CHAPTER III

PETER FLEMING

The swift night came down; fells and dales were folded in purple gloom.

Stars began to shine, and Barbara, eating her supper of coa.r.s.e bread, let her eyes wander from group to group with meditative enjoyment. To her the sky was no vast abyss dotted with a formless mult.i.tude of shining points, but a field of wonderful fiery things, each following its own appointed course. Yonder glittered Leo, there swung the Great Bear and the Dragon; and, there on a mountain peak, shimmered the Northern Crown. It led her thoughts to Timothy Hadwin's prophecy, when he cast her horoscope; for she should wear a crown, he said, and though Barbara was too wise to put a strict construction upon his words, nevertheless, she found pleasure and inspiration in them, wondering what they might mean.

She flung an extra armful of wood upon the fire, for the night air nipped frostily. Then, taking her lantern, she went among the sheep to see that all was well with them and their lambs. The little orphan had been adopted, and nestled with its foster-brother against a warm woolly side. A sense of placid well-being lay over the fold, so the girl returned to the fire. As she sat in silence, her fingers busy making a withy basket, and her mind active, there came from over the tarn a sudden burst of melody, ethereal as elfin music. It was echoed to and fro from cliff to cliff, now it danced overhead, then it stole like a whisper out of a dale far away. The sh.o.r.es of the tarn were ringed with sounds, so haunting that they seemed to be unearthly. Barbara listened in amazement.

Someone was playing a flute from the Rock of the Seven Echoes.

Again the music came rippling across the water and was tossed about from hillside to hillside in airy phantasy. When at last it died into silence, Barbara became conscious of the other sounds of the night--the tinkling of distant waterfalls, the cropping of a sheep close by. She listened expectantly, but the sounds were not repeated.

"It must be Peter," she thought, "only Peter plays the flute hereaway, except Jake, the ratter, and only Peter would play it at such a place."

Her eyes brightened when she thought that he was back again in the dale.

Between him and the sisters lay a good fellowship. Often he spent hours with Barbara among the sheep, reading to her stories of old combats and great doings from the Iliad and Odyssey. But he was equally at ease when he helped Lucy to top and tail gooseberries, or sought among the bracken for the nest of the laying-away hen.

Barbara stirred her fire to a brighter glow. She knew that he would see it on the other side of the tarn, and perhaps he might come round to the cave and greet her after his long absence.

Peter was the only son of John Fleming, the miller--called Dusty John in the village--who was a man of some substance, plain habits and little education. But he gave his son every advantage. The boy was sent to school, and afterwards, proving himself apt beyond expectation, went to St. Bees, from which ancient seat of learning he won a scholarship to Oxford. The miller's ambition was to see his son in the church, where he did not doubt Peter would soon be promoted to the highest office. In dreams he beheld him Archbishop of York or Canterbury. But the lad said neither yea nor nay to his father's wishes. He enjoyed himself to the full, coming home for vacations with a light heart, accepting the truckle bed in the mill-house and the homely fare with as lively a humour as he did the varied life of Oxford.

He reached the cave just as the moon was rising, and leaned his back against the cliffs to watch the light sparkle on the water.

"When did you get home?" asked Barbara, putting her withies aside, and bringing him a cup of milk.

He laughed.

"I've not got home yet," he said, "for I left the coach early in the afternoon to come over the tops. But they were too deep in snow, so I had to take the Girdlestone Pa.s.s instead. I stayed at the Shepherd's Rest for an hour. Now here I am, late as usual."

Then he plied her with eager questions about his father and mother, the village folk, and the welfare of all at Greystones.

"How goes the studying, Barbara?" he asked. "Have you read the book I sent you?"

She shook her head.

"Nay; it's not that I haven't the will, but there's no time. Jan Straw is grown so old, and the new hind hasn't got into the way of things yet, so that the heavy end falls on me." Then she added with a smile, "There's such a lot of me to get tired, Peter."

He looked at her. Though he could not see the calm eyes and the corn-coloured hair, the outlines of her form were splendid in the silvery light. He felt dwarfed beside her, not physically, but morally.

Hers was the finer spirit. He acknowledged it with a glow of generous feeling, for he was given to hero-worshipping.

"We'll make a pact, Barbara," he said, "while I'm at home I'll shepherd the sheep, and you shall read."

