JOEL TAKES THE LONG TRAIL
It was the spring of the next year, and Joel Hart sat smoking outside
the store of Red Rivers Town. The hunters and trappers were returning
from the forest, bringing in their winter's catch of peltries, and the
place swarmed with men of many races, and all grades of colour from the
ebony of the negro, up through copper to the lighter eyes and fair skin
of the European.
The town was a huddled collection of log houses, built round a wooden
fort. Puny, dirty, and arrogant, it yet stood boldly alone, snapping its
fingers--as it were--in the face of the wilderness, and telling it that
the days were numbered in which its silent places would remain
tenantless, and its secrets undiscovered. The forest crowded up to its
very doors, like a pack of wild creatures, gathering round the circle of
its fires, but kept at bay with axe and saw.
Joel looked steadily before him. There were trees, trees, trees, nothing
but fluttering leaves and solemnly waving boughs for hundreds of miles.
On the fringe, where some men had been felling, lay lopped limbs,
fragrant logs, and stacks of small branches; but the forest stood behind
like an army, watchful, waiting, full of animosity. It threatened the
town as the town threatened it. Any weakness on the part of man would
bring it forward in a riotous march, waving green triumphal banners.
For some days Red Rivers had been seething with excitement. It was
rumoured that in the mountains, far beyond the forest, gold had been
found. Already men were fitting themselves out to take the long trail,
and Joel was one of them.
A hard and dangerous journey it would be, for, between civilisation and
the Delectable Mountains, stretched first the forest, then the
wilderness, silent and visibly hostile. It had baulked the desires of
many, and sown grass between their ribs; it lay like a colossal dragon,
like the worm Fafnir, guarding treasures that had been their bane. But
as the old saga saith--Every brave man and true will fain have his hand
on wealth till that last day.
For gold men will face the deadliest of foes--the Unknown. They will
fight its cunning with human craftiness, its strength with endurance,
its secrecy with open minds. Though perils from snakes and savage
creatures, perils from savager tribes, from disease, exhaustion, hunger,
and thirst, may be their daily portion, yet they will push on with a
blind trust in their own good fortune. And as they go they will cheer
themselves with thoughts of nuggets, large as cricket balls, which they
will make the earth disgorge.
Nearly a year had passed since Joel had left High Fold. It had been a
time of varied experiences. He had been dejected; he had been lifted
high. He had said that Destiny would never lead him to sip at the
Fountain of Success; he had blessed his lucky stars. He had made money,
and after his former habit, lost it in a night. Sometimes the future had
been a blank; sometimes it was lit with fantastical hopes. Occasionally
the present felt like hell, oftener it drifted away--he hardly knew
how--and left behind it a sense of dissatisfaction. He had soon tired of
the post which Mistress Lynn's money had secured for him--there was too
much drudgery in it to suit a pleasure-loving nature like his. But he
kept it until he had won, by less virtuous means, enough to pay his
debts to her and his friends. Then he gave it up.
But the influence of a new world, where men wrestled cheerfully with
adverse circumstances, and overcame them by force of will, roused the
latent manliness in him. They went forth daily--their muscles tough as
steel, their bodies trained to every kind of hardship--and they came
back, sometimes in a few months, rich with the rewards of their
endurance. And so, when he saw men all around him strip for the contest,
and some bear off the prize, he determined to do likewise.
He found an unexpected pleasure in action. Life, smacking of adventure,
got hold of his imagination, and quickened his brain. An up-hill road of
monotonous toil, even though it had led to honour and greater wealth,
could not have spurred him to self-denial and energy, such as now
regulated his thoughts. There was much of the excitement of the
racecourse in the life that he was living. He looked forward eagerly to
the day when he, and a small party of adventurers would set out into the
Unknown, carrying their lives in their hands.
A genial glow suffused his outlook; he could see the dawn of a new life
before him. He was like one watching the light broaden and deepen before
the rising of the sun.
A wind blew from the west, sweet with the perfume of damp wood. Few
things stir the memory like a scent, and Joel's mind harked back to
Cringel Forest, and the old house above the tree-tops. With luck he
would be able to restore it to its former modest but honourable position
among its neighbours. With luck he would yet set Lucy Lynn there as its
mistress.
When he first left High Fold he had tried to thrust the memory of her
pleading eyes away. To a certain extent he had succeeded; for the world
to which he had come was a world of men and not of women, and no one
crossed his path to waken a longing for her in his heart. He had not
meant to treat her slightingly, any more than he had meant to rob
Mistress Lynn. He had drifted into the one, as he had drifted towards
the other, through a light and reckless valuation of moral conduct, and
an utter disregard of responsibility. He had written once, but things
were not going well with him at the time, so his letter was short and
superficial. He had meant to write again when luck changed: but luck was
long in changing, and by then her form had grown indistinct.
With the awakening of his manhood, however, came a stirring of the old
passion. Every part of him was quickened--both his conscience and his
memory. He tried to bring her features back, but he must pay the price
for having neglected her so long, and hard as he strove to imagine her
as she was, her face eluded him, tantalized him, and came near only to
fade away as soon as he turned his eyes upon it.
But the spirit in him, which Barbara Lynn, by her personality, had
touched to consciousness for a few moments, was now fully roused, and
struggling up, through manifold weaknesses that swathed it, to take its
place as the true director of his life.
He acknowledged that he had done Lucy a great wrong--wrong at the
beginning and wrong afterwards--and he had made up his mind to atone for
it as far as he could. He would write to her to-night--a clean
confession of all that he had done amiss, before he disappeared into the
wilderness for--how long? Perhaps to find a grave there.
Just now, as he sat smoking at the store-house door, looking into the
forest, he seemed to see Lucy clearly. She was walking demurely down the
woodland path in her best buckled shoes, which she only wore on Sundays.
She appeared to be happy. Her face was as childish in its outlines, her
skin as white as milk and red as roses, her eyes were as blue as when he
had first kissed her. He fell into a reverie, dreading to hear a strange
bird cry lest it should dispel the illusion.
The afternoon quickly passed and evening came. He stood and watched the
sunset flare over the tree-tops in red and yellow--the red of blood and
the yellow of gold, two colours that have striped and stained each other
since ever gold was desired by the eyes of men, and blood willingly paid
for it.
Joel went nearer to the forest and looked at the threshold leading to
the long trail--a great doorway of primeval trees, beyond which he could
see a grey-green road leading--whither? Through a hundred miles of
forest! He thought what a land of trees this was to which he had come.
The weight of luscious growth must give the world a tilt, he had heard a
man say, like a market basket over-full at one end. One day he had
climbed a hill in the neighbourhood, and seen below him a vast expanse
of green boughs, green to the horizon. Somewhere beyond them, bare and
blue, were the treasure mountains that he hoped to reach.
Swamp and river, he had been warned, many a swamp and blackly-flowing
river, hiding from the wholesome light of the sun under the over-arching
boughs, would try to bar his path to fortune. The leaves were chiming
overhead--a pleasant sound to casual ears. But he had heard that it
drove men crazy. Though it were as unhallowed and insistent as the
voices which haunted those Persian adventurers who were turned to stone
in their endeavours to find the speaking bird, the singing tree, and the
golden water--a tale which Timothy Hadwin had told him long ago--yet
such was his present determination it would not have held him back. The
hope of fabulous things allured Joel as it had allured the men of old.
He went into the store to write his letter to Lucy.
As he sat, pen in hand, the lovely phantom which he had seen walking in
the forest with her best buckled shoes on, fled, and she assumed a
solidity that disconcerted him, now he was prepared to communicate
directly with her. His ready assurance vanished. What right had he to
send her a letter now, after so long a silence? She was human, not
faery: conjuring with a human heart had risks.
He sat for a time pondering over the past, his eyes darkened with
regrets and timid with new fears. Many changes might have taken place in
the dale since he bade it farewell. A letter took months to come. His
letter, if he wrote now, would not reach her till the summer was in full
blow. Perhaps the great-grandmother was dead--swept away by the breath
of the past winter. Lucy might be dead! Death as often took the young as
the old. The silence gripped him like a nightmare. He wanted to break
the suspense. So intense were his feelings, that he felt he could roll
up the space which divided them, roll it up like a scroll, and see her
face to face. But he could not get his hands on the impalpable, restless
curtain, that shut them off from each other.
If he had been able to roll it up, he could only have seen that which
would have robbed him of his energy and hope, for Lucy was in the midst
of preparations for her marriage with Peter Fleming.
While he was thus pondering upon the best way to begin his letter, his
eyes wandered round the store. Two flaring lamps lit it up, and added
the smell of rancid oil to the strange odour of tan, hides, furs, and
woods with which it was redolent. He looked at the shelves of blankets,
the canoe paddles, the canisters of shot, all things alien to his
experience. He felt himself to be adrift in the Unknown, going he knew
not whither. He craved for a familiar sound or sight. He wanted Lucy as
he had never wanted her before. He began to write and tell her so.
Then a man entered, the leader of the expedition which was going out in
a few days to look for gold. He was tall and sinewy, wearing a buffalo
cloak, and a hunting belt embroidered with the quills of the porcupine.
He inspired confidence. He knew the Unknown, and had conquered it.
"What ho!" he said to Joel, "writing to your sweetheart? That's right.
Tell her you're going to seek your fortune, and will keep the first bit
of gold you find to make the wedding ring."
"That's a good idea," replied Joel with a laugh.
* * * * *
He wrote his letter. He poured out himself. He hid nothing from her,
neither his weaknesses, nor his selfishness, nor the despair which he
had felt, at times, when he thought of her so far away, and wondered if
he would ever see her again. Perhaps he made more of this latter
statement than the facts warranted, but on the whole his letter was that
of an honest man who did sincerely love the woman to whom he was
writing. He did not implore her to wait, but he said that if heaven sent
him fortune, he would come to her--however late in the day it might
be--and ask her to share it.
He ended by telling her that he would keep the first bit of gold he
found for the wedding ring.
PART II
CHAPTER XIV
BARBARA AND PETER
Winter came to the dale, bringing snow, wind, and rain. It sneaked into
the sheep-fold like a wolf, and not only into the sheep-fold, but it
went down to the village, and quietly carried off some of the old folk
there. Yet it did not so much as snarl at the threshold of Greystones.
It ran as it were--with its tail between its legs, past the house,
afraid of the great-grandmother in the four-post bed.
Then the summer came, bringing the flocks back to the mountains, and
plenty to the dale. It poured its riches into the old woman's lap, for
the farm prospered. Hard on its heels followed another winter.
Mistress Fleming at the mill-house, folded her hands, and lay down in
her last sleep. Her spirit slipped away in the night-time without a
sigh, and Peter, standing by her bedside in the morning, and looking at
the sweet old face, rosy still in death, found it hard to believe that
she would not soon waken and speak to him. The miller lingered out
another year, then he followed his wife.
Peter was forced to acknowledge to himself, with bitterness, that they
did not find in their latter days, all the joy which they had expected.
No word of complaint ever crossed their lips, they were loving and
kind, but he read in their faces a disappointment which they strove to
hide, and thought they had hidden.
Not only had he failed to realise their fond hopes for him, but his
marriage with Lucy lacked something, which they dimly felt, yet could
not see. The girl was pretty, and sweet, and dutiful. They welcomed her
with open arms. But she never took the place of a daughter to them.
When Lucy first came to the mill-house, she experienced an uplifting of
her whole nature. She was treated with a respect, a dignity new to her,
and she was happy, believing that she had done right in marrying Peter.
But before long she began to feel the strain of living at so high an
altitude. She could not reach the standard expected of her by the old
couple, whose idol was their son; neither could she reach the standard
of her husband, who scorned to show littlenesses of mind or temper, and
would not have feared to lay his whole life open to the world, conscious
of its integrity, had duty demanded such a revelation.
