I was lying beneath a tree, my head softly pillowed and wet with cool water that refreshed me wonderfully; thus I presently turned my head and glanced up into eyes that gazed down upon me, very beautiful eyes these seemed, being soft and tender and darkly grey.
"Are ye better?" she questioned. Now at this I wondered, for the voice matched the eyes for gentleness.
"Thank you, much better."
"He hurt you more than I thought."
"It was the blow on the head—slight concussion, I think."
"And you stands up to him like—"
"You mean I ran away like a coward."
"He was twice as big as you—"
"No matter! Cowardice is always despicable, more especially in defence of one of the weaker sex," said I dismally.
"But you saves me, to be sure!"
At this I strove to rise in sheer amazement and thus found my head pillowed in her lap.
"How did I save you?" I demanded bitterly. "I that am a craven!"
"By giving me the chance to reach my littlechuri. However, I was never once afraid of the beast."
"I was!" I confessed miserably. "Afraid beyond words!"
"But you comes running back, and very fierce too!"
"I meant to kill him!"
"Why trouble to kill him?"
"I could not bear he should foul you in his brutal arms!"
Here came her hand to touch my aching brow and I closed my eyes again.
"Does your head ache very much?" she enquired.
"A little!" I groaned.
"Can ye walk?" she enquired. "'Tis goin' to storm and rain on us soon,I think—can ye walk a small ways?"
For answer I got to my knees and, with her ready assistance, to my feet, but found myself very faint and sick and with my head throbbing as though it would burst.
"Come!" said she, taking my hand in her warm, strong, clasp. "There's rain in this wind—come! I knows a fair, likely place—"
"No, no!" cried I. "Please leave me, I shall be very well here—the rain will do me good, perhaps—besides, I have no money to pay for a night's lodging—"
"But I have!"
"No matter, I cannot live on your money."
"Aye, but you can, for this money is yourn as much as mine, seeing asI prigs it."
"What do you mean?"
"Lord, what should I mean except as I takes it, nabs it—steals it from yon dirty beast while he struggled wi' me. Look!" And taking out a ragged belcher neckerchief she unknotted one corner and showed me three bright, new guineas.
"Ah, throw them away!" I cried. "The man was so vile—"
"He was!" she nodded. "But his money is clean enough and will be useful to us—"
"But you are—a thief!" I exclaimed, aghast.
"And you are a fool!" she retorted, thrusting the money into a small leathern bag she carried at her girdle. "And he was a dirty rogue and his money shall feed us until I can earn more. And now let us hurry afore the storm ketches us."
"Where to?"
"There's a place I know where we can be warm and sheltered and nothing to pay."
And so, because of her persistence and my sickness, I suffered her to lead me where she would, though more than once I tripped and should have fallen but for her ready arm. Presently turning out of the road we came to a meadow and here, half-blinded by the pain of my head and scarcely able to drag one foot after the other, I earnestly besought her to leave me, storm or no storm; to which she merely bade me not to be a fool, with the further assurance that she would leave me when she wished and not before.
I remember stumbling down a grassy slope and through a tangle of bushes and dense-growing trees, amid whose whispering leafage shadows were deepening, and so at last to a half-ruined barn, very remote and desolate, into which she conducted me.
Here, from amid a pile of mouldy hay, she dragged a ladder which she reared to a small hatch or trap in the floor above and bade me mount. This I did, though very clumsily and presently found myself in an upper chamber or loft, illuminated by a small, unglazed window that opened beneath the eaves at one end. Scarcely was I here than she was beside me and brought me to an adjacent corner where was a great pile of hay that made the place sweet with its fragrance, whereon, at her behest, I sank down and would have expressed my gratitude, but she checked me, frowning.
"Are ye hungry?" she demanded ungraciously.
"Indeed, no, I thank you," I answered, lying back upon my fragrant couch.
"Well, I am!" she retorted sullenly. "And you will be, sooner or later, so I'll go afore the storm ketches me."
"Go where, and for what?"
"To buy supper with money as I stole, for you an' me to eat—"
"I'd rather starve!" quoth I, sitting up the better to say it.
"Starve!" she repeated, with a scornful flash of her great eyes. "You? d'ye know what starvation means? Ha' you ever tried it?"
"No," I admitted, "but none the less—"
"Then don't talk foolishness!" said she disdainfully. "You'll be glad t' eat an' ask no questions when you're hungry enough! And don't go pitying yourself and grieving over your bruises. If your eyes are bulged and blacked a bit—what of it? Lord! I've seen men get it worse than you an' come up smiling, but then to be sure they were men and stronger than you. However, you'll be better to-morrow! So now go to sleep and forget all about yourself if ye can—sleep till supper's ready and when I say eat—eat."
"Many thanks, but I do not desire any supper."
"Wait till you smell it!"
"I shall neither smell it nor eat it," I answered, frowning, "becauseI propose to rid you of my presence almost immediately."
"Meaning as you will cut your stick?"
"Certainly not! I mean that I shall take my departure just so soon asI find myself sufficiently recovered."
"Why, then," said she, compressing her lips and jutting her round chin at me in highly unfeminine fashion, "you'll have to jump or fly."
"What do you mean?"
"I shall take away the ladder!"
"You would never do such a thing!" quoth I, starting.
"Tush!" she retorted and, turning from me with a disdainful swirl of her short petticoat, began to descend into the depths below, seeing which, I scrambled to my feet and crossed to the trap, only to behold her standing beneath me, the ladder dragged quite out of my reach.
