was a broad-browed, deep-breasted, handsome woman, very dark and
silent. She was not a native of Redesdale, not known to be of
Northumberland. Her husband, who had been a sailor, had brought her
back with him one day, saying that she was his wife and her name
Miranda. He had said no more about her, would say no more, and had
been drowned at sea before his son was born. She, for her part, had
been as uncommunicative as he. Such reticence breeds wonderment in the
minds of such a people as they of Dryhope, and out of wonderment arise
wonders. It was told that until Miranda King was brought in sea-birds
had never been seen in Dryhopedale. It was said that they came on that
very night when George King the younger came home, and she with him,
carrying his bundle and her own. It was said that they had never since
left the hamlet, and that when Miranda went out of doors, which was
seldom, she was followed by clouds of them whichever way she turned. I
have no means of testing the truth of these rumours, but, however it
may be, no scandal was ever brought against her. She was respectable
and respected. Old King, the grandfather, relied strongly upon her
judgment. She brought up her son in decent living and the fear of God.
In the year when Andrew was nineteen he was a tall, handsome lad, and
a shepherd, following the profession, as he was to inherit the estate,
of his forebears. One April night in that year he and his grandfather,
the pair of them with a collie, lay out on the fell-side together.
Lambing is late in Redesdale, the spring comes late; April is often a
month of snow.
They had a fire and their cloaks; the ground was dry, and they lay
upon it under a clear sky strewn with stars. At midnight George King,
the grandfather, was asleep, but Andrew was broad awake. He heard the
flock (which he could not see) sweep by him like a storm, the
bell-wether leading, and as they went up the hill the wind began to
blow, a long, steady, following blast. The collie on his feet, ears
set flat on his head, shuddering with excitement, whined for orders.
Andrew, after waking with difficulty his grandfather, was told to go
up and head them off. He sent the dog one way--off in a flash, he
never returned that night--and himself went another. He was not seen
again for two days. To be exact, he set out at midnight on Thursday
the 12th April, and did not return to Dryhope until eleven o'clock of
the morning of Saturday the 14th. The sheep, I may say here, came back
by themselves on the 13th, the intervening day.
That night of the 12th April is still commemorated in Dryhope as one
of unexampled spring storm, just as a certain October night of the
next year stands yet as the standard of comparison for all equinoctial
gales. The April storm, we hear, was very short and had several
peculiar features. It arose out of a clear sky, blew up a snow-cloud
which did no more than powder the hills, and then continued to blow
furiously out of a clear sky. It was steady but inconceivably strong
while it lasted; the force and pressure of the wind did not vary until
just the end. It came from the south-east, which is the rainy quarter
in Northumberland, but without rain. It blew hard from midnight, until
three o'clock in the morning, and then, for half an hour, a hurricane.
The valley and hamlet escaped as by a miracle. Mr. Robson, the vicar,
awakened by it, heard the wind like thunder overhead and went out of
doors to observe it. He went out into a still, mild air coming from
the north-west, and still heard it roaring like a mad thing high above
him. Its direction, as he judged by sound, was the precise contrary of
the ground current. In the morning, wreckage of all kinds, branches of
trees, roots, and whole clumps of heather strewn about the village and
meadows, while showing that a furious battle had been fought out on
the fells, confirmed this suspicion. A limb of a tree, draped in ivy,
was recognised as part of an old favourite of his walks. The ash from
which it had been torn stood to the south-east of the village. In the
course of the day (the 13th) news was brought in that one of the Seven
Sisters was fallen, and that a clean drive could be seen through the
forest on the top of Knapp. Coupled with these dreadful testimonies
you have the disappearance of Andrew King to help you form your
vision of a village in consternation.
Hear now what befell young Andrew King when he swiftly climbed the
fell, driven forward by the storm. The facts are that he was agog for
adventure, since, all unknown to any but himself, he had ventured to
the summits before, had stood by Silent Water, touched the Seven
Sisters one by one, and had even entered the dreadful, haunted, forest
of Knapp. He had had a fright, had been smitten by that sudden gripe
of fear which palsies limbs and freezes blood, which the ancients
called the Stroke of Pan, and we still call Panic after them. He had
never forgotten what he had seen, though he had lost the edge of the
fear he had. He was older now by some two years, and only waiting the
opportunity for renewed experience. He hoped to have it--and he had
it.
