THE BOTTOM OF THE VALLEY
When the same afternoon had worn to evening, Power rode down to the
river. His comings and goings at the hut passed unremarked. Gregory
kept always ready his loud welcome, and his wife asked no questions and
made no difficulties.
Power arrived every evening at sunset, and spent by the Pool the
first hours of dark. For this end he endured the remainder of the
day. He walked now on the very bottom of the valley into which he had
descended. He rode no more to Surprise, and, calamity on calamity, he
was losing Mick O'Neill, his friend. Gloom bestrode a third horse when
they rode together on the work of the run, until by one accord they
sought each other out as little as need be; and in mute agreement came
to visit here, the one when the other should be gone.
The sun had gone down on the edge of the plain when Power reached the
Pool. As he entered the trees darkness was falling, and the stars were
coming out. When the horse brought him into the clearing the lamplight
looked from the doorway of the hut in a broad beam and voices met him
from indoors. He tethered the beast in an old place and put the saddle
on end at the foot of a tree. Before he had done Moll Gregory was
standing in the doorway of the hut.
"Is that you, Jim?"
"Yes, Molly."
He went across to her. Father and mother were within. Gregory swung on
his seat in anxious welcome, and the woman nodded good-night. The four
of them talked together for a little while.
"Round agen to see us?" cried Gregory. "Been about the run to-day I
reckon from the look of you. Hot work moving about in the middle of the
day. It don't seem to cool off at night now. The rains must be coming."
"It looks like it," Power answered.
"Have you heard what's happened?" said the woman. "The boss here
ran into Mr. King yesterday. Mr. King won't touch the show since it
went into the hard stuff, and says the boss owes him twenty quid or
something and has a paper to show it." She turned bitterly on Gregory.
"You always was a fool rushing to sign things."
"I had to keep going somehow, mother."
Moll raised her head. "I'll fix it, dad, when he's round next."
"I suppose things aren't too good lately?" Power said.
"I reckon they aren't. Since the show turned out a fake, there's not a
bob to be raised anywhere. They're turning up tick at the store; too.
They growl if you ask for a tin of dog."
"I reckon, Dad, Mr. Power might give us a hand until things was better,
if it was put to him," said the woman.
"Is that what you are after?" Power answered.
"A-haw, haw, haw! We wouldn't say no if you made the offer," said
Gregory, showing his dirty teeth.
"I'll think about it."
"There's a gentleman for you, mother! Put it here, Mr. Power." Gregory
pushed out a dirty hand.
"It's early yet," Power answered from the doorway.
Presently Power and Molly were wandering among the trees--the night
fallen upon them, dark, hot and murmurous with tiny voices.
They wandered along old ways, and said again old sayings, and did again
old deeds. Who shall answer why she was ready to wander with him night
by night through these majestic ways, taking his kisses, lying within
his arms, and caring nothing for him? Lips set upon lips--no more
could his kisses mean to her. Perhaps she had grown so lonely that she
could bid no one begone. Perhaps twenty years of that hot land had set
in flames her little heart. Perhaps it was her doom to fan fever and
make men mad. Why did he come and come again, a threadbare lover, the
despised even of himself? Why was he so unwearying with his embraces,
unless it was because he had become an amorous wandering Jew, who had
scoffed once at pure lips, and must now kiss for ever, and for ever
fail to set passion afire.
They sat down presently on a fallen tree lying among the climbing
grasses at the upper end of the Pool. Night by night he and she from
their seat there had remarked the margin of the water shrink from them.
To-night they sat down again--he to wonder at his madness, she to do a
hundred wanton acts--to tease the dog, to toss boughs upon the water
and hark to the sudden splash.
"Molly, what did you mean just now when you said you would make things
right with Mr. King? Twenty pounds is twenty pounds to him and always
will be."
"Aw, I didn't mean much. I know how to fix him. That's all."
"Child, you don't have dealings with him now, do you? You told me you
never saw him."
"I can't help it if he comes. He's not this way too often."
"What terms are you on with him? Tell me the truth."
"It's not to do with you, I reckon, what our terms are. I've been kind
to you when you asked me."
"You don't understand. All men are not like me. I sit here night by
night hanging my hands, too fond of you to do you harm. But other
men----. Tell me. I won't be angry. Has he ever persuaded you too far?"
"A gel only lives once. You told me that yourself."
"Molly! If half the world comes knocking on your door must you let them
all in?"
"You could have had as much as him. Wake up, Jim. There's news for you."
"I don't feel like news just now."
"We had a stranger round these ways to-day. Guess who."
"I am a poor guesser."
"Guess."
"Man or woman?"
"Woman."
"I don't know a woman to come all this way. Not Mrs. Elliott,
forgotten to-night's supper, and climbed on to a horse?"
"Miss Neville."
"Maud!"
"Her."
"Well," he said coldly after a moment. "What have you to tell me?"
"There's nothing to tell. I thought it news for you, that's all."
"She must have ridden this way for a change. She often rides."
"She came to see Moll Gregory, and she saw Moll Gregory."
"What is it you are wanting to tell me? Be quick if you mean to say
anything."
"That's not the way to ask for news."
"Very well. We won't discuss her further."
"You and she is too grand for us poor people. She came here on a like
high racket to ask me to give you yes or no, and she tells me it's not
on her account she's come; but because she is sorry for you. She says
if I have loved somebody I'll know what she means. I can count a feller
for every feller of hers."
"That's enough."
"What's enough?"
"Enough said. We've talked enough of this."
"Turning sulky now. Miss Neville will be kind to you if you go back."
"Molly, there's a good child, don't tease my temper any more. We'll
talk of what you like, but forget this one thing. Why should I say a
word in her defence? How does she need it, who is so far from our reach
that you can't understand her, and I haven't the skill to price what
I have lost? If you want to learn what love is go to her with your
lesson books. All I have done has been of no account. You and I, child,
could kiss on and on for ever, and with us all the crying lovers who
count love a mere spending of kisses; and all those kisses kissed would
fly up in the scales when what she had to bring was laid in the other
balance."
He fell into a sudden black mood--an evil habit he had learned lately.
He remembered he sat upon the fallen tree, and at his feet in the
coarse grasses lay the loveliest woman he would ever look upon. The
night was shrill with tiny voices, and endless lightnings opened and
closed the skies, but for the time these things did not affect him.
It seemed he was coming to the bottom of the cup whose rim his lips
had held for so long. The last drops were against his mouth and the
sediment was on his tongue. And, lo! it appeared as if some virtue in
the sediment quickened the eyesight of the spirit, for at last he could
point a finger and say _there_ was substance and there shadow. Lo!
what he had once thought substance was now revealed as shadow, and what
he had believed shadow was assuredly substance.
He woke up when the child laid a hand in his own. "Say something, Jim,
or I am going home." He kissed her very gently and started to talk to
her. But from that hour his passion began to die.