"Fly down, little bird!" she cried insolently. "Jump, Jack—jump!" and snapping finger and thumb at me, was gone before my anger might find vent in words.
Trapped and imprisoned thus, I presently came wandering disconsolately back to the hay-pile and lying there began to ponder upon the extreme unlovely deportment of this strange creature whose almost every speech and look and gesture outraged all my preconceived ideas of "the sex", and bitterly to deplore my present situation.
Evening was falling apace but there was still sufficient light to show me something of the place wherein I lay and the orderly disorder that surrounded me. In one corner, upon a rough board that served for a shelf, stood six battered volumes flanked by divers pots and pans; against the wall near by hung a small, cracked mirror, while dangling from nails driven into the warped and twisted timbering of roof and walls hung a great variety of baskets, large and small and variously shaped, of rush or bent withies, many of which seemed in course of manufacture. These and many other objects I took casual heed of as I lay, but often my gaze would rove back to the six books standing so orderly amid the pots and pans; indeed, these so stirred my interest that I began to wonder what manner of books these might be and what should bring them in such a strange and desolate place, so that despite my aches and pains I felt much disposed to rise and investigate them, but in the end was content to lie and stare at them while the light failed and shadows deepened until, my eyes little serving me, I closed them and fell fast asleep.
Assuredly never were the nostrils of mortal youth saluted with odour more inspiring and altogether more delectable than that which, wooing me from the drowsy arms of Morpheus, awoke me to growing consciousness of three several things, namely: light, movement and an extraordinarily poignant hunger.
Being awake, I firstly sniffed of this most appetising aroma, then lifting my head espied the girl busily combing her long hair before that small mirror I have mentioned. Now although the place was illumined by no more than a farthing dip, yet this was sufficient to wake many fugitive gleams and coppery lights in these long, rippling tresses, so that I lay for some time content to watch as she combed with smooth-sweeping motions of arm and wrist; but suddenly this arm grew still and I knew that she was viewing me through this silky curtain as it hung.
"Well?" she demanded suddenly, and putting back the hair from her face, stood looking down at me with her sombre, half-sullen gaze.
"Well?" said I, sitting up. And now, beholding her face framed thus in her glossy tresses, the wide, low brow, the deep eyes, the delicate modelling of nose and chin, the vivid lips, I realised that she was beautiful—beautiful as any fabled goddess or dryad; and what with this, the rippling splendour of her hair that covered her like a garment, the deep silence of this remote solitude, there rushed upon me a sense of such intimacy that I caught my breath and averted my gaze instinctively, awed by, yet delighting in, this sudden consciousness of her beauty.
"Well," said she again, "d'ye smell it?"
Starting, I glanced up, to find her busied with the comb again and immediately recognised that here was neither goddess nor dryad but merely a well-shaped, comely young woman with extraordinarily long hair; which fact established, my hunger (momentarily forgotten) returned with keener pang than ever.
"Are ye going to sleep again?" she enquired, finding me silent.
"No!"
"Well, don't you smell it?"
"Pray what is it?"
"A duck as I be roasting to our supper."
"Duck!" I repeated, mouth watering. "I have breathed its enticement ever since I awoke."
"Wi' plenty o' sage and onion, a new loaf, and cheese!" she added, with a nod of her shapely head at each item, "unless," said she, eyeing me askance, "you're minded to starve—as you said?"
At this I grew very despondent and, sighing, watched her twist her glossy hair into two long braids and tie up the ends with small ribbands which I thought a very quaint and pretty fashion.
She now bade me help her to set up the supper table, which proved to be a weather-beaten half-door propped upon baskets. This done, she took the candle and descended below, I following; and here, within an old cauldron pierced with many holes, burned a fire, above which was a covered pot whence emanated that fragrance I have already mentioned, but stronger and more savoury than ever now, so that my hunger was wrought to a passionate yearning, more especially when, having removed the pot from the fire, she lifted the cover. Ascending to the loft she pronounced supper all ready and bade me sit down and eat. But this I could not do for my pride's sake as I freely confessed, which seemed to surprise her not a little.
"Well then," said she, perceiving me thus determined, "you may eat if you are truly hungry, because none o' the money I prigs pays for this duck."
So down I sat forthwith and never in all my life enjoyed any meal quite so much, as I told her.
"Well, then, eat it!" said she in her ungracious, half-sullen manner.
"I mean to," I retorted, "though I must say you are a wonderful cook." At this she merely scowled at me and I did not venture another remark until the sharper pangs of hunger were appeased, then, sighing, I spoke again. "Yes, I repeat you are a wonderful cook! But then everything seems so wonderful to me—this place, for instance—so strange and so solitary!"
"It is!" she answered, leaning her chin on her hands and staring at me across the table. "That's why I runs away here to hide from thechalsor when in any trouble wi' old Azor—yes, 'tis a very lonely place, which do make me wonder if you be afeard o' ghosts?"
"No—that is, I don't think so—if such things do really exist. But why do you ask?"
"A woman was murdered here once an' they say her spirit walks, so there's few people dare venter here by day an' never a one by night, an' that's why 'tis so lonely an' that's why I loves the place."
"Then you don't believe in ghosts?"
"Well I sees strange things among the Romans; there's thedukkerinanddukkeripen, an' the Walkers o' the Heath. They're a strange folk, the Romans—'specially old Azor!"
"But you are not afraid—never have been?"
