Barbara Lynn Part 31

Joel made a supreme effort to throw Peter. He rallied all his failing powers, his face grew purple, he bent to give the last swing which should lift his adversary from his feet, when he slipped and fell.

There was a loud cheer from the onlookers; they leaped over the hurdles to shake Peter by the hand; the ring surged with men and dogs. Then silence fell, and hushed the words on men's tongues even when they did not know the cause.

Joel lay on the ground, his face ghastly as that of a corpse, while a red stream trickled from his mouth.

CHAPTER XVIII

BY THE CRESSET'S LIGHT

Barbara was alone at Ketel's Parlour. A lighted lamp hung from a hook in the ceiling, and a fire smouldered on a slab of blue slate, while the smoke escaped through a cleft in the wall. Outside was night, starless and black, though the hour was not much later than seven o'clock. Not long ago she had heard the village folk returning from the Meet, but they went home by a track on the other side of the beck, and did not come near the cave.

Barbara wanted to think, and, in order to think clearly, she must be alone. The huge fire at Greystones, that made every corner of the kitchen as bright as noon, and the alert old woman in the four-poster, prevented any such deep meditation as she craved. But as the work of the day was over, and Jess, the servant-la.s.s, had sat down to spin by the ingle, she could absent herself for a while with a clear conscience.

The cave was part of herself. Its rocky walls seemed to have taken on the impression of her thoughts. She had stamped her personality upon it, and loved it as the habitation of her spirit. Here she was free, though free nowhere else in the world; here she shook off the cloak under which she hid her true being; here she could meet herself face to face without fear of prying eyes.

There was a charm in the cave which fitted her every mood. Were she happy, the spring that bubbled out of the floor and ran sparkling among the stones, laughed in unison with her. Were she sad, no sunlight could come here to stare and mock. Were she weary, yonder was a couch of heather and sheepskins for her body, and a silence that hung around her brain like a curtain. Did she feel herself inspired to pray, the walls and the dim light were solemn as those of a shrine.

Peter had given her the cresset lamp, and she had brought her books here, keeping them in an oak chest which she had found at Greystones, that preserved them from damp.

She knew the cave so well--every stone on the floor, every crack in the walls where tiny ferns grew--that she could have found her way about it blindfold. She often thought that, when she came to die, Ketel's Parlour would remain the most vivid picture in her mind.

Death was a familiar meditation to Barbara. She met it so often that it forced itself upon her notice. The destroyer tramped the fells even in summer-time, taking his toll of sheep and lambs, and now and then s.n.a.t.c.hing away a man. But when winter came, with its storms of wind and rain; when it held the becks stiff behind icy bars; when it filled the gullies with drifting snow and levelled dangerous slopes, then it seemed to be a miracle that any living thing should come through it alive. Time and again, between November and March, those whose work took them to the great wastes, would face death, would go where a slip was destruction, where presence of mind, and swift, unerring action meant life; where nothing but the instinct that is born in some men, added to hard-won experience, could bring them safe and sound out of the valley of the shadow to their own hearth-stones.

Barbara often wondered how her own end would come. Would she be like a shepherd, who had gone out one wild night to bring the ewes to a more sheltered spot, and who was blown over a precipice? Would she fall into a drift when helping to dig out the sheep, and perish of the suffocating snow in which a sheep may live, but not a human being? Would she grow dizzy when climbing some steep ascent, and fall down to be dashed on the rocks below? Or would she, like her great-grandmother, live for a hundred years, and die at last in the four-poster, with the bridewain on one side of her and the dresser on the other?

No; anything but that. She hoped that death would not forget her, as it had forgotten Mistress Lynn, that grim, grey, human Sphynx, which could look back along the years for a century. That such a lot might be hers filled the girl with horror. But she would not believe it. She cared not how death came, but she hoped he would not tarry, for life held nothing now that could make her wish to live. Life was full of renunciation and sacrifice, and she was tired of striving after righteousness.

She had not been long alone when she heard a voice calling her:

"Barbara! Barbara!"

Absorbed in her thoughts, she imagined that the voice came from her inner consciousness, and was spirit speaking unto spirit. But it called again, and this time fell upon her ear with unmistakable urgency:

"Barbara!"

Lucy was running across the slope, towards the light issuing from the cavern's doorway. She looked excited, her cheeks were aflame, her eyes s.h.i.+ning.

