Barbara Lynn Part 30

"Get away with you, Master Joel; you've got far too sly a tongue for simple folk like the la.s.sie and me."

He stayed at Greystones for half-an-hour, talking idly, and looking round the kitchen with very mingled feelings. It seemed to be just as it was the last time he had been there five years ago. Nothing was altered.

The great oak table stood under the transom windows, the bridewain near the bed; he was sure that the fire had never been allowed to die out; and hams and three whole sheep hung curing in the chimney as he remembered they used to do. His eyes rested upon the clock. Once he had listened to it striking the hour of midnight under unhappy circ.u.mstances. Now he listened to it striking the hour of noon, under other circ.u.mstances, not less unhappy.

It was only twelve o'clock! He had arrived at day-break in a mood partaking more of resignation than disappointment, and already he had roused the sleeping dogs of his nature. They were in full cry after forbidden sport. He felt that he could sit no longer talking commonplaces to the old woman, and rose.

"What, off already!" she said.

"I'm going to the Meet. Most of my old friends will be there, and it's too good an opportunity of seeing them all to be lost. I'll come in again on my way back. Isn't Barbara going?"

"She's been and returned. Barbara's a good la.s.s and looks after her old great-granny! The Lord will bless her!"

The girl walked with him to the garden gate, told him that Peter had promised to wrestle, and that he would be in time for the games if he hurried; then she came back to the kitchen, meditatively.

The misty morning had blossomed out into a fine noon. A few showers had fallen, but the sun glanced through them, and they were not heavy enough to damp the spirits of men used to bitter winds and merciless rains.

The patch of flat ground about the Shepherds' Rest thronged with life.

Sheep, dogs, and human voices, both male and female, for the wives and daughters gathered to see the games, added to the clamour of a wild stream that rushed through the pa.s.s, below the inn. Above and all around, the grey crags and wide sweeps of heather and bracken were wrapped in sombre silence, save when a pair of herons flew screaming by to their feeding-ground on some distant tarn.

When Joel Hart came down the defile he halted for a moment to view the animated scene below him. He was drawn towards it, yet repulsed. The sight of so many well-known figures, after five years' wandering among strangers, quickened his blood. Yet between them and him the thought of Lucy flashed. He wished that he had not come, but returned to Forest Hall, where he could have indulged his feelings for her in undisturbed retreat; then, again, he was glad that he had come, for he wanted to distract his mind from the still small voice of conscience which would not let him be.

His meditation had an abrupt end. Someone saw him, and his old friends--those wild young men with whom he had wasted his substance in the past--carried him off to the inn, where he ordered drinks all round.

A reckless mood came over him. He thrust the vision of Lucy into a corner, and, with a laugh that was forced, yet strove to be genial, he entered into the spirit of the crowd, which was bent on extracting out of the next few hours as much pleasure as every man could hold.

His first impulse was to avoid Peter, yet, turn where he would, the quiet grey eyes of his rival--so he had come to regard him--seemed to meet his own.

Peter knew of Lucy's early love for Joel--though she had only spoken of it once, and that was shortly after their marriage--but he was free from the suspicion, which is the bane of little minds, so he greeted the newcomer frankly and calmly, unaware of the tumult which the sight of him had roused.

Joel flung back his head with a careless gesture. In his heart of hearts he would like to have knocked Peter down. Was not Peter his supplanter?

Had he not, while pretending to be his friend, lured Lucy from him? But he swept his hand across his face, and with it obliterated the hatred of his glance, for he had no desire that it should betray him.

"You're getting stout, Fleming," he said, "stout and contented-looking, as befits a married man."

"Portly, eh?" replied Peter. "Yes, I sit too much."

"Thee should whickam-whackam, spickam-s.p.a.ckam more," said a young shepherd standing by. "Old Schoolie Satherwaite had arms like a crowbar, and o' with sugaring the cane. 'It's a grand receipt,' he used to say, 'a grand receipt for keeping the muscles in trim.'"

