  Produced by Al Haines. [image] Cover [image] THE MESSENGER FROM THE DEEP. J. D. Wilson THE SPLENDID BY CONSTANCE HOLME "All night long the water is crying to me." MILLS & BOON, LIMITED Published 1919 TO Boscombe, March 28th--April 5th, 1919 CONTENTS PART I SIMON AND SARAH I Perhaps it would never have happened but for the day. A brave, buoyant day, with a racing wind, might have scattered the clinging obsession just in time. A tender, laughing day might have laid a healing finger on old sores. A clean, frosty day might have braced the naturally sane old mind. But Fate, out of all the days in the year, took upon itself to send just this. The human soul, which seems so utterly out of reach, is only shut away from every other soul. In every other respect it is like a harp hung on a tree. Even the actual day as it comes is itself a lever in many a fate. Deeds are done on certain days which on others would be mere passing impulses easily dead before the night. This blind Martinmas Day went all day long with its head among the clouds, as if it thought that never again would there be any sun. Indeed, it was out of the lack of every sort of sight that the evil grew; since, otherwise--"Mothers couldn't have done those things," as Geordie would have said. All day the earth retained that stillness which it keeps as a rule only for the last hour before the dawn. Everywhere in the morning there was mist,--that strange, wandering, thinking mist that seems to have nothing to do with either earth or air; and when the slow dark drew back there would be mist everywhere again. Between those shadowy tide-marks of the air there was a space when the white mist shredded above the trees, leaving the atmosphere with the look of a glass that has been breathed upon and never clears. The Simon Thornthwaites were going to market simply because they did not know how to stay away. They went as naturally as the sun comes out of the east, but with a good deal less of decision about the journey. They looked dull and tired, too, less indeed as if they were setting out than as if they were wearily trundling home again. Both horse and trap looked as though they might fall to pieces after an extra jolt, and the jumble of harness was mended here and there with string. There was neither butter nor fowl in the market-basket behind; there was not even a limp rabbit dangling over the wheel. But all the time they were part of a chain which gave them a motive and impulse not their own, since others, more sure of their errand, were taking the same road. Sometimes a horseman on a young Shire went past with a flash of feather and a clumping of hoofs. Livelier traps spun by at a trot and gave them a hail. Behind and before them they had an occasional glimpse of the procession stretching to the town. They had climbed from the marsh, leaving it dropped like a colourless cloth beside the sea, and already they seemed to have been a long time on the road. They had not slept much, and, waking, had had the cheated feeling, common to the weary, that the foregoing day had never really ended nor the incoming morning ever quite begun. Indeed, the strange, dreamlike day had never really seemed to come awake. Looking back and west, they saw everything grey, with just a lightened shadow marking the far sea, and the marsh lying down on its face like a figure flung down to die. Houses sat low to the earth as if they crouched, and the trees were vague, bodiless wisps, without backbone or sap. When they had their first glimpse of Witham, they saw the town on the fell-side like a fortress through smoked glass, and the Castle alone on its hill was of shadow-stones poised on a poised cloud. The Simon Thornthwaites were old now, and under-dogs in the tussle of life, but they had once been as strong and confident as most. Sometimes they had a vision of their former selves, and wondered how this could ever have been that. The old man was thin and bent, the sort that shows the flame through the lantern long before the end, but the woman was stronger-boned, squarer, and still straight. Most of her life she had worked like a horse, but she was still straight. Her face was mask-like and her mouth close. Only her hands betrayed her at times,--old, over-done hands that would not always be still. Her eyes seemed to look straight before her at something only she could see,--staring and staring at the image which she had set up. They farmed Sandholes down on the marsh, a lonely bit of a spot that looked as if it had been left there for a winter's tide to take away. It had always had an unlucky name, and, like many unlucky people and things, seemed to have the trick of attracting to itself those who were equally ill-starred. Certainly, Sandholes and the Thornthwaites between them had achieved amazing things in the way of ill-luck. No doubt both farm and folk would have done better apart, but then they had never succeeded in getting apart. It was just as if Fate had thrown and kept them together in order to do each other down. Luck to luck--there seemed nothing else to be said about the Thornthwaites' plight. They even carried the stamp of each other plain to be seen. You had only to look at the farm to know how its tenants looked; you had only to see the folk to know what their home was like. Perhaps it was just that the double weight of misfortune was too big a thing to lift. Perhaps the canker at the heart of it all would allow nothing to prosper and grow sweet. They had an easy landlord, easy and rich; too