Gradually, as he rowed, the familiar landmarks grew smaller and the
scene widened out, while the sprinkling of little cottages slid closer
together. Beyond these, the spire of the church rose like a slender
thread into the dark blue sky.
Brocklehurst’s eyes rested upon his face, but he appeared to be quite
unconscious of this, his own dark grey eyes fixed on some point in the
remote.
At length he drew in his oars.
How far away the land seemed! All around, sea――sea unspotted by a
single sail――sea stretching from world to world.
He lay back in the bow of the boat, and for a time appeared to have
fallen into one of those reveries his companion knew so well.
And Brocklehurst began to murmur to himself while he dabbled his hand
in the water.
‘What?――What do you say?’ At the sound of his friend’s voice breaking
through the fine meshes of his dream, Graham roused himself and made a
movement to sit up.
Brocklehurst smiled. ‘Nothing――nothing. I was only talking to myself.’
Graham looked at him. ‘Doesn’t it seem as if we were quite out of the
world here, Harold? We shall never be more alone together than we are
now. I can hardly remember when we came.... Do you think we shall ever
go back?’
‘Perhaps the sea round Ireland is haunted, like the sea of the Ancient
Mariner.’
‘And the sea across which Odysseus sailed. Surely almost every place is
haunted by this time. If we rowed on a little further we might come to
Circé’s Island, or to the land of the Lotus-eaters, or to the home of
Nausicaa.’
And even while he spoke they seemed to drift into a stiller air――or
was it his fancy? His thoughts seemed to be borne into his mind from
somewhere far away, and the faint lapping of the water against the boat
recalled to him his dream.
‘Last night I went back there, Harold――I found the old way.... Shall I
tell you?... You remember the curious dream that filled up so much of
my life here.... I think it must be beginning to open out again.’
‘You mean about the boy whom you used to fancy as being in some way
connected with me?’
Graham met his eyes. ‘Are you quite sure he wasn’t?’ he asked softly.
‘You must tell me, because just now, somehow, I am not quite certain
myself.’
‘What has changed you, then? You used, you know, to be sufficiently
sure.... Do you remember the day I found you out in the fields?’
‘The day you came to me?... You came when I called.’
‘Well, you were very certain then, weren’t you?’ He laughed a little at
the other boy’s gravity.
‘That was the beginning,’ Graham murmured. ‘Do you know that from that
day until last night I have never dreamed of you, nor of the place
where I used to find you ... never till last night.’
‘And last night you _did_?’
Graham glanced up at his companion. ‘It all came back,’ he answered
simply. ‘You were there――just as before I went to school――but
changed――a little changed.’ He tried to remember. ‘I can’t exactly say
what the difference was,’ he went on slowly, turning it over in his
mind. Then he paused, in his effort to puzzle it out? ‘_Why_ should
you have come back?――after so long, I mean. Why, if you _were_ coming,
should you not have come sooner?’
‘Ah, I can’t tell you,’ smiled Brocklehurst. ‘Perhaps if you had asked
me last night――――!’
‘You would have told me?... You did tell me, but I don’t remember what
you said. Somehow it has all grown very dim. Your being with me here, I
think, has thrown the other back.’
‘But wasn’t it to tell you something that I returned?’
A peculiar, half-baffled expression passed across Graham’s face. ‘I
thought I was going to remember,’ he sighed, ‘but it has gone again....
I suppose I shall never know now.’
‘Ah, well, I can’t help you any further.’ Brocklehurst watched him with
some amusement.
‘No.’ He sighed again. Then he looked across once more at his
companion. ‘As soon as I fell asleep I saw him――my dream-boy. I awoke,
it seemed, on the sea-shore, at the very gate of his garden. And I
heard his voice calling me――calling, calling.... Oh, I remembered his
voice so well! I opened the gate, and he was there.’
He paused a moment, and his eyes grew dark with a strange shadow. And
it was through this shadow that his next words seemed to drop, his
voice becoming lower and lower, till at length it was scarce audible,
scarce more than a whisper.
‘Who he is, what he is; if he indeed be your spirit, or if you only
remind me of him, I suppose I shall never know. At times I think he
must have been born with me, and have grown with the growth of my soul.
Until I went to school, at any rate, as I have already told you, he
was my only playmate. When I was a little boy I used to pretend he was
in the garden with me, and I used to look for him here and there, just
as if he were hiding from me in some game.... At night, I remember,
when I had got into bed I used to wonder where he was just then, and if
he would be waiting for me when I woke up in his country. And he always
_was_ waiting――standing there patiently, smiling, ready to welcome
me.... Now and then I even went to bed earlier than usual, to see if I
could by any chance get there before him; but I never could, because, I
suppose, he lived there....
‘And last night――I don’t know why――it was just the same. Everything
happened as in the old days.... It is rather strange, for of late it
had all grown a little dim and far away――faint, unreal even, when I
tried to bring it back.... And I remember he took me to the edge of a
pool, and when I looked into the water I saw reflected there my own
room――a boy lying asleep in the bed――myself――――’
He paused, smiling faintly, his whole face filled with the light of
his memory. Brocklehurst watched him curiously.
‘Sometimes,’ he went on, ‘sometimes the wind, when it is not too loud,
seems to bring back the sound of his voice ... and his voice is just
like yours, Harold.... Once, at school, I remember, I was sitting
before the fire, half asleep and half awake, when suddenly he seemed to
come very close to me, to be in the room, to be leaning over the back
of my chair. Then I shut my eyes and I felt his soft hair brush against
my cheek――and I waited――and oh, I felt so happy.... All at once the
door opened and you came in.... And you leaned over my chair just as he
had done, while you talked to me.’