"You are good and kind, Peter," replied she, "but I remember how you helped me once before. If it wasn't a rainbow, it was a flower, and if it wasn't a flower, it was a bird, but never the sheep-salving or the cattle-herding. The kye got into the barley-field--do you mind?"

They both laughed.

"What a careless brute I am to be sure," said he. "But if you won't let me look after the farm, I'll come and read to you, when you have time to listen. I've brought you a new book; you'll like it."

He unstrapped the pack he carried, and took out a stout volume. In the light of the fire he showed it to her. It was Pope's Homer.

"Some warm day," he continued, "we'll sit on the fellside and wake again echoes of great deeds, and old battles. Thundergay shall be Olympus, and you shall be Athene, the azure-eyed maid. Listen to this----"

He bent down by the fire and held the book so that he could read by its light.

"'Now heaven's dread arms her mighty limbs invest, Jove's cuira.s.s blazes on her ample breast....'

"I can see you in them, Barbara."

'The ma.s.sy golden helm she next a.s.sumes, That dreadful nods with four o'er shading plumes; So vast, the broad circ.u.mference contains A hundred battles on a hundred plains.

The G.o.ddess thus the imperial car ascends; Shook by her arm the mighty javelin bends, Ponderous and huge; that when her fury burns, Proud tyrants humbles, and whole hosts o'erturns.'"

He closed the book and put it into the girl's hands.

"I've never seen you roused up to do battle," he laughed, "but you'll look like that when the spirit moves you. Good-night, Barbara."

Something stirred her like the call of a trumpet heard by her spiritual ears alone. Was her placid life upon the mountains going to end? Would she have to fight with her desires, because Duty still pointed a stern finger towards the sheep-paths, while another road opened before her--a broad and pleasant road. Peter always roused this restlessness in her heart. She was glad, yet sorry, when he went singing home, leaving her to the night-loneliness with her book of old battles.

The next morning Peter Fleming was walking up and down the cobbled path of the mill-garden between flowering currant bushes, and sheaves of lent-lilies, whose buds were still encased in their pale-green sheaths.

Everything sparkled in a sudden burst of sunshine. From the mill-wheel the water fell like a glittering fringe, and the beck raced merrily by, clutching at the weeds and gra.s.ses on its rim, and drawing them down to make them gorgeously green under its clear surface. On the other side of the stream stood Cringel Forest.

The mill-house was a tall building with the date, 1600, carved over the door under a coat of arms of a wheat-sheaf and a sickle. The Flemings, or De Flemings, as they were then called--had been millers in the dale since the reign of Elizabeth, a fact which Dusty John prided himself upon, although he was as simple an old man as ever spoke the vernacular.

The kitchen door was open at the end of the cobbled path, and in its hot and sunny atmosphere, Peter's mother stood ironing. Her muslin kerchief--as fine as ever came from the looms of the East India Company--her gown of russet, and white ap.r.o.n were the essence of cleanliness and order.

"Get away with thy blandishments," she said, for Peter had paused on the threshold to tell her that she looked like a ripe hazel-nut, her face was so brown and rosy and round. "Thee'd witch the wisdom out of my old head with thy flattery. And as for thy dadda--he cannot walk for swaggering, thee's lillied him up so handsome!"

She smiled proudly into the clear-eyed face looking so affectionately into her own. Peter made her feel that she was still young and worthy of admiration. When he came home she always wore white stockings--though she thought them an extravagance at other times--and placed a flower or a bow of ribbon under her chin.

She held up a kerchief that she was ironing, and said tenderly:

"It will be a great day for thy father and me when we see thee consecrated, Peter."

He stepped across the floor where the sunshine lay in a broad band, and kissed her.

"And a blessed day when I does up thy lawn sleeves, my son. Thee must never let anyone do up thy sleeves but me, lad, not even thy wife when thee gets one. There's n.o.body kens the art of clear starching and ironing better than thy old mother."

The young man sat on the edge of the table and swung his legs.

"You'll be disappointed, mother," he said, "but I never can see myself--in spite of your dear visions--in bishop's sleeves. I'm a lazy beggar, and more likely to be lying under a tree, finding sermons in stones and books in the running brooks than beating the pulpit cushions of Durham or Carlisle."

She shook her head indulgently.

"Time enough, time enough," she said. "Thee's too young yet to know thy own mind."

Peter looked round the kitchen and laughed.