Peter had no place in his life for the little attentions that Lucy liked
to receive. She often thought him cold; for, having once said that he
loved her, he did not repeat the declaration, and she wanted him to tell
her every day. She missed the fond speeches that Joel had been so ready
to make; her eyes never brightened now to hear themselves extolled; her
cheeks never blushed to hear their own praises. Such light language had
rarely been on Peter's tongue, even when he played with her in the
forest, before he thought of marriage. Having been made his wife, she
was on a different footing: she was as the apple of his eye; she was
the woman he had enthroned, and he treated her with a dignity befitting
her position and his own. Alas! he expected from her a seriousness she
could not give! Neither would she enter into his pleasures--she thought
them low, poor Lucy! To gossip with Jake, the rat-catcher; to make a pet
of a dancing bear; to wrestle on the green--were these things not low?
Joel had never done them.
No sooner had Lucy allowed her mind to dwell upon such thoughts, than
she began to be restless and dissatisfied. Then Joel's letter came, many
months after it had been written. She read it through and put it away
with a few tears, meaning never to look at it again, as a virtuous wife
should do. But she was already regretting her marriage, regarding it as
bondage, and so she drew the letter from its hiding place and got into
the habit of reading it often. She found in it all that she
desired--devotion, adoration, repentance; and she believed that if it
had only come a few months earlier, the whole course of events would
have been altered. She wrote to him, after a time, telling him of her
marriage, and a good deal about her deeper thoughts. But no answer came,
and she wondered if he had received her letter. Mally Ray, his old
nurse, heard from him now and again, and he sent her money; then he
disappeared once more into the wilderness.
Peter's own feelings were poignant. Did he think that he had been
tricked? Who can tell, for he said nothing? Like his old father and
mother he hid his disappointment, and hid it better. He set himself,
mind and will, to bring about a happier understanding between Lucy and
himself. Had it not been for the fatal letter he might have achieved it,
but a subtle influence, which never showed itself, yet was none the
less real, frustrated all his endeavours.
So the seasons ran on, and now Mistress Lynn wanted but one more year to
make her a hundred years old.
Peter and his wife continued to live at the mill-house after the death
of the old folk, but the wheel was still, and the villagers had to take
their corn further afield to be ground. Lucy wanted him to sell the
place, and pointed out this and that abode in the neighbourhood which
might be made more comfortable and stately. Peter would not listen to
the proposal. He loved the old house, and disliked the thought of
parting with it, although he had no son to be brought up to be a miller,
as Dusty John had desired. Had Peter been willing for any change, it
would have been nothing less than the uprooting altogether of their life
at High Fold. But now, though he was free to go, something kept him
back.
His father had left him a modest fortune, but idleness was unattractive
to him. So he still taught the village children. He gave Lucy all she
could desire in ribbons and muslins and laces, and he would have given
her a quiet mind if he could. As a village lass did the housework, she
was able to keep her hands as soft and white as she desired, but, with
no regular employment to discipline her soul, she sank into a habit of
fretful impatience, and robbed her home of its repose.
Peter found interest and refreshment elsewhere. The year after his
marriage, while his parents were still alive, he had started a
night-school, and Barbara had come to it, brightening the bare walls and
dusty benches once a week with her golden hair and blue eyes.
He found that she had developed both physically and mentally since the
time, when he used to read Pope's Homer to her. She bourgeoned into
leaf, like a tree, that has shown buds for many a day, but been slow to
unfold. In the new relationship, which was now possible to them, they
found infinite satisfaction. Barbara's smile grew softer, her strength
less assertive, and there was a light in her eyes, which made them look
as clear and blue as Swirtle Tarn on a sunny day. She was an apt pupil,
and drank in knowledge like a creature who had long been panting to
slake its thirst at that deep stream. She not only seized upon facts,
but followed the subtler flow of causes underlying them with clear
vision. She talked confidently to Peter of her wonders and
speculations--they were the thoughts of no common mind.
Barbara lived a stimulating life through those winter evenings at the
night-school. She no longer seemed to be standing on a rock, surrounded
by mists, but the mists cleared away, the rock grew green. The wider
outlook gave a new meaning to her own existence, for it enabled her to
see its human dignity, underlying the trivialities that had disquieted
her hitherto. She ceased to despise those things which the mountains had
taught her. Knowledge became more valuable as she learnt some of its
mysteries, so that every morsel was worth cherishing.
But deeper than the joy which Barbara felt in this expansion of her life
was another joy of which she was only dimly conscious. When Peter used
to read to her at Ketel's Parlour, she had once thought that if he ever
blessed her with his love, she would find her highest self in giving
hers to him. But this dream had quickly vanished, been dispelled by his
attachment to her sister. She saw little of him then, and less of him
for some time after his marriage. Not till the night-school started did
she realise how much of mutual pleasure the new relationship allowed.
And thus, innocent in heart, and unaware of her power, she had thrown
the spell of her personality over Peter. He influenced her also much
more than she was aware of, so they drifted towards a realisation which
must come sooner or later, and shake their natures to the foundation.
From week to week Barbara looked forward to the day of the night-school.
She wakened in the morning with a sense of exhilaration; her methodical
movements received an energy that made the daily duties hum. Since Jan
Straw's death an additional man and maid had been employed upon the
farm. This set Barbara free to take up the duties which Lucy so
willingly laid down upon her marriage. Old Mistress Lynn found the
change admirable; though she had demurred at first, when she thought of
the extra mouths to feed and wages to pay. But Barbara stood firm. Now
everything ran smoothly. Her great-grandmother was happy, and no longer
disturbed by Lucy's flighty temper. She said that she desired to ride at
anchor upon an even tide, until the last sailing orders came for her
frail old bark to put to sea.
One evening Barbara went down the dale, her mind, as usual, in a glow of
anticipation. It was early autumn and the nights were starry, unlike the
nights of summer, whose radiance was dimmed by a heat haze, and a sun
that seemed to set one moment but to rise the next. She welcomed the
stars back to the sky. They greeted her from up yonder like well-kent
friends, and were rich compensation for the lengthening hours of
darkness. Before leaving the dale to follow the road through Cringel
Forest, Barbara cast a glance at the Northern Crown. She liked to link
it to her own fate. It was very bright to-night, no veil of cloud
obscured the glitter of its jewels, and when it was bright she said that
she was happy.
She entered the forest. Far away, shining dimly through the waving
branches, was the light of the school-house. She ran. On every side the
leaves came fluttering down, and caught on to her hair and shawl. She
shook them off, but they still trundled after her. Then she heard music
and paused to listen, her senses stolen away by the sweet sounds. Peter
was playing his flute in the school-room. She did not know the tune; she
had not heard it before. It had a haunting cadence, that returned again
and again, coming sadly at the end of a trumpet note. She thought that
the music ought to have words; perhaps it had; it sounded like a song.
She would ask Peter to play it for her when the school was over.
Then the melody ceased abruptly.
She opened the door and went in. The dead leaves swirled past her, and
began to dance in the middle of the floor, like live things. Timothy
Hadwin and Peter were sitting by the fire talking, the latter had his
flute still between his fingers.
"Just look at the leaves," said Barbara, "there was a sharp frost last
night and they are coming down in showers."
She fetched a besom from a corner to sweep them up.
But Peter stopped her.
"Nay," he replied, "they come so eagerly to school it would be a shame
to turn them out."
Laughing, she put the besom away.
"What a bairn you are," she said. "I really believe that you and Timothy
think they are little bits of human souls blowing about."
"Well," replied the old man triumphantly. "You don't know what they are,
any more than you know what Barbara Lynn is."
She sat down on a bench, and propped up her chin with both hands.
"I admit that I don't know what I am," she answered.
"No, nor yet what a leaf is. I daresay a leaf has the power to remove
mountains, like faith, but, like human beings, it doesn't know how to
use it."
"You're a romancer, Timothy," said Peter.
"Young man, do you know why of all the leaves in the forest not two are
alike? Is it not because there is a spirit of freedom in life however
lowly?"
"Does anyone understand what life is?"
"Ah!" said Timothy, "once men knew more about these things than they do
now. Long ago they healed the sick by laying their hands upon them, but
here am I spending my time making potions, and electuaries, and powders.
Well, good-night, children, I must go. Jake's son Joe has been eating
sour apples!"
He went away with a laugh.
Barbara took her usual seat, and several men came in.
Peter's night-school was more successful than he had dared to hope.
Those were days when education had to be fought for by the peasant, and
books were sealed caskets, which might, or might not, contain treasures
he desired to have. So to the little forest school came a few keen and
curious souls, all inspired by one motive, a sincere thirst for
knowledge. From among the hills, over bog and brae, through mist, rain,
and hurricane trudged a shepherd with a passion for logarithms--he
afterwards gained distinction as a mathematician. Thither, also came the
village cobbler, trying to piece together a theory of life more
satisfactory than that offered by a very intimate knowledge of his own
mind. Jake, the rat-catcher, spent a hard perspiring hour once a week,
learning his alphabet. There were others also, full of eagerness to
acquire, and a conviction that even a nodding acquaintance with letters
was worth having.
Barbara was the only woman who glimpsed the light and strove to win it.
The men would have resented her presence there had she been of a
different make. As it was they shared the bench willingly with her, and
she added considerably to the interest of those strenuous nights, when
they wrestled with the mighty, and the trees hummed in the wind
overhead, or the rain battered on the roof, or the snow blew under the
door.
Peter had given a wide invitation to the village folk to come, and he
promised to teach them whatever they most desired to know. He laughed at
his audacity but was not ashamed of it, for he had a sincere purpose,
and hoped to lead many to the fountain, from which he drew refreshment
and inspiration.
To-night he seemed to be tired. When the nightly tasks were over, he
usually read aloud for half an hour; he liked to send his scholars away
with the rhymes of Pope, or the quaint prose of Malory, or the great
verse of Shakespeare ringing in their ears. But this evening he read
listlessly, although the book was the noble and joyous history of King
Arthur.
When all had gone, he still sat dreamily looking at the open page.
"Play to me," said Barbara, taking the book from his hand.
"Play! What shall I play?"
She told him how she had heard his flute as she came along the forest
road.
He took the instrument, and sitting in the shadow, played the haunting
little melody, that had held her spell-bound earlier in the evening.
"Is it a song, Peter?" she asked.
"Yes, I made it."
"What about, Peter?"
He smiled, but she thought that his smile was sad.
"Only my own thoughts," he replied. "Now read to me. I've a mind that
you should read to me instead of I to you, for a change."
This was the part of the day that Barbara liked best of all, when,
before going to the mill-house to sup with Lucy and her husband, he and
she read together or talked of those things that interested them most.
"I think you're too tired to-night, Peter," said Barbara. "Let us go,
and study again another time."
"Read," he said imperiously.
"What shall I read?"
"The book you took away from me when you asked me to play. Begin where I
left off. There's something in King Arthur that suits my present mood."
She leaned back in her chair, and her full voice rose like the steady
tolling of a bell, as she read the tale of the Fair Maid of Astolat,
who came sailing down broad Thames in a black barge with a letter in her
hand to that most worshipful and peerless knight, Sir Launcelot of the
Lake.
Peter shaded his eyes and watched her. He set his thoughts free from the
restraint under which he had been keeping them, and gave himself the
pleasure of listening to a pure, nature-voice. There was no vehemence in
Barbara's tones to-night; the words came slowly and simply like the flow
of a river. He glided away upon them from the school-room in Cringel
Forest to the silver shine of Thames. He saw it glide by many a grey
wall and steal dreamily under the trees. He was borne upon its waters by
many a fair town. From Oxford to Westminster he went, and if the barge,
clothed over and over in black samite, floated beside him part of the
way, he forgot it, lulled into dreamy reminiscences of his college days.
How long ago it seemed to be since he had bidden them farewell, and come
riding back to his native hills. He had learnt much since then, much
which was a bitter daily meal to him. He was dissatisfied with himself.
