THE SHIELD OF ACHILLES
Barbara was driving sheep on the fells above Cringel Forest. She looked
down and saw the trees bourgeoning into leaf, and rising out of them, on
the top of a jutting crag, the old house belonging to Joel Hart. It was
an unpretentious place, but battlemented and loop-holed, made for
defence when moss-troopers paid frequent visits, and not for beauty or
comfort. It was, in fact, little better than a fortified farm-house;
underneath it ran a long dark cellar, where the cattle of the villagers
could be driven for safety in times of alarm.
Barbara's keen eyes--keen as an eagle's to scan the broad
fellside--noted the air of decay which had settled upon it, the thicket
of brambles among the chimneys, and how a pine, growing out of the
rocks, encroached upon the doorway. Behind the house the ground swept
steeply up, strewn with shattered boulders and weeping with waterfalls.
"Poor Joel," she said to herself. "He's like Paris, in the book Peter
gave me--beautiful Paris that Helen loved, whose soul ill-matched his
fair form."
She thought of her sister's adoration of this man, and was sad. There
could be nothing but disappointment in store for Lucy, she felt sure of
it, unless the girl overcame her affection and set her heart upon a
more worthy object. But she was attracted by the glamour of fallen
greatness, by his handsome presence, and she admired his pride. Barbara,
with clearer vision, saw a man tossed about by circumstance, without a
guiding principle in his life, whose pride was as hollow a thing as a
soul ever cherished.
She turned away from Forest Hall, and the disquieting thoughts which
Joel roused, and looked up the dale. It wound in sun-swept greenness to
Thundergay, where Swirtle Tarn glittered like a silver sixpence. For
some days clouds had been gathering there, piled one on the other like
wool-sacks, white and soft as wool just now, but stained crimson at
sunrise, and black as smoke at night. The light was vivid, and had that
peculiar quality of deepening the colours of the landscape, often the
forerunner of storm; the purple of the distant hills was more intense,
the green of the grass richer, the red of ploughed earth more
passionate.
The sheep that Barbara was driving were uneasy, making many attempts to
break and turn back. Then the leader, recognising the summer heaf to
which the flocks return in spring, after having wintered in a more
sheltered place, set off at a run, followed by the rest. Shading her
eyes from the sun, she watched them leap gladly upwards, bleating their
welcome to the well-remembered spot--for the bond binding the sheep to
their hill-pasture, is as the bond between man and his own hearthstone.
She turned homewards. As she threaded her way among the rocks of the
rough path, she came upon Jan Straw gathering wool, which the sheep had
left behind them upon the heath and brambles.
"Her was buried in a linen shift," he said, answering her remark that
he was busy at a strange gleaning. "Her was buried in a linen shift,
fine and white and soft as snow."
"Who?" asked the girl, for she saw that his mind was wandering.
"Her o' the white fingers, white as Lucy Lynn's, white like the linen
she was buried in, white as snow."
"Your wife, Jan?" said Barbara, having in her mind's eye a vision of
golden curls and a little pale face, which had been buried long before
she was born.
Jan said no more, but, turning away, continued his gleaning.
"What are the wisps for?" she asked.
"I mun be buried in woollen," he muttered, "the law says so--it said so
then--but she had a linen shroud, the best linen as ever was wove,
shining like snow, like them little white flowers she loved."
He stood up, trying to straighten his crooked back, crooked with the
toil and poverty of years.
"I mun be buried in woollen," he repeated, "and I's picking my shroud
off the brambles. Yon little lass, Lucy, her o' the white hands, she
promised to spin it for me and get it wove. It wunna be white like snow,
like her own bonny hands, but it'll match my old grey face. I's'll not
be buried by the parish. I's'll lie aside her in the kirk-garth below
there."
He wiped a tear from his eye.
"Her should have been buried in woollen too," he added, bringing these
memories from the abyss of his mind, where they had long lain in
darkness, "but her was so white and soft, white as milk and soft as
silk, her couldna abide the touch o' a woollen shift. So her was buried
in linen, and I paid the fine."
"It will take a lot of gathering, Jan, before you get enough to make a
shroud," said Barbara. "But let it be, let it be; leave it for the birds
to build their nests of. You shall have a fleece, and a decent bed, too,
when you need it, beside her o' the little white hands."
He looked at the girl slowly, from her feet to the crown of her head.
"Thee's a girt lass," he said, "as big as the mistress, and they used to
call her daughter o' the giant that lived at Ketel's Parlour. But thee's
got a kind, soft voice, Barbara Lynn, like the cooin' o' wood-doves.
