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it.”

Something about his calm acceptance of this burden which had been placed upon his shoulders so suddenly broke down Ruth’s own resistance. Her dark head went down on the pillow beside her father’s iron-grey one, and the tears which had been held back so bravely for the past two days overflowed at last.

William Farday let her cry, stroking the dark, waving hair on her bent head with his big hand.

“There, there, lass,” he said, at last. “You’re all strung up. Don’t take it to heart so, Ruth, girl. We must face our troubles better than that when they come.”

“But it was so needless—!” Ruth cried. “He had no right to be speeding along a country lane like that ...”

“It wasn’t entirely the lad’s fault, Ruth,” Farday explained. “I was maybe as much to blame as he was. Perhaps the old mare and me were taking too much for granted when we thought we could amble along the road in a day-dream.”

Ruth was silent. She thought of her outburst of two days ago, and of how she had accused Edmund Hersheil. She realised now that she had said more than she had meant to in the heat of the moment.

The thought brought her mind back to the farm and the problem of the future. She had shared her father’s confidence ever since her mother had died four years ago, and she knew that it had been a fairly hard struggle to make Conningscliff show any great profit those past two years. As if her father’s thoughts had been taking that direction, too, he said rather abruptly:

“It means we’ll have to leave Conningscliff, lass.”

In spite of himself, there was deep regret in his voice, and it touched Ruth to the heart to hear it. She knew how fond her father was of the farm, and that the ties of sentiment bound him even closer to it. It had been William Farday’s ambition to save enough to buy Conningscliff. Born and bred on a south Yorkshire farm, he had found it difficult to live with his overbearing elder brother when his father died, and six years ago he had brought his wife and seventeen-year-old daughter to start anew at Conningscliff.

Ruth had been a pupil in a Scottish agricultural college when her mother had died two years later, and she had come back to the farm immediately to be with her father in his need of a comforter and helpmate.

Such bonds bound father and daughter, and, because of them, Ruth determined that William Farday would not leave Conningscliff. She must carry on the farm somehow, but even in that first moment of decision, she realised that it was a task that might take more than a girl’s stout heart to carry through.

She rose from her knees and sat down on the low chair by the bed, still retaining the farmer’s hand in hers.

“Father,” she began, “I’ve had a notion for a long while that— perhaps we could do something else with Conningsdiff.”

Her father looked up at her with a fond smile.

“What can we do but farm it, lass?”

Ruth hesitated, and then took the plunge.

“I’ve thought of this scheme before—when things weren’t paying too well—that year of the drought and the time the mangold crop failed ...”

“Yes?” he prompted.

“I’ve often thought of the idea of a Guest House. It could be run very simply—just as we are living now. A holiday on a farm on a large scale, with one or two little luxuries thrown in! Don’t you see that if we get the right people to come we’d make a success of it? There’s nowhere like the Northumbrian coast for scenery.”

Farday’s eyes met hers.

“How long have you had this in mind?” he asked, without passing any comment on her suggestion.

“It must have been in my mind for a long time,” Ruth confessed, “but it’s only taken shape now—when we need it! What do you think of the idea, Dad? Do you think it’s worth a trial?”

Her eagerness was so obvious that the farmer had not the heart to tell her he strongly doubted whether her Guest House would have any great appeal for the holiday- making multitude.

“What would all this cost?” he asked.

“It wouldn’t cost much,” Ruth said eagerly. “I’d want to keep Conningscliff as like the real thing as possible. We might need more help in the kitchen, for I would want to keep the dairy and poultry on—giving the people our own butter, cream, and eggs. You know the idea? We’d need very little, really, Dad. Mother had a beautiful stock of linen and a great lot of it hasn’t been touched yet. Besides, if there was anything else to get, I’ve got that money Mother left me. I could use that.”

William Farday frowned for the first time.

“No, lass, I won’t have you touching your own money,” he said. “I’ll let you have all you may need for a start.”

