The Project Gutenberg eBook ofYonderThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: YonderAuthor: E. H. YoungRelease date: April 14, 2013 [eBook #42536]Most recently updated: October 23, 2024Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Clare Graham & Laura McDonald at http://www.girlebooks.com, Marc D'Hooghe (Images generously made available by the Hathi Trust)*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK YONDER ***
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
Title: YonderAuthor: E. H. YoungRelease date: April 14, 2013 [eBook #42536]Most recently updated: October 23, 2024Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Clare Graham & Laura McDonald at http://www.girlebooks.com, Marc D'Hooghe (Images generously made available by the Hathi Trust)
Title: Yonder
Author: E. H. Young
Author: E. H. Young
Release date: April 14, 2013 [eBook #42536]Most recently updated: October 23, 2024
Language: English
Credits: Produced by Clare Graham & Laura McDonald at http://www.girlebooks.com, Marc D'Hooghe (Images generously made available by the Hathi Trust)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK YONDER ***
A boy, slim and white as the silver birches round him, stood at the edge of a pool, in act to dive. The flat stone was warm to his feet from yesterday's sun, and through the mist of a September morning there was promise of more heat, but now the grey curtain hung in a stillness that was broken by his plunge. He came to the surface, shaking his black head, and, when he had paddled round the pool, he landed, glistening like the dewy fields beyond him. Slowly he drew on his clothes, leaving the quiet of the wood unruffled, but his eyes were alert. If there were any movement among the birches, with their air of trees seen mirrored in a lake, he did not miss it. He, too, was of the woods and the water, sharing their life and taking mood and colour from them. He sat very still when he had dressed, with lean hands resting on his raised knees, and eyes that marked how the water in the pool was sinking for lack of rain and how the stream that fed it had become a trickle. In a wet season his flat stone was three feet under water, and there was a rushing river above and below his bathing-place, tearing headlong from those hills which, last night, had been hidden in heavy cloud and might be wrapped in it still for all the low mist would let him know. He saw how the bracken was dried before its time, and the trees were ready to let fall their leaves at the first autumn wind, and how some of them, not to be baulked of their last grandeur, had tried to flame into gold that their death might not be green. There were blackberries within a yard of him but he did not move to get them for the mist was like a hand laid on him; but when at length it stirred a little, thrust aside by a ray of sun, he rose, whistling softly, to take the fruit, and then, barefooted and bareheaded, he walked home across the fields.
The sun came out more boldly and Alexander broke into louder, gayer whistling, welcoming the sunshine and warning his mother that it was breakfast-time. From the back of the low, white house he heard her answering note, and thus assured that the bacon was in the pan, or near it, he took a seat on the old horse-block and waited.
Behind him was the house-front and the strip of low-walled garden, where lad's love, and pinks, and tobacco-plant grew as they chose among the straggling rose-bushes; before him were the fields he had crossed, the trees bordering the stream, and, topping the mist, the broad breast of the Blue Hill. On his left hand the rough road before the house dwindled to a track that led upwards to the pass between the sloping shoulder of the Blue Hill and the jagged, precipitous rocks of the Spiked Crags, and between these and the hill behind the house a deeply cut watercourse was grooved, hardly more than an empty trough at this moment, but in the time of rain lashed by a flood of waters that looked from the house like a white and solid streak. Alexander called this water the mountain-witch's hair, for it streamed to his fancy like the locks of an old hag, and when the sound of its roaring came to him through the winter night he thought she was shrieking in anger, and he pulled the bed-clothes about his ears. But he told no one of that secret name, and, like other people, he spoke of it as the Steep Water, because of the cascades in which it fell. Broad Beck was the name of the stream in which he bathed, and, but for the one deep pool, it went over stony shallows to the lake of which Alexander, sitting on the horse-block, could see a glimmer at his right hand, like a grey pathway between the inn roof and the trees in the little churchyard. It was a great sheet of water edged on the hither shore by the high-road and the rough moorland beyond, on the other by a black mountain-side. It sent its waters to the sea, and in return the sea sent up the mists that curled, and rolled, and broke away again among the hills, or sent down the fierce steel fingers of the rain.
Alexander's eyes were on the Blue Hill, but his thoughts were with his breakfast, and through the stone passage leading from the kitchen to the porch there came encouraging sounds and savours.
"Oh, mother!" he cried hungrily; "will you never have it ready?"
He did not heed her shouted answer, for he had heard steps on the stony track, and seen the shambling figure of a man coming towards him. Drunk, was he? Alexander knew the signs, but men seldom stagger at breakfast-time, and the nearest house of call in the direction whence the stranger came was six or seven long miles away across the hills. No; on a nearer view he was certainly not drunk. But what, then, was the matter with the man?
"Boy"—he stood before the horse-block, and plucked at the tufts of moss clinging to his clothes—"is this a farm?"
"No," said Alexander, wondering at the little man with the sparse, disordered hair. "There's moss on your head, too," he said.
The stranger put up his hand an inch or two, and dropped it. "Everywhere," he murmured. "Was it your dog I heard barking?"
"May be. He's a loud barker."
"Do you think I could have a cup of milk? I'm very cold. I lost my way up there, among the hills."
"Were you out all night?" asked Alexander, kindling.
"All night—yes. Among the rocks. I thought I should fall off. I was afraid."
"Did you—see things?"
"Mist. Figures in the mist. And a sheep cried, and stones fell sometimes, and there was a noise of water. If I could get warm——"
Alexander put out a steadying hand. "Will you come in?" he said. "My mother'll see to you."
The man suffered himself to be led out of the sunshine through a place which seemed long and dark and cavernous, and so into a room where a fire glowed and crackled, and an open door and window let in the light.
"Mother!" said Alexander.
A woman looked up swiftly from the frying-pan. "I didn't hear you for the bacon frizzling," she said. "Oh! who is it, Alec? Here, put him into the chair. Quick!"
"He's been out all night," he says.
"He looks like it." She touched his hands. "He's perished. Take off his boots, and tell your father. I'll warm some milk. Poor soul!"
The little man, with Alexander at his feet, had sunk back against the red cushions of the chair. The strain of his expression had relaxed, and now he smiled.
"Bacon," he said on a note of satisfaction—"bacon."
"No, no; you'd better have some milk. It will warm you. Milk first, bacon afterwards, perhaps."
She spoke soothingly, entirely at her ease, doing the work that came most readily to her. He blinked and straightened himself before he took the cup. The woman seemed tall, and splendid, and compelling.
"I'm afraid—I'm afraid I had almost fallen asleep. The warmth——"
"Drink this," she ordered.
"Thank you." He shivered. "Forgive my troubling you. If I may rest for a little while——-"
She patted his shoulder. "Yes; you shall go to sleep. Push the chair nearer to the fire, Alec. Jim"—she turned to her husband, who stood in the doorway—"when I've warmed the bed we must get him there, or he'll be ill." She looked down smilingly at the half-conscious occupant of the chair. "He's just a bundle of cold and fright," she said.