Wilta gie me a fleece?"
She nodded, and the pale watery eyes brightened.
"The birds is welcome to my gatherin'," he replied scattering his bundle
of wool. "I's'll go and pull rushes. We's gettin' short o' candles
down-by," and he shuffled away.
Barbara watched him go. She thought how hard it was to be old and lonely
and poor. Jan had bed and whittle-gate at the farm--decency could do no
other after a life of honest service--but, as the old man was past work,
what use had he for wages? Such was her great-grandmother's argument for
refusing to part with a penny of her hoard.
Barbara went slowly down-hill. She had an hour to spare before
milking-time, and it was too precious to be lost. She passed along a
ledge of the Mickle Crags, found a sheltered spot, and sat down. She
could not see Greystones, as it lay right below her, but she could smell
the turf-smoke from its fire.
There, with her hands clasped upon her knees, surrounded by a wilderness
of grey rocks, she gave wings to her mind. All through this Easter-tide
she had walked as in a dream; but it was the dream and not the actual
that had life. She came and went, rose before dawn, and passed the day
toiling upon the fells, but now and again she culled an hour to spend
with her book--Pope's "Homer"--at the cave. Sometimes Peter came there
and read to her, often the old herbalist Timothy Hadwin accompanied him,
and the two men would talk, while she listened, weaving withy baskets,
but weaving into her own mind many a wonderful thought. Thus she learned
to know the old stories of Achilles and Hector and Helen, of Ulysses and
Penelope; she was thrilled with the beauty, pathos and madness of them.
The natural objects about her began to take on a new meaning; she was
able to feel the freshness of the early world, when men's hearts were
fuller of the mystery of things, less sure of their own place in the
Universe, and stricken with fear before the veiled faces of the gods.
She likened her mind to the shield of Achilles, which Vulcan forged for
him; she thought of it as a great disc engraved with strange
pictures--emblems of all that she thought and knew and felt. But as the
ocean encompassed the shield--
"In living silver seemed the waves to roll,
And beat the buckler's verge, and bound the whole,"
so about her beat the waves of a mystery, which shut in a part of her
life, that her inward eye might concentrate upon it, and yet be
conscious of the depths surging round.
The human mind is stupendous, she thought, beyond the power of man to
understand. When she considered her own mind, and all that was written
upon it--its ideas of life, of men and women, of religion and destiny,
she was awed with wonder that a thing so mighty should have been forged
for her by the hand which gave her life.
Her own existence was too uneventful, too full of commonplaces, too
mean, to provide a satisfying food for her strong intellect. But in
"Homer" she found a feast spread. His men and women lived down to the
depths of their being, and she lived in them. Hecuba and Andromache! the
greatness and bitterness of their lives appalled and stirred her. When
she stood upon the heights and saw the mists rise like smoke from the
dale, or roll from ledge to ledge down the fellside, when she saw the
beck in spate, when she looked through the gloaming at the ruined
outlines of the crags, then she participated in the very thoughts of
these great women; then she felt the presence of gods in the mist; then
she saw Achilles flee before the angry River; then she saw Troy and the
long black ships, and the lines of glittering warriors, and in her own
heart she heard the cry of defeated hosts, of exultation, of death, of
resignation.
Barbara roused herself from these thoughts. She was lingering too long
in idleness. She must go and call the cattle, for milking-time was near.
So she came swiftly down the crags behind the house. They were rough and
steep, rotten in many places, and drilled with springs. But a little
sheep-path led in and out, bordered with blueberries and parsley ferns.
In one cleft a thorn had taken root, and baffled the wind and storms of
years; in another grew a holly; but for the most part the place was bare
of vegetation. Soon she saw the chimneys of Greystones below her.
Lucy stood in the dairy churning. The door was open, and she could see
into the cow-house, and through it, framed as in a picture, the fellside
aglow with the afternoon sunshine. She was tired, her hair was ruffled,
and her cheeks were flecked with cream. Her eyes, at times, were almost
blinded with tears, and she saw the distant glories through mist. The
good green earth called to her, but she was doomed to toil at the churn
in the semi-gloom of the dairy while the day fled, while life fled.