He had meant to be so peerless, and he felt that he had failed. He
partook, in a way, of the knight's fate, for it seemed as though he must
be overcome in spite of himself.
So the girl's voice, flowing smoothly like the Thames, which carried the
Fair Maiden of Astolat down to Westminster, took Peter from Oxford still
further away--into the ocean of self-communion. But a new inflection in
Barbara's voice roused him. He heard her read the answer to the king,
when he said that he loved not to be constrained to love.
"That is true," said King Arthur and many knights, "love is free in
himself and never will be bound...."
The girl looked up from her book, and met the eyes of Peter. Her hand
dropped to her side, and there was silence. They knew each the mind of
the other.
The revelation came suddenly. It seemed as though an aggrieved fate had
got weary of seeing two honest hearts striving to hide their real
feelings, and had pulled the veil aside.
They gazed across the bare floor, their thoughts leaping to mingle, and
their bodies stiff like images of wood.
At last Peter made a movement.
"Barbara," he said, "you asked me if the music I played was a song. I
made it out of my own thoughts. They were my thoughts about you."
A wonderful light crossed the woman's face. She knew now what it was
that appealed to her in the melody. She knew that he loved her as she
loved him.
She was dazzled for the moment, as by the rising of a great sun; about
her voices seemed to sing; her heart was filled with an inrush of the
joy and beauty of life. But he was filled with dismay, and yet a strong
temptation to satisfy his passion by a touch of their hands and lips.
There was nothing but the bare floor to keep them apart; no hand to
strike down the arms, which they might have stretched out to each other;
no one to forbid them the fervent expression of their love. Was there
nothing? Their whole life lay between, a true friendship, actions which
had always been honest. These stood by them in their need.
Then Barbara laid down the book, and with a brief good-night went out
into the darkness and the sighing of the forest.
Under the trees there was no light, for the star-shine could not pierce
the screen of branches, and the moon was late in rising. But here and
there the glow-worms were out in wandering bands, carrying their green
lanterns, and, to the discerning eye, shedding a tiny search-light upon
the delicate veining of fern and leaf. Barbara noticed them, for every
sense was sharpened to-night. She thought of her own thoughts, which
clustered about her brain like glow-worms, and made the darkness
glisten. She heard the trees rustling in the wind, and the sound was
musical to her ears. When it blew through a hollow it reminded her of
the tones of Peter's flute. The air had a violet hue and seemed to throw
a soft cloak over her.
She was exultant. She could not but rejoice to know that Peter loved her
as she loved him. They had seen and recognised their kinship at
last--not the kinship of sister with brother, but the kinship of soul
with soul.
In this packed world of men and women they two had found each other. The
bliss of realisation was hers to-night; the tragedy of realisation would
be hers to-morrow. To-night she accepted that which was offered to her
with a thankful heart, conscious of a sacrifice which she must soon
prepare.
They loved each other. Nothing could rob her of the rapture of that
knowledge. She felt herself lifted up and set upon a throne. Was this
the crown that Timothy Hadwin had promised she should wear? How proudly
she would place it on her head, though none could see it but herself.
When she left the trees and stood in the open dale, she looked again at
the Northern Crown. It was fading; all the stars were fading; a milky
mistiness was over-spreading the sky. She went on, still stepping
lightly, heedless of the ruts and stones through which she passed.
Suddenly there was a leap of light behind her, and her shadow fell at
her feet, black and grotesque. She turned, and saw swimming out of a dip
in the hills, a great silver moon.
When Barbara left Peter, he remained in the deserted room, staring into
the fire. He felt no exultation, nothing but great weariness, and
distaste of life. He felt that he had failed, and he had striven so hard
to attain. He had injured Barbara; he had injured Lucy; but never
wittingly. He would have sacrificed himself if by so doing he could have
saved them from pain. He had walked along a perilous path, certain of
his own strength and integrity, and he had never given a thought to
possible disaster. He was involving others in his own ruin. He blamed
himself bitterly.
He plunged into thought, wondering if there was not some way in which he
could cut the net of a malicious fate from about their feet.
But he must not linger any longer in the empty school, or Lucy would
think that something had happened to him or Barbara. He put out the
light and locked the door. The moon was just rising but he did not see
it, so dark was his own mind.
When he got home, he found Lucy sitting on a stool before the hearth,
goffering the frills of a muslin cap. The room was bright, warm, and
cheerful, and the supper table was set. She glanced up impatiently as he
came in and said:
"How late you are. Where's Barbara?"
"She's gone home," he replied. Then he let his hand fall upon her hair,
and stroked it gently. It was an appeal, which she could not be expected
to understand. He felt that he must make amends for his involuntary
injury of her in his own heart.
She drew her head away, and opened her eyes wide in surprise.
"Why has Barbara gone home?"
Peter stood looking down at his wife. She was neat, and dainty, from her
head to her feet. But her face was pale and listless, like the face of
one who sat too much indoors.
"Take a walk up the dale to-morrow, Lucy," he said, "and see Barbara and
your great-grandmother. You don't often go, I think, and a walk would do
you good."
"I've been out to-night," she replied.
"Up to Greystones?"
"No, silly, only for a walk under the trees. I heard you playing your
flute."
Lucy had been to Forest Hall. She sometimes found an excuse for going to
see Mally Ray, and look at the portrait of Joel's grandfather, because
it was so like Joel himself.
"I'm not hungry," she said, "I don't want any supper, but you'd better
get yours. It's a pity Barbara didn't come to keep you company."
He sat down in silence, while she continued to crimp her frills,
apparently absorbed in the occupation.
"Oh," she remarked at last with studied indifference, "I forgot to tell
you. I met Mally Ray to-night and she says Joel is coming home. He's
expected soon, that's if he took the ship he meant to take when he
wrote. He's made his fortune--lucky man."
She stole a glance at her husband. He looked old and tired and careworn.
She rose slowly, not spontaneously, and sat down beside him, and patted
his hand.
"Poor Peter," she said, "that night-school takes too much out of you.
You should give it up."
"Shall we go away, Lucy?" he asked, almost eagerly. "Shall we shut up
this house, and leave High Fold?"
"I'm not tired of it if you are," she said lightly.
She did not want to go away now that Joel was coming back. Yet she was
afraid to meet him. Ever since she had written in answer to his letter
she had lived in daily dread and daily hope of seeing him again.
She wondered how he would greet her.
CHAPTER XV
MORNING AT THE SHEPHERDS' MEET
Flames leaped up the chimney at Greystones, and filled the kitchen with
a ruddy glow. The shutters had been taken down, but the night seemed
still to hug the window-panes, and a black wind moaned in the sycamores.
Barbara, cloaked and hooded, and Tom the hind, sat with porringers on
their knees, eating their breakfast of hasty pudding and milk, while the
sheep dogs eyed them intelligently, now and then thumping the flags with
their tails--the stark cold dawn, that was yet night, and the shepherd
staves propped against the wall, were signs which quickened their canine
hearts.
Twice a year the Shepherds' Meet was held in Girdlestone Pass, at the
back of Thundergay, when the sheep that had strayed into other flocks,
were brought to be claimed by their owners. A wether was missing from
the Greystones' heaf, and three strange ewes had been found, which were
now penned at Ketel's Parlour, where Barbara and the hind would pick
them up on their way.
They had to start while it was still dark in order to reach the place of
the Meet at a reasonably early hour.
Clatter went the clogs of the servant-lass, who tramped in and out with
the sleep still in her eyes.
"You'll mind what I've told you, Jess," said Barbara, giving the dogs
her empty porringer to lick.
The wench came to a standstill, then tossed her head confidently.
"Oh, aye!" she replied. "I'll not forget. I'll tie the legs o' the white
coo, for fear she kicks over the pail--she's a spiteful creature, yon
coo! And I'll give thy great-granny her tea at seven o'clock."
"The green tea, remember, Jess. And be sure the water is boiling."
"Oh, aye." Jess swung her head from side to side, and winked, when
Barbara's back was turned, at the hind. She knew what to expect from
Mistress Lynn if the old woman was not pleased with her ministrations.
"I'll speak soft and go quiet," she replied, tip-toeing into the dairy
with no very light tread.
Barbara drew back the curtains of the four-poster, and looked in; she
knew that Mistress Lynn was awake.
"I'm just off," she said, "Lucy will be up some time during the morning.
Jess will look after you till then."
The old woman raised herself upon her pillows.
"Joel Hart comes back to-day," she remarked, her eyes brightening with
pleasure.
"He should arrive about now if he caught the coach."
"I shouldn't wonder if he paid me a visit before long--eh?"
"Very likely, great-granny."
"Fetch me my best cap--the one that's rucked and trimmed with
Valenciennes, and the white shawl that Peter--the wastrel--gave me."
Barbara brought the things desired and helped the old woman to adorn
herself.
"Well, good luck to thee, great-granddaughter," said Mistress Lynn,
smiling and well pleased with herself. "Don't let any o' them fine
fellows from Dove Dale or Patterdale persuade thee that there's better
farms than Greystones on t'other side o' Thundergay."
Barbara and the hind went out. The air was damp, and the mountain passes
were choked with mist. Overhead the stars still shone, and an ungainly
moon was in the act of tumbling out of sight behind the head of the
dale, as they struck along the cattle-track to Swirtle Tarn.
Before dawn, in the fall of the year, the atmosphere is chilly and
spiritless. The mystery of the night has gone, though the earth, to all
appearance, is still under its rule. There is a uniform dulness on the
landscape, while the stars grow dimmer, the mists cling closely, and
life is sluggish. The wind--if a wind blows--is gusty; rain--if it
falls--is listless. The brains of waking mortals are often oppressed
with a sense of life's futility.
Barbara went along the path in some such mood. After her night of
rapture had followed days of depression, when she tasted the bitterness
of the cup, yet shrank back from drinking it. Like Jephthah's daughter,
although she did not fear the sacrifice, she asked for a short respite
to prepare herself for it. She had not seen Peter since they had read
each other's souls in silence; and to Lucy, her great-grandmother, and
all with whom she came in contact, she showed a serene brow. When no one
was near, however, when she was alone on the hills, with only sheep and
cattle to spy upon her, then her stricken face told of a pain that
stabbed body, soul, and spirit, and was none the less real because it
left no visible wounds. She tried to curtain her outlook and hide the
years to come. A short view of life, so short that a day would compass
it, was all that she held before her eyes each morning. Yet the future
persisted in confronting her. With a stride it would come out of the
darkness, and stare in her face, as much as to say--You shall not escape
me. It was this attitude of the future that harrowed Barbara's mind.
Present pain could be borne--she would brace herself to it; but the fear
that endurance might not endure to the end, filled her with dread. Could
the martyr be sure of his courage, martyrdom would be a state of
exultation. It is the poltroonery of the flesh, and the trepidation of
the spirit, that are his worst tormentors.
But, although Barbara was in a silent mood, Tom, the hind, was
talkative.
"Have you heard," he asked, "that a murrain has broken out among the
cattle further south?"
"Nay," replied Barbara. "Who told you?"
"A man from over the hills. He came into the Wild Boar last night, and
was full of it."
This was news, and disconcerting news.
"There's many a tall hill between us and it," continued the hind, "but
what's a hill to the murrain? The cow jumped ower the moon onced, so I
was told when I was a bairn. Nay, nay, if the black bane comes, it comes
by the will o' God, and there's no more to be said about it."
"I once saw the Need Fire lit," replied Barbara, "and the kye driven
through the smoke."
"What good did it do?" asked Tom.
"The murrain never came to Boar Dale."
"We'd better light it again," said the hind with a sceptical laugh. "But
it's my belief that the murrain will go up the land till it reaches John
o' Groats, and then zizzel out like a heath fire, leaving a black waste
behind it. Nowt stops it but the sea."
"You're not a true shepherd, Tom," said Barbara; "if you were you would
hold fast to the faith of your forefathers and trust in your own good
luck."
