Some had fled from it, afraid as of a ghost. Lucy had been afraid. Others, like Barbara, might shiver in its shadow, yet felt for it something which they could not justify, nor explain. But the ghost of Greystones—call it what you will—was not immortal. It must die with the fabric that was its body, and already there were signs that that body was sinking into ruin. Barbara thought of the doom which had been spoken over it long ago, spoken, no one knew by whom, but perhaps by a Lynn, who had feared its personality, that some day it would fall, and then would end the race of strenuous souls, who had inhabited it for three hundred years.
Thus these two—Barbara and the old house—watched and waited while the spirit of the great-grandmother struggled to be free, and leave for ever the place it had known for generations, which it had upheld by its own force of will, because it was determined to live there to the end. Otherwise, Greystones would have been deserted long ago, have become the home of bats and owls, till the fall of its roof-tree buried all its memories in a ruinous heap.
The day was drawing to its close, the fire had died down, and the room was dim. Dim looked the clock, dim the empty arm-chair, and the four-poster was already vanishing into night. Barbara heard a rattle on the roof, but did not heed it. She thought that the weather had changed again, and hail was falling instead of rain. The short shower died away as abruptly as it had begun.
The girl stood looking down at her great-grandmother with tears in her eyes. The loneliness of her own lot suddenly appalled her. Soon she would be left solitary in a vast, overwhelming world, with the dominant factor gone from her life, and all the ties which bound her to her fellows broken. For what had she in common with any woman in the dale but her sex? And what had she in common with the men but her height and strength? They did not understand her. The only soul which had been able to enter into her mind was slowly vanishing away from her sight.
Mixed up with her thoughts and her grief was the consciousness of a louder hail on the roof. Then earth and stones poured down the chimney, and she ran to the door.
A fear, which she had not time to put into words, got hold of her. She thought of the crags behind the house. The winter had been severe; for weeks the ground had been held in the grip of an iron frost, and, now that the thaw had come, there was likely to be some landslips in the neighbourhood. When she opened the door, she saw the hind running down the opposite fellside, waving his arms to her, but she could not hear what he was shouting for the growling, crackling noises overhead. Then a rock crashed past the house and plunged into the beck.
Barbara ran into the garden and looked up. A sound like distant thunder began to roll. She saw, as it were, the whole mountain move. Horror, for a moment, robbed her of understanding, but she recovered herself. The vast mass of Mickle Crags was heaving, and splitting apart, sending before it showers of stones and soil, while around stood the grey hills, looking on with calm features. She must flee if she would save her life. But she could not flee, for her great-grandmother was still living.
She went back to the house, knowing that she was going to destruction. Fear did not rob her step of its firmness, nor her eyes of their steady glow. In a few seconds more, she, and the old woman, and the older house, would go down to a common grave. They who had dwelt together so long could not be separated in death. She bent over her great-grandmother and slipped her arm under the worn head.
The crash and tumble of falling rocks roused Mistress Lynn. She opened her eyes and smiled.
"Thee's a good lass, Barbara," she said.