pushed his chair further into the concealing gloom. He felt trapped
in a cunning snare, all the more cunning and cruel because it was
simply his own plan of life twisted and tangled out of shape. He had
never dreamed that his future hung by a hair, but then he had never
imagined that John might die, or that Agnes might so incredibly
change her mind. He felt not only trapped but mocked, and the mockery
hardened him in his resolve. Difficult as he was to turn, he might
yet have been driven to yield, if the whole business had not worn so
ironic a leer. The rough hand of fate was thrust in among his careful
plans. His faithfulness and self-denial, his patience and hard work,
were all to be shuffled and risked in a hurried moment like this.
If only things had been right between him and his lass, how
triumphantly simple the whole problem would have been! It was true
that he would have liked another year to look round, but he would
have let that go without hesitation for the chance of the farm. The
place was in a bad state, of course, but that should mean an easier
rental, and all the more credit to him when he pulled it round. He
knew the little farm by stick and stone, and loved it well enough,
too. He was content enough in his hired spot, but the marsh blood
that was in him cried always to be settled within sight and sound of
the sea. Even to-night, though his heart was pulling him back, and
the marsh was a dripping waste with a trap at the farther end, he had
drawn great breaths as the mountains dropped behind. To have had the
old home with Agnes—why, it was better by far than he had planned!
And in the event, as it had proved, how far it had fallen short!
He would have been glad, too, to keep the old man, just as the Agnes
he had counted as his would also have been glad. Both had been bred
to the sense of duty powerful in their class, and the fact that Kit
had muddled his own chance would have made no difference to that duty
in their eyes. He would have been welcome to their home as long as
he lived, and indeed, there would have been no hardship about it,
after all, for he was both lovable and kind, as well as the sort that
made little trouble about the house. Thomas, in fact, would have been
proud as well as glad to give him what he asked. He would have liked
to have seen him daily in his chair, playing his fiddle in a patch
of shade or pottering about the garden in the sun. The old man had
always been rarely fond of flowers, and no matter what happened or
did not happen on the farm, the garden, at least, was always bright
and sweet. Flowers seemed to grow for him, indeed, under the mere
caressing glance of his eye.... But at present Agnes was turned the
other way, and he would not travel a road that was not hers as well.
As long as he could he would stay within reach, doggedly waiting and
waiting for the recoil, and if anything else called for his help, he
must shut his ears and let it go to the wall. A few miles over the
hill would have made little difference, perhaps, but he could not
have endured those miles, and he did not mean to try. Without Agnes,
he would let the farm go without even raising his hand. Without
Agnes, he would let his father go, too.
There being little else he could do for the old man, Bob was roused
to fight for him to the last. It was his brother’s duty, he pointed
out, a duty that would have been a pleasure to other folks, not
so far. Nobody could have had a better father, as they knew right
well, and he was entitled to the little they could do. It wasn’t as
if Thomas hadn’t the brass—what, he had more than once told them
about it himself! If that was true—and it was like enough, after
all these years—there could be nothing and less than nothing in the
way. Supposing it did mean a year before he’d planned, why, surely
to goodness there was no hitch in that? He’d never for shame let his
father be turned out, like a come-day-go-day tenant that never meant
to stop? He could have both bed and bite under his roof, Bob said,
but it wouldn’t be much to crack on, after Beautiful End. There was
only one right road, as anybody could see, and that was to put in at
once for the offered farm.
Kit never spoke or stirred while Bob argued and Thomas denied,
the deep, slow voices rising a little towards the end, but never
once growing bitter or unkind. Abuse and bickering had always been
strangers under that roof, and even Thomas’s sullen rage did not vent
itself in speech. He spoke seldom, indeed, as seldom as he could, and
then only dour refusals to consider the matter at all, retreating
further and further out of the path of the moon. But throughout the
whole scene Kit never said another word, and his sons did not think
it strange. He was of the sort that makes its appeal and then stands
aside, leaving others to argue and settle its fate. He had pleaded
his case with a childlike certainty that somebody would step in, and
the matter was fought to an end without his help. Even when Thomas
had said nay for the last time—the hundredth, miserable, degrading
time, so it seemed—his father had not spoken again. Perhaps even then
he hoped and had faith, that faith in chance which dreamers carry
to their graves; or perhaps he guessed the hold of the tie to which
Thomas would give no name.
“Ay, well, happen you’ll sleep on’t,” Bob had said, rising at last,
and speaking even to the end as if his father were not there.
