Four Winds

“ But away from the stifled ship.
Fleeter than any wind.
With a kiss on the twisted lip
Of the face that she leaves behind,
A breath steals forth—and the wind but plays
On a mask that is left behind. ”

“ The firelight flickered from point to point, gleaming on the white and green coats of Gog and Magog, on the sleek, brown head of the beautiful setter basking on the rug, on the picture frames on the walls, on the vaseful of daffodils from the window garden, on Anne herself, sitting by her little table, with her sewing beside her and her hands clasped over her knee while she traced out pictures in the fire—Castles in Spain whose airy turrets pierced moonlit cloud and sunset bar-ships sailing from the Haven of Good Hopes straight to Four Winds Harbor with precious burthen. ”

“ The fall it will be his; and though I strive and strain,
One blow will close my eyes, and I shall never waken.
THE SEA-REAPERS When the Four Winds, the Wrestlers, strive with the Sun,
When the Sun is slain in the dark ”

“ How exceedingly vigorous, too, is the line, "And trod as if on the four winds!" a vigor apparent only when we keep in mind the artless character of the speaker and the four feet of the favorite, one for each wind. ”

“ But winter never lasts for ever. Spring came again—slow and reluctant—and it was long before Gray-wings consented to take her yearly nap and let her sister of the west soothe and comfort the storm-tossed country. And then, as day by day Gratian made his way to school, he watched with awakened and ever-awaking eyes the exquisite eternal beauty of the summer's gradual approach, till at last Golden-wings clasped him in her arms one morning and told him her joy at being able to return. ”

“ Through four of these come winds of blessing and prosperity, and from those eight come hurtful winds: when they are sent, they bring destruction on all the earth and on the water upon it, and on all who dwell thereon, and on everything which is in the water and on the land.
5. And the first wind from those portals, called the east wind, comes forth through the first portal which is in the east, inclining towards the south: from it come forth desolation, drought, heat, and destruction. ”

“ Fergus was greatly struck by the account of Gratian's home—the old house with the queer name.
"How I should like to see it," he said, "and to feel the wind blow."
"The winds," corrected Gratian, "the four winds."
"The four winds," repeated Fergus. "North, south, east, and west. They don't blow all together, do they?"
"I think they do sometimes. Yes, I know they do—at night I'm sure I've heard them all four together, like tones in music."
Fergus looked delighted.
"Ah, you have to come back to music, you see," he said. "There's nothing tells everything and explains everything as well as music." ”

“ He married Rose Elliott from over harbor. Rose was reckoned the beauty of Four Winds—Leslie takes her looks from her mother, but she has ten times the spirit and go that Rose had, and a far better figure. Now you know, Anne, I always take the ground that us women ought to stand by each other. We’ve got enough to endure at the hands of the men, the Lord knows, so I hold we hadn’t ought to clapper-claw one another, and it isn’t often you’ll find me running down another woman. ”

“ The race that knows Joseph is the salt of the airth, I reckon.”
The moon had just risen when Anne and Gilbert went to the door with their guests. Four Winds Harbor was beginning to be a thing of dream and glamour and enchantment—a spellbound haven where no tempest might ever ravin. The Lombardies down the lane, tall and sombre as the priestly forms of some mystic band, were tipped with silver.
“Always liked Lombardies,” said Captain Jim, waving a long arm at them. “They’re the trees of princesses. They’re out of fashion now. Folks complain that they die at the top and get ragged-looking. ”

“ Poor Leslie! You wouldn’t be much surprised if you knew what her life has been. It’s been a tragedy—a tragedy!” repeated Miss Cornelia emphatically.
“I wish you would tell me all about her—that is, if you can do so without betraying any confidence.”
“Lord, dearie, everybody in Four Winds knows poor Leslie’s story. It’s no secret—the outside, that is. Nobody knows the inside but Leslie herself, and she doesn’t take folks into her confidence. I’m about the best friend she has on earth, I reckon, and she’s never uttered a word of complaint to me. Have you ever seen Dick Moore?” ”

