Part 19 (1/2)

”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 s.h.i.+pshape 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, blus.h.i.+ng 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 companions.h.i.+p 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.”