I lay often that summer on a slope of sand and coarse grass, close to the
Cornish sea, trying to catch thoughts; and I was trying very hard when I
saw them coming hand in hand.
She was dressed in blue linen, and a little cloud of honey-coloured hair;
her small face had serious eyes the colour of the chicory flowers she was
holding up to sniff at--a clean sober little maid, with a very touching
upward look of trust. Her companion was a strong, active boy of perhaps
fourteen, and he, too, was serious--his deep-set, blacklashed eyes looked
down at her with a queer protective wonder; the while he explained in a
soft voice broken up between two ages, that exact process which bees
adopt to draw honey out of flowers. Once or twice this hoarse but
charming voice became quite fervent, when she had evidently failed to
follow; it was as if he would have been impatient, only he knew he must
not, because she was a lady and younger than himself, and he loved her.
They sat down just below my nook, and began to count the petals of a
chicory flower, and slowly she nestled in to him, and he put his arm
round her. Never did I see such sedate, sweet lovering, so trusting on
her part, so guardianlike on his. They were like, in miniature---though
more dewy,--those sober couples who have long lived together, yet whom
one still catches looking at each other with confidential tenderness, and
in whom, one feels, passion is atrophied from never having been in use.
Long I sat watching them in their cool communion, half-embraced, talking
a little, smiling a little, never once kissing. They did not seem shy of
that; it was rather as if they were too much each other's to think of
such a thing. And then her head slid lower and lower down his shoulder,
and sleep buttoned the lids over those chicory-blue eyes. How careful he
was, then, not to wake her, though I could see his arm was getting stiff!
He still sat, good as gold, holding her, till it began quite to hurt me
to see his shoulder thus in chancery. But presently I saw him draw his
arm away ever so carefully, lay her head down on the grass, and lean
forward to stare at something. Straight in front of them was a magpie,
balancing itself on a stripped twig of thorn-tree. The agitating bird,
painted of night and day, was making a queer noise and flirting one wing,
as if trying to attract attention. Rising from the twig, it circled,
vivid and stealthy, twice round the tree, and flew to another a dozen
paces off. The boy rose; he looked at his little mate, looked at the
bird, and began quietly to move toward it; but uttering again its queer
call, the bird glided on to a third thorn-tree. The boy hesitated
then--but once more the bird flew on, and suddenly dipped over the hill.
I saw the boy break into a run; and getting up quickly, I ran too.
When I reached the crest there was the black and white bird flying low
into a dell, and there the boy, with hair streaming back, was rushing
helter-skelter down the hill. He reached the bottom and vanished into
the dell. I, too, ran down the hill. For all that I was prying and must
not be seen by bird or boy, I crept warily in among the trees to the edge
of a pool that could know but little sunlight, so thickly arched was it
by willows, birch-trees, and wild hazel. There, in a swing of boughs
above the water, was perched no pied bird, but a young, dark-haired girl
with, dangling, bare, brown legs. And on the brink of the black water
goldened, with fallen leaves, the boy was crouching, gazing up at her
with all his soul. She swung just out of reach and looked down at him
across the pool. How old was she, with her brown limbs, and her gleaming,
slanting eyes? Or was she only the spirit of the dell, this elf-thing
swinging there, entwined with boughs and the dark water, and covered with
a shift of wet birch leaves. So strange a face she had, wild, almost
wicked, yet so tender; a face that I could not take my eyes from. Her
bare toes just touched the pool, and flicked up drops of water that fell
on the boy's face.
From him all the sober steadfastness was gone; already he looked as wild
as she, and his arms were stretched out trying to reach her feet. I
wanted to cry to him: "Go back, boy, go back!" but could not; her elf
eyes held me dumb-they looked so lost in their tender wildness.
And then my heart stood still, for he had slipped and was struggling in
deep water beneath her feet. What a gaze was that he was turning up to
her--not frightened, but so longing, so desperate; and hers how
triumphant, and how happy!
And then he clutched her foot, and clung, and climbed; and bending down,
she drew him up to her, all wet, and clasped him in the swing of boughs.
I took a long breath then. An orange gleam of sunlight had flamed in
among the shadows and fell round those two where they swung over the dark
water, with lips close together and spirits lost in one another's, and in
their eyes such drowning ecstasy! And then they kissed! All round me
pool, and leaves, and air seemed suddenly to swirl and melt--I could see
nothing plain! . . . What time passed--I do not know--before their
faces slowly again became visible! His face the sober boy's--was turned
away from her, and he was listening; for above the whispering of leaves a
sound of weeping came from over the hill. It was to that he listened.
And even as I looked he slid down from out of her arms; back into the
pool, and began struggling to gain the edge. What grief and longing in
her wild face then! But she did not wail. She did not try to pull him
back; that elfish heart of dignity could reach out to what was coming, it
could not drag at what was gone. Unmoving as the boughs and water, she
watched him abandon her.
Slowly the struggling boy gained land, and lay there, breathless. And
still that sound of lonely weeping came from over the hill.
Listening, but looking at those wild, mourning eyes that never moved from
him, he lay. Once he turned back toward the water, but fire had died
within him; his hands dropped, nerveless--his young face was all
bewilderment.
And the quiet darkness of the pool waited, and the trees, and those lost
eyes of hers, and my heart. And ever from over the hill came the little
fair maiden's lonely weeping.
Then, slowly dragging his feet, stumbling, half-blinded, turning and
turning to look back, the boy groped his way out through the trees toward
that sound; and, as he went, that dark spirit-elf, abandoned, clasping
her own lithe body with her arms, never moved her gaze from him.
I, too, crept away, and when I was safe outside in the pale evening
sunlight, peered back into the dell. There under the dark trees she was
no longer, but round and round that cage of passion, fluttering and
wailing through the leaves, over the black water, was the magpie,
flighting on its twilight wings.
I turned and ran and ran till I came over the hill and saw the boy and
the little fair, sober maiden sitting together once more on the open
slope, under the high blue heaven. She was nestling her tear-stained
face against his shoulder and speaking already of indifferent things.
And he--he was holding her with his arm and watching over her with eyes
that seemed to see something else.
And so I lay, hearing their sober talk and gazing at their sober little
figures, till I awoke and knew I had dreamed all that little allegory of
sacred and profane love, and from it had returned to reason, knowing no
more than ever which was which.
1912.