The streaming gale drove him forward as a ship at sea. He ran lightly,
without fatigue or troubled breath. Dimly above him he presently saw
the seven trees, dipping and louting to the weather; but as he neared
them they had no meaning for him, did not, indeed, exist. For now he
saw more than they, and otherwise than men see trees.
II
In a mild and steady light, which came from no illumination of moon or
stars, but seemed to be interfused with the air, in the strong warm
wind which wrapped the fell-top; upon a sward of bent-grass which ran
toward the tarn and ended in swept reeds he saw six young women
dancing in a ring. Not to any music that he could hear did they move,
nor was the rhythm of their movement either ordered or wild. It was
not formal dancing, and it was not at all a Bacchic rout: rather they
flitted hither and thither on the turf, now touching hands, now
straining heads to one another, crossing, meeting, parting, winding
about and about with the purposeless and untirable frivolity of moths.
They seemed neither happy nor unhappy, they made no sound; it looked
to the lad as if they had been so drifting from the beginning, and
would so drift to the end of things temporal. Their loose hair
streamed out in the wind, their light gossamer gowns streamed the same
way, whipped about their limbs as close as wet muslin. They were
bare-footed, bare-armed, and bare-headed. They all had beauty, but it
was not of earthly cast. He saw one with hair like pale silk, and one,
ruddy and fierce in the face, with snaky black hair which, he thought,
flew out beyond her for a full yard's measure. Another had
hazel-brown hair and a sharp little peering face; another's was colour
of ripe corn, and another's like a thunder-cloud, copper-tinged. About
and about they went, skimming the tops of the grasses, and Andrew
King, his heart hammering at his ribs, watched them at their play. So
by chance one saw him, and screamed shrilly, and pointed at him.
Then they came about him like a swarm of bees, angry at first, humming
a note like that of the telegraph wire on a mountain road, but, as he
stood his ground, curiosity prevailed among them and they pried
closely at him. They touched him, felt his arms, his knees, handled
his clothing, peered into his eyes. All this he endured, though he was
in a horrible fright. Then one, the black-haired girl with a bold,
proud face, came and stood closely before him and looked him full into
his eyes. He gave her look for look. She put a hand on each shoulder
and kissed him. After that there was a tussle among them, for each
must do what her sister had done. They took a kiss apiece, or maybe
more; then, circling round him, they swept him forward on the wind,
past Silent Water, over the Edge, out on the fells, on and on and on,
and never stopped till they reached Knapp Forest, that dreadful place.
There in the hushed aisles and glades they played with this new-found
creature, played with him, fought for him, and would have loved him if
he had been minded for such adventuring. Two in particular he marked
as desiring his closer company--the black-haired and bold was one, and
the other was the sharp-faced and slim with eyes of a mouse and
hazel-brown hair. He called her the laughing girl and thought her the
kindest of them all. But they were all his friends at this time.
Andrew King, like young Tamlane, might have sojourned with them for
ever and a day, but for one thing. He saw by chance a seventh
maiden--a white-faced, woe-begone, horror-struck Seventh Sister,
blenched and frozen under a great beech. She may have been there
throughout his commerce with the rest, or she may have been revealed
to him in a flash then and there. So as it was he saw her suddenly,
and thereafter saw no other at all. She held his eyes waking; he left
his playmates and went to her where she crouched. He stooped and took
her hand. It was as cold as a dead girl's and very heavy. Amid the
screaming of the others, undeterred by their whirling and battling, he
lifted up the frozen one. He lifted her bodily and carried her in his
arms. They swept all about him like infuriated birds. The sound of
their rage was like that of gulls about a fish in the tide-way; but
they laid no hands on him, and said nothing that he could understand,
and by this time his awe was gone, and his heart was on fire. Holding
fast to what he had and wanted, he pushed out of Knapp Forest and took
the lee-side of the Edge on his way to Dryhope. This must have been
about the time of the gale at its worst. The Seventh Sister by Silent
Water may have fallen at this time; for had not Andrew King the
Seventh Sister in his arms?
