III

While we were walking along the road a sound fell upon my ears which

in my hale days never produced any very unpleasant sensations, but

which did now. I mean the cackling of the field people of both sexes

returning from their day's work. These people knew me well, and they

liked me, and I am sure they had no idea that when they ran past me

on the road their looks and nods gave me no pleasure, but pain; and I

always tried to avoid them. As they passed us they somewhat modified

the noise they were making, but only to cackle, chatter, and bawl and

laugh at each other the louder after we were left behind.

'Don't you wish,' said the little girl meditatively, 'that men and

women had voices more like the birds?' The idea had never occurred to

me before, but I understood in a moment what she meant, and

sympathised with her. Nature of course has been unkind to the lords

and ladies of creation in this one matter of voice.

'Yes, I do.' I said.

'I'm so glad you do,' said she. 'I've so often thought what a pity it

is that God did not let men and women talk and sing as the birds do.

I believe He did let 'em talk like that in the Garden of Eden, don't

you?'

'I think it very likely,' I said.

'Men's voices are so rough mostly and women's voices are so sharp

mostly, that it's sometimes a little hard to love 'em as you love the

birds.'

'It is,' I said.

'Don't you think the poor birds must sometimes feel very much

distressed at hearing the voices of men and women, especially when

they all talk together?'

The idea seemed so original and yet so true that it made me laugh; we

both laughed. At that moment there came a still louder, noisier

clamour of voices from the villagers.

'The rooks mayn't mind.' said the little girl, pointing upwards to

the large rookery close by. whence came a noise marvellously like

that made by the field-workers. 'But I'm afraid the blackbirds and

thrushes can't like it. I do so wonder what they say about it.'

After we had left the rookery behind us and the noise of the

villagers had grown fainter, we stood and listened to the blackbirds

and thrushes. She looked so joyous that I could not help saying,

'Little girl, I think you're very happy, ain't you?'

'Not quite,' she said, as though answering a question she had just

been putting to herself. 'There's not enough wind.'

'Then do _you_ like wind?' I said in surprise and delight.

'Oh, I love it!' she said rapturously. 'I can't be quite happy

without wind, can _you_? I like to run up the hills in the wind and

sing to it. That's when I am happiest. I couldn't live long without

the wind.'

Now it had been a deep-rooted conviction of mine that none but the

gulls and I really and truly liked the wind. 'Fishermen are muffs,' I

used to say; 'they talk about the wind as though it were an enemy,

just because it drowns one or two of 'em now and then. Anybody can

like sunshine; muffs can like sunshine; it takes a gull or a man to

like the wind!'

Such had been my egotism. But here was a girl who liked it! We

reached the gate of the garden in front of Tom's cottage, and then

we both stopped, looking over the neatly-kept flower-garden and the

white thatched cottage behind it, up the walls of which the

grape-vine leaves were absorbing the brilliance of the sunlight and

softening it. Wynne was a gardener as well as an organist, and had

gardens both in the front and at the back of his cottage, which was

surrounded by fruit-trees. Drunkard as he was, his two passions,

music and gardening, saved him from absolute degradation and ruin.

His garden was beautifully kept, and I have seen him deftly pruning

his vines when in such a state of drink that it was wonderful how he

managed to hold a priming-knife. Winifred opened the gate, and we

passed in. Wynne's little terrier, Snap, came barking to meet us.

There was an air of delicious peacefulness about the garden. This

also tended to soften that hardness of temper which only cripples who

have once rejoiced in their strength can possibly know, I hope.

'I like to see you look so,' said the little girl, as I melted

entirely under these sweet influences. 'You looked so cross before

that I was nearly afraid of you.'

And she took hold of my hand, not hesitatingly, but frankly. The

little fingers clasped mine. I looked at them. They were much more

sun-tanned than her face. The little rosy nails were shaped like

filbert nuts.

'Why were you not _quite_ afraid of me?' I asked.

'Because,' said she, 'under the crossness I saw that you had great

love-eyes like Snap's all the while. _I_ saw it!' she said, and

laughed with delight at her great wisdom. Then she said with a sudden

gravity, 'You didn't mean to make my father cry, did you, little

boy?'

'No,' I said.