They had reached Ketel's Parlour, and there was a grey light in the sky.
The road into Girdlestone Pass ran round the top of the tarn, and on
through a deep ravine, where the mist swirled and twirled, revealing one
moment a patch of barren fell, then blotting it out, rolling away like
clouds of dust before the feet of an army, pouring like smoke out of the
clefts, and floating by like a veil torn into shreds.
The hind unpenned the ewes, and they started along the misty track--the
Robber's Rake it was called, because popular rumour believed that Ketel,
the giant, had used it when he made incursions upon the more fertile
regions behind Thundergay.
Having rounded the tarn, they passed from twilight into the mist. The
sky and the landscape were smudged out as though a wet hand had been
drawn across the picture. The ewes moved slowly, and Barbara and her
companion had not gone far, when they heard voices behind them, and she
recognised the unmistakable tones of Timothy Hadwin and Peter Fleming.
The colour came and went in her face, and her heart beat quickly. She
felt mingled joy and fear--joy at the prospect of seeing Peter and
talking to him, fear in case she might again betray herself, and lead
him to disclose that which could not be the willing confession of so
good a man.
With her knowledge of her own great love had come a consciousness of
power. She knew that she held Peter's weal or woe in the hollow of her
hand.
She paused and called through the mist. There was no reply for a moment.
Timothy had grown deaf lately, and it seemed to Barbara that Peter, like
herself, was determining upon his part.
A call came back, startlingly clear, and two blurred figures moved
upwards through the mist.
"You've stolen a march upon us, Barbara," said Peter; "here's Timothy
priding himself on his early rising, making sure he'd be first on the
track."
It was still too dark for them to see each other distinctly, but as they
went along they talked--about the state of the weather, the roads, the
prospect of a hard winter, all the trivial things which fill up the
greater part of human intercourse.
The mists began to boil again, and rose up like smoke, dispersing as
they reached higher air, or becoming small, detached clouds, that
brightened to a carnation hue, when the light glimmered along the
mountains. The little company turned instinctively to the east.
It blossomed like a garden in the sky, and the rim of the sun was just
visible above the hills. As they watched, it rose higher, rested for a
moment, so it seemed, on the top of a craggy ridge, then heaved itself
into the sky, where it hung a glittering ball of fire.
Timothy raised his hands and salaamed.
"Come away, you old sun-worshipper," said Peter, "you'll get a chill if
you stop to say your orisons up here," for a wind had come with the
sunrise.
"If I were a rich man," said Timothy, "I'd build an altar to the sun on
the highest hills, and make a law that all folks should go up twice a
year and worship it. They should see the earth awake as from the grave,
they should feel the passionate gladness of the dawn, they should
receive strength for their labour, and inspiration for their minds. The
Mystery of the Resurrection is celebrated anew every morning."
He turned away and walked on, but, before Peter and Barbara joined him,
they looked each other unflinchingly in the eyes; where they saw nothing
to make them fear.
The ravine through which the Robber's Rake ran narrowed into a steep
defile on the other side of Thundergay. Looking down into Girdlestone
Pass the little inn could be seen called the Shepherd's Rest, where many
folk were already gathered--shepherds out of the surrounding dales, who
had brought stray sheep from other flocks and were seeking their own
lost ones.
The Meet was attended by everyone who could possibly get there. It was
an opportunity for social intercourse, for the discussion of sheep-lore,
or of politics; of their own affairs, and the harmless gossip about
other people's. When the business of the day was over, the time was
devoted to sports, such as racing, fox-hunting, and wrestling.
Barbara and Peter were soon separated by the crowd. There was a constant
coming and going. Those who had travelled a great distance, either
bringing or seeking wanderers--for a sheep will stray twenty miles over
the mountains--set out at once for their far-off homes. But most of the
shepherds remained, and while the sheep were being claimed, talked with
friends they had not seen, and would not see for many a long day.
Such was morning at the Shepherds' Meet, a scene in which the varied
emotions of mankind made melody and discord; for pride, jealousy, and
affection, with all the notes that lie between, were there struck by the
fingers of these honest fell-folk.
During the morning Barbara came across Timothy Hadwin.
"Are you tired?" he asked her.
"No. Why?"
"Because I am," he replied. "Come with me to the inn, and we'll drink a
pot of the good wife's brewing together. She makes the best ale in the
whole country side."
He slipped his hand through her arm, and the quaint little figure in the
flowered waistcoat, with the silvery curls on his shoulders, and the
tall golden-headed girl moved through the throng, side by side and drew
many eyes.
The parlour and kitchen of the Shepherd's Rest were both full of men.
Tobacco smoke, beer fumes, and the indescribable odour of duffle, that
has been exposed to rain, sun, and wind, the wear and tear of months,
nay, years upon the fells, made an atmosphere heavy and grey. A stout
lass sprinkled the floors with fresh sand, and again and again took away
the empty mugs to bring them back brimming, and dribbling with yellow
froth. All morning there had never been a moment's cessation of the
smoking and drinking, the loud talking and rough jesting, that
accompanied the more serious business of the Meet. The polish of the
brass candlesticks grew dim, and mist settled on the windows, where it
concentrated into rivulets, and ran down into pools upon the floor.
"We'll take our refection in the open air," said Timothy putting his
head in at the door.
They sat down on a bench. Near them Peter was standing, surrounded by a
merry group, who were shaking him by the shoulders and slapping his
back.
"No, no," Barbara heard him say. "I've given up wrestling: I'm too old."
"Too old, art tha?" replied a burly shepherd. "Let's feel thy muscles,
lad."
He began to squeeze Peter's arm.
"Nowt much to complain of there," he continued. "How's thy wind?" and he
thumped the young man's chest with no light hand. "Nowt wrong there
nowther," he said. "Put his name down, lads, he'll wrestle."
Peter glanced across at Barbara and smiled.
Her eyes lingered lovingly upon his figure. She thought how strong and
self-reliant he looked. She knew that he was not handsome, like some of
the men around, but he was beautiful to her. She never wearied of
studying his face, his expressions; she liked the sign of power upon his
brow, and in his quiet grey eyes. She would have been proud to stand
beside him in the sight of men, and claim that she was his best-beloved.
As she watched him, she felt suddenly that she was passing through a
fire. Her blood tingled, and her bosom heaved as though a wild thing
there was struggling to be free.
Putting her mug down she got to her feet, afraid of her own mind. A
flood of passionate feeling was surging through her, sweeping away her
self-restraint, her common-sense, her respect for goodness, and her
fear of wrong-doing.
She fled from the Meet, from Peter, from the seduction of her own
desires and turned to Thundergay, because she trusted that its cold wind
would beat out the flame, which had begun to burn in her soul. She was
assailed by the Harpies, those malignant powers, who would snatch her
away, if they could, and make her a slave, as they had snatched away the
daughters of Pandaros in the old Greek fable.
But the Harpies were part of her own nature, and raged within her. Her
self was warring against herself. She had met a fiend in her own soul,
and she feared to do battle with it, where all things were favourable to
its victory. But Thundergay was calm, solemn, always steadfast even in
the midst of storm. So she sought the mountain solitude for help.
As she climbed up the narrow defile, the ground seemed to reel around
her, and fall away from her feet. She stumbled, she was blinded, she was
breathless, as though the steep ascent now made too great a demand upon
her; but never before had her heart grown faint. Physically and mentally
she was demoralised, as many a brave man has been before an unexpected
foe.
The thing that had thus startled her was her love for Peter assuming a
new and terrible aspect. For it had climbed down from its lofty seat,
and gnashed its teeth at circumstance, demanding its rights. Why should
it live in icy silence? Why should it not give and receive as others
gave and received?
She was full of bitterness and questioning. The everlasting 'why' was
written on her life; not only on her life, but on all things; she could
not dissociate herself from her world. "Why" ran across the sky in
flaring letters; "why" was engraven on rock, fell, and dale. Why was
anything?
Life should be full and radiant, not stifled and stunted. It should have
room to grow, and develop its manifold beauties. But her life, if she
cut her love for Peter out of it, would taste like dust and ashes in her
mouth. She wanted Peter; her arms wanted him; her heart wanted him. She
desired to cherish the beloved one, who was not cherished by his own
wife.
This was the thought which caused her so much bitterness. Lucy did not
love Peter; Barbara had learnt, as the years passed, why her sister had
married him. Lucy had deliberately taken something which she had soon
ceased to value, but no one else had the right to treasure that which
she had cast aside.
With clearer air and the silence of the mountain, calmer thoughts came.
She strove to hold to the belief that life was worth having, even when
it meant the denial of its keenest desires. She scorned the weakness of
her own nature, which made her cry so passionately for something that
she knew she could never have. She had dallied too long with an
importunate master; to-day she must conquer it, and make such an assault
impossible again.
She came swiftly down to Ketel's Parlour and on home. Her
great-grandmother was sitting up in bed, still waiting for a visit from
Joel Hart, and Lucy had not come to Greystones as she had promised.
"Oh, Lucy has a fine memory for forgetting," said the old woman. "She
will have slept in this morning."
CHAPTER XVI
JOEL RETURNS TO THE DALE
Joel Hart returned to the dale on the day of the Shepherds' Meet. The
coach set him down at an inn, twenty miles from High Fold, in the small
hours of the morning; and, having hired a horse for the rest of the
journey, he rode through Cringel Forest soon after day-break.
Mally Ray had cleaned the old house from cellar to garret, arranged the
furniture to the best advantage, and put fires in those rooms which she
considered most suitable for a young man who had made his fortune, but
was still a bachelor.
She was preparing the breakfast when she heard the sound of hoofs on the
road. Austere and dignified, she yet flung a shawl over her shoulders,
and went out to meet him.
Yonder he came, a dusky figure on a dusky horse, riding under the bare
boughs. He alighted as soon as he saw her.
"You're welcome home, Master Joel," she said, and though he had been her
nursling, she shook hands with him after the fashion of her country. But
her hand-shake was sincere.
"Still the same old Mally," he exclaimed with a laugh, and bending down
he kissed her cheek. With the horse's bridle over his arm, and his free
hand on her shoulder, they went up the path to the house. Joel gave a
swift glance round at the rank vegetation.
"There's some need of a pruning knife here," he remarked.
"Aye, Master Joel, you'll find plenty to do now you've come back. I hope
you mean to stay and settle down."
He shook his head gaily.
"I'll make no promises," he replied.
He stabled his horse, wandered once round the moss-grown walk under the
windows, then entered the parlour and flung himself down in a chair.
Breakfast was ready, and he ate it in a strange mood. Five years in the
wilderness had greatly changed him. He had lived through wider
experiences, tasted fresh pleasures and disappointments, thought other
thoughts. But now he had come back to the old life, and already those
days were slipping away, and bygone habits reasserting themselves.
"And how are all my friends, Mally?" he asked. "Mistress Lynn is still
living, I hear. She must be a tough old stick."
"She's near a hundred."
"Good heavens! Think of living for a hundred years! Fewer will satisfy
me!"
"Fewer satisfy most folk."
"Life isn't such a joyous game, is it, Mally, that you'd like to play it
for ever?"
"I've no call to complain," she replied.
Joel took his pipe from his pocket and lit it.
"Neither have I," he said. "Fate kicked me badly once, but she's made up
for it since. I'm a rich man, Mally."
"I'm glad to hear it. I hope you'll use your wealth wisely."
"I shall not tie it up in a napkin like great-granny Lynn. By-the-bye, I
must go and see her this morning. Barbara, I suppose, still manages the
farm?"
"She's a fine lass!" said the old woman warmly.
"Handsome--eh?"
"I'm no judge."
"And Lucy--is she as pretty as ever? But now I come to think of it you
didn't consider her pretty. Well, I hope she's living in the seventh
heaven of happiness with her big booby of a husband. I never thought
that Peter Fleming would marry her--Barbara was more in his line."
