HOW WE RODE GRAY ROBIN
It was close upon the dawn before Jeanne Falla's party broke up, and as I jogged soberly down the lane from La Vauroque on Gray Robin, I met the jovial ones all streaming homewards.
A moment before, the quiet gray lane, with its fern-covered banks and hedges of roses and honeysuckle all asleep and drenched with dew, was all in keeping with my spirits, which were gray also, partly with the weariness of such unaccustomed merriment, and still more at thought of my various stupidities.
They all gathered round me and broke out into fresh laughter.
"Ma fé, Phil, but you're going to make a day of it! We wondered where you'd got to."
"Bon dou donc, you're in your pontificals, mon gars!"
"Is it a bank of roses you're riding, then?" and Gray Robin hotched uncomfortably though still half asleep.
"The early bird gets the nicest worm. Keep ahead of the Frenchman, Phil, and good luck to you!"
"Good luck to you all!" and their laughing voices died away along the lanes, and I woke up Gray Robin and went on to Beaumanoir.
I hitched the bridle over the gatepost, and lighted my pipe, and strolled to and fro with my hands deep in the pockets of my grandfather's best blue pilot-cloth jacket, for there was a chill in the air as though the night must die outright before the new day came.
Now, sunrise is small novelty to a sailorman. But there is a mighty difference between watching it across the welter of tumbling waves from the sloppy deck of a ship, and watching it from the top of the knoll outside Beaumanoir, with Carette fast asleep behind the white curtains of the gray stone house there.
Little matter that it might be hours before she came—since Jeanne Falla knew that rest was as necessary to a girl as food, if she was to keep her health and good looks. I could wait all day for Carette if needs be, and Gray Robin was already fast asleep on three legs, with the fourth crooked comfortably beneath him.
I can live that morning over again, though the years have passed.
...All the west was dark and dim. The sea was the colour of lead. Brecqhou was a long black shadow. Herm and Jethou were darker spots on the dimness beyond, and Guernsey was not to be seen. The sky up above me was thin and vague. But away in the east over France, behind long banks of soft dark cloud, it was thinner and rarer still, and seemed to throb with a little pulse of life. And behind the white curtains in the gray stone house, Carette lay sleeping.
...At midnight the girls had melted lead in an iron spoon, and dropped it into buckets of water, amid bubbles of laughter, to see what the occupations of their future husbands would be. They fished out the results with eager faces, and twisted them to suit their hopes. Carette's piece came out a something which Jeanne Falla at once pronounced an anchor, but which young Torode said was a sword, and made it so by a skilful touch of the finger.
...The air had been very still, as though asleep like all things else except the sea. And the sea still lay like lead out there, but I began to catch the gleam of white teeth along the sides of Brecqhou, and down below in Havre Gosselin I could hear the long waves growling among the rocks. And now there came a stir in the air like the waking breaths of a sleeper. The shadows behind Herm and Jethou thickened and darkened. The little throb of life behind the banks of cloud in the east quickened and grew. The sky there looked thin and bright and empty, as if it had been swept bare and cleansed for that which was to come. Up above me soft little gray clouds showed suddenly, all touched with pink on their eastern sides, while the sky behind them warmed with a faint dun glow. A cock in the Beaumanoir yard woke suddenly and crowed, and the challenge was answered from La Vauroque. Jeanne Falla's pigs grunted sleepily at the disturbance. The pigeons rumbled in their cote, and the birds began to twitter in the trees about the house. And behind the white curtains there, Carette lay sleeping.
...I had asked her, the first chance that offered, after I got back from seeing George Hamon. We were spinning round in a double quickstep which tried even Uncle Nico's seasoned arm.
"Carette," I whispered into the little pink shell of an ear, so near my lips that it was hard to keep from kissing it, "will you ride with me to-morrow?" and my heart went faster than my feet and set me tumbling over them. For Midsummer Day is Riding Day in Sercq, and he who asks a maid to share his horse that day is understood to desire her company on a longer journey still, and her consent to the one is generally taken to mean that she agrees to the other as well. So my little question held a mighty meaning, and no wonder my heart went quicker than my feet and set me stumbling over them as I waited for her answer.