'And you love him?' said she.

I hesitated, for I had never told a lie in my life. My business

relations with Tom had been of an entirely unsatisfactory character,

and the idea of any one's loving the beery scamp presented itself in

a ludicrous light. I got out of the difficulty by saying,

'I mean to love Tom very much, if I can.'

The answer did not appear to be entirely satisfactory to the little

girl, but it soon seemed to pass from her mind.

That was the most delightful afternoon I had ever spent in my life.

We seemed to become old friends in a few minutes, and in an hour or

two she was the closest friend I had on earth. Not all the little

shoeless friends in Raxton, not all the beautiful sea-gulls I loved,

not all the sunshine and wind upon the sands, not all the wild bees

in Graylingham Wilderness, could give the companionship this child

could give. My flesh tingled with delight. (And yet all the while I

was not Hal the conqueror of ragamuffins, but Hal the cripple!)

'Shall we go and get some strawberries?' she said, as we passed to

the back of the house. 'They are quite ripe.'

But my countenance fell at this. I was obliged to tell her that I

could not stoop.

'Ah! but I can, and I will pluck them and give them to you. I should

like to do it. Do let me, there's a good boy.'

I consented, and hobbled by her side to the verge of the

strawberry-beds. But when I foolishly tried to follow her, I stuck

ignominiously, with my crutches sunk deep in the soft mould of rotten

leaves. Here was a trial for the conquering hero of the coast. I

looked into her face to see if there was not, at last, a laugh upon

it. That cruel human laugh was my only dread. To everything but

ridicule I had hardened myself; but against that I felt helpless.

I looked into her face to see if she was laughing at my lameness. No:

her brows were merely knit with anxiety as to how she might best

relieve me. This surpassingly beautiful child, then, had evidently

accepted me--lameness and all--crutches and all--as a subject of

peculiar interest.

How I loved her as I put my hand upon her firm little shoulders,

while I extricated first one crutch and then another, and at last got

upon the hard path again!

When she had landed me safely, she returned to the strawberry-bed,

and began busily gathering the fruit, which she brought to me in her

sunburnt hands, stained to a bright pink by the ripe fruit. Such a

charm did she throw over me, that at last I actually consented to her

putting the fruit into my mouth.

She then told me with much gravity that she knew how to 'cure

crutches.' There was, she said, a famous 'crutches-well' in Wales,

kept by St. Winifred (most likely an aunt of hers, being of the same

name), whose water could 'cure crutches.' When she came from Wales

again she would be sure to bring a bottle of 'crutches-water.' She

told me also much about Snowdon (near which she lived), and how, on

misty days, she used to 'make believe that she was the Lady of the

Mist, and that she was going to visit the Tywysog o'r Niwl, the

Prince of the Mist; it was _so_ nice!'

I do not know how long we kept at this, but the organist returned and

caught her in the very act of feeding me. To be caught in this

ridiculous position, even by a drunken man, was more than I could

bear, however, and I turned and left.

As I recall that walk home along Wilderness Road. I live it as

thoroughly as I did then. I can see the rim of the sinking sun

burning fiery red low down between the trees on the left, and then

suddenly dropping out of sight. I can see on the right the lustre of

the high-tide sea. I can hear the 'che-eu-chew, che-eu-chew.' of the

wood-pigeons in Graylingham Wood. I can smell the very scent of the

bean flowers drinking in the evening dews. I did not feel that I was

going home as the sharp gables of the Hall gleamed through the

chestnut-trees. My home for evermore was the breast of that lovely

child, between whom and myself such a strange delicious sympathy had

sprung up. I felt there was no other home for me.

'Why, child, where _have_ you been?' said my mother, as she saw me

trying to slip to bed unobserved, in order that happiness such as

mine might not he brought into coarse contact with servants. 'Child,

where _have_ you been, and what has possessed you? Your face is

positively shining with joy, and your eyes, they alarm me, they are

so unnaturally bright. I hope you are not going to have an illness.'

I did not tell her, but went to my room, which now was on the ground

floor, and sat watching the rooks sailing home in the sunset till the

last one had gone, and the voices of the blackbirds grew less

clamorous, and the trees began to look larger and larger in the dusk.