“There’s nowt else I can think on as’ll likely change your mind,
and I doubt I’d ha’ been wiser not to say so much. But it’s hard to
stand by when you can’t do nowt to help, and see as others as can
all right but happen won’t. There’s a home for the old man at our
house whenever he likes to come, and right welcome he’ll be under any
roof of mine. As for Marget, she’ll likely kick a bit at first, but
I’ll get her round to it after a deal o’ talk. She’ll come to it all
right, same as other folks have done, and it’s queer if I can’t give
my father a share of my own spot.”
“I’ll lend a hand wi’ the keep,” Thomas muttered, out of the dark,
and Bob nodded in answer, turning to the door. He knew well enough
what his offer of a home was worth, among weakly, ill-tempered
children and under a nagging shrew. He knew as well as Thomas or Kit
that it would only be a dismal waiting-place for death. It was bad
enough to have to quit, to break ties and begin a feeble life again,
to lose the sound of the tide awash at the sea-wall, but the worst
to come was not the loss of the farm. It was Marget that was the
dreadful thing to face, as they were all aware. It was the thought
of Marget with the old man in her hands that almost defeated Thomas
at the last. If only the poor old chap could have gone to somebody
else!... “Now ye’ll mind ye can come to us, Father!” Bob repeated
on the step, and Kit had simply thanked him and said no more. In
the porch, Thomas, dismal as the night, managed to drag out a few
ungracious words. “As soon as I’ve gitten things straight, Father ...
just hold on....” And Kit had said thank you quite simply for that,
too.
Once outside he was seized by a passionate impulse to return.
Grasping at one thing still out of reach, he was more than probably
risking the loss of all. Supposing Agnes should never be won back,
no matter what he offered or threw away? It was on the cards, as he
was forced to admit. Even without her he would still have the farm,
and his payment of satisfaction in his father’s face. But, rough and
unthinking as he was, he guessed that partial fulfilment was more
to be dreaded than complete loss, that a heart’s desire is better
rejected if it cannot be had whole. And indeed, this strife with
himself was only a waste of energy, after all. He knew, as things
stood, he would never come away.
The brothers found nothing more to say as they followed the muddy
track to the meadow gate. Bob had tried his eloquence, such as it
was, to a hopeless end, and his own position was doubtful, to say
the least. At any moment Thomas might have turned, and with just
cause. He was the youngest after all, and the only one that had
stood on his own feet. John had not had enough courage even to live,
and Bob, beaten and slack, was scarcely the one to preach burdens
on to another’s back. He was tired, too, after a wearing day and a
scream-riddled night; busy, moreover, with the problem of facing
Marget with the news.
At the back of his mind was a vague idea that Thomas’s wooing was
somehow going amiss. He had thought of it while he argued in the
house, but Thomas had never thought fit to mention the lass, and it
wasn’t his brother’s place to bring her in. The courting, he knew,
had been a long one, like his own. He could have told Thomas a thing
or two, he felt sure, only telling these things was never any use. In
spite of his good sense and superior luck, Thomas must dree his weird
like the rest.
They had parted where the roads parted on the marsh, and after them
through the lifting curtain of the rain had looked the pale wraith
that wanted to be the moon. And again, over their heads from the lone
farm, now slipped away into the unbordered dark, there trembled the
long flight of the violin.
Alone on the marsh, Thomas had once again nearly repented and turned
back. It was not that the fiddle seemed to call him back. It had, on
the contrary, the effect of shutting him out. It seemed to mark the
final detachment of father from son, to emphasise the division of two
who by rights should have held together, but were nevertheless going
to drift apart. It was Kit’s swan-song to his own place, and as such
it kept its ecstasy for himself and its poignancy for the listener on
the waste. Thomas had an idea that he was hurrying back to the farm,
plodding again through the meadow along the rutted track. He heard
the little click of the garden gate, saw himself pushing gently at
the door, met the sweet flood of music rushing out, and warmed to the
old man’s welcome and relief. But always his feet were taking him
away, and the pull of the farm and its trouble lessened with every
mile. Now his thoughts reached forward rather than behind, fixed on a
dweller in another house. In his mind he saw her home between gentle
curves of the land, the night brooding over its walls that seemed as
much grown out of the earth as the hedgerows in the fields. He saw
the syringa over the porch lifting its star-faces to the moon. He saw
faint candle-light in a room upstairs, and herself a moving shadow
across the blind....
