The Spell of Thundergay
The winter was one of storms. They rose suddenly towards evening, and continued intermittently throughout the night, with long, strange pauses between each, until the dawn of the next morning, when the sun got up amid bars of yellow and purple cloud. But the glory of sunrise was brief. The days were cold, short, and grey, and when darkness fell the wind howled as though nature were in a fury bordering upon madness. The silences, too, which fell so suddenly, when the storm was at its highest, seemed to indicate periods of exhaustion, like those which follow upon the unbridled passions of human beings.
In the bleak and solitary dale, where the farm of Greystones stood, there was little light till noon, for the mountain-wall surrounding it, kept out the rays of the sun; and Thundergay, at its head, poured a current of raw air into the hollow filling it with mist, through which the wild geese called mournfully, and the sheep wandered, too depressed to bleat, but seeking always for sustenance among the loose rocks and beds of scree. Once a day their scanty meal was supplemented by a feast of holly twigs which Barbara or the hind cut for them. They knew the time by instinct, and, half an hour before, might be seen travelling along the dale from all directions, and gathering round the thicket where the hollies grew.
This winter Mistress Annas Lynn began to feel the cold, and another woollen rug was put on the bed. She spent most of the day in keeping herself warm, and her usual occupation of knitting ceased. She did not sleep much, and often Barbara would tip-toe to the bedside to see if her great-grandmother were awake, and would find the bright eyes open, and raised to her face in an instant, with a keen searching look. But she spoke little, and appeared to find plenty of interest in her own thoughts. Strange thoughts they must have been, which passed through a mind so strong, individual, and so old.
But at night when the door was shut, the curtains drawn, the fire bright, she would sit up in bed and talk of the days long past, and times that were rude, but full of a spirit that kept the brain alive and made the flesh glow.
When she was young, men and women lived upon the strong meat of exertion and adventure. She said that they were giants compared to their sons and daughters, who could not digest anything more solid than pap. The old woman had a great contempt for the rising generation that she saw around her. She flung many a gibe at them, when they gathered in the kitchen, as they sometimes did of a winter evening, to hear her recount stories that made their hair stand on end and their flesh creep.
But in the midst of her quips and quiddities, she would sometimes break off to talk of Barbara. As her own energies began to fail, she drew vitality from the robust nature of her great-granddaughter. The girl was true kin to the strenuous souls of old. She had in her veins the blood of shepherd princes, her spirit was the spirit of kings—stern perhaps, silent perhaps, but tempered as steel, unflinching before lightning flash, or whirlwind, ready as her forefathers had been to face the moss-troopers should they ever come again to rob the sheep-fold. But Barbara was born three generations too late. She was like an eagle with clipped wings, and had never a chance to show the mettle of her make.
Sometimes Barbara was present at these story-tellings. She would sit with her cheek resting on her hand, watching the flames, and seeing in them pictures which her great-grandmother's words painted. She, too, often longed for a life of adventure. Now that she had cut herself off from her books and intercourse with Peter—she saw him as little as was compatible with their relationship—now that she had clipped her own wings, she found life stale, lacking in all enterprise and interest.
She would not allow herself to meditate upon the past. She swept her mind clear of it, no regrets, no longings, no phantoms or shadows must find a lodging there. But an individuality such as hers could not become thus permanently dwarfed. She might clip her own wings, but they would grow again, and bear her upwards to cleave other air, and find other climes than those to which she had been borne away in the past.
Through the grey winter days and the wild winter nights, she flung a part of herself to the winds, and as it fluttered upon the blast like an autumn leaf, she thought of the trees in Cringel Forest, and pitied their nakedness. But they would grow green again, and spread their glory to the summer. So, perhaps for her, there would come a renewal, and her soul would blossom like the may—nay—not like the may, sweet and beautiful as it was, but like the corn of wheat, which unless it fall into the ground and die, cannot bring forth fruit. She felt compassionate towards the wheat which went so patiently into the tomb, and came forth, like a shriven almoner of old, to give itself without reserve to the service of others.
Often when the wind shrieked about the old house, and the sycamores groaned under the lash, Mistress Lynn would listen with eager ears for the sound of Barbara's footsteps on the threshold. She knew by instinct, and understood by experience, that her great-granddaughter was going through some travail of soul. But she said nothing, only watched and waited, noting with her keen old brain the change of Barbara from a dreamy girl to a woman, whose will was becoming fixed in an inflexible mould, and whose mind was changing to something more mature but less comprehensible. As the winter deepened, the change grew more marked. Often in the pauses of the storm Barbara would enter with a slight smile, and a look as though she had been talking with someone, and was still full of that which she had heard.
"Where hast been?" the old woman would ask her.
"At Ketel's Parlour."
"Alone?"
Barbara laughed, and there was a new inflection in her voice.
