But such a sense of security alone could not have built up the character of Barbara Lynn. Mere freedom from fear is a negative quality, unless the emancipated soul makes use of its privileges to flow out in search of worthier objects to stimulate its energies.
Had Barbara been placed in the midst of a crowded city, to humanity she would have turned and would have spent her life in its service. But none required her at High Fold: there was no one upon whom she could bestow the riches of her nature save her great-grandmother, who desired and asked for little. So to Thundergay she turned, to its dales and steeps, its fountains and ravines. She drew inspiration to be strong from its strength, and power to suffer from its endurance. She subjected her body to severe discipline so that no crag defied her, while cold and discomfort counted for nought.
Only by such physical and mental training could she steel herself to bear her sorrow without flagging steps. Some day a command might come to her to climb higher, and she desired to be ready, prepared in her threefold nature of body, soul, and spirit.
"Good-bye, Lucy," said Peter. He was standing at the mill-house door, while a man held his horse at the gate. "I wish you hadn't changed your mind," he continued, "and were coming with me. I thought that we were going to have a jolly time together. Won't you come? Are you sure you don't care to come? There's still time."
It was early morning, although darkness and night vapours hung among the trees on the other side of the beck, and the village had not yet awakened to the day's work. Lucy listened to the rushing of the water and shivered.
"How like a man," she exclaimed. "Still time when your horse is ready saddled, and I haven't even a petticoat packed. No, no, I'd rather stay at home, thank you. But I hope you'll have a pleasant journey."
"I'm awfully loath to leave you," he said.
"Why? I shall not run away. I'll be waiting for you on the doorstep when you come home, ever so pleased to see you. They say absence makes the heart grow fonder, you know. There, don't look so gloomy. You make me wish I'd never said I'd go with you; for then you wouldn't have been disappointed."
"If you'd only say yes now, Lucy, you could make shift to do without the petticoats. I'd buy you new ones when we got to London. Put on your bonnet and cloak, there's a bonny wife, and come away."
"Are you afraid I'll vanish?"
"I've never left you alone before. I don't like leaving you here. The mill-house is a dreary place when you've nothing to listen to but the sound of running water. Will you go up to Greystones?"
"And be scolded all day long by great-granny! Well, if it will set your mind at rest I'll go. But don't worry about me."
He was silent for a moment.
"Good-bye, Peter," said Lucy, "it's too cold to stand here any longer. Good-bye."
He hesitated, seemed as though he would say something more, then turned to go down the path, but she called him back.
"Here, lad," she said, "give me another kiss. Don't stay away too long; I'll be counting the days till you come back."
When he had ridden off, in spite of her assertion that it was too cold to stand on the doorstep, she did not enter the house at once, but stood staring along the dark village street down which he had disappeared. Her eyes seemed to entreat him to return, but she controlled her impulse to call him back. Again she shivered. The sense of protection which her husband's presence always gave her, was withdrawn. Yet what had she to fear? The sound of the rushing beck was melancholy.
She withdrew hastily and shut the door. A bright fire was burning in the parlour, and the remains of breakfast lay on the table. She sat down in Peter's chair, and looked at a little heap of bread which his restless fingers had crumbled. She knew that he would not have left her just now if he could have helped it, and she guessed the reason. A flush mounted to her brow as she thought that he did not trust her, his wife. He need have no qualms. She had only seen Joel Hart once since his return; she had had nothing to do with the fierce wrestling at the Shepherds' Meet. Since then she had walked as prudently as any demure matron could do. What could he suspect? What right had he to suspect anything? Yet the knowledge that he did not trust her stung.
She wished, now, that she had gone with him as she had at first promised. Why had she not gone? She had tried to persuade herself that she could not endure the long ride over the pack-horse track; then the cold, uncomfortable journey in a crowded coach; and lastly a strange lodging in a strange city where she knew no one. If it had been the summer time she would not have hesitated for a moment. She had wanted all her life to see London—the Tower, St. James's, Westminster. Peter had promised to take her, but something had always come in the way to prevent him. It was too aggravating that he should have chosen this time to go, when the snow might fall any day, making travelling not only disagreeable but dangerous.
A week ago, Peter had told her that the friend, who had offered him the post in India, had written about an opening in London; and that if he thought it would suit him, he must come up at once to meet certain influential gentlemen who were deliberating upon it.
Lucy had shilly-shallied, saying first that she would go too, then that she would not go, and again that she would. The reason which lay at the back of her indecision was the hope of meeting Joel. She had heard that he meant to go away as soon as he was well enough, and she wanted, at least, to bid him good-bye.
For some unaccountable reason, she now felt afraid, and would have given—what would she not have given?—to hear the sound of hoofs in the street and then her husband's voice at the door. The room was still full of the impression of his presence, though he had gone. His slippers by the fire; his book on the sill, with the marker in it which she had worked for him before they were married; the bright walls; the cushions and hangings, the pictures—all the pretty things with which he had surrounded her, rose up like witnesses to plead for him and condemn her.
How she wished that Joel had not written the letter which had upset her peace of mind! She wished that he had never come back to Forest Hall, looking handsomer than ever. Peter and she might then have found happiness. She thought, when she married him, that she loved him truly. So she did, but she did not love him best. Why could she not love him best?
If Joel were to call her now would she spring to meet him, and claim him as her soul's true mate? A numbness crept over her. Was it of this she felt apprehensive—the coming of a call—and that she would not be strong enough to resist?
She longed for her husband's return, yet she feared him. She was afraid of Joel, yet she loved him. She wondered whether there was another woman in the world in such sore straits as she.
Tears did not relieve her; they only spoiled the colour of her cheeks, made her eyes red, and her head ache. So she dried them and looked up. Daylight was streaming through the window and turning the lamp's flame to a sickly yellow hue that paled and dwindled, like the changeling children who are said to dwindle in the cradle when morning dawns. There was something so unpleasant and unwholesome in its light that Lucy rose and turned it out. Then she called the servant-lass to come and clear away the breakfast dishes.
She wandered in and out from parlour to kitchen, and kitchen to parlour. She lifted up first this thing, then that; started to mend her frills, but pricked her finger and tossed the work aside; took up a book but dropped it listlessly; sat first in one chair, then in another; and at last sank down on a three-legged stool before the hearth.
The hours dragged. She glanced out, but the prospect was not inviting. Bare and brown stood the trees; the beck rushed along as brown as they; the road in Cringel Forest would be inches deep in mud; not a bird chirruped. She wondered if she should go up to Greystones. She had promised Peter that she would go, yet why should she? She liked her own home best. She preferred its present dreariness to her great-grandmother's tongue. Besides, up there, every movement would be watched and criticised. And she might—she did not think it likely—still she might want to go out without being asked where she was going.
This was the day that the Need Fire was to be lit in Boar Dale. Lucy had no wish to come into the midst of a bellowing herd of cattle, so she found in it another reason for deferring her visit.
Towards noon a lad knocked at the door and left a small package for her. She untied it with trembling fingers, for she knew that it was from Joel. Out of it fell a little lump of gold, and a note asking her for the sake of old times to come over the Robber's Rake to see him. He gave no reasons, but she was not surprised. He had been ill; he was not yet well enough to return to Forest Hall, and he had been longing to see her, as she to see him. Perhaps he knew that Peter was away, and that it would be easier for them to meet now than ever again.
She dropped the gold and the scrap of paper as though they had been red-hot cinders, and stood looking at them as if she expected them to speak. And they did speak. No tongue could have been more eloquent than that little bit of metal, no voice more full of entreaty than the scrawled characters of Joel's handwriting. They were urgent. With them she could not expostulate, excuse herself, or maintain a virtuous reserve.
Her dead hopes, dreams, promises came again to life and seemed to stand about her, looking into her face with blinkless eyes. They entreated her, for old sake's sake, to grant his wish.
She knit her brows in perplexity. Should she go? Would it be wise to go? Why should she not go? Wherein lay the unwisdom? She wanted to see Joel for the last time, to tell him that they must never meet again; that he must forget her, as she would endeavour to forget him. He need not leave High Fold in order to escape her; for she and Peter were going away; but he must not follow or attempt to renew their friendship. So plausible, so self-controlled, so wise appeared her reasons to her own mind that she could find no serious objection to complying with his request.
She forgot, or would not allow herself to remember, that this was the call which she had feared. But a thing far off looks so different to the same thing at hand that she did not recognise them as one and the same.
Musing thus, and undecided still, with her eyes flitting about the room as though in fear of seeing something which would turn her from the purpose she wanted to form, it seemed to her that she saw the grey-clad figures of the miller and his wife come in at the door and sit down in their vacant chairs. They did not look at her, they were but shadows, but Lucy fled. She was afraid of Peter's dead father and mother. They had loved him so, his honour was their honour, and they had died heart-broken thinking her unworthy to be his wife. She had bitterly resented their reproachful eyes, she bitterly resented that they should cross her vision now, as though they had come to guard their son's good name when he was away.
Lucy put on her cloak and went out.
In order to escape any undesirable questions or inquisitive eyes she did not follow the road through the forest, but took one of the innumerable paths that led along the fells, opposite to Greystones, on the other side of the beck.
Heavy clouds, that were purple underneath, but stained with a murky brown along their upper edges, lay motionless upon the higher hills, levelling their rugged peaks as with a knife. No gleam of sunlight or patch of blue lit the savage landscape. It was made of iron and bronze, a hard menacing corner of the world, whose scars and gashes, dealt by an earlier age, kindly Time had not yet managed to rub out or smooth into pleasant lines. The weather had been fine for several days, and a high wind had dried the dead bracken and benty grass, but there was every appearance of coming rain.
From a field in the bottom of the dale, near Greystones, smoke was rolling as though a subterranean fire had broken through the earth's crust, and begun to belch forth its pent up energies in fountains of acrid vapour. Now and then a red tongue leaped among it, only to be smothered by a denser cloud.
The Need Fire[1]was an ancient institution to which the dalesfolk had formerly resorted in times of disaster. All the household fires were extinguished, and it was lit by rubbing together two pieces of wood, which had never been inside a human habitation. Peter had smiled when he had heard that it was to be lighted in Boar Dale, and passed on from farm to farm through that district. But Timothy Hadwin believed in it, and Barbara was strongly in its favour.
Lucy looked down as she hurried along.
A loud bellowing and bleating rose from the field. Little could be seen for the drifting smoke, but she thought of Barbara in the midst of it, helping to drive through the cattle, blackened—she did not doubt—by the fire, blear-eyed, probably, with its stinging vapour, but in her proper element. Barbara had been born into her true sphere—the bleak mountains, the grey crags, the eagle, beating its wings as it were against the overhanging clouds, were her fitting companions. But she, Lucy, had never been at her ease with them. She had always felt forlorn in this land of the dales and fells. It was not her spirit's country, although her native land. Perhaps London would be more to her mind.
She had not gone far when her thoughts came back with a start to the object of her journey over the fells. The colour left her face and her eyes were filled with alarm. The temporary wandering of her mind, though it had only been for a moment, had again unsettled her. She hesitated, wondered whether to go or return. Her heart was tossed about like drift-weed upon unquiet waters. She felt that she was out upon a stormy sea. If she retreated, would she regret her action when she got back again into the safe harbour? She was afraid to go on, for she did not know with what sunken perils the way was strewn.
She came to the end of the sheep-track, where it joined the Robber's Rake on the far side of the tarn from Ketel's Parlour. She halted by a post that pointed the way, when the ground lay covered with snow. She looked up and down. Just as the sign-post pointed in two directions, so her mind was drawn in two directions. To go one way was right, to go the other wrong. But which was right and which wrong? First she decided this, then that, but as hastily reversed her ideas again. She arranged them to suit her wishes, or her sense of justice, or expediency. She could not decide.
She walked on a little further.
Then she saw a figure rise up from a rock upon which it had been sitting, and come to meet her. It was Joel.
[1]The last "Need Fire" was set going near Kendal in 1840. At Crosthwaite its "smoke" was in the Kirk Lane on Sunday, November 15th of that year.
[1]The last "Need Fire" was set going near Kendal in 1840. At Crosthwaite its "smoke" was in the Kirk Lane on Sunday, November 15th of that year.
"Shall we go to the Shepherd's Rest?" Lucy timidly suggested.
Joel would not hear of it. The good-wife was in the house, he said, and she had a tongue for babbling that would challenge any mountain beck. But in that wild and rock-strewn pass was many a sheltered nook, where two people could meet unnoticed, and undisturbed, save by wandering sheep or screaming curlews. He guided Lucy to the stone, which gave its name to the place, and there they sat down.
A more secluded spot they could not have found. It was wild beyond expression. Before them the fellside shelved away, strewn with slatey scree, at the foot of which a stream tumbled, and sent its thunders reverberating along the pass. The pack-horse track marched with the stream in the direction of the inn, which stood below them to the left, hidden by the unevenness of the ground. To the right the road still went on up a steep ascent, then, dipping over a brow, ran through low and marshy moorland for many miles, until it reached the great North Road. In the midst of this boggy part lay Quaking Hag. Overhead was poised the girdle stone, a massive fragment fallen from the crags above, and supported by rocks, that the storms of centuries had rough-hewn into the shape of pillars. Underneath it the ground was dry and sheltered from the raw air. Behind rose the mountain Thundergay, as rugged on this side as upon that which looked into Boar Dale.
Joel regarded Lucy with an intent gaze, and she stole many a glance at him. He was not as altered as she had expected to find him. Indeed, save for a restless light in his eyes, lines about his mouth, and the pallor of his face there was little change to be seen. She wondered why he had not returned to Forest Hall; for he had recovered from his illness sufficiently to have walked the few miles between the Shepherd's Rest and High Fold.
"So you've come to see me at last, Lucy," he said, fondling her fingers and looking into her face.
"Did you expect me before?" she asked, wishing to withdraw her hand from his, yet not liking to do so for fear it would seem unkind.
"No, but I wondered if you would manage to give Peter the slip some day, and get away. I used to buoy myself up through the long nights when I couldn't sleep, with the hope of hearing your voice in the morning."
"I'm sorry you have been so ill, Joel."
"Don't be sorry, Lucy, at least don't cry, for it clouds your eyes, which are just like two bits of blue sky, and there's not much blue sky to be seen to-day. Do you know, my dear, when I lay sick in the inn yonder, I often comforted myself by thinking that you were sitting by the bedside, hidden behind the curtains, and that I could, if I liked, pull them back and look at you. Fortunately I had sense enough not to try the experiment. So I got the pleasure without the disappointment."
"I wanted to come," she began hurriedly, "I would have come, but Barbara wouldn't let me. I longed and longed and longed——"
She broke off abruptly for his glance disturbed her. What was the meaning of the light in his eyes? She had seen them grow radiant in the past as lamps lit by some inner fire, but never seen them shine as now, so fierce and glowing that they frightened her. She cast a look in the direction of the Shepherd's Rest.
"Isn't it too cold for you out here?" she said. "I don't mind being seen by the woman at the inn. We are doing nothing we need hide. It is quite natural that I should come to see how you are when Peter is away."
"Is it?" he asked with a strange laugh. "I doubt if the good-wife would think so."
"Well, if it isn't," she replied, colouring and feeling more and more reluctant to stay alone with him, "I'd better go home."
He controlled his feelings, whatever they were, and laid a detaining hand upon her arm.
"Let's talk calmly like two sensible folk," he said.
"I'm sure you oughtn't to be out. Don't forget how ill you've been, and that this isn't a summer's day."
"It's been a summer's day since you came, Lucy. But sit down. I haven't spent five years in a land covered with snow for half the time without becoming inured to some discomfort. Be good and kind. I've seen so little of you, and thought so much that you shouldn't grudge me this bit of pleasure."
She sat down again, drawing her cloak closer about her. She thought that the Girdlestone was not a fitting spot to talk with a man who had once been her lover. She was perplexed at his manner. She felt instinctively that a change had taken place in him. She could not have defined it; but the deterioration which had been going on in his character for the last few weeks showed through his words and actions, though they were as affectionate as they had always been.
For some moments he leaned back against the rock, letting his eyes rove over her face.
"I've carried your picture here," he said, tapping his breast, "all the years I've been away; I'm now comparing it with the original."
"Well," she inquired at last, "am I like it or have I changed?"
"The same, the same, yet not the same. There's a firmer line about your mouth than you could draw round it in the old days."
"Age should bring wisdom, should it not?" She sighed and then continued. "But I'm afraid I don't learn and grow wise."
"I know who put that line there," he said sharply.
She looked up, surprised.
"It was Barbara, Barbara, damn her, the night she prevented you coming to see me."
She winced and rose to her feet. He saw that he had made a mistake, and drew her gently to his side.
"Oh, Lucy, Lucy," he cried suddenly, "I'm beside myself. I can't live without you any longer. I'm mad I know; but I want you, I want you as a man never wanted a woman before. We were born for each other, you can't deny it. Come away with me. We'll go and make happiness for ourselves in a corner of the earth, where no one will ever seek us."
He put his arms round her, and she only half resisted, though she said:
"But, oh, Joel, you forget that I'm another man's wife."
"I don't forget it. The fact's there; but we'll disregard it. We'll go away, now, at once...."
She tore herself suddenly from him as though his embrace stung her. "What am I doing? What are you saying? Oh, Joel, we cannot...."
It was not till then that she realised her position. She loved this man, and, though she had married Peter Fleming, his image had floated before her mind through all the years of his absence, and she had often regretted that she had not waited for him. His return had excited her; she liked his admiration and his caresses, and, at their last meeting, she had let her feelings have their way. She had been full of thoughts of that which might have been. But she had never intended being seriously disloyal to her husband. She had come to see Joel, so she told herself, merely to bid him good-bye; to tell him that they must not meet again; and to say that she hoped he would be happy. Now she was aghast at the place where her actions had brought her. Go off with Joel? She could not dream of such a thing! He was an honourable man, only over-wrought by his love for her. He could never really think of taking her away.
"Be brave, Lucy," he said.
"I must leave you. We must part."
"Be true to yourself, Lucy."
"I should loathe myself if I did as you asked."
"You love me, my dear."
"But I'm Peter's wife."
"Peter can get another, and you shall have me for a husband."
"It can't be, Joel. We must say good-bye. I only came to say good-bye."
"We'll both say good-bye—to High Fold and Boar Dale—we'll say it together, and go away."
She drew back to the furthest corner of their retreat, and stared at him.
"Do you know what you are asking me to do?" she said, scarcely above a whisper.
"I've thought it all out; I've planned it."
"But I cannot go away with you."
"You love me," he repeated triumphantly.
"I did once," she cried, "but I'm afraid of you now. Peter would never ask a woman to do what you are asking me, no matter how much he cared for her."
Joel moved to the entrance, and stood with his back to her for a moment. The clouds were darker, the fellside more stern, the foam of the beck whiter in the waning light. But the outlook was not so wild as the picture which he saw within himself, when he turned the eye of his mind upon it.
Man never grasps the significance of his own thoughts. They cross and recross, and deal with each other often apart from his direct consciousness, and that which he has to accept is their conclusion.
Hope and despair, hate and honour—all these had filled Joel's brain, had joined forces or fought—as the case might be—and now he saw it strewn with the remains of war, where one figure stalked, and its name was hate. Then a faint light glimmered down, and he was aware of the star of love still shining overhead. There was commotion in his mind. Hate menaced the star but could not put it out.
Turning to Lucy, he said:
"Must it be good-bye?"
Her lips quivered and she nodded.
"It's a little word," he replied, "and very ill to say. I'll not say it. If you go ... but you'll not go. Think of me, Lucy. Give a thought to the loneliness of my life. Remember how I worked to get rich for your sake. That bit of gold—have you got it?" She made a movement of assent. "We'll still have it made into a ring, and you shall wear it. You're mine in heart. Why should you be afraid to trust yourself to me? I'll take care of you, Lucy. You shall be happy, you shall be rich. You shall have everything you want, if you'll only put yourself into my keeping."
"You might give me all these things," she whispered, "but you don't understand, Joel. I should have the mind of a ... I should be like a toad. Barbara said so."
"I knew it was Barbara, who had changed your feelings towards me," he bitterly replied.
"I do think of you," she said, "I know you will be sad and lonely. So shall I be. You do not think of me, Joel."
He looked moodily through the gathering gloom.
"The day is nearly over," he muttered, "and we have made little use of it. For days I've been wanting to see you, wondering how I could bring you to the Girdlestone. Now you bid us part, and forever. Well, let us go. The sooner good-bye is said the better ... if it must be said."
They went down the brae to the stream, which they crossed by a bridge. The long, withered branches of a wild rose draggled in the rushing water, catching hold of the flotsam that the swift current brought down, and tangling it into a mat of twigs, leaves and sheepswool.
The roar of the beck seemed to give Lucy confidence. She wiped her tears, tried to smile bravely into the gloomy face of the man by her side, and gently touched his arm.
"You'll find someone much handsomer and better than me, Joel, to be your wife."
He shrugged his shoulders, and made no reply.
"I've been like yon briar," she said in an undertone, "letting myself draggle in a torrent, and holding on to all the regrets and disappointments it's brought me. But now I'll shake them off. From to-day, this hour, I'll lift myself up and hope that a green and blooming time will come for you as well as me."
"A green and blooming time will surely come," he replied quickly. "It's coming now. I can't let you go, Lucy. It's no use pretending that I mean to let you go. We must twine together...." His looks began to get wild and his voice shook as though he were losing control of himself again. "You know the song:
'Out of her bosom there grew a red roseAnd out of her lover's a briar, a briar....'
'Out of her bosom there grew a red roseAnd out of her lover's a briar, a briar....'
But I'm talking nonsense, and frightening you."
A scared look came into her eyes. The afternoon was darkening, and it was high time that she should be getting home, if she did not want to be benighted upon the fells. She might lose her way unless she reached the Robber's Rake before dusk.
"Good-bye, Joel," she said, her voice trembling, not only with the emotion that the words called up—for she knew that whatever more was said, good-bye must be the last word uttered between them—but she was startled by the fierce face turned upon her.
"I told you we could not say it," he muttered.
"But we must: we can't do anything else."
"Speak the truth, Lucy, do you love Peter or me best?" He took her by the shoulders, so that she must face him. "I loved you first," he cried, "long before he did. You promised yourself to me. He has no right to you."
Joel's pent up hatred burst forth. It flowed from his lips like a venomous flood upon the shrinking head of the woman. Deeper than his love for her, so it seemed, ran his hate.
"Let me go," said Lucy, "you don't know what you are saying."
"Which of us do you love best?" he continued, taking no notice of her attempts to free herself. "If you say Peter, I'll throw you into the beck—its deep enough to drown you. But you love me best. I know it, I've always known it. Be brave, be strong, Lucy. I've got a horse waiting just beyond the dip in the road to take us away. We'll go away now, and before anyone can follow us we shall be on the seas."
He drew her along the pack-horse track in the direction that he indicated.
She struggled to free herself. She felt all the love which she had for him ooze out of her. His attitude opened her eyes, and she realized, with renewed dread, in what a dangerous position she had placed herself. Her thoughts turned with a frantic rush towards her husband. Oh, if only his face would appear through the gloom.... If only she could hear his kindly voice calling to her.... But Peter was far away by now on the road to London. She was alone. There was no one near, no one who could help her. Joel's handsome countenance was like a nightmare: his fond words, his embraces—the idea of ever having received such expressions of love from him became suddenly repulsive.
"Let me be, Joel," she said, "or I'll call out."
He did not heed her.
"Where shall we go, Lucy," he said, "there's all the world to choose from?"
"Go where you like," she replied, "only take your hand off my shoulder."
She noticed that twilight was drawing swiftly down. In half an hour it would be night, and the clouds were already settling lower on the fells, so that the horrors of loneliness and darkness would be doubled by the bewildering presence of the mist. But she had not time to think just now of how she would get home. She must flee anywhere; she must escape from Joel, who was acting and speaking as though he had gone suddenly mad. Girdlestone Pass provided plenty of hiding places if she could only succeed in baffling him. She cast her eyes swiftly over the landscape. She must not take to the hillside—it was too steep and rough for her to hope to elude him there; she would betray herself by falling, if she did not come to a crag that she could not climb. The moorland on the left, with it brown hummocks, scrub, and mossy stones, would provide her with a surer means of escape. She never thought of Quaking Hag, she did not know where it lay, for she had rarely been in the pass before.
She wondered once if she should scream, but it was unlikely that anyone would hear her. The Shepherd's Rest was too far off, and travellers rarely passed that way.
Every minute the dusk deepened, Joel had shifted his hand to her arm, when he found that she ceased to resist him. He was peering forward, trying to see the horse which he had tied to a tree so that it might be in readiness.
Then Lucy bent down, and set her teeth in his hand. He gave a sharp exclamation, loosened his grasp, and she fled from him into the shadows.
The night was dark, no star shone, and, though the moon had risen, it could not penetrate the clouds, which hung over the sky, and rested on the mountain tops. There was just enough light to show how wild and lonely was the pack-horse track through Girdlestone Pass.
About nine o'clock Barbara came along it. She walked as a shepherd walks, who has many miles to travel, and must not grow weary. She did not hurry, neither did she dally nor halt, but kept up an even pace, regardless of the dips and rises in the road.
She was returning from a distant farm, whither she had carried the Need Fire, and where the good folk had waited all the afternoon, the cattle folded near the house, and a pile, like a haystack, of green wood ready to be lit, when the sacred element—for such they regarded it—should be brought from Boar Dale. They had given up all hope of receiving it that night, when, about seven o'clock, a loud knock came to the door, and Barbara Lynn stood there, with the smouldering embers in a cauldron.
Now she was returning, but not by the way she had come, over a shoulder of Thundergay, for there was no track to guide her, and the mist and darkness hid the familiar landmarks; so she struck the road through Girdlestone Pass instead, meaning to reach Greystones by the round-about way of the Robber's Rake.
She kept with her still some of the exalted feeling, which had thrilled her, when she had carried the Need Fire over the mountains. In her own eyes she had been raised from her humble office of hewer of wood and drawer of water to the rank of a priestess.
No Druidess, administering the rites of her religion, could have had a greater sense of the mystery of life, and the debt it owed to symbolism to make it intelligible, than Barbara at this time. Her character, founded upon Christian principles, was yet bathed in a pagan glow of awe and wonderment. Natural forces drew forth her reverence. Fire, Wind and Water became personified: they bore an analogy to Life, Soul, and Spirit. And her love of the old Greek tales filled her imagination with so rich a store of treasure—much that was strange, fair and exalted in ancient thought—that she had an inexhaustible wealth to draw upon for her delight and nourishment.
She had watched Timothy Hadwin kindle the Need Fire with a keen sense of its inner significance. Fire was the symbol of purification and smoke the symbol of prayer. It seemed to her fitting that man should make this outward show of his repentance, for she believed—as most of the fell-folk did—that the pestilence threatening the cattle was the sign of an aggrieved heavenly power. When the Greeks sinned had not the god of the Silver Bow sent his deadly arrows hissing among them, killing first their dogs and mules, and then their men, until they heeded the warning and made their peace with sacrifices and restitution? For what transgression the black bane had been sent into the dales and fells Barbara did not ask. Was it a question worth asking, when no heart was pure? Let every man amend his ways, and the appeal to heaven would not go up in vain.
Filled with some such thoughts as these, she threaded her lonely path through the dim land. Upon her body were still the marks of fire, her cheeks were flushed, her eyes were scorched, and her clothes were so well thurified, that they shook out a pungent odour of smoke at every movement. Neither weariness, nor pain—she had been on her feet since long before day-break—could rob her figure of its lofty carriage.
The silence suited her mood; and the darkness, blotting out the well known features of the landscape, allowed her brain to paint its own picture of the country through which she was journeying. She was, in fact, carried by her imagination far away from the Girdlestone. But no earthly land received her spiritual body. She had come to a place where there is neither marrying nor giving in marriage, having passed through the Need Fire which purifies from all dross. There she walked in a clear light, holding sweet fellowship with one from whom she must be forever separated on earth.
More and more of late Barbara had begun to fix her thoughts upon that which lay beyond mortal existence. Her life was empty: instincts, desires, hopes—the birthright of the human soul—were spilled like water upon the ground. She had nothing to expect here: but there—what glorious prospects opened out!
Timothy Hadwin often talked to her about the next world, and she had imbibed much of his philosophy, colouring it to satisfy her own desires. She believed in a Great Spirit. She believed that every living creature had a living soul. She believed that behind every material thing there was a spiritual force. She believed that her desire for knowledge would, hereafter, be fulfilled. All that she knew from the outside now, would there be revealed in its inmost reality.
But it was not an immaterial world that her faith painted. Trees, streams, mountain gorge and starry peak made it beautiful. She loved the trees, their leaves pleased her eyes, their chiming her ears; but when she became a spirit, she would enjoy their very life in a deeper sense; for she would be able to pass into their being like the Hamadryads of Greece, only she would not die with the trees, for death would no longer exist. In the same way she would be able to become one with the streams, the dales and fells. But above all and beneath all—for it was both the foundation and summit of her hopes—human fellowship would then present no barriers to a perfect communion. She would need no eyes to see and recognise the loved one, no hands to draw his attention, no feet with which to come nigh him, no voice to tell him her thoughts. Spirit would pass into Spirit, would live and move and understand, without bodily aids, which are also the instruments of misunderstanding and separation.
She was wakened from her dream by hearing a voice speak from the wayside. Now that her attention was drawn to it, she could dimly make out a huddled figure, whose limbs seemed to melt and become one with the rock upon which it sat.
"Angel or devil!" said a hoarse voice. "Who are you?"
She came nearer and peered into the man's face.
"Why, Joel," she exclaimed in surprise. "I didn't expect to see you here."
He staggered to his feet and she felt sure that he had been drinking.
"It's always the unexpected that happens," he replied.
When Lucy had run away from him, he had been so overtaken by surprise, that for a few seconds he had not been able to grasp the reality of the fact. Then passion had swept away his senses, and he had rushed hither and thither like a mad man, calling, cursing, but seeing nothing, so swiftly had her grey-cloaked figure been swept up into the gathering darkness. His wild scheme of carrying her off defeated, and knowing that his desires and hopes could never now be realized, he had so far recovered himself as to lay hold of a shred of reason, and stifle his anger. He had taken the horse back to the inn, and then had sat down in his corner by the fire, silent and sullen, heedless of the dame's chatter, and only wishful to be left alone. He had demanded wine, and had tried to drown his wrath and bitter sense of failure. But he could not endure the good-wife's tongue, and at length had got up and gone out. He had told himself that he would go back to Forest Hall to-morrow, settle his affairs with all speed and never set foot in Boar Dale again. He was sick of the Shepherd's Rest, and would not have stayed so long only the place had been convenient for his purpose. There he had hoped to decoy Lucy and take her away. In the light of their last meeting, he had felt sure that she would go with him.
And now, having walked aimlessly along the pack-horse track, the mist chilling him to the bone, he would have returned again to the inn, but that he was afraid of the inquisitive eyes of the woman there, who looked at him as though she were suspicious that some wild adventure was in the air. He was not able to lash himself into his former fury, his heart seemed to be dead. The hand of the woman he loved had killed it. Even the thought of Peter did not rouse him. Hate, for the time being, was burning low.
In this mood he had come again to the spot where Lucy had fled from him. He had begun to wonder in which direction she had really gone. How was it that she had eluded him so quickly? He looked round him. Then there had been light enough to distinguish the nearer objects—a stunted thorn, the flash of the beck, the overhanging crags, but now all was undefined, and bleak. A little glitter, just beyond the left bank of the road, had caught his eye, and held him spell-bound. He had stared with growing understanding. On that side lay marshy ground, stretching away to the opposite fells, and yonder was Quaking Hag, shunned by all travellers, and forsaken of God. He had sunk on a stone, sobered by that which he saw, for the glittering mark was followed by another and yet another, until the misty nature of the night prevented further sight. They were the froth o' the marsh, a kind of putrified earth, which, when it has been trodden upon, shines like fire in the darkness.
He had just realised what theigneum lutummeant, when Barbara had come along the pass and he had accosted her.
"Barbara Lynn," he muttered, a note of suspicion creeping into his voice. "What the devil are you doing here?"
"I'm going home."
"Going home to Greystones! Have you seen Lucy?"
"No. Why do you ask?"
He did not reply for a moment, then said:
"Are you sure you haven't passed her?"
Barbara's blood began to quicken with vague doubts.
"Have you seen her?" she demanded. "Has my sister been here?"
"Yes, I sent for her."
"And where is she now?"
"Gone home long ago."
"Thank God."
Barbara uttered the words with profound gratitude, then she turned sharply on the man. "You're doing wrong, Joel. Neither you nor Lucy have any right to meet in this way."
"It will never happen again," he said.
She started uneasily. Into her mind crept a fear that all was not well. She tried to read his face: the night was too dark and his manner baffled her.
But he rose suddenly, took her roughly by the arm, and turning her round, pointed to the shining marks.
"Do you know what they are?" he cried.
"I've seen them before," she said, "on such a night as this. They're footprints. Someone has been crossing the marsh." Horror crept over her, but before she could frame a question, he had jerked his hand in the direction of Quaking Hag.
"The fence is broken," he said, "there are gaps in it. Does Lucy know the place?"
"What do you mean, Joel? What has happened? You said Lucy had gone home."
"She ran away and left me. I don't know where she went: I don't know what's become of her. No doubt she's safe at home."
Barbara uttered no cry, no word of anguish or condemnation. She stood for a moment as though frozen, then turned to the man beside her.
"God forgive you! Some ill may have happened to Lucy! Go to the inn," she said. "Go at once. Tell every one to follow me to Quaking Hag."
He hesitated.
"Go," she cried. "Why do you stand there as if you hadn't heard? You're sober enough to know what may have happened."
"I'll help you to look for her," he doggedly replied.
"That's as you please. But you'll go to the inn first."
There was such a note of authority in her voice that he had to obey. He dared not do otherwise.
Barbara left the road, and followed the glittering prints that led away over the marsh. As she got nearer to it, the will o' the wisp shone here and there; the ground got softer, and she knew that slimy pools were opening out on every side. Now and again she called Lucy's name, but there was no answer. Utter silence closed round her. She went on, not daring to hope that she might find a trace of her sister. Quaking Hag kept whatsoever it took, and told no secrets.
Her mind seemed to be stiff with horror. She could think of nothing save that she must go on, until she could go no further.
The footprints were Lucy's. She had run, in her blind fear, some way across the mire before she became aware of its nature. Her one idea had been to escape from Joel, and, when she was safe, steer, by any landmarks she could recognise, for Thundergay. She would not dare seek the Robber's Rake in case her pursuer laid in wait for her there. Now she realised that she was running in the direction of Quaking Hag, and stricken with horror, she would have given expression to it in a call for help, had not dread of Joel's finding her, controlled her tongue.
She paused in her flight and listened. But she could only hear the breaking of bubbles at her feet. Bewildered by the twilight, and the unfamiliar place, she lost herself among a maze of peat-pots. With every step she sank deeper in the ground.
Then afraid to go this way or that she stood still. Should she call? No one would hear her but Joel, and she would rather spend the night here than see his face appearing through the darkness. She looked round. A light shone and flickered like a candle. Could the pack-horse track be so near, and was some one passing along it with a lantern?
She started forward again, but only to feel water ooze round her ankles. Another light shone for a moment to her right, then went out; one rose almost at her feet.
"The witch lights, the witch lights," she muttered, and sinking down upon the damp ground, she covered her eyes with her hand.
There was nothing for it but to wait till morning. She knew that by some mischance she had wandered right in among the quagmire and, as she saw the will-o'-the-wisps burn here and there, she wondered that she had not been sucked down to death. She saw the glitter of her own footsteps as the night darkened, but thought they were more witch-lights shining to lure her to her doom.
Numbed with cold, frightened to move, her teeth began to chatter, and her limbs shook until they became even too cold for that sign of life. She sank into a kind of stupor, from which she started at times, thinking that she heard footsteps creeping nearer. But it was only the marsh gas escaping with a sound like a low chuckle. She had no means of guessing the time. Often she thought that the night must be nearly past; it had lasted so long already. When the faintest light crept over the blackness of the sky, she hailed it as the coming of day, but it was only the moon rising behind the clouds.
After that followed a period of utter prostration, in which she saw and heard nothing. She was only conscious of an ever-present horror, which did not seem to have any outward source—she had lost all knowledge of the witch-lights and the marsh.
In this state of stupor Barbara found her.
"Lucy, Lucy," she said, lifting the girl in her arms, and though tears came hardly to her, she sobbed with thankfulness.
Lucy was roused at the sound.
"Save me, save me," she cried.
"You're all right," Barbara replied. "See, I'll carry you through the mire, and then we'll jog along home. Great-granny will think we're both lost, so long out at this time o' year."
"It's nearly morning, isn't it?" asked the girl, clinging to her sister with both hands.
"Bless the bairn, no; not more than ten, at the latest."
She carried the light form as easily as if it had been a child, and retraced her steps. By the time she had reached firmer ground, she was met by the inn-keeper and two men with lanterns. She saw Joel hovering behind them; when she looked for him again he was gone.
She took the fainting girl to the Shepherd's Rest, and there spent the night, while a message was sent to Mistress Lynn to reassure her of their safety.
Some days passed before Lucy was well enough to leave the Shepherd's Rest. She had got a severe chill from her exposure to the night air and the vapours of the marsh, but her nature was naturally buoyant, and the relief she experienced from a quiet conscience, now that she had cut herself off from Joel, enabled her to throw off that which might have been a serious illness.
She did not see Joel again. Mally Ray was not communicative, and as no one ever met him in Cringel Forest or upon the fellside, rumour said that he had gone away.
Peter came back in less than a fortnight. He had accepted the post in London—an important one that would use all his abilities—and from this time, until the end of the year, the days were filled with the making of arrangements for their removal. The mill-house was handed over to an uncle of Peter's, who had been born there, and Lucy and her husband came to Greystones to spend the last few days with Barbara and the great-grandmother.
A thin fall of snow covered the ground, and, frost having set in with blue skies, a north wind blowing straight out of Thundergay, and clear sunlight, the eyes were dazzled by the whiteness of the dale. The beck was not yet frozen over, but it seemed to sing less clearly as it ran between its banks, where the grass blades were encased in crystal, and the bracken stalks, pricking through the snow, glittered with jewels. But the craggy edges of the fells were black as ebony, and dark patches showed here and there upon the pastures, where the sheep had been scraping for a precarious living.
At sunset a gorgeous display of light illuminated the clear, cold world. Night lit up the intense blue of the northern sky with stars, while the west was filled with gold-dust, and the snow slopes were stained with red and saffron. Shadows lay in the hollows and clefts, and the long ridges looked violet; their savage outlines were never so noticeable as at this time of the year towards sundown.
A ruddy beam fell through the windows at Greystones and made a pool of light upon the floor. In the midst of it Lucy sat with her chin resting upon her hands. Mistress Lynn was propped against her pillows, and, though her face had begun to wear the almost unearthly look of extreme old age, and the eye-sockets were far sunken in her head, the eyes themselves burnt with their old sharp light.
"It's likely I shall never see you again, great-granddaughter," she said, "unless the Lord has forgotten me, lying here so long in the big bed. A hundred years is a great span for one human body to take to herself. Life grows tedisome at times. Still, I've known most things worth knowing, seen most things worth seeing, aye, and had most things worth having, though you'll not believe that, my lass."
Lucy looked up from her day-dreaming for a moment, and remarked:
"You've been very kind to me lately, great-granny."
"Oh, I's smit with a sickness that takes the old folk whiles—a kind of softening of the vitals; with some it's the brain, with others it's the heart."
"You mustn't talk of leaving us, great-granny. Peter's promised to bring me to see you in the summer-time."
"I doubt you'll find Barbara mistress of Greystones, then."
"I wish Barbara would marry."
"She'll never marry. She sends the lads trotting before they get their noses through the door."
"I used to think, when I was a bairn, that a lord would one day ride by and carry her off. Timothy said she should have a crown."
"Timothy's brain is all froth, like a beat-up egg. He wanted me to take some of his magic messes last winter, when I had yon bad cough, but I said, 'No, no, my man, none of your pesky stuff has ever found it's way down my throat, nor ever will.' 'It'll ease your kist, Mistress Lynn,' said he. 'Thank you kindly,' said I, 'but my kist is a hundred years old, and if it's a bit stiff in the hinges we needn't wonder. Cranky bits of furniture are none the better for tinkering at.'"
"Barbara always laughed at Timothy's sooth-saying," replied Lucy; "all the same, she often thought about it, I'm sure of that."
"You'll never get to the bed-rock of Barbara's mind," answered the old woman; "your spade's too short, my lass, for digging there. Though the good God made you both out of the same clay, he filled you with beck-water and Barbara with red wine. Havering! havering! An old woman's tongue sometimes runs away. Light the candles, lass; its getting dark, and Peter will soon be coming in."
The candles, in their tall iron sconces, filled the kitchen with a mellow light. The colour had vanished from the fells, but the stars glittered, and the wide snowfields gave a moonlight glimmer to the landscape. Lucy stood at the window for a moment, before putting up the shutters, thinking about her great-grandmother's words. Glancing at Thundergay, she thought how far and cold it looked against the star-fringed edges of the sky. There was her sister's throne, there on the highest peak with an outlook wide but wild, where she breathed an air too clear and sharp for common mortals.
She turned to the warm kitchen, recognising, with a glow of comfort, that such was her fitting place. She did not desire a large perspective—her eyes could not have taken it in. She did not crave for communion with nature, she did not want to dip herself into the mysterious pools that lay about the path of life. A common round, enclosed within four walls, satisfied her needs. Yet she knew that her husband's mind would sometimes escape from the warm nest that she would make for him. Now and again he would leave her to climb such high places as Barbara knew. There she would not be able to follow him. Yet she would not murmur. She would make his home such that he would always return to it for rest and sympathy. Ah, yes, if she were but a vessel full of beck-water, as her great-grandmother had said, she would be able to quench his human thirst. Barbara might stir and exalt as wine did, but hers would be the more womanly office of attending to common needs.
Peter had gone to the mill-house, Barbara was in the byre, Jess's shrill voice could be heard in the yard, and the hinds were out. Mistress Lynn seemed inclined to sleep, so Lucy returned to her seat, and stared into the fire, looking like a child making pictures there.
She was, in fact, seeing again the witch-lights and Girdlestone Pass. The place had been so impressed upon her mind, that it returned with startling vividness to haunt her, whenever her mind was unoccupied. In the warmest corner of the chimney-nook it would make her shiver; in the brightest flood of fire and candlelight she would see the rolling darkness about her feet, and then the will-o'-the-wisp gleam with its alluring, fitful flame. The horror of that time would remain with her all her life. It had killed anything that was left of her love for Joel, made her appreciate her position as Peter's wife, filled her with gratitude towards him, for he had forgiven her with the utmost gentleness. Had Joel stood before her now she would have turned from him without a tremor save that of shame.