“ And that she should be the neighbor whom Anne had pictured as a commonplace Four Winds housewife! Anne could not quickly adjust her mental focus to this astonishing change.
“Then—then you live in that gray house up the brook,” she stammered.
“Yes. I should have gone over to call on you long ago,” said the other. She did not offer any explanation or excuse for not having gone.
“I wish you would come,” said Anne, recovering herself somewhat. “We’re such near neighbors we ought to be friends. That is the sole fault of Four Winds—there aren’t quite enough neighbors. Otherwise it is perfection.” ”

“ The moon was full, and the sea gleamed in silver and black ridges, and that blessed sand shone in the bright moon- light like burnished plate, and we two white figures fled over it like disembodied spirits, with the whole of Nature—sea, sky, and land—looking on and mocking at what was meant to be as grim a tragedy as ever came about. ”

“ The schoolmaster walked away. "A child with something uncommon about him, I fancy," he said in his mind. "One sees that sometimes in a child living as much alone with nature as he does. But I scarcely think he's clever, and then the rough daily life will most likely nip in the bud any sort of poetry or imagination that there may be germs of."
He didn't quite understand Gratian, and then, [Pg 24] too, he didn't take into account what it is to be born under the protection of the four winds of heaven.
But Gratian felt much happier after his talk with the master, and afternoon lessons went better. ”

“ The illustrations with which the argument is supported are numerous and valuable, but the argument itself is made to rest too strongly on an assumed primitive symbolism, whereas it suffices to show how the early notion of the flat world, as also square, would lead to the myth of the four winds blowing from the four corners, a myth often illustrated in ancient maps with an angel at each corner from whose mouth the wind issues. ”

“ Fergus replied. "Mother says I mustn't expect ever to be quite strong. But they say I'm getting better. That's why mother brought me here. Do you know I can eat ever so much more than when I came? If I can get well enough to play—even on a piano—I wouldn't mind so much. I could make up all sorts of things for myself then—I could make pictures even of the moorland and Four Winds Farm, I think, Gratian."
"I'll try to tell you them—I'll try to make some of my fancies into stories and pictures," said Gratian; "then afterwards, when you get well and can play, you can make them into music." ”

“ You are one of the folks people instinctively tell things to. Mrs. Blythe, I love Leslie. Love her! That seems too weak a word!”
His voice suddenly broke with the suppressed passion of his utterance. He turned his head away and hid his face on his arm. His whole form shook. Anne sat looking at him, pale and aghast. She had never thought of this! And yet—how was it she had never thought of it? It now seemed a natural and inevitable thing. She wondered at her own blindness. But—but—things like this did not happen in Four Winds. ”

“ Golden-wings glowed with every other shade reflected on her own rich background, the sister from the sea grew warmer with the red and yellow that shone out among the lapping folds of her mantle, with its feather-like trimming of foam, the gray of the East-wind's garments grew ruddier, like the sky before sunrise, and the cold white of the icy North glimmered and gleamed like an opal. And faster and faster they danced and glided and whirled about, till Gratian felt as if his breath were going, and that in another moment he would be carried away himself by the rush. ”

“ Ian Erskine had died, too, leaving his fortune as he had promised, I understand, and Robert stayed on at the Four Winds Ranch near Calgary. We had very little indeed to do with him after his father's death. I presume he preferred to employ his uncle's man of business. I doubt but that he takes after his father and is a bit careless with money, for over two months ago, on May 20th to be exact, Mrs. Erskine instructed me to send Robert £1,000. I was abroad for my holidays at the time, so I went to see her. Mrs. Erskine lives in France for the sake of her health. ”

“ The Chief Inspector was even more on the alert than before, if possible, when he handed her back her papers and photographs.
“Uncle Ian was a bachelor, you know, and my mother kept house for him after father died. That was twenty-three years ago, and Four Winds was my home till Uncle Ian's death. A dear and happy home it was, too.” Her eyes grew soft. “I saw about poor Rob's death in the papers a little over a month ago, and about John Carter's arrest. My mother is dead, so I'm my own mistress, and I set out right away to see what can be done. For something has got to be done.” ”

