ON THE ISLAND.
Here as the days went on they made their home. It was no great job to
build a cot in the gap between the two ridges, the twin backbone of the
island: for the rock on either hand is steep like a solid house-wall
for more than a man’s height, and runs thus maybe two hundred feet,
now choked with ruins of the old building that once stood there: but
formerly a deep and sheltered trough.
They had only to roof it over with poles, which they cut from the trees
growing on the spot, and to thatch it with boughs and turfs like one of
those huts the woodcutters and bark peelers make themselves even nowadays
in the woods. Then they built up the ends, leaving doors and windows,
and there was as snug a home as might be in all Lakeland. Nor so long a
task was it, either, for a lad like Thorstein, who many a day before had
enterprised to build a house for the folk of Heathwaite fell.
And then he bethought him of a bit of a boat, to make the shoreward
journey easy. For himself, he could swim like a duck: but to ferry
another, and to fetch such things as kind friends might give, not to
say for fishing and fowling, and for watching the shores of his mere,
something more was needful than swimming-strokes and a wet sark.
The fell-folk had their own old way of boat building, which was this.
They cut a tree, and trimmed its ends with the axe; and then, heating
cobbles in the fire, they burned out the heart of the log and hollowed
their canoe. But a Northman born, who was no mean woodsmith, thought
scorn of that ancient makeshift. And yet to save time, he was content
with bent boughs, and withys to bind them into a framework, and skins
stretched around all: making a coracle light to lift and easy to drive,
even when the water was none so lound. For our lake-waves never run high
like sea-billows, though the strength of the breeze and its sudden gusts
sometimes give a rower hard work to keep head to wind. And the many sharp
rocks and cobbly shoals upstanding beneath the water-line are somewhat
dangerous for a heavy boat under way: but with a light craft it is light
work. And no sweeter life could be dreamt by one to the manner bred than
this fishing and fowling on a teeming mere, aboard of a handy little
thing that answers every touch and wish of the rower.
So thus they lived as if life were one holiday: safe from prowling
beasts and far from mankind. Now and again Thorstein would travel down
Crake to his friends, who helped him willingly with goods and tools and
porridge-meal for housekeeping. And yet it was little they lacked, to
be as well off as they used to be in early days among the fell-folk.
There was the same hunting ground; firewood and the sweetest of water
in plenty; and well they knew, if any did, how to make the most of the
wilderness and all it held, and when that was done to be content.
For a long while nobody meddled with them. It seemed as though they had
been forgotten. And just to be let alone, and to be together, was enough
to make the morning bright and the evening merry. Winter was not so
sharp, down there by the water, as it was on the fells. The lake freezes
over but seldom, and even the hard weather was friendly to them, for it
sent beasts and birds down from the high lands to milder grounds, and so
to their larder; and the warm feathers and furs were welcome for clothes
and bedding.
When the spring came, and lilies made the shores all golden, and the snow
on the great fells dwindled into delicate lacework, white in the blue
air, then Raineach was glad of the sunshine to sit in, at the land-locked
harbour, plying her needle, while Thorstein was away in the boat fishing.
He was never so far but she could climb upon a rock and spy him out, a
speck upon the broad water-line. Then she would wave to him, and if he
was not busy with a fish he would wave back. So it was not lonely. After
the worry and weariness of the court, where there was no true friend to
count on, it was the merriest company. The loneliness was when she was
lost in the crowd.
But when the bluebells lay thick upon every rock ledge of the island,
sweet smelling and bluest blue in their fresh green leaves; when the
cuckoos called loud from shore to shore, and the sun was strong, looking
down into the depths of the still water and counting every different
stone, laid clear and fair in its crystal bed, and the minnows flickered
over them; then sometimes she would weep a little to herself as she sat.
She could not tell why, if it were not that she was in dread of the time
when he would be again among his own people, and hers the less: when she
would have to be as any other house-mistress, and his the less: judged by
their words and fettered by their ways. Then life would no longer be so
free and so loving as it was to the wood-biders.
But when the spring flowers were all gone and the nights were sultry
and dark again, she wept no more: for she had new company: a little
thing that reached out its hands to her from the bundle of furs where
it lay, and that made such quaint faces as were a wonder and a lasting
gazing-stock. There was time now for nothing but to watch it, and fondle
it, and feed it: and if at first the island was a sweet home to her,
now it was more lovely than ever, to be there with her big man, and her
little man, and none to let or hinder.
After a while they made a great journey over the fells, and came to
Duddon side again, to the strange old priest, that he might christen
the child. They called it Swein after Thorstein’s father, as in duty
bound, though the priest halted somewhat at the name, so outlandish and
unchristian as it seemed to his way of thinking. However he blessed the
child, and bade it prosper, and they took their way home without mishap:
and the journey gave them talk for many a day to follow.
[Illustration: Raineach on the Island]
So they won through the second winter, with never a thought of wearying
either of one another or of their home. Now they cleared a little thwaite
of land over against the island, and kept a goat or two, and sowed a
patch of oats, so that their porridge-stuff need not be so far to seek,
and milk for the barn should be plenty. And the summer went by in game
and glee, and they had no fears for the winter.
For a Yule-gift they got another guestling, whom they carried in a while
to the priest, tripping through the woods with him in his mother’s arms,
and the sturdy Swein on his father’s shoulder. They called the baby
Thorstein: and when they saw him and his brother wax and thrive, they
laughed a bit sometimes to think of the day when they should take their
piglings that Unna had foretold, to show the grandame at Greenodd.
Yet with all this well-being there was somewhat wrong. What with his own
labour and his strong friends, Thorstein got all he wanted for bed or
board: and with a sweet wife and bonny barns he was set up with the best
of company. Over and above which, he knew in his heart that he was now no
outcast of holy church, though seldom he saw priest or heard those words
of life he had stumbled at long since. Nowadays, what talks he had with
Raineach, and reasonings of unknown things, piecing together his scraps
of learning with hers, as an old wife plans patchwork: for all the bits
must fit into the pattern, whether or no they matched.
And some bits would not fit, such words as told folk to be at one among
themselves, and that promised peace between mankind. There was he, out
of law and no man’s neighbour. Peace with God his heart told him he had;
but peace with man was still far to seek: and if all he had done, and all
his friends had done, gave him not that peace, how could God command it?
how would God provide it?
And being no dreamer, but a man with his eyes open, he knew right well
that, if to-day was fair, to-morrow might be foul. So far his foes had
given him a wide berth; but says he “When I am gone, who will take my
lads by the hand, and give them their place among their fellows, and
assure them land and living?”
“Heed it not,” Raineach would answer. “Are not they as well as thou in
God’s hand?”
“Who heeds it?” he would say. “Not I. And yet!”
“Oh man, speak fair and be thankful.”
“I do speak fair, and I am thankful,” said he: “and yet!”