"No," she answered, shaking her head slowly, "I've never been afeard of anything or any one yet—except old Azor." And beholding her as she said this, observing the proud cast of her features, the lofty carriage of her head, her compelling eyes, resolute chin and the noble lines of her form, I knew she spoke truth and began to doubt if she were no more than a mere comely, well-shaped young female, after all.
"Pray, what is your name?" I enquired.
"Anna."
"Indeed it is a pretty name, though you are more like my conception ofDiana."
"Who's she?"
"She was a young goddess."
"A goddess?" repeated my companion in her deep, soft voice, "that don't sound much like me."
"A goddess, very brave and strong, who despised all men and feared none!"
"That does sound more like me! Though I thought all goddesses were beautiful?" she added wistfully.
"So they were," I nodded, "but how do you know this?"
"From Jerry Jarvis—"
"What, the Tinker?" I exclaimed. "Do you mean the tinker who calls himself a 'literary cove'—the wonderful tinker who writes excellent poetry and travels about with a pony named Diogenes?"
"Yes, there be only one Jerry Jarvis," answered my companion. "'Twas Jerry taught me to write and lent me books to read. I've known him since I can remember and he was always kind. Jerry's a good man!"
"And writes real poetry!" I nodded. "At least I think so. I should like to meet him again."
"Well, he'll be Tonbridge way about now. I knows all his rounds an' he's reg'lar as a clock."
"Do you know the way to Tonbridge?"
"Of course!"
"Yes, I'll go to Tonbridge to-morrow; you shall tell me the best way to get there, if you will."
"'Tis very sure you are better of your beating."
"Yes, thank God!" I answered.
"Though your eyes will be black to-morrow."
"Which will serve me right and properly for my cowardice."
"But you're not afeard o' ghosts!"
"Heaven knows," quoth I bitterly, "I might be if I saw one. And as for solitude, I don't think I should care to stay here alone night after night and day after day as you seem to have done."
"Oh, you gets used to it."
"But how do you pass your time in this solitude?"
"Reads mostly, and makes my baskets; there be few can ekal me at rush or willow. And there's good money in baskets!"
"What books have you read?"
"Not so many as I'd like."
"Tell me some of them."
"Well there's the 'Castle of Otranto' and Virgil and 'PeregrinePickle' and the Psalms, and 'Tom Jones' and John Milton's Poems,'Tristram Shandy.' Dryden, Plutarch's lives—oh, and a lot beside—"
"And which do you like best?"
For answer she reached the six volumes from amongst her pots and pans and these I found to be: Shakespeare, 'Tristram Shandy,' the Bible, Anson's Voyages and 'Robinson Crusoe.'
"You have shown most excellent judgment and a most catholic taste!" said I.
"You loves books, too!" she nodded. "I sees that by the way you handles 'em. And I keeps these six here because I can read them over and over and never tires, though there's a lot I don't understand."
"That," said I, looking upon my companion with new vision, "that is because each of these books shrines some part of undying Truth which can never weary and never die. I think," said I, setting the books back in their accustomed place, "I think I will call you Diana, if I may?"
"Very well."
"And my name is Peregrine."
"You seemed to like your supper," said she, beginning to clear away the platters.
"More than words can express!"
"So did I," she nodded, "and that was worth a little risk."
"What risk, Diana?"
"Well, I tells you the duck was not bought with any of the beast's money, didn't I?"
"Yes. Pray, how did you come by it?"
"Prigged it!"
"Great heaven! You mean that you—"
"Yes. I goes to a farmhouse as I knows of to get some milk an' eggs, an' spies four ducks on the kitchen table, trussed an' stuffed all ready for the oven, so I brings one away—only one, though I might ha' nabbed two just as easy—"
"But this was burglary!" I gasped.
"But 'twas a dainty supper!"
"This is frightful!" I exclaimed.
"But the duck was very tender—you said so."
"Oh, girl," I cried, "don't you know it is very wicked to steal? Are you aware you have broken one of God's commandments, contravened the law and made yourself liable to arrest and imprisonment—indeed, people have been hanged for less! O Diana, how could you do a thing so shameful, so unworthy your womanhood—how could you—how could you?"
But instead of answering or paying the least heed to this so earnest appeal, she continued her business of clearing away supper things and table, and thereafter begun to make herself a couch of hay in the corner remotest from mine, and all without so much as a glance in my direction.
"And now," said she at last, "if you're quite ready, I'll blow out the candle."
"Whenever you will," I answered, stretching myself upon my hay-pile. Almost as I spoke the light vanished, and in the pitchy gloom my hearing seemed to grow the more acute; I heard her light, assured tread, the fall of her shoes as she kicked them off, the rustle of the hay that was her bed, a long-drawn, sleepy sigh. These sounds at last subsiding, I spoke:
"Have I angered you, Diana?" Here I paused for answer but getting none continued, "Though indeed my strictures were all well-meant, for I cannot bear that you should do anything unworthy—" Here, though she uttered no word, I distinguished a sudden, petulant rustle of hay as if she had kicked viciously. "And so, Diana," I continued, "I want you to promise that henceforth you will so govern your conduct, so order your life that you may become a woman, gentle and sweet and good, in whose presence no evil thing may exist, one who is herself an inspiration to good and noble things, a woman whose friendship is a privilege and whose—whose love would be a crowning glory. Do you understand, Diana?"
"Hold your tongue!" she cried very suddenly. "Hold y'r tongue an' go to sleep—do!"
