IN WHICH I BEGIN TO APPRECIATE THE VIRTUES OF THE CHASTE GODDESS
Assuredly never were the nostrils of mortal youth saluted with odour
more inspiring and altogether more delectable than that which, wooing
me from the drowsy arms of Morpheus, awoke me to growing consciousness
of three several things, namely: light, movement and an
extraordinarily poignant hunger.
Being awake, I firstly sniffed of this most appetising aroma, then
lifting my head espied the girl busily combing her long hair before
that small mirror I have mentioned. Now although the place was
illumined by no more than a farthing dip, yet this was sufficient to
wake many fugitive gleams and coppery lights in these long, rippling
tresses, so that I lay for some time content to watch as she combed
with smooth-sweeping motions of arm and wrist; but suddenly this arm
grew still and I knew that she was viewing me through this silky
curtain as it hung.
"Well?" she demanded suddenly, and putting back the hair from her
face, stood looking down at me with her sombre, half-sullen gaze.
"Well?" said I, sitting up. And now, beholding her face framed thus in
her glossy tresses, the wide, low brow, the deep eyes, the delicate
modelling of nose and chin, the vivid lips, I realised that she was
beautiful--beautiful as any fabled goddess or dryad; and what with
this, the rippling splendour of her hair that covered her like a
garment, the deep silence of this remote solitude, there rushed upon
me a sense of such intimacy that I caught my breath and averted my
gaze instinctively, awed by, yet delighting in, this sudden
consciousness of her beauty.
"Well," said she again, "d'ye smell it?"
Starting, I glanced up, to find her busied with the comb again and
immediately recognised that here was neither goddess nor dryad but
merely a well-shaped, comely young woman with extraordinarily long
hair; which fact established, my hunger (momentarily forgotten)
returned with keener pang than ever.
"Are ye going to sleep again?" she enquired, finding me silent.
"No!"
"Well, don't you smell it?"
"Pray what is it?"
"A duck as I be roasting to our supper."
"Duck!" I repeated, mouth watering. "I have breathed its enticement
ever since I awoke."
"Wi' plenty o' sage and onion, a new loaf, and cheese!" she added,
with a nod of her shapely head at each item, "unless," said she,
eyeing me askance, "you're minded to starve--as you said?"
At this I grew very despondent and, sighing, watched her twist her
glossy hair into two long braids and tie up the ends with small
ribbands which I thought a very quaint and pretty fashion.
She now bade me help her to set up the supper table, which proved to
be a weather-beaten half-door propped upon baskets. This done, she
took the candle and descended below, I following; and here, within an
old cauldron pierced with many holes, burned a fire, above which was a
covered pot whence emanated that fragrance I have already mentioned,
but stronger and more savoury than ever now, so that my hunger was
wrought to a passionate yearning, more especially when, having removed
the pot from the fire, she lifted the cover. Ascending to the loft she
pronounced supper all ready and bade me sit down and eat. But this I
could not do for my pride's sake as I freely confessed, which seemed
to surprise her not a little.
"Well then," said she, perceiving me thus determined, "you may eat if
you are truly hungry, because none o' the money I prigs pays for this
duck."
So down I sat forthwith and never in all my life enjoyed any meal
quite so much, as I told her.
"Well, then, eat it!" said she in her ungracious, half-sullen
manner.
"I mean to," I retorted, "though I must say you are a wonderful cook."
At this she merely scowled at me and I did not venture another remark
until the sharper pangs of hunger were appeased, then, sighing, I
spoke again. "Yes, I repeat you are a wonderful cook! But then
everything seems so wonderful to me--this place, for instance--so
strange and so solitary!"
"It is!" she answered, leaning her chin on her hands and staring at me
across the table. "That's why I runs away here to hide from the
_chals_ or when in any trouble wi' old Azor--yes, 'tis a very
lonely place, which do make me wonder if you be afeard o' ghosts?"
"No--that is, I don't think so--if such things do really exist. But
why do you ask?"
