CHAPTER XXVIII
FOUR YEARS
No Spaniards came to be driven back, had Aderhold been that magician who could do it. It was like a lost island, or the first peopled island, or the last. Day after day they watched a tranquil sea and saw no point of any sail. Time passed. The Indians from the great island ceased to dream of recapture. Joan and Aderhold ceased to dream of being taken, wrenched apart; ceased to dream of the open boat and of the Silver Queen and of the prison and the gallows field. They did not cease to dream of Hawthorn, of Heron’s Cottage and the Oak Grange, of Hawthorn Forest, and all the life that lay on yonder side the prison gates. Joan dreamed of her father and of her uncle the huntsman, of the castle and Mistress Borrow and others there, the town as once it had been to her, and of Hawthorn as once it had been. She dreamed of Heron’s cottage—of every item there—the well under the fruit trees, the bees under the thatch, the daffodils and every later flower, of her kitchen and the hearth and the old settle, and her spinning-wheel. She dreamed of gathering faggots in Hawthorn Forest. She dreamed of Alison and of Will the smith’s son and of Goodman Cole and of many another—the vintner in the town, Cecily Lukin and the forester’s wife, old Master Hardwick—many another. But all were blended together in a dream world, in a gay and bright picture-book, where if there were witches they were harmless good souls who rather helped people than otherwise, and where no one was persecuted for thinking things out for one’s self. In the picture book it seemed almost a laudable thing to do. Aderhold dreamed—and his dream world was wider by his greater range of this life’s experience. He dreamed of Hawthorn and Hawthorn Forest and all the roads thereabouts, of the Oak Grange and of Heron’s cottage; but he dreamed likewise of a world beyond Hawthorn. He dreamed of his own childhood and boyhood, and they, too, had a picture-book setting, where the rough became only rich and varied, and what had seemed sorrow and harm turned an unhurt side. He dreamed of his first manhood, and of his search for knowledge, the sacred hunger and thirst and the lamp of aspiration in his hand. He dreamed of old woes and scars, happenings many an one, persons many an one.... But neither he nor Joan dreamed any more, with a frightful sense of nearness, with a cold start of waking, of sudden, clutching hands, of separation, of dark and deep gaols where neither could hear the other’s voice, or if the other’s voice was heard, indeed, then heard in a long cry of anguish. Fear spread its dark wings and left them, and took with it intensity of watchfulness and all the floating motes that made its court.
They had now great strength and health, Joan’s renewed, Aderhold’s such as it had never been. They stood erect and bright-eyed, their movements had rhythm, the hand went with precision to its task, the glance fell unerringly, the foot bore them lightly. They bent to life with a smile, frequently with laughter. If life was always a mighty riddle, if at times it seemed a vivid disaster, yet indubitably there were stretches, as now, when it became a splendid possession!
“‘I have heard talk of bold Robin Hood,
And of brave Little John,
Of Friar Tuck and Will Scarlett,