"He kept more than his muscles in trim," answered another, "for he trimmed our hides to some purpose. If he couldn't birch for aught, he birched for nought. I mind the day he called Jerry Langdale yonder into the middle of the floor, and, 'Jerry,' says he, 'I'm going to larrop you.' 'I's done nowt amiss,' says Jerry, as pert as you please. 'Nowt amiss,' says Schoolie, 'Good G.o.d, that's unnatural. I'll have to bensal the natural man back intil you, and so circ.u.mvent the deevil' Jerry got such a warming that it kept the frost out for many a day."

"Peter's over-gentlemanly with the rascals," said one.

"Peter can use the rod when he likes," replied another, nudging Fleming in the ribs. "I heard tell how you spanked Jake's Joie, and o' for telling a lie. Joie's mother told me that he took his porridge standing for a week after, and he's been a truthfuller lad ever since."

Peter pulled out his watch.

"Time is running on, lads," he said. "I'd better go and get ready to wrestle, or you'll give me no credit for having kept my muscles in trim with switching the bairns."

Joel was left with his own particular friends. They were not much liked by the shepherds, for they gave themselves airs; but they spent their money freely, and were treated with a certain amount of good-humour and respect.

Joel Hart was a lucky dog, they said, to go away and come back after five years a rich man. They had trudged along the same old paths, but not one of them had managed to find the goose that lays the golden eggs.

There was not much wealth to be got out of the dales and fells. They had half a mind to try their fortunes overseas. They would have no misgivings, but most of them had married a wife. Joel was a wise man not to tie himself to a woman's ap.r.o.n-strings before he went away. Now he had come home, of course he would marry, and rear a progeny to make ducks and drakes of his money. That was always the way of it. Would he stay now he had come back? or would they find him gone again some fine morning?

Joel unbent under the combined effects of home-brewed ale, and lively companionship. He did not know if he would remain at Forest Hall. When he was out in the wilds he used to think his home the most beautiful spot on the earth, but he was not sure that he might not soon grow tired of it now, after the life he had been leading. He had no intention of taking a wife unless they could show him a la.s.s that would cap his fancy.

But whether he stayed or not, he was glad to be back among his own folk again. Out in the wilderness he had often longed for a sight of a familiar face, and the sound of the Northern tongue. His arrival was most opportune, for he would have been sorry to miss the Shepherds'

Meet.

Six years ago they had had a great time--did they remember? John Wheeler, the champion wrestler, had come, and given the native talent high praise. He had shown some of them--himself for one, and Peter Fleming for another--a few tricks. Wheeler dead since then! Ah! that was a pity! He was one of the few champions who belonged to the good old Westmorland stock.

"Out at the gold diggings," Joel continued, "there were two or three men who could wrestle. We often had a bout of an evening in front of the drinking booth."

"Wrestle now," said one. "There's your old friend Peter Fleming longing to try a fall with you, I don't doubt. Come along, man. No shaking of your head now. Lord! That's a good idea. We've not seen any decent wrestling since you went away."

Joel was carried off, making half-hearted protests. His mind was full of confused thoughts. He was gratified at the manner in which his old friends had received him; he felt a return of the reckless spirit that had always awakened in their company; moreover, he would like to throw Peter. He must double up that strong figure in ignominy; he must pay back old scores, and new ones also. Though Fleming was more muscular than he, yet his was the greater quickness and subtlety of action. He would come off victor.

He thought of Lucy, and emotion again rushed through his brain like a stream in spate, carrying reason before it.

But when he entered the ring he felt cool. He had a purpose to fulfil, and this gave him the full command of his senses. He knew now that, through the years of his absence, he had been moved with a vague antipathy towards this man. Their old friendship had been but a veil drawn over the blind face of hate. From the beginning they had been doomed to circ.u.mvent one another. Peter had circ.u.mvented him by marrying Lucy; the time had arrived for him to overcome Peter.

That the occasion for wiping out the score was only a wrestling-match in a mountain pa.s.s did not take away from its significance. To the onlookers it was but a trial of strength and cunning; to Joel it had a deep human meaning. Not as a friendly rival did he now confront his antagonist, but as an embodied vengeance, determined to mark upon his adversary the humiliation which he had received at the other's hands.