"I'm never alone. I have the sheep and the heather and the birds. Besides, there's Thundergay. Thundergay is father and brother and sister and lover all in one. You know that, great-granny. You sent me to Thundergay when I was only a bairn, and you said he'd teach me the way we Lynns must walk in the world. Thundergay has opened his heart to me, and I'm never lonely with him."
At other times, in the midst of the battering of the wind, the girl would come in, her eyes shining, and her hair in wild disorder. She would go about her work with an energy never seen before in her movements. The hinds and Jess looked afraid of her, and kept their eyes fixed on their work.
Lucy was surprised, she wondered what had come over her sister. But the old woman said never a word to enlighten her. She was seeing, as it were, a picture of herself eighty years ago. Lucy did not often get speech with her sister at this time. Since the night at Ketel's Parlour, when she had gone back to the mill-house instead of fulfilling her plan of going to see Joel at the Shepherd's Rest, they had never opened their lips upon the subject. Lucy felt aggrieved, though why she hardly knew. She had expected to have Barbara's constant sympathy, after she had bent to her wishes; she had relied upon having a strong arm to uphold her in the path in which she had agreed to walk. Instead she was left to herself: she had to pick her own way without encouragement and without pity for her sufferings.
She thought Barbara cold and without understanding. Lucy was miserable. She was miserable because she was half-hearted; she still hankered after forbidden things, instead of turning away from them, and determining to draw out of her duty sustenance to enable her to fulfil it.
Peter, too, seemed to be preoccupied and weary. He was smitten by the blight of failure, by remorse, and stirred to a most righteous anger. "You have cast an Evil Eye on Barbara," said his self-condemning spirit. Reason murmured against the assertion; conscious of his integrity he would not be condemned unheard. Fate had laid a snare, covering it with pleasant things, so that he had stepped in without warning. "You sat down in the Siege Perilous, who were not strong enough to fill it," said the same condemning self, "and now you are learning what the consequences are."
But Peter saw one thing clearly and it was this: he must go away, and take Lucy with him. He dared not leave her behind; for he was under no misconception about the attitude of Joel towards himself or his wife. Then, amid other scenes, he would beg her to help him, as he would help her, to bring order and happiness out of the disorder of their lives. Barbara he could not aid, save by going away.
Barbara was working out her own salvation. As in all severe discipline of either body or soul, some of the grace of her nature was sacrificed to the attainment of strength. A stern light began to shine in the soft eyes, and made their expression difficult to fathom. Folk with mean spirits could no longer sustain their gaze with equanimity. She was not so silent as she used to be, but her words were more enigmatical, and seemed to spring from a current of thought flowing deeper than ordinary mortals could probe. Like an underground river, it passed through scenes of wonder and mystery that would have astonished them beyond measure could they have followed its course.
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.
But in this direction her love could not flow. And as a subverted river will change the face of the country through which it runs, so her nature was changed.
She loved Peter still, not passionately, but none the less strongly; not despairingly, for she hoped for nothing; not with reservation, for no human barrier blocked the way; neither sorrowfully, nor ashamed. All that can be said is that she loved him as a human being, who has shaken off the flesh and all its bonds, might love one who is still under its dominion.
The intensity of her love quickened the manifold energies of her nature. As a wife and mother she would have awakened to a realization of the riches of life's common things. Now that she must turn away from so well-trodden a path, she came into a world none the less real, none the less stirring with forces both spiritual and material, though undemonstrated to the ordinary mind and eye of man.
Life is seen through many windows. As time passes new ones are opened, and old ones blocked up, sometimes by our own hands, often by the hands of others. Barbara had deliberately shuttered one of her windows when she burnt her books; but now a new one was to be opened for her. The revelation came suddenly. The mountain Thundergay, the beloved nurse of her youth, and her well-tried companion, drew back the curtains, and she looked out, at first with blinking eyelids as though unaccustomed to the strange light. What did she see? A wonderful world, a land of mystery, a country inhabited by immortals.
Nature was no longer dumb. It spoke to her in a language that she could understand. It took the place of her books, and human friends; it came into the circle of her love—that love which surrounded Peter with so white a light, and emanated from her in never dimming radiance.
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.
Had Barbara been placed in the midst of a crowded city, to humanity she would have turned and would have spent her life in its service. But none required her at High Fold: there was no one upon whom she could bestow the riches of her nature save her great-grandmother, who desired and asked for little. So to Thundergay she turned, to its dales and steeps, its fountains and ravines. She drew inspiration to be strong from its strength, and power to suffer from its endurance. She subjected her body to severe discipline so that no crag defied her, while cold and discomfort counted for nought.
Only by such physical and mental training could she steel herself to bear her sorrow without flagging steps. Some day a command might come to her to climb higher, and she desired to be ready, prepared in her threefold nature of body, soul, and spirit.