"'Now heaven's dread arms her mighty limbs invest,Jove's cuirass blazes on her ample breast....'
"'Now heaven's dread arms her mighty limbs invest,Jove's cuirass blazes on her ample breast....'
"I can see you in them, Barbara."
'The massy golden helm she next assumes,That dreadful nods with four o'er shading plumes;So vast, the broad circumference containsA hundred battles on a hundred plains.The goddess thus the imperial car ascends;Shook by her arm the mighty javelin bends,Ponderous and huge; that when her fury burns,Proud tyrants humbles, and whole hosts o'erturns.'"
'The massy golden helm she next assumes,That dreadful nods with four o'er shading plumes;So vast, the broad circumference containsA hundred battles on a hundred plains.The goddess thus the imperial car ascends;Shook by her arm the mighty javelin bends,Ponderous and huge; that when her fury burns,Proud tyrants humbles, and whole hosts o'erturns.'"
He closed the book and put it into the girl's hands.
"I've never seen you roused up to do battle," he laughed, "but you'll look like that when the spirit moves you. Good-night, Barbara."
Something stirred her like the call of a trumpet heard by her spiritual ears alone. Was her placid life upon the mountains going to end? Would she have to fight with her desires, because Duty still pointed a stern finger towards the sheep-paths, while another road opened before her—a broad and pleasant road. Peter always roused this restlessness in her heart. She was glad, yet sorry, when he went singing home, leaving her to the night-loneliness with her book of old battles.
The next morning Peter Fleming was walking up and down the cobbled path of the mill-garden between flowering currant bushes, and sheaves of lent-lilies, whose buds were still encased in their pale-green sheaths. Everything sparkled in a sudden burst of sunshine. From the mill-wheel the water fell like a glittering fringe, and the beck raced merrily by, clutching at the weeds and grasses on its rim, and drawing them down to make them gorgeously green under its clear surface. On the other side of the stream stood Cringel Forest.
The mill-house was a tall building with the date, 1600, carved over the door under a coat of arms of a wheat-sheaf and a sickle. The Flemings, or De Flemings, as they were then called—had been millers in the dale since the reign of Elizabeth, a fact which Dusty John prided himself upon, although he was as simple an old man as ever spoke the vernacular.
The kitchen door was open at the end of the cobbled path, and in its hot and sunny atmosphere, Peter's mother stood ironing. Her muslin kerchief—as fine as ever came from the looms of the East India Company—her gown of russet, and white apron were the essence of cleanliness and order.
"Get away with thy blandishments," she said, for Peter had paused on the threshold to tell her that she looked like a ripe hazel-nut, her face was so brown and rosy and round. "Thee'd witch the wisdom out of my old head with thy flattery. And as for thy dadda—he cannot walk for swaggering, thee's lillied him up so handsome!"
She smiled proudly into the clear-eyed face looking so affectionately into her own. Peter made her feel that she was still young and worthy of admiration. When he came home she always wore white stockings—though she thought them an extravagance at other times—and placed a flower or a bow of ribbon under her chin.
She held up a kerchief that she was ironing, and said tenderly:
"It will be a great day for thy father and me when we see thee consecrated, Peter."
He stepped across the floor where the sunshine lay in a broad band, and kissed her.
"And a blessed day when I does up thy lawn sleeves, my son. Thee must never let anyone do up thy sleeves but me, lad, not even thy wife when thee gets one. There's nobody kens the art of clear starching and ironing better than thy old mother."
The young man sat on the edge of the table and swung his legs.
"You'll be disappointed, mother," he said, "but I never can see myself—in spite of your dear visions—in bishop's sleeves. I'm a lazy beggar, and more likely to be lying under a tree, finding sermons in stones and books in the running brooks than beating the pulpit cushions of Durham or Carlisle."
She shook her head indulgently.
"Time enough, time enough," she said. "Thee's too young yet to know thy own mind."
Peter looked round the kitchen and laughed.
"Would you like to live in a palace, mother?" he asked.
"A palace! And what would I do there?" she replied, seeing no further than the lawn sleeves which she would wash and iron.
The kitchen of the mill-house was small, clean and simple. Brass fire-irons, two or three candlesticks, a burnished copper warming-pan reflected the strong sunshine, but otherwise the puritanical severity of the white-washed walls was unrelieved. The floor was strewn with river sand, and the chairs and dresser glistened with constant oiling and rubbing. On the dresser was a pile of newly-made clap-cakes, and round the fire stood an oak maiden hung with clean linen. The place had a kindly, homely smell, and Peter sniffed it with enjoyment. He loved the towers of Oxford, and the shadow of his college cloisters, but this small and sunlit kitchen, where his mother baked and ironed, and his father smoked his evening pipe, brought him back to those primitive passions of man out of which the strength of his life springs.
Peter returned to the garden and continued his walk up and down the cobbled path.
He was thinking of his future, and wondering what he would be able to make of it. He had almost decided that he would not take orders when his college days were done, which would be at the summer vacation. The prospect of becoming a curate, or even a North Country vicar did not attract him; on the other hand, he had no particular leanings in any other direction. That which would have suited him down to the ground, he sometimes told himself whimsically, was the position of a country gentleman, with a good library, a well-stocked stable, plenty of dogs and troops of friends. His was a genial, breezy nature; he had a firm hand, a just mind, and a clear brain, added to a boyish love of the unusual and adventurous. Peter was a favourite in the village. He liked pretty faces, and flirted openly, but he left the lasses' hearts none the worse. He fished and hunted with the lads; he talked politics with the tailor, religion with the cobbler, and with Jake, the rat-catcher, spent many a long afternoon. It was Jake who taught him to play upon the flute, and though he never managed to charm the rats with his music—as the strange little man did—he had the young men and maids capering on the bit of green before the inn door on summer evenings, long after they ought to have been abed.
His meditation was interrupted by a horseman calling from over the wall:
"Halloa! Peter, back again?"
It was Joel Hart.
"I'm glad to see you," said he.
"I thought you'd made up your mind to go abroad and seek your fortune," replied Peter, shaking hands heartily.
"So I had, but I broke it again. I couldn't be quite sure where to find the fortune."
They both laughed, but Joel had a note of envy in his mirth.
"You're a lucky dog, Peter," he exclaimed, "to have money in your pockets and a fond father ready to supply more. How long are you home for?"
"Six weeks. It's the Easter vacation."
"Good! we'll have some fishing and wrestling—eh? We'll make a damned fine holiday of it. I want something to take my mind off the worry of wondering where my bread and butter is to come from. You don't want to work, I bet; had enough of that sort of thing down yonder—eh? Come and have a glass at the Wild Boar."
He alighted and leading his horse by the bridle walked down the village street with Peter.
When they were boys they had gone nutting and fishing together, and the memory of many a hairbreadth escape still bound them with the links of affection, though in mind and character they had long since drifted apart.
Joel Hart was a handsome man. Beside him, Peter with his homely face, honest grey eyes, and loosely built figure looked rough-hewn—looked, indeed, that which he was, the off-spring of clean-living, hard-working peasant forefathers. The two men were of a height, but the one carried himself proudly, looking neither to right nor left; the other with an easy swing, that could stoop to give pennies to a crying child, or lift a bundle for an old woman. There was an expression of arrogance and dissatisfaction on Joel's features that marred their beauty. He had dark curling hair, which he wore rather long, his eyes were large, well-shaped, full of a smouldering fire or melting sadness as his mood chanced to be.
The world had dealt hardly with him, and he could not forgive it. His father, the son of that ill-fated Joel Hart whom Annas Lynn had hidden in the wool-barn, had married late in life, and died shortly after, leaving his infant to be brought up by the widow—a vain and foolish woman. She had been indifferent to his discipline and education, and when she died, left the estate—it was a very small one—burdened with debts, a burden that increased rapidly, owing to extravagance and bad management. Joel was not competent to deal with it. A habit of indolence, fostered by his up-bringing, had become second nature to him; his temper was uncertain; yet he cared deeply for two things—Forest Hall and Lucy Lynn. To preserve the one, and gain the other was a wild dream that he dreamed, but made only fitful attempts to realise. He felt that he was bound by invisible bonds which he could not break.
"I'm getting to the end of my resources, Peter," he said as they stood in the inn parlour, drinking. He often make a joke of his poverty; it was too well-known to be hidden; and he did not care that folk should see how much he felt it. "I've only one hope left."
"I trust it's a substantial one," remarked Peter.
Joel flung back his head and laughed.
"Ha, ha," he cried, "ha, ha. It's the old great-grandmother up at Greystones."
"You're not thinking of marrying her—are you?" said Peter, his eyes twinkling.
"'Pon my soul I never thought of it! What a pity. She'd have had me, Peter, for the love she bore my grand-dad. I needn't have waited till she was dead, then, to have got her money."
"She's rich—is she?"
"Must be! an old miser! She told me she was going to leave the little she had—little, mind you, and Greystones is the most prosperous farm for miles round—she said she was going to leave it to be divided between Barbara, Lucy, and me. She's ninety-five now, and can't live much longer, though she looks as hale and hearty an old sinner as ever laid up treasure in this world. I hope she'll not forget her promise."
"Court her," replied Peter, briefly.
"Her or her great-granddaughters?" Joel shot a sharp glance at his companion. He sometimes thought that Peter had a warm side for Lucy as well as himself. "All the same," he continued, tossing off another glass, "I'm breeding dogs, as a stand-by, in case she dies without leaving me a shilling. You must come and see them. I've got a litter of the prettiest pups you ever saw. I keep 'em in the parlour because the kennels are all out of repair. It's a comedown, eh, for the master to sup his porridge in the kitchen, but feed his dogs under the very noses of his forefathers in their gilt frames?"
They talked a little longer, made plans to join the fox-hunt next morning, then Joel mounted his horse and rode away, while Peter retraced his steps up the village street.
He thought that Joel was changing. The man looked unhappy and restless in spite of his gay demeanour. He talked too much, and he drank too much. He might be as poor as he asserted, but he rode a fine horse—Peter was a judge of horse-flesh—and his clothes were dandified beyond the fashion of the times. Yet there was something in him that appealed to Peter, who thought he looked like a gay bird in a trap. And what trap could be worse than one made out of family pride, poverty, and lack of education?
Pondering upon his friend's character and circumstances, he passed through the village.
High Fold, in the midst of which the mill stood, was a cluster of houses on the fringe of Cringel Forest. They were built of grey stone, roofed with rough-hewn slates, where the yellow stonecrop ran riot, hung with queer little balconies, giving them a foreign air. They stood at all angles on either side of a steep road, at the foot of which was the inn, at the top the church. Except for the house known as Forest Hall, the farm of Greystones and a few solitary cots, High Fold marked the limit of human habitation in that direction. Beyond it were many miles of heathy moorland, a wild expanse of mountain, barren ravines, each with its own gushing beck, and wild marshes. The people were a healthy, thrifty race, lacking little—and those things not necessities—working hard and simply, and living to a good old age. Many of them herded sheep on the common lands; a few wrought in a silver mine some distance off; others spun and carded wool; a tailor, a weaver, a rat-catcher and a blacksmith were respected members of the community. They owned a large flock of geese, each bird was smit with its owner's private mark, and a goose-girl, in the common employ, led them daily to their feeding-grounds. There were few idle hands in the village, even the old men knitted stockings, sitting on the inn bench of a spring or summer evening.
Peter followed the road beyond the village, where it turned into a cart-track, and wound through Cringel Forest, leading to Forest Hall, and then on up the dale to Greystones.
As he lay under a beech-tree, watching the birds fluttering among the smooth branches, a little old man came wandering through and sat beside him.
The hair of the little old man curled on his shoulders, like a child's—though it was grey instead of golden—and his eyes were also like a child's, bright and questioning. He was primly dressed in a flowered waistcoat buff breeches and blue stockings, but the garments were faded and threadbare. On his knee he held a basket of roots and leaves.
"Meditation," he said, "is the mother of great thoughts, and repose fosters them till they be well-grown."
"That's comforting to my lazy soul," drawled Peter.
The thin old voice continued, carefully choosing the words as though, even in meditation, nothing slipshod or ill-fitting was allowed to pass.
"We should find time to be idle," he said. "When the soul is possessed by tranquillity, there enters in an angel called thought—a mysterious being, whose birth and origin is far beyond our knowledge or understanding. But we can give her housing, care for her like kind folk, and she will reward us abundantly. Her presence with us is her reward."
Peter chewed a blade of grass, basking in the warm light. For a little while neither spoke. The last week had shaken off all the appearance of winter from the forest. The trees were budding, a tall poplar rose purple as a plum, yonder a group of larches were turning green, and a sycamore had all its tips dipped in crimson. The blackthorn thicket was white, and the lesser celandines were golden on the banks. In the forest lay a deep blue silence—the silence of old wise trees, but on the topmost branches, gay and giddy birds were pouring out their hearts to the spring sunshine in a wild burst of melody.
"It's all very beautiful," said Peter; "that light on the beech-stems—it might be a splash of pure gold. The trees seem to be aware of it too—if only their leaves were out they would be clapping their hands for joy." Then he turned to Timothy Hadwin. "I'm becoming a convert to your Faith," he said. "I believe the earth has a soul and every living thing."
"You feel it, then?" replied the old man, eagerly. "You feel a magic in the woods which only comes from the communion of souls? You and I and the trees are not alone here. You feel that other minds are reaching out to touch you, as you are reaching out to touch them? You have in your own mind this vision of the truth—the kinship of the living world?"
"Perhaps it's imagination after all," said Peter.
"Imagination does not lie."
"It may deceive."
"No, no. What we imagine is true for ourselves, though no one else may see it to be so. We each of us have senses, feelings, thoughts of our own. Were you to tell me that you saw a hamadryad coming out of yon beech-tree, I should not contradict you because I could not see it. But if you plucked a buttercup, and said it was only coloured matter, I should say you were wrong, for I know it to be something more. The greatest blessing of life is sight, and the commonest ill is blindness." He laid his hand upon the ground and continued. "We are all akin, because we are all the children of the Earth. Her great mind is made up of our little minds. She knows us better than we know ourselves—do we know ourselves at all? I love to think of the Earth, a personality, a great angel rejoicing as a strong man to run a race, rushing along through the dark night or the bright day, through clouds and through sunshine, never halting or stumbling or going astray, carrying upon her bosom a multitudinous life, caring for it, as a thoughtful mother."
After this conversation the two men were silent for a while, each following the trend of his own thoughts. Then Timothy got up and went away. But Peter remained under the beech-tree.
Peter had capacity for the full enjoyment of life, and a boundless curiosity concerning it. As he lay on the ground he seemed to feel the heart of the Earth-mother beating under his own, and he was filled with a sense of her teeming vitality and his individual share of it. He opened his mind to the sounds and sights around. It delighted him to follow with his eyes the stems of the trees as they sprang straight from the bosom of their universal mother into the blue air. He listened to the whistling of the birds, the hum of the bees, and watched a rabbit leap among the ferns—pleased with such simple demonstrations of life. Perhaps a change was working in his own nature, for never had the common things about him seemed to be so full of absorbing interest as now; never had he been so conscious of the sap running up the branches of the trees, and of his own vitality. At present he did but enjoy the sense of power, which he could use if he desired. But soon, he told himself, he would labour, singing in the light of the sun.
Then through the forest came Barbara Lynn, driving her primitive cart home from market. She did not see the figure under the beech-tree, for her eyes were dreaming, neither did Peter try to draw her attention. She sat with her hands lying loosely on her lap, the reins hanging slack as the old pony took its own pace home. Her fine, large features were composed, and she kept her jolting seat with unconcern. There was something patriarchal in the cart, and its rough-cut wooden wheels, and the regal form of Barbara, deep-bosomed, yellow-haired and clear-eyed as the off-spring of shepherd kings should be.
She passed on, while the over-arching trees dropped lights and shadows across her face. Peter watched her till the blue distance of the forest closed round the cart, and the creaking of its wheels died into silence.
He came back to a knowledge of himself with a rush. For the time being his mind had been merged in the mind of another. The forest, too, was waking as from a trance. Barbara had seemed to hold it in the spell of her own dreaming. Now the wind blew down the track, trundling dead leaves before it, and drawing a low chiming from the branches overhead. The birds burst into renewed twittering, and the rabbits leaped among the fern.
Barbara was driving sheep on the fells above Cringel Forest. She looked down and saw the trees bourgeoning into leaf, and rising out of them, on the top of a jutting crag, the old house belonging to Joel Hart. It was an unpretentious place, but battlemented and loop-holed, made for defence when moss-troopers paid frequent visits, and not for beauty or comfort. It was, in fact, little better than a fortified farm-house; underneath it ran a long dark cellar, where the cattle of the villagers could be driven for safety in times of alarm.
Barbara's keen eyes—keen as an eagle's to scan the broad fellside—noted the air of decay which had settled upon it, the thicket of brambles among the chimneys, and how a pine, growing out of the rocks, encroached upon the doorway. Behind the house the ground swept steeply up, strewn with shattered boulders and weeping with waterfalls.
"Poor Joel," she said to herself. "He's like Paris, in the book Peter gave me—beautiful Paris that Helen loved, whose soul ill-matched his fair form."
She thought of her sister's adoration of this man, and was sad. There could be nothing but disappointment in store for Lucy, she felt sure of it, unless the girl overcame her affection and set her heart upon a more worthy object. But she was attracted by the glamour of fallen greatness, by his handsome presence, and she admired his pride. Barbara, with clearer vision, saw a man tossed about by circumstance, without a guiding principle in his life, whose pride was as hollow a thing as a soul ever cherished.
She turned away from Forest Hall, and the disquieting thoughts which Joel roused, and looked up the dale. It wound in sun-swept greenness to Thundergay, where Swirtle Tarn glittered like a silver sixpence. For some days clouds had been gathering there, piled one on the other like wool-sacks, white and soft as wool just now, but stained crimson at sunrise, and black as smoke at night. The light was vivid, and had that peculiar quality of deepening the colours of the landscape, often the forerunner of storm; the purple of the distant hills was more intense, the green of the grass richer, the red of ploughed earth more passionate.
The sheep that Barbara was driving were uneasy, making many attempts to break and turn back. Then the leader, recognising the summer heaf to which the flocks return in spring, after having wintered in a more sheltered place, set off at a run, followed by the rest. Shading her eyes from the sun, she watched them leap gladly upwards, bleating their welcome to the well-remembered spot—for the bond binding the sheep to their hill-pasture, is as the bond between man and his own hearthstone.
She turned homewards. As she threaded her way among the rocks of the rough path, she came upon Jan Straw gathering wool, which the sheep had left behind them upon the heath and brambles.
"Her was buried in a linen shift," he said, answering her remark that he was busy at a strange gleaning. "Her was buried in a linen shift, fine and white and soft as snow."
"Who?" asked the girl, for she saw that his mind was wandering.
"Her o' the white fingers, white as Lucy Lynn's, white like the linen she was buried in, white as snow."
"Your wife, Jan?" said Barbara, having in her mind's eye a vision of golden curls and a little pale face, which had been buried long before she was born.
Jan said no more, but, turning away, continued his gleaning.
"What are the wisps for?" she asked.
"I mun be buried in woollen," he muttered, "the law says so—it said so then—but she had a linen shroud, the best linen as ever was wove, shining like snow, like them little white flowers she loved."
He stood up, trying to straighten his crooked back, crooked with the toil and poverty of years.
