The Waking of the Holy Well
"Thee'll be home betimes," said Mistress Lynn.
Lucy was standing before the kitchen looking-glass, pinning a flower into the bosom of her cotton gown. She glanced up with a curl of rebellion on her lips, then tossed her head and replied:
"Aye."
"Thee'll mind that now, my lass," continued the old woman; "I'll have no bairn o' mine wandering about Cringel Forest after dark."
"You did it yourself, great-granny," said Lucy, with resentment. "Many's the time I've heard you tell of waking the Holy Well till midnight."
"M'appen I did, Lucy," and she smiled grimly; "but I don't choose that you should follow me. You might gang astray."
"Well, I'll be back before dark," answered the girl.
"At nine o'clock?"
"Aye, at nine o'clock! It's a wonder you don't say seven or six maybe."
"So I would if I saw a reason for it; but I don't," replied Mistress Lynn imperturbably. "Go thy wayses now, and come back with a more respectful tongue in thy head. I'll be glad to be rid of thy saucement for a while."
Lucy went out into the sunshine gaily. This was one of her few holidays in the year, and for very shame her great-grandmother could not keep her drudging at the farm when the whole village was bent on pleasure, waking the Holy Well. The day was Tuesday in Easter Week. The sky was blue; the birds were in the full rush of nest-making; the leaves were coming out like magic; everything was light-hearted.
To be sure the new curate had cast a cold eye on the festivities, and even spoken against them from the church at the top of the village street; but his sour looks and words could not take the sweetness out of the day, or stifle the merriment of his parishoners. They had waked the well on the 23rd of April for generations—long before there was a church in High Fold, long before good St. Kentergerne had preached the Gospel to their forefathers. They had waked it in the days when mistletoe grew in Cringel Forest, and when they worshipped strange gods at the Stannin' Stanes on the fellside yonder. Christianity had merely given the old pagan custom, which it could not stamp out, a Christian significance. No young, upstart curate, with his austere views, could prevent the people from clinging with affection to a festivity, sanctioned by the ages, and providing so bright a break in the routine of their sombre lives.
When Lucy reached the churchyard crowds were already gathered. The well—a stream of water bubbling into a stone trough by the lychgate—was hung with garlands of ferns and flowers; the village street was choked with traffic and booths, where nuts and gingerbread, and gaily-coloured confections were being sold by dames in their Sunday best. Timothy Hadwin dispensed powders, balms and essences to the shepherds and their wives—many of whom had come miles over the mountains, and had not been to High Fold since this time last year.
"Sixpence worth o' the linctus, Timothy. It's main good for the cough: my man would have died last winter if I hadn't given him it regular; the snow and the wind was sommat awfu' back the fells."
"A pound o' camomile, Tim, old man. There's nowt like camomile-tea when your innards are no' peacefu' like!"
"Have you any o' that elder-flower water, Master Timothy, what makes your cheeks soft?" whispered a lass, with a hasty look round to see that no young man could overhear her.
But the chief interest of Timothy's stall was a microscope, mounted on a brass stand, through which the folk could examine a variety of interesting objects; a kaleidoscope, and a burning glass.
On the green, in front of the inn, games were in full swing, and in a corner of the churchyard half-hidden by the ancient gravestones, a cock-fight drew the male population like needles to a magnet. A big brown bear was dancing to amuse the children; there were jugglers and jesters from the nearest town; fortune-tellers with swarthy skins and coral necklaces, and that dearest of delights to both old and young, a Punch-and-Judy show.
Lucy looked about her for a sight of Joel's tall figure, but he was not to be seen. She wandered here and there, and though she was greeted by merry voices, and answered them merrily enough, she was disappointed. Where was he? and why did he not meet her as he had promised? He ought to have been on the lookout for her coming, not she for his But Peter Fleming saw her and ran across the short, bright turf.
"Come and dance with me," he said; "the old blind fiddler is striking up a jig."
Lucy slipped her hand through his arm, but still looked round for Joel. She caught sight of his head rising above a gravestone as he watched the cock-fight. A slight flush mounted to her brow; her eyes sparkled still more brightly, and she tripped down the street to the place where the fiddler sat on a bench tuning his strings, never casting another glance behind.
"Thee's the best dancer in High Fold, Peter," she said gaily; "it's like swinging in the air to dance with you. Come on, lad, my feet can't bide still when they hear the music."
She looked a bonny lass with her jetty curls and blue eyes. She floated through the dance like a feather; she laughed like a bell. Peter was in a mood to be attracted by her smiles. He had spent his holiday in delightful idleness; he had been petted at home and made much of by the villagers, and, though his head had not been turned, his heart was in a condition to be easily stirred. He enjoyed a flirtation in much the same way as he had enjoyed eating a stolen apple when he was a boy—the excitement of getting it attracted him, and gave a flavour to the thing attained.