easy and rich, perhaps, for the Thornthwaites' good. That farm had money--landlord's and tenant's--spent on it above its due; yes, and a certain amount of borrowed brass as well. It had work put into it, thought and courage sufficient to run a colony, and good-will enough to build a church. And all that it did in return was to go back and back and be a deadhead and a chapter of accidents and an everlasting disappointment and surprise. It was a standing contradiction of the saying--"Be honest with the land, and it will be honest with you." Everything went wrong with that farm that could go wrong, as well as other things that couldn't by any chance have gone anything but right. Most people would have thrown a stone at it at an early stage, but it was part of the Thornthwaite doom that they could not tear themselves away. Even when there seemed no longer a reason for staying, still they stayed. The one streak of sentiment in them that survived the dismal years held them there captive by its silken string. But to-day, as they jogged and jolted endlessly towards Witham, the whole, drear, long business came to an end. No matter what they had thought of the probable future to themselves, they had hitherto shut their mouths obstinately and clung close. They had never even said to each other that some day they would have to quit. They had put it off so long that it seemed the least little push would always put it further still. But to-day the matter suddenly settled itself for good; almost, it seemed, between one telegraph-post and the next. Martinmas hirings would be in full swing when they got in, but there was no need now for Simon to enter the ring. Their hired man had seen them through the busiest time, but they could manage without him through the winter months. Their hired men had never stayed very long, because the depression of the place seemed to get into their bones. They tired of crops which seemed to make a point of 'finger and toe,' and of waiting through dismal weeks to get in the hay. Now the Thornthwaites would never have the worry of hay-time on their own account again,--never open the door to catch the scent from their waiting fields,--never watch the carts coming back on the golden evening to the barn. 'Never again' would be written over many things after to-day, but perhaps it was there that they saw it written first. After all this time things had somehow stopped of themselves, and after all this time there was nothing to do but go. Lads and lasses went by them on cycles, or tugging bundles as they walked; youth with bright cheeks and strong shoulders and clear eyes, taking its health and strength to the market to be hired. Some of them greeted the old folks as they passed, but others did not as much as know their names. Both Simon and Sarah came of old and respectable stock, but to the young generation skimming by on wheels these two had been as good as buried years ago. Sarah's eyes strained themselves after the lithe bodies of the lads, while Simon looked at the lasses with their loads. He would have liked to have offered some of them a lift, but he knew he would catch it from Sarah if he did. Sarah hated the younger end of folk, she always said, and the fly-away lasses she hated most of all. She saw them going past her into beautiful life, just as their swifter wheels went past the trap. Always they were leaving her behind as it seemed to her that she had always been left. It was true, of course, that she had had her turn, but now it seemed so far away it might never have been. All she could see in the background when she looked behind was the cheerless desert which she had had to cover since. They were about half-way to Witham when the moment of spoken decision caught them unawares. All their stolid resistance and obstinate clinging to the farm gave in that instant as easily as a pushed door. It was as if a rock at the mouth of a cave had suddenly proved no more than a cloud pausing before it in the act of drifting by. The end came as nearly always after a prolonged fight,--smoothly, painlessly, with a curious lack of interest or personal will. The burden had been so heavy that the last straw passed almost unnoticed which brought them finally to the ground. They had lived so close to the edge for so many years that the step which carried them over it scarcely jarred. They were climbing the long hill that runs from Doestone Hall, the Tudor house standing close to the cross-roads. By turning their heads they could see its gabled front with the larches set like lances beside its door. The river ran swift below the beech-covered slope of the park, reaching impatiently after the ebbed tide. The house, for all the weight of its age, looked unsubstantial in the filmy air. Fast as the river flowed below, from above it looked like a sheeted but still faintly moving corpse. The road was damp and shadowy under the overhanging trees, and padded with the hoof-welded carpet of the autumn leaves. The fields on either side were formless and wet, and seemed to stretch away to unknown lengths. The hedges appeared to wander and wind across the land without purpose and without end. Under all the hedges and trees there were leaves, wet splashes of crushed colour on the misted grass. Simon lifted his whip to point at the hips and haws, and said it would be a hard winter when it came, but Sarah did not so much as turn her head. "I'm bothered a deal wi' my eyes, Simon," she said in a quiet tone. "I thought I'd best see doctor about 'em