Solway

“ Amy wanted to get married and have the money, too. That’s how she is. So she told me she was going to tell Mr. Solway when she was twenty-five. I know I’d ought to have told him then, but—I didn’t.”
Ross understood that.
“Mr. Solway went over to Europe that summer, and she and Mrs. Jones went somewheres out West, and Lily was born out there. And Ives, he took the kid, and she came back here. She used to see Ives pretty often for awhile—go into the city and meet him. Then she began talking about what a risk it was. That was because she’d met this Gayle Dexter. ”

“ Solway, “I’m sorry, very sorry. You’re the sort of young fellow I like. Family troubles—Too bad! I’m sorry. Come back here any time you like.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Ross.
“Nonsense! Nonsense! You’re the type of young—Ha, Gayle! Step in! Step in. Start her up, Moss!”
Ross did so. He had never been more unhappy in his life than he was now, with his lie successfully accomplished.
“This finishes it!” he thought, as he drove back from the station. “I’m going to see Amy, and have it out with her. I’ll tell her about this Donnelly. ”

“ Solway, he kept me here. He seen that I got a good education and all. I wanted this here shover’s job, but he said nothing doing. He said I’d ought to get a job with a future. [Pg 454] I’m down in the telephone comp’ny now—repair man. He lets me live here for nothing—just for doing a few odd jobs. He’s a prince!” He stamped out his cigarette with his heel. “And he has a hell of a life!” he added.
“How?” asked Ross, thirsting for any sort of information about this household.
“Her,” said Eddy. “Remember, I’m not saying nothing against Miss Amy. I’ve known her all my life. ”

“ She doesn’t even know when she hurts any one.”
And there was Donnelly, standing before her, hat in hand, his eyes modestly downcast; a most inoffensive figure. She was not interested in him; she thought he didn’t matter; she was looking past him at Ross, with that cajoling, childish smile of hers.
“Oh, Moss!” she said. “Will you bring the sedan round to the house? Please? I want to go out.”
“I’m sorry, Miss Solway,” he said, and it seemed to him that any one could hear the significance in his voice. “Mr. Solway told me not to take you out—in this weather.” ”

“ It occurred to him that if Phyllis Barron were in any sort of trouble, she would never turn to James Ross for help. He had shown her too plainly that he was not disposed to trouble himself about other people and their affairs.
His family never did. They minded their own business, they let other people alone, and other people soon learned to let them alone. Very satisfactory! Lucky for this Amy Ross Solway that she didn’t know what sort of fellow had got that note of hers. ”

“ You know the way she tells you things—crying an’ all.”
Ross did know.
“Well, I used to see Ives hanging around. He was a nice feller—but he didn’t have a cent. He was an actor. She was too young, anyway—eighteen—same age as me. I told her I’d tell Mr. Solway, and then she told me they’d got married. I felt pretty bad—on Mr. Solway’s account. But she—well, you know how she acts. Her mother’d left her some money she’s going to get when she’s twenty-five, if she don’t get married without her stepfather’s consent. Mrs. Solway had the right idea. She knew Amy, all right. ”

“ As for Amy—
“I’ll have it out with her today!” he thought. “I’m not called upon to give up my entire life for that girl. I’ve done enough, and more than enough.”
The door opened, and out came Mr. Solway. Ross jumped out and opened the door of the car.
“Ha!” said Mr. Solway. “Very sensible—very sensible! You came early, so that you’d have time to drive carefully. Very important—weather like this. Very sensible! But wait a bit! Mr. Dexter’s coming along.” Standing out in the snow, he shouted: “Gayle! Come, now! Come!” to the unresponsive house; then, he got into the car. ”

“ Ross watched his burly figure tramping along the driveway until he was out of sight; then he made haste to get himself ready, took out the car, locked the garage, and drove up to the house.
It was much too early. There he sat, shut up in the snug little sedan, with the snow falling outside, as if he were some unfortunate victim of an enchantment, shut up in a glass cage. And he began to think, now, of what lay immediately before him.
“I’ll have to make some sort of excuse to Mr. Solway for going away,” he thought. “A lie, of course. I wish to Heaven I didn’t have to lie to him. ”