He was late at his own place, and found himself locked out, but even
as he tried the door he heard stumbling on the stairs, and knew that
his step had warned the folk across the yard. While he waited he said
to himself that if there was any bother he would give in his notice
right away. It only wanted some little thing like that to fix his
mind. He tried to work himself into a fiercer mood, ready to lash out
at the first suggestion of rebuke. It would be grand to be his own
master after so long, instead of a hired man at beck and call. With
a word he could alter the position when he liked. But when the bolts
were unshot the farmer said nothing except that it was a dirty night,
and Thomas took off his boots in silence and followed him upstairs.
In the morning the porridge was badly burnt, and again he tried to
drive himself to a break, but once again something put him off and he
kept still. That evening, however, he met Agnes in the lane between
the farm and her home, and the thing rose in him with a rush and he
spoke out.
“You can take it or leave it, as suits you,” he said, “but there
it be to your hand. The farm’s ready and waiting on you, and so’s
the man. I’ve had enough o’ your putting off and keeping me hanging
round. You’ve got to fix it up now or let me gang.”
“You must give me time,” she answered, using his own words of the
night before. “I’m not ready—I don’t know my mind. As for keeping you
hanging round, you’ve been free to go this many a long day, as you
know right well. I’m not that anxious to get wed, not I. But if it’s
me you’re wanting, as you seem to think, well, there’s nothing for it
but to give me time.”
“You’ve had time and plenty, I’m sure!” he retorted with rough scorn.
“Time to look round at all the lads and begin again. Time to look
round at the married folk an’ all, and see who’s suited and who
baint. But there’s got to be an end of your daft shilly-shally now.
Seems to me you think it’s nobbut a game.”
“Nay, then, that’s just what I don’t!” she flashed back in wrath.
“It’s because I take it so serious-like that I don’t mean to be
pushed. There’s times it seems to me that serious I don’t know how
folk ever come to it at all. ’Tisn’t as if it was just a bit of a
bargain over a cow or a two-three sheep. It’s you and me beginning
our lives right over again from the start, and maybe both on us
finding we’re different folk from what we thought. I’m suited well
enough as I am, and I’d be a fool not to stop and think. I’ll not wed
till I’m that set on the lad I’ll find myself fair running to kirk,
and I’m a long way off yet from being as nicked in the head as yon!
I don’t say but what I think a deal of you, because I do. I’m not
breaking my heart over you, that’s all. If you want to gang, you can
gang, ay, and right off the reel, but I won’t stir finger or foot
until I choose!”
“Ay, but there’s the old man, I tell ye!” Thomas had blurted out.
“I’m in a cleft stick, seemingly, atween you and him. They’ll turn
him out of his spot if I waint promise to take hold.”
“Eh, now, if that isn’t terble hard!” She fell silent, thinking after
her passionate speech, studying his lowering, fretted face, and
seeing all in a moment how they stood. “But there’s never two minds
about it, surely?” she added, in a troubled voice. “You’ll have to
see to your father one way or t’other, you and Bob. And you’ll never
to goodness miss the chance o’ the farm?”
He turned his eyes on her with their dogged, miserable look.
“Ay, but I will, if I can’t have you an’ all.”
“You’ve had your answer to that till I’m fair tired.” She turned away
from him, staring vexedly at the hedge.
“Ay, well, then, that’s all there is to it, I reckon. Father and
farm’ll have to see to themselves.”
“You can have a housekeeper to do for you,” Agnes said.
“An’ a bonny makeshift an’ all, for a man as wants a wife!”
“Other folks do with them all right.”
“Well, I want nowt wi’ ’em, so that’s flat.”
“But you’ll have to do summat o’ the sort,” she protested angrily,
troubled and also afraid. Her own particular cleft stick was becoming
plainer with every minute that passed. “You’ll have to have somebody
about the place, and it’s fair wicked to talk o’ missing the farm.
What, you’ve been wanting a spot of your own for long enough, I’m
sure, and now you can do what’s right by your dad at the same time.”
“You wouldn’t ha’ minded him about the house? If things was fixed,
I’m meaning ... if we were wed....”
“Mind an old body settin’ on the hearth?” She turned to face him
again with wonder in her eyes. “Nay, but you know me better than
that by a deal! I’d ha’ been glad enough to see to him, that I would.
I’ve always been rarely fond o’ Fiddlin’ Kit.”
“Ay, well, then,” Thomas insisted, “what’s in the road?”
“I’ve tell’t you what’s in the road. I can’t frame to make up my
mind.”
“Seems to me it’s an easy enough job,” he answered her gloomily,
staring at his feet, and she laughed in spite of her anger and dismay.
“Happen it is for some folk, but not me.... Hark ye! Show a bit o’
sense, do now,” she coaxed. “You go off to your farm, and likely I’ll
throw my shoe after you, even yet. I reckon you’ll ha’ forgot all
about me, by then.”
“’Tisn’t me as’ll do the forgetting!” he turned on her fiercely,
breaking out at last. “It’s your sort, not mine, as doesn’t keep a
friend in mind. It’s your sort as goes back on your word, and plays
fast and loose and suchlike tricks. You’d be glad to be shot of me,
I’ll be bound, and afore long there’d be somebody easier in my shoes,
but I don’t mean to give you a chance o’ forgetting, don’t you fret!
Am I like to put miles between us when I’m lile or nowt to you in the
same lane? Nay, I’ll bide ... I’ll bide.... I’m used to your ways,
and though I don’t think much on ’em, I reckon I can see it through.
But it isn’t only me as is waiting on you now. You’re making me act
bad to the old dad, and that’s what’s putting me about.”
“It’s no business of mine, I tell you!” she flung back, full of
resentment at this shifting of loads. “It’s nowt to do wi’ me, anyway
round.” They stood glaring at each other with frowning faces and
hard eyes, blaming each other for the subtle net by which they were
equally entrapped. “I’ve no call to wed just to give your father a
home,” she went on. “I’m sorry for him, as I said, and I’d lend a
hand if I could, but I don’t see as it’s fair to blame me because I
can’t. You’ve not overmuch pride, I doubt, or you’d never put it like
yon. It’s nobbut a poor sort o’ lad as’d take me at the price!”
He threw her a final look of helpless rage, and swung away from her,
facing towards the farm. “Then he mun gang to Marget,” he flung over
his shoulder, “Marget and Bob!” and at the terrible name of Marget
she cried aloud. Thomas continued steadily on his way.
“Eh, Thomas, you don’t mean that!” she called after his retreating
back. “She’ll be bad to him, will Marget—she’ll finish him right
off. Bide a bit, can’t you?... Save us, man, can’t you bide? I never
somehow thought of the old man going there.”
“Where else should he gang?” he demanded sullenly, stopping but
still turned away. “Bob’s his own flesh and blood as well as me, and
a long sight the oldest on us an’ all. There’s t’ Union, likely,
might do for the old dad, but I doubt they won’t take him while
there’s others to fill the job.”
“Nay, and why should it, I’d like to know!” she exclaimed. “You
should think shame o’ yourself for suchlike selfish talk.” There was
something desperate in her glance at the hedge on either side, as if
the fences were hung with the net that would not let her through.
From them she looked once more at Thomas, turning slowly on his heel,
and slowly beginning at last to see his way.... “I’d wed him myself
and work for him sooner than that!”
“I reckon there’s nowt agen you wedding me instead.”
“Nay, then, I can’t.... I’ve tell’t you.... I just can’t.”
“Then he’ll be at Marget’s afore you can say knife.”
They had changed places at last, as was clear to both; in the course
of a few moments they had changed. At last he had found a way of
blocking her escape, of putting a log in the path of her everlasting
no. It was he who had the better hold now, and he did not mean to be
stopped from winning the fall. He knew well enough that however hard
she might be with a young man foolishly in love, she had the softest
heart in the world for the weak and old. Perhaps he had no pride, as
she said, but he meant to use his father’s cause to the full for the
furthering of his own. He stood staring fixedly at her downcast head,
and the old kindliness came back into his voice now that he saw his
advantage clear. He put the whole case over to her again, but always
with Marget looming largely at the end, and had the same satisfaction
in the last effect. Agnes knew Bob’s wife as well as anybody else,
and needed no enlightening as to her ways. His hopes rose and his
face cleared as he saw the position he had cursed proving the door
to his desire, and as his heart eased he became more eloquent, more
tender, more difficult to resist. At the finish he gave her a rough
picture of the lonely farm, and the fiddle singing into the night....
She yielded at last with wet eyes and a dismal shake of her drooped
head.
“Nay, then, we mun just put a stop to it, that’s all. We can’t let
him gang to Marget, poor old chap! If you waint stir without me,
I mun wed you and take the risk, but I doubt we’ll make a mess o’
things, you an’ me. It’s nobbut a middlin’ sort of a bargain when
folks don’t both jump on the tick.” She looked up at him suddenly
with a laugh that was more than half a wail. “Eh, Thomas, but baint
there some other lass’d do as well?”