Mally made no reply.
"You're no hand at gossiping," he said. "I'll have to go to Greystones
to hear the news. But tell me this--there's a good heart--does Lucy ever
ask after me?"
"Whiles."
"Whiles! as a Christian sister asks after a Christian brother, anxious
for the state of his soul! What sort of a man is Peter?"
"He's a good man."
"Oh, I heard he had brought his father's grey hairs with sorrow to the
grave! You see I've not been kept in darkness all these years, though
you told me very little, Mally. I fear Peter won't have much good-will
for me, since we baited his pet bear that night. Did it live or die?"
"He keeps it at the mill-house. It was poor sport to set the dogs on a
gently creature like yon."
"A low trick, Mally, I've thought so ever since. I'm glad it lived. But
it never cared much for me."
"It never had much cause to. You'd better keep out of its way, Master
Joel."
"I'll not meddle with it, don't fear."
He got up, wandered through the house, whistled carelessly, then went
out.
He stood on the road looking first north, then south. North led up to
Greystones, south through the forest to the village and the old mill. He
could not decide which way to take. He looked at his watch. The hour was
just nine, too early for a visit to Mistress Lynn, so he went in the
other direction. He had no intention of seeking Lucy, but he wanted to
look at the place where she lived. He left the road, and followed a
by-path which would lead him to the banks of the beck opposite to the
mill, and thus he would escape having to pass through the village. He
had seen the house in the early morning when it looked little more than
a blot through the twilight.
Smoke was now rising from the chimneys, waving over the roof like an
azure veil. The parlour window stood open, and the dimity curtains
fluttered out and in with the draught.
So this was Lucy's home--grey weather-beaten walls, an old wooden wheel,
a cottage garden, and the rippling beck. There were flowers in pots upon
the sill, and the curtains were gaily coloured. He thought that he would
have given her a statelier house, silken window-hangings, rarer flowers.
But she had not waited.
For some minutes he stood, hidden by the trees, while his eyes roved
over the irregular outlines, and fixed themselves upon the window. He
wished that Lucy would look out. He wanted to see her again, to learn
if he would still care for her, if her fair face would still have power
to charm him.
As he watched and waited, he thought of the other women who had crossed
his path in the last five years. When he had heard of Lucy's marriage,
he had been overwhelmed, cast down from his high hopes into a gulf of
darkness. Self-reproach and resentment had fought with each other, and
had at last proclaimed a truce, for though he owned that he had done
amiss, and had no right to expect that she would wait for him, seeing
that he had not asked her to; yet he bitterly resented the fact that she
had so soon filled his place with another. But he was young, and having
recovered somewhat from the blow, he had plunged into all the
excitements that his wild life provided, and they were many, enough to
drown regret--if regret can be drowned. He had amused himself with other
women, but he had not loved them--they had soon wearied him, they had
been stale, too ready to be won. After every fresh experience he had
turned longing eyes back to the idyll of the dell in Cringel Forest. It
became to him like the memory of a happy dream, a vision of Paradise, a
revelation of the true meaning of love. And so he had been drawn back to
the dale by the beauty and pathos of a vanished ideal. He cast longing
eyes upon that part of his life; he regarded it as the best part. For
the future he hoped and expected nothing, yet found a fascination in
wondering what it would bring.
But at last a movement roused him. Lucy had come into the garden, and
stood looking at the sky as though wondering what the weather would be.
Then she opened the gate and passed into the village street, turning in
the direction of the road through the forest.
Joel's first impulse was to stay where he was, but he quickly changed
his mind. Why should he hesitate to meet her? If he remained for any
time at home they were bound to cross each other's path continually.
Besides, he felt a great longing to look upon her face again. He
retraced his steps, and came on to the road, just as she was passing
over the bridge in his direction.
She did not see him at first, and he thought that she looked older and
thinner. But when he moved out from among the undergrowth, a swift
change passed over her features. The cheeks took on a deeper colour, the
eyes, half frightened, half joyous, were raised to his. They were blue
as blue skies.
Lucy had been wondering if she would meet him this morning. She had
heard his horse's feet pass at day-break, and had peeped under the
curtains, but been unable to see anything save a moving shadow. She had
dressed herself with greater care, pausing often to still the fluttering
of her heart. After the first thrill of excitement, she became
self-possessed, for she had often schooled herself to such a meeting.
She came towards him with outstretched hand.
"How are you, Joel?" she asked.
"I'm well," he replied; "and you? But I needn't enquire--you look
blooming."
Thus they crossed that difficult bridge of five years.
They walked on together, and he told her about his journey, and the life
he had been living since they last met.
But soon there befell a pause.
Lucy found it disconcerting.
"I'm going up to Greystones to spend the day with great-granny," she
said. "Barbara and Peter have both gone to the Shepherds' Meet in
Girdlestone Pass. You remember it, don't you?"
"Peter and I have wrestled there many a time," he replied. "I think I'll
go and look him up for the sake of old times."
They walked on in silence. Lucy wished that Joel would talk more. She
half wished he would treat the love they had once had for each other as
a forgotten dream. But, stealing a glance at him, she became aware of
his rising emotion; she seemed to hear it like the filling of a well
with water. It frightened her.
She hurried her steps. She wanted to be out of the forest, and away from
scenes that wakened sleeping memories. She knew that his eyes were upon
her now, and she wondered, with that attention to trifles which the mind
sometimes affects in times of great stress, whether or not he liked the
new way that she dressed her hair.
"You came very early this morning," she said. "You must be tired."
"How do you know I came early? Were you watching for me?"
"Of course. It's natural I should want to see you again--such old
friends as we are."
He laughed, glanced up and down the road, and seeing no one, took her
hand.
"It's pleasant to meet again after so many years. I came home to see
you."
"That was foolishness, Joel," she replied kindly.
"Perhaps! Through folly we get wisdom! Ah, here we are near our
trysting-place. Come and look at it, Lucy, for old time's sake."
They were passing the little track, almost effaced now by ferns and
moss, which led to the dell, where they had spent so many joyous hours.
He took her arm, and with a movement that was more of will than muscle,
drew her in that direction.
His face and eyes were waking with the old love. He had wondered if it
would stir again when he saw her. Now he knew that the intervening years
had only fallen like dead leaves upon it; that underneath, it lay green
and ready to burst into leaf, when they should be swept away.
The knowledge that she was Peter's wife angered him, but did not make
him pause to restrain his feelings.
Joel's was an illogical mind--illogical by nature as well as training.
He had never been able to see the true relation of events to one
another, or follow a straight course without deviating from it down some
byway. He strayed from the path, led by fancies instead of principles;
rarely did he consult reason, or entertain reflection, or employ himself
by taking a survey of the land through which he was travelling. He fell
into morasses, which foresight would have shown him; he came to barriers
which he could not climb, though the experience of wise men had set up a
sign-post, pointing out the way, but he would not stop to read it; he
reached a desert, where no water was, because he got tired of following
the pilgrim's track. Yet he had always meant to do right; his failures
had caused him regret.
When he brought Lucy to the dell, he stood for a moment gazing at her
with a searching look. She was beautiful and desirable. But she seemed
to be cold. He would stir her heart's depths and bring forgotten things
to the surface. He would make tumult where there was calm.
"Lucy," he said, "why didn't you wait for me?"
"Don't let us rake up the past," she replied, her limbs beginning to
tremble, for she remembered that she was Peter's wife. "There's nought
to be got but ashes."
He did not heed her.
"Listen," he said, bringing his head to a level with hers; "listen and
I'll tell you what life has been to me since we last met in this place.
When I went into the wilderness I took with me the thought of you. I
knew that I had done you wrong, but it was done without intention, and I
said to myself, she will forgive, for she loves me. So I worked
hard--men have to work hard out yonder, when they go seeking their
fortunes. I suffered hunger and thirst, but counted it sweet for your
sake. I sweated in the sun and shivered in the snow for your sake.
There's nothing a man can do for the woman he loves, save die for her,
that I haven't done for you."
He drew her nearer to him, and she did not resist. She had never been
able to resist the fascination of this man, who looked at her with his
handsome face aglow with a passion, that Peter had never shown.
"The first bit of gold I found," he continued, "I kept to make your
wedding-ring. I tied it up in a handkerchief, and wore it over my heart
day and night. I kept it even when I was down in my luck. But it
reminded me of you, you, among the fells and dales of the home-country,
waiting and longing for me. It was a foolish dream, I know. Then fortune
smiled. Life looked all rose-colour, till one day I got your letter. If
ever a man had climbed high with hopes, Lucy, I was that man, and if
ever a man came sliding down at one blow, I was that man."
Lucy's self-possession began to give way. She might have justified her
own actions, might have poured resentment and wrath upon him. She did
none of these things.
"Oh, Joel," she cried, "life is very hard and bitter. But we must make
the best of it."
She made an effort to go away, before her feelings betrayed her into any
deeper revelations than she had a right to make. But he caught and
kissed her. She struggled to free herself, but his arms were like steel
bands. If Peter had ever kissed her thus she might have become his as
truly in heart as she was in name. But Peter's kisses, though kind, did
not thrill her. He never swept her off her feet in the flood of an
overmastering emotion. He was always quiet and self-controlled, while
she loved to feel as though a stormy sea were beating upon her bosom.
She did not think that his love might be more enduring than that which
could rise like a tempest, but as suddenly fall again.
For Joel and Lucy, just now, five years were blotted out, five years of
separation and misunderstanding. Duty, too, was swept into oblivion by
their reckless hands. Heedlessly they set out in an unsound boat upon a
dangerous sea, and forgot the depths below, the yawning lips of the gulf
which would suck them down sooner or later to everlasting regret.
"You are mine, Lucy," whispered Joel, "you are mine. I always knew you
were."
For a few minutes she lay soothed within the shelter of his arms. Then
she tore herself away. Without a word, but with a scared face, she fled
back through the forest to her home. There she flung herself down by a
chair and wept.
She remembered that her great-grandmother would be expecting her, but
she dared not confront those eagle eyes in her present state of mind.
The world had taken on a darker hue since she had gone out but a little
while ago. Yesterday was grey, but it had passed serenely. To-day clouds
were rolling up, and she heard the mutter of approaching thunder.
Where was peace, that she might find it? Only in resignation. Where was
happiness, that she might snatch at it? Only in devotion to duty. Where
could she turn for safety? She felt that she was swinging over an abyss.
There was safety with Peter. But resignation was a hard bed. Duty had
lost its savour. And she was afraid of Peter now, for she knew that she
had wronged him.
* * * * *
Joel remained in the dell for a while after Lucy had left him. His idyll
had become a tragedy. His vision was defiled. He wondered if he should
go away now, and never return. He wanted to keep Lucy as he had always
thought of her--sweet, pure, dream-like. He could not do that and have
her. He meant to have her. He would sacrifice his ideals to have her.
How he would bring it to pass he did not know, but some time the way
would open out. Had she not said that she loved him?
He burned with hatred towards Peter, towards the man who had
circumvented him. What use was his wealth to him if he must live alone,
deprived of the one thing he most wanted to have?
He might have remained there for a long time, struggling with his good
and evil natures, but he was disturbed by the sudden entrance of the
bear and Jake into his solitude. The beast had a particular affection
for the pool in the dell, and preferred it to all others for its daily
bath.
But no sooner did it set eyes on Joel, than it began to growl and
bristle up with anger.
"Hulloa, Master Joel, back again to the dale," cried Jake.
"Back again," he replied with assumed cheerfulness. "But it seems as
though I've found an enemy waiting for me."
The rat-catcher tightened his hand on the chain.
"Big Ben doesn't often show his teeth. Maybe you'd better hook it,
master; seems as though he'd got a memory, eh?"
Joel laughed, but took the wiser part of withdrawing before the
creature had strung up its ponderous limbs to deal him a blow, which
would have ended his temptations for that day and many days to follow.
CHAPTER XVII
THE WRESTLING MATCH
Joel looked in at Greystones on his way to the Shepherds' Meet. He would
rather have passed the house by, for he was in no mood to talk to
Mistress Lynn, but he did not like to seem discourteous to one who had
been as kind to him as she had been.
"Why, Joel, man," she exclaimed, "thee's grown handsomer than ever. Thee
always was a bonny lad, but thee'd better have a care now, or all the
lasses will be making sheeps-eyes at thee up hill and down dale."
"You look very well," said Barbara.
He glanced from the old woman to her great-granddaughter, and smiled,
throwing off the impatience that he felt with an effort.
"It's you who have grown handsomer, not I, Mistress Lynn," he replied.
"You look nearly as young as Barbara. If you put that grand nightcap
you're wearing on her head, she'd be the image of you, and you of her."
"Hoots-toots! and me going on a hundred!" She shook her finger at him.
"I's too old to have my senses turned with such babblement. I was like
Barbara once, but not in your day, my lad. It's to her you should be
paying your compliments, not to her great-granny. Your grandfather gave
me all I ever wanted."
She made him sit down by the four-poster, with his face to the windows,
so that she could see him well.
"I couldn't pay Barbara a greater compliment," he said smoothly, yet
with a glimmer of amusement in his eyes, for he saw the drift of her
mind, "than by likening her to you. You and she are the handsomest,
bonniest pair that I've set sight on since I last saw you both."
"Get away with you, Master Joel; you've got far too sly a tongue for
simple folk like the lassie and me."
He stayed at Greystones for half-an-hour, talking idly, and looking
round the kitchen with very mingled feelings. It seemed to be just as it
was the last time he had been there five years ago. Nothing was altered.
The great oak table stood under the transom windows, the bridewain near
the bed; he was sure that the fire had never been allowed to die out;
and hams and three whole sheep hung curing in the chimney as he
remembered they used to do. His eyes rested upon the clock. Once he had
listened to it striking the hour of midnight under unhappy
circumstances. Now he listened to it striking the hour of noon, under
other circumstances, not less unhappy.
It was only twelve o'clock! He had arrived at day-break in a mood
partaking more of resignation than disappointment, and already he had
roused the sleeping dogs of his nature. They were in full cry after
forbidden sport. He felt that he could sit no longer talking
commonplaces to the old woman, and rose.
"What, off already!" she said.
"I'm going to the Meet. Most of my old friends will be there, and it's
too good an opportunity of seeing them all to be lost. I'll come in
again on my way back. Isn't Barbara going?"
"She's been and returned. Barbara's a good lass and looks after her old
great-granny! The Lord will bless her!"
The girl walked with him to the garden gate, told him that Peter had
promised to wrestle, and that he would be in time for the games if he
hurried; then she came back to the kitchen, meditatively.
The misty morning had blossomed out into a fine noon. A few showers had
fallen, but the sun glanced through them, and they were not heavy enough
to damp the spirits of men used to bitter winds and merciless rains.
The patch of flat ground about the Shepherds' Rest thronged with life.
Sheep, dogs, and human voices, both male and female, for the wives and
daughters gathered to see the games, added to the clamour of a wild
stream that rushed through the pass, below the inn. Above and all
around, the grey crags and wide sweeps of heather and bracken were
wrapped in sombre silence, save when a pair of herons flew screaming by
to their feeding-ground on some distant tarn.
When Joel Hart came down the defile he halted for a moment to view the
animated scene below him. He was drawn towards it, yet repulsed. The
sight of so many well-known figures, after five years' wandering among
strangers, quickened his blood. Yet between them and him the thought of
Lucy flashed. He wished that he had not come, but returned to Forest
Hall, where he could have indulged his feelings for her in undisturbed
retreat; then, again, he was glad that he had come, for he wanted to
distract his mind from the still small voice of conscience which would
not let him be.
His meditation had an abrupt end. Someone saw him, and his old
friends--those wild young men with whom he had wasted his substance in
the past--carried him off to the inn, where he ordered drinks all round.
A reckless mood came over him. He thrust the vision of Lucy into a
corner, and, with a laugh that was forced, yet strove to be genial, he
entered into the spirit of the crowd, which was bent on extracting out
of the next few hours as much pleasure as every man could hold.
His first impulse was to avoid Peter, yet, turn where he would, the
quiet grey eyes of his rival--so he had come to regard him--seemed to
meet his own.
Peter knew of Lucy's early love for Joel--though she had only spoken of
it once, and that was shortly after their marriage--but he was free from
the suspicion, which is the bane of little minds, so he greeted the
newcomer frankly and calmly, unaware of the tumult which the sight of
him had roused.
Joel flung back his head with a careless gesture. In his heart of hearts
he would like to have knocked Peter down. Was not Peter his supplanter?
Had he not, while pretending to be his friend, lured Lucy from him? But
he swept his hand across his face, and with it obliterated the hatred of
his glance, for he had no desire that it should betray him.
"You're getting stout, Fleming," he said, "stout and contented-looking,
as befits a married man."
"Portly, eh?" replied Peter. "Yes, I sit too much."
"Thee should whickam-whackam, spickam-spackam more," said a young
shepherd standing by. "Old Schoolie Satherwaite had arms like a crowbar,
and o' with sugaring the cane. 'It's a grand receipt,' he used to say,
'a grand receipt for keeping the muscles in trim.'"
"He kept more than his muscles in trim," answered another, "for he
trimmed our hides to some purpose. If he couldn't birch for aught, he
birched for nought. I mind the day he called Jerry Langdale yonder into
the middle of the floor, and, 'Jerry,' says he, 'I'm going to larrop
you.' 'I's done nowt amiss,' says Jerry, as pert as you please. 'Nowt
amiss,' says Schoolie, 'Good God, that's unnatural. I'll have to bensal
the natural man back intil you, and so circumvent the deevil' Jerry got
such a warming that it kept the frost out for many a day."
"Peter's over-gentlemanly with the rascals," said one.
"Peter can use the rod when he likes," replied another, nudging Fleming
in the ribs. "I heard tell how you spanked Jake's Joie, and o' for
telling a lie. Joie's mother told me that he took his porridge standing
for a week after, and he's been a truthfuller lad ever since."
Peter pulled out his watch.
"Time is running on, lads," he said. "I'd better go and get ready to
wrestle, or you'll give me no credit for having kept my muscles in trim
with switching the bairns."
Joel was left with his own particular friends. They were not much liked
by the shepherds, for they gave themselves airs; but they spent their
money freely, and were treated with a certain amount of good-humour and
respect.
Joel Hart was a lucky dog, they said, to go away and come back after
five years a rich man. They had trudged along the same old paths, but
not one of them had managed to find the goose that lays the golden eggs.
There was not much wealth to be got out of the dales and fells. They had
half a mind to try their fortunes overseas. They would have no
misgivings, but most of them had married a wife. Joel was a wise man not
to tie himself to a woman's apron-strings before he went away. Now he
had come home, of course he would marry, and rear a progeny to make
ducks and drakes of his money. That was always the way of it. Would he
stay now he had come back? or would they find him gone again some fine
morning?
Joel unbent under the combined effects of home-brewed ale, and lively
companionship. He did not know if he would remain at Forest Hall. When
he was out in the wilds he used to think his home the most beautiful
spot on the earth, but he was not sure that he might not soon grow tired
of it now, after the life he had been leading. He had no intention of
taking a wife unless they could show him a lass that would cap his
fancy.
But whether he stayed or not, he was glad to be back among his own folk
again. Out in the wilderness he had often longed for a sight of a
familiar face, and the sound of the Northern tongue. His arrival was
most opportune, for he would have been sorry to miss the Shepherds'
Meet.
Six years ago they had had a great time--did they remember? John
Wheeler, the champion wrestler, had come, and given the native talent
high praise. He had shown some of them--himself for one, and Peter
Fleming for another--a few tricks. Wheeler dead since then! Ah! that was
a pity! He was one of the few champions who belonged to the good old
Westmorland stock.
"Out at the gold diggings," Joel continued, "there were two or three men
who could wrestle. We often had a bout of an evening in front of the
drinking booth."
"Wrestle now," said one. "There's your old friend Peter Fleming longing
to try a fall with you, I don't doubt. Come along, man. No shaking of
your head now. Lord! That's a good idea. We've not seen any decent
wrestling since you went away."
Joel was carried off, making half-hearted protests. His mind was full of
confused thoughts. He was gratified at the manner in which his old
friends had received him; he felt a return of the reckless spirit that
had always awakened in their company; moreover, he would like to throw
Peter. He must double up that strong figure in ignominy; he must pay
back old scores, and new ones also. Though Fleming was more muscular
than he, yet his was the greater quickness and subtlety of action. He
would come off victor.
He thought of Lucy, and emotion again rushed through his brain like a
stream in spate, carrying reason before it.
But when he entered the ring he felt cool. He had a purpose to fulfil,
and this gave him the full command of his senses. He knew now that,
through the years of his absence, he had been moved with a vague
antipathy towards this man. Their old friendship had been but a veil
drawn over the blind face of hate. From the beginning they had been
doomed to circumvent one another. Peter had circumvented him by marrying
Lucy; the time had arrived for him to overcome Peter.
That the occasion for wiping out the score was only a wrestling-match in
a mountain pass did not take away from its significance. To the
onlookers it was but a trial of strength and cunning; to Joel it had a
deep human meaning. Not as a friendly rival did he now confront his
antagonist, but as an embodied vengeance, determined to mark upon his
adversary the humiliation which he had received at the other's hands.
Joel got strength, far beyond his physical powers, through the intensity
of his passion. It was a spiritual strength, derived from a spiritual
source, though not from the well of light. It bubbled up in a dark
region where lost souls come to drink, and those who have wandered from
the right path to seek forbidden things.
Peter confronted Joel with a gay laugh, unconscious of the conditions
under which they were to wrestle. Peter played the game for the game's
sake, and though he was keen to acquit himself worthily, yet he could
take a fall, and think no worse of himself or like his conqueror less
for it.
But now, as he and Joel swayed together with their hands locked behind
each other's backs, he became aware of something unusual in the
struggle. He could not have defined what it was, yet of its presence and
force he had no doubt. Its effect upon himself was annoying. His
good-humour left him. Over his mind came a chilling influence. He tried
to shake it off, but in vain. He felt sure that he was wrestling for
more than the barren triumph of muscle over muscle, but for what?
Had it not been for the strength which his feelings gave him, Joel would
soon have measured a fall. As it was he exerted a force like that of a
glacier, not swift, but slow, ever driven on by the sullen weight behind
it, for Joel's hate was cold, not hot; callous not furious.
Peter's anger increased. He felt that he had been entrapped into a
combat which he would have scorned had he known. The honest wrestling of
the dalesfolk was being lowered to serve the purposes of personal
ill-will. He could not withdraw honourably--no rule had been
infringed--yet he loathed the stake for which they struggled. His spirit
disdained the thought of heating itself in a common brawl. He had not
the inclination, even if he had had the time, to wonder at the reason
for Joel's attitude towards himself. When two men are at grips with each
other, there is little opportunity for reflection or philosophising.
Thoughts that do come, come like pictures flashed upon a screen, and are
switched away in a moment, leaving behind a vague impression of their
significance.
Before long the bystanders began to realise that in the wrestling of
Peter and Joel there was an unusual element. At first they showed their
interest without restraint, but, as the struggle grew keener, though
neither had the mastery, feeling ran too strongly for much sound. A
sudden shout, a long-drawn breath, a murmur that broke off abruptly,
eyes which would not suffer the lids to blink, and hands that gripped
the hurdles as though they clung for life, were the measure of their
excitement. Those gathered round the ring were thrilled by such passions
as must have swayed men at a gladiatorial show, when men fought for
their lives.
The wrestlers grew heated; their bodies smoked; their lips curled back
from their teeth; their eyes were bright. The spirit of the savage still
sleeps in every man. In Peter it began to awaken, roused by the clutch
of Joel's hands. The refinements of civilisation were in danger of
falling away from him, and leaving him a creature of brute force, whose
one idea was to bear down his enemy with cunning and superior strength.
But he drew himself together; he had never lost control of his nature,
and he would not do so now. Amid the ferment of his impulses he strove
to be calm, to be resistless yet not fierce, to overcome, but without
anger.
The feeling of the spectators was intensified, as they saw the two
figures become motionless, though the veins on their arms stood up like
cords, and their bodies were bent in such a manner as showed the
straining of the great muscles of their backs and shoulders. Two figures
modelled in clay they might have been, instead of two struggling forces.
Neither would give in. Their breasts laboured with painful breathing,
the breath whistled as it came and went. Down their brows poured the
sweat, making their faces shine in the yellow light of the November sun.
Their hair was clotted, their shirts were drenched as though they had
been dipped in the beck.
Peter felt his head grow dizzy. He thought that his temples would burst
with the hammering of his blood. The sun got into his eyes and dazzled
them, and, though he managed to shift his position, the glitter of it
had already filled his brain.
He seemed to catch a vision of Lucy, sitting quietly at home. He
wondered if she would ever come to know of the fierce battle fought for
her sake. Apart from his direct consciousness, his mind had gone on
working, and reached the conclusion that Joel's madness sprang out of
his love for her.
The day was drawing to a close. Clouds were hurrying up from the
south-west, and reflecting a lurid glow down into the pass. Soon there
would be rain and night.
Joel made a supreme effort to throw Peter. He rallied all his failing
powers, his face grew purple, he bent to give the last swing which
should lift his adversary from his feet, when he slipped and fell.
There was a loud cheer from the onlookers; they leaped over the hurdles
to shake Peter by the hand; the ring surged with men and dogs. Then
silence fell, and hushed the words on men's tongues even when they did
not know the cause.
Joel lay on the ground, his face ghastly as that of a corpse, while a
red stream trickled from his mouth.
CHAPTER XVIII
BY THE CRESSET'S LIGHT
Barbara was alone at Ketel's Parlour. A lighted lamp hung from a hook in
the ceiling, and a fire smouldered on a slab of blue slate, while the
smoke escaped through a cleft in the wall. Outside was night, starless
and black, though the hour was not much later than seven o'clock. Not
long ago she had heard the village folk returning from the Meet, but
they went home by a track on the other side of the beck, and did not
come near the cave.
Barbara wanted to think, and, in order to think clearly, she must be
alone. The huge fire at Greystones, that made every corner of the
kitchen as bright as noon, and the alert old woman in the four-poster,
prevented any such deep meditation as she craved. But as the work of the
day was over, and Jess, the servant-lass, had sat down to spin by the
ingle, she could absent herself for a while with a clear conscience.
The cave was part of herself. Its rocky walls seemed to have taken on
the impression of her thoughts. She had stamped her personality upon it,
and loved it as the habitation of her spirit. Here she was free, though
free nowhere else in the world; here she shook off the cloak under which
she hid her true being; here she could meet herself face to face
without fear of prying eyes.
There was a charm in the cave which fitted her every mood. Were she
happy, the spring that bubbled out of the floor and ran sparkling among
the stones, laughed in unison with her. Were she sad, no sunlight could
come here to stare and mock. Were she weary, yonder was a couch of
heather and sheepskins for her body, and a silence that hung around her
brain like a curtain. Did she feel herself inspired to pray, the walls
and the dim light were solemn as those of a shrine.
Peter had given her the cresset lamp, and she had brought her books
here, keeping them in an oak chest which she had found at Greystones,
that preserved them from damp.
She knew the cave so well--every stone on the floor, every crack in the
walls where tiny ferns grew--that she could have found her way about it
blindfold. She often thought that, when she came to die, Ketel's Parlour
would remain the most vivid picture in her mind.
Death was a familiar meditation to Barbara. She met it so often that it
forced itself upon her notice. The destroyer tramped the fells even in
summer-time, taking his toll of sheep and lambs, and now and then
snatching away a man. But when winter came, with its storms of wind and
rain; when it held the becks stiff behind icy bars; when it filled the
gullies with drifting snow and levelled dangerous slopes, then it seemed
to be a miracle that any living thing should come through it alive. Time
and again, between November and March, those whose work took them to the
great wastes, would face death, would go where a slip was destruction,
where presence of mind, and swift, unerring action meant life; where
nothing but the instinct that is born in some men, added to hard-won
experience, could bring them safe and sound out of the valley of the
shadow to their own hearth-stones.
Barbara often wondered how her own end would come. Would she be like a
shepherd, who had gone out one wild night to bring the ewes to a more
sheltered spot, and who was blown over a precipice? Would she fall into
a drift when helping to dig out the sheep, and perish of the suffocating
snow in which a sheep may live, but not a human being? Would she grow
dizzy when climbing some steep ascent, and fall down to be dashed on the
rocks below? Or would she, like her great-grandmother, live for a
hundred years, and die at last in the four-poster, with the bridewain on
one side of her and the dresser on the other?
No; anything but that. She hoped that death would not forget her, as it
had forgotten Mistress Lynn, that grim, grey, human Sphynx, which could
look back along the years for a century. That such a lot might be hers
filled the girl with horror. But she would not believe it. She cared not
how death came, but she hoped he would not tarry, for life held nothing
now that could make her wish to live. Life was full of renunciation and
sacrifice, and she was tired of striving after righteousness.
She had not been long alone when she heard a voice calling her:
"Barbara! Barbara!"
Absorbed in her thoughts, she imagined that the voice came from her
inner consciousness, and was spirit speaking unto spirit. But it called
again, and this time fell upon her ear with unmistakable urgency:
"Barbara!"
Lucy was running across the slope, towards the light issuing from the
cavern's doorway. She looked excited, her cheeks were aflame, her eyes
shining.
"You must come with me," she cried. "You must come at once, over the
Robber's Rake to the Shepherd's Rest. Joel is dying."
She took her sister's hand, and began to draw her towards the door.
"Sit down, Lucy, and calm thyself," said Barbara.
"Sit down! Nay, I tell you we must go at once. Come, there is no time to
lose. He may be dead before we see him."
"I don't understand," said Barbara.
She stood under the cresset's light like a rock, while Lucy, like a
wave, fretted about her. Exasperating to such a nature as Lucy's was her
sister's calmness.
"Oh! you don't understand," she cried. "You never have understood. You
have a heart like a lump of ice. You have always been against Joel and
me. It is you who thrust us apart. But, now that he is dying, I thought
you'd relent. Still, I'll go----"
"Has he sent for you?"
"Nay! I tell you he's dying. Oh, Joel, Joel, to think you should be
leaving me again so soon. But I'm coming, yes, I'm coming."
The girl wrung her hands, looked wildly round, then her face hardened.
"If you'll not come, I'll go alone," she said. "I'm not afraid of the
dark."
But Barbara barred the doorway. She pointed to the stool from which she
had risen. "Sit down," she said, "and tell me what you know. Then, if
you're determined to go, I'll go too."
"Joel may be dead by then."
"Whether he lives or dies is not in your hands. It's not to you, Lucy,
that his soul will be given."
"Oh, I wish I had passed by and left you alone. I might have known, I
might have had more sense, than think you would feel for me. You were
always hard as flint, though I used to believe you were a saint. But
don't cast me off, Barbara. I'm very miserable."
Barbara knelt down by the distracted girl, and put her arms round her.
"What is wrong with Joel?" she asked softly.
"He's dying, oh God, he's dying, and I'm not there to bid him good-bye."
Then, amid sobs, she told her sister all that she knew, about the way
Joel and Peter had wrestled, and how Joel had strained himself and
broken a blood-vessel. He was now lying at the Shepherd's Rest, attended
by Timothy Hadwin and her husband. Peter had sent her word that he could
not get home that night.
"I'll never forgive Peter," wept Lucy. "He oughtn't to have wrestled. He
knows I hate wrestling. I've always hated it. Perhaps I knew at the back
of my mind it would some day bring trouble to me."
"This is childish, Lucy," said Barbara, with a note of revolt in her
voice. She scorned her sister for preferring Joel to Peter. Joel had
nothing to recommend him save his physical perfection, and his old name.
His claim to sympathy, his affectionate nature, had never touched her,
so she failed to realise their effect on Lucy. If Peter had been her
husband, she would have found a glory in loving where duty pointed.
Alas, duty bade her pluck out her love and cast it from her.
Barbara had known for a long time that her sister was not happy. There
was less simplicity in her manners than of old, less desire to please,
and much less concern about her fine clothes and good looks. That she
was nursing vain regrets Barbara needed no telling to know, and she had
hoped often that Joel would not return. Providence had willed it
otherwise. For the stricken creature nothing remained but to turn its
face from temptation, and follow the straight and narrow way, with grace
if possible, at all costs with determination. But Lucy had no intention
of keeping to so strict a path.
"Come," she said.
Barbara rose slowly from her knees. She knew that Lucy must not go. She
went to the doorway, and stood for a moment looking out. The night was
dark with clouds, and wind came shuffling over the grass at fitful
intervals. Now and again she heard the tinkle of waves breaking on the
shores of Swirtle Tarn; near at hand a sheep called, and was answered by
another and yet another, till the mournful bleat of the most distant
member of the flock died upon her ear.
Lucy stared at her sister's back. She did not get off her stool for,
impulsive and excited as she was, stubborn too at times, she read
something in Barbara's pose that kept her silent. The firelight lit up
the shining hair pleated round the fine large head; one lock had become
loose and hung down upon her shoulder. She looked like a tower of
strength to the fearful heart, but to the antagonist she was a fortress
that no assault could take.
Barbara never dealt in vague reasonings, or tried to veil the face of
denial to make it look less stern. She had called her own feelings of
the morning by no condoning name, and she now turned to Lucy with firm
lips and eyes.
"You must go home, Lucy," she said, "back to the mill-house, and wait
there for Peter. He is kind, and will not keep you long in suspense,
wondering whether Joel is alive or dead. If he lives you can have no
place in his life; if he dies you can't help him on his way."
"I'll at least bid him good-bye. Don't waste any more breath on me.
Barbara. I've made up my mind to go."
"Then you will blacken both your souls, and such stains won't wash out."
"What do you mean?" asked Lucy, turning her face away.
"You know what I mean. You're letting your mind run after a man that's
not your husband. The Bible calls it by a black name, in thought as well
as deed." Barbara lifted her sister's face between her hands, and looked
at it for a moment. "Lucy," she continued, "you've always been proud of
your fair skin and your white body, but that sort of mind, the mind
you're letting yourself get, is ugly--ugly as a toad."
Lucy twisted herself away with repulsion.
"You've a bonny way of putting things," she replied haughtily, but her
lips quivered. She abhorred toads. From being a child, the sight of them
had filled her with loathing; they seemed too ugly to have been created.
And now Barbara said her mind was becoming like one.
"You don't understand," she cried. "You're so high and mighty you
couldn't love a man as I love Joel. If you did you'd find a kindlier
name for it than saying it's like something that turns you sick to look
at it."
Could she have seen her sister's face just then she would have been
dumbfounded by the change that passed over it. Throat and cheek and chin
became suffused with a passionate glow, and her lips quivered. But in a
moment the flood sank back again, leaving her pale and weary-eyed.
"We've had a warning set us since we were born," she said. "I mean
great-granny. Neither of us would like to grow old in her way."
"I never should. But you might, Barbara, for everyone says that you're
her living picture. And your heart doesn't come far short of hers for
hardness."
Barbara winced, and Lucy, ever ready to make amends for her sharp words,
grasped her sister's hand.
"Don't heed me," she said, "I'm beside myself. There's no fear of either
of us following in great-granny's steps."
