The Pit-Prop Syndicate | Page 5

end of which he would find the lorry. This he could hear not far away, chugging slowly on in front of him.
The lane twisted incessantly, apparently to avoid the larger trees. The surface was the virgin soil of the forest only, but the ruts had been filled roughly with broken stones.
Merriman strode on, and suddenly, as he rounded one of the bends, he got the surprise of his life.
Coming to meet him along the lane was a girl. This in itself was perhaps not remarkable, but this girl seemed so out of place amid such surroundings, or even in such a district, that Merriman was quite taken aback.
She was of medium height, slender and graceful as a lily, and looked about three-and-twenty. She was a study in brown. On her head was a brown tam, a rich, warm brown, like the brown of autumn bracken on the moor. She wore a brown jumper, brown skirt, brown stockings and little brown brogued shoes. As she came closer, Merriman saw that her eyes, friendly, honest eyes, were a shade of golden brown, and that a hint of gold also gleamed in the brown of her hair. She was pretty, not classically beautiful, but very charming and attractive-looking. She walked with the free, easy movement of one accustomed to an out-of-door life.
As they drew abreast Merriman pulled off his cap.
"Pardon, mademoiselle," he said in his somewhat halting French, "but can you tell me if I could get some petrol close by?" and in a few words he explained his predicament.
She looked him over with a sharp, scrutinizing glance. Apparently satisfied, she smiled slightly and replied: .
"But certainly, monsieur. Come to the mill and my father will get you some. He is the manager."
She spoke even more haltingly than he had, and with no semblance of a French accent - the French rather of an English school. He stared at her.
"But you're English!" he cried in surprise.
She laughed lightly.
"Of course I'm English," she answered. "Why shouldn't I be English? But I don't think you're very polite about it, you know."
He apologized in some confusion. It was the unexpectedness of meeting a fellow-countryman in this out of the way wood . . . It was . . . He did not mean. . . .
"You want to say my French is not really so bad after all?" she said relentlessly, and then: "I can tell you it's a lot better than when we came here."
"Then you are a newcomer?"
"We're not out very long. It's rather a change from London, as you may imagine. But it's not such a bad country as it looks. At first I thought it would be dreadful, but I have grown to like it."
She had turned with him, and they were now walking together between the tall, straight stems of the trees.
"I'm a Londoner," said Merriman slowly. "I wonder if we have any mutual acquaintances?"
"It's hardly likely. Since my mother died some years ago we have lived very quietly, and gone out very little."
Merriman did not wish to appear inquisitive. He made a suitable reply and, turning the conversation to the country, told her of his day's ride. She listened eagerly, and it was borne in upon him that she was lonely, and delighted to have anyone to talk to. She certainly seemed a charming girl, simple, natural and friendly, and obviously a lady.
But soon their walk came to an end. Some quarter of a mile from the wood the lane debouched into a large, D-shaped clearing. It had evidently been recently made, for the tops of many of the tree-stumps dotted thickly over the ground were still white. Round the semicircle of the forest trees were lying cut, some with their branches still intact, others stripped clear to long, straight poles. Two small gangs of men were at work, one felling, the other lopping.
Across the clearing, forming its other boundary and the straight side of the D, ran a river, apparently from its direction that which Merriman had looked down on from the road bridge. It was wider here, a fine stretch of water, though still dark colored and uninviting from the shadow of the trees. On its bank, forming a center to the cleared semicircle, was a building, evidently the mill. It was a small place, consisting of a single long narrow galvanized iron shed, and placed parallel to the river. In front of the shed was a tiny wharf, and behind it were stacks and stacks of tree trunks cut in short lengths and built as if for seasoning. Decauville tramways radiated from the shed, and the men were running in timber in the trucks. From the mill came the hard, biting screech of a circular saw.
"A sawmill!" Merriman exclaimed rather unnecessarily.
"Yes. We cut pit-props for the English