JOEL'S DARKNESS
Easter was over; Peter Fleming had gone back to Oxford; Joel Hart spent
much of his time away from home; the lambing season was past; mid-summer
had come.
Joel had friends after his own heart scattered through the
countryside--young men with small estates and little education like
himself. They forgathered in each other's houses, and spent their time
cock-fighting and gambling, losing one day to gain the next, enjoying
and suffering all the excitements of prosperity and failure in quick
succession.
Joel began by winning, and saw an easy way of retrieving his fortunes
opening out before him. Then he lost, and, growing desperate, lost more
and more heavily, till he had little left to lose. He owed money to the
village tradesmen, but that did not trouble his conscience. When he
could not meet his debts of honour--as he was pleased to call them--he
felt disgraced; hurt in his pride. So he came riding home, gave himself
up to brooding, sent word to Lucy that he was ill, and kept the house
for days.
Ill he most certainly was, but in mind and conscience, not in body. One
afternoon he sat alone in the parlour of Forest Hall, his head sunk on
his breast, and his eyes burning. The fire had died out, and the hearth
was filled with ash, yet, though it was June, he shivered.
Mally Ray, his old nurse and now his housekeeper, had gone off for the
day, and left him to fend for himself. On the table lay the remains of a
meal, and the atmosphere of the room was heavy, in spite of the sunshine
outside, and the chiming of a light wind through the tree-tops of the
forest.
He had slept little of late, and his nights had been made hideous by
dreams, which belonged neither to the sphere of waking nor sleeping, but
beset him when he was only half-conscious; and when reality, instead of
being obliterated, was turned into a distortion of the truth.
A vision of old Mistress Lynn and her money-bags haunted him. But he
managed to banish it in his clearer moments. No sooner, however, had his
will become weakened by weariness, than the vision returned. He spent,
or seemed to spend, hours counting the coins, and dropping them into a
bag. Through the night, through the day, at unexpected moments, he was
possessed by this demon of counting. He felt the cold metal between his
fingers, yet his hands were in his empty pockets, or hanging by his
side.
He looked round the room, and realised suddenly that the fire was out.
Then he got up.
"Sleep," he muttered, "I must sleep or I shall lose my wits," and he
flung himself down on a settle.
He closed his eyes. For a while he felt dizzy, tossed up and down upon a
sea of darkness, then his brain became illuminated as with fire; he
began again to count. One by one he dropped the coins into a bag. He
roused himself with a smothered curse, turned over, and tried to fix
his mind upon something else.
He had gone fishing the week before with some of his friends, and they
had betted on their probable catch. But he had hooked only two or three
little trout, too small to be of any use, so he had flung them back into
the mere. Now he heard them fall with a splash, and jingle as they
reached the bottom. He seemed to be fishing again, and dropping them
over the side of the boat, but sometimes it was a coin he dropped,
sometimes a silver-bellied fish. Still he went on counting. The trout
and the money were confused in his mind. He knew that he had mixed them
up; he knew that he was neither asleep nor awake, and he tried to clear
his brain. The effort was painful, he struggled as though fighting with
evil powers, but in the end he overcame, yet rose up feeling sick,
dazed, and in despair.
The room was dusky. How long had he been lying on the settle? He looked
at the clock, and it began to strike the hour of nine. At six he had
counted the strokes, since then he had not heard them, yet he had not
slept. He must sleep, or he would go mad. He sat staring before him for
a minute, then went to the door.
He threaded his way through the deserted passages, where draughts blew
upon him from unexpected quarters; some of the rooms were shut up; but
others were open, disclosing their emptiness. A grey film of dust seemed
to lie on everything, and the evening light, glimmering through the
cobwebbed windows, gave a green colour to the air, as though it, even,
had gone mouldy with long disuse.
He found Mally Ray returned to the kitchen, and preparing their evening
meal. But he refused it.
Mally Ray was a dour-faced Scot, honest, clean, yet with a mind that
regarded human affection as a wile of the Evil One, who tried by such a
means to entrap the honest Christian to his hurt. In her heart of hearts
she loved Joel profoundly, she would have sacrificed her life for him,
but she would have thought shame to let him know it. As his nurse she
had not spared the rod, for she saw his weaknesses; now she used her
tongue in much the same way. She had a long, cadaverous face, a thin and
well-drawn-down upper lip, grey eyes and a high forehead.