"She let her mind stray where it had no right to," continued Barbara.
"And you know what comfort it brought her. She grew to hate her husband,
and she cared nothing for her children. But her life was loveless and a
blank; still, she had to give her heart to something; so must all men
and women. We're made that way and can't alter it. You know where she
gave her heart--it's in her money-bags."
A picture flashed across Lucy's mind of the sight she had seen when she
had looked through the door on the night of the wake long ago. She
remembered with curious distinctness the stealthy movements of the thin
old hands, as they counted the coins. Another scene rose before her; she
saw Cringel Forest, and the dell where she and Joel used to meet. She
saw it in summer-time, gay with blue-bells; she saw it again in winter.
She thought how she and Joel had met there only a few hours ago. Come
spring, come autumn, still she loved and was loved. Back swung her mind
to the old woman in the great bed, giving up her soul to the hoarding of
money. Could this last scene be the outcome of such an one as that of
the morning? She saw herself old and grey--the beauty of life and its
warmth fled; and dead her heart to all joy in the sun and the flowers;
gone the sympathy of her soul with other souls; hardened into
indifference the power of loving and careless of being loved. Could her
soul grow like that? like her great-grandmother's?
"You're havering," she said. "I'm no more like her than I'm like a
corby-crow."
Still she was ill at ease.
"Won't you go away home now?" said Barbara.
Lucy had half a mind to say that she would not go. But her blood had
cooled, and her reason began to reassert itself. She was dominated by
her sister's will and mortally afraid of the long dark track into
Girdlestone Pass. She rose and drew her cloak closer around her.
"If Joel dies," she said, tears filling her eyes, "you'll have it on
your conscience that you kept us apart when we might have given each
other some cheer to carry us along our dark ways."
"Lucy, Lucy," cried Barbara, "put Joel out of your head. You've got a
good husband, better no woman ever had. Can't you give all your love to
him? Make him happy. You'll be happy then yourself. You'll find life
worth living, better worth living than great-grandmother's has been;
better, far better than mine. Mine's a lonely life, Lucy. There'll never
be home and husband for me. But, down at the mill-house yonder, love is
waiting for you. For your own sake, for Peter's sake, for Joel's sake,
too, cleave to the man you've taken for better and worse."
"You should have married him yourself," replied Lucy, with a somewhat
uneasy glance.
"It was not I that Peter chose for his wife," said Barbara simply.
Just then the herd brought a message from Mistress Lynn to know how much
longer Barbara was going to linger at the cave.
"Tell her I've something to do that'll keep me here awhile," replied
she.
Lucy bade her sister good-night and went away with the herd. She no
longer wanted to fly to the sick bed of the man she loved. Weariness
succeeded her passion of the morning and excitement of the night.
Barbara always had this effect upon her sister. When she opened her
heart to her, Barbara put it in a cleansing fire, and, though the
process might be painful, it was morally purifying.
When Lucy and Tom had gone, Barbara put her hands to her head, and
lifted the locks that lay so heavily upon her brow. Then she stirred the
peats into flame. Her face was very white, and looked suddenly old.
All the time that she had been reasoning with Lucy she had been
reasoning with herself. She had dealt with herself so severely that she
was now ready to give that which conscience demanded.
She opened the oak chest. There lay her few treasures--books which Peter
had given her, that she cherished more than she would have done jewels.
She caught her lip between her teeth, but the hesitation was mental, not
moral. Like Lucy, she was seeing visions.
She saw herself sitting in the school-room, reading these books, feeding
her hungry mind upon the feast that they spread for her. But they were
all associated with Peter, she had read them in the light of his mind,
he had shared them with her. She could not look at them without, at the
same time, seeing the face of her dearly-loved master.
Then she saw herself growing old, with haunted eyes, with disappointed
heart, longing for that which could never be, and soured by the denial.
Then she saw herself as she meant to be. She was free, because her own
soul's master. She was full, because she had renounced; she loved still,
but with no desire for recompense, no thought of return, giving out
perpetually like the sun, but not receiving.
To attain such a height she must cut off her right hand and pluck out
her right eye. She must set her face firmly in the direction she meant
to go. It would be a road of toil, loneliness, sacrifice. She must never
cast so much as a glance at that other path, with all its alluring
lights and gorgeous flowers, which yet smelt of death.
She lifted the books one by one, and laid them on the fire. The white
pages grew luminous, the black letters grew blacker, a splash, like
blood, blotted them out; they rolled up like a scroll and fell to ashes.
Peter Fleming came to the cave on his way home; for he saw the light.
Joel was better, and as Timothy was remaining behind at the Shepherd's
Rest with him, there was no reason why he should stay.
Barbara did not hear the shuffle of his feet on the grass; and unknown
to her he was a witness to her action of burning her books. He stood for
a moment, hesitated whether to speak, then stole away, as though he had
been prying into a secret chamber that his eyes had no right to see.
He knew that Barbara would come no more to the night-school. He
understood her reasons, and bitterly reproached himself for the sorrow
that he had brought upon her. He thought of her fine soul and deplored
the narrowing and stifling of her intellect, that must follow this
deliberate cutting off of herself from such sources of life.
Yet he felt exalted too. In spite of all, he was lifted up by the
knowledge of her strength. She seemed to rise and fill the night with
her spreading hair, and wide blue eyes, an embodiment of the power of
love, which holds all human hearts in the hollow of its immortal hands.
CHAPTER XIX
THE SHEPHERD'S REST
Joel Hart sat on a bench, staring at the fire in the kitchen of the
Shepherd's Rest. Timothy Hadwin was bending over a basket of moss and
late mountain flowers, dissecting them with a small scalpel, while he
held a magnifying glass in his left hand through which he continually
peered. The good dame of the inn was spinning, and the whirr of the
wheels' rapid turning made a pleasant hum in the room, like the buzzing
of bees. Her good man had gone to the nearest market town on business.
Outside a cold white mist hugged the fells. Little could be seen but a
patch of monotonous landscape in front of the inn, and nothing heard
save the thunder of the beck which was in spate.
Joel was silent, preoccupied with his thoughts or else sunk in a
melancholy mood. Timothy looked at him from under his mild brows, then
took a pinch of snuff, and leaning back in his chair said:
"You'll soon be well enough to go home, Joel."
There was no answer. Either the young man had not heard, or he did not
want to talk.
"Aye, he's gotten on gaily," said the inn-keeper's wife, a little woman
with beady black eyes and a smile that could be both kindly and
malicious. "He owes his life to you, Master Hadwin. You couldn't have
treated him better if he'd been your own son. But he wants waking up
now. Come, come, young gentleman, look as though you were glad to be
sitting in Jamie Brown's warm kitchen, and not lying cold and stark in
the kirk-garth."
Joel raised himself with an effort.
"I'm not sure," he replied, attempting a laugh, "that the kirk-garth
wouldn't be a better place for me. This sickness has taken all the sap
out of my limbs. I feel like a rotten tree, just waiting for the first
wind that blows to fling it down."
"You're needing a cherry cordial to put new life into you," said the
dame, and she bustled to her press, bringing out a bottle that shone
like a ruby in the genial fire-glow.
"Cherry cordial," he answered, "it's something stronger than cherry
cordial that I need."
"Take my advice, young master, and don't drink any more wine to-day.
You've had as much as is good for you. Now sup this up. It'll put a
little colour into your white whisht-face, without addling your brains."
Joel drank, then set the glass on the bench beside him. For a while
longer he remained in a state of gloomy silence, but a glow began to
steal over his body, and soon loosened his tongue.
"I once heard of a man," he said, "that strained himself as I did, but
he died. For a twelve month and a day afterwards he came out of his
grave every night, and sucked the veins of living folk until he had
gained what he'd lost. Then he slept quietly."
"An uncanny tale," replied the good wife. "I wouldn't think of it if I
was you. There's a long life and a merry one before you yet. Be cheery
now."
"It was only one man whose blood he sucked," he said as though it were
an afterthought. Then he flung back his head and turned to Timothy.
"Shall we have a game at chess?" he asked. "You were going to teach me a
new move. Chess is a game worth playing, though I used to despise it. I
thought it slow. Do you know, I get great amusement out of giving all
the pieces the names of my friends, and seeing how they check-mate one
another."
The old man got up with alacrity. He was always glad to interest Joel in
anything that would take the spleen from his voice and the dis-spirited
look from his face. As a physician of the soul as well as the body, he
desired to pour a healing balm on the hidden wound, which he saw was
causing suffering of an intense nature. Timothy had found the thread
which led him through the gloomy, cavernlike mind of the young man. He
saw that which was seated in the innermost depths of his being. But, so
far, all his efforts had been unable to dispel it.
He got out the chess board, drew the table to the fire, and began to
give his pupil a lesson. Joel's interest seemed to be centred upon one
particular piece, and he watched all its movements with the eagerness of
a child.
"It was a good idea of yours, Timothy, to teach me the game," he said
once or twice. "On beastly days like this, when no one is likely to pay
us a visit, it passes the time--eh?"
"I used to be a great chess-player when I was a young man," replied
Timothy, "but I was afraid I had forgotten a great deal until I began to
show you the way. It's pleasant to sit in the fire-glow, when the
storms of life are over and revive old habits. It makes one feel young
again."
While they were thus absorbed, the sound of many hoofs drew near.
"List," said the good-wife, "there's Red Geordie and the pack horses.
He'll cheer us up a bit. He's better than a town-crier any day for
telling the news."
Joel looked through the fire-window under which he sat--it was a little
window in the chimney--and saw, coming out of the mist, a string of
horses led by a black stallion. At the end of the trail rode a man on a
stout little galloway. His coat collar was pulled up to his eyes, and a
fur cap, with a sprig of bog myrtle in it, was drawn well down upon his
brows. The black stallion stopped of its own accord at the inn door, and
its train of followers halted also, and began to nibble the turf by the
road side.
Their master stirred his pony, and, in a few moments, entered the
kitchen, shaking the dew from his cap. He was a man of medium height,
squarely built, with a bald head, and a fringe of red hair and whiskers,
that framed his face in a fearsome manner.
"Come to the fire," said the good-wife, pushing up a chair, "come and
warm thyself."
"That I will, mistress, and thank you kindly. It's a raw day, masters,
better in than out. And how goes the world with all of you?"
He nodded to Joel and Timothy with a friendly laugh.
"How goes the world?" exclaimed the dame. "Sometimes this way, sometimes
that; whiles it runs straight, whiles agee; whiles smooth, and whiles
like a clog wheel. But we've been lively lately, for this time o' year.
We've had a wheen visitors since the Meet, folk coming and going to see
Master Joel Hart yonder. He's been ill. You'll have heard of it,
Geordie, on your way up the country."
"Master Hart, of course!" the new comer bent forward, peering into
Joel's face with his little sharp eyes. "Sakes! man, how thoo's changed.
I shouldn't have knowed tha. But welcome, welcome back, my hearty. Twice
welcome since thoo comes with well-feathered pockets."
He shook hands with zest.
"And how fend tha noo, Master Joel?" he asked.
"Gaily," replied Joel in an off-hand manner.
"He's nobbut very sweemish," interposed the good-wife, with just a touch
of malice in her tones. "He wants cheering up a bit."
Red Geordie slapped his thigh and laughed.
"It's the lassies he's missing," he said, "mistress, mistress, thoo
should have 'ticed up a posey o' bonny faces for him to look at."
"To the Girdlestone in this weather!" she replied.
"If thoo said, 'Here's a fine bird worth the picking,' they'd have come
like a flock of starlings after a bone, aye, would they."
Joel turned away with a haughty shrug of his shoulders, and Red Geordie
sniggered, in no way disconcerted.
"Well, what's been adoing down-by?" asked the dame, anxious not to
offend her lordly guest.
"Marrying, kersening, and burying--just the day's work o' common folk."