‘You are making me feel very jealous,’ said Brocklehurst with pretended
seriousness. ‘I expect you like him much better than you like me!’
‘There is no difference ... except――――’ He stopped short while
Brocklehurst began to laugh.
‘Well, what were you going to say?’
Graham coloured a little. ‘Let us change places. You can row back.’
Brocklehurst obeyed him, but he still kept his eyes fixed on Graham’s
face. ‘What is the difference?’ he persisted. ‘What were you going to
tell me?’
‘Nothing――nothing,’ Graham answered almost confusedly. ‘It is just in
his――his manner.’
‘That means, I suppose, that he _is_ nicer――after all!’
‘No, it doesn’t mean anything of the kind.’
‘Well, it must mean something, you know. And if not that, why are you
afraid to tell me?’
‘I’m not afraid to tell you.... It means just that he likes――me.’ He
gazed down through the water.
Brocklehurst regarded him a little strangely. For a moment he seemed
about to speak, but in the end, without saying anything, he dipped his
oars and began to row back.
A long silence followed.
‘Where shall we go now?’ Brocklehurst asked gently. The boat was
heading for the cliffs, which rose, dark and naked, out of the clear
water.
‘There is a place a little to the left where I think we can land if you
would care to bathe.’
Brocklehurst brought the boat round to the desired spot, and they
scrambled out on to a broad flat shelf of rock where, having made fast
the rope, they sat for a while dangling their feet over the edge.
The sunlight made the water very clear and tempting. Floating faintly
through the still afternoon came the notes of the church clock. From
everywhere the salt, invigorating smell of seaweed just uncovered by
the ebb tide was blown into their faces, and long trailing branches of
it, golden-brown and grass-green in the sunlight, rose and sank with
the swell. Here and there, a little lower down, sprays of a brighter
colour were visible――pink and red and orange, like delicate, feathery
coral.
‘This place and this weather are pleasant enough for Pan,’ Graham
murmured. ‘Next month it will be all over, and we shall be going back
to school. I wonder if it will ever be just so nice again.’
After their bathe they sat on the rocks, baking in the hot sun. ‘How
brown your hands and face and neck are!’ said Graham lazily. ‘The rest
of you seems so white.... I wonder if the Greeks ever made a statue of
a diver? I don’t remember one.’ Then a sudden thought seemed to strike
him and he sprang to his feet, his drowsiness suddenly gone. ‘Wait a
moment,’ he cried. ‘Stand there.... Turn round just a little.... You
must lean against the rock and hold this bit of seaweed in your hand;
and you must cross your feet――like that. Oh! if you just had pointed
ears, or the least little bit of a tail!... A Faun! A Faun! A young
woodland Faun!... You are far nicer than the statue.’ And a look almost
of wonder came into Graham’s face.
Next, making him sit down, he put him in the posture of the ‘Spinario,’
his old favourite; and then, raising him to his feet once more, he made
him stand like the praying boy of the Berlin Museum, the ‘Adorante,’
his face and hands uplifted to the joy of the morning.
‘And now what else?’ he murmured. ‘You are too young for an athlete.
Your body is too slender. I will make you into a youthful Dionysus
instead. Let me put this seaweed in your hair. It is a wreath of vine.’
He placed him so that he leaned against the black, smooth rock, and the
soft melting lines of the boy’s body shone out with an extraordinary
beauty from the sombre background. Graham paused for a moment, and
stepping back, shaded his eyes with his hand while he gazed fixedly at
his work. A faint colour came into his cheeks and he advanced again.
Very gently he pulled the brown waving hair over the boy’s forehead,
and a little lower still, giving to his face a more feminine oval,
like that of Leonardo’s ‘Bacchus.’ He pulled his head, too, slightly
forward, bending it from the shapely neck; and with delicate fingers
he half lowered the lids of the dark, clear blue eyes, till the upper
lashes, long and curling, cast a shadow on the cheek below; and he
parted the lips, ever so softly, till a strange dreamy smile seemed to
play upon them.
The accuracy of his touch almost startled him, and his colour deepened
as the boy’s beauty flowed in upon him, filling him with a curious
pleasure. He laughed aloud. ‘You are just like one of the young gods,’
he cried. ‘I wonder if you really are one. Perhaps if we stay much
longer we shall draw the others down from heaven.’
‘Isn’t that what you would like? I expect you still, deep down, have a
kind of faith in them.’
‘Ah, how can I help having faith when one stands living before my eyes?
All hail, dear Dionysus! child of fire and dew, and the creeping,
delicate vine!... Should we not offer up a sacrifice, Harold? I have
nothing here but these dry sea-flowers which I gathered from the rock,
but it is into the heart of the giver, and not at the gift, that the
gods look.... Let us offer our slender garland to the presiding deity
of the place.’
He knelt down, and laid the few sea-pinks, and the seaweed with which
he had adorned his friend, on a little shelf of rock. ‘That is the
altar,’ he said smiling, but more than half serious. Then he took
Brocklehurst’s hand and pulled him down to kneel beside him while he
prayed.
‘What god shall I give them to?’ he whispered. ‘You see they have so
few worshippers left that they may be a little jealous of one another.
We do not want the waves to rise up against us as they rose against
Hippolytus.’
‘Give them to the unknown God.’
‘Hush!――they will hear you: they must be drawing very near.――O gods
of Hellas! If anything in our lives have found favour in your sight,
accept this, our gift, which, though it be poor, is given with our
love; and we beg that you will grant to each of us that thing which
may be best for him.... Harold, “need we anything more? The prayer, I
think, is enough for me.”’