The Bronze Bell | Page 2

eyes, meeting eyes
dark, kindly, and penetrating, flickered and fell; so much emotion they
betrayed, no more, and that as disingenuous as you could wish.
"Doggott!" insisted Amber, disconcerted. "Surely you haven't forgotten
me--Mr. Amber?"
The man shook his head. "Beg pardon, sir," he said; "you've got my
nyme 'andy enough, but I don't know _you_, and--"
"But Mr. Rutton?"
"Is a party I've never 'eard of, if you'll excuse my sayin' so, no more'n I
'ave of yourself, sir."
"Well!" began Amber; but paused, his face hardening as he looked the
man up and down, nodding slowly.
"Per'aps," continued Mr. Doggott, unabashed, "you mistyke me for my
brother, 'Enery Doggott. 'E was 'ome, in England, larst I 'eard of 'im.

We look a deal alike, I've been told."
"You would be," admitted Amber drily; and, shutting his teeth upon his
inherent contempt for a liar, he swung away, acknowledging with a curt
nod the civil "Good-arfternoon, sir," that followed him.
The man had disappeared by the time Amber regained his kit-bag and
gun-case; standing over which he surveyed his surroundings with some
annoyance, discovering that he now shared the station with none but
the ticket-agent. A shambling and disconsolate youth, clad in a
three-days' growth of beard, a checked jumper and khaki trousers, this
person lounged negligently in the doorway of the waiting-room and,
caressing his rusty chin with nicotine-dyed fingers, regarded the
stranger in Nokomis with an air of subtle yet vaguely melancholy
superiority.
"If ye're lookin' for th' hotel," he volunteered unexpectedly, "there aint
none;" and effected a masterly retreat into the ticket-booth.
Amused, the despised outlander picked up his luggage and followed
amiably. "I'm not looking for the hotel that aint," he said, planting
himself in front of the grating; "but I expected to be met by someone
from Tanglewood--"
"Thet's the Quain place, daown by th' ba-ay," interpolated the youth
from unplumbed depths of mournful abstraction.
"It is. I wired yesterday--"
"Yeour name's Amber, aint it?"
"Yes, I--"
"Well, Quain didn't get yeour message till this mornin'. I sent a kid
daown with it 'baout ten o'clock."
"But why the--but I wired yesterday afternoon!"
"I knaow ye did," assented the youth wearily. "It come through raound

closin' time and they wa'n't nobody baound that way, so I held it over."
"This craze for being characteristic," observed Mr. Amber obscurely,
"is the only thing that really stands in the way of Nokomis becoming a
thriving metropolis. Do you agree with me? No matter." He smiled
engagingly: a seasoned traveller this, who could recognise the futility
of bickering over the irreparable. Moreover, he had to remind himself
in all fairness, the blame was, in part at least, his own; for he had
thoughtlessly worded his telegram, "Will be with you to-morrow
afternoon"; and it was wholly like Quain that he should have accepted
the statement at its face value, regardless of the date line.
"I can leave my things here for a little while, I presume?" Amber
suggested after a pause.
The ticket-agent stared stubbornly into the infinite, making no sign till
a coin rang on the window-ledge; when he started, eyed the offering
with fugitive mistrust, and gloomily possessed himself of it. "I'll look
after them," he said. "Be ye thinkin' of walkin'?"
"Yes," said Amber over his shoulder. He was already moving toward
the door.
"Knaow yeour wa-ay?"
"I've been here before, thank you."
"Fer another quarter," drawled the agent with elaborate apathy, "I'd
leave the office long enough to find somebody who'd fetch ye daown in
a rig for fifty cents."
But Amber was already out of ear-shot.
Crossing the tracks, he addressed himself to the southward-stretching
highway. Walking briskly at first, he soon left behind the
railway-station with its few parasitic cottages; a dip in the land hid
them, and he had hereafter for all company his thoughts, the desultory
road, a vast and looming sky, and bare fields hedged with impoverished

forest.
A deep languor brooded over the land: the still, warm enchantment of
an Indian Summer which, protracted though it were unseasonably into
the Ides of November, had yet lost nothing of its witchery. There was
no wind, but now and again the air stirred softly, and when it stirred
was cool; as if the earth sighed in sheer lassitude. Out of a cloudless
sky, translucent sapphire at its zenith fading into hazy topaz-yellow at
the horizon, golden sunlight slanted, casting shadows heavy and
colourful; on the edge of the woodlands they clung like thin purple
smoke, but motionless, and against them, here and there, a clump of
sumach blazed like a bed of embers, or some tree loath to shed its
autumnal livery flamed scarlet, russet, and mauve. The peace of the
hour was intense, and only emphasised by a dull, throbbing
undertone--the