WATT.
THE air under the pines was balmy. The hot July sun brought out their
resinous fragrance. Gleams of fire fell through the boughs and dappled
the soil at intervals, and on these sun-flakes numerous fritillary
butterflies with silver under-wings were fluttering, and countless
flies were humming. The pines grew only at the bottom of the crags,
and here and there in patches on the slopes. The woods were composed
for the most part of oak, now in its richest, fullest foliage, the
golden hue of early spring changing to the duller green of summer.
Beech also abounded with their clean stems, and the soil beneath them
bare of weed, and here and there a feathery birch with erect silver
stem struggled up in the overgrowth to the light. The wood was full of
foxgloves, spires of pink dappled bells, and of purple columbine. Wild
roses grew wherever a rock allowed them to wreath in sunshine and burst
into abundant bloom over its face. Eve carried her straw hat on her
arm, hung by its blue ribands. She needed its shelter in the wood no
more than in her father’s hall.
She came to a brook, dribbling and tinkling on its way through moss
and over stone. The path was fringed with blazing marigolds. Eve had
already picked some, she now halted, and brimmed the extemporised
basket with more of the golden flowers.
The gloom, the fragrant air, the flicker of colour made her think of
the convent chapel at Lanherne, whither she had been sent for her
education, but whence, having pined under the restraint, she had been
speedily removed. As she walked she swung her hat like a censer. From
it rose the fresh odour of flowers, and from it dropped now and then
a marigold like a burning cinder. Scarce thinking what she did, Eve
assumed the slow and measured pace of a religious procession, as she
had seen one at Lanherne, still swinging her hat, and letting the
flowers fall from it whilst she chanted meaningless words to a sacred
strain. Then she caught her straw hat to her, and holding it before her
in her left arm, advanced at a quicker pace, still singing. Now she
dipped her right hand in the crown and strewed the blossoms to left and
right, as did the little girls in the Corpus Christi procession round
the convent grounds at Lanherne. Her song quickened and brightened,
and changed its character as her flighty thoughts shifted to other
topics, and her changeful mood assumed another complexion. Her tune
became that of the duet _Là ci darem la mano_, in ‘Don Giovanni,’
which she had often sung with her sister. She sang louder and more
joyously, and her feet moved in rhythm to this song, as they had to the
ecclesiastical chant; her eyes sparkled, her cheeks flushed.
It seemed to her that a delicate echo accompanied her—very soft and
spiritual, now in snatches, then low, rolling, long-drawn-out. She
stopped and listened, then went on again. What she heard was the echo
from the rocks and tree boles.
But presently the road became steeper, and she could no longer spare
breath for her song; now the sacred chant was quite forgotten, but the
sweet air of Mozart clung to her memory, as the scent of pot-pourri to
a parlour, and there it would linger the rest of the day.
As she walked on she was in a dream. What must it be to hear these
songs accompanied by instruments, and with light and scenery, and
acting on the stage? Oh, that she could for once in her life have the
supreme felicity of seeing a real play!
Suddenly a flash of vivid golden light broke before her, the trees
parted, and she stood on the Raven Rock, a precipice that shoots high
above the Tamar and commands a wide prospect over Cornwall—Hingston
Hill, where Athelstan fought and beat the Cornish in the last stand
the Britons made, and Kitt Hill, a dome of moorclad mountain. As she
stepped forth on the rock to enjoy the light and view and air, there
rushed out of the oak and dogwood bushes a weird boy, who capered and
danced, brandished a fiddle, clapped it under his chin, and still
dancing, played _Là ci darem_ fast, faster, till his little arms went
faster than Eve could see.
The girl stood still, petrified with terror. Here was the Pixy of the
Raven Rock Jasper had spoken of. The malicious boy saw and revelled in
her fear, and gambolled round her, grimacing and still fiddling till
his tune led up to and finished in a shriek.
‘There, there,’ said he, at length, lowering the violin and bow; ‘how I
have scared you, Eve!’
Eve trembled in every limb, and was too alarmed to speak. The scenery,
the rock, the boy, swam in a blue haze before her eyes.
‘There, Eve, don’t be frightened. You led me on with your singing. I
followed in your flowery traces. Don’t you know me?’
Eve shook her head. She could not speak.
‘You have seen me. You saw me that night when I came riding over your
downs at the back of Martin, when poor Jasper fell—you remember me.
I smashed your rattletrap gig. What a piece of good luck it was that
Jasper’s horse went down and not ours. I might have broken my fiddle.
I’d rather break a leg, especially that of another person.’
Eve had not thought of the boy since that eventful night. Indeed, she
had seen little of him then.
‘I remember,’ she said, ‘there was a boy.’
‘Myself. Watt is my name, or in full, Walter. If you doubt my humanity
touch my hand; feel, it is warm.’ He grasped Eve and drew her out on
the rocky platform.
‘Sit down, Eve. I know you better than you know me. I have heard Martin
speak of you. That is how I know about you. Look me in the face.’
