Was there one present who did not at that moment feel very near to the sheep-fold of the Good Shepherd? I am a Churchwoman, and by training and association inclined to look distrustfully upon Dissent, but that child's lispingly tuneful prayer taught me that I was in the House of God; for surely I know at the heart of me that neither in the Catholic mountain nor the Anglican Jerusalem is God solely to be worshipped, but wherever men seek Him in spirit and in truth; and this afternoon a little child was leading us.
"All this day Thy 'and has led me.And I thank Thee for Thy care;Thou 'ast clothed me, warmed an' fed me;Listen to my evenin' prayer."
It was not evening, for the sun was still high in the heavens and the shadows short upon the earth; but He with whom the night and the morning are one day heard and understood, I do not doubt.
Without a pause the sweet voice went on:
"Let my sins be all forgiven;Bless the friends I love so well;Take me, when I die, to 'eaven,'Appy there with Thee to dwell."
Amen and amen, dear little Lucy! Surely no stain of sin as yet has darkened your soul, but the thought of the good Lord who "forgiveth iniquity, transgression and sin" cannot come to us too soon. Let it sink into the plastic wax of your memory and your heart, and harden into certainty, and then when the time comes for you to die—whether the day be near or distant—it will be well with you, "happy there with Thee to dwell!"
There were other solos, but none which moved me like this of little Lucy's, and there were recitations by two of the boys which affected an entirely different compartment of my emotions.
They were highly moral pieces, I know, and they exhorted us to a course of conduct which must have been beneficial if followed; the trouble was that the eye had so much employment that the ear was neglected and so missed its opportunities.
Each boy licked his lips vigorously to start with, and then glued his eyes upon one fixed spot, as if he saw the words in bold type there. If he did, an invisible compositor had set them up in the west window for the one lad, and on a corner of the ceiling for the other. The swiftness with which the words came out reminded me of a brakeless gramophone running at top speed; and it made the performers gasp for breath, which they dared hardly stop to renew lest memory should take wings and fly away. I am sure I was relieved when the final bob to the congregation was reached and the contortions ended.
The address was tedious, like the prayer, but fortunately it was not long; then the preacher came in to tea, it being Mother Hubbard's turn to entertain him.
The chapel people take the preachers according to an arranged plan with which they are all familiar. My old lady regards the privilege as in the nature of a heavenly endowment, and she has more than once reminded me that those who show hospitality to God's ministers sometimes entertain angels unawares. No doubt that is so, but the wings were very, very inconspicuous in the one who ate our buttered toast that Sunday.
All the same he is, I am sure, a very good man, and a man of large and cheerful self-sacrifice which calls for admiration and respect, and I do sincerely honour him; and it is no fault of his that his great big hands are deeply seamed over their entire surface, and that the crevices are filled with black. He works, I discovered, at an iron-foundry, and I believe his hands were really as clean as soap and water could make them. But when all has been said, he need not have spread them over all the plate whenever he helped himself to another slice of bread, and he might just as well have taken the first piece he touched. I suppose I am squeamish, but I cannot help it. I found some amusement in pressing him to eat all he had touched, however, and seeing that he did it.
His conversation was chiefly remarkable for the use he made of the phrase "as it were." Mother Hubbard regards him as a genius, but I doubt if he is anything more than an intelligent eccentric. It must have been his flow of language which got him "on the plan" that is to say, into the ranks of the local preachers of the Wesleyan Church—for, like the brook, he could "go on for ever."
He is a tall, heavy man, perhaps fifty years of age, with a mass of hair upon his head but none upon his face, except where thick eyebrows hang like brushwood over the twin caverns of his eyes. As he speaks he raises his right hand and holds the palm towards you, moving it slowly to and fro for emphasis, and he measures his words as he goes along.
He was describing his experiences in a new chapel where he had recently preached, a gothic building, "more like a church, as it were, than a chapel."
"Ah yes, Mrs. Hubbard," he said (he never addressed me direct, perhaps because he suspected that I was not one of the confraternity), "I always mistrust a chapel with a spire to it; and the spirit of Methodism, as it were, cannot dwell in transepts or chancels. There is not the heartiness, not the freedom, which we associate with our chapels. The air is heavy, as it were, with the spirit of sacerdotalism. Why, ma'am, at this particular chapel—church, they call it—they had choir stalls, filled with men and boys, and a liturgical service, as it were. Ah yes! No sound of 'Hallelujah!' or 'Praise the Lord!' escaped the lips of the devout worshipper. They were stifled stillborn, as it were. It was cold, ma'am, cold and formal; John Wesley would never have found his heart strangely warmed in such an atmosphere. No!
"And yet, ma'am, there was something in the arrangements that stirred my feelings, as it were. Here, on my right hand, were grouped the scholars; children in the springtime of life, as it were. Yes! it was a moving sight, ma'am, to a man of feeling." (I wickedly thought of his hands.) "Life was before them—spread out like a map, as it were, with nothing but the outline; or like a copy-book which would be soiled and disfigured with many blots, as it were, before the end was reached. Yes!
"And on my left were the elders of the flock, gathered there, I was told, because the acoustic properties, as it were, are excellent in the transepts: the grey-headed sires, who had almost fought through the battle and were now awaiting the recall, as it were. Men and women in the late evening of life, as it were, who would soon pass behind the sunset.
"And in front of me were the middle-aged, those who were bearing the burden and heat of the day, as it were. Yes! labourers in life's vineyard; earning their bread in the sweat of their brow, going forth to their work until the evening, as it were.
"Yes! And as I looked upon them, young and middle-aged and old, I said to myself in the language of the preacher: 'All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again.'—Ecclesiastes iii. 20, ma'am."
I got up and went into the garden, and filled my nostrils with the fragrance which earth was sending to heaven—as it were—and felt better.
Whit Monday was a hard day for me. After dinner my Easter experiences were repeated, and sitters came thick and fast. I really believe my work is giving satisfaction, for some of my last holiday customers had sent their friends to be "taken"; and some called themselves to say "How d'ye do?"
Nothing eventful transpired, however, and no Cynic turned up to disturb the serenity of my temper with sarcastic observations upon women, so I climbed the hill at the back of the house and joined the merry throng of school-children who were having a jolly time with their elders in a field at the top. And there I forgot my tiredness, and romped for a couple of hours with the wildest of them, having as much of the kitten in me as most folk.
When the red had finally died out of the western sky the dustman came round, and the eyes of the little ones grew heavy. But the grown-ups were enjoying themselves far too much to think of leaving so soon, so I gathered the infants around me and told them all the wonderful stories which had been locked away in the dusty cabinets of my memory. Not the ordinary nursery tales, which are as well known in Windyridge as in Westminster, but some of the simpler records of Greek mythology, and extracts from the lives of the saints.
Little Lucy came and laid her head upon my shoulder and asked if it was all true. I tried to show her the truth that was hidden in the make-believe, but I fear with small success. Her eyelids were held open with difficulty as she continued to question me.
"Is comets true?"
"Comets?" I inquired; "what do you know of comets?" (One is about due now, and the children are on the tip-toe of excitement.)
"Dada says they has long tails, an' runs up an' down the sky when I'se asleep, like little mouseys."
"You are not afraid of them, are you?" I asked.
"Dunno. I think I is afraid of them, but I always asks God."
"What do you say?" I ventured.
The little head was growing heavier, and it was a very sleepy voice that murmured:
"God bless ev'ybody ... an' don't let them be 'ungry, so they won't die ... until You makes 'em ... 'cept it be comets an' things."
Now what could anybody make of that? I carried the child home, and she did not wake when I undressed her and put her to bed.
"Arternoon, miss!"
It certainly was afternoon, for only a few minutes earlier the little clock in my studio had chimed three, and I was not in the least expecting visitors, particularly of the paying kind, and was hard at work upon the accumulated negatives of Whitweek, when the blunt ejaculation caused me to turn with a start. My astonished eyes fell upon a transformed Barjona!
Barjona in a frock coat of modern cut, with a white waistcoat, and slate-coloured trousers, correctly creased! Barjona, with a starched shirt and a satin tie, vividly blue! Above all, Barjona in a silk hat, which he was at that moment carefully removing from his head, as though anxious to prevent the escape of some bird imprisoned within!
It was not a bird, however, that he captured and produced, but an elaborate "button-hole," properly wired, as one could see at a glance, and with its stems wrapped in silvered paper; and Barjona chuckled as he stepped to the mirror and adjusted it in the lapel of his coat.
"Took that out quick, I can tell you.... Gives the show away, that does ... thought once over I'd throw it in t' gutter ... but I says, 'Nay, it cost fourpence' ... sixpence she asked for it ... sixpence ... mustn't waste it ... smarten up my photygraph, too.... No, no, mustn't waste fourpence!"
"Why, Mr. Higgins," I exclaimed, "you must surely have been to a wedding! But none of our friends in Windyridge have been getting married to-day, have they?"
"No, no ... Marsland Gap ... widow-woman ... name o' Robertsha' ... now Mrs. Higgins ... Mrs. S. B. Higgins ... she's in the trap now," jerking his head towards the roadway.
This was too much for my gravity. I had just enough presence of mind to shake hands with him and offer my congratulations, and then gave way to uncontrollable laughter.
"It's your own fault, Mr. Higgins," I blurted out at length. "Last October you told me that you were too old a fox to be caught again; there were to be no traps for you, and when you said Mrs. Higgins was in the trap it amused me vastly."
"Meanin' the cart, of course," he interrupted, looking somewhat sheepish, but still sufficiently pleased with himself.
"I know," I replied, "but I was just wondering how you come to be caught in the other trap, the trap of wedlock—you, a man of years and experience, and pre-eminently a man of caution."
He hung his hat on the support of my reflecting-screen, and passed his hand thoughtfully over his smooth crown—I had always felt sure that his head was bald—and I imagined I saw an uneasy look creep into his eyes.
"It be very cur'ous, Miss Holden," he said, in a confidential tone, "very cur'ous.... Said to myself many a time ... hunderds of times.... 'Don't 'ee be a fool, Simon ... women be kittle cattle,' I says ... some weepin' sort ... some blusterin' ... but all masterful ... an' costs a lot o' money ... awful lot o' money to keep up.... Went into 't wi' my eyes open ... oh yes; very cur'ous.... Come to think on 't ... dunno why I done it."
"Don't worry, Mr. Higgins," I said soothingly; "many animals flourish splendidly in captivity, and if they miss their freedom they never say anything about it, but look quite sleek and contented. And I am sure you have secured a very capable and good-natured wife, and are to be heartily congratulated. Now fetch her in and I will be getting the camera ready."
"Fetch her in?" he inquired.
"Yes, I shall be ready by the time you return, and it will be the work of only a moment or two to arrange you suitably."
"But she isn't goin' to have 'er photygraph taken," he said, with an emphatic shake of the head; "only me."
"Do you mean to tell me," I remarked severely, "that you will not be photographed together on your wedding day? Mr. Higgins, it is quite the customary thing, and I certainly never heard of such a procedure as you are suggesting. Besides, it costs no more."
"Costs the same? ... for two as for one?"
"Certainly," I replied.
"Taken separate, like?" he continued.
"No, if taken separately the cost would be doubled, but on wedding occasions the bride and bridegroom are almost invariably photographed together, and that involves no extra cost."
He thought this over for half a minute and then made up his mind definitely.
"I'll be taken by myself," he said, "... to match this 'ere."—He drew from his breast-pocket a rather faded photograph, cabinet size, which displayed a younger Mrs. Robertshaw in the fashion of a dozen years before.—"Maria got these ... just afore Robertsha' died ... has best part of a dozen on 'em .... gave Robertsha' 's away ... pity to waste these ... 'll do nicely."
"But Mr. Higgins," I protested, "these photographs are faded, and they are not the Mrs. Higgins of to-day. Nobody wears that style of dress now, and she has actually a fringe! Throw them away, and do as I propose."
"I see nowt wrong wi' 't," he replied, examining it critically. "She's fatter now, an' isn't as good lookin' ... more wrinkles, like.... Makes a nicer pictur, this does ... plenty good enough for 'er."
"Mr. Higgins!" I exclaimed indignantly.
"If—you—please—miss," he said emphatically, "it's me as gives the order ... one dozen, miss ... to match this 'ere."
There was nothing more to be said, and I took two negatives of the wretched little man, in the first of which he is shown standing as erect as nature permits, with the silk hat fixed firmly upon his head, and one hand in his trousers' pocket, so that the white waistcoat might not be concealed; and in the second, sitting with one leg thrown over the other, and the silk hat upon his knee. It was in vain that I pointed out that neither pose would correspond with that of his wife, which was a mere vignetted head and shoulders; Barjona had made up his mind, and was not to be moved, and I felt thankful, with Mother Hubbard, that I was not Mrs. Higgins.
I went out to speak to her when the operation had been completed, and at our approach the neighbours who had been keeping her company smiled and drew back a little.
"Good-afternoon, Mrs. Higgins," I said. "I have already congratulated your husband; let me now wish you much happiness."
"Well, now, to be sure, Miss Holden," she replied, and accompanying the words with a most decided wink, "that remains to be seen. But if he doesn't give me much, he'll 'ave less, I can tell you. I think we shall get on when we've settled down a bit; an' anyway, time won't hang as 'eavy on my 'ands, so to speak."
"Come, lass, we must be going," interrupted Barjona, who had climbed up beside her.
"As soon as ever I've finished," replied Mrs. Higgins, smiling upon him sweetly. Nevertheless, she tightened the reins and prepared to move.
"I'll drive, lass," said Barjona, holding out his hand.
"I'll keep 'em mysen, lad," replied his wife; "I've 'eld 'em all this time while t' mare was still: I'll 'old 'em now when she's on t' move. Come up, lass!"
She threw me another portentous wink, and the mare moved slowly down the lane.
"Poor Barjona!" murmured Mother Hubbard, as we sauntered back to the cottage.
"I wonder if you are right," I remarked rather viciously. "I certainly hope you are. At present my sympathies lie in the other direction, and I am disposed to say 'Poor Maria!'"
"Yes, love," said Mother Hubbard, "perhaps she has the worse of the bargain; but I think the old fox has got into a trap that is going to hold him very tight this time, and it will nip hard."
"I hope it nips until he squeals," I said impenitently.
This was on the Monday following Whitweek. The next day brought me a long, chatty letter from the squire, who feels wonderfully better and talks of coming home again soon. He cannot understand why the doctors always say "not just yet." He is at Sorrento now, and chaffingly condoles with me on the remote prospects of a continental trip, at any rate on his account. I wonder if he guesses how relieved I am, and how eagerly I anticipate his home-coming.
In him I seem to have a friend who understands, and I am beginning to think that is the only real kind of friend. I have said all along that I do not understand myself. I am always coming across odd little tracts of territory in my nature which surprise me and make me feel something of an explorer, whereas I cannot help feeling, somehow or other, that the squire knows all about me, and could make a map of my character if he chose, with all my moods and whims and angularities accurately indicated, like so many rivers and mountains. And so far from resenting this I am glad of it, because he is so kind and fatherly with it all, and not a bit superior. Now the Cynic, although he is no doubt a mighty clever man, makes you so frightfully conscious of his cleverness.
By the way, I have made a discovery about him. He is a barrister, and quite an eminent one in his way. I suppose I might have found this out long ago by asking any of the Windyridge men, but for some occult reason I have never cared to inquire. The discovery came about in this way.
When I had finished reading the squire's letter, and before proceeding to my work, I took up theAirlee Despatchwhich Farmer Goodenough had left with us, solely because it contained a short paragraph on the "Wedding of a well-known Windyridge character"—no other, in fact, than our friend Barjona.
As my eyes travelled cursorily over the columns they were arrested by the following:
"Mr. Philip Derwent, whose brilliant advocacy admittedly secured a verdict for the plaintiff in the recently concluded case of Lessingham v. Mainwaring, which has occupied so much space in all the newspapers recently, is, as most of our readers will know, a native of Broadbeck. His father, Mr. Stephen Derwent, was engaged in the staple trade of that town, but was better known for the interest he took in many religious and philanthropic movements, and in those circles his death five years ago occasioned a considerable gap. If report may be relied upon Mr. Philip Derwent's decision to read for the bar was a disappointment to his father, but the striking success which has attended him all through his legal career has sufficiently justified his choice. It was a matter of general comment in legal circles during the recent proceedings that Mr. Derwent more than held his own against such eminent luminaries as Sir George Ritson and Mr. Montgomery Friend, who were the King's Counsel opposed to him. He showed remarkable versatility in the conduct of his case, and his cross-examinations and repartees were brilliant in the extreme. Whether his law is as reliable as his rhetoric may be open to question, but one looks forward to his future career with special interest, as he is still on the sunny side of forty, and is therefore young enough to win many laurels. His mother died when he was quite young, and he is himself unmarried."
Why I should have felt low-spirited when I put the paper down I do not know. It is just these unexplained "moodinesses" which make me feel so cross with myself. The squire's letter had been bright, and the paragraph about Barjona amusing, and certainly the reference to Mr. Derwent was ordinary enough. Still I stared at nothing quite intently for a few minutes after reading it. Then I shook myself.
"Grace Holden!" I said, "plunge your face into cold water, and go straight to your work in the studio. You have negatives to retouch, and prints to tone and develop, and nearly a dozen miniatures to paint, all of which are shamefully overdue; and no amount of wool-gathering will bring you in the thirty shillings which you have fixed as your weekly minimum. Now be a sensible woman, and 'frame,' as your neighbours say."
So I "framed," thinking the while how contemptuously the Cynic would smile at my thirty shillings.
The surprises of life are sometimes to be counted amongst its blessings. I daresay Reuben Goodenough, who is one of the most religious men I have met—though I am puzzled to know where his religion comes from, seeing that he rarely visits church or chapel—would affirm that all life's incidents are to be regarded as blessings. "All things work together for good," as "t' Owd Book" says.
He argued this point with me at considerable length one day, and though he did not convince my head he secured the approval of my heart. He is distinctly a philosopher after his kind, with the important advantage that his philosophy is not too ethereal and transcendent, but designed for everyday use. He professes to believe that there are no such things as "misfortunes," and so takes each day's events calmly. For the life of me I cannot see it, but I rather cling to the thought when the untoward happens.
Be that as it may, the surprise which "struck me all of a heap," to use a common expression of my neighbours, in the last week of June was a blessing that one could count at the time.
It was evening, and I was standing in the garden among the roses and pinks, engaged in removing the few weeds which had escaped Mother Hubbard's observant eye, and pausing occasionally to wonder which I admired the more—the stately irises in their magnificent and varied robes, or the great crimson peonies which made a glorious show in one corner—when the gate was pushed open, and an elegant young lady, in a smart, tailor-made costume and a becoming toque, glided towards me. I took another look and gasped for breath.
"Well, Grace," said the apparition, holding out a neatly gloved hand, "one would say that you were astonished to see me."
"Rose, you darling!" I ejaculated, "come and kiss me this minute, and show me which particular cloud has dropped you at my feet! My dear girl, you have stunned me, and I feel that I must pinch you to see if you are really flesh and blood."
"If there is to be any pinching, my dear Grace,Iprefer to do it. It will prove my corporeal existence just as conclusively, and be less painful—to me. So this is Windyridge?"
"Rose!" I exclaimed, "for goodness' sake don't be so absurdly practical and commonplace, but tell me why you have come, and where you are staying, and how everybody is at old Rusty's, and how long you are going to be in the north, and all about yourself, and—and—everything."
"All that will take time," replied Rose calmly, as she removed her gloves; "but I will answer the more important parts of your questions. I am staying here, with you. If you are very nice and kind to me you will press me to remain ten days with you, and I shall yield to pressure, after the customary formal and insincere protests. Then you will put on your hat and walk with me down to Fawkshill station, and as there are no cabs to be had there we will bring up my bag between us."
"Thatwe need not do," I said. "There are half a dozen strong boys in the village, any one of whom would fetch your belongings for love of me and threepence of your money."
"Happy Grace!" she sighed; "'love rules the court, the camp, the grove,' as saith the poet. Be it even so. Summon the favoured swain, discharge his debt, and I will be in thine."
"Rose! Rose! you are the same incorrigible, pert, saucy girl as of yore, but you have filled my heart with joy. I am treading on air and giddy with delight. We will have ten days of undiluted rapture. Come inside and look round my home. Mother Hubbard is 'meeting for tickets' to-night, and will not be back for a good half-hour."
"Meeting for what?" inquired Rose blankly.
"Meeting for tickets," I repeated. "My dear old lady is a Methodist class leader, and to 'meet for tickets' is a shibboleth beyond your untutored comprehension. But the occasion is one of vast importance to her, and you are not to make fun of her."
She was pleased with everything and expressed her pleasure readily. In spite of her composed manner she is a very dear girl indeed, and though she is years younger than I am she and I always hit it exactly. When she saw the tiny bed and realised that we should have to share it she laughed merrily.
"Iwill sleep next to the wall to-night," she said, "because I am very tired, and it would be annoying to be always falling out. I shall sleep so soundly that your bumping the floor will not disturb me, so you will have nothing to worry about. Then to-morrow night I will take the post of danger, and so alternately."
"We might rope ourselves together," I suggested, "and fasten the ends to a stake outside the window. I don't think the bumping idea appeals to me."
But Mother Hubbard planned a better way on her return, and contrived a simple and ingenious addition to the width of the bed by means of chairs and pillows, which served our purpose admirably.
Over the supper table Rose told us all about her visit. "You see, I have not been quite the thing lately: nervy and irritable and that sort of nonsense, which the chief charitably construed into an indication of ill-health. He was awfully decent about it and suggested that I should see a doctor. I told him I was all right, but he insisted, so I saw Dr. Needham, and he told me I was run down and required bracing air. 'Mountain air would be better than the seaside,' he said. 'You haven't friends in Scotland or Yorkshire, I suppose?' Then I thought of you. 'I have a friend who went wrong in her head about twelve months ago,' I said (or words to that effect), 'and she ran away to the Yorkshire moors. She might take me in if I could get off.' 'The very thing,' he said. 'Will you have any difficulty with your employer?'
"'I don't think so,' I replied; 'not if it is really necessary. The chief is a discriminating man, and I believe realises that my services are invaluable, and he will put up with a little temporary inconvenience in order to retain them permanently, I imagine.' You are accustomed to my modesty, Grace, and will not be surprised that I spoke with humility.
"Well, he smiled and said he would give me a certificate, so I took the certificate and my departure and interviewed the chief in his den! It was as I had anticipated. I was to get away at once. Ten days on the moors would put the wine of life into my blood. That was theory. The practical assumed the form of a five-pound note, which enables me to play the part of the grand lady—a rôle for which I was designed by nature, but which providence spitefully denied me. I stated my intentions to the Rusty one, who coldly sent you her regards, but I determined to take you by surprise, hoping to catch you unprepared and unadorned, whereas you are neither the one nor the other. Then I boarded the two o'clock Scotch express at St. Pancras, changed trains at Airlee, andme voilà! By the way, what about my bag?"
The bag came all right in due course, and in the days that followed Rose and I gave ourselves up to enjoyment. It was like living one's life twice over to share the delight she showed in her surroundings. Fortunately I had got abreast of my work, and we ordinarily devoted our afternoons to business and spent the mornings and evenings in Nature's wonderland.
During those ten glorious days the sun worked overtime for our special benefit, and put in seventeen hours with unfailing regularity. He smiled so fiercely on Rose's cheeks that she would have justified her godmother's choice if she had not preferred the hue of the berry, and turned a rich chestnut.
Mowing was in full swing in the meadows, and we took our forks and tossed the hay about and drank barley-water with the rest. We followed the men whose heads were lost in the loads of hay which they carried on their backs, and saw how they dropped their burden in the haymow. We stood like children, open-mouthed, admiring the skill and industry of the man who there gathered it up and scattered it evenly round and round the mow.
We went into Reuben Goodenough's farmyard, and I showed her the barn owls which have taken up their abode in his pigeon loft, and which live amicably with their hosts and feed on mice. We descended the fields to the woods, which the recent felling has thinned considerably, but which have all the rank luxuriance of summer, and revelled amid the bracken and trailing roses. We stood by the streamlet where the green dragon-flies flitted in the sunshine, and where millions of midges hovered in the air to become the prey of the swallows which rushed through with widely open mouths and took their fill without effort.
We spent hours on the moor, where the heather, alas! had not yet appeared, but which was a perfect storehouse of novelties and marvels. Who would have thought, for instance, that the little golden bundles which cling to the furze, and which we thought were moss, were just so many colonies of baby spiders? We watched the merlins, the fierce cannibals of the moors, which dash upon the smaller birds and are even bold enough to attack the young grouse at times. What did we not do! Where did we not go! And neither of us suffered from surfeit.
"Grace," said Rose, as we lay on our backs in my paddock, and gazed upon the white cumulus clouds which floated above, "I withdraw all I have said about your madness, and I now declare you to be particularly sane. If ever I go back to town, which is doubtful, I will describe your sanity in terms which will relieve the fears of all at No. 8. My personal appearance will give colour to my statements, and I shall probably observe, with the originality which is a mark of genius, that God made the country and man made the town. But I have not yet decided to return, although I took a ten days' ticket. Your studio seems to have served its purpose: is there any opening in Windyridge for a talented stenographer and typist?"
"The prospects would not appear to be exactly dazzling," I replied, "but I'm willing to keep you here on the off-chance that something may turn up."
"Somebody's turning up," said Rose, hurriedly assuming a sitting posture, "and we had better get up."
I imitated her example, and saw that the Cynic had leaped the wall and was coming towards us.
I did the necessary introductions and we sat down again. "I called," said the Cynic, "in the hope that there might be a clock to regulate or a creeper to nail up, in which case I might earn a cup of tea. Also, to make arrangements for my photograph."
"I couldn't expect you to do any work in those clothes," I replied. "Is this a visit of ceremony, or have you come in your Sunday best in order to have your portrait taken? All my local sitters insist upon putting on the clothes in which they feel and look the least comfortable."
"No," he said, with a glance at his black trousers—the rest of him was hidden by a light dust-coat—"the fact is, I am dining with the vicar and spending the night at the vicarage. I must go to town on Saturday, but to-day and to-morrow are free. I propose, with your gracious permission, to spend an hour here, walk on to Fawkshill, and return to-morrow for the dread operation to which I have referred."
"I am afraid it will not be convenient to-morrow," I said; "really I am very sorry to upset your plans, but Miss Fleming returns to town on Saturday, and we have promised ourselves a full day on the moors. Of course, if you could come very early——"
Rose interrupted. "Don't let me hinder business, my dear Grace, or I shall have you on my conscience, and that will be no light burden. We can modify our arrangements, of course."
"What about my conscience, in that case?" said the Cynic. "I am not really very particular about the photograph, especially in my 'Sunday best,' and I can easily come up some other day. But—who is going to carry the luncheon basket?"
"There is no basket," I returned; "our arrangements are much more primitive, and the burden grows lighter as the day proceeds. Moreover, I don't think it is very nice of you to suggest that the photograph is of slight importance. Don't you realise that it is my living?"
"I realise the truth of the poet's assertion that woman is 'uncertain, coy, and hard to please.' A moment ago you were declining business—declining it with an air of polite regret, it is true, but quite emphatically. Now, when I not only refuse to disturb your arrangements, but actually hint an offer of assistance, you scent a grievance."
Rose was looking very hard at me, and I felt vexed with the man for placing me in such an awkward position. And to make matters worse the consciousness of Rose's stare upset my self-possession, and it was she who spoke first.
"If Mr. Derwent would join us I think it would be very nice," she said, so demurely that I stared at her in my turn, "and it would be an—education for him. And he certainly could carry the sandwiches and our wraps, which are a bit of a nuisance."
What could I say? I was annoyed, but I could only mutter something incoherent which my companions construed into an assent, and Rose instructed the Cynic to be at the cottage at ten o'clock in the morning.
To add to my confusion, Mother Hubbard was manifestly excited when we went in to tea, and she telegraphed all sorts of meaning messages to Rose when the Cynic's back was turned. I was cross with myself for becoming embarrassed, but I hate to be placed in a false position. What on earth is the Cynic to me?
I thought he was rather subdued and not quite as satirical as usual, but he was obviously very much taken with Rose, who was quite brilliant in her cuts and thrusts. She soon took the Cynic's measure, and I saw how keenly he enjoyed the encounter. I left them to it very largely, much to the disappointment of Mother Hubbard, who developed a series of short, admonitory coughs, and pressed my foot beneath the table a score of times in a vain effort to induce me to shine. It was not my "night out," and her laudable endeavours simply resulted in a sore foot—the injured member being mine!
We accompanied him a little way along the road, and when we left him Rose turned upon me:
"Now 'fess!" she said.
"Rose, don't be a goose!" I replied, whilst the stupid colour flooded my face; "there is nothing to confess. I have seen Mr. Derwent only twice before in my life. He is little more than a stranger to me."
"A remarkable circumstance, however, my dear Grace, is that you have never mentioned his name in your rather voluminous correspondence, and yet you seem to be on familiar and even friendly terms; and our good friend Mother Hubbard——"
"Mother Hubbard, Rose, is romantic. The moment the man turned up at Easter she designated him as my lover. Let me be quite candid with you. If I was not so constituted that blushing comes as naturally to me as to a ripe cherry you would have had no reason to suspect anything. It is the innocent, I would remind you, who blush and look guilty. Mr. Derwent is a barrister—a friend of the vicar and of the squire—and he amuses himself by calling here when he is in the village—that is all. And if you are going to be as silly as Mother Hubbard it is too bad of you."
I felt this was frightfully weak and unconvincing, as the truth so often is.
"U-m!" said Rose, spreading the ejaculation over ten seconds; "I see. Then there's nothing more to be said about it. He isn't a bad sort, is he? Why in the world you never mentioned him in your letters I cannot conceive."
It was too bad of Rose.
"What makes you call me the Cynic?" he inquired.
It was Rose's fault; she is really incorrigible, and absolutely heedless of consequences! If I had dreamed that she would have done such a thing I would never have told her, but that is the worst of blanket confidences. I call them "blanket" confidences because it was after we had gone to bed, when it was quite dark and Rose was inclined to be reasonable, that I had explained to her calmly and quite seriously that I had not mentioned the Cynic in my letters because there had been no reason to do so; and Rose had accepted the explanation, like a good girl, and kissed me to show her penitence. Then I told her of the nickname I had given him, which she thought very appropriate. But I would have held my tongue between my teeth if I had contemplated the possibility of her revealing the secret; and here she had blurted it out with a laugh, to my utter and dire confusion.
We had had a glorious day, and I must admit that the Cynic had added not a little to our enjoyment. He said he would have felt like a fool to be walking out in black West of Englands, so he had called at the Hall and got the butler to find up an old shooting jacket of the squire's, which was much too large for him, but in which he appeared quite unconcernedly a full ten minutes before the time appointed.
"It isn't a good fit," he remarked with a laugh, "but the other toggery was impossible for the moors."
Under his guidance we had gone farther than we should otherwise have ventured, and he had pointed out a hundred beauties and wonders our untrained eyes would never have seen. He had interpreted the varying cries of the curlew, and shown us how intently the gamekeeper listened to them, so that he might know whether man or beast or bird was attracting the watcher's notice. He had pointed out the trustful little twite, which I should have mistaken for a linnet, and followed it to its abode, where he told us we should find a single feather stuck conspicuously in the edge of the nest; and it had been even so. Our botanical knowledge would have been greatly increased if we had remembered all he told us, but though we did not do so we were deeply interested, for he had none of the air of the schoolmaster, and he did not expect us to take our lessons very seriously.
And now the day was spent, and our energy, though not our spirits, had flagged considerably. We were sitting on the edge of the moor, a mile or so away from home, and the flush of evening spread over the valley and the distant hills, turning the landscape into mystery. The lamp of the setting sun was flickering out in the west, but the handmaidens of the night had lit their tiny torches here and there, and they shone faintly behind the veil of twilight, giving promise of greater radiance when the time should come for them to go forth to meet the crescent bride who tarried in her coming.
I was gazing on it dreamily, and breathing out peace and goodwill towards men when Rose dropped her bomb, and shattered my complacency.
"What makes you call me the Cynic?" He turned his eyes upon me and awaited my answer with evident curiosity.
I looked at him in my turn. He had been bareheaded all day, for he had left his hat at the Hall, and he was now leaning back against a rock, his hands clasped behind his head, and the mischievous look I have so often noticed sparkling in his eyes. He really is rather a fine man, and he has certainly a good strong face. I replied, calmly enough to outward seeming:
"Because it has seemed to me an apt description."
"I hope not," he replied. "Cynicism is the small change of shallow minds. All the same, it is interesting to be criticised. I did not know when I offered to analyse your character that I was being subjected to the same test."
"Indeed you were not," I protested; "it was an appellation that came to me spontaneously whilst you were discoursing so luminously on woman a few months ago, and it is not to be taken seriously. It was wicked of Rose to tell you."
Rose laughed and put an arm around me. "Never mind, old girl," she said, "I'm going back to-morrow, so you must forgive me."
"I'm afraid you have not distinguished with sufficient care, Miss Holden, between satire and cynicism. I daresay there is a strain of satire in my composition, but I do not plead guilty to cynicism. A cynic is a surly, misanthropical man, with a disordered liver and a contempt for the good things of life."
"Oh, Grace!" murmured Rose in pathetic tones, "how could you!"
"Nonsense!" I said, "I am not going to allow you to pretend to take me seriously. Do you think I subjected the word to subtle analysis before I adopted it? I tell you it came to me as an inspiration, heaven-born, doubtless, but if you don't like it pray forget it; and for your comfort I will add that I have never attached to the word the meaning you read into it. I know you have no contempt for art and poetry and the good things of life. Now tell us what you see before you?"
I wished to change the subject, and referred simply to the view, as anyone might have known. Night was dropping her blue curtain as gently, as silently, as the nurse spreads the coverlet over the sleeping babe; but the stupid man professed to misunderstand me.
"I see before me," he replied, "two interesting specimens of the sex which ruins the peace and creates the paradise of the bulk of mankind. I would call them charming but for the fear that my candour might be mistaken for cajolery, which my soul abhorreth."
"Oh, please stop this!" I pleaded, but Rose said: "Let him ramble on," and he continued:
"The one whom I judge to be the elder is tall and well proportioned. She has a fairly deep brow which indicates some intellectual power, but whether this is modified or intensified by cranial depressions and protuberances, a mass of dark hair, arranged in a fashion that beggars my feeble powers of description, hides from my eyes.
"Her mouth is firm, and set above a determined chin, which would lead me to conclude that she has a will of her own and is accustomed to exercise it; but her eyes are tender and pleading, and so near the reservoir of her emotions that the waters readily overflow, and this in some measure counteracts the qualities of the chin. She has a pretty wit and a ready tongue—usually—and has lived long enough to be convinced of her own powers; rather masterful with the world at large, but not mistress of herself."
"Thank you!" I interrupted. He bowed.
"She dresses with taste and has tidy and methodical habits; is ever ready with sympathy, but would never care deeply for anybody who did not show her a heap of affection."
"Do I cross your hand with silver?" I inquired.
He ignored my interruption and turned his whimsical gaze upon Rose.
"Her companion, whom I have had fewer opportunities of observing, is slight, fair, and small of stature. I should say she might be scheduled as 'dangerous,' for she flashes most unexpectedly. She is rather proud of her self-possession, and delights in appearing cool and unemotional, but in reality she is neither. She has simply cultivated repression for the sake of effect. She is intense in her likes and dislikes and quite capable of hating those whom she regards with aversion, whilst she would apotheosise anyone for whom she really cared. Her wit is more brilliant but also more superficial than that of her friend, and her mental outlook is clearer and consequently more optimistic. She prides herself on unconventionality, and is at heart the slave of conventionalism. In a word she is a paradox, but a very agreeable and fascinating one."
"I had much rather be a paradox than a paragon," said Rose; "but after your very inadequate delineation of my character I am trying to determine in which pigeon-hole of my carefully concealed emotions I am to docket you."
"Is that quite true, Miss Fleming?" inquired the Cynic, looking at her keenly. "I should have said you made up your mind on that point last evening."
The tan upon her cheeks and the cloak of twilight covered Rose's blushes to a large extent, but I am sure the colour deepened, and I am convinced the Cynic saw it.
He rose and gathered up the wraps. "It is getting chilly," he observed; "shall we be moving?"
I turned the conversation into another channel. "You are going to town this week-end. Is most of your time spent there?"
"Yes," he replied, "my work lies in London, though Broadbeck is my home, and I ran down very often, merely, I believe, to breathe the murky air and refresh my soul with the Yorkshire burr. I go back refreshed without knowing why. I have no relatives here now, and few friends, but the few I have, though they do not guess it, are my greatest comfort."
"Comfort!" ejaculated Rose; "what can you know of the need of comfort? You, at any rate, are self-centred and self-possessed. You have evidently a sufficient income and lots of the good things of life; you are entirely your own master, and on the high-road to fame; what more can you want?"
"Much," he replied simply; "and chiefly the sympathy which understands without explanations, and I get that only amongst my own folk. Do you know what that means? I have all the things you speak of: an increasing practice, an adequate income, good health, work that brings its own pleasure, an appreciation of life, consequent, no doubt, upon all these things, and an ardent longing for the relief which only real sympathy affords."
"I don't understand," said Rose, "notwithstanding my clear outlook on life."
"Do you?" The Cynic turned to me.
"Partially," I replied. "I can understand that none of these things satisfies in itself, and that you may have 'all things and abound,' and yet crave something you cannot work for and earn. But I should have thought your profession would have left you little time for sentiment, even if it afforded scope for it."
"You know, then, what my profession is?"
"You are a barrister, and, as Rose says, on the high-road to fame."
"Well," he replied, "I suppose that is true. I have as much work as I can undertake and I am well paid for it. Success, in that sense, has come, though slowly, and I am considered by many a lucky fellow. My future is said to be full of promise. I have, in the sense in which you spoke, 'all things and abound,' and when I step into the arena of conflict I am conscious of this, and of this only. In the heat of the fray the joy of battle comes upon me, and I am oblivious to all else.
"Then comes the after-thought, when the fray is ended and the arena has been swept clean for the next encounter. 'What lack I yet?' In the process of gaining the whole world am I going to lose myself? And the throng presses upon me and slaps my back and shakes my hand and shouts, 'Lucky dog!' into my ear, and I smile and look pleased—am pleased—until my Good Spirit drives me north, where the air is not soft, but biting, and men speak their minds without circumlocution and talk to you without deference, and give you a rough but kindly thrust if they think you need it. And there I find vision and comfort."
"You are utterly beyond me," said Rose. "You are soaring in the clouds miles above my head, and I cannot yet understand why you need comfort."
"Do you remember the young ruler who went away sorrowful?" he replied. He was looking straight ahead, with a sad, fixed look in his eyes such as I had not seen there before. "I wonder if he went north and found a friend who understood, and from him gained comfort. You see, heknewthat something was lacking, but could not make up his mind to pay the price of the remedy, and even the Great Physician, whilst He gave the unwelcome prescription, pitied and loved him. The world called him a lucky dog, and he called himself one—with a reservation. And he wanted comfort; not the comfort which simply says, 'Buck-up, old man!' but that which says, 'Brace-up, old man! If to sell all is the summum bonum, go, see the broker now and have done with it.' I wonder if he went eventually."
This was a new mood, and I glanced at the Cynic curiously. What had become of his cynicism? He was speaking quietly, contemplatively, and I felt sure there was meaning behind his words.
I said nothing, but Rose shook her head and muttered: "You speak in parables."
"Let me give you a parable," he continued. "Once upon a time a certain boy on leaving school left also a large number of marbles. These were claimed by two of his companions, and one of the two took possession of them. Then arose a great outcry on the part of him who would have taken them if he could, and he dragged his fellow before a council of their peers. The monitor was judge, and two sharp young fellows who were good in debate and of ready tongue acted as counsel for the claimant and his foe respectively.
"In the end judgment was given for the claimant, who carried off triumphantly the spoils of battle. And this judgment was given, not because the defendant had no right to the marbles, but because the lad who championed his cause was not so glib of speech nor so ready in argument as the fellow on the other side. Now it came to pass that the lad who won the case for his friend discovered soon after, what he had suspected all along—that the latter had no real claim to the marbles at all, and that they had been taken unjustly from the lad to whom they rightfully belonged. Yet the judgment of the court could not be upset. What was he to do?"
"Nothing," replied Rose promptly.
"Why?" inquired the Cynic.
"It was the fortune of war," she answered; "the case was properly tried by an impartial court, and the defendant should have taken care to secure the services of the smarter advocate. It would be a lesson to him for the future. The world would never get on if everyone worried about things of that sort."
"And you?" he said, turning to me.
"Was there no chance of reversing the judgment?" I inquired.
"None: it was irrevocable."
"Had the plaintiff's counsel reason to suspect, did you say, that his client's cause was unjust before the verdict was given?"
"He became practically convinced of it as the case proceeded, but not absolutely certain. Yet he fought for his client with might and main."
"Had the plaintiff's counsel any marbles of his own?" I continued.
"He had. Quite a fair store."
"Sufficient to pay back the lad who had suffered the unjust judgment?"
"About sufficient; no more."
My heart thumped painfully, but I did not hesitate to answer: "I think he ought to have parted with his own marbles, and so redressed the wrong and saved his soul."
There was silence for a moment before the Cynic spoke: "I think so, too." Then, irrelevantly: "There is something about this northern air that is very bracing."