"Tidy your hair, lad," she said, "it makes you look like a wandering
Willy."
He smoothed it down with both hands, accustomed to do what she told him,
but he pushed the hound aside that had come whimpering to his knees. It
was in bad condition, having had the distemper and lost its fine litter
of puppies with the same sickness.
"I'm going out," he said curtly, "don't expect me back till you see me."
She tightened her lip, looking at him with stern eyes.
"I hope you're going after no foolishness, Master Joel."
He laughed harshly, turned on his heel, and went away.
Standing by the wall, he gazed down at the trees below him, which were
singing in the wind. There was a cool, sweet air, and the scent of damp
earth rising from the forest. He thought that he would go and see
Timothy Hadwin, and get a sleeping draught. If he were possessed by a
devil, as he verily believed he was, Old Camomile would be able to cast
it out.
He followed the cart-road for some way, then took the winding path that
led to Timothy's cottage. The old man was sitting on the bench by the
door, enjoying the calm of the twilight.
"I can't sleep," said Joel.
Timothy looked quietly into his face, saw the lines round his mouth, and
the restlessness of his eyes.
"Tell me how you feel," he replied.
"I can't sleep," reiterated Joel; "give me something to make me sleep."
"Come in," said the old man. His living-room was small, but neat and
clean. There were rows upon rows of shelves along the walls, filled with
jars and bottles; the place smelled of lavender, rosemary, lad's love,
and other sweet herbs. He mixed a powder and gave it to the young man,
then he made him lie down.
"You must open your mind, my lad," he said, "and let the sweet
influences of the night in. Peace floweth about us like a river."
"Not round me! Nothing has ever flowed round me but black waters, and
I'm drowning in 'em."
Already he felt the cold waves of which he spoke pressing upon his
eyelids so that he could not see. He heard Timothy's voice; it came to
him as through a curtain. The old man was talking of peace. What was
peace? Was it but the exhaustion of passion, the sinking down of a
stormy sea, as waves sink, when the tempest is over? Or was it paralysis
of the living soul, which had felt so much that it could feel no more?
Or could it be the inflowing of some holy element, that would mingle
with his thoughts and purify them? He longed for it, whatever it was. He
longed to be quiet, and as he pondered over the thoughts which
Timothy's words had roused, the roaring in his ears subsided, the
darkness lightened like the coming of dawn. He imagined that he was
lying on golden sand, and gazing up at a river flowing over his head.
Peace! The waters of Peace! Timothy had said that they flowed through
the world, and now he was bathed in them. He heard the river's ripple as
it passed; he felt at rest.
For a few minutes longer the old man talked on, but Joel could not make
out what he said, for the words were subdued and mingled with the murmur
of the magical river.
"Settled weather has come at last," remarked Timothy, going to the door,
and looking at the sky, which was flying with rosy streamers, although
so late. But Joel made no reply. He had gone to sleep.
A circle of silence held the cot all through the night. Though the white
tails of innumerable rabbits flickered down in the forest, and birds
called to each other, and leaves chimed a sylvan chorus, about the
purlieus of Timothy Hadwin's abode lay a deep hush. Here nothing
stirred; it was as though an enchantment had fallen.
Joel slept profoundly. The evil spirit that haunted him in the meantime
had fled, and left his mind a blank. It was swept and garnished--a place
for the Holy Ghost to dwell in, or seven devils.
Daylight had hardly died out of the sky when dawn began. It came with a
primrose light in the east, and a fresh wind. All things woke at the
passing of the wind. The silence about Timothy's cot snapped, and from
each grass-blade rose a sibilant whisper, that, united, sounded like
women's skirts sweeping by. Mint and thyme, lavender, roses and
honeysuckle, filled the garden with perfume.
Joel, too, awoke. He was lying upon the settle covered with rugs, with a
cushion under his head. At first he could not remember where he was, but
gradually the trouble of last night returned. He lay still for a while,
thinking how soon another night would be upon him, and dreading the
thought of it. He remembered that to-day was his birthday.