“Then you
do
mean to let me try!”

Ruth jumped to her feet, relief in every line of her vivid little face.

“I’m willing,” Farday replied. “You’ll have to get the Squire’s permission, though. It’s his land, you know.” Ruth had not thought of this, but she was now so sure of the ultimate success of her project that she would not consider the Squire’s permission a stumbling-block. “I’ll manage that,” she said lightly, and went back through to the kitchen, happy in the thought that she could see her way to do something constructive at last.

Peg Emery, the woman who helped Ruth at the farm, was coming in from the dairy, a great slab of fresh butter straight from the churn in her hand. She was a round-faced, stout little woman who bounced rather than walked but she was agile and quick at her work, and she could turn out a churn of butter that many an expert might have envied.

“Peg,” Ruth said, as Mrs. Emery laid the butter down before her and stood back to admire it, “what sort of man is the Squire?” Peg pursed up her generous mouth.

“I can’t be telling ye for certain, Miss Ruth,” she replied. “I’ve never set eyes on him, but I do hear he’s a hard man, an’ if what he did to his only son is anything to go by, then he is!”

Peg was emphatic in her likes and dislikes.

“I didn’t know he had a son,” Ruth said, turning to put the butter away in the larder. “I always thought his nephew was his heir.”

“Not by rights,” Peg affirmed, her hands on her broad hips in the familiar conversational attitude Ruth knew so well. “That young man has no more right to the Hall than you nor me! There’s me sister-in-law, now—she could tell ye better about it nor me. She was living in these parts when it happened. Young John Veycourt, his heart was in the land, and when he comes back from that fine college at Oxford, he was ready to settle down on the land and some says he wanted to farm Conningscliff, Miss, before your father took it over, but up comes the old Squire with the idea that his son is to go into Parliament and make a great name for himself up there in London. Well, they say young John was like his mother in looks, but he had his father’s temper, an’ two such tempers never dwelt peaceful-like in one house—let it be the size o’ the Hall or just a room and kitchen.” Peg followed Ruth through to the stone-flagged scullery where the pails were standing ready scalded for the next milking. “Then,” she continued, determined to finish her tale, “there was one last terrible row and off the young lad went.”

“And, of course, he went abroad and bought a farm and made lots of money!” Ruth said.

“I don’t know about that, Miss Ruth,” Peg replied seriously. “Nobody in these parts ever heard how he was, and most folks have forgotten about it all now, I expect. It must be well-nigh eight years gone since he left.”

“Well, Peg,” Ruth said, at the end of the story. “I’ve a favour to ask of the Squire, but it looks as if it might be easier to ask it through his solicitors!”

“Or through that young Mr. Hersheil,” Peg said dryly. “He was down here again this morning, but you were over at the hens and I wasn’t going to call you up all that way just to talk to him.”

Ruth turned sharply.

“What did he want?” she asked.

“Oh—askin’ for your father,” Peg replied, “but I’d say it wasn’t worrying about the farmer he was!”

Ruth flushed, but she did not reply to this thrust of Peg’s. Edmund Hersheil had come to the farm on two occasions since the accident and she had been out, much to her relief when Peg told her about his visit later. He had obviously waited for quite a while in the hope of seeing her, and Ruth had felt a growing irritation at the fact. Perhaps she owed Hersheil an apology for the way she had spoken to him on the day of the accident, but she quite definitely did not want him to come to Conningscliff, nor did she intend to treat seriously Peg’s suggestion as to his real reason for coming to the farm. Edmund Hersheil was the type of man you could not be obliged to for anything, she concluded, for he would most certainly take advantage of the situation. She determined to get the Squire’s permission for her Guest House through some other channel.

