Barbara Lynn: A Tale of the Dales and Fells.

by Emily J. Jenkinson

So the moonlight and the firelight, mingling with each other into an unearthly glimmer, the shadows, and the singing beck, held the silence of the death-chamber undisturbed.

Barbara listened to the voice of the running water with varied feelings. It spoke to her of life; of the hopes and ambitions and renunciations that had sounded such strange notes in her own soul. For its clear ripple was accompanied by sad murmurs, and sudden splashes, as it ran over pebbles, or flowed in a deep torrent, or fell from the rocks. It played upon the whole gamut of sounds, just as life had played upon the whole gamut of her emotions, and out of them made music, halting and discordant, perhaps, at times, but always striving after more perfect harmony.

Barbara had real affection for the beck. When she and Lucy were children, afraid of the dark, they used to lie awake at night, shivering at the thought of the crags overhanging the house, but its voice reassured them. The stream was a living thing, so free, and light-hearted, and friendly. It never hid from the sun or the moon, it gathered their light into its foam. Barbara used to call it the Milky Way, and let it flow through her imagination like a galaxy of millions upon millions of stars. And it was her and her sister's delight to fly out of the house at the first peep of day, in the hot summer weather, and bathe in the clear pools above the farm, bathe naked under the green banks, with no eye but that of a distant shepherd to spy upon them.

The beck was a true friend. It piped when they danced, leaped when they sang, and mourned when they were sorrowful. To Barbara, as to her great-grandmother, it told stories of the days of old. For it had seen the midnight raids of the moss-troopers, had baffled the hounds when they came on a man-hunt up the dale, and had, more than once, had its clear waters stained with blood. But to-night it wakened more intimate memories in Barbara's mind.

She lay, soothed into drowsiness, while the events of her life passed before her like pictures upon a screen, light and dark, monotonous, or many-coloured, they came and went, and she looked at them as a painter may look at the early work of his hands, and trace in it those ideas which experience has since matured. She had not allowed herself to meditate in this way for a long time. Some of her memories had still the power to cast her weeping upon the ground. But now, whether lulled into semi-consciousness by the beck, or subdued by the near approach of death, she saw and handled, with unimpassioned feelings, that which had been painted out of her heart's blood. It was as though she had been lifted to a higher sphere, where the inner significance of life was understood and where the crude pattern it had been worked into here, was there transformed into a thing of perfect beauty.

So the night wore away. The moon vanished, and rain came down with the rushing sound of steady pouring.

Barbara put more turf on the fire, stole across the floor, and stood looking down upon the yellow, parchment-like face, lying high upon the piled-up pillows. Then she went back to her couch. She had a feeling to-night, which she could not explain to herself, that the tale of her own days was written. Her life was becoming like the fly-leaf in a book, which lies between the end of the story and the cover—a blank, white page, where nothing more would be transcribed, no further adventure; neither new phase of thought, nor struggle of flesh and spirit. The excitements and turmoils were ended, the passions had been fought and, when that page was turned, the book would be shut. Barbara's life had been bound up with her great-grandmother's, and she could not imagine it apart from her. So blank did it appear that she had not made any plans for her future, when the masterful old woman should lie no longer in the four-poster, but have exchanged it for a narrower, colder bed.

Lucy had written to say that her sister must come and live with her, or, if she would not consent to such a plan, come for a long visit. Barbara knew that she would do neither; Peter would not expect her to, and he would understand her refusal. He and Lucy were happy at their new home, but she must never darken it. As she had lived, a lonely shepherd lass upon the mountains, so she would continue to live, a lonelier woman, finding solace among the stern grandeur of her native land.

Worn out by her long watch, Barbara fell into a light sleep. She slept as tranquilly as a child, and, for an hour or more, the deep breathing of Mistress Lynn and her great-granddaughter was the only sound of life in the room.

Shadows moved about with the flickering firelight, and, when the candle guttered to its socket, they came and stood round the bed, like noiseless spirits, watching the figure there, which lay so still, that it looked as if it had already sunk into the quiet composure of death. Towards morning, in that cold hour before the dawn, Barbara was wakened by a voice calling her.