Barbara Lynn Part 29

He laughed, glanced up and down the road, and seeing no one, took her hand.

"It's pleasant to meet again after so many years. I came home to see you."

"That was foolishness, Joel," she replied kindly.

"Perhaps! Through folly we get wisdom! Ah, here we are near our trysting-place. Come and look at it, Lucy, for old time's sake."

They were pa.s.sing the little track, almost effaced now by ferns and moss, which led to the dell, where they had spent so many joyous hours.

He took her arm, and with a movement that was more of will than muscle, drew her in that direction.

His face and eyes were waking with the old love. He had wondered if it would stir again when he saw her. Now he knew that the intervening years had only fallen like dead leaves upon it; that underneath, it lay green and ready to burst into leaf, when they should be swept away.

The knowledge that she was Peter's wife angered him, but did not make him pause to restrain his feelings.

Joel's was an illogical mind--illogical by nature as well as training.

He had never been able to see the true relation of events to one another, or follow a straight course without deviating from it down some byway. He strayed from the path, led by fancies instead of principles; rarely did he consult reason, or entertain reflection, or employ himself by taking a survey of the land through which he was travelling. He fell into mora.s.ses, which foresight would have shown him; he came to barriers which he could not climb, though the experience of wise men had set up a sign-post, pointing out the way, but he would not stop to read it; he reached a desert, where no water was, because he got tired of following the pilgrim's track. Yet he had always meant to do right; his failures had caused him regret.

When he brought Lucy to the dell, he stood for a moment gazing at her with a searching look. She was beautiful and desirable. But she seemed to be cold. He would stir her heart's depths and bring forgotten things to the surface. He would make tumult where there was calm.

"Lucy," he said, "why didn't you wait for me?"

"Don't let us rake up the past," she replied, her limbs beginning to tremble, for she remembered that she was Peter's wife. "There's nought to be got but ashes."

He did not heed her.

"Listen," he said, bringing his head to a level with hers; "listen and I'll tell you what life has been to me since we last met in this place.

When I went into the wilderness I took with me the thought of you. I knew that I had done you wrong, but it was done without intention, and I said to myself, she will forgive, for she loves me. So I worked hard--men have to work hard out yonder, when they go seeking their fortunes. I suffered hunger and thirst, but counted it sweet for your sake. I sweated in the sun and shivered in the snow for your sake.

There's nothing a man can do for the woman he loves, save die for her, that I haven't done for you."

He drew her nearer to him, and she did not resist. She had never been able to resist the fascination of this man, who looked at her with his handsome face aglow with a pa.s.sion, that Peter had never shown.

"The first bit of gold I found," he continued, "I kept to make your wedding-ring. I tied it up in a handkerchief, and wore it over my heart day and night. I kept it even when I was down in my luck. But it reminded me of you, you, among the fells and dales of the home-country, waiting and longing for me. It was a foolish dream, I know. Then fortune smiled. Life looked all rose-colour, till one day I got your letter. If ever a man had climbed high with hopes, Lucy, I was that man, and if ever a man came sliding down at one blow, I was that man."

Lucy's self-possession began to give way. She might have justified her own actions, might have poured resentment and wrath upon him. She did none of these things.

"Oh, Joel," she cried, "life is very hard and bitter. But we must make the best of it."

She made an effort to go away, before her feelings betrayed her into any deeper revelations than she had a right to make. But he caught and kissed her. She struggled to free herself, but his arms were like steel bands. If Peter had ever kissed her thus she might have become his as truly in heart as she was in name. But Peter's kisses, though kind, did not thrill her. He never swept her off her feet in the flood of an overmastering emotion. He was always quiet and self-controlled, while she loved to feel as though a stormy sea were beating upon her bosom.

She did not think that his love might be more enduring than that which could rise like a tempest, but as suddenly fall again.