CHAPTER THREE

Ruth could not have believed that things could have taken shape

so quickly, yet it was only natural that the amount of hard work, thought, and concentration that went into her project must bear fruit sooner or later. It had seemed to her that she had obtained the Squire’s permission to start the Guest House with amazing ease. The reply to her request came through the Newcastle solicitors in less than a week, and then, whole-heartedly, Ruth turned to her plans.

She knew that Peg Emery could run the dairy perfectly, leaving her free to concentrate on the house and their guests. With Will Finberry to look after the cattle and the outer premises, they would manage. The crop lands would have to be sacrificed, but if Will could take a good harvest of hay from the two north fields, Ruth felt that she would be content. There could be no marketing of their produce now, of course; she hoped that she would have enough guests to make that unnecessary.

William Farday said very little as he sat in his long chair watching the preparations going ahead with the speed which is the fruit of determination. Ruth worked tirelessly from early morning until late at night, and when she stood back at last and saw her Guest House completed and brought her father the edition of the paper with her first advertisement inserted in it, there was a justifiable thrill of pride in her voice when she asked:

“What do you think of it, Dad?”

He cleared his throat awkwardly, with the difficulty of a man who is unused to expressing his emotions in words.

“Ruth, lass,” he said, “you’re a girl in a thousand for a man to have!”

She bent swiftly and kissed his weather-beaten cheek, clasping the hand that lay so uselessly on the plaid rug over his knees.

“We’re going to make it a big success,” she said gaily, “and there’s quite a lot for you to do in the next few days when the requests for accommodation come pouring in! You’re to be chief secretary, and I’m going to have Will Finberry fix you up a desk that will fit over your chair. How’s that?”

The farmer smiled at her and shook his head.

“I don’t think I’ll be a lot of use, lass,” he said.

“Nonsense!” Ruth affirmed. “Look at the time you will save me.” She turned away towards the kitchen. “I won’t have much time for writing, you know.”

Farday felt that he was a burden, but he was thankful beyond measure for the little tasks which Ruth brought him to do during the next two weeks. The Guest House was to be opened at Easter, which was at the beginning of April that year, and as the time drew on, even Ruth was surprised at the response to her advertisements in the London and Newcastle newspapers. She had only two rooms unbooked a week before Good Friday, and her heart beat high with excitement as she prepared to receive her first guest.

“It’s that Mr. Travayne who booked up last week, isn’t it?” she asked her father eagerly on the Thursday.

William Farday re-examined the telegram which had reached Conningscliff that morning.

“Yes. He says he’ll be here with the afternoon train,” he replied.

“Will is going to the market with the last of the sheep,” Ruth said, slipping into a warm tweed coat. “I’ll have to go and meet the train myself.” She wound a scarf round her throat and turned back to her father. “Peg’s got all her instructions,” she told him. “She’ll have everything ready.”

On the way to the Junction, her hair blowing carelessly in the wind, her hand firm on the reins which guided the little mare, Ruth began to wonder about her first guest. The request for accommodation had been written on the thick cream note-paper of a London Club in Half-Moon Street, and had been signed in a firm masculine hand, briefly, J. Travayne. Close contact with nature had made Ruth a dreamer in spite of the practical strain in her, and she began to weave a pattern of dreams round her first guest. She was not quite sure whether she wanted him to be young or not; perhaps an old gentleman would be best— someone who was forced to live for the best part of the year in London, but who pined for the countryside he loved, and took every opportunity of getting there. He might even see in Conningscliff Guest House a means of escape on many future occasions!

When she drew the trap up on the long stretch of cinder at the Junction, the train was already rounding the bend of the track at the signal-cabin. There was only one passenger for Carbay Junction, and as he jumped down on to the track, Ruth’s heart gave a little spasmodic jerk as its beating quickened.

The stranger wore a thick travelling coat, the ample collar of which accentuated the breadth of his fine shoulders. His face was long and bronzed, and his keen, dark eyes seemed to take in everything at one first brief glance. He came straight towards Ruth where she stood by the trap, and his firm lips relaxed in a smile as he asked: