him to-night, when all around him was calm and evening gold. He had
never been afraid of the sea when he had it under his feet. Once he
had gone to play at a dance across the sands, and had sailed home
again at break of day. He had come away from the hot room with the
dancing still in his brain, and gone down to the forsaken, dream-like
shore. It was black under the chestnuts roofing the narrow path, but
a grey light stood over the tide that seemed to grow upward from the
sea. The water broke crisply and coolly at his feet as he stumbled
over the beach and came to the sand. Near to him, like a figure flung
on a cloud, a man was holding a vague and ghostly boat, and out on
the dim tide where it merged into the air, a shadowy ship pulled at
a shadowy rope. She, too, was the merest phantasm of herself, with
her spidery cords and nebulous mast and spars. It was impossible to
believe that she could support the pressure of a foot, so that the
life and lift in her as he scrambled aboard came with a shock of
exquisite surprise. His body and brain felt heavy as lead against the
lightness of her build, and yet the effect of his weight was merely
an increased impression of her buoyant strength. His mind, that was
still full of whirling sounds, swayed to the water-floor on which
she rode. From the elastic spring of her under his feet, it seemed
as if she must leap into the air as soon as she was released. Turned
as she was on her anchor to meet the tide, she swung on her heel the
moment she felt the sail, and was off like a racer before the flag
is down. The boat dropped from them and became a blur, and the line
of shore was blurred, and the climbing town. The few dim lights that
burned were still to be seen after the shapes of the houses had been
painted out, showing mistily yellow above the sea, like lamps in
the long slits of a castle wall. Then they, too, went as if suddenly
blown out, and only the cap of pine that crowned the hill spoke to
the presence of earth against the sky. Kit was a crouched shadow in
the boat, staring ahead of him for a sight of the marsh, but the
great, grey wing of the sail seemed spread across the world. The
wind was behind them and they fled hushed, as shadows of clouds move
silently on the sea. The motion was easing as sleep, and healing as
still prayer. He thought of the dancing figures in the town which
had seemed so beautiful to him while he watched, yet were earthy and
clumsy and slow compared with this. Even the music—even the fiddle
itself—seemed noisy beside that delicate wash at the keel. This was
the peace of the sea of which men spoke, this great and painless
detachment from things of the earth. In the wide spaces how easily
God was found! On the water, as in the mountains and on the Hill of
Light, it was good for men to be there. Sometimes he slept for a few
moments, and awakened again and slept, but the man at the tiller
neither moved nor slept. He was like a statue set in the low stern,
with the straight shadow of the helm stretching between them like a
bar. His eyes were lifted a little towards the sail, and the slack
of the sheet lay in his quiet hand. Each time that Kit awoke the
grey had changed, because of the light over the hills that as yet he
could not see. The light came into it as out of an emptied cup, like
a white wine teemed in a sombre, misted pool. Slowly, as the land
came back to the sea, he could see the lake mountains piled into the
sky, all turned to wait for the coming light from the east, but even
before he could trace them he was sure they turned. It was strange to
look into the blackness where he knew them to be, and think of the
dark shapes waiting in a crowd. So huge they were, and solid and old,
homes alike for the short-living and the long dead. Perhaps they saw,
whom others, through the mist of morning, could not see. It was like
being watched by giants with many eyes.
But he was altogether alone when he forgot the hills, because the
steersman was only a part of the boat. Even the wind had nothing to
say in this silent world, and the water was like a monster moving
floor, rushing them poised on its expanse. So light they felt, he and
the boat, and yet through every plank he could feel the passionate
quiver of taut strength. The sail whitened as the light whitened, and
the mast grew yellow instead of grey. Then a level line cut across
the threads of rope, and behind it arose the misty country of the
marsh.
The sun came, bringing the clean first colour of all, that for its
purity alone is sufficient miracle and joy. Slowly at first, and
then faster and faster all the time it lifted the earth out of the
many-shaded grey. Here and there and then there the land showed
itself awake, glowing in great breadths in this place and then in
that. Not all at once was the colour painted in, but gradually, as
if waiting for the eye to catch the effect of green stretches and
white walls, and the sudden blue-grey of jutting rock. The mountains
weighed heavier and heavier upon the earth, showing their great bones
and russet bracken slopes.
The kiss of the sun on the sail seemed to waken the statue into life,
showing him wiry and lithe, with the blue of a warmer water in his
eyes. After the marsh stood up he came about, and at once the world
was all struggle and noise, straining and drumming canvas overhead,
and hissing and bubbling water under the bow. The boat felt stiff
from stem to stern, a passionate live thing set against control. She
leaned over, as if bent on ridding herself of her human freight, and
let the water line up and slap itself over their feet. The sail was
gleaming now, and the bay deepening into blue, and suddenly Kit saw
the dazzling front of his home, with the yew sharp-cut and black
against its side. It had the rippling tide before it and the shining
river behind, and where there was neither river nor tide there were
green fields and thick hedges and white roads.... Faint at the
upstairs window, he thought he saw a face....
Now they had found the channel and were coming at the house, rushing
and winged as they had been before, such a flying thing of the deep
as Agnes had once seen. It seemed to Kit, as it had seemed to her,
that they would ride on that moving water straight into the house
itself. The boat raced towards it as a horse towards a fence, only
smoother and swifter and keener than any horse. He clambered out to
the bow and knelt on the seat, and felt the ride and lift of her over
the carrying sea. Kneeling, he thought of ancient figureheads, and
knew what they had felt and why they stood for the whole exultation
of the world.... It was plain to him what he should do when they
rose at the house. The flung-back casement upstairs was like a sign,
and behind it the face still glimmered and watched and leaned.
Straight out of the boat, as she lifted under his feet, he would step
unhurriedly into the room....
He rose from his knees and stood erect, supremely prepared, and
fell in a clutching heap as they came about. For a moment he sat
still, grasping at his wits, confounded by violent defraudation and
shock. Now they were hove to under the farmyard wall, but it did not
seem to him that they had really arrived. The boat seemed limp and
broken, injured though not dead, a flapping, fretting thing checked
in its flight before the goal was reached. He felt a blinding spasm
of rage as if he had been robbed, and even when he stood on the
shore and watched the boat beat back, he was still cheated and angry
in his heart. Now he was conscious that he was very tired, just a
weary player coming home in the dawn. He turned at last and walked
slowly to the house, and was glad of the open doorway in his path.
As he walked he looked at the window upstairs, but without either
exaltation or desire. He had been so near perfection, as it seemed,
and at the impossible moment it had escaped. The room was still
there, but his passionate impulse towards it had died down. In youth
one seeks one’s sacred place on wings; it is only in later life that
it is sweet to climb to it by a homely stair.
Bob had stopped the horse and scrambled down, and was busy with the
latch of a gate. Kit brought himself back to the present with a jerk,
though the floor of the trap was still the light, curving timbers
of the yacht. In front of him was a long, green road, a wide alley
hedged on either side, with the dykes beside the hedges so full of
growth that they looked almost level with the level road. The hedges
themselves, as far as he could see, were pink with little rose-faces
and purple with vetch. Now they were nearly home; the green road
always meant that they were nearly home. Bob took the horse by the
head and called to his father to take the reins, and he gathered
them up shakingly, glad, after so long, to feel the touch of the
rough leather against his hands. But all the time he was troubled by
a sense of something amiss, in spite of the green road that meant
the journey’s end. He wondered why he had lived again that vivid
experience on the boat. The shadow of that disillusionment long ago
seemed stretching also across this perfect hour.
