"Would you like to live in a palace, mother?" he asked.

"A palace! And what would I do there?" she replied, seeing no further than the lawn sleeves which she would wash and iron.

The kitchen of the mill-house was small, clean and simple. Bra.s.s fire-irons, two or three candlesticks, a burnished copper warming-pan reflected the strong sunshine, but otherwise the puritanical severity of the white-washed walls was unrelieved. The floor was strewn with river sand, and the chairs and dresser glistened with constant oiling and rubbing. On the dresser was a pile of newly-made clap-cakes, and round the fire stood an oak maiden hung with clean linen. The place had a kindly, homely smell, and Peter sniffed it with enjoyment. He loved the towers of Oxford, and the shadow of his college cloisters, but this small and sunlit kitchen, where his mother baked and ironed, and his father smoked his evening pipe, brought him back to those primitive pa.s.sions of man out of which the strength of his life springs.

Peter returned to the garden and continued his walk up and down the cobbled path.

He was thinking of his future, and wondering what he would be able to make of it. He had almost decided that he would not take orders when his college days were done, which would be at the summer vacation. The prospect of becoming a curate, or even a North Country vicar did not attract him; on the other hand, he had no particular leanings in any other direction. That which would have suited him down to the ground, he sometimes told himself whimsically, was the position of a country gentleman, with a good library, a well-stocked stable, plenty of dogs and troops of friends. His was a genial, breezy nature; he had a firm hand, a just mind, and a clear brain, added to a boyish love of the unusual and adventurous. Peter was a favourite in the village. He liked pretty faces, and flirted openly, but he left the la.s.ses' hearts none the worse. He fished and hunted with the lads; he talked politics with the tailor, religion with the cobbler, and with Jake, the rat-catcher, spent many a long afternoon. It was Jake who taught him to play upon the flute, and though he never managed to charm the rats with his music--as the strange little man did--he had the young men and maids capering on the bit of green before the inn door on summer evenings, long after they ought to have been abed.

His meditation was interrupted by a horseman calling from over the wall:

"Halloa! Peter, back again?"

It was Joel Hart.

"I'm glad to see you," said he.

"I thought you'd made up your mind to go abroad and seek your fortune,"

replied Peter, shaking hands heartily.

"So I had, but I broke it again. I couldn't be quite sure where to find the fortune."

They both laughed, but Joel had a note of envy in his mirth.

"You're a lucky dog, Peter," he exclaimed, "to have money in your pockets and a fond father ready to supply more. How long are you home for?"

"Six weeks. It's the Easter vacation."

"Good! we'll have some fishing and wrestling--eh? We'll make a d.a.m.ned fine holiday of it. I want something to take my mind off the worry of wondering where my bread and b.u.t.ter is to come from. You don't want to work, I bet; had enough of that sort of thing down yonder--eh? Come and have a gla.s.s at the Wild Boar."

He alighted and leading his horse by the bridle walked down the village street with Peter.

When they were boys they had gone nutting and fishing together, and the memory of many a hairbreadth escape still bound them with the links of affection, though in mind and character they had long since drifted apart.

Joel Hart was a handsome man. Beside him, Peter with his homely face, honest grey eyes, and loosely built figure looked rough-hewn--looked, indeed, that which he was, the off-spring of clean-living, hard-working peasant forefathers. The two men were of a height, but the one carried himself proudly, looking neither to right nor left; the other with an easy swing, that could stoop to give pennies to a crying child, or lift a bundle for an old woman. There was an expression of arrogance and dissatisfaction on Joel's features that marred their beauty. He had dark curling hair, which he wore rather long, his eyes were large, well-shaped, full of a smouldering fire or melting sadness as his mood chanced to be.

