Barbara Lynn Part 40

She took the fainting girl to the Shepherd's Rest, and there spent the night, while a message was sent to Mistress Lynn to rea.s.sure her of their safety.

CHAPTER XXIV

WINTER

Some days pa.s.sed before Lucy was well enough to leave the Shepherd's Rest. She had got a severe chill from her exposure to the night air and the vapours of the marsh, but her nature was naturally buoyant, and the relief she experienced from a quiet conscience, now that she had cut herself off from Joel, enabled her to throw off that which might have been a serious illness.

She did not see Joel again. Mally Ray was not communicative, and as no one ever met him in Cringel Forest or upon the fellside, rumour said that he had gone away.

Peter came back in less than a fortnight. He had accepted the post in London--an important one that would use all his abilities--and from this time, until the end of the year, the days were filled with the making of arrangements for their removal. The mill-house was handed over to an uncle of Peter's, who had been born there, and Lucy and her husband came to Greystones to spend the last few days with Barbara and the great-grandmother.

A thin fall of snow covered the ground, and, frost having set in with blue skies, a north wind blowing straight out of Thundergay, and clear sunlight, the eyes were dazzled by the whiteness of the dale. The beck was not yet frozen over, but it seemed to sing less clearly as it ran between its banks, where the gra.s.s blades were encased in crystal, and the bracken stalks, p.r.i.c.king through the snow, glittered with jewels.

But the craggy edges of the fells were black as ebony, and dark patches showed here and there upon the pastures, where the sheep had been sc.r.a.ping for a precarious living.

At sunset a gorgeous display of light illuminated the clear, cold world.

Night lit up the intense blue of the northern sky with stars, while the west was filled with gold-dust, and the snow slopes were stained with red and saffron. Shadows lay in the hollows and clefts, and the long ridges looked violet; their savage outlines were never so noticeable as at this time of the year towards sundown.

A ruddy beam fell through the windows at Greystones and made a pool of light upon the floor. In the midst of it Lucy sat with her chin resting upon her hands. Mistress Lynn was propped against her pillows, and, though her face had begun to wear the almost unearthly look of extreme old age, and the eye-sockets were far sunken in her head, the eyes themselves burnt with their old sharp light.

"It's likely I shall never see you again, great-granddaughter," she said, "unless the Lord has forgotten me, lying here so long in the big bed. A hundred years is a great span for one human body to take to herself. Life grows tedisome at times. Still, I've known most things worth knowing, seen most things worth seeing, aye, and had most things worth having, though you'll not believe that, my la.s.s."

Lucy looked up from her day-dreaming for a moment, and remarked:

"You've been very kind to me lately, great-granny."

"Oh, I's smit with a sickness that takes the old folk whiles--a kind of softening of the vitals; with some it's the brain, with others it's the heart."

"You mustn't talk of leaving us, great-granny. Peter's promised to bring me to see you in the summer-time."

"I doubt you'll find Barbara mistress of Greystones, then."

"I wish Barbara would marry."

"She'll never marry. She sends the lads trotting before they get their noses through the door."

"I used to think, when I was a bairn, that a lord would one day ride by and carry her off. Timothy said she should have a crown."

"Timothy's brain is all froth, like a beat-up egg. He wanted me to take some of his magic messes last winter, when I had yon bad cough, but I said, 'No, no, my man, none of your pesky stuff has ever found it's way down my throat, nor ever will.' 'It'll ease your kist, Mistress Lynn,'

said he. 'Thank you kindly,' said I, 'but my kist is a hundred years old, and if it's a bit stiff in the hinges we needn't wonder. Cranky bits of furniture are none the better for tinkering at.'"

"Barbara always laughed at Timothy's sooth-saying," replied Lucy; "all the same, she often thought about it, I'm sure of that."

"You'll never get to the bed-rock of Barbara's mind," answered the old woman; "your spade's too short, my la.s.s, for digging there. Though the good G.o.d made you both out of the same clay, he filled you with beck-water and Barbara with red wine. Havering! havering! An old woman's tongue sometimes runs away. Light the candles, la.s.s; its getting dark, and Peter will soon be coming in."

The candles, in their tall iron sconces, filled the kitchen with a mellow light. The colour had vanished from the fells, but the stars glittered, and the wide snowfields gave a moonlight glimmer to the landscape. Lucy stood at the window for a moment, before putting up the shutters, thinking about her great-grandmother's words. Glancing at Thundergay, she thought how far and cold it looked against the star-fringed edges of the sky. There was her sister's throne, there on the highest peak with an outlook wide but wild, where she breathed an air too clear and sharp for common mortals.

She turned to the warm kitchen, recognising, with a glow of comfort, that such was her fitting place. She did not desire a large perspective--her eyes could not have taken it in. She did not crave for communion with nature, she did not want to dip herself into the mysterious pools that lay about the path of life. A common round, enclosed within four walls, satisfied her needs. Yet she knew that her husband's mind would sometimes escape from the warm nest that she would make for him. Now and again he would leave her to climb such high places as Barbara knew. There she would not be able to follow him. Yet she would not murmur. She would make his home such that he would always return to it for rest and sympathy. Ah, yes, if she were but a vessel full of beck-water, as her great-grandmother had said, she would be able to quench his human thirst. Barbara might stir and exalt as wine did, but hers would be the more womanly office of attending to common needs.

Peter had gone to the mill-house, Barbara was in the byre, Jess's shrill voice could be heard in the yard, and the hinds were out. Mistress Lynn seemed inclined to sleep, so Lucy returned to her seat, and stared into the fire, looking like a child making pictures there.