And then gradually his mind cleared again, and set the warning and
creeping trouble aside. There came back to him like a repeated song
the sweetness of this tranquil evening return. The grass crushed
softly underneath the wheels, and on the quiet road there was peace
for the creaking bones of the ancient trap. He felt warm in the sun
and soothed and freshened by the tender air. The light was gold on
the dark coat of the horse, and on Bob’s stooping shoulders and
bent head. Yet behind all the comfort of renewed content he felt
continually that he was very tired. The journey had been a long
one—longer than he had thought; perhaps he would never have come if
he had known how long. Those mind-travels of his had been easier by
far, when his body was left behind and nothing jolted or jarred. He
was perfectly certain that he could never face it again, but then he
was done with all his journeying now. He was at home; he had escaped
Marget; he was at home. It did not matter how tired you were when
once you had reached home.
The green road ran out from between its hedges close in front, and
seemed to be lost in a stretch of open field. It looked, like the
rest of the old man’s span of life, as if it ran smoothly to the end,
yet all the while the river lay between field and road. Often enough,
folks coming home in the dark had gone over the sheer drop into its
hidden bed. Kit tightened the reins nervously when he came to the
bank, and Bob felt the tug on the bit and glanced behind. The old man
was out of himself to-night, he thought, and as full of the shakes as
a piece of doddering grass. First of all, he had boggled at the sea,
and here he was taking steck at the river, too! He turned the horse
to the left, and stopped again, at a meadow gate. Thomas was waiting
at the meadow gate.
He was up at the trap side before it came to rest, and as his eyes
fell upon him Kit felt suddenly very old. This son of his was so
lithe and strong, so full of life at its height, so healthy and
fine-coloured and clean-drawn. There was nothing about him that was
betrayed or made ashamed by the pure tones and line of marsh and sky.
By comparison Kit felt himself and Bob to be broken and fusty like
the trap, unbeautifully finished things blurring the exquisitely
ending day. Not all the clean air and space could give them back that
look, which belongs only to Nature and the young. They were blots on
the landscape, he felt, an offence to the eye ... like an old boot
flung away in a flowering hedge ... old bottles cast on the emptiness
of the sands....
Thomas, however, was reaching up a hand, and there was nothing
but hearty greeting in his face. He kept saying, “You’ve landed,
dad—you’ve landed at last!” as if it was something brought about
by a charm. He managed to spare Bob a jerk of the head, and then
instantly turned to the older man again. Bob looked at them both with
a somewhat curious stare—the brother that seemed so hearty and so
glad, and the father that was out of himself to-night.
Kit said, “Ay, ay,” in a voice that was rather vague and tired,
because now he was looking past Thomas at the gate. He had not
noticed the gate when they first stopped, because of that withering
picture of Thomas in his strength, but now he saw that it was not
the gate he knew. It was either a new gate straight from the Hall
works, or else it was the old one mended and put to rights. It was
painted, too, which in any case would have made it strange, because
it was many a long year since Kit had painted his gates. Perhaps he
should have welcomed this first symbol of advance, but instead he
felt coldly angry with the four-ruled thing, swinging so neatly on
its stoup. He was accustomed to broken and jagged and hanging bars,
made lovely in velvet greens by the brushes of wind and rain. Always,
on coming home, he had seen the house through the bars, the painted
colours of home through the ancient, mellow frame. Sunset he had
seen through the old bars—long lines of yellow in a frosty sky, and
the red ball of the sun dropping fierily over snow. He had seen pure
morning and sepia afternoon, and the wild smokes of stormy dusks in
spring, and the old gate had vignetted them softly, as the soft lines
of the hedges framed the fields. But it was not possible to look
at the house through this soulless square, cutting the scene like
a knife with its hard blue lines. Now there came to him, as on the
yacht, the sense of violent robbery at a journey’s end. Just here he
had meant to stand and stare, to yield to the first ecstasy of sight,
and this parvenu gate had come brutally between. He glared at it so
fiercely that Thomas asked what was wrong, but Kit only said, “Nowt,
nowt,” and allowed him to help him down. Bob looked at him from
beside the horse’s head, watching with curious, half-shut eyes.