He got up. Timothy was not to be seen, but the fire was burning, the
kettle singing as it swung by its iron chain over the flames. His own
life was very like the kettle, hung by the iron chain of fate over the
fires of the world. He sat down to await Timothy's return. He had not
the energy, and he did not know if he had the desire, to go away without
speaking to him. Besides, another night was coming on, and he dared not
see it approach without having by him the medicine that gave sleep.
Yet, although he was a good deal refreshed, the beauty of the summer
morning was not for him, for he refused to accept its bounty. He did not
smell the eglantine that climbed up the porch of the cot, and scented
the air with the most memory-waking of scents; he did not taste the
sweet wind that puffed in his face; he wet his dry lips and tasted
bitterness.
Timothy was some time returning, and Joel, for lack of better
occupation, began to puzzle over the mystery of the little man--he
remained a mystery in High Fold, though the villagers had long ceased to
speculate about it, and had probably forgotten, so many years had he
lived among them, that his origin was still unknown. He had arrived one
spring-tide, forty years ago, and settled down in this cot. Though a
young man then, his head was silver-white. He lived quietly, received no
letters, paid no visits, save to the sick in the neighbourhood--but
spent his time gathering herbs, and, when he found an understanding ear,
he talked garrulously about his thoughts, but never alluded to his
circumstances. He was an educated man, knew many foreign languages, had
read many strange books, studied the stars, and believed, to some
extent, in astrology. Further than that no one knew about him.
Presently the old man came, wet with dew, and carrying a basket of
roots, which he had been digging up in Cringel Forest.
"There's a virtue in them at dawn," he said, "that's gone by the time
the sun is high. Everybody who rises at dawn has felt the same virtue in
his own body."
Timothy talked cheerfully, and prepared their morning meal without ever
remarking upon the previous night.
"Take an old man's advice, and a fishing-rod," he said, "and spend the
day on Swirtle Tarn. I'll come too. It's a long time since I tempted
trout with a bracken clock."
Soon after breakfast they sallied forth, and went up the dale past
Greystones. Even on this June day the house seemed to stand aloof from
the sunshine. It looked lonely and out in the cold, like a soul that had
withdrawn itself from intercourse with its fellows. The heavy green of
the sycamores, now in full leaf, hid the barns.
They kept by the beck-side. The bracken all about them was glittering
with beetles--bronzy, golden things, that hung like beads to the fronds.
In the distance they saw Barbara; near at hand Jan Straw was weeding a
little patch of cultivated ground with slow, slow fingers.
Silence held the inside of the house as well as the outside.
Lucy was baking scones on the griddle, but the curtains of her
great-grandmother's bed had not yet been withdrawn.
The old woman kept Midsummer's Day like a fast. In the annals of her
life it was marked as a day of doom, a day when her spirit came into
touch with the supernatural, when her heart wept tears, though her eyes
were dry. Its return each year brought the past back to her, the wild
past when adventure came riding to the door, and no one need go out to
seek it. Sometimes she could reach back through the dusty years, and
feel her flesh grow young and warm, and know that she, and the Annas
Lynn of twenty, were one. But at other times, the eyes that she fixed
upon those ancient scenes were old and cold, and she failed to make the
dry bones live.
One Midsummer's Day in her youth she had stood on the fells and seen a
phantom army pass. This happened three years before the rebellion of
1745. Some of the village folk saw the apparition also, but none of them
recognised the leader of it, mounted on a black horse. A year later she
again saw the phantom army. It seemed to move along the top of the
fells--a train of marching men, gun-carriages and baggage. Then the
mists came down and hid it.
Next year, Joel Hart--the Jacobite Joel Hart--had led a little company
over the hills into Scotland to welcome Prince Charles Edward back to
his rightful inheritance. Though another man's wife, Annas Lynn had wept
for the handsome cavalier. Months of disaster followed; the haughty lady
of Forest Hall had given birth to a son; but Culloden had been fought,
and there was no hope for the rebels. It was then that the lady came a
suppliant to Annas Lynn, whom she had scorned in the past, guessing that
more than a kindly feeling lay between her husband and her. But the
house was full of soldiers, and Joel had ventured home to see his child
before fleeing to France. She prayed that Annas would hide him till the
search was over.