She was, in fact, seeing again the witch-lights and Girdlestone Pa.s.s.

The place had been so impressed upon her mind, that it returned with startling vividness to haunt her, whenever her mind was unoccupied. In the warmest corner of the chimney-nook it would make her s.h.i.+ver; in the brightest flood of fire and candlelight she would see the rolling darkness about her feet, and then the will-o'-the-wisp gleam with its alluring, fitful flame. The horror of that time would remain with her all her life. It had killed anything that was left of her love for Joel, made her appreciate her position as Peter's wife, filled her with grat.i.tude towards him, for he had forgiven her with the utmost gentleness. Had Joel stood before her now she would have turned from him without a tremor save that of shame.

Mistress Lynn was not asleep; like Lucy, she was thinking of the past.

The years that were gone came back to her in a long, long train. From childhood, from her earliest memory, she followed events up through girlhood to wifehood and widowhood, and here at last she had come from the cradle to the four-poster, from having been a golden-haired bairn to be a bedridden old woman. It seemed hardly believable the way in which the years had gone. Yet the old clock, ticking in the corner, had marked off the moments of her existence with a relentless hand. Often it had been her solitary companion through long and wakeful nights, and she had listened to it, and watched its white face flicker with the firelight, never thinking that it was a stern angel, telling out the pa.s.sing of her years.

As she pa.s.sed her life in review, she thought that she had few regrets.

The last one--the failure of Joel Hart to fulfil her hopes for him--soon fell away from her mind. She was too old to trouble any more about the cross-purposes of other people's lives. Still, she would like to have seen him again. Though she would have bitterly resented had any stain been put upon her name, perhaps, at the back of her old brain, she felt that, had his grandfather asked her to flee with him, she would have gone, so great was her love--and made herself strong enough, and brave enough, to take the consequences, and never cast a look behind.

Joel Hart had not gone away. He had meant to go, day after day, but had not had the resolution to carry out his intentions. He spent the dreary time at Forest Hall in vain longings, and in reviving his hate for Peter. He did not go out, but did his best to empty his wine-cellar. At last, however, he made up his mind, and told Mally Ray that he would ride off, as he had come home, in the dusk of early morning. The night before, a restless spirit took him into the dale. He thought that he would look at it for the last time.

He wandered along, keeping to the same track as that which Lucy had taken when she went to meet him in Girdlestone Pa.s.s. He came across no one: those whose business took them to the hills managed to get it done before twilight fell, and sensible folk sat by their fires, having no inclination to wander about in the snow unless they must.

From the other side of the beck he looked at Greystones. He saw the light suddenly s.h.i.+ne out when Lucy lit the candles, then as suddenly disappear when she put up the shutters.

The vision roused the devil in him. Yonder was the woman he had loved, surrounded by light and warmth, while he stood out in the cold. There did not exist for him a single smiling face in the whole bleak world.

Instead of bread, life had given him a stone to break his teeth upon.

Did he care for her still? He did not know, but he once did, and another man had stolen her from him. That pa.s.sion had become swallowed up in another. Always more or less unbalanced, he had put himself, the whole of himself, into one scale, and it went down. He had flung reason away, so had nothing left to readjust the poise. He hated Peter with all his powers.

He turned his back on Greystones, and went towards home, hugging his hate. Was he out in the cold? Pa.s.sion kept him warm. It kept him more than warm--it scorched him. His very soul was on fire with the maddening flame.

The track which he was following joined the forest road just at the bridge above the falls. He paused to knock the snow from his heels, and saw, coming towards him, the figure of a man. It was Peter Fleming returning to Greystones.

Joel straightened himself. He was in no mood to weigh his actions, or control that which he felt. He had no time to consider consequences. He was like a man who, in a sudden fury, takes all that he has and flings it away, not caring, at the moment, whether it is irrevocably lost or not. Joel saw, as in a flash, what he meant to do. He meant to hurl himself upon Peter, and finish that wrestling bout, which had had so disastrous an ending before. One or other of them should fall, and fall for ever. He would pitch Peter over the parapet of the bridge down the falls; even if they had to go together to their death he would do it. He had told Lucy that he would drown her if she loved this man best; that had been bluff to frighten her. Now he was in deadly earnest.

But as he drew himself together, and made ready to spring, Peter, unconscious of the implacable foe awaiting him in the shadow, paused and turned. There was a m.u.f.fled sound on the forest road of some heavy creature coming quickly along.

"I do believe it's Big Ben," he said to himself, and laughed.

The bear loped up, sniffing and whimpering with pleasure. It rose to its full height, laid a paw on its master's shoulder, and licked his face like a great dog.

"Run away from Jake, have you?" said Peter, pus.h.i.+ng the beast down.

"Well, old fellow, I'm afraid you can't come to Greystones. The cows won't give any milk when they see you about the place. What the deuce are you growling at?"

This exclamation was uttered in a different tone of voice. Big Ben had scented Joel. As Jake said, the bear was a creature who had memories.

With every expression of fury, it went towards him, stalking on its hind legs, showing its teeth, and waving its great hairy arms in preparation for dealing a blow such as only a bear can give.

Peter caught the chain that was dangling from its collar, and called it back, as a dusky figure dashed past him. He did not see the man's face, but he knew the form.

In a few minutes Jake the rat-catcher came up.

"I saw Joel Hart just now," he said; "he seemed to be in a mighty hurry.

Feared o' Ben, I should think. Ben doesn't like him. What in the world is he doing here still? I thought he'd gone away."

Peter, too, wondered, but he said nothing.