Part 56 (1/2)
Under aisles of woodland shadows he sat, where the river murmured down mossy stairs of granite in a deep dingle. Above him, the varying foliage of oak and ash and silver birch was already touched with autumn, and trembled into golden points where bosses of pristine granite, crowned with the rowan's scarlet harvest, arose above their luxuriance. The mellow splendour of these forests extended to the river's brink, along which towered n.o.ble ma.s.ses of giant osmunda, capped by seed spears of tawny red. Here and there gilded lances splashed into the stream or dotted its still pools with scattered sequins of suns.h.i.+ne, where light winnowed through the dome of the leaves; and at one spot, on a wrinkled root that wound crookedly from the alder into the river, there glimmered a halcyon, like an opal on a miser's bony finger. From above the tree-tops there sounded cynic bird-laughter, and gazing upwards Martin saw a magpie flaunt his black and white plumage across the valley; while at hand the more musical merriment of a woodp.e.c.k.e.r answered him.
Then a little child's laugh came to his ear, rippling along with the note of the babbling water, and one moment later a small, st.u.r.dy boy appeared. A woman accompanied him. She had slipped a foot into the river, and thus awakened the amus.e.m.e.nt of her companion.
Chris steadied herself after the mishap, balanced her basket more carefully, then stooped down to pick some of the berries that had scattered from it on the bank. When she rose a man with a brown face and soft grey eyes gleaming through gold-rimmed spectacles appeared immediately before.
”Thank G.o.d I see you alive again. Thank G.o.d!” he said with intense feeling, as he took her hand and shook it warmly. ”The best news that ever made my heart glad, Chris.”
She welcomed him, and he, looking into her eyes, saw new knowledge there, a shadow of sobriety, less of the old dance and sparkle. But he remembered the little tremulous updrawing of her lip when a smile was born, and her voice rang fuller and sweeter than any music he had ever heard since last she spoke to him. A smile of welcome she gave him, indeed, and a pressure of his hand that sent magic messages with it to the very core of him. He felt his blood leap and over his gla.s.ses came a dimness.
”I was gwaine to write first moment I heard 'e was home. An' I wish I had, for I caan't tell 'e what I feel. To think of 'e searchin' the wide world for such a good-for-nought! I thank you for your generous gudeness, Martin. I'll never forget it--never. But I wasn't worth no such care.”
”Not worth it! It proved the greatest, bitterest grief of all my life--but one--that I couldn't find you. We grew by cruel stages to think--to think you were dead. The agony of that for us! But, thank G.o.d, it was not so. All at least is well with you now?”
”All ban't never well with men an' women. But I'm more fortunate than I deserve to be, and can make myself of use. I've lived a score of years since we met. An I've comed back to find't is a difficult world for those I love best, unfortunately.”
Thus, in somewhat disjointed fas.h.i.+on, Chris made answer.
”Sit a while and speak to me,” replied Martin. ”The laddie can play about. Look at him marching along with that great branch of king fern over his shoulder!”
”'T is an elfin cheel some ways. Wonnerful eyes he've got. They burn me if I look at'em close,” said Chris. She regarded Timothy without sentiment and her eyes were bright and hard.
”I hope he will turn out well. Will spoke of him the other day. He is very fond of the child. It is singularly like him, too--a sort of little pocket edition of him.”
”So I've heard others say. Caan't see it at all myself. Look at the eyes of un.”
”Will believes the boy has got very unusual intelligence and may go far.”
”May go so far as the workhouse,” she answered, with a laugh. Then, observing that her reply pained Martin, Chris s.n.a.t.c.hed up small Tim as he pa.s.sed by and pressed him to her breast and kissed him.
”You like him better than you think, Chris--poor little motherless thing.”
”Perhaps I do. I wonder if his mother ever looks hungry towards Newtake when she pa.s.ses by?”
”Perhaps others took him and told the mother that he was dead.”
”She's dead herself more like. Else the thing wouldn't have falled out.”
There was a pause, then Martin talked of various matters. But he could not fight for long against the desire of his heart and presently plunged, as he had done five years before, into a proposal.
”He being gone--poor Clem--do you think--? Have you thought, I mean? Has it made a difference, Chris? 'T is so hard to put it into words without sounding brutal and callous. Only men are selfish when they love.”
”What do you mean?” she asked.
A sudden inspiration prompted his reply. He said nothing for a moment, but with a hand that shook somewhat, drew forth his pocketbook, opened it, fumbled within, and then handed over to Chris the brown ruins of flowers long dead.
”You picked them,” he said slowly; ”you picked them long ago and flung them away from you when you said 'No' to me--said it so kindly in the past. Take them in your hand again.”
”Dead bluebells,” she answered. ”Ess, I can call home the time. To think you gathered them up!” She looked at him with something not unlike love in her eyes and fingered the flowers gently. ”You'm a gude man, Martin --the husband for a gude la.s.s. Best to find one if you can. Wish I could help'e.”