Bidden to hang up the damp coat of the visitor, who now lay snug in bed, Alexander obeyed with so much vigour that two small books fell from the pockets to the floor.
"His name's Edward Webb," he announced. "And he reads poetry. Keats, this one, and 'Paradise Lost.'" He turned the pages and stood reading.
"Are those your books, Alexander?" said his father. The voice was irritable, and the dark face moody. Expectant, almost hopeful of a retort, he watched his son.
"They're his."
"Then put them down."
"But I think he'd like me to dry them. Where was the man lying to get so wet?"
"Give them here. I'll see to them. What did you say his name was?"
"Edward Webb. I think I'll just put them in the sun. They're good books, and he's read a lot in them."
"Does it say where he comes from?"
"I wouldn't think of looking," said Alexander. "They're his property. But I'll dry them."
"Alexander——" began his father noisily, but the boy had stepped out of doors with a face changed from natural gravity to impishness.
Rutherford shouted at his wife. "Clara, I've had enough of it. He'd defy me if I lay dying. As if I wasn't fit to touch the books! There's something wrong with the lad."
"Jim, don't wake that poor man with your shouting," she said briskly. She looked serene and competent. "Eat your breakfast. And as for Alexander, he didn't choose you for his father, and it's for you to make him glad he's got you"—her tone changed—"as glad as I am that you're my man."
He flushed. "Clara, is it true that you're still glad?"
She had time to drop a light kiss on his hand before Alexander darkened the doorway.
Edward Webb's first waking thought was that his nightshirt was a new acquaintance. It was rougher than his own, and so long that he felt like a babe in swaddling clothes—an apt simile, as he would have confessed had he been able to see himself disinterestedly, for his face, worn as it was with anxieties, had in it something of youth and indestructible innocence. He had slept for hours without a movement, and only his head was visible above the smoothly turned sheet, but he brought forth an arm and examined his sleeve. It was drab-coloured, and striped with pink. It was not his. He looked about him, and remembered.
He was in the house of the Good Samaritans. There was a boy with dark eyes, and a woman who had appeared to him as Warmth and Strength, and, more dimly, a man who had helped him to bed—a tall, dark man. No doubt this was his nightshirt—a durable garment, but irritating to the skin. He wondered what time it was. He had no idea how long he had slept, nor at what hour he had found the valley and the white house, with its blessed signs of habitation; but it was at the first breath of dawn that he had left his rocky perch, and, stumbling, falling, almost crying aloud in misery, had made his way down the mountain. Memory took him again through the night's adventure, and farther back—to last Monday morning, when he had bidden Theresa good-bye. It was their habit, when he started on his journeying, to play their game of Beauty and the Beast.
"What shall I bring back this time, Beauty?" he would ask, and she, glowing at the name she wished were justly hers, would clasp her hands ecstatically before she answered: "A white satin dress, please, dear Papa, and shoes to match, with silver roses on them, and a silver rose for my hair." Or it might be a string of diamonds, a great feathered fan, a boar-hound to be her stately guardian.
"The real Beauty," he reminded her one day, "was content with a single rose from a garden."
"I know," she said, and for a moment lost her brightness; but then, "I think that's lovely in a story," she told him. "Yes." She acted it. "'Bring me a white rose, Papa. I don't want anything else.' But she would, you know, when it came all faded. But I'm glad the story lets her say that."
But he had slightly changed the form of his question on this latest morning.
"If you could have anything in the world, Theresa, what would it be?"
"Oh!" she cried joyously, as though that thing were already hers, and through her mind there paced a fair procession of the desired. But she knew her decision long before it was spoken. "I should have an adventure," she said.
"I can't bring you that, I'm afraid."
"No—oh no!"
"But I might have one myself." He was pleased with the idea.
"It wouldn't be the same."
"I should tell you about it."
She agreed that would be much better than nothing, and with his endless wish to please her he determined that he would have something to tell.
His days were passed in alternate fortnights of travelling about the country with samples of ugly things incidental to the dressmaking art, and of conveying the same packages from shop to shop of his native town. He was to be seen, a small shrinking figure, sitting in a cab with a pile of cardboard boxes opposite him, and his face turned to the windows, looking through one and then the other for sights that accorded better with his nature than these boxes, on which, when the cab jolted, he laid a hand lest they should slip. The fortnights at home were more endurable than the others, for he returned at evening to his family and his books, and during the day he had many a fair thing to bring healing to his pain, for always he worked with a queer gnawing at the breast. This was not his rightful work, and he did it ill, and, because he had a great love of beauty and fitness in all things, he suffered. But he was driven on to his mighty, ineffectual efforts by the needs of his wife and little daughters, and as he looked out of the musty cab he would see comforting white clouds floating behind red roofs, the river that found its way into the city's heart, and the tall masts of sailing-ships. But the following fortnight was one of exile and of racket—strange towns full of unfriendly faces, dull hotels with texts on the bedroom walls, and the noise and dirt of trains. A book of verses in each pocket was then his solace, and, two by two, the poets journeyed with him, gilding the grime of cities. Sometimes, as the train carried him on, with, to his imagination, something remorseless and inimical to him in its energy, he would look up from his book and stare longingly at the country which the fast wheels spurned; but on his lonely Saturday and Sunday, when he was stranded in some town, he seldom had energy to obey adventure's whisper, and explore farther than a quiet place where he could read, and write his daily letter to his wife. But, Theresa having a hunger for adventure, her father had decided that at least she should be satisfied by proxy, and he had sought the mountains.
He had seen them once, in boyhood, on a holiday, and their wonder had remained with him like a treasure. Why should he not add another to his little store, another gem to shine in the dark parts of his life, and throw some of its colour and glory on Theresa? That should be his adventure; he would find the mountains and roam about them, and look fearfully down their rocky sides, and shudder at the thought of falling, and stock his memory with things to tell Theresa.
So on the afternoon of Friday he left the little station by the seashore, and tramped inland, following the road for a while until, as he turned a corner, he saw the blue shapes of hills, shadowy but strong, mysterious, lifting themselves to heaven, yet compact of the solid earth of man. He stood still, drinking in beauty like hill water, and suffering a glorious new pain. It was more than beauty that he gazed on; it was the most perfect expression of what man's hopes should be, and the discovery shook him. He walked on. Above the hills the sky was stretched in a faint blue shade that swooned into a white, and here, within a stone's throw of him, the fingers of a chestnut-tree had dipped themselves in dyes.
He tasted joy as he went, first across fields and then slowly up the long flank of a hill; it was all joy until, careless or ignorant of the menace in the clouds that were beginning to circle about the summits, he found himself shut in by a thick wall of mist.
