"I have heard my husband say, love, that when they came to christen the youngest boy the minister was quite angry, and would not have the 'Barjona,' but the mother was much bent on it, and would not substitute Peter, which was what the parson suggested. Anyhow, she registered him in his full name."
"Which name was he called by?" I inquired.
"Oh, Barjona, love, always. And behind his back he is Barjona yet, though he likes to be called Mr. Higgins. But you may give a man a good name when you cannot give him a good nature, and he might as well have been christened Buonaparte for all it has done for him. Oh yes, love, he is close-fisted, is Barjona, and it is said that his wife was so tired of his nagging ways that she was quite pleased to go. I'm sure I thank the Lord that I am not Mrs. Higgins, though they do say in the village that Widow Robertshaw would have had him this many a year back."
"But he is an old fox now," I remarked, "and avoids the trap."
It lacked still a couple of hours of noon when Mr. Higgins deposited us at Uncle Ned's lonely hostelry, and drove off in the company of the tired mare and his own complacent thoughts. Ten minutes later I had completely forgotten his existence in the joy of a new experience.
I was there at last! The moors of which I had dreamed so long were a conscious reality. Before me, and on either hand, they stretched until they touched the grey of the sky. The glory of the heather was gone, though sufficient colour lingered in the faded little bells to give a warm glow to the landscape, and to hint of former splendour. My heart ached a wee bit to think that I had come so late, but why should I grudge Nature's silent children their hour of rest? The morning will come when they will again fling aside the garb of night and deck themselves in purple. Besides, there was the gorse, regal amid the sombre browns and olives and neutral tints of the vegetation; and there were green little pools and treacherous-looking bogs, and the uneven, stony pathway which made a thin, grey dividing line as far as the eye could see. What more could the heart of man desire?
How sweet the breath of the air was as it covered my cheeks with its caresses! I tasted the fragrance of it, and it gave buoyancy to my body, and the wings of a dove to my soul. I flew back down the years to the dingy sitting-room which held my sacred memories, and saw dear old dad painting his moorland pictures in the glowing embers on the hearth; and I flew upwards to the realms which eye hath not seen, and was glad to remember that the moors are not included amongst the things that are not to be.
Then, characteristically, my mood changed. The sense of desolation got hold of me. I looked for sound of throbbing life and found none: only tokens of a great, an irresistible Power. It may seem strange, but in the silence of that vast wilderness I felt, as I had never felt before, that there must be a God, and that He must be all-powerful. I have not tried to analyse the emotion, but I know my heart began to beat as though I were in the presence of Majesty, and a great awe brooded over my spirit.
Suddenly there was a fluttering of wings in the tangled undergrowth a few yards away, and as my soul came back to earth I saw a hawk swoop down and seize its prey, and then I choked. "If I take the wings of the morning and fly to the uttermost parts of the earth," I said to myself, "I cannot escape the tragedy of life and death—the mystery of suffering."
Mother Hubbard put an arm around my waist and looked questioningly into my eyes, her own being bright with tears. I put my hands upon her cheeks and kissed her.