The Daffodil Fields Part 5

Talking with careless freshness, side by side With that dark Spanish beauty who had won, As though no heart-broke woman, heavy-eyed, Mourned for him over sea, as though the sun Shone but to light his steps to love and fun, While she, that golden and beloved soul, Worth ten of him, lay wasting like an unlit coal.

So supper pa.s.sed; the meat in Lion's gorge Stuck at the last, he could not bide that face.

The idle laughter on it plied the forge Where hate was smithying tools; the jokes, the place, Wrought him to wrath; he could not stay for grace.

The tin mug full of red wine spilled and fell.

He kicked his stool aside with "Michael, this is h.e.l.l.

"Come out into the night and talk to me."

The young man lit a cigarette and followed; The stars seemed trembling at a brink to see; A little ghostly white-owl stooped and holloed.

Beside the stake-fence Lion stopped and swallowed, While all the wrath within him made him grey.

Michael stood still and smoked, and flicked his ash away.

"Well, Lion," Michael said, "men make mistakes, And then regret them; and an early flame Is frequently the worst mistake man makes.

I did not seek this pa.s.sion, but it came.

Love happens so in life. Well? Who's to blame?

You'll say I've broken Mary's heart; the heart Is not the whole of life, but an inferior part,

"Useful for some few years and then a curse.

Nerves should be stronger. You have come to say The three-year term is up; so much the worse.

I cannot meet the bill; I cannot pay.

I would not if I could. Men change. To-day I know that that first choice, however sweet, Was wrong and a mistake; it would have meant defeat,

"Ruin and misery to us both. Let be.

You say I should have told her this? Perhaps.

You try to make a loving woman see That the warm link which holds you to her snaps.

Neglect is deadlier than the thunder-claps.

Yet she is bright and I am water. Well, I did not make myself; this life is often h.e.l.l.

"Judge if you must, but understand it first.

We are old friends, and townsmen, Shropshire born, Under the Wrekin. You believe the worst.

You have no knowledge how the heart is torn, Trying for duty up against the thorn.

Now say I've broken Mary's heart: begin.

Break hers, or hers and mine, which were the greater sin?"

"Michael," said Lion, "I have heard you. Now Listen to me. Three years ago you made With a most n.o.ble soul a certain vow.

Now you reject it, saying that you played.

She did not think so, Michael, she has stayed, Eating her heart out for a line, a word, News that you were not dead; news that she never heard.

"Not once, after the first. She has held firm To what you counted pastime; she has wept Life, day by weary day throughout the term, While her heart sickened, and the clock-hand crept.

While you, you with your woman here, have kept Holiday, feasting; you are fat; you smile.

You have had love and laughter all the ghastly while.

"I shall be back in England six weeks hence, Standing with your poor Mary face to face; Far from a pleasant moment, but intense.

I shall be asked to tell her of this place.

And she will eye me hard and hope for grace, Some little crumb of comfort while I tell; And every word will burn like a red spark from h.e.l.l,

"That you have done with her, that you are living Here with another woman; that you care Nought for the pain you've given and are giving; That all your lover's vows were empty air.

This I must tell: thus I shall burn her bare, Burn out all hope, all comfort, every crumb, End it, and watch her whiten, hopeless, tearless, dumb.

"Or do I judge you wrongly?" He was still.

The cigarette-end glowed and dimmed with ash; A preying night bird whimpered on the hill.

Michael said "Ah!" and fingered with his sash, Then stilled. The night was still; there came no flash Of sudden pa.s.sion bursting. All was still; A lonely water gurgled like a whip-poor-will.

"Now I must go," said Lion; "where's the horse?"

"There," said his friend; "I'll set you on your way."

They caught and rode, both silent, while remorse Worked in each heart, though neither would betray What he was feeling, and the moon came grey, Then burned into an opal white and great, Silvering the downs of gra.s.s where these two travelled late,

Thinking of English fields which that moon saw, Fields full of quiet beauty lying hushed At midnight in the moment full of awe, When the red fox comes creeping, dewy-brushed.

But neither spoke; they rode; the horses rushed, Scattering the great clods skywards with such thrills As colts in April feel there in the daffodils.

V

The river br.i.m.m.i.n.g full was silvered over By moonlight at the ford; the river bank Smelt of bruised clote buds and of yellow clover.

Nosing the gleaming dark the horses drank, Drooping and dripping as the reins fell lank; The men drooped too; the stars in heaven drooped; Rank after hurrying rank the silver water trooped

In ceaseless bright procession past the shallows, Talking its quick inconsequence. The friends, Warmed by the gallop on the unfenced fallows, Felt it a kindlier thing to make amends.

"A jolly burst," said Michael; "here it ends.

Your way lies straight beyond the water. There.

Watch for the lights, and keep those two stars as they bear."

Something august was quick in all that sky, Wheeling in mult.i.tudinous march with fire; The falling of the wind brought it more nigh, They felt the earth take solace and respire; The horses shifted foothold in the mire, Splashing and making eddies. Lion spoke: "Do you remember riding past the haunted oak

"That Christmas Eve, when all the bells were ringing, So that we picked out seven churches' bells, Ringing the night, and people carol-singing?

It hummed and died away and rose in swells Like a sea breaking. We have been through h.e.l.ls Since then, we two, and now this being here Brings all that Christmas back, and makes it strangely near."

"Yes," Michael answered, "they were happy times, Riding beyond there; but a man needs change; I know what they connote, those Christmas chimes, Fudge in the heart, and pudding in the grange.

It stifles me all that; I need the range, Like this before us, open to the sky; There every wing is clipped, but here a man can fly."

"Ah," said his friend, "man only flies in youth, A few short years at most, until he finds That even quiet is a form of truth, And all the rest a coloured rag that blinds.

Life offers nothing but contented minds.

Some day you'll know it, Michael. I am grieved That Mary's heart will pay until I am believed."

There was a silence while the water dripped From the raised muzzles champing on the steel.

Flogging the crannied banks the water lipped.

Night up above them turned her starry wheel; And each man feared to let the other feel How much he felt; they fenced; they put up bars.

The moon made heaven pale among the withering stars.

"Michael," said Lion, "why should we two part?

Ride on with me; or shall we both return, Make preparation, and to-morrow start, And travel home together? You would learn How much the people long to see you; turn.

We will ride back and say good-bye, and then Sail, and see home again, and see the Shropshire men,

"And see the old Shropshire mountain and the fair, Full of drunk Welshmen bringing mountain ewes; And partridge shooting would be starting there."

Michael hung down his head and seemed to choose.

The horses churned fresh footing in the ooze.

Then Michael asked if Tom were still alive, Old Tom, who fought the Welshman under Upton Drive,

For nineteen rounds, on gra.s.s, with the bare hands?

"Shaky," said Lion, "living still, but weak; Almost past speaking, but he understands."

"And old Shon Shones we teased so with the leek?"