Lying Prophets Part 18

"I dunnaw. I thot such love never comed to no end, Mister Jan. I thot 'tweer good to wear; but--but how do I knaw if you doan't?"

"You trust me, Joan?"

"Why, who should I trust, if 'tweern't you? I never knawed any person else as set such store 'pon the truth. I doan't s'pose the cherrybims in heaven loves it more'n what you do."

"Here's the rain on the back of the wind," he said.

A few heavy drops fell, cold as ice upon his burning face, and Joan laughed as she held out her hand, on which a great splash as big as a shilling had spread.

"That be wan of Tregagle's tears," she said, "an' 'tis the voice of en as you can hear howlin' in the wind. He's allus a bawlin' an' squealin', poor sawl, but you can awnly hear en now an' again 'fore a storm when the gale blaws his hollerin' this way."

"Who was Tregagle?"

"He was a lawyer man wance, an' killed a many wives, an' did a many shameful deeds 'fore he went dead. Then, to Bodmin Court, theer comes a law case, an' they wanted Tregagle, an' a man said Tregagle was the awnly witness, and another said he wadden. The second man up an' swore 'If Tregagle saw it done, then I wish to G.o.d he may rise from's graave and come this minute.' Then, sure enough, the ghost of Tregagle 'peared in the court-house an' shawed the man was a liar. But they couldn' lay the ghost no more arter; an' it was a devil-ghost, which is the worstest kind; an' it stuck close to thicky lyin' man an' wouldn' leave en nohow. But at last a white witch bound the spirit an' condemned it to empty out Dosmery Pool wi'

a crogan wi' a hole in it. A crogan's a limpet sh.e.l.l, which you mightn't knaw, Mister Jan. Tregagle, he done that party quick, an' then he was at the man again; but a pa.s.son got the bettermost of en an' tamed en wi'

Scripture till Tregagle was as gentle as a cheel. Then they set en to work agin an' bid en make a truss o' sand down in Gwenvor Cove, an' carry it 'pon his shoulder up to Carn Olva. Tregagle weer a braave time doin' that, I can 'sure 'e, but theer comed a gert frost wan winter, an' he got water from the brook an' poured it 'pon the truss o' sand, so it froze hard. Then he carried it up Carn Olva; an' then, bein' a free spirit agin, he flew off quicker'n lightning to that lyin' man to tear en to pieces this time. But by good chance, when Tregagle comed to en, the man weer carryin' a lil baaby in's arms--a lil cheel as had never done a single wicked act, bein'

tu young; so Tregagle couldn' do no hurt. An' they caught en again, an'

pa.s.son set en 'pon another job: to make a truss o' sand in Whitsand Bay wi'out usin' any fresh water. But Tregagle caan't never do that; so he cries bitter sometimes, an' howls; an' when 'e howls you knaw the storm's a comin' to scatter the truss o' sand he's builded up."

Barron followed the legend with interest. Tregagle and his victim and the charm of the pure child that saved one from the other filled his thought and the event to which Fate was now relentlessly dragging him. He argued with himself a little; then the rain came down and the wind leaped like a lion over the edge of the land, and the man's blood boiled as he breathed ocean air.

"Us'll be wetted proper. I'll run for it, Mister Jan, an' you'd best to go up-long to your lil lew house. Wet's bad for 'e, I reckon."

"No," he said, "I can't let you go, Joan. Look over there. Another flood is going to burst, I think. Follow me quickly, quickly."

The rain came slanting over the gorse in earnest, but Joan hesitated and hung back. Louder than the wind, louder than the cry of the birds, than the howling of Tregagle, than the calling of the cleeves, spoke something. And it said "Turn, on the wing of the storm; fly before it, alone. Let this man walk in the teeth of the gale if he will; but you, Joan Tregenza, follow the wind and set your face to the east, where the sole brightness now left in the sky is shining."

Sheets of gray swept over them; the world was wet in an instant; a little mist of water splashed up two inches high off the ground; the gorse tossed and swayed its tough arms; the sea and the struggling craft upon it vanished like a dream; from the heart of the storm cried gulls, themselves invisible.

"Come, Joan, we shall be drowned."

He had wrapped her in a part of the mackintosh, and laughed as he fastened them both into it and hugged her close to himself. But she broke away, greatly fearing, yet knowing not what she feared.

"I reckon I'd best run down fast. Indeed an' I want to go."

"Go? Where? Where should you go? Come to me, Joan; you shall; you must. We two, sweetheart--we two against the rain and the wind and the world. Come!

It will kill me to stand here, and you don't want that."

"But--"

"Come, I say. Quicker and quicker! We two--only we two. Don't make me command you, my priceless treasure of a Joan. Come with me. You are mine now and always. Quicker and quicker, I say. G.o.d! what rain!"

Still she hesitated and he grew angry.

"This is folly, madness. Where is your trust and belief? You don't trust, nor love, nor--"

"Doan't 'e say that! Never say that! It edn' true. You'm all to me, an' you knaws it right well, an' I'll gaw to the world's end with 'e, I will--ay, an' trust 'e wi' my life!"

He moved away and she followed, hastening as he hastened. Unutterable desolation marked the spot. Life had vanished save only where sheep cl.u.s.tered under a bank with their tails to the weather, and long-legged lambs blinked their yellow eyes and bleated as the couple pa.s.sed. Despite their haste the man and the girl were very wet before reaching the shelter of the byre. Rain-water dribbled off his cap on to his hot face and his feet were soaking. Joan was breathless with haste; her draggled skirts clung to her; and the struggle against the storm made her giddy.

So they reached the place of shelter; and the gale burst over it with a great, crowning yell of wind and hurtle of rain. Then John Barren opened the byre door and Joan Tregenza pa.s.sed in before him; whereupon he followed and shut the door.

A loose slate clattered upon the roof, and from inside the byre it sounded like a hand tapping high above the artist's bed of brown fern--tapping some message which neither the man nor the girl could read--tapping, tapping, tapping tirelessly upon ears wholly deaf to it.

BOOK TWO

NATURE

CHAPTER ONE

AN INTERVAL

For a week the rain came down and it blew hard from the west. Then the weather moderated, and there were intervals of brightness and mild, damp warmth that brought a green veil trembling over the world like magic. The elms broke into a million buds, the pear trees in sunny corners put forth snowy flowers; the crimson k.n.o.bs of the apple-blossom prepared to unfold.

In the market gardens around and about Newlyn the plums were already setting, the wallflowers, which make a carpet of golden-brown beneath the fruit-trees in many orchards, were velvety with bloom; the raspberry canes, bent hoop-like in long rows, beautifully brightened the dark earth with young green; and verdure likewise twinkled even to the heart of the forests, to the stony nipples of the moor's vast, lonely bosom. So spring came, heralded by the thrush; borne upon the wings of the western wind. And then followed a brief change with more heavy rains and lower temperature.

The furzes on Gorse Point were a scented glory now--a nimbus of gold for the skull of the lofty cliff. Here John Barren and Joan Tregenza had met but twice since the beginning of the unsettled weather. For her this period was in a measure mysterious and strange. Centuries of experience seemed to separate her from the past, and, looking backward, infinite s.p.a.ces of time already stretched between what had been and what was. Now overmuch sorrow mingled with her reflections, though a leaven of it ran through all--a sense of loss, of sacrifice, of change, which flits, like the shadow of a summer cloud, even through the soul of the most deeply loving woman who ever opened her eyes to smile upon the first day-dawn of married life. But Joan's sorrow was no greater than that, and little unquiet or uneasiness went with it. She had his promises; from him they could but be absolute; and not a hundred attested ceremonies had left her heart more at ease. In fact she believed that John Barren was presently going to marry her, and that when he vanished from Newlyn, she, as the better-loved part of himself, would vanish too. It was the old, stale falsehood which men have told a hundred thousand times; which men will go on telling and women believing, because it is the only lie which meets all requirements of the case and answers its exact purpose effectively. Age cannot wither it, for experience is no part of the armor of the deceived, and Love and Trust have never stopped to think since the world began.