Lucy was ready to aid and abet him. She received his attentions with a coy humour, ate gingerbread rabbits with him, danced with him, and gave him a flower from her hair to wear in his button-hole. But her thoughts were elsewhere, and her eyes again and again strayed in Joel's direction. It was a salve to her wounded feelings to see that he had noticed her, and was standing sulky and aloof on the outskirts of the crowd. She would punish him well, and then forgive him, as she always forgave him, and would always forgive him for worse offences.
"Where's Barbara?" asked Peter, as Lucy rested on the grass and he fanned her with a dock leaf. His eyes, too, had been straying, seeking for a golden head and stately throat above the throng.
"She's nursing a sick sheep," replied her sister. "Poor Barbara! there is never any fun for her!—not that she wants it as I do, but something always comes in the way to spoil her outings."
"Barbara's an angel," said Peter.
"She is that!" answered Lucy fervently.
He clasped his hands behind his head, and looked up into the face of the girl beside him. He never had any inclination to look at Barbara so; he never lay at her feet and talked nonsense. There was something of a man's attitude towards another man in his way of regarding her. She was strong and self-reliant and high-minded; he only dimly understood her. But that which he did understand drew his deepest reverence. He had two sides to his nature, as most folk have; and though Lucy appealed to the happy, homely, youthful part of him, with Barbara he was a serious-hearted man, who knew that life was no game, and who purposed to live strenuously in his appointed place.
The afternoon wore on towards evening. The sun was getting low, and the church flung a dark shadow on the graveyard. The folk drew together in groups, sat themselves down upon the benches, and streamed in and out of the Wild Boar. Before it, on a plot of grass, the bear was dancing.
It looked mangy and starved. Yet even in its present condition it kept some of the majesty of its early years, when it had been free to wander among the forests of a distant land. Gentle and timid it was among the human beings that stood around, laughing at its clumsy ways, and sometimes prodding it with sticks; but it turned at bay when a snarling dog ventured too near.
The gipsy—a long, lean fellow, whose eyes smouldered—leaned against the horse-trough and piped. He looked, among the fair-haired country folk, as much of an alien as the bear dancing on an English green. His slack, nervy figure needed but a word to make it taut as steel. He had a barbed stick by his side, and a chain, from the animal's collar, fastened to a ring round his wrist. He was much bedizened with coloured ribbons and brass buttons.
Peter stood on the steps of the inn and watched the scene with keen pleasure. He liked the bear, although its eyes were dim with neglect, and its fur clotted and evil-smelling. It suggested to him the infinite variety and complexity of life. Its proper home was in distant forests; it had feelings and instincts which he could not even imagine; its destiny had no parallel with his; yet by its patience, gentleness and power to suffer it was linked with his own nature. He liked the gipsy, for he felt a chord of fellowship between them. Here was one who disdained to sleep, eat and die among the crowd; who lived a roving life in the green lanes, coming and going as he pleased, free as air. Such a life attracted Fleming, who cared more for liberty than a dry bed. He liked the village folk—nay, he loved them, though they stood open-mouthed, like children, and were pleased as children at the ungainly ambling of the bear. He knew that they were stolid, narrow-minded; but round them his affections twined. They were the root from which he sprang.
It was Peter's habit to find some likeness between himself and the world about him. 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. His college friends looked upon him as a crank, yet they respected him greatly; for they once saw him bridle and ride a bucking horse that no one else dared approach.
While the gipsy lazily piped upon his whistle, and the bear continued to dance, Peter entered the inn and persuaded the scolding housewife—whose head was fairly whirling with so much coming and going—to ransack her store for some of last year's honey. She gave it to him reluctantly; but, then, he would never be denied anything when he asked for it. He fed the beast with the melliferous morsel and such was the creature's appreciation that he insisted upon following Peter, wagging his head from side to side with a most ludicrous motion, as though coaxing him for more.
"You're a cupboard lover, my friend, I fear," said Peter.
The bear sat down, whoofed and whimpered, while his master twitched at the chain.
"Hungry, eh?" Peter poked him in the ribs. "You look like it; never saw a bigger bag of bones in my life! Here, you fellow, why don't you feed him better?"
"What's that to you?"
"I don't like to see a hungry brother."
"Get up," said the man to the bear; but it would not move, and continued to whimper and look at Peter. The gipsy grasped his stick in one hand, while he shortened the chain with the other. His temper was rising.
"Leave the poor brute alone," interposed Peter; "it's only crying for its supper, like little Tommy Tucker. Nay, now, leave it alone."
"Is it yours or mine, master?"