He stood on a level place strewn with stones, and their grey colour grew into the grey of the mist that bound him. It was very quiet. Afar off there was a faint sound of water, but the beating of his own heart was louder. He held his breath, peering this way and that, but keeping his feet steady lest the noise they made should break the stillness and enrage that something which seemed to wait until he moved. He stood, thinking quickly and anxiously. He must find some way out of this danger, he must keep cool; but he almost screamed when he heard a light scattering of stones, followed by a cry. It was only an old sheep that went bleating away behind the veil, but he could not smile at his alarm. He began to run to and fro, seeking some landmark, and when he found a little trickling stream he thought it would be wise to follow it down the mountain-side. Oncoming darkness was now added to his fears, but he could still see the silver streak, and beside it, walking in steep, oozing moss, he went carefully; nervous, but still hopeful, when he found there were rocks to be descended. Using his shaking hands, he clambered down, absorbed and unforeseeing, and it was almost dark when he came to a ledge that ended with a shocking suddenness. He could not go down. He looked up, and he was afraid. He could not turn his back to that awful emptiness, and climb the steep rocks he could hardly see; his own daring of descent amazed him. He was a little giddy; he blinked in the darkness. He would have to stay there, shivering and afraid. He was having his adventure and he did not like it, but across his troubled thoughts words of Theresa came, bracing him to courage.
"I hope I'm brave," she said to him one day, inflecting her voice inquiringly.
"I hope so, too," he answered, and felt a pang.
"I like brave people," she said. "I like them to be brave and clever."
"Not good?" he asked.
"Oh—good——" That was a lesser virtue.
He was not good, nor clever, nor brave, but he would endure, and all night long he sat there, trying to control his dread of the mist and what lay beyond it, stifling the screams that threatened when a stone fell, crashing, dropping from rock to rock, and, hundreds of feet below, breaking itself into ultimate fragments on the screes. "Not again," he prayed. "Not again." So he might fall, but he must not, he would not, and he sat farther back upon his ledge, gripping the wet heather.
He thought of Nancy, of Grace and Theresa in their beds: Nancy, with her hand under her cheek, and the humorous, half-mocking smile on her lips, even in sleep; Grace, with her nose in the pillow, and Theresa widespread, tossing her tawny head. Heaven keep them and him! If only the darkness had not been so thick—thick, yet unsteady, promising cracks of light which did not come, and, as he grew more dazed, taking unwelcome shapes of small and evil things, of things nameless, gigantic, formless, yet hideous in suggestion, that came slyly through the folds of mist to push him from his place. Only with a wrenching effort of will could he drive them back, and as they went he thought he heard them chuckling. And again they came with their wavering, softly threatening movements; he strained his eyes for them, there was a terrible expanded feeling in his ears, and the mist and darkness were weighted with horror which pressed about him. His tired eyelids drooped, and he may have slept, but if he did he found no relief from fear; sleeping and waking he was stalked by ugly visions, and he was cold. He thought of the people he had seen shivering in winter streets; so this was how they felt in their rags. Perhaps, too, they had this dreadful vacancy of body, which was not hunger, but resulted from it so that now and then he seemed to be floating in mid-air, a man without a frame, compelled to drive his numbed fingers into the wet earth to bring himself back to a sense of solidity and self.
But somehow the night wore through, and with eyes that were wearied with straining past the dark, that heavy curtain seemed at last to be growing thin. It was still black, but the texture of it was changing. A little breeze went by, like a herald bird promising the day. There came a fresh smell of wind and earth. Slowly the night was mastered.
There was no glowing pageantry of dawn; the light spread and grew stronger in grey dignity, and soon he could see the glistening mosses and tender ferns that grew in the crevices of the rocks, and, looking from these things of vivid green, he could draw from the grey light about him the forms of distant hills.
Later, the valley seemed to lift itself towards him, showing the fallen masses of the mountain and the white streaks that were streams. Then, sharp in the clear air, he heard the barking of a dog.
He rose, stretched his cramped limbs and faced the rocks. The unpassable danger of last night was only difficulty in the morning, and shakily and in fear he overcame it.
So, stumbling over the riot of loose stones that strewed the top, staggering down heather slopes imminent with pitfalls, he came at last to the sight of Alexander on the horse-block.
That was a good adventure for Theresa.
Alexander quietly opened the bedroom door and tiptoed to the bedside.
"I'm awake," said Edward Webb, blinking rapidly.
"I thought you never would be. It's four o'clock."
"Four o'clock!"
"Ay. And I didn't want you to wake up yet a bit." He spoke quickly. "I think I'd better tell you. I've been reading those books of yours. They fell out of your pockets, and I simply couldn't help it, but I've had to do it in the barn for fear my father should see. I'm taking care of them. Will you let me keep them till I've read a bit more? Just an hour or two? Well, I'll let you have the Milton back—I've had him at school—if I can have the Keats. I'll have finished by the time you've had your tea."
Here was someone who knew what he wanted! "If you will give me my clothes I will certainly lend you Keats."
"I'm much obliged to you. And would you mind not mentioning it to my father?" He went to the door. "I'll tell my mother you're awake, and I should think she'll let you have your clothes. They've been dry this long while. Did you lose your hat?"
"Isn't it there?"
"No, there's everything but that."
"Dear me! Well, I'm fortunate to have lost nothing else."
Alexander drew nearer. "You said you saw figures in the mist up yonder. What like were they?"
"Did I say that? I was very nervous, very much dazed; you mustn't believe all I said. What else did I say?"
"You wanted milk, that's all. Oh, and you seemed to like the smell of bacon."
"Ah, I remember—yes, it was a pleasant, homely smell. And I am very grateful to you all. Will you kindly give my thanks to your parents, and ask if I may be allowed to have my clothes, and thank them myself? I was a stranger, and ye took me in."
"Mother wouldn't turn away a dog," said Alexander simply.
Clara Rutherford, entering the room with her swift, firm step, felt her visitor's pulse, laid her hand on his forehead, looked searchingly into his eyes, and said he might get up.
"The stairs are just in front of you," she told him, "and the kitchen's at their foot. You'll find us there when you're ready."
When he went downstairs, he saw that rain was slanting across the open doorway leading to the yard, where it fell with a splatter on the paving-stones. He caught a glimpse of a copse of larch-trees on the hillside and heard the crying of their blown branches. Against the door-post, with a cold pipe in his mouth, Rutherford was lounging, and his wife sat on the fender with the light of the fire brightening her hair. Edward Webb stood for an instant before they saw him, and made him welcome.
"Why, the stairs didn't creak!" said Clara. "That was what I was listening for. You can never miss that board when you want to. When I go late to bed and creep upstairs I always tread on it, and then I hear Alexander turning in his bed. He wakes if a mouse cheeps. Tea's ready."
She went to the door and whistled, and presently Alexander came through the rain.
"Where've you been?" his father demanded.
"In the barn." He looked at Edward Webb, who ate his bread-and-butter without so much as an upward glance.
"I can't think what you want to go there for, when we've chairs to sit on."
"Janet gave me a truss of hay, and it's softer than a bed."
"Janet would do better to keep her hay. She'll be short of fodder before the winter's out."
"That's what I told her."
"These eggs are excellent," said Edward Webb.
"You shall have a duck's egg for breakfast. My ducks——"
"But I must be getting back to-night."
"Indeed you mustn't. It's ten miles to the station, and it's raining, and you're not fit. We haven't a trap, either, but we could borrow a cart for you to-morrow."
"You're very kind, but—but I feel I ought to go. Imposing on you like this!"
"Not at all. We're glad to have you," said Rutherford. "And you can't get away if my wife means you to stop."
"I was beginning to suspect that," said Webb, with a half-rueful lift of the brows.
"And I do mean you to stop, so that's settled. Pass your father's cup, Alexander."
The rain came down faster and stronger, invading the kitchen, and the mists, as they swept past the window, hid the larch-trees, but still through the noise of the falling water their louder murmuring was heard. The dog came in, shook himself and, whining, lay down near the door. The room was darkened, but the fire glowed the more brightly, and Clara put candles on the table.
"Are you warm enough?" she asked of Edward. "Jim can't sit in a room with the door shut, but we can close the window."
"No, no, please don't. We mustn't shut out these sounds."
Across the candlelight Alexander sharply eyed the man who uttered his own thoughts. Books of poetry and a love of the wind—these were good things to have, but love of the wind was best, and a greater bond than a whole library. He liked this man, he decided, and he would be sorry when he went away.
When the meal was over, and Edward Webb was sitting again in the red-cushioned chair, while Clara washed the tea-things and her husband fetched more coal for the fire, Alexander approached, and gave him a furtive touch on the shoulder.
"Here's the book," he said, "and thank you."
"You've read it all?"
"Twice."
"What's your other name?"
"Rutherford, we're called."
Edward Webb took a pen from his waistcoat pocket and opened the book. "It is yours if you will have it," he said, and wrote the boy's name above his own. "I should like you to have it." He was deprecatingly courteous. "You have been very good to me, and I hope the book will be as good a friend to you."
"I cannot thank you," said Alexander hesitatingly, twisting the book. He was blushing deeply and biting his lips, but the rush of his next words would not be stayed. "But I'll never forget you," he cried. "A thing like this hasn't happened to me before," and with that he sank to the fender and sat there, keeping his watchful dark gaze on Edward Webb's face.
They fell into conversation after a time.
"Do you go to school?"
"Yes; over the hills to Browick. It's a good step. The Grammar School. There's nothing here but the Church School. I went there till I could walk to Browick, and glad I was to go."
"Oh? What was the matter?"
"Why," he cried, "he roared at us! He was that kind of man. He's there yet, but he's getting old."
"Perhaps he doesn't roar so loudly now."
"Oh yes, he does. I've heard him at it; but they tell me he's not quite so handy with the stick. It wasn't the stick I minded, though he had a strong arm. I'll tell you how it was. When he shouted at us, 'William the Conqueror, 1066,' or 'An island is a piece of land'—you know, anything—I felt it wasn't true, else why did he expect to be contradicted? It was a long time before I would believe my dates, but the island was simpler—I'd seen them."
"You had no confidence in him, in fact."
"That was it."
"Things are different now, I suppose. But it's a rough walk in winter-time, isn't it?"
"Yes."
He was not ready to tell anyone of his joy in that daily walk, in summer and in winter, when hailstones pounded him in the face, when he was drenched with rain or scorched with sun. Moreover, reserve was not his only reason for silence. It seemed that always his father tried to thwart him, and if he knew how much he loved the hills and the mists and the sunshine, the rare birds and the smell of peat, the getting of knowledge from men who were not afraid of questions and did not roar, then, perhaps, with the perverseness that baffled and angered his son, he would take him from the school. So never a word of pleasure had Alexander let fall, for fear his happiness should be taken from him, and never a word of discontent, because he did not care to lie; but his passion for the hills grew stronger, and his analysis of his father's character became acute.
"He's like a cat with a pet bird," he thought once. "He's watching it all the time, and hoping the cage-door will open. He knows he oughtn't to kill it—he's been told he mustn't—but he can't stop himself wanting to. That's him all through. He can't stop himself."
That lack of self-control and its unpleasant results on himself inspired the boy to practice the virtue with all his might. To exercise it, he would go without food when he was hungry, deliberately sniffing at his mother's hot pastry, and refusing to eat of it.
"If you don't have that, you shall have nothing else. You're getting fussy," his father had said once. His eyes were stormy under brooding brows, but Alexander knew he had the advantage, and he wore his impish look.
"I'm not, then. I'm learning self-control," he said slowly, and saw his father flinch.
His appetite was left uncriticized after that, but the relations of cat and bird continued and Alexander saw to it that the cage-door was not opened, developing an annoying habit of always being in the right, or managing to appear so.
"Don't worry your father, Alec," his mother said.
"Worry him!" The anger which he found harder to subdue than any hunger showed in his face, and brought more resemblance to his father than either would have cared to see. "How else am I going to live? I've seen wild things in the woods, and they all have weapons, one way or the other. The daft ones just die."
For a moment her courage seemed to faint, but she straightened her back and spoke with her infectious hopefulness, her determination that all was, or should be, well.
"He's impatient, I know, but you're a bit of a mule, Alexander. And you're both mine, and I won't let my belongings disagree. You've just got to put up with it."
"And am I not putting up with it?" he flamed out.
"Alec, I'll tell you something. Will you understand? It's this way with some women, as perhaps you'll see for yourself some day, when you've a woman of your own. I feel sometimes that you two are both my sons, and I've got to deal fairly by you both, and see that you do fairly by each other. Now you've a bigger will than he has—you've found that out already, and there's no harm in saying it—and it's for you to help, not hinder, him. But mind, he's a better man than you are—yet. It's just that he's weak in some ways. There's no need for you to despise him on that account. Wait till you are tempted or—or see trouble. You're just a baby, you know nothing, and you see fit to judge, when your real business is to be a good son to him, never you mind what he is to you. Call him your brother, and you'll find it easier. Not that I want to make your way easier." She paused. "But I'd strew roses for him. Have you got the geese in?" she added sharply.
Edward Webb's talk with Alexander was interrupted by Clara's command that the lamp be lighted, and Rutherford's entrance with the coal.
"We shall have a lot of rain yet," he said.
"Steep Water's getting fuller every minute," said Alexander. "D'you hear her? She runs underground just behind the house, and out again by the inn. She's roaring."
"We shall have a fine night of shaking windows, and howling wind, and creaking trees," said Clara, coming from the scullery. "This old house will blow down some day."
"No, no; it's rooted well."
Rutherford went to the doorway and stood there and Clara took her sewing to the table, where Alexander already sat under the lamplight.
"Have you done your lessons?" she asked him.
"To-morrow'll do."
"To-night, my son. There might be an earthquake to-morrow, and it would be a pity to leave anything unfinished."
Edward Webb gave a little chuckle. Great drops of rain hissed on the fire, and Rutherford, beyond the circle of light, began to pace the floor.
"Jim, I'll play chess with you."
"I think I'll have to get a breath of air."
"Not to-night. I shouldn't go out to-night."
He made no answer, but went to the door again and stood there. Edward Webb could hear him shifting from one foot to another, and he felt in the air a disturbance he could not name. Outside, the wind was shrieking, dashing itself against trees, walls, and counter-winds. It played with the rain, and tried to outcry the steady roaring of the streams. Within there was firelight, Clara sewing, Alexander at his books, and a man growing drowsy in the armchair; but peace was not there, for desire was trying to break through its prison-house, and its struggles could be felt.
Rutherford cleared his throat and again marched to and fro in the gloom. "Well, I think I'll get on my boots," he said, and gave out another cough.
Clara stitched on, Alexander did not look up, and Edward Webb became aware of more than that striving, imprisoned thing. He felt the contest of human wills. He was afraid to move, lest he should throw the balance to one side or the other, but he could see Clara's face, and he watched it. He thought he saw decision and indecision chasing each other there before she laid her work in her lap and spoke to Rutherford.
"I wish you'd go to Janet's for me, Jim."
"Is it important? I wasn't thinking of going that way."
She hesitated before she answered. "Yes; I'd like you to go."
"All right, I will if I have time."
Alexander looked up swiftly, but dropped his chin into his hands again and his eyes to his book.
"Let me have your pen, Alec." She wrote a note while Rutherford pulled on his boots. "Here, keep it in your pocket." She held out his overcoat, and when he had put it on she laid her hands on his shoulders for an instant. "Come back soon," Edward Webb heard her say softly, and then there was the sound of Rutherford's boots in the yard.
"Did you see to the geese, Alec?" It was her nightly question.
"No. I'll do it now."
"Better take your coat."
He paused in his passage to the door. "But—oh ay, very well," he said.
To the pleasant accompaniment of Clara's needle going through the cloth, the storm without, and the crackling of the fire, Edward Webb fell into one of those dozes when the head, after a few warning shakes, falls like lead to the breast, and the sleeper is helplessly conscious of his plight. He could hear the noises still, but now they mingled with his dreams. The small ones were like little voices speaking to him, and the great ones were the very stuff of which adventures could be made. He was chased by a bear with an open mouth and panting breath—but he knew the wind was answerable for that, and he was not afraid—and then a horde of animals was let loose on him—and that was only Alexander getting the fowls in for the night. He could hear his diligent threats and persuasions, and the clatter of his wooden clogs, sudden, alarmed clackings, and the fluttering of wings.
He sat up, blinked, and smiled at Clara in what he thought was a wakeful manner, but before his lips had straightened themselves his head was down again. Something blotted out the glow of the fire on his face, and he knew it was Clara putting on the kettle. He heard the splutter of the drops that clung to it as they touched the flames. There was a murmuring of voices next, and the sound of it was very soothing now that the fire shone on him again. He heard the words, "He didn't go to Janet's," and Clara's quick answering "Hush!"
"I'm not asleep," he said, and his voice seemed very small and far away.
"But you've been asleep," said Clara.
"Have I? I—I beg your pardon. It was rude of me, but the fire and the comfort and—and last night——"
"Sleep again if you want to," she said. Her voice had the note women use to tired children, and he understood that he must seem as helpless to her as he sat there, half asleep, in the chair that was so much bigger than himself.
"No, oh no; I would rather not. I—I have never thanked you properly, nor have I explained anything about myself. You don't know who I am. I have been taken on trust—entirely on trust. You must believe me grateful. My name——"
"Alexander saw that in your books, Mr. Webb. You haven't left them in the wet, Alec?"
"No; he returned them, thank you, quite dry again. I must own that I was anxious about them in the night. It's strange how little things like that can worry one. Not that I think it a small thing to care for books, but in the face of—of danger it became trivial."
"You were in danger?"
"Less than I thought. I could see nothing. I had not been in such a position before, and I am afraid I am a nervous man, more easily alarmed than one should be. Perhaps, with a little more determination——" He stopped and stared into the fire. The dancing flames of it reminded him of Theresa's hair. He went on with difficulty. "I am a traveller. I mean, a commercial traveller." He seemed to expect reproof.
Clara encouraged him. "Yes?"
"I thought I would spend my Saturday and Sunday among the hills, and here I am, but at this time last night I thought I should never see home again."
"There are people who would miss you, I expect."
"Yes; my wife, two little girls." His face brightened. "It was Theresa, the younger, who really sent me on this expedition. She wanted an adventure, she told me, and so I had to get it for her."
"How old is she?" This was from Alexander.
"Ten. Ten."
"Oh!" That was a stupid age, he thought.
"Grace is twelve. Dear me! I ought to send a letter. Is it too late for the post?"
"There's not another till Monday morning."
"Ah, then it will be best to send one to-morrow from the station. Thank you. We live at Radstowe—a long way, you see."
"Radstowe? That's a port, isn't it?" Alexander asked.
"Yes, rather an unsatisfactory port, but it makes a beautiful city. I live there for two weeks in each month, and travel for the other two, and every other month I come this way."
"Then," said Alexander, "you can come and stay with us again."
"Yes; we shall expect you."
"You are very kind. You—you could not have treated me better if you had known me all your lives. I find it—a little strange."
He thought of Monday, and dreaded meeting cold faces and hard, staring eyes. There was a certain shop he never entered without a tremor, because there was a girl there whom he had once seen winking at another as he passed between the counters. She was a tall girl, with a high colour and a great deal of hair. She made a joke of him—they all did, no doubt—and as he approached the portals of that shop he had to take a deep, sustaining breath before he could brave the merciless glances and tolerantly twisted lips of the young women there. He knew how he looked, how nervousness showed up all his disadvantages, and added to them. He had seen himself in the great mirrors of the place—a small man, bowed before his time, with thin hair growing grey, and anxious eyebrows. They would naturally think him a funny little man, yet Nancy, who had a sense of humour, did not laugh at him. He felt a new richness of gratitude towards her. Ah! she was loyal, and it was a wonderful thing to love, to be loved.
Clara was speaking. "We have to help each other, up here; there are so few of us. There's no doctor to run to, no chemist, no nurse to be had, not even a general shop—that's three miles off. We nurse each other, use each other's medicines, send each other's children scurrying on errands, and we go to each other's doors and say, 'Can I have two ounces of tea, please? and mother will let you have it back when the cart comes round.' They're shy folks, close-tongued, but they're willing. It's just a habit."
"I wish it were a common one. We are afraid to help; afraid of intruding. There are barriers everywhere. It makes our friends more precious to us, perhaps."
"It's all for the best, anyway," said Clara. "Let's have supper."
The wind had lessened; it came no longer with bursts of anger, but, as though craving pardon for its fury, it wailed and moaned about the house. For once Clara forgot her optimism.
"I cannot bear the wind like this," she said, when the meal was done, the dishes washed, and they sat by the fire again. She had laid aside her work and sat in a low chair, clasping and unclasping her hands. They were large, firm hands, and Edward Webb guessed that when they were not busy they were generally still. "It's like people who can't find their way."
"Janet says it's sins coming back on us."
"Janet's full of tales."
"She is that," said Alexander with satisfaction.
"Alec, let's have the door shut. I feel as if something will get through before we know it."
"That's worse than Janet," he said, as he kicked away the large stone which had held back the door.
At ten o'clock he was bidden to bed.
"I'll go if you do."
"No, I shall stay up."
"Then I will."
"You mustn't, Alec."
"But you're frightened of the wind. I'll not leave you."
"No, no." She shook her head. "It doesn't do, Alec; you know that."
"You'll let me stay with you, please," Edward Webb said timidly.
"You cannot let him do it, mother!" There was almost anguish in Alexander's voice.
"He must go to bed, too. Why, I've sat here alone on many a winter night."
"But I am not sleepy," Edward protested solemnly.
"Oh, very well, very well. You shall stay for a little while—only a little while. You promise to go when I tell you? Good-night, Alec."
"I shall read in bed," he said sullenly.
"Don't set yourself alight, then."
"Oh, mother——" She always said that to him.
The kitchen was filled with a brooding silence when he had gone; it hung heavily about the man and woman who tried to talk as though they had no thought beyond the words which came so slowly until Edward Webb gave way to his wish to talk about his children. Experience and Nancy's promptings had taught him that no subject brought people to yawns more quickly and, indeed, it was too sacred to be dragged before indifference, but he felt hopeful of Clara for the warmth and breadth of motherliness were plain in her. Moreover, it was necessary that something should be said, and she was silent. He could hear the rubbing of her hands against each other.
"May I tell you about my little girls?" he said.
"Will you?" Her smile was not the perfunctory one which had disheartened him sometimes. "I should like to have had a daughter," she added.
His shyness fell from him as he talked. He told her of Grace's beauty and her skill in dancing, he told her of Theresa's cleverness.
"Is she pretty, too?"
"No. No, I suppose you wouldn't call her pretty, but it doesn't seem to matter. Why, I hadn't even thought of it before. Theresa is not like other children."
This was what Clara had thought, but never said, of her own son.
"I have great hopes of her, but she is very young. One cannot tell yet how she will develop. But she shows signs of——"
"Hush!" Clara interrupted him on the verge of his precious revelation. They heard footsteps. Was it the dark night and the rough road that caused their loud unevenness?
"I think you'd better go to bed now," she said quietly. "Good-night."
"Good-night," he said, and went up the unlighted stairs. As he reached the landing a bedroom door was opened, and Alexander showed himself in his nightshirt.
"Is he back?" he asked.
"He has just come. I think," he whispered—"I think your mother wished us to be quiet."
"Hush!" said Alexander, "he'll hear nothing," and he banged his door.
Downstairs a key was turned in a lock, and the ashes were raked together in the grate. A few indistinguishable words floated up, and after a long pause there came the violent creaking of the stairs. It was a long time before Edward Webb could sleep.
Clara outwatched him. She lay in the extraordinary stillness to which she had trained herself, with patiently closed eyes and an untroubled brow, but there was the pain of controlled weeping in her throat. She had taught herself to keep her mind clear of regrets, of anger and scorn, that there might always be room for the flooding brightness of her love, but she had not yet learnt to keep back that hard, constricting hurt that stretched across her throat from ear to ear, and made a raw place in her breast.
At her side Rutherford turned, tossed, and ejaculated between his snatches of sleep.
"Oh, damn the drink! Clara."
"Yes?"
"Did I wake you?"
"No." She smiled at the ceiling.
"I can't sleep."
"You've been to sleep, Jim."
"I tell you I haven't. Clara, are you angry with me? Look here, I hadn't been there for a month, you know I hadn't."
"Yes, I know."
"And I've told you how it comes on me."
"Go to sleep, Jim."
"I can't. Thoughts come crowding like black imps. If you'll forgive me——"
"Oh yes, I'll forgive; how many times does the Bible say? Let me put my arm round you. There." In the dark room the pillars at the foot of the uncurtained four-poster bed seemed to watch and listen.
"Did that chap know where I'd gone?"
"I didn't tell him, but he may have guessed. Very likely, I should think."
"Couldn't you have——"
"No, I couldn't, Jim. If you're going to be proud you must have reason for it. You can tell your own lies, or act a truth you're not ashamed of."
He flung himself out of reach of her arm. "Oh, why can I not have peace? Preaching at me when my nerves are in this state!"
"Did you go to Janet's?"
"No, I didn't. Clara!" She made no answer. "Clara!"
"Well?"
"I'm wretched. I'm afraid of falling out of bed. Why should I feel like this? It makes other people sleepy."
She laughed aloud. "Oh, Jim, Jim, Jim!"
"For God's sake, don't make that noise. It's not canny in the night. What are you laughing at?"
"At you, my dear. Oh me!"
"Will you put your arm round me again? What a devil I've been to you. Don't desert me. I'll start again if you'll help me."
She drew him to her. "There, then. You're just a child, a little child."
As she lay with her lips against his hair, steadying her breath that he might not be disturbed, she felt that he was more her son than Alexander was. Only for a few years had Alexander looked to her for all his needs; he had soon grown strong and self-reliant, and changed from baby to friend almost before she was aware, but this poor Jim, with his head on her breast, might never have known another resting-place, and it was his confidence in her, the demand for the comfort she could give, that satisfied the mother in her, and discounted all his weaknesses. It was perhaps as well that the daughter for whom she had wished had not been given to her, for in that house there was not room for two women, let alone two women of Clara's make, and there would have been contests with no Solomon to give decision, while now, denied a daughter, Clara was both rich and supreme. She had been born to cradle men and children, to caress them and buffet them at her wise will, and with the instinct which makes mothers care most for their feebler children, she loved people in proportion to their need of her. There had never been any danger that Alexander would outstrip his father in her affections, and if Rutherford could have understood her quality, he would have realized that he need not be jealous of his son. But it was more than jealousy that influenced his dealings with Alexander, for the boy had been born in a black hour, and to the father's eyes the shadow lay on him so persistently that at last he seemed to have created it. Of the three, only Clara truly understood its genesis, for the circumstances had permanently affected Rutherford's vision, inclining it to obliqueness, and Alexander could remember no life before this one in the old white house.
When Clara had met James Rutherford she was living as companion—that refuge for the penniless woman of her generation—to three ladies who were all at different stages of elderliness and all exacting, but she had not been one of the typical companions of romance; she was not meek and forbearing and tearful, nor of that defiant nature which, in fiction, wins all hearts. She was her sensible and cheerful self; she was sorry for the old ladies, and she enjoyed being kind to them, for she had very strongly that quality of helpfulness which all women are expected to have, and are blamed for not possessing. The old ladies in all their experience had never before had for companion a nice-looking young woman who considered herself their friend, chose their clothes with as much attention as she gave to her own, and had a fund of interesting things to tell them, including the progress of her love affairs.
"Has he made you an offer yet?" one of them said wistfully, with one eye on Clara as a bride, and the other on a lost companion.
"No," Clara answered demurely, hiding the fact that she had not so much as spoken to the dark-faced young man whom she sometimes met in her walks, and whom in a dull hour she had once described with such vivacity and feeling that her hearers were sure she had lost her heart to him; consequently, that the young man must at least have hinted at his devotion, or she could hardly have condescended to love him.
"You mustn't give up hope, my dear. There may be reasons."
"There are," Clara said darkly, and left her old friend in a flutter.
"There are reasons," she told her sisters. "It will all come right in the end."
Clara noticed, with some amusement, that her meetings with the tall young man were growing more and more frequent. When she set out on her morning errands he would often chance to pass the gate, and she came to look for his long figure on her walks, even to think that day unprofitable on which she did not see him. At length he sat opposite to her at church, gazing at her with unhappy eyes throughout the service, and after that she ceased to talk about him, and the old ladies, thinking she suffered, gave her unexpected little presents of sweetmeats or knitted cuffs.
At last and, it may be supposed, out of her ready pity and desire to help, she contrived as he went by to drop a little packet from her muff. It was a very ancient trick to play, she knew, and merriment was lighting her eyes and twitching the corners of her mouth as she stood there in the snow and watched him pounce on the treasure with such an eagerness of service. She was half-ashamed of herself, but wholly amused until she saw his eyes as he returned the parcel. He looked hungry, and the laughter ebbed from her face as, with a strange mixture of horror and elation, she knew that if he really wanted her he could have her.
His courtship was rapid and their engagement short, but its permanence was threatened, for when she learnt that he was idly living on the small income left him by a father who had refused to give him a trade or a profession, she said she would not marry him until he found one.
"But you can't pick one up by the roadside," he explained with justice.
"But how, oh how, did you ever consent to such wickedness?"
"Ah, you never saw my father," he said.
"I'd like to see him now," she answered angrily, but she wasted no energy on regrets. She realized that the acquiring of a profession would entail a loss of time to which neither was willing to submit, and then one night, as she sat over the fire after the old ladies had gone to bed, she remembered an incident which had impressed her girlhood. Driving through a little village once, she had seen, standing back from the road and fronted by a cobbled courtyard, a white-washed inn. There were bay-trees in tubs before the door, and at the side of the house a garden with clipped yews, but, better than all, just beyond the doorway there had stood a man and a woman with a child on her arm. Something in their attitude, something simple and content and elemental, had made the picture unforgettable. Why should not she and Jim have a little inn like that? He had capital, and they both had strength, and theirs should be a model public-house, with good entertainment for man and beast, and a welcome for every traveller. Rutherford met the proposal doubtfully. "Well, I don't know," he said. "I don't know that it's wise." But he went no further, and indeed her enthusiasm must have silenced him. Their inn was to be in some beautiful part of the country where people would like to stay, and it was not to be primarily a place for the sale of liquor, and people should not be encouraged to spend their evenings in hanging over the bar.
"It seems to me," he said drily, "that you'd better sell ginger beer."
"We shall, of course. But it's the visitors I'm counting on, Jim. We'll show that England can produce a good, cheap inn."
They found the place they wanted among the hills and trout streams, and they had not long been there when Clara learnt that her husband drank, not violently, but with incipient ruin.
"I shouldn't do it," he protested, "if I wasn't so near the stuff."
"Why didn't you tell me?" she cried.
"I tried, but I daren't. You wouldn't have married me."
"Yes I should; but I'd never have bought the inn. It must be put up for sale. Write to the agents to-night and swear, if you love me, you'll never touch anything again. We'll get a man to attend to the bar and you'd better see to the garden; it wants digging all over."
This was how she had met her tragedy, but at that time she had good hope of frustrating it. Her husband was rarely out of her sight, and she kept him at hard manual labour without any attempt at concealing her design. And they were both happy. He learnt to trust her, and when desire came heavily upon him he went to her and asked, without shame, for help. That was their safeguard; but it was removed on the night when Alexander was born. In a pitiable state of anxiety Rutherford found his way into the bar and began to drink. His fear fell from him after a glass or two, and, to encourage its departure, he drank on. The barman, who had been drawn to Clara's service from the plough, and was himself a father, tried to persuade him to go away.
"The mistress will be wanting you soon; you'd better be within call."
"You mind your own business, Potts. Potts! Were you always called Potts or did we change your name to match the bar? Potts! Good name that! I'll have some whisky, Potts."
"No, now, really I shouldn't." But for themselves, the place was empty and the good man remonstrated. "Think of the mistress up there, now. You know she wouldn't like it. 'Potts,' she said, 'look after the master for me. Now I trust you,' she said."
"Get out of my way, you fool! I'll help myself."
"For God's sake, hush, man! She'll hear you. Just you go out quietly and sit down in the parlour and cool yourself. Come along, now. We don't want to have trouble to-night."
"Who's having trouble? All quite happy an' lively. Never felt better; and if you don't get out of my way and let me have that drink, I'll—I'll fell you, Potts."
Nothing of this he remembered afterwards, and it seemed to him that he only began to live when he heard the thud of the man's body as it dropped to the floor, the tinkle of a broken glass and the gentle dripping of the liquor that had been in it. He thought it was the blood of Potts that he had spilt, and then from upstairs he heard the voice of Clara crying out from the midst of her pain, "Jim, Jim, what are you doing? Come up here, I want you."
And before he could remember anything but his own distress he had obeyed her and fallen to his knees beside the bed, telling her that Potts was lying on the floor, he believed he had killed Potts.
The nurse, who was both blunt and burly, seized him by the shoulders. "Get out of it this minute," she said, "or you'll be killing someone else."
"No, let him stay," said Clara faintly. "Go and see what's the matter. He'll be quiet."
Rutherford saw with amazement and then with the dreadful beginnings of understanding and remembrance, that there was a new crease in her forehead and her lips were white and thin.
"Clara—Clara," he began.
But she said: "Hush! Don't talk. Just let me hold your hand."
It was strange and terribly revealing to hear her ask for help, and he was more than sobered by the time the nurse returned from bawling over the banisters, "Potts, are you all right?" and getting answer, "Ay, I'm that," in a tone of menace.
"Now, out you go!" she said, and locked the door upon him.
He went, staggering, to the bar, and stared at Potts, who was wiping down the counter. He put a hand to his forehead, for thought was growing dim again.
"I'm not sure," he said, "what happened. Did I—did I——"
"Yes, you did," said Potts, "and if it wasn't for the mistress I'd give you another. You're not fit to live."
"That's true," said Rutherford; "that's perfectly true. I'll go out and think about it."
When he returned, after long wanderings in the dark, he was told he had a son, but he would not look at what he considered the cause of that night's work, and later, when reason had more force with him, he still refused to concern himself with the child, for, at the sight of his small, solemn face and thick, black hair there always arose a mist through which there moved pictures of Potts lying on the floor amidst the broken glass and Clara with that changed, white face. He suffered from an unspeakable shame which was the greater that Clara never reproached him; but, as time wore on, and, following her wishes as well as his, they left the place for this little house among the lonelier hills, his shame became absorbed into a sense of grievance against the child.
"You see," he would say to Clara, almost in triumph, when, in answer to a scowl, Alexander set up a cry, "he hates me!"
"He'd hate me if I looked like you," she replied, with rare sharpness. "If you'd only learn to be honest with yourself, my man, things would be better for us all."
Instead of honesty, he developed a fractious gloom which seldom changed to anything but despair, and if Clara did not lose her courage at this time, it may be that her buoyancy drooped a little. Yet she made him work. There was waste ground behind the house, and, after constant urging and encouragement from Clara, who also found time to ask Heaven to mete adequate punishment on his father, he made it into a garden of which he was proud, and when she saw him working there, with a cleared brow, she felt that, after all, they had not made such a bad thing of their lives.
There remained the problem of Alexander, for the attitude of the menfolk towards each other grew bitterer with the years, and she passed her days in dread of ultimate violence; but it did not do, she found, to live too much in the future, experiencing troubles which a wise optimism might frustrate, and so, following the creatures of the wilds, she had developed those characteristics which were most likely to preserve herself and hers, until, like the willingness of her neighbours, her heroic effort had become a habit.
Early on the Saturday morning when her father was expected to return, Theresa awoke and, quickly flinging off the bedclothes, sat up with a jerk. The busy fingers of the wind were tapping at the pane, calling her to come out and play, and from the bottom of the hill there rose a more imperative summons, the hooting of a steamer making her way out of the docks. It was high tide, and she smiled her pleasure, hugging her knees. Every day that sound was borne up to her on the hill, like a trumpet call to life. From the window of the bedroom which she shared with Grace she could see the ships, and she believed that cry of theirs was to give her greeting or farewell. The steamers spoke for themselves, but the sailing ships borrowed the voices of the tugs that took them down the river and even in the quiet and mystery of night they did not forget her. Lying awake, she would wave her hand to them, and as she stared at the square of dark sky framed in the window, she would fancy she looked upward from the deck of some sea-going ship, saw the sky streaked and crossed by the masts and yards above, or mistily, behind a waving flag of smoke. But that voice of the ships was more than the salute of friends; there were times when she heard it as a call, a command, or a sweet persuasion. It called her into the darkness of the night and the crash of storm, and then, for all she lay snug and safe in bed, she felt the wind buffeting her, tasted the salt on her lips; or, if the night were very still and warm, she thought she sailed under a sky of immeasurable blackness, pricked with stars. She heard the ship swishing through the water, black, too, as though mirroring the sky, heard the creaking sounds among the cordage and the spars, and the orders coming clear and loud into the darkness.
What a morning for going out to sea, with the wind fresh, the air smelling of all clean things, the sunlight gilding the world! Her eyes danced as she watched the clouds sailing past her window, driven by the lusty breeze; these were the boats of the sky—great galleons, little yachts, riding majestically or bobbing gaily across the blue.
She turned her head sharply to look at the sleeper by her side. "Grace!" she said, and shook her. "Grace! Wake up, you lazy thing! It's a fine day."
For answer, Grace's head was rolled from side to side, and her nose buried more deeply in the pillow.
"You're fat!" said Theresa, pricking a soft cheek with her forefinger; "fat, fat, fat!"
She flung herself on her back and looked at the ceiling. Across its rather dirty surface many cracks had spread themselves, and these furnished Theresa with the scene for an epic in which the adventures of a courageous family were described. The cracks represented roads, rushing rivers, and precipitous mountains, according to their shape and size, and all the weary way from the crack that began near the window to the safety of the damp stain by the door, that family had to travel. Each morning she led them a few miles across the waste and there was never a mile without excitement. There were storms at night when tents were blown down on their unhappy heads, and must be put up again with no light for guidance but the reason of a child of ten who alone remained unafraid; there were combined attacks on their camp by wolves and tigers, who seemed quite impervious to climate, when fires were lighted and each member of the party sat with a rifle across her knees; there were dust storms in the desert, and, not less swift and overwhelming, onslaughts by brigands clothed as Arabs and riding horses winged like Pegasus. Precipices must be scaled and swollen rivers crossed, but no life or battle was ever lost by this gallant company. They would reach their destination with little scathe, but so great was Theresa's interest that she could always preserve the necessary illusion and grow hot and cold with fear for them.
This morning she found she could not lose herself in these perils, for the boats were calling her too persistently; moreover, she must husband these adventures if they were to last until the dark mornings came, when the cracks would be invisible and she must rise by candlelight, so she gave Grace a parting thump and sprang out of bed.
As she stood at the window, she felt the delicious cold of the bare boards to her feet and the wind fluttering the frills of her nightgown. Holding her hands to her throat, she looked out on the untidy sloping garden with the old apple-tree at its foot. So close to the garden that, in the autumn, apples were found in its grass, the disused cemetery continued the descent, studded with grey, mossy stones and spreading willows—a place of ghosts—and, as if drawn thither by its eerie neighbourhood, a monumental stone-mason had his yard on the other side of the road at Theresa's right hand, a road running steeply to the busy street that edged the river and the docks. But if Theresa looked from her window, letting her eyes take flight over the river and the shipping and the level fields that lay on the further side, she saw a great stretch of meadow land which sought the clouds. It spread from left to right, for the whole width of her vision, and at night it seemed to stand up like a wall. The land behind that rampart seemed very far away, but not beyond her reach, and she meant to get there—not this morning, for the boats were calling to her, but on some day when spring flowers were appearing in the hedges.
She lowered her eyes to the shining intricacies of the waterways, the wide dock basins, the locks, the river and its arms, all spanned by bridges. She saw the masts of sailing ships rising from the midst of houses, like slender chimneys for these roofs of many colours and varying heights. There was dirty smoke issuing from tugs to throw a mourning veil over the water, there were shouts and whistlings and hootings, low-voiced warnings from the steamers, shrill shrieks of joy. "We're going! Look out!" they grunted, and then, on a cry, "We're free! We're free!" She could stay indoors no longer, and she pulled on her clothes.
When she reached the docks a sailing ship was in the river, following a little tug with a reproving grace, under which she hid her limitations from herself. There were men looking over her side and waving farewell with such attractive foreign gestures that Theresa stood close to the water's edge and gazed, with her hands tightly clasped behind her. The wind acted like a great fan on her hair, stirring it at its roots and flinging its long red fingers all about her head, thrumming, too, on her short skirts, lifting them with a twist, and whipping her tight-stockinged legs. She blinked the hair from her eyes or tossed it back with a movement of the head, and sometimes she held down her dress with strangely modest little hands, but she did all impatiently, worried by the necessity of remembering such things among the sights of these ocean-going ships, foreigners, and authoritative dockmen issuing orders.