In the fervour of my exordium I had assumed a sitting posture but at her coarse rejoinder I fell back, inexpressibly shocked, and lay staring upon the dark, tingling with mortification that I should have wasted myself in such vain appeal and been thus callously repulsed by one who was no more than an ignorant gipsy-wench, prone to coarse expressions and small larcenies, a creature knowing little difference between good and evil and caring less. But now, remembering her rough upbringing and the wild folk who had fostered her, my anger gave place to commiseration, for how could she, under such circumstances, be other than what she seemed? And yet—was she in herself good or evil? This doubt troubled me so much that I turned to stare towards that dark corner where she lay; and listening to her gentle and regular breathing, I judged that she slept already, though more than once I heard the hay rustle as she stirred, sighing plaintively. But sleep was not for me, my mind being greatly troubled by this same unanswerable question: Was she a Diana indeed, dowered with the virtues of that chaste goddess, or only a poor, small-souled creature debased by the circumstances of her lawless origin?
Now as I lay thus wakeful, vainly seeking an answer to this most distressing question, I became aware that the place was no longer dark; instead was a soft glow, an ever-increasing radiance, and lifting my eyes to the unglazed window I beheld the moon,—Dian's fair self, throned in splendour, queen of this midsummer night, serene and infinitely remote, who yet sent down a kindly beam, that, darting athwart the gloom, fell in a glory upon that other Diana where she lay outstretched in peaceful slumber. And gazing upon this face, softened and beautified by gentle sleep—the wide, low brow, these tender lips, this firm and resolute chin, I thought to read therein a sweet nobility, purity and strength; and, like the darkness, my doubts and trouble were quite banished.
Therefore, lifting my gaze once more to Dian's placid loveliness, I breathed her a sigh of gratitude, for it seemed that she had shown me the answer to my question. And thus, my mind at rest, I presently fell asleep.
"Oho—hey—hallo!"
Starting up, I opened sleepy eyes to be dazzled by a glory of early sunshine, and creeping from the hay wherein I lay half-buried, I came blinking to the open trapdoor and beheld Diana standing below, flourishing a long-handled fork at me.
"Kooshti divvus," said she.
"Good morning!" said I.
"It is!" she nodded. "That's what I said! And the less reason to sleep—here's me been up an hour an' more."
"You should have waked me, Diana."
"I was too busy. But if you are awake, come down and wash."
"Wash what?"
"Yourself—Lord, you needs it bad enough by your looks! And 'cleanliness is next to godliness'—they says. So go an' wash!"
"Certainly!" said I, a little haughtily. "Though permit me to assure you that I am not in the habit of neglecting so healthful and necessary—"
"Soap an' towel—in th' basket—corner yonder!" said she, kneeling to puff the fire to a blaze as I descended the ladder.
"Thank you, and where shall I find the necessary water?"
"Outside—in the brook—enough to drownd you! And take your time, make a good job of it—a clean body makes a clean mind—sometimes. So scrub hard!" At this I came where she must meet my look.
"And pray, madam," I demanded, head aloft and arms folded, "do you thus suggest that my mind is so very unclean?"
"O la!" cried she, waving the fork at me with a pettish gesture. "Don't try to come your fine airs over me in such breeches and your eyes black and face all smutty—go an' get washed first!"
At this I turned and marched out of the barn, quite forgetting soap and towel until she came running to thrust them upon me, willy-nilly.
"There's ham an' eggs for breakfast!" she volunteered.
"Then I trust you will enjoy them," said I stiffly, "but as regards myself I most certainly shall not—"
"Don't frown," she admonished, "for with your face so bruised and swollen it do make you look that comical!" And laughing, she sped away, leaving me to scowl upon the empty air.
But the morning was glorious; I stood in a dew-spangled world radiant with sunshine while all about me the feathered host, that choir invisible, poured forth a song of universal praise to greet this new-born day. With this joyful clamour in my ears, this fresh, green world before my eyes, I grew joyful too, and hasted towards the brook, my foolish petulance quite forgotten.
Following these murmurous, sun-kissed waters, I came where they widened suddenly into a dark and silent pool; and here, well-screened by bending willows, I ventured to bathe and found in the cool, sweet water such gasping delight that I could have sung and shouted for pure joy of it. Greatly invigorated and prodigiously hungry, I donned my unlovely garments happily enough but stooping above this watery mirror to comb my damp locks into such order as my fingers might compass, I beheld my face, its features bruised and distorted out of all shape; and remembering Diana had laughed at and made mock of these disfigurements, I sat down, not troubling about my hair, and began to muse upon her heartlessness, contrasting this with my aunt Julia's unfailing sympathy and tender, loving care, and immediately felt myself woefully solitary, miserably cold and desperately hungry. The world, despite sunshine and bird-song, was a dark and evil place wherein I stood desolate and forlorn; here, bowing my head between my hands, I began to despair of myself and the future. But now, and all at once, what must obtrude upon these gloomy thoughts but a vision of ham and eggs, a tantalisation that would not be banished.
"Perry—green!" I lifted my head to listen intently; and presently heard it again, a voice rich and full and smooth as note of blackbird, calling upon my name: "Perry—green! Breakfast's ready—ham an' eggs! Perry—green!" Snatching soap and towel I rose, my gloomy thoughts forgotten again, and hasted whither this voice summoned me.
"Are ye washed?" she enquired, dexterously skewering a large ham rasher upon the iron fork and transferring it to a platter.
"I am!"
"And hungry?"
"Extremely!"
"Then you may eat! Here's breakfast—only don't go asking how I got it—nor yet where!"