"Why, mine. See what a fancy it's taken to me!"
He laughed good-humouredly.
"I've a notion the beast would make a nice pet. What'll you sell him for, you fellow?"
The gipsy took no notice; he thought that Fleming was fooling him. He raised his stick threateningly, but before the sharp point, which the bear had learnt to know and fear, could descend, it was twisted out of his hands.
"Might is right," said Peter, with a broad grin.
The man was angry; his was a nature that could ill brook crossing. He clenched his fists, and came nearer, but he looked twice at his antagonist, and decided that discretion was the better part of valour. Peter was not only broader than himself, but taller, and he had heard that the gentleman was a great wrestler.
"Ho, my good fellow," said Fleming, "are you going to fight me for him? Better come into the inn and settle the matter over a pot of beer."
"What do you want the bear for, master?"
"To play with—poodles aren't in my line. I need something big. Besides, I've an idea you'll be sending him to the knacker's in a week or two, and I'd like to save him from such a fate."
The gipsy looked him over, wondering if he were in jest or earnest.
"Honest! quite honest!" said Peter, reading the man's glance.
The gipsy's eyes began to sparkle, and he turned towards the inn.
"Come on, master," said he; "if you wants the bear you shall have him."
They went in, while Jake the rat-catcher called after them:
"Don't let the fellow cheat you, lad. He wouldn't get sixpence for the carcase if he sold it for dog's meat. There isn't a crow-picking on its bones."
Peter and the gipsy were not long within. They came out laughing, the latter wiping his mouth, his dark, lean countenance showing signs of satisfaction.
Fleming pulled his flute out of his pocket, played the tune that the bear's master had been whistling, and the ungainly beast began to dance.
"Eh, lad, yon's a nice new pet you've gotten. Your mother will be main pleased to have it sitting in the chimney-nook," said one of the crowd.
"Take it to bed with thee," remarked Dusty John, who had long ceased to wonder at the vagaries of his son, but was rather pleased with them than otherwise. "It will keep thee warm o' nights."
"Nay, nay, it's ower moth-eaten to have much warmth in it. Best hap it up in camphor, Peter, and get some of Old Camomile's powder to put away the fleas."
Meanwhile Lucy had found Joel. The sun had set, and the rooks were flying home above Cringel Forest.
"Come with me up the dale," she said softly.
He was not disposed to be friendly.
"Cheer up, lad," she continued. "Let's be kind again."
With a face still lowering, and his whole frame the very embodiment of injured pride, he turned and walked beside her.
He was jealous of Peter, yet sensible that he was to blame, not she.
"You'd better marry Peter," he said at last, breaking the silence.
"Who talks of marrying?" replied Lucy, coolly.
"He's got money and brains. He'd make you a worthier husband than I."
He kicked the stones out of his path and switched the heads off the primroses that were growing by the wayside. The truth was, which Lucy did not know, that he had been betting and had lost. When they came to the edge of the forest, and the open dale lay before them, all gloomy with shadows, Lucy turned.
"Good-night, Joel," she said, and made as if to go. "I'm sorry you're so cross. It's spoilt my day, my only holiday; good-night."
But he flung his arm round her, his anger vanishing like a cloud that has discharged its ill humours.
"Stay," he said. "I know I'm a brute. But let us go back. There'll be more dancing, and we'll trip the moon up into the sky and out of it again. I'm a better dancer than Peter. He's too heavy on his toes—you found that, eh?—rather a clumsy fellow, too loose in the make to be a comfortable partner. Come back. Come and see the rockets and torches. We'll have a good time, lots of fun. Who knows whether we'll see the wakes together again?"
She relented at once, dissolved like snow in the sun, when she heard the pleading tones of his voice.
"But I promised great-granny."
"Stay," he repeated, and began to draw her back to the forest.
"I daren't, Joel; she'd never forgive me."
"Only a little longer."
"Nay."
Yet why should she not stay? Her great-grandmother had enjoyed such occasions to the full when she was young. Why should Lucy not do the same? She might go home, bid the old woman good-night, and when the doors were barred, and the candles out, and Mistress Lynn thought she was safely in her bed, slip downstairs, and escape by the cow-house. She asked Joel what he thought of her plan.
"I'll wait for you," he said, "don't be long. But there's Barbara! She'd never consent. Stay now do, Lucy; don't go in. Let's go back to the village, and you can face the din to-morrow morning. Lay all the blame on me."
She shuddered.
"You don't know what great-grandmother's like when she's roused! But Barbara's at Ketel's Parlour. It's not likely she'll come home to-night, unless the sheep is dead. The sheep don't often die in her hands, for she looks after them as though they were sick bairns. I'll not be long, Joel."