to-day." He dropped his gaze from the hedges with a startled stare. "Oh, ay? That's summat fresh, isn't it?" he enquired. "You've never said nowt about it afore." "Nay, what, I thought it was likely just old age. But I've gitten a deal worse these last few week. I can't shape to do a bit o' sewing or owt." "Ay, well, you'd best see doctor right off," Simon said, and the horse crawled a little further up the hill. They did not speak again for some time, but those who live together in a great loneliness grow to speak together in thought as much as in words. That was why his next speech seemed to come out placidly enough. "I doubt it's about time for us to quit." "I doubt it is." "I never meant to gang till I was carried," Simon said, "and then I doubt there'd still ha' been some o' me left. But I've seen the end o' things coming for a while back now. It seems kind o' meant, you being bothered wi' your eyes an' all." "Happen it is," she said again, and sighed. Then she laughed, a slight laugh, but bitter and grim. "It nobbut wanted that on top o' the rest!" Simon threw her an uneasy glance. "Nay, now, you mustn't get down about it, missis," he said hastily. "It waint do to get down. Doctor'll likely see his way to put you right. But we've had a terble poor time wi' it all," he went on glumly, forgetting his own advice. "Seems like as if we'd been overlooked by summat, you and me. 'Tisn't as if we'd made such a bad start at things, neither. We were both on us strong and willing when we was wed. It's like as if there'd been a curse o' some sort on the danged spot!" "There's been a curse on the lot of us right enough!" Sarah said. "Ay, and we don't need telling where it come from, neither!" Again he looked at her with that uncomfortable air, though he took no notice of her bitter speech. He knew only too well that haunted corner of her mind. That sour, irreclaimable pasture had been trodden in every inch. "Ay, well, we're through on t'far side on't now," he said morosely. "Sandholes can grind the soul out o' some other poor body for the next forty year! I never hear tell o' such a spot!" he went on crossly, with that puzzled exasperation which he always showed when discussing the marsh-farm. "It'd be summat to laugh at if only it didn't make you dancin' mad! What, it's like as if even slates had gitten a spite agen sticking to t'roof! We've had t'tide in t'house more nor once, and sure an' certain it'd be when we'd summat new in the way o' gear. We'd a fire an' all, you'll think on, and it took us a couple o' year getting to rights agen. Burned out and drownded out,--why, it's right silly, that's what it is! As for t'land, what it fair swallers up lime an' slag and any mak' o' manure, and does as lile or nowt as it can for it in return. Nigh every crop we've had yet was some sort of a let-down,--that's if we'd happen luck to get it at all! Kitchen garden's near as bad; lile or nowt'll come up in't, nobbut you set by it and hod its hand! Ay, and the stock, now,--if there was sickness about, sure an' certain it'd fix on us. You'd nobbut just to hear o' tell o' foot and mouth, or anthrax, or summat o' the sort, an' it'd be showing at Sandholes inside a week! Same wi' t'folk in t'house as wi' folk in t'shuppon,--fever, fluenzy, diphthery,--the whole doctor's bag o' tricks. Nay, there's summat queer about spot, and that's Bible truth! We should ha' made up our minds to get shot of it long since, and tried our luck somewheres else." "We'd likely just ha' taken our luck along wi' us," Sarah said, "and there was yon brass we'd sunk in the spot,--ay, and other folks' brass an' all." (Simon growled "Ay, ay," to this, but in a reproachful tone, as if he thought it might well have been left unsaid.) "We were set enough on Sandholes when we was wed, think on; and when Geordie was running about as a bit of a lad." "Ay, and Jim." "Nay, then, I want nowt about Jim!" "Ay, well, it's a bit since now," Simon said hastily, thinking that it seemed as long ago as when there was firm land stretching from Ireland to the marsh. "Over forty year." "It's a bit since," he said again, just as he said equally of the Creation of the world, or his own boyhood, or the last time he was at Witham Show. "Surely to goodness we were right enough then? We shouldn't ha' said thank you for any other spot. Nay, and we wouldn't ha' gone later on, neither, if we'd gitten chanst. It would never ha' done for Geordie to come back and find the old folks quit." "Nay, nor for Jim----" he began again thoughtlessly, and bit it off. "Ay, well, I doubt he'll never come back now!" "He's likely best where he is." Sarah shut her mouth with a hard snap. Once again she stared straight in front of her over the horse's head, staring and staring at the image which she had set up. A motor-horn challenged them presently from behind, and Simon pulled aside without even turning his head. He had never really grown used to the cars and the stricter rule of the road. He belonged to the days when the highway to Witham saw a leisurely procession of farmers' shandrydans, peat-carts, and carriers' carts with curved hoods; with here and there a country gentleman's pair of steppers flashing their way through. He never took to the cars with their raucous voices and trains of dust, their sudden gusts of passage which sent his heart into his mouth. His slack-reined driving forced him to keep to the crown of the road, and only an always forthcoming miracle got him out of the way in time. He used to shrink a little when the cars drew level, and the occupants turned their curious heads. Somehow the whole occurrence had the effect of a definite personal attack. Sometimes he thought they laughed at the jolting trap, the shabby old couple and the harness tied with string. The rush of the cars seemed to bring a crescendo of mocking voices and leave a trail of diminishing mirth. But as a matter of fact he did not often look at them when they looked at him. There was nothing to link their hurrying world with his. This particular car, however, seemed an unusually long time in getting past. The horn sounded again, and, muttering indignantly, he pulled still further into the hedge-side. He held his breath for the usual disturbance and rush, but they did not come. The car kept closely behind him, but it did not pass. Round each corner, as they reached it, he lost and then caught again the subdued purring of the engine and the soft slurring of the wheels. When they met anything, it fell further back, so that at times he felt sure that it must have stopped. Then he would draw his breath, and drop into a walk, but almost at once it would be at his back again. The note of it grew to have a stealthy, stalking sound, as of something that waited to spring upon its prey. The strangeness of this proceeding began suddenly to tell upon Simon's nerves. Lack of interest had at first prevented him from turning his head, but now it changed into sheer inability to look behind. Soon he was in the grip of a panic fear that the car at his back might not be a real car, after all. He began to think that he had only imagined the horn, the gentle note of the engine and the soft sound of the wheels. Perhaps, now that he was old, his ears were playing him false, just as Sarah's eyes, so it seemed, were suddenly playing her false. Presently he was sure, if he turned, he would see nothing at all, or that, instead of nothing at all, he would see a ghost. Something that moved in another world would be there, with spidery wheels and a body through which he could see the fields; something that had once belonged to life and gone out with a crash, or was only just coming into it on the road.... It was quite true that there was something peculiar about the behaviour of the car. From its number, it must have come from the county next below, and it was splashed as if it had travelled far and fast. During the last few miles, however, it had done nothing but crawl. More than one farmer had heard it behind him and wondered why it took so long to pass, but it had never dallied and dawdled so long before. Almost at once it had gathered speed and slithered by, and the man inside had turned with a friendly hail. He was a stranger, so they said afterwards, with a puzzled air, but at the time they answered the hail as if he were one of themselves. But Simon, at least, had no intention of hailing anybody just then. Indeed, he was fast losing both his sense and his self-control. He slapped the reins on the horse's back, making urgent, uncouth sounds, and doing his best to yank it into a sharper trot. It plunged forward with an air of surprise, so that the old folks bumped in their seats, knocked against each other and were jerked back. Presently it bundled itself into an aged gallop, while Simon clicked at it through his scanty teeth. "Nay, now, master, what are you at!" Sarah protested, gripping the rail. "We've no call to hurry ourselves, think on." "It's yon danged car!" Simon growled, feeling somehow as though he were galloping, too. He was quite sure now that a boggle was hot on his track, and the sweat stood on his brow as he slapped and lashed. Losing his nerve completely, he got to his feet with a shout, at the same time waving the car to pass ahead. It obeyed instantly, drawing level in a breath, and just for a breath slowing again as it reached his side. The hired driver was wearing a cheerful grin, but the man leaning out of the back of the car was perfectly grave. He was a big man, tanned, with steady grey-blue eyes, fixed on the old couple with an earnest gaze. Simon, however, would not have looked at him for gold, and after its momentary hesitation, the car shot on. The horse felt its master drop back again in his seat, and subsided, panting, into its slowest crawl. Sarah straightened her bonnet, and tugged at her mantle upon which Simon had collapsed. "Whatever took you to act like yon?" she asked. "There was nowt to put you about as I could see." "It was yon danged car!" Simon muttered again, but beginning already to feel rather ashamed. "It give me the jumps, taking so long to get by. What, I got thinking after a bit it wasn't a motor-car at all! More like a hearse it seemed, when it ganged past,--a gert, black hearse wi' nid-noddin' feathers on top...." He let out a great sigh, mopping his face as if he would never stop. "Danged if yon new strap baint gone and give out first thing!" He climbed down, grumbling at the new strap which had gone back on him so soon, and began to add a fresh ornamentation to the mended gear. The horse stood with drooped head, emitting great breaths which shook and stirred the trap. Simon's hands trembled as he worked at his woolly knot, his eyes still full of that vision of sweeping plumes. Further down the road the car had stopped again, but as soon as Simon had finished, it moved away. It went over the hill as if it indeed had wings,--feathery, velvet-black and soft on the misty air.... II Another thing happened to them on the road to Witham, though it was even more trivial than the last. The first, perhaps, was meant for Simon,--that face coming out of the void and trying to look him in the eyes. The other,--a voice from the void,--was a call to the woman with the failing sight. But to most people there come these days of slight, blind, reasonless events. Something that is not so much memory as re-vision reaches out of the past into the present; faint foretellings shape themselves out of some far-off hour. And then on the following morning there is sun, and clear outlines and a blowing sky. The firm circlet of To-Day is bound again shining and hard about the narrow earth. For a short time they seemed almost alone on the processional road. No more cars passed them, and only occasionally a bicycle or a trap. Simon felt more than ever ashamed of himself as his nerve steadied and his excitement cooled. He had made a bonny fool of himself, he thought, standing up and shouting as if he was cracked. Witham would snap at the tale like a meaty bone, and folk would be waiting to twit him when he got in. It wasn't as if he were in the mood for a joke, either, seeing how things were; he would find it hard to take it as it was meant. And there was one person at least to whom the tale would be Balm in Gilead for many a happy day. He hoped fervently that it might not reach her ears. Sooner or later it would reach her, of course; everything that made mock of them always did. The most that could be hoped for was that they would not meet her to-day, backed by her usual sycophantic crowd. Sarah would never stand any nonsense from her to-day, depressed as she was by the trouble about her eyes. There would be a scuffle between them, as sure as eggs were eggs, and just when he wanted things smooth in that quarter, too. He thought of giving her a hint to be careful, and opened his mouth, and then decided to keep off the subject, and shut it again. Not that they ever did keep off it, as he knew perfectly well. Sooner or later it was on their lips, and certainly always after a day at market. They had discussed it so often from every possible point that they did not always know which it was that spoke. They had long since forgotten from which of their minds the bitter, perpetual speeches had first been born. Often they waked in the night to talk of the hated thing, and slept and wakened only to talk of it again. There was nothing good that they had which it had not poisoned at the source, and no sorrow but was made a double sorrow thereby. There was scarcely one of their memories that did not ache because of that constant sword-point in its heart. It was on market-day each week that their fount of bitterness was continually refreshed. They kept up the old habit for more reasons than one, but most of all because of this thing which hurt and cramped their lives. It was like a vice of some sort which had long become an imperative need. Each week they came home with the iron fresh sunk in their souls, and each week they went again to look on the thing that they both loathed. Now they were right away from the marsh and the sands, and would not see them until they returned, although from the moor and fell-land surrounding Witham it was always possible to see the bay. Indeed, in this part of the little county it was hard to get away from the knowledge of the sea, and even further in, among the shouldering peaks, you had only to climb awhile to find the water almost within a throw. On days like this, however, even on the beach it was hard to tell which was water and which mist, and when at last the tide drew silently from beneath, those who looked at it from the hills could not tell whether it went or stayed. Simon, looking drearily around, thought that the whole earth had a drowned appearance to-day. It reminded him of the marsh after it had been swamped by a flood, and the miserable land emerged soddenly as the sea drew back. Everything was so still, too, with the stillness of the dead or drugged. Only the mist moved steadily and of set purpose, though it was the purpose of a creature with shut eyes walking in its sleep. Out of the low vapour softly roofing the fields a gull came flying slowly over their heads. First Simon saw the shadow of it huge upon the mist, and then it came swooping and circling until it hung above the road. Its long, pointed wings and drooping legs were magnified by the distorting air, and presently he could see the colour of its bill and the gleam of its expressionless eye. It moved in that lifeless atmosphere as a ship that has lost the wind moves still by its gathered momentum over a deadened sea, but when it came over the road it turned to follow the trap, instead of making away at an angle towards the west. Simon concluded that it must have lost its way in the mist, and was following them as sea-birds follow a boat, but presently he was reminded of the car in this leisurely gliding on their track. Like the car, too, it drew level at last, but this time he was not afraid. He looked up at it, indeed, but without much interest, watching its lone vagrancy with apathetic eyes. It was silent at first as it circled and swooped, looping its aimless, unnecessary curves, yet always travelling on. It might have been a piece of the wandering mist that had taken shape, yet the sluggish, unbuoyant atmosphere seemed scarcely to have sufficient strength to carry its weight. So low it flew at last that it almost brushed their faces and the horse's ears, and in fancy he felt the touch of it damp and soft against his cheek. And then, as it dropped for the hundredth time, it suddenly spoke. Sarah started violently when the cry broke over her head, the harsh wailing cry that makes all sands desolate and all moorland lone. She lifted her face to search the curtained sky as well as she could, but already the bird had left them and mounted higher, as if called and turned to another road. Each cry as it came was fainter than the last, like the speech of a passing soul ever further off. There was about it something of the majesty and terror of all irrevocable retreats, of those who go forth unhesitatingly when summoned, never to return. It left behind it the same impulse to reach out passionate, yearning arms, to cry aloud for the fainting answer that would still go on long after the ear had ceased to take it in. Sarah sat with her face lifted to the last, trembling and drawing short, uneven breaths. Simon was silent until she had settled again, and then--"It was nobbut a gull," he said, at length. She gave a deep sigh, and folded her hands tightly before her in their black cotton gloves. "We've plenty on 'em, I'm sure, down on t'marsh.... I'm that used to them, I never hear their noise." She turned her head slightly towards him, as if in a vain attempt to see his face. "Ay, but it was that like," she answered in a suppressed tone. "Eh, man, but it was terble like!" He gave a grunt by way of reply, knowing well enough what she meant, but knowing also that there was nothing to say. It was not true, of course, that he never heard the gulls. He heard them always, and behind them the voice that called across the years. But they had long since ceased to talk about it or to take the voice of the present for the voice of the past. Sometimes, indeed, when the cry came at the window on a stormy night, they started and looked at each other, and then looked away. But it was not often that they were deceived, as Sarah had been to-day. Even now, he felt sure, she was straining after the voice, that would never cease crying until it reached the tide. They were passed again before they reached the town, but this time it was by the cheerful rap of hoofs. It caught them as they creaked their way up the last hill,--the smart going of a good horse that even on the smothered highway managed to ring sharp. A whip was waved as the dog-cart dashed by, and the driver turned back to give them a smile. She was Fleming's motherless daughter from the 'Ship' Inn across the sands, and Simon and Sarah had known her all her life. All her life she had lived looking out across the bay, and half her life looking a thousand miles beyond. Simon threw up his hand to her with an answering smile, a sudden sweetness changing his whole face. Even Sarah relaxed when she knew who it was, and both of them brightened for a little while. They were fond of May, a good girl who did not change, and who never made light of those whom Fate was counting out. She had always had the power to strengthen their hold on life, to blow their dying courage into a flame. There was a serene yet pulsing strength about her that had the soothing stimulus of a summer tide. Sarah had been jealous of her when she was young, and had fended her off, but May had long since found her patient way to her heart. Now she stood to both the old people as their one firm link with the past, and as such she was more precious to them than rubies and dearer than bright gold. "A good lass!" Simon observed, with the smile still present on his lips. "Ay." "I've always thought a deal o' May." "Ay, an' me." "Geordie an' all," he added, with a faintly mischievous air. Sarah did not speak. "An' Jim----" "Nay, then, I want nowt about Jim!" Simon drew the lash gently along the horse's back. "I hear Fleming's been none so well lately," he resumed, as they rumbled into Witham. "We mun think on to ax. Happen I could slip across to t' 'Ship' after we've gitten back. Tide's about six, isn't it? I could happen do it." "Fleming's nobbut going the same road as t'rest on us," Sarah said. "He'll be glad to see you, though, like enough. But it'll be dark soon, think on, wi' all this fog." "There's summat queer about t'weather," Simon said broodingly, knitting his brows. "Tides is fairish big, and yet it's terble whyet. Happen we'll have a change o' some sort afore so long." "I've noticed it's often whyet afore a big change. Seems like as if it knew what was coming afore it was on t'road." "Ay, but it's different, some way.... It's more nor that. There's a blind look about things, seems to me." "Blind weather for blind folk!" Sarah put in with a grim laugh. Simon grunted a protest but she took no notice. "I never thought as I should be blind," she went on, almost as if to herself. "I've always been terble sharp wi' my eyes; likely that's why I've managed to wear 'em out. And I've always been terble feared o' folk as couldn't see. There's no telling what blind weather and a blind body's brain may breed.... Ay, well, likely I'll know a bit more about they sort o' things now...." III All old and historical towns seem older and richer in meaning on some days than they do on others. But the old and the rich days are also the most aloof. The towns withdraw, as it were, to ponder on their past. By some magic of their own they eliminate all the latest features, such as a library, a garage, or a new town hall, and show you nothing but winding alleys filled with leaning walls and mossy roofs. The eye finds for itself with ease things which it has seen for a lifetime and yet never seen,--carved stone dates, colour-washed houses jutting out over worn pillars, grey, mullioned houses tucked away between the shops. The old pigments and figures stand out strangely on the well-known signs, and the old names of the inns make a new music in the ear. The mother-church by the river seems bowed to the earth with the weight of the prayers that cling to her arched roof. The flags in the chancel seem more fragile than they did last week. The whole spirit of the town sinks, as the eyelids of the old sink on a twilit afternoon. Witham wore this air of detachment when Simon and Sarah came to it to-day, as if it held itself aloof from one of the busiest spectacles of the year. The long main street, rising and dipping, but otherwise running as if on a terrace cut in the side of the hill, was strung from end to end with the scattered units of the road. The ambling traffic blocked and dislocated itself with the automatic ease of a body of folk who are all acquainted with each other's ways. Groups clustered on the pavements, deep in talk, and overflowed carelessly into the street. Horses' heads came up over their shoulders and car wheels against their knees, without disturbing either their conversation or their nerves. Sheepdogs hung closely at their masters' heels, or slipped with a cocked eye between the hoofs. The shops were full, but those who wandered outside to wait could always find a friend to fill their time. Simon's personal cronies jerked their heads at him as he passed, and the busy matrons nodded a greeting as they hurried in front of the horse's nose. He made as if to draw up at the house of a well-known doctor in the town, but Sarah stopped him before he reached the kerb. "Nay, nay," she said nervously, "it'll likely bide. I don't know as I'm that fain to hear what he's got to say. Anyway, I'd a deal sooner get my marketing done first." So instead of stopping they went straight to the inn where they had put up on market-day for the last forty years, and where Simon's father had put up before Simon was born. Turning suddenly across the pavement through a narrow entry, they plunged sharply downhill into a sloping yard. The back premises of old houses shut it in on every side, lifting their top windows for a glimpse of the near moor. The inn itself, small and dark, with winding staircases and innumerable doors, had also this sudden vision of a lone, high world against the sky. An ancient ostler came to help Simon with the horse, while Sarah waited on the sloping stones. The steep yard was full of traps, pushed under sheds or left in the open with their shafts against the ground. Fleming's dog-cart was there, with its neat body and light wheels; but May was already gone on her business in the town. Simon had an affection for a particular spot of his own, and it always put him about to find it filled. It was taken this morning, he found, though not by May. May would never have played him a trick like that. It was a car that was standing smugly in Simon's place, with a doubled-up driver busy about its wheels. Cars were always intruders in the cobbled old yard, but it was a personal insult to find one in his 'spot.' He went and talked to the driver about it in rising tones, and the driver stood on his head and made biting comments between his feet. A man came to one of the inn windows while the scene was on, and listened attentively to the feast of reason and the flow of soul. Sarah looked rather white and shaky by the time Simon returned, thinking of something new to say to the very last. He left the newest and best unsaid, however, when he saw her face. "You'd best set down for a bit," he observed, leading her anxiously towards the inn. "You're fretting yourself about seeing doctor, that's what it is. You'd ha' done better to call as we come in." But Sarah insisted that she was not troubling about the doctor in the least. She had been right as a bobbin, she said, and then she had suddenly come over all queer. "Happen it's standing that long while you and morter-man sauced each other about car!" she added, with shaky spirit. "You made a terble song about it, I'm sure. Trap'll do well enough where it is." "I can't abide they morter-folk!" Simon muttered, crestfallen but still vexed. "But never mind about yon. Gang in and set you down. If I happen across May, I'll tell her to look you up." A door opened at the end of the dark passage, showing a warm parlour with flowers and crimson blinds. The stout landlady came swimming towards them, speaking as she swam, so that the vibrations of her welcoming voice reached them first like oncoming waves. Another door opened in the wall on the right, and a man looked out from the dim corner behind. "That you, Mrs. Thornthet? What?--not so well? Nay, now, it'll never do to start market-day feeling badly, I'm sure! Come along in and rest yourself by t'fire, and a cup of tea'll happen set you right." Sarah, shaken and faint, and longing to sit down, yet hesitated as if afraid to step inside. It seemed to her, as she paused, that there was some ordeal in front of her which she could not face. Her heart beat and her throat was dry, and though she longed to go in, she was unable to stir. The man inside saw her against a background of misty yard, a white face and homely figure dressed in threadbare black. Once or twice his gaze left her to dwell on Simon, but it was always to the more dramatic figure that it returned. There was a current in the passage, full and sweeping like the wind that went before the still, small Voice of God. Sarah was caught by it, urged forward, filled with it with each breath. But even as she lifted her foot she heard a woman's voice in the room beyond. "We've Mrs. Will here an' all," the landlady called, as she swam away. "She'll see to you if there's anything you want, I'm sure." She might just as well have slammed and locked the door in the old folks' teeth. At once they made a simultaneous movement of recoil, stiffening themselves as if against attack. The spirit in the passage died down, leaving it filled to the ceiling with that heavy, chattering voice. Sarah was well away from the doorstep before she opened her mouth. "Nay, I don't know as I won't go right on, thank ye, Mrs. Bond. I'm feeling a deal better already,--I am that. If I set down, I'll likely not feel like getting up again, and I've a deal to see to in t'town." Mrs. Bond swam back, concerned and surprised, but Sarah was already well across the yard. Simon, when appealed to, said nothing but, "Nay, I reckon she'll do," and seemed equally bent upon getting himself away. They retreated hurriedly through the arch that led to the street, leaving Mrs. Bond to say, "Well, I never, now!" to the empty air. The man's face came back to the window as they went, looking after this sudden retirement with a troubled frown. The driver was still working at his car when he found his passenger suddenly at his side. He was a queer customer, he thought to himself, looking up at the moody expression on his handsome face. He had behaved like a boy on their early morning ride, continually stopping the car, and then hustling it on again. He had sung and whistled and shouted at people on the road, laughed without any apparent reason, and dug the unfortunate driver in the back. He was clean off it, the man thought, grinning and vexed by turn, and wondering when and where the expedition would end. People as lively as that at blush of dawn were simply asking for slaps before the sun was down. He had steadied a trifle when they reached the Witham road, but the queerest thing of all that he did was that checking behind the traps. The driver was sure he was cracked by the time they got to the town, and he was surer than ever when he came out now and told him to move the car. He might have refused if his fare had not been so big and broad, and if he had not already shown himself generous on the road. As it was, he found himself, after a moment of sulky surprise, helping to push the trap into the disputed place. He still wore his injured expression when he went back to his job, but it was wasted on his employer, who never looked his way. Instead, he was standing and staring at Simon's crazy rig, and he smiled as he stared, but it was not a happy smile. Presently he, too, made his way to the arch, and disappeared into the crowded street. The old folks had seemed in a terrible hurry to be gone, but, as a matter of fact, they halted as soon as they got outside. "I couldn't ha' gone in there whatever," Sarah said, in an apologetic tone, and Simon nodded, looking anxiously up and down. "If I could nobbut catch a sight o' May," he muttered worriedly, searching the crowd. "May'd see to you right off, and get you a snack o' summat an' all. I've Mr. Dent to see about chucking t'farm, and I've a two-three other things to do as well." But instead of May, who was nowhere to be seen, a man came shyly towards them from a neighbouring group. He was like Simon to look at, only younger and better clad, showing none of the other's signs of trouble and hard toil. His voice was like Simon's, too, when Simon was at his best, but Sarah stiffened when she heard him speak. "You'll not ha' seen Fleming's lass?" Simon asked, devouring the street, and Will swung about at once to cast his own glance over the press. "She was by a minute since," he said thoughtfully. "She can't ha' gone far...." He hunted a moment longer, and turned shyly back. "Likely you'll give us a call at Blindbeck this afternoon?" Sarah said nothing in reply to the invitation, but Simon gave a nod. "I could do wi' a word wi' you, Will, if you're not throng. It's about time we were thinking o' making a change. Sarah's bothered wi' her eyes." "Nay, now, that's bad news, to be sure." Will was genuinely concerned. He glanced at Sarah kindly, though with a diffident air. "Happen a pair o' glasses'll fix you," he said, in his gentle tones. There was a pause, and then he jerked his head towards the arch that led to the inn. "I left my missis behind there, talking to Mrs. Bond. If you're thinking o' seeing t'doctor, you'd best have a woman to come along." "I meant to ax May," Simon said hurriedly, praying for May to spring out of the ground, and, as if by way of reply, she came out of a shop on the far side. He plunged forward, waving and calling her name, and she stopped, smiling, as he caught her by the arm. She was grave at once, however, when she heard what he had to say, and her eyes rested on Sarah with a troubled look. She gave a nod of comprehension when he pointed towards the arch, and, without waiting to hear more, crossed over to Sarah's side. By the time the stranger appeared the women had vanished down the street, while the brothers were making their way to the market square. This was the second time that the Thornthwaites had fled at the sound of a name, and this time, as it happened, May was sent speeding away, too. |
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