Joel got strength, far beyond his physical powers, through the intensity of his pa.s.sion. It was a spiritual strength, derived from a spiritual source, though not from the well of light. It bubbled up in a dark region where lost souls come to drink, and those who have wandered from the right path to seek forbidden things.

Peter confronted Joel with a gay laugh, unconscious of the conditions under which they were to wrestle. Peter played the game for the game's sake, and though he was keen to acquit himself worthily, yet he could take a fall, and think no worse of himself or like his conqueror less for it.

But now, as he and Joel swayed together with their hands locked behind each other's backs, he became aware of something unusual in the struggle. He could not have defined what it was, yet of its presence and force he had no doubt. Its effect upon himself was annoying. His good-humour left him. Over his mind came a chilling influence. He tried to shake it off, but in vain. He felt sure that he was wrestling for more than the barren triumph of muscle over muscle, but for what?

Had it not been for the strength which his feelings gave him, Joel would soon have measured a fall. As it was he exerted a force like that of a glacier, not swift, but slow, ever driven on by the sullen weight behind it, for Joel's hate was cold, not hot; callous not furious.

Peter's anger increased. He felt that he had been entrapped into a combat which he would have scorned had he known. The honest wrestling of the dalesfolk was being lowered to serve the purposes of personal ill-will. He could not withdraw honourably--no rule had been infringed--yet he loathed the stake for which they struggled. His spirit disdained the thought of heating itself in a common brawl. He had not the inclination, even if he had had the time, to wonder at the reason for Joel's att.i.tude towards himself. When two men are at grips with each other, there is little opportunity for reflection or philosophising.

Thoughts that do come, come like pictures flashed upon a screen, and are switched away in a moment, leaving behind a vague impression of their significance.

Before long the bystanders began to realise that in the wrestling of Peter and Joel there was an unusual element. At first they showed their interest without restraint, but, as the struggle grew keener, though neither had the mastery, feeling ran too strongly for much sound. A sudden shout, a long-drawn breath, a murmur that broke off abruptly, eyes which would not suffer the lids to blink, and hands that gripped the hurdles as though they clung for life, were the measure of their excitement. Those gathered round the ring were thrilled by such pa.s.sions as must have swayed men at a gladiatorial show, when men fought for their lives.

The wrestlers grew heated; their bodies smoked; their lips curled back from their teeth; their eyes were bright. The spirit of the savage still sleeps in every man. In Peter it began to awaken, roused by the clutch of Joel's hands. The refinements of civilisation were in danger of falling away from him, and leaving him a creature of brute force, whose one idea was to bear down his enemy with cunning and superior strength.

But he drew himself together; he had never lost control of his nature, and he would not do so now. Amid the ferment of his impulses he strove to be calm, to be resistless yet not fierce, to overcome, but without anger.

The feeling of the spectators was intensified, as they saw the two figures become motionless, though the veins on their arms stood up like cords, and their bodies were bent in such a manner as showed the straining of the great muscles of their backs and shoulders. Two figures modelled in clay they might have been, instead of two struggling forces.

Neither would give in. Their b.r.e.a.s.t.s laboured with painful breathing, the breath whistled as it came and went. Down their brows poured the sweat, making their faces shine in the yellow light of the November sun.

Their hair was clotted, their shirts were drenched as though they had been dipped in the beck.

Peter felt his head grow dizzy. He thought that his temples would burst with the hammering of his blood. The sun got into his eyes and dazzled them, and, though he managed to shift his position, the glitter of it had already filled his brain.

He seemed to catch a vision of Lucy, sitting quietly at home. He wondered if she would ever come to know of the fierce battle fought for her sake. Apart from his direct consciousness, his mind had gone on working, and reached the conclusion that Joel's madness sprang out of his love for her.

The day was drawing to a close. Clouds were hurrying up from the south-west, and reflecting a lurid glow down into the pa.s.s. Soon there would be rain and night.