks. But Chops is so kind to me--quite loves me. And so does Wallace. But I love Wallace better than anybody else, and everybody else loves Wallace.'

'And Wallace and everybody love Lotty, I'm sure of that.'

'Oh, Wallace loves me, and would die for me any day. But, of course, everybody doesn't. I'm only just a property, you know.'

'But your father and mother?'

Frank Antony Blake felt the small, soft hand tremble in his.

'There is no mother, sir. Never was a mother in my time. But father'----

The child was crying--yes, and sobbing--as if her heart would break.

Then, though Frank Antony was tall and strong for his eighteen years, he didn't really know what to do with a girl who burst into tears at night on a lonesome moor. He could remember no precedent. It mightn't be correct, he thought, to take her in his arms and kiss her and try to soothe her, so he merely said, 'Never mind, Lotty; never mind. It is sure to come all right somehow.'

For the life of him, however, he couldn't have told you what was wrong or what there was to come right. In the fast-waning light Lotty looked up at him ever so sadly, and he could not help noticing now what he had not noticed before--Lotty was really a beautiful child.

'You talked to me so kindly like,' she said, 'and hardly anybody does that, and--and that was it. Don't talk to me kindly again, sir, ever, ever, ever!'

He patted her hand.

'That's worse,' said Lotty, feeling she wanted to cry again, and she drew the hand away. 'You'll have me crying again. Speak gruff to me, as others do, and call me "Lot!"'

But at that moment Antony had a happy inspiration. He remembered that in his big coat-pocket he had a large box of assorted chocolates, and here close by on a bare part of the moor was a big white stone.

'Come,' he cried, 'there is no great hurry, and I'm going to have some chocolates. Won't you, Lot?'

Down he sat on the big white stone, and Lotty stood timidly in front of him. But Antony would not have this arrangement, so he lifted her bodily up--'how strong he is!' she thought--and seated her beside him, then threw a big handful of the delicious sweets into her lap.

She was smiling now. She was happy again. It was not the chocolates that worked the change; but the chance companionship of this youth of gentle blood, so high above her, seemed to have wakened a chord long, long untouched in that little harp of a heart of hers.

Was it but a dream, or had there been once a time, long--ever so long--ago, when voices quite as pleasant and musical and refined as Antony's were not strange to her? And had she not, when young--she was twelve now, and that is so old--lived in a real house, with bright cushions on real sofas, and lamps and mirrors and flowers everywhere? No, that must have been a dream; but it was one she often dreamt while she swung by night in her cot, as the winds rocked the caravan and lulled her to sleep.

The autumn evening was very beautiful now; bright stars were shining so closely overhead that it seemed as if one could almost touch them with a fishing-rod. Besides, a big, nearly round moon had managed to scramble up behind the bank of blue clouds in the east--a big, fat face of a moon that appeared to be bursting with half-concealed merriment as it blinked across the moor.

It wasn't the lollies that had enabled Lotty to regain her good spirits; but she felt quietly happy sitting here on the stone beside this newly found friend. Oh yes, he was going to be a friend; she felt certain of that already. Young though Lottie was, she had a woman's instinct. Perhaps she possessed a woman's pride as well, though only in embryo; for she felt half-ashamed of her awkward, bare brown legs that ended not in shoes but rough sandals, and of the pretty necklace of crimson hips and haws that she had strung for herself only yesterday.

They had been sitting in silence for some time, both thinking, I suppose, when Lotty's keen ear caught the weary call of some benighted plover.

'They'll soon be away now!' she sighed, more to herself than to her companion.

'What will soon be away, Lotty?'

'Oh, the plovers and the swallows and the greenfinches, and nearly all my pretty pets of springtime, and we'll have only just the rooks and the gulls left.'

Antony laid his hand on hers.

'Lotty loves the wild birds, then?'

'I--I suppose so. Doesn't everybody? I wish I could go south with the birds in autumn, to lands where the flowers are always blooming.'

'Who knows what is before you, child!'

The child interested him.

'Look, Lotty, look!' cried Antony next moment; 'what on earth can that be?'

He was genuinely startled. About two hundred yards from the place where they sat a great ball of crimson-yellow fire, as big as a gipsy pot, rose slowly, waveringly, into the air. It was followed by five others, each one smaller than the one above it. They switched themselves towards the forest, and one by one they went out.

'It is only will-o'-the-wisps,' said Lotty, 'and they always bring good luck. Aren't you glad?'

'Very,' said Antony.

Then, hand in hand, as if very old acquaintances indeed, they resumed their journey. And, as they got nearer and nearer to the forest, the tall pine-trees, with brown, pillar-like limbs, grew higher and higher, and finally swallowed them up.