Mistress Lynn was not asleep; like Lucy, she was thinking of the past. The years that were gone came back to her in a long, long train. From childhood, from her earliest memory, she followed events up through girlhood to wifehood and widowhood, and here at last she had come from the cradle to the four-poster, from having been a golden-haired bairn to be a bedridden old woman. It seemed hardly believable the way in which the years had gone. Yet the old clock, ticking in the corner, had marked off the moments of her existence with a relentless hand. Often it had been her solitary companion through long and wakeful nights, and she had listened to it, and watched its white face flicker with the firelight, never thinking that it was a stern angel, telling out the passing of her years.
As she passed her life in review, she thought that she had few regrets. The last one—the failure of Joel Hart to fulfil her hopes for him—soon fell away from her mind. She was too old to trouble any more about the cross-purposes of other people's lives. Still, she would like to have seen him again. Though she would have bitterly resented had any stain been put upon her name, perhaps, at the back of her old brain, she felt that, had his grandfather asked her to flee with him, she would have gone, so great was her love—and made herself strong enough, and brave enough, to take the consequences, and never cast a look behind.
Joel Hart had not gone away. He had meant to go, day after day, but had not had the resolution to carry out his intentions. He spent the dreary time at Forest Hall in vain longings, and in reviving his hate for Peter. He did not go out, but did his best to empty his wine-cellar. At last, however, he made up his mind, and told Mally Ray that he would ride off, as he had come home, in the dusk of early morning. The night before, a restless spirit took him into the dale. He thought that he would look at it for the last time.
He wandered along, keeping to the same track as that which Lucy had taken when she went to meet him in Girdlestone Pass. He came across no one: those whose business took them to the hills managed to get it done before twilight fell, and sensible folk sat by their fires, having no inclination to wander about in the snow unless they must.
From the other side of the beck he looked at Greystones. He saw the light suddenly shine out when Lucy lit the candles, then as suddenly disappear when she put up the shutters.
The vision roused the devil in him. Yonder was the woman he had loved, surrounded by light and warmth, while he stood out in the cold. There did not exist for him a single smiling face in the whole bleak world. Instead of bread, life had given him a stone to break his teeth upon. Did he care for her still? He did not know, but he once did, and another man had stolen her from him. That passion had become swallowed up in another. Always more or less unbalanced, he had put himself, the whole of himself, into one scale, and it went down. He had flung reason away, so had nothing left to readjust the poise. He hated Peter with all his powers.
He turned his back on Greystones, and went towards home, hugging his hate. Was he out in the cold? Passion kept him warm. It kept him more than warm—it scorched him. His very soul was on fire with the maddening flame.
The track which he was following joined the forest road just at the bridge above the falls. He paused to knock the snow from his heels, and saw, coming towards him, the figure of a man. It was Peter Fleming returning to Greystones.
Joel straightened himself. He was in no mood to weigh his actions, or control that which he felt. He had no time to consider consequences. He was like a man who, in a sudden fury, takes all that he has and flings it away, not caring, at the moment, whether it is irrevocably lost or not. Joel saw, as in a flash, what he meant to do. He meant to hurl himself upon Peter, and finish that wrestling bout, which had had so disastrous an ending before. One or other of them should fall, and fall for ever. He would pitch Peter over the parapet of the bridge down the falls; even if they had to go together to their death he would do it. He had told Lucy that he would drown her if she loved this man best; that had been bluff to frighten her. Now he was in deadly earnest.
But as he drew himself together, and made ready to spring, Peter, unconscious of the implacable foe awaiting him in the shadow, paused and turned. There was a muffled sound on the forest road of some heavy creature coming quickly along.
"I do believe it's Big Ben," he said to himself, and laughed.
The bear loped up, sniffing and whimpering with pleasure. It rose to its full height, laid a paw on its master's shoulder, and licked his face like a great dog.
"Run away from Jake, have you?" said Peter, pushing the beast down. "Well, old fellow, I'm afraid you can't come to Greystones. The cows won't give any milk when they see you about the place. What the deuce are you growling at?"
This exclamation was uttered in a different tone of voice. Big Ben had scented Joel. As Jake said, the bear was a creature who had memories. With every expression of fury, it went towards him, stalking on its hind legs, showing its teeth, and waving its great hairy arms in preparation for dealing a blow such as only a bear can give.
Peter caught the chain that was dangling from its collar, and called it back, as a dusky figure dashed past him. He did not see the man's face, but he knew the form.
In a few minutes Jake the rat-catcher came up.
"I saw Joel Hart just now," he said; "he seemed to be in a mighty hurry. Feared o' Ben, I should think. Ben doesn't like him. What in the world is he doing here still? I thought he'd gone away."
Peter, too, wondered, but he said nothing.
He gave the bear back into Jake's charge and went on, much perplexed and troubled. He was glad that Lucy and he were going away so soon, for he could not help being suspicious that Joel had lain in wait for him with no good purpose in his mind, and, save for the arrival of Big Ben, would have made an attempt to carry it out.
But he said nothing of this to anyone.
The next morning Jake told him that Joel Hart had ridden away at dawn.
The remaining days passed quickly. Barbara was in a gentle mood. The sternness of her face relaxed, the fire in her large blue eyes was subdued to a steady glow, which fell upon her sister and Peter with the softness of serene skies. No shadow should darken these final scenes of Lucy's life in the dales. Peter and she should depart, unsaddened by that which they were leaving behind them. Sorrow at bidding good-bye to the old woman there must be, for they were not likely to see her again, but such tears would soon be dried. Her own sorrow, her own loneliness, must be hidden.
On Christmas Eve they all gathered in the kitchen to welcome in the Christmas morning. Fresh bedding had been shaken down in the cow-house, after the good old custom of those days, so that the cattle might have clean straw to kneel on when midnight struck. Barbara had put a wisp, with an apple, a jug of water, and a platter of oat-cake in an empty stall, and, coming out, had bolted the door, for no eye might see that scene, when the Christ-child came to bless the beasts, that had shared with Him their shelter and their bed.
The beck was now frozen over and nothing could be heard outside, till from far down the dale came the voices of the waits, singing: