The Shield of Achilles
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.
Barbara's keen eyes—keen as an eagle's to scan the broad fellside—noted the air of decay which had settled upon it, the thicket of brambles among the chimneys, and how a pine, growing out of the rocks, encroached upon the doorway. Behind the house the ground swept steeply up, strewn with shattered boulders and weeping with waterfalls.
"Poor Joel," she said to herself. "He's like Paris, in the book Peter gave me—beautiful Paris that Helen loved, whose soul ill-matched his fair form."
She thought of her sister's adoration of this man, and was sad. There could be nothing but disappointment in store for Lucy, she felt sure of it, unless the girl overcame her affection and set her heart upon a more worthy object. But she was attracted by the glamour of fallen greatness, by his handsome presence, and she admired his pride. 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. The light was vivid, and had that peculiar quality of deepening the colours of the landscape, often the forerunner of storm; the purple of the distant hills was more intense, the green of the grass richer, the red of ploughed earth more passionate.
The sheep that Barbara was driving were uneasy, making many attempts to break and turn back. Then the leader, recognising the summer heaf to which the flocks return in spring, after having wintered in a more sheltered place, set off at a run, followed by the rest. Shading her eyes from the sun, she watched them leap gladly upwards, bleating their welcome to the well-remembered spot—for the bond binding the sheep to their hill-pasture, is as the bond between man and his own hearthstone.
She turned homewards. As she threaded her way among the rocks of the rough path, she came upon Jan Straw gathering wool, which the sheep had left behind them upon the heath and brambles.
"Her was buried in a linen shift," he said, answering her remark that he was busy at a strange gleaning. "Her was buried in a linen shift, fine and white and soft as snow."
"Who?" asked the girl, for she saw that his mind was wandering.
"Her o' the white fingers, white as Lucy Lynn's, white like the linen she was buried in, white as snow."
"Your wife, Jan?" said Barbara, having in her mind's eye a vision of golden curls and a little pale face, which had been buried long before she was born.
Jan said no more, but, turning away, continued his gleaning.
"What are the wisps for?" she asked.
"I mun be buried in woollen," he muttered, "the law says so—it said so then—but she had a linen shroud, the best linen as ever was wove, shining like snow, like them little white flowers she loved."
He stood up, trying to straighten his crooked back, crooked with the toil and poverty of years.
"I mun be buried in woollen," he repeated, "and I's picking my shroud off the brambles. Yon little lass, Lucy, her o' the white hands, she promised to spin it for me and get it wove. It wunna be white like snow, like her own bonny hands, but it'll match my old grey face. I's'll not be buried by the parish. I's'll lie aside her in the kirk-garth below there."
He wiped a tear from his eye.
"Her should have been buried in woollen too," he added, bringing these memories from the abyss of his mind, where they had long lain in darkness, "but her was so white and soft, white as milk and soft as silk, her couldna abide the touch o' a woollen shift. So her was buried in linen, and I paid the fine."
"It will take a lot of gathering, Jan, before you get enough to make a shroud," said Barbara. "But let it be, let it be; leave it for the birds to build their nests of. You shall have a fleece, and a decent bed, too, when you need it, beside her o' the little white hands."
He looked at the girl slowly, from her feet to the crown of her head.
"Thee's a girt lass," he said, "as big as the mistress, and they used to call her daughter o' the giant that lived at Ketel's Parlour. But thee's got a kind, soft voice, Barbara Lynn, like the cooin' o' wood-doves. Wilta gie me a fleece?"
She nodded, and the pale watery eyes brightened.
"The birds is welcome to my gatherin'," he replied scattering his bundle of wool. "I's'll go and pull rushes. We's gettin' short o' candles down-by," and he shuffled away.
Barbara watched him go. She thought how hard it was to be old and lonely and poor. Jan had bed and whittle-gate at the farm—decency could do no other after a life of honest service—but, as the old man was past work, what use had he for wages? Such was her great-grandmother's argument for refusing to part with a penny of her hoard.
Barbara went slowly down-hill. She had an hour to spare before milking-time, and it was too precious to be lost. She passed along a ledge of the Mickle Crags, found a sheltered spot, and sat down. She could not see Greystones, as it lay right below her, but she could smell the turf-smoke from its fire.
There, with her hands clasped upon her knees, surrounded by a wilderness of grey rocks, she gave wings to her mind. All through this Easter-tide she had walked as in a dream; but it was the dream and not the actual that had life. She came and went, rose before dawn, and passed the day toiling upon the fells, but now and again she culled an hour to spend with her book—Pope's "Homer"—at the cave. Sometimes Peter came there and read to her, often the old herbalist Timothy Hadwin accompanied him, and the two men would talk, while she listened, weaving withy baskets, but weaving into her own mind many a wonderful thought. Thus she learned to know the old stories of Achilles and Hector and Helen, of Ulysses and Penelope; she was thrilled with the beauty, pathos and madness of them. The natural objects about her began to take on a new meaning; she was able to feel the freshness of the early world, when men's hearts were fuller of the mystery of things, less sure of their own place in the Universe, and stricken with fear before the veiled faces of the gods.
She likened her mind to the shield of Achilles, which Vulcan forged for him; she thought of it as a great disc engraved with strange pictures—emblems of all that she thought and knew and felt. But as the ocean encompassed the shield—
"In living silver seemed the waves to roll,
And beat the buckler's verge, and bound the whole,"
so about her beat the waves of a mystery, which shut in a part of her life, that her inward eye might concentrate upon it, and yet be conscious of the depths surging round.
The human mind is stupendous, she thought, beyond the power of man to understand. When she considered her own mind, and all that was written upon it—its ideas of life, of men and women, of religion and destiny, she was awed with wonder that a thing so mighty should have been forged for her by the hand which gave her life.
Her own existence was too uneventful, too full of commonplaces, too mean, to provide a satisfying food for her strong intellect. But in "Homer" she found a feast spread. His men and women lived down to the depths of their being, and she lived in them. Hecuba and Andromache! the greatness and bitterness of their lives appalled and stirred her. When she stood upon the heights and saw the mists rise like smoke from the dale, or roll from ledge to ledge down the fellside, when she saw the beck in spate, when she looked through the gloaming at the ruined outlines of the crags, then she participated in the very thoughts of these great women; then she felt the presence of gods in the mist; then she saw Achilles flee before the angry River; then she saw Troy and the long black ships, and the lines of glittering warriors, and in her own heart she heard the cry of defeated hosts, of exultation, of death, of resignation.
Barbara roused herself from these thoughts. She was lingering too long in idleness. She must go and call the cattle, for milking-time was near. So she came swiftly down the crags behind the house. They were rough and steep, rotten in many places, and drilled with springs. But a little sheep-path led in and out, bordered with blueberries and parsley ferns. In one cleft a thorn had taken root, and baffled the wind and storms of years; in another grew a holly; but for the most part the place was bare of vegetation. Soon she saw the chimneys of Greystones below her.
Lucy stood in the dairy churning. The door was open, and she could see into the cow-house, and through it, framed as in a picture, the fellside aglow with the afternoon sunshine. She was tired, her hair was ruffled, and her cheeks were flecked with cream. Her eyes, at times, were almost blinded with tears, and she saw the distant glories through mist. The good green earth called to her, but she was doomed to toil at the churn in the semi-gloom of the dairy while the day fled, while life fled.
She longed to be out in the sunshine; she wanted to plait rush-baskets as she had done as a child, to fish for minnows in the beck, to wander down the dale and smell the aromatic scent of the springing bracken. She looked at Jan Straw, who sat on the doorstep peeling rushes. He was like a worn-out garment; she, too, would be like a worn-out garment before long. Life was hurrying, hurrying by; not long ago she had been a child, to-day she was a woman, soon she would be old with life behind her. Lucy dreaded growing old. Each morning when she woke she thought that the day must surely bring some change, but it passed as the day before had done, passed in monotonous labour, leaving her a little older, a little sadder, a little less hopeful. Now and then she cherished the thought that she was a woman grown, and whispered to herself of love and home and husband. But to-day she wanted to cast off all responsibility, to have the mind and outlook of a child.
She paused for a moment to wipe the splashes of cream from her cheeks, and rest her arms. Then her great-grandmother called:
"Lucy!"
It was no use pretending that she had not heard; the tones of the old voice demanded a reply.
"Yes," she answered, reluctantly.
"Has the butter come yet, Lucy?"
"Nay."
"Nay? I doubt the butter will never come to idle hands."
The girl began again, and the thud, thud of the churn was like the angry beating of her heart.
Lucy's unwonted despondency rose from the strange temper of Joel. Usually he was as affectionate as she could desire, but sometimes, without any reason that she knew, he would be taciturn and neglectful. Yet he loved her—she did not doubt it. There was an inconsistency in him, and it puzzled her. For to Lucy's understanding, character should be simple, and not a thing of complex feelings and contradictory impulses. Though Joel purposed the highest achievements, he rarely attained; though he said that he adored her, he could not rouse his energy to fulfil his responsibilities. She was unhappy, trying to piece together these parts of him, and present a clear picture to her mind.
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. They lumbered in single file up the path—red cows, white cows, piebald cows, with straight horns and full swinging udders, their brown eyes looking from under their lashes with an expression of innocent content.
Lucy was in a mood to draw analogies from everything about her, and she thought of the yellow straw and Barbara's hair, and how soon life, with its heavy foot, would beat out its gold.
"If you could have a wish just now, that would come true," she said, "what would you wish for most in the world?"
Barbara leaned her cheek against the warm side of Cushy, her favourite cow, and pondered this question, while the only sound was the swish of milk into the pail.
"Eyes," she remarked at length.
"Eyes? You're not going blind, Barbara?"
"Nay, nay, I've got the best eyes in the dale. I can count twelve stars in the Pleiades, and no one else can see more than six. It's not them kind of eyes I want—it's spirit-eyes."
"Oh, Barbara, do you want to see spooks?"
The girl laughed, and then was silent. At last she said:
"I feel that if we could push a curtain aside, we'd find ourselves in a wonderful world. It's here, about us, on every hand, but we can't get in."
"Spooks!" again exclaimed Lucy. "I've seen a spook. It's the spirit of this old house—a grinning, grey hag, grey as its name—and it's got you and me in its grip; but I'll get away from it, see if I don't. It takes the very life out of me—haunts me like a shadow."
"Shut your eyes to it," said Barbara; "don't think of it, then it won't bother you."
"Shut my eyes! So I do; but it's my bed-fellow when you're not here. It gets close to me—ugh!—and whispers and whispers——"
"Well, what does it whisper?"
"Horrid things—all about death and sorrow and pain——"
"They're the common lot of us creatures. You won't escape them even if you run away from Greystones."
"I'm off now, at any rate," and Lucy took her milk cans and set out for High Fold. It was her habit to meet Joel at this time, on her way through Cringel Forest, and glean from their short meeting either joy or unhappiness upon which to feed herself until the same hour of the next evening.
The road to the village lay along the beck-side, and crossed the stream by an old stone bridge just beyond the falls. The bridge was garlanded in summer with honeysuckle; already the pale green leaves were out—the first green leaves in the dale—and the sight gladdened the heart of the girl. The further away she got from Greystones the happier she grew; she threw off the brooding despondency that had clouded her spirit all day, and hummed as she walked. The evening air was balmy, the snow had vanished from the fells, spring had come at last.
She had not gone far when she met Peter Fleming on his way to see her great-grandmother. He was swinging along at a good pace, with books tucked under each arm, and whistling like a blackbird. But he turned and walked with her to the edge of the forest. She could not help a momentary wish that Peter, with his honest grey eyes, and open smile were Joel. She could have rested her heart in peace upon him. She would never have been troubled with doubts. She would have been like a bird, buoyed up like a bird on the calm blue waters of the mere, as happy and unconcerned a creature as any on the earth. He had never shown her anything but a brotherly affection, but she knew by instinct that artful fingers, and a pretty face could cause his heartstrings to vibrate. Yet it was Joel, and not Peter, whom she loved.
He left her at the edge of the forest, and she followed one of the many paths by which it was intersected, that led to a clearing where Timothy Hadwin's cottage stood. But his door was shut, so she left his can of milk on the doorstep, and ran down to a little dell to meet Joel. She jingled her cans so that he might hear her coming.
He was waiting for her with his back against a tree-trunk.
A sweeter trysting-place these lovers could not have chosen. The mossy banks were starred with celandines, now closing with the lengthening shadows; hollies, dense and glossy-leaved, formed a complete screen around, and down in the bottom, among grey pebbles, a spring bubbled up, as clear as crystal and cold as ice, widening into a pool, in which the lovely slim bodies of the sunbeams by day, and the moon-beams by night, bathed and swam.
Joel was in a lively humour, but Lucy would be serious.
"Oh, lad, lad," she whispered, "take me away from Greystones. I'm so unhappy there."
"Unhappy! What or who has been frightening you, Lucy? Is it the old woman?"
She shuddered.
"I'm sure the place is haunted."
"So it is—by your great-grandmother. It's not canny to have a great-grandmother, Lucy. She ought to be a ghost by now."
"Oh, I'd rather have her as she is," replied the girl. "She can't get out of the four-poster—at any rate she wont till she's dead. Then"—she shivered again, and moved closer to him—"she would soon be after us, keeking through the bushes, and crying out in that sharp voice of hers: 'Lucy, Lucy, away to your bed!' But, Joel, I wish you would tell her that you want to marry me."
"God forbid," he said fervently.
"Why not, Joel? Don't you want to marry me? She's fonder of you than she is of me."
He plucked a bunch of the little yellow flowers and twined them in her curls.
"You're very pretty to-night, Lucy," he answered, "and you know I want to marry you more than anything else in the world. But it would not help us for me to tell her so, though she does profess to like the looks of me. She likes the looks of her money better."
"What's that to do with it?"
"She'd want to know if I expected her to keep us."
"You could say 'No.'"
"Then she'd want to know if I could keep you."
"You could say 'Yes.'"
"But I can't keep you, Lucy. I can't keep myself, not yet, though I have hopes that my luck is changing," he spoke mysteriously.
"Shall we never be married?" she asked wearily, leaning her head upon his shoulder.
"We must wait a little longer."
"It's always wait, wait, wait, Joel."
"Well, you see, you shouldn't have fallen in love with such a poverty-stricken creature. But I thank God—whenever I thank Him at all—that you did. You're the only soul that has ever cared for me, Lucy. My mother blew the thought of me away as though I had been dust; and old Mally Ray, honest heart, doesn't know the meaning of real love. I don't think her religion approves of the word. Look up, Lucy, and let me see you smile—it's a garden of roses to me, that smile of yours."
She did look up, but to ask in a cold voice:
"How much money have you, Joel?"
"Only a penny piece, but, like the widow's curse, it's going to multiply."
"Really?"
"You shall see. Some fine morning I'll come riding up to Greystones and carry you off to be lady of Forest Hall."
She gazed at him through the dusk, at his handsome face and lithe figure. He was a glorious make of a man. How could she ever have distrusted him? His eyes were looking into hers with an expression of the tenderest regard, his arms were round her, his voice was whispering endearing words.
So she gave herself up to the joy of loving and being loved, having cast all her doubts and suspicions away as unworthy of her and disloyal to him.
They sat on a fallen tree with arms entwined. It was growing rapidly darker; owls began to hoot in the forest; a damp, sweet smell rose from the undergrowth. They talked bravely, as young things do, of the future.
Then Lucy ran home by the singing beck, up to the lonely house under the crags, happy in Joel's promise that he would soon come for her openly, and ask for her great-grandmother's blessing, which he was sure to get if he came with full pockets.
How they were to be filled she did not know or ask. But Joel had assured her that his luck was changing at last.