So we ate, scarce speaking; I, for one, seldom lifting my gaze from the platter balanced upon my knees. I ate, I say, each mouthful a joy, ham that was a melting ecstasy and eggs of such delicate flavour as I had never tasted till now, it seemed.
"Diana," I sighed at last, "you are a truly wonderful cook!"
"No," she answered; "you are hungry, that's all. 'T is a good thing to be hungry—sometimes!"
O gentle and perspicacious reader! You, madam, who being so daintily feminine, cannot be supposed to revel in the joys of hog-flesh, flesh of ox, sheep, bird or fish, no matter how excellent well cooked; and you, honourable sir, who, being comfortably replete of such, seated before your groaning board at duly frequent and regular intervals, masticate in duty to yourself and digestion, but with none of that fine fervour of enthusiasm which true hunger may bestow—I cry ye mercy! For your author, tramping the roads, weary yet aglow with exercise, hath met and had familiar fellowship with lusty Hunger, and learned that eating, though a base necessity, may also be a joy. If therefore your author forgetteth soul awhile to something describe and mayhap dilate upon such material things as food and drink and their due assimilation, here and now he doth most humbly crave your patient forbearance.
"It is a good thing to be hungry—sometimes!" said Diana.
"If one may assuage that hunger with such ham and eggs!" I added."Though I greatly fear I shall never taste their like again."
"Anything'll taste good," quoth she, rising, "if you're hungry enough!"
"Diana," said I, watching her as she flitted lightly to and fro, engaged on what she called "tidying up." "Diana, what are we going to do?"
"I thought we were going to Tonbridge?"
"I am."
"Well then, the sooner we starts the better."
"But," I demurred, rubbing my chin and staring hard at the toe of my clumsy shoe, "don't you think it a little unwise—very extraordinary and—yes, extremely irregular for—for two people of opposite sexes to consort thus? Are not folk apt to misjudge our intimacy?"
"What folk?"
"Well, I mean the world."
"Lord, Peregrine, who's us for the world to trouble about?"
"I merely mention this because I dread lest I compromise you."
"What's compromise?"
"Well," I explained, lifting my gaze to the time-worn timbering above my head, "people seeing us together might suppose we—we were—lovers—"
"But we ain't!" she retorted, turning to look at me. "And never shall be—shall we?"
"No!" said I with my gaze still turned upward. "Of course not! But none the less people might think we were—were living together!"
"Well, so we are, ain't we?" she demanded.
"But," said I, staring at my shoe again, "suppose they imagine—"
"What, Peregrine?"
"Evil of us?"
"What matter, s' long as we knows different?"
"But I cannot bear that any should speak or even think evil of you,Diana—"
"Never mind about me—though it's kind of you!" she added in that suddenly soft, half-shy tone that I have before attempted to describe. "Y' see," she continued, "nobody ever troubled themselves about me all my life, except Jerry—or them as I keeps my little knife for. And you ain't that sort, so we'll go on together until I feels like leaving you, an' then I'll go—"
"Go where, Diana?"
"Back to the lonely places—"
"What do you mean?"
"Nothing!" she answered, shaking her head. "You wouldn't never understand. But I'll go along wi' you to Tonbridge."
"Very well!" said I. "And on the way, if you'll allow me, I'll teach you to speak more correctly and to behave with a—a little more—feminine restraint—"
"Oh—and why should I?" she demanded, cheeks flushed and proud head aloft.
"Because," I answered, struck anew by her beauty, "though you look like a goddess you speak and act like a—like—"
"A what? And—be careful!" she warned.
"I don't know."
"Come, speak out!"
"Indeed, I can think of no just parallel; you are like no one I ever saw or heard. But your speech and actions often do not match your looks."
"And your looks don't match your words or actions!" she retorted, "you speak s' very grand and look s' very—s' very—"
"What?" I questioned anxiously.
"I don't know. 'T isn't a scarecrow—scarecrow's clothes fits better—but you looks an' acts like nobody as ever I see afore."
"At the very first opportunity I will certainly purchase better garments!" quoth I, scowling down at the noxious things that covered me.
"With no money?" she scoffed.
"I have my watch!" quoth I.
"They'll think as you prigs it and hand you over to the narks an' queer cuffins—"
"That sounds very terrible; what do you mean?"
"I means theplastramengroes."
"What in the world is that?" said I.
"Oh,Kooshti duvvel!" she exclaimed. "You don't know nothin'; you're what they calls arye, ain't you?"
"Pray, what is a rye?" I enquired, a little diffidently.
"Agorgiogentleman," she explained patiently.
"What should give you that impression?"
"You're s' different to the 'Folk'—or any of the padding kind."
"Yes, I suppose I am—despite my clothes!"
"Your speech is soft an' your ways are softer, but you have a high an' mighty look about ye at times—although you're so precious green."
"Green?"
"As grass!" she nodded, "Very green—like your name."
"My name is Peregrine, as you know."
"But t' other suits ye best!"
"You grow more unkind, Diana!"
"You're a scholar too, o' course?"
"I have received a somewhat careful education."
"What d'ye know?"
"Well, I am fairly conversant with Greek and Latin, though a trifle shaky on the higher mathematics, I fear."
"You've read lots an' lots o' books?"
"I have."
"And you're nineteen years old?"
"True!"
