Barbara Lynn: A Tale of the Dales and Fells.

by Emily J. Jenkinson

Had she been wise and strong enough to look at it, she would have known that below her love for this man was the apprehension that his beauty of face and form held a shallow soul; that his sincerity was a thin sheet of gilt over a hollow heart; that he was but a slender reed, which would break if too heavy a weight were put upon it. But she loved, she worshipped, she refused to see her idol's feet of clay. And the result became that which she was trying to escape—a tormented mind.

The forest lay silent. She could still hear the bleating of sheep on the fells, and the crying of the pee-weeps. But under the dark blue shadow of the trees nothing moved save a sheaf of flag leaves growing in a ditch beside the road. After a little while Jake, the rat-catcher, came along, leading Peter's big brown bear, which he had taken out for exercise. The thin little man and the ungainly beast passed up the path to the house on the crag, then the curtain of silence fell again, only lifted for a moment by the return of Jake alone. He did not see Lucy, and went home through the forest playing upon his flute.

She wondered what time it was! She began to feel cold and thought that she would not have the courage to stay there all night. Besides Barbara, or the hind, or Jan Straw would soon come to look for her, and they would come first to Forest Hall. She got to her feet meaning to go home.

Then a window was thrown open far over her head, and the loud laughing of men went jarring above the tree-tops. Some of Joel's friends, from the country around, had ridden over to see him off and wish him god-speed. He was making merry, while she was eating her own heart with hunger. She wavered, took a step forward, then a step back, hesitated, but, in the end, impelled by a stronger power than her own, she crept up to the house, and looked in at a window.

The room was lit with many candles, burning with long red tongues, and much smoke. They shone upon pewter mugs, rough heads, and jocular faces. Not a man among the lot could match Joel in bearing or grace of countenance. He stood in the middle of them, with a tankard held high, for he had just called a toast. She had not been in time to hear what he had said, but she saw the smile run from lip to lip, and heard again the loud laughing.

She sank down on the grass under the window. So this was all that Joel cared! She felt that he had torn out her heart, and flung it still fluttering in her face. He could amuse himself with his companions, finding a time for mirth upon his last night in Forest Hall; he could blot her out of his thoughts with jests and singing.

As a matter of fact Joel was thinking of her, and the toast which he had called was to 'the lass of his heart.' It was not his nature to be stiff, when others were genial, or pull a long face in the faces of his friends.

But to-night he was in a reckless mood. He had torn himself away from the hands that would have held him; he had been forced to wound the woman he loved; he was afraid to meditate upon his present frame of mind or the future upon which he was entering. He craved for distraction, and was grateful to his friends for providing it. He was ready to enter into any wild scheme that would make the night spin and the morning come before he had time to realize what it meant.

Lucy lay stricken upon the ground; she could not tear herself away. Chilling vapours rose and numbed her limbs. But behind her eyes she felt flames. At times she was seized with fits of shivering. She knew that it was dangerous for her to lie there for a heavy dew was falling—the points of her hair hung with drops, which, now and then, rolled down her neck into her bosom. But she wished that she might die, she wished that the morning could find her stiff and stark under the window, with her sightless eyes gazing up at the room, where Joel had spent the night in merriment. And above all she wished that he might come there in the dawn, and find her. She wanted him to carry away the eternal reproach of a dead girl's face.

This is that which she desired, and the scene which she saw with the vividness of delirium. His horse stood ready saddled and bridled, his gay companions were lounging in the doorway, he was about to mount when his eyes fell upon her body half hidden by the grass. She felt the hush that would follow his cry of horror. She saw the remorse upon his face, the clenching of his hands, the sweat on his brow. With grim satisfaction she lingered over the scene. Then her mind wandered on. She thought that she followed him into distant lands. She saw him alone in great forests, alone on wide prairies, alone in solitary huts, but never alone, because her dead face would be peering into his. She saw him in crowded cities, in drinking bars, in dancing halls, and even there her dead eyes would blot out the light of other faces. He should never escape her, she would follow him and haunt him until in death they met again. Then she would show him the love and forgiveness of her heart.