Thomas did not appear to notice that the other two scarcely spoke. He
was so busy with his welcome, so full of a rather nervous pleasure
and intense relief. He talked all the time he was helping the old man
down, and after he had him safely on the ground. “You’ll be a bit
stiff, likely, but you’re rarely lish.... Watch out for yon step,
now—ay, yon’s it! You’ve brought fiddle along wi’ you?—ay, there it
be. Catch hold of my arm, and we’ll get along to t’house.”
Agnes had been right in supposing that Bob would not come in. Thomas
pressed him a little, but he shook his head, and turned the horse and
climbed back into the trap. Once there, however, he did not drive
away, but sat watching his father with that new knowledge in his
face. Thomas thought he was hesitating, after all, and went back to
him when he had led the old man through the gate, but Bob only bent
a little over the wheel, and told him something in a lowered tone.
Both remembered, as they looked at each other, another evening on the
marsh....
Kit stayed where Thomas had planted him in the track, looking in
front of him towards the mountains and the sea. Now he could look at
the house without anything in between, and forget the shock of the
gate that swung behind. The house, at least, seemed just as it had
been, true to his trust and faithful to his dream. Just so it had
looked a thousand days before, with the yew’s tall finger pointing
to the sky. Even in his most absent moods he had never neglected
the yew, but had managed to keep it smooth as a quill pen. He had
liked to see its shadow fall clean against the house, the one thing
black and sharp in his coloured, shifting life. Windows and roofs he
saw, orchard and yard; garden and hedge and the white penthouse of
the porch. The light lay over it all like the blessing of a hand,
and when he came to it, it would bless him, too. Just for a moment,
however, he watched it from afar, comparing it, inch by inch, with
the picture in his heart. No, it had not failed him, in spite of his
fear, and he was safe. The substance had not broken in his fingers
and crushed the dream. A passion of thankfulness swept over him as he
stood, and then, turning to look for Thomas, he saw the gate.
IV
They went arm-in-arm along the meadow path, the young and the old
masters of Beautiful End. Thomas had always been a silent soul,
but now he talked as if he would never stop. Every now and then he
laughed as well, a satisfied, happy chuckle in his throat. Also he
acted showman, which was hard to bear, and Kit said “Ay” and “Nay,”
and looked the other way. He wished with all his heart that Thomas
would stop pointing and hold his tongue. He did not want to be shown
things; most passionately he did _not_. He could find what he wanted
for himself, and see it as Thomas could never see it, if he tried for
the rest of his life. There was no use in showing things at any time,
if it came to that, because no two persons saw them just the same.
Thomas was equally busy pointing out what was new, and introducing
old friends, as it were, by the scruff of the neck. Thomas had been
off at service from a lad, yet here he was teaching his father about
the farm, although Kit had never ceased seeing it since he went
away. Did he remember the three old trees in a clump, and how deep
the river ran below the house? Glimpses of bay and moss ... his own
fields ... things that were closer than breathing and nearer than
hands and feet! He was ashamed of himself for being irritated and
vexed, because, of course, Thomas was only meaning to be kind. It
wasn’t every son who would do so much for a thriftless dad, and he
didn’t know he was spoiling things at the start. He must just be
allowed to talk himself to a stop, and then perhaps they would have
a little peace. He would surely get tired of pointing, after a bit.
There was nothing to do but say “Ay” and look away.
The meadow was altered, somehow, he said to himself, though just for
the moment he was puzzled to say why. It had a smoother and greener
look than he remembered it to have worn, though at the same time it
seemed somehow rather bare. “There’s a deal less thistles than there
used,” he said, when he understood, and Thomas laughed and nodded his
head with pride.
“Ay, and there’ll be fewer still afore I’m through.” His eyes went
keenly across the meadow and over the land, seeing things as his
father would never see them, if he tried for the rest of his life.
