"She will miss him a good deal at first, I'm afraid," said the farmer, "but I must do my best. It's about your going, my boy--the lady has already put it off some days for your sake. It's very good of you, ma'am--_very_ good. I'll get him ready as well as I can. You'll excuse it if his things are not just in such shipshape order as his mother would have had them."

"Of course, of course," she replied. "Then the day after to-morrow. I _daren't_ wait longer--the doctor says Fergus must not risk more cold as yet."

Gratian had listened in silence. But now he turned, first to his father and then to the lady, and spoke.

"Father, dear lady," he began, "don't be vexed with me--oh don't. But I can't go now. I've thought about it all these days--I'm--I'm _dreadfully_ sorry," and here his voice faltered. "I wanted to learn and to understand. But it wouldn't be right. I know it wouldn't. Mother would not get well so quick without me, perhaps she'd never get well at all. And no learning or seeing things would do me really good if I knew I wasn't doing right. Father--tell me that you think I'm right."

The lady and the farmer looked at each other; there were tears in the lady's eyes.

"Is he right?" asked Gratian's father.

She bent her head.

"I'm afraid he is," she said, "but it is only fair to let him quite understand. It isn't merely putting it off for a while, Gratian," she went on; "I am afraid it may be for altogether. We are not likely to come back to this part of the country again, and my husband, though kind, is a little peculiar. He has a nephew whom he will send for as a companion to Fergus if you don't come. We should like you better, but it is our duty to do something for Jack, and Fergus needs a companion, so it seems only natural to take him instead of sending him away to school."

"Of course," said the farmer, looking at his son.

"Yes, I understand," said Gratian. "But it doesn't make any difference.

If I never learnt anything more--of learning, I mean--if I never left Four Winds or saw any of the beautiful places and things in the world, it _shouldn't_ make any difference. I couldn't ever be happy or--or--do anything really good or great," he went on, blushing a little, "if I began by doing wrong--could I?"

"He is right," said his father and Fergus's mother together.

And so it was settled.

The person the most difficult to satisfy that he _was_ right was--no, not Fergus--sorry as he was he loved his own mother too much not to agree--poor Mrs. Conyfer herself, for whom the sacrifice was to be made.

Gratian had to talk to her for ever so long, to a.s.sure her that it was for his own sake as well--that he would have been too miserable about her to have got any good from his new opportunities. And in the end she gave in, and allowed herself to enjoy the comfort of her little boy's care and companionship during her long weary time of slow recovery.

Fergus and his mother did not leave a day too soon. With early January the winter spirits, chained hitherto, broke forth in fury. Never had such falls of snow been known even in that wild region, and many a night Gratian, lying awake, unable to sleep through the rattle and racket, felt a strange excitement at the thought that all this was the work of his mysterious protectors.

"White-wings and Gray-wings seem really going mad," he thought once or twice. But the sound of laughter, mingling with the whistling and roaring and shrieking in the chimney, rea.s.sured him.

"No fear, no fear," he seemed to hear; "we must let our spirits out sometimes. But you'd better not go to school for a day or two, small Gratian, all the same."

And several "days or two" that winter it was impossible for him to go to school, or for any one to come to the Farm, so heavy and dark even at mid-day were the storm-clouds, so deep lay the treacherous snow-drifts.

Not even the doctor could reach them. But fortunately Mrs. Conyfer was by this time much better. All she now required was care and rest.

"Oh, mother dear, how glad I am that I did not leave you!" Gratian would often say. "How dull and dreary and long the days would have seemed! You couldn't even have got letters from me."

And the lessons he learnt in that winter of patient waiting, of quiet watching and self-forgetfulness, bore their fruit.

And his four friends did not forget him. There came now and then a soft breath from the two gentle sisters whose voices were hushed to all others for a time, and more than once in some mysterious way Gratian felt himself summoned out to the lonely moorland by the two whose carnival time it was.

And standing out there with the great sweep of open country all around him, with his hair tossed by White-wings's giant touch, or his cheeks tingling with a sharp blast from mischievous Gray-wings, Gratian laughed with pleasure and daring enjoyment.

"I am your child too--Spirits of the North and East. You can't frighten me. I defy you."

And the two laughed and shouted with wild glee at their foster-child's great spirit.

"He does us credit," they cried, though old Jonas pa.s.sing by heard nothing but a shriek of fresh fury up above, and shouted to Gratian to hasten within shelter.

But winter never lasts for ever. Spring came again--slow and reluctant--and it was long before Gray-wings consented to take her yearly nap and let her sister of the west soothe and comfort the storm-tossed country. And then, as day by day Gratian made his way to school, he watched with awakened and ever-awaking eyes the exquisite eternal beauty of the summer's gradual approach, till at last Golden-wings clasped him in her arms one morning and told him her joy at being able to return.

"For I love this country, though no one will believe it," she said. "The scent of the gorse and the heather is delicious and refreshing after the strong spice perfumes of my own home;" and many a story she told the child, and many a song she sang to him through the long summer days--which he loved to spend in his old way, out among the heather with Jonas and Watch and the browsing sheep.

For the holidays had begun. His mother was well, quite well, by now, and Gratian was free to do as he chose.

He was out on the moors one day--a lovely cloudless day, that would have been sultry anywhere else--when old Jonas startled him by saying suddenly:

"Did you know, Master Gratian, that the gentry's come back to the Big House?"

Gratian sat straight up in his astonishment.

"No, Jonas. How did you hear it?"

"Down in the village, quite sudden-like. It was all got ready for them last week, but there's been none of us down there much lately."

Gratian felt too excited to lie still and dream any more.

[Ill.u.s.tration: It was Fergus, little lame Fergus, mounted on a tiny rough-coated pony, coming towards him!]

"I'll ask mother if I may go and see," he said jumping up. And off he ran. But an unexpected sight met him at a stone's throw from the Farm.

It was Fergus, little lame Fergus, mounted on a tiny rough-coated pony, coming towards him! And the joy of the meeting who could describe?

"We tried to keep it a secret till it was quite sure," said the boy.

"There was some difficulty about it, but it is all settled now. Father has taken the Big House from our cousin, and we are to live at it half the year. We are all there--my sisters--and my big brother comes sometimes--and mother of course. All except Jack. Jack has gone to sea.

He was very nice, but he hated lessons--he only wanted to go to sea. So we want you now, Gratian--my own Gratian. I have a tutor, and you are to learn with me all the summer and to go away with us in the winter now your mother is well, so that you will find out what you want to be. It is for me we have come here. I must always be lame, Gratian. The doctors can't cure me," and the bright voice faltered. "But I shall get strong all the same if I live here in this beautiful air. And I shall be very happy, for I can learn to play on the organ--and that makes up for all."

And all came about as Fergus said.

The summer and the autumn that followed, Gratian studied with his friend's tutor. And the winter after, greatly to his mother's joy, he went away as had been planned before. But not for ever of course. No great length of time pa.s.sed without his returning to his birthplace.

"I should die," he said sometimes, "if I could not from time to time stand at the old porch and feel the breath of the four winds about me."

This is only the story of the very opening of the life of a boy who lived to make his mark among men. How he did so, how he found his voice, it is not for me to tell. But he had early learnt to choose the right, and so we know he prospered.

Besides--was he not the G.o.dchild of the Four Winds of Heaven?

THE END.