She slipped from his arms like a child bent on mischief, laughing under her breath, yet not altogether at ease—it was no light undertaking for anyone to try and hoodwink old Mistress Lynn.
The great-grandmother looked at the clock as soon as she entered, and seemed grimly surprised at Lucy's punctuality. A cotter's wife rose from the settle and hurried away, so as to get her share of the festivities. She had been keeping the old woman company during the girl's absence.
"Sit thee down now," said Mistress Lynn, "and tell me about the wake."
"I's so tired, great-granny," yawned Lucy.
"Tired! At your age I could dance till dawn and not be too tired to milk the kye at sunrise."
Lucy sat down with an aggrieved expression.
"If you'd let me dance till dawn I'd maybe have had the better grace to tell you about it," she replied with some spirit.
"Well, get away to bed. Thee's got a sharp tongue that it's no gert pleasure for an old woman to hear."
Lucy went upstairs, and moved about for a while, then she sat on the edge of the bed and waited. It was a tedious waiting, but she dared not creep downstairs, and let herself out by the cow-house door till there was some likelihood of her great-grandmother being asleep.
At last she thought that she might venture. She took off her shoes, and slipped noiselessly down; the stairs were made of stone, so they could not betray her by creaking. On the wall opposite the kitchen was a little round beam of light. It shone through a hole in the door, where a knot had come out. Lucy was surprised; she wondered what Mistress Lynn could be doing with a light at this hour. She put her eye to the hole and looked through. She could see the bed, and the old woman's hands, but not her face.
The candle flung a misty light on a pile of glittering coins in one withered hand. Her great-grandmother was counting them, dropping them one by one into a bag.
Lucy was riveted to the spot. She could not tear herself away, even though Joel was waiting, hidden in the copse just below the house. She could hear a faint click as the coins fell against one another. That bag was filled. The thin old hands picked up another, and poured its contents upon the quilt. Lucy watched like one fascinated. She saw her great-grandmother pick up several bags, and count many handfuls of money—some of it silver, some of it gold. She waited until the candle was put out, and she heard the curtains softly drawn. Mistress Lynn had composed herself to sleep.
Lucy opened the cow-house door and stole out into the night. A clear moon was shining; the foam of the beck looked like white horses tossing in the wind, and the primroses glimmered like stars. Joel was still waiting.
"You can't say that I haven't patience," he said.
Lucy began to speak excitedly.
"I've seen such a sight, lad, such a sight! I've seen great-granny counting her money."
"I knew she'd got a store somewhere," he replied. "I wish I had! It would come in very handy just now."
"But, Joel, she's old, and when she dies——"
"We'll all be rich folk, Lucy."
"And we can be married then, lad, and put Forest Hall in trim, and be happy."
He laughed, but not very spontaneously.
"There goes a rocket over the trees," he said.
"It goes up like my hope," replied Lucy.
But the thing burst and was gone.
"Prophetic, I fear," said Joel.
When they came under the black shadow of the crag on the top of which Forest Hall was built, they paused and glanced up.
The moonlight brought the battlements into relief against the sky, and shone silvery upon the fir-tree, growing out of a niche, and sweeping the front wall with its feathery boughs. The house was very high, strange and frowning, grander than it ever looked by daylight.
Joel gripped Lucy's hand with a sudden excess of feeling.
"I'll never part with Forest Hall," he said, as though he saw in his mind's eye someone who wanted to take it from him. "I'll never sell the old place. If I go down into ruins, it shall go down into ruins with me. We'll fall together."
"Don't talk so fiercely, Joel," replied Lucy, gently smoothing his fingers to take the strain out of their grip. "Forest Hall will some day be refurnished from cellar to garret, and you and I will live there like a pair of cooing doves. Haven't you told me so many a time?"
"Of course, Lucy," he said, relaxing.
They walked on again, and near the outskirts of the forest met Peter and his bear.
"Hulloa, what have you there?" said Joel, while the girl drew back, not caring to be caught alone with him at this time of the night.
"A lap-dog for you, Joel."
"The deuce have you! And what do you expect me to do with it?"
"Give it housing room. You've got an empty shed, haven't you?"
"Two or three. You're a rum chap!" and Joel laughed, for he could never keep his resentment in his friend's breezy presence.
"There's a good fellow. May I put Big Ben—such is his name, I'm told—into one of them?"
"Great heavens! do you want me to take the bear?"
"It's as gentle as a lamb! Would you like to see me put my head in its mouth?"
"No! lead it away, fix it where you like; but I say, Peter, you don't expect me to look after it, do you?"
"Give it lodging only! Jake's going to see to its board. Many thanks, Joel. I'm off to-morrow, but I'll be up to bid you good-bye in the morning. Come along, you limping Ursus, it's time you were abed."