"A woman was murdered here once an' they say her spirit walks, so
there's few people dare venter here by day an' never a one by night,
an' that's why 'tis so lonely an' that's why I loves the place."
"Then you don't believe in ghosts?"
"Well I sees strange things among the Romans; there's the
_dukkerin_ and _dukkeripen_, an' the Walkers o' the Heath.
They're a strange folk, the Romans--'specially old Azor!"
"But you are not afraid--never have been?"
"No," she answered, shaking her head slowly, "I've never been afeard
of anything or any one yet--except old Azor." And beholding her as she
said this, observing the proud cast of her features, the lofty
carriage of her head, her compelling eyes, resolute chin and the noble
lines of her form, I knew she spoke truth and began to doubt if she
were no more than a mere comely, well-shaped young female, after all.
"Pray, what is your name?" I enquired.
"Anna."
"Indeed it is a pretty name, though you are more like my conception of
Diana."
"Who's she?"
"She was a young goddess."
"A goddess?" repeated my companion in her deep, soft voice, "that
don't sound much like me."
"A goddess, very brave and strong, who despised all men and feared
none!"
"That does sound more like me! Though I thought all goddesses were
beautiful?" she added wistfully.
"So they were," I nodded, "but how do you know this?"
"From Jerry Jarvis--"
"What, the Tinker?" I exclaimed. "Do you mean the tinker who calls
himself a 'literary cove'--the wonderful tinker who writes excellent
poetry and travels about with a pony named Diogenes?"
"Yes, there be only one Jerry Jarvis," answered my companion. "'Twas
Jerry taught me to write and lent me books to read. I've known him
since I can remember and he was always kind. Jerry's a good man!"
"And writes real poetry!" I nodded. "At least I think so. I should
like to meet him again."
"Well, he'll be Tonbridge way about now. I knows all his rounds an'
he's reg'lar as a clock."
"Do you know the way to Tonbridge?"
"Of course!"
"Yes, I'll go to Tonbridge to-morrow; you shall tell me the best way
to get there, if you will."
"'Tis very sure you are better of your beating."
"Yes, thank God!" I answered.
"Though your eyes will be black to-morrow."
"Which will serve me right and properly for my cowardice."
"But you're not afeard o' ghosts!"
"Heaven knows," quoth I bitterly, "I might be if I saw one. And as for
solitude, I don't think I should care to stay here alone night after
night and day after day as you seem to have done."
"Oh, you gets used to it."
"But how do you pass your time in this solitude?"
"Reads mostly, and makes my baskets; there be few can ekal me at rush
or willow. And there's good money in baskets!"
"What books have you read?"
"Not so many as I'd like."
"Tell me some of them."
"Well there's the 'Castle of Otranto' and Virgil and 'Peregrine
Pickle' and the Psalms, and 'Tom Jones' and John Milton's Poems,
'Tristram Shandy.' Dryden, Plutarch's lives--oh, and a lot beside--"
"And which do you like best?"
For answer she reached the six volumes from amongst her pots and pans
and these I found to be: Shakespeare, 'Tristram Shandy,' the Bible,
Anson's Voyages and 'Robinson Crusoe.'
"You have shown most excellent judgment and a most catholic taste!"
said I.
"You loves books, too!" she nodded. "I sees that by the way you
handles 'em. And I keeps these six here because I can read them over
and over and never tires, though there's a lot I don't understand."
"That," said I, looking upon my companion with new vision, "that is
because each of these books shrines some part of undying Truth which
can never weary and never die. I think," said I, setting the books
back in their accustomed place, "I think I will call you Diana, if I
may?"
"Very well."
"And my name is Peregrine."
"You seemed to like your supper," said she, beginning to clear away
the platters.
"More than words can express!"
"So did I," she nodded, "and that was worth a little risk."
"What risk, Diana?"
"Well, I tells you the duck was not bought with any of the beast's
money, didn't I?"
"Yes. Pray, how did you come by it?"
"Prigged it!"
