Barbara Lynn Part 38

"A green and blooming time will surely come," he replied quickly. "It's coming now. I can't let you go, Lucy. It's no use pretending that I mean to let you go. We must twine together...." His looks began to get wild and his voice shook as though he were losing control of himself again.

"You know the song:

'Out of her bosom there grew a red rose And out of her lover's a briar, a briar....'

But I'm talking nonsense, and frightening you."

A scared look came into her eyes. The afternoon was darkening, and it was high time that she should be getting home, if she did not want to be benighted upon the fells. She might lose her way unless she reached the Robber's Rake before dusk.

"Good-bye, Joel," she said, her voice trembling, not only with the emotion that the words called up--for she knew that whatever more was said, good-bye must be the last word uttered between them--but she was startled by the fierce face turned upon her.

"I told you we could not say it," he muttered.

"But we must: we can't do anything else."

"Speak the truth, Lucy, do you love Peter or me best?" He took her by the shoulders, so that she must face him. "I loved you first," he cried, "long before he did. You promised yourself to me. He has no right to you."

Joel's pent up hatred burst forth. It flowed from his lips like a venomous flood upon the shrinking head of the woman. Deeper than his love for her, so it seemed, ran his hate.

"Let me go," said Lucy, "you don't know what you are saying."

"Which of us do you love best?" he continued, taking no notice of her attempts to free herself. "If you say Peter, I'll throw you into the beck--its deep enough to drown you. But you love me best. I know it, I've always known it. Be brave, be strong, Lucy. I've got a horse waiting just beyond the dip in the road to take us away. We'll go away now, and before anyone can follow us we shall be on the seas."

He drew her along the pack-horse track in the direction that he indicated.

She struggled to free herself. She felt all the love which she had for him ooze out of her. His att.i.tude opened her eyes, and she realized, with renewed dread, in what a dangerous position she had placed herself.

Her thoughts turned with a frantic rush towards her husband. Oh, if only his face would appear through the gloom.... If only she could hear his kindly voice calling to her.... But Peter was far away by now on the road to London. She was alone. There was no one near, no one who could help her. Joel's handsome countenance was like a nightmare: his fond words, his embraces--the idea of ever having received such expressions of love from him became suddenly repulsive.

"Let me be, Joel," she said, "or I'll call out."

He did not heed her.

"Where shall we go, Lucy," he said, "there's all the world to choose from?"

"Go where you like," she replied, "only take your hand off my shoulder."

She noticed that twilight was drawing swiftly down. In half an hour it would be night, and the clouds were already settling lower on the fells, so that the horrors of loneliness and darkness would be doubled by the bewildering presence of the mist. But she had not time to think just now of how she would get home. She must flee anywhere; she must escape from Joel, who was acting and speaking as though he had gone suddenly mad.

Girdlestone Pa.s.s provided plenty of hiding places if she could only succeed in baffling him. She cast her eyes swiftly over the landscape.

She must not take to the hillside--it was too steep and rough for her to hope to elude him there; she would betray herself by falling, if she did not come to a crag that she could not climb. The moorland on the left, with it brown hummocks, scrub, and mossy stones, would provide her with a surer means of escape. She never thought of Quaking Hag, she did not know where it lay, for she had rarely been in the pa.s.s before.

She wondered once if she should scream, but it was unlikely that anyone would hear her. The Shepherd's Rest was too far off, and travellers rarely pa.s.sed that way.

Every minute the dusk deepened, Joel had shifted his hand to her arm, when he found that she ceased to resist him. He was peering forward, trying to see the horse which he had tied to a tree so that it might be in readiness.

Then Lucy bent down, and set her teeth in his hand. He gave a sharp exclamation, loosened his grasp, and she fled from him into the shadows.

CHAPTER XXIII

A PATHWAY OF FIRE

The night was dark, no star shone, and, though the moon had risen, it could not penetrate the clouds, which hung over the sky, and rested on the mountain tops. There was just enough light to show how wild and lonely was the pack-horse track through Girdlestone Pa.s.s.

About nine o'clock Barbara came along it. She walked as a shepherd walks, who has many miles to travel, and must not grow weary. She did not hurry, neither did she dally nor halt, but kept up an even pace, regardless of the dips and rises in the road.

She was returning from a distant farm, whither she had carried the Need Fire, and where the good folk had waited all the afternoon, the cattle folded near the house, and a pile, like a haystack, of green wood ready to be lit, when the sacred element--for such they regarded it--should be brought from Boar Dale. They had given up all hope of receiving it that night, when, about seven o'clock, a loud knock came to the door, and Barbara Lynn stood there, with the smouldering embers in a cauldron.

Now she was returning, but not by the way she had come, over a shoulder of Thundergay, for there was no track to guide her, and the mist and darkness hid the familiar landmarks; so she struck the road through Girdlestone Pa.s.s instead, meaning to reach Greystones by the round-about way of the Robber's Rake.

She kept with her still some of the exalted feeling, which had thrilled her, when she had carried the Need Fire over the mountains. In her own eyes she had been raised from her humble office of hewer of wood and drawer of water to the rank of a priestess.

No Druidess, administering the rites of her religion, could have had a greater sense of the mystery of life, and the debt it owed to symbolism to make it intelligible, than Barbara at this time. Her character, founded upon Christian principles, was yet bathed in a pagan glow of awe and wonderment. Natural forces drew forth her reverence. Fire, Wind and Water became personified: they bore an a.n.a.logy to Life, Soul, and Spirit. And her love of the old Greek tales filled her imagination with so rich a store of treasure--much that was strange, fair and exalted in ancient thought--that she had an inexhaustible wealth to draw upon for her delight and nourishment.

