Barbara Lynn Part 2

The eastern clouds were rosy with the rays of the rising sun when Lucy stole downstairs and opened the kitchen door. The four-poster stood with its curtains closed like an Arab's tent in lonely gloom. The girl shivered as she looked at it. The thought of the old woman lying within took all the brightness from her eyes and the lightness from her step.

She was afraid of her great-grandmother as of something unknown. What right had anyone so old to be still among the living? Her place was with the dead, with the men and women whose names had become a faint memory in the dale, but who were to her personalities, that she had touched and handled. Lucy's mother had died when she was a baby, and the grim old figure, that sometimes rocked her cradle, had filled her infant mind with fear. Now that she had grown to womanhood the fear remained, though she hid it under a gay and careless demeanour. Still, the shadow of her great-grandmother fell like a blight on Lucy's life.

She tiptoed to the fireplace and soon had the smouldering turf in a glow. Then, opening the outer door and stepping out into the sunlight, she filled the kettle at the spring. It was a fair morning. The chorus of birds had ceased and busy feathered things were marketing among the sprouting green of the beck-side. Far away up the dale she saw the red cows move, and knew that Barbara was somewhere near, driving them to new pastures. Thundergay was still swathed with smokelike mists, rolling upwards in the breeze, and gradually disclosing grey precipices, and slatey screes, with here and there patches of emerald, where the young ferns were beginning to spring, and higher up, wide fields of snow. Lucy paused to pluck a cl.u.s.ter of primroses, and place them in her hair. But she was startled by a cough from a stunted tree near. Among its knarled roots crouched a little figure, wrapped in a sack to keep itself warm.

"Oh, it's you, Jan!" said Lucy. "I thought you were a sheep coughing.

You should have stayed in bed to-day and taken a rest."

The creature raised a pair of watery eyes to her face, then dropped them.

"I's always gotten up at dawn," was the reply.

"But it's so cold!"

Again the pale eyes were raised and dropped.

"Verra cold, la.s.s."

"You must come to the kitchen."

"Nay."

Lucy laid her fingers upon his withered hand.

"Come and get warm," she entreated. "I've got such a grand fire burning."

The old man made no reply, but kept his gaze upon her slender fingers.

At last his voice came slowly, as though he were drawing up something from the dark well of his memory.

"Onced I seed a hand like yourn, onced, long ago. I's forgotten when, but I minds the hand."

"Come," said Lucy.

He rose painfully and crawled by her side. But at the kitchen door he held back.

"Nay," he repeated.

"Why?"

"I must work."

"Rubbish," said Lucy scornfully, and again she laid her hand upon his.

"You've been working all your life, you can have a rest now. Let the new hind--Tom, do what's to be done."

The old man stared anew at her fingers.

"I minds where I saw that hand," he said, "it was outside a white winding sheet ... long ago."

Lucy tried to draw him into the kitchen, but he was obstinate, and afraid of Mistress Lynn.

"I'll go and feed the chickens," he mumbled, and shuffled away round the end of the house.

Lucy looked after him sadly, then returned to her work. As she was shaking the sheepskin rug a coin fell out of it and lay glittering upon the ground. Picking it up with an exclamation of surprise, she turned it over and over. It was a sovereign. For some minutes she stood with her brows knit and her blue eyes darkening as thought took shape. The coin was her great-grandmother's, there could be no doubt of it. Lucy had always had suspicions about the locked cupboard of the bridewain, which she had never seen opened. Now she knew something was hidden there--money most likely, perhaps many more coins like the one she had found, perhaps bags of them. If one could be lost without a hue and cry being raised for it, they must be as plentiful as blackberries.

What should she do? Should she keep it? Was it not her due, considering the way she worked and yet received no recompense? The temptation to put the coin in her pocket was strong, and she thought longingly of the many pretty things it would buy. Then she spurned the suggestion. She remembered Jan Straw, whose life had been bought for a few pounds and a sup of porridge; she saw Barbara wearing out her strong young life upon the fells; she thought of herself, drudging from daylight to day-darkening. The bitterness of it set her teeth on edge. She looked again at the yellow coin, and it seemed to have taken upon it a tinge of blood.

Then the curtain rings of the bed jingled, and turning round, she saw that her great-grandmother was sitting up, looking at her.

Lucy might fear the old woman, but she was not lacking in courage when the moment called for it. She balanced the coin upon her thumb-nail, spun it into the air, and caught it as it fell.

"See what I've found," she said.

Mistress Lynn stared at the shining thing, lying on the girl's palm.

"Where didst get it?" she asked sharply.

"At the end of the rainbow."

"Rainbow! fiddlesticks! Give it to me."

Lucy dropped the coin into the outstretched hand without a word. But she stood looking down, her eyes fierce and more like the old woman's than Barbara's were, although in face and figure there was no other resemblance.

"Where didst get it?" again asked Mistress Lynn.

"It fell out of the rug."

"Ah! I sold some sheep to a man from the South yesterday. I thought he had paid me short money--they're such cheats in the South! Well, well, it must have dropped out of his hand. Thee shall have a shilling come Good Friday, Lucy."

"A shilling!" Lucy was scornful, "a shilling!"

Mistress Lynn looked narrowly at her great-granddaughter. Between the girl and her little love was lost.

"What ails thee at a shilling? It's over much when I come to think of it. Thee shall have sixpence. That's enough for a young la.s.s to spend on fallals."

"1 wonder at you, I wonder at you, great-grandmother," exclaimed Lucy.

"I wonder at you h.o.a.rding up the money, and you so old."

"Wouldst like to see me play ducks and drakes with it in the beck?"

Lucy tossed her head impatiently.

"Why do you keep Barbara and me penniless?" she asked.

"I feed you well and clothe you warm--what more dost need?"

"Barbara," began Lucy, but the old woman interrupted her.

"What's Barbara complaining about?"