Barbara Lynn: A Tale of the Dales and Fells.

by Emily J. Jenkinson

The two men were quiet for a while; the dawn grew and the irregular buildings came out in blurred masses against the sky. There was not a spire or pinnacle, whose shape Peter could not clearly trace. They were drawn, as it were, upon his flesh, nay, engraved upon his bones so that the wasting tissues of age should not be able to fret their outlines. He had been marked indelibly by the finger-print of Oxford. To him had been given the gift of an historical imagination. He lived in hourly touch with the learning, the tragedies, the visions of the past. Hall and cloister, chapel and narrow stair, echoed with its voices.

On a summer's day his favourite haunt was the high gallery round Saint Mary the Virgin's spire, where he could look over the city from its centre, and delight his eyes and his mind with vision and picture. Town and gown would seem to swirl below him in the narrow streets; processions of monks and prelates would pass and repass; Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer would come and go, and face the flames yonder by Balliol College. Archbishop Laud might pause opposite to his great porch, which he had crowned with a statue of the Virgin and Child; the deformed figure of Alexander Pope might wander by from the tower of Stanton Harcourt, his mind stirring with the martial lines of Homer. Or Peter might see Matilda, when the snow lay thick on the ground, escaping from the castle, clad in white, while the armies of Stephen besieged it. Then he would look at the shady gardens, the great trees, the silver sheen of Cherwell or Isis, and remember that these had all been living in those far-off days, and were still living, and would continue to live, after he, and his generation had returned to dust.

From the wider view he would turn to the winged monkeys, the griffins, the pelicans of the roof below him, and he would hear again the chip, chip, of chisel and hammer in the thirteenth century, when the very stones he could lay his hands upon were first placed there.

Northward he would gaze with Saint Cuthbert, who stands in his niche, holding the head of King Oswald in his hand—and he would link his own wild Northern hills, where Barbara Lynn herded sheep, with this ancient city of civilization. Mayhap, as he thought of Barbara Lynn, his eyes would light upon Christ Church, and he would remember the saint whose shrine it guards, to whom Oxford owes her birth—Saint Frideswide, blue-eyed and yellow-haired, who might have worn a crown.

Thought is linked to thought, North to South, man to man, in endless succession. Since Adam there has not been one break in the chain; the whole of life is knitted up without a rent. Saint Frideswide and Barbara Lynn stretched their hands to each other through the dim years. Something of the same spirit lived in both, a spirit of self-mastery and aspiration though one refused a crown to keep herself unspotted from the world, the other, pure as any lily, should be crowned—so Timothy Hadwin had prophesied.

Peter did not despise the present because he lived so much in the past. He was no step-bairn of his glorious mother, but received a full inheritance from her hands. In the life about him he found inspiration and fellowship, without which he would have been shorn of his Samson locks. And he was a power among his fellow students. They might laugh at his childlike enthusiasms; but they found him a tower of strength when strength was needed; and under his outward sentimentality, they tapped a clear spring of common sense. He had a masculine love of independence; he could work with mind and muscle strained to their utmost; he could idle like an Oriental; but he rose at dawn, slept on a truckle bed, ate plain fare like an ascetic. Of his lowly birth he made no secret. Patronage ran off him like water off a duck's back. He was curiously insensible to differences of rank or breeding. In mental ability he stood second to few. That which was said of William Pitt might be said equally well of him—"He never seemed to learn, but simply to recollect."

Thus his academic years had passed; now he stood without the closed door. His friends were going forth to careers of interest or influence; he was drifting back to his Northern home to teach the village children how to make pot-hooks.

He had wrestled with himself for one bitter day, when the offer of a post, under the East India Company, had come from one, who had seen and understood his worth. A glorious prospect had opened out before him—golden hands had beckoned, the fair face of Fame had smiled. But he had turned away resolutely after one keen, longing glance, and forbade his eyes to stray after the vision again. Then his parents had begged him to come home, and though he could have found other spheres of work and influence congenial to him, he felt that the wishes of those who had given him birth, had struggled, denied themselves all, denied him nothing, had lived only for him, must be respected. Now he was not sorry, though at first he had been bitterly disappointed. He was fatalist enough to believe that no other course would bring him success, that the way would open out sooner or later; and wise enough to know that a period spent alone in reflection might be made of infinite benefit.

The sun was rising. Over the slender minarettes came a broad yellow beam that lighted up Saint Mary's spire, which soared into the blue air—a being of character and destiny, a maker and moulder of men, as well as a symbol of their deepest need.

Great buildings, like great minds, deepen and fix their personality with the passing years. The varied winds of life round their corners, refine their angles, and blend them into a harmonious whole. Great buildings, like great minds, endure a loneliness that is awful in its magnitude. It is the price which must be paid by those who would rise above the fretting trivialities of existence. And this is their compensation—they uplift, they inspire others: they are an eternal assurance of the wonder and sacredness of human life.