“ And tears can be happy as well as sad. My very happiest moments have been when I had tears in my eyes—when Marilla told me I might stay at Green Gables—when Matthew gave me the first pretty dress I ever had—when I heard that you were going to recover from the fever. So give me pearls for our troth ring, Gilbert, and I’ll willingly accept the sorrow of life with its joy.”
But tonight our lovers thought only of joy and never of sorrow. For the morrow was their wedding day, and their house of dreams awaited them on the misty, purple shore of Four Winds Harbor. ”

“ There's no harm in dreaming when we're asleep—we can't be doing aught else then."
"Oh," said Gratian, "it's dreaming in the day that wastes time then."
He was turning the corner of the stair as he said so, speaking more to himself than to his mother. Just then a little waft of air came right in his face. It was not the sharp touch that had made him start at the door, nor was it the soft warm breath which old Jonas said was the south wind. Rather did it remind Gratian of the kindly breeze and the sea-green glimmerings on the moor. He stood still for an instant. ”

“ Then a thought struck him.
"What do you best like doing, Gratian?"
The boy hesitated. Then he grew a little red.
"It isn't doing anything really," he said; "it's what mother calls dreaming—out on the moors, sir, that's the best of all—with the wind all about, and nothing but it and the moor and the sky. And the feel of it keeps in me. Even when I'm at home in the kitchen by the fire, if I shut my eyes I can fancy it."
The master nodded his head.
"Dreaming is no harm in its right place. But if one did nothing but dream, the dreams would lose their colour, I expect." ”

“ It gave one a feeling of being "above the clouds" that Gratian liked. But this morning there was nothing of a weather panorama of that kind—just sheer, steady, sapping rain, with no wind to interfere.
"They are tired, I daresay," thought Gratian; "for they must have been hard at work last night, getting the clouds together for all this rain. I expect Golden-wings goes off altogether when it's [Pg 91] so cold and dreary. I wonder where she is. I would like to see her home—it must be full of such beautiful colours and scents." ”

“ The whole Council must answer ‘Noon-way’ or amen to these prayers.
“Then I proceed to beg each of the Four Winds in turn to do us no harm from cyclone, cold, rain or heat. All present will please respond ‘Noon-way’ as before.”
The visitors were quite impressed and when the first prayer came, “Hay-oon-kee-ya” (Be with us) the response was fervent. Then, as the pipe was presented to the West Wind, and Wita-tonkan cried, “Hay-oon-kee-oon-ee-ya-snee” (Come not upon us) the chorus of “noon-ways” was so loud that Mose and74 Bridget who were now busy in the bungalow making lemonade, fairly jumped. ”

“ Why did he turn away, his cheeks tingling again as if the wind had been slapping them, here inside the sheltered schoolroom?
The master felt a little disappointed.
"He will never do really well if he is so foolishly shy and bashful," he said to himself, when Gratian turned away as if ashamed to be grateful for the few kind words the teacher said to him at the end of the morning's lessons; and the boy, in a corner of the playground by himself when the other children had run home for their dinner, felt nearly, if not quite, as unhappy as the day before. ”

“ Cornelius," said Fergus's mother with a smile. "It is like a flower—it asks nothing but to be allowed to grow. He is a very uncommon child—one could imagine that some specially happy influences surrounded him. He seems to take in and to feel interest in so many different things. I wonder what he will grow up."
"Ah yes, ma'am," said the schoolmaster with a sigh. "It is a pity to think of his being no more than his father before him. But yet, what can one do?" ”

“ Fergus and his mother did not leave a day too soon. With early January the winter spirits, chained hitherto, broke forth in fury. Never had such falls of snow been known even in that wild region, and many a night Gratian, lying awake, unable to sleep through the rattle and racket, felt a strange excitement at the thought that all this was the work of his mysterious protectors.
"White-wings and Gray-wings seem really going mad," he thought once or twice. But the sound of laughter, mingling with the whistling and roaring and shrieking in the chimney, reassured him. ”