"Not to-morrow, Phil," she whispered, and my heart stood still. Then it went on its way like a wave out of the west, when she murmured, "It's to-day we ride, not to-morrow," meaning that we had danced the night out.
"Then you will, Carette? You will?"
"You're late in the day, you know," she said, teasing still, as maids will when they know a man's heart is under their feet.
"But I only got home this evening—"
"Monsieur Torode asked me hours ago."
"But you haven't promised him, Carette?" and I felt as though all my life depended on her answer.
"I said I'd see. But—"
"Then you'll come with me, Carette," and I felt like kissing her there before them all.
"I'll tell you what I'll do, Phil. I'll go with one of you and come back with the other."
"But—Carette!—"
"You should not have left it so late, you see."
And with that I had to be content, though it was not at all to my mind, since I had looked for more.
...The eastern sky was filled to overflowing with pure thin light. The edges of the long dark banks of cloud that lay in front of it were rimmed with crimson fire. And from every quarter where the shadows lay gray clouds streamed up to greet the sun. They crept up the heavens, slow and gray and heavy, but as they climbed they lightened. They changed from gray to white. Their fronts were touched with the crimson fire. They spread wide wings and set me thinking of angels worshipping, and all the waiting clouds below threw out long streamers towards the day, like soft white arms in prayer. And behind the white curtains there, Carette lay sleeping.
...Gray Robin fell suddenly off one leg on to the other in his sleep, and woke with a discontented snuffle. Down in Havre Gosselin the seagulls were calling, "Miawk, miawk, miawk, miawk, miawk,—mink, mink, mink, mink,—kawk, kawk, kawk, kawk,—keo, keo, keo, keo, keo."
...The sky up above was thin and blue. The soft white clouds were like a mackerel's back, and every scale was rimmed with red gold. The east was all a-throb. The long bands of cloud were silver above and glowing gold below. The sun rose in a silence that seemed to me wonderful. If all the world had broken out into the song that filled my heart it would have seemed but right. Every cloud in all the sky seemed to bow in homage before him.
I had seen many and many a sunrise, but never before one like this. For there, behind the curtains, Carette lay sleeping. And I was waiting for her. And it was Riding Day, and she was going to ride with me on Gray Robin.
And gay beyond his wont or knowledge was Gray Robin that day, though I think myself he had his own suspicions of it even in his dreams. For when he got fully awake, and took to looking at himself, and found out by degrees how very fine he was, he felt shy and awkward, and shook himself so vigorously that bits of his finery fell off. For, you see, Uncle George, knowing what was right and proper under the circumstances, and throwing himself into the matter because it was for me, had brought all his skill into play. He had fished out a length of old net from his stores, and turned it to great account. He had draped it in folds over Gray Robin's broad flanks, and brought it round his chest, and wherever the threads would hold a stem he had stuck in red and white and yellow roses, and had tied bunches of them at his ears and along his bridle, so that the steady old horse looked like an ancient charger in his armour.
And as I watched him examining into all these things I could see his wonder grow, and he asked himself what, in the name of Hay, his friends and acquaintances would think of it all when they saw him, and he snuffled with disgust.
It was close upon six o'clock when Gray Robin pricked up his ears at sound of hoofs in the lane between the high hedges, and young Torode rode up on Black Boy. He drew rein sharply at sight of me, and a curse jerked out of him. And at sight of Gray Robin in his gay trappings, Black Boy danced on his hind legs and pretended to be frightened out of his wits.
Torode brought him to reason with a violent hand, and flung himself off with a black face.
"How then, Carré?" he broke out. "Mademoiselle promised to ride with me to-day."
"And with me also. So she said she would ride half the day with each of us."
"But, nom-de-dieu, what is the good of that? There is no sense in it."
"It is her wish."
He flogged a gorse bush angrily with a switch he had cut for Black Boy's benefit, and looked more than half inclined to fling himself back on to his horse and ride away, which would have been quite to my taste. Black Boy watched him viciously, with white gleams in his eyes, and winced at sound of the switch.
