The naming of the boy caused considerable discussion in Bochyn. Indeed,
at one stage of the argument a battle seemed imminent. Jenny herself
went outright for Eric.
"Never heard no such a name in all my life," affirmed Trewhella.
"You must have been about a lot," said Jenny sarcastically.
"I think Eric's nice," urged May, in support of her sister's choice.
"I never heard the name spoken so far as I do remember," Mr. Champion
put in, "but that's nothing against it as a name. As a name I do like it
very well. To be sure 'tis a bit after Hayrick, but again that's nothing
against a farmer's son."
"I don't like the name at all," said old Mrs. Trewhella. "To me it do
sound a loose sort of a name."
"Oh, 'tis no name at all," Zachary decided. "How do 'ee like it, my
dear?" he asked, turning to Jenny.
"I don't know why I like it," she answered, "but I do."
"There's a grand old name down Church," said Granfa meditatively. "A
grand, old, rolling, cut-a-piece-off-and-come-again sort of a name, but
darn 'ee if I can remember it. Ess I can now. Athanacious! Now that's a
name as will make your Jack or your Tom look very hungry. That's a name,
that is!"
Impressive as sounded Granfa's trumpeting of it, everybody felt that
nowadays such a mouthful would hamper rather than benefit the owner. As
for Jenny, she declared frankly against it.
"Oh, no, Granfa, not in these! Why, it would drive anyone silly to say
it, let alone write it. I wish it was a girl and then she could have
been called Eileen, which is nice."
Trewhella looked anxiously at the subject of the discussion as if he
feared his wife could by some alchemy transmute the sex of the baby.
"I should dearly love to call the lill chap Matthew or Mark or Luke," he
said. "John I don't take no account of. I do call that a poor ornary
unreligious sort of a name for an Evangelist."
"I don't like John at all," said Jenny emphatically.
"Then there's Abraham and Jacob," Zachary continued. "And Abel and
Adam."
"And Ikey and Moses," Jenny scoffingly contributed.
"How not Philip?" suggested old Mrs. Trewhella.
"Or Nicholas?" said May.
"Call him Satan straight away at once!" commented the father bitterly.
"I like a surname sometimes," said Jenny thoughtfully. "I once knew a
boy called Presland. Only we used to call him Bill Hair. Still Eric's
the nicest of all, _I_ think," she added, returning to her first choice.
The argument went on for a long while. At times it would verge
perilously on a dispute, and in the end, in accordance with Jenny's new
development of character, a compromise was affected between Eric and
Adam by the substitution of Frank for both and, lest the advantage
should seem to incline to Jenny's side too far, with Abel as a second
name, where its extravagance would pass unnoticed.
Winter passed away uneventfully except as regards the daily growth of
young Frank. There was no particularly violent storm, nor any wreck
within ten miles of the lonely farmhouse. When the warm days of spring
recurred frequently, it became necessary to find a pleasant place for
idle hours in the sun. Crickabella was too far away for a baby to be
taken there, and Jenny did not like the publicity of the front garden,
exposed equally to Zachary's periodical inspections and Mrs. Trewhella's
grandmotherly limps away from housekeeping. Mr. Champion, when informed
of all this, cordially agreed with Jenny that the front garden was no
place at all under the circumstances and promised to go into the matter
of a secure retreat.
So presently, on one of those lazy mornings when April pauses to survey
her handiwork, assuming in the contemplation of the proud pied earth the
warmth and maturity of midsummer, Granfa beckoned to Jenny and May and
young Frank to follow his lead. He took them out at the back, past the
plashy town-place, past a commotion of chickens, and up a rocky lane,
whose high, mossy banks were blue with dog-violets and twinkling white
with adders' eyes. The perambulator bumped over the loose stones, but
young Frank, sleeping admirably, never stirred; while his rosy cheeks
danced with ripples of light shaken down through the young-leafed elms.
Not too far up they came to a rickety gate, which Granfa dragged open to
admit his guests; and almost before they knew where they were, they
stood buried in the apple-blossoms of a small secluded orchard cut off
from the fields around by thick hedges of hawthorn.
"What a glorious place!" Jenny cried enthusiastically. "Oh, I do think
this is nice."
Mr. Champion, his hair looking snowy white in the rosy flush of blossom,
explained the fairylike existence of the close.
"This old orchard was never scat up with the others. They burnt they up
in a frizz of repenitence. The Band of Hope come and scat them all
abroad with great axes, shouting Hallelujah and screaming and roaring so
as anyone was ashamed to be a human creature. Darn 'ee, I was so mad
when I heard tell of it, I lived on nothing but cider almost for weeks,
though 'tis a drink as do turn me sour all over."
"Idiots," said Jenny. "But why didn't they pull this to pieces? There
must be lots of apples here."
"It got avoided somehow, and Zachary he just left it go; but 'tis a
handsome place, sure enough. You'll dearly love sitting here come
summertime."
"Rather!" Jenny and May agreed.