The world had dealt hardly with him, and he could not forgive it. His father, the son of that ill-fated Joel Hart whom Annas Lynn had hidden in the wool-barn, had married late in life, and died shortly after, leaving his infant to be brought up by the widow--a vain and foolish woman. She had been indifferent to his discipline and education, and when she died, left the estate--it was a very small one--burdened with debts, a burden that increased rapidly, owing to extravagance and bad management. Joel was not competent to deal with it. A habit of indolence, fostered by his up-bringing, had become second nature to him; his temper was uncertain; yet he cared deeply for two things--Forest Hall and Lucy Lynn. To preserve the one, and gain the other was a wild dream that he dreamed, but made only fitful attempts to realise. He felt that he was bound by invisible bonds which he could not break.

"I'm getting to the end of my resources, Peter," he said as they stood in the inn parlour, drinking. He often make a joke of his poverty; it was too well-known to be hidden; and he did not care that folk should see how much he felt it. "I've only one hope left."

"I trust it's a substantial one," remarked Peter.

Joel flung back his head and laughed.

"Ha, ha," he cried, "ha, ha. It's the old great-grandmother up at Greystones."

"You're not thinking of marrying her--are you?" said Peter, his eyes twinkling.

"'Pon my soul I never thought of it! What a pity. She'd have had me, Peter, for the love she bore my grand-dad. I needn't have waited till she was dead, then, to have got her money."

"She's rich--is she?"

"Must be! an old miser! She told me she was going to leave the little she had--little, mind you, and Greystones is the most prosperous farm for miles round--she said she was going to leave it to be divided between Barbara, Lucy, and me. She's ninety-five now, and can't live much longer, though she looks as hale and hearty an old sinner as ever laid up treasure in this world. I hope she'll not forget her promise."

"Court her," replied Peter, briefly.

"Her or her great-granddaughters?" Joel shot a sharp glance at his companion. He sometimes thought that Peter had a warm side for Lucy as well as himself. "All the same," he continued, tossing off another gla.s.s, "I'm breeding dogs, as a stand-by, in case she dies without leaving me a shilling. You must come and see them. I've got a litter of the prettiest pups you ever saw. I keep 'em in the parlour because the kennels are all out of repair. It's a comedown, eh, for the master to sup his porridge in the kitchen, but feed his dogs under the very noses of his forefathers in their gilt frames?"

They talked a little longer, made plans to join the fox-hunt next morning, then Joel mounted his horse and rode away, while Peter retraced his steps up the village street.

He thought that Joel was changing. The man looked unhappy and restless in spite of his gay demeanour. He talked too much, and he drank too much. He might be as poor as he a.s.serted, but he rode a fine horse--Peter was a judge of horse-flesh--and his clothes were dandified beyond the fashion of the times. Yet there was something in him that appealed to Peter, who thought he looked like a gay bird in a trap. And what trap could be worse than one made out of family pride, poverty, and lack of education?

Pondering upon his friend's character and circ.u.mstances, he pa.s.sed through the village.

High Fold, in the midst of which the mill stood, was a cl.u.s.ter of houses on the fringe of Cringel Forest. They were built of grey stone, roofed with rough-hewn slates, where the yellow stonecrop ran riot, hung with queer little balconies, giving them a foreign air. They stood at all angles on either side of a steep road, at the foot of which was the inn, at the top the church. Except for the house known as Forest Hall, the farm of Greystones and a few solitary cots, High Fold marked the limit of human habitation in that direction. Beyond it were many miles of heathy moorland, a wild expanse of mountain, barren ravines, each with its own gushing beck, and wild marshes. The people were a healthy, thrifty race, lacking little--and those things not necessities--working hard and simply, and living to a good old age. Many of them herded sheep on the common lands; a few wrought in a silver mine some distance off; others spun and carded wool; a tailor, a weaver, a rat-catcher and a blacksmith were respected members of the community. They owned a large flock of geese, each bird was smit with its owner's private mark, and a goose-girl, in the common employ, led them daily to their feeding-grounds. There were few idle hands in the village, even the old men knitted stockings, sitting on the inn bench of a spring or summer evening.

Peter followed the road beyond the village, where it turned into a cart-track, and wound through Cringel Forest, leading to Forest Hall, and then on up the dale to Greystones.