“I’ve not made a job of it yet, not by a deal, but there’s over much
to take in hand right off. I just went for t’things as was worst, and
t’others mun just make shift and bide their time. I’d ha’ liked to
have had the whole place sided afore you come, but yon was a bigger
bite than I could chew....”
There was a warm satisfaction in his voice in spite of his words, for
he had done wonders already, as, of course, he knew. Already the farm
had a look of care such as it had not worn for many a long year. He
could not help feeling proud that it had changed its face even in so
short a time, and was perfectly sure that his father would be proud
as well. Kit, however, seemed scarcely to notice what he said, but
was busy staring at the cattle under the hedge.
“What’s come to old Bonny?” he demanded, suddenly stopping short in
the rough track. “You’ve never gone and parted with her, surely—a
rare good cow like yon?”
“I never had her to part with,” Thomas said, with a look of surprise.
“Bonny’s been dead a while back, father, if you come to think on.
Even the best can’t last for ever, and Bonny had her spell.”
“It’s the first I’ve heard on it,” Kit replied in a vexed tone.
He stared aggrievedly at the new stock, as if the blame of his
disappointment was somehow theirs. “What d’ye think it was as took
her off at the last?”
“Nobbut old age, I reckon!” Thomas said, with a laugh. “What, it
was not so long afore you give up the farm! You’ve never gone and
forgotten yon, I’m sure!”
“Ay, I reckon I have,” Kit said in a voice like a full stop, and
stared for a while longer at the drowsy group, before he turned away
and left them in the sun. He remembered now, of course, that Bonny
was dead, and was deeply ashamed of his lapse and his daft talk. It
was just that he had forgotten that things change, because in his
dream of home there was never any change. Everything in it had been
as stable as the stars, even such creatures of time as thistles and
cows. But he couldn’t let Thomas think he was fretting after the
past, so presently he made an effort to speak again. “Seemingly
you’ve a decent bit o’ stock,” he said. “I reckon you’ve got an eye
for the right stuff.”
Thomas had been conscious of a sudden chill, but this remark
brightened him at once. “Happen I’ve not done that badly,” he
answered as modestly as he could, longing to stop again for another
stare. He wanted to drag his father across the field, and tell
him the history of each separate beast, and how they had all been
bargains beyond belief. But there was plenty of time for that, and
the old man must be tired; besides, Agnes was waiting for them at the
house.
“I’ve always meant to go in for right good stuff,” he said. “I always
knew I’d be stock-proud if I got the chance. Farming’s like owt
else—there’s nowt beats the best. A good roan’s my choice—you can’t
do better than yon. Your old Bonny was a rare good cow, if nobbut she
hadn’t been white.”
“She suited me well enough,” Kit said, in the tone that meant the
subject was now closed, and Thomas remembered himself and hedged
with shame. Agnes would have plenty to say, he felt sure of that, if
he put the old man about before ever he reached the house! “There’s
always changes,” he murmured, after a while, not knowing that he was
echoing Marget and Bob. “Farm’s in the same spot, anyway, and the
yew. Grass grows much the same colour, I’ll be bound; and there’s
always the sea, as doesn’t change at all....”
Kit remembered Bob when they were halfway to the house, and turned to
look for him, thinking him at their heels. But the track behind them
was empty and the gate shut, and there was no more sign of Bob and
his trap than if they had never been. The old man wanted to know why
he had gone away, and Thomas looked shy at the question, and seemed
vexed.
“Nay, I doubt he’s a bit put out about summat, is Bob. Happen he’s
not best suited at you coming to us.... Any road, he wasn’t for
coming up to the house, whatever I said. He said he’d be stopping a
while at Low Moss End, and likely getting his tea along wi’ ’em an’
all....”