"And such a very poor, helpless thing!" said she in lofty scorn. "Oh, you may be able to teach me how t' speak an' how t' behave, but 'tis me as could teach ye how to live without friends or money! You may know how to use words but ye can't use your hands! You can talk but ye can't 'do'—you don't know how to help yourself nor nobody else! You're a poor creature as would creep into a wet ditch an' perish o' want an' misery—an' all because you're so full o' Greek an' Latin an' fine airs that you can't even tell how many beans make five!" Having said which, all in a breath, she turned and, mounting the ladder, left me staring vacantly at the crumbling wall and greatly humbled since all these indictments I knew for very truth. Sitting thus, I heard her descend the ladder, felt her hand upon my bowed shoulder and glancing up, saw her eyes big and soft and tender.
"Come, Peregrine," said she in her gentle voice, "let us go, and while we walk you shall give me my first lesson how to talk—and behave, if you will."
"No," said I, rising, "first you shall teach me how to be a little less of a fool. Pray—how many beans do make five?"
"Why, four an' a little one, o' course," she answered, with a tremulous laugh.
"Diana," said I, clasping her hands in mine, "you were exactly right; considering all my advantages, I am indeed a poor, helpless sort of thing! You shall teach me how to become a little wiser, if possible. So let us try to help each other like friends, Diana, like true friends."
"Yes," said she, "like true friends, Peregrine."
Then, having hidden the ladder among the hay, we went forth from the barn into the sunshine together.
A broad, white road led between grassy banks topped by hedgerows and trees whose wide-flung, rusting leafage cast a pleasant shade, while high in the sunny air a lark carolled faint and sweet against the blue. From the distant woods stole a wind languorous and fragrant of dewy earth, of herb and flower, a wind soft as a caress yet vital and full of promise (as it were) so that as I breathed of it, hope and strength were renewed in me with an assurance of future achievement. Filled thus with an ecstasy unknown till now, I stopped suddenly to look above and round about, glad-eyed; and thus presently my eager gaze came upon my companion who had paused also, her eyes upraised to watch the flight of a mounting lark. Beholding her in this graceful posture, so vivid with life and youthful strength, all slim shapeliness from wind-kissed hair to buckled shoe, she seemed the spirit, nay the very embodiment, of this fair midsummer morning.
"O Diana!" I exclaimed. "Is it not good to be alive?"
"The lark seems to think so," she answered, her gaze still uplifted. "Yet I wonder if he is truly happy, or sings only because 'tis his nature?"
"Because he's happy, of course!" I answered. "Who wouldn't be happy on such a morning?"
"Well, I ain't, for one!"
"Not happy, Diana—but why?"
"Because!"
"Because of what?"
"Oh, never mind! Let's go on."
"Won't you tell me?"
"No. Let's go on."
"May I not share your sorrows, Diana?" I enquired, and laid my hand on her arm; but she shook me off, though not before I had seen her eyes were suffused with tears. Therefore I caught and held her hand so that she stopped, facing me, and thus I saw her tears were falling and she not troubling to hide or wipe them away.
"Can't you let me alone?" she sobbed.
"Why, Diana!" I exclaimed. "O child, don't weep; true friends must share sorrow as well as joy! So, if we are to be friends, tell me what is troubling you."
"Yonder!" said she, pointing to the blue distance before us. "'Tis the beyond—'tis the Future as do fright me."
"But I thought you feared nothing, Diana?"
"Only myself!" she cried, throwing out her arms in a sudden wild gesture. "There be a devil inside o' me sometimes—a devil as even old Azor was afeard of an' most o' the men—"
"Then I think this must be rather a good devil, Diana."
"Ah no—no!" she cried. "'Tis a devil as drives me to wild thoughts an' ways—things as do shame me. 'Tis very fierce and strong!"
"Still, I do not think I fear this devil—or ever should, Diana."
"You? But you calls yourself a coward!"
"To be sure I did, and very properly, because I was greatly afraid of a ruffian with a bludgeon and fled accordingly. But I do not fear devils in the least."
"Because you don't know—"
"There you are quite wrong!" said I, patting the hand I still held and noting its strength and shapeliness. "For, and apprehend me, Diana, we all, each one of us, possess a devil large or small, and my own is uncomfortably big and strong occasionally, and very difficult to overcome. But this is what devils are for—"
"You're flamming me!" she cried angrily and snatched her hand away.
"A very unpleasing word! Pray what does it signify?"
"You're gammoning—"
"That is rather worse—"
"You're making game o' me!"
"On the contrary, I'm very serious! Don't you see, Diana, that all demons and devils are a means to our ultimate good?"
"No, I don't! How can they be?"
"In this manner: every devil, be he an evil thought, passion, hate or revenge, a desire to do harm, to lie, to steal, to kill or to run away like a coward—these are all demons to be fought with and overcome, and the oftener we vanquish them, the stronger and better we grow, until at last you—or I—may become something very near an angel."
"I could never be an angel!" she retorted sullenly. "And what's more,I don't want—"
"You do," said I, "indeed you do, I'm sure, or why should you so hate this devil of yours and fear the beyond? And there is an angel inside you, Diana; I have seen it peep at me through your eyes—"
"Now I think you're talking foolish!" said she petulantly.
"Perhaps so," I nodded, "but 'foolish' is an adjective which in this instance should be an adverb and which we will proceed to make so by the suffix 'ly.' Thus instead of saying, I talk 'foolish,' you must say I talk 'foolishly'—"
"So you do!" quoth she.
"Then I will talk grammar instead, Diana. Pray give me your most careful attention. Yonder is a tree, which is a noun common; the tree is shady, which is an adjective qualifying the noun 'tree,' and casts its shade obliquely, which is an adverb governing the qualifying verb 'casts.'" Thus, as we walked, I proceeded to give her a definition of the various parts of speech with their relation one to another, and found her to be, on the whole, very quick and of a retentive memory. Encouraged thus, I plunged into my subject whole-heartedly and was discussing the difference between transitive and intransitive verbs when she checked me in full career by asking:
"Have you a father and mother?"
"Good heaven!" I exclaimed. "What has this to do with grammar?"
"Well, but have you?" she persisted.
"No," answered I; "they died before I can remember."
"So did mine!" she nodded. "But you have friends?"
"Yes."
"Many?"
"Three," I answered. "To be particular, one aunt and two uncles."
"Rich folk, ain't they?"
"Well, yes, I suppose they are. And allow me to point out that the word 'ain't' is becoming obsolete in polite conversation, giving place to 'are not' or to 'is not' as the case may be. Now, returning to our grammar—" And forthwith I began to decline for her benefit verbs regular and irregular, together with their tenses; I parsed and analysed simple sentences, explaining the just relation of Subject, Object and Predicate, while she watched me grave-eyed and listened to my grammaticaldictawith an attention that I found highly gratifying. Thus I dilated upon the beauties of our language, its wealth of metaphor and adjectival possibilities, its intricacies and pitfalls, until the sun was high and my throat parched.
"There, Diana," I concluded, "here endeth our first lesson for the present. I trust you have not found me too discursive?"
"Well," said she, knitting her black brows thoughtfully, "I'm not sure. It all sounds very—wonderful, but I don't understand a word of it."
"Great heaven!" I ejaculated. "Why could you not say so before?"
"I didn't like to interrupt you."
"Here I have been talking for a good hour—"
"Two hours," she nodded; "indeed, you're a wonderful talker!"
"But all to no purpose it seems!" said I ruefully.
"No," she answered, "it has helped to pass the time and I knows that a noun is a tree."
"Oh, indeed!" quoth I. "And what more have you learned?"
"That if you add to a verb it's an adverb, though both are much of a muchness, and an adjective is not like either, though they all has summat to do with a tree we passed a long time ago."
At this I gasped and sinking down in a shady spot, fanned myself feebly with my hat.
"My poor child," said I mournfully, "my poor—"
"I'm not your child!" she retorted. "And as for poor—what o' this?" and she shook the bag at her girdle until the coins within it chinked.
"This is most distressing!" said I, shaking my head.
"What is?"
"A noun is not a tree—"
"You says it was—"
"I told you a tree was a noun—which is a very different thing."
"If a tree's a noun, a noun's a tree—or should be, and if 'tain't, then grammar's foolish and I don't want none of it—"
"That sentence is execrable grammar, Diana, because two negatives make a positive hence when you say 'you don't want none,' it really means that you do want some—"
"I don't care!" she said in her sullen fashion.
"But you must—"
"Well, I shan't!"
"Don't be a naughty child, Diana! Please come and sit down."
"I hates your grammar—"
"The sun is very hot, Diana, so come and sit down here by me and let us talk like the true friends I hope we are."
With a petulant gesture she obeyed; so there we sat side by side, our backs to the broad bole of the great tree, a branch of which, drooping low, made for us a green bower, as it were. And here, sitting thus side by side, we continued our discussion on this wise:
DIANA (sullenly). However, I don't want any more o' your grammar; I gets along well enough without it—
MYSELF (interrupting). But then I want you to do much more than just get along, Diana.
DIANA. How much more?
MYSELF. Well, I want you to live to the utmost of your capacity, to make the very best of yourself and your life, to become the wonderful woman you may be if only you will. And this you can never do without a knowledge of grammar and deportment.
DIANA. And why d'ye want me to do—to be all this?
MYSELF. Because it is a duty you owe to the world and your own womanhood. If we all strove to do our best, the world would become a better place for everybody, at once.
DIANA (passionately). Oh, 'tis easy for you to talk so fine; you've got friends—rich friends t' help you! But who have I got—
MYSELF. Well, Diana, his name, as I told you before, is Peregrine.
DIANA. You?
MYSELF. Precisely—
DIANA. d'ye mean—what do you mean?
MYSELF. That I will be your true friend always—to help you so long as you need—if you will have me. My friends shall be your friends—especially my aunt Julia, who is the noblest and best of women—
DIANA (ungraciously). AKooshti para rati—a truerawni—a grand lady, I s'pose?
MYSELF. She is a truly great lady.
DIANA. And wears silk gowns that rustle, I s'pose?
MYSELF (mystified). I believe her gowns do rustle—but what in the world—?
DIANA. Then I should hate her!
MYSELF. But why? In the name of reason why under heaven should—?
DIANA. Just because!
MYSELF. Pray be more explicit. Why should you hate one whom—?
DIANA. Because she'd rustle her fine silks at me and look through me and try to make me feel I was only small beer.
MYSELF. 'Small beer' is an extremely unpleasing phrase, Diana.
DIANA. But it tells ye what I mean. I sees grand ladies afore to-day and I don't want any of 'em to rustle at me! I won't have their pity and I don't want their help—I likes the silent places and my littlechuribest.
MYSELF. My aunt Julia is a very noble woman, as good as she is beautiful, a woman whom all respect and honour—
DIANA. Well, I hates her already.
MYSELF. That is exceedingly unreasonable! How can you hate one you have never seen?
DIANA. Easily.
MYSELF. But in heaven's name, why?
DIANA. Because I do!
MYSELF. That is no answer! (Here she scowled at me.) Pray be sensible, Diana! (Here she kicked viciously at a tuft of grass.) Indeed you make it very difficult for me to help you.
"I don't want your help either!" she retorted angrily.
"No matter!" quoth I, folding my arms. "My mind is quite made up."
"So is mine!" and speaking, she would have risen, but I caught a fold of her petticoat. "Let go!" she cried.
"Sit still, Diana, and listen to me!"
"Let me go!"
"Not until you have heard all I wish to say—" As I spoke, with a movement incredibly quick, she flashed out her knife.
"What, Diana," said I, staring into her fierce eyes, "do you think that is necessary with me? Would you harm your friend, child?" The fierce eyes drooped and, averting her head, she sat mute and still. "I am going to help you," I continued, "because in spite of any or every demon, I know you are sweet and pure and good."
"How—d'ye know this?" she questioned.
"I know it, I am sure of it—oh, well—because!"
"That's no answer!" said she in her turn.
"Still, I think you know what I mean. But, and this is very sure, Diana, because I respect you, I would have the world respect you. And therefore I am going to help you however I may. So that is settled once for all."
"Suppose I—runs away?"
"I shall have to find you, of course."
"Then you—don't want to be rid o' me—so much?"
"Certainly not!"
"But you offered me your gold watch to—"
"True!" I admitted, a little put out. "But I—I did not know or understand you—then."
"And do you now?"
"I think so—or at least enough to know that you can also help me if you will—"
"How could I help you?" she questioned wistfully.
"You might perhaps teach me to be—less of a coward—more like yourself—"
"Like me?" she repeated, wondering.
"You are so strong, Diana, so brave and fearless and I—ran away like the coward I am—left you alone to face—"
Here, once more overcome by memory of my shame, I covered my face; but now, all at once, perceiving my abasement and bitter remorse, moved by a sweet impulse she clasped her arm about my stooping shoulders and sought earnestly to comfort me.
"There, there," she murmured, her voice very soft and sweet, "never grieve so, Peregrine—you're no coward! When a coward runs away, he keeps running in the same direction; a coward don't come back to be beaten black and blue—see your poor face!"
"You laughed at it this morning!" said I, striving to steady my voice.
"Yes, I know I did, but only—only because!" she answered gently. "But you ain't—I mean are not—a coward; you fought your best—"
"But to no purpose!" I added bitterly. "Nature has shaped me in such puny mould, I'm so miserably weak—" Here the arm tightened and, conscious thus of all the throbbing strength and vitality of her, I felt my own weakness the more. "Oh, I'm a miserable, undersized rat!" I groaned.
"Hush!" she whispered, as if I had shocked her. "'Tisn't size or strength as wins a fight, Peregrine; 'tis quickness an' knowing how—but most of all being game-plucked. The next time a man hits ye, stand away and hit back; there's nothing will keep a man from hitting you like hitting him often and hard."
"It seems that my uncles were right, after all!" said I. "Hard knocks are sometimes more efficacious than the best-reasoned arguments. You have seen many fights, I suppose, Diana?"
"Lots!"
"I wish you could teach me how it is done!"
"Why, so I will, Peregrine—stand up! Now," she admonished, as we faced each other, "put up your hands—so!" Hereupon I imitated her posture. "Now," she continued, "I'm going to hit you in the face!" which she immediately did, though lightly and with her open hand. "Now hit me if you can, Peregrine."
But though I tried my best, she was so wonderfully quick and light upon her feet that I smote but empty air or my blows were parried, while her hands flashed, now here, now there, to pat and tap my face as often as she would. So we sparred together until, flushed and laughing and breathless, we paused by common consent.
And thus I had my first lesson in the Noble Art.
"You do be very light o' your feet!" said she as we sat side by side beneath the tree again, "and much quicker than I thought, Peregrine!"
"I—I'm glad—very glad you think so!" I answered vastly elated by this praise.
"Yes, if you had proper teaching, you might be able to take your part against most o' them."
Now at this I became filled with such a glow of pleasure as amazed me by its intensity, such indeed as no praise from tutors or even my loved aunt Julia had ever inspired.
"Though to be sure," she added, "'t would all depend on whether you was game-plucked. No, size don't always count; why, Jessamy Todd ain't—is not—much bigger than you."
"And who is he?"
"Lord, haven't you heard? Why, Jessamy was one of the greatest, fiercest fighters that ever was, they say! But he had the ill-luck to kill a man and turned religious."
"Do you know him?"
"Very well. I've heard him preach often."
"Preach?" said I.
"Yes, Jessamy never fights now—unless he has to—goes about preaching. And he preaches as well as he used to fight, and sings as well as he preaches."
"I should like to meet Jessamy Todd," said I.
"Well, so you will, if you pad the hoof long enough. But now, what o'clock is it?"
"Half-past twelve," I answered, consulting my watch. "Yet surely it can't be so late?"
"But it is—look at the sun! And don't you feel 't is dinner time?There's a little tavern down the lane yonder—let's go and eat."
"Not unless I pay for it—"
"With no money?"
"Here is my watch!"
"Don't be foolish!" she exclaimed, springing to her feet. "Get up and come along, do! No, stay where you are; things will taste sweeter out here—they always do. Only don't go trying to run off or any such foolishness—just stay where you are an' wait for me."
"But—"
"I won't be long—so promise!"
"I promise!"
Waiting for no more, she sped away all lithe and vigorous grace; when she was out of sight, I lay upon my back, staring up at the rustling canopy above, became lost in thought, wondering, among other things, if I could ever possibly attain unto that mysterious virtue she had called 'game-plucked' and just precisely what it might be.