For a day and a night he lay hidden in the wool-barn, undetected by even
the keen eyes of David Lynn. Then on Midsummer's Eve the Northern Lights
had played for an hour above Thundergay as they had played before Lord
Derwentwatter was beheaded thirty years previously. "Derwentwatter's
Leets," the fell-folk had called the aurora since that night. Annas
watched the great bars shoot and fade with despair in her heart, for she
felt sure that Joel was doomed, and he was shot by soldiers on the
lookout for him the following evening.
Upon these scenes the old woman dwelt every Midsummer's Day.
She lay in the four-poster, shut in from distracting sounds and sights
by the curtains. Could Lucy have been so bold as to peer between them,
many a strange expression flitting across the old face would not only
have astonished, but startled her. For her great-grandmother could hate
and love with a mighty passion. Sometimes she bore a strange likeness to
herself as she had looked when she bade Joel good-bye, and he slipped
out of the wool-barn into the dark night. She had been tall and fair in
those days--like Barbara--but with a jewel glittering in each eye. Or,
again, her face might reflect that look of misery with which she had
watched his dead body being carried past the farm on a spruce-bough
early the next morning. Or her expression might change to one that
recalled her hatred of David Lynn, her husband, when he had stood by and
commended the soldiers for their deed of blood. From that day to this,
though he had long been laid in his grave, she thought of him with
aversion. She had spurned her children, and her children's children,
because they took after him in looks and character. Not till Barbara was
born, and another Joel Hart bore the form and features of his ill-fated
grandfather, did her heart warm again to human affection.
She remembered that to-day was Joel's birthday. It was one more
coincidence, which led her to regard Midsummer's Day with superstition.
She looked upon the young man as a message from the other world, and she
gave him her blessing. When she died, her wealth was to be divided
between him and her great-grandchildren. She knew that he was hard-up
now, but money had grown so dear to her, that she could not part with it
till she must, even for a lost love's sake. By tortuous paths the human
soul travels away from the generous impulses of youth, and reaches, in
old age, a place where it had never thought to be!
To-day her memory had been acute, and she had suffered. She felt that
she had been consorting with the living and not the dead--though they
had died long ago; three-score years and ten were wiped out.
Pulling back the curtains, she called to Lucy.
"Go down to Forest Hall and tell Joel I want him," she said.
"He's but now gone up the dale with Timothy Hadwin," replied Lucy.
"Keep a watch for him returning and bring him in. It's a long while
since he came to Greystones to see the old woman, though, doubtless,"
she peered into the girl's face, "doubtless he's often been at the
bridge philandering with a young one."
"Indeed, no, you're mistaken, great-granny."
* * * * *
It was evening when Joel came, bringing with him half a dozen trout
strung on a withy. He found Mistress Lynn in a talkative mood; he caught
a glimpse of the white flesh of her youth peeping out from under the
hard old mail of age.
She talked to him of his grandfather and the wild times of the
Rebellion. She made the past live. She told him how the village was full
of soldiers and spies. She pointed to the wool-barn door, at the other
side of the passage, and bade him look in, and he would see it now as it
was then, with the fleeces piled up, waiting for market-day, but at that
time a hunted man was hiding among them.
Barbara, sitting by the window darning, listened intently. The old tale
was an Iliad to her. She found in it the same elements of greatness, of
romance and poetry, as in the stories of Homer. The passions roused were
deep passions, the sorrows suffered were real sorrows. Her
great-grandmother, the ill-fated man, the lady of Forest Hall, had not
lived in vain, for they had felt down to the depths of their natures.
This was the essence of true poetry. Barbara thought that, if she had
had the learning, and the genius, she would have made an Iliad out of
the old woman's story for the fell-folk.
The wool-barn door still stood open. The stone flags, the oaken rafters,
the brandereth on the hearth--the place had always been used for baking
and brewing, as well as the storing of fleeces--were the same as those
which Joel Hart, the Jacobite, had looked upon among the last things he
had seen on earth. Doubtless, during the day and night he had spent
there, they had become engraved upon his brain. A man could still hide
among the sheep's wool.
Then Mistress Lynn unlocked the bridewain and showed Joel an old
horse-pistol with rusty stains upon it--which were his grandfather's
blood. In a fit of generosity she gave him a sovereign as a birthday
gift.
