Barbara Lynn Part 19

CHAPTER XI

THE BACK END

Lucy sat on the bridge that spanned the beck just above the farm. The water had diminished to a thin stream, trickling between the stones; the pools were nearly empty; the moss on the rocks was yellow instead of green. All things looked parched; even the marshes were dry. The summer had been as nearly rainless as a summer can be among the dales and fells.

Lucy's eyes were fixed upon the low grey house before her. The weeds, which grew between its rough slates, were dead; the feathery gra.s.ses, that found congenial crannies in the walls, drooped; the garden--a narrow patch between the door and the beck--was already seared by the hand of autumn.

But that which Lucy's eyes beheld was not the Greystones of to-day, gilded by the westering sun, but the Greystones of the days to come, swept by the rain, beaten by winds, or wreathed round and round by the whirling white sheets of a snow-storm.

In a few weeks' time winter would be here; long, wild nights would follow short, wild days; the sun would be blotted out, or rise above the mountain rampart for a few hours, roll across the dale like a red wheel, and plunge down behind another mountain rampart amid lurid mists, or smoky clouds.

Her mind dwelt upon this picture with dread. She told herself that she could not pa.s.s another winter at Greystones, cooped up with the fearsome old woman, her great-grandmother. She would lose her wits if she did, or die; at any rate, lose her youth. Youth was not so much a matter of a few years as of happiness--the happy were always young, the sad old long before their time.

As Lucy sat on the bridge this fair autumn evening, herself as fair as a little rosy cloud floating overhead, although she was outwardly calm and unoccupied, she was listening, not with the best of grace, to two voices talking in her own soul. One had been trying to make itself heard for days, nay, weeks; but she would pay no heed to it. Now it refused to be stifled any longer.

"You are doing wrong," said this better self, but the other part of her vehemently protested innocence.

Ever since Peter Fleming had returned to High Fold Lucy's att.i.tude towards life had changed. She had not been happier, but she had been less willing to suffer with resignation. She had looked facts in the face. She considered Joel's departure and the possibility of his ever returning; would she not be grey-haired by then? Fortunes were not made in a day. She weighed her own chances of escape from a life that she detested. There was only one. So she made up her mind that sorrow should not fall upon her like a blighting sickness, take the roses out of her cheeks, the light from her eyes, the hope from her heart. She refused to be thrust into darkness. If happiness was not bestowed upon her as a gift, she would go out and seek it.

Yet she was ill at ease--beset by fears, troubled by conscience.

She rose from her seat upon the bridge and looked down the dale to Forest Hall. Her eyes had lost their sweetness and were hard, her lips were compressed.

She was pa.s.sionately wishing that Joel had not gone away, but stayed at home and made the best of his luck. But as he had gone, why had he not been kinder? The summer was nearly over, winter was at hand, and he had only written once--a letter so cold that it might have been read from the housetops, and even the rooks flying home would have got as much satisfaction out of it as she. A loving word from him would have brought summer back to her. She would have made shift to put up with her present existence. She would have waited till fortune had smiled upon him. If it had kept a sullen face, she would have given him cheer and hope. But he had forgotten her. She told herself this again and again making a reason out of it for her own actions. She would forget, too, and find someone else to spend her affection upon.

She had determined one thing--she would remain no longer than she must at Greystones. She hated it. She hated the loneliness, the crags that overhung the house, the snow, and the winds, and the rain. She hated her great-grandmother. So hardened had she become by that which she had suffered that she was not afraid to express her real feelings to herself. She would cease to fetch and carry for the old woman, she would refuse to be a drudge. She would be happy before she was too old to enjoy happiness.

She turned away from gazing down the dale as though she had fixed her determination, but her better self would not let her be. It insisted that happiness was a state of the soul and she could not win it until hers was at rest.

"I am doing no wrong," she argued, "nothing that hundreds of women do not do. I am lonely, I seek companionship. I am sad, I seek happiness. I want sympathy, so I give it."

But, in spite of her protestations, her endeavour to throw a cloak over the real meaning of her actions, she was conscious of a certain lowering of her ideals. She was no longer the innocent girl she had been a few months ago.