“ Between the Ituna estuary or Solway Firth and the Clota or Clyde, Ptolemy has three of the rivers flowing into the Solway—the ‘Novius’ or Nith, the ‘Deva’ or Dee, and the ‘Iena’ [57] estuary, or that of the Cree. They can be easily identified, though the intermediate distances are too great. He mentions the river Luce by the name of the ‘Abravannus,’ the promontory of the ‘Novantæ’ or Mull of Galloway, the Rerigonius Bay or Loch Ryan, and Vindogara Bay or that of Ayr. ”

“ Mr. Solway came bursting out of the front door, ran down the steps, said “Good morning! Good morning!” to his new chauffeur, popped into the sedan, and immediately began to read the newspaper. At the station he bounced out, said “Four fifty,” and walked off.
Ross stopped in the town and bought himself some collars. Even this delay worried him; he might be badly needed at the house. But, in spite of his haste to get back, he was mighty careful in his driving, because he had no sort of license. He returned to the garage and put up the car—and waited. ”

“ I can’t handle this infernal mystery alone. I’m too much in the dark.”
He drove in at the gates, up the driveway, and stopped the car before the house with a smartness that pleased him. Mr. Solway bounced out.
“Here, now!” he said. “You—Moss—Moss, that’s it. Moss, just lend a hand with this bag. That’s right; up the stairs—first door on the left. That’s it! That’s it! There you are, Gayle, my boy!”
He turned to Ross.
“Moss,” he said. “Everything going along all right? That’s it! That’s it! You let me know if there’s anything wrong.”
Ross was hard put to it to suppress a smile. ”

“ On another occasion, I was hunting on the Scottish mountain of Criffel, and, having reached its summit, I sat down to look around on the fine prospect of sea and land below me, and take some refreshment. At a little distance I saw something like the figure of a human being, bedded in the heath, and lying looking on the Solway from a projecting rock, so still and motionless that it seemed dead. I went near: it was Miles Colvine. ”

“ Patsy dreamed dreams—such dreams, visions glorious—thirty miles of Solway swept clean of mist, great over-riding white clouds, crenellated and victorious—the Atlantic thundering on the Back Shore, and all the tides of the North Channel tearing past. She saw the Twin Valleys awakening—a marvel she had never yet missed—the sheltered blooms and shy crozier-headed ferns deep in the trough of the Abbey Burn, the wilder, vaster spaces of broom and gorse, the windflower and hyacinth in the woods and sheltered spaces of the Glenanmays Water! ”

“ Ross was silent, too. He remembered how Eddy had closed the door of the housekeeper’s room. He remembered how very anxious Eddy had been to keep him shut up in the garage all night. And he remembered that Eddy carried a revolver.
Why should he imagine that Amy Solway would do for herself any unpleasing task, when apparently she found it so easy to make others do things for her? This boy admitted he had done things for her which he wished “to Gawd” he hadn’t.
“You better start,” said Eddy, and Ross got into the sedan and drove up to the house. He was undeniably nervous. ”

“ If I was confined to Scotland for life, I would chuse Dumfries as the place of my residence. Here we made enquiries about captain Lismahago, of whom hearing no tidings, we proceeded by the Solway Frith, to Carlisle. You must know, that the Solway sands, upon which travellers pass at low water, are exceedingly dangerous, because, as the tide makes, they become quick in different places, and the flood rushes in so impetuously, that the passengers are often overtaken by the sea and perish. ”

“ On the Cumberland side of the firth of Solway lies a long line of flat and unelevated coast, where the sea-fowl find refuge from the gun of the fowler, and which, save the barren land and the deep sea, presents but one object to our notice—the ruins of a rude cottage, once the residence of Miles Colvine, the Mariner. ”

“ It was gallant to see the maids and the matrons of Cumberland, standing in crowds, on headland and cliff, waving their white hands seaward, as we spread our sails to the wind, and shot away into the Solway, with our streamers dancing and fluttering like the mane of a steed as he gallops against the wind. Proud of our charge, and glorying in our skill, we made the good ship go through the surge as we willed; and every turn we made, and every time we wetted her silken sails, there came shout and trumpet-sound from the shore, applauding the seven merry mariners of Allanbay. ”