Kit remained standing still in the middle of the field, looking
rather forlornly down the track. “Happen he’d a message or summat for
’em,” he observed. “They’re cousins o’ Marget’s, now I come to think
on.” There was a lost sound in his voice, as if he had somehow been
betrayed. “I never thought as he wouldn’t be coming up.”
Thomas had come to a stand, too, looking crestfallen and cast down.
He had never imagined for a moment that his father would want Bob.
One would have thought he had had enough of that family and to spare!
“Is there owt you wanted to tell him?” he ventured at last. “I could
happen slip down and fetch him as soon as I’ve had my tea.”
But before he had stopped speaking Kit had swung round, shaking his
head and making for the house. Now he seemed to be running away from
Bob, thrusting him into the distance that lay behind. He wondered why
he had asked for his elder son, and why he had felt deserted when he
saw the empty field. Bob was the last connecting link with what he
had left, and he couldn’t be really free until Bob had gone. He ought
to have felt exultant instead of afraid, but there was no trusting
his wretched nerves to-night. He felt ashamed of himself again ... he
was always feeling ashamed. He was the sort that would try to escape
on the threshold of Paradise itself....
He breathed more easily when they reached the garden gate, because it
did not seem possible that he could turn back now, and he saw with
relief that the gate was still the same. It was painted, indeed, in
the new shade of blue, but that did not prevent it from being the
same gate underneath. He knew it to be the same by the missing spoke,
which must have been missing for over twenty years. Thomas apologised
for the spoke, but he paid no heed; he was so busy gloating over the
fact that it wasn’t there.
He hurried between the box borders along the path, and all the sweet
scents of the garden came to him, and the homely, well-known odours
of the farm. There was lavender somewhere, wallflower, mignonette;
sweet briar, faint salt from the far sea, and the scent of the ready
grass asking for the scythe. Now he was close to the whitewashed
porch, with its stone seats and its arch of rose, and the little
beds at its feet that were full of snowdrops in the spring. Then
he was inside the porch, in the stream of gold that went swimming
through the door, and felt himself shabby and poor in the purity of
the light. He was like a threadbare tramp, he thought to himself,
being carried up to Heaven in a chariot of fire.... The kitchen
seemed dim and narrow to him after the open marsh, or else his eyes
were weakened by weariness and sun. Nothing came out or spoke to him
as he stood, waiting for the first tremendous swelling of joy. In the
old days the peace of the house had been so free that it had never
hidden itself until he was inside. It had come out to meet him before
he reached the porch, like a child that runs to a father coming home.
To-night the kitchen was empty and very quiet, but it was an aloof
stillness, self-absorbed ... detached. The voice of the grandfather’s
clock in the silence spoke as if speaking only to itself. He, too,
now that he was under the roof, felt curiously detached. Only half of
him, he felt, was in the house; the other—the dreaming half—was left
outside. But still he hoped and stood, waiting for the uprising of
his heart, and Thomas, respectfully sympathetic, waited too. Perhaps
it was because of Thomas that the magic would not work. Suddenly he
began to feel self-conscious under his son’s eyes, and the fear that
was fear of a fear came drifting back. Shrinking, he took a hasty
plunge through the kitchen door, and caught his foot on a flag as he
went in.
Thomas, following, found him just inside, puzzling and staring
worriedly at the floor. “Summat catched my foot,” he was saying
repeatedly with a pained surprise. He bent down to the flag as if
wishing to test it with his hand as well as his feet. “I never mind
catching my foot afore,” he said. It was just as if he couldn’t
believe he had done the thing, as if his boots had been bound to know
the flag—the same old boots—all patched—that he had been wearing
when he left. But he and the boots had forgotten because they were
old, and the flag had forgotten the memory of his tread. It did not
do to fret about these things, because perhaps they always happened
to folks who went away. Marget, at least, would have told him so, he
knew. Nevertheless, the trivial little mischance weighed upon his
mind. It was like some base betrayal on the part of ancient friends.