"You are playing a game to win a man's heart," said her better self.

"You are wiling him by arts and ways that only a woman can use. You know that men are attracted, like children, by that which is beautiful and looks good, so you lay yourself out to please his eyes, and win his love."

Lucy moved restlessly from one side of the bridge to the other, as though by such means she could get away from the troublesome voice.

Was it true? she asked herself. Was she acting a part? She liked Peter very much; she felt safe with him; she meant to marry him if it lay in her power to do so; but did she love him? Was she not still in love with Joel? In spite of all that had happened his features and form were constantly in her mind's eye. He influenced her still; she could not shake off the fascination that he had exerted over her from the beginning of their courtship. Lucy rose. The communion of herself with herself had brought her no satisfaction.

Listlessly she wandered down the dale. She wanted to do that which was right, but many conflicting emotions swayed her. Hurt affection, fear of the future, wish for change, out-weighed other and better desires.

She strolled on. The sun had set, but a mellow light filled the aisles of Cringel Forest. Without conscious direction her feet took her to the dell, where Joel and she had spent many a twilight hour. She peered in, standing on the banks above. How cool and green it looked! The holly screen was coralled with berries, the mosses were luxuriant, the pool gleamed like a dark jewel. Then the past rushed back upon her--the months of separation shrivelled up; it seemed to be but yesterday that she had met Joel there.

Life came to a standstill. She did not cry out, or fling herself upon the ground, or flee from the haunted spot. She remained peering through the bushes, her eyes set wide, and her lids rigid. She was seeing a vision of Joel Hart in her mind's eye. The place was full of him. The pool had many a time reflected his features, he used to sit upon that stone, lean against yonder tree. The harebells were in bloom when he and she were last here--still two or three frail flowers hung fading upon their stems.

A footstep started her. So vivid was her impression of his presence, that she half expected to hear him call, or see him rise up out of the shadows. The blood surged through her veins, her heart beat loudly, her breath came hurriedly.

But it was only Peter Fleming that burst through the haunted silence--plain-featured Peter Fleming and his big brown bear. She drew further among the bushes, not wishing to be seen. The beast lumbered down to the pool, splashed about in it, greatly to the delight of its master; and, having churned up the mud, robbed the place of its magic, and exorcised the vision, man and brute went away.

Lucy returned to Greystones as troubled as she had left it.

The first few weeks after Peter's return home had been spent by him in schooling his heart to accept his present life cheerfully. He never showed a desponding frame of mind to any one but Lucy, and only to her, because she had--as it were--enticed him into unusual confidences by her fair face and gentle sympathy. But his was not a nature to whine over that which it could not have, and before long he got back--outwardly, at any rate--his jovial temper. The villagers found him the same gay fellow, ready to wrestle with them on the green when the day's work was done; the lads and la.s.ses teased him about his lap dog, Big Ben, the bear; the children were more certain than ever that lollipops would be their daily fare, when school began after the harvest was over.

Peter pa.s.sed a few days cutting down the trees round the school-cottage.

He made a clearing where the sun could look through, and he dug a flower-bed under the window. Soon after day-break each morning, he left the mill, swung up the village street past the church and entered the forest. He spent many hours there, his eyes and ears alert to all the wondrous life going on in the sweet green shade. Hares and rabbits, water-rats and weasels scurried away before his approaching footsteps, then stopped to look at him from a fern, or a tree-trunk, or a moss-grown stone. Squirrels leaped among the boughs overhead, and threw empty nuts down, and birds, less shy, and more mercenary, scavenged in the drifts of last year's leaves, not heeding him at all. Often he pa.s.sed many hours with Timothy Hadwin, discoursing of things, that lie at the roots of human development. He laughingly said that he was always ready for an excuse to fling himself upon the warm, sweet-smelling earth, and look at the sky, which hung over the tree-tops like a blue china cup. But he was not idle. He read books of Theology and books on Philosophy in the little white-washed parlour of the school-house. He read sincerely, even with ardour, but ever came to the same conclusion that the priesthood was not his vocation.

Made restless and impatient by unavailing study, he at length flung his books aside, turned to the free breezy life of the fells, and went fishing. Swirtle Tarn, and all the mountain streams, saw his grey clad figure through the dusks of early morning and night. Neither rain nor heat could keep him at home. He was out from sunrise to sunset, his skin burnt brown as an Autumn leaf, and his hair bleached to the colour of wind-blown bent.

Sometimes he saw Barbara, her figure outlined against the sky; or he spied her climbing like a goat up the gaunt face of Thundergay; or he caught the light glancing from her reaping hook as she cut bracken for the cows' winter bedding; and once, when the sun was level with the hills, a giant shadow of horse and woman fell upon him, and she pa.s.sed close by, leading home the peats.

Peter did not often have speech with Barbara. He did not seek her, for his mind was preoccupied with his own concerns, and she did not cross his path. He saw Lucy much oftener, but he was too open and honest to imagine that their frequent meetings were planned by the brain that lay behind such blue and innocent eyes.

Thus the summer died upon the hills.

Harvesting, stacking turf, and bringing sheep from the highest pastures made the "back end" busy for the fell folk. A spirit of good fellowship inspired them, and they helped each other, gathering first at this farm, then at that, toiling through the heat of the day and feasting at night; dancing the harvest moon up into the sky, or out of it--as the case might be. No lack of willing workers came to Greystones, and Mistress Lynn indulged her pent-up generosity on this occasion, providing liberal ale, bread, and cheese for her guests.

On the night of the kern supper, the harvesters brought home the kern baby in triumph to Greystones. The kern baby was made of the last cut of corn, platted into some semblance of the human figure, its head stuffed with a red apple. They hung it up on the kitchen wall, near the four-poster, where it would remain until the end of the year, when the best cow would get the corn and Jan Straw the apple.

For half a century the kern apple had been Jan's meed on Christmas morning. He took it to the kirk-garth, and laid it on the grave of "her o' the white fingers." During the night some wild creature came out of the forest and ate it up, but he never knew, for the churchyard was too holy a place to be disturbed by many pilgrimages. He had an idea that the apples were all garnered up somewhere, watched over by an angel, and that he would find them again, hereafter, in a golden heap.

The weather continued summerlike; the bracken grew taller and taller in the moister places of the dale until it stood as high as Lucy's shoulder.

"We'll have to pay for this by and by," said Mistress Lynn.

One morning a cloud hung over Thundergay. The next day the sky was overcast, the air oppressive, and faint thunder rolled, like the booming of great waves on a distant sh.o.r.e.

"Didst ever have weather like this before?" asked Barbara.

"Aye, long ago." The old woman laid down her knitting needles and told the story of that time, with the awe of one who had heard the flocks calling upon the hills night and day for water--a sound which lingers in human ears for ever.

"The ground cracked like an overbaked pot," she said. "The becks ran dry and Swirtle Tarn shrank till it was little better than a farm-yard puddle."

Barbara went out. She took the cattle track to the cave where she and the hind gathered the sheep from Thundergay. All through the hot oppressive hours they toiled, and by the afternoon the flocks were huddled upon the slopes above Swirtle Tarn, watching with frightened eyes the flashes of light, that lit up the gathering darkness. Then the hind left her to drive in the cattle.

Barbara was the only human being in that gloomy place. And she was the only living thing that was not afraid. The moor fowl called restlessly to each other, flew hither and thither, or hid themselves among the ling. A hare, crossing a strip of fern-clad slope, raised its head to sniff suspiciously, when it shot away, swift as an arrow.

At Greystones Lucy sat by the open door spinning. She dreaded a thunderstorm as something supernatural. She would rather have been with Barbara at Ketel's Parlour, than alone, here, with the old woman.

She lifted her eyes again and again to look at the mountain round which the blackest clouds were gathered. It seemed to draw nearer, until it stood like a black blot just beyond the barn. Then she got up and shut the door.

Mistress Lynn watched the girl with keen eyes. She had noticed that Lucy's face of late had regained its colour. But there was a hard expression upon it, and her speech came slower and less gaily than of old. The old woman knew the meaning of it. She could see into Lucy's mind almost as easily as if it were laid open for her inspection.

The daylight struggled and died; a grey unearthly gloom came on all things, a stillness as of death.