But before Torode had made up his mind, Jeanne Falla's sharp voice called from the gate, "Now then, you two, the coffee's getting cold. Come in and eat while you have the chance."
Coffee never tastes so good as just after morning watch, and I turned in at once, while young Torode proceeded to make sure that Black Boy should not make off while he was inside.
Aunt Jeanne's brown old face creased up into something like a very large wink as we went up the path, and she said softly, "First pig in trough gets first bite. You'll enjoy a cup of coffee at all events, mon gars. Seems to me there are two Black Boys out there, n'es c' pas?"
And if such coffee as Jeanne Falla made, with milk warm from the cow, could have been curdled by sour looks, young Torode had surely not found his cup to his liking.
His ill-humour was not simply ill-concealed, it was barely kept within bounds, and was, to say the least of it, but poor return for Aunt Jeanne's double hospitality. But Aunt Jeanne, far from resenting it, seemed actually to enjoy the sight, and as a matter of fact, I believe she was hoping eagerly that Carette would come down in time to partake of it also.
She chatted gaily about her party, and plumed herself on its success.
"We did it all our own two selves, the little one and I. Nothing like washing your own shirt, if you want it well done," brimmed she.
"It couldn't have been better, Aunt Jeanne. And as for the gâche—it was simply delicious."
"Crais b'en! If there's one thing I can do, it's make gâche. And it's not all finished yet," and she went to the press and brought out a cake like a cartwheel, and cut it into spokes.
"There are not many things you can't do, it seems to me, Aunt Jeanne," I said. "That cider was uncommonly good too."
"Ma fé, when you've learned to make cider for the Guernsey men you can make it for most folks, I trow.... It's a tired man you'll be to-night, Phil, mon gars. We were just turning in, the little one and I, when we heard a horse snuffle outside, and nothing would satisfy her but she must up and peep out of the window, and she said, 'Why, there's Phil Carré standing on the knoll. Mon Gyu, what does he want there at this time of day?' And I said, 'Come away into bed, child, and don't catch your death of cold. You're half asleep and dreaming. There's no one out there.' 'Yes, there is,' said she, 'and it's Phil Carré. I know his shape.' But I was sleepy, and I said, 'Well, he'll keep till morning anyway, and if you don't get some sleep you'll look like a boiled owl, and there'll be no riding for you, miss, Phil Carré or no Phil Carré.'" All of which was gall and wormwood to young Torode, as Jeanne Falla quite well knew and intended.
And presently Carette came down, looking like a half-opened rose after a stormy night, and with just as much energy in her as might be expected in a girl who had danced miles of quicksteps but a few hours before, and at a pace which Uncle Nico's arm had not forgotten yet.
There was to me something almost sacred in the look of her with the maiden sleep still in her eyes, which set her apart from us and above us, and I could have sat and looked at her for a long time, and required no more.
She was all in white again, and Aunt Jeanne, when she had given her coffee and a slice of gâche, and had coaxed her to eat, slipped out into the garden, and came back presently with an apronful of red roses, all wet with dew, and proceeded to pin them round her hat, and on her shoulder, and at her breast, and in her waistband.
"V'là!" said the dear old soul, standing off and eyeing her handiwork with her head on one side, like a robin. "There's not another in the Island will come within a mile of you, ma garche!" and it was easy to see the love that lay deep in the sharp old eyes.
We had hardly spoken a word since Carette came down, beyond wishing her good-day, and she herself seemed in no humour for talk. And for myself, I know I felt very common clay beside her, and I would, as I have said, been well content simply to sit and watch her.
Aunt Jeanne continued to talk of the party, a subject that would not fail her for many a week to come, for those sharp eyes of hers saw more than most people's, and she never forgot what they told her.
It was only when Carette had finished her pretence of eating, and it was time to be starting, that young Torode asked politely, "With whom do you ride first, mademoiselle,—since we are two?"
And Carette said sweetly, "Since Phil was here first I will ride first with him, monsieur, and afterwards with you."
"Do you cross the Coupée?" asked Aunt Jeanne anxiously.
"But, of course!" said Torode. "That is where the fun comes in."
