Barbara Lynn: A Tale of the Dales and Fells.

by Emily J. Jenkinson

Ketel's Parlour

Barbara sat on a stool in the mouth of the cave, reading aloud Pope's translation of the Iliad to Timothy Hadwin. The old man watched the girl narrowly, and felt his mind swing back through the ages to the days of Greek and Trojan.

Had Barbara lived then she would have been called the daughter of a god. Thetis of the Silver-foot ought to have been her mother, and some strong warrior king her father. She would have made a worthy sister to Achilles, a fit wife for Hector, tamer of horses. A wife! a wife! Timothy wondered. Would Barbara Lynn ever become the wife of some good, honest, plain man, and chain her mind to making and mending, the bearing of children, the ordinary toils of a married woman's life. He could not imagine her as such. She was in her fitting place as a herder of sheep upon the mountains, where sun and tempest were her familiar friends. Would she be happier if her lot brought her down from the clouds to the earth? Would not the four grey walls of a cottage choke her? He felt that in her nature was an intensity of feeling so great, that it was more likely to bring her sorrow than happiness.

The hour was noon of a summer's day. All around the heat shimmered upon rock and grass; the tarn lay white and motionless; Thundergay was wrapped in a haze; not a breath of air stirred the fern fronds.

Barbara's voice when she read had an exaltation, which it lacked in ordinary conversation. Her eyes, also, had lost their prevailing meditativeness, and shone with an inner light. She thrilled to the depths of her soul with the lives of the people about whom she read. Her ears were alert to catch the voices still echoing down the centuries.

Timothy Hadwin had told her that nothing which happened had an end. No thought ever thought, no action ever committed could cease. Just as a pebble, dropped into the sea, caused waves to spread all about it, which rolled on and on in ever widening circles till they communicated their movements to the edges of the world, so the accumulated energy of the past was still surging around, beating upon human brains, and influencing the latest born of man, though its origin had been swallowed up and forgotten in the darkness of antiquity.

Barbara believed this. Through books she reached direct contact with the past. She was a vessel into which the magic old wine could be poured, and it warmed her, filled her serene mind with passions and sympathies, unknown to it at other times.

Often through the week Barbara went to Timothy Hadwin's cottage, or he came to Ketel's Parlour to hear her read, and to impart some of his knowledge to her hungry soul. The brief hour was a treasure snatched from the crowded commonplaces of the day, and was valued accordingly.

Just now, Barbara was reading about the ransoming of Hector's body. Her voice thrilled, and her eyes grew luminous as she pictured the old king stealing across the plain by night with a wain filled with rich vestments, tripods, shining cauldrons, and a priceless bowl of gold to offer them in return for the dead body of his son. She could see the whole scene—the city of Troy with its battlements and towers vaguely outlined against the darkness, the dreadful plain of war, the long black boats of the Greeks, behind which sounded the ever-rolling sea. She saw Achilles' hut with its palisades, and pine bolt, that three strong men were wont to drive home at night, though Achilles could drive it home himself. And near by lay the body of Hector, face-downwards in the dust, as Achilles had left him after dragging him round the barrow of his dead friend at the dawn of day. Her eyes filled with tears for Hector, tamer of horses, Hector of the glancing helm, who strove against fate; but strove in vain, who was still beloved of Jove, and cared for in death by the god of the winged sandals, who closed his wounds, and kept his flesh from corruption.

But that which touched her most was Achilles' speech to the old king, when he came a suppliant to his hut in the night. The two urns standing by the throne of Jupiter, one full of curses, one full of blessings arrested her attention. Was it not true? Did the god not deal a mingled lot to most of his creatures, but gave them an enduring soul to bear it? The best and most beautiful things in the world were fraught with sorrow. The sunset often made her sad; equally sad sounded the singing of birds in spring; and love, the love of father, mother, husband, child, was saddest of all. This she had learnt among her friends of the dale.