Barbara Lynn Part 41

He gave the bear back into Jake's charge and went on, much perplexed and troubled. He was glad that Lucy and he were going away so soon, for he could not help being suspicious that Joel had lain in wait for him with no good purpose in his mind, and, save for the arrival of Big Ben, would have made an attempt to carry it out.

But he said nothing of this to anyone.

The next morning Jake told him that Joel Hart had ridden away at dawn.

The remaining days pa.s.sed quickly. Barbara was in a gentle mood. The sternness of her face relaxed, the fire in her large blue eyes was subdued to a steady glow, which fell upon her sister and Peter with the softness of serene skies. No shadow should darken these final scenes of Lucy's life in the dales. Peter and she should depart, unsaddened by that which they were leaving behind them. Sorrow at bidding good-bye to the old woman there must be, for they were not likely to see her again, but such tears would soon be dried. Her own sorrow, her own loneliness, must be hidden.

On Christmas Eve they all gathered in the kitchen to welcome in the Christmas morning. Fresh bedding had been shaken down in the cow-house, after the good old custom of those days, so that the cattle might have clean straw to kneel on when midnight struck. Barbara had put a wisp, with an apple, a jug of water, and a platter of oat-cake in an empty stall, and, coming out, had bolted the door, for no eye might see that scene, when the Christ-child came to bless the beasts, that had shared with Him their shelter and their bed.

The beck was now frozen over and nothing could be heard outside, till from far down the dale came the voices of the waits, singing:

"As I sat under a green-wood tree On Christmas Day, on Christmas Day I saw three s.h.i.+ps come sailing in On Christmas Day in the morning."

Their voices drew nearer, and Barbara went out to the garden-gate, followed by Peter.

"I've got a shepherd's privilege," she exclaimed, with a light laugh. "I can see angels on Thundergay."

"I fear they don't bring you much good tidings, Barbara," he said, letting some of the bitterness which he felt creep into his voice.

"Hush," she replied, "listen." They could hear the words clearly.

"She washed his face in a silver bowl On Christmas Day, on Christmas Day, She combed his hair with an ivory comb On Christmas Day in the morning.

"She sent him up to heaven to school, On Christmas Day, on Christmas Day, She sent him up to heaven to school On Christmas Day in the morning."

"I would not have it otherwise, Peter," said Barbara, laying her hand on his. "You and I--we must go up to heaven to school."

He said no more, and they went in, knowing that the first and last word, which would ever pa.s.s between them upon that which lay deepest in their hearts, had been spoken.

CHAPTER XXV

BARBARA COUNTS THE GOLD

After many weeks of silence, the beck sang once more at the door of Greystones. The sound stole upon the ear so imperceptibly, with the slackening of the frost, that Barbara was unconscious of it, until its clear voice again filled the kitchen with its familiar song.

The hour was midnight; a watery moon sent a faint light into the room, for the shutters were not up. A single candle burnt near the four-poster, and the fire had not been covered down for the night, after the usual custom of good housewives. The place had a waiting look as though someone was expected.

Barbara lay on the settle, covered with a sheepskin, her long limbs sunk in an att.i.tude of repose, but her eyes were open and her ears alert.

The expected guest was death.

In spite of the moon, fire, and candlelight, shadows lurked everywhere.

Barbara's rec.u.mbent figure had the uniform greyness of an effigy in stone; the bridewain and the clock were vague; only the bed, with its curtains undrawn, retained any semblance of reality. Old Mistress Lynn lay high upon her pillows, her sharp, stern features lit by the candle burning beside her. She was asleep.

For some time Barbara had spent her nights upon the settle. There had come no sudden change in her great-grandmother's condition; she sank slowly, getting weaker and weaker as the winter pa.s.sed; and now, at the approach of spring, was slipping quietly away. Several of the village folk offered to share the girl's vigil, but their presence in the kitchen seemed to trouble the old woman, so Barbara kept watch alone.

It was a quiet time. Neither pains of body nor distresses of mind disturbed the fleeting hours of that long and imperious life. She slept much and, when she was not asleep, watched her great-granddaughter with dreamy eyes. But she rarely spoke, and though no foreshadowing of death had laid a finger upon her lips, she seemed to be too weary to utter any more of the sayings, which she had been so fond of uttering in the past.

To-night she breathed regularly, although deeply.

So the moonlight and the firelight, mingling with each other into an unearthly glimmer, the shadows, and the singing beck, held the silence of the death-chamber undisturbed.

Barbara listened to the voice of the running water with varied feelings.

It spoke to her of life; of the hopes and ambitions and renunciations that had sounded such strange notes in her own soul. For its clear ripple was accompanied by sad murmurs, and sudden splashes, as it ran over pebbles, or flowed in a deep torrent, or fell from the rocks. It played upon the whole gamut of sounds, just as life had played upon the whole gamut of her emotions, and out of them made music, halting and discordant, perhaps, at times, but always striving after more perfect harmony.

Barbara had real affection for the beck. When she and Lucy were children, afraid of the dark, they used to lie awake at night, s.h.i.+vering at the thought of the crags overhanging the house, but its voice rea.s.sured them. The stream was a living thing, so free, and light-hearted, and friendly. It never hid from the sun or the moon, it gathered their light into its foam. Barbara used to call it the Milky Way, and let it flow through her imagination like a galaxy of millions upon millions of stars. And it was her and her sister's delight to fly out of the house at the first peep of day, in the hot summer weather, and bathe in the clear pools above the farm, bathe naked under the green banks, with no eye but that of a distant shepherd to spy upon them.

The beck was a true friend. It piped when they danced, leaped when they sang, and mourned when they were sorrowful. To Barbara, as to her great-grandmother, it told stories of the days of old. For it had seen the midnight raids of the moss-troopers, had baffled the hounds when they came on a man-hunt up the dale, and had, more than once, had its clear waters stained with blood. But to-night it wakened more intimate memories in Barbara's mind.

She lay, soothed into drowsiness, while the events of her life pa.s.sed before her like pictures upon a screen, light and dark, monotonous, or many-coloured, they came and went, and she looked at them as a painter may look at the early work of his hands, and trace in it those ideas which experience has since matured. She had not allowed herself to meditate in this way for a long time. Some of her memories had still the power to cast her weeping upon the ground. But now, whether lulled into semi-consciousness by the beck, or subdued by the near approach of death, she saw and handled, with unimpa.s.sioned feelings, that which had been painted out of her heart's blood. It was as though she had been lifted to a higher sphere, where the inner significance of life was understood and where the crude pattern it had been worked into here, was there transformed into a thing of perfect beauty.

So the night wore away. The moon vanished, and rain came down with the rus.h.i.+ng sound of steady pouring.

Barbara put more turf on the fire, stole across the floor, and stood looking down upon the yellow, parchment-like face, lying high upon the piled-up pillows. Then she went back to her couch. She had a feeling to-night, which she could not explain to herself, that the tale of her own days was written. Her life was becoming like the fly-leaf in a book, which lies between the end of the story and the cover--a blank, white page, where nothing more would be transcribed, no further adventure; neither new phase of thought, nor struggle of flesh and spirit. The excitements and turmoils were ended, the pa.s.sions had been fought and, when that page was turned, the book would be shut. Barbara's life had been bound up with her great-grandmother's, and she could not imagine it apart from her. So blank did it appear that she had not made any plans for her future, when the masterful old woman should lie no longer in the four-poster, but have exchanged it for a narrower, colder bed.

Lucy had written to say that her sister must come and live with her, or, if she would not consent to such a plan, come for a long visit. Barbara knew that she would do neither; Peter would not expect her to, and he would understand her refusal. He and Lucy were happy at their new home, but she must never darken it. As she had lived, a lonely shepherd la.s.s upon the mountains, so she would continue to live, a lonelier woman, finding solace among the stern grandeur of her native land.

Worn out by her long watch, Barbara fell into a light sleep. She slept as tranquilly as a child, and, for an hour or more, the deep breathing of Mistress Lynn and her great-granddaughter was the only sound of life in the room.

Shadows moved about with the flickering firelight, and, when the candle guttered to its socket, they came and stood round the bed, like noiseless spirits, watching the figure there, which lay so still, that it looked as if it had already sunk into the quiet composure of death.

Towards morning, in that cold hour before the dawn, Barbara was wakened by a voice calling her.

She flung off the sheepskin and came to the old woman's side.

"Did you speak, great-granny?" she asked.

"Aye; light the candle, Barbara."

Mistress Lynn had raised herself on her elbow, and was looking round the room with some of her former craftiness in her eyes. She noticed that the shutters were not up, and bid the girl close them.

"Come here, la.s.s," she said.

Barbara saw that she held the key of the bridewain, as though she were afraid it might be s.n.a.t.c.hed from her; she had never given up her habit of hiding it in the bed.

"Are we alone?" she asked.

"Yes. Jess is asleep upstairs."

"Who's yon sitting by the fire?"

Barbara turned round with a start.

"It's only the empty arm-chair, great-granny," she replied.

"David Lynn died in that chair!" said the old woman. "I thought I saw him just now warming his feet. He always had cold feet. 'David,' I used to say to him, 'we'll never ken when you're dead, you that's already so cold about the legs.'"