Anxiety as to the fate of Andrew King was spread over the village and
the greatest sympathy felt for the bereaved family. To have lost a
flock of sheep, a dog, and an only child at one blow is a terrible
misfortune. Old King, I am told, was prostrated, and the girl, Bessie
Prawle, violent in her lamentations over her "lad." The only person
unmoved was the youth's mother, Miranda King the widow. She, it seems,
had no doubts of his safety, and declared that he "would come in his
time, like his father before him"--a saying which, instead of
comforting the mourners, appears to have exasperated them. Probably
they did not at all understand it. Such consolations as Mr. Robson the
minister had to offer she received respectfully, but without comment.
All she had to say was that she could trust her son; and when he urged
that she had better by far trust in God, her reply, finally and
shortly, was that God was bound by His own laws and had not given us
heads and hearts for nothing. I am free to admit that her theology
upon this point seems to me remarkably sound.
In the course of the 13th, anxious day as it promised to be, old
George King, returning from a fruitless quest over the fells, came
upon his sheep within a few hundred yards of his own house, collected
together in a flock and under the watch of his dog. They were, in
fact, as nearly as possible where he had understood them to be before
their stampede of the previous night. He was greatly heartened by the
discovery, though unable to account for the facts of it. The dog was
excessively tired, and ate greedily. Next morning, when the family and
some neighbours were standing together on the fell-side looking up the
valley where the Dryhope burn comes down from the hills, they saw two
figures on the rough road which follows it. Mrs. King, the widow, I
believe, had seen them first, but she had said nothing. It was Bessie
Prawle who raised the first cry that "Andrew was coming, and his wife
with him." All looked in the direction she showed them and recognised
the young man. Behind him walked the figure of a woman. This is the
accustomed manner of a man and wife to walk in that country. It is
almost a proof of their relationship. Being satisfied of the identity
of their child the whole party returned to the homestead to await him
and what he was bringing with him. Speculation was rife and volubly
expressed, especially by Bessie Prawle. Miranda King, however, was
silent; but it was noticed that she kept her eyes fixed upon the woman
behind her son, and that her lips moved as if she was muttering to
herself.
The facts were as the expectations. Andrew King brought forward a
young, timid and unknown girl as his wife. By that name he led her up
to his grandfather, then to his mother; as such he explained her to
his neighbours, including (though not by name) Bessie Prawle, who had
undoubtedly hoped to occupy that position herself.
Old King, overcome with joy at seeing his boy alive and well, and
dazed, probably, by events, put his hands upon the girl's head and
blessed her after the patriarchal fashion there persisting. He seems
to have taken canonical marriage for granted, though nobody else did,
and though a moment's reflection, had he been capable of so much,
would have shown him that that could not be. The neighbours were too
well disposed to the family to raise any doubts or objections; Bessie
Prawle was sullen and quiet; only Miranda King seems to have been
equal to the occasion. She, as if in complete possession of facts
which satisfied every question, received the girl as an equal. She did
not kiss her or touch her, but looked deeply into her eyes for a long
space of time, and took from her again an equally searching regard;
then, turning to her father-in-law and the company at large, she said,
"This is begun, and will be done. He is like his father before him."
To that oracular utterance old King, catching probably but the last
sentence, replied, "And he couldn't do better, my child." He meant no
more than a testimony to his daughter-in-law. Mrs. King's
observations, coupled with that, nevertheless, went far to give credit
to the alleged marriage.
The girl, so far, had said nothing whatever, though she had been
addressed with more than one rough but kindly compliment on her youth
and good looks. And now Andrew King explained that she was dumb.
Consternation took the strange form of jocular approval of his
discretion in selecting a wife who could never nag him--but it was
consternation none the less. The mystery was felt to be deeper; there
was nothing for it now but to call in the aid of the parish
priest--"the minister," as they called him--and this was done. By the
time he had arrived, Miranda King had taken the girl into the cottage,
and the young husband and his grandfather had got the neighbours to
disperse. Bessie Prawle, breathing threatenings and slaughter, had
withdrawn herself.