And then, when he had what he wanted, he put it from him and turned
away. As soon as the battle was over, he saw at once the futility
of his success. He could think, now that he was no longer vexed and
opposed, and thinking, could find nothing else to do but draw back.
His father could have only a few years in front of him, after all,
but this was for all his own life and hers. He had his pride, in
spite of her taunt, and this was apparently where it stopped. It was
a poor bargain, as she had said, appealing angrily to his common
sense; a gift, if you could call it a gift, that wouldn’t be even
his own. And it wasn’t much of a man who bullied a woman into saying
yes, who needed so mighty a lever to get at her heart. He stood back
once again as she wept, and heard his voice sending her away, heard
himself seal his father into the mercy of Bob’s wife....
So Kit had gone to Marget’s, trustful to the end, even with his
sold-up house behind him and a shrewish face before. Thomas attended
the sale and bought in a few trifles at the old man’s wish, and when
all was over he borrowed a trap and drove him away. Kit was cheerful
and talkative throughout the drive, and they never so much as
mentioned Marget’s name. Thomas had an insane idea that they would
find his mother at the farther end, and kept seeing her waiting
for them at the door. He never forgot the journey’s real end, the
shut house full of eyes at every pane, the cold wait in the empty
street, the colder opening to let them in. Marget had met them with
silence at first, and then with a gathering flood of angry speech.
Kit’s attempt at grateful thanks had been swallowed up in it as the
channels out on the sands were swallowed by the winter wave. Thomas
waited until Marget’s breath gave out, and then went away, feeling as
though he had thrown a live thing to a cat. After that time he had
gone as seldom as his sense of duty would allow. He never failed,
however, to pay his share, and he managed to get news of the old man
from Bob. Not that Bob ever had a very great deal to say, because he
kept out of the house as much as he could. The old man was “ailing a
bit,” or “right enough,” as the case might be, but that was all. Now
it was nearly two years since Kit had gone to the unhappy place—the
place where a pair of lovers had prisoned him in.
* * * * *
Agnes, returning, found him at the mirror again, so intent that he
started when she spoke.
“Land’s sake! Why, you’re not off yet!... What’s come to you to be
gaping in yon glass?” She stared at him wonderingly, and he turned
a somewhat sheepish face. “You nobbut look at it once a week, as a
rule, and that’s when you’re donning yourself for kirk.”
“I was nobbut taking a squint at the room,” he answered in a puzzled
tone. “Glass makes it look different, I don’t know why.”
“Ay, I’ll be bound it’s different!” she exclaimed with pride. “I’d a
sight on’t once, not long afore the sale, and a lost-looking, dismal
spot it was, to be sure! Seems like as if it couldn’t possibly be the
same. What wi’ new furniture and range and wall-papers an’ suchlike,
it’s for all the world like some other place.”
“Ay, but I wasn’t meaning it like that. Seems as if it was the _old_
room I can see in t’glass. It was the old kitchen glass, you’ll
think on, as I bought at the sale. Father didn’t want it going to
off-comers and suchlike, so I bought it to please the poor old chap.
He’d a sort of idea as glasses knew a deal—said there was glasses
remembered things they’d seen. Likely this here has got the old
kitchen on its mind. Likely it’s looked that often at the old, it
can’t frame yet to take a peep at the new.”
“Likely you’re blinded wi’ the sun!” She flung him a look of laughing
scorn and went to the window again.... “What in the name o’ goodness
can ha’ come to yon trap! D’you think owt’s gone amiss on the road?”
“More like they’ve been late in setting off, as I said afore. I’ll be
bound Marget’s found summat to keep ’em back, if it’s only to put the
poor old man about. Or likely they’ve been bothered wi’ folk stopping
’em on t’road. They’ll all be agog on the marsh to think as he’s
coming home.”
“Folks say they’re glad the Sills isn’t quitting the marsh,” Agnes
said. “They thought nowt o’ the man as come here after your dad. He
seems to have been only a terble middlin’ sort—over fond o’ the drink
and happen a bit daft. The place isn’t over lucky, Thomas, I doubt!”
“Folks make their own luck,” Thomas said doggedly, squaring his jaw,
“and anyway round it’s brought me all the luck I want. There’s you
here, as I never thought’d come, and brass enough to put the farm on
its legs. And now there’s the old man coming home to-night. I reckon
I’m suited as well as most. There’s nobbut one thing grubs me,” he
went on, with a moody look, “and that’s that the old chap ever had to
gang.”