"You must come with me," she cried. "You must come at once, over the Robber's Rake to the Shepherd's Rest. Joel is dying."

She took her sister's hand, and began to draw her towards the door.

"Sit down, Lucy, and calm thyself," said Barbara.

"Sit down! Nay, I tell you we must go at once. Come, there is no time to lose. He may be dead before we see him."

"I don't understand," said Barbara.

She stood under the cresset's light like a rock, while Lucy, like a wave, fretted about her. Exasperating to such a nature as Lucy's was her sister's calmness.

"Oh! you don't understand," she cried. "You never have understood. You have a heart like a lump of ice. You have always been against Joel and me. It is you who thrust us apart. But, now that he is dying, I thought you'd relent. Still, I'll go----"

"Has he sent for you?"

"Nay! I tell you he's dying. Oh, Joel, Joel, to think you should be leaving me again so soon. But I'm coming, yes, I'm coming."

The girl wrung her hands, looked wildly round, then her face hardened.

"If you'll not come, I'll go alone," she said. "I'm not afraid of the dark."

But Barbara barred the doorway. She pointed to the stool from which she had risen. "Sit down," she said, "and tell me what you know. Then, if you're determined to go, I'll go too."

"Joel may be dead by then."

"Whether he lives or dies is not in your hands. It's not to you, Lucy, that his soul will be given."

"Oh, I wish I had pa.s.sed by and left you alone. I might have known, I might have had more sense, than think you would feel for me. You were always hard as flint, though I used to believe you were a saint. But don't cast me off, Barbara. I'm very miserable."

Barbara knelt down by the distracted girl, and put her arms round her.

"What is wrong with Joel?" she asked softly.

"He's dying, oh G.o.d, he's dying, and I'm not there to bid him good-bye."

Then, amid sobs, she told her sister all that she knew, about the way Joel and Peter had wrestled, and how Joel had strained himself and broken a blood-vessel. He was now lying at the Shepherd's Rest, attended by Timothy Hadwin and her husband. Peter had sent her word that he could not get home that night.

"I'll never forgive Peter," wept Lucy. "He oughtn't to have wrestled. He knows I hate wrestling. I've always hated it. Perhaps I knew at the back of my mind it would some day bring trouble to me."

"This is childish, Lucy," said Barbara, with a note of revolt in her voice. She scorned her sister for preferring Joel to Peter. Joel had nothing to recommend him save his physical perfection, and his old name.

His claim to sympathy, his affectionate nature, had never touched her, so she failed to realise their effect on Lucy. If Peter had been her husband, she would have found a glory in loving where duty pointed.

Alas, duty bade her pluck out her love and cast it from her.

Barbara had known for a long time that her sister was not happy. There was less simplicity in her manners than of old, less desire to please, and much less concern about her fine clothes and good looks. That she was nursing vain regrets Barbara needed no telling to know, and she had hoped often that Joel would not return. Providence had willed it otherwise. For the stricken creature nothing remained but to turn its face from temptation, and follow the straight and narrow way, with grace if possible, at all costs with determination. But Lucy had no intention of keeping to so strict a path.

"Come," she said.

Barbara rose slowly from her knees. She knew that Lucy must not go. She went to the doorway, and stood for a moment looking out. The night was dark with clouds, and wind came shuffling over the gra.s.s at fitful intervals. Now and again she heard the tinkle of waves breaking on the sh.o.r.es of Swirtle Tarn; near at hand a sheep called, and was answered by another and yet another, till the mournful bleat of the most distant member of the flock died upon her ear.

Lucy stared at her sister's back. She did not get off her stool for, impulsive and excited as she was, stubborn too at times, she read something in Barbara's pose that kept her silent. The firelight lit up the s.h.i.+ning hair pleated round the fine large head; one lock had become loose and hung down upon her shoulder. She looked like a tower of strength to the fearful heart, but to the antagonist she was a fortress that no a.s.sault could take.

Barbara never dealt in vague reasonings, or tried to veil the face of denial to make it look less stern. She had called her own feelings of the morning by no condoning name, and she now turned to Lucy with firm lips and eyes.

"You must go home, Lucy," she said, "back to the mill-house, and wait there for Peter. He is kind, and will not keep you long in suspense, wondering whether Joel is alive or dead. If he lives you can have no place in his life; if he dies you can't help him on his way."

"I'll at least bid him good-bye. Don't waste any more breath on me.