Mr. Robson, a quiet sensible man of nearer sixty than fifty years,
sat in the cottage, hearing all that his parishioners could tell him
and using his eyes. He saw the centre-piece of all surmise, a
shrinking, pale slip of a girl, by the look of her not more than
fifteen or sixteen years old. She was not emaciated by any means,
seemed to be well nourished, and was quite as vigorous as any child of
that age who could have been pitted against her. Her surroundings
cowed her, he judged. To Dryhope she was a stranger, a foreigner; to
her Dryhope and the Dryhopedale folk were perilous matter. Her general
appearance was that of a child who had never had anything but
ill-usage; she flinched at every sudden movement, and followed one
about with her great unintelligent eyes, as if she was trying to
comprehend what they showed her. Her features were regular and
delicate; her brows broad and eyebrows finely arched, her chin full,
her neck slim, her hands and feet narrow and full of what fanciers
call "breed." Her hair was very long and fine, dark brown with gleams
of gold; her eyes were large, grey in colour, but, as I have said,
unintelligent, like an animal's, which to us always seem
unintelligent. I should have mentioned, for Mr. Robson noticed it at
once, that her hair was unconfined, and that, so far as he could make
out, she wore but a single garment--a sleeveless frock, confined at
the waist and reaching to her knees. It was of the colour of
unbleached flax and of a coarse web. Her form showed through, and the
faint flush of her skin. She was a finely made girl. Her legs and feet
were bare. Immodest as such an appearance would have been in one of
the village maids, he did not feel it to be so with her. Her look was
so entirely foreign to his experience that there was no standard of
comparison. Everything about her seemed to him to be quite what one
would have expected, until one came, so to speak, in touch with her
soul. That, if it lay behind her inscrutable, sightless and dumb eyes,
betrayed her. There was no hint of it. Human in form, visibly and
tangibly human, no soul sat in her great eyes that a man could
discern. That, however, is not now the point. Rather it is that, to
all appearance a modest and beautiful girl, she was remarkably
undressed. It was inconceivable that a modest and beautiful girl could
so present herself, and yet a modest and beautiful girl she was.
Mr. Robson put it to himself this way. There are birds--for instance,
jays, kingfishers, goldfinches--which are, taken absolutely, extremely
brilliant in colouring. Yet they do not jar, are not obtrusive. So it
was with her. Her dress was, perhaps, taken absolutely, indecorous.
Upon her it looked at once seemly and beautiful. Upon Bessie Prawle it
would have been glaring; but one had to dissect it before one could
discover any fault with it upon its wearer. She was very pale, even to
the lips, which were full and parted, as if she must breathe through
her mouth. He noticed immediately the shortness of her breath. It was
very distressing, and after a little while induced the same thing in
himself. And not in him only, but I can fancy that the whole group of
them sitting round her where she was crouched against Miranda King's
knees, were panting away like steam-engines before they had done with
her. While Mr. Robson was there Miranda never took her arm off her
shoulder for a moment; but the girl's eyes were always fixed upon
Andrew, who called himself her husband, unless her apprehensions were
directly called elsewhere. In that case she would look in the required
direction for the fraction of a second, terrified and ready, as you
may say, to die at a movement, and then, her fears at rest, back to
her husband's face.
Mr. Robson's first business was to examine Andrew King, a perfectly
honest, well-behaved lad, whom he had known from his cradle. He was
candid--up to a point. He had found her on the top of Knapp Fell, he
said; she had been with others, who ill-treated her. What others?