As he lay under a beech-tree, watching the birds fluttering among the smooth branches, a little old man came wandering through and sat beside him.

The hair of the little old man curled on his shoulders, like a child's--though it was grey instead of golden--and his eyes were also like a child's, bright and questioning. He was primly dressed in a flowered waistcoat buff breeches and blue stockings, but the garments were faded and threadbare. On his knee he held a basket of roots and leaves.

"Meditation," he said, "is the mother of great thoughts, and repose fosters them till they be well-grown."

"That's comforting to my lazy soul," drawled Peter.

The thin old voice continued, carefully choosing the words as though, even in meditation, nothing slipshod or ill-fitting was allowed to pa.s.s.

"We should find time to be idle," he said. "When the soul is possessed by tranquillity, there enters in an angel called thought--a mysterious being, whose birth and origin is far beyond our knowledge or understanding. But we can give her housing, care for her like kind folk, and she will reward us abundantly. Her presence with us is her reward."

Peter chewed a blade of gra.s.s, basking in the warm light. For a little while neither spoke. The last week had shaken off all the appearance of winter from the forest. The trees were budding, a tall poplar rose purple as a plum, yonder a group of larches were turning green, and a sycamore had all its tips dipped in crimson. The blackthorn thicket was white, and the lesser celandines were golden on the banks. In the forest lay a deep blue silence--the silence of old wise trees, but on the topmost branches, gay and giddy birds were pouring out their hearts to the spring sunshine in a wild burst of melody.

"It's all very beautiful," said Peter; "that light on the beech-stems--it might be a splash of pure gold. The trees seem to be aware of it too--if only their leaves were out they would be clapping their hands for joy." Then he turned to Timothy Hadwin. "I'm becoming a convert to your Faith," he said. "I believe the earth has a soul and every living thing."

"You feel it, then?" replied the old man, eagerly. "You feel a magic in the woods which only comes from the communion of souls? You and I and the trees are not alone here. You feel that other minds are reaching out to touch you, as you are reaching out to touch them? You have in your own mind this vision of the truth--the kinship of the living world?"

"Perhaps it's imagination after all," said Peter.

"Imagination does not lie."

"It may deceive."

"No, no. What we imagine is true for ourselves, though no one else may see it to be so. We each of us have senses, feelings, thoughts of our own. Were you to tell me that you saw a hamadryad coming out of yon beech-tree, I should not contradict you because I could not see it. But if you plucked a b.u.t.tercup, and said it was only coloured matter, I should say you were wrong, for I know it to be something more. The greatest blessing of life is sight, and the commonest ill is blindness."

He laid his hand upon the ground and continued. "We are all akin, because we are all the children of the Earth. Her great mind is made up of our little minds. She knows us better than we know ourselves--do we know ourselves at all? I love to think of the Earth, a personality, a great angel rejoicing as a strong man to run a race, rushing along through the dark night or the bright day, through clouds and through sunshine, never halting or stumbling or going astray, carrying upon her bosom a mult.i.tudinous life, caring for it, as a thoughtful mother."

After this conversation the two men were silent for a while, each following the trend of his own thoughts. Then Timothy got up and went away. But Peter remained under the beech-tree.

Peter had capacity for the full enjoyment of life, and a boundless curiosity concerning it. As he lay on the ground he seemed to feel the heart of the Earth-mother beating under his own, and he was filled with a sense of her teeming vitality and his individual share of it. He opened his mind to the sounds and sights around. It delighted him to follow with his eyes the stems of the trees as they sprang straight from the bosom of their universal mother into the blue air. He listened to the whistling of the birds, the hum of the bees, and watched a rabbit leap among the ferns--pleased with such simple demonstrations of life.

Perhaps a change was working in his own nature, for never had the common things about him seemed to be so full of absorbing interest as now; never had he been so conscious of the sap running up the branches of the trees, and of his own vitality. At present he did but enjoy the sense of power, which he could use if he desired. But soon, he told himself, he would labour, singing in the light of the sun.