"Great heaven! You mean that you--"
"Yes. I goes to a farmhouse as I knows of to get some milk an' eggs,
an' spies four ducks on the kitchen table, trussed an' stuffed all
ready for the oven, so I brings one away--only one, though I might ha'
nabbed two just as easy--"
"But this was burglary!" I gasped.
"But 'twas a dainty supper!"
"This is frightful!" I exclaimed.
"But the duck was very tender--you said so."
"Oh, girl," I cried, "don't you know it is very wicked to steal? Are
you aware you have broken one of God's commandments, contravened the
law and made yourself liable to arrest and imprisonment--indeed,
people have been hanged for less! O Diana, how could you do a thing
so shameful, so unworthy your womanhood--how could you--how could
you?"
But instead of answering or paying the least heed to this so earnest
appeal, she continued her business of clearing away supper things and
table, and thereafter begun to make herself a couch of hay in the
corner remotest from mine, and all without so much as a glance in my
direction.
"And now," said she at last, "if you're quite ready, I'll blow out the
candle."
"Whenever you will," I answered, stretching myself upon my hay-pile.
Almost as I spoke the light vanished, and in the pitchy gloom my
hearing seemed to grow the more acute; I heard her light, assured
tread, the fall of her shoes as she kicked them off, the rustle of the
hay that was her bed, a long-drawn, sleepy sigh. These sounds at last
subsiding, I spoke:
"Have I angered you, Diana?" Here I paused for answer but getting none
continued, "Though indeed my strictures were all well-meant, for I
cannot bear that you should do anything unworthy--" Here, though she
uttered no word, I distinguished a sudden, petulant rustle of hay as
if she had kicked viciously. "And so, Diana," I continued, "I want you
to promise that henceforth you will so govern your conduct, so order
your life that you may become a woman, gentle and sweet and good, in
whose presence no evil thing may exist, one who is herself an
inspiration to good and noble things, a woman whose friendship is a
privilege and whose--whose love would be a crowning glory. Do you
understand, Diana?"
"Hold your tongue!" she cried very suddenly. "Hold y'r tongue an' go
to sleep--do!"
In the fervour of my exordium I had assumed a sitting posture but at
her coarse rejoinder I fell back, inexpressibly shocked, and lay
staring upon the dark, tingling with mortification that I should have
wasted myself in such vain appeal and been thus callously repulsed by
one who was no more than an ignorant gipsy-wench, prone to coarse
expressions and small larcenies, a creature knowing little difference
between good and evil and caring less. But now, remembering her rough
upbringing and the wild folk who had fostered her, my anger gave place
to commiseration, for how could she, under such circumstances, be
other than what she seemed? And yet--was she in herself good or evil?
This doubt troubled me so much that I turned to stare towards that
dark corner where she lay; and listening to her gentle and regular
breathing, I judged that she slept already, though more than once I
heard the hay rustle as she stirred, sighing plaintively. But sleep
was not for me, my mind being greatly troubled by this same
unanswerable question: Was she a Diana indeed, dowered with the
virtues of that chaste goddess, or only a poor, small-souled creature
debased by the circumstances of her lawless origin?
Now as I lay thus wakeful, vainly seeking an answer to this most
distressing question, I became aware that the place was no longer
dark; instead was a soft glow, an ever-increasing radiance, and
lifting my eyes to the unglazed window I beheld the moon,--Dian's fair
self, throned in splendour, queen of this midsummer night, serene and
infinitely remote, who yet sent down a kindly beam, that, darting
athwart the gloom, fell in a glory upon that other Diana where she lay
outstretched in peaceful slumber. And gazing upon this face, softened
and beautified by gentle sleep--the wide, low brow, these tender lips,
this firm and resolute chin, I thought to read therein a sweet
nobility, purity and strength; and, like the darkness, my doubts and
trouble were quite banished.
Therefore, lifting my gaze once more to Dian's placid loveliness, I
breathed her a sigh of gratitude, for it seemed that she had shown me
the answer to my question. And thus, my mind at rest, I presently fell
asleep.