Others of her sort. Fairies, he said, who lived up there. He pressed
him about this. Fairies? Did he really believe in such beings? Like
all country people he spoke about these things with the utmost
difficulty, and when confronted by worldly wisdom, became dogged. He
said how could he help it when here was one? Mr. Robson told him that
he was begging the question, but he looked very blank. To the surprise
of the minister, old King--old George King, the grandfather--had no
objections to make to the suggestion of fairies on Knapp Fell. He
could not say, there was no telling; Knapp was a known place; strange
things were recorded of the forest. Miranda, his daughter-in-law, was
always a self-contained woman, with an air about her of being
forewarned. He instanced her, and the minister asked her several
questions. Being pressed, she finally said, "Sir, my son is as likely
right as wrong. We must all make up our own minds." There that matter
had to be left.
Andrew said that he had followed the fairies from the tarn on Lammer
Fell into Knapp Forest. They had run away from him, taking this girl
of his, as he supposed, with them. He had followed them because he
meant to have her. They knew that, so had run. Why did he want her? He
said that he had seen her before. When? Oh, long ago--when he had been
up there alone. He had seen her face among the trees for a moment.
They had been hurting her; she looked at him, she was frightened, but
couldn't cry out--only look and ask. He had never forgotten her; her
looks had called him often, and he had kept his eyes wide open. Now,
when he had found her again, he determined to have her. And at last,
he said, he had got her. He had had to fight for her, for they had
been about him like hell-cats and had jumped at him as if they would
tear him to pieces, and screamed and hissed like cats. But when he had
got her in his arms they had all screamed together, once--like a
howling wind--and had flown away.
What next? Here he became obstinate, as if foreseeing what was to be.
What next? He had married her. Married her! How could he marry a fairy
on the top of Knapp Fell? Was there a church there, by chance? Had a
licence been handy? "Let me see her lines, Andrew," Mr. Robson had
said somewhat sternly in conclusion. His answer had been to lift up
her left hand and show the thin third finger. It carried a ring, made
of plaited rush. "I put that on her," he said, "and said all the words
over her out of the book." "And you think you have married her,
Andrew?" It was put to him _ex cathedra_. He grew very red and was
silent; presently he said, "Well, sir, I do think so. But she's not my
wife yet, if that's what you mean." The good gentleman felt very much
relieved. It was satisfactory to him that he could still trust his
worthy young parishioner.
Entirely under the influence of Miranda King, he found the family
unanimous for a real wedding. To that there were two objections to
make. He could not put up the banns of a person without a name, and
would not marry a person unbaptised. Now, to baptise an adult
something more than sponsors are requisite; there must be voluntary
assent to the doctrines of religion by the postulant. In this case,
how to be obtained? He saw no way, since it was by no means plain to
him that the girl could understand a word that was said. He left the
family to talk it over among themselves, saying, as he went out of the
door, that his confidence in their principles was so strong that he
was sure they would sanction no step which would lead the two young
people away from the church door.
In the morning Miranda King came to him with a report that matters had
been arranged and only needed his sanction. "I can trust my son, and
see him take her with a good conscience," she told him. "She's not one
of his people, but she's one of mine; and what I have done she can do,
and is willing to do."
The clergyman was puzzled. "What do you mean by that, Mrs. King?" he
asked her. "What are _your people_? How do they differ from mine, or
your husband's?"
She hesitated. "Well, sir, in this way. She hasn't got your tongue,
nor my son's tongue."
"She has none at all," said the minister; but Miranda replied, "She
can talk without her tongue."
"Yes, my dear," he said, "but I cannot."
"But I can," was her answer; "she can talk to me--and will talk to
you; but not yet. She's dumb for a season, she's struck so. My son
will give her back her tongue--by-and-by."
He was much interested. He asked Miranda to tell him who had struck
her dumb. For a long time she would not answer. "We don't name
him--it's not lawful. He that has the power--the Master--I can go no
nearer." He urged her to openness, got her at last to mention "The
King of the Wood." The King of the Wood! There she stuck, and nothing
he could say could move her from that name, The King of the Wood.
He left it so, knowing his people, and having other things to ask
about. What tongue or speech had the respectable, the staid Miranda
King in common with the scared waif? To that she answered that she
could not tell him; but that it was certain they could understand each
other. How? "By looks," she said, and added scornfully, "she's not
the kind that has to clatter with her tongue to have speech with her
kindred."