Emily J. Jenkinson

“ 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. ”

“ Barbara had diverted the flow of her passion for Peter out of the usual channels in which such feelings run. Had she been free to love him in the way that men and women are meant to love, she would have become the most devoted of creatures, excelling others by a greater degree of intensity in her affection, and not by an unique difference in its nature. As a wife and mother she would have been calm, self-sacrificing, supremely happy, viewing the larger world with a placid generosity, the overflow of her own abundance. ”

“ 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. ”

“ She lay in the four-poster, shut in from distracting sounds and sights by the curtains. Could Lucy have been so bold as to peer between them, many a strange expression flitting across the old face would not only have astonished, but startled her. For her great-grandmother could hate and love with a mighty passion. Sometimes she bore a strange likeness to herself as she had looked when she bade Joel good-bye, and he slipped out of the wool-barn into the dark night. She had been tall and fair in those days—like Barbara—but with a jewel glittering in each eye. ”

“ Barbara and the hind went out. The air was damp, and the mountain passes were choked with mist. Overhead the stars still shone, and an ungainly moon was in the act of tumbling out of sight behind the head of the dale, as they struck along the cattle-track to Swirtle Tarn.
Before dawn, in the fall of the year, the atmosphere is chilly and spiritless. The mystery of the night has gone, though the earth, to all appearance, is still under its rule. There is a uniform dulness on the landscape, while the stars grow dimmer, the mists cling closely, and life is sluggish. ”

“ The blackthorn thicket was white, and the lesser celandines were golden on the banks. In the forest lay a deep blue silence—the silence of old wise trees, but on the topmost branches, gay and giddy birds were pouring out their hearts to the spring sunshine in a wild burst of melody.
"It's all very beautiful," said Peter; "that light on the beech-stems—it might be a splash of pure gold. The trees seem to be aware of it too—if only their leaves were out they would be clapping their hands for joy." Then he turned to Timothy Hadwin. "I'm becoming a convert to your Faith," he said. ”

“ The protecting instinct was strong in Barbara; it rose up like that of a lioness to stand between its young one and danger. Though she was only a year older than Lucy, in power to endure she was as a beech tree to the wind-flower at its foot.
She pitied Joel, she had a warm place in her heart for him; she had seen him do many a kind action; his generosity and improvidence had largely added to his present desperate condition; but her sympathy was tempered with severity. There is no severity colder and more relentless than that of the young. ”

“ Lucy went up the sheep-path. On the brow of the knoll she paused, looking back. Barbara was kindling a fire outside the cave, and the smoke, as it coiled upwards, hung between them like a blue veil. Her sister seemed to be moving among mysterious things, and there was symbolical meaning in the blue veil. For two worlds lie side by side, the material and the spiritual, and from either the view into the other seems hazy and unreal. But the greatest intellects try to reconcile them. Towards such a reconciliation Barbara, in her untutored mind, was striving. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ She told herself that she could not pass another winter at Greystones, cooped up with the fearsome old woman, her great-grandmother. She would lose her wits if she did, or die; at any rate, lose her youth. Youth was not so much a matter of a few years as of happiness—the happy were always young, the sad old long before their time.
As Lucy sat on the bridge this fair autumn evening, herself as fair as a little rosy cloud floating overhead, although she was outwardly calm and unoccupied, she was listening, not with the best of grace, to two voices talking in her own soul. ”

“ She felt herself to be a part of a great order. There was a bond between the golden clouds of dawn and herself, between the winds and her. She had a common bond, too, with all living things, sheep, birds, and also the foxes and the ravens. All were in their place, and she was in her place. This gave to her life a sense of repose.
But such a sense of security alone could not have built up the character of Barbara Lynn. Mere freedom from fear is a negative quality, unless the emancipated soul makes use of its privileges to flow out in search of worthier objects to stimulate its energies. ”

“ Barbara, with clearer vision, saw a man tossed about by circumstance, without a guiding principle in his life, whose pride was as hollow a thing as a soul ever cherished.
She turned away from Forest Hall, and the disquieting thoughts which Joel roused, and looked up the dale. It wound in sun-swept greenness to Thundergay, where Swirtle Tarn glittered like a silver sixpence. For some days clouds had been gathering there, piled one on the other like wool-sacks, white and soft as wool just now, but stained crimson at sunrise, and black as smoke at night. ”

“ Life should be full and radiant, not stifled and stunted. It should have room to grow, and develop its manifold beauties. But her life, if she cut her love for Peter out of it, would taste like dust and ashes in her mouth. She wanted Peter; her arms wanted him; her heart wanted him. She desired to cherish the beloved one, who was not cherished by his own wife.
This was the thought which caused her so much bitterness. Lucy did not love Peter; Barbara had learnt, as the years passed, why her sister had married him. ”