Already in isolated petals the blossom was beginning to flutter down;
but still the deserted orchard was in the perfection of its beauty. Down
in the cool grass, fortified against insects and dampness by many rugs,
Jenny and May and young Frank used to lie outstretched. They could see
through the pink and white lace of blossom deep, distant skies, where
for unknown landscapes the cuckoos struck their notes on space like
dulcimers; they could hear the goldfinch whistle to his nest in the
lichened fork above and wind-blown in treetops the copperfinch's burst
of song. They could listen to the greenfinch calling sweetly from the
hawthorn hedge, while tree-creepers ran like mice up the gray bark and
woodpeckers flirted in the grass. The narcissus bloomed here very
fragrant, contending wild-eyed with daisies and buttercups. There was
mistletoe--marvelous in the reality of its growth, but at the same time
to Jenny rather unnatural. And later, when the apple-blossom had fallen,
eglantine and honeysuckle and travelers' joy flung themselves prodigally
over the trees, and when the birds no longer sang, it did not matter,
such an enchanted silence of infinitely minute country sounds took their
place.
As for young Frank, he was to his mother and aunt a wonder. He opened
his eyes very often, and very often he shut them. He kicked his legs and
uncurled his fingers like a kitten and twitched ecstatically to baby
visions. He cried very seldom and laughed very often, and crooned and
dribbled like many other babies; but whether or not the intoxication of
the sweet close urged him to unparagoned agilities and precocities,
there was no doubt at all that, in the companionship of elves, he
enjoyed life very much indeed.
"He looks like an apple lying there," said Jenny. "A great round, fat,
rosy apple. Bless his heart."
"He is a rogue," said May.
"Oh, May, he is a darling! Oh, I do think he's lovely. Look at his
feet, just like raspberries. He isn't much like _him_, is he?"
"No, he's not," said May emphatically. "Not at all like."
"I don't think he's much like anybody, I don't," said Jenny,
contemplating her son.
It might have seemed to the casual onlooker that Arcadia had recompensed
Jenny for all that had gone before; and, indeed, could the whole of
existence have been set in that inclosure of dappled hours, she might
have attained sheer contentment. Even Jenny, with all she had longed
for, all she had possessed and all she had lost, might have been
permanently happy. But she was no sundial marking only the bright hours;
life had to go on when twilight came and night fell. Young Frank, asleep
in golden candlelight, could not mitigate the injury of her husband's
presence. Even young Frank, best and most satisfying of babies, was the
son of Zachary; would, when he grew out of babyhood, contain alien
blood. There might then be riddles of character which his mother would
never solve. Strange features would show themselves, foreign eyes,
perhaps, or a mouth which knew no curve of her own. Now he was adorably
complete, Jenny's own against the world; and yet he was a symbol of her
subjugation. Already Zachary was beginning to use their boy to
consolidate his possession of herself. Already he was talking about the
child's education and obviously making ready for an opportunity to
thrust him into religious avarice and gloom. The arrival of young Frank
had apparently increased the father's tendency to brood over the darker
problems of his barbarous creed. He talked of young Frank, who would
surely inherit some of the Raeburn joy of life, as if he would grow up
in suspicion, demon-haunted, oppressed with the fear of God's wrath, a
sour and melancholy dreamer of damnable dreams.
Zachary took to groaning aloud over the sins of his fellow-men, would
groan and sweat horribly in the imagination of the unappeasable cruelty
of God. These outbreaks of despair for mankind were the more obnoxious
to Jenny because they were always followed by a monstrous excess of his
privileges, by an utterly abhorred affectionateness. Mr. Champion, the
outspoken, clear-headed old man, would often remonstrate with his
nephew. Once, while Trewhella was in a spasm of misery groaning for his
own sins and the sins of the world, a sick cow died in audible agony on
account of his neglect.
"You ought to be ashamed, you foolish man," said Granfa. "You ought to
be ashamed to leave the poor animal die. Darn 'ee, I believe the devil
_will_ have 'ee!"
"What's a cow," said Trewhella somberly, "beside my own scarlet sins?"
"'Tis one of the worst of 'em," said Granfa positively. "'Tis so scarlet
as wool. Get up, and leave be all your praying and sweating, you foolish
man. You do drive me plum mad with your foolishness. How don't 'ee do
your own work fittee and leave the dear Lord mind his own business? He
don't want to be told at his time of life what to do. Oh, you do drive
me mad."
"Another lost lamb," groaned Trewhella. "Another soul in the pit. Oh, I
do pray wi' all my heart that my poor lill son may find favor in the
Lord's eyes and become a child of grace to preach the Word and confound
the Gentiles."
"Did ever a man hark to such nonsense in his life?" exclaimed Granfa.
"I shouldn't argue with him in one of his moods," advised Jenny, looking
at her husband coldly and distastefully.
"Oh, dear Lord, give me strength to heal the blindness of my family and
make my poor lill son a sword in the side of unbelievers."
Then presently the gloom would pass; he would go out silently to the
fields, and after a day's work come back in a fever of earthly desires
to his wife.
There were shadows in Bochyn, for all the sunlight and birdsong and
sweetpeas blossom.