She had watched Timothy Hadwin kindle the Need Fire with a keen sense of its inner significance. Fire was the symbol of purification and smoke the symbol of prayer. It seemed to her fitting that man should make this outward show of his repentance, for she believed--as most of the fell-folk did--that the pestilence threatening the cattle was the sign of an aggrieved heavenly power. When the Greeks sinned had not the G.o.d of the Silver Bow sent his deadly arrows hissing among them, killing first their dogs and mules, and then their men, until they heeded the warning and made their peace with sacrifices and rest.i.tution? For what transgression the black bane had been sent into the dales and fells Barbara did not ask. Was it a question worth asking, when no heart was pure? Let every man amend his ways, and the appeal to heaven would not go up in vain.

Filled with some such thoughts as these, she threaded her lonely path through the dim land. Upon her body were still the marks of fire, her cheeks were flushed, her eyes were scorched, and her clothes were so well thurified, that they shook out a pungent odour of smoke at every movement. Neither weariness, nor pain--she had been on her feet since long before day-break--could rob her figure of its lofty carriage.

The silence suited her mood; and the darkness, blotting out the well known features of the landscape, allowed her brain to paint its own picture of the country through which she was journeying. She was, in fact, carried by her imagination far away from the Girdlestone. But no earthly land received her spiritual body. She had come to a place where there is neither marrying nor giving in marriage, having pa.s.sed through the Need Fire which purifies from all dross. There she walked in a clear light, holding sweet fellowship with one from whom she must be forever separated on earth.

More and more of late Barbara had begun to fix her thoughts upon that which lay beyond mortal existence. Her life was empty: instincts, desires, hopes--the birthright of the human soul--were spilled like water upon the ground. She had nothing to expect here: but there--what glorious prospects opened out!

Timothy Hadwin often talked to her about the next world, and she had imbibed much of his philosophy, colouring it to satisfy her own desires.

She believed in a Great Spirit. She believed that every living creature had a living soul. She believed that behind every material thing there was a spiritual force. She believed that her desire for knowledge would, hereafter, be fulfilled. All that she knew from the outside now, would there be revealed in its inmost reality.

But it was not an immaterial world that her faith painted. Trees, streams, mountain gorge and starry peak made it beautiful. She loved the trees, their leaves pleased her eyes, their chiming her ears; but when she became a spirit, she would enjoy their very life in a deeper sense; for she would be able to pa.s.s into their being like the Hamadryads of Greece, only she would not die with the trees, for death would no longer exist. In the same way she would be able to become one with the streams, the dales and fells. But above all and beneath all--for it was both the foundation and summit of her hopes--human fellowship would then present no barriers to a perfect communion. She would need no eyes to see and recognise the loved one, no hands to draw his attention, no feet with which to come nigh him, no voice to tell him her thoughts. Spirit would pa.s.s into Spirit, would live and move and understand, without bodily aids, which are also the instruments of misunderstanding and separation.

She was wakened from her dream by hearing a voice speak from the wayside. Now that her attention was drawn to it, she could dimly make out a huddled figure, whose limbs seemed to melt and become one with the rock upon which it sat.

"Angel or devil!" said a hoa.r.s.e voice. "Who are you?"

She came nearer and peered into the man's face.

"Why, Joel," she exclaimed in surprise. "I didn't expect to see you here."

He staggered to his feet and she felt sure that he had been drinking.

"It's always the unexpected that happens," he replied.

When Lucy had run away from him, he had been so overtaken by surprise, that for a few seconds he had not been able to grasp the reality of the fact. Then pa.s.sion had swept away his senses, and he had rushed hither and thither like a mad man, calling, cursing, but seeing nothing, so swiftly had her grey-cloaked figure been swept up into the gathering darkness. His wild scheme of carrying her off defeated, and knowing that his desires and hopes could never now be realized, he had so far recovered himself as to lay hold of a shred of reason, and stifle his anger. He had taken the horse back to the inn, and then had sat down in his corner by the fire, silent and sullen, heedless of the dame's chatter, and only wishful to be left alone. He had demanded wine, and had tried to drown his wrath and bitter sense of failure. But he could not endure the good-wife's tongue, and at length had got up and gone out. He had told himself that he would go back to Forest Hall to-morrow, settle his affairs with all speed and never set foot in Boar Dale again.

He was sick of the Shepherd's Rest, and would not have stayed so long only the place had been convenient for his purpose. There he had hoped to decoy Lucy and take her away. In the light of their last meeting, he had felt sure that she would go with him.

And now, having walked aimlessly along the pack-horse track, the mist chilling him to the bone, he would have returned again to the inn, but that he was afraid of the inquisitive eyes of the woman there, who looked at him as though she were suspicious that some wild adventure was in the air. He was not able to lash himself into his former fury, his heart seemed to be dead. The hand of the woman he loved had killed it. Even the thought of Peter did not rouse him. Hate, for the time being, was burning low.

In this mood he had come again to the spot where Lucy had fled from him.

He had begun to wonder in which direction she had really gone. How was it that she had eluded him so quickly? He looked round him. Then there had been light enough to distinguish the nearer objects--a stunted thorn, the flash of the beck, the overhanging crags, but now all was undefined, and bleak. A little glitter, just beyond the left bank of the road, had caught his eye, and held him spell-bound. He had stared with growing understanding. On that side lay marshy ground, stretching away to the opposite fells, and yonder was Quaking Hag, shunned by all travellers, and forsaken of G.o.d. He had sunk on a stone, sobered by that which he saw, for the glittering mark was followed by another and yet another, until the misty nature of the night prevented further sight.

They were the froth o' the marsh, a kind of putrified earth, which, when it has been trodden upon, shines like fire in the darkness.