“ She had often seen it before, a gaunt, grim figure—older far than the great-grandmother—whose eyes were haunted by memories, whose features were stricken by sorrow, whose cheeks were lined with the marks of a wild yet lonely life. Such was the grey spirit of Greystones. This afternoon it seemed to rise out of the flags at her feet, and stand waiting, waiting as it had waited again and again through the centuries while a Lynn died.
From each soul that passed under its roof it took the memories, the tragedies, the passions, and made them its own. ”

“ She had determined one thing—she would remain no longer than she must at Greystones. She hated it. She hated the loneliness, the crags that overhung the house, the snow, and the winds, and the rain. She hated her great-grandmother. So hardened had she become by that which she had suffered that she was not afraid to express her real feelings to herself. She would cease to fetch and carry for the old woman, she would refuse to be a drudge. She would be happy before she was too old to enjoy happiness. ”

“ At last she heard the plop-plop of butter in the churn, and her eyes brightened. When the brain is distracted with questions it is unable to solve, that concern the inner life, it finds relief in turning to outward shows, where something is being accomplished—be it only the coming of butter.
The hind had cleaned out the byre, and shaken down fresh straw. It glistened in the gloom like thick golden threads, soon to be trodden under the hoofs of the cows. Lucy could hear her sister's voice as she drove them from their pasture across the bridge to the milking. ”

“ Above all, look up to Thundergay, to Barbara's rugged nurse, friend and teacher, who helped her to be strong when she might have been weak. If you go at night you will see the Northern Crown shine, and you will remember that she wore her crown and wore it royally, though it bowed her head to sorrow and to death.
But Barbara is not dead; the good and the great never die. As Timothy Hadwin said to Peter the last time that he came to Boar Dale:
"Her spirit is here, in the wind, in the song of the beck, in the blades of grass. ”

“ Timothy raised his hands and salaamed.
"Come away, you old sun-worshipper," said Peter, "you'll get a chill if you stop to say your orisons up here," for a wind had come with the sunrise.
"If I were a rich man," said Timothy, "I'd build an altar to the sun on the highest hills, and make a law that all folks should go up twice a year and worship it. They should see the earth awake as from the grave, they should feel the passionate gladness of the dawn, they should receive strength for their labour, and inspiration for their minds. ”

“ Later in the day Lucy went up the dale to find Barbara. She eagerly drank in the sunlight. It comforted her like a cup of sweet wine. From the mosses of the beck-side, where she followed the cattle road, a whispering could be heard as of life—innumerable, and infinitesimal—waking to activity after its long winter sleep. Bees were buzzing; birds were mating; the village geese, in charge of a goose-girl, were being driven to their feeding grounds; Tom, the new hind, with a boy to drive the horses, was ploughing in a steep field; and Jan Straw was gathering rushes. ”

“ Though the good God 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, lass; 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Barbara was driving sheep on the fells above Cringel Forest. She looked down and saw the trees bourgeoning into leaf, and rising out of them, on the top of a jutting crag, the old house belonging to Joel Hart. It was an unpretentious place, but battlemented and loop-holed, made for defence when moss-troopers paid frequent visits, and not for beauty or comfort. It was, in fact, little better than a fortified farm-house; underneath it ran a long dark cellar, where the cattle of the villagers could be driven for safety in times of alarm. ”

“ Then a rock crashed past the house and plunged into the beck.
Barbara ran into the garden and looked up. A sound like distant thunder began to roll. She saw, as it were, the whole mountain move. Horror, for a moment, robbed her of understanding, but she recovered herself. The vast mass of Mickle Crags was heaving, and splitting apart, sending before it showers of stones and soil, while around stood the grey hills, looking on with calm features. She must flee if she would save her life. But she could not flee, for her great-grandmother was still living. ”

“ Many of his ideas he had imbibed from Timothy Hadwin, who when he was a child had taught him Latin and Greek, and used every opportunity to impress the boy with a sense of the mystery of the universe.
Life touched life through the three kingdoms. The tiniest flower in the hedgerow and the king on his throne were but links in one great chain. It was this sense of his relationship to the whole living creation that gave breadth to Peter's outlook, intensity to his mind, and power to his bearing. He tried to understand, and he deeply loved all nature. ”

“ But it reminded me of you, you, among the fells and dales of the home-country, waiting and longing for me. It was a foolish dream, I know. Then fortune smiled. Life looked all rose-colour, till one day I got your letter. If ever a man had climbed high with hopes, Lucy, I was that man, and if ever a man came sliding down at one blow, I was that man."
Lucy's self-possession began to give way. She might have justified her own actions, might have poured resentment and wrath upon him. She did none of these things.
"Oh, Joel," she cried, "life is very hard and bitter. ”