As he lay and looked through the window and felt the wind on his face, he heard a kind of music in the noise, for in its unconscious, harsh insistence, there was a glorifying of life, joy in a creative gift, and praise for the wise use of it. It held, moreover, a call for energy, and Alexander, who had been born loving pre-eminence, could not consent to lie in bed while a hen prated of accomplishment. Murmuring gentle maledictions on the creature, he threw off his coverings and thrust his head and shoulders through the window.
It was six o'clock, and the earth seemed to have dipped its face in its own running water, and now, still glistening with drops, it was holding up its head that the wind might dry it. It was a light and frolic wind, taking pleasure in the vast spaces of the world and the youth of morning, whirling about the hill-tops, daring the dark and dripping gullies that rent the cliffs, yet not disdaining the rose-tree on the house wall, nor the points of Alexander's flannel collar and the roughness of his hair. Sharp at his throat it sent its cool, long fingers, and after them came the sunshine with a warm caress.
The ceasing of the hen's exultation brought a startling quiet, and through it there came softly a consciousness of water falling. From the Steep Water and the Broad Beck it was heard, a sound half of melancholy and half of joy, and sometimes it was loud, and again had a note so fading that silence caught at it.
There was a cap of cloud on the Spiked Crags, but the Blue Hill stood broad and clear, and when Alexander turned his head and looked seaward, he saw that shining thread of water, and the lake, and the lower hills lying under a pale and lofty sky.
Vague scents of flower and tree, of soil and wind, rose to his nostrils or went past him: he thought he smelt the very essence of the earth, he thought he felt God breathing on His world. Peace was spread on it like a hand, and in that blessing Alexander shared.
A homely sound drew him from the heights to which contemplation had carried him, and looking down, he saw a procession of brown and speckled hens, who lifted their feet delicately from the dust of the road, but did not refuse to peck in it. Dappling the little throng with white, three solemn ducks waddled heavily, and, last of all, like marshalls of the flock, the grey geese came, craning their necks and gobbling gently. They paused at the gate that lead into the field, argued for a while, and slipped, one by one, under the lowest bar.
Alexander followed them over the wet fields. He left his slippers at the gate, and went barefooted, for he was in love with the morning, and greedy of all it had to give: the damp earth was pressed into the arches of his feet, and the long grasses shook down their hanging drops. A blackbird sang to him as he swished by, and when he reached the pool under the birches, he thought it waited for him like a mistress who had no life but his. Not yet quite wakened from the night, it stirred languorously and spread dark arms to hold him, while the thin birch leaves fluttered on their stalks, quivering in a selfless joy.
He raised his eyebrows with a humorous, unequal lift, and looked deeply into the water he thus appropriated. He was amused, a little dismayed by a mood in which he tuned the world's music to his own key. His ambition might have seen men and things alike conquerable by his mind, but his vanity had never heard them as a refrain to the song of self, yet now a sparkling morning, a whistling bird, and wet grasses brushing on his feet, had made a coxcomb of him. That was the epithet he chose to use, for his proud youth would not confess the power of a summer morning on his austerity; yet, as he took the plunge into water which still held a memory of the snows, he was grateful to a cold that vanquished sentiment, and gave back freedom to the mountain stream. He felt he ought to ask its pardon on his knees, but he did not pause in his drying: the feeling, he thought characteristically, was enough, and, lifting his brows again and twisting his lips in company, he decided to keep the kneeling posture for the time when he should have learnt to pray, and with the remembrance that he had been at worship, if not at prayer, as he stood by his window and divined the immeasurable presence of God, he walked home soberly, absorbed in the problems of his own spirit, and heedless of the geese that cackled after him.
He found his mother kindling the kitchen fire and he watched her as he sat on the table and dried his hair. He had, for everything concerning her, an eye as keen as that of a woman or a lover: he took pleasure in the sure quickness of her hands, and the clear skin on the cheek she turned to him, yet his gaze had that parental quality which, still unsuspected, had influenced his dealings with her from boyhood. He saw how the brave back defied the grey that crept unwillingly through her hair, and he knew that neither age nor sorrow would ever daunt her, because love had given her an invincible supremacy. Years ago, with the wisdom of the threatened, her heart had challenged her mind to combat, and had beaten it, and thereafter she had made of it an ally, so that her defences were unassailable and her fears at rest. He understood. Had he not watched it all? At first he had seen her little shifts with scorn, he had felt pity for her determined blindness, and then his own sight had been cleared, and he looked straight into a maternal heart that awed him, though it pulsed so eagerly for the father that there was hardly room for the son. His training had been a hard and useful one, and his passions were well chained: he was rarely resentful: what was noble in him was truly glad of her captured happiness, and he had learnt to use towards her the indulgent tenderness which she kept for his father.
He laid aside his towel and stood up. "Let me do that for you."