The Red Redmaynes | Page 3

to the beech and the bracken. And she had blue eyes--blue as the
gentian. Their size impressed Brendon.
He had only known one woman with really large eyes, and she was a
criminal. But this stranger's bright orbs seemed almost to dwarf her
face. Her mouth was not small, but the lips were full and delicately
turned. She walked quickly with a good stride and her slight, silvery
skirts and rosy, silken jumper showed her figure clearly enough--her
round hips and firm, girlish bosom. She swung along--a flash of joy on
little twinkling feet that seemed hardly to touch the ground.
Her eyes met his for a moment with a frank, trustful expression, then
she had passed. Waiting half a minute, Brendon turned to look again.
He heard her singing with all the light-heartedness of youth and he
caught a few notes as clear and cheerful as a grey bird's. Then, still
walking quickly, she dwindled into one bright spot upon the moor,
dipped into an undulation, and was gone--a creature of the heath and
wild lands whom it seemed impossible to imagine pent within any
dwelling.

The vision made Mark pensive, as sudden beauty will, and he
wondered about the girl. He guessed her to be a visitor--one of a party,
perhaps, possibly here for the day alone. He went no farther than to
guess that she must certainly be betrothed. Such an exquisite creature
seemed little likely to have escaped love. Indeed love and a spirit of
happiness were reflected from her eyes and in her song. He speculated
on her age and guessed she must be eighteen. He then, by some twist of
thought, considered his personal appearance. We are all prone to put
the best face possible upon such a matter, but Brendon lived too much
with hard facts to hoodwink himself on that or any other subject. He
was a well-modelled man of great physical strength, and still agile and
lithe for his age; but his hair was an ugly straw colour and his
clean-shorn, pale face lacked any sort of distinction save an indication
of moral purpose, character, and pugnacity. It was a face well suited to
his own requirements, for he could disguise it easily; but it was not a
face calculated to charm or challenge any woman--a fact he knew well
enough.
Tramping forward now, the detective came to a great crater that gaped
on the hillside and stood above the dead quarry workings of Foggintor.
Underneath him opened a cavity with sides two hundred feet high. Its
peaks and precipices fell, here by rough, giant steps, here stark and
sheer over broad faces of granite, where only weeds and saplings of
mountain ash and thorn could find a foothold. The bottom was one vast
litter of stone and fern, where foxgloves nodded above the masses of
debris and wild things made their homes. Water fell over many a
granite shelf and in the desolation lay great and small pools.
Brendon began to descend, where a sheep track wound into the pit. A
Dartmoor pony and her foal galloped away through an entrance
westerly. At one point a wide moraine spread fanwise from above into
the cup, and here upon this slope of disintegrated granite more water
dripped and tinkled from overhanging ledges of stone. Rills ran in
every direction and, from the spot now reached by the sportsman, the
deserted quarry presented a bewildering confusion of huge boulders,
deep pits, and mighty cliff faces heaving up to scarps and
counter-scarps. Brendon had found the guardian spirit of the place on a

former visit and now he lifted his voice and cried out.
"Here I am!" he said.
"Here I am!" cleanly answered Echo hid in the granite.
"Mark Brendon!"
"Mark Brendon!"
"Welcome!"
"Welcome!"
Every syllable echoed back crisp and clear, just tinged with that
something not human that gave fascination to the reverberated words.
A great purple stain seemed to fill the crater and night's wine rose up
within it, while still along the eastern crest of the pit there ran red
sunset light to lip the cup with gold. Mark, picking his way through the
huddled confusion, proceeded to the extreme breadth of the quarry,
fifty yards northerly, and stood above two wide, still pools in the midst.
They covered the lowest depth of the old workings, shelved to a rough
beach on one side and, upon the other, ran thirty feet deep, where the
granite sprang sheer in a precipice from the face of the little lake. Here
crystal-clear water sank into a dim, blue darkness. The whole surface of
the pools was, however, within reach of any fly fisherman who had a
rod of necessary stiffness and the skill to throw a long line. Trout
moved and here and there