She longed to be out in the sunshine; she wanted to plait rush-baskets
as she had done as a child, to fish for minnows in the beck, to wander
down the dale and smell the aromatic scent of the springing bracken. She
looked at Jan Straw, who sat on the doorstep peeling rushes. He was like
a worn-out garment; she, too, would be like a worn-out garment before
long. Life was hurrying, hurrying by; not long ago she had been a child,
to-day she was a woman, soon she would be old with life behind her. Lucy
dreaded growing old. Each morning when she woke she thought that the day
must surely bring some change, but it passed as the day before had done,
passed in monotonous labour, leaving her a little older, a little
sadder, a little less hopeful. Now and then she cherished the thought
that she was a woman grown, and whispered to herself of love and home
and husband. But to-day she wanted to cast off all responsibility, to
have the mind and outlook of a child.
She paused for a moment to wipe the splashes of cream from her cheeks,
and rest her arms. Then her great-grandmother called:
"Lucy!"
It was no use pretending that she had not heard; the tones of the old
voice demanded a reply.
"Yes," she answered, reluctantly.
"Has the butter come yet, Lucy?"
"Nay."
"Nay? I doubt the butter will never come to idle hands."
The girl began again, and the thud, thud of the churn was like the angry
beating of her heart.
Lucy's unwonted despondency rose from the strange temper of Joel.
Usually he was as affectionate as she could desire, but sometimes,
without any reason that she knew, he would be taciturn and neglectful.
Yet he loved her--she did not doubt it. There was an inconsistency in
him, and it puzzled her. For to Lucy's understanding, character should
be simple, and not a thing of complex feelings and contradictory
impulses. Though Joel purposed the highest achievements, he rarely
attained; though he said that he adored her, he could not rouse his
energy to fulfil his responsibilities. She was unhappy, trying to piece
together these parts of him, and present a clear picture to her mind.
At last she heard the plop-plop of butter in the churn, and her eyes
brightened. When the brain is distracted with questions it is unable to
solve, that concern the inner life, it finds relief in turning to
outward shows, where something is being accomplished--be it only the
coming of butter.
The hind had cleaned out the byre, and shaken down fresh straw. It
glistened in the gloom like thick golden threads, soon to be trodden
under the hoofs of the cows. Lucy could hear her sister's voice as she
drove them from their pasture across the bridge to the milking. They
lumbered in single file up the path--red cows, white cows, piebald cows,
with straight horns and full swinging udders, their brown eyes looking
from under their lashes with an expression of innocent content.
Lucy was in a mood to draw analogies from everything about her, and she
thought of the yellow straw and Barbara's hair, and how soon life, with
its heavy foot, would beat out its gold.
"If you could have a wish just now, that would come true," she said,
"what would you wish for most in the world?"
Barbara leaned her cheek against the warm side of Cushy, her favourite
cow, and pondered this question, while the only sound was the swish of
milk into the pail.
"Eyes," she remarked at length.
"Eyes? You're not going blind, Barbara?"
"Nay, nay, I've got the best eyes in the dale. I can count twelve stars
in the Pleiades, and no one else can see more than six. It's not them
kind of eyes I want--it's spirit-eyes."
"Oh, Barbara, do you want to see spooks?"
The girl laughed, and then was silent. At last she said:
"I feel that if we could push a curtain aside, we'd find ourselves in a
wonderful world. It's here, about us, on every hand, but we can't get
in."
"Spooks!" again exclaimed Lucy. "I've seen a spook. It's the spirit of
this old house--a grinning, grey hag, grey as its name--and it's got you
and me in its grip; but I'll get away from it, see if I don't. It takes
the very life out of me--haunts me like a shadow."
"Shut your eyes to it," said Barbara; "don't think of it, then it won't
bother you."
"Shut my eyes! So I do; but it's my bed-fellow when you're not here. It
gets close to me--ugh!--and whispers and whispers----"
"Well, what does it whisper?"
"Horrid things--all about death and sorrow and pain----"
"They're the common lot of us creatures. You won't escape them even if
you run away from Greystones."
"I'm off now, at any rate," and Lucy took her milk cans and set out for
High Fold. It was her habit to meet Joel at this time, on her way
through Cringel Forest, and glean from their short meeting either joy or
unhappiness upon which to feed herself until the same hour of the next
evening.
The road to the village lay along the beck-side, and crossed the stream
by an old stone bridge just beyond the falls. The bridge was garlanded
in summer with honeysuckle; already the pale green leaves were out--the
first green leaves in the dale--and the sight gladdened the heart of the
girl. The further away she got from Greystones the happier she grew; she
threw off the brooding despondency that had clouded her spirit all day,
and hummed as she walked. The evening air was balmy, the snow had
vanished from the fells, spring had come at last.
She had not gone far when she met Peter Fleming on his way to see her
great-grandmother. He was swinging along at a good pace, with books
tucked under each arm, and whistling like a blackbird. But he turned and
walked with her to the edge of the forest. She could not help a
momentary wish that Peter, with his honest grey eyes, and open smile
were Joel. She could have rested her heart in peace upon him. She would
never have been troubled with doubts. She would have been like a bird,
buoyed up like a bird on the calm blue waters of the mere, as happy and
unconcerned a creature as any on the earth. He had never shown her
anything but a brotherly affection, but she knew by instinct that artful
fingers, and a pretty face could cause his heartstrings to vibrate. Yet
it was Joel, and not Peter, whom she loved.
He left her at the edge of the forest, and she followed one of the many
paths by which it was intersected, that led to a clearing where Timothy
Hadwin's cottage stood. But his door was shut, so she left his can of
milk on the doorstep, and ran down to a little dell to meet Joel. She
jingled her cans so that he might hear her coming.
He was waiting for her with his back against a tree-trunk.
A sweeter trysting-place these lovers could not have chosen. The mossy
banks were starred with celandines, now closing with the lengthening
shadows; hollies, dense and glossy-leaved, formed a complete screen
around, and down in the bottom, among grey pebbles, a spring bubbled up,
as clear as crystal and cold as ice, widening into a pool, in which the
lovely slim bodies of the sunbeams by day, and the moon-beams by night,
bathed and swam.
Joel was in a lively humour, but Lucy would be serious.
"Oh, lad, lad," she whispered, "take me away from Greystones. I'm so
unhappy there."
"Unhappy! What or who has been frightening you, Lucy? Is it the old
woman?"
She shuddered.
"I'm sure the place is haunted."
"So it is--by your great-grandmother. It's not canny to have a
great-grandmother, Lucy. She ought to be a ghost by now."
"Oh, I'd rather have her as she is," replied the girl. "She can't get
out of the four-poster--at any rate she wont till she's dead. Then"--she
shivered again, and moved closer to him--"she would soon be after us,
keeking through the bushes, and crying out in that sharp voice of hers:
'Lucy, Lucy, away to your bed!' But, Joel, I wish you would tell her
that you want to marry me."
"God forbid," he said fervently.
"Why not, Joel? Don't you want to marry me? She's fonder of you than she
is of me."
He plucked a bunch of the little yellow flowers and twined them in her
curls.
"You're very pretty to-night, Lucy," he answered, "and you know I want
to marry you more than anything else in the world. But it would not help
us for me to tell her so, though she does profess to like the looks of
me. She likes the looks of her money better."
"What's that to do with it?"
"She'd want to know if I expected her to keep us."
"You could say 'No.'"
"Then she'd want to know if I could keep you."
"You could say 'Yes.'"
"But I can't keep you, Lucy. I can't keep myself, not yet, though I have
hopes that my luck is changing," he spoke mysteriously.
"Shall we never be married?" she asked wearily, leaning her head upon
his shoulder.
"We must wait a little longer."
"It's always wait, wait, wait, Joel."
"Well, you see, you shouldn't have fallen in love with such a
poverty-stricken creature. But I thank God--whenever I thank Him at
all--that you did. You're the only soul that has ever cared for me,
Lucy. My mother blew the thought of me away as though I had been dust;
and old Mally Ray, honest heart, doesn't know the meaning of real love.
I don't think her religion approves of the word. Look up, Lucy, and let
me see you smile--it's a garden of roses to me, that smile of yours."
She did look up, but to ask in a cold voice:
"How much money have you, Joel?"
"Only a penny piece, but, like the widow's curse, it's going to
multiply."
"Really?"
"You shall see. Some fine morning I'll come riding up to Greystones and
carry you off to be lady of Forest Hall."
She gazed at him through the dusk, at his handsome face and lithe
figure. He was a glorious make of a man. How could she ever have
distrusted him? His eyes were looking into hers with an expression of
the tenderest regard, his arms were round her, his voice was whispering
endearing words.
So she gave herself up to the joy of loving and being loved, having cast
all her doubts and suspicions away as unworthy of her and disloyal to
him.
They sat on a fallen tree with arms entwined. It was growing rapidly
darker; owls began to hoot in the forest; a damp, sweet smell rose from
the undergrowth. They talked bravely, as young things do, of the
future.
Then Lucy ran home by the singing beck, up to the lonely house under the
crags, happy in Joel's promise that he would soon come for her openly,
and ask for her great-grandmother's blessing, which he was sure to get
if he came with full pockets.
How they were to be filled she did not know or ask. But Joel had assured
her that his luck was changing at last.