As for the artist, each day now saw him slipping more deeply, more comfortably back into the convolutions of his old impersonal sh.e.l.l. He had been dragged out, not unwilling, by a giant pa.s.sion, and he had sacrificed to it, sent it to sleep again, and so returned. He felt infinitely kind to Joan. A week after her visit to the linhay he, while sitting alone there, had turned her picture about on the easel, withdrawn its face from the wall and studied his work. And looking, with restored critical faculty and cold blood, he loved the paint for itself and deemed it very good. The storm was over, the transitory lightnings drowned lesser lights no more, and that steady beacon-flame of his life, which had been merged, not lost, in the fleeting blaze, now shone out again, steadfast and clear. Such a revulsion of feeling argued well for the completion of his picture, ill for the model of it.

They sat one day, as the weather grew more settled, beside a granite bowlder, which studded the short turf at the extremity of Gorse Point, where it jutted above the sea. Joan, with her chin upon her hands, looked out upon the water; Barron, lying on a railway-rug, leaned back and smoked his pipe and studied her face with the old, keen, pa.s.sionless eagerness of their earliest meetings.

"When'll 'e tell me, Jan love? When'll 'e tell me what 'e be gwaine to do?

Us be wan now--you an' me--but the lines be all the lovin'est wife can p'int to in proof she _be_ a wife. Couldn't us be axed out in church purty soon?"

He did not make immediate answer, but only longed for his easel. There, in her face, was the wistful, far-away expression he had sighed for; a measure of thought had come to the little animal--her brains were awake and her blue eyes had never looked liked this before. Joan asked the question again, and Barren answered.

"The same matter was in my own mind, sweetheart. I am in a mighty hurry too, believe it. You are safe with your husband, Joan. You belong to me now, and you must trust the future with me. All that law demands to make us man and wife it shall have; and all religion clamors for as well, if that is a great matter to you. But not here--in this Newlyn. I think of you when I say that, Joan, for it matters nothing to me."

"Iss. I dunnaw what awful sayin's might go abroad. Things is all contrary to home as 'tis. Mother's guessed part an' she tawld faither I weer gwaine daft or else in love wi' some pusson else than Joe. An' faither was short an' sharp, an' took me out walkin', an' bid me bide at home an' give over trapsin' 'bout. An' 'e said as 'ow I was tokened to Joe Noy an' bound by G.o.d A'mighty to wait for en if 'twas a score years. But if faither had knawed I weer never for Noy, he'd a' said more'n that. I ban't 'feared o'

faither now I knaws you, Jan, but I be cruel 'feared o' bein' cussed, 'cause theer's times when cusses doan't fall to the ground but sticks.

'Twouldn' be well for the likes o' you to have a ill-wished, awver-luked body for wife. An' if faither knawed 'bout you, then I lay he'd do more'n speak. So like's not he'd strike me dead for't, bein' that religious. But you must take me away, Jan, dear heart. I'm yourn now an' you must go on lovin' me allus, 'cause theer'll never be n.o.body else to not now. I've chose you an' gived 'e myself an' I caan't do no more."

He listened to her delicious voice, and shut out the crude words as much as might be while he marked the music. He was thinking that if Joan had possessed a reasonable measure of intellect, a foundation for an education, he would have been satisfied to keep her about him during that probably limited number of years which must span his existence. But the gulf between them was too wide; and, as for the present position, he considered that no harm had been done which time would not remedy. Joan was not sufficiently intelligent to suffer long or much. She would forget quickly. She was very young. Her sailor must return before the end of the year. Then he began to think of money, and then sneered at himself. But, after all, it was natural that he should follow step by step upon the beaten track of similar events.

"Better not attempt originality," he thought, "for the thing I have done is scarce capable of original treatment. I suppose the curtain always rings down on a check--either taken or spurned."

"So you think you can give them all up for poor me, Joan? Your home, your father, brother, mother--all?"

"I've gived up a sight more'n them, Jan. I've gived 'e what's all to a maiden. But my folks weern't hard to give up. 'Tis long since they was ought to me now. I gaws an' comes from the cottage an' sez, all the time, 'this ban't home no more. Mister Jan's home be mine,' I sez to myself. An'

each time as I breaks bread, an' sleeps, an' wakes, an' looks arter faither's clothes I feels 'tis wan time nigher the last. They'll look back an' think what a snake 'twas they had 'bout the house, I s'pose. Mother'll whine an' say, 'Ah! 'er was a bitter weed for sartain,' an' faither'll thunder till the crocks rattle an' bid none dare foul the air wi' my name no more. But I be wearyin' of 'e wi' my clackin', Jan, dear heart?"