Eve raised her eyes to his. The boy had a strange countenance. The hair
was short-cropped and black, the skin olive. He had protruding and
large ears, and very black keen eyes.
‘What do you think is my age?’ asked the boy. ‘I am nineteen. I am an
ape. I shall never grow into a man.’ He began again to skip and make
grimaces. Eve shrank away in alarm.
‘There! Put your fears aside, and be reasonable,’ said Watt, coming
to a rest. ‘Jasper is below, munching his dinner. I have seen him. He
would not eat whilst you were by. He did not suspect I was lying on
the rock overhead in the heath, peering down on you both whilst you
were talking. I can skip about, I can scramble anywhere, I can almost
fly. I do not wish Jasper to know I am here. No one must know but
yourself, for I have come here on an errand to you.’
‘To me!’ echoed Eve, hardly recovered from her terror.
‘I am come from Martin. You remember Martin? Oh! there are not many men
like Martin. He is a king of men. Imagine an old town, with ancient
houses and a church tower behind, and the moon shining on it, and in
the moonlight Martin in velvet, with a hat in which is a white feather,
and his violin, under a window, thinking you are there, and singing
_Deh, vieni alla finestra_. Do you know the tune? Listen.’ The boy
took his fiddle, and touching the strings with his fingers, as though
playing a mandolin, he sang that sweet minstrel song.
Eve’s blue eyes opened wonderingly, this was all so strange and
incomprehensible to her.
‘See here, Miss Zerlina, you were singing _Là ci darem_ just now, try
it with me. I can take Giovanni’s part and you that of Zerlina.’
‘I cannot. I cannot, indeed.’
‘You shall. I shall stand between you and the wood. You cannot escape
over the rock, you would be dashed to pieces. I will begin.’
Suddenly a loud voice interrupted him as he began to play—’Watt!’
Standing under the shadow of the oaks, with one foot on the rocky
platform, was Jasper.
‘Watt, how came you here?’
The boy lowered his violin and stood for a moment speechless.
‘Miss Eve,’ said Jasper, ‘please go home. After all, you have
encountered the pixy, and that a malicious and dangerous imp. Stand
aside, Watt.’
The boy did not venture to resist. He stood back near the edge of the
rock and allowed Eve to pass him.
When she was quite gone, Jasper said gravely to the boy, ‘What has
brought you here?’
‘That is a pretty question to ask me, Jasper. We left you here, broken
and senseless, and naturally Martin and I want to know what condition
you are in. How could we tell whether you were alive or dead? You know
very well that Martin could not come, so I have run here to obtain
information.’
‘I am well,’ answered Jasper, ‘you may tell Martin, everywhere but
here,’ he laid his hand on his heart.
‘With such a pretty girl near I do not wonder,’ laughed the boy. ‘I
shall tell poor Martin of the visits paid you at the water’s edge.’
‘That will do,’ said Jasper; ‘this joking offends me. Tell Martin I am
here, but with my heart aching for him.’
‘No occasion for that, Jasper. Not a cricket in the grass is lighter of
spirit than he.’
‘I dare say,’ said the elder, ‘he does not feel matters acutely. Tell
him the money must be restored. Here I stay as a pledge that the debt
shall be paid. Tell him that I insist on his restoring the money.’
‘Christmas is coming, and after that Easter, and then, all in good
time, Christmas again; but money once passed, returns no more.’
‘I expect Martin to restore what he took. He is good at heart, but
inconsiderate. I know Martin better than you. You are his bad angel. He
loves me and is generous. He knows what I have done for him, and when I
tell him that I must have the money back he will return it if he can.’
‘If he can!’ repeated the boy derisively. ‘It is well you have thrown
in that proviso. I once tossed my cap into the Dart and ran two miles
along the bank after it. I saw it for two miles bobbing on the ripples,
but at last it went over the weir above Totnes and disappeared. I
believe that cap was fished up at Dartmouth and is now worn by the
mayor’s son. It is so with money. Once let it out of your hands and it
avails nothing to run after it. It disappears and comes up elsewhere to
profit others.’
‘Where is Martin now?’
‘Anywhere and everywhere.’
‘He is not in this county, I trust.’
‘Did you never hear of the old lady who lost the store closet key and
hunted everywhere except in her own pocket? What is under your nose is
overlooked.’
‘Go back to Martin. Tell him, as he values his safety and my peace of
mind, to keep out of the country, certainly out of the county. Tell
him to take to some honest work and stick to it, and to begin his
repentance by——’
‘There! if I carry a preachment away with me I shall never reach
Martin. I had a surfeit of this in the olden days, Jasper. I know a
sailor lad who has been fed on salt junk at sea till if you put but as
much as will sit on the end of your knife under his nose when he is on
land he will upset the table. It is the same with Martin and me. No
sermons for us, Jasper. So—see, I am off at the first smell of a text.’
He darted into the wood and disappeared, singing at the top of his
voice ‘Life let us cherish.’