"I mun be buried in woollen," he repeated, "and I's picking my shroud off the brambles. Yon little lass, Lucy, her o' the white hands, she promised to spin it for me and get it wove. It wunna be white like snow, like her own bonny hands, but it'll match my old grey face. I's'll not be buried by the parish. I's'll lie aside her in the kirk-garth below there."
He wiped a tear from his eye.
"Her should have been buried in woollen too," he added, bringing these memories from the abyss of his mind, where they had long lain in darkness, "but her was so white and soft, white as milk and soft as silk, her couldna abide the touch o' a woollen shift. So her was buried in linen, and I paid the fine."
"It will take a lot of gathering, Jan, before you get enough to make a shroud," said Barbara. "But let it be, let it be; leave it for the birds to build their nests of. You shall have a fleece, and a decent bed, too, when you need it, beside her o' the little white hands."
He looked at the girl slowly, from her feet to the crown of her head.
"Thee's a girt lass," he said, "as big as the mistress, and they used to call her daughter o' the giant that lived at Ketel's Parlour. But thee's got a kind, soft voice, Barbara Lynn, like the cooin' o' wood-doves. Wilta gie me a fleece?"
She nodded, and the pale watery eyes brightened.
"The birds is welcome to my gatherin'," he replied scattering his bundle of wool. "I's'll go and pull rushes. We's gettin' short o' candles down-by," and he shuffled away.
Barbara watched him go. She thought how hard it was to be old and lonely and poor. Jan had bed and whittle-gate at the farm—decency could do no other after a life of honest service—but, as the old man was past work, what use had he for wages? Such was her great-grandmother's argument for refusing to part with a penny of her hoard.
Barbara went slowly down-hill. She had an hour to spare before milking-time, and it was too precious to be lost. She passed along a ledge of the Mickle Crags, found a sheltered spot, and sat down. She could not see Greystones, as it lay right below her, but she could smell the turf-smoke from its fire.
There, with her hands clasped upon her knees, surrounded by a wilderness of grey rocks, she gave wings to her mind. All through this Easter-tide she had walked as in a dream; but it was the dream and not the actual that had life. She came and went, rose before dawn, and passed the day toiling upon the fells, but now and again she culled an hour to spend with her book—Pope's "Homer"—at the cave. Sometimes Peter came there and read to her, often the old herbalist Timothy Hadwin accompanied him, and the two men would talk, while she listened, weaving withy baskets, but weaving into her own mind many a wonderful thought. Thus she learned to know the old stories of Achilles and Hector and Helen, of Ulysses and Penelope; she was thrilled with the beauty, pathos and madness of them. The natural objects about her began to take on a new meaning; she was able to feel the freshness of the early world, when men's hearts were fuller of the mystery of things, less sure of their own place in the Universe, and stricken with fear before the veiled faces of the gods.
She likened her mind to the shield of Achilles, which Vulcan forged for him; she thought of it as a great disc engraved with strange pictures—emblems of all that she thought and knew and felt. But as the ocean encompassed the shield—
"In living silver seemed the waves to roll,And beat the buckler's verge, and bound the whole,"
"In living silver seemed the waves to roll,And beat the buckler's verge, and bound the whole,"
so about her beat the waves of a mystery, which shut in a part of her life, that her inward eye might concentrate upon it, and yet be conscious of the depths surging round.
The human mind is stupendous, she thought, beyond the power of man to understand. When she considered her own mind, and all that was written upon it—its ideas of life, of men and women, of religion and destiny, she was awed with wonder that a thing so mighty should have been forged for her by the hand which gave her life.
Her own existence was too uneventful, too full of commonplaces, too mean, to provide a satisfying food for her strong intellect. But in "Homer" she found a feast spread. His men and women lived down to the depths of their being, and she lived in them. Hecuba and Andromache! the greatness and bitterness of their lives appalled and stirred her. When she stood upon the heights and saw the mists rise like smoke from the dale, or roll from ledge to ledge down the fellside, when she saw the beck in spate, when she looked through the gloaming at the ruined outlines of the crags, then she participated in the very thoughts of these great women; then she felt the presence of gods in the mist; then she saw Achilles flee before the angry River; then she saw Troy and the long black ships, and the lines of glittering warriors, and in her own heart she heard the cry of defeated hosts, of exultation, of death, of resignation.
Barbara roused herself from these thoughts. She was lingering too long in idleness. She must go and call the cattle, for milking-time was near. So she came swiftly down the crags behind the house. They were rough and steep, rotten in many places, and drilled with springs. But a little sheep-path led in and out, bordered with blueberries and parsley ferns. In one cleft a thorn had taken root, and baffled the wind and storms of years; in another grew a holly; but for the most part the place was bare of vegetation. Soon she saw the chimneys of Greystones below her.
Lucy stood in the dairy churning. The door was open, and she could see into the cow-house, and through it, framed as in a picture, the fellside aglow with the afternoon sunshine. She was tired, her hair was ruffled, and her cheeks were flecked with cream. Her eyes, at times, were almost blinded with tears, and she saw the distant glories through mist. The good green earth called to her, but she was doomed to toil at the churn in the semi-gloom of the dairy while the day fled, while life fled.
She longed to be out in the sunshine; she wanted to plait rush-baskets as she had done as a child, to fish for minnows in the beck, to wander down the dale and smell the aromatic scent of the springing bracken. She looked at Jan Straw, who sat on the doorstep peeling rushes. He was like a worn-out garment; she, too, would be like a worn-out garment before long. Life was hurrying, hurrying by; not long ago she had been a child, to-day she was a woman, soon she would be old with life behind her. Lucy dreaded growing old. Each morning when she woke she thought that the day must surely bring some change, but it passed as the day before had done, passed in monotonous labour, leaving her a little older, a little sadder, a little less hopeful. Now and then she cherished the thought that she was a woman grown, and whispered to herself of love and home and husband. But to-day she wanted to cast off all responsibility, to have the mind and outlook of a child.
She paused for a moment to wipe the splashes of cream from her cheeks, and rest her arms. Then her great-grandmother called:
"Lucy!"
It was no use pretending that she had not heard; the tones of the old voice demanded a reply.
"Yes," she answered, reluctantly.
"Has the butter come yet, Lucy?"
"Nay."
"Nay? I doubt the butter will never come to idle hands."
The girl began again, and the thud, thud of the churn was like the angry beating of her heart.
Lucy's unwonted despondency rose from the strange temper of Joel. Usually he was as affectionate as she could desire, but sometimes, without any reason that she knew, he would be taciturn and neglectful. Yet he loved her—she did not doubt it. There was an inconsistency in him, and it puzzled her. For to Lucy's understanding, character should be simple, and not a thing of complex feelings and contradictory impulses. Though Joel purposed the highest achievements, he rarely attained; though he said that he adored her, he could not rouse his energy to fulfil his responsibilities. She was unhappy, trying to piece together these parts of him, and present a clear picture to her mind.
At last she heard the plop-plop of butter in the churn, and her eyes brightened. When the brain is distracted with questions it is unable to solve, that concern the inner life, it finds relief in turning to outward shows, where something is being accomplished—be it only the coming of butter.
The hind had cleaned out the byre, and shaken down fresh straw. It glistened in the gloom like thick golden threads, soon to be trodden under the hoofs of the cows. Lucy could hear her sister's voice as she drove them from their pasture across the bridge to the milking. They lumbered in single file up the path—red cows, white cows, piebald cows, with straight horns and full swinging udders, their brown eyes looking from under their lashes with an expression of innocent content.
Lucy was in a mood to draw analogies from everything about her, and she thought of the yellow straw and Barbara's hair, and how soon life, with its heavy foot, would beat out its gold.
"If you could have a wish just now, that would come true," she said, "what would you wish for most in the world?"
Barbara leaned her cheek against the warm side of Cushy, her favourite cow, and pondered this question, while the only sound was the swish of milk into the pail.
"Eyes," she remarked at length.
"Eyes? You're not going blind, Barbara?"
"Nay, nay, I've got the best eyes in the dale. I can count twelve stars in the Pleiades, and no one else can see more than six. It's not them kind of eyes I want—it's spirit-eyes."
"Oh, Barbara, do you want to see spooks?"
The girl laughed, and then was silent. At last she said:
"I feel that if we could push a curtain aside, we'd find ourselves in a wonderful world. It's here, about us, on every hand, but we can't get in."
"Spooks!" again exclaimed Lucy. "I've seen a spook. It's the spirit of this old house—a grinning, grey hag, grey as its name—and it's got you and me in its grip; but I'll get away from it, see if I don't. It takes the very life out of me—haunts me like a shadow."
"Shut your eyes to it," said Barbara; "don't think of it, then it won't bother you."
"Shut my eyes! So I do; but it's my bed-fellow when you're not here. It gets close to me—ugh!—and whispers and whispers——"
"Well, what does it whisper?"
"Horrid things—all about death and sorrow and pain——"
"They're the common lot of us creatures. You won't escape them even if you run away from Greystones."
"I'm off now, at any rate," and Lucy took her milk cans and set out for High Fold. It was her habit to meet Joel at this time, on her way through Cringel Forest, and glean from their short meeting either joy or unhappiness upon which to feed herself until the same hour of the next evening.
The road to the village lay along the beck-side, and crossed the stream by an old stone bridge just beyond the falls. The bridge was garlanded in summer with honeysuckle; already the pale green leaves were out—the first green leaves in the dale—and the sight gladdened the heart of the girl. The further away she got from Greystones the happier she grew; she threw off the brooding despondency that had clouded her spirit all day, and hummed as she walked. The evening air was balmy, the snow had vanished from the fells, spring had come at last.
She had not gone far when she met Peter Fleming on his way to see her great-grandmother. He was swinging along at a good pace, with books tucked under each arm, and whistling like a blackbird. But he turned and walked with her to the edge of the forest. She could not help a momentary wish that Peter, with his honest grey eyes, and open smile were Joel. She could have rested her heart in peace upon him. She would never have been troubled with doubts. She would have been like a bird, buoyed up like a bird on the calm blue waters of the mere, as happy and unconcerned a creature as any on the earth. He had never shown her anything but a brotherly affection, but she knew by instinct that artful fingers, and a pretty face could cause his heartstrings to vibrate. Yet it was Joel, and not Peter, whom she loved.
He left her at the edge of the forest, and she followed one of the many paths by which it was intersected, that led to a clearing where Timothy Hadwin's cottage stood. But his door was shut, so she left his can of milk on the doorstep, and ran down to a little dell to meet Joel. She jingled her cans so that he might hear her coming.
He was waiting for her with his back against a tree-trunk.
A sweeter trysting-place these lovers could not have chosen. The mossy banks were starred with celandines, now closing with the lengthening shadows; hollies, dense and glossy-leaved, formed a complete screen around, and down in the bottom, among grey pebbles, a spring bubbled up, as clear as crystal and cold as ice, widening into a pool, in which the lovely slim bodies of the sunbeams by day, and the moon-beams by night, bathed and swam.
Joel was in a lively humour, but Lucy would be serious.
"Oh, lad, lad," she whispered, "take me away from Greystones. I'm so unhappy there."
"Unhappy! What or who has been frightening you, Lucy? Is it the old woman?"
She shuddered.
"I'm sure the place is haunted."
"So it is—by your great-grandmother. It's not canny to have a great-grandmother, Lucy. She ought to be a ghost by now."
"Oh, I'd rather have her as she is," replied the girl. "She can't get out of the four-poster—at any rate she wont till she's dead. Then"—she shivered again, and moved closer to him—"she would soon be after us, keeking through the bushes, and crying out in that sharp voice of hers: 'Lucy, Lucy, away to your bed!' But, Joel, I wish you would tell her that you want to marry me."
"God forbid," he said fervently.
"Why not, Joel? Don't you want to marry me? She's fonder of you than she is of me."
He plucked a bunch of the little yellow flowers and twined them in her curls.
"You're very pretty to-night, Lucy," he answered, "and you know I want to marry you more than anything else in the world. But it would not help us for me to tell her so, though she does profess to like the looks of me. She likes the looks of her money better."
"What's that to do with it?"
"She'd want to know if I expected her to keep us."
"You could say 'No.'"
"Then she'd want to know if I could keep you."
"You could say 'Yes.'"
"But I can't keep you, Lucy. I can't keep myself, not yet, though I have hopes that my luck is changing," he spoke mysteriously.
"Shall we never be married?" she asked wearily, leaning her head upon his shoulder.
"We must wait a little longer."
"It's always wait, wait, wait, Joel."
"Well, you see, you shouldn't have fallen in love with such a poverty-stricken creature. But I thank God—whenever I thank Him at all—that you did. You're the only soul that has ever cared for me, Lucy. My mother blew the thought of me away as though I had been dust; and old Mally Ray, honest heart, doesn't know the meaning of real love. I don't think her religion approves of the word. Look up, Lucy, and let me see you smile—it's a garden of roses to me, that smile of yours."
She did look up, but to ask in a cold voice:
"How much money have you, Joel?"
"Only a penny piece, but, like the widow's curse, it's going to multiply."
"Really?"
"You shall see. Some fine morning I'll come riding up to Greystones and carry you off to be lady of Forest Hall."
She gazed at him through the dusk, at his handsome face and lithe figure. He was a glorious make of a man. How could she ever have distrusted him? His eyes were looking into hers with an expression of the tenderest regard, his arms were round her, his voice was whispering endearing words.
So she gave herself up to the joy of loving and being loved, having cast all her doubts and suspicions away as unworthy of her and disloyal to him.
They sat on a fallen tree with arms entwined. It was growing rapidly darker; owls began to hoot in the forest; a damp, sweet smell rose from the undergrowth. They talked bravely, as young things do, of the future.
Then Lucy ran home by the singing beck, up to the lonely house under the crags, happy in Joel's promise that he would soon come for her openly, and ask for her great-grandmother's blessing, which he was sure to get if he came with full pockets.
How they were to be filled she did not know or ask. But Joel had assured her that his luck was changing at last.
"Thee'll be home betimes," said Mistress Lynn.
Lucy was standing before the kitchen looking-glass, pinning a flower into the bosom of her cotton gown. She glanced up with a curl of rebellion on her lips, then tossed her head and replied:
"Aye."
"Thee'll mind that now, my lass," continued the old woman; "I'll have no bairn o' mine wandering about Cringel Forest after dark."
"You did it yourself, great-granny," said Lucy, with resentment. "Many's the time I've heard you tell of waking the Holy Well till midnight."
"M'appen I did, Lucy," and she smiled grimly; "but I don't choose that you should follow me. You might gang astray."
"Well, I'll be back before dark," answered the girl.
"At nine o'clock?"
"Aye, at nine o'clock! It's a wonder you don't say seven or six maybe."
"So I would if I saw a reason for it; but I don't," replied Mistress Lynn imperturbably. "Go thy wayses now, and come back with a more respectful tongue in thy head. I'll be glad to be rid of thy saucement for a while."
Lucy went out into the sunshine gaily. This was one of her few holidays in the year, and for very shame her great-grandmother could not keep her drudging at the farm when the whole village was bent on pleasure, waking the Holy Well. The day was Tuesday in Easter Week. The sky was blue; the birds were in the full rush of nest-making; the leaves were coming out like magic; everything was light-hearted.
To be sure the new curate had cast a cold eye on the festivities, and even spoken against them from the church at the top of the village street; but his sour looks and words could not take the sweetness out of the day, or stifle the merriment of his parishoners. They had waked the well on the 23rd of April for generations—long before there was a church in High Fold, long before good St. Kentergerne had preached the Gospel to their forefathers. They had waked it in the days when mistletoe grew in Cringel Forest, and when they worshipped strange gods at the Stannin' Stanes on the fellside yonder. Christianity had merely given the old pagan custom, which it could not stamp out, a Christian significance. No young, upstart curate, with his austere views, could prevent the people from clinging with affection to a festivity, sanctioned by the ages, and providing so bright a break in the routine of their sombre lives.
When Lucy reached the churchyard crowds were already gathered. The well—a stream of water bubbling into a stone trough by the lychgate—was hung with garlands of ferns and flowers; the village street was choked with traffic and booths, where nuts and gingerbread, and gaily-coloured confections were being sold by dames in their Sunday best. Timothy Hadwin dispensed powders, balms and essences to the shepherds and their wives—many of whom had come miles over the mountains, and had not been to High Fold since this time last year.
"Sixpence worth o' the linctus, Timothy. It's main good for the cough: my man would have died last winter if I hadn't given him it regular; the snow and the wind was sommat awfu' back the fells."
"A pound o' camomile, Tim, old man. There's nowt like camomile-tea when your innards are no' peacefu' like!"
"Have you any o' that elder-flower water, Master Timothy, what makes your cheeks soft?" whispered a lass, with a hasty look round to see that no young man could overhear her.
But the chief interest of Timothy's stall was a microscope, mounted on a brass stand, through which the folk could examine a variety of interesting objects; a kaleidoscope, and a burning glass.
On the green, in front of the inn, games were in full swing, and in a corner of the churchyard half-hidden by the ancient gravestones, a cock-fight drew the male population like needles to a magnet. A big brown bear was dancing to amuse the children; there were jugglers and jesters from the nearest town; fortune-tellers with swarthy skins and coral necklaces, and that dearest of delights to both old and young, a Punch-and-Judy show.
Lucy looked about her for a sight of Joel's tall figure, but he was not to be seen. She wandered here and there, and though she was greeted by merry voices, and answered them merrily enough, she was disappointed. Where was he? and why did he not meet her as he had promised? He ought to have been on the lookout for her coming, not she for his But Peter Fleming saw her and ran across the short, bright turf.
"Come and dance with me," he said; "the old blind fiddler is striking up a jig."
Lucy slipped her hand through his arm, but still looked round for Joel. She caught sight of his head rising above a gravestone as he watched the cock-fight. A slight flush mounted to her brow; her eyes sparkled still more brightly, and she tripped down the street to the place where the fiddler sat on a bench tuning his strings, never casting another glance behind.
"Thee's the best dancer in High Fold, Peter," she said gaily; "it's like swinging in the air to dance with you. Come on, lad, my feet can't bide still when they hear the music."
She looked a bonny lass with her jetty curls and blue eyes. She floated through the dance like a feather; she laughed like a bell. Peter was in a mood to be attracted by her smiles. He had spent his holiday in delightful idleness; he had been petted at home and made much of by the villagers, and, though his head had not been turned, his heart was in a condition to be easily stirred. He enjoyed a flirtation in much the same way as he had enjoyed eating a stolen apple when he was a boy—the excitement of getting it attracted him, and gave a flavour to the thing attained.
Lucy was ready to aid and abet him. She received his attentions with a coy humour, ate gingerbread rabbits with him, danced with him, and gave him a flower from her hair to wear in his button-hole. But her thoughts were elsewhere, and her eyes again and again strayed in Joel's direction. It was a salve to her wounded feelings to see that he had noticed her, and was standing sulky and aloof on the outskirts of the crowd. She would punish him well, and then forgive him, as she always forgave him, and would always forgive him for worse offences.
"Where's Barbara?" asked Peter, as Lucy rested on the grass and he fanned her with a dock leaf. His eyes, too, had been straying, seeking for a golden head and stately throat above the throng.
"She's nursing a sick sheep," replied her sister. "Poor Barbara! there is never any fun for her!—not that she wants it as I do, but something always comes in the way to spoil her outings."
"Barbara's an angel," said Peter.
"She is that!" answered Lucy fervently.
He clasped his hands behind his head, and looked up into the face of the girl beside him. He never had any inclination to look at Barbara so; he never lay at her feet and talked nonsense. There was something of a man's attitude towards another man in his way of regarding her. She was strong and self-reliant and high-minded; he only dimly understood her. But that which he did understand drew his deepest reverence. He had two sides to his nature, as most folk have; and though Lucy appealed to the happy, homely, youthful part of him, with Barbara he was a serious-hearted man, who knew that life was no game, and who purposed to live strenuously in his appointed place.
The afternoon wore on towards evening. The sun was getting low, and the church flung a dark shadow on the graveyard. The folk drew together in groups, sat themselves down upon the benches, and streamed in and out of the Wild Boar. Before it, on a plot of grass, the bear was dancing.
It looked mangy and starved. Yet even in its present condition it kept some of the majesty of its early years, when it had been free to wander among the forests of a distant land. Gentle and timid it was among the human beings that stood around, laughing at its clumsy ways, and sometimes prodding it with sticks; but it turned at bay when a snarling dog ventured too near.
The gipsy—a long, lean fellow, whose eyes smouldered—leaned against the horse-trough and piped. He looked, among the fair-haired country folk, as much of an alien as the bear dancing on an English green. His slack, nervy figure needed but a word to make it taut as steel. He had a barbed stick by his side, and a chain, from the animal's collar, fastened to a ring round his wrist. He was much bedizened with coloured ribbons and brass buttons.
Peter stood on the steps of the inn and watched the scene with keen pleasure. He liked the bear, although its eyes were dim with neglect, and its fur clotted and evil-smelling. It suggested to him the infinite variety and complexity of life. Its proper home was in distant forests; it had feelings and instincts which he could not even imagine; its destiny had no parallel with his; yet by its patience, gentleness and power to suffer it was linked with his own nature. He liked the gipsy, for he felt a chord of fellowship between them. Here was one who disdained to sleep, eat and die among the crowd; who lived a roving life in the green lanes, coming and going as he pleased, free as air. Such a life attracted Fleming, who cared more for liberty than a dry bed. He liked the village folk—nay, he loved them, though they stood open-mouthed, like children, and were pleased as children at the ungainly ambling of the bear. He knew that they were stolid, narrow-minded; but round them his affections twined. They were the root from which he sprang.
It was Peter's habit to find some likeness between himself and the world about him. Many of his ideas he had imbibed from Timothy Hadwin, who when he was a child had taught him Latin and Greek, and used every opportunity to impress the boy with a sense of the mystery of the universe.
Life touched life through the three kingdoms. The tiniest flower in the hedgerow and the king on his throne were but links in one great chain. It was this sense of his relationship to the whole living creation that gave breadth to Peter's outlook, intensity to his mind, and power to his bearing. He tried to understand, and he deeply loved all nature. His college friends looked upon him as a crank, yet they respected him greatly; for they once saw him bridle and ride a bucking horse that no one else dared approach.
While the gipsy lazily piped upon his whistle, and the bear continued to dance, Peter entered the inn and persuaded the scolding housewife—whose head was fairly whirling with so much coming and going—to ransack her store for some of last year's honey. She gave it to him reluctantly; but, then, he would never be denied anything when he asked for it. He fed the beast with the melliferous morsel and such was the creature's appreciation that he insisted upon following Peter, wagging his head from side to side with a most ludicrous motion, as though coaxing him for more.
"You're a cupboard lover, my friend, I fear," said Peter.
The bear sat down, whoofed and whimpered, while his master twitched at the chain.
"Hungry, eh?" Peter poked him in the ribs. "You look like it; never saw a bigger bag of bones in my life! Here, you fellow, why don't you feed him better?"
"What's that to you?"
"I don't like to see a hungry brother."
"Get up," said the man to the bear; but it would not move, and continued to whimper and look at Peter. The gipsy grasped his stick in one hand, while he shortened the chain with the other. His temper was rising.
"Leave the poor brute alone," interposed Peter; "it's only crying for its supper, like little Tommy Tucker. Nay, now, leave it alone."
"Is it yours or mine, master?"
"Why, mine. See what a fancy it's taken to me!"
He laughed good-humouredly.
"I've a notion the beast would make a nice pet. What'll you sell him for, you fellow?"
The gipsy took no notice; he thought that Fleming was fooling him. He raised his stick threateningly, but before the sharp point, which the bear had learnt to know and fear, could descend, it was twisted out of his hands.
"Might is right," said Peter, with a broad grin.
The man was angry; his was a nature that could ill brook crossing. He clenched his fists, and came nearer, but he looked twice at his antagonist, and decided that discretion was the better part of valour. Peter was not only broader than himself, but taller, and he had heard that the gentleman was a great wrestler.
"Ho, my good fellow," said Fleming, "are you going to fight me for him? Better come into the inn and settle the matter over a pot of beer."
"What do you want the bear for, master?"
"To play with—poodles aren't in my line. I need something big. Besides, I've an idea you'll be sending him to the knacker's in a week or two, and I'd like to save him from such a fate."
The gipsy looked him over, wondering if he were in jest or earnest.
"Honest! quite honest!" said Peter, reading the man's glance.
The gipsy's eyes began to sparkle, and he turned towards the inn.
"Come on, master," said he; "if you wants the bear you shall have him."
They went in, while Jake the rat-catcher called after them:
"Don't let the fellow cheat you, lad. He wouldn't get sixpence for the carcase if he sold it for dog's meat. There isn't a crow-picking on its bones."
Peter and the gipsy were not long within. They came out laughing, the latter wiping his mouth, his dark, lean countenance showing signs of satisfaction.
Fleming pulled his flute out of his pocket, played the tune that the bear's master had been whistling, and the ungainly beast began to dance.
"Eh, lad, yon's a nice new pet you've gotten. Your mother will be main pleased to have it sitting in the chimney-nook," said one of the crowd.
"Take it to bed with thee," remarked Dusty John, who had long ceased to wonder at the vagaries of his son, but was rather pleased with them than otherwise. "It will keep thee warm o' nights."
"Nay, nay, it's ower moth-eaten to have much warmth in it. Best hap it up in camphor, Peter, and get some of Old Camomile's powder to put away the fleas."
Meanwhile Lucy had found Joel. The sun had set, and the rooks were flying home above Cringel Forest.
"Come with me up the dale," she said softly.
He was not disposed to be friendly.
"Cheer up, lad," she continued. "Let's be kind again."
With a face still lowering, and his whole frame the very embodiment of injured pride, he turned and walked beside her.
He was jealous of Peter, yet sensible that he was to blame, not she.
"You'd better marry Peter," he said at last, breaking the silence.
"Who talks of marrying?" replied Lucy, coolly.
"He's got money and brains. He'd make you a worthier husband than I."
He kicked the stones out of his path and switched the heads off the primroses that were growing by the wayside. The truth was, which Lucy did not know, that he had been betting and had lost. When they came to the edge of the forest, and the open dale lay before them, all gloomy with shadows, Lucy turned.
"Good-night, Joel," she said, and made as if to go. "I'm sorry you're so cross. It's spoilt my day, my only holiday; good-night."
But he flung his arm round her, his anger vanishing like a cloud that has discharged its ill humours.
"Stay," he said. "I know I'm a brute. But let us go back. There'll be more dancing, and we'll trip the moon up into the sky and out of it again. I'm a better dancer than Peter. He's too heavy on his toes—you found that, eh?—rather a clumsy fellow, too loose in the make to be a comfortable partner. Come back. Come and see the rockets and torches. We'll have a good time, lots of fun. Who knows whether we'll see the wakes together again?"
She relented at once, dissolved like snow in the sun, when she heard the pleading tones of his voice.
"But I promised great-granny."
"Stay," he repeated, and began to draw her back to the forest.
"I daren't, Joel; she'd never forgive me."
"Only a little longer."
"Nay."
Yet why should she not stay? Her great-grandmother had enjoyed such occasions to the full when she was young. Why should Lucy not do the same? She might go home, bid the old woman good-night, and when the doors were barred, and the candles out, and Mistress Lynn thought she was safely in her bed, slip downstairs, and escape by the cow-house. She asked Joel what he thought of her plan.
"I'll wait for you," he said, "don't be long. But there's Barbara! She'd never consent. Stay now do, Lucy; don't go in. Let's go back to the village, and you can face the din to-morrow morning. Lay all the blame on me."
She shuddered.
"You don't know what great-grandmother's like when she's roused! But Barbara's at Ketel's Parlour. It's not likely she'll come home to-night, unless the sheep is dead. The sheep don't often die in her hands, for she looks after them as though they were sick bairns. I'll not be long, Joel."
She slipped from his arms like a child bent on mischief, laughing under her breath, yet not altogether at ease—it was no light undertaking for anyone to try and hoodwink old Mistress Lynn.
The great-grandmother looked at the clock as soon as she entered, and seemed grimly surprised at Lucy's punctuality. A cotter's wife rose from the settle and hurried away, so as to get her share of the festivities. She had been keeping the old woman company during the girl's absence.
"Sit thee down now," said Mistress Lynn, "and tell me about the wake."
"I's so tired, great-granny," yawned Lucy.
"Tired! At your age I could dance till dawn and not be too tired to milk the kye at sunrise."
Lucy sat down with an aggrieved expression.
"If you'd let me dance till dawn I'd maybe have had the better grace to tell you about it," she replied with some spirit.
"Well, get away to bed. Thee's got a sharp tongue that it's no gert pleasure for an old woman to hear."
Lucy went upstairs, and moved about for a while, then she sat on the edge of the bed and waited. It was a tedious waiting, but she dared not creep downstairs, and let herself out by the cow-house door till there was some likelihood of her great-grandmother being asleep.
At last she thought that she might venture. She took off her shoes, and slipped noiselessly down; the stairs were made of stone, so they could not betray her by creaking. On the wall opposite the kitchen was a little round beam of light. It shone through a hole in the door, where a knot had come out. Lucy was surprised; she wondered what Mistress Lynn could be doing with a light at this hour. She put her eye to the hole and looked through. She could see the bed, and the old woman's hands, but not her face.
The candle flung a misty light on a pile of glittering coins in one withered hand. Her great-grandmother was counting them, dropping them one by one into a bag.
Lucy was riveted to the spot. She could not tear herself away, even though Joel was waiting, hidden in the copse just below the house. She could hear a faint click as the coins fell against one another. That bag was filled. The thin old hands picked up another, and poured its contents upon the quilt. Lucy watched like one fascinated. She saw her great-grandmother pick up several bags, and count many handfuls of money—some of it silver, some of it gold. She waited until the candle was put out, and she heard the curtains softly drawn. Mistress Lynn had composed herself to sleep.
Lucy opened the cow-house door and stole out into the night. A clear moon was shining; the foam of the beck looked like white horses tossing in the wind, and the primroses glimmered like stars. Joel was still waiting.
"You can't say that I haven't patience," he said.
Lucy began to speak excitedly.
"I've seen such a sight, lad, such a sight! I've seen great-granny counting her money."
"I knew she'd got a store somewhere," he replied. "I wish I had! It would come in very handy just now."
"But, Joel, she's old, and when she dies——"
"We'll all be rich folk, Lucy."
"And we can be married then, lad, and put Forest Hall in trim, and be happy."
He laughed, but not very spontaneously.
"There goes a rocket over the trees," he said.
"It goes up like my hope," replied Lucy.
But the thing burst and was gone.
"Prophetic, I fear," said Joel.
When they came under the black shadow of the crag on the top of which Forest Hall was built, they paused and glanced up.
The moonlight brought the battlements into relief against the sky, and shone silvery upon the fir-tree, growing out of a niche, and sweeping the front wall with its feathery boughs. The house was very high, strange and frowning, grander than it ever looked by daylight.
Joel gripped Lucy's hand with a sudden excess of feeling.
"I'll never part with Forest Hall," he said, as though he saw in his mind's eye someone who wanted to take it from him. "I'll never sell the old place. If I go down into ruins, it shall go down into ruins with me. We'll fall together."
"Don't talk so fiercely, Joel," replied Lucy, gently smoothing his fingers to take the strain out of their grip. "Forest Hall will some day be refurnished from cellar to garret, and you and I will live there like a pair of cooing doves. Haven't you told me so many a time?"
"Of course, Lucy," he said, relaxing.
They walked on again, and near the outskirts of the forest met Peter and his bear.
"Hulloa, what have you there?" said Joel, while the girl drew back, not caring to be caught alone with him at this time of the night.
"A lap-dog for you, Joel."
"The deuce have you! And what do you expect me to do with it?"
"Give it housing room. You've got an empty shed, haven't you?"
"Two or three. You're a rum chap!" and Joel laughed, for he could never keep his resentment in his friend's breezy presence.
"There's a good fellow. May I put Big Ben—such is his name, I'm told—into one of them?"
"Great heavens! do you want me to take the bear?"
"It's as gentle as a lamb! Would you like to see me put my head in its mouth?"
"No! lead it away, fix it where you like; but I say, Peter, you don't expect me to look after it, do you?"
"Give it lodging only! Jake's going to see to its board. Many thanks, Joel. I'm off to-morrow, but I'll be up to bid you good-bye in the morning. Come along, you limping Ursus, it's time you were abed."