Joel had listened to her tale with wandering attention. His own troubles
were too absorbing for him to give much heed to this story of long ago.
Although his mind had recovered its balance, and he was no longer
haunted by the fear of going mad, yet it had not gained serenity. He
felt that he was choking in a narrow way, and could discover no turning.
The unlocking of the bridewain roused him. He took the sovereign,
fingered it restlessly, thinking of the hoard from which it came.
"When I's dead, lad, thee shall have many like it," said the old woman.
The impulse was on him to tell her, there and then, about the snare into
which he had got his feet, to throw himself upon her compassion, and beg
for her aid. But he controlled this feeling, for Barbara and Lucy were
present, and he was too proud to unburden himself before them.
"It's ill waiting for dead folk's shoes," said Lucy. "I wish you'd give
us some of it to enjoy while you're here to teach us how to spend it
aright."
"Dead folk's shoes, when they're well-lined, are verra comfortable
things to step into, my lass," retorted the old woman, taking no notice
of the other part of her petition.
"I'm of Lucy's opinion," said Joel. "I'd have great pleasure in drinking
your health with it now, great-granny."
She looked up with a certain suspicious light in her eyes.
"You've got a sovereign," she said coldly; "how many more do you want?"
He laughed uneasily.
"As many as your kind heart could spare a poverty-stricken fellow like
me."
"In good time, my lad, all in good time."
Barbara also lifted her eyes and gave the young man a long and serious
look; then she dropped them without comment.
Joel smiled sourly. If Mistress Lynn's money was to do him any good, he
must have it now. Later would be too late.
Timothy Hadwin had cast out the evil spirit with which he had been
possessed. He had wakened in the morning free from its baleful
influence, but he had neglected to fill its vacant place with a better
one. He had let himself drift. All through the day the old man had
striven to rouse him, but he could make nothing of Joel. His mood varied
from flippant to sullen, but a serious interest in, or a manly attitude
towards life, he seemed to be incapable of attaining.
Now he sat gazing on the bridewain, thinking of what it contained, and
wondering if Mistress Lynn would lend him some money. But even as the
thought passed through his mind, he dismissed it. She would want to know
all about his ways and means, his follies and sins; she would search
the most secret places of his heart if he once gave her the opportunity,
and there was much he would be ashamed for any eye to see.
The old woman sent him to the spring to bring her a mug of fresh water,
for she was thirsty. As he stood in the gloaming with the dark farm
buildings all about him, and the sycamores shuffling overhead, and the
water gurgling at his feet, his eyes burnt, and he wetted his dry lips
with his tongue. He filled the mug and drank, filled it a second time
and drained it again. He was assailed by temptation. Could he not, by
some means, anticipate the old woman's decree concerning the disposal of
her money? A third of it was to be his--she had said so. Could he not
have it now? It profited her nothing laid up in blue linen bags. It
would bring salvation to him. The matter was not difficult to
accomplish. Fate seemed to have thrown the chance at him, nay, had
prepared it and laid it before him ready to be carried out. He had a
sleeping-draught in his pocket which Timothy Hadwin had given him. The
old man had been reluctant, but he had insisted. If he dropped it into
the cup of water, Mistress Lynn would drink it without thinking. And if
she did discover a faint, curious taste, she would imagine it due to the
state of the spring, grown round as it was with water-weeds. He could
hide, as his grandfather had done, among the fleeces, and then, when
night came, and Barbara and Lucy were safe asleep upstairs, what could
be easier than to slip out and open the bridewain unnoticed and unheard?
He had seen Mistress Lynn hide the key under her pillow.
He put the idea from him with distaste: even though he promised himself
that he would take no more than his share, that he would repay it some
day, he could not help feeling it a cowardly act for a man to
contemplate and that man the master of Forest Hall.
He filled the cup and returned towards the house. But on the way he
paused. The darkness of his future appalled him; he was undone if he
could not meet those debts of honour. Where could he hope to get the
money if not here? And such a chance was not likely to come his way
again. He had no time to argue the whole question over once more: he had
been away too long already.
Mistress Lynn drank the water unsuspiciously. Old Camomile was too wise
to put the powerful drug he had given Joel the night before into such
weak hands. The young man was strong, and would sleep soundly enough,
when he learnt to regulate his life like a Christian gentleman.