"Bon Gyu, but that kind of fun does not please me! Some of you will find yourselves at the bottom some day, and that will end the riding in Sercq."
"It's safe enough if you have a firm hand—that is, if you know how to ride at all,"—a shot aimed at me, but which failed to wound.
"I don't like it," said Aunt Jeanne again, with a foreboding shake of the head and a meaning look at me.
"Well, we won't be the first to cross," I said, to satisfy her. "We'll see how the others get on, and no harm shall come to Carette, I promise you."
Gray Robin was dozing again, but I woke him up with a poke, and climbed up on to his broad back with as little damage to his rose-armour as I could manage, and Aunt Jeanne carried out a chair, so that Carette could get up behind me without disarranging herself.
And a happy man was I when the soft arms clasped me firmly round the waist, although I knew well enough that it was the correct thing for them to do, and that there was nothing more in it than a strong desire on the rear rider's part not to fall off. But for that troublesome young Torode, and all that was implied in the fact that Carette's arms would be round him on the homeward journey, I would have been the happiest man in Sercq that day. As it was, it was in my mind to make the most of my half of it.
Young Torode sprang on Black Boy with a leap that put our more cautious methods very much, into the shade, and also stirred up all Black Boy's never-too-well-concealed evil temper. A horse of spirit ever objects to the double burden of man and man's master, and, through thigh and heel and hand, he can tell in the most wonderful fashion if the devil's aboard as well.
We left them settling their little differences and jogged away down the lane, and the last we saw of Aunt Jeanne she was leaning over the gate, looking hopefully at the fight before her. But presently we heard the quick beat of hoofs behind, and they went past us with a rush—Black Boy's chin drawn tight to his chest, which was splashed with white foam flecks, his neck like a bow, and the wicked white of his port eye glaring back at us like a danger signal.
"Monsieur Torode has got his hands full, I think," I said.
"And Monsieur Black Boy carries more than he likes."
"I'm glad you're not on board there, Carette."
"I think I am too—just now," she laughed quietly.
We took the north road at La Vauroque, where we came on George Hamon, gazing gloomily after Black Boy and his rider, who were flying along the road to Colinette, and judging from his face there was a curse on his lips as he turned to us, which was very unusual with him. He brightened, however, when he saw us.
"B'en! That's all right," he said very heartily. "Gray Robin is a proud horse this day, ma'm'zelle, with the prettiest maid in the Island on his back—and the best man," he added meaningly. "I'm just hoping that crazy Frenchman will bring my Black Boy back all safe and sound. He's got more than a bit of the devil in him at times—the horse, I mean. The other, too, maybe. And he's more used to harness than the saddle. However—luck to you!"
He waved his hand, and we jogged on past the Cemetery, and so by La Rondellerie and La Moinerie, where the holy Maglorius once lived—as you may see by the ruins of his house and the cells of his disciples—to Belfontaine, where my mother came out with full eyes to give us greeting.
And to prevent any mistake which might put Carette to confusion, I did my clumsy best to make a joke of the matter.
"Your stupid was nearly too late, mother, and so Carette rides out with me and back with Monsieur Torode."
"Under the circumstances it was good of Carette to give you a share, mon gars."
"Oh, I'm grateful. One's sheaf is never quite as one would have it, and one takes the good that comes."
"How glad you must have been to see him back, Mrs. Carré!" said Carette. "You never gave him up, I know."
"No, I never gave him up," said my mother quietly.
"I think he ought to have stopped with you all day to-day," said Carette. "I feel as if I were stealing him."
"Only borrowing," smiled my mother. "It is good to be young, and the young have their rights as well as the old. Good luck to you and a fine ride!" and I shook up Gray Robin, and we went on.
"Be very careful if you cross the Coupée, Phil," she called after us. "There was a fall there the other day, your grandfather was saying, and the path has not been mended yet."
I waved my hand, and we went on. From a distant field, where they were busy with their hay, my grandfather and Krok saw us passing along the road, and straightened up and shaded their eyes with their hands, and then waved us heaps of good luck, and we jogged on along the road to the Eperquerie.