For Joel and Lucy, just now, five years were blotted out, five years of separation and misunderstanding. Duty, too, was swept into oblivion by their reckless hands. Heedlessly they set out in an unsound boat upon a dangerous sea, and forgot the depths below, the yawning lips of the gulf which would suck them down sooner or later to everlasting regret.

"You are mine, Lucy," whispered Joel, "you are mine. I always knew you were."

For a few minutes she lay soothed within the shelter of his arms. Then she tore herself away. Without a word, but with a scared face, she fled back through the forest to her home. There she flung herself down by a chair and wept.

She remembered that her great-grandmother would be expecting her, but she dared not confront those eagle eyes in her present state of mind.

The world had taken on a darker hue since she had gone out but a little while ago. Yesterday was grey, but it had pa.s.sed serenely. To-day clouds were rolling up, and she heard the mutter of approaching thunder.

Where was peace, that she might find it? Only in resignation. Where was happiness, that she might s.n.a.t.c.h at it? Only in devotion to duty. Where could she turn for safety? She felt that she was swinging over an abyss.

There was safety with Peter. But resignation was a hard bed. Duty had lost its savour. And she was afraid of Peter now, for she knew that she had wronged him.

Joel remained in the dell for a while after Lucy had left him. His idyll had become a tragedy. His vision was defiled. He wondered if he should go away now, and never return. He wanted to keep Lucy as he had always thought of her--sweet, pure, dream-like. He could not do that and have her. He meant to have her. He would sacrifice his ideals to have her.

How he would bring it to pa.s.s he did not know, but some time the way would open out. Had she not said that she loved him?

He burned with hatred towards Peter, towards the man who had circ.u.mvented him. What use was his wealth to him if he must live alone, deprived of the one thing he most wanted to have?

He might have remained there for a long time, struggling with his good and evil natures, but he was disturbed by the sudden entrance of the bear and Jake into his solitude. The beast had a particular affection for the pool in the dell, and preferred it to all others for its daily bath.

But no sooner did it set eyes on Joel, than it began to growl and bristle up with anger.

"Hulloa, Master Joel, back again to the dale," cried Jake.

"Back again," he replied with a.s.sumed cheerfulness. "But it seems as though I've found an enemy waiting for me."

The rat-catcher tightened his hand on the chain.

"Big Ben doesn't often show his teeth. Maybe you'd better hook it, master; seems as though he'd got a memory, eh?"

Joel laughed, but took the wiser part of withdrawing before the creature had strung up its ponderous limbs to deal him a blow, which would have ended his temptations for that day and many days to follow.

CHAPTER XVII

THE WRESTLING MATCH

Joel looked in at Greystones on his way to the Shepherds' Meet. He would rather have pa.s.sed the house by, for he was in no mood to talk to Mistress Lynn, but he did not like to seem discourteous to one who had been as kind to him as she had been.

"Why, Joel, man," she exclaimed, "thee's grown handsomer than ever. Thee always was a bonny lad, but thee'd better have a care now, or all the la.s.ses will be making sheeps-eyes at thee up hill and down dale."

"You look very well," said Barbara.

He glanced from the old woman to her great-granddaughter, and smiled, throwing off the impatience that he felt with an effort.

"It's you who have grown handsomer, not I, Mistress Lynn," he replied.

"You look nearly as young as Barbara. If you put that grand nightcap you're wearing on her head, she'd be the image of you, and you of her."

"Hoots-toots! and me going on a hundred!" She shook her finger at him.

"I's too old to have my senses turned with such babblement. I was like Barbara once, but not in your day, my lad. It's to her you should be paying your compliments, not to her great-granny. Your grandfather gave me all I ever wanted."

She made him sit down by the four-poster, with his face to the windows, so that she could see him well.

"I couldn't pay Barbara a greater compliment," he said smoothly, yet with a glimmer of amus.e.m.e.nt in his eyes, for he saw the drift of her mind, "than by likening her to you. You and she are the handsomest, bonniest pair that I've set sight on since I last saw you both."