“ It seemed to him plain that Donnelly had nothing but suspicions; that he had no definite facts as to any connection between Ives and Amy Solway. He had thought she was the woman to whom that letter was addressed; but since he had seen her, he doubted. Very well; he must be kept in doubt.
When they had finished lunch, they went round the corner to a garage, and took another taxi. Ross settled himself back comfortably, and filled and lighted his new pipe ”

“ There are only two persons living now who remember when the Bonne-Homme-Richard, the first ship ever Richard Faulder commanded, was wrecked on the Pellock sand; one of these persons now addresses you, the other is the fisherman who once owned that cottage—whose name ought never to be named, and whose life seems lengthened as a warning to the earth how fierce God's judgments are. Life changes—all breathing things have their time and their season; but the Solway flows in the same beauty—Criffel rises in the same majesty—the light of morning comes and the full moon arises now as they did then. ”

“ In proof of this last point, Mr Shaw informs us, that of the many hundred sea-trout of different ages which he has marked in various modes, he is not aware that even a single individual has ever found its way into any tributary of the Solway, saving that of the river Nith. ”

“ The new chauffeur was not liked in the kitchen.
Then he went back to the garage, and waited, and waited, and waited, with grim resentment. A little after four o’clock he was preparing to take the sedan out again, when Amy appeared in the doorway, in her fur coat and a little scarlet hat.
“Oh, good!” she cried. “You’re all ready! I want you to take me—”
“No!” said Ross. “Mr. Solway said four fifty, and I’m going to meet his train.”
“But he meant the four fifty from New York!” said she. “You’ll have plenty of time.” She came nearer to him. “Please, please be quick!” she said. ”

“ That I held him in contempt, and was displeased at the greedy devices with which he ruined a manly sport, is true enough; but, unless as it favoured my designs on you, he might have, for me, maintained his stake-nets till Solway should cease to ebb and flow.’
‘Alas!’ I said, ‘it doubles my regret to have been the unwilling cause of misfortune to an honest and friendly man.’
‘Do not grieve for that,’ said Herries; ‘honest Joshua is one of those who, by dint of long prayers, can possess themselves of widow’s houses—he will quickly repair his losses. ”

“ And first as to the Firth itself. The Solway opens so rapidly on the sea that it is hard to draw the line between it and the ocean. We shall not try. The Cumberland side falls rapidly off, and presents a larger coast to the open water. Its rivers are not numerous, but in the Eden it possesses one of great interest and importance. The coast-line of the three counties of Dumfries, Kirkcudbright, and Wigtown forms the northern shore. It has many streams. We do not go beyond the Cree, which runs into Wigtown Bay, and of which we shall count the Bladenoch a tributary. ”

“ But the tale is far frae finished, for mariners say that once a year, on a certain night, if ye stand on the Borran Point, ye will see the infernal shallops coming snoring through the Solway, ye will hear the same laugh and song and mirth and minstrelsy which our ancestors heard; see them bound over the sandbanks and sunken rocks like sea-gulls, cast their anchor in Blawhooly Bay, while the shadowy figure lowers down the boat, and augments their numbers with the four unhappy mortals to whose memory a stone stands in the kirkyard, with a sinking ship and a shoreless sea cut upon it. ”

“ The Cardinal returned in triumph to the capital. Instead of the hostages which were promised in the treaty, Henry was insolently told that he might accept, if he pleased, the Solway prisoners, who were on their parole to return. His hopes, a few months before so sanguine, were gone like a dream. His forbearance had been scorned; his credulity had been trifled with. The intrigues of the Papacy, working on a misguided patriotism, had baffled a policy as farsighted as it was generous. Scotland was once more an enemy, and as an enemy it must expect to be dealt with. ”

“ Whoever was in charge of the Solway now, she was sailing faster than the Noank, and things were looking badly. So said one of his old neighbors to Captain Lyme Avery, only to be answered by a chuckle.
"Jest calc'late," he added, quite cheerfully. "A starn chase is always a long chase. They won't be gettin